From gars@netcom.com Wed Jul 21 11:56:25 1999 Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 18:38:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Gary Night Owl To: Internet Recipients of Wotanging Ikche Subject: Wotanging Ikche--nanews07.030 _ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ O ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) O o O / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ O o O (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' O o o o o O ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ VOLUME 07, ISSUE 030 O o O / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' July 24, 1999 O o O / /-< / /--/ /-- Natchez peaches moon O __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, Klamath return from harvest moon KANOHEDA ANIYVWIYA Ha-Sah-Sliltha Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin Un Chota Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min Aunchemokauhettittea Ximopanolti tehuatzin, inin Mexika tlahtolli ( N A T I V E A M E R I C A N N E W S ) This issue contains articles from Minn-Ind, Paths-L, Triballaw Big Mountain & Nat-Film Lists; Newsgroups: alt.native, soc.culture.native; UUCP email; KOLA Newslist; Settlers In Support of Indigenous Sovereignty http://www.charlotte.com/topnews/pub/052642.htm#email http://www.seattletimes.com/news/local/html Articles appearing have been previously posted for public dissemination and/or permission for inclusion has been secured. Letters of authorization are on file. A list of those granting permission to repost their words in this issue are listed at the end of part A. I thank each of you for allowing your words to be shared with the people. IMPORTANT!! ----------- To all who send copywrite protected articles, make very sure you have permission from the copywrite holder (a newspaper, the AP, a magazine, an author) because a new law is now in effect that says you can be prosecuted even if there is no monetary gain. Just because a newspaper has a website where it posts some or all of its editions does not grant permission for their redistribution. Be careful and be sure you pass on the items you do with full permission. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, all material appearing in this newsletter is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for educational purposes. <----<<<< >>>>----> This newsletter is a way of keeping the brothers and sisters who share our Spirit informed about current events within the lives of those who walk the Red Road. ++ It may be subscribed to via email by sending a request from your own internet addressable account to gars@netcom.com ++ It is archived at http://www.nanews.org ++ There is also a hyperlinked version of the Current Issue at http://bearvisions.com/NativeNews/NEWS.html Borries Demeler advises AISESnet doesn't exist anymore, instead there is now NativeNet where people can search for archives of Wotanging Ikche issues: _ All past AISESnet archives (1992-1998) can now be found in: http://aises.uthscsa.edu/discussion/ _ All new messages will be archived in: http://nativenet.uthscsa.edu/archive/nn-dialogue/archive.html The mailing address for AISESnet/NativeNet the lists have changed. Please make a note of the new address. The old address aisesnet_discussion@listserv.umt.edu should *NOT* be used any longer. Instead please use: nn-dialogue@nativenet.uthscsa.edu Downloading Wotanging Ikche on AOL From: MAANG1419@aol.com Just thought I would share some info. I could not download on to a .txt because I kept getting the message (when I tried to retrieve it) that the text editor could not handle the volume. This time I downloaded it on to a .doc and when I retrieved it out of file manager, IT WORKED. "There is perhaps no method more irresistible of obtaining lands from them (Indians) than by letting them get in debt, which when too heavy to be paid, they are always willing to lop off by a cession of land" __ President Thomas Jefferson, 1802, to Secretary of War, Henry Dearborn "The Master of Life has given us hands for the support of our men, women and children. He has given us fish, deer, buffalos, and every kind of birds and animals for our use; they abound in our lands." __ Ottawa statement at the 1816 Drummond's Island Council +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Indian Pledge of Allegiance | The Indian Pledge of Alleg- | | iance was first presented | I pledge allegiance to my Tribe,| on 2 December '93 during the | to the democratic principles | opening address of the Nat- | of the Republic | ional Congress of American | and to the individual freedoms | Indian Tribal-States Relat- | borrowed from the Iroquois and | ions Panel in Reno, NV. NCAI | Choctaw Confederacies, | plans distribution of the | as incorporated in the United | Indian Pledge to all Indian | States Constitution, | Nations. | so that my forefathers | | shall not have died in vain | Walk in Beauty! Night Owl +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Journey | In the summer and early fall | The Bloodline | of 1998 the Treaty Unity Riders | | rode a thousand miles on horse- | For all that live and live by law | back, carrying a staff and | We Stand, we Call, We Ride | praying each step of the way. | For All that fear and fear by sight | | We Hear, we Listen, we Ride | These prayers were offered for | For all that pray and pray by strength| each of us, and that the Unity | We Feel, we Move, we Ride | of all Peoples might happen. | For all that die and die by greed | | We Hurt, we Cry, we Ride | Tatanka Cante forwarded this | For all that birth and birth by right | poem on behalf of all the Unity | We Smile, we Hold, we Ride | Riders that we might stop and | For all that need and need by heart | ask if the next words we say, the | We Came, we Went, we Rode. | next act we make is for the good | | of the People or is it from ego | Treaty Unity Riders | for self. +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ O'siyo Brothers and Sisters! Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 13:47:58 EDT From: JTRoad@aol.com Subj: AIROS RADIO SHOW ON PELTIER ALL-- ON TUES., FRI., SAT & SUN THIS WEEK go to http://airos.org/audio.html [ AIROS] to hear an hour-long tribute to LEONARD PELTIER in music and words. The program is DIFFERENT DRUMS, produced by Tricia King for the American Indian Radio On Satellite network, and can be heard at the above URL on Tues. & Fri this week at 10Am, 4PM, 10PM & 4AM it can be also be heard SAT & SUN at 5 PM & 4AM These times are Eastern Time [ET] Just click on "listen to AIROS online right now." Check http://airos.org/grid.html for more info on time and other great programs on AIROS. DIFFERENT DRUMS also plays on some local radio stations. Go to http://airos.org/stations/ to find out RADIO STATIONS in your area; check with them for time of the Peltier show on DIFFERENT DRUMS. This show is really something. /Harvey Arden =/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\= Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 19:00:20 GMT From: "Tegan" Subj: Close The School of the Americas Newsgroup: alt.native Here's another one we can do something about. Thanks. Many Blessings, Tegan :) -- "The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." -- William James ~FREE PELTIER~ The School of the Americas have been training Central American militaries in torture tactics. Those trained at the SOA have murdered and tortured men, women, and children in El Salvador, Chipias (Mexico), Guatemala, and other places in Central America. Protesters will be back at Fort Benning, GA at the SOA again this fall. Over 7,000 protested last year, with 2,300 crossing the line. Write or Email your elected officials, urging the passage of H.R. 732 (House of Representatives) and S.873 in the US Senate. These are the bills to close the SOA. =/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\=/\= Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 13:26:15 EDT From: HalfPasss@aol.com Subj: Please read about this na opportunity Please look at www.challenge.stockholm.se. I have just met Ms. Ula SKiden (ula@skiden.com) who is the program manager for an international information technology competition. She has told me that no NA have been represented in this competition and that they would be welcomed. This is an opportunity for (paid for) international travel, and international publicity for your cause. The winner is judged not on how high tech the solution is - but on benefit to the target audience for which the information technology solution was created - - just as your website. Please check into this important opportunity. Ms. Skiden can be contacted for information regarding this years competition. I believe the deadline is in November. Sincerely, Debra Parkhurst Virginia - - - - - - - - - - I sent thanks to Debra for sharing this opportunity. Now, I ask each of you to pass this on to all who use technology to help our Peoples. Please check out the second article of this issue for a better idea of how wonderful an opportunity this really is. Peace! Night Owl , , Gary Night Owl gars@netcom.com (*,*) P. O. Box 672168 gars@nanews.org (`-') Marietta, GA 30307, U.S.A. gars@igc.apc.org ===w=w== Fax: 770-528-9643 ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ---------- - Paul Roughface - Trail of Tears Suvivors Honored - Global Bangemann Challenge - Court Limits Tribal Game Hunting - Natives to Realize - Babbitt Wants Role in Dream of Tecumseh Fixing Trust Fund - Oldest Living Cree Elder - In Search of the Delivers Land Claim Lost Gabrielinos - Smith Reissues His - Bruce Clark Departs Challenge to Chief Byrd - Last Call in Pine Ridge - Cherokee Nation - Bear Lincoln's Lawyer Runoff to be Monitored Gets Rebuked by Judge - Spiritual Unity - Peltier's Health - Innovation Brings Condition Deteriorating Welfare Reform to Navajo - Native Prisoner - Navajo Doctor - Just My Imagination Draws on Tribal Beliefs - A Hundred Years Ago - Choctaw Language Becomes a Passion - Poem: And They Spoke - Snoqualmie Win New Round - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days for Tribal Status - Upcoming Events - Ponca Chief's Statue - Nations Cup Lacrosse Winners Marks Indian Rights - Native America Calling --------- "RE: Paul Roughface" --------- Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 14:45:10 -0700 From: ccamp@poncacity.net Subj: Sad News Grandpa Paul Roughface, Nu-dah Honga ( Chief ) of the Ponca He'thus-ka, entered the spirit world this morning as the clouds wept. Carter --------- "RE: Global Bangemann Challenge" --------- Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 22:06:23 -0400 From: "Janet" Subj: Global Bangemann Challenge Global Bangemann Winners Announced! [Editorial Note: If you didn't read June 10, 1999 the editorial at the top, do so now.] The 18 winners in each category of the Global Bangemann Challenge received their trophies from the King of Sweden in the Nobel Hall in Stockholm on Wednesday June 9th. The awards ceremony attracted nearly one thousand guests and a large amount of journalists from the whole world. Six of the 18 winners are from Europe, four from USA, three from Central and Latin America, and three from Oceania and one each from the countries of Egypt and Bangladesh. Nearly one thousand guests filled the Nobel Hall in the City Hall of Stockholm during the Awards Ceremony. Dr Martin Bangemann conveyed his thanks to the city of Stockholm for having carried out a very sucessful Information Technology Award gathering several hundreds of skilful projects worldwide. His Majesty the King handed out the trophies to the winners and the event attracted a very large attention from world media. The Mayor of Stockholm, Carl Cederschiold announced the continuation of the Award, to be called the Stockholm Challenge. It is to open on October 1st and will run for a year at a time. The next Awards Ceremony will take place in Stockholm in June 2000. The winners in each category: Category 1: New Business Structures Joint winners: Soft Center Duluth/Duluth, USA Stockholm Business Partner Search/Stockholm, Sweden Category 2: Information Technology for SME:s Joint winners: Rotterdam Business Park/ Rotterdam, The Netherlands OIC Year 2000/Sydney, Australia Category 3: Electronic Commerce Electronic System for Government Procurement - Compranet/Mexico City, Mexico Category 4: IT in all Forms of Education Joint winners: Kidlink/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil/Oslo, Norway Ludomatica/Santafe de Bogota, Colombia The I*EARN First People's Project/Bainsdale, Victoria, Australia Category 5: Lifelong Learning Lifelong Learning on the World Wide Web/Upper Hur, New Zealand Category 6: Public Acess and Democracy Joint winners: Digital Metropolis Antwerp/Antwerp, Belgium Community Information Programme/Knowsley, United Kingdom Egypt Information Highway/Cairo, Egypt Category 7: Health and Community Care Caroline and Christer/Stockholm, Sweden Category 8: Culture and Media: Joint winners: HarlemLive/ New York, USA DRIK: Presenting an Alternative Image of the Third World/Dhaka, Bangladesh Category 9: IT in the Environment: Emeryville Brownfields Pilot Project/Emeryville, California, USA Category 10: Equal Access to Networking Tiigrituur - Tiger Leap Roadshow/Tallin, Estonia Category 11: Traffic and Transport I.N.F.O. - Integrated Network Fire Operations/Winston - Salem, North Carolina, USA The winners will be presented in detail on the Challenge web site shortly. The motives of the jury in each case will also be published on the web site. The Global Bangemann Challenge Conference and Exhibition is part of TIME.Stockholm Event. www.time.stockholm.se For more information about The Global Bangemann Challenge, please go to www.challenge.stockholm.se or contact: Ulla Skiden, Project Manager, +46 8 508 29 151 ulla.skiden@challenge.stockholm.se Mona Eriksson, Project co-ordinator, +46 8 508 29 161 mona.eriksson@challenge.stockholm.se --------- "RE: Natives to Realize Dream of Tecumseh" --------- Date: Fri, 09 Jul 1999 13:54:27 -0500 From: not@inthe.game (justanoldman) Subj: BIGGEST gathering Newsgroup: alt.native Friday July 09, 1999 FROM THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Natives to realize dream of Tecumseh Almost 900 bands and tribes from Canada, U.S. plan mighty political union by Rick Mofina The Ottawa Citizen Native leaders from Canada and the U.S. will sign an unprecedented political accord as a stepping stone to a formal union when they meet this month in Vancouver, fulfilling war chief Tecumseh's dream of an alliance of all tribes. Representatives of indigenous people from Mexico and Central and South America will also attend, not only to observe, but to be included eventually in the new political nation. The political union of the Ottawa-based Assembly of First Nations and the National Congress of American Indians will emerge when the AFN holds its annual conference July 20-23. It will mark the first time the two groups have met in a formal structure. The aim is to build an entity representing the concerns of First Nations people of Canada and all Indian tribes of the U.S., and to evolve to encompass all indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere. "It's a way to approach major organizations, such as the United Nations, with a more concerted, united front on common issues," AFN spokesman Jean LaRose said yesterday. Consider such an alliance taking the issue of land claims to an international agency. "It would obviously give the argument more weight before such a body as the UN," Mr. LaRose said. Exact details of the accord are still being drafted, but the hope is to create "an evolving document" as a starting point from which to work. "From there, we hope to establish the formal structures to further the working relationships," Mr. LaRose said. The new political alliance could address such issues as housing, health, poverty, trade, culture and human rights. It might even see the