_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 15, ISSUE 030 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, 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 July 23, 2007 Klamath Speluish/return from harvest moon Mohawk Ohiarihko:wa/moon of much ripening Potawatomi We'shkitdaminkese/moon of the young corn Kiowa Tagunotal p'a san/little moon of deer horns dropping off +-------------------------------------------------------+ | 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.indianz.com; www.pechanga.net; www.indiancountrytoday.com; Mailing List: Frostys AmerIndian, Native American Poetry, 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + "I always think it must be wonderful to know when you go down the path, that you accomplished what Manidoo [creator] wanted you to do on this earth." __ Lee Staples, Ojibwe Spriritual Leader +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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 first three articles point out some glaring disparities between Indians and the rest of American society as a whole. Indians are more than aware they are relegated to less than equal treatment, but it is alarming how few in the dominant society are aware of these differences. Further, it is apparent that there are few who care about the status quo, and fewer willing To change it, although it clearly represents apartheid in the society that loves to brag about "equal rights" for all. I am 64 years old. I lived at a time when segregation was a fact. I have been in segregated black-only schools during my youth that were appalling in their crumbling facilities and inadequate resources. North Carolina went a step further than many states that imposed segregation. There were white-only schools, black-only schools and Indian-only schools. That is precisely how Pembroke came to be. However bad those pre-60's segregated schools were, there are BIA schools in existence today that make those icons of racism look like palaces of learning. "Report warns of serious dangers at BIA Schools" A visit to 13 Bureau of Indian Affairs schools turned up "serious health and safety deficiencies," some of which have gone uncorrected for years, the Interior Department's Inspector General said in an urgent report. The BIA needs to take "immediate action" to fix the problems, the report said. "Failure to mitigate these conditions will likely cause injury or death to children and school employees," Inspector General Earl E. Devaney said in a letter to Assistant Secretary Carl Artman. If inadequate, unsafe schools were not enough to raise "notice me" flags, it seems the Health System for Indians has even worse examples. Do you believe that even the worst ghetto health clinic is not in as deplorable a condition as many IHS facilities? The sad truth is you can actually be infected with worse things than you sought treatment for in some of the IHS slums. "IHS Director calls for end of Care disparities" The director of the IHS told tribal leaders June 26 he wants his agency to eliminate disparities within the American Indian health care system as well as those that exist between tribal and traditional health care. Access to tribal - and traditional - medical facilities, coordinating insurance payments for both types of care and ensuring American Indians are adequately insured are among the many challenges facing the agency, Dr. Charles Grim told a congregation of the Direct Service Tribes. The group includes tribes that allow the federal government to regulate their health care and education programs. Other challenges: Some Indian people do not have traditional health insurance; instead, they rely on their tribes, through the government, to provide medical care. And in some poverty-stricken Indian communities, limited access to medical facilities can literally become a matter of life and death. Finally, I understand the need to protect endangered birds and four-leggeds, but the bald eagle has been removed from the endangered species list, yet to carry one of their feathers still requires a federally enrolled tribal member to jump through the Repository hoops. Even if the bird dropped the feather right in your path it would be against the law for you to pick it up and keep it. These feathers are part of our sacred path. I don't see other faiths bound by similar bureaucratic bull. For example, it is illegal to offer alcohol in any form to a minor, but you don't see priests and ministers being marched off to jail and charged with illegally influencing a minor when the child is offered sacramental wine. "Eagle Feather Laws still in place" Although the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list last month, the laws regulating the possession of the bird's feathers are still in place. Both the bald and the golden eagle are still protected by the federal act that bears their names: the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act - also known as the "Eagle Act" - as well as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Eagle feathers, however, have had spiritual significance to Indian tribes long before the federal government began passing acts. So in the 1970s, the National Eagle Repository was established to provide feathers of bald and golden eagles to tribal members for ceremonial purposes. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.." =================================== Fire Ravaged Rez needs help!!! Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 06:05:27 -0700 (PDT) From: "Bear Warrior" Subj: Prayer Request and request for action. There is a dire emergency at the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Owyhee Nevada. It's a very isolated reservation on the Nevada/Idaho border. One of the many fires that have been burning out of control in the west devastated this little village and people are suffering without water and electricity for 5 day now with no relief in sight. Food is going bad since there is no electricity since all the power poles are burned to a crisp. The elderly and the children are taking a direct hit as water supplies dwindle and food is in short supply. Since there is no power the heat is taking its toll and there is human suffering since there has been no aid. If ever there was a time for The People to pull together it's now. So give these people a chance to survive in this blistering heat. Give them a call and see what you can do. These are our brothers and sister who are literally baking in the hot Nevada sun. If nothing is done like soon, there will be fatalities as the elderly will soon expire from the heat and the lack of water. This is a human tragedy in the making and they need help now. Do you think the feds will help them? Well it's been 5 days now and do the math. Lives will soon be lost if help does not get there soon. Please, Please contact do your bit for our relations.... Contact info: Shoshone-Paiute Tribes Sho-Pai Fire Station 1935 FireLane PO Box 219 89832 (775)757-2473 Ask for Brent Hunter, or you may contact me here in Elko,NV, Si Thomas 775-777-7739 You may not be able to help financially but if you pray and pass this on you may send this to someone who might be able to help. Bear Warrior , , 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: - Guiding the Spirit . Unequal Treatment of Indians - NA Cancer survivors . Fire Ravaged Rez needs help create a Circle of Hope - Report warns of serious dangers - District sets Tlingit curriculum at BIA Schools - Navajo Nation Council Horse Ride - IHS Director calls for relives History end of Care disparities - Honor Your Elder - Eagle Feather Laws still in place - Victor Roubidoux - Arvol Looking Horse - Speaking out on theft Response Letter and abuse of Spirituality - Clues to rising Seas - GEORGE-KANENTIIO: are hidden in Polar Ice Wind Turbines make cents... - Samish seek restoration - YELLOW BIRD: of Fishing Rights An inspiring life of Leadership - Turning the tide - JODI RAVE: UM Indian Center - BIA recommends pulls in Donations removal of oversight - YELLOW BIRD: Tribal Governments - Court sides with Narragansetts inspire Sadness, Hope - MOWA sue for Federal Recognition - Ontario Metis want - Pills and Pain: Medicine crisis cut of Gaming Revenue - Indian Affairs will discuss - `Double Colonization' Draft Housing Bill in Conrad Black Case - Tribal Housing act underfunded - First Nation on Water risk list - Eastern Band takes new tack - Native Justice on Housing -- Human Rights complaints - Battle over Beer brews on Border over policing - Nothing grand - Rustywire: The Spring about bumpy Skywalk Road - Del "Abe" Jones Poem: - Early Native American images The human race still echo - Nilee Zhruk is a simple Game - Ojibway: Like Boulders on the Path - White Feather Powwow --------- "RE: Report warns of serious dangers at BIA Schools" --------- Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:12:12 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HAZARDOUS BIA SCHOOLS" http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/003951.asp Report warns of serious dangers at BIA schools July 17, 2007 A visit to 13 Bureau of Indian Affairs schools turned up "serious health and safety deficiencies," some of which have gone uncorrected for years, the Interior Department's Inspector General said in an urgent report. The BIA needs to take "immediate action" to fix the problems, the report said. "Failure to mitigate these conditions will likely cause injury or death to children and school employees," Inspector General Earl E. Devaney said in a letter to Assistant Secretary Carl Artman. Of the 13 schools, four on the Navajo Nation were singled out for serious deficiencies. Some academic buildings at the Chinle Boarding School, for example, are in danger of falling due to unstable foundations, the report said. While Devaney's investigators were at the Shonto Preparatory School, an employee and her husband had to be taken to the hospital. They suffered carbon monoxide poisoning from an aging employee dormitory, the report said. The report was dated May 31, just a few days after Tom Dowd, the director of the Bureau of Indian Education, announced his resignation. Officials have not said why he plans to leave in August but some of his subordinates believe he wasn't given enough support in Washington, D.C., to address problems at the schools. "BIE needs to take immediate action to address health and safety deficiencies identified in this report," Devaney said in the report to Artman. Devaney was worried that the poor conditions at the 13 schools in the report could spread elsewhere in Indian Country without corrective action. He said that the BIA has already identified 38 percent of its schools to be in "poor" condition. The BIA has developed a priority list for improving the 185 schools under its jurisdiction. But money for the program has been dwindling under the Bush administration and the White House has made the process more difficult in hopes of improving the program's performance. According to the Interior Department, however, 69 percent of the schools will be in "good" or "fair" condition by the end of 2008. More than 60 school replacement and repair projects have been funded since 2002, budget documents state. One project due to receive funds in the 2008 budget cycle will replace the Keams Canyon School on the Navajo Nation in Arizona. Devaney said the facility has so many condemned buildings that none of them have been boarded up. "The buildings need to be demolished or children could be seriously injured," the report said. Some buildings were condemned over 10 years ago. The Kayenta Boarding School is also due for improvements. The process started way back in 1999 but is still in the planning stages, Devaney said. "We identified severe health and safety deficiencies at the school," the report said. Devaney recommended three actions the BIA should take to address the deficiencies. They were: 1) Stabilize or vacate buildings currently in use that are in imminent danger of collapse; 2) Demolish or take immediate steps to prevent access to condemned buildings until they are demolished; and 3) Develop and implement inspection and abatement plans to identify and mitigate all health and safety hazards at BIE schools. The report asked Artman to submit a response by July 2. Copyright c. Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: IHS Director calls for end of Care disparities" --------- Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:12:12 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="INDIAN HEALTH CARE DISPARITIES" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415406 IHS director calls for end of care disparities by: The Associated Press By Eric W. Bolin - Associated Press July 18, 2007 DENVER (AP) - The director of the IHS told tribal leaders June 26 he wants his agency to eliminate disparities within the American Indian health care system as well as those that exist between tribal and traditional health care. Access to tribal - and traditional - medical facilities, coordinating insurance payments for both types of care and ensuring American Indians are adequately insured are among the many challenges facing the agency, Dr. Charles Grim told a congregation of the Direct Service Tribes. The group includes tribes that allow the federal government to regulate their health care and education programs. Other challenges: Some Indian people do not have traditional health insurance; instead, they rely on their tribes, through the government, to provide medical care. And in some poverty-stricken Indian communities, limited access to medical facilities can literally become a matter of life and death. Suicide rates are from one-and-a-half to three times higher among American Indians than for any other race in the United States, Grim said. Methamphetamine use is high among Native people as well. American Indians are more than four times more likely than other races to try the drug, according to a National Institute of Health study. "We know we have health disparities out there," Grim said. "We've been focusing on increasing prevention, behavioral health and care of chronic patients." Grim noted the House of Representatives voted to allocate $15 million toward preventing methamphetamine use and an additional $5 million toward suicide prevention in the $4 billion IHS 2007 budget. The Indian Health Care Improvement Act - under consideration by Congress for seven years - may finally be on the cusp of approval and could help remedy situations where care is limited, Grim said. The act would, among other things, provide more facilities and more care for those with tribal affiliations, he said. That may not be enough for the 1.9 million American Indians and Alaska Natives who receive IHS health care, said John Steele, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The numbers cited by Grim are conjecture with the hope of a solution, Steele said. "Indian Health Service, sir, is bad. It is pathetic," Steele said. "We talk these words, sir, but I have human people, individuals back home, who are suffering." Other tribal leaders at the conference are wary of wording in the act that they say would allow individual states to designate who can and cannot get IHS medical care and other government subsidies. Marcus Wells Jr., chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota, expressed concern that there are many medical procedures tribally affiliated hospitals and doctors cannot perform. Referrals to outside health care providers often depend on the availability of IHS funding, Wells said. Wells added it can be time-consuming and confusing to pay medical bills using both traditional and tribal-supported health insurance - and he counts himself among the lucky ones. Not everyone in his tribe can afford traditional insurance to supplement what they receive from the government. Direct Service Tribes signed treaties with the federal government and have ceded their land to the United States on the condition the government provide health care and education, said Dawna Hare, executive director of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. "The government did make a number of promises with tribes to provide care," Grim said. "They are still holding the government accountable to provide health care to them." Darrell Flyingman, governor of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, said it's up to both Indian people and the government to find solutions. "We, as tribal leaders, need to accept responsibility," Flyingman said. Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Eagle Feather Laws still in place" --------- Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:12:12 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="EAGLE FEATHER LAWS" http://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/homepage/local_story_198100840.html Eagle feather laws still in place By EDDIE GLENN Tahlequah Daily Press July 17, 2007 Although the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list last month, the laws regulating the possession of the bird's feathers are still in place. Both the bald and the golden eagle are still protected by the federal act that bears their names: the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act - also known as the "Eagle Act" - as well as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The Eagle Act was passed in 1940, and prohibits the "take; possession; sale; purchase; barter; offer to sell, purchase, or barter; transport, export or import, of any bald or golden eagle, alive or dead, including any part, nest, or egg, unless allowed by permit." Eagle feathers, however, have had spiritual significance to Indian tribes long before the federal government began passing acts. So in the 1970s, the National Eagle Repository was established to provide feathers of bald and golden eagles to tribal members for ceremonial purposes. "Legally, you have to apply for eagle feathers through the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife," said Kelly Anquoe, a member of the Kiowa tribe who is certified to possess eagle feathers. "You can apply for the feathers, or you can apply for an entire eagle. I applied for an entire eagle, and it came in a box about 3-1/2 feet long, with the eagle on ice." To apply for an eagle, or the feathers thereof, a person must have a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood, and be a registered member of a federally recognized tribe. Eagle feather owners also have to have the certification they receive from the federal wildlife service when they receive their eagle or feathers. The