_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 14, ISSUE 047 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, 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 November 25, 2006 Pomo Kasi-sa/Moon when Cold begins Western Cherokee Nvdadegwa/Trading Moon Passamaquoddy Kelotonuhket/Freezing Moon Mohawk Kentenhko:wa/Moon of Much Poverty +-------------------------------------------------------+ | 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; Chiapas95-En and Frostys AmerIndian Mailing 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + =================== "So much happened to our people, we didn't have time to recover from one trauma before another occurred." __ Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, Hunkpapa/Oglala +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Indian Pledge of Allegiance | The Indian Pledge of Alleg- | | iance was first presented | I pledge allegiance to my Tribe,| on 2 December '93 during the | to the democratic principles | opening address of the Nat- | of the Republic | ional Congress of American | and to the individual freedoms | Indian Tribal-States Relat- | borrowed from the Iroquois and | ions Panel in Reno, NV. NCAI | Choctaw Confederacies, | plans distribution of the | as incorporated in the United | Indian Pledge to all Indian | States Constitution, | Nations. | so that my forefathers | | shall not have died in vain | Walk in Beauty! Night Owl +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Journey | In the summer and early fall | The Bloodline | of 1998 the Treaty Unity Riders | | rode a thousand miles on horse- | For all that live and live by law | back, carrying a staff and | We Stand, we Call, We Ride | praying each step of the way. | For All that fear and fear by sight | | We Hear, we Listen, we Ride | These prayers were offered for | For all that pray and pray by strength| each of us, and that the Unity | We Feel, we Move, we Ride | of all Peoples might happen. | For all that die and die by greed | | We Hurt, we Cry, we Ride | Tatanka Cante forwarded this | For all that birth and birth by right | poem on behalf of all the Unity | We Smile, we Hold, we Ride | Riders that we might stop and | For all that need and need by heart | ask if the next words we say, the | We Came, we Went, we Rode. | next act we make is for the good | | of the People or is it from ego | Treaty Unity Riders | for self. +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ O'siyo Brothers and Sisters My half-side, "The Lovely Janet", has some thoughts on how the Euro-Americans have treated and continue to treat the original inhabitants of Turtle Island. Can you say, "genocide?" --- Since the first European in written history set foot on the Western Hemisphere, there has been an unending, often unacknowledged, war waged against the indigenous people who had thrived on these lands for centuries (most say forever). Even countries like the US and Canada, who proudly proclaim their "humanitarian" and some dare claim as "Christian" values of love and tolerance for diversity, have not ceased in efforts to kill off Indian governments, any vestige of Indian culture, spirituality or language, and Indian people. The efforts now are usually more subtle than bullets from guns, but no less deadly. Consider the revelations now being published in an LA Times series about the Navajo Nation and its experience with US-mined uranium (first article of the series appears in this issue). Given the role that uranium played in assuring US military dominance on the world stage -- has the United States acknowledged, with gratitude, the sacrifice of the Navajo people? Has it done all it could to first protect, and then offer reparations for the damage done? Far from it. Consider the oil, coal, grazing land, timber, and water resources US communities have taken from tribal lands Have the Indian owners been paid fair market price? Far from it. Using the same tactics as those used against the Navajo, the US has dragged Indian people seeking fair payment through years of expensive court battles, attempted to cherry-pick US- sympathetic courts, and otherwise done all it could to exhaust the Indians before they could collect what was rightfully theirs. Before Canada boasts that they've done better by their Indian populations -- let's look around a bit. Anybody remember Ipperwash or Oka? If not, check out the current fracas surrounding Caledonia (covered for the past months in Wotanging Ikche)--it's a continuation of the same long, sorry story. How about indigenous villages in Canada whose water sources have been tainted by industry? It's not uranium, but the poisons Canadian pregnant women and their babies are ingesting in their drinking water are producing stillbirths, deformed babies and cancers at staggering rates. How about the long-covered-up brutality of Saskatchewan police dropping young Indigenous men outside town to die of exposure in the middle of winter -- a pattern that only surfaced when one victim managed to survive to tell his story? How about official stonewalling to prevent a whole generation of Indians scarred by residential schools from being reimbursed? Every Indian tribe in this hemisphere has a horror story. With some it was a forced march to a hostile land, with others it was disease-infested blankets. Most still have elders shivering in substandard homes, starving and offered medical services that would shame a third-world-country. Most US tribes have diabetes running rampant through Indian populations aggravated, if not caused outright, by the commodities the US provided as reparations for taking away the Indians' hunting grounds. Drugs are the newest poison -- imported by non-Indian crimelords and consumed by Indians who've lost hope in the last home left to them. And controlled by incarcerating the Indian users in Federal prisons. In the South American countries, Indians are being driven from their villages, their livelihoods and way of life disrupted, and their resources exploited, The kids have nowhere to go but the cities, and the inevitable loss of their identity. And yet in the US, Indian people send, in disproportionate numbers, their sons and daughters to the US military that our government uses to shove US moral values down the throats of other countries. We are war victims, have been so for over 500 years, and continue to be so in thousands of ways, some of them silent to all but those who suffer, and that's a fact the world should recognize and shove in the face of US and Canadian dignitaries every time they DARE try to criticize the "human rights" policies of any other country. I note with some pleasure that the president of Venezuela did just that, by providing cheap oil to Indians last winter. I also note that the US retaliated by all but declaring war on the man and his country's primary industry. It does take courage to defy a bully who is bigger, richer, and better armed. +/// Janet Smith owlstar@bellsouth.net /*/+ P. O. Box 672168 OwlStar Trading Post + / * Marietta, GA 30008, U.S.A. http://www.owlstar.com * + jewelry, music, flags, herbs =========================================== - Warrior Moccasins Project seeks out your help Date: Sunday, September 24, 2006 02:10 pm From: Sherry Subj: Warrior Moccasins Project seeks out your help! Mailing List: Frostys AmerIndian Warrior Moccasin Project seeks out experienced beaders, moccasin makers and names for a pair of moccasins for their service in the military. Those interested in donationg Deer Hides, please email me so i can give you the name and address of where to ship it to. Deer hides CAN be donated to this project. To do so, you must first salt the hides with medium grade salt which can be purchased at any farm supply store. After salting the hide(s) ship them to the address i will give you following the laws as specified BY YOUR STATE. A copy of the possession tag which was issued by the game warden must be included for each hide being shipped. Any monetary donation to this project is also greatly appreciated. Each cost of the pair of moccasins is $32.00 (includes shipping/handling charge). Those serving in harms way and those who have returned state side are encouraged to get in touch with my via email. If you know of a native military troop member who you want to honor, please get a hold of me through my email. Thank you :) =========================================== Again, this winter this editorial section will feature groups or individuals who are helping those in need, primarily on reservations and especially those who aid children and elders. Urban help will not be excluded. I have lived in the Cedar-Riverside area of Minneapolis and been a guest in Lakota Housing in Rapid City and in Shiprock. The need to eat and be warm does not end because a person has left the rez. PLEASE forward contact information for all you know who help those less able to do so make it through the harsh winter months. ----- UPDATED REQUEST!!! Date: Sunday, November 05, 2006 10:58 am From: Brigitte Thimiakis Subj: Update: HYS 2006 Toys & Clothing Request [Please forward to anyone who can help!] UPDATE: Winter & Christmas 2006 "Honor Your Spirit, Protect The Children" Toys & Clothing Request Winter has started and the weather is already very cold in Montana. Please think of the children there who need warm clothes in Lame Deer, on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. We would like to thank each and everyone who has already sent boxes! Thank you so much for making a difference in their lives, and also helping the parents or relatives who do their best to take care of them. We are happy to say that there is no more need for shoes, as a lot of shoes have been received :) But there is still a need for new and good quality warm clothes, for babies and children of all ages up to about 12 years old, as well as Christmas toys. During Montana winters, the temperature can drop to 30 or 40 degrees below zero so warm winter clothing and blankets can be lifesaving. These items will be distributed right away. The toys will be distributed during the Christmas give away. The boxes can be sent to them directly on the reservation, where all items are distributed by trusted Northern Cheyenne contacts who make sure that the children with the greatest needs are taken care of first. Here is a list of things that can be sent in support of these children: - WARM CLOTHES for children of all ages from babies to pre- teens (for example knitted clothes, pants, jeans, coats, warm T-shirts, socks, gloves, hats, scarves) - warm blankets - TOYS for Christmas Other items that would also be appreciated: grooming supplies (toothpaste, tooth brushes, soaps and shampoos, combs, hair brushes, hair barrettes, rubber bands, etc), pampers diapers or pull-ups. Please make sure that the items sent are safe, new or as good as new, and sensitive to the culture of the children and their People. When sending a box, it would be appreciated if you could send us a short email with your name or location, type of items sent, approximate weight and shipping date, so that we can help our contacts by keeping a list of what is sent to them. Our aim and priority is to always make sure that everything reaches the reservation, for the children of families unable to make ends meet due to the high unemployment rate, the difficult conditions and the extreme poverty on the reservation. These children need all the help and encouragement they can get, so if you can help, please contact us for more information. Contact Info: Dodie Finstead, USA dodie_finstead@yahoo.com Dominique Larrede, France d.larrede@wanadoo.fr Brigitte Thimiakis, Europe thimiakischool@the.forthnet.gr Thank you for reading our request. Respectfully, "Honor Your Spirit, Protect The Children" "Your help makes a huge difference for those who have never received help. Your donations provide hope and encouragement to those who have never known these qualities. Your concern and solidarity can improve the lives of many children, elders, families, on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. There is still a lot to do but all together you can help us make these dreams come true. Thank you for being a part of this project and supporting it." Respectfully, Manuel Redwoman, Northern Cheyenne/Lakota/Arapaho To learn more about the HYS projects, please visit: http://www.geocities.com/honoryourspirit/home Our heartfelt thanks to everyone for your support ! <>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o<>o ==[This message may be forwarded under the condition that it is not altered in any way] == ---- http://www.devilslakejournal.com/articles/2006/10/20/news/news01.txt "Stuff a Truck" help for the holidays begins By Crystal Martodam Journal Staff Writer October 20, 2006 Load 'em up and move up, it's that time of year again for the "Stuff A Truck" food drive to fill the local food pantry at the Dakota Prairie Community Action Agency in Devils Lake. Dakota Prairie disperses food according to need and not income. For example the loss of a house in a fire or some other tragic accident that leaves a family or individuals in need of emergency food supplies. This year the food drive will begin on Oct. 23 and run until Nov. 12. This will be the fourth annual "Stuff A Truck" event. Dave Burstad, assistant manager at Leevers County Market said that there will be very large bins set up at the front of the store with the "Stuff A Truck" logo on them. Any non-perishable food items can be placed in these bins for donation. Cash donations are welcome also. There will be paper trucks that can be purchased, your name can be placed on the truck or it can be left blank. The trucks will then be hung on the walls in the store. Brustad also commented that items will be tagged in the store. "Many times people are unsure of what the pantry is lacking," he said. "This will help make it easier for those who wish to contribute." There will also be pre-bagged groceries than can be purchased for $10 and then placed in the bins. These bags are non-perishable food items that have been pre-bagged by Dakota Prairie with needed items. For every bag bought Leevers will also be donating between $1.75 and $2 per bag. "The bag has a value of $12 rather than $10," Brustad said. Last year there was approximately $1,500 worth of groceries collected. "We try to make it bigger and better every year, so we are hoping for more this year," Brustad said. This is the seventh year that the Stuff a Truck Program has been running. It began at that time in the Country Markets in Minnesota donating to the local food pantries. "This is not designed as an advertising entity, it is designed to help the community," Brustad said. People can also make direct cash donations to the Dakota Prairie Agency. "It is such a fun program we look foreword to every year." Brustad said. The local food pantry run through the Dakota Prairie Community Action Agency is an emergency pantry. It is there to help people in need. There are other