_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 15, ISSUE 013 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, 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 March 26, 2007 Abenaki mozokas/moose hunter moon Pima chehthagi mashath/green moon Hopi osomuyaw/whispering wind moon Mohawk ennisko:wa/much lateness moon Mvskokee tasahcucee/little spring moon Potawatomi cicakkises/moon of the crane +-------------------------------------------------------+ | 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: Chiapas95-En, Frostys AmerIndian, Blackfoot Nation, Info-Leonard Peltier Native American Poetry and Remember The Cherokee/Tsalagi; 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: "If America is a shining beacon of hope for legal immigrants perhaps the laws should be adjusted to make it a reality for the illegal immigrants. They also see America as a place where dreams can be lived. Ironically, most of the illegal immigrants are Indians, or Indios as they are known in Mexico, and in Central and South America. Most of their ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower or on the Spanish galleons. They were indigenous to the Western Hemisphere." __ Tim Giago, president Native American Journalists Foundation +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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 The following news snippet on the North Dakota Public Radio website caught my eye: --- http://publicbroadcasting.net/ndpr/news. newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1057781§ionID=1 Prairie Region News Native American stressers real Tracy Fugere March 23, 2007 BISMARCK, ND (2007-03-23) A Native American psychiatrist from Colorado is sharing his findings on how common trauma is in Native American communities and the consequences that follow. Prairie Public's Tracy Fugere has the story. Copyright c. 2007 NDPR. --- My first reaction was, "Well, Duh... we were forced to loose our language, our way of life and our traditional ways of governing, moved to isolated pockets that were deemed 'not valuable to the dominant society' given substandard health care and education. What response did anyone with a nickels worth of sense really expect?" The next reaction was disgust and anger. In a state with a large Indian population where the effects of becoming marginalized citizens in our land is manifested with alcoholism, drug abuse and a high rate of suicides was reduced to a broadcast promotion. Clicking on the promo and listening resulted in a decent discussion of the PTSD like stresses Native Americans are subjected to. I can't help but wonder how many must die before the United States and Canada will quit making Native Americans third class and third world citizens before they each determine Stalag-like ghettos micro-managed by the BIA through contrived copies of the US and Canadian governments is a failure. Like any human beings we need real choices, real opportunities and the right to govern our nations and our homes in our traditional ways, not the way they are now. Dohiyi Ani Oginalii , , Gary Smith (*,*) wotanging@bellsouth.net P. O. Box 672168 (`-') gars@nanews.org Marietta, GA 30007, U.S.A. ===w=w=== http://www.nanews.org ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ----------- Editorial Section: - GIAGO: Venezuela steps up . Indian Country Stress for Indian Nations - South Dakota to include - CATT-IRON SHELL: American Indian Education The Dead Eye of the Storm - Helping Families - WAGAMESE: One Native Life understand Value of College - MILLER: Cutting Native Peoples' - Indians criticize plan Health Care to end School Program - JODI RAVE: Old West ignorance - Comments regarding Blackfeet/ alive in Butcher Montana Water Compact - CHIEF MATCHEWAN: - Sharing and restoring Blockade of Highway 117 the Heritage of Indians - ROSS: Being Zapatistas - Glass Skywalk opens where we live above the Grand Canyon - Colonial collapse - Red Lake holds Healing Day of Western Hemisphere - Krieger backs out of - EDITORIAL: Swarming Land Deal with State - Mohawk protesters - EBC Project to put take over Deseronto Quarry River Cane close to Home - Review: My Life Is My Sun Dance - A mother, a daughter, a warrior - Native Justice - Court allows UKB -- DEER: Widening the gap suit over Arkansas River - Rustywire: - Tribes establish Enemy Way comes With War Economic Development Commission - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days - Alaska Natives push Congress - Lee Goins Poem: Struck By A Poem on global warming - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: South Dakota to include American Indian Education" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:14:25 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SD PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO TEACH INDIAN HISTORY" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414693 Public schools in South Dakota to include American Indian education by: David Melmer / Indian Country Today March 19, 2007 PIERRE, S.D. - Students in South Dakota will hear different approaches to the state's history in the next school year: they will be exposed to American Indian culture and the language of the Lakota. Much like Montana, which has implemented an Indian Education For All program, South Dakota will attempt to bridge educational achievement gaps between American Indian and non-Indian students, lower dropout rates and bring about a better understanding of the cultures. Gov. Mike Rounds has signed a bill into law that will include curriculum changes that will teach about American Indian culture and language, and require teachers to upgrade their skills with American Indian studies courses. The new law also officially creates the office of American Indian Education. "It is a good thing we do to recognize the positive contributions of the Lakota culture and set the stage for sharing that with everybody across the state. And we hope to keep kids interested in school," said state Rep. Thomas Van Norman, member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. With the inclusion of the Lakota culture and language in the public school system, many people have expressed a belief that positive changes will occur in the state between the races. Department of Education Secretary Rick Melmer stated that it has taken a long time to get to this point, and that it will take a long time to resolve any problems. South Dakota has a reputation of racist behavior toward the American Indian population. The act requires that all new teachers, teachers from out of state and any teacher certified after 1993 complete a three-semester-hour course on South Dakota Indian studies. The course would include language and cultural awareness, history, educational theory and a background in traditional education and the implementation of strategies of American Indian learning styles. The act also initiates a statewide American Indian language revitalization program. The Lakota language will be offered directly to American Indian students and any student who wishes to take the courses. To guide the curriculum, an American Indian Advisory Council will be established that will consist of representatives from each of the eight reservations and selected American Indian educators from across the state. It is expected that language and culture will be fused into existing curriculum and new classes will also be initiated over time. The act is designed to reach out to American Indian students with the intent of closing the disparity in the achievement gap that most educators admit exists. "I am working with Native American students in my school, and they are learning who they are and learning the rich language and culture of their ancestors, and they have gained a better responsibility toward their education," said Macia Zephier, Rosebud Sicangu and teacher at the Sioux Falls Roosevelt High School. The bill originated from the governor's office and was unanimously supported by the House and Senate Education committees, with only one negative vote on the floor of the House and three no-votes from the Senate. "This will bridge a gap, and we will see each other differently; and I hope the next generation of kids will see people differently across the fences," said Keith Moore, Indian education coordinator with the state Office of Education. The American Indian population in the state is 12 percent, and 11 percent of students in the public school system are American Indian. The latest average ACT test score for the state was 21.8, with American Indian students scoring 17.5. The dropout rate for Native students is much higher than that of other students. Educators have testified that by including Lakota language, culture and history into the public school curriculum, the test score and graduation rate gaps will slowly close. Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Helping Families understand Value of College" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:14:25 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HELPING NATIVE AMERICANS CONTINUE EDUCATIONS" http://www.gallupindependent.com/2007/march/031907nkj_highercalling.html Higher Calling Director working to help Native American families understand value of college By Natasha Kaye Johnson Dine' Bureau March 19, 2007 GALLUP - Billboards across the Navajo Nation are adorned with images and messages promoting higher education, and people often hear leaders encouraging young people to get a college education. But for some families, attaining a higher education still remains of little worth. "There's a lot of (Native American) families who don't value or understand why their child may be in college," said Karen Francis-Begay, director of Native American Student Affairs at the University of Arizona, and special advisor to the president on American Indian Affairs, Karen Francis-Begay. Recruiting students and helping them to adjust and stay in school is one of many duties of Francis-Begay, who is originally from Chinle. But the task it not an easy one, especially when students' primary support system their family does not support their decision to be in school. For first-generation college students, helping families understand why education is important and finding innovative ways for those families to understand the pressures students face while in college is currently Francis-Begay's most difficult challenge. Family first? Often times, students confide in Francis-Begay for advice when they are torn between staying in school and returning home to help their families. "There are families where the parents may be ill or grandparents are ill, so the expectation is that (the student) should come home and take care of the family." For incoming students who are attempting to adapt to college life and take on their new, rigorous material, the pressure becomes overwhelming. These same students, Francis-Begay said, are pressured by their families to be providers, although they may hundreds or even thousands of miles from home. Francis-Begay shared a recent example of a freshman student who confided in her for guidance, sharing the details of the financial hardship her family was experiencing. The girl's family had been putting pressure on her to make a vehicle payment, telling her that the vehicle would be repossessed if she didn't help out, and they would have no way to come and visit her. "These kids value when their families can afford and come down and visit, " said Francis-Begay. "That must have really hurt, to feel that pressure where the transportation will be gone." Unpaid loans Often times, students put into these situations take out loans, not for their own living expenses, but because they feel the demand from their families to help pay for bills. Francis-Begay said students are then convinced by family members that they will help them pay back that loan. "But it never happens," she said. " (And) they get loaded up with a lot of loan money." What many parents don't understand, Francis-Begay said, is that students are barely able to pay their bills. The freshman girl's story is one that she has heard more than handful of times in her 13 years as a university official. And after hearing the same story, and seeing the distress it has caused students, Francis-Begay started looking outside the box, and has become compelled to team up with tribal leaders, so that together, they can begin to help families understand the pressures new students face. "I want them to clearly know that a lot of our students are dealing with some pretty significant obstacles," she said. A plea for help This past weekend, Francis-Begay and other university officials traveled to Window Rock, where they discussed with leaders how they can collaborate to address the problem. She also plans to get on the Council agenda to talk with leaders this coming summer. "Another concern is that we don't talk about, because its very sensitive nature in general, is how alcohol and substance abuse impacts students," said Francis-Begay. "You complicate that with the family pressures, and a lot of them don't have ways to handle that stress, and they go to their outlets." Francis-Begay acknowledged that viewing college as one big party is the culture of colleges campuses, and a way that students feel more validated for being in college, but for many Native students it can often break them. "We (university staff) have to be the voice; we have to say what about what your family told you. How does your grandma talk to you? How do your parents talk to you?" Of the more than 37,000 students at the university, 814 are registered Native American students, and of those, 60 percent are Navajo. "You get to think, where do you get the students to focus on school? How do you get them on track?," said Francis-Begay. "That's another real trouble area for me." By talking with leaders, Francis-Begay hopes they will re-emphasize to community members that they must support their children's decision to go to college, and that they must allow them to focus on their studies and not have too much expectations of them to help resolve family issues. "It's new territory we're treading into, but we see it as very common among a lot of college students," said Francis-Begay. "We really care about this community." Copyright c. 2007 the Gallup Independent. --------- "RE: Indians criticize plan to end School Program" --------- Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:29:14 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="EASIEST TARGET OR REAL SCHOOL NEED?" http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/ base/news-35/1174578314295590.xml&coll=6 American Indians criticize plan to end school program By Dave MurrayThe Grand Rapids Press March 22, 2007 GRAND RAPIDS - Leaders of the city's American Indian community lashed out at school