Resources... [Archive]

Wingy

06-23-2005, 10:06 AM

NATIVE AMERICAN SPIRITUAL,CULTURAL,GROUP

OF INDIANA STATE PRISON

P.O. Box 41
Michigan City,Indiana 46361

Letter From The Pipe Carrier

Through out our culture, our teachers and elders talk of the need to heal the Sacred Hoop of Life. We know that the balance will ever be set right until that healing happens. We also understand that means a healing of the entire Sacred Hoop; our families, communities, tribes, our People, our Country and the many different peoples within it. I structured that list the way I did for a purpose, that being, that we also know we can't begin to heal any relationship or people outside our own until we heal those within our own.There in lies a problem.

While almost everyone wants to reach out to help those who are homeless, alcoholic, addicts, mentally ill, etc., there is a segment, a rather large segment, unfortunately, of our people, that are very often not only ignored, but actually shunned: the incarcerated. Admittedily, there are a number of groups and individuals out there reaching out to the incarcerated, but overall, within our community, we unfortunately are facing estrangement to varing degrees.

In some ways, I can understand the reasons behind it. It can be said of course, that we don't help at a time when our people are struggling for credibility and repect. There is also the embarrassment at the crimes we have committed, and the fact that in many instances, they go completely against everything that we, as a spiritual people, stand for. In addition, it an also be said, I suppose, that if we had been on the right path we wouldn't have committed our crimes in the first place, and wouldn't be in here. A somewhat distorted view, but a view.

I am the Bundle Keeper, and Pipe Carrier for the Native American Spiritual and Cultural Council at the Indiana State Prison. For some time we have been actively seeking a replacement for the Spiritual Advisor who had to leave us, but in the mean time, the position has been filled, very well, by the Catholic Priest here, a volunteer. We try to follow traditional ways as much as possible, and Father Paul has never tried to sway us from that path, or convert us, although, he's always there to help us when needed.

It wasn't long ago that Father Paul was on vacation traveling through the south, and happened upon a Native American community there. With us in mind as always, he told them of us and what we're trying to do here, and mentioned that we always have a need for sage, sweetgrass, and herbs. (We receive no money for these things from the state and depend on donations from our members and the occasional donation of herbs from the outside). This Spiritual Community was adamant about not assisting a bunch of inmates under any circumstances when he inquired about the chance of obtaining some sage for us.

On one hand I was disheartened to a point, because it seemed to almost negate whatever positive work we are doing here. I was also angered, because it was like writing us off. At the same time I discovered something a little amusing in it. The fact that it was almost akin to something that's perplexed our people for generations; the idea that Grandmother, and anything that grows from Her, can be possessed, bought, sold, and withheld. They were doing the very thing that our Ancestors fought and bled against.

At any rate, I don't relate that story nor my feelings behind it for the purpose of berating or shaming, hence, the lack of a name to this community down south. Instead, it's only an illustration of part of what I'm talking about. By the way, I hold no animosity or resentment toward them, or those like them. They do what they have to do for the reasons that they have to do it. Granted, twenty years ago, although I knew right from wrong and was struggling inside with the path that was calling me, I made the wrong choices. As have many of the people that live in this Iron House with me. I wish I could say that I was innocent and was wrongly imprisoned, but the fact remains that I wasn't, and I deserved to come here. I'm not on that path now, and have found within me, the peace that comes with knowing that we're fighting the good fight.

Without a doubt there are those within these walls, even our own brothers, that are using spirituality for their own personal gain. There are those who would seek outside help simply to run their own games and scams. But is it worth just disregarding and stereotyping all of us, quite probably punishing and holding back those who are on the Red Path?

The Sacred Hoop can never be healed under these circumstances. No hoop can be a completed circle until all of its members are included. I am assuming that if you're reading this, I'm more or less preaching to the choir, since you probably wouldn't have bothered checking out this site if you were completely anti-incarcerated. However, we need your help, too. Not just us, but every brother and sister that's incarcerated. We struggle each and everyday, the same kinds of struggles you have, as well as struggling against prison administrations that are cold and unfeeling, and prison life itself. There is absolutely nothing easy about following the Red Path in prison.

Earlier I mentioned that even within our own circle, there are no doubt those attending for their own reasons having nothing to do with spirituality or learning about and celebrating their heritage. They weed themselves out over time, and I'm content for the most part to let them do that, because along the way, we just might help show one of them the right way, and gain another brother for the struggle.

In parting, I have something for you to bear in mind. Statistics say that something like 98% of those incarcerated are going to eventually be back outside. They could easily be living in your community, neighborhood, even next door. Would you rather have him or her living there pretty much the same as when they went in, except even angrier, or would you rather they have used their time to learn about their traditions, ways, and spirituality?

Seems like an easy choice to me, but........

Kevin Henry
2002

"Healing Our hearts"

September 11, 2001

Today, all the people of the world suffered a terrible and tragic loss as result of terrorist attacks on innocent men, women, and children in the World Trade Center Towers in NYC, and the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

This was a cowardly and dishonorable act perpetuated not only against all Americans, but also against all the decent people in the World. This was a horrible act against humanity, born of hatred and anger in the hearts of evil men.....Not Of God.

Today, I speak from my heart and the hearts of the men of the Native American Community here at I.S.P. to all of your hearts.
The only way to heal our hearts of this overwhelming sadness, loss and anger is to "unite" into one family, regardless of our differences and be of one purpose.

Let our purpose be to love and support one another. Love is stronger than any other thing, even the kind of hatred that was set upon the people of the world by these Cowardly, evil men. It is a message that rings out loud from every religion.....Love One Another....

No one knows what lies ahead in the coming days. All we are assured of is right now. Hug your kids, Kiss your wife, or husband, spend time with your friends and neighbors. Let them all know you love them. If we all do this, there won't be a place left in the world where this kind of hatred can exist....This to me, is the greatest way we as a world wide family, can honor the men, women and children who have tragically lost their lives today.

Our thoughts, and prayers go out to all the victims of these tragic events, and all our relations.....

Bear Hayes
Spiritual Leader/Representative
N.A.S.C.C.
Indiana State Prison

Wingy

06-23-2005, 10:21 AM

post addresses and contacts for circles and resources inside the walls

Wingy

06-23-2005, 10:45 AM

ALABAMA
Native American Prisoners Of Alabama
T.F. Station Corr. Center
Religious Coordinator
P.O. Box 56
Elmore, AL. 36092

Native American Prisoners Of Alabama
Religious Coordinator
Rt.1, Box 33
Wetumpka, AL. 36092

ARIZONA
Native Religious Services Coor.
American Indian Assoc. of Tuscon
P.O.Box 7246
Tuscon, AZ.85725

Black Canyon Inter-Tribal Group
Religious Coordinator
F.C.I. Phoenix
P.O. Box 1700
Black Canyon, Stage I
Phoenix, AZ.85092

CALIFORNIA
San Quentin Indian Culture Group
California State Prison
Religious Coordinator
San Quentin, Ca.94964

Tribe Of Five Feathers
U.S.P. Lompoc
Religious Coordinator
3901 Klein Blvd.
Lompoc, Ca. 93436

Antelope Circle
California State Prison
Religious Coordinator
Box2210
Susanville, Ca. 96130

Sequoia Circle
California State Prison
Box 400
Tracy.Ca.95376

Native American Religious Society
ATTN: Religious Coordinator
P.O.Box 8130
San Luis Obispo, Ca. 93403

Native American Religious Society
ATTN: Religious Coordinator
P.O. Box 617
Jamestown, Ca.95327

Native American Religious Society
ATTN: Religious Coordinator
P.O. Box 1841
Norco, Ca.91760

Native American Religious Society
ATTN: Religious Coordinator
P.O. Box 1800
Norco, Ca.93760

Native American Religious Society
Religious Coordinator
P.O.Box 2000
Vacaville, CA.95696

Native Spiritual Circle
Religious Coordinator
P.O.Box W
Folsom Prison
Represa,CA.95671

Friendship House utilizes a holistic model (http://www.friendshiphousesf.org/CARE.html) linking culturally-relevant substance abuse treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention.

The treatment component includes substance abuse and mental health counseling, as well as medical referrals
Rehabilitation includes educational and job training, housing referrals, and aftercare counseling to support re-entry into the community
Prevention involves wellness education, parenting skills, and traditional American Indian spiritual and cultural values
http://www.friendshiphousesf.org/NEWS.html

INDIANA
Native American Spiritual Cultural Council
Of Indiana State Prison
Religious Coordinator
P.O. Box 41
Michigan City, IN. 46360

Sisters of The Sacred Circle
ATTN:Religious Coordinator
P.O. Box 225
Bainbridge, In.46105

KANSAS
Red Knife D/S Networkbr
P.O. Box 6130
Kansas City, KS.66016

North American Indian Culture Group
ATTN:Religious Coordinator
P.O. Box 1000
Levenworth,Ks.66048

LOUISIANA
Native American Brotherhood of LA.
Religious Coordinator
Louisiana State Prison
Angola, LA. 70712

MAINE

MASSACHUSETTS

MINNESOTA
Indian Culture Club
Religious Coordinator
Northeastern Regional Corr. Ctr.
5378 Munger Shaw Road
Siginaw, MN.55779

NEW HAMPSHIRE

NEW MEXICO
Eagle Spirits Society
P.O. Box 1328
Los Lunus, N.M. 87031

NEW YORK

NORTH CAROLINA
Native Religious Society
C/O Chaplin
Southern Corr. Center
P.O.Box 786
Troy, N.C. 27371

NORTH DAKOTA

OHIO
Native American/Metis Brotherhood
Religious Services Dept.
Southern Ohio Corr. Facility
P.O.Box 45699
Lucasville, Ohio 45699-0001

OKLAHOMA
Confined Intertribal Group
Religious Coordinator
P.O. Box 548
JHCC
Lexington, OK. 73051

OREGON
Lakota Oyate Ki
Oregon State Penitentiary
2605 State Street
Salem, Or.97310

SOUTH DAKOTA
Native American Council of Tribes
ATTN:Religious Coordnator
P.O. Box 5911
Sioux Falls, S.D. 57117-5911

Native American Council of Tribes
ATTN:Religious Coordinator
P.O.Box 428
Springfield, S.D.57062

The Dakota/Lakota/Nakota Human Rights Advocacy Coalition is chartered on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation (http://www.dlncoalition.org/images/certificateincorporation.jpg) in south-central South Dakota. Our members are volunteer American Indian activists and activists for American Indian issues involved in advocating for integrated human, civil, legal, and indigenous rights, and social justice for traditional Dakota/Lakota/Nakota People. In addition to advocating in these matters, DLN is dedicated to providing solutions to Indian families who face hardship within reservation and border communities.

Dakota Lakota Nakota Human Rights Advocacy
c/o Alfred Bone Shirt
P. O. Box 634
St. Francis, SD 57572

http://www.dlncoalition.org/dln_issues/american_indians_in_jail.htm

http://www.dlncoalition.org/dln_issues/sdpsg_sep_2004.pdf

TEXAS
N.A.C.S.C.T. Women's Group
Religious Coordinator
Rt. 4, Box 800
Gatesville, TX. 76528

VIRGINA
Native American Rights Group
C/O Religious Coordinator
P.O. Box 43
M.C.I.
Norfolk, VA. 02056

WASHINGTON
Brotherhood of Native American Nations
ATTN:Religious Coordinator
P.O. Box 520-C, M.S.C.
Walla Walla, Wa. 99362

WISCONSIN
Waupun Indian Council
Waupun Corr. Inst.
Religious Coordinator
P.O.Box 351
Waupun, WI.53963

Wingy

06-25-2005, 04:26 AM

MISSION DISTRICT
New center offers 'Red Road' to sobriety
Program emphasizes American Indian values
San Francisco Chronicle (vahua@sfchronicle.com)
Vanessa Hua, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, April 15, 2005

At a newly expanded residential drug and alcohol treatment center in the Mission District, about 30 residents gathered recently for a morning meeting. The group leader, Tom Phillips, 61, began the session with a prayer:

"Creator, provide for our needs and enlighten us with understanding of what we need to walk in balance."

It's not uncommon for a sobriety support group to begin with a prayer. What was unusual was that Phillips spoke in Kiowa, an American Indian Language.

And as he led the 1 1/2-hour session at the Friendship House Association of the American Indians, Phillips talked about how addiction was not a part of Indian culture -- until contact with outsiders led them away from their traditional values.

The meeting was held in spacious new $12 million digs at Julian and 15th streets. Clients moved in at the beginning of this month, and the grand opening is April 22. Public funds, along with private donors such as the 29 Palms Band of Mission Indians and the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians, two successful gaming tribes, helped pay for construction of the center, which aims to provide culturally relevant services.

"Before, we had a role in the community, a function defined," said Phillips, a faculty field instructor in the graduate Social Work department at Cal State Stanislaus. "When they displaced us, we were no longer hunters, protectors. We were placed on the reservations, where America wanted us to be farmers. To be Americans."

He was showing the group how to walk the "Red Road," a treatment approach that incorporates American Indian values and traditions, such as belief in the Creator, the importance of kinship and communal sharing and reciprocity. The Red Road philosophy -- a guide to daily life and function -- has been handed down for generations orally in American Indian cultures.

Finding value in one's identity, and drawing strength from it, is an important tenet of the culturally relevant treatment at the Friendship House, founded in 1963 by the Christian Reform Church and Native Americans in the area.

The new center has doubled its capacity, to 80 beds, and has extended its inpatient program from 90 days to six months.

Before, clients were just getting in touch with their feelings when they would be forced to leave and return to the same troubled environment, and the sobriety would not last, said Phillips, 61, a recovering alcoholic with 27 years sobriety. In addition, they will get up to six months of job-skills training.

The four-story center, painted a cheerful yellow, looks like upscale condos from the outside. Beside the entrance, near the basketball court, ground has been cleared for a traditional sweat lodge.

Giving a tour of the center, Executive Director Helen Waukazoo was proud of even the smallest details, such as the American Indian-inspired colors and designs in the bathroom tiles.

The old building, located next door, was dark and worn inside, with threadbare carpet and a pervasive smell of cigarette smoke. The new center is airy and filled with light, its walls covered with framed traditional weavings and other artwork.

In the 2000 U.S. Census, 43,529 residents in Bay Area counties identified themselves as American Indians or Alaska natives, and 57,858 people were of American Indian descent mixed with another race -- one of the largest urban American Indian populations in the country.

Today, the Friendship House has a staff of 50 and an annual budget of almost $4 million from public and private sources.

Three-quarters of the staff are of American Indian descent. About half of the clients are California Indians, the rest trace their Indian ancestry elsewhere. A few clients are non-Indians. About half of the clients are women, and most are ages 18 to 35 -- a marked change from about 25 years ago, when clients were predominantly men in their 50s, suffering from alcoholism, and not drug addiction.

Many of the clients are referred there by the courts, parole and probation officers, child protective services and social workers. Some clients have walked out of mainstream recovery programs, finding their approaches sterile and unwelcoming. They may feel uncomfortable opening up to non- American Indians in traditional 12-step programs.

The center incorporates medicine men, traditional herbs and treatments.

Some of the potential clients live on remote reservations, in homes that lack telephone service, electricity and running water. Asking them to keep calling weekly to check on the waiting list is not feasible; instead, Friendship House may allow people to designate someone else to call in for them.

Family ties are also very important in American Indian culture, so the center hosts activities that bring together generations.

And there are other smaller, but no less important, touches: fry bread, an Indian favorite, might be served at lunch.

The first month of their treatment, clients are not allowed to receive phone calls or letters or to leave the house. Later on, they are allowed out first with an escort to powwows and other events where alcohol is not served, and as they gain more privileges they get weekend passes.

In 2003, the Friendship House had 148 clients, of whom 79 percent had problems with alcohol and 85 percent with drugs, according to the center's annual report. Many also suffered domestic violence, homelessness and childhood physical abuse. Their involvement with the Friendship House helped many clients make a connection with the American Indian community, a client survey found.

The center also sponsors a youth program to prevent substance abuse by teaching young people about traditional ceremonies, going on field trips and other activities.

"Our hope is that we don't want to see them here. We want to see them as strong leaders and not get entangled in drugs and alcohol," Waukazoo said.

The inaugural celebration of sobriety last month began with singing, praying and beating of a traditional drum. Navajo clay pendants, with Pueblo Indian designs and the length of sobriety, from a couple of months up to 24 years, were handed out to great applause.

Desiree Mota, 49, a Pomo and Yuki Indian who grew up in Sonoma County, was at the Friendship House for a second time. She has been addicted to heroin for more than 20 years.

After completing the program in 2003, she relapsed from pain over deaths in her family: her mother, her father, and then her grandchild, who was killed by a drunken driver.

Mota has been in and out of jail as a result of her addiction, and the Friendship House is giving her an opportunity to heal. Growing up, she was called an "apple" -- red on the outside, white on the inside. "I don't know hardly anything about it at all," said Mota, whose long black hair falls to mid-calf. "Native Americans are always the low man on the totem pole. It's a beautiful culture, and I want to learn about it."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/15/WBGC4C5OOI1.DTL

Wingy

06-25-2005, 04:31 AM

a little old, but very revelent

Federal prisons increase restrictions
© Indian Country Today December 31, 2004. All Rights ReservedPosted: December 31, 2004by: Brenda Norrell (http://www.indiancountry.com/author.cfm?id=448) / Indian Country TodayWINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - Ceremonies for incarcerated American Indian inmates are facing new restrictions in state and federal prisons, where most inmates are already forced to hold sweats in dilapidated lodges, build fires of scrap lumber and burn commercially-processed sage.

''The indifference towards our Native men, women and juveniles who are incarcerated must stop and an effort must be made to provide outreach support because they are coming home someday. Our people are not expendable,'' said Lenny Foster, Navajo spiritual advisor to Indian inmates for 24 years.

''The trend within the past several years throughout the United States prison system has been to restrict the traditional spiritual practices of the Native prisoners.''

Foster, program supervisor and spiritual advisor with the Corrections Project of the Navajo Nation Department of Behavioral Health Services, provides spiritual counseling and advocacy for 2,000 Navajo and other American Indian inmates in 96 state and federal penitentiaries.

Nationwide, the current trend of prison officials is to limit the amount of time Indian prisoners can participate in sweat lodge ceremonies, pipe ceremonies, talking circles, spiritual gatherings and drum practice. By reducing the time for ceremonies, prison officials are limiting the rehabilitative effects for inmates.

''At one time these practices were allowed six to eight hours on a given day, usually a weekend, where the Native population could fully participate without any interference, harassment or indifference,'' Foster said.

''To rush through a ceremony does not allow full expression or participation because these ceremonies are very sacred.''

The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee said the warden at Leavenworth Penitentiary, where Peltier is incarcerated, imposed new restrictions on the religious ceremonies of American Indian prisoners.

Until recently, Peltier and other prisoners were permitted eight hours per week for the Inipi (sweat ceremony). The warden has now reduced the time to four hours per week.

''This infringement is both illegal and unconstitutional,'' said the Defense Committee. Although the prison claims the wood supply for ceremonies is depleted and needs to be rationed, supporters said the wood provided is scrap wood, regardless of supply.

Foster said he would contact the head chaplain for approval to deliver firewood and lava rocks from the Navajo Nation for the sweat lodge at USP-Leavenworth after the holidays. Meanwhile, the Defense Committee urged advocates to call and write Warden E.J. Gallegos.

At the prison complex in Florence, located between Phoenix and Tucson, Indian inmates struggle to hold sweat lodge ceremonies.

''The wood that was brought was from wooden pallets, or from stinky trees cut down in the yard; they weren't like mesquite, they would give you a headache,'' one Indian inmate incarcerated in the Arizona state prison at Florence told Indian Country Today.

''The sage was processed and had to be bought at the prison store. It didn't even smell like sage. The sweat lodge was so old, it was covered with an old army tarp and we had to dig the sweat lodge deeper so people could get in there.

''That's all we had; we had to make our drum out of a tin can.

''I went, but I didn't get anything out of it.''

When the ceremonies are held in the traditional and sacred way, however, Indian inmates receive beneficial rehabilitation, Foster said.

''All of these traditional practices and beliefs are very important for the rehabilitation of the Native prisoner, or else the incarceration becomes nothing more than warehousing.''

When American Indian inmates are merely warehoused, Foster said no change results in the prisoners' behavior and lifestyle. There is no increase of respect or true restoration to sobriety. Rehabilitation is vital because Natives return home to their community and family and should not be a burden or problem.

Prison systems need new regulations to allow Indian inmates to exercise their fundamental freedom of religious rights protected by law. Prisoners need the purity of sacred items, adequate time for prayers and authentic medicine men to conduct ceremonies, advocates say.

''It places a burden on the Native prisoner to obtain his own firewood, lava rocks, sage, cedar, tobacco and other sacred items,'' Foster said.

''The Chaplain's religious services provide Bibles, rosary and chapel for Christian inmates, and Islamic and Jewish inmates have their support from their respective outside community.''

However, Indian nations have an obligation to assist their incarcerated tribal members with sacred items that are necessary for the sweat lodge ceremonies and pipe ceremonies. Sometimes, Indian nations do not respond and neither do the family and friends of inmates.

''It has become vital and essential to have American Indian spiritual leaders and medicine persons visit the prisons and provide the necessary instructions and conduct and facilitate the ceremonies, circles and gatherings,'' Foster said.

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410090

Wingy

06-25-2005, 04:33 AM

Article Published: Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 7:23:12 PM PST
http://www.sbsun.com/Stories/0,1413,208~12588~2772453,00.html (http://www.sbsun.com/Stories/0,1413,208~12588~2772453,00.html)

Religion in prison tested
Supreme Court asked to limit law

By Brad A. Greenberg, Staff Writer

Rarely do Christians and Satanists play on the same team.
But politics make for unlikely alliances.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Monday that challenge governments' ability to limit religious freedoms in prisons and other institutions.

In one corner the state of Ohio, which claims prisoners use religious services to organize violent gangs. The state will argue that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, gives preferential treatment to religious prisoners, violating the First Amendment.

In the other corner a group of inmates supported by unexpected allies: civil libertarians and social conservatives, Jews and neo-Nazis, President Bush and former President Clinton.

"The most important religious liberty case before the Supreme Court this term is Cutter v. Wilkinson,' said Jared Leland, media and legal counsel for the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of 50 civil liberties and religious organizations that include Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and American Indians.

The court's ruling is expected in June.

If the law is struck down, Jews and Muslims could be forced to handle pork, Catholics could be prevented from wearing the crucifix, American Indians could be required to cut their hair and any religion deemed dangerous could be blacklisted, Leland said.

Constitutional scholars do not believe the court will rule against the law because it benefits all religions: The more obscure the belief, the greater the law's need.

"Chances are this will be seen as a constitutionally permissible accommodation for religious liberty and not a cracking in the wall of the separation of church and state,' said Jesse H. Choper, a UC Berkeley law professor who specializes in church-state issues.

It is unclear how the law has improved religious practices at local prisons and jails and if they would be affected by the high court's ruling. Safety first

At San Bernardino County's Central Detention Center, which boards an average of 550 federal inmates daily, sheriff's Capt. Larry Brown said the jail lacks the staff and facilities to offer much more than chaplain prayer and chow-hall chapel services.

"Safety always has to come first. That is usually our problem here,' said Brown, who runs the jail in downtown San Bernardino. "The more you move them around, the more you have problems.'

The jail is bound by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act's requirements because the U.S. government pays the county to house federal inmates, who make up more than half the jail's population.

At the California Institution for Men in Chino, the law has not improved religious services, said Michael Nichols, a staff chaplain.

The Sun was unable to speak with inmates at the Chino prison because it was on lockdown when a reporter was allowed to visit. Brown declined access to inmates at the Central Detention Center.

In Ohio, several inmates claim the state has infringed on their religious rights. They are of various religions, including Wicca, Satanism and the Christian Identity Church, which advocates violence against nonwhites and Jews.

"Ohio is not opposed to religion in prisons,' said Douglas R. Cole, Ohio's state solicitor and lead attorney in Cutter v. Wilkinson. "But Ohio thinks that religious practice needs to be appropriately balanced with safety needs in prisons. State prisons officials are best able to decide, and they shouldn't have their hands tied by Congress.'

In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the current law's predecessor, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The high court said the 1993 law overstepped Congress' authority and infringed on states' rights to manage their own prisons.

The 1993 law still applies, however, to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Unlikely allies

After three years of work, Congress drafted the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Sponsored by two senators of very different political beliefs Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. the law skirted its predecessor's downfall by making it a requirement on states and counties that take federal money for their prisons and jails.

"If you don't want to comply with the federal act, don't accept federal funds,' said Leland. "It's as simple as that.'

The tactic has been used by Congress before. In 1984, it passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which told every state to set its drinking age at 21 or else lose federal transportation dollars.

The Supreme Court upheld this law in a 1987 case, South Dakota v. Dole.

When the court struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, only Justice John Paul Stevens said the law unconstitutionally endorsed religion.

The composition of the court has not changed since, which encourages supporters of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

The law has been upheld by four federal courts of appeals, including the 9th Circuit in San Francisco. But the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati sided in 2003 with the state of Ohio.

"If (the law) is overturned, it makes it much easier for all religious practices to be obstructed. It doesn't matter what it is,' said Chaplain Gary Friedman, spokesman for the American Correctional Chaplains Association.

"If you prevent one faith from its religious practices, it can domino and often does.'

In general, the California Department of Corrections allows more religious freedom than other state prison systems, Friedman said.

But the men's prison in Chino "is one of the worst in the state,' said Nichols, the chaplains' representative to the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees.

The prison is so often on lockdown, most inmates can't speak with chaplains, let alone attend religious services, Nichols said.

"You have to have consistency of the program,' he said, "and we do not have any consistency. So we are doomed to failure.'

The minimum-security portion of the prison, which houses the least violent criminals and allows for more religious exercise than other parts, was on lockdown during a tour by a reporter last week. An inmate had been slashed in the yard shortly after breakfast.

"We try to afford all those that want religious services,' said corrections Sgt. Ari Sams, prison spokesman. "Based on the situation of a particular day, that dictates whether or not an inmate will be able to continue that daily schedule.' Divided chapel

The minimum-security portion has a chapel divided into two rooms. In one there are Islamic prayer mats and Catholic decorations. The other has walls that bear both the Christian cross and the Jewish Star of David.

The prison also has a sweat lodge for American Indian purification ceremonies, which are held weekly for about 35 inmates.

"There are only two things they have left when they come to prison: their identity and their religion,' said Chaplain Al Davis, a Protestant minister on staff.

When the five staff chaplains two Protestants, one Muslim, one Jewish and one American Indian are thrown a religious curveball, such as Wicca witchcraft they seek literature and community members who can better minister to the inmate.

Inmates in the prison's maximum-security central facility are not allowed to go to chapel. Chaplains walk the tiers and talk to them.

But even that practice often is limited, as it was in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 10 killing of corrections Officer Manuel Gonzalez.

Nichols has cited the death as a tragic example of what prisoners are driven to when they can't practice religion. Inmate Jon Christopher Blaylock is the suspected killer. Women's prison

It's a different world at the California Institution for Women near Chino. The prison has about 1,900 inmates. Though it houses everyone from minimum-security inmates to Manson Family members, the women mingle freely in a collegiate-like grassy quad.

"They don't have to utilize the chapel to communicate,' Warden Dawn Davison said during a tour last week. "When they go to religious services, it is because they want to have God in their life.

"For many of them, it has saved them.'

Little research has been done on religion's ability to rehabilitate the 2 million incarcerated American men and women.

"It's very difficult to measure religiousness,' said Harry R. Dammer, chairman of the sociology and criminal justice department at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. "How am I going to measure how religious you are compared to me?'

Anecdotally, though, everyone has heard stories about a person who went to jail for murder and found religion.

"People who commit crimes are broken people, wounded people, people who have pain. Religion gives you comfort,' said Romarilyn Baker, a 40-year-old Catholic who is serving 17 years to life at the women's prison.

"Committing the crime of murder was devastating to me,' she said. "I didn't only break my heart; my soul ached. I had to seek God.'

Baker wears a crucifix on a chain around her neck that she constantly clutches for comfort.

Prison officials, and especially chaplains, say stories like hers show "jailhouse religion' is often a good thing. Creating a religion

Seen as a threat to the exercise of religion are faiths that inmates draft for special treatment. Friedman, the chaplain association spokesman, mentioned an inmate who created a religion that included as sacraments sirloin steak and Baileys Irish Cream.

This is indicative, he said, of the single flaw in the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act: It is too broad in what it defines as a legitimate religion.

But prisons do have the authority to investigate the sincerity of an inmate's faith.

"The concern raised by Ohio about gang activity and sham religious beliefs espoused for other reasons that sometimes exists. But the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act was drafted to address that,' said David Fathi, director of the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The law's broadness is the reason it likely will survive the constitutional test, supporters said. They hope the Supreme Court agrees.

"Inmates are on the bottom of the totem pole. It is hard for them to get anything,' said Rabbi Menachem Katz, director of prison and military programs at a Surfside, Fla.,-based Jewish organization, The Aleph Institute. "It is not like (the law) is this magical thing that opens all the doors. But at least it keeps the door cracked.'

http://www.nativecalling.org/archives/list2001.html (http://www.nativecalling.org/archives/list2001.html)

Wingy

06-25-2005, 04:49 AM

Robert Hugh Wilson, also known as Standing Deer, was found dead in his home here in Houston, TX on Tuesday. Standing Deer was stabbed to death by a houseguest, Pius Smashed Ice (a Native American who had recently been released from prison and was staying with Standing Deer because he had no money). The police report said that Pius killed Standing Deer after an argument on Monday, but didn't call police until Tuesday, where he attempted to pass the crime off as a break-in. Pius later confessed and is in custody now. Standing Deer was stabbed in his bedroom, so it's still not clear if it happened during an argument or later after a dispute. Whatever the case, the loss of Standing Deer is something we in the area are struggling with.

Standing Deer is best known as the prisoner who was affiliated for many years with Leonard Peltier, and who exposed the government assassination plot against Leonard. He was released only two years ago after serving 27 years in the pen. To his friends, Standing Deer epitomized kindness, warmth, honesty and revolutionary commitment. He had been working with many young indigenous activists in Houston and Texas, offering his insights and wisdom. His death was senseless, but Standing Deer's spirit will live on.

Standing Deer is expected to be cremated on Friday, and his remains taken to Oklahoma, his birtplace. He was 70 years old.

Coming Home

http://www.sonic.net/~doretk/ArchiveARCHIVE/NATIVE%20AMERICAN/Coming%20HomeStanding%20Deer.html (http://www.sonic.net/~doretk/ArchiveARCHIVE/NATIVE%20AMERICAN/Coming%20HomeStanding%20Deer.html)

by Standing Deer Wilson #640289 Ellis 1, Huntsville, TX 77343

Excerpted from "A Message to the People from Standing Deer," Boston, Massachusetts, 19 November 1994, delivered to those who attended the meeting for POWs and political prisoners at Amherst.
MY NAME IS STANDING DEER. I am full-blood Oneida/Choctaw. Eighteen years ago, I was captured and sent to the Control Unit at the political prison in Marion, Illinois. I have been locked down in super-max ever since-with no relief in sight.

Some of you folks may have read In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Mattheissen. Peter's book recounts, with documentation, how-in 1978-I was hired by U.S. agents to kill Leonard Peltier in Marion Prison. Rather than kill him, I exposed the government conspiracy first to Leonard, and then to the world. I'm not going to re-tell that long story, but I do want to tell you one incident that is sacred to me because with that one incident Leonard transformed my life, brought me home to my People, and put me dead in the middle of the political struggle for the survival of my People.

The government involved me in their conspiracy to assassinate Peltier in May of 1978, and although we were both in Marion prison I didn't actually meet him until the fourth of July 1978. It was a really hot afternoon, and since Marion hadn't yet been locked down, we were having a cook-out on the yard. It felt good just sitting with Leonard and several other brothers while Leonard talked about this and that, and as the afternoon went on, I could see the intensity and emotion beneath the surface of this man when he discussed the problems of his People. I could sense, rather than hear or see, the degree of love and total commitment he felt for the People.

I saw the marks of flesh offerings and the piercings of the Sun Dance on his body, and I listened in awed reverence as he quietly told us about sacred matters. As I listened, I realized what a deeply religious man he was, and I thought what an upside down world we live in when the criminals of this world portray the victims as criminals and make 90% of the sleeping future victims believe in their charade.

Although I had not come to the yard with settled intentions of telling him that the United States was scheming to take his life, I found myself revealing the plot to him in all its sordid detail. I didn't know what reaction to expect because in my heart I was not pure. I reeked with shame. I harbored guilt because I wasn't sure I was going to tell him until the moment I did it. Leonard silently gazed at me for a long time, then he shook my hand as he looked into my eyes with a look that radiated total love and trust. He smiled as he softly said, "Thank you for telling me, my Brother."

The next day Leonard and a 300-pound Lakota summoned me from my cell and took me to the law library which was deserted. They led me into a room where books were stored. The big man produced a length of rope while Leonard placed a bandanna blindfold over his own eyes. Leonard's hands were tied securely behind his back; then the big man left the room and the law library. We were completely alone. Leonard told me to close the door and push a bookcase across it so that it would not open. When I turned back around he was lying on his back on the floor. He told me to reach behind the law books on the third shelf and I would find a rolled up newspaper and I should withdraw it. When I picked up the newspaper it was very heavy and I felt the hardness of something metal so I removed it from the paper, and I was looking at a 15-inch knife, beautifully made, obviously in a machine shop. It was razor sharp and had a point like a needle. It gleamed the reflection of light in my eyes and I became so dizzy I could hardly stand.

The knife turned into a snake in my hand, and as I stared paralyzed it became the face of the blond, blue-eyed stranger who wanted Leonard dead. As I looked into the blue eyes, I saw the face of the man who murdered my grandfathers and grandmothers. I was terrified, but when I looked at Leonard he was smiling, and I could hear his smile and it sounded like a gentle waterfall. I could no longer see through my tears but I heard the waterfall say, "Do whatever it is you have to do, my Brother." And I fell to the floor and cut his bonds and removed his blindfold and he had tears in his eyes that looked like a rainbow. I discovered I was weeping for the first time since I was nine years old and my brother died. It was then I knew I was coming home to my People.

From that day in Marion to the present I have thanked my lucky stars that he re-centered my life. He put me in touch with my roots and started me on the road to recovering the humanity that had been buried all my life under the conditioning of the culture of greed.

For eighteen years I have been held captive in the very worst of Greed's ironhouses. The reason I have been able to get out of bed each day is because I have a treasure: my wife, Anna, and our children. She is my reason for existence. I have been blessed by having Anna by my side. Her love has never faltered. It's true the years have been cruel in many ways, but in a spiritual sense my family's love makes me feel like I've been living in a garden of roses with garlands connecting my spirit to Mother Earth. Together, we have dealt-and will deal-with whatever obstacles might confront us; our hopes and dreams of freedom and the future are still very much alive.

My prayers are with those of you who are working on this most important project even at a time when the reactionary propaganda is calling for our executions, or at least for them to lock us up and throw away the key. In the words of William M. Kunstler, my all-time hero,"The Establishment will not rest until it roots out and destroys all opposition. For that reason, those who challenge the Establishment must have the same tenacity." So let us breathe new life into our efforts, and let us be tenacious! We MUST free Mumia! We MUST free Peltier! We must free ALL political prisoners and prisoners of war!

To all of you who struggle in unity to free our encaged sisters and brothers, I extend the left hand of my left arm which is closest to my heart. Whatever you do, my love and strength are with you.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,

-Standing Deer

by Standing Deer

Greetings from the dungeon in February of '98. Winter is such a lovely time of year. Even when I'm in the dungeon, I have my memories to keep me peaceful. I love to just walk in the cold, brisk air and take in the smell and feel and presence of the Great Spirit. But in so many ways, prison is such a sad place to be, seeing the brothers from the reservations with such gloom on their faces, some of them in the white man's prison for the first time ever, and so many of them doing time for minor alcohol-related crimes.

There was this older Lakota man on the yard one time in the middle of a snowstorm. You could hardly see him, and Security had ordered all the prisoners off the yard because visibility was almost down to nil. He was very calmly sitting cross-legged on Mother Earth with his shirt off as the snow began to pile upon his shoulders. It was obvious he was praying with a Sacred Pipe he didn't have, and when I gently touched him on the shoulder he passed to me his invisible Pipe. I took it from him with great respect and puffed on it as I turned to each of the Four Sacred Directions. Then I passed it to the invisible Spirit that was standing to my left. The Brother's lips were turning blue as I helped him to his feet and said, "Let's go inside and drink some coffee." He smiled and said, "I'll be home before the days grow long." I didn't know what he meant, but smiled in return. He followed me into the building and I could feel the presence of his Spirit, and it was overpowering.

I knew that here was a man I could learn from, but in the spring the guards beat him to death over in the hole because they could not make him stop singing a song about his people. Although he had a life sentence, he went home before the days grew long.

In Texas, our Indian religion is against the law, and I see how much the traditional brothers suffer from being denied the religion of their Grandfathers and Grandmothers. For those sisters and brothers who wonder why the most important thing in their lives -- their religion -- has been banned and made against the law, I have written the following poem. I pray my words will lend some comfort to those sisters and brothers who need comforting, and perhaps my poem will help others not of our faith to see what a brutal injustice it is for the prisoncrats to suppress Indian religion in their Iron Houses.

What is in your heart they cannot take. Do they forbid you to have a sweat lodge? You are sitting in one every day. The roof of your prison is the sacred covering; the bars the sacred willow; the stone floor is your mother; the sacred rocks are heated in the fire of your Indian heart. Take the water from the sink in your cell and pour it over your head and you shall be purified. Do they take away your pipe, your feathers, your medicine, or your privileges? Who can take your power? Who can take your dream? Who takes your visions? Your pipe is your soul. It has no form. Yet, look at your brother. Do you see the living pipe? You have no feathers? They are invisible. Yet Wakan Tanka knows you wear them and pray with them. Your holy medicine is your tears. It is good to cry like a man for wisdom. When you see your brother crying, go to him and lick the tears from his cheeks, and you shall have medicine. These are your privileges. Your power is to resist through your will. Strengthen your will. With every tear, you grow stronger because they fear your will to endure. They are already defeated because they abuse what they cannot conquer. Your life is their defeat.

Standing Deer Wilson, 640289,
Estelle Unit, Huntsville, TX 77340

thunderclanwmn

06-28-2005, 11:44 PM

http://****************/NativeLegacy

Wingy

07-05-2005, 06:32 AM

Leonard Peltier Moved to Indiana & Solitary Confinement (http://<b><font%20size=)

FROM THE Leonard Peltier Defense Committee HEADQUARTERS

CALL TO ACTION FOR LEONARD PELTIER, #89637-132

This morning, July 1, 2005, Cyrus Peltier, grandson of Leonard went to visit his grandpa as he has for the last 13 years. He was stopped at the visiting area and was told, "He's gone". Upon questioning, he was told that Leonard was transferred and after further inquiries, finally found out that Leonard has been moved to USP Terre Haute, Indiana. At this time, Leonard is in the hole and is being kept there indefinitely. NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT.

It is basic procedure to keep transferred inmates in the hole while processing takes place, however we do not know how long that will take. We are asking anyone and everyone to get on the phones and get out their pens and paper. Let's flood the telephones with calls regarding Leonard! Let's stuff their mailboxes with letters about Leonard! Urge the prison to allow Leonard to contact his family as soon as possible. Ask how he is, ask where to write, ask if he's OK, ask about his health, his privileges (phones, letters, visits, religious rights, ability to paint, etc.) inquire as to his safety-anything-just keep calling and let the prison know that the entire world is watching and is concerned about Leonard. Please be sure to be courteous and professional, as we do not wish to complicate Leonard's situation.

The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Peltier Legal Team and Leonard's family are working hard to ensure Leonard's safety and we will keep you informed as things develop.

Mitakuye Oyasin.
LPDC, Inc

USP Terre Haute
U.S. Penitentiary
4700 Bureau Road South
Terre Haute, IN 47802
Phone-812-244-4400
Fax----812-244-4789
THP/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV

Federal Bureau of Prisons
320 First Street NW
Washington, DC 20534
202-307-3198
info@bop.gov

--------------------------------------------------------------------------Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier was moved to Terre Haute, Indiana on 6/30/05 and is in solitary confinement. He was framed on false murder charges, has sat in prison for some 30 years, and is now a frail 60 year old man. His lawyers, family and friends were not notified of this move. This is another "rendition" or kidnapping perpetrated by Nazi USA.

Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier was moved to Terre Haute, Indiana on 6/30/05 and is in solitary confinement. He was framed on false murder charges, has sat in prison for some 30 years, and is now a frail 60 year old man. His lawyers, family and friends were not notified of this move. This is another "rendition" or kidnapping perpetrated by Nazi USA.

From: http://www.leonardpeltier.org/main.html: (http://www.leonardpeltier.org/main.html:)

LEONARD WAS MOVED TO TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA, THURSDAY JUNE 30TH, 2005. HE HAS BEEN PLACED IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT INDEFINITELY. OUR OFFICE IN LAWRENCE KANSAS IS CLOSED AND WE NEED ALL THE SUPPORT YOU CAN GIVE TO MOVE AND REVITALIZE THE ORGANIZATION AT THIS TIME OF DIREST NEED.

PLEASE SEND DONATIONS TO LPDC C/O RUSS REDNER, 10905 KUHLMAN RD. #B, OLYMPIA WA, 98613, OR C/O TONI ZEIDAN.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL TOLL FREE: 866-534-6151

Call your congresspersonand 2 US Senators listed in your phone book today and demand that Leonard Peltier be moved to the general population TODAY.

The quick facts on the Peltier case are listed at:
http://www.freepeltier.org/quick_facts_peltier.htm (http://www.freepeltier.org/quick_facts_peltier.htm)
A good biography of Leonard Peltier may be found at:
http://www.freepeltier.org/story.htm (http://www.freepeltier.org/story.htm)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

chintath

07-05-2005, 09:15 PM

I was so shocked when I read about this. How much more can this poor man endure.

