From gars@speakeasy.org Wed Sep 15 20:17:08 2004 Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 16:12:23 -0700 From: Gary Night Owl To: Internet Recipients of Wotanging Ikche Subject: Wotanging Ikche--nanews12.038 _ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 12, ISSUE 038 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, WOTANGING IKCHE - Lakota - Common News Wotanging Ikche and Native American News Copyright c. 1996-2004 nanews.org Aboriginal/AmerIndian Perspective about the First Nations of Turtle Island September 18, 2004 Hopi Nasanmuyaw/full harvest moon Zuni Li'dekwakkwya ts'ana/moon when everything ripens +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Much more happens in Indian Country than is reported | | in this weekly newsletter. For daily updates & events | | go to http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm | +-------------------------------------------------------+ Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin -- Blackfeet -- News for All the People Ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min -- Ojibwe -- We Are Talking About Ourselves Aunchemokauhettittea -- Naragansett -- Let Us Share News Kanoheda Aniyvwiya -- Cherokee -- Journal of the People O Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse -- Creek -- People's New News O o O Acimowin -- Plains Cree -- Story or Account O o O Tlaixmatiliztli -- Nahuatl -- News O o o o o O Agnutmaqan -- Listuguj Mi'kmaq -- News O o O Sho-da-ku-ye -- Teehahnahmah -- Talking Birchbark O o O Un Chota -- Susquehannic Seneca -- The People Speak O Ha-Sah-Sliltha -- Ditidaht Nation -- News of the People 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 Dineh jii' adah' ho'nil'e'gii ba' ha' neh -- Navajo Nation -- What's Happening among The People News Okla Humma Holisso Nowat Anya -- Choctaw -- People(s) Red Newspaper Hi'a chu ah gaa -- Pima -- The stories or the talk of the People Native American News -- Language of the Occupation Forces ++>If you speak a Native American language not listed above, please send us your words for "News of the People." We'd rather take up this whole page saving these few words of our hundreds of nations than present a nice clean banner in the language of the occupation forces who came here determined to replace our words with their own. email gars@nanews.org with the equivalent of "News of the People" in your tribal language along with the english translation <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is produced in straight ASCII text for greatest portability across platforms. Read it with a fixed-pitch font, such as Courier, Monaco, FixedSys or CG Times. Proportional fonts will be difficult to read. <================<<<< >>>>================> This issue contains articles from www.owlstar.com; www.indianz.com; www.pechanga.net; Native Rights, NDNAIM, Oyate Underground, RezLife, Big Mountain and Sovereign Nations nMailing Lists; UUCP email; Newsgroup: alt.native 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 | | Once a language is lost, it is | | Limerick summarized in "The | | gone forever | | Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken | | * Of the 300 original Native | | Past of the American West... | | languages in North America, | | "Set the blood quantum at | | only 175 exist today. | | one-quarter, hold to it as a | | * 125 of these are no longer | | rigid definition of Indians, | | learned by children. | | let intermarriage proceed as | | * 55 are spoken by 1 to 6 elders;| | it had for centuries, and | | when they die, their language | | eventually Indians will be | | will disappear. | | defined out of existence." | | * Without action, only 20 | | "When that happens, the federal | | languages will survive the next| | government will be freed of | | 50 years. | | its persistent 'Indian problem.'"| | Source: Indigenous Language | +-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --+ | Institute | |http://www.indigenous-language.org| This issue's Elder Quote: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + ======================== "What do we tell our children when they ask us why our ancestors are not left in peace?" __ Jim Anderson, Mdewakanton Dakota Cultural Chairman +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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! VOLUME 06, ISSUE 015, April 11, 1998 of this newsletter included the following editorial comments: It is becoming clear. If you are buying from a Wal-Mart, you are supporting a company that repeatedly defiles the graves of our ancestors. It happens too many times to be a mere coincidence. The list just rolls on and on... Leeds, New York ... Hickory Flats, Georgia ... Nashville, Tenn It is actually difficult to recall a time when two weeks could pass without some reference to Wal-Mart trashing another grave site. It might even be different if, having stumbled onto a grave site, Wal-Mart would excavate elsewhere. Instead, they fight to desecrate each and every site as if their next breath depended on it. That determination to dig at all costs is what makes their choices so despicable. ----- Morgantown, WVA.; Charlotte Pike - Nashville, TN; Hickory Flats, Georgia; Waterford and Leeds Flat, New York; Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, AZ... If violations of NAGPRA, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990) were not sufficient reason to avoid feeding this rabid dog the first article in this issue from Joseph RedCloud and Thomas Atkins should be. Read it, please. If you do nothing else, read the first article, and then act on it. I can't tell you how to live your life or where to spend your money; but for myself and my family we shop elsewhere if there is a choice. We have steadfastly shopped elsewhere. -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- If you have not been following the Native Prisoner column, currently featuring "Letters from Solidad", you need to consider doing so. This is an eye-opening correspondence that is sadly reflected wherever our brothers and sisters are incarcerated. -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- -=-=-=- For several years this newsletter has run addresses and contacts of those in need of assistance during the hard winter months and at Christmas. As the article "Big Mountain support meeting and Food Drive" proves, it isn't too early to start thinking about those in need during the coming winter. If you are, or know of, a legitimate contact for food, clothing and fuel help for elders and others in need on a rez or urban Indian distribution center PLEASE get that contact info to me at gars@speakeasy.net make the subject: WINTER HELP (all caps). Dohiyi Ani Oginalii , , Gary Smith (*,*) gars@speakeasy.org P. O. Box 672168 (`-') gars@nanews.org Marietta, GA 30008, U.S.A. ===w=w=== http://www.nanews.org ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ---------- - Calling All Native Peoples! - Chickasaw, Choctaw - Wal-Mart at Mexico Ruins highlight Economic Development sparks Protest - South Mountain College - Archive: The World offers Indian Studies according to the Three Cousins - Andersen: Tribal Sovereignty? - Big Mountain support meeting It Doesn't Exist and Food Drive - Harjo: - Navajos may hold key to race The Whiteman and the Disease for the White House - Newcomb: Pathological behavior - Siletz: Bush not listening toward Natives on Health Care - Mohawk: Mythological America - Lack of access to Health Care is an unjust Society major Problem - Chuculate: Pueblo Feast Days - AIM to protest Columbus Day Parade delight... - Anniversary of 1990 Crisis - Yellow Bird: triggers Memories Journey to Nez Perce Country - Senate candidates spar over Debates - Inuit Women's President - Interior is Ruled at Fault again calls it a Day on Indian Files - Police back at Reserve - Ruling shows complexity in hunt for Tamra of Land Claim Cases - Police hope to link arrest - Coleman: May be the Year to missing Native Girl the Native Vote counts - Meskwakis about - OMI accused of violating to launch Tribal Court Religious Traditions - Peltier: - Mountain Meadows Healing Ceremony Sentencing Rules not followed - Pipe Ceremony - Radmilla Cody salutes Nez Perce Battle begins the Long Road Home - Minnesota Tribe's protest - Native Prisoner at Burial Site -- Letters from Soledad, Part 3 - Indians begin week-long, -- Implementing important N A 100-mile Trek Prison Programs for Oklahoma - Dine' Bitzill: - Rustywire: A Streak of Charcoal Navajo Public in the Dark - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days - Editors lose jobs - Spiritdove Poem: after clashing with Officials Phantom in the Night --------- "RE: Calling All Native Peoples!" --------- Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 04:54:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Thomas Atkins Subj: CALLING ALL NATIVE PEOPLES! Mailing List: Native Rights Importance: High Good Morning, I send you greetings in a good way. My name is Joseph RedCloud and I am the eldest male of the 6th generation direct descendent's from Chief RedCloud of the Oglala Lakota. I live in the small college town of Chadron, Nebraska roughly 50 miles south of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota. As you are already aware, life in small border towns along Indian Reservations is often filled with strife and misconceptions from the past. We Oglala's have had a continuing dispute with the state of Nebraska and the small hamlet called White Clay for dozens of years concerning the overwhelming amount of liquor package goods stores and the effect their large sales of alcohol has upon the residents of our reservation. And, while your fine establishment has covered this situation in the past, this is not the subject of which I wish to advise you of today. It is yet another symptom of what is going on across Indian Country. I wish to bring to your attention a lawsuit that was recently filed against a giant company, namely WalMart. WalMart is the nation's largest private employer with some 3,580 stores and 1.2 million full and part-time employees. It is a leader on the Fortune 500 with $258 billion in sales this year. As with most border towns, Chadron's WalMart depends on its customers from the nearby Indian Reservation as their largest customer base. Indeed, WalMart was welcomed with open arms by the city fathers of Chadron several years ago when it elected to locate a store in the Nebraska panhandle. And yet, despite this economic shot in the arm for Chadron residents, racism has raised it's ugly head yet again. Last week, Mr. Greg Clements, a member of both the Oglala Sioux Tribe an the American Legion Post 34 in Gordon, Nebraska, filed a $25 million lawsuit against WalMart because of racial discrimination. The lawsuit is based upon the events of 29 June 2004 where three non-Indian WalMart employees harassed their co-worker, Mr. Greg Clements, about a law still on the books in another small border town, Crawford, Nebraska. The law in question states that if two or more American Indians are found on or crossing a bridge, they may be shot at. Over the course of the 10:30pm through 7:30am shift, Mr. Greg Clements was the focus of continued remarks concerning this "law". Although Mr. Greg Clements did advise his immediate supervisors about this inappropriate harassment, nothing was done to address and correct the behavior of the non-Indian employees. The situation continued to escalate right up to the end of the work shift when a WalMart co-worker offered Mr. Greg Clements a ride home. As Mr. Greg Clifford approached the co-workers truck, the co-worker inquired if he wished to see the type of fire power that he had and pointed a loaded .380 automatic pistol at Mr. Greg Clements. The co-worker kept the weapon leveled at Mr. Greg Clements while explaining the capabilities of the weapon. Naturally, Mr. Greg Clements declined the offered ride home. Mr. Greg Clements has since contacted the Chief of Police in Chadron, the Dawes County Sheriffs office, the Nebraska State Police and, most recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun to look into the situation. Chadron Chief of Police, Jerry Crews, has issued Mr. Greg Clements a 9-1-1 enabled cellular phone because Mr. Greg Clements' home had recently been broken into. It has been suggested that the purpose behind the break-in may have been to obtain the documentation Mr. Greg Clements is using in his racial discrimination lawsuit. Mr. Greg Clements has been forced to move to a new home, the cost of which has consumed all of his savings. Because Mr. Greg Clements is a Marine Corps Combat Veteran, his lawsuit has been noticed and is in the course of being investigated by the Civil Rights Commission in Washington, DC. Had this situation been reversed (an American Indian pointing a loaded weapon at a non-Indian), the American Indian would have been immediately arrested pending an investigation of the charge. However, in this case, not only was the weapon not registered nor was the owner licensed to carry a concealed weapon, the co-worker has not been arrested. Indeed, as of this writing, no formal charges have been filed against the co-worker. As a matter of fact, this incident has not made any news in the local papers nor has it been mentioned on the local radio station of KCSR (610 AM). The only newspaper that has elected to cover this story is one called Black Hills Peoples News, owned and operated by Mr. Robert Clifford (605 867-2220). Mr. Greg Clements is a decorated combat veteran, a prior member of the Department of Public Safety in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, an active member of the American Legion and a good citizen of Chadron, Nebraska. I request that someone in your fine organization look into this matter since it has an immediate bearing on the lives of all Americans with specific emphasis upon American Indians and Veterans. Most Respectfully, Joseph RedCloud joeredcloud@b... ----- This Type of Racism should not Stand. It is time that we band together for a common cause. I hear Native Peoples say all the time how everyone always talks but no one does anything. Well Heres Your Chance! Please show your disgust for the racism towards Native people in this situation. I urge everyone to do the following as I have already done. 1: I have contacted Walmart by phone and letter and informed them that until this act of racism towards an American Indian (Mr.Clements) has been adequitely settled; the offending employees have been dismissed and Walmart publicly apologizes for the harassment of an American Indian in their employ. I will boycott any & all of their stores anywhere that they may be. That I will encourage all of my family and everyone I do & do not know to do the same. Walmart 1-800-925-6278 1-479-273-4000 contact info Jeane Jackson 702 S.W. 8th Street Bentonville, AR 72716 2: I have contacted the Chadron City Council & Police Dept. and Demanded that immediate Criminal Proceedings be taken against the Walmart Employee who pointed the pistol at Mr.Clements and hate crime charges filed against the two other employees who harassed him in the performance of his job. Chadron City chadron@panhandle.net Council P.O. Box 390 & 234 Main Police Chadron, NE 69337 3: I have contacted the City Council and Mayor of Crawford Nebraska Demanding the immediate repeal of that racist law discribed above. Crawford cityhall@citcnet.net Info mayor@citcnet.net 4: I have contacted the following news groups and requested their looking into this matter. As their has been no news coverage of this issue, as if none of the news agencies want to upset the powerful Walmart Corporation. The Links to them are below: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/feedback/fb_news_form.shtml http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?39 Studiob@foxnews.com Foxreport@foxnews.com Newswatch@foxnews.com netaudr@abc.com nbcnews@nbc.com What are you going to do to make a difference for Native Peoples? Stand Up And Fight Back! I may not be able to do much, but I can do this! Thomas Greywolf Atkins Chickahominy/Mattaponi --------- "RE: Wal-Mart at Mexico Ruins sparks Protest" --------- Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 18:00:58 EDT From: MJLaBurt@aol.com Subj: Wal-Mart at Mexico Ruins Sparks Protest Mailing List: NDNAIM http://news.yahoo.com/news~/nm/20040911/bs_nm/mexico_walmart_dc_1 Wal-Mart at Mexico Ruins Sparks Protest By Lorraine Orlandi TEOTIHUACAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Burning incense and sounding a conch shell horn, residents of an ancient Mexican city protested on Saturday at the construction of a Wal-Mart store on the edge of the ruins. The sprawling warehouse-style Bodega Aurrera, a unit of Wal-Mart in Mexico, is due to open in December in Teotihuacan, a major archeological site outside Mexico City. Opponents say it will ruin a way of life that dates back centuries and have taken legal action to stop it, in a fight that gives a grand dimension to the classic battle between big business and small-town values. "What they are doing in Teotihuacan is destroying Mexico's deepest roots for short-term interests like lower prices," local teacher Emanuel D'Herrera told about a dozen protesters outside Teotihuacan's town hall. "This is the flag of conquest by global interests, the symbol of the destruction of our culture." Other protesters bearing placards against the "gringo business" entered the town hall and pledged to stay there until the mayor heard them out. U.S.