_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 15, ISSUE 002 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, WOTANGING IKCHE - Lakota - Common News Wotanging Ikche and Native American News Copyright c. 1996-2007 nanews.org Aboriginal/AmerIndian Perspective about the First Nations of Turtle Island January 13, 2007 Lakota wiotehika wi/moon of hardship Potawatomi mkokisis/moon of the bear Pima gi'ihothag mashath/moon when animals lose their fat +-------------------------------------------------------+ | 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, Chiapas95-En and Native American Poetry; 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + =================== Along the U.S.-Mexico border, the body count continues to pile up daily. Meanwhile, the Minutemen patrol the U.S.-Mexico border and shameless politicians find it easy to denounce illegal immigration as the cause of all the nation's problems - including linking it with "the war on terror." Amidst all the clatter, the only views not being heard are the ones that matter most. Thus here, we bring you a truly historic column, featuring the views of those that have come before us to these lands: American Indians: "I feel that as Native Peoples of the Americas, we have the right to be anywhere on this continent as we have for generations. To hear people telling my relatives that they are "illegal aliens" and criminals and to get out of our own land is very disturbing!" __ Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, PhD President/Director, The Takini Network +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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 Janet penned this week's editorial after an elder forwarded this issue's lead story. She had to. No child could have read what I had to say after I heard the shameful actions of two Oklahoma IHS programs. Pray someone at the Creek or Cherokee Nation wakes up with a heart and corrects this situation. --- In this issue, the lead article is one we hate to see about any of our tribes. A young Cherokee couple is saddled with a huge emergency room bill because two tribes and the IHS are more willing to see critically ill Indians die than to unravel a tangle of procedural "gotchas." I realize times are hard for all Indian nations when it comes to IHS funding (and that blame rests squarely on our "fiscally responsible" federal legislators' desks, where highways to nowhere have more priority), but surely there's something somewhere in the Cherokee or Creek Nations' budgets that could be scraped together to avoid this kind of PR fiasco. Granted, health services ARE the US Government's responsibility by treaty, and they should not be let off the hook when their own processes fail, but when they do, surely tribes doing as well as the Cherokee and Creek are with their own enterprises could step in and do what the U.S government will not to protect their own. Beyond the obvious heartlessness, I can't believe either Cherokee or the Creek Nation allowed this kind of begging-for-bad-publicity situation to happen, let alone turn down an appeal. I'm not going to even go to "they should help this couple who did the only thing they could do to save a life" because I know better than to attribute compassion to government functionaries. Sad to say that's clearly as true of Indian functionaries as white. I'm told by a former nurse for the IHS who also worked in VA systems that both systems have mirroring problems in their processes and procedures, and the tribal-to-tribal processes to deal with healthcare for Indians in this increasingly mobile society are inconsistent and never work to the aass Action Tribal Suit - Alaskans face Physical - Untangling the and Cultural Erosion Mystery of the Inca - Tribes file class action - Zapatistas Celebrate Trust Accounting Lawsuit 13th Anniversary of Uprising - House Indian Committee hopes - Covering their Faces sink under Dispute in order to be seen - Western Shoshone fighting - Social Work diploma Program for 1863 Property Rights launched in Manitoba - Tribal Chairman: - Urban Reserve not supported My Home is your Home by General Population - Tribes confident of - Aboriginal Diabetics get Cash Boost a new Bison Management Deal - N.S. overstepped authority, - The Tribes are back says Millbrook Chief on the Bison Range - B.C. History, not Race, - Navajo VP throws weight fuels Fishing Decisions behind Judicial Branch - Me'tis concerned - El Paso, Navajo attempt Minister's ability diverted to find common ground - Anglicans name Bishop - Tribal Land dispute nears end for Native Canadians - The Little Tribe that could - Two Peoples linked - Lawmaker apologizes for comments by Polluted Lands - Indian Center's fundraising lags - RCMP apologizes - Sky City gains Hstoric Designation for holding Native Naked - Milwaukee Fabrication Firm - Seminole Tribe sued wins Casino Contract over purchase of Hard Rock - Lost Cherokee Group - AIM slaying hearing seeks Federal Status for Canadian Man delayed - City stops Trail - Native Justice that cuts through Cemetery -- McKinley County - Exhibits look into Detention Center NA Strife and Transition - History: Carlisle Indian School - US ATTORNEY: - Rustywire: Aunt HB Critic hides contempt for Tribes and the Indian Health Clinic - C. CAMP: Indian Country - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days is America's Waste Dump - Lee Goins Poem: The Nation --------- "RE: Couple denied Tribal Health Benefits" --------- Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 09:33:05 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SHAMEFUL DENIAL OF BENEFITS" http://www.kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=117555 Couple Denied Tribal Health Benefits After Costly Emergency KOTV January 5, 2007 A costly medical emergency leaves a young couple heartbroken and unable to pay. With their unborn child's life in the balance, the Jenks couple sought the best care they could and got the worst outcome possible. News on 6 reporter Heather Lewin says when the life of someone you love is at risk, the last thing on your mind is the medical bills. At the advice of their doctor, the couple, always covered by Indian Health care in the past, rushed to the ER, racked up thousands of dollars in bills, then were told they were on their own. After trying for three years to start a family, Patrick and Erin Matthews were thrilled that the pregnancy was going well. Erin Matthews: "I had just had an ultrasound two weeks prior, they said everything was fine, the baby looked normal, he was a little small for his size, but they didn't see any problem with it." The couple learned they were having a boy and had just set up a nursery when tragedy struck. Erin started bleeding uncontrollably and the parents- to-be panicked. Patrick Matthews: "She had made it to the bathroom and I called the doctor cause stuff was wrong and he said. I told him I'd try to get her to Claremore Indian Hospital and he said no, call an ambulance." With her life and the baby's on the line, the Matthew's say Erin's doctor told them to rush her to St Francis. It was the middle of a crisis and no one thought about the cost. Erin Matthews: "No, because they told us anything would be covered if we needed it." Erin went into shock, the EMT's told her any longer and she wouldn't have survived. Doctors helped deliver the baby, but nothing more could be done. "I got to hold him while he was still alive, then they didn't want me to stay on the labor and delivery floor, because they thought it would be too hard on me hearing the other moms and babies." Still reeling from the pain of losing their son, the Matthews were hit with another shock, word came from the Claremore Indian Hospital their claim for payment was denied. The hospital said the emergency occurred in the jurisdiction of Creek Nation Contract Health. That agency also refused to help. "Regretfully we have advised you that contract health services cannot pay for the charges for the following reason, funds not available." Even with a letter from her doctor asking that the couple, "not be held solely responsible for the medical expenses related to this unfortunate situation." still, on appeal their claim was denied. Erin Matthews: "very disappointing that they don't care." Patrick Matthews: "I'm not asking for a handout, I just need some help." Creek Nation Health administrators did not return our calls. The Matthews say they were told the tribe had already spent its budget for the year for outside medical services, and besides, they were told they didn't follow procedure, because Erin didn't first physically visit her doctor that night before going to St. Francis. Copyright c. 2007 KOTV, A Griffin Communications, LLC Subsidiary. --------- "RE: Alaskans face Physical and Cultural Erosion" --------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 08:52:41 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NATIVE ALASKA MELTDOWN" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414324 In many villages, Alaskans face physical and cultural erosion By Rachel D'Oro The Associated Press January 5, 2007 NEWTOK, Alaska (AP) - The last time chronic flooding forced this tiny Alaska village to relocate, sled dogs pulled the old church to its new home three miles away, far from the raging Ninglick River. That was in 1950 and life was simpler in Newtok, mostly a collection of traditional sod dwellings. Modern structures gradually took over the new site as the river again crept to the edge of the Yupik Eskimo community. Persistent erosion has eaten an average of 70 feet of bank a year and now melting permafrost is subsiding, further subjecting the village to severe flooding from intensifying storms. "This place is sinking," said Joseph Tommy, 48, who was born in Newtok. "If the erosion keeps on coming, we will be in a grave situation." So once again, Newtok must move, leaving residents and officials grappling with an unprecedented crisis that looms over scores of Native villages along Alaska's increasingly battered western coast. These once-nomadic people can no longer pack up and go. The crucial difference this time: finding the funds to move and to replace millions of public dollars invested in schools, clinics and government offices. Replacement costs are beyond the reach of these remote, cash-strapped communities that typically rely on subsistence foods for economic survival - and they're costs that no single federal or state entity is equipped to shoulder. "We've become complicated with the rest of the world," Nick Tom, Newtok's former tribal administrator, said as he led visitors through mud and snow, pointing out shifting houses and the crumbled soil fringing the Ninglick. "We can't even move an inch without any money." It's a dilemma taking on a new urgency as the effects of climate change escalate in a region many consider a harbinger of global warming. Erosion and flooding are nothing new here, but communities are increasingly vulnerable to melting permafrost and shorter periods of the shorefast ice that historically protected them from powerful storms. Erosion and flooding affect 86 percent - or 184 - of 213 Alaska Native villages to some degree, according to a 2003 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is trying to determine which communities need the most help from a network of state and federal agencies. "When there is a problem that develops over years and decades, such as Alaskan erosion, the perception of urgency is not as acute," said Bruce Sexauer, a senior planner with the Corps of Engineers. "The impacts of a hurricane can be felt nationwide, whereas similar situations in remote communities are oftentimes only known by a select few." Newtok and two other western Alaska villages, Shishmaref and Kivalina, face the shortest life spans at their current locations. Some officials believe conditions are most urgent in Newtok, tightly wedged between two rivers. The vast, rushing Ninglick has cut into the smaller Newtok River, turning it into a slough. This is the sewage dumping place for Newtok's 315 residents, who have no indoor plumbing and use buckets as toilets. Compounding the problem, fall storms send flood waters surging through the Ninglick and up the Newtok, turning the village into an island, said Brenda Kerr, the Corps of Engineers' Newtok planner, part of a new multi- agency effort exploring possible actions. "The water is scary enough in and of itself, and then you consider what's in it. The public health concern is probably one of the biggest triggers here," Kerr said. Newtok is ahead of other villages facing impending moves, having completed a federal land trade in 2004 for a hilly area called Mertarvik on Nelson Island nine miles to the south. But that's just on paper. The Corps of Engineers estimates that moving would cost as much as $130 million, or more than $412,000 per resident. That price tag reflects the challenge of carrying some existing structures and tons of construction supplies to undeveloped tundra - there are no roads here, no landing strip and no barge landing for large vessels - to build a community from the ground up. "The land swap was successful. It's the move that will cost us money," said Stanley Tom, Newtok's acting tribal administrator and Nick Tom's brother. About 370 miles to the north, the relocation cost would be even steeper for Shishmaref, an Inupiat village of 600 located on a narrow island just north of the Bering Strait. Estimates run as high as $200 million to start from scratch with new infrastructure - or about half that amount to move residents to the coastal hub towns of Nome or Kotzebue. Ultimately, multimillion-dollar projects to protect or move a few isolated people must be justified, especially post-Katrina. But it is not the government's role to bankroll the entire cost of building a new community, officials said. "I think there's very little likelihood that the federal government or the state government could come up with $150 million to say, 'OK, Shishmaref or Newtok or Kivalina, we're going to move you next year,"' said Gary Brown, with the state's emergency management office. "When you look at the numbers it's kind of staggering, but if a community can figure out a way through the maze of political processes to do it incrementally, it might be more palatable." Joining another community is unacceptable, said Shishmaref village transportation planner Tony Weyiouanna, who has lobbied hard for state and federal funding. In their nomadic past, Natives generally stayed within a certain region. Today they hunt the same animals as their ancestors, create their artwork with the same materials, know the land intimately. Being absorbed into another culture, even one only 100 miles away, could amount to cultural death, exposing residents to urban ills including alcohol, which is banned in Shishmaref and other dry villages. Residents fear the subsistence lifestyle on which their traditions and economy so heavily rely on would fall off, pushing them to welfare. "We would like to keep our traditions and values as long as we can for the future of our children and grandchildren," Weyiouanna said. Copyright c. 