From gars@speakeasy.org Wed Jun 8 07:07:13 2005 Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 19:34:02 -0700 From: Gary Night Owl To: Internet Recipients of Wotanging Ikche Subject: Wotanging Ikche--nanews13.023 _ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 13, ISSUE 023 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, WOTANGING IKCHE - Lakota - Common News Wotanging Ikche and Native American News Copyright c. 1996-2005 nanews.org Aboriginal/AmerIndian Perspective about the First Nations of Turtle Island June 4, 2005 Mohawk ohiari:ha/ripening moon Passamaquoddy nipon/summer moon Blackfeet pi'kssiiksi otsitaowayiihpiaawa/moon when birds lay their eggs +-------------------------------------------------------+ | 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; Sovereign News, Rez News, NDNAIM, Sovereign Nations, Frostys AmerIndian and Native American Poetry 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + ======================== "I want my children and the next generation to have their Indian heritage honored and to move past what I experienced and my parents experienced," __ Chief Stephen Adkins, Chickhominy +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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! I have the honor of serving as emcee at some powwows/festivals including The Euharlee GA Veterans' Powwow. I never fail to remind people they are at the powwow because they chose to, not because some local party chairman told them they had to be there; and the reason each of us can make such decisions is thanks to the personal sacrifices of veterans and active duty military who risked everything for our freedoms. I have focused the past two issues on including articles related to our Native veterans, knowing Memorial Day was approaching. There is no editorial this week. The following two articles say it all. The first was submitted to my wife from Bessie and Keith, the second came from Kleita Bagwell of the Cherokee River Indian Community near Moulton AL. ---- Guardsmen in Montana unit are warriors of today who honor their American Indian past By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes Kevin Dougherty / S&S Friday, May 27, 2005 HAWIJAH, Iraq - Their names alone invoke a past as vast as the Great Plains, a heritage as majestic as the Rocky Mountains that lie to the west, where the sun comes to rest and legends reside. Look at a roster of the 1st Battalion, 163rd Infantry Regiment, and you will find surnames such as Black Elk, Heavy Runner, Chief and Headdress. They fight for a nation that, to put it mildly, wasn't all that kind to their forbears. Although many of the American Indians deployed to a U.S. Army base in northern Iraq said their focus was on the present and future, they talked about the past when asked. "I come from a family of warriors," said Sgt. Jeff Jackson, a Nez Perce Indian from Lapwai, Idaho. "I was told this by a tribe member. Yellow Wolf was my great-great-grandfather." Yellow Wolf, according to Web sites, fought in the Nez Perce War against the U.S. Army, which drove the tribe from its native territory in 1877 after a treaty dispute. Jackson isn't the only soldier with a legendary figure in his ancestry. Sgt. Richard Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Indian, is related to Crazy Horse. Black Elk's great-grandfather, a cousin of the famed chief, witnessed the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana, where Gen. George Custer and his men perished. In his later years, Nicholas Black Elk penned a critically acclaimed book on the battle called "Black Elk Speaks." "He was there to see it all," Richard Black Elk said. There are at least a dozen American Indians serving in the U.S. Army at a camp named McHenry near the city of Hawijah. The Montana National Guard heads the Task Force, but its American Indian soldiers hail from others states, too, such as South Dakota and Idaho. Many are front-line infantry soldiers, while others fix vehicles or tend to the sick and wounded. Most are former active-duty soldiers carrying on a new family tradition - serving in the U.S. military. Military service in Black Elk's family goes back to World War I. Sgt. Leon Milda's uncles fought in World War II. Staff Sgt. John Crawford has cousins who have joined the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. "My maternal great-grandfather served in the Canadian army," Crawford said. "As far as I've been told, he went on the Boer War expedition [to South Africa], and everybody before that, well, they just fought the U.S. Army." Crawford couldn't help himself; he had to snicker over that last part, not out of disrespect but at the incongruity of such a statement, given that he now proudly wears the U.S. Army uniform. Pride was a theme that surfaced again and again in conversations with the American Indian troops. Spc. Wesley Headdress served three years on active duty before being recalled as a member of the Individual Ready Reserve. He since has re-enlisted, and said he might volunteer for another stint in Iraq after his current tour ends. "Some of my best buddies are still on active duty," Headdress said over breakfast one morning. "If they're going to be deployed, I would want to be with them." Jackson, who will be eligible to retire from the Idaho National Guard next month, said he accepted a voluntary reduction in grade to make it easier for his unit to send him to Iraq. It was important, the 40-year-old said, "to come out here and be a soldier and help the young men survive." "It's quite a bit of cash I'm losing," he added, "but hopefully I will talk to somebody and they will reimburse me." The American Indian tribes the soldiers come from are as varied as the men themselves. The list includes Blackfeet, Chippewa, Choctaw, Cree, Crow, Gros Ventre, Lakota, Navajo and Nez Perce. At McHenry, the unofficial leader is Crawford, who makes a point of periodically checking in on the soldiers, making sure their spirits are high and they have what they need. Crawford believes he and other American Indians in Iraq have a bit of an edge over other U.S. soldiers whenever they venture into local communities, which, in many cases, are anchored by tribal affiliations. "The customs are different," Crawford said, "but I think I can better understand some of the interactions they have." Copyright c. 2003 Stars and Stripes. All Rights Reserved. ---- http://www.blackstonedaily.com/jima.htm (sent in by Jeff Brodeur of the Korean Vets of America) "A Tale of Six Boys" Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eighth grade class from Clinton, WI. where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable. On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history -- that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during WW II. Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, "Where are you guys from?" I told him that we were from Wisconsin. "Hey, I'm a cheese head, too! Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story." (James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to his dad, who has since passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington, D.C., but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.) When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.) "My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called "Flags of Our Fathers" which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me. "Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called "War." But it didn't turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old. (He pointed to the statue) "You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph. .. a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not old men. "The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or 'Let s die for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers.' "The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero.' He told reporters, 'How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?' So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32 .. ten years after this picture was taken. "The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night. Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away. "The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say, 'No I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back.' My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing He didn't want to talk to the press. "You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and on a monument. My dad knew better He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain. "When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.' "So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time." Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless. We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice. Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and all the wars in- between that sacrifice was made for our freedom. Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those still in murderous unrest around the world STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else's sacrifice. REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free, it's going to be a great day. Copyright c. 2005 Blackstone Daily News, LLC, Grafton, MA. ---- Dohiyi Ani Oginalii , , Gary Smith (*,*) wotanging@bellsouth.net P. O. Box 672168 (`-') gars@nanews.org Marietta, GA 30006, U.S.A. ===w=w=== http://www.nanews.org ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ----------- - Olsen won't let Connecticut Tribes - U.S. Judge throws out submit Evidence Columbia Dams Plan - Connecticut's Relationship - Gathering set to honor Warriors with Tribes - Indians lament River Dams, Lakes - OPINION: Fairness elusive - Santa Fe Indian Hospital for Virginia Tribes faces care shortages - Interior defends Wireless Plan - Editorial: - Attacks on Indian Sovereignty A massive failure to communicate - Native Health struggles - Nevada Tribe starts - Kept Promises wellness program for Women are better than Apologies - Wampanoag dedicates life - Oneidas denied by Supreme Court to reviving Language - Deer Island Concentration Camp - HUME: Sexual abuse Victims remembered of Native Girls widespread - Indians return to - First Nations reach Fort Apache, Court ambush a Milestone in Claim - Four Corners' silent Killers - Tribe threatens development of - County opposes Cayuga Oil-Sands Mines 'Land into Trust' - More tension in N.B. - Giving Tribal Land back Snow Crab Fishery meets resistance - Police, Marchers clash in Bolivia - Miccosukee still fighting Florida - Native Prisoner on Everglades -- High Court sides with Inmates - Miccosukees forced to - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days give up land to Restoration - Rustywire: The King and His Men - Kahnawake Mapping Project - Lee Goins Poem: - Apalachee Heirs Remove The Thorn From Your Heart seek Tribal Home in Florida - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: Olsen won't let Connecticut Tribes submit Evidence" --------- Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 08:58:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RECOGNITION RECONSIDERATION" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.theday.com//re.aspx?re=AE6F2C84-5893-4092-8721-5EBCFBA39CE5 BIA Says Record closed For Rulings on Schaghticokes, Eastern Pequots Tribes Can't Submit More Data During Reconsideration Period May 24, 2005 A federal Bureau of Indian Affairs official told the Eastern Pequot and Schaghticoke tribes Monday that the agency would not accept additional information from the tribes or their opponents as it reconsiders their petitions for federal recognition. The agency is working hard to meet a 120-day deadline and plans to issue a final decision by Sept. 12, according to Nedra Darling, a BIA spokeswoman. "I think that's why they are requesting the petitioners and the third parties don't contact the associate deputy secretary and any other decision-makers or researchers, so they can move quickly on this," said Darling. "We want to make the deadline." Judges from the Department of the Interior's Board of Indian Appeals overturned the BIA's 2002 recognition of the Eastern Pequots and the 2004 recognition of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation earlier this month. In their unprecedented decisions, Steven K. Linscheid and Anita Vogt referred the case back to the BIA for reconsideration. The Easterns and Schaghticokes had asked the bureau if they would have a chance to submit additional information or meet with agency officials. Mike Olsen, principal deputy assistant secretary of Indian Affairs, notified them by letter Monday that the record is closed. "Unsolicited arguments, evidence, comments and briefings from the petitioners and third parties will not be accepted," Olsen wrote. He said the parties should not contact Associate Deputy Secretary James Cason, who is likely to sign off on the decision, or staff researchers. It is unclear whether Interior Secretary Gale Norton would be reviewing or signing off on the final determination. The tribes and those who had opposed their federal recognition - local towns and state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal - had been wondering what would happen next. On Monday Blumenthal called the agency's latest measure a victory, saying it streamlines the process and forces the BIA to rely on the same facts that compelled the Interior Board of Indian Affairs to hold up the recognitions. The appeals board judges cited the BIA's use of state recognition to fill gaps in the tribes' petitions and, in the case of the Schaghticokes, an alleged miscalculation of tribal intermarriage rates by BIA researchers. The judges also asked the BIA to reconsider several issues over which the judges had no jurisdiction, including the BIA's decision to recognize two factions of Eastern Pequots as a single tribe. Eastern Pequot Chairwoman Marcia Jones Flowers issued a prepared statement after receiving the BIA letter Monday afternoon. "Since the (appeals board's) opinion is fundamentally flawed in so many areas, the tribe is confident that the BIA will reaffirm their two prior positive decisions when they review the material already submitted in the record," she said. Flowers said one example of "glaring errors" in the board's opinion was its criticism of