_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 12, ISSUE 051 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, 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 18, 2004 Kiowa ganhina p'a/real goose moon Western Cherokee Vskihyi/snow moon Blackfeet misa'miko'komiaato's/long night moon +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Much more happens in Indian Country than is reported | | in this weekly newsletter. For daily updates & events | | go to http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm | +-------------------------------------------------------+ Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin -- Blackfeet -- News for All the People Ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min -- Ojibwe -- We Are Talking About Ourselves Aunchemokauhettittea -- Naragansett -- Let Us Share News Kanoheda Aniyvwiya -- Cherokee -- Journal of the People O Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse -- Creek -- People's New News O o O Acimowin -- Plains Cree -- Story or Account O o O Tlaixmatiliztli -- Nahuatl -- News O o o o o O Agnutmaqan -- Listuguj Mi'kmaq -- News O o O Sho-da-ku-ye -- Teehahnahmah -- Talking Birchbark O o O Un Chota -- Susquehannic Seneca -- The People Speak O Ha-Sah-Sliltha -- Ditidaht Nation -- News of the People Ximopanolti tehuatzin, inin Mexika tlahtolli -- Nahuatl -- For you we offer these words It-hah-pe-hah Ah-num pah-le -- Chickasaw -- Together We Are Talking Dineh jii' adah' ho'nil'e'gii ba' ha' neh -- Navajo Nation -- What's Happening among The People News Okla Humma Holisso Nowat Anya -- Choctaw -- People(s) Red Newspaper Hi'a chu ah gaa -- Pima -- The stories or the talk of the People s ch mA mL tL squee Lux -- Okanogan -- News from the People Native American News -- Language of the Occupation Forces ++>If you speak a Native American language not listed above, please send us your words for "News of the People." We'd rather take up this whole page saving these few words of our hundreds of nations than present a nice clean banner in the language of the occupation forces who came here determined to replace our words with their own. email gars@nanews.org with the equivalent of "News of the People" in your tribal language along with the english translation <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is produced in straight ASCII text for greatest portability across platforms. Read it with a fixed-pitch font, such as Courier, Monaco, FixedSys or CG Times. Proportional fonts will be difficult to read. <================<<<< >>>>================> This issue contains articles from www.owlstar.com; www.indianz.com; www.pechanga.net; NDNAIM and Dakota_Lakota_Nakota_Advocacy 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + ======================== "Our young people are having a hard time; they are committing suicide, having problems with alcohol. They can get straightened out by learning of the old ways, our connection to the creator. Our culture is all around, just look outside, it is there, in that tree, in that water. I always encourage young people to go to school, get a good education, but do not lose your culture, that is what makes you strong," __ Alex Skead, Ojibway elder from the Rat Portage Reserve +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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! J Steven Griles has left the Department of Interior this week, citing attacks by anti-Bush groups and individuals. Truth is he couldn't deflect the Cobell Indian Trust lawsuit, and it's time to abandon the ship. His boss, Gale Norton received word this week President Bush is proud of her efforts and will keep her in his cabinet for the second term. It remains to be seen if she can continue to play dodge ball with the contempt citations against her and the DoI and also act as the wedge buster to assault ANWR and our woodlands. The BIA has admitted it made errors calculating the Schaghticokes intermarriage numbers when recommending them for recognition. Needless to say, Connecticut Attorney General and Indian fighter (hater) Blumenthal proved his hostility toward Indians in general by immediately demanding revocation of their recognition. Let me see if I really understand this - a tribe that has been in Connecticut longer than any of Blumenthal's ancestors should be de-recognized because of a BIA numbers game? Forcing the tribe to restart the recognition process is an excessive leap where a few small steps might well suffice. The agency should recalculate properly, and if the corrected rate is too low, then apply other tests it uses to qualify a distinct, functioning community. Only if it fails this criteria entirely should recognition be revoked. Revocation now would probably spell the end of the Schaghticoke's aspirations for federal recogition. That's good news for Blumenthal, who has staked his reputation on getting rid of recognized tribes in Connecticut, It would set back recognition for the tribe by at least a decade. The expense of a resubmission would force the tribe to seek wealthy investors, most likely casino developers, so Blumenthal will have his proof that recognizing the tribe was mostly about making money for non-Indians. He and his ilk care nothing about justice or due process. They only want the Indian question in Connecticut answered "yes, it was a fascinating part of our long-ago history (learn more by visiting our state museum), but we befriended the savages in that quaint Thanksgiving ceremony in those distant years and since then they have became civilized members of our richly blended society." Skagit County and the Swinomish Tribe are in a stand-off over who really has control of the tribe's ancestral lands. Past swindles by the dominant society are what created the opportunity for Skagit County to even mount an argument. The echoes of recently resolved land claim battles with the Mille Lac cannot be ignored. News this issue is really a lot of the same old dominant society attempts at theft and deception. Add to that a Court Ruling for the wholesale slaughter of Guatemalan Maya, and you realize the "Indian question" is still being asked - and answered in the same drone. Do read on down for a couple of interesting looks at Christmas, and keep the elders and children listed below in your hearts. Help if you can. 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. -- Update: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 8:50 AM From: Brigitte Thimiakis [thimiakischool@the.forthnet.gr] Greetings, Please visit our site : Honor Your Spirit, Protect The Children (HYS) and support the winter project in support of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in MT. We have just added a number of new items on our Christmas First Nations Arts & Crafts Catalogue and will be happy to send them to anyone who wishes to order one or several of these art and crafts items, whether you live in the USA or abroad. These items make very nice gifts for Christmas. The First Nations artwork and items like horsehair hatbands or belts can also be passed on 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. So this catalogue enables you to send support to the reservation, to help many children and elders, while at the same times offering very nice gifts for the upcoming holidays... which are only in a few days. 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 Please feel free to share this post and these links with your family, friends and contacts. Thank you for any assistance you might provide with this project. 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 =================================== Posted to Oyate Underground. http://www.oyateunderground.com oyateunderground@yahoogroups.com Many people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation are living under very difficult conditions. Some are in dire need of our help to make the long and cold South Dakota winter more bearable. The Holidays are a time of warm feelings and warm clothes. Everyone deserves to share the same joy, feeling of friendship, security, and comfort! On the Pine Ridge Reservation, the average household income is under $10,000 a year. In most cases extended family members live together in homes that are poorly built and drafty. The winds that whip across the plains are something we may not have to worry about for our own children. Winter on Pine Ridge Coat Drive for American Indian children on the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota Those of us who have so much can so easily make a difference in a child's life. Please buy a winter coat for one or several children! Knowing you will keep a little one warm throughout the winter will make you feel warm inside! Would you like to help? To visit and/or join this group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/winterinpineridge/ For more information on how to help, please contact E-mail: winterinpineridge@yahoogroups.com Phone: 877-256-9720 Please spread the word! 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 ---------- - Griles resigns from Interior - Native Hawaiians - Special Report: An Ugly History call for change in NAGPRA - Plan for Indian Funds Rejected - Ottawa ignored Claim - Court rules in Cobell Case when setting Quota - Indian Law - Restoring a Tradition - Nunavut's Health - BIA admits mistake still far behind Canada handling Recognition Case - Labrador Metis - This Land is whose Land? could become more Militant - Tribes fear Fishery changes - Ruling: Urban Aboriginals - TRAHANT: What's a Salmon Stream Distinct Communities without Salmon? - 'Scoop' of Indian children - Historic Nisqually Chief exonerated was Genocide - Potential for Wind Power - International Court - J.C. Begay wants his Good Name back awards $7.9M for Massacre - Evicted at Camp Navajo - Omnibus Spending Bill - Christmas Presents better than expected arrive for Cheyenne River - Graham Defense Update Dec. 7, 2004 - GIAGO: Christmas - Native Prisoner that ended dependence on Alcohol -- Pen Pal Request - A Native American Christmas - Rustywire: - YELLOW BIRD: Tell Me A Christmas Story Bridges to the Past and the Future - Rustywire Poem: - CHUCULATE: An Indian Father Wakes My take on the latest Indian News - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days --------- "RE: Griles resigns from Interior" --------- Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 08:43:27 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GRILES HITS THE PAVEMENT" http://www.indianz.com/News/2004/005689.asp Top Interior official resigns from Bush administration December 8, 2004 A top Interior Department official whose handling of the Indian trust tainted his controversial tenure in Washington, D.C., announced his resignation on Tuesday. After three years as the department's deputy secretary, the number two position, J. Steven Griles told President Bush that it was "a great honor" to serve within the Bush administration. He said he plans to leave by the end of January 2005 or sooner, if a replacement is confirmed by the Senate. In a letter, Interior Secretary Gale Norton praised her deputy's tenure, singling out his "exemplary" efforts to improve the management of billions of dollars of Indian trust assets and 54 million acres of trust land. "I know that the frustrations of Indian trust litigation have taken a toll on you and the other dedicated employees who labored countless evenings and weekends with you," she wrote. Norton said Griles helped the Bush administration achieve "much progress" on trust reform but his time at the department was stained by several controversies. Upon joining the department in July 2001, he quickly found himself in trouble with tribal leaders, the plaintiffs in the Cobell v. Norton trust fund lawsuit and the federal judge handling the case. "No one thought it could get worse but under Norton and Griles' leadership it has," Keith Harper, a Native American Rights Fund lawyer handling the Cobell case, said in an interview yesterday. On November 14, 2001, Griles proudly swore under oath in a court affidavit that he was in "charge" of the Indian trust. But without prior consultation of tribes or individual Indians, the department proposed a reorganization that would strip the Bureau of Indian Affairs of its fiduciary duties and hand them to a new agency called the Bureau of Indian Trust Assets Management. Griles and former BIA chief Neal McCaleb, who resigned in November 2002, quickly rushed to the National Congress of American Indians conference two weeks later to defend the proposal before an angry crowd of tribal leaders. It was a scene that would repeat itself several times over the next two years as Norton became less involved with the trust and Griles became the public face of the department. It was an uncomfortable role for Griles, a well-paid Republican lobbyist more accustomed to working with executives of top energy companies than leaders of the Indian Country. Following the BITAM fiasco, he served as co-chair of a task force whose goal was to develop a solution in cooperation with tribes but which ultimately fell apart in late 2002 when Griles and other officials refused to embrace standards for the trust fund. By that time, Griles had become a target in the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit for trying to smear a court investigator whose reports embarrassed the Bush administration. In September 2002, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth slammed Griles for coming "perilously close to perjury" for submitting a sworn affidavit against court monitor Joseph S. Kieffer III, a former military intelligence specialist who was later taken off the case. Griles also found himself on the defense for a rider in Interior's 2002 appropriations bill that would have severely limited the government's fiduciary obligations to individual Indians. Along with other officials, he denied involvement with the language, which was eventually removed, but a year later, the administration backed another rider that delayed an accounting of the Indian trust for a year. Griles' past efforts at Interior during the Reagan administration came back to haunt him as well. In the 1980s, he oversaw a mining division whose scientists backed the Navajo Nation in a royalty dispute with Peabody Coal. Political appointees suppressed support for the tribe, leading to a $600 million breach of trust lawsuit that was