From gars@speakeasy.org Thu Sep 23 23:01:26 2004 Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:54:09 -0700 From: Gary Night Owl To: Internet Recipients of Wotanging Ikche Subject: Wotanging Ikche--nanews12.039 _ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 12, ISSUE 039 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, 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 25, 2004 Abenaki Skamonkas/corn maker moon Mvskogee Otowoskucee/little chestnut moon +-------------------------------------------------------+ | 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; NDNAIM, RezLife and Sovereign Nations Mailing Lists; UUCP email; UUCP email IMPORTANT!! ----------- In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, all material appearing in this newsletter is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for educational purposes. <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is a way of keeping the brothers and sisters who share our Spirit informed about current events within the lives of those who walk the Red Road. ++ It may be subscribed to via email by sending a request from your own internet addressable account to gars@speakeasy.org ++ It is archived at http://www.nanews.org <================<<<< >>>>================> +-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --+ + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + | As historian Patricia Nelson | | 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + ======================== "And here's the ultimate hypocrisy: Those same Department of Justice officials who have been chasing Martha Stewart, Ken Lay and Dennis Kozlowski are defending a level of financial malfeasance and fraud that is unheard of in the history of this country." __ Elouise Cobell, Blackfeet Nation ... refering to the Indian Trust Fund Case +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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! This week's editorial appeared to be a gift. All I had to do was craft it around news of the week, which was one vicious, bitter and racist remark after another. All I had to do would be to cherry pick the most anti-Indian and hang them out there for all to see. Tom Coburn who is running for Senate set the tone by informing the Cherokee constituency they were not "real Indians". That's one hell of a stupid thing to say in Oklahoma, especially if every vote might be the one that elects or defeats you. I can only hope my CNO and UKB relatives will send this bigot back into the dark recesses he crawled out of. Then there is the evidence to support suspicions that South Dakota was diluting the Indian vote with their redrawn districts. My surprise was and is non-existent. South Dakota Republicans are openly bitter about the Indian vote denying them a seat in the last election. I can only hope my Lakota/Nakota/Dakota relatives will grant them even more denied congressional seats. There is more, but there is also far less. My gift turned an ugly shade of red - a respected Lakota journalist, Tim Giago, labeled some eastern tribes as Afro-American wannabes. Actually, the brush he used painted a very wide swath of racial disdain. How disappointing and sickening it is to see a native journalist join the pack of barking, racist hate mongers. Louis Gray responded to Giago's racially divisive and insensitive harangue in the September 16 issue of Native American Times better than anything I might write: Mr. Gray's closing comments say it all: We can't embrace the practices of those who oppress us to seek change. We only become the oppressors. Such shameful examples of racial insensitivity only set us back. Native Americans are already in the back of the bus, we don't need to be taking two steps back in our path to civil rights for all. If we want Indian people to be accepted, we need to be accepting of all people. We cannot have it both ways and we shouldn't want to. Thank you Louis Gray. 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 ---------- - Cobell: A Trust Issue - Making Tribes Stronger - Appeals Court blocks release - Museum comes Face to Face of Contempt Reports with its Biggest Faux - U.S. seeks Looser Rules - Indian Art of Storytelling on Debt to Indians seeps into Boardroom - Bush Administration - Yellow Bird: challenges Trust Fund ruling Ribbons express support for Troops - We are not - CYFN Membership Extinct Scientific Curiosities to include N.W.T. First Nations - Cherokee Potters - Fort Yukon looks to Gas revive Ancient Tradition for future Heat, Power - Court rules State - Canada wants Abuse Victim diluted Native American Vote to return Settlement - Indian Hospital faces criticism - Healing Programs in limbo - Lewis and Clark as Cash runs out re-enactors asked to leave - Thousands of Colombian - Ride retraces fallen Warrior's Indians March History - Guatemalans unmask Discrimination - Tribes are able to co-manage - Lawyer: Tribe lacks authority the Bison Range 'over White People' - GOP Candidate says - BIA Police Chief at Crow Agency Cherokees aren't Real Indians gets D.C. Job - Woman who sued Coburn goes Public - Judge says misconduct - Editorial: Racial Profiling Law occurred in Peltier Case needs Sharp Teeth - Native Prisoner - Jumanos face Battle in quest -- Letter from the Iron House #4 for Official Status - Rustywire: - Winnemem Wintu Tribe goes to War Navajo Sheep Camp Heros for Sacred Sites - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days - Non-recognized VA. Tribes - Starkey Poem: Its Easy welcome NMAI opening - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: Cobell: A Trust Issue" --------- Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 08:48:32 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="COBELL: TRUST" http://www.abqtrib.com/~04/091404_opinions_indian.shtml A trust issue The Bush administration has not treated us justly when it comes to accounting for Indians' money COMMENTARY By Elouise Cobell September 14, 2004 Imagine a bank that took your money on a regular basis, never gave you a statement, had no idea how much was supposed to be in your account and argued it has no responsibility to return your money to you or provide you any information about your money. Now imagine that same financial institution destroying the documents, lying in sworn statements and in court, and routinely defying court orders. It doesn't take a lawyer to understand federal and state regulators would be padlocking the door to that bank and walking the bank's managers off to jail. Well, there is such an institution, and it behaves exactly this way. But it's not a bank. It's the U.S. government. The only difference here is the managers are never held to account for their theft and fraud. Since 1887, the government has been taking proceeds from land owned by individual American Indians, including oil and gas, forestry, minerals and other leasing in which resources are extracted from Indian land. That money is supposed to be held in trust and paid to the American Indian beneficiaries on a timely basis. But the money is gone, and the government refuses to account for it - despite court orders that say they must. These are not mere allegations. These are facts. We've proven them in court in the individual Indian trust case. Although the government has lost four separate times at trial, it still refuses to do the right thing. Instead, officials have been slapped with repeated contempt citations and other court sanctions, including shutting down the Department of Interior's Web site because it left the trust account open to tampering. Since it can't win, it has decided to delay the inevitable - a full accounting of Indian money. Earlier this month, Department of the Interior Secretary Gale Norton told a National Public Radio reporter in Albuquerque the funds in the individual Indian trust accounts are "generally accounted for." That is a lie. After more than eight years of litigation, not a single individual Indian beneficiary has ever received an accounting. Not one! Norton's own experts have estimated that up to $40 billion is owed to the individual trust beneficiaries. Our experts believe the actual number is considerably higher. In this age of corporate accountability, the individual Indian trust case is a financial scandal that makes Enron or Worldcom look like shoplifting. And here's the ultimate hypocrisy: Those same Department of Justice officials who have been chasing Martha Stewart, Ken Lay and Dennis Kozlowski are defending a level of financial malfeasance and fraud that is unheard of in the history of this country. It is a travesty made worse because many of the victims are among the poorest citizens in this great and prosperous nation. Tragically, more and more of my fellow beneficiaries die without ever seeing justice done. After a century of mismanagement that continues today - mismanagement that has annually robbed hundreds of millions of dollars from these individuals and their families - what has the Bush administration done? After losing each and every issue on the merits, it has waged a war of attrition and has employed scorched-earth litigation tactics that would make a tobacco company blush. Tens of millions of dollars in taxpayers' money are spent every year defending the indefensible, as this administration tries to "run out the clock," until our resources are exhausted and our will is broken. At the urging of our Democratic and Republican friends in Congress - including Rep. Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican who represents part of the Navajo Reservation - we have been in mediation with the Bush administration for more than seven months. I can report we came to the table with detailed proposals regarding settlement. Yet after five months, the government has, to date, failed to even put forth a single proposal of its own. Not one. Or even accept, reject or make a counteroffer to ours. If Bush is serious about resolving this case, he sure doesn't act like it. The individual Indian trust case is not just about "historic" wrongs. The abuse continues today, and will continue tomorrow if it isn't resolved. It is not a case about reparations, apologies or entitlement programs. The U.S. government does not have to appropriate additional funds to reach a fair and just settlement. They already have the money. They must. They took it from us. As New Mexicans head to the polls in November, there are many issues that will drive their decision to vote. But it is becoming increasingly clear the New Mexico vote will be critical in deciding our next president. I ask you to consider this question: Which candidate will pledge to achieve a fair and just resolution to the individual Indian trust litigation that affects so many of New Mexico's poorest citizens? I do not have a crystal ball to tell me that a new administration will bring a fair and just resolution after more than 100 years of abuse. But I can tell you George Bush and Gale Norton are not the least bit interested in justice for American Indians. It comes down to the type of country we want to be. I hope all New Mexicans will find it in their hearts to vote for justice. ---- Cobell is a banker and a member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana. She and four other plaintiffs filed the pending individual Indian trust case against the government in June 1996. Copyright c. 2004 The Albuquerque Tribune. --------- "RE: Appeals Court blocks release of Contempt Reports" --------- Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 08:48:32 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JUDGE LAMBERTH UPHELD" http://www.indianz.com/News/2004/004238.asp Appeals court blocks release of contempt reports September 15, 2004 A federal appeals court on Tuesday refused to take the federal judge overseeing the Indian trust fund off a contentious contempt proceeding involving dozens of government officials and attorneys. In a unanimous opinion, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said there was no reason to suggest that Judge Royce Lamberth acted improperly in his handling of the landmark Cobell case. Nor has he shown an "appearance of partiality" in the ongoing contempt matter, the court concluded. Those seeking Lamberth's recusal "have not shown a 'clear and indisputable right' to the extraordinary relief they request," wrote Judge Douglas Ginsburg for the majority. But in a victory to a group including former Interior secretary Bruce Babbitt, his former chief of staff Anne Shields and a slew of past and present Department of Justice attorneys, the court blocked the release of potentially damaging reports that had been prepared for the contempt proceedings. Alan Balaran, who resigned as the special master in the case earlier this year, was going to submit the reports to Lamberth for further action. The court, however, said Balaran, a Washington, D.C., attorney, developed the reports by relying on communications that occurred outside the normal channels of the litigation. These ex parte contacts with government and third-party sources were cited as evidence of his potential bias against the officials he was investigating. "Because Special Master Balaran had ex parte contacts that may have given him personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts relevant to the contempt proceedings, those proceedings should never have been referred to him," the appeals court said. The decision to suppress the reports does little to resolve the underlying dispute, though. The court yesterday noted that the contempt proceedings are still "pending" before Lamberth, who could take them up at any time. At issue is whether the officials destroyed trust documents against court orders. The plaintiffs in the case, led by Elouise Cobell, a banker from the Blackfeet Nation of Montana, had named 37 people at Interior and Justice whom they said disobeyed the court. Attorneys for Interior Secretary Gale Norton admit the information, in the form of e-mails traded among government attorneys, was erased. "[I]t was a mistake not to retain newly created backup tapes," they wrote back in April 2002. But they had argued that no one should be punished for the incident because it occurred during the Clinton administration. And, they added, no one can bring the missing data back. Earl E. Devaney, Inspector General for the Interior Department, conducted his own investigation into the matter but couldn't find anyone to blame either. He noted that Babbitt, Shield and Justice attorneys "who were "were in the middle of this" refused to cooperate. "So long as these persons remain silent, important questions concerning their actions and decisions remain unanswered," he wrote in an August 2002 report. The ruling yesterday comes at the D.C. Circuit Court takes on another contentious aspect of the Cobell case. A panel of three judges is holding oral arguments at 2 p.m. today regarding the state of information technology security at the Interior