leaders and say they will fight to save an alternative education program, even if that means forming a charter or private school. Grand Rapids Superintendent Bernard Taylor told about 50 parents, students and community members he understands there have been mistrust and problems in the past. But he said he can keep some of the school's students together in larger programs and offer lessons in American Indian culture in classes and after-school programs. "I know there are adult issues," he said after the meeting. "But we need to make placing these students and meeting their needs the priority and then work on the other issues." Taylor said he needs to close the program, also called Bimaadiziwin, because the state's new graduation requirements, coupled with federal rules about teacher training, make it difficult to run small programs. But some community members were angered both by the decision and their treatment by the superintendent. Longtime community activist Levi Rickert said Taylor lectured residents and made it clear they didn't have a voice. "This is the most arrogant superintendent I've ever seen," Rickert said. "He's beyond ridiculous. I can't believe this guy is our superintendent. I can't see how he'll last in this city." Rickert said Taylor is hiding behind the federal and state rules, noting the district has other small alternative programs that have not been closed or restructured. He believes parents will attempt to keep the students together, either forming a private or charter school. "It's clear this isn't over," said Frank Coronado, president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Native American Coalition. "Something's going to happen, because this sure isn't working. They tell us there will be a counselor for the Native American students but won't guarantee that the counselor will be Native American." About 100 students attend the program, although only a quarter are of American Indian ancestry. "I'm sorry people are upset," Taylor said. "And I understand the mistrust and the misunderstandings. My objective now is to figure out how we can get beyond that." Taylor prohibited the media from the meeting even though it was open to community members beyond parents. It also was attended by several administrators and Board of Education member Arnie Smithalexander. "Some people play to the cameras when they are there," Taylor said after the meeting. Send e-mail to the author: dmurray@grpress.com Copyright c. 2007 Michigan Live LLC. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Comments regarding Blackfeet/Montana Water Compact" --------- Date: Friday, March 23, 2007 04:32 am From: Long Standing Bear Chief Subj: Comments before Meeting regarding a proposed Water Compact between the State of Montana and Blackfeet Nation Mailing List: Blackfoot Nation Comments Before the Meeting regarding a proposed Water Rights Compact between the State of Montana and The Blackfeet Nation, March 22, 2007 at Browning. My name is Long Standing Bear Chief. I am here to speak before this gathering of people regarding the proposed Water Compact between the State of Montana and our people. I speak for those who have not yet found their voice to say anything on specific issues which we have heard this day regarding Blackfeet Water Rights. The reason why we have not spoken out on any of the issues is because the issues and the impact of those issues are not understood by many of us. But I want to say that there are those Blackfoot people, and there are many, who are united in one thought - we feel that the rights of the Indian people must be clarified and written into a revised Boundary Waters Treaty. We know our rights to the waters named in the Treaty were not specified in the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 and did not and do not to this day include the issues and understandings of the Piikani, Akainawa, and Siksika Nations. The reason why is because there were those White politicians who decided to play God with our rights and saw to it that we did not get a 'seat at the table' because back then there were too few Blackfoot who spoke the English language fluently enough to understand all the implications of the Boundary Waters Treaty's wording nor did our self- proclaimed Great White Father represent us as they claimed they would as our Trustee. Let it be known that I asked for a raise of hands of the White people in the audience and even they did not understand what the negotiation points and legal expressions mean which at this time are contained in the proposed Water Compact Agreement with the State of Montana. None of us, Indian and White, understand. Let me site two examples: Ms. Whiting, our water rights attorney, uses the expression CFS in reference to water. Does this refer to 'commodity food service', while another person spoke of Senior Water Rights that members of our nation have. Does this refer to the fact that Elders are entitled to a 20 oz bottle of water or a 2 gallon bottle or 5 gallon can of water' I am poking fun but I believe you get the point that many of us despite our being well informed have difficulty understanding what is meant and the full significance of the Legal meanings of these phrases and words. It is justly fair that there be written explanations of what the Compact and what the points tentatively agreed to and of those which are still being negotiated actually mean. In this manner we get to read and come to understanding through reading and talk among ourselves what impact this so-called Compact really means as we understand it. If we do not understand it there can be no Agreement. This must be the conclusion of any reasonable person(s). There are those of us who are more Traditional in our thinking who do not now support, except for minor points, any Compact Agreement negotiated thus far. The reason for this position of disagreement is because no team has mentioned a revised Boundary Waters Treaty that shall be written in such a manner as to guarantee Blackfoot rights to all water flowing from, falling upon, and flowing through, flowing beneath, etc. our Blackfoot homeland. We had expected the Blackfeet Water Commission to accomplish this for us. Most assuredly The State of Montana will not guarantee our rights for us nor will our incompetent Great White Father do it for us as witnessed by the foolish comments of the Federales Team Sergeant who said the Federales are in the pot only to insure that the State and the Indians deal fairly and justly with each other. Wow, what an arrogant statement! If the Federales had dealt with our people justly in the first place we would not be in the mess we are in. Those of us who represent the traditional Blackfoot aka Blackfeet want to say to the Federales that your Plenary Power kind of voice is wearing thin because it represents both the Democrat and Republican minions depending upon which of them are in power and it changes little with the seasons of those parties. It is incumbent upon the Indians to understand what is about to be done in our name. We must take the path of justice demanded and that is to have our people and the United States Government and Canada enter into a new Treaty whereby our Nation's water rights and those of the Whites are guaranteed. Truthfully and at the risk of being called factious let us say that there are those of us who are Traditionally oriented who have honestly turned over a new leaf and have trust in our White relatives. Let us celebrate by saying at this time of the Spring Equinox when the light of the day and darkness of night is equal: 'Trust the word of our White relatives ...Just get it in writing'. Sincerely yours, Long Standing Bear Chief (who is not a chief at all, but an informed dissident speaking at the behest of those similarly situated). --------- "RE: Sharing and restoring the Heritage of Indians" --------- Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:29:14 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CULTURAL RESTORATION" http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20070321/COMM/703210302 Sharing and restoring the heritage of American Indians By Deborah Medenbach Times Herald-Record dmedenbach@th-record.com March 21, 2007 Rosendale - When Tom Porter stands to welcome the audience Sunday to the Kanatsiohareke benefit at the Rosendale Theater, it will be in the presence of Matoaka and Powhatan Eagle, who know firsthand the value of Porter's upstate center for restoring cultural traditions to American Indians who've been forced away from their heritage through government or religious programs. Their father, Swift Eagle, grew up in the Santo Domingo Pueblo community in New Mexico in the early 20th century. Before he was 8 years old, he was rounded up with all the other Apache/Pueblo children in the area to live at the Santa Fe Indian Boarding School. The Bureau of Indian Affairs "Indian Schools" of the late 1800s were designed to educate and mainstream American Indian children into the larger culture of the country. The process stripped them of their cultural heritage, language and spiritual practices. Historical accounts of the Santa Fe school describe it as militaristic, punishing students for speaking their native languages or holding onto traditional beliefs. Matoaka and Powhatan never heard their father's accounts of his upbringing until they were adults. "Children [in the roundups] were told they were being taken to a beautiful place," Matoaka said. "They thought they were going to heaven. My father hadn't ridden on a train before, which is what they took to the school. They thought it looked like a giant, smoking worm and were scared. "He had to pee but didn't know how to say it. He didn't speak English. He spoke Keresan. The first English words he was able to understand were 'damn fool.' Eventually someone on the train figured out what he needed and took him to the bathroom. He didn't want to use the toilet to pee in. It was like a beautiful white porcelain well and he thought it was odd that these people were so rich and important that they could pee in a well," Matoaka said. "He talked about being at school and running away on bath days. The story is that the children's skin was scrubbed to make them whiter. He would be caught and punished." Though Swift Eagle's education at the Indian School sought to erase his cultural memory, he spent the rest of his life promoting his heritage in every media accessible to him. He modeled in traditional regalia for artists and advertising photographers. He taught native crafts as part of a WPA program in the 1930s. He recorded a story album in the 1950s called "The Pueblo Indians" and modeled for its cover photo. He appeared in movies and television shows, and his family became the Indian residents of Frontier Town, a tourist attraction in North Hudson. Matoaka, Powhatan, their brother Dancing Eagle and sister Singing Eagle appeared in three performances a day, doing traditional dances, riding horses and posing with tourists. Swift Eagle and his wife, Chee Chee Bird, of the Chickcahominy tribe in Virginia, worked doing craft demonstrations and giving archery lessons. Though the environment played into a social stereotype, their living arrangement allowed Swift Eagle to teach his children the traditional skills the Indian school had worked so hard to erase in him. Since there were no other Keresan-speaking Indians in the region, Swift Eagle recorded his thoughts in his native language into a tape player late at night so he could hear the sound of his own language. "I admired him. In spite of the humiliation of growing up in the influence of boarding schools, he retained a fortitude and resistance to hold on to who he was and pass it on," Matoaka said. While Matoaka and Powhatan know they were given Chicahominy names to honor their mother's side of the family and have been able to do traditional dances since their earliest years, there are many American Indians who have lost touch with their background or reject it outright. "They don't know anything about who they are," Motoaka said. The Kanatsiohareke community was started by Tom Porter in 1993 as the "anti-boarding school," teaching traditional Mohawk skills, language and spiritual traditions to Mohawk Indians from age 16 to 60. "I notice it gives them a purpose in their life," Porter said. "They're Native American, but they never talk about that kind of stuff. It's a bogeyman kind of thing. They're told 'Don't bother with it.' But they're made as Indian people. "It's like a shirt with no one to wear it. What we've begun to do is fill the shirt and see that it gets some movement with a body. We don't know where this will end up, but it's interesting to see." Porter's been an American Indian spiritual teacher for 40 years and counsels incarcerated Indians in 55 of the state's 70 prisons. Kanatsiohareke, situated on traditional Mohawk Bear Clan lands near Fonda, west of Albany, is a 400-acre farm that offers seminars in language, history, cultural traditions and spirituality of the Mohawk people. The more advanced classes on spiritual ceremonies are taught in the Mohawk language. "In the colonization, Christians proclaimed for five generations that our way of believing was pagan and hedonistic. It was real terrorism to tell a 5-year-old that they'd burn in hell for believing in their traditional ways or that it's incorrect or devilish. A lot of Indian people have a hard time reintroducing themselves to their own culture. We're throwing a lifeline to them," Porter said. The fundraiser for the Kanatsiohareke community features songs, stories and dances by several American Indian performers as well as some nonnative musicians. Porter will give a traditional Iroquois opening and closing address. "I was most impressed at last year's event that the performers completely donated their time and had a ball!" Porter said. "There was great satisfaction for them of doing something for the community." If you go ... Second annual Benefit Concert for Kanatsiohareke, 1:30-4:30 p.m. March 25, Rosendale Theater, 330 Main St., Rosendale. Performers include Dennis Yerry and the Hawk Project; Kay Olan; Roy Hurd; Fode Sissoko; Jay Mankita; Tami Mitchell; Powhatan and Matoaka Eagle. Tickets are $15, $10 senior citizens and children. Call to reserve, 255-2151. Kanatsiohareke is a contemporary traditional Mohawk community near Fonda, west of Albany. This event will help support the Mohawk Language Immersion Program, cultural/educational programs and outreach programs at Kanatsiohareke. Copyright c. 2007 Times Herald-Record, serving New York"s Hudson Valley and the Catskills. --------- "RE: Glass Skywalk opens above the Grand Canyon" --------- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:12:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HUALAPAI SKYWALK" http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/03/21/ glass_skywalk_opens_above_the_grand_canyon/ Glass skywalk opens above the Grand Canyon By Chris Kahn, Associated Press March 21, 2007 HUALAPAI INDIAN RESERVATION, Ariz. - Staring down through the transparent floor and walking very carefully, American Indian leaders, a former astronaut, and invited guests walked beyond the Grand Canyon's edge yesterday during opening ceremonies for a glass-bottomed observation deck that lets tourists gaze deep into the chasm. A few members of the Hualapai Indian Tribe, which allowed the Grand Canyon Skywalk to be built on the canyon rim, hopped up and down playfully on the horseshoe-shaped structure. At the top of the loop, the group peeked over the glass wall. "I can hear the glass cracking!" Hualapai chairman Charlie Vaughn said playfully. Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin declared it a "magnificent first walk." The Hualapai (pronounced WALL-uh-pie), whose reservation is about 90 miles west of Grand Canyon National Park, allowed Las Vegas developer David Jin to build the $30 million Skywalk in hopes of creating a unique attraction on their side of the canyon. The Skywalk extends 70 feet beyond the canyon's edge with no visible supports above or below. " I believe this is going to help us. We don't get any help from the outside, so, why not?" said Dallas Quasula Sr., 74, a tribal elder who was at the Skywalk. "This is going to be our bread and butter." For $25 plus other fees, as many as 120 people at a time will be able to look down to the canyon floor 4,000 feet below, a vantage point more than twice as high as the world's tallest buildings. The Skywalk is scheduled to open to the public March 28. Robert Bravo Jr., operations manager of the Hualapai tourist attractions called Grand Canyon West, said he hopes the Skywalk will double tourist traffic to the reservation this year to about 600,000. In later years, he hopes it brings in about 1 million tourists. The Skywalk has sparked debate on and off the reservation. Many Hualapai worry about disturbing nearby burial sites, and environmentalists have accused the tribe of transforming the majestic canyon into a tourist trap. Hualapai leaders say they weighed those concerns for years before agreeing to build the Skywalk. With a third of the tribe's 2,200 members living in poverty, the tribal government decided it needs the tourism dollars. For more information, go to grandcanyonskywalk.com. Copyright c. 2007 The New York Times Company. --------- "RE: Red Lake holds Healing Day" --------- Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:07:43 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RED LAKE HEALING DAY" http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=7848§ion=homepage Red Lake holds healing day Molly Miron Bemidji Pioneer March 24, 2007 RED LAKE - Two years and two days after the Red Lake shootings of March 21, 2005, members of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa gathered Friday to create a healing vision for their nation. On the day of tragedy, 16-year-old Jeff Weise killed his grandfather and grandfather's girlfriend at their home. He then went to Red Lake High School and killed five students, a teacher and a security guard and injured seven others before killing himself. Led by Larry Stillday, spiritual leader, and sponsored by the Red Lake Tribal Council, Red Lake Coalition Red Lake Chemical Health Program and White Bison, people still suffering from the aftermath of the shootings sought ways together to resolve their grief. The opening prayer expressed their unresolved grief and loss: "Grandfather, look at my brokenness. ... Grandfather, Sacred One, teach us love, compassion and honor that we may heal the earth and each other." At the meeting in the Red Lake Humanities Center, one avenue to healing the people explored was the Sacred Hoop of Nations. Marlin Farley of the White Earth Nation, where the Sacred Hoop has held a place of honor since 2005, explained the vision that led White Bison to build the Sacred Hoop. He also described the spiritual renewal it brings. "Whenever we bring this hoop into a community, a whirlwind of healing occurs," he said. Following an interlude for honor songs by the P-town drum group from Ponemah, Farley explained that White Bison is an organization started in 1988 by Don Coyhis of the Mohican Nation. White Bison teaches Wellbriety - sober lifestyles balanced with mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health through traditional philosophy and culture. The Sacred Hoop rests on four willow posts and is divided into the elemental American Indian colors in quadrants of white, black, red and yellow. Suspended from the hoop are 100 eagle feathers donated by Indian communities across the United States and Canada. Farley said the hoop was built by women during a special ceremony in 1994 in Jamesville, Wis. The Sacred Hoop offers a challenge, as well as healing, Farley said. The goal is for 100 communities by 2010 to join White Earth and others in a commitment to the Wellbriety principals of White Bison. That commitment will bring each committed community hope, healing, unity and the ability to forgive the unforgivable. A program developed from the Sacred Hoop principles resulted in the Sons and Daughters of Tradition at White Earth, Farley said. The program has graduated 250 youngsters giving them the ability to resist the dangers of drugs, alcohol and gang violence. "We know today our culture is prevention," Farley said. "We have hope that our kids don't have to suffer any more." He said the Sacred Hoop has resulted in healing people with deep sickness, including his own addictions. "This hoop also has power that brings us together today," he said. "This hoop doesn't belong to White Bison. It doesn't belong to the sobriety movement. It belongs to you." Stillday asked Red Lake High School students in the Project Preserve program, teenagers who lost their schoolmates during the 2005 shootings, to speak during the healing event Friday. Two students described their vision for a peaceful community. "I think the reservation would be better without gangs, drugs and violence," said Bianca Mendoza. "I think the reservation would also be better if we had more traditional teachings from elders, and we should get rid of gangs and drugs and alcohol," added Ryan Brown. "And we wish we could be up here speaking Ojibwemowin (Ojibwe language)," said Diane Schwanz, Project Preserve teacher. Stillday said the focus for a better nation must come around to the children. "They belong to the Creator," Stillday said. "We are caretakers of our children... That's what this hoop is about, getting our minds straight again, thinking right." Copyright c. 2007 Forum Communications Co. Fargo, ND 58102 - All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Krieger backs out of Land Deal with State" --------- Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:31:49 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MARR RANCH, NEZ PERCE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.wallowacountychieftain.info/print.asp?ArticleID=12597 Krieger backs out of land deal with state By Corey Wicks Wallowa County Chieftain March 22, 2007 Steve Krieger says he is "mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore," threatening a spree of lawsuits and pulling out of a $4.1 million deal with the State of Oregon to sell 61 acres at the head of Wallowa Lake. "I'm not going to do a deal until things get cleared up," Krieger said in a phone interview Tuesday with the Chieftain from Orange County, Calif. Last week, Krieger reported that he was close to finalizing a contract with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department to sell the Marr Ranch property for $4.1 million. While the state had been preparing the contract for the transaction - nothing had been signed yet - Krieger informed them that deal was off, at least temporarily. "They're on notice at this point the deal is stopped," he said. Why did he have the change of heart? "It was not passing the smell test," he said. Krieger said that, in reading an article in the Chieftain ("Marr land becomes $4.1 million park" March 15, 2007), Krieger said that several things did not sit well with him. One thing he did not like was the involvement of the Wallowa Land Trust. Krieger blamed James Monteith, president of the Wallowa Land Trust, for what Krieger perceived to be environmental activism that was detrimental to the local timber industry. He blamed Monteith's actions and those of Andy Kerr for environmental activism and the demise of Krieger's Joseph Timber Company. Monteith could not be reached for comment. Likewise, Krieger took exception to comments in the article by Timothy Nitz of the Nez Perce National Historic Park, which is adjacent to the Marr property. Krieger believes that Nitz and Harold Shepherd, attorney for the Center for Water Advocacy, were dishonestly portraying Nitz's role in the group's lawsuit challenging the K&B Limited Partnership's Measure 37 claim on the Marr Property. In a document filed in Wallowa County Circuit Court on Feb. 2, Nitz paid $100 as surety in the group's legal challenge in order to demonstrate that the group has members within the county. (See companion story, this issue). "He hid the information and it's no way to act when you're on the planning commission...In any other county I've lived in this would have been a huge ethics scandal," he said. Nitz declined to comment Tuesday. Krieger e-mailed members of the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners March 19 telling them that he intended to pursue legal action against the county to recoup the $40,000 he spent in fighting what he characterized as a frivolous lawsuit. The board held an executive session Monday to discuss the threat of impending litigation with its attorney, Dan Ousley. Krieger indicated that he also intends to pursue a defamation suit against Nez Perce Tribal Attorney Geoffrey Whiting, as well as Joe McCormack, a member of the Nez Perce tribe. Krieger's e-mail to the county commissioners referred to an e-mail sent by Whiting Aug. 27, 2005, in which Whiting alleged that Krieger committed a crime by creating a road on the Marr property. Whiting's email alleged that Krieger acted the way he did "purely out of hatred to scar a homeland he knows the Nez Perce love." Whiting could not be reached Tuesday for comment. "I broke no laws, I do not hate the Nez Perce Tribes...How does Geoff Whiting know what I have in my heart?" Krieger asked. Not only does he not hate Native Americans, but also he has three registered members of the Cherokee tribe in his family, he said. It is only the manner in which the tribes have intervened in county affairs that he has taken exception to, he said. Krieger's e-mail to the county also cited an incident where commissioner Dan DeBoie spoke to U.S. Cellular representative Dan McKinney regarding plans to place a cell tower on the Marr property. Krieger blamed DeBoie for undermining McKinney's confidence in the cell tower plan. "That is a major breach and that is what I've been running into in Wallowa County," Krieger said. "...Even though the commissioners approved the Measure 37 case on the Marr property, I believe it's what's going on under the radar" that indicates the commissioners' hostility to his plans on the Marr property, he said. DeBoie, who is also a member of the Joseph School Board, said that his discussion with McKinney came after there was much public opposition to placing a cell tower near Joseph High School. McKinney told DeBoie that they did not intend to appeal the decision to deny the application because they did not want a great deal of public rancor over where to place the tower, DeBoie recalled. Then, McKinney told DeBoie of their intention to seek to place the cell tower on the Marr property. DeBoie said that he then gave McKinney a "head's up" that, while he thought the application would fit into the zoning, given the contentious history of the Marr property - which McKinney was unaware of - that there was likely to be a lot of public opposition to placing a cell tower there. DeBoie pointed out that the board actually approved an 11-lot subdivision on the property but that Krieger withdrew it. Likewise, it was the cell tower company that withdrew that application instead of the county commissioners killing the applications, he said. Krieger said that, after DeBoie's conversation with McKinney, it took an hour's worth of persuasion with their attorney, Rahn Hostetter, to convince U.S. Cellular to go forward with the application, which U.S. Cellular later withdrew. Krieger reiterated that the representatives of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission and the Oregon Land Trust have been excellent to work with and that it was unfortunate that they had been caught in the middle of a difficult situation. Instead, his beef was with those who had been actively working against him. "I cannot go forward in good conscience with these people involved... Everybody's been trying to undermine my efforts on this property," Krieger said. "...This is a park for the public, not a tribal giveaway." Copyright c. 2007 Wallowa County Chieftain. --------- "RE: EBC Project to put River Cane close to Home" --------- Date: Thursday, March 22, 2007 09:51 pm From: frostyca2000 Subj: Wanted to share this with you Mailing List: Frostys AmerIndian Wanted to share this with you Greetings from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Project would put river cane closer to home Cherokee women have been weaving river cane baskets for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. As early as the 1600s, explorers in Cherokee country reported giant canebrakes, sometimes so thick they were impossible to navigate without cutting a road. The basket-weaving tradition is still strong on the Qualla Boundary, but with a smaller land base and more demands on natural resources, local river cane suitable for weaving is difficult to find. But a project is under way to replenish those natural, native materials. Bears and more on the way You might have known there are bears in these parts, but did you know that come springtime they'll prowl the streets of Cherokee? The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is sponsoring a public arts initiative to put giant fiberglass bears, each designed by an Eastern Band artist, from one end of Cherokee to the other. Spring is also the season for a number of construction projects on the Qualla Boundary. Eastern Band shares cultural tourism expertise The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is helping Alaska Natives and American Indians across the country establish tourism initiatives that remain true to their respective cultures. "We have led