the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court in March 2003. Earlier that year, Griles told member of Congress that the case, one of two heard by the court, would resolve the debate over trust standards. But the administration's arguments were rejected by the court and the department has done little to address the issue since then. The controversies took a toll on Griles, whose last meeting with tribal leaders on the task force came in December 2002, shortly before McCaleb left the department. Since then, he hasn't played a role in any major Indian Country initiatives, attended NCAI meetings or testified before Congress on trust issues. Norton hasn't been visible on Indian affairs either. In 2003, Griles was consumed by criticism for his prior role as a lobbyist for the oil, gas and coal industry. Despite recusing himself from dealings affecting former clients, he continued to meet with them and was being paid $284,000 a year for work he had done for them before joining the administration. An 18-month investigation by Interior Inspector General Earl E. Devaney turned up numerous instances in which Griles had questionable dealings with old clients. The March 2004 report, however, did not accuse Griles of violating any laws but called his appointment a "train wreck waiting to happen." Griles is the second top-level Interior official to announce his resignation since Bush's re-election last month. Bennett Raley, the assistant secretary for water and science, left this past Friday. Norton's fate is still unknown as the Bush administration waits for a second ruling in the Cobell lawsuit. Last Friday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Bush administration's attempt to exclude information technology from the scope of the case. The court is set to rule on a structural injunction that the administration opposes. Copyright c. 2000-2004 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: Special Report: An Ugly History" --------- Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 11:34:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INDIAN TRUST" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.smartmoney.com/onthestreet/index.cfm?story=20041207 Special Report: An Ugly History By Scott Patterson December 7, 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 Native American Indians out of tens of millions of dollars 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 second article of a two-part series. INTERSTATE ROUTE 550 CUTS through the heart of northwest New Mexico, a sparse, rugged region dominated by huge mesas and a wide sky. There are no Wal-Marts (WMT1), Home Depots (HD2) or Rite-Aids (RAD3) here. There are no major hospitals, either. Pipelines, oil drills and gas flares abound, however. The region, known as the Checkerboard, is located square atop the San Juan Basin, which supplies all of the natural gas used by Southern California. Passing through, one might think this land is deserted. But just a few miles off the highway, down a dusty, unpaved road, a scattering of ramshackle houses and motor homes appears on the horizon. The inhabitants are Navajo Indians who live outside the official Navajo Nation reservation to the west. Referred to as "allottees," they own individual parcels of land created by the General Allotment Act of 1887. Navajo allottees are among the poorest ethnic groups in the U.S. According to a 2001 report by the Navajo Nation Division of Economic Development, 56.1% of Navajo people live below the poverty level, with per-capita income of $6,217 and an unemployment rate of 43.65%. Major energy companies such as Apache (APA4), Burlington Resources (BR5) and ChevronTexaco (CVX6) do business on the San Juan Basin, extracting natural gas, coal and oil. With the price of natural gas and oil soaring during the past year, these companies have been posting record profits. That's why allegations that the federal government has helped energy companies get sweetheart deals to operate on allotted Navajo land have captured the attention not only of Congress, but also of a federal district court in Washington, D.C. Testimony submitted to the court last week by an employee of the Interior Department alleges that a number of officials in the federal government were aware of these practices, possibly for years, and failed to stop them. A Special Kind of Trust Last Thursday, Deborah Lewis, an appraiser with the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST), a branch of the Interior Department, filed an affidavit8 with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia detailing allegedly illegal activities she uncovered in 2002. Lewis's 18-page affidavit chronicling her assignment at the Navajo Regional Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Gallup, N.M., reveals that she had found evidence of document destruction and improper appraisal methodologies that allegedly violated federal law and resulted in consistently low values for rights-of-way easements used by oil and gas companies on Indian land. (A rights-of-way easement is an agreement allowing a person, government or corporate entity the right to use private land.) Lewis, herself a Navajo Indian from the Checkerboard with a master's degree in public administration from the University of New Mexico, found that the chief appraiser of the Navajo office, Anson Baker, had been approving rights-of-way appraisals for values ranging from $25 to $40 a rod on a major trunk pipeline. (A rod, the standard measurement for rights-of-way valuations, is a 16.6-foot length of pipe; widths can vary.) When Lewis asked Chief Appraiser Baker how he'd arrived at the $25 to $40 per-rod valuation, he was unable to give an adequate explanation, according to her affidavit. Public records of pipeline rights-of-way agreements show that a $25-to- $40 per-rod valuation for a major trunk pipeline, as opposed to a much smaller gathering line, which transports natural gas or oil directly from a wellhead, is extremely low. Pipeline companies paid $37.9 million for rights-of-way in the U.S. in 2003, according to the trade magazine Oil & Gas Journal. According to construction-permit applications for pipeline rights-of-way filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the average rights-of-way agreement came to $130.80 a rod in 2003. In the San Juan Basin, a 36-inch-diameter pipeline - a major transportation pipeline - fetched an average of $469.20 a rod in 2003, according to FERC filings. Some private landowners in the San Juan Basin receive far more than the average, as Alan Balaran, special master overseeing the Cobell v. Norton class-action lawsuit9, found in his 2003 investigation of the appraisal office at Navajo. 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. Appraisal regulations are laid out in the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP). Lewis believed that Baker was violating USPAP standards, according to her affidavit, since he was unable to produce any supporting documents to validate the $25-to-$40 valuations, and since Lewis suspected that $25 to $40 was much less than fair-market value. In her attempt to find supporting documentation for previously approved appraisals, Lewis found that Baker, who'd worked at the Navajo office since 1984, had erased the database on his computer that contained his appraisal log and had made no hard copies, a violation of federal law and court orders mandating the protection of all records relating to Indian trust funds. Absent such records, the Indian beneficiaries are unable to determine whether they are getting the maximum value for their property, which the government is obligated to ensure as a matter of law, according to federal court rulings. In a series of e-mails and conversations, Lewis described what she'd found at the Navajo Regional Office to several of her superiors. According to her affidavit, she received little to no response from these individuals, including her immediate supervisor, Eldred Lesansee, OST regional appraiser; Kenneth Rossman, OST Trust Funds chief of staff (Rossman has since resigned from the OST); Gabriel Sneezy, OST chief appraiser; and Steven Graham, BIA realty officer. Dan Dubray is the Interior Department's spokesman on all matters related to the Cobell litigation. "It's premature to respond to anything that's in [the Lewis] affidavit," he says. "The department takes every issue raised in Cobell seriously, and we're going to conduct an internal investigation." The fact that Lewis's superiors had been notified of potentially illegal conduct by a chief appraiser of the BIA - the destruction of trust-fund records, the inappropriate appraisal methodology - prompts the question about what they planned to do, if anything, about it. "They Do Things Differently at Navajo" Ross Swimmer, head of the OST and a former tribal leader of the Cherokee Nation, says in general he's "not at all happy with the way business is being done and was done" at the Navajo Regional Office. Swimmer says that while he doesn't dispute the allegations in Balaran's report - notwithstanding Interior spokesman Dubray's earlier charge that it was biased and faulty - he can't comment on any disciplinary action being contemplated against Baker. As of press time, there has been no significant disciplinary action against any employees of the OST relating to Balaran's August 2003 report. Anson Baker remains a certified appraiser in four states and is chief appraiser of the OST's Portland Regional Office. Asked what he would do if he learned that other officials in the OST had knowledge that Baker had destroyed trust-fund documents and was using faulty appraisal methodologies, Swimmer said he "would have to look at disciplinary action. " At the time of the interview, Swimmer apparently didn't know about Deborah Lewis. Swimmer nevertheless challenges the notion that the companies were systematically paying less to the allottees for rights-of-way than they deserved, although he admits that in some cases the appraisals were too low. "If you talk to some of those companies, you get a little different perspective," says Swimmer. "Their concern is, 'How do I get a right of way'? The price is inconsequential." But Swimmer has claimed that there are good reasons to devalue allotted land. In his June 23, 2003, deposition with the federal district court hearing the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit, Swimmer argued that the involvement of the federal bureaucracy in the appraisal process "could decrease the value" of allotted land, since companies might theoretically have to spend more to obtain the rights-of-way. Central to the government's argument that allottees justifiably receive less than tribal or private landowners is the fact that energy companies have the legal authority to file condemnation proceedings against allotted land. If a court finds in favor of the company, it then decides the fair- market value for the land, and the company pays it. In his Navajo site-visit report, Balaran wrote that when he asked Chief Appraiser Baker why allottees receive a "value lower than the amount" paid for rights-of-way running across private and tribal land, Baker said he "did so out of concern that a valuation commensurate with the valuation of private and tribal holdings would invite protracted proceedings" by the energy companies seeking to condemn the land. Steve Snyder, director of audit and a certified general appraiser with Rocky Mountain Valuation Specialists, an independent appraisal consulting company based in Lakewood, Colo., says that to devalue property based on the argument that it can be condemned is a violation of federal law. Such a practice "violates the Constitution in that we're entitled to due process, and it violates that spirit of the law that the government can't take property without proper compensation," says Snyder. Snyder adds that using the threat of condemnation against Indian allottees to get a lower value for their land "sounds like coercion." According to Lewis's affidavit, Steve Graham, a realty officer with the BIA at the Navajo Regional Office, claimed that the government didn't negotiate for higher values because "the oil and gas companies might sue the BIA." The following account details a conversation between Lewis and Graham in November 2002 - nine months before Balaran wrote his report: Graham said that he knew that the appraised value of pipeline rights-of- way across Navajo allottee trust lands is much less than the amount that they should be paid. However, he said this is generally known and allowed because BIA officials were afraid that "the oil and gas companies might sue the BIA" if the pipeline rights-of-way were appraised higher than $25 per rod, the amount that the oil and gas companies told the BIA they were willing to pay. I was surprised by Graham's comments and asked him, "[I]sn't BIA's job to watch out for the best interest of the allottees?" Graham replied, "Well, they [at the BIA] do things differently at Navajo," and he turned his back and walked away. An Ugly History Alan Taradash, a lawyer with the Nordhaus law firm in Albuquerque, N.M., stares across his desk, fuming. Taradash, who has battled energy companies operating illegally on allotted Navajo land for decades, had recently finished a meeting with the former special master Alan Balaran in his office. He was clearly agitated. "What the government did to the special master was perverse," Taradash says, pounding his meaty fist onto his desk. "To say that the guy who points out the problem is the problem, is perverse." Balaran, who declined to comment, would no doubt agree. In his resignation letter, he noted that one of the most curious and revealing aspects of this entire case involves the decision by the government to hire two private attorneys to defend Baker in a deposition for the Cobell lawsuit. The Lewis affidavit includes a foreword by the plaintiff's attorneys describing the unusual activities of Larry Jensen, an attorney with the Interior Department's Office of the Solicitor. Immediately after Balaran's August 2003 site-visit report was filed with the court, Jensen, the No. 2 official in the Interior's Solicitor's Office, contacted Baker, according to the plaintiffs' attorneys. "Conspicuously, Jensen called Baker not because he was alarmed that [Balaran] had documented the irreparable harm that Baker had