[QUOTE=Wingy]Leonard Peltier Moved to Indiana & Solitary Confinement (http://<b><font%20size=/)

Wingy

07-06-2005, 05:25 AM

by Stormy Ogden

In the warmth of my fantasy
I awake to the cold gray walls
Of my reality

These words echoed in my mind as the Judge read the sentence, "Ms Ogden, you are to be sentenced for a period of 5 years to be served at the California Rehabilitation Center located in Norco." My reality is becoming devastatingly more common among the women of the United States. Women are the fastest growing segment of the prison population especially in California, which now has the distinction of having the most women prisoners in the nation. Historically, the most brutal methods of social control are directed at a society's most oppressed groups. And the most brutal form of social control in the United States is the state and federal prison system. The ones that are most likely to be sent to jail and prison are the poor and/or women of color. In North America a very high proportion of these people are American Indians.

The number of American Indian prisoners, especially the women, is nearly impossible to obtain. The major reason is the prison classification system that in the majority of prisons classifies prisoners as White, Black, Hispanic, or Other.

Located outside the door to my room was a small white 8x5 card that listed my last name, Ogden, my state number, W-20170, and my classification, Other. Every morning as I left for my job assignment, I would cross out Other and write AI. Then each afternoon when I returned for count there would be a new card with Other written on it. This went on for a few days when finally the CO approached me, "next time, Ogden, it will be a write up and a loss of good time." That next morning, before going to work, I found a permanent laundry marker, tore the card off the wall, and wrote on the wall, American Indian.

Women in prison are fighting to maintain a sense of self within a system that isolates and degrades, a system that is designed to punish. But, for the American Indian woman, we must also fight for our identity.

I write this as a California Indian woman, a tribal woman of Yokuts and Pomo ancestry. I also write as an ex-prisoner of the state of California and a survivor of colonization by the European powers. The history of colonization is a tragic one from the time of European contact to the present day.

The colonizers brought with them two tools of mass destruction, the bottle and the bible, both which were forced upon the Native people. The outcome was the erosion of peoples' language, culture, life-ways, religion, land base and lives. Their traditional ways of behavior and conduct became illegal. With increased attacks on Indian sovereignty and culture, imprisonment became the government principal means of intimidation and punishment. As stated by Professor Luana Ross in her book: Inventing the Savage: the Social Construction of Native American Criminality "Through various procedures, state and federal governments defined Native Americans as 'deviant' and 'criminal.'"

Almost every aspect of life of Indian people has been subjected to the unrestricted jurisdiction of the United States. The history of relations between Indian nations and the United States has been marked by oppressive laws and policies designed to undermine the sovereignty of Indian nations and to weaken their culture. These laws were geared towards the total annihilation and then assimilation of Indian people into the mainstream dominant society. Native people have been imprisoned in many different forms, such as, Military forts, Missions, Reservations, Boarding schools, and now the State and Federal prisons. These can only be instruments of racism and a form of social control.

The criminalization and imprisonment of Native people can be interpreted as yet another attempt to control Indian lands and the ongoing attempt to deny Indian sovereignty, as we see by the alarming number of Native people that are being locked up on their own ancestral homelands. No Native person can ever forget that his or her homeland was taken and that they live in poverty on the margin of society, desperately fighting to hold on to their traditional ways of life. Keeping this in mind, it can be said that the Prison Industrial Complex was built right through the lives and the ancestral lands of the Indigenous people of this continent.

Wingy

07-07-2005, 06:53 AM

http://img.ljworld.com/ljworld/art/ljw_logo_print.gif

Peltier moves to Indiana penitentiary

Leavenworth becoming medium-security institution

Thursday, July 7, 2005

Leonard Peltier, serving two life sentences for the 1975 slaying of two FBI agents in South Dakota, has been moved to a federal penitentiary in Indiana, according to his attorney and the Bureau of Prisons.

Peltier’s relocation to the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., was prompted by a change in mission at the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., where he has been held.

Maximum-security prisoners had to be moved out of the penitentiary so the facility can be transformed into a medium-security institution.

“We kind of thought he was going to be transferred,” Peltier’s attorney, Barry Bachrach, said Wednesday. “We didn’t know when.”

It apparently happened last week and Bachrach found out Friday when Peltier’s grandson went to visit him.

Peltier’s move also means that the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee is in the process of moving from its downtown Lawrence headquarters to a new location in Terre Haute.

Paula Ostrovsky, media and public relations officer for the committee, said it made sense for the organization to be located near Peltier.

“It is his wishes that we move as he moves,” Ostrovsky said.

Bachrach said he talked to Peltier by telephone Wednesday afternoon. Peltier was told by prison officials that he will remain in solitary confinement indefinitely but “was given no reason,” he said.

Initially, prison officials told Peltier he would be “in the hole” until his paperwork arrived, Bachrach said.

“The situation is not good,” he said. “He has no fresh air, no stamps, no way to call and he’s about ready to run out of his meds.”

Peltier, who suffers from diabetes and other ailments, has two days of medication left, Bachrach said.

“I’m going to try to get U.N. and congressional intervention. There’s a U.S. Supreme Court case that says they can’t do this,” he said.

An employee at the Indiana prison said no one was available to answer media questions about Peltier’s status.

Peltier, 60, was a member of the American Indian Movement in the 1970s and was convicted in Fargo, N.D., of killing agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler 30 years ago, on June 26, 1975. Both men were shot in the head at point-blank range after being injured in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

AIM member Joseph Stuntz also was shot that day. The Justice Department concluded an FBI sniper killed Stuntz, who was clad in Coler’s FBI jacket when his body was found.

Peltier has maintained his innocence, but numerous appeals have failed to overturn the convictions or order a parole hearing. Several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have called for Peltier’s release.

At a hearing last month in Fargo, N.D., Bachrach argued that the government had no right to send Peltier to prison. An assistant U.S. attorney argued the claim is frivolous and the only way Peltier could get back in court.

Bachrach said he’s still awaiting a ruling on his request.

Peltier’s move came just days before the death of 75-year-old Calvin Jumping Bull, whose family ranch was the site of the killings.

Peltier’s defense committee had been located in Lawrence for at least the past 13 years, which is the amount of time Peltier has been housed in the Leavenworth penitentiary, Ostrovsky said.

The office, located at 932 Mass., already was in a state of transition before the unexpected transfer of Peltier. Ostrovsky and her husband, Russell Redner, were in the process of moving from Olympia, Wash., to Lawrence to run the office. Ostrovsky said they would rather be in Lawrence than Terre Haute but were willing to make the move for Peltier’s sake.

“We really can not live in peace knowing that he is suffering,” Ostrovsky said.

Wingy

07-07-2005, 06:33 PM

Monday, June 13, 2005

Boston Native American Indian Law To Finally End

Governor Romney of Massachusetts signed a bill repealing The Boston Indian Imprisonment Act. Passed in 1675 during King Philip's War, the law made it legal to imprison any Native American entering Boston. Obviously, it has not been enforced for many years. "It is our hope that signing this bill into law will provide some closure to a very painful and old chapter in Massachusetts history," said Romney. "This archaic law belongs in the history books, not the law books."
I am willing to bet that there are many other similar laws and bylaws still in existence in areas located in both the United States and Canada. I'm sure that nobody actually enforces these archaic laws today but they should still be finally wiped out since they are an insult to Native American Indians and Eskimo Inuit peoples as well. We should be doing everything we can to celebrate our different heritages and enjoy our different cultures freely.

Wingy

07-08-2005, 03:40 PM

Harjo: : July 07, 2005 by: Suzan Shown Harjo (http://www.indiancountry.com/author.cfm?id=26) / Indian Country Today politicians stake out ground for the fight over Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement on the Supreme Court, the right is condemning her and the left is praising her for being a moderate, by which they mean a swing vote. In Indian cases too, she often has been the deciding vote, especially in decisions against the Native interest, but her overall record reflects an indecisive judicial philosophy regarding federal Indian law.

Her main area of consistency is that land-grabs of the past are not to be revisited and that actions cannot benefit Native people if they deprive non-Native people or states of anything.

She has been an important voice for the canon of construction that treaties and laws are to be interpreted in the way that Indians understand them. At the same time, she has approached Native religious freedom issues as if there were no history of violations of Native religious liberties and as if Native sacred places always belonged to the federal government.

O'Connor trampled on everyone's religious rights in a 1990 decision by proclaiming Oregon's compelling (read: superior) interest in prohibiting the ceremonial use of peyote by two state employees. Congress had to step in and enact broad, clarifying legislation about state burdens on religion, as well as an amendment to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act for peyote use by members of the Native American Church.

In an earlier case in 1988, she opined that neither the First Amendment nor AIRFA provides a door to the courts for protection of Native sacred places, mainly because the Native view of the sacred is too expansive.

That decision has done deep and lasting damage to sacred places and Native people who care for them. In the 17 years since that decision, Congress has talked about, but not enacted, the needed statute providing a cause of action for protection of these historic and cultural sites.

This case involved a federal logging road that the Forest Service routed through a Native sacred place in northern California. O'Connor authored the April 19, 1988 majority opinion for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and justices Byron R. White, John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia.

''It is undisputed that the Indian respondents' beliefs are sincere and that the Government's proposed actions will have severe adverse effects on the practice of their religion,'' read the court's opinion. ''Those respondents contend that the burden on their religious practices is heavy enough to violate the Free Exercise Clause unless the Government can demonstrate a compelling need to complete the [logging] road or to engage in timber harvesting in the Chimney Rock area. We disagree.''

The five-judge majority overturned decisions by district court and appellate judges, who ruled for the traditional Indian people, and made it clear that the Supreme Court knew that harm would result from the opinion. ''The Government does not dispute, and we have no reason to doubt, that the logging and road-building projects at issue in this case could have devastating effects on traditional Indian religious practices ... we can assume that the threat to the efficacy of at least some religious practices is extremely grave.''

O'Connor's there-goes-the-neighborhood concern is best appreciated in her own words: ''No disrespect for these practices is implied when one notes that such beliefs could easily require de facto beneficial ownership of some rather spacious tracts of public property ...

''The Constitution does not permit the Government to discriminate against religions that treat particular physical sites as sacred, and a law prohibiting the Indian respondents from visiting the Chimney Rock area would raise a different set of constitutional questions. Whatever rights the Indians may have to the use of the area, however, those rights do not divest the Government of its right to use what is, after all, its land.''

Nowhere in the decision is there a hint of admission that most of the public lands were stolen or coerced from Indian nations and that federal rules prohibited Indian people from going to sacred places on those lands for more than 50 years.

''Nothing in our opinion should be read to encourage governmental insensitivity to the religious needs of any citizen ... The Government's rights to the use of its own land, for example, need not and should not discourage it from accommodating religious practices like those engaged in by the Indian respondents.''

A dissenting opinion was filed by justices William J. Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Harry A. Blackmun. Brennan wrote for the three-judge minority: ''The land-use decision challenged here will restrain respondents from practicing their religion as surely and as completely as any of the governmental actions we have struck down in the past, and the Court's efforts simply to define away respondents' injury as non-constitutional are both unjustified and ultimately unpersuasive.''

Reading the dissent again reminds me of the clear thinking and good writing that passed with these three justices. They wrote that the ''Court's concern that the claims of Native Americans will place 'religious servitudes' upon vast tracts of federal property cannot justify its refusal to recognize the constitutional injury respondents will suffer here ... That case, however, is most assuredly not before us today, and in any event cannot justify the Court's refusal to acknowledge that the injuries respondents will suffer as a result of the Government's proposed activities are sufficient to state a constitutional cause of action.

''Today, the Court holds that a federal land-use decision that promises to destroy an entire religion does not burden the practice of that faith in a manner recognized by the Free Exercise Clause. Having thus stripped respondents and all other Native Americans of any constitutional protection against perhaps the most serious threat to their age-old religious practices, and indeed to their entire way of life, the Court assures us that nothing in its decision 'should be read to encourage governmental insensitivity to the religious needs of any citizen.'''

Brennan concluded their dissent in this way: ''I find it difficult, however, to imagine conduct more insensitive to religious needs than the Government's determination to build a marginally useful road in the face of uncontradicted evidence that the road will render the practice of respondents' religion impossible. Nor do I believe that respondents will derive any solace from the knowledge that although the practice of their religion will become 'more difficult' as a result of the Government's actions, they remain free to maintain their religious beliefs.

''Given today's ruling, that freedom amounts to nothing more than the right to believe that their religion will be destroyed. The safeguarding of such a hollow freedom not only makes a mockery of the 'policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the[ir] traditional religions' (quoting AIRFA), it fails utterly to accord with the dictates of the First Amendment. I dissent.''

Members of Congress can honor the record of O'Connor by doing as she suggested and crafting a statutory cause of action for Native sacred places. But the reasons for doing it will be found in the words and reasoning of the departed dissenters.

Wingy

07-09-2005, 04:20 AM

July 8, 2005

Last modified July 8, 2005 - 12:39 am
Meth dealer gets life sentence

Associated Press

CHEYENNE - A man convicted of selling methamphetamine in Fremont County and on Indian reservations in Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska was sentenced to life in prison.

Judge Alan B. Johnson handed down the sentence Wednesday to Jesus Martin Sagaste-Cruz, who had been convicted of distribution of methamphetamine and conspiracy. The judge called it "a sad commentary" that demand for methamphetamine allowed for Sagaste-Cruz to run a profitable business.

"And that's what this was - a business, pure and simple, to distribute large quantities of methamphetamine," Johnson said.

Authorities said Sagaste-Cruz sold more than 99 pounds of meth on the Wind River Indian Reservation and in neighboring Fremont County, and sold additional quantities on the Rosebud, Pine Ridge and Yankton reservations in South Dakota and the Santee Reservation in Nebraska.

Jeffrey D. Sweetin, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Rocky Mountain Region, said Sagaste-Cruz sought to exploit jurisdictional loopholes on Indian reservations.

"Sagaste-Cruz is a predator who targeted Native Americans in order to make a profit," Sweetin said. "Today, the United States has sent a strong message to those who would attempt to follow in his footsteps - you will be caught, prosecuted and sentenced to the fullest extent of the law no matter where you deal your poison."

Copyright © 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Wingy

07-09-2005, 04:27 AM

Deal sets rules for Native inmatesBy KEVIN O'HANLON/The Associated Press State prison officials have agreed to new rules to accommodate the religious and cultural needs of Native inmates in order to settle a federal court action. The settlement agreement, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, arose from a complaint filed by inmate Richard T. Walker, a Native sentenced in Thurston County to a life term in 1966 for second-degree murder. His complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Lincoln on behalf of the prison system's approximately 200 Native inmates. Among Walker's allegations was a claim that prison officials made so many demands for qualifications on a medicine man that he stopped coming to the prison to conduct religious and cultural affairs services for the state's Native inmates. Walker also alleged that prison officials required the medicine man to be able to "acclimate" to the religious needs of other inmates, including Christians and Muslims. The settlement agreement would replace a 1974 consent decree signed by U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom requiring prison officials to allow Native inmates to conduct religious ceremonies and have access to medicine men and ceremonial tobacco. Urbom must approve the settlement before it can take effect. The consent decree, many argued, was diluted by the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act, which was meant to reduce the number of inmate lawsuits. Courts often have responded to inmate lawsuits over prison conditions by ordering state officials to relieve those that violate some constitutional right. Congress enacted the 1996 law out of its concern that federal courts were intruding too far into state prison management. The law limits a judge's power to order changes in conditions of confinement "no further than necessary to correct the violation of the federal right of a particular plaintiff or plaintiffs." Under the law, remedies must be the "least intrusive means necessary" to correct any violation. "The consent decree … lost a lot of its usefulness after the enactment of the" 1996 law, said Bassel El-Kasaby, one of the lawyers representing the inmates. "We thought it was in the interests of the inmates to create this new framework." In the proposed settlement, prison officials agreed to allow Native inmates to have two powwows a year and give them time for religious education and worship ceremonies. The inmates also can use traditional, ceremonial foods such as fry bread, corn and "berry dish" in their ceremonies. The inmates agreed to not use tobacco — which is banned in the prison system — in their ceremonies. But prison officials will let them use chinshasha, which is made from the bark of red willow trees, as a substitute. Prison officials also agreed to allow the reinstatement of the Native American Club and allow access to medicine men and other spiritual leaders. Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Tomka, who helped reach the settlement, was not in her office because of Veterans Day and could not be reached to comment.But she had argued earlier that prison officials had gone out of their way to accommodate Native inmates. She said, for example, that inmates were allowed to proceed with their religious ceremonies even when a medicine man failed to show up to lead a ceremony.

Wingy

07-11-2005, 12:56 PM

Wampanoag Tribe Drops Appeal in Federal Court; State High Ruling Prevails

By James Kinsella
Gazette Senior Writer

The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) announced this week that it will not appeal the landmark sovereignty case to the United State Supreme Court.

The decision means that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) decision from late last year will be allowed to stand, and the case will now return to the superior court for a remedy.

The state's highest court ruled that the tribe must abide by state and town zoning rules, reversing the lower court decision that found the Wampanoags cannot be sued because of sovereign immunity - and preserving the integrity of a historic 1983 Indian land claims settlement agreement that was the crux of the case.

The state's highest court found that the Wampanoags waived sovereign immunity when they signed the settlement agreement, which led to federal recognition for the tribe in 1987.

The Wampanoags are the only federally recognized tribe in the commonwealth.

"We now have a definitive resolution of the relationship between the tribe and the town in relation to land use," said James Quarles 3rd, who represented the Aquinnah/Gay Head Community Association, a group of taxpayers and one of the plaintiffs in the case.

"At least as to the issues decided, the Supreme Judicial Court has spoken and that is now the final word," Mr. Quarles added.

"This is important to the town and important to the Island," said Aquinnah town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport yesterday. "It means the same rules apply to the tribe as the town. The town itself has to abide by zoning. What are the rules? That's important," Mr. Rappaport said, adding:

"I am pleased for both the town and the tribe that this matter is not going to push farther."

Tribal chairman Donald Widdiss said yesterday that the council decided that government-to-government discussions with the town were a more fruitful avenue than continuing to fight the issue in court. Mr. Widdiss said informal discussions with town officials revealed that they would welcome the conversations.

"Don stressed he wants to work with the town and we want to work with the tribe, within the framework of the court decision. Hopefully, we can mend any fences that have been broken," said Aquinnah selectman and board chairman James Newman yesterday.

Mr. Widdiss was elected tribal chairman last November, defeating longtime chairman Beverly Wright.

The court dispute dates back to March of 2001, when the tribe built a small shed and a pier at its shellfish hatchery without obtaining a building permit. The hatchery sits on the tribally owned Cook Lands fronting Menemsha Pond. The town took the tribe to court over the infraction, and in June of 2003 the Hon. Richard F. Connon, an associate justice of the superior court, found that the Wampanoags cannot be sued because of sovereign immunity.

The SJC overturned the ruling.

"We conclude that, with respect to its land use on the Cook Lands, the only land in dispute in this case, the tribe waived its sovereign immunity, thus subjecting the tribe and the hatchery to the zoning enforcement action," wrote Justice John M. Greaney in the Dec. 2004 decision.

The tribe announced its decision to not pursue a federal appeal in a press release issued on Wednesday afternoon.

"The tribal council of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) has decided by unanimous consent not to file a Petition for Certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court . . . . We will instead ask the Aquinnah selectmen to resume negotiations suspended when the original action was filed. Our goal is to provide mutually acceptable solutions to land use issues while respecting the need to set the tone for future cooperation between the tribe and town in matters of mutual benefit," the press release said. It also said:

"This decision recognizes that matters of law still remain unresolved."

The town was the original plaintiff in the case, but when the case moved to the state supreme court, the town decided not to pursue the appeal, leaving it to the taxpayer group and the Benton Family Trust, an abutters group, to seek judicial guidance from the state's highest court.

Later Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly intervened in the case.

"We stepped in [on] this case for a reason. There is more going on here than just a shed in Aquinnah. We believe it is important that the tribe live up to its agreement and comply with state law in current and future tribal projects," Mr. Reilly said in a statement at the time.

Friend of the court briefs were also filed by the Martha's Vineyard Commission and the towns of West Tisbury and Chilmark.

The case now returns to Dukes County superior court, and Mr. Rappaport said the town will again become an active party. "We are going to re-enter the case," he said.

But Mr. Newman said he would want to learn the potential remedy before deciding with his fellow selectmen whether to pursue it.

The Supreme Judicial Court decision specifically addressed with whether town and state zoning laws were applicable on the Cook Lands, which the tribe had received in the 1983 land claims settlement agreement. The agreement was signed by the town and the tribe and also ratified by the state legislature and an act of Congress.

A possible question remains whether the tribe must abide by zoning laws on other land.

Mr. Quarles and Mr. Rappaport said the answer is clear.

"What's applicable on the Cook Lands is applicable on any land, anywhere," Mr. Quarles said.

Mr. Rappaport agreed. "The case has implications for other lands," he said.

In the SJC decision Justice Greaney wrote: "Because we have concluded that the tribe waived its sovereign immunity as to land use on the Cook Lands, we need not discuss in detail the additional argument . . . [but] the tribe knowingly bargained for, and fully understood, its obligations under the settlement agreement to submit to local zoning enforcement, and judicial action, where necessary."

Mr. Widdiss said yesterday that the court battle between the tribe and the town "was being driven by ego." The tribe, he said, wanted to work out the matter outside of the court process.

Douglas Luckerman, the Lexington attorney who represented the tribe in the case, said the council was handling all tribal comment on the case.

Mr. Widdiss said the tribe plans to continue to retain Mr. Luckerman, who represents the tribe on environmental issues.

Yesterday, Mr. Quarles said, "It's now time for this issue to get resolved somewhere other than a courtroom, for the parties to talk directly to each other rather in front of a judge."

Originally published in The Vineyard Gazette

Wingy

07-11-2005, 12:59 PM

Wampanoag sues city for $10M
Gregg M. Miliote, Herald News Staff Reporter
07/08/2005

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FALL RIVER -- After being defeated in court on a number of occasions, an American Indian attorney is again suing the city for violating his civil rights and his tribe’s freedom to assemble.

Albert H. Corliss, a Wampanoag Indian, is seeking $10 million in damages.

Corliss has been tied to a slew of other lawsuits filed against the city during the past decade, most of which deal with ownership of the Watuppa Reservation.

In his most recent court filing, Corliss claims the city has systematically attempted to stop American Indian tribes from attempting to preserve a sliver of their former nation.

As evidence, Corliss alleges the "illegal" towing of his truck from the Watuppa Reservation four years ago "sent a chilling message to the Indians that the entire reservation is under the jurisdiction and control of the City of Fall River."

"This towing and confiscation is a continuum of a policy, custom and practice employed by the city since 1907," Corliss wrote to the court. "I desire a recovery of my goods and stoppage of the institutionalized behavior on behalf of the city which effectively deprives the Indian of the peaceful enjoyment of his deeded reservation."

The seizure of his vehicle came on the heels of a decision by a group of local American Indians to complete a constitution and hold governmental meetings on the reservation.

Corliss, who was the Nemasket and Troy Indian Council chairman, says less than a month after the city was notified of the tribe and its intentions, his vehicle was towed from sovereign land.

"What right did they have to go onto the reservation and just take property?" Corliss asked. "None!"

But City Corporation Counsel Thomas McGuire said he is having trouble understanding how the towing of a vehicle violated Corliss’ freedom to assemble or why he is seeking $10 million.

"That 1988 Nissan must have been kept in great shape," McGuire joked. "But seriously, this case is just like the one he filed last year."

That case was dismissed for lack of federal jurisdiction by the same U.S. District Court judge assigned to the current case.

Corliss, though, said he will point to a number of other instances of "city-led" intimidation of local American Indians as the civil case proceeds.

"There are other events I will make the court aware of at the proper time, but that’s part of the strategy of the case and I can’t really comment on that right now," Corliss said.

Although his lawsuit alleges a violation of his civil rights, Corliss told The Herald News Thursday the underlying issue to be resolved in this case is to receive a judicial ruling on who actually owns the former reservation property.

Corliss claims the city violated a 210-year-old federal law when it took more than half of the 196-acre Fall River Indian Reservation by eminent domain in 1907.

While the roots of many of Corliss’ arguments can be traced back to 1659, when the Pocassets conveyed a large tract of land to 26 colonists, he said the issue came to a head in 1907.

"The city, for a century now, has continuously claimed we are a charity and a ward of the city," Corliss said. "Yet they’re not providing us with anything except non-taxation, something that every Indian reservation already enjoys."

The city took over most of the former reservation in 1907 under a special act by the Legislature.

"It’s not as if the city forcefully took this land without fair compensation," McGuire said. "The city was in its first stages of buying up acres and acres of land around the North Watuppa Pond to protect the purity of the city’s drinking water."

But Corliss asserts the taking of American Indian land couldn’t "be more un-American."

Corliss has been at the forefront of the dispute over the former reservation land for at least the past seven years.

He has filed four separate federal court lawsuits and at least one other with the Massachusetts Land Court.

Although he was defeated in each case, Corliss says this time he "will have the upper hand."

"This is a legacy that dates back all the way to the King Philip’s War. We fought with the colonists against the king, and the way we have been treated ever since is a terrible blemish on us," Corliss said. "I’m strongly confident in this case. I learned a valuable lesson from the English: You can lose a lot of battles, but still win the war."

McGuire, though, sees things very differently.

"My confidence level in winning this case is fairly high. There is no jurisdiction for this case to be in federal court," McGuire asserted. "Plus, the statute of limitations under the federal Civil Rights Act is only three tears. This alleged incident occurred in 2001."

He said the city has legitimate cause to defend the land it acquired in 1907.

"The land the city took over is kept as open space for watershed protection of the North Watuppa," McGuire explained. "This is crucial to every resident of Fall River. We have to protect the water supply."

Corliss said if he is successful in this lawsuit, all money awarded will become "Indian money."

"I’m doing this for the good of all Indian tribes," Corliss said.

The 2000 U.S. Census states that 175 Native Americans live in Fall River and 1,283 reside in Bristol County.

Wingy

07-13-2005, 10:27 PM

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Family plans to follow Peltier

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Marquetta Shields looks forward to the day her dad, Leonard Peltier, can join her in the park for a picnic with his grandchildren.

“I always thought that hopefully by the time I had children, my dad would be out of prison,” Shields said.

Shields was just 2 years old when Peltier, an American Indian Movement activist, was convicted in the 1975 shooting death of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Shields moved her family from South Dakota to Lawrence to be near Peltier during his imprisonment at the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth. Now she’s making plans to move again.

After spending 17 years at Leavenworth, Peltier was transferred on June 30 to a maximum security federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind.

A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said the move was necessary due to a restructuring at the Leavenworth prison.

“Leavenworth is being reclassified as a medium-security institution and will no longer house high-security inmates,” said Traci Billingsley.

Peltier’s relatives said they weren’t notified prior to, or even after, the move.

‘He’s not here?’

It was Peltier’s grandson, 20-year-old Cyrus Peltier, who first learned of the transfer, after making the trip from Lawrence to Leavenworth on July 3 to visit his grandfather.

“My eyes got big, my mouth dropped, and I said, ‘Really, he’s not here?’” Cyrus Peltier said.

He’s been visiting his grandfather at Leavenworth every Sunday for as long as he can remember.

“He’s kind of like a father to me,” Cyrus Peltier said. “We would just talk about cars, fishing, eating good food and I liked to ask him a lot of questions about how it was for him in the past.”

Now Cyrus Peltier will have to travel nearly 500 miles to see his grandfather.

“It’s going to be tough — it’s going to be tough for him and it’s going to be tough for me,” Cyrus Peltier said. “But I do plan on flying back and forth whenever I get a chance to.”

The move to Terre Haute won’t stop Leonard Peltier’s supporters from fighting for his release from prison. The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, which was headquartered in Lawrence, packed up and moved last week.

“It took us two days,” Cyrus Peltier said. “We packed up the defense committee office in a U-Haul, and it’s out in Indiana, about two minutes away from the Terre Haute prison.”

2008 hearing

Supporters have been fighting for more than a quarter of a century for Peltier’s release, claiming the government framed him by fabricating and withholding evidence. Investigators have denied those claims, and his conviction has remained in effect over the decades.

Since Peltier was transferred, his daughter has not been able to speak to him because he is being housed in solitary confinement. She plans to move to Indiana within the year.

“I don’t want him to feel like he’s going to be there alone,” Shields said. “It’s just basically so my kids will know him and they can see him as much as possible.”

Peltier — who received back-to-back life sentences in his case — next gets a parole hearing in 2008. Until then, his relatives hold out hope for a resolution to the controversial case.

“I don’t want to bring my dad home in a pine box,” Shields said. “I’ll go to my grave knowing that he was innocent.”

Wingy

07-14-2005, 08:37 PM

Alaskan Gets 7 Years for Walrus Killings (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/07/13/national/a053542D87.DTL)
-
Wednesday, July 13, 2005

(07-13) 05:35 PDT Anchorage, Alaska (AP) --

An Alaska Native was sentenced to a harsh seven years in federal prison for killing six walruses, removing the heads to sell the ivory and sinking the carcasses.

Herman A. Oyagak was on probation for felony assault when he participated in what prosecutors declared a wasteful killing of walruses in 2003. That, plus his criminal history, led to the harsh sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Goeke said Tuesday.

Under federal law, Alaska Natives are allowed to hunt walruses for subsistence but they must use a substantial portion of the animal. In this case, the walruses were being killed for the ivory and bodies were abandoned, Goeke said.

A co-defendant in the case, Samuel Akpik, also of Barrow, previously was sentenced to two months in federal prison, two months of home confinement and a $500 fine.

Frequently, such illegal items end up at Anchorage gift shops, said Steve Oberholtzer, assistant special agent in charge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska. A bull walrus head mount — just the tusks and nose plate mounted on a piece of wood — can sell for $3,000 or more, he said.

Oberholtzer said the arrests in the walrus killings came from information supplied by outraged villagers.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/07/13/national/a053542D87.DTL

Wingy

07-14-2005, 08:43 PM

Inuit family's plight to appear in print Last updated Jul 12 2005 08:43 AM MDT
CBC News (http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.html)A new book telling the story of an Inuit family who became exhibits in a European zoo will be published soon, due to the efforts of a German academic to translate the tragic tale.

The book, The Diary of Abraham Ulrikab, describes the plight of eight Inuit from Labrador whom a ship captain brought to Germany in the 1800s. They became attractions in a travelling zoo for Europeans interested in the so-called Eskimo culture.

Within four months, all eight had died of smallpox, a disease for which they had no immunity.

Their story is preserved in one Inuk's diary. The original Inuktitut version was lost, but a German copy survived.

Now an expert in Canadian studies at the University of Greifswald in Germany, Hartmut Lutz, has translated the diary to English with the help of his students.

"I don't know Inuktitut," said Lutz. "All we could do was translate it as closely [as possible] to the original and bring it out so people in Labrador, who have no access to German, know what happened to Abraham over 100 years ago."

The Diary of Abraham Ulrikab is expected to be published by the University of Ottawa Press in the fall.

Wingy

07-14-2005, 08:49 PM

Michael W. Naylor letter: No reason Indians should be grateful

Published Sunday, July 10, 2005

In his letter to the editor (Reject proposal to apologize to the Indians, July 2), Thomas Bowden makes the absurd assertion that the conquering Europeans gave American Indians the great gift of Western civilization for which they should be grateful. What he failed to mention is that this wonderful "gift" was wrapped in paper with genocidal print.

It was an expensive "gift" for which American Indians paid with their lives, lands, and culture. Decimated by smallpox, they were the victims of the earliest documented use of biological warfare when Indian combatants in the Pontiac Rebellion were given blankets from the smallpox hospital at Fort Pitt. The "gift" had its desired effect.

The "benign" U.S. policy towards American Indians included starving them onto reservations. In the late 1800s the government pursued a policy to exterminate the bison, the plains Indians' major source of sustenance. The plan was wildly successful. The population of bison, once estimated to be 70 million, was less than 1,000 by the 1890s and the last major Indian uprising at Wounded Knee was quelled.

This "gift" came at the expense of families whose children were kidnapped and placed in boarding schools for assimilation into white society. Children were forced to cut their hair (spiritually symbolic for many native cultures), prohibited from speaking their native tongue, and abused. Children who did not die in these boarding schools found themselves unwelcome in white society and a stranger to their own.

That Bowden fails to understand why Indians were not grateful for the "gift" of Western civilization makes me wonder if he thinks that African Americans should be grateful for slavery. After all, didn't the slave traders rescue their ancestors from living conditions as primitive as the American Indians' and give them the gift of Western civilization?

Michael W. Naylor

(Graduate of Fargo South & NDSU) Chicago

MiaBellaAngela

07-17-2005, 05:42 PM

Through Indian Eyes
The Untold Story of Native American Peoples

by Reader's Digest

Hardcover.

Wingy

07-18-2005, 08:18 PM

I havent read the book and just looked at some glowing reviews... What i read first, though, did not make me very happy

" Beginning with the waves of Asian migrants to North America at the end of the last ice age,..."

thats scientist talk, and only a theory...scientists deciding who we are and where we came from...that theory has been discounted but some still refuse to give it up...

When i first read the reviews I thought i would purchase the book for my own library and one for my husband...i am reconsidering...

MiaBellaAngela

07-18-2005, 08:19 PM

Wingy

07-18-2005, 08:41 PM

yeah, i read the pictures and maps, etc were amazing, so thats a great idea...I just hate to spend my $$$ on something about the First People that wasnt written by the First People...I did look at the accrditation page and didnt see any names i recognized (not that that really means anything. I am going to check it out Mia, thanks for the suggestion...

Wingy

07-19-2005, 08:56 AM

Wingy says...." 4 Tribes continue to fight for the release of the bones of this ancestor. for proper burial, including ceremony. Repatriation of the Ancestors and their property is law, and the government and scientists continue to flaunt their lawless acts in studying the bones of our ancestors."

Friday, July 15, 2005
Kennewick Man gives up secrets
But more questions arise after first study of ancient bones

By CAROL SMITH (carolsmith@seattlepi.com)
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Kennewick Man yielded a few tantalizing clues to his past yesterday as the team of scientists studying him wrapped up the first phase of its investigation.

The skull of the skeleton found on the bank of the Columbia River nine years ago shares common characteristics with other "paleo-Indians" of North America, said David Hunt, physical anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution, who pieced together the skull for the first time.

"You can tell when it fits exactly," he said of the ancient three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. "I could just feel it."

But that finding alone raises more questions about various theories of how the Americas were populated, said Douglas Owsley, also a forensic anthropologist with the Smithsonian and leader of the scientific team.

"He's of a line we weren't expecting," he said. "What was a simple model is not right. He shows the complexity."

At this point, scientists aren't prepared to say more than that.

"He could be somebody locally born and raised, or he could be an immigrant himself," Owsley said.

Kennewick Man, who was found with a spearhead embedded in his hip, has been at the center of a mystery about his origins and a controversy over what to do with him since his discovery in 1996. Several Northwest tribes, including the Yakama, Umatilla, Nez Perce and Colville, claimed him as an ancestor and asked to rebury the bones under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

A few months later, scientists sued to block the reburial and petitioned for the right to study the rare skeleton.

In 2002, a federal court ruled that the bones could be studied, a decision that was upheld two years later.

So far, the long-sought investigation has raised more questions than it's answered. Even Kennewick Man's age -- both biological and archaeological -- are up in the air. He was originally believed to have been in his mid-40s when he died about 9,300 years ago. Scientists are now hedging that.

The bones have been judged to be 8,400 radiocarbon years (which are not the same as calendar years), but with a range of 2,600, which Owsley said was unacceptably broad. Scientists plan to redate the bones to narrow the age.

And regarding his chronological age at the time of his death from undisclosed causes, Owsley was circumspect.

"We may be inclined to modify that," he said, but wouldn't elaborate.

There are a few things they know for sure, however. A sophisticated CT scan used to measure and reconstruct models of the bone fragments helped show which way the spearhead entered the man's hip bone.

But they're not telling -- yet.

The spearhead lodged in his hip appeared to be a healed injury, Owsley said, although there is still debate over whether it was an active site of infection.

"I do know when (the spear) hit he knew it," Owsley said. "It was sheared off at the tip, and you can see the base is broken where he grabbed it and twisted it off."

And the man likely had other misadventures.

Hugh Berryman, a consulting forensic anthropologist who works for crime labs in Tennessee, is an expert on bone fractures caused by everything from gunshots to gravity.

His job was to sort out which fractures in the skeleton came from the pressure of being buried in the earth and then eroding out of the bank of the river, and which happened during Kennewick Man's life.

There do appear to be some fractures that occurred when he was alive, Berryman said.

The team, which has spent nearly every waking hour at the Burke Museum in Seattle looking at, analyzing and talking about the bones for the past two weeks, was elated over the details that were emerging.

Dozens of variables, from the pattern of algae deposits to fine water abrasion, rodent nibbling and sediment deposits, were duly noted and factored into the story of the bones.

"We have had our days where we spent the whole day on a single bone," Owsley said.

"Our primary goal was to have a very exact inventory of the bones," he said. The decomposing skeleton, broken into nearly 400 pieces, had many fragments that hadn't yet been described and cataloged.

All the data from the first phase of the inquiry will be compiled into a report this fall and passed along to a second team of scientists who will begin their examination of the bones early next year.

The second phase will try to determine finer details such as whether he was intentionally buried or died accidentally and was covered in silt where he fell.

A third phase of study will try to determine characteristics such as "robusticity," physical size and where and how the Kennewick Man was "muscled up," Owsley said. That information could lead to clues about his lifestyle and activities.

"The bone records its own history," Berryman said. "This is like a rare book. We're reading a page at a time."

Experts wrap up analysis of Kennewick Man

This story was published Friday, July 15th, 2005

By Anna King, Herald staff writer

SEATTLE -- The dozens of eyes studying Kennewick Man began to show the strain Thursday afternoon of the long hours and intensive analysis of the past 10 days.

The scientists had just hours left to complete their work. And these dozen experts in fields from forensic anthropology to geochemistry could be the last Kennewick Man sees.

They were guarded in their remarks about what they have found so far, but a few details slipped -- like the position of some of the 9,400-year-old skeleton's hands and feet and if his skull links him to other ancient populations of North and South America.

Hugh Berryman, one of the scientists, took a break at a shady table holding an almost empty Diet Coke outside the Burke Museum on the scenic University of Washington campus where the study is going on inside a classroom.

"I'd like to be able to put some things together, and then look at it again to make sure I've got it right," he said, with a soft Southern accent. "But there just isn't time."

Berryman, a forensic anthropologist at Middle Tennessee State University in Nashville, specializes in how bones break. He's been carefully examining each of Kennewick Man's bones and determining when, how and why each broke.

Berryman said he thinks Kennewick Man's right hand was facing palm down and his left foot was heel down and turned out and to the side while he was buried along the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick for all those centuries. Yet none of the scientists were willing to speculate yet on whether the old man was buried or was preserved for so many years right where he fell.

But those answers are coming.

Sometimes four of the scientists have spent an entire day studying just one of the major limb bones, Berryman said.

David Hunt, a forensic anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., said it took him four days to piece together the expensive and high-tech 11-piece model of Kennewick Man's skull and compare it to the original. The pieces for the model were fabricated weeks ago and assembled last week.

After he put it together, Hunt said he thinks the skull's shape looks similar to other Paleo-American skulls he's handled.

"Some of the features I see here are very similar to the Paleo-Indian, Paleo-Native American cultures I've worked with," he said.

Hunt used jeweler's wax on the original skull to make sure the model fit as closely as possible to the real thing. He said he was a bit nervous while handling pieces of Kennewick Man's skull, and he expects criticism on his reconstruction, despite his painstaking work.

Doug Owsley, the team's lead scientist and a forensic anthropologist for the Smithsonian, was quick to point out that he doesn't think Kennewick Man is related to modern-day tribes.

"It's much more complicated," he said. "He doesn't fit into this simple Bering (Sea) land bridge model. He could be an immigrant himself."

The plastic replica skull was created using a high-powered CAT scan machine, and cost about $20,000. Nathan Myhrvold of Seattle, the former chief technologist at Microsoft, was identified Thursday as the plastic skull's major donor.

Owsley said the scientists have determined that Kennewick Man's skeleton was buried and then didn't shift much until he was eroded out of the riverbank along the Columbia. The skeleton was found by college students wading in the river during Water Follies in 1996.

Scientists also were looking for cut marks or signs that a burrowing animal had damaged the skeleton and left tiny scratches behind.

Scientists say they believe the sharp stone point lodged in Kennewick Man's hip is made of basalt. And they think they might be able to determine where the basalt came from.

In the next week, Owsley said a plastic model of the arrowhead in his hip will be made so scientists who specialize in stone tools can take a closer look at what's inside.

And in October they expect to have an interim report prepared.

But the scientists say they are worried about Kennewick Man's future.

Further studies of Kennewick Man could be stopped if a bill proposed by U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., passes and a two-word amendment changes the wording of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It would let federally recognized tribes demand the return of remains, even if they can't prove a link to a modern tribe. And that decision might be made in just a few weeks in Washington, D.C.

Northwest Native American tribes believe Kennewick Man is their ancestor and want to rebury the bones.

"That is so scary, because it would end it," Berryman said. "Any attempt to understand the past would be gone."

Today could be the last time the forensic scientist ever gets the chance to study the ancient bones.

"Mr. Kennewick is a fine gentleman," Berryman said. "I wouldn't mind seeing him again. He's like an old friend."

Wingy

07-19-2005, 08:58 AM

Tribal leaders to visit England

The American delegation includes Virginia Indians who are a major part of the Jamestown 2007 events.

BY CHRIS FLORES (cflores@dailypress.com)
247-4738

July 15 2005

WILLIAMSBURG -- As members of the federal commission organizing the Jamestown 2007 commemoration board a plane to England today to meet with their British counterparts, Virginia Indian tribal leaders also will be making their first official visit since the 1600s.

Virginia's tribal leaders said Thursday that the trip - as well as receiving federal recognition by 2007 - will be an important part of a healing process that is 398 years in the making.

The presence of Virginia Indian tribes on the journey to England is also part of a spirit of inclusion of Indian perspectives that will make the 400th anniversary of the founding of America's first English-speaking settlement much different than the 350th or 300th anniversaries.

"We have this tremendous opportunity to start the healing process, and I want to affirm that that's what this is to us," said Ken Adams, chief of the Upper Mattaponi Tribe.

