Weiser Idaho, Considerable Size
INDIAN SKELETON UNEARTHED BY CONTRACTORS AT WEISER, IDAHO
WEISER, Idaho, July 21.–Although contractors digging the sewer trench between Third and Fourth street west unearthed a bunch of human bones and skulls last Saturday, the find did not excite local people very much, although quite a number of the morbid curious ones had to take a look at the gruesome relics in order to satisfy themselves. The number of the bones and the manner in which they were lying in the ground is the only curious feature about them. There were four skulls of adults and were evidently buried with the heads in a kind of a circle and within a radius of two feet. All of the other bones were distributed promiscuously about, indicating that they had been removed at some remote date, while the skulls remained in the original positions.
Soon after the bones were dug up, they were examined by Dr. G. M. Waterhouse and C. Conant, and the physicians agreed that they belonged to Indians that were doubtless interred many years ago. The skulls indicated that the owners were all persons of extreme age, since the teeth were worn down and other marks pointed to this fact. The skeletons appeared to have been men or women of considerable size and particularly height, and the characteristics of the tribes that frequented this territory in former years.
It is not an unusual thing to dig human skeletons in this locality, since in early days the Indians, the rigors of the Oregon trail, and bad men claimed many victims who were buried without regard to location. The Indians themselves possessed many peculiarities regarding their dead, and the bones recently found here are doubtless those of braves who were killed in some tribal conflict and later given scant attention from their fellows. Again, that particular spot may have been the graveyard for a tribe, since many human bones have been found in the western part of town during recent years.
- East Oregonian : E.O., July 21, 1913, EVENING EDITION, Page PAGE TWO, Image 2
- Research by Chris L Lesley