eagle carcasses are stored at the National Eagle Repository in Colorado, and are provided by state, federal, and tribal agencies that find dead eagles. Orders are filled on a first-come, first-served basis, and waiting periods can vary from approximately three months for miscellaneous feathers to approximately four years for a complete carcass of the most sought-after eagle - an immature golden eagle. Anyone who possesses an eagle feather, and doesn't meet the requirements, could face fines up to $100,000 and a year in prison under the Eagle Act. A second offense is upgraded from a misdemeanor to a felony, and carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The act also provides for a civil penalty of up to $5,000. Under the Migratory Bird Act, killing an eagle is a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of six months in prison and a $15,000 fine. Commercialization of bird parts is a felony that carries a two-year prison sentence and a $250,000. "You're not allowed to sell or trade [eagle feathers that are legally obtained], and legally, anyone you give them to has to be certified to have them," said Anquoe. "I myself do not like the sell or trade of eagle feathers, so I agree with the law, but I'm sure other Indians would disagree." In fact, according to one Tahlequah man who requested he remain anonymous for this story, the sale and trade of feathers is quite common. "It's not even the bald eagle feathers that are the most popular items in the underground feather market," Anquoe said. "It's the feathers from the immature golden eagle. They're the ones you see that have a base and quill that are white and a black tip." According to the anonymous source, about 70 percent of the eagle feathers a person will see at a powwow are from the golden eagle, with the other 30 percent being bald eagle feathers. "A lot of Indians look down on the bald eagle because they say it eats carrion. A golden eagle will eat carrion, too, if it gets real hungry," he said. "But the bald eagle is not really revered as much as the golden eagle." A lot of the eagle feathers on the illegal market, he said, aren't actually taken from dead eagles. They're picked up off the ground in areas like northwest Arkansas, where commercial chicken houses are common. A couple of eagles will get into a tussle over which one gets to feast on an unfortunate chicken, and leave a few of their own feathers on the ground. Those feathers are then retrieved by people who, at that point - whether they know it or not - are violating federal law. Also, Anquoe added, eagle feathers aren't the only highly regarded plumage. The feathers of other birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act - like hawks and "anhingas," which are water birds - are often traded illegally, too. "I've had Navajos approach me and offer to trade me a whole bald eagle for 50 scissortail feathers," he said. "They use them to make fans they use in the Native American Church." According to Anquoe, some Indians have had eagle feathers taken away from them by federal agents who attended powwows just for that purpose: to bust illegal feather owners. "There's a lot of misunderstanding about the eagle feather laws," Anquoe said. "A lot of people think you just have to have a CDIB card to have them, but you have to go through the whole application process." Contact Eddie Glenn at eglenn@tahlequahdailypress.com. Copyright c. 2007 Tahlequah Daily Press. --------- "RE: Arvol Looking Horse Response Letter" --------- Date: Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:37 pm From: jenaka Subj: Arvol Looking Horse Response Letter to Dakota Lakota Journal Mailing List: RezLife Arvol Looking Horse Response Letter to Dakota Lakota Journal June 28, 2007 I would like to respond to Alfred Bone Shirt & Vivian High Elk's article in the June 15, 2007 in the Dakota/ Lakota Journal , talking about the traditions and sacred way of life towards the "C'anupa". First of all I would like to say that on June 21st World Peace & Prayer Day and Honor Sacred Sites Day was a success, people all over the world praying together in their own ways and own Sacred Sites. All nations, all faiths, one prayer is respecting each other's traditions culture and religions. There is one creator and one grandmother earth that we all share. We have gone all over the world once a year to pray with other Indigenous Nations at their Sacred Sites and to the United Nations to talk about prophecies and we as the first nations have committed ourselves to maintaining our sacred way of life. This year we traveled to Teotihuacan , Mexico City, Mexico . To offer prayers to different Sacred Sites and pray at a place where over a thousand young people were massacred in 1968. We had a run to Teotihuacan . We asked for volunteers to run and we said that we would help to raise $1,500 for each individual for the following items: passport, running gear, etc, but because of the immigration controversy nobody stepped forward and no money was raised towards this effort. Just me and the family ran with the local runners in Mexico . The other Pipestone Run on our wolakota.org website was coordinated by Allen Hare and Paul Rouse Sr. family. Paul Rouse Sr. has gone back to the spirit world and the family honored me last year by giving me a brown van and the family said that the young boys would continue running for their late father. So there were two runs that we were involved with in support of prayers. Their information with where to send their support funds was posted on the website; no money was raised through wolakota! Anyone can go and see that information for themselves. We returned from a beautiful ceremony in Mexico City, a place which was governed by the state, this year is the first year that we have lead our staffs into the center of Teotihuacan to do our ceremony. World Peace and Prayer Day opened that door to allow a ceremony to take place as it did for Devils Tower aka Grey Horn Butte in 1996. After reading what was printed in the newspaper, an ongoing confusion which started on the Rosebud reservation on October 21, 2006 where a traditional Treaty meeting took place. A resolution/petition that was drafted by Vivian