The terrorist attacks in London last week won't stop the trip, either. Frank B. Atkinson, chair of the federal commission, e-mailed condolences to Jamestown 2007 British Committee member William Blair, the brother of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Within a day, Blair sent back an e-mail assuring the American delegation that the Brits aren't too engaged with the aftermath of the attack to host the visitors.

"We won't allow terrorists to set our agenda," said Ben Dendy, co-vice chair of the federal commission.

The British committee is organizing events to promote awareness of Jamestown's anniversary in the U.K. The Virginia Indian Festival in Gravesend, Kent in 2006 will link Virginia's Indians to England at the place where Pocahontas is buried.

"This is the beginning of a continuing relationship with England - one that will bear fruits for my people and the commonwealth of Virginia," said Steve Adkins, chief of the Chickahominy Tribe.

Virginia has been strengthening ties with England in a number of ways leading up the Jamestown events. The historical preservation communities, local governments and trade offices on both sides of the water are collaborating because of the 2007 plans.

"The Virginia Tourism Corporation is working diligently to increase travel between the United Kingdom and commonwealth of Virginia during the commemoration," said Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City.

As Virginia will be at center stage in 2007, so will the state's Indians, said Adkins, who thought he was the "token" Indian when he was first appointed to the 16-member federal commission. But he's been pleased with how Indians' voices have been heard.

Virginia's tribes played a key role in changing the anniversary from a "celebration" to a "commemoration" when planning began. The arrival of the colonists ultimately led to fighting that killed 90 percent of the America's Indians' population, said Adams, so it's hard to celebrate that.

But the inclusion of the Indian perspectives this time around is a sign of how history is being viewed in a much more broad sense today, said Adkins.

"We are starting to look at contributions of my people and other minorities," he said.

With Virginia Indians slated to play important roles in 2007 events in Virginia, attention has turned to federal recognition. More than 560 Indian tribes are recognized by the federal government, but none are in Virginia.

Federal recognition opens the door to benefits such as health care, education and housing money. But it's also about respect for the role Indians played in the founding of this country - including helping the original Jamestown settlers survive, say tribal leaders.

It is vital to the Indians across the country that the federal government recognize Virginia's tribes before they are on full display to the world in 2007, said Adams.

"Every one of us can be lifted by that process," said Adams.

One of the main goals of the trip, said Dendy, is to make sure the British committee can secure a commitment of Queen Elizabeth II to attend the festivities on the anniversary weekend in 2007. It would be particularly fitting because the queen's first official visit to the United States was in 1957 to attend events in Jamestown.

Copyright © 2005, Daily Press (http://www.dailypress.com/)

Wingy

07-19-2005, 09:00 AM

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Brutal march scarred Navajos, Apaches

Jim Boeck Special To El Defensor Chieftain

Editor's Note: Last month, a memorial was dedicated at Bosque Redondo near Fort Summer in honor of the American Indians driven from their homes and forced to walk across the state to be confined in that area. This is the story behind The Long Walk.

It is often said that history is written by the victors. This presents historians with the challenge sorting out historical truth from fiction. For the most part, reality lies somewhere between the interpretations offered by victors and the vanquished.

This was certainly the case with the tragic forced Long Walk of the Navajo, a march which took the vanquished through Los Pinos en route to their final destination in the Pecos River valley in the mid-1860s.

Soon after Gen. Edward R.S. Canby's Union forces drove the Confederates out of New Mexico, in 1862, Brig. Gen. James H. Carleton assumed command of the Department of New Mexico. Carleton had led the California Volunteers to secure the Southwest and the routes of communication and transportation therein for the Union.

Carleton's main objective had been to drive out the Confederates from New Mexico, but by the time the hardy Californians arrived on the banks of the Rio Grande, the beleaguered Confederates had already retreated into the vast desert of West Texas.

Carleton may not have had Confederates to engage, but the hostile Indian tribes of New Mexico were still present to engage Carleton's blue-clad troopers.

Gen. Carleton was known to be as hard as nails and to possess a notoriously short temper. He was a vigorous Indian campaigner, having fought many western Indian tribes in campaigns covering nearly 20 years.

Carleton knew and respected the Indians as worthy opponents, but not as fellow human beings. His favorite characterization of them was that of wild game.

"An Indian is a more watchful and a more wary animal than a deer," he once told a fellow soldier. "He must be hunted with skill."

Carleton's first objective was to defeat the fierce, hard-riding Mescalero Apache who, in 1862, were at their military peak. In August alone, the Apache had killed 46 settlers, had kidnapped scores of children and had run off thousands of head of livestock.

Carleton chose the famous frontiersman and mountain man, Col. Kit Carson, to punish and subdue the intrepid Mescalero for their depredations.

In the past, Carson and Carleton had enjoyed a close friendship. Carleton had valued Carson's knowledge of the Indians ever since they had served together in a campaign against the Jicarilla Apache in northern New Mexico, in 1854.

Carleton's policy concerning the Indians was to engage them in a merciless war, ceasing only after an unconditional surrender was achieved. It was Carleton's opinion that the Indians should be defeated, should be placed on reservations to learn White man ways, should adopt the Christian religion, and should become self-sustaining, peaceful farmers.

Carson, once married an Indian woman who met an early death, was more compassionate and understanding of the Indians and their culture. Carson knew that the Mescalero were not entirely to blame for the conflict that occurred.

The Apache had been pushed from their traditional hunting grounds by the Army and new non-Indian settlers in the region. Their raids were primarily caused by a desperate need for food. But Carson's arguments for compassion fell on deaf ears with the hard-bitten Indian hater, Carleton.

A good soldier, Carson obeyed his orders. The Mescaleros were no match for the well-armed Union troopers who cut them down easily with their rifles. The defeated Mescaleros were rounded up and sent to Bosque Redondo near Fort Sumner by the Pecos River.

Carleton considered Bosque Redondo to be an ideal location for a new reservation because of its isolation and open plains, which made it easier for troops to observe their captives and pursue them if needed. Carleton believed the area would also be suitable for the relocation of other hostile tribes, notably the Navajo.

Navajo renegades had constantly raided Hispanic and Anglo ranches, driving off countless sheep over several decades. In one instance, while Colonel Manuel Chaves of the New Mexico Volunteers was fighting at the Civil War Battle of Glorieta Pass in 1862, the Navajo raided his ranch in eastern Valencia County, looting it of 11,000 head of sheep, plus all of his cattle and horses.

Carleton also had ulterior motives for relocating the Navajo to Bosque Redondo. Gold and silver strikes had been made in western New Mexico and eastern Arizona. New strikes brought increasing numbers of miners and settlers to lands considered theirs by the Navajo. Carleton knew the Navajo would attack the white trespassers. He believed the best way to avoid clashes would be to remove the Navajo to Bosque Redondo.

Carleton was well aware that the enlistments of most of his California Volunteers would end in 1864. It was, therefore, imperative that Carleton's troops be used at present strength levels to lessen the potential Indian threat. Carleton felt that after the Navajo were evacuated to the Bosque Redondo interment camp they would be easier to manage even with lower troop strength.

The Navajo nation was not as tenacious as the Apache, who were primarily a warrior race living off their raids and wild game. Like the Apache, the Navajo had engaged in guerilla warfare and counter raids with the Hispanics of New Mexico for generations. Unlike the Apache, they were also a farming and pastoral people, possessing gardens, orchards, and thousands of sheep. Just before the Civil War, Canby had persuaded them to sign an armistice to end their raiding.

Hispanic slavers broke this peace by raiding Indian villages. The practice of enslaving Indians had a long history, dating back to New Mexico's colonial period. Slavery, likewise, was practiced by New Mexico tribes including the Navajo, Ute, Apache and Comanche.

Shortly after Gen. Carleton assumed command from Canby in 1862, 18 Navajo chiefs came calling on Carleton, expressing their desire to make a treaty.

Carleton looked at them with a cold glare, and asked, "Why do you want a treaty?"

With a look of disbelief etched on their faces, the chiefs responded, "That we may hereafter have peace."

Carleton curtly told them, "Go home; stay there." Then he added, "Commit no more robberies or murders, and you'll have peace.

"Treaties", he said, breaking down the dialogue to a nuts and bolts level, "confused matters, involving a double labor of making and breaking them."

Perplexed, the Navajo reflected for a moment. Carleton obviously was not going to be taken in by their rhetorical attempts to beguile him. As far as Carleton was concerned the Navajo had never kept their treaties, and he felt that he had no reason to believe that they would in the future.

Realizing the peace talks were going nowhere, the chiefs mentioned that they had never been refused a treaty before. They said that they would go back to their land to try to persuade their young men to control their passionate urge to raid for plunder.

A few weeks after these unproductive talks, the Navajo raids resumed.

After U.S. troops had dealt the Mescalero Apache severe setbacks, the Navajo knew that their turn was next. Carleton's wrath would not be satisfied until the Navajo were put into confinement in the bleak Bosque Redondo interment camp.

The chiefs came to Carleton again pleading their case that most of their people were not the perpetrators of the vile crimes being committed on the New Mexican settlements. Reflecting for a moment, Carleton shot back that neither he nor his men could distinguish friendly from unfriendly Navajo.

Carleton argued that the only solution to the problem would be for friendly Navajo to relocate to the Bosque Redondo reservation. But the Indian leaders refused to believe that this was their only option. One of their leaders declared that not one Navajo would move to that desolate reservation.

Carleton responded by announcing that July 20, 1863, would be the deadline for the Navajo to move peaceably. After that date, every Navajo would be viewed as the enemy.

The Navajo replied that they had heard, "Big talk before that had meant nothing, and had listened for years to the cry of the wolf that came not."

But Carleton was not bluffing. On July 20, just as Carleton had foretold, the war on the Navajo nation began. Kit Carson was assigned the distasteful job of leading 736 troopers, composed mostly of New Mexico Volunteers, California Volunteers and only a few regular army soldiers, because the majority of the Union army was still fighting a determined Confederate army back East.

Carson was joined by Lt. Col. J. Francisco Chaves and his 326 troops from Fort Wingate, as well as a band of fearsome Ute Indians itching to settle old scores against their traditional Navajo enemy.

During the Navajo campaign of 1863-1864 there were no large battles. Carson's troops hunted their game with Ute warrior scouts, tracking the Navajo like animals. Soon losing patience, Carson adopted a "scorched earth" policy to bring the evasive Navajo to their knees by seizing and destroying anything that could help the Navajo survive. Nothing, including hogans, horses, food staples, orchards, sheep and blankets, was left undisturbed.

The campaign wreaked havoc on the Navajo. Carson estimated that his troops destroyed 2,000,000 pounds of Indian grain. The Navajo could not replace their foodstuffs or rebuild their hogans for the winter. Despair fell on the once proud Navajo nation as bitter cold set in on the high plateau.

Many Navajo grew cold and hundreds began to starve. Finally, Carleton ordered Carson to administer the coup de grace by invading Canyon de Chelly, the Navajos' principal stronghold.

The Canyon de Chelly campaign broke the back of Navajo resistance. Learning that Carson would rather feed than kill them, the downtrodden Navajo began surrendering in ever larger numbers.

The cold, weary Navajo were rounded up like cattle, and the "Long Walk", so much a part of Navajo oral tradition, began. It started at Fort Wingate and progressed with all of the compassion of a cattle drive.

According to legend, Navajo children were kidnapped by New Mexicans as the Navajo made their way to army forts to surrender. New Mexico Governor Henry Connelly was so outraged by this citizen campaign of chattel slavery that he issued a proclamation warning that armed men who roamed roaming the Navajo countryside would be arrested by the army. He forbade the trafficking of additional Indian captives.

The forced march was utterly brutal. Troopers shot straggling Navajo. The stronger Navajo at the front of the column often heard gunshots coming from the rear. The Navajo often pleaded to help a weak or injured relative, but the troopers usually refused.

One Navajo later related the story of a young pregnant woman who was ready to give birth, and could no longer keep up. The woman's parents begged the troops to give her time to give birth. The troopers replied that they could not hold up the column, and told the parents to catch up with the others.

The parents dutifully obeyed as their daughter told them not to worry. Once the parents moved on, a trooper drew his rifle. The Indian girl's eyes pleaded for mercy for her and her unborn child, but no mercy was shown. The heartless soldier shot the pregnant woman in cold blood.

Los Pinos, located 18 miles south of Albuquerque near present day Peralta, became the forward staging area and supply depot for the Union army during the Navajo Long Walk. Los Pinos served as a place where the Navajo were fed and given blankets to protect them from the miserable winter weather.

Lt. George H. Pettis, of the California Volunteers, confessed that he dreaded the long trip from Los Pinos to the military reservation at Bosque Redondo, some 242 miles distant. He described the Navajo as being "nearly all naked" before the army issued them blankets of dubious quality.

Pettis left the depot with 44 soldiers and 243 Navajo. Twenty-five Hispanic teamsters drove 16 mule wagons carrying vitally needed supplies.

Pettis later described the ordeal of the forced march to the Bosque Redondo by saying that he and his Navajo charges were "on the road 15 ... long weary days, most of the time in the mountains, three ranges of which I crossed over ...

"While in the mountains we experienced very cold weather and some of the time having no water, but what we could obtain by melting snow, and part of the time we had no wood either to keep us warm, or melt our snow — everything must have an end; so we finally arrived ... safely.

"I had fed the last of the Indian provisions the day before, and my company were quite without provisions. Four of the Indians died, and were buried on the road, so I got here with 239" survivors.

The march from Fort Wingate to the Bosque Redondo reservation took about 19 days to complete. Once at their destination, the 8,000 captive Navajo were expected to raise their own food in garden plots alongside their bitter enemy, the Mescalero Apache.

Carleton had mistakenly believed that because both tribes were related as Athapascan-speaking people they would feel a kinship, and harmonize on their shared reservation. But the two groups had developed separate cultures and had grown far apart. They were, in fact, bitter enemies.

Neither tribe could get used to the government rations. The Navajo, used to a diet rich in corn and mutton, experienced severe stomach problems. They begged the Union army for corn to feed their hungry people.

Desperate for corn, some Navajo boys, wandered off to where the horses and mules were corralled, and searched through great piles of raked manure for undigested kernels of corn to eat. They roasted their hard-sought food in hot ashes.

The Navajo suffered greatly from malnutrition, oppressive heat, virulent disease, and brackish water that caused dysentery. The stagnant water also became a breeding ground for mosquitoes, so that many Navajo were also stricken with malaria. In November 1865, an outbreak of measles began, killing members of both tribes.

U.S. troops had intercourse with many of the Navajo women, infecting them with syphilis and gonorrhea-like symptoms. The women, in turn, infected members of their tribe. It was estimated that one-fourth of the Navajo perished due to Carleton's internment of the tribe at the Bosque Redondo concentration camp.

The Mescaleros decided they had had their fill of Carleton's concentration camp policies. That same month they bolted en masse to their former mountain strongholds.

Carleton's harsh rein over the Navajo at Bosque Redondo brought his actions and policies to the attention of a joint committee of Congress. The ensuing investigation caught the attention of the U.S. War Department. The Secretary of War informed Carleton on Oct. 6, 1866, that he was being demoted to lieutenant colonel. He was ordered to report to a new regiment in San Antonio, Texas.

This action essentially ended Carleton's erstwhile successful military career. He died of pneumonia Jan. 7, 1873, at San Antonio, Texas. Carleton's subordinate, Carson, had died earlier of an aneurysm May 24, 1868, at the age of 59.

In 1868, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, the decimator of the South on his infamous 1864 March to the Sea, visited the Bosque Redondo reservation on a fact-finding mission for Congress. Sherman, who had a "flinty heart" himself, was shocked and repulsed by the living conditions of the Navajo.

Afterward, Sherman wrote to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant saying, "The Navajo were sunk into a condition of absolute poverty and despair."

This from the man who had plundered and destroyed the South, leaving many white Southerners homeless and hungry. And yet, Sherman could not stomach the Navajos' living conditions. Just how much of a hell-hole could Bosque Redondo have been?

Later, after Sherman's report was submitted to Grant, a treaty was signed by the Navajo nation. In June 1868, under the terms of peace, the Navajo returned to their beloved homeland. Each family was given two sheep in order to re-start their flocks and renew their traditional lives. Thus ended another sad chapter in New Mexico's long history of man's inhumanity to his fellow man.

Boeck is a Valencia County historical researcher.

Wingy

07-19-2005, 09:01 AM

The Associated Press

Published: July 16th, 2005
Last Modified: July 16th, 2005 at 05:00 PM

KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) - Wildlife officials this week returned dozens of eagle feathers, an eagle skull and a set of eagle wings that were confiscated last month from an Alaska Native woman.

Troopers took the items from the home of Mary Mann in June after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska received reports that a non-native man, her husband, Dennis, possessed the eagle parts.

American Indians can possess eagle feathers solely for religious purposes, however, non-natives cannot, said Steve Oberholtzer, assistant special agent in charge for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Juneau office.

Mary Mann said she used the feathers for Native regalia, including a fan and a rattle.

But officials, who returned the parts on Monday, said Mann still needed a permit to possess the feathers, which she received from her brother.

Oberholtzer said Fish and Wildlife Service will not pursue legal action for possession without a permit because there was no evidence the Mann's were trading in the parts commercially.

It is illegal for both natives and non-natives to sell eagle parts, Oberholtzer said. Penalties for illegally possessing or selling eagle parts can range from a $500 fine to a maximum of two years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine per person, Oberholtzer said.

The Ketchikan Indian Community planned to discuss trying to change the permit law for Natives at its August meeting.

---

Information from: Ketchikan Daily News, http://www.ktnnews.com (http://www.ktnnews.com/)

Wingy

07-19-2005, 09:03 AM

A Troubling Chapter in the Bald Eagle's Success Story

By Steven Bodzin, Times Staff Writer

SITKA, Alaska — A smile crinkled Steve Johnson's face as he opened the express-mail package on his desk. The box was big enough to hold a new computer, but it was lined with insulation — and what Johnson extracted, frozen solid in separate plastic bags, were the body, talons, wings and head of a bald eagle. A separate bag held several long white tail feathers.

"Have you ever held a dead eagle?" he asked an astonished co-worker.

Johnson is a Tlingit Indian of the Sitka tribe of Alaska, and his extraordinary package was part of a striking environmental success story — the rescue of the American bald eagle from the edge of extinction.

Thirty years ago, as a result of pesticides, water pollution, hunting and other factors, bald eagles had vanished from all but the most remote corners of the country that had made them a national symbol. Today, they can be found in every state except Hawaii, and are even making their home in a New York City park.

But the eagles' comeback, still fragile at best, is threatened by an unusual confluence of factors. And, paradoxical as it may seem, Johnson's package is linked to the policies and institutions that made the resurgence possible as well as to the new dangers that threaten it.

What enabled eagles to return to areas they had vanished from was a nationwide effort to control pesticides and water pollution, plus the strictest wildlife protection law on the federal books.

The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act says that anyone who so much as collects a fallen eagle feather off a forest floor could face as much as a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

The sole significant exemption from the ban is for Native Americans, who have long venerated eagles in their religious observances and have used eagle feathers, heads and talons in ceremonies and tribal regalia.

That's where Johnson and his unusual package come in.

For more than three decades, the National Eagle Repository, an obscure federal agency near Denver, has quietly collected deceased eagles from zoos, highway departments and game wardens, and distributed them to people so they could carry on religious and cultural practices without having to hunt or trap live birds. The repository sends about 1,700 deceased eagles each year to Native Americans across the country.

However, the system of legal protections and government-controlled distribution of eagle parts to Native Americans is showing signs of breaking down.

And the demand for eagle feathers has begun to soar. Black-market prices for eagle feathers and parts are climbing too. And that, wildlife experts fear, could set off a wave of illegal poaching — with disastrous results.

One reason for the growing demand for feathers is that thousands of non-Indian practitioners of New Age religions have embraced Indian beliefs and ceremonies. Four of them are arguing in federal court in Utah that restrictions on possessing eagle artifacts violate their constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Demand is growing among Native Americans as well: Indian leaders, seeking a revival of the community bonds that can improve education and prevent alcoholism, are promoting traditional beliefs and ceremonies.

As powwows and other observances grow in number, so does the demand for eagle parts. Currently, it takes as long as five years to have a request filled by the National Eagle Repository.

Many powwows include competitions among Native American performers, with cash prizes awarded, in part, for the most complete regalia.

This year the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation is offering more than $200,000 in prizes at Schemitzun, from the Algonquin word meaning "feast of green corn and dance." More than 3,000 participants are expected at the festival, near the tribe's Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Connecticut, for the dance competition alone.

Then there are the private collectors of Indian artifacts, many of them in Europe, who pay tens of thousands of dollars for authentic regalia adorned with eagle feathers.

With demand outstripping legal supply, wildlife experts warn that any significant increase in the killing of eagles could undermine their continued recovery. The eagle population is especially vulnerable to disruption by hunters and trappers because the birds' reproductive cycle is long, slow and barely able to maintain itself under favorable circumstances.

"Eagles are vulnerable to shooting because they produce few young," said Jody Millar, a bald eagle recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Illinois. "The way they thrive in numbers is through longevity."

Eagles are usually between 4 and 8 years old when they pair up and begin laying eggs. They remain productive for about 10 years, usually having one successful chick per year. In harsh climates, where they live about 12 years, a typical couple will produce six fledglings. No more than half of the baby eagles survive long enough to reach adulthood.

"Any animal that has a low reproductive rate is going to be sensitive to new sources of mortality," said James Fraser, an eagle specialist at Virginia Tech who has been studying their reproductive patterns since 1974.

Golden eagles between 2 and 3 years old are especially tempting targets for hunters and trappers because their black and white feathers are most prized by collectors, ceremonial dancers and religious practitioners.

To honor Indian treaties, the Fish and Wildlife Service will issue a permit for eagle feathers to anyone with a government-issued Certificate of Indian Birth, but such permits are not frequently checked.

Also, many Native Americans receive feathers as gifts, but the National Eagle Repository does not require that they get a permit. Nothing distinguishes a gift feather from one acquired illegally.

Sam Jojola, a special agent with the Fish and Wildlife Service, said that checking permits would take too long for the fewer than 200 federal wildlife agents in the field.

"I'm more interested in the most egregious wildlife violations we can find," Jojola said.

Native Americans retained the right to hunt eagles well into the 20th century. After the government banned eagle hunts, it created the permit system and the repository to allow Indians to maintain their religious practices.

But the permit system and the repository are under attack in the Utah case, which will be argued before a U.S. District Court judge in Salt Lake City this summer.

The defendants, who are being prosecuted by the federal government for possession of eagle feathers, are Utah residents Samuel R. Wilgus Jr., Raymond Hardman, and Christopher and Faye Beath. Wilgus is a member of a Christian sect called the Native American Church; Hardman and the Beaths have spent much of their lives on the remote Uintah and Ouray Reservation, taking part in local Native American ceremonies. None is Native American.

In separate cases in the 1990s, Wilgus and Hardman were found guilty of illegally possessing eagle feathers. Each appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which in August 2002 ordered their cases reheard by the district court to determine whether the government was violating a federal religious freedom law by allowing only members of officially recognized Indian tribes to have feathers. The Beaths were charged in 2000 with illegally possessing eagle parts.

The defendants call the permit system discriminatory and ineffective, saying that the government's restrictions go beyond what is necessary to protect eagles and preserve Native American culture. They predict that the black market will grow under current policies.

One measure of the rising demand, they say, is the fact that the repository's waiting list, now as long as five years, was only a few months a decade ago.

Hardman was using a bundle of feathers to purify his truck after transporting a relative's body to a funeral. At the time, he had a wife and two children with Certificates of Indian Birth, and they regularly took part in religious ceremonies together. When he was given a feather bundle by a Hopi practitioner in Arizona, he promptly called the Fish and Wildlife Service to get a possession permit.

He was told he was ineligible because of his bloodline. Though his wife and children had Certificates of Indian Birth and he was an accepted practitioner of American Indian religion, he was not a member of a tribe.

"They told me not to even bother — that the best thing for me to do would be to turn over my feathers to the authorities," Hardman said. Instead, he hung the feathers from the rear-view mirror of his Ford pickup.

They stayed there until 1996, when his wife left him and turned him in to tribal police.

Hardman is angry at being prosecuted because, he said, some Native Americans trap, trade and sell eagle feathers. They don't get caught, he said, because police never check permits.

"If you are buying or selling eagle parts, the likelihood of being detected is slim to none," said Jojola, the Fish and Wildlife agent.

Hardman said police should check Native Americans' permits, but Native American practitioners consider that idea offensive.

"It's the same as having to have a permit to carry a cross," said Ron Rader, a powwow dancer in Sacramento whose regalia includes the wings and wing feathers of several golden eagles.

But Native Americans warn that allowing non-Indians to possess feathers because they practice Indian religions would create new demand for black-market feathers and spur an increase in poaching.

Edward Wemytewa, a tribal council member at Zuni Pueblo, a 500-year-old settlement in New Mexico, wrote in an affidavit for the prosecution, "Today, there are very few places left on Zuni lands where eagles still live in the wild. Additional demand for eagle feathers would have a detrimental effect on the Zuni way of life."

Though practitioners condemn killing or selling eagles, wildlife police, eagle biologists and Native American leaders agree that such a black market exists.

In 2000, one bald eagle and two golden eagles were killed and stolen from the Santa Barbara Zoo; authorities believe the birds were targeted for their feathers.

In an affidavit in the Utah case, Fish and Wildlife Special Agent Kevin Ellis wrote that the black-market price for a whole golden eagle carcass was about $1,200, a price that has tripled since the 1980s.

"It's a problem of supply and demand," said Cindy Schroeder, who retired last year from the Fish and Wildlife law enforcement division. "Every additional dancer or worshipper is more demand. The supply is flying around in the air."

Wingy

07-19-2005, 09:03 AM

Last update: July 18, 2005 at 11:14 PM

Red Lake tribal chairman is confident son will be cleared

Pam Louwagie and Terry Collins

Star Tribune

Published July 19, 2005

Red Lake tribal Chairman Floyd (Buck) Jourdain Jr. walked into a locked and guarded courtroom Monday morning for what likely was a hearing key to his son's fate: whether the teenager should be tried as an adult in the Red Lake school shootings case.

Louis Jourdain, who was 16 at the time, was charged in federal court after the March 21 school shootings in which Jeff Weise shot and killed 10 people including himself. Louis Jourdain is accused of conspiring to commit murder, a source with knowledge of the case has said.

The tribal chairman has said his son is innocent, and, after sitting in the courtroom for the day Monday, he told reporters it was becoming more apparent that things will work out for his son.

"I'm confident that the justice system is going to see that he's cleared," Floyd Jourdain said outside the courtroom.

Those formally connected with the case are not allowed to comment because it is being treated as a juvenile matter.

A counselor from Red Lake High School has been called to appear at the hearing Wednesday with the teenager's school records, Principal Chris Dunshee said last week.

That indicates that the hearing is likely to determine whether Jourdain should be tried as an adult, some legal observers said. Adult status would open proceedings to the public and could carry a significantly longer term of imprisonment if he is convicted.

"It has to be a hearing on the question of whether he should be transferred to adult status," said Scott Tilsen, Minnesota's acting federal public defender. "Those records are relevant to that question, and they're commonly introduced."

Judges deciding whether a juvenile should be tried as an adult consider factors including the juvenile's intellectual development and psychological maturity -- along with age and social background, the nature of the offense, any prior delinquency record, the response to any past treatment and the availability of programs to treat behavioral problems.

"While there are other possibilities, the presence of a counselor with school records could indicate that the issue before the court is whether this young man should be tried as an adult," former U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug agreed.

A scenario raised by another former U.S. attorney, B. Todd Jones, is that the case could be past the stage of deciding whether to prosecute Louis Jourdain as an adult or as a juvenile and that the records could help to determine consequences for his alleged actions.

Court doors locked

A hearing to decide whether to try Jourdain as an adult or a juvenile would carry high stakes. If tried and convicted as an adult, Jourdain could face life in prison, depending on under which federal statute he is charged. Conviction as a juvenile would likely mean release at age 21.

Shortly after his son's arrest in March, Floyd Jourdain professed his son's innocence in a written statement. "He is a good boy with a good heart who never harmed anyone in his entire life. I know my son, and he is incapable of committing such an act," the chairman wrote.

About 8:30 a.m. Monday, he walked with his wife, Gina, onto the seventh floor of the federal court building in St. Paul carrying a J.C. Penney bag with dress shoes and clothing, which they gave to attorney Jon Hopeman, a Minneapolis criminal defense lawyer.

They spent the day inside U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank's courtroom, which was locked and had paper covering the doors' windows.

Two sources with knowledge of the investigation said this spring that prosecutors were alleging that Louis Jourdain and Weise had been working on a plan for more than a year via e-mail and instant messages to kill Weise's grandfather, steal his weapons and kill people at Red Lake High School.

For reasons unknown, Weise, 16, went on the shooting spree by himself on March 21, starting with his grandfather and heading to school with his grandfather's weapons. He killed nine people before finally turning the gun on himself. Louis Jourdain had indicated before the attacks that he would be angry if the shooting happened without him, one source had said.

The writers are at

plouwagie@startribune.com and tcollins@startribune.com (tcollins@startribune.com).

Wingy

07-19-2005, 09:04 AM

By LORNA THACKERAY
Of The Gazette Staff

Sometime in the past 200 to 400 years, an artist from an exclusive Crow religious society painted two sacred figures on the walls of a protected rock shelter on the edge of the Pryor Mountains.

He had meticulously drawn a man and a woman adorned with sacred hats worn by Crow participants in Tobacco Society rituals. The artist probably created his intense red paint by combining blood and urine with ocher, a reddish clay that crops up occasionally in the ancient mountain range. Pieces of ocher that the artist would have crushed to a fine powder for mixing his paint were discarded on the floor of the shelter.

"The Tobacco Society is very, very old,'' said Howard Boggess, a Crow and a historian, as he sat on a rock in front of the 2-foot-high paintings. "It's really a strong society. You have to work for years to get into it.''

Only those who are ritually pure, who drink no alcohol and don't partake of hallucinatory drugs, can participate, he said. It's a male society, according to Boggess, but women play an important role in ceremonies

Boggess and Mike Penfold, president of the Western Heritage Alliance, have spent years wandering southeastern Montana and northern Wyoming, finding, documenting and pushing to preserve archaeological sites.

The two Billings men visited the Tobacco Society shelter last summer, finding it in near pristine condition. Bureau of Land Management archaeologist Glade Hadden of Billings hadn't seen the figures, so they arranged an expedition for the next week. The shelter appeared untouched, just as Boggess and Penfold had left it. After leaving an offering of tobacco and plastic beads, the group made the arduous climb down the rocky slope.

A week later, Penfold and Boggess returned with another small group. This time, it was clear that someone had been treasure hunting at the sacred site. The figures had not been damaged, but looters had dug deep into the shelter's powdery soil, looking for artifacts.

They made off with the plastic beads deposited a week earlier, but that's probably all, Hadden said. It's a ceremonial site, not an occupation site, he said, and little would have been left behind by the Crow.

"There's nothing even to loot, and they took it anyway,'' Hadden said in disgust.

It's another blow to scientists trying to understand a landscape that has supported human life for at least 10,000 years. Sites all over public lands in Montana and Wyoming are being systematically pillaged of information vital to piecing together the ancient past, he said.

There are probably some professionals out there digging for profit, hoping to find something they can peddle online or to shady private collectors, Hadden said. But he said he believes most looters are amateurs hoping to expand their personal collections.

"They really love the hell out of it,'' he said. "But they are destroying what they love. They are destroying it so fast, we can't keep up with it.''

It's an obsession with some people, agrees Chris Finley, archaeologist for the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. And artifact looting seems to be an obsession that some are unable to control.

"It's become a very serious problem,'' Finley said. "We just see more and more of it all the time. We're not sure what it is they're finding, but whatever it is, it keeps them coming back.''

This spring, he stood on a promontory in the national recreation area and spotted a cairn, a pile of carefully placed stones, that had been looted only two to three months earlier. Rocks from the dismantled cairn formed a circle around its center. A rodent skull and a few small animal bones lay among the ruins, but that was all.

"If there was anything in there, I'll never know now,'' he said, crouching to re-examine the ruined site.

Artifact hunting or vandalizing archaeological sites on public lands is almost always illegal. Professionals with proper credentials and a carefully detailed project in mind may be able to get a permit for BLM lands, but amateurs without credentials need not apply.

Basically, it is illegal to excavate, deface or remove objects from public lands or Indian reservations - including broad stretches of Montana managed by the BLM, the Forest Service and the National Park Service.

Writing "I love Mary'' or "Joe was here'' on an archaeological site can prompt a federal felony charge. Stealing artifacts from a site can result in a separate felony charge for each artifact taken. Looters can also be fined and required to pay the cost of restoring damaged artwork or a salvage archaeological survey of the area they have wrecked. Hadden said costs for salvage archaeology can quickly reach $100,000 or more. Archaeology done right isn't cheap.

The problem is catching the violators, Finley said. Looters have boldly operated on the edge of the Bighorn Canyon tour road, and no one has ever been caught red-handed.

Sound carries for miles in the national recreation area, and maybe the thieves just jump into the brush when they hear a car coming, he said. Maybe those who see them don't realize that people digging in the ground so openly might be doing something wrong.

There are more eyes out in the Pryor Mountains and on the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area these days. Law enforcement officers are always on the lookout, and all federal employees who work on public lands have been on the alert for looters, too. So are volunteers like Boggess and Penfold. Hadden has also put together a group of volunteer stewards who check sites regularly. Members of the public who see something suspicious on public lands are asked to report it to law enforcement.

Beyond that, "all we really can do is educate them - try to develop a conscience in them,'' Finley said.

Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises (http://www.leeenterprises.com/).

Wingy

07-19-2005, 09:07 AM

Native Lore Adds Clues to Ancient U.S. Catastrophes

By Michael Schirber (http://www.space.com/php/contactus/feedback.php?r=ms)
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 18 July 2005
10:20 am ET

The Pacific Northwest is an historically active area for earthquakes and tsunamis. But some geological records can be difficult to sift through.

Now further clues of the region's catastrophic events have emerged from native lore.

The Cascadia subduction zone (http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050103_cascadia_tsunami.html) -- a fault line stretching along the coast from Vancouver to northern California -- likely erupted in seven or more major earthquakes in the last 3,500 years, geologists have learned in recent years.

Some of these events apparently were recorded in the Native American lore from the region. Through the use of mythological figures that represent wind, thunder, and water, a number of native stories describe major earth trembling and flooding along the coastline.

"There's a frightening amount of it," says Ruth Ludwin from the University of Washington. "It appears that these stories have to do with earthquake-, tsunami- and landslide-like events.”

One recurring theme in this oral tradition is the epic battle between Thunderbird and Whale (http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=0507_tbird_whale_02.jpg∩=This+ illustration+depicts+a+late+19th+century+interior+ ceremonial+screen+from+Port+Alberni%2C+on+British+ Columbia%27s+Vancouver+Island.+It+shows%20). Ludwin and her colleagues find a metaphor for ground shaking and ocean surges in stories of Thunderbird being dragged down to the ocean floor, with its talons dug into Whale's back.

Other stories depict a shape-shifting spirit -- called a'yahos by the Salish people -- that often appears as a giant serpent with two heads or blazing eyes and horns. A'yahos is associated with shaking and rushes of muddy water.

“As you go around the region, there are very many of these stories and they are central to the native cultures, which suggests that these past earthquakes had profound effects on the local inhabitants,” Ludwin said.

Image Gallery

Deadly Earthquakes (javascript:PopupDisplay('imagegallery','imgid=207&gid=16&index=0'))

In two papers for the journal Seismological Research Letters, Ludwin and her collaborators have collected such stories in order to relate them to specific occurrences in the geologic past.

For instance, between 1860 and 1964, there were nine separate tales that appear to all describe a large tsunami from January 1700. Three of these stories -- passed down to grandchildren or great-grandchildren -- were eyewitness accounts of the flooding.

"There were a lot of native people living here,” Ludwin said. “Hearing the local story based on eyewitness accounts helps us to realize that the event occurred right here and that people saw it and remembered it for many generations."

Across the Pacific, this same tsunami resulted in flooding in Japan. Recent evidence points to a magnitude 9 earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone as the cause of these giant waves.

Other native tales may be related to a major earthquake on the Seattle fault that erupted around 900 A.D. and presumably unleashed a tsunami in Puget Sound. The researchers found five stories about a'yahos that are associated with spots along this fault line, and another 13 stories that originate from Puget Sound and the surrounding region.

Did You Know ?

101 Amazing
Earth Facts (javascript:PopupDisplay('earthfacts');)

One story mentions a spirit boulder, which the researchers matched to an actual boulder located just south of the Fauntleroy ferry terminal in West Seattle. Subsequent analysis determined that this boulder was dislodged by a prehistoric landslide that may have been a mile in length.

Interpreting all the stories has not been easy, since any given earthquake has different effects in different places (http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050422_earthquake_1906.html). But Ludwin said that knowing some of the symbolism has helped bridge the human history with the geologic history.

"Over time, so much has been lost but the stories still have a tremendous richness of detail. Things happened that left a very deep cultural impression," Ludwin said.

Wingy

07-19-2005, 09:10 AM

07/17/2005

Sacred Red Stone

Native Americans have been harvesting pipestone from quarries near present day Pipestone, Minnesota for over 11 hundred years. It is one of the only places on earth where this soft red rock can be found.
You won't find powerful machines extracting the stone from these quarries, though. It's strictly a hands-on operation.

Pipestone, itself, is actually a soft claystone that is sandwiched between layers of some of natures hardest material, quartzite. It is a perfect material for carving and is sacred to Native Americans who have been making ceremonial pipes out of it for centuries.
Only registered members of Indian tribes are allowed to work the quarries..located in what is now the Pipestone National Monument.

“But you do have to work it to prove to the park service that you want to work this stone,” says stone carver, Travis Erickson.

In order to get to the vein of pipestone, often several feet of quartzite has to be removed. A brutal job because it has to be done without the aid of power tools, just hammers chisels and brute strength. Erickson has been working his quarry alone for a quarter century.

“I started back in the tree line That's where it began and this is in 25 years.”

Erickson not only quarries the stone himself, he's a fourth generation pipe carver and can be found at the monument's interpretive center five days a week where tourists can watch him work and ask questions..like if he's really Indian. He's Dakota nation Sioux on his mother's side. He's dad was Norwegian.

“The best thing I tell people is that I ask Thor to help me with the quarrying and ask my Indian ancestors to help me with the carving.”

Travis not only carves the pipestone bowls, he also makes the stem for the pipe.

During the height of the tourist season, Erickson and his fellow carvers at the Pipestone National Monument really don't get a lot of work done.

“No, that's why I have a shop at home. I take everything there. That's fine because the purpose here is to help educate the public and answer their questions,” Erickson says.

The pipes themselves are beautiful to be sure but Travis Erickson is an artist who needs to create other things. His carvings of buffalo, eagles, wolves, bears or even butterflies are challenge and popular commercially.

“But there are times when I need to get away from everybody and just carve what comes into my mind or into my spirit. I had a spiritual guy once tell me that I was hooked up to the spiritual internet. I need to carve those specific designs on pipes and that's just usually me goofing off,” he says.

There are some pipe makers who will use power tools and drills to speed things along.

“And, there's nothing wrong with that,” Erickson says, “but to keep it hand carved you keep the tradition alive, you keep the culture alive and plus you're also seeking what is within you too.”

When he started 26 years ago, Erickson says there were lots of carvers.

“Today we have less than a dozen left so it's a dying art.”

Out at his quarry, Travis ponders the big job of removing several feet of quartzite by hand before he can reach the precious pipestone now submerged in a few inches of water from recent rains. He'd like to get as much as he can before winter.

“There are really no limits as far as the government is concerned,” he says. “But the quartzite is going to limit you. So that, in our belief, is how the spirit will say, you've had enough.”
.
Achieving the traditional smooth red finish on the pipestone requires several sandings a coat of bees wax and hand polishing.Ceremonial pipestone pipes are sold at the national monument's interpretive center.

For more information, check out the Pipestone National Monument site (http://www.nps.gov/pipe/).

Wingy

07-19-2005, 09:12 AM

Interior asks Congress for power to take Indian lands
Monday, July 18, 2005

The Bush administration is once again asking Congress for authority to take "unclaimed" Indian lands and to eliminate its trust responsibility to tens of thousands of individual Indians.

In a letter to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, the Interior Department urged Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) to add provisions to a bill that is already on the Senate floor. Although the proposed changes were described as "technical," they would give the federal government powers that haven't been the subject of a hearing or prior public debate.

Matt Eames, Interior's director of Congressional affairs, said the department needs the ability to take lands that are owned by individual Indians who can't currently be located. Nearly 49,000 Indian beneficiaries, who are owed an estimated $73.9 million, would be affected.

"Under state law, a state may sell or auction off certain personal property that has not been claimed by an owner within a certain amount of time, usually within 5 years," the May 10 letter stated. "This is not the case with inactive Individual Indian Money accounts or real property interests."

Eames also proposed language to address two court cases -- including one that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court -- that favored individual Indians and their constitutionally protected property rights. He said the department needs authority to take highly fractionated lands from beneficiaries, albeit with compensation.

"The provision should provide that the escheat of those interests to the tribes involved a taking by the United States and should provide compensation to the heirs of those escheated interests," Eames told McCain.

The proposals came in the administration's official response to S.536 (http://indianz.com/my.asp?url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SN00536:|), the Native American Omnibus Act of 2005. The bill was approved by McCain's committee on May 12 and could be scheduled for a Senate vote any time.

If added to the bill, the provisions would eliminate the federal government's responsibilities to tens of thousands of Indian beneficiaries throughout the country who either can't be located or who share ownership in highly fractionated pieces of land. Interior officials have said keeping track of these account holders is costing the department millions of dollars.

Over the years, several proposals have been floated in an attempt to close the accounts, an effort that former assistant secretary Neal McCaleb once described as "termination." Not surprisingly, Indian Country hasn't reacted positively.

In late 2002, the department proposed an unclaimed property act that was soundly rejected by tribal leaders who were participating in the task force on trust reform. Interior officials blamed the legislation's quick demise on the task force, saying tribal leaders prematurely shared the information with the plaintiffs in the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit and with the media.