the BIA's supposed use of state recognition to prove that the tribe was a distinct community from historic times to the present. "Our evidence was so strong the BIA never even mentioned state recognition in Criteria B," Flowers said. Schaghticoke Chief Richard Velky said the BIA is simply following the rules and he is confident the agency that recognized the Schaghticokes would uphold its decision. "We wanted to make sure there wasn't anything we could possibly do to assist," the chief said. The Schaghticokes have found additional information on intermarriage rates, which the state says the BIA calculated incorrectly in the tribe's favor. A court appeal is likely regardless of the BIA's final decision. Blumenthal has said he would take the issue to the nation's highest court if necessary. The tribes have spent decades and millions of dollars to prove their continuing existence to the federal government, and they too are unwilling to give up. "If it's not in our favor, I'd be very surprised," Velky said. "But I think it would be time for us to start some court procedures of our own." North Stonington First Selectman Nicholas Mullane said the towns would be looking at their options and preparing for the future. Ledyard, North Stonington and Preston joined Blumenthal in appealing the tribe's recognition. "This is fully what we expected, that there can be no public or petitioner involvement in regard to this part of the process," Mullane said of Monday's notification. "It is entirely in the hands of BIA and secretary of the Interior. We agree with that position." k.florin@theday.com Copyright c. 1998-2005 The Day Publishing Co. --------- "RE: Connecticut's Relationship with Tribes" --------- Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 10:22:04 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CONNECTICUT" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.theday.com/eng/~a117fbc5-5d8a-48dc-af03-282dbecc4239 Connecticut's Relationship With Tribes In Modern Times By KAREN FLORIN Day Staff Writer, Casinos/Gambling May 29, 2005 * In 1938, the chief executive of the Indian Association of America wrote to Gov. Raymond E. Baldwin on behalf of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. Several members had written to the Indian Association to protest a state plan to use part of their reservation as a state park. The letter from Dr. Barnabas S'hihushu said, "As one fine Indian wrote to me, he said the white people around here look upon us as dogs and worst than dogs and we cannot buy nothing, not even a cane, or anything without permission. The state authority has full charge of our bodies, not our souls, and the only thing free we have is free air to breathe." * In 1941, responsibility for state tribes was transferred from the Park and Forest Commission to the state Welfare Commission. A decade later, a state welfare official assessed the state tribes in a memorandum to another state official: "In general, there is little to distinguish the state inhabitants of the several reservations from their non-Indian neighbors, other than the housing, which may be of poorer quality and the fact that the inhabitants may be less ambitious. While the state provides assistance to a few of them, most are self-sustaining with the exception of the housing which the reservations maintain. I fear much of the glamour attributed to the `noble redman' has worn very thin." * In December 1956, Welfare Commissioner Christy Hanas summarized "Indian activities" in a memo to the chief of the state's resources and reimbursement division. The commission appropriated $7,500 for tribes that year. Hanas said there was no written policy on Indian matters. So the actual handling of reservations, Indian problems and care of needy Indians was limited to what was expedient at the time and with the thought of discouraging tribal members from returning to or settling on the reservations even though genealogies of the tribes are maintained to prevent imposters from availing themselves of the privileges of the reservations." Hanas listed the names of 10 people living on the Eastern Pequots' 220- acre reservation at the time. Two people lived on the 179-acre Mashantucket reservation, according to the document. Fourteen people resided on the 400-acre Schaghticoke reservation in Kent. Two people lived on the Golden Hill property, a house lot in Trumbull. "In general, the dwellings on the several reservations are in poor condition and of little value," she wrote. "Most, if not all of them, were built by the Indians and are of poor construction and design." * The Department of Environment (now the Department of Environmental Protection) was given responsibility for Indian matters in 1973. Before the transfer, Nicholas Norton, commissioner of Welfare, suggested turning full ownership of land and property to Indians on reservations. All land that was not claimed would be turned over to the state and designated as state parks "for the purpose of fostering public interest in Indian history, Culture and Tradition." "It is felt that this should provide that the state no longer maintain the four Indian reservations but rather turn the land on these reservations over to the Indians for whose benefit these reservations were originally established," Norton wrote. The General Assembly did not accept the plan, and the state still holds reservation property in trust today. * In May 2005, at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on federal recognition, Kathleen J. Bragdon, an anthropology professor at the College of William and Mary, described some of her observations of southern New England Indians over the past 25 years. She said the "social realities" for tribes have included "detribalization, racial poverty and many kinds of social disruption." "Another difficulty is the persistent belief that there are no longer any `real' Indians left in the eastern parts of North America," Bragdon said. Copyright c. 2005 The Day Publishing Co. --------- "RE: OPINION: Fairness elusive for Virginia Tribes" --------- Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 08:58:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="VIRGINIA RECOGNITION FAILURES" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.newsadvance.com/newsadvance80x60.gif&oasDN=newsadvance.com OPINION: Fairness elusive for Virginia Indian Tribes Lynchburg News & Advance May 24, 2005 More than 550 Indian tribes in the United States have gained recognition from the federal government. But none of them is in Virginia. In the name of fairness and equality, that should change. And it should change as soon as possible. The Virginia tribes - six of them at least - have sought federal recognition through Congress since 2000. In trip after trip to Washington to testify on their own behalf, representatives of the state's tribes have been put off and put off. The chief of the Chickahominy Indians asked a Senate committee again last week to grant sovereign status to the Virginia tribes and to show federal respect for their heritage and identity. "I want my children and the next generation to have their Indian heritage honored and to move past what I experienced and my parents experienced," Chief Stephen Adkins told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Adkins decried state-sanctioned racism in the 20th century that included efforts to deny Indian heritage and eliminate references to Indians in vital records. Restrictive state laws, he said, forced his own parents to travel to Washington to marry as Indians. In addition to the Chickahominy, tribes seeking federal recognition through Congress are the Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Nansemond and the Monacan Indian Nation based in Amherst County. Tribes on two reservations in Virginia - the Pamunkey and Mattaponi - are not seeking federal recognition. Official tribal status would allow Monacans and the others access to special federal programs for housing, education, health care and economic development. Tribal leaders hope to win recognition, which they received from the state in the 1980s, before events in 2007 marking the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. Bills by Virginia lawmakers have been introduced in four successive Congresses for tribal recognition. In the House of Representatives, the measure became ensnared in arguments over whether granting such status to the tribes would lead to casino gambling on their tribal lands. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-10th, a leading foe of gambling, has expressed fear that the Virginia bill could open the door to casino gambling across the Old Dominion in violation of state law. Tribal leaders have insisted they are not interested in putting up gambling halls and have agreed to language in the bill that would prohibit such activity. Senator George Allen, R-Va., has taken up the cause in recent years, submitting the current bill that Adkins addressed last week. The Indian Affairs Committee, now chaired by Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., passed a bill to the full Senate in October 2003, but it never came to a vote because of opposition by some senators. Speaking in support of his bill at the time, Allen said, "These tribes have faced discrimination and attacks on their culture that are unheard of in most parts of the United States." The federal recognition fight has become a matter of justice that to this day has been denied the state's Indian tribes. Only Congress can grant them the recognition they so rightly deserve. The clock is ticking. The goal of winning that recognition by 2007 is only slightly more than 1 1/2 years away. Copyright c. 2005 The Lynchburg News & Advance. --------- "RE: Interior defends Wireless Plan" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:37:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HACKERS WILL LOVE IT" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.fcw.com/article88963-05-24-05-Web Interior defends wireless plan BY Aliya Sternstein May 24, 2005 American Indian groups and the Interior Department's inspector general may fret about potential security holes as the department plans to acquire wireless service, but department officials say they shouldn't worry because they would only get voice services. Lawyers representing a group of American Indians suing the Interior Department say wireless Internet service could grant unauthorized access to Indian trust fund account information. Interior plans to release a solicitation notice for departmentwide wireless service because it is for phones only, not Web-enabled devices, Interior spokesman Dan DuBray said. "It doesn't affect the access to any of these networks," he said today. Interior employees buy their own wireless phones, and the department reimburses them individually. Department officials want to have one contract that would place all Interior wireless phones under one carrier so the government can get better rates. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which already has a wireless phone service contract with a single provider, will not be part of the Interior solicitation. Last week, plaintiffs suing Interior gave a federal judge an inspector general's report published in December on wireless management and security. Between October 2003 and April 2004, inspectors found that Interior networks sometimes intersected with other networks and broadcasted information to inappropriate areas and people. Based on the report, lawyers for the Indians argued that hackers could manipulate trust accounts held by 500,000 American Indians. But Interior officials say the wireless IG report makes no mention of the words "Indian" or "trust" except when identifying the Bureau of Indian Affairs. "Therefore, the assertion that the report conveys imminent harm to the trust accounts is a misrepresentation of that report," DuBray said. The IG's report states that a recent Interior memo is silent on the department's plans for handling wireless technology in the future. But that memo is a security implementation guide and was available eight months before the IG's report, which was published in final form without Interior comments, DuBray said. "We would have concerns that the production of the report was subject to extended delay and lacked the opportunity for agency comments," he said today. Interior conducts an aggressive program of routine penetration testing to identify and correct potential security issues, DuBray added. "I insist that there is currently no demonstrable instance -- not one -- in which any individual not in the employ or under contract by the federal government has accessed these systems," he said. "The penetration attempts discussed in these hearings have been part of [IG] explorations specifically requested by the department." Representatives for the Indian plaintiffs were unavailable for comment today. FCW.COM is a product of FCW Media Group. Copyright c. 2000-2005 101communications. --------- "RE: Attacks on Indian Sovereignty" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:37:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NIGA CHAIR ATTACKS BACK" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=47915 NIGA Chairman Addresses Attacks on Indian Sovereignty at Great Plains/ Midwest Indian Gaming Conference May 24, 2005 To: National Desk Contact: Suzette Brewer of the National Indian Gaming Association, 202-557-0976 BLOOMINGTON, Minn., May 24 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Addressing the Great Plains/Midwest Indian Gaming Conference in Bloomington, Minn., Ernie Stevens, Jr., chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA), today gave a national report on the challenges by some state and federal lawmakers looking to exploit Indian gaming for their own political gain. Former counsel on Indian Affairs with the House Interior Committee Frank Ducheneaux, gave the keynote address on the regulation of Indian gaming and defended the tribes' right to self-governance and the challenges they now face in Congress. "I see no crisis in the regulation of Indian gaming," said Ducheneaux, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. "Where is the corruption? Where are the scandals? There are none. And there appears to be a rush to judgment by some lawmakers to find controversy where there is none. But the ones who will suffer