_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 12, ISSUE 050 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, 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 December 11, 2004 Mohawk tsothohrha/moon of cold Anishnaabe manidoo-gizisoons/small spirits 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, Dakota_Lakota_Nakota_Advocacy and Amazon Alliance 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + ======================== "You can prove the federal government is wrong. But the federal government will spend whatever it wants to and lie however it wants to, and it will go to whatever extent it can to prove that it's in the right." __ Ervin Chavez, Navajo President of the Shii Shi Keyah Allottee Association +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Indian Pledge of Allegiance | The Indian Pledge of Alleg- | | iance was first presented | I pledge allegiance to my Tribe,| on 2 December '93 during the | to the democratic principles | opening address of the Nat- | of the Republic | ional Congress of American | and to the individual freedoms | Indian Tribal-States Relat- | borrowed from the Iroquois and | ions Panel in Reno, NV. NCAI | Choctaw Confederacies, | plans distribution of the | as incorporated in the United | Indian Pledge to all Indian | States Constitution, | Nations. | so that my forefathers | | shall not have died in vain | Walk in Beauty! Night Owl +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Journey | In the summer and early fall | The Bloodline | of 1998 the Treaty Unity Riders | | rode a thousand miles on horse- | For all that live and live by law | back, carrying a staff and | We Stand, we Call, We Ride | praying each step of the way. | For All that fear and fear by sight | | We Hear, we Listen, we Ride | These prayers were offered for | For all that pray and pray by strength| each of us, and that the Unity | We Feel, we Move, we Ride | of all Peoples might happen. | For all that die and die by greed | | We Hurt, we Cry, we Ride | Tatanka Cante forwarded this | For all that birth and birth by right | poem on behalf of all the Unity | We Smile, we Hold, we Ride | Riders that we might stop and | For all that need and need by heart | ask if the next words we say, the | We Came, we Went, we Rode. | next act we make is for the good | | of the People or is it from ego | Treaty Unity Riders | for self. +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ O'siyo Brothers and Sisters! There are several articles in this issue focusing on the need to "fix" Indian education. The Argus Leader editorial board thinks the solution is throwing money, time and effort at the problem. Native Times interviewed Lillian Williams, the 62-year-old president of the Oklahoma Council for Indian Education. This Pawnee/Chickasaw and Cherokee elder has long been involved in education and believes instilling pride in academic achievements and networking within the Indian community is a big part of the answer. In Ashland, Wisconsin the teachers, themselves, made the decision to incorporate Native American concepts in the classroom. These ideas all have merit. I recall sitting in the home of an elder, and the suject of learning came up. She said her children and grandchildren all could count not long after they walked, understood colors and artistic composition because she had all of them beading as soon as possible. There is the key to Indian education. We are no less interested in learning than any other people, but the schools don't teach our kids in ways that have meaning to them. They are thrust into schools that are based on dominant culture concepts and methods. These often are boring or meaningless. Worse, some teachers still will flatly tell Indian children that the understanding of history and nature their elders taught them are wrong, and penalize them with poor grades for their "failure to learn." Imagine how our grandchild felt when her 4th grade teacher belittled her knowledge about the true history of Thanksgiving, assuring her that the Pilgrims never hurt any Indians. Her mother now is reluctant to teach her more about her culture or history for fear it will continue to subject her to ridicule in school. It takes just that little bit for interest and trust in the school to be lost, and for the chance for learning begin to slip away. By the time children reach their teens, or even before, a pattern of not caring has already taken such deep root many simply refuse to participate in school work, and ultimately fail to graduate. Mr. and Mrs. school administrator, teach our children in ways that have meaning to them. Consult with tribes in your geographic region. Teaching a Mohawk with Navajo or Zuni culture will have some better success than teaching with Euro-centric concepts, but only marginally. Teach Kiowa children with concepts and ideas based on Kiowa lifeways. Teach Ojibway as Ashland, Wisconsin is endeavoring to do - by learning from the Ojibway elders nearby. Only then will the added funds yield meaningful results. 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 =================================== 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 ---------- - Tribal Member survives - Giago: Saying 'Indian' Grenade attack in Iraq without adding 'Dirty' - Bush Signs Landmark Bill - YELLOW BIRD: for Osage Nation Wind carries Words of Wisdom - Cobell v. Norton - - Jodi Rave: Court of Appeals Opinion Native Educator teaches Two Worlds - Special Report: - Treaty 3 encouraged by Response Fraud in New Mexico - Land Battles - Mayan Woman reunited bring a shift in Canada Economy with Children taken from her - Despite Powley, - Film focuses on SF Peaks debate Me'tis hunting limited by MNR - 'Tis the Season for Hangings - Teen found Dead - Navajo BIA School condemned - Native Children - Editorial: Indian Education were placed in Holding Cells - Interview: - Brazil: Indians Grapple How to fix Indian Education with White Man's Advance - Teachers seek to incorporate - Minneapolis shooting NA Concepts in Class highlights Gang Problem - Trial aims to clear Name - Suicide leads to Lawsuit of Chief Leschi - Peltier statement - Mohawk Councils approve on Graham extradition hearing Land-Claim Settlement - Watchdog group focuses - MCK Position demands on Native Prisoners part of Akwesasne Land Claim - Native Prisoner - Jicarilla Apache Nation -- Cultural Support opens new Health Center - Rustywire: Nomo, the stuffed Rabbit - Press release - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days for a Casting Search - Rustywire Poem: Navajo Silversmith --------- "RE: Tribal Member survives Grenade attack in Iraq" --------- Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:31:58 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FORT BELKNAP MARINE INJURED" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.greatfallstribune.com//NEWS01/412010304/1002 Fort Belknap Marine hurt in Iraq recalls harrowing day By KIM SKORNOGOSKI Tribune Staff Writer December 1, 2004 A week after a fellow Marine dragged him out of a crumbling building in Fallujah, a Fort Belknap man is recovering in a Navy hospital having survived a suicide grenade attack. Marine Corporal Catcher Cuts The Rope was in the Iraq hot spot since October, clearing bombed buildings of often-armed insurgents. An Iraqi ran out of a room toward Cuts The Rope and three other Marines, pulling the pin of a grenade as they shot him, he said Tuesday from his hospital room at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. Shrapnel ripped into his arms and legs - his flak jacket and helmet protected his body and head. Cuts The Rope will be transferred to a military hospital in Hawaii, where his wife, Amy, and 11-month-old son, Conan, live. "I can use my arms. My finger in my right hand is broken. I can't use my right knee. It hurts to walk right now," he said. "I think it'll take me a few months of recovery and physical therapy before I get back to normal." The 32-year-old joined the Army at age 18, serving from 1992 to 1997. He enlisted in the Marines after the Sept. 11 attacks. Cuts The Rope is the son of the well-known Gros Ventre artist Clarence Basil Cuts The Rope and former Hays schoolteacher Margaret Cuts The Rope, both of whom have died. He grew up on the Fort Belknap Reservation, graduating in 1991 from the high school in Dodson. The leader of his squadron, Cuts The Rope was sweeping a building when a squadron in a neighboring building fell under attack. Running over to help, Cuts The Rope found the body of a good friend and fellow squadron leader and carried it out of the building. He returned to clear the building of four men who were shooting AK-47s. One man was spotted running to another building. The squadron then searched three neighboring buildings looking for him. Spotting a bloody handprint on the stairs of one of the buildings, Cuts The Rope and three other Marines went from room to room searching for the insurgent. When they reached the second floor, an Iraqi ran out of a small room screaming. Cuts The Rope remembers firing at the man five times, but the man kept running at them with a grenade in his hands. The blast injured all four Marines. "I could hear them screaming in pain," Cuts The Rope said. "I backed out of the room. I couldn't use my hands. I couldn't hold my rifle. But I was able to use my thumb to press down on the radio and call for help." Cuts The Rope said he couldn't stand and was dragged out of the building. "I started to pass out - the pain was really starting to get to me. I could feel the blood running down my thigh. I thought I was going to die." He later underwent surgery in Germany before being flown to Maryland. He expects to be home with his family in the next few days. Copyright c. 2004 Great Falls Tribune. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Bush Signs Landmark Bill for Osage Nation" --------- Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 13:50:41 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="OSAGE BILL" http://www.pechanga.net/homepage.html http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpage=1&id=73687 Bush Signs Landmark Bill For Osage Nation December 3, 2004 OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The Osage Nation will be allowed to decide whether to open its doors to potentially thousands of people of Osage ancestry under a bill signed into law Friday by President Bush. This ends the Osage Nation's distinction as the only American Indian tribe barred by federal law from choosing its own citizens. In dividing up land under the Osage Allotment Act, Congress in 1906 recognized tribal control of the oil-rich mineral estate on its northern Oklahoma reservation and granted the 2,229 original allottees a share of the royalties, known as headrights. Only about 4,300 Osages who have inherited a headright share can participate in tribal government. Nearly 16,000 people of Osage ancestry have no tribal voting rights. The legislation sponsored by Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., affirmed the tribe's rights to select its citizenry and government but leaves members' mineral rights untouched. An effort in the early 1900s to change the law through Congress failed, as did more recent efforts in the courts, which ruled only Congress had the power to do so. Copyright c. 2004 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2004 KOTV, A Griffin Communications, LLC Subsidiary. --------- "RE: Cobell v. Norton - Court of Appeals Opinion" --------- Date: Friday, December 03, 2004 10:54 AM From: Indian Trust ListServ Subj: Cobell v. Norton - Court of Appeals Opinion U.S. COURT OF APPEALS IN COBELL V. NORTON INTERNET SECURITY CASE UPHOLDS DISTRICT COURT'S ROLE IN ENSURING INDIVIDUAL INDIAN TRUST DATA IS SECURE Injunction shutting down U.S. Department of the Interior's Internet connections is vacated on procedural grounds, but unanimous Appeals Court panel rejects every other government argument WASHINGTON, DC (December 3, 2004) - A unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals in Washington has ruled decisively that U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth did not exceed his authority in issuing injunctions for securing the computer data in the historic Cobell v. Norton Individual Indian Trust case. The Appeals Court went further, explicitly affirming the district court's discretion to fashion broad remedies in resolving the largest lawsuit ever filed against the United States government. The government's appeal of the district court injunctions was one of two appeals argued in September before the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The other is a substantive review of the September 2003 trial victory by the Plaintiffs in what is called "Trial 1.5" of the eight-year old Indian Trust saga. For procedural reasons, the Appeals Court lifted a preliminary injunction issued by the district court on March 15, 2004, stating that Judge Lamberth should have held an evidentiary hearing and taken other steps prior to entering the preliminary injunction. Beyond these narrow procedural issues, the Court of Appeals rejected all of the government's jurisdictional and substantive legal arguments. The Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) had challenged the injunction, as well as prior orders of the district court relating to IT security, as lacking any legal foundation or factual precedent. The Court said: "We hold, contrary to the Secretary's contention, that issuance of the March 15, 2004 injunction is not precluded [by public law]. We further hold that the district court's jurisdiction properly extends to security of Interior's information technology systems ("IT") housing or accessing [the Individual Indian Trust data (IITD)], because the Secretary, as a fiduciary, is to maintain and preserve IITD." The Court went on to say: "It is indisputable that the Secretary has current and prospective trust management duties that necessitate maintaining secure IT systems in order to render accurate accountings now and in the future." "It is only by mischaracterizing the March 15, 2004 injunction," the Court continued, "that the Secretary can now contend that the district court dictated Interior's actions for improving IT system security, and therefore violated the separation of powers." The Court of