emergence of ambassadors, dispatched from various regions to others to help co-ordinate various matters. Last month, AFN national chief Phil Fontaine and other Canadian chiefs asked the UN to create a permanent agency to advise the world body on indigenous issues during an unprecedented meeting with Secretary General Kofi Annan. The AFN represents 633 First Nations in Canada. The National Congress of American Indians has 250 member tribes in the U.S. That figure accounts for about half of the tribes in the U.S. Together, they represent almost 1.5 million people. "There's a lot to be learned by joining forces," said Joe Garcia, a vice-president with the National Congress of American Indians, who will be a delegate at the Vancouver conference. "There are common issues to talk about, like the misunderstanding of Indian people and how we battle the problem." For years, Indians in North America have been trying to form coalitions but endured internal and external problems, Mr. Garcia said from San Juan Pueblo, New Mexico. In Canada, the 1927 Indian Act outlawed aboriginal political organizations and established residential schools which embarked on enforced assimilation. It was the dream of Shawnee war chief Tecumseh to form an alliance of Indian tribes. Born in what is now Thamesville, Ont., Tecumseh was betrayed by the British government, which had abandoned him at the battle of Moraviantown on Oct. 5, 1813. Tecumseh was killed in the fighting against the Americans, and his dream of an Indian nation was never realized. Some 4,000 delegates are expected at the AFN's convention, of which about half will be from the United States. Nearly 50 delegates from Mexico and Central and South America are also expected to participate. --------------------------- PS - Reduced airfare to Vancouver from most urban centres in Canada available through Air Transat.. VIA Rail also has reduced rates for First nation citizens travelling there. Not sure about Greyhound yet.. Come & make history.., join your voice to the thousands that will tell the world that THE NATIONS LIVE!!! jaom/e'ne'thekwe' --------- "RE: Oldest Living Cree Elder Delivers Land Claim" --------- Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 12:26:09 -0500 From: Freedom Heart Rising Subj: Oldest living Cree Elder delivers land claim ------- FORWARD, Original message follows ------- From: kolahq@skynet.be <+>=<+>KOLA Newslist<+>=<+> Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 20:48:24 -0400 From: "chris" Subj: Treaty 8 conflicts continue OLDEST LIVING CREE ELDER DELIVERS LAND CLAIM JULY, 1999 Windspeaker Staff Writer By Marie Burke EDMONTON Rapheal Cree, a 106-year-old Elder from northern Alberta, presented to the regional director of Indian Affairs a copy of the statement of claim that outlines about $1.6 billion in damages suffered by the Paul Cree Band. The Elder is the son of Paul Cree, who was the chief of the band after whom it is named. In the statement of claim, delivered on June 1 in Edmonton, the Paul Cree are asking for at least $1 billion for the unlawful removal of natural resources from their land and $500 million in damages for the breach of the Treaty 8 adhesion. Treaty 8 commemorated its centennial on June 21 in the Lesser Slave Lake area. In 1899, Rapheal Cree stood with his family and his people, while his uncle, Chief Seapotakinum, touched the pen on behalf of his band to signify the signing of an adhesion to Treaty 8. Cree came to Edmonton with a handful of supporters and spoke through his son. Cree said he still remembers when the treaty commissioner came to what is now known as the Fort McMurray area to join the Aboriginal people there to the provisions of the original treaty signed earlier at Lesser Slave Lake. Treaty 8 is one of the few Indian treaties that included mineral rights. Cree is supported by John Malcolm, who is the interim-chief of Wood Buffalo First Nation. The Wood Buffalo First Nation is a group of Metis and non-status Aboriginal people from the northern areas of Alberta. "To our knowledge he is the oldest living Elder in Canada and he needs the support of Aboriginal people in this action," said Malcolm. Cree's supporters maintain he is the last known living survivor that witnessed the Treaty 8 adhesion signing. The claims of the Paul Cree Band began heating up about five years ago when a group claiming to be direct descendants walked from Fort McMurray to Edmonton's Indian Affairs office in an attempt to bring attention to their claim about reserve land. "We approached Indian Affairs about the reserve and they finally responded to us with a letter after five years, which just came in a couple of weeks ago, saying there was no claim. It is not a surprise to us what their answer was going to be. They are not just going to hand over anything without a battle," said Malcolm. In the past two years, Malcolm worked with Cree's son, Alymer Cree, to gather proof and record Cree's knowledge about the original reserve to establish the land claim. "What we've done is, rather than accepting their answer that the Paul Cree Band is not a First Nation, is to file this claim in court and let the judge decide," said Malcolm. Although the reserve land surveyed by Indian Affairs is called the Clearwater Indian reserve, the band is better known as Paul Cree's Band of Indians who are included under Treaty 8 adhesion. The survey of the Paul Cree reserve by Indian Affairs was presented to the Privy Council of Canada in 1921. The original tract of land set apart total more than 2,000 acres of land or at least two square miles. The reserve sits at the junction of two rivers in northern Alberta. "In the 1970s the families that lived on the reserve were basically threatened to be burned out of their homes and their kids would be taken away by the government to get them to move off their land," said Malcolm. The families that lived on the reserve, with little or no services, eventually moved to the Fort McMurray First Nation, except for Cree's family, said Malcolm. The Crees insist they have never given up their membership to the Paul Cree First Nation. A declaration in the claim points to the purported surrender of 1948 as null and void. The regional director general for Indian Affairs, Barrie Robb, accepted the statement of claim from the Elder, but refused to discuss the claim until Indian Affairs legal experts reviewed it. Communications director, Glen Luff did, however, mention Indian Affairs past involvement with the Paul Cree descendants. "We will look at the legality of the claim. Five years ago the federal government determined after correspondence with these people that we had no legal obligation. The Paul Cree band is known as a division of the band of Fort McMurray," said Luff. The Indian Affairs spokesperson pointed to policies and an investigation several years ago that gave the federal government no reason to believe that the Paul Cree band exists, he said. "This is a bit of a surprise, but the regional director generously is making time to briefly meet with them. We were just handed a piece of paper and our lawyers will have to look at it," said Luff about the statement of claim. The regional director of Indian Affairs met with the Cree family and Malcolm after he received the statement of claim. "We told him that we are prepared to go the Supreme Court of Canada on this because we know we have a solid claim, but he said it wouldn't go that far," said Malcolm. Malcolm said he's aware the court case might take some time. He believes Indian Affairs has a lot of control over the legal process that will take place to settle this claim. ____________________________________________________ SOVEREIGNTY IS THE ISSUE: CANADA IS THE PROBLEM --------- "RE: Smith Reissues His Challenge to Chief Byrd" --------- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 07:43:57 -0500 From: berryj@okstate.edu Subj: (FWD)Indian News 07-17-99 Roger Iron Cloud FirstNations Listserv 202.358.3252 rironcloud@acf.dhhs.gov Smith reissues his challenge to Chief Byrd to discuss finances By ROB MARTINDALE c. Tulsa World 7/16/99 With former tribal leaders Wilma Mankiller and Ross Swimmer at his side, Chad Smith on Thursday renewed his challenged to Chief Joe Byrd to discuss Cherokee Nation finances. Smith will face Byrd on July 24 in a runoff election for chief. Byrd's first four years in office have been filled with charges that millions of dollars in federal funds have been misused by the tribe. Byrd has countered by charging that the tribe's financial condition has improved since 1995, and that allegations made against his administration have been politically motivated. Byrd earlier declined a challenge from Smith to debate, saying he has had an open dialogue with Cherokee voters and they know where he stands on critical issues. An audit by the U.S. Interior Department, Smith noted, found that $16 million in federal funds had been misused. He said an open debate between himself and Byrd could answer the following questions: - Why is the Cherokee Nation on a monthly allowance by the federal government? - How will the Cherokee Nation operate after losing $7 million in motor fuel funding due to the recent Oklahoma Supreme Court decision? - What is the cause of the division within the tribal council and the issues causing boycotting? How would a principal chief reunify the Cherokee Nation? - How can Cherokee Nation Industries be revitalized after going from 323 jobs in 1995 to 68 jobs in 1999? - How can the principal chief provide the basis to regain pride in the Cherokee Nation government? Smith said the tribe was in financially good condition during the Swimmer and Mankiller administrations. However, he said, even financial reports coming from the Byrd administration have shown that the tribe has not been in good financial shape in recent years. Swimmer, who served as Cherokee Nation chief from 1975 to 1985, said the tribe annually had outstanding audits from outside firms until the Byrd administration took office four years ago. If spending by the Byrd administration is under question, Mankiller said, the subject "should be discussed in an open forum before the Cherokee people" between the two candidates. --------- "RE: Cherokee Nation Runoff to be Monitored" --------- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 07:43:57 -0500 From: berryj@okstate.edu Subj: (FWD)Indian News 07-17-99 Roger Iron Cloud FirstNations Listserv 202.358.3252 rironcloud@acf.dhhs.gov Cherokee Nation runoff to be monitored c. Tulsa World 7/16/99 TAHLEQUAH -- The Carter Center in Atlanta will send an observation team to Oklahoma to monitor the July 24 runoff election in the Cherokee Nation. The center sent observers to the tribe's May 22 primary election, which resulted in incumbent Joe Byrd and Chad Smith advancing to the runoff election in the race for chief. Races for deputy chief and two tribal council seats also will be on the ballot. The center issued a report on the primary, stating that it was well-managed, but criticizing the tribe for having a low number of registered voters. The 200,000-member tribe has around 150,000 citizens of voting age, but only 26,000 are registered. About 13,000 cast ballots in the primary. The Carter Center has monitored elections in around 15 foreign countries and the state of Georgia. The center is named after former President Jimmy Carter, who is active in the organization. Carter founded the center in 1982. It is staffed in part by teachers who are instructors at Emory University. Candidates for deputy chief are Bill John Baker, who is running on a ticket with Byrd, and Hastings Shade, Smith's running mate. Cherokees can obtain additional information on the election by calling (800) 353-2895. --------- "RE: Spiritual Unity" --------- From: BIGMTLIST Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 23:12:00 -0800 Subj: Spiritual Unity Mailing List: Big Mountain List I would like to share the following message with you. In it, Susan makes two interesting suggestions. The first is a kind of buddy system. She suggests that due to the potentially dangerous conditions on the land, that there be a way that contact can be maintained so that we can be assured of the safety of the various supporters. (BTW, I have updated my web page to include cell phone and satellite phone rentals by the day, week, or month. There is even an option to connect a laptop computer, so you can keep us updated via the internet. All you need is a credit card.) The second idea comes from her vision, and makes me think that perhaps we, as supporters, might try to establish an outreach program of communication with various spiritual leaders, informing them of the situation and asking for them to show solidarity with the Dineh. This could be by their writing letters, faxes, etc, as we supporters have done, to public figures, politicians and the news media. Also, with the elders permission of course, they might be invited to Big Muntain. There has just been the sundance. Perhaps some spiritual convocation of all faiths could be organized to converge on Big Mountain. This, of course, would be a major media event. These are just some of my thoughts that got triggered by Susan's message. Maybe some of you with more organizaional experience than I have, and the appropriate contacts with the elders and the other spiritual leaders from various faiths could pick up the ball on this. However, it would be important to have everyone working on this be coordianted and working together, and not have several individuals or groups with different agendas getting in each other's way. The first step is to approach the elders with this idea, so for those of you planning a trip to Big Mountain, or if you are in contact with people there, please convey this idea to the Dineh elders. Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 00:03:51 -0500 (CDT) From: susanbates@webtv.net (Susan Bates) Subj: Vision I know how hard you are working for the Dine'h. We share the urgency and are doing what little we can for them. But time is running out and I'm not optimistic that all the e-mails and marches in the world will have any effect on the greed of Peabody Coal Co. and the US Government. I have been worried about Marsha Monestersky and all the other elders and workers who are in the trenches. With so much to lose, killing a loud mouth activist or 2 would not matter much to people of this calibre. That is why I want to make sure some of us know where these people are at all times and I want others to know we are watching them. Maybe it won't matter, but a small safety net is better than none. The real reason I am writing to you is to tell you about this vision I keep having. Three times it has come. I feel led to share it with you. In my vision I see Holy people of all denominations walking into Black Mesa. There are Christian ministers. Catholic Priests, Jewish Rabbis, Monks, Medicine Men, Shamen, and even the Dali Lama. These holy people come and stand with the elders and the others and refuse to leave until the Final Solution is no longer an option. Non - vioence is the only way and even if we did have guns the government has bigger and better weapons and they don't have to put out a call on the internet for people to come and shoot them. It would make little difference of our decomposed bodies were found by the side of the road, but if a man of Billy Graham's stature or the Dali Lama were to stand up for the right, that would be a little harder to deal with. I don't know what I expect from you....Nothing probably. But this won't leave me alone and I know how much you care for the People. Gu's di - o's da da dv' hni, (We are all related) Susan ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ You are on the BIGMTLIST, a moderated mailing list of Big Mountain relocation resistance information (not discussion or debate). To unsubscribe, email redorman@theofficenet.com with "unsubscribe" in the subject header. For non-list members receiving this post as a forwarded message, you may subscribe by emailing redorman@theofficenet.com with the word "subscribe" in the subject header. For Big Mountain and other activist internet resources, visit "The Activist Page" at http://www.theofficenet.com/~redorman/welcome.html Also, for great internet tools please visit: http://www.msw.com.au/cgi-bin/msw/entry?id=1271 --------- "RE: Innovation Brings Welfare Reform to Navajo" --------- Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 10:32:00 -0400 From: "Janet" Subj: Welfare Reform http://www.charlotte.com/topnews/pub/052642.htm#email Innovation brings welfare reform to remote reservation By CHRIS KAHN Associated Press Writer (AP) -- The Navajo reservation is a vast and remote place sprawling across the Four Corners region of the Southwest. Some people have phones; many don't. The best way to send a message is by pickup truck. In a few months, the tribe will begin managing its own welfare program over a territory the size of West Virginia. To do it, it will use satellite laptops that will help caseworkers in 12 different centers keep track of those in need. "Each caseworker will have instant information about people who have come in before," said Rick Gayoso, a project manager for MultiLogic, a Minnesota firm that developed the system for the tribe. The move comes three years after the federal government gave Indian tribes a chance to design welfare programs suited to their own needs. Several tribes are already managing their own programs. The Arizona program was not helping the Navajo, said Alex Yazza, who heads the Navajo welfare effort. "A lot of our people are rug weavers or silversmiths," he said. "But under state regulations, this wasn't considered work." The inflexibility left many Navajo listed as unemployed, jeopardizing their welfare payments. More than half of the reservation's 130,000 residents are listed as unemployed. Thousands receive federal welfare assistance, and their numbers are increasing, according to the state Department of Economic Security. In designing their own program, Navajos could define cultural activities as work, Yazza said. People who regularly perform traditional ceremonies or teach the Navajo language could be considered employed. That will keep federal funds coming in, he said. The satellite computers will allow caseworkers to update a welfare database each time a client returns. After answering a few questions, people will know exactly how much aid they're eligible to receive. "We wanted something interactive -- something that would allow us to be creative and develop something culturally relevant," Yazza said. The change is drastic when compared to other states, where recipients must plow through stacks of paperwork, and caseworkers often have no idea who they are serving, Gayoso said. "It's about being self-sufficient," said Teddy Nez, a tribal systems analyst. "Hope is not the word I use for this. It's going to work." --------- "RE: Navajo Doctor Draws on Tribal Beliefs" --------- Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 10:24:32 -0500 From: berryj@okstate.edu Subj: (FWD)Indian News 07-06-99 Roger Iron Cloud FirstNations Listserv 202.358.3252 rironcloud@acf.dhhs.gov Navajo Doc. Draws on Tribal Beliefs By DEBORAH BAKER .c The Associated Press 7/5/99 SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - She's a doctor now, but Lori Arviso Alvord can still see herself as a little Navajo girl playing on a remote, dusty mesa. Though a modern surgeon, teacher and administrator, she also once sought counsel from a medicine man - an act that drew on a tribal philosophy of balance and harmony that Navajos call "walking in beauty." In her new book "The Scalpel and the Silver Bear," Alvord explores a life steeped in the dual worlds of advanced medicine and tribal teachings. Lessons of the latter, she says, could help doctors find their way back to being healers. "I am definitely ... on a mission to change the way health care is delivered," she said. "It's important to bring Navajo philosophy, which I think is incredibly valuable, and not well understood, to the larger world." Born to a white mother and a Navajo father, Alvord, 40, was raised in Crownpoint, N.M., a small Navajo community near the edge of the tribe's reservation. She attended Dartmouth College and medical school at Stanford University before practicing medicine for six years at Gallup Indian Medical Center. She now works as an associate dean at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire, and as a general surgeon at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. It was while practicing Western medicine at Gallup that Alvord realized her Navajo surgical patients needed more than her technical ability and clinical skills. If patients were to heal, she thought, they needed to be treated sensitively and respectfully, and be provided a calm and serene atmosphere during their surgeries. Her book describes how she gradually incorporated into her practice elements of the Navajo belief of walking in beauty. Navajos strive to live in harmony and balance with everyone and everything else, and they see sickness as a result of things falling out of balance, she said. To medicine men - one of whom Alvord consulted when she was pregnant - patients are not seen as just bodies, but as whole beings. Alvord wants medical students to understand that "everything matters when it comes to looking at a patient - not just a physical ailment, but whether a patient is in harmony or out of harmony with the rest of their world," she said. It's a holistic approach that shines through in her treatment of patients, said Dr. Susan Stuart, a friend and former colleague in Gallup. "Surgeons have a tendency to focus on the acute problem, and not focus on the whole person," Stuart said. "She managed to do that and set an excellent example for others to remember." For Navajos, the sick may be the focus of ceremonies that last up to seven days. Their entire families and communities mobilize around them, providing support. "Nothing like that exists in Western medicine, that I know of, to make a person well," Alvord said. "I would actually like to see elements of ceremony brought into Western medicine for non-Indian patients, because I think they're craving it." Alvord acknowledges her ideas run contrary to the time pressures of managed care. But such concepts deserve to be discussed, she said. "We need to sit back and look again at how our health care system is set up," she said, "and decide for ourselves: Is that the best we could do --------- "RE: Choctaw Language Becomes a Passion" --------- Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 10:24:32 -0500 From: berryj@okstate.edu Subj: (FWD)Indian News 07-06-99 Roger Iron Cloud FirstNations Listserv 202.358.3252 rironcloud@acf.dhhs.gov Choctaw Language Becomes a Passion 07/04/1999 c. Daily Oklahoman By Ron Jackson MOORE -- Henry Willis spent the first part of his life making a living for his family. He'll spend the last part making history for his people. Willis, a retired electrician, spends much of his time these days preserving the Choctaw language. The 69-year-old Choctaw has spent countless hours during the past seven years collaborating with University of Oklahoma adjunct professor Dr. Marcia Haag on numerous language projects. One work -- a 24- chapter text titled "A Grammar of the Choctaw Language" -- is awaiting publication by the University of Oklahoma Press. The two have since been hired by the Choctaw Nation and plan to embark on a second volume. Understanding Willis' motivation is as simple as understanding his past. As a child at an Indian boarding school in southeastern Oklahoma, he had his native language beaten out of him by instructors. He was 7. "We were forbidden to speak Choctaw then," Willis recalled. "But when I went back home to my family, my family only spoke Choctaw. Rarely did my parents speak English. I was lucky." So are the Choctaw people, thanks to his efforts. "I feel like he's making a contribution or returning something back to the tribe," said Carole Willis, Henry's wife. "I think what he sees -- what he wants -- is for the native languages to be seen as just as important and alive as languages in Europe." For Willis, that means saving a language. The Choctaw language is in danger of being lost like most other American Indian languages across the country. Despite a 115,000 tribal enrollment, Willis says only 20 percent of the total Choctaw Nation population speaks Choctaw. Roughly 9 percent of those can read or write Choctaw. Meeting Haag was thus a blessing, if not destiny. Haag, a linguist, was looking for a Choctaw elder who could fluently speak the language and who shared her passion. She found her partner in Willis. On July 22, the Choctaw Nation will release a workbook co-authored by Willis and Haag. Their work also is the foundation of several future language classes at OU. This fall, these classes will be telecast by satellite to California State University. A similar class taught by LeRoy Sealy at OU this spring proved a big success as a pilot program. Sealy's classes were telecast to the Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, N.M. "Our goal is to keep the Choctaw language alive," said Joy Culbreath, the Choctaw Nation's executive education director. For people like Willis, that's enough said. --------- "RE: Snoqualmie Win New Round for Tribal Status" --------- Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 19:22:20 -0700 From: John Wm Sloniker Subj: Snoqualmie win new round To: INDIAN-HERITAGE-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU Status: R Snoqualmie win new round for tribal status http://www.seattletimes.com/news/local/html98/snoq_19990707.html by Louis T. Corsaletti Seattle Times Eastside bureau The Snoqualmie Indians' long wait for federal acknowledgment has once again moved forward. Judge Anita Vogt of the Department of Interior's Board of Indian Appeals in Arlington, Va., has affirmed the August 1997 decision that the Snoqualmies are a tribe, but sent two questions to the U.S. secretary of the Interior. In upholding the tribe's status last Friday, Vogt questioned whether material submitted in the Tulalips' appeal of the recognition was properly considered and whether the acknowledgment conflicts with decisions by U.S. District Judge George Boldt. Boldt declared in 1974 that 14 tribes were entitled to half the Puget Sound area's harvestable salmon. In a subsequent case in 1979, Boldt excluded five unrecognized Washington tribes, among them the Snoqualmies. Vogt's involvement in the Snoqualmies' claim to tribal status began when the Tulalip Tribes of Marysville asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs to reconsider Snoqualmie recognition two years ago. The Tulalips said they are the true successors of the Snoqualmie Tribe and called those pushing for recognition a splinter group. In addition, they said they had new information backing their claim. Restoring federal status to the Snoqualmies, whose tribal headquarters is in Fall City, would mean health and education benefits, and the very remote possibility of land for a reservation. While Vogt's questions probably won't affect recognition, they once again delay the final word, said Peter Connick, the Snoqualmies' attorney. In 1855, Snoqualmie Chief Patkanim signed the Point Elliott treaty, ceding all the land from Snoqualmie Pass to Everett to the federal government. At that time, the Snoqualmies were 4,000 strong and one of the largest tribes in the Puget Sound region, living in 14 villages in the Snoqualmie Valley east of Seattle. The tribe was granted what was to be a temporary reservation at Tulalip. In 1937, the Bureau of Indian Affairs proposed a 10,240-acre reservation on the Tolt River near Carnation, but nothing ever came of the plan and in 1952, the Congressional Record listed the Snoqualmies as an unrecognized tribe. Never paid for the land they gave up, the Snoqualmies scattered. Some remained at Tulalip, some went to the Muckleshoot Reservation east of Auburn, and a large number returned to the Snoqualmie Valley. The descendants of that group, about 600 adults and 130 children, are seeking tribal status. Andy de los Angeles, former tribal chairman who has led the fight for recognition for 15 years, had a guarded response to Vogt's decision. "The burden has been on us," he said. "We have spent thousands of dollars and done thousands of hours of work to re-create something that we never lost. It is tragic that we have lost so many elders and tribal members over the years, so many people who will never enjoy those old treaty rights." Posted at 10:46 a.m. PDT; Wednesday, July 7, 1999 E-mail Comments to Editor : Opinion@seatimes.com Seattle Times: Table of Content http://www.seattletimes.com/news/ The Seattle Times: Search Archive http://www.seattletimes.com/extra/search.html The Seattle Times: Browse by date http://www.seattletimes.com/todaysnews/browse.html Seattle Times: Special Reports http://www.seattletimes.com/news/special/ Permission requests and information http://www/seatimes.com/general/info.html Copyright (c) 1999 The Seattle Times Company http://www.seattletimes.com/news/general/copyright.html --------- "RE: Ponca Chief's Statue Marks Indian Rights" --------- Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 10:52:19 -0500 From: berryj@okstate.edu Subj: (FWD)Indian News 07-14-99 Roger Iron Cloud FirstNations Listserv 202.358.3252 rironcloud@acf.dhhs.gov Ponca Chief's Statue Marks Indian Rights 07/12/1999 By Michael McNutt c. The Oklahoman PONCA CITY -- Whenever he feels overwhelmed, Carl Renfro drives out to see Standing Bear. Renfro looks up at the 22-foot-tall statue of the 1870s Ponca chief and recalls the tribal leader's determination to keep his land and his dignity. Renfro looks for inspiration from Standing Bear as he pursues efforts to complete a park project to explain the culture of American Indians. "This is our daily reminder," said Standing Bear project director T. L Walker, "of the urgency of our mission. We're trying to do what we can to preserve this culture because it is leaving us." With Standing Bear's statue in place and part of the park developed, Renfro hopes to renew enthusiasm and momentum to finish the task. A nonprofit group headed by Renfro still needs millions of dollars. The first part of the project, Standing Bear's statue and a courtyard plaza around it, was finished nearly three years ago. Standing Bear is considered by some to be America's first civil rights leader because he went to court to get American Indians recognized as human beings. Renfro, a banker, is chairman of the Standing Bear Native American Foundation, which is raising money for the next two parts of the project. Renfro is not an Indian. About $1 million is needed to develop walking trails with six viewing courts, one for each of the area tribes -- Ponca, Osage, Otoe- Missouria, Pawnee, Tonkawa and Kaw. The courts will have bronze plaques, graphic displays, art and audio messages to give visitors more information about each tribe. A recent $800,000 federal highway enhancement grant awarded by the state Transportation Department makes it possible for work on the tribal courts to start early next year, he said. The rest of the money will come from donations. Renfro said he hopes the tribal displays and trails can be ready in time for the annual powwow at Standing Bear Park in fall 2000. Work also will start on developing an area west of the park. Conoco is making available to the park about 120 acres that will be incorporated into the Standing Bear project. It will be developed into walking trails, bicycle paths and picnic areas. The former residential area was bought by the Ponca City oil company as part of a settlement with homeowners who claimed their land was contaminated. The final part of the Standing Bear project is a multimillion- dollar cultural complex that will