_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 13, ISSUE 040 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, 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 October 1, 2005 Hopi Angaqmuyaw/long hair moon Mohawk Kentenha/moon of poverty Kiowa Gakinat'o p'a/ten-colds moon Assiniboine Tasnaheja-hagikta/striped gopher looks back moon +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Much more happens in Indian Country than is reported | | in this weekly newsletter. For daily updates & events | | go to http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm | +-------------------------------------------------------+ Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin -- Blackfeet -- News for All the People Ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min -- Ojibwe -- We Are Talking About Ourselves Aunchemokauhettittea -- Naragansett -- Let Us Share News Kanoheda Aniyvwiya -- Cherokee -- Journal of the People O Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse -- Creek -- People's New News O o O Acimowin -- Plains Cree -- Story or Account O o O Tlaixmatiliztli -- Nahuatl -- News O o o o o O Agnutmaqan -- Listuguj Mi'kmaq -- News O o O Sho-da-ku-ye -- Teehahnahmah -- Talking Birchbark O o O Un Chota -- Susquehannic Seneca -- The People Speak O Ha-Sah-Sliltha -- Ditidaht Nation -- News of the People Ximopanolti tehuatzin, inin Mexika tlahtolli -- Nahuatl -- For you we offer these words It-hah-pe-hah Ah-num pah-le -- Chickasaw -- Together We Are Talking Dineh jii' adah' ho'nil'e'gii ba' ha' neh -- Navajo Nation -- What's Happening among The People News Okla Humma Holisso Nowat Anya -- Choctaw -- People(s) Red Newspaper Hi'a chu ah gaa -- Pima -- The stories or the talk of the People s ch mA mL tL squee Lux -- Okanogan -- News from the People Native American News -- Language of the Occupation Forces ++>If you speak a Native American language not listed above, please send us your words for "News of the People." We'd rather take up this whole page saving these few words of our hundreds of nations than present a nice clean banner in the language of the occupation forces who came here determined to replace our words with their own. email gars@nanews.org with the equivalent of "News of the People" in your tribal language along with the english translation <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is produced in straight ASCII text for greatest portability across platforms. Read it with a fixed-pitch font, such as Courier, Monaco, FixedSys or CG Times. Proportional fonts will be difficult to read. <================<<<< >>>>================> This issue contains articles from www.owlstar.com; www.indianz.com; www.pechanga.net; Native American Poetry Mailing List; 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + ======================== "...Vadzaih googii vi dehk'it gwanlii. It means 'Sacred Place Where Life Begins' ... It's not a thing of the past. It's alive, it's not in a book only." "We have to live there for thousands of years ... so we want to keep it that way. The Gwich'in people are a caribou people. It's our food, tools, clothing. It's our shelter." __ Sarah James, Gwich'in +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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 Sister! Yes, the trust, or more accurately the distrust, has been beaten to death in this and a myriad of other information sources (although not enough to shame the government into doing the right thing). The BIA has a long, long history of "losing" records - but this time somebody found the "lost" papers before the trash was dumped and they were destroyed. How often has this happened? I'm pretty sure BIA functionaries will claim, with a straight face, that this is an isolated incident. Can anyone with an ounce of sense believe that now? It's obvious somebody is flagrantly breaking federal law to eliminate evidence in an ongoing investigation, at least this once, and perhaps many times. Destruction of evidence germaine to an ongoing federal case is a major felony! This is not just a little insignificant "OOPS". The matter should be investigated and whoever dumped the file should be found and indicted. If the culprit turns out to be a clerk who was instructed to discard the file with no knowledge of the contents, he or she should be offered a plea deal to finger the superior to ordered it). The problem with an investigation is: WHO will investigate and prosecute the attempted destruction of files that may be evidence against the BIA? Would it be the very Justice Department who is vigorously defending the BIA in court? Would it be the same Justice Department who's shopping for a less unfavorable sitting judge? Is there a real obvious conflict of interest here? It is time to quit accepting lip service from Swimmer and Norton. We need to discover if a Republican Congress is sufficiently shamed to go after their own. We "The People" can and should force this festering sore to such a nasty head it cannot and will not be ignored, covered up or pretended away. 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 ----------- - Government caught - Dam on Rocky Boy's expands destroying more Indian Records - Opinion: DOJ proposal - Arrested Bush Official is Economic Termination has questionable ties - YELLOW BIRD: - Interior Dept. A (Wolf) howling good time Defends Accounting Work - Student Webcasting NMSU - Check the Records, Mr. Swimmer Aggie Games in Navajo - Opinion: A frustrating Tale - Native Band bids of Non-Accountability for control of Coast Forest - What Hurricane Katrina reflected - Serious disruption - Tribal offer of Buffalo meat of Traditional Protocol for Hurricane Relief - Nunavut Teachers Homeless - Protect Bear Butte after hiring boom - Plan to compensate Spokanes - Gwich'in continue fight raises Neighbors' ire against ANWR Drilling - Court terminates Shawnee - RCMP To Arrest Tahltan Elders Kansas Reservation on Sept. 15 or 16 - Lack of Money hinders - Case Looks at Benefits Cheyenne-Arapaho turnaround of 'Mixed-Blood' Indians - San Juan Governor - Crownpoint Institute wants Pueblo's Name changed of Technology Ruling - Distributors of Peyote - REVIEW: a dying breed in Texas Leonard Peltier in his own words - Blackfeet Tribe - Native Prisoner rescinds Stop Work Order -- Expanded Tribal - Group to retrace Justice Proposed fallen Brule Warrior's Last Ride - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days - Wild Rice key - Rustywire: A Cradleboard to Tribe's way of Life - Lee Goins Poem: A Friend - Returning the Land - Fighting against - Tribe Hopes for Return fading Oneida Culture to Whaling Past - Keeping Oneida Tradition alive --------- "RE: Government caught destroying more Indian Records" --------- Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 10:36 AM From: Bill McAllister [bmcallister@cox.net] Subj: Revised Release to Correct Date: Government Caught Destroying More Indian Records FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: GOVERNMENT CAUGHT DESTROYING MORE INDIAN RECORDS IN VIOLATION OF COURT ORDERS WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 - At the same time that the Interior Department is bragging to Congress about its Indian Trust accounting plan, the National Archives and Records Administration reports ongoing destruction of Bureau of Indian Affairs accounting records only a few blocks from the federal courthouse in Washington. In a filing last week, NARA disclosed that it is investigating "one or more incidents...involving what may be intentional acts aimed at unlawfully removing or disposing of permanent records from the Interior Department..." In the letter dated Sept. 13, NARA attorney Jason R. Baron said that members of the agency "noticed what appeared to be federal records in one of the dumpsters" at the main achieves building on Pennsylvania Avenue on Sept. 1. Among the records destroyed were documents from the 1950s from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Baron said. Subsequently, "more of what appear to be Indian records were discovered in a wastebasket in the stack areas at Main Archives," Baron said in the letter. "It is not known if these two incidents are related." Baron said both the NARA Inspector General and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia had begun investigations. Dennis M. Gingold, lead plaintiff for the Indians who are seeking a full accounting of their government-managed individual Indian Trust accounts, called the destruction "the same repugnant, desperate actions we've come to expect from Interior Secretary Gale Norton and her unethical managers." "Despite numerous court orders to preserve records related to the individual Indian Trust, the Secretary and the Interior Department continue to destroy irreplaceable trust documents three blocks from the federal courthouse where they were held in contempt for destroying trust records. Unless - and until - Norton is thrown in jail, she will continue to destroy trust documents in order to undermine this 10-year-old litigation," he said. "When a sitting cabinet level official feels that they can destroy protected trust records 60 yards from where the Constitution is displayed, we have a government that is out of control." The Bureau of Indian Affairs runs a trust program for individual Indians. Although established in 1887, the government has yet to provide a complete accounting of funds in the accounts. A lawsuit filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana, is pressing the government over its repeated failures to give 500,000 Native Americans a proper accounting of the funds that should be in their accounts. Bill McAllister Cobell Litigation Team Bill McAllister Independent Writer --------- "RE: Arrested Bush Official has questionable ties" --------- Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 08:26:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SAFAVIAN HAS "INTERESTING" ASSOCIATIONS" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.washingtonpost.com//2005/09/20/AR2005092001758.html Aide Was Reticent on Lobbying for Foreign Clients By Susan Schmidt and R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writers September 21, 2005 David H. Safavian, the Bush administration official arrested Monday, initially failed to disclose lobbying work he had done for several controversial foreign clients when he went before a Senate panel last year to be confirmed as chief of the White House's federal procurement office. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee held up Safavian's nomination for more than a year, in part because of lawmakers' concerns about lobbying work for two men later accused of links to suspected terrorist organizations, according to committee documents. Safavian did not disclose his firm's representation of the men until questioned in writing by the committee's staff, and initially failed to tell the panel he had registered as a foreign agent for two controversial African regimes. The Senate panel nevertheless approved him unanimously and the Senate followed suit on Nov. 21, 2004. Safavian was arrested Monday on charges of lying and obstructing an investigation into former powerhouse lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government. Safavian resigned his government post Friday. Yesterday, his attorney, Barbara Van Gelder, did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Senate approval of Safavian occurred two months after The Washington Post disclosed Safavian's participation in an August 2002 Scotland golf trip with Abramoff. That trip was central to the criminal complaint against Safavian unsealed on Monday. Yesterday, a spokeswoman for committee chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the review of Safavian's background had been thorough. "Based on our extensive review of his qualifications and background, we had no reason to believe that Mr. Safavian had engaged in any wrongdoing," said a spokeswoman for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), the committee's senior Democrat at the time of the vote. The record of Safavian's confirmation shows extensive questioning by the committee staff about his alleged lobbying for local Muslim leader Abdurahman Alamoudi, who in October 2000 made widely publicized comments supporting Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, at a rally in Lafayette Park. Lobby disclosure forms originally filed by Safavian's firm, Janus- Merritt Strategies, show that it represented Alamoudi, a prominent Muslim activist, until 2001. Alamoudi has since been convicted and imprisoned for accepting money from the Libyan government as part of an alleged plot to assassinate the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Janus-Merritt Strategies changed its lobby disclosure forms in 2001 to indicate that its client was not Alamoudi but Jamal Barzinji. In March 2002, Barzinji was named in a search warrant affidavit filed by a Customs Service official as "the officer or director" of a group of entities in Northern Virginia "controlled by individuals who have shown support for terrorists or terrorist fronts." No charges have been filed against Barzinji, and he has denied any wrongdoing. Safavian told the committee in an April 16, 2004, letter that he and his firm never did any work for Alamoudi. He said the firm lobbied at Barzinji's request to gain U.S. support to free the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, who was imprisoned for six years. Safavian also told the committee that he had "overlooked" two other clients while preparing his initial submissions for the OMB position. He did not initially mention work as a registered foreign agent for Gabon, a country persistently rated by the United States as having a "poor" human rights record, or his work as a registered foreign agent for Pascal Lissouba, the former president of the Republic of Congo who has been tried in absentia for treason and embezzlement. Safavian, former chief of staff at the General Services Administration, is charged with three counts of making false statements and obstructing a GSA investigation into his ties with Abramoff. Before joining the government, Safavian worked as a lobbyist with Abramoff, then founded Janus-Merritt Strategies with conservative antitax crusader Grover Norquist. As a lobbyist, he represented the government of Pakistan on military sales matters and the Islamic Institute in an effort to promote a U.S. postage stamp commemorating Ramadan. With Abramoff, he also represented the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. protectorate, to try to block the imposition of minimum wage rules. In its probe, the Senate committee also raised questions about a potential conflict of interest between Safavian and his wife, Jennifer, the chief counsel for oversight and investigations at the House Committee of Government Reform, which oversees federal procurement policy matters. Safavian said his wife had pledged to recuse herself from "any matters where the conduct of officials and employees" at the Office of Management and Budget the principal issue, "as well as matters relating specifically to procurement