Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : COUNTY : Shaman Sanctifies Rare Indian Skeleton

At least two centuries after the strapping young man was buried in the soft, shallow earth of what is now Mission Viejo, his remains received a traditional Indian sanctification last week in the Orange County coroner’s office.

Jim Valasques, a shaman of the Coastal Gabrielino Indian people, performed the religious rites in a brief ceremony, passing a sacred eagle feather over the remains.

The skeleton was found Jan. 29 by a jogger in Mission Viejo near the intersection of Los Alisos Boulevard and Cordova Road.

According to a report by Judy Suchey, a professor of anthropology at Cal State Fullerton, the nearly complete skeleton is that of a 25-year-old man who was about six feet tall and was buried at least 200 years ago.

Suchey specializes in determining a person’s age, race, sex and other attributes from skeletal remains; she works frequently for California criminal investigators. According to her one-page report, the Indian was buried without clothing, jewelry or artifacts, and he did not appear to have died violently. The man had all of his teeth, which were in good condition, with the exception of a missing lower molar.

Valasques said he believes that the man belonged to the Indian community at Mission San Juan Capistrano, although more precise dating of the remains would require carbon dating of a bone sample. The skeleton, along with the less complete remains of 13 other Indians found in the county, will remain in the custody of the coroner’s office, a spokesman said, until a suitable site for reinterment can be found.

“This is the greatest of all finds,” Valasques said in an interview after the ceremony, “because he is the most intact. (The odds are) one in a million that they would find another one that intact.”