be part museum and part learning center. Permanent and traveling displays of current and historical artifacts will be at the center, Renfro said. Also, it will have an educational arts center offering artist-in- residence programs to preserve and teach traditional crafts. The cultural complex will be a gathering place, addressing current American Indian issues as well as stories of the past, Renfro said. The education and artisan center will teach crafts and also tribal language, using both American Indian teachers and computer technology, he said. Renfro thinks as many as 100,000 people a year will visit the park and center. Already, about 20,000 a year come to the Standing Bear Native American Memorial Park near U.S. 60 and U.S. 177 in southeast Ponca City. Those figures do not include people attending special events at the park, Renfro said. Last year, about 3,000 attended the Standing Bear powwow. The highlight of the park is a 3,500-pound bronze statue of Standing Bear on a limestone boulder on one of the highest points in the area -- a hillside overlooking the Arkansas River Valley. It was sculpted by Oreland C. Joe, a Southern Ute/Navajo from Kirtland, N.M. The statue and park developed accidentally after a misunderstanding between members of the Ponca tribe and Ponca City. In 1993, Ponca City leaders came up with plans to commemorate the 100th anniversary of white settlement of the area with a statue, called "This Land Is Mine," depicting a cowboy staking a land claim. Many American Indian leaders and others, including members of the Ponca tribe, were upset because they said the statue symbolized the seizure of Indian land. From that disagreement came talks between Ponca City officials and the Ponca tribe, based in the White Eagle community five miles south of Ponca City. The Standing Bear project was the first time Ponca leaders were asked to participate in a project financed mostly by the non-Indian community and Ponca City businesses. Standing Bear was a good choice to improve harmony between the two cultures. He went to court in 1879 against the federal government and won recognition of Indians as individuals. The Poncas, a peaceful nation of farmers and hunters living in northeastern Nebraska, were ordered in 1877 to relocate to Indian Territory in an area near Ponca City. They were unaccustomed to the warmer climate and many got sick and died. Standing Bear and 29 others returned a year later to Nebraska to bury Standing Bear's 12- year-old son. They were arrested in Nebraska, and Standing Bear became part of a legal case claiming his constitutional rights were violated. Standing Bear won the court case. Renfro likes to show visitors to his city the statue and park, and repeats Standing Bear's stirring court testimony: "My hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both." --------- "RE: Trail of Tears Suvivors Honored" --------- Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:57:09 -0700 From: Pam Subj: Trail of Tears Suvivors Honored [fwd] posted on RootsWeb, RWR, 2:27; 7 Jul 1999 #^#^#^#^#^ fwd msg #^#^#^#^#^# TRAIL OF TEARS SURVIVORS HONORED AND REMEMBERED TAHLEQUAH, Oklahoma. For much of his life Chief John Ross served and led the Cherokee people. Nearly 133 years after his death he was remembered by the Oklahoma Trail of Tears Association on June 26, 1999. The association remembered and honored Ross and 10 other survivors of the forced removal of approximately 15,000 Cherokees to Indian Territory in 1838-39. Bronze plaques were placed on their graves located in Ross Cemetery south of Tahlequah at Park Hill. The 2x4- inch plaques read: "In honor of one who endured the forced removal of the Cherokees in 1838-39." John Ross was chief of the Cherokee from 1828-1866, during some of the most turbulent times of their history. He led the tribe through the removal, rebuilding in Indian Territory, and the American Civil War. He was the son of a Scotsman, Daniel Ross, and a quarter-blood Cherokee, Mary "Mollie" (McDonald) Ross. In his younger years he fought in the Creek War of 1813-14 and attained the rank of adjutant under Andrew Jackson, who would later, as president of the United States, sign the act that led to the Cherokee removal. Ross was elected chief in 1828 and would spend the rest of his life as chief. He vigorously fought the U.S. government's attempts to remove the Cherokee from their homelands. His first wife, Quatie, died during the removal near Little Rock, Arkansas. Chief Ross died in Washington City (Washington D.C.) on August 1, 1866, just after finalizing a treaty with the federal government that preserved a Cherokee government that had sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. John Ross's children Jane Ross Nave (1821-1894), and George Washington Ross (1830-1870), also were remembered. Jane Ross Nave was married to Return Jonathan Meigs in 1838. After his death she married Andrew Ross Nave who was killed during the Civil War in 1863 and buried in Ross Cemetery. She moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for the remainder of the Civil War. She managed to raise her seven children plus two orphaned children of her brother James and his wife Sallie, both of whom died in 1864. George Washington Ross served the Cherokee Nation as secretary in 1865 and was clerk of the Tahlequah District Circuit Court in 1866. He served in Co. I of the Third Indian Home Guards during the Civil War. Andrew Ross Nave, the second husband of Jane Ross, was born in 1822. He was killed fighting in the Civil War at Park Hill on October 28, 1863. Before the war, he was a merchant in Tahlequah in the 1850s and early 1860s, and sometime partner of Chief John Ross. Nannie Otterlifter Ross was the wife of George Washington Ross. She was born December 23, 1833 and was the daughter of Alexander and Elsie (Sleepingrabbit) Otterlifter, who came during the forced removal with her to Indian Territory. She died April 4, 1890. Minerva Nave Keys who was born in 1829, and was the daughter of Henry Nave and Susanna (Ross) Nave. She was a niece of Chief John Ross. She married Riley Keys, a prominent Cherokee leader. They made their home and raised a family in what is now the Keys community south of Tahlequah. She died in 1905 at the age of 76. Lewis Ross was the brother, business partner, confidant, and closest friend of Chief John Ross. He married Fannie Holt of Virginia. He served the Cherokee government in various capacities including supreme court justice, and executive council (tribal council) member, and treasurer. He was a planter and merchant before and after the removal at Park Hill, and was one of the wealthiest men in the Cherokee Nation, owning numerous stores, mills, and ferries. He died on February 5, 1870. Also honored and remembered was John Golden Ross, his wife Elizabeth "Eliza" Ross, and their children, Eliza Jane Ross and Lewis Anderson Ross. Although he carried the same name, John Golden Ross was not related to Chief John Ross except by marriage. He was born in Scotland on December 22, 1787, and married Chief Ross's older sister, Elizabeth, about 1819. He served at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend during the Creek War of 1813-14. He lived in what is now Blount County, Alabama, prior to removal, and settled in Park Hill after the removal. He served as an informal liaison for Chief Ross in his absence. He died on June 2, 1858. Elizabeth Ross was born March 25, 1879, and died February 7, 1876. She and her husband John cared for the Chief John Ross home for many years. She not only assisted in the care and raising of Chief Ross's children, but also raised her own six children and the four orphaned Mulkey children of her sister, Maria. One of Elizabeth and John Golden Ross's children, William Potter Ross, served as chief of the Cherokee Nation for a year after Chief Ross's death in 1866 and again from 1872-76. Lewis Anderson Ross was born July 2, 1834, in the Cherokee Nation East. He married Nellie Potts in 1868. He served three terms as senator from the Tahlequah District from 1867-71 and 1873-75. He also served as auditor for the Cherokee Nation in 1869 and 1884. He died April 12, 1885. After each person was remembered by their descendants and Trail of Tears Association members, "Amazing Grace" was sung in Cherokee for those who endured and survived the removal. The graves of almost 120 other survivors of the Trail of Tears have been located in the area, said Mary Tidwell, secretary/ treasurer of the Oklahoma Trail of Tears Association. Markers will be placed on those graves as funds become available, she said. Only the graves of those people who were forcibly removed within the 13 detachments in 1838-39 will be marked, Tidwell said. Most of the Cherokees who came to Indian Territory prior to the forced removal did so voluntarily. --------- "RE: Court Limits Tribal Game Hunting" --------- Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 19:28:36 -0700 From: John Wm Sloniker Subj: Court limits tribal game hunting Supreme Court limits tribal game hunting http://www.seattletimes.com/news/local/html98/dige_19990617.html OLYMPIA - Indian tribes' treaty right to hunt game on "open and unclaimed lands" is limited to areas in which each tribe has traditionally hunted, the Washington state Supreme Court said today. The nine-member court unanimously voted to reinstate criminal charges against a Nooksack Indian who was arrested in 1995 for killing two elk outside of hunting season and for hunting while his state license was revoked. The case, which has ignited a smoldering dispute between Indian and non-Indian hunters, was remanded for trial in Yakima County Superior Court. At issue is a hunting right guaranteed by the 1855 Point Elliott Treaty between Northwest tribes and the federal government. Donald Buchanan, the Nooksack accused of violating state hunting laws, argued that the treaty gave him the right to hunt elk on "open and unclaimed lands," in this case, public lands managed by the state Department of Natural Resources. A Yakima County judge had dismissed the charges against Buchanan on the grounds that the treaty gave tribal members the right to hunt anywhere in the "Territory of Washington." The state Court of Appeals upheld the decision. But the Supreme Court, in a ruling written by Chief Justice Richard Guy, said the lower courts' interpretations of the treaty right were too broad. Instead, the high court partially agreed with Yakima Prosecutor Jeff Sullivan's argument that the hunting right was intended to diminish as settlers moved West. However, the court rejected Sullivan's argument that today there is no open and unclaimed land. Posted at 11:18 a.m. PDT; Thursday, June 17, 1999 E-mail Comments to Editor : Opinion@seatimes.com Seattle Times: Table of Content http://www.seattletimes.com/news/ The Seattle Times: Search Archive http://www.seattletimes.com/extra/search.html The Seattle Times: Browse by date http://www.seattletimes.com/todaysnews/browse.html Seattle Times: Special Reports http://www.seattletimes.com/news/special/ Permission requests and information http://www/seatimes.com/general/info.html Copyright (c) 1999 The Seattle Times Company http://www.seattletimes.com/news/general/copyright.html --------- "RE: Babbitt Wants Role in Fixing Trust Fund" --------- Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 10:52:19 -0500 From: berryj@okstate.edu Subj: (FWD)Indian News 07-14-99 Roger Iron Cloud FirstNations Listserv 202.358.3252 rironcloud@acf.dhhs.gov Babbitt Wants Role in Fixing Trust Fund Secretary: Limit Court's Oversight of BIA Program By H. Josef Hebert c. The Associated Press July 11, 1999 WASHINGTON -- Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, ending a day and a half of testimony, asked a federal judge Saturday to limit court involvement in repairing the trouble-plagued Indian trust fund program and allow him to "get this problem nailed down and solved." With Babbitt's testimony, the government rested its defense in a class action lawsuit filed by Indians demanding that the courts take over the trust fund, overhaul its error-filled accounting system and make restitution to Indians who have lost money. Final arguments were expected to come late this week, but it's not known when Judge Royce Lamberth will issue his decision in the monthlong trial. During testimony Friday and Saturday, Babbitt clashed with the plaintiffs' attorney, Elliott Levitas. At one point, Babbitt, who described himself as a long-standing supporter of Native Americans, suggested he was being "pistol-whipped" in the proceedings. The government acknowledged in the trial that the Indian trust fund, which distributes money owed individual Indians based on land holdings, has been mismanaged for many years. Its record system is so shoddy and incomplete that making accurate fund distributions will be impossible. Nevertheless, Babbitt argued he has begun to correct matters and the accounting system is being cleaned up. "We're almost there," he said, although he admitted the overhaul might take several more years. Lamberth, who cited Babbitt for contempt this year for acting too slowly to produce Indian trust fund records, gave no indication how he will rule. He said, however, that Babbitt was "very constructive" in acknowledging a measure of court supervision might be needed. It was widely expected that Lamberth will order court supervision of the trust fund, which has deposits of $500 million. Many of its 300,000-plus Indian account holders live in poverty. "The involvement of the court is very important," Babbitt said, speaking directly to the judge. He said he hopes for a limited court presence, perhaps through an "advisory" panel to settle disputes under threat of having to return to court if disputes cannot be resolved. Plaintiffs want Lamberth to appoint a special master to oversee trust fund reforms and remove its management from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has been in charge of it for decades. Congress directed appointment of a special trustee of the fund in 1994 to work within the Interior Department. The trustee, Paul Homan, a former banking executive and bank regulator, disagreed sharply with Babbitt on how to resolve the fund's problems. Homan resigned last January and charged that Babbitt undercut his authority. Babbitt testified that Homan openly showed "his disdain for the BIA" by insisting the bureau could not produce needed reforms. In testimony, Babbitt acknowledged he wanted to fire Homan, and if he were running a business he would have asked him to resign. Instead, he installed a deputy under Homan "to make the trains run." Homan has proposed a broad strategy for fixing the trust fund problem that includes creation of a new agency outside the Bureau of Indian Affairs to fix and manage the fund. Babbitt contends Indian tribes want fund management to remain within the BIA. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit argue that the treatment of Homan was an example of Babbitt talking about fund reform but stifling needed overhaul. --------- "RE: In Search of the Lost Gabrielinos" --------- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 07:43:57 -0500 From: berryj@okstate.edu Subj: (FWD)Indian News 07-17-99 Roger Iron Cloud FirstNations Listserv 202.358.3252 rironcloud@acf.dhhs.gov In Search of the Lost Gabrielinos Descendants of L.A. Basin's indigenous tribe, in a quest for federal recognition, pore through mission records and seek to rebuild a vanished culture. It is a daunting task. By JOE MOZINGO c. Los Amgeles Times 7/15/99 Victoria Duarte pores over old Spanish records in the San Gabriel Mission rectory, tracking bloodlines into prehistory. Hidden in the padres' scrawl are the names of some of the last full-blooded Gabrielino Indians, who lived in Southern California long before Spain subjugated them, took their land and shattered their culture. One is Duarte's ancestor, Prospero, who came to the mission as a child in 1804. He was one of about 5,000 indigenous Californians living in villages reaching from wind-swept San Nicolas Island to the San Gabriel foothills, and from Topanga Canyon to Laguna Beach. Unlike the Navajo and Apache, theirs was a loose-knit culture with many clans, each having its own chief. But they shared religious practices, language and legends, wove intricate baskets and plied the ocean in swift canoes. Anthropologists have grouped them under the labels Gabrielino and Fernandeno, derived from the Spanish missions that lent their names to the Indians' homelands some 230 years ago. In the mission courtyard at San Gabriel, more than 6,000 Gabrielino skeletons are buried beneath grapevines frayed and thick with age. Inside, Duarte grumbles at the padres' poor penmanship. But the 87-year-old widow knows it is here, in this cramped office, where she can help unearth the story of a people who were once thought extinct. With records of births, baptisms, marriages and deaths, she connects modern Californians to their Native American ancestors. Now, due in part to Duarte's work, the Gabrielinos are slowly staging a comeback. The tribal council in San Gabriel is pushing for federal recognition, and some members are busy trying to reconstruct a culture that vanished with the vaqueros and ranchlands of last century. "What depresses me is not so much what was lost," said Mark Acuna, who is reviving the tribe's dances, language and folklore. "What bothers me is the failure of people to recognize that we were, and now are, here." In an era when more people are embracing their American Indian heritage, the Gabrielinos are fighting to assert pride for an ethnicity many thought was gone or never existed. At stake is also something more tangible: federal recognition, bringing eligibility for housing and education benefits, small business loans, health care and gaming rights. Complicating the effort are divisions among Gabrielino descendants, and lack of documentation on a culture destroyed by successive waves of conquerors. By the end of the 19th century, the Gabrielinos melded into the local Mexican barrios, leaving their last customs to crumble with the adobe ruins in the mustard weeds. "When you get down to it, we have a very small amount of information that is really rock solid about the Gabrielino," said Mark Raab, a Cal State Northridge archeologist who studies the tribe. The Fernandenos are facing much the same obstacles in the San Fernando Valley. They had shared the Gabrielino culture until the two missions--in San Gabriel and in Mission Hills, near San Fernando--divided the groups into separate communities, as they largely remain today. In recent years, the Fernandenos have pursued their history and genealogy, as Acuna and Duarte are doing, and lately began working with an anthropologist. Duarte has been researching for almost two decades. Spry and quick-witted, the former hairdresser with bouffant black hair drives her scraped white Chevy Cavalier around the area, looking for scraps of history. She's fascinated with events that brought together far-flung families from Europe, Mexico and Southern California so long ago. Sometimes, she lies awake until 3 a.m. at her condo in Duarte--her family's namesake city--going over lineages in her head. "I didn't even know I was Indian until the government started offering us money," she said with a raspy laugh. "When they started talking about money, of course we got interested." That was the 1930s, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs was offering small payments to American Indian descendants for the land that was taken from them. Money went to those who could show they were descended from Indian ancestors. A friend and mission historian learned that Duarte's grandmother's grandfather was Native American, given the name Prospero by the Franciscans. No one knows why Prospero came to the mission. He was 7 years old, and his parents, Menanqunar and Cuclir, had not been baptized. They were listed on the registry as gentiles and lived in a village called Comicrabit, reportedly near the pueblo of Los Angeles. Nearby, the Los Angeles River ran free. Willows, cottonwoods and tule reeds lined the braided banks, giving Prospero's people ample materials for shelters, sweat-huts and baskets. The tribe hunted small game with bows and arrows and ate almost anything that gave fuel--grasshoppers, shellfish, snails and snakes. In fall, many harvested acorns in the mountains. Perhaps Prospero was lured by the clothes, food and blankets the padres used to gain converts, called neofitos. Maybe nature wasn't yielding enough food; the herds of cattle and the grass brought by the Spanish were vastly changing the native landscape. "Not one word of Spanish did they understand," wrote rancher Hugo Reid in 1852, whose wife, Victoria, came from Prospero's village. "Not one word of the Indian tongue did the priest know. They had no more idea they were worshiping God than an unborn child has of astronomy." No one knows if the Indians, as a whole, had a name for their own culture, but a few who came to the San Gabriel Mission seemed to call themselves Tongva. The converts were confined to the mission and forced into the daily grind of farm work. Syphilis and other diseases ravaged the population, and the death rate far outpaced the birth rate. Thousands were buried in mass graves at the mission. Prospero survived and somewhere took the last name Dominguez. He married a Spanish soldier's daughter, Maria Rafaela Alvarez, from Santa Barbara. They had many children, including Maria Ignacia Dominguez, Duarte's great-grandmother, born in 1838. Prospero built a home by a creek and a hollow of sycamores just north of the mission near the old grist mill in present-day San Marino, according to Mexican land grant records. He raised livestock, tilled the land and planted a garden, some fruit trees and a vineyard on 23 acres that would later be deeded to him by the Mexican government--one of eight small grants given to the Indians of San Gabriel in the 1840s. But as the government dismantled the mission system, most of the Gabrielinos were set adrift. Wealthy Spanish landowners got the bulk of the land, and many Native Americans became laborers or domestics or moved north. Of those neofitos who did get land, most were swindled out of it soon after. The arrival of the Americans in the late 1840s sped up the downward spiral. Many Gabrielino women became prostitutes or concubines for white settlers. The men were sometimes paid in alcohol, then arrested for public drunkenness and auctioned off as indentured servants at a corral in the pueblo of Los Angeles. With increasing urbanization, the villages and language gradually disappeared. Prospero's family managed to keep the land for more than two decades. His daughter Maria married a Spaniard and, in 1860, bore a baby named Felipa Bermudez--Duarte's grandmother. Five years later, the property was sold to an American. "Each mission had a few people like Prospero, that were survivors," said John Johnson, curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum. "They seemed to make it through everything." Duarte grew up around World War I on a small ranch in a clapboard house surrounded by a fence of nopal cactus and fragrant orange groves. It was a short carriage ride to the store in Monrovia and a quick hike up the hill to a spring, tangled in blackberries. Like many young women who grew up there and then, her fondest memories of youth are dancing the Charleston at the old Johnson's hall in San Gabriel, or fiestas over at the Verdugo ranch. Duarte considered herself Spanish and Portuguese. She knew of some American Indian descendants in the area. But she never thought she was one. Her parents split up when she was young, and Duarte's mother was estranged from her own mother. Duarte knew little about her grandmother and nothing of Prospero. Then, around 1930, her half sister Eleanor, who shared the same mother and knew she was part Indian from the other side of the family, came out to the ranch and said the Bureau of Indian Affairs was giving money to people who could prove their ancestry. Duarte initially applied for the money, thinking that she would get it because she was related to Eleanor. She was rejected. She visited a friend, Thomas Workman Temple II, who had a ranch near La Puente, and asked him if he could do the research. Temple--member of a famous pioneer family--was a well-regarded mission historian. Using mission records, he traced Duarte's family back to its Gabrielino roots. She got a Bureau of Indian Affairs number, 13522, and a check she spent so quickly she can't remember what she bought. Her new knowledge didn't really change her lifestyle. She married a Mexican man named Alfonso Cordova, who drove trucks in the orange groves. "He was a good, good man," she said. Duarte worked various jobs and lived her life with him in Arcadia. She never had children. Meanwhile, other Gabrielino descendants were seeking their Indian roots. Duarte's friend Fred "Sparky" Morales, whose mother was full-blooded Gabrielino, gradually emerged as an informal representative for the Indian descendants in the 1940s and '50s. The Morales roots, traced by Temple, went straight through the neighborhood to an Indian village near the mission. There were no official tribal meetings back then, just socializing between families in San Gabriel, where the descendants had lived since the mission days, they said. They gathered for chuck-steak barbecues, fiestas, drinking and guitar playing in the backyards under the walnut trees. Most say the tribes are essentially big extended families. In the 1970s, as Indian activism surged, the Gabrielinos began to research their culture and organize. Duarte began her genealogical work. Morales was officially elected chief and remained until he died of a stroke in 1995. His son Anthony, now 50, took the mantle after Sparky's death. "I always knew I was Gabrielino," said Anthony Morales. "But it wasn't cool to be Indian before. You were an outcast and wanted to hide that identity." The Fernandenos, meanwhile, some of whom lived in a community around Mission San Fernando, were going through the same struggle to define themselves. Confusion often arises because both Indian groups were basically indistinguishable in prehistoric times. And sometimes, the mission designation did not indicate from where one's ancestors came. Tribes from all over Southern California were mixed together at the missions. Today, the Gabrielino-Tongva Tribal Council, the biggest of several tribal splinters, meets regularly near the San Gabriel mission. They protest construction on sacred sites and some members get jobs monitoring the handling of their ancestors' remains at sensitive construction projects, and they are preparing for the 2000 census. "We need to properly identify ourselves or we'll go unnoticed again," said Anthony Morales. "We are not extinct." Morales is a quiet, easygoing man who often wears flannels, a baseball hat and faded high-tops. The union pipe-fitter sets up fire sprinkler systems for a living, and said his co-workers were shocked when he first told them he was an Indian chief. Perhaps, he said, they didn't expect to find the chief of an ancient people working among them. But the tribe remains working-class and glitz-free, with $9,900 in the bank and only a jug of plain-brand fruit punch at the meetings. There may be more than 1,000 people who participate in the business of the Gabrielino-Tongva Tribal Council, though only about 350 have formally enrolled, said Sharon Cotrell, a Cal State Long Beach graduate student compiling research in the tribe's push for federal recognition. Gaining federal recognition is a long, laborious affair, requiring exhaustive research. Many tribes become so discouraged by their prospects that they give up. Morales' group was the first Gabrielino group to file a petition, in 1994. The Gabrielino effort is hindered by squabbling among different groups. Many compete to appear more legitimate while vying to get the monitoring jobs, and there are always accusations that some are faking their "Indianness." But the biggest potential obstacle for the Gabrielino could be to prove that they have always been an intact tribe, with a distinct culture, leadership and bylaws, through modern history--a federal requirement. "The whole idea is that we want to recognize Indian nations," said Steve Austin, a researcher for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. "It means we're recognizing a government-to-government relationship." Morales concedes that today's Gabrielino culture--the dancing, language and religious rituals--is a re-creation, culled from mission records, anthropologists' studies and accounts from early California settlers. "To us that's as close as it's going to get," he said. "It's just as authentic." But some of the few modern anthropologists who have studied Southern California Indians say using such secondary accounts can be tainted by the original sources' bias: from the Franciscan padres, who saw Indian worship as the work of the devil, to 20th century anthropologists swept up in a movement to romanticize the Indians as a perfect, complex society living in harmony with the Earth. To many members, being Indian doesn't have to do so much with the prehistoric rituals, but with living in a place where one's ancestors existed for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, long before the incursion of millions. "What really gets me is when I go down to the beach, and I look out to the ocean and envision my ancestors on the water," Morales said. "I see them going across to trade with the island Gabrielinos on Catalina and San Nicolas. What a vision that is." Duarte's not as nostalgic, though she is consumed by local history. Her biggest fear now is that she will die without finding a home for her work--"someone who doesn't bother doing the dishes or making the bed because she's always looking for Indians," she said. Below a goldfish bowl and old photos in her condo are file cabinets full of census records, marriage books, Temple's work and copied mission registries. "I need to pass this on to someone," she said, or another chapter will be lost. --------- "RE: Bruce Clark Departs" --------- Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 18:36:06 -0500 (EST) From: "S.I.S.I.S." Subj: Bruce Clark departs - an interview (2 of 2) [Editorial Note: The first part of this article appeared in last week's issue, archived at http://www.nanews.org] :-:-:-:-:-:-:-Settlers In Support of Indigenous Sovereignty-:-:-:-:-:-:-: (continued) SISIS: So it is obvious now, or at least conceded in media, that treaties are necessary in British Columbia. They are pursuing treaties, in illegal forms, I might add, but, at the same time they misrepresent the issues, and keep the real issues under cover of this whole fraudulent system they have created. BC: Yes, I think that's all part of the fraud that's going on. The reason treaties are juristically necessary is, because according to international and constitutional law, there is racial and cultural segregation. And according to international and constitutional law the way in which newcomer society acquires the right to go into the new area is by way of a treaty. Well, that scenario has been superceded by the event: the newcomers are in there already, so to talk of making a treaty is simply out of keeping with the factual reality. But it's more obscenely out of keeping in the sense that in the 19th century, the Indian Act of Canada was amended essentially to co-opt a portion of Indian society to make it the agents in the genocide of the native people. So, for example, the Indian Act was amended in 1884 to make illegal the life chief, or hereditary system of the Indians, and to put in its place a system of puppet government, that is, the Indian Act system; and native society was bifurcated into these