policy, competitive sourcing, or information technology." Copyright c. 2005 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Interior Dept. Defends Accounting Work" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:49:42 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="DoI DEFENDS ACCOUNTING" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.washingtonpost.com//2005/09/19/AR2005091901084.html Interior Dept. Defends Accounting Work By JENNIFER TALHELM The Associated Press September 19, 2005 WASHINGTON - The Interior Department says its own audits of accounts it manages for thousands of American Indians have found few errors and little evidence that anyone tampered with the records. The agency's position, in a report to Congress on Monday, runs contrary to that of American Indians who filed a 1996 class-action lawsuit arguing that they were cheated out of more than $100 billion due to mismanagement of oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties from their lands. A federal judge has ordered that Interior officials account for every dollar received and paid to American Indians since 1887. In a glossy 24-page brochure obtained by The Associated Press, the department says the audit the judge ordered would cost $12 billion and that efforts so far have found that errors make up less than 1 percent of the dollars reconciled. "This picture is significantly different from that offered by Interior's critics," Interior Secretary Gale Norton states in a letter opening the brochure. The report comes days after both the government and American Indians plaintiffs argued that a federal appeals court should reverse the district judge's accounting order. The judges have yet to rule in the appeal. It also comes as Congress is considering a bill filed in July by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that would settle the case for an amount of money that is still being negotiated. The American Indians had offered to settle for $27.5 billion. McCain has said that is too high. Lawyers for the plaintiffs immediately criticized the report. The plaintiffs have argued the department is using inaccurate and, in some cases, incomplete data. A judge has yet to rule on another claim that the department's computer system is insecure. "There's a reason they haven't provided it to the court because it isn't an accounting," said Dennis Gingold, the Indians' lead attorney. Jim Cason, associate deputy interior secretary, said Monday that the department prepared its report at a cost of $30,000 after a Senate hearing in which McCain asked for more information about the accounting. Several members of Congress were traveling Monday and had not seen the report, although the Interior Department briefed staffers. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., chairman of the House resources committee, said he is convinced Congress must settle the case. "I am pleased that the department acknowledges this issue deserves close examination," he said. "This is not an easy task for anyone involved." Copyright c. 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 1996-2005 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Check the Records, Mr. Swimmer" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:49:42 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RESPONSE TO SWIMMER'S GLOSSY PICTURE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/background.view&backgroundid=0056 Check the Records, Mr. Swimmer Posted by Bill McAllister - Spokesman, Cobell Litigation Team September 19, 2005 If anyone should know about what's wrong with the government's Indian Trust program, Ross Swimmer should know. When he was head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Reagan Administration, he found the trust operations so troublesome that he championed effort to give the entire operation to a large commercial bank. Reporters should know that the record of the government's current management of this case is far different than the cheery picture that Mr. Swimmer states. Record keeping? Many leases were never recorded and records were destroyed by the thousands. There are photographs of barns filled with rotting trust records are on file in the courts. If there has been such "good faith" over trust operations, as Swimmer claims, how could three cabinet secretaries and others been held in contempt of court over production of records and failures to begin the long-promised accountings? And if the records are so safe, why could hackers easily tap into the Interior computers? If this is not all about the government's mismanagement, why is the case still in court after 10 years? The trust program today is nowhere near meeting the standards of major trust companies, despite Mr. Swimmer claim to the contrary. The government does not know the number of accounts it holds, their balances or many of the other issues that any bank trustee must be able to provide to its customers immediately. Here's how much the government has done -- by the Bush administration's own figures. It has spent more than $100 million to clean up the trust accounts. But it says it will take as much as $14 billion to do the job the courts have ordered. So even by the Bush administration's numbers, it has barely begun the job. That's what make Swimmer's claims about the happy status of the accounts so patently misleading. What Swimmer and the Bush administration vigorously have sought to do is to restrict the amount of work they have to do to clean up those records. They do not want to go back to 1887, as the courts have directed, to examine all accounts and to check all land transactions. Instead they want to assume that all of the incomplete records Interior currently possess are accurate and completely devoid of errors. Little wonder that they are finding no problems with the records. It's like asking a bank embezzler if he took any money from his bank. No need to check my accounts, he would say. Troubles with the Indian Trust started in 1887 and they continue today. Swimmer's response is just the latest example of how this administration manages to blame Indians for their own misfortunes. Read the court records, Mr. Swimmer. You'll discover that this case is, in fact, based on the government's mismanagement. You'll also discover that you and many other BIA employees were a big part of the problem. Copyright c. 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. --------- "RE: Opinion: A frustrating Tale of Non-Accountability" --------- Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:39:11 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRUST FAILURE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.nashuatelegraph.com//109210075/-1/opinion A frustrating tale of non-accountability September 21, 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ KEY POINTS BACKGROUND: In a class action suit filed in 1996, American Indians attempted to get an accounting of money collected on their behalf by the federal government for leases on their land. CONCLUSION: Nine years later, the federal government still hasn't resolved the problem but it should move faster to do so. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A story periodically appears on news wires that's full of questions about the federal government's stewardship over money due American Indians for oil, gas, coal, grazing and timber royalties collected on their behalf. The story hasn't commanded much attention but it should. It's about being upfront with America's oldest minority group and giving them what they may be owed. The Indians have been trying to get an accurate accounting about the royalties since filing their class-action suit on behalf of 500,000 account holders in 1996, but nine years and two presidential administrations later, they haven't gotten an answer. They believe that over time they've been shortchanged by more than $100 billion. In their corner is a federal judge who has come down hard on the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Treasury, agencies entrusted with collecting and disbursing the royalties paid from the lease of Indian lands. The judge, Royce Lamberth, has become so frustrated with the federal bureaucracy's inability or unwillingness to provide the information that he's ordered the Department of Interior to report every dollar received and paid to American Indians since 1887, the year the federal government assumed management of certain Indian lands with royalties collected in trust for American Indians for land they were allotted by the government. That may be a bit much because records going that far back may not be around or may be incomplete, and that order is under appeal. This week, The Associated Press reported that the Department of the Interior has produced a report for Congress saying its audit has found few errors in the thousands of accounts it manages and little evidence the records have been tampered with. But it says an audit going back to 1887 would cost $12 billion. And the department headed by Secretary Gale Norton says the few discrepancies discovered nowhere match the claims made by the Indians. So the exhaustive audit ordered by the judge apparently won't be done. It's not the first time in this lengthy case that federal officials have dragged their feet, dodged taking action or failed to produce records as ordered by Lamberth. Several have been cited for contempt but they've managed to wiggle out of the citation or have left office. This has gone on so long that Congress is getting involved, attempting to resolve the issue through a settlement. But the $27.5 billion suggested by lawyers for the Indians is a sticking point. The federal government has a history of saying one thing and doing another when the interests of American Indians are at stake. Hence, their suspicions that the trust funds haven't been well managed or that the latest report prepared by the Department of the Interior is inaccurate. Congress in attempting a negotiated settlement should make sure the report is a true accounting. If not, it should be rejected and an outside party authorized to figure out how much money was collected from these leases and how much was paid out to the affected parties. It's time to get to the bottom of this lingering problem. Copyright c. 2005 Telegraph Publishing Company. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: What Hurricane Katrina reflected" --------- Date: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 1:26 PM From: shajopri [shajopri@sbcglobal.net] Subj: "MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL"! WHAT HURRICANE KATRINA REFLECTED. Mailing List: MNN. September 20, 2005. Hurricane Katrina put up a mirror that exposed a hole within democratic society. She swept away the veil of delusion. She revealed a societal crisis. She showed our flaws. In a hierarchal system, only the man at the top can give the order. President George Bush delayed assistance to the victims for four days causing death, havoc and chaos. Now everybody is taking shots at George Bush. Bush says, "I take responsibility for what happened". Does it really make sense to balance our lives on the narrow little shoulders of this man? What does he know of the struggle that the people are facing? Why should we turn to someone who has no experience in practical reality?. The problem is deeper. Bush is a pawn in the system in which he exists. He is trying to play the hero. He has to look good. "I am responsible", says he, while saluting the flag. Who cares about a flag when babies are dying of starvation and dehydration in the middle of a cesspool? Decaying structure. As Katrina showed, the Americans have a structure that's supposed to take care of them. It is rotted, crumbled and washed away by winds and tides, eroded by pollution and neglect. They aren't sure how this happened. So they are trying to find some scapegoats, some sacrificial lambs that they can burn on the alter of convenience to feed their fear and confusion. The energy they waste would be better spent listening to the people. Scapegoating takes American society off the hook. Nothing gets solved. Katrina showed us their system cannot cope. It is structurally fraudulent. How much can they build with delusional beams? They refuse to look at a system that is supposed to have a rule of law root. They think that all their hierarchical structures will stand every hurricane even though they're crumbling. Smoke and mirrors. Bush says he's going to rebuild New Orleans. Their system produces contrived leadership. It's tells people whatever they want to hear. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" It's too busy asking silly questions to know how to roll up its sleeves and get to work rebuilding the structure and sorting out the rule of law. The hierarchical system versus the true democratic system. The judiciary is supposed to uphold the basic principles of constitutional democracy and the rule of law. The judiciary has not permitted the power of the people to express itself, even though they have an inherent right to do so under the constitution. The judiciary is supposed to make sure a true democracy functions. Our constitution. The Kaianereh'ko:wa/Great Law of Peace, is a true democracy that is not hierarchical. It is a tripartite system. Every citizen's opinion is valuable. Every person is responsible. Individual responsibility goes along with individual empowerment. The U.S. Constitution is based on the Kaianereh'ko:wa. Accordingly, each individual is responsible at the grassroots level. In our language we call the brain "oni kon ra" which means "it takes care of you". We take care of ourselves with others by putting our minds together. Everybody has an opinion because humans are equal and everybody gets to have their say. The Longhouse government and court hears everyone, in the presence of everyone. This sets the truth free. By this means, justice as the application of truth to affairs comes into existence. The U.S. Founding Fathers have acknowledged the debt owed to the Kaianereh'ko:wa. They tried to copy our constitution. They got it almost right, but not totally. Now they're busy covering up the mess they've created. U.S. and Canada. The constitutions of the United States and Canada are both based on the rule of law. Neither the political leaders nor the people have given much thought lately to what this means. Their legislatures passed federal laws which violated their constitutions and undermined their nation-to-nation relationship with the Indigenous people. The newcomers turned their backs on caring for the people. Katrina left them with a lethal combination of chaos and despotism. They have to go back to first principles. Any leader in any country at anytime is a product of the society. Bush did not create society or its rules. It is a tragedy to see so much responsibility placed on the non- existent shoulders of such an uninspired man. Under the Kaianereh'ko:wa he would still have his contribution to make. But it wouldn't take precedence over the depth of human experience shared by fellow Americans. Obligations. If they want to avoid chaos, they need to learn