services available at the DPCAA that can provide aid to an individuals situation such as providing money management services and services that can help an individual receive services from government programs that may be available to them because of income. For more information contact them at (701) 662-6500. Street Address: Dakota Prairie Community Action Agency 1219 College Drive Devils Lake, ND 58301 USA Mailing Address: Dakota Prairie Community Action Agency P. O. Box 698 Devils Lake, Nd 58301 Contact Name Phone 701-662-6500 FAX 701-662-6511 Copyright c. 2006 Devils Lake Journal, a GateHouse Media paper. ---- Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 11:24:06 -0600 From: "NDN@NDNnews.com" Subj: Children's Village needs your HELP! Please forward to your groups and lists! Thank you, Tamra Children's Village a foster care home located on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota is in need of disposable diapers. They currently have four little ones in diapers, ages 11/2, 2, 3, and 4. Also, toiletries are needed. If you can, and would like to help, you can mail diapers directly to: Children's Village c/o Louis and Melvina Winters 100 Main Street P. O. Box 1034 Pine Ridge, SD 57770 For the past few years, we have decided that in lieu of a giveaway at our pow wow, we would put the money toward purchasing propane for Children's Village. We also hold a blanket dance to help in this need. If anyone is interested in helping too, you can send a check to Midwest SOARRING and mark it as propane fund to designate your donation. Both Midwest SOARRING Foundation and Children's Village are nonprofit, 501c3 and donations are tax deductible. If you have any further questions, please contact Janet at 773-585-1744. Thanks so much for any help you can give. Janet Sevilla www.midwestsoarring.org Tamra www.NDNnews.com www.protectsacredsites.org "Providing news and information about Native American Issues & Causes" "Helping to make a difference for our people in Indian Country, one day at a time. What will you do today to help make a difference?" "Life is a learning place. Existence is forever. Challenges are only challenges because life has given you an opportunity to grow in an area of your fear or weakness." Leonard Peltier, Sept. 2006 ---- Date: Friday, October 27, 2006 03:27 pm From: Del \Abe\ Jones Subj: A couple notes for/about our Military and Vets please pass along to people who may be interested -----Original Message----- From: jesuandirenel@frontiernet.net To: almclwest@aol.com Sent: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 9:47 AM We are getting ready to pack Thanksgiving and Christmas "We care packages" for the troops and we need addresses. Would you please help us get the word out to other detachments that we need addresses. Maybe we can share list and exchange whatever names are available. All we want is names of troops all services and we are looking for names of women serving and the aux. makes up special packages for the women serving based on feedback from women serving in theatre... Marine J. Marrero jesuandirenel@frontiernet.net FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE American Legion offers way to thank veterans, troops on Veterans Day INDIANAPOLIS (Oct. 11, 2006) - With thousands of troops deployed overseas, The American Legion has launched a free, easy way to thank them for their service on the eve of Veterans Day, Nov. 11. The electronic greeting cards are also ideal to thank all veterans, of all generations, who have served in the U.S. armed forces. "In today's computer age, what better way to say 'thank you' to a veteran or a servicemember either here at home or serving thousands of miles away than a musical greeting card with your personalized message that will reach them almost instantaneously," said Paul A. Morin, national commander of The American Legion. Anyone who has an e-mail address can receive the special cards. Creating the card is quick and easy at The American Legion's website, www. legion.org (click on Veterans Day E-greeting cards). "As our troops continue to serve in harms way, as countless thousands before them did in other wars, a message of support and thanks means more to a veteran than you realize," Morin said. "Please take a few moments to use this free service and brighten the day of one or more of America's veterans." The American Legion site offers e-mail cards representing each military service along with the service song that plays when the card is opened. Each card provides plenty of space to compose a personal message. Cards may be sent now through Nov. 12, 2006. Greeting cards may be sent direct to active duty service men and women if their military e-mail addresses are known. The 2.7 million-member American Legion is the nation's largest wartime veterans organization....# ---- 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 ----------- Editorial Section: - YELLOW BIRD: Here's to hunting, . Unending War for all its faults against Indigenous People - Ntl. Chief updates . Warrior Mocassins Residential School Survivors . Winter Help - Six Nations says McGill - Blighted Homeland: owes it $1.7-Billion Navajo Nation in peril - Women Title Holders - Oases in Navajo Desert answer GG's Secretary contained 'a Witch's Brew' - Land surrender of 1844 - PAPER: Indians in U.S. hit done under duress by higher Cancer rate - First Nations present unified face - Expert says past Genocide - Aboriginals wonder linked to Suicide rates if new Passport Rules apply - Thanksgiving - Disappearance, re-appearance - OPINION: of St. Lawrence Mohawk Road ahead for the Delaware - Tyendinaga: 1st Round Knockout - Congress settles Isleta land suit - Mo' Mohawk trouble - Freedmen tribal Trial scheduled brewing at Tyendinaga - Massachusetts study - Row over Atenco raid continues on Health of Indian Population - Chiapas 1994,Oaxaca 2006 - Fort Totten Armor plant - Native Prisoner awarded Military Contract -- Flagstaff Detox Center - Canoe goes upriver, - Rustywire: First Thanksgiving Without its Paddlers - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days - Mascot: Chief Concern - Del Jones et al Poems: - EDITORIAL: Feds need Marine Corps Birthday to respect Indian Beliefs - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: Blighted Homeland: Navajo Nation in peril" --------- Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 09:33:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="URANIUM" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/ la-na-navajo19nov19,0,1645689.story?coll=la-home-headlines BLIGHTED HOMELAND A peril that dwelt among the Navajos During the Cold War, uranium mines left contaminated waste scattered around the Indians. Homes built with the material silently pulsed with radiation. People developed cancer. And the U.S. did little. By Judy Pasternak, Times Staff Writer November 19, 2006 MARY AND BILLY BOY HOLIDAY bought their one-room house from a medicine man in 1967. They gave him $50, a sheep and a canvas tent. For the most part, they were happy with the purchase. Their Navajo hogan was situated well, between a desert mesa and the trading-post road. The eight-sided dwelling proved stout and snug, with walls of stone and wood, and a green-shingle roof. The single drawback was the bare dirt underfoot. So three years after moving in, the Holidays jumped at the chance to get a real floor. A federally funded program would pay for installation if they bought the materials. The Holidays couldn't afford to, but the contractor, a friend of theirs, had an idea. He would use sand and crushed rock that had washed down from an old uranium mine in the mesa, one of hundreds throughout the Navajo reservation that once supplied the nation's nuclear weapons program. The waste material wouldn't cost a cent. "He said it made good concrete," Mary Holiday recalled. As promised, the 6-inch slab was so smooth that the Holidays could lay their mattresses directly on it and enjoy a good night's sleep. They didn't know their fine new floor was radioactive. Fifty years ago, cancer rates on the reservation were so low that a medical journal published an article titled "Cancer immunity in the Navajo." Back then, the contamination of the tribal homeland was just beginning. Mining companies were digging into one of the world's richest uranium deposits, in a reservation spanning parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were chiseled and blasted from the mountains and plains. The mines provided uranium for the Manhattan Project, the top-secret effort to develop an atomic bomb, and for the weapons stockpile built up during the arms race with the Soviet Union. Private companies operated the mines, but the U.S. government was the sole customer. The boom lasted through the early '60s. As the Cold War threat gradually diminished over the next two decades, more than 1,000 mines and four processing mills on tribal land shut down. The companies often left behind radioactive waste piles and open tunnels and pits. Few bothered to fence the properties or post warning signs. Federal inspectors seldom intervened. Over the decades, Navajos inhaled radioactive dust from the waste piles, borne aloft by fierce desert winds. They drank contaminated water from abandoned pit mines that filled with rain. They watered their herds there, then butchered the animals and ate the meat. Their children dug caves in piles of mill tailings and played in the spent mines. And like the Holidays, many lived in homes silently pulsing with radiation. Today, there is no talk of cancer immunity in the Navajos. The cancer death rate on the reservation - historically much lower than that of the general U.S. population - doubled from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, according to Indian Health Service data. The overall U.S. cancer death rate declined slightly over the same period. Though no definitive link has been established, researchers say exposure to mining byproducts in the soil, air and water almost certainly contributed to the increase in Navajo cancer mortality. The government has never conducted a comprehensive study of the health effects of uranium mining on the reservation. But individual scientists working on their own have documented sharply elevated cancer rates near old mines and mills. High concentrations of uranium, arsenic and other heavy metals have been found in one out of five drinking-water sources sampled. Particularly toxic were the "hot" houses built with radioactive debris. In every corner of the reservation, sandy mill tailings and chunks of ore, squared off nicely by blasting, were left unattended at old mines and mills, free for the taking. They were fashioned into bread ovens, cisterns, foundations, fireplaces, floors and walls. Navajo families occupied radioactive dwellings for decades, unaware of the risks. Over the years, federal and tribal officials stumbled across at least 70 such homes, records show. The total number is unknown because authorities made no serious effort to learn the full extent of the problem or to warn all those potentially affected. After years of delay, they fixed or replaced about 20 radioactive houses and then walked away from the problem. Navajos continued to use mine waste as construction material, and the homes were passed down from one generation to the next. Not until 2000 did the Holidays learn that their hogan was dangerous. By then, the couple had raised three children and sheltered a host of other kin while the uranium decayed. The resulting alpha, beta and gamma rays were invisible; the radon gas was odorless. But the combination greatly increased the chance of developing fatal lung cancer, according to a radiation expert who sampled air in the hogan. "It brings chills when you're told that your house is like this," said Mary Holiday, now in her early 70s. "All the years that you've lived here," she said, her voice trailing off. Unsuspecting, she had gone about her chores in the Navajo way, clad in the customary velveteen blouse, long skirt, thick socks and dusty shoes. She chopped wood for the stove, cooked tortillas and brewed tea. She set up her loom to weave rugs under a juniper tree while the grandchildren played dress-up for hours inside the old hogan. By the time of the discovery that now torments her, she had lost her husband, Billy Boy, to lung cancer and congestive heart failure. He didn't smoke, but he'd worked in uranium mines by day and slept, unknowing, in the equivalent by night. Her grandnephew, too, would soon die of lung cancer, at age 42. He had neither smoked nor mined. But he had lived in the hogan for three years as a teenager. The dwellings in the Holiday family compound faced east toward dawn, in accordance with Navajo tradition. Behind them loomed the mesa, with a pale green uranium stain that started at the old mine and pointed down the cliff. 