_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 14, ISSUE 051 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, 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 December 23, 2006 Abenaki pebonkas/winter maker moon Zuni ik'ohbu yachunne/turning moon +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Much more happens in Indian Country than is reported | | in this weekly newsletter. For daily updates & events | | go to http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm | +-------------------------------------------------------+ Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin -- Blackfeet -- News for All the People Ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min -- Ojibwe -- We Are Talking About Ourselves Aunchemokauhettittea -- Naragansett -- Let Us Share News Kanoheda Aniyvwiya -- Cherokee -- Journal of the People O Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse -- Creek -- People's New News O o O Acimowin -- Plains Cree -- Story or Account O o O Tlaixmatiliztli -- Nahuatl -- News O o o o o O Agnutmaqan -- Listuguj Mi'kmaq -- News O o O Sho-da-ku-ye -- Teehahnahmah -- Talking Birchbark O o O Un Chota -- Susquehannic Seneca -- The People Speak O Ha-Sah-Sliltha -- Ditidaht Nation -- News of the People Ximopanolti tehuatzin, inin Mexika tlahtolli -- Nahuatl -- For you we offer these words It-hah-pe-hah Ah-num pah-le -- Chickasaw -- Together We Are Talking Dineh jii' adah' ho'nil'e'gii ba' ha' neh -- Navajo Nation -- What's Happening among The People News Okla Humma Holisso Nowat Anya -- Choctaw -- People(s) Red Newspaper Hi'a chu ah gaa -- Pima -- The stories or the talk of the People s ch mA mL tL squee Lux -- Okanogan -- News from the People Native American News -- Language of the Occupation Forces ++>If you speak a Native American language not listed above, please send us your words for "News of the People." We'd rather take up this whole page saving these few words of our hundreds of nations than present a nice clean banner in the language of the occupation forces who came here determined to replace our words with their own. email gars@nanews.org with the equivalent of "News of the People" in your tribal language along with the english translation <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is produced in straight ASCII text for greatest portability across platforms. Read it with a fixed-pitch font, such as Courier, Monaco, FixedSys or CG Times. Proportional fonts will be difficult to read. <================<<<< >>>>================> This issue contains articles from www.owlstar.com; www.indianz.com; www.pechanga.net; www.indiancountrytoday.com; Mailing Lists: Frostys AmerIndian and Chiapas95-En; 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + =================== "You white men have come to us again to offer something to us which we do not fully understand. You talk to us very sweet, but you do not mean it. You have not fulfilled any of the old treaties. Why do you now bring another one to us? Why don't you pay us the money you owe us first, and then bring us another treaty?" __ Chief Hollow Horn Bear, 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 "It's good to be king," is a quote that describes the perks of being the person or group that makes the rules. By being the rule maker it is a mere change of rules (your rules) or a simple wave of the hand to absolve yourself of guilt or shame associated with a misdeed or misuse of other human beings. You are "above" guilt and reproach. A whole church was born in England so English kings did not have to abide by Catholic mandates. A few divorces here and there, or in the case of Henry VIII - a few lobbed heads, were no longer a sticky matter with the church. That same church, the Anglican Church, abused thousands of First Nation children in Canada, and when the Residential School Settlement finally reaches completion that same church will have suffered little more than a slap on the wrist. Read the opinion piece, "Residential School Settlement Farce" [subtitled: "Why we are not sorry for our Crimes"] to get a better understanding of the lengths the dominant society will go to the absolve blame for even heinous acts. Nonessential sterilization of Native women in IHS facilities is a proved, admitted fact that resulted in zero prosecution, zero blame, zero shame. "Flesh and bone littered the banks of Sand Creek on November 30, 1864. The previous day some 700 Colorado and New Mexico militiamen had routed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, killing an estimated 150. As many as 100 of the dead were women and children; two were unarmed chiefs in their 70s, mowed down as they chanted their death songs." __ Larry Borowsky Issue No. 11 - Spring/Summer 2002 "Terrain". Col. John Chivington, who commanded the attacking force, was a Methodist minister and avid anti-slavery crusader lead that cowardly attack on women and children. It would be 200 years later and endless campaigns by Cheyenne and Arapaho descendants of the victims before Sand Creek became the monument to shame it should have been in 1864 when it occurred. To this day twenty-three soldiers of the 7th Cavalry retain Medals of Honor they were awarded for the murder of nearly 300 innocent and unarmed Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee. This act of absolute cowardice is held in the highest possible regard by the retention of these undeserved medals. Read Tim Giago's excellent review of this misrepresentation of history by the dominant society in "GIAGO: The 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee." Yes, it is good to be king... It is better to be strong enough to admit your shame and begin the healing process. Judging by historical treatment of Indians I expect the ragged, unhealed wounds to remain for generations to come. 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: - GIAGO: Prayers for a Senator . Making rules that absolve guilt from a small State - Fontaine joins Global Lobby - JODI RAVE: - Settlement won't erase Conference teaches Wellness Memory of Racial Rage - OPINION: Residential Schools - Navajo Elder's dog 'skinned alive' Settlement Farce - Drug trafficking measure - Elderly Natives denied amended for Tribal Study abuse Settlement Payments - Chippewa delight - Natives object in return of Sacred Scrolls to `rushed' Rights Bill - Tribal District - We move Kashechewan at its Peril wants National Guard banned - Ratification likely to be painful - Tohono O'odham celebrate Culture - Liberals call on Feds - Agriculture still big to resolve Caledonia in Arizona Tribal Economies - Protest near Caledonia - Indian tribe banking sparks fears of Violence on Grand Canyon Skywalk - Ottawa shelves reform plans - Am. Indian holds out hope on Native Governance of Multi-Targeted Drug - Aboriginal Leaders call - American Indian Vet Cemetery Bill Resort Talks flawed passes Congress - Ottawa reviewing Six Nations claim - Tension escalates at Bison Range - The woman who transformed B.C. - A Dead Indian Language - Marcos: Calderon is Brought Back to Life will not finish his Six Years - Law aims to preserve - Riel Poem finds new home Native Languages with U of S - Tribes to seek new Mine Hearing - White Collar Crimes rise - Court Rules against - Reward for missing Red Lake Boys Oil and Gas Industry raised to $30,000 - MONTEAU: Final solution - Native Prisoner for Connecticut Tribes -- Officials concerned over - EDITORIAL: Royalty Rip-Off Navajo Jail Space - GIAGO: - Rustywire: The 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee Tell me a Christmas Story - JODI RAVE: Radio, TV series - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days on Indian Governance - Rustywire: - YELLOW BIRD: Five Days Till Christmas Human history: It's all Relative - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: Fontaine joins Global Lobby" --------- Date: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 05:20 pm From: frostyca2000 Subj: Fontaine joins global lobby Mailing List: Frostys AmerIndian Fontaine joins global lobby Steven Edwards CanWest News Service December 13, 2006 UNITED NATIONS -- Canada's First Nations Chief Phil Fontaine joined indigenous leaders from around the world Tuesday to launch an international campaign aimed at reigniting support for a treaty on native peoples' rights negotiated over 20 years. He said the new push will focus first on trying to convince African nations to reverse their newly voiced opposition to the draft Canada and other European-colonized countries such as the United States and Australia have also rejected in its present form. Indigenous groups hope that winning back African support will have a snowball effect that pressures the other countries into changing their positions. The African caucus stunned the international indigenous community last month when they voted in a key General Assembly policy committee to postpone action on the draft treaty after approving it in the United Nations' Human Rights Council in June. The document, which calls for international recognition of native peoples' right to self-determination and control over their traditional lands, needs General Assembly endorsement before it can be offered to states for signature and ratification. "Over the next weeks and months we will be canvassing all member states, starting with the African coalition," said Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. "We were shocked and disappointed at the recent postponement, and we feel Canada's stance is a stain on its human rights (reputation) internationally." Canada had been at the forefront of talks that began 20 years ago to create the first comprehensive treaty recognizing rights of native peoples, but withdrew support several months ago amid concern some of the finer print wasn't getting a full hearing. In a position document, Canada said "parts of the text are vague and ambiguous," setting the stage for competing definitions that could, for example, enable native groups to reopen negotiations on already- settled land claims. "I don't think anyone is acting in bad faith, rather it's just that countries feel there are some issues that need further discussion," said Fred Caron, assistant deputy minister in the Indian Affairs Department. UN officials are working to get talks restarted for General Assembly action by next fall. "It's not clear what can be achieved in nine months when this treaty has been so many years in the making," said Fontaine. But Caron said much of the current draft had been written in the last year or two after years of deadlock. "We're aiming for a declaration which advances indigenous rights in a fashion that leads to harmonious relations with the states in which they live," he said. The document as it stands retains the support of Latin American countries, where indigenous peoples make up a large part of the electorate, and of Europe. But African countries -- which vaguely define their indigenous peoples as those who maintain traditional ways of life -- withdrew their support over the self-determination clauses. While some African diplomats said their countries feared the provision could spark rebellions, a few indigenous activists charged developed countries such as the United States and Canada had pressured African nations into changing their votes. Copyright c. The Leader-Post (Regina) 2006. Rolland Pangowish Wikwemikong Community Development Group Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve P.O. Box 112 Wikwemikong, Ontario P0P 2J0 Direct Line: (705) 859-1275 E-Mail: realpang@hotmail.com --------- "RE: Settlement won't erase Memory of Racial Rage" --------- Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:53:18 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JODI RAVE: RACISM" http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2006/12/11/jodirave/rave42.txt Opinion: Settlement won't erase memory of racial rage Jodi Rave December 10, 2006 Some people argue racism doesn't exist. But for others, the pain, degradation and embarrassment of being treated badly happens all too frequently. And they are left to stew in a pot of boiling water they never asked to be thrown into. This topic and others were discussed recently during the Montana Conference on Race in Helena, which included a proposal to establish a state commission on Indian civil rights. Most people who experience racial harassment do little more than complain about it. To file a lawsuit or legal complaint is almost unthinkable. So it's remarkable that a Native family from Billings stood up, turned the table and slapped a discrimination complaint on it. The family took action after a local business owner called them "dirty" and "filthy" Indians and kicked them out of his hotel. After the incident, the Montana Human Rights Bureau, a state agency that enforces discrimination laws, investigated multiple complaints against the Billings Hotel and Convention Center and owner Ron Muri. He said he evicted the family for violating hotel policy by having too many people in a room and for having an unauthorized pool party. But the bureau said enough evidence existed to support the Hunts Arrow family's complaint of racial discrimination. Muri never admitted any guilt, but he did agree to pay the Hunts Arrow family a $104,050 settlement in June 2005. Here is the bureau's investigative summary of the event: Alice and Grady Hunts Arrow, husband and wife, rented a room at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center in September 2003. They brought their grandchildren to celebrate their birthdays and swim. The Hunts Arrow family invited friends to the hotel to eat with them. Muri, meanwhile, received word that the Hunts Arrow party was too loud. Muri told investigators the kids were "running around like little banshees." Chaos ensued after he entered one of the rooms where no adults were present. He cursed at the little girls, "called them bitches, pushed them away from the hotel door and prevented their escape," the report said. He also threw a phone on the bed after the girls tried to call for help. Boys in an adjoining room heard screaming and crying from the room. A 10-year-old boy tried to make Muri leave, and - according to the report - Muri threw the boy down. Muri denied assaulting the boy. "I have never raised a hand to a child in anger and deny having done so that day," he said. "This ridiculous statement merits no further comment." One of the girls went to get Alice Hunts Arrow, who returned to find Muri kicking and scattering the kids' clothes and backpacks as he cursed and yelled racial epithets. Rosalie Hunts Arrow asked the hotel manager to call police. Windell Williams, a hotel maintenance man, was also called to the room. By then, police had arrived. Williams said family members were angry, crying, screaming and there was a traumatized 3-year-old. In his account of the incident, Muri said the scene got ugly real fast. That's when he sent for maintenance. Williams said some people were threatening to hurt Muri - and, in fact, had surrounded him. One woman spit in Muri's face. In all, 16 people from