how to restructure their society in a way that respects their founding belief that all men and women were created equal. Everybody matters. Under the Kaianereh'ko:wa the relief effort in Southern United States would have been spontaneous. You have to help your brothers and sisters. Symptom v. Cause. Bush made a deadly mistake when he delayed responding to the flood victims of New Orleans. What happened is deeper than any individual. He is a symptom, not the cause. The rule of law is not functioning as it should. To solve the problem you have to clean the wound and get the infection out of it. Bush bashing is another way of avoiding responsibility. The man is not that important. The people are. We all have to join hands with our neighbors and learn how to work together again. Everyone is responsible. The Kaianereh'ko:wa doesn't scapegoat the guy at the top. There is no guy at the top. There isn't a top. There isn't a bottom. The people are all together with all else in the circle of interdependent life on Mother Earth. The Kaianereh'ko:wa is pure democracy where each individual, all the relatives and nature are respected. Everybody is entitled to speak and be listened to. You never know where a good idea might come from, or who will tell the truth when all others are lying. What's in store.? Katrina showed us what will happen if we don't reform the structure. We must return to the fundamental principles of justice. If nothing is done about the structure, society will break down. Root Cause. The rule of law will change society if they address the constitutional jurisdiction question. Our case in the U.S. Supreme Court, number 05-165, addresses the root cause of the breakdown of the system. The Kaianereh'ko:wa is the origin of civil government and society which is the rule of law. This is not working right now. The judiciary allowed the structure to be created that allows people to take advantage of other people, contrary to the rule of law. Bush is a competitor. He takes advantage of the system. Scapegoating him instead of correcting the system is merely treating the symptom, not the cause. Restructuring. The Kanien'ke:haka/Mohawk have been trying to get the system to address itself structurally. Bush is operating competitively within the system as it has been set up to operate. Should we continue taking pot shots at him? Or can we listen to the Kaianereh'ko:wa and the Indian message? We are trying to stop the genocide of Indigenous people. When we help re-establish the rule of law then genocide of others will stop too. The Kaianereh'ko:wa represents something good about humans. It expresses the justice that is inherent in the natural world when it is based on responsibility for "all my relations". The people are the final decision makers. If Bush makes mistakes, it is the people's response to correct it by insisting that their judiciary do its job of upholding the constitution. The rule of law is based on the power and responsibility of all the people. We are getting conflicted messages. The Kaianereh'ko:wa message of taking care of each other, and the mainstream message to take care of number one. The structure out there is not working. It produces scapegoats instead of structural reform. Conclusion. Can we save people from themselves by correcting the system that produces and rewards such people? Is it our fault that this happened? We do have the ultimate power. We are the people. Our system of constitutional law and the rule of law is the solution. This is implemented by weaning the judiciary away from opportunism about what it wants the law to be, into respecting the law as it is. There is no point in a people having the rule of law if the people's judiciary makes up the law as it goes along instead of taking the law as given by the people. Kahentinetha Horn MNN Mohawk Nation News Email: kahentinetha2@yahoo.com Contact: 518-358-6012 --------- "RE: Tribal offer of Buffalo meat for Hurricane Relief" --------- Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 08:24:56 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="5000 POUNDS OF BISON" http://www.myplainview.com/APTexas/parsed/stories/D8CN9KK80.shtml Tribal offer of buffalo meat for hurricane relief advances By SUSAN GALLAGHER Associated Press Writer The Associated Press September 19, 2005 Tribes on Montana's Fort Belknap Indian Reservation are donating 5,000 pounds of buffalo meat to Hurricane Katrina relief, now that there are arrangements to move the meat south by refrigerated truck. A contribution of meat from at least 10 buffalo in a tribal herd was offered by the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes soon after the hurricane, but came to a temporary standstill for lack of transportation. Now a Texas company has stepped forward to pay about $1,600 for trucking. "Culturally, for the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes, the buffalo are the staff of life and historically they provided food and shelter," Tracy "Ching" King of the Fort Belknap Tribal Council said Sunday. "The council thought that it would be only appropriate to give to the victims of Hurricane Katrina," King said. "The buffalo provide us with life, so we needed to do the same for the people" displaced by the hurricane. The buffalo will be butchered at the tribal meatpacking plant. The cost of transporting the meat to Terrell, Texas, will be covered by Dependable Auto Shippers Inc. of Dallas, said Kenneth Phillips, the company's vice president for operations. He lives 30 miles from Dallas in Terrell, where hundreds of hurricane refugees are housed, and is a friend of that community's Chamber of Commerce president, Danny Booth. Booth said Sunday that through a chain of events, a representative of the Montana tribes, who knew of Terrell's influx, contacted him about the meat and the need for shipping. Because of Phillips's work in the transportation business, Booth asked him to find a way of delivering the meat. Phillips said he found a company to do the hauling, and with only money standing in the way of action, it was decided that Dependable Auto Shippers would pick up the tab. The company is in the business of moving cars, sometimes as the result of Internet vehicle sales or when corporations transfer personnel from one part of the country to another. "I've got, and I can give," Phillips said Sunday. "We want to give back." Booth, whose organization provides daily meals to hurricane refugees in Terrell, said the meat could be used at any number of places, given the dispersal of Katrina victims and relief workers. A decision on exactly where to allocate the meat will be made later, he said. Cold storage is available in Terrell. The tribes have hundreds of buffalo in their herd, which King said is maintained for cultural reasons that include the serving of buffalo meat at powwows. A ceremony takes place before any are buffalo is killed, he said. Copyright c. 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2005 Plainview, TX Daily Herald. --------- "RE: Protect Bear Butte" --------- Date: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 11:29 PM From: Carter Camp Subj: Protect Bear Butte! Mailing List: Sovereign Nations It has taken me several days to get over some of the outrage and shock I felt when I read the letter from a Sturgis bar owner saying he planned to open a giant, biker bar and "Buffalo Chip" style entertainment venue beside our sacred mountain Bear Butte. Now my outrage has turned to anger and a determination to do something to fight this desecration. Often native people in this state need to educate their white neighbors when they offend or insult us without malicious intent to do so. We recognize that it is hard for some people to understand that in our beliefs "places" can be sacred and not to be defiled or that Bear Butte is foremost amongst them. But this is not so with the developer in question, as a local man he knows very well that Indian people from around the country pilgrimage to pray at Bear Butte yearly. Over thirty of our Nations hold Bear Butte sacred and inviolate. By choosing the name "Sacred Ground" for his planned scene of noise and debauchery, Mr.Allen has personally slapped the face of every warrior of every Nation that holds Bear Butte sacred. I am sure there will be a response. I wonder if Mr Allen knows how many Tribes have purchased property near the sacred mountain and will be his neighbors. Indians have bought land and pay taxes on it without fanfare just to have a quiet place and access to the sacred places. Some have said in your newspaper that building and noise around the sacred mountain is "inevitable". I beg to differ, it may be rare but I believe sometimes the will of a minority will be heard in America and greed can be subverted. It may be that cooler heads and patient explanations by traditional Indian people can pursuade him to withdraw the proposal. I hope so because if they can not it is my considered opinion that Mr. Allen and the State of South Dakota will witness the largest clash of cultures since 1973. There are many places in America where sacred and/or historical places are preserved by a green zone or buffer zone against unwanted developments interfering with the nature of the place or experience. Only greed can deny Bear Butte the same respect and care. It is long past time that all further development be put on hold until the preservation of all aspects of maintaining Bear Butte can be considered (including tolerable noise and traffic levels) to preserve what is left of a sacred environment. I call on the State and County to close Highway 79 between SD Hwys 34 and 212 during the Sturgis Bike Rally and that alternate routes be found or constructed. I further call on the State to limit public access to the mountain during June so ceremonies can take place on the sacred mountain. Over the last few years a grassroots organization called the "Defenders of the Black Hills" led the struggle to stop the illegal placement of an unacceptably noisy shooting range a few miles from the sacred mountain. Although I can not speak for them, as a founding member I intend to ask that stopping this development be placed very high on our agenda at the next meeting. It may take lawsuits, or national boycotts of "Broken Spoke Saloons", it may take protests and letter writing, it may once more take much sacrifice on the part of our people but it is a struggle we must take on if we are to survive as whole people and Nations. The good thing out of this bad news is that Mr.Allen's plan has offended every Indian person in South Dakota and the entire Great Plains area. We must unite as never before to crush this proposal and stop any future attacks on our real "Sacred Grounds", our beloved mountain. In this fight Teton Lakota and Cheyenne warriors can struggle alongside Crow, Shoshoni and Mandan, Blackfoot, Ojibway and Arikara. Ponca like me can join with Pawnee, Otoe, Kaw, Osage, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne and Arapahoe who journey here from exile in Oklahoma to maintain our ties to the sacred mountain. We must call on our Tribal Governments for support and the whole world for assistance in this effort. We must enlist the many resources of Indian Country to beat back this obscene development proposal and enact protective laws to protect her. On this we must stake our sashes to the ground. On this we can not fail! Carter Camp, Ponca Nation Please, visit this page and sing in the petition if you think it's important: http://www.petitiononline.com/1851Site/petition.html --------- "RE: Plan to compensate Spokanes raises Neighbors' ire" --------- Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:39:11 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="'ME TOO' SYNDROME" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/241540_tribe21.html?source=rss Plan to compensate Spokanes for flooded land raises neighbors' ire THE ASSOCIATED PRESS September 21, 2005 DAVENPORT - A proposal to compensate the Spokane Tribe of Indians for land flooded by the Grand Coulee Dam has raised the ire of Lincoln County elected officials and property owners, who claim that they were not consulted. The plan, pushed by Rep. Cathy McMorris, R-Wash., would pay the tribe tens of millions of dollars and transfer management of land south of the Spokane River to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The bill recently was passed by the U.S. House without debate and awaits Senate action. A similar agreement was reached with the Colville Confederated Tribes in 1994. Both tribes have reservations abutting Roosevelt Lake, the sprawling reservoir behind the dam. In exchange for a change in management of the land, the Spokanes said they would accept about 29 percent of what the Colvilles were given in 1994 - $53 million up front and millions more each year. "We want to be good neighbors," Spokane tribal Chairman Greg Abrahamson said. During a special meeting with members of McMorris' staff Monday, Lincoln County Commission Chairman Ted Hopkins said there are concerns that Congress needs to know about. "We want to be part of the process," he said. The land near where the Spokane River flows into the Columbia River has been held in trust for the tribe since it was promised to the tribe in an 1881 federal order, tribal attorney Howard Funke said. In many other Indian treaties, a tribe was given rights only to the midpoint of a stream, but the Spokanes claim the beds and banks of the Spokane River, Funke said. The 2,300-member tribe has been negotiating off and on for compensation since the dam was completed in 1940, flooding tribal lands. A tribal delegation was in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7, 1941, when the talks were put off by World War II. Under the plan approved by the U.S. House, management of the tribal trust land would change. Day-to-day management would remain with the National Park Service, but the tribe, through the BIA, would have more say on the way it was managed. "It's not like the tribe is saying 'We're going to serve it up for our own purposes,' " Funke said. "The tribe will not deny shoreline access." Lincoln County Attorney Ron Shepherd said he worries about who will have jurisdiction over any future crimes that occur on the land. Landowners who aren't part of the tribe said they worry about losing rights, property value and access to the lake. McMorris' legislative director, Jack Silzell, acknowledged that her staff should have involved local officials and landowners in the settlement talks. Although a memorandum of understanding must be worked out to cover the change in management of the land, neither the county nor its residents are guaranteed to be part of that. "We just don't want our rights taken away from us," county resident Dick Miller said. Abrahamson disputed a suggestion that land values would go down and said the tribe is willing to discuss everything relating to the transfer. Copyright c. 1996-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. --------- "RE: Court terminates Shawnee Kansas Reservation" --------- Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:39:11 