From gars@speakeasy.org Thu Dec 27 09:28:23 2001 Date: 26 Dec 2001 00:12:22 -0000 From: Gary Night Owl To: Internet Recipients of Wotanging Ikche Subject: Wotanging Ikche--nanews09.052 WOTANGING IKCHE -- Lakota -- Common News Kanoheda Aniyvwiya -- Cherokee -- Journal of the People Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin -- Blackfeet -- News for All the People Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse -- Creek -- People's New News Aunchemokauhettittea -- Naragansett -- Let Us Share News Ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min -- Ojibwe -- We Are Talking About Ourselves Ha-Sah-Sliltha -- Ditidaht Nation -- News of the People Un Chota -- Susquehannic Seneca -- The People Speak Ximopanolti tehuatzin, inin Mexika tlahtolli -- Nahuatl -- For you we offer these words It-hah-pe-hah Ah-num pah-le -- Chickasaw -- Together We Are Talking Sho-da-ku-ye -- Teehahnahmah -- Talking Birchbark Native American News -- Language of the Occupation Forces ==>If you want your Nation represented in the banner of this newsletter<== email gars@nanews.org with the equivalent of "News of the People" in your tribal language along with the english translation O +-----------------------------+ O o O | Much more happens in Indian | O o O VOLUME 09, ISSUE 052 | Country than is reported in | O o o o o O | this weekly newsletter. For | O o O December 29, 2001 | For daily updates & events | O o O | go http://www.owlstar.com/ | O | dailyheadlines.htm | Cherokee v s gi ga/snow moon +-----------------------------+ Yuchi hoctadakya/middle of the winter moon <================<<<< >>>>================> This issue contains articles from www.pechanga.net; www.owlstar.com; www.indianz.com; ndn-aim, First Nations, Chiapas95, Innu-L and Turtle Island Native Network mailing Lists; newsgroup: alt.native; UUCP email IMPORTANT!! ----------- 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@speakeasy.org ++ It is archived at http://www.nanews.org <================<<<< >>>>================> As historian Patricia Nelson Limerick summarized in The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West, "Set the blood quantum at one-quarter, hold to it as a rigid definition of Indians, let intermarriage proceed as it had for centuries, and eventually Indians will be defined out of existence. When that happens, the federal government will be freed of its persistent 'Indian problem.'" "Look at me -- I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches, but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love." __ Chief Red Cloud, Oglala +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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! There is an article in this issue regarding a women's drum group and their legal action after being turned back by the powwow committee. I have strong feelings about this. I sit on a southern drum. We have women singers who back us. None sit at the drum. Women sitting at the drum is not the issue here, in my view. (I thank my Mvskogee wife for planting and nurturing the seed that grew into this editorial.) This group makes a valid point about the absence of males to carry on the traditions and songs, and the change in their roles forced by the non-Indian culture around them. It is true that many or our "traditions" have been altered by outside influences. "Tradition" now decrees that women in the Southeast dance swathed in cloth or other covering from jawbone to toe. This "tradition" is the direct result of European pressure after the invasion. Southeastern summer attire for everyone (men, women, children) was as little as possible before the Spanish, English and French claimed the land we occupied, and their black robes declared us pagan savages for our choices of praise to Creator, dress and justice. Powwow, itself, was rebirthed after World War II to give our returning warriors a way to make a dollar or two off our dances and festivities. Fancy dance and shawl dances were developed explicitly to address commercial concerns and modern female angst. So traditions, including powwow traditions, are clearly subject to transformation. One tradition that should NEVER change is that of respect. Because I respect MY drum, I respect the beliefs and traditions of the head singer and the head of the lady singers. If I'm going to a pow wow, I respect their committee and arena director, because I'm their guest and it's their "house." There's the real problem with this particular situation. The group came as guests to a gathering of people who were not their families. They know their drumming is controversial (or they should have known), and coming without checking to see what the committee's feelings were on the matter, then insisting on playing regardless -- and on top of that, filing a lawsuit, is presumptuous and disrespectful. I doubt any elder advised them to act THAT way. Suing the college will result only in the powwow being asked to find another locale, which only serves to hurt other Indians. This is not a traditional or respectful way for them to handle this disagreement, and it fuels the argument that none of their behavior is respectful or traditionally correct. Whether there is a place for women at the drum, or not, is not my concern, with this editorial. My concern is with dishonor and disrespect, which have no place anywhere in Indian Country. =================================== THIS HELP LISTING WILL CONTINUE THROUGH THE FIRST WEEK IN JANUARY http://www.pechanga.net/ URGENT CALL FOR HOLIDAY HELP FOR SANTEE SIOUX TRIBE Dear Tribal Friend: The Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska is in dire need of our help for the Christmas holidays. As you probably may know, the Department of Justice seized the Santee Sioux tribe's bank accounts and sued to close the tribe's gaming operation because the tribe has been unable to get a tribal-state compact. What you may not know is that the Department of Justice took everything. Not only did they seize tribal bank accounts but they took the funds from a tribal grocery store, their bake sale funds for their elder care program and a fund used to pay for child car safety seats!! It is a daily struggle just to ensure the basic necessities for their children and elders and getting through Christmas will be especially hard. There is one thing you cannot do - you cannot send money directly to the tribe or it will just be taken away. ------------------------------ You can send a check to "Tribal Relief Fund" and mail it to: Mr. Roger Meyer, Casino Morongo Accounting Department 49750 Seminole Drive Cabazon, CA 92230. All monies collected will be used to purchase food and necessities through local stores or to be shipped to the tribe. Here is the request list they sent us that we are using as our guide: FOR ELDERS (79 Tribal Elders) : Turkeys, hams, food baskets, winter coats, gloves FOR YOUNG CHILDREN (540 Children): Apples, oranges, gloves, winter coats and candy FOR THEIR TEENS (121 Teens): Gloves, stocking caps, winter coats It gets bitterly cold in Nebraska and so warm coats, blankets, sweaters, gloves will be especially precious. We are coordinating a central effort so as to ensure minimal duplication. If you have any questions, you can call me at 909-849-4697 or Waltona Manion at 800-937-7692. All tribes who send contributions will be listed in a summary we are sending to the Santee Sioux and we will provide the names of donating tribes and individuals to the media and for posting on Victor Rocha's website www.pechanga.net. Thank you in advance for your generosity to a tribe who will be deeply grateful for your assistance. And this comes with our best wishes for a happy holiday season you will have made better for Santee Sioux tribal families. With sincere appreciation, Damon Sandoval, Morongo Band of Mission Indians, California Anthony Miranda, Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, California Tracy Burris, Chickasaw Nation, and Chairman, Oklahoma Indian Gaming Assn. James Starr, Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma Wilson Pipestem, Otoe-Missouria Tribe, Oklahoma =================================== If you have names and addresses of trustworthy collectors of food, money and clothing gifts at the various reservations please forward them soon. The winter winds already have come down from the north. -=-=-=- I send thanks to my friend, Crazy Bull, for passing along a contact for those who wish to donate food, clothing or fuel money to elders in need on the Rez's. Wopila Russell. Evelynn Charging P O Box #170 Lower Brule, SD 57548 if no answer call Grandmother Charging at Phone: 605-473-5377 the Golden Buffalo Casino 605-473-5577 -=-=-=- From: "Kay" For those of you who wish to 'Give A Gift,' here is the address: Eastern Cherokee Alliance 5411 Laureltree Place Louisville, Ky. 40229 Marty Soaring Eagle said he would distribute/deliver. 1-502-966-8046 Thank you Kay -=-=-=- From: "Nimchira" I am collecting items for the Rosebud Reservation if anyone is interested. Below is a small list of items needed before first snow fall. The first part of the list is what they need now, they have plenty of clothing so far....however there is a shortage of warm jackets, food is also an important need right now...... again, I thank you.... Nim Toiletries: Bath Soap Shampoo and Conditioner Deodorants Tooth brushes, Paste Feminine products Mens Shaving items Bath Towels and wash cloths Non-perishables Food items: Boxed goods Canned goods Bottled Water Baby foods Warm Clothing: Childrens Winter Wear in good repair Men and Womens Winter coats or jackets Gloves, mittens, scarves, hats [knit or crocheted] Other items of warm outer wear. Baby items, diapers Blankets, lots of blankets. For more information you can call Nimchira Webb at: 1-620-278-3842 Items can be left in care of: J. Porter Selman 217 So. 2nd. St. Sterling, Kansas -=-=-=- From: "Brigitte Thimiakis" Subj: Lame Deer Reservation Greetings Gary, I hope this finds you well. I have just received the address for your list(Lame Deer Reservation). I hope it is not too late!=20 There are a couple of thousand children there, many single mothers too. There is a shelter for children up to 15-16 years old. Ann gives them all the assistance she can. Beside toys, warm clothes like jackets, gloves, hats, socks, coats, etc for children and blankets, would be much appreciated. The toys will be distributed during the Christmas give away but the clothes and blankets will be distributed right away. Address for Truck (only): GPTA Building Cheyenne Ave and Ridgewalker Lame Deer, MT Please ask for Ann Booker Only Monday through Friday 9:00a.m. to 5:00p.m. Someone looking for the building could ask anyone they see where the GPTA Building is and they should be able to direct them. Ann Booker works in the office where they work with assistance, etc. [If needed please contact thimiakischool@the.forthnet.gr before the boxes arrive at the office and we can let Ann know in advance.] - Address for shipping items by mail: Ann Booker P.O. Box 1004 LAME DEER MONTANA 59043 Ann's home address is available off list for anyone who would like to send items by UPS (United Parcel Service), at the above email address. -=-=-=- From: dfinstead@setaim.com Elders and children will suffer this winter if they don't receive help. Warm clothing and blankets are needed as well as money for fuel. Also personal needs, soap, toothbrushes, diapers, etc. Please remember to send toys to the children for Christmas. PLEASE DO WHAT YOU CAN TO HELP AND PASS THIS ON TO OTHER LIST, FRIENDS AND FAMILY. >>>>>>> Bonnie Whitesinger Box 1073 Hotevilla, AZ 86030 Would be able to handle fuel donations for Big Mountain. > >>>>>>>>>>>>> There is a needs list on www.blackmesais.org/needslist.html Black Mesa Indigenous Support P.O Box 23501 Flaggstaff Arizona 86002 >>>>>> New Mexico Southwest Indian Foundation, 100 W. Coal, Gallup, NM 87301. > >>>>>> Eastern Cherokee Alliance 5411 Laureltree Place Louisville, KY 40229 Taking clothing, food, and toys >>>>> PINE RIDGE PTI Propane P,O, Box 1987 PIne Ridge, SD 57770 Ph: 1-605-867-5199 >>>> Bennett County Coop P.O. Box T Pine Ridge,SD 57551 ph: 1-605-685-6711 Fuel >>>> I have several families that I buy fuel for in Wanblee.(Pine Ridge) If you'd like to help out with that, it would be appreciated. The money goes directly to the Co-op in Martin, and they deliver the amount paid for, either by credit card, check or M.O. Contact me off list if you want to be a part of that. jdkc@woptura.com J. D. CHIPPS >>>>>> ROSEBUD RES. Alfred Bone Shirt P.O. Box 283 Mission, S.D. 57555, I can be contacted at this email address or by telephone 605-747-4443, For fuel >>>>>>>>> J. Porter Selman [Nim] 217 So. 2nd. St. Sterling, Ks 67579 All donations go to Rose Bud res. >>>>>>>>> ANGEL HAVEN MISSION C/OF GRACE DEEL RT 1 BOX 433 VANSANT VA >>>>> St. Bridgets Catholic Church General Delivery Rosebud Res., SD >>>>>>>>>>>>> ndn-aim list fund (Erth handles it, reciepts sent and amounts posted) For emergency assistance and fuel fund. ndn-aim fund c/o box 1334 Rapid City, SD 57709 I also have address to send clothing, food, etc, to Pine Ridge and Rose Bud (Carter Camp), I will give out off list. These are individuals who can be trusted to distribute to those with needs. You may contact me at dfinstead@setaim.com for these address. Dodie === To subscribe to this group,send an email to: ndn-aim-subscribe@egroups.com -=-=-=- From: "Carter " Ah-Ho Relations, A couple of weeks ago Dodie asked me if I could help some list members by distributing some gifts they had gathered. I said I could because my wife and I know plenty of needy people. After thirty years as a Sundance society leader it seems like hundreds of people call me 'Uncle' or 'Grampa' around here. Anyway both Maureen and Ken have sent some very nice things up and Linda has distributed them. Yesterday she was happy because she had taken a box of things to a young single mother who said her car was broken down and the baby was on her last diaper(in the box was some pampers). She has three kids, no husband and is trying to go to school so she could use the entire box of assorted kid stuff. It was great for Linda and I too, our kids are grown so making these kids happy feels good. Anyway, yesterday I read an article on some lady who delivered a whole semi-truck load of things to Pine Ridge. Along with it was an article comparing the rez to Afghanistan, with starving malnourished elders and children shivering in their log cabins. That is just not true, we are poor here but we're American poor not Afghanistan poor. There's a big difference, our kids have the basics even if their folks have to scramble for it. Our elders do too though they are often too proud to seek help. Our needs aren't for rice or wheat in bulk or for left-over, used clothing. Our needs are for basics but not THAT basic. The new coats and baby things Maureen sent and the pretty little girls outfit that Ken and his wife sent are the kinds of gifts needed. So far, Linda said, all those we have passed these things on to are single parents. My wife has a gift for befriending young mothers so we serve as emergency babysitters and such. If some of you on this list want us to distribute gifts for you we'll do it if you keep what I said in mind. We can't handle a big truckload but we do know many people who are in need, mostly young and with several children. And most of them are from the circle of