inflicted on Navajo trust beneficiaries...Instead, Jensen called Baker to make sure that he kept his mouth shut and...volunteered to help him secure private counsel at taxpayer expense," the plaintiffs allege. Jensen's efforts to protect Baker might have been for naught, however. (Jensen declined to comment.) The Lewis affidavit explicitly states that Baker, who was deposed by the Cobell plaintiffs on March 31, committed perjury in his deposition. "Baker was permitted by government lawyers and senior Interior Department Officials to lie during his deposition," Lewis alleges on Page 18 of her affidavit. "I fear that he continues to act against the best interests of the trust beneficiaries." Shii Shi Keyay spokesman Ervin Chavez thinks the government's extraordinary efforts to protect Baker show that it's trying to hide something. "When you know the amount of money that is spent on people like Anson Baker, and you see that the federal government is paying all kinds of legal fees, you walk away from these depositions and you think, 'My gosh, you mean to tell me that the federal government is covering this up at all costs?'" says Chavez. A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to respond to allegations that it tried to have Balaran removed because he was investigating the dealings of energy companies on Indian land. Tiawagi Helton, a professor of Native American law at the University of Oklahoma who has followed the Cobell case, suspects the Bush administration has gone to such extreme lengths to stall prosecution of the case in order to protect the energy industry from any future litigation concerning its suspect practices on Native American lands. "It's not money," says Helton. "The federal government spends and receives money with a sufficient number of zeroes that are difficult to fathom." The choice, he says, comes down to either virulent racism or protection of the energy industry. "I'd like to think that 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education, we're far enough past virulent racism that we wouldn't be using the mechanisms of government in such an oppressive fashion," he says. "Which leaves us with protecting the oil and gas extraction industries." SmartMoney.com Copyright c. 2004 SmartMoney. SmartMoney is a joint publishing venture of Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Plan for Indian Funds Rejected" --------- Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 11:34:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LAMBERTH REPRIMANDED" Sovereign News - Headlines and News Briefs http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56172-2004Dec10.html Plan for Indian Funds Rejected Appeals Court Tells Judge He Can't 'Micromanage' Solution By John Heilprin Associated Press December 11, 2004 In a victory for the government in a long-running dispute with Native Americans, a federal appeals court yesterday threw out most of a judge's plan for making the Interior Department account for billions of dollars the Indians say they are owed. The appeals court told U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth that he could no longer "micromanage" how the system gets fixed. The ruling means Interior can propose its own plan rather than create a recipe based on ingredients pre-ordered from the bench. Lamberth then would assess the result. "Yet the court may not micromanage court-ordered reform efforts . . . and then subject defendants to findings of contempt for failure to implement such reforms," Judge Stephen Williams wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles called the decision "a watershed victory for individual Indian account holders, for the Interior Department and its employees, for Congress and for American taxpayers." The department "has invested hundreds of millions of dollars on this issue since this lawsuit was filed back in 1996," he said in a statement. The department "has conducted more than 30,000 intricate accountings of individual Indian money accounts, found almost no discrepancies exceeding $1, and no evidence of systemic accounting irregularities." Lamberth ordered the accounting from the Interior Department last year to find out how much the government owes more than 300,000 Indians from mismanaged oil, gas, timber and grazing royalties going back more than a century. He and department officials have grappled repeatedly. In 1999, Lamberth found President Bill Clinton's interior and Treasury secretaries, Bruce Babbitt and Robert E. Rubin, in contempt for failing to turn over documents. He also has found the current secretary, Gale A. Norton, in contempt of court for failing to follow his orders. "Rather than acting to assure that 'agency action' conforms to law, the court has sought to make the law conform to the court's views as to how the trusts may best be run," Williams wrote. Interior officials had complained that such an extensive historical audit could cost up to $12 billion. At the urging of the White House, Congress intervened in November 2003 and passed legislation that prevented an accounting from going forward until Congress had defined the scope and methods to be used. Congress did that by adding language to the Interior budget bill that expires at the end of this month. Interior officials have said Lamberth lacked authority to issue his order for the accounting last year because there was no evidence of "unreasonable delay" by the government. They have said they could provide a full accounting by 2008 at a cost of $335 million, with use of a statistical technique known as sampling. The appeals judges already had upheld Lamberth's finding that Interior officials had breached their duties. Their latest order topples Lamberth's plan to establish a September 2007 deadline to account for the money and his decision to forbid the use of statistical sampling. The budget provision, Williams wrote, "appears to give Interior temporary relief from any common law or statutory duty to engage in historical accounting." Despite the provision's temporary nature, attorneys for the Indian plaintiffs in the case had offered "no reason overcoming the usual principle that a court is to apply the law in effect at the time the court rules," the appeals judges agreed. Dennis Gingold, an attorney for the Indian plaintiffs, cast the decision in a positive light. "We're very pleased that the court of appeals ruled that Interior must fix the system rather than just provide a historical accounting, and that Judge Lamberth has full authority to fashion an equitable remedy," he said. Gingold also said he was pleased that the appeals court recognized that the plaintiffs have the right to 117 years of interest earned from the multibillion-dollar case. The ruling is the latest in a huge eight-year-old class-action lawsuit filed in 1996 on behalf of more than 300,000 Indians, who demanded an accounting that had been ordered by Congress two years earlier. The plaintiffs allege that the government mismanaged billions of dollars in oil, gas, timber and grazing royalties that it had a duty to manage. Congress created a trust fund in 1887 to manage revenues from parcels for individual tribal members. Associated Press writer Sam Hananel contributed to this report. Copyright c. 2004 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Court rules in Cobell Case" --------- Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 08:47:28 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="APPEALS COURT SUPPORTS LAMBERTH" http://www.indianz.com/News/2004/005779.asp Appeals court won't hold back Lamberth on trust reform December 13, 2004 The federal government has an obligation to fix the broken Indian trust and not just provide an historical accounting, an appeals court ruled on Friday. In a 33-page decision, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals delivered benefits to both sides in the Cobell v. Norton case. A three-judge panel freed the Bush administration from a lengthy and complex structural injunction that required the accounting to be completed by December 2008 and imposed dozens of requirements on the Interior Department. At the same time, the court rejected the government's attempt to limit the scope of the class action, now its in seventh year of litigation. Attorneys for Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who will stay on the job for President Bush's second term, have repeatedly accused U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of exceeding his authority. In September 2003, Lamberth issued a 270-page opinion that was divided into two sections. The "historical accounting" dealt with Interior's plan to account for at least $13 billion in Indian funds and the "fixing the system" part covered reform of the broken trust. Relying on a controversial appropriations rider that delayed the accounting for a year or until Congress changed the law, the D.C. Circuit set aside the accounting section as "without legal basis." The judges said the provision appears to give Interior "temporary relief from any common law or statutory duty to engage in historical accounting" of the Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust. But the court noted that the rider expires on December 31. "Absent Congressional action by that date, obviously [the rider] will cease to bar the historical accounting provisions of the injunction," wrote Judge Stephen F. Williams for the majority. Lamberth could then "reissue[] those provisions" in the future, the court added. Regarding the "fixing the system" portion of the injunction, the D.C. Circuit agreed that Lamberth ordered Interior to perform too many tasks without determining whether the department has breached those specific duties. Until that happens, Lamberth "may not micromanage court-ordered reform efforts," Williams wrote in the decision. The court, however, did not agree that Lamberth has gone too far in seeking to reform the trust. Norton and other Bush administration officials contend they only have a duty to account for the funds in the IIM trust but the judges on the D.C. Circuit said "we are puzzled by the idea that the 'fixing' issues represent an expansion of the lawsuit." Contrary to the Bush administration's position, the American Indian Trust Reform Act of 1994 does not limit the government to just an accounting. Quoting a decision they issued shortly after Norton took office in February 2001, they said the act only affirmed long-standing trust duties. The act "recognized and reaffirmed what should be beyond dispute - that the government has longstanding and substantial trust obligations to Indians, particularly to IIM trust beneficiaries, not the least of which is a duty to account," the decision stated. Friday's ruling is the second in two weeks in the Cobell case. On December 3, the D.C. Circuit lifted a preliminary injunction disconnecting Interior from the Internet. Much like the latest decision, the court said Lamberth acted prematurely. But both rulings affirmed that Cobell is a trust case, not an ordinary lawsuit against the government. The judges also rejected the Bush administration's contention that Lamberth is expanding the case beyond its original intent. Still, both sides in the case have claimed victory. "The Interior Department has invested hundreds of millions of dollars on this issue since this lawsuit was filed back in 1996," outgoing Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles said in a statement following Friday's decision. Keith Harper, a Native American Rights Fund attorney representing the plaintiffs, sees it differently. Rather than fix the system, he said Norton and other top officials are "trying to do everything in their power to undermine and shed those responsibilities." Over the objections of Indian Country and several key lawmakers, the Bush administration backed the appropriations rider, which was inserted in Interior's 2004 budget bill. It was five years ago this month that Lamberth issued the first landmark decision in the case. "It would be difficult to find a more historically mismanaged federal program than the Individual Indian Money Trust," he wrote on December 21, 1999. At the time, Lamberth envisioned retaining jurisdiction for five years but since then he has complained about the lack of progress in the case. Three Cabinet secretaries and two assistant secretaries have been held in contempt and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent over the past eight years with little to show, the Cobell plaintiffs and other critics say. Copyright c. 2000-2004 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: Indian Law - Restoring a Tradition" --------- Date: Saturday, December 11, 2004 12:42 PM From: MJLaBurt@aol.com Subj: Indian Law - Restoring a tradition Mailing List: NDNAIM http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096409966 Indian Law - Restoring a tradition Copyright c. Indian Country Today December 06, 2004. All Rights Reserved Posted: December 06, 2004 by: Philip Burnham / Indian Country Today In recent weeks, Indian Country Today has spoken with tribal judges, legal scholars, law professors and political activists about the changing field of Indian law. This multi-part series examines issues from sovereignty to reservation justice to international human rights in assessing traditions and innovations in the field. In the winter of 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville watched as a boat full of Choctaws floated across the ice-filled Mississippi on their way to exile in the West. "I believe that the Indian nations of North America are doomed to perish," the French aristocrat warned. Then he predicted something else just as awful: The law would give its blessings to the project. Tocqueville, it turned out, was wrong on both counts: Indian people didn't disappear, and the law - finally - relented in its attack. But the day was still far ahead when tribes would turn a legal apparatus that sought to crush them into a vital tool for their own survival. Today, the wisdom of Indian law could fill a large library. No one has spent more time thumbing through its volumes than Rennard Strickland, Philip H. Knight Professor of Law at the University of Oregon, who has dedicated a career to studying the ups and downs of Indian legal fortunes. In Washington, D.C. recently to address the American Anthropological Association, he spoke candidly in a coffee