Department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Lamberth imposed a preliminary injunction barring the agencies from reconnecting their computer systems to the Internet without adequate security protections. Balaran, through an investigation, had discovered that hackers could break into the trust fund without a trace. Norton's attorneys argue that Lamberth has exceeded his jurisdiction. In addition to removing the injunction, they are seeking to end the Cobell case entirely, citing efforts to improve the delivery of services to individual Indians and tribal governments. Copyright c. 2000-2004 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: U.S. seeks Looser Rules on Debt to Indians" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:54:13 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="DoI WIGGLES AGAIN" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4497787,00.html U.S. Seeks Looser Rules on Debt to Indians By HOPE YEN Associated Press Writer September 16, 2004 WASHINGTON (AP) - Government lawyers asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to throw out a judge's order that the Interior Department follow strict guidelines in accounting for billions of dollars American Indians claim they are owed, saying the requirements are too burdensome. At issue is a September 2003 order from U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth that sets a September 2007 deadline to account for the money and forbids use of statistical technique known as "sampling." That poses a problem for the department, which has said that a more comprehensive accounting plan would take 10 years and cost billions. "We have a good plan. Millions of dollars have been spent. Yet there was no review and the district court dismissed it out of hand," Mark Stern, a lawyer representing the Interior Department, told the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Elliott Levitas, a lawyer representing the American Indians, said the guidelines are critical to ensure an accurate accounting of the money they say is owed. "This court should affirm unless it finds the district court's order is clearly erroneous," he said. The class-action suit, filed in 1996 on behalf of more than 300,000 American Indians, alleges that for over a century the government mismanaged, misplaced or stole billions of dollars in oil, gas, timber and grazing royalties that the department by law and treaty was assigned to manage on the Indians' behalf. The government has acknowledged major problems with the trust fund. The Interior Department has spent more than $600 million since 1996 to comply with instructions from both Congress and Lamberth, but accounting problems persisted because records are so scattered. The Interior Department repeatedly has wrangled with Lamberth, who once found Interior Secretary Gale Norton in contempt for failing to follow his orders in the case. An appeals panel later threw out the contempt finding. Interior officials contend Lamberth had no authority to issue his 2003 order, saying there was no evidence of "unreasonable delay" by Interior officials who had planned to provide a full accounting by 2008 at a cost of $335 million with use of statistical sampling. At one point, after Stern complained that Lamberth had no basis for his order, Judge David Tatel asked if Stern was suggesting bias or other improper personal behavior. "Are you asking we dismiss because of behavior of the district judge?" Tatel asked, to which Stern responded no. "Because it sounds like you were saying that to me." Judge David Sentelle, meanwhile, seemed to suggest the three-judge panel would find that Lamberth had authority to issue the order, but that certain provisions might be struck down as too restrictive. "If we hold the court had authority to impose a structural injunction, what points would you find worrisome?" Sentelle asked repeatedly. "What parts are obviously and genuinely too intrusive on an agency's right?" Stern insisted that the entire order should be thrown out, but cited in part provisions relating to statistical sampling and independent monitoring of the department's accounting. Guardian Unlimited Copyright c. 2004 Guardian Newspapers Limited. --------- "RE: Bush Administration challenges Trust Fund ruling" --------- Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 09:14:08 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="... MORE WIGGLE" http://www.indianz.com/News/2004/004261.asp Bush administration challenges trust fund ruling September 16, 2004 A panel of federal judges pressed a Bush administration lawyer on Wednesday to explain why they should allow the Interior Department to carry out trust reform absent court oversight. Mark Stern, a Department of Justice lawyer representing Secretary Gale Norton, sought to raise doubts about a court order requiring an historical accounting of billions in Indian trust funds and an overhaul of the trust system. He charged that U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth has "transformed" the eight-year-old case beyond its original intent. "This case cannot be a review of all historical failings," Stern told three judges of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. But the panel was openly skeptical of Norton's defense on two fronts. First, on a controversial appropriations rider that put a one-year halt to the accounting, and second, on the impact of Lamberth's structural injunction, which is also on hold. Stern argued that the rider, adopted at the last minute a year ago to give Congress more time to act, was actually designed to give the courts more time. All three judges - David S. Tatel, David B. Sentelle and Stephen F. Williams - scoffed at this notion, with Williams saying it "totally baffles me." Sentelle went further and called the measure "constitutionally suspect" because it purports to tell the courts what to do in an ongoing case. Stern told him the language changed the underlying trust relationship in a way the courts must respect. "In that context, it's extraordinary," Sentelle responded. In essence, the rider says "the Indians are no longer beneficiaries," he observed. Sentelle and Tatel also hammered Stern on the injunction, pushing him to explain exactly what was wrong with it. Stern said Lamberth overstepped his jurisdiction by telling the department what to do on a day-to-day basis. The judges suggested that certain provisions of the injunction, such as providing a list of tribal laws that may be applicable to the trust, weren't as bad as the government has characterized. Sentelle said the reason Lamberth imposed so many requirements was simple. "They are because the department ... over the term of decades did not do what it was supposed to do," he told Stern. But Stern said the language in the order showed that Lamberth has already made up his mind about the trust, including how to conduct the accounting. "In the end, I'm going to say we object to everything," he argued. "You want us to order this case dismissed," Tatel said at another point. Although they had only allotted 20 minutes for the government's part of the hearing, the judges lobbed questions at Stern for nearly an hour in the packed courtroom. They seemed exhausted by the time they got to the plaintiffs, who were represented by Elliot Levitas, a former U.S. Congressman. Levitas attacked the rider as "egregiously unconstitutional" because it affects rights already affirmed by the courts. "The right to an accounting is abrogated," he said. "That is a taking of a very valuable property right." The judges raised their own concerns about the structural injunction with Levitas. They questioned whether allowing the court unfettered access to department documents or barring the use of statistical sampling "interfered" with the Interior Department's management of the trust. Tatel also noted that Lamberth required compliance with a host of fiduciary duties but didn't make a finding that the department has violated any of them. Sentelle suggested the injunction goes too far in certain aspects. Levitas responded that Lamberth was within his right to impose reform on the government. "This is a trust case," he said. The judges gave no indication when they would rule on the matter. The rider expires on December 31 and Stern said he wasn't aware if new language was being considered by lawmakers. The House passed a version of the Interior appropriations bill that made no mention of the case but the Senate has not yet acted on its version. It is possible the Bush administration may revive the issue before the end of the year. Associate Deputy Secretary Jim Cason attended the hearing yesterday. Two of the judges on the panel, Sentelle and Williams, were responsible for the February 2001 ruling that upheld the first part of the Cobell case: the right to an accounting. Sentelle wrote the opinion and at times sparred with Stern over the exact wording and meaning. Copyright c. 2000-2004 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: We are not Extinct Scientific Curiosities" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:54:13 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MEDIA DISRESPECT" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/9/prwebxml158117.php Tennessee Native Americans Forced to Contend with Media Images of Ancestral Remains - "We Are Not Extinct Scientific Curiosities." September 15, 2004 This open letter to the media addresses the photographic and video exhibition of Native American human skeletal remains. Based upon the traditional spiritual beliefs of the Cherokee and other Southeastern Native people, openly viewing the skeletal remains of our deceased ancestors is considered a sacrilegious act. Seeing their remains in the newspaper or on television forces us, and everyone, to look upon our native ancestors in a very undignified and disrespectful manner. This violates the traditional Native American religious belief system. ---- Nashville, TN (PRWEB) September 15, 2004 -- An open letter to editors and station managers: We, the Native American people of the State of Tennessee, have been forced to contend with disturbing photographic images of newly discovered Native American skeletal remains distributed by various media sources for generations now. We find this public display of the bones of our Native ancestors extremely insensitive, highly offensive, and immoral. To us, the photographic portrayal of Native skeletal remains is the equivalent of intentionally publishing or broadcasting pornographic images in your newspaper or through your television station to the public. Despite our efforts at pleading with the various media outlets not to portray the bones of our dead in such a way, it persists, without much care for how living Native Americans feel about these issues. We therefore appeal to your management and staff to honor our feelings in regard to the public portrayal of Native American skeletal remains . We ask that you not publish this type of photograph or video imagery. It seems as though careful attention is always given to other racial and ethnic groups in reporting deaths and the sometime gruesome circumstances that often surround these events. We ask that you please observe the same courteous behavior toward the Native American people of Tennessee. Most recently, on August 7, 2004, our local newspaper, the "Tennessean," published an article by staff writer Andy Humbles regarding the discovery of seven Native American skulls in Wilson County, Tennessee. Although the article was professionally written, the color photograph of the skulls at the top of the article was not appropriate, and was considered in very poor taste by Tennessee's Native American community. On August 19, 2004, the CBS television affiliate in Nashville, Tennessee aired video footage of recently discovered Native American human remains. Here again, we were forced to violate our religious tenets by having these disturbing images thrust on us by the local media. Based on the traditional spiritual beliefs of the Cherokee and other Southeastern Native people, openly viewing the skeletal remains of our deceased ancestors is considered a sacrilegious act. Seeing their remains in the newspaper or on television forces us, and everyone, to look upon them in a very undignified and disrespectful manner, which violates our traditional religious belief system. Therefore, as Native American people, with a vested interest in the well being of our ancestors and their living descendants, we politely ask that you refrain from allowing these offensive images from being published or broadcast throughout the region by your specific media outlet. Native American people, deceased or living, were and are still, first and foremost, human beings, deserving of equality and respect, just as any other group. By allowing these remains to be viewed by your audience, you encourage society to disrespect and misunderstand our ancient culture. We are not extinct scientific curiosities as portrayed by the local media. We simply ask that your management and staff please honor our feelings toward these issues by instituting a policy of no photographic or video images of Native American skeletal remains in your newspaper or television news broadcasts. The Native American people of Tennessee are open to discussing these issues with our state's media representatives. Please feel free to contact me personally so that we may establish a dialogue. Your comments, questions, and concerns are welcome. Sincerely, Patrick Cummins, President Alliance for Native American Indian Rights of Tennessee, Inc. P.O. Box 825 Hermitage, Tennessee 37076 (615) 874-1435 E-mail: pbctsalagi@aol.com Web: www.anairtn.org Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this press release are solely those of the officers, board members, and membership of the Alliance for Native American Indian Rights of Tennessee, Inc., and its supporters. It is not the intent of the Alliance to speak on behalf of any other individual or organization. If you or your organization supports the Alliance's position on this issue, we encourage and welcome your letters of endorsement. # # # Copyright c. 1997-2004, PR Web. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Cherokee Potters revive Ancient Tradition" --------- Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 08:17:11 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRADITIONAL POTTERY REVIVAL" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.citizen-times.com//wncbusiness/61832.shtml Cover Story: Cherokee potters revive ancient tradition; Ancestral designs may create new market for crafts in tourist area By Dale Neal, Staff Reporter September 19, 2004 CHEROKEE - It warms Joel Queen's heart when he sees the pots he's shaped by hand glowing bright orange or strawberry red in the open fire. After the first firing, Queen will stuff the pot with corncobs and turn them into the flame for a smoky seal inside. It's not a very efficient method. Queen, an experienced potter of 20 years, will lose three or four pots in the fierce heat for every one he pulls intact from the coals. The payoff is a thin-walled, waterproof pot stamped with geometric designs in a nearly lost technique that's 2,000 years old. Queen, 35, an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians and a founding member of the Cherokee Potters Guild, has helped preserve his tribe's pottery tradition and cut a new path for profits from heritage tourism in Cherokee. The smoky orange pots Queen and others pull from the fire can fetch hundreds of dollars compared to only a few dollars for the heavy black ceramics Cherokee crafters have fashioned for the past century for the tourist trade on the Qualla Boundary. In turn, these crafters hope Cherokee could reshape its image as a Santa Fe-like destination for fashionable fine arts instead of cheap tourist trinkets made in Taiwan. "Everything old is new again," observed Dan Keith Ray of The Institute at Biltmore. "They are rediscovering a technology that's hundreds of years old," said Ray, who formerly headed the American Craft Council in New York and had a key role in establishing HandMade in America, the Asheville-based arts and crafts advocacy group. "If they are able to perfect a whole new pottery that people haven't seen before, there will be serious collectors and production craft buyers who will be interested," Ray said. Proud pottery tradition Pottery has long contained the essence of Cherokee heritage. "We are the oldest tribe still producing our own work in our homeland," Queen said. Archaeologists agree ceramics were born on the East coast of the United States about 4,500 years ago. Indians of the Southern Appalachians have the oldest tradition of pottery, stretching back nearly 3,000 years, even longer than the Pueblo potters of the Southwest United States, according to Barbara Duncan, education director of the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. Long before Cherokee traded for cast-iron pots from white settlers in the 1700s, they had cooked in waterproofed pots with rounded bottoms set in the coals. But later, with the introduction of cast-iron stoves, the round-bottom clay pots became impractical, Duncan said. Over the years, fewer potters passed on the ancient technique of firing a pot into a waterproof vessel. In the 20th century, Cherokee potters began making "blackware," a heavier black clay pottery borrowed from the Catawba Indians. The smaller, shiny pots appealed to the tourists visiting the new Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1930s. Potters kept the traditional geometric designs that had once been slapped onto the clay with paddles, but instead potters began to incise these into the handmade bowls and vessels. Queen, who has been shaping pottery since the age of 15, had heard stories by the fireplace growing up about handmade pots once used for cooking. He had seen the broken shards pulled out of plowed cornfields. He had tried his hand at firing the traditional pots, but they kept shattering. Reclaiming the past In 2002, a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council allowed the museum to bring in Tamara Beane, an expert in indigenous pottery, as well as archaeologists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Working with local potters, they wanted to replicate the stamped pots in the museum collection. The Cherokee Potters Guild grew out of those workshops as 15 potters, including Queen and Bernadine George, finally pieced together the technique of firing the stamped pots. "Now I see the old pieces in the museum and I say to myself, `Oh, I can do that!'" said George, president of the Potters Guild. "I love the challenge of sitting down and re-creating an old-style pot. I keep conquering the challenges, one step at a time." The ancient method of making thin-walled pots went against all the instincts of the potters after decades of making the heavier Catawba- influenced vessels, Queen said. The potters have yet to discover how their forebears were able to build and waterproof large cauldrons that are mentioned in historical records. It might takes days of heating the fire before a huge pot could be safely put into the coals. Queen and the others are eager to try. Preserving the past of the pottery was the first step. Educating their market was the next step. The Cherokee Preservation Foundation provided two grants totaling $35, 000 for potters to train others, establish a college-level course at Western Carolina University and to travel to major shows and festivals around the country. Proceeds from the Harrah's Cherokee Casino have provided the tribe with jobs for any enrolled member as well as funds to send young people to college. Money has also been set aside for the Cherokee Preservation Foundation to protect the tribal heritage and develop the local economy. "This tribe is really on the cusp of something wonderful," said Susan Jenkins, executive director of the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, which has awarded 155 grants worth $7 million since 2002. Like many others, Jenkins sees crafts as another economic avenue beyond the gambling at the casino. "Now is the time to look long-term," Jenkins said. "I think people want to come here and have a Cherokee experience and stay for three or four days. We have the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, `Unto These Hills' (outdoor drama) and the Oconaluftee Indian Village, but we need to find ways to roll that into one experience." Looking for the authentic The success of authentic Cherokee crafts, along with other traditional arts across Western North Carolina, will play a role in the region's recent designation as the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. The 25 western counties will be eligible for $1 million in federal funds each year for the next 10 years to protect and promote the area's cultural, historical and natural resources. Queen, for one, hopes the tribe's craft reputation can move beyond the cheap mass-produced trinkets that have been sold for decades in Cherokee's downtown. "It may take us 50 years to break that cycle so an artist can make it here in Cherokee and not have to compete with some of the junk sold here," he said. For the craft-conscious visitors looking for the authentic, they need look no further than the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, across the street from the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. Here at the nation's oldest native American craft co-op, each item sold comes with a certificate from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. Vicki Ledford, Qualla's general manager, can wander around the displays and point out the characteristics of the hand-woven baskets from river cane or white oak. She also recognizes the individual stamp of the crafter, from Amanda Crowe's hand-carved bears to the late Lottie Stamper's double- weave baskets to George's pottery. "I just bought two of Joel's stamped pots today," Ledford said. Sales are up 7 percent from last year as more visitors are searching out the authentic crafts. Authenticity is the key for heritage tourism to succeed in Cherokee as well as the rest of Western North Carolina, Ray said. -"People find out about the fake stuff, but the more sophisticated the consumer becomes, you can give them what is true," Ray said. "It's no doubt that Cherokee will be one of the hubs in the Heritage Region." Contact Neal at 232-5970 or DNeal@CITIZEN- TIMES.com Copyright c. Asheville Citizen-Times. --------- "RE: Court rules State diluted Native American Vote" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:54:13 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SD REDISTRICTING CHEATED INDIAN VOTE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.kotatv.com/localnews/story.asp?ID=19756 Federal Court Rules State Diluted Native American Vote Associated Press and Shad Olson September 15, 2004 The South Dakota Legislature unlawfully diluted the voting strength of American Indians when it redrew legislative district boundaries in 2001, according to U-S District Judge Karen Schreier. Siding with four Indian voters in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the judge has ordered the state to reconsider Legislative Districts 26 and 27 -- which include the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian reservations. The state attorney general's office had argued that the South Dakota Legislature did not violate federal law when it approved boundaries for those districts. A-C-L-U lawyers had asked Schreier to rule that three factors indicating vote dilution exist in the redistricting plan. The lawsuit was lodged shortly after the Legislature redrew the boundaries of South Dakota's 35 legislative districts to take into account population changes in the 2000 census. A-C-L-U lawyers argued that state lawmakers violated federal laws by weakening Indians' voting strength. Schreier agreed that the redistricting plan illegally weakened Indians' voting strength when it placed a supermajority of Indians in District 27 - - resulting in denial of equal political opportunities for Indians in Districts 26 and 27. Copyright c. 2004 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2004 KOTA, Rapid City, SD. --------- "RE: Indian Hospital faces criticism" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:54:13 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="IHS HOSPITAL BLASTED" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2004/09/16/news/local/news04.txt Indian hospital faces criticism By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer September 15, 2004 RAPID CITY - Rapid City's American Indian community blasted Sioux San Hospital administrators, the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen's Health Board and Aberdeen Area Indian Health Service officials about dwindling services at the Rapid City Indian hospital. A 25-page budget packet and agenda for a Sioux San update and budget session on Tuesday in Rapid City were largely ignored as Sioux San clients questioned Aberdeen-area and local health administrators about lost representation on health boards, referrals to outside health agencies and generally lackluster care for the 13,000 Indians who live in Rapid City. About 200 people packed the Sheridan Room of the Best Western Ramkota Hotel to shower questions on Nancy Davis, deputy director of Indian Health Service in Aberdeen; Rick Sorensen, associate area director at IHS in Aberdeen; Carole Anne Heart, executive director of Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen's Health Board; Ray Grandbois, Sioux San Hospital's acting CEO; and Dr. Valerie Parker, clinical director. The administrative panel weathered the onslaught of criticism and anger by community members generated from years of frustration at what they said was Sioux San's denial of treatment, administrative incompetence and shrinking health system. "We've ignored Sioux San, we acknowledge that," Sorensen said. "It should not have been allowed to happen. If there's blame, I think the responsibility rests with IHS." But Davis announced that candidates for the position of chief executive officer would need to meet stringent qualifications and have a strong business background. "The applicant who has met these factors will manage a multimillion- dollar business in taking care of your health. These are the kinds of things the community has indicated they wanted in their CEO," Davis said. Powerful advocates from the three major reservations and South Dakota's congressional delegation wanted the hospital to succeed, officials said. South Dakota's congressional members also sent representatives to the Tuesday meeting to listen to the concerns of the people. Grandbois said some immediate and initial changes at the hospital would include a culture room for families for ceremonies and prayers, a community advocate who would help clients go through the referral process, education documentation included with prescriptions, and changes to the switchboard to make it easier to talk to a person rather than automated voice mail. But the biggest issue was the hospital's lack of money, Grandbois said. Woefully under-funded at $4 million a year, the hospital would generate that amount of expense with only seven new people diagnosed with cancer, he said. "We receive only 48 percent of the amount of the money needed to run the hospital," Grandbois said. Showing an IHS appropriations chart, Grandbois said federal prison inmates received $3,803 per capita compared to Sioux San's $1,914. Joe Valandra, an enrolled Rosebud tribal member, said he wanted more local control of choosing the hospital's CEO and advocated for a bigger budget. "We don't have enough money - tell us something we don't know," Valandra said. "Give us an administrator that hasn't been (fired) from every job they've ever held." Stella Iron Cloud said the community would have to start lobbying for bigger budgets locally and at the national level. A woman from the audience wanted Sioux San and IHS moved from the Department of Interior into another department. "I'm sick and tired of competing with prairie dogs for funding," she said. Marie Randall, 84, of Wanblee, advised community members to stop bickering and start helping each other. "Those people who are here, work with them," she said. "Tell them what your needs are. They all believe in pencil and paper. Write about it. These are things that need to be heard. Don't sit back and feel sorry for yourself." Randall said three tribal presidents stood up for Rapid City to create changes and worked for the Indian community. The community shouldn't squander that relationship. "I live 100 miles from a hospital. You have the privilege to go to the Sioux San and Rapid City Regional. These are the things you have to understand and work toward," Randall said. Sorensen said he was optimistic about the Sept. 30 meeting, where he hopes to catch people up on the budget, discuss contract health and listen to community input. "We're going to work real hard with the community to win back their trust," he said. Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com Copyright c. 2004 The Rapid City Journal. --------- "RE: Lewis and Clark re-enactors asked to leave" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:54:13 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="OLD WOUNDS OPENED" http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/ Group led by man from Pine Ridge Reservation will ask Lewis and Clark re-enactors to leave By SETH TUPPER, The Daily Republic September 15, 2004 CHAMBERLAIN - An American Indian man said Tuesday that he is planning "an action of the Lakota people" against a group of Lewis and Clark re-enactors this weekend at Chamberlain. Alex White Plume, 53, an Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, said an untold number of people will travel to Chamberlain on Friday evening or Saturday morning. They plan to ask the re-enactors to turn their boats around and go home. "They're just opening up all the old wounds that we're still trying to heal from," White Plume said. "They should have been a little bit more courteous and asked us about what they are doing, and maybe they could have joined in the healing effort. Instead, they're just coming through and bragging about what they did 200 years ago." The group of about 20 re-enactors - known as the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, Mo. - is using replica boats to retrace the entire Lewis and Clark waterway route of 1803-1806. They are scheduled to dock their boats in Chamberlain today through Monday. The city is planning a community grill-out with the re-enactors Thursday evening, but no specific activities are planned Saturday. Larry McClain, executive director of the Discovery Expedition, said he had heard rumors about a possible "protest." He said his organization has been trying unsuccessfully to contact White Plume. McClain declined to say whether the re-enactors would consider ending the expedition, because nobody had asked them to do so. "We've had incredibly positive experiences with Native Americans starting in Monticello all they way out," McClain said. "We're kind of a platform for education on a lot of issues. We obviously would like to help them have a voice and a platform for education." McClain said he had not made any plans for security at Chamberlain, because he did not know enough about White Plume's intentions. Brule County Sheriff Darrell Miller said he had no knowledge of the protesters' plans, but he planned to meet with Chamberlain Police Chief Joe Hutmacher to discuss the issue. "I suppose everybody has a right to protest, as long as there's no violence," Miller said. White Plume stressed that the event will not be a "protest." He prefers the word "action," because he expects the re-enactors to cooperate with his request. When asked if he was prepared to use force, White Plume was ambiguous. "I'm going up there with one peaceful purpose, and that's to stop them," he said. "We may even capture their boats - who knows?" he added with a laugh. "I just want to sit down and talk to them. I've got some things to say to them." White Plume and four other men will conduct a planning meeting from 10 a. m. to 5 p.m. Friday at Kiza Park, located three miles north of Manderson. A flier announcing the meeting states that "We, the descendants of the free Lakota, will make a stand to tell the world about the 1851 & 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaties & how America fails to abide by its own laws." The Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868 designated 60 million acres, including all the land west of the Missouri River in present-day South Dakota, as the Great Sioux Reservation. Another portion of the treaty encouraged Indians to become farmers. White Plume is well acquainted with that aspect of the document, because he drew national attention in recent years with his attempts to grow hemp as a cash crop. Federal Drug Enforcement agents confiscated his crops in 2000 and 2001, but supporters have continued to harvest the wild hemp that grows near his home. Copyright c. 2004 The Daily Republic/Mitchell, South Dakota. --------- "RE: Ride retraces fallen Warrior's History" --------- Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 08:17:11 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="THIN MILK REMEMBERED" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.rapidcityjournal.com//news/local/news03.txt Ride retraces fallen warrior's history By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer September 19, 2004 RED SHIRT VILLAGE - A riderless appaloosa will represent a fallen Brule warrior at a memorial and ceremony on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Brothers Victor Swallow and John Swallow Jr., their cousin, the Rev. Robert Two Bulls, and the Red Shirt community elders will host a memorial ride, ceremony and feast for a man who died after the Wounded Knee Massacre in the winter of 1890. "This is our history," Victor Swallow said. "We want it to be known." The inaugural Thin Milk Memorial Ride will begin at 10 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 26, at the picnic grounds at Red Shirt Village. A free meal will be served at noon. All riders and the public are welcome to participate, Swallow said. It commemorates the story of Brule warriors who had ridden out from the Stronghold, a rugged canyon area east of Red Shirt Village, to steal food and horses from the Daly Ranch. The band was surprised when the ranch hands returned early from checking cattle. According to John Swallow Jr., a gunfight ensued, and one of the warriors was mortally wounded. The dying Brule's name was Ansapi Bleza - Thin Milk. "Nobody should be forgotten," Victor Swallow said Wednesday. At the Sept. 26 event, spectators can watch the riders retrace the route from opposite sides of the canyon. Sam Two Bulls of Oglala will conduct a Lakota ceremony to commemorate the Brule's death and passage into the spirit world. Rev. Two Bulls will accompany the riders as they retrace Thin Milk's last route up Cedar Creek Canyon to the site where the Brule's remains were discovered. The riders will circle, dismount and Rev. Two Bulls will conduct a prayer with the riders in the canyon, Swallow said. From the table above, a man will call Thin Milk's name three times at the edge of the canyon. A marker detailing Thin Milk's death will be unveiled on the canyon's edge, and a short program will follow that includes speakers. "I would like to get across the idea that we're putting this on because we're a proud people," Victor Swallow said. History buff Tom Norman, 77, of Rockerville plans to be one of the faces in the crowd. Norman read a July 19 story about Thin Milk in the Rapid City Journal with interest. According to the Swallow brothers' account, the Brule Indian is the only known casualty of those who sought refuge in the Stronghold during the Wounded Knee era. Norman's side of the tale matched their story. He heard versions of this story told by his grandmother, Tillie. She lived on the ranch at the mouth of Battle Creek with her second husband, Jack Daly, Norman said. He also said it wasn't some cowboy's bullet that hit the Brule man. "My Grandma Tillie is the one who shot him," Norman said. Norman said his grandmother shot the Brule man with a Sharps .45 rifle as he reached down to open the corral gate where a remuda of horses were kept. Jack Daly and his crew of ranch hands had been out rounding up cattle but had run short of provisions. They returned to the ranch and surprised the Indian raiding party. The heavily armed cowboys began shooting. Tillie Daly's shot knocked the Brule from his horse. The other Brule men turned back and picked up their fallen companion, leaving behind his horse, Norman said. Norman said Jack Daly was a cattle driver who had fallen in love with the place on Battle Creek, west of the present day Red Shirt Table. On Daly's last cattle drive north from Texas, he brought 500 head of his own cows with a herd and left them at the ranch. Two hired hands were left to herd cattle while he drove the main herd on to Montana. He returned to the Black Hills and married Tillie. They, with her children, Joe and Zelma Norman, began ranching along Battle Creek. Norman said that, according to family accounts, the Brules were riding pinto horses when they arrived at the ranch. He said Tillie Daly claimed Thin Milk's horse after his companions took the wounded man to safety. "She rode that pinto until the day it died," Norman said. Copyright c. 2004 The Rapid City Journal. --------- "RE: Tribes are able to co-manage the Bison Range" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:54:13 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BISON MANAGEMENT" http://www.leaderadvertiser.com/articles/2004/09/15/news/news01.txt Tribes say they are able to co-manage the Bison Range By Cristina Aguilar for the Leader September 15, 2004 For centuries Native Americans managed the bison ranges before the arrival of Europeans and they are now ready to take back the responsibility of being the stewards of the lands as their ancestors did. The Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribe (CSKT) and the United States Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials presented to the public a question and answer session this week to solidify public understanding of the controversial proposal. Under the proposal, the tribes would take responsibility for activities in five categories- management, biological programs, habitat management, fire programs and maintenance and visitor services. Head of Natural Resources for the CSKT Clayton Matt says the responsibility for the management of the Bison Range should have no effect on non-tribal members who may own private property near the range. "The implementation and execution of this AFA will not have an effect on private owners," said Matt, (who is a distant relation to Tribal Chairman Fred Matt). "There will be no surprises. We have managed our resources to the best of our ability for centuries and will continue to do so." Matt said the refuge manager, Steve Kallin of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, would retain final responsibility and authority for directing and controlling the operation of the National Bison Range. "Kallin clearly has a lot of experience with FWP," said Matt. "We have met a few times and it will be that relationship building that will make this plan successful. The process of gaining stewardship of the Bison Range is part of the self-governing policies that have been in place for many years. "We have been practicing self-governing for thousands of years," said Matt. "We have for centuries had leaders who have always kept the best interest of the people, both present and future, and the Tribes and USFWP have come to an agreement to implement and fit right into that." Questions raised at the first meeting in Polson last week addressed current jobs and the price of the program. "The AFA clearly explains options employees have," said Matt. "They will have their own decision to make with regard to how that will go. No one will be laid off and the AFA says nothing about people losing their jobs." People at the Polson meeting were confused that the issues regarding costs of the program were not cleared up, although some supported the program. Peter Pelissier of Yellow Bay said it was a poor job in having a presentation on funding the program with no hard numbers involved in the AFA. Rick Coleman, assistant regional director for refuges for the Fish and Wildlife Service, answered most questions about funding. "The agency has estimated costs and calculated those number but they are not yet available to the public or the Confederated Salish and Kootenai. The original thrust for the national movement for the preservation of the buffalo began with the American Bison Society in 1905. In 1907, attention was centered on lands within the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana because they were about to be opened and offered for sale. The National Bison Range was established in 1908 at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt and was created by an act of Congress. Tribal member Jerry Brown wrapped up the true purpose of the AFA in his comments to the FWP and CSKT. "The USFWP knows the tribes are just as good as they are in managing the lands," said Brown. "We are just as competent. Right now the tribe contracts $328 million on an annual basis and that's nothing to sneeze at. We've had many non-Indians work for the tribe for years. Our people are higher qualified than those they have at the USFWP and they know it. For once we are getting our dignity back. We've played this game so long we've lost sight of the fact that no one really owns this land; we are the stewards of the land and always have been. This step we are taking forward will only bring more cultural pride to our children. It will keep our stories of buffalo hunts alive." Copyright c. 2002 Lake Country Leader Advertiser/Polson, MT. --------- "RE: GOP Candidate says Cherokees aren't Real Indians" --------- Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 09:14:08 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RACIST CANDIDATE" http://www.indianz.com/News/2004/004263.asp GOP candidate says Cherokees aren't real Indians September 17, 2004 A conservative Republican in a highly competitive race with a Cherokee Nation tribal member is coming under fire for claiming that Cherokees "aren't Indians" and for suggesting that tribal sovereignty is a "joke." Tom Coburn, a former Congressman who won the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate over rivals who had the backing of party leaders, told a town hall meeting in Altus, Oklahoma, recently that the Cherokee Nation wants to enroll more members in order to receive more federal funds. He questioned the legitimacy of the tribe's heritage and said "the average Cherokee [blood] quantum is 1/512." "Alright, listen, I know the tribal issues," he said on August 21. "I was a congressman where most of the Indians are in this state. The problem is, most of them aren't Indians." Coburn went on to criticize attempts by several Oklahoma tribes to assert environmental authority over their lands. He then blasted opponent Rep. Brad Carson (D), a Cherokee member, for sponsoring a bill that would prevent land owned by Cherokee and other citizens of the Five Civilized Nations from falling out of trust. "I mean this is a joke," Coburn told the audience. "It is one thing for us to keep our obligations to recognize Native Americans, but it's a totally different thing for us to allow a primitive agreement with the Native Americans to undermine Oklahoma's future and that's what they're talking about doing and it's big money." The remarks largely went unnoticed until the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is making a big push on behalf of Carson, began circulating them. Previously, only Coburn's characterization of the race against Carson as "the battle of good versus evil," also made at the Altus meeting, ended up in the mainstream press. But now, tribal leaders who are firing back at Coburn for his "divisive" comments. Even though some are registered Republicans, they say they aren't going to support him. "I'm a Republican and it is hard to understand why Tom Coburn takes pride in dividing Oklahoma and ridiculing people," said Chad Smith, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. "If you disagree with him, you are evil. There's no discussion, no room for understanding." "I've been a Republican all my life and Tom Coburn is an embarrassment to the Republican party," added Bill Johnson, a tribal council member. The battle between Coburn and Carson is a significant one for several