But the department, tribes, Indian landowners and other stakeholders were able to come together and pass the American Indian Probate Reform Act. The bill, signed into law by President Bush in October 2004, encourages estate planning by individual Indians, establishes a uniform probate code and helps tribes consolidate fractionated lands.

Past efforts, however, have not met muster in the courts. In the Babbitt v. Youpee case, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress violated the property rights of about 18,000 individual Indians in the Great Plains and the Midwest by taking their lands without just compensation. The decision was issued in 1997 and the department is still trying to sort out the mess.

More recently, a federal judge has found another piece of legislation to be unconstitutional in the DuMarce v. Norton case. It affects members of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Tribe whose fractionated lands were taken without just compensation.

The relevant parts of the Interior Department's letter are as follows:

The Department also suggests additional amendments be added to S. 536. ... We also recommend two new titles be added to the bill that would provide a technical correction to address the decisions in Youpee v. Babbitt and DuMarce v. Norton and give the Secretary the authority to address unclaimed property.

Youpee and Sisseton-Wahpeton
A new title should be added to S. 536 that would provide a technical correction to address the decisions in Youpee v. Babbitt and DuMarce v. Norton. The United States Supreme Court in Youpee held the escheat provision of the Indian Land Consolidation Act as unconstitutional. In DuMarce, the District Court for the District of South Dakota found unconstitutional a statute under which any interest of less than two and a half acres would automatically escheat to the Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe. As a result of these two decisions, the Department is faced with having to revest interests that escheated under both statutes back to the rightful heir. We request that a new title be added declaring that any interest that escheated pursuant to these Acts be vested in the tribe to which they escheated unless they have been revested in the name of the heirs of the allottee by the Secretary since the escheatment. The provision should provide that the escheat of those interests to the tribes involved a taking by the United States and should provide compensation to the heirs of those escheated interests.

Unclaimed Property
Under state law, a state may sell or auction off certain personal property that has not been claimed by an owner within a certain amount of time, usually within 5 years. This is not the case with inactive Individual Indian Money accounts or real property interests. Often times the whereabouts of account owners are unknown to the Department because account holders do not respond to our requests for address information and our repeated attempts to locate them have been unsuccessful. This may be because the small amount in their account does not make such effort worthwhile. However, the Department must account for every interest regardless of size and we do not have the authority to stop administering accounts where whereabouts of the owner are unknown. We must have the authority to close these small accounts and restore economic value to the assets if the owner does not claim their interest within a certain amount of time. If the owner does not come forward, the revenue generated from the interest should be held in a general holding account against which claims could be made in the future if the owner’s whereabouts become known or used to further the fractionation program.

URL: http://www.indianz.com/News/2005/009350.asp (http://indianz.com/News/2005/009350.asp)

Wingy

07-19-2005, 09:17 AM

Former Kickapoo exec draws 15 years

Web Posted: 07/19/2005 12:00 AM CDT

John MacCormack
Express-News Staff Writer

The former director of the Kickapoo Indian health care program was sentenced Monday to 15 years in federal prison for scheming to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the tribe.

Maricela Mendoza, 50, was convicted last year of money laundering and theft after a six-day trial in federal court. Evidence showed that she forged and cashed numerous tribal checks.

Testifying in her own defense, Mendoza admitted cashing the checks, but claimed the money was used for legitimate tribal purposes.

However, evidence showed that Mendoza converted most of the checks to cash at a Mr. Payroll in Eagle Pass, where her niece worked. A parade of trial witnesses testified that they never received the cash Mendoza claims to have given them.

The health program received about $1 million annually in federal funds.

Mendoza was the first of eight defendants to go to trial on charges of financial crimes related to the Kickapoo. The 500-member tribe operates the state's only casino, on a reservation outside Eagle Pass.

Among those indicted early this year were Isidro Garza Jr., the former tribal manager; his son Timoteo Garza, a former state representative from Eagle Pass; and Raul Garza, a Kickapoo who was the tribe's longtime chairman. Raul Garza is not related to the other two.

Also charged were Isidro Garza's wife, Marta, and his son Isidro Xavier Garza, who both worked for the tribe, as well as former tribal lawyer Joe Ruiz of Eagle Pass and former casino manager Lee Martin.

The seven face charges ranging from civil rights violations relating to a tribal election to using tribal funds for personal and political expenses to evading income tax.

All are free on bond. They are expected to go to trial next spring in federal court in Del Rio.

Wingy's notes...this article is of personal interest to me...friends of mine in Texas were involved in the take over of the casino and then Juan was elected/appointed into the tribal council!!! Way to Go, Juan and JR!!!!! Their hard work, with other's from Texas AIM brought traditional gopvernment back to the Kickapoo of Texas.

Wingy

07-19-2005, 05:54 PM

Theda New Breast selected to serve on Governor's Public Defender Commission.

By John McGill, Glacier Reporter Editor

"This is groundbreaking, and the ACLU is jumping for joy because Montana is one of the first states to pass legislation to do something about the Public Defenders Act," said Theda New Breast of Babb. The Blackfeet member's appointment to the commission is another of several recent appointments of Blackfeet members to the Governor's advisory staff, including Shannon Augare, Elouise Cobell and Gayle Skunkcap. New Breast joins Augare in a law-related body, the latter having been appointed to the Montana Board of Crime Control earlier this year.

"Justice is not just for those who can afford it," said New Breast Tuesday, July 5. "I stood up because 20 years ago and through 1994 I was an expert witness on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and dealing with people on death row...because they are families in desperation without a proper defense. This legislation brings public defenders into the process, and good ones, and now Montana has to fund it." The new laws mean a person accused of a crime must be supplied with a defense attorney immediately, New Breast explained. "On the reservation, people are often railroaded because they're either addicted to something or they're mentally ill, and they wind up in prison."

"This commission is committed to making sure justice prevails for the citizens of this state," said Governor Brian Schweitzer. "To be a fair and just society we must help the least and the last - those that are often discriminated against, whether for economic, racial or any other reason. We all deserve equal treatment under the law."

New Breast is currently the director of New Breast and Old Crow Inc., a family wellness consulting group. Her consulting work includes projects for the National Indian Child Welfare Association, the Siksika Nation and National Indian Women's Health Resource Center. She has a Bachelor's degree and her Masters of Public Health from the University of California. New Breast fills the position as a member of an organization advocating on behalf of racial minorities.

MiaBellaAngela

07-21-2005, 07:37 AM

East To Use Shamanism by jan morgan wood
This gives good basic introduction on smudging, finding your power animal and more for beginners. Has good pictorals and step by step instructions. Good for beginners.

Shaman in a 9to 5 World by Patricia Telesco

Not 100%. Uses Native principles and has Native quotes to support teachings.

Wingy

07-23-2005, 05:41 AM

Last Comanche Code Talker Passes Away

Native American Times (http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=6743), News Feature, Sam Lewin, Jul 24, 2005

TULSA, Okla. -- Now they are all gone.

Charles Chibitty, the last remaining Comanche Code Talker, has passed way. Chibitty died June 19 at the age of 83.
http://jobs.ncmonline.com/directory/getdata.asp?about_id=ba74b866d73000a0a68295aab68b2 2e1-3
“He would talk to you about anything and everything,” Dee Cates told the Native American Times. Cates became the guardian of Chibitty’s daughter when he was admitted into a nursing home. “He treated me like family.”

Chibitty was one of 17 Oklahoma Comanches attached to the 4th Infantry Division, 4th Signal Corps, during WWII. According to a biography from United States Department of Defense, Chibitty was born near Medicine Park, Okla. on Nov. 20, 1921. After attending Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kan., he enlisted in the U.S. Army in January 1941. While in the Army, Cpl. Chibitty earned the World War II Victory Medal, the European Theater of Operations (5th Bronze Star) Victory Medal, the Europe African Middle East Campaign Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal.

In 1989, the French Government honored the Comanche Code Talkers, including Chibitty, by presenting them the "Chevalier of the National Order of Merit." In 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney presented Chibitty with a certificate of appreciation for his service to the country. That day Chibitty recalled the first message he translated after landing in Normandy: "Five miles to the right of the designated area and five miles inland, the fighting is fierce and we need help."

"We were trying to let them know where we were so they wouldn't lob no shells on us," he said. "I was with the 22nd Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division. We talked Indian and sent messages when need be. It was quicker to use telephones and radios to send messages because Morse code had to be decoded and the Germans could decode them. We used telephones and radios to talk Indian then wrote it in English and gave it to the commanding officer."

During the ceremony Chibitty was asked if he was ever hit by enemy fire.

"Heck, no. I was like a prairie dog. As soon as I heard a whistle, I'd dive in that hole. I was little then. I weighed 126 pounds and it didn't take long for me to dig my hole. My buddy weighed 240 pounds and some of them were more than six feet tall and they had to dig a long trench,” he replied.
http://jobs.ncmonline.com/directory/getdata.asp?about_id=ba74b866d73000a0a68295aab68b2 2e1-2
He also expressed sadness that so many Comanche Code Talkers died before receiving recognition.

"The only thing I regret is my fellow code talkers are not here," Chibitty said. "But I have a feeling those boys are here somewhere listening and looking down."

Cates recalled that she would drive Chibitty to various speaking engagements.

“He would always tell young people that it didn’t matter what color you were or where you were from. He would say that everyone should be proud of who they are. That was him. He was proud to be an Indian and proud to be a veteran.”

Chibitty also received a special proclamation from the Governor of Oklahoma, honoring him for his service.

In addition to his military exploits, Chibitty was a championship dancer and a successful boxer in his early years. Active in the community until his death, Chibitty was well known at the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of Oklahoma.

“He meant a lot not only to the Tulsa Indian community as an elder, but as a voice for the Choctaw Tribe. He mentored young Indian people because he saw that we need that,” chamber president Margo Gray said.

Wingy

07-23-2005, 05:43 AM

Police Abuse?
Visiting surgeon weighing options in wake of confrontation with Albuquerque cops

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2005/july/072105images/moss0721.jpg
From the home in Gallup where he is staying, GIMC heart surgeon Vincent Moss talks on the phone Wednesday with attorneys about a potential lawsuit against the Albuquerque Police Department for excessive use of force. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]

By Leslie Wood
Staff Writer

GALLUP — A 34-year-old Gallup Indian Medical Center heart surgeon reclined on a plush cream sofa on Wednesday night as he juggled telephone calls from zealous attorneys hoping to represent him in a potential lawsuit against the Albuquerque Police Department.

To be exact, nine attorneys, from across the nation, have contacted Maryland native Vincent Moss since news broke about an incident where police allegedly beat him up outside an Albuquerque tavern.

However, the officers and bar owner assert appropriate force was used and Moss came toward them in a threatening manner.

Moss was visiting Albuquerque for the weekend after hearing of the city's reputation.

"I was just walking the beautiful streets of Albuquerque," he said. Moss said he approached Maloney's tavern manager Dave Buehring to question why he had not been served, after he had been ignored by the bar's wait staff for nearly 30 minutes.

Albuquerque police officers reportedly watched as Buehring and Moss discussed his treatment outside the downtown establishment and only took action once Moss followed Buehring back into the bar to settle a tab.

The incident escalated when officers grabbed Moss by the shirt and eventually pushed him onto the ground causing his shoulder to dislocate. Meanwhile, Moss said he was trying to introduce himself as a Gallup physician.

In addition to a dislocated shoulder, Moss sustained multiple bruises on his upper arm and left eye. He was subsequently booked into the Albuquerque detention center and made a $75 bond about 12 hours later.

Due to his injuries, Moss said he is unable to conduct surgery without an assistant. He plans to investigate the incident to determine whether a lawsuit is warranted.

"I want to gather all the facts to decide whether I should pursue legal matters," Moss said. "... but I do know excessive force was used."

He's not certain if his neglect as a customer was race-related because the tavern was filled with more than 100 customers at the time, he said. But he did call witness statements that he came toward the officers in an aggressive stance "a complete lie."

"It's unfortunate it happened to me," he said. "But what is fortunate is that I'll do something about it. I'll do whatever it takes."

Moss is temporarily working at GIMC as a heart surgeon until he is deployed to Iraq in September.

"He has been able to do things they usually can't accommodate," Louise Frechette, said of the surgeon who is temporarily staying at her and her husband's home.

When he arrived in Gallup in late June at about 2 a.m., Moss said he was followed to his Linda Street residence by at least three Gallup police officers who were patrolling the area.

He said a female officer pulled him over and asked if he was lost. The officers then followed Moss until he arrived at the location.

"It's so vague that it's not worth filing a complaint," Moss said. "I can't say it was race-related, but you can never rule it out."

He said incidents such as this are a more common of an occurrence since his arrival to the southwest. Gallup Police Chief Sylvester Stanley said it is not the department's policy to pull over a vehicle without probable cause.

"It's not our procedure to follow people regardless of their color," Stanley said.

However, he invited Moss to meet with him if he had a complaint.

Moss said he has already discussed the Albuquerque incident with the Mayor Martin Chavez, the police department and the governor's office.

Buehring could not be reached for comment, as of press time.

Wingy

07-23-2005, 05:46 AM

DAVID GELERNTER

No more cheating for a good cause

DAVID GELERNTER

July 22, 2005

Sandra day o'connor's retirement from the Supreme Court should make us ponder affirmative action. Her most influential piece of writing might well be the 2003 court opinion allowing the University of Michigan Law School to continue race-based admissions for the time being — so long as there were no racial quotas. It was the first time the court had ever endorsed race-based university admissions.

And of course, O'Connor herself was the first woman on the Supreme Court. When President Reagan nominated her in 1981, affirmative action was fairly new; O'Connor made it look good. She was superbly qualified, yet presumably would have been overlooked had Reagan not searched expressly for a female.

But that was long ago. Today, affirmative action is ripe for the junkyard. There's dramatic evidence in President Bush nominating a garden-variety white male to O'Connor's seat. He said something important by doing so. Consider the fact that for much of the 20th century, the "Jewish seat" was a Supreme Court convention. To have one Jew on the court (no more, no less) seemed proper and fitting. But in time Jews went mainstream and the single "Jewish seat" quietly disappeared. (There are now two Jewish justices).

Bush has delivered a comparable message to women and minorities: Welcome to the mainstream! We don't need a "woman's seat" on the court. There are no more outsiders in American life.

Now let's get rid of affirmative action.

In practice, affirmative action means cheating in a good cause. (But all cheating, for any cause, gnaws at a nation's moral innards like termites.) Affirmative action means a plus factor in university admissions, job hiring and promotion for candidates from protected groups, in the interests of "diversity." (But why should "diversity" mean official "minorities" and women but not libertarians, farmers, Mormons, Texans, children of soldiers, aspiring Catholic priests, etc.?)

Affirmative action is highly unpopular: A 2003 Washington Post-Harvard-Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 92% of the public (86% of blacks) agreed that admissions, hiring and promotion decisions "should be based strictly on merit and qualifications other than race/ethnicity." Only bureaucrats and intellectuals (species that are more closely related than they seem) love affirmative action.

Is it really "cheating"? In 2003, Linda Chavez, the head of the Center for Equal Opportunity, described University of Michigan freshman admissions as they stood in the mid-1990s: "We found that the odds ratio favoring admission of a black applicant with identical grades and test scores to a white applicant was 174 to 1." The high court struck down that admissions procedure, but it's a frightening reminder of what people can do in the name of fairness.

Affirmative actions begs comparison with the Vietnam War: two hugely ambitious programs with no exit strategies. In 1965, the Johnson administration launched affirmative action. The Nixon administration relaunched it in 1970, requiring all federal contractors to set "goals and timetables" to govern black hiring. It spread quickly (as a legal requirement or voluntary policy) to unions, government agencies, big business, universities.

It was intended originally not to create diversity but to stamp out prejudice in a hurry. As such, it bears another strange resemblance to Vietnam. You could argue in both cases that we won but refused to admit it. Some modern historians insist that we defeated the Vietnamese communists, then walked off and let them win by default. And we have stamped out so much prejudice that nowadays we are at least as strongly bigoted in favor of women and minorities as we are bigoted against them — as any 10-year-old can tell you.

Textbooks widely used in public schools consistently downplay white men in favor of women and minorities. (Thomas Edison gets less space than a black scientist who tweaked one of Edison's inventions. A Navajo physicist gets a detailed write-up, but Albert Einstein doesn't appear. A biologist of the Seneca tribe is credited with nothing noteworthy, but he gets a picture while James Watson and Francis Crick, co-founders of modern genetics, don't rate a mention. At virtually any U.S. university, female or minority faculty candidates are in vastly greater demand than plain old white males.

Affirmative action has turned the United States into an aristocracy. British aristocrats have enjoyed their own kind of "reverse discrimination" for a thousand years. America's affirmative-action aristocrats were only created a generation ago; until then, they were targets of bigotry themselves. So what? No aristocracy is acceptable in the U.S.

O'Connor wrote in the University of Michigan ruling that affirmative action must end some day. George W. might be just the man to end it.

Wingy

07-23-2005, 05:47 AM

Students worried about future of FNUC's Saskatoon campus
Last Updated: Jul 21 2005 09:28 AM CDT

Regina-based First Nations University of Canada is exploring the possibility of closing its Saskatoon campus as a cash-saving measure, sources have told CBC News.

Beau Ballerneault, who's with FNUC's Saskatoon students' association, said he learned the option of closing the Saskatoon campus came up during last week's board of governor's meeting.

The move would save the university about $820,000 annually.

Other sources have told CBC News the option of closing the Saskatoon campus was tabled at last week's board meeting.

Newly appointed FNUC president Charles Pratt wouldn't speak to the CBC on this matter.

A spokesperson for Pratt said he's looking at all options, but closing the Saskatoon campus has not been seriously considered.

Earlier this year, CBC reported FNUC was running a deficit that could top $3 million and was looking at a series of cutbacks.

"They tell us not to worry, that no program will be cut, that we're only looking at a $1.3-million shortfall, that the $3-million shortfall is exaggerated," Ballerneault said.

"You know, to cut out one campus, that shows you right there that this is a lot more serious than what the FSIN or Al Ducharme and Charles Pratt are trying to make it look like."

Ducharme is one of the administrators brought in following a series of suspensions of senior officials in February.

Since then, the only First Nations-controlled institution of its kind in Canada has been in turmoil.

Several senior officials have been dismissed, including vice-president of administration Wes Stevenson and Saskatoon campus dean Winona Wheeler.

On Wednesday, FNUC said Regina campus dean Dawn Tato had been dismissed.

Wingy

07-23-2005, 05:51 AM

CITIZEN-TIMES.com

Steps taken to add spots in WNC to official Trail of Tears

By Jill Ingram (jingram@ashevill.gannett.com), Staff Writer
July 21, 2005 6:00 am

Some of more than 20 routes and sites in Western North Carolina may be considered for addition to the historic Cherokee Trail of Tears.

These include Fort Butler, the command center for deportation in North Carolina and part of what is now Murphy, and the Unicoi Turnpike, the primary route used to deport Cherokee from Western North Carolina to Tennessee. Inclusion on the trail could take years, but a bill now in Congress is the first stage in the designation, and a series of wayside markers is also in the works.

“The research is done. It’s pretty cut and dry,” said Barbara R. Duncan, education director with the Museum of the Cherokee Indian.

The Trail of Tears is the collective name for multiple routes, on both water and land, which about 16,000 Cherokee traveled under different detachments during a forced western deportation in 1838 and 1839 under the orders of President Andrew Jackson.

Although nearly 3,000 Cherokee who were forced to march were from North Carolina and about 9,000 were from Georgia, routes through those states are not designated portions of the trail. The trail also excludes two major arteries in Arkansas and water routes in eastern Tennessee.

Between 4,000 and 8,000 people died during the journey, according to Duncan. The length of the journey varied depending on the route taken, but averaged about 1,000 miles.

The historically designated trail is an integrated system of routes and sites (including sites in North Carolina and Georgia) that tell the story of life at the time of removal and the story of the removal itself. The trail is maintained by the National Park Service and was designated in 1987.

Many of those who survived eventually settled on a reservation in Oklahoma, now the home of the more than 255,000-member Cherokee Nation. Cherokee who resisted the march eventually formed what is now the 13,300-member Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, on land in WNC bordered by Jackson and Swain counties and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Brett Riggs, an archaeologist with the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at UNC-Chapel Hill, has spent years researching WNC Cherokee sites, primarily in Cherokee County, for the North Carolina chapter of the national Trail of Tears Association.

Riggs is finalizing a study for the National Park Service that details Cherokee-related sites in WNC relevant to the trail. Those sites include Army installations where Cherokee were interred prior to the march, roads, stores, private residences and more.

No evidence remains of most of the sites. Some are covered with heavy development, some are underwater and one is covered by a highway. The Unicoi Turnpike, an abandoned wagon road that runs through woods between Clay and Cherokee counties, is the lone exception.

The office has the option of reviewing projects on traditional Cherokee land that involve federal land, money or permits. Russell Townsend is a member of the Cherokee Nation who works in the Eastern Band’s Historic Preservation Office.

Recognizing routes and sites relevant to the trail serves a contemporary purpose, Townsend said.

“It’s important because it’s a reminder to people who now occupy (what was once) the Cherokee nation and aren’t Cherokee that the land was acquired at bayonet point,” he said. “Finally, after 170-odd years, the story’s getting told.”

Townsend said that WNC counties and the tribe recognize that trail additions could be opportunities to expand the region’s heritage tourism offerings.

“You can still walk in trails that Cherokee walked in the Trail of Tears,” Townsend said. “It’s really moving when you get up there.”

Larry Blythe, vice president of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and Chadwick Smith, principal chief of Oklahoma’s Cherokee Nation, were in Washington last month for the introduction of the Trail of Tears Documentation Act, which directs the Interior Department to review new evidence and complete the historical picture through markers and other forms of recognition.

Smith called the Cherokee plight a “travesty of justice, sham of public policy and disdain for human dignity.”

U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor, R-Brevard, is sponsoring the Cherokee Trail of Tears Documentation Act along with U.S. Reps. Tennessee Republican Zach Wamp and Arkansas Democrat Marion Berry.

Taylor has “always been a big supporter of the Eastern Band,” said Deborah Potter, Taylor’s press secretary, who works in Asheville. “Generally, if they ask him to get behind something, he follows their wishes.”

This is the first step in expanding the trail. The second step is an amendment by Congress of the original act designating the trail so that it can include new routes and sites.

Paxton Myers, Eastern Band tribal representative, said he doesn’t see any opposition to the bill.

Most lawmakers — including many from the South — were mum in 1830 when Jackson sought to remove the tribes. Davy Crockett was the lone Tennessee congressman to oppose the plans and lost re-election as a result.

Riggs said the trail has essentially been traced backward, west to east, and the neglected portions of the North Carolina and Georgia trail weren’t the result of malice but a lack of research and funding.

No matter what happens with the Trail of Tears designation, Riggs said there’s a plan to erect a series of wayside exhibits explaining their significance by the end of the year.

Riggs said the full trail will never be complete.

“In its truest sense,” he said, “the Trail of Tears began at each Cherokee house and led west.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Ingram at JIngram@CITIZEN-TIMES.com (JIngram@CITIZEN-TIMES.com).

Wingy

07-23-2005, 05:53 AM

Saturday, July 23, 2005
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Cherokee Nation makes donation to local agencies

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By Bob Gibbins, Press Staff Writer Two local law enforcement agencies got thee proverbial shot in the arm this week and will move closer to scoring departmental goals, thanks to the Cherokee Nation.

The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office and Tahlequah Police Department received donations from the tribe. District 1 Tribal Councilors Bill John Baker and Audra Conner presented checks Thursday to Sheriff Norman Fisher and Police Chief Steve Farmer.

Farmer intends to use the $20,000 gift to purchase two drug dogs for the department and equip a department vehicle for transporting the dogs. Fisher will use the $25,000 the CN gave his agency to buy accessories for the new patrol cars the department purchased earlier this year.

The grants will allow both departments to accomplish their goals more quickly than they originally anticipated.

"I want to thank Bill John and Audra for thinking of the sheriff's office," Fisher said. "Our budget is tight, and this should help us get those new cars out there quicker than we thought."

Farmer may have had the money in the TPD budget for one drug dog, but will now be able to get two dogs to work with the officers in narcotics investigations. He intends to begin procuring the animals right away.

Baker said the monies have been accumulating for the past three years through tribal tag sales. He Conner chose to pool their money and give it to the police department and sheriff's office. The Cherokee Nation has already been giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to schools within the 14 counties of its jurisdiction.

"We know there are other important areas, like law enforcement, and we don't want them to be less prepared," Baker said. "They protect Cherokee people and our housing projects."

The council has said it would use the money in the communities.

"It's time for us to pay the piper and do what we said," Baker said.

Conner said she, too, is glad to provide the assistance to local law enforcement.

Baker said drugs are a major problem within the Cherokee Nation, and anything the tribe can do to help in the fight is a positive measure. He said helping equip vehicles in the sheriff's office is also important because the new cars will aid deputies in safely getting to calls to assist both tribal and non-tribal members.

Farmer said funds for the drug dogs will also help the schools, which can now work with the police department when they need one on campus, rather than securing one with their own budgets.

"Our current fleet of vehicles is not in good shape," Fisher said. "Hopefully, with this assistance from Cherokee Nation, we can get some new, better-equipped cars on the street."

Wingy

07-23-2005, 05:58 AM

Convicted Roseburg knife murderer's appeal denied

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JOHN SOWELL, jsowell@newsreview.info (jsowell@newsreview.info)
July 18, 2005
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The Oregon Court of Appeals has turned down an appeal from convicted Douglas County murderer Scott Steffler.

Steffler, who turned 27 today, was convicted of the Aug. 15, 1999, stabbing death of Roseburg resident Sheila Theeler. Steffler, who had resided in the same downtown Roseburg apartment building as the victim, accompanied Theeler to a secluded hillside off Lookingglass Road on the night she was killed.

At some point, Steffler struck Theeler and then chased her down after she ran away. He ended up stabbing her more than 30 times.

A jury convicted Steffler of aggravated murder and intentional murder. Rick Wesenberg, the senior deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, had planned to seek the death penalty. However, before the start of the penalty phase of the trial, Steffler agreed to a deal where he would spend the rest of his life in prison, without the chance for parole, in exchange for Wesenberg dropping his demand for the death penalty.

In his appeal, Steffler argued that the introduction of the murder knife at trial should have been suppressed. The weapon was recovered when Steffler was arrested a few days after the murder in Sacramento, Calif., after being spotted at a bus station. He had a ticket to the East Coast.

The knife was found in a bag Steffler was carrying when he was apprehended. He warned officers to be careful, because there was blood on the knife in the bag. Officers at the scene removed the knife from the bag rather than wait to obtain a search warrant.

Steffler also argued that he wasn't properly advised of his Miranda rights to remain silent. Although he signed a card waiving his rights before speaking to detectives, his lawyers argued the officers should have advised him of his rights again before talking with him during subsequent interviews.

Steffler also argued that Douglas County did not have jurisdiction to prosecute him because he was a member of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians. He claimed the tribe's 1853 treaty with the federal government made it a federal case, not a local one. The prosecution argued that because the crime did not occur on tribal land and did not involve a Native American victim, it was rightfully prosecuted in Douglas County Circuit Court.

The Court of Appeals issued its ruling against Steffler, without comment, on June 15. It took several weeks to obtain a copy of the briefs filed in the Court of Appeals case to learn the issues involved. Steffler is serving his sentence at the Snake River Correctional Facility in Ontario.

* You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@newsreview.info (jsowell@newsreview.info).

Wingy

07-23-2005, 06:00 AM

ESPN brings WEIO games into the national spotlight

By MATT NEVALA
Anchorage Daily News

Published: July 21st, 2005
Last Modified: July 21st, 2005 at 03:31 AM

From drum beats to traditional dances, music is as much a part of the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics' cultural setting as athletic events.

So maybe it's fitting that a television tune familiar to sports fans everywhere will emanate from Fairbanks' Big Dipper Arena today:

Da, da, da ... da, da, da -- this is ESPN's SportsCenter in Alaska at the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics.

SportsCenter, ESPN's flagship show and the nation's most popular sports news program, broadcasts from the 44th edition of WEIO today as part of the channel's "SportsCenter Across America -- 50 States in 50 Days" tour. The first shots from Alaska are scheduled to be seen live on the 2 p.m. ADT edition of SportsCenter and repeated later tonight and through Friday's early-morning rebroadcasts.

"WEIO caught our eye through the research we did," said Mark Gross, an ESPN senior coordinating producer. "It's something unique, something people don't know about."

"SportsCenter Across America," a road trip that takes ESPN to a sporting event in every state, started Sunday at Boston's Fenway Park for New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox baseball. It made stops in New Hampshire (minor league baseball), Idaho (rodeo) and Iowa (baseball) earlier this week before making the trek to Alaska.

"I'm so pleased with the fact ESPN decided WEIO is the place it wants to be," said WEIO general manager Rhonda Joseph. "After working 12 hours a day every day the last two weeks, I like to see exactly what ESPN is giving us -- live coverage.

"It gets our name on the map."

Viewers can expect to see ESPN anchor Steve Levy sitting at a mobile "SportsCenter" set inside Big Dipper Arena. Levy, probably known best for his play-by-play announcing of National Hockey League games, is one of 15 ESPN anchors on the tour. Four ESPN production teams are criss-crossing the country through Sept. 4.

Gross said Levy will broadcast three segments from WEIO. The first will introduce Alaska to many of the 88 million people who watch "SportsCenter" at least once a month, according to the network. The "welcome" segment includes historical notes, facts and information on the state's contribution to the national sports scene. This is where you're likely to see old footage of NHL star Scott Gomez hoisting the Stanley Cup, guard Mark Schlereth blocking for Denver's John Elway in the Super Bowl and four-time Iditarod champion Susan Butcher crossing the Nome finish line.

The second segment should focus on WEIO. What is it? What does it mean to Alaska? Who are the champions? Joseph said WEIO athletes will demonstrate many events.

WEIO will offer a national audience something they've probably never seen, and viewers from coast to coast could get hooked by the event names. After all, how often does the knuckle hop, ear pull or one-foot high kick get aired on national television?

But WEIO won't be the only unusual stop during "SportsCenter Across America."

Get ready for foosball in Virginia, prison rodeo in Oklahoma and pie eating in Maine.

"I don't rank WEIO with foosball or pie eating," Joseph said. "We're in a league of our own.

"All games and events are geared towards our Native culture, and that's not something to make fun of. It's something to be proud of and encourage."

Gross said the third "Sports Center" segment is a feature story on baseball's Midnight Sun Game, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in Fairbanks last month.

ESPN.com (http://espn.com/) is also getting in on the "SportsCenter Across America" act. The Web site includes interactive maps, state-specific pages full of information and online polls.

A check of the Best of Alaska poll late Tuesday night produced its share of debatable results, such as UAF men's basketball team winning the 2002 Top of the World Classic as the state's most memorable sports moment or the NHL's Vancouver Canucks as the state's favorite pro team.

But keep in mind more than 74 percent of the 7,400-plus voters had never been to Alaska.

Daily News reporter Matt Nevala can be reached at mnevala@adn.com (mnevala@adn.com) or 257-4335.

ON TV

WEIO: Want to see the "SportsCenter" featuring Alaska telecasts from WEIO? Watch ESPN (cable Channel 29) today at 2 p.m., 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. and Friday morning at 1 a.m. and 8 a.m. It will also be televised today at 7 p.m. on ESPN2 (cable Channel 30). ON THE WEB: Check out ESPN's "SportsCenter Across America" at

sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/fiftyfifty/index (http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/fiftyfifty/index)

Wingy

07-23-2005, 06:07 AM

Wednesday, 07/20/05

Grant preserves ancient village in Castalian Springs

By Zach Mills
Staff Writer

A federal grant from the National Park Service will allow the state to purchase a 130-acre historical site in Castalian Springs and preserve an ancient Native American village and burial ground.

The $329,250 Land and Water Conservation (LWCF) grant enables the state to receive matching federal funds for the purchase the 132.88 acres of land adjacent to the Wynnewood State Historical Site.

“What it does for Sumner County, it helps complete the area of history that was one of the earliest sites in Sumner County,” said John Garrott, president of the Bledsoe’s Lick Historical Association, Inc.

With the acquisition of the Native American site there will be about 300 acres of historical land in the area, Garrott said.

This historical acreage will create a “chance to have a very nice” historical center, he added.

The Wynnewood site is a 54.74-acre historical landmark managed by the the Bledsoe’s Lick Historical Association.

The state’s division of archeology will manage the 130-acres of the Leon Shoulders estate property where the Cheskeki Indian Village and historical mounds are located.

The site contains artifacts and burial mounds dating from A.D. 1000-1450.

Near this property is the Sumner County-owned Bledsoe’s Fort Historic Park and the Bledsoe’s Cemetery also managed by the Bledsoe’s Lick Historical Association consisting of a total of 76.68 acres.

“We have a great wealth of history right here,” said Doris Gilmore, treasurer of Bledsoe’s Lick Historical Association.

The grant, she said, gives Bledsoe’s a “great opportunity” to be involved in the preservation of the area.

“I think Sumner Countians don’t really know what we have,” Gilmore said.

The grant will allow the continued study and interpretation of the Native American site, Garrott said.

There was a similar site in Hendersonville, he added, but it was destroyed by development.

“It’s good that we are able to save this one,” Garrott said.

The earliest known excavations of the Native American site were conducted around 1820. More excavations were conducted in the late 1800s and early 1900s by William E. Myer, who later was associated with the Smithsonian Institute.

A significant amount of historical artifacts remain despite these early excavations. A recently completed water line excavation along Highway 25 between Governor Hall Road and Rock Springs Road found several domestic structures and intact burials.

“The prehistory Native Americans lived here a thousand plus years ago,” Garrott said. “The long hunters came here in the 1760s and came back to settle in the 1770s. The Stage Coach Inn was built in 1828. This land was occupied by the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War. In the 1940s this was the training ground for the invasion force into France because it was so much like the French countryside.”

In 1964 Congress enacted the LWCF grant to provide conservation funds derived from receipts from oil and gas drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. In addition to funding federal acquisition of authorized national parks and other conservation and recreation area, the LWCF also provides matching funds to state agencies and local communities known as state-side grants. These grants help state and local governments acquire, develop, improve and maintain outdoor recreation areas and open space.

Wingy

07-23-2005, 06:10 AM

Tribe trying to save sacred site

Jul. 23, 2005 12:00 AM

I am writing on behalf of the Tohono O'odham Nation to offer our perspective regarding the lawsuit with the National Science Foundation.

Kitt Peak, known to the members of Tohono O'odham as I'itoi's Garden and called Iiolkam in the O'odham language, is in the Schuk Toak District of the Tohono O'odham Reservation. This mountain and Baboquivari Peak to the south of Kitt Peak are two of the most important religious and culturally significant sites to our nation.

In 1958, the U.S. government entered into a lease agreement with our elders allowing the National Science Foundation to locate observatories on Kitt Peak, with the understanding that the mountain is a sacred site. This lease arrangement carried the understanding that the foundation must comply with all relevant federal laws and regulations.

When the foundation proposed the construction and operation of the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System in 2003, the nation's expressed opposition to further development on Kitt Peak was ignored, and construction proceeded.

Construction proceeded despite the foundation's clear violation of two federal laws: the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. The foundation refused to respond to the Tohono O'odham Nation, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Arizona Historic Preservation Office, all of which requested that the foundation abide by the laws and cease construction.

After numerous requests, the foundation refused to comply with the law or to halt construction to consult with us. The nation was forced to take action to protect our sacred site, so we filed a lawsuit in federal district court. Since that time, the foundation has finally halted construction.

The nation, too, hopes for a successful resolution in a manner respectful of what's in our best interest and our desire not to further desecrate our mountain.

Vivian Juan-Saunders, Sells

The writer is chairwoman of the Tohono O'odham Nation.
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lilithinwaiting

07-23-2005, 03:39 PM

Thank you , Wingy for bringing this all out. I am pleased to see so many who take an interest in human rights and who take a stand in social injustice.

irisheyes66

07-24-2005, 12:03 PM

I think what Cyndi had in mind when she started this thread....is more along the lines of actual First Nation reading material (i.e. written and researched by authenticated individuals).

Throughout history, it has been an accepted practice for others to "take" from the tribes and profit accordingly....with the advent of "New Age" ideology, this abuse is more rampant than ever.

The beliefs and ceremonies are sacred, and should not be used for financial gain by outsiders. This includes audio recordings, artwork, and literature (books).

I've learned a lot about the Native way from my fiance's Cherokee Brother (we are penpals), but no matter how much he teaches me, I will never be an expert or an authority. That's because I will never know that life, or the struggle of their people.

It reminds me of when "all thing Irish" really hit a boom about 8 or 9 years ago (Riverdance, Angela's Ashes, the McCourt brothers, et al). All of a sudden, anyone whose ancestors had even dated a culchie was all over it, pronouncing their association with the culture. As a true lass, this bothered me immensely.

So even as an outsider to their culture, I am offended for Native Americans. They continue to be victimized through stolen idealogy and false prophets.

Let's not allow that to happen here.

Just my opinion.

tink47960

07-27-2005, 09:02 AM

:) Hi all. I am new to this site, it is awsome. My husband (standing bear) is the spirtual leader of the circle at ISP in michigan city,Indiana. Anyone have a loved one there? Are they still on lockdown? Everyone have a great day...............
hopefully our loved ones in prison will too.

Wingy

07-27-2005, 02:15 PM

Caribbean Native Nations Join U.N. Permanent Forum

Indian Country Today (http://www.indiancountry.com/), News Report, Jose Barreiro, Jul 26, 2005

A group of Caribbean indigenous nations gathered for special ceremonies and events in late May during the 4th United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, held in New York City. The indigenous movement in the Caribbean represents one of the lesser-known currents of Native cultural and political resurgence. This spring at the United Nations, the various delegations of Caribbean indigenous peoples coalesced in interesting and welcome ways.

For the first time in many years, Caribbean indigenous representatives were able to meet, share food and culture, and get down to the hard work of U.N. resolutions, interventions and document reaffirmation that marks much of international work. The Taino Nation of the Antilles, with primary bases in Puerto Rico and New York City, organized events for Caribbean delegates. It fund-raised the costs of one delegate from Dominica and coordinated presentations. Roberto Borrero, a Taino who serves on the NGO committee of the Indigenous Permanent Forum, also helped fund delegates to the event and has been active in hemispheric organizing. An Indigenous Peoples Caucus of the Greater Caribbean has been formed.

Carib cultural activist Prosper Paris, among others, joined the U.N. events. Prosper is from the Carib Territory in the north coast of the small Caribbean island of Dominica. He was one of several presenters on a panel on Indigenous Education and Cultural Survival organized by the Taino Nation. This writer chaired the panel, held at the customary indigenous gathering place in New York City: the United Nations Church Center at 777 United Nations Plaza, where several dozen Taino, Carib, Arawak, Guajiro and other indigenous peoples gathered.

The notable event, ably organized by Vanessa Pastrana, Inarunikia, among other volunteers from the Taino Nation, featured a dance presentation from young Taino people and recitations in the Taino language that are the product of a vigorous reconstruction and relearning of the insular Arawak language by members of that nation since the 1980s.

''From Cuba, in the mountains of the Sierra, from Dominican Republic, from our own Boriken [Puerto Rico], we have met relatives, holding on to our identity and retaking our indigenous roots,'' said Cacique Cibanakan, of the Taino Nation. ''Our hearts pound with excitement that our people are coming together.'' Indigenous delegates from all over the world arrive in New York City every spring for the now-permanent U.N. forum on Indigenous peoples' issues. There are always dozens if not hundreds of important and fascinating stories - both positive and negative - on the conditions of tribal peoples and on the always tortuous and troubled trajectory in the world of highly exploitative industries, with their rapacious hunger for indigenous lands and natural resources.

In too many cases, the political contentions of land and resources are accompanied by attacks on Native leaders and political and social structures. Quechua and Aymara from Bolivia and Ecuador, Kuna from Panama, Maya from Guatemala, northern Canadian Cree leaders, Lakota treaty chiefs and Haudenosaunee traditionalists from the United States and Saami from Norway, among many others, sustained a necessary dialogue on human rights and development through the work of U.N. gatherings.

In New York representing the Arawak community at Joboshirima in Venezuela, Chief Reginaldo Fredericks found a not-so-distant relative in Daniel Rivera, Wakonax, one of the active leaders in the Taino movement in Puerto Rico and the diaspora. The Arawak chief, who is Onishido Clan and lives mostly in the rain forest, was very happy to meet Taino relatives.

Among the messages carried by Fredericks from his people is the need to preserve and restore indigenous language. He commended the Taino language recovery program, developed by the nation's elder language advocate, Jose Laboy, Boriquex, and offered to help bring together the Arawak (Lokono) peoples wherever possible. ''It is wonderful we are more and more recognizing each other; we have a lot to offer each other,'' Rivera, who made an intervention at the United Nations on behalf of Caribbean Indian peoples, responded.

Of the many currents of indigenous movement across the Western Hemisphere, the Caribbean is the most hidden and marginalized. As communities, clans and nations coalesce, however, encounters such as the one at the United Nations in New York provide common ground for exchange and mutual education. The shared cultural history is fascinating.

Fredericks narrated stories of his people to the Taino Nation elder, which tell of six original Lokono (later Arawak) nations, which the chief called ''clans.'' Of the six ''clans,'' three are unaccounted for while Taino is in the process of vigorous cultural and social recovery.

According to Fredericks, the ancient Lokono tribes or clans were called Oralido, Cariafudo, Onishido ''rain people,'' Gimragi, Way'u, and the ''good people'' from the great islands (Taino). Today, ''as far as we know,'' the chief reported, only Onishido and Way'u survive on the mainland. The chief was most intrigued that hundreds and perhaps thousands of Taino descendants from the islands of the Greater Antilles are reaffirming themselves. The chief pointed to his headdress, which shows six feathers, symbolizing the six tribes or clans of the Lokono. ''The good island people, the Taino, are one of the six feathers,'' Fredericks reminded the other Caribbean delegates.

From La Guajira, Colombia, Karmen Ramirez represented the Way'u Morerat RJUWAT organization. She pointed out not only her Native Way'u nation, but also four tribes from Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta as Arawaks who originate with the Way'u of the Guajira Peninsula. It was another instance of people from common ancestors and linked contemporary identities meeting and recognizing each other as a result of an indigenous international movement. The Way'u, who also reside in neighboring Venezuela, are one of those peoples hurtfully divided by an international border.