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Tribes file class action Trust Accounting Lawsuit" --------- Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 08:21:05 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NEZ PERCE FILE TRUST LAWSUIT" http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/017502.asp Tribes file class action trust accounting lawsuit January 4, 2007 The Native American Rights Fund filed a major class action lawsuit against the federal government last week, seeking an accounting of billions of dollars in tribal trust funds. With the suit, the nonprofit law firm seeks to represent over 250 tribal governments whose money has never been accounted. Eleven tribes signed on as plaintiffs in the case, the first of its kind. "This lawsuit is a reflection of a huge historical problem with the federal government's mismanagement of tribal trust accounts," said Rebecca Miles, the chairwoman of the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho, the lead plaintiff. "We have tried to work with the agencies and we have tried to work with Congress. Our hope now is with the courts." Filed on December 28 in federal district court in Washington, D.C., the suit joins dozens of similar cases filed by individual tribes. It also joins the Cobell lawsuit that represents over 500,000 individual tribal members whose funds remain unaccounted despite the obligations of the Interior Department to do so. John Gonzales, the chairman of NARF's board of directors, said tribes had to take action to beat a critical deadline. The statute of limitations to file trust accounting lawsuits expired on December 31, after the 109th Congress refused to extend it amid opposition from the Bush administration. "The real battle will be over what more the court or Congress will do to protect the rights of tribes and hold the government accountable for its duties as the trustee for tribal trust funds," said Gonzales, a former president of the National Congress of American Indians. Gonzales, who also has served as governor of San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico, said tribes are challenging the government's failure to conduct an accounting of tribal funds dating back to the late 1800s. Although the Bureau of Indian Affairs paid the former accounting firm Arthur Anderson to look ate tribal accounts, the reconciliation project only looked at the years 1973 through 1992. "We are confident that the court will agree that the Arthur Andersen reconciliation reports are not full and complete accountings," said Gonzales. John Echohawk, the executive director of NARF, said the Arthur Anderson project marked another breach of the federal government's basic trust responsibilities. In legal filings, the Department of Justice has argued that the reconciliation reports are an accounting even though the Government Accountability Office has said such an accounting is "impossible" due to inaccurate, missing or destroyed records. "The bottom line is that despite the agency reports and twenty years of Congressional mandates, no adequate accountings have resulted to date," said Echohawk, a member of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, citing attempts by the GAO, Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General and Congress to shed light on the issue. Despite the failure to complete the accountings, the Department of Justice has repeatedly sounded alarms about massive tribal trust fund litigation. In testimony to Congress, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has begged appropriators for money in order to defend the government and "limit" its liabilities. "The United States' potential exposure in these cases is more than $200 billion," Gonzales has said. Tribes and individual Indians have been filing breach of lawsuits for decades, recovering some money here and there. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians commissioned a study that showed only about a dozen cases resulted in awards of more $1 million. It wasn't until Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation of Montana, came into the picture that the legal landscape exploded. In December 1999, she won a precedent-setting ruling that required the government to conduct an accounting of all funds. NARF serves as co- counsel on the case. At least 50 tribes have followed on Cobell's footsteps with lawsuits of their own. As the December 31 deadline approached, dozens more considered their options but grappled with the cost of filing a claim and the resources needed to carry it through. "Moreover, over two hundred and fifty tribes have not brought or are unable to bring such claims either due to lack of resources, or because they are unaware that their legal rights are in jeopardy, of expiring under statutes of limitation," NARF's filing stated. "Hence, this class action is necessary to protect the rights of tribes in the class as defined in this complaint." Since 2001, the Bush administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on accounting projects for tribes and individual Indians. But none of the tribal cases, nor the Cobell case, have been fully resolved through the courts or through settlements. Key Senate and House leaders introduced a bill to settle the Cobell case for $8 billion. It was met with extreme opposition in Indian Country after the Bush administration also proposed to settle all pending and future tribal claims and radically diminish the trust relationship. In addition to the Nez Perce Tribe, the other named plaintiffs are the Mescalero Apache Nation of New Mexico, the Tule River Tribe of California, the Hualapai Tribe of Arizona, the Yakama Nation of Washington, the Klamath Tribes of Oregon, the Yurok Tribe of California, the Cheyenne- Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma, and the Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska. Copyright c. 2000-2007 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: House Indian Committee hopes sink under Dispute" --------- Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:05:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INDIAN COMMITTEE SABOTAGED BY DISPUTE" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414315 House Indian committee hopes sink under dispute by: Jerry Reynolds / Indian Country Today January 5, 2007 WASHINGTON - A proposed Indian Affairs committee in the House of Representatives won't happen for now, according to several Capitol Hill sources. Instead, the Resources Committee will remain the principal committee of jurisdiction on Native-specific issues in the House. It has been criticized, overtly in recent months, for putting Native issues in competition with multiple state-based issues that come before its 49 members (at last count). A handful of national tribal organizations, congressional members and lobbyists approached House leadership about establishing an Indian Affairs committee following the November elections, which gave Democrats a majority in the chamber for the first time since 1994. "With everything going on in the transition, this was a jurisdictional dispute they didn't want to take on," said a Democratic lobbyist, referring to the transfers of power taking place on Capitol Hill as Democrats replace Republicans as the majority party in Congress. The lobbyist, the only one of several informants outside the government willing to speak for the record (though still not for attribution), said that several committees of the House are locked in disputes on oversight authority - Judiciary and Homeland Security are in a feud, Energy and Commerce and Banking are in another. The House Resources Committee would have to cede its jurisdiction over Indian issues to establish a permanent Indian Affairs Committee, the Democratic lobbyist said, adding that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her leadership team considered it a struggle they could do without. The Democratic majority has charted an ambitious agenda for the 110th Congress, which opened January 4. The lobbyist said that tribes and Reps. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., and Tom Cole, R-Okla., will continue to advocate on Capitol Hill for an Indian Affairs committee in the House. Jim Zoia, staff director for the Democratic majority on Resources, confirmed that an Indian Affairs committee will not transpire in the 110th Congress. "We haven't had any consultation on this matter," he said, speaking for Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., the new chairman of Resources, and committee staff. The closest thing Rahall and committee staff have gotten to consultation on a permanent Indian Affairs committee has come during visits to the office by Tex Hall, former chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and current board chairman of the Inter-Tribal Economic Alliance. Zoia said Rahall's position has always been clear - he won't sign off on laws or policies that affect tribes without tribal consultation. Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Western Shoshone fighting for 1863 Property Rights" --------- Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:05:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WESTERN SHOSHONE TREATY RIGHTS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2007/jan/06/010610487.html Western Shoshone keep fighting for 1863 treaty property rights By KEN RITTER ASSOCIATED PRESS January 6, 2007 LAS VEGAS (AP) - The way Allen Moss sees it, most of the riches of Nevada - from the Las Vegas Strip to the state's gold mines - belong to an American Indian tribe. Keep Las Vegas, he said. But the Western Shoshone tribal leader wants to reclaim ancestral lands stretching from California through Nevada and Utah to Idaho. Time after time, in lawsuit after losing lawsuit, the Western Shoshone National Council and its members have been turned aside as they try to use a 19th-century treaty to win back what they say has been improperly taken by the U.S. government. "Las Vegas is on Shoshone land. The gold mines, that's all Shoshone," said Moss, Reno-area representative to the eight-member tribal council in Nevada. "People don't understand how much money, how many resources are coming out of Shoshone country." The tribe never used lines on a map until the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley, which the Shoshone say gave them to up to 93,750 square miles of ancestral lands. Las Vegas would tuck into a notch on those lines. Tribe members insist the treaty, ratified by Congress in 1866, grants the Shoshone, not the federal Bureau of Land Management or other agencies, royalties and final say over water, mineral and property rights in an area the size of the state of Maine. The hot, harsh desert area bears small bounties of pine nuts and medicinal herbs. The rugged hills have yielded $20 billion worth of gold over the years - third behind Russia and South Africa in world gold production, a lawyer for the tribe said. Moss estimates the number of Shoshone at between 5,000 and 8,000 - descendants of people who lived in lands from the Snake River Valley in Idaho to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah, across most of eastern and central Nevada, and in Death Valley and the Mojave Desert in California. To reclaim the lands and win some legal footing, the tribe has taken its case to fence lines, courts, international tribunals and the public. It sued to block the nation's nuclear waste from being stored in Nevada. It succeeded in postponing government plans to explode a bomb that would send the first mushroom cloud in decades over the desert. And the tribe went all the way to Switzerland to ask the United Nations to intervene in the land rights dispute. The tribe keeps losing on most fronts, but also keeps appealing - and some cases have notched a place in Western lore. Tribal elder Carrie Dann and her late sister Mary became famous for defying the government while losing a quarter-century battle to graze cattle on federal lands next to their Crescent Valley ranch without authorization. The Supreme Court ruled against the tribe in another case in 1979, saying the Treaty of Ruby Valley gave the U.S. trusteeship over the tribal lands. A Sept. 20 Court of Claims ruling in Washington, D.C., took the government position that the treaty was "merely one of friendship and that it conveyed no treaty rights." Lawyer Bob Hager, who has been handling Western Shoshone cases for free since 1983, maintains the tribe is losing on technicalities. He said the tribal claim finally got traction - and attention - with the U.N. Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination last year in Geneva. The panel cited concern about the privatization of Western Shoshone ancestral lands for mining and energy developers and cited federal efforts to open a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "The thrust of our argument is that there has been no fair adjudication of claims," said Hager, of Reno. "The Organization of American States in 2002 and the U.N. panel last year reached the same conclusion, that the Western Shoshone were denied due process and equal protection." Cynthia Magnuson, a U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman in Washington, said the government would not comment on the lawsuits or on the ruling by the U.N. panel. She noted that arguments in the Court of Claims appeal were due this month. "Generally, while things are pending, we do our talking in court," Magnuson said. The government has offered tribal members money, arguing it isn't realistic to expect the U.S. to give back lands acquired through "gradual encroachment" and now dotted with cities, crisscrossed by interstate highways and railroads, and used for mining, ranching and recreation. A law signed by President Bush in 2004 approved distribution to tribal members of more than $145 million, including some $26 million the federal Indian Claims Commission awarded in 1979 based on the 1872 value of 24 million acres. Some Shohones have said they would take the cash, but others balked. Moss, who loads preprinted newspaper advertisements for a living, said the distribution money won't be touched because to take it would concede the government's position. "Our land is not for sale," he said. The money continues to collect interest. Hager said he intends to appeal federal court dismissal of a lawsuit in Nevada challenging the distribution plan. Tribal chief Raymond Yowell claims Congress erred in approving the distribution, because lawmakers were told the federal land claims had been decided and the Western Shoshone had agreed to the amount. Another case pending in federal court in Reno seeks to void the 19th century transfer by the U.S. to the Union Pacific Railroad Co. and seven other large landholders of land, minerals and water in a so-called "checkerboard" pattern. The Western Shoshone also are appealing a federal court ruling last year that the court lacked jurisdiction and that too much time had passed since a landmark 1951 ruling to decide the tribe's treaty rights claim. The 1951 case, filed with the Indian Claims Commission, cut the size of the Western Shoshone aboriginal land claim from 60 million to 24 million acres. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dann case in 1985 that the tribe lost title to the land when the $26 million was deposited as payment - even though the money was never collected. Hager said a court decision whether the Western Shoshone could invoke aboriginal rights to block a planned non-nuclear "Divine Strake" weapons explosion at the Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas could prove pivotal to the tribal claim. Moss isn't sure his sons, now 25 and 21, will take up the decades-long fight. "They can't believe how long the battle has taken," said Moss, 52. "They were taught in school this is a land of laws. I sit here saying, 'This is how the laws have been manipulated and twisted.'" "The Indians look at the ground as being sacred, including the water," he said. "The whole thing boils down to, 'How many times can you break the law or twist the law in your favor?' That's what the government has done." Copyright c. 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 1996 - 2007 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. --------- "RE: Tribal Chairman: My Home is your Home" --------- Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:05:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TURTLE MOUNTAIN CHAIRMAN TO LEGISLATURE" http://www.minotdailynews.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=7909 Tribal chairman: `My home is your home' By GWEN BRISTOL, Correspondent January 7, 2007 BISMARCK - David Brien, tribal chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, listed poverty as a primary area of concern to tribal leaders and said that the Legislature could help by initiating research groups to help analyze problems during the State of the Tribal-State Relationship address to a joint session of Legislature on Friday. Brien defined the poverty as the lack of a job, the lack of adequate medical care, the lack of decent houses that tribal members could call their own, poor water quality, and poor road systems on tribal lands. "Of course that will lead to appropriation dollars to solve these issues," he said. "There's all this extra money out there. We'd love some of those extra dollars. All of these issues can be solved by focusing on the family." Brien said that another part of his solutions also included education. "It is very important to support dialogue between our tribal colleges and the university system," he said." It is proven that poor people with access to good education change the quality of their lives and become leaders in their communities." Speaking directly to the Legislature and Governor Hoeven, Brien said they could help by continuing to support the Indian Affairs Commission and the Indian Legislative Dialogue Group. "My home is your home, new friends. And my community is your community in brotherly communion and love," Brien concluded. Chairmen from the Standing Rock Tribe, the Spirit Lake Nation, the Three Affiliated Tribes and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate were also present for the address. Copyright c. 2007 Minot Daily News. --------- "RE: Tribes confident of a new Bison Management Deal" --------- Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 08:29:12 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FISH AND WILDLIFE CONTINUE HARDBALL TACTICS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/01/03/news/mtregional/news03.txt Tribes confident of a new bison management deal By VINCE DEVLIN of the Missoulian January 3, 2007 PABLO - Wednesday will be the earliest opportunity that Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal officials will have to talk with federal officials about last week's surprise announcement that the Interior Department again wants the tribes involved in managing the National Bison Range. But tribal chairman James Steele Jr. said Tuesday he is confident the tribes will enter into another annual funding agreement that will put tribal members back at work alongside U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel at the wildlife refuge. "The Salish, Kootenai and Pend d'Orielle people are bound and determined to see this thing work," Steele said. "Will we reach a point where all sides are happy? I don't think so. But a best-case scenario will be a situation where there is full, fair, honest and complete participation on both sides." Steele knows that will be easier said than done. Tensions mounted at the range over a 14-month period while the tribes were contracted to perform some duties previously carried out by FWS employees. The Fish and Wildlife Service accused the tribes of failing to perform some of those duties properly, neglecting others altogether, and said that tribal employees created a hostile work environment - charges the tribes strongly deny. Tribal employees, meantime, accused the FWS of deliberately sabotaging their work in a turf war designed to return the tribal jobs to federal employees, while the government insisted it had gone the extra mile to help the tribes succeed. Everything came to a head on Dec. 11, when Dale Hall, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, abruptly pulled the plug on the annual funding agreement, citing poor job performance and hostile working conditions. Tribal employees were locked out of the range and required to turn in their gear the next day. Just 18 days later, the Interior Department, which oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, overturned Hall's decision. In an announcement made by Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett, Associate Deputy Interior Secretary Jim Cason and Hall, the department and FWS announced their intention to re-establish a working relationship with the tribes. "At least someone at the Department of Interior considered our concerns and saw problems with the unilateral action taken by the Fish and Wildlife Service," Steele said. "They revisited the decision, and we appreciate it. Now potentially we can work to an agreement where we can all work together." The announcement also included the news that an ombudsman would be retained to assist Interior officials in identifying and resolving problems and conflicts at the range, that Cason and Hall would travel to Montana to discuss management issues and concerns with FWS and tribal personnel, and that an earlier process to phase in full tribal management at the range would be suspended for now. The tribes' involvement is opposed by many national environmental groups, including Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which fear the move will be the first step in the weakening or dismantling of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Tribal leaders disagree. "I don't see a national movement to privatize refuges or bison ranges," Steele said. "Even if there is, it has nothing to do with this range. This will still be a federal bison range, on federal property, governed by federal laws. The only thing different would be tribal involvement. It would be best if both sides worked together for the betterment of the bison and the other wildlife and vegetation on the refuge, for the betterment of all American people." Acts of Congress allow Indian tribes to seek involvement in, and control over, many federal lands where they can demonstrate a cultural, historical or geographic connection. The bison at the refuge descend from bison brought to the Mission Valley, and owned, by Indians. The range's 18,500 acres sit within the boundaries of the Flathead Reservation. It would be one thing if opponents had stuck to their argument that the National Wildlife Refuge System needed to stay intact, Steele said. But he feels the tribes' name has been unfairly dragged through the mud in an effort to subvert tribal involvement at the refuge. Calling the charges "a red herring," Steele added, "PEER and others concerned with privatization have used the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes as a lightning rod to stir up opposition." "They went after our credibility," said CSKT spokesman Rob McDonald. Steele repeatedly pointed to the tribes' management of a federal utility on the Flathead Indian Reservation since 1988 as an example of how CSKT can perform, given the chance. Mission Valley Power has a $20 million operational budget and sound management, Steele said, and provides low-cost power to everyone on the reservation, both tribal and non-tribal members. "Mission Valley Power is still a federal utility that falls under federal law and guidelines," the chairman said. "It serves all the people on the reservation no matter what their race. If we're capable of figuring that out, we're capable of figuring out the Bison Range. I know it's apples and oranges, but our people have had an interaction with bison for hundreds of thousands of years. We have a much shorter history with electricity." The presence of U.S. Fish and Wildlife law enforcement officers on the day tribal employees turned in their gear was "unfortunate," Steele said. "It's quite indicative of the mind-set of the Fish and Wildlife Service," he went on. "To have law enforcement forcibly remove our personnel was a humiliating thing. We've been very professional throughout this whole deal." Now, if the tribal council signs off on it, the deal is on again. Tuesday was a federal holiday, and FWS and Interior Department spokespeople were not available for comment. Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at (406) 319-2117 or at vdevlin@missoulian.com. Copyright c. 2007 Missoulian, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: The Tribes are back on the Bison Range" --------- Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:05:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="DoI REESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIP" http://www.charkoosta.com/2003_01_04/NBR_CSKT_reconcile.html The Tribes are back Interior officials to reestablish working relationship with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the FWS January 4, 2007 WASHINGTON, D.C. - What better way to ring in the New Year than to rekindle a relationship with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. On Friday, December 29, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Dale Hall and Associate Deputy Interior Secretary Jim Cason, announced their intention to reestablish a working relationship between the FWS and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation for the management and operation of the National Bison Range. "The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are pleased to see that the U.S. Interior Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are working to re-establish an Annual Funding Agreement with the Tribes to perform activities at the National Bison Range. This represents a positive step forward for the partnership, which the Tribes have long endeavored to create. We were shocked by the recent action of the regional office of the Fish and Wildlife Service to terminate negotiations towards a new agreement, and even more shocked to see in the news media the unsupported allegations made about the Tribes by a regional FWS spokesperson," the Tribes stated in release from its communications director Rob McDonald. The Tribes further stated: "We appreciate the observations of Mitch King, the Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Mountain Prairie Region, who made the following statement about the Tribes in September: "I have worked directly with the CSKT's Wildlife Program and I rank them among the best in tribal programs and as good as many state Fish and Wildlife agencies. I have no doubt that the CSKT Wildlife Program can do a good job in managing the National Bison Range. The 2005 Accomplishment Report should not be construed as a negative report. That report was developed as a tool for use in identifying strengths and weaknesses during the first year of a very complicated agreement. It has been very helpful in that regard and both the Tribes and the Service have taken steps to address identified problems. Many have misused this report by focusing solely on the weaknesses in the report and ignored the successes. I am confident that the CSKT management activities at the Bison Range will continue to improve and that this partnership will be a success." The Tribes were the first Indian nation in the United States to establish a Wilderness Area located in the Mission Mountains, a prime habitat area for grizzly bears. The Natural Resources Department also manages Big Horn sheep in tribally designated areas. Under the agreement, the FWS will continue to manage the range as a national wildlife refuge. The tribes will undertake field and maintenance work, animal care and related duties on the range. The NBR is completely encompassed within the Flathead Reservation in northwestern Montana. In 2005, following the requirements of the Tribal Self-Governance Act, the FWS entered into an Annual Funding Agreement (AFA) with the Tribes to perform certain non-managerial functions on the range during Fiscal Year 2006. The Act instituted a permanent self-governance program at the Interior Department, under which certain programs, functions, services and activities of the Department are eligible to be planned, conducted, consolidated and administered by a self-governance tribal government. The intention to create a new relationship announced on Friday envisions an AFA for fiscal year 2006 containing substantially the same terms as the 2006 AFA. An earlier process to phase-in full tribal management of the refuge will be suspended at this time. "We must seek to build the foundations for future management in a way that fulfills all of the Department's obligations - to the refuge, to tribes, and to the American public," Scarlett said. In addition, Scarlett, Hall and Cason have agreed: * to draft a National Bison Range operations plan that will clearly spell out the mission, goals, objectives and tasks envisioned for the range for the next five years; * that senior Interior officials, including Hall and Cason, will travel to the range to discuss management issues and concerns with FWS employees and the tribes' employees; * to continue acting on Equal Employment Opportunity complaints that have been filed and seek appropriate personal relief for legitimate grievances; * to retain an ombudsman to work at the range to assist the senior Interior