shop near the same White House where presidents from Jackson to Truman have hatched dubious Indian policies with names like Removal, Allotment and Termination. "At the end of the 19th century, not just the Five Civilized Tribes but [everyone] across the country believed that Indian law, Indian legal systems, and tribes were, as Angie Debo says, 'on the road to disappearance,"' Strickland began. "This was something that was gone. There would be no more. And tragically, numbers of Indians came to believe that." A legal historian, Strickland cited the Major Crimes Act of 1885 as a huge obstacle to practicing tribal law. The act grants federal jurisdiction for crimes like murder, arson, robbery and rape in Indian country. Though Native courts are hobbled by competing jurisdiction, he added, "so many people make the mistake of thinking that only criminal issues are in fact law, when most of what any society does, the ongoing day to day, is civil." An Indian presence in legal codes, said Strickland, of Cherokee and Osage descent, endures even today. "The strongest thing you see in Cherokee or any other tribal law is the persistence of tribal value structures, whether or not it's specifically enforced in a legal code. You see particularly the value of consensus, the importance of respect for conflicting views and the desire to develop a way that people who may have some basic differences can continue to work together for the tribe." Strickland, ranging on subjects from sovereignty to tribal courts to Mr. Tocqueville, described himself as an "Okie from Muskogee." Behind the folksy self-portrait is a nimble mind that has authored or edited books on Indian law, Native art, Cherokee history - even a handbook for avoiding "teacher malpractice" in the legal trade. Former dean of the Oregon law school, he is a member of the executive committee of the board of editors charged with revising the latest edition of Felix Cohen's "Handbook of Federal Indian Law", due to appear in 2005. Strickland doesn't believe for a moment that federal law is the basis of Indian policy. In fact, it's the other way around. "Law changes from generation to generation," he explained. "If it is in the broader societal interests to open land to settlement, a way is found to legally do that." The long-term result "from generation to generation, [is] an interpretation of law that varies," a fact which explains why tribes have careened from assimilation to IRA, from Termination to self-governance over the years. As the professor quoted a late-19th century journalist, "'The court reads the morning paper."' Still, said Strickland, trends in the past 50 years have been largely positive. Much of the credit he gives to World War II veterans returning from overseas. "The soldiers had come to know other Indians; they had seen that the world was not just bifurcated, it was not just an Indian/non-Indian world." Faced with Termination, they put their worldly experience to use by protesting, lobbying, even testifying on Capitol Hill. "The new generations of young lawyers and not-so-young lawyers," he said, "couldn't have done it absent that determination." One result of their work has been a second look at a number of legal sacred cows. Strickland offered as an example the formidable Curtis Act (1898), which the BIA long used to deny a court system to Oklahoma Indians. It took one of his former students, Geoffrey Standing Bear, to argue in Muscogee (Creek) Nation v. Hodel that funds be allocated to create Muscogee courts. After the BIA resisted, Standing Bear appealed to an Interior Department review board, only to be denied. In 1998, the D.C. Circuit court overturned the decision, saying the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act (1936) included a list of acceptable enterprises, among them a tribal court system. The victory was founded almost on an accident. "What I think happened was they simply listed the things the tribes could do out of the original Wheeler-Howard Act (1934)," Strickland mused, "which the Oklahoma tribes had been exempted from, and nobody spent much time thinking about what is a long list. But the court said, 'It's here. It says they can. How could you choose not to fund this if we've got a federal statute that authorizes them to establish their own court systems?"' The movement today "is being driven by second, third, and, in some cases, fourth generation Indian lawyers," concluded Strickland, currently at work on a book about tribal advances in the modern era. "I think all the Indian experience, not just the Cherokees, is the importance of holding on, to believing in your central values and not allowing yourself to be destroyed. The remarkable thing about the whole American Indian experience is that Native people have held on." Tocqueville, for his part, believed he had met the last of the Iroquois. But Class III gaming and P.L. 638 funds were beyond his ken. So, too, was an idea called "Indian sovereignty" - an ages-old notion revived just a generation ago. Copyright c. 2004 Indian Country Today. --------- "RE: BIA admits mistake handling Recognition Case" --------- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 08:52:01 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SCHAGHTICOKE" http://www.indianz.com/News/2004/005728.asp BIA admits mistake in handling of recognition case December 9, 2004 Just four months after an internal investigation cleared top officials of wrongdoing for the recognition of a Connecticut tribe, the Bureau of Indian Affairs disclosed on Wednesday that it made an error in the case. In a filing, an Interior Department attorney acknowledged that the intermarriage rate among members of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation was improperly calculated. The BIA counted the number of married individuals instead of the percentage of married couples, thus artificially inflating the rate. The mistake is potentially significant because the agency used the intermarriage rate to justify its decision to recognize the tribe. The high rate was proof that the Schaghticokes existed as a distinct community from the 19th century until the present, the BIA said in its final determination this past January. But in a proposed finding from December 2002, the BIA rejected the tribe's case, saying there wasn't enough evidence to demonstrate community existence during the time period in question. Critics said the change in position means the tribe isn't qualified for federal status. "This dynamite concession means that recognition must be denied," Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal said yesterday. "It is an apparently unprecedented, unique admission of error." The revelation comes just months after the Interior Department's Inspector General cleared a former Bush administration official of wrongdoing in the case. Blumenthal and others from Connecticut had accused Aurene Martin, acting assistant secretary of the BIA at the time, of bending the law. Martin, who resigned to work for a Washington, D.C., law firm, reversed the negative proposed finding after receiving a "briefing paper" that outlined possible options for a decision. The briefing paper acknowledged that the tribe provided "little or no direct" evidence to meet the criterion for continuous community existence from historical times until the present. Specifically, there were gaps in the record between 1820 and 1840 and between 1892 and 1936. The briefing paper said the intermarriage rate during this time "falls just short of the 50 percent necessary" under federal regulations. But when Martin ended up recognizing the tribe, the decision she signed cited a "a detailed, decade-by-decade, analysis" of marriage rates. According to the document, which was published in the Federal Register, the tribe met the 50 percent threshold from 1801 to 1870. Intermarriage rates among tribal members or with other documented Indians aren't the only evidence the BIA can use to determine community existence or, in some cases, political influence. A rate below 50 percent doesn't mean the tribe is disqualified for federal status. But high rates do bolster a tribe's case in the eyes of the researchers who examine the information. In the past, the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation of Connecticut and the Cowlitz Tribe of Washington have used intermarriage among tribal members and other Indians to their benefit. Whether the BIA's mistake will play a role is in the air because the case is pending before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals. The board received the filing about the marriage rate from Barbara Coen, a solicitor who handles Indian issues. Richard Velky, chief of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, doesn't think it will. "We are confident the final determination we received will be upheld upon further analysis," he said in a statement. Publicly, Martin said her decision was based on the state of Connecticut's continuous relationship with the Schaghticokes. She said the tribe's oversight resembled the federal-tribal relationship. "How do you treat a petition from a state that has basically replicated the federal recognition at the state level, a recognition which, at the federal level, is at its core a recognition of another sovereign entity?" she said at an Indian law conference in May of this year. Martin's decision in favor of the Schaghticokes was only the second time in BIA history that a negative proposed finding was reversed into a positive final determination. The Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut was able to in the mid-1990s. Copyright c. 2000-2004 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: This Land is whose Land?" --------- Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 08:33:43 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SWINOMISH" http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com/articles/2004/12/05/news/news01.txt This land is whose land? By LEVI PULKKINEN December 5, 2004 County, Swinomish Tribe spar over trust land Skagit County and the Swinomish Tribe appear ready to lock horns over yet another issue in their long, contentious history - the transfer of tribal- owned lands on the reservation into full tribal control. For the past five years, the tribe has been buying back lands granted to it by treaty but lost during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Now, as the tribe prepares to ask the federal government to grant full custody over a small parcel of land, lawyers hired by the county have filed a letter with the Bureau of Indian Affairs asking that the tribe's request be denied. County lawyers filed a letter late last month objecting to the Swinomish Tribe's request that a 40-acre parcel of land within the boundaries of the tribe's reservation be transferred into federal trust and off the county tax rolls. The parcel is the first of several nearby swaths of tribe-owned land totaling 470 acres that the tribe hopes to one day see taken into federal trust. Tribal authorities say the request is likely to be approved, but Skagit County appears ready to begin a lengthy appeals process if the transfer is approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Allotment policy took land The 14,000-acre Swinomish Reservation was created in 1855, when the tribe signed the historic Point Elliot Treaty. By the late 1880s, however, the tribe began losing its land because of a federal "allotment" policy. The policy - put in place by Congress through the Dawes Act of 1887 - called for American Indians to be "civilized" by the government, said Bob Anderson, director of the University of Washington's Native American Law Center and counsel to the secretary of the Interior during the Clinton administration. Tribal lands were allotted to tribal members after the Dawes Act passed, Anderson said. Tribal members received either 80 or 160 acres of reservation land. Lands not allotted to tribal members were then declared surplus and sold to non-Indian settlers, he said. Tribal members who had been allotted lands were often forced off them through foreclosure for failing to pay taxes or by corrupt Bureau of Indian Affairs officials. By the time Congress ended the allotment policy in 1934, Anderson said the nation's tribes had lost about 90 million acres of land, nearly 65 percent of their total holdings. Of the Swinomish Reservation's 14,000 acres, about half were "lost, stolen and swindled away," Chairman Brian Cladoosby said. Because of gaming revenues generated at the tribe's casino near Anacortes, the Swinomish began buying back their lost lands in 1999, Cladoosby said. To date the tribe has regained about 1,100 acres of reservation land. In addition to buying back the lands, the tribe began in 2002 asking the Bureau of Indian Affairs to take the lands into federal trust. Doing so grants the tribe clear sovereignty over the lands and removes the property from local tax rolls. "It's typical of tribes that have revenues now," Anderson said. "It's not usually contentious when it is on a reservation." Not so in Skagit County. A question of control In 2002, Skagit County attempted to stop one such request from the tribe that would have put about 130 acres of tribal-owned lands into the federal trust. The county appealed the decision to approve the tribe's application to the Department of Interior's Board of Indian Appeals, the administrative court of last resort. The county objects to a proposed 1,216-slip marina the Swinomish Tribe hopes to develop on the site at a cost of $60 million, paid for with tribal and private funds. The federal appeals board has yet to render a decision in the case. Now, the county appears poised to file a similar appeal if the bureau grants another application from the tribe, one that would put 40 acres of forest land into trust. At the direction of the county commissioners late last month, lawyers with the Seattle firm Preston Gates & Ellis filed a letter with the BIA objecting to the tribe's application. In the letter, the county asserts that the tribe intends to allow a substantial housing development near the property on several parcels of tribal land. Commissioner Ken Dahlstedt said he's concerned about the tribe's control of the property because the land was "previously proposed as a significant development." "I think it's been pretty consistent that the county has