reasons. Carson would be the only Native American in the Senate since Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of Montana, is retiring. The outcome of the race also will help determine which party controls the Senate. Democrats and Republicans are hoping to pick up seats in order to shift the balance of power in what is now a one-member Republican majority. Polls currently show the two candidates neck-and-neck. A television poll released this week put Carson in the lead but only by two points. Nearly one in five voters was undecided. The Senate seat up for grabs is being vacated by Republican Don Nickels, who is retiring. Smith has said in the past that the Cherokee Nation does not endorse candidates for public office. But he has actively encouraged tribal members to vote. The tribe counts more than 200,000 members. Former principal chief Wilma Mankiller is supporting Democratic candidates, including the presidential ticket of Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards. She characterized Coburn as a radical who is out of touch with America. "Tom Coburn's extremist views on the basic rights of women and outrageous views of tribal citizens and their governments are shocking and simply too far out of the mainstream for him to serve as our United States Senator," she said. Carson won his party's nomination in July with 80 percent of the vote. He was elected twice to the U.S. House, serving the 2nd Congressional district, which has the highest percentage of Native Americans anywhere in the country. Copyright c. 2000-2004 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: Woman who sued Coburn goes Public" --------- Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 09:14:08 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ANTI-CHEROKEE CANDIDATE HAS OWN ISSUES" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27269-2004Sep16.html Woman Who Sued Coburn Goes Public She Calls GOP Candidate's Remarks on Case 'Not True' By Lois Romano Washington Post Staff Writer September 17, 2004 TULSA, Sept. 16 - A woman who claimed in a lawsuit 13 years ago that the Republican Senate candidate here, a family physician, sterilized her without her consent came forward Thursday to stand by her story, throwing one of the most competitive Senate races in the country into further turmoil. Her voice shaking at times, Angela Plummer said that while Tom Coburn saved her life during a 1990 surgery to remove a fallopian tube in which a fetus had lodged, she was "stunned" to learn that he had also removed her remaining good tube. "Dr. Tom Coburn sterilized me without my consent - verbal or written - and I know he's stating that he got oral consent. That is not true," Plummer said at a news conference. "I'm not up here to smear him. I'm up here because I wanted to have more children, and he took that away from me." Coburn is embroiled in a tight race with Rep. Brad Carson (D), and the conservative Muskogee doctor has accused Democrats of leaking the story to "trash" his character. Plummer said Thursday that she had not spoken to anyone with partisan interests but came forward after she had read the initial article about the sterilization on Salon.com earlier in the week. The race is considered one the most critical in the country as both parties fight for control of the U.S. Senate. A spokesman for Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said Thursday that the senator was scheduled to visit Oklahoma to campaign for Coburn on Friday. Vice President Cheney is due here next week on Coburn's behalf. The story has dominated the local news this week, with national Democrats jumping into the fray. Polls show the race is a dead heat. Plummer's lawsuit was dismissed and reinstated in a statute-of- limitations squabble but never went to trial. Coburn and Plummer, then 20, agree that she contacted the doctor with an ectopic pregnancy - when a fetus lodges in a fallopian tube. Both also agree that by the time he operated, she was bleeding to death. On Wednesday, Coburn said that he removed the other tube because the patient had asked him to do so several times previously and because her mother had also requested that it be done that night. (Plummer confirmed that her mother had done so, in an interview with the Tulsa World.) Coburn's campaign released a statement Thursday from a nurse who stated that Plummer had "begged" him to remove the other tube. Plummer, now 34 and the mother of two children born before her troubled pregnancy, said that she did not learn what he had done until weeks later when she went for a checkup. "[We] went into a room by ourselves. He said, 'By the way, I tied your tubes. But do not tell anyone, because I will get in trouble.' " Copyright c. 2004 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Editorial: Racial Profiling Law needs Sharp Teeth" --------- Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 17:55:23 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INDIANS HARASSED" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.nativetimes.com/~article&article_id=5123 Editorial: Racial profiling law needs sharp teeth Indians harassed in numerous ways TULSA OK Louis Gray September 17, 2004 When Amnesty International released its report on the state of Racial Profiling in America, it detailed many abuses and the need for change. Native Americans are not listed because no one is tracking the abuses. Oklahoma has a racial profiling law, but it is among the weakest versions ever created. That is not the fault of law author State Senator Maxine Horner from Tulsa. Her original bill called for stiff fines for offending peace keepers and record keeping. Law enforcement officials, while assuring us that racial profiling doesn't even exist in their jurisdictions, lobbied state officials to delete any language which forces officers to note which race the arrested person belongs to. They claim the fines would keep good people from joining the force and the record keeping would be too costly and burdensome. Policemen simply can't be troubled to check a box. Oklahoma has not educated the public on how to file a complaint. Last year in the mandated annual report showed less than 10 people filed complaints and none resulted in prosecution. At a hearing in Tulsa last September, Amnesty International came to Tulsa and asked local residents to participate and share their stories. Indian people stepped forward and nearly three-dozen witnesses came prepared to tell their stories of racial profiling. They came from all over the state. They were prepared to tell stories of police manning roadblocks stopping every person leaving a pow wow. They staked out roads leading to Green Corn Dances, even searching the vehicles of Mekkos (Native Holy Men) and their families. Officers harassed people based not only on the color of their skin, but their culture and their religion. In South Dakota, officers can stop Indians with the "dangling object" law. Any feather or other Indian-related item can be grounds for complete and intrusive searches. Indian drivers with tribal license plates make easy targets for racially insensitive cops looking to harass a Native American. Some suggest it is the unwritten policy of police departments to stop all cars sporting a tribal tag. The ACLU is setting up offices in Minnesota between three reservations to investigate widespread racial profiling of Native Americans. The incarceration rate for Native Americans is grossly out of proportion with that of the general population. Everyone agrees that whenever a policeman stops an Indian on the road it needs to be documented. The argument that it would be too expensive is silly at best and wrong in reality. One police chief said it would cost nothing. Even if it did, are the police lobbyists suggesting that just because it cost money to track offenses it shouldn't be done? Clearly, Native Americans occupy the bottom rung of every serious socio- economic indicator including violence; it stands to reason racially profiling of Indians is going to extremely high. If that is the case, law enforcement needs to remedy this miscarriage of justice. Native American Times is Copyright c. 2004 Oklahoma Indian Times, Inc. --------- "RE: Jumanos face Battle in quest for Official Status" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:14:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JUMANO APACHE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com//0,1897,SAST_4943_3178206,00.html Jumanos face battle in quest for official tribal status September 13, 2004 REDFORD, Texas - A leader in an effort to round up the Jumano Apache people for federal government recognition as an Indian tribe says it could bring economic benefits to the West Texas residents, who suffer from poverty and neglect. However, proving that the Jumanos are a distinct subgroup of the Apache will not be easy because they disappeared from historical records around 1700. "There really isn't any question that the group existed," Robert Mallouf, director of the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, told the San Antonio Express-News in Monday's editions. "It's a matter of being able to trace them through time. "If they can't show continuity from the early historical period into the present, then it may be difficult to get federal recognition," said Mallouf. "But I am not saying it's impossible." A Jumano Apache tribe, if recognized by the U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, would be headquartered in Redford where it would be self-governed, possibly attracting federal funds and development projects. "Hopefully, it will help us overcome what we've had to live with for 150 years as Americans," Jumano leader Enrique Madrid said in an interview at his home. "As Americans, we are just poor. We need a better state of being." Redford has no schools. Children from the trailers and old adobe and cinder block homes clustered near Big Bend Ranch State Park. go to school in Presidio, 15 miles away along the Mexican border. In Presidio County, unemployment is 22 percent and median income is half the state average, with the closest hospital in Alpine, 100 miles to the north. "This is one of the poorest places in the United States and one of the most mistreated," said Madrid, 56. "We need a Marshall Plan after the war on drugs. The government defeated us. Now they need to build us up." In 1997, a U.S. Marine on a drug-interdiction training patrol shot and killed a young U.S. citizen tending goats in Redford. The Jumanos, with 386 registered members so far, want their own school. County Judge Jerry Agan said he wasn't aware of the Jumano group's goals. "It's kind of strange the way they are trying to do it because they haven't asked for our support on it at all," he said. "It just seems kind of far-fetched to me." The Spanish mentioned the Jumanos in expedition records from the late 1500s, before Texas existed. But according to some scholars, the Jumanos were absorbed by Apaches who were pushed into the area mainly by the Comanches during the second half of the 17th century. "We want our identity back," said another Jumano leader, 64-year-old Gabriel Carrasco. "And later on, if we are recognized, establish some jobs for the people. We are going to build a culture center as soon as we have money or a grant to do it." Information from: San Antonio Express-News Copyright c. 2004 The San Angelo Standard-Times, an E.W. Scripps newspaper. --------- "RE: Winnemem Wintu Tribe goes to War for Sacred Sites" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:14:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WINNEMAN WINTU" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/national/14tribe.html?adxnnl=1 At War Against Dam, Tribe Turns to Old Ways By DEAN E. MURPHY September 14, 2004 SHASTA LAKE, Calif., Sept. 13 - The enemy stands 602 feet tall and weighs 15 million tons. But Mark Franco said he was unafraid. His face painted with black stripes and his head crowned with eagle feathers, the 49-year- old Mr. Franco was at war for the first time in his life. "We were led here through prayer," he said, his chest bare except for ceremonial necklaces and an abalone shell positioned over his heart. "This is what we need to do." The dull thud of a wooden drum half-buried in the soft earth signaled the call to dance, as Mr. Franco and seven other members of the Winnemem Wintu Indian tribe circled a small pit fire. Sunday night was the opening of a four-day ceremony that had not been performed by the Winnemem since 1887. Known as the Hu'p Chonas, the ritual of dancing and fasting on acorn water signals that the Winnemem are at war, though this is not a battle fought with traditional weaponry against a traditional adversary. The Winnemem are summoning their spiritual masters against a force that they know as "the concrete barrier," the 59-year-old Shasta Dam, one of California's biggest. The federal Bureau of Reclamation, in its pressing mission to quench California's seemingly insatiable thirst, would like to raise the dam by as much as 18 1/2 feet. The enlargement of Shasta Lake, the state's largest reservoir, which sustains the farms and people of the Central Valley, is part of a statewide plan to increase storage capacity in at least five locations and to manage some salmon populations better. But the Winnemem, a band of only about 125 members, say enough is enough. After the dam was built in the 1930's and 40's, the water behind it swallowed their villages and ancestral homelands along the McCloud River, which is one of several tributaries that feed the reservoir and, the Winnemem say, has sustained them and many other Wintu Indians for a thousand years. "We are here to face the dam, to face the enemy," said Mr. Franco's wife, Caleen Sisk-Franco, the tribe's spiritual leader and chief, who sang a soulful prayer for her warriors over burning manzanita branches on a grassy slope near the dam. "This is not against the people." During the dam's construction, the Winnemem exhumed the corpses of 183 members from a doomed graveyard and watched as their homes were knocked down. Now, if the dam grows even taller, tribal leaders say, about 20 sacred sites, including a burial ground of 17 additional Winnemem and a rock where Winnemem girls pray as part of a puberty ritual, will be lost to the reservoir. "This is too much to ask of a people," Ms. Sisk-Franco said. One of the dancers, Gary Hayward Slaughter Mulcahy, who owns a coffee shop near Sacramento, said losing just one sacred site broke a circle of connection among all of them, making it hard for the Winnemem to practice their religion. Like many of the 100 or so people who gathered here, some of them Indians from neighboring tribes, the 50-year-old Mr. Mulcahy complained about generations of mistreatment at the hands of white settlers, with the Shasta Dam only the freshest of many wounds. As he prepared for the ceremony, tuning the oak drum by twisting a series of metal screws, he