_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 14, ISSUE 022 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, WOTANGING IKCHE - Lakota - Common News Wotanging Ikche and Native American News Copyright c. 1996-2006 nanews.org Aboriginal/AmerIndian Perspective about the First Nations of Turtle Island June 3, 2006 Mohawk ohiari:ha/ripening moon Passamaquoddy nipon/summer moon Blackfeet pi'kssiiksi otsitaowayiihpiaawa/moon when birds lay their eggs +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Much more happens in Indian Country than is reported | | in this weekly newsletter. For daily updates & events | | go to http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm | +-------------------------------------------------------+ Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin -- Blackfeet -- News for All the People Ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min -- Ojibwe -- We Are Talking About Ourselves Aunchemokauhettittea -- Naragansett -- Let Us Share News Kanoheda Aniyvwiya -- Cherokee -- Journal of the People O Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse -- Creek -- People's New News O o O Acimowin -- Plains Cree -- Story or Account O o O Tlaixmatiliztli -- Nahuatl -- News O o o o o O Agnutmaqan -- Listuguj Mi'kmaq -- News O o O Sho-da-ku-ye -- Teehahnahmah -- Talking Birchbark O o O Un Chota -- Susquehannic Seneca -- The People Speak O Ha-Sah-Sliltha -- Ditidaht Nation -- News of the People Ximopanolti tehuatzin, inin Mexika tlahtolli -- Nahuatl -- For you we offer these words It-hah-pe-hah Ah-num pah-le -- Chickasaw -- Together We Are Talking Dineh jii' adah' ho'nil'e'gii ba' ha' neh -- Navajo Nation -- What's Happening among The People News Okla Humma Holisso Nowat Anya -- Choctaw -- People(s) Red Newspaper Hi'a chu ah gaa -- Pima -- The stories or the talk of the People s ch mA mL tL squee Lux -- Okanogan -- News from the People Native American News -- Language of the Occupation Forces ++>If you speak a Native American language not listed above, please send us your words for "News of the People." We'd rather take up this whole page saving these few words of our hundreds of nations than present a nice clean banner in the language of the occupation forces who came here determined to replace our words with their own. email gars@nanews.org with the equivalent of "News of the People" in your tribal language along with the english translation <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is produced in straight ASCII text for greatest portability across platforms. Read it with a fixed-pitch font, such as Courier, Monaco, FixedSys or CG Times. Proportional fonts will be difficult to read. <================<<<< >>>>================> This issue contains articles from www.owlstar.com; www.indianz.com; www.pechanga.net; Frostys AmerIndian & Native America Poetry Mail Lists; UUCP Mail 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 Quote: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + =================== "We have a problem of two separate spiritual paradigms and one dominant culture - make that a dominant culture with an immense appetite for natural resources. The animals, the trees and other plants, even the minerals under the ground and the water from the lakes and streams, all have been expropriated from Native American territories." "The challenge of attempting to maintain your spiritual practice in a new millennium is complicated by the destruction of that which you need for your ceremonial practice." __ Winona LaDuke, Mississippi Band of Anishinaabeg +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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! The House has once again approved drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's like they really cannot hear that the People do not want this or they just do not give a damn what you or I want. Start with the name - Wildlife Refuge does not equate to oil sludge pond. It's supposed to be a wilderness, not a despoiled and damaged landscape littered with wells and pipelines. Next, few actual analysts see any possibility of ever (ever) extracting enough oil to justify the drilling even if you didn't care about destroying a fragile piece of Mother Earth. There simply is not that much oil and the logistics of extracting it and transporting it are mind-numbing. It just isn't practical to get the oil from ANWR to the refinery. This should have been thought of almost four decades ago. I was living in Oklahoma when thousands of working wells were capped. For months the highways were thick with Haliburton (name sound familiar?) trucks going about the business of closing off the oil reserves there. Whatever our energy crisis may be, ANWR is not the answer. If you agree with me please make sure your congress-critter knows a vote for ANWR is a vote he/she will not receive in the next election. 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 ----------- - Reclaim the Sacred to survive, - GIAGO: LaDuke says Betting on an uncertain outcome - Rosebud woman - ICT: A plea to the Pope: in charge of Devils Tower Rescind the Papal Bulls - Battle waged over Bear Butte - YELLOW BIRD: - House approves bill to open ANWR Memorial Day accents change - Facts about ANWR - TALLBEAR: Fire Thunder: - ANWR Facts Asserting Sovereignty - 'Cry for help' in Youth Suicide - EDITORIAL: - Virginia Tribes jockey Caledonia deserves better for Federal Recognition - AFN Chief - Native Hawaiians seek on ongoing Caledonia situation Right to Self-Govern - NAN supports efforts of walkers - Navajo riders join Lumbee - Band threatens for Veterans Memorial blockade of Bear Mountain - Navajo Nation Delegation - Band threatens heads to Washington to block access to Cottages - Tribes honor Veterans - Police arrest - Navajo Nation Eagleridge Protesters Memorial Day Statement - Decolonization and Revolution - Peoria recognized - Wolfchild et al. v. United States for effort to save Fish - Leech Lake Band split - New Mexico hit Pueblo Leaders on revival of banishment with $4.7M Tax Bill - Native Prisoner - Court subjects Narragansett -- Indians establish to all State Laws own Court System - Feds face big backlog - Rustywire: Six Horses for Her of Eagle requests - Lee Goins Poem: Anastasia --------- "RE: Reclaim the Sacred to survive, LaDuke says" --------- Date: Mon, 23 May 2006 08:58:27 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RECLAIM THE SACRED" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096413034 Reclaim the sacred to survive, LaDuke says by: Gale Courey Toensing / Indian Country Today May 23, 2006 BOSTON - Winona LaDuke has a crucial message: American Indians need to reclaim the sacred not only to recover from history's devastations, but to survive as spiritual, social and physical communities. LaDuke delivered her message with grace and biting humor at a symposium on Indigenous Rights in North America at the University of Massachusetts in Boston on April 24. She is one of the most highly regarded and internationally known members of the American Indian community, a two-time Green Party vice presidential candidate, an environmental activist, scholar and writer. In her talk, LaDuke reiterated the themes in her latest book, "Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming." "We have a problem of two separate spiritual paradigms and one dominant culture - make that a dominant culture with an immense appetite for natural resources. The animals, the trees and other plants, even the minerals under the ground and the water from the lakes and streams, all have been expropriated from Native American territories," LaDuke said. "The challenge of attempting to maintain your spiritual practice in a new millennium is complicated by the destruction of that which you need for your ceremonial practice," LaDuke said. LaDuke is an Anishinaabeg, Ojibway, enrolled member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabeg. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch universities, she has won numerous awards. She has three children and lives at the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. About 120 people attended the symposium. Special invited guests included members of the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs, the Harvard University Native American Program, leaders of local tribal offices and organizations such as the North American Indian Center of Boston and a large contingency from the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe. The symposium was scheduled months ago, but happily coincided with and became a celebration of a recent BIA proposed finding to grant federal acknowledgement to the Mashpee Wampanoags, the tribe whose ancestors were the first people to come into contact with English colonists 400 years ago. LaDuke spent time at Mashpee during her student days. Mashpee Wampanoag Chief Vernon Lopez opened the event with a prayer of thanks to the Creator. LaDuke's overarching theme was the question of how to build a society based on "the dignity of human beings and the dignity of the natural world." For American Indians that question involves challenging the assumptions of the dominant American culture, which continues in its frenzy of "development" to expropriate, destroy, and mutate what is most sacred to indigenous people - the land. In urging the Indian community to challenge the Eurocentric paradigm, LaDuke emphasized the relevance of Native values and traditions for "where we are going as a society collectively." Her lecture unfolded in stories. She talked about the Anishinaabegs' decision to take control of their future and the projects her tribe has undertaken at White Earth Reservation, including a wind power project that will eventually produce surplus electricity to be sold, the development of an on-reservation school, protection of the local wild rice from genetic modification and an agricultural project the tribe hopes will produce 70 percent of its food. "It turns out those traditional foods are the things for your diabetes and that anything grown from those heritage seeds, whether they're Potawatomi lima beans or whatever, all those old variety have higher levels [than the genetically engineered plants] of amino acids and antioxidants and all those other things I can't pronounce," LaDuke said. Of primary importance is the White Earth Land Recovery project that LaDuke founded and heads. The tribe has purchased from willing sellers 17,000 acres. Much of the Anishinaabegs' land was taken by lumber companies and a large section is held as uninhabited "public lands," LaDuke said. For the land that was taken illegally, LaDuke has a simple proposition. "You stole it, you should return it," LaDuke said, to a great spontaneous burst of applause from the audience, and shouts of, "That's right!" Hand-shaking ceremonies and apologies, if indeed they are given, do not further the cause of reconciliation, La Duke said. "So I bring this up because this country is good at lip service, but it's pretty meaningless. Reconciliation involves a long-term process, and in an indigenous community's perspective the only compensation for land is land," La Duke said, to another round of applause. Her tribe has won a battle against a developer's attempt to build a golf course on a sacred site in Duluth, Minn. "One of the first questions the developer asked was, 'How sacred is it?"' LaDuke said. LaDuke talked of the Zunis' struggles to protect the place of the Salt Mother, a sacred lake near Phoenix, Ariz., from coal development, and of "the great sucking sound" of water being diverted from the western territories' aquifers for developments in desert areas where such developments should not happen. She recounted the Lakotas' successful battle to protect Bear Butte from the development of a recreational center with a "world-class shooting range." Bear Butte is a sacred place where indigenous people pray and seek visions. It is 40 miles from Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. "Let us say there is this place that is the Heart of Everything That Is, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the most sacred place to the Lakota people and to many other indigenous people of the region. And in the middle of it an American government, after having treatied and stolen from the Lakota people and forced them into some of the most difficult challenges of any indigenous people, goes and carves four presidents in the Heart of Everything That Is. And what does that mean? To me, that means, 'We're here and we're shoving this down your throats,"' LaDuke said. The Lakotas won the battle after years of struggle, but questions remain, LaDuke said. Among the questions: Does the principle of religious freedom on which America was founded apply to non-Christians who have a different understanding of the land? "I think the reality is if you want to practice your [religion] and they want to put up a mine or a golf course or a shooting range there, you are going to have to fight them," LaDuke said. The symposium was organized by Amy Den Ouden, assistant professor in the University of Massachusetts' anthropology department, and co-sponsored by university groups and the state's two Indian agencies. Den Ouden has organized several such events since coming to UM four years ago. She has worked for Native nations in Connecticut on federal acknowledgement projects since 1991. "[I'm] overwhelmed by the most gracious and generous support the event received from the Native American nations and organizations of the region, by the beauty and insight of Chief Lopez's opening prayer, and of course by the brilliance and power of Winona's lecture," Den Ouden said. Den Ouden said her intent in organizing such events is to create a forum where Native people's voices can be heard. "[People] desperately need to hear and learn from those voices - particularly since, throughout the history of the United States, there have been so many forces at work to silence indigenous voices and experiences, and to obscure Native peoples' critiques of and challenges to prevailing Euro-American accounts of United States history and United States government policies toward Native American peoples," Den Ouden said. Copyright c. 1998 - 2006 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Rosebud woman in charge of Devils Tower" --------- Date: Mon, 23 May 2006 08:58:27 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BEAR LODGE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/05/24/news/ wyoming/f1d1a4bcfb474f0c87257177007f3df9.txt Devils Tower gets new supervisor By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER Star-Tribune staff writer May 24, 2006 GILLETTE - An American Indian and longtime U.S. Forest Service employee has been named the new superintendent of Devils Tower National Monument. Dorothy FireCloud, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, most recently served as acting district ranger in Hoonah, Ala., and acting deputy forest supervisor at the Black Hills National Forest. FireCloud was appointed by Mike Snyder, director of the National Park Service's Intermountain Region. "She (FireCloud) understands the importance of balancing the interest of all Americans who use America's public lands," Snyder said in