-based Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, faces increasing opposition in the United States as it stretches beyond its rural roots and into urban areas. Voters in a Los Angeles suburb recently rejected a Wal- Mart supercenter, and other communities have passed ordinances blocking its so-called big-box stores. The Teotihuacan construction site lies less than a mile from the gated tourist park housing the main ruins and is visible from atop the Pyramid of the Sun that has defined the skyline for 2,000 years. UPHILL BATTLE Local activists know they are fighting a steep uphill battle. Wal-Mart Mexico (WALMEXV.MX) has local and state approval for the store and construction is well under way. "I support the store, it will save me time and money," said Camilo Olivas, a father of four who works for the federal electricity commission in Teotihuacan. He drives 10 minutes every two weeks to shop at a Wal-Mart store in another town to find low prices. But a handful of opponents say Wal-Mart will kill local family-owned enterprises and erode a lifestyle dating back centuries, while sucking income from locals. They have filed a criminal complaint, charging authorities with acting illegally in approving the project. They filed a civil complaint on the same grounds and asked the nation's rights ombudsman to step in. Amid rising controversy, Mexico's government this month said a small pre-Hispanic altar was found buried at the construction site. Plans call for preserving the small structure under plexiglass in what will be the store's parking lot. "Mexico is one of the few places in the world where the seeds of culture and religion remain," said Tim Sikyea, or Lonely Eagle, a Dene Indian from the Northwest Territories in Canada who came to Teotihuacan this weekend for an annual ceremony with indigenous peoples from across the continent. "When you have big business come in you lose touch with that culture." No one knows for sure who founded the ancient seat of power and then abandoned it around 600 A.D. The Aztecs later came upon it and named it Teotihuacan (The Place Where Men Become Gods). --------- "RE: Archive: The World according to the Three Cousins" --------- Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 22:27:42 -0700 (PDT) From: James Starkey Subj: From the Oyateunderground Newsletter Archives Mailing Lists: Oyate Underground RezLife NDNAIM Try as I might, I cannot wrtie anything that encapsulates better, my outlook on this. I wrote this for the first anniversary, 2002. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE WORLD ACCORDING TO THE THREE COUSINS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hau Mitakiapi: Brace yourselves for the deluge. We are hours away from the inundation. Red white and blue waved and worn in ev ery way conceivable. It will be difficult to separate the saber rattling from the sorrowful. Try as we may, we will have a hard time differentiating the political from the poignant. September 11, the day the three cousins collided. According to the Republicans, zealots who do not like the freedom and goodness of America attacked the United States. According to a reported suicide note written by one of the hijackers, it was the waste and excess of the American way of life at issue. Immediately after the fall of the World Trade Center, President Bush was on television promising a "crusade" against the perpetrators. Afghanistan was summarily attacked and subdued, and the world, by and large fell in step with the U.S. wishlist for a New World Order. Now here we are one year later, what has really changed in the interim? We have the Patriot Act impinging upon our electronic correspondences with utter impunity. We have rampant jingoism masquerading as some sort of God inspired manifest destiny. We have an attack upon the sovereign State of Iraq looming in the imminent distance, (ironically a mere 60 days before the upcoming elections). The warmongering stance of the United States has been assailed by international voices as diverse as former U.N weapons inspectors to former South African President Nelson Mandela. No American allies other than the reliable aircraft carriers Great Britain and Israel back an Iraqi attack. The Arab League warns of the polarizing effect of a war upon Iraq. Polarizing. Saber rattling. God inspired. Paternalism being stripped to it's bare essence. The base ra-ra-pro-wrestling-meets - football-and-God mentality of the Three Cousins at it's most refined. Demonization and polarization. Op-ed pieces about how down homey and sweet it is for all Americans to be waving God's own Red White and Blue as one big ol' goofy family. America, land of the free...as long as you are marching in lock step that is, (God help the voice of dissent, or even worse, reason). We haven't seen this much righteous Patriotism since the McCarthy era. Brothers and Sisters do not be fooled by the wiles of the trickster. This entire argument is a family fight bet ween the Three Cousins- Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. All three of them are so off their sacred, ancient pa th that they fail to recognize or be recognized by Nature herself. They forgot how to be related and mimic the ways of Iya and Iktomi. They bask in their dominance of Nature and revile as less than, those of us who still hold on to our traditional matriarchal ways. They see us all as "Native Americans" rather than People of some 500 diverse Nations. They fail to consider our suffering even though they now have similar pain. We as Lakota People are still in mourning over Wounded Knee, which took far more of our People as a percentage of our population than 100 World Trade Centers could equal to America. The United States promises us that the People of Iraq want Saddam Hussein overthrown. I am sure that sort of "the People's Will" logic does not extend to the Lakota Peoples Will, or our Aboriginal Rights and 1868 Treaty Rights. They speak out of both sides of their mouth and still find time to consume natural resources at a disproportionate rate. Truly they are Iya, the great consumer. Grandmother Earth will not continue to allow the Three Cousins to run amuck. Nature has her own ways of ebb and flow. The United States is a mere 4 percent of the World's two-legged population. She has become the self-appointed policeman of the world, yet cannot and will not clean up her own back yard. As far as consolidation of rhetoric, influence, and power is concerned, the U.S. warmongers have benefited from the tragic and unnecessary loss of life on September 11, 2001 far more than anyone else has. They have dampened domestic voices of dissent and spread their colonial power to the very doorstep of Islam. Now they are preparing to kick their Cousin's door in...If Abraham could see them now. Pray for the living, Brothers and Sisters. Mitakuye Oyasin. James H. Starkey --------- "RE: Big Mountain support meeting and Food Drive" --------- Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 23:29:31 +0000 From: Robert Dorman Subj: BIGMTLIST big mountain support meeting and food drive Mailing List: Big Mountain Please visit my website, http://www.twincougars.com for health and wellness information and products. ___________________________________________________ From: "RHONDA GARCIA" Dear friends, This message is coming on behalf of The Circle of Indigenous People. Its purpose is to inviite you to our upcoming informational meeting/food and supply collection. Here, you will have the opportunity to learn more about who we are and what we do. We will also be screening the 1985 Academy Award winning documentary "Broken Rainbow", a film that documents the struggle of the traditional Dine'h (Navajo) of Big Mountain (in N/E Arizona) against The Peabody Coal Company's destructive quest for the area's abundant natural resources (coal, uranium and natural gas). As you know, winter will be upon us soon. In N/E Arizona, the winters are especially harsh. The cold is hard to escape for a few reasons. 1) lack of cold/wet weather gear 2) lack of sufficient housing (the wind blows right through gaps in the thin walls of their humble homes and roof leaks turn dirt floors to mud) 3) wet weather turns the dirt roads into rivers of mud, which makes them impossible to travel on. Combine all this with the lack of adequate food supplies life can be pretty hard here, not to mention the harassment by BIA agents and Hopi rangers. So what does this all mean? We really need your help with donations! Please try to attend. The movie is very informational and we will be glad to answer any questions you might have. If you have donations and plan to attend, you can drop them at the door. If you have donations and can't make it, call us at one of the numbers listed below. we are specifically seeking : - non-perishable foods (canned or dry) - jackets, warm hats, blankets, rain/snow boots (child and adult sizes) - tarps, rope, tar paper, hammers and nails Thank you for your time. Sincerely, The Circle of Indigenous People Saturday Septemeber 25, 2004 2pm Reggie Rodriguez Park Community Center 200 South Mines, Montebello, CA 90640 For questions call: james 562) 225-0506 rhonda 323) 728-0583 Directions: 60 fwy East or West exit Paramount Blvd -from 60 east, turn right -from 60 west, turn left proceed to Montebello Blvd turn right proceed to Whittier Blvd turn left proceed to Bluff Rd turn right proceed to Mines turn right look for park ========================================= Please visit my website, http://www.twincougars.com for health and wellness information and products. ----------------------------------------- Please visit http://www.theofficenet.com/~redorman/pagea~1.htm for more background on the Big Mountain relocation issue. To post to the list, email your message to redorman@theofficenet.com. To subscribe, send an email to: BIGMTLIST-subscribe@topica.com. --------- "RE: Navajos may hold key to race for the White House" --------- Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 08:33:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NAVAJO VOTE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://news.telegraph.co.uk//2004/09/13/wus13.xml Navajos may hold key to race for the White House By Alec Russell in Window Rock September 13, 2004 Navajo maidens lining up for the annual beauty pageant, the sheriff of the local Apache County signing up deputies for the fight against drugs and a doom-laden white preacher handing out free Gideon bibles. At first glance, the annual Navajo rodeo looks much as it has done for decades. High up in the mountains of Arizona, this is the largest annual gathering of American Indians, or Native Americans as they are now known. And it is a rare chance to get a whiff of the old West. Ten-gallon hats, cowboy boots and a swagger remain de rigeur for the Navajo male. But a closer look suggests something is changing. After decades on the political margins, America's 4.1 million Indians are being wooed and motivated to vote as never before as Republicans and Democrats realise they may hold the balance of power in two or three swing states. Alongside the paddock where young women in bloody aprons were competing to butcher sheep in their quest to become Miss Navajo Nation 2004, stood two mock polling booths under signs saying "Get Out the Vote". In pride of place in the main hall was a stand for Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign. The new drive to register Indians for November's presidential election comes in the wake of two eye-catching races in 2000 and 2002 when an above-average Indian turnout decided congressional elections in South Dakota, home of the Sioux, and Washington. Patti Dimitriou, a Navajo, runs "Be My Voice", a non-partisan initiative to raise the Navajos' turnout of barely a third at presidential elections to the national average of about 50 per cent. She feels the Indians' legacy of decades of embitterment over their brutal treatment by the United States may be ebbing as they become more educated and want to be involved in their country's political life. "There is a huge push for the Native American vote all over the country," she said. "Both parties are pushing and profiting. Historically the turnout among Navajos in federal elections is very low. But this time will be different." No tribe is more worth courting than the 260,000 Navajos, the largest Indian community in North America. This was one of the first of the great western tribes to be overcome by the United States. The Navajo Nation reservation extends across three states - Arizona, New Mexico and Utah - and could decide the result in the former two, in particular New Mexico, which President George W Bush lost by 366 votes (or 0.06 percent) in 2000. Higher turnout should boost the Democrats who traditionally win 80 per cent of the Indian vote. They are heartened by the support of Joe Shirley, the president of the Navajo Nation, who recently endorsed Mr Kerry. With his black be-feathered hat, black boots, giant turquoise