High Elk, Martina Looking Horse, Stacey Low Dog and Alfred Bone Shirt was presented, but tabled and not accepted by the elders in attendance at the meeting. Floyd Hand stated this fact in his Lakota Journal interview last October about this controversy. Since that time their attacks were very strong, so I had little choice but to put the sacred C'anupa away. I am the only one that knows where it's at. So I put it under ground and now today that grass has covered it. When the time is right, I will bring it back up. The Keeper before me, my grandmother Lucy, put it away like that when she had to pick potatoes in Nebraska to survive when no longer the People supported her and also during the Wounded Knee era when our ways were outlawed, that was done. Pte San Win spirit and help is still with us all as we experience in our ongoing ceremonies, but this is what I was instructed to do when problems come to the Bundle itself. At the age of 12 years old I was given that responsibility by my grandmother Lucy Bad Warrior Looking Horse and she told me that I would be the last keeper of this C'anupa. During this time there was so much prophecies coming in time like the Eagle and the Condor, the White Buffalo Calf and all of the animals showing their sacred color and we must be the voice for the animal nations. There will be many false prophets; there will be a lot of earth changes and climate changes, which would affect our lives and our way of life. This spirit bundle, which I take care of, was handed down through generations and because it is a spirit bundle it chooses it's Keeper. But many people have died protecting our Sacred Sites and ceremonies. My father (Stanley Looking Horse Sr.) would go to the Sacred Sites and pray with his C'anupa and as a young boy; I would go along with him to help him. He helped me understand as a boy the importance of Sacred Sites, as we are losing them to tourist attractions, people selling them and farmers. Growing up in those times, some places we were not allowed to conduct our ceremonies. I hope and pray that some day people would respect our Sacred Sites like the Sacred Pipestone quarries in Minnesota or Bear Butte in the Sacred Black Hills, where people are trying to make a Saloon. Our struggles continue today protecting our Sacred Sites. But the women who are my relatives have caused a lot of confusion, since that meeting in Rosebud and up to the more recent article by Vivian High Elk & Alfred Bone Shirt. Two traditional laws have been broken. The first law is that our Lakota/Dakota/Nakota Oyate is a patriarchal society and the (women) shouldn't have ever overstepped the traditional headsmen that tabled their resolution in October 26, 2006 and posted it to the public as if it were passed and agreed upon. The second law, in our tradition is when a woman was with a Non-Indian, they would have no voice within our nation to speak publicly about our traditions, but they could still pray and be among our people. So this stated in our treaties by our ancestors. This is what I would like to remind our people of. And for my sister Martina Looking Horse, I hope that she can go to treatment, as many of our people have done to turn around their life and get some help, because she's been using since the 70's and yet she tries to be a voice for the Looking Horse family. My family can tell you that she has never been on a vision quest or has Sun Danced. My concern is her use has caused constant misbehavior with the viscous and untrue words she does publicly; goes against our traditions and misrepresents our family. This whole conflict is happening because of money that these individuals think should go to them personally and to others they convinced of their hardship that is due, any money raised is for what efforts wolakota was created for and the people involved in those efforts. There are other state and non-profit organizations that help the concerns they have and have helped them. They can also spend their energy on their concerns and creating their own program, instead their energy to attack people. I run ceremonies and my other half sits with my C'anupa in ceremonies, so when did it become tradition to break up families or use jealousy over children in the arguments in the public, because they are not directly related. In our culture we never used the word "step" this or that, when we accept a child or person as a part of our family. They were always a part of our own tios'paye, family. This is what was taught to me by my Grandmother and parents, as they too accepted people in our family hoop. In our tradition the eagle feather is the high honor among our people, because it is the main thing that we must all hold to be a part of any ceremony. If we drop an eagle feather we have no choice, but to pray to our grand father and the Grandmother earth. There are protocols for any sacred item and as a spiritual person, we take care of them or even how we speak about them. So when we talk about the sacred C'anupa we should remember the words of Pte San Win, the White buffalo Calf Woman, a spirit woman; that only the good shall see the C'anupa and that the bad should not even see it or touch it. Since the meeting in Rosebud, Alfred Bone Shirt and them have threatened to get the C'anupa and to give it to someone else, so I must listen to what was passed down in knowledge when these things happen. I struggle just like anyone else to pay to live in this society and survive. I have chosen to survive by speaking of what our work is about, as many of our own people that have earned that voice in being asked to speak of education in many areas that concern our people. But I will always stand by the protecting our sacred way of life, that the blood of our people is not for sale as in our sacred stone and as well as our ceremonies, my responsibility that comes with this position. Our traditional ways are very strict. Today people are fasting and Sun Dancing. During this time of our most important ceremonies where people are looking for good health, it was always said to watch our words, as words are sacred, they can do more damage then good to a Nation and also misrepresent who we are as a People. Young People read these