officials in identifying and effectively resolving any problems or conflicts related to the management and operation of the range; * to undertake the drafting of a decision document that would critically examine all long-term options for the most effective management of the range. "We are pleased to see that the Service's arbitrary action to terminate our negotiations and agreement have been reconsidered and we very much look forward to working with the Service and the Department to build a stronger partnership at the Bison Range. We believe we can work together to continue to benefit the Bison Range, its bison and other natural resources. The Tribes would like to thank all of those in our local community, as well as those around the country, who have expressed their support for our presence at the Bison Range," stated the Tribes. Cason is the Department official who performs the duties of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs until a new assistant secretary is confirmed. CSKT have managed several programs within the Interior Department, such as Mission Valley Power; the utility for 20 years and the Department of Interior's Safety of Dams for many years. They have successfully managed the Department of Labor's Kicking Horse Job Corps Center on the reservation since 1970. Kicking Horse was the first all-Indian Job Corps Center contracted from DOL's Employment and Training Administration. The Flathead Indian Reservation is home for approximately 5,000 Salish and Kootenai tribal members who live on the reservation with an additional 2,000 members who reside throughout the United States and Canada. The Tribes are the largest employer in Lake County with approximately 1,200 employees, many of which are not tribal members. The Tribes most recent endeavor includes successfully launching the new full-service bank, the Eagle Bank in Polson. Copyright c. 2007 Char-Koosta News. --------- "RE: Navajo VP throws weight behind Judicial Branch" --------- Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:05:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="DAYISH RETIRES, TAKES STAND FOR JUDICIAL BRANCH" http://www.gallupindependent.com/2007/jan/010607kh_vppartingshots.html VP takes parting shots Dayish throws weight behind Judicial Branch By Kathy Helms Dine' Bureau January 7, 2007 WINDOW ROCK - Navajo Nation Vice President Frank Dayish Jr., in a final gesture as he leaves office, has thrown his weight behind the Judicial Branch, urging President Shirley not to veto the appropriations act. Dayish sent a memo Thursday to Shirley, reminding him that the Executive Branch has publicly acknowledged the severe underfunding of the Judicial Branch. "On April 6, 2007, as president of the Navajo Nation, you testified before the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee and emphasized that the Navajo Nation Judicial Branch struggles to provide the services it is mandated to provide. "You brought national attention to the 'dilapidated trailers' in which the Judicial Branch administrative services are housed (locally referred to as the "trailers of justice"). "Currently, the national proposed budget for 2006 cuts funding for tribal courts across the board," Dayish said. The Judicial Branch Appropriations Act of 2006, which recently passed the Navajo Nation Council by one vote, would require that, beginning with Fiscal Year 2008, net revenues into the General Fund would be divided annually between the three branches for their operating funds. The General Fund comprises less than one third of total Navajo Nation revenues. Under the act, the Judicial Branch would receive 10 percent, with the remaining 90 percent divided among Executive and Legislative. Dayish said net revenue means that these percentages will be applied against the revenues remaining after all the mandatory set-asides, such as for the Permanent Trust Fund and the Land Acquisition Fund. The act would not increase or decrease funds from other sources to any branch, he said. Obligation Fixed cost remains an obligation of the three branches on which the branch leadership must discuss and agree on use and amounts to be set aside each fiscal year, the vice president said. "Executive Branch and Legislative Branch functions will not be adversely affected by the act in actual money terms," Dayish said. "On the other hand, Judicial Branch resources will obtain some stability and some freedom with which to implement the mandate of the Dine Fundamental Law and its core functions under the Navajo Nation Code," he said. In a separate interview, Dayish said that if the president is concerned about overspending and is stating the 20th Navajo Nation Council needs to demonstrate financial restraint, he needs to serve as a role model by beginning to cut costs at the Executive Branch. "Cost-cutting measures could begin with eliminating duplication of services with OnSat. The Navajo Nation already has a qualified IT (Information Technology) department which provides technology services to the Navajo Nation," Dayish said. "At a more personal level, he could reduce the amount of vehicles the Navajo Nation provides for him as the president. Why does he have three vehicles when there are only two licensed drivers in his household?" The vice president said personal vehicles are assigned to certain Executive Branch staff members and that one drives a vehicle no other staff member is allowed to utilize. The Navajo Nation also pays for a vehicle for Chief of Staff Patrick Sandoval, according to the vice president. Salaries Dayish said salaries of political appointees at the Executive Branch need to be re-evaluated and should reflect the education and expertise of qualified individuals hired to serve the constituents of the Navajo Nation. There are 26 to 30 staff members including division directors, staff assistants in Window Rock, and the Navajo Nation Washington Office, Dayish said. "George Hardeen, the spokesperson and press officer for the Office of the President and Vice President, makes in excess of $80,000. Since his hire, he has not provided much press coverage for the Office of the Vice President," Dayish said. The Executive Branch also needs to make available to the general public the amount of fees being paid to tribal consultants, according to the vice president. Contradictions An analysis from the president's office on the impact to the three branches, suggested that 80 student scholarships and 42 employee positions would have to be cut in order to give Judicial extra funds. Dayish said that just last week, Chief of Staff Sandoval reiterated in a local newspaper that education is still the president's No. 1 initiative. "This week, he sends a different message to the people and college students." "Cutting 42 employee positions doesn't make sense when there are already positions available that are not filled but money is set aside for the positions," he said. In his letter to President Shirley on the appropriations act, Dayish said, "There is an inherent tension in budget matters between any branches of government. In times of fiscal crisis, this tension becomes more pronounced. "The act seeks to remove tension entirely in the spirit of K'e by proposing a fixed percentage allocation to the Judicial Branch and the remaining 90 percent to be divided up between the Executive and Legislative branches." Dayish said the act recognizes the need for smooth inter-branch relations, free of tension, in budget matters. "Most importantly, the Navajo Nation must have an independent Judiciary, free from political interference from within and outside our government," he said. Urging Shirley to sign the appropriations act, which the president is expected to veto, Dayish said his signature would ensure the Judicial Branch would be able to provide much-needed services to benefit the Navajo people. "We are all aware that our Navajo Nation courts address a myriad of criminal, civil and domestic violence cases on a daily basis," the vice president said. Copyright c. 2007 the Gallup Independent. --------- "RE: El Paso, Navajo attempt to find common ground" --------- Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 08:29:12 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="EL PASO NATURAL GAS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4440246.html El Paso, Navajo attempt to find common ground Negotiations over pipelines, land over a year old By DAVID IVANOVICH January 2, 2007 WASHINGTON - El Paso Corp. and the Navajo Nation continue to try to hammer out a new right-of-way agreement for a key natural gas pipeline running across tribal lands. The Houston-based energy company and the Navajo have been negotiating for well over a year over how much El Paso should pay for the right to operate the pipeline on the reservation. The parties had hoped to reach an accord by the end of December. But failing that, they continue to talk. "We continue to be hopeful that we can reach a resolution of the right- of-way issue that will be beneficial to both the Navajo Nation and El Paso, " company spokesman Richard Wheatley said. A spokesman for Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday. El Paso's pipeline network cuts through the large expanse of tribal lands, transporting 2.5 billion cubic feet of gas a day to Southern California and other Western markets. That's enough natural gas to power plants capable of providing electricity for 15 million homes. Meanwhile, many on the reservation have no access to electricity, natural gas or even running water. When El Paso and the Navajo negotiated their last contract back in 1985, the company agreed to pay $29 million over 20 years for the rights to cross tribal lands. That contract expired in October 2005. This time, the Navajo have demanded El Paso pay $440 million for a new 20-year deal. And at one point, the company countered with a $200 million offer. El Paso's protracted negotiations with the Navajo has been closely watched by other pipeline companies and Indian tribes, as well as electric utilities and consumer groups. Similar disputes have erupted across the country, with tribes seeking redress for what they view as decades of unfair treatment. The Navajo are the nation's second-largest Indian tribe, according to 2000 census figures. The reservation, home to about 250,000, suffers from high unemployment. david.ivanovich@chron.com Copyright c. 2007 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau. --------- "RE: Tribal Land dispute nears end" --------- Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 08:29:12 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FT. RENO" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.newsok.com/settings/article/2993533/ Tribal land dispute nears end Tribes: Cheyenne-Arapaho officials say the Fort Reno property belongs to them. Federal judge expected this year to settle case in which U.S. military says it is legal owner of the property. By Judy Gibbs Robinson Staff Writer January 3, 2007 EL RENO - A decades-old dispute between the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and the federal government regarding ownership of old Fort Reno could be resolved this year. Absent unexpected delays, a federal judge in Washington will decide if the government wrongfully took about 7,000 acres of Cheyenne-Arapaho land surrounding the abandoned fort or if the tribes ceded all claims to the land and were compensated for it. With ownership comes the right to develop the land for shopping, offices and possibly a casino and to drill for known oil and gas reserves, Cheyenne-Arapaho Gov. Darrell Flyingman said. "It's valuable land. There's hundreds of oil and gas wells right around Fort Reno. That's one of the reasons they're trying to keep it," Flyingman said. Development planned Already the tribes have shown the land to builders and developers, including a group from California and Washington, D.C., who toured it Wednesday. "We want to bring jobs to western Oklahoma - good-paying jobs," Flyingman said. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, has different plans for the site. He co- sponsored a bill last session to authorize the Agriculture Department secretary to open the land to oil and gas exploration. "The bill simply allows USDA to lease the property, while at the same time allowing some of the funds from the leasing to be put toward renovating and maintaining the historic buildings at Fort Reno," Inhofe said in a statement in November. 'Big fight on our hands' The proposed Fort Reno Mineral Leasing Act died when the 109th Congress adjourned Dec. 9, but Flyingman suspects it will be re-introduced in the coming session. "We have a big fight on our hands. We're taking on the Oklahoma delegation plus the oil companies," he said. The latest salvo in the legal battle came Friday, when the tribes' lawyers filed an 18-page response to the government's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. That document and others filed previously outline a case that spans more than 100 years, starting in 1869 when the Cheyenne-Arapaho were moved from Colorado onto 5 million acres west of Oklahoma City. "This whole thing is a motion picture. It's an epic adventure," said Richard J. Grellner, the Oklahoma City lawyer representing the tribes in the lawsuit, filed March 20. Fourteen years after the tribes settled in Oklahoma, a presidential order whittled 9,000 acres off their reservation to create Fort Reno. The tribes believe the land was to revert to them when the government no longer needed it for military purposes. Fort Reno continued to serve the military for decades, keeping it out of the tribes' reach. When the cavalry abandoned the fort in 1908, it became a "remount station," where horses and mules were raised and trained for the military. When the remount station closed in 1954, the government announced the property would be set aside for possible military use. James M. Upton, the Justice Department attorney representing the government, did not reply to messages seeking comment. In court documents, the government says the Cheyenne-Arapaho claim on the land died in 1891, when the reservation was allotted and the tribes signed an agreement ceding the remaining 400,000 acres, which then were opened to non-Indian settlement. The tribes say they never ceded the Fort Reno land and that the government remained bound to its promise to return it to them when no longer needed for military use. "It's our land. We never gave it up," Flyingman said. The lawsuit also will resolve whether the tribes were paid for the land. The government says they were - twice. They got 2 cents an acre in 1891, then $15 million more in 1965 after filing a lawsuit under the Indian Claims Commission Act, designed to correct past injustices in land dealings with Indian tribes. The tribes say the payment covered the rest of the old reservation, excluding the Fort Reno land. Since 1948, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has