'Where is our guardian?' More than 180,000 people live scattered across the region bounded by the Navajos' four sacred peaks. More than a homeland, it is their holy land. The tribe's creation stories are set here, among the painted deserts, ponderosa highlands and layered sandstone cliffs. The U.S. government appealed to both Navajo patriotism and self-interest when it asked the tribe to open its land to uranium exploration in the 1940s. The mining would aid the American war effort and provide jobs, federal officials said. Some of the mining companies were conglomerates like Kerr-McGee Corp. Some were small like A&B Mining, a Utah firm that was the last to mine the mesa near the Holidays' hogan. Early on, federal scientists knew that mine workers were at heightened risk for developing lung cancer and other serious respiratory diseases in 15 or 20 years. Many did, and eventually their plight drew wide attention. In 1990, Congress offered the former miners an apology and compensation of up to $150,000 each. But pervasive environmental hazards remained. Starting in the late '50s, government scientists and inspectors had written memos and journal articles calling attention to the dangers posed by open mines and exposed tailings. But the warnings failed to spark vigorous action. Pleading lack of funds, officials at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Indian Health Service dodged responsibility, declining to study the health threats comprehensively, much less eliminate them. Navajo leaders tried sporadically to force federal action, usually without success. On occasion, they withheld information about uranium- related dangers from their own people, reasoning that there was no point stirring up fear if there was no money for a solution. Efforts to repair the environmental damage finally began in the 1980s but have been fitful and incomplete. Unable to agree on a thorough cleanup under the federal Superfund program, the tribe and the U.S. government settled for half-measures. From 1984 through 1995, the Department of Energy spent $240 million to cover tailing piles at the old uranium mills as part of a nationwide program. Tailings are the fine sand left over when ore is ground up to extract uranium. They retain most of the radioactivity and give off large quantities of radon, an odorless, cancer-causing gas. But the tailings cleanup, though important, was limited to the mills. It did nothing to ease the hazards posed by the abandoned mines. Over the last decade, the tribe has used money from a federal mine- reclamation fund to seal entrances and fill pits at most of the old mines. But the cleanup was incomplete. At many of the sites, radioactive rubble lies along cliffs and on hillsides. Erosion compounds the problem. Desert winds constantly wear away the earthen caps at the mines, exposing chunks of radioactive ore. Gullies eat into buried pit mines, allowing rainwater to course through irradiated soil and contaminate groundwater. Now, with a renewed push for nuclear power driving up uranium prices, the mining industry wants to extract more from the still-vast Navajo reserve. Tribal leaders are resisting. By treaty and law, the United States is responsible for the tribe's welfare, Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. noted. But the government's response to the Cold War contamination has been half-hearted, he said. "It's an emergency that is not being treated like an emergency," he said. "Where is our guardian?" On their own In 1975, Joseph M. Hans Jr., an EPA radiation expert, was sent to inspect an abandoned uranium-processing plant in Cane Valley, on Navajo territory near the Arizona-Utah line. Vanadium Corp. of America had operated the plant and an adjacent pit mine in the 1950s. A successor company, Foote Mineral, closed everything down in 1969. Federal mining inspector Howard B. Nickelson reported that the local manager had assured him that "the area would be cleaned up. No final inspection is planned." But Foote left behind piles of tailings and mine rubble. When Hans arrived, Congress was weighing the proposal to cover tailings at closed uranium mills across the country. The EPA was assessing the scope of the task. As Hans worked, he noticed a small community of hand-built houses nearby. He began to worry that the residents might have used Foote's leftovers as construction material. A few months later, he and some EPA colleagues returned with hand-held radiation scanners, air samplers and other equipment. Berlinda Cly was 9 when the inspectors visited the home where she lived with her parents and eight siblings. "The meter went BEEEEP," she recalled. To Hans' dismay, at least 17 of 37 homes tested contained radioactive ore or tailings. Hans said he wrote to EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., recommending that the agency clean up the most contaminated homes or relocate the occupants. "You've got two risks - gamma radiation and you've got radon," he recalled. "It wasn't acceptable." His higher-ups said no. "I still felt uncomfortable," Hans said, so he urged the Indian Health Service to act. The response was the same. "Finally, we got the message," said Hans, now retired and living in Las Vegas. "We didn't have the money to go decontaminating sites." Still, he wanted to warn homeowners. Most spoke Navajo and were uncomfortable with English. So Hans went back with a translator. "All we could say is, 'You got a problem.' " He could offer no hope that the government would fix it. Just 200 miles from the reservation, in Grand Junction, Colo., residents faced the same situation. But there, the government was moving with urgency to eliminate the health risk posed by homes, schools and churches made with tailings from the Climax Uranium Co. State health authorities had armed themselves with research and demanded federal action. The local congressman, Democrat Wayne N. Aspinall, was chairman of the House Interior Committee. He held hearings and helped secure funds for a thorough cleanup, which ultimately cost more than $500 million. The Navajos had no such champion. Nor did they mobilize politically around the issue. In their small, widely scattered settlements, people were only vaguely aware of a radiation problem. In Grand Junction, canvassers went door to door, checking for contamination. Contractors replaced foundations and floors, uprooted trees and cleaned tainted soil. As a bonus, they upgraded substandard electrical systems. The Navajos were left on their own. Hans made one more try in 1977, two years after his first visit. He recommended that the Department of Energy clean or replace the nine most- contaminated houses in Cane Valley. More than a decade later, the department fixed three. Drawing a technical distinction, it passed over the other six for lack of proof that the building materials came from Foote Mineral's mill, as opposed to the mine. Juanita Jackson's house was one of those six. Despite Hans' warning, she stayed put, stringing beads for jewelry and weaving rugs until she died in 1992. She was 59. The cause was lung and breast cancer, her daughter said. Jesse Black, his wife and their eight children remained in their uranium house for 15 years. Black died of lung cancer in 2000 at age 78. A daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer at 27. Oscar Sloan, too, hung on in Cane Valley, raising three boys. One of them, Hoskey, now 54, says that both of his parents and his grandmother developed serious respiratory disease. "If given a different place to live, we would have, I guess," he said. "But it was the only dwelling we had." More contamination Similar problems soon became evident in other parts of the reservation. In 1979, employees of the tribe's newly created environmental commission escorted a television crew to the hamlet of Oaksprings, Ariz., to interview former miners. In one house, a tribal staffer offhandedly stuck a Geiger counter against a wall. It screamed. By April 1980, the tribe had found 16 more Oaksprings houses with uranium. The tribal chairman, Peter MacDonald, called together representatives of Navajo agencies, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service, and "directed that the homes be replaced immediately," recalled Harold Tso, then the Navajo environmental director. "We were to work together and get a plan." Tso cobbled together enough federal money to replace a handful of houses. The tribe evicted the other families in the spring of 1981. They were left to find shelter wherever they could. There was no money to dismantle the condemned structures. Many still stand, including the log cabin that Clifford Frank built in the early '60s for his family of eight. He mixed cement for the foundation with rocks from the uranium mine where he worked. Then he invited a Christian Reformed minister to bless the house. When the tribe padlocked the cabin years later, Frank was furious. But there was little he could do. Frank, a nonsmoker in his 50s, was in the Indian Health Service hospital in Shiprock, N.M., slowly succumbing to lung cancer. A family in the dark The Holidays had no inkling of a problem. Their hogan in Oljato had become the center of a bustling family compound. Dogs and chickens ran between an assortment of earthen and stucco dwellings. An array of aging trucks and cars sat in the dirt. By the late '70s, Mary and Billy Boy had moved out of the hogan and into a two-room house 15 feet away that they painted a bright teal blue. But the old place wasn't empty. Mary allowed her niece, Elsie Begay, to move in with her seven children after Elsie's marriage broke up in 1978. Elsie and her brood ate their meals on the floor. At night, they rolled out their sheepskins and went to sleep. After three years, they left for a smaller dwelling on the Holiday property. The hogan wasn't vacant long. Two of the Holidays' grown children, Daisy and Robert, returned to Oljato and moved in. Daisy had taken a husband. He'd grown up on the mesa where the old mine was. He turned the story of their courtship into family lore: He slipped one day while herding sheep, fell down the slope, found Daisy at the bottom and married her. The uranium stain on the cliff marked the path of his slide, he liked to quip. Robert had taken a bride. Mary was a witness, signing the marriage certificate the only way she knew how, by dipping her right thumb in ink and affixing her print. The two couples, and soon enough three children, lived together under the green-shingle roof. From the front door, they could watch the setting sun wash Monument Valley's spires of stone in red. Members of the family took jobs catering to tourists. The paved road that had first attracted Mary and Billy Boy to the hogan led to a historic lodge. They cleaned rooms there and tended the register at the grocery store next door. They guided visitors to the rock formations and sold turquoise and silver jewelry from plywood stands. In 1989, Elsie Begay's son Lewis died of a brain hemorrhage caused by a tumor. He was 25. The next year, Billy Boy died, suffering from lung cancer and other diseases. He was in his early 60s. During the 1990s, touches of modernity seeped into the compound. Daisy and her husband, Frank Haycock, bought a trailer and hooked it up to electricity. They even got a TV. Robert left the reservation to join his older brother, John, in Salt Lake City, lured by a good job installing air conditioners and heaters. But the hogan still had its uses. The Holidays stored cans of beans, sacks of flour, extra blankets and toys there, along with garden tools and blue plastic water barrels. The door was padlocked, but the children liked to stand on one another's shoulders and climb through the windows. They'd tear into the folded clothes and don them for long games of pretend. Once a month, Robert's family came down from Salt Lake for the weekend. There was only one place to stay: the hogan. Everyone took to calling it "the rabbit house" because one of the toddlers pronounced "Robert" that way. U.S. 'lack of interest' In 1981, 10 of the reservation's local governments, called chapters, asked the tribe to inspect houses for signs of uranium contamination. But "we had our old nemesis - money," Tso said. His appeals to federal agencies were met with "a real lack of interest." The prevailing attitude was expressed in a December 1986 memo by Charles A. Reaux, an Indian Health Service official stationed in the Navajo region. Ticking off mining-related hazards, he wrote: "Radon in homes is another significant but resource consuming endeavor." The tribe had surveyed 96 homes and found 37 with radon levels above the EPA's safety threshold, he wrote to his superiors. Many areas near abandoned mines had yet to be tested, including Monument Valley-Oljato, where the Holidays lived. But he recommended against getting involved because of the cost. The health service, he wrote, "should only monitor tribal efforts." Reaux offered his bosses the same advice for nearly all of the environmental problems confronting the Navajos: Keep your distance. "The true risk assessment of the radiation problems may never be performed due to the vast cost," he wrote. In a recent interview, Reaux, now a consultant in Las Vegas, said that if the same contaminants "were in the middle of Los Angeles, something would be done about it because there would be thousands of people living around them." But Navajo shepherds moving through the desert with their herds and the locals in their far-flung hogans were not numerous enough to warrant government action. "That's life," Reaux said. Cancer on the rise Richard M. Auld Jr. arrived on the reservation in 1982, fresh from his residency in internal medicine at UC San Diego. He was posted to the Indian Health Service clinic in Shiprock, N.M., at the edge of the uranium belt. Over the next two years, he treated six cases of stomach cancer. Two of the patients were women, 18 and 20 years old. Auld thought this highly unusual. He won a two-year fellowship in gastroenterology at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, to try to find an explanation. He worked with William S. Haubrich, a prominent gastrointestinal specialist. Their review of Indian Health Service medical charts showed that stomach cancer on the reservation had increased sharply in 1975 - which suggested, given cancer's latency period, that something had changed during the '50s. The increase kept up through the mid-'80s. Patients typically died within five months. The doctors' research ruled out hereditary factors, medications, alcohol and smoking as possible causes. But when the locations of cases were plotted on a map, they clustered around the sites of uranium mines and mills. They discovered that incidence of stomach cancer was 15 times the national average in some areas near uranium deposits and mills. And the disease was not limited to former miners. In two western parts of the reservation filled with old pit mines, stomach cancer was 200 times the U.S. average for women ages 20 to 40. New evidence shows that gastric cancer rates rose 50% during the '90s among Indians in two New Mexico counties salted with Navajo uranium mines. "I don't know quite what to make of it. It's not what's happening regionally," said Charles Wiggins, director of the New Mexico Tumor Registry, who analyzed the data for the Los Angeles Times. Diet or bacterial infections could play a role, but so could an environmental insult, Wiggins said: "All three of those things are what I would want to look at." Uranium mining could be connected to reproductive cancers as well. In 1981, the tribe's health department reported a sharp increase in breast, ovarian and related cancers among teenage girls. Rates 17 times the national average were found. In 2001, Navajo graduate students and reservation elders asked scientists at Northern Arizona University to investigate whether the old uranium mines might explain the increase in cancers. Biologist Cheryl A. Dyer was intrigued but skeptical. "I didn't believe this for a long time," she said. Dyer specializes in the female reproductive system. She and a Navajo doctoral candidate, Stefanie Raymond-Whish, fed uranium-tainted water to mice. They discovered that uranium mimics the hormone estrogen, causing changes in reproductive tissue. Increased estrogen has been linked to breast and ovarian cancers. The findings "changed my research," Dyer said. "Now all I do is uranium." She has discovered that uranium speeds the growth of human breast cancer cells. "Instead of killing them," she said, "it makes them happy." Closer to the truth A helicopter rumbled low and loud across the sky over Oljato in the late summer of 1997. Mary Holiday took little notice. She had heard that, under pressure from the tribe, the EPA was finally gathering data on potential radiation hazards throughout the reservation. She did not know the copter's onboard scanner had picked up high levels of radiation on her property. The helicopter was forgotten until 1999, when a filmmaker from Chicago showed up looking for Mary's niece, Elsie Begay. Elsie, it turned out, had been featured as a young girl in