a prepared statement. "Maintaining that balance at Devils Tower remains an important priority for the National Park Service." Lisa Eckert, the previous supervisor at Devils Tower, left last summer and is now working in the Jamaica Bay Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area in New York. There was some controversy last year when Eckert suggested adding a historical landmark designation to the monument that would recognize the "Bear Lodge" moniker some American Indians identify with the tower. Some local community leaders and U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., came out against the designation and saw it as an attempt to give Indians unequal access to the monument. Karen Breslin, spokeswoman for the National Park Service Intermountain Region, said the appointment of an Indian to the supervisory post in no way reflects any policy or philosophical changes at Devils Tower. FireCloud underscored that point. "I'm hoping I will be able to build some bridges there with all the different users and stakeholders," FireCloud said in a phone interview on Tuesday. "I find people have more in common with wanting to preserve the resource than they have differences." FireCloud, 50, previously served as team leader of the Forest Service's national implementation team on tribal relations and as regional tribal relations program manager for the Forest Service's Southwest Region. FireCloud said she's excited to take the supervisory post just as the monument will celebrate its centennial. "It's really an exciting time," she said. Reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 682-3388 or dustin.bleizeffer@casperstartribune.net. Copyright c. 2006 Casper Star-Tribune - Lee Enterprises, Inc. --------- "RE: Battle waged over Bear Butte" --------- Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 12:17:01 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SACRED BEAR BUTTE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.argusleader.com/~/20060528/NEWS/605280305/1001 Battle waged over Bear Butte Indians try to halt rising commercialism at sacred hill PETER HARRIMAN pharrima@argusleader.com May 28, 2006 STURGIS - The 66th annual motorcycle rally is being ushered in by controversy about two new entertainment venues rising from grasslands north and south of Bear Butte State Park. Native Americans who consider the butte sacred are joined by area ranchers who have seen livestock sicken and die from inhaling dust continually kicked up by motorcycles cruising gravel roads. Their coalition also includes townspeople who contend their community is being strip-mined by rally vendors who make millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of rallygoers but leave little of that money in Sturgis and Meade County, where municipal services are strained to host all the bikers every August. The widely focused discontent is summed up succinctly by Don Hendrickson of Sturgis. He said he's seen every rally since the first one in 1938. Hendrickson stood nose-to-nose in solidarity with Anne White Hat of the Bear Butte International Alliance outside the Sturgis Post Office recently as he signed a petition to block a liquor license for one of the new venues. "This damn rally has gotten out of hand," he said. Opponents are trying to force a special election to allow Meade County voters to rescind a malt beverage license issued by the county commission to Jay Allen for his planned new biker bar and concert venue called the Sturgis County Line north of Bear Butte. They also want to stop the transfer of an existing liquor license within the county to Gary Lippold for his new concert amphitheater south of the butte, called Rock 'N the Rally. Among the discontented are Mark Lone Hill of Rapid City, Isaac Miller of Porcupine and Bill Brooks of Sturgis, who are working on property owned by the Rosebud Sioux Tribe at the base of Bear Butte, over a hill from Allen's planned Sturgis County Line. They are sprucing up the grounds for Brooks' approaching wedding. Lone Hill and Miller are Oglala Lakota, and Brooks said he has ties to the Oglala reservation and Pine Ridge. "I think we've got enough bars in this town, personally," Brooks said. As for the amphitheater, "we don't need that, either. You can only go to so many concerts." Indian prayer disrupted All three say the proposed new venues will interfere with Cheyenne and Lakota who have long prayed at Bear Butte and sought spiritual insight there. The butte is considered sacred by both nations, and it figures in the Cheyenne creation story. "I pray facing north. I'm going to look right down into that bar," Brooks said of Allen's development. Henrietta Mann, a member of the Southern Cheyenne, who holds the endowed chair of Native American Studies at Montana State University, said Bear Butte is as important to the Cheyenne as it is to the Lakota. "It is the spiritual center of the Cheyenne universe," Mann said. "It is the mountain from which we received our teachings as a people. It is our spiritual home. "We continue to go to the mountain to offer prayers, to seek direction, to give thanks for life, and the sanctity of it is disturbed by the pollution of noise and population density, not to mention the sacrilege of a bar." In issuing a beer or liquor license, the county commission takes into account location and the character of the license- holder, said Curtis Nupen, a Meade County commissioner from Piedmont. The commission decided the approximately two weeks surrounding the rally leaves ample solitude the rest of the year for Indians to pray on the butte. But Miller said that "in our culture, people have to do these things" at times that might conflict with the rally. "We all pray to the same God. These rites and ways need to be respected," he said. Dozens of colorful prayer ties - strips of fabric knotted to chokecherry branches, fence posts and other structures on the butte's south side near the state park visitor's center - testify to the popularity of Bear Butte for such praying. The butte also is a favored site for the more rigorous hanblecha, which is the Lakota word for a one-to-four-day period of fasting, solitude and contemplation undertaken to achieve spiritual insight. Ron His Horse Is Thunder, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, has helped his brothers in hanblechas at Bear Butte. "Native people believe we must seek a purpose. We go to Bear Butte and fast and pray for up to four days, and we receive this purpose," he said. "You confine yourself to a small space, roughly 5-by-5 feet, and you pray all day long. Usually when they come down they have changed. They have a different outlook on the world and life around them. They are much more humble." This spiritual exercise in proximity to the motorcycle traffic, concerts and rowdy revelry spun off from the rally "is like a bar being next to a church," said His Horse Is Thunder. Even at times far removed from the rally, the presence of the two new proposed venues within several miles of the butte - and the drinking and partying they represent - would be a constant irritant to those praying on Bear Butte, His Horse Is Thunder added. "The best solution would be a hard, fast buffer," he said. 'Boisterous desecration' People upset by the controversy have Jay Allen to thank, White Hat said as she circulated a petition. She is a Sicangu Lakota and lives near Bear Butte, where she operates a nonprofit women's reproductive rights organization. "What sparked it was his boisterous desecration" of Bear Butte, she said. Allen originally planned to call his new bar and concert venue "Sacred Ground" because of its proximity to Bear Butte. "He's using our sacred mountain as a backdrop for his entertainment venue, and I resent that. Our elders are very angry with him," said Jace DeCory of Spearfish. She is a Lakota, enrolled in the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and teaches Indian studies at Black Hills State University. White Hat said Allen told Bear Butte alliance members it is naive for Indians to try to pray there during the rally. "You can turn that around and say 'how naive' to try to build a tourist confinement area next to a sacred place," White Hat said. Allen, who owns the Broken Spoke Saloon in Sturgis, lives in Arizona. He was traveling this week and could not be reached for comment, according to his lawyer, Bryce Flint of Sturgis. Good neighbor policy Lippold, unlike Allen, has lived in Sturgis since 1985. He came to Sturgis from Texas, where he was an accountant for an offshore drilling company, and started the Glencoe CampResort in 1983 on land his family has owned since 1906. Since moving to South Dakota, he has expanded his operation and now says his rally-related businesses are a net contributor to the community. He employs 101 people full time, he said, and has an annual payroll of $1.95 million. He's investing $8 million in Rock 'N the Rally, and a large part of that involves trying to be a good neighbor, Lippold said. His crews have moved 1.2 million cubic yards of dirt on the hillside of the amphitheater, partly to soften a steep grade but also to fill in a saddle in the terrain where sound could escape. After that work, it is impossible to see Bear Butte from the arena, he said. Lippold also noted that sound consultants with the New Mexico entertainment firm with whom he is partner have told him sound leaving the amphitheater will be less than the volume of a motorcycle passing on the highway. By the time the sound reaches Bear Butte about three miles away, all that will be detectable is bass, which will resemble the low rumble of distant thunder, he said. 'An issue of control' Lippold's enterprises include a T-shirt factory that started in 2000 and is becoming a big business. This year, his goal is to produce 1.2 million screen-printed shirts for sale at the Sturgis rally, for clients at other rallies and for larger retail outlets. He didn't seek the liquor license to make a killing selling booze to bikers, he insisted. It is a necessary adjunct to attract sponsors and top-flight country music acts to the festivals he plans to promote on the big summer holidays as well as the rally. Lippold sees Glencoe, Rock 'N the Rally and the associated enterprises as a classier alternative to the rally's raunchier aspects. "We've been here 24 years. I live here," he says. "We like to do things right. We always take into consideration other people's concerns. We've got a record." But he is dismissive of the efforts of the Bear Butte alliance to block his new concert venue and says "it's a power trip for a few of them. "It's not an issue of religious freedom or property rights," he said. "It's an issue of control." The toll of tourism Last Thursday was a busy day for key players in the alliance. They met at the Bear Butte visitor's center in the morning to explain their concerns with the two new bars and the growth of the rally in general. Then they spent hours in the hot sun in front of the Post Office in Sturgis collecting petition signatures before hosting an evening meeting at the Alkali Community Center about eight miles out of town, where they hoped coffee, iced tea and cookies would entice ranch workers tired from a long day of branding to talk about problems with the rally and to sign the petition to put Lippold's liquor license to a vote. Nancy Kile, a Sturgis homemaker, alliance member and unenrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said the practically nuclear explosion of tourism during the rally is degrading not only Bear Butte's spirituality but Meade County's natural resources. Nupin acknowledges the rally is putting stress on Meade County. A new 5- cent drink tax with revenue going to Sturgis and the county would help greatly in coping with rally growth and attendant expenses, he said. But he figures the Legislature is not likely to approve one. The motorcycle rally stands in contrast to a summer Corvette rally in nearby Spearfish, according to Jessie Levin, an area rancher. Spearfish "has not allowed it to consume them. We've allowed the rally to consume us, " she said. "We're saying, 'Wait a minute, enough's enough,' " Levin said, then turned to Decory and asked, "What's the word?" "Otah," DeCory answered in Lakota, "when you're full and can eat no more." Even some bikers contend that the rally has gotten out of hand. The final list of signatures against Allen's beer license was carried to the Meade County Courthouse on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, Levin points out. She noted the coalition - unusual for these parts - of ranchers, Native Americans and townspeople opposed to new rally development, and she said the axis of their common interest is a Lakota sacred site. "The power of that mountain brought us all together," Levin said. "The power of that butte." Reach reporter Peter Harriman at 575-3615. Copyright c. 2006 ArgusLeader.com All rights reserved. --------- "RE: House approves bill to open ANWR" --------- Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 08:52:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ANWR" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/2006/05/25/AR2006052501129.html House Votes to Allow Drilling in Arctic Refuge By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer May 26, 2006 The House voted 225 to 201 yesterday to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, with proponents arguing that new domestic production will ease the nation's energy crunch. The measure marks the 12th time since 1995 that the House has voted in favor of opening the refuge to oil and gas development. But it has little concrete impact because its backers have not obtained the 60 Senate votes needed to surmount a filibuster. "Once again, the House has voted to put Americans to work producing more of our own energy," said House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.), author of the bill to allow drilling on the land, which is home to caribou and other migrating species. "And, once again, liberals defied the common-sense principle of supply and demand by voting no. That's a great way to keep prices on the rise." Twenty-seven Democrats voted for Pombo's bill, which proponents say would add 10.4 billion barrels to the nation's oil reserves, and 30 Republicans voted against it. House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), a key opponent, said that if the nation had adopted stricter fuel economy standards for vehicles when they were first proposed 11 years ago, they would have saved more oil than could be produced in the Arctic refuge. Mileage standards have remained the same for 30 years. Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), also a Resources Committee member, called "The American-Made Energy and Good Jobs Act" a shortsighted approach to address rising gasoline prices. "This shows once again how bankrupt the majority is in finding new ideas to solve our energy crisis. Drilling in ANWR seems to be their solution for everything, when what we really need is a bold and comprehensive national energy policy for the 21st century." Environmentalists, who argue that drilling will harm wildlife on Alaska's North Slope, said they are confident that moderate Republicans will join with many Senate Democrats to block the proposal. Copyright c. 2006 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Facts about ANWR" --------- Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 08:52:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ANWR" http://www.calacademy.org/exhibits/anwr/anwr_facts.html Facts About the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge The Arctic Refuge was established in 1960 as a promise to the American people to preserve "wildlife, wilderness and recreational values." Vast and remote, this 19.5 million-acre refuge is the size of South Carolina. While 8.9 million acres are designated as wilderness, the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain, the biological heart of the refuge, does not yet have wilderness designation. Oil drilling has been proposed on the coastal plain. The refuge contains the greatest variety of plant and animal life of any conservation area in the circumpolar north. It is home to thirty-six species of land mammals, nine species of marine mammals, and at least thirty-six species of fish. Additionally, 180 species of birds converge on the refuge from six different continents during their seasonal migrations. A Porcupine caribou herd with 120,000 members migrates throughout the refuge. The pregnant females come to the coastal plain to give birth in late May and early June. The annual migration of this herd is the reason the refuge is sometimes called, "America's Serengeti." All three species of North American bear (black, grizzly, and polar) range within the refuge's borders. The most consistently used polar bear land-denning area in Alaska, it is the only national conservation area where polar bears regularly den. The pregnant bears dig their dens in November, and then give birth to one or two tiny cubs in December or January. The mothers nurse and care for their young at the den until March or early April. The once-endangered muskox, an Ice Age relic, lives on the refuge's coastal plain and gives birth to its young from mid-April through mid-May, when the coastal plain is still fully covered in snow. The refuge also contains North America's northernmost moose and Dall sheep populations. Year-round residents, Dall sheep have lived in the Arctic Refuge since the Pleistocene. Millions of birds come to the refuge each year. Their migrations from the refuge take them to each of the fifty states, as well as to six of the seven continents. About seventy species of birds nest on the narrow Arctic Refuge coastal plain. Each autumn, this plain supports up to 300,000 snow geese, which leave their nesting grounds in Canada to feed on the reserve's cotton grass so they can build fat reserves before heading south to their wintering grounds. The reserve is a place of wilderness, where timeless ecological and evolutionary processes continue in their natural ebb and flow. It includes the four highest peaks and most of the glaciers in the majestic Brooks mountain range. It also includes North America's two largest and most northerly alpine lakes-Peters and Schrader. -- Compiled from Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reports of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Copyright c. 2006 California Academy of Sciences. --------- "RE: ANWR Facts" --------- Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 08:52:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ANWR" http://www.bushwatch.com/drilling.htm Proponents of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge claim that the oil industry could develop the refuge's 1.5-million-acre coastal plain using only 2,000 acres. In August, the House of Representatives passed an energy bill (H.R. 4) removing the current prohibition on drilling in the coastal plain, but limiting certain oil production activities to 2,000 acres. The amendment that introduced the limit, sponsored by New Hampshire Republican John Sununu, stated (Section 6507(a)(3)): "The secretary shall . .. ensure that the maximum amount of surface acreage covered by production and support facilities, including airstrips and any areas covered by gravel berms or piers for support of pipelines, does not exceed 2,000 acres on the coastal plain." Some newspapers have editorialized in support of drilling in the Arctic Refuge, repeating the claim that it could be done on 2,000 acres and citing the Sununu amendment as a good-faith effort to mitigate potential environmental damage. Closer examination, however, reveals that the oil industry could not possibly develop the coastal plain in a compact, contiguous 2,000-acre area, and the way the amendment is worded would open up the entire refuge coastal plain to development. Below is a look at the myths and realities of the "2,000-acre footprint." Myth: The area needed to drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge is about the size of an airport. Fact: According to the U.S. Geological Survey, oil in the refuge is not concentrated in one large reservoir within a 2,000-acre area but is spread across its 1.5-million-acre coastal plain in more than 30 small deposits. [1] To produce oil from this vast area, supporting infrastructure would have to stretch across the coastal plain. Networks of pipelines and roads obviously would fragment wildlife habitat. Fact: The oil field industrial sprawl on the North Slope, including drill sites, airports and roads, and gravel mines has a footprint of 12,000 acres, but it actually spreads across an area of more than 640,000 acres, or 1,000 square miles. [2] Fact: Proponents of drilling in the refuge point to the 100-acre Alpine oil field west of Prudhoe Bay as the state-of-the-art model for developing the refuge. The 2,000-acre "limitation" would allow 20 oil fields the size of Alpine scattered across the refuge's coastal plain. Fact: Even if the 2,000 acres were contiguous, such an area could cover a lot of ground. For example, the 12-lane-wide New Jersey Turnpike, which stretches more than 100 miles across the state, covers only 1,773 acres. [3] Fact: The so-called 2,000-acre limitation would allow oil development to take up as much area as the following items, which could be connected by a network of pipelines and roads: - 1,500 football fields; [4] - 20 Mall of Americas; [5] or - 52 airport runways, 17 times more than at Dulles International Airport. (Drilling proponents claim that development on the coastal plain would have a smaller footprint than Dulles Airport.) [6] Myth: The House bill would open only 2,000 acres of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain to oil and gas leasing, exploration, development and production activities. Fact: The House bill would open the entire 1.5-million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas leasing and exploration, possibly exempting as much as 45,000 acres from leasing at Interior Secretary Gale Norton's discretion. Drilling proponents claim that this exemption would allow Norton to protect sensitive areas on the coastal plain, but 45,000 acres represents only 3 percent of the area. Fact: The 2,000-acre limitation would not require that the 2,000 acres of production and support facilities be in one compact, contiguous area. As with the North Slope oil fields west of the Arctic Refuge, development could be spread over a very large area. Fact: The 2,000-acre limitation only addresses "surface acreage covered by production and support facilities." In other words, it only includes the area where oil facilities actually touch the ground. Using Rep. Sununu's math, the 37 miles of pipeline at the Alpine oil field west of Prudhoe Bay would take up less than one-quarter of an acre of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain - where the pipelines' 12-inch-diameter posts hit the tundra. [7] The limitation also would not cover land excavated to bury pipelines. Fact: The 2,000-acre limitation would not cover seismic or other exploration activities, which have significantly degraded the arctic environment west of the coastal plain. The oil industry conducts seismic activities with convoys of bulldozers and "thumper trucks," which drive over extensive areas of the tundra. Meanwhile, exploratory oil drilling would require moving heavy equipment, including large rigs, across the tundra. Exploration and production wells could be drilled anywhere on the entire 1.5 million-acre coastal plain. Fact: The 2,000-acre limitation would not include gravel mines or roads. The House's limitation would allow for 20 oil fields the size of the 100- acre Alpine oilfield west of Prudhoe Bay, which required a 150-acre gravel mine and 3 miles of roads. More roads are planned. [8] Meanwhile, oil companies in the North Slope oil fields excavated gravel from mines that stretched over 2,000 acres, and then covered 10,000 acres of tundra with gravel for roads, drilling pads and building foundations. [9] Fact: Development would affect areas well beyond the boundaries of roads, pads and other facilities. The journal Science reported in the late 1980s that the cumulative impact of oil exploration and development has indirectly affected more tundra than what was directly filled or excavated. [10] More recently, biologists found that decreased caribou calving within a 2.5-mile zone of pipelines and roads show that the "extent of avoidance greatly exceeds the physical 'footprint' of an oil-field complex." [11] Bush Watch is a non-advocacy site paid for by Politex, a non-affiliated U.S. citizen. --------- "RE: 'Cry for help' in Youth Suicide" --------- Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 08:52:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YOUTH SUICIDE PREVENTION" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?feature=yes&id=1096413015 'Cry for help' in youth suicide brings about a 'battle for hope' by: Jerry Reynolds / Indian Country Today May 19, 2006 WASHINGTON - The suicide rate among Indians ranges from one and a half to three times the national average, and young people aged 15 to 34 make up more than two-thirds of Indian suicides. In Alaska, Alaska Native teens commit suicide at a rate five times higher per 100,000 than non-Native teenagers. Among American Indian and Alaska Native youths aged 15 to 24, suicide is the second-leading cause of death behind unintentional injury and accidents. In the United States at large, more than half of all who commit suicide have never received mental health treatment; the percentage is much higher in tribal communities, according to Charles Curie, of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. If anything good can be found in such facts, testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on May 17 brought it out. For one thing, Indians are not alone in facing this malady of the human condition - suicide claims the lives of approximately 30,000 Americans annually, and worldwide it accounts for 49.1 percent of violent deaths. This means a wide range of sympathy and expertise may be available for intervention purposes as mental health planning and treatment gets more attention. Just as importantly, the one in five or so American Indian and Alaska Native teens who consider suicide, and the one in six or seven who actually attempt it, are sending a message that is there to be heard before it's too late. In the words of Jerry Gidner, deputy director for tribal services at the BIA, "The youth of Indian country are crying out for help." The consensus of witnesses before the committee was that Native youths consider suicide because they feel sad and hopeless, but they also signal their feelings. Their signals can become intervention points for programs offered by the IHS, the BIA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration at the Department of Health and Human Services, and Congress under the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, authorizing a national suicide prevention resource center. The Senate only recently - in early May - approved "telemental health" legislation that would help to overcome the problem of timely intervention in rural communities that are far removed from cadres of medical professionals. Lack of intervention in rural and remote Native communities has contributed to suicide in the past, but modern research is producing new public health intervention models for contemporary use, said Gidner and Curie. Curie stressed the importance of collaborating with local agencies to identify youth suicide risk factors in Native communities and then introduce "protective factors" for youth - heritage, strong youth initiatives, a sense of family and tradition, "and help them see what their future may hold" so they'll focus on that. "I think we are still engaged in a battle for hope," IHS Director Charles Grim maintained, in written testimony that filled out his much more brief oral remarks. "For those young people who see only poverty, social and physical isolation, lack of opportunity or family dissolution, hope can be lost and self-destructive behavior becomes a natural consequence. The initiative and programs I have described are some methods and means to restore that hope and engage youth and their communities to sustain and nurture it. These efforts are not sufficient, in and of themselves, to significantly change many peoples' living conditions. However, if we can act together, among agencies, branches of government, tribes, states and communities, I believe that the tide can be turned and hope restored to these young people who have lost hope." Grim repeatedly emphasized that progress against suicide involves communities and partnerships. "The most important thing to remember is that it's not a single problem. It's a single response to multiple problems ... The social complex factors, housing, education, safety in the community, all those are part of it. It is just such a complex issue that we have to have more partnerships, I believe." Copyright c. 1998 - 2006 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Virginia Tribes jockey for Federal Recognition" --------- Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 08:52:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="VIRGINIA TRIBES" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite Tribe's separate status bid defended Rappahannock's chief says other tribes in Va. shouldn't be upset BY PETER HARDIN TIMES-DISPATCH WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT May 26, 2006 WASHINGTON - The chief of a Virginia Indian tribe that sought its own bill in Congress for sovereign status says she would be surprised if other tribes were upset. "I wouldn't be upset if a tribe broke away and did their own thing. We are sovereign nations and certainly have that right," Chief Anne Richardson of the Rappahannock tribe said yesterday. Last month, Rep. Jo Ann Davis introduced a separate bill for the Rappahannock tribe, at its request. Davis, R-1st, said the bill would not allow for casino gambling. An earlier House bill by Rep. James P. Moran, D-8th, for federal recognition of six Virginia tribes including the Rappahannock -- has drawn criticism from some who say it would open the door to casino gambling. It has not advanced in the House, despite its backers' claims it would safeguard against casino gambling. Moran and the chiefs of three tribes seeking