Ossossané Bonepit - Tiny, Ontario
Posted by: 
Bon Echo
N 44° 40.936 W 079° 57.070
17T E 583119 N 4948190
The Ossossané ossuary was the setting for the Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead ceremony in 1636, described by Father Jean de Brebeuf.
Waymark Code: WMMPX6
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 10/22/2014
Views: 11
Before leaving the Ossossané village site in 1636 the Huron created an ossuary 1.6 km away, a ritual witnessed by French missionary Father Jean de Brebeuf. Marked only by a broad, saucer shaped depression in the ground before excavation the ossuary was 7 meters in diameter and 2 meters deep. The only site of its kind described by eye-witness accounts the ossuary was the first such location excavated by modern means in 1954. Excavations here yielded grave goods of both aboriginal and European origin including: shell beads, projectile points, textiles, pipes, bone pendants, red ochre, beaver skins, beech nuts, glass beads, copper kettles, iron knives, iron scissors, iron awls, bracelets, a key, and copper rings, copper beads and copper bangles. The Ossossané ossuary is located on a sandy plain. When it was first excavated in the late 1940s, the area was in an open field but it has since grown up in secondary forest. The ossuary component of the historic site is owned by the Huron-Wendat of Wendake First Nation. (source: historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=19551 (
visit link)
The sign at the site reads:
OSSOSSANE BONEPIT. Huron Indians gave temporary burial to the dead. Later, the bodies were exhumed and the bones reburied with great ceremonies in a communal pit. Father J. Brébeuf witnessed a mass burial of over 1000 individuals near the Huron village of Ossossane in 1636. Long sought, this pit was located by the archaeological researches of F. Ridley, Royal Ont. Museum excavations found the contents as described by Brébeuf. The pit lies in the field 250 yards behind this marker. Library references ; Brebeuf 1636, Ridley 1947, Kidd 1953.
The sign is accessible to the public, and is lcoated immediatly off the side of the road; the ossuary itself is not accessible and cannot be viewed from the road.