things and this also goes down in history, this behavior makes our Nation look bad, these are issues, traditionally that should have been handled in a more respectful way instead of going out there in the world. Our native newspapers should be a part of this too and check out whether it is true or good for people to read. Once again, I will tell our people that once you go into that (Sun Dance) circle, you stay in there for four days and fulfill your commitment. Our people can be strong people! I would like to thank all of the people for listening to the few words that I have to say today. Thank you very much. Arvol Looking Horse Eagle Butte , SD --------- "RE: Clues to rising Seas are hidden in Polar Ice" --------- Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:25:56 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GLOBAL WARMING" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2007/07/15/AR2007071500882.html?hpid=topnews Clues to Rising Seas Are Hidden in Polar Ice By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer July 16, 2007 Few consequences of global warming pose as severe a threat to human society as sea-level rise. But scientists have yet to figure out how to predict it. And not knowing what to expect, policymakers and others are hamstrung in considering how to try to prevent it or prepare for it. To calculate sea-level rise, the key thing researchers need to understand is the behavior of the major ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica. The disintegration of one would dramatically raise the ocean. But while computer models now yield an increasingly sophisticated understanding of how a warming atmosphere would behave, such models have yet to fully encapsulate the complex processes that regulate ice sheet behavior. "The question is: Can we predict sea level? And the answer is no," said David Holland, who directs New York University's Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science. Holland, an oceanographer, added that this may mean researchers will just have to watch the oceans to see what happens: "We may observe the change much more than we ever predict it." In its executive summary report for policymakers in February, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, composed of hundreds of leading climate scientists, barely hazarded a guess on sea level, predicting that it would rise between 7.8 inches and two feet by the end of the century. However, the United Nations-sponsored panel -- which operated under the assumption that, by 2100, the Greenland ice sheet would lose some mass but that the Antarctic ice sheet would gain some -- did not venture a best estimate or an upper limit for possible sea-level rise. The panel could agree to say only there is a 50-50 chance that a global temperature increase of between 1.8 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit would lead to a partial melting of the ice sheets over a period of several hundred to several thousand years. Because so much is at stake -- a three-foot increase in sea level could turn at least 60 million people into refugees, the World Bank estimates -- ice sheet modelers are working furiously to try to unravel the mystery of how these sheets accumulate and lose mass. Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University professor of geosciences and international affairs, does make a prediction: He figures that if the Greenland ice sheet disintegrates, sea level would rise about 23 feet. If the West Antarctic sheet melts, as well, it would add an additional 17 feet or so. "If either of these ice sheets were to disintegrate, it would destroy coastal civilization as we know it," Oppenheimer said. One of the biggest challenges facing researchers is that ice sheets are under "attack from the edges," in the words of Richard B. Alley, a Pennsylvania State University geosciences professor. Each sheet amounts to a pile of snow compressed over time into a two-mile thick, continent- spanning sheet of ice, which spreads out under its own weight, Alley said. Near the coast, the pile develops quick-moving "ice streams," which flow between slower-moving sections of ice and float out onto the ocean in an "ice shelf." While recent satellite data have indicated that these ice streams are flowing faster and delivering more water to the oceans, many uncertainties remain. David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, said the terrain beneath the ice streams helps determine how they move, but the contours of the land are largely unknown because it is buried so far under the ice. The streams may run aground on elevated bedrock, slow down as they move past rocky fjord walls or speed up as they move over mud. "There's a continent of topography sitting under Antarctica," Vaughn said. "Everything there has an impact on how the ice sheet flows, and very little of that has been mapped." Researchers are also trying to measure the layer of water that lies under the ice sheets, as that also helps regulate ice stream flows. "They're essentially afloat on their own sub-glacial water, even if there's not much water there," said Garry Clarke, a glaciology professor at the University of British Columbia. "We don't know very much about how water flows underneath ice sheets." Another uncertainty is how much the oceans surrounding the ice sheets are warming, something that is difficult to measure because the areas are remote. Vaughan and his colleagues suspect that warmer waters around Antarctica have contributed to melting the Western Antarctic ice sheet, but there is little good data because few ships venture there. Researchers are now going to extraordinary lengths to collect the data they need. Holland at NYU recently returned from a trip to Greenland, where he was collecting information about the Ilulissat glacier, which has doubled its speed over the past decade as it flows toward the ocean and melts. To test the temperature and salinity of the water surrounding the glacier, Holland and other researchers had to hover in a helicopter and lower their instruments into an opening in the ice. "It's kind of beautiful, and scary and fun," he said. Even with better data, scientists find it difficult