ring and black waistcoat he looks every inch an old-fashioned Indian leader. He intends to do all he can to get Navajos to the polls. "I think they'll really turn out. And I'll do everything I can to make it so," he said. "And definitely it could affect the result. I'm looking for up to 80 to 85 per cent turnout. We're trying to get 100,000 registered and we've already got 93,000." He will be helped by the fact that this year, for the first time, the tribal election is being held on the same day as the presidential election - there is usually a far higher turnout, close to 60 per cent, for tribal elections. Mr Shirley dismissed the theory that historical, social and cultural barriers had contributed to the low turnout among Indians, who were only granted the vote after the Second World War. "We're just like everyone else out there, suffering from apathy, ignorance and a lack of transportation. I don't think we are any different." Since the 1960s and President Lyndon Johnson's welfare reforms, the Navajo and other tribes have been solidly Democrat. But that support cannot be taken for granted. The pro-Life message and military label of the Republicans resonate well among Indians, who have a higher rate of enlistment in the armed forces than any other population group. "The majority are Democrats because of their traditional message of caring for the community, but there are more Republicans now," said Leila Help-Tulley, a local Get out the Vote organiser, who shudders to recall how, only 30 years ago, she was still barred from speaking her native tongue. "The Republican message of self-sufficiency has a resonance." No one is more aware of this than Rick Ranzi, the local Republican congressman, who toured the rodeo this weekend. At the coronation of Miss Navajo Nation he had pride of place in the centre of the packed rodeo ground, even re-enacting an old-fashioned way of adjudicating the winner by holding a cowboy hat over the head of the participants and gauging the winner on the strength of applause from the crowd. "This is huge for me," he said. "I represent more Native Americans than anyone else in Congress. The Navajo tradition is not to vote Republican. But we've opened the first ever congressional office for the Navajo Nation." As a "dust devil" choked the rodeo ground in dirt, Rodger Dahozy, a "grazer" in the cowboy uniform of blue jeans, boots and hat, said he would vote against the grain, for Mr Bush. "We need to finish the war. We can't leave it undone." He added that many young Indians wanted to vote because of the war, which had stirred up patriotic feelings. Back at the "Be My Voice" voter registration booth, however, business was slow. "This could be a historical thing," said Wilson Deschine, a volunteer. "When the constitution was written we were enemies. The truth is a lot of people register - and then don't vote." Copyright c. 2004 Telegraph Group Limited. --------- "RE: Siletz: Bush not listening on Health Care" --------- Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 08:41:06 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="UNDER FUNDING IGNORED" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.newportnewstimes.com/articles/2004/09/08/news/news02.txt Tribe faces critical health care funding issues By Terry Dillman Of the News-Times September 8, 2004 No one is immune from the effects of skyrocketing health care costs, including the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. A combination of reductions in federal Indian Health Services funding and a substantial drop in services under the Oregon Health Plan have put many preventive health care services for tribal members - especially those eligible for Contract Health Services - on the critical list. Siletz tribal council chairman Delores Pigsley discussed the situation in the August issue of Siletz News, the tribe's monthly newspaper. "As we all know, health care is in a major national crisis situation," Pigsley noted. "As the cost of health care escalates, it outpaces the cost of living, which also outpaces the few appropriated health dollars each year. Our situation, to put it mildly, is not good." Pigsley wrote that all tribes across the United States are fighting for adequate health care funds, "but the president and this administration have not been listening. The bottom line for us is that we must make prudent choices on what is spent through the clinic's contract health care. We need to ensure that everyone applies for any coverage for which they are eligible, and that all available Indian Health clinics are utilized." Tribal members in the Siletz Tribe's 11-county service area may use the Siletz Community Health Clinic, Chemawa Health Center, or Grand Ronde Health and Wellness Clinic. Members who live outside the area may use the nearest Indian Health Service clinic. The tribe can use CHS funding only for tribal members who live within the service area. A drop in that funding means a corresponding reduction in covered health services, and fewer services from the Oregon Health Plan translates into fewer dollars the Siletz clinic can bill under third-party billing. The Siletz Tribe offsets some of those cutbacks with gaming revenues from Chinook Winds Casino Resort in Lincoln City. Several years ago, they established a health endowment, allocating gaming funds to it every year. Funds generated by the casino can be used either within or outside the service area. "For the last few years, using gaming revenues generated by our casino, we have provided health care services for people who live outside the service area," Pigsley noted. Those funds expired before January this year, and additional funds allocated July 1 disappeared the first day they became available - something that has never occurred in the past, according to Pigsley, and something that underscores the seriousness of health care funding shortfalls. The council had designated $200,000 from the 2003 excess pledge revenue (gaming funds) for health care services. Required reductions for indirect costs and pharmacy benefits for out-of-area service left a balance of $89, 512 for distribution. Those funds went to 94 tribal members to cover various dental, vision, medical, and hearing care costs. Depletion of the allocated funding prevented assistance to at least 80 others. The tribe's allocations of gaming revenues to the health care fund have risen from $100,000 each year in 1998, 1999, and 2000 to $130,600 in 2001, and $195,000 in 2002. The $200,000 allocated in 2003 pushed the total to $825,000 in the past five years. "Hundreds of tribal members who otherwise would not have been able to receive much-needed care have used these funds to improve their well-being," Pigsley noted. Yet it's nowhere near enough. Tribal officials indicated that additional high-cost catastrophic cases had "completely devastated the budget," and while third-party revenue from clinic collections will provide some funds for limited assistance, the tribe cannot fully fund all needed care. Recognizing the vital health care needs, tribal council members recently allocated another $300,000 to CHS, placing the system on life support to extend coverage beyond emergency/acutely urgent care requests through the end of December. Even so, it means caps and limits on coverage - $25,000 per episode for Priority I services (emergency room care for heart attack, stroke, car accident, acute pneumonia, and acute asthma, as well as severe burns, concussion, large lacerations, fractures, eye injuries, and other trauma), and $150 per person per week for Priority II services (preventive care such as screenings for known diseases, hypertension, diabetes, mammograms, pap smears, immunizations, well-child exams, sports physicals, and medication refills). Prior approval is required for preventive or specialty care services, and there's a 72-hour time limit for reporting emergency care services. The tribe is looking at ways to reduce health care costs and provide adequate coverage for as many tribal members as possible. Judy Muschamp, the tribe's health director, has found a way to save some money on prescription drugs by setting the tribal clinic pharmacy up as its own mail order prescription manager. The pharmacy offers mail-order medications to CHS-eligible members who live within the 11-county service area, but outside the 40-mile radius of the clinic's coverage area. "We will realize substantial savings by using generic drugs, and providing our own mail order service," said Pigsley. Council members have also looked into the possibility of purchasing a health plan to cover all tribal members, but Pigsley said the cost of such plans "is prohibitive at this time." They also urge tribal members who have access to low-cost private insurance through their own or their spouses' employers to pursue that option "to avoid the frustration of denied care (or payment) through CHS." Copyright c. 2004 Newport News-Times, Newport, OR. --------- "RE: Lack of access to Health Care major Problem" --------- Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 08:41:06 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NUMBER ONE HEALTH ISSUE" http://www.indianz.com/News/2004/004135.asp Lack of access to health care called major problem News from the United Tribes Technical College. September 9, 2004 BISMARCK, North Dakota - The number one health care problem in American Indian communities is not a particular disease. It's not diabetes, alcohol and drug abuse, or cardiovascular disease, though they are epidemic in Indian Country. It's a problem with access to health care services, according to a leading health researcher. "Its not a single disease that's the number one problem," said Dr. Spero M. Manson. "It's the lack of access to appropriate and timely care." Manson is Professor of Psychiatry and head of American Indian and Alaska Native Programs at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. In a speech to tribal leaders at the United Tribes Intertribal Summit Conference in Bismarck, Manson said American Indian health care suffers from major economic issues. He described the situation with breast cancer. "American Indian women have a lower incidence of the disease. It occurs one-point-eight times less frequently than in white women," he said. "Yet American Indian women are more than two-point-six times as likely to die from it as their white, female counterparts." "Why is that? Because women in American Indian communities do not have access to early detection and treatment of breast cancer," he said. "As a consequence of the distances involved and lack of resources in tribal communities, they're very unlikely to take advantage of the extremely sophisticated and rapidly improving treatments becoming available." Manson pointed out that American Indian health care systems have historically not done a good job at recovering reimbursable costs of care and ancillary expenses. "Consider the participation rates for Medicare and Medicaid. Nationally the rate is 92 percent," he said. "The rate for American Indians is 62 percent." Tribes and the Indian Health Service have not capitalized on what is rightfully due to Indians as U. S. citizens by developing the infrastructure and providing the resources to recover funds, he said. A model program is the Access Project of the National Indian Council on Aging, Albuquerque, NM. He said the program demonstrated how to reach American Indians who are eligible for Medicare and Medicaid and how to develop effective reimbursement procedures. Manson described how state block grant funding could yield more resources if tribes pursued separate, independent funding on their own for alcohol, drug treatment and mental health programs. He also said the coordination of care across service sectors was another major area where structure, financing and access play a role in health care problems for American Indians. Copyright c. 2000-2004 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: AIM to protest Columbus Day Parade" --------- Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 14:48:32 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="Colon, The Non-Discoverer" http://www.dailycamera.com//0,1713,BDC_2419_3174424,00.html AIM to protest Columbus Day parade By Associated Press September 11, 2004 DENVER - The American Indian Movement will again protest the city's Columbus Day parade, which is being sponsored by an Italian civic group. AIM has protested the city's annual parade off and on since 1990, saying that explorer Christopher Columbus should not be celebrated because he nearly destroyed American Indians. Leaders said they had hoped that the parade's sponsor would rename the Oct. 9 event the "Italian Heritage Day" parade, a change they have asked for before. "Our hope was that they would try to take their parade to a different moral plane so we wouldn't get into a competition again," Glenn Morris of AIM said Thursday. "We're calling for a nonviolent, direct action against racism in the streets of Denver on the day of Columbus hate speech." Parade organizer George Vendegnia said he would not meet with the activists or Mayor John Hicklenlooper to work out their differences. "We, as Americans, have the right to hold the parade under any name we like," he said. "It's a national holiday on the calendar in every state. As long as it remains one, we'll celebrate it." Columbus Day has been a state holiday in Colorado since 1905. The parade was halted in 1992, when participants were met by thousands of angry protesters. Copyright c. 2004, The Daily Camera and the E.W. Scripps Company. --------- "RE: Anniversary of 1990 Crisis triggers Memories" --------- Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 14:48:32 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="1990 MOHAWK DEFENSE" http://www.easterndoor.com/vol13/32.html Anniversary triggers memories Eugene Stacey Recalls Role in Crisis of 1990 By: Dan Rosenburg Volume 13 No. 32 - September 3, 2004 It happened 14 years ago next week, but Eugene Stacey remembers the details as if it were yesterday. Stacey, then 36, was helping to defend an invasion of Kateri Island by the Canadian Army during the Crisis of 1990. When he saw a soldier hit a 12-year-old Mohawk girl in the face with his gun, Stacey sprung into action. "I pounced on him and took his gun away," Stacey recalls. "I ended up getting three of them. When I see a kid get hurt, I react. I'm not afraid of anybody." Stacey says the solder in question "was just skin and bones. He flashed an SQ badge he had in his pocket. But on this occasion he was dressed like a soldier." Perhaps the intruder had got sidetracked on his way to a masquerade party? "I grabbed his glasses and threw them into the Seaway," Stacey says. "He tried to get a headlock on me but he couldn't do it. I flipped him over, onto the cement. Then I tossed another soldier into the river." Stacey also became infuriated when he "saw the Army try to throw a pregnant woman off the bridge. I grabbed her and pulled her back. A soldier was trying to hit her in the face with his gun." Stacey says the SQ later tried to exact a measure of revenge for his actions. "After the Crisis and everybody left, I was riding my bike to the Survival School when the SQ stopped