Appeals also held that the district court retains substantial authority "to fashion an equitable remedy because the underlying lawsuit is both an Indian case and a trust case in which the trustees have egregiously breached their fiduciary duties." "This is a huge step for justice," said Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet banker who is the lead plaintiff in the case. "It is the beginning of the end of more than 100 years of destroying and mishandling data relating to what is owed to American Indians for the use of their land." "The implications of this decision go far beyond IT security," said Keith Harper, attorney for more than 500,000 plaintiffs in the Individual Indian Trust case. "The Court of Appeals has wholly affirmed the right of the District Court to exercise its discretion-not just in securing the IT data, but also in all other aspects of the case." The Plaintiffs were also victorious in the first Cobell trial in 1999. That judgment was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2001. About Cobell v. Norton Cobell v. Norton was originally filed in 1996 by lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, who had tried for years to get an accurate accounting of funds held in trust by the U.S. government for individual Indian-owned land that had been leased by the federal government for mining, grazing, oil and gas exploration and other uses. In two separate trials, a federal judge found that the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Treasury engaged in "fiscal and governmental irresponsibility in its purest form" in maintaining and accounting for the trust assets belonging to 500,000 individual Indians. --- To view the latest information concerning this case, go to www.indiantrust.com --------- "RE: Special Report: Fraud in New Mexico" --------- Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 13:50:41 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FRUAD - BUSH ADMINISTRATION KNEW ABOUT" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.smartmoney.com/onthestreet/index.cfm?story=20041203 Special Report Fraud in New Mexico By Scott Patterson December 3, 2004 An investigation by SmartMoney.com has found that officials in the Bush administration had detailed knowledge of fraudulent practices that allowed energy companies to cheat impoverished Native American Indians out of vast sums over dozens of years. These officials were aware that employees of the federal government were helping oil and gas companies underpay to operate on Indian lands in the state of New Mexico - and did nothing to stop it. This is the first in a two-part series. ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON In August, Air Force One ascended above the town of Farmington, N.M. Enthusiastic supporters of the president fanned out of Rickets Park in the center of town waving Bush-Cheney placards. The police cars and motorcycles blocking the streets from traffic during George W. Bush's brief visit switched off their lights and drove away. Normalcy returned to Farmington. For Ervin Chavez, president of the Shii Shi Keyah Allottee Association (shii shi keyah is Navajo for "this is my land"), normalcy means another day fighting against the federal government and big industry for Native American rights. In his darker moods, he despairs that it's a fight he'll never win. "You think it would get better someday, and it only gets worse," Chavez says from behind his gold square-framed glasses in a near-empty Farmington restaurant a few hours after the president's plane had taken off. Just beyond this small city in the northwest corner of New Mexico, normalcy means bitter poverty for the tens of thousands of Native Americans who live in a barren desert region known as the Checkerboard. Many of these Navajos - referred to as "allottees" because they reside on individual Indian allotments separate from the large Navajo Nation to the west - live in abject poverty, can't read or speak English and have no convenient access to telephones, schools or health-care facilities. In the face of such stark facts are recent allegations that oil and gas companies have cheated these people out of enormous sums over the years, while the federal government has stood idly by. The Department of the Interior is the subject of a $100 billion class-action suit brought by the allegedly injured parties. Cobell v. Norton, originally filed in 1996 when Bruce Babbitt was Interior Secretary (current secretary Gail Norton is the defendant now), is the largest class-action lawsuit in U.S. history in dollar terms. Chavez, a Navajo from the Checkerboard, doesn't seem surprised by the charges. A member of a class-action suit that led to several reforms concerning energy companies' use of Indian land in the 1990s, Chavez has battled industry and government for most of his life. "You can prove the federal government is wrong," he says. "But the federal government will spend whatever it wants to and lie however it wants to, and it will go to whatever extent it can to prove that it's in the right." Chavez cites the case of Kevin Gambrell, former director of the Farmington Indian Minerals Office (FIMO), an Indian-outreach office overseen by the Interior Department. Last year, Gambrell was fired from his position, ostensibly for destroying documents (the charge has never been proven). Gambrell sued the government under the Whistleblowers Protection Act and won an undisclosed settlement. Gambrell is not allowed to speak with the media under the terms of that settlement. "They totally set him up," says Chavez. "We trusted Kevin. People went to him and asked what was wrong with their [Individual Indian] accounts, and he would find out...Kevin was victimized for being too nosy." Patrick Etchart, spokesman for the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the branch of the Interior Department that oversaw FIMO, says he can't discuss Gambrell's case because of the settlement agreement. The government has never explained why it settled Gambrell's case, but critics such as Chavez and the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., say Gambrell was fired because he discovered fraudulent government auditing of oil and gas royalty payments made by companies operating on Indian land, and systematic underpayments of other fees. An affidavit filed Thursday with a federal court shows that Gambrell wasn't alone in discovering such practices in New Mexico. "I no longer can remain silent" SmartMoney.com has investigated charges that the federal government has helped oil and gas companies deceive and cheat impoverished Navajo Indians in New Mexico for dozens of years. When evidence of these activities came to light in 2003, the Bush administration attacked the messengers, including Gambrell, and took extraordinary measures to protect the individuals implicated in the scheme. In August 2003, Alan Balaran, the special master overseeing the Cobell v. Norton suit, filed a report with the U.S. district court alleging that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was approving lowball deals for pipeline companies using Indian property on the San Juan Basin of New Mexico. These deals were at times 90% less than what private and tribal landowners were receiving for comparable rights-of-way payments, the report charged. Balaran found that Indian allottees on the Checkerboard generally received $25 to $40 per rod for rights-of-way easements crossing their land. (A rod, a metric for measuring pipeline length, is 16.6 feet.) Tribal and private landowners, however, often received compensation at rates ranging from $140 to $575 per rod, according to the report. A rancher with land in Bloomfield, N.M., told SmartMoney.com that he received more than $1,000 a rod for three major pipelines crossing his property (see the pipeline agreement here). SmartMoney.com has learned that senior officials in the Interior Department knew at least a year before special master Balaran submitted his report that oil and gas pipeline companies were getting sweetheart deals on Indian land - and turned a blind eye. According to Thursday's affidavit filed with the court hearing the Cobell lawsuit, the federal employee who unearthed these practices was allegedly ignored by her superiors after she notified them about what she found. Deborah Lewis, an appraiser with the Office of the Special Trustee for Native Americans (OST), discovered these allegedly fraudulent activities during a four-month assignment as acting regional appraiser at the Navajo Regional Office in Gallup, N.M., in 2002. Lewis also found evidence of document destruction by the chief appraiser of that office, Anson Baker. (The OST, organized by Congress in 1994 under the Indian Trust Reform Act to manage Indian trust assets, took over the Office of Appraisal Services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in June 2002.) Lewis notified several of her superiors about her findings, and was ignored, according to her statement, a court document filed under penalty of perjury. Now, after two years of silence, Lewis - a Navajo Indian from Torreon, N.M., a small town in the Checkerboard - has decided to tell the court what she found. "I no longer can remain silent as others do at the Interior Department and the Justice Department about the misconduct of Baker," Lewis states in her affidavit. A spokesman for the Interior Department wasn't immediately available for comment. "Preposterous Charges of Government Conspiracy" The Cobell v. Norton lawsuit, in which non-reservation Native American plaintiffs are suing the federal government for more than $100 billion in lost, stolen and uncollected trust funds, is the largest class-action case in U.S. history in dollar terms. Elouise Pepion Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet tribe in Montana, is the lead plaintiff in the suit. Much of the trust funds' shortfall is related to royalties and fees paid by energy companies operating on Native American land such as the Checkerboard in New Mexico. The Checkerboard, so-called because it was divided into separate blocks of individual Indian property by the General Allotment Act of 1887, sits atop the San Juan Basin, the largest supplier of natural gas to the state of California. Native Americans received $71.5 million in mineral royalties in New Mexico in 2003, according to the MMS, which tracks mineral-extraction companies operating offshore and on state, federal and Indian land. That amount doesn't include fees paid for rights- of-way, the overall figure for which isn't disclosed by the government. Oil and gas companies such as Apache (APA), Burlington Resources (BR), BP (BP), El Paso Natural Gas, a unit of El Paso (EP), ChevronTexaco (CVX) and Transwestern Pipeline Co., a former subsidiary of Enron, have major industrial operations in the San Juan Basin. El Paso is the biggest transmission pipeline company in the U.S.; its El Paso Natural Gas and Mojave Pipeline, which extends from the San Juan, Permian and Anadarko Basins to several markets in the West, is 10,600 miles long. Burlington is the region's top supplier of natural gas, with 7,300 operating wells and 4, 300 nonoperating wells, according to its 2003 annual report. Burlington ships most of its natural gas through contracts with pipeline companies such as Transwestern. (SmartMoney.com spoke with a number of energy companies that do business on the San Juan Basin. None of them admitted to improper actions on Indian land.) The Farmington, N.M., field office of the Bureau of Land Management, which controls permit applications for the San Juan Basin, has approved more rights-of-way historically than any other field office in the U.S., according to a spokesman for the agency. Considering these facts, allegations that energy companies are underpaying to use Indian land is no trivial matter. Millions of dollars in future fees, as well as back interest on unpaid fees, are at stake. Perhaps that's why, say critics of the administration, its response to the special master's August 2003 report was so strong. After the report was filed, Interior Department spokesman Dan Dubray told the trade journal Gas Daily that "we believe the report is faulty and biased. The special master has no authority or expertise on appraisal issues." Soon after learning of Balaran's investigation into the dealings of energy companies on Indian land, lawyers with the Department of Justice's civil division filed a motion to disqualify him. (The DOJ declined to comment as to whether there was a connection between the special master's report and its motion to have him removed.) Balaran resigned a day before the district court of appeals was scheduled to hear the government's case against him. His presence had become a distraction to resolving the case, he said in his April 5, 2004, resignation letter filed with the court, since the government seemed determined to remove him at all costs. (Interior spokesman Dubray, in a recent interview with SmartMoney.com, falsely asserted that a federal court of appeals had removed Balaran as special master. When challenged, Dubray acknowledged that the court of appeals in fact had yet to decide the motion. Since then, the motion - in which the government was trying to have the special master removed from a position he'd already vacated in order to discredit his reports - has been dropped.) In his resignation letter, Balaran said his discovery that the government was covering up activities by energy companies was the true reason the administration wanted him removed. "Interior's disqualification attempts stemmed from events that took place several months earlier, beginning with my March 6, 2003, visit to the Office of Appraisal Services of the Navajo Regional Office in Gallup, New Mexico," Balaran wrote, citing the same office that OST appraiser Lewis had worked at during her four-month assignment in 2002. "I began to uncover evidence that Interior was putting the interests of private energy companies ahead of the interests of individual Indian beneficiaries," he continued. The government could not afford to allow his findings to be disclosed, Balaran wrote, since they "could cost the very companies with which senior Interior officials maintain close ties, millions of dollars." The Interior Department said in a statement that Balaran's allegations