_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 12, ISSUE 047 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, 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 November 20, 2004 Assiniboine Cuhotgawi/Frost Moon Kiowa Tepgan P'a/Geese going Moon Western Cherokee Nvdadegwa/Trading 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 s ch mA mL tL squee Lux -- Okanogan -- News from 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 and Information Distribution Mailing Lists; 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + ======================== "It's something I do, honoring those who died before me and honoring those on active duty," __ Gilbert Michel, Confederated Salish and Kootenai veteran +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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! November 11 was Veteran's Day. I am a veteran and have the honor of serving as emcee at a Veteran's Powwow in Euharlee, Georgia the second weekend in October each year. I have witnessed Creator's healing touch in that circle many times and have come to some realizations. Many veterans come home with a dark place in their heart they have great difficulty letting go. It affects their personal relations and lives in adverse ways. Sometimes we just need to be told what we did was necessary and it's now time to put down that dark place and get on with our lives. Hanging on to it only hurts ourselves and others, adding to the already devastating pain of war and warfare. I read a prayer at Euharlee I wish to share with readers of this newsletter in hope it will help one more warrior find his or her way back home. "Oh Grandfater, there is one war left that is raging, worse than all the wars I have survived." "Oh Grandfather, I need guidance, patience, understanding as this final war rages within me." "Oh Grandfather, help me overcome this turmoil within my heart and mind, bring peace to my mind, end these feelings of hatred, of hurt, of death, of revenge, and replace them with love, compassion, and caring for my people. So I can live the rest of my life in peace." The Matsunaga Vietnam Veterans Project The National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome http://www.ncptsd.org/facts/veterans/fs_native_vets.html =================================== ANNUAL WINTER APPEALS Thursday, September 30, I sent out a notice to several individuals and groups that have supported winter needs. I am sharing that notice with all readers and asking you to please let this space help you help our Peoples. ---- Greetings This brief email is being sent as winter nears. I distribute a newsletter, Wotanging Ikche; and each year before winter sets in through the first of January I run names, addresses and needs of our elders and children throughout Indian Country. I don't draw any lines such as rez/urban. If there is a need, it's included. Send the contact name, address, phone, email, website (or as much as you can) Include the need (clothing, toys for kids, food, fuel money...) If there is a limited run (like now to two weeks before Christmas) include that. Send your information to: gars@speakeasy.net Please make the subject: WINTER HELP (all caps) Get this information to me as soon as you can. Spread the word. I will also copy whatever I run in Wotanging Ikche to some of the Mailing Lists I'm on, like RezLife, NDNAIM, Rez_LIfe, FrostysAmerIndian... Thanks, gary ---- =================================== The first response came from our Mohawk brother, Frosty Deere. It is an important need to those Mohawk who call Kahnawake home. Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:52:51 -0400 From: "Frosty" Subj: Re: Winter Needs Rez & Urban http://www.tewateiahsatakaritat.com/pool/ Maybe you could include the above address, it explains everything. The Kahnawake Pool Project What happened to the Current pool? Its old, out dated, broken and cant be used in the middle of winter. How can people help? Well you can either buy a raffle ticket, donate money, or help find people to donate money for the pool. How can I help ? Well their are number of ways, one is just send a dollar to Indoor Pool Project, Box 821, Kahnawake Quebec J0L-1B0. Take a collection where you work. Get the company where you work to donate. Spread the word to as many people you know that can afford a dollar or more. Contacts: MacKenzie Whyte E-mail Address: Ronald Deere aka Frosty mackenziew@mck.ca E-mail Address(es): frosty@frostys.qc.ca Lou Ann Stacey frosty@kahonwes.com E-mail Address: louanns@mck.ca =================================== Date: Sunday, October 10, 2004 04:16 pm From: Lisa Mailing List: NDNAIM Greetings everyone, Happy Fall ! The cooler weather is setting in. Elections are next month, get out an vote. We still need to believe that our votes count. Two important votes next month, not only for the U.S. President but for all you Pine Ridge tribal members your presidential election. "VOTE" TOY DRIVE : Leonard wanted us to kick off the x-mas toy drive for Oglala. Grandmother Roselyn will be hosting this event again this year. "NEW" toys will be accepted for children of all ages. Clothing items that are always needed such as socks, stocking caps, gloves, shoes and underware (new) will be given to the Loneman School Nurse to be given on a "needed" basis. Roselyn says there are many children who come to school in the middle of a South Dakota winter wearing sandels. So the school nurse will be able to handle these items better as needed. Roselyn will also accept Wal-Mart and K-mart gift cards. These will help with specific items that she can purchase. Everything should be mailed directly to Roselyn's house. Roselyn Jumping Bull PO Box 207 Oglala, SD 57764 (605) 867-2231 (Note: FYI: Grandmother Roselyn's will be celebrating a birthday in Nov. I could be off on this a day but I think it is Nov 15, and she will be 74.) =================================== Date: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 01:25 pm From: Brigitte Thimiakis Subj: Winter Needs Greetings Gary, Honor Your Spirit, Protect The Children (HYS) is working on a new winter project for the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in MT. I will send you the request as soon as it is ready. I pray that once again many people will send help to all the places with children, elders and families in need of support. We do have a Christmas catalogue which is ready for people who wish to order First Nations art and crafts items. These items make very nice gifts for Christmas. They are authentic First Nations artwork and items like horsehair hatbands or belts can also be handed down from generation to generation. ALL the proceeds from the sales are used to help the elders and children in need. The founder of HYS is Northern Cheyenne and our contacts on the reservation are Northern Cheyenne also. It would be very much appreciated if you could regularly enclose the url to the HYS catalogue in your newsletter. HYS Arts and crafts catalogue http://www.geocities.com/honoryourspirit/fncrafts.html "Honor Your Spirit, Protect the Children" Manuel Redwoman, Northern Cheyenne/Lakota/Arapaho http://www.geocities.com/honoryourspirit/home.html Thank you for your message and continued support. With kindest regards to you and Janet, Respectfully, Brigitte <>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o "Honor Your Spirit, Protect the Children" Manuel Redwoman, Northern Cheyenne/Lakota/Arapaho http://www.geocities.com/honoryourspirit/home.html STOP CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT http://www.geocities.com/honoryourspirit/stopabuse.html Adult Children of Child Abuse http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adult_children_of_child_abuse/ HYS Arts and crafts catalogue http://www.geocities.com/honoryourspirit/fncrafts.html <>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o Dohiyi Ani Oginalii , , Gary Smith (*,*) wotanging@bellsouth.net 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 ---------- - A Broken Soldier is Healed - Last Words: Indian Languages - JODI RAVE: fast losing Speakers Native Veterans denied Home Loans - Saskatoon Officers fired - YELLOW BIRD: over Native Teen's Death Remembering a Warrior Brother - Wal-Mart protesters, - GIAGO: GOP Moral Values vendors clash at Pyramids will hurt Indian Country - Using Courts in Brazil - CHUCULAT: American Indians lost out to strengthen Identity as Bush won - Sherrill, Oneidas - Editorial: get Date for Court White Man of the 1800s is back - Tribal Contracts pose conflict - Tribal Governments for Supreme Court get credit for Attitude Change - Drug cartels offer $500K - Cobell Team predicts victory to kill Shadow Wolves on Accounting,Reform - School rejects blame - Congress can break Deadlock in Ronan boys' deaths on Indian Trusts - Court sides with Tribe - American Indian hopes in Law Enforcement dispute to narrow Community Divide - Man shot by Deputies - Jodi Rave: Indian Issues had known tragedy need more than a Month - Native Prisoner - New Mexico: -- Nebraske sets rules Committee backs Indian Projects for Native inmates - Red Squirrel count - Rustywire: Chiliman on Mt. Graham falls - History: Carlisle Indian School - Opinion: Indian Mascots - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days continues Racial Harm - Rustywire Poem: - Traditional Native American I am Desolate and Barren Basket Weaving - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: A Broken Soldier is Healed" --------- Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:57:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="VETERAN HEALING" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=5502 A Broken Soldier is Healed Desert Storm vet talks about life after the war-Letter to the Editor PONCA CITY OK Delfino November 12, 2004 Dear Editor, I am compelled to write you again, this time about Veterans Day. I am a disabled veteran myself, a Desert Shield/Desert Storm Veteran. I spent this Veterans Day at the Pawhuska Veteran's Day Dance, hosted by the American War Mothers #6, Hominy and A.L. Post 198 and Auxiliary. While there I was touched beyond words. By a song. It was the Desert Storm song. Even now as I write this, its hard to keep back tears, the feeling in my heart can not be easily explained. See, when I returned from the war I was one of those vets that could not readjust back into civilian life. I could not readjust back into family life. I did not fit into the America I fought so hard for. I became a homeless veteran. Sleeping in parks, parking garages, and homeless shelters. After many years of that I was put into the Veterans Administration homeless program. To which I owe them many thank yous. See, this is how that Pawhuska Veterans Dance and that one song touched me. Ever since the war I've felt broken. All my family and friends told me I came back from the war different, not the same person that left, I was "Broken", and didn't work right. But that Desert Storm song, for the first time since I got back on American soil from the war, I DID NOT FEEL Broken. Standing there among WWII, Korean, Vietnam and other combat conflict veterans prior to my war, I "DID" fit into America. During the song I could see the faces of comrades who fought by my side. Some of them alive, some dead from what they called Gulf War Syndrome, some gone on the battlefield. And as they sang that song I wish they all could feel what I felt. To feel what we did made a difference. That what we suffer during combat and the many years after our return home, was not for nothing. I am but one story in millions of veterans. But I am DEEPLY HUMBLED and touched. By the person (a Mr. Cozad) who wrote that song, by Head Singer Vann Bighorse, and the other singers, and chorus girls at that drum that nite. Humbled by being in the pr esence of older veterans before me, and hopeful for those veterans yet to return home or as of yet to serve. Like I said last time in a editorial you published. Just who am I? I am nobody. Just a humble man, who was made to feel he wasn't broken anymore. Thank you Delfino, Ponca City, Okla. P.S. It was the first I've ever heard that Desert Storm song. Native American Times is Copyright c. 2004 Oklahoma Indian Times, Inc. --------- "RE: JODI RAVE: Native Veterans denied Home Loans" --------- Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:44:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JODI RAVE: VETERANS" Jodi Rave: Native veterans denied home loans http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2004/11/11/news/local/news02.txt Native veterans to be honored By JODI RAVE of the Missoulian November 11, 2004 Gilbert Michel plans to honor warriors on Veterans Day. "It's something I do, honoring those who died before me and honoring those on active duty," said Michel, a citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and a 20-year Navy veteran who belongs to the Mission Valley Honor Guard. On Thursday, at a cemetery on the Flathead Indian Reservation, he and other vets will pay tribute to the 12 Natives who have died in the war in Iraq. Commemorations will continue Friday at a Veteran's Warrior Society Powwow at Kicking Horse Job Corps. In recognition of Veterans Day, an estimated 250 all-Native honor guards and veteran groups across the country will honor the men and women who embodied the warrior tradition. They have plenty to honor. More Natives per capita have died in foreign wars than any other ethnic group, according to the Department of Defense. But these warriors continue to be the most shortchanged by Congress when it comes to using homeownership benefits on reservation lands, said David DeHorse, a leading researcher of the 1993 Native Veterans Home Loan Program. Veterans - Native or non-Native - who build homes off reservations are eligible for $240,000 home loans. But veterans building on reservation trust lands are limited to $80,000 loans under the Native veterans loan program. Factor in the estimated $35,000 often needed for roads, electricity and sewer on reservation parcels, and they're left with $45,000 for home construction, said DeHorse, a law fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School at Madison, Wis. The government is trying to make changes, said Grace Cooper, a loan guarantee officer at the Veteran Affairs regional office in Denver. "We have been very liberal in raising that $80,000 where necessary," she said. "We are making changes to increase the maximum loan amount. Nothing has been finalized yet. We recognize there is a discrepancy." It used to be worse. For nearly 50 years, Native veterans weren't allowed a home loan on trust lands at all, making the 1993 act a milestone. Yet the program has several roadblocks, including a provision asking tribes to relinquish a portion of sovereignty. Only 68 of 560 tribes have agreed to the provisions, further limiting homeownership. In