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SHAWNEE SEE KANSAS CLAIM TERMINATED" http://www.indianz.com/News/2005/010413.asp Appeals court terminates tribe's reservation September 22, 2005 The Shawnee Tribe's reservation in Kansas no longer exists, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on September 15. A three-judge panel of the court said the tribe, now based in Oklahoma, cannot lay claim to its former reservation in Kansas. An 1854 treaty "convinces us of a mutual intent of both the Shawnee and the United States to terminate the Shawnee's reservation status," Judge David M. Ebel wrote for the majority. "The Treaty was negotiated pursuant to specific Congressional direction that negotiations be had 'for the purpose of securing the assent of said tribes to the settlement of the citizens of the United States upon the lands claimed by said Indians, and for the purpose of extinguishing the title of said Indians in whole or in part to said lands,'" the court said, citing an act of Congress. The court, however, said it wouldn't conclude - based on the current record - that the Shawnee "chose to leave Kansas freely" and resettle within the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. The decision resolves a significant issue left open by the 10th Circuit's earlier opinion in the dispute. On May 3, the panel had said the reservation's status should be considered "for another day" but that opinion has been revised by the one issued last week. The Shawnee Tribe was part of the Cherokee Nation until an act of Congress restored their separate status as a federally recognized tribe. A subsequent act of Congress denied the tribe's claim to surplus government property in Kansas. More recently, a Congressional rider blocked the tribe from acquiring land anywhere in Oklahoma without going through the land-into-trust process. Copyright c. 2000-2005 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: Lack of Money hinders Cheyenne-Arapaho turnaround" --------- Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:39:11 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRIBAL HOPES IMPACTED" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1127380639/6 Lack of money hinders turnaround in Indians' way of life By GAYLE PEREZ THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN September 22, 2005 EL RENO, Okla. - The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma hope they are on the verge of making a turnaround in their way of life. The two American Indian nations together have an estimated 11,000 members spread out over 10 counties in western Oklahoma. They've opened wellness centers to educate members on preventive measures and treat diabetes, a major health concern for the two tribes. In Clinton, Okla., where a large number of tribal members reside, a new health clinic/hospital is being built to replace a decades-old hospital for outpatients only. After the new hospital is completed, tribal members hope to add a podiatry and a dialysis center to assist the growing number of Cheyenne and Arapaho people with diabetes. The tribes also would like to build a senior retirement home to provide decent, affordable housing to their growing number of elders. For the younger generation, the tribes want scholarship programs created that would allow more of its youth to pursue a college education. Most importantly, they would like to have a strong economic development program that would lure new businesses to the area and provide a decent income for their people. What stands between the tribes and their goals is a lack of money. "If we had the money, we could do a lot," said Vera Franklin, a Cheyenne tribe member living in El Reno. "Right now, this area is very depressed. There is high unemployment, poverty and our health and social needs are not being met," Franklin said. "We need something viable that can sustain us and help us move on." In recent years, the tribes have found a reliable source of income in gaming. The tribes operate three small casinos in the western Oklahoma towns of El Reno, Clinton and Watonga. "We're starting to get some more revenue from our casinos, but right now our needs are so great that we need to find other sources of revenue to help get us to where we need to be," Franklin said. Nearly all tribal members who were interviewed by The Pueblo Chieftain during a recent trip said their tribes' casino project proposed for Pueblo could provide just the boost they need to start making progress. "This would impact us in so many ways," said Cheyenne tribal member George Akeen. "All of our people, from the children to the elders, would see the benefits." Projects such as the dialysis center, a retirement home, education programs and economic development might be realized. For now, though, the tribes' needs are numerous. "Our biggest need is health care," said Tom Burns, a Cheyenne living in El Reno. "We still don't have a dialysis center or an elder retirement center." Burns is not alone with his wish for a dialysis center. The center, in fact, was the greatest need voiced by tribal members. The Indians use overcrowded centers in El Reno or Clinton and some even travel two to three hours to Oklahoma City for treatment. Members said they also would like to have a hospital that provides inpatient treatment. The tribes' hospital in Clinton only offers a place for the sick and injured to convalesce. "Right now we don't get the treatment that we should," said George Howlingwater of Clinton. "I got laid up in the (Clinton) hospital for two months and they didn't do anything for me. By the time I went to get wound care (in Oklahoma City), it was too late to save my foot." Howlingwater said a new, inpatient center also would provide more jobs, including maintenance and certified nurses aides, for tribal members. Franklin said jobs as well as education are needed to improve the Indians' economy. She knows that without the knowledge and the education needed to promote economic development that task won't be easy. Though the three tribal-owned casinos have provided some jobs to members, it is not been as successful as most had hoped. James Black Bear, who works security at the Feather Warrior Casino on Watonga, said the pay and benefits he receives are not enough to support a family. "It really bothers me about the salaries they give us. I should be making $10 to $12 an hour and I'm not," he said. He makes $8 per hour. Black Bear said that when the Lucky Star Casino opened in El Reno in 1994, there were many tribal members who moved to El Reno to work there. But low wages and a lack of affordable housing caused many of them to quit and return to their hometowns. "We're not taking enough money home to provide for our children," he said. Black Bear said with additional revenue generated from another casino, he would like to see the tribe build truck stops, restaurants and motels in the area that would provide jobs for more people. Mary Higgins, who works for the tribe's District 3 representative in Clinton, said it's not merely a matter of providing jobs. The people need the proper training as well, she said. "We don't have enough training for our tribe members and businesses that are already here can't keep the employees because of a lack of training," Higgins said. Franklin agreed, saying that education is key to helping curb many of the tribes' social ills such as unemployment, alcoholism, teen pregnancy and dropouts. "We're fighting an uphill battle, but I think if could do more to provide scholarships for our people and do more to promote education, it will help," she said. "We need more scholarships and vocational training programs," Franklin said. "We have to be able to get our kids to school and then not forget about them. We need to do all that we can to get them educated and then keep them here if we are going to thrive as a tribe." Franklin said the tribe could do other things such as relocate the Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian Health Services Center, and Women Infants and Children office from downtown El Reno to the tribes' headquarters in Concho. The move would not only save the tribe nearly $2 million in rent but it would provide additional jobs for the people, she said. "This could be built on our land and help our people," Franklin said. Tribal members said they also need to provide more services for their elders. "That's where our knowledge develops, and how our ways continue is through our elders," said Cheyenne Chief Laird Cometsevah. Black Bear, who also helps deliver meals four days a week to approximately 40 elders, said the kitchen is not equipped to prepare nutritional meals for individuals on special diets. "We have to update our stove and get like a walk-in freezer so that we could store food," he said. Rising food and gas prices also make it difficult to keep the program operating as it should, Black Bear said. Franklin said though health care, education and economic development needs are the greatest, she would like to one day see the tribes be able to have money available to develop a museum that would educate others about the rich, colorful history of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. "I think it would be a good thing to let people know what the Cheyenne and Arapaho are all about. Let them know about all the adversity we have come through to becoming a growing, surviving people," she said. Copyright c. 1996-2005 Pueblo Chieftain, Star-Journal Publishing Corp. --------- "RE: San Juan Governor wants Pueblo's Name changed" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:49:42 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="OHKAY OWINGEH" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/32671.html San Juan governor wants pueblo's name changed By ASSOCIATED PRESS September 19, 2005 SAN JUAN PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) - San Juan Pueblo plans to change its name to what it was before Spanish missionaries arrived in New Mexico more than 400 years ago, its governor said. Some signs already have been changed to the name Gov. Joe Garcia said reflects the identity of pueblo residents _ Ohkay Owingeh. "We're talking about sovereignty, self determination and our way of life," he said. "How does San Juan Pueblo relate to who we are?" Don Juan de Onate christened the pueblo San Juan de los Caballeros when he took possession of it in 1598. The new name, translated as "place of the strong people" sets the pueblo's purpose in life and impacts the perception the pueblo receives from the rest of the country, Garcia said. "I think it's a nice idea of them changing it back to the way it was," said pueblo member Marie Abeyta. "I'd like to recognize our pueblo name _ how we were known way back then." The name change has not been finalized. Garcia said people are researching what it takes to make the name official. He said he hopes to have the name changed by end of 2006 when his term expires. San Juan Pueblo would not be the first tribe to change its name. The Navajo community west of Albuquerque changed its name in 1999 from Canoncito to To'hajiilee. Some tribes elsewhere in the United States also have changed their names. Copyright c. 2005, Santa Fe New Mexican, all rights reserved. --------- "RE: Distributors of Peyote a dying breed in Texas" --------- Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 08:24:56 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="PEYOTE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn//2005/09/17/AR2005091701219.html A Rare and Unusual Harvest Man Collects Peyote Buttons From Cactus for American Indian Rites By Sylvia Moreno Washington Post Staff Writer September 18, 2005 MIRANDO CITY, Tex. - In the heart of Rio Grande brush country, Salvador Johnson works a patch of land just east of the Mexican border that is sacred to Native Americans. Spade in hand, eyes scanning the earth as he pushes through the spiny brush, Johnson searches the ground carefully. "This is good terrain for peyote," he says. "There's a low hill - the rain starts on top and goes down to water this - and there's a lot of brown ground." He stops, points the tip of his shovel at a three-inch spot of green that barely crests the soil under a clump of blackbrush and announces: " This is what you look for. You look for something that is not ordinary on the terrain. I saw that green." One of the last remaining peyoteros , Johnson, 58, has been harvesting the small, round plant in and around this tiny community for 47 years - long before the hallucinogenic Lophophora williamsii cactus was classified as a narcotic and outlawed by federal and state governments. Then as now, it is for use by Native Americans as the main sacrament in their religious ceremonies. Johnson is part of a nearly extinct trade of licensed peyote harvesters and distributors, at a time when the supply of the cactus and access to it is dwindling. The plant grows wild only in portions of four South Texas counties and in the northern Mexico desert just across the Rio Grande. But some South Texas ranch owners have stopped leasing land to peyoteros and now offer their property to deer hunters or oil and gas companies for considerably higher profits. Others have plowed under peyote, and still others have never opened their land. On the ranchland that is worked by peyoteros , conservationists are concerned about the overharvesting of immature plants as the Native American population and demand for the cactus grow. "Will there be peyote for my children and my children's children?" asked Adam Nez, 35, a Navajo Indian who had just driven 26 hours with his father-in-law from their reservation in Page, Ariz., to stock up on peyote at Johnson's home. That question and possible solutions to the problem - trying to legalize the importation of peyote from Mexico, where most of the plants grow, and creating legal cultivation centers in the United States - are being studied by members of the Native American Church, Indian rights advocates and conservationists. There are an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 members of the church in the United States. Although 90 percent of the peyote in North America grows in Mexico, the number of ceremonial users there - mostly Huichol Indians - is a small fraction of the number in the United States and Canada. "In effect, you have a whole continent grazing on little pieces of South Texas," said Martin Terry, a botany professor at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Tex., who specializes in the study of peyote. The church was incorporated in 1918 in Oklahoma to protect the religious use of peyote by indigenous Americans. Its charter was eventually expanded to other states, and in 1965, a federal regulation was approved to protect the ceremonial use of peyote by Indians. In 1978, Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. But subsequent conflicts between federal policy and state drug laws precipitated the passage of a federal law in 1994 to guarantee the legal use, possession and transportation of peyote "by an Indian for bona fide traditional ceremonial purposes in connection with the practice of a