wore a T-shirt depicting armed Indians and bearing the inscription "Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism Since 1492." "If they go under the water," he said of the tribe's sacred sites, "it will be like somebody just came in and bulldozed the church down." The federal government, which built the dam and reservoir as part of the Central Valley Project, has considered enlarging Shasta Lake since 1980. The Bureau of Reclamation only recently set aside a proposal that would have added 200 feet to the top of the dam. Under the proposal now being developed with the state, construction of a 6 1/2- or 18 1/2-foot addition would begin sometime after 2010, with important environmental reviews starting next spring. "We are still conducting feasibility studies on doing this," said Jeffrey S. McCracken, a spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation. "Some groups are very concerned about what impacts it will have on cultural resources." In addition to the Winnemem, some property owners in the area, including the Hearst family, have been among those upset about the proposal, Mr. McCracken said. A number of fishing and environmental groups, like California Trout, have also challenged the proposed project. But a report released last month by the Bureau of Reclamation found that raising the Shasta Dam "is highly cost-efficient compared to developing other new water sources." The report also listed among its findings that the taller dam would not "result in major impacts to existing flow conditions or other resources of the McCloud River." Members of the Winnemem have been attending hearings about the proposed expansion in recent months, but they are at a disadvantage because the tribe is not formally recognized under federal law. In calling her warriors to dance, Ms. Sisk-Franco said she was seeking intervention from the spirit world on federal recognition as well. Like the dam, recognition is an intensely political issue. "It gives you some standing and gives you some rights," she said. Ms. Sisk-Franco, dressed in her ceremonial whites, sat Monday on a folding chair a few yards from the dancers as several women sang songs that "came down" to her from the spirit world. "Just now, a song came down, and it was like the osprey came flying by and it brought that song in," she said after reciting the words into a tape recorder. "They are flying up there with the Creator; they are the ones that take the message up." The Winnemem consider themselves a patient people. The last time the war dance was performed, 117 years ago, they were rallying against the construction of a fish hatchery on the McCloud. Nothing happened for many years after that. But one day, a huge rush of water washed the hatchery away, Ms. Sisk-Franco said. The site is now somewhere beneath Shasta Lake. Copyright c. 2004 The New York Times Company. --------- "RE: Non-recognized VA. Tribes welcome NMAI opening" --------- Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 09:14:08 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="VIRGINIA TRIBES" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24650-2004Sep15.html A Monument to Survival Tribes greet the National Museum of the American Indian with pride -- and a sense of proprietorship By Carol Morello Washington Post Staff Writer September 16, 2004 PAMUNKEY RESERVATION, Va. - The Native Americans who live on the Pamunkey Indian Reservation welcome visitors, but do not go out of their way to court them. An easily overlooked sign on a two-lane road halfway between Richmond and Williamsburg points the way 10 miles down a twisting lane. About 85 people live in brick ramblers and two-story frame houses tucked among woodlands and farm fields. The 1,200-acre reservation holds only a few hints of the Pamunkeys' illustrious past. A modest stone monument at the entrance commemorates their most famous ancestor, Pocahontas. Images of her legendary father, Chief Powhatan, adorn markers outside a small museum. His burial mound lies beyond the railroad tracks. About 5,000 people, mostly schoolchildren on field trips, visit annually. Now, this tiny, low-key tribe is about to get more attention in a day than it used to attract in a year. The Pamunkey are among the first of 24 tribes chosen from around the hemisphere to be featured in the exhibit halls of the Smithsonian's new National Museum of the American Indian. For a section called "Our Lives," illustrating contemporary communities, curators have videotaped Pamunkey digging clay for pottery, milking eggs from shad and boating down the Pamunkey River. Like other tribes in Virginia and Maryland, the Pamunkey are thrilled that, at last, a museum dedicated to Native American history and culture has been built on the Mall. "We're very flattered and honored that we were selected," said William P. Miles, an administrator for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and chief of the tribe. "We all got a strong sense that they wanted to tell our story the way we wanted it told. We're anxious to see how they put it together." Across the Washington region, Native Americans are anticipating that the museum's opening on Tuesday will be a milestone. They are descendants of the indigenous people who had the first contact with the English colonists who established a satellite settlement in North America at Jamestown in 1607. But today, many of them believe that their history has been all but forgotten, reduced to little more than a caricature. The museum opens at a time when Native Americans in both states have been waging unsuccessful campaigns for government recognition. Six of Virginia's eight tribes are seeking federal recognition, which would make them eligible for various benefits, but their efforts have been blocked by lawmakers who fear it could lead to casino gambling as it has in some states. Maryland's half-dozen tribes have been repeatedly rebuffed for state recognition, denying them access to some scholarships, health benefits and business contracts. With these battles as a backdrop, the National Museum of the American Indian, with its sinuous architecture and soaring atrium sited on the country's most ceremonial ground, strikes many as a long-overdue recognition of their existence and contributions. "We're very supportive of the museum," said Karenne Wood, a Monacan storyteller who heads the Virginia Council on Indians and has worked for the museum compiling research about the tribes in Maryland and Virginia. "The museum has taken a proactive stance in working with native communities and making sure the native voice is heard. It's very exciting. For so long, educational material presented that Indians were a thing of the past, and if they exist at all they're still wearing feathers and living in teepees. The museum helps dispel that notion. It really showcases the fact we're still here. The overall message is, we survived the past 400 years, and we're still a viable and contemporary people. We're adapting, but we're keeping our traditions." Acutely aware that the museum is in the back yard of their ancestral homelands, many area tribe members say it gives them a strong sense of proprietorship. "I'm extremely proud of it being here," said Kenneth Branham, chief of the Monacan Nation. "I wouldn't feel the same way if it were in Arizona." Together with the state's Department of Historical Resources, Virginia's tribes plan to hold a reception to welcome other tribes to Washington for the opening. The event will be at the Cannon Office Building on Monday. Native American protocol dictates that when Indians come to your country, you are there to greet them," said Ken Adams, chief of the Upper Mattaponi. "This is a very significant event. Indians from all over the country will be there. It's probably the biggest thing for Indians that ever happened in Washington, and we want to be a part of it." They have been a part of it from the beginning. While the museum was on the drawing boards, researchers sought out indigenous people and solicited their ideas. "During a four-year consultation process, we went all around Indian country," said Thomas Sweeney, a spokesman for the National Museum of the American Indian. "That's what makes the museum special." As a result of their input, the main entrance to the museum faces east. Many of the Native American communities in the region oriented their dwellings to the east to face the rising sun. In another bow to area tribes, the major open space in the museum has been called the Potomac, a word in the Algonquin language for a place where goods are brought. Museum officials recognize that the museum is on a former wetland traversed by tribes from both Maryland and Virginia. "This is the beginning of the story. This is where America's history begins," Sweeney said. "For the local tribes, there is a great pride in it being here. In some ways, they are the host tribes." The collaboration is also evident outside, on the museum's grounds, where four stones called Cardinal Direction Markers are placed as a metaphor for the hemisphere's original inhabitants. The stone near the eastern entrance was dug up and trucked to Washington from Sugarloaf Mountain in Western Maryland. The other stones were selected by tribes in Hawaii, Canada and Chile. After the stones were laid, Sewell Fitzhugh of Maryland's Nause-Waiwash band was invited to chant a prayer at the dedication. The open-arm approach is refreshing - and in sharp contrast to the perception among many Native Americans that the part they played in the region's history is overlooked, except in November. "It's been very welcoming," said Fitzhugh, chief of the Nause-Waiwash. "In the state of Maryland, we're like turkeys. They want us when it's Thanksgiving. And the rest of the year, they'd like us to just go away. Without recognition, we constantly have to fight for our identity, fight for our culture, fight for our people. It's a constant battle to be counted for who you are." Hopes are high that the museum could herald a new era for Native Americans. "With the blessing of the stones, they show they're not going to play these games about whether you're officially recognized or not," Fitzhugh said. For many, the museum is an intensely personal experience. Warren Cook, assistant chief of the Pamunkey and the son of a former chief, has donated dozens of family photographs. Fitzhugh hopes to hear tape recordings made in the 1920s, when Smithsonian researchers taped his grandmother and other members of the tribe just before a new road was built. Branham is looking forward to driving four hours to Washington with his grandchildren to squire them around the museum. He visited during the ceremony with the directional stones this summer, and pronounced himself "blown away" by the architecture. "I think all Indians will be proud of it," he said. "We're especially happy and proud the Pamunkey will be represented. I've been in close contact with the chiefs, and I haven't heard the first person say, 'Why them?' " Some of the Pamunkey, however, pondered that very question when Smithsonian researchers first approached them four years ago with a proposal to feature them. "I was surprised they thought of us," said Cook, who served on a tribal committee to help with the museum planning. "We're so small. But there's a lot of history here." The Pamunkey were once the most powerful tribe in the Powhatan Confederacy, an alliance of 32 tribes under the great Pamunkey chief Powhatan. Their treaties with the English crown date to 1646 and 1677. To this day, the tribe's chief, whose Indian name is Swift Water, dons his deerskin and headdress to present venison or turkey to the governor of Virginia every Thanksgiving. From the tribe's perspective, the ceremony continues its treaty with the state and solidifies its sovereignty. What most intrigued the Smithsonian researchers was the way the Pamunkey maintain age-old traditions against the onslaught of modernity. Today, the reservation is a bedroom community, with most of its residents working at jobs an hour away in Richmond or Williamsburg. But many of their customs date back generations. The tribe is governed by the chief and a tribal council of seven men. No women can run. Elections are held every four years. The men vote with kernels of corn in favor of a candidate, or butter beans signifying rejection. Disputes between neighbors are settled by the tribal council, with no appeal. Joyce Krisvold, a retired nurse, runs the tribal pottery school, using the same designs as their ancestors. Jeff Brown, a construction worker, digs up the pottery clay on the banks of the Pamunkey River. Smithsonian researchers made several trips to the reservation to make videos and take photos. The exhibit focuses on the river, which they photographed in every season as Pamunkey worked and played around its waters. "They were interested in our lives," said Bob Gray, a maintenance superintendent for the Air National Guard who also worked on the museum committee. "They wanted to know how we are today, and how we got to be that way." Adams, whose Upper Mattaponi tribe is just up the road from the Pamunkey Reservation, believes the museum's display of their lives will generate more interest in all Virginia's Indian tribes. The Jamestown 2007 commemoration of the colony's founding 400 years ago is also on the horizon. With Native Americans accustomed to having to fight to be heard, he said, it feels as if their time has finally come. "For so many years we were hunkered down in a survival mode," he said. "For 250 years, they tried to obliterate our culture. Now they're building a monument to us. It's just amazing." Copyright c. 2004 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Making Tribes Stronger" --------- Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 08:59:43 EDT From: MJLaBurt@aol.com Subj: Making tribes stronger Mailing List: Sovereign Nations NDNAIM http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%7E171%7E2407385,00.html Making tribes stronger September 19, 2004 Tribal Sovereignty: Tribes' rights to self-governance are constantly under siege by governments, corporations and individuals. Buttressing tribal sovereignty through the law is one of NARF's principal activities. Federal Recognition of Tribal Status: Tribes that are recognized by the federal government receive both protection and benefits from the federal government. Many tribes today are not recognized by the federal government, however. NARF works to secure for the tribes federal recognition. Protection of Indian Lands: NARF is always involved with cases involving Indians' rights to ancestral lands, many of which hold valuable resources sought after by corporations. Water Rights: Especially in the arid West, governments, corporations, farmers and others are always searching for water, and sometimes Indians' water rights are infringed upon. NARF toils to maintain Indian water rights. Hunting and Fishing: These rights often are under