Montana, four Native veterans have used the loan program to build on trust land. Additionally, thousands of widows and spouses of Native veterans don't know they are eligible to build on trust lands because of a lack of advertising by the Department of Veterans Affairs, DeHorse said. VA officials do outreach to Native communities, Cooper said, and it advertises its loan programs. Since the 1993 loan program became law, about 50 of an estimated 200,000 Native veterans have used the loans within the continental United States. "It was predestined to fail," DeHorse said. "I'd say 52 loans is a failure." For too long, Native veterans have lacked advocates, including their own tribes, said David Mann, past president of the National Congress of American Indians Veterans Affairs Committee. With 4,394 Native people on active duty, the number seeking to use military entitlements will only increase. Now a new group of vets is trying to protect their rights. In October, veterans from 44 tribes met in Phoenix to ratify a charter creating the National American Indian Veterans Inc. The group hopes to serve as a political force for Native interests, provide benefit assistance and become a forum for concerns. "This is the very first time there has been a national organization of veterans completely focused on Indian veteran issues," said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Mara Cohen, a group member. Cohen, also a Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee for Minority Veterans, said tribes could assist their veterans by establishing VA administrative offices within tribal governments. But no tribes operate those offices and, as it stands, all money used to assist veterans' needs goes to states, she said. As for changing the home loan law, that's up to lawmakers. "Congress has the ability to modify that basic entitlement, to bring it up to equity with the rest of the population with a stroke of a pen," DeHorse said. ---- Jodi Rave covers Native issues for Lee Enterprises. She can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or jodi.rave@missoulian.com. Copyright c. 2004 Missoulian, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: YELLOW BIRD: Remembering a Warrior Brother" --------- Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 08:32:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW BIRD: WARRIOR BROTHER" http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/editorial/10132947.htm DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: Remembering a warrior brother November 9, 2004 My brother, "Cookie," fought in the jungles of Vietnam. From the little he told us, we knew it was bad. He told me only a little of the war. What he did tell me concerned the everyday things, such as not being able to dry clothes. The soldiers tried to dry the clothes by smoking them, my brother said. He hated the rations and food, but mostly he hated the constant fear he and his fellow soldiers faced each day and every night. My brother started home from the war with wounds in his leg, but they needed men so badly that they turned the hospital ship around and returned those men who could "make it" back to the war. When he finally came home, he was placed in a military camp far away from home and the reservation. Two weeks before his final discharge, he walked away from the camp. The family couldn't figure out why. After all, he had left with only a few more days of easy military service remaining before he would be free. We heard from him now and then as he crisscrossed the country, staying where he could and living from hand to mouth. The military categorized him a deserter even though he had completed a tour in Vietnam and was close to an honorable discharge. Every so often back then, an FBI man - always a man - would show up at my office. The first time he came through the door, I knew something big was up. He asked if I was Dorreen Lone Fight, my married name. I stood up and said yes, and he flipped out an FBI identification badge. He wanted to know if I'd heard from Glen Yellow Bird. I had, of course; he called now and then, but I didn't know where he was. I was young then, and smartly told the agent that I wouldn't tell him if I knew, because he was my brother. He seemed understanding, and after a few years - he came to my office regularly - I knew him, or at least I could recognize the men with the FBI look and demeanor. One day, my brother came home and turned himself in. My mother wanted him to stop running so she could see him. He needed to be healed and it wasn't the white doctors who could do that for Glen. His spirit was injured and he needed Indian doctoring. Well, he eventually got straight with the military, married and lived at home for a while. Several years later, cancer found him. It took him to the spirit world - something the guns and bullets of the war couldn't do. My brother-in-law came back from Vietnam with his spirit wounded, too. He couldn't sleep without waking and diving for cover. That awful war visited him night after night. The family took him to a spiritual man, who healed his soul. He, too, died several years later. I have never fought in wars and stayed away from reading about them. When I was younger and my brother was alive, I asked him about the war in Vietnam - what was it like to kill someone or to be shot at. He didn't answer me and angrily told me not to ask about it again. Last year, I read my first book about Vietnam: "Of Uncommon Birth," by Mark St. Pierre. The book is a work of creative nonfiction inspired by the true story of two South Dakota teenagers, one of them the Lakota, Frank Jealous of Him. I hated that I had to read the book for a review. But after I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. It was a terrible war, and reading about it was made worse for me because I thought of my brother, brother- in-law and so many Native people I knew who fought in Vietnam or died in that war. When I read about the terror and the killing some 20 years after the war my brother fought, I began to understand why my brother had that look of man who saw the dead and spirits from the world. Currently, we are at war in the Middle East. Native people are on the line - Lori Piestewa, the first woman to die in the Middle East, and Sheldon Hawk Eagle, who lived in Grand Forks, died there. In percentage terms, Native Americans have the highest number in this war. We are people who are warriors, so fighting for Turtle Island is a brave and honorable way. On this Veteran's Day celebration on the reservation, I will dance to the drums and with each step I will remember my brothers - all of them - but particularly my brother who fought in a futile war he didn't understand. I will remember he went bravely because he was a warrior. Nawah, Glen. Dorreen Yellow Bird's column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Reach her at (701) 780-1228 or dyellowbird@gfherald.com Copyright c. 2004 Grand Forks Herald. --------- "RE: GIAGO: GOP Moral Values will hurt Indian Country" --------- Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 08:32:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TIM GIAGO: MORAL VALUES" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=5467 Tim Giago: On the cutting edge of "moral values" Notes from Indian Country Copyright c. 2004 KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) 11/8/2004 And so the crux of Election 2004 turned on the whims of moral values? How frightening! Whose morals and values? If God created man in his own image, which image did he use as a pattern? Because those who voted for George W. Bush and John Thune have certain values, are the rest of us expected to adhere to those values? When the settlers and their armies converged upon the people of the Great Sioux Nation in the late 1800s, they noticed that the Lakota families often consisted of one man and two or more wives. Their Christian values immediately presumed this to be morally wrong. Did they bother to find out why this was a way of life? No, they saw what they believed to be a moral issue and set about to change it to fit their own mores. If they asked they would have discovered that Indian values determined how the wives and children were cared for in the event of the death of the father. Indians did this because it was a very tough world out there and a woman alone with children would have had a very difficult time surviving. This was not a moral issue to the Indian tribes, but one of necessity. Immoral sex apparently came to the minds of the Christian reformists when they saw an Indian man with more than one wife. If the brother of a man died or was killed in battle, the surviving older brother took in his family as his own. He was thus obligated to feed them and be the teacher of his brother's children. The children were no longer his nieces and nephews, but they became his children. They became brothers and sisters to his children. The man was the hunter and the provider and he assured the survival of a widow and her children by assuming responsibility for them. Survival not sex was the moral issue here. But in his infinite wisdom, the white man determined that this was wrong and set about applying laws that would outlaw its practice. There is a story of a Catholic priest stopping at the lodge of Chief Sitting Bull on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. He saw Sitting Bull seated in a chair near the front door of his lodge with his two wives seated near him. The priest said, "Chief, you know it is immoral for you to have two wives. The bible says it is wrong." Sitting Bull replied, "Here are my two wives. Now you tell them which one must leave this house." The United States government and their Christian ministers determined that the Sun Dance of the Great Sioux Nation was immoral. Just as a man taking the wife or wives of a slain brother had been a part of the Sioux culture for time immemorial, so had the Sun Dance. In fact, the Sun Dance was one of the most important spiritual ceremonies of the Lakota People. The sacred Sun Dance of the Lakota was outlawed. Freedom of religion is only for those with the power to set the rules. The moral values of the United States of America took precedence over the moral values of an Indian nation that had existed for thousands of years. In the space of 40 years, 1860 to 1900, nearly every religious and moral standard of the Lakota people was erased. At least the federal government thought it had eradicated all of these ancient beliefs. They did not count upon the spirit of survival among the Lakota people. Every effort was made by the President and the Congress of the United States to wipe out a civilization by imposing its moral values over that of the indigenous people. There could not have been a wider difference between cultures and values than that of the Indian people and that of the new comers. "We will civilize you and make Christians of you or kill you in the process" was the edict of the United States of America toward the indigenous people. It does not matter if I believe in freedom of choice for women, in same sex marriage, or in stem cell research. There are thousands of Americans who do believe in these issues. It was once said that the most segregated day in the South was Sunday. That was the day when the African American went to their church and the white people went to a separate church to worship the same God. Perhaps under the new moral values of the Christian right gaming in Indian country will come under scrutiny and the devout will decide that it is not a good thing for Indian people. Once again the values and morals of the majority could crush the moral values of the minority. In the next four years I am almost sure that the moral values of the new administration will infringe upon the rights and freedoms of all Americans, especially those of the minorities. Indian schools will continue to crumble and the health of the Indian people will continue to deteriorate because of the lack of money. As billions of dollars are poured into a senseless war in Iraq, the funds allocated to the indigenous people will continue to dwindle. The treaties between the United States and the Indian nations will become more meaningless. The greatness of a Nation is determined by how it treats its indigenous people. I truly believe that we will see great tarnish upon that greatness over the next four years. The moral values of George W. Bush and those of the newly elected Senator from South Dakota, John Thune, will create a deeply divided America and the impact will be felt doubly in Indian Country. Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the recipient of the Golden Quill Award for Editorial Writing awarded by the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors in 1997. He can be reached at giagobooks@iw.net Native American Times is Copyright c. 2004 Oklahoma Indian Times, Inc. --------- "RE: CHUCULATE: American Indians lost out as Bush won" --------- Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:44:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CHUCULATE: INDIANS LOST" http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/opinions04/111004_opinions_eddie.shtml Our gloom: American Indians lost out as Bush won on that dark Tuesday Eddie Chuculate November 10, 2004 Color Nov. 2 black. Just about every ballot issue or candidate who could have benefited American Indians was beaten down convincingly, after brainwashed Bible thumpers and rubes had their way. Consider: In Albuquerque, voters overwhelmingly passed a bond issue that approves millions of dollars of funding to build a road through Petroglyph National Monument, on land considered sacred to American Indians. Because such a measure failed last October, it's only fair to stage a special election in October 2005 to reconsider. In South Dakota, Sen. Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who worked hard for Indians and lobbied President Bush personally for more money for the Indian Health Service, was sent packing in an upset by fresh-face John Thune, who has no clout in Washington. In Oklahoma, former U.S. Rep. Brad Carson, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation who strived to obtain funds for the Indian Health Service while in office, was routed by Republican Tom Coburn for the state's vacant Senate spot. Coburn was quoted during the campaign as saying federal treaties with tribes were "primitive agreements" and sovereignty was "a joke." In California, voters shot down an initiative that would have allowed more gambling and given the state's poor tribes a source of income. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opposed the initiative, yet wants more money from Indians. Schwarzenegger says tribes must come to him to negotiate better gambling contracts; tribes say he should come to them, or they'll just wait until he's out of office. Nationally, John Kerry, who promised to appoint Indians to high offices in the White House and meet with leaders, lost, even though he was the overwhelming choice in big cities. He won by more than 500,000 votes each in Los Angeles, Chicago and a stunned New York City, where people said they didn't know anyone who voted for Bush. In Colorado, though this had nothing to do directly with Black Tuesday, the only Indian in the Senate, Republican Ben Campbell, a Cheyenne, is retiring. He fought to end lobbyists' scalping of Indians on Capitol Hill. It will now take aggressiveness by tribal leaders nationwide to retain such things as sovereignty, health care, oil and gas money, water and mineral rights and casino royalties. I encourage all tribes to get out and sue the federal government. ---- Eddie Chuculate (Creek/Cherokee) is a Tribune copy editor who writes about American Indian issues. His column appears on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month. Reach him at 823-3677 or echuculate@abqtrib.com. Copyright c. 2004 The Albuquerque Tribune. --------- "RE: Editorial: White Man of the 1800s is back" --------- Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:01:03 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="PREDATORY GREEDY WHITE MAN" http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/editorial/10183855.htm COLUMNIST LLOYD OMDAHL : White man of the 1800s is back November 15, 2004 The white man of the 1800s is back. He is the same white man who made solemn treaties with the Indians and broke them at his convenience; he is the same white man who waged genocide when Native Americans got in his way; he is the same white man who drove them onto marginal lands called reservations. Many of us never have considered ourselves guilty partners with this white man because our families still were fishing in Trondheim or plowing in the Ukraine when this mayhem was going on. But since this predatory white man has returned in this century and we are now here as witnesses, we will be counted with him unless we repudiate his plans. It seems that the 1800s white man never was able to keep his word when something of value was at stake. Now that Native Americans have developed a successful casino industry, the white man is casting a greedy eye toward the profits - just as he did when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. In spite of a treaty setting the area aside as an Indian sacred place, prospectors rushed into the Hills while the government sat by and watched. Gov. Tim Pawlenty has launched a campaign of intimidation and blackmail against the tribes in Minnesota by demanding an amount that could be half of their casino profits. If they don't surrender $350 million a year, he threatens to support a competitive casino industry in the next session of the Legislature. This in spite of the fact that he always has opposed casino gambling. But his scruples crumbled when his proposed budget lacked the revenue it needed to balance. Apparently, Pawlenty would rather extort money from Native Americans than face up to the need to restore Minnesota taxes to their 1990s level. Minnesota was one of the states in which politicians from both parties fell over each other to reduce taxes when a surplus developed in the state treasury. Now that the surplus is gone, they are unwilling to restore the cuts. There is no question that some tribes are getting rich on casino revenue. But many of the white men got rich on the gold, oil and land that once belonged to the Indians. When that happened, they didn't offer to share their largesse with the reservations where needs were great, prospects bleak and budgets short. "I call the white people 'Chimuuaamahn' which really means 'big knife' - a big knife that cuts," said Gary Donald, the chair of the Bois Forte Band of the Chippewa, about Pawlenty's threat. "It is what white people have always done to the Indian people, and that is what this governor wants to do to us again. He's telling us that he's going to put us back where we belong: in poverty." This is a terrible indictment in 2004 when we ought to be seeking reconciliation with Native Americans. They will never get over their distrust and resentment of the white man as long as greed and neglect are the hallmarks of Indian policy. When we see this happening before our eyes, we no longer can regard the attitudes of Native Americans as outdated paranoia. Their accusations have been validated by the resurrection of the white man of the 1800s. Minnesota is not alone in plotting to rob the Indian casinos. Other states have forced new contracts with the reservations to cut into the profits. Seven states now extort a share of the casino revenue. Wisconsin just negotiated a contract that will take $100 million annually from the tribes. While the Native American casino revenues in North Dakota are confidential, it is safe to conclude that none of the reservations are rolling in money. There is very little to steal. But with surrounding states shoring up finances with such ill-gotten gains, it won't be long until some North Dakota legislators get the idea that they, too, ought to have some of that money. Fortunately, the North Dakota revenue picture is not as bleak as the forecasts in those states that cut taxes in the heyday of the '90s. Because our revenue system is highly diversified, it did not have the big windfalls in the '90s, but then neither did it have the big downfalls experienced in the states relying heavily on income taxes. Since the state's needs will not be pressing in the upcoming session, let us hope that the 2005 Legislature will not be compromising ethics for cash. For the past 30 years, the American political agenda has been peppered with moral issues. Robbing Native American casinos should be added to the list. Copyright c. 2004 Grand Forks Herald, a Knight Ridder Publication. --------- "RE: Tribal Governments get credit for Attitude Change" --------- Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:52:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CHANGING ATTITUDES" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.newsok.com/article/1357426/?template=news/main Tribal governments get credit for bringing attitude change By Judy Gibbs Robinson The Oklahoman November 8, 2004 Neal McCaleb remembers donning American Indian regalia as a freshman at Oklahoma A&M and running onto the football field waving a tomahawk when the Aggies scored a touchdown. "I did it once. I sort of got caught up in that," the former head of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs said recently. The year was 1957, and a young McCaleb agreed to portray an Indian warrior from another century because that was what most people wanted to see. Real, living, breathing Indians were pretty much invisible then in a place that once was Indian Territory. "It was not a racial slur. It was just the view of the dominant society," said McCaleb, who is Chickasaw. "That's changed." Today Oklahoma's license plates tell the world this is "Native America." Indian dancers and artists compete at the huge Red Earth festival in Oklahoma City each June. A new $110 million American Indian Cultural Center is scheduled to open in 2007 along the Oklahoma River near downtown. And once a year, in November, state government officials invite tribal people to the Capitol Rotunda to celebrate Oklahoma's Indian heritage and to honor Indians who have left a special mark on the state. This year's ceremony will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 15. Things changed, McCaleb and other Oklahoma Indians say, because tribal governments rose in the 1970s and 1980s to reunite their people. Things changed, they say, because successful Indian governments corralled federal dollars pledged to them in treaties and used the money to provide needed services to their people. And things changed, they say, because many tribes capitalized on their sovereign status. First they opened smoke shops where they could sell tobacco products at cut rates. Later they opened casinos -- sometimes called the "new buffalo" because of the prosperity they have brought to struggling tribes. An Indian renaissance A September story in National Geographic magazine called what is happening in Indian country a "renaissance" as Indians "exert new influence over their lives and their communities." Some say the renaissance began in 1975 when Congress passed the Indian Self Determination and Self Education Act, allowing tribes to take over certain programs from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Then came the Tribal Self Governance Act in 1994, allowing tribes to manage their federal funding on their own, without help from the BIA. "It gave them control of their own destiny," McCaleb said. "Instead of being sovereigns in name only, they became sovereigns in fact. They began to make decisions. By and large, here in Oklahoma they've made good decisions." Barbara Warner, executive director of the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission, said as tribes exercise their sovereignty, they have progressed economically. "They've made more of an economic impact on their states and for their people," Warner said. Today, 34 Oklahoma tribes operate at least 131 smokeshops and 25 tribes run 80 casinos -- mostly small, metal buildings along rural highways. Tobacco and gambling bring in revenue to operate tribal governments in the same way taxes finance non-Indian governments, said Arvo Mikkanen, president of the Oklahoma Indian Bar Association. Last year, 73 Oklahoma casinos earned tribes $465.9 million, according to a report by the Analysis Group. Reviving rural Oklahoma That money is buying dreams, Mikkanen said. "A lot of the tribes are now finally able to fulfill some of their dreams in terms of providing housing, providing better education, providing pride to a lot of the young people," Mikkanen said. A few tribes are accused of frittering away their gaming revenue. The FBI and the National Indian Gaming Commission are investigating allegations that elected officials of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes squandered casino profits on themselves and favored constituents. But McCaleb, who directed the BIA in 2001 and 2002, said most tribes have invested their casino money in health care, scholarships, economic development and public safety. Recently, they began contributing to Oklahoma's public road system. In the past 10 years, $200 million in Indian money has gone toward Oklahoma roads, McCaleb said. In the past two years, tribes have contributed $54 million toward replacement of unsafe bridges. Tribes also are reviving areas of rural Oklahoma where state government has been unable to deliver on promises of economic development. "At a time when the popoulation in rural Oklahoma has gotten smaller and the opportunities less, the Indian tribes are reversing that. They now have an economic base," McCaleb said. Cultural renaissance Tribal revenue helps feed, house and educate. It also helps fund cultural programs that remind Indians what it means to be Indian. Chebon Kernell of the United Methodist Church's Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference said "renaissance" seems to be a good way to describe how Oklahoma Indians are reawakening to their cultural identity. "For the first time, we're beginning to realize we've lost so much," Kernell said. "It's starting to hit home in our spirits and minds: If we don't take seriously who we are and the gifts God has given us, we may possibly lose those gifts." Gena Howard doesn't dispute the renaissance label. But the deputy director of Oklahoma's Native American Cultural and Educational Authority prefers to call this a time of rebuilding, recovering and reclaiming. "We have a pre-removal history. Then we have the post-removal history," Howard said, referring to her Choctaw tribe's forced removal from Mississippi to Oklahoma in the 1830s. "Now we're at a time of reclamation and also a time to look back and learn from our history and celebrate our survival." The American Indian Cultural Center will provide a place for both history lessons and celebrations, she said. All 39 tribes were invited to help design the center and its exhibits. Howard said they rose to the challenge, guiding the planners to create a cultural center that will be as much for them as it is about them. "There's a reflection that native people are here," Howard said. "It's no longer a third person voice. It's first person." Copyright c. 2004 The Oklahoman/News 9, Produced by NewsOK.com. --------- "RE: Cobell Team predicts victory on Accounting,Reform" --------- Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 08:40:21 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="COBELL TRUST CASE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.michigandaily.com//ART/2004/11/10/419200599c80d Native American fund may be reformed By Michael Kan and Iris Perez, Daily Staff Reporters November 10, 2004 More than a century in the making, the largest legal case in Native American history may finally come to a close within the next year. Although Cobell v. Norton was not filed until 1996, its origins lie in the United States government's supervision of Indian trust funds dating back to 1887. In that year, the government established the trust to manage Native American land, but it now admits to mismanaging it from its outset by underselling the land and failing to retain documents proving the payments. After years of grinding through the courts and colliding with the Department of the Interior on nearly every proceeding to remedy the system, the case's resolution is almost in sight - an appellate ruling that may bring at least $10 billion to half a million Native Americans, said Keith Harper, a leading attorney for the case. "We're getting to that place to where there's a light at the end of the tunnel," said Harper, who is from the Cherokee tribe and is a senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, a Colorado-based organization that provides legal representation for Native Americans. Speaking last night at West Hall in a lecture titled "Archives, Records, and the Multi-Billion Dollar Indian Land Trust Litigation," Harper sought to inform students about the inherent failures of the government's individual Indian trust fund system. Marred by both the institution's apathy for retaining accurate records and its inability to rectify the problems, Harper said the trust fund has become a "broken system" incapable of insuring the proper management of many Native Americans assets. "That is the reality, it is a broken system. The secretary of the Interior recognizes it. Nobody doesn't recognize it," he added. The Department of the Interior acknowledges the system's error as well, but since the onset of the