Healing rites at massacre site ruffle feathers

MOUNTAIN MEADOWS, Washington County — Cherokee healing ceremonies began this week at the Mountain Meadows Massacre site, a rolling valley of scrub oak and rocky soil where 120 Arkansas emigrants were killed nearly 147 years ago.

Several people of Cherokee descent have participated in the cleansing ceremonies that include the use of tobacco, corn pollen, sage, Cherokee songs, tribal flags and prayer. Numerous people have stopped to visit with the group and extend their own prayers for peace.

"We think there may be mixed Cherokee blood in some of the victims," said Raine Bowen, chief of the 45-member Cherokee Distaiyi Band in Salt Lake City.

The site remains a place of conflict nearly a century and a half later. Even though Bowen said the ceremony is a chance "to bring everybody together" to heal spiritual wounds, others are saying it's none of the band's business.

If that's Bowen's goal, then she's going about it the wrong way, said a skeptical Terry Fancher, president of the Mountain Meadows Association.

"It's an insensitive thing to do, to be quite honest about it," said Fancher, whose group is one of three organizations with direct descendant links to victims of the ill-fated Baker-Fancher wagon train.

All three descendant groups were meeting this week in Harrison, Ark., close to where the emigrants first gathered to begin their journey west. The massacre occurred over a five-day period, Sept. 7-11, 1857. The only person ever tried, convicted and executed for his part in the crime was John D. Lee, an adopted son of President Brigham Young of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Fancher said no one from the Cherokee band conducting the ceremonies contacted the MMA or the other descendant groups to let them know of their upcoming plans.

Even so, said Fancher, none of the member groups approve of the casually planned event that culminates today with a 2 p.m. ceremony at the site.

All three descendant groups voted to oppose the band's plan and then posted their objections on the MMA's Web site, www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com.

"The descendant members of the association do not agree with the highly speculative opinion that the Fancher Train was composed of Native Americans," the statement says. "The association holds that the Cherokee Tribe is without standing and is not the proper group to interpret at the site."

Those comments don't faze Larry War Eagle Williams, the band's 70-year-old spiritual leader.