by example," said George Lambert, Travel & Tourism manager with the Eastern Band. Lambert just started his third year as a Southeast representative on the board of directors of the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association and will run for reelection next year. Did you know? Dance plays an important part in Cherokee culture. Dances were fun social occasions, ways of honoring animals, and parts of spiritual ceremonies for many centuries. Today Cherokee people continue to perform traditional dances such as the Friendship Dance, Bear Dance, and Quail Dance. Traditional Cherokee dances were often done in the evenings for fun, with everyone participating. Accounts from European visitors in the 1700s describe Cherokee people dancing every evening in the town house, and Cherokee people continued this into the 19th century, gathering at houses for social dances. --------- "RE: A mother, a daughter, a warrior" --------- Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:33:17 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="REMEMBERING LORI" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0323piestewa0323blomo.html A mother, a daughter, a warrior 4 years since Lori died Michael Kiefer The Arizona Republic March 23, 2007 Today, on the fourth anniversary of her death, friends and relatives will gather in Phoenix to remember Lori Piestewa beneath the mountain that bears her name. Piestewa died in an ambush in the opening days of the Iraq war, becoming the first Native American woman to die in combat for the U.S. Family, friends to honor Piestewa today The last time Lori Piestewa visited Phoenix was in October 2000 when she attended a family reunion beneath Squaw Peak. This morning, her friends and family, comrades and admirers will gather beneath that same mountain, now named Piestewa Peak, to mark the fourth anniversary of her death while fighting in Iraq: March 23, 2003. Piestewa, 23, a Hopi from Tuba City, was the first American woman to die in the war in Iraq and probably the first Native American woman to die in combat overseas for the U.S. Shortly after Piestewa's death, Gov. Janet Napolitano renamed the Phoenix landmark in her honor. But not without controversy. Valley residents still squabble over whether Napolitano skirted the laws governing place names and whether Piestewa was hero enough to deserve it. Piestewa's father, Terry, who saw combat in Vietnam, calls his daughter a warrior. He sees the mountain as more than just a monument to her. "It's named after Lori," he said, "but yet it stands for every vet that didn't get to come home, man or woman, no matter where they come from. We're all one people." In her death, Spc. Lori Piestewa has become an icon for 21st-century America: a young woman of color, half Hispanic and half Native American, a single mom who joined the Army to make something of herself and to provide for her kids. Piestewa died doing what soldiers do: defending her comrades and her country. She raced her Humvee through a firefight - twice - after rescuing her best friend, Jessica Lynch, and two other soldiers. On the second run, a rocket-propelled grenade found the Humvee and propelled it into another truck, killing the two soldiers and Piestewa's sergeant. Piestewa and Lynch were taken to an Iraqi hospital, where Piestewa died. Lynch's televised rescue nine days later was emblematic in itself: America's every daughter plucked out of the horrors of war. Lynch will be at today's memorial, and so will Shoshana Johnson, Joseph Hudson and Patrick Miller, Piestewa's comrades who were captured in the same ambush. But it's not in the Hopi tradition to memorialize the dead. "The Hopi believe that once you go on your journey, you don't look back," Terry Piestewa said. "That's the way of healing. In her case, we don't have that choice because she's always in the news, there's always people talking about her." And so he and his wife, Percy, share willingly. They talk frankly about how she had to be disinterred in Iraq to be returned to Arizona. "We prayed for her to come home," Terry said. "We didn't specify how, and this is what we got." Providing for family Lori Ann Piestewa was born and raised in Tuba City, a high-desert, red- sandstone town 75 miles north of Flagstaff on the Navajo Reservation, one of four children of Terry and Percy. Terry is a Hopi born in Winslow, who grew up in Chicago and San Francisco after his mother died. Percy is Mexican-American, born in Flagstaff but raised on the reservation after her mother died and her father married a Native American. Lori was their youngest child, good-natured and athletic. She married her high school sweetheart right after graduation, moved to North Carolina, where her husband was stationed in the Army, and had two children. When the marriage broke up, she moved back to Tuba City and decided to enlist. "Her inspiration was her kids," Terry said. "We didn't have the money to send her to school. And she didn't have it, either. So that was her inspiration: Go in the military to get a GI Bill and a way of supporting her family." Lori's parents and her children were at Fort Bliss, Texas, to see Lori and her friend Jessica board the bus that would take them to war in early 2003. Percy kept in contact with her by e-mail. Lori told her that if she died, she wanted to be buried in the Hopi way and that she wanted her parents to care for her kids. "Mom, I want you to love them," she told Percy. "I don't want them to be brats, and I don't want them to be a menace to society." On March 20, 2003, just minutes before the convoy pushed into Iraq, Lori sent another e-mail to her mother. "We're going in," she wrote, "but don't e-mail me back because I hot- wired my CO's (commanding officer's) computer, and I'm not supposed to be on it. Take care of the babies, and I'll see you when I get back." Three days later, Terry and Percy heard about the ambush from TV news, and they knew that it involved Lori's unit. They called Fort Bliss to ask if Lori was among the prisoners of war and were told she was not. The next they heard of their daughter was a late-night knock on the door: two officers who had come to tell them that Lori was missing in action. A shining star Two flags whip in the wind outside the Piestewa home north of Flagstaff: the Stars and Stripes and the black POW commemorative banner. The house was built in 2005 for the TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in a well-spaced housing development that until recently was just a meadow of yellow sunflowers. Near the front entranceway, Percy and Terry keep a freestanding room dedicated to Lori, with photos and paintings and Indian blankets, and the few effects that came home with her body: her dog tags, her Army ID card, her watch and a silver ring. The rest of the house is like a museum, full of kachinas and Native artwork. Lori, Percy said, "is around here in spirit a lot." The home's rear windows look right up at the San Francisco Peaks, which are sacred to the Hopi people. Lori's daughter, Carla Whiterock, likes to think that her mom is with the Hopi kachinas who live on the peaks. She sees her mom when she looks up at the stars. Carla's brother, Brandon Whiterock, explains that the Hopis believe that their spirits go up among the stars after death. Brandon, 8, is a husky, well-spoken and serious young man. He was 4 when his mother died, but he remembers visiting with her and Jessica at Fort Bliss. He is tongue-tied talking about her, but he knows that he misses her. Carla, 7, is a smiley little girl with dark hair that reaches down her back. Her grandparents say that she looks and acts just like Lori did as a child. But she was barely 3 when her mother went to war, and she doesn't remember her. Still, she was happy to show visitors the picture books about her mom. And as her grandmother helped her with the big words, she read aloud a Hopi prayer from one of them. "When you awaken in the morning hush, I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die." Copyright c. 2007 The Arizona Republic. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Court allows UKB suit over Arkansas River" --------- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:12:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="UKB IS ENTITLED TO PURSUE CASE" http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/001953.asp Court allows UKB suit over Arkansas River March 20, 2007 The United Keetoowah Band of Oklahoma can proceed with a lawsuit over the Arkansas River without the participation of the Cherokee Nation, an appeals court ruled on Monday. In a unanimous decision, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals said the Cherokee Nation has no stake in the UKB lawsuit. The three-judge panel said the Federal Claims Court was wrong to dismiss the case. The ruling means the UKB can seek a share of a $40 million settlement awarded to the Cherokee Nation, the Choctaw Nation and the Chickasaw Nation. The three tribes accepted the money for mismanagement of the Arkansas Riverbed and for the loss of certain drybed lands. The tribes still retain ownership of the riverbed. Congress enacted the settlement in 2002 but left the door open for other tribes to seek a share of the settlement. The Cherokee Nation, however, claimed that the UKB suit couldn't proceed without its involvement. At the same time, the Cherokee Nation said it couldn't be joined in the case due to its sovereign immunity. The Federal Circuit disagreed, noting that Congress limited potential suits to damage claims and limited the amount of potential compensation. In this respect, the Cherokee Nation has no "interest" in the UKB suit, the court said. The case was returned to the Federal Claims Court in Washington, D.C. The UKBs still have to prove they are owed money for the river. Copyright c. 2007 Indianz.com. --------- "RE: Tribes establish Economic Development Commission" --------- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:12:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LEECH LAKE, RED LAKE, WHITE EARTH FORM COMPACT" http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=7792 Three area tribes establish economic development commission Molly Miron Bemidji Pioneer March 21, 2007 WALKER - In a two-day gathering Nov. 29 and 30 at the Shooting Star Casino in Mahnomen, tribal council members from the Ojibwe nations of White Earth, Red Lake and Leech Lake agreed to form a three-way partnership for economic development. On Tuesday, White Earth Chairwoman Erma Vizenor and Leech Lake Chairman George Goggleye Jr., along with their tribal council members, gathered in specially called meetings at the Northern Lights Casino near Walker. They signed the resolution establishing the Northern MN Tribal Economic Development Commission. Red Lake Chairman Floyd Jourdain Jr., who did not sign Tuesday, said he has distributed copies of the resolution to members of the Red Lake Tribal Council and Hereditary Chiefs, and all are in agreement with the proposal. "The resolution has the blessing of the Red Lake Tribal Council," he said. However, the Red Lake Hereditary Chiefs, who advise the council, have asked that no Red Lake Tribal Council meeting be held outside the nation's ancestral boundaries. "We honor their requests," Jourdain said. Instead, he said, the Tribal Council and Hereditary Chiefs will sign the resolution at a special meeting he will call when he returns to Red Lake. The vision of the framers of the resolution is to strengthen the economy of the entire region through tribal partnerships. Areas where the three tribes are considering cooperation include: - Education from early childhood to adult - Tourism - Medical and mental health facilities and care. The historic gathering of the three tribes opened with drum songs by the Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School's K-12 drum group, flag ceremony by Leech Lake and White Earth American Legion members and invocation by elder and spiritual leader George Goggleye Sr. Goggleye Sr. prayed for the Creator's blessing and help in the new endeavor, as well as safe travel for the Cass Lake-Bena and Bagley boys basketball teams competing in the state tournaments this week. Goggleye Sr. said he remembers attending meetings with his grandfather where various tribes joined to work on issues of mutual interest and advise each other. That tradition has waned, he said, but now has reorganized. "One reservation cannot stand alone," he said. "Two reservations are stronger than one. Three reservations can be stronger than two. Just think what we could do if we all worked together. We'd have an Indian president." Goggleye Sr. noted the young singers from the school, who are perpetuating the Ojibwe language and traditions, particularly Casey Smith, 9, who led one of the songs in a clear high voice. "The little ones are going to benefit from this, not us old guys," he said. "It's not about us. It's about them, the little people." John Herrera, Leech Lake business development director, who acted as master of ceremonies for the event, dedicated his role to his great- grandfather, Peter Taylor, who 100 years ago worked hard in Onigum, served as postmaster and taught his neighbors how to plant potatoes. Goggleye Jr. said combining the three tribes results in a population of between 40,000 and 50,000 people. "I think it's time for us to be progressive," he said. "We have the opportunity to do something special that hasn't been done in years. I could have said, ‘It's about time,' but that would put a negative spin on it. "I'd like to say, `It's our time.'" Jourdain was accompanied to the gathering by Tom Westbrook, a representative to the Red Lake Tribal Council from Redby, the nation's industrial center. Jourdain agreed that the November meeting at Mahnomen gave him a positive outlook about reaching out to other tribes. "On a national scale, tribes are being made to compete against each other," he said. Cooperation will provide more economy opportunities, Jourdain said. Vizenor said the establishment of the Tribal Economic Development Commission took years of planning. The initiative came from Mille Lacs Chairwoman Melanie Benjamin in July 2005 and led to the November summit. Benjamin's suggestion was rooted in the successful summit for cooperation in 2003 between Mille Lacs and adjacent counties. "One of the reasons we want to have a commission, we as tribal leaders are not going to be here long," Vizenor said. "Our political lives are short." The commission would not be affected by changes in tribal government, she said, and would continue with the goals of the resolution whatever election outcomes are. "We are nations, strong and proud tribal nations," Vizenor added. "Whatever we do, wherever we go, however we move ahead, we must protect our sovereignty." However, she said, the