Jim Peters and Rocky, one of his detection dogs, search last week for a potential burial site for children who died while at the Genoa Indian Industrial School in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
ANNA REED, Omaha WORLD-HERALD
Judi gaiashkibos, executive director of the Nebraska Indian Affairs Commission, takes a moment after detection dogs indicated that they identified a potential burial site for children who died while at the Genoa Indian School.Ìý
ANNA REED, Omaha WORLD-HERALD
Ben Crawford, a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act assistant with the Winnebago Tribal Historic Preservation Office, watches as dogs search for the cemetery site.
ANNA REED, Omaha WORLD-HERALD
Jim Peters and his detection dogs, and representatives with History Nebraska, search Wednesday for a potential burial site for children who died while at the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
ANNA REED, Omaha WORLD-HERALD
A bundle of sage placed by gaiashkibos at the potential site.
Jim Peters leaned toward the dog who zipped around his feet.
“Go get the spirits, Jetti,†he said.
The 3-year-old Queensland blue heeler took off, letting her nose guide her around the damp, grassy field in Genoa, Nebraska — a city of 1,000 people that was once home to one of the largest federal Native boarding schools in the U.S.
Jetti was on the hunt for a whiff that would indicate the presence of a body beneath the ground. Her search partner, a German shepherd named Rocky, had subtly signaled to Peters the possibility of a scent in the area a few minutes earlier.
Jetti was less subtle. She zeroed in on a patch of grass, sniffing aggressively. Then the energetic dog suddenly sat and stared up at Peters, indicating that something beneath the ground had grabbed her attention.
With the help of Peters and his dog team, Samaritan Detection Dogs, searchers for the first time last week identified a possible site of the Genoa Indian Industrial School cemetery — a potentially seismic development in the trauma inflicted in the name of assimilation.
Leaders of the search effort, which includes the Nebraska State Archeology Office and Judi gaiashkibos of the Nebraska Indian Affairs Commission, are far from declaring the site the official location of the lost cemetery.
But the spot closely matches one marked on a 1920 plat map, and the search team now has a solid lead in the painstaking effort to locate the graves.
The use of ground penetrating radar in nearby areas last fall turned up inconclusive results. School records and old maps pointed to several possible locations, but the search team was left with a large perimeter and few ways to narrow the search.
Now the team has a better idea of where to look, said David Williams, recently appointed state archeologist.
“Based on the reaction from Jetti, it seems like we have a result here,†Williams said.
What comes next is a combination of search methods, including more ground penetrating radar and metal detecting. If graves are discovered, the decision of whether to excavate will ultimately be made by tribal leaders.
The cemetery’s existence was never doubted, but the number of children buried there and its exact location was lost to history decades ago.
The fourth federal boarding school to be built in the U.S., the Genoa Indian Industrial School operated from 1884 to 1934. At its peak in 1932, the school’s 640-acre campus housed 599 students, who ranged in age from 4 to 22 years old.
The U.S. institutions served as a blueprint for Canada’s Indigenous residential schools, where the discovery of hundreds of Indigenous children buried in unmarked graves brought renewed attention to practices that historians have described as cultural genocide.
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Shortly after the discovery in Canada, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the Federal Indian Boarding School Truth Initiative. The effort led to .
The federal investigation has so far identified more than 500 deaths at 19 schools, though the Interior Department said that number could climb to the thousands or even tens of thousands. The department has so far found at least 53 burial sites at or near U.S. boarding schools.
At least 86 students are believed to have died at the Genoa school.
As gaiashkibos watched Peters and his dogs begin their search last week, her mind was on her mother, who attended the Genoa school, and on her grandchildren.
“I’m feeling a bit anxious,†gaiashkibos said as she glanced at the expanse of farmland in front of her and the rushing water of the Loup Canal behind her. “We’re ready to try anything. It’s so important. We have to exhaust all measures.â€
Peters and his dog team were one of those measures.
The 66-year-old Iowa resident has been involved in search and rescue efforts with and without dogs for almost 30 years.
He began working exclusively on cold case investigations six years ago. His dog team has worked to locate burials that are more than 1,000 years old.
The dogs are conditioned to connect their toy, a reward, with the odor of gases that remain underground long after a body has started to decompose.
“They might show interest in, say, deer bones, but their trained response is only connected to the odor of human decomposition,†Peters said. “It’s pretty foolproof.â€
When the school closed, its buildings were demolished or sold. The town of Genoa grew over the years, the Loup Canal was dug on the outer edge and farmland soon filled in what was once the sprawling campus.
Through it all, those who died and were buried on school grounds remained.
A bundle of sage in hand, gaiashkibos somberly made her way to the potential site. She laid the bundle on the damp ground and stood for a moment among the small group who had gathered that morning to witness or take part in the search.
The sage bundle held together with a bright red ribbon may be the first grave marker to honor the school’s dead in more than a century. It’s also possible that the graves were never marked.
As gaiashkibos and others continue the search, they now have a better idea of where to look.
Jim Peters and Rocky, one of his detection dogs, search last week for a potential burial site for children who died while at the Genoa Indian Industrial School in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Judi gaiashkibos, executive director of the Nebraska Indian Affairs Commission, takes a moment after detection dogs indicated that they identified a potential burial site for children who died while at the Genoa Indian School.Ìý
Ben Crawford, a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act assistant with the Winnebago Tribal Historic Preservation Office, watches as dogs search for the cemetery site.
Jim Peters and his detection dogs, and representatives with History Nebraska, search Wednesday for a potential burial site for children who died while at the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.