operated a research station at Fort Reno and hosted Historic Fort Reno, a nonprofit organization that runs the old fort as a historic site. Should the tribes prevail, Flyingman said both will be invited to stay. "There's plenty of room for them and us," he said. Copyright c. 2007 The Oklahoman/News 9, Produced by NewsOK.com. --------- "RE: The Little Tribe that could" --------- Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:05:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="THLOPTHLOCCO TRIBAL TOWN" http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8502 The Little Tribe that Could Thlopthlocco Tribal Town sees bright future ahead Liz Gray January 6, 2007 They have only 600 tribal members. Most people can't even pronounce their name let alone know much about them. They are overshadowed by some big tribes in the central part of Oklahoma, but the Thlopthlocco Tribal Town is moving full steam ahead in one of the most promising spots for gaming left in Oklahoma. Their newest edition is a 90-foot neon sign representing their Golden Pony Casino. It stands out in the night, beaming across the countryside on a stretch of Highway 40 that doesn't have much else on it. They say you can see it from Henryetta, 10 miles to the East. There is no competition on Interstate 40 in that part of the state for the little casino until you almost reach the Arkansas border. Elizabeth Trickey, Tribal Council Advisor said she was the one that named the casino, The Golden Pony. "The last five letters of Thlopthlocco means horse," said Trickey. "Many people said we were sittin on a goldmine up here. I just put the two together." Charles Coleman, one of the two Warriors of the Tribal Town, said the night the sign was turned on they had over 500 people in the casino. "And we don't have but 400 games," said Coleman. Even the governing structure of the tribal town is unique among tribal nations. Their tribal leader is called `Mekko' or Town King. They have two warriors, a secretary and treasurer make up their elected officials. Those five appoint an advisory committee of five people. The 10 make up the governing body. "My feeling is that in 2002 we had basically a sitdown dobber bingo operation and we were going in about 2 or 3 thousand dollars a week at that time. Then we went into a few games, then Brian McGert came in and we went in to a few more games and we shut down the bingo," said Coleman."We took a lot of hits from a lot of little-ole-ladies in the community because that was their thing to play the bingo. They really enjoyed it." Clarence Yahola, is the gaming commissioner with the tribe. According to Coleman, he has done a lot of comparisons with vendors and trying to get the best deals for their casino. Already needing room for expansion Ron Barnett, tribal administrator foresees starting a new casino and having it completed in three years. "We've been fortunate that our forefathers had the foresight to continue building on the land base to expand it," said Barnett. Their landbase is nothing to joke about. With 2,500 acres, mostly in trust, they own the largest amount of land than any other tribe in Oklahoma. Their five-year plan includes a wellness center and the possibility of creating equestrian trails and camping. The North Canadian River runs through their property so Coleman believes there is a lot of possibility of using it for irrigation or creating a low-water dam. They want to build a complete service center for visitors to come and spend the night in the countryside. "I honestly can see nothing but good things for the tribe and the casino," said Kenna Smith, Marketing Director. "And we are proud to be the largest employer of Okfuskee County." They also have a good relationship with the current Muscogee Creek administration and Coleman hopes that will continue. "In 1998 we did not make enough money to be audited by the BIA, said Coleman. "Now we get compliments from visiting managers of the [Muscogee] Creek Nation casino. We are not going to take away too much from them but they like what it is that we are doing. We are quality." Their plan is to add on to their current gaming facility, expand another 100 games, then fund their own building projects of future endeavors without borrowing any money. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Lawmaker apologizes for comments" --------- Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 09:33:05 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RACIST LEGISLATOR APOLOGIZES - SORT OF" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/01/06/news/state/35-maker.txt Lawmaker apologizes for comments Winifred's Butcher referred to Indian colleague as 'chief' By JENNIFER McKEE Gazette State Bureau January 6, 2007 HELENA - Rep. Ed Butcher, R-Winifred, was made to apologize Friday on the House floor after referring to an American Indian lawmaker as "chief" and asking the lawmaker if a committee chairman's gavel wielded by Butcher constituted a "war club." "It was meant as a compliment," Butcher said to his "chief" comment in an apology before the 100-member House of Representatives. Butcher made the comments Thursday afternoon at a meeting of the House Agriculture Committee, which he chairs. He promised fellow lawmakers he would conduct future meetings "in a way that upholds the dignity of the House." Butcher said House Republican leaders summoned him to their offices after Democrats objected and that he was told to apologize on the House floor on Friday. Butcher said in an interview afterward that he made the comments before the committee meeting had formally convened. People were milling about the room at the Capitol and making small talk, he said. Butcher said he has an extra-large gavel and turned to Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Rocky Boy, a member of the committee, and asked him if the gavel could be a "war club." Then, shortly before the meeting was to start, but while Windy Boy was not present, Butcher said the meeting couldn't begin because he was waiting on "Chief Windy Boy." "There sure as hell wasn't anything negative about (the comment)" Butcher said, adding that he had always considered Windy Boy one of the "sharpest" American Indian lawmakers in the House. Butcher said if he intended to say something disparaging about American Indians, "I would have come up with something (worse) than that." "He's a tribal leader," Butcher said, referring to Windy Boy, who is a Chippewa-Cree Tribal Council member. "I always thought the chief was the main man." Windy Boy was not in the House on Friday, because he was in Rocky Boy attending a tribal council meeting. Butcher's comments brought sharp rebukes Friday from American Indian lawmakers and Republican and Democratic leaders of the House. House Majority Leader Mike Lange, R-Billings, called the comments "inappropriate" when announcing Butcher's apology. Rep. Margarett Campbell, D-Poplar, an American Indian lawmaker whose district includes Assiniboine and Sioux tribal members on the Fort Peck Reservation, said in a brief speech that she didn't believe "the good people of Montana (wanted) the indigenous people of this state to be used as the butt of bad jokes and inappropriate comments." Campbell said in an interview afterward that she thought Butcher's comments were careless, but not necessarily malicious. She said she didn't want to "pick a fight" with Butcher but felt compelled to address racism when it presented itself. "My guess is the 9,000 people he represents would not like to have these comments spoken on their behalf," Campbell said. Rep. Shannon Augare, D-Browning and a member of the Blackfeet Tribe, said in an interview that he didn't think Butcher's use of "chief" was complimentary. "I'm disappointed that in this body people still say things like that," said Augare, a freshman lawmaker serving his third day in the Legislature. Augare said he was pleased that both Democratic and Republican leaders viewed Butcher's remarks as inappropriate. House Minority Leader John Parker, D-Great Falls, said as soon as he found out about the comments Thursday, he talked to Republican House leaders, who also found Butcher's words unacceptable. Butcher said he thought the incident may have been overblown and said one of his own children is an enrolled member of Windy Boy's reservation tribes, a girl whom Butcher adopted as an infant. "It makes this whole thing ironic," he said. During the last Legislature, Butcher apologized after referring to severely developmentally disabled students as "vegetables" at an education meeting. Copyright c. 2007 The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Indian Center's fundraising lags" --------- Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 08:21:05 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TULSA INDIAN CENTER" http://www.tulsaworld.com/NewsStory.asp?ID=070103_Ne_A11_India23143 Indian Center's fundraising lags By BRIAN BARBER World Staff Writer January 3, 2007 Leaders are requesting an extension to obtain $3 million in donations The American Indian Cultural Center's project leaders failed to meet a $3 million end-of-the-year fundraising milestone required by its land lease with Tulsa's River Parks Authority. Monetta Trepp, who is on the board of directors of the National Indian Monument and Institute, which is pursuing the $65 million, two-phase project, has sent a letter to the authority requesting an extension. "We've raised about $1 million toward the goal," she said Tuesday. "I'd be happy to have another six months or so, but that might be pushing it." The authority hasn't received the letter but could discuss a possible extension at its Jan. 11 meeting, said Matt Meyer, the River Parks Authority's executive director. "The decision will be up to the board," he said. "River Parks is very supportive of the project. We want it to be successful." The lease requires the group -- by the end of this year -- to have raised the entire $30 million cost of the project's first phase. The nonprofit National Indian Monument and Institute signed the 99-year lease in January 2005 for 39 acres at 71st Street and Elwood Avenue on the west bank of the Arkansas River, next to Turkey Mountain. The lease is for a token $1 per year, but it has fundraising milestones to ensure that the project moves forward. The group met its $500,000 fundraising goal at the end of 2005, with the help of a grant from the Economic Development Administration, a unit of the U.S. Commerce Department. But Trepp said further fundraising efforts have been difficult because the cultural center's design has changed because of the topography of the site. "We now have the architectural drawings to begin a true capital campaign," she said. So far, area tribes have contributed only small amounts, Trepp said, but additional donations are being discussed. The construction of an American Indian cultural center in Oklahoma City that has consumed a lot of available federal and state money also is complicating fundraising efforts, she said. "I know there's some help for us out there," Trepp said. "A lot of people have been telling us to come back after the start of the year, so that's now." The National Indian Monument and Institute was formed in 1991 with the goal of creating a place to showcase the region's American Indian culture. The board of directors consists of a cross-section of tribal representatives, including the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Osage and Choctaw nations. But for years, the group has struggled to find the financial backing to transform its dream into reality. The Vision 2025 countywide sales-tax initiative gave the project a boost by setting aside $2 million for necessary infrastructure, but that money is on hold until private fundraising efforts produce results. The first phase of the project, with its price tag of roughly $30 million, consists of a theater, a restaurant and mixed-purpose space where arts festivals and other cultural events could be held, architect Robert Johnson said. It also would provide office space for the National Indian Monument and Institute and some that could be leased by other American Indian organizations. The second phase, which would cost about $35 million, would include a museum and a National American Indian Monument, Johnson said. Brian Barber 581-8322 brian.barber@tulsaworld.com Copyright c. 2007 , World Publishing Co. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Sky City gains Hstoric Designation" --------- Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 09:33:05 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ACOMA BECOMES 28TH HISTORIC SITE" http://www.krqe.com/expanded.asp?RECORD_KEY[News]=ID&ID%5BNews%5D=19069 Sky City gains historic designation Source: AP January 4, 2007 ACOMA PUEBLO, N.M. - Acoma Pueblo's Sky City has been designated as a National Trust Historic Site. The designation came today from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington D.C. Sky City is now the nation's 28th historic site. Sky City, perched atop a sheer 370-foot sandstone mesa, is the oldest continuously inhabited community in North America. It dates to AD 1150 and includes adobe houses, plazas and San Esteban del Rey mission church, which was completed about 1640. About 15 families live year-round on the 70-acre mesa top. The community was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and a Save America's Treasures site in 1999. Copyright c. 