opposed the loss of agricultural land," Dahlstedt said, adding that the commissioners are "trying to make sure we're consistent in what our concerns are." As part of its objection to the tribe's request, the county included a newspaper article from 1990. The article outlined the now-defunct developer's plans to build hundreds of homes on the site, in addition to adding two golf courses, an Olympic-size swimming pool and a polo ground. Cladoosby said the tribe opposed the huge development at the time, and bought the land to stop it from being built. "We fought that (proposed development) for many years to make sure that it didn't become a reality," Cladoosby said. If the land is taken into trust, the county will have no authority over its use, Dahlstedt said. "Once the land is in trust, we have no ability to hold them accountable," he said. But according to a 2002 ruling in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the county already has no control over the land in question, said Marty Loesch, a lawyer employed by the tribe. Hearing a dispute between Tulalip tribal member Kim Gobin and Snohomish County, the court ruled that the county had no jurisdiction over lands within the reservation's boundaries, Loesch said. According to the opinion issued by Judge Stephen S. Trott on behalf of the three-judge panel, "Congress did not expressly authorize County jurisdiction over (tribal) lands" when it allotted the reservation lands. "For tribally owned fee land on the reservation, the tribe has jurisdiction," Loesch said. County Commissioner Don Munks said the county will likely continue appealing tribal fee-to-trust applications until a land-use agreement can be reached with the tribe. Munks said he hopes the two groups can work out one similar to an agreement the county signed with the Samish Tribe earlier this year. "Other than what they say, there's nothing in writing that says `This is what we're supposed to do,'" he said. "If there was something like that there, then each of us can trust each other." County may sue If the Bureau of Indian Affairs does move to grant the tribe's property trust status and the county chooses to appeal the decision, its unlikely the county would succeed, Anderson said. The Department of Interior's administrative court almost always approves on-reservation fee-to-trust transfers, he said. Those it does reject have only been thrown out for procedural reasons - usually failure to notify local governments - and are usually reintroduced. "Federal policies support tribal governance and the tribal management of resources, and land acquisition is a big part of that effort," Anderson said. "The fact is that tribes have gained great economic clout in recent years and are increasing their governmental capacity on reservations." If administrative appeals don't work, the county will consider suing the tribe in federal court, County Administrator Gary Rowe said. "We've given them notice that we may appeal their decisions through the courts," Rowe said. "So far, we've only appealed them through the BIA." Cladoosby said his tribe intends to continue reconstructing its reservation in the hope that one day it might again be whole. Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 360-416-2138 or by e-mail at levip@skagitvalleyherald.com Copyright c. 2004 Skagit Valley Publishing Company. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Tribes fear Fishery changes" --------- Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 08:43:27 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SALMON NOT ADEQUATELY PROTECTED" http://seattletimes.nwsource.com//2002111880_salmon08n.html Tribes fear fishery changes By Christopher Schwarzen Times Snohomish County Bureau December 8, 2004 Despite federal officials' assurances, Snohomish County Indian tribes fear proposed rule changes for designating critical chinook-salmon habitat wouldn't be strong enough to protect the endangered species. The National Marine Fisheries Service last week proposed rule changes to decrease the amount of critical habitat established in 2000 for Puget Sound chinook salmon and 12 other Northwest salmon and steelhead runs. Puget Sound chinook salmon were listed as endangered in 1999. The federal agency said it was responding to a lawsuit forcing it to review the critical-habitat areas - mainly areas with physical or biological features essential to the species' survival - and consider the economic impacts surrounding those areas. The fisheries service said designations in the Northwest cost about $223 million annually. Overall, the new rules would reduce critical habitat in Washington, Oregon and Idaho by using more-specific data based on where fish have been observed as opposed to where biologists presume them to be. In Snohomish County, watersheds that would be impacted by the new rules include the Snohomish, Skykomish, Snoqualmie and Stillaguamish rivers, along with parts of the Sauk, Skagit, Cascade and Suiattle river basins. Overall, the water systems include more than 8,000 miles of streams in Snohomish, Skagit and Whatcom counties. Under the proposed critical-habitat rules, any federal area issuing a permit for development or use of land in a critical area must also receive permission from the fisheries service. Those areas no longer considered critical still must be protected under the Endangered Species Act, said Brian Gorman, a fisheries-service spokesman. "We don't see a reduction in the consultation requirements [for development]," said Bob Lohn, a Northwest regional administrator for the fisheries service, during last week's announcement. "Our basic test is: Are there listed fish being affected?" Pat Stevenson, the Stillaguamish Tribe's environmental manager, said the Stillaguamish River, with about 70 percent of its watershed contained within designated forestland, would still be safe under federal forest rules. Those rules dictate that timber companies leave about 300 feet of buffer between logging areas and fish-bearing streams. "But those protections only exist as long as the forest rules aren't changed," Stevenson said. "We understand changes to the Northwest Forest Plan may be coming." In more-domestic areas, such as the land along the Snohomish River, the lack of critical habitat could cause more problems for fish, Stevenson said. "Theoretically, if Snohomish County has a critical-area ordinance requiring a 150-foot buffer for chinook, it eliminates that buffer and allows developers to build closer to the creek than they currently can," he said. But Mike Pattison, the Snohomish County government-affairs manager for the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties, isn't sure the new federal rules would replace local ordinances. "This only applies to federal lands," he said. "I don't see this affecting Snohomish County to any great degree." Pattison believes the new rules might make salmon-protection money more readily available for the most critical areas instead of spreading it out over the entire course of a river. "I think this potentially benefits salmon restoration in the kind of areas that people see every day," he said. "It might actually help more in urban areas." Tulalip officials say they're carefully reviewing the documents and plan to comment on whether the new rules might harm chinook in the Snohomish and Stillaguamish river basin. For the Tulalip Tribes, the Snohomish River includes the Skykomish and Snoqualmie river basins. "Chinook spawning populations in the Snohomish and Stilly systems represent a significant portion of the chinook production in the Puget Sound region," said Kurt Nelson, the lead fish and wildlife biologist for the Tulalips. "In recent years, we've been able to open up areas for restoration that have been blocked in the past." Federal data contained in the proposed rules indicate the Snohomish and Skagit county river systems might not be as impacted as other parts of the Puget Sound system. Rivers contained in the two counties rank among the highest in terms of how useful the water systems are to chinook production. "In general, there isn't much difference in terms of the depth of coverage of the proposed rules," Gorman said. "The real teeth [for species' protection] comes from the Endangered Species Act itself." The federal agency will begin holding public hearings and collecting comments on the rules in January, Lohn said last week. The rules are expected to be completed by June. Christopher Schwarzen: 425-783-0577 or cschwarzen@seattletimes.com Copyright c. 2004 The Seattle Times Company. --------- "RE: TRAHANT: What's a Salmon Stream without Salmon?" --------- Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 11:34:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MARK TRAHANT: SALMON" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/202912_trahant12.html What's a salmon stream without salmon? MARK TRAHANT SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST December 12, 2004 What is a salmon stream? A simple question. One answer, I suppose, is that if salmon swim or spawn in that stream, it's a salmon stream. But the question is not easily answered because it's a test about our values. What do we as a society care more about, salmon or property rights? Will we favor a wild river or reshape the landscape when it suits us? The federal government is proposing a set of values that changes the balance, tilting more toward electricity and enterprise over salmon and wild rivers. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has determined that the eight large dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers are permanent. A biological opinion said: "It is clear that each of these dams already exists, and their existence is beyond the present discretion" of removal. In other words: The value of cheap power is paramount, but we can pretend to have both power and fish with fewer consequences. It's one thing to rule out dam removal if the government increases its salmon-recovery efforts in other areas. But instead, in a second action, the government proposed reducing the areas listed for specific habitat protection. The government says it wants to focus on rivers where fish now thrive - rather than on tributaries in which salmon have less chance of survival. That means a redefinition of up to 90 percent of the Northwest now considered critical habitat because the economic benefits are more important than the prospect of fish. A smaller habitat-protection zone should make it easier for home builders, timber companies and farmers to triumph over fish. Those industries are hailing the decision as practical, a common-sense approach to development. To be fair: The government (and a lot of fish advocates) says these new proposals are not much of a change. A letter by government officials tells Northwest residents that they remain committed to salmon recovery. They promise to use better technology, such as improved fish ladders, to make it all work. "Every citizen in the Pacific Northwest has a stake in this work," says the letter by four federal administrators, Robert Lohn of NOAA Fisheries, William Grisoli of the Army Corps of Engineers, William McDonald of the Bureau of Reclamation and Stephen Wright of the Bonneville Power Administration. "Salmon are a cultural icon and provide important economic benefits to our region. The federal hydropower system provides approximately 40 percent of the region's electric power as well as flood control, irrigation, navigation and recreation. ... If we are to be successful, we must work together to support our twin goals of a healthy environment and a strong economy." The Biological Opinion and Updated Proposed Action documents are awfully complicated. I am not sure anyone knows with precision what the new rules mean or how these rules will affect fish recovery. The federal government spends a lot of money - about $600 million a year - and says it only wants to be more effective in the actual recovery of fish. The money represents a slight increase. NOAA says it's only "setting priorities" for fish recovery. I hope the government is right. But I worry about this rebalancing. When I read those documents, I get the sense that the velocity of salmon recovery has been officially slowed. The details can be debated - and should be - but there seems to be little in resolution about the basic test of values. We all want salmon, but at what cost? What do we, as a region, give up? I hope we don't lose momentum, because there has been progress in salmon recovery over the past couple of decades. We've made culverts more fish-friendly, there are new weirs around dams and we see fish spawning even in urban streams. What is a salmon stream? A new answer might be a stream where salmon once swam or spawned. Some tributaries could end up as "salmon" in name only. Consider the proposed habitat-exclusion list in the Columbia River system, streams such as the Little White Salmon River or Salmon Creek. In giving up these streams, is this a determination that salmon recovery is too hard? It won't be the first time the region has given up on salmon. Today you can pick up a travel brochure for Jackpot, Nev., near the Idaho state line. Read about how fun it will be to visit the casino and later take time off for great fishing. "With the Salmon Falls Creek flowing just out of town, fishing is just from your doorstep," says a brochure. "Rainbow, brown and brook trout are found in most streams just a few miles in any direction, or you can drive 20 miles to the north and catch a record-size walleye from the Salmon Falls Reservoir in Idaho." How nice. Salmon streams full of trout and walleye (record size, too). The one thing missing is salmon. We should start printing another generation of brochures. We can use them to tell our children about a salmon creek and what was and could have been. Mark Trahant is editor of the editorial page. E-mail: marktrahant@seattlepi.com. Copyright c. 1996-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. --------- "RE: Historic Nisqually Chief exonerated" --------- Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 08:47:28 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LESCHI EXONERATED" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002116406_leschi11m.html Historic Nisqually chief exonerated By Florangela Davila Seattle Times reporter December 11, 2004 TACOMA - The murder