me. They said I had gone through a red light between the railroad tracks and the scrap-yard on Route 132, and they sent me a $35 ticket in the mail. But the light was really green, so I never paid the ticket to this day," he recounts. "Besides, the SQ has no jurisdiction here," Stacey recollects. "Their territory is Ste. Catherine and St. Constant." So how does it feel to be recognized as a hero in Kahnawake? "It feels good...real good," he replied as the 14th anniversary of this memorable incident approached. Copyright c. 1997-2004 The Eastern Door. Kahnawake Mohawk Territory. --------- "RE: Senate candidates spar over Debates" --------- Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 09:13:17 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INDIAN COUNTRY DEBATE AT ODDS" http://www.rapidcityjournal.com//election/us_senate/961senate.txt Senate candidates spar over debates By Denise Ross , Journal Staff Writer September 7, 2004 Both candidates in South Dakota's U.S. Senate race say they want a debate in Indian Country. Nevertheless, it appears unlikely that Democrat Tom Daschle and Republican John Thune will meet before an American Indian reservation audience before the Nov. 2 election. Daschle, the three-term incumbent, told the Rapid City Journal on Wednesday that his campaign would ask the various sponsors of his remaining six South Dakota debates to move one to a reservation. "We have proposed that of the eight debates we have going, one take place on a reservation," Daschle said. "We've written to sponsors to ask them to consider the option." Thune, a former three-term congressman, criticized Daschle for being unwilling to add any debates to his schedule to have one on a reservation. Thune campaign manager Dick Wadhams called it "a hollow, empty and phony gesture on Tom Daschle's part." "If he wants to debate on a reservation, he ought to accept a debate," Wadhams said. "John Thune will gladly and readily debate on the reservations of South Dakota. It doesn't require moving one of the existing debates already scheduled. Once again, he has found a convenient dodge." By Friday, Daschle's plan had unraveled, and the Daschle campaign sent no letters to debate sponsors. "We were on the verge of doing it,"Daschle's deputy campaign manager, Dan Pfeiffer, said. Pfeiffer said the letter was going out only to the five media outlets, including the Rapid City Journal, that were cooperating to host a debate on Oct. 18, and not to the sponsors of all debates. The letter was not sent, Pfeiffer said, because Mitch Krebs of KSFY-TV in Sioux Falls told the campaign that the five media outlets had agreed not to move the debates out of the TV studio. "We are not in a position to dictate debate sites," Pfeiffer said. "We'd be very comfortable debating on a reservation. We'd be supportive of that. No one has come to us with a proposal for one." Krebs said Steve Hildebrand, Daschle's campaign manager, told him the campaign would prefer to keep the debate in the KSFY studio. "I never heard anything about moving it to a reservation or anything about a letter going out," Krebs said. Daschle and his senior campaign staffers said they are unwilling to add any new debates because they believe eight is enough and a record number in modern South Dakota history. "We want to do more than just spend time doing debates," said Hildebrand. "We don't have any more room on our schedule to do debates and other things we want to get done. He does a lot of these community dinners and coffees, which provide him with an opportunity to talk directly with voters without the confrontational setting of a structured debate." Pfeiffer said a lack of debates does not mean Daschle is ignoring reservations. The Senate minority leader has hit the powwow circuit the last two years, attending one of the dance competitions on each reservation in the last six months, as he did in 2003. Thune has made a dozen visits to reservations this year, Wadhams said. Political debates haven't typically found their way onto South Dakota's nine Indian reservations, but reservation votes - trending 8 or 9 to 1 for Democrats - have been crucial in recent statewide races. Votes from Shannon County on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation were the last to be tallied in 2002 and are often credited with the 524-vote victory Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., scored over Thune that year. In the June 1 special U.S. House election, the 3,000-vote victory margin for Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., would have been wiped out without the reservation vote. At more than 8 percent of the state's population, American Indians comprise South Dakota's largest racial minority and are its fastest growing demographic. Thune said the candidates don't need permission from any sponsor to debate on a reservation. "Since they made such an issue of the Native American vote, and we're working hard to earn that vote, too, it seems to make sense that they ought to have the same opportunity to have issues discussed that are important to Indian country that has been afforded to people in other parts of the state," Thune said. "Anybody could sponsor a debate down there." Tom Shortbull, president of Oglala Lakota College, and state Rep. Tom Van Norman, D-Eagle Butte, both said any interaction between political candidates and reservation residents is good. "For us as Indian people, we want to hear what kind of commitments candidates make to Indian Country. That kind of rings hollow when they're in a studio," Shortbull said. "When people can hear it face to face, it makes a difference." Van Norman said he favors a steady variety of candidate visits to reservations. Both lively debates and calm visits with constituents are needed, he said. "I don't think you can do it by one little debate or one visit. They have to keep coming," Van Norman said. "They need to be in touch with America, and that includes poor people and people who don't have access to those in the high ranks of the political world." Van Norman said candidates should debate on a reservation if they are serious about reaching Indian voters. "If you're going to talk about Indian issues, you need to come where Indian people are," he said. Contact Denise Ross at 394-8438 or denise.ross@rapidcityjournal.com Copyright c. 2004 The Rapid City Journal. --------- "RE: Interior Is Ruled at Fault Again on Indian Files" --------- Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 08:30:23 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MORE RECORD DESTRUCTION" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9596-2004Sep9.html Interior Is Ruled at Fault Again on Indian Files By Carol D. Leonnig Washington Post Staff Writer September 10, 2004 A federal judge ruled yesterday that the Interior Department continues to allow the destruction and damage of crucial records that track the amount of money the government owes Native Americans for Indian lands it has managed for more than a century. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said Interior employees have come forward with new and credible evidence that the agency allowed at least 350 boxes of records to be ruined by mold in an agency office in New Mexico and left an untold number of boxes to be damaged under a leaking roof. Lamberth said Interior appears to have deliberately failed to report the damage, despite being under a court order to report on the safety of court records to a special master. In this mammoth eight-year-old suit, 500,000 Indians assert that the agency, essentially the keeper of their inheritance, has failed to keep accurate records of an estimated $10 billion in gas, oil and other leases on lands the government has managed since 1871. Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller declined yesterday to comment on Lamberth's ruling. Justice is representing the Interior Department in the suit. The judge yesterday ordered Interior to provide a complete report on the current status of the records within 10 days and to file all reports directly with his office "under the penalty of perjury." "The actions of Interior and Secretary [Gale A.] Norton in this instance again demonstrate why the Court continues to believe that Interior sets the gold standard for mismanagement of a government agency," Lamberth wrote. "Interior has once again proven that it can not be trusted and is in need of judicial oversight." The judge's newest criticism of the agency comes one week before Interior lawyers are scheduled to argue before a federal appeals court that Lamberth has no authority over them. The agency has been locked in an unusually fierce and personal battle with Lamberth, who found Norton in contempt of court for failing to follow his orders to account for money owed to the Indians. He had earlier found Clinton administration officials in contempt in the same litigation. The specific instances of damage that Interior employees brought to the court's attention this spring and summer are new, but the nature of the allegation is not. An Interior lawyer with whistle-blower protection testified in 1999 that he refused an agency order to get rid of hundreds of trust fund records, and that he knew of many missing records. Keith Harper, a lead attorney for the Native Americans in the case, said the Interior Department does not deny the damaged records but rather denies it has to listen to the judge. "Even after all the orders, the practice continues," he said, adding that it is obstinacy. Copyright c. 2004 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Ruling shows complexity of Land Claim Cases" --------- Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 14:48:32 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LAND CLAIMS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.newsday.com/~story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire Ruling shows complexity of land claim cases By JOEL STASHENKO Associated Press Writer September 10, 2004 ALBANY, N.Y. - Time in Indian land claim litigation is measured in years, if not decades. It took a decade for a Seneca Indian Nation claim to Grand Island and 40 more islands in the Niagara River to reach a midlevel federal appeals court, where it was dismissed this week. But the Seneca claim to the land has been around much longer, since at least the 1950s, when the Senecas brought a proceeding to the Indian Claims Commission against the federal government. The Grand Island claim dramatizes the enormous complexities of land claim cases and, by extension, explains why their progression through the courts can be so excruciatingly slow. "You're litigating stuff that happened hundreds of years ago," said Assistant Attorney General Peter Sullivan, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's chief land claims litigant. "If you're a history buff and a lawyer, they're great. They're very interesting. But once this ends, there will be a lot more room in my office. I've got stuff literally stacked to the ceiling here." There is little chance of the land claim cases going away anytime soon. Every Iroquois nation except for the Onondagas are pursuing major land claim litigation in New York, as are the Shinnecocks, who are not a federally recognized tribe in the state. The Senecas' claim to the Niagara River islands was based on the tribe's belief that their ancestors improperly ceded the land to the state in 1815 for $1,000 and an annual payment of $500. The Senecas contended that the tribe gained title to the islands under the Treaty of Canandaigua of 1794 and that since the 1815 purchase of the land was never approved by Congress, the sale was in violation of the federal Non-Intercourse Act and is void. That, believe it or not, is the simple explanation of the legal argument in the case. As with virtually all land claim litigation, the three-judge federal panel in the Seneca case had to conduct a long and complicated analysis of dealings between the Senecas and the state of New York and the United States of America, and between the Senecas and colonial Americans before that. They found that the Iroquois Nation, of which the Senecas were one of five member tribes, had "surrendered, delivered up and forever quit" claims to a vast portion of land, including the Niagara region, to the British as early as 1701. Then came later treaties and proclamations affecting the Senecas and properties around the Niagara River area. They included agreements defining property boundaries in the Niagara River and its islands, complications created by the Americans beating the British in the Revolutionary War, uncertainties involving the Articles of Confederation in the early years of the republic and the imprecise wording of the Treaties of Fort Stanwix (1784) and Canandaigua (1794). The ruling traced the varying alliances of the Seneca with and against the British or Americans _ the tribe unluckily backed the British during the Revolutionary War _ and quotes letters George Washington, among others, wrote to the Senecas about their land claims. In the end, the federal Court of Appeals ruling hinged on the meaning of a single sentence in the Treaty of Canandaigua: "The land of the Seneka nation is bounded as follows: ... the line runs along the river Niagara to Lake Erie." Citing a 1667 legal treatise on water rights, the judges concluded that the islands were not within the property rights of the Senecas as defined in 1794. Thus, the state purchased in 1815 what it already owned and the transaction was not subject to the violations of the Non-Intercourse Act. Simply compiling the pertinent documents for a case like the Seneca land claim is daunting. Sullivan said some crucial materials were probably lost during the Revolution, when the British Indian agent in New York, John Johnson, stayed a loyalist to the crown and fled to Canada, taking his records with him. Historians' eyes get misty, Sullivan said, when discussing a 1911 fire at the state Capitol in Albany that destroyed or damaged irreplaceable historic documents held by the State Museum. "Sometimes you don't know what you don't have," he said. And, modern forces also contribute to the drawing out of the land claims cases. The Seneca case was delayed for a time, officials said, while litigants waited on an Idaho land claim ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that the parties in the Seneca case thought would also apply to their litigation. "As old as some of the issues and facts are, some of the law is still developing," Sullivan said. ---- Joel Stashenko is Capitol Editor for The Associated Press in Albany. He can be reached at jstashenko(at)ap.org. Copyright c. 2004, The Associated Press. Copyright c. Newsday, Inc. Produced by Newsday Electronic Publishing. --------- "RE: Coleman: May be the Year the Native Vote counts" --------- Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 08:30:23 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NICK COLEMAN: NATIVE VOTE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.startribune.com/stories/357/4973412.html Nick Coleman: This may be the year the native vote counts Nick Coleman, Star Tribune September 10, 2004 They were the first Americans but the last citizens. Now American Indians