were "preposterous charges of government conspiracy...based entirely on innuendo, supposition and baseless speculation." Balaran concluded the letter by calling for an investigation into his findings. To date, there has been no investigation, although the report still stands before the court. The plaintiffs' attorneys plan to ask the court to initiate an investigation. The Lewis affidavit, they believe, could persuade the court to act. Dennis Gingold, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, says the affidavit "confirms Balaran's report is accurate." An Ethical Quagmire Top officials at the Interior Department, which helps to regulate the nation's natural resources, parks and Native American population, have longstanding ties to the industries it oversees. Gail Norton, sworn in as Secretary of the Interior in January 2001, previously worked as a lawyer for Mountain States Legal Foundation, a lobbying group funded primarily by the energy industry and land developers. As a private attorney in Colorado, she frequently represented energy and timber companies in environmental litigation. Norton was also a former lobbyist for NL Industries (NL), a Dallas-based chemical company. The Denver law firm Norton worked for before becoming secretary, Brownstein Hyatt & Farber, represented, among others, the Shaw Group (SGR), a Baton Rouge, La., maker of pipeline parts for oil companies and power plants. Assistant Secretary of the Interior J. Stephen Griles is a veteran lobbyist for the energy industry, and continues to receive $284,000 a year from a lobbying firm he worked for before he joined the Bush administration. His tenure has been marred by allegations of illicit meetings with former energy and mining clients, and has been called an "ethical quagmire" by Interior's inspector general. Rebecca Watson, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management, served on the national litigation board of Mountain States Legal Foundation from 1999 to 2002. The foundation has a record of fighting Indian religious rights and affirmative-action laws. Vice President Dick Cheney was formerly the chief executive of Halliburton (HAL), which has extensive operations on the San Juan Basin through its Halliburton Energy Services Group subsidiary. Cheney has received at least $398,548 in deferred compensation from Halliburton since taking office in January 2001. During the 2000-04 election cycle, oil and gas companies contributed $62. 5 million to the Republican party and $15.8 million to the Democratic party through the third quarter of 2004, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. "This administration appears to be into information control in presenting a united front and speaking with one voice." Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a Washington, D.C., nonpartisan organization that represents whistle-blowers in the federal government, says the administration's pro-energy agenda has resulted in extraordinary pressure being placed on federal employees to toe the party line. "More so than previous administrations, this current administration appears to be into information control in presenting a united front and speaking with one voice," says Ruch. The result has been a spike of filings under the Whistleblowers Protection Act, says Ruch, since employees such as FIMO's Gambrell are often marginalized or retaliated against when they disagree with the administration's pro-energy policies. A recent report by PEER found that the number of whistle-blower cases in the federal government has nearly doubled since 2001. Many of those cases have come out of the Interior Department. The chain of events described in Lewis's affidavit fits in squarely with the theme of an oppressive environment inside the Interior Department. Despite the fact that she repeatedly told her superiors about widespread document destruction, as well as the undervaluation of Indian land, she was systematically ignored, according to her statement. Even after the special master report of August 2003 went public, sending ripples through the Interior Department and garnering attention in the national press, not one of her superiors questioned her about her findings at the Navajo Regional Office. "To this date - after repeated requests that I made for assistance...I have never been asked a single question or received a single response to my repeated expressions of concern" about Baker's conduct and evidence of widespread abuse of Indian land, Lewis states. Lewis's experience also squares with the results of a recent survey of Interior Department employees by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which investigates and evaluates the operations of the federal government. The OIG described the results of the survey, which was released in July, as "unsettling and profound." One employee reported that "if you tell management what they don't want to hear, you're punished." Another described the Interior Department as having a "culture of fear." Given these facts, Balaran's report, the government's response to it and the organized efforts to defend Baker, critics allege that the administration is actively protecting the financial interests of a key constituency - the energy industry. "I don't think it's any surprise that some of the policy players that have high influence in this administration are the energy companies, and [Balaran's report] implicated them," says Keith Harper, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), which represents Cobell. Balaran's report is a threat to the government and to the energy industry, says Harper, because it contains "specific evidence that these companies are ripping off Indians." "The administration knows that if they got [Chief Appraiser] Baker up in front of a court and started questioning him, they would find that this isn't just Anson Baker, this is systematic," says one source who wishes to remain anonymous. (The plaintiffs' attorneys deposed Baker on March 21, 2004. A second deposition is scheduled, according to sources familiar with the matter. Lewis clearly states in her affidavit that she believes Baker committed perjury in his deposition.) "You start peeling this back, this is like an onion," says the plaintiffs' attorney Gingold. "You peel each level back, you expose the fraud and corruption." Critics of the government acknowledge that the mishandling of Indian trust funds has run rampant under Democratic and Republican administrations alike. The first defendant in the Cobell litigation was Bill Clinton's Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, who was held in civil contempt by the court for failing to produce court-ordered records. These critics also say efforts to remedy the situation have been actively stymied by the Bush administration. Accusations of a unified effort by the Bush administration to obstruct, delay and refute the outcome of the trial come not only from opponents of the government in the Cobell case, but also from the very judge hearing that case, Royce Lamberth. "Has Secretary Norton decided to declare war on the Indians in this litigation?" Judge Lamberth asked Sandra Spooner, the Department of Justice attorney representing the administration, in a September emergency hearing concerning the government's move to withhold checks from trust beneficiaries. "It comes across as absolute, direct retaliation." Norton, who has called the Indian Trust case the most vexing of her tenure, has denied charges that she is obstructing the case. Last year, however, Congress, under pressure from the Bush administration, voted to delay for a least one year an order by Judge Lamberth that the government conduct a full accounting of the trust records. Critics say Norton lobbied for that delay, an accusation her department has denied. That year is almost up, however, and still no resolution has occurred. The plaintiffs' attorneys say they hope revelations of a cover up of illegal activities by officials in the Interior Department contained in Lewis's affidavit might help speed the process along. ---- - In our next installment, we will detail what Lewis found at the Navajo Regional Office and show the specific ways in which the federal government tried to cover it up. Copyright c. 2004 SmartMoney. All Rights Reserved. SmartMoney is a joint publishing venture of Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and Hearst Communications, Inc. --------- "RE: Mayan Woman reunited with Children taken from her" --------- Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 08:52:03 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CHILDREN RETURNED AFTER 3 YEARS" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.journalstar.com//doc41ae9920d3d7c450624247.txt Mom from Guatemala gets her kids back By KEVIN O'HANLON / The Associated Press December 2, 2004 A woman, a Mayan Native from Guatemala, has been reunited with her children three years after state officials took them away and she was deported. Mercedes Santiago-Felipe's children were returned to her last month, ending a struggle that reached the Nebraska Supreme Court. "It's worked out to a happy ending," said one of her lawyers, Milo Mumgaard of the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest. Santiago-Felipe sought asylum in the United States more than 10 years ago during Guatemala's civil war. Her father was among an estimated 200,000 people killed in the war, which ended in 1996. She eventually settled in central Nebraska with her son, now 10 years old, and daughter, now 6. The children were born in the United States to Santiago-Felipe. Their father, also from Guatemala, later abandoned the family. Santiago-Felipe eked out a living at a meatpacking plant and doing housework around Grand Island. That all started to unravel in November 2000, when her son went to school with a red mark on his face. School officials and police counseled Santiago-Felipe, who speaks some Spanish but is fluent only in her Mayan dialect and cannot read, on proper ways to discipline her children and warned that she could be arrested if she hit her children. She said the police officer, however, spoke only limited Spanish, and she did not completely understand what he was saying. Four months later, a counselor noticed another red mark on the boy's face, punishment for not getting ready for school, the boy said. Police arrested Santiago-Felipe and charged her with misdemeanor child abuse, and the children were placed in foster care. Santiago-Felipe was kept in jail and deported two months later because immigration officials had a "hold" on her for missing an asylum application hearing years earlier in Florida. Hall County Court Judge Philip Martin Jr. authorized the permanent placement of her children in foster care and terminated her parental rights in September 2002. Santiago-Felipe had a court-appointed lawyer for only one week. The lawyer removed himself from the case before she was deported. She said she was not told that she could contest her removal and remain in the United States to seek reunification with her children. The state did not inform Santiago-Felipe of its intent to terminate her parental rights - other than running a small notice in a newspaper, Mumgaard said. In a January ruling by the high court, Chief Justice John Hendry said the state had denied her due process when the children were taken. "Mercedes was incarcerated in the Hall County jail next door to the courthouse where the proceeding was conducted," Hendry wrote. "She was neither represented by counsel at the adjudication hearing nor had she waived this right." She later returned to Nebraska to try to get custody of her children. The family now lives in the Grand Island area. "The Supreme Court told everybody what to do, and everybody did it," Mumgaard said. "The people that we'd actually fought with ... became very cooperative." Copyright c. 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Copyright c. 2004 Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Film focuses on SF Peaks debate" --------- Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:31:58 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SNOWBOWL WASTEWATER" http://www.thenavajotimes.com/_content/bednbreakfast.php Film focuses on SF peaks debate By Noel Lyn Smith Special to the Times November 30, 2004 FLAGSTAFF - With Sunday's snowy weather outside, people gathered inside Northern Arizona University's Cline Library to watch a film about the Arizona Snowbowl and a controversial proposal to put treated wastewater on sacred land. The library was filled to near capacity for the premiere of "The Snowbowl Effect," a documentary on the issue of using wastewater to produce artificial snow for the Arizona Snowbowl, a 777-acre ski area located on land administered by the U.S. Forest Service on the San Francisco Peaks seven miles north of here. Owners of the Snowbowl, strained by years of below-normal snowfall and scarce water availability for artificial snow, want to use treated sewage effluent in their snowmaking machines. The idea was met with outrage by Native American groups, who say such an act would desecrate a place where gods live. The peaks are sacred to 13 surrounding tribes. Klee Benally, director of the film, said documentary was a two-year project aimed at promoting dialogue among citizens in and around Flagstaff. The city would furnish the wastewater. Benally, a member of the Indigenous Action Media, has been involved with the issue since 1996. The film begins with an image of the San Francisco Peaks and Native American dancers in the background. Employees from the U.S. Forest Service, the Arizona Snowbowl, the city of Flagstaff, tribal governments and local activists are interviewed concerning their viewpoints on using wastewater. Benally also interviewed a number of Native Americans from Yavapai to Navajo about their beliefs about nature. One image shows a young Native American girl carrying a sign that says, "Kachinas Make Snow" - this alone captures the position of Native Americans. Benally captures the distance between parties to the dialogue, both philosophically and technologically, with one scene in particular. In it, his father Jones Benally describes how he received the Forest Service environmental impact statement on a CD-ROM. Jones, also a traditional Navajo medicine practitioner, said he initially thought he had been sent a mirror. The environmental impact statement must conclude that the use of wastewater to make snow would not harm the peaks in order for the proposal to be approved by the Forest Service. The Forest Service is expected to release its decision in early 2005. Klee Benally said he wants his film to show the history and present day treatment of Native American religious beliefs. "We don't push our values on other people," he said. He wants the movie to show what is and is not appropriate for the peaks. And, he questions, is the appropriate behavior being valued? After the screening, Benally said that this was not the final version, explaining that his computer crashed three times during editing before he settled on showing a rough, unedited version. He said a final version of the film would be shown at Flagstaff and the Navajo Nation Museum in the near future. The documentary was paid for by Benally and his family, with equipment donated by Julia Butterfly Hill's Circle of Life, an organization devoted to honoring the diversity and interdependence of all life. Personally, Benally said he thinks it is important to protect sacred sites for future generations. "This is really important, it's not a game .. . it's important to our people," he said. Sunday's event also featured live music by Berta Benally, David Milgram, hip-hop artist Yaiva, and DJ Young Native. All were armed with music focused on the environment, the recent election and culture. Information: www.savethepeaks.org. Copyright c. 2004 Navajo Times Publishing Co. Inc. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: 'Tis the Season for Hangings" --------- Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 15:09:16 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SUICIDES" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.gallupindependent.com/120404hangings.html 'Tis the season for hangings Navajo police respond to large number of suicides By Kathy Helms Dine' Bureau FORT DEFIANCE - A Sanders man who allegedly planned to hang two of his seven children was found last Friday morning suspended from a tree located a few feet from the family hogan. Navajo Nation Law Enforcement officers and criminal investigators responded last week to three hanging incidents within a three-day period. According to Lt. Darrell Boye, criminal investigator with Window Rock Police District, the holiday season appears to trigger a lot of suicides. Police received a call on the first incident around 7:16 a.m. According to the caller, a man was found hanging from a tree about 4 miles north of Burntwater Road in Sanders. Apache County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Shane Bodie and Deputy Shawn Bodie were first on the scene along with Puerco Valley Fire Department personnel. An Emergency Medical Technician with the fire department confirmed the male subject, identified as Johnnie Juan Lewis, 37, was deceased. Navajo Patrol Officer Felicia Williams arrived and spoke with Lewis' common-law wife, Marcia Nez. Nez told the officer that her husband came home drunk on Thursday and told her he wanted to go see his family in Wide Ruins. She said she told him to go ahead, but that she couldn't go because she thought his family disliked her. Nez said they argued over Lewis' drinking and that he became upset and left in the truck, then later followed her to her mother's house and picked up their two youngest boys, ages 3 and 4. Nez said she told him, "Go by yourself to your mom1s house. You're drinking. I don't want my kids to go with you while you're drunk." Lewis, however, reportedly took off in the truck with the two boys. Nez, her older son, and her sister drove after them. When they arrived at the family hogan around dusk, Nez said the 4-year-old was standing in the yard near the tree, holding a rope, and the youngest son was lying on the ground. Nez said they parked a distance from the hogan and called the two youngsters over. The two boys got into the back of the vehicle, but as the vehicle was pulling away, Lewis jumped into the back. Nez said they had to stop and tell him to get out and go sleep it off. Nez said Lewis had beer inside his jacket and pants pockets. The next morning, Nez's mother told a 16-year-old nephew to walk up to the residence and check on Lewis, but not to go all the way to the house. The nephew walked as far as the gate of the residence, where he saw Lewis hanging from the tree. Nez told officers that when they had arrived at her mother's residence Thursday evening after getting the two boys back, that she asked them what their father was doing when they drove up to get them. Nez said the 4- year-old was afraid to say anything until she told him that his father was not around. The child then told her, "He said he was going to hang us," according to Officer Williams. Nez told police Lewis got out of hand when drunk and had been threatening to hang himself for about three months. "He would tell us how his death would make us feel and what we would be saying about that when it happens," she said. He reportedly had attempted death by hanging at that time. Investigator Boye arrived at the hogan, and following investigation, he and a family member removed the body from the tree. Lewis was transported to Cope Memorial Chapel in Gallup and Police Chaplain Milt Shirleson came to speak with family members. While still on the scene Nez asked officers to check her car for alcohol because Lewis had been driving it earlier in the week. Officers found a black tote bag containing personal items, towels, small notebooks and two unopened cans of beer. Lewis' brother-in-law showed the officers a release bond, indicating that Lewis had been arrested for driving under the influence on Nov. 23 and had made bail the day before Thanksgiving. Before Officer Williams cleared the scene, a family member found a note from Lewis to his wife, which was taken into evidence. Investigator Boye said Lewis' body showed signs of hypothermia, indicating that he had been hanging over night. Deputy Medical Examiner Richard Malone of the Albuquerque Office of Medical Investigations arrived around 1:30 p.m. to assist. Malone ruled Lewis' death as suicide by hanging. Teen found in closet Later Friday, around 9 p.m., Window Rock Police District received another call regarding a hanging incident. Patrol Officer Elroy Neswood and Criminal Investigator Thomas Etsitty responded to a residence on Poplar Avenue in Navajo, N.M. According to Investigator Etsitty, the body of Thompson Wilber Thomas, 17, was found sometime between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. by his father. Thomas was reported to have been despondent and "not himself" for the last two weeks. He was last seen by family members as he entered his bedroom. Later, family members told police, they had gone to Thomas' room to tell him supper was ready, but the bedroom door was locked. After a while, Thomas' father opened the bedroom door but didn't see his son inside the room. A while later, the father rechecked the room, noticed the closet door open, looked in and saw his son. He cut him down, initiated CPR, and called an ambulance. However, emergency workers were unable to revive Thomas. Son found in barn On Sunday, Navajo Nation Patrol Officer Dianne Kenneth and Criminal Investigator Robert James of Crownpoint Police District responded to a third incident at a home in Iyanbito, N.M., where 22-year-old Paul Becenti Jr. was found suspended from a barn rafter. According to Investigator James, Becenti was last seen by his father around 9:45 p.m. Saturday as he left to go visit nearby friends Late Sunday morning, however, as Becenti's father was walking by the barn, he noticed the doors open. Upon taking a closer look, the father found his son suspended by a rope from a 2-by-6 rafter beam. Medical Investigator Malone assisted at the scene and Becenti's body was taken to Rollie Mortuary in Gallup. Copyright c. 2004 the Gallup Independent. --------- "RE: Navajo BIA School condemned" --------- Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 08:31:36 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SANTOSEE SCHOOL CONDEMNED" http://www.daily-times.com/artman/publish/article_15548.shtml Navajo BIA school condemned By Jim Snyder/The Daily Times Dec 3, 2004, 11:38 pm SANOSTEE - Sanostee Day School, a Bureau of Indian Affairs facility built in 1966, was condemned Tuesday due to major structural damage caused by a cracked foundation, Principal Jeanne Haskie said in a letter sent home to parents. The problem outraged Sanostee Day School board member Leana Nakai, who said the board's pleas to Congress for a new building have gone unanswered. "They don't see us. I don't know why," she said Thursday. "I want to get a new building, a new facility for our kids, for our community. ... We really need help right away. It's an emergency." Cracks throughout the building run from the foundation to the ceiling. Some have cut completely through the building's thick cinder-block walls, including in the school's lobby where light shone through. The tiles in one restroom were held to the wall with masking tape after they began popping off earlier this year. Cinder blocks have also fallen off the outside of the building. A visible two-inch gap running to the roof also exists between two portions of the building. The BIA Facility Management Office in Shiprock notified the school's administration that the building was condemned and would be shut down. That office oversees eight BIA schools throughout the Northern Navajo Agency. "I have been informed by the BIA safety officer that Building 643's foundation has been found unstable and unsafe," Haskie wrote. Seventy-four Navajo children, in kindergarten through the third grade, have been forced to attend classes in portable buildings and eat their federally-subsidized meals at the Sanostee Chapter gymnasium. They have also lost their library and computer lab. The school is trying to find a place to refrigerate and freeze food. The school's administration and the Shiprock BIA office struggled Thursday to get everything moved out as quickly as possible before the building is permanently sealed. Furniture, file cabinets, boxes, school supplies, toys and loose office equipment were scattered in all of the rooms. The Shiprock BIA office is helping the administration to move into an abandoned house 200 yards from the building. "They need help taking stuff out, that's why we're here," said Steven Garcia, a BIA electrician with the Shiprock BIA office. Garcia and other workers kept busy loading flatbed trucks with office equipment to take to the house. The BIA's Public Affairs Office in Washington was notified by The Daily Times Thursday of the building being condemned. They have not yet issued a statement, nor given permission for Haskie or the Shiprock BIA office to speak to the media. Haskie's letter to the parents was a public document. "Please continue to send your children to school," she added. The BIA provides education services to approximately 48,000 Native American students nationwide. Jim Snyder: jsnyder@daily-times.com Copyright c. 2004 Farmington Daily Times, a Gannett Co., Inc. newspaper. --------- "RE: Editorial: Indian Education" --------- Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 08:31:36 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FIXING INDIAN EDUCATION" http://www.argusleader.com/editorial/Fridayfeature.shtml Indian education Argus Leader Editorial Board editor@argusleader.com December 3, 2004 Dismal performance must be addressed with money, time and effort A new report card is out for Bureau of Indian Affairs schools, and the results are no surprise. Of the 21 BIA-funded schools in South Dakota, only four have made adequate progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Nationally, only 45 of 117 BIA schools made the grade. And two of the South Dakota Schools - Wounded Knee and Porcupine Day School - are among 16 in the nation that have failed so consistently they face restructuring. But here's an even more worrisome aspect. South Dakota BIA schools took the state's Dakota STEP test, which measures progress under the federal law, for the first time only last spring. And those scores are measured by BIA standards - which are lower than state standards. "It's a huge issue. It's just going to take time," said state Education Secretary Rick Melmer. "We have to be patient on how we approach it." The silver lining of all this is that finally, there's serious attention being paid to Native American schools. While Melmer is right - long- standing problems will take time - at least there are efforts in the works: * Tribes and state education officials are working together, really for the first time. There's a recognition that while the state has no authority over tribal or BIA schools, many of those students bounce back and forth between those schools and public schools. * Some BIA schools are determined to raise standards. That's going to be painful, but in the end, it's all that makes sense. The most important aspect of this is the cooperation. More than 7,000 students in South Dakota attend reservation schools. In addition, the number of young people on the reservations is growing. And sooner or later, those kids grow up. They'll need jobs, either on the reservation or off. For that, they'll need to be educated. Melmer knows as well as tribal officials what the problems are, and they're so interrelated, they have to be considered as a group: * Attendance is low. * Poverty is rampant. * Over the past several decades, there's been a cultural backlash against "white" education. * Generally, kids at reservation schools don't enter class as prepared for education as children off the reservation. * There often is a lack of a support system at home. So what's all this going to take? First, we've got to look at the schools that are succeeding. What are they doing right? Second, we've got to attack the problems we know: * That means ending chronic funding problems and finding ways to hire and keep good teachers. * It means new curriculum design that reflects Native American culture. * It means dealing with poverty and other social problems and a culture that traditionally has devalued public education of this sort. Students have to get into the schools at earlier ages, and they have to attend classes every day - not just occasionally. It will take money, time and unrelenting effort. It also will be worth it. Copyright c. 2004 Argus Leader. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Interview: How to fix Indian Education" --------- Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 08:52:03 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INDIAN EDUCATION" http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=5604 How to fix Indian education Expert speaks about communication, reaching students, culturally friendly learning styles TULSA OK December 1,2004 Lillian Williams is the 62-year-old president of the Oklahoma Council for Indian Education, a statewide organization dedicated to improving opportunities for Native American students. The Native American Times spoke with Williams, Pawnee/Chickasaw/Cherokee, during the organization's annual conference in Tulsa. Williams touched on inter-tribal communication, goading Indian students to take pride in academic achievements and culturally friendly teaching methods. NAT: What are some things we can do to improve the chances in the classroom for our Indian youth? Williams: We have the resources in this state to improve but we have to talk with each other. Networking is important. Getting to know the faces, getting to know the people who have the educational expertise, talent and abilities to make things happen. These key individuals work in our community, our government, our tribes and our universities. We are in a key place here in Oklahoma because we not only have a governor who is interested in education, we also have tribes that are interested in supporting monies going into education and we have an Indian education program in our public schools that has been here for thirty years now. There are over 400 Title 7 programs and that gives us a direct line to Washington. NAT: How hard is it to network? There are almost 40 tribes in Oklahoma. Williams: We try to go to those large tribes but we also have some of the smaller tribes who are very supportive in either lending us help from their membership or sending their staff to us to make sure our message reaches everyone NAT: Networking is obviously just one component. What else is there? Williams: Not only do we have a network but we also have the ability to use funds. We have money coming through the schools and this addresses key issues like youth reading programs. It also gives us an opportunity to reach advocates. Everything can be better and there is always room for improvement. We need to bring resources to our schools and have workshops to give people a vision of what Indian education can be. We need people to think outside the box. Our Oklahoma Indian Honor Society is a good way to recognize students. This last year we had over 400 students inducted into it. We also have three scholarships and they encourage young people to go to college. NAT: The kids in the honor society seem to be doing okay. How do we help prevent the at-risk students from falling through the cracks? Williams: We bring together young people to meet with experts in learning styles. They are looking at reading and math skills and they introduce technical learning styles. If we are going to invest our money we want to see something that works. NAT: Could you give an example of a culturally specific teaching method that has proven effective? Williams: I see that when young people work in a group as opposed to being competitive with one another-which is the currently accepted way- they can challenge each other, learn the information together and work as a unit. The Challenge Bowl is a good example. (Editor's Note: see related story.) They may not know the answer but a teammate might. You have to have the attitude that you are not the one who is going to make everything happen but your team will. That is a concept that Indian people have used in the past but we discarded it. We have been told the idea is to be the first one to win the race. NAT: No man is an island. Williams: Exactly. Native American Times is Copyright c. 2004 Oklahoma Indian Times, Inc. --------- "RE: Teachers seek to incorporate NA Concepts in Class" --------- Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 08:31:36 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ASHLAND SCHOOLS" http://www.ashland-wi.com/placed/index.php?sect_rank=1&story_id=188305 Ashland teachers seek to incorporate Native American concepts in classes Committee sets mission statement, goals By KEVIN O'BRIEN The Daily Press December 1, 2004 A committee of Ashland teachers is meeting twice a month this year to talk about ways of incorporating more Native American concepts into a school district where 20 percent of students come from the Bad River Indian Reservation. At a Nov. 17 meeting at CESA 12, the Native American Cultural Curriculum Committee wrote a mission statement and outlined several goals with the help of Betty Ferris, a facilitator for instructional services. Committee members spent most of the day in a "high energy" session discussing the precise wording of the mission statement, said high school science teacher Anni Schneider. By the end of the meeting, the committee had developed the following statement: "To preserve, protect and promote the wealth of knowledge of Indigenous Nations for generations to come by continuously infusing Anishinabe contributions and accomplishments throughout the K-12 curriculum." The committee's goals include surveying teachers about what is currently being taught, establishing a Communications Link Network between school employees and community members, researching enrichment resources, and mapping a curriculum that spans from kindergarten to 12th grade. "The end goal is to get community members together to get all subjects meaningful to students," Schneider said. "There seems to be a lot of good support for this," she said. "Everyone I talk to is very positive about it." Mary Cotherman, a math teacher at Ashland High School, said the committee determined that changes in the curriculum must come through a "collaborative effort" with the school board and community members. Currently, the committee is comprised of 18 members, including teachers and staff from each of the six schools in the district. Eventually, Schneider said they would like to establish a separate group of about 30 representatives from each department and grade level. First, Schneider said the committee would like to informally survey teachers about what the district already offers in terms of Native American concepts. For instance, Cotherman said the high school's Core Plus Math curriculum, which was started a few years ago, provides "meaningful" math skills to all students, regardless of whether or not they are college bound. "It's one of the most inclusive curriculums I've seen," Cotherman said. "I would say inclusive meaning all cultures." The district's commitment to retain home school coordinators and its agreement with Office of Civil Rights to provide cultural training are other examples, she said. Another step in the process is getting conceptual ideas from the Bad River community and figuring out where they would fit into a "curriculum map" that guides students from kindergarten to graduation. In January, Schneider said the committee plans to meet with Bad River Elder Bob Powless to learn about the "enduring ideas" of his culture that should be included in the district's curriculum. The district also recently purchased Native American resource books for the school libraries, including "The Good Path" by University of Minnesota-Duluth professor Thomas Peacock, who spoke at the Ashland Middle School last year. In her research, Schneider said she has found very little Native American curriculum resources on the Internet, aside from some science standards from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. "There isn't a lot out there right now," she said. That's why Bad River tribal employee Luis Salas is planning to set up a Web site that would connect Ashland with other school districts involved in similar curriculum efforts. Salas said he will be asking other school systems across the country to contribute examples of Native American curriculum, and then credit those schools if the examples are used in Ashland. The curriculum committee and the Web site are the latest developments in an effort Salas helped start a few years ago to include more native concepts and ideas in Ashland's curriculum. It wasn't until last school year that the plan got momentum, after an AmeriCorp Vista volunteer working for Salas started coordinating his efforts with a group of Ashland teachers. Volunteer Marchelle Jordan set up and attended regular meetings with a group of teachers who eventually earned official recognition as a committee from the local teacher's union. "It would have been very, very difficult to have done it without her," Salas said. Jordan's term at Bad River ended recently, but Salas hopes she will help orient her replacement, Karen Hollish, who started volunteering at the reservation this week. Having attended the curriculum committee's meetings himself, Salas said he is impressed with the level of participation from teachers and administrative in changing the curriculum over time. "I think we have a long ways to go, but it's a start," he said. "It speaks volumes about the cooperation of the administration and the caliber of the teaching staff." Copyright c. 2004 The Daily Press, Ashland, WI. --------- "RE: Trial aims to clear Name of Chief Leschi" --------- Date: Saturday, December 04, 2004 4:27 PM From: "Thomas R. Speer" Subj: "Hero or murderer? Trial aims to clear name of Chief Leschi" SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER Hero or murderer? Trial aims to clear name of Chief Leschi By REBECCA COOK ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER December 4, 2004 YELM, Wash. - Chief Leschi fought to preserve his tribe's way of life and died a hero to his people. But in the official records of Washington state, Leschi is a convicted murderer, hanged for the death of a militia soldier in the 1855 Indian War. Everyone from Leschi's executioner to respected historians have questioned his guilt. Next week, the Chief Justice of Washington state's Supreme Court will convene a historical trial to seek justice, at long last, for Chief Leschi. "It's a search for the truth," Chief Justice Gerry Alexander said. The search began generations ago, among Nisqually Indians who kept Leschi's legacy alive through stories they told their children and grandchildren. Cynthia Iyall, a descendant of Leschi's sister, remembers visiting her grandfather's home on a bluff where Leschi (pronounced LESH-eye) and his brother Quiemuth (KWAY-muth) used to camp. "It was just fantastic. He would tell us how they used to burn the prairies for grazing, and about their horses," Iyall said. "They had a view for miles. I could imagine way back when, Leschi and Quiemuth sitting up there watching the militia men." Iyall grew up knowing Leschi's life by heart. She didn't dwell much on his death until she had a child and started thinking about the stories she would pass down to him. "It really makes a big difference to know who your ancestors are and where they came from, and pass that on to your kids," Iyall said. "To know our historical icon, the person who is why we are here today, is considered a murderer - the people of Washington state need to know the true history." Legend says a bright star rose over the Nisqually plains the night Leschi was born in 1808. Wealthy in horses, Leschi was also known for his wisdom and eloquence. The Nisqually Indians did not have formal chiefs, though. That distinction was conferred upon Leschi by Isaac Stevens, Washington's first territorial governor, who needed someone to sign treaties for the tribe. The Medicine Creek Treaty of 1854 defined reservations for the Nisqually and several other Puget Sound tribes. An X appears next to Leschi's name, though some historians say he refused to sign. The treaty consigned the Nisqually - whose original name, Squally-absch, meant "people of the river and people of the grass country" - to a high forest, cut off from their homes on the prairie and the river. War between the Indians and the territorial militia broke out in 1855, and in 1856 Leschi was captured on Gov. Stevens' orders. The government charged Leschi with the murder of Col. A. Benton Moses, a militia soldier killed in battle. The trial ended with a hung jury. At the second trial, the court refused to instruct the jury that killing an enemy solider in war is not considered murder. Leschi was convicted and sentenced to death. On appeal, the territorial Supreme Court declined to consider new evidence showing Leschi was miles away when Moses was killed. The U.S. Army refused to execute Leschi, as military leaders believed the rules of war should have prevented him from being charged with murder. Then as now, debate raged about the distinction between prisoners of war, "enemy combatants" and terrorists. Pierce County authorities oversaw Leschi's execution on Feb. 19, 1858. Indian drums sounded in the distance as Leschi stood on the gallows. His hangman, Charles Grainger, later said, "I felt then I was hanging an innocent man, and I believe it yet." Leschi did win one battle in the end: After his death, the government moved the Nisqually reservation to a more suitable spot on the river, about 50 miles south of Seattle, where his descendants still live. When Iyall was hired as the Nisqually tribe's economic development planner, she also became chairwoman of the Committee to Exonerate Chief Leschi. Building on decades of research by tribal historians, she lobbied to set the record straight. Iyall teamed up with Melissa Parr, a curator for the Washington State Historical Society. The Leschi story had captured Parr's imagination several years ago, but she wasn't sure how to change history. "He was standing up against something that was wrong. That's in the hearts of all of us," Parr said. "That's what heroes are made of, and it doesn't matter your color." Parr and Iyall found a powerful friend in Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg. The more Ladenburg read about Leschi's execution