the Hunts Arrow birthday party filed racial harassment complaints against Muri and the hotel, according to the Human Rights Bureau. Out of 469 complaints filed with the bureau in 2005, 54 involved allegations of racial discrimination. (The remainder were complaints based on age, gender, religious affiliation and political beliefs.) Muri blamed the Indians for drinking. But the Hunts Arrow family said mostly Christian nondrinkers had been invited to the children's party. And two pastors were also in attendance. Tom Howington, a non-Indian who has a children's ministry in Pryor, said the group had just blessed the food when all the commotion started. He followed others in the group to the room where clothes were being scattered. He said he heard Muri yell: "You filthy Indians get out of my hotel." Howington said Muri also used the "f" word and took "the Lord's name in vain." Several people said Muri smelled of alcohol. By his own account, he golfed the afternoon of Sept. 19, and had a "few beers." He also went back to the hotel. Cheri Milne, the hotel manager, said Muri had a drink in the lounge. Billings Police Officer Tina Meder said Muri admitted to her he had been drinking and said she saw a beer bottle in his office. Another Billings police officer, Misti Roberston, described Muri as "a jackass, arrogant is the word that comes to mind." The behavior came at a price, but the $104,050 settlement agreement will never erase a day of trauma for the Hunts Arrow family. Reporter Jodi Rave can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at jodi.rave@lee.net Copyright c. 2006 Missoulian, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Navajo Elder's dog 'skinned alive'" --------- Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:15:23 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SHEEP DOG SKINNED ALIVE" http://www.gallupindependent.com/2006/dec/121606lw_dogskinnedalive.html Dog 'skinned alive' Grisly sight greets power plant 'resisters' By Kathy Helms Dine' Bureau December 16, 2006 WINDOW ROCK - A sheep dog belonging to a Navajo elder who claims she did not sign over her grazing area, was "skinned alive, run over twice," and tossed next to a campsite occupied by Desert Rock resisters. "We have taken pictures and are reporting this terrorist act with the proper authorities. This is plain brutal and an intent to intimidate the camp," said Lori Goodman of Dine' Care. "The elders put a lot of value into training their sheep dogs and an act such as this is elder abuse," she added. Goodman said a Navajo Nation Police criminal investigator was called to the site. "He was saying that what he thought happened was the dog was run over at a high rate of speed and then it was brought over to the camp. But that's like gravel road back there. You can only go 35 to 40 miles per hour" because of the road's washboard effect," she said. The sheep dog belonged to Alice Gilmore. Goodman said Gilmore, who is in her 80s, got sick after her first day out at the site. "She's usually in a wheelchair, but she wasn't using her wheelchair and I think her feet got infected and she was admitted to the hospital the other day. She just got home yesterday, so she's immobile," Goodman said. "There were people there until like 10:30 p.m. Thursday, when only a couple people remained, and they fell asleep. Nobody saw anything. But there were track marks where the car turned around," she said. Dine' Power Authority hauled firewood and water to the resisters, who were told that BHP was going to bring a portable bathroom to the site, however, Goodman said, that had not materialized as of Friday evening. Burnham, Sanostee and Nenahnezad elders and citizens are braving the cold to protect the land from the encroaching Dine'e Power Authority and Sithe Global LLC at the proposed Desert Rock site, according to Goodman. Navajo residents confronted Dine' Power Authority/Sithe Global on Tuesday afternoon after learning of water drilling that had been occurring without the knowledge and notification of local residents. At that time, Gilmore said, "I have said 'no' over and over again and you keep coming over!" Members of Dine' CARE/Dooda Desert Rock Committee are asking for a copy of the categorical exclusion that is allowing the drilling activities to commence, and copies of the Clean Water Act Sections 401, 402 and 404, that would prove compliance with regulatory requirements. The groups say there are major disturbances taking place and according to the Clean Air Act, these permits are a pre-requisite for drilling activity. The proposed area is home to extended families, but arbitrarily drawn political boundaries by the Navajo Nation and company representatives have the families separated into three chapters: Burnham, Sanostee, and Nenahnezad, Goodman said. The boundary defining Burnham and Nenahnezad has been moved south for benefit of DPA/Sithe as recently as two years ago, the groups said. Elouise Brown of Sanostee said the local residents are not protesters but resisters. "How can those residents be considered protesters when they are simply standing up for their rights to have clean air, water, and environment," she said. Burnham, Sanostee and Nenahnezad residents didn't wait for remedy. Instead, they set up camp at the proposed site and are refusing to move until they get the documents. "We're fed up with them," said Sarah White, president of the Dooda Desert Rock Committee. "The grandmas and the grandpas are being walked over by these monsters and they're being denied information. We're standing our ground now," she said. Copyright c. 2006 the Gallup Indepenmdent. --------- "RE: Drug trafficking measure amended for Tribal Study" --------- Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:15:23 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FEDS INCLUDE TRIBES IN METH STUDY" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414183 Drug trafficking measure amended for tribal study by: Jerry Reynolds / Indian Country Today December 15, 2006 WASHINGTON - The rising opposition to methamphetamine trafficking in Indian country now includes a study by the Office of National Drug Control Policy that will yield recommendations for enlisting tribal governments in federal anti-meth efforts. The goal of the study is to improve anti-drug trafficking efforts throughout the nation, but the focus in Indian country is on Arizona tribes, specifically the Navajo Nation, the San Carlos Apache, the White Mountain Apache, the Yavapai Apache and the Tohono O'odham Nation, located south of Phoenix on the border with Mexico. Mexico is a recognized source of methamphetamine entering America. Ultimately, the tribal governments can expect to participate in the Justice Department's High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, designed to coordinate and enhance drug control efforts by law enforcement officers across local, state, federal and tribal jurisdictions. Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., offered the amendment mandating the study and recommendations to a bill, H.R. 6344 in the House of Representatives, which reauthorized the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The bill as amended passed the House Dec. 7 and the Senate Dec. 8, and will become law upon the signature of President Bush. Adding his voice to a growing consensus, Renzi said in a statement that the meth problem on tribal lands "has reached crisis levels." "This legislation ensures that our tribes have the tools they need to tackle the war on drugs head-on. I applaud my colleagues for approving this important legislation, taking another critical step in fighting the growing meth problem on our tribal lands." Copyright c. 1998 - 2006 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Chippewa delight in return of Sacred Scrolls" --------- Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:41:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BOIS FORTE HAVE SACRED SCROLLS RETURNED" http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=5914§ion=News Bois Forte Chippewa delight in return of sacred scrolls Larry Oakes, Associated Press December 12, 2006 TOWER, Minn. (AP) - For those who believe in spiritual forces, the story of the sacred scrolls of the Bois Forte Chippewa offers a wonderful affirmation. For those who believe we walk alone, the story offers an amazing coincidence. In September, members of the northern Minnesota tribe gathered at Spirit Island on Nett Lake for a ceremony. There, according to witnesses, a drumkeeper named Shane Drift recounted his recent dream that forgotten stories and songs of the tribe would somehow "come back to us." About two weeks later, in early October, the phone rang at the new Bois Forte Heritage Center and Cultural Museum, next to Fortune Bay Casino. The caller was Raymond Cloutier, a physician in Bowling Green, Ky. Cloutier said that hanging in glass cases on the walls of his study were 42 birch bark scrolls inscribed with symbols and pictures. Cloutier said the scrolls had come with a letter saying that some of the scrolls were more than 200 years old, and all originated "at Nett Lake on the Bois Forte Reservation." The letter - a report from a historical society that had sought interpretation from Ojibwe medicine men - said the scrolls depicted ceremonial songs "concerning the most fundamental laws and needs of the (Ojibwe) people." Cloutier told the astounded museum curator, Bill Latady, that he had cherished the scrolls for decades, but he had come to believe they belonged with the tribe. Last week the band announced that the scrolls are back at Bois Forte, in a climate-controlled museum room, after untold decades away. A group of elders has confirmed that they are long-lost records of the Bois Forte lodge of the Midewiwin, or Grand Medicine Society, a selective Ojibwe religious order that preserved its rites on birch bark and was driven underground for most of the 20th century, when Indian religions were outlawed by the U.S. government. "Spiritually, this is probably the most important thing that has ever happened (to the tribe)," said Rose Berens, the tribe's preservation officer. "I was awe-struck." The Bois Forte Reservation is largely in Koochiching County in far northern Minnesota. The band's elders decided the scrolls cannot be photographed, or even seen, by anyone who doesn't belong to the religious order, except for curator Latady. Berens says that even she has not seen them, and won't until she is initiated into the order next spring in a ceremony on the Red Lake reservation. Cloutier said his grandfather, Dr. Herbert Burns, acquired the scrolls when he was superintendent of Ah-Gwah-Ching tuberculosis sanatorium near Walker in the early 1900s. Bois Forte leaders speculate that poverty- stricken ancestors might have bartered them for treatment. Cloutier isn't so sure. He said Burns was a "Renaissance man" with many interests and collections, including a trove of Indian artifacts, most of which eventually went to a museum in Walker. Cloutier suspects his grandfather bought the scrolls and the authentication letter accompanying them, probably from another non-Indian. A few years after Burns died in 1949, the scrolls, packed in cardboard drums, went to Cloutier, then only about 12. The scrolls range from 9 by 3 inches to 6 by 2 feet, according to Latady. The drawings are on the brown side of the bark, some drawn with charcoal and others applied with red paint. Some images are carved, he said. Out of respect to the band's wishes, neither Latady nor Cloutier would describe the drawings, but experts who have studied similar scrolls say they most often contain "mnemonic," or memory-aiding symbols, to recall songs among a people with no written language. "The coming of the gods is portrayed bestowing creation of men and other creatures upon the land and in the waters of the earth," says the Bois Forte scrolls' accompanying report, written in the 1930s by the Becker County Historical Society. "The heralds of these gods, half land and half water spirits, serve the gods as ambassadors. ... Another song relates how the gods give the Indians the privilege of for the first time eating meat." Cloutier said that in the 1990s he became aware of a law requiring institutions that get federal funds to return sacred artifacts to Indian tribes. The law didn't apply to him, but he said a nagging idea grew in him: "The people the scrolls came from were not some dead Indians from a dead culture; they were still there, and they may have been suffering somewhat for having lost part of their culture. About the time I realized this, I stopped being an owner and became a guardian." He found the Bois Forte band's Web site, saw that a museum had opened in 2002, and decided to return the scrolls. His only stipulation was that the band retrieve them; he didn't want to risk shipping them. A few days after hearing from Cloutier, Berens, spiritual adviser Vernon Adams and Bois Forte elders Myra Thompson and Phyllis Boshey drove to Kentucky, dined with Cloutier and his wife, Joyce, and left with their precious cargo. "Once I got over the damage to my greed, it made perfect sense to return these things," Cloutier said. "Unfortunately, most of the time, these things were taken from their owners in ways that probably wouldn't make us proud today." Tribal Chairman Kevin Leecy wrote to Cloutier that his "thoughtfulness is deeply appreciated by everyone ... from the elders who listened to the songs and stories in their youth to their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who will once again have that opportunity due to your generosity." Adams said he now wonders if the strange journey of the scrolls was fortunate. Similar scrolls were destroyed by missionaries and others during the century that the Midewiwin was outlawed. "To me, they took a path they were meant to take," Adams said. "They left, were preserved and now have come back. It's exciting to see. This is where our past meets the future." Copyright c. 2006 Bemidji Pioneer. Forum Communications Co. Fargo, ND 58102 - All rights reserved --------- "RE: Tribal District wants National Guard banned" --------- Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 08:57:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TOHONO O'ODHAM WRONGFULLY DETAINED" http://www.mohavedailynews.com/articles/2006/12/13/news/state/state3.txt Tribal district wants National Guard banned December 12, 2006 TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - A district council on the Tohono O'odham Nation wants armed National Guard troops pulled from their mountaintop lookouts after an incident where tribal members on a ceremonial outing were detained. The Pisinimo District, which encompasses about 20 percent of the reservation southwest of Tucson, is one of the region's prime smuggling routes. The district council unanimously adopted a resolution banning armed Guard members last month, District Chairman Johnson Jose said. The effectiveness of the resolution is in dispute because the Tribal Council granted the Guard the right to come onto the Reservation