defendant had been dead nearly 150 years. But that didn't matter to the judges, the defense attorneys, the prosecutors, witnesses, Indian tribal elders and the rest of the 200 people gathered yesterday at the Washington State Historical Museum. What they wanted to determine was whether Leschi, the historic chief of the Nisqually Tribe, had a fair trial in the first place. Should he have been convicted for killing a Washington Territorial militia soldier - a conviction that resulted in his hanging at age 50? In a first-of-its-kind judicial review, four lawyers and 11 witnesses defended Leschi and urged the Historical Court of Inquiry and Justice to exonerate the Nisqually leader. Supporters handed out medallions that read: "Free Leschi's spirit." And that's what seven judges did. Leschi, they ruled, should not have been tried for murder because the slaying of A.B. Moses had occurred during a time of war. The court's finding is not a legal ruling, but, as a historic decision, it will have historical consequences, said Thurston County Superior Court Judge Daniel Berschauer. "I applaud the historical consequences," he said. Cynthia Iyall, a Leschi supporter, told the judges that the exoneration would add a new paragraph to a story, a new chapter in history books, a new panel in museum exhibits. Leschi, a revered leader to his Nisqually people, is a known namesake throughout the state. But his name in the historical record, his supporters said, has been a source of sorrow and anger, and historians have long questioned the original verdict. With the exoneration, it is time for the world to know Leschi means "warrior, leader, hero, innocent," said Nisqually tribal chairman Dorian Sanchez. History revisited TV coverage: The historical court's proceedings will be broadcast on TVW, the state's public-affairs network, at 7 tonight and at 8 Monday night. Leschi was hanged on Feb. 19, 1858. He had been arrested and charged with killing Moses during an ambush at Connell's Prairie in Pierce County. Earlier, Leschi had been appointed tribal chief by Gov. Isaac Stevens for the purposes of negotiating a treaty. When Leschi balked at the treaty's proposed Nisqually reservation, hostilities flared between Indian tribes and Stevens. Stevens secured a volunteer militia. On Oct. 31, 1855, a militia group was ambushed and Moses was killed. Stevens eventually blamed Leschi for the killing and for instigating the subsequent Puget Sound Indian Wars. Yesterday's tribunal was made up of state Supreme Court justices, Superior Court judges, appellate court judges and a tribal judge. The court was convened by the Legislature, which adopted resolutions asking for the review. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry Alexander had wanted an adversarial process. To that end, a pair of attorneys from the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office presented the government's case. Alexander said the court was not bound by contemporary rules of an appellate court, so the justices did what the defense asked, looking beyond the available record to consider subsequent history. "They found it the right way," said one man as he walked out of the makeshift courtroom in the museum's auditorium. "Relief," said Iyall, who cried when the verdict was read. Carl Hultman, one of the prosecutors, said it was an opportunity for history to be heard. Florangela Davila: 206-464-2916 or fdavila@seattletimes.com Copyright c. 2004 The Seattle Times Company. --------- "RE: Potential for Wind Power" --------- Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 08:33:43 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRIBAL OPPORTUNITY" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2004/12/07/news/state/sta03.txt Potential for wind power said to be great in Plains states By the Associated Press December 7, 2004 PIERRE, S.D. - A California businessman said Monday that the Dakotas and Nebraska could become highly profitable havens for the largest wind farms in the nation over the next decade or two. Eric Greenberg, president of Innovative Investments LLC of San Francisco, said his investment holding company is already working with the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe to build a wind farm on that reservation in central South Dakota. He told the Legislature's State Tribal Relations Committee that South Dakota and other Plains states have huge potential for development of wind farms if sufficient transmission lines are built to ship the electricity to big-city customers in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri. Greenberg said one of the first chores will be to prod the Western Area Power Administration, which markets electricity from Missouri River dams, to accept more power on its transmission lines. He said WAPA has unused reserve capacity of 40 percent. Greenberg suggested that 6,000 megawatts of electricity could be eventually obtained from wind in South Dakota. He said much larger transmission lines will be needed if the wind potential in South Dakota alone is fully tapped. The world's largest wind farm of 300 megawatts is on the Washington- Oregon border. It is owned by FPL Energy, a Florida-based firm that also operates a 40-megawatt wind farm near Highmore that has 27 turbines. FPL Energy also has wind turbines in North Dakota. Mike Jandreau, chairman of the Lower Brule Tribe, said South Dakota cannot consume all of the additional electricity that could be made by using the wind. He said the state should help persuade WAPA to open its lines to extra electricity produced by wind farms. Greenberg said 1,000 wind turbines eventually could be erected on the Lower Brule Reservation. The tribe would get 5 percent of the gross electric revenues, which is well above the compensation typically provided by the power industry, he said. The tribe also could buy electricity from the wind farm at wholesale rates to develop an ethanol plant, reduce irrigation costs and give an economic advantage to other tribal business endeavors, Greenberg said. "If we really develop that to its future potential, they could be a major economic power," he said of the tribe. "I see an electron superhighway going to major markets," he said. "This could probably be the largest industry in the state in 10 to 20 years." Greenberg said he has strong connections to Washington, and he believes WAPA can be convinced to provide additional transmission capacity for wind farms. "If anybody is going to deny Native Americans the right to earn a living, the racist cries will be so loud that they're going to have political baggage," he said of possible detractors. State Rep. Jim Putnam, R-Armour, noted that building existing large power lines in South Dakota was no easy chore. "What a fight that was," he said. Large power lines are not only expensive, they also may face opposition from landowners and environmentalists. Greenberg said transmission lines could be paid for by the federal government and the state could chip in, too, or they could be financed solely by the private sector. Copyright c. 2004 Bismarck Tribune. --------- "RE: J.C. Begay wants his Good Name back" --------- Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 08:33:43 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="DAMAGE COMPENSATION SOUGHT" http://www.navajotimes.com/_content/JC_begay.php J.C. Begay wants his good name back By Bill Donovan Special to the Times WINDOW ROCK - It's been more than two years since Navajo law enforcement officials conducted a search and property seizure at J. C. Begay's ranch near Shiprock. But the effects of that day continue in the tribal court system where Begay has filed a civil lawsuit against 13 tribal officials, both past and present, arguing that the search and its aftermath have created massive problems for him and his family. No money figures are mentioned in his suit but Begay seeks the return of property still held by the Navajo government, reimbursement for his attorney fees over the past two years, and payment for damages that he claims the government's actions have caused his family. F. D. Moeller, Begay's attorney, said the former council delegate is getting his life back together. But the stigma of the search and the related allegations of cattle rustling will hang over Begay's head until he gets his day in court, Moeller said. The search occurred Nov. 25, 2002, as part of a state investigation into cattle rustling in the Shiprock area. Begay, a well-known figure in tribal politics, was accused of having other people's cattle re-branded with his brand. Because Begay's ranch was on Navajo land, Navajo Nation law enforcement officials handled the search. As a result of the search, tribal officials confiscated 51 head of cattle, a large amount of Begay's property, and some $3,000 in cash. Moeller said it was obvious that law enforcement officials wanted to make a point since they kept Begay and his family in a small room while the search went on for 13 hours. There was no reason, Moeller said, for the search to take 13 hours. There apparently was no reason for the search at all, he added, since it's been two years now and no charges of any kind have been filed against Begay. Begay went to court and, after several court hearings (including one where a judge assessed the Navajo Nation a $1,000 fine for each day of non-compliance), got about 80 percent of his property back. The Navajo Nation Supreme Court later ruled that the court had no authority to fine the Navajo government. Names as defendants in Begay's civil suit are prosecutors Vernon Roanhorse, Ella Wilson, Genevieve Woody, Daryl June and Joe Watchman; police officer Harold Moses; former Vice President Taylor McKenzie; former President Kelsey A. Begay; President Joe Shirley Jr.; Tsosie Lewis, CEO of Navajo Agricultural Products Industry; tribal ranger Leonard Butler; Ervin Trujillo, director of the Division of Natural Resources; and Roger Shirley, acting chief prosecutor for the Navajo Nation. Moeller said he is amending the complaint on the judge's order to spell out the reasons why each of these persons has been named in the complaint. What Begay hopes with the lawsuit, Moeller said, is to get his political career back. The cattle rustling allegations came just as Begay was running for re- election as council delegate. He lost the election. He lost again last month when he ran for a chapter post, Moeller said, because a cloud of suspicion still hangs over his head. "It's all political," Moeller said. Copyright c. 2004 Navajo Times Publishing Co. Inc. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Evicted at Camp Navajo" --------- Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 11:34:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ELDERS EVICTED BY CORPS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=99418 Evicted at Camp Navajo By CHRIS MARKHAM Sun Staff Reporter December 10, 2004 Perry and Betty Toney were among thousands of Native Americans who came to live and work on the former Navajo Ordnance Depot during World War II. He's a former Navajo Code Talker who returned from the Pacific and went to work alongside his wife as an ammunition handler. The couple never moved away from the former Army post, but now they have less than three months to find someplace else to live. The Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the Wherry housing development at Camp Navajo, has given 59 tenants notice that the houses built in 1952 for Army personnel will be torn down this spring. And now Perry, 83, and Betty, 82, find themselves leaning on their children to help them find a new home. "We're not well," Betty said. And after a lifetime in the same place, they really don't want to move. But Army and National Guard officials say the houses no longer serve a military function and are not eligible for federal funding needed to either build new homes or refurbish existing ones. "Under federal regulation, you have to have a specific requirement to get funding," said Larry Flatua, project manager with the Army Corps of Engineers. And the project would need plenty of money. For example, the development would have to removed from within Camp Navajo's boundaries, meaning boundary lines would be redrawn and a separate entrance to the Wherry housing would have to be built. That would require a bridge to cross railroad tracks that run between Interstate 40 and the neighborhood that would cost about $12 million Hope Harrison is also a Navajo and came to live and work at the depot in 1946, just like the Toneys. "I already miss this place," Harrison said. "It was the safest place." At 77, Harrison pays $532 a month for the two-bedroom home she shares with her son and his girlfriend. Representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers have told her she's eligible for up to $23,000 to cover either a down payment to buy a house or to cover the difference in rent for up to 3 1/2 years. "I don't want to move, but I guess I have to," she said. Residents will receive relocation money based primarily on what Army Corps of Engineers officials determine is the difference between rents at the Wherry development and comparable housing in Flagstaff. For the Toneys, that difference boils down to $586 per month, or a total maximum of $23,856. They also will receive extra money to cover utility costs and to pay for professional movers. Helena Bolmes, Perry and Betty's daughter, has been handling many of the details for her parents. She knows they probably won't be able to afford to buy a house in Flagstaff's skyrocketing home market. But she hopes she can help them settle someplace else. "I think Clarkdale would be good," Bolmes said. "It has a large Indian community and that's what my father wants." Her father served four years in the South Pacific during World War II as a codetalker, transmitting radio messages to other military units in Navajo so Japanese forces could not understand. He went to work at the depot as an ammunition handler when he returned. Her mother, Betty, also worked as an ammunition handler at the depot. The houses were first built in 1952 by a private contractor who leased the homes to Army personnel stationed at the depot. The Arizona National Guard took over the depot in 1988 after the depot was deemed nonessential to the Army's mission. The Army Corps of Engineers has handled the housing project since then. Arizona National Guard officials began expressing concerns about poor conditions of the houses two years ago, prompting the Corps of Engineers to begin reconsidering its future. Rebuilding or refurbishing the neighborhood would have cost the Army millions. "We can't justify any of those (costs) because there's no purpose for the Army to have that there," Flatua said. National Guard officials came to the same conclusion, he said. "If I was 82 years old, I wouldn't want to move either," Flatua said. "If that was my mom, I'd want her to stay there too." Reporter Chris Markham can be reached at 556-2253 or cmarkham@azdailysun.com. Copyright c. 2000-2004 Arizona Daily Sun. --------- "RE: Christmas Presents arrive for Cheyenne River" --------- Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 08:33:43 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CRST CHRISTMAS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2004/12/07/news/local/news07.txt Christmas presents arrive for Cheyenne River reservation By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer December 7, 2004 EAGLE BUTTE - It's Christmas in a truck. A semi-truck filled with toys, shoes, clothing and more is scheduled to arrive today to help American Indian families celebrate the holidays on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. Joseph Lafferty, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said the gifts will be distributed at its Christmas party. "It's the highlight of our year," Lafferty said. The organization's Christmas party begins at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at H.V. Johnston Cultural Center. A meal will be served after the gift distribution. "This is the shindig of the holiday season," Lafferty said. Lafferty worked with other volunteers to unload the Glastonbury, Conn.