recognition through his bill planned a news conference in Alexandria today, tied to the landing there of the Godspeed. The Godspeed is a reproduction ship sailing to East Coast ports to launch the 400th anniversary next year of Jamestown's founding. Moran and the tribal leaders are working to raise understanding of his sovereignty bill. When Davis introduced the bill on behalf of the Rappahannock tribe, Moran said it would be a shame for Virginia and the tribes seeking recognition if her bill "hindered that effort." The spokesman for a nonprofit group seeking fed- eral recognition for the Virginia tribes said at the time that the Rappahannock move was "a concern" and "kind of breaks up our little coalition." But Richardson said yesterday she expected both bills to go forward in Congress. She highlighted her goals in a brief interview and in a written news release. Richardson recounted mistreatment, "systematic genocide and discrimination" over 400 years. "Now it's up to the Congress to rectify that injustice, and hopefully it will be in time for 2007 so we do not have to be further humiliated as we travel abroad to share our history," Richardson said in written statement. "With Virginia history being showcased around the world, it will be an international embarrassment if the U.S. has not yet recognized these tribes after all that has been done to them." As for the casino-gambling issue, she wrote, "Why allow something to stop the recognition we so rightfully deserve for something that we don't want in the first place? If gaming was the real problem, then I am expecting a very positive response from Congress." Some members of her tribe will visit Kent County, England, in July. A delegation of Virginia Indian representatives will travel there for a week of cultural and scholarly events related to the Jamestown 400th anniversary. Moran's bill seeks federal recognition for the Rappahannock, Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Nansemond, and Monacan Indian Nation. The tribes on Virginia's only reservations, the Pamunkey and Mattaponi, are not part of his bill or a similar one sponsored by Sen. George Allen, R-Va. The six Virginia tribes are asking for the same status held by more than 560 tribal governments nationwide. With 350 members, according to Richardson, the Rappahannock tribe is located in King and Queen, Caroline and Essex counties. Its tribal center and offices are in Indian Neck. Contact staff writer Peter Hardin at phardin@mediageneral.com or (202) 662-7669. Copyright c. 2006 Richmond Times-Dispatch. --------- "RE: Native Hawaiians seek Right to Self-Govern" --------- Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 12:17:01 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NATIVE HAWAIIAN BILL" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Hawaiian-Recognition.html Native Hawaiians Seek Right to Self - Govern By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS May 29, 2006 HONOLULU (AP) - Hawaii politicians are scrambling to gather enough votes in Congress to pass a bill that would grant Native Hawaiians a degree of self-government and possibly a share of the land ruled by their ancestors. After seven years of debate, the proposal to recognize Native Hawaiians as indigenous inhabitants of the 50th state - a legal status similar to that of American Indians - has finally been promised a vote in the Senate. The vote could come as early as next week. Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka says he has solid support from his party, but will need help from Republicans to pass the proposal. The bill provides a process to set up a Native Hawaiian government and then start negotiations to transfer power and property from state and federal authorities to Hawaiians. The form of government and the amount of public land to be granted wouldn't be decided until then. The new government would not be allowed to deny civil rights or set up gambling operations such as those allowed for Indian tribes on the mainland. Akaka said the bill, which passed the House in 2000 but never made it to the Senate floor, will help right some of the wrongs done by the U.S. government in the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. "It clarifies a political and legal relationship with the United States, and it will bring parity to the indigenous peoples of Hawaii," said Akaka, who has Native Hawaiian ancestry. There are about 400,000 people of Native Hawaiian ancestry nationwide, and 260,000 of them live in Hawaii. No one would be required to join a Hawaiian government if the so-called Akaka bill is approved. A wide range of opponents stands in the way, from Native Hawaiians who won't support anything short of secession to lawyers who claim the bill is a racial entitlement program. A report from the Washington-based U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommended that Congress reject the bill because it would discriminate on the basis of race. Some Republican senators argue that recognizing a Native Hawaiian group is creating a subgroup with different rights from other Americans. Another opponent, Honolulu attorney H. William Burgess, said he fears a breakup of the state of Hawaii, the relinquishment of hundreds of thousands of acres of land and a new set of race-based privileges. "Hands are constantly being held out for more and more and more. Gimme, gimme, gimme," Burgess said. "I don't think it's fair to anticipate this government is going to be one which doesn't discriminate on the basis of race." Members of the Koani Foundation, a Hawaiian sovereignty advocacy group, fear federal recognition would forever put indigenous people under the authority of the Interior Department, said director Kaiopua Fyfe. "More Hawaiians are coming to understand just how bad this federal recognition would be. It would be the final nail in the coffin for Hawaiian issues," Fyfe said. Nearly all elected officials from both parties and officials of all state agencies, led by the elected trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, support the bill. Attorney General Mark Bennett said it's needed to help preserve the language, identity and culture of Native Hawaiians. Studies show Hawaiians have the lowest health and social indicators among the state's diverse ethnic groups. "Hawaiians are not asking for any special treatment. They're simply asking to be treated the same way America's other native peoples are treated," Bennett said. Public opinion is difficult to judge, with polls tending to support the views of the organizations sponsoring them. "There are certain Hawaiians who don't support it. Some people feel the legislation doesn't go far enough; some people feel the only way is for total independence," said Clyde Namuo, administrator for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. "Certainly it's not a panacea, but it will give us greater control over our assets and our destiny than we currently have," Namuo said. If it passes the Senate, the bill still would have to get through the House again. Copyright c. 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2006 The New York Times Company. --------- "RE: Navajo riders join Lumbee for Veterans Memorial" --------- Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 08:52:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="VETERANS MEMORIAL" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.fayettevillenc.com/article?id=233909 Navajos, Lumbees hold emotional memorial A staff report May 26, 2006 PEMBROKE - Lawrence Morgan said his first visit to the home of Lumbee Indians offered him an opportunity to connect with a tribe he knew little about. Morgan is speaker for the Navajo Nation Council in Window Rock, Ariz. On Thursday, he joined about three dozen members of his tribe for a memorial service at the Pembroke town park to honor American Indian veterans. The Navajo group stopped in Pembroke as part of a 3,000-mile trip to Washington, D.C., for a Memorial Day ride with thousands of other motorcycle riders. "This is a very productive visit," Morgan said. "This gives us a chance to meet with other tribal members. The people here have treated us well." After a brief ceremony in front of a monument bearing flags of the United States, the Lumbee tribe and others, the group dined on a barbecue lunch. Tribal Chairman Jimmy Goins presented the group a sheet of tobacco grown by a Lumbee farmer. Goins called it an emotional day. He served two tours in Vietnam and was an infantry squad leader. "It gives us a chance to renew old friendships and show how much the Lumbee veterans respect their fallen warriors," Goins said. "I'm honored for these guys to come by and join us." Larry Townsend of the tribe's veteran's services office arranged the visit. Townsend, also a Vietnam veteran, wore an Army battle dress uniform complete with Lumbee military veteran's tribal patches and pins. Tom White Jr. rode in on his Harley Davidson with the Navajo Indians. White is a friend of Robeson County Commissioner Noah Woods. "I always heard about the tribe," White said. "I'm glad to come here to see it for myself. It's beautiful country." Jude Bullard of Prospect served in Vietnam in 1967-1968 and received a Bronze Star. He said being around other veterans helps him cope with the painful memories of the war nearly 40 years later. "It brings back a lot of memories," Bullard said. "Most of all, our fellow brothers, the Navajo Indians, have joined us in commemorating this great celebration of our veterans. I'm glad they have come by. Our Indian people sacrificed a lot we didn't get credit for." Copyright c. 2006 The Fayetteville (NC) Observer. --------- "RE: Navajo Nation Delegation heads to Washington" --------- Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 10:39:15 -0600 From: Karen Francis Subj: Navajo Nation delegation heads to Washington DC Contact: Karen Francis, Public Information Officer Navajo Nation Council Office of the Speaker (928) 871-7160 karenfrancis@navajo.org www.navajonationcouncil.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATE: Friday, May 26, 2006 NAVAJO NATION DELEGATION HEADS TO WASHINGTON D.C. Motorcycle run honors Native American warriors A delegation left Monday, May 22, on the national Ride For Freedom XIX to Washington D.C., continuing the Navajo Nation's tribute to fallen Native American warriors, which began last week with the 4th Annual Navajo/Hopi Honor Run. This is the second year that a delegation was sent with the purpose of honoring Native American warriors and advocating for Navajo veterans' issues. This year, the delegation is also extending the message that Indian tribes and nations should unite to honor Native American warriors with a nation-wide honor run. This year, the delegation includes Ray Barney, Victor Dee, Leonard Gorman, Council delegates Curran Hannon (St. Michaels/Oak Springs), Ray Berchman (St. Michaels/Oak Springs), LoRenzo Bates (Upper Fruitland), Tom M. White Jr. (Fort Defiance), Omer Begay Jr. (Coprnfields/Greasewood Springs/Klagetoh/Wide Ruins), and Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan (Iyanbito/Pinedale). This is the second year that Dee, Hannon, Bates and Begay are riding. Along the way, the Navajo Nation delegation has been welcomed by the Cheyenne Arapaho Tribe, the Sac and Fox Nation and the Lumbee Tribe, as well as by the 82nd Airborne Division. The journey began Monday at 5 a.m. from the Navajo Nation Veterans Memorial Park in Window Rock, Arizona with a protection ceremony for the riders conducted by Council delegate Rex Lee Jim (Rock Point). The delegation left at 7 a.m. to begin the ride across the country with the theme "Honoring Our Fallen Heroes." On the second day of the run, the riders visited the Cheyenne Arapaho Tribe in Oklahoma. Angela Barney-Nez, from the Office of the Speaker, said it was a very poignant time for the riders to arrive because their fallen warrior, Lance Cpl. Hatak Yuka Keyu M. Yearby, had just been laid to rest the day before. Later in the day, the riders were greeted by members of the Sac and Fox Nation and escorted from Interstate 40 to the Sac and Fox grounds where a ceremony in their honor was held. Honor songs that are rarely heard were sung for the riders and a cedar blessing was performed for them. On Thursday, the delegation was met by six bike riders from the Lumbee Tribe and escorted to the tribe's reservation for a ceremony conducted in their honor. The delegation was blessed by the tribe's medicine people and welcomed by Lumbee Tribal President Billy Goins. The riders were also presented with Lumbee Tribal Warrior pins. Later the same day, the delegation joined Council delegate Leslie Dele (Tonalea) to present a Navajo Nation Medal of Valor to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Dele, who served with the 82nd, participated in the division review before the riders arrived. Speaker Morgan presented the medal to the 82nd Airborne Division on behalf of the Navajo Nation Council during a brief ceremony at the division's museum. The medal will be displayed at the museum alongside famous war memorabilia. It honors those Navajos who served with the division in all wars. The delegation is scheduled to meet with the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs on Friday and will participate in Ride for Freedom activities through the weekend. On Sunday, the delegation will join hundreds of thousands motorcycle riders in a procession to the nation's Capitol. The delegation also intends to spend the weekend advocating for veterans' issues with advocacy documents adopted by the Council's Human Services Committee and a petition regarding labels of Missing In Action and Prisoner Of War that has been carried by the delegation on its cross- country trip. The advocacy documents call for a more holistic approach in addressing Navajo veterans' needs. "We need to make sure that the federal Veterans Administration knows when it comes to our veterans, one size does not fit all. We require a different model for effective administration of services for our veterans," Speaker Morgan said. --------- "RE: Tribes honor Veterans" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2006 08:54:24 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SHOW OF RESPECT/HONOR FOR ALL WARRIORS" http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7874 Tribes honor veterans "Our warriors ensure our freedom" WINDOW ROCK AZ George Hardeen May 24, 2006 Navajo, Hopi and non-Native soldiers and veterans alike were shown honor and respect for their service and sacrifice during a torch-lighting ceremony at the Navajo Nation Veterans Memorial Park under the sacred Window Rock here. As a Navajo prayer was sung over loudspeakers, Judith Young, the national president of American Gold Star Mothers, Inc., led a procession of Navajo Gold Star mothers wearing new, fringed, white shawls with large gold stars around the perimeter of the park to its center where a flame was lit from the torch she carried. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., and Navajo Nation Council Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan then slowly carried a large gold star wreath from the steps of the park to the newly-lit flame, and stood in silent remembrance before stepping aside. The solemn moment was witnessed by about 500 people who had come to pay their respects, including some 250 motorcycle riders who had just completed a two-day Honor Run throughout the Navajo and Hopi nations to commemorate soldiers' and veterans' sacrifice. Among them was numerous Navajo Nation Council delegates, Navajo Vice President Frank Dayish, Jr., and members of the organizations Carry The Flame and Rolling Thunder, a national organization that rides to promote awareness about service men and women who are missing in action or are prisoners of war. "Freedom is very precious and we know that freedom did not come free," Shirley told the crowd. "It is our warriors who ensure our freedom and protect our Navajo way of life." "There are many people we need to remember," added Morgan. "There are many who are MIA and POW." Prior to the wreath laying, Young presented the shawls the mothers of eight Navajo soldiers who lost their lives since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She said she hopes to create a Navajo Nation Chapter of the organization. "While these shawls are beautiful," said Dennehotso Navajo Nation Council delegate Katherine Benally, who served as mistress of ceremony, "they are one we hope we never have to wear." Young said that during the early days of World War I, a Blue Star was used to represent every man or woman in the military service of the United States. As the war progressed and men died in combat or from their wounds or disease, a gold star was used to cover the blue star, she said. The gold star came to represent the honor and glory accorded the person for his supreme sacrifice in offering for his country the last full measure of devotion and pride. The Gold Star Mothers was formed in 1928 of mothers of soldiers who died. Their mission was to unite in loyalty and love for each other, perpetuate the memory of their sacrifice, inspire patriotism and reverence for the flag and to assist veterans. King Cavalier, president of Operation Carry The Flame, said that when the motorcycle riders first came to Navajoland three years ago to honor the late Lori Piestewa, the first Native woman soldier - a member of the Hopi Tribe - to be killed in American combat during the opening days of the Iraq war, "we didn't know the depth of respect that the Navajo people shows its warriors." He said the Navajo people gave the riders a teaching of respect that is renewed with each visit. "And we thank you for caring enough to teach us," he said. He said Operation Carry The Flame has two missions. One is a national fundraising effort for an official Gold Star Mothers national monument, and the second is create scholarships for Navigating Children's Grief training courses designed to help children of military parents deal with the grief of a parent who leaves for military service, is injured or is killed. The program is to develop essential grief management skills for school principals, teachers, counselors, clergy, organizational leaders, health care professionals and others who interact with grieving children from military families. "We think it's a lot better to help a child than to fix an adult," Cavalier said. "The more people we have in helping children, the better we all will be." About the author: George Hardeen is the communications director of the Navajo Nation. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Navajo Nation Memorial Day Statement" --------- Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 14:45:34 -0600 From: "Karen Francis" Subj: Memorial Day statement Contact: Karen Francis, Public Information Officer Navajo Nation Council Office of the Speaker (928) 871-7160 karenfrancis@navajo.org www.navajonationcouncil.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATE: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 Statement on Memorial Day from the Navajo Nation Council Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan (Iyanbito/Pinedale): During Memorial Day, the Navajo Nation Council pays tribute to all those who have given their lives in service of this country and to all those who have served and are now serving. As a society that honors our fallen warriors, let us pause and remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the good of our people. Because of their actions and the actions of all veterans and service men and women, we are able to enjoy freedom where we can practice our traditions and speak our language. We honor the spirit that we see among our people who will fight for their homeland and the protection of their people. That spirit has long been evident and continues to hold true. The fact that Native Americans have the highest enlistment of any minority group attests to that spirit. There are many who have given their lives for our freedom. The Navajo Nation paid tribute to our fallen Native American warriors during an honor run held last week and continues the tribute this week with a delegation headed to Washington D.C. The Navajo Nation Council would like to thank each person and organization that helped us in honoring their memories and for offering prayers for those who are currently in service. We would like to thank the Cheyenne Arapahoe Tribe, the Sac and Fox Tribe, the Lumbee Tribe, the 82nd Airborne Division, Operation Carry the Flame and Rolling Thunder for sharing their hospitality as the Navajo Nation delegation joins the national run in Washington D.C. It is our hope that this is the first of many nation-wide efforts that will recognize the sacrifice of our Native American warriors. --------- "RE: Peoria recognized for effort to save Fish" --------- Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 08:52:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="PEORIA AMONG TRIBES RECOGNIZED FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES" http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7877 Area tribe recognized for effort to save threatened fish Grant allows Peorias to continue restoration Sam Lewin May 25, 2006 The reputation Native Americans have as responsible stewards of the land has led to a handful of tribes being awarded almost two million dollars to manage, conserve and protect fish and wildlife resources in their backyards. One of the tribes receiving a portion of the grant is the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. The money comes from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and altogether totals $1,752,952. "Native Americans have a great knowledge of, and intimate connection with, the land and its wildlife," said Benjamin Tuggle, the director of the Southwest Region, which comprises Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. "Cooperative programs ...represent the Fish and Wildlife Service's recognition that best conservation and environmental protections result when tribes, landowners, hunters and anglers, local organizations and communities work together." The Peorias are being awarded $249,997 to develop the culturing capability of the Neosho Madtom, a fish that has been on the threatened species list since 1990. Wildlife biologists report that the Neosho Madtom have features characteristic of all North American catfish, including scale less skin and a relatively large head. The decline of the species has been blamed on dams, dredging and water use. The tribe is also working to reintroduce the Neosho Mucket - a freshwater bivalve - into the Spring and Neosho Rivers, located along the Kansas-Oklahoma state line. The Peorias are based in Miami, Oklahoma. The money for the tribes involved in the environmental projects originates from the Tribal Landowner Incentive program and the Tribal Wildlife Grant program. In addition to the Peorias, here are the other tribes involved in the grants and the projects they are working on: - The Navajo Nation receives $150,000 for distributional analysis of Gunnison's Prairie Dog on lands owned by the Navajos and Hopis. - The Pueblo of Santo Domingo in New Mexico gets $148,348 for the Rio Galisteo restoration project. - The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas has been awarded $209,277 for a Fish and Wildlife inventory and habitat preservation project. - The Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico receives $246,100 for baseline characterization of resources and riparian habitat restoration. - The Pueblo of Santa Clara in New Mexico is awarded $249,411 for riparian and wetland habitat Re-Creation at Santa Clara Pueblo. - The San Juan Pueblo in New Mexico's portion of the grant is $249,990 for wetland restoration at Ohkay Owingeh fishpond. - The Pueblo of Taos in New Mexico gets $249,829 to restore the Bighorn Sheep population living along the Northern Rio Grande. Fish and Wildlife officials say the 565 federally recognized Indian tribes have a controlling interest in more than 52-million acres of tribal trust lands, along with an another 40-million acres held by Alaska Native corporations. They add that a majority of this land is relatively undisturbed, providing a significant amount of rare and important fish and wildlife habitat. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: New Mexico hit Pueblo Leaders with $4.7M Tax Bill" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2006 08:54:24 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="END AROUND BY STATE TO FORCE DENIED TAXES" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/44094.html Suit alleges officials targeted pueblo By Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican May 25, 2006 Former officers of Nambe' Pueblo are suing former state tax officials, claiming they threatened to assess the former officers more than $4.6 million if they didn't agree to an audit of the pueblo's gasoline- wholesaling business in 2002. Although the "jeopardy assessments" were dismissed, they haunted the former officers' personal lives, the complaint says. Such assessments are a rare method of collecting back taxes that can't be appealed. "They believed the state of New Mexico was bent on ruining them financially because they were Native Americans who had authorized the lawful gasoline operation on the Nambe' Pueblo," the complaint says. "All four plaintiffs feared arrest and loss of their houses, assets and property." Santa Fe lawyers Daniel Yohalem and Richard Rosenstock filed the complaint May 17 on behalf of David A. Perez Sr. and Tony B. Vigil, former Nambe' governors and tribal council members, and Harold Porter and James D. Porter, former council members. Named as defendants are T. Glenn Ellington, state Taxation and Revenue Department secretary from 2000 to 2002; James Burleson, the department's former deputy secretary; David Ferguson, former director of the department's Audit and Compliance Division; Ricky A. Bejarano, former deputy director of the division, and Javier Lopez, the department's former staff attorney. A similar complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in 2003. The plaintiffs prevailed in an appeal to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. But on May 4, U.S. District Judge James Parker ruled the federal court lacked jurisdiction and dismissed the case without prejudice. That led to the complaint filed last week in state court. In 1999, the state Legislature allowed Nambe' and Santo Domingo pueblos to wholesale up to 30 million gallons of gasoline a year each to off- reservation service stations without paying the state gasoline-excise tax or the petroleum-products loading fee, totaling 17 cents per gallon or more than $5 million a year for each pueblo. The state later ended the exemptions, which were aimed at promoting economic development on the two pueblos, which have no casinos. Yohalem said when his clients gained power of Nambe's tribal council in January 2000, they decided the gasoline enterprise was not lucrative enough, got rid of the Texas-based contractor and hired the two daughters of Ken Newton, a former racetrack owner who ran the gasoline business for Santo Domingo. When Tom Talache succeeded Perez as governor in January 2002, he and Herbert Yates, a former governor, "claimed something illegal had been happening in the gas business," Yohalem said. "But there was no evidence of that, and the tax department just rushed to do the bidding of the new guys in Nambe' and illegally issued these tax assessments, violating my clients' civil rights." Ellington, a former district judge and now a private lawyer, said the assessments were aimed at everyone involved with the tribal firm that ran the gasoline operation -- Nambe' Pueblo Development Corp. -- including seven or eight individuals and two corporate entities. As a former state tax official, Ellington said, he is banned from talking publicly about taxpayer information, but the department was concerned that the development corporation would be invalidated by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. "There's just so much I can't tell you, it makes it hard to answer your questions," he said. "I guess, in general, the reason for the jeopardy assessments was to protect the state's position in collecting motor-fuel (taxes) and loading fees." In February 2002, the Taxation and Revenue Department issued two notices of jeopardy assessment of taxes, totaling $4,677,358, against each of the four former officers. The complaint said the former officers were targeted to get around the pueblo's sovereignty against a state investigation, and they were told action would stop if they agreed not to interfere with an audit of the books of the development corporation and opened their personal financial records. In April 2002, the department issued an abatement of the tax assessments, but did not release the liens until July 2003, the complaint said. It said the action continued to cause problems for the former officers: Perez had to postpone starting a catering business because a loan was held up, Vigil's daughters were told their father was a crook and would go to jail, and Harold Porter's attempt to buy a house in Las Cruces for his daughter was blocked. Ellington declined to say the audit found that no taxes or fees were due or that no wrongdoing was discovered. Rather, he said, the department's attorney advised that the state law regulating the exemption was not clear enough to collect the assessments. "After a lot of the investigation was done and we actually knew how the operation was working, that was the recommendation and decision," he said. Contact Tom Sharpe at 995-3813 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com. Copyright c. 2006, Santa Fe New Mexican, all rights reserved. --------- "RE: Court subjects Narragansett to all State Laws" --------- Date: Wed, 25 May 2006 08:54:24 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YET ANOTHER ANTI-SOVEREIGNTY RULING" http://www.indianz.com/News/2006/014146.asp Court subjects Narragansett Tribe to all state laws May 25, 2006 The state of Rhode Island can enforce its laws against members of the Narragansett Tribe for activities that occur on the reservation, a divided federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday. By a 4-2 vote, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals said state troopers acted legally when they stormed the Narragansett Reservation