to assist the Border Patrol, said Tohono O'odham Nation Chairwoman Vivian Juan- Saunders. As long as troops respect the nation and its sovereignty, the authorizations is valid, she said. The National Guard, which has been supporting the Border Patrol since June under a presidential mandate, will be allowed to continue performing other duties such as fixing fences, roads and vehicle barriers, Jose said. An undisclosed number of Guard members assigned as entrance identification teams have been on duty on the reservation since July, Tucson Sector Border Patrol spokesman Jesus Rodriguez said. They are not allowed to detain suspected illegal immigrants but act as spotters and direct Border Patrol teams and act as a dete Copyright c. 2006 Tri-State Online//Mohave Daily News. --------- "RE: Tohono O'odham celebrate Culture" --------- Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 08:52:05 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TOHONO O'ODHAM" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/tribes/159269 Tohono O'odham celebrate culture From revival of basket-weaving to new ventures, pride is constant Tucson, Arizona December 13, 2006 Tohono O'odham Delphine Saraficio's eyes twinkle when she talks about weaving baskets. Her great-aunt, the late Molly Lucas, taught her the art of basketry when she was a girl. She remembers taking trips to Oracle to gather the grasses used to make the traditional baskets. Bear grass is harvested in winter months and the yucca plant in summer months. The white-seeded devil's claw, which is a black seed pod, is harvested in August. At age 52, Saraficio continues passing on the knowledge to her four children and families enrolled in basket-weaving classes at the San Xavier District Education Center. She also teaches the O'odham language to students before the weaving classes begin. Saraficio is among the more than 28,000 people who are members of the Tohono O'odham Nation, including members in northern Sonora, Mexico. Its reservation spans 2.85 million acres and is about the size of Connecticut. It is the second-largest reservation in the United States. In the 1980s, the art revived after being taught in the schools, said Saraficio, a third-generation weaver who will have baskets for sale this Christmas season at Reservation Creations Indian Gift Shop in San Xavier Plaza, 1959 W. San Xavier Road. The plaza is directly south of Mission San Xavier del Bac. "Every basket is unique. You cannot compare it to others," Saraficio tells her students who use tools including an awl, a knife, nail clippers, a rock and a hammer, and a bowl with water to soak the grasses. Student Gina Ortegas, 9, is proud of her creation - a turtle that earned her a third place ribbon at a conference at the Heard Museum in Phoenix last year. "Making baskets is fun and I am learning more about my culture," said Gina, who takes the classes with her grandmother Florence Hernandez, 53. Jovanna Pena, 28, a fourth-grade teacher at San Xavier Mission School, enrolled in the classes three years ago and is accompanied by several relatives. She has baskets for sale at a gift shop at the mission. "My ancestors did this and my parents taught me to always remember where I come from," Pena said. "I wanted to learn this art because I don't want it to die. I enjoy it. It relaxes me and if I'm meant to become a master basket-weaver, it will come to me." Reservation Creations Indian Gift Shop Carole J. Garcia is ready for tourists and Christmas shoppers this holiday season, one of her favorite times of the year. On a good day, 2,000 tourists visit Mission San Xavier del Bac and about 200 will make their way to Garcia's shop. Winter visitors begin coming to Arizona in November and remain through May. Garcia, 57, opened her shop in 1990 at San Xavier Plaza. It operates daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. "I like this time of year because everyone is in good spirits. People are friendlier to each other," said Garcia, who grew up at the St. James Ranch surrounded by cattle, horses and farm lands just south of Sells. Garcia travels to artists' homes to buy pieces, or artists bring their works to the shop. There are times they meet at trade shows. "It is great to see how their children have grown up and many of them are now creating pottery or jewelry - a craft they learned from their parents or grandparents," she said. Shoppers can find Native American pieces including Navajo rugs, rings, bracelets, earrings and necklaces. There are pieces made from gold and silver with coral, opal, turquoise, amethyst and mother of pearl. There are Tohono O'odham baskets and San Carlos Apache burden baskets. The sunshine in December attracts shoppers and tourists who also come to eat freshly cooked fry bread, tortillas, stew and chile con carne that is prepared under large ramadas near the mission or at the Wa:k Snack Shop. In O'odham, wa:k means "where the water goes in," or underground spring. Garcia, who majored in education at Arizona State University and received a master's in public health from the University of California at Berkeley, has traveled the world. She said it "feels right" being at home on the Tohono O'odham Nation. "I love the atmosphere and I like sharing this beautiful place with people from all over the world." San Xavier del Bac It is known as the "White Dove of the Desert" and has stood for more than 200 years on the Tohono O'odham Nation. Tohono O'odham means "desert dweller." The mission is an active church within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson. It was founded by Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino, who laid the foundation in 1700. Kino first visited the area in 1692 and he died in 1711. The architecture is a blend of late Mexican Renaissance, Moorish and Byzantine styles. The church's laborers were O'odham and the mission was built under Franciscan priests. Cultural Center, Museum O'odham children, elders and tribal officials will be among those welcoming visitors in O'odham, Spanish and English at the entrance of the nation's $15.2 million cultural center and museum. It is set to open in May. The greetings will air on a rotating video display at the state-of-the- art structure built in lush desert south of Sells in the community of Topawa. The sacred Baboquivari Peak - where the O'odham creator, I'itoi, is said to live in a cave - can be seen from the museum grounds. O'odham make pilgrimages to the cave where they pray to their creator on the 7,730-foot mountain. Within this backdrop, the nation is preparing to bring home artifacts including pots, jewelry, tools and beadwork that belonged to its Hohokam ancestors a millennium ago. These artifacts are housed mostly in nontribal museums, including the Arizona State Museum, which has about 3,500 Hohokam objects that were collected over decades by the late Norton Allen. Allen collected artifacts from land that was cleared for cotton fields, and his wish was that the O'odham have the first opportunity to select material for exhibit for their museum from his collection. In 1994, an intergovernmental agreement was finalized that has the Arizona State Museum providing technical training for O'odham to care for the artifacts, which Allen turned over to the museum. For Allison Francisco, 32, the museum's artistic services liaison, the museum is a dream come true. She comes from generations of artists. Her grandfather, the late Asencio Antone Palma, was a woodcarver and the traditional governor of the O'odham in Mexico. "When my mother told him in O'odham about the museum, he was so excited. It's like saying a prayer and your prayer gets answered. How do you explain that feeling? It's amazing," said Francisco, who plans to return to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe to earn a degree in museum studies. At the cultural center there is a circular courtyard that faces a performance stage. There also is an outdoor cooking area that can be used for celebrations, including weddings, birthdays and reunions. Some 30 acres are designated for nature trails. There is an elders room for seniors to gather. It has a large fireplace with a mesquite-wood mantel, a pine ceiling and a large circular window with an etching of a man in the maze, a symbol that represents a person's journey through life up to death. Gaming profits Gaming dollars provide jobs for O'odham and other residents of Southern Arizona. They have built health clinics, the cultural center and museum and Tohono O'odham Community College and provided more than $36 million in college scholarships. Now, the nation is celebrating the $19 million construction of five recreational centers, which include lighted playing fields, weight rooms, computer labs and gymnasiums. "We value our people and as a tribe we will grow as a whole," said April Ignacio, 25, Sells center facility coordinator who operates programs with a staff of nine. "We have been able to bring the community together. It is breathtaking. There are no limits to what we can do and accomplish." Desert Diamond Casinos While thousands play bingo, blackjack, poker and slots, or attend sporting events, concerts and banquets, Executive Chef J. Ramon Delgado has his pulse on Desert Diamond Casinos' culinary operations. Delgado, 37, and his team of chefs work to please guests at Agave Restaurant, a fine- dining establishment that attracts world travelers. In addition to Agave, cooks prepare about 20,000 meals each week for customers who eat at the casino buffet, Diamond Grill, Diamond Taqueria and snack bars. Those meals do not include the ones prepared for more than 700 employees daily. Delgado, who is a native of Hermosillo, Sonora, is now planning for the opening in September of a hotel with up to five restaurants at Desert Diamond at Nogales Highway. "My job is very challenging and passing on my cooking and techniques is very important to me," said Delgado who creates the menus and brainstorms with his staff. "I love to see people enjoying their meals. I have a passion for my job," he said. Copyright c. 2006 Arizona Daily Star. --------- "RE: Agriculture still big in Arizona Tribal Economies" --------- Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 08:52:05 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRIBAL AGRICULTURE" http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/tribes/159555 Agriculture still big in tribal economies Tucson, Arizona December 13, 2006 Gila River Indian Community This community is composed of two tribes - Pima and Maricopa - and its roots are traced to the prehistoric Hohokam. Centuries ago the Hohokam lived and farmed along the Gila River Basin. The Gila River Reservation is 372,000 acres and is south of Phoenix, Tempe and Chandler off Interstate 10. It was established in 1859 and tribal offices are in Sacaton. It is home to 14,000. The tribe has a gaming, industrial, agricultural, retail and recreational economic base. Community and independent farming operations cultivate 37,000 acres of mostly cotton, wheat, millet, alfalfa, barley, melons, pistachios, olives, citrus, and vegetables. The operations produce more than $25 million a year. The gaming enterprises are Vee Quiva, Wild Horse Pass and Lone Butte casinos. Adjacent to the Wild Horse Pass Casino is the 500-room Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa. The resort, 11 miles from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, offers two 18-hole golf courses and a spa with 17 treatment rooms. Among the resort's hightlights are four pools, a 111-foot waterslide, and the Koli Equestrian Center for riding lessons, trail rides and outdoor events. Visitors can stop by Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, a four-story pueblo built by the Hohokam in the 13th century. It is southeast of the reservation. In February, the community offers its annual tribal fair and rodeo, and the Ira Hayes Memorial Day celebration. In March, there is the St. John's Festival and the Pima Maricopa Arts Festival in November. Ak-Chin Community The Ak-Chin are composed of Tohono O'odham and Pima and the community's 21,840 acres are 35 miles south of Phoenix in northwestern Pinal County. The tribe's lands are flat and dry, and 15,000 acres are used for agriculture and are under irrigation. The remaining open land is being used for residential development and as rangeland. The 575-member tribe operates a 109-acre industrial park near the Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway and the Southern Pacific Railroad. Major employers include the tribal government, Harrah's Casino and Ak-Chin Farms. In 1994, the tribe entered into a management agreement with Promus/Harrah's and Harrah's opened its first Indian gaming operation with the 72,000-square-foot Harrah's Ak-Chin Casino. The tribe runs the Ak-Chin Him-Dak Eco Museum featuring tribal crafts and photographs, the Him-Dak Anniversary Celebration in April, Fourth of July picnic and fireworks, Indian Recognition Day in September and the St. Francis Church Feast in October. Cocopah Tribe The Cocopah's lands cover 6,000 acres and its population is 880. The reservation is 13 miles south of Yuma along the Colorado River. The first Europeans to visit the Cocopah arrived in the 16th century and the newcomers were greeted with garden foods. The Cocopah describe themselves as "unmaterialistic people who had trouble adjusting to the ways of the Spaniards, Anglos and Mexicans who took over their homeland." They were a river people who traveled the waterways on tule rafts, poling them down to the mouth of the Colorado to collect wild wheat. The tribe's major economic resource is agriculture, and it leases its land to non-Indian farmers. The tribe keeps about 2,400 acres under irrigation. It also operates the Cocopah Casino, a convenience store, a gas station and a smoke shop. Other attractions include a tribal museum and cultural center. Near the reservation are the California dunes and Yuma historic district, golf courses and the U.S.