The bones of Jacques Marquette
The Jesuit explorer was a friend to Native Americans. At last, he’s going home.
It’s a cloud-covered March afternoon just off Milwaukee’s bustling Wisconsin Avenue. Visitors, students, and tourists mill around the borders of a terraced garden park. Their focus is Marquette University’s St. Joan of Arc Chapel, a small, picturesque, 15th-century stone structure. A stylish brochure informs readers that in the early 20th century, a wealthy donor made it possible for the chapel to be transported stone by stone from its original location in France.
This day is not an ordinary day. Shortly after 1 p.m., two Native Americans from St. Ignace, Michigan, 370 miles away, stand a few yards in front of the chapel’s entrance, dressed in ribbon shirts. They begin to blow into whistles made from the bones of eagles.
These two visitors, who traveled here yesterday from the far reaches of the Great Lakes Basin, are not in a hurry. One is the sexton of an Indian cemetery, the other a traditional Anishinaabe elder. They turn intentionally to each of four directions. Sounds from the two thin whistles—high-pitched, singular—pierce overcast skies.