a silent movie from the 1950s set in Navajo country. She had never seen it. The man from Chicago, Jeff Spitz, had come into possession of a copy and was recording her reaction to it for a documentary. Someone mentioned the helicopter and the radiation sampling. Curious and a bit worried, Spitz called the EPA when he got home. He eventually pried a map from the agency. Unfurling it on his kitchen table, he studied the bright purple splotches marking high radiation. One of the largest and darkest spots was over the Holiday compound. "Look at this!" he blurted. "That's Elsie's house!" He got a message to her. She was concerned but unsure what it meant. Around the same time, Elsie's youngest son, Leonard, learned that he had lung cancer. He was 38. Leonard had been 16 when his mother sought refuge with her children in the Holidays' cozy hogan. He grew into a handsome man with a broad face, a dark mustache and glossy black hair. He took up carpentry and played drums at the Pentecostal church. He passed a note during services to a young woman named Sarah. She became his wife. After the children came along, Leonard installed a trailer at the Holiday compound. Their daughter was 7 and their son 12 when Leonard was diagnosed. He sought a second opinion; the doctor concurred. He got a third with the same result. "We were supposed to grow old together," said Sarah Begay. "He just started getting into his Bible. He told me not to tell nobody at all." A tainted home In January 2000, specialists from the Army Corps of Engineers showed up in Oljato to sample drinking water for the EPA. They were part of the same project that had sent the helicopter overhead. The leader, Glynn R. Alsup, was worried by what they were finding. One in five water sources tested was polluted with dangerous amounts of uranium and other mining byproducts. "Nobody could believe it was that bad," he said. Alsup briefed local officials and residents about his work, and offered to screen homes for radiation. At Oljato, he visited the Holiday compound and talked to Elsie Begay. He told her he had permission from the chapter to sample anything she wanted. She wanted a check of her aunt's hogan. She knew the history of its concrete floor. Alsup held a radiation detector up to an outside window. The needle jumped to the top of the scale. "I'd gotten readings that high at the entrance to uranium mines," recalled Alsup, now retired. Leonard and Sarah Begay heard his voice quaver as he circled the hogan, calling out numbers. Inside, emissions reached 1,000 microroentgens per hour, 75 to 100 times the radiation level deemed acceptable by the EPA. Leonard was losing weight. The pain was getting bad. A sudden suspicion struck him and his wife. Mary Holiday and Daisy Haycock were also on hand for the radiation readings. Daisy called her brother Robert in Salt Lake City to break the news about the "rabbit house." Reluctant to act Navajo officials in the tribal capital of Window Rock, Ariz., did not like Alsup informing locals of the dangers he was uncovering. Alsup only wanted to help. But the tribe's environmental staff believed nothing good would come of it. There was no money to fix the problems. "It's just a fancy, nice-looking report that's going to sit on a shelf," Derrith Watchman-Moore, then the tribe's environmental director, remembered thinking. Frightened Navajos, she said, "would be coming to us: 'What are you going to do about it?' " The situation revived long-standing tensions. Despite years of appeals from the Navajos, the U.S. government still had not committed to pay for a comprehensive cleanup of the reservation. Alsup's visit to the Holiday hogan was the last straw, as far as the tribal government was concerned. The Navajos demanded that the EPA pull Alsup off the reservation. He was gone within weeks, and the sampling ground to a halt. The hogan was left standing. Six months later, in June 2000, Elsie Begay wrote to the EPA to inquire about its fate. "The kids were still going in it," she recalled. "We recommend that people stay out of that hogan," Sean P. Hogan, an EPA official, wrote back after three more months had passed. "We also recommend that the hogan be removed from the area so that no one is exposed to those levels of radiation." But treading carefully after the blowup with Navajo officials, he added that the EPA would not take action unless the tribe asked. The Oljato chapter appealed to the tribal government, which in October 2000 authorized the EPA "to take the steps necessary to eliminate this risk." It was not until April 2001 that the EPA destroyed the place, along with a radioactive house miles away. The grand total of government demolitions still stands at two. Where the Holidays had lived for decades, the wrecking crew wore moon suits and radiation badges for a single day's work. The U.S. government gave Mary Holiday a corrugated-metal shed to compensate her for the loss of storage space. Uranium's deadly toll On Dec. 7, 2003, two days after his lung began bleeding profusely, Leonard Begay collapsed and was flown to University Medical Center in Tucson. "This patient lives in Monument Valley, UT, near the uranium mines, " the attending physician noted in his records. Leonard knew what to expect. Sarah's father, a veteran of the mines, had died of lung cancer the month before. "He was aware that he was going," Sarah recalled. "He would talk to me: Take care of yourself. Stay in the Word. Take the kids to church." He kept hugging and kissing his family and asked his wife to lie beside him. Sarah said he instructed her "to build a house for the kids and then for the grandkids that he'll never see." On Dec. 19, he died at 2:50 a.m. He was 42. Sarah told her children that they all had something in common: She had lost her dad to uranium, and she was certain they had lost theirs to uranium too. judy.pasternak@latimes.com Times researchers Mark Madden and Sunny Kaplan contributed to this report. Copyright c. 2006 Los Angeles Times. --------- "RE: Oases in Navajo Desert contained 'a Witch's Brew'" --------- Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 08:15:56 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BLIGHTED HOMELAND: URANIUM CONTAMINATED WATER " http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/ la-na-navajo20nov20,1,4747728,full.story?ctrack=1&cset=true BLIGHTED HOMELAND Oases in Navajo desert contained 'a witch's brew' Rain-filled uranium pits provided drinking water for people and animals. Then a mysterious wasting illness emerged. By Judy Pasternak, Times Staff Writer November 20, 2006 IN ALL HER YEARS of tending sheep in the western reaches of the Navajo range, Lois Neztsosie had never seen anything so odd. New lakes had appeared as if by magic in the arid scrublands. Instead of hunting for puddles in the sandstone, she could lead her 100 animals to drink their fill. She would quench her own thirst as well, parting the film on the water's surface with her hands and leaning down to swallow. Despite the abundant water, an unexpected blessing, her flock failed to thrive. The birthrate dropped, and the few new lambs that did appear had a hard time walking. Some were born without eyes. Lois' husband, David, wondered whether the sheepdogs were mating with their charges. A medicine man, he also suspected witchcraft. He tried to fight the spell by burning cedar and herbs and gathering the sheep around the fire to inhale the healing smoke. The livestock were not his only worry. A mysterious sickness was affecting the couple's two youngest daughters. Laura, born in 1970, had a weak right eye and was prone to stumbling. Arlinda came along the following year and developed ulcers in her corneas by age 5. A few years later, she was walking on the sides of her feet. At the Indian Health Service hospital, doctors were mystified. Experts concluded that both girls suffered from a rare genetic disorder. There was another possibility, but no one considered it until many years later. No one connected the children and the sheep. Tainted oases In the mountains and mesas of the Navajo reservation, mining companies drilled tunnels in the sides of cliffs to extract uranium for the nation's nuclear weapons program during the Cold War. But in the red and ocher sands around Cameron, where deposits were shallow, the ore was blasted out of the plains, creating pits. As demand for uranium eased in the late 1950s, the U.S. government allowed the companies to leave without filling in the craters. The pits collected snowmelt in the winter and runoff from summer torrents. The holes, some as deep as 130 feet, soon formed oases in the desert. Lois grew to depend on them as she ranged far from home, covering as much as 10 miles in a day. At dusk, she often camped for the night. She got in the habit of filling and refilling a small container with her drinking supply as she moved from one "lake" to the next, watering her herd. Every few weeks, the Neztsosies butchered one of the sheep. They ate each one down to the bones, which they sucked around the fire. They destroyed the lambs that could not walk. Deformed animals were showing up in other sections of Dine Bikeiyah, Home of the People, as Navajos call their homeland. In areas around old mines, lambs and cattle developed shaking limbs, yellow eyes and white patches on internal organs that were discovered after slaughter. Word of these strange developments did not reach the Neztsosies. Navajo families tend to live miles apart from one another. They prize their privacy. Local officials heard occasional complaints about damaged animals, but no one discerned a trend. Baffled doctors Arlinda, nicknamed Linnie, had that "funny walk," as her family described it. At the Indian Health Service clinic in Tuba City, Ariz., doctors prescribed Vitamin A for her eyes and gave her goggles to wear. Classmates teased her, so she stopped using them. When she stopped taking her supplements, her Vitamin A levels remained normal - but her corneas did not improve. Laura had similar but milder symptoms and was small for her age. Her mother took her to the clinic too. "Go home," Laura said she was told. "There's nothing wrong with you." In truth, medical records show, the doctors were stumped. Something was affecting the girls' peripheral nervous systems, but what? Linnie and Laura were the youngest of nine children. None of their siblings or other relatives had experienced anything like this. Like many Navajo families, the Neztsosies led semi-nomadic lives. A rough-planked one-room shack served as home base for Lois' sheep-herding expeditions and David's long commutes to a sawmill in Flagstaff. There was no electricity. They got their drinking water from a well installed by the U.S. Public Health Service. Around the time of the daughters' visits to the IHS clinic in the mid- 1970s, the family's prospects were looking up. David had built a cinderblock house to replace the shack. Laura started thinking about her future. Perhaps she would manage a hotel or become a stewardess. "I could be well-dressed and serve people," she remembers thinking. In 1976, researchers from the University of New Mexico published an article in the journal Archives of Neurology. They had discovered a disabling illness that appeared to be hereditary. Corneal ulcers, muscular weakness and liver disease were among the symptoms. All four cases cited in the paper were Navajo children. Two were siblings. "This does not constitute proof that the disease is genetically determined, but it seems likely," wrote the authors. In the years to come, researchers would pronounce in more and more certain terms that the illness was purely hereditary. They called it "Navajo neuropathy." There was no cure. Another family's loss While the Neztsosie girls were baffling their doctors, the Nez family braced for another death. Leonard and Helen Nez lived most of the year at their sheep camp at the base of Tah-chee, a hill in the middle of the reservation. They too had dealt with a spate of disfigured livestock - a calf with a crooked leg, another diagnosed with cancer of the eye, a lamb born with three legs, "kind of like an omen," one of the Nez daughters recalls. Soon enough, the Nezes started losing children. First, in 1963, a stillbirth. Then, in 1969, daughter Dorinta and son Jerome died four months apart. In 1972, Claudia died. These three siblings had suffered from blurred vision, failing livers and limp muscles. None lived past a fourth birthday. Three more Nez children were displaying similar symptoms. At the Indian Health Service clinic in Chinle, perplexed staff members asked Helen whether she engaged in incest, consumed alcohol while pregnant or suffered from mental problems. No, she said, offended. None of these apply. The doctors urged her to stop having babies, she said. In the spring of 1978, the family's youngest, 2-year-old Euphemia, was in serious decline. By then, there was a name for the ailment. The IHS arranged for the child to undergo liver surgery in an Albuquerque hospital. The treatment team included Russell D. Snyder, a pediatric neurologist at the University of New Mexico. Snyder was one of the authors of the article suggesting a hereditary cause for Navajo neuropathy. But Helen, now 68, said Snyder expressed concern when she told him she lived near a uranium mine - an abandoned pit atop Tah-chee. Helen said he warned her that uranium was dangerous. Snyder declined to be interviewed. In notes on the Nez family that he wrote in 1990, after treating the siblings for years, he included this observation: "A uranium mine was within one mile of the home where all these children lived, and uranium tailings were closer." Until that conversation at the hospital, the Nez family had not considered the old mine a danger. Then Helen got to thinking: Their drinking water came from Tah-chee. On July 31, 1978, Euphemia died. She was the fourth Nez child to succumb to Navajo neuropathy. Unanswered prayers In 1980, the IHS sent Laura and Linnie Neztsosie to be examined by Snyder. Linnie was 9, Laura 10. The girls spent two weeks at the hospital with their mother, and left feeling as bewildered as when they'd arrived. In a letter to the reservation doctor, Snyder considered whether "heavy metal intoxication" was the cause of their problems. But Snyder concluded that "by far the most likely possibility is a hereditary" disorder - perhaps "partial Navajo neuropathy." In 1983, the heath service sent Laura and Linnie back to Albuquerque and Snyder. In their referral letter, IHS physicians wondered whether the girls should be tested for lead, arsenic or thiamine - all known to cause neurological problems at high doses. There is no record that they were tested for these or any other toxic substances. By 1986, Linnie's fingers and toes tingled and tended to curl up like claws. It was becoming harder for her to walk, and her hands and feet were losing muscle tone. "Clinical dx: Navajo neuropathy ... Prognosis: Guarded. Progressive disability