The Kennewick Man Was a
Kickabut
(Scientific Proof at Last)
By Horace J. Digby -- Editor-in-Chief --
SandBagger News
At last there is scientific
proof that the world famous Kennewick Man, a well preserved
nine-thousand-year-old human skeleton unearthed near Kennewick,
Washington, was in life a member of Longview, Washington's
Kickabut Indian tribe.
According to
Roland Richards, "The
Kennewick Man's true identity was the Kickabut Man."
"There never should have
been any question about this," Richards said. "His
cell phone and his car, a 1978 Volvo, were
both registered to the tribe. Even his monogram is
KM which stands for Kickabut Man.
Who are
the
Kickabuts?
As mysterious as they
are reclusive, the Kickabut Indians are said to live on a small
island in the North-most reaches of Longview,
Washington's Lake Sacaja-wea. According to tribal legend, they
have been separated from contact with Western Civilizations by the
treacherous waters surrounding the island, since the dawn of
time?which according to another tribal legend was last Wednesday
around 2:30 p.m.
The tribe was in the news four years ago when Roland
Richards announced Kickabut plans to develop a full service gaming casino, alpine ski
resort, mass-media broadcast
facilities, a major international airport and
residential lakefront home sites on their tiny
island.
Richards told SandBagger News
Team reporter Meiko Mitchell that every third home site had already been
deeded to a famous celebrity like Robert DeNiro, Tom Cruise, and
Meryl Streep,
"We are naming one of the streets after Meryl
Streep. We'll call it Meryl Streep
Street," Richards said. "The idea is," according to
Richards, "to arrange things so that each of the
remaining lots will have a famous owner next
door." (See: "SandBagger Island--Charges
Dropped," SandBagger Mag-e-zine, April 2003).
The Kickabuts have surfaced again
this week, now claiming the anthropological find
known as the Kennewick Man as their ancestor. According to
Richards, the tribe hasn't mentioned this before because
of the Federal Native American Graves Protection and
Reparations Act (NAGPRA).
"It's sort of a technicality,"
Richards said. "Apparently you now have to be a Native
American before you can be an Indian." Most of the Kickabuts
are reportedly European-American or Asian-American and,
although the tribe keeps no actual records, one fellow might be from
Colorado.
"NAGPRA is just
another name for profiling," Richards
said.
The
Controversy
The battle over
the Kennewick Man began almost with his discovery eight years
ago. Anthropologists were intent on studying his well
preserved remains for clues about how North America was
populated. But five Indian tribes of the upper Columbia region
wanted those remains reburied. The Army Corps of
Engineers and the Department of the Interior sided with the
Indians, citing NAGPRA requirements that human remains and objects
of "cultural patrimony" (what ever those are) be turned
over to culturally affiliated native
organizations, to be accorded appropriate ceremonial rites and
customs. In this case the tribes wanted
reburial.
But reburial would mean an end to anthropological research. To
prevent this, eight prominent anthropologists filed suit
arguing:
1.
The Kennewick Man's was not Native
American but was Polynesian or Asian (possibly
Japanese);
2. Further study of the remains would yield important
scientific knowledge; and
3. Reburial at this time would trash any hopes of
getting the anthropologists a guest shot on Jay
Leno.
"This Asian thing
really works for the Kickabuts," Richards said. "Heck our last
chief was a Japanese-American fellow named Tosh
Mayeda. We ought to be
a shoe-in now."
Still
the Kickabuts
are troubled over NAGPRA's failure to protect their ancient tribal
rites and customs dating back to the dawn of time . .
. "By the way did I tell you that the dawn of time was 2:30
p.m.?" Richards
asked.
than other institutes. SandBagger
research is
not as random and fact-based as the stuff those other
institutes try to pass off. With the SandBagger research
you always get exactly what you pay
for." 