After months of research, students at the University of Oregon have narrowed potential sites where they think five Cayuse men were buried or reburied after they were hanged for the death of missionary Marcus Whitman.

The burial locations have been unknown for generations, but students in the UO Clark Honors College have given members of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation reason to believe the sites may one day be identified. The confederation includes members of the Umatilla, Cayuse and Walla Walla tribes in eastern Oregon.

This story originally appeared on Underscore News

“While the five Cayuse men hanged in 1850 in Oregon City have come to be called ‘the Cayuse Five’ in recent years, we must remember their names and the importance of each of their lives to their families and our Tribes, then and now,” said Bobbie Conner, director of Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, the museum and archive repository for the CTUIR.

The five men’s names are Ti’ílaka’aykt, Tamáhas, ‘Iceyéeye Cilúukiis, K’oy’am’á Šuumkíin, Łókomus.

“The five executed men were closely related,” Conner said. “Three were brothers and two were cousins. They are not forgotten and this work must continue for as long as is necessary.”

Repatriation, justice or reconciliation

In 1836, about a decade before what came to be called the Whitman Massacre, Dr. Marcus Whitman,…