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By WAYNE ALLEN

PDT Staff Writer

For the first time in 16 years Native American remains have been added to the Kalanu Native American Cemetery in West Portsmouth.

Members of the Native American Alliance of Ohio held a reburial ceremony over the weekend to properly put some remains to rest.

In March, the Scioto County Commissioners approved a request from the Alliance to bury three boxes of partial remains of Native American people in the cemetery.

The Alliance was asked earlier this year by the Clyde Museum of Clyde, Ohio, to help in the proper burial of remains in the museum’s possession.

Brenda Stultz, volunteer curator of the Clyde Museum in northern Ohio, said the museum has been in possession of the remains for years with no documentation on their origin.

“We do not have a reburial ceremony, we say a few prayers and thank the creator we are able to do this and that we were given strength that we could carry through,” said Barbara Crandell, co-chairwoman of the Native American Alliance of Ohio.

Crandell said the remains of one male was buried in a box, and the remains of a female in another box; a third box contained a mixture of remains.

Most of the identifiable remains were skulls, Sheriff’s Deputy Jodi Conkel said.

Crandell said remains were last added to the Kalanu Native American Cemetery in 1996.

According to www.scenicsciotoheritagetrail.com, the Kalanu Native American Cemetery was established in 1987 by the Scioto County Commissioners after a local group of citizens called the Tallige Cherokee Nation negotiated the return and re-interment of the remains of 47 prehistoric Native Americans that had been accidentally unearthed when the former Scioto County Home for the Aged was torn down in 1986.

Wayne Allen may be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 208, or wallen@heartlandpublications.com.