two solitudes. Those, in my view, who remained culturally "Indian Indians," became the victims of the genocide that was perpetrated by the Indian puppet governments. And this was carried on for in excess of 100 years. What you have is a huge Indian governmental organization bureaucracy who are the heirs of the Indians who committed genocide against their own people. And the irony of this situation is that this is who the treaties are being made with, and the obscenity of it is that in the treaty process, these particular Indians, the ones with the blood of their brothers and sisters on their hands, are the ones being compensated. SISIS: Good old British Columbia.... BC: Essentially, what you have there is a really grotesque alliance between the legal establishment and the native bureaucracy. Indian culture, in its most attractive sense is the ideology of sharing and respect. That is a gift that the spirits of the old-style Indians can give to their generations unborn, but more so to all of humankind. But it is profoundly false to suggest that these Indian organizations, and governments in Canada, who are so handsomely funded by the federal government, in any sense represent the native values of sharing and respect. Those governments and organizations are no less committed to the institutions of private property and economics, the infinite satisfying of unlimited human wants. So the whole thing, the whole situation of treaty making is an obscene game, the major players of which are a corrupt legal establishment and an equally corrupt native establishment. In this game the average Canadian, the average Indian, and newcomer Canadian equally, are simply left out. They don't really know what's going on. SISIS: So in terms of the west, and in any place that hasn't been treatied, jurisdiction still lies with the indigenous people? BC: Yes. SISIS: So, if you acknowledge that jurisdiction still lies with the native people, and there's this corrupt leadership that controls much of their resources and territories, then how is it possible to get this mess cleaned up? BC: Well, that is one of the reasons that I have been propounding the concept of justice as the application of truth to affairs. In my view, there is no prospect of getting the mess cleaned up unless we start with the first premise that the whole truth has to come out. And once the whole truth does come out, not just the facts of history, but the whole truth about the law, once it does come out, then we are in a position to discuss reforming the law. But we can't realistically reform the law until we have the truth on the table about what the law is. So, the first stage is to accept the principle of justice as the application of truth to affairs. The second stage is to put on the table what the law actually is. The third stage is then to discuss reform of the law. But in that discussion of reform of the law, it's important that all Canadians, I think, participate. That is, right now, that discussion is being carried on by interested parties. It is essentially a dialogue between a corrupt legal establishment and a corrupt native establishment. And it is in the equal interest of both of those establishments to suppress and conceal the truth. SISIS: So what you are basically presenting is a scenario where non-corrupt Indian people and non-corrupt Canadian people have to sit down and come up with viable alternatives to the status quo. BC: That's right. SISIS: There are so many things to cut through. Where do you think, I mean, you say the first thing that has to happen is for the truth to come out? BC: No, no, the first that has to happen before the truth can come out is that this society has to address its value system and realize that the paramount value is that justice is the application of truth to affairs. For example, the present constitution of Canada, as amended in 1982, declares that Canada, as a country, is premised upon the principle of the supremacy of God and the rule of law. Now, one can equate the concept of supremacy of God with the concept the of the rule of law in the sense that most concepts of god and gods in the world, basically are based on respect and sharing. I think that's essentially what the rule of law, the law that is worthy of the name is: the application of those fundamental principles to human affairs. So, if you start with that, you know, a discussion and agreement on your opening premise - and your opening premise is a society based on the rule of law - then I would equate that with a society in which justice as the application of truth to affairs is the paramount value. Then you can move on to say, OK, how do we conduct our affairs consistent with that value, and then we get to the stage you are talking about - about getting the truth on the table. But you don't get to the stage of getting the truth onto the table until you've got a premise that says there is a value in getting the truth on the table, in principle. SISIS: I agree, and I think that most people, or most Canadians would also agree with that premise. BC: Well, that's interesting, because that is all I have ever been saying. For the past ten years, that has been the point of my existence. And yet, part of the semiotic field in Canada right now, if you put the two words Bruce Clark out there, the reaction you get is a form of rejection reaction: the organism simply rejects it. It's a demonization thing. People may agree with that in principle, but how do you get that principle to the people? I have tried, and in the course of trying, have been demonized. That is, what I am saying is, that there is sort of an unholy conspiracy between the legal establishment and the native bureaucracy to get away with lining their own pockets on the basis of a fraud. And the way to break through the fraud is by this principle that justice is the application of truth to affairs. Everybody can see it, but if you start trying to apply it in practice, as I have done, then you're neutralized. SISIS: So what do you think would kind of wake Canadians up to this reality? BC: Well, for my small part, I have a book coming out in the fall, which attempts in an anecdotal way that I hope people will identify with to say, "hey, I'm an ordinary Joe and this is what I discovered," and that's my contribution. SISIS: So do you think media plays a big role in keeping about this state of truth to affairs which actually exists already? BC: Yes, there's absolutely no question about that, and that's not a particularly new thing about media. When De Tocqueville did his tour of the United States around the time of the American Revolution, he remarked the role of newspapers and the media in American society as a consensus-building function. So when I talk about semiotic fields, the newspapers and media are very, very important in establishing the semiotic field. That is establishing the set of words and signs that signify the social consensus. And they also lead the way. They are like, in an organism, the cells that go and attack an invading force. So, for example, when I come along and try to introduce this concept of justice as the application of truth to affairs, which is disturbing to a status quo, the newspapers and the other media are like the T Cells in the body. This is a threat to the consensus, to the equilibrium. So they are the first order of defense. The attack, for example, the neutralization of me, has essentially been a media phenomenon. SISIS: So in terms of Gustafsen Lake, Dr. Clark, what does Gustafsen Lake mean to you now at this point when you are on the verge of leaving the country in search of safety? BC: Well, Gustafsen Lake, to me, establishes that some heroic Indians turned over the last stone that could be turned. And for purposes of my life, I think I am satisfied with my role there, that I also turned over the last stone that could be turned. I mean, beyond that, the only sort of stone left unturned is a stone which I am not willing to try to turn, and so far as I know none of the native people with whom I have been associated are prepared to turn, and that's the stone of terrorism, you know, the bombing of subways, the killing of innocent civilians, wounding and maiming, and that sort of thing. You know, although Gustafsen Lake was misportrayed as an act of terrorism, it wasn't. It was a defensive position occupied by native people. If they had wanted to kill, if they had wanted to conduct acts of terrorism, they certainly wouldn't have drawn a line in the sand at Gustafsen Lake, they would've planted a bomb on the Skytrain in Vancouver. So, what I am saying is that Gustafen Lake for me, and I think for some native people, is closure. SISIS: So it's the end? BC: It's the end for this society ... for my purposes. That is, those native people like, I think, Wolverine, who espouse the essential native culture values of respect and sharing, I think can rest easily in saying they have done all they can do. There is no more, I mean, they're not willing to kill others, and hopefully, they're not willing to kill themselves in despair. And I am in much the same situation. But that doesn't mean the fight is over because this is a human problem this is a perennial problem. I mean, I will go to Europe and lick my wounds and hopefully have some portion of life that isn't involved with other peoples' affairs and problems, but at the same time, like right now, you and I are talking, and it may be that something I have done or something I say in the future, may in some fashion advance the principle of justice is the application of truth to affairs. And in that, I am always read to be a messenger or a foot soldier. But right now, for Canada, in any event, I am so thoroughly demonized, there is absolutely no point in me doing anything here. I guess in a way it's cowardice, me leaving this country. But I think I could overcome the cowardice if I thought there was a point in it. But I just don't see that I could contribute anything because the demonization of me has been so totally successful by the police, governments, and by the legal establishment. SISIS: Now, I agree, but I do not think your leaving this country is cowardice, Dr. Clark. I mean, high-ranking and powerful people within the RCMP have been recorded as saying they would like to "Kill this Clark, smear the prick and everyone associated with him." Now most people, most average Canadians, most media consumers, don't ever see the real issues. What they get is soap opera. What do you think keeps the average person from being open to, say, Wolverine, and the traditional native people? BC: What keeps it, what prevents people, the average person from seeing the point is this unholy conspiracy between the corrupt non-native legal establishment, and the corrupt native governmental and bureaucratic establishment, and the media whose function, since the time of De Tocqueville, has been to maintain the consensus, to maintain the established equilibrium. SISIS: So, at some point, all people have to realize that we are being lead by the kind of corruption that is destroying ourselves, our future, and the planet, and that has to be overcome, and then we all have to sit down together. BC: Exactly. SISIS: Just one other thing, Dr. Clark, specifically, about Wolverine's appeal. When he appeared in BC, he was told by the appeal court that he could not rely on the Royal Proclamation Act of 1763 as a defense, because it never applied to British Columbia. Is there any palatable reason, or reason in law that they could claim this, or was it just an outright lie? BC: Well, it's irrelevant. All the Royal Proclamation did was reiterate a point of international and constitutional law, which exists in any event of the Proclamation. So, the debate as to whether or not the Proclamation does apply to British Columbia is a complete red herring. The point is that Chief Justice Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court remarked in 1832 that there was a body of international and constitutional law which governed the European invasion or occupation of North America, and the essence of that international and constitutional law was - and still is since it hasn't been repealed - was that since the Indians were here first, and are human beings, prima facie, they have territorial jurisdiction. And that if the newcomers are going to acquire territorial jurisdiction, it's a derivative process, and the mechanism for derivation, as the Proclamation confirmed - but only confirmed. It didn't introduce anything new, the mechanism for derivation is treaty or purchase. So for British Columbia to say the Proclamation does not apply, doesn't affect the fact that the international and constitutional law apply, because the international and constitutional law are universal. It's a product of the discovery of the new world. It is simply part of the fabric of the whole civilization. What the judges are trying to do essentially by the pretext of saying that Proclamation does not apply, is carve British Columbia out of the human ethic, and say that it is somehow some kind of an enclave in relation to which the international and constitutional law that applies everywhere, doesnt apply there. Well, that's just silly, It's just a blatant fraud. SISIS: All right, thanks a lot for this, Dr. Clark. :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-: S.I.S.I.S. Settlers In Support of Indigenous Sovereignty P.O. Box 8673, Victoria, "B.C." "Canada" V8X 3S2 EMAIL : WWW: http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/SISmain.html --------- "RE: Last Call in Pine Ridge" --------- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 16:53:25 -0500 From: Freedom Heart Rising Subj: Last call in Pine Ridge/FWD. from KOLA ------- FORWARD, Original message follows ------- <+>=<+>KOLA Newslist<+>=<+> From: Mike Wicks Subj: [aim] Last call in Pine Ridge http://www.boulderweekly.com/ for the week beginning 15-Jul-99 Last call in Pine Ridge For the Lakotas in White Clay, Nebraska, death is on the house by Ben Corbett White Clay, Nebraska ... A dusty little rural slum with 10 crumbling buildings, population 22. Bleached signs creaking on rusty hooks in the scant breeze. Walls sagging under the weight of a merciless sun, paint blistering. An empty pop can rolls down the main drag, clinking along past paper sacks flattened in the gutter. Overhead, a buzzard silhouettes the thermals of a cloudless sky. Crickets chirp in the weed-lined street as George Strait moans a top-10 croaker through the gills of a single-speaker AM radio. Flies buzzing. Wind exhaling another empty morning. And the sun beats down ... Around noon, a brace of spit-shined Nebraska state police cruisers file in, staging themselves throughout White Clay, A/C warding off the scalding sun behind dark glass. Looking towards Pine Ridge, two miles away, heat risers swirl in eddies on the baking asphalt. First the chants are heard, a funeral dirge wailed to the steady pounding of a drum. Then, like a mirage, a throng of Lakotas appears on the vaporous horizon led by two Tribal Police units. Stop for prayers. Onward. Stop for prayers. Onward. Children. Elders. Fighters. The people. Hokahey! The troopers in White Clay check their weapons. They've gone over the tactical formation a dozen times. The word is out to hold back on force until the last possible moment. We don't want an outbreak like last week, Jim. Federal orders. Let's keep our cool on this one. Eyes on the road. Waiting.The protesters, a wall of flesh, cross the Pine Ridge reservation borderand the Nebraska state line in the same step. 200 yards to go. Prayer stick held high. The war cry goes up, Yooowwwwoooooppp Woooop Woooop! The coup stick is thrown skyward. They head for the primary target, a local watering hole called the Arrowhead Inn, and the first eviction notice is taped to the wall: NOTICE THE OGLALA LAKOTA OYATE, BEING THE LANDLORDS AND CARETAKERS OF THIS LAND YOU CALL WHITE CLAY, DO HEREBY