traditionals that I know from the Sundance. If you want me to pass your gifts along make sure they're things you would give face to face and it will be fine. Winter clothes and toys for xmas. What we don't give to acquaintances we'll give to the various communities and vets center. Carter Dohiyi Ani Oginalii , , Gary Night Owl gars@nanews.org (*,*) P. O. Box 672168 gars@speakeasy.org (`-') Marietta, GA 30006, U.S.A. gars@olagrande.net ===w=w=== gars@sdf.lonestar.org ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ---------- - Crossings - Failure of TAAMS - Dine' Kids make Gifts for Elders traced to Promoted Manager - Independence Man - Indian Leaders helps Oglala Lakotas discuss ways to fix Trust Fund - Powwow Organizers facing Suit - Guest Opinion: by Women's Drum Justice near for Native Americans - Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux - Native Chiefs move to block make Historic Grant Indian Act Changes - BIA approves Crow Charter - OST Spokesman upset with - Comment sought on BIA Reorganization Plan Water Rights Proposal - Oklahoma Indian Land - Researchers Blame creates Jurisdictional Maze Klamath Troubles on Racism - Secwepemc Pipe Carriers - 3 Arrested in Shooting Spree return to McGillvray Lake tied to Water War - White Earth Tribal Police - Poverty & Despair cloud face Criticism Future of Indian Children - Native Prisoner - Acteal Residents -- Violations of Religious Rights still seeking Justice - History: Carlisle Indian School - Buffalo Sales not Bullish - John Rustywire: Snow (Zas) - Bison Herd is Spiritual Link - Poem: Who Am I to the Oneida Past - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days - Sitting Bull Campsite Preserved - Tribe Tries to sustain - BIA Check Delay Harmful Ho-Chunk Language - Status of Trust Fund Software - Native America Calling irks Judge --------- "RE: Crossings" --------- Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2001 10:17:07 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CROSSINGS" December 19,2001 Alice Mary Kellywood CHURCH ROCK Services for Alice Kellywood, 62, will be held at 10 a.m., Thursday, Dec. 20 at Cope Memorial Chapel. Pastor Mary Lou Nelson will officiate. Burial will follow at Gallup City Cemetery. Visitation will be held from noon to 2-5 p.m., today at Cope Memorial Chapel. Kellywood died Dec. 14 in Albuquerque. She was born Nov. 19, 1939 in Fort Wingate into the Sleep-Rock People for the Within His Cover Clan. Kellywood attended school in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was employed with the Jamestown Cafe and Eagle Cafe. Her hobbies included sewing, weaving, knitting, hiking and playing sports. Survivors include her sons, Richard R. Upshaw Wauneka of Church Rock, James Wauneka of Albuquerque, Thomas Kellywood and Jonathan Kellywood of Gallup, Jeffery Kellywood of Rehoboth and Johnny Kellywood of Albuquerque; daughters, Elizabeth Willie and Paulette Upshaw both of Gallup; brothers, Arthur Upshaw of Church Rock, Herbert Upshaw of Iyanbito and Benjamin Upshaw of Albuquerque; sisters, Rosie Quicero of Gamerco, Louise Willis and Grace Upshaw both of Salt Lake City, Utah; and 20 grandchildren. Kellywood was preceded in death by her husband, Johnny B. Kellywood and parents, Ernest and Pauline Chee Upshaw. Pallbearers will be James Wauneka, Richard Upshaw, Thomas Kellywood, Jonathan Kellywood, Jeffery Kellywood and Johnny Kellywood. The family will receive friends and relatives after the burial services at Church Rock Chapter House. Cope Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements. Doyaltee Begay II KITSILLIE, Ariz. Services for Doyaltee Begay II, were held at 10 a.m., today at St. Mary of the Rosary Catholic Church, Pion, Ariz. Father Philip Chmielewski officiated. Burial followed at Black Mesa Cemetery. Begay II died Dec. 15 in Winslow, Ariz. He was born April 16, 1902 in Kitsillie, Ariz. December 21, 2001 Stella F. Begay SUNDANCE - Services for Stella Begay, 50, will be held at 10 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 22 at Rollie Mortuary-Palm Chapel. Rev. Lawrence J. O'Keefe will officiate. Burial will follow at Sunset Memorial Park. Begay died Dec. 19 in Gallup. She was born May 8, 1951 in Box Canyon into the Black Sheep People Clan for the One Who Walks Around You People Clan. Survivors include her husband, Raymond Begay of Sundance; sons, Shawn Begay of Pinedale and Tristin Begay of Sundance; daughters, Falisha Begay of Sundance and Shannette Begay of Rehoboth; mother, Elizabeth Francis of Manuelito; sister, Shirley Burbank of Gallup; brothers, Johnnie Francis of Window Rock; Raymond Francis of Gallup and Johnnie Thompson of Tohatchi; and four grandchildren. Begay was preceded in death by her father, Charley Francis; brother, Tom Francis Sr.; sisters, Dorothy Goldtooth and Dianne Thompson and grandparents, Charlie Dayea and Nasbah Dayea. Pallbearers will be Roger Bradley, Ronald Burbank, Terence Burbank, Colin Francis, Delwin Francis and Raymond Francis. Rollie Mortuary is in charge of arrangements. Eunice Maxine Newman COOLIDGE - Services for Eunice Newman, 68, will be held at 11 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 22 at Bethany Christian Reformed Church. Rev. Keith Bulthuis will officiate. Burial will follow on private family cemetery. Newman died Dec. 19 in Albuquerque. She was born Oct. 10, 1933 in Twin Lakes into the Towering Rock People Clan for the Mexican People Clan. Survivors include her husband, Andrew Newman Jr. of Coolidge; son, Shane Bert of Zuni; daughters, Louvina Bert of Zuni, Dorinda Newman and Beverly A. Newman-Segura both of Coolidge; brothers, Casey Jones of Pinedale, Donald Jones and Tom Jones both of Twin Lakes; sisters, Cornelia Bowannie, Eva Cellicion and Sally Kanteena all of Zuni, Ella Mae Jones and Sarah Jones both of Twin Lakes; two grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. Newman was preceded in death by her parents, Charley Jones, Mary Ann Jones, Crystal Sheka; sons, Andy Newman III and Christopher Newman; brothers, Henry Jones and Kee Jones and sister, Mary Jones. Pallbearers will be Shane Bert, Ardale Delena, Phillip Henio, Henry Newman, Leo Nez, Knifewing Segura, Shilo Segura and Sonny Terry. Rollie Mortuary is in charge of arrangements. Copyright c. 2001 The Gallup Independent. -=-=-=- December 20, 2001 Doyle Frank Kills Back PORCUPINE - Doyle Frank Kills Back, 1-1/2 months, Porcupine, died Monday, Dec. 17, 2001, in Porcupine. Survivors include his parents, Denise and Hugh Kills Back, Porcupine; one sister, Stephanie Kills Back, Porcupine; one brother, Dennis Kills Back II, Porcupine; his paternal grandfather, Morris Kills Back, Porcupine; and his maternal grandmother, Philomena Frogg, Porcupine. A one-night wake will begin at 1 p.m. Friday, Dec. 21, at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Hall in Porcupine. Services will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 22, at the parish hall, with the Rev. Ben Tyon and the Rev. Cordelia Red Owl officiating. Burial will be at St. Albin's Episcopal Cemetery in Porcupine. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. December 21, 2001 Minorvine Victor One Horn KYLE - Minorvine Victor One Horn, 5 months, Kyle, died Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2001, in Pine Ridge. Survivors include his mother, Tylene One Horn, Kyle; maternal grandparents Bill One Horn and Diane Eagle Elk, both of Kyle; and grandmother Justina One Horn. One-night wake begins at 3 p.m. today at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Kyle. Services will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 22, at the church, with the Rev. Willard One Horn and the Rev. Daniel Makes Good officiating. Burial will be at the One Horn Family Plot in No Flesh Community, Kyle. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. December 22, 2001 Gerald Lyle Brown Sr. WANBLEE - Gerald Lyle Brown Sr., 70, Wanblee, died Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2001, in Rosebud. Survivors include his wife, Sylvia Brown, Wanblee; six sons, Peter Red Willow, Harley Brown, Edward Brown and Nelson Brown, all of Wanblee, Gerald Brown Jr., Eagle Butte, and Richard Brown, Rapid City; three daughters, Marlyce Long and Sheryl Brown, both of Rosebud, and Rita Brown, Wanblee; and four brothers, Art Brown, Alliance, Neb., Victor Brown and Joe Brown, both of Casper, Wyo., and John Brown, Riverton, Wyo. He served in the U.S. Army from 1952 to 1956. A two-night wake will begin at 11 a.m. today at the Wanblee CAP. Services will be at 1 p.m. Monday, Dec. 24, at the Wanblee CAP, with the Rev. Daniel Makes Good officiating. Burial will be at Gethsemane Episcopal Cemetery in Wanblee. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. Jaylynn Marie Sitting Up WANBLEE - Jaylynn Marie Sitting Up, 10, Wanblee, died Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2001, in Martin. Survivors include her mother, Winona Sitting Up, Wanblee; her maternal grandfather, Raymond Sitting Up, Wanblee; and uncle Donovan Ashley, Wanblee. A two-night wake will begin at noon today, Saturday, at the Winona Sitting Up residence in Wanblee. The second night will begin at 1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 23, at Crazy Horse School in Wanblee. Services will be at 10 a.m. Monday, Dec. 24, at the school, with the Rev. Joe Damhorst officiating. Burial will be at Gethsemane Episcopal Cemetery in Wanblee. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. Celia Brewer PINE RIDGE - Celia Brewer, 90, Pine Ridge, died Friday, Dec. 21, 2001. Survivors include one sister, Clemintine Tyon, Pine Ridge. Arrangements are pending with Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge. Herman Everette Elk Boy PORCUPINE - Herman Everette Elk Boy, 56, Porcupine, died Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2001, in Hot Springs. Survivors include his wife, Vestana Elk Boy, Porcupine; his mother, Christine Elk Boy; four sisters, Bernadine Elk Boy, Diane Elk Boy and Anita Horse, all of Porcupine, and Susie Elk Boy, Los Angeles; and three brothers, Warren Elk Boy, Carl Elk Boy and John Elk Boy, all of Porcupine. He served in the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1967. A two-night wake will begin at 1 p.m. Monday, Dec. 24, at the Porcupine CAP. Services will be at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 26, at the Porcupine CAP. Burial will be at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. December 25, 2001 Dennis James `D.J.' Big Crow PINE RIDGE - Dennis James "D.J." Big Crow, 25, Pine Ridge, died Saturday, Dec. 22, 2001, at Red Shirt Table as a result of an automobile accident. Survivors include his parents, Gerald and Jackie Big Crow, Pine Ridge, and three brothers, Waylon Big Crow and John Big Crow, both of Pine Ridge, and William Big Crow, Okinawa, Japan. One-night wake begins at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 26, at Billy Mills Hall in Pine Ridge. Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 27, at Billy Mills Hall. Wilmer Mesteth will officiate at traditional services. Burial will be at St. Anne's Catholic Cemetery in Wolf Creek. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. Madeline Living Outside RED SHIRT TABLE - Madeline Living Outside, 76, Red Shirt Table, died Saturday, Dec. 22, 2001, at Rapid City Regional Hospital. Survivors include two sons, Manual Martin, Oglala, and David Martin, Buffalo Gap; four daughters, Marilyn Martin, Red Shirt Table, Gerilyn Collins, Rapid City, Beulah Peters, Salt Lake City, and Arlette Weasel Bear, Aberdeen, Wash.; one sister, Evangeline Romey, Buffalo Gap; 22 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren. One-night wake begins at 1 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 27, at Brother Rene Catholic Hall in Oglala. Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. Friday, Dec. 28, at Brother Rene Hall, with the Rev. Earl Kurth officiating. Burial will be at St. Bernard's Catholic Cemetery in Red Shirt Table. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. Copyright c. 2001 The Rapid City Journal. -=-=-=- December 19, 2001 Mark J. Betoni Mark J. Betoni, 37, passed away in Albuquerque Dec. 15, 2001. He was born Jan. 4, 1964, in Otis to John and Ruby Ruth Betoni. He was preceded in death by his mother, Ruby Ruth Betoni. He is survived by his father, John of Nageezi; two sons, Maurice Betoni and Aaron Betoni, both of Albuquerque; nine brothers, Vern Betone of Gallup, Leroy Betoni of Kirtland, Juan Betoni of Dzilth-na-o-dith-hle, Randall Betonie of Bloomfield, John Betoni Jr., Eugene Betoni, David Betoni and Ronnie Betonie, all of Nageezi, and Byron Betoni of Bloomfield; and one sister, Leta Tso of Gallup. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 22, 2001, at Brethren in Christ Mission in Otis. Pastor Ben Stoner will officiate. Interment will follow at Brethren in Christ Mission Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Brian Betoni, Mitchel Betoni, Juan Betoni III, Irvin Tso, Willard Martinez and Ralph Harrison. Honorary pallbearers will be Maurice Betoni, Aaron Betoni, Vern Betone, Leroy Betoni, Randall Betonie, John Betoni Jr., Eugene Betoni, David Betoni, Ronnie Betoni and Byron Betoni. Arrangements are with Brewer, Lee & Larkin Funeral Home, 103 E. Ute St. in Farmington, (505) 325-8688. December 22, 2001 Tony Tache Tony Tache, 18, of Teec Nos Pos, Ariz., died Saturday, Dec. 22, 2001. He is survived by his adoptive mother and father, John and Mary Blackwater; sisters, Vickie Blackwater, Angie Tache, Sena Tache and Marita Tache; brothers, Russell Blackwater, Timother Blackwater, John Blackwater, Jr., Nathaniel Blackwater, Lionel Blackwater, Bronson Tache, Toby Tache, Wesley Tache, Christopher Tache, Ricky Tache, Bobby Tache, Randy Tache and Derian Tache. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Monday, Dec. 24, 2001, at Chapel of Memories Funeral Home in Kirtland. Burial will be at Immanual Mission Community Cemetery in Sweetwater, Ariz. Arrangements are with Chapel of Memories Funeral Home, Kirtland (505) 598-9636. December 24, 2001 Dorothy W. Yazzie Dorothy W. Yazzie, 74, of Carson, passed away Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2001. She was of the Taachiini and Naakaidin clan. She was preceded in death by her sisters, Mary W. Betsillie and Bessie Pine; her brothers, Edward White, Joe White, Willie White, and Hugh White; nieces, Daisy White, Rose W. Armstrong and Lillie B. Nez; and nephews, Andy White, Jack Joe White and Avery White. Dorothy is survived by her husband, George W. Yazzie; son, Curtis W. Yazzie of Denver, Colo.; grandchildren, Arthur Yazzie and wife, Harriett, of Shiprock, and Janie and Rebecca Yazzie of Vero Beach, Fla.; sister, Minnie Burns of Carson; brother, Cecil White of Bloomfield; nieces, Ella Blackie, Elsie Newton, Betty Willie, Lena Edwards, Rena Todacheene, Rena, Marie and Jane Pine, Jessie Bunny, Rose Mary and Sarah White, Annabelle, Annalee, Annagail, Annajean and Annamarie White, Judy Platero, Jeannette Burns, Dorothy Wero, Dorothy Yazzie and Ruby Newton; nephews, Sam White, Eddie Betsille, Raymond Betsillie, Harold Pine, Larry White, Harry White, Thomas White, Billy W. Begay, Johnny W. Begay, Andrew Simpson, Bruce Burns, Anderson Burns, Charlie Burns, Willie White and Lee Freddie White. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 27, at Brewer, Lee and Larkin Funeral Home, 103 E. Ute St. in Farmington. Pastor Pauline Platero of the Carson Assembly of God Church will officiate. Burial will be at the Brethren In Christ Cemetery in Otis. Pallbearers will be Eddie Betsillie, Harold Pine, Bruce Burns, Wilbert Armstrong, Leonard Armstrong and Gary Tinhorn. Alternate will be Charles Burns. Arrangements are with Brewer, Lee and Larkin Funeral Home in Farmington, (505) 325-8688. Copyright c. 1999-2001 MediaNews Group, Inc/Farmington Daily Times. --------- "RE: Dine' Kids make Gifts for Elders" --------- Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 09:10:17 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GIFTS TO ELDERS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.gallupindependent.com/todaysnews.html#anchor7 Dine' kids make gifts for elders Larry Di Giovanni Staff Writer CHINLE - Lucky 7 times 11 - elderly Navajos at the Chinle Nursing Home will receive a whopping 77 school-made Christmas stockings full of gifts, compliments of teachers and first through third graders at Chinle Primary School. This is the first time the school's approximately 760 students have embarked on such a project, first grade teacher Helen Dineyazhe said. "We're trying to give back to the community, and we're trying to get our kids to respect our elders and not forget the elderly during the holidays," she offered. And it's working. Many students, some of whom don't have biological grandparents, are referring to those they're stuffing stockings for as "grandpa and grandma" - in both English and Navajo. Each class has jumped at the assignment of stocking creations, making them out of paper or cloth or both... Copyright c. 2001 The Gallup Independent. --------- "RE: Independence Man helps Oglala Lakotas" --------- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 08:54:10 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LAKOTA HELP" http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/ http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/local.pat,local/3acd368a.c16,.html Independence man helps Oglala Lakotas survive on South Dakota reservation By NICOLE GULL - The Kansas City Star Date: 12/16/01 22:15 Alex White Plume, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, said the majority of his people are "just existing." He raises buffalo and horses on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Manderson, S.D., where he has lived all his life. He said he does not know how his people will survive. White Plume said that well over half the families on the reservation live in poverty in rotting homes. Food is scarce, he said, and winter is just setting in. Needs, he said, are many. For the past six years, Independence resident Richard Boyden has been trying to meet those needs through Operation Morning Star. And this year, he's preparing to do it again. Boyden has made the 14-hour drive to Pine Ridge three to four times each year with food, toys, new clothes, wood-burning stoves, chain saws and sewing machines. Over the years, Boyden said, he's provided the Lakota people with more than 35 tons of goods. This year, Boyden will pack up Saturday and, with a dozen other volunteers, drive the familiar 750-mile route in pickup trucks pulling 16- foot box trailers. The volunteers will stay two or three days and help the Oglala Lakota people with chores, repairs and whatever else they need. "I would like to get up there six times a year with people who want to get involved on an ongoing basis, not just Christmas," said Boyden, a former radio personality. "The conditions up there are ongoing. The needs are ongoing." Wilda White Face, another resident of the reservation, said Boyden had brought loads of donations to her home in Manderson, including canned food and tomato plants. "I gave out a lot of food to a lot of people," said White Face, who said she uses food stamps to feed her family of 18. "Everybody came and got what they needed." White Plume said that the Oglala Lakota people were thankful for the effort of Boyden and other volunteers. "What most people need around here is wood stoves," he said. "And last year he brought a bunch of them. A lot of people just had a good winter because of him." Boyden said that if people were interested in helping, he'd like to set up a fund from which tribes could draw to pay for heat. He also said individuals may "adopt" Oglala Lakota families. In addition to items such as commercial sewing machines, sleeping bags and wood stoves, Boyden said he needed a donated diesel truck with a 16- foot box trailer so he could haul as much as possible. Boyden has set up two drop-off locations for his trip: From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, Budget Muffler, 720 W. 23rd St., Independence, will accept nonperishable items. Frozen and perishable foods may be dropped off only after 3 p.m. Saturday. Overland Park Jeep, 8775 Metcalf Ave., will accept donations from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For more information about Operation Morning Star, visit www.boydenweb.com, call (816) 461-6666 or send e-mail to richard@boydenweb.com. To reach Nicole Gull, call (816) 234-7805 or send e-mail to ngull@kcstar.com. Copyright c. 2001 The Kansas City Star --------- "RE: Powwow Organizers facing Suit by Women's Drum" --------- Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 19:57:39 -0500 From: "Mike Putfus" Subj: Pow Wow Newsgroup: alt.native http://www.pioneerplanet.com/news/mtc_docs/209844.htm ST. PAUL: Powwow organizers facing suit BY HANNAH ALLAM Pioneer Press The Sweetgrass Road Drum Group drove from Canada to the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul last month for a chance to show other young, Native American women that powwow drumming is no longer just a men's tradition. But instead of a repeat of their well-received performance in 2000, the women were asked to leave the annual campus powwow and now claim organizers offered them money to exit quietly, according to a civil complaint against the University of St. Thomas to be filed this week in Ramsey County. Attorneys for the school filed a motion in district court Monday asking a judge to dismiss the matter. "We were turned away from our own community and that hurt us the most," said Raven Hart-Bellecourt, one of the plaintiffs. "They were trying to stomp on our pride, our honor and our dignity." The controversy highlights a divide in Indian Country. Drumming is historically a sacred art performed only by men, though a handful of female groups recently have risked ostracism to challenge convention. The case also places the university in the middle -- does the Catholic institution uphold state anti-discrimination laws or is this a religious matter better settled by American Indians? The members of the powwow committee who asked the women to leave said they could not comment because of the pending lawsuit. "The drum is a sacred object, a religious object, and the powwow is a Native American event, and Native Americans should determine how it is run," said Phyllis Karasov, an attorney for the school. "The University of St. Thomas itself does not discriminate." The two-day powwow, sponsored by St. Thomas for 14 years, draws at least 5,000 spectators to watch 250 dancers and several drum groups compete for prizes. The women hold the school responsible for discriminating against them because the powwow is held on campus and is organized in part by university students or staff members, according to the complaint. The six women suing the university are: Linell Maytwayashing, Shanolyn Maytwayashing, Carrie Okemow, Tammy Campeau, Tara Campeau and Hart- Bellecourt, the daughter of Vernon Bellecourt, founder of the Minnesota- based American Indian Movement. The women are ages 15 to 25 and live in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Three of them performed at the 2000 powwow as part of a group called the White Turtle Women Singers, Hart-Bellecourt said. They scraped together the money to return for last month's powwow and had no problem registering. But when they set up their drum and prepared to play, the women were approached by powwow organizers who said policy prevented them from participating, according to the complaint. The Sweetgrass singers packed their belongings and left in tears. "We brought a drum group together because there's a lot of women in single-parent families and we want to teach our children our ceremonies and ways," she said. "Our teachings come from an elder, through his prayers. There's nobody who can judge us for what we do. The only person we have to answer to is the Creator." Hannah Allam can be reached at hallam@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-2172. Copyright c. 2001 PioneerPlanet/St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press/ TwinCities.com. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux make Historic Grant" --------- Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:41:44 -0800 From: "Jess Hansen" Subj: "Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Makes Historic Grant to College Fund" Mailing List: ndn-aim Wednesday, 19 Dec 2001 21:50 "Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Makes Historic Grant to American Indian College Fund" PRIOR LAKE, Minn. (U.S. Newswire) -- "The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of Prior Lake, Minn., today made history by donating a total of $900,000 over a three-year period to the American Indian College Fund. The donation launches a new initiative by the College Fund to raise a $10 million endowed fund in scholarships for all American Indian students. "The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is happy to support such a worthwhile endeavor," said Stanley Crooks, chairman of the tribe. "Nothing is more important to the community than the future of Native American youth. I think the students who will receive these scholarships will be able to do great things to help their people. They live in both worlds: Indian and non-Indian and now they will have access to the best educational opportunities in America." The donation will be given in three annual installments of $300,000 and will be used as a challenge grant from other tribal nations to build an endowed scholarship fund for all Indian students, including those at tribal colleges and at mainstream institutions. Once matched, the interest generated from the endowment will be distributed to the best and brightest Native students attending any accredited college or university in the country. "This gift is very significant in Indian history because it marks the first time a tribe has committed to supporting scholarships for American Indian students across the country," said Richard Williams, executive director of the College Fund. "We deeply appreciate the care and generosity of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community to support education for all Indian people." The American Indian College Fund, formed in 1989, has spent more than a decade helping to increase educational opportunities for Native students. With its credo "educating the mind and spirit," the Denver-based non- profit distributes scholarships and support to tribal colleges across the country. This aid directly supports more than 5,000 students in achieving their college education. The College Fund also supports endowments, developmental needs and public awareness, as well as college programs in Native cultural preservation and teacher training. Over the past three years, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community has donated more than $12 million to Indian tribes and non-profit entities. The SMSC is a federally recognized Indian tribe located in Prior Lake, Minn." Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ___________________________________________________. To subscribe to this group,send an email to: ndn-aim-subscribe@egroups.com Archived on line at: http://www.eScribe.com FREE LEONARD PELTIER --------- "RE: BIA approves Crow Charter" --------- Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 09:10:17 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NEW CROW CHARTER" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?section=local BIA approves Crow charter Thu Dec 20 09:20:50 CST 2001 Central Time BY JAMES HAGENGRUBER OF THE GAZETTE STAFF The Crow Tribe's new constitution has been approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Questions over the legitimacy of the 13-page document have caused months of confusion and chaos on the reservation south of Billings. At one point, tribal attorneys said federal approval was not needed, and the tribe went ahead and held elections for a newly formed legislature. "The approval wasn't necessary to validate the constitution, but it was helpful to settle the unrest," tribal attorney Majel Russell said Wednesday. The document was signed Dec. 4 by Neil McCaleb, assistant secretary of Indian Affairs for the U.S. Department of Interior. One week earlier, opponents to the constitutional changes took over the tribe's headquarters in Crow Agency for two days, demanding a secret ballot election be held to decide the fate of the constitution. The federal approval will not put the unrest to rest, said Bob Kelly, a longtime critic of the process by which the constitution was adopted. "I'm really curious to know if the people are ever going to accept this, " Kelly said. "There's going to be all these ghosts sitting there saying this thing was never voted on. This is not the democratic process that we witnessed here, not until we have a vote on it." Kelly said a lawsuit to stop the changes is being considered. The tribe's former constitution dates to 1948. The new document makes sweeping changes, including setting up separate branches of government with a House of Representatives. Previously, the tribe was governed by a general council in which every adult member had the right to vote. The general council bore no resemblance to the tribe's traditional clan system of government, said Leroy Not Afraid, spokesman for the tribe. The council's quarterly meetings were chaotic, with fights often breaking out and allegiances being traded. "There was no stability in that old form of government," he said. "It created chaos, it created division. It created hate among our people. It did not work." Keith Beartusk, Rocky Mountain regional director of the BIA, said the new constitution would help the tribe stabilize and attract economic development. "I think it is definitely a step in the right direction," Beartusk said. "One of the things this constitution will do is bring the necessary balance the government has been lacking. ... They needed to move to a more modern form of government." Promising a "new beginning," Clifford Birdinground was elected in May, 2000, as chairman of the tribe. On July 14, 2001, constitutional changes pushed for by Birdinground were approved at the tribal council. Birdinground called it a victory and a fresh start. Critics called foul, saying a secret ballot election was required but not used to adopt the document. Beartusk said the BIA looked into concerns surrounding the new constitution, mainly with how it was adopted. In the end, "The tribe did address them in a form that was acceptable to us," Beartusk said. One of the stickier issues was over the constitution's doubling of the executive leaders' terms of office to four years. "We were concerned about that," Beartusk said. "The voters that went to the polls