Indians Angry at Building Atop Mission Graves

Fern Southcott peered down the ledge of an earthen pit at the caved-in human skull 8 feet below. Around her, a score of similar holes dotted the Mission San Diego de Alcala lot. Southcott, a Kumeyaay Indian, had come to see a major burial ground of her ancestors, perhaps for the last time.

Archeologists who have been exhuming the 18th- and 19th-Century remains will leave the site Friday, soon to be replaced by construction workers. Church officials hope to erect a new all-purpose meeting hall over the ruins of the original mission and its cemetery by Easter.

But the modern descendants of the about 4,000 Mission Indian converts buried among the ruins say they are outraged by the Catholic Diocese’s project. The rush to break ground on the site shows a lack of respect by the church for its earliest Indian converts, they argue.

“We don’t dig up your grandmother in Forest Lawn,” said Lusano Indian Elder Henry Rodriguez. “ . . . It galls me to see the Catholic Church, which is supposed to be sensitive to such things, permit the desecration of graves,” said Rodriguez.

‘Dancing on Graves’

Added Southcott: “Dancing on top of the graves, that’s just not done. Shame on them.”

Mission priest Msgr. Brent I. Eagan, who is heading the project, was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

The discovery of Indian remains is but the latest development in a decade-long saga. The meeting hall was first proposed in 1978 and has faced continuous opposition from preservationists and archeologists ever since.

Under a compromise struck in 1988, the hall would be held 4 feet above ground level by 20 support stakes, or caissons. And the congregation paid $150,000 to an independent archeologist for the excavation of caisson pits.

The dig, begun last March, unearthed extensive adobe ruins and human remains. But money and time allotted for the archeological study have now run out, said mission spokesman William Finley.

“Money has never been the overriding factor, but it is starting to get to the point where it hurts,” Finley said, noting that construction costs have mounted alongside the delays.

On Wednesday, some of the caisson holes at the dig still contained human remains. According to the mission’s contract with the Westec Co. archeologists, those remains must be cleared by Friday, Finley said. But, if they aren’t, the mission will still fulfill its promises to the Indians to have the caisson pits excavated, he added.

But experts said no professional archeologist, Westec scientists included, would exhume human remains piecemeal, digging up only the body fragments located directly in the pits and leaving the rest. A Westec official refused comment, citing a secrecy clause in the company’s contract with the mission.

Covering the site with soil, as the mission hopes to do in the coming weeks, would destroy the most significant archeological dig in California, several archeologists said Wednesday. In the last four months the site has yielded two truckloads of bones in addition to mission ruins and Indian artifacts, said Rose Tyson of the Museum of Man. The museum is storing the remains pending their reburial elsewhere on mission property, she added. A 1988 report issued by University of San Diego scientists and backed by the diocese claimed no ruins or graves existed on the construction site.

‘Kept Denying It’

“It is an incredibly important site, and it would be a tragedy to lose it,” said Michael Sampson, an archeologist with the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

“The church should have known all along that they had this cemetery here,” said retired ethnographer Florence Shipek of the University of California, Riverside. “But, even when I told them, they just kept denying it.”

But the construction will not end the research, Finley contended.

“Once the building goes up, they can archeologize to their hearts’ content,” he said.

Shipek disagreed. Even with the 4-foot space between the building’s floor and the ground, no further digging would be possible once construction begins, she said.

The Committee for the Preservation of Mission San Diego de Alcala, which has fought the project all along, will continue to do so, said spokesman James Royle. And the Native American Heritage Commission, a state agency that oversees sacred Indian sites, will seek an opinion from the state attorney general regarding the legality of construction on top of known human remains, said executive secretary Larry Myers.

The diocese hopes to avoid further battles over the project, according to Finley. “I think intentions are good an all sides, even if they may be colliding,” he said. “The Mission of San Diego de Alcala is an active, thriving parish of 1,750 families which has run out of room.”

But that seemed irrelevant for Southcott as she toured the site Wednesday. “I just want them to leave these graves alone,” she said quietly.