- truck for the community party. Hawk Wing, a charitable organization in Connecticut, collected the toys. Lafferty said the Boys and Girls Club of CRST would hand out 1,600 gifts to area Lakota children. "Applicants will receive jackets, clothes, toiletries and shoes, as well as a gift," Lafferty said. Last year, Rochelle Ripley of Hawk Wing contacted Lafferty to use several of the 12 club sites to distribute the children's toys and other items for Christmas. In January, Ripley again contacted the Boys and Girls Club's office to ask for help in creating a better application and outreach to more families in need. The Eagle Butte office distributed applications to its 12 clubs from Cherry Creek to Timber Lake. The applications were successfully completed and returned in June with each family's information, including clothing size, ages and genders of the children. "It's going to be centrally distributed in Eagle Butte," Lafferty said. Volunteers from service clubs, businesses and possibly some of the churches were going unload the items from the trucks. Lafferty said the distribution of presents would not take long to complete. Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com Copyright c. 2004 The Rapid City Journal. --------- "RE: GIAGO: Christmas that ended dependence on Alcohol" --------- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 08:52:01 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GIAGO: CHRISTMAS" http://nativetimes.com/~displayarticle&article_id=5635 Tim Giago:The Christmas that ended their dependence on alcohol Notes from Indian Country Copyright c. 2004 KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE NEW By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) December 8, 2004 The day was gray and overcast. Light snow had been drifting down all morning and it was shaping up into one of those cold, miserable days that make South Dakota the butt of so many jokes. As I nursed my second cup of coffee that morning, through the foggy, steamed up window of Vesta's Cafe', I saw the old, maroon pickup of Enos Poor Bear driving slowly down the slushy street. A smile came to my face as I thought about the many mornings Enos sat with me at this very table and discussed the politics of the Pine Ridge Reservation over a steaming cup of coffee. Enos, the former president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, a respected elder, has a wealth of knowledge about people and the problems of the reservation, past and present, and loved to share his thoughts. His silver gray hair was always neatly combed and his clothes were always pressed and clean. "It is something I learned from my Momma a long, long time ago. When I was a little shaver growing up in the Eagle Nest District at Wamblee, like most reservation families, we were dirt poor. But Momma always told us that no matter how old or tattered our clothes got, we should always keep then neat and clean. I've always honored her wishes," Enos would say. It seems to me that the youngsters of today have lost the ability to sit and listen to the stories and the advice of the tribal elders. The one virtue stressed by the elders is patience and that doesn't seem to fit into this world of instant gratification and high technology. Poor Bear told me more than once that "before our ancestors had high- powered rifles, four-wheel drive vehicles and of those so-called modern devices, it took patience to hunt. Success in the hunt meant that your family would have meat on the table and, of course, failure meant they would go hungry. In order to track down a deer or an antelope on horseback with only a bow and arrow for a weapon required a lot of patience. It seems to me that patience is vanishing along with the other Lakota virtues of generosity, wisdom, courage and fortitude." As I watched the lights of Christmas blinking in the store windows across the street my thoughts strayed to a friend of Enos who had passed away yesterday. He sat with me at this very table a week before he died and talked to me about the many things he had experienced in his long life. Because what he said is so important to all Indians, I will not use his name here but I would suggest that my readers think of a grandfather or of another elder they loved and respected. Perhaps the words of this wonderful elder will take on a special meaning then. The elderly man's faced was lined with many years of toil and his fingers were brown from the many cigarettes he had held. He made a loud, slurping noise when he drank his hot coffee and it reminded me so much of my own father who knew it was not ill-mannered to sip loudly or to burp over a well-cooked meal or a great cup of coffee because that was the Lakota way of saying, "Hey, this is great." Speaking softly as he brushed a shock of snow-white hair from his weathered forehead he said, "There are those young Indians who call God a white man's God. But I think there is one God for everybody no matter their color. And that brings me to Christmas." "To me Christmas is a holiday that cuts across all boundaries. It is a day to pause and to reflect on the past. It is a day to share with your loved ones. It is a day to carry on the traditions that have always been a part of our Sioux heritage, the traditional giving of gifts," the old man said as he stared into his coffee cup. Like the Lakota of old, he used his hands to strengthen every word. "Many years ago my wife and me, we were very heavy drinkers. We got drunk often and neglected our children. We were really destroying our lives and worse yet, we were ruining the future for our little ones. Lakota men and women drink for many reasons and the loss of self-esteem is probably one of the biggest reasons," he said with a sigh. The old man was quiet for a long time as if trying to gather his thoughts and talk about something he found difficult to discuss. "One night - - - it was Christmas Eve - - - my children had all come home from the Indian boarding school for the holidays. I had been drinking all week and I was pretty sick. My wife was sitting in the kitchen still drinking. I guess I was feeling guilty as well as sick because I walked to the room where my youngest daughter sleeps to tuck her in. Just as I got to the door I heard her talking. No, she wasn't talking. She was praying. She asked Tunkasila (Grandfather God) not to bring her a lot of fancy presents for Christmas. All she wanted was for God to make Mom and Dad stop drinking. She told God she loved us very much and to please save us for the children's sake." The elderly man was silent for a long time again. When he spoke he said, "It was very cold that night, but I walked outside and stood there shivering and looking at the millions of stars just thinking about the things my little girl said. I felt the tears running down my face I then I started to pray. All of a sudden the sky lit up like it was daylight and I got this warm, safe feeling all over. I think I heard this voice repeat the words of my daughter "for the children's sake" but I wasn't afraid." A smile came to his lips as he finished what it was he wanted to tell me. "Momma and me, we quit drinking that night. We never touched another drop of alcohol since that day. All of our children grew up and never got into trouble. Two of them graduated from college and all of the others have good jobs and are responsible Lakota people." For the sake of the children he had found peace and comfort in Tunkasila (Grandfather, God) that cold, Christmas Eve so many years ago. ---- (In December of 1984 I wrote this column after a conversation with an elderly Lakota man. The column won the H. L. Mencken Award from the Baltimore Sun in 1985 and the Best Local Column for weekly newspapers from the South Dakota Newspaper Association also in 1985. For years it was the Christmas staple in the Lakota Times, Indian Country Today and The Lakota Journal. I send it out again this year because in the world of the American Indian, it still has deep meaning) Native American Times is Copyright c. 2004 Oklahoma Indian Times, Inc. --------- "RE: A Native American Christmas" --------- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:29:32 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRADITIONALIST LOOK AT CHRISTMAS" http://www.firstperspective.ca/story_2004_12_01_native.html A Native American Christmas By Looks for Buffalo and Sandie Lee December 6, 2004 European Christmas for Native Americans actually started when the Europeans came over to America. They taught the Indian about Christianity, gift-giving , and St. Nicholas. There are actually two religious types of Indian people in existence. One of these is the Traditionalist, usually full-blooded Indians that grew up on the reservations. The second type is the Contemporary Indian that grew up in an urban area, usually of mixed blood, and brought up with Christian philosophy. Traditionalists are raised to respect the Christian Star and the birth of the first Indian Spiritual Leader. He was a Star Person and Avatar. His name was Jesus. He was a Hebrew, a Red Man. He received his education from the wilderness. John the Baptist, Moses, and other excellent teachers that came before Jesus provided an educational foundation with the Holistic Method. Everyday is our Christmas. Every meal is our Christmas. At every meal we take a little portion of the food we are eating, and we offer it to the spirit world on behalf of the four legged, and the winged, and the two legged. We pray - not the way most Christians pray - but we thank the Grandfathers, the Spirit, and the Guardian Angel. The Indian Culture is actually grounded in the traditions of a Roving Angel. The life-ways of Roving Angels are actually the way Indian People live. They hold out their hands and help the sick and the needy. They feed and clothe the poor. We have high respect for the avatar because we believe that it is in giving that we receive. We are taught as Traditional children that we have abundance. The Creator has given us everything: the water, the air we breathe, the earth as our flesh, and our energy force: our heart. We are thankful every day. We pray early in the morning, before sunrise, the morning star, and the evening star. We pray for our relatives who are in the universe that someday they will come. We also pray that the Great Spirit's son will live again. To the Indian People Christmas is everyday and they don't believe in taking without asking. Herbs are prayed over before being gathered by asking the plant for permission to take some cuttings. An offer of tobacco is made to the plant in gratitude. We do not pull the herb out by its roots, but cut the plant even with the surface of the earth, so that another generation will be born its place. It is really important that these ways never be lost. And to this day we feed the elders, we feed the family on Christmas day, we honor Saint Nicholas. We explain to the little children that to receive a gift is to enjoy it, and when the enjoyment is gone, they are pass it on to the another child, so that they, too, can enjoy it. If a child gets a doll, that doll will change hands about eight times in a year, from one child to another. Everyday is Christmas in Indian Country. Daily living is centered around the spirit of giving and walking the Red Road. Walking the Red Road means making everything you do a spiritual act. If your neighbor, John Running Deer, needs a potato masher; and you have one that you are not using, you offer him yours in the spirit of giving. It doesn't matter if it is Christmas or not. If neighbors or strangers stop over to visit at your house, we offer them dinner. We bring out the T-Bone steak, not the cabbage. If we don't have enough, we send someone in the family out to get some more and mention nothing of the inconvenience to our guests. The more one gives, the more spiritual we become. The Christ Consciousness, the same spirit of giving that is present at Christmas, is present everyday in Indian Country. ---- Looks for Buffalo is an Oglala Sioux Spiritual Leader, the full-blood Oglala grandson of Chief Red Cloud and White Cow Killer, and a Cheyenne Oglala Leader. He resides on the Pine Ridge Reservation in SD; Contact him for consulting or healings at (605)867-5762; P.O. Box 150, Pine Ridge, SD 57770. --> Copyright c. 2004 First Perspective, www.firstperspective.ca --------- "RE: YELLOW BIRD:Bridges to the Past and the Future" --------- Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 08:33:43 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW BIRD: BRIDGES to