that day were voting on a two-year term and that gets changed to four-years." Beartusk said federal attorneys reviewed the term extension and called them "highly unusual" but not illegal. Although the federal government signed off on the constitution Dec. 4, the document was made effective going back to July 14. Members of the new legislature will meet for the first time on Jan. 14. Not Afraid said the constitution is the tribe's boldest step toward economic independence. The reservation is filled with mineral and petroleum resources. Businesses will be more interested in working with a stable government, he predicted. "We are going to create a new beginning. We will move forward," he said. "It is exciting for us." James Hagengruber can be reached at 657-1232 or at jhagengruber@billingsgazette.com Copyright c. The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Comment sought on Water Rights Proposal" --------- Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 08:22:58 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FLATHEAD WATER" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.montanaforum.com/rednews/2001/12/18/build/tribal/flathead Comment sought on controversial water rights proposal Tuesday, December 18, 2001 By JOHN STROMNES of the Missoulian WHITEFISH - The Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission sent out a plea Monday for public comment on the dicey issue of a proposed tribal- state water rights agreement in the Flathead region. The plea was made during a meeting of the Flathead Basin Commission, which met in Whitefish. The issue: A far-reaching proposal by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to assume jurisdiction of all water rights on the Flathead Reservation as a first step in negotiating a compact with the state and federal governments over contentious water issues. Under the tribal proposal, the state would be required to concede that all water on the reservation, surface and below ground, is tribal. The tribe would recognize non-Indian users' existing claims to tribal water, guaranteeing them fairness and due process in a tribally administered forum. Kevin Howlett, tribal representative on the Flathead Basin Commission and a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council, said existing non-Indian users' water rights will be respected. But additional allocations of water to non-Indians is questionable. "We are willing to share the water, but we are not willing to say our future (tribal) uses are going to be compromised," Howlett said. The tribal confederacy believes control of water resources is a vital to preserving its culture, especially its aboriginal fishing rights "in the usual and accustomed places," as guaranteed by the Hellgate Treaty of 1855. State government and the water compact commission have reacted warily so far, asking for written clarification of "substantive issues" raised by the tribal proposal. Issues include how such an agreement might affect seniority or water rights, changes of water use and points of diversion, new uses, off- reservation "aboriginal" rights, along with procedural points. The state also has asked which issues are negotiable, and which are not. "If anybody has ideas, concerns, opposition, let us know in the next month," said Susan Cottingham, the compact commission's top staff member. Cottingham told the Missoulian that no formal public hearings will be called by the commission to solicit public comment. It is up to agencies, organizations and people who believe they have a stake in the matter to contact the commission to either schedule informal meetings with commission representatives or present written comments. The commission is chaired by Chris D. Tweeten, a state Department of Justice attorney. The address is 1 635 11th Ave., P.O. Box 201601, Helena MT 59620-1601. The commission so far has received written public comment only from a Plains resident and from the Flathead Joint Board of Control, representing irrigators in the Mission Valley and eastern Sanders County. Commission representatives also have met with the Lake County commissioners and conservation districts in Lake and eastern Sanders County, plus the Joint Board of Control, Cottingham said. If and when a draft agreement among tribal, state and federal governments is reached, the commission will schedule more public meetings. All negotiations between the state and tribe are open to the public, and public comment may be accepted during these meetings. Reporter John Stromnes can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or jstromnes@missoulian.com Copyright c. 2000-2001 Helena Independent Record and Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Researchers Blame Klamath Troubles on Racism" --------- Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 09:10:17 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="KLAMATH PROBLEMS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41212,00.html Researchers Blame Klamath Troubles on Racism Wednesday, December 19, 2001 KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. - Oregon State University scientists offered a draft report Wednesday on the Klamath Basin water wars identifying a lack of leadership and an undercurrent of racism as obstacles to solutions, and calculating economic impacts at a fifth of local estimates. The 301-page report was conceived last July after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation shut off irrigation water to about 90 percent of the 200,000- acre Klamath Project irrigation system to conserve water for endangered suckers in Upper Klamath Lake and threatened salmon in the Klamath River. "The big broad picture is we'd like to raise the quality of the discussion about policy through information," said Jim Gallagher, an OSU Extension Service leadership trainer serving as facilitator on the project. "We were very frustrated that there was no certainty about what this all meant to the community. There were people arguing there was no effect because the Klamath is not an agricultural community. There were other people arguing, `Yes, we are.' A team of faculty from OSU, the University of California at Davis and the University of California at Berkeley produced the report. Seventeen sections cover history, community impacts, fish and wildlife, water resources and law, agricultural resources, economics, public policy issues and alternative strategies for allocating water. The draft was to be presented to the local community at the offices of the Oregon State University Extension Service. The writers of the report hoped to use comments from people at the presentation and e-mails from people reading it on the Internet (http://eesc.orst.edu/klamath/) to improve the report, then issue a final version in March. In a section titled "Consequences for the Community," researchers interviewed 70 people one-on-one and in focus groups. Researchers identified a clear lack of "visionary leadership" to craft workable solutions, a high level of frustration based on uncertainty over future irrigation deliveries, as well as an undercurrent of racism in relations between farmers and the Klamath Tribes. The Klamath Tribes hold the endangered Lost River sucker and shortnosed sucker as sacred gifts of food from their creator, and have pressed efforts to protect them. Maintaining higher water levels in Upper Klamath Lake, where the fish live, was a factor in the decision to shut off water to farms. One unidentified farmer acknowledged to researchers that racism runs quietly beneath the surface in relations with Indians. The report noted that contributions dropped dramatically from non-Indian businesses to a tribal social service agency that helps mostly non-Indians overcome drug and alcohol problems. The reason was the water conflict. It also noted that Indians standing in line at social service agencies had become much quieter so as not to draw attention to themselves. Looking at Klamath County in Oregon and Modoc and Siskiyou counties in California, the report identified agriculture as a $320 million industry accounting for 7.9 percent of the Upper Klamath Basin economy, ranking behind construction and wood products manufacturing and above health care, real estate, retail trade and government. The report calculated overall drought impacts at $74.2 million, and losses directly from shutting off irrigation water to protect endangered fish at $44.5 million. Local estimates of agricultural losses last summer from the irrigation cutbacks were put at $250 million, and Congress appropriated $100 million in emergency aid to Klamath Project farmers. The report noted that if Klamath River flows had been allowed to drop below federal levels to protect salmon, as they were during the 1992 drought, there would have been no need to shut off irrigation to the project. Also, some farms within the irrigation project were able to irrigate from wells. Agriculture accounts for 5,964 jobs, which amount to 10 percent of basinwide employment. That ranks behind retail trade and education, and ahead of health care and motels and restaurants. Based on 1997 figures, the region has 2 million acres in agriculture, with 2,239 farms averaging 896 acres each. The top crop based on value is alfalfa, followed by cattle, potatoes, pasture and grains. The Klamath Project accounts for 1,400 of the 1,744 irrigated farms in the basin, and 195,000 of the 542,000 irrigated acres. The project accounted for $109 million of the $239 million in 1997 agricultural sales. Copyright c. Associated Press. All rights reserved. Copyright c. Fox News Network, LLC 2001. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: 3 Arrested in Shooting Spree tied to Water War" --------- Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 18:05:44 -0800 From: Jess Hansen Subj: "3 arrested in shooting spree tied to Klamath water war; men taunted Indians, witnesses say" Mailing List: First Nations Yes. In this "day and age." ___________________________________________________ December 20, 2001 / 14:32 "3 arrested in shooting spree tied to Klamath water war; men taunted Indians, witnesses say" KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) -- "Three white men were arrested and accused of taunting Indians and firing shotguns at signs and buildings during an hour long spree stemming from a conflict over scarce water supplies. Witnesses said the men drove through the town of Chiloquin in a pickup on Dec. 1, yelling, "Sucker lovers!" a reference to fish considered sacred by the Klamath Tribes. Chiloquin, a town of about 800, is home to the offices of the Klamath Tribes. "To be doing this, to me, is really an act of terrorism," Sheriff Tim Evinger said. "I consider it to be terrorizing an entire community." *Complete at above URL/Link* --------- "RE: Poverty & Despair cloud Future of Indian Children" --------- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 08:54:10 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="DESPAIR" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.argusleader.com/news/Sundayfeature.shtml Poverty, despair cloud future of Indian children By Steve Young published: 12/16/01 New programs help youths finish school, gain job skills, fight disease PINE RIDGE - When his father was killed by a drunken driver on the streets of Oglala in 1997, Gabriel Fast Horse Jr. lost more than a guiding hand. He may have lost his way in a tribal society where cultural pride often is crushed by the forces of poverty, joblessness and apathy. At 16, Fast Horse has dropped out of school. He's been knifed at a bus stop. He has covered his arms in the tattooed tears of clowns. And now he's about to become a father. "It makes me heartsick to see him this way when I know he has so much potential," says his mother, Marina Fast Horse. It's a common lament on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where children face a future marked by unemployment, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, violence, chronic disease and the lowest life expectancy in America. Nearly 45 percent of the people living on tribal land in South Dakota are younger than 21, according to the 2000 census. The latest figures provide the most accurate picture of who lives on South Dakota's seven reservations and two clusters of tribal trust land. The large percentage of young people in Indian Country presents a hard reality to social service workers and teachers trying to give children a better life. There are signs of hope, from a program that pays teen-agers to work on their education and job skills to an aggressive effort to help young people reduce the threat of diabetes. "I wish I could tell you we're having immediate impacts," says Dr. Joan Gibson, director of a diabetes-prevention program on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. "I can't do that. But I can tell you that we're in this for the long term. And there will be successes. I have no doubt about that." Pine Ridge, where more than half the residents are younger than 21, is the youngest and most populous of South Dakota's reservations. The birth rate here is 1 to 2 times higher than the national average of 14.8 births per 1,000 population. That helps fuel a median age on Pine Ridge that at 20.6 is 15 years younger than that of South Dakota, according to the 2000 Census. Whether or not he realizes it, Gabriel Fast Horse is partly responsible for that. His 15-year-old girlfriend, Marsha Poor Bear, is pregnant with their child. Their situation seems common on South Dakota's reservations, where more than 50 percent of live births are to teen-agers younger than 17, according to statistics provided by the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen's Health Board. What causes such high rates? Undoubtedly, a combination of cultural norms and societal breakdowns, observers say. Martin Brokenleg, professor of Native American studies at Augustana College, says higher birth rates on the reservations reflect better medical care, among other things. More infants are surviving their first year of birth, he says. Since 1972, the infant mortality rate has dropped from 22.2 per 1,000 live births to 6.1, according to Indian Health Service's Trends In Indian Health report put out in 1998. "It's also less likely that a Lakota family would restrict pregnancy in any way," Brokenleg says. "For us, it's an honoring of life. And it's a continuation of our cultural norms. While American society in the second half of the 20th century began to delay marriage and childbearing to an extraordinary degree, that has not spilled over to the reservations." The numbers point to a weakening of a cultural rule of spacing in tribal families, Brokenleg says. Historically, the Lakota spaced children four to six years apart. It was the father's responsibility to see that it happened, he says. "As we have seen cultural rules weaken in some Lakota families, that one has gone as well," he says. Certainly, in poor areas where alcoholism, diabetes and heart disease suck up so much of the health-care dollars, family-planning efforts often get shortchanged, too. And the high birth rates are explainable in the context of societal dysfunctions as well, says Karen Artichoker of Kyle, a director at an agency called Cangleska that shelters battered women and fights domestic abuse on the reservation. "I think some of it is, we haven't changed with the rest of the world," Artichoker