leaders have the true spirit of chiefs: servants to their people. Herrera also read a letter delivered from Norman Deschamps of the Grand Portage Band and president of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Deschamps thanked Red Lake, White Earth and Leech Lake, endorsed the resolution and pledged his band's support. Copyright c. 2007 The Pioneer/Bemidji, MN. --------- "RE: Alaska Natives push Congress on global warming" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:14:25 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ALASKA: GLOBAL WARMING" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.adn.com/front/story/8721781p-8623915c.html Alaska Natives push Congress on global warming By ALEX deMARBAN Anchorage Daily News March 19, 2007 Blaming a hotter planet for endangering their lives and culture, more than 125 Alaska Native organizations have signed a resolution urging Congress to take stronger action to combat global warming. Several village leaders plan to give the resolution, which ask for a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions, to members of Congress on Wednesday. "We want to make the point that our community needs drastic changes in order for us to survive far into the future," said Tony Weyiouanna of Shishmaref, a Northwest Alaska village threatened by coastal erosion. The resolution, representing the voices of thousands of Natives, is unprecedented because it includes input from every region of Alaska, said organizer Anna Davidson, a Yup'ik mother of three. Supporters include the Alaska Federation of Natives - a large statewide group - as well as tribal governments, village corporations and regional social-service organizations, she said. Environmentalists, members of Congress and Mayor Stanley Tocktoo of Shishmaref will be among the speakers at a rally Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol aimed at reducing the causes of climate change. Organizers have said that thousands will attend what they call Climate Crisis Action Day, which would make it the largest demonstration held in Washington on the subject of warming global temperatures. The Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the planet and Alaska Natives, often outdoors practicing subsistence lifestyles, arguably have more to lose from global warming than most Americans, Davidson said. Dramatic environmental changes imperil Natives and the animals they hunt and fish, the two-page resolution says, and changes are needed quickly. Warmer air and water have caused diseases in fish, plants and wildlife, the resolution says. Storm-bred waves are eating the ground beneath villages - they're less protected by shoreline ice - forcing a handful of villages to plan for relocation. Thinning ice has made winter travel on lakes and rivers riskier because snowmachines and people can crash through. People in Shishmaref, a village of 581, are afraid walrus will stop coming, Weyiouanna said. Walrus hunt from the ice, diving to sea bottoms to feed. If the ice moves out too far, above sea bottoms the walrus can't reach, they may not survive, he said. The coastal village, built on an island in the Chukchi Sea, is eroding quickly, he said. The community is looking at new locations. It can survive another 10 to 15 years before it needs to move, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported last year. "Considering the amount of erosion we see every summer and fall we don't have much time," he said. Many leading climate scientists have said the average Alaska temperature has risen 4 degrees in 40 years, and could rise another 5 to 9 degrees in the next 100 years. Late summer sea ice off the North Slope has shrunk substantially, leaving open water for longer stretches of the year. Many scientists blame greenhouse gas emissions that come from the burning of fossils fuels, such as oil in cars and diesel in power plants. Alaska Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski, both Republicans, have sponsored bills to improve fuel-efficiency standards and reduce petroleum use. The measures are a good start, but not strong enough, said Deborah Williams, Alaska Conservation Solutions president. The Anchorage-based group gave Davidson's effort money, Williams said. The senators need to support bills that limit greenhouse gas emissions, she said. Murkowski is considering a bill by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., that would do that, said spokesman Kevin Sweeney. The limits are lower than in other bills before Congress, but it's less likely to slow the economy, he said. Murkowski has asked the state university's Institute of Social and Economic Research to study the impacts of Bingaman's bill on Alaska's economy, Sweeney said. If it doesn't hurt the economy too much, she may vote for it, he said. Davidson, originally from Southwest Alaska, now lives in Anchorage. She began sending draft resolutions to Native organizations last summer after noticing that berries bloomed and bird eggs hatched earlier every year near Kwigillingok, a Southwest village she travels to every summer. She blames warmer temperatures and said earlier hatching times could hurt chick survival if mothers can't find food, she said. There will be more changes if Congress doesn't act soon, she said. "We know this is happening and it's affecting us and we need our leaders to do something about it," she said. Daily News reporter Alex deMarban can be reached at ademarban@adn.com. The Washington Post contributed to this article. Copyright c. 2007 The Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company. --------- "RE: GIAGO: Venezuela steps up for Indian Nations" --------- Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:14:25 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GIAGO: IN PRAISE OF VENEZUELAN FUEL" http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/001929.asp Tim Giago: Venezuela steps up for Indian nations March 19, 2007 Native American journalist Jodi Rave Lee of Lee Enterprise Newspapers was recently lambasted in a letter to the editor to our local daily for having the temerity to laud the donation of funds for heating fuel for the very poor Indian nations of the Northern Plains. The criticism was initiated by the fact that the donor was the Citgo Petroleum Corporation based in Houston, Texas and headed by the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, the man reviled by many Americans for referring to President George W. Bush on the floor of the United Nations as the "Devil." How did it happen that the President of Venezuela reached out to help the poor and the indigenous people of the United States? After two major hurricanes devastated the Southern U. S., a group of U. S. Senators sent out a plea to the major oil companies to help low-income families with energy assistance. Most major oil companies were coming off of scandalous profits because of the sharp rise in fuel costs. Only one company heeded the plea of the senators and that was Citgo Petroleum Corporation headed by Chavez. Federal and state funding for low-income energy assistance programs has dropped dramatically in the past few years. A late winter blast in the Northern Plains hit at a time when most of the federal dollars for low- income energy assistance had run out. The late winter freeze left many indigenous people in dire straits. When it comes to a matter of surviving, Indians and other impoverished people reach out to any assistance available. Olympic Gold Medallist Billy Mills, an Oglala Lakota, used his non-profit Running Strong Foundation to raise energy funds for some low- income households, but even his generosity could not fill the need. Many tribes in Montana and North and South Dakota were advised to attend a meeting in Polson, Montana on December 13, 2006 to listen and discuss how they could avail themselves of the money for heating assistance. Rafael Gomez, Vice President of Citgo, and Brian O'Connor of the Citizens Energy Corporation of Boston attended the meeting. O'Connor's non-profit organization administered the program last year and would be charged with administering the program for the Indian tribes. Although major oil corporations like Exxon had reaped more profit last year than at any time in their history, they declined the invitation to lend a helping hand to the poor people of America. Hugo Chavez stepped in to fill the gap. What motives would prompt him to do this? Certainly it would not help him politically, at least not in America where one of this Nation's top religious figures, Pat Robertson, called for his assassination. Some of the very poor Indian tribes like the Chippewa Cree of the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana, the Cheyenne River and the Oglala Sioux Tribes in South Dakota needed the funds in order to keep their people from freezing to death and accepted the donation from Mr. Chavez willingly. Where was the rich casino owning tribes? Busy counting their money I would guess. There is an old saying out here that goes, "You will know me better when you walk a mile in my moccasins." Hugo Chavez is a member of an indigenous tribe in Venezuela. He has been called "Indio" and worse while growing up as the child of very poor parents. He has walked in the moccasins of the indigenous people. In America it is very easy to hate someone who verbally attacks the president of the United States. Chavez has never held his tongue even amongst his own people or in criticizing other nations in South America. I am told that he was appalled when the major oil companies in America did not step forward to help their own poor and low-income people when called upon to do so. He saw this as the kind of colonialism he has grown to despise. Chavez is not alone in his mistrust of America. In fact, America's status is at an all-time low in many Central and South American countries. Chavez did not create this situation and he is not above using it as a tool to annoy Bush and his administration. Hugo Chavez is a controversial figure to America, especially amongst its politicians. But he has done much to improve the living conditions, the health care and the educational opportunities for his own people in Venezuela, especially for the very poor and the indigenous. As a matter of record Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's law firm lobbies for Citgo Petroleum Corporation. Does he keep his fingers crossed behind his back when he attacks Chavez? However, if the profit mongering oil companies of this Nation had stepped forward when called upon, there would have been no reason for Chavez and Citgo to step up. There is a lot of respect for President Chavez among the Indian nations of this country. He didn't make promises that he couldn't or wouldn't keep, but instead put his money where his mouth is. American Indians appreciate that form of directness. Go to some of the blogs so prevalent in America and you will find all sorts of names for President Bush and most of them are considerably worse than "Devil." Chimp and Chimpy are two that come to mind. But, I suppose most Americans feel it is their inherent right to speak out against their president, but they would damn to hell any outsider that does likewise. Jodi Rave Lee didn't think of the politics of the low-income energy assistance offered by Chavez. Instead, she thought of the people that would have suffered unnecessarily if Citgo had not been willing to do what the American petroleum companies and the United States government refused to do. She didn't have to read about the plight of the indigenous people of America to understand it because like Hugo Chavez and me, she has lived it. --- McClatchy News Service in Washington, DC distributes Tim Giago's weekly column. He can be reached at najournalists@rushmore.com. Giago was also the founder and former editor and publisher of the Lakota Times and Indian Country Today newspapers and the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in the class of 1990 - 1991. Clear Light Books of Santa Fe, NM (harmon@clearlightbooks.com) published his latest book, "Children Left Behind." Copyright c. 2007 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: CATT-IRON SHELL: The Dead Eye of the Storm" --------- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:12:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CATT-IRON SHELL: STD/HIV" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414673 The dead eye of the storm by: Andrew Catt-Iron Shell STD/HIV Prevention coordinator for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe March 21, 2007 A look at HIV/AIDS prevention in Indian country The disease of AIDS is kind of like those old Western movies. You know, where the gun-slinging Texan shoots down 10 Indians with one bullet. Even Dick Cheney can't do that! What enemies are out there shooting down our first Americans? What risky behaviors can take down 10 Indians in one careless night? A little knowledge about the risk of HIV/AIDS would help us from playing Russian roulette with our health. All people from the four directions need to find a common ground and wage war against an enemy worthy of a pre-emptive strike. A sovereign mind knows how formidable the adversary of HIV/AIDS is. We must go into this battle with the equipment and tools needed: knowledge of the enemy and using more than a child's squirt gun to put out this fire. The HIV virus, the incurable virus that leads to the disease of AIDS, is attacking our people throughout Indian country. American Indians and Alaska Natives have the third-highest rate (above whites) of AIDS diagnoses, despite representing a very small number in the population of the United States. On this battlefield, we can sometimes be our own worst enemy. There was a time when American Indian communities were severely uncomfortable speaking to issues of substance abuse, domestic violence or mental health. We behaved as if the good, the bad and the ugly were in someone else's closet. Not talking about HIV/AIDS is an injustice to ourselves and those we love. We can overcome HIV/AIDS in Indian country by rekindling the power of who we are: a Native people. In traditional times, tribal nations addressed our health as a team effort. They must have had good communication skills to accomplish that. Our health, the strength of our mind and spirit, was the greatest weapon in our arsenal. Contemporary times offer a level of dysfunction as we sometimes speak to our health challenges as if we're trying to hide dirty laundry. Some people hide from these health challenges because they were taught to accept intolerance and denial as a coping skill. Could you walk in an AIDS patient's moccasins and survive the intolerance and discrimination of two cultures? Could you survive the daily effects of powerful AIDS drugs that must be taken diligently? Those