traditional Indian religion." The law extends protection against prosecution for the possession and use of peyote only to members of federally recognized tribes. "Over the last 40 years, there have been lots of equal protection defenses to criminal prosecution thrown up, with people saying, 'My use of this controlled substance is religiously derived,' " said Steve Moore, a senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. One recent case in Utah is being watched closely by Moore's office and other legal advocates. Last year, the Utah Supreme Court threw out state charges against James "Flaming Eagle" Mooney, a self-described medicine man accused of giving peyote to non-American Indian visitors to the church he and his wife, Linda, founded in 1997. Mooney claims to be a member of a Florida tribe of Seminole Indians. But federal prosecutors are pursuing the Mooneys with charges of illegally distributing peyote and attempted possession of peyote with the intent to distribute. Prosecutors contend that the tribe of Seminole Indians in which Mooney claims membership is not federally recognized and does not use peyote in religious ceremonies. Prosecutors also contend that the tribe revoked Mooney's membership. "There's not a year that goes by that we don't see a handful of these cases come up," Moore said. "These are sham defenses in most cases, but it always puts the Native American Church and its legitimate use of peyote in the crossfire." Though not considered addictive, peyote is included in the Drug Enforcement Administration's list of Schedule I controlled substances along with heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana and methaqualone. Although the DEA acknowledges the importance of the hallucinogenic cactus to the religious rites of Native American peyote users, the agency says the drug has a high potential for abuse and has no accepted medicinal purpose in the United States. The Texas Department of Public Safety has licensed peyote distributors since the mid-1970s, when the number in the state peaked at 27. It dwindled to nine in the 1990s and to four last year. State records show that only three distributors have harvested and sold peyote buttons so far this year. For the past five years, an average of almost 1.9 million peyote buttons have been sold annually, according to state records. Besides presenting a certificate that shows a peyote buyer to be a member in good standing of the Native American Church, Texas law also requires a purchaser to show documentation that he is at least one-quarter American Indian. Every buyer who appears at Johnson's house signs a visitor's log and presents the required paperwork. Nez and his father-in-law, Russell Martin, also brought with them ceremonial items - a Navajo altar cloth, a dried peyote button, an eagle bone whistle and mountain tobacco wrapped in a corn husk for smoking - that they use in a short prayer ceremony at the small peyote garden outside Johnson's home. Next to the garden is an open-air shed, surrounded by a locked double fence, as required by law, where thousands of cut plants dry atop wooden tables. "When you come here, you come to someplace that's sacred," Nez said about the prayer ceremony. "Peyote doesn't grow just everywhere." Martin, 57, a road man or minister in the Native American Church, purchased 4,000 freshly cut peyote buttons - azee , he calls it, the Navajo word for medicine. He said his family will use the peyote - dried, boiled into a tea or cooked into a porridge - over the next year, starting with a ceremony to pray for his grandchildren as they start school on the reservation. The ceremonies, which usually last all night, according to Martin and Nez, involve hallucinations which, in combination with their religious beliefs, give them insight into problems they pray over or help heal illnesses or addictions. Francis Elsitty, 57, a Navajo from Greasewood, Ariz., said he overcame alcoholism in the mid-1970s the first time he used peyote in a religious ceremony on his reservation. "It showed me the path," said Elsitty, who drove to Johnson's home to buy 1,000 peyote buttons for $250 that he said his family will use in a special ceremony to offer thanks for the safe return of his 19-year-old son from a year-long tour of duty in Iraq. "I saw the burned-out shell of a bar I used to hang out at, and it [the peyote] told me if you want to drink, that's where you belong," he said. "I quit the partying. It's been over 30 years. That's the kind of power it's got. It's a holy medicine." Copyright c. 1996-2005 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Blackfeet Tribe rescinds Stop Work Order" --------- Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 08:26:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TERO STILL ISSUE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.goldentrianglenews.com//glacier_reporter/news/news2.txt Blackfeet Tribe rescinds stop work order on Cut Bank reservoir project. By John McGill, Glacier Reporter Editor September 21, 2005 Cut Bank City Attorney Bob Olson and his Deputy City Attorney, Bob Smith met with the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council last Thursday over the shut down of the City of Cut Bank's water project. Olson reported to the Tribal Council the City of Cut Bank was on the verge of filing an action in federal district court to get their water project back in operation, a project the Blackfeet Tribe shut down earlier this month. After much discussion, some in private chambers, three members of the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council rescinded the stop work order. Dick Anderson Construction, the contractor in charge of building a reservoir on land within the reservation boundaries, hadn't hired Indian workers as required by Blackfeet TERO laws nor obtained a tribal business license, which triggered the injunction filed by the Tribe. Officials at TERO complained that no one in the Tribe had been contacted before the project got started, and that all Anderson Construction would have to do to comply with tribal laws would be to hire some Indian workers, as per TERO rules. "The city council and the mayor are the ones who make the decisions," Olson said in his opening remarks. "So we're not here to decide things; we're just here to report on the decisions that were made." The meeting at Tribal Headquarters on Sept. 15 attracted Tribal Council members Pat Schildt, Fred Guardipee and Chairman Pat Thomas. Also in attendance were Tribal Attorney Terryl Matt, Rodney "Fish" Gervais and Gene Grant from TERO, Gerald Wagner of the Blackfeet Environmental Office, Mike Tatsey of the Blackfeet Extension Office, and Glacier County Commissioner Michael DesRosier. Councilman Jimmy St. Goddard arrived near the conclusion of the meeting. "At the end of the meeting, I'll call the city and tell them what happened, and then maybe the mayor will file," said Olson. "I hope somehow we can get the project going again without that." Olson stated the shutdown was costing Cut Bank over $1,000 per hour, and the city would seek a temporary restraining order against the Tribe if no agreement could be reached. Olson noted Cut Bank would likely abandon the project if negotiations were unsuccessful, and further pointed out the reservoir's benefit to Indian people living in and around Cut Bank, including the Blackfeet Seville Housing project. Tribal Chairman Pat Thomas responded Seville already has sufficient sources of drinking water, without Cut Bank's assistance. Rodney "Fish" Gervais spoke to the TERO aspects of the situation, saying all that would have to be done would be the hiring of a few Indian workers. "We have so many workers out on jobs now, there wouldn't be very many who would qualify to work for Anderson, so we're not really talking about a major change here," Gervais stated. At that point, the Tribal Council members and Matt retired with Olson and Smith for private discussions. After a lengthy recess, Chairman Pat Thomas returned to announce the Tribe would rescind its stop work order. "There are several issues here with Cut Bank," Thomas said. "One is TERO. Our attorneys checked and Cut Bank is within their legal rights." Thomas said Cut Bank promised to hire some tribal members to work in the water treatment plant in Cut Bank, to train them to work in the plant in Browning, and that a tribal license would be issued to Dick Anderson Construction. He said further discussions would be held with Cut Bank, focusing on taxes and TERO. Copyright c. 2005 Golden Triangle Newspapers. --------- "RE: Group to retrace fallen Brule Warrior's Last Ride" --------- Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:39:11 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="REMEMBERING THIN MILK" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2005/09/21/news/local/news05.txt Group to retrace fallen Brule warrior's last ride By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer September 21, 2005 RED SHIRT VILLAGE - The Rev. Robert Two Bulls will saddle his favorite trail horse on Sunday, Sept. 25, to retrace the route of a fallen Brule warrior on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Two Bulls and 30 other riders will retrace the last trail of the Brule warrior Ansapi Bleza, or Thin Milk, the only known casualty of those who sought refuge in the Stronghold during the Wounded Knee era. "It's going to be exciting. Yet, it's going to be sad, too," Two Bulls said. Two Bulls, Victor Swallow and John Swallow Jr., and the Red Shirt community will host the Second Annual Thin Milk Memorial Ride beginning at 10 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 25, at Tatanka Nunpa Memorial Park picnic grounds at Red Shirt Village. The event will include a smudging ceremony, wreath laying, trail ride and speakers. A traditional meal will be served at 2 p.m. at the picnic grounds, organizers said. Lorri Ann Two Bulls said that at last year's event, people stood on the rim of Red Shirt Table to watch as the riders approached from Cedar Creek Canyon. "It was so moving," she said. She said an aunt had saved a 1945 newspaper article about how the late John Swallow Sr. had discovered the bones of Thin Milk while checking the canyon for cattle during a roundup. It stirred interest among the family. They wanted to do something for the man, who had died without ceremony or burial, she said. The Two Bulls and Swallow families believed it was important to conduct ceremonies for the lost warrior, she said. Her father agreed. He said Thin Milk was part of a hunting party looking for meat. The young man was wounded when he was caught in the cross-fire of the hired ranch hands of the Daly Ranch and that of the hunting party, he said. Thin Milk fell from his horse, and his friends braved a barrage of bullets to turn from their escape route and ride back to pick him up before fleeing, he said. "Right below the church is where they laid him. They started a fire and then returned to the Stronghold," Robert Two Bulls said. By the next day, he had died. Two Bulls said that they might have placed him in the cedar trees there before returning to their band. "They left behind a friend," he said. At Sunday's event, Philomine Lakota will conduct the riders' blessing, Two Bulls said. They will smudge the riders with sage smoke before beginning the 12-mile ride. Mike Catches will lead a riderless horse representing Thin Milk's last ride. Sam Two Bulls Sr. will lead the memorial prayers. The riders will lay a wreath at Thin Milk's burial site, where Two Bulls will conduct a prayer. The riders will then go to the top of Red Shirt Table to listen to guest speakers at the Thin Milk Memorial marker about 1/4 mile south of Christ Episcopal Church. "Then, we feast," Two Bulls said. Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com Copyright c. 2005 Rapid City Journal. --------- "RE: Wild Rice key to Tribe's way of Life" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:49:42 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WILD RICE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/sports/12686870.htm Native harvest: Wild rice key to tribe's way of life PATRICK SPRINGER The Forum of Fargo September 19, 2005 WHITE EARTH INDIAN RESERVATION, Minn. - Earl and Kathy Hoagland glide through the reedy shallows with a fluid choreography of motion melded by decades of shared work. Earl, planting his long pole in the muddy lake bottom, pushes their canoe through tall stands of wild rice as his wife uses two cedar sticks to knock ripened grains into their boat. As a late summer day breaks, the couple work mostly in silence punctuated by the sound of kernels landing inside their aluminum canoe, a sound that reminds Kathy of rain drops falling on a tin roof. That sound is echoed this time of year on lakes across the White Earth Indian Reservation north of Detroit Lakes as members take part in the wild rice harvest, a tradition practiced for centuries by the Chippewa. Rice supplies an important source of food and supplemental income for many families on White Earth, home to about 5,000 of the tribe's almost 21,000 members. Earl isn't happy with the yield on South Chippewa Lake this summer. In fact, many of the region's lakes have produced a poor crop. Members blame heavy rains early in the growing season, followed by wilting heat, then high winds that toppled stalks. A successful outing can bring back a canoe-load of between 250 and 500 pounds of rice, which sells unfinished for $1.25 a pound. But the peak harvest lasts only a few weeks. Long hours of poling through thick lake bottoms require upper body strength and endurance; the repetitive motions of wielding sticks to first pull the rice heads over the canoe and gingerly "knock" grains loose takes a toll after days or weeks. "It's very hard work," Earl says. "If it was easy, a lot of people would do it." Every year, Lower Rice Lake, White Earth's prime rice source, yields between 200,000 and 300,000 pounds, says Mike Swan, the tribe's natural resources director. Roasted and finished in small local mills, hand- harvested lake rice sells for about $8.50 a pound. For many families, rice money buys school clothes, helps pay the bills and provides food and fuel for the long winter. "In our community, I would say most families in some way rely on this," says Earl, 58, of Naytahwaush, a village of 400. "If it's a poor crop, then they have to go without some things they could have otherwise." Tribal elders worry that fewer and fewer young people are taking up the arduous practice of harvesting rice, which requires long hours in a canoe and a tolerance for mosquitoes and the elements. "It's an art and it's hard work," says Swan, who estimates the average ricer today is 55 years old. "I hate to say it, but kids these days are too used to being in front of the TV set." Jim Shimek, 22, is one of the young residents of White Earth who takes part in the traditional hand harvest. Although much of his childhood was spent in Seattle, his family drove back to northern Minnesota every year for the rice harvest. From the back of his canoe, which floats near the Hoaglands', Shimek