expected," wrote Stanley Johnsen, a pediatric neurologist who examined her in Phoenix. Then Laura began to have stinging and prickling sensations in her limbs. David Neztsosie took the medicine man's view: Bitterness between him and his wife must be affecting his daughters. He left the house and the marriage. For a year, Laura and her mother prayed. They tried traditional rituals and steamed inside a sweat lodge. The ceremonies, they hoped, would halt the strange sensation before it progressed. One morning, Laura had trouble getting out of bed. Her fingers and toes had stiffened into hooks, like her sister's. They would not unbend - and have not since. The older Neztsosie children chopped wood for the fire and cleaned the house when they were home from Indian boarding school, but the two youngest "couldn't help our mom," Laura recalled. "We used to crawl around on the floor, on the sandy floor." Disquieting discovery In 1986, Donald W. Payne, an environmental health officer for the IHS, made a disquieting discovery. Payne, then on loan to the tribal government, agreed to help a National Park Service ranger work on his water sampling technique. They tested 48 water sources around a national monument near Cameron. What they found appalled them. Uranium levels in the water at Cameron were as high as 139 picocuries per liter in wells and up to 4,024 in abandoned pits like the ones where Lois Neztsosie watered her sheep and filled her drinking bottles. PA rules permit no more than 20 picocuries per liter in drinking water. The water in many of the pits also had high concentrations of radium-226, a radioactive byproduct of uranium. Payne had never seen the pits before. "I was amazed by the sheer size of the things," he said. In reports to the tribal government, he wrote that "the Indian Health Service, as the primary public health providers for the Navajo people" should "make every effort" to warn residents not to drink from the shallow wells or let their livestock drink from the pits. The tribe, Payne wrote, "must mount a concerted program to restrict access of livestock to the heavily contaminated pits and impoundments." Charles A. Reaux, a regional IHS official, knew animals were not the only ones at risk; in a 1986 memo, he had written of "suspected human use" of the pit waters. Reaux was reluctant to commit his agency's resources to uranium-related health hazards because the cost seemed open-ended. But on reading Payne's findings, he recommended that the health service "get involved in determining if there are contaminated water sites in Cameron... and other areas," adding that the IHS "may also have to support this effort financially." The suggestion died quietly. Neither the tribe nor the IHS mounted the educational campaign urged by Payne. Navajos who were drinking from the pits or watering their animals there had no reason to stop. Now retired and living in Maine, Payne says the government's inaction still bothers him. The IHS "should have told them, and they should have found the money to give them water that was safe to drink," he said. "You don't just stick your head in the sand." Staff members of the tribe's environmental commission showed photos of the water-filled pits in Cameron and elsewhere to their director, Harold Tso, a radio-chemist Tso, now 68, said he was overwhelmed by other urgent problems, such as the piles of radioactive waste at old uranium-processing mills. "I wanted to get out there" to see the pits, he said, "but I never did." Focus on genetics Medical research continued to focus on a genetic explanation for the mysterious wasting disease. In February 1990, the journal Neurology published an article on possible causes of Navajo neuropathy. "No common environmental factors (i.e., water source, heavy metal exposure, toxin exposure, family occupation) have been discovered," the report said. But the research team did not fully consider the possible role of uranium mining. Steve Helgerson, then senior epidemiologist at the IHS, designed the study and was one of the authors. In a recent interview, he said the scientists ruled out a water source as the cause of the illness because no single well supplied all the affected families. The researchers did not explore whether the various water sources shared common contaminants. Patients were screened for exposure to various heavy metals but not uranium. The scientists rejected "toxin exposure" as a possible cause because there was "no organized pesticide use out there," Helgerson said. The only time uranium came up, he said, was in regard to "family occupation." Someone wondered whether the fathers had been miners and whether uranium exposure might have affected their genes. That possibility was discarded because most of the mines were in the eastern part of the reservation, while Navajo neuropathy cases were five times more common in the west. Helgerson said it didn't occur to him that most of the mines in the east were tunnels, whereas those in the west were mostly open pits. He hadn't heard about Payne's water sampling. The research team's article noted the "familial pattern" among patients and concluded the most likely cause was "an inborn error" of metabolism. The disease's course was inexorable, the researchers reported. Those afflicted usually died of liver disease. In two dozen cases studied, the average age of death was 10. 'I didn't know' In 1992, a form letter from a lawyer arrived at the Neztsosie household. Colorado attorney Cherie Daut was seeking clients among former uranium miners who were eligible for special federal payments for lung disease. Daut invited residents to the Tuba City chapter house, the Navajo equivalent of a town hall. By then, Laura had graduated from high school with a special-education diploma. Linnie's legs had worsened, and she often wept in pain. Lois put hot sand in a blue flour bag to soothe her youngest child's limbs until she fell asleep. The Neztsosies wondered whether the lawyer could help. Maybe she could push the IHS to offer more aggressive treatment. On the day of her visit to the chapter house, Daut recalled, Laura struggled toward her in leg braces followed by Linnie in a wheelchair. Laura slammed her frozen fingers on the table. "Please help me," she said. Daut was struck by the sisters' appearance. It brought to mind a photograph she had seen years before of a patient with Minamata disease - the result of mercury poisoning that struck residents of that Japanese city after a chemical company dumped wastewater in the bay. Babies born to sickened mothers had twisted, shriveled limbs. Daut told the sisters about her work. They got to talking about uranium and its impact on miners. The Neztsosies mentioned that mining had its benefits - the pits had brought them water. Daut thought of Minamata and began to wonder whether tainted water might have some connection to the crippled figures before her. Daut sought help from lawyers in Colorado Springs, Los Angeles and New York City with experience in environmental litigation. In 1995, she filed suit in tribal court against El Paso Natural Gas Corp. and a subsidiary, Rare Metals Corp., which had operated some of the pit mines in the Cameron area. The other lawyers recommended experts, including John F. Rosen, a professor of pediatrics and director of the lead clinic at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx. The sisters traveled to Montefiore, where genetic tests found none of the most common mutations leading to inherited neuropathies. In the fall of 1996 and spring of 1997, Rosen, toxicologist Paul Mushak and other scientists toured and tested the watering holes, which were still in use. The water in the pits had washed over heavy metals and radioactive elements, creating a poisonous soup. The scientists learned that Lois drank from the lakes while she was pregnant with Laura and, later, with Linnie. Mushak calculated that for each day in the desert that she drank 3 liters from the pits, she was exposed to uranium at levels nearly 100 times the federal maximum. The water contained high concentrations of lead, arsenic and cadmium. She also received a dose of radioactive alpha particles that was probably 10 times the safety threshold for pregnancy or more, wrote radiation expert Daniel N. Slatkin. When Lois drank from the pits, she pumped "a witch's brew" into her womb, Rosen said. Eating the meat of sheep that had watered at the pits provided another pathway for exposure. Lois had even used the water to make infant formula for the two sisters. "Dooshilbeehozindala!" Lois cried out in Navajo when she heard the news. "I didn't know!" Water connection When the lawyers received the Indian Health Service registry of probable Navajo neuropathy cases, the list had 44 names. The oldest had been born in 1959, around the time the abandoned pit mines began filling with water. It was the first that Linnie and Laura knew of others like themselves. The legal team hired James W. Justice, a researcher at the University of Arizona and a former IHS epidemiologist, to interview the families of people on the list. He found relatives of 41. He wasn't told which were participating in the suit. Justice said a clear pattern emerged as he assembled the mundane details of their histories, habits and lifestyles: When mothers drank polluted water while pregnant, they bore children with Navajo neuropathy. When they were away from the old mines during their pregnancies, they bore healthy children. "In one case after another, it went back to water," Justice said. Lois Neztsosie, for example, had avoided the mines when she was pregnant with her older children because of the blasting. She spent another pregnancy housebound during a year of deep blizzards while a relative cared for the herd. The family's drinking water that season came from melted snow. It was the same for Helen Nez, Justice found. Six of her 10 children had developed Navajo neuropathy. Of the four healthy ones, she had been pregnant with two daughters before the family began drinking water that had flowed through the old pit mine atop Tah-chee. She had carried both healthy boys while living away from the mine. Unknown to Justice or the Nezes, a federal inspector independently documented that groundwater in the area had been contaminated by the Tah- chee mine. Four other families joined the Neztsosie sisters' suit against El Paso. The Nezes were not among them because El Paso had not mined at Tah-chee. Cedar and Theresa, the two oldest surviving Nez children with Navajo neuropathy, felt trapped and angry. Each had the same hooked toes and fingers as the two Neztsosie sisters. Theresa was so determined to walk without leg braces that she sought treatment from a chiropractor in Gallup, N.M., enduring a painful hour's drive each way. Cedar lectured his alcoholic brother, telling him that he should be grateful that his body functioned and shouldn't abuse it with drink. In 1996, Theresa died, followed by Cedar a year later. In all, Helen and Leonard Nez lost six children to Navajo neuropathy. Dwindling hope With the lawsuit dragging on, Linnie was losing hope. Rosen had found her a place in an off-reservation rehabilitation center in Colorado, but she yearned to return home. By this point, she wore diapers. "Mom can't handle you no more," Laura told her. Then Linnie broke a Navajo taboo. She told Laura: "I just wanna die." Laura remembers replying: "Linnie, don't say that. I don't want you to think that way." In June 2000, the telephone rang in the middle of the night, and an older Neztsosie sister, Nora, answered. She told Laura that Linnie, just shy of 30, was gone. They held each other and cried. El Paso had fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in a successful effort to have the case moved from tribal to federal courts, where the nuclear industry enjoyed partial protection from liability. The federal court appointed a mediator. Within a few months of Linnie's death, El Paso agreed to pay a total of $500,000 to the four families without admitting liability, tribal court documents show. Justice presented his findings at a conference of the Public Health Service Commissioned Officers Assn. in 2001. Yet the view that Navajo neuropathy was purely inherited continued to have its adherents. It did seem logical. There were multiple cases within families. The syndrome had appeared suddenly, the way a "founder effect" disease might. A "founder effect" begins with one person who develops a genetic mutation in a nondominant gene. That person passes it on to his or her children, who pass it on to theirs. Because the gene is recessive, the trait does not surface unless two descendants have children together, usually generations later. A team from Tufts University and another from Columbia University examined three genes that might cause the disease. But they reached a dead end each time. Then the Columbia group found that liver tissue from three Navajo neuropathy patients showed reduced levels of mitochondrial DNA, a condition that can lead to progressive organ damage. This year, in the September issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, the Columbia group announced a breakthrough. An Italian scientist had found a previously unknown mutation in a recessive gene that caused mitochondrial disease of the brain and liver. Testing DNA samples from six Navajo neuropathy patients, Columbia neurology professor Salvatore DiMauro and his colleagues found the same mutation. Still, some aspects of Navajo neuropathy do not fit the genetic theory - or suggest that heredity is only one factor. For one thing, Italians with the genetic mutation suffered liver disease, but not the curled hands or loss of sensation seen among Navajos. After Navajo neuropathy appeared in 1959, reported new cases increased through the 1960s, '70s and '80s, then tapered off in the 1990s and have all but disappeared - an arc that mirrors Navajos' exposure to contaminated water from pit mines. The increase in cases occurred while the mines were being abandoned and were filling with water. The drop-off roughly coincided with the filling- in of the pits by the tribal government. If the illness was exclusively hereditary, "there should be more, not fewer, cases as the years go on," and then the numbers should level off, said Richard I. Kelley, a pediatric neurologist at Johns Hopkins University who has identified "founder effect" diseases among the Amish. DiMauro said it was possible that, as with many diseases, a combination of genetic and environmental factors was responsible. "There are still things to be explained," he said. Kelley said his review of the scientific literature and medical reports from the Neztsosies' lawsuit "has left me convinced that this is an environmental disease." Even if a genetic mutation turns out to play a role, "the mine exposure is a unique stress," he said. "The disease may not be manifest except under those conditions." A true survivor Laura Neztsosie, now 36, is the oldest surviving patient from