case, the department has challenged the reforms Harper's legal team have pushed in the lawsuit. Brought on by government attempts in the 1880s to remove Native peoples from their land, the trust fund was created to facilitate the dividing of their territory. Under the trust fund, the government would manage the land of the Native Americans and prospective buyers would lease it. The money from the lease would then go back to the Native American owners. Clearly, this has not been the case, Harper said. Navajos are now paid from $9 to $40 for their land's lease, while most land leased in the surrounding areas is valued from $140 to as much as $590, Harper said. Combined with the lack of documentation, Harper said the government has not filled its obligation as a trustee. "The problem is that they have the powers of a trustee, but not the concomitant responsibility of the trustee," he said. "It was the inducement to fraud beyond the capability of comprehension." Cultivated from the continued negligence of the system, which persisted into the 1990s, Harper said he and the Native American Rights Fund cracked down on the trust fund when they represented Elouise Cobell, a Native American, in her 1996 suit against the Department of the Interior. But the department's contempt and obstruction of justice hindered the case, Harper said. The sheer failures of the trust fund to bring forth any relevant documentation and the moral arguments presented by the Native Americans furthered the case to its current standpoint, he added. Now that the court has ruled in favor of the fund, the Department of the Interior has the option to either abide by the steps outlined by the court's order to reform the trust fund, or it can opt to reject the order. If the department chooses the latter, Harper said the court would appoint someone to oversee the trust fund's operations. One huge hurdle still remains though, Harper said. While Harper expects litigation to finally end around December of this year, the case also has political implications that could reverberate on a national level. Harper said the result of the ruling would force people using Native American land to compensate for what could possibly amount to at least a total of $10 billion. Yet much of the Native American land has been leased by oil, natural gas and timber companies - for whom the added payments on leases would be a black eye. "There are those in Congress who don't want us to ask those questions," he added. For Rackham student Eva Reffel, the lecture elicited feelings of disgust toward the government's century-old failed policies. "I can now imagine what's pretty much going on in Interior, in which they are not willing to allocate any resources to the Native Americans. ... It's disgustingly short-sighted," she said. "I feel this is an important case," Rackham student Trond Jacksen said. "It brings into question, what kind of people do we want to be? Do we want to be a people of a country that keeps its word, or do we want to be a people of a country that breaks its word?" Copyright c. 2004 The Michigan Daily. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Congress can break Deadlock on Indian Trusts" --------- Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:01:03 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SENATOR CAMPBELL/TRUST FUND CASE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://rockymountainnews.com//article/0,1299,DRMN_21_3329648,00.html Congress can break deadlock on Indian trusts, senator says By Deborah Frazier, Rocky Mountain News November 15, 2004 Sen. Ben Nighthorse-Campbell, R-Colo., says Congress could impose a settlement in the long-standing Indian trust suit to break a deadlock in negotiations. A class action suit filed by Montana attorney Elouise Cobell in 1996 seeks lease fees dating to 1887 and owed to individual Indian landowners. The fees, plus interest, from grazing, oil, gas, coal and farming are estimated at more than $130 billion. The suit was filed on behalf of 500,000 Indians. It was filed against the Interior Department, which as a trustee collects, monitors and disperses the lease fees. Interior has estimated only $10 billion to $40 billion is involved. "I don't support the idea of Congress imposing a settlement, but if we don't get something moving, they will do it," Campbell said. Both sides met with a federal mediator through the summer without reaching a settlement. Campbell, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs committee, said he'll meet this week with Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and members of the House Indian Affairs Committee to discuss a way to resolve the impasse. The proposal would let Indians choose among sticking with the class action, settling individually with the Interior Department or seeking binding arbitration, he said. "We have a lot of Indian people dying, waiting for the money," said Campbell, who didn't seek re-election. "The ones I've talked with want to settle." Keith Harper, an attorney for the nonprofit Native American Rights Fund based in Boulder, said there's no precedent for a congressionally mandated settlement. "Congress cannot arbitrarily set the cost of property," Harper said. "There are 500,000 plaintiffs, and Congress can't break up a class litigation," he said. "And, an individual Indian going up against the Department of Justice doesn't stand a chance." Campbell said Cobell, Harper and other attorneys involved have never offered an alternative proposal. The Indian plaintiffs want reform as well as repayment, Harper said. The lawsuit seeks a historical accounting of the fees and a new system to reform the bookkeeping. It also seeks better security for the system, he said. The special master, an attorney appointed to oversee the case, was able to break into the Interior Department computer system, create an individual account in his name and route funds there, Harper said. "He was never detected," he said. The attorney returned the money. "We don't know who has done that before or how much was taken and neither do they," Harper said. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is presiding over the case, ruled in 1999 that the Interior Department breached its trust responsibility. Campbell said he'd like to see a settlement under way before a new chair of the Indian Affairs Committee is selected. He said Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., is a likely candidate. "He will start busting heads," Campbell said. "Inouye and I have been patient. The Indians deserve a fair settlement." Campbell is a Northern Cheyenne, Cobell is a member of the Blackfeet tribe and Harper is a Cherokee. "I don't have a vested interest in this. I'm going to go on to a good life. I'm not going to get anything out of it," Campbell said. Copyright c. 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: American Indian hopes to narrow Community Divide" --------- Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:52:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CORRECTING MISPERCEPTIONS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.ljworld.com/section/firstperson/story/187084 American Indian hopes to narrow community divide Resource center director seeks to correct misperceptions By Ron Knox - Special to the Journal-World November 8, 2004 You couldn't tell from warm lighting and cushy couches, but the Pelathe Community Resource Center is no one's home. Sure, it might seem like a second home to the people who volunteer there. Or to the people who use the center as a launching pad toward jobs and better homes - stability. But when Caroline Hicks became director of the American Indian resource center in April, she transformed the locale from a cold office to a place where people could relax and open up about their problems. "The people that walk in are not at their best," she said. "We don't want to put them off. They feel we're more invested in a positive outcome for them." Since coming to the center four years ago as a part of New Dawn Native Dancers, Hicks has imagined ways the center could change to improve people's lives. Now as director, she's seen some of those changes take place, and braces for the work to be done. Q: If you had to give a State of the Union address for the American Indian population in Lawrence, how would it start? A: I think this is something I run into oftentimes: I realize that my perspective and my understanding can be completely and totally different than other native people I talk to. I think perceptions are developed by experiences you have with people and places in the community. You have a cross-section of tribal cultures here that you will never see anywhere else in the United States, because of Haskell. I think the Indian community secludes itself, and has had a history of doing that, through negative perceptions in the community. But I don't want to say that it's prejudiced or that it's racist, because I don't believe that it is. Q: What are some of those negative perceptions that you see or hear about? A: That all Indians have money and are getting a free ride through life. That's not true. Just because there may be a casino within a tribe doesn't mean that that person is rolling in dough. Sometimes the money doesn't make it into tribal government or into tribal government programs. That people should be afraid to go into Haskell Indian Nations University campus, that it's not a place where the community is welcome. That's completely not true. I talk to people and say, "Come on, they're having a pow-wow," and they say, "Are you sure, can I go there?" Well, yeah. "Do you feel comfortable going to KU?" And they say, "Yeah." I think those are real common. Then, there are also a lot of negative stereotypes: Drunk Indians, you know. We get a lot of that, too. I had somebody call me and want to know about starting a mental health outreach program here because Native Americans have such a high population of depression, and alcoholism and drug addiction, that this would be a perfect place to start that. There were no questions about what the numbers were for Lawrence, or what resources currently existed. They just wanted to do that program here, because we're an Indian center. It has a good basis, but it's still a negative perception that I had to take time to correct. Q: What can be done to correct some of those perceptions? I just imagine that you can't correct them all. A: That's something that I have to realize. I could sit down and talk to every person in the country, and there are still going to be negative perceptions of Native Americans. Q: What can the community do? A: People can stay more open-minded. Become involved with Haskell. Come to the events that are there. And I would like to see Haskell students more comfortable out in the Lawrence community. That's part of what I see as a mission here. We take people that need stuff, need help and assistance, and we volunteer out in the community, spread information about native culture. But we don't have financial aid assistance to offer. What I do is work with every other center in town to get as much help for our clientele as I can. I try to offer volunteer projects for Haskell students out in the community, to raise their public profile. I'm trying to raise our own public profile, to be more positive. Q: You see a lot of people with problems, whether they're financial problems or physical problems. How much does the environment of Lawrence have to do with that? A: I think quite a bit. I see environment as the whole community. I see a lot of nontraditional students coming to Haskell. ... I've been a nontraditional student. If you're coming from a part of the country that is different than Lawrence, what you pay in rent here will knock your socks off. I lived in Oklahoma. I was going to move here for a job, came up here to start work. Just because I'm a poor person, I came here to check out rent and almost had a heart attack. We see people that are coming here that are not financially equipped to live here, but yet they're here. So economically, it's very expensive to live here. And you know, we don't have a lot of industry here. GE closed. Honeywell's not here anymore. That has a definite effect. But, on the flip side of it, as a center for Native Americans that are living away from their tribes and reservations, there's a lot to offer in this town that is very hard to get a hold of in Kansas City or Topeka that we have in Lawrence. So it can be difficult, but for the same reasons that it could be different anywhere else. Q: In 10 years, if you're still the director of the resource center, how would you want to have changed the American Indian community here? A: I would want to see them have a higher profile. I would like to see them involved in more volunteer projects. I would like to see some of the churches, the Native American churches, come together, and have that arm of it, and have them be more vocal in the community. I would like them to be a lot more vocal. I would like them to vote. I would like to see them more involved in city government, and with the school boards and PTAs. Q: How much work do you have to do to get there? A: Lots. More than 10 years' worth. But I'd still like to see it. Copyright c. 2004 The Lawrence Journal-World. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Jodi Rave: Indian Issues need more than a Month" --------- Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 08:32:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JODI RAVE: INDIAN HERITAGE MONTH" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.billingsgazette.com//2004/11/09/build/state/60-notebk.inc Reporter's notebook: November special for Indian heritage Jodi Rave REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK November 9, 2004 It's November, National American Indian Heritage Month. And it's time for Americans to step back and reflect on the lives of indigenous people. Some might take a cue from President Bush. In a proclamation Thursday, he stated: "As the first people to call our country home, American Indians and Alaska Natives have a noble history in this land and have long shaped our nation. ... I encourage all Americans to commemorate this month with appropriate programs and activities." National American Indian Heritage Month is a curious time. It's usually the only time of year when government agencies, groups and educators make an attempt to acknowledge the historical - and maybe even contemporary - contributions and livelihoods of tribal citizens across the country. I remember such an occasion one year when I was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. The armored division post celebrated American Indian Heritage Month with a luncheon for all Native American soldiers. As a private first class, and a computer machine operator, I asked someone in my chain of command if I could attend. Permission granted. While I was gone, a friend who was on duty overheard a conversation between my supervisors. It went like this. "So where is Pfc. Rave?" First sergeant: "She's attending the Native American luncheon." "I didn't know she was Indian." First sergeant: "Well, she thinks she is." The exchange makes me laugh today. I obviously didn't meet my first sergeant's phenotype image of what a Native person should like. OK - my hair was dyed blonde at the time. Still, I was a little offended anyone should think I would assume an identity not my own. I promptly found my first sergeant to inform him about my tribal affiliation. This wasn't new for me. Even though I'm more Native than not, my looks throw people off. Some people think I'm white, while others ask immediately: "What tribe are you?" I usually say Mandan-Hidatsa. But I also have a half-Lakota, half- Winnebago father. And while I'm three-quarters Native, my Norwegian ancestors lay claim to one-quarter of my looks. American Indian Heritage Month sets the stage for a number of teaching possibilities. Between the president and me, we're set with a few ideas on how to keep people busy in November. I'd start by reminding others that there are more than 560 tribes. It's a number that takes on exponential dimensions when one considers all the tribal citizens who intermarry between tribes - and the rest of the population. Consequently, we come in all shades, colors and tribal affiliations. As for teaching points from President Bush, well, his proclamation screams with potential. He starts by calling attention to the newly opened National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in Washington. The museum, he said, is "a powerful symbol of the pride and vitality of our Native peoples." The museum's Web site - www.nmai.si.edu - is a good start as one tries to contemplate the continued vibrant traditions of tribes throughout the Western Hemisphere. The president also draws attention to his administration's commitment to helping Natives "build on their proud legacy." How about the $1.1 billion he helped secure for school construction and repair of dilapidated Bureau of Indian Affairs school buildings? Appropriation Committee members could use November to learn more about schools that need fixing. Also, the president signed an executive order to examine how his No Child Left Behind Act could include teaching Native children in a manner "consistent with tribal traditions, languages, and cultures." That sounds like more than a 30-day teacher initiative to me. Finally, Bush reminds us: "I also signed an executive memorandum to all federal agencies affirming the federal government's continuing commitment to recognize tribal sovereignty and self-determination. As they have in the past, tribal governments will maintain jurisdiction over their lands, systems of self-governance, and government-to-government relationships with the United States." Law enforcement agencies, lawmakers - are you listening? Bush offers a meaty buffet for others to choose in how they recognize Native Americans. It's enough to keep federal agencies, organizations, lawmakers and educators busy - far beyond November. Jodi Rave covers Native American issues. She can be reached at (800) 366-7186. Copyright c. 2004 The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: New Mexico: Committee backs Indian Projects" --------- Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:57:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INDIAN PROJECTS SUPPORTED" http://www.daily-times.com/artman/publish/article_15228.shtml Committee backs Indian projects By Walter Rubel/Santa Fe Bureau Chief November 14, 2004 SANTA FE - The legislative Indian Affairs Committee gave its support Wednesday for three proposals that are designed to bring about the completion of projects on Indian lands that have been funded with capital outlay money. The proposed legislation would provide funding for engineers and other technical assistance to get the projects ready, allow tribes to receive funding for a project before it is actually completed and allow chapters within the Navajo Nation to act as the fiscal agent for a project, eliminating the need to go through the national tribal government in Window Rock, Ariz. Committee Chairman Sen. Leonard Tsosie, D-Crownpoint, said there are $1. 2 million worth of capital improvement projects on Native lands that are now backlogged - meaning they are at least two years old. Part of the problem, Tsosie said, is the way the projects are funded. "Ninety percent of the projects are backlogged because chapters have to find the money to fund the project, then go to the state for reimbursement," he said. By allowing for direct payments to the vendors, those projects could get started and finished much more quickly, he said. Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, D-Gallup, said another problem is that tribes often don't have the resources to complete the engineering and other technical work that must be done before actual work can start on a project. She has proposed taking $2 million off the top of the next capital outlay bill to provide technical assistance. "My concern is that we have a major backlog that's accumulating," Lundstrom said. "We need to help the Indian Affairs Department to make sure we get the engineers to get the projects done." She proposed a one-time funding to take care of the backlog, But Rep. Nick Salazar, D-San Juan Pueblo, said the one-time funding wouldn't be enough. Unless technical experts are available on a permanent basis, the backlog will just return, he said. "If we continue to fund the way we have been, none of these projects are going to get through," Salazar said. "If the governor is going to be strict with what's funded, we'd better have these things. Gov. Bill Richardson reached an agreement with House and Senate leaders during the last session to reform the capital outlay process. Instead of the past system of dividing the money in thirds - with the House, Senate and executive each getting relatively equal shares - he has instituted a new system in which all projects will be evaluated and must fit within the state's priorities and meet certain requirements to ensure they will be completed on time. Robert Apodaca, director for the Capital Projects Unit in the Department of Finance and Administration, said letters were sent out this year to each tribal government in the state, asking them to list their priorities for new capital improvement projects. They received responses from 41 tribal governments, requesting $134 million in projects, Apodaca said. While several Navajo chapters responded to the request, the Navajo Nation central government did not, said G. Michelle Brown-Yazzie, deputy secretary of Indian Affairs. Rep. Dub Williams, R-Glencoe, noticed there were no requests from the Mescalero Apache, and said he was concerned they might not understand the process. Brown-Yazzie said she would contact tribal leaders Apodaca said that statewide, there is $30 million to $40 million in capital improvement money that has been approved for projects that are at least four years old - demonstrating the need for the reform agreed to in the last session. Tsosie said his concern is that he and other legislators were not consulted in the process. "A lot of these are in my district," he said, looking at a list of projects complied by Apodaca. "These people are going to expect something. There's going to be a lot of frustration if these don't get done." Copyright c. 2004 Farmington Daily Times, a Gannett Co., Inc. newspaper. --------- "RE: Red Squirrel count on Mt. Graham falls" --------- Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 21:25:40 -0700 From: "Chris Milda (_Akimel O`odham_)" AkimelOodham@EarthLink.net Subj: Red squirrel count on Mt. Graham falls (Fwd) Mailing List: News and Information http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/news/47233.php Regional Briefing ARIZONA Red squirrel count on Mt. Graham falls November 9, 2004 PHOENIX - The number of endangered red squirrels living on Mount Graham has declined, the Arizona Game and Fish Department announced Monday. Biologists estimate there are about 264 red squirrels living on the peak in Southern Arizona, down from about 284 during the spring. The Mount Graham red squirrel is a subspecies found nowhere else in the world. It has been on the mountain nearly 10,000 years and has been classified as endangered since 1987. Copyright c. 2004 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2004 Arizona Daily Star. --------- "RE: Opinion: Indian Mascots continues Racial Harm" --------- Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 08:36:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NA MASCOTS RACIST AND HARMFUL" http://www.indianz.com/News http://www.detnews.com/2004/editorial/0411/11/A15-2040.htm Detroit News Editorials & Opinions Using Indian mascots continues racial harm Schools and teams should eliminate derogatory nicknames such as the Redskins, but could maintain tribal names if they honor Native-American culture and history By Gavin Clarkson November 11, 2004 November is American Indian Heritage Month, and while many activities are planned across the nation to honor our heritage, the continued use of racial imagery in the form of Indian mascots remains a source of harm rather than honor. Much has been made of the potential harm to individual Indians, but potentially greater harm is caused when such imagery influences the dominant society to think of Indians as anachronistic savages. Picture an Indian in your mind. Do you see Tonto, Disney's Pocahontas or a character from a Hollywood western? Or maybe an Indian mascot from a particular team? Few readers are likely to visualize the chief of my tribe, who wears a suit and tie to work at tribal headquarters. Not surprising, however, given the level and type of racial Indian imagery that is most prevalent. Research I conducted while an Olin research fellow at the Harvard Business School revealed that 10 percent of high school mascots were Indians, holding two of the top nine spots (the other seven were all carnivorous animals). Ninety-four percent of the Indian mascots were racial (Indians, Redskins, Braves, etc.) and 6 percent were tribal (Apaches, Commanches, etc.). Comparing mascot choice to population, as the percentage of Indians in an area increases, the percentage of racial (as opposed to tribal) mascots decreases, which supports the notion that as Indians, we tend to think of ourselves tribally, whereas the dominant society tends to think of us as a racial monolith. While this research suggests that the dominant society has a deep-seated need to "play Indian," perhaps that need could be satisfied by adopting tribal identities with the permission of the tribe, and then coordinating with that tribe which activities and displays actually honor its history and culture. Although that middle-ground position will satisfy neither the hard-core activists nor the anti-political correctness crowd, it at least holds the potential to change the way the dominant society thinks about us. While the Washington Redskins and the Cleveland Indians continue to profit from objectionable racist imagery, a number of schools and universities, including Central Michigan University, have either abandoned their Indian mascots or have modified their use of such identities to avoid offense. Schools such as Florida State (Seminoles), the University of Utah (Utes), and CMU (Chippewas) maintain their respective identities with either the permission or the supervision of specific tribes. As an example, CMU recently demanded that EA Sports remove portrayals of students dressed in fake Indian regalia from its National Collegiate Athletic Association Football 2005 video game. These portrayals violated the arrangement between the university and the Saginaw Chippewa tribe, which covers the university's use of a Chippewa tribal identity. Whereas CMU has the wisdom to ask the tribe what is appropriate regarding an Indian identity, the Washington Redskins claim that the name honors American Indians despite the fact that the word is the reservation equivalent of the N-word - which is certainly not acceptable in polite society. We would not tolerate a mascot resembling Little Black Sambo. The question of the offensiveness of "Redskins" has also been in the news. While 90 percent of the self-identified Indians in an Annenberg survey did not find "Redskins" offensive, a 2001 Sports Illustrated poll indicated that one-third of all reservation Indians object to the use of Indian mascots and names by sports teams. Half of those polled believe such use contributes to discrimination. Annenberg's methodology, however, is suspect because it demonstrably undersampled Indians in states with large tribal populations, including Michigan, while oversampling states with no federally recognized Indian tribes. Additionally, Annenberg neither segmented its sample into urban and reservation Indians nor collected tribal affiliation. So I am skeptical of a poll that purports to reflect "the Indian viewpoint" without accounting for tribal diversity. In Michigan, the question as presented was also less relevant to local communities. While 138 Michigan schools still had Indian mascots as of 2000, none were the "Redskins." While polls suggest that the individual harm may not be as significant as some activists claim, offending more than one-third of a population should be reason enough to stop. Even if the original intent was supposedly to "honor" the "noble savages," common courtesy (rather than political correctness) indicates the practice should be abandoned. The impact on the mind of the dominant society, however, is potentially larger and more insidious, and this second harm has been lacking from most debates over Indian mascots. There are 560 separate Indian tribes in the United States, often with separate cultures, languages and political structures. Team names such as Redskins or Indians lump that tribal distinctiveness into a caricaturized notion of uniformity. -- Gavin Clarkson, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, School of Law and Native American Studies, is an enrolled tribal member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Texas Band of Cherokees. Copyright c. 2004 The Detroit News. --------- "RE: Traditional Native American Basket Weaving" --------- Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 01:17:47 -0700 From: "Chris Milda (_Akimel O`odham_)" AkimelOodham@EarthLink.net Subj: Traditional Native American basket weaving is an involved process Mailing List: News and Information http://www.nctimes.com//2004/10/17/news/community/13_47_1710_16_04.txt Traditional Native American basket weaving is an involved process. By: JOSE CARVAJAL - For The