Caribbean indigenous delegates, in the shadows for decades if not centuries, put their statements into the record at the annual U.N. event. The Caribbean indigenous caucus signaled the following major goal: ''That the collective rights of the indigenous peoples of the Greater Caribbean to lands, territories, resources, and traditional knowledge be enshrined in the Constitution of all Greater Caribbean countries and in other states where indigenous peoples exist.''

Wingy

07-27-2005, 03:42 PM

Tink!! Bozhoo and welcome to the NA forum!!! glad to have you aboard...I dunno who is from whhere really, I am from Mass, Aben aki and my husband is Potawatomie and a guest of the state of Indiana...

Glad you found us...I hope we can help each other and our loved ones in sharing and growing...

Baa maa pii

Wingy

07-28-2005, 06:20 AM

Wednesday, July 27, 2005 - 12:00 AM

Editorial
Science and religion: Scopes to Kennewick

EIGHTY years after the Scopes trial dealt a blow to the anti-evolution movement, a similar face-off between science and religion is slated tomorrow in the U.S. Senate.

This time the issue is whether to preserve the right of science to discern the stories of the earliest Americans or to accede to beliefs of some Native American tribes that all ancient remains belong to them — even when there is no provable connection.

An action against science could stall the court-ordered study of Kennewick Man, the 9,300-year-old remains stored at the University of Washington's Burke Museum.

Science should win again.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing likely won't draw 1,000 spectators, as crowded around the Dayton, Tenn., courthouse for the trial of high-school teacher John Thomas Scopes, accused of illegally teaching evolutionary theory. But the debate no doubt will be as passionate as that rendered by William Jennings Bryan, for the prosecution, and Clarence Darrow, for the defense.

At issue now is whether to amend the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act with the addition of two words: "or was." So the act would redefine Native American to be "of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or culture that is ... or was ... indigenous to the United States."

That means modern-day tribes could claim the remains from ancient tribes that long since moved on or died out — even remains of their ancestors' foes.

The proposed change is in response to last year's unequivocal federal rulings that scientists should be able to study Kennewick Man. When the skeleton was found in 1996 on federal land, the government quickly moved to repatriate the remains to four tribes that claimed them. Eight leading scientists sued and won. This month, they are studying the remains for the first time.

The tribes argued their oral histories say they always have been in the Northwest and contain no references to visitors — contrary to scientific evidence of widespread migration.

The federal courts sided with science, finding none of the Act's required proof of a connection to the tribes. Republican Sen. John McCain's proposed amendment would remove that burden of proven affiliation.

Supporters of the change say it won't affect Kennewick Man's study, but that is disingenuous nonsense. If the amendment is enacted, a new claim could be filed on the grounds Congress clarified its intent. Regardless, it would apply to other ancient remains with no link to modern tribes.

Science won in 1925 when the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Scopes' conviction and dismissed the case. But it could be losing in 2005. Anthropologists report many students are opting to do graduate work outside the United States because it is increasingly hard to get access to old bones.

The Indian Affairs Committee should follow the advice of Scopes, a willing scapegoat in the test case 80 years ago: "The best time to scotch the snake is when it starts to wiggle."

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/general/copyright.html)

Wingy

07-28-2005, 06:24 AM

Delegation urges Black Hills logging

Members say following harvest plan would reduce fire risks

PETER HARRIMAN
pharrima@argusleader.com

Published: 07/25/05

South Dakota's congressional delegation told the highest ranking official in the U.S. Forest Service to cut more timber in the Black Hills National Forest.

During a July 20 meeting in the office of Sen. Tim Johnson, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth and Rocky Mountain Region Forester Rick Cables heard Johnson, Sen. John Thune and Rep. Stephanie Herseth press them to complete by this fall the Phase 2 amendment to the forest plan. It would establish procedures for using logging to reduce fire and insect risks.

The members of Congress also urged that commercial logging in the forest be stepped up to the allowable sale quantity of 83 million board feet. The ASQ is the amount of timber forest managers believe can be annually harvested in a sustained yield program.

Before 1997, the ASQ for the Black Hills Forest was set at 118 MBF. In a forest plan revision that year, it was reduced to the present number. But timber harvest this decade has only averaged between 60-70 MBF annually.

"The trick is to find that fine line between adequate timbering and preservation of both the aesthetic and wildlife qualities of the Black Hills," Johnson said. "We do not want clear-cut forestry going on, and we do not want mountains denuded of their trees. But if we don't do something, all we are going to be left with are blackened fire remains."

Since 2000, wildfires have burned more than 180,000 of the forest's 1.2 million acres, and a bark beetle outbreak has killed thousands of trees in the northern Black Hills.

Thune characterized the meeting similarly.

"Everybody seemed to be pretty much on the same page. The delegation recognizes that forest health needs to be an issue they are concerned with," he said.

That unity resonated with the Forest Service officials.

"They wanted to impart to the chief and myself, perhaps more to the chief, how important it is to them and to their constituents to have the forest in as healthy a state as possible," Cables said after the meeting.

All parties at the meeting agreed that ambitious logging is needed in the Black Hills to reduce the density of trees prone to insect damage, disease and fire and to open up stands of ponderosa pine to allow other native plant species such as aspen to flourish, according to Tom Troxel, director of the Black Hills Forest Resource Association, a timber interest group.

"It was a good meeting," said Troxel, who attended. "I was delighted the three members of the delegation could come together. They were of one voice in talking to the chief, expressing their concerns and discussing their expectations. I thought it was a good two-way dialogue."

Troxel also called the make-up of the group "appropriate for the issues we were talking about."

But representatives of other Black Hills Forest users wish say they should have been included, and they take issue with the notion that commercial logging should be a major ingredient in the prescription to achieve a healthy forest.

Sam Clauson of Rapid City is chairman of the Sierra Club's Black Hills group.

"The Sierra Club hasn't changed our policy that we still strongly oppose all commercial timber sales. We think there are better ways of doing it," he said of reducing fire risk and improving the health of the forest. He added that the lightning-caused Ricco fire that burned across 3,900 acres near Piedmont this month burned through stands where timber has been harvested.

Nancy Kile of Sturgis represents Defenders of the Black Hills, an organization of about 600 founded in 2002 and primarily involved in articulating traditional Indians values regarding the Black Hills.

"I sure wish I would have been there," she said of the meeting in Johnson's office. Kile is an alternate member of the BHNF advisory council and finds it frustrating to attend council meetings where the worth of the forest is expressed in the dollar values of timber and tourism.

"Our people consider this a nurturing hospital, a generous pharmacy, a church, a funerary, but I don't hear anything like that when I go to these meetings. They just promote the corporate welfare," she said of timber harvests.

Such polarity is indicative of the management challenge the Forest Service faces on much of the 192 million acres of public land it oversees. The Black Hills highlights those issues to an even greater degree for a number of reasons. South Dakota is where the Forest Service cut its teeth on timber management. The first commercial timber sale on federal land anywhere in the U.S. took place on what was then the Black Hills Forest Reserve in 1899.

"The Black Hills is such a critical part of the history and culture of western South Dakota. Dale understands the tribal issues, the religious significance of the Black Hills to Native Americans, and he understands the history of the Black Hills, where the very first timber sale occurred," Cables said.

Thune suggested the checkerboard of public and private land ownership across the Black Hills makes the Forest Service acutely aware of how its activities are perceived by diverse neighbors.

"I think it is a fairly important forest to them because it is so habitated. It creates some unique challenges for them. Sometimes they learn some things from the activities, experiences and discussions that go on in the Black Hills, lessons that can be applied to other issues and challenges on other forests," he said.

Craig Bobzien has been BHNF supervisor fewer than two weeks, but he's been in the Forest Service since 1978 and has a sense of the BHNF's standing.

"The people really care. The public really cares," Bobzien said. "The Black Hills is a mecca for a lot of Americans."

A high public acceptance for that kind of intense management, reflected in the urging of the Congressional delegation to step up logging, encourages the Forest Service, according to Cables.

"The Black Hills is one of those places where it's win-win. We can have an active wood products industry, an active recreation program, a forest providing wildlife benefits," he said.

A couple of representatives of wildlife constituencies concur with Cables' vision.

"From our perspective, it's not a matter of how much they cut, it's how they cut it," said Doug Hanson, wildlife director for the South Dakota Department of Game Fish and Parks. "From a wildlife perspective, we've always advocated a more mosaic harvest."

Chris Hesla, Wildlife Federation director, said logging should be done in an environmentally friendly way.

Johnson and Thune said they are united in an effort to secure additional federal funding for the Forest Service to accomplish fire risk reduction goals in the Black Hills, and Cables is appreciative.

"The secret in the long term is to get the forest healthy," Cables says. "If we can get it healthy, we won't have to spend as much money on fire suppression. That's really been the thrust for the agency, to be really aggressive on fuels treatment nationally.

Reach Peter Harriman at 575-3615.

Wingy

07-28-2005, 06:31 AM

Where Did the American Indians Come From? (http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=239150&rel_no=1&back_url=)

Evidence shows the indigenous peoples of Asia and the Americas share a common ancestry

The scientists find yet another theory???…or why cant they make yup their mind???

As the ice ages came and went, the Berringia land bridge came and went, controlling the flow of immigrants from Asia and the Sunda land. It appears the first immigrants were Sunda people -- a Caucasoid-Negroid mix, and later arrivals were mainly Mongoloid.

Mitochondria DNA research on American Indians support the multiple migration theory. The Indians and people in Siberia and Korea have nearly identical genomes. However, the Indians have some genes that are not found among their Asian cousins. These "strange" genes are believed to be from the Sunda people now extinct. (Wikepedia, 2005)

Linguistic studies of 300 or so Indian languages indicate that they may have come from three or four ancestral languages. Strangely, these languages are more similar to Polynesian languages than to Asian languages. It is probable the earlier immigrants heavily influenced the later immigrants linguistically.

I have been living in an old Indian village called Snoqualmie (a corruption of the Indian word sdohkwahlb, meaning, "the moon") in Washington state. Since the Native Indians and I are believed to come from the same stock -- being Mongoloid and from Siberia -- I felt that I had a vested interest in these fellow Asians and did some research on the history of the Snoqualmie Indian tribe, where they came from and how they -- who owned much of the Seattle area -- have become almost extinct.

The Snoqualmie Indians

Since the Native Indians -- except the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans -- had no written language, the written history goes back to the arrival of the white man in 1790. The newcomers were welcomed and trade flourished between the two camps until mid-1800, when the newly established United States began to exterminate the "Red Indians" and take over their land.

Within a generation, the Native Indians were killed off by whole-scale massacres, starvation, and epidemics brought in by the white settlers, and by the 1840s, the Indian population shrank to fewer than one tenth the population before the Caucasians arrived.

In 1848, the U.S. Congress established the Oregon Territory of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and parts of Montana and Wyoming. In 1855, the Snoqualmie tribe signed a treaty with the Big White Chief that effectively handed over their ancestral land to the white man.

White settlers forced Indians off their land -- supposedly protected by the Big White Chief, and the Indians were forced to move to barren shrublands. Finally, the Indians had had enough and took up arms to drive away the white invaders. Thus, the Puget Sound Indian War began in mid-September 1855 when Charles H. Mason, acting governor of the territory, Lt. William A. Slaughter and his men journeyed to Naches Pass to investigate a murder case. This act in turn roused the Indians into a rampage.

The last battle of the war was fought in March 1856 near Seattle. Lt. Gilmore Hays led a force of 100 men against about 150 Indian braves. The battle lasted all day and the poorly armed and led Indians were defeated, and the last armed resistance by the Native Indians was crushed. White settlers lynched Indians and the few survivors fled to the mountains. Today, only a handful pure-blood Indians survive.

White Indians?

The popular belief, based on genetics and archeological evidence, is that the Indians came to America from Asia when the North American continent was connected to the Eurasian continent through a land bridge (Berringia) exposed during the latest ice age some 11,000 to 26,000 year ago. It is believed Alaska and Canada were connected during the last ice age.

Archeological evidence suggests that humans lived in Brazil and Chile as early as 11,500 years ago, which means the migrants had passed over Berringia centuries earlier and gradually spread south on foot. (Until the white settlers came, the Native Indians had no horse or wheels for transport.) It is even possible that some of the early migrants came to America during an earlier ice age, 37,000 years ago, or even earlier.

Some scientists believe that Caucasians had arrived in boats eons before Mongoloids did. Mormons, who believe the Brown Indians wiped out the White Indians, promote the notion of White Indians.

The proponents of the White Indian theory claim migrants from Oceania arrived either by sailing across the Pacific or over the land route through Beringia at a much earlier date. The oldest human remains in South America resemble Australian Aborigines or the Negritos of southern and southeastern Asia or the Ainu of northern Japan.

Recently, an 8,900-year old skeleton, nicknamed the Kennewick Man, after the village of Kennewick in the state of Washington, has stirred up the controversy on the origin of the American Indians. Although the skeleton was discovered more than nine years ago by college students on the bank of the Columbia River, local Indian tribes filed legal actions to rebury the remains and had the boned locked up, preventing scientific examination.

Fortunately, the court ruled against the Indians recently and allowed anthropologists to examine the bones. (Chatters, 2005). The Kennewick Man shows Caucasian facial features. In fact, he bears an uncanny likeness to Egypt's Pharaoh Tutankhamun, also known as King Tut.

It is commonly believed that Egyptians are Caucasoid. However, closer examinations of King Tut and the Kennewick Man indicate that they are closer to the people of Oceania -- the Ainu, Polynesians, Australian Aborigines, and the Negritos -- a cross between Caucasoid and Negroid or perhaps hominids -- a mix of modern and ancient man -- before the differentiation into today's ethnic taxonomy.

The immigrants came to America in small groups of tens or so and scattered throughout the Americas in search of food. These bands remained largely isolated and grew into thousands of tribes with their own languages and customs.

Although most tribes eked out a subsistence living, some managed to develop advanced civilizations. The Maya, Olmec, Zapotec, Toltec, Aztec, Inca and some other tribes developed cities and states that were far more advanced than the contemporary European civilization.

Archaeological evidence in Australia, Melanesia, and Japan indicate "coastal" people who were neither Mongoloid, nor Caucasoid, nor Negroid, and who had their own physical characteristics populated the vast Sunda Shelf, now under water.

It is believed that some of these Sunda people migrated to America some 56,000 to 73,000 years ago during an earlier ice age. When the Sunda Shelf sank with deglaciation, some residents got stranded on isolated islands such as Japan, the Pacific islands, Australia, Egypt, and so on, while others moved inland and mixed with the native inland people.

Wingy's notes....for those of you who don't know...if science can come up with a theory, that all the scientists agree with, the government can take even more from the Indigenous People of Turtle Island. thankk goodnews theior huuuuuuuuuuuuuge ego's get in the way and the different scientists can't agree.

In case there is any question...this IS all about greed, ego, and power...of the governemnt.

Wingy

07-28-2005, 06:37 AM

Red Lake kids form youth council to improve life on reservation
by Tom Robertson (http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/tools/search/author/author_collection.php?id=61), Minnesota Public Radio
July 26, 2005

Some of the Red Lake Indian Reservation's brightest young people are coming together to do what they can to tackle the tribe's problems.

Many people on the reservation say life is tough for kids. Poverty and unemployment are rampant. Drug and alcohol abuse is common, and the school's dropout rate is among the highest in the state.

Now, a group of kids has formed the Red Lake Nation Youth Council. Their goal is to make a better life for tribal youth.

Red Lake, Minn. — In a house outside the remote tribal village of Ponemah, two young men huddle around an Xbox playing a video game. Kirby Perkins, 16, and Jerrell Martin, 18, are typical teenagers. They're into sports, music and computers.

But Perkins and Martin are also worried about the future of their tribe. Martin says many kids are headed down the wrong path. He says the biggest problem is drugs and alcohol.

"I just want to help kids succeed in life, other than following the wrong peers," said Martin. "Even just so they can get a good appearance on Indians, too. Everyone says Indians are drunks and bad people. But we can't blame them for saying that about us, because the kids are the ones doing it to themselves."

Kirby Perkins and Jerrell Martin say they're tired of the turmoil. They decided to get involved in a fledgling organization called the Red Lake Nation Youth Council. The group's goal is to make life better for kids.

The Red Lake Nation Youth Council is a work in progress. The kids have barely settled on a name, and they're still working on bylaws and organizational structure. The group meets around a large wooden conference table at tribal headquarters, the same one used by tribal government leaders.

The council is the idea of Tribal Chairman Buck Jourdain. Planning began before the March 21 school shootings at Red Lake that left 10 people dead.

Tim Sumner, Jourdain's personal assistant, is also adviser to the youth council.

"We're trying to develop leaders, you know, upcoming leaders, whether it be in tribal government or anything that they do," Sumner said. "It's always good to prepare and teach yourself things for the life ahead of you."

Sumner, 20, is also from Ponemah. He says initially the idea was that the youth council would serve as advisers to tribal government. The group has since taken on a life of its own. Sumner says members are motivated to make real changes on the reservation.

"I think one of our main goals is just get out there and listen to them, see what they want, and what's helping them, and what we can do and what they can do to make things better for the youth on the Red Lake Reservation," Sumner said.

Kids join the youth council for a variety of reasons. Jim King, who will be a junior at Red Lake High School this fall, says one thing he'd like to see is for the youth council to bring in motivational speakers to talk with kids. He says many kids have no drive to succeed.

"I think that comes from the parents not having jobs and have no will to get up in the morning. So then their kids sleep right in with them. Then they wake up, get high with them, you know, then they're content with that," said King. "So I think if there are more jobs on the reservation, in the community, the parents would have more responsibility. Then it would trickle down to their kids."

Youth council member Tom Barrett agrees the economic situation at Red Lake is a big part of the problem.

"The employment rate is very high and that's where it starts," said Barrett. "That's where a person's personality in life starts, is at home. The probability is that if you didn't see your parents do anything or working, you know, it will make you think that you don't have to either."

Not every youth council member lives on the reservation. Debra Goodwin, 18, is a tribal member and lives in Bemidji. She just graduated from Bemidji High School.

But Goodwin says her heart has always been with her tribal community. She's the tribe's current Miss Red Lake Nation princess. Goodwin works as a certified nursing assistant at the elderly care facility in Red Lake.

Goodwin says she loves working with tribal elders, but she also cares for tribal youth. Goodwin says the March 21 school shootings broke her heart.

"It was just unbelievable," said Goodwin. "Words can't even say it, you know. My heart was just hurting because all these families had to deal with this. The thing that hurt me the most was that we did it to our own people, like Natives against Natives. This person did it to his own people."

Goodwin says it wasn't the shootings that motivated her to get involved in the youth council. She says the main problem at Red Lake is a breakdown in family structure. She says some parents need to do a better job with their kids.

"A lot of it has to do with them having kids at such young ages and not being ready to be parents themselves, so their kids end up failing," said Goodwin. "So, yeah, I believe that the parents did fail the kids. A lot of the parents don't ... care where they're going, they don't care what they're doing. So in a sense, when you don't have that, it's harder to succeed. It's harder to do good when you don't have those influences."

Goodwin credits Tribal Chairman Buck Jourdain with bringing a renewed focus on the well-being of kids. Jourdain is said to be the youngest chairman in the tribe's history. Goodwin says that helps him relate to the needs of young people.

"I strongly believe our former chairmen, they didn't give a sh** about our youth," she said. "They're like, 'Whatever, they're just disrespectful, blah, blah, blah, blah.' So that's why I'm so happy that he's our chairman."

Jourdain declined to be interviewed for this story. The chairman has been preoccupied with his own personal problems. His son Louis Jourdain, 17, is suspected of conspiracy in the high school shootings. The boy appeared before a federal judge in a closed hearing last week in St. Paul. Federal authorities have refused to talk about the case.

Goodwin has lots of ideas to help Red Lake kids. She'd like to see walking and biking trails along Red Lake, and maybe boat rentals. She'd like the youth council to set up and operate an ice cream shop to raise money. And since there are no band or choir programs at Red Lake High School, she'd like to find grant money to purchase musical instruments for kids.

Goodwin's mother, Sherry, works with Debra at the nursing home in Red Lake. Sherry Goodwin is excited about the youth council. She says there are plans to create a parents' advisory group to work with the kids.

Sherry Goodwin says she believes the youth council could potentially be much more effective at reaching out to kids than adults have been.

"I think just the peer pressure is there for them. I could go in there and say, 'Do this! Do that! And do this!' which they ain't going to listen to me," said Goodwin. "But when they get their own peers, their own age group, it's more apt to work for them. They can say, 'Hey, I know what it's like, I did it, I know it, but this is a better way and let's do it this way instead of that way.'"

Youth council members say the biggest challenge may be to get kids involved and engaged. The council is open to all youth on the reservation ages 15-24, but so far the meetings have attracted just a small core group. The kids plan to use flyers and the Internet to attract more members.

Wingy

07-28-2005, 06:40 AM

Cherokee Nation makes donation to local agencies

By Bob Gibbins, Press Staff Writer
Friday, July 22, 2005 6:09 PM CDT

Two local law enforcement agencies got thee proverbial shot in the arm this week and will move closer to scoring departmental goals, thanks to the Cherokee Nation.

The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office and Tahlequah Police Department received donations from the tribe. District 1 Tribal Councilors Bill John Baker and Audra Conner presented checks Thursday to Sheriff Norman Fisher and Police Chief Steve Farmer.

Farmer intends to use the $20,000 gift to purchase two drug dogs for the department and equip a department vehicle for transporting the dogs. Fisher will use the $25,000 the CN gave his agency to buy accessories for the new patrol cars the department purchased earlier this year.

The grants will allow both departments to accomplish their goals more quickly than they originally anticipated.

"I want to thank Bill John and Audra for thinking of the sheriff's office," Fisher said. "Our budget is tight, and this should help us get those new cars out there quicker than we thought."

Farmer may have had the money in the TPD budget for one drug dog, but will now be able to get two dogs to work with the officers in narcotics investigations. He intends to begin procuring the animals right away.

Baker said the monies have been accumulating for the past three years through tribal tag sales. He Conner chose to pool their money and give it to the police department and sheriff's office. The Cherokee Nation has already been giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to schools within the 14 counties of its jurisdiction.

"We know there are other important areas, like law enforcement, and we don't want them to be less prepared," Baker said. "They protect Cherokee people and our housing projects."

The council has said it would use the money in the communities.

"It's time for us to pay the piper and do what we said," Baker said.

Conner said she, too, is glad to provide the assistance to local law enforcement.

Baker said drugs are a major problem within the Cherokee Nation, and anything the tribe can do to help in the fight is a positive measure. He said helping equip vehicles in the sheriff's office is also important because the new cars will aid deputies in safely getting to calls to assist both tribal and non-tribal members.

Farmer said funds for the drug dogs will also help the schools, which can now work with the police department when they need one on campus, rather than securing one with their own budgets.

"Our current fleet of vehicles is not in good shape," Fisher said. "Hopefully, with this assistance from Cherokee Nation, we can get some new, better-equipped cars on the street."

Wingy

07-28-2005, 06:45 AM

Activist's appeal of sentencing fails

Judge: Peltier not above federal laws

DAVE KOLPACK
Associated Press

July 23, 2005
FARGO - A federal judge has rejected an appeal by imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who said the government did not have right to sentence him for killing two federal agents in 1975.

Peltier's lawyer, Barry Bachrach, said federal laws did not apply to Peltier because FBI agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler were killed in Indian Country. Peltier was convicted in Fargo in 1977, and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms.

U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson denied the appeal, saying the government has the right to prosecute people who kill federal agents, no matter where the crimes occur. Williams and Coler were shot in the head at point-blank range after being injured in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The appeal was one of several in the 30-year-old case.

"I'm the sixth U.S. attorney (in North Dakota) since Leonard Peltier murdered FBI agents Coler and Williams in cold blood," federal prosecutor Drew Wrigley said. "Somewhere out there, there's some law student who isn't even thinking about being a U.S. attorney who's going to be doing the same thing I'm doing."

Bachrach was not immediately available for comment.

In a hearing in Fargo last month, Bachrach said the federal court had no jurisdiction on the reservation.

Erickson wrote that Congress has the power to pass laws to "provide for the punishment of all crimes and offenses against the United States," whether within one of the states or in Indian Country.

Peltier, 60, spoke briefly by speakerphone during the hearing. He complained that the government has changed its story about his role in the killings.

Peltier, who suffers from diabetes and other ailments, was moved earlier this month from a federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., to a prison in Terre Haute, Ind.

Wrigley expects more appeals.

"We're going to continue to fight the baseless claims to turn back the conviction that was a just one and decided nearly 30 years ago," he said.

Wingy

07-28-2005, 06:48 AM

Indian reservation struggles with illegal immigrants

By ANGIE WAGNER
Associated Press writer
TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION, Ariz. -- When the scorching daylight fades and dusk drifts into this Indian reservation, the Sonoran Desert begins to rustle. Mesquite trees become hide-outs, and the deep washes turn into human freeways filled with illegal immigrants winding their way over worn trails that will carry them into America.

They move at night, when it's cooler and the moon's glow can guide them from Mexico onto an Indian nation so vast that many easily slip through a flimsy barbed wire fence unnoticed.

"It's like the desert doesn't sleep," tribal police officer Darrell Ramon says, peering into the night as he drives through the nation's isolated communities. "It wakes up at night. Bodies start moving out there. You see headlights way in the desert."

Despite a strong Border Patrol presence, the immigrants still come.

It's easier here, they say. Here, they find tribal police officers who are overwhelmed. Money is scarce for this tribe, and there is little help from the federal government.

The Tohono O'odham people are tired -- exhausted with truckloads of immigrants trashing their land, raiding their homes and stealing their cars. The flow never stops. Not in a place that shares 75 vulnerable miles of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Deep into the Sonoran, Ramon drives over hilly dirt roads riddled with potholes, never sure of what he will find. Often, it's a group of exhausted immigrants waiting for their ride to freedom. Or lost, disoriented men who find their way to the main roads, begging for help. Occasionally, a family out of food and water. Then there are the bodies. Last year, 51 people succumbed to the pounding Arizona heat.

"It's an everyday thing out here. It's constant from sundown to sunup," he said.

Indian County makes up only 2 percent of the country, but tribal lands encompass more than 260 miles of international borders. Thirty-six tribes have lands that are close to or cross over international boundaries with Mexico or Canada.

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants cross these borders and disappear into the heart of Indian Country each year, according to the National Congress of American Indians.

And tribes feel they are on their own, left with easy routes into America and not enough money to do a job the government should be doing.

This reservation is part of the Border Patrol's Tucson sector -- the busiest place in the country for illegal border crossings. Last year, more than 491,000 illegal immigrants were arrested in this area. Combined with arrests in Yuma to the west, the numbers make up more than half of all immigrants arrested in the entire country.

But many -- Indians say most -- are never caught.

+++3.

There are 24,000 Tohono O'odham members, and 14,000 live here on the reservation. Forty percent live in poverty and many members still lack basics such as running water and electricity. Obesity and diabetes are rampant. Unemployment is 42 percent, and only 52 percent of students graduate from high school.

Each year the tribe spends more than $3 million dealing with illegal immigrant activity, from finding immigrants, offering medical help and paying for autopsies to hauling away trash and abandoned vehicles. Immigrants take up 60 percent of the tribe's law enforcement time.

The tribe would rather spend all that money and time on health care, education and housing.

From 2001 to 2004, the tribe received $310,613 for homeland security planning, training and equipment purchases. This year, the Interior Department gave the tribe $1.3 million to help control immigration, not even half of what the tribe will spend.

"We're bending over backwards to help the United States, to protect the public, and we're not getting any help," said tribal Chairwoman Vivian Juan-Saunders. "If this happened in any other area of the country, it would be viewed as a crisis. But it's the fact that it's in Indian Country."

Arizona's governor and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have also complained about the lack of funding, with McCain calling it "disgraceful."

Yet McCain also said the money has to be given where the greatest risk is, "and the greatest risk is not a lot of Indian reservations."

The trouble began for the Tohono O'odham people when the government started cracking down on illegal immigration into California and Texas in 1993.

With more agents and helicopters on duty, smugglers had to find other routes. They were forced onto remote federal and tribal lands, where they know there are fewer resources and more chances to slip across the border.

"These individuals are going to use the covers of darkness, the shadows of the deep canyon," said Mario Villarreal, spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "That's why they move to these isolated portions of the border."

The result is a land overrun with immigrants. The Tohono O'odham estimate 1,500 people each day cross the border into their reservation. Last year, more than 400,000 pounds of marijuana were seized and 141 immigrants died in the Tucson sector, according to the Border Patrol.

More than 2,300 Border Patrol agents are assigned to the Tucson area, up about 800 agents from 2000. By the end of the year, 534 agents will be added to the Arizona border.

The tribe and the Border Patrol often have a love-hate relationship. Tribal members want the Border Patrol to do its job, but tire of the constant helicopters and getting stopped on their way back and forth across the border, where the Tohono O'odham's land extends. They also say the Border Patrol shouldn't have access to the tribe's sacred sites.

But the head of the Border Patrol's union said the tribe is a difficult partner and could help itself more.

"They need to make a decision whether they want to be part of the team or treat themselves as a foreign nation," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

+++2.

When the desert turns to black and Royetta Thomas rounds the corner to her street in the tiny community of Miguel, she shudders at what she might find. Her house backs up to the Sonoran, and immigrants often use her spigot to get water. Twice, her house was broken into, her window broken, and food, shoes and jewelry stolen.

This is the burden of living in the path of the busiest border crossing area in the country.

"Now it's like you don't even know who's watching you," she said from her front yard. "I'm just wondering what's next? We have no privacy."

Everyone here has similar stories: The time immigrants were found hiding in a large trash bin, waiting for their ride, or when immigrants stole clothes from a clothes line so they could look American. One brave soul swiped food off the stove as it cooked.

Many say they struggle with how much to help desperate immigrants, and the tribe even battles its own members who can't resist easy money for hauling a load of immigrants or drugs. Last year, more than 130 tribal members were arrested for smuggling.

+++1.

A strange lull has settled on the reservation in the past few weeks. Unusual, Saraficio said. But it won't be for long. They've probably just moved to another spot.

Then, almost out of nowhere, an immigrant emerges up ahead along the edge of state Highway 86. He is Jose Gonzalez, a 44-year-old father of five from Acambay, Mexico. He wears new hiking shoes, a worn backpack and a grin. For four days, he walked off and on to reach America along with 11 other people. They got separated, and Gonzalez was robbed of almost all the $1,200 he was to pay the smuggler.

He planned to make his way to Chicago and work as a landscaper. Now he is thirsty, hungry and giving up. The Border Patrol whisks him away to be sent back home.

But, he says, he will try again next week.

The officer eases back into his SUV and heads back out into the night, knowing there will always be another just like Jose Gonzalez.

For the Tohono O'odham, it has become a way of life.

Angie Wagner is the AP's Western regional writer, based in Las Vegas.

On the Net:

Homeland Security: http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/ (http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/)

Border Patrol: http://www.cbp.gov/ (http://www.cbp.gov/)

Wingy

07-28-2005, 06:58 AM

I wanted to apologise, especially to Mia, for not being more specific with the tital of this thread...I neglected to make it clear, that I thought the books written by our people and other indigenous people, with whom we share similar struggles, wisdom and issues should be what our focus here.

Thanks Mia, for your patience with me...and for pointing, so very sensitively, that my qassuptions are not everyones...you alll know where the word assume came from, right?

ASSUME to make (when one assumes something) an

ass (of) u (and) me

please note...I am always open to your ideas and critisism...above all I am a student...and i look to everyone I meet as my teacher...

Thanks, Mia, for taking the time....

MiaBellaAngela

07-28-2005, 06:21 PM

Wingy

07-29-2005, 03:41 AM

RCMP ignored 911 call before woman's slaying

Last Updated Wed, 27 Jul 2005 22:05:27 EDT

CBC News (http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.html)

A woman slain in the northern Alberta town of High Prairie telephoned 911 for help, but the RCMP did not respond to the emergency call, CBC News has learned.

Brenda Moreside, 44, was stabbed to death in February in her home in the city, nearly 300 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. Her common-law husband, Stanley Willier, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

The 911 call came shortly before 6 a.m. on Feb. 13, 2005.

According to a classified briefing to the Commissioner of the RCMP obtained by CBC News, Moreside was calling for help.

She told the operator that Willier was drunk and breaking through the window of their home.

The briefing note indicates that Moreside said she didn't want to deal with Willier.

She asked again for help, but the police never turned up.

Now Moreside's children are wondering whether their mother's death could have been prevented.

RCMP spokesperson Corporal Wayne Oakes said the force is doing a complete internal investigation.

Copyright (http://www.cbc.ca/aboutcbc/discover/copyright.html) ©2005 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - All Rights Reserved

Wingy

07-29-2005, 03:42 AM

Sand Creek Massacre legislation on to Bush

The president is expected to sign the bill turning the area where Indians were killed into a historic site.

By Mike Soraghan
Denver Post Staff Writer

DenverPost.com

Washington - The final piece of legislation needed to create the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in eastern Colorado is on its way to the White House after gaining final congressional passage, Sen. Wayne Allard said Tuesday.

The Sand Creek site, east of Eads, is where about 700 Colorado militia troops, led by Col. John Chivington, slaughtered 163 Indians camped in the area - primarily women, children and elderly men of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes - on Nov. 29, 1864.

The corpses of many of the Indians were mutilated.

"This has been a long time coming, and I am pleased the Senate moved so swiftly to approve this legislation," said Allard, R-Colo.

President Bush is expected to sign the bill, said Allard spokeswoman Angela de Rocha.

Local economic development leaders were disappointed last year when similar legislation stalled in the House Resources Committee for lack of a vote.

The legislation establishes the National Park Service as manager of the 2,400 acres in Kiowa County that will be given in a trust to the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma by the federal government.

Trust property is declared part of an Indian reservation and can be used only for historic, religious or cultural uses that are compatible with its status as a national historic site.

Companion legislation by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Fort Morgan, passed the House this year.

Staff writer Mike Soraghan can be reached at 202-662-8730 or msoraghan@denverpost.com (msoraghan@denverpost.com).

Sand Creek Massafre website: http://www.kiowacountycolo.com/sand.htm (http://www.kiowacountycolo.com/sand.htm)

Wingy

07-29-2005, 03:43 AM

Published: 07.27.2005

Mexico frees first group of Indian inmates held unfairly

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MEXICO CITY - Authorities released 49 inmates from penitentiaries in central Mexico on Tuesday, the first batch of hundreds expected to be freed as government officials check cases against Indian prisoners for judicial improprieties.

Mexico's Indians - some of whom do not speak Spanish - often remain in jail when they are eligible for early release or bail, because of a lack of legal representation or economic resources or because of confusion about the law and bureaucratic hurdles.

During a ceremony in which prisoners were freed in Puebla, capital of the state of the same name 65 miles southeast of Mexico City, Public Safety Secretary Ramon Martin Huerta said authorities hope to release between 700 and 800 Indian inmates by the end of the year, after reviewing federal case files as well as those of prisoners held at the state and local levels.

There are about 7,700 Indians behind bars nationwide, Public Safety Department officials estimate.

The move came two weeks after Martin Huerta's office signed an agreement with the National Commission for Development to rid Mexican prisons of Indians held unfairly.

Attending the ceremony was Puebla Gov. Mario Marin, who said many of those included in the first wave to be released were younger inmates.

As part of the program, authorities have pledged to provide legal advisers who are familiar with Indian languages and customs and to attempt to move Indians being held far from their families to jails closer to home.

Wingy

07-29-2005, 03:44 AM

Appeals Court ruling deals blow to offender registry law

Associated Press

ST. PAUL - The Minnesota Court of Appeals dealt a blow to efforts by law enforcement agencies to track murderers, sex offenders and kidnappers by ruling that the state can't require American Indians living on reservations to register as predatory offenders.

Tuesday's decision affirmed a Cass County district judge's ruling, but it may be appealed.

State courts are increasingly recognizing Indian tribes as separate nations, with sovereign jurisdiction over the regulation of their citizens in most noncriminal matters.

The crux of the Appeals Court decision was that the state's predatory-offender registration law is civil and regulatory in nature - not criminal in nature as prosecutors and the state attorney general's office argued.

The case involved Peter Jones, 31, of Cass Lake, who was convicted in 1996 of kidnapping for locking someone in a car trunk for more than 14 hours. Under state law, that conviction made Jones a predatory offender, and thus required to register his addresses after being released from prison.

Jones twice registered his addresses after moving back to northern Minnesota's Leech Lake Indian Reservation, but he then he moved to another Leech Lake address and failed to register, according to court records. He also failed to respond to mailed requests from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to verify his address.

Jones was charged in Cass County with failing to notify the BCA of a change of address. Through his attorney, Blair Nelson of Bemidji, Jones argued that because he was an Indian living on his tribe's reservation, the state lacked jurisdiction to punish him for failing to register, which Nelson called a civil-regulatory requirement.

District Judge John Smith agreed and dismissed the case earlier this year. He ruled that Congress had limited the state's jurisdiction on reservations in Minnesota and several other states to matters of criminal law. On Tuesday, a three-judge appeals panel affirmed that in a seven-page opinion.

"It's a little disconcerting," said Dave Bjerga, special agent in charge of the BCA's northern Minnesota office. "It kind of flies in the face of the movement to get a better handle on where these people are."

Nelson said he and Jones were pleased.

"The registration statute is about rounding up the usual suspects," Nelson said. "It does nothing to keep the streets safe. My client was charged with a felony for failing to return a postcard."

It was not immediately clear how many offenders might be affected by the ruling. The state has 16,594 offenders registered by address, according to the BCA, but no quick way of telling how many are tribal members living on their reservations.

Out of the 105 registered offenders in Cass County, about a dozen besides Jones appear from their addresses to live on the Leech Lake Reservation, said Charlene Erickson, a records specialist with the sheriff's office.

Cass County Attorney Earl Maus said he would decide soon whether to appeal the decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

"It's disappointing from a public safety standpoint," Maus said. "Registration not only helps law enforcement identify possible suspects; often it warns the public about where a predatory offender resides."

Maus also said he's concerned that some Indian offenders could purposefully thwart the state's registration radar by moving first to their home reservation, then moving off the reservation again without informing the BCA.

Wingy

07-29-2005, 03:45 AM

Five indicted in killing on Fort Apache Indian Reservation

The Associated Press
Jul. 28, 2005 01:21 PM

A federal grand jury has indicted five people in the beating-strangulation death a woman on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation.

The indictment, handed up on July 20, lists several charges, including first-degree murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder.

The five defendents allegedly kidnapped Martha Bones on July 2. She was then beaten and kicked with steel-toed boots before she was strangled with a belt, prosecutors said.

Her body was found in a shallow grave on the reservation.

The defendents include Jeremy Wayne Hoffman, 21; Carlton James, 24; Alvin Wayne Johnson, 22; and Gallson Cheney, 24; all of Whiteriver. The fifth is Blanca Gonzales, 28.

Wingy

07-29-2005, 03:46 AM

W.Va. dogs to track arsonists on S.D. reservation

By John McCoy (http://wvgazette.com/displayEmailContact.php?rid=601)
Staff writer

West Virginia forestry officials have ordered their keen-nosed, floppy-eared cavalry to come to American Indians’ rescue.

Tucker and Sadie Mae, the Division of Forestry’s arson-sniffing bloodhounds, will spend the next two weeks on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, tracking people suspected of setting wildfires.

Administrators at the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs requested the help. “West Virginia is one of only a handful of states with an arson bloodhound program, so that’s why they came to us,” said John Bird, one of the Division of Forestry’s two wildland fire investigators.

The current assignment marks the second time the Mountain State’s bloodhound teams have been tapped for Indian reservation duty. Last year, Bird and partner Don Kelley took their dogs to the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona. In two weeks there, they investigated five fires, made 12 arrests and tied 23 individuals to other wildfires.

“The Division of Forestry is always happy to work in cooperation with federal agencies that need our assistance,” said Assistant State Forester Matt Dillon. “I’m sure our bloodhounds will continue to prove an effective tool in arson investigations and wildfire prevention.”

Investigator Bird said the dogs allow the handlers to track arsonists from the places where fires are set.

“The dogs’ noses are so sensitive that they can trace a trail of skin cells all the way back to the arsonists’ houses,” Bird said. “Obviously, it works very well.”

The South Dakota reservation where the teams will work is home to the Oglala Sioux tribe and encompasses nearly 2 million acres in the state’s famous Badlands region.

Bird, who handles Tucker, is based out of the Division of Forestry’s Milton office. Kelley, who handles Sadie Mae, is based out of Beckley.

To contact staff writer John McCoy, use e-mail or call 348-1231.

lilithinwaiting

07-29-2005, 05:23 PM

~sighs~

lilithinwaiting

07-29-2005, 05:28 PM

"Where Did the American Indians Come From" (http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=239150&rel_no=1&back_url=)

Really great post Wingy this addresses many questions but it has always been my belief that we share Asian ancestry and migrated down .

RPinSD

07-31-2005, 05:03 PM

Court throws out California prison grooming policy

Sat Jul 30, 1:09 PM ET

The California prison system acted improperly when it tried to trim the hair of an American Indian inmate who said a haircut violated his religious beliefs, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday.

Billy Soza Warsoldier, who had not cut his hair in 25 years, filed a lawsuit after a minimum-security prison punished him for refusing to comply with a rule that men's hair be no longer than 3 inches (8 cm) long.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, reversing a lower court decision, said the state had failed to show the grooming policy was the least restrictive way to ensure prison safety and security.

"It applies to all male inmates, but to no female inmates regardless of a female inmate's security threat; it does nothing to distinguish between inmates housed at maximum security facilities and those low level offenders in minimum security institutions; and it provides absolutely no accommodation for religious belief," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote for a three-judge panel.

Warsoldier, who was released from prison last year, called the decision an important precedent for American Indians.

"This is a really good win for us because now all Indian men behind me and the ones still here, now have the right to keep our traditions and let hair grow long," the Cahuilla Native American said in an interview. "They don't like the fact that we're going to stand up against them."