are determined to help decide the future of a nation that once tried to consign them to the past. Congress didn't extend American citizenship to Indians until 1924 (four years after women got the vote). Before that, only a few Indians had been allowed to vote, and only if they were "civilized." One 1917 Minnesota Supreme Court ruling stated that an Indian who wanted to vote must leave the reservation to "pursue the customs and habits of civilization." Who knows? If Minnesota required voters in Anoka County to demonstrate "habits of civilization," Jesse Ventura might never have been elected. But for decades after the belated granting of citizenship in their native land, Indians often felt unwelcome at the polls. "A lot of our ancestors didn't even know they could vote, and it was a long time before we knew we had rights as citizens," says Doreen Hagen, a Dakota who is tribal council president on the Prairie Island Indian Reservation in Red Wing. "My grandparents and parents never voted. Nobody ever asked us to vote, and I guess no one ever needed our votes." "Indians have only had the privilege of voting for the last 80 years," says Melanie Benjamin, tribal chair of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. "And I have friends in their 40s and 50s who have never voted. If you live in Mille Lacs County, it's tough to relate to those (non-Indian) officials. But we are going to change that. We are going to make the state of Minnesota aware of the importance of Indian voters." Hagen and Benjamin are co-chairs of a Get Out The Vote Campaign that kicks off today with the unveiling of a billboard in downtown Minneapolis urging Minnesota Indians to vote on Nov. 2. Against a backdrop of historical leaders who led the fight for tribal survival in the 19th century is a message about carrying on the fight to the ballot box. "They Couldn't," the billboard says. "You Can! Your Great Grandparents didn't have a voice in the vote. ... For their memory, for yourself, and for your children, YOU SHOULD." There are an estimated 33,000 eligible Indian voters in Minnesota, a small slice of the electorate. But as Florida demonstrated in 2000, every vote counts. And with Minnesota a battleground state in the presidential race, the outcome might well be affected by the results on Minnesota's 11 Indian reservations or in the urban precincts where many Indians live. "Now we know how it operates," Hagen says. "We know our vote counts. Maybe some people don't like the idea that we're voting now, but we have a voice and we know how to make it heard." The historic disenfranchisement of minorities helps explain how nuclear power plants such as the twin reactors at Prairie Island could be built within a stone's throw of a reservation playground but how all the tax revenues went to Red Wing. Or how the Prairie Island tribe tried to buy advertising time in the late 1980s to oppose expansion of nuclear waste in its back yard, Twin Cities' TV stations refused to sell the tribe any spots. For decades after they were condescendingly deemed citizens, the nation's Indians were ignored by politicians and left in neglected and isolated communities without power or representation. As late as 1985, the small Dakota Indian tribe at Prior Lake had to go to federal court to force the city of Prior Lake to permit tribal members to vote in city elections. Suddenly, however, the native vote looms large. All sides are making huge efforts to get out the vote this year: Everything from recorded phone messages from George W. Bush urging voters to apply for absentee ballots to a concerted overseas effort to make sure that troops in uniform get to exercise their franchise. With a close election and a rising appreciation of the stakes involved, it should be no surprise that Indians are making a nonpartisan but nationally coordinated effort to turn out the vote. Although participation in tribal elections is always high, Indian voters often have stayed away from federal elections, with only about 20 percent of eligible voters going to the polls. This year, the National Congress of American Indians is sponsoring a Native Vote 2004 Campaign that hopes to get 1 million American Indians and Alaska Natives to turn out. There is plenty of evidence that the native vote can tip the balance in close races. In Arizona, Navajo Indian voters helped a Democrat win the governor's race in 2002 by just 2,200 votes. That same year, in South Dakota, Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson won a closely fought race for reelection, pushed over the top by votes from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. And politicians who anger Indian voters do so at their peril: Washington's Sen. Slade Gorton was defeated in 2000 after being targeted by the tribes. Traditionally, many Indians have voted Democratic. The result: Republicans have largely ignored Indian voters while Democrats have taken them for granted. Many Indians don't want to play this game anymore: If you want Indian votes, you will have to earn them. "That's a horrible perception, that only Democrats should care about our vote," said Benjamin, who recently won a second four-year term as chair of the Mille Lacs Reservation. "If you represent the state of Minnesota, you're supposed to represent all the people of Minnesota." According to Benjamin, Gov. Tim Pawlenty made a recent (and brief) visit to the Mille Lacs Reservation -- the first time a governor has visited the politically important reservation since DFLer Rudy Perpich, who left office in 1991. Pawlenty, a Republican, might be smart to schedule another visit. His threat last winter to bust the tribal casino monopoly has not made the reservations any riper for Republican canvassers, nor did President Bush's recent tongue-tied failure to explain the concept of tribal sovereignty. But Democrats have vulnerabilities, too. John Kerry opposes a plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain Nevada, leaving a growing pile of it at Prairie Island. Despite Republican complaints that the campaign to get Indians to vote is a Democratic plot (a charge that is insulting on its face, and is rejected by the National Congress of American Indians), the more you look at the issue, the more it looks like Indians are finally getting some of the respect -- and the attention -- due all voters in a democracy. At long last, perhaps, American Indians are taking their place at the table, in the halls of government and in the voting halls, too. And there's only one thing you can say: It's about time. Nick Coleman is at ncoleman@startribune.com. Copyright c. 2004 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: OMI accused of violating Religious Traditions" --------- Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 09:13:17 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NAVAJO DESECRATED" http://www.krqe.com/pueblos-tribes/=ID&ID%5BPueblos%5D=6723 OMI accused of violating Navajo religious traditions Location: ALBUQUERQUE Source: AP August 31, 2004 A Navajo man's family alleges the state Office of the Medical Investigator violated tribal religious traditions in the way the office handled the man's body. Mary and Alfred Taylor, who live near Chinle, Arizona, have sued the office, alleging it failed to obtain next of kin's consent for the autopsy of their son, Abel Taylor. And they allege that OMI employees mislabeled the body and had it transported to a funeral home for cremation. They seek more than $2 million. OMI associate director Tim Stepetic said yesterday that the office has no comment on the lawsuit's allegations. But he says the office takes pride in paying attention to cultural differences. Abel Taylor was found dead in Albuquerque in August 2002. Copyright c. 2004 KRQE News 13. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Mountain Meadows Healing Ceremony" --------- Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 08:28:55 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MASSACRE SITE" http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2410207 Mountain Meadows healing ceremony marks anniversary By Mark Havnes The Salt Lake Tribune September 8, 2004 MOUNTAIN MEADOWS - The anniversary marking the beginning the siege of a California-bound wagon train 147 years ago that ended five days later in a massacre started on a subdued note Tuesday. "We're here to help the healing process," said Raine Bowen, chief of the Distaiyi band of Southern Cherokees. Before the ceremony, Bowen relaxed in a lawn chair under the awning of a motor home in the parking lot at the site where the grisly Mountain Meadows Massacre - in which more than 120 settlers were killed - was carried out by Mormon pioneer settlers and their Paiute allies. Bowen and a handful of other Cherokees and supporters planned to offer prayers this week at the site, since a DNA examination of some remains unearthed accidentally by a backhoe in 1999 suggested some of the victims were part American Indian. While the scientific testing did not reveal the tribe associated with the remains before they were reburied, for Bowen and others the logical conclusion was that they were Cherokee. She said the tribe had a strong presence near where the Fancher-Baker wagon train originated, in northwest Arkansas near the Oklahoma state line. "There have been so many people who have commented how the energy of the place has a heavy feel," said Bowen. "Now we're trying to help move on by putting the pain in the past and release these trapped spirits." Cherokee spiritual leader Larry Williams will perform a series of Cherokee pipe and prayer rituals this week, culminating Saturday at 2 p.m. with a special ceremony expected to be attended by religious leaders from several U.S. tribes and descendants of perpetrators and victims. "Sunday night, after arriving, I had a heavy heart; it was hot and I was restless," said Williams, as strains of a song by Cherokee singer Rita Coolidge drifted from the motor home. "We held a prayer ceremony and I felt more light in my heart. It is time to return this spot to the Creator as the hallowed ground it is." Bowen said the groups' plans are puzzling to members of descendant groups, like the Mountain Meadows Association. "They can't figure out what we're doing and are afraid we'll desecrate the site," said Bowen. "But we're not here to start a controversy." But any event linked to the massacre is controversial, and plans by the Cherokee group are no exception. Last week, the Mountain Meadows Association used its Web site to ask the group to cancel its ceremonies. Association secretary Lynn-Marie Fancher, whose ancestor helped organized the ill-fated trip, called the hasty analysis of the remains in 1999 inconclusive, leaving claims of Cherokee ties to conjecture. "I know in my family we don't have any Cherokees," said Fancher. "It's a little presumptuous to plan something without any support of descendant groups." But Bowen will not be deterred, nor will Gary Hogan, whose Hamblin ancestors took part in the killing. The Mountain Meadows association says the Cherokees needed their permission for what they're doing," said Hogan at the site Tuesday. "I say no they don't, they have mine." mhavnes@sltrib.com Copyright c. 2004 Salt Lake City Tribune. --------- "RE: Pipe Ceremony salutes Nez Perce Battle" --------- Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 08:33:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HONORING THE FALLEN" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.billingsgazette.com//30-honoring-the-fallen.inc Honoring the fallen: Pipe ceremony salutes Nez Perce battle at Canyon Creek By MIKE STARK Of The Gazette Staff September 13, 2004 LAUREL - The weather 127 years ago was terrible - wet, cold and howling with nearly gale-force winds. The Nez Perce and the U.S. Army were surprised to find each other at Canyon Creek on Sept. 13, 1877. But Col. Samuel Sturgis, intent on intercepting the Nez Perce, hoped to cut off the tribe after a summerlong chase sparked by the tribe's refusal to confine themselves to a small patch of reservation land in Idaho. Both sides exchanged fire until sundown, maneuvering across the dusty battlefield and rocky cliffs. When it was over, three Nez Perce were dead and three U.S. soldiers were dead, according to most estimates. Sturgis would not be able to claim a victory at Canyon Creek and the pursuit continued for nearly another month. On Sunday, about 60 people turned out to for the annual pipe ceremony to commemorate the battle at Canyon Creek. Members of local VFW and American Legion posts performed a rifle salute, color guard and other duties. Veterans gathered in a circle to share the pipe and honor soldiers who had died. "These are the things we do for those who came before us," said Scott Winfred, a Nez Perce member from Lapwai, Idaho, who led the ceremony. About a dozen other Nez Perce members attended the ceremony north of Laurel as part of a regular tour of memorial sites commemorating the summer of 1877. A similar ceremony was held in Yellowstone National Park last month. As knowledge of the battles grows, so do the connections between today's tribal members and their ancestors, Winfred said. "Our families have stories at all these different battles," Winfred said. Those at Sunday's event also got a peek at the developing Canyon Creek Interpretive Site, which will eventually include detailed displays of the Canyon Creek battle and the flight of the Nez Perce in 1877. In 2001, the MJ Ranch Company donated about an acre of land for the interpretive site. Since then, local officials have been working to design and construct the display. By next spring, organizers hope to have most of the site completed, including the signs and walkway. "It was important to secure this land and tell the story," said Milt Wester, chairman of Friends of Canyon Creek. The flight of the Nez Perce through Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana should always be remembered by those on both sides, organizers said. For the Nez Perce, it has become an integral part of history - viewed in the same way as World War II, the Korean War and other U.S. wars, said Winfred, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars. Honoring the battles of the Nez Perce in 1877 is a way to connect the tribe's past and present. "These are sacred battlefields," Winfred said after the ceremony. "It's a great part of our history." Copyright c. The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Minnesota Tribe's protest at Burial Site" --------- Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 08:41:06 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MENDOTA MDEWAKANTON GRAVES DESECRATED" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=1328 Halt construction near 494 and light rail By Alexa Kocinski September 8, 2004 Dozens of Native Americans and sympathetic protesters have spent much of the past two weeks occupying an overgrown acre in Bloomington where a construction crew has uncovered an apparent Dakota burial ground. The nonviolent protest placed the Mdewakanton Dakota tribe at odds with the Minnesota's official Native American advocacy group, who want the 200-odd bones moved to a state-recognized burial ground across the