bones.html

The Oregonian, Portland, OR., February 9, 1957, page 1
Includes photograph titled:
A whirling bird with four wings, an angled yellow tail and a plexiglass front shuttled rapidly between Memaloose island (backgroun) in the Columbia river and Wisham cemetery Friday carrying two at a time -- coffin-like boxes containing bones of many dozens of Indians who had been buried there. Some of them were centuries old. Waters behinf The Dalles dam, downriver at right, will soon cover the interesting historic island. See story on page 11. See Picture Page Also.

OPERATION WHIRLYBIRD MOVES ANCESTRAL BONES
'COPTER USED IN MOVING INDIANS TO NEW CEMETERY
By Ann Sullivan, Staff Writer, The Oregonian

THE DALLES (Special) - A giant whirlybird with a yellow tail - unlike anything the thousands of dead on Memaloose island had never seen - began the task Friday of transferring the remains of long-dead Indians to a new mainland cemetery.
The briskly buzzing little helicopter, owned by Dean Johnson, Inc., of McMinnville and piloted by Joe Soloy, had been pressed into service by Bill Cross, contractor of the cemetery-moving project.
Thanks to modern aerodynamics, the big bird with a yellow tail will in two days, or at the most, three, transfer the bones of some 2500 or more Indians from Memaloose to a newly constructed cemetery at Wisham, which the Indians have decided shall be spelled without a hyphen.
As the big bird flies, it's only two miles in the Columbia gorge above the bare snow-dusted hills from the forbidding rocky crest of a Memaloose to the cemetery.

Boxes Tied on 'Copter

By amphibious DUKW, it would have been a weeks-long and dangerous task to ferry them across the surging rapids of the Columbia to the Oregon shore (the Washington shore is too steep) and then by truck across The Dalles bridge.
Friday morning, beginning about 9 a.m., the first two of an estimated 170 or more gray boxes were tied on the under-side of the helicopter. The three weatherbeaten sheds on Memaloose which housed some of the more recent bodies have been torn down.
Sitting at many angles atop the steep-sloped rock which is Memaloose, soon to be inundated by the waters of The Dalles dam, the newly-painted pine boxes look out of place Friday.
Across the extremely swift water of the Columbia which separates Memaloose from the Washington shore came shouts of workmen and the pounding of hammers, as the last lids were nailed into place. For weeks they have worked at the task of placing the bones and in some cases more recently dead bodies, a few in modern casket, into the moving boxes.
Most of the estimated 2500 bodies have long ago returned their flesh to the earth and the elements which had fed them. Many were unearthed from three large pits on the island which had been dug within the last generation as a common burial ground. In centuries past, the practice was to leave the bones in the open.

Bones of Horses Found

But there were too many of them, and storms and winds and occasional marauders disturbed them in their peace, so they were buried in the mass graves.
The more recent burials continued to be above ground, but generally the wrapped dead were put under shedlike shelters. The remains of 124 have been identified, and these are being interred in the marked graves and the new Wisham cemetery just west of The Dalles bridge. The bones of the unknown ancestors, and there are an estimated 15to 20 in each box, will go into a common concrete tomb.
Among the bones are the bones of a few horses, archeologists found. Presumably, when some brave chief died, his favorite steed was sent with him to the life hereafter. All the bones, as well as the artifacts, beads, clothing remnants, cooking utensils, money and tools left with the departed ones were moved with them to the new final resting place.
That even included coins of long ago, including $20 gold piece.
The whirlybird shuttled rapidly backing forth Friday, making four or five trips an hour and carrying two boxes on each trip.
The entire project has been under the sponsorship of the corps of engineers, which leased the task to an Auburn, Calif., contractor, William Gross.
Already completed is the first half of the project, the moving of some 700 remains from Grave island near The Dalles dam, to a tomb overlooking the Columbia from the Oregon shore. These bones were very, very old, and none were identifiable.