-Mexican border communities of San Luis, Ariz., and San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora. Folks can also fish, water ski and swim at lakes along the Colorado River. Copyright c. 2006 Arizona Daily Star. --------- "RE: Indian tribe banking on Grand Canyon Skywalk" --------- Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 08:52:05 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HUALAPAI SKYWALK" http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/16237506.htm Indian tribe banking on Grand Canyon Skywalk By Chris Kahn Associated Press December 12, 2006 HUALAPAI INDIAN RESERVATION, Ariz. - A struggling American Indian tribe is hoping to change its fortunes by luring tourists out over the edge of the Grand Canyon on a glass-bottom observation deck 4,000 feet above the Colorado River. It's called the Skywalk, a horseshoe-shaped walkway that will jut from the canyon's lip and offer the kind of straight-down, vertigo-inducing views that had previously been available only to the likes of Wile E. Coyote. "We have to do something, and this is something spectacular," said Sheri Yellowhawk, a former tribal councilwoman overseeing the project. But the $30 million Skywalk, financed by a Las Vegas businessman and set to open in March, has also ignited a debate among Hualapai elders who question whether the prospect of riches is worth disturbing sacred ground. The Hualapai (pronounced WALL-uh-pie) believe their ancestors emerged from the earth of the Grand Canyon, and the area surrounding the project is scattered with the tribe's sacred archaeological and burial sites. "We have disturbed the ground," said Dolores Honga, 70, a tribal elder. She said workers on the Skywalk site often complain to her about nightmares. "Our people, they died right along the land there. Their blood, their bones were shattered. They blend into the ground. It's spiritual ground," Honga said. But other elders say the Hualapai have to do something to end the despair and joblessness that plague the tribe's 2,200 members, more than a third of whom live below the poverty line. In 1995, the tribe's only casino folded after foundering for seven months. Tourists were in no mood to travel 21 miles over an unpaved road to gamble on the reservation - especially not when Las Vegas is just 2 1/2 hours away by car. Four years later, the tribe invited daredevil Robbie Knievel to jump a side canyon on his motorcycle, hoping the stunt would raise publicity for the reservation as a tourism destination. (He made it across.) But years later the tribe's river-rafting and horseback-riding operations still draw far fewer visitors than Grand Canyon National Park, about 90 miles to the east. The Skywalk will be cantilevered 70 feet out past the canyon's limestone walls. It will be open to the sky, with glass walls and a glass floor. It will be supported by steel beams anchored 46 feet into the rock on the lip of the canyon. At 4,000 feet above the canyon floor, it will give visitors a vantage point more than twice as high as the world's tallest buildings. At that height, the Colorado River will be just a thin brown ribbon. Architect Mark Johnson said the Skywalk will be built to withstand canyon winds of 100 mph and will be capable of holding a few hundred people without bending. It will have shock absorbers to keep it from wobbling up and down like a diving board and making people woozy. "Hopefully it will give people some security," Johnson said. "They've got a little meat under them." Construction began in April 2005. The Grand Canyon Trust, one of the chief protectors of the canyon, has not raised any environmental or aesthetic objections to the Skywalk, which will be almost invisible from a distance because it will be mostly see- through, and will look puny against the gargantuan canyon walls. "This is the future of the Hualapai nation," said Allison Raskansky, a Las Vegas public relations specialist. "This is a view you cannot get at the national park." The Hualapais will own the Skywalk, but Las Vegas businessman David Jin, who operates a business bringing Chinese tourists onto the reservation, will collect up to half of the money from ticket sales for the next 25 years. Tickets will cost $25. Copyright c. 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2006 Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. --------- "RE: Am. Indian holds out hope of Multi-Targeted Drug" --------- Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 08:57:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MULTI-TARGETED DRUG IMPRESSIVE" http://in.news.yahoo.com/061209/43/6a5pw.html American Indian holds out hope of multi-targeted drug By IANS December 9, 2006 New Delhi, Dec 9 (IANS) Ananda M. Chakrabarty, an American Indian scientist, is working on a multi-targeted drug that would help treat several diseases including cancer, HIV/AIDS and malaria. 'I am trying to develop a multi-targeted drug that would work against several diseases like cancer malaria and HIV/AIDS. We have just applied to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and are studying how to move forward,' Chakrabarty told the media here Saturday. Laboratory tests have established that the candidate drug works effectively on breast cancer and melanoma or skin cancer in case of mice, helping in shrinkage of tumour by 65-85 percent. Malaria tests done in a Chicago laboratory and tests on European, Indian and African strains of HIV done in a Pittsburgh laboratory have also provided the hope of a cure through the use of protein produced by pseudomonas aeruginosa, a gram-negative bacterium. 'I am putting my trust on bugs to offer a complete alternative to chemotherapy in case of cancer. I would like to set up an institute in India in partnership to undertake research and develop next generation of products that will target cancers, viruses and parasites with one drug,' said Chakrabarty at a lecture organised jointly by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce and a pharma industry lobby. In India to address industry bodies during a five-city tour on his vision of India as a knowledge hub, Chakrabarty urged the industry leaders to help nurture innovation. Expressing keenness to bring his candidate drug to the market after the mandatory clearances and clinical trials, he said it might take three years and about $10 million investment to reach the first phase of human clinical trial to test it for toxicity. The US FDA may require his newly founded company CDG Therapeutics, which holds exclusive commercial rights to the patent held by the University of Illinois at Chicago, to undertake further tests on cats and dogs before granting permission for human clinical trials. Chakrabarty, who holds five patents in the US, is keen that the proposed Indian research centre should study whether the candidate drug would be effective for cervical cancer, which is more prevalent in India. 'If my drug passes the first stage of toxicity trial, it will be easier to gather financial support for further development,' he said. Copyright c. 2006 IANS India Private Limited. All rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2006 Yahoo Web Services India Pvt Ltd. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: American Indian Vet Cemetery Bill passes Congress" --------- Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 08:57:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="AMERICAN INDIAN VETS CEMETERY" http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2006/12/11/daily5.html American Indian veterans' cemetery bill passes Congress New Mexico Business Weekly December 11, 2006 A bill approved by both congressional chambers on Dec. 9 will allow American Indian military veterans in New Mexico to be buried closer to their native homelands. The measure now goes to President Bush for final approval. The Native American Veterans' Cemetery Act would allow tribal governments to apply for grants to establish, expand, and improve tribal veterans' cemeteries. The act was included in a Veteran's Affairs omnibus package in both the U.S. House and Senate. U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-NM, has been a strong proponent of the act. In a prepared statement released by his office, Udall said American Indians have the highest record per capita of any ethnic group serving in the U.S. armed forces, yet they lack the resources necessary to be buried close to home. Tribal members currently are not eligible to apply for national cemetery grant funds that pay the costs of cemetery creation and maintenance. The costs of burials are often expensive and many tribes chose to bury their ancestors outside of tribal land where such costs are covered by grants. The New Mexico and Arizona legislatures have passed resolutions in recent years that allow tribal governments to apply for national veterans' cemetery funding, but this would mark the first national act in support of this effort. Copyright c. 2006 New Mexico Business Weekly. --------- "RE: Tension escalates at Bison Range" --------- Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 08:57:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GAME AND FISH ENGAGES TURF WAR AGAINST SALISH-KOOTENAI" http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061213/ NEWS01/612130302&GID=EojLLYkqwz3yF1zDgQWANTvI87jvSGEEyY9QTqG/VaA%3D Tribes, feds bring in more security as tension escalates at bison range By GWEN FLORIO Tribune Capitol Bureau December 13, 2006 MOIESE - James Steele Jr., council chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said Tuesday that he felt "blindsided" by the National Wildlife Service's abrupt decision to end its arrangement with the tribes to share management of the National Bison Range. "We feel this is an orchestrated effort on the part of the Fish and Wildlife Service ... to basically undermine this partnership," said Steele. In a statement, he called the tribes "convenient scapegoats for the Fish and Wildlife Service failures." The service, which is part of the U.S. Interior Department, notified the tribes Monday afternoon that the arrangement, bitterly opposed by some groups, was being terminated because the tribes' performance wasn't up to snuff. Tribal employees hired to work at the range as part of the arrangement were given until the end of business hours Tuesday to remove their personal belongings and return any federally owned equipment, according to Matt Kales, spokesman for the Denver regional office of the Fish and Wildlife Service, who flew to Montana as the situation unfolded. Both the tribes and the Fish and Wildlife Service brought in extra security Tuesday to ensure the safety of their respective workers. "We have bolstered our (law enforcement) presence to make sure the transition goes smoothly," said Kales. "...We are looking out for the public and the safety of our employees." The refuge remains open, he said. Rob McDonald, spokesman for the tribes, said that "in case things get crazy," escorts had been arranged for 11 tribal employees, who last year replaced about half the Fish and Wildlife Service staff at the refuge. Steele said that only one tribal employee, Darren Thomas, who worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service on the range before the tribes became involved in its management, was retained. The tribal employees will be replaced by the workers who were transferred elsewhere when the tribe began assuming management duties last year, Steele said. The decision to terminate the arrangement with the tribes was based on "poor performance, failure to correct it, and egregious personnel issues," Kales said. Things came to a head Friday when the Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would take over feeding bison that were awaiting transfer to other parks, one of the duties that had been relegated to the tribes, he said. Steele said that when he visited the range late Friday afternoon "to see if the bison were emaciated as the Fish and Wildlife Service seemed to indicate," refuge manager Steve Kallin tried to block him from walking up to the bison corrals. Steele said the two had a "verbal exchange," but that the confrontation never became physical. The bison appeared to be fine, he said. Kales termed the encounter "highly unfortunate and regrettable." After spending the weekend reviewing the personnel issues, Fish and Wildlife revoked its management arrangement with the tribes late Monday afternoon, he said. From the start, the plan to involve the tribes attracted fierce opposition, with opponents characterizing it as the tug on the first thread that would unravel the entire national wildlife refuge and national parks system. "It is absolutely an attempt on the part of this administration, as well as the Clinton administration, to privatize and localize our public lands. If that happens, they'll be destroyed. The Bison Range is the beginning domino," said Susan Reneau, of Missoula, a member of the Blue Goose Alliance, a national nonprofit group that opposed the plan. Reneau pronounced herself "thrilled" Tuesday with the arrangement's demise. Gene Hocutt, another opponent, agreed, saying that "this is really about the miserable public land administration policies of this particular regime in Washington, D.C., and how they have not fulfilled their requirement for stewardship." Hocutt is a retired national refuge manager who serves as spokesman for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit group of natural resources employees that has rallied opposition to the Bison Range takeover. The tribes began seeking management of the range more than a decade ago under an amendment to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. Other tribes have arrangements with wildlife refuges, but the Bison Range plan was by far the most extensive, Kales said. But the process quickly bogged down after a poor performance review last year from the Fish and Wildlife Service and former employees' allegations that they were harassed after the tribe became involved in management. A grievance, filed after the tribes began hiring their own workers to replace white employees who were transferred off the range, has not been resolved, said Beth Baker, the Helena attorney representing the employees who filed the complaint. She refused to give further details about those allegations. On Tuesday, Steele said some Fish and Wildlife employees "made the smallest task a struggle of wills by taking a defensive posture that we were the kind of people who can't be trusted with the simplest tasks and items." The tribal employees who were ordered off the Bison Range were brought before the Tribal Council Tuesday morning "and lavished with praise... They were told, 'This is not about your performance. This is about politics,'" McDonald said. Steele said the tribes would pursue legal and administrative options to regain some control over the Bison Range. "This doesn't stop here," he said. Contact Gwen Florio at 406-442-9493, or gflorio@greatfal.gannett.com Copyright c. 2006 The Great Falls Tribune. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: A Dead Indian Language is Brought Back to Life" --------- Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:41:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MATTAPONI LANGUAGE REVIVAL" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2006/12/11/AR2006121101474.html A Dead Indian Language Is Brought Back to Life Relic of Va. Past Re-Created for Film By David A. Fahrenthold Washington Post Staff Writer December 12, 2006 MATTAPONI INDIAN RESERVATION, Va. - "Muh-shay-wah-NUH-toe. Chess-kay-dah- KAY-wak." In his house overlooking the silvery Mattaponi River, Ken Custalow said the words over and over until it drove his wife crazy. Until she yelled from the next room: Have you memorized that thing yet? Custalow, 70, a member of the Mattaponi tribe, was preparing to give a blessing at a powwow for Virginia Indians in England, part of the events commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown Colony. He was nervous. He would be speaking - and some of the audience would be hearing - his native language for the first time. Muh-shay-wah-NUH-toe, he began the salutation. "Great Spirit . . ." Then: Chess-kay-dah-KAY-wak. "All nations . . ." The words came from a language that once dominated coastal Virginia, including part of what is now suburban Washington. Pocahontas spoke it. Tongue-tied colonists littered our maps with mispronunciations of it: Potomac, Anacostia, Chesapeake. Then, sometime around 1800, it died out. But now, in a story with starring roles for a university linguist, sloppy 17th-century scribes and a perfectionist Hollywood director making a movie about Jamestown, the language that scholars call Virginia Algonquian has come back from the dead. The result, for Virginia Indians such as Custalow, has been a stunning opportunity - to speak in words that their grandparents never knew. "It was absolutely awesome," Custalow said. "To think, 'Golly, here was the language that my people spoke.' " The language they spoke was just one of several in Virginia before colonization. Its home territory probably included the lower Eastern Shore and the coastal plain between Hampton Roads and the Potomac River, experts say. The Virginia it described is hard to superimpose on today's. It was a place where bears and elk roamed, where life alternated between stints at farming villages and seasonal migrations for hunting and gathering. Then Europe landed on its doorstep. Language was one of many casualties. "It is a natural process that happens to small communities," said Helen Rountree, a professor emerita at Old Dominion University who has studied Virginia tribes. "They had to go out and speak English to do all sorts of ordinary things." Without everyday use, Virginia Algonquian withered. The same thing happened across the continent. Of perhaps 400 Indian languages spoken in North America in 1500, about 45 are in common use today, one expert estimated. The Virginia language left behind those mangled place names (somehow " Nukotatunuk," the tribe living in the modern-day District, became "Anacostia"), as well as a few words absorbed into English, like "raccoon," "pecan," and "tomahawk." A few traces survived among Virginia Indians: Chief Anne Richardson of the Rappahannock tribe said her family didn't use the word "bread." "My grandparents and my parents would say, 'I'm making up apone,' " she said. The old Algonquian word had been "apon." Corn pone shares the same linguistic link. For the first half of the 20th century, the loss of their language was a minor concern for Virginia Indians. They were often lumped into the "colored" side of a segregated society, barred from jobs and schools, and many moved away. By the 1970s, though, discrimination had eased, and interest grew in the old Algonquian language. Researching it was not an easy task. The best source was a list of Indian words and their meanings compiled by a Jamestown colonist in the 1600s. But it had been recopied by some of the 17th century's most incompetent scribes. Their N's looked like A's, which looked like U's, and they had a serious problem with spelling. The Algonquian word for "ants" had been mislabeled as "aunts," and the word for "herring" had become "hearing." Then Hollywood entered the picture. In 2003, director Terrence Malick was preparing to film a movie about Jamestown, "The New World," which ran in theaters in late 2005 and early this year. Blair Rudes, a linguist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, was hired to translate dialogue for Pocahontas's people. Rudes started with the Colonial-era word lists and scholarly work and filled in the linguistic blanks using better-known Algonquian languages from all over the Eastern Seaboard. His task was a bit like trying to rebuild modern Spanish using only a few pages from a tourist phrasebook, plus Italian. One scene with three pages of dialogue took him a month. But the director loved it. He wanted 50 scenes. Rudes translated in his hotel room for two weeks solid. At the end, people were speaking entire sentences in Virginia Algonquian - or at least a linguist's best guess at it - for the first time in 200 years. "In order to do it, you don't think about that," Rudes said. "Then, when it's all over, you look back and say, 'Wow, I just re-created a language.'" Among other things, his work has helped to dispel one of the area's most widely held beliefs: that "Chesapeake" means something like "Great Shellfish Bay." It doesn't, Rudes said. The name might actually mean something like "Great Water," or it might have been just a village at the bay's mouth. Linguists are interested in the language's tendency, much like modern German, to mash together so many prefixes and suffixes that an entire phrase or sentence is summed up in a single word. " Rappahannock," for instance, contains elements that mean "back," "current of water" and "place." "Place where the water comes back" - it means a river moved by the tides. "What are the possibilities for how humans can organize their thoughts and present them?" said Ives Goddard, an Indian language expert at the Smithsonian Institution. "Here's another blueprint, another bag of tricks." For the descendants of Algonquian speakers, who account for seven of Virginia's eight state-recognized Indian tribes, the interest is more than academic. At Rudes's request, the movie studio made his work from the movie available to them. "Win-KAW-poe nee-TAWP," Chief Robert "Two Eagles" Green of the Patawomeck tribe - a group in Stafford County without state recognition - can now say in his talks to school groups. Hello, my friend."It kind of awakens them a little bit to the fact that everybody in America didn't always speak English," he said. Some tribes have started teaching children pieces of the language; others say they want adult classes. "I would like to see it as a restored language . . . to be spoken in its fullness," said Richardson, the chief of the Rappahannock tribe. "I don't want it partially restored. I want it fully restored." A glimpse of the future might have come this summer in Great Britain, at a powwow the tribes held in the town where Pocahontas is buried. This was what Custalow had been preparing for: In the end, he didn't trust himself to memorize the strange syllables, so he brought along a cheat sheet. Custalow said he did it flawlessly, ending the prayer with the Algonquian word "NAH-daych." The crowd responded with the same word in English: Amen. Copyright c. 1996-2006 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Law aims to preserve Native Languages" --------- Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:15:23 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ESTHER MARTINEZ NATIVE LANGUAGE PRESERVATION ACT" http://www.krqe.com/expanded.asp?RECORD_KEY[News]=ID&ID%5BNews%5D=18717 Law aims to preserve native languages Source: AP December 15, 2006 ALBUQUERQUE - Legislation that establishes grants for governments, colleges and other organizations working to preserve native cultures and language has been signed by President Bush. The Esther Martinez Native Languages Preservation Act is named after a Tewa storyteller and linguist who died earlier this year. She was killed near her northern New Mexico pueblo when an allegedly drunk driver hit the vehicle she and her daughters were in as they returned from an awards ceremony honoring Martinez in Washington, DC. Her daughters were injured. The 94-year-old Martinez was known for her stories and life's work preserving her native Tewa language and traditions. New Mexico's congressional delegation said the new law helps prevent the loss of an important part of New Mexico's heritage: American Indian languages that are rapidly disappearing. The law aims to help preserve indigenous languages that are still being spoken, increase support for language immersion programs to create fluent speakers and allow tribes and pueblos to develop their own immersion programs. Copyright c. 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2006 KRQE News 13 | KBIM News 10 | KREZ News 6. --------- "RE: Tribes to seek new Mine Hearing" --------- Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:15:23 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRIBES SEEK NEW MINE HEARING" http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/12/16/news/state/54-tribes.txt Tribes to seek new mine hearing By Gazette News Services December 16, 2006 FORT BELKNAP - The case of American Indian tribes responding to environmental damage from the Zortman-Landusky mines in northern Montana merits reconsideration by a federal court, a lawyer for the tribes said. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed a decision favoring the federal government in the case filed by tribes of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. Their lawsuit charged that the government violated its obligations to the tribes by allowing the Zortman-Landusky gold mining complex on the reservation's southern edge. Ongoing water pollution from the mining, which used cyanide technology and shut down in 1998, is a major environmental issue for the tribes. The 9th Circuit decision released last month was "poorly reasoned," said attorney Amy Atwood of the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, Ore. which represented the tribes. A petition for a rehearing will be filed in San Francisco by a deadline of Dec. 28, Atwood said. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court, where Judge Donald Molloy ruled that he lacked jurisdiction. The appellate court said that Molloy ruled correctly, and that nothing in laws or treaties cited in the lawsuit made the government responsible for managing nontribal resources - Zortman-Landusky - for the tribes' benefit. Copyright c. The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Court Rules against Oil and Gas Industry" --------- Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:41:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LEASE COLLECTIONS" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2006/12/11/AR2006121100340.html Court Rules Against Oil and Gas Industry By PETE YOST The Associated Press December 11, 2006 WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled against the oil and gas industry Monday in a dispute over how many years into the past the government can reach to collect money for leases on federal land. In a 7-0 decision, the court refused to limit the number of years the government can reach back to collect unpaid royalties. The ruling applies to administrative proceedings the Interior Department brought against two companies. At issue is whether a federal law imposing a six-year time limit for the government to file lawsuits based on federal contracts also applies to administrative orders. Ten years ago, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service ordered BP America Production Co. and ARCO to pay $4.1 million and $780,000 respectively to cover royalty deficiencies on coalbed methane. The companies pumped the natural gas from wells in the San Juan Basin, which is in northwest New Mexico and southwest Colorado. The government's administrative claim was based on royalties allegedly owed going back more than eight years from the time the Interior Department demanded the money. BP and ARCO say the limit should be six years, which would reduce the amount of royalties the Interior Department is able to claim. BP and ARCO say unfavorable rulings in lower courts on the issue would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the royalty obligations of the oil and gas industry over the life of existing leases. The industry's arguments "are insufficient to overcome the plain meaning" of federal law, said the decision by Justice Samuel Alito. The justices normally do not publicly disclose the reason for not participating in cases, though Chief Justice John Roberts participated in the case as a federal appeals court judge. When the dispute between the Interior Department and the companies began a decade ago, it involved Amoco Production Co., Atlantic Richfield Co. and Vastar Resources, ARCO/Vastar, according to court papers filed in the case. In 2001, Amoco Production Co. and Vastar Resources Inc. merged and formed BP America Production Co. Atlantic Richfield Co. is wholly owned by BP America Inc. The case is BP America v. Watson, 05-669. Copyright c. 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 1996-2006 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: MONTEAU: Final solution for Connecticut Tribes" --------- Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:09:58 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MONTEAU: INTERNATIONAL LAW VIOLATION" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414189 Monteau: Final solution for Connecticut tribes violates international law by: Harold Monteau / Monteau & Peebles, LLP December 15, 2006 American Indians serve in America's armed forces at a ratio 20 times their representative percentage in the U.S. population. They have fought in two world wars and in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq against regimes that promoted the annihilation of the Jewish people. They have shed blood, been blinded, crippled, maimed and killed to preserve the Jewish state of Israel. Back in America public officials, some Jewish, expend immense energy and immense amounts of public funds to annihilate the very Indian tribes from which these young men and women come. Lest someone scream that I am "anti-Semite," I am not, and never have been. I am anti-genocide, whether it is done by gassing, bullets, bombs, machetes or by political fiat. Indian blood was shed, including that of two of my uncles, in World War II to rid the world of Adolph Hitler and his murderous regime. Indian blood and sacrifice made it possible for the world to convene the Geneva Conventions Against Genocide after World War II. The conventions recognize (as does U.S. statutory law) several acts, not just murder, which constitute genocidal acts. The conventions recognize that to single out a recognizable distinct ethic, racial, religious or national group for treatment designed to facilitate their eventual disappearance is, in fact, a genocidal act. For the state of Connecticut and its elected public officials, including its U.S. congressional delegation, to accede to the expenditure of public funds and man-hours paid for by public funds to advocate a federal policy that facilitates the eventual disappearance of its Indian nations expends tax dollars for an "illegal" purpose, a purpose that violates international laws and treaties as well as the fed eral statutes designed to enforce them. Connecticut's elected officials have gone far beyond hypocrisy and have ventured into waters that no civilized society should countenance. They want several Indian tribes in the state declared "extinct" even though these tribes have been recognized by the colonial and state governments right up to the day that the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs recognized them as Indian tribes under federal law. Now we come to find out that the state, in urging this policy of extinction on the federal government, used