The Mennonite Heritage Center in Harleysville, Pa., welcomed the Lenape (Delaware) tribe of Bartlesville, Okla., on April 12. After a potluck supper with local Mennonites, Chief Brad KillsCrow, tribal elder John Thomas, and tribal historic preservation officer Susan Bachor presented their request: land to bury their ancestors.
Since 1990, the Native American Graves and Protection and Repatriation Act has required that museums and universities return Indigenous human remains and funerary items after consulting with descendants and tribal organizations. As Indigenous groups receive the bones of their ancestors, however, some tribes face the next question: where to bury them.
Mennonites arrived in southeastern Pennsylvania in 1683 and now live on the Lenape ancestral homeland, which encompasses greater Philadelphia, New Jersey and parts of New York.
“We have no presence in our homeland,” KillsCrow said. “How do we put our ancestors back in the ground?”
The Lenape have already worked with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to bury about 200 ancestors at Pennsbury Manor, William Penn’s country estate in Morrisville, in 2022. But thousands still need burial space.
Addressing the crowd of 120 gathered in the Mennonite Heritage Center barn, KillsCrow said, “Our ancestors helped you. Your ancestors helped us. I humbly ask if there is anything you can do.” He suggested a few acres, preferably an open meadow in a remote location. The Lenape would like to bury their ancestors with traditional ceremonies.
The Lenape had considered burying their ancestors in Oklahoma, KillsCrow said, but tribal elders pointed out these ancestors never lived in Oklahoma. The Lenape settled there in the 1860s after gradual displacement from Pennsylvania by European expansion and then forced removal by the U.S. government. The Lenape want to honor their ancestors, whose bones have been kept in museums and other institutions, by bringing…
The Clearwater motors into the Rondout Creek in Kingston, N.Y. Monday afternoon, April 17, 2023. (Tania Barricklo/Daily Freeman) 
The Clearwater motors into the Rondout Creek in Kingston, N.Y. Monday afternoon, April 17, 2023, passing the Rondout Lighthouse. (Tania Barricklo/Daily Freeman) 