GIVE YOU NOTICE TO CEASE AND DESIST THE SALE OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES. FURTHERMORE, AS THE LAWFUL OWNERS OF THIS LAND UNDER THE 1803, 1851, AND 1868 TREATIES WITH THE U.S. GOVERNMENT, WE DO HEREBY TERMINATE YOUR LEASE, AS WE HAVE NOT RECEIVED ANY LEASE PAYMENTS SINCE THE LAND WAS ILLEGALLY TRANSFERRED IN 1904. YOU HAVE 30 DAYS TO VACATE THE PREMISES. LEGAL ACTION WILL OCCUR IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY WITH THIS NOTICE. The coup stick strikes the air. 200 fists are raised. The war cry goesup again. VJ's Market is next. The eviction posting is repeated a half dozen times as the cops sit dumbstruck; white knuckles grip fast the steering wheels. They don't realize they've just been shamed in the Lakota manner of counting coup. They don't realize they've been defeated. That the joke is on them. This is a victory for the Oglala Lakotas. Another battle won in the long war of endurance against white lies, violence, hatred, racism, oppression, murder.Bodies by the road "It has to stop," says Tom Poor Bear, cooling off his sweat-beaded brow with a soft drink after the sweltering march. "Indian people are found dead all over here and nobody does anything about it. If these were two white people found murdered here, this place would be swarming with law enforcement." Poor Bear is a brother of Wilson Black Elk, 40, one the latest victims found murdered just yards inside the Pine Ridge Reservation line. On June 8, the mangled bodies of Black Elk and Ronald Hard Heart, 39, were found side by side in the waist-deep grass of a roadside ravine, brutally beaten to death. After seeing little or no investigation of the murders, Poor Bear put in a call to the American Indian Movement (AIM), asking for assistance in getting action on the uninvestigated murders. "Indian people in his country are still hunted," says Russell Means, co- founder of AIM and a resident of Pine Ridge. "In the last five years, there have been over a dozen uninvestigated murders of Indian people who have been beaten to death on Pine Ridge. The coroner always says the cause of death was, not trauma to the head, but exposure. And they're buried without fanfare." The coroner in question is a forensic pathologist from Scottsbluff, Nebraska, whose jurisdiction covers Sheridan County and White Clay. "This guy has a bad track record of doing a thorough autopsy," says Poor Bear. "Take Anna Mae Aquash for instance, a very strong Indian woman. She was found murdered on the reservation (1976), and her body was sent to Scottsbluff for autopsy. The pathologist ruled she died of exposure. So we exhumed her body, sent it to Rapid City for a second opinion, and found out she was shot in the back of the head. And also a man named Bishnette who was killed by a BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) officer and sent to Scottsbluff for autopsy. They ruled he was killed with one shot. We exhumed his body, and he was shot eleven times." Poor Bear spends the next few minutes running down a list of names from memory of Lakotas murdered and quickly buried with the coroner's catch-all "exposure" rulings. The uninvestigated deaths in White Clay date to the 1972 fatal beating of Raymond Yellow Thunder, whose death spurred a 71-day siege of the Wounded Knee hamlet led by the newly formed American Indian Movement. "Yellow Thunder was beaten and thrown into the American Legion half naked," says Poor Bear, who also took part in the Wounded Knee siege. "And later on he was beaten to death by two brothers and found dead in an abandoned car. These people just got slaps on the wrists and walked away." Mere manslaughter charges have become the staple consequence in reservation border towns for killing Indians. Only two men have been convicted to date in South Dakota of any of the killings. "Everyone who kills an Indian here gets exonerated by all-white juries," says Means. "The racism is endemic in the conscious and subconscious of America. But nobody cares. We're out of sight, out of mind." Enter Charlie ade White Clay, an unincorporated town, enjoyed upwards of $4 million in liquor sales last year, 99 percent of which was poured down Indian throats. That's approximately 2,800 cans of beer sold everyday to Lakota patrons, who are forbidden by federal law to purchase and consume alcohol on the reservation only two miles away. Day in and day out, carloads of Indians stream into White Clay to purchase groceries and cold six-packs from white business owners hawking the forbidden wares. But what to make of these staggering figures? "I'll tell you like I told any other reporter," says Terry Robbins, sheriff of Sheridan County Nebraska. "The United States tried to go through a prohibition and they found out years ago it didn't work. If you've got demand, businesses pop up." As for the murders, protesters and families of the recently slain suspect a local Sheridan County deputy sheriff who patrols White Clay. >From the descriptions, the man is a walking, talking Charlie Wade incarnate, straight off the set of John Sayles' controversial film, Lone Star. "He has a history of verbally and physically abusing Indian people," says Poor Bear. "He comes into White Clay and puts on big black gloves, lead-lined, and he physically hits the Lakota people. Personally, I feel he should be one of the top suspects in this." Poor Bear adds that AIM has witnesses and statements from Lakotas who have suffered the man's abuse. "He's admitted to beating Indians in his custody when he has arrested them," says Russell Means. "However, he's still deputy sheriff." If this deputy sheriff were, in fact, implicated in the murders, what action would the Sheridan County sheriff take? "Well," says Sheriff Robbins, "first the investigation would have to show there was some implications, and as far as I know there's not been any implications. All I know is that's just a rumor. It don't help matters when they put it in the paper and on TV. They're just a-fuelin' the fire." Weeks before the bodies were found, according to a second brother of the slain man, threats were made to Wilson Black Elk. He owed a tab to a White Clay bar owner, who threatened to "get my boys to handle it," if the bill weren't paid promptly. Who are "my boys"? "Skinheads from Rushville," the brother says, "or else the deputy sheriff." Distrust lurks behind the warm eyes of Lakotas, who are calling the string of murders serial killings. They fear that both the Sheridan County authorities and the entire population of White Clay are covering up the slayings. "Sheridan County does have a history of racism. There is white supremacist activity," adds Poor Bear, citing a White Clay proprietor as an example. "He is a known white supremacist who has come out and beat people in wheelchairs. His wife was known to pour hot water on people who stand in front of his store." And the fire rages ... The Eagle Has Landed Downtown Pine Ridge. Another sweltering day on the Rez. A cruel 110 in the shade. Big Bat's gas pumps are jammed with brand new pickup trucks and beat-up sedans, fender wells rotted out. Down the street, a few people are tacking starched new flags to the trees, a rare novelty in this island of Indian Country. A charter coach rolls up to a Tribal Police car to ask directions. The bus is stuffed with Secret Service agents, snipers, uniformed goons armed to the teeth, plain clothes Indian infiltrators to mingle with the locals. Then, in rolls thepress, an army of stressed-out catch-the-next-clip news junkies. Lakota elders sit on their porches inwardly giggling at the display rolling outbefore their eyes. The circus is in town. A three-ring sensual feast of lugubrious politicking. Presidents avoid Indian issues like the plague, so Bill Clinton's July 7 stop at Pine Ridge had a special ring to it. A certain irony for Mother America's forgotten children, the Oglala Lakota. Clinton's Pine Ridge stopover on his speed-tour of severely impoverished areas marked the first time in history that a U.S. President made an appearance on an American Indian reservation. As the Commander in Chief's official Chinook chopper touched down, a battalion of slack-jawed cameramen rushed forward clawing at each other in an ignorant frenzy. The national press pushing the inexperienced local reporters aside with a huff of the lungs, "excuse me." Shove. Like wolves on steaming meat. What a thrill to get so close to the man that you could reach out and slap him.More Snake Oil, Mr. Bill? After a storm of pat- downs, bomb-sniffing dogs, metal detectors, placements of snipers, suspicious looks, and confiscated pocket knives, the event at the Pine Ridge High campus gets underway. 2,000 heads, including 100 tribal leaders from around the country look up, watching with hungry eyes, wondering what's on the menu. More broken promises? Could it possibly be for real this time? First the invocation from Arvol Looking Horse, keeper of the sacred white buffalo calf pipe. Then a speech from Harold Salway, President of the Tribal Government: "Nearly 60 percent of the young people on the reservation live in poverty. Life expectancy for Oglala men is the lowest in the United States. We have more than 4,000 families waiting for homes, and our current housing stock is in serious disrepair. Twenty percent of Oglala houses lack basic plumbing. The unemployment in our community is recorded as high as 73 percent plus. But we have seen this rate soar higher and higher and harder in worse times." Not to mention the alcohol epidemic, a startling high school drop-out rate, or one of the highest infant mortality rates in the western hemisphere. Pine Ridge is well-known as the most economically distressed locale in North America. Racked with these severe living standards,this shadowland of progress has been continually swept aside by the governmental hand. Discontent here is spiraling upward. But Clinton offers relief. On this tour, armed with an entourage of senators, Jesse Jackson, and a string of high-profile money moguls, the president promises growth in depressed areas with his New Markets Initiative. The idea is to issue major tax breaks to Fortune 500 companies willing toinvest. "When we are on the verge of a new millennium when people are celebrating the miracles of technology ..." The polished pork 'n' beans drawl rolls over the sacred feathers of the elders' head dresses. "... and the world grows closer and closer together, and our ability tolearn from and with each other, and make business partners with each otherall across our globe, and there's still reservations with few phones and no banks, when still three or four families are forced to share two simple rooms. When these things still persist, we cannot rest until we do better. And trying is not enough. We have to have results." Cheers, whistles, howls. Go Bill! To the west of the field, 10 individuals are holding up "Free Leonard Peltier" and "Honor the 1851 Treaty" signs, waving them at opportune moments when Clinton's glance falls in that direction. Not even awince. During a silent spot when Clinton catches a breath, a brave woman yells out, "Hey, Bill, why don't you let Leonard go free?" Not even a blink. The event rolls on. The sweat pours down. The cameras clickaway in a mania of break-neck shutter speeds."Thank you all for coming. Good-bye." Another stick figure with a tall hat for the Lakota buffalo hide diary in the long parade of time. The next day, all those starched new flags dangling from the trees on the main street the day before had disappeared.As Long as the Grass Grows "We want answers and we'll march until we get them," says Russell Means. He's not surprised that Clinton stuck to the agenda without addressing Peltier's release, the broken treaties, the rash of uninvestigated Indian deaths. "I'll get arrested again, and again, if I have to." Means, Dennis Banks, and Clyde Bellecourte, founding members of the American Indian Movement, were three of nine arrested during the second "March For Justice" held on July 3. A clash with hundreds of Nebraska state police, decked out head-to-toe in the latest in armor technology, trying to form a human barricade to prevent protesters from entering White Clay. The nine were released soon afterward-orders from a Sheridan County judge who, Means feels, got shaky at the thought of a throng of angry Indians swarming the streets of Rushville. "They figured out there's this thing called the Constitution," says Means with a chuckle, addressing 200 ralliers at the July 7th march. "Today they won't be trying to stop us." Besides the murders and the alcohol sales, protesters refuse to acknowledge Nebraska's claim to the White Clay area. Nebraska is trespassing on Indian land, they say. The Lakota case against Nebraska and the U.S. government is a complicated web of American deceit dating to the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties, which describe Lakota title to lands ranging from the Yellowstone River in the north, the Missouri River to the east, and the North Platte River to the south-an area nearly 100 times larger than the current reservation. In 1874, George Armstrong Custer trespassed into the Black Hills on the infamous Bozeman Trail, the only biway to the north, which happened to run straight through Lakota lands. His mission? To spread propaganda about recent discoveries of gold to money-hungry Easterners. What better way to acquire Indian lands than to evoke a gold rush with mobs of whites racing into the area, swarming through Indian lands. The military would naturally be obliged to "protect" the white gold diggers with force, using the clash to deliver an onslaught of crushing blowsto the Lakota. As planned, this happened, spawning the 1876 Great Sioux War. And the rest is history. The treaty was violated by both the gold diggers and the government who promised to protect the Indians against white trespass. As a result, the federal government raked off more than three-quarters of Lakota lands, quickly opening them up for white settlers. Not surprisingly, the lands taken included the gold rich Black Hills, and all land near the valuable rivers. In 1946, the Indian Claims Commission was formed, permitting American Indian Nations to sue the U.S. government for land "takings" both legal and illegal. If an Indian Nation could prove a "taking" occurred, that Nation was entitled to compensation for losses suffered. In the early 1970s, the Lakota sued, a "taking" was demonstrated, and the Claims Commission awarded a measly $17.5 million-the 1877 dollar value of the stolen property. "In your dreams!" said the Lakotas. "We want our landback. " Enter 1979. The U.S. Government crawled forward, admitting error in its earlier calculations. "Yes, you people deserve interest on that $17.5 million. In our calculations, the new figure comes out to a round $105 million." A steal. "Forget it!" said the Lakota. "It's the land wewant." Today that sum still sits untouched in a federal bank. The figure has grown to a hefty $500 million since the 1970s, but the Lakotas adamantly refuse to take the money. By doing so, they reason, it would seal theshady eal. "Americans cannot conceive of that type of thinking or that value system," says Means. "That we'd rather suffer the misery of poverty than to sell our holy land. You would think the world would look at us in wonderment and awe instead of killing us."The Coup Is Counted After the rally, the file of Oglala marchers ease down an embankment to "Camp Justice," a bivouac of protest with two massive tipis towering in the velvet of sky. A tub of Indian soup simmering on the fire, cold drinks, and good friends. The word is circulating that another Lakota, known by all, was found yesterday floating face-down in Rapid Creek, a mile from Rapid City. More stories circulate in whispers. Yet another Lakota man was found yesterday beaten to death and stuffed into a garbage can in Mobridge, a small town of Northern South Dakota. Apparently, four rich white kids were apprehended in the murder. Their bonds were $250K, but they were released the same day. Suspicions run high. The numbers pile up. It never ends out here. Through the buffalo grass you can see the spot where the bodies of Black Elk and Hard Heart were found. A small triangular fence enshrouds the site, tied with red prayer cloths and piled with sage and food offerings so the departed spirits will have full stomachs on their journey into the next world. Tipis and human gatherings are not foreign to this shaded knoll. In the late 1800s, White Clay was known as the Red Cloud Agency, where Chief Red Cloud and his band resided during the winter months. His ponies were undoubtedly tied to the same trees that the marchers shade themselves under this very moment, the fir, the willow and dogwood. "Red Cloud would be proud of us today," someone says. Camp Justice will serve as a resting place, a center of protest until the murders, the alcohol sales, and the treaty violations are answered for. It stands as a testament that through decades of racial abuse and deceit, the Lakotas share a lasting unity. A rare and enduringstrength. AIM and the Oglala people plan to stage marches every Saturday until their demands are met. "I'm a great believer," says Means, "in what Felix Cohen said in the 1920s. 