suffering through chemotherapy could easily testify to the harsh and invasive medical procedures and powerful drug treatments have on the human body. Sometimes they have to poison you to treat your sickness. The disease is no longer a death sentence, but it can drastically influence the quality of your life. Do you think this could never happen to you? If you answered yes, you've taken one blind step towards potential risk for the infection. Why wouldn't you want to unite against an enemy that already has taken healthy lives hostage in your own community? We did not mobilize when the first alarm of HIV/AIDS was sounded. In the 1980s, the evening news, politicians and dealers of stigma sold the American public on the idea that HIV was isolated to gay and two-spirit communities. Stigma and lack of the government's trust responsibility to Indian country has kept us passive in our fight to address this preventable chronic disease. AIDS goes down to the core of who we are as American Indians. It is a disease that attacks the sovereignty of our blood, the sovereignty of minds and spirit. It gives others the opportunity to define our demise through their misguided perceptions of who we are as Native peoples. What is involved is so sacred that many are blinded by the power of it all. The power of this disease is rooted in the blood, and many people are afraid of blood. The American mentality is to fear what it does not understand. Statistics don't count tears. There's no profit margin in that. So they label the American Indian as a victim just by the sheer numbers of our health challenges and poverty levels. We need our tribal leaders to question why the mechanisms to challenge HIV/AIDS have outright failed. It should be unacceptable that HIV rates among Natives in states like South Dakota are 15 percent of the overall infection rate, yet we represent only 8 percent of the overall state population. That's a 25 percent increase from 2001. The first Americans are left without the proper equipment and tools needed to aggressively battle this disease. Success through process will never happen so long as Indian country continues to be treated as incapable of its own solutions. The federal response to HIV prevention in Indian country has been lethargic at best. It outsources trust responsibility to state health departments. This process promotes parity, inclusion and representation, yet it ignores tribal sovereignty. It gives state health departments jurisdiction over Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HIV prevention-dollars needed for Indian country. Who can explain how that empowers Native communities to buy into the concept of HIV prevention? This scenario limits our capacity to address HIV/AIDS in the culturally, tribally directed manner needed for success. If nothing else, it authorizes tribal governments to question what services are provided towards HIV prevention to Indian country. Are they accountable to the needs? Do they meet the state's HIV prevention responsibility to all constituents within tribal jurisdictions? All 562 federally recognized tribes in the United States face these issues. Leaders within Indian country need to build self-sustaining approaches to overall wellness. No one's going to do it for us. Addressing the whole of the person has been successful in meeting other health challenges that Indian country has faced. It's time for Indian country to exercise our sovereignty and push for realistic prevention/intervention services on and off the reservation to our tribal members. Science does not always validate what Natives may define as "realistic." Natives know what will work to address HIV/AIDS within tribal communities, yet we are held hostage by systems that keep paternal control over our sovereign approaches. Shame on us for tolerating the institutional and bureaucratic abuse that we put up with. We've been played against each other for too long; the urban Indian against the rural. Health care funding for the American Indian is unrealistically minimal in the Federal budget thus becoming a tool for conquer and divide. It offers band-aids to a trauma vic tim. How did we miss our relatives dying around us? Too many watched as those who identified as two-spirit and those who remained on the down-low passed on to the spirit world, their lives cut short to HIV/AIDS without enough having been said. Did we help our relatives in need? Did they mourn in silence when they really wanted to scream and shout? It doesn't help knowing that some don't hurt, not so much from the disease as from the pain they feel from not having a strong support system. The single-parent father of a preschool child was turned away from a tribal domestic violence shelter. He was being beaten up by other family members on a regular basis and his child ridiculed because the parent is HIV positive. The shelter told them that they don't provide services for this type of abuse. The elementary school girl does not understand what all the playground teasing and bullying are about, even by children related by blood. She doesn't understand the whispers behind her or why teachers have quit working because they're afraid of her mother. She just knows that her mommy has a disease called AIDS and each day with her mother is a blessing. How many of us are willing to stand with our relatives who endure these types of brutal behavior? In a perfect world, there would be no stigma involved in addressing the challenges of a chronic illness. The stigma and intolerance shown thus far around HIV/AIDS is far more damaging to American society than the disease will ever be. Why wait for Thanksgiving to talk about American Indians? Why wait for March 21, National Native American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, to talk openly about this disease? The conversation should start with questioning your own risk and the risk to loved ones. Do our daughters know how to protect themselves when out on Friday nights with friends? Do our young men know how to respect women, even in thought? Domestic and teen dating violence, crystal methamphetamine and alcohol are variables that can lead us to a path of AIDS infection. We can respect ourselves and those we love by speaking to our health challenges in an open and unthreatening way. Knowledge truly is power in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We must move past our comfort zones and keep HIV/AIDS from being the smallpox-infected blankets once used to thin out tribal populations. The life force of our future generations depends on our ability to step up to the enemy of HIV/AIDS. There is no time to waste. --- Andrew Catt-Iron Shell is Eastern Cherokee/Sicangu Lakota. He serves as a community organizer for the Western South Dakota Native American Organizing Project with advocacy to welfare reform and issues affecting American Indian populations. He can be contacted at igmu49@hotmail.com. Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: WAGAMESE: One Native Life" --------- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:12:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WAGAMESE: REACHING GRANDFATHER" http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8646 One Native Life Reaching Grandfather Richard Wagamese March 21, 2007 My grandfather's name was John Wagamese. Our family name, Wagamese, comes from an Ojibway phrase meaning 'man walking by the crooked water.' It was shortened by the treaty registrar because Wagamese was all he could pronounce of it, but it came from the trapline my great-great-grandfather established along the Winnipeg River. The same one my grandfather walked all his life. He was a bush man, John Wagamese. There was nothing he didn't know of it, couldn't comprehend or even predict. The land was as much a part of him as his skin and he wore it proudly, humbly and with much honour. In our patch of northern Ontario, north of Lake of the Woods, he was a legend. People still talk about how strong he was. He carried a moose carcass ten miles out of the bush one time, and another he fashioned an elaborate harness from the canvas of his tent and hauled 120 pounds of blueberries a day's walk to the northern store for sale. He knew every inch of our traditional territory and in my mind I see him walking it - a man walking by the crooked water. My grandfather's life was the last truly traditional one in my family history. He never learned to speak English, never learned to read or write, never had a driver's license, but he knew the land like an old hymn and it sang through him, all wild and exuberant and free. There's a picture of us in my mother's photo album. I'm young with long hair, trying as hard as I can to look the part of the Indian, the Ojibway. My grandfather is on a bed in light blue pajamas, his nose bent from being broken, eyes sparkling from the fists of cheekbone beneath his wind wrinkled skin, his hair cut severely into a brush cut and the bush man's hands clasped almost shyly together in his lap. For me there was never a question about who the real Indian in that photo is. I met him when I was 25. I'd been taken away in the Sixties Sweep when the government hauled Indian kids off and dumped them into families far away from their traditional territories and I hadn't seen my family for over twenty years. I'd never known I had a grandfather, just as I'd never known I had a history or a culture, vibrant, compelling and alive. But both were there for me if I would have them. The arthritis had confined John to a nursing home by then and I went to see him whenever I could. He couldn't speak English and I had no facility with Ojibway. But when I entered the room that first time, after more than twenty years, he looked at me with that toothless smile and held his hand out about the height of a small child, nodded and welcomed me home. I've never forgotten that - how strong the language of love can be. We sat and talked through an interpreter and I asked my grandfather questions about our history, about life as a traditional Ojibway and about the world he knew in the bush. He was generous and loved to talk. It was like the land came alive for him again and in his mind's eye he became the young man of local legend, striding through the bush filled with the power of intention and purpose. Now and then I'd sneak him in a beer or two and he'd sip them and talk about the old days. When my grandfather spoke I felt my Ojibwayness come alive in me. I lived in the city, worked jobs far removed from any he'd ever done and surrounded myself with things he'd never found time to crave. My world at the time was foreign to him and sitting there hearing the talk of times when simplicity was a virtue and dependence meant always mending your own net, I learned how foreign that life was to me. But it was mine, accorded to me by history, by family, by the recollections of an old man bent by time, wearied some, perhaps, by the trail and eager to pass them on. I became an Indian at twenty-five because of John Wagamese. Oh, sure, I still had the long hair, the beaded vest, the moccasins, the turquoise rings and all the Hollywood trappings of the Indian that I'd learned in my city life but I wanted the Indian look I saw in that photo of my grandfather. The look that said 'all that I am is here'. That was the Indian look I craved. I found it to greater or lesser extents through the last twenty-seven years. Sometimes I've been fortunate enough to feel it on my face but it's been fleeting like learning to become always is. It's been there in ceremony, in talk sometimes, in healing, but like all things it remains a search, a journey. Still, my grandfather lit the light of tradition within me and in the soft roll of the old talk I found and reclaimed myself. These days I know that to look as Indian as my grandfather did is to know the land like an old hymn. He died in his sleep when I was 32. When I heard I lay in my bed and stared at the sky outside my window for a long time. I wasn't sad for him. His life was a celebration. I wasn't in grief for a loss. What he had given me I could never lose. I wasn't bitter and I wasn't angry. All I knew, for absolute certain, was that to honor my grandfather I had to take a walk out on the land. Standing there, looking out across the broad sweep of the country he loved, I came to realize that what I felt for him, was everything, love and joy and grief and loss, and that it had an Ojibway name and I hadn't found the language for it yet. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: MILLER: Cutting Native Peoples' Health Care" --------- Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:29:14 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MILLER: CUTTING HEALTH CARE" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/21/ cutting_native_peoples_health_care.php Cutting Native Peoples' Health Care Robert J. Miller March 21, 2007 American Indians have access to federally-paid health care based on hundreds of treaties the United States signed with Indian nations, under the accepted federal practice of more than 100 years and as a requirement of the trust responsibility the U.S. owes the Indian nations to care for their welfare. Indians have not, however, received their fair share of federal health care, especially in light of this heightened duty. In fact, a July 18, 2003 study by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights entitled "A Quiet Crisis" found that ... the federal government's rate of spending on health care for Native Americans is 50 percent less than for prisoners or Medicaid recipients, and 60 percent less than is spent annually on health care for the average American. Clearly, the United States is not fulfilling its treaty and trustee responsibility to provide health care to American Indian people. This issue has been brought to the forefront again by the Bush administration's attempts to block reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. The IHCIA was first enacted into law in 1976 and signed by President Gerald Ford, with the intention of bringing the level of Indian health up to that of the general U.S. population. Since then, presidents Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton have all signed reauthorizations. The IHCIA expired in 2000 and has been only temporarily funded by Congress and President George W. Bush in the interim. Since 2001, it appears that the White House and the Department of Justice have been opposing its reauthorization. In late 2006, a Justice Department "white paper" that opposed the bill was circulated to conservative Republican Senators. (The department now denies that anyone was authorized to circulate it.) Some Republican senators put a hold on the IHCIA reauthorization bill and thus prevented the bill from being considered in the last days of