The 
University 
of 
Michigan’s 
Institute 
for 
Social Research hosted Eric 
Hemenway, an Anishinaabe/
Odawa from Cross Village, 
Mich., on Thursday morning 
to speak about the history, 
culture and repatriation of 
the 
Anishinaabek 
Odawa 
tribe. 
About 
35 
students, 
faculty and staff attended the 
event.
Hemenway is the director 
of 
Repatriation, 
Archives 
and Records for the Little 
Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa 
Indian, a federally recognized 
tribe in northern Michigan. 
He has done extensive work 
with the repatriation of Native 
American 
remains 
under 

the Native American Graves 
Protection and Repatriation 
Act by working with museums 
and 
universities, 
and 
has 
brought roughly 300 people 
back 
to 
their 
homelands, 
according to his website. 
Hemenway 
began 
by 
acknowledging the Odawa, 
Ojibwe, 
and 
Bodewadmi 
tribes who are indigenous to 
the land that the University 
currently 
resides 
on. 
He 
explained how his stories 
about culture and heritage 
may not apply to his entire 
tribe, but rather his own 
experiences and traditions 
growing 
up 
in 
northern 
Michigan as an Anishinaabe/
Odawa.
“I always say you could 
have 10 Natives up here, and 
they can give you 10 different 

perspectives 
and 
answers, 
and 
they’re 
all 
correct,” 
Hemenway 
said. 
“So, 
I’m 
not speaking on behalf of all 
Odawa, I’m not speaking on 
behalf of all Anishinaabek, 
I’m speaking on behalf of 
myself and everything I’ve 
learned on my time here.”
Hemenway 
spoke 
about 
repatriation, 
the 
idea 
of 
returning 
someone 
or 
something back to their home 
land, and how it connects with 
the land where Natives buried 
their ancestors. As a historian, 
Hemenway 
explained 
how 
hundreds of thousands of 
Native 
Americans 
were 
forcibly removed from their 
native lands.
“When things were very 
tumultuous, and we were 
forced with removal, that 
connection 
with 
their 
heritage, their history and 
their culture is severed,” 
Hemenway said. “One of 
the main things that kept 
us in our homelands was 
our ancestors.”
The idea of home is 
deeply rooted in Native 
culture, 
Hemenway 
explained. 
Hemenway 
shared 
his 
experience 
of reading letters Native 
leaders 
wrote 
to 
the 
federal government 200 
years ago explaining the 
necessity of staying on the 
land of their ancestors.
“Reading these letters 
from 
200 
years 
ago 
has 
been 
rewarding, 
impactful and very deep,” 
Hemenway said. “When 
you’re being forced with 
this choice of ‘Do I leave 
my land? What do I do to 
stay home?’ I’m thinking 
of my grandfather, my 
grandmother, my dad, my 
mother, and you have to 
be there with them. So 
that idea and feeling of 

home goes beyond a house. It 
goes beyond this area I visit 
occasionally. It’s literally my 
DNA, my roots. My ancestors 
are in this land, and that’s why 
I consider this my anchor.”
Hemenway 
also 
shared 
his own family’s meaningful 
traditions 
for 
a 
yearly 
ceremony 
during 
the 
fall 
called the Ghost Suppers. 
Ever since he was a child, 
Hemenway’s 
family 
has 
participated in the ceremony, 
which included many home-
cooked 
dishes, 
Hemenway 
said. Eating at least one bite of 
every single dish is part of the 
ceremony because it signifies 
that someone on “the other 
side” — an ancestor who has 
passed away — is also eating. 
“We open the house to not 
just our immediate family, but 
to anybody. If you hear about 
the supper you’re invited,” 
Hemenway said. “That’s how 
it works, it’s the hospitality … 
It’s these activities that show 
this continuity of connection 
and culture and beliefs in 
a home. And it would be 
very, very difficult to have 
this connection if I was in 
(somewhere 
like) 
Kansas. 
You could do it, but it doesn’t 
have the impact, doesn’t have 
the power that it does when 
you’re going to the grave 
of your grandmother, and 
putting a reef on, and then the 
next day, feeding her.”
LSA sophomore Lindsey 
Smith attended the event 
after hearing about it from 
sociology professor Arland 
Thornton, who coordinated 
the event. Smith also works in 
a museum studies class that 
focuses on repatriations, and 
was interested to hear more 
about Hemenway’s work.

2 — Friday, October 18, 2019
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Eric Hemenway shares culture, history 
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Activist discusses Native American repatriation work, meaningful traditions

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