are the tribes." Ducheneaux said that the tribes have spent millions on regulation and have cooperated fully with state and federal regulators to protect their gaming operations from corruption. "There is an element of racism that the Indians can't regulate themselves," said Ducheneaux. "But there's no evidence of scandal in Indian gaming. There's nothing to report." Stevens, who gave a national report following Ducheneaux's remarks, reiterated that the tribes have stringent regulatory mechanisms and provided statistics on the regulation of Indian gaming. "In 2004, the tribes spent well over $220 million at the tribal level, they gave $55 million to the states and $12 million to the federal government for regulation of their gaming operations," said Stevens. "There are 3,300 regulators on the ground, operating at every level in the casinos and in the security offices. We work with the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the IRS. We are one of the most tightly regulated industries in the world." Though Stevens acknowledged that while tribes situated in remote locations across the country are prevented from fully developing their economies, he pointed out that through gaming, some tribes are only now beginning to bring economic development and stability to their communities. He said that even with the success of gaming, tribes still have a long way to go to catch up with the rest of the country in employment, housing, healthcare, education, public utility services and infrastructure. "It seems that people don't want Indians to get on their feet," said Stevens. "They liked us better in the old days when we had fewer resources and didn't know where our next meal was coming from. But that is changing and we will fight for the right of Indian tribes to pull themselves forward through economic development, now and in the future." The National Indian Gaming Association is a non-profit trade association comprised of 184 American Indian Nations and other non-voting associate members. The mission of NIGA is to advance the lives of Indian people - economically, socially and politically. NIGA operates as a clearinghouse and educational, legislative and public policy resource for tribes, policymakers and the public on Indian gaming issues and tribal community development. http://www.usnewswire.com/ Copyright c. 2005 U.S. Newswire, A Division of Medialink. --------- "RE: Native Health struggles" --------- Date: Saturday, May 28, 2005 3:52 PM From: lkibby1 [lkibby1@citlink.net] Subj: Native health struggles Mailing List: Sovereign News Mailing List: Rez News http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/7128/1/271 American Indian and Alaska Native health struggles Author: David Lawrence, People's Health People's Weekly World Newspaper May 26, 2005 The Bush administration does not care about low- and middle-income Americans, and they certainly don't care about the nation's indigenous peoples. The Indian Health Service (IHS) recently announced plans to dramatically reduce vital services at its Albuquerque, N.M., facilities using the excuse of "budget deficits," yet Albuquerque has one of the largest concentrations of urban Indian populations in the United States. Worse yet, the per capita health care funding for reservation-based populations is less than half of what is provided to those on Medicaid or in prison. Even Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) recently charged: "The federal government has continually reneged on its trust and moral obligations to meet the educational, health care, and housing needs of Indians, and these needs far outweigh the imperceptible contribution that the proposed cuts will make to reducing the deficit." The federal government has a unique relationship with American Indians and Alaska Natives that is defined by the U.S Constitution, treaties, Supreme Court cases, and legislation. The historic contract was that in exchange for tribal lands, the U.S. government agreed to provide health care to members of federally recognized tribes. The IHS, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, was supposed to have fulfilled that responsibility since 1955, but in reality, it has failed miserably. American Indians/Alaska Natives are among the fastest growing populations in the United States. In the 2000 Census, 4.1 million people (about 1.5 percent of the U.S. population) identified themselves as American Indian and/or Alaska Native, solely or in combination with one or more other racial or ethnic groups. But at the same time, looking at mortality rates, American Indians and Alaska Natives die sooner than whites at each stage of the lifespan, with persistent disparities in infant mortality, life expectancy, and mortality from a variety of conditions including chronic diseases. There are also serious disparities in health care financing, access to care, and quality of care. When the IHS was established in 1955, more than 95 percent of Indian people lived on or near their home reservations. Now, despite the fact that more than 60 percent of members of U.S. tribes reside outside their home reservations at least part of the year, only 1 percent of the IHS budget is earmarked for urban Indian health care - and even that meager care is being slashed. In fiscal year 2003, the Indian Health Service had an operating budget of $2.9 billion to provide or pay for care for approximately 1.5 million of the 4.1 million people who identify themselves as American Indians or Alaska Natives. This amounts to $1,914 per patient per year, which was about $1,600 less per year than the nation spent on other public health care programs serving the non-elderly. According to one study, an additional $1.8 billion is needed to provide current IHS users with services at the same level as those provided to federal employees. Despite this history of extraordinary neglect by the federal government of Native American health issues, there is one very hopeful development. Most of the Native tribes, villages, and organizations in Alaska have banded together to form the Alaska Native Tribal Health Coalition, which cobbles together a statewide health care system by adding cash from third- party payers such as private health insurance and Medicaid. This looks a lot like a democratically operated non-profit health maintenance organization. All Americans have to join with American Indians and Alaska Natives in struggle against the decimation of their health care systems. Moreover, we need to support struggles to get local control of health care where they are taking place. Further, we must make sure that any national health plan takes into account these unique considerations and contributions. This e-mail has been prepared and sent by: Larry Kibby Elko Indian Colony, Nevada --------- "RE: Kept Promises are better than Apologies" --------- Date: Friday, May 27, 2005 11:03 AM From: MJ LaBurt [MJLaBurt@aol.com] Subj: Kept promises are better than apologies Mailing List: Sovereign Nations Mailing List: NDNAIM http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411000 Kept promises are better than apologies by: Gale Courey Toensing / Indian Country Today May 27, 2005 WASHINGTON - A proposed official government apology to American Indians for past depredations would be meaningless without addressing ongoing depredations, tribal leaders told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. The setting was a May 26 committee hearing to discuss "S.J. Res. 15, A joint resolution to acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the United States Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States." The resolution includes a disclaimer noting that nothing in the resolution authorizes or supports any claim or settlement against the U.S. government. While tribal leaders agreed the apology would be thankfully accepted, all acknowledged it would only be a first step toward reconciliation with a federal government that has broken almost every promise, both past and present, to the country's indigenous people. In his introduction to the hearing, Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., foretold what four tribal leaders would say in their testimony. "The government has repeatedly broken its promises and caused great harm to the nation's original inhabitants. While remembering our past wrongs, it's important that we actively address those wrongs with vigorous actions and policies that actively promote the well being of Native Americans today," McCain said. McCain promised he would try to move the bill forward. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who introduced the resolution, drew parallels between American Indians and his constituents who "care for our nation and the land of our forefathers so greatly, that we too are willing to serve and protect it, as faithful stewards of the creation God has blessed us with." The resolution, Brownback said, doesn't dismiss "the valiance" of U.S. soldiers who fought the Indians or blame one side or the other for the battles. "What this resolution does do is recognize and honor the importance of Native Americans to this land and to our nation - the past and today - and offers an apology to the Native peoples for the poor and painful choices our government sometimes made to disregard its solemn word," Brownback said. The apology, said Tex Hall, "is a long time coming." Hall is chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara) of North Dakota and president of the National Congress of American Indians, which was founded in 1944 in response to the government's termination and assimilation policies. "We all know the atrocities wrought against Native people in the United States - the holocaust, the land theft, the forced removals, the boarding school experience completely wiping out the language and cultures of our Native brothers and sisters, the broken treaties, and the attempts to undermine our status as sovereign nations," Hall said. Responses to the proposed bill from tribal leaders "demonstrate that the destructive policies addressed in this resolution are not a fading distant past for Indian peoples: they are present harms that continue to be felt in very real ways every day," Hall said. Consistent under-funding and budget cuts undermine tribes' abilities to enact programs that allow Native Americans to live as robust, healthy, self determining people, Hall said. "These programs are guaranteed to us by solemn treaties and tribes paid for these services by ceding about three billion acres of land to the federal government ... only when coupled with a continued commitment to the government-to-government relationship and to federal Indian programs like health, education and housing can the Apology Resolution truly begin to make a meaningful difference for Indian tribes," Hall said. Edward K. Thomas, president of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, questioned the sincerity of an apology "while ignoring [the] Third World conditions of so many of our people." Thomas gave a long litany of continuing problems that included, in part, the erosion of tribal sovereignty rights in favor of states' rights, the lip service of "tribal consultation," lack of funding, federal tax laws that negatively impact tribes and "management weaknesses" in the BIA. The final speaker, Dr. Negiel Bigpond Sr., a member of the Euchee (Yucci) tribe who was adopted into the Creek Nation, struck a conciliatory note. "There is a spirit in each man, woman and child. Apology, the exchange of forgiveness, and a show of respect and honor always brings a fresh freedom to our spirits, our minds and our bodies. Apology and reconciliation is good medicine to the heart of a person or a nation. America needs this heart medicine and spiritual healing. The broken promises and history of all our peoples needs healing," Bigpond said. Copyright c. 1998-2005 Indian Country Today. --------- "RE: Oneidas denied by Supreme Court" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:37:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TAX BILLS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=6502 Oneidas denied by Supreme Court, slapped with another bill Town wants hundreds of millions in unpaid taxes VERONA NY Native American Times and Associated Press May 24, 2005 When a U.S. Supreme Court ruling came down in March that said the Oneida Indian Nation does not have the authority to assert jurisdiction outside of its current reservation, a spokesman for the powerful New York tribe implied that the case was not yet over with. "Certainly, the Nation wishes the court had ruled differently. But, the Nation will do everything it can to protect the over 4,200 jobs it has created," Mark Emery said in a statement. One option has now been exhausted, as the court refused to reconsider its ruling. The request to reconsider, asked of the court by the tribe in April, was dismissed without comment. In their original 8-1 ruling, justices essentially said that Oneidas waited too long to make a land claim to the 250,000-acres they lost two centuries ago. The case involved the city of Sherrill, which foreclosed on 10 parcels owned by the Oneidas because of unpaid property taxes. The court cited the "long-standing, distinctly non-Indian character" of the city of Sherrill and surrounding areas in ruling against the Oneidas. "The Oneidas long ago relinquished the reins of government and cannot regain them through open-market purchases from current titleholders," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote in the majority opinion. "Generations have passed during which non-Indians have owned and developed the area that once composed the tribe's historic reservation." Lone dissenter John Paul Stevens said that the decision is "at war with at least two bedrock principles of Indian law, that only Congress can reduce a tribe's reservation and change a reservation's tax status... without the benefit of relevant briefing from the parties, the Court has ventured into legal territory that belongs to Congress." The ruling has already had an impact on the Oneidas, with officials in another New York town using the case as a rationale for putting the tribe's casino and more than 200 other properties on local tax rolls. The Oneidas have fired back and are challenging the $384 million in assessments that leaders in the community of Verona expect them to pay. The Oneidas maintain they are a federally recognized tribe, and therefore, cannot be taxed, Verona Town Supervisor David Reed said. Oneida Nation spokesman Mark Emery told the Associated Press that the tribe had no further comment. While town officials expected the Oneida grievances, Reed said he was surprised the nation continued to maintain they do not owe any taxes at all, saying the April Supreme Court decision means the tribe must pay property taxes and obey local laws on former reservation land that they reacquire. "In light of the court decision, it seemed pretty clear that the game was up," Reed said. The tribe has a 32-acre reservation near Oneida. Since opening the casino in 1993, the Oneidas have bought 217 parcels in Verona, covering 8, 528 acres. The 12-year-old casino complex, which draws four million visitors annually, was by itself valued at $362.5 million. The property taxes on the Oneida parcels will amount to about $400,000 a year. The bill is due the first of next year. The tribe, meanwhile, has applied to the U.S. Interior Department to put all 18,000 acres it owns in Oneida and Madison counties into federal trust, a status that could bring full or partial sovereignty and exempt them from taxes. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Deer Island Concentration Camp Victims remembered" --------- Date: Friday, May 27, 2005 11:02 AM From: MJ LaBurt [MJLaBurt@aol.com] Subj: Deer Island Indian concentration camp victims remembered Mailing List: Sovereign Nations Mailing List: NDNAIM http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410998 Deer Island Indian concentration camp victims remembered by: Gale Courey Toensing / Indian Country Today May 27, 2005 DEER ISLAND, Mass. - Standing on top of a hill on Deer Island where hundreds of Indians died of starvation and exposure more than 300 years ago, John Sam Sapiel recollected their suffering. "I prayed in [my language] for all of them," Sapiel, Penobscot, said on May 24, following a commemoration ceremony to honor the Deer Island Indian concentration camp victims, who died on that desolate strip of land off Boston Harbor during the brutal winter of 1675 - '76. May 24 marked the anniversary of the 1677 repeal of the law that established the Massachusetts concentration camp for Indians. The law was signed into effect by the Massachusetts Council on Oct. 13, 1675, five months after the beginning of King Philip's War against the English settlers. The war was a devastating conflict that pitted tribes against each other, killed thousands of American Indians, and cleared the way for white settlement. Sapiel, 74, organized the commemoration ceremony, which drew around 40 people including Boston City Councilor Felix Arroyo. Arroyo placed a wreath on the site of a mass grave. "I told [the attendees] what it felt like. I said, 'We're on top of this mound of bones here that was a mass burial ground for our people. You can imagine what our people went through when they were put over here on this island and left to starve to death. Today, we're just getting a taste of it,"' Sapiel said, referring to the slashing cold 60 mph winds. The island, approximately one mile long by half a mile wide, was a smidgen of land cut off from the mainland by the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Until 1936, the only access to the island was by boat. At that time, the gap between Deer Island and the town of Winthrop, Mass. was filled and a road built. Now Deer Island is the site of a massive $3.6 billion sewer treatment plant and part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area, open to the public for recreation. King Philip, whose Wampanoag name was Metacom (aka Metacomet or Pometacom), had lived peacefully with the settlers for several years as had his father, Sachem Massasoit. But after decades of fraudulent land sales and growing conflicts with the colonists' takeover, Philip launched a war to drive the settlers from New England. Many Indians in the area were Christian converts who had lived among the English settlers all of their lives. But, like a precursor of what would happen to Japanese-Americans during World War II, the colonial government believed the Indians could not be trusted to resist joining Philip's efforts. The 1675 law ordered that all Christian Indians be rounded up and transferred to Deer Island for the duration of the war. Months later, the ethnic cleansing expanded to include all Indians, Christian and non- Christian. "The only thing my people were doing [during King Philip's War] was trying to protect our lands. This is what the settler thing was all about - trying to get the tribes to sign away their economy, their land, and their resources. They're still doing it today in Palestine and all through that area - stealing their land and trying to get their resources, " Sapiel said. These stories from the past need to be told, Sapiel said, particularly the little-known history of the Northeastern tribes who were the first to be impacted by European colonialism. "I feel great about [the commemoration ceremony]. We're starting to get some of our history in there - what happened to us a long time ago. That's the first part of it. Now we're going to be working on a lot of other things to bring the history of the American Indians into focus," Sapiel said. Part of the story that may reflect one of the most ironic projections in the history of the colonial settlers and the Northeastern tribal nations is the depiction on the 17th century seal of the Massachusetts colony - an image of an Indian juxtaposed with a quote from Acts 16:9: "Come over and help us." Copyright c. 1998-2005 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Indians return to Fort Apache Court ambush" --------- Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 19:36:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FORT APACHE RETURNED TO APACHE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk//news/2005/05/28/ixworld.html Indians return to Fort Apache after ambush in court By Francis Harris, at Fort Apache May 28, 2005 High in the sun-blasted mountains of Arizona the paleface and the American Indian have been fighting once again over Fort Apache. This time, however, the underdog has triumphed at America's most famous Wild West garrison. The US government has run up the white flag at last, agreeing after six years of bitterly contested legal action to transfer the site, its dozens of crumbling army buildings and a $7 million cheque to the White Mountain Apache tribe. In the days to come, the 14,000-strong tribe will meet to agree plans for the moment they take formal ownership of a fort that once symbolised their conquest and the loss of their land. Congressmen will ride in from Washington to hold hearings on the fort's future. A new heritage centre will rise on the site where the First Cavalry built a base in 1870. The Indians have every reason to celebrate. Sitting in offices some 5,000 ft above Arizona's blazing plains, the tribe's vice-chairman, Johnny Endfield, described the outcome as historic. "No longer do we win our battles with firearms or bows and arrows, but with our brains," he said. Mr Endfield said the result was a triumph for all America's 550 or so tribes, even though many of their leaders advised the Apaches to drop the case for fear of failure. "Fort Apache is one of the first legal victories that the Indians have won," Mr Endfield said. "Indians are saying, 'This was a victory for the Indian people so we want to do the same thing against the government too.' " General George Crook with one of his trusted Apache scouts The courts, America's new battleground for the great issues of the day, are currently clogged with litigation by Indians against the "Feds" over everything from water in the dry states of the south-west to the mismanagement of trusts and the alleged theft of land. By winning the legal right to run casinos on their reservations, tribes such as the Mohegans, the Mashantucket Pequot and the Choctaw have secured wealth and influence - and taken revenge on white America for past wrongs with the weapon that is the slot machine. But the Fort Apache case, which went all the way to the Supreme Court, has attracted the most attention, not least because Hollywood has made this remote spot famous the world over. It was the 1948 classic Fort Apache, with John Wayne and Henry Fonda, which first made the name resonate. The fort had a starring role in the popular television series Rin Tin Tin, about the adventures of an alsatian at the fort, in the 1950s. Toy makers began mass producing plastic Fort Apaches, bendy brown stockades complete with guard towers, which sold by the million in America and Britain. Before long the name was used to describe military outposts established deep in hostile territory and liable to sudden attack by bandits in places as far afield as Vietnam, Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and most recently at a US Marine base in Fallujah. In fact the real Fort Apache was very different from and far more peaceful than its many imitators. The Apaches attacked only once, in 1881, and were beaten off with a bloody nose. There were no palisades. Here in the mountains the defences were 100ft cliffs on two sides, a steep hill and a river. Karl Hoenig, its museum director, said Fort Apache was important because it was built by agreement between the two sides. "That agreement allowed the White Mountain Apaches to stay here [on their ancestral lands]," he said. According to Mr Hoenig, the fort's military significance was as a jumping-off point for Gen George Crook's raids against the Chiricahua Apaches, who campaigned from bases in the valleys of the high country. It was also, he said, "the first place where the army recruited Apache scouts, which allowed it to win the Indian wars". Copyright c. of Telegraph Group Limited 2005. --------- "RE: Four Corners' silent Killers" --------- Date: Friday, May 27, 2005 4:09 PM From: mikola18 [mikola18@hotmail.com] Subj: "Four Corners' silent killers" Mailing List: NDNAIM http://www.indiancountry.com//content.cfm?id=1096410997> [My comment: Screw any tribal chairman who claims that air pollution is exclusively the concern of Anglo environmentalists.] Four Corners' silent killers by: Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today Part two SHIPROCK, N.M. - Four Corners power plants and coal mines on the Navajo Nation are some of the dirtiest power plants in the U.S. and among the nation's top 50 power plants for mercury emissions, reports show. "Mercury from power plants is harming our children," said Dr. John Fogarty. "New evidence from the Centers for Disease Control indicates that 30,000 women in New Mexico may have elevated levels of mercury in their blood." Fogarty has served as a family physician on the Navajo Nation for six years and, as a faculty member at the University of New Mexico's Masters of Public Health program, teaches courses on human rights and health care. Fogarty joins Navajos pressing for health studies correlating their diseases to existing power plants and coal mines. They say the long- overdue studies should be completed before knowingly exposing Navajo communities to more air pollutants from new coal-fired power plants, such as the Navajo Nation's proposed Desert Rock power plant in San Juan County. "Children, developing fetuses and pregnant women are at particular risk, as mercury affects the developing brain and nervous system. We know that mercury causes children to have birth defects, reduced intelligence and learning disabilities," Fogarty told Indian Country Today. Navajos point out that few studies have taken into consideration the combined health risks of the toxins released by power plants, coal mines, uranium tailings, and oil and gas discharges and river dumping in the Four Corners area. Navajos in the Four Corners area - where the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet - have a high death rate from pulmonary disease and cancer from working without protection in U.S. uranium mines during the Cold War. Oil and gas companies on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico and Utah are often cited and fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for excessive toxic dumping. The EPA also cited the city of Farmington for dumping excessive amounts of aluminum, chlorine and other harmful substances into the San Juan River, which flows through the Navajo Nation beginning near Shiprock, N.M. The EPA settlement in 2003 included a $5.5 million cost to the city for new waste facilities. Enei Begaye, Navajo, is water campaigner for the national action coalition Indigenous Environmental Network and among those pointing out that the Navajo Nation's air, land and water are already being poisoned by corporate polluters. Begaye said Navajo community members have consistently said they are opposed to yet another power plant in their back yards and that they are not being heard. "Coal-fired power plants, no matter what the technology, are among the worst polluters of our land, air and water: not to mention the large amounts of water that are needed simply to run the plant," Begaye told ICT. "If our tribes are serious about building a secure financial future, investing in renewable energy is the way we should be moving. If we are serious about protecting our future generations we should be aggressively safeguarding our lands and waters. "This Desert Rock power plant is yet another step towards turning the Four Corners area into a cheap energy battery for the large cities of the Southwest, while the land, water, air and the Navajo people suffer," Begaye said. Fogarty confirmed that Navajos living around existing power plants and coal mines, on and around the Navajo Nation and concentrated in a 50-mile radius of the border town of Farmington, N.M., are suffering from the emissions. "We know that emissions from power plants are associated with an increase in premature death and higher mortality rates. People living around coal plants experience more asthma attacks, respiratory problems, heart attacks and strokes. "Based on my clinical experience working in Navajo communities, the Navajo people have higher rates of pulmonary disease than the general population in America. Navajo people definitely have much higher rates of lung cancer, but also appear