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2007 KRQE News 13, Albuquerque NM. --------- "RE: Milwaukee Fabrication Firm wins Casino Contract" --------- Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 08:21:05 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INDIAN OWNED, OPERATED COMPANY" http://www.biztimes.com/daily/2007/1/2/ milwaukee-steel-fabrication-firm-wins-casino-contract Milwaukee steel fabrication firm wins casino contract BizTimes Daily January 2, 2007 Great Lakes Contracting Inc., a Milwaukee-based Native American-owned and -operated contractor, was recently awarded the steel fabrication contract for Potawatomi Bingo Casino's $240 million expansion project. Bill Beson Jr., vice president of Great Lakes Contracting, said steel fabrication, the process of preparing the material before installation, will begin in February and will take four to five months for completion. Great Lakes Contracting also did steel fabrication work during Potawatomi Bingo Casino's 2001 expansion project. "We're very pleased to be awarded this contract," said Beson, a member of the Lac de Flambeau Chippewa Tribe and vice president of the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin. "With the company's history of working on a number of major projects in the area, we're looking forward to taking on this challenge." Great Lakes Contracting also has worked on projects at General Mitchell International Airport, Miller Park, the Midwest Express Center and the Milwaukee Art Museum. The Potawatomi Bingo Casino expansion project, expected to be completed in summer of 2008, will add more than 500,000 square feet to the existing casino in Milwaukee. The addition will include two new restaurants, a center lounge and a food court, in addition to a new six-story parking structure and a vehicular bridge that will connect the existing parking structure to the James E. Groppi Unity Bridge. So far, Potawatomi Bingo Casino has awarded $90 million in contracts for the expansion project. Great Lakes Contracting is based at 4810 N. 124th St. Copyright c. 2007 Small Business Times. --------- "RE: Lost Cherokee Group seeks Federal Status" --------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 08:52:41 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LOST CHEROKEE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.newsok.com/article/2994408/ Lost Cherokee group seeks federal status By Judy Gibbs Robinson Staff Writer January 4, 2007 A group seeking federal recognition as an American Indian tribe will hold four meetings in Oklahoma for members to vote on a constitution. Card-holding members of the Lost Cherokee of Arkansas & Missouri, organized in 1999, will vote on a constitution at meetings Friday through Sunday in Shawnee, Poteau, Antlers and Sulphur. The group, headquartered in Dover, Ark., is composed of descendants of Cherokees who moved west decades before the Trail of Tears, including about 3,000 now living in Oklahoma, said Cliff Bishop of Bartlesville, who identified himself as one of the tribe's head men. The group began identifying members and pursuing federal recognition in 1999. "It was hard. We had people up in Dover and up in the mountains who still think they're going to get sent to Oklahoma," Bishop said. The group usually is referred to as the Arkansas Cherokee. Bishop said the name "Lost Cherokee" was chosen for legal purposes because when the first Cherokee crossed the Mississippi River in the late 1700s, people said: "Those Cherokee are lost." The vote on a constitution, required for federal recognition, will close Jan. 31. The Oklahoma meetings are: Shawnee: 7 p.m. Friday at America's Best Value Inn, 4900 N Harrison Ave.; Poteau: 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Days Inn Motel, 1702 N Broadway; Antlers: 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Antlers Public Library, 202 S High St. Sulphur: 2 p.m. Sunday at the Murray County Expo Center on State Highway 7 west of Sulphur. Copyright c. 2007 The Oklahoman/News 9, Produced by NewsOK.com. --------- "RE: City stops Trail that cuts through Cemetery" --------- Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 08:29:12 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CURTIS FAMILY CEMETERY" http://www.ksnt.com/news/local/5066706.html City Stops Trail that Cuts Through Cemetery Amanda Kinseth January 2, 2007 The city apologizes after work crews have been clearing ground for a planned walking and biking trail through Topeka that cuts right through cemetery grounds. "They've cleared the grass and moved turf on the top," says Joe Singer, City of Topeka Chief Surveyor. "They haven't done any excavation yet." Ann Andrews, the Curtis Family Cemetery caretaker, says it's good thing the city hasn't started digging, because there could be unmarked graves there. The cemetery dates back to the 1860's and used to be owned by Charles Curtis, the nation's only American Indian Vice-President. The city says it was an honest mistake, and stopped work in the area after recognizing the property boundaries were off. "They still wouldn't listen to me," says Andrews. "I come out here and they still wouldn't stop. They said, 'we'll have our survey team come out.' I said OK. It was only then they acknowledged they did something wrong." Singer says the city realized the property line actually ends 19 feet further west of where the original plan showed. "North Topeka is not a good place to survey. There are many records and conflicting property lines." Singer says the land looked the same as city land and wasn't fenced in like the marked graves on the cemetery. It's still up in the air who actually owns the property. Andrews worries about the disrespect and potential vandalism that could arise from having a trail that close to a cemetery. The city says consultants will re-design soldier trail and probably re- align it to the north to smooth over the muddy situation. The city says Soldier Trail, which will stretch from Garfield Park to Lyman Road, should be completed by this summer. Copyright c. 2007 KSNT-TV 27 News, Topeka, KS. --------- "RE: Exhibits look into NA Strife and Transition" --------- Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 08:21:05 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBIT" http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ article?AID=/20070104/ENT01/701040311 Exhibits look into Native American strife and transition By Jay Kirschenmann jkirsch@argusleader.com January 4, 2007 A glimpse of the bleak period when Native Americans were pulled from the plains and forced onto reservations can be seen at two free exhibits this month. One, an 86-piece show of historic photographs by Frank Bennet Fiske opens Jan. 12 at the Washington Pavilion. Born in the Dakota Territory in 1883, Fiske spent most of his life photographing new arrivals on North Dakota's Standing Rock Indian reservation just after 1900. Another show, "Rosebud Sioux - A Lakota People in Transition," opens today with a reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Old Courthouse Museum. The eight-week show features more than 100 images of the Sicangu Lakota people of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. It features John Anderson's photographs, taken between 1885 and 1930, along with a set of present-day photographs of Lakota people on the Rosebud reservation. Many reservation tribal members, descendants of those in the old photos, contributed to the exhibit with oral history, documents and photographs. In the Pavilion show, some of Fiske's photos include some backdrops in a studio-like setting. But the photographer didn't provide props or dress up his subjects, says Howard Spencer, curator of the Visual Arts Center at the Pavilion. "The quality of his images is remarkable given the primitive equipment he used, and the conditions under which he often worked," he says. Fiske was not indigenous, but was raised and lived among the Native Americans. His wife, Angela, was the great-grand daughter of Chief Forked Horn of the Yanktonaii Sioux. "He photographed a lot of mundane activities among the Native Americans on the reservation at the time," Spencer says. "There is a certain kind of casualness that you don't see in a lot of photographers' work from that period who were doing more formal work." Yankton Sioux Tribal artist Jerry Fogg of Sioux Falls says he's anxious to take a look at the shows. "It should be very interesting to see, historically," Fogg says. "We can't change it now. But it is the start of the worst period of time for the Native Americans, but is part of history." Reach reporter Jay Kirschenmann at 331-2312 or e-mail jkirsch@argusleader.com. Copyright c. 2005 Sioux Falls Argus Leader. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: US ATTORNEY: Critic hides contempt for Tribes" --------- Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 08:29:12 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RESPONSE TO ANTI-INDIAN OPINION LETTER" http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/017487.asp US Attorney: Critic hides contempt for tribes January 3, 2007 The following was submitted by Troy Eid, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado, in response to an opinion by Phillip T. Doe that was published in the The Denver Rocky Mountain News. Doe is chair of the Citizens Progressive Alliance, a group that opposed the Ute water rights settlement in Colorado. --- It is a matter of public record that I have NEVER represented or lobbied for any gambling or gaming interests of any kind, Indian or non-Indian. So Phillip Doe's personal attack on me is untrue as well as cowardly. Doe, chairman of the Citizens Progressive Alliance (and a longtime opponent of the Animas-LaPlata Water project that settled longstanding water-rights claims by the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Tribes and the Navajo Nation), also tries to smear me by falsely linking me with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. I was employed in the same 1,600-attorney, 34-office law firm - as a partner in Denver in the Litigation Section - starting at about the time that Abramoff was terminated as a lobbyist in the Washington, DC office. We NEVER worked together, in any capacity whatsoever, prior to my own background investigation, nomination by President Bush, and unanimous US Senate confirmation approval as Colorado's United States Attorney. By lamely trying to discredit me, Doe struggles to deflect attention from his own apparent contempt for Indian people and tribes. We've heard Doe's supposedly "complex" racism before: That Colorado's two tribes, the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute nations, ought to fix their public safety problem because, as he puts it, they've earned some money through successful tribal businesses. The truth is that Indian nations (by federal court rulings and Congressional legislation) are forced to depend on the federal government for much of their law enforcement and adjudication needs, particularly when it comes to fighting and preventing violent crime. Those of us in federal law enforcement have a corresponding duty to strengthen public safety on America's Indian reservations. Both Colorado's tribal governments are working hard to address this challenge, as is US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Colorado's Congressional delegation. Doe's blame-the-Indians approach is a reminder of how far we still must go to ensure equal access to justice for all Americans. Troy A. Eid United States Attorney District of Colorado Copyright c. 2000-2007 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: C. CAMP: Indian Country is America's Waste Dump" --------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 08:52:41 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CARTER CAMP: INDIAN COUNTRY DUMP" http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/017516.asp Carter Camp: Indian Country is America's waste dump The UN Observer January 4, 2007 "Many circumstances within Indian Country make our homelands the target of the purveyers of America's waste. In my Ponca Tribe we have had to stop a waste well injection system, several toxic waste incinerators, low level radio active waste disposals, and landfills. But we are a small Tribe with a very small land base; the primary targets have been the large reservations like Rosebud with space to conceal these places and mitigate their harm to the people in large cities, those Americans who demand cheap goods but won't allow their waste to be kept close to home. Rosebud is the homeland of the Sicangu Lakota Nation which is the reluctant host to a mammoth pig factory, which (due to a recent Court victory over the Tribe and EPA), is set to become the largest in the world! - with at least 33! massive waste lakes which will cover hundreds of acres of clean earth with a horrible hodge-podge of toxic substances. The prime reason we present good targets is the extreme poverty and joblessness on our reservations. Poverty creates within the populace a desperation for jobs which is then reflected in their leaders. After standing for election on a platform of economic development, elected officials quickly learn the near impossibility of creating any sizable number of jobs on reservations. Our people were once confined as far away from the American people as possible on as marginal lands as possible and until modern times, we were kept as "wards of the Government". Suddenly our Tribal leaders are charged with the responsibility of creating jobs for the people, without any financial infrastructure or tax base. Add to this the fact that the hungry people are their own relatives, and a vulnerability is created which waste companies are quick to exploit. Our land base is another large attraction for a waste company. But even for them, our Reservations are usually the last choice of location, they have tried to use land closer to the source of the waste but they have been forced, by the rejection of the American people, to try to locate in Indian Country. The conjuncture of companies in dire need and elected officials desperate for "economic development" is what has put our lands in such jeopardy." Copyright c. 2000-2007 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: HARJO: President Ford and Federal Indian Policy" --------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 08:52:41 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HARJO: GERALD FORD AND INDIAN POLICY" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414321 Harjo: Remembering President Ford's imprint on federal Indian policy by: Suzan Shown Harjo / Indian Country Today January 4, 2007 Only a handful of people in American history have held as many important offices in Congress and the White House as President Gerald R. Ford. For a quarter-century, he filled a congressional seat from Grand Rapids, Mich., rising to his party's top position of Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. When Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace, President Richard Nixon tapped Ford for the post. Ford carried out the duties of vice president and Senate president for eight months, until Nixon resigned in the midst of revelations about Watergate crimes. On Aug. 9, 1974, Ford became the 38th U.S. president and served until 1977. Shortly before the national election that returned Ford to private life, he met with Native American leaders in the East Room of the White House. In formal remarks on July 16, 1976, he took pains to assure his audience that he was for Indian self-determination and against a termination policy. The president described the federal government as having "a very unique relationship with you and your people ... of a legal trust and a high moral responsibility." The trust relationship "is rooted deep in history," he said, "but it is fed today by our concern that the Indian people should enjoy the same opportunities as other Americans, while maintaining the culture and the traditions that you rightly prize as your heritage." He said that heritage "is an important part of the American culture that we are celebrating in this great country in our Bicentennial Year." Characterizing Native American contributions as "both material and spiritual," he said: "Your ancestors introduced settlers not only to new foods and new plants, but to