Californian TEMECULA - It goes something like this: You locate and pray over your materials in nature, you collect them, you prepare them and then, finally, you begin the actual weaving. It's an involved undertaking that typically takes many hours. But it's a rewarding experience with payoffs that can be measured in multiple ways. And for Lorene Sisquoc, who taught a basket-weaving workshop Saturday at the UC Riverside Temecula Center, it's a tradition that keeps her in touch with her roots. "It's the connection to my ancestors, to the land here," she said. "They're so amazing, the things they made here." Sisquoc, a descendent of the Cahuilla tribe of California and a member of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, is the culture traditions leader at Sherman Indian School in Riverside. She's also the curator of the school's museum. At Sherman, and through other programs for American Indians, Sisquoc teaches more involved courses that delve into technique, style and form. Her goal at classes like Saturday's is to teach more about the tradition of the art itself to non-natives and to engender within them an awareness and appreciation of the practice. "I think it's important to raise the awareness," she said. "This class brings awareness. That's why I teach it." The class, which is part of a series of Native American Studies courses through the UC Riverside Extension, cost $75 to attend and went from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Students were given a background on the practice and then were given hands-on instruction in preparing the materials. By the end of the class, they walked away with a basket made on their own. Linda Moran was one of the six local women who attended the class and said that she did so for a couple reasons. "I've always been interested in Native American culture," said Moran, who added that she chose Native American studies as a minor in college because of this interest. Moran, a third-grade teacher at Avaxat Elementary School in Murrieta, said she plans to integrate what she learned into social sciences curriculum in her class. She watched intently as Sisquoc held up a basket she had made and explained that baskets, historically, were an important aspect of American Indian life. "It wasn't just a craft or hobby," she said. "It was integral." She went on to describe how baskets are still used in daily life, from baby carriers to cooking utensils and containers to hats and accessories to ceremonial gifts at funerals. And these days, many baskets sit in museums, like the one at the Sherman Indian School. Sisquoc points out that many of them belong in a more important place. "Some of these need to be back in the landscape," she said. "These were made for California." Sisquoc will teach another basket weaving class Nov. 20 at the UCR Extension Center in Riverside. For information, call 827-5796. --------- "RE: Last Words: Indian Languages fast losing Speakers" --------- Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:52:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LOSING OUR TONGUES" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.newsok.com/article/1356569/?template=news/main Last words: American Indian languages are fast losing speakers By Judy Gibbs Robinson Staff Writer November 6, 2004 NORMAN - An elderly woman with shaking hands dropped a candle representing the Chiricahua Apache language during a recent ceremony to celebrate Oklahoma's Indian languages. The candle fell to the floor and went out. Although it was quickly relighted, the moment during the seventh annual Celebration of Indian Language and Culture was symbolic of the status of native languages in Oklahoma at the end of 2004. Twenty-five native languages are still spoken here, but 10 are just one generation from extinction. And that generation is growing old. "We are at the greatest period of American Indian language extinction in history," said Dennis W. Zotigh, American Indian research historian at the Oklahoma Historical Society. In September, two or three native speakers of Caddo died, said Alice Anderton, a linguist who directs the Intertribal Wordpath Society, sponsor of the Oct. 22 celebration. "Time is really running out for some languages," she said. Although Oklahoma has 21,359 native speakers, 10 tribes have 10 or fewer fluent speakers left and 15 have fewer than 100, according to Anderton's 2004 count, released in October. "Every time we revise it, the numbers go down and not up," Anderton said. The decline is not for want of effort, but the effort may be too little, too late for most tribes, experts say. It's been 14 years since Congress passed the Native American Languages Act, which made it federal policy to preserve, protect and promote native languages - reversing the decades-old policy of trying to stamp them out. In that time, many tribes have initiated language classes. For example, Choctaw now is offered in public high schools throughout the Choctaw Nation, at community centers or via the Internet. Comanche is taught at the Comanche Nation College in Lawton. University of Oklahoma students can study Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek and Kiowa. At Oklahoma State University, students can learn Muskogee. "That's all progress," Anderton said. "But if you look at it in a real hard-nosed way, if you ask how many new speakers of native languages there are, as far as I know, that number is zero." The problem is that high school and college classes will not produce fluent speakers, Zotigh said. The only hope for languages to survive is to get very young children speaking them, Zotigh and Anderton agreed. With that in mind, some tribes, including the Choctaws, include language instruction in their Head Start programs. But Anderton said the 15 minutes a day they can devote to the subject is nearly worthless. "They can teach how to count or to name animals. That's important culturally, but it doesn't save a language, unfortunately," Anderton said. In Oklahoma, only the Cherokee language, with 9,000 native speakers, has much real chance of surviving because of its language immersion pre-school for 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds, Zotigh said. Thirty-four children are now enrolled in the program, which gives them eight hours of instruction a day in Cherokee. Are they fluent? "Yes, ma'am," said Gloria Sly, director of the Cherokee's Cultural Resources Center. "They fuss back and forth in Cherokee. They tell and tattle in Cherokee. They do all the little things 3- and 4-year-olds do." Cherokee teachers developed an assessment tool to measure the children's annual progress. It worked well for the first two years, Sly said. "This past year, they blew the top off of it. We had to do a revision" because the children already knew far more Cherokee than the test was designed to measure, she said. Until now, the Cherokees had no fluent speakers under age 45, Zotigh said. "This is a very good success story," he said. Other tribes may have trouble following the Cherokee model, Anderton said. "The logistics can be daunting. And in many tribes, the elders are so old and feeble, they don't really belong in a pre-school because they can't get down on the floor with the children," Anderton said. Center celebrates heritage For them, native languages may become a cultural relic - preserved and studied from writings and recordings. Some of those artifacts will be displayed in the new Oklahoma Historical Center, set to open in November 2005. Oklahoma's 39 tribes were asked what should be included in the museum's Indian gallery, said Mary Jane Ward, Indian historian at the historical society. They named three topics - origins, spirituality and language, she said. "That's because language is so important to them," Ward said. Preserving native languages is really about saving Indian cultures, Zotigh said. "Language is the nucleus of Indian culture. We speak to our God in our language. Some tribes even believe that without a name in your tribe, you won't be able to enter the next spiritual world," Zotigh said. LeRoy Sealy, who grew up speaking Choctaw and now teaches it at OU, said people without their language are like people with half a heart. "They can't feel that sense of fullness because a part of them is missing," Sealy said. Copyright c. 2004 The Oklahoman/News 9, Produced by NewsOK.com. --------- "RE: Saskatoon Officers fired over Native Teen's Death" --------- Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:57:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="STONECHILD" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.thestar.com//Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1100256374365 Saskatoon officers fired over native teen's death Inquest has divided city CANADIAN PRESS November 12, 2004 SASKATOON - Two Saskatoon police officers at the centre of a controversy over the freezing death of an aboriginal teenager 14 years ago were fired today. Constables Larry Hartwig and Bradley Senger had been on suspension with pay after an inquiry found that they had Neil Stonechild in their custody in the hours before his 1990 death. Their fate has been a polarizing issue in Saskatoon since an inquiry report into the case was released last month. The aboriginal community had demanded swift punishment while supporters of the officers said police had done nothing wrong. Police Chief Russell Sabo said he didn't believe the officers abandoned Stonechild in the deserted area where his body was found, but said he based his decision on a strict review of the evidence as allowed under the Police Act. "Constables Hartwig and Senger are being dismissed for failing to diligently and promptly report or disclose or offer material evidence or information to appropriate officials that in November 1990, Neil Stonechild was in their custody, as was their duty to do so," Sabo told a news conference. Saskatoon's police association said it planned to appeal. "Finally, we are going to get due process," said association president Stan Goertzen. "We went to our membership the other day and we laid out the history of this. They told us that we will be supporting Larry and Brad." Prior to the chief's announcement, a dozen Hartwig and Senger supporters rallied outside the police station. The carried signs with slogans such as Sacrificial Lambs. Sabo said any appeal would be a public process in front of a hearing officer appointed by the Saskatchewan Police Commission. Stonechild's mother, Stella Bignell - in a statement relayed through her lawyer, Don Worme - said she was pleased the officers were fired. Worme said Bignell "simply expressed she was grateful to Chief Sabo for this very difficult decision. It's obviously a courageous decision." He said she was "deeply hurt" by the fact rank and file officers were standing behind Hartwig and Senger. The Stonechild affair had sparked outrage in the aboriginal community and had come to symbolize strained relations with police. The inquiry report by Justice David Wright rejected police claims that the officers had no involvement with the 17-year-old on the Nov. 24 night they were dispatched to a disturbance call involving him. Hartwig and Senger testified they had no independent memory of the dispatch call and their records indicated they did not find him. But Wright believed the testimony of Stonechild's friend, Jason Roy, who said he last saw Stonechild - bleeding, handcuffed and screaming for his life - in the back of a Saskatoon police car. Wright also said parallel cuts on Stonechild's nose and marks on his wrists were likely caused by police handcuffs. But he stopped short of saying the officers abandoned Stonechild in the north-end industrial area where his body was found. He criticized the police investigation into the death as sloppy and haphazard due perhaps, he said, to concerns the trail would lead back to police. Saskatchewan Justice Minister Frank Quennell has said there is not enough evidence to press criminal charges. Critics had long contended that the Stonechild case was part of a larger problem. They maintained that Saskatoon police would often take suspected troublemakers to city limits and dump them there. In 2000 - a decade after Stonechild's death - an RCMP task force was formed to investigate the Saskatoon force after another aboriginal man, Darrell Night, came forward with a story of being dumped by officers outside the city on a cold night in January 2000. After that investigation, Saskatoon police officers Dan Hatchen and Ken Munson were found guilty of unlawfully confining Night and served eight- month sentences. They were fired from their jobs. Two other cases around the same time brought suspicion: Rodney Naistus, 25, was found frozen to death without a shirt near a power plant outside the city; and Lawrence Wegner, 30, was discovered frozen to death in the same area. No charges were ever laid in those cases and inquests couldn't determine the circumstances surrounding the deaths. Copyright c. 2004 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. --------- "RE: Wal-Mart protesters, vendors clash at Pyramids" --------- Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 21:28:42 -0700 From: "Chris Milda (_Akimel O`odham_)" AkimelOodham@EarthLink.net Subj: Wal-Mart protesters, vendors clash at pyramids (Fwd) Mailing List: News and Information http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/national&story_id=110904b3_wnbriefs World & nation briefs Wal-Mart protesters, vendors clash at pyramids November 9, 2004 MEXICO CITY - Souvenir vendors scuffled with opponents of a Wal-Mart owned discount store near the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacan after the protesters blocked entrances to the ruins, a move vendors said cost them a day's sales, local media reported yesterday. The Wal-Mart-owned Bodega Aurrera store opened its doors Thursday less than a mile from the ruins without any violence, despite months of protests claiming the boxy outlet was an insult to Mexican culture. Protesters, outnumbered by townspeople who support the store, did not attend the Thursday opening but did block tourist entrances to the ruin site for several hours Sunday, the newspaper Reforma reported. The scuffle occurred when about 120 vendors approached about 80 protesters, mainly university students, and demanded they allow tourists to enter. The protesters refused, and shoving and punching ensued. No serious injuries were reported. Copyright c. 2004 Tuscon Citizen. --------- "RE: Using Courts in Brazil to strengthen Identity" --------- Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:57:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INDIAN IDENTITY via COURTS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/13/international/americas/13carvalho.html Using Courts in Brazil to Strengthen an Indian Identity By LARRY