Secrets in a box
Here's the scoop. A retired junior high art teacher at James Heart in Homewood, Ill., kept a crusty brown pile of human bones in his basement since he first bought them at an estate auction in Shipshewana, Ind. The books were packaged inside an 150-year-old book titled "The History of the American Indian." To his displeasure the dealer would not take the bones so he kept them in his basement for 20 years in a cardboard box. The legality of owning human remains in Illinois is unknown, and an even thornier issue in regards to the ownership of Native American remains.
His story begins like this.
John Ray lifts a cardboard box off a chair in his Park Forest home and places it on his dining room table. Ray flattens the lid against the box's sides to expose its contents - a disorganized heap of crusty human bones.
Reaching into the pile, Ray picks up a hunk of mandible and lays the jaw bone flat across the palm of his right hand. Three molars jut out of the bone like shriveled copper slugs, the once-white enamel blackened to the color of ash.
"Whoever this kid is, he deserves better," Ray said.
Staring into the pile of bones, it's easy to forget they belonged to a person, a human being with a mother and father who once dreamed dreams and weathered sorrows. Lost in the past, his story is unknown.
The present is more clear: A box of human bones has sat in a cardboard box in Ray's home since 1982. It was the year Ray said he bought the grisly collection, albeit accidentally, at an estate auction in Shipshewana, Ind. There he bought a tattered, 150-year-old book titled "The History of the American Indian." Packaged with the book was a cardboard box layered in duct tape.
"The dealer said, 'Wait till you get home to open it up,' " Ray said of the box. "He said, 'You'll really be pleased with it. It's like a little gift from Santa Claus.'"
Even weirder was the dealer's story:
The person was a boy who claimed he was one of the last Delaware Indians and he was in a bar in Michigan or Minnesota in the late '60s and he was totally drunk," Ray said, relating what the dealer told him. "He supposedly had created a major problem with somebody, and they hit him, and then they beat him to death. They put his body on the roof of a barn and let the animals eat it, and then they stuffed the bones in a box."
His son's girlfriend, who has a PHD in forensics, had this to say.
Her analysis was consistent with what the dealer told him, Ray said. "She said, 'Male, between 18 and 24, approximately 5-8, 5-9. But the whole right side of the body, all the bones appear to be smashed,' " Ray said.
Since the article ran, he shipped the bones out to an academic forensic expert at the University of Indianapolis to identify the contents. We should know that they and maybe who the bones belong to by the end of next. The current sheriff of the Indiana county, the county that encompassed Shipshewana, Ind., in 1982, said the bones might possibly belong to an Indian buried in one of the many Indian burial sites in the area.
I won't spoil the end, because it hasn't arrived yet, but the end of the first big article can be read here. Click the links on the page for video, and an audio introduction by myself.
Other thoughts:
Ken Griffey Jr. to the Chicago White Sox! Maybe seeing a game next week.
I'll be in Toronto the weekend of Aug. 21 into the following Monday, Aug. 25!
Tickets for a Thursday night DJ set by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem next week!
Famil(ies) party tomorrow night on a forested rural lake!
New song by The Streets (The Escapist) is gorgeous!
Life is evening out. Today felt like a victory yawn, tired but triumphant, after an exhausting week. Tomorrow is my victory lap.
His story begins like this.
John Ray lifts a cardboard box off a chair in his Park Forest home and places it on his dining room table. Ray flattens the lid against the box's sides to expose its contents - a disorganized heap of crusty human bones.
Reaching into the pile, Ray picks up a hunk of mandible and lays the jaw bone flat across the palm of his right hand. Three molars jut out of the bone like shriveled copper slugs, the once-white enamel blackened to the color of ash.
"Whoever this kid is, he deserves better," Ray said.
Staring into the pile of bones, it's easy to forget they belonged to a person, a human being with a mother and father who once dreamed dreams and weathered sorrows. Lost in the past, his story is unknown.
The present is more clear: A box of human bones has sat in a cardboard box in Ray's home since 1982. It was the year Ray said he bought the grisly collection, albeit accidentally, at an estate auction in Shipshewana, Ind. There he bought a tattered, 150-year-old book titled "The History of the American Indian." Packaged with the book was a cardboard box layered in duct tape.
"The dealer said, 'Wait till you get home to open it up,' " Ray said of the box. "He said, 'You'll really be pleased with it. It's like a little gift from Santa Claus.'"
Even weirder was the dealer's story:
The person was a boy who claimed he was one of the last Delaware Indians and he was in a bar in Michigan or Minnesota in the late '60s and he was totally drunk," Ray said, relating what the dealer told him. "He supposedly had created a major problem with somebody, and they hit him, and then they beat him to death. They put his body on the roof of a barn and let the animals eat it, and then they stuffed the bones in a box."
His son's girlfriend, who has a PHD in forensics, had this to say.
Her analysis was consistent with what the dealer told him, Ray said. "She said, 'Male, between 18 and 24, approximately 5-8, 5-9. But the whole right side of the body, all the bones appear to be smashed,' " Ray said.
Since the article ran, he shipped the bones out to an academic forensic expert at the University of Indianapolis to identify the contents. We should know that they and maybe who the bones belong to by the end of next. The current sheriff of the Indiana county, the county that encompassed Shipshewana, Ind., in 1982, said the bones might possibly belong to an Indian buried in one of the many Indian burial sites in the area.
I won't spoil the end, because it hasn't arrived yet, but the end of the first big article can be read here. Click the links on the page for video, and an audio introduction by myself.
Other thoughts:
Ken Griffey Jr. to the Chicago White Sox! Maybe seeing a game next week.
I'll be in Toronto the weekend of Aug. 21 into the following Monday, Aug. 25!
Tickets for a Thursday night DJ set by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem next week!
Famil(ies) party tomorrow night on a forested rural lake!
New song by The Streets (The Escapist) is gorgeous!
Life is evening out. Today felt like a victory yawn, tired but triumphant, after an exhausting week. Tomorrow is my victory lap.