Indian ways of life and Indian values which they absorbed. This is a year for all of us to realize what a great debt we individually and collectively owe to the American Indians." It was important for Ford to reiterate his position for both policy and political reasons. Much of his career in the House spanned the period when Congress and the executive branch were most intent on terminating the federal trust relationship with tribes and people through specific laws and programs. By the time Ford was selected for House leadership in 1965, federal Indian policy was moving away from termination and toward self- determination, and he had not sponsored any termination acts. Native people wondered if he had a hand in termination policy from any of his seats on pressure-point committees on public works, appropriations or intelligence. There also were questions about his role, if any, in the federally recognized status of a number of tribes in his home state that had been disrupted or put on hold during his time in Congress. Many tribal leaders said they believed that Ford demonstrated his current opposition to termination on Jan. 4, 1975, when he signed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. The new law promoted an end to federal paternalism in conducting Indian programs and changed the relationship between tribes and federal agencies. "I am strongly opposed to termination," the president assured his guests in the White House. "The 1970s have brought a new era in Indian affairs. In the last century, federal policy has vacillated between paternalism and the threat of terminating federal responsibility. I am opposed to both extremes. I believe in maintaining a stable policy so that Indians and Indian leaders can plan and work confidently for the future." Two months after his White House meeting, on Sept. 30, Ford approved the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. "It's the health care law that is his crowning achievement for the field," said Forrest Gerard, who was one of the architects of the legislation. Gerard, a retired Blackfeet lobbyist, was a legislative staff assistant to Sen. Henry Jackson, D-Wash., one of the bill's primary sponsors, along with Sen. Paul Fannin, R-Ariz. "The Office of Management and Budget opposed the health bill and was pressing for a veto, and so was the Health, Education and Welfare Department," said Gerard. "Brad Patterson and Dr. Ted Marrs in the White House were for the bill. The president overruled HEW and OMB and signed it." Bradley Patterson, a White House staffer in both the Nixon and Ford administrations, was Ford's coordinator for American Indian affairs. He remembers that OMB considered the health bill to be "too expensive and recommended a veto." Patterson said he "wrote a memo to Ford opposing the veto." Ford also approved the Indian Crimes Act, as well as legislation returning land to the Havasupai Tribe and making surplus federal property and submarginal lands available to Indian tribes. No one in Washington attains federal Indian policy alone. In a future column, I will mention some of the myriad Native people who were responsible for the Ford Indian legacy, after the health care law is reauthorized. Patterson remembers his former boss as "a wonderful man of integrity and honesty." He recalls that it was a turbulent time for Indian people and policies, especially following the 1972 takeover of the BIA building in Washington and the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation. "There was a big backlash out of South Dakota, and politicians were accusing us of mollycoddling Indians," said Patterson, "but I'm proud of the fact that we had an open-door policy." "Ford was a decent man," said Gerard. "He signed some good laws and didn't do anything to hurt us." Gerard does not recall Ford having a role in any Indian legislation in the House. "I do know that it was a more collegial kind of place when he was there." As a campaigner for the 39th president, Jimmy Carter, I hope our conduct was as collegial as I remember it. I don't recall even disliking Ford. It seemed that the contest was with Nixon. Our campaign for Indian votes was to have a solid set of Indian policy promises, all of which we kept. It was lovely to hear in Carter's eulogy for Ford the depth of friendship and affection the former competitors had achieved. I watched the arrival of the funeral cortege at the Capitol on television. When the cannon volleys shook my windows, I remembered I had a duty in my neighborhood. For a short while, I paid my respects by standing outside the House side of the Capitol, as the former president's remains and casket were in Statuary Hall. Later I learned that W. Richard West and his wife, Mary Beth, also longtime Washington residents, stood outside the National Cathedral before the ceremony there. "We wanted to pay him that small honor," said West, who is Cheyenne and the director of the National Museum of the American Indian; she is a retired State Department lawyer and diplomat. West praised Ford's "commitment to the public good. He embodied that. I found myself wishing for the essential middle of the country, of this town that is so hard to find, so hard to see, today." --- Suzan Shown Harjo, Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, is president of the Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C., and a columnist for Indian Country Today. Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: JODI RAVE: DoI mum on Class Action Tribal Suit" --------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 08:52:41 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JODI RAVE: TRUST LAWSUITS" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/01/05/jodirave/rave37.txt Firm files suit over tribal trust funds By JODI RAVE of the Missoulian January 5, 2007 The head of the Interior Department will be forced in 2006 to balance two major class-action lawsuits - one involving billions of dollars owed to a half-million individual Native landowners, and now a trust fund suit that includes more than 250 tribes. The Native American Rights Fund, a nonprofit law firm in Boulder, Colo., announced Wednesday the latest class-action filing in federal district court in Washington, D.C. The tribal trust fund suit seeks full and complete accountings from the Interior Department on tribal accounts worth an estimated $200 billion. For tribes, Nez Perce vs. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, is almost two centuries overdue. "This lawsuit is a reflection of a huge historical problem with the federal government's mismanagement of tribal trust accounts," said Nez Perce Tribal Chairwoman Rebecca Miles. "We have tried to work with the agencies and we have tried to work with Congress. Our hope now is with the courts. We are pleased to step forward with NARF in leading this fight for Indian justice." For the Interior Department, the new suit nearly mirrors the decade-old Elouise Cobell vs. Kempthorne suit, which seeks a historical accounting of the individual trust fund money accounts managed by the department. Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the Cobell suit consumed the majority of her time in office. Meanwhile, the department has nothing to say about the latest suit. "Our policy is we don't discuss pending litigation," Interior spokesman Shane Wolf said Thursday. "That's the answer you'll get every time there's pending litigation." But more than two decades of government reports and investigations reveal what the department hasn't wanted to talk about since it first sought to manage money earned off tribal trust lands in 1820. The government's trust responsibility over Indian-land money, including individuals and tribes, is rooted in treaties, laws and agreements. Congress controls and manages all trust funds through legislation. Congress has doled Indian trust responsibility across several federal departments, including the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which is also named as a defendant in the recently filed suit. The federal government currently holds an estimated $3 billion in some 1,600 trust fund accounts for more than 300 tribes. John Echohawk, the Native American Rights Fund's executive director, said past events made the lawsuit inevitable. First, tribes have never been able to get a proper accounting of their trust funds. The Government Accounting Office and the Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General have issued key reports identifying major problems with the management of both tribal and individual Indian trust funds. The money in question is revenue earned by tribes from natural resources, including timber, minerals, oil and gas; court judgments entered against the United States for the unlawful appropriation of Indian land and property; and income from the investment of money held in the accounts. For both individual and tribal trust funds, government reports show that records were often lost or never kept, and that systems didn't work or weren't coordinated. Also, reports showed how policies were deficient or never existed. In 1987, Congress ordered the Interior Department to audit and reconcile the accounts and to provide full and complete accountings to tribes and individuals. The GAO stated that without improvement, trust fund account holders could not be assured their balances are accurate. In 1994, Congress enacted the American Indian Trust Management Reform Act, requiring the federal government to provide tribal trust fund beneficiaries with full and complete accountings of their trust funds. In 2005, Interior's inspector general said the department procedures and controls were not adequate to ensure trust fund activities and balances were recorded properly or timely. Nothing to date has yielded adequate accountings. Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs hired the accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP to do a limited reconciliation of tribal trust fund accounts in the 1990s. Despite acknowledged shortcomings with the project, federal officials asked tribes to accept the reports. Arthur Anderson's five-year, $21 million accounting sampling covered a 20-year span between 1972 and 1992. Congress gave tribes a Dec. 31, 2005, deadline to challenge the reconciliation reports. The deadline was extended to Dec. 31, 2006, prompting tribes to sue late last month, seeking a court order declaring the Arthur Andersen reports inaccurate, and to demand a proper accounting. "We are confident that the court will agree that the Arthur Andersen reconciliation reports are not full and complete accountings," said John Gonzales, NARF's board chairman. "The real battle will be over what more the court or Congress will do to protect the rights of tribes and to hold the government accountable for its duties as the trustee for tribal trust funds." Reporter Jodi Rave can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at jodi.rave@lee.net Copyright c. 2007 Missoulian, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Untangling the Mystery of the Inca" --------- Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:05:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INCA KHIPU KNOTS" http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/khipu.html Untangling the Mystery of the Inca The ancient Andean empire built great cities but left no written records - except perhaps in mysterious knotted strings called khipu. Can an anthropologist and some mathematicians crack the code? By Gareth CookPage Incan civilization was a technological marvel. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1532, they found an empire that spanned nearly 3,000 miles, from present-day Ecuador to Chile, all served by a high- altitude road system that included 200-foot suspension bridges built of woven reeds. It was the Inca who constructed Machu Picchu, a cloud city terraced into a precarious stretch of earth hanging between two Andean peaks. They even put together a kind of Bronze Age Internet, a system of messenger posts along the major roads. In one day, Incan runners amped on coca leaves could relay news some 150 miles down the Yet, if centuries of scholarship are to be believed, the Inca, whose rule began 2,000 years after Homer, never figured out how to write. It's an enigma known as the Inca paradox, and for nearly 500 years it has stood as one of the great historical puzzles of the Americas. But now a Harvard anthropologist named Gary Urton may be close to untangling the mystery. His quest revolves around strange, once-colorful bundles of knotted strings called khipu (pronounced KEY-poo). The Spanish invaders noticed the khipu soon after arriving but never understood their significance - or how they worked. Once, at the beginning of the 17th century, a group of Spaniards traveling in the central Peruvian highlands east of modern-day Lima encountered an old Indian carrying khipu that he insisted held a record of "all [the Spanish] had done, both the good and the bad." Angered, the Spanish burned the man's khipu, as they did countless others over the years. Some of the knots did survive, though, and for centuries people wondered if the old man had been speaking the truth. Then, in 1923, an anthropologist named Leland Locke provided an answer: The khipu were files. Each knot represented a different number, arranged in a decimal system, and each bundle likely held census data or summarized the contents of storehouses. Roughly a third of the existing khipu don't follow the rules Locke identified, but he speculated that these "anomalous" khipu served some ceremonial or other function. The mystery was considered more or less solved. Then, in the early 1990s, Urton, one of the world's leading Inca scholars, spotted several details that convinced him the khipu contained much more than tallies of llama sales. For example, some knots are tied right over left, others left over right. Urton came to think that this information must signal something. Could the knotted strings also be a form of writing? In 2003, Urton wrote a book outlining his theory, and in 2005 he published a paper in Science that showed how even khipu that follow Locke's rules could include place-names as well as numbers. Urton knew that these findings were a tiny part of cracking the code and that he needed the help of people with different skills. So, early last year, he and a graduate student, Carrie Brezine, unveiled a computerized khipu database - a vast electronic repository that describes every knot on some 300 khipu in intricate detail. Then Urton and Brezine brought in outside researchers who knew little about anthropology but a lot about mathematics. Led by Belgian cryptographer Jean-Jacques Quisquater, they are now trying to shake meaning from the knots with a variety of pattern- finding algorithms, one based on a tool used to analyze long strings of DNA, the other similar to Google's PageRank