ROHTER November 13, 2004 BOA VISTA, Brazil ON all her official papers, she is known as Joenia Batista de Carvalho. But that is not the real name of the first Indian woman to become a lawyer in Brazil, just a name a clerk randomly selected when her parents were first brought from their Amazon village to have their births registered. Whether her preoccupation with issues of cultural identity and autonomy stems from that incident, Ms. Batista is not sure. Still, when she went to the United States earlier this year to receive a Reebok Prize for her human rights work, she chose to accept the award as Joenia Wapixana, using the name of the tribe to which she belongs. "Everything I do is aimed at focusing attention on our community, so that others, outside, can see who we really are," explained Ms. Batista, staff attorney for the Roraima Indigenous Council here in Brazil's northernmost state. "Why have we as a people been able to continue to exist? Because we know where we come from. By having roots, you can see the direction in which you want to go." Though only 31, Ms. Batista has emerged as one of the most effective advocates of the indigenous cause in Brazil, the bane of ranchers, miners and loggers who want to encroach on Indian land. But unlike the tribal chiefs and shamans with whom she works closely, her weapon is the white man's law, which she fights to have obeyed by all, including those who make it. In Brasilia, she is a familiar figure, filing for injunctions and arguing cases to learned judges twice her age. In Washington early this year, she presented a complaint to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, seeking to compel the Brazilian government to finish demarcation of the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Reserve, set aside as a home for her people and a half-dozen other tribes. Thanks in large part to Ms. Batista's persistence, that case is also before the Brazilian Supreme Court, with a landmark decision expected next year. Most recently, her legal team succeeded in suspending rulings by a judge sympathetic to rice farmers and ranchers that would have forced thousands of Indians to leave their lands. ALL of that is a long way from the isolated Amazon villages of Truar and Guariba, where Ms. Batista spent her first years immersed in a traditional culture that was just beginning to feel the full impact of the advance of the Amazon frontier. "My grandmother couldn't even speak Portuguese," she recalls, but "my mother and most people of her generation speak very little Wapixana, which means that something got lost there." When Ms. Batista was 7 or 8, her parents separated. Her father, who she said "never felt comfortable staying in any one place for a long time," returned to the wilds to become a cowboy, while her mother came to this city of 200,000 and found work as a maid. To earn some extra money, her children helped by selling fruit on the street and taking in laundry. There was also school, but Ms. Batista's three older brothers ran into problems there and eventually dropped out to become construction workers and day laborers. "There was a lot of discrimination against Indians," and her brothers felt that keenly, she recalled. "You're always being told you are smelly, lazy, ugly and stupid, or they call you a caboclo," a Portuguese word used to describe native people who have lost their cultural identity and merged with ordinary peasants. "They felt blocked, and so they pulled back." Joenia, in contrast, took immediately to the classroom, earning high grades and winning academic prizes and the notice and support of a few sympathetic teachers. But she, too, felt the sting of prejudice. "Your identity is on your face and in your hair, you can't deny it," Ms. Batista said. "I was the only Indian in my class, so of course I felt different. Plus, we had very little money, which meant I didn't have proper clothes." When she finished high school in the early 1990's, it was just assumed she would become a schoolteacher, the usual career for an educated Indian woman. "But I didn't want to be a teacher," she explained. "From the time I was little, I was always rebellious, always making trouble, and I thought I could contribute more than I would working as a teacher." At first, Ms. Batista thought of becoming a doctor. But when she was 18, an older sister, who suffered from asthma and lung problems and had just had a baby, died when a piece of medical equipment malfunctioned after she was hospitalized. "I had already suffered a lot, and seen a lot of injustice done to others," she explained. "I saw how my sister was treated, and I found myself wondering 'Could it be that they turned off the machine so as not to have to spend money on a poor Indian?' Her death had a big impact on me," especially since her other sister had earlier drowned in an accident. To come up with money for her education, Ms. Batista worked in an accounting office. Her co-workers often scoffed at what they saw as her unrealistic ambitions, but though she knew no Brazilian Indian woman had ever become a lawyer, she ignored them. "My boss used to tell me I was wasting my time, that law school was only for people with money," she said. "But when the results of the entrance exam were announced, I finished second and he didn't qualify at all. He was annoyed." During her four years in law school, Ms. Batista worked during the day and attended classes at night. At times she was discouraged and tempted to give up, she admits, but her relatives back in the village were having none of that. "They'd say, 'You better get that degree, because we are going to need your services,' " she said. Those family connections proved crucial once she began to practice law. At the start, there was much skepticism of someone who was young, unproven and female, and it took her people's stamp of approval for her to win credibility. "When you work with an indigenous group, you need to have the confidence of others," she said. "When I arrive to address a group, I explain who my parents are, who my brothers and sisters are and what community I belong to. Your roots are your identity." In addition, the tribes Ms. Batista serves are hierarchical societies in which the chiefs and shamans are almost always men. So that was one more barrier. "When you go to an assembly of the Yanomami, for instance, the women all stay in a corner and don't say anything," she said. "So naturally I worried at first whether the men would pay attention to what I had to say. But they've learned to listen to me." These days, Ms. Batista is a mother herself, with two young children. She worries that despite her efforts to spare them what she experienced, the pace of change in Brazil is not fast enough. "Here we are in 2004, and yet they still have to put up with taunts, the comments about their 'funny' hair and the notion that the Indian speaks badly and can't perform in the classroom," she said. "My parents had to tolerate that, but because I move between two worlds, I won't. I won't be submissive." Copyright c. 2004 The New York Times Company. --------- "RE: Sherrill, Oneidas get Date for Court" --------- Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:57:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ONEIDA LAND CASE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard//news-6/1100253611302840.xml Sherrill, Oneidas get date for court U.S. Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments in city tax case on Jan. 11. By Glenn Coin Staff writer November 12, 2004 The city of Sherrill has a date with the U.S. Supreme Court. The court announced Thursday that arguments in the Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation case would begin 10 a.m. Jan. 11. Sherrill and Madison County officials already are making plans to attend the hour-long oral arguments. "It's history, my friend. It's history," said Rocco DiVeronica, chairman of the Madison County Board of Supervisors. "This is very important for the future of our area." Sherrill argues that the Oneida Indian Nation should pay taxes on nation-owned land in the city. The nation argues that the land is part of the Oneida reservation carved out in the 18th century and thus not taxable. The Supreme Court ruling could apply to all the 16,000 acres the Oneida nation owns in Madison and Oneida counties, and to land owned by other tribes across the country. The ruling also could affect the 30-year-old Oneida Indian land claim case because some of the arguments and treaties in the two cases are the same. Three tribes of Oneidas claim the state illegally bought about 250,000 acres in a series of treaties in the 18th and 19th centuries. The judge in the land claim case has postponed the filing of certain motions until the Supreme Court rules on the Sherrill case. Sherrill defied the odds in June when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Justices agree to hear arguments in about 1 percent of cases appealed to the court. Previously, a federal district court judge and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that land purchased by the Oneida nation in Sherrill is "Indian country" and not subject to local taxes or laws. Each side will have 30 minutes to present its case. On the Sherrill side, Ira Sacks, the attorney representing the city, will have 20 minutes, and the state of New York will get the remaining 10 minutes. On the Oneida side, the Oneidas' lawyer will argue for 20 minutes, and the Oneidas will yield their remaining 10 minutes to the U.S. Solicitor General. The solicitor general, who represents the U.S. government in the Supreme Court, had urged the court not to hear the case and let the appeals court ruling stand. Sacks said he will prepare an outline for his presentation to the court, but noted that much of a lawyer's time in the Supreme Court is spent answering questions from justices. "You have to have a notion of where you're going, but you're going to be directed by nine people who have their own ideas of what they want to talk about," Sacks said. "You have to be prepared to answer their questions." The court won't decide the case Jan. 11. Rulings for the entire 2004-2005 session will be released by the end of June, according to the Supreme Court Web site. Copyright c. 2004 The Post-Standard. Used with permission. --------- "RE: Tribal Contracts pose conflict for Supreme Court" --------- Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 08:40:21 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRIBAL CONTRACTS" http://www.indianz.com/News/2004/005289.asp Tribal contracts pose conflict for U.S. Supreme Court November 10, 2004 The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in a tribal self-determination case that one justice called a "competition between two bureaucracies." During a one-hour hearing, members of the top court struggled with the question at the core of the case. The justices wondered whether federal agency contracts with tribal governments should be treated differently than other contracts. If they aren't any different, then tribes are owed full support costs for administering federal programs. Tribal leaders say they are being shortchanged millions for carrying out health, social service and other programs. But if the two types of contracts are different, then the federal government has a right to withhold money from tribes. Going by the questions posed to both sides of the dispute, the justices appeared divided on this issue. The side leaning towards the tribes was led by Justice Stephen G. Breyer. He questioned why the government couldn't fulfill its obligations under the landmark Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to enter into contracts with tribes to manage hospitals, clinics and other health care programs. "People who enter into contracts need certainty," he said. The side leaning towards the government was led by Justice Antonin Scalia. Early in the hearing, he called the concept of self-determination contracts "strange." "The [HHS] secretary has to give the tribes the authority to take over these federal functions," he said, emphasizing the word "give." "It seems to me a strange way to run a railroad." Lloyd Miller, an attorney for the Cherokee Nation and the Duck Valley Shoshone-Paiute Tribe of Nevada, told the justices they should view the tribal agreements under standard contracting law. He said tribes are being forced to reduce critical on-the-ground services because the Indian Health Service, an agency of HHS, is not paying 100 percent of the contracts. "No contractor would take that risk in dealing with the government," he said. Sri Srinivasan, a Department of Justice attorney, argued that IHS is within its right to withhold funding in order to pay for "administrative" functions. He said the agency only takes 2 percent of the amount set aside for self-determination contracts for its own use. "Funds for core agency functions don't have to be turned over to the contracting tribes," he said. The outcome of the case largely rests on the interpretation of amendments to the 1975 law that were passed in subsequent appropriations acts. The amendments direct IHS to pay tribes the amount it would take to operate the programs plus support costs. However, the language includes the phrase "subject to the availability of appropriations." It further states that IHS cannot take funds from one tribal contract to pay for another tribal contract. In addition to Breyer, Justices David Souter and Sandra Day O'Connor appeared to fall on the pro-tribal side of the case. Scalia would normally have the support of Chief justice William Rehnquist, who did not attend the arguments yesterday due to a recent surgery, and Justice Clarence Thomas, who didn't ask any questions, as is his normal practice. That leaves the votes of Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy open to debate. Their questions yesterday did not appear to support one side or the other. But even within the divided camps, there appeared to be room for movement. Both sides questioned the government's interpretation of the appropriations amendments when Srinivasan said they allow IHS to use self- determination money for agency costs. "If anybody is going to get squeezed, it's the agency itself," Scalia observed. "This is a competition between two bureaucracies." Two lower courts have come to different conclusions on the matter. In July 2003, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals applied normal contracting law and ruled that IHS couldn't withhold money from the tribes because it was "legally available" at the time it was appropriated by Congress. Breyer and Souter noted that under this standard, the tribes should win the case. "I don't see why contracting principles don't trump" the government, Souter said. But in November 2002, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said the IHS can choose to reprogram its lump-sum appropriation due to the "availability of appropriations" phrase. Ginsburg said this provision ensures that money for one tribe isn't taken by another. "Do the ones who come to court get paid in full ... even if the others don't get their fair share?" she asked. "Does it just depend on first-to- come-to-court, first served?" The Supreme Court's decision is likely to have an effect on other pending disputes. Miller's law firm is representing other tribes whose cases have been put on hold until the issue is resolved. Separately, tribes have asked Congress to clarify the 1975 law yet again to ensure that they receive full support costs. