Women 'witch' for graves in N.D. Oil Patch

DORE, N.D. (AP) — Two women are looking for lost graves along the North Dakota-Montana border.

Leann Pelvit and Romana Raffaell are members of the Sidney, Mont.-based MonDak Historical and Arts Society. Their mission is to chronicle forgotten graves to protect them from being disturbed by the explosion of development spurred by the region's oil boom.

They have been grave-seeking using an ancient technique they call witching. The controversial method employs the use of bent rods or forked sticks to detect underground objects.

The women say they have uncovered 25 forgotten plots already and hope to find more.

State Historical Society of North Dakota superintendent Merl Paaverud says no graves in the state have been disturbed from oil production. He says the state uses ground-penetrating radar to find underground objects.

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