to have increased rates of pulmonary fibrosis [scarring of the lungs]." Four Corners power plants currently emit 35,100 tons of sulfur dioxide and 45,200 tons of nitrogen oxide each year. On the Navajo Nation, San Juan Generating Station ejects 14,500 tons of sulfur dioxide and 25,500 tons of nitrogen oxide in the air each year. And the proposed Desert Rock would put out 3,400 tons of the two substances each. The EPA released a complete report of chemical toxins for the year 2000, showing Four Corners power plants, and the coalmines, which feed those, topped the list in New Mexico's dirtiest power plants. (Continued in part three: Navajo Nation plans to control power plant emissions on tribal lands) Copyright c. 1998-2005 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: County opposes Cayuga 'Land into Trust'" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:37:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CAYUGA 'LAND INTO TRUST'" http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard//news-0/11170107866271.xml County fights Indian request Legislators formally ask federal government to deny Cayugas no-tax designation. By Scott Rapp Staff writer May 25, 2005 Cayuga County took a formal stance Tuesday against the Cayuga Indian Nation's attempt to avoid having to pay taxes on its local properties. At their regular meeting, county lawmakers unanimously approved a resolution urging the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to reject the tribe's request to put its real estate holdings in federal trust. With that designation, the tribe would not have to pay property taxes or obey local laws on its properties in the Cayuga land-claim area around the north end of Cayuga Lake. Legislator George Fearon, a Springport Republican who sponsored the resolution, said the measure is not "a feel-good resolution." Fearon said he is most concerned about land being removed from the tax rolls if the BIA grants the tribe's land-trust application for its properties in Cayuga and Seneca counties. The Cayugas own several businesses, including two high-stakes video gaming halls, and some vacant land in both counties. Several of the properties are in Union Springs. Syracuse lawyer Daniel French, who filed the trust application for the Cayugas, said the "nation recognizes the county's concerns and hopes to work with them closely on this, and other issues." He declined further comment. Legislature Chairman Herbert Marshall, R-Port Byron, said he would support the resolution but said he was concerned because it failed to state any reasons for the county's opposition. The BIA is continuing to gather information for the tribe's land-trust application and is far from making a decision, said Nedra Darling, a BIA spokeswoman. "We're in the preliminary stages of review," she said. At some point, there will be a 30-day public comment period during the review and county Legislator David Pappert, R-Auburn, urged the county "to ask and possibly demand" that a hearing be held locally so residents have an opportunity to voice their opinions. The county action stems from the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that dealt a blow to the Oneida Indian Nation of New York. The top court ruled in March that the Oneidas have to pay property taxes and obey local laws on ancestral land that the nation recently reacquired in the city of Sherrill. Governmental opposition to recent land trust applications by the Cayugas and the Oneidas is mounting. The Oneidas have applied to put about 17,000 acres in Madison and Oneida counties into trust. Last month, the state Senate approved a resolution urging the Department of Interior to reject both applications. The measure was co-sponsored by state Sens. Raymond Meier, R-Western, and Michael Nozzolio, R-Fayette. At the federal level, Reps. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New Hartford, and John McHugh, R-Pierrepont Manor, asked the Interior Department to suspend action on both land trust applications last month. Copyright c. 2005 The Post-Standard. Used with permission. Copyright c. 2005 syracuse.com. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Giving Tribal Land back meets resistance" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:37:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FORT BERTHOLD LAND" http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2005/05/25/news/local/nws01.txt Giving tribal land back meets resistance By LAUREN DONOVAN, Bismarck Tribune May 25, 2005 Members of Fort Berthold Indian Reservation have waited 50 years to get back land taken from them for the permanent flooding of Lake Sakakawea. They may be within months of getting about 25 percent of that land back, but from comments at a hearing on a proposed transfer Tuesday night in Bismarck, the idea faces some stiff resistance. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it has authority to transfer land above 1,854 feet elevation within reservation boundaries that's no longer needed to maintain or operate the dam. It proposes to transfer about 36, 000 acres of the 156,000 acres originally taken when Garrison Dam was built in the 1950s. The authority comes from a 1984 federal law, the Fort Berthold Mineral Restoration Act. The transfer would be a several-step process and include more hearings and a report on the effects of the transfer before any final action, possibly later this year. Members of the Three Affiliated Tribes said the transfer helps right an old wrong, created when the reservation was forced to give nearly 70 percent of all the land needed in North Dakota to hold back the Missouri River from flooding downstream. John Danks, a reservation member, reminded the 200 or so at the hearing that the tribes were once given 12 million acres in treaty, now reduced to 450,000 acres by one taking after another. About one-third of the people who attended were tribal members. "Why does the public want these few acres in the heart of our reservation?" Danks asked. "Why would they?" The corps has leased some of that land to state and local public users over the years and several state officials stepped up to provide that answer. State Game and Fish Commissioner Dean Hildebrand said he is diametrically opposed to the transfer as proposed because of the state's investment in 7,000 wildlife management areas around the lake. The areas are managed for recreation and hunting. He said the wildlife management areas would become tribal lands and non- tribal members would have to buy tribal hunting licenses to use them. He said the state and tribes should at least have the same "sideboards" of opening seasons and bag limits. Gov. John Hoeven said the corps should not abandon its responsibility to provide recreation on Lake Sakakawea, which is outlined in the corps' master manual for Missouri River operations. Doug Prchal, director of the State Parks Department, said there are state and federal cooperative recreation projects on the lake that could be affected by the transfer. "What does the future hold should this transfer proceed?" he asked. The transfer would consist of varying widths of land, rimming the reservation on both sides of the lake. The land is closest to the water, where boat ramps and public use occurs. Prchal's question got to the heart of the matter. David Johnson, a member of a cabin owner's association at McKenzie Bay, said people simply need more information about what would happen if the tribe takes over leases like the one McKenzie County and Watford City have with the corps for a $2.5 million public and private recreation area there. Byron Holtan, owner of Indian Hills resort on the lake's north shore, raised a question of fairness. Holtan said he is a non-tribal member, living within the boundaries, whose family also had land taken for the dam. Now he's leasing some of that land back to operate a resort and said it's in jeopardy of being included in the transfer. He said his grandfather had an old farm truck in which he used to help reservation members move out of their homes ahead of the rising water. "There were a lot of tears shed in that truck," Holtan said. "Why shed tears again?" Holtan said the land should be returned to reservation and non- reservation members alike. Russell Gillette is the son of George Gillette, who was tribal chairman when the federal law was signed to flood the reservation members' ancestral home. In a photo that went around the world, George Gillette was overcome with emotion among stoic bureaucrats. Russell Gillette said the Three Affiliated Tribes are still reeling from the trauma caused by the dam. "We all have to work together," he said. "We're all human." The corps plans to make an agency-to-agency transfer to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which will hold all of the transferred land in trust. Paul Danks, tribes' natural resource manager, said the Three Affiliated Tribes still has to clarify whether it would take over the corps' leases for wildlife management areas and public recreation areas or whether those would be managed by the BIA. Tribal chairman Tex Hall sent a statement to the hearing. He said the tribe has questions about the transfer, too. "The tribes recognize and understand that many of you are fearful of the proposed transfer," Hall said. "... understand that the tribes do not have any desire to obstruct your interests as we recognize that it is in the tribes' best interest to promote economic activity on and around Lake Sakakawea." The corps will hold a hearing at 4 p.m. today at the Dickinson Days Inn and at 4 p.m. Thursday at the Williston Airport International Inn. Public comment will be taken from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@westriv.com. Copyright c. 2005 The Bisbark Tribune. --------- "RE: Miccosukee still fighting Florida on Everglades" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:37:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FLORIDA STALLING ON COURT DECREE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.orlandosentinel.com/~26052605may26,0,6258233,print.story State says Everglades restoration is on track, but tribe disputes it By Curt Anderson The Associated Press May 26, 2005 MIAMI - The Everglades restoration project has prevented more than 2,000 tons of phosphorus from entering the vast wetlands and is on track to reduce the harmful nutrient to low long-term levels required by court order, state officials said in a court filing Wednesday. The filing in U.S. District Court by the Department of Environmental Protection and the South Florida Water Management District acknowledges that current phosphorus levels have been exceeded periodically in Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, at the northeastern edge of the Everglades. Those instances have decreased and occur mainly after the marshes are dried and then rewetted, the agencies said. "In 17 of the past 21 months in which samples could be taken, the refuge's long-term levels have been achieved -- 18 months ahead of time," they said. A 1992 court settlement overseen by U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno requires that more stringent levels of phosphorus introduced in the Loxahatchee be achieved by Dec. 31, 2006. At a May 11 hearing, Moreno expressed skepticism that goal would be met by the 30-year, $8.4 billion restoration effort. "The implementation of the projects to meet the requirements of the consent decree will not require a Hail Mary pass in the fourth quarter," the agencies said, echoing a football reference made by Moreno at the hearing. The Miccosukee Tribe and a coalition of nine environmental groups claim that the state and federal governments are violating the 1992 settlement by allowing repeated excessive discharges of phosphorus, which comes from South Florida farms, dairies and suburbs. The state agencies' filing says that 35,000 acres of stormwater- treatment areas have been built on time, with an additional 19,000 acres costing $1 billion yet to come. Combined with efforts to get farmers to reduce phosphorus runoff, about 2,000 tons of the nutrient have been kept out of the Everglades during the past decade, they said. One treatment area has encountered delays, mainly because additional earth needed to be moved, but it is scheduled to be completed in October. Moreno said he would issue a ruling by the end of May on the claims by the Miccosukees and the environmental groups. The state agencies said any problems and disputes should be resolved by those involved and not through additional judicial intervention. Copyright c. 2005 Orlando Sentinel. --------- "RE: Miccosukees forced to give up land to Restoration" --------- Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 08:48:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JUDGE ORDERS LAND SURRENDER" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.naplesnews.com//0,2071,NPDN_14940_3809907,00.html Miccosukees forced to give up land to Glades restoration By ERIC STAATS, emstaats@naplesnews.com May 27, 2005 Florida's ambitious and controversial land buyout to make way for Southern Golden Gate Estates restoration has reached a milestone, but the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians is not celebrating. Collier County Circuit Judge Ted Brousseau signed an order May 17 forcing the tribe to give up more than 800 acres it owns in the restoration area in exchange for $2.2 million from the state. The tribe's land was the last of some 19,000 parcels the DEP has been trying to acquire since 1983 across 55,000 acres of the failed subdivision. The land cost more than $111 million, according to state figures. State and federal money paid for it. "It's the end of an era," said Nancy Payton, a field representative for the Florida Wildlife Federation. The Miccosukee decision comes after high-profile holdout landowner Jesse Hardy agreed in April to sell his 160-acre homestead in Southern Golden Gate Estates for $4.95 million. With land in hand, the DEP plans to restore natural water flows across Southern Golden Gate Estates to the Ten Thousand Islands by installing pumps, filling in canals and digging up roads that developers cut through the landscape decades ago. The Miccosukees aren't through fighting just yet though. Attorneys for the tribe filed a motion May 18 with Brousseau for a rehearing of his decision that