its political influence behind closed doors in the Department of Interior and the White House while the tribes honored the federally imposed ban on ex parte contact. History repeats itself. The Indians honor the law, the state does not; the state wins, and two Connecticut Indian tribes are wiped off the books. What a civics lesson for our children and grandchildren. It's too bad they can't blame this one on Jack Abramoff, because the state obviously used his playbook or at least that of the "K Street Project." What irony - Connecticut public officials of the Democratic Party seeking, and paying for with public funds, the influence of Republican operatives to prove that two of its Indian tribes don't exist and don't warrant federal recognition. Maybe Rep. Henry Waxman and his committee should look into this matter when the new Congress meets. I'll bet you dollars to frybread that they don't. We now apparently have (thanks to Connecticut) a federal policy that allows state governments and their local units of government to expend huge public resources to get rid of Indian tribes by advocating a federal policy of "de-recognition" of tribes that have been recognized for centuries; a policy that allows the states to prove, in essence, that they had successfully wiped out their Indian nations. To quote the words of a great scholar of federal Indian law, Felix Cohen, in the introduction of his "Handbook of Federal Indian Law": "What made this work possible, in the final analysis, is a set of beliefs that form the intellectual equipment of a generation; a belief that our treatment of the Indian in the past is not something of which a democracy can be proud, a belief that the protection of minority rights and the substitution of reason and agreement for force and dictation represent a contribution to civilization, a belief that confusion and ignorance in fields of law are allies of despotism, a belief that it is the duty of government to aid oppressed people in the understanding and appreciation of their legal rights, a belief that understanding of the law, in Indian fields as elsewhere, requires more than textual exegesis, requires appreciation of history and understanding of economic, political, social and moral problems." It is apparent that Connecticut, its elected officials, including a Jewish senator who would send our Indian men and women to war to defeat yet another tyrant who wants to wipe the Jewish people from the Earth, believes it is morally and politically appropriate to wipe Indian nations from the face of the Earth. Whether it is done by the pen or the sword, the net effect is the eventual disappearance of the Indian nations effectuated by policies like those of the state of Connecticut. This cannot and should not be acceptable behavior to the rest of the Jewish people. Cohen, as indicated by the above quote, was extremely concerned that the "rule of law" established over Indian Affairs in the course of two and a half centuries would be cast aside in favor of policies that would expedite the destruction of American Indians. He worried that the willingness to cast aside the "rule of law" when it came to American Indians did not bode well for all Americans. The Bush administration's Interior Department and the state of Connecticut have done just that - not out of principle, but rather, out of political expediency. The pen is mightier than the sword. Indian nations are wiped out with but a stroke by the federal hand urged on by the hand of Connecticut. --- Harold Monteau is an American Indian attorney and a founding partner in the nationwide firm of Monteau and Peebles, which is engaged in the practice of federal Indian law and policy. Visit www.ndnlaw.com. Copyright c. 1998 - 2006 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: EDITORIAL: Royalty Rip-Off" --------- Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:41:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INTERIOR MISMANAGEMENT" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/opinion/12tue3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Editorial: Royalty Rip-Off December 12, 2006 The American treasury is already short more than a billion dollars because of the Interior Department's failure over the last decade to collect all the royalties owed from oil and gas producers in the Gulf of Mexico. The new Congress needs to fix the problem, or persuade a sluggish Bush administration to do so. This failure ' and how much it is costing the American taxpayer - has been richly detailed over the last year by The Times's Edmund Andrews. The problems are twofold. The first is a loophole in leases signed by the Clinton administration in 1998 and 1999 to encourage deep-water exploration at a time when oil and gas prices were relatively low. The leases gave companies a break on royalty payments, but did not include a standard escape clause that would have restored full royalties when prices went up. The loophole has already cost the taxpayers $1.5 billion and, if not corrected, could cost $10 billion more over the course of the leases. A bill that would have forced companies to renegotiate these flawed leases before being granted new ones failed by only two votes in the House last Friday. Unless the Interior Department succeeds in renegotiating the leases quickly, the new Congress should pass the legislation. The more serious problem involves royalty enforcement and collection, which is the responsibility of the department's Minerals Management Service. Whistleblowers have testified to the service's shortcomings, and last week, the Interior Department's inspector general said that the service relied too heavily on statements by oil companies, instead of independent audits that would give a more accurate account of production and royalties owed. Officials say they are trying hard to renegotiate the flawed leases. As for the broader management failures, they have hired new people and begun an internal review. This is all to the good, but the Interior Department has a long history of accounting failures and a more recent history of giving the oil and gas industry much of what it wants on public lands. When Congress summons Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to testify, it will want more than promises. Copyright c. 2006 The New York Times Company. --------- "RE: GIAGO: The 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee" --------- Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:53:18 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GIAGO: 1890 WOUNDED KNEE" http://www.indianz.com/News/2006/017305.asp Tim Giago: The 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee December 11, 2006 While Americans agonize over the contents of the Iraq Study Group and weigh the options of extricating its soldiers from the middle of a civil war, the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota will gather on a lonely hill overlooking the demolished village of Wounded Knee (Wounded Knee was destroyed during the occupation of the American Indian Movement in 1973 and was never rebuilt) to commemorate and grieve the massacre of their ancestors. It was after a night so cold that the Lakota called it "The Moon of the Popping Trees" because as the winter winds whistled through the hills and gullies at Wounded Knee Creek on that morning of December 29, 1890, one could hear the twigs snapping in the frigid air. When a soldier of George Armstrong Custer's former troop the 7th Cavalry tried to wrest a hidden rifle from a deaf Lakota warrior after all of the other weapons had already been confiscated from Sitanka's (Big Foot) band of Lakota people, the deafening report of that single shot caused pandemonium amongst the soldiers and they opened up with their Hotchkiss machine guns upon the unarmed men, women and children. Thus began an action the government called a "battle" and the Lakota people called a "massacre." The Lakota people say that only 50 people of the original 350 followers of Sitanka survived that morning of slaughter. One of the survivors, a Lakota woman, was treated by the Indian physician Dr. Charles Eastman at a make-shift hospital set up in a church in the village of Pine Ridge. Before she died of her wounds she told about how she had concealed herself in a clump of bushes. As she hid there she saw two terrified little girls running past. She grabbed them and pulled them into the bushes. She put her hands over their mouths to keep them quiet but a mounted soldier spotted them. He fired a bullet into the head of one girl and them calmly reloaded his rifle and fired into the head of the other girl. He then fired into the body of the Lakota woman. She feigned death and although badly wounded, lived long enough to relate her terrible ordeal to Dr. Eastman. She said that as she lay there pretending to be dead, the soldier leaned down from his horse, used his rifle to lift up her dress in order to see her private parts, and then he snickered and rode off. As the shooting subsided, units of the 7th Cavalry rode off toward White Clay Creek near Pine Ridge Village on a search and destroy mission. When they rode onto the grounds of Holy Rosary Indian Mission, my grandmother Sophie, a student at the mission school, and the other Lakota children, were forced by the Jesuit priests to feed and water their horses. My grandmother never forgot that terrible day and she often talked about how the soldiers were laughing and bragging about their great victory. She recalled one soldier saying, "Remember the Little Big Horn." The Massacre at Wounded Knee was called the last great battle between the United States and the Indians. The true version of the events of that day were polished and sanitized for the consumption of most Americans. Twenty-three soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were awarded this Nation's highest honor, The Medal of Honor, for the murder of nearly 300 innocent and unarmed men, women and children. Although 25 soldiers died that day, historians believe that most of them died from friendly fire when they were caught in the crossfire of the Hotchkiss guns. Many Lakota have tried in vain to have those medals revoked without success. Before they died, the Lakota warriors fought the soldiers with their bare hands as they shouted to the women and children, "Inyanka po, inyanka po! (Run, run)." The elderly men, unable to fight back, fell on their knees and sang their death songs. The screams and the cries of the women and children hung in the air like a heavy fog. When I was a young boy I lived at Wounded Knee. Of course by then the name of the village had been changed to Brennan to honor a Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent, but all of the Lakota knew why the name was changed. Because although the government tried various ways to conceal the truth, the Lakota people never forgot and they always referred to the hallowed grounds as Wounded Knee and they continued to come to the mass grave to pray even though it was roundly discouraged by the government. As a child I walked along the banks of Wounded Knee Creek and I often had an uneasy feeling, it was as if I could hear the cries of little children. Whenever I visited the trading post where my father worked I would listen to the elders as they sat on the benches in front of the store and spoke in whispered voices as the pointed at the hills and gullies. Never did I read about that horrible day in the history books used at the mission school I attended. Two ironies still haunt me. Six days after the bloody massacre the editor of the Aberdeen (S.D.) Saturday Pioneer wrote in his editorial, "The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilizations, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth." The author of that editorial was L. Frank Baum, who later went on to write that famous children's book, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." In calling for genocide against my grandmother and the rest of the Lakota people, he placed the final punctuation upon a day that will forever live in infamy amongst the Lakota. And finally, as the dead and dying lay in the makeshift hospital in the Episcopal Church in Pine Ridge Village, Dr. Eastman paused to read the sign above the entrance that read, "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men." --- McClatchy News Service in Washington, DC distributes Tim Giago's weekly column. He can be reached at P.O. Box 9244, Rapid City, SD 57709 or at najournalists@rushmore.com. Giago was also the founder and former editor and publisher of the Lakota Times and Indian Country Today newspapers and the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association. Clear Light Books of Santa Fe, NM (harmon@clearlightbooks.com) published his latest book, "Children Left Behind." Copyright c. 2000-2006 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: JODI RAVE: Radio, TV series on Indian Governance" --------- Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 08:57:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JODI RAVE: TRIBAL GOVERNANCE ON THE AIR" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/12/12/ news/state/72-governance.txt Radio, TV series looks at Indian governance By JODI RAVE Missoulian December 12, 2006 American Indians are telling their success stories on radio and television, building on more than two decades of research from university professors who have spent decades trying to figure out why some tribal governments succeed where others don't. "Studies are good, but it's more important when we claim that kind of information and bring our own stories forward," said Sophie Pierre, president and chief of the Ktunaxa Nation in Cranbrook, British Columbia. "It's more meaningful for our people when it's us telling our story." The Native Nations Institute at the University of Arizona produced those stories for a 10-part radio and TV series featuring round-table discussions with American Indian political, business and community leaders, as well as scholars and educators. The series explores five basic elements that propel some tribal governments to success and others to missteps. The shows aim to help Indians and non-Indians gain a deeper understanding of successful tribal governance. "The Native Nation Building series is an excellent opportunity for us all to learn and explore contemporary indigenous sovereignty, self- governance and economic development," said Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. "Often non-Indian societies have a hard time grasping political sovereignty," Manley Begay, director of the Native Nations Institute, said in the video. "The thought is, 'We have to take political sovereignty away from Indian Country. And then we need to tell them what to do.' "It's seems as though it's in the best interest of non-Indian society to support political sovereignty. In the long run, when economic development takes place in Indian Country, it affects nearby communities, it affects the region, and in turn it affects the nation as a whole." The series "helps shed some light on the strength