Vince Collison may have been dancing, but he wasn't exactly in a party mood.

That might be because Collison, along with several dozen of his fellow Haida
 Indians, had journeyed from northwestern Canada on a bittersweet mission to
 retrieve bone fragments and other human remains of 48 of his ancestors.

Those human remains -- taken by scientists more than 100 years ago from tribal
 islands just off Alaska's southeastern tail -- have moldered in a basement drawer
 at the American Museum of Natural History.

Given our own island's ongoing experience with human remains, the time had obviously
 come to give them back. 

"They are clearly more important to the Haida than they are to our scientists," said
 the Museum's dean of science, Craig Morris.

The legal transfer of the bones took place on Thursday -- Museum lawyers made the
 tribe sign a contract accepting liability -- and the next day, the Haida thanked
 the Museum with a dance recital.

But one truth could not be danced around: The Haida are angry.

"It's a very emotional issue for us," said Collison, who has secured the return of
 136 ancestors' remains from museums throughout Canada and now has his sights set on
 the Field Museum in Chicago, which has 138. "We do get angry when museums resist
 our requests."

The tribe, Collison reminded, believes in reincarnation. How can your soul truly be
 free, if your ancestor's bones are in some drawer?

If anger seems unwarranted, consider how your descendents will feel if 100 years
 from now, the remains of 48 World Trade Center victims turn up in a drawer at the
 Kabul Museum of Natural History. 

Actually, it's not such an unfair parallel. All three Haida chiefs who oversaw the
 transfer last week spoke about the spiritual connection between the tribe's sorrows
 and our city's. Tribesmen even visited Ground Zero last week to pay their respects
 to the human remains still there.

But the dancing was also celebratory -- best reflected in the Haida males'
 traditional eagle dance. Tribe member Irene Mills explained that the dance is vital
 to the tribe's survival because "it lets us check out the men."

As such, Mills said she was looking forward to the celebration when the Haida return
 with the remains to Canada's Queen Charlotte Islands.

"There are only 2,000 people in our tribe, so when you cut out all the men in my
 clan, plus the married men in the other clan, there aren't a lot of people to
 choose from," Mills said. 

Whether you're on Manhattan Island or Graham Island, Mills added, "a good man is
 hard to find."

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gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net