Huron remains to be reburied

wendake flagWENDAKE, QC — Grand Chief Konrad Sioui of the Huron-Wendat Nation has signed an agreement with the University of Toronto and the Heritage Trust of Ontario to rebury the remains of over 1500 ancestors.

In the 1970s staff and students participated in archaeological digs on sites located in southern Ontario in which human skeletal remains were found, exhumed and later transported to the University of Toronto. These digs — to study remains related to the history of Aboriginal peoples — were often carried out without the knowledge or consent of the First Nation. The Ontario Heritage Trust currently holds the skeletal remains and funerary objects from the Kleinburg Ossuary, which is located at the Mississauga Campus of the University of Toronto.

The bones were found in several locations in southern Ontario (Wendake South), which is one of the regions included among the ancestral lands of the Huron-Wendat people. The largest ossuary, the Kleinburg Ossuary, dates from the beginning of the 17th century. The Kleinburg Ossuary was located on the Glassco Property, which is now part of a conservation sector and protected as a natural archaeological heritage site. The site chosen for the reburial of the remains and funerary objects will be called Thonnakona Ossuary.

“Decades later, we finally will give our ancestors a respectful burial,” said Grand Chief Sioui. “ September 14th will be a great day in our history, because it’s the largest reburial of its kind in the North America, to date. The Huron-Wendat Nation, with his brothers and sisters, the Wyandots, will join forces to pay tribute to our common ancestors in the highest regard. We invite First Nations everywhere to attend this ceremony.”

The official reburial ceremony, open to the Huron-Wendat, Wyandots, First Nations and their families in a solemn spirit and respect for ancestral memory, will be held on September 14, 2013, on the Glassco site in the city of Vaughan, near Toronto. Details to come on www.wendake.ca