the tribe had waived its right to object to the state's eminent domain claim. The case raised sensitive legal questions about tribal sovereignty and more practical arguments about whether the state had served tribal leaders properly with notice of the eminent domain claim. The tribe and the DEP are familiar foes. The Miccosukees have been at the forefront of legal battles over the pace of efforts to clean up the Everglades and provide more water to part of Everglades National Park. Ernie Barnett, the DEP's ecosystem restoration director, said he hopes the eminent domain case will not harm what he calls the DEP's "positive working relationship" with the tribe. The tribe acquired one Southern Golden Gate Estates parcel along U.S. 41 and the Miller Boulevard extension for $15,000 in 2001. Two other larger parcels southeast of the Estates' grid of platted lots were acquired in 1998 for $438,000. Attorneys say the tribe uses the land to collect palm fronds for traditional chickees and to gather materials for tribal medicines. A consultant for the Miccosukees took the DEP to task Thursday for forging ahead with eminent domain against the tribe instead of working out some other mechanism by which the state could use the land for restoration and the tribe still could own it. "They (tribal leaders) want to use it in its natural state," said retired U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Terry Rice, now an engineering consultant for the Miccosukee Tribe. Col. Robert Carpenter, Jacksonville district engineer for the corps, said Thursday that he had been trying to work out such a deal. The corps is the federal partner, with the South Florida Water Management District, for Everglades restoration, which includes the Southern Golden Gate Estates project. Under a special financing scheme, Florida is using its own money to restore Southern Golden Gate Estates instead of waiting for federal money. Carpenter said he had been unable to get his talks with the tribe to the point where he could be confident that tribal activities wouldn't interfere with the restoration. "The state did what they needed to do, the right thing, to continue to move forward," Carpenter said. Barnett said it was only fair for the state to seek title to the tribe's land because the DEP had pursued title to every other parcel in the buyout area. "In the eyes of the state, they are a landowner like any other landowner," Barnett said. He said Florida allows the Miccosukees to use public land in other parts of South Florida for their tribal customs, and Southern Golden Gate Estates, also known as Picayune Strand State Forest, ought to be no different. "We would like to pursue this type of opportunity within Picayune Strand as well," Barnett said. The DEP's court fight with the Miccosukees puts a contentious cap on what has been a rocky and prolonged buyout. To this day, the buyout is a rallying cry for property rights advocates upset with the way the state treated landowners in Southern Golden Gate Estates. Southern Golden Gate Estates landowners from all over the world filed lawsuits in 1988 and 1992 charging that the state had effectively condemned their land by putting it on a state acquisition list, asking low prices for it and making it difficult to build there. In 1997, thousands of landowners agreed to a settlement by which the state and landowners would agree on new and binding appraisals. The settlement, followed by a $25 million infusion of federal cash, jump-started the buyout. Starting in 2002, Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet authorized the DEP to use eminent domain to acquire land in Southern Golden Gate Estates. Collier circuit court judges handled some 1,800 eminent domain cases in Southern Golden Gate Estates. Copyright c. 2005 Naples Daily News. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Kahnawake Mapping Project" --------- Date: Friday, May 27, 2005 7:50 PM From: Kahente [kahente@paulcomm.ca] Subj: Kahnawake Mapping Project - Anyone know about it? Mailing List: Frostys AmerIndian http://www.sfu.ca/coastalstudies/linking/capacity/abstracts/KaMa.htm The Kahnawake Mapping Project: returning names to their rightful places Suzana Dragicevic Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6, suzana_dragicevic@sfu.ca Shivanand Balram Department of Geography, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2K6, shiv.balram@physics.org Douglas Jack Eco-Montreal Tiotiake, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2K6, eco-montreal@mcgill.ca Before the arrival of the colonizers, the Mohawks freely roamed the expanses of North America. Today, these First Nations people are confined to 'reservations' scattered across North America. Kahnawake is one such reservation located 10km south of Montreal, Canada. The objectives of this mapping project is: to identify and locate place names, and to map the territories of the Mohawk First Nations in the Montreal, Canada region; to use geographical information systems mapping techniques and participatory community planning to facilitate historical recollection; and to record the oral histories associated with the place names used by the Kahnawake Mohawk First Nations in Montreal. A participatory approach involving historical research and iterative focused group discussions with Mohawk elders was used to elicit traditional knowledge. The iterative process ensured that the historical information was verified internally. The results of this process were then developed into a digital plac e names map that represented the cultural history of the Mohawks in the Montreal region. This map will be served on the internet using ESRI's ArcIMS technology to enable collaboration among Mohawk First Nations and updating of the place names information. This resource will be beneficial to the Mohawks in their efforts to revive their culture and language, and as a tool to educate both native and non-natives. --------- "RE: Apalachee Heirs seek Tribal Home in Florida" --------- Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 19:36:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="APALACHEE SEEK REDRESS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11759666.htm Apalachee heirs seek tribal home in Florida Three hundred years after their forebears were driven out of Florida, members of a little-known tribe want to return - for their past and for the right to have casinos. BY AUDRA D.S. BURCH aburch@herald.com May 28, 2005 LIBUSE, La. - Gilmer Bennett is 73 or 74, recovering from a quintuple bypass, most pleased with his burial site here and aware that this is the last chapter of his life. But he pines for a place he doesn't really know. He wants to pack up his family in rural Louisiana - a diabetic wife, six children, 15 grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and three chubby dogs - and come to Florida. Bennett has never lived in the state, but his people did - Apalachee Indian warriors so fierce that mountains and rivers and streets bear their names. The Apalachee, no longer recognized as a tribe, are fighting for reinstatement of federal recognition and a reservation in Florida or Louisiana. And they want the requisite privileges of tribal status - which include the right to build casinos. The process for federal recognition, which awards healthcare and education assistance in addition to casino rights, is slow and politicized - the Apalachees' bid has lingered for 10 years. Petitioners have long complained that already-recognized tribes lobby the government against recognizing others. And state authorities often argue that some tribes have only frayed threads of their culture left, not enough to constitute a tribal identity, but seek recognition because of the prospect of casino riches. Bennett, chief of the Apalachees, says that is not his motivation. "I want to be in my ancestral homeland before I die," Bennett said. ``I want to go back to where I come from." His ancestors lived in the crown of Florida, long before Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto made history. British troops drove the Spanish and Apalachees out in 1704, and the tribe - defeated, diseased and reduced to dozens - fled west, eventually settling north of Alexandria, La. SURVIVAL STRATEGIES Some blurred the past, marrying outside the tribe and passing for white or Hispanic, depending on hue; changing their surnames and, sometimes, denying their Indian heritage. It was a matter of survival. Bennett knows personally the cost of pride: His grandfather was clubbed to death by members of the Ku Klux Klan. His father was jailed for living with a white woman. The collective family memories, great and still precise, linger. But 15 generations removed from Tallahassee, with just about 300 members left, a language lost and the culture in peril, this tribe has come out of hiding, armed with a glorious history now being celebrated. The Smithsonian lists the tribe in its new edition of the Handbook of North American Indians. Its culture is part of a permanent exhibition at the San Luis Mission in Tallahassee, where the city also bestowed the tribe with a proclamation. And the Bennetts, a humble couple taking on a mighty cause, are fielding calls regularly from chroniclers of culture such as the History Channel, National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System. Each time, they oblige. 'Ten years ago, if you had asked any Florida historian or archaeologist if there were any known descendants of the Apalachee, they would have laughed. `Of course not,' they would have said,' " said Bonnie McEwan the Florida archaeologist who runs the mission, once a safe harbor for Apalachees. ``Nobody knew they existed before 10 years ago." KEEPING THE RECORD Libuse is more mile marker than town. Off one of its few roads, past a KFC, a library and a big wooden barn, the Bennetts live on 50 wooded acres. Bennett bought the land on a carpenter's salary 15 years ago, and they live modestly in a three-bedroom house. They added an office - still raw plywood - to serve as tribal headquarters, and it is enough to accommodate the seven council members, a long conference table, a computer and cabinet files thick with nearly 300 years of history. This is where Bennett's wife, Jeannette, the tribal genealogist, matriarch and cheerleader, spends much of her time, fussing over precisely filed records and committing all that history to memory despite dyslexia and old-fashioned aging. The record paints a magnificent and tragic story of war and massacre and migration and isolation and rebirth. The Apalachees were converted to Catholicism early on, so their lives were documented in church records, from the baptismal to the marital. Now, those records are the key to their survival. GETTING RECOGNITION In 1988, Congress enacted standards for federal recognition of tribes, which essentially made it much easier for reservations to open casinos. For years, Indian tribes lobbied the government, saying gambling profits would rebuild impoverished tribal communities. Since the law took effect, more than 300 groups have sought tribal recognition and more than 200 have opened casinos. U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is leading the latest look into the federal government's process of awarding recognition. At stake are highly profitable gambling rights: The take at Indian casinos in the United States exceeded $18 billion last year - an amount that fuels controversy over the process. Earlier this month, the government overturned federal recognition of the Eastern Pequot and the Schaghticokes (who are similar in number to the Apalachees), saying those groups needed to provide more evidence that the tribal identity they assert survived during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Schaghticokes want to build a waterfront casino in Bridgeport, Conn. The Easterns, with a reservation in North Stonington, would add their own casino to the two already operating in southeastern Connecticut. On paper, the petition process should take two years, but on average it lasts more than a decade, said Gary Garrison, spokesman for the Interior Department Bureau of Indian Affairs. Of the 302 petitions filed since 1978, only 57 have been processed. Of that number, 38 were approved and 19 denied. Ten years ago, the Apalachees sent the bureau more than a dozen bound volumes of history dating back to 1721. They sent what they believe is proof that the Apalachees didn't die out, that they remained a vibrant culture underground. Their case is still in the petition stage. "What we have done in all these years was about survival. For all these years, it wasn't safe to be Native American," said council member Alex Tall, 66. WANTS WHAT'S DUE Bennett says he simply wants what is due his tribe. He wants the same sovereign rights granted the Tunica-Biloxi, Mashantucket Pequot, Coushatta and Chitimacha in Louisiana as well as the Seminoles and Miccosukees in Florida. "Imagine that. I have to go to the federal government, to the white man, and prove that I am an Indian," Bennett says over a bowl of gumbo, imparting a hint of bitterness. ``Anybody can look at me and see I am Indian." The Apalachees settled in the Tallahassee area some 1,200 years ago, part of a Native American culture that once stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. By the 1500s, the Spaniards had arrived. In the early 18th century, the British raided the Spanish missions in Florida. With the troops just days away, the Spanish and Apalachees burned Mission San Luis on July 31, 1704, and fled. Many of the Spanish returned to North Florida, but the Apalachees, hobbled by the attack, eventually made their way to Louisiana, where they settled villages on 22,000 acres - controlled by the French and Spanish - along the Red River. In 1835, the band moved again - farther out to the most remote reaches of swampland, and farther in, living almost exclusively alone. The tribe was written off and the government rescinded federal recognition. CONTEMPORARY HATE In the next century, they faced contemporary hatred - the KKK, lynchings, Jim Crow laws. Bennett still remembers the stinging spectacle of being an 8-year-old hauled into court, publicly examined along with his siblings to establish that he wasn't black. Annie Mae Charnahan, 89 and Bennett's cousin, said she was taught you simply didn't talk about