Last year, a separate three-judge panel came down on the opposite side of a similar issue, saying the California Department of Corrections' reasons for requiring short hair -- such as making inmates easier to detect if they try to escape -- were justified.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050730/od_uk_nm/oukoe_life_prison_hair_2&printer=1;_ylt=AsLORdm0xxINDYbvT7EA8uGek3QF;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Wingy

08-01-2005, 06:32 PM

YIPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! RP, thanks for sharing!!! this was/is a REALLY important ruling///if Native People in california lost this appeal it would have set a precident for incarcerated First Nations People thru out Turtle Island... thank you SO VERY MUCH for taking the time!!!!

Wingy

08-01-2005, 08:14 PM

I have decided to simplify the daily news by making one post and listing the story titles in the order they appear...it will save me some time..I hope this is okay with all of you , let me know if its a problem
Soldier mindful of ancestry
Shooting shakes up residents
Battle Over Gay Marriage Plays Out in Indian Country
ACLU decries 'unwarranted spying' by FBI
Native Americans suffer from historical trauma (http://www.speroforum.com/site/view_article.asp?idCategory=33&idarticle=1755)

Eagles slaughtered for cherished parts

Soldier mindful of ancestry
assigned to unit associated with ancestor, Crazy Horse and the Battle of Little BigHorn
By Danielle Gordon, Special to the Journal

FORT LEWIS, Wash. — Cadet Lisa Whiteface, an Oglala Sioux who grew up on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, didn't realize the irony that awaited her when she was assigned to the 7th Regiment for Army training here.

Each of the 13 training regiments at the Leadership Development and Assessment Course at Fort Lewis, Wash., has an affiliation with an active Army unit to foster unit cohesion and camaraderie.

Whiteface's unit, the 7th Regiment, is affiliated with the 7th Cavalry, historically renowned for its defeat by a band of American Indians led by Whiteface's ancestral tribe member, Crazy Horse, at the battle of Little Big Horn.

Whiteface said she chuckled a little upon realizing the coincidence.

"The reality of it is there: the history, the past, but I don't dwell on it. I'm here to serve in the United States Army," she said.

Whiteface arrived June 21 to attend the training here, known as Warrior Forge. It is the largest and most important training event for cadets who will become Army officers. With a history as rich as the 7th Cavalry's, tales of Lt. Col. George Custer and his unit made the coincidence of being so closely linked to Crazy Horse apparent.

Whiteface, 29, joined the Army National Guard at 20, working as a mechanic and then for the military police. She currently attends Black Hills State University. After serving, she plans to attend law school.

Whiteface said Crazy Horse was an exemplary leader who embodied Army values.

"He was very well-rounded and spiritual. He knew how, as a leader, to balance the spiritual with the secular, especially in regards to military discipline."

Whiteface referred to Crazy Horse as "akicita" or "heroic warrior" as the Lakota word is translated in English. She said the word encompasses her ancestor's virtues as a protector, a warrior and that of honor.

"I can relate to that," she said, referring to the idea of warrior ethos.

Whiteface, unlike most cadets at Warrior Forge, has the distinction of having a history of warriors in her ancestry, including not only Crazy Horse, but her great-great-grandfather, who was given the Sioux name "ita sankinya" or "he who paints his face white," characterizing how he painted his face white before going out on a war path.

Whiteface's family lives in Pine Ridge, S.D.

Danielle Gordon is a U.S. Army Reserve Officer's Training Corps cadet at Saint Bonaventure University in Olean, N.Y.

Copyright © 2005 The Rapid City Journal
Rapid City, SD

Shooting shakes up residents
Church Rock homeowners meet to discuss recent attack, safety

By Leslie Wood
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Residents of Church Rock Estates held an emergency meeting on Wednesday night to discuss options for their community, just days after a former resident violently attacked three of their own.

Crownpoint police arrested 19-year-old Kevin Tsosie on Sunday night after he reportedly shot two residents and clubbed another with the barrel of the shotgun he gripped as he staggered down the streets of the 69-unit complex.

Navajo police found Tsosie hiding underneath a bed along with blood-soaked clothing and the shotgun that was allegedly used in the attack.

The sight of an armed Tsosie walking down the street instilled widespread panic among residents who feared for their children's safety.

Shirley Yellowfeather, a site manager for Fort Defiance housing, said Tsosie allegedly tried to enter her property on Sunday through a fence located in her yard, but the family dog aggressively protected her and her children.

Yellowfeather said she ordered her children to hide from the young men while she called police for help.

"It was chaos and we were all running into one another," Yellowfeather said.

Two boys were treated and released from a local hospital for non-life threatening gunshot wounds, but were unable to attend the meeting. Homeowners reported Tsosie positioned the shotgun inside a young person's mouth as he slurred several threats. Drugs are suspected to havecontributed to the incident.

About 50 residents packed into the Church Rock Estates' community house to discuss measures to prevent similar incidents in the future. Yellowfeather said the level of crime in the area has escalated in recent months and cited incidents of vandalism to area homes as evidence.

"We all need to come together," Yellowfeather said. "Something drastic needs to happen. ... We need to care for one another and communicate."

Lana Yazzie, a tenant, said the organizers of the community's recently created Neighborhood Watch program experienced animosity from some residents who were concerned about their privacy prior to Sunday's shooting.

"You can't just stand by and go in and close the door," Yazzie said. "We have to save each others' lives. ... We need to make a safe place where we're not afraid to go outside."

The group's organizers are planning to apply for funding through the Navajo Nation to purchase supplies for the program and hope 20 percent of the community's residents will attend meetings, so the program can become officially recognized by the national headquarters.

Organizers are also working to create a plan for residents to call one another when suspicious incidents occur.

Resident Kimberly Toadaledo-Ross encouraged neighbors to display concern for each other's children. Other residents suggested the creation of local programs, such as sports tournaments, to keep children occupied and away from involvement in incidents such as Sunday's.

Some residents were also discouraged that law enforcement officers who reside within the complex did not respond more quickly on Sunday.

"Their badges say to serve and protect our liberty," one resident said, "not to (say) 'go away I'm sleeping'."

Crownpoint Criminal Investigator Larry Etsitty, who is assigned to the complex, said the FBI is conducting the investigation and it is at the discretion of a U.S. attorney to determine whether charges will be filed in the case.

The suspect will be transported this morning to Albuquerque for further questioning. The community's next meeting is scheduled for Aug. 25.

washingtonpost.com (http://www.washingtonpost.com/)

Battle Over Gay Marriage Plays Out in Indian Country

By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 1, 2005; A02

TULSA -- Truth be told, Kathy Reynolds and Dawn McKinley were content living in quiet suburban anonymity, raising a child, accepted by neighbors who did not know their sexual orientation, and hoping to grow old together.

A complex legal battle with cultural overtones was not on their agenda. But their dreams bumped against legal reality when Dawn was barred from Kathy's hospital room because she was not family. It was not long after that the lesbian couple brought the national battle over same-sex marriage to the heart of Indian country as they moved to become the first gay couple to marry under Cherokee law.

More than a year after Massachusetts became the first state to recognize same-sex marriages, the emotional issue is playing out in the Cherokee courts in Oklahoma, confronting historic issues of cultural traditions and Indian sovereignty. A hearing Tuesday will likely determine whether Reynolds and McKinley are married under Cherokee law -- and are therefore legally recognized as a married couple in this conservative state.

Tribal sovereignty statutes mandate that Native American marriages be recognized by states, and a couple -- any couple -- could conceivably circumvent state laws to establish a legal union not approved by the state.

The Navajos have also broached the issue; the tribe's council voted to ban same-sex marriage and then voted again to override tribal President Joe Shirley Jr.'s veto of the ban. Shirley had called the issue "a waste of time."

Reynolds, 28, and McKinley, 33, insist that when they first requested and received a marriage application from the Cherokee Nation last year, their intention was not to make history.

"We were told that the Cherokee law didn't exclude same-sex marriages," Reynolds said in an interview. "We just wanted recognition for our relationship."

Added McKinley: "We were very naive. We thought we'd get married under Cherokee law and that would be the end of it. We never thought it would turn into this."

At the urging of a local Cherokee nationalist and gay rights activist, the couple sought and received a marriage application from the tribe last year without incident. They promptly held a wedding ceremony performed by a licensed minister certified by the Cherokee Nation on Cherokee land at a Tulsa park. Family, friends and media attended. The couple planned to have the traditional Cherokee ceremonial wedding after their marriage application was certified.

But when Reynolds and McKinley tried to file their application with the tribe a year ago to make it official, they found that a tribal judge had issued an injunction prohibiting them from becoming the first same-sex couple married under Cherokee law.

Shortly after, Todd Hembree, the lawyer for the Cherokee Tribal Council, asked the tribal court to nullify the marriage, arguing that it was not covered under Cherokee law. The Cherokee Tribal Council then unanimously passed a measure limiting marriage to a union between a man and woman to clarify what it said was ambiguous language in the law.

"I took action because I feel strongly that our laws have to stand for something," said Hembree, who said he was acting on his own and not on behalf of the tribe. "The Cherokee statue is not gender-neutral. It is meant to be between man and a woman. In my view, they are trying to circumvent Oklahoma law."

As many states have, Oklahoma banned same-sex marriage last year. A referendum stating that marriage is between a man and woman and outlawing same-sex unions passed, garnering 75 percent of the vote.

Hembree said that in the 14 Oklahoma counties where Cherokees live, voters overwhelmingly supported the amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

"This is rural Oklahoma," one tribal official said, "and our citizens' views reflect the rest of the state. Cherokees are opposed to this marriage taking place."

For months, Reynolds and McKinley could not even find a local lawyer to take their case. Those they approached were either opposed to the marriage or did not want to alienate the tribe that doles out lucrative contracts to law firms. "There were about 35 lawyers on the list of those permitted to argue in tribal court, and one day I went down the whole list and couldn't find anyone willing to take the case," McKinley said. "One guy laughed and hung up on me."

The San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights agreed to represent them. Because the Cherokee council has passed the law limiting marriage to a man and woman, Reynolds and McKinley's case is being argued solely for them. "Whatever happens will set no precedent -- it will affect only this one case," said Mike Miller, spokesman for the Cherokee Nation.

Still, advocates maintain that if the couple prevails, the resolution will help other gay couples who walk the same path. Meanwhile, the very public battle has taken its toll on the women, who say they are just trying to live their lives peacefully and raise McKinley's daughter.

"One neighbor just stopped talking to us when this became public," Reynolds said.

"I mean, really, who are we hurting here?" McKinley asked. "We don't bother anyone, we mind our own business . . . stick to ourselves. How would our marriage hurt anyone?"

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

ACLU decries 'unwarranted spying' by FBI

© Indian Country Today August 01, 2005. All Rights Reserved

Posted: August 01, 2005

by: Brenda Norrell (http://www.indiancountry.com/author.cfm?id=448) / Indian Country Today

DENVER - The FBI conducted surveillance of American Indians protesting Columbus Day in Denver, said the American Civil Liberties Union in its announcement that the FBI amassed more than 1,100 pages of documents on nonviolent groups across the nation, including Greenpeace and the Quakers, during the past four years.

Calling it ''rampant and unwarranted spying,'' the ACLU said the FBI surveillance has a ''chilling effect'' on the exercise of First Amendment rights.

The ACLU said spying on peace groups and political activists is a misuse of power being carried out under new counterterrorism laws.

''We now know that the government is keeping documents about the ACLU and other peaceful groups - the question is why,'' said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero.

The ACLU is seeking information about the FBI's use of joint terrorism task forces and local police to engage in political surveillance, according to a statement released by the ACLU.

Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the ACLU, said the FBI documents underscore the ACLU's concern that the FBI is violating Americans' ''right to peacefully assemble and oppose government policies without being branded as

terrorist threats.''

''There is no need to open a counterterrorism file when people are simply exercising their First Amendment rights.''

The ACLU announcement came in July following a previous ACLU lawsuit in Denver, which followed evidence that the Denver Police Intelligence Dept. kept secret files, known as the ''Denver spy files,'' on American Indians and peace groups in Denver for 30 years.

The Denver police kept secret files on the American Indian Movement, John Echohawk and other attorneys at the Native American Rights Fund, author and icon Vine Deloria Jr., Cherokee leader Wilma Mankiller and activist Winona LaDuke.

Denver police also kept spy files on Columbus Day protest organizers Glenn Morris, Tink Tinker, Ward Churchill and Russell Means. The Denver spy files included Wallace Coffey, John Mohawk, Dennis Banks and supporters of the Big Mountain relocation resisters and Leonard Peltier.

Besides Columbus Day protesters, Denver police kept spy files on an 80-year-old grandmother who had a Leonard Peltier bumper sticker on her car.

The ACLU lawsuit in Denver resulted in new policies in the Denver Police Dept. in 2004. Further, American Indians and others named in the spy files were able to obtain copies of the documents.

Currently, the ACLU is launching a nationwide effort to expose and prevent the FBI from spying on people and groups simply for speaking out or practicing their faith. In addition to Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of the national organizations, the ACLU has filed similar requests on behalf of more than 100 groups and individuals in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

The requests were filed in response to widespread complaints from students and political activists. They said they were questioned by FBI agents in the months leading up to the 2004 political conventions.

The ACLU's FOIA requests seek the actual FBI files of groups and individuals targeted for speaking out or practicing their faith. Further, they seek information about how the practices and funding structure of the joint terrorism task forces, known as JTTFs, are encouraging ''rampant and unwarranted spying,'' the ACLU said.

Romero said the ACLU is urging the court to order that the recently revealed FBI surveillance documents be turned over immediately.

''If the FBI has nothing to hide, it should release the documents promptly. The government's claim that it needs nine more months to turn over these documents is a stalling tactic,'' Romero said, referring to the FBI's request for more time to ''process'' the 1,173 pages of documents it says it has on the ACLU.

Along with the surveillance of American Indians, the ACLU revealed the contents of a report on United for Peace and Justice, a national peace organization that coordinates non-violent protests.

The document, sections of which are redacted, is addressed to FBI ''Counterrorism'' personnel and quotes from the peace group's Web site. Earlier, the group called for a public demonstration prior to the 2004 Republican National Convention.

The document was released in response to an ACLU lawsuit filed two months ago to expedite its FOIA request for FBI surveillance files on the ACLU, Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Bush administration opposes NAGPRA amendment
Friday, July 29, 2005

The Bush administration came under fire at a Senate hearing on Thursday for opposing legislation that would clear up an ongoing controversy in repatriation law.

Paul Hoffman, an Interior Department official, announced for the first time that the administration agrees with an appeals court decision in the Kennewick Man case. In February 2004, the 9th Circuit allowed scientific study of the 9,300-year-old remains, holding that they are not "Native American."

Tribes and their advocates have criticized the ruling, saying it limits the ability to repatriate artifacts and human remains. In response, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, introduced a bill to modify the definition of "Native American" to cover Kennewick Man cases that might arise in the future.

The measure has the support of tribes, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota), the committee's vice chairman, and Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). But Hoffman said adding the words "or was" to the definition of "Native American" will allow tribes to reclaim remains and artifacts to which they are not entitled.

"We believe that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals correctly interpreted the law and the intent of Congress, which was to give American Indians control over remains of their genetic and cultural forbearers, not over the remains of people bearing no special and significant genetic or cultural relationship to some presently existing indigenous tribe, people, or culture."

Paul Bender, a law professor at Arizona State University who worked on the Native American Graves Repatriation and Protection Act said he had "no idea" why the administration would oppose the pending bill. He said the court's decision needs to be addressed by Congress because it locks tribes out of the repatriation process.

"Under the 9th Circuit, decision there would be no consultation," he testified.

Walter Echo-Hawk, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, called the administration's announcement a "sad retreat from its earlier position" that Kennewick Man and other remains like him are Native American regardless of age. He said the Department of Justice had "strongly supported" the view embraced by the bill in the court battle.

"When it comes to a human rights matter, we lose credibility when the administration says one thing to one branch of the government and then the opposite to another branch," he told the committee.

Paula Barran, an attorney from Oregon who argued the Kennewick Man case on behalf of scientists, criticized the bill. She said it denies the public the right to learn more about the identify of some of the first Americans, whom she claimed are not related to present-day Native Americans.

"They weren't American Indians as we know those people today," she said. "They're different. Kennewick Man is different. This man walked our county and he wasn't an American Indian as we know it today."

Kennewick Man more closely resembles Polynesian people and the ancestors of the Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan, Barran added. She called the proposed amendment a "sweeping change" in repatriation law.

Keith W. Kintigh of the Society for American Archaeology disagreed with that interpretation. He supported the amendment, saying the change in definition will have no effect on remains that can conclusively be linked to present-day Native Americans or on remains classified as "culturally unidentifiable." The handling of these types of remains are the subject of regulations that are still being drafted.

Van Horn Diamond, a Native Hawaiian who has worked on repatriation issues in Hawaii, also backed the bill. "No scientific curiosity should have singular license to indigenous remains and artifacts," he testified. "Not all knowledge resides in Western" modes of thought, he said.

Echo-Hawk noted that the 9th Circuit ruling creates disparate systems for Native Americans and Native Hawaiians. Remains and artifacts found in Hawaii that predate the arrival of Europeans are presumed to be Native Hawaiian. Yet remains and artifacts found in the United States that predate 1492 are not treated the same, Echo-Hawk said.

At the onset of the hearing, McCain apologized for failing to hold a hearing on the amendment before the bill passed the committee. "I agree with these critics and stand corrected for not doing this earlier," he said. The language is contained in an "omnibus" that describes the change as technical in nature.

Dorgan, who is working with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to repatriate an ancestor who died while visiting Washington, D.C., in the 1860s, said the issue continues to be an emotional one.

"There were times in this country when Indian bodies were collected on the battle field and sent back to Washington for study and then end up as a set of bones somewhere in a basement," he said at the conclusion of the hearing. "That's a pretty shameful thing to have had that happened."

Dorgan also raised questions about the use of NAGPRA program funds to pay for the Kennewick Man case. According to Hoffman, the Interior Department paid $680,000 to Barran and her litigation team with an additional $1.8 million owed to the scientist plaintiffs.

NAGPRA Amendment Bill:
S.536: Technical Corrections Act (http://64.62.196.98/my.asp?url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SN00536:|)

Sunday, July 31, 2005 - 12:00 AM

Eagles slaughtered for cherished parts

By Maureen O'Hagan
Seattle Times staff reporter

NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. — Amy Marie George just couldn't catch her breath.

She had walked this short trail near her house hundreds of times, but on this afternoon in February she had to send her grandchildren ahead to get an old asthma inhaler she hadn't used in more than a year.

"I heard my granddaughter say, 'There's an eagle here,' " recalled George, an elder with the Tsleil-Waututh (SLAY wa-tuth) Nation. "I got such a bad feeling."

Then her grandson Jonas called out. "There's one here!

"And another one here!"

In all, there were 14 dead eagles strewn about the dirt. And it was no accident.

"They have no feet!" George recalls 10-year-old Jonas saying. Their wings were lopped off, too.

Under the trees that have stood over this land for generations, where George lived simply but felt rich walking among the sacred living things all around, she and the children began to cry.

Jonas, who believed that wherever he went an eagle was watching him, sobbed until his uncle brushed him with sage and sang an eagle song. George prayed. "You didn't deserve this," she said.

George and her grandchildren had stumbled upon evidence of an international black market, one that fuels the illegal slaughter of an estimated 500 eagles each year in southwest British Columbia alone, and an unknown number in Washington state.

Their discovery brought to at least 50 the total number of dead eagles found between February and March in and around the Tsleil-Wautuths' tiny Indian reserve.

The black market begins around the salmon runs, where gorging eagles are easy prey for poachers; it arrives in the U.S. tucked in the suitcases of smugglers; and it fans out across America, where investigators sometimes refer to eagles as "flying $1,000 bills."

Because of the large number of eagles in British Columbia, Washington state has been a key entry point for smugglers.

According to wildlife officials in Canada and the U.S., the parts find their way to uses ranging from high-end artwork to wiccan ceremonies. But officials say the biggest demand is at Native American powwows, where feathered regalia can help competitive dancers win thousands of dollars in prizes.

To George, it was simple.

"This," she said, "is murder."

But catching the culprits has proven to be no easy task.

Shrouded investigations

Paul Weyland likes to keep a low profile.

As a U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent who investigates organized poaching rings, he works in an unmarked office building in a bland business strip on the outskirts of Bellingham.

Official correspondence carries a P.O. Box address, rather than the street address, ever since Weyland got a vaguely threatening letter from a disgruntled hunter. He carries a holstered gun even though much of his work is at a desk.

For the past few months, Weyland has been investigating possible stateside links to the B.C. eagle case.

U.S. law prohibits killing eagles, or possessing any eagle part — even just a feather — without a permit. Selling them is also prohibited, as is transporting them across the border. Canadian law is similar, but some important differences may make Weyland the key to bringing the B.C. eagle killers to justice.

Canadian officials are unsure whether a law which protects the right of First Nations people to harvest wildlife that they've traditionally harvested can be applied to eagles. As a result, they're not even certain how they would charge a suspect in the eagle-slaying case.

While Fish and Wildlife agents sometimes don't get the respect of, say, FBI agents, they believe their job is sometimes tougher. For example, they don't have the luxury of security-camera videotapes, like the FBI does in bank-robbery cases. And they can't exactly interview a victim's family to retrace his steps.

"You can't go back and say, 'When was the last time you saw Mr. Eagle?' " Weyland said, having some fun.

There usually are no witnesses to wildlife crimes, "except a deer or an elk, and they're not much help," he added.

So how do they catch these criminals? Kevin Ellis, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent who's handled a number of eagle cases, says undercover investigations are often the only option.

"There's a huge underground network, and people are connected from British Columbia clear into Florida," he said.

The market is driven largely by the tremendous popularity of Native American powwows. At these large social gatherings, dancing and drumming are the focus, and performers compete in elaborate traditional dress.

Ellis takes pains to point out that not all powwow dancers get their feathers illegally, and that the vast majority of Native Americans think it's wrong to kill eagles and sell their parts.

Nonetheless, he said, in the past few decades, powwows have grown so popular that some performers make a living competing on the circuit. At the biggest powwow, as much as $100,000 is given out in prizes.

That kind of money has spurred a demand that a limited supply of lawful eagle parts can't fill.

A sacred bird

What is it about eagles?

To Leonard George, a member of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation and the son of the late actor Chief Dan George, when you see an eagle, "no matter what nationality you are, you almost feel blessed. You feel a little bit better than you did before."

For many Indians, these grand birds are sacred because they fly high and carry messages to the Creator. Some compare the symbolic importance of the eagle in Indian religions to the cross in Christianity.

Their sacred status means their parts are often needed for religious ceremonies. Indians traditionally killed the birds sparingly, accompanied by prayer and thanks and elaborate rituals. And for years, this wasn't a problem. Eagles were plentiful.

But as the continent was developed, the great bird's population dwindled. Pesticides were the main culprit, and at one point, the birds nearly disappeared from the lower 48 states.

In 1940, Congress passed the Bald Eagle Act to outlaw the killing, possession or sale of eagles. Later, Congress added golden eagles to the act.

The population has made a comeback, with about 6,000 nesting pairs counted in the lower 48 in 2000, although they are still on the list of threatened species.

Native Americans, however, were given some leeway under the Act: They may possess eagle parts that have been handed down through the generations, and they may get new eagles through a federal repository, where dead eagles from zoos or those found in the wild are sent for distribution to tribes.

There's just one problem: There are thousands of Native Americans who want parts, but not enough repository eagles to go around. Sometimes it takes as long as four years to get a bird.

Federal judges, ruling in cases where Native Americans used their religion as a justification for eagle offenses, have found the repository system "utterly offensive and ultimately ineffectual."

Waiting lists that essentially prevent Native Americans from getting religious objects, they have repeatedly ruled, substantially interfere with their religious rights. Although the vast majority of Native Americans are appalled by what happened in British Columbia, they say the repository system just doesn't work.

"The U.S. Constitution affords protection for religion, but when it comes to Native Americans, they find every loophole not to be accommodating to us," said Wilson Wewa Jr., a Paiute Indian.

Justice proves elusive

It's telling that while eagle poaching is said to be common, few cases have been prosecuted.

One eagle poacher was nabbed in Oregon after a tipster reported he had an off-season deer in his truck. Responding officers found bags of still-warm birds, as well. Nathan Jim Jr. pleaded guilty to eagle possession, but told the judge he was only doing what his elders had asked of him — gathering eagle feathers to use in burial ceremonies.

"I end up breaking this government's law for my religious rights as a human being," Jim told a judge, referring to the federal permit system.

Some tribal members, however, suspected he was selling the eagle parts.

One of the biggest black-market eagle dealers prosecuted in the U.S. was done in by a Sam's Club phone card.

According to court documents, it was the winter of 1999 and Rosa Linda Burton was sick and tired of the smell coming from a storage area adjacent to her residence in Duncan, B.C., just outside of Victoria.

She also was tired of waiting for her boyfriend, Terry Antoine, to come back. He had left the area the previous fall.

When the Canadian authorities opened the storage area they found parts from 124 eagles, some of them rotting and putrid, according to court records. They also found a receipt for a storage unit in Fife, Pierce County, where U.S. officials discovered parts from about 30 more eagles.

As Burton later explained to a federal jury in Seattle, she accompanied Antoine on a long road trip in 1998 with a duffel bag he packed with eagle parts. They stopped in Tacoma, where Antoine took the bag into a bead store.

They made their way to Grand Coulee Dam and Montana, California and Arizona, stopping at powwows where Antoine met with fellow Indians. By the time they returned home, the duffel bag was empty.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent Tom Chisdock learned that Antoine, a member of the Cowichan Band, obtained his eagles in Canada, giving acquaintances $25 to $50 per bird. Then he sold or traded them in the U.S., mainly along the powwow trail, for approximately $250 to $400 a part.

But other than the eagles themselves, the hard evidence was scattershot: hearsay from an angry ex-girlfriend with a criminal record, hand-written notes that might be sales records, receipts from U.S. businesses.

It took three years for Chisdock to put together a case. But he still had to find Antoine, who seemed to have simply vanished.

Then investigators had an idea. According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Micki Brunner, who would prosecute Antoine, they began tracing calls Antoine made on his Sam's Club phone card.

"We had it narrowed down to about three phone booths," Brunner explained.

Antoine was arrested in May 2001 outside a bagel shop in Hollywood, Fla. When his case was heard by a Seattle jury later that year, it was almost as if the whole system was on trial.

Antoine claimed he was a "mask dancer," a position of importance in his culture, and one that involves conducting rituals and blessings using eagle parts. Without the parts, he claimed, he could not practice these religious rites.

Moreover, he claimed, he wasn't selling eagles; he gave them to other Native Americans. The small amounts of money he received were traditional gifts for a weary traveler. He described it as repayment for gas and food, and compared it to the traditional practice of bartering.

"This wasn't like a drug case where he's making lots of money and living the high life," said his attorney, Michael Filipovic. "For him, it was a matter of true belief." Indeed, when Antoine was arrested, he was living in his car.

Prosecutors did not challenge Antoine's religious beliefs. But they argued that money changed hands, which took it out of the realm of religion and made it a commercial operation that the government had a right to bar.

The jury sided with prosecutors, and Antoine was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

While most of the eagles originated in Canada, and charges were filed there, he was never prosecuted in that country. Canadian officials said the Washington conviction was enough.

Even so, the vagaries of Canadian law would have posed difficulties.

Legal right to eagles?

Colin Copland, a British Columbia conservation officer, pulls one heavy plastic bag after another out of a walk-in evidence freezer. Each bag is tagged; one reads:"#10 bald eagle immature, found in pile of five." They are among the 50 or so birds found last winter, some of them by Amy Marie George.

Their down is matted and their feet cut off at the joint, like a Thanksgiving turkey leg. They don't look grand at all.

Officers will store the eagles as evidence until the case concludes. But some observers wonder if there will be a case at all.

B.C.'s Wildlife Act outlaws poaching or trafficking in eagles. Canadian law also bans exporting them, and fines can reach $150,000.

However, another Canadian law may trump those measures. Under the Canadian constitution, First Nations have a right to wildlife they've traditionally harvested. In B.C., they have used this law mainly to protect their traditional fishing grounds, arguing that some regulations would bar their longstanding food-gathering or cultural practices.

But the law has never been sorted out when it comes to eagles. First Nations have always used eagles as part of their culture and ceremonies, but does that mean that they're allowed to sell the parts? And how many eagles may they kill? Canadian officials remain unsure. A team of prosecutors is researching the law and Indian history to see how a suspect might be charged.

Meanwhile, Canadian wildlife authorities announced in April that they'd identified a suspect: a member of a First Nation who lived in British Columbia. They said he acted as a sort of ringleader, paying other people, some of them Indians, to bring him dead eagles.

But instead of arresting the suspect, Canadian officials simply asked him to come forward on his own.

"They were trying to appeal to the guy's conscience," Weyland explained of this unusual tactic. Others are convinced that investigators lacked hard evidence and didn't have many options.

It's unclear at this point whether the suspect has come forward. What is clear is that the Tsleil-Waututh are getting tired of waiting.

Guilt by association

All winter and spring, members of the tiny North Vancouver band taking the bus into town felt like other passengers were pointing and whispering.

"Once they think an Indian did it, every Indian they meet is guilty," said Tsleil-Waututh Chief Leah George-Wilson, a niece of Amy Marie George.

Some see the eagle killers as exploiting legal loopholes to make a quick buck. Other critics say government officials haven't made arrests because they "don't want any waves" with First Nations.

Leonard George has heard it all. As he points out, the Canadian government (like the U.S. government) has a history of abuses against Native people and worked for years to eradicate their culture. Connecting this slaughter in any way with Indian tradition, he said, is wrong.

"This is a criminal act and it doesn't have nothing to do with culture and tradition," he said.

The Tsleil-Waututh, they explained, are just as outraged as anyone — if not more so. To them, killing and dismembering dozens of eagles is wanton slaughter. Dumping them here made it all the more wrong. It felt as if someone had hurt their children or grandmother, said Leonard George, as if someone were "stomping on your spirit."

The band of 397 Indians pulled together $2,000 to contribute to a reward fund for the arrest of the eagle slayer. The reward now totals $12,000.

Amy Marie George, meanwhile, can't shake the image of the 14 dead birds she found months ago. She's hoping to hold a ceremony, inviting people from all over the area, to put the eagles to rest.

"I want to say to them, 'Keep coming back,' " she said.

"Because we're not the ones who hurt you."

Seattle Times news researcher Justin Mayo contributed to the report.

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562

Wingy

08-01-2005, 08:23 PM

Native Americans suffer from historical trauma (http://www.speroforum.com/site/view_article.asp?idCategory=33&idarticle=1755)

Native American history meets the 1948 Geneva Convention's definition of genocide, defined as the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group
by: Edna Steinman 8/01/05
The treatment given to American Indians as the United States pushed its boundaries westward has resulted in an ongoing emotional condition that a Native American social worker-researcher calls "historical trauma."

Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, research associate professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver, described her work at the 2005 Native American Family Camp, held July 19-23 at the University of Redlands. The annual event is sponsored by the United Methodist Church's Native American International Caucus.

Historical trauma has a layering effect and is the "cumulative emotional and psychological wounding over the life span and across generations, emanating from massive group trauma," she said.

Historical or intergenerational trauma is similar to that suffered by the Jewish people as a result of the Holocaust, the Japanese Americans interned in California at the beginning of World War II and African Americans suffering the aftermath of slavery, she said.

Native American history meets the 1948 Geneva Convention's definition of genocide, Brave Heart said, defining genocide as the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. She said research has shown the U.S. government never intended the long-term survival of Native Americans.

During the Civil War period, Congress passed a resolution stopping negotiation of treaties with Indian tribes and decided to establish two reservations, one east and one west of the Mississippi River. Involvement in the Civil War kept Congress from implementing this plan.

Brave Heart cited the government-run Indian boarding schools as a major factor in the historical trauma. Congressional documents outlined the boarding school policy of forced separation of Indian children from the tribal communities. Gender roles and family relationships were impaired at the boarding schools, where the focus was on the European tradition of male-female relationships and not the Indian tradition of holding women and children sacred. The boarding schools compounded the trauma with a loss of parenting skills, a loss of the child's identification with the parents and other complex processes, she said.

Children of boarding school survivors passed the trauma on to their descendants, but not on purpose and not consciously, said the professor.

Type II diabetes was common among Native American people, fostered both by the overcrowded, deficient conditions in boarding schools and by trauma-caused stress hormones that wear out the body.

Historical trauma generates such responses as survivor guilt, depression, low self-esteem, psychic numbing, anger, victim identity, death identity, thoughts of suicide, preoccupation with trauma, and
physical symptoms, Brave Heart said.

The positive outcomes needed to overcome this intergenerational trauma are a reduction in shame, a better feeling of self-worth, an increase in joy and health, a stronger sense of parental competence, greater use of traditional language, an improved relationship with children and the extended family, and increased communication, she said.

Brave Heart founded the Takini Network in 1992 as an avenue to help overcome historical trauma. It has sponsored workshops to help Native Americans.

Her recent work includes numerous book chapters and journal articles focused on historical trauma and parenting curricula. Her research was primarily with the Lakota reservation population in South Dakota. In 2001, she initiated an international conference for massively traumatized peoples, bringing together Native Americans, Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants, Japanese internment camp survivors and others.

The annual Native American Family Camp, a five-day conference, brought together adults and youth from across the United States. Funding for some of the programs came from the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and the Youth Service Fund,
administered by the Division on Ministries with Young People at the United Methodist Board of Discipleship.

Steinman is a freelance writer and former annual conference newspaper editor in Redlands, Calif. United Methodist News Service

Wingy

08-02-2005, 10:10 AM

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Wingy

08-02-2005, 08:14 PM

Wi-Fi TV, Inc. Addresses Plans for Native American TV Channel and Internet TV Studio on Tribal Land in CEO Address to Tribal Leaders
Tuesday August 2, 10:04 am ET

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Aug. 2, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Speaking last week at the Federal Communications Commission-National Congress of American Indians Regional Workshop and Roundtable in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the CEO of Wi-Fi TV, Inc. (Pink Sheets:WTVN), Alex Kanakaris, officially launched Wi-Fi TV, Inc.'s Native American Internet Development Plan.

In his address, Mr. Kanakaris announced that Wi-Fi TV, Inc. is prepared to deploy resources to establish the following Internet-related businesses in partnership with the Native American community:

-- The first global television station devoted exclusively to topics of relevance to Native Americans. This will include features on tribal-owned tourist destinations such as casinos, hotels, and RV parks. The station will be available for viewing free over the Internet and will be viewable on laptop and desktop computers, as well as television screens. The channel will join over 200 channels from 50 countries currently airing at http://www.wi-fitv.com (http://www.wi-fitv.com/). The channel will potentially generate advertising revenues, as well as promotional opportunities for Wi-Fi TV, Inc. and its partners. -- An Internet TV studio which will be on the cutting-edge of production and delivery technologies and will allow digital production and Internet webcasting among its services. Wi-Fi TV, Inc. intends to locate this studio in Nevada on tribal land. Fees will be generated for services and training, and hiring of Native Americans will be part of the development. -- Development of on-demand Native American-themed online TV programming, including pay-per-view educational programs and conferences. Fees will be charged for placing the content online as well as to grant online access to the content. -- Development of an online gaming website, which will be a joint venture with an Indian-owned casino and will offer "play-for-fun" online gaming (no winning or losing money), as well as the possibility of future offshore gambling for money. Fees will be earned initially from advertising and possibly in the future for gambling transactions. -- Development of VoIP free local and long distance phone services with a Native American co-branded virtual dialer. The phone dialer will be designed to be downloaded on the Internet. Advertising will be tied to using the phone as a revenue model for the business. Kanakaris said that Wi-Fi TV, Inc. is welcoming potential Native American partners to share in the revenues the company hopes to generate from these businesses and stressed that the Native American component launched last week makes up part of Wi-Fi TV, Inc.'s overall international strategy.

``The convergence of TV and the Internet opens a great opportunity to expand knowledge about and cultural awareness of Native Americans and to promote Native American enterprises. As an example, one of the most talked-about IPOs in England in the last 20 years was recently undertaken by an online gaming company, and it is important to brand and develop an online gaming site now that is representative of the Native American community. Wi-Fi TV, Inc. is uniquely qualified to deploy these initiatives based on our 10 year experience in delivering video over the Internet and our access to a global server network,'' Kanakaris stated.

About the FCC-NCAI ITI Regional Workshop and Roundtable

Mr. Kanakaris spoke at the Indian telecommunications meeting of the FCC-NCAI Regional Workshop and Roundtable as an invited guest speaker. He was joined in his presentation by Sherwood Lewis, a member of the Fort Mojave Tribe and Indian tribal business leader.

The FCC-hosted event, which was held July 28 and 29 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, examined technology deployment issues on tribal lands and the related economic empowerment of Indian country. Tribal leaders and technology representatives, economic development and community planning managers, and telecommunications representatives attended this intergovernmental meeting.

Subjects addressed included opportunities for increased delivery of distance learning, telemedicine, public safety, e-commerce, and governmental involvement through telecom and broadcast technologies. FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps delivered keynote remarks. The ITI event built on the successes of the FCC's previous ITI Regional Workshops and Roundtables held in Reno, Nevada in July 2003; in Rapid City, South Dakota in May 2004; and on the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's reservation in Idaho in November 2004

Wingy

08-03-2005, 05:52 AM

'Spirit Seeker' food for souls

By MIKE STARK
Of The Gazette Staff

Phillip Whiteman Jr.’s voice is not his own. It is the voice of his ancestors and the voice of universal lessons.

The Northern Cheyenne storyteller — who also is a world champion American Indian saddle bronc rider, grass dancer and horse trainer — is now sharing that voice with the rest of the world.

Earlier this year, Whiteman, of Lame Deer, released a CD called “Spirit Seeker,” which includes nine stories and songs that he describes as “food for the soul.”

The CD, self-produced and recorded in Billings, is up for a top honor in the Indian Summer Music Awards, an annual competition recognizing American Indian recordings. Whiteman’s CD was one of three nominations in the “spoken word” category.

“When I heard I was nominated, it brought tears to my eyes,” Whiteman said.

Generation to generation

The stories and songs are part of his heritage, passed down from generation to generation. The project was inspired by his father, Phillip Whiteman Sr., a Northern Cheyenne chief of the Council of 44, and his late mother, Florence, who was the last original Cheyenne Warrior Woman of the Elk Scraper Warrior Society, a society responsible for tribal ceremonies.

Whiteman’s role as a traditional storyteller and advocate for cultural preservation fulfills a vision that his parents had for him, he said.

“They didn’t tell me,” Whiteman said. “They guided me.”

The stories are “basic, simple and sincere,” intended to appeal to all audiences, he said, no matter their age, background or ethnicity. One, called “Grass Dance Story,” tells of a paralyzed boy who has a vision, shares it with his people and offers inspiration about overcoming adversity. Another, called “My Friend the Porcupine,” deals with friendship, betrayal and finding perspective when relating to others.

Some listeners play the CD again and again, finding new meaning in the words and music, he said. Portions of the CD have been played on a national Indian radio program, and a Colorado couple has expressed interest in creating a video around one of the stories.

Listening, retelling stories

Although the CD was recorded in a single afternoon, the stories come from a lifetime of listening to elders and telling and retelling the stories. More than simply a tale, each relates a teaching or a philosophy.

“When I shared these stories, I opened my heart,” Whiteman said. “These stories are timeless, they’re alive.”

Whiteman especially wants to convey the culture to young people. He has spoken at Head Start programs and schools. Although many of the young people may seem to be taken with rap and its culture, they are receptive to his presentations and themes of hope, self-sufficiency and cultural integrity.

“They’re hungry and thirsty for traditional stories,” he said.

Whiteman founded and coordinates the annual Fort Robinson Breakout Spiritual Run, an event for Northern Cheyenne young people that commemorates the 400-mile journey of the ancestors after breaking out of Fort Robinson, Neb., in 1879.

“As they start the run, there is transition that they make that’s so powerful,” Whiteman said. “It brings them identity and a solid foundation.”

Whiteman is also combining past and present with an American Indian approach to training and working with horses. He plans on making a DVD of the “Medicine Wheel Model to Natural Horsemanship” in the coming year.

“Society teaches us that we have to dominate and overpower the horse to teach it,” he said. “But my traditions and culture, and my understanding of the horse, teach me that by working with the horse’s spirit, and believing that we are one, the horse will do what I ask of it.”

Whiteman and his wife, Lynette Two Bulls, have made a business out of Whiteman’s skills. Their success is a testament to their work ethic, do-it-yourself-attitude and the importance of traditional teachings in the modern world, Two Bulls said.

“All of this is part of the path that was set before he was born,” she said.

Whiteman said he feels like the CD, the horse program, his storytelling and other accomplishments are fulfilling a destiny forged by his ancestors.

“I feel like the richest man in the world,” he said.

Contact Us

Phillip Whiteman Jr.
PO Box 1138
Lame Deer, Mt. 59043

Telephone (406)477-8720
Fax (406)477-8781

Wingy

08-10-2005, 11:40 AM

DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: Children hold key to healing

Native son's 'NavajoLand'

Inmate at odds with BCC over access to aboriginal medicines

American-Indian tales both soaring, unsettling

Oneida Indians: America's first ally

Indians debate presence of non-Indians at sacred sundances

Forcing religious and political beliefs on others

DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: Children hold key to healing

One of the most significant events in my life is the summer ceremony of healing in South Dakota. This year, the significance for me was the focus on our children and the recent suicides in Indian country. The suicide rate among 15- to 24-year-old American Indians is three times higher than the national average.

What once was called Dakota Territory -- the Plains in northern South Dakota on the Standing Rock reservation -- appear, as I would imagine, the same as when the Indian people lived there many years ago, before the coming of the white man.

When you look across the land, it is as if the smooth, rounded hills were melted by the hot sun. Indian grass and little blue stem is thick and tall. Because this year's heavy rain follows several scorching hot, rainless years, tall spears of deep blue lead plant, purple coneflowers, silver sage and bright yellow sunflowers spouted like bouquets in the hands of a suitor.

When I am traveling to the ceremony, as I did two weeks ago, I become more aware of the land as each mile draws me closer to the camp. It is as if I am stepping into the arms of the land.

