Reburial of Indian Remains Demanded

Kumeyaay Indians want all Indian remains taken from the Mission San Diego de Alcala site reburied there immediately and plans for a meeting hall on the lot scrapped, their representatives told an attorney for the mission Tuesday.

The Kumeyaay presented a list of non-negotiable demands to mission attorney Jeff Brinton in talks held at the California Indian Legal Services (CILS) office, said Kumeyaay spokeswoman Fern Southcott. They include reburial of truckloads of bones and artifacts now stored at Balboa Park’s Museum of Man in their original locations without further scientific study, Southcott said.

Should the mission reject the demands, the Kumeyaay will take legal action, said the tribe’s committee chairman, Ron Christman. “Our people are having a hard time with (this), because 90% of them are Catholic, but it’s a graveyard we are talking about,” Christman said.

Security Sought

The Kumeyaay also asked that the mission rebury the remains according to Indian and Catholic traditions, post around-the-clock security on the site and share with the Kumeyaay all of its archeological data, according to Southcott.

Mission spokesman William Finley refused comment on the demands, but said they would be carefully studied by mission priest Msgr. I. Brent Eagen.

Kumeyaay attorney Robert Shull of CILS and representatives from the Native American Heritage Commission, the state attorney general’s office, and the Luiseno and Cupeno Indian tribes also attended the session.

Kumeyaay representatives said they were disappointed with the long-awaited talks.

Southcott accused the diocese of making veiled threats to proceed without an agreement and of playing for time in the negotiations. “They are waiting for the adverse publicity they have received in the last couple of weeks to die down,” she said.

“We thought we kind of got a runaround,” Christman said. “The person they sent was a messenger, with no power to negotiate.”

But Brinton said he had as much latitude to negotiate as any client would give him.

“I don’t know that there was anything to be disappointed about--we haven’t yet replied to their proposal,” he said. Brinton also said he would try to meet with Eagen today to discuss the Indian demands. Brinton sought to reach a temporary compromise on the Kumeyaay remains while the project was suspended, Indian representatives said. Kumeyaay representatives denied his request to fill in the site with sand, Southcott said.

Although Indians were meeting with church representatives in Escondido, the San Diego City Council held a closed session of its own on the controversy. The council will hold a public hearing Aug. 7 on the dispute, said councilwoman Judy McCarty.

Second Closed Session

The second closed session by the council in as many weeks was held to determine whether the city could challenge the diocese project in court, said Assistant City Atty. Ron Johnson. No such action by the city is imminent, he added.

In other developments, the National Park Service wrote a letter to Eagen asking him to leave the site as is and to build the meeting hall somewhere else. Building the hall on caissons would still damage the ruins of the original mission below, said associate regional director John D. Cherry of the National Park Service office in San Francisco. The park service has no authority over privately held National Historical Landmarks such as the mission, and can only offer advice, Cherry said.

The San Diego chapter of the Sierra Club and the Save Our Heritage Organisation have also sided with project opponents.