'The American Indian is the miner's canary of freedom in this country.' I'll tell you, the miner's canary is dead. But with these marches to White Clay, maybe the miner's canary is being revived. We're twitching. And we're saying 'America, wake up'. This is a rebirth of a nation whose sole reason for existence is to be free. And that's what we're gonna be again." +>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+ = There are none so blind American Indian Cultural Support = + as those who will not see P.O. box 1783 + = Mike.Wicks@mindspring.com Lutz, FL = + http://www.aics.org/index.html 33548-1783 + = http://www.mindspring.com/~mike.wicks/index.html = +>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+>=<+ <+><+> http://users.skynet.be/kola/ http://kola-hq.hypermart.net --------- "RE: Bear Lincoln's Lawyer Gets Rebuked by Judge" --------- Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 21:07:35 -0700 From: Tom Schlosser Subj: Bear Lincoln's lawyer gets rebuked by federal court Mailing List: TRIBALLAW (triballaw@thecity.sfsu.edu) NLP IP Company, Thursday, July 15, 1999 Counsel Criticized in Case Involving Lincoln Manhunt By Paul Elias U.S. District Judge Fern Smith may have left the bench two weeks ago, but that didn't stop her from rebuking San Francisco plaintiffs attorney Dennis Cunningham in a Wednesday order dismissing most of a civil rights case filed by the family of Eugene "Bear" Lincoln and others. Now being handed off to other judges are most of Smith's cases, including Lincoln v. Tuso, 96-1297, which involves claims against law enforcement agencies stemming from a manhunt at a Northern California Indian reservation. But Smith, in her order, said she wanted to resolve the summary judgment motion in Lincoln before moving to Washington, D.C., to take over the Federal Judicial Center. "Although the parties' settlement efforts are commendable, the court must express its dismay at the lackadaisical manner in which plaintiffs' counsel has prosecuted this case," Smith wrote. "Moreover, having observed this dispute since its inception, the court harbors serious reservations about plaintiffs' counsel's ability to press forward with this litigation in an efficient and effective manner." Three years ago, Cunningham sued the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department and the California Highway Patrol and dozens of officers on behalf of Eugene "Bear" Lincoln's family and several other Mendocino County Native Americans. The plaintiffs accused the cops of roughing them up and trampling all over their constitutional rights in a frantic search for Lincoln. Lincoln, a Wailaki Indian, and his friend, Leonard "Acorn' Peters, engaged in a shoot-out with two Mendocino County Sheriff's deputies on April 14, 1995, on the Round Valley Indian Reservation. The firefight left Peters and Deputy George Davis dead and Lincoln on the lam, wanted for murder. Dozens of cops descended on the reservation and turned over nearly every stone in search of Lincoln. In doing so, the plaintiffs accused the police of conducting unconstitutional searches and making wrongful arrests. On Sept. 23, 1997, a Mendocino County Superior Court jury acquitted Lincoln, agreeing with his self-defense argument. On Wednesday, Smith tossed out the claims brought by all but one of the plaintiffs in Cunningham's civil case, ruling the officers enjoyed qualified immunity. She allowed Perry Lincoln's claims of an illegal search and arrest at the hands of the county sheriff's department to go forward. Everything else, Smith ruled, gets tossed. Smith's ruling expressed frustration with Cunningham's handling of the case. She took particular aim at his opposition to the defense motion for summary judgment. "Plaintiffs' counsel submitted his opposition but has adduced little or no new evidence bearing upon defendants' opening arguments," she wrote. "The opposition is more stream-of-consciousness narrative than a cogent legal analysis. It is cluttered with conclusory allegations and allegations with no evidentiary support, and contains little if any discussion of case law." Neither side had read Smith's order Wednesday and declined to talk about it. When read the particular passages Smith aimed at him, Cunningham responded: "What a creepy thing to say." http://www.callaw.com/stories/edt0715d.html --------- "RE: Peltier's Health Condition Deteriorating" --------- From: "LPDC" Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 22:02:18 -0500 Subj: Peltier's Health Condition Deteriorating PELTIER'S HEALTH CONDITION DETERIORATING Prison Officials Deny Current x-rays and Refuse Outside Opinion Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier, who is suffering from a severe medical condition which causes his jaw to be frozen open 13 millimeters, requested current x-rays from prison authorities on May 25, 1999. The x-rays would help Maxillofacial expert, Dr. Eugene Keller of the Mayo Clinic, to determine what can be done to treat Peltier. Because prison authorities are not allowing Peltier to be transferred to the Rochester Medical Facility for federal prisoners, a facility where Dr. Keller could examine and if warranted, treat Peltier, Pelitier's defense team decided to attempt bringing Keller to Peltier instead. Keller is willing to examine Peltier at Leavenworth Penitentiary where Peltier is currently imprisoned, however, he must have current x-rays before making the trip. Prison authorities have not x-rayed Peltier's jaw since 1996. Despite this, prison authorities are not allowing Peltier to receive current x-rays. As of now, the LPDC has received two different responses from two different departments of the Bureau of Prisons regarding the request. The first response is from Phillip S. Wise, Assistant Director of the Health Services Division of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in Washington D.C. In this May 28, 1999 response letter to Senator Wellstone, Mr. Wise states that Dr. Keller is not authorized to receive x-rays of Peltier because he is not contracted with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He goes on to say that, "there is no clinical indication for a second opinion by Dr. Keller." To the contrary, Warden Booker says in his June 8, 1999 direct response to Peltier, "Please be advised that you are free to provide Dr. Keller with copies of records which are contained in your Bureau of Prison's Medical file." However, he completely neglects to address Peltier's request which was for current x-rays. Amnesty International, France Libertes', Physicians for Human Rights, several members of the European Parliament, and many more human rights groups and concerned individuals have written to Warden Booker in support of Peltier's request for current x-rays of his jaw. Up until March of this year, prison authorities were willing to transfer Peltier to the Springfield Medical Facility for a third surgery. Because Peltier had already undergone two unsuccessful surgeries that worsened his condition in 1996 at this same facility, he refused to go. Prison authorities are now confident that Peltier's condition cannot be treated at all. Interestingly, prison authorities made this conclusion without the use of current x-rays. Alarmingly, Phillip S. Wise of the Federal Bureau of Prisons also stated in his response letter that Peltier is suffering from, "diabetes, a cardiac condition, and hyperlipedemia." The prison has not yet begun blending Peltier's food, and because he cannot bite or chew his food, he must eat mostly soft, starchy foods making it difficult for him to control his diet. This may be a contribution to these conditions which prison authorities say he is suffering from. Leonard has had a stroke before and the above conditions are life threatening making his condition even more urgent. Please include the above mentioned serious health conditions when writing and speaking to governmental officials about Leonard Peltier's plight. Additionally, please continue to write and ask others to write Warden Booker and the BOP in support of Leonard's request for x-rays. Attorney Eric Seitz is taking steps to ensure that Leonard receives the treatment he needs, but urges you to help. He also wants us to note that when speaking about Leonard's medical, it is important we use only accurate information In Solidarity, The LPDC HEALTH Ms. Kathleen Hawk Director, Bureau of Prisons 320 First St. NW Washington, DC 20534 Fax: (202) 514-6878 Phone: (202)307-3198 Warden Booker Leavenworth Federal Prison Box 1000 Leavenworth, KS 66048 SAMPLE LETTER IN SUPPORT OF X-RAY REQUEST: Dear Warden Booker, I am a concerned citizen and supporter of inmate, Leonard Peltier, #89637-132. I am aware that Mr. Peltier is suffering from a jaw condition which causes him great discomfort and difficulty in eating. I have been made aware that Mr. Peltier has made a request for current radiographs and C-T scans which will allow Dr. Keller of the Mayo Clinic to determine whether his condition warrants treatment which Dr. Keller would be willing to give Mr. Peltier upon determining he is the right doctor to do so. I understand that these x-rays can be obtained in close vicinity to USPL which will cost the prison and tax payers such as myself, very little. I hope that these x-rays will be taken in an expeditious manner so that Mr. Peltier's suffering can be alleviated. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, xxxxxxxx Leonard Peltier Defense Committee PO Box 583 Lawrence, KS 66044 785-842-5774 --------- "RE: Native Prisoner" --------- Date: Sun, 18 July 99 0817:10 GMT From: Janet Smith (evestar@juno.com) Subj: Contacting those in the Ironhouse UUCP email Tell a Native American Prisoner someone cares! The following is a portion of the list of Native American Prisoners incarcerated in prisons throughout the United States. The full list is found at the Native Prisoners Pen Pal list the following web site: http://www.brooks.simplenet.com/penpal.html. The list is compiled from contributions by Wotanging Ikche readers, other friends and from Laura Brooks' research on Native American Spiritual Freedom in Prison. If you know of a Native prisoner who would like to be included here, please e-mail Janet Smith at jans@atlcom.net. My thanks to Laura Brooks for giving this list a home on the web. Campbell, Ronnie Chafin, Thomas Eugene #326-408 #266-904 PO Box 511 PO Box 7010 Columbus, OH 43216 Chillicothe, OH 45601 Date of Birth: 4/29/67 Date of Birth: 3/9/61 Ancestry: Seminole/Cree Causey, Jearald Keith #A 219-958 Cooper, James David PO Box 5500 #218-840 Chillicothe, OH 45601 PO Box 511 Date of Birth: 8/11/62 Columbus, OH 43216 Ancestry: Cherokee Date of Birth: 1/3/52 Ancestry: Cherokee Conner, Virgil JA205 Casto, Steven PO Box 740 #325-538 London, OH 43140-0740 PO Box 7010 Date of Birth: 5/24/44 Chillicothe, OH 45601 Ancestry: Cherokee Date of Birth: 5/14/54 Ancestry: Cherokee Croft, Troy Donald #902-482 Chastant, Jason Paul PO Box 41 #330297 Michigan City, IN 46361-0041 1453 15th. St. Date of Birth: 3/5/58 Pineville, LA 71360 Ancestry: Cherokee Corob, Larry Carroll Floyd A. #174-714 # CU-2347 C/B/19 PO Box 511 10754 Rt. 18 Columbus, OH 43216 Albion. PA 16475-0002 Date of Birth: 8/24/42 Date of Birth: 11/25/67 Ancestry: Apache/Hopi Ancestry: Blackfoot Laura Brook's website is being updated and old pages moved to a mirror site temporarily. The current address for Laura Brooke's Native American Prisoner pen pal archive list is: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/9118/penpal.html. I'll try to keep an eye on the page to see where it finally ends up and let readers know immediately. Reminder and Caution: It is common for prisoners to be moved abruptly. If your correspondent suddenly quits writing, don't assume it's by choice. Inquire about his location and situation -- often the prison chaplain can help you with this. If you know a prisoner on our list has been moved, please let me know. If your correspondent requests that you send him anything, particularly ceremonial items, check the prison to ensure the requested items are not contraband. Sometimes items of religious significance that are ordinarily banned may be given to the prisoner by the chaplain. --------------------------------- Please especially remember - this is the "Year of Leonard". Leonard Peltier #89637-132, Box 1000, Leavenworth, KS 66048 --------- "RE: Just My Imagination" --------- Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 18:46:24 GMT From: "rustywire" Subj: just my imagination, a dream... Newsgroup: alt.native Just my imagination, my dream Heavenly beings take my mind away to places I walked .....to a time when we were going to change the world and we feared nothing....to a time when the only thing to think on was you....where are you in the smiles of our youth, in the tenderness of touch....we would go about and share the day....your laughter filled my dreams and my hopes were raised each day by seeing you walk into my life...much time has come and gone and I find myself thinking about me and you then.... I rose this morning and found that there are more lines on my face and the youth is gone....I move a little slower and when I returned to you I could see you were still with me....after all these many days turned to months, months to years, after all this time; when dreams meet the dawn, day in and day out, they have come and gone.... I came to you and said what is wrong, is something bothering you.....I was just thinking about us...remembering - when I tried to say it - You said it is time to get up and so I went about rising to meet the dawn..... One more dawn filled with work and children, home and knowing that some dreams come true and are alive You are mine ....I am here and tonight we will be home and share this same place, this home, this life and you will lie next to me once again. Don't you know that this was my dream to see you in the early morning light.... We walk this life together and the promises of youth, the hopes and dreams come to me still. This one, that you would be mine, to share more than a life, to make a new one together and as we grow older and have shared more than we can remember....what can we say back then it was just my imagination, a dream...my dream girl, my wife..you are my life... --------- "RE: A Hundred Years Ago" --------- Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 11:57:25 -0400 From: Landis Subj: [NAT-FILM] History: A Hundred Years Ago - Carlisle - Week 115 Mailing List: NAT-FILM [Editorial Note: These reprints are being included in this newsletter so that you might know the mind of those who ran institutions like Carlisle.]