She does take a rather strong stand, however, on the desecration of burial mounds -- by developers, farmers and even archaeologists themselves. She writes about one relative who brought a skull and bones home after the uncovering of a skeleton of Native American origin.

"Only after she was out of college did the incident come to bother her. Reflecting on the scene years later, Lynn said, 'If we had thought we were digging up a white person's grave, I don't think we would have felt entitled. I can't imagine feeling (entitled) if he had been the first homesteader.' She tried to understand her attitude back then. In part, she said, we had the sense that Indians were part of 'pre-history -- we didn't have their stories.' Instead, 'there was this feeling that they had vanished.' The bones seemed to belong to another order of being."

A Ho-Chunk source in McMillin's book says the entire state of Wisconsin is "a burial ground" that has been disturbed, dug up and removed: "As Anna Funmaker protests to the people, the laws and ideologies that would relegate the Ho-Chunk to the past: 'We're not extinct. We're not disappeared. We're here!' When so many have died, their names and land taken, that is not a small thing to say. And, the memory of the violence, the sadness and meanness and regret that accompanies it, is something that shapes who we think we are, where we think we live."

Form of violence

McMillin repeatedly refers to "the removals" as a form of violence against Native Americans, who also were victims of violence during removals of the living to reservations, etc.

"It was considered an entitlement by those who did the removals," she said in the interview. "Even archaeologists did not think about it. The digs were simply something they did as part of their profession. I think laws have changed now, but at one time that's how archaeologists worked."

The book came out in March. McMillin has not received any hate mail from Trempealeau. She has not been home since the book's publication, so has had little direct feedback from townspeople.

She emphasizes she does not want to portray Trempealeau as a uniquely bad or ignorant place when it comes to relations between white society and Native Americans. Many communities around the country and world -- including Oberlin where she now lives -- deal with such clashes of world views and cultures.

"I think Trempealeau is a beautiful place," McMillin said in the interview. "I no longer live there, but in many ways it is home. I encourage people to go there and see Nicholls Mound and some of the other mounds as part of their visit."

The platform mounds might be more difficult to visit. The dispute over ownership and possible preservation of them has never ended.

McMillin writes near the end of her book: "While the fate of the platform mounds was still pending, I imagined a dedication ceremony that would bring together a cast of characters from different times and places. ... Let's all stand on the highest platform and pray and sing and smoke a pipe. Let's bow our heads and raise our arms and keep and meditate on what has been lost.

"But this image was too full of Hollywood imaginings, too full of utopic Thanksgiving stories, too full of romance. I put us all back in our respective times and places, and we returned as well to our particular ways of relating to and being with the mounds. Some of us worshipped the sun from atop them, perhaps, while others grazed cattle, built fires, erected water towers and cleared brush. Some of us stared at the river and dreamed of the past. Some of remained below the mounds, intent on something else."

McMillin is not cynical about the lack of consensus about the mounds. "My husband says I'm an idealist," she said. "I still think if people just talk, and get each other to listen, things will work out. It is heart-breaking at times. I think I am aware of the impossibility and my idealism, but I don't give it up."