When you leave the rolling plains, the land drops down a steep embankment into a valley probably forged by an ancient river eons ago. The Grand River, just barely a creek now, winds toward the Missouri River and empties. Near the mouth of river is one of the sites that Lewis and Clark visited on their Corps of Discovery journey while making their way to the West Coast some 200 years ago. They stopped at the three Sahnish (Arikara) villages on the river.

It is this place along the Grand, in the valley where the summer healing ceremony begins, where I would spend the next six days.

That day before the ceremony was hot. It topped 106 degrees, we learned the following day.

If you can smell heat, then it burned our noses that afternoon. Someone in the camp guessed you could cook an egg in the shade.

That evening, we sat under the cool of our camps that surrounded the central ceremonial grounds and listened to beetles and crickets compete in a symphony of sound. I sat, with my head back on my new Sam's Club red folding chair, looking into the cloudless sky. As I looked into the sky, I was amazed as thousands of dragonflies swarming just a few feet above us. The mosquito count was down.

Miraculously, the night cooled so much that we had to use extra blankets in our camps, and at dawn, we began the ceremony.

The evening before the ceremony always leaves me nervous and anxious for the beginning of the ceremony the next day.

Of the lessons taught during the ceremony, I remember most the words of one of our spiritual leaders, Jesse Taken Alive, who talked about our children -- about the suicides. He is a man who dedicates his life to the Native way. He spends the year before the ceremony preparing. Sometimes, when he speaks, he doesn't remember what he has said. It is voice and thoughts of the Creator, he told us.

During the day for the children's healing, Take Alive told us this: Look into the eyes of the children. Even if it's for a fraction of a second, they will provide us with a wealth of love and information from the spirit world. They bring to us knowledge that we can share that will help us create family. Look at into their eyes at their level -- remember, we were once children, he said. It is important that the children interpret our actions as security and love. From that, they will know they always can return home spiritually or literally -- that they have a place to go and someone to be with.

We adults should understand that the children can lead us with their innocence and their connection to the Creator and the spirit world. They will lead us -- not only the adults in this world, but spiritually, they will take us to places where it's going to be best and healthiest for our families.

Those were the words he remembered after two weeks after ceremony.

That night, once the ceremony was completed, the wind picked up. We could see zigzags of lightning on the horizon of the hills around us. If it rained that night, it was only a few drops, but the wind took its toll. My tent was blown down, and there were branches and other things scattered about the next morning. The wind, my grandmother once told me, is the backwash from the spirits.

As I looked at the red horizon the next morning, I thought there must have been many spirits here this year -- the year we prayed for the safety of our children.

Native son's 'NavajoLand'

Diné photographer shares his country, culture in words, images

Arizona Highways
Aug. 7, 2005 12:00 AM

In "NavajoLand: A Native Son Shares His Legacy," recently published by Arizona Highways Books, author and photographer LeRoy DeJolie takes readers on a visual and spiritual tour of his homeland. The mesas, canyons and mountains captured in the 80-page book represent far more than scenery for DeJolie; they remain the source and inspiration for his culture and identity. Mystery writer Tony Hillerman, who wrote the foreword to the book, observes that for the Navajo photographer this landscape is a Holy Land. What follows is an excerpt from the foreword.

Why would a cameraman born to the Diné (Din NAY) - the name traditional Navajos call themselves - see his homeland in a way different from any other talented photographer? The answer lies in cultural values. LeRoy DeJolie was born to the Rock Gap People, his mother's clan, and the Red House People of his father. The photographer was raised among people who see more than mere mountains, dry washes, expanses of sage and the solidified lava flow of exhausted volcanoes when they look at the landscape around them. DeJolie has heard the "winter stories" in which children of traditional Navajos learn lessons of their genesis from the start of creation.

For example, when a traditional Navajo focuses his camera on the old volcano we call Mount Taylor, he sees Tsoodzil, the Turquoise Mountain. The story of the Navajo Genesis tells how First Man formed the mountain of material brought up from the world below, decorated it with blue beads, pinned it to the Earth with a flint knife, and made it the home of the spirits Turquoise Boy and Yellow Corn Girl (the Yei, or Holy People, known as 'Ashkii Dootl'izhii and 'At'ééd Litso naadáá', respectively). On this mountain, the sacred southern boundary post of the Navajo Holy Land, the twin sons of Changing Woman - armed with weapons stolen from Sun - killed the Ye'iitsoh, the chief of the evil monsters who had followed the Diné up from the underworld. The lava flow, which forms the remarkable landscape we drive through south of Mount Taylor, consists of the dried blood of that monster. To traditional Navajos, the mountain remains an enduring reminder of how a harmonious family partnership allowed good to overcome greedy evil.

From the "winter stories," based on oral accounts from tribal mythology, traditional Navajo children learn their goal in life is not to be richer or more powerful than one's fellows. To the contrary, life's purpose is to remain in harmony with the great, interconnected cosmos of which they are a part - along with fellow humans, the birds, the wolves, the rivers, the hornets, the winter winds, the piñon trees and the bark beetles that feed on them, and even the mesa cliffs that change sunset colors with the changing seasons.

They are not (as the Bible's Book of Genesis suggests) born to be master of the planet and all upon it. Instead, Navajo children learn they are among the cogs in an endless natural process, which includes not just us humans and not just all living things like the grass underfoot and the red-tailed hawk above, but also Earth itself, the starry sky, the clouds that drift through it, and the blessed rain they bring. . . .

A Navajo student in a class I taught years ago told me that if I wanted to find witchcraft on the reservation, "look for a Navajo who has more of everything than he needs." Another Navajo friend told me that saying " 'rich Navajo' is like saying 'healthy corpse.' "

Alex Etcitty, my favorite Diné philosopher, explained that "having what you need is good. Having more than you need, with needy people around you, is a sign you're an evil person."

"Why evil?" I asked Etcitty.

"Because this sort of greed disrupts hozhô. And hozhô - a concept that includes not just harmony but contentment and family love - is the ultimate goal."

Thus, a traditional Navajo does not want to appear richer, or otherwise superior, to his neighbors. Instead of appearing wiser than others, he will precede an explanation with "They say," thereby giving the impression that he simply is passing along the knowledge. Or, for another example, a Navajo friend explained that his brother, who had won three consecutive rodeo bull-riding prizes at the Navajo Tribal Fair, would not enter the next year "because he has been winning too much."

Tony Hillerman, the Albuquerque writer who popularized the Native American detective novel, has had decades of close association with the Navajo Tribe.

Inmate at odds with BCC over access to aboriginal medicines

Friday, August 5th, 2005

By: Eliza Barlow

A Brandon Correctional Centre inmate says jail staff are threatening to deny him and other inmates access to their supply of sweetgrass, sage and other sacred aboriginal medicines.

Gregory Stevens, 32, said he was told by jail staff this week that he is no longer allowed to carry his medicines on his person.

He said he was told he’ll have to keep them locked up with the rest of his personal property and ask for them when he wants them.

He said he was particularly outraged at the timing of the order because he is currently mourning his cousin, who recently hanged himself at Indian Birch First Nation.

“It’s like saying to a person, ‘You can’t read this Bible at a certain time, or you have to pray at a certain time,’” Stevens told the Sun.

“It violates our human rights ... It’s like children asking for candy.”

Stevens said he uses his sweetgrass by holding onto it and praying.

He said he was told the institution is writing up a new policy saying inmates can’t have the traditional plants and herbs on their persons or in their cells.

But Brian McVicar, superintendent of Brandon Correctional Centre, denied any such policy is either in place or in the works.

He said the jail has a policy of tolerance toward traditional native medicines, setting aside certain times of the day when inmates can conduct smudges.

“The policy supports the donning of medicine pouches and sacred plants and stuff like that,” he said.

McVicar said the only time guards should be taking an inmate’s pouch away would be if the person was suicidal and could use it to harm him or herself.

“If it would have been removed, it would have been removed with cause,” he said.

However, McVicar said all inmates are welcome to take any complaint over their treatment in jail to the provincial ombudsman.

He added jail officials would also be willing to investigate any such complaints brought to their attention.

Stevens said even though he’s due to get out of jail in about two weeks, he’s speaking out for the sake of his fellow inmates.

“It’s very important that we have this stuff because it’s our way of dealing with our problems,” he said.

“It’s our way to get out of here and stay out of here.”

Poor U.S. tribe forgoes riches from sacred lake

04 Aug 2005 11:59:55 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Adam Tanner

NIXON, Nevada, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Visitors to the eastern shore of Pyramid Lake 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Reno, Nevada, can scan an area framed by a desert mountain backdrop and not see a hint of mankind.

The American Indians overseeing the lake say such serenity along 125 miles (200km) of lake coastline 4,000 feet (1,200 m)above sea level is the result of the tribe's traditional respect for nature.

Others suggest the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, which suffers 44 percent unemployment, should allow at least some development so it can share in the prosperity that regions such as Lake Tahoe in northern California enjoy.

The clash matches economic opportunity cost against tradition, with the sovereign tribe having the final word.

"The historical aspect of the lake has always been to keep it as it is," Norman Harry, chairman of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribes' Reservation, said in an interview. "The lake is sacred to the people and always will be."

"Over the last four decades we've seen what happened in Lake Tahoe."

That commercialized lake attracts so many visitors that it generates $1.8 billion annually, of which 80 percent is linked to tourism, according to Duane Wallace, chief executive of the South Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce.

A tiny handful of outsiders operate businesses near Pyramid Lake, with some saying the tribe should open more to tourism.

"The business sense is very lacking here on the reservation," said Thomas Bobella, a German-born businessman. He leases 4 acres (1.6 hectares) with a modest marina, gas station and recreational vehicle park in Sutcliffe, the only inhabited area on the lake's western side.

"They are economically shooting themselves seemingly without any justification for it," said Bobella, who criticizes the tribe for their poor boat launching areas.

"One of the very discouraging points to Pyramid Lake ... is the fantastically bad reputation that this lake has and that is primarily due to the governmental administrations and their approach toward tourism."

Tribal chairman Harry said a dispute over the year-old marina lease motivated such remarks.

Fred Crosby, who owns the only lodging in Sutcliffe, a 10-unit facility, says tensions still simmer between the tribe and the descendants of settlers who battled at the 1860 Battle of Pyramid Lake. Fighting that killed about 240 people resulted after settlers kidnapped two young Indian women.

Such sentiment raises suspicion when it comes to outside commerce on the reservation. "There's kind of a gap between the Indians and non-Indians," said Crosby, 58, who has lived in Sutcliffe for 48 years. "There is an anti-white sentiment on the reservation."

LAKE VS. HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT

The lightly salinated Pyramid Lake derives its name from a small triangular rock island rising from the waters fed by the Truckee River. The larger Anaho Island nearby provides a dramatic backdrop to flocks of pelicans, sea gulls and herons.

Most access roads are dirt or sand. The unspoiled arid landscape fit in easily as a biblical backdrop to the 1965 film "The Greatest Story Ever Told" about the life of Jesus.

By local standards, Sutcliffe is a hub of activity. About 220 tribal members live there, and hundreds of outsiders pass through on weekends to swim, go boating or fish trout, a privilege for which they pay modest access fees.

Asked about his tribe's future plans, Chairman Harry pointed on a map away from the lake to other areas of a 467,000-acre (189,000 hectare) reservation home to 1,600 members.

"When we look at economic development, we have to look at other resources," he said at his office in Nixon. "There are other areas we can look at that can accomplish the same thing."

He wants to open a hotel and casino complex on tribal lands on Nevada's main I-80 highway linking California to the east, and says land nearby would be good for light industry.

Harry also wants to sell pipeline rights across the reservation and sees potential in developing geothermal energy in another corner of the sparsely populated reservation.

Tourism firms have shown interest in Pyramid Lake for decades, and Harry's predecessor as tribal leader, Bonnie Akaka-Smith, solicited development proposals last year. She declined to discuss her ideas, saying she did not want to express dissent as she still worked for the tribe in the tax department.

Nothing came of her idea, but the tribe has shown past flexibility towards the sacred lake, such as during World War Two, when it let the U.S. military test torpedoes there,

Some believe economic pressures could one day prompt the tribe to allow a new barrage of tourism.

Dennis Conrad, a casino marketing consultant, is modestly optimistic that the tribe will one day develop attractive resort facilities on or near the lake. A rival consultant, Richard Wells, was more pessimistic, saying that the far more developed Tahoe would long overshadow Pyramid Lake.

American-Indian tales both soaring, unsettling

Monday, August 08, 2005

By KURT BRESSWEIN

The Express-Times

BETHLEHEM -- A gathering of American Indians on Sunday explored the "spirit" behind this year's Musikfest offering a glimpse into both the pride and the problems of their culture.

The showcase of this year's Musikfest theme, "The Spirit of Music," was held at the Banana Factory arts complex at 25 W. Third St.

As much as it was a look at the diversity of American Indian culture, the three-hour gathering also served as a reminder that the Lehigh Valley and western New Jersey are rich in American Indian history and still home to people of American Indian blood.

"You don't necessarily have to go out west or anything," said Sam Beeler, chief of the Sand Hill Indians in New Jersey and historian of the Cherokee nation. "You can go to New Jersey or Pennsylvania and you can find an Indian right there."

Historical markers along Route 611 and elsewhere tell the story of the so-called Walking Purchase, in which European settlers robbed Indians of their land by sprinting to stake land claims while their Indian counterparts walked. Easton was also the scene of dozens of treaties between American Indians and the settlers.

"This is the place where we began our journey and where many of us still are," said Chuck DeMund, chief of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania.

John Fitzgerald Toya, the Banana Factory's spring 2005 artist in residence, noted American Indians "live, work, breathe just like everybody else." But they also labor to preserve their heritage.

Toya, of the Jemez Pueblo tribe in New Mexico, presented some of his 19 family members who came to Bethlehem to perform during Musikfest.

They wore intricate ceremonial garb, including a man with golden eagle feathers spread across his arms and back like wings. Another man wore a buffalo headdress and fox tail, symbols of the animals important to Toya's people.

The family, known as the Star Feather Singers & Seasonal Dance Group, has performances scheduled for 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday at Banana Island off Main and Lehigh streets.

Volksplatz in Johnston Park along the Monocacy Creek is the venue for performances slated for 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Friday, 1:30 to 2:30 Saturday and noon to 1 p.m. Sunday.

Toya said his tribe is made up of about 3,500 people, 95 percent of whom speak their native Towa, an unwritten language taught by oral history. Toya mentioned unpleasant parts of the tribe's history but refused to go into them.

"As we know, it's history. It's in the past," Toya said.

Others spoke candidly about the plague of alcoholism that has gripped Indian reservations.

Vincent Black Feather, elder and medicine man with the Ogala Lakota Sioux in South Dakota, said his people's battle with the bottle dates to 1953, when the Eisenhower administration legalized alcohol on the nation's Indian reservations. Black Feather said he was a teenage alcoholic but gave it up as he returned to his longtime vision of becoming a healer.

Author Jane Ely, dean and co-founder of the Peacemaker School of Spiritual Healing in Hawaii, told of how she was raised by her grandparents after her father abandoned the family to drink. The experience gave Ely a chance to learn from her grandfather. She shared two lessons from him.

"We are born two-legged, and our goal in life is to become human beings," was one she cited. Later, she said, "Without our mother earth, we wouldn't be here. We need to wake up to this fact as a world and individually."

Reporter Kurt Bresswein can be reached at 610-867-5000 or by e-mail at kbresswein@express-times.com (kbresswein@express-times.com).© 2005 The Express Times© 2005 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

Oneida Indians: America's first ally
Oriskany a reminder of historical link with Oneidas
Sat, Aug 6, 2005

R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

ROME - Three decades ago, visitors to the Fort Stanwix National Monument got to know the ancestors of local Indians as settler-scalping savages, courtesy of the film "Siege," shown many times a day.

Today, the Marinus Willett Visitor Center shows the fort's story through the eyes of four fictional 18th-century characters, one of them an Oneida Indian woman named Wali.

The turnaround in the public image of the Oneida people can be traced in large part to the Aug. 6, 1994, commemoration of the Battle of Oriskany.

On Aug. 6, 1777, more than 800 Tryon County Militiamen from Herkimer and 60 Oneida Indian allies marched to help the besieged Fort Stanwix when they were ambushed by British, Indian and mercenary troops. Some 450 Americans and Oneida allies were killed, wounded or captured.

It was an amazing decision for the Oneidas to fight alongside the Americans, Oneida Bear Clan representative Brian Patterson said.

"No one thought the Americans would win," he said, "and the British ... promised us a king's ransom to fight (for them)."

The Oneidas, however, backed their friends and neighbors in the Mohawk Valley, he said.

A monument was erected in Rome, near the Whitestown border, in 1884 to honor the Herkimer militiamen, but it took another 110 years before the role of their Oneida allies was fully and publicly recognized.

The Oneida Nation will participate again this year in the Oriskany Battlefield's solemn remembrance ceremony, starting at 7 p.m. today. Descendants of those who died in the battle will lay wreaths at the battlefield tomb and the Nation's Living History Department will participate.

Patterson was at the 1994 ceremony and recalls being "pleased the state reached out to the Nation and has involved the Nation every year since.

"We don't get the recognition for being this country's first ally," he said.

Joseph Robertaccio chaired the 1994 ceremony at the Oriskany Monument that formally noted the Oneidas' bravery.

Inviting the Oneidas to the battlefield "was setting right something that was wrong," Robertaccio said. "In their religion they knew there was something to be done."

He said the Iroquois believe the Peacemaker that forged the Iroquois Confederacy of five traditionally rival tribes told them, 'If you ever make war on one another you will ... lose your lands.'"

Oriskany "was the place the Iroquois confederacy made war on one another," he said. Other confederacy members -- Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas and Mohawks -- fought with the British or remained neutral.

"The battlefield ceremony (in 1994) righted that wrong," Robertaccio said.

Robertaccio said, "I recall very well (the first ceremony). It was a very moving experience. I made many friends (among the Oneidas)."

Patterson said his only disappointment 11 years ago was to see land held sacred by the Oneidas at Oriskany had turned into a recreation area, rather than a memorial.

"It was a desecration of the memory of the blood that was shed. The red of the (American) flag is the blood of our ancestors," Patterson said.

Since that time, the Oneidas have used some of the wealth accumulated from the lucrative Turning Stone Resort and Casino and other Nation enterprises to educate others about their history and their role in American history.

"Oriskany represents what the Continental Congress meant when it said, 'We witnessed the love of the Oneidas' in the Revolutionary War," Patterson said. "It was a formal declaration of our alliance."

He said, however, he has been hurt in recent years to realize "how hollow those words truly were" in the light of local opposition to Oneida land claims and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the tribe's sovereign rights.

Nevertheless, he said he will return to Oriskany whenever he can, "to pay homage to those heroes."

Indians debate presence of non-Indians at sacred sun dances

HALLAM, Neb. (AP) -- At the second annual Timothy Iron Bear Sun Dance, three non-Indians were obvious among the 13 dancers.

They were welcome at this sacred ceremony. But they wouldn't be allowed at all sun dances.

To some tribal members it's racist to bar non-Indians. To others, it's a matter of cultural integrity, preservation and protection.

Arvol Looking Horse, a chief of the Rosebud Sioux, opposes attendance by non-Indians:

"I feel pain in my heart because a lot of our own people can't trust our medicine men," he said.

At the four-day sun dance ritual, dancers pray in the sun and some pierce their bodies as sacrifices to the creator and a signal of rebirth.

In 2003, Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe spiritual leaders discussed non-Natives joining sun dances.

Afterward, Looking Horse issued a statement that said the sweat lodge purification ritual, for example, should be conducted by Indians who can speak their tribes' language. He left sun dance attendance and participation by non-Indians up to the medicine men who conduct them.

But in a recent interview he said: "They can continue to pray with us, but for them to sun dance, no."

"It's not about being racist," he said. "It's about protecting our culture."

On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, just across the state line from northwest Nebraska, about 50 sun dances are held yearly, said Charlotte Black Elk.

She said she knows of only one that doesn't allow non-Indian participation.

"Traditionally, the leader or the sponsor was the one who made the decision of who participates," Black Elk said.

Rosebud Sioux Alfred Bone Shirt said that on South Dakota's Rosebud Sioux Reservation, two or three of the 20 or so sun dances bar non-Indians.

Bone Shirt is part of a committee that is trying to protect Indian ceremonies and he supports Looking Horse's position.

"There is ignorance and no respect from these white people," he said.

Frank King Jr., a Rosebud Sioux and owner/publisher of the Native Voice newspaper, said the 1990 release of the movie "Dances With Wolves" prompted some people to begin "searching for spirituality, searching for something."

"Indian people milked it for money," King said. "Our people are not as spiritual as the stereotype makes us to be."

Halting the practice of charging non-Indians was discussed at the 2003 protection meeting, Looking Horse said.

But some medicine men broke their words and continued to sell their culture, he said.

One medicine man, Leonard Crow Dog, who led the Hallam dance last month, broke the agreement because it was "hurting his pocketbook," Looking Horse said.

A non-Indian who attended the Hallam ceremony, Bill Achord, said Crow Dog did not charge participants there.

Crow Dog said he oversees 16 sun dances a year and allows non-Indians to take part.

"Anyone is welcome as long as he understands himself," he said. "It's not their color; it's their spirit."

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Forcing religious and political beliefs on others

Notes from Indian Country

Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) 8/8/2005

© 2005, Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc.

Every race and nation has its own story of creation. From the Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist to the Hopi Nation the stories or myths are as believable or as unbelievable as one interprets them.

Those who do not believe in the creation story as related in the Christian Bible far outnumber the Christian believers. If one is to make judgments based on numbers does that make the non-Christian, non-believers right? Or are we as students of human nature to rely on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution?

Just as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is a “theory” so to is Darwin’s prognostication classified as “theory.” These “theories” pit evolution against religion.

When I was a student at the Holy Rosary Indian Mission on the Pine Ridge Reservation we were not taught Darwin’s theory. Instead we were offered, and I use the word “offered” euphemistically, a class called Catechism. This class, of course, was a class in Catholicism.

In the Catechism course we were taught about how God created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day. Gee, I didn’t know God got tired, but apparently he did. Must have been really hard work creating earth and that doesn’t even mention the rest of the universe.

Did God also create dinosaurs? Strange, but they are never mentioned in the Bible and I was told that this book covered everything. Perhaps those Christians now pushing Intelligent Design as a replacement for science can answer that question.

There is little doubt that science has made its mistakes and has advanced through the years with its many flaws, but so has organized religion. Millions of people have died in the name of religion and the gist of the slaughter was always an effort to prove which religion was the true one

Most of us recall the infamous “Monkey Trial” in Tennessee that pitted religion against science. In this case science lost and teaching evolution was forbidden in the Tennessee classrooms.

According to a column by Charles Krauthammer in Newsweek, Christopher Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna, Austria declared that the Roman Catholic Church rejects “neo-Darwinism.” He declared that Darwinism is an “unguided evolutionary process — one that falls outside of the bound of divine providence — simply cannot exist.”

Schonborn went on to say that “The Catholic Church will again defend human reason against scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of chance and necessity which are not scientific at all.”

I have often wondered what would happen if a new life form from another universe made an appearance on earth. Surely somewhere out there in the limitless boundaries of space there are planets filled with life forms, including intelligent life, that is only mentioned in the books of science. You will not find them mentioned in the Bible.

How would the hardcore traditionalist Christians explain this occurrence?

The United States is falling behind many industrialized nations in the field of science. Stupid decisions by stupid politicians using their religious beliefs instead of their common sense have stifled such innovative scientific research as that on stem cells. Other nations not restricted by religion, nations such as South Korea, are moving forward with stem cell research, and the cures for horrific diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s may be waiting at their fingertips.

Diabetes has become particularly destructive and deadly on the Indian people of this nation. I have lost dozens of friends in the past several years to this dreadful disease. I am a victim of this disease also. It simply boggles my mind to see politicians insert their religious beliefs into preventing a scientific breakthrough that could save the lives of so many diabetics.

I am continually amazed at the letters to the editor of our local daily newspaper from seemingly intelligent people who refuse to consider evolution and instead cling to their Bible as the sole source of creation.

These letters not only expound on their biblical beliefs; they also serve as a hammer to beat down anyone who disagrees with their beliefs. This is the frightening aspect of this entire argument.

As a journalist I have written that “I may not agree with your opinions, but I will defend with my life your freedom to have those opinions.”

Whatever happened to that way of thinking? When did a certain segment of our society become so obsessed with its own personal beliefs that it would disregard the rights of others to have a different perspective?

When did America become divided into red and blue states? This in and of itself is an evolution of sorts and one that I do not condone. I was taught at the mission school that a “house divided cannot stand.” Well, America’s house is divided and if it does not move in the direction of unification, it will fall.

There are many enemies wanting to destroy us and the day will come when they will strike and bring horrible destruction. A divided house contributes to those possibilities because while one segment of our society defends against disaster, the other provokes it.

Just as there are many stories of creation, there are also many different religious beliefs and until we learn that one story is no better nor more true than the other, just as no religion is any greater or less as the other, we will continue to move in a very dangerous direction.

When will we learn that one cannot force his political or religious beliefs on another? Iraq may turn out to be the primary example of this madness.

(Tim Giago is the former editor and publisher of the Lakota Times, Indian Country Today, and the Lakota, Dakota and Pueblo Journals. He can be reached at najournalists@rushmore.com or by writing him at 2050 West Main St. Suite 5, Rapid City, SD, 57702)

Wingy

08-16-2005, 05:53 PM

Sam Hurst, 8-14: Indian women still feel genocide
By Sam Hurst, Journal columnist
No one likes to talk about the genocide. It was so long ago. What does it have to do with us? That's the way a century washes over the horror. Those who conduct the slaughter will always tell you, "We had to do it." There's always a good reason. Land. Buffalo hides. Manifest destiny. God made us do it.

Then the passage of time rubs off the rough edges. By the third and fourth generation, no one remembers. No one is taught.
About a decade ago, my sister developed an interest in genealogy and for Christmas the family received a report on the Hursts of Tennessee, by way of the Shenandoah Valley, by way of Sherwood Forest. There, staring me in the face, across the centuries, was a photograph of John Hurst, black as charcoal, one of several family slaves. Of course! How could it be otherwise? That was the culture, the economy of the South. Every Southerner is complicit. We have just forgotten ... willfully, arrogantly, forgotten.

In the 12 years I have lived in South Dakota, I have met dozens of people who proudly boast that they are fourth-generation homesteaders. But no one has ever admitted to me that their families participated in the genocide. "What does it have to do with us?"

I am haunted by a passage in a little book, "The Badlands Fox," by Margaret Lemley Warren. She wrote about the adventures of her father, Pete, who ranched along the Cheyenne River at the end of the 19th century. He told her stories of the early days. "We went over and stirred them (Indians) up and a lot of our fellows laid in at the head of a gulch ... and they chased us down Corral Draw ... Riley Miller was a dead shot, and he just killed them Indians as fast as he could shoot ... We killed about seventy-five of them. Riley Miller and Frank Lockhart went back there and got some packhorses and brought out seven loads of guns, shirts, war bonnets, ghost shirts and things. Riley took 'em to Chicago and started a museum. He made a barrel of money out of it."

I am haunted by this passage because my ranch stares across the Cheyenne River at Corral Draw.

There are a hundred ways that the terror of the genocide continues to ripple through our lives, but none is more explosive than the cruel, hard fact that we beat and rape Indian women as if they were utterly without value. Consider these numbers:

-- Fifty percent of Indian women in America will be beaten in their lifetime. That is twice the percentage of white and black and hispanic women. I find this statistic impossible to believe. I talk to a counselor at the Sacred Circle resource center in Rapid City. "Could this possibly be true at Pine Ridge, or Rosebud, or North Rapid?" She shrugs. "Statistics are hard to gather on the reservations. Women are taught to keep their mouths shut. But I was beaten, and I don't know hardly any women who haven't been."

-- Indian women are raped at twice the rate of all other races.

-- Seventy percent of the violence against Indian women is committed by non-Indian spouses or boyfriends or acquaintances.

-- One in four pregnant Indian women is beaten.

-- Two-thirds of all Indian boys between 11 and 20 arrested for murder, killed the man assaulting their mother.

Is the problem poverty? Yes. Is the problem alcohol and drug abuse? Yes. Lousy law enforcement? Yes. A lack of shelters and court protections for native women? Yes. Is the problem a deeply ingrained sexism in American culture that blames the victims? Yes.

But at its root, the problem is that 500 years of genocide and colonization have made Indian women invisible.

The reservations are isolated, and we easily drift into a dismissive disinterest, as if this is a problem in Bangladesh, or Botswana - far, far away. It's their problem.

That's why it is so important to remember the genocide. It matters ... today, right now, to all of us.

Next month Congress will vote to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act, and for the first time (thanks largely to the work of South Dakota Indian women), the law will create a tribal division within the Justice Department to manage programs for Native women, increase funding for shelters, an inter-tribal sex offender registry, a protection order registry, better training for law enforcement and expand counseling for men.

But make no mistake. There is no silver bullet solution to the problem.

Ask a woman who has worked in the movement against violence and she will tell you that the best place to start is for the whole community to adopt a zero tolerance for violence against women. Women are sacred. There is no excuse for hitting a woman, not one, not ever.

We will begin to make headway when the men in our community enforce this code with each other ... before the police are called.

I have a more simple way of looking at the problem. When every woman in the community, every woman, is my daughter and sister, when the violence against them is violence against me, we will begin to put the legacy of the genocide behind us.

Sam Hurst is a Rapid City filmmaker. Write to samhurst@aol.com (samhurst@aol.com).
NARRAGANSETTS KEEP TRADITION ALIVE
By Pamela J. Braman - The Sun Staff
CHARLESTOWN - The Narragansett Indian Tribe's annual August meeting goes back at least 330 years - and in past years may have lasted an entire week.
However, the meeting day itself has always been the second Sunday of the month, said tribe and church board member Alberta Wilcox, "Laughing Water."
The Narragansett tribe will hold its meeting on Saturday and Sunday at the site of their church off Old Mill Road.
The celebration has changed over the centuries, too, from times the Narragansetts had to camouflage the celebration of their culture and beliefs to avoid angering the colonists, to ones in which the tribe could openly take pride in and share their culture with others, on their own tribal grounds, said Wilcox.
"You might notice that we also call our church a meeting house," said Wilcox. "Though we believe in the Great Spirit, centuries ago we would start the ceremony with a Christian service, because we knew that adhering to the ways of the settlers would please them. After the Christian service, we would meet on our own in private to celebrate the Narragansett ways."
According to stories told to her, Wilcox said, that was how the Narragansetts learned to deal with the settlers, who "when they came over in the boats, had a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other," she said.
This year's meeting and celebration will be filled with traditional food, singing, and dancing. Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas (Seventh Hawk) invites the public to attend the ceremony, as has been the custom for many years. In the Narragansett tongue, this invitation reads as "Wame Eniskeetompauog Wunnegin," or "All are welcome."
The two-day celebration and meeting will consist of services at the Narragansett Indian Church at 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sunday, and a powwow Saturday and Sunday, with Grand Entry at 1 p.m. both days.
The powwow will feature intertribal dancing, special dancing and dancing contests, singing and drumming, a food tent, and many arts and crafts booths on both days. At the start of each day's powwow, a welcoming address will be given by the Chief Sachem, then Medicine Man Running Wolf Lloyd Wilcox will cleanse the circle and a peace pipe ceremony will follow. An invocation will be given by Firefly Song of Wind Dr. Etta W. T. Sekatau. Narragansett Tribal Historian Wendi-Starr Brown is also expected to speak.
The church ceremonies on Sunday will have both a Baptist flavor and a Native American orientation, with a minister, piano or Native American music, and remarks by Narragansett representatives.
As part of the powwow, a special honoring ceremony will also be held in the circle, for those who have passed on with the calendar year. Per usual, no drugs or alcoholic beverages are allowed on the reservation during the meeting, and traditional music only can be played.
Residents should be aware that there is limited parking on tribal grounds. Visitors can park at the tribe's health center on Route 2, and either walk down Old Mill Road to the church and festival site, or wait and take a limited shuttle.
Gates open at 10 a.m. both days, and admission is $4 for adults, $2 for children.
pbraman@thewesterlysun.com (pbraman@thewesterlysun.com)

Wingy

08-16-2005, 06:06 PM

King Philip's legacy lives on after 300 yrs
By GERRY TUOTI Staff Writer
08/12/2005
TAUNTON - With the rising sun this morning over Miry Swamp in Bristol, R.I., a group of Pokanoket Wampanoag planned a prayer ceremony to remember their fallen ancestor, King Philip, who was killed 329 years ago today.
Three-hundred thirty years ago, the English colonists in Greater Taunton were embroiled in a bloody, bitter war that would forever change the settlers' relations with the area's indigenous peoples and decimate New England's Native American population.

"King Philip's War was the most traumatic event in 17th century New England," author Eric Schultz said.
Schultz, who grew up in Dighton, now lives in Boxford. He wrote a book, "King Philip's War: The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict," in 1999 with Michael Tougias.
About one-fifth of the fighting-aged men in the English Colonies were killed in King Philip's War.
"If you were alive living in Taunton in 1675, you would have known, lived next to or be related to a person killed in King Philip's War," Schultz said. "All the people who were farmers went off to fight. All industry and farming was disrupted."
King Philip's War, which spread to the Connecticut Valley and Maine, ended the peaceful coexistence that had begun when the Wampanoag, under Pokanoket Sachem Massasoit, helped the Mayflower Pilgrims survive their first winter in the New World.
In the decades that followed the first Thanksgiving, the colonists expanded into the wilderness. Tensions between the English settlers and Native American groups rose as they competed for land and resources.
The Native Americans' way of life was in jeopardy.
Rebecca Smith, the chairwoman of the Rehoboth Historical Commission, said a decisive conflict between the English and the Native Americans was inevitable.
"It was really a serious clash of cultures," she said.
Massasoit's son, Metacom, who the English called King Philip, became sachem in 1662.
Metacom's main village was in present day Bristol, R.I. He had a summer campsite in present-day Raynham.
During the late 1660s and early 1670s, a cold war mindset developed as the colonists were afraid of rumors that Philip was planning an attack.
Colonial officials met with him in Taunton and pressured him to sign the Taunton Agreement, which called for the Wampanoag to surrender their weapons. They never fully complied.
"They had to draw a line," Schultz said.
The line was drawn in June 1675, when a Plymouth court acted on shaky evidence and executed three Wampanoag for the murder of John Sassamon, a Native American Christian convert who had close ties to the English, lived in modern-day Lakeville and taught at a Christian mission near Middleboro.
"That was the final straw for the Native Americans," Schultz said.
On June 20, two weeks after the executions, the war started when a group of Wampanoag looted English homes in Swansea, probably without Philip's approval.
In the next week, Wampanoag warriors attacked Taunton and Rehoboth. On July 9, they burned Middleboro.
On June 25, 1675, after receiving word of an imminent attack, Taunton resident Edward Bobbett and his family left their home to take shelter in a fort. Bobbett forgot some kitchen supplies and decided to return home to retrieve them. Spotting a group of Wampanoag warriors in the distance, he climbed a tree, where he was hidden until his barking dog gave away his location. The warriors found him in the tree and killed him. Bobbett's original tombstone is now on display at the Old Colony Historical Society in Taunton.
Other tribes, like the Nipmuck, joined the fight alongside the Wampanoag. The previously neutral Narragansett entered the war after the English attacked them in a battle called the Great Swamp Fight.
The Mohegan and Sakonet tribes allied themselves with the English.
The Narragansett entered the war against the English and had victories across Southern New England in February and March, 1676. On March 28, Narragansett leader Canochet led an attack that burned 45 houses in Rehoboth.
"Pretty much everything got burned," Smith said. "There were probably only two or three houses that survived."
The next day, Canochet's warriors burned 100 structures in Providence.
The warring Native Americans were constantly on the move and had to abandon their crops. As hunger and disease set in during the coming months, the English began to turn the tide of the war. Capt. Benjamin Church, led several victorious campaigns.
On Aug. 12, 1676, Church ambushed and killed Philip at his camp near Bristol, R.I. He brought the sachem's head to Plymouth on a pike. Anawan, Philip's war captain, led the remaining Pokanoket on a retreat. Church caught up with him and killed him in a surprise attack in Rehoboth. Today, there is a memorial at that spot off Route 44.
In the aftermath of the war, the English sold many Native Americans into slavery abroad. Native Americans never again had sovereignty in New England.
Alcoholism, the Reservation, and the Government
Bottom of Form

By James Falcon
August 15, 2005
In my eyes, alcoholism has a way of becoming an unwanted guest: it comes to stay with you and it never leaves. Along with living in teepees, frequenting casinos, and scalping (and I don’t mean tickets to the Fighting Sioux games), alcoholism has also become one of the many stereotypes that are forever etched into the minds of many when they think about Native Americans.
The purpose of this article is to discuss the reasons why alcoholism is so prevalent in Indian Country, and how it can be stopped.
The reason why I believe that alcoholism is so often assimilated by the Native American community is because many see alcohol, as well as other drugs and their euphoric post-effects, as a way of escapism, to escape from the life they live. To many, alcohol is a way to hide from problems. Many will drink ‘until they go away’; but, they – the problems – do not go away that easily. Instead, they are masked by a stupor of alcoholic ‘blindness’.
In my lifetime, I have seen the lives of many people destroyed by alcohol addiction, both on an individual level basis and within a family. Alcoholism separates husbands from wives, parents from children, family members from other family members, and so forth. For a period of forty-some years, my paternal grandfather was a raging alcoholic, abandoning his family for stretches of time and devoting his paycheck to alcohol instead of his ten children. An aunt of mine has been a chronic alcoholic for twenty-three years and severed ties from many relations. An uncle’s first marriage ended because of his drinking habits. The intervention of Social Services has taken children away from alcohol abusing parents. In short, alcoholism is like a mighty ocean that puts a wide and unfathomable gap between people.
“The devastating effects of alcoholism have found their mark on Indian Country’s youth as well.”, Mark Anthony Rolo, an enrolled member of the Bad River Ojibwa and a former Washington correspondent for Indian Country Today, wrote in 1999. “A Native teen’s chance of dying from alcoholism is seventeen times higher than a teen from another race.” Rolo also notes that along with diabetes, obesity, mental illnesses, and suicide, alcoholism is one of the major causes of death for Native peoples today.
Some may ask how alcoholism can thrive in such small rural communities such as a reservation town. Easy. Entrepreneurs, regardless of race, are smart enough to identify alcohol as the magic ingredient that numbs feelings, both good and bad. Then, they cash in on the situation, the popularity of the forty-ounce, the twenty-four pack, or the shot (after shot) of vodka.
The town of Whiteclay, Nebraska is a prime example of money over morals. The town, which is located close to the “dry” Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation, sells more than three million dollars in alcohol sales in a year. Many of those purchases were attributed to residents of Pine Ridge, who embarked on the journey across the South Dakota-Nebraska border to purchase liquor. In 2002, the state of Nebraska created a bill, LB 1036, which would prohibit the sale of alcohol within five miles of “Indian Country”. Whiteclay falls under that jurisdiction.
Statistics and situations like these go to show that in a Native American community, bars flourish because the demand is satisfied to the extreme. Entrepreneurs are not stupid, especially when it comes to capitalizing on the almighty dollar, encouraging and exploiting a crippling disease and taking financial advantage of those that have been consumed by it.
The interjection of a government – be it county, tribal, state, etc. – is important in solving the growing problems of alcoholism on a reservation. Take the case of George Munoz, the former mayor of Gallup, New Mexico (once dubbed the “Drink Driving Capital”). Munoz was a politico who held the well-being, safety, and health of his constituents on a higher regard than that of the town’s economy: an economy built up by the sale of alcoholic beverages. Through many campaigns and attempts, albeit some unsuccessful, Munoz finally hit pay dirt – the state government set aside monies to help fight alcohol-related deaths and alcoholism. In 1991, Congress appropriated $1.2 million for three specific projects in northwestern New Mexico. Of this, $900,000 was earmarked for startup operations at the Gallup Alcohol Crisis Center; $200,000 to finance a treatment program in Gallup at the Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital’s Behavioral Health Services campus; and, $100,000 to renovate a Navajo Nation treatment center in the town of Crownpoint, which is a fifty-mile drive northeast of Gallup.
Taking under consideration the current situation of the Turtle Mountain Reservation in northern North Dakota, the North Dakota state government should take a page from that of Nebraska and New Mexico. First, banish alcoholic establishments in a five mile radius from Indian Country (which would mean that the Turtle Mountain, Standing Rock, Fort Berthold, Spirit Lake, and Fort Traversie reservations would become dry. Second, set aside monies and use them in a manner that would benefit alcoholics on a rehabilitation level. For some communities, an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting is not enough. Indian Health Service (HIS) and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) should take note: the creation of treatment centers in Belcourt, as well as throughout reservations across the country, would be pertinent to help combat any type of substance abuse.
“Hotzebue, one of the larger Native American communities in Alaska, outlawed the sale of alcohol recently and last year noted a forty percent decrease in assaults, sexual assaults, homicide, and suicide.” writes Roger Clawson, a journalist for the Billings Gazette. This goes to show that should a government take the initiative to control the situation and instill types of censure on alcohol, the alcoholism statistics will surely numb.
I feel that through careful planning, strategizing, and consideration, governments of any kind, no matter how many in number, can work to help combat alcoholism in its purist form and nip it in the bud before it consumes an entire nation.
---
Authors Note: Please note that this is a revised draft of the article (of the same name) that appeared here a few months ago.
gtuoti@tauntongazette.com (gtuoti@tauntongazette.com)

