By Trevor Kupfer
In an emotional ceremony Monday afternoon, the Ho-Chunk Nation reclaimed the Kingsley Bend Wayside Effigy Mounds in a state-agreed transfer from the Department of Transportation.
About 40 people gathered at the site to celebrate the unlikely repatriation by a people who were previously unrecognized by federal or state organizations, yet restrengthened to preserve a sacred piece of land.
"We have persevered and today we stand here at another historic moment," said Ho-Chunk Nation representative Ona Garvin. "The mystery will remain and we will remain awe-struck and admiring of the efforts of a people who were born, lived and died and created these mounds as a memorial to those who respected, revered and loved as a Ho-Chunk Nation."
Department of Transportation representatives Kevin Chesnik and Gwen Carr presented a letter from Gov. Jim Doyle and DOT Secretary Frank Busalacchi to the Ho-Chunk Nation that certified the transfer of the Wisconsin Dells site on Highway 16. The moment held a special significance for Carr, who is also a member of the Cayuga Nation in New York.
"This is a very, very special day for me as an employee of DOT and also as an American Indian woman," she said. "My tribe has no land ... so to be able to stand here as an Indian woman and to be able to say that I have been part of repatriating a parcel of land, no matter how large or small, back to the people, for me personally and spiritually, it's a very important occasion."
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