New Group Gets To Visit Box Of Bones Followers Of Ancient Pagan Religion Granted Access To Kennewick Man

Followers of an ancient pagan religion tied to the Norse god Thor are the latest to get access to the bones of Kennewick Man, a federal agency said Tuesday.

Members of the Asatru Folk Assembly will be ushered to the vault containing the 9,200-year-old bones next Wednesday, the Army Corps of Engineers said.

But the box containing the controversial bones will not be opened.

“They are granted proximity, not contact,” said corps spokesman Dutch Meier. “The remains will not be handled.”

The followers of Asatru join several Northwest Indian tribes as the only groups allowed to perform religious ceremonies over the bones since they were discovered a year ago along the banks of the Columbia River at Kennewick.

An initial analysis of the skull by a local archaeologist indicated Caucasoid features different from those of current Indians in the region.

A coalition of Indian tribes then demanded an end to study and immediate reburial of the bones.

The bones are now sealed in a vault at the government’s Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory in Richland, while a federal judge in Portland tries to sort out whether the bones will be studied or buried.

Attorney Michael Clinton of Portland, representing the Asatru, said members will “perform songs and chants and libations to the spirit, and selected readings from certain texts and other rites.”

The Asatru demanded access after learning recently of the Indian ceremonies, Clinton said.

“My clients wanted their religious rights,” Clinton said.

The Asatru Folk Assembly is based in Nevada City, Calif., claims 500 members, and is one of numerous revivals of the old northern European religion of Asatru that was eventually replaced by Christianity. Asatru is best known as the religion of the Vikings.

According to the assembly’s site on the World Wide Web, modern Asatru is “the complete revival of the ancient Norse Pagan religion,” featuring deities such as Thor and his divine hammer Mjolnir; Odin, the king of the gods, and Freya, the goddess of love.

Followers of Asatru also honor spirits who dwell in trees and rocks, land and water.

Their claim to Kennewick Man is based on the alleged Caucasoid characteristics of the skull, Clinton said.

The Asatru claim contends that ancestors of Kennewick Man may have crossed to North America over the Bering land bridge or a similar bridge linking North America and Scandinavia during past ice ages, Clinton said.

Kennewick Man became controversial because the initial examinations seemed to challenge the prevailing scientific theory that Ice Age ancestors of modern Indians reached North America between 12,000 and 15,000 years ago.

Some scientists say the alleged Caucasoid features bolster arguments that ancestors of modern American Indians were not the first humans to roam the New World.

But no conclusions can be made without more detailed studies, which have been prohibited while the court case is fought.

A team of archaeologists and the followers of Asatru are the only groups that have filed legal demands that the bones be studied, Meier said.

“The evidence at this point is strong enough to warrant scientific study of this being,” Clinton said. “Who is this hominoid most closely related genetically to?”

Meier said the followers of Asatru will be escorted into the vault, and will not be allowed to photograph the bones.

All requests to perform religious ceremonies are decided on a case-by-case basis, Meier said, and will be granted only to groups with a bona fide claim to the remains.