who you were. You didn't ask or answer any questions. "We stayed out here in the country. We kept to ourselves," said Charnahan, who lives in a modest home on the land owned by the tribe since the 1800s. The first house built by an Apalachee pioneer, carved from cypress wood, remains on the land. Bennett recalls sitting in the back of his class in school for two years without speaking - he didn't know the language. "By the time I finally learned English, I was already two years behind," he said. About 10 years ago, though, Bennett and other tribe members decided to reclaim their heritage, in part because they had college-bound children who could use the financial assistance. "We talked about it and after all these years decided it was finally safe to come out," Bennett said. ``We want our children to get what is rightfully theirs." Copyright c. 2005 The Miami Herald, Knight-Ridder Publications, Inc. --------- "RE: U.S. Judge throws out Columbia Dams Plan" --------- Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 08:48:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SALMON" http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/226066_columbia27.html U.S. judge throws out Columbia dams plan By JEFF BARNARD THE ASSOCIATED PRESS May 27, 2005 GRANTS PASS, Ore. - A federal judge yesterday rejected the Bush administration's $6 billion plan to improve the Columbia Basin hydroelectric dam system, saying it violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to protect threatened and endangered salmon. Noting that federal law puts salmon "on an equal footing with power production," U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland ruled in favor of a challenge by environmentalists, Indian tribes and fishermen to a NOAA Fisheries plan for balancing dams against salmon. That plan, called a biological opinion, contended that $6 billion in improvements to the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers and other measures would eliminate threats to the future survival of threatened and endangered salmon. Redden rejected the underlying principle of the NOAA plan -- that the dams are part of the ecosystem. Accepting that assumption would make the government responsible only for the small percentage of mortality to salmon from changes in dam operations, not for the greater damage from the dams themselves. Salmon are often killed or injured as they pass through the dams while swimming out to sea and returning to spawn. This is the third time the courts have tossed out the government's strategy for protecting the fish. Bob Lohn, Northwest regional director of NOAA Fisheries, said the agency's efforts to protect salmon were yielding measurable improvements, restoring more than 3,000 miles of salmon habitat and producing locally generated recovery plans. The biological opinion rejected by the judge calls for spilling a full measure of water over four dams on the Columbia and two on the lower Snake to help juvenile salmon migrating to the ocean. Lohn said switching to some "untried operation" in a drought year like this "would be risky and speculative for salmon survival." Redden will hear arguments June 10 on changing dam operations now that the biological opinion has been struck down. Issues include how much water to spill over dams to help fish rather than running it through turbines to produce power. Bonneville Power Administration Administrator Steve Wright said spilling more water for fish, as plaintiffs suggest, would cost Northwest electricity customers $100 million. Environmentalists hailed Redden's decision as a major victory in their long-running battle with the Bush administration. "The agencies have to go back and come up with an honest analysis of the trade-offs between keeping obsolete dams and restoring salmon and restoring communities in the Columbia Basin," said Jan Hasselman, a lawyer for the National Wildlife Federation, one of the plaintiffs in the case. In his ruling, Redden also found that NOAA Fisheries was arbitrary and capricious in deciding that long-term improvements to critical salmon habitat, such as dam improvements, would offset other damage. The judge added that the plan stands in sharp contrast to prior plans, is not comprehensive enough to assure the protection of salmon, and does not address the prospects for salmon recovery. P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler contributed to this report. Copyright c. 1996-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. --------- "RE: Gathering set to honor Warriors" --------- Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 08:48:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="STANCE AGAINST HUNGER" http://www.newsok.com/article/1510424 Gathering set to honor warriors By Judy Gibbs Robinson The Oklahoman May 27, 2005 Hundreds of American Indians from across the country are expected to gather north of El Reno this weekend to honor ancestors imprisoned by the federal government in 1875. The men will rise early to pass a pipe at sunrise, sending their prayers heavenward with the sacred tobacco smoke. Later, the women will dance a scalp dance -- a victory celebration that never came for the warriors 130 years ago. John L. Sipe Jr., a seated Cheyenne chief who organized the event, said 300 to 400 people indicated they would attend Gathering 2005, up from about 100 at the first reunion last year. The gatherings honor 72 Arapaho, Caddo, Cheyenne, Comanche and Kiowa warriors who were imprisoned for three years because they refused to stay on their western Oklahoma reservation, where food was scarce. U.S. Calvary soldiers rounded up the warriors near Fort Sill. Most of the women already had surrendered, and Sipe believes the men knew their cause was futile. "But they had to fight for their way of life -- for the buffalo, for their family, for their freedom," he said. The soldiers put the warriors in chains and shackles and shipped them by wagon and train to Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Fla., where they got haircuts and military uniforms. They were organized into companies and taught military drills -- along with reading, writing and drawing. Sipe believes the warriors' imprisonment at Fort Marion ended the traditional Plains Indian way of life, and the sudden ending left prisoners and their descendants permanently scarred. The gatherings are a step toward healing, he said. "I think if we deal with this trauma today, we'll have a better way of dealing with this stuff that happened to all Native Americans, not just the POWs," Sipe said. Copyright c. 2005 News 9/The Oklahoman, Produced by NewsOK.Com. --------- "RE: Indians lament River Dams, Lakes" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:37:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CULTURAL GENOCIDE" http://www.indianz.com/ http://www.argusleader.com//article?AID=/20050525/NEWS/505250341/1001 Indians lament river dams, lakes Decades-old floods took fertile land, plentiful animals from tribes TERRY WOSTER twoster@midco.net May 25, 2005 PIERRE - Native Americans who lived along the Missouri River before the huge dams were built probably lived in poverty, but they wanted for little, a former tribal chairman said Monday. Vern Ashley, 89, was a young Crow Creek Sioux Tribe leader when the dams of the Pick-Sloan Plan were being authorized and built in the 1940s and 1950s. He was among elders from several South Dakota tribes who shared memories of the Missouri River before the dams at a conference on the river in Pierre. "According to today's standards, I suppose we were living in poverty," Ashley said. "But we were never living in want." The dams and the resulting lakes they created forced Fort Thompson, headquarters of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, to be relocated from the river bottom to a higher elevation. Across the river on the west bank, Lower Brule, headquarters of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, also was relocated to higher ground when the water rose more than four decades ago. Elders who lived in those communities before the dams and the relocation described a life centered on the Missouri's waters, with stands of timber, fruit trees and bushes and wildlife of all species. They talked of saw mills and hospitals, electric plants and schools - and of all that being flooded. They said the attempt to control the river with dams created disharmony in nature. "We spent most of our time by the river," said Maxine Grass Rope of the Lower Brule Tribe. "We were rich on our reservation. We had everything." Rose McCauley, also a Lower Brule member, said she moved to California for a brief time, and when she returned, the world she knew had changed forever. "It was sad when I came back from California to see how the river had been changed to a lake," she said. "Many of our people lost their homes and lost good land." Ashley said he testified on five separate occasions before Congress on various Pick-Sloan matters. He said he's the oldest living member of his tribe and the oldest living chairman of any of the river tribes that were affected by Pick-Sloan. He described a river bottom filled with cottonwood and elm trees and "all the fruit you can think of, chokecherries, plums, grapes." He said beaver, mink and raccoons were plentiful, and his father taught him to trap those animals and sell or barter the hides for groceries. "It disrupted our Indian people's way of life - absolutely," Ashley said of the creation of the reservoir system. "Life has never been the same since then .... We lost a considerable amount of the most productive land on the reservation." Reach Terry Woster at 605-224-2760. Copyright c. 2005 Argus Leader. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Santa Fe Indian Hospital faces care shortages" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:37:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FIRST ALBUQUERQUE, NOW SANTA FE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.kobtv.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=19373&cat=ABQMETRO Santa Fe Indian Hospital faces health care shortages By: Associated Press May 24, 2005 SANTA FE (AP) - American Indian patients who had used Albuquerque's Indian hospital or a clinic at Santa Clara Pueblo are turning to the Santa Fe Indian Hospital. Staffers at Santa Fe say that development is causing longer waits. More people are showing up at Santa Fe because a fire temporarily closed Santa Clara's facility and the Albuquerque hospital sharply reduced services after long-standing funding problems. The result is going to be a strain on all Indian health care facilities, according to Norman Ration, director of the National Indian Youth Council in Albuquerque. Ration worries that patients without alternative health care or transportation will wait until they're very sick before seeking help. Copyright c. 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2005 KOB-TV, a division of Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc. LLC. --------- "RE: Editorial: A massive failure to communicate" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:37:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="KLALLAM" http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/editorialsopinion/2002288620_tribed26.html Editorial: A massive failure to communicate May 26, 2005 For almost 3,000 years, the Klallam people have inhabited the northern Washington coast, and it took a $60 million decision to halt a state construction project for anyone to notice. One of the marvels of Seattle Times reporter Lynda Mapes' extraordinary series on the rediscovery of a rich cultural history was an element of anthropological surprise. In the mind's eye of nearby Port Angeles, and distant Olympia, the tribe's visibility, in the absence of a casino, ranked well below salmon and eel grass on pre-construction checklists for a massive dry dock planned by the state Department of Transportation. Fragmentary hints of generations of life and death held out the promise of negotiated conditions on which to keep on building. Wishful thinking was stopped by 335 intact skeletal remains. No amount of rationalization or denial could overcome the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's connection to a place. The same flat access to the ocean that appealed to engineers in 2003 was attractive to villages of people who lived beside and were sustained by the sea. If the state can be faulted for casually surveying the ancestral homeland of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe for potential archaeological significance as a real-estate deal was closing, the tribe's own apparent failure to adequately document and preserve its history is evident as well. Oral tradition and memory have their limits in protecting tribal interests if the history is not readily retrievable by those in charge, or offered by those who possess it. The $60 million lesson is that better information is needed before the first shovel goes into the ground. The halted project consumed a hefty amount of the state's 5-cent gas-tax increase. This is a story without an easy direction to point fingers. The state is obligated by federal law to consult with the tribe, but there is no official template for a final agreement, or for reaching one. The operative option was literally to bulldoze ahead and see what happens. Both sides were using ad hoc archeological services, which meant neither the tribe nor the state had a deep, sustained database for ready reference. Unlike environmental considerations, no one seemed to anticipate the need for cultural surveys or appreciate the consequences of significant discoveries. This is a conversation state officials need to have, preferably outside of the courts, and before another 10-acre hole is dug. Given the history of this region, the opportunities and challenges will not go away. Just this week, work was halted on a road project near Arlington after the discovery of the remains of at least two American Indians who likely belonged to the Stillaguamish Tribe. This region has big projects on the horizon: Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct, Highway 520 bridge and other highly desirable and overdue widenings and improvements - even the Boeing pier at Mukilteo, with its proximity to the Tulalips. This all cannot grind to a halt, but we can