algorithm. They've already identified thousands of repeated knot sequences that suggest words or phrases. Now the team is closing in on what might be a writing system so unusual that it remained hidden for centuries in plain sight. If successful, the effort will rank with the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics and will let Urton's team rewrite history. But how do you decipher something when it looks completely unlike any known written language - when you're not even sure it has meaning at all? Urton works a few minutes' walk from Harvard Yard, in a redbrick building with dark wooden doors and copper gutters that also serves as the university's Museum of Natural History. But his fifth-floor office is more Lima than Cambridge. Behind his modest desk hangs a Peruvian pan flute. Spanish-language posters adorn the walls. The space is awash in earthy browns - straw-colored carpet, a darker shade for the faux-clay clock face - offset by colorful weavings hung from every wall. Each object is a memento from his many trips to South America to track down khipu. Today at least 750 khipu survive, scattered about in museums and private collections. Each one has a long primary cord, typically about a quarter- inch in diameter, from which hang smaller "pendant" cords - sometimes just a couple, sometimes many hundred. The pendant cords are tied in a series of neat, small knots. Originally dyed in rich colors, the average khipu has now faded so much it resembles a dirty brown mop head. How could the Inca have used strings to write? In a sense, any written text is just a record of physical actions. You put a pen to paper and then choose from a prescribed set of options how to move and when to lift up. Each decision is preserved in ink. The same can be done with string. The writer makes a series of decisions, recorded as a knot that can then be read by anyone who knows the rules. Back in the '20s, Locke began with the observation that the Inca tied their khipu with three types of knots. There is a "figure-eight" knot, which represents one of something. There are "long" knots, with two to nine turns, representing those numbers. And there are "single" knots, which represent tens, hundreds, thousands, or ten thousands, depending on where they fall on the string. When a khipu is placed flat on the ground, the bottom row is the ones place and successively higher rows stand for higher places. So, the number 327 would have three single knots in the hundreds place. A little lower would be two single knots. Lower still would be a long knot with seven turns. Most anthropologists assumed that was all there was to it - until 1992. That's when Urton spent a day looking at khipu in the American Museum of Natural History in New York with his friend Bill Conklin, an architect and textile expert. As he studied the cords, Conklin had an isn't-that-funny insight: The knots that connect the small pendant strings to the primary cord are always tied the same way, but sometimes they face forward and sometimes backward. Startled, Urton soon noticed additional construction details - such as whether a fiber had been dyed to have a bluish or a reddish tint. All told, Urton has found seven additional bits of binary information that might signal something. Perhaps one means "read this as a word, not a number." Perhaps the binary code served as a kind of markup language, allowing the Inca to make notes on top of Locke's number- recording system. And perhaps the 200 or so anomalous khipu don't follow Locke's rules because they've transcended them. Most Incan scholars are intrigued by Urton's ideas, though a few skeptics have noted that he has not produced any proof that his binary code carries meaning, much less that the khipu contain narratives. The Harvard professor concedes that some of the information he's looking at may not signal anything. But he is convinced the khipu have stories to tell, and he has some history on his side. Jose' de Acosta, a Jesuit missionary sometimes called the Pliny of the New World, wrote a description of the khipu at the end of the 16th century. In it, he describes how the "woven reckonings" were used to record financial transactions involving hens, eggs, and hay. But he also noted that the native people considered the khipu to be "witnesses and authentic writing. " "I saw a bundle of these strings," he wrote, "on which a woman had brought a written confession of her whole life and used it to confess just as I would have done with words written on paper." Egyptian Hieroglyphibs, Linear B, ancient Mayan writing - all of the great decipherments have been accomplished by a combination of logic and intuition, persistence and flexibility. Decoding scripts is not like looking for a combination that will open a lock. It's more like rock climbing: You find a foothold, push up, and hope another presents itself. Jean-Jacques Quisquater - a tall man with a thin crown of wispy white hair - would like to join the pantheon of puzzle solvers. Quisquater directs a large cryptography laboratory at Belgium's historic Catholic University of Louvain, where he is known for his work on securing smartcards. In the fall of 2003, he came to MIT for a yearlong academic sabbatical. At the time, he had been thinking nostalgically of a trip to Greece 40 years before when he saw the famous undeciphered Phaistos Disc, a small red-brown disc from deep in the second millennium BC covered on either side with a spiral of glyphs - a fish, a shield, an olive branch. Quisquater hoped to find something equally romantic and challenging to work on. When he heard about the mystery of the khipu, he was immediately enthralled. He soon met Urton, and they teamed up with a father-son pair of MIT computer scientists, Martin and Erik Demaine. The group began chatting, with the mathematicians offering detailed plans about how to sort the data. The team agreed that one of Quisquater's graduate students, Vincent Castus, would first try an analysis known as a suffix tree. The method uses a computer to identify all the blocks of characters in a text that repeat themselves. Thus, the word Mississippi would yield several repeated blocks, including issi, iss, and ss. Suffix trees are used in genetic analysis to find the shortest unique pattern in a sample of DNA. With the khipu database loaded onto his iMac, Castus worked to build a suffix tree from the knots, leaving aside the more complicated binary data on this first pass. He began in May 2006. By October he had worked out all the details and found an astonishing number of repeats: 3,000 different groups of repeated five-knot sequences. Shorter patterns appeared even more often. He found several pairs of khipu linked by large numbers of matches, suggesting that they could be related. None of this tells us whether the khipu contain words or stories. It's possible the researchers have found khipu that just happen to include repeated number sequences that are not interesting for any particular reason, or that some khipu are deliberate copies of others. But Urton suspects there's more to it than that. He knows repetition is the code-breaker's great friend. A Cold War sleuth noticing an oft-used sequence might guess it stood for Moscow or Khrushchev. Recognizing repeated place-names was one of the first steps in deciphering the ancient Mycenaean script Linear B. Now the team has a key for all the khipu in the database, allowing them to instantly identify whenever a particular sequence appears. They also have a list of common short sequences - the most obvious candidates for words. The team had previously made one breakthrough in identifying connections between knots, thanks to Brezine, who has a background in mathematics and just happens to be a weaver on the side. The master of the khipu database, she wanted to find examples of strings with numbers that added up to sums on another khipu. So she developed a simple algorithm and combed through the data. Her efforts identified a handful of interlinked khipu that had been uncovered together in a cache in Puruchuco, an archaeological site near Lima. The khipu looked like records kept by three successively higher levels of Incan administrators. Add the numbers on one khipu and the sum is found on another, with that sum in turn found on a third. Imagine, for example, that they depict the results of a census. The village counts up its people and then forwards the total to the district. The district records the numbers from several villages and then forwards the results up to the provincial head. Urton and Brezine do not know what is being counted (people? llamas?), but their 2005 Science paper showed for the first time that information flowed between the khipu. They have also identified what may be the first word. The two higher- level khipu in the census example use an introductory sequence of three figure-eight knots (1-1-1) that does not appear on what they assume is the village-level khipu. Perhaps only the upper layers have the sequence because it is a label for a particular place, used when compiling information from many locations. Maybe, they suggest, the first symbol to be read off a khipu means this: Puruchuco. Quisquater's team, meanwhile, is now working on another, even more ambitious way of extracting clues. It depends on thinking of each knot as a node and each khipu as a network and the links being lengths of string. One of the surprises from the burgeoning new field of network theory is that the role of a particular node can be summarized - in a deep and meaningful way - by a single number. A good example of this is Google's PageRank algorithm. The power of the company's search engine comes from its ability to rank Web pages by relevance. On the Web, a link runs from one page to another, like an arrow. The algorithm interprets that as the first page voting for the second one. Votes flow from across the Internet, like streams joining rivers, eventually pooling at the eBays of the world. The analysis that the team plans for these khipu networks doesn't exactly mimic PageRank. After all, the string links between knots aren't unidirectional like arrows; one knot doesn't point to another. But the concept is the same: If you think about a big mass of information as a network, and analyze it as a network, looking for the thousands of small and big ways that different piles of information relate to one another, you can see things that you wouldn't notice otherwise. Vincent Blondel, a Belgian mathematics professor who is a friend of Quisquater's, recently helped work out the math behind an approach that allows a computer to calculate degrees of similarity between nodes in two separate networks. Like PageRank, the procedure uses voting, but it assigns each node many scores instead of one and employs a more complex scheme for calculating the totals. Type "baseball" into Google and its spiders will race over the Internet, look at links, and spit back that yankees.com is the 11th most useful site for you and seattlemariners.com is the 22nd. If Quisquater's algorithm were used on the Web, it would return a slew of numbers, some of which would show similarities between different nodes - or knots. So you'd see that the Yankees and Mariners sites are similar because both receive feeds from majorleaguebaseball.com and have outgoing links to the homepages for 29 teams. When Quisquater's algorithm is used on khipu, it will reveal knots or groups of knots that always play a certain role in relationship to others. These might be labels or formatting signs. For example, it may turn out that some of the khipu start with sets of knots that say something like "read this as a calendar." Or collections of khipu may have similar networks of closely related knots, perhaps signaling that they originate from the same geographic area. Or it could even turn out that the anomalous khipu will all have some pattern that signifies "read this as a story." The results from this technique should come in sometime later this year, and they will provide valuable clues, even if they don't immediately crack the Inca paradox. Urton's great insight has been to treat the khipu not just as a textile or a simple abacus but as an advanced, alien technology. Sitting on a poncho draped over the couch in his office, Urton describes a formative trip to a remote Bolivian village where he worked with traditional weavers. Observing these women spin and ply yarn into multicolored tapestries with elaborate symmetries, he caught a glimpse of the Incan mind at work. For an expert weaver, fabric is a record of many choices, a dance of twists, turns, and pulls that leads to the final product. They would have seen a fabric - be it cloth or knotted strings - a bit like a chess master views a game in progress. Yes, they see a pattern of pieces on a board, but they also have a feel for the moves that led there. "You can see inside of it," Urton says. It would be all too easy to dismiss the khipu as the work of a less advanced civilization, one that didn't develop guns, iron, or wheels. But for more than a decade, Urton has assumed that the khipu are evidence of Incan sophistication in ways we have still not grasped. Acosta, the 16th-century Jesuit missionary, believed this. He traveled throughout the Americas and recorded several observations of khipu in use. He described religious converts memorizing prayers using khipu-like devices made of small stones or kernels of corn. He also described people in a churchyard completing difficult calculations "without making the slightest error ... Whoever wants may judge whether this is clever or if these people are brutish," he wrote, "but I judge it is certain that, in that which they here apply themselves, they get the better of us." --- Gareth Cook (g_cook@globe.com) is a science reporter at The Boston Globe. He won a 2005 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on stem cells. Copyright c. 1993-2007 Conde' Nast Publications Inc. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Zapatistas Celebrate 13th Anniversary of Uprising" --------- Date: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 03:06 pm From: Chiapas95-english Subj: En;AP,Zapatistas Celebrate 13th Anniversary of Uprising,Jan 01 Mailing List: Chiapas95-En This message is forwarded to you by the editors of the Chiapas95 newslists. To contact the editors or to submit material for posting send to: . Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 15:02:59 +0100 From: "Dana Aldea" Zapatistas Celebrate 13th Anniversary of Uprising By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS January 2, 2007 OVENTIC, Mexico, Jan. 1 (AP) - Thousands of Zapatista rebels celebrated the 13th anniversary of their brief uprising against the Mexican government on Monday, dancing, singing and holding discussions on improving the status of poor Indians in the southern state of Chiapas. The ceremonies, which attracted hundreds of foreigner