to enter the information into computer models. Most models do not attempt to calculate what could happen to ice sheets at their edges. Adding to the challenge, Oppenheimer said, is that models "are only good at explaining things that happen at a large scale. Ice sheets are very complex beasts, and the water moves at a very small scale." Ice streams move along narrow channels, and plugging such detail into a computer model takes a long time. But without that level of detail, the results are incomplete. Researchers have made some progress in ice sheet science over the past decade by using satellites to measure the sheets' changing mass. Last month, for example, a team of NASA and university scientists used readings from NASA's QuikScat satellite to measure snow accumulation and melt in Antarctica from July 1999 through July 2005. They discovered that broad areas of snow had melted in west Antarctica in January 2005 in response to warmer temperatures. The finding was surprising because Antarctica had shown relatively little warming in the recent past. Konrad Steffen, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who led the study, said increases in snowmelt "definitely could have an impact on larger-scale melting of Antarctica's ice sheets if they were severe or sustained over time." Because ice sheet modeling has not ranked as a high priority for government laboratories and has not been integrated into large-scale climate models, scientists from around the world are now collaborating to develop more sophisticated models to inform policymakers about potential sea-level rise. The researchers have convened two major meetings this year, one at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and one at the University of Texas at Austin, in an effort to generate a new generation of ice sheet models. Vaughan, who attended both conferences, said he is hopeful that he and others will solve the question of ice sheet modeling by the time he ends his career: "It will be 15 years before I retire, and I want it nailed by then." But other researchers are less optimistic. Holland, who like Vaughan is in his mid-40s, doubts that scientists will master the problem before greenhouse gas emissions trigger significant melting of the ice sheets that he studies. "We will get there eventually, but it won't be for a long time. It won't be in my lifetime," Holland said. "There's no plan; there's no program. There's no one responsible for sea-level rise." Copyright c. 1996-2007 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Samish seek restoration of Fishing Rights" --------- Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:25:56 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BIA CLERICAL ERROR STILL BLOCKS SAMISH" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415401 Samish seek restoration of fishing rights by: Richard Walker / Indian Country Today July 16, 2007 SAN JUAN ISLAND, Wash. - Oral arguments will begin Oct. 5 in U.S. District Court in Seattle in the Samish Indian Nation's bid to regain fishing rights in its historical fishing area. Because of a clerical error at the BIA in 1969, Samish was left off a list of federally recognized tribes. The error was discovered in 1974, when Samish was excluded from a U.S. District Court ruling entitling federally recognized Western Washington tribes to 50 percent of the fishery in their "usual and accustomed grounds and stations," in accordance with treaties signed in 1854 and 1855. The ruling - known as the Boldt Decision, for Judge George Boldt - was upheld by in 1979 by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. Although Samish representatives signed the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855, Samish was excluded from Boldt's decision because it was not considered a recognized tribe when the decision was made. Samish regained federal recognition in 1996, but its fishing rights remained in dispute. (Samish enjoys other resource rights, such as gathering and hunting, under the treaty). In 2002, U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Rothstein ruled that although Samish had regained federal recognition, it did not warrant disturbing complex treaty law governing the region's fish harvest. Three years later, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, ruling 2 - 1 that Samish had been unfairly excluded from the Boldt Decision and sent the case back to the U.S. District Court. The fishing rights issue is a sensitive one. Lummi, Swinomish, Tulalip and Upper Skagit oppose Samish's bid, reportedly concerned about the further sharing of a depleted resource: fish - particularly salmon. They unsuccessfully sought a reconsideration of Samish's federal recognition in October. Most of those enrolled in the Samish Indian Nation are descendants of those who didn't move to the Lummi, Swinomish and Tulalip reservations established by the 1855 treaty. So, there are Samish descendants on those reservations who enjoy rights that their non-reservation relatives don't. Samish Chairman Tom Wooten said Samish wants to fish primarily to meet ceremonial and subsistence needs. He expects there would be some commercial fishing. "Perhaps we could do it smarter," he said, adding he'd like to see a fishing cooperative similar to those in Kodiak, Alaska, instead of a fleet of individual fishers. Wooten also said there's more to fishing rights than fishing. "We want to be part of the solution, not the problem," he said. "We want to have a say in the restoration of shellfish and rockfish populations, in the enhancement and study of natural resources and fisheries. We want fish to be there forever. We could do better work if we were equal partners at the table." Samish has operated a salmon stream restoration program in the San Juan Islands, within its historical fishing area. Steve Robinson, legislative policy analyst for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, said Samish's lack of fishing rights shouldn't be an obstacle to it being involved in restoration of fish and habitat restoration. "We are always looking for entities and governments to work with in salmon restoration. Samish has been around in a lot of the efforts that the tribes