be more adroit in anticipating and accommodating future discoveries. A functional conversation needs to occur with the tribes, cities and the state, sharing information in an effective, productive fashion. The political and moral climate has changed. Copyright c. 2005 The Seattle Times Company. --------- "RE: Nevada Tribe starts wellness program for Women" --------- Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 08:48:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WELLNESS" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/article/20050527/News/105270014 Wellness program producing WiseWomen at Fallon tribe JOSH JOHNSON, jjohnson@lahontanvalleynews.com May 27, 2005 Women of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe are taking charge of their health and learning to be a WiseWoman through a newly-implemented wellness program. WiseWoman, which stands for Well-integrated Screening and Evaluation for Women Across the Nation, is administered through the Centers for Disease Control's Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity as a cardiovascular health screening tool for women. The Fallon program is conducted in coordination with the Fallon Tribal Health Clinic diabetes program. Since the program's start at the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe in January, eight women have made steps to improve the health of them themselves and their families, said Jenevie Lucero, a tribal senior health advocate. "What we're trying to do is emphasize the nutritional needs, exercise and being healthy," Lucero said. "It's all built on your lifestyle and intervention. This is one of the best programs I've seen." Women first undergo a screening and evaluation session designed to identify possibly lifestyle changes. A wellness plan is created and members are matched up with others with similar needs. There are no fees and no formal measure of success. Participants monitor their own progress and are encouraged to journal. Many women use walking and exercise bands to improve their health, she said. Some are walking three miles per day as part of their daily routine. Lucero said she's looking to incorporate water aerobics into the program through the use of the Churchill County indoor pool. The program is open to any woman in Churchill County. The program has a trickle down effect, where women incorporate wellness into the lives of their families, she said. Nutrition and exercise are especially important to indigenous people, who have increased risk of diabetes. "Diabetes is very high among our people," Lucero said. "It's very important to understand the disease and the eating habits they have." The program has helped Linda Oxborrow, Lucero's sister, feel more energetic and improve her physical stamina. Though it took a while for her body to adjust, she's incorporated walking into her daily routine, especially while picking asparagus. "I have more energy," Oxborrow said. "After the initial aches and pains, you tend to have more muscular flexibility. Women need to change their diets and exercise levels to compensate for today's on-the-go lifestyle, she said. "We're a rural community. Many of us have grown up eating foods made from scratch," Oxborrow said. "We never had a lot of packaged and processed foods. Now that we've gotten supermarkets and superstores, our diets have changed." For more information on the WiseWoman program, contact Lucero at the tribal senior center at 423-7569. Josh Johnson can be contacted at jjohnson@lahotanvalleynews.com Copyright c. 2005 lahontanvalleynews.com. --------- "RE: Wampanoag dedicates life to reviving Language" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:37:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SAVING WAMPANOAG LANGUAGE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www2.townonline.com/bourne/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=252452 Found in translation By Joe Burns/ jburns@cnc.com May 26, 2005 The first time that Jessie "Little Doe" Baird heard her native language spoken is when it came out of her mouth. "We haven't had any speakers of our language for six generations," says Baird, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe who has made it her mission to return the Wampanoag tongue to her tribe. Her journey began a dozen years ago with a recurring dream. "I had visions and dreams of people that looked like my family but weren't people that I knew. They were talking to me and I didn't know what they were saying," Baird says. One day while driving along Route 28 in Falmouth she saw a street sign with the Wampanoag word Sippewissett. Misspelled and mispronounced Wampanoag words such as Matacheese, Cotuit, Santuit, Poponesset and Sippewissett are common on the Cape. But this time this word connected with Baird on a subliminal level. "When I read it, it dawned on me. I think those are Wampanoag people talking to me and I think it's Wampanoag [that they're speaking]," Baird says. That realization set Baird on a course to revive a language that hadn't been spoken in 150 years, and return it to her tribe. "There was prophesy about our language coming back. One of the prophesies that talks about our language coming back is that the ones whose families were there when the circle was broken will be the families that would heal the circle if the community wanted language back," Baird says. "My job basically was to go and ask the people of our nation if they wanted to welcome our language back into the community. I was promised that if they did, I would have all the help that I needed." Baird contacted an elder from the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe on Martha's Vineyard to see if there'd be any interest there. The response was: "I've been thinking about this for years." Encouraged, Baird polled members of both communities and again the answer was positive. "Nobody said 'I'm not interested,'" Baird says. "In a tribal community, that's a huge feat to get a consensus on anything immediately." Wampanoag is one of 33 languages in the Algonquin language family and has two dialects - Mainland and Island. And with the blessing of both communities Baird went about learning the language of her ancestors. "At the time I didn't know anything about Wampanoag [language]. I didn't know anything about the Algonquian language family. I didn't know anything about linguistics," Baird says. Taking a leave of absence from her job, Baird immersed herself in her studies, eventually earning a master's degree in linguistics from MIT. Through her research she discovered a rich written legacy from which she could draw. "I started looking around and lo and behold I found that the Wampanoag language is the first American Indian language on this continent to have a writing system," Baird says. "At a certain period in the 17th century there were more Wampanoag people that were literate in Wampanoag than there were English people in written English." Even the first Bible set to print on this continent was written in Wampanoag, Baird says. "People recorded everything from personal letters to diaries and transactions." Learning to decipher these documents gave Baird and her community insight into their history. "I got to see what position my family took on different matters hundreds of years ago. I got to see where some of our traditional behaviors come from learning the language. Reading from these native written diaries and letters, there were some really horrific things that took place around here." There was no standardized spelling at the time. But the variety of spellings proved helpful to Baird in trying to determine the sound of the words. "It can eliminate what consonants or vowels should not be present," Baird explains. She also could look to similarities in Wampanoag and in other Algonquin languages that are still spoken. There are four types of languages in the family. If you're not sure of the sound of a particular item all you have to do is look at the pronunciation of these sister languages. A language is returned "When I started there was no regularized spelling system. We have that now. We had no dictionary. We now have a 10,000-word dictionary," says Baird, who has created a curriculum through trial and error and taught the language to more than 100 members of her community in Mashpee and Martha's Vineyard. "What we're trying to do is get everybody at a conversational level so that they can have an everyday conversation with each other," Baird says. Instruction is limited to members of the Wampanoag tribe. "A lot of the elders felt that this is something that's ours and it's no less precious and important to us than our land. And it's one thing that we can probably have to ourselves if we're careful," Baird says. "It's great source of pride. People don't feel like they've lost every single thing we had." That pride can be seen in how the language is once again becoming part of the community. "It's typical now that children are named traditional Wampanoag names. Our language is being used for ceremony again, in poetry," says Baird, who has recently been asked to assist the Mashantucket Pequot of Connecticut in restoring its language. "I've helped other tribes too. For the Pequot I'm going to help them reorganize their grassroots effort and help them develop a short term and long term community fluency plan," Baird says. "I think that I was actually born to do this. This is for my community circle. This is just what I'm supposed to be doing," says Baird, who will see the Wampanoag prophesy realized when her daughter Mae Alice Weekanashq, whose Wampanoag name means sweet grass, starts to talk. "We haven't had a living native speaker until my 10-month-old daughter," Baird says. "She will be a native speaker because when we're home together during the day, that's all she gets." Copyright c. 2005 The Upper Cape Codder, Copyright of CNC and Herald Interactive Advertising Systems, Inc. --------- "RE: HUME: Sexual abuse of Native Girls widespread" --------- Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 08:58:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SEXUAL ABUSE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com//20050523/BCABUSE23/TPNational/Canada Sex abuse systemic, group charges By MARK HUME May 23, 2005 VANCOUVER - The sexual abuse of young aboriginal girls in Prince George has become a systemic problem that should be the focus of a sweeping inquiry, a women's rights advocate says. "I think we have to have a real airing of what's going on here," Lee Lakeman, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres, said yesterday. "How many people tolerated this situation and to what degree? There's a serious need for some understanding within that community of what's happening," said Ms. Lakeman, who was reacting to a recent CTV News report that confirmed two RCMP officers are under investigation for alleged sex crimes. The case involving the two unnamed officers flowed from an investigation that culminated last year in the conviction of former provincial court judge David Ramsay. Mr. Ramsay sexually assaulted young aboriginal girls in Prince George over a 10-year period. His victims, picked up on the streets of the small town in northern British Columbia and sometimes dropped off naked in the bush, were as young as 12. Mr. Ramsay, who was sentenced to seven years in jail last June, was a prominent lawyer in Prince George before he was appointed to the bench. Ms. Lakeman said it is hard to believe that such a high-profile figure, preying on girls in a small town where the girls wait for tricks in an alley near the courthouse, could have gone undetected for so long. She wonders what the police knew and when they knew it. "From walking around Prince George, from knowing how courthouses work, I don't see that it's possible that he wasn't witnessed in this abuse," she said. "Maybe somebody could [pick up girls without being noticed], but not a high-profile judge who's got an identifiable persona and car and personhood. "It just seems very unlikely to me. When I walked around in Prince George and saw where he dumped girls and where he picked up girls, everybody knows where the strip is. I think it's very unlikely police were not cruising this area and never saw him." Ms. Lakeman said there were rumours in Prince George that police were also preying on girls. The RCMP has suspended two members pending the outcome of the current investigation. The two officers are no longer stationed in Prince George but both had served in the northern community at the time of the alleged offences. Over the weekend, RCMP spokesman Corporal Tom Seamon confirmed two officers "are under investigation for misconduct," but would not provide any more information. The Ramsay case was not the first time a prominent figure in Prince George was charged with sexually assaulting young aboriginal girls. Hubert O'Connor resigned as the Catholic bishop of Prince George in 1991 after being charged with sexually assaulting two aboriginal girls while they were students at a residential school in the late 1960s. In 1996, Mr. O'Connor was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in jail for his crimes. At the time, native leaders said they hoped the conviction of a leading figure in the community would encourage other young girls to come forward. But they didn't, and when police began to investigate rumours about Mr. Ramsay, they found it difficult to find anyone who was willing to testify. Ms. Lakeman said the situation in Prince George, where 70 per cent of sex-trade workers are young aboriginal girls, needs to be fully investigated to find out why the problem exists and why it has been allowed to fester for so long. "It's just not possible that there aren't more people in positions of influence and power who were tolerating this situation. You know maybe they tolerated it because they think prostitution is okay. Maybe they tolerated it because they thought these were throw-away children because they were aboriginal children, or maybe they tolerated it because, I don't know what, but I can't imagine anything that makes it tolerable. We need to get to the roots of this problem," she said. "Why are young girls finding it necessary to be on the street in Prince George? And why are they young aboriginal girls? What is wrong here that these people don't have access to what they need