Clinton, if you don't believe in something, then it doesn't exist, can't possibly be true, right? You've missed a lot in this world if you haven't encountered the power that can remain with the body and personal artifacts. To say nothing of some of the ghosts who stay behind.

Several years ago as part of a freelance story I was photographing artifacts from a WPA-era dig at the museum in Canyon, Texas. The NAGPRA legislation had been around long enough that burial artifacts should have been removed from the collection and the storage drawers. I opened one drawer that contained various shells from the dig, and as I passed my hand over the various boxes, I felt a physical jolt, like an electrical shock, as I touched one folded envelope. I picked it up carefully and when unfolded it had a WPA address on the return address area, and in pencil was written "shell beads from around neck of ________ body." It was so unnerving to have experienced the shock BEFORE I knew what was there that I went and got the Kiowa museum aid I'd been working with and pointed them out. He was surprised that it was still in the collection and took it away to wherever he kept such stuff. I told this story to someone later who noted that "the beads were still working, weren't they?"

SRS