PAST" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.grandforks.com/mld//columnists/dorreen_yellow_bird/10355896.htm DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: Bridges to the past and the future December 7, 2004 When I drove across the Four Bears Memorial Bridge near New Town, N.D., during the Thanksgiving holiday, I looked up at the new bridge growing beside it. I hadn't seen it for several months. It has a monstrous size and height that dwarfs the current narrow, outdated memorial bridge with its broken cement and bent side rails. Less than two weeks later, I was astonished to hear of the Dec. 1 collapse of part of the bridge. How terrified the workers must have been, I thought - the same workers I'd seen when I was driving, and who had looked like ants that day on high span of the bridge. My nephew is one of those workers but wasn't part of the accident. He feels comfortable working on the bridge, he told me. The workers are attached with lines so they are secure if they fall, although being attached to a bridge tower would not be enough to make me feel secure. The new 4,200-foot bridge will be the longest in the state and cost about $55 million. Some years ago, the approval of the bridge project sent up a cheer from the people on the reservation. The people who use the old bridge know its problems. We know whose car put the big dent in one of the side-rails, and we can remember squeezing by those giant semis when we meet them in mid-bridge - especially those carrying huge, round bales of hay. One summer when I met such a semi, a bale fell off just as I passed and narrowly missed my car. I was lucky: Other people have had bales drop on their cars. That bridge was built in 1934 and is part of the history of the Three Affiliated Tribes. It connected the eastern part of the reservation near the town of Elbowoods, N.D., to the western part. It was dismantled in 1953, when the construction of Garrison Dam led to the creation of Lake Sakakawea and the planned flooding of Elbowoods. The bridge then was moved to its current site. Today, it's an old bridge. In 1934, it was built for cars such as the Ford Model A, which had been in production as recently as three years earlier. And it was built for horse-drawn wagons, of course. That bridge was a marker in our history. It connected our reservation, which once totaled 13 million acres but which, over the course of the decades, got carved down to our current half-million acres - a gross reduction in reservation land. The old Four Bears Bridge was placed near Elbowoods because it was a good spot in the river for building a bridge. When you entered Elbowoods, you drove through old, white, 50- to 70-foot-tall cottonwood trees that lined the road. The town had a hospital, Bureau of Indian Affairs offices, campus of buildings for boarding and day school for Native American children, a couple of trading posts and a few other buildings. All the buildings had to be moved out of the way of the growing lake, just like the Four Bears Bridge. Elbowoods was the place that evolved from the old Like-A-Fishhook village where the three tribes, the Arikara, Mandan and Hidatsa, once lived. The Garrison Dam was built in the late 1940s. It flooded 155,000 acres of good land where the Three Affiliated Tribes grew crops of corn and other farm products. I was just a child when the water started to creep up the banks from the low land. I went with my dad and uncles to the edge of the water to watch it slowly move over the land. I guess the folks wanted one last look at the ancient home of the Arikara, Mandan and Hidatsa. I remember we had a "sort of" winter home in Elbowoods. I say that and smile, because the houses were log cabins built near the river and below the town. It sometimes was called "dog town" for obvious reasons. The residents all were Native people and we were in a village-type setting, but I don't remember it being particularly uncomfortable. Then again, I guess children don't usually remember the hardships of the parents. It is a shame that the old bridge - a part of our history - will be destroyed. At an editorial board meeting with North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad recently, I asked the senator if thought had been given to saving the old bridge for pedestrian traffic. He said, and probably reasonably, that it would be too costly to fix and maintain the old bridge. So another part of our history will disappear soon. The stories of our past recede as more and more new chapters get written. Yet those brave young men who work on the bridge (I don't believe there are any women in their group) will remember the day in December when the pages of history stopped turning, at least for a short time. Dorreen Yellow Bird's column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Reach her at (701) 780-1228 or dyellowbird@gfherald.com Copyright c. 2004 Grand Forks Herald. --------- "RE: CHUCULATE: My take on the latest Indian News" --------- Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:45:39 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="EDDIE CHUCULATE: HEADLINES vs REALITY" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/opinions04/120804_opinions_eddie.shtml Found in translation: State's money-hungry - so let's just grab the cash while we can Cleaning out the fall notebook: The news: Pojoaque Pueblo, the only gaming tribe in New Mexico that has not signed a gambling compact with the state, warned Gov. Bill Richardson last week that "exorbitant" revenue-sharing is forcing tribes to use new Class II machines that allow tribes to keep all the proceeds. The take: Even though Cities of Gold casino has no plans to use the machines, I encourage the tribe to install as many of them as it can to see how much money they can generate. The news: Russell Means, 65, has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop the swearing-in Saturday of Cecelia Fire Thunder, who soundly beat him for the Oglala Sioux presidency. Means contends that Fire Thunder, a 58-year old grandmother, doesn't live within the legal boundaries of the Pine Ridge, S.D., Indian Reservation. The take: Is this the same sue-happy Russell Means who sometimes lives in New Mexico and tried to run for New Mexico governor in 2002? Nuff said. The news: The Washington Post reports that Rep. Robert Ney, an Ohio Republican, received at least $33,000 in political contributions from the Tigua Tribe of El Paso in 2002, after the tribe was told by Jack Abramoff that Ney could help keep the Tigua casino open. Ney, according to the newspaper, was lead House sponsor of an election reform bill, and the plan was to slip a casino reopening measure into it. The take: Of course, the attempt at the rider was rejected, and the tribe lost millions of dollars in the fiasco. Why would Ney even want to help this tribe, which is nowhere near his state, much less his district? The committees he's on have nothing to do with gaming. Do you smell a rat? The news: Forensic analysis of a skull fragment found in the historic settlement of Jamestown, Va., shows the first known attempt at surgery, then autopsy, in the colonies, probably around 1610. The take: Experts believe the patient was originally injured after he was clubbed in the back of the head by an Indian, which shows once again another contribution to modern-day medicine and science by Native Americans. ---- Eddie Chuculate (Creek/Cherokee) is a Tribune copy editor who writes about American Indian issues. His column appears on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month. Reach him at 823-3677 or echuculate@abqtrib.com. Copyright c. 2004 The Albuquerque Tribune. --------- "RE: Native Hawaiians call for change in NAGPRA" --------- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 08:52:01 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HAWAIIAN GRAVES" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://starbulletin.com/2004/12/09/news/story5.html Hawaiians call law too broad Inouye invites Senate testimony on dealing with sacred objects By Sally Apgar sapgar@starbulletin.com Native Hawaiians testified yesterday that the 1990 federal law designed to help them reclaim sacred items from museums is flawed, shows favoritism and needs to be changed. "This law has worked for native American and native Alaskan tribes, but it has not worked well in Hawaii," said La'akea Suganuma, president of the Royal Hawaiian Academy of Traditional Arts. Suganuma was one of eight people who recommended changes to the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act yesterday in a hearing in Honolulu before U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye. Changes to definitions in the law are critical in determining who will have the right to reclaim and control burial and sacred objects now held in museums. Inouye serves as vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs until the new session begins in January. Inouye also drafted and introduced NAGPRA. He held the meeting on behalf of the committee. Inouye invited the public yesterday to submit written testimony on the issue by Jan. 4. The committee will use the testimony in making suggested revisions. Several people who testified yesterday said the law works for American Indians who have recognized tribes with governing bodies that are authorized to make decisions on behalf of the entire tribe. Tribal governments can make decisions about how sacred or funerary objects should be treated and even have established tribal museums to house treasures owned by the community. But to date, native Hawaiians have no such governing body, nor do they have a native Hawaiian museum. In the absence of tribes, the law's authors came up with "native Hawaiian organization," which many said yesterday is too broadly defined and does not give proper weight to families in the context of Hawaiian culture and in taking care of ancestral remains and items. "Hawaiian burial practices have always been based on the family and decided by the family," said Cy Harris, who testified that the law needs to be rewritten to strengthen the role of families. He and others said that under NAGPRA, families need to get recognition as a native Hawaiian organization before making a claim. Harris said the "inadequacy" of NAGPRA definitions has put "decisions into the hands of Hawaiian organizations such as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Hui Malama (I Na Kupuna O Hawaii Nei, a group that reburies human remains and sacred items) instead of the native Hawaiian families that should rightfully decide these matters." NAGPRA defines "native Hawaiian organization" as "any organization which serves and represents the interests of native Hawaiians; has a primary and stated purpose the provision of services to native Hawaiians; and has expertise in native Hawaiian affairs." A representative from OHA testified that state law gives better emphasis "on the individual and family claimants, rather than the native Hawaiian organization, in recognition of" the importance of the family in burial matters. Van Horn Diamond, head of another native Hawaiian family group, testified that under NAGPRA, families, nonprofit organizations, cultural groups and royal societies all "get lumped together as native Hawaiian organizations" so that repatriations "are made globally" to the organizations as a group rather than to the claimant who has the closest tie, which is often a family. Edward Halealoha Ayau, a spokesman for Hui Malama, testified that he was formerly a member of Inouye's staff and helped write NAGPRA and the definition of "native Hawaiian organization." Ayau said at the time of NAGPRA's drafting, the definition was intentionally made broad to be flexible and inclusive. "We think it now has to be made narrower," he said. Ayau recommended that the law should be amended to require that the leadership of any native Hawaiian organization be composed mostly of native Hawaiians. Current law does not make any ethnic or blood specifications. Some NAGPRA staff members say this was intended so that no anti-discrimination challenges could be raised to slow or defeat passage of the bill. "It's a complicated legal issue that requires study," said Inouye of Ayau's suggestion and others. Several people who testified slammed Hui Malama for getting too much power and control over items and their fate. "This group has arbitrarily imposed their beliefs on everyone else while getting paid for their services," said Suganuma, a longtime critic of Hui Malama. Ayau said: "We haven't acquired anything. It's all been reburied." He said items that have not been reburied are owned jointly by several groups and are on loan to Bishop Museum. "This isn't about power or authority; it's about kuleana (responsibility)." Harris, with the Kekumano Ohana, another native Hawaiian family group, said "some groups push their protocols and burial practices with total disregard for family opinions or decision capabilities, have their own agenda based on federal grant money." Hui Malama, founded a year before the passage of NAGPRA, was one of only two organizations identified as a native Hawaiian organization in the bill when it passed. Suganuma said Hui Malama "was formed for the express purpose of taking advantage of its (NAGPRA's) provisions and has dominated NAGPRA-related activities without regard for the wishes and beliefs of all others, including those with familial ties, which is contrary to our traditions." Suganuma said under Hui Malama's favored status, "ownership has been transferred to a few, who can do whatever they want to, even selling it." Copyright c. 2004 Honolulu Star-Bulletin. --------- "RE: Ottawa ignored Claim when setting Quota" --------- Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 08:43:27 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LAND CLAIM" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://north.cbc.ca//View?filename=shrimp-courts-12072004 Ottawa ignored claim when setting quota, say lawyers December 7, 2004 IQALUIT - The Nunavut government and Nunavut Tunngavik say Ottawa failed to consider the territory's land claims agreement when it handed out shrimp quotas last year. The government and the Inuit land claim organization are challenging the fisheries minister's allocation of shrimp quotas this week in the first- ever hearing of the Federal Court of Canada in Iqaluit. Lawyers told the court the federal fisheries