street. Archaeologists discovered the bones August 26 as part of a pre- construction survey. McGough Construction plans to build a $100 million retail and real estate development on the surrounding 45 acres, which border the light-rail transit station due to open in December. Word quickly leaked to Jim Anderson, cultural chair of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, who said he visited the site that day, and met Jim Jones of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC), the state's official Native American relations bureau. When Jones said the bones were to be ceremonially relocated to a nearby official burial ground, Anderson and others in his tribe sent out a call for volunteers to occupy the site. In the past, exhumed Indian skeletons were loaned out to museums, reburied in state-recognized cemeteries, or destroyed altogether. MIAC leaders want to dig up the bones and move them across the street to the Cerbian Building Site, home of a certified Dakota burial mound, so construction can resume. But the Mdewakantons believe that the blood and flesh of the deceased are forever a part of the ground and must be protected to dignify the ancestral legacy. "Don't repatriate [the bones]. Save God's little acre," implores Mdewakanton Cultural Chairman Jim Anderson. Anderson, Mdewakanton Tribal Chairman, Michael Scott, and many other supporters are offended by MIAC's push to dig up the bones, which they fervently believe is a sacred part of their spiritual heritage. Instead, they want to leave the land alone. Mdewakanton Dakotas are a subset of the Dakota or Lakota nation, sometimes called the Sioux. They consider disrupting their ancestors' burial site a wrongful violation of their heritage. "What do we tell our children when they ask us why our ancestors are not left in peace?" Anderson laments, as he tearfully gazes in the direction of the mound. Like many other Indians, he feels that if the Mdewakanton children continually see their homeland and hallowed grounds desecrated, they will lose their tribal identity. "This is cultural genocide," he said. Since the August 26 discovery, Mdewakantons and other sympathetic activists have sustained an ongoing vigil across the road from the controversial location. Every night, they hold a mexica, or prayer circle, to pay homage to the spirit world and strengthen their collective unity. In a press conference held the day after the remains were found, Garrett Wilson, Dakota spiritual elder, explained the necessity of a show of social solidarity: "We're gathered together not looking for publicity but paying our respects to the body recovered up there on the mound." The aim of the nonviolent demonstration is to educate and spread awareness about the importance of preserving Indian history, which is an integral part of American history. The Mdewakantons would also like to secure zoning limitations to forbid McGough Construction from building on this relatively small patch of terrain. The Mdewakantons' fight is complicated by the fact that they are not a federally-recognized tribe, so they have limited influence with the MIAC and little power to initiate protective county, state, or federal legislation. Their land base is nonexistent, although historical documents, paintings, and old newspaper articles have verified the authenticity of many grave mounds along the banks of the Minnesota River, called the Van Ness Mounds, as Mendota Mdewakanton Indian territory. If the Mdewakanton can prove that the recently uncovered mound in Bloomington belongs to them, the site would come under the protection of the Private Cemeteries Act, in accordance with Minnesota State Statute 307.08 and Bloomington civic law. But this, too, is complicated by the fact that the mound is situated on private property and that there is no record of the mound in the deed to the property. Bruce White, an independent historian who has worked to substantiate Mendota Indian history, said that proving the historical significance of the grave to ensure it meets the criteria of the National Register of Historic Places is a daunting challenge. Indeed, very few written testimonials of Indian history exist, because they relate their past through oral tradition. But he notes that the decisions affecting Minnesota indigenous populations should go beyond the technicalities and politics of a tribunal. "How many bones do you have to find to convince people that a place is sacred?" he asks. Copyright c. 2004 Pulse of the Twin Cities and Hosting Ave LLC. --------- "RE: Indians begin week-long, 100-mile Trek" --------- Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 08:33:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NOME CULT RELOCATION REMEMBERED" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.orovillemr.com/Stories/0,1413,157~26686~2398293,00.html Indians begin week-long, 100-mile trek By BARBARA ARRIGONI/MediaNews Group September 13, 2004 The early morning air was cool Sunday as American Indians from different tribes gathered for breakfast at the Indian Fishery on River Road before setting out on foot for a 100-mile journey. The group will walk across the Sacramento Valley and the North Coast Range along the Nome Cult Trail, which was forged by their ancestors in a forced relocation. Fred "Coyote" Downey, 67, has made the honorary trek since it began nine years ago. "I do this walk for a tough little Indian boy," Downey said. "He was taken from here with his mom and a group of people. The Army marched them to Round Valley Indian Reservation. He was 8 years old." That boy was Downey's grandfather. "We do it to honor the original marchers, he said. "It was pretty hard on the people. A lot of them didn't make it. It's become a very personal thing. Each of us has had family members that came on that walk in 1863, 141 years ago." Some of the walkers pray and make offerings over the trail. "We know it was very painful, so we suffer; so we know the hardship," he said. Downey said the hardest thing about the walk is going through areas where he knows people died. He said it's a good experience for the children who participate in the walk. "We try to tell the children not to think about all the terrible things that happened in the past to our people," Downey said. "Our people are good people kind, strong people. You don't have to be ashamed of yourself being Indian." Downey said the walk will take a week. The walkers will camp at Buckhorn Campground at Black Butte Lake. Not all of the hikers are American Indian. Homa Multani, 25, is originally from Los Angeles. She said she isn't from a tribe but is actually an Indian from India. Multani said she heard about the walk through one of her co-workers, one of the walk's planners. "They mentioned it to me and I thought it was an excellent idea to promote cultural awareness," she said. "It's a history a lot of people either don't know about or have forgotten." She doesn't plan to walk the entire trail, however. This is Multani's first trip. "They teased me a lot about the trip," she said. "They told me I'd have to swim through the Sacramento River and put rocks in my pocket so when trucks go by, I won't blow away. There were a lot of funny stories to prepare me, I guess." Multani said she isn't concerned about the distance, because she runs the Los Angeles Marathon each year. She said she thinks the walk on the Nome Cult Trail is a way to develop empathy and understanding for American Indians. "The plight of native people is parallel," she said. "You can see the struggle of native people mirrored all around the world." The walkers are expected to reach Round Valley Sept. 18. Copyright c. 2004 Oroville Mercury-Register. --------- "RE: Dine' Bitzill: Navajo Public in the Dark" --------- Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 08:30:23 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WATER PROJECT" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.daily-times.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=502&num=13888 Dine' Bitzill: Navajo public in the dark By Jim Snyder/The Daily Times September 9, 2004 WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - A Navajo grassroots coalition will call upon the Navajo government today to hire an outside law firm to perform an independent analysis of the proposed Navajo Nation water rights settlement. The Dine' Bitzill Navajo Strength coalition wants a delegate-sponsored resolution on this fall's Navajo Council session agenda mandating an analysis be performed to give the Navajo people a clearer idea of what the settlement means. The coalition is holding a news conference at 1 p.m. at the Dine' Quality Inn Restaurant in Window Rock to announce its intention. "The concern is the Navajo people still have not been fully informed of the political and legal ramifications of the agreement," said Norman Patrick Brown, one of the coalition leaders, in an interview Wednesday. "Where are all the people who support the settlement? Where are they?" Brown asked. "If the water rights agreement is so great and so positive, why are they (the Navajo Nation) afraid to have us look at it, evaluate it and have an independent counsel to educate people, the grandpas and grandmas?" The Navajo Water Commission can afford to spend $30,000-$40,000 on the study out of its annual multimillion dollar budget, he added. "If it's great ... we'll jump behind the agreement," Brown said, adding its strength comes from people supporting it. His coalition represents more than a dozen grassroot coalitions throughout the 27,000 square-mile reservation. The settlement, still in negotiations with the New Mexico' state engineer, seeks 606,060-acre-feet of diverted water - 56 percent of the basin's water supply in New Mexico - annually for the Navajo Nation. It also seeks $1.2 billion in federal appropriations to pay for a Navajo- Gallup Pipeline, to complete the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project and other Navajo water infrastructure projects. Once passed, the settlement would set a precedent for negotiations between the Navajo Nation and the states of Arizona and Utah on potential water right settlements on the Lower and Upper Colorado River Basins respectively, Brown added, because it allowed a New Mexico state court to adjudicate a water claim. Brown added he is distressed the Navajo Nation has not publicly responded to U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici's Aug. 18 letter to Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. stating the $1.2 billion settlement had become too expensive for congressional passage. U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M. stated Sept. 1 he agreed with Domenici on this issue, adding the proposed Navajo settlement was more than twice the cost of the CALFED water settlement in California by comparison. The House passed the $389 million settlement July 9. "Ideally there should be some kind of reaction from the (Navajo) Council," Council spokesman Merle Pete said Wednesday about Domenici and Udall's statements. "They (the Council) have talked about not making their reaction public." Shirley spokeswoman Deana Jackson added Wednesday, "The president has not issued a response." Brown is also concerned the Council has repeatedly gone into closed-door executive sessions - keeping the Navajo public in the dark - each time the water settlement was discussed. The Council has only heard reports from the Navajo Water Commission and Navajo water attorney Stanley Pollack during those executive sessions, Pete said, adding, "The Council really hasn't dug their hands into it (the settlement) at all." The closed-door sessions give the 88 delegates an opportunity to talk "candidly" about the settlement without the public listening, Pete said. Furthermore, the Council is not expected to speak publicly about the settlement until the third draft comes out and they are ready to vote on it. For the Council to do otherwise would be "premature," he added. The state engineer released its first draft Dec. 5 after nearly a decade of secret negotiations with the Navajo Nation and Navajo water attorney Stanley Pollack. A second draft was released July 9 following an extended public comment period. "The (Navajo) people aren't excluded in commenting in this proposal at all," Pete said, adding he would like to see public hearings held on Navajo land - as opposed to Farmington - after the third draft was released. Brown wasn't as optimistic "The trust factor within the Navajo Nation government is not there. They can only tell us so much. They knew very well by excluding us from the Navajo Nation water rights agreement ... the ideal would be reasserting our rights." The Navajo Water Commission met privately with Domenici staff members Aug. 31 in Albuquerque in response to the letter to discuss the cost of the settlement. The senator was in New York City attending the Republican National Convention. That prompted an argument between the commission and the Council's Natural Resources Committee when they met Sept. 3 in Window Rock, Brown said, because the commission had been directed to meet with Domenici personally. "Who's in charge?" Brown asked, saying the water commission, the resource committee, the president's office, the speaker's office and the Intergovernmental Relations Committee all proclaim to be in charge of the settlement. "Everybody wants to be at the front. We can't - we have to be together," he said. Pollack is feeding all the Navajo government entities information, Brown said, adding, "He has incredible access to power." Jim Snyder: jsnyder@daily-times.com Copyright c. 2004 Farmington Daily Times, a Gannett Co., Inc. newspaper. --------- "RE: Editors lose jobs after clashing with Officials" --------- Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 08:28:55 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRIBAL NEWS EDITORS" http://www.smokymountainnews.com//09_04/09_08_04/fr_editors_lose_jobs.html Some Native American editors lose jobs after clashing with tribal officials By Becky Johnson As sovereign nations, tribes write and enforce their own constitutions. They have their own attorney generals and own tribal court systems. But only 11 percent of tribes - 64 of the 554 federally recognized tribes - have adopted free press legislation, according to Ron Walters, director of the Native American Journalists Association. For 17 years, NAJA has been leading a crusade for tribal free press laws. It's a particularly thorny debate among Indian nations where nearly all newspapers are owned and partially funded by the tribal government. Suppressed editors could challenge free press abuses under the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, which extends First Amendment rights to Indian tribes. "No Indian tribe in exercising powers of self-government shall make or enforce any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," the Act states. But falling back on U.S. laws flies in the face of tribal sovereignty. "It puts the tribes' newspaper in a precarious situation of saying `do I maintain my sovereignty or do I run to the U.S courts for help?'" Walters said. Besides, American free press laws were intended to protect independent newspapers from being shut down by the government. When