the Indian Health Service registry. She and her mother live in two-stoplight Tuba City (population 8,000). Laura drinks protein shakes and takes a periodic table of vitamins, as recommended by Rosen. Her mother dresses her every morning. Nearly blind in one eye, she flips her Bible open with one gnarled hand to find her favorite verses, highlighted in pink. She also cares deeply about the healing ceremonies held under the wide dark skies outside town. Lois parks her truck close so Laura can watch the dancing from the front seat. Later, at home, Lois lights a pipe packed with dried mint and mountain flower and holds it to Laura's lips. Lois waves the sacred smoke toward her daughter. After years of firelight and kerosene lamps, they have electricity. Treated water runs from kitchen and bathroom taps. But old habits hang on. One day, on her way to visit Linnie's grave on the sagebrush plain, Lois pulled over at a familiar spot. While Laura waited in the truck, the mother walked a short way from the dirt road and lifted boards that had been placed over a natural watering hole to keep coyotes away. Lois was thirsty and didn't hesitate. She leaned down and drank deeply from the spring. --------------------------------------- INFOBOX Navajo neuropathy -- Navajo neuropathy, a disease of the peripheralnervous system, has been found in Navajo children. -- Onset: Usually within the first year of life -- Symptoms: Corneal ulcers, muscle weakness, short stature, delayed walking, failure to thrive, recurring infections, claw-like extremities, loss of sensation, liver disease -- Life expectancy: Forty percent of patients die in their teens. One study put the average age of death at 10. -- Cause: Unknown. A recent study linked the disorder to a gene mutation. Other research suggests that exposure to environmental toxins plays a role. -- Cure: None -- Incidence of the disease Neuropathy appeared on the Navajo reservation in 1959. Its rise and decline mirror the Navajos' exposure to contaminated water. -- Sources: Archives of Neurology, Journal of Pediatrics, Pediatric Research and other medical journals judy.pasternak@latimes.com Times researcher Mark Madden contributed to this report. Copyright c. 2006 Los Angeles Times. --------- "RE: PAPER: Indians in U.S. hit by higher Cancer rate" --------- Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 08:15:56 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HIGHER CANCER RATES DUE TO ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-11/20/content_5351242.htm Paper: Indians in U.S. hit by higher cancer rate www.chinaview.cn November 20, 2006 LOS ANGELES, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) - American Indians suffered a much higher cancer death rate as a result of contaminated waste of uranium mines during the Cold War, but the U.S. government did little to address the problem, a newspaper report said Sunday. Uranium mines left contaminated waste scattered around the Indians whose homes were built with the material that silently pulsed with radiation, the Los Angeles Times reported. The cancer death rate on the Indian reservation - historically much lower than that of the general U.S. population - doubled from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, the paper quoted Indian Health Service data as saying. The overall U.S. cancer death rate declined slightly over the same period. Though no definitive link has been established, researchers say exposure to mining byproducts in the soil, air and water almost certainly contributed to the increase in Navajo cancer mortality. "The government has never conducted a comprehensive study of the health effects of uranium mining on the reservation," said the paper. "But individual scientists working on their own have documented sharply elevated cancer rates near old mines and mills.High concentrations of uranium, arsenic and other heavy metals have been found in one out of five drinking-water sources sampled." Particularly toxic were the "hot" houses built with radioactive debris, said the paper. From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were chiseled and blasted from the mountains and plains. The mines provided uranium for the Manhattan Project, the top-secret effort to develop an atomic bomb, and for the weapons stockpile built up during the arms race with the then Soviet Union, according to the paper. The U.S. government was the "sole customer" of all the uranium produced there by private companies. The boom lasted through the early '60s. As the Cold War threat gradually diminished over the next two decades, more than 1,000 mines and four processing mills on tribal land shut down. "The companies often left behind radioactive waste piles and open tunnels and pits. Few bothered to fence the properties or post warning signs. Federal inspectors seldom intervened," said the paper. Over the decades, Navajos inhaled radioactive dust from the waste piles, borne aloft by fierce desert winds. They drank contaminated water from abandoned pit mines that filled with rain. They watered their herds there, then butchered the animals and ate the meat. Their children dug caves in piles of mill tailings and played in the spent mines. "Today, there is no talk of cancer immunity in the Navajos," said the paper. Copyright c. 2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Expert says past Genocide linked to Suicide rates" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:34:20 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GENOCIDE OF PAST LINKED TO TODAY'S SUICIDE RATES" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096413977 Expert says past genocide linked to high suicide rates by: McClatchy Tribune Business News By Kevin Graman - The Spokesman-Review November 15, 2006 SPOKANE, Wash. - Any discussion of the high rate of suicide among young American Indians must begin with an acknowledgement of genocide, a nationally recognized expert in social work among Indian people said Oct. 24 in Airway Heights. So far, there has been no such official acknowledgement from the U.S. government, said Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, a professor at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work. "So much happened to our people, we didn't have time to recover from one trauma before another occurred," said Brave Heart, a Hunkpapa/Oglala Lakota who developed the theory of "historical trauma" among American Indians. She spoke Oct. 24 at the Native American Suicide and Violence Prevention Conference at Northern Quest Casino. About 100 first responders and behavioral health professionals attended the two days of workshops that ended Oct. 25. The conference was sponsored by the Camus Institute of the Kalispel Tribe, the Healing Lodge of the Seven Nations, Eastern Washington University and the QPR Institute at a time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes the suicide rate of young American Indians is four times higher than the national average. The discussion may be relevant to the Inland Northwest, where federal officials are currently responding to an increased number of suicides on the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. According to the IHS, the peak annual suicide rate for the American Indians in Washington state over a 10-year period ending in 1996 was 23 per 100,000 people. The Colvilles' rate is 5 percent higher than that. Seven officers and civil servants from IHS, the CDC, the Health Resources Service Administration and the Bureau of Prisons have responded to the Colville tribal leaders' call for assistance in dealing with the suicide rate. Colville social workers were among those attending the conference, said Sara Sexton-Johnson, director of the EWU Office of Professional Development and External Programs. Kalispel elder Francis Cullooyah said his tribe was concerned for the welfare of all the tribes in the region, particularly the children. "It is really important for Indian people to remember who they are and where they came from," Cullooyah said. He and others at the conference stressed the importance of instilling a sense of tradition, culture and Native spirituality in young people. Without it, they said, there is a void that can lead to isolation, drug abuse or even suicide, the second-leading cause of death for Natives between the ages of 15 and 24. Historical trauma is the intergenerational post-traumatic stress that is the result of the genocide perpetrated on American Indians, Brave Heart said. The resulting "cumulative group trauma" was aggravated by the boarding school system imposed on Indian children by both the United States and Canada, robbing them of their traditions, language and families, she said. The children of the massacre survivors, the boarding school survivors, passed on this trauma to their descendants, Brave Heart said. Hope for American Indian children lies, Brave Heart said, in recognizing that this historical trauma exists and reclaiming traditional culture and spirituality through the power of the tribal community and "grass-roots healing." Copyright (c) 2006, The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. Copyright c. 1998 - 2006 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Thanksgiving" --------- Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 08:15:56 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="THANKSGIVING" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.bsudailynews.com/media/storage/paper849/ news/2006/11/20/HolidayTab/American.Indians.Harbors. Many.Traditions.Opinions.On.Thanksgiving-2468778.shtml? norewrite200611201129&sourcedomain=www.bsudailynews.com American Indians harbor many traditions, opinions on Thanksgiving Louis Jones November 19, 2006 Each year, members of the Wampanoag Indian tribe and their supporters gather at Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Mass. for the National Day of Mourning. The holiday occurs on the third Thursday of November, the same day as Thanksgiving, and it was started in 1970 by the United American Indians of New England in honor of American Indian people and their struggles, according to the UAINE mission statement. The American Indian attendees of the National Day of Mourning spend Thanksgiving day protesting the oppression and genocide their culture experienced at the hands of European settlers. But not all American Indians feel the need to protest Thanksgiving, and perspectives on the holiday vary greatly among American Indian tribes, nations and indviduals, Kenan Metzger, Ball State University professor of English, said. Metzger is of Hochungra, Cherokee and German descent. "It's important to get the voices of many Indians on the issue," Metzger said. "There's no monolothic American Indian culture or perspective." Colleen Boyd, coordinator of the Native American studies minor at Ball State, celebrates Thanksgiving with her husband, John, who is an American Indian from the Pacific Northwest, and their children, she said. "We still do Thanksgiving dinner, but the food we cook is politically selected," Boyd said. For Thanksgiving dinner, Boyd's family tries to eat only foods that were cultivated in the Americas, she said. Foods indigenous to the Americas include potatoes, corn, beans, squash and tomatoes, and these foods were not available in any other part of the world before the Americas were settled by Europeans. "We used it as an opportunity to educate our children," Boyd said. "Because we had to figure all this out, it means more because we all have an investment in it." Elizabeth Nesbitt, instructor of English at Ball State, said Thanksgiving fits well into many American Indian traditions. "It just depends on the family and the people," Nesbitt said. "Some tribal people are still very isolated, but any opportunity for Native Americans to get together and celebrate and be with family, they usually take it." Giving thanks is a big part of Native American culture," Nesbitt said. "If you hunt or take something, you leave something else behind." In his book, "Mayflower," published this year, Nathaniel Philbrick explores a little known fact: The Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians who met at Plymouth Rock in 1621 went to war with each other in 1675. Many American Indian students Metzger has taught were ignorant to the historical context of Thanksgiving, he said. "I think the ignorance is probably across the board, and the history has been supressed across the board," he said. Metzer said Thanksgiving is a good opportunity for American Indians to reflect on the past and be thankful for what they do have despite the oppression they have experienced. "Not all American Indians think the same way," Metzger said, "but I think in general they have a different mindset, and I think there's a feeling of thankfulness that they survived and a feeling of hope that there can be healing between Indians and European Americans." Copyright c. 2006 The Ball State Daily News. --------- "RE: OPINION: Road ahead for the Delaware" --------- Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 09:33:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="IF - WHAT FLAVOR OF RECOGNITION" http://65.38.1.63/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8356 COMMENTARY The road ahead for the Delaware Tribe of Indians Rusty Creed Brown November 17, 2006 Now that the Delaware elections are over and Chief Jerry Douglas has won re-election and his first full term as chief; what does the road ahead of the Delawares look like? In the tribal press release, dated November 7, 2006, Chief Douglas declares, "the people have spoken with their ballots and we have a mandate to obtain our federal recognition." The real question is what is that federal recognition going to look like? The last Delaware Council took legislation to the Oklahoma delegation in Congress; it easy to suppose that the newly elected Delaware Council, with their mandate, will continue to support that legislation. However, there are many Delaware citizens that are still very concerned over the legislation and what it will do to our tribe; as well as what it will do to other tribes in the area. The Delaware press release would have people believe that the opposition to this legislation is a small local faction; however, I disagree. Chief Douglas said he "apologize[d] for the presence of ignorance" that he contends was displayed at the November 4, 2006 Delaware General Council Meeting. Ignorance was not shown at the General Council Meeting. Rather difficult and reasonable questions were asked concerning the legislation and the MOU, which remains under negotiation; questions that were never answered by the leadership or their attorneys. Our people want to know the ramifications of the elected leaders " FEDERAL RECOGNITION NOW" stance. We do not want to make the same mistakes or have the same deal of 140 years ago forced upon us again; history is repeating itself. Had Chief Douglas and other members of the Council remained at the General Council Meeting to provide answers to the citizen's questions and concerns they may have found more support from the local " ignorant" and "embarrassing" "faction" of the Delaware Tribe. Unfortunately, they did not stay long, after the "commandeering" of the meeting and they did not speak or address the Tribe in any fashion, except through various attorneys. Our people do not wish to listen to the same attorneys tell us the same thing repeatedly; we want the elected leadership of our Tribe to show us the respect we deserve and stand up and address us as Tribal Citizens. The currently elected Tribal officials may feel they have a mandate for " Federal Recognition Now;" nevertheless, that does not relieve them of their responsibility and duty to those they represent. The elected leaders need to provide information to the tribal citizens; they need to allow the people to vote on the future course of our tribe, specifically on the MOU; and they need to be held accountable for their actions, decisions and follow our Tribal Rule-of-Law. So what is ahead for the Delaware Tribe; it remains to be seen. If the Cherokee Nation pulls its support for the legislation because Congress marks-up the legislation where are we then? When asked that question, one of the Delaware's attorneys said, "That is the 50 million dollar question." I suspect we are back to square one; with no other options currently being considered or worked on. If the Cherokee Nation continues to support the legislation, even after being marked-up; I suspect the two Tribes will work to have it passed through Congress and then the MOU will be approved. Once this occurs the Delaware Tribe will be under the oppressive thumb of the Cherokee Nation for generations to come. Still lingering in my head are the questions, "Why are we in such a hurry? And why has our official stance for 140 years taken a 180 degree turn in less than one year?" Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Congress settles Isleta land suit" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:34:20 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ISLETA LAND SUIT" http://www.krqe.com/expanded.asp?RECORD_KEY[News]=ID&ID%5BNews%5D=18191 Congress settles Isleta land suit Source: AP November 15, 2006 ALBUQUERQUE - The U.S. Senate has passed a $40 million settlement over past mismanagement of Isleta Pueblo land. The measure, unanimously approved by the Senate earlier this week, now heads to President Bush for his consideration. The pueblo had sued the government seeking compensation for damage to its land south of Albuquerque. The pueblo, the Interior Department and the Justice Department spent years reviewing the claims and reached an agreement in June. The legislation establishes fund of more than $32 million the tribe will use to restore agricultural, range and forestry property. The measure also authorizes $7.2 million which is subject to administration budgeting and the federal appropriations process. Copyright c. 2006 KRQE News 13, Albuquerque, NM. --------- "RE: Freedmen tribal Trial scheduled" --------- Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 08:42:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FREEDMEN TRIAL" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.newsok.com/article/2972803/ Freedmen tribal trial scheduled November 17, 2006 TAHLEQUAH - A trial is to start next week in the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court in Tahlequah to determine whether tribal voters will decide on a proposed Cherokee blood requirement for citizenship. At issue is tribal membership for more than 900 descendants of the freedmen, freed slaves who joined the Cherokees in the 1800s. The Cherokee Nation high court has ruled the descendants are eligible for tribal membership. Copyright c. 2006 News 9/The Oklahoman - Produced by NewsOK.com. --------- "RE: Massachusetts study on Health of Indian Population" --------- Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 08:42:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MASSACHUSETTS INDIAN HEALTH STUDY" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/11/17/ mass_tribes_seen_lagging_in_income_healthcare/ Mass. tribes seen lagging in income, healthcare November 17, 2006 The state Department of Public Health yesterday released its first study of the health of Massachusetts' estimated 20,000 American Indians, finding that they lag behind the general state population in healthiness, insurance coverage, and per capita income. Twenty-nine percent of those surveyed reported being in poor or fair health, compared to 13 percent of the state overall. The obesity rate of adults in at least one tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoags, was 2.4 times higher than the rate of Massachusetts adults in general, the department said. Poor education and poverty are associated with poorer health, the report said. The per capita income of American Indians was reported in the 2000 Census as $15,889 a year, 40 percent below the statewide average of $25, 592. American Indians also reported not having health insurance and being unable to see a doctor because of cost at a rate twice that of the state as a whole. The study is also the first in the nation to include data collected by American Indian researchers in their own communities, according to the department. The study will be used as a benchmark to track improvement in American Indian health, said Public Health Commissioner Paul J. Cote Jr. "This report will provide a starting point for research into the health of American Indians so that we can develop programs and target resources for this population," he said in a statement. Stephanie M. Peters Copyright c. 2006 Globe Newspaper Company. --------- "RE: Fort Totten Armor plant awarded Military Contract" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:34:20 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SPIRIT LAKE SIOUX MANUFACTURING FACILITY LANDS CONTRACT" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8LCGE700.htm Armor plant awarded military contract The Assiciated Press/BISMARCK, N.D. By JAMES MacPHERSON Associated Press Writer November 13, 2006 An American Indian-owned armor plant based in Fort Totten has a $1.8 million contract to provide special heat shield material for the military. Sioux Manufacturing Corp. is the only U.S. manufacturer of the special "ablative tile" used to line missile launchers on ships and other military equipment, said Carl McKay, the company's president and chief executive officer. The contract is part of a $60.7 million contract awarded last week to Lockheed Martin Corp., to provide work on four vertical launcher ships. Lockheed Martin is the country's largest military contractor. McKay said Sioux Manufacturing has been building the special tile for the past six years, and the recent contract is "part of an ongoing program" for the military. "We anticipated this coming down," McKay said Monday. "It's a new order in addition to what we're already making." McKay said the contract from Lockheed Martin likely would be expanded for Sioux Manufacturing. The tile, which is made of fiberglass and special resins, is used to line missile launch canisters, McKay said. "The material catches -- or ablates -- the force of the rocket blast," he said. McKay said the plant in Fort Totten and one in Europe are the only manufacturers of the ablative tile, but the European company is no longer in business. The Fort Totten plant, which opened in 1974, manufactures protective armor for soldiers, tanks, ships and aircraft. Nearly all the 210 employees are American Indians. The plant is owned by the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe, on the Spirit Lake reservation in northeastern North Dakota. The tribe, which numbers about 5,000, also owns a casino and other manufacturing businesses on the reservation. Copyright 2006, by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Copyright c. 2006 Business Week. --------- "RE: Canoe goes upriver, Without its Paddlers" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:34:20 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HAIDA CANOE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/nyregion/14canoe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Canoe Goes Upriver, Without Its Paddlers By GLENN COLLINS November 14, 2006 The canoe is coming back to its home at the American Museum of Natural History. But the Indians won't be paddling it anymore. The colossal Haida canoe populated with 17 painted plaster Northwest Coast Indians had been a fixture of the museum's West 77th Street halls for so long - almost a century - that the life-size Indians themselves acquired their own kind of historical significance. But this year, workers removing decades of grime from the canoe discovered just how much a good cleaning enhanced the beauty of its original paintings, of an eagle and a killer whale. So now the 63-foot-long canoe will be exhibited as it originally was in 1883: hanging from the ceiling. The paintings will be in full view 15 feet from the floor, but up in the air, the Indians would be barely visible. So they are not coming back. The Indian sculptures "were accurate," said Peter M. Whiteley, the museum's curator of North American ethnology. "But the figures were composites of different tribes. We thought it was time to celebrate the beauty and ethnographic value of the canoe itself." The restored canoe will be revealed to the public on Friday, as a symbol of the $37 million restoration of the southern facade and entranceway of the museum. The canoe will henceforth be the ornament of the museum's new 77th Street entrance, to be known as the Grand Gallery, a gateway to the museum's 1877 Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, the oldest of the building's 25 interconnected structures. "I suppose some people will miss the Indians, just as some people miss Pluto," Dr. Whiteley said, referring to the recently demoted planet. The canoe is believed to have been made from a single Western red cedar around 1878 using fire and iron adzes; it was steamed into its sleek shape, Dr. Whiteley said, and its design and paintings reflect the style of the Haida tribe (thence its name). After it was acquired in British Columbia on a museum collecting expedition, the canoe was transported by steamer to Panama and across the isthmus by rail in the pre-canal era, then shipped to a Manhattan pier, from which it was taken to the museum by horse-drawn wagon. After years on exhibition upstairs, and then after a move to the ceiling of the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians on the main floor, late in the first decade of the 20th century the still-Indianless canoe was moved to the floor of that hall. The Indian figures were created in 1910 by a sculptor, Sigurd Neandross, who depicted them paddling to a potlatch ceremony, a feast of gift-giving and trade. Fifty years later the canoe was moved, Indians and all, to the adjacent lobby. The Indians, which will remain in storage, "are in all of our genes, and will be treated with the same concern as our dinosaur bones," said David Harvey, the museum's vice president for exhibition. "They are a fascinating part of the history of exhibition at the museum." Curators believe that the canoe is the largest surviving 19th-century canoe used by Northwest Indians. It was restored as part of the largest refurbishment in the museum's history, that of its 700-foot-long southern face between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West. The Romanesque Revival facade, along with its 112-foot-wide porte-coche're and sweeping granite staircases, is being cleaned and reconstructed. The lobby ceiling has been renovated and given new exhibition lighting and hanging fixtures, and the ceiling has been treated with thick acoustic insulation to hush the reverberating sounds of children that "would mercilessly echo in that space," Mr. Harvey said. The original archway of the West 77th Street entrance has been restored, new doorways have been constructed to make the 1904 gallery symmetrical, and floor mosaics of Carrara marble have again been revealed. In the spring, as the other work was proceeding, the Indians were removed from the 77th Street entrance and the canoe was encased in plywood. A nine-person conservation team set to work. At one point during the restoration, curators hoisted the canoe up so they could clean the painting on its underside, "and that was the moment when we realized it had to be exhibited above," Mr. Harvey said. For four months the canoe underwent "its first comprehensive conservation effort," Mr. Harvey said. For a time, museum visitors could observe restorers peering through magnifying glasses as they cleaned the canoe with Q-Tips. "The wood was in surprisingly good condition, and needed only minor structural repair," said Anne Le'culier King, who directed the canoe conservation. And so it was at 6:10 p.m. recently, after the museum had closed for the day, that Steven Warsavage, the project manager for the installation, gave orders to move the canoe into final position. As long as two school buses end to end and weighing 2,250 pounds, it required eight workers to propel it on a wheeled cradle. But the canoe was hardly as dangerous to install as mastodons and dinosaurs, "which, being fossils, are heavy as stone and fragile as an egg," said Mr. Warsavage, who has moved them all. The canoe was separated from its cradle at 7:21 p.m., then slowly heaved upward; by 7:48 p.m., the seemingly aerodynamic shape of the canoe had been wired to the ceiling. What, then, of the Indian sculptures? There are no plans to remove them from storage, Mr. Harvey said, "but they are valuable to us. We're not a place that throws things out." Copyright c. 2006 The New York Times Company. --------- "RE: Mascot: Chief Concern" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:34:20 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CHIEF LOUIS GRAY ON MASCOT ISSUE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm? newsid=17461560&BRD=1719&PAG=461&dept_id=25270&rfi=6 Chief Concern PETE HAYES, The Telegraph November 14, 2006 When Louis Gray was a kid, he liked playing Cowboys and Indians. He always wanted to be a Cowboy. Not surprising, I guess, except that Louis Gray was - and is, of course - an Indian. "I wanted to be a cowboy because I didn't want to die," said Gray, 53, who grew up on an Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma. Gray, a former newspaper editor and publisher, is the president of the Tulsa Indian Coalition Against Racism, a support group for Native Americans. He searches the Internet daily for stories about two of his pet peeves - team nicknames and mascots. And that's how his path crossed with mine. After Saturday's Illinois-Purdue football game, I wrote a column about how sad it is that Chief Illiniwek might have well performed his last football halftime dance. I've written other Illiniwek-related columns and