says. "I think a lot of that is due to poverty, lack of education, lack of birth control. "And when you look at the high rates of sexual abuse of children on the reservation, one of the symptoms of the victims is sexual acting out and sexual promiscuity. When you combine that with a lack of access to education and birth control, I think you are going to see a lot of children being born here." Dying young Contributing to the Lakotas' low median age are the nightmares Marina Fast Horse fears most, those potentially awaiting her son at the end of life. It's the myriad maladies and afflictions -the epidemic alcoholism, diabetes, accident rates and heart disease - that carve years out of the Lakotas' life expectancy and leave them with the briefest life span in America. A 1998 study by the Harvard School of Public Health, using mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics, showed that a young man such as Gabriel Fast Horse can expect to live 56.5 years if he stays on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation - less than anywhere else in America. Nationally, the average for all men is 73. The life expectancy for males in Shannon County, where the Pine Ridge reservation is located, "was less than in many developing regions ... such as Botswana, Peru, Indonesia and Tajikstan," the study said. That left its researchers wondering if life spans can be lengthened in areas where the prospects of improving the standard of living are uncertain at best. Eventually, the researchers hope to take a detailed cause-and-effect look at everything from income, education and employment on the Pine Ridge reservation to environmental factors such as tobacco use, physical activity, diet, health care, even genetics. When they do, they can start with Gabriel Fast Horse Jr. He spends most of his time these days gazing into a computer screen in a back room of Pine Ridge's post office building, where he is part of a five-year, $16 million Department of Labor effort to improve the lot of the reservation's at-risk youth. He comes in every weekday to work on obtaining his GED. To entice him to come, the program pays $5.15 an hour. "I never liked school," he says as he sits at a table in a black shirt and a black baseball cap resting backward on his head that reads, "Native Pride." "All the kids picked on me. But here, I work through my papers every day from 8 to 4, through my books and with the computers and tutors. I've become a better student." Marina Fast Horse is ecstatic that the youngest of her four children - and her only son - is enrolled in the program. And sad, too, about the path that brought him there. She never would have envisioned his struggles through adolescence. He was raised with her tribe, the Bannock, in southeastern Idaho the first nine years of his life, brought up in traditional tribal ways. "He was a grass dancer, a champion little grass dancer," Marina Fast Horse says. "And he grew up with sun dances and the sweat lodges and living off wild game, the whole nine yards. It was totally different there." But Gabriel's father, an Oglala Lakota, couldn't find work among his wife's people. So in 1994, they returned to his native Pine Ridge. It was not, Marina Fast Horse observes now, a seamless transition. "My older daughters always said that I traumatized them by bringing them here," she says. "They said that they've seen things here that they'd never seen in Idaho. "It was the first time they had ever seen an elder drunk. I'm not saying my tribe doesn't have problems with alcohol. But it is very rare there to see an elder who is displaced and intoxicated." Alcohol plague On the Pine Ridge reservation -indeed, among all of South Dakota's nine reservations -alcoholism is common. According to the 1998-99 Regional Differences in Indian Health report, put out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, reservation Indians in this state are 16 times more likely to die from alcoholism than Americans in general. Jerome DeWolfe, program management officer for Indian Health Service's Division of Field Health in Aberdeen, has ideas about why the rate is so high. "I think we've always looked at reservations being closer statistically to Third World and developing nations," DeWolfe says. "With high unemployment, high poverty, high death rates, there seems to be a correlation with alcoholism." The question remains: How to attack it? At present, reservations in the Aberdeen area - which includes North and South Dakota and Nebraska - split about $8 million annually for treatment and prevention. There are three tribal inpatient facilities for drug and alcohol rehabilitation in the three-state area, each with a 15-bed capacity. "I feel most tribes believe they are underfunded to adequately address the problems," DeWolfe says. One promising effort under way is an adolescent prevention program piloted through his office. Working with the Omaha and Winnebago tribes in Nebraska, DeWolfe says, they have done thousands of screening questionnaires with fourth-graders through 12th-graders to determine experiences with alcohol and drug abuse. They then categorize population groups based on the severity of those problems. Those with no problems are identified with a green flag. Those with mild to moderate problems get a yellow flag. And those with substantially severe problems receive a red flag. "What the research has told us is, to make any progress with alcohol and drug problems, we have to focus on the mild to moderate populations," DeWolfe says. "And what we are finding with youth identified as mild to moderate is, oftentimes all it takes is a brief intervention. "If you sit down with the youth or their parents or significant others and talk about what they are doing and the problems generated, even for 20 minutes, you can have an impact." Their analysis of that approach with the Omaha tribe shows that, after one year, the number of youths showing no problems with drugs or alcohol rose from 53 to 69 percent. Those with mild to moderate problems fell from 25 to 15 percent. And those with severe problems dropped from 21 to 17 percent. "It's good news," DeWolfe says. "I feel pretty certain that once other reservations in our area see the progress made, and once they understand the concepts behind what we're doing, we'll start to see others joining in on this." 'Like his spirit died' Alcohol certainly has touched Gabriel Fast Horse's life. On July 12, 1997, his father was killed in an accident involving alcohol in Oglala. The loss devastated the 12-year-old boy, his mother says. "Gabriel grew up traditionally," she says. "And so we never cut his hair, not once from the day he was born. But when his father died, it's our tradition that he cut his hair. And he did. I know that was hard for him. It's like his spirit died with his father." In the Lakota tradition, the family conducts a Wiping of the Tears ceremony a year after a loved one has died. It's a way of ending the mourning period. But Gabriel didn't participate. His mother says he still hasn't let go. Instead, his life has careened down a path of alcohol and violence, schoolyard fights and police handcuffs. That's not uncommon in an impoverished area. And on Pine Ridge, among the poorest places in the country with an average annual income of $3,400, as many as 57 percent of its children live in poverty. Fast Horse and his mother live with his older sister in the Crazy Horse neighborhood of south Pine Ridge. Many of its ramshackle houses have boarded windows and mud yards. By comparison, the Fast Horses' gray house is well-kept. But there is a forbidding German shepherd in the yard named Sam, brought into the family's fold after their house was broken into six times. After his father's death, about the time he was 13 or 14, Gabriel Fast Horse says, he turned to alcohol to help him deal with the loss. He began covering his arms in tattoos of clowns. "I guess I thought I was living like a clown, and that's why I got them, " he says as he pulls his shirt sleeves back to reveal them. "I was messing around, drinking, just kind of laughing at life, not taking anything serious. That's the way I felt." But in fact, there wasn't much of Gabriel Fast Horse's adolescence that was happy. For one, he seemed to be a target for the reservation gangs, including one called the Nomads - a group of youths whose parents hold some of the better tribal jobs, the Fast Horses say. "They were always trying to start fights with me," Gabriel Fast Horse says. "I didn't want to. I didn't start them." One fight at Oglala Community High School in Pine Ridge began with pushing and ended up with Fast Horse getting stabbed. A slash-mark scar on the right side of his neck reminds him of the day when a group confronted him at a bus stop after school. There are scars on his wrists as well, formed by police handcuffs after arrests for fighting. It has not been easy for his mother. "To look at Gabriel now, you wouldn't think he grew up traditional or that he knows morals and our traditions. But he does," Marina Fast Horse says. "It's just, without a father figure, the anger in him ... well, I have this ongoing battle between his peers and me, and the peers are winning. "The disrespect at times, the mouthing back, I don't know. His father was proud that he danced. He participated in all of these traditional things. But now I don't know if he's ashamed of it because his peers don't know any of that. Maybe he worries they would make fun of it." The dropout dilemma As a result of the fighting, Gabriel dropped out of school at age 15 and became one more casualty of a reservation education system also struggling with poverty. Despite successes of parochial schools such as Red Cloud north of Pine Ridge and Our Lady of Lourdes at Porcupine, the dropout rates among the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools are high. Randy Plume, education director for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, says 60 to 65 percent of students don't finish high school. In other words, for every 400 children who start kindergarten, maybe 150 will graduate as seniors. On any given day at the Oglala Community School in Pine Ridge, acting principal Don Standing Elk has a stack of reports on his desk of children who are not attending school. "We say, if they miss 60 classes in a semester ... that's 10 days of school ... we're supposed to drop him," Standing Elk says. "But I've got a stack of six or seven reports here today. This one has missed 114 classes, this one 126, this one 101, and this one 77." Why don't they come to school? For a variety of reasons, Standing Elk and Plume say. The home life for many is dysfunctional, with parents out of work or battling alcoholism. "If you're sitting with your uncle in the same room, and he has no job, these kids would rather do that than come to school," Standing Elk says. "Or kids come from overcrowded homes," Plume adds. "They may come to school tired. Or they may be hungry. Or they might not have had a bath. Or their clothes weren't washed well, or washed at all. I mean, I have kids come in tired, hungry, dirty, with head lice and dirty clothes. That kid is not ready to learn." Some kids need to stay home to take care of younger siblings. But Standing Elk says children will skip school to stand on street corners downtown or to hide along the creek east of his school. Some don't even get out of bed in the morning, he adds. And their parents don't seem to care. "After they've been gone three days and six days, we send letters home to the parents," he says. "I don't know if they're throwing them away or what. But we don't hear from them." Standing Elk says absentee children who want a second chance can sign a contract promising to attend class. The school also offers incentives to keep students coming to class. If they have perfect attendance for six weeks, they can earn a T-shirt, sweatshirt or baseball cap. Ninety-five percent attendance will earn them a movie or a pizza party. And an A or B average with no write-ups for bad behavior or missing school is good for a $20 gift certificate, a CD of their choice or a sports bag. "We have a deal where, if they have perfect attendance for a year, that could earn them a trip to Disneyland," Standing Elk says. "The problem is, I heard they tried that once before. But when the school year was over, they didn't end up taking them." A growing pride There are many positive efforts such as the Youth Opportunities Movement taking place today on the reservation. One of the most ambitious is a diabetes screening and prevention program under way at Rosebud, Pine Ridge and other places to identify children at risk for the disease and to push them in better directions in diet and exercise. The alcohol-prevention pilot project conducted through IHS in Aberdeen is another promising program. And the simple, daily attempts to restore cultural pride in these children may ultimately do as much as anything to make tomorrow better for the Lakota, their own people say. "I think the biggest reason we can be hopeful is the renaissance that's been going on here the last 10, 15, 20 years," says Richard Iron Cloud, director of a diabetes prevention program based out of Porcupine. "There were 54 sun dances this past summer on the reservation," he says. "Twenty years ago, you could count the number on one hand. But that indicates to me that a spiritual renewal is going on, a comeback. And with that renewal is a pride in our culture, a pride in being Lakota." Whether it succeeds in reclaiming Gabriel Fast Horse remains to be seen. The battle rages on - for him and thousands of Pine Ridge youth - in the post office building, in clinic waiting rooms, on the street corners and in the very souls of these young people. Though his tattoos and scars might suggest Fast Horse is losing that fight, his words, at least, suggest otherwise. "I understand that the only thing that makes me tough now is being a man and supporting my family," he softly says as he returns to his computer in the Youth Opportunities office. "That's what keeps me going every day." Reach reporter Steve Young at syoung@argusleader.com or 331-2306 Copyright c. 2001 Copyright Argus Leader. --------- "RE: Acteal Residents still seeking Justice" --------- Date: 12/22/01 9:07:38 AM Pacific Standard Time From: owner-chiapas95@eco.utexas.edu (Chiapas95) Subj: 4 years after Acteal,residents still seeking justice Mailing List: Chiapas95 -- This message is forwarded to you by the editors of the Chiapas95 newslists. To contact the editors or to submit material for posting send to: . >From: dana.aldea@t-online.de (Dana) Four years after Acteal massacre, residents in southern Mexico still seeking justice Alejandro Ruiz, AP - 12/22/2001 ACTEAL, Chiapas - Many of the villagers have returned and at least some of the accused killers have been jailed four years after paramilitaries killed 45 rebel sympathizers in the tiny highland town of Acteal. But victims say memories of the massacre are still fresh. "After four years, our pain has not subsided," survivor Elena Perez Jimenez said. "On the contrary, it has increased." The victims were killed on Dec. 22, 1997, as members of the Las Abejas group prayed at a chapel 460 miles (740 kms) southeast of Mexico City. Survivors fled in fear of more violence, but many returned this year, hoping dialogue could resolve still-lingering local conflicts between supporters