admires the older man's poling technique and agility. For a moment, Earl Hoagland appears to lose his steadiness, but quickly recovers his stance. "About tipped 'em over," Shimek said, chuckling. "Old Earl, he's got good balance." As one of the oldest of nine children, Kathy Hoagland had to stay home to take care of her younger siblings when her mother left for the migratory harvest of wild rice on area lakes. Hoagland, in her 50s, is from the generation that learned the traditional ways of the wild rice harvest, but never lived them as they had been lived by her ancestors. Cars, modern housing and the drift away from the subsistence economy all contributed to the loss of traditional rice camps, when people gathered for the harvest. Each camp had a rice chief, and respected elders would decide when the rice was ready to be taken. The ritual gatherings of late summer and fall were a time of hard work to prepare for the privations of winter, a time of harvesting rice and berries, of hunting and preserving meat. They were also a time of celebration, a time for feasting and dancing. Five years ago, the people of White Earth revived the rice camps, this time as instructional gatherings. Elders, including the Hoaglands, teach younger members the old ways: how to paddle a canoe, how to net and clean fish, how to harvest and finish wild rice, how to make jellies and jams, syrup and birch-bark baskets. The rice camps, held during the wild rice moon as August turns to September, take place at the tribe's Rediscovery Center, a campus of three dormitories and four cabins overlooking White Earth Lake. Young and old mix for several days of demonstrations and talking circles, culminating in a feast to honor the elders. Invitations to the young came with this admonition: no compact music players or radios to distract from the activities. Lera Hephner, a 13-year-old girl, was surprised to learn how rigorous "dancing the rice" can be, a bit of footwork requiring a person to don moccasins and "dance" over rice in a pit to separate grains from their hulls all the while being careful not to crush the rice. "There's a lot of hard work that goes into the wild rice," she says. "It's humbling." This summer, one of Kathy Hoagland's granddaughters made the transition from student to teacher. Taking part in her fifth rice camp, she'd learned enough to teach other youths how to make jam. "We don't have to be at a camp now to rice," Hoagland says. "We can drive there by car, so we don't stay at the rice lake anymore. A long time ago we got together and riced together and helped each other to make it through the winter, to survive the winter. Now it's to survive as a people." When John Shimek looks at the activity on Lower Rice Lake, he sees pandemonium: a lake teeming with harvesters in canoes. But when Mike Swann looks at the rice harvest on the same lake, he sees a much quieter lake than the harvests he remembers from the 1960s. Today Swann estimates about 200 members are active participants in the White Earth wild rice harvest at Lower Rice and lakes on the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge, which includes South Chippewa Lake. Others estimate perhaps half of the families on the reservation harvest rice. The White Earth tribe manages Lower Rice Lake, 1,500 acres dense with green wild rice stalks, where lakefront development is prohibited. The tribe assumed management of the lake's watershed more than a decade ago, after agricultural runoff had diminished the rice crop. Now the restored lake produces 11,000 to 15,000 pounds of rice a day, by Swann's estimate. "That's pretty darned good," he says. Old-timers and scientists agree that the productivity of wild rice lakes in Minnesota and Wisconsin has dropped by half over the past century. Lake development and runoff of herbicides and nutrients from farm fields aren't the only threat to wild rice. Chippewa, also called Ojibwe and Anishinabe, have united in their opposition to genetic modification of wild rice. This year a bill before the Minnesota Legislature would have banned genetically engineered wild rice, the official state grain. The measure had the tribes' backing, but was tabled. "The wild rice is very sacred to us," Earl Hoagland says. "We consider it to be from the Creator." Copyright c. 2005 Wilkes-Barre, PA Times Leader, Knight Ridder Publication. --------- "RE: Returning the Land" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:49:42 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WILD RICE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=103315§ion=News Returning the land By Patrick Springer, The Forum September 18, 2005 PONSFORD, MINN. - Winona LaDuke and her helpers are turning wild rice and maple syrup into land with their entrepreneurial brand of White Earth community activism. From her home on Round Lake, LaDuke heads the non-profit White Earth Land Recovery Project, an organization she formed in 1989 to help revive Ojibwe culture and buy back land for preservation and communal use. Only 9 percent of the land within the borders of the White Earth Indian Reservation, north of Detroit Lakes, remains in tribal hands, according to the land recovery project. Proceeds from the organization's store, Native Harvest, help support the land recovery project and other programs, including education and language restoration. So far, the project has bought almost 1,700 acres, held in community trust. Holdings include a large tract of maple forest, several traditional cemeteries and land to grow gardens of Indian corn and other indigenous crops. Last year, Native Harvest sales reached $250,000, and LaDuke expects sales to double this year, as the store's marketing network, which includes online and mail-order catalogs, continues to grow. Wild rice accounts for a majority of Native Harvest's sales. This year, the project plans to buy 50,000 pounds of wild rice. Together with the White Earth tribe, which buys a similar amount, the bulk purchases help keep prices for raw wild rice at $1.25 a pound, said Sarah Alexander, the wild rice campaign director. Wild rice is sacred to the Ojibwe and central to LaDuke's mission in helping preserve traditional culture and build sustainable communities. "It's not just about the money," she said. "It's about the environment, it's about the culture, it's about the quality in terms of its organic nature. So, to me, the wild rice is a really important part of that." Native Harvest, formed eight years ago, had its roots in 1985 when LaDuke got together with Margaret Smith, a tribal elder and retired school teacher, to buy rice from local harvesters to thwart efforts by non-Indian buyers to drive down the price. "She's an old ricer and knows everybody on this reservation," LaDuke said of Smith. The two bought 2,000 or 3,000 pounds at $1 a pound, twice what the non-Indian buyers were paying. Smith, 87, delivers traditional foods to families with diabetics, another of the project's myriad programs. LaDuke's activism in land recovery dates back to the early 1980s, when she came to White Earth after graduating from Harvard. She was born in Los Angeles and grew up in southern Oregon. Her father was an Ojibwe from White Earth; her mother is Jewish. The 46-year-old mother launched the White Earth Land Recovery Project with a $10,000 grant she received from the Reebok human rights award. LaDuke recently started her own coffee-roasting label, Muskrat Coffee Co., housed in her home. She buys organic, "fair trade" coffee beans from indigenous farmers in Latin America and Africa at above-market prices to help growers and their families. "If you're going to spend three bucks for a cup of coffee, I'd really like to know that the guy who raised the beans, who has five kids and is hanging on to his small farm or his plot of land, actually gets some money," she said. "That's what fair trade is all about. It's the same for any farmer." LaDuke, who was Ralph Nader's Green Party running mate during the 1996 presidential race, is an outspoken advocate to ban genetically modified wild rice in Minnesota. "We're saying nobody has a right to destroy the genetic infrastructure, or the genetic makeup of a natural resource in the state of Minnesota, because the reality is if they plant a genetically engineered wild rice crop in a test field here over by Grand Rapids, it will contaminate," she said. "Drift," the spread of pollen from genetically modified grass plants to natural grass, has been documented by studies, she added. The same can happen to wild rice, an aquatic grass. The bill died, but the campaign lives on. "We drew a line," LaDuke said, referring to the unified opposition among Ojibwe tribes to genetically modified wild rice. "Just don't mess with the rice." Readers can reach Forum reporter Patrick Springer at (701) 241-5522 Copyright c. 2005 Forum Communications Co. Fargo, ND. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Tribe Hopes for Return to Whaling Past" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:49:42 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MAKAH" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/19/national/19whale.html In Petition to Government, Tribe Hopes for Return to Whaling Past By SARAH KERSHAW September 19, 2005 NEAH BAY, Wash. - The whaling canoes are stored in a wooden shed, idle for the past six years. They were last used when the Makah Indians were allowed to take their harpoons and a .50-caliber rifle and set out on their first whale hunt since the late 1920's. There were eight young men in a canoe with a red hummingbird, a symbol of speed, painted on the tip. There were motorboats ferrying other hunters, news helicopters, and animal rights activists in speedboats and even a submarine. On May 17, 1999, a week into the hunt, the Makah killed a 30-ton gray whale, striking it with harpoons and then killing it with a gunshot to the back of the head. That rainy spring day remains etched in the minds of many Makah as a defining moment in their efforts to reach back to their cultural and historical roots. It was their first kill in seven decades, and it was their last since they were stopped by court rulings. They have asked the federal government for permission to resume hunting, and public meetings on the request are scheduled for October. The Makah, a tribe of about 1,500 near the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the Olympic Peninsula, see themselves as whalers and continue to identify themselves spiritually with whales. "Everybody felt like it was a part of making history," Micah L. McCarty, a tribal council member, said of the 1999 hunt. "It's inspired a cultural renaissance, so to speak. It inspired a lot of people to learn artwork and become more active in building canoes; the younger generation took a more keen interest in singing and dancing." The Makah, a tribe of mostly fishermen that faces serious poverty and high unemployment, were guaranteed the right to hunt whales in an 1855 treaty with the United States, the only tribe with such a treaty provision. Whaling had been the tribe's mainstay for thousands of years. But the tribe decided to stop hunting whales early in the 20th century, when commercial harvesting had depleted the species. Whale hunting was later strictly regulated nationally and internationally, and the United States listed the Northern Pacific gray whale, the one most available to the Makah, as endangered. The protections helped the whales rebound, and they were taken off the endangered list in 1994. Several years later, the Makah won permission to hunt again, along with a $100,000 federal grant to set up a whaling commission. By the time they were ready, none of the Makah had witnessed a whale hunt or even tasted the meat, hearing only stories passed down through the generations. They learned that the whale was a touchstone of Makah culture - the tribe's logo today pictures an eagle perched on a whale - and that the tribe's economy was built around the lucrative trade with Europeans in whale oil, used for heating and lighting, during the 18th and early 19th centuries. For a year before the 1999 hunt, the new Makah whale hunters prepared for their sacramental pursuit, training in canoes on the cold and choppy waters of the Pacific Ocean, praying on the beach in the mornings and at the dock in the evenings. Animal rights groups were preparing, too. When the hunt began, the small reservation and its surrounding waters were teeming with news helicopters and protest groups. On that May afternoon, when the protesters were somewhere off the reservation, the Makah killed their whale. They held a huge celebration on the beach, where 15 men were waiting to butcher the animal, its meat later kippered and stewed. But the protests and the television cameras "took a lot of the spirituality out of it," said Dave Sones, vice chairman of the tribal council. Mr. McCarty said, "I equate it with interrupting High Mass." The Makah went whale hunting, largely unnoticed, again in 2000, paddling out on a 32-foot cedar whaling canoe, but they did not catch anything. Soon after, animal rights groups, including the Humane Society of the United States, sued to stop the hunting. In 2002, an appeals court declared the hunting illegal, saying the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had not adequately studied the impact of Makah hunting on the survival of the whale species. Despite the strict national and international regulations on whale hunting, several tribes of Alaska Natives, subsistence whale hunters for centuries, are exempt from provisions of the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, allowing them to hunt the bowhead whale. That species, unlike the gray whale, is listed as endangered, said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the oceanic agency. Despite their treaty rights, the Makah were not granted an exemption under the 1972 act. Last February, the tribe asked the agency for a waiver that would grant them permanent rights to kill up to 20 gray whales in any five-year period, which they insist they already have under their 1855 treaty. The Makah's request is "setting a dangerous precedent," said Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist for the Humane Society. The Alaska hunting, Ms. Rose said, "is a true subsistence hunt," whereas the Makah, who view whale hunting mostly as ceremonial, are pursuing "cultural whaling" that is not essential to their diet. "There are too many other bad actors out there" who might try to apply for waivers too, she said. The Makah "have a treaty right, but we're asking them not to exercise it," she said. But other environmental groups, including Greenpeace, which is adamantly opposed to the commercial harvesting of whales, have remained neutral on the Makah's quest. "No indigenous hunt has ever destroyed whale populations," said John Hocevar, an oceans specialist with Greenpeace. "And looking at the enormous other threats to whales and putting the Makah whaling in context, it's pretty different." Mr. Gorman, of the federal fisheries agency, said: "They have a treaty right that the U.S. government signed. It doesn't