challenge by state and other laws, and NARF fights for Indians' rights to pursue game as they traditionally have done. Religious freedom and Cultural Rights: From Indians' use of peyote in the Native American Church to what happens to the remains of tribal ancestors, NARF fights those forces - governments, archeologists, and others - that infringe upon tribal rights to worship or live in a traditional manner. Education: NARF works closely with tribes to improve education for Indian students. - Douglas Brown Copyright c. 2004 Denver Post. --------- "RE: Museum comes Face to Face with its Biggest Faux" --------- Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 17:55:23 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NO STEREOTYPES" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com//A30501-2004Sep17.html In Tonto, the Museum Comes Face to Face With Its Biggest Faux By Hank Stuever Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 18, 2004; Page C01 Bobby (angry that his stepsister Cindy is wearing his Indian costume): I'm gonna scalp her. I'm the real Little Owl! Alice, the housekeeper: Oh, I think she makes a heap pretty squaw. - From a 1969 episode of "The Brady Bunch" One problem facing the National Museum of the American Indian is that there's too much "Brady Bunch" in most of us. Whether in backyard forts or on trips to the Grand Canyon, the Brady family had a pretty strong case, as do many Americans, of what academic circles have dubbed "the Tonto Syndrome." Centuries of exaggerated, romanticized media imagery have created an Indian of the mind. Bad accents, bad jokes: Americans still revel in war whoops and feathers. Tonto - that faithful, if verbally stilted, companion to TV's Lone Ranger - is who stands between the new museum's vision of itself and everyone else. He is one of countless make-believe natives who are both icons of pop and a pernicious stereotype. The faux Indian dates from Plains Indians' successful (if culturally disastrous) showbiz debut with Buffalo Bill in the 19th century. He is with us even up to the performance of "Hey Ya!" by hip-hop megastars OutKast at this year's Grammy Awards. (The band wore face paint and cheesy feathered headdresses. Indian rights groups complained, noting parallels to minstrelsy. And got nowhere.) Everything you think you know about Indians? It's probably wrong. But is it so wrong that it won't be in the museum at all? When Mr. and Mrs. Air-'n'-Space and their kids walk through its hallowed entry, they bring to the Indian Museum a few centuries' worth of red-man baggage. (They might even be wearing Redskins jerseys.) But the museum, in giving them a heavy dose of authenticity, doesn't include a place to unpack all those heap-big stereotypes - the residue of racism that has so transfixed contemporary Indian artists, cultural historians and ironic observers of outdated pop. What the museum serves is an altogether new flavor of tourist Kool-Aid, redefining concepts of history, cosmology, spirituality and diversity. It is so broad and so complicated that visitors almost can't be blamed for asking, in ignorance or sentimentality, where Tonto went. "We have consistently thought about that question, all along," says Bruce Bernstein, the museum's assistant director for cultural resources. Bernstein and others hope the sheer beauty and tone of the place will dispel the inaccurate mythology, jokes and war whoops that visitors grew up with. That basically includes anyone who watched TV or had a social studies class in the 20th century. "You walk in on the northwest corner and into what I hope people will agree is a gorgeous building," Bernstein says. "And they won't be saying, 'Wait, now where are the tepees?' or 'I don't see the noble savage standing around; what does this have to do with native people?' We're trying to call all that into question with what we do show." Therefore, no funny stuff. No campy "Indian" extras of Westerns, nor wooden cigar-store Indians, nor Sitting Bull comedy kitsch. There will be no display of suction-cup toy arrows, no headdresses made in Taiwan. No tepee-shaped motels or Route 66 curios, and no sexy depictions of buckskin-bikini-clad maidens, nor Land o' Lakes butter princesses. Sorry, die-hard Redskins fans: Your long struggle to justify the NFL franchise's name isn't a welcome discussion here. Same for the "tomahawk chop" of the Atlanta Braves, or the Cleveland Indians' cartoony Chief Wahoo, or any of a panoply of outdated team mascots and their war-painted fans. There is no Disney afoot. (Nix the 1990s-style "Pocahontas," and also "Peter Pan's" Tiger Lily and the Lost Boys.) No gift-shop tom-toms with rubber skins. No Thanksgiving pageants with the clumsy gesturing, the corn cobs, the loincloths. No Hallmark depictions of a "vanishing people." No guy on horseback shedding a glycerin tear at the sight of litter and pollution. No Village People. No "how." No new-age medicine men who populate the Santa Fe spa scene. Thus far, just a few references to casino culture. None of the Indian art typically seen in the dentist offices of Phoenix. No "Little Big Man," nor any Kevin Costner-style Hollywood guilt (which, to many Indians, is no better than the Hollywood exploitation that preceded it). No Ethel Merman singing Irving Berlin's "I'm an Indian Too" from "Annie Get Your Gun": Just like Rising Moon, Falling Pants, Running Nose Like those Indians, I'm an Indian, too. A Siou-ouuu-oux, a Sioux Let go, the Indian Museum implicitly tells us. That stuff - though very much a hot topic and desperately interesting to those seeking to understand the effective marginalizing of native culture in the modern age - isn't here. But should it be? Has the Smithsonian - obsessive-compulsive hoarder of everything American - amassed a collection of Indian kitsch somewhere, anything akin to George Gustav Heye's collection of authentic Indian artifacts in the 19th and early 20th century? Yes, at some future point, Bernstein says, the Indian Museum will figure out how examples of negative Indian stereotypes fit in with the theme and vision of the place. Bernstein points out that the Smithsonian and other museums have been attuned all along to showing the artistic and cultural uses of inaccuracies and issues of race. The NMAI approaches it tentatively for now - Santa Clara (N.M.) Pueblo potter Tammy Garcia has a piece in the Indian Museum called "Love and Luggage" that depicts a relationship between an Indian man and a blond, white woman. "Who Stole the Tee Pee?," a 2000 exhibit at the Smithsonian's Heye Center in New York, examined Indian stereotypes from dozens of native perspectives, and the results were both clever and chilling. "The problem with the predominate Indian stereotypes are that they totally ignore the diversity, the modernity of native people," says Kathleen Ash-Milby, curator and co-director of the gallery at the American Indian Community House in New York. That said, Ash-Milby thinks stereotypes are a fascinating and key element to the overall American Indian narrative. When she was a graduate student at the University of New Mexico in the early 1990s, Ash-Milby did thesis work on the perennially iconic, cliche image of Indianness - the war bonnet. Emanating from Plains cultures, the bonnet took on outsize significance and became misunderstood, misused. It helped turn "Indian" into a Halloween costume. "I think it's important that the stereotypes are addressed at some point, " she says. Ash-Milby, who is Navajo, found herself having to explain to her son's preschool teacher - who was originally from Ecuador - why it wasn't appropriate to sing "Ten Little Indians" in class (and do the "woo-woo-woo" war cry at the end of the song). "I know she didn't mean harm by it," she says. "But I had to tell her that . . . if my son were to sing this song in front of his family, it would hurt their feelings." Robert Schmidt, a writer in Los Angeles who started his own Indian- themed comic book ("Peace Party") several years ago and has been an ardent compiler of examples of negative stereotypes, says he thinks it's "useful for [the NMAI] to send a positive message and their approach implicitly contradicts stereotypes, but at some point I'd hope [the museum] would explicitly contradict stereotypes." Since 1998, Schmidt has clipped and posted examples on his Web site (www.bluecorncomics.com) of past and current Indian stereotypes - everything from the choice moment of a "Brady Bunch" rerun quoted earlier, to longer, more harmful instances of politicians and otherwise gallant-seeming intellectuals partaking in both subtle and overt digs at Indian cultures. Some of it is so baffling, so trivializing, that you laugh more out of exasperation than remorse. Even some American Indians find it hard to let go of Tonto et al. "You know, it's disappointing for native people, too," Ash-Milby says, "to find out that these stereotypes aren't true." Some of them anyhow - like the heroic Indian guide, the nobility, the spirituality. Even when it was wildly inaccurate, it was at least an acknowledgment of existence, something minorities were never used to seeing in most popular culture. "People want to believe these romantic notions, which are prevalent and longstanding. Our people grew up with mass media, too," she says, and that meant they saw the same kind of faux-Indian and, taking what they could get, identified with him. "Pop culture has a very strong influence." In a stand-up concert taped earlier this year in San Francisco and currently airing on Showtime, the comedian Dave Chappelle performs a shtick in which he claims to have met a Navajo man in a Wal-Mart in New Mexico. "You know who I feel sorry for," Chappelle says, "is Indians. They get dogged openly, because everyone thinks they're all dead." He continues the bit: To make sure his new friend, "Running Coyote," is an Indian, he says, he throws a gum wrapper on the floor, waiting for Running Coyote (an alcoholic, he jokes) to shed a single tear, like the public service anti-litter ad in the early 1970s. Calling himself "Black Feet," Chappelle imagines a riff of accompanying Running Coyote to a marijuana peace-pipe ritual. It goes on and on, dragging out almost every Indian stereotype of the last 100 years. (And making use of the implicit contract all minority comedians have with the mores of pop culture: Anything goes, but it's okay, because I'm black.) What's instructive here is how heartily the racially mixed audience laughs. Are these the same people coming to the Indian Museum? Ostensibly yes, in an America that hasn't stopped dogging Tonto. Copyright c. 2004 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Indian Art of Storytelling seeps into Boardroom" --------- Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 08:17:11 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CORPORATE STORYTELLING" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.usatoday.com//2004-09-19-storytell_x.htm Indian art of storytelling seeps into boardroom By Del Jones, USA TODAY September 19, 2004 WASHINGTON - As a child, retired Citgo CEO David Tippeconnic sat on the porch of his Oklahoma farmhouse and listened to the stories of his Comanche elders. Tippeconnic, 64, recalls a lesson handed down to his grandfather, to his father and then to himself that he says can be summarized: "Don't trust a red-faced white man." In business, Tippeconnic has interacted primarily with white men. But he's interpreted the boyhood lesson to mean that he should avoid dealing with anyone, of any race, who angers easily, and that he should maintain his cool. It has served him well. He climbed the ladder at Phillips Petroleum, then served as CEO of Midwestern energy company UNO-VEN from 1995 to 1997, when it was bought by Citgo. He was Citgo's CEO until 2000. Companies in their never-rest quest for the hot strategy have inadvertently backed into the art of Indian storytelling. While trying everything from Six Sigma to Zen, they never seemed interested in anything Native American, a culture that does not condone greed and is closer to socialism than capitalism. Or, as Indian mystery author Tony Hillerman says, "How do the Navajo tell a witch? They look for somebody who has more than he needs." That's a rather alien attitude to Wall Street. But Indian storytelling is catching on, whether companies realize it or not. They don't call it Indian storytelling, just storytelling or leader-led development, but the similarities are hard to ignore. Corporate stories are told by graying boardroom chiefs to intimate groups of up-and-comers. Companies that use it, such as 3M, Ford Motor, General Electric and Barclays, have found it the most effective way to transfer certain knowledge to the next generation. Companies think they invented knowledge management, but it's something Indians have known for thousands of years, says Wilma Mankiller, ex-chief of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Dave Anderson of the Lac Courte Oreilles Lake Superior Band of Ojibwa, founder of the Famous Dave's chain of 100 barbecue restaurants in 24 states and now head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, says the best leaders pass down personal legends to instill values. In 1996, when there were a dozen Famous Dave's restaurants in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Anderson suspected a shipment of ribs didn't meet standards. So he drove to each of his restaurants, went in the freezer and weighed and measured each rib. People might not remember what's in the employee handbook, Anderson says, but everyone who hears that story knows how important quality is to the company. There may be other business lessons to mine from Indians. Long before companies discovered situational leadership, Indians had a "red" leader for times of war and a "white" leader for peacetime, says Kyle Smith, a Cherokee with an MBA from the University of Rochester. He worked a decade for energy firm Amerada Hess before becoming president of consulting firm RedWind Group, which specializes in highly unionized, bureaucratic and regulated organizations. Houston-based RedWind has 10 on staff; half are Indian. Modern teaching method These days, knowledge is usually stored as data by the terabyte. Still, face-to-face storytelling is the best way to transfer a lot of know-how, says Doug Ready, president of the International Consortium for Executive Development Research, who has studied 45 companies and discusses non- Indian storytelling in an article, "How to Grow Great Leaders," to be published in the Harvard Business Review 3M introduced storytelling three years ago to two dozen rising executives and found it so effective that 140 received storytelling lessons this year, says Cindy Johnson, manager of the 3M leadership development institute. "We call it leaders teaching leaders," she says. 3M finds that information passed along in story form is better remembered by rising executives and is more satisfying to older leaders