and opponents of the Zapatista National Liberation Army. The Institutional Revolutionary Party lost both Mexico's presidency and the governorship of Chiapas state since the massacre. But villagers continue to accuse the government of supporting the paramilitaries and express little hope for a resolution to the conflict. After taking office a year ago, President Vicente Fox focused on making peace with the Zapatistas, but talks broke down after Congress approved a watered-down version of an Indian rights bill the rebels supported. The largely Indian rebels briefly seized several towns in January 1994, demanding Indian rights, socialist economics and greater democracy. In Acteal, 6-year-old Efrain Gomez's jawbone was shattered by a bullet from an AK-47 automatic rifle on Dec. 22, and today he is unable to talk or chew his food properly. "My poor son isn't happy," said his father, Victorio Gomez, whose wife was killed in the attack. "He is sick. He doesn't eat well." A bullet left Zenaida Jimenez Luna, 9, nearly blind and killed her parents. Today, her uncle Mariano Luna cares for her. Las Abejas criticized a judge's decision last month to release six convicted paramilitaries. "It's four years after the massacre, and we don't see any justice," said the group's spokesman, Porfirio Arias Hernandez. "We don't know if the government or other people want to protect the paramilitaries, because they liberated six of their leaders." At the same time, those convicted of carrying out the massacre say innocent people were sent to jail. "There were only nine people who organized and participated in Acteal, and it pains me that my friends who didn't know anything about this problem have been sentenced to 36 years in prison," said convicted paramilitary member Roberto Mendez. Mendez said he and others arrived in Acteal on Dec. 22 to confront alleged Zapatistas he accused of killing 18 members of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. "It wasn't a massacre," he said. "It was a confrontation with hidden Zapatistas." Interviewed in a prison in Chiapas' capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mendez said the 21 women, 15 children and nine men who died four years ago were simply caught in the cross fire. Leonard Peltier and Efrain Gomez we could barely chew our food or speak properly, we were starving, our words locked in frozen bone, fell apart in sadness, lay almost dead on quiet tongues, chunks of food gagged our breath, brought unbalanced vision, threatened evaporation, we both survived assassination, will stronger than metal, wings faster than death. Phil Goldvarg 12/22/01 Hgold42734@aol.com On the 4th Year Remembrance of the Massacre at Acteal, Chiapas, Mexico --------- "RE: Buffalo Sales not Bullish" --------- Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 08:22:58 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BUFFALO MEAT" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.pechanga.net/ Buffalo sales not bullish 4 million pounds of frozen meat await customers By Christopher Thorne Associated Press writer WASHINGTON - Struggling buffalo ranchers are trying to coax the federal government into buying up to $10 million worth of bison meat for schools, tribes and other government food programs. They have a champion in Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., whose state is home to a buffalo cooperative that raises half of the world's commercially sold bison meat. Conrad is trying to attach the provision to a spending bill intended to jump start the nation's sagging economy. Although bison ranchers blame the attacks of Sept. 11 for a drop in business, their industry was doing poorly for years before. "We have been struggling," said Dennis Sexhus, a Leeds, N.D., buffalo rancher. Sexhus is the chief executive of the North America Bison Cooperative, a group of 350 buffalo ranchers in 18 states. The cooperative, headquartered in New Rockford, N.D., produces roughly half the world's buffalo steaks, burgers and roasts. But about 4 million pounds of ground bison meat and bison stew meat is sitting unsold in its freezers. Fears of further terrorist attacks, as well as an overall gloom, have driven people out of the high-priced restaurants that serve buffalo, sending the industry into a tailspin, Sexhus said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was buying surplus bison meat as far back as 1998 to aid buffalo producers. In 1998, the USDA bought 356,400 pounds of ground bison for $1.3 million, and in 1999, the agency bought about 2 million pounds of ground bison for $7 million. The government opted not to buy any surplus bison in 2000 and this year, citing a firmer market. Conrad's provision is part of the economic stimulus bill that potentially includes $220 million in new USDA spending for a long list of American-grown commodities, including apples, green beans, blueberries - and meat. The USDA would make that food available to the poor through free and reduced-price school lunches, tribal food programs and pantries for migrant workers. Republicans have ridiculed the Conrad provision as an example of spending on special interests, but the senator defends it. "Whenever there's economic downturn, we typically expand feeding programs. There's more people out of work, there's more people going to food banks," Conrad said. While raising buffalo started in the 1980s as a hobby for the wealthy (billionaire Ted Turner is a member of the North American Bison Cooperative and has ranches in four states) most of the buffalo ranchers today are regular farming families with little money to spare, Sexhus said. In a floor speech last month, Conrad noted that critics of the bison meat provision - such as Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas - showed they weren't opposed to helping special interests with their votes for the $15 billion aid package for the nation's airlines. "The bison industry is flat on its back," Conrad said from the floor of the Senate. "It's about to go broke. That will jeopardize thousands of families who are dependent on the bison industry." Conrad said he initially intended to ask for $15 million for bison meat, but the National Bison Association had already gone to the USDA in mid- October to lobby for $10 million in aid. Sexhus would like to see even more. "Sales of live animals have been plummeting. They've been selling for less than 10 percent of what they were three years ago," Sexhus said. "Ten million dollars would help. But I'd like to see $20 million, because the need is out there for $20 million. There's no question about that." Copyright c. 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company. --------- "RE: Bison Herd is Spiritual Link to the Oneida Past" --------- Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 08:10:26 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ONEIDA BISON" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/local_1758446.shtml Dec. 16, 2001 Bison herd is spiritual link to the Oneidas' past By Jim Kneiszel jkneisze@greenbaypressgazette.com Beef cattle and buffalo are furry behemoths that share a common fate. Some folks wouldn't draw any distinction between the four-legged food sources. But to Pat Cornelius, manager of the Oneida Nation farms, the buffalo represents more than a tasty roast. Bison are an important link to a time when Indian nations thrived across the continent. "I think there's just something about the buffalo. I don't know what it is," Cornelius said. "To listen to the people talk about the relationship between the bison and themselves, it's really overwhelming. There's a spiritual connection between the buffalo and the Indian nations." The spiritual connection - and the health benefits of buffalo meat - led the Oneidas to start a small bison herd in 1997. The recent addition of 15 females from a federal reserve in Nebraska raises the herd's total to 44. Beginning next year, the tribe will start harvesting mature male buffalo to improve nutrition standards on the reservation and to sell to the public at the Oneida's nearby Apple Orchard business. The meat couldn't come fast enough to suit Cornelius, who says the tribe's mission is to substitute the low-fat bison for high-fat, high- calorie red meats that are at least partly responsible for high levels of diabetes among Oneidas. "We're declaring war on diabetes in Indian country," said Cornelius, who claims that 45 percent of tribal members on the reservation have a form of the disease that leads to heart disease and other maladies. Other minority groups also suffer with diabetes in significant numbers, she said, noting that one of three African-Americans and one of seven Hmong and Hispanics will develop the disease. "I think personally tribal members have a different metabolism that can't take refined foods, so much fast food," she said. According to the South Dakota-based Intertribal Bison Council, bison meat is lower in fat, cholesterol and calories than beef, chicken or fish. Fed on grasses, bison make a more compatible diet for American Indians and the general public, according to Tony Willman, a spokesman for the nonprofit bison cooperative. "A greasy, high-fat, high cholesterol diet has not proven to be beneficial for the native diet. Native Americans evolved over thousands of years on a lean healthy diet of buffalo and berries and a lot of things found on the prairies," Willman said. The Bison Council had more than nutrition in mind when it incorporated in 1992. Starting with members from 19 tribes, its goal is to restore the buffalo to tribal lands. The cooperative saw bison meat as a marketable product, a low-maintenance range animal and a sacred symbol of the strength of the Indian. "We have a real spiritual respect and sacred responsibility to the buffalo. They've been here hundreds of years and provided food," Cornelius said. "You take care of them and, in turn, they take care of you." In nearly 10 years, the cooperative has returned buffalo to 50 U.S. tribes. Tribes on larger reservations, mostly in the west, have developed herds of more than 1,000 head that sparsely populate the ranges. Tribes in more urban areas are keeping smaller herds, mainly to be used at American Indian ceremonies and feasts, Willman explained. The Oneida herd is one of the smallest among cooperative members, he said. Unlike beef cattle, bison thrive in adverse conditions. The animals need virtually no veterinary care and can be easily kept on "marginal grasslands" poorer land that typically dominates tribal reservation lands, Willman said. "We try to keep the buffalo as natural as possible. We don't want to see castration or dehorning or (animals) loaded with growth hormones and crowded into muddy, dirty feed lots," he said. "And when the weather gets nasty, the buffalo come out to play." In the harsh winter of 1996-97, 250,000 cattle died in South Dakota while reportedly no buffalo perished, Willman said. While cattle are shipped live to a processor, most bison are slaughtered in the field, Willman explained. Young bulls are usually culled at 2 to 3 years old, weighing about 1,000 pounds and providing 400 to 500 pounds of meat. Bison are difficult to ship live because they are so big, wild and maintain their horns, he said. The Oneida herd is becoming well-established with females who give birth to one calf each year. As the herd matures, Cornelius expects to keep about 50 females who will give birth to 40 to 45 calves each year. The excess animals will be slaughtered and sold along with meat from the tribe's black Angus cattle. Since Cornelius started working at the farm in 1989, the black Angus herd has grown from 30 to 600 head, and the farm has grown to 8,000 acres. Yet the arrival of a few bison has been a highlight of her career. "I've never been so nervous in all my life. They came off that trailer and it seemed like the earth trembled and rumbled," she said. "It's putting buffalo back on Indian reservations, and that's where my heart is." Copyright c. 2001 Gannett Wisconsin Online/Greenbay Press-Gazette. --------- "RE: Sitting Bull Campsite Preserved" --------- Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 09:58:17 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SITTING BULL CAMP" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.montanaforum.com/rednews/2001/12/20/build/land/campsite Sitting Bull campsite preserved Thursday, December 20, 2001 By LORNA THACKERAY Billings Gazette Staff Sitting Bull's campsite along the Little Bighorn River and the site where Maj. Marcus Reno initiated battle and then retreated across the river are now safe forever from commercial development. The Custer Battlefield Preservation Committee, set up almost 20 years ago to preserve critical pieces of historic lands around the famous battlefield, concluded a three-year fund drive this month to buy the property from private owners. By the end of the year, the committee also will have closed on four other pieces of land, including a critical tract near the intersection of Interstate 90 and Highway 212 (marked "A" in accompanying map) that has in the past been proposed for construction of a motel and a truck stop. All in all, the committee raised nearly $3 million for its new acquisitions, according to Jim Court, executive director of the committee. Although the land, a total of between 800 and 900 acres, is on the Crow Reservation, it was owned in fee by non-Indians. No trust lands were involved in the transactions. "It's been really grinding work," said Harold Stanton, a Hardin attorney who along with Court did most of the fund raising. "But this has been a wonderful project. I'm really happy about it." The committee purchased the land, as it has hundreds of other acres around the national monument, to preserve it in perpetuity much as it was when Custer, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull saw it on June 25, 1876. Court said the committee will lease the land to continue its current uses - grazing and hay production. Ultimately, the committee would like to turn over the land to the National Park Service. Because of past objections from the Crow Tribe, the federal government has not acted to accept the land. The tribe has previously expressed opposition to projects perceived as reducing its land base. The current tribal administration has not asserted a firm opinion one way or another on whether it opposes Park Service acquisition of the land. Court said he would like to see the tribe, Park Service and the committee work together on a project that would be beneficial to all. The National Park Service has wanted for years to move its visitor center off Last Stand Hill to a location outside the heart of the battleground. The current visitor center is too small and its parking areas inadequate. Court said he would like to see a battlefield, Plains Indian and Crow Tribal museum put together as a major tourist destination. After the final paperwork on the latest land purchases is complete, Court said the committee plans to end its fund-raising program. If someone wants to sell a crucial parcel, its machinery might be revived, he said, but for now, he said the committee has completed the work it set out to do. Lorna Thackeray can be reached 657-1314 or at lthackeray@billingsgazette.com Copyright c. 2000 Ravalli Republic and Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: BIA Check Delay Harmful" --------- Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 08:22:58 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BIA CHECK DELAY" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?section=local BIA check delay harmful to some Wed Dec 19 03:41:34 CST 2001 Central Time BY JAMES HAGENGRUBER OF THE GAZETTE STAFF A messy court battle in Washington, D.C., is causing trouble for American Indians in remote parts of Montana. Charlotte McIntyre, a 70-year-old Sioux grandmother from Poplar, said she is still waiting for her $458 lease payment from the government. But the money has been delayed for about two weeks because of an ongoing battle between a federal judge and the Interior Department. "It's awfully hard," McIntyre said. "I've got to buy groceries, pay utilities and get Christmas presents. It is awfully hard. If I don't get anything before Christmas, I'm not going to have any Christmas." Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Interior Department to switch off most of its Internet access in an effort to protect Indian trust money. Lamberth is presiding over a class-action lawsuit in which Indian plaintiffs claim billions of trust dollars have been lost because of mismanagement by the Interior Department. Interior Secretary Gale Norton shut down the entire system, going all the way down to e-mail and payroll services for the National Park Service. The electronic shutdown went beyond what was needed and delayed hundreds of lease payments and general assistance payments to Montana, U.S. Senator Max Baucus, D-Mont., said. Unemployment tops 60 percent on many of Montana's reservations, making the payments important for survival, he said. "These folks depend on getting their checks for day-to-day living," Baucus said. "It is absolutely unacceptable for the federal government to let this happen, especially this time of the year." Bureau of Indian Affairs employees worked with typewriters and paper forms all weekend to process 6,200 checks, BIA spokeswoman Nedra Darling told the Associated Press on Monday. "We were able to get our general assistance checks out through a lot of sweat and a lot of heart," she said. "For us to not service our people would not be right." Wolf Point resident Duane Buckles, an Assiniboine, said people are still waiting for their checks. "Someone's got to be held accountable," he said. "Why didn't the agency think ahead?" Buckles said his lease check and annual per capita payment are delayed by about two weeks. Checks for social services payments were mailed Monday, said Bill Benjamin, the BIA's acting regional director for the Rocky Mountain Region. Delays in per capita payments, which affected the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations, remain unsolved, he said. The checks will not be released until the computer system is turned on again. Members of the Crow Tribe said they received their per capita payments last week. Even if the checks were mailed Monday, Buckles doubts that they will arrive on the remote northeastern Montana reservations until after Christmas. "Unless you believe in the Miracle on 34th Street, no one's going to get their checks before Christmas," Buckles said. James Hagengruber can be reached at 657-1232 or at jhagengruber@billingsgazette.com Copyright c. The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Status of Trust Fund Software irks Judge" --------- Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 09:10:17 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TAAMS" http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/ Status of trust fund software irks judge THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2001 More than two years after the development of a cornerstone of trust reform began, the Department of Interior cannot prove that critical parts of a $40 million software system are in working order, a senior trust reform official testified on Wednesday. Of the more than 60 documented functions required of the Trust Asset and Accounting Management System (TAAMS), only two have been shown to be complete, acknowledged witness Tommy Thompson. The second highest-ranking trust official within the Interior, Thompson said these tasks were independently verified in the winter of 1999 -- but no further third-party analysis has been conducted since. "This problem has not been corrected," Thompson said, "in TAAMS system development." Despite knowing of the nearly 100 percent failure rate of the system, Thompson testified that he, former Assistant Secretary Kevin Gover and two other department officials agreed to move development forward. Based on what he called "upbeat" projections by former TAAMS project manager Dom Nessi, he recommended in November 1999 to former Secretary Bruce Babbitt that work continue. Defending the decision to a skeptical federal judge overseeing the debacle, Thompson said the problems experienced at the Interior weren't out of the ordinary. All large software projects, even ones that succeed, encounter difficulties, he said. "It's not a pretty picture," Thompson told U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, "but there are colossal failures and significant successes." Lamberth, who repeatedly voiced his displeasure with the handling of the project throughout a particularly damaging day of testimony in a contempt trial against Secretary Gale Norton, didn't appear too convinced. He questioned why Nessi -- who has since departed the Bureau of Indian Affairs -- resisted oversight of his efforts, despite being urged by more senior officials that he take his time to "make it work." "Everyone except Mr. Nessi," wanted the job done correctly, Lamberth observed. But even after Nessi was promoted to higher position within the BIA, becoming the agency's first Chief Information Officer in spring of 2000, the project hasn't moved forward significantly, Thompson testified. The schedule has slipped, critical portions of the system haven't even been developed and additional tests in the field have failed, he said. Upon learning of the results of a such a test conducted in Billings, Montana, Lamberth became even more alarmed. A new piece of software written by an outside contractor "contaminated" existing trust fund data, he was told. This significant problem was first reported by Indianz.Com in July. But Lamberth directed Norton's attorneys to "tell me if there is a place where that corrupted data was reported to me." Thompson said he didn't know if the software bug has been fixed to date, six months after it was documented. With testimony on the TAAMS project continuing today, Norton's attorneys face a daunting task. Beyond mounting a cross examination of Thompson, they have to explain why the Interior never informed Lamberth about the system's failures before he made his landmark ruling in December 1999. According to Interior documents and testimony, the disclosure was to be made on September 21, 1999. For an as yet unexplained reason, the notice never occurred. "You would have thought that . . . the court needed to be told," said Lamberth. "We certainly felt we needed to let you know," responded Thompson. The TAAMS project has been managed by six different managers since its inception. Copyright c. 2000-2001 Noble Savage Media, LLC/Indianz.Com --------- "RE: Failure of TAAMS traced to Promoted Manager" --------- Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 09:10:17 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TAAMS MANAGER" http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/ Failure of TAAMS traced to promoted manager THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2001 Rewarded with monetary incentives and driven by "personal pride," the first project manager of a critical trust fund system resisted oversight of his efforts and gave overly glowing reports of his progress, a senior trust official said on Wednesday. Rejecting strong suggestions by top Department of Interior officials, Dom Nessi hatched an aggressive development schedule for the Trust Asset and Accounting Management System (TAAMS), testified Tommy Thompson. Rather than take the time to "make this work," Nessi often pushed for limited testing of the system, and even suggested certain tests be eliminated altogether, he said. "He was attempting to limit his responsibilities and role inappropriately," said Thompson. "He didn't always prevail, but he didn't always cooperate." A key consequence of Nessi's bullish behavior, Thompson continued, was that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Applied Terravision (Artesia Systems Group). the third-party contractor assigned to develop TAAMS, were never ready to have their work double-checked by an independent verifier. The last, and only time, such a review occurred was in late 1999, he said. That test, confirmed Thompson, showed that only two out of 66 TAAMS functions could be demonstrated fully. But Nessi brushed off the results and was "dismissive" of user complaints about the system, he said. At the same time, however, Nessi was presenting an unusually "upbeat" status of TAAMS to his superiors, tribes, American Indians and the public, Thompson said. Within months of former Secretary Bruce Babbitt's proud proclamation in the summer of 1999 that "TAAMS works," Thompson pointed out that Nessi was making statement to the press about his successes and even self-nominated the project for an award. Yet senior officials in some ways egged on Nessi, admitted Thompson. Former Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget John Berry offered Nessi salary bonuses if he met certain TAAMS milestones, he said. Nessi, recalled Thompson, at one point received $25,000 for doing just that. At the time of the inception of TAAMS, Thompson was acting as the department's Special Trustee, due to the departure of Paul Homan. Along with Berry, former Assistant Secretary Kevin Gover and Chief Information Officer Daryl White, Thompson was assigned to watch over Nessi's progress. Most of the time, Nessi didn't appreciate their directives even though Gover was his direct superior, claimed Thompson. "Nessi was resistant to the whole process in one way or another," he said. Despite these problems, however, the top four officials agreed to move TAAMS beyond the pilot project at Billings, Montana. Thompson said he agreed to the decision only after a memo Nessi authored was watered down significantly. The officials thought, recalled Thompson, that "we could manage our way back to completing TAAMS." With a third-party consulting company, EDS Corporation, calling on Secretary Gale Norton to pull back development, that prognosis was faulty, Thompson agreed. "It's a large ship that is being slowed," he said, acknowledging that the EDS report "puts it all on hold." Nessi, however, has moved on. After managing the TAAMS effort, he was promoted by Gover to the BIA's first Chief Information Officer, during which time he revealed the computer systems that house individual Indian trust data were open to hackers. In July, when special master Alan Balaran was conducting an investigation into computer security, Nessi left his top post. He now works for the National Park Service in a similar position. To date, about $40 million has been spent on TAAMS, with several million paid directly to Applied Terravision. Six different managers have dealt with the project and it now in the hands of Donna Erwin, pending a transition to the Bureau of Indian Trust Assets Management (BITAM). Copyright c. 2000-2001 Noble Savage Media, LLC/Indianz.Com --------- "RE: Indian Leaders discuss ways to fix Trust Fund" --------- Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 09:58:17 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FIX TRUST" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://web.duluthnews.com/content/duluth/2001/12/21/local/du_BIA1221.htm Indian leaders discuss ways to fix trust fund system BY NANCY NGO ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- As American Indian trust account beneficiaries in Minnesota and Wisconsin wait for checks delayed for more than two weeks -- and finally mailed out Thursday -- local tribal leaders provided their own alternatives to a controversial federal proposal to radically reform the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the trust management system. A meeting Thursday of 70 of the region's tribal leaders and Bureau of Indian Affairs officials in Bloomington focused on the Interior Department's $300 million restructuring proposal that would create a new office to handle American Indian trust accounts. The meeting also was the first time a newly formed task force of tribal leaders gathered to work on its own suggestions for reorganizing the current trust account system. The task force was a product of the first consultation meeting held last week in Albuquerque, N.M. Tribal leaders have expressed anger at not being consulted before the plan was unveiled. However, they agreed there was a need for massive change in the current system. Neal McCaleb, head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs; Wayne Smith, deputy assistant secretary; and Ross Swimmer, who led the Interior Department during the Reagan administration, listened as tribal leaders expressed concerns. Swimmer, former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, would lead the new management office, which would supervise $500 million a year in royalties from 52 million acres of American Indian land, primarily in the West and Midwest. Issues at the meeting ranged from costs associated with the plan to how money and land management could be affected in the future. Some feared that formation of a new office was a sign that the federal government was moving away from its current commitments. "We oppose the reform plan,'' said Eli Hunt, chairman of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. "We feel it would strip the federal government of its current trust responsibilities.'' The trust accounts were created in 1887 by the federal government to manage royalties paid to tribal members for such activities as logging and mining on American Indian land. Norman Deschampe, chairman of the Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe, feared that hunting and fishing rights might be altered. Others wanted to have American Indian resources managed on a more local and tribal level. The BIA has been under increased pressure to reform the American Indian trust fund account system since a report issued in November showed its computer network was seriously flawed. A court investigator reported that a government-hired hacker was able to create, change and manipulate data in the accounts. U.S. District Judge Royce Lambert ordered that parts of the system be shut down. Interior Secretary Gale Norton closed the entire system, which included e-mail and account access. The shutdown has delayed checks to trust beneficiaries for more than two weeks. After a court order this week to bring the system back online, the BIA mailed out general assistance checks Thursday. Copyright c. 2001 Duluth News Tribune. --------- "RE: Guest Opinion: Justice near for Native Americans" --------- Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2001 10:17:07 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="COBELL" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.montanaforum.com/rednews/2001/12/24/build/tribal/focus.php?nnn=6 Guest Opinion: Justice near for Native Americans By