Why Indians Aren't Celebrating the Lewis and Clark Expedition

By David Mould

Mr. Mould is Professor of Telecommunications and Associate Dean, College of Communication, at Ohio University. He has written and produced public television and radio documentaries on the history of settlement in Ohio and on Appalachian labor history and traditional culture, and is the author of Dividing Lines: Canals, Railroads and Urban Rivalry in Ohio's Hocking Valley, 1825-1875 (Wright State University Press, 1994). He traveled the Lewis and Clark trail (mostly in an SUV) in 2004.
Allen Pinkham has been doing a lot of soul-searching about the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
“This is a heart-wrencher,” says Pinkham (Five Rays of Light), a tribal leader of the Nez Perce (Niimiipuu). “My people were slaughtered. But you don’t read about that. All I read about is Lewis and Clark, the heroes of the day 200 years ago. Well, whose heroes? They’re not my heroes.”
As nationwide events to mark the epic expedition of 1804-1806 enter their second year, Pinkham and other Native Americans are struggling to come to terms with history. In the half-century after the Lewis and Clark expedition helped open the West to white settlement, Native Americans were removed to reservations, ravaged by disease and poverty, and forced to abandon language, religion and culture.
Before white settlers reached their homeland in what today is western Idaho, the Nez Perce numbered over 30,000. Thousands died through disease and in a futile rebellion. Today, there are less than 4,000.
“To us, it was a holocaust—like what happened to the Jewish people,” says Cassandra Kipp, the tribe’s economic development director.
Yet Pinkham, Kipp and other Native American leaders are working actively with the national Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission. They see the bicentennial as a chance for Native Americans to tell their stories, and to benefit economically from the hundreds and thousands of tourists who will follow the trail from St. Louis to the Pacific coast. The Nez Perce will host one of 15 national Lewis and Clark signature events in Lewiston, Idaho, in June 2006.
At first tribal leaders were skeptical. Why should they recognize the very event that marked the beginning of the end? “When tribes like ours were asked to participate, at first it was like a slap in the face,” says Kipp.
Pinkham was one of only two Native Americans at a mid-1990s bicentennial planning meeting at Forth Leavenworth, Kansas.
“And the first thing they said was, ‘We’re going to celebrate this Lewis and Clark bicentennial.’ And we said no, if you want to have Indian involvement, don’t call it a celebration because there’s nothing that we have to celebrate.”
The meeting eventually settled on the word “commemoration.” “It didn’t mean a damn thing to anyone else, but to us it made a great difference,” says Pinkham who now serves on the bicentennial commission’s Circle of Tribal Advisers.
There is no single Native American perspective on the Lewis and Clark expedition. In their two and a half year journey from St. Louis to the Pacific Coast, the explorers encountered more than fifty tribal groups, and each experience was different.
Some, notes Amy Mossett, the commission’s tribal involvement coordinator, “had never before laid eyes on a white man, ever.” But some, like her own nation, the Mandan-Hidatsa, had been trading with the British and French for years.
The Mandan villages on the Knife River in North Dakota where the Corps of Discovery spent its first winter were at the center of an international trading network that stretched from Canada to the Gulf, and the arrival of the expedition caused little stir.
The explorers are not depicted on the painted buffalo hides on which the Mandan recorded the important events of the winter of 1804-05.
“There were other things that were more significant,” says Mossett. “Battles with the Sioux, when they came in and burned our villages. Or when smallpox came up the river. Even a meteor shower was more significant than Lewis and Clark.”
“People come through and they want to know what stories we have about Lewis and Clark,” says Mossett. “Well, the fact that we don’t have any left probably tells you how insignificant these men really were. Lewis and Clark are not our heroes today. And they weren’t our heroes 200 years ago either.”
However, stories about Lewis and Clark are common among the Nez Perce, who rescued the expedition as it straggled, exhausted and half-starved, out of the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho in late September 1805. They gave them food, helped them build canoes and kept horses for the return trip.
“We showed them a lot of things,” says Kipp. “How to live off the land, eat foods native to the country, and navigate the rivers by canoe. Most of the stories have to do with sharing information with them.”
The bicentennial commission mandates Native American involvement in event planning and programming, and states have Native American representatives on their Lewis and Clark advisory councils or commissions.
Visitor centers and museums along the 3,700-mile trail feature Native American exhibits. At the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center in Great Falls, Montana, visitors can take two routes—one following the Lewis and Clark trail and one documenting the experiences of the tribes they encountered.
However, with some exceptions such as the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute in eastern Oregon, most major exhibits on Native Americans are in visitor centers and museums run by federal and state agencies, not on reservations.
Native American leaders such as Pinkham feel that tribes have been robbed of their history. “The anthropologists and historians and amateur pot-hunters took everything from us,” he says. “They said, ‘Oh, we’d better put this in a museum because these Indians are going to disappear, so we’d better help preserve their culture by putting their belongings on display.’ And I objected to that because we’ve got our own culture. We still make our own arts and crafts, and some tribes have their own museums.”
With the bicentennial, some tribes have obtained grants to build cultural centers and offer programs, but most cannot compete with the major trail sites, according to Mossett.
“Most of us don’t have interpretive centers or nice visitor centers on the reservations,” she says. “And the reason we don’t is because we have other priorities. When you travel through Indian country the priorities focus on education, and on medical, housing, unemployment issues. Any money that tribes do have they’re going to be spending on basic needs. Commemorating Lewis and Clark does not fit in that list of priorities.”
Pinkham says that the bicentennial can give tribes “a renewed sense of their history and culture” as long as they present it themselves. “The tribes have their own story to tell. And they can tell it for themselves. They don’t need an anthropologist to tell it for them.”
To do so, they need to overcome stereotypes, says Mossett. “You know, you must not be an Indian if you don’t have a dance outfit or dress up in feathers and beaded moccasins.”
“We’re not there for the pageantry, and we’re not there to entertain,” she says. “We’re not re-enactors—we’re real Indians.”
Mossett’s mission is to use Lewis and Clark events to increase understanding of the struggles of Native Americans. “One of our most powerful messages is that we are still here. Our languages and cultures have survived. And when you think about what we have been through in the last 200 years we do have something to celebrate. We can celebrate that we survived Lewis and Clark.”
Related Links
· For current Native American perspectives on Lewis and Clark, see www.nathpo.org/Many_Nations/mn.html (http://www.nathpo.org/Many_Nations/mn.html) . The site is a joint effort of the Native American Journalists Association and the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers.
Comments (6) (http://hnn.us/board.php?id=13473)

American Indians gather at powwow
By John Nelson
Special to The Examiner
Before Storm Pence died of cancer three weeks ago, she made her father promise one thing: that he would still dance in the National Powwow.
"She told me that she would be with me in spirit, so I'm here for my daughter," said Frank Two Horse Belcher, 57, of Montana's Black Foot tribe. "[The powwow] is a gathering of people to celebrate our culture and keep our tradition going. This is who we are and what we do."
For hundreds of Washington-area Native Americans, the third annual powwow, sponsored by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, offered an opportunity to socialize and dance with hundreds of fellow Native Americans from across the nation.
"[The powwow] is great," said Geneva Horse Chief, a 29-year-old Arlington resident who said the powwow gave her the opportunity to remember her Osage heritage and mingle with people from other tribes. "There is nothing like getting to know the other tribes. I like to dance and dress. It makes me feel good to be an Osage woman."
The three-day powwow featured over 800 dancers from tribes across the country and drew thousands of spectators.

POWWOW PRIZES
$100,000 in prize money was awarded to the top dancers at the powwow in these categories :
- Men and Women's Golden Age (50 and over).
- Men's fancy dance, grass and traditional (Northern and Southern).
- Women's jingle dress, fancy shawl and traditional (Northern and Southern).
- Teens (13-17), Juniors (6-12) and Tiny Tots (5 and under).
Article published Aug 14, 2005
Treading on a Shrine
Sacred site now an ATV playground

Maxim Kniazkov
For the Coloradoan
SAND MOUNTAIN, Nev. - Rochanne Downs has trouble explaining it even to her own children.
If going to the mountain is a big taboo, how come hundreds of total strangers careen every weekend over it in their buggies and all-terrain vehicles?
"I really have not been able to come up with a credible explanation," she shakes her head in disbelief.
Is it because most of them don't believe in God? Or because their God may not the same as the one worshipped by Paiute people?
No answer. Either from the riders, or the Paiutes, or the mountain. When strong wind whips up its white sand, the dune emits just a monotonous, high-pitched wail.
"Yes, it can sing. But it's not really the mountain," Downs explains. "It's Kwasi the serpent hissing."
It lived with the Paiute people centuries ago, when western Nevada was just emerging from under massive Lake Lahontan, a remnant of the ice age, the legend goes.

The serpent came out of a burrow in the Stillwater Mountains and traveled with his spouse all around what is now western Nevada — to Pyramid Lake, and Walker Lake, and Lake Tahoe, and lots of other places, spreading wisdom and happiness.

But one day his faithful spouse died, and grief-stricken Kwasi buried himself in the sand at the foot of his native Stillwater Range and has remained there ever since.

He is still alive, tribal elders insist. And they can communicate with the serpent, asking him for guidance and protection.
That is if Kwasi can hear them through the roar of muffleless engines.

The mountain has been turned into a popular recreation site for ATV aficionados, extreme bikers and drivers of rumbling buggies that often pack enough horsepower to win a NASCAR race.

Revving up their engines, they rush to the top of the dune, make a breathtaking U-turn practically at its crest, and plunge back down the slope, leaving a mini-sandstorm in their wake.

On long weekends, the mountain located about 25 miles east of Fallon, resembles an anthill, with several hundred vehicles mercilessly plying its sides and clusters of agitated watchers cheering below.

The number of these motorized tourists grew from 16,000 a year on the 1980s to more that 50,000 now, according to the Paiute-Shoshone tribal government.

If Kwasi the serpent ever opined about this, the elders keep it secret. But leaders of the tribe, whose tiny reservation is nestled on the outskirts of Fallon, are losing their patience.

Sand Mountain is a sacred place of worship, they try to drive their point home.

“For us it is really an open-air church,” argues Downs, a member of the tribal council. “When I was growing up, my grandfather forbade us from going there because he said the mountain may roll over on us. Only the spiritual people are allowed to go to the mountain. And that’s what I tell my children. But now the elders and spiritual people can hardly go there anymore. There is no more place for them to pray.”

Last year, the tribal council finally decided to act.

In a petition sent to the Bureau of Land Management, the federal custodian of the landmark, tribal Vice Chairman Len George asked to close the mountain to motor vehicle traffic for two months every year.

The first of these spring months, he explained, would be dedicated “tribal spiritual practices by Great Basin tribal elders and spiritual leaders.” During the second month, the mountain will be open to pedestrian traffic, which, in his words, will allow it “to heal itself through rejuvenation.”

Reclaiming the mountain for the tribe has never been on the agenda, officials assure.

That hardly assuages fun-loving folks, sometimes from as far as California.

The Indian request has elicited angry comments and even occasional appeals for a boycott of a Paiute-owned gas station in Fallon, Downs said.

But what is more distressing to tribal members, the case has not moved very far, even after a full year.

Elaine Briggs, a top BLM official in Carson City, said that although the bureau has full jurisdiction over the mountain, action was not likely any time soon.

“We recognize that the mountain is sacred to the Paiute people. We have no reason to question that,” she said. “But there could be a long process of consultations ahead of us.”

In the immediate future, the agency is hoping to transform the landmark into a solid generator of cash by raising access fees, in some cases perhaps by more than 100 percent, Briggs said.

“The Indians will probably lose, even though their request seems reasonable,” predicted Chester Gillis, professor of theology at Georgetown University and a leading expert in interfaith relations.

Underlying political and economic power, he explains, often determines the level of deference afforded a religion.

But here, at the foot of the dune, Jerry Faulkner, a retiree from northern California, gunned his ATV, sending it down what Indians describe as the sacred serpent’s spine, and saw no need to offer any excuses.

“My friends and I have been doing this since 1988. It’s a lot of fun, and we hope to keep coming here for many years to come,” he stated with a force of conviction.

No, he never heard about Paiute religious leaders willing to have unmolested access to the site at the expense of his rides, but he was visibly upset to learn about it.

“Well, I’m sure they will build a good casino here someday,” he uttered after a pause. “But I probably should not be saying this.”

Wingy

08-17-2005, 06:43 PM

Boulder puts off developing land near Indian grounds, cemetery
Told to set its sites elsewhere
The council votes to have its staff look further for places to build a firefighter training center and sewage sludge plant.
By Beth Potter
Special to The Denver Post
DenverPost.com
Boulder on Tuesday night put off developing land near a sacred Indian prayer site and a pioneer cemetery.
The City Council voted 6-3 to tell its staff to look further for a site for a firefighter training center and a sewage sludge plant.
City workers also are to come up with a plan to fund building the training center. The city is expected to discuss the issue again Oct. 18.
In often emotional appeals, North Arapaho tribal elders and neighbors spoke out overwhelmingly against plans to build a sewage sludge plant and a firefighter training center at the Valmont Butte site, which is on the eastern outskirts of Boulder.
Council members had been scheduled to vote on whether to allow the two projects to be built.
Some members said the 101.6-acre site might need to be sold if it could not be used for city development.
"What are the costs associated with maintaining Valmont Butte? These kinds of tactics are to scare off our people in trying to reach a settlement, an understanding, an agreement on our way of life," said William C. Hair, an elder of the North Arapaho tribe, which has historic ties to the land.
Tribal elder Anthony Addison reminded the city that promises made to Native Americans over the years have been broken numerous times.
"We call on the council to respect the North Arapaho," Addison said. "Along the way, there are so many things we have lost that we'd like to see some come back."
Residents have fought for years to keep the butte undeveloped, said Lee Ann McGinty, a fourth-generation resident, who cried as she spoke.
"If it wasn't for my mother, there wouldn't be a butte," McGinty said. "The never-ending stress killed her. My 83-year-old father is so upset about this, he wants to have my mother exhumed and moved to another cemetery."
Several firefighters also spoke, asking for a new training center for the 27 fire departments in Boulder County.
"We are not bad neighbors when it comes to respecting the spiritual needs of others," said Brett Gibson, chief of Four-Mile Fire Department.
Boulder purchased the site in 2000. Regardless of building plans, the butte, the highest point on the property, would be preserved as open space, the planning department has said. The sludge plant could be built on the eastern edge of the property; the training center could be built immediately next to the butte.

Tohono O’odham man receives 20 years in Medicine Man slaying
Argument over spirituality ended in shooting death

TUCSON AZ
Native American Times 8/16/2005

A Tohono O'odham Nation man that pled guilty to killing another man during an dispute over who is the better Medicine Man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

According to the United States Attorney District of Arizona, Gordon Michael Jose, 43, shot and killed Andrew Lopez while the two were driving to the Cowlick Village on the Tohono O'odham reservation in Arizona. The pair argued over their respective talents as medicine men and Jose shot Lopez seven to eight times with a handgun.

Authorities say Jose admitted to the 2004 shooting, and the circumstances surrounding it, and later pled guilty to Second Degree Murder.

A probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the tribe’s police department revealed Lopez had been shot multiple times, with the bullets striking him in the face and the heart. The investigation also showed Jose was advancing on Lopez when he fired the shots.

U.S District Judge David Bury sentenced Jose to 240 months in prison.

Jose is from the reservation's Tecolote Village.

The U.S. Attorney prosecuted the case because the crime happened on Indian land. Jose was represented by a federal public defender.

Sand Mountain illustrates folly of sacred markers
August 16, 2005

One of the peculiarities about Nevada is the plethora of monuments to people who have died in automobile accidents, ATV accidents and other causes.

Though this is by no means unique to Nevada - monuments can be found in every state in the union - the Silver State, it seems, certainly has more than its fair share.

For years, government agencies responsible for the upkeep and safety of public places have pondered the propriety of these memorials. The Nevada Department of Transportation has talked about ridding highway rights-of-way of wooden crosses that stand not only as remembrances of loved ones but also as gruesome reminders of the carnage that follows drunken, reckless and speeding drivers. So far NDOT has taken the position that as long as these monuments do not pose a safety hazard they may remain.

Now the Bureau of Land Management has joined the fray by proposing that monuments perched atop Churchill County's Sand Mountain be removed by Oct. 1. Recognizing the sentimental importance of these markers to the affected families, BLM officials have graciously and compassionately given them time to recover and move the monuments if they choose. The reasons for the BLM's decision are twofold: 1. Placing a fixture on public land is against the law, and 2. the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe has objected to the markers on grounds that Sand Mountain is a sacred place.

We happen to agree with the BLM that these well-intended monuments are inappropriate on public lands, lest the entire countryside be littered with shrines. For the same reason NDOT ought to follow the BLM's lead and remove roadside death markers.

That said, the Paiute-Shoshone Tribe's objection to the Sand Mountain monuments on grounds the area holds some sacred meaning strikes us as a bit hypocritical. No doubt the families who erected these monuments also see Sand Mountain as a sacred place. Consequently, they likely see the BLM's rationale supporting the tribe's "sacred ground" as the application of a double standard.

This is another example of the folly of allowing sacred/religious symbols to be placed on public property. Once headed down this path it is pretty hard to turn back without offending someone's sensibilities.

Hecel Oyate Kinipikte (so that the people may live)
© Indian Country Today August 16, 2005. All Rights Reserved
Posted: August 16, 2005
by: Carole Anne Heart (http://www.indiancountry.com/author.cfm?id=536)

Didn't you receive your parenting book in the delivery room?

The complex and mystifying transition from childhood to adulthood is not clear to adolescents or parents. From the day a child is welcomed into the world, parents expect their child to achieve beyond what they have achieved.

Parents live vicariously through their children, imagining and wishing for them great careers and a successful life. Then reality sets in, and parent's and children's expectations don't always match.

Informal markers of the rite of passage for young people include drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, having sex, obtaining a driver's license or getting a vehicle. These benchmarks signal to a child their entrance into the realm of adulthood. But the question remains: are these appropriate markers that signify admirable and proper qualities we want our children to emulate?

Tribal rites of initiation

Indigenous cultures of the Americas developed a tested methodology that steered the passage from childhood to adulthood for young people. This process for young Lakota women was the Ishnati Awicha Lowanpi (womanhood ceremony) and for young Lakota men the Hanbleceya (vision quest), and was the culmination of a series of structured events in which young people participated with their relatives and other admired adults within the Tiyospaye (family structure).

The structured events were teaching tools developed to assist young people to make the right choices, thus easing the difficult transition. These learning packets supplied the necessary ingredients, critical tools and information to young people about their role for successful adulthood.

Tribal youth are no longer required to participate in the time-honored traditions that offered guidance, support, and a specific timeframe for entry into adulthood. Tribal youth now view their transition into adulthood using the same standard rites of passage as non-Indian youth. The once clearly defined transition from childhood to adulthood has become very fuzzy and difficult to determine by today's standards.

Some young people begin smoking and experimenting with alcohol and other illegal substances before age 12. Some of our young girls conceive at the age of 13 or younger. Young men become fathers at the same age.

When a child begins to experiment with alcohol, drugs, smoking or risky sexual behavior, it is the parents' responsibility to guard and guide them. Recent studies point to a threefold increase in the number of women who get drunk at least 10 times a month. Another study showed 40 percent of college girls binge drink.

When the increased rates of teen depression, suicide, alcohol poisoning, sexual assault and pregnancies are considered together, it is clear that we are dealing with an epidemic of social issues that will be carried into adulthood. Young people who begin drinking at an early age are at an greater risk of developing heart disease, reproductive disorders, brain abnormalities and social problems. The long-term consequences of alcohol abuse are much greater for girls than boys.

The brain

To gain an understanding of teen physical development - particularly the brain, which is the command center for behavior - scientists found that the teenage brain continues to develop well beyond the accepted 18 years of age. The brain lays the foundation for behavior, habits and future choices up until a person is 25 years old.

The teen brain goes through a period of pruning. Just as a gardener prunes plants, so the brain prunes brain cells that aren't being used. This period of development is very important for parents to understand. The teen brain finds it very difficult to plan ahead, think of consequences, to fully understand risky and destructive behavior, and to self-manage their emotions.

Cultural traditions

Our ancestors understood these important developmental stages and developed a system to respond to it.

Young children were given guidance and nurturance from all the adults surrounding them. They were taught the rules for social behavior and interaction. Adults modeled the behaviors they hoped to see in their children. Repetition was used to affirm behaviors that parents desired in their children. Social and motor skills were continually tested and refined. Spiritual and moral values were an integral part of this learning period.

There is a silent scream by our youth for the return of an established ritual that sets a standard for entrance into adulthood. As Indian parents we have a responsibility to formally set in place those concrete expected standards that once were a clear guide for what was expected of our children. Only in this way can we ensure that we affirm our cultural values and traditions for our youth. This is how we must protect our children and our future for generations.

Carole Anne Heart is the executive director of the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen's Health Board. She can be reached at (605) 721-1922 or execdir@aatchb.org. Visit www.aatchb.org for more information.

Wingy

08-17-2005, 06:46 PM

August 2005 -
Po'pay Leader of the First American Revolution:

Pueblo original voices in new book

SANTA FE, N.M. - The year 2005 is quickly becoming the ''Year of Po'pay.'' The leader of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is the subject of a new book, ''Po'pay: Leader of the First American Revolution,'' written by Pueblo members and leaders, while a marble tribute will soon honor Po'pay in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

Joe S. Sando, Jemez Pueblo author, and Herman Agoyo, former governor of San Juan Pueblo, are editors of the soon-to-be released book by Clear Light Publishing which includes contributions from outstanding Pueblo artists, poets, thinkers and scholars.

Contributors include sculptor Cliff Fragua, Jemez Pueblo; Theodore S. Jojola, Isleta Pueblo; Alfonso Ortiz, San Juan Pueblo; Simon J. Ortiz, Acoma Pueblo; and Joe Suina, Cochiti Pueblo.

''This is the first time Pueblo historians have written about these events in book form; previous volumes reflected Spanish sources or more distant academic viewpoints,'' said Clear Light Publishing, announcing the book's release.

''Drawing on their oral history and using their own words, the Pueblo writers discuss the history and importance of Po'pay, the illustrious San Juan Pueblo Indian strategist and warrior who was renowned, respected and revered by their people as a visionary leader.''

The book's release follows protests of Albuquerque's tercentennial celebration. Pueblo members said the celebration honors war criminals, such as Juan de Onate, who slaughtered Pueblo people. Further, Pueblo members are protesting statues of Onate, commissioned in Texas and New Mexico, which honor him. They have called for Po'pay (also spelled Pope') to be honored as a hero of the people.

Honoring the man who led America’s first revolution
Notes from Indian Country

Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) 5/30/2005

© 2005, Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc.

In the year 1680 the immigrant Pilgrims and other settlers (called invaders
by the indigenous people) were getting a toehold on the eastern seaboard of
this continent.

The Spaniards and Portuguese already had a head start. The Spaniards had
been roaming and exploring South, Central and Southwest America for nearly
two hundred years. They had already constructed one of the oldest permanent
settlements (white settlements) in America at St. Augustine in what is now
Florida.

The Pilgrims had come to this continent seeking freedom of religion, but
they wanted their brand of religious freedom only and would set about
denying the same freedom of religion to the indigenous people.

In the Southwest, the Spaniards had set about bringing Catholicism to the
Pueblo Indians with force. The Indians either joined the faith or were
punished, oftentimes by death.

A holy man of the Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo) watched in silence as the
atrocities against his people mounted with each passing year. Finally, this
farmer and warrior had enough. His name was Po Pay, which translates to
mean “Ripe Pumpkin” in the Tewa language.

According to accounts by the people of the Pueblo, Po Pay and 46 holy men
were arrested by the Spaniards and beaten for practicing what they labeled
as “sorcery.” According to the San Juan historian Alfonso Ortiz, now
deceased, the men were whipped and three were hanged. This happened in
1675. After they were released it is said that Po Pay developed a deep
hatred for the Spaniards.

Ortiz wrote, “On the one hand the Spanish friars preached to the Pueblos
about equality, brotherhood and Christian love, while on the other Spanish
soldiers brutally attempted to stamp out the Pueblo religious practices.”

Ortiz was actually an anthropologist and a longtime friend of mine. He was
only one of a few Indian anthropologists in America. One evening in San
Francisco Ortiz told me about Po Pay and how he tied knots in a rope that
was sent secretly, by runners, to the war chiefs of all the Pueblos. They
were told to untie a knot every day and when the last knot was untied, they
were to attack, simultaneously, the Spanish soldiers, settlers and priests.
The year was 1680 and it was the first revolution against the invaders by
an indigenous population.

Cliff Fraqua, a member of the Jemez Pueblo, was commissioned to carve a
statue of Po Pay. At the unveiling ceremony held at the San Juan Pueblo
plaza on May 21, 2005, Fraqua spoke of the challenge he faced. About 1,000
people were in the audience on that scalding, hot day. He said that it took
him nearly one year to start the actual work on the statue. The seven-ton
block of Tennessee marble sat in his cornfield while he watched it thought
about it and listened to it.

He said that one day he started to draw on the stone and then everything
fell into place for him. The figure of Po Pay emerged from the rock where
it had been held captive for centuries. The finished statue will be moved
to Washington, DC where it will go into the National Hall of Statuary, the
first statue of an American Indian to hold such a place of distinction.

Po Pay was reviled by descendants of the Spanish settlers as a shaman and
murderer, but he was revered by the People of the 19 Pueblos as a hero. His
leadership in the revolution drove the Spaniards out of New Mexico. The
revolt took the lives of 21 priests and 400 settlers and soldiers. When the
Spaniards returned 12 years later, they had learned their lesson and their
brutality to the Pueblo Indians diminished considerably. Many Pueblo
Indians believe that it was the revolt led by Po Pay that saved their
world.

Governor Joe Garcia of San Juan Pueblo was the Master of Ceremonies at the
unveiling. He said that one day his daughter listened to a teacher talk
about Santa Fe as the first permanent settlement in New Mexico. His
daughter boldly corrected the teacher by telling her that she was wrong.
She said that Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo) was much older than Santa Fe.
The teacher thought for a minute and said, “You know, you are right. Thank
you for the history lesson.”

Many people of the 19 Pueblos and Indians across America were not taught
about the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 in their classrooms. Many had to do the
research themselves in order to find out about this remarkable man and his
efforts to save the religion and the culture of his people.

The sculptor Fraqua learned his craft at the Institute of American Indian
Art in Santa Fe. Many great Indian artists and artisans have passed through
the halls of IAIA including such noted artists as Fritz Scholder. The
contributions they have made to Indian art more than justifies the
existence of the Institute.

The statue of Po Pay is beautifully crafted and I still find it amazing
that it will be the first statue of and by an American Indian in the
National Statuary Hall in Washington, DC. Oftentimes the First Americans
are also the last.

Wingy

08-17-2005, 11:01 PM

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 03:15:38 0000
LPNET: UPDATE FROM LEONARD PELTIER

"Subject: Leonard Pelrtier Transferred to Lewisburg, PA
http://lpdcinc.blogspot.com/ (http://lpdcinc.blogspot.com/)

August 15, 2005

Aho My Relations,

On August 15, 2005 I was transferred to USP Lewisburg
in Pennsylvania. Life has been extra difficult for me
since I was transferred from Leavenworth. This system
is designed to make one feel very powerless, and what
they are doing with me now is definitely aimed to
erode my body and spirit even more. My loved ones, and
all of you, my friends and allies who continue to
support me, keep me sane and hopeful.

They say that it is in times of crisis that one can
really see who your real allies are. Those of you who
have contacted the Terre Haute Prison and the Bureau
of Prisons on my behalf, keep me in your prayers, and
are supporting my Defense Committee, have made an
enormous difference in my situation. I humbly thank
each and every one of you, and firmly believe that
your actions most certainly saved my life and
prevented me from living in an institution that is
well known for its extremely high crime and violence.
Also, health problems continue to plague me and the
conditions I was subjected to exacerbated them. I know
deep within my heart, that if there had not been such
an outpouring of support, concern and overall outcry
regarding my arbitrary detention, I would have
probably stayed in solitary confinement for an
indefinite length of time, or worse I would not have
survived in the general prisoner population. Although
I have been forced to endure many hardships, I will
never surrender, even if all that is left of me is my
spirit. Your love and support inspire me to overcome
everything.

I hope that here at Lewisburg I will be able to resume
living in the general population, practicing the
traditional ways and continuing with my artwork. My
defense team is preparing to go through some major
milestones. They need your support more than ever to
re-establish our office and prepare for upcoming
reviews and legal battles. Since Russ Redner, Paula
Ostrovsky, and Toni Zeidan do not want to accept any
salaries or remuneration of any kind, all of your
donations will go directly to the office transfer and
upcoming campaign.

I again want to express my sincere appreciation and
tell you once more that without you I am not sure I
could have survived this last month. Every day I think
about and pray for a time when I will be among you,
shoulder to shoulder, fighting for justice for my
people and our Mother Earth.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

Leonard Peltier

NOTE FROM THE LPDC:

Please contact USP Lewisburg to make sure Leonard
regains all his hard earned prisoner rights,
especially his religious rights, visitations, regular
phone calls and ability to paint. Be polite and
courteous, but let them know that a lot of us all over
the world are concerned about Leonard's wellbeing.

Warden

USP LEWISBURG
U.S. PENITENTIARY
2400 ROBERT F. MILLER DRIVE
LEWISBURG, PA 17837

Phone: 570- 523-1251
Fax: 570- 522-7745
E-mail address: LEW/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV

Also please continue writing to Leonard but be mindful
of his situation and respectful of his personal
affairs.

Leonard Peltier # 89637-132
USP LEWISBURG
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 1000
LEWISBURG, PA 17837
John Gallagher"
Mitakuye Oyasin.

Dale'sforever

08-18-2005, 02:34 AM

Hi, you're so right Wingy! I'm so glad to hear that the courts stood behind this inmate. If they would have backed Cali DOC, I know Arizona would have soon followed and since my husband is Native and has long hair also, it would have affected us. I'm so glad to hear that courts are making a good decision once in awhile! ;)

The inmate who filed the lawsuit said it well in the article that RP posted...
"This is a really good win for us because now all Indian men behind me and the ones still here, now have the right to keep our traditions and let hair grow long," the Cahuilla Native American said in an interview.
"They don't like the fact that we're going to stand up against them."

YIPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! RP, thanks for sharing!!! this was/is a REALLY important ruling///if Native People in california lost this appeal it would have set a precident for incarcerated First Nations People thru out Turtle Island... thank you SO VERY MUCH for taking the time!!!!

Wingy

08-18-2005, 03:50 PM

Meth a Growing Problem on the Rez

SD Prairie Dog Colony infected by Plague
Planning for Seven Generations

Meth a Growing Problem on the Rez

Partnership formed to combat meth issue

MINDEN - More than 200 people from Nevada and California gathered in Minden to discuss steps to combat the methamphetamine epidemic.

The Partnership of Community Resources and the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California sponsored the all-day program Friday at the Carson Valley Inn.

Meth was once associated with rural, blue-collar users. But the drug has invaded big cities and its abusers now include members of all racial and economic groups, said Washoe Tribal Chairman Brian Wallace.

"Given all the serious challenges that face us, I've never seen one more serious than what we're talking about today," Wallace said.

"Fighting this binds us together more closely than ever ... We're watching our communities eat themselves from within," he said.

Speakers included law enforcement authorities, treatment professionals and authors.

Ellen Hopkins of Carson City, whose novel "Crank" was based on her daughter's experience with meth, referred to the illegal drug as "the monster."

"If you are a parent, put the blame aside," Hopkins said. "There's plenty of blame to go around, but it's not about the blame. It's about trying to help them."

Cristi Cain, coordinator for the Kansas Methamphetamine Prevention Project, urged communities to take a local approach to dealing with the problem.

Communities shouldn't wait for tragedy to strike when dealing with children of meth-addicted parents, Cain added.

The conference was billed as the initial step in a community response to combating meth, which federal authorities say has surpassed marijuana as the greatest danger to the nation's children.

"This is a start to a community process to identify the problem, look at resources, set up a plan, and look at prevention and intervention," said Steve Lewis of the University of Nevada, Reno Cooperative Extension Office in Gardnerville.

Cheryl Bricker, executive director of the Partnership of Community Resources, was pleased with the turnout that included representatives from 12 of Nevada's 17 counties.

"Sometimes you go along thinking you're fighting this battle alone," she said. "It was very gratifying to see how energized people are to go to work in their communities."

Meth abuse has become the nation's leading drug problem affecting local law enforcement agencies, according to a recent survey of 500 sheriff's departments in 45 states.

In Nye County, the problem was so insidious a special unit of undercover narcotics detectives was formed several years ago. Also, Fifth District Judge Robert Lane founded the Pahrump Drug Court, a strict program designed to get users to quit.

Doug McMurdo contributed to this article.

Plague found in SD prairie Dog colony
By Steve Miller, Journal Staff Writer
For the second time in a year, sylvatic plague has been found in prairie dog populations in South Dakota, this time in a huge prairie dog colony on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The discovery in recent weeks of two infected prairie dogs about 10 miles northwest of Oglala has prompted Indian Health Service officials to urge residents to take precautions to prevent getting plague, although they say the risk to humans is relatively low.
The plague discovery also has federal wildlife experts worried about black-footed ferrets reintroduced into Conata Basin about 30 miles northeast of the plague discovery site. Ferrets, as well as prairie dogs — the ferrets' primary food source — are susceptible to plague, experts say. If the plague approaches Conata Basin, the ferrets might be trapped and moved elsewhere.
Last September, a prairie dog infected with plague was found in western Custer County, the first confirmed case of plague in South Dakota wildlife in recent history.
The new cases were discovered after local ranchers and Bureau of Indian Affairs range surveyors noticed a marked drop in the number of prairie dogs in parts of the huge colony on the southwest part of the reservation, according to Diane Mann-Klager, regional wildlife biologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The colony is considered one of the largest prairie dog complexes in the world.
Staff with the Oglala Sioux Tribe's Parks and Recreation Authority and the state Game, Fish & Parks Department collected dead prairie dogs in the colony for testing. Two carcasses submitted by the tribe tested positive for sylvatic plague, one on July 28 and the other last week, Mann-Klager said.
Indian Health Service and tribal officials asked local residents to take preventive measures such as getting rid of fleas on their pets and eliminating rodents in and around their homes, according to Joe Amiotte, supervisory sanitarian in the IHS office at Pine Ridge. Animal health experts say domestic cats are particularly susceptible to getting plague.
People should avoid handling dead animals with their bare hands, Amiotte and other experts said. The primary risk is getting bitten by fleas that carry the plague. Smaller rodents such as mice and rats can carry the disease longer, but prairie dogs seem to die quickly, Amiotte said.
But, Amiotte noted, even in the Southwest, where plague is prevalent in prairie dogs, there have been an average of only 13 human cases each year.
If the risk to humans is low, the risk to the endangered black-footed ferrets reintroduced into Conata Basin nine years ago could be high, according to Scott Larson, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist in Pierre.
Larson said ferret project officials are probably going to dust parts of the basin with insecticide to kill plague-bearing fleas.
So far, there is no evidence of plague in the ferret areas.
But he said if the plague moves toward the basin, moving the ferrets elsewhere could be an option.
Ferret project officials here have been talking to wildlife scientists elsewhere who have experience with plague. "They say (the discovery) is a sufficient trigger that we should be scrambling to take action," Larson said Wednesday in a phone interview.
The ferret population in the basin has remained at about 200 adults for the past several years, he said.
Plague devastated one black-footed ferret reintroduction project near Fort Belknap, Mont., a few years ago, according to Mike Lockhart, black-footed ferret recovery coordinator for the Fish & Wildlife Service. "They released 36 ferrets before they found out there was plague," Lockhart said. "It essentially annihilated everything, prairie dogs and ferrets."
But the Conata Basin ferrets probably wouldn't be moved unless there was a huge outbreak of plague, Lockhart said.
Part of the problem is where to relocate them. "There's not a lot of places to put ferrets right now," he said.
Conata Basin lies within Buffalo Gap National Grassland, part of the Nebraska National Forest. Although there is no evidence of plague on the grassland yet, forest officials will monitor the situation closely, according to public affairs officer Jerry Schumacher at forest headquarters in Chadron, Neb. Forest officials last week announced a plan to begin controlling prairie dogs in parts of the grassland to prevent their encroachment onto nearby private ranch land. The plan is drawing fire from wildlife conservation groups.
The Conata Basin project has been the most successful reintroduction in the country, partly, wildlife officials believe, because South Dakota prairie dogs had been plague-free for so long.
One researcher Larson talked to said 2005 has been the worst year for plague in Western states in many years. "So maybe this is just an incursion this year," Larson said. "That's what we're hoping."
Meanwhile, wildlife officials are increasing monitoring for plague, Larson said, including blood tests on coyotes.
Coyotes that eat plague-infected prairie dogs develop an antibody that shows up in the blood.
After last year's plague discovery in western Custer County, GF&P staff tested for plague in Custer, Pennington, Fall River and Shannon counties. None of those tests came up positive, according to Art Smith, wildlife-damage management program administrator for the GF&P.
Smith said the plague discovery would have no immediate effect on the state's prairie dog control measures on private land. Prairie-dog poisoning began last week in Bennett County and will continue throughout the fall, Smith said.
Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com

Copyright © 2005 The Rapid City Journal
Rapid City, SD
PLANNING FOR SEVEN GENERATIONS

FIRST IN A SERIES

Stories by JUAN ESPINOSA
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

PINE RIDGE, S.D. - Henry Red Cloud is a man on a mission.
On the surface, it appears his mission is to become self-sufficient on a 320-acre buffalo ranch.
To hear him tell it, the journey is just beginning. The Oglala Lakota are at the end of one seven-generation cycle and embarking on the next seven-generation cycle.
According to Henry Red Cloud, his father, Bernard Red Cloud, just before his death reminded family members that in the mid-1800s their ancestor, Chief Red Cloud, and other Lakota leaders devised what today might be called a strategic plan for seven generations.
"Getting the goodness of light-skinned society" is how Henry Red Cloud summarized what Chief Red Cloud had said. "Learn to live among them, learn their education, their language - all the goodness."
According to Lakota tradition, a generation is 25 years. Seven generations have been born, signaling the end of that part of the strategic plan.
Henry Red Cloud says it's time to begin planning for Phase 2 of the plan.
"After the seventh generation, we would become self-sufficient by taking their goodness and that (goodness) of the Lakota," Henry Red Cloud said.
To secure the future for the next seven generations, Henry Red Cloud believes the Lakota need to regain control of their land.
"Secure the land base," he said. "If we don’t have any land, we are not a nation."
On the day Bernard Red Cloud died, "there were seven lightning strikes and a fire (at Tatanka Isnala - Lone Buffalo Ranch)," Henry Red Cloud remembered. "We took that as a sign," he said.
Henry Red Cloud’s vision for the Lakota is for them to regain control of their land and become less reliant on U.S. government programs and handouts.
"After seven generations, we’re still tight with our language, our culture and our ceremonies," he said. "The main thing is to get back to the land.
"Buffalo, land, wind, sun, water - we understand these things. Like the sacred medicine wheel, red, white, black and yellow - it ties us to our culture."
Henry Red Cloud, who once left the reservation and worked as a structural steelworker for about 15 years, has returned to live on his father’s land and to create the model for the future by striving to become self-sufficient.
He and wife Nadine and their two boys and a daughter live in a mobile home on 20 acres, formerly owned by Bernard Red Cloud, near the town of Oglala.
Earlier this summer, Henry Red Cloud divided his time between tending a large garden near his home and to the 13 head of buffalo 20 miles away on 320 acres of family land.
A large tepee and tent are left set up in the yard to accommodate the curious who come to visit. The park-like yard also serves as a storage area for a large collection of windows, doors and other building materials neatly stacked under the trees. Henry is stockpiling the materials for houses he intends to build at the buffalo ranch.
At one end of the camping area is the frame of a sweat lodge, considered by many to be the Native American church. About a block away were three walls of an earth and tire "earthship" structure of what is to become a meeting hall.
In one corner of the family’s living room is a contemporary computer. At the other end of the same room is a heavy-duty sewing machine used to sew the Red Cloud Tepees the family makes and sells on the Internet. There was no running water in the house, and a makeshift shower and outhouse are shared with guests.
Through Village Earth and David Bartecchi, Henry Red Cloud has become heavily involved in the Adopt-a-Buffalo Program. Earlier this year, they toured Europe for a month promoting Village Earth's land restoration projects on Pine Ridge to audiences in 10 cities in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France.
Henry Red Cloud organized the delegation that came to Rye last fall to pick up a trailer load of buffalo from Ken Danylchuk and is coming for another shipment next month.
Though he is keenly aware of the spiritual aspects of bringing the "sacred" buffalo to the Lakota who worship them, he is also aware of what it takes to prepare a pasture to hold them.
He works with a network of backyard engineers who are producing biodiesel fuel, making electric wind generators from used auto parts and drilling wells.
Last week, Bartecchi, Henry Red Cloud and the others presented a series of workshops on the reservation on developing sustainable technology. In addition to presentations about biodiesel production, raising buffalo, and wind and solar technologies, the group built a straw-bale structure.
Collectively, they are planting a tiny seed they hope will grow to fulfill their vision for the next seven generations.
"The fire of hope almost went out; we have to rekindle it," Henry Red Cloud said.
On the day the seed herd of buffalo were released on the Red Cloud land, Henry spoke of the seventh generation. "They need to know that we have suffered greatly but that we are strong and resilient. This ceremony and these buffalo will teach our children that we are returning to health and vitality.
"Buffalo can heal us. We can heal each other. At the dawn of the 21st century, we stand here, seven generations since Chief Red Cloud's capture, to make a powerful statement: We are strong. The Lakota people, families and individuals have a strong future together."

"(Great Spirit, Grandfather). . .You have given. . .from the south, the nation's sacred hoop and the tree that was to bloom. To the center of the world you have taken me and showed the goodness and the beauty and the strangeness of the greening earth, the only mother - and there the spirit shapes of things, as they should be, you have shown to me and I have seen. At the center of this sacred hoop you have said that I should make the tree to bloom.
"With tears running, O Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather - with running tears I must say now that the tree has never bloomed. A pitiful old man, you see me here, I have fallen away and have done nothing. Here at the center of the world, where you took me when I was young and taught me; here, old, I stand, and the tree is withered, Grandfather, my Grandfather.
"Again, and maybe the last time on this earth, I recall the great vision you sent me. It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Hear me, not for myself, but for my people; I am old. Hear me that they may once more go back into the sacred hoop and find the good red road, the shielding tree!"
"In sorrow I am sending a feeble voice, O Six Powers of the World. Hear me in my sorrow, for I may never call again. O make my people live!"
Oglala holy man, Black Elk's last prayer, recorded by John G. Neihardt during the summer of 1931. Black Elk participated in the defeat of Gen. George Armstrong Custer at Little Big Horn and was a survivor of the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1891. He was a contemporary of Crazy Horse and Chief Red Cloud. Neihardt is author of "Black Elk Speaks."
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