in his home county, the more he felt compelled to do something. "It became clear to me this was a miscarriage of justice. He got lynched, with court approval," Ladenburg said. He rejected the idea of a pardon, saying pardons are for guilty people. "We want to establish the historical record and make sure people understand what really happened," Ladenburg explained. The state Legislature passed a resolution last spring urging the Supreme Court to vacate Leschi's conviction. Chief Justice Alexander said he didn't think the current Supreme Court has the power to overturn a decision made by the territorial Supreme Court - which was technically a federal court. Plus, he doubted anyone would have legal standing to petition the court on behalf of a man who's been dead nearly 150 years. Instead, Alexander proposed a "Historical Court of Justice," judged by himself and a racially diverse panel of six other Washington jurists. Next Friday they will meet at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma to consider evidence from trial records and hear testimony from historians. Ladenburg and Nisqually attorneys will represent Leschi, while two Pierce County prosecutors will argue the government's case. "It's going to be hard to do - there's not a lot of direct evidence," Alexander said. The ruling will be symbolic, but Alexander and Leschi's supporters believe it will speak strongly enough to set the record straight for good. Alexander promised the court has no predetermined verdict. "This has got to be a straight up-deal," Alexander said. "I'm going in with a totally open mind." Many Washington residents already know Leschi's name - several schools, some monuments and even a posh Seattle neighborhood are named after him. Soon, Iyall hopes, everyone will know the truth about the hero of her grandfather's stories. Copyright c. 2004 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 1997-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencier. --------- "RE: Mohawk Councils approve Land-Claim Settlement" --------- Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 08:31:36 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MOHAWK LAND CLAIM" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.newsday.com/~coll=ny-ap-regional-wire Mohawk tribal councils approve land-claim settlement November 28, 2004 ST. REGIS MOHAWK RESERVATION, N.Y. - Two of the three councils representing the Mohawk Indians voted this weekend to approve a land-claim settlement with New York state. The settlement proposal, announced in early October, could resolve the Mohawks' 22-year-old land-claims issues with the state. St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council community members voted 748-387 to approve the pact Saturday. The measure passed 300-200 among members of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, representing the Canadian side of the tribe's regional territory. Still to hold a referendum is the Mohawk Council of Chiefs. The Mohawk's reservation in northern New York would double in size, and the tribe would get $100 million and cheap electricity under the proposed land-claims settlement, tribal leaders said. In return, the tribe would be obliged to drop all land-claim lawsuits pending in various state and federal courts. The deal would need approval by U.S. Congress and the state Legislature. Information from: Press-Republican, http://www.pressrepublican.com Copyright c. 2004, The Associated Press . Copyright c. 2004 Newsday, Inc. --------- "RE: MCK Position demands part of Akwesasne Land Claim" --------- Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 08:31:36 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LAND CLAIM" http://www.easterndoor.com/vol13/44.html MCK Position Demands Part of Akwesasne Land Claim Settlement By: Kenneth Deer Eastern Door Volume 13 No. 44 November 26, 2004 The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake will be meeting with the representatives of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne today to discuss the MCK's letter to the three Akwesasne parties in the land claim process. The MCK has sent a letter basically stating that Kahnawake has a direct stake in the land claim as part of the SEven Indian Nations of Canada and demanding, therefore, that Kahnawake should benefit from any settlement. In a 14-page position paper, which appears quite thorough in its research, the MCK states that it has a 50 percent share of any land claim litigation award or settlement. This is based on the annuities that Kahnawake used to receive as a signatory to the 1796 Treaty of Seven Nations of Canada and the State of New York. That annuity was equal to 'those of the combined St. Regis groups.' Kahnawake was represented by two deputies at the time of the signing. The names are not mentioned in the position papers. Kanehsatake was not eligible for a share, according to a judgment by the New York Commissioners of the land Office in 1841. In order not to interfere with the litigation that is presently under way, the MCK recommends that the Mohawks of Akwesasne and Kahnawake come to a mutual understanding, cooperation and support by continuing the 'age- old tradition of Mohawk unity.' The conclusion states, "The most rational approach appears to involve an agreement among all the Mohawk groups to have Kahnawake share in any settlements benefits or ultimate litigation award, without Kahnawake actually joining the lawsuit as a party." The meeting today in Akwesasne will not include the St. Regis ribal Council or the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs as they have stated that they will not have time to meet just before the referendum. "All we want to do is let them know that we have an interest in the land claim," said MCK Chief Mike Bush. "It is not an ultimatum. We just want to get their attention and lay down our concerns as to the consequences of their actions. "We are concerned that if the Akwesasne position is settled, New York will say there are no outstanding land claims left. This is a big concern of ours. "Why does it have to be November 27? Why couldn't we be given more time to deal with this issue?" Copyright c. 1997-2004 The Eastern Door, Kahnawake Mohawk Territory. --------- "RE: Jicarilla Apache Nation opens new Health Center" --------- Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:31:58 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JICARILLA HEALTH CENTER" http://www.indianz.com/News/2004/005561.asp Jicarilla Apache Nation opens new health center December 1, 2004 The Indian Health Service and the Jicarilla Apache Nation of New Mexico dedicated a new $10.5 million replacement health care facility on Monday. The facility, located in Dulce, will serve approximately 4,000 Indians in the Jicarilla service area. Health and Human Services Secretary Secretary Tommy G. Thompson attended the dedication ceremony. "This health center will increase access to health care services for Tribal members living in remote areas of northern New Mexico," Thompson said. "This will help better address the healthcare needs and improve the health status of the area's tribal population." The new 65,000-square-food health center replaces the existing 6,500 square-foot facility that consisted of a health center and maintenance building built in 1963, and several temporary buildings. It is named NZH'O N A'CH'IDLE'EE, which means, "A place to get well" in the Apache language. The center will provide space for comprehensive educational, preventive, curative and rehabilitative health service programs, and it will incorporate all available high-tech distance medical services via computer access. It is projected that the new facility will provide over 15,000 primary care provider visits annually and will add approximately 40 new positions to the current staff of 50 employees. The hours of operations will also be expanded from 5 days a week to 7 days a week. The facility is the result of a unique agreement between the tribe and IHS. Under a formal Joint Venture Construction Program (JVCP) Agreement, the tribe designed and built the replacement facility, which is tribally- owned. In return, the IHS provides the initial equipment for the health center and leases the facility from the tribe under a no-cost 20-year lease. During this period, a request for funding for the staffing and operation is made in the same manner as for federally constructed health care facilities. "This facility demonstrates the successful exercise of self- determination by the Jicarilla Apache Nation and their dedication to improving the quality of health care services provided to their members," stated Dr. Charles W. Grim, Director of IHS. "It also reflects the commitment of President George W. Bush, the HHS, and the IHS to the goal of eliminating health disparity rates for American Indians and Alaska Natives." Copyright c. 2000-2004 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: Press release for a Casting Search" --------- Date: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 8:32 PM From: edgar mint [edgarmintcasting@yahoo.com] Subj: Press release for a Casting Search >To: gars@nanews.org Dear Gary, Here is a press release that may be of interest to your readers. It is news pertaining to entertainment but open to all kids that are interested. Thank you. To: Newspapers/Weekly Publications From: Edgar Mint Casting Re: Casting Notice for Immediate Release in an Entertainment or What's Happening column or website Date: November 2004 We're scouting nationwide for two Native American boys to co-star in a major motion picture. The following is a brief press release. ________________________________________________________________________ Release: Chance of a lifetime to star in a major motion picture. Searching for newcomers - a 10-12 year-old boy and a 14-16 year-old boy to play lead roles in a Hollywood feature film to shoot in 2005. For "Edgar", we are seeking a boy who is small for his age, sensitive, intelligent, innocent, but a survivor, with inner strength and a positive attitude. "Edgar" is an orphan who survives an accident, a coma, and a life of being shuffled from place to place as he seeks out the answers to his past. "Cecil" is his 16 year old friend, who doesn't say much, but uses his large size and intensity to protect "Edgar" from the bullies at reform school. Experience is not necessary. Our director, Michael Cuesta, found fifteen-year-old Paul Franklin Dano, cast him in "L.I.E.," and went on to win film festival awards all over the world. Young people working with Mr. Cuesta will experience a creative and nurturing intro to the world of film. Do you have a kid in mind? Parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers and friends forward their snapshots immediately with name, phone, age and height to Edgar Mint Casting, United Artists, 10250 Constellation Blvd. T-9092, Los Angeles CA 90067. Edgarmintcasting@yahoo.com --------- "RE: Giago: Saying 'Indian' without adding 'Dirty'" --------- Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:31:58 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GIAGO: SOUTH DAKOTA RACISM" http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=5583 Tim Giago: South Dakotans cannot say "Indian" without adding "dirty" to it Notes from Indian Country Copyright c. KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) November 29, 2004 There is a joke around Lakota country that speaks of a young man from the Pine Ridge Reservation traveling to Rapid City to do some Christmas shopping. When he returns home he sits quietly at the kitchen table drinking a hot cup of wakalopi (coffee). His mother notices that he is in deep thought and asks, "What is bothering you, my son?" He replies, "I think God is Lakota." His mother says, " He may well be, but what made you think about this?" The son replies, "I walked into a restaurant in Rapid City crowded with wasicu (white people) and they all looked at me and said, "Oh, my God!" The joke puts a face on the very real problems of racial prejudice that are so prevalent in many South Dakota communities. It is hard for many South Dakotans to say the word "Indian" without placing the word "dirty" in front of it. Much of the prejudice can be attributed to common misperceptions. The wasicu see the intoxicated Indians staggering in and around the Prairie Market located next to the bridge and creek where they often congregate. They see these dredges of humanity that cause embarrassment amongst their own people. They are the ones who are most visible. They don't see the Lakota woman who runs the museum or the Indian woman who is vice president of a local bank or the many other Lakota people working hard at their jobs, buying homes and trying to make a better life for their children. They see the orange clad prisoner in handcuffs on the nightly news and the derelicts panhandling on the downtown streets. They read the court dockets in the newspapers with the myriad of Indian names as law breakers because many of the crimes committed on the Indian reservations are tried before all-white juries in communities such as Rapid City because that is where federal crimes are tried. And if they run into an Indian on a dark street at night, they shy away with fear. Indian people find themselves turned away from jobs and housing simply because of their race. In South Dakota Indians have learned to expect this kind of treatment, but they have never accepted it. An educated Lakota woman named Lydia Whirlwind Soldier, a victim of the Indian mission boarding schools, and now an educator at the Todd County Schools on the Rosebud Reservation grew up with the double standards so common in this state. She has even experienced the dual standards amongst her own peers (educators) at the very school where she works. Disgusted by a recent incident of racial prejudice, she wrote the following poem: Caught Caught in the state of stagnation, your normal thoughts trapped in a web and trickster story. I see that hate upon your face, feel the force of hostile glances, open stares like the hawk's talons ready to strike your life full of holes and denial has not found a way through darkness and shadow to see me as a being. You think we are passive, simple Or even magical or mystical But, I don't give a damn I see clearly what is there I sing those sacred songs, the wind shares those familiar native feelings Like the pines in Grass Mountain I am rooted to who I am I laugh and cry, stay open Through this storm Spirit strong, strengthened mind beyond survival. This sardonic poem was written last week. Whirlwind Soldier emailed it to me and I immediately emailed her back and asked if I could use it for this column. It rings so true. It has been 14 years since the Governor George Mickelson (R-SD) took up my editorial challenge and proclaimed 1990 the Year of Reconciliation between Indians and whites. It was the 100th anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee that prompted my editorial. The Lakota people were about to hold a "Wiping away the tears" ceremony at the mass grave at Wounded Knee in which forgiveness and reconciliation would be the prayer. I didn't want this to be a one-sided request for peace and forgiveness and I challenged Gov. Mickelson to include the white people of South Dakota into the equation. After all, if the Lakota people extended their hand in peace and forgiveness, the white people, their traditional enemy, had to reach out and take that hand. The untimely death of Gov. Mickelson assured that reconciliation never happened. There has not been another white South Dakotan with the courage to step forward and renew the efforts of peace and reconciliation started by the Lakota people on December 29, 1990. Since that day in 1990 six Indians have died violently on the banks of Rapid Creek with no suspect arrested and two Indian men have been shot to death by Rapid City police officers. Reconciliation has become a dirty word shunned by the white owned media in the state. Dozens of other acts of violence against Indians have gone practically unnoticed by the mainstream media. Life goes on and columnists like me and poets like Lydia Whirlwind Soldier will continue to write about the prejudices so ingrained in South Dakota, but not as lonely observers, but as voices of the Lakota people who speak to us because we are their messengers. Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, was the instigator of the Year of Reconciliation in 1990. He can be reached at giagobooks@iw.net Native American Times is Copyright c.2004 Oklahoma Indian Times, Inc. --------- "RE: YELLOW BIRD: Wind carries Words of Wisdom" --------- Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 08:48:52 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW BIRD: ELDER WISDOM" http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/editorial/10281304.htm COLUMNIST DORREEN YELLOW BIRD: Wind carries words of wisdom November 27, 2004 I used to watch my grandmother, Little Sioux, and my uncle, Wesley Plenty Chief, sit on the ground and get up before and after ceremonies. I didn't think much about it at the time, but now I wonder at their agility for their age. I never doubted their power, though. They were exceptional people. My grandmother reaches out from her place in the spiritual world and influences my life every day. The older I get, the more I wonder at the power of the Native way. I spent more time with my uncle later in life. He was at home when I returned from the big city. He was one of the first ones I went to for guidance when I came home, and he remained a strong influence on me until he passed away. One of those early years after I returned home, the family tended to my uncle and nephews after a ceremony. They'd spent four days out on the prairie fasting and praying. It was my uncle's third year for this ceremony and ritual. When the family knew he was ready to give up his fast, we used sticks and some canvas to create some shade and took food and water to him. The nephews with him were learning. We walked out from my aunt's house a few miles away to their tall, white teepee and small sweat lodge. It was one of those days when it's overcast but you don't expect rain. The west wind was blowing warm across the grass and made the prairie look like a big lake with rippling water. When my uncle came out, he was given a folding chair and he sat down. I remember how strong he looked even though he had not eaten or tasted water for four days. I could tell he would have something to tell us. He was a good man who believed and supported the white man's church and other tribe's ways, but especially the Sahnish beliefs. A quick memory: One day, I went to the old church on the reservation with my aunt and sister. When we got to the Episcopal church, he and my aunt were sitting in a back pew. They smiled and waved at us as we sat down up front. "I didn't know they belonged to this church," I thought. I didn't belong but had come to the service with my relatives. (I didn't participate in the communion, though.) When it came time for communion, my uncle and his wife got up and went to receive the host. Later, he told me that it was good to respect all religions. Praying is good, he said, no matter where you are. You can see the Creator in any church. Toward the end of his life when he was in the hospital, a Catholic priest came to his bed and asked to bless him. Back to the prairie, now. After the fasting ceremony was done, we spread the food under the shade and waited. My uncle sat there looking at me, still in his fasting clothes and deep brown from the sun, his long black hair unbraided and hanging. He stared at me and said I'd promised to visit him so he could teach me, but I hadn't come to visit. I ducked my head and said I would. "I promise," I told him. You always think that time is endless when you're young. To my regret, my uncle died before I received all the instructions I need - but I remember and keep what he did teach me. I believe he probably still is teaching but in a different way. I think about my grandmother when we're on the edge of winter, as we are now. It is a time of change, she used to say. The spirit of the Northwest is strong. I think of her when I make food for ceremony because she would approve of feeding those who come to take part. I think of my uncle when I see a friend, a Dakota medicine man, lift his pipe to pray. I think of my uncle when I see the medicine man hold the herbs in his hand and offer them to the Creator. We can't bring back those days. My uncle and grandmother are gone, but we are told that spirits stay with us, and if we listen well, we can hear them - perhaps on the night of the first snowfall. Nawah, grandmother and uncle. ---- Dorreen Yellow Bird's column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Reach her at (701) 780-1228 or dyellowbird@gfherald.com Copyright c. 2004 The Grand Forks Herald. --------- "RE: Jodi Rave: Native Educator teaches Two Worlds" --------- Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 08:48:52 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JODI RAVE: MSU EDUCATOR" http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2004/11/29/jodirave/rave73.txt Jodi Rave: Native educator at MSU teaches two worlds By JODI RAVE Lee Enterprises November 27, 2004 She made Rolling Stone. She prayed at Stonehenge. And she's been called the "Indian Maya Angelou." With her spiky flat-top haircut and doctoral degree, 70-year-old Henrietta Mann is as comfortable strolling across campus in a pair of Danskos as she is praying to the Creator before hundreds in her Southern Cheyenne language. The lifelong educator embodies the ideology of a tribal elder. And she defies it. "She brings all those things together," said Richard West, director of the National Museum of the American Indian. "Some of the rest of us less gifted can get pieces of that, but very few of us can put it all together in one personality, in one personhood." Mann has blended those qualities into a career teaching thousands of students about the beauty and tragedy of indigenous people. She spent 33 years in higher education - lecturing, advising, directing, attending and teaching on campuses from Harvard to the University of California at Berkeley. She capped her career as an endowed chair at Montana State University-Bozeman, retiring in June 2003. A month later, MSU President Geoff Gamble tapped her as his special adviser. Mann since has helped him create a Council of Elders to guide MSU in working with Native students. She also serves on the university's executive committee and its Cabinet of advisers, where she's "a powerful voice for Indians and Indian students," Gamble said. "Henrietta is a most remarkable woman," he said. "And also a very powerful woman. Spiritually powerful. Intellectually powerful. Politically powerful." He created her new role as she reached the end of her endowed professorship. "It dawned on me that we can't allow such an important, powerful person to fade away." Chances are no one would have let that happen. Her calendar typically is booked months in advance. For example, since Nov. 9, she's spent only one day at her Bozeman home and isn't due to return until after the Thanksgiving holiday. Mann continues to mentor Native and non-Native students about indigenous people, serve on national boards and is a frequently sought guest speaker. "She's our Indian Maya Angelou, with the wisdom and knowledge she has," said Carol Mason, director of the Wakina Multi-Cultural Education Center in Helena. "She's very inspirational when she talks to our people." Born in Clinton, Okla., in 1934, Mann began teaching California seventh- graders in 1955. She moved to the college arena in 1970 as a lecturer and coordinator for Berkeley's Native American Studies Department. "I came in on the ground floor of Native American studies," Mann said. "I guess I was at the right place at the right time to begin to look at the need for American Indian students who were pursuing higher education to be able to study their own history, their own culture, their own philosophy." She spent 28 years at the University of Montana in Missoula before accepting the Native American Studies endowed chair at MSU, one of a handful of such positions in the country. She has emerged as a national and international lecturer, speaking and writing on issues of Native religion, philosophy, literature, education, and the oral and written traditions of Native people. She's taught thousands of students, 90 percent of them non-Native. Scott Carlson, a Missoula attorney, took nearly every class Mann taught at the University of Montana. She influenced him to protect the rights of others, he said. "She's an icon for American Indian education, without question," Carlson said. "I can't think of anyone who rises to that level." Mann's connection to culture - and her success in education - has made her a standout in higher-ed circles and in Indian Country. "She speaks for a lot of Indian people who don't have that opportunity," said Norma Bixby, an educator from Montana's Northern Cheyenne Reservation. "I hope someone is compiling her stories and speeches ... so one day we can read to our children and say, 'This is a great lady, Dr. Henrietta Mann - these are the lessons we need to remember.' " When speaking, Mann delivers those lessons through sharply enunciated words. Each syllable hooks its listener. Last month, she elicited a standing ovation before she even spoke at the Montana Office of Public Instruction's Indian Education Summit. She drew a second ovation as she finished. Mike Jetty, Native dropout specialist with OPI, remembers how she brought 3,000 people at a race conference in San Francisco to their feet, too. Mann brings to mind a Cheyenne proverb, he said: A nation is not defeated until the hearts of its women are on the ground. "I think about Henri, just the way she walks, she walks the talk when we talk about traditional values. She is traditional values in action today, and what it means to be a contemporary Indian today." Mann is seen as a tribal historian within her own tribe, said Quinton Roman Nose, education director for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. "She's a national spokesperson. She's a leader for Indian education. You name an area of Indian (education) and I'm sure she's been involved with it." Her strong spiritual identity has not gone unnoticed. The American Red Cross asked her to pray at the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. She's prayed for world peace at Stonehenge and Bear Butte, a sacred site in South Dakota. She's often asked to pray at meetings of the National Museum of the American Indian's trustee board, of which she's vice chairwoman. In her prayers, she always considers the ancestors who remain on museum shelves, and of sacred objects yet to be returned to tribes. "I know the depth of her feelings over the rightness of repatriation ... and making sure remains of ancestors and elders are treated with respect," said West, the museum director. "Again with Henri, this urging, this commitment is not an intellectual exercise. It's because in her spirit, in connection with her spiritual life, she knows that is the right thing to do. And she does it with intelligence and with great feeling." It's more than a matter of fulfilling legislative mandates. "To me, it means respect for another person's culture and their beliefs," Mann said, "how they want to show the proper respect for their ancestors." Those are the beliefs that have guided her - and made her successful. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine named her one of the country's top 10 professors. "I believe that says for me, I was an effective teacher," Mann said. "I have been an academic, but at the same time, in order to be a whole human being, I also have responsibilities to the people to whom I belong and to maintain our cultural ways as a people." "My entire goal in life is to be nothing but a good Cheyenne woman." Jodi Rave covers Native issues for Lee Enterprises. She can be reached at 1-800-366-7186, Ext. 299, or jodi.rave@missoulian.com. Copyright c. 2004 Missoulian, a division of Lee Enterprises --------- "RE: Treaty 3 encouraged by Response" --------- Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:31:58 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TREATY 3 STATE OF EMEGENCY" http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com/story.php?id=130037 Treaty 3 encouraged by response to state of emergency First Nations leaders searching for solutions to youth suicide on First Nations have been encouraged by the response to their plea. By Mike Aiken Miner and News November 30, 2004 First Nations leaders searching for solutions to youth suicide on First Nations have been encouraged by the response to their plea. Treaty 3 spokesman Adolphus Cameron said they have been meeting with agencies in the area, as well as provincial and federal government ministries, in an attempt to develop local solutions to deep-rooted problems. "The response has been very good," he said. "We've got to do some work getting everybody together." Earlier this month, Whitefish First Nation Chief Clarence White stood together with Treaty 3 Grand Chief Arnold Gardner and his health portfolio co-ordinator, Chief Glenn Archie, as they declared a state of emergency among their youth. White said he had run out of answers, after his community had lost seven members within two years, and witnessed 26 suicide attempts during the same time period. Since then, Whitefish leaders have met with representatives of Lake of the Woods District Hospital, Northwestern Health Unit and Health Canada in an attempt to stop the cycle. While the federal government announced $700 million would be available for aboriginal health, including $400 million for health promotion, local First Nations have only recently assembled proposals for how the money might be spent. Whitefish Bay has expressed a need for funding for an emergency youth shelter, in addition to services available for battered women, while Wabaseemoong (Whitedog) crisis workers are looking for additional staff to assist with an increasing workload. Earlier in November, crisis workers in Whitedog responded to five attempted suicides in a single weekend. Due to timely intervention, there were no deaths, however staff are reporting signs of stress from the workload, which is estimated at 300 calls a month for a staff of five. Health Canada spokesman James Adams of Thunder Bay said Monday they are also looking at long-term solutions that get to the roots of the problem. "There is no one group response for these things (mental health), so it has to be pieced together," he said. While reserves are under federal jurisdiction, both the federal and provincial ministries of health are involved in service delivery to communities. There can also be a large number of local agencies involved, including the band council themselves, as they seek to improve programs within their own community and take responsibility for them. Cameron said Treaty 3 will be costing solutions, once the program is developed, then applying to funding agencies for the necessary money. Adams referred to a program at Shoal Lake 39, where the band is addressing what are described as the social determinants of health, such as the importance of education, income and lifestyle issues. Health Canada officials visited the community earlier this fall, when it assembled an outdoor learning program it shared with students from Kenora. "In our opinion, that's the answer," Adams said, noting the importance of culture, language and tradition within aboriginal communities. Grassy Narrows Deputy Chief Steve Fobister agreed with the approach, when he discussed the importance of introducing more cultural components into both their day care and schooling systems. The First Nation has been a leader among Treaty 3 members, when it comes to building an Ojibway immersion type of curriculum. In Ottawa, the Aboriginal Roundtable discussions are continuing on six main topics, including health, housing and economic development. Housing ministry spokesman Peter Graham said the cabinet committee on aboriginal affairs is scheduled to look at proposals for all six areas during a February retreat. A First Ministers meeting with aboriginal leaders has already been scheduled for September 2005, when issues such as aboriginal mental health would be discussed. Copyright c. 2004 Kenora Daily Miner and News. --------- "RE: Land Battles bring a shift in Canada Economy" --------- Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 15:09:16 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ABORIGINAL LANDS" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/~1&en=ec48c24f7a112dff Natives' Land Battles Bring a Shift in Canada Economy By CLIFFORD KRAUSS December 5, 2004 SKIDEGATE, British Columbia - In this rainy land of scarlet dawns and big black bears, workers are busy constructing a 40,000-square-foot extension to a museum that sits in a bushy cove where gray whales come to eat herring and roll over the shell beach to scratch barnacles off their bellies. It is an ambitious project, not least because the hundreds of traditional masks, carvings and blankets the building is meant to display for the native Haida people still belong to some of the world's most prestigious museums. Resistance to the return of artifacts is likely, but the Haida have become used to challenging the rich and powerful, and winning. Today they are in the vanguard of what appears to be a renaissance of Indian nations in Canada that legal scholars and others say could determine ultimate control over many resources vital to Canada's future, including oil, timber and diamonds. The Haida won a landmark case in November in Canada's Supreme Court obliging British Columbia to consult with them over land use anywhere on their traditional homelands here on the Queen Charlotte Islands. The decision is expected to have a sweeping impact on similar Indian claims across Canada. Adapting their old warrior ways to federal and provincial courtrooms, the Haida have already managed to slow efforts to clear-cut their lands by Weyerhaeuser and other companies. They have stalled plans by Petro-Canada and other companies to drill in ancestral waters should a government moratorium be lifted along the coast. They are not alone in their efforts. Native bands are similarly exerting increasing control over natural resources across vast stretches of northern Canada that promise to be vital economically in a future of global warming. The developments have pleased environmentalists. But some legal experts warn that the stirrings represent a danger to the unity of a nation already struggling to keep separatist leanings in Quebec under control. There has not been a full-blown public debate on the issue, partly because most Canadians agree that native people deserve better conditions. "When you wed the notion of sovereign self-governments to land claims that are far-reaching and poisonous to investors, you create an ungovernable, uneconomic and unharmonious community of Canada," John D. Weston, a constitutional lawyer who has worked for the British Columbia government, said in an interview. The balance of power is already tipping in a nation where a vast majority of the population lives within 100 miles of the United States border and rarely thinks about developments in the far north. In the Northwest Territories, the 4,000-member Dogrib band last year won the right to control fishing, hunting and industrial development over 15,000 square miles of territory. The nearby Deh Cho band has managed to stall a $6 billion gas pipeline project planned by ExxonMobil and several other companies through its traditional lands until Ottawa makes major financial and environmental concessions. In the snowy woods of northern Quebec, the Cree made a deal three years ago with the provincial government giving them full autonomy and substantial powers to help manage mining, forestry and hydroelectric energy development. After Eskimos gained their own Arctic territory, Nunavut, in 1999, they have since won self-rule in northern Quebec and logging rights over a vast forest in Labrador. "The groundwork is being laid for the possibility that aboriginal people will have more power and real participation in national politics," said Dara Culhane, an anthropologist at Simon Fraser University. For the Haida, their revival has yet to penetrate the consciousness of most Canadians. But already their efforts have produced a bright new chapter in a history of highs and lows that stretches back many centuries. The Haida carved the mightiest totem polls and swiftest canoes out of giant cedar trees before the Europeans arrived in the mid-18th century on this remote archipelago. They were fierce conquerors and vibrant storytellers, and their rich culture spread up and down the coast. While never conquered in war, they were nearly wiped out by smallpox - reduced from a population of 6,000 or more to 500 by the late 19th century. Canadian government policies until the late 1960's focused on forcing them to assimilate, leaving only a handful of people speaking Haida and a sad tableau of poverty and addiction. There is still a lot of unemployment and substance abuse here, but there are signs of a rebirth. While the elders are taping 25,000 Haida idiomatic expressions to save the language, the use of Haida phrases in everyday conversation has become fashionable at the local high school. There is a boomlet of construction in totem poles and longhouses. Women are spearing abalone again. In the village of Massett, the first Haida canoe wedding in the traditional style in 80 years was held last year, with the groom not permitted to paddle ashore with his family and friends for the ceremony until he agreed to love his bride forever and serve her breakfast in bed for the rest of her life. The Haida, like many native groups, has a high birthrate, and the population has grown again, to about 4,000 on the islands. A resurgence in handicrafts and spiritual healing has bolstered self-esteem. When Ottawa created a new $20 bill this summer decorated with a print of a Haida myth depicting a raven, a frog, a grizzly bear and his human wife, the Bear Mother, the government intended to honor the ascendant band. "We've come into a new age," said Gilbert Parnell, a 39-year-old guide. "There's so much strength we find in our songs, dances and stories and we need to keep up the momentum to clean up our nation." When the provincial government withdrew financing for a local program to maintain the salmon population three years ago, the Haida Nation took over operations to save jobs and keep Pallant Creek teeming with chum and coho salmon. The Haida are pushing forward with a land use program, using computer software to map surveys of bear dens, seabird nesting areas and other habitat to protect them from logging. "We're a few thousand people with no resources except a stubborn belief that we are the owners of this land just as our parents and grandparents believed," said Guujaaw, the charismatic Haida president who uses only one name, while sitting on a log along a forest river. "If they fly the Canadian flag over the land, they think they have the right to spoil it. For us, that is unacceptable." Much of the renewed energy was generated in recent years by a successful effort to repatriate 500 ancestral remains from private collections and major museums in Canada and the United States, including the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Village youth took part in making and painting burial boxes, cedar mats and button blankets to properly lay to rest ancestors who had been taken off the islands by researchers and thieves. Harold Williams, a 20-year-old student, said he was so inspired when he painted burial boxes and made cedar mats for the burials that it changed his life. He went on to make an animated movie of a Haida warrior capturing and slaying an escaped slave. "Its part of our history after all," he said. "We have the weight of the culture on our shoulders." Copyright c. 2004 The New York Times Company. --------- "RE: Despite Powley, Me'tis hunting limited by MNR" --------- Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:31:58 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ME'TIS HUNTING RIGHTS LIMITED BY MNR" http://www.ammsa.com/windspeaker/topnews-Nov-2004.html#anchor2772096 Despite Powley, Me'tis hunting limited by MNR Paul Barnsley, Windspeaker Staff Writer, Toronto An angry Tony Belcourt, president of the Me'tis Nation of Ontario (MNO), called a press conference Oct. 7 to respond to an announcement made the previous day by Ontario Minister of Natural Resources David Ramsay. Belcourt said the minister had broken a promise to the Me'tis people when he announced that an agreement to give Me'tis hunters the same rights as First Nation hunters was being limited to only the northern part of the province. The MNO president said that was a direct violation of the "historic agreement on the recognition of Me'tis harvesting rights, made by . . . Ramsay with the Me'tis Nation of Ontario on July 7." The agreement reached in July provided for a two-year interim period during which the MNR would recognize Me'tis harvesters carrying MNO harvester certificates who are in their traditional harvesting area throughout Ontario. Belcourt's organization agreed to issue no more than 1, 250 harvesting certificates for the fall hunting season. In return, the MNR agreed to treat Me'tis people the same as First Nations people according to the province's interim enforcement policy. Months after the agreement was finalized Ramsay announced that only MNO harvesters north of Sudbury would be recognized. "Minister Ramsay needs to be reminded of his own statement. When asked if any future government could ever break the historic deal, he said: 'Nobody is going to reverse that. You don't take back peoples' rights,'" Belcourt said. When contacted by Windspeaker on Oct. 27, Belcourt was still angry. He said the same Ontario bureaucrats who fought so hard against the Powley case, in which the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against the Ontario and federal government in deciding that Me'tis people have Aboriginal rights, are now arbitrarily limiting the province's response to that court ruling. "But the minister's not off the hook," he added. "He's ultimately responsible." Belcourt said that the MNR fish and wildlife officers are working according to the terms of a previous protocol agreement dealing with Me'tis hunters where game and weapons are not seized if they're caught hunting without a provincial license and no charges are laid. "But they could be charged. There's no guarantee it couldn't happen and that's the problem," he said. "And in light of the fact that we have an agreement, that would be completely unjus