of tribal governments and the role in our society," said Jaime Pinkham of the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission in Portland, Ore. "Tribal governments have to deal with the same complex issues any other government has to deal with. Tribal governments are the oldest and most misunderstood governments out there." The video pieces are based on academic studies, culminated through two decades of community-based research from professors and researchers at the Native Nations Institute and the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "It examines where, how and why nation building is currently taking place in Native communities, in particular, the fundamental issues governing Native nations' efforts to exercise their sovereignty, restore their economic vitality and shape their own futures," Begay said. The research lists five key areas that help lead to tribal government success. They are: asserting sovereignty, respecting culture, solid governing institution, exemplary leadership and a plan for the future. The work provides a blueprint for tribes to move forward. "We can put it to use ourselves," Pierre said. "We don't need to have outside people coming in, whether they're academics or corporate people, to fix things. We can do it ourselves." Jodi Rave covers American Indian issues. Contact her at jodi.rave@lee.net or 1-800-366-7186. Copyright c. The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: YELLOW BIRD: Human history: It's all Relative" --------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 08:24:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW BIRD: DNA & RELATIVES" http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=20284 Human history: It's all relative Dorreen Yellow Bird Grand Forks Herald Published Wednesday, December 13, 2006 Mitakoye Oyasin (we are all related) takes on staggering new meaning as the study of DNA advances. A recent National Geographic Society's multimillion-dollar DNA research project says there is a strong possibility that we are all descended from a group of African ancestors. Human life began in Africa, the article says. A few hundred hunters and gatherers sparked life as we know it. After 200,000 years, the article continues, there are 6.5 billion descendants of this group spread across the Earth, including right here in Grand Forks. "Every drop of human blood contains a history book written in the language of our genes," says population geneticist Spencer Wells, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence. "The human genetic code, or genome, is 99.9 percent identical throughout the world. What's left is the DNA responsible for our individual differences in eye color or disease risk, for example as well as some that serves no apparent function at all." A staggering revelation, when we are so depend on that eye or skin color to categorize people. I had to smile when I thought about David Duke, former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He is labeled a white supremacist, but he says he is a racial realist who believes "all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage." I guess it's how far back you consider your heritage, Mr. Duke. As for the geneticists hot on the trail to prove their theories and with needles and blood flasks in hand they chose some of the American Indian and Alaskan natives as subjects. They wanted indigenous DNA samples. Surprisingly, some of the tribes objected. The research could clash with some of the long-held American Indian beliefs. Those beliefs are vital to preserving the culture, some of the tribal leaders indicated. For the Sahnish (Arikara) people, our Sacred Bundles contain keys to unlock the path we've traveled (they are our history books), but my guess is those keys did not reach back as far as the ice ages or the beginning of human life. Our beginnings indicate a path from South America. It's easy to believe those stories when you see the objects and lessons in these Bundles. Also contained in the Bundles are "Creation stories." The stories tell how the people came from below the surface of the Earth. They tell the stories of how creatures became birds, muskrats or beaver evolved. They provide stories to understand creation and those stories also include how humans came to be. That is a common theme among tribes. Another example is the Hidatsa, who say their Creation stories revolved around Spirit Lake. The Creation story of one of the tribes in Washington state says they were part of a great flood, and they survived by climbing a mountain. There are similarities in their story with the Great Flood in the Bible. Yet, the tribes most are concerned that the DNA research may undermine the moral basis for sovereignty and might chip away at legal claims. They may have a point. Sovereignty is always on the table and up for grabs unfortunately that has been proven time and again in our history, so much so that there is reason for apprehension. I think that holds true of legal claims. Tribes always have been a small nation in the middle of larger, more powerful groups it isn't always easy to prove our point in court. The interesting point, however, is the theme of relationship that is repeated in almost every ceremony of people such as the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Sahnish, Mandan or Hidatsa. "We are all related" those relatives also include the plant and animal world and it is repeated over and over. There also is a statement by many spiritual leaders I've heard. They say the Creator looks at people like water; they have no color. They are all the same underneath the skin. I wonder if from our little town of Grand Forks to New York City to London to Baghdad to Nairobi to Moscow or to the top and bottom of Earth's poles one day we will look at each other and see to the core who we are and come to know for sure we are, after all, related. --- Dorreen Yellow Bird is a reporter and columnist. Her columns appear Wednesdays and Saturdays on the opinion pages of the Herald. Copyright c. 2006 Grand Forks Herald, Forum Communications Co. Fargo, ND 58102 - All rights reserved. --------- "RE: GIAGO: Prayers for a Senator from a small State" --------- Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:15:23 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GIAGO: PRAYERS FOR SENATOR TIM JOHNSON" http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8449 Prayers for a senator from a small state Notes from Indian Country By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) December 16, 2006 You can take the entire population of South Dakota and put it into Albuquerque and just about break-even. In fact, South Dakota's population might come up a little short. While most of the rural counties in this state continue to lose population, the counties located on the nine Indian reservations in the state continue to grow. The new jobs provided by the advent of Indian casinos are bringing the Indian people home although on most of the reservations unemployment still hovers around 50 percent. When Tim Johnson (D-SD) ran for re-election against John Thune (R-SD) in 2002 the growing political acumen on the Indian reservations came sharply into play. As the vote tallies came to a conclusion and with only one major precinct still not reporting, Thune led Johnson by about 3,000 votes and there are those who say that the champagne bottles were about to be pulled from the ice buckets. The lonely, yet populous precinct yet to report was on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The hearts of John Thune's supporters sank as the count came in and the Lakota voters overwhelmingly got behind Sen. Johnson and he squeaked out a 574-vote lead that held. Of course Thune made a strong comeback when he narrowly defeated Sen. Tom Daschle in the 2004 campaign. The Republican political machine proved to be so effective that even the Indian vote couldn't pull it out for Daschle. Although he has spent 10 years in the United States Senate, Tim Johnson was the quiet man that was hardly noticed on a national level. He did his job efficiently and without fanfare. He made it a point to seek out the Indian leadership in the state and discuss the issues important to them. There is not one senator in Washington that has more knowledge about Indian affairs than Tim Johnson. That is why it came as a frightening shock to nearly every Indian in the state when Sen. Johnson fell ill with bleeding in his brain this week. At the Lakota Nation Invitational Basketball Tournament, a 30-year-old annual event that brings nearly 10,000 Indians to Rapid City each December, the conversations of the people centered on the condition of Sen. Johnson. The LNI, as it is affectionately known around here, is more than a basketball tournament. The event has grown to include meetings for teachers, booksellers, handball games, boxing matches and educational events. It has become the place where old friendships are renewed, new friendships formed and a time when whites and Indians get together at a sporting event that pits the Indian teams against the white teams as diverse as Custer High School. Today one could not walk through the lobbies of any of the hotels and motels without observing Lakota people scanning the headline of the local daily newspaper that read, "Johnson Recovery Probable." Television sets situated in the lobbies were tuned to CNN or MSNBC to get the latest medical reports. People were talking about how Sen. Johnson got behind the Pya Wiconi Project (New Life) to bring fresh water to the reservations and about how he fought the Bush Administration to get cut funds restored to the Indian Health Service. While the people of South Dakota worried about Sen. Johnson's recovery and for the welfare of his wife Barbara and their children the talking heads of the national media speculated about how the balance in the Senate would shake out in the event of Sen. Johnson's death or incapacitation. "They are like a bunch of vultures," said one elderly Lakota man. Shortly after the New Year I got a call from Sen. Johnson and he asked me if I could join him for dinner. A Lakota marine named Brett Lundstrom had just been killed in Iraq and the senator wanted to talk about this and to ask questions about things in Indian country. We drove up simultaneously to our appointed meeting at the Colonial House Restaurant only to discover that it was closed on Sunday so we detoured to Perkins Restaurant. Sen. Johnson asked questions about the Indian colleges, law enforcement on the reservation, about housing and jobs and, of course, he was very concerned about funds the Bush Administration had cut from the Indian Health Service hospitals. His interest and concern about the Indian people was genuine and heartfelt. I must say that I was appalled when I heard that a reporter from back East had called the office of the Republican Governor of South Dakota, Mike Rounds, and said, "I understand you have already picked a Republican to replace Sen. Johnson and I was wondering who it is?" South Dakotans may be considered out-of-touch or even a little backward, but at least we try to refrain from such acts of rudeness and inconsideration of people during their times of grief and concern. We are a small state where 10 to 12 percent of the total population is Native American, but in times of tragedy and sorrow, we all come together as one. Let me just add that today all of our hopes and prayers, whether in Lakota or English, are for the quick and safe recovery of Tim Johnson, a man who never needed or wanted to be in the spotlight. --- Copyright c. 2006 Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc. McClatchy News Service in Washington, DC distributes Tim Giago's weekly column. He can be reached at P.O. Box 9244, Rapid City, SD 57709 or at najournalists@rushmore.com. Giago was also the founder and former editor and publisher of the Lakota Times and Indian Country Today newspapers and the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in the class of 1990 - 1991. Clear Light Books of Santa Fe, NM (harmon@clearlightbooks.com) published his latest book, "Children Left Behind" Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: JODI RAVE: Conference teaches Wellness" --------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 08:24:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NATIVE CONFERENCE TEACHES BALANCE" http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2006/12/18/jodirave/rave40.txt Native News with Jodi Rave Column: Native conference teaches and inspires for balance, wellness December 17, 2006 RAPID CITY, S.D. - Marcus Red Thunder is part of a wave of wellness that's sweeping across Indian Country. "I believe I've been put in a position to continue that wave, keep it strong and build it so it can wash over our people," said Red Thunder, a motivational speaker who helped lead the Oglala Sioux Nation's Employment Assistance Program wellness conference. On Saturday morning, laughter, smiles and giggling filled the conference room of the Grand Gateway Hotel where wellness participants gathered for the final day of the Oglala program's annual Wowasi O Ecun El Watukapi, or Stress in the Workplace, conference. Chris Eagle Hawk, the eyapaha - the conference's camp crier - reminded everyone that laughter was good medicine. And it was needed during the three-day event, where speakers addressed issues such as diabetes, stress, gangs, mental health, relationships, gossip, domestic violence, and sexual and alcohol abuse. Red Thunder said Native communities are beginning to address all these issues, which is contributing to the wave of wellness. "One of the last frontiers is sexual abuse," said Georgine Looks Twice, a manager with the Oglala's Employee Assistance Program. "But we're starting to talk about it. It's a word that nobody wants to hear. We're gearing up to talk about sexual abuse. And we're not going to be the most popular people on the block." Jacob Flores, a psychologist, described domestic violence and sexual abuse as the epicenter of the many problems discussed at the conference. If you take care of the women, he said, you will heal the community of problems, like gang violence and child abuse. "The spirit of the community and the women are saying, `It's time for it to go, it's time for it to go away,' " said Flores. James Junes, of the comedy duo James and Ernie, shared his own stories about leading an unhealthy lifestyle that included alcohol abuse. Some things in our lives hurt us, or make us sad and ashamed, he said. "All of us have dealt with it in one shape or the other," said Junes. "No matter what we do, we have to make a change in our lives. You have to put effort into it, and let it go. If you make that change today, it's like taking off a backpack." The Oglala Sioux Nation's Employee Assistance Program started the workplace conference seven years ago as a way to help families heal from the devastation caused by addictions. Conference organizers aim to help people balance their spiritual, emotional, physical and mental selves. With balance, we