on July 14, 2003, as part of a dispute over cigarette taxes. In a violent clash that was caught on television cameras and aired nationwide, officers arrested several tribal members, including Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas, and seized tribal property and cash. The tribe went to court and argued that the raid violated its sovereignty. But the majority of judges on the 1st Circuit said the tribe freely surrendered its rights by agreeing to state jurisdiction in a special land claim settlement act passed by Congress back in 1983. The Narragansetts "explicitly acknowledged that, with certain modest exceptions not applicable here, 'all laws of the state of Rhode Island shall be in full force and effect on the settlement lands,'" Judge Bruce M. Selya wrote in the 34-page decision, quoting the 1983 law. An equally lengthy set of dissents filed by two other members of the court sharply disagreed with that conclusion. Over the course of 32 pages, Judge Kermit V. Lipez and Judge Juan R. Torruella blasted the state for its "Rambo-like raid" that ran roughshod over basic principles of tribal sovereignty. Both judges said the majority read too much into the 1983 law. Tribal waivers of immunity must be explicit and unambiguous, they underscored in their dissents. "It is clear that when tested against long-standing principles of Indian law, the sweeping asseverations made by the state regarding waiver and abrogation are lacking in substance. Tribal sovereignty, and concomitantly, tribal sovereign immunity, may not be stripped from an Indian tribe by statutory silence or by inference extracted from ambiguous language," Torruella wrote. Lipez highlighted what he called the overreaching nature of the majority's decision. He said the 1st Circuit has adopted principles that erode the rights of dozens of tribes who have settled their land claims through acts of Congress or who fall under Public Law 280 or similar laws that grant jurisdiction to the state. "Given this array of laws, I see no way to limit the majority's abrogation of the tribe's sovereign immunity, so that it does not also call into question the sovereign immunity claimed by the many tribes that hold lands brought under state jurisdiction by the several settlement acts" or Public Law 280, Lipez wrote in his dissent. The starkly contrasting views are sure to spark another battle before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Narragansett Tribe plans to appeal the ruling, the lawyer who argued the case told The Providence Journal in a story published today. Just two years ago, the justices considered a case with a similar set of facts. In California, a state that falls under Public Law 280, officials in Inyo County raided the casino owned by the Bishop-Pauite Tribe and seized tribal property. The high court, by a unanimous vote, concluded that the tribe couldn't sue the county for the raid. But the justices left open the question of whether the county can enforce state law against the tribal government, a key issue in the Narragansett case. The 1st Circuit majority answered that the tribe is indeed subject to state law. "It is plainly not the case, as the tribe would have it, that an Indian tribe can render any conceivable act on Indian lands (say, drug trafficking) impervious to state regulation by the simple expedient of labeling it 'tribal,'" Selya wrote. "In sum, the tribe remains as free as ever to operate the smoke shop; it simply must comply with state law in the process," the ruling continued. Despite the strong statements, the majority's repeated use of the phrase "settlement lands" appears to hold some benefit for the tribe. Lands taken into trust for the tribe after the 1983 act are not considered "settlement lands," so the state's laws may not apply there. Tribal leaders across the nation have closely watched the dispute over the past three years. For many, it brought to light the harsh realities of past and present excursions on their rights. "It is inexcusable that a tribal leader would be target of violence by Rhode Island law enforcement officers," said Brenda Soulliere at the time of the incident. Soulliere was vice-chair of the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians when the tribe's gaming facility was raided by the state of California in 1981. The tribe later prevailed at the Supreme Court. Copyright c. 2000-2006 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: Feds face big backlog of Eagle requests" --------- Date: Tue, 24 May 2006 08:57:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="REPOSITORY BACKLOG" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/05/24/news/wyoming Feds face big backlog of eagle requests By WHITNEY ROYSTER Star-Tribune environmental reporter May 24, 2006 JACKSON - How long it takes an American Indian tribe to get dead eagles or eagle parts from the federal government for religious ceremonies seems to be a key issue for a federal judge. During a court hearing here Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Downes repeatedly asked witnesses to clarify how much time elapsed between the time of their application to an eagle carcass repository in Colorado and when they received a bird or bird parts. Witnesses testified it took up to four years to receive anything. A representative of the repository testified there is a backlog of requests, as the center does not receive many eagles, and many are in poor condition. During what was expected to be the last day of testimony in a hearing over whether to dismiss charges against Winslow Friday, an Arapaho man who shot a bald eagle last year, both sides presented arguments to support their case. Closing arguments are expected Thursday, and it is unclear when Downes will rule on whether the case should move forward. Northern Arapaho member Harvey Spoonhunter testified that he applied for an immature golden eagle in 1997, and in 2001 was told the repository couldn't obtain one. He said the repository sent a bald eagle, but the head and body were decayed. He said eagles from the repository "would not be acceptable" for religious ceremonies because of their poor condition. But Spoonhunter was cagey in his responses to Downes when asked if an eagle that was shot would be acceptable for religious ceremonies. Spoonhunter first said he would not shoot a bird, then said in today's world "life has changed." He said he's not sure how birds are obtained for ceremonies. The entire hearing is unusual, as American Indians typically do not talk about their ceremonies. Several elders from the tribe would not testify in the hearing because of their cultural beliefs. Daniel Caldwell, another Arapaho man, said he applied for an eagle in 1998 and got a response in 2002. He said the carcass was spoiled. Bernadette Atencio, supervising wildlife repository specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, testified for the government that her agency processes about 25 applications per week. She also said the waiting period for an immature golden eagle is about four years, and about two years for a bald eagle. Atencio said there are about 4,000 pending requests. Atencio also testified that in her previous job, she processed permit applications for lethal "take" of eagles. No permits were issued for religious purposes during her tenure from 1982 to 1995, but no applications were received. Brian Milsap, chief of the division of migratory bird management for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said there were very few applications for lethal "take" permits before 2003, and since then there have been no requests. Defense attorneys have argued American Indians do not know they can apply for permits to kill eagles. Atencio testified the Fish and Wildlife Service does not advertise the permits because eagles are threatened, but information is available. Friday, an Arapaho man, is charged with illegally killing a bald eagle on March 2, 2005, on the Wind River Indian Reservation. He testified Tuesday he did not check with elders to see if it was OK for him to shoot an eagle for a religious ceremony. He also said he shot the eagle because he made a promise to his dying grandmother he would participate in a ceremony for which an eagle is required. He also said after he shot the bird he played video games, during which an Arapaho game warden -- whose last name is also Friday -- approached him about the shooting. "Maybe what I did was wrong, but I didn't know that," said Friday, 21. Nathan Friday, a cousin of Winslow Friday, said he applied for a bird from the Colorado repository in 2001 and never heard anything back. Two wildlife officials said there has never been any record of his application or his name. Nathan Friday was sponsoring the ceremony for which Winslow killed the eagle, though Nathan said he did not ask his cousin to shoot a bird. Defense attorneys maintain Friday is protected under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act and should not be penalized. Prosecutors argue he broke the law, and if charges are dropped it could have dramatic impacts to eagle populations, with people killing them for religious ceremonies. Law enforcement would also have trouble determining who was killing birds legally versus illegally. Bald eagles have recovered substantially since they were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1978. They were reclassified from endangered to threatened in 1995, and Fish and Wildlife Service biologists estimate there are now more than 7,700 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the Lower 48. Even if they are removed from the list, bald eagles would still be protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. There is one documented pair of nesting eagles on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Friday's charge, if it stands, carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. Environmental reporter Whitney Royster can be reached at (307) 734-0260 or at royster@tribcsp.com. Copyright c. 1995-2006 Casper Star-Tribune - of Lee Enterprises Inc. --------- "RE: GIAGO: Betting on an uncertain outcome" --------- Date: Mon, 23 May 2006 08:58:27 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GIAGO: CASINO DELAY FOR NEWLY RECOGNIZED NATIONS" http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7861 Notes from Indian Country Betting on an uncertain outcome Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) Copyright c. 2006 Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc. May 22, 2006 What is gambling in its purest sense? My old friend Webster has this to say about it: To play a game for money or property; to bet on an uncertain outcome; to stake something on a contingency; an act having the element of risk or something chancy. All of these definitions came to mind when I visited my tribe's casino recently because nearly half of the people I saw doing "something chancy," were members of my own tribe. This brings to mind the question; is the Oglala Sioux Tribe earning 50 percent of its casino profits from its own people? And if that is happening on the poorest Indian reservation in the United States, how many other tribally owned casinos are doing likewise? I recall visiting the casino on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation in Wisconsin where I spoke at the community college and once again was surprised to see so many Indian people seated at the gaming tables. I suppose the number of Indians gambling in these reservation casinos is quite obvious because these are smaller casinos pretty far away from the metropolitan areas. It would be a different story at a casino the size of the Foxwood Casino in Ledyard, Connecticut. A very wealthy tribe, the Mashentucket Peqot that is few in numbers, owns this casino. However, I am sure that many Pequot's are still placing stakes on games of chance. It is no surprise to me that so many of the new, federally recognized tribes have jumped into building casinos. Petitions for federal recognition have doubled since the advent of Indian gaming. Rumors abound that some of the tribes on the waiting list, and some that have already passed the bar, were supported financially by dubious business investors and speculators while researching their background in order to pass the federal investigation into their authenticity. And even more sinister, there is also speculation that some influential members of the Bureau of Indian Affairs accepted cash bribes to rubber stamp the recognition of these new tribal entities. Now that is where an investigation should begin and if conclusive evidence turns up that some BIA officials did support tribal recognition for monetary compensation, those individuals should be tried and prosecuted and those tribes that gained federal recognition illegally should have that federal status revoked. I've said it many times in the past, but I will say it again; one of the criteria for federal recognition should be that a new tribe should be denied the opportunity to open a casino until 10 years from the date of recognition. A 10-year waiting period should be a standard part of the federal recognition process. Now how hard would it be to add this stipulation to the recognition process? It would certainly drive away many of the financiers and speculators looking to make a quick buck on the new tribe's casino operations. And if a tribal group is honestly seeking federal recognition because of its historic connections as an Indian tribe with a recognized language, culture and traditions, its motives to reclaim this unique status should be pure and should far outweigh any prospects or desires of opening a casino. In other words, its actions should be honorable rather than based on greed. It seems to me that the United States government, state governments, and Indian governments are seeking to raise revenues by playing to the worst instincts of human nature. Gambling is a game of chance. First of all one must place a bet in order to win. In order to place a bet one must first have the money to do so. Where does that money come from? From a paycheck, a social security check, or a welfare check? There is no question that games of chance always favor the house. The odds of winning a large amount of money from gambling are slim and none. Therefore, the odds of not having enough money to pay the rent, or make that car payment or save enough money to send Jane or Johnny to college can be placed at slim or none. I worked at Harrah's Casino in Reno, Nevada many years ago, years before there was ever a casino in Indian country. I started as a change boy in the slot department, became a section manager also in the slot department, and then moved on to dealing dice in the pit. In training sessions we (the dealers) were told more than once that people come to gamble in the Reno casinos to lose money. If they bring $400 dollars to the game, they will stay there until that $400 is gone. We were also told that if people would come with the idea that they wanted to win $400 and then quit, more often than not, this would happen because most gamblers almost always win before they lose. Needless to say, I saw a heck of a lot more losers than winners in my days in Reno. What would happen to all of the revenues the government, the states and the tribes wanted to raise through gambling if one day every American simply said, "Starting today I will never gamble again." I suppose there are too many people out there addicted to gambling for this to ever happen, but one should also keep in mind that addiction is also an illness. And as my friend Webster said, "Gambling is to bet on an uncertain outcome." Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: ICT: A plea to the Pope: Rescind the Papal Bulls" --------- Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 14:17:15 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ICT EDITORIAL: RESCIND PAPAL BULLS" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096413041 A plea to the pope: Rescind the papal bulls by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today May 26, 2006 Ten people really need to read this editorial. They are Pope Benedict XVI and the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Remote as the odds might be, we probably have a better chance of getting the attention of the Holy Father than of the American jurists. After all, it's his business we're talking about. For some time now, indigenous intellectuals have been urging the Vatican to rescind the 15th century papal bulls that provided the ultimate legal justification for European domination of the Natives of the Americas and Africa. This call came up with renewed force at the recent annual meeting of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations. A panel of speakers from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) of New York state, Panama and Ecuador gave emotional testimony about the ongoing impact of the bulls and the "doctrine of Christian discovery" that they inspired. As one speaker, Tonya Gonnella Frichner, of the Onondaga Nation Snipe Clan, observed, this is no antiquarian issue. It is causing continuous and increasing damage. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited the doctrine of discovery in the first footnote of last year's infamous City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York decision, denying the right of the Oneida Indian Nation unilaterally to re-establish sovereignty on its own reacquired aboriginal territory. (This issue affects our own self-interest, since the Oneida Nation owns Four Directions Media, publisher of Indian Country Today; but there can be no doubt that Sherrill is a major problem for all Natives in the United States. The decision was twisted and expanded by the 2nd Circuit Court to deny the Cayuga Nation land claims long after they had been adjudicated. The Supreme Court let that ruling stand, and the mischief is bound to continue. In the latest disaster, the 1st Circuit en banc reversed its own three-judge panel and on May 24 severely truncated the sovereign rights of the Narragansett Indian Nation.) As our columnist, Steven Newcomb, has shown so ably, the makeshift legal arguments for European dispossession of Native America trace back to the doctrine of discovery, somewhat ambivalently endorsed by Chief Justice John Marshall in the 1823 foundation case Johnson v. M'Intosh. Although subsequent Supreme Court cases try to cover it up, this doctrine is really that of Christian discovery, the superior right of the Catholic monarchs of Europe to enlighten the pagan Natives of the New World (and, incidentally, take over their land.) And this right derives from a series of papal declarations starting in 1454. Robert A. Williams Jr., Lumbee, the outstanding Indian law scholar at the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, tells the story in his fascinating book, "The American Indian in Western Legal Thought" (1990). Although the origins go back to the beginning of the crusades, the modern portion starts with the effort of King Duarte of Portugal to take over the Canary Islands. Pope Eugenius had intervened to protect the Canary Islanders, the Guanche - some of whom had already converted - from Portuguese massacres. But Duarte argued that the "nearly wild" islanders would benefit from his own conquest, which he had begun "more indeed for the salvation of the souls of the pagans of the islands than for his own personal gain, for there was nothing for him to gain." Eugenius bought this line and issued the bull "Romanus Pontifex," authorizing Duarte to oversee conversion of the so-called barbarians. Later versions also confirmed the Portuguese monopoly of trade and slaving up and down the coast of Africa. A veteran of this Portuguese trade was a certain Christopher Columbus, who approached Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella with the prospect of a trade route outside of the papally sanctioned monopoly. On the return from his first voyage, he was briefly detained and interrogated by the Portuguese in the Azores, and the Portuguese king promptly thanked the Spanish for extending his own western possessions. Spain rushed its lawyers to the papal curia even before Columbus set foot in Cadiz, and asked Pope Alexander VI, a Spaniard, to confirm its rights in the Indies. Alexander complied with a series of bulls under the heading "Inter caetera." The first gave Ferdinand and Isabella the task of converting the heathens discovered by Columbus, whom, as Williams observes, he described in terms very similar to the Portuguese description of the Canary Island natives. The second bull answered objections from Portugal by drawing a line separating their spheres of conversion. This line "from the Arctic to the Antarctic Pole" cut through the western tip of South America, which is why Brazilians now speak Portuguese instead of Spanish. Other monarchs of the era, notably the French and English, found the whole exercise ridiculous. Today it would seem like a quaint artifact, if it weren't for its enduring influence on the Supreme Court. The Native appeal to the Vatican is not just symbolic. It's an urgent matter of preserving sovereign rights against a renewed onslaught by the federal judiciary. In a surprising twist to the story, moreover, the Holy See providentially has the principles at its disposal to give great support to Native rights. Williams recounts that even as Eugenius drafted the first of these bulls, he drew on a theological and legal tradition that recognized the natural- law rights even of infidels. This principle, derived by the great Dominican theologian St. Thomas Aquinas from Aristotle, held that the ultimate divine sanction for political life was God's creation of man as a rational and social animal. All human beings possessed a rational soul with a natural urge to band together in families, extended clans and ultimately self-governing communities. So all self-contained human political units possessed the natural right to dominium, or sovereignty, provided they did not egregiously violate natural law in their other conduct. This is as good a support for American Indian tribal sovereignty as we are likely to find in the Western legal tradition. The Vatican doesn't even have to repudiate the declarations of Eugenius and Alexander. All it has to say is that the conditions of that day no longer exist, certainly now that the indigenous nations have demonstrated spiritual strength that compares quite well with Europe. The religious excuse for European domination of aboriginal people no longer exists (it never did for Native nations), and the two societies should make their accommodation to their historical legacy on the basis of mutual respect for their political existence. Since the Supreme Court has certainly lost its way in this regard, it could use some guidance from another Supreme authority. The Holy See is certainly aware that indigenous people are asking for action on these bulls. A representative of the Papal Legation to the United Nations has discreetly attended the panels on the subject at the last few sessions of the permanent forum. Given the long and complicated relation of the Catholic Church and the Native peoples of the Americas, a rescission of the bulls is the least the pope could do. Copyright c. 1998 - 2006 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: YELLOW BIRD: Memorial Day accents change" --------- Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 14:17:15 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW BIRD: MEMORIAL DAY" http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/columnists/14679769.htm DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: Memorial Day accents change May 27, 2006 To this day, Memorial Day on the reservation often is spent in racing around to two or three cemeteries, cleaning and decorating. We get together, prepare food for a big cookout and relax while we talk about new additions to the family and exchange new potato salad or baked bean recipes. But at times, I remember our even more traditional celebrations of years ago, at the center of which always were my mother and aunt. I get nostalgic for that old-fashioned kind of celebration because it's disappearing a little more with the passing of each generation. For example, I remember when families made the flowers by hand for graves. This was before the age of Wal-Mart and Target. Today, it takes only a short visit and a big purchase, and you're done for the day. No longer does it involve weeks of winding crepe paper over tiny wires and cutting the paper to make leaves and flowers. After a couple of hours of that work, I used to wonder how useful all those paper flowers would be when the hot sun faded them or a thunderstorm left them drooping like a flower garden you forgot to water. I grew up in the days of a different kind of Memorial Day. The cemeteries on the reservation used to be in the lowlands near the Missouri River. Today, if you look across Lake Sakakawea, you sometimes can pinpoint the old cemeteries on the choppy lake surface. How different those old graveyards were, I thought not long ago, as I passed the military cemetery in Mandan, N.D. where my brother-in-law - the great-grandson of Bear's Belly, a well-known Arikara leader - is buried. The lines of the white, military gravestones were so straight and unwavering, they looked like ivory keys on a grand piano. In contrast, the cemeteries on the reservation usually are covered with prairie grass and fenced, but cattle sometimes nudge the old fences and visit the tombstones. Once there, the herds are like "bulls in a china cabinet," knocking over stones and stepping on metal placards. As children who attended to the old cemeteries near Elbowoods, N.D., we chased each other up and down the nearby clay hills while the grandparents and parents weeded and decorated. Those cemeteries held the ancestors, some from ancient times. I remember my grandmother, in her headscarf and long dress, standing up from her stoop to shoo me from a grave. She was a gentlewoman, and her stories brought those ancient people to life and certainly made us keep our games away from the graves. Some of those old headstones were chipped, faded or askew. But often, we would follow the rows and read the names such as Little Cherries, Feather of Eagle, Crows at Rest, Crow Ghost (a chief and medicine man) and Face Looks Afraid. We'd wonder what their lives were like. If you wonder why some Native cemeteries probably wouldn't meet the standards of other cemeteries today, it's likely because we don't have gravediggers and cemetery caretakers. Instead, the family gets someone to prepare and dig the grave. Of course, our way today is quite different from the Native way in the 1800s. In one of stories from the past, an elder woman from the band was said to dig the grave and bury the person. I am an elder, but I doubt I could dig through hard prairie down 6 feet. And not only did you have to dig a deep grave, but also you had to leave in the hole a step or seat to put the the person on (the Sahnish in the old days buried their dead sitting up and facing the east). We still lay the person so that if they sat up, they would be facing east. But we use the modern and state-sanctioned caskets and vaults. I grew up with the ceremonies. They help us stay connected to our ancestors and provide us with an understanding of who we are. That is important. I add this note because I recently got a letter from a reader who said Native people would be better off if reservations (and, presumably, Native culture) were done away with. I am rooted in the land and the past; that's where I came from. Those ancestors forever are a part of who I am. Forgetting isn't an option. That is why when I feel our band - our family - scattering and moving into the ways of others, I have this awful feeling we are forgetting who we are. Those feasts and cookouts still are happening - I count on that. Yet, I see family celebrations slowly are becoming what we've learned from our environment, in that they feature foods seen on television and fewer ceremonial celebrations. The meaning seems to be seeping into the ground and disappearing like the forgotten graves of ancient ancestors. ---- Dorreen Yellow Bird's column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Reach her at (701) 780-1228 or dyellowbird@gfherald.com Copyright c. 2006 Grand Forks Herald/Grand Forks, ND. --------- "RE: TALLBEAR: Fire Thunder: Asserting Sovereignty" --------- Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 14:17:15 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TALLBEAR: CECILIA FIRE THUNDER" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096413043 TallBear: Cecilia Fire Thunder: Asserting political and cultural sovereignty by: Kim TallBear / Red Nation Consulting May 26, 2006 I am paying close attention to Cecilia Fire Thunder's expansive exercise of tribal sovereignty in response to the South Dakota abortion ban. Fire Thunder, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, asserts a tribal perspective at the state and national levels, showing that tribes have a great deal to offer to the national abortion debate. We need more tribal leaders who will assert political and cultural authority on pressing American issues. I want to raise a few points that I think all of us in Indian country should consider as we ponder Fire Thunder's actions. More than two sides to abortion For those of us who do not subscribe to certain Christian doctrinal teachings, but who do subscribe to cultural imperatives about the sacredness of life, our moral and political response to terminating a pregnancy is not captured by either of the most vocal positions in the American abortion wars: the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" positions. My Dakota mother and great-grandmother, for example, did not let me forget the powerful potential of my body to bear children. I was taught that a child is sacred, and that an unwanted pregnancy was to be assiduously avoided through safe-sex practices and, when I was younger, through abstinence. My mother and great-grandmother never used the words "choice" or "rights, " but rather they spoke of "power" and "responsibility." But my mother and great-grandmother also took a leap of faith that I would have the space to be responsible for my body - that I would not, for example, face rape. At the same time, I was raised with a politicized understanding of the world. Both women and men in