Reburial of priest’s bones
in church set for next week
MADAME ESTATE--The 115-year-old remains of St. Maarten Parish Priest Jordanus Onderwater will rest in a stainless steel box. The bones of Onderwater, who died in 1891, were dug up from the Catholic Cemetery on Front Street last month and will be reburied in the floor of St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church next Wednesday.
Archaeologist Jay Haviser, with assistance from St. Maarten Archaeological Centre Simarc students Abigail West, Matthew Halley and Kippy Groh, excavated the gravesite that held Onderwater’s remains and an assortment of artefacts.
Onderwater is the only priest of the Dominican order who was buried here. Parish Priest Thomas Krosnicki, who discovered Onderwater’s deteriorating grave in the cemetery, sanctioned the dig to give the priest a more fitting final resting place. The Catholic Church covered the cost of the project.
From a study of the bones, Haviser determined that Onderwater’s knees and lower back had been “in bad shape” in keeping with the priest’s sickly disposition. Forensic analyst Dr. Michael Mercuur confirmed the finding.
The bones also revealed that Onderwater had a facial deformity existing from birth that caused his nose to be crooked and a tight right side jaw.
Bishop of Willemstad Luis Secco visited Simarc Saturday to see the remains. He indicated that he was impressed with the way they were being handled, Haviser told The Daily Herald Monday.
Only the bones will be encased in the stainless steel box that will be carried in a procession up Front Street to the church next week. A small piece of bone will be saved for Mercuur to carry out a chemical analysis to determine if there is any truth to the stories that the priest was poisoned by a house servant.
Other artefacts found in and around the grave include glass rosary beads, a crucifix, buttons, coffin nails, and tacks that were probably used to form a cross on the coffin or to affix the coffin’s interior lining. The artefacts will be housed at Simarc in Madame Estate.
A number of conch shells were unearthed at the head of the coffin. This was a tradition of people of African descent who lived on the island in the 1800s, Haviser said. “This indicated that Father Onderwater was popular with this community.”
A large piece of European flint was also discovered in the grave. Haviser described the flint as an “interesting find,” as flint was used to start fires and was very expensive in those days.
A report on the excavation and an analysis of the bones should be completed by Haviser by the end of the week. A separate report will be compiled on the voodoo artefacts dating to the 1970s that were found above the gravesite. The find included handmade dolls with pins stuck in them, and candles.
Haviser said the excavation of the grave highlighted the importance of church history to the island. “The excavation opened people’s eyes to the history we have here.”
Onderwater served as parish priest in St. Maarten from 1887 to 1891. He arrived in Curaçao from Nijmegen in 1881 and was appointed the first editor of Amigoe di Curaçao newspaper, which is still in existence, in 1883.
Haviser described Onderwater as a literary man who compiled a lot of information on Papiamentu and was one of the first people to recognise this “Creole language.”
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