become whole. Flores encouraged people to choose a specific area they wanted to work on, be it spiritual, emotional, physical or mental. Make one choice, he said. All the rest will fall into place. "Make a vow to change the parts of your life that don't let you honor your being," said Flores. "Some of us need to let things go. We're like little monkeys. We need to learn how to let go. Our trust has been violated. We've been hurt. We need to break that wall down." The healing can come by finding people in our lives we can trust. The people we trust are dependable and consistent. And we, too, can become a trusted person likewise by being dependable and consistent. Honor the people and activities that help keep your spirit strong and feed that spirit every day, said Flores. "Hopefully, everyone will leave here with a better understanding of themselves," said Everette Tuttle, the Employee Assistance Program's director. "We try to teach people something to take back to their community and to their programs. We hope they can leave here with a good spiritual feeling." Speakers like Red Thunder, Flores, Patrick Trujillo, Rick Two Dogs and Etheleen Iron Cloud-Two Dogs helped make the conference truly inspirational, spiritual and thought provoking. Each shared many powerful messages. Conference activities reminded us about the relationships we have with ourselves and others. I was invited to the conference to be the keynote speaker on bridging culture and community. My reporting for newspapers has allowed me to see how Native people and communities around the country are healing by building bridges between culture and community. Like others, I can see and feel the wave. Flores compared the building energy to the water behind a dam that slowly begins to breech it. It's a gradual process that will lead to a river of healing that carries one person at a time. "We're not there yet, but we can feel the welling up of passion," said Flores. "You can feel it." But he also offers these words of caution: "Our goal is to make sure the pace of our growth and the welling of the wave doesn't pass people up." Reporter Jodi Rave can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at jodi.rave@lee.net Copyright c. 2006 Missoulian, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: OPINION: Residential Schools Settlement Farce" --------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 08:24:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SETTLEMENT,: NO BLAME, NO SHAME" http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8445 Why We Are Not Sorry for Our Crimes: The Residential Schools Settlement Farce By Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div. December 14, 2006 Commentary: The perpetrators of the worst crime in Canadian history are absolving themselves of that crime and feeling quite good about it. That's essentially what's going on these days in courtrooms across Canada, in what is developing to be the greatest travesty of justice in our sordid history. In the spring of 1996, when I was asked to be an advisor to the first group of men and women who were suing the government and the United Church of Canada for their torture at the so-called Alberni Indian Residential School, I assumed, like most Canadians, that electrically shocking six year old children and driving nails through their tongues was a crime. I also assumed that when half of the children in a school consistently die every year, and their bodies disappear, those responsible would have to answer for such barbarities, like any serial killer. But what I didn't realize was that when the victims are aboriginal, and the perpetrators are Christians and their clergy, a completely different standard applies, and the murderers, quite literally, are above the law. I have had to come to this conclusion after hard and bitter experience, after twelve years of recording hundreds of survivors' stories, publishing corroborating proof of crimes against humanity in Indian residential schools, and trying, and failing, to win justice for these survivors in the Canadian courts. I have had to conclude that the deliberate genocide that killed more than 50,000 children in these "schools" is not considered a crime by Canada and its churches, either legally or morally. Since the commencement of the residential schools lawsuits a decade ago, not a single fiduciary officer of either the government or the Anglican, Catholic and United Churches which ran these schools has ever been charged or brought to trial, and not one person has been charged with genocide, murder or any other crime more serious than "physical and sexual abuses". This is, frankly, astounding, considering that deliberate acts of murder, involuntary sterilization, torture, slave labour, medical experimentation and germ warfare went on in these schools as a matter of state and church policy, and not as the result of supposed random acts of individuals, acting alone. The evidence of this deliberate genocidal policy is considerable, beginning with statements of senior civil servants like Indian Affairs Superintendent Duncan Campbell Scott, who said on record in the spring of 1909, "It is true that Indian children die at a much higher rate in our Indian boarding schools from communicable diseases ... But such is in keeping with policy of this Department, which is geared toward the Final Solution of the Indian Problem." One of his employees, department medical officer Dr. Peter Bryce, commented after his tour of western residential schools, "I believe the conditions are being deliberately created in the Indian schools to spread infectious diseases. The death rate often exceeds fifty percent. This is a national crime." (Oct. 9, 1907) All of this evidence, including the exhaustive first-hand, eyewitness testimonies of survivors of these crimes, has been completely ignored by the fraudulent court process that has pretended to bring acknowledgement and "healing" to the thousands of survivors of the residential school nightmare. With the help of compliant state-funded native "leaders" of the Assembly of First Nations, the government and churches have absolved themselves of their criminal acts by shifting the legal issue away from one of criminal liability to financial "compensation" to their victims. This travesty has killed any hope of justice for aboriginal people. For example, in the latest "settlement" offered by Ottawa, the churches are completely freed of any liability for the harm done to children under their legal guardianship in the residential schools, including the deaths of thousands of them; the original "apology" for the residential schools is abolished; and survivors must legally gag themselves and refrain from any future legal action, as must their descendants, in order to receive the whopping sum of $10,000 for a lifetime of torture and ruination. Would any "white" person, be they politician or church official, accept such a deal if he or she was sterilized, tortured, or endured the trauma of seeing friends and relatives murdered in front of them? I wonder how much Prime Minister Harper would demand if such crimes had happened to him? Of course, we're dealing with Indians, who have always been an expendable class of people on this continent. A ninety five percent extermination rate doesn't lie, after all. As a member of the culture that committed the worst genocide in human history, and continues to ravage this land and its indigenous people for its own profit, I find it quite crazy that my people, Christian or otherwise, can do such things and yet drape themselves in a self-righteous sense that we somehow regret or are sorry for what we did, and are doing. Why don't we put that myth to rest, once and for all? As a minister, I have had the chance to see close-up how people behave when they are truly ashamed or sorry for the harm and murder they have committed on others. They mourn, and tear at themselves, and are irreconcilably despairing. They don't talk about throwing a bit of money at their victims, or mouthing meaningless verbal "apologies" to those who will never recover. And they don't get fancy lawyers and PR guys to cover for them. I have yet to see a single official of the churches or government publicly mourn, or cry, for what they did to thousands of innocent native children. None of them have come on their knees and begged forgiveness to the residential school survivors. Despite all the churches' Sunday morning rhetoric, none of their clergy have closed their churches as a sign of true repentance, and mortgaged their billions of dollars in property in order to "give away all that they have to the poor" - to those they have wronged - as Jesus prescribed. On the contrary; the response of these "Christians" has been utterly inhuman. All of that tells me that my culture and former religion is a dead shell with no moral or spiritual substance left in it. We cannot heal anyone, let alone ourselves. And so, ironically, the final victory belongs to those aboriginal people who we tried to destroy: the ones who have kept their soul, and not bartered it away for the riches and power of this world, as we have done. So let's stop pretending that we sympathize for our residential school victims. Let us mourn, instead, for ourselves: for all that we have lost, and can never recover. Let us close the doors of our churches and Parliament, those dead and blood-soaked institutions, and try to find whatever is left of ourselves, shorn of our false gods and riches. Let us look for that tortured and forgotten Christ who was the first innocent we murdered in the service of Empire. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Elderly Natives denied abuse Settlement Payments" --------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 08:24:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CATCH 22 FOR RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL ABUSE CLAIMS" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/ 2006/12/14/residential-schools.html Elderly First Nations woman has claim rejected CBC News December 14, 2006 An elderly First Nations woman says she can't understand why the federal government is rejecting her application for an advance payment under the Indian residential schools settlement. In the spring, Ottawa announced it would pay $8,000 to former residential school students who are over 65. It's intended to be an advance payment on a larger cash settlement to all former students. Lillian Sparvier, 86, who lives on Cowessess First Nation, said she attended the schools in the late 1920s and 1930s. She has a photograph that she says shows her when she was with the Round Lake Residential School Choir in 1934. It's all Sparvier could find to show she went to residential school, but it wasn't enough for Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada. After she applied for the money, she got an unsigned form letter saying Ottawa has been unable to confirm her attendance. About 300 elderly people received the same notice, including Vera Delorme's 89-year-old mother. "It's insulting when they say, 'Well you couldn't have gone, we don't have records of you,' " said Delorme, who lives on the same reserve about 155 kilometers east of Regina. "It's just abuse all over again." Sparvier said the $8,000 is not a big deal to her, but she could use it. Told to try again "First thing, I'd buy myself a new couch and chair, I guess. And then put some away for my funeral expenses." Sparvier has written followup letters without success. Officials have told her to try again in 2007. Over the past 15 years, more than 12,000 former residential school students have made legal claims against Ottawa and church organizations. The lawsuits have alleged various forms of abuse, including physical and sexual, plus loss of language and culture. Copyright c. CBC 2006. --------- "RE: Natives object to `rushed' Rights Bill" --------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 08:24:22 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BILL REMOVES RIGHTS, REMEDIES" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename= thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1166050212164& call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467 Natives object to `rushed' rights bill SUE BAILEY CANADIAN PRESS December 14, 2006 OTTAWA - A wave of native discrimination complaints is expected if a bill the Conservatives introduced yesterday is passed. Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice wants to repeal a 30-year-old section of the Human Rights Act that has blocked complaints against Ottawa and band councils, acting under the archaic Indian Act. "First Nations citizens don't have the same rights and remedies as other Canadians," Prentice said. "We think that's unacceptable and we're prepared to move on it." National native leaders rejected the bill, saying they cannot support a rushed, unilateral move that would sow dissent and tension on reserves. Already cash-strapped band councils could be peppered with claims. Allegations of unfair treatment would likely range from housing disputes to fights over how higher education funds are shared to long-despised Indian Act rules concerning status. For years, the act stripped thousands of native women of Indian status and its rights and benefits when they married non-natives. Remedial legislation, Bill C-31, restored status to those women in 1985 but did so with a catch: a new Indian Act section stipulated their children could pass on Indian status only if they married another status Indian. Those who wed non-natives have been denied that ability, an exclusion native groups decry as arbitrary and unjust. The Native Women's Association of Canada and Assembly of First Nations issued a rare joint release denouncing the bill. Both groups stress human rights must be protected. They dispute how much input Prentice sought from their people. Beverley Jacobs, president of the women's association, said it developed an 18-month transition plan to help First Nations prepare for complaints and use traditional, less adversarial ways to resolve clashes. "We didn't get a response at all from the government." Assembly national chief Phil Fontaine called the bill "a recipe for ineffectiveness" that will add costs to strained band council budgets. Prentice called discussions with both groups "extensive." Copyright c. 2006 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: We move Kashechewan at its Peril" --------- Date: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 05:20 pm From: frostyca2000 Subj: We move Kashechewan at its peril Mailing List: Frostys AmerIndian We move Kashechewan at its peril Canada must listen to aboriginal people before making decisions on their behalf, says Marie Wadden December 13, 2006 MARIE WADDEN It's a shame Alan Pope, the former Ontario cabinet minister who has recommended the federal government move Kashechewan from James Bay to an area outside of Timmins, didn't speak to Jennifer Wynne when he was on the reserve. She should have been his first stop. Wynne is the community's N