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee held a hearing on the Tribal Contract Support Cost Technical Amendments bill in April. Copyright c. 2000-2004 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: Drug cartels offer $500K to kill Shadow Wolves" --------- Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 08:32:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TARGETED TRACKERS" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/10132283.htm Trackers now have targets on their backs By MARY SANCHEZ The Kansas City Star November 9, 2004 SELLS, Ariz. - Racing across the desert at 90 mph in darkness cut only by his pickup's headlights, Curtis Heim spots a wisp of dust settling on the blacktop. "Did you see that?" he says. "Something was just through here." Heim, 31, slows, ready to track his prey - drug runners smuggling marijuana and methamphetamine from Mexico. Heim is a Shadow Wolf, one of 18 members of an elite unit of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The Shadow Wolves are American Indians who use their tracking skills to intercept large amounts of drugs - 145,000 pounds of marijuana this year - before they can reach U.S. streets. But after a standoff near the border two years ago, the Shadow Wolves themselves are being hunted. Heim, who was raised in Kansas, turns the Chevy down a dirt road in the Tohono O'odham Nation, a reservation the size of Connecticut that shares 75 miles of border with Mexico. Creeping now at 5 mph, he hangs out the cab, steering with one hand as he shines a flashlight into the mesquite scrub. He's looking for anything amiss - spots where the dusty ground is a little too smooth, an oddly broken branch, a depression from a gingerly placed heel. Heim stops the pickup but leaves it running as he steps into the Sonoran Desert. The truck is loaded with a cache of guns, night-vision equipment, sirens, scanners and enough bulbs to light up like a Christmas tree. "Everything out here stings, pokes, bites or has fangs," he says. Or fires bullets. "When I first started, it was great," says Heim, of the Kickapoo and Sac Fox nations and a six-year veteran of the Shadow Wolves. "I loved the art of tracking." In those days, the Shadow Wolves still rode horses part of the time. They tracked the footprints of drug runners carrying 50-pound bales of marijuana, sometimes sneaking up on them as they slept. It was kind of a game for the Wolves, seeing how many they could handcuff before the whole group woke up. "You'd cuff them up, and off to jail they'd go," Heim says. But ever since a standoff at a place called Menager's Dam, each Shadow Wolf has a half-million-dollar bounty on his or her head, Heim says. Drug cartels are offering $50,000 for the death of an immediate family member. "When you are making a difference, the criminals are going to look at you and realize you are a threat," says Christiana Halsey, a deputy assistant commissioner with U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington. "The Shadow Wolves are on duty literally 24 hours a day. Even at home, they are a target for criminals." The 16 men and two women in the Shadow Wolf unit range in age from late 20s to mid-50s. They represent 10 tribal nations. All bring a deep commitment to their role as protectors of America. Lately, that mission has expanded to a new assignment: terrorism. The Wolves have started teaching tracking methods to authorities in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Croatia, Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Lithuania. Heim is scheduled to train people in Slovakia this month. And soon they will begin working with the Blackfeet tribe to help increase security at the U.S.-Canadian border, says Heim, who serves as the unit's spokesman. The Wolves play an important role in government efforts to keep terrorists out of the country, Halsey says. One Wolf found a satchel of Middle Eastern passports hidden in the desert - possibly left for someone to pick up later. "It is a big, big job, but the Shadow Wolves know every little inch of desert," she says. "They will find you if you are out there." The role of protecting the land, the Wolves say, is nothing new for native people. A favorite poster in their office in Sells shows Geronimo and three other Apaches, all carrying rifles. The caption: "Homeland Security - Fighting Terrorism Since 1492." "We didn't immigrate," says Sloan Satepauhoodle, a Shadow Wolf who is a former intelligence officer with the Secret Service. "We don't have any other place but here. We are still defending what our ancestors defended." `It was chaos' The dangers of the desert multiplied two years ago at Menager's Dam, about a half-mile north of the Mexican border. A phone call to the Shadow Wolves' office in Sells gave them a tip about a large stash of drugs on a two-acre compound of wooden garages and a motor home. Within seconds after four Wolves pulled up, they sensed something wasn't right. "The only reason we all survived was that we pulled up in four different trucks," Heim says. "There were 15 against the four of us." A brawl broke out, and then the Wolves and the drug runners began diving for cover. "The guns that they had were gigantic," Heim says. "Stuff you never see. ... It was chaos." At one point, a drug runner rammed a sport utility vehicle through a garage door and headed for Heim. The Ford Explorer hit him, but as Heim rolled off the hood, he fired five rounds. "Three connected as head shots," he says. Fifty minutes passed before more agents arrived, including some in Black Hawk helicopters sent from the Customs office in Tucson. Heim says the man he shot survived because he had so much methamphetamine in his body, it constricted his blood vessels, keeping him from bleeding to death. The haul from the compound: about 9,000 pounds of marijuana and methamphetamine crammed into five stolen SUVs. Each vehicle was outfitted with passports, guns, cell phones, cash, food and water. "These guys were the top of the food chain in getting drugs over the international border," Heim says. Soon, other drug runners began jostling to fill the vacuum. Men came up from Mexico and went door to door at Menager's Dam, threatening people with guns, trying to flush out whoever tipped the Shadow Wolves. The Menager water tower was spray-painted with big black letters, "Mind Your Own Business." "People starting dying," Heim says. "There were murders in Phoenix that we tied back to this, murders in Tucson, and some south of the border." The Wolves got another tip: The cartels had set bounties for the death of any federal agent involved with tracking drug smugglers. Death threats also began coming for specific Shadow Wolves. But it was Kristopher Eggle, a 28-year-old park ranger, who died. He was killed in 2002 in an ambush at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, just west of the Tohono O'odham reservation. He was helping Border Patrol agents catch two men suspected by Mexican officials in a drug-related killing. Heim was teaching Eggle to track. He keeps a photo of Eggle pinned to his pickup's visor. "He was an all-American kid, valedictorian, good in church," Heim says of Eggle. "It was a huge blow to us." Always a hunter As a boy growing up in Atchison, Kan., Heim's hunts were for ducks and deer. "I never wanted to be inside," he says. In grade school, day after day, he went out, gunning for squirrels. After much effort but no success, he complained to his grandfather that they all seemed able to elude his .22-caliber rifle. "They are laughing at you," was his grandfather's reply. "You need to sit still longer." So Heim did. An hour passed, an eon to a small boy. Soon he could hear the squirrels chattering, no longer mindful of the boy, his rifle. "You just have to wait them out one at a time," he says. "I just picked them off." Twenty years later, patience and the desire to notice everything about the land are still his guides. Night, when the desert cools and the stars are out, is the best time to track. It also is the time when the drug runners are most active. A hundred feet off the road, Heim bends to note footprints in the dust. "This guy shouldn't be out here alone," he says. The footsteps are at least a day old. Wind has rounded off the edges where a sole once left a sharp, clear print. A piece of a leaf has settled into one. And on another print, a bug walked across, leaving a straight line. The tracks are not those of a man weighted with a bale of pot, Heim says. And he's not dragging his feet due to lack of water. Everything that moves through the desert leaves a mark: drug runners, migrants, cars, cattle, horses, the wind. A thread caught in a bush tells who passed through. If it's burlap, it probably came from one of the sacks used to wrap bales of marijuana. Soft cotton could be from a baby's blanket, indicating a female migrant with a child. A shiny synthetic thread probably came from a male migrant's shirt. A discarded piece of food can tell a time. Heim knows how long it takes an orange peel, a bit of tortilla, a prickly pear to dry out. Markings under a tree can indicate the time of day a group stopped to rest. The tree's shade moves during the day, and in the desert, people don't sit in the sun. Sometimes drug runners try to disguise their tracks by tying squares of carpet to their shoes. The carpet actually makes them easier to track, Heim says. It buffs the earth as they move along, and the markings are readily apparent under a flashlight beam at the right angle. Besides, the fibers leave their own telltale marks, Heim says. Sometimes drug runners will have the last man in a group walk backward, erasing prints with a branch. The best way, Heim says, is to have the last man sprinkle dirt in the prints. But Heim has caught these tracks, too - he noted where the man knelt to gather more dust. "They always mess up," Heim says. "They always leave a trail, no matter how hard they try." ---- First glance * The Shadow Wolves are an elite unit of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents whose job is to track and catch drug runners in the Sonoran Desert west of Tucson, Ariz. * The 18-member unit, composed entirely of American Indians, faces death threats from the criminals they hunt. To reach Mary Sanchez, call (816) 234-4752 or send e-mail to msanchez@kcstar.com. Copyright c. 2004 The Kansas City Star, Knight Ridder. --------- "RE: School rejects blame in Ronan boys' deaths" --------- Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:44:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SCHOOL DENIES RESPONSIBILITY" http://www.billingsgazette.com//2004/11/11/build/state/68-ronan-deaths.inc School rejects blame in Ronan boys' deaths Associated Press November 11, 2004 RONAN - School officials here denied responsibility Wednesday in the deaths of two 11-year-old boys whose frozen bodies were found in a snowy field in February, after they guzzled vodka. "The fault lies with all the individuals in our community," said Andy Holmlund, Ronan school superintendent. "But the ultimate authority and responsibility, in my opinion, lies with the parents." The families of Justin Benoist and Frankie Nicolai III filed a lawsuit against the school district last week in Polson, alleging the district failed to protect the children Feb. 27 when they skipped class. The families also accuse the district of bias and discrimination for not hiring enough American Indian staff. The families seek $4 million in damages. Holmlund said the allegations are shocking, and finger-pointing will not help solve the area's problem of alcohol abuse. Holmlund said he sympathizes with the boys' families, but plans to fight the lawsuit. Justin and Frankie vanished Feb. 27 from Ronan Middle School. A friend found their bodies three days later. Tests concluded alcohol poisoning killed Frankie, whose blood-alcohol level was 0.50 percent, more than six times the drunken-driving threshold in Montana. Justin, whose blood alcohol was 0.20 percent, died from a combination of alcohol poisoning and hypothermia. No one was charged in the case. Justin's 14-year-old brother, Tyler Benoist, was found dead of smoke inhalation in a burned trailer last November in Pablo. Authorities said he had passed out from drinking, and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.233. Copyright c. 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. Copyright c. 2004 The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Court sides with Tribe in Law Enforcement dispute" --------- Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:57:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JURISDICTION DECISION" http://www.indianz.com/News/2004/005337.asp Court sides with tribe in law enforcement dispute November 12, 2004 In a victory for tribal law enforcement, a federal appeals court last week barred a county sheriff from imposing state law on a tribe's police force even when those officers leave the reservation. According to the state vehicle code, the use of emergency light bars is limited to "authorized emergency vehicles" performing emergency services. For several years, the sheriff in Riverside County has been using this law against the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians. The Cabazon Reservation is composed of four non-contiguous sections, so tribal police officers must travel on non-reservation roads to get from one area to another. But whenever they did so using emergency lights, they were stopped and cited by the county for violating the state law. In response, the tribal police were forced to remove the lights every time they left the reservation. The chief of the tribe's public safety department said this practice posed a danger to the officers and limited their ability to carry out their duties. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a decision released on November 3. Describing the removal of the lights as a "preposterous and time-consuming ritual," a panel of three judges held that the state law was "discriminatory" towards tribes because no other government is treated the same. "It is clear that the challenged vehicle code sections do not treat the tribe's police for