my family and in our tribe endured their share of hardship, including sexual violence. I grew to understand that within a colonial context. Abortion, in that context, might be considered a sad but necessary decision. We differed from the "pro-choice" position in that we spoke of this and all reproductive decisions not as a "right" or a "choice," but as a responsibility that grew out of the power in women's bodies. We differed from the "pro-life" position in that we recognized that the decision could be shaped by the hardship and violence that haunt Indian people to this day. Our views about the sacred nature of the unborn child were not synonymous with fundamentalist Christian views. From my upbringing, I came to understand abortion as a difficult topic with only context-specific and imperfect solutions. An expansive exercise of tribal sovereignty In her vow to exercise tribal sovereignty and build a clinic on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Fire Thunder foregrounds sexual violence. She uses the words "choice" and "rights," but she also demonstrates an understanding that colonization has shaped the reality of abortion. South Dakota's new law does not allow for exceptions in the case of rape and incest. Fire Thunder reminds the American public that Native women are subjected to sexual violence at a much higher rate than American women generally. Native and other rural women also lack access to decent health care and family planning alternatives. The result is a higher incidence of unwanted pregnancy. I see Fire Thunder's response as not only about individual women's rights to abortion, but also about the imperative that her tribal community exercises greater responsibility for American Indian life, broadly speaking, including the sacredness of the child and for the quality of that life. She also charges the state of South Dakota with its abortion ban of avoiding responsibility for attacking racism, colonization, sexism and poverty that make some women's lives difficult in such a way that abortion becomes one of the only decisions they have left to make. Bringing tradition to the debate David Melmer's April 2006 Indian Country Today article ["Oglala president takes center stage on women's clinic," Vol. 25, Iss. 43] noted that Fire Thunder brings "traditional cultural attitudes to the forefront of the debate." But Fire Thunder can't do that alone. I hope that we in Indian country will use Fire Thunder's leadership as a starting point for thoughtful discussion. How can our cultural and spiritual perspectives inform our response to the pressing issues of abortion, rape and the need for responsible family planning by both men and women? As I understand Fire Thunder, the Lakota care about their responsibilities to each other and to the Creator, yet those responsibilities have been shaped and sometimes distorted by the historical links among women, violence and colonization. Fire Thunder attempts to strike a balance in her analysis of abortion that responds to the particular realities of her community. She also unapologetically asserts the political sovereignty of the Oglala Lakota Nation to make its own decision about abortion law. Within that, she inserts a new idea into an ongoing national debate: traditional Lakota values and perspectives about kinship responsibilities and terminating pregnancy should inform tribal law and policy. Fire Thunder takes a step toward asserting a different kind of sovereignty, what Comanche Nation Chairman Wallace Coffey and American Indian legal scholar Rebecca Tsosie call cultural sovereignty. Thus Fire Thunder's emergent national voice has the potential to offer us something different than the usual dichotomous positions on abortion. I hope that she and the people she represents will continue developing the cultural piece of that analysis. Depth of cultural analysis is important so that non-Natives do not detach Native perspectives from their nuanced, spiritual-political foundations in order to claim us for one side or another of the abortion wars. American Indian tribes need to maintain a sensitive balance. We must exercise political sovereignty by rejecting efforts by mostly white, male lawmakers to exercise regulatory authority as if we are not here. On the other side, we need to be careful that our particular cultural perspectives are not represented shallowly in support of a largely non- Native political agenda that does not necessarily respond to the priorities and values of Indian country. Kim TallBear, Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, is an assistant professor of American Indian studies at Arizona State University in Tempe. She is the daughter of LeeAnn TallBear and great-granddaughter of the late Agnes Dauphine-Heminger. Copyright c. 1998 - 2006 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: EDITORIAL: Caledonia deserves better" --------- Date: Mon, 23 May 2006 08:58:27 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="EDITORIAL: CALEDONIA" http://torontosun.com/Comment/Commentary/2006/05/23/1592887.html EDITORIAL: Caledonia deserves better May 23, 2006 When will politicians get it through their heads that their ad hoc methods of dealing with native land protests don't work? Yesterday, anger over the continuing stand-off in Caledonia exploded into the worst violence since the aboriginal barricades went up on April 20, cutting off access to a part of the town's main street and the local highway. Ironically, and sadly, the pushing, shoving, punching, threatening and rock throwing between some native protesters and local residents erupted just as the dispute itself over a native land claim seemed to be heading towards a settlement. Native protesters had even started dismantling one of the barricades as, they said, a sign of good faith. But some residents, apparently frustrated by the amount of time the dispute has taken to resolve and angry that, in their view, the protesters were dictating the terms of settlement, lashed back. This included stopping cars the natives were letting through - effectively blockading their blockade. Following that, the native protesters resurrected their own barriers. No one wants violence and it's unfortunate it happened on a day former Ontario premier David Peterson, who is in charge of the talks, reported there had been major progress. But simply blaming the townspeople after five weeks of growing frustrations, inconvenience, traffic headaches, damaged roads and economic disruption would be unfair. (And of course, for the developers whose land the natives are occupying in support of their claim, the situation is even more dire.) Easy for Premier Dalton McGuinty and others to appeal for calm - their lives aren't being disrupted. Yesterday, one native leader praised the restraint he said native occupiers have shown, adding, "our people are responding without weapons, using only their bodies to assert that we are a sovereign people ... and that we cannot be intimidated." Terrific. The problem is that both he and McGuinty need to realize that millions of Ontarians (and Canadians) do not think aboriginals , or anyone else, deserve brownie points for not using weapons to settle a dispute . They think that should be a given. And they are fed-up with disputes like this one that drag on ad nauseam while politicians utter platitudes. You want, calm, premier? Show us there is one law for everyone - native and non-native - that judges people based not on who they are, but on how they act. Copyright c. 2006, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: AFN Chief on ongoing Caledonia situation" --------- Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 11:57 pm From: Don Bain Subj: Statement by Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine on the Ongoing Situation at Six Nations-Caledonia Mailing List: Frostys AmerIndian http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/May2006/23/c7276.html Statement by Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine on the Ongoing Situation at Six Nations-Caledonia OTTAWA, May 23 /CNW Telbec/ - "As National Chief, I am joined by my fellow Regional Chiefs in calling for calm from all parties in the ongoing situation at the Six Nations-Caledonia site. We are encouraged by media reports that the barricades have been taken down willingly by the citizens of Six Nations. We applaud their patience and their commitment, and we encourage all parties to continue to work together towards a peaceful resolution. We believe that these discussions represent the best way forward. The need for negotiation and reconciliation could not be more acute. We do not want to see any actions that will cause tensions to increase in the community. The federal government must show leadership to resolve this issue because any issues relating to First Nations lands are issues between First Nations and the federal government. The federal government must ensure that the discussions continue. As well, there is a need to immediately address the underlying problems that create these kinds of situations, and that means over-hauling the current land claims process. Under the current process, Canada acts as judge and jury in claims against itself. There are approximately 1000 specific claims before Canada, 300 of which have been validated and must work their way through the claims process. Yet it takes on average ten years to resolve a legitimate, specific claim. This is much too long. Last week's report by the Auditor General of Canada noted that six comprehensive claims agreements have been concluded since 2001, and it has taken on average 29 years to finalize these claims. This is unacceptable. This is an agonizingly slow pace for First Nations, for whom land is central to our cultures and our economies. It creates frustration and anger on the ground and can erode trust. Canada must work on an new approach that is faster, more fair, and just to resolve the legitimate claims of First Nations. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights concluded its 36th session this weekend and called on Canada to, among other things, 're- examine its policies and practices towards the inherent rights and title of Aboriginal peoples, to ensure that policies and practices do not result in extinguishment of those rights and titles.' We wholeheartedly agree with this recommendation. Work has already been done by the AFN and government on a better approach to claims, and this work needs to be re- invigorated and implemented. The AFN is determined to do what we can to help resolve the situation and we are willing to assist in any way that may be helpful. There is a need to make real progress on this specific situation as well as the overall issues related to First Nations claims to avoid further escalation." Phil Fontaine National Chief Assembly of First Nations >> The Assembly of First Nations is the national organization representing First Nations citizens in Canada. For further information: Don Kelly, AFN Communications Director, (613) 241-6789 ext. 320 or cell (613) 292-2787; Ian McLeod, AFN Bilingual Communications Officer, (613) 241-6789 ext. 336 or cell (613) 859-4335 --------- "RE: NAN supports efforts of walkers" --------- Date: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 10:54 pm From: frostyca2000 Subj: NAN supports efforts of walkers from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug Mailing List: Frostys AmerIndian NAN supports efforts of walkers from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug THUNDER BAY, ON, May 23 /CNW/ - Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) - a political organization representing 49 First Nation communities across two thirds of Ontario - supports the efforts of four walkers from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug on their journey from Pickle Lake, ON to Queen's Park, Toronto, ON to raise awareness of ongoing mining disputes in their traditional territory. "The Government of Ontario has failed to implement consultation policies specifically outlined by the Supreme Court, while mining companies continue to explore and drill on traditional lands within James Bay Treaty 9 territory," said NAN Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler. Despite a community declared moratorium on resource development (October 2005) and Supreme Court of Canada rulings to consult and accommodate with First Nations prior to resource development, Platinex mining company received permission from the Government of Ontario to start drilling on Kitchnuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) traditional territory February 2006. The group of walkers - all from KI - are hoping to raise awareness of the failure of the Government of Ontario to update the Mining Act to include recent Supreme Court rulings, including Mikisew (November 2005), that resulted in a $10 billion lawsuit against KI for protecting traditional territory during a peaceful protest that stopped Platinex mining early March 2006. Mark T. Anderson, Darryl Sainnawap, Wallace Mosquito, and Dylan Morris began their journey to Queen's Park in Pickle Lake, ON May 9, 2006. The group that walks between 50 and 70km per day travelled through Thunder Bay May 21st and are currently in the Nipigon area. They expect to reach Toronto by June 21st - National Aboriginal Day - to bring their message to the Ontario Legislature. "We want our children and grandchildren to continue to use the lands and resources to pursue their usual vocations of hunting, trapping, and fishing," said Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug community member Mark T. Anderson who's leading the group to Toronto. "We want to protect the environment at the potential drilling/mining site plus the surrounding area which includes our Kitchnuhmaykoosib Lake." The $10 billion damage claim by Platinex is the largest ever against a First Nation and would take KI 200 years to pay. The case will be heard in Thunder Bay June 22, 2006. Platinex is hosting their Annual General Meeting at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Aurora, ON Wednesday May 24, 2006 at 11:00 a.m. --- For further information: please contact Jenna Young, Director of Communications, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, (807) 625-4952, (807) 628-3953 (cellular) --------- "RE: Band threatens blockade of Bear Mountain" --------- Date: Friday, May 26, 2006 03:42 pm From: frostyca2000 Subj: First Nations bands threaten blockade of Bear Mountain Mailing List: Frostys AmerIndian First Nations bands threaten blockade of Bear Mountain Natives demand archeological assessment to protect caves, burial sites Rob Shaw Times Colonist May 25, 2006 Greater Victoria First Nations bands are threatening a blockade and legal action against Bear Mountain resort, saying they want to protect grave sites and caves threatened by development. The dispute centres around a number of mountain caves and burial sites once thought to be only a native legend but discovered this month by the Songhees First Nation on the south side of Bear Mountain, in Langford. The resort, featuring luxury condominiums and houses, a Westin hotel, spa and Steve and Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, has been carved out of forest, and is s