my stance has remained constant. I think much of the hubbub about the political correctness is misguided and much ado about nothing. Louis Gray has shown me another side of that argument. And while I still feel a strong allegiance to the Chief, I think I understand Gray's position. It's persuasive. Gray sent an email to me which basically stated that we'd have to find another way of paying homage to his people instead of unwittingly disrespecting them through the performances of Chief Illiniwek. After reading the email, I called him at his office in Tulsa. Gray is three-quarters Osage Indian by heritage. He's serious about this mascot business, but admittedly came to it recently. "I was in the newspaper business in Oklahoma," Gray said. "and I was actually more interested in other issues for our people - housing, health care issues. I went to a debate on mascots and I was overwhelmed by the number of people who just didn't care." That's when he took up the mantle. The TICAR was formed in 2003 originally to do battle with Tulsa Union High School's use of the nickname Redskins. The nickname was bad enough, but the school also uses a teepee as part of its pregame festivities. "A teepee is like church in my religion," said Gray, who is a member of the Native American Church. "The Indian dances, the tepees, the use of feathers -- they're all important parts of our religion." And there's the rub with Chief Illiniwek. "We really don't have a problem with the use of the nickname Fighting Illini," Gray said. "But the Illiniwek dance goes too far. We feel it mocks us and our culture." Gray has seen the Illiniwek dance on film. "I do a dance as part of our religious ceremony," he said. "But not for entertainment. It is sacred to us." The TICAR doesn't protest outside stadiums. "Actually, we think it's better to educate than to protest," Gray said. "If you tell someone you're mad, they'll react with anger. If you tell them your feelings are hurt, they might listen." The NCAA has declared Chief Illiniwek to be hostile and abusive to Native Americans. And while Gray and his group agree, they realize that most non-Indian Americans don't mean to be hostile or abusive. "For about 90 percent of the people who take part, it's not their intention to be racist or demeaning," he said. "I guess you could say the other 10 percent aren't racially sensitive." The TICAR is interested in helping in those other areas of concern, of course. "You don't know what it is like to walk in our shoes," Gray said. "And in truth, you wouldn't want to for the most part. The socio-economic problems we suffer are off the chart. To heap on that a need to have a student run around and mock our culture is a bit much." According to Gray, Native Americans are the most physically abused race in the U.S. "Much more than African Americans," he said. "One in three of Native American women is raped and we have the highest rate of teen suicide in the country." So what, I asked, does a kid dancing on a Saturday afternoon in Champaign, Ill. have to do with all that? "It's hard to say," Gray said. "Obviously I can't say Illiniwek danced in Illinois and three Indian people on a reservation died because of it. "But things like Illiniwek objectify Indians - they make them objects of ridicule instead of treating them as people. Our young people grow up seeing that. The Chief sure isn't helping, that's for sure." Stanford and Marquette universities are among schools that long ago changed their nicknames. And locally, Principia College in Elsah switched from being Indians to Panthers several years ago. "We've had successes, of course," he said. "But there are a couple schools on our list that we know won't change on their own - North Dakota (Fighting Sioux) and Illinois." Gray knows he's fighting an uphill battle. "It'd hard to tell someone who doesn't think he's doing anything wrong that he's doing something wrong," he said. And sometimes, it's just hard to tell anything to someone who's already made up his mind. But at least some of us are willing to listen. Copyright c. The Telegraph 2006. Copyright c. 1995 - 2006 Townnews.com All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: EDITORIAL: Feds need to respect Indian Beliefs" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 08:34:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JUDGE TELLS FEDS TO RESPECT INDIAN BELIEFS" http://www.yakima-herald.com/page/dis/287511374379449 Heed judge - Feds need to respect American Indian beliefs November 16, 2006 A federal judge in Wyoming has dismissed criminal charges against a Northern Arapaho man who shot a bald eagle last year for use in one of his tribe's ceremonial dances. At the same time, the judge made it clear that the federal government needs to clean up its act when it comes to accommodating the religious beliefs of American Indians, for whom the eagle holds special spiritual meaning. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge William F. Downes wrote: "Although the government professes respect and accommodation of the religious practices of Native Americans, its actions show callous indifference to such practices. It is clear to this court that the government has no intention of accommodating the religious beliefs of Native Americans except on its own terms and in its own good time." The judge ruled in favor of Winslow Friday, 22, of Ethete, Wyo., on the Wind River Indian Reservation, who was charged with killing a bald eagle with a rifle in March 2005. Lawyers for Friday and his tribe argued that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service generally refuses to grant permits allowing tribal members - a process that would include members of the Yakama Nation - to kill eagles, even though federal regulations say such permits should be available. The federal government does, in fact, have a repository of dead eagles, from which it parcels out the birds. But that can be a long time happening. One tribal attorney said that more than 5,000 Indians are on a waiting list to get an eagle from a federal repository of eagle carcasses, and that the waiting period is about 31/2 years. We don't condone Winslow Friday's unsanctioned shooting. But in the wake of the legal repercussions it caused, two things are apparent: * The federal government needs to end the bureaucratic snarl at the repository. Three-and-a-half years is an ridiculously long time to wait for feathers from dead birds. * The hunting permitting system needs to be updated to address today's realities. The majestic birds are protected, but their population has rebounded and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is moving forward with the process of removing the bald eagle in the lower 48 states from the list of threatened and endangered species. Once that happens, it would seem reasonable that a limited number of hunting permits could be granted to satisfy tribal ceremonial needs - assuming cleanup of the repository process doesn't solve it first. In this state, the Makah tribe's right to hunt whales was reinstated in 1994 when the gray whale was taken off the Endangered Species List. If we can do it for whales, why not eagles? Judge Downes got it right. Now the appropriate federal officials need to heed his common-sense advice and show appropriate respect for American Indian customs and religious beliefs that predate the federal government itself. * Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins and Bill Lee. Copyright c. 2006 Yakima Herald-Republic. --------- "RE: YELLOW BIRD: Here's to hunting, for all its faults" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:34:20 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW BIRD: HUNTING" http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm? id=16954§ion=columnists&columnist=Dorreen%20Yellow%20Bird Here's to hunting, for all its faults Dorreen Yellow Bird Grand Forks Herald November 15, 2006 Hunting season opened Friday. My reasons for anxiety about this time of the year have changed over the years. This year, it's the number of deer that seem to be running toward the highways and, unfortunately, in front of our cars. Years ago, it was being home alone for several weeks or more as the seasons for deer, ducks and so on came and went. I did go hunting with my father when I was young, but I think the weapons were less powerful then. As a young adult, I graduated to hunting with the guys. When I first used a shotgun to shoot geese (and I cringe when I think I actually aimed and shot at these beautiful birds), the kickback knocked me off my feet - and as I stared at the dark sky, I could hear the guys laughing. The shotgun left a bruise on my shoulder and my ego. Years later, I went hunting for deer in the desert near Phoenix. The winter weather in Arizona is wonderful, but I hated those big, black, hairy tarantulas that roamed in the desert. I saw one the size of a small river turtle. It also was scary to be hunting there because I could hear so much shooting. I didn't know if I should run away or drop to the ground and cover my head. I think it was the crawly spiders that kept me on my feet. The day I quit hunting was the day I found myself staring in the face of a doe we'd accidentally come upon too quickly for her to react. She just stood and stared as the hunter dropped her. I could see her spirit leave her body from those big dark eyes - I never want to see that again. Yet I do believe hunting has a place in our society, especially in this region. We have an abundance of deer, geese and so on. We know that they need to be harvested to keep their numbers controlled in order to keep them and the ecosystem healthy. I know that sounds strange coming from me, a person who can't stand to see a deer die. But I also have seen hungry animals die while searching for nearly nonexistent food. The hunt is good for the constitution, too. There is something about walking the prairie and through bush-filled coulees that is exhilarating. For my brothers, nephews and other male relatives, it's their time to bond - to be men, I guess. And there's also that chance of bringing down a trophy buck with one shot. I add here that my brother and cousins have gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure that a wounded deer is found and put to rest. That is one of their codes: Never leave a wounded animal. Finish it. My cousins at Standing Rock are ceremonious about their hunt. They pray beforehand, and usually make an offering to the spirit when the deer is taken. It's a sign of respect, they told me. When my brothers returned from hunting, the talk was of who was the best shot. That has continued as long as my brothers and now their sons hunt. I don't remember them ever coming home emptyhanded. To us, their bounty meant deer sausage. My brother, Grover, has all the equipment for making his own sausage. He invites us to his house; we help put it through the grinder, season it and so on. His sausage is great - sometimes a little spicy, but good. A few years ago, I asked him why he didn't cook venison steaks. He didn't like the gamy taste of pure venison, he said to my surprise. I grew up eating venison, but it has been a long time since I've tasted steaks rather than sausage. So when I visited some Canadian friends way up north and they fed me moose, I thought it would be gamy. It wasn't. I'm not sure why. And it was neither highly spiced nor fixed any differently than beef. By the way, while my brothers may be finicky about the gaminess of venison, their children are even worse. So the Nov. 13 story, "Young hunters on the decline" (Page 1A), reminded me that we are not teaching our children about the joys of the outdoors, the tastiness of wild game and the skills of hunting. My brothers have taught their sons, but few of the Indian families I know have made an effort to teach their daughters how to hunt. Most of the young women I know are physically able to "walk the bush" and certainly are or able to become good shots. Hunting needs to be encouraged for both young men and women by both parents. Hunting is an exciting pastime and requires finely honed skills. What more could you ask of a hobby? --- Dorreen Yellow Bird is a reporter and columnist. Her columns appear Wednesdays and Saturdays on the opinion pages of the Herald. Copyright c. 2006 Forum Communications Co. Fargo, ND 58102 - All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Ntl. Chief updates Residential School Survivors" --------- Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 09:33:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVORS" http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com/News/269017.html National Chief updates residential school survivors By Mike Aiken Miner and News November 17, 2006 Florence Johnson,63, attended residential schools for 13 years. While there has been lots of talk about agreements, she said she has had trouble getting help with forms. With bad hearing and vision problems, she has difficulty trusting strangers, she said. "I'm trying to make an appointment with a lawyer," she added Thursday. Last spring, the federal government announced it had reached a final agreement with the Assembly of First Nations worth $1.9 billion. This included an advance payment for older survivors, who are dying off before their money has been released. Between 1991 and 2004, the number of survivors dropped by more than 17, 800, as negotiators worked on a deal. However, the government has since started to disburse money for seniors. Those 65 or older as of May 30, 2005, have until Dec. 31 to apply for an advance payment of $8,000. As of Nov. 14, the Indian Residential School Resolution Canada office had paid out 9,066 claims worth $72.5 million from the 12,517 applications they'd received. During an address to frontline workers Monday, National Chief Phil Fontaine said he was happy to see cash flowing to older survivors. "We are pleased that a large number of elders have applied and received their advance payment," he said. However, he noted compensation payments for residential school survivors who suffered serious physical or sexual abuse are at least six months away. These include amounts for psychological effects and loss of income, which may range from $5,000 to more than $275,000. Aboriginal leaders have been critical of the lengthy resolution process, which included $620 million for alternative dispute resolution and litigation costs. The budget for the National Resolution Framework is $1. 69 billion, including $954 million for settlements and $735 million for operations. At their peak, government statistics show 82 residential schools ran across Canada. They began in the 1840s and continued until the last one closed in 1996. Former students who want more information can call the Indian Residential School Resolution Canada office toll-free 1-800-816-7293, or visit their website on-line. Copyright c. 2006 Kenora Daily Miner and News. --------- "RE: Six Nations says McGill owes it $1.7-Billion" ---