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." --30-- gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net