the government owns the newspaper, the right to fire a subordinate employee and outline policies for its own departments could override free press laws. A milestone was reached last November, when the National Congress of American Indians passed a resolution urging tribes to adopt free press legislation. The Eastern Band is a mbmer of the Congress. Two tribes that have adopted free press legislation in recent years are among tribes with a history of sharp division between the press and elected leaders. In both cases, the legislation followed an extreme case of free press suppression - namely firing the editor. In both cases, a subsequent chief reinstated the fired editor and championed free press legislation. Agent of the people Dan Agent, former editor of the Cherokee Phoenix in Oklahoma, is heralded in the industry as a journalistic martyr. Agent was fired in 1995 by Chief Joe Byrd when Agent refused to heed Byrd's demands to stop reporting on his administration's unconventional and overbearing governing techniques. Four years later, a new chief, Chad Smith, was elected. Smith reinstated Agent as editor. With Smith's backing, the tribe passed the Independent Press Act of 2000. "The main thing it does is removes the newspaper and its staff from the chain of command. The chief can no longer hire and fire people," explained Bryan Pollard, acting editor of the Cherokee Phoenix. (Agent recently left the paper to work for the Crazy Horse Foundation.) Instead, firing power lies in the hands of an editorial advisory board. The board has three members: one appointed by the chief, one by tribal council, and those two appointments in turn chose the third. Pollard said it is a good start, but not ideal. As long as the advisory board is comprised of political appointees, the newspaper could still be subject to political whims. "Right now this legislation is effective because we have a chief that supports a free press. What happens when we have a chief who is not so sympathetic? It's only then that we will know how strong our legislation is, or how free and independent we are," Pollard said. "There's lots of things the chief could do to make his or her life miserable." And there's always the threat of tribal council yanking the rug out from under the paper, as they control the purse strings. Pollard sees that as the most serious threat, although not as likely since eight of the 15 tribal council members would have to agree. The Cherokee Phoenix is a monthly paper with a circulation of 107,000. All tribal members get a free subscription, paid for by the tribe. Padlocked papers The native paper with the most tumultuous, notorious past is the Navajo Times. Today, it is the best-protected tribal paper in the nation, however. The first clash between the Navajo leadership and the Times editor goes back to 1982. Duane Beyal, editor then and still editor now, was covering a hot election for tribal council president. The well-established incumbent, Peter MacDonald, faced serious competition from a charismatic, populist challenger. Scared of losing his power base, MacDonald tried to manipulate the Navajo Times for his personal political purposes. "His staff called and order me to print that 10,000 people had attended his campaign rally. My reporters said it was something like 1,500," Beyal said. Beyal, one the job barely a year, didn't know what to do. "Technically they were our bosses," Beyal said. Beyal printed the inflated numbers for the rally on the front page. But on the editorial page, however, Beyal printed the rest of the story. He wrote both an editorial and a column revealing MacDonald's threats to the paper and the lies. "After all, this is the tribal members' newspaper, not whoever is in power at the time," Beyal said. When the paper came out, Beyal was suspended immediately, termination pending. Newspaper reporters in surrounding non-Indian communities picked up the story and rallied behind Beyal. The onslaught of negative publicity forced MacDonald to reinstate Beyal. MacDonald lost the race that year, but four years later, won his seat back. It didn't take long before MacDonald and the newspaper clashed again, this time over articles and editorials critical of MacDonald's tribal budget. "He sent the Navajo police to shut down the paper," Beyal said. All the employees were fired. The paper remained closed for a few months before tribal leadership decided it gave the tribe a bad image, Beyal said. So MacDonald hired a skeleton crew to start putting out paper again. Enter Tom Arvizo, a now-famous crusader for tribal free press. By the mid-1990s, Arviso had engaged tribal leaders in a serious discussion to free The Navajo Times from tribal control. Nearly 10 years later, in January 2004, the Navajo politicians agreed to sever tribal control over the Times. The result was an unusual set-up. The paper morphed into a tribally owned corporation, similar to a casino operation, in which the casino is owned by the tribe but run as an independent corporation and free enterprise. "The Navajo Times has always been owned by the tribe. It is still an asset of the people and you can't make it totally private and sever that relationship," Beyal said. "But you can make it a public institution that is separate from tribal politics and the bureaucracy of the government." The Navajo Times is legally a corporation, but its shareholders are the 12 members of tribal council. They meet once or twice a year to make sure the paper is not in jeopardy. "They want to be assured every once in a while that we're not messing it up," Beyal said. "A lot of people are watching to see how it works." Copyright c. 2004 Smoky Mountain News. --------- "RE: Chickasaw, Choctaw highlight Economic Development" --------- Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 08:41:06 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="AMERICAN INDIAN HOUSING SUMMIT" http://www.indiancountry.com/index.php?1094566264 Chickasaw, Choctaw highlight economic development September 7, 2004 by: Mark Fogarty / Today Correspondent TULSA, Okla. - Two of the leaders of Oklahoma's "five civilized tribes" took advantage of a federal American Indian housing summit to highlight their peoples' great strides forward in economic development. Chickasaw Gov. Bill Anoatubby and Choctaw Chief Gregory E. Pyle both made recitals of what their tribes have been able to establish from humble beginnings to where the two nations now employ more than 10,000 between them. Chief Pyle noted that while the focus of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Southern Plains regional housing summit was to leverage outside financial resources, he said that a lot of the Choctaws' financial success has come from observing what other Indian tribes have done. Pyle said that his tribe has gone all over the country - to Arizona, Florida and Las Vegas - to observe successful Indian economic development ventures, and hasn't been afraid to try to replicate the ones it saw as viable. And while not all have been successful, he said his tribe might start four businesses to find one or two that work. The tribe, based in Durant, Okla., employs 5,700 people currently, with an annual payroll of $85 million. Chief since 1997, Pyle noted that housing has played a key role in the tribe's development. He said the Choctaw have built cluster houses at multiple sites, with the tribe buying the land and the tribal housing authority placing the houses there. The tribe has built its own houses, training people to be carpenters, and then ships the home to the site. Pyle said the tribe builds houses to be sturdy, wanting them to last 50 to 100 years. As far as financing goes, the tribe would typically put up $500,000 of gaming money and leverage it with private sources, building houses for $50,000, which would include a driveway and a little bit of money for furniture. Monthly cost for tribal members would be $400. Plans now are to build more health facilities, such as the diabetic wellness center just built with the help of a large grant from HUD. The tribe is now planning to build a healthy lifestyles facility in Durant. The Chief also stressed the importance of the Choctaw language as a bulwark of the nation's culture and success. According to the tribe he has "negotiated millions of dollars of new contracts for the Choctaw Nation; increased higher education scholarships to more than 4,000 students for this academic year; built a new tribal hospital, and six elderly communities" among other accomplishments. Gov. Anoatubby, who has led the Chickasaw Nation since 1987, has seen its ventures grow from 250 employees with an annual budget of $11 million to 4,500 employees and almost $300 million and almost three dozen businesses. He remembered that when he first became associated with tribal government, less than 30 people worked for it and the nation was almost entirely dependent on federal support. Economic development is "a big key why the Chickasaw Nation is not 99.99 percent dependent on the United States," he told the meeting. The governor spoke of the success of the Chuka Chukmasi mortgage program that has provided 270 loans to date to Chickasaws all around the country, providing $19 million in financing to tribal members. "Housing is very, very important to the overall mission" of the nation, he said. Chuka Chukmasi (the phrase means "Beautiful House" in Chickasaw) has won two national awards for innovation - the Social Impact Award, and a tribal governance award from the Kennedy School of Harvard University. Financial partners include Washington, D.C.-based mortgage agency Fannie Mae, lender First Mortgage of Oklahoma City, and mortgage insurer PMI Mortgage of San Francisco. The nation also has an active home building program, he said, with more than 100 units under construction right now. The governor noted that the Nation's more than 30 businesses include a chocolate factory, a commercial bank and a radio station. Health and education are big priorities. Anoatubby can remember when the Chickasaw had no health facilities at all. Today, it has "a health system unmatched anywhere in the United States." There are four general practice clinics, a diabetes clinic and a wellness education facility. Other tribal leaders at the HUD housing summit included Kenneth Blanchard, governor of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and John Philip Froman, chief of the Peoria Tribe of Oklahoma. HUD's Southern Plains region, which consists of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Louisiana, includes 48 tribes and some 500,000 Indians. This was the fifth of six regional summits held this year. Next year, HUD plans to hold a national Indian housing summit, at a time and place yet to be determined. Copyright c. 2004 Indian Country Today. --------- "RE: South Mountain College offers Indian Studies" --------- Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 08:33:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="REAL HISTORY" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic//articles/0913nativeclass.html S. Mountain College offers Indian studies Jacqueline Shoyeb The Arizona Republic September 13, 2004 April Greyeyes is looking for heroes - Native American heroes lost in the pages of the mostly Euro-American history she has learned since childhood. "It was always about the Europeans," she said. "We learned about Columbus, not native history." Now a college student, Greyeyes has found her history through a new American Indian Studies Program at South Mountain Community College Guadalupe Center this fall. The program is expected to expand to the main campus next year. But the program is one of several changes the school is making in response to the increasing numbers of Native American students. An enrollment increase of nearly 120 percent - from 91 Native Americans in 2001 to 199 in 2004 - has helped revive the only Native American club on campus and expand an existing high school-to-college bridge program. The increase includes enrollment at the recently built Guadalupe Center, which serves many Pascua Yaqui members. Alex Osuna said the reasons to continue his education were clear. "You see all these successful people, and it's very rare to see Native Americans that are successful or run corporations," he said. "It drives me to be educated and be somebody." A Pascua Yaqui, Osuna has worked heavily in the community college's first Native American club, Circle of Nations. Organized in early February, the club is another move to unite and involve Native American students at the three South Mountain campuses in Phoenix, Ahwatukee and Guadalupe. Copyright c. 2004 azcentral.com. --------- "RE: Andersen: Tribal Sovereignty? It Doesn't Exist" --------- Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 20:31:41 EDT From: MJLaBurt@aol.com Subj: Tribal Sovereignty? It Doesn't Exist Mailing List: NDNAIM Sovereign Nations http://www.theday.com/~re=9c5b1e97-02f9-4c4c-bc08-3a6b903df209&prnt=1 Tribal Sovereignty? It Doesn't Exist By KATHLEEN GRASSO ANDERSEN September 12, 2004 That George W. Bush cannot define tribal sovereignty does not surprise me. In the first place, "sovereignty" is a four-syllable word and he can barely speak in complete, grammatically correct sentences. By the same token, all the journalists who laughed at his inability to explain what tribal sovereignty means would be hardpressed themselves to give a cogent and accurate reply. Put yourself to the test and print what you think tribal sovereignty is, as a recent lettert writer requested. The difficulty lies in the fact that tribal sovereignty is just a term that the government likes to pull out of a hat, like a rabbit, whenever it wants to evade the issue of equal rights of Native Americans. It does not exist in legal reality. The U.S. trust policy makes each tribe a "ward of the state." All so- called "Indian land" is, in reality federal land that Congress has designated to be used as "reserves" for Native Americans. Congress, through its plenary powers, can terminate a tribe and extinguish Indian land title at any time, in any manner, without the tribe's consent. Does that sound sovereign to you? It gets worse. The U.S. trust policy for Native Americans requires all tribes to obtain the approval of the secretary of the Interior for their choice of attorney. So, if a tribe wants to sue the federal government, it has to get the OK from Uncle Sam on who will represent them. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal can explain how this works. In 1991, the Connecticut General Assembly voted to approve $30,000 for the Connecticut Indian Affairs Council, but when CIAC Chairwoman Paulette Crone requested the release of those funds so they could hire an attorney, the attorney general refused to release the funds, citing Connecticut's trust agreement. There are numerous examples where a tribe was denied the right to legal counsel of it choice. Does that sound sovereign to you? A tribe also must obtain the approval of the secretary of the Interior for every business proposal it wants to enter. The U.S. has often expanded its trust responsibility to approve of the tribe's choice of legal counsel and simply appointed an attorney to a tribe, whether or not one is wanted. Usually these are former U.S. attorneys who proceed to accept settlements against a tribe's wishes, or who simultaneously represent the tribe and an American company with whom they are doing business. One example was the 1950s appointment of attorney John C. Boyden, to the Hopi Tribe, to represent them in a lease with Peabody Coal, for whom he also served as legal counsel. The tribe got 25 cents a ton for coal that was sold for $75 a ton. When Peabody Coal wanted to expand its coal mining, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., member of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, did his campaign contributor, Peabody Coal, a favor and introduced legislation in 1974 calling for the forcible removal of 10,000 Navajo and Hopi with a completion date of July 6, 1986. It gets worse. One would think if a tribe enjoyed "sovereignty" it could decide on the tribal children's education. Wrong. By the authority of the U.S. Trust Policy, Indian children since the early 1900s were forcibly removed from their homes and transported long distances to BIA schools where they were forbidden to speak their own language on pain of torture. By forcibly, I mean the U.S. Cavalry riding out to an Indian village, shooting dogs so families could not be warned and breaking the shins of children attempting to run away. Parents who refused to give their children up voluntarilly were sent to Alcatraz for 10 years. Would you call that sovereign? And then there's the issue of the military draft and so on, but you get the picture. You could ask our two senators and our congressmen to help you define tribal sovereignty, but I would wager that their comprehension is as dismally unenlightened as that of George W. Bush. It could be amusing, though. ---- Kathleen Grasso Andersen divides her time between a home in New London and California. She assisted the Hopi Tribe in its formal complaint to the United Nations that U.S. trust policy was a legal form of dimination against Native Americans. Copyright c. 1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co. --------- "RE: Harjo: The Whiteman and the Disease" --------- Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 14:48:32 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HARJO: GREED & THEFT" http://www.indiancountry.com/index.php?1094829740 Harjo: The Whiteman and the Disease September 10, 2004 by: Suzan Shown Harjo / Columnist / Indian Country Today Things used to be simpler in the old-timey days, or maybe they were just more high contrast. We were the Peoples. They were the Whiteman. They came; they misnamed; they killed. And that was the first Whiteman Indian policy (a.k.a., the Invasion). The second was: They stayed; they stole; they killed. That one lasted a really long time, from genocide to slow genocide. We move into the modern era through international treaty pledges of peace and friendship to the courtrooms where we have to duke it out for inches of land, buckets of water, scraps of dignity and even chards of people. Now, we can begin to see our own time, which is luxuriant, in contrast to our generations all the way back to 1491. Despite our current socio-economic problems and continuing injustices, we have time to understand what happened to us, who did it and how to stop it. And, more and more of us are able to live in peace with our neighbors, especially those who are not benefiting from heinous acts committed against our ancestors and who are not opposing our right to seek redress for them. As we think about the present, we need to keep a few things in mind. First, the Whiteman is no longer solely white or a man or a descendant of someone who killed our grandpas or stole our grandmas' lands. Second, the craziness and greed of the Whiteman that made him hate us because he did bad things to us is now a disease that blankets much of the legal system and popular culture, and infects many who never met us, historically or today. Third, a manifestation of this pathology is that the new whiteman (a.k.a. , the Disease) must keep us in our place. Socially and economically, this means anywhere below everyone else's rung of the ladder. Physically, it means any place or thing the Disease does not want for itself. No matter how many times a Native nation or person may move to accommodate it, eventually the new whiteman will covet the new place. The Disease will want not only the new place, but will desire what we do there - pray or paint or dance or sing - and will try to control our behavior. Once it controls our behavior, it will assume the reigns of our lives and assume our very identity. Why does it do this? On the theory that, once in positions of power, we will be as bad to the new whiteman as the Whiteman has been to us. Of course, that is not our history or experience, but the new whiteman still takes it as fact that he must control us or become us, or both. Fourth, there is a direct line between land-grabs and identity theft. Evidence of this can be found in the large percentage of non-Native decision makers in tribal institutions and businesses and Native organizations, as well as the high numbers of non-Natives posing as Native people in the arts and education and business. This historic progression from appropriation of property to acquisition of identity can be seen plainly in American athletic programs. After the federal government banned the Sun Dance and claimed Native sacred places for their own purposes, Whitemen donned "Indian" costumes, adopted "Indian" personae and performed "Indian" dances during the time- outs and half-times of sports contests. The only Native people who could dance were those tamed Indians who acted like "wild Indians" in motion pictures or who performed for the amusement of tourists and visiting officials. This is not entirely a thing of the past. Sometimes, Native people are assigned to play the Indian mascot, or are given tokenized positions in other fields. If the Indian mascot or token balks, the owner/manager/administrator finds another Indian willing to play ball or gives the job of Indian mascot/token to a non-Indian. A few of the most prominent pseudo-Indians in the early 1900s actually got their starts in athletics, where they were sportsmen and mascots at the same time. The most notable among these were "Lone Star" Dietz and "Buffalo Child Long Lance." Long Lance killed himself when he was finally exposed as an imposter. Dietz toughed his way through a trial about a missing person he was impersonating and went down in football mythology as the excuse for the Washington team carrying the name so many Native people despise. Other pseudo-Indian super stars were virtual mascots/tokens in their fields: Jamake Highwater and Yeffe Kimball Slatin in the arts; Frank Hopkins in horse-riding; Red Thundercloud in language. In their time, these pseudo-Indians were enormously popular among non- Indians. Why? Because they were not Indians. They were giving the audience the recreation and comfort it wanted - an Indian mascot/token that provided entertainment, but would not ruin the neighborhood with actual Indian family or tribal members. Another manifestation of the Disease is that its pathogens peddle the discredited idea of the American melting pot. Anyone who disagrees - by attempting to change the image from a melting pot to a garden in full distinctive flower, for example - is accused of practicing the politics of exclusion and separation, and denying the shared humanity of all peoples. Code for this is "identity politics." After the catastrophic events of Sept. 11, 2001, many assimilationists reverted to type and declared publicly that the U.S. was once again a melting pot. Shortly after airplanes were allowed in the skies again, an arts conference was convened in Chicago, where one funder pronounced all talk of racial and cultural distinctiveness as "over, passe' - 9/11 changed all that, you know." While the Disease continues in its obsession to make us over in its image and co-opt our imagery, it finds newer and cruder ways to maladapt and to silence our objections to its course, even going so far as to keep us from burying our ancestors and to tell our children lies about who we are. The prognosis is not as bleak as it once was. Many of us are not hosts to this pathology and are not in contact with its carriers. As we heal ourselves, we meet more non-Native people avoiding and repairing damage, too. The pathological takers have a big corner of the garden, but it's not the whole world and we won't catch the Disease if we don't go there. ---- Suzan Shown Harjo, Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, is president of the Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C., and a columnist for Indian Country Today. Copyright c. 2004 Indian Country Today. --------- "RE: Newcomb: Pathological behavior toward Natives" --------- Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 13:45:48 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NEWCOMB: PATHOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR" http://www.indiancountry.com/index.php?1094830396 Newcomb: On America's pathological behavior toward Native peoples September 10, 2004 by: Steven Newcomb / Columnist / Indian Country Today According to Steven L. Winter, in his book "A Clearing in the Forest: Law, Life, and Mind" (2001), recent findings in cognitive science (study of the human mind) reveal that the mind functions largely by means of metaphors and other cognitive operations. Metaphor is thinking of one thing in terms of something else. As Winter explains, cognitive science has revealed that all thought is innately imaginative, and metaphor is one of the ways that human beings use the imaginative power of human thought. But the question arises, are some metaphors and other mental processes more likely to lead to thoughts and behavior that are dehumanizing and pathological? For example, if one group of people thinks of and dehumanizes another group of people as "beasts," or sub-human, isn't this likely to lead to negative, perhaps even heinous behavior towards the people being labeled? Is it correct to consider such negative thoughts and behavior to be pathological? Take the example of George Washington thinking of and referring to Indians as "savages" and "beasts." In 1783, Washington wrote that, "the gradual extension of our settlements will as certainly cause the savage, as the wolf, to retire." By retire he meant, move away or be killed. Both "the savage" and "the wolf" were described by Washington as, "beasts of prey, tho' they differ in shape." This is an example of Washington using the imaginative power of thought in a dehumanizing, and, arguably, pathological manner. Cognitive theory posits that how we conceive (think) of something predetermines how we will behave toward that thing. Thus, the imaginative American conception of Indians as "beasts of prey" led to very specific kinds of pathological behavior consistent with that mental image (thought, or idea). For example, American troops - at Washington's instruction - carried out a scorched earth policy against the Seneca Nation by destroying entire towns and vast food supplies. In some cases, American troops skinned the bodies of the Seneca people who had been killed. The troops would skin the bodies "from the hips downward to make boot tops or leggings." Since the Seneca killed were imagined or conceived of as "beasts," they could, without any twinge of American conscience, be skinned like wild beasts. Greed was a powerful motive for this kind of thought and behavior towards the Seneca and other Native nations: Millions of acres of land and all the material wealth those lands represented. Genocide can be good for business. That Hitler exhibited a pathological mentality and behavior toward Jews, which was reflected in their mass annihilation at the hands of the Nazis, is taken for granted by most people. Fewer people would be of the opinion that the United States, over the course of its history, has exhibited a pathological mentality and behavior toward American Indian nations and peoples. Yet who could deny that skinning human beings such as Washington's soldiers did to the Seneca people reflects some kind of pathology? If a child kills cats and blows up frogs with firecrackers, is this the sign of a balanced and well-adjusted human being? Or is such behavior indicative of deep emotional and perhaps mental pathology? Serial killers often start out with these "small killings" and eventually begin killing other human beings. The pathology that the future serial killer exhibits in childhood becomes fully manifested in heinous acts of murder in adulthood. By way of analogy, during its "infancy" and "youth" the United States started out killing off Indians, while compulsively stealing massive amounts of lands and resources from Native nations. Over the course of its entire lifespan the United States has continued to exhibit compulsive pathological behavior toward Native peoples. Because the people of the United States understandably desire to view their country in a positive light, they tend to conveniently overlook or deny the U.S.'s reprehensible thought and behavior towards Native nations. The subject of U.S. genocide against American Indians is conveniently swept under the rug, so to speak, and in mainstream media we never see a discussion of the possibility of an American pathology towards Native nations and peoples. Being able to avoid this uncomfortable subject makes it a lot easier on those wishing to extol the virtues of the United States without contradiction. When one thinks about it, it would seem that the American empire's mental and behavioral pathology toward Native nations has passed through different phases. One phase was the outright killing of Indians from the Ohio Valley to the gold fields of California, and everywhere in between. Another phase was the U.S.'s never-ending kleptomaniacal compulsion to steal Indian lands and resources. (Recent passage of the Western Shoshone bill is evidence that this phase is still ongoing). Yet another phase was the U.S. 's efforts to destroy the economic and political independence of Native nations, to destroy Native languages, cultures, and to destroy our ability to live our respective spiritual traditions in our sacred places. Is this compulsively destructive mentality and behavior toward Native peoples evidence that the U.S. society has a deep and underlying illness (pathology)? Or is it just "the American way," along with apple pie and the American flag? America's pathological mentality and behavior toward Native nations has old cognitive roots that can be traced back many centuries. Take for example one of Cristobal Colon's favorite passages from the Bible: "O clap your hands, all ye nations: shout unto God with the voice of joy, for the Lord is high, terrible: a great king over all the earth. He hath subdued the people under us: and the nations under our feet & God shall reign over the nations." From a Native perspective, one could say that applying the above way of thinking to indigenous peoples is pathological because it led to a brutal and hierarchical structuring of the physical and social world. Core metaphorical concepts in the above passage include th