"We're here to help the healing process,'' said Raine Bowen, chief of the Distaiyi band of Southern Cherokees. Before the ceremony, Bowen relaxed in a lawn chair under the awning of a motor home in the parking lot at the site where the grisly Mountain Meadows Massacre - in which more than 120 settlers were killed - was carried out by Mormon pioneer settlers and their Paiute allies.

Bowen and a handful of other Cherokees and supporters planned to offer prayers this week at the site, since a DNA examination of some remains unearthed accidentally by a backhoe in 1999 suggested some of the victims were part American Indian.

While the scientific testing did not reveal the tribe associated with the remains before they were reburied, for Bowen and others the logical conclusion was that they were Cherokee. She said the tribe had a strong presence near where the Fancher-Baker wagon train originated, in northwest Arkansas near the Oklahoma state line.

"There have been so many people who have commented how the energy of the place has a heavy feel,'' said Bowen. "Now we're trying to help move on by putting the pain in the past and release these trapped spirits.''

Cherokee spiritual leader Larry Williams will perform a series of Cherokee pipe and prayer rituals this week, culminating Saturday at 2 p.m. with a special ceremony expected to be attended by religious leaders from several U.S. tribes and descendants of perpetrators and victims.

"Sunday night, after arriving, I had a heavy heart; it was hot and I was restless,'' said Williams, as strains of a song by Cherokee singer Rita Coolidge drifted from the motor home. "We held a prayer ceremony and I felt more light in my heart. It is time to return this spot to the Creator as the hallowed ground it is.''

Bowen said the groups' plans are puzzling to members of descendant groups, like the Mountain Meadows Association.

"They can't figure out what we're doing and are afraid we'll desecrate the site,'' said Bowen. "But we're not here to start a controversy.''

But any event linked to the massacre is controversial, and plans by the Cherokee group are no exception.

Last week, the Mountain Meadows Association used its Web site to ask the group to cancel its ceremonies.

Association secretary Lynn-Marie Fancher, whose ancestor helped organized the ill-fated trip, called the hasty analysis of the remains in 1999 inconclusive, leaving claims of Cherokee ties to conjecture.

"I know in my family we don't have any Cherokees,'' said Fancher. "It's a little presumptuous to plan something without any support of descendant groups.''

But Bowen will not be deterred, nor will Gary Hogan, whose Hamblin ancestors took part in the killing.

The Mountain Meadows association says the Cherokees needed their permission for what they're doing,'' said Hogan at the site Tuesday. "I say no they don't, they have mine.''

mhavnes@sltrib.com