take an international lawyer to figure out that they do have this treaty." Ben Johnson Jr., the tribal council chairman and a retired fisherman, said the Makah remain baffled "that we have to jump through so many hoops." The tribe plans to display at the local museum the skeleton of the whale killed in 1999, where it will join artifacts, including century-old whale bones, that tell the story of the Makah. Arnie Hunter, vice president of the Makah Whaling Commission, who was on one of the motorboats during the 1999 hunt, was 59 when the tribe killed the whale. He tasted whale meat for the first time and said he liked the pungent flavor. "My mother said she never thought she'd see a whale hunt in her lifetime," he said outside the shed where the canoes are stored. "And I never thought I'd see a whale hunt in my lifetime. Everybody was joyously crying; we never thought it would happen." Copyright c. 2005 The New York Times Company. --------- "RE: Dam on Rocky Boy's expands" --------- Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 08:29:09 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BONNEAU DAM EXPANSION" http://www.greatfallstribune.com//20050923/NEWS01/509230311/1002 Dam on Rocky Boy's expands By JARED MILLER Tribune Regional Reporter September 23, 2005 Montana's Chippewa-Cree Tribe on Thursday marked the end of major construction on the Bonneau Dam expansion - the first of four major irrigation projects planned on the reservation. During a celebration near the top of the 102-foot-tall earthen structure, tribal leaders called the project a major accomplishment in Chippewa-Cree history and a step toward economic self-sufficiency. They commemorated the day with prayers, traditional songs, speeches and gift-giving. Dozens of people gathered for the event, which included a feed and traditional canoe-foot-horse races. "It's just a project that we've done completely on our own, and we want to show that it can be done and we did it," said Tony Belcourt, a former member of the Chippewa-Cree Business Committee who worked on the project during its early stages. Located 8 miles east of Box Elder and 19 miles south of Havre, Bonneau Dam captures water from Box Elder Creek as it flows out of the Bear Paw Mountains on Rocky Boy's Reservation. The two-year, $10 million expansion project quadrupled the size of the dam, enlarging its capacity from 1,000 acre-feet of water to about 4,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover one acre of land one foot deep. It is a relatively small project compared to reservoirs such as nearby Lake Elwell, with a capacity of more than 1 million acre-feet, but the increased capacity will boost pivot irrigation on the tribally owned Dry Fork Farms from 600 acres to about 2,000 acres. After years of negotiations, the Chippewa-Cree Tribe settled its water rights claims with the state and federal governments in 1999. The compact protects off-reservation irrigators downstream from Rocky Boy's. The tribe is required to release water in July and August to maintain minimum flows. The agreement required the tribe to subordinate its senior water claim in exchange for $24 million to help boost water storage capacity on the reservation. The Bonneau Dam expansion was the top priority. So in 2003 the tribe formed the Chippewa-Cree Construction Co., which employed 37 tribal members during the course of the two-year project. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation provided oversight and limited technical assistance. Workers added 362,000 cubic yards of rock and dirt to the existing dam. The gray-brown structure will back up the creek for more than a mile, and a handful of homes in the flood area will be moved to accommodate the reservoir. The cost of the work came in about $3 million under budget. The tribe will use the unspent cash for other water storage projects. The tribe next plans to rebuild the East Fork Dam on the Beaver Creek Drainage, and will complete developments at Browns Dam and Towe Pond, downstream from Bonneau Dam. "The tribe is going to be looking at projects to enhance the storage of water," said Terry Zontek of the Bureau of Reclamation. Reach Tribune Regional Reporter Jared Miller at (406) 791-6573, (800) 438-6600 or at jarmille@greatfal.gannett.com. Copyright c. 2005 Great Falls Tribune. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Opinion: DOJ proposal is Economic Termination" --------- Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 08:26:51 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="McBRIDE: ECONOMIC TERMINATION" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7010 A new era of economic termination? New effort to restrict Class ll Indian gaming Native American Times guest commentary D. Michael McBride III 9/20/2005 September 21, 2005 Indian gaming in Oklahoma could soon dramatically change - to the detriment of Tribes. On Sept. 15, 2005, Thomas Heffelfinger, United States Attorney (D. Minn.) announced a major legislative effort to amend and strengthen a federal criminal statute to restrict electronic Class II Indian gaming. The announcement came during a panel discussion at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. After losing successive court cases in which it attempted to curtail Class II Indian gaming in the last half decade, the Bush administration now will seek to amend the federal criminal statute called the "Johnson" Gambling Devices Transportation Act. The impact would make many games that are currently Class II under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act ("IGRA") subject to Johnson Act enforcement unless Tribes voluntarily include them in compacts - and pay significant revenues to the states. Compacted games are excluded from Johnson Act enforcement under the IGRA. States increasingly have pressured the Bush administration to clamp down on technologically-aided Class II gaming so that states can exert more control and extract greater revenue from tribes. Tribes can operate Class II games free from state control, limits on numbers of games, and without sharing revenue. Courts generally have rejected the Bush administration's attempts to label technologic aids to IGRA Class II games as "gambling devices" subject to criminal enforcement under the Johnson Act. Congress intended that the IGRA permit tribes to embrace technologic advances and use Class II technologic aids without state interference. The Justice Department's new initiative is an attempt to terminate a significant portion of economic prosperity for tribes engaging in Class II gaming and subject such gaming to state control, revenue sharing and machine limits. Such a change in the law likely will have a significant economic impact on tribes, especially those in Oklahoma that rely on Class II gaming to support their governmental operations and community services. If the law is passed, this law will amend the IGRA indirectly through the backdoor. It also signals a federal executive branch policy shift to undermine tribal economic development and self-sufficiency and return to 1950s termination era policies by paring down the use of popular electronic aids that are the bread and butter of Oklahoma's Indian gaming industry. Heffelfinger said that the change in the law is necessary because technological advances had "blurred the lines" between the classifications. The proposed legislation would require Oklahoma tribes to compact with the State for the vast majority of the electronic games currently in play. Otherwise, the tribes would face potential prosecution by the Justice Department. The Bush administration claims that the legislation would resolve uncertainty. However, the proposed amendments contain considerable uncertainty and run counter to the IGRA. A bit of history is necessary for a full description of the situation. In the early 1950s, the United States Congress passed the Johnson Act to combat the proliferation of slot machines outside of Las Vegas, at that time one of the few jurisdictions in the country that had gaming. Congress amended the law in 1962 to broaden significantly the definition of what constituted a gambling device and apply the statute to Indian Country. Also during the 1950s and early 1960s Congress enacted laws that wiped out the legal existence of Indian tribes and retroceded jurisdiction and tribal sovereignty to states. Thereafter, a new era of self-determination took shape with the passage of the Indian Civil Rights Act in 1968 and the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1972. Tribes have flourished under a policy of strengthening tribal governments, tribal sovereignty and self-determination. Following the Cabazon decision in 1987, which foreclosed state regulatory jurisdiction over gaming on Indian lands, Congress stepped in to regulate Indian gaming. The IGRA expresses Congress' underlying goal to "promote economic development, tribal self-sufficiency, and strong tribal government". The IGRA has been the single most successful economic development legislation ever passed by Congress. Indian gaming revenues grow from $20 million in 1982, to $100 million in 1988, to approximately $5 billion in 1995, and to $19.4 billion in 2004, the most recent figures available. During this time, the National Indian Gaming Commission ("NIGC") promulgated regulations to distinguish between Class II "technologic aids" and Class III "facsimiles." In doing so, the NIGC adopted in 1992 the old 1950s era Johnson Act definition of a gambling device, a law that was meant to prohibit gaming as a crime and not to encourage economic development, as is the policy of IGRA. The problem is the Johnson Act is so vague that bootstrapping its definition to carry out the IGRA provided no clarity. Many courts thereafter examined the conflict in the statutes and ruled that Congress intended that Tribes have the ability to incorporate technology into Class II bingo and pull tabs and could use technological aids for these purposes. Therefore, in cases such as Megamania, Seneca- Cayuga Tribe, Diamond Games and others, at least three federal circuit courts of appeals have ruled, in effect, that Class II technologic aids to the play of bingo and pulltabs are insulated from the Johnson Act prosecutions. At least one circuit, the Eighth Circuit in the Santee Sioux case, ruled that IGRA did not prohibit the Johnson Act from applying to Class II games, but the particular game presented in that case was not a Johnson Act device. Frustrated, the Justice Department claims that Congress intended that there to be a clear distinction between Class II and Class III gaming devices and continues, despite the numerous court defeats, to try to use the Johnson Act to assert its view. Moreover, the Justice Department wants to treat Class II devices the same as Class III devices despite the IGRA's legal distinctions between Class II and III. Because of this purported lack of clarity and Congress' unwillingness to accept the Justice Department view regarding the IGRA, the Justice Department now seeks to amend the Johnson Act. Fundamentally, the Justice Department believes that IGRA Class II electronic games are "too fast" and "too lucrative", and thus should be prohibited under threat of jail time and substantial fines, as well as seizure of gaming devices and money. The Justice Department appears to have issues with the success of economic development that Congress sought to foster with the IGRA. In several weeks (on or about October 7) the Justice Department will circulate a draft of the proposed amendments to the Johnson Act. Heffelfinger highlighted the proposed amendments (without offering written copies of the draft) as follows: - Amend the definition of "element of chance"; - Allow for certification of gambling devices; - Broadly expand the definition of "gambling device" to cover most of the electronic gaming devices currently played as Class II in Indian Country; - Provide for difficult to meet and narrow exceptions for the use of gaming devices in the Class II environment. Heffelfinger outlined the four-part test as follows: 1. Class II devices will be limited to games requiring competition between two or more players. Players cannot compete against a machine. 2. Players will have to participate actively in the game (daubing). There can be no automation. 3. Players must not be allowed to win prizes from games that are not Class II (prohibit incorporation of "side games"). 4. The devices must be readily distinguishable from Class III devices in the following ways: - How they are played; - Speed; - Depiction of graphics; and - Appearance. There will be additional standards for pull tabs. The proposed law would require the NIGC to adopt regulations classifying the distinctions between Class II and Class III. The Johnson Act also will exclusively empower the Justice Department to criminally prosecute persons, organizations or Tribes that either violate the NIGC regulations or that alter a game after it has previously been classified and certified. Heffelfinger mentioned a grandfathering clause of one year for games that are subject to prior NIGC Class II determinations and classification opinions. The proposed amendments essentially would throw out the window the previously settled Class II regulatory regime of NIGC advisory opinions and court determinations. Because the Justice Department lost so many cases it now seeks to do with legislation what it could not do in court. It is a revolutionary change and forebodes a new federal termination policy should the Justice Department's proposed amendments become law. This is only a proposal before Congress, but will be brought forth with great speed to seek passage. Heffelfinger said that, as required by law for federal agencies, the Justice Department will hold two tribal consultation processes in late October and early November in which they will listen to tribal comments and concerns and will submit the amendments to Congress for consideration. The Justice Department will most likely seek to bypass the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the House Committee that deals with Indian issues. Instead, the Justice Department likely will submit the matter to committees that handle criminal law and that lack knowledge and expertise regarding the unique federal and tribal government-to-government relationship, knowledge of the federal trust responsibility, and the self-determination policies involving Indian tribes. Norman Des Rosiers, the Gaming Commissioner for the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians in California, called the amendments "entering into tr oubled waters" because the new definitions are far too broad and the exceptions quite ill-defined. It is unfortunate that the "federal family" would ignore Congressional policies of supporting tribal governments by allowing technologic advances in Class II gaming and turn on Tribes to pursue a policy that harkens back to the termination era. The amendments constitute a serious threat to a growing $19.4 billion industry that has brought jobs, economic development, health care and higher standards of living to Indian Country across the United States. The NIGC had attempted to steer the Justice Department away from such a draconian turn of federal policy but was rebuffed in negotiations over the last year. The NIGC's Chairman, Phil Hogen, said the Justice Department asked it "to stand down" on publishing proposed classification regulations in the "eleventh hour" last March. The Justice Department appears determined to wrest regulatory power from the NIGC with its proposed amendments and overturn well -settled expectations of the Indian gaming industry. Is this simply an adjustment of criminal laws to provide a clearer distinction between Class II and Class III Indian gaming? It appears that the federal executive branch has lost sight of well established policies of economic development and self-sufficiency in Indian Country and instead seeks to attack tribal sovereignty. As President Tex Hall of the National Congress of American Indians has recently counseled, it is time to return to "old school tribal sovereignty" to protect what has become a federal old school policy of tribal economic development in Indian County. As Osage Nation Chief Jim Gray recently said, we must remember that Indian gaming does not exist without tribal sovereignty - one cannot exist without the other. Unfortunately, the Justice Department seeks to cast aside tribal sovereignty in its quest for newly found prosecutorial and regulatory powers. ---- D. Michael McBride III directs the Indian and gaming law practice group at SNEED LANG, P.C. in Tulsa. He is past chair of Oklahoma Bar Association's Indian Law Section and is a member of the International Masters of Gaming Law. McBride represents tribes and tribal entities as well as entities and individuals doing business with tribes. He can be reached at mmcbride@sneedlang.com, (918) 583-3145. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: YELLOW BIRD: A (Wolf) howling good time" --------- Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 08:24:56 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW BIRD: HOWLING WITH WOLVES" DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: A (wolf) howling good time September 17, 2005 If you've never breathed deep, then opened your mouth and exhaled a long and mournful howl, in the dead of the night, deep in a pitch-black forest, you are missing a great experience. That's howling with the wolves. While on vacation two weeks ago, my son, Tony, and I made a big loop around Minnesota and into Canada. We went from here to Warroad and Baudette, Minn., through Canada and down into International Falls and Ely, Minn., and back home. We stopped at the Red Lake State Wildlife area and met manager Gretchen Mehmel. She was our alpha wolf for our howling. I heard about howling from Jenny Moorman, who told me they howl with the wolves at times during the year. The last time they were out "howling," the wolves answered, and they saw wolves, she said. I immediately was in for the next howling a little nervous, yes, but eager to meet those big dogs on their turf. Before you get the idea that wolves are large dogs, let me tell you a little about them. Minnesota has the largest number of wolves in the nation about 2,500. They are part of a reintroduction program. The year after the Endangered Species Act was passed (1973), the wolves were added to the protection list. Wolves were getting to be mythological they were disappearing. Wolves are unique and good examples of family animals. In their ranking, the alpha male and female rule the pack with the omega wolf on the lowest rung. They are like very big dogs weighing up to 150 pounds and 3 feet tall. In a pack, they can bring down an elk. Some packs might be 36 animals. Unfortunately, as children, we grew up on stories of "Little Red Riding Hood" and the "Three Little Pigs." These stereotypes about wolves are hard to break. Our quest began after supper at Jenny's house a most beautiful place. We waited for sunset. Then, we drove to Mehmel's place deep in the state park. By the time we reached the site, it was dark. When I stepped out of the car they had no yard lights the star-filled sky was so full it just seem to drop around me. I was awestruck. Inside, seated around the table with Gretchen, were her two children and friends. There, we learned more about wolves. But, most important, we practiced our howling. We started around the table howling in turn. When my turn came, I couldn't howl, I was laughing so hard. People had the strangest look on their faces as they howled. Three cars of us loaded up, and we drove into the darkness. There was no moon that night (I was rather glad about that. You know, werewolves and things). We stopped at places where Gretchen had found those big 4-inch paw prints earlier that day. Deep in the forest, the dark of night was so heavy you could almost feel it like thick fog. The forest trees and growth made it as dark as an unlit cellar. Directly over head, the sky was magnificent. If the night sky was close at Gretchen's place, then it nearly was on top of us in the dark forest. The depth and breath of the heavens drew me in and made me feel like a dot in this endless universe. The Milky Way splashed across the sky in an almost continuous white. We didn't say a word at first just stared upward. Finally, our "alpha" person, Gretchen said she would lead the howling. I barely could see her. She bent over and as she rose, the howl seemed to come from the depth of a primordial soul that made the hair stand up on my neck. We followed with our howls then stood silent, waiting eyes were watching us, and we were in their territory we were calling to those big beasts. At one point in the forest, I saw yellow eyes wolves have yellow eyes. We thought we heard some barking far away. Barking I learned is a wolf's way of indicating danger. We stopped at least seven times as we moved farther and farther into the deep forest each time howling. We had no clear response from the wolves. I suspect we had too much human accent. At the last site, I heard something moving in the underbrush. I grabbed my 6-foot, 5-inch son by the arm and stared into the dark. Nothing jumped out and ate us, but it gave us a good scare. It was about 2 a.m. by that time, so we started on our winding way home. It was one of those experiences I never will forget. Calling to the wolves is exciting, but seeing the sky drop down around me is being touched by the hand of the Creator. ---- Dorreen Yellow Bird's column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Reach her at (701) 780-1228 or dyellowbird@gfherald.com Copyright c. 2005 Grand Forks Herald/Grand Forks, ND. --------- "RE: Student Webcasting NMSU Aggie Games in Navajo" --------- Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 2:48 PM From: Karen Francis [karenfrancis@navajo.org] Subj: FW: Navajo broadcast on the web Contact: Sean Johnson (505-649-8136) From Broadcasting in the Stands to Broadcasting to the Nation NMSU Navajo Student does Aggies' play-by-play in Native Language Las Cruces, N.M. - Cuyler Frank used to entertain his college friends by doing mock play-by-play during home football games at New Mexico State's Aggie Memorial Stadium. On Friday, he will get his chance to do the real thing in his native language when NMSU hosts the University of California. Cuyler is a native of Newcomb, N. M., 30 miles south of Shiprock, on the Navajo Nation. He will team up with Lanell Pahe of Crownpoint, N.M., to bring all the flavor of Aggie football, NMSU and southern New Mexico ? not only to people who live on the Navajo Nation, but to Navajos all over the country. "We are proud of the students who are taking the initiative to help us expand our ability to reach every citizen - not only with football, but also with other important messages, said NMSU President Michael Martin. "Their willingness to tackle this challenge and be part of the expanding NMSU Aggie Planet is indicative of the importance we place on reaching all communities. The broadcast will be available on the NMSU Web site at www.nmsu.edu. Kickoff is set for 8:00 p.m. "I want to do the games in Navajo because I want share some of the experiences of New Mexico State students with the Navajo Nation, Frank said. "It gives us a chance to share with our people what is going on here and what we are accomplishing as Navajos. We can communicate to them that you can succeed at New Mexico State. The Navajo Nation spreads across portions of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. With its headquarters in Window Rock, Ariz., the Nation is home to more than 250,000 people. While several stations already broadcast high school games in Navajo and one station has actually broadcast the Super Bowl in Navajo, Friday will be the first time that an NMSU football game has been broadcast in that language. Frank said it's a way to communicate the excitement that surrounds college football and NMSU to those who live in the Nation. "It's different from being at a high school game, he said. "You've got 20,000 people in the stands and all the activities that go along with it are part of being at New Mexico State. It also gives NMSU's Navajo community a new and exciting way to communicate to the people back home. "We don't hear much sports broadcasting in Navajo, Pahe said. "There is nothing like it. Most of the elders don't speak English very well. It gives them a new opportunity to see what is going on outside the Nation. Jamie Joe, a Navajo and a native of Farmington, remembered Frank's antics in the crowd and agreed this is a good step. "He would just start talking about what was happening on the field. We'd get the crowd going, yelling out Navajo words even though they didn't know what they were saying, Joe said. Shandeen Curtis is a student athletic trainer with the football team and a Navajo from Kirtland, New Mexico. She sees the broadcast as an opportunity not only for people who enjoy listening to the game but also to bring new fans to a burgeoning program. "We have a great sports program and we are building something special here. If people listen, we can develop a following and they can see a program that is ready to take off. If young people listen to the broadcast, it could give them something to aspire to. It might open the door for them to come to New Mexico State and then bring back what they learn. But there are challenges in broadcasting a football game in the Navajo language. "The Navajo language is very different, Joe said. "There is no word for first down. It's hard to describe it. "It takes nearly twice as long to say something in Navajo as it does in English, Frank said. "I've just got to concentrate on the basics. In discussing challenges, the Navajo students also talked about being first-time college students. "My challenges were the same as other first-time students, Pahe said. "It was my first time away from home and I didn't really know anybody. I've grown to love this place. People here are very friendly and made me feel very welcome. I've used the Indian Resource Center on campus and I'm trying to take advantage of the scholarship programs. "I feel comfortable here, Frank said. "It's my home state. I spent all my life around my people, but here it is very diverse. Everyone is easy to talk to. I am accepted here. When I first came down here I was homesick, but interacting in class and being part of the American Indian Program on campus was important. Their social events on campus really helped. "There was some adjustment to make, Curtis said. "I come from a small town where our culture is mostly Navajo. Here in Las Cruces, the culture is mostly Hispanic, but I felt at home right away. NMSU's reputation for being a friendly campus is, in fact, one of the things that drew Curtis to the university. "I looked at other schools like NAU (Northern Arizona) and UNM (University of New Mexico), but I chose Las Cruces and NMSU because I had heard some good things about the people and the programs. What attracted me the most was the small town atmosphere, a college community. It was easier for me to adjust. "I came here for the athletic training education program, Curtis said. "I've always been involved in athletics and this is something I always wanted to do. "(The Nation) has a lot of great athletes and some of them don't know where to go or how to make it to the next level, Curtis said. "I think if we expose them to New Mexico State athletics, it could lead them to coming to NMSU to get an education, maybe earn a scholarship. For these NMSU students, the goals after graduation are the same. "I want to start an engineering or consulting firm and I want to start my business in the Navajo Nation, Frank said. "I want to give back to my people and be able to provide jobs for people who need them. "This school has so much potential, Joe said. "The research that goes on here is great and it could go back to the Nation and really help people. "I would like to go on to get my graduate degree. I want to get involved with a program called Indigenous People Enterprise, Pahe said. "It's a company that does a lot of pro bono and charity work. It brings in government grants to help people. But for now he will be concentrating on Friday night's broadcast. "(It's exciting) to be broadcasting live in your native language, " he said. "They will hear it back home, and the folks will know what we are accomplishing here. --------- "RE: Native Band bids for control of Coast Forest" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:49:42 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CONTROL LOGGING, FISH FARMS..." http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.canada.com/id=eb20e5bc-8a2b-4003-b9a3-e053a91bd190 Native band bids for control of coast forest Heiltsuk nation wants ban on 'destructive' logging, fish farms, exploration Gordon Hamilton Vancouver Sun September 19, 2005 The Heiltsuk First Nation is to release a landmark resource-use plan today, declaring their intention to manage 16,770 square kilometres of forests in the heart of British Columbia's central coast. The Heiltsuk, who live in the community of Bella Bella, say they want 49 per cent of their territory to be protected. They also lay claim to 19,000 square kilometres of the surrounding ocean and waterways. High on the list of banned activities under the plan is salmon farming, oil and gas exploration and destructive logging practices. The Heiltsuk are also calling for the protection of old-growth cedar, which they say cannot continue to be harvested at the current rate. A year ago, the provincial government completed its discussions with stakeholder groups - such as environmentalists, forestry and mining - on how they think resources on the central coast should be used. Discussions with first nations are the next step in that process. The Heiltsuk's chief councillor, Ross Wilson, said the province and the Heiltsuk agree on many issues, but there are some key disagreements - notably around oil and gas exploration and what share of the land should be protected. "For the past year or so we've been sitting in government-to-government discussions and both our plans are on the table and now we're negot