ELOUISE COBELL Browning Banker Sunday, December 23, 2001 When I was a girl, the grownups on our reservation, the Blackfeet Indian Nation in Montana, complained about their troubles with the individual Indian trust. It was a mess. Royalties for allowing oil and gas, grazing and logging on Indian-owned lands were collected by the Interior Department. The funds were held by the Treasury Department, and then they were supposed to be paid to the individual Indian trust beneficiaries, including my parents. It had been that way since the 1880s. Erratic payments But the payments were erratic - $1 one time, $150 the next, or sometimes nothing - and no one knew what the amounts were based on. The Bureau of Indian Affairs agent had no explanation. Money was scarce on the reservation, but you were more likely to find a $100 bill on the street than get a straight answer about the trust. In 1996, I and other Indian co-plaintiffs sued the Secretaries of Interior and Treasury to account for the money. I had left the reservation, attended college, returned home, become treasurer for the Blackfeet Nation and helped start the Blackfeet National Bank in Browning. I had an accounting background, and I kept chasing after answers about the mysteries of the trust, working my way up the chain of command. What I got from the BIA, Interior, Treasury and the Justice Department were patronizing pats on the head. Class-action lawsuit Now, in a fourth-floor courtroom in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the latest chapter in our class-action lawsuit is playing out. This is a contempt trial for Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb. Norton has not joined us in the courtroom yet, but we meet daily with Deputy Secretary, J. Steven Griles, a newcomer to Indian trust issues. Griles has been getting an earful, an on-the-spot education in government malfeasance. Our five-and-a-half-year legal battle has dug up a mountain of information about what's gone wrong for 120 years with the Individual Indian Monies (IIM) trust. Interior and Treasury have admitted in court that they do not know and have no way of knowing the correct account balances for 500,000 beneficiaries. Records for the trust, which takes in $500 million a year in revenues from Indian lands west of the Mississippi, have largely been lost or destroyed. After our stunning victory in December 1999 in the first phase of the case, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered Interior and Treasury to institute reforms and provide the trust beneficiaries with an historical accounting of "all funds." Court testimony this December showed that Interior has responded with turf battles, bureaucratic feuding, indifference, sheer incompetence and a shameful record of lying to the court about any progress in fixing the problem. Federal foot dragging On the witness stand last week was Thomas M. Thompson, a senior trust official who, to his credit, has remained credible with the court. Hour after hour, Thompson confirmed the accuracy of the findings of a court- appointed investigator assigned to assess Interior's performance. His testimony showed that for the last 14 months, Interior dragged its feet, hoping Judge Lamberth would be reversed on appeal. He was upheld. Interior planned to spend at least $17 million on a statistical sampling scheme that would be cheaper and easier than a real accounting, but which they knew did not comply with the judge's order. Interior has spent more than $30 million on a new trust accounting computer system that does not work. Quarterly reports required by the judge are riddled with falsehoods, including those submitted by Norton. Computer security for IIM trust accounting data is nonexistent; we now know hackers can get in with ease. Neither Norton nor her predecessor did anything about it; both failed to inform the court of the problem. Norton and her aides have been aided and abetted in the foot-dragging and lying by attorneys from the Justice Department and the Solicitor's Office at Interior. We, the Indian plaintiffs, have asked the court to appoint an independent receiver who will take charge of the trust. That is the only way true reform will occur. If Norton is held in contempt, as we expect, it will free the judge's hands to order just that. Receivership would set the stage for a just financial settlement approved by the court. The trust could then move forward, with professional accounting and accurate balances. And I will feel that I have won two things in honor of my parents and all Native peoples - justice - and some answers. ----- Elouise Cobell is lead plaintiff in the Cobell vs. Norton class-action litigation to reform the Individual Indian Monies Trust. She is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News. Copyright c. 2000 Ravalli Republic and Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Native Chiefs move to block Indian Act Changes" --------- Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 08:22:58 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BLOCK INDIAN ACT" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar Native chiefs move to block Indian Act changes Dec. 18, 2001. 06:01 PM Bands rallied by coalition against First Nations Governance Act From Canadian Press A coalition of native chiefs is calling on bands across Canada to join together in opposing the controversial changes to the Indian Act proposed by Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault. Charles Fox, head of the First Nations Inherent Rights Coalition, said his group has already been joined by bands from coast to coast. The bands opposing Nault's disputed First Nations Governance Act include 25 under the Sto'lo Nation tribal council in B.C., the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and several members of Treaty 6 and 7 in Alberta, said Fox, who is also the Ontario Regional Chief for the Assembly of First Nations. "The expressions of support I heard (in Alberta) indicate to me that there's a real dissatisfaction with what's happening," he said. "We're reaching out to all First Nations across the country." At a recent AFN meeting in Ottawa, chiefs voted 126 to 49 against the act, Fox said. He accused Nault of saying that 400 of some 800 bands across Canada are backing the bill, something he said is false. Fox said the government has claimed as much as 70 per cent support by bands across the country while the opposite is true. "I don't know where those 400 bands are coming from ... Seventy per cent opposed (the act) and 30 per cent supported it," he said. "The numbers we're being told by government officials and the numbers we're being told from other sources, from my perspective, are quite wrong." But Michael FitzPatrick of the Department of Indian Affairs said Tuesday that Fox's information was wrong - that Nault has never claimed widespread support for his act. "The minister has only ever said that there's been over 470 consultation and information sessions held," he said. Fox told a news conference that in particular, the coalition opposes the bill's attempt to turn band councils into "numbered corporations." "You're not a government anymore when you do that," he said. ``That's where we have a real problem - chief and councils become boards of directors, they can sue and be sued." The move could leave native people with no recourse to getting the level of services now guaranteed to them under the existing treaties, Fox said, because the "buck stops" at the band council level. "We have a fundamental problem with that because as far as we understand, when you look at the treaties, when you look at the relationship we've had with the federal government ... they would be our partners, they would look after us," he said, quoting from Ontario's Treaty 3. "They want to try to move away from that responsibility." Nault has behaved like a bully, Fox added, reiterating a vote taken by the AFN chiefs earlier this month, who voted 55 to 46 in favour of the minister's resignation. "There was no effort made to sit down with First Nations' leadership and come up with a co-operative process," Fox said. "It was an adversarial, confrontational approach. Right from the word `go,' the line was drawn in the sand and we were forced to fight this issue." Fox added Nault's process of consultation involving Internet surveys and meetings in urban centres was a sham, given most natives live on a reserve and don't have computers. But FitzPatrick disputed that. "Over 200,000 questionnaires were sent out, and if you look (at where the consultations were held) not just held in urban centres, it was right across the gambit." Fox said that if the act is passed as it is, native people will likely challenge it with a costly court battle. The Assembly represents about 700,000 of Canada's some 1.4 million native people. Copyright c. 1996-2001 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. --------- "RE: OST Spokesman upset With BIA Reorganization Plan" --------- Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2001 10:17:07 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="OST/BIA PLAN" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.imdiversity.com/Article_Detail.asp?Article_ID=8534 OST Tribal Spokesman Upset With BIA Reorganization Plan by AP, The Associated Press Rapid City, S.D. (AP) - The Oglala Sioux Tribe is among those upset with a plan to reorganize the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. Harvey Whitewoman, a spokesman for the tribe, tribes were never consulted about the proposal which would move trust responsibilities from the BIA to a new Bureau of Indian Trust Assets Management. U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced the new agency last month. It would oversee the accounting of $500 million a year in historically mismanaged royalties from Indian land. The BIA had managed the assets but a federal court ordered the system reformed. Whitewoman said many feel trust responsibilities should remain with the BIA. Copyright c. 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Copyright c. 2001 iMinorities, Inc. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Oklahoma Indian Land creates Jurisdictional Maze" --------- Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 08:54:10 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="OKLAHOMA INDIAN COUNTRY" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=798304 Indian land creates jurisdictional maze 2001-12-17 By Penny Owen The Oklahoman Let's get one thing straight: Oklahoma does not have Indian reservations. What it has is Indian country -- 400,000 acres of it. Politics hinder cross-deputization The General Allotment Act of 1887 parceled out Oklahoma's reservation land to individual tribal members and tribes. Indian country is changing, depending on deaths, sales, repossessions and other property- related issues. For instance, if a tribal member dies and his descendants don't have enough Indian blood to hold Indian land, that land is technically no longer Indian country. Some Indian land is owned by tribes, while other parcels are owned by individuals. Indian land isn't marked. Even long-time residents have a hard time telling where it begins and ends. It is most often described as a checkerboard. One Pryor housing addition is half Indian country, half not. Some tribal entities, like the Cherokee Nation's Hastings Indian Hospital, do not sit on Indian land. It's on county land. It is in dispute whether some others, like the Cherokee Tribal Courthouse in Tahlequah, are on Indian land. Indian country is a jurisdictional nightmare. A non-Indian who commits a crime on Indian land cannot be prosecuted by the tribe; that's a matter for county or federal officials. Prosecution can depend on who owns the land and what kind of crime it is. The maximum punishment in a tribal court is a $5,000 fine and up to a year in jail. So if, for instance, an Indian commits murder on Indian land, that crime will likely fall into federal court hands. "You just don't have that complex of a scheme in any other area of law," said Robert McCarthy, a field solicitor for the U.S. Interior Department in Tulsa. Double jeopardy also doesn't apply when prosecuting a crime that can apply both in and out of Indian country, McCarthy said, because they involve two sovereign countries. Although it rarely happens, an Indian could be prosecuted in two, or possibly three courts: tribal, state and federal. Adair County Sheriff Charles Hartshorne said he wasn't too happy when he responded to a fight at a smoke shop on Indian land. The culprits were not Indians, so the tribe couldn't prosecute them. But neither could he. "We couldn't arrest them because they were on Indian land," he said. "They got away. What can you do?" Cross-deputizing is one solution, but not all agencies want to join. Still, working together has helped alleviate many jurisdictional headaches. Copyright c. 2001, Produced by NewsOK. --------- "RE: Secwepemc Pipe Carriers return to McGillvray Lake" --------- Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 18:05:19 -0800 From: Tehaliwaskenhas-Bob Kennedy Subj: Secwepemc Pipe Carriers return to McGillvray Lake Mailing List: TurtleIslandNativeNetwork http://www.turtleisland.org Sun Peaks Protestors and Supporters to Visit Site of Recent Eviction and Place Where Sacred Sweatlodges and Bundles were Desecrated December 20, 2001 Secwepemc Pipe Carriers return to McGillvray Lake Today I issued a Snow Removal Permit on behalf of the Neskonlith Indian Band to the Chilcotin National Congress, West Coast Warriors Society and other indigenous peoples in order to clear the road of snow between the Neskonlith Indian Reserve No. 1 and McGillivray Lake. The purpose they are removing the snow is to gain access once again to McGillivray Lake since the sweat lodges, sacred items and the cordwood house were destroyed on December 10, 2001. The road was then road blocked by Sun Peaks employees under the direction of the British Columbia Assets and Lands Corporation (BCAL). The reason we are opening up the road is because certain specific ceremonies need to be carried out in order to close the sweat lodge sites that were destroyed by Sun Peaks and the BC government. I have informed the BC government and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that we were going back up to McGillivray Lake with or without their approval in order to carry out what we need to do. I was called back from the Kamloops RCMP and they realize the seriousness of the matter and asked what they could do. I told them that we do not want them at the McGillivray Lake site when the ceremonies are going on but it would be helpful if they set up a perimeter boundary on the Sun Peaks side to keep snowmobilers and cross country skiers away. I expect it will take a day or two before we get access to McGillivray Lake and the ceremonies by the pipe carriers will happen right after that. Neskonlith Chief Arthur Manuel For More on the Secwepemc Defence of their Culture and Lands see http://www.turtleisland.org/news/news-secwepemc.htm Canada's best online source for Aboriginal news and information. 500,000 hits a month . . . and growing! Turtle Island Native Network http://www.turtleisland.org --------- "RE: White Earth Tribal Police face Criticism" --------- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 08:54:10 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item