Prepared by T.S. Cook
author of the screenplay

Major Characters:

• Dr. Martin Scott, college anthropologist
• Deena Scott, daughter of Dr. Scott whose mother was full-blooded Umipat
• Dr. Arthur Sage, also of the Umipat Tribe, a professor of geology and brother to Deena’s deceased mother, MaryAnn
• Littleboy Racine, sharp, aggressive Native-American attorney

A tribal burial party has dug a grave and lined it with cedar. They are awaiting the arrival of the remains to be interred. MARY GRAYHAND, a spiritual elder, presides.  With her are a few other members of the Umipat Tribe, including, Dr. ARTHUR SAGE, early fifties and MIKE GOLDENEYE, a college senior, and a few other members of this Umipat Tribe. Mike and Arthur are at odds. Arthur is sure "Martin will bring them back to us. Mike reminds everyone that only a year ago "hewas fighting us in court. All the trouble was over something found in the Belfast River, which the camera finds over the tree line...Flashback to a year earlier...

Mike and his college friends are frolicking in the shallow river. It is a mixed race group, including RON ANDERSON, a gangly white geek, and DEENA SCOTT, a lithe beauty, half white, half Umipat. They play carefree football until Ron cuts his foot on something sharp in the river. It is a set of human teeth.

Deena's Caucasian father, DR. MARTIN SCOTT, is a college anthropologist brought to the site by the SHERIFF to determine the nature of the human remains. He and the college kids (Ron is anthropology major) dig out quite a complete set of bones. At his home, Martin examines the bones and makes some surprising discoveries. The skull indicates that the deceased was a white (Caucasian) male in his forties. But an archaic spear point is lodged in his hip. Martin sends samples for Carbon-14 testing.

Arthur joins Deena and Martin in a local Christian graveyard to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Martin's wife's death. rthur was her brother, uncle to Deena. They are a close and loving family. The only issue between them is the manner of Maryann's burial. She had converted to Methodism and lies in a fiberglass coffin, in gross contradiction to the Umipat tradition of burial in contact with the earth. Because of this, Deena has never really felt closure.

The Carbon-14 results shock Martin. The person in the river died over 9,000 years ago. What was a white man doing wandering around North America that long before Columbus? And Martin sees further trouble coming. Science will want to study these bones, perhaps for decades, but the Umipat will assume that a body that old is one of their own and will insist on burying it in the earth, in a secret location. hey may have Federal law (NAGPRA) on their side. Torn in his loyalties, Martin finally chooses to preserve the bones for science and lock "Belfast Man" in a college vault to which only he has the combination.

The tribe, led by Mary, files an injunction. In the ensuing court case, the Umipat are (ironically) represented by a MAJOR RUTHER, lawyer from the Army Corps of Engineers. Defendant Martin Scott is represented by a sleek, aggressive lawyer from a neighboring tribe, LITTLEBOY RACINE. Mary selects Arthur to lead the tribal effort outside court, wishing to utilize his friendship with Martin and his knowledge of science. (Arthur is a College Professor of Geology.)

The court case proceeds, each side giving its evidence and making clear its intentions. The Umipat express the widely-felt frustration of Native Americans who hear their oral history attacked daily by white science. This tribe didn't migrate from some other place. They have always lived in this valley. Yet lurking behind the testimony is the 800-pound question: Who really were the first Americans? Do Belfast Man and other recent human discoveries suggest that there was a wave of migration to this continent before those people we call Native Americans? It may sound like a dry, scientific debate but when these questions/issues play out in the real world, including a college campus, their powerful political, religious, and racial implications roar to life.

Martin has a living tie to the tribe in Deena. In addition, he speaks the Umipat language and respects their traditions. To ease their distress, he offers to let Mary into the vault to pray over the bones. To Deena this is proof of her father's good and honest heart. But Martin's gesture backfires on him when CARL CARLSON arrives. Carlson is the leader of the New Volk Gathering, a group of whites who worship pre-Christian European gods. According to Carlson, their proto-Norse ancestors crossed the Atlantic in leather boats long before the Native Americans arrived and (white) Belfast Man is proof of it. Carlson demands equal access to the bones for religious rites.

Martin is stuck, split right down the middle. There is no proof that Carlson's wacky theories are true. But, rationally, scientifically, there is no proof that the Umipat creation story is true either. Can he let one in to pray over the bones and not the other? Deena and Arthur plead with him to permit Mary and deny Carlson. Martin hears them but he also feels the eyes of students like Ron watching him, waiting to see if there can be objectivity here. In the end he lets both into the vault, destroying his connection to the tribe, to his brother-in-law, and to his daughter.

Reaction to Martin's act spreads. The college campus riots following a torch-lit speech by Carlson. A group of young hotheads led by Mike are caught in the act of digging up the white burials in the very cemetery where Maryann lies.

In court, Littleboy is afraid Martin may lose. He plays his ace by calling Arthur Sage to the stand, over Martin's objections. In a skillfully aggressive examination, he maneuvers Arthur to a place where his deeply-held Umipat beliefs contradict what he knows as a scientist; i.e., how could the Umipat have been living in Belfast Valley 15,000 years ago when it was buried under a thousand feet of glacial ice? Martin hates seeing his friend destroyed on the witness stand. Arthur's emotionally powerful recitation of what it is like to be a tribal man in a modern society does not reverse the damage done.

Martin's life is shattered. Deena has left home and school, Arthur will not speak with him, and he is persona non grata on the reservation.

Many questions remain; can Martin repair his relationship with is daughter?; with his friend Arthur?; with the Tribe of his deceased wife-mother of his daughter? And what happens to the bones of Belfast man? Are they returned to the earth by the Umipats or do they remain available to science?

ANCESTOR transcends a struggle between science and tradition. It is an American story of the past, of diverse cultures, of acceptance, of our current society---and---the future.