doing the teaching. Indians figured that out long before 3M invented Post-it notes. The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, which opens in Washington on Tuesday, is a tribute to storytelling. Stories are so important to Indians, they are entwined with art, music, dance and prayer. One exhibit points out that Indian ballgames are re-enactments of good-vs. -evil stories. Director Rick West, a lawyer and a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, stood in the museum's main theater last week and said it was built to resemble a clearing in the woods under the night sky, the perfect storytelling venue. The stage's curtain, not yet installed, will feature the Raven, the trickster character that stars in so many Indian stories. Another exhibit describes bird dancing, in which women mimic the movement of birds as they hop while singing stories that are metaphors for life. Shareholders might not be bird hopping at their next annual meeting, but when CEOs speak to up-and-coming executives, they deliver stories that have been rehearsed for months and are intended to strike an emotional chord with the future chiefs of business. "This is not some stump speech," Ready says. "It's from the heart." Done right, he says, stories "are so powerful, you can hear a pin drop." Effective stories must be delivered one on one or to a small group, he says, and they must be told by top chiefs who have earned respect. Stories can't be off the cuff. They must be planned to make a point, reveal personal tales of success - or, better yet, failure - and be full of drama and ethical intersections. Effective storytellers don't have to be good speakers. They need only be honest. The best stories often show the underbelly of leadership and force future executives to question whether they really want the responsibility. In an MIT Sloan Management Review article, Ready refers to a story told by Royal Bank of Canada Vice Chairman James Rager. Ready's article said Rager took five or six weeks to hone a story about a time he had to lay off workers but couldn't tell them why because the company was involved in secret acquisition talks. In his storytelling, Rager admitted to the younger executives that he had conflicting emotions. On one hand, there was the exhilaration of doing the deal. On the other hand, there was the trauma of firing dedicated colleagues. Royal Bank declined to comment. Business leaders are getting rid of PowerPoint presentations in favor of storytelling, Smith says. "How can you evoke an emotion with a bullet point?" There is an obvious clash between the cultures of Native Americans and business, Mankiller says. But they have found a common denominator: Knowledge is valuable, and those who fail to pass it along are dooming others to repeat mistakes. Culture clash Learning is ingrained in Indian culture, Tippeconnic says. He says his father, John Tippeconnic, born in 1901, was the first Native American to earn a college degree. John Tippeconnic became principal at an all-Indian school in Farmington, N.M. His son, the future CEO, attended that school and went on to earn a chemical engineering degree from Oklahoma State University and an advanced management program degree from Harvard. Now, as Native Americans succeed in gaming and look to diversify into other industries, such as broadband and energy, the challenge is to get them to be more accepting of the ways of business, says Tippeconnic, chairman of Cherokee Nation Enterprises. In the language of the Tuscarora, the word for leadership is gustowah, which means, "We speak through them." That sounds respectful, but Indian stories commonly poke fun at chiefs, says Marty de Montano, author of published Indian stories and manager of the resource center at the National Museum of the American Indian. In one of the best-known Indian stories, a greedy chief keeps the sun and moon in a box for himself until the Raven tricks him and releases the light for the masses. Indian stories seem too ancient to apply to modern business. They teach values, but author Hillerman says there is a wide canyon between Indian beliefs and anything resembling capitalism. Hillerman has an Indian friend who was a successful bull rider. One day he quit riding because, Hillerman says, he felt he was being selfish for winning too much. Bird dancing may make its way into the boardroom long before that attitude does. "Frankly, none of the tribes are competitive," says Hillerman, whose next book, Skeleton Man,is due out in November. But, Tippeconnic says, he grew up surrounded by competitive sports, and Comanches are known for standing up and fighting. Indian business is on the verge of a boom that will be "the economic driving force in Oklahoma" in one or two decades, he says. LaDonna Harris, a Comanche and wife of former Oklahoma senator Fred Harris, acknowledges the conflict between Indian and business culture, but she says it is "workable." Indian values of modesty and generosity should be seen as assets to business, Harris says. "We can't be individual capitalists, but we can be collective capitalists," she says. Harris, who, like Tippeconnic, sits on a board that's trying to help Indians use casino profit to branch into other industries, recalls an Oneida Nation story about a village of animals making an important decision. They fail to include the wolf, a strategy that backfires and creates a lesson in diversity, Harris says. Indian stories sometimes tell of women who take Indian men down a notch when they begin feeling overly important. That may be the next lesson of the Indians as all women assume an important role in business, she says. Copyright c. 2004 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. --------- "RE: Yellow Bird: Ribbons express support for Troops" --------- Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 08:48:32 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW BIRD: TROOPS, NOT WAR" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.grandforks.com//dorreen_yellow_bird/9657199.htm DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: Yellow ribbons express support for troops, not war September 14, 2004 Are the yellow ribbon stickers that are being sold for use on cars and trucks really needed to support our military? I started to paste one of them on my car because of course I support all my relatives, friends and other brave men and women in the military. Then I thought, who does not support our troops? After all, they are our friends and part of our community. So why the yellow ribbon campaign? We are in a complicated time in our history. We went to war with Osama bin Laden and his terrorists. We didn't stop bin Laden. He's still there giving orders and filling his country and surrounding countries with hate. We were, however, like the alpha wolf - and with one enemy and problem seemingly addressed, we turned, teeth bared, to look for the next attacker. There in the alpha's yellow-eyed sight was our old enemy, Saddam Hussein. It was understandable. We had just been blindsided. So get Hussein before he gets us, we thought - and the wolf jumped into the fray without much support of the rest of the "pack," meaning the world. I realize that our basic instincts to protect were flaming and raw. I remember the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Sept. 11. That attack pitched our fears to the highest level. I was driving to work at the Herald that day when the radio broke into regular programming for the terrible news. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. As soon as I got to the office, I headed for the newsroom and the television. There on the screen, the unbelievable was being played out. Inside I could feel a sickening squirm in my stomach: Would attack planes come to North Dakota next? I held my breath and stared at the screen as the towers came down in a huge cloud of white; flurries of white papers dancing over the crashing debris. Where do you hide in Armageddon? I wondered. I realized I was hundreds of miles away from New York and Washington, D. C., yet the fear that the terrorists had instilled in us was real to me. The nation scrambled to stand upright and launched an attack against the criminals. That is a natural reaction. That done, off we went into another country, taking with us thousands of our National Guard and military people and putting them in harm's way - this time, with little support from the rest of the world. When we found no weapons but only Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole, and when the war continued to take its toll on our military, a growing group of people said stop - war isn't always the answer. But they didn't put blame on the troops or our military. I doubt if anyone would say that we don't support the men and women who put their lives at risk every day. We have lost over a thousand men and women to date. Native nations have a lot at stake. We have a large percentage of men and women fighting in Iraq; we support them and honor them when they come home. But that doesn't mean we support war. It is the war and those who make the leadership decisions that need to be carefully thought through. War should be turned to only after we have exhausted every peaceful means, turned over every stone and tried everything possible to find another way to end the fighting. With that done and only with that done, war would be an answer. Thanks for the yellow ribbon, which rallies support for our troops - and I will stick a yellow ribbon on my car. But I need to say that my support for our TROOPS goes without saying. ------ Yellow Bird writes columns Tuesdays and Saturdays. Reach her by phone at 780-1228 or (800) 477-6572, extension 228, or by e-mail at dyellowbird@gfherald.com. Copyright c. 2004 Grand Forks Herald/Grand Forks, ND. --------- "RE: CYFN Membership to include N.W.T. First Nations" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:54:13 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CYFN INCLUDES NWT NATIONS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://north.cbc.ca//View?filename=sep15gwichcyfn15092004 CYFN to expand membership to include N.W.T. First Nations September 15, 2004 WHITEHORSE - Yukon's main aboriginal political organization has decided to accept four Gwich'in First Nations from the Northwest Territories as members of their Council of Yukon First Nations. A resolution accepting Aklavik, Fort McPherson, Inuvik and Tsiigehtchic was passed late Wednesday. Both Gwich'in and Yukon First Nation leaders say joining forces will strengthen their hand on a number of issues. It will give the Northwest Territory chiefs more say over their land claim settlement lands in the Yukon. Both sides argued that a joint front will give First Nations a lot of control over the development of oil and gas in the North. Some chiefs expressed caution during the debate on accepting the new members. The chief of the Tr'ondek Hwech'in first nation in Dawson City said he had questions. Darren Taylor says one of the main jobs of the Council of Yukon First Nations is to see through the settlement of all land claims in the Yukon. "I know CYFN or CYI [Council of Yukon Indians] at that time was put into place to advance Yukon First Nation concerns and issues, particularly getting 14 final agreements throughout the Yukon territory," he says. "So there's still a mandate agreement that has not been met yet." There were others who wondered about accepting members from outside the territory when three Yukon First Nations - White River, the Kaska, and Kwanlin Dun of Whitehorse - who are not yet on the council. There was no word on how the leaders settled issues like how much money the new members would be expected to contribute and other issues about the day-to-day running of the Council. Copyright c. 2004 CBC. --------- "RE: Fort Yukon looks to Gas for future Heat, Power" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:14:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YUKON COAL BED METHANE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.adn.com/front/story/5544658p-5479453c.html Fort Yukon looks to gas for future heat, power COAL BED METHANE: Project to pencil out possibilities for village. By JOEL GAY Anchorage Daily News September 13, 2004 A thick, black coal seam deep beneath Fort Yukon may eventually provide the Gwich'in Athabascan community with light, heat and power, without the mess caused by mines and smelly burners. Coal bed methane, the gas that has raised a stink in the Matanuska- Susitna Borough, could be a boon to remote villages, state and federal officials say, and Fort Yukon is the test site. If enough methane is found and it can be pumped economically, they see the town kicking its million- dollar dependence on diesel. And if the village of 575 can make the switch to clean-burning gas, so might other remote Alaska communities near the state's vast coal resources. "I look at this as bridge technology to the future," said Jim Clough of the state Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, a potential source of cheap power for regions saddled with some of the highest electricity and heating costs in the United States. But as in Mat-Su, Homer and other areas where coal bed methane production is proposed, the rosy prospects are tempered by local concern. "Yeah, I'm excited about it," said Adlai Alexander, chief of the Fort Yukon tribe. "It's the environment I'm worried about. It's got to be environmentally safe to the land and water. We live right alongside one of the biggest rivers on earth. We live off that river." Alaska is rich in coal, the result of ancient forests, ferns and grasslands gradually transforming into underground fields of blackened carbon. The state sits atop 5.5 trillion tons of it - half the United States' resources and one-fifth of the world's total, according to federal estimates. The state hasn't benefited much from its tremendous reserves, however. While the first coal mine opened in Alaska in the 1800s, the combined value of all the coal sold since then reaches barely $1 billion. Sand and gravel, in contrast, have earned almost three times that amount. But Clough and other geologists believe the methane gas in Alaska's coal basins may prove a much more valuable resource. Trapped in coal seam cracks and fissures, the gas is found relatively close to the surface and comes out of the ground virtually ready to burn. Historically, methane has been the bane of underground coal miners, an odorless but highly explosive gas. It was methane that prompted miners to take canaries into the shafts as living gas alarms. More recently, the energy industry has embraced coal bed methane. Wells are operating throughout the country and contribute 8 percent of the nation's natural gas supply, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Almost all the methane ends up in utility pipelines, mixed with natural gas from conventional, deep-shaft wells. That's what Evergreen Resources Inc. envisions i