the 109th Congress. The National Indian Health Board has called on President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales to withdraw this white paper and their objections to the IHCIA, but the Republican Policy Committee has informed senators' offices that it will continue to oppose reauthorization of the IHCIA, claiming that it is "race-based" legislation. In a Senate hearing on March 9, 2007, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., slammed the white paper, taking the White House and Justice to task for the manner in which it was released and its contents. Republican Sens. Craig Thomas, Wyo., and Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, also voiced concerns about the department's stance on the IHCIA reauthorization and how the bill was killed in the 109th Congress. In addition to questions about IHCIA reauthorization, the Bush administration has also targeted the elimination of health care for urban Indians (Indians who no longer live on their tribal reservations). The administration tried to eliminate the entire Urban Indian Health Program from the 2007 budget but Congress restored it. Now the administration has again removed the entire $33 million program from the proposed 2008 budget. In addition to cost-saving concerns, the administration claims to be worried that serving urban Indians is largely a race-based action which federal courts would disapprove of, a White House spokesman told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on March 8. The alleged problem lies in the possibility of some people who are of Indian heritage but not enrolled in federally-recognized tribes might receiving care at Urban Indian Health Service facilities. But this argument is clearly specious. In fact, the definition of an Indian to be served under the IHCIA is the same as it has been for the past 30 years and is similar to the definition of Indian found in President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. The U.S. Supreme Court long ago laid to rest the idea that government programs for the benefit - or even to the detriment - of Indians is a racially-based "affirmative action" issue. In 1974, the Supreme Court stated in Morton v. Mancari that the relationship of the United States to the Indian nations and their citizens is a political and treaty-based relationship and is part of the federal government's government-to- government relationship with Indian tribes. Thus, congressional acts regarding tribes and Indians are not racial or affirmative action laws but political and diplomatic acts of the Congress vis-a-vis the tribal governments and authorized by Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. On March 7, 2007, a bipartisan group of Representatives introduced H.R. 1328 - legislation to reauthorize and even strengthen the IHCIA; a House committee held hearings on the bill on March 14. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is also preparing its own bill to reauthorize the IHCIA. Hopefully, Congress and the president will reauthorize the IHCIA and restore the treaty and trust responsibility obligations of the United States to protect the health of its Indian citizens and to attempt to bring health care protections for Indians up to the same standards that all Americans enjoy. -- Robert J. Miller is a law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and the chief justice of the Grand Ronde Tribe. He is the author of Native America: Discovered and Conquered. Copyright c. 2007 TomPaine.com (A Project of The Institute for America's Future) --------- "RE: JODI RAVE: Old West ignorance alive in Butcher" --------- Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 08:37:35 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JODI RAVE: BUTCHER" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/03/25/jodirave/rave11.txt Opinion: Old West ignorance alive in Butcher Jodi Rave March 25, 2007 An Old West Montana lawmaker recently shot himself in the foot - again - after making antiquated remarks about the history of Native peoples. But this isn't the first time state Rep. Ed Butcher has drawn blood. Lately, my inbox has been filled with e-mails from people who are livid about the latest comments from Butcher, a Republican from Winifred who has served in Montana's Legislature - first the Senate and now the House - for nearly eight years. Unfortunately, he's getting media attention for all the wrong reasons. Instead of being noteworthy for legislating meaningful laws, Butcher is noted, once again, for making disparaging remarks. He's an all-around abuser, having dumped on fellow lawmakers, disabled youths, and - repeatedly - the indigenous people of Montana. In 2001, he called Indian reservations "ghettos." He moved on to call severely mentally disabled kids "vegetables." Twice, Butcher's colleagues forced him to apologize from the House floor. Last month, there was even a rare call for censure - for the full legislative body to reprimand him. The effort failed. Meanwhile, Butcher's apologies have come out of necessity rather than sincerity. Early in this year's legislative session, he referred to a gavel as a tomahawk and made reference to "Chief Windy Boy," instead of Rep. Jonathon Windy Boy, a Chippewa Cree from the Rocky Boy's Reservation. Butcher insists he didn't say anything wrong. Behind the scenes, he told those who complained to "get a life." Butcher called the situation with Windy Boy "ironic," given the fact that he adopted a baby girl from the Chippewa Cree Tribe. That's not ironic. That's disturbing. Anyone aware of his Native track record would understand why. People like Butcher have spurred child advocates to create the Indian Child Welfare Act as a way to keep Native children connected to their tribal communities. No one seems more disconnected with indigenous people than Butcher. He's kicking up dust today among Indian education advocates for sabotaging attempts to teach contemporary and historical Native issues to public school students. The effort is mandated by the Montana Constitution, but for 30 years, lawmakers failed to support it. It wasn't until the state was sued that legislators finally designated the first dollar bill for Indian education in 2005. But Butcher believes it's enough. Last week, Dorothea Susag, a retired Montana teacher, e-mailed Butcher, who sits on the House Education Committee. She asked him to support funding for an Indian education bill now before the state Legislature. She also asked him to help get culturally relevant teaching material into teachers' hands, material written by Native sources. He could have dismissed her, and simply thanked her for writing. Instead, he e-mailed her, embarking on a diatribe. His told her whites wrote everything because Indians never had a written language and didn't even know how to communicate beyond sign language before grabbing hold of farm tools. "One thing that anyone who has knowledge of the stages of human development understands is that 'hunter- gathers cultures' had a very limited vocabulary which increased as they progressed into an 'agrarian culture.' " Butcher appears to be a victim of his own lack of Indian Education for All. His own vocabulary needs enhancement. The anthropological lexicon refers to a "hunter-gatherer" culture, not "hunter-gather." Perhaps he's read too many outdated history textbooks, most of which were written at the nadir of racism, dating to 1890-1940. It's the same material being used to teach high school kids today. Butcher went on to call Indian education efforts as "this little anthropology project," and a program that was on the "fringe" and nothing more than "poor educational policy," to infuse all levels of curricula with Native history. Butcher argued he was a history professor for 10 years who minored in anthropology as a graduate student. "So I have a significant amount of cultural studies, including various Native American cultures." Butcher reminds me of the reasons I like Montana. It's beautiful. It's a Northern Plains and Rocky Mountain state. And Indians are the majority minority. I like to call states like Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota "cowboy-and-Indian states," meaning other racial or ethnic groups exist in minute numbers, leaving Natives with a distinct identity. But being in a cowboy-Indian state is also a reminder that the Old West mentality is alive and well, and that a few gunslingers still exist. Butcher wears his ignorance like a badge of honor. And he does so while making laws for the rest of us. Columnist Jodi Rave can be reached at 800-366-7186 or jodi.rave@lee.net Copyright c. 2007 Missoulian, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: CHIEF MATCHEWAN: Blockade of Highway 117" --------- Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:29:14 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LETTER: STEVENSON'S RECORD" http://www.firstperspective.ca/fp_combo_template.php? path=20070321letter Letter to editor: Peguis election and Stevenson's record March 21, 2007 MITCHIKANIBIKOKINIK Algonquins of Barriere Lake Les Algonquins du Lac Barriere KITIGANIK - Rapid Lake - Lac Rapide Quebec JOW 2CO March 20, 2007 Honourable Lawrence Cannon Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Member of Parliament Pontiac Riding House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario KIA OA6 RE: Blockade of Highway 117 and Security of Rapid Lake Reserve Dear Minister: We are writing to request your urgent attention to the situation of our community. You are no doubt aware of the recent blockade, which was erected on Highway 117 within our traditional territory, near Rapid lake Reserve. Because the blockade was in our territory, many people thought that the Algonquins of Barriere Lake put up the blockade. However, that is not the case: it was mainly outside agitators who are followers of Mr. Guillaume Carle, head of the so-called "Confederation of Aboriginal People of Canada" that put up the blockade, along with several dissidents from our community. In fact, our community and Algonquin citizens from other communities were very concerned and continue to be very concerned about the circumstances related to the blockade, which is why my fellow Algonquin Chiefs and I wrote to Minister Prentice on March 14,2007. We attach a copy of this letter for your information. The disruption of the governance of our First Nation by the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA), particularly the imposition of a third party manager and the refusal of the Minister to recognize my leadership, has created a leadership vacuum in our First Nation. This has enabled outsiders to enter our community without restriction. It appears that these outsiders and the dissidents are being given free reign to use the band office and our reserve to conduct their activities. This is unacceptable and we asked the Minister to take steps to ensure adequate security for our community. We are now hearing reports from our community members that Mr. Guillaume Carle and his followers are still involved with several dissidents from our community and they are planning to block Highway 117 again. We have not received any satisfactory response from Minister Prentice, so our First Nation has decided to take the necessary action to ensure our community is secure. We will be establishing a check-point to control access to our village at Rapid Lake. In the meantime, further to our letters to you of January 10, and 26, 2007, we are asking you once again to prevail upon your colleague, Minister Prentice, to take the necessary action to bring about stability and security for our community. As you know, our Customary Council and our Elders Council have requested that Judge Paul be mandated to address not just the leadership issue, but also the issue of our ongoing dispute with DIA, now currently the subject of litigation in Federal Court. We realize that the leadership issue must be resolved before the other outstanding issues, so as a first step, we urge you to intervene with Minister Prentice to expedite the resolution of this aspect. There is no reason why this should be delayed: - The Minister offered to appoint a mediator; - We recommended the appointment of Justice Rejean Paul as mediator; - The dissident faction in our community agreed with the appointment of Justice Paul; - The Minister agreed to appoint Justice Paul; - We had our first meeting with Justice Paul on February 1, 2007, and had a full community meeting with him on February 10th; - The dissident faction met with him on March 10th in Le Domaine; and - Judge Rejean Paul told our community members during the February 10th meeting in Rapid Lake that he would issue his mediation report by early-March 2007. Yet, Judge Rejean Paul has thus far not been able to issue his report. In fact, it is our understanding that the federal government has not yet even passed the Order-In-Council providing Judge Rejean Paul with a mandate. We appreciate the efforts you have made on our behalf to get Judge Rejean Paul appointed as mediator; but we must now ask you to intervene on our behalf to finalize his appointment so that he may finish and issue his report. In light of the urgency of the situation, we would appreciate your earliest response. Yours Truly, Chief Jean Maurice Matchewan --------- "RE: ROSS: Being Zapatistas Where We Live" --------- Date: Monday, March 26, 2007 02:36 am From: Chiapas95-english Subj: J.Ross,Being Zapatistas Where We Live - Southern Routes,Mar 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: . ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:09:05 -0400 (EDT) From: johnross@igc.org FROM: JOHN ROSS 206-419-7957 johnross@igc.org Blindman's Buff #153 BEING ZAPATISTAS WHERE WE LIVE - SOUTHERN ROUTES BEAR A STRANGE FRUIT I. "Southern trees bear A strange and bitter fruit - Blood on the leaves And blood at the root" (March 1st-19th) - Cape Fear seemed an appropriate geopolitical point from which to launch my odyssey through the nether portions of the North American South. The terror alert was at Orange level as we waited for the small ferry that would move us up the Carolina coast to Wilmington. The bay is ringed with choice targets - a nuclear power plant, an Army ammo dump, strategically significant port infrastructure through which a lot of war machinery is shipped towards Iraq. Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg are a few degrees north and kids here wear camou and blacken their eyes with battle paint when they go out to play. Fort Bragg, home of the 82nd Airborne, the Green Berets, and the Center for Special Forces trains the killers of Latin American babies. General Mario Renon Castillo, a graduate in counter-insurgency warfare, plotted the massacre of 49 Tzotzil Indian supporters of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation at Acteal on the eve of Christmas 1997 - four babies, nearly at full term, were ripped from the wombs of their dead mothers. Mexican drug fighting troops are trained at Fort Bragg. One group of trainees defected to the narco cartels, renamed themselves the Zetas, and are deemed accountable for dozens of public beheadings in Acapulco and other disputed turf. While year after year, the nuns and the priests summon thousands of activists to the School of America at Fort Benning, Georgia, Fort Bragg continues to crank out its quotient of killers without much protest. It has not always been that way. Chuck Fager who runs Quaker House in Fayetteville showed us display boards chronicling Bragg's bad old days. One of the first G.l. coffeehouses was set up here as the bloodshed surged in 'Nam. Fonda and Donald Southerland, Peter Boyle and Country Joe came to the Haymarket which was heavily infiltrated by intelligence agencies. Drugs were planted on anti-war activists and there were firebombings. Main Street was honky tonk rowdy in those days and there was lots of heroin on the scene. All that changed with the volunteer army, Chuck observes. Now more often than not, the soldier boys and girls are married, however dysfunctionally. The 82nd Airborne is stretched to the max with its three battalions always en route to Iraq with little breathing room between tours. Hundreds have come home in body bags or too damaged to go on living. Some arrive in the morning and murder their families by afternoon. There are multiple suicides. The local press does its best to muzzle the bad news. "Words conquer!" Fort Bragg Psy-Op officers caution editors. Human blood is not the only body fluid that fuels Fayetteville. Smithfield Farms, owned by the Cargill conglomerate, kills a reported 30,000,000 hogs here each year at a high-walled penitentiary-like enclave just down the road. Many undocumented workers are paid a pittance to do the rendering. Mostly, they are kept out of sight, living in the backwoods under trees and tents. You know they are here because of the roadside crucifixes erected to mark the demise of a loved one killed in an auto accident. But according to "Que Pasa?" a combative North Carolina weekly that zeroes in on the exponentially expanding Mexican community, many families are in hiding. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is cracking down everywhere in the Carolinas, snatching people off their bikes as they pedal off to work in the early morning dark, doing workplace raids and home invasions and gratuitously terrorizing the indocumentados. A lot of families are so fearful they won't even venture out to the nearest Piggly Wiggly. One moment they be picking their way through the frozen food aisle and then you can't find them anywhere anymore. People are disappearing. I didn't see many Afro-Americans either as I shuffled through Raleigh and Chapel Hill. It was a mystery to me until I shipped out of the Winston-Salem Greyhound station and realized that was where they were hanging. Greyhound was the preferred travel mode for the Freedom Riders back in the early '60s. The buses they rode got burnt up at southern route depots and the riders set upon by Klan-led lynch mobs. Things are quieter on the Big Dog runs these days but a whole lot more desperate. Greyhound is the bottom-rung ride for those with no fixed destination and hardly any money to get there. They climb aboard with all their worldly possessions bunched up in a garbage bag. Some just got out of prison or the local psycho lock-up and everyone is eager to get out of town. Skinny crack head mothers hauling their screaming infants and battered woman running scared from killer boyfriends, stagger on board. The lame, the halt, and the mad scrunch down in the grungy seats and snore fitfully under cheap towels. I watched a young Mexican worker who had been hugging the back seat by the toilet since New York City descend from the bus in Cleveland Tennessee with a puzzled look troubling his eye - maybe he had meant Cleveland Ohio when he bought the ticket. Now all his luggage was missing, had never been moved from one bus to the next. The driver instructed him to ask up in the U-Haul that doubled as the Greyhound depot but he didn't understand the language. He was still standing there clutching what he had left, a greasy paper sack, when the driver slammed the door shut and pulled out of the deserted mall. This is what Amerikkka looks like from inside the belly of the big dog. Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky and all the others who interpret this oozing wound that calls itself a country ought to be riding the bus to see what's really coming down in the Land of the Tree and the Home of the Grave these days. II. "They say in Harlan County There are no neutrals there - You either are a union man Or a thug for J.H. Blair. Which side are you on boys? Which side are you on?" Times have come full circle in the coal fields of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky in the year of Our Lord 2007. Now coal is the "patriotic" fuel because it keeps us from being dependent on raghead terrorists and commie dictators like Hugo Chavez. You mess with the rights of the coal companies to kill miners and murder the oldest deciduous forests on the American continent, decimate the streams and the songbirds, the fish and the deer and the soul of the hill people, and you got Homeland Security knocking on your door, explained Terri Blanton, a coalminer's daughter from Harlan County whose own brother got cut down down in the mine "where its dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew (and the sun never shines/and the pleasures are few.") These days, Terri is organizing against what the coal barons euphemistically label "mountaintop removal" where they just decapitate the hills to get at coal seams they can strip quick and then shove the debris into the hollow between here and the next hill over. Although she probably never heard of the Zapatistas - I didn't get to ask her that the night she spoke at a lonely Catholic church out by the Interstate in Berea Kentucky - Terri is being a Zapatistas where she lives anyway, speaking truth to power, ripping the mask off savage capitalism, and serving her community. In Atlanta, where King Coke and the Carter Center dictate the moral tone, I spoke about being Zapatistas where we live and what that meant, to a bunch of hungry minds at the MadRatz Infoshop under a highway overpass in a dilapidated warehouse district - the MadRatz is, of course, Ignatz the Rat who never tired of hurling bricks at Officer Pup in George Herriman's loony, artful "Krazy Kat." There were real anarchists there - George Sossenko, now 88, fought with the Durutti Column in the Spanish Civil War. Together we sang the Internationale and cut a cake to mark my seventh decade on this lonely planet. Dr. Mark Heffington who heals farm laborers up in North Carolina drove three hours to learn about this being a Zapatista where he lives idea - many of his patients are speaking Tzotzil now, the language of the People of the Bat ("Tzotz"), the Highland Maya who are so integral to the Zapatista rebellion. Atlanta will play host to the U.S. Social Forum come June and there is a lot of jostling afoot about who gets to set the agenda. From this bend in the river, the affair looks suspiciously topdown with a national directorship and leaders of Atlanta's social change movement (the progressive, patriarchal Black Church will play a key role) at the controls. The topdown model is how these conclaves have been conducted ever since Lula and the PT ran them from Puerto Alegre with a velvet glove and crowbars behind their backs (ask anarchist guru John Holloway about the PT goons) - similarly, Comandante Hugo called the shots in Caracas. Making the U.S. Social Forum work from the bottom up without hierarchies or patriarchies, fending off all the old -isms and the vanguard parties, taking decisions collectively and uncompromisingly confronting savage capitalism is going to be a hard climb in Atlanta. These spectacles are so huge that it is hard to get a grip on where we fit in - how to see the whole elephant and not just an abstract haunch concerns anarcho printer Barry Weinstock. Nonetheless, we need to be there and mix it up with the tired old North American Left sworn as it is by inertia to keep doing business as usual. The U.S. Social Forum offers U.S. Zapatistas an alluring opportunity to smash sectarianism, find commonalities, and form coalition from the bottom up. I hopped the New Orleans-bound Crescent through the piney woods and murky, gator-laden swamps of Alabama and Mississippi. Emmit Till's body was still on the bottom of the Tallahatchee river. Two black women who had fled Katrina for Atlanta to find a comfortable niche in that black bourgeoisified city and were returning for the weekend to visit family members left behind, sat across the aisle from me the whole route, telling each other the stories of their lives. They both had married well to husbands with military careers and their children had followed their fathers' footsteps. Some were in Iraq, which made the women fret. "I know she will be alright" the retired nurse assured her companion who ran an Atlanta dance studio, "I brought her up to take care of herself." But she didna't sound convinced. They talked a lot about the dying city from which they had escaped 18 months ago. "Crime" was a frequent theme - what they meant was black on black crime - and they dissed the underclass i.e. the "project niggers" unstintingly for having driven them from New Orleans. "Project nigger", I would soon learn, is the anthropological designation of those people of color down at the bottom who were flattened by Katrina and have had the audacity to fight back. III. "What has happened here Is that the wind has changed, Clouds roll in from the north And it start to raina^?|" If New Orleans was a novel or a film, it would no doubt be entitled "American Chaos." But New Orleans is not a work of fiction although the corporate media tends to confuse it with one. In Latin America, cataclysm has often gestated social cohesion and fightback from the bottom. I lived through the aftermath of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake that took 30,000 lives and leveled my barrio and I watched my neighbors organize themselves to take back their lives from a government that ran away from the tragedy and pocketed the relief donations. The damnificado movement signaled the rebirth of Mexican civil society that continues to flourish today in Oaxaca and the jungles of Chiapas and at the portals of power up in Mexico City. The thieving Somoza dynasty's disregard for the Nicaraguan people following the 1975 earthquake in that threadbare banana republic fanned the flames of the Sandanista revolution. But across the Gulf in New Orleans, the process has been one of disintegration. The racial divide, always the snake in the baby's crib here, has festered way out of control. Fear and loathing permeates the languid air. The National Guard, decked out in Baghdad camou, still patrols the streets in squat Humvees and the number of concealed weapon permits issued last year broke an American record. Everyone has got themselves a big bad dog. They lunge furiously at you on tight chains from behind spiked gates when you walk the streets on the edge of the Quarter. Terror stalks the merchant class - mug shots of accused black muggers are taped to the windows of their establishments. Marsha, a crinkly-eyed woman from Alabama, drove us around one night. She saw the dead everywhere as if they were police outlines of the corpses of victims drawn upon the sidewalks. We didn't slide through a corner where someone hadna't been shot or stabbed or bludgeoned. Nervous all night, she freaked bad when she spotted a flattened black cat in the gutter by where we were staying. "I'm getting out of here soon as I can" she mumbled and sped off in her big rented car. Visitors are warned to take precautions. The owner of our guest house, an affable gay man who worried about his guests putting Tampax down the toilet, urged us to take a cab to catch Ellis Marsalis a scant two blocks away on Frenchman. He too could identify the bodies that turned up on his doorstep out on Elysian Fields. He wasn't a prejudiced person, he insisted, but these people who wanted the government to do everything for them were just a drain on the property-owning class. He didn't actually pronounce the project nigger epithet but that's whom he was talking about. Big Steve Jennings, a dangerously overweight 65 year-old Creole man who calls himself white, didn't have any such compunction. We tooled through the Lower 9th Ward where every home is gutted - those who have returned are encamped in front of their damaged domiciles in FEMA trailers. "That's where they got Fats Domino off the roof." Steve pointed a sausage-sized finger at a modest frame house, now uninhabitable. I marveled that so legendary a New Orleans luminary would be living down here at the bottom. "Well, let's face it - the blacks and the whites don't get along down here so I guess he wanted to stay with his own people" Big Steve philosophized. The driver didna't want to waste much time on the Lower 9th where he thought the people were all crack heads and prostitutes or else project niggers - although the Lower 9th has the highest percentage of Afro-American homeownership in the state of Louisiana. He couldn't figure out why they were getting all this attention when white folks had been screwed blue and tattooed a whole lot worse. Steve drove me over to his home in Saint Bernard Parrish, just a foundation slab now like a big flat tombstone. The tidal surge had wiped him out and the insurance company wouldn't compensate him for wind damage although they kept dunning him to pay off the premiums. "I just had it bulldozed - would have cost me more to make it right again. But they still after me to pay up even though the house isna't even standing here anymore." Steve drove me out to Lakeside and over to New Orleans East where half million buck homes stood empty and unsteady and the upscale "chopping" centers had all drowned in the flood, then out to the 17th Avenue levee where Lake Pontchartrain, really an inland sea, had broken through the flimsy sea wall and inundated the city. His mantra was incessant. White folks had gotten fucked over and all you ever heard about is the project niggers over there in the Superdome raping and eating on each other. "We whites should be marching on Washington and not paying our taxes" he grumbled, "but we aint." When the niggers put a boycott on a store no one crossed the line, but white people, they went shopping all the time. "I dona't understand why we can't get together. It make