have taken part in." However, Robinson admitted that membership in the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission is limited to treaty tribes that have fishing rights. And Craig Dorsay, Samish's attorney, said the lack of fishing rights has hampered Samish's efforts to be involved in restoration efforts. "Any time you have a place at the table, you have the opportunity to be a greater part of the solution," Dorsay said. "In the past, there have been some efforts that Samish has attempted to get involved in and other tribes said they would not participate if Samish was allowed. They were afraid that if Samish was allowed to participate, we could point out in court, 'See, we're participating here, here and here.' It would cause this massive disruption." Dorsay said Samish has "always sought to be reasonable" in discussions with other tribes regarding fishing rights, but one fact is inescapable. "There's virtually no question that, without the effect of this old decision, Samish would be fishing." Wooten added, "It's about securing the rights we had all along. We enjoyed our rights until 1974 when we realized we were left off the list. We're just looking for what is ours." Richard Walker is a correspondent reporting from San Juan Island, Wash. Contact him at rmwalker@rockisland.com. Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Turning the tide" --------- Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:24:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SHELLFISH RIGHTS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=17104 Turning the tide HCN ONLINE by Eve Rickert July 16, 2007 One hundred and fifty years ago, the Indian tribes of Washington state signed treaties that were supposed to guarantee, forever, their right to collect shellfish from the beaches of Puget Sound. Not long after, the government started selling off the region's most productive tidelands to commercial shellfish growers, who were never notified of the Indians' harvest rights. The bitter struggle over how to divvy up the bounty from those lands finally came to an end earlier this month, when 17 tribes signed a settlement agreement with growers and the government that ends the tribes' right to take shellfish from private, commercial beaches. In exchange, the tribes will get $33 million from the government to buy, lease or improve other tidelands for their own harvest. For their part, the growers will spend $500,000 over 10 years to improve habitat or seed shellfish beds on public tidelands. The settlement restricts Indian harvest only on land owned by commercial growers who had an "aquatic farm registration" prior to 1995; the tribes can still take shellfish from public tidelands and from noncommercial, private tidelands, such as those owned by residents of beachfront homes. Though it was more than a century in the making, the dispute finally reached its breaking point in the last 20 years, in the wake of the historic 1974 Boldt Decision. That ruling, which affirmed the tribes' treaty rights to half of the state's salmon harvest, set the stage for a 1994 decision hailed as "Boldt II." In that case, U.S. District Court Judge Rafeedie ruled that the Indians had the same rights to shellfish as they did to salmon, and on both private and public land. But there was a catch: On lands owned by commercial growers, the tribes could take half of only the naturally occurring shellfish. If a grower did anything to improve shellfish production, the tribes couldn't share the extra catch. To harvest on any enhanced commercial beach, they'd have to get a court to agree on how much of the harvest was "natural" - and the growers promised to fight them every step of the way. It was an unworkable proposition, and in the meantime, the tribes and the growers needed to work together on the shared concerns of water quality and habitat protection so they could all keep harvesting clean, tasty oysters and clams. So in 1998, just as a new case was on its way to trial, everyone involved decided to do something that seemed remarkable after the years of litigation and resentment: They sat down to talk. The growers wanted the Indians off land they considered exclusively theirs, but that meant the tribes would have to give up historical rights and a potential harvest worth more than $2 million a year. Still, " everyone realized it made more sense for tribes not to have to go onto growers' property, if the tribes could replace the take," says Phil Katzen of Kanji & Katzen, who has represented half of the tribes in the case for over 20 years. Once the tribes and growers reached an agreement, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and Commissioner of Public Lands Doug Sutherland helped secure $11 million for the settlement from state coffers, and U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., got the other $22 million into the federal budget. The money, which was allocated to each tribe based on how much of the harvest it's giving up, will be used for habitat projects, seeding shellfish beds, and acquiring tidelands for the tribes' exclusive use. Though the settlement ends a decades-long stalemate and clears the way for cooperation between tribes and growers, the idea of sacrificing any treaty rights at all was painful for many of the tribes. Tony Forsman, shellfish coordinator for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and member of the Suquamish Tribe, says he spent a lot of time convincing people they weren't selling out. He sees the agreement as an improvement for the tribal harvest. "The money can go really far if they use it right," he says. Copyright c. 2007 High Country News. --------- "RE: BIA recommends removal of oversight" --------- Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:42:08 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BIA REGIONAL OFFICE RECOMMENDS FOR REMOVAL" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/local/local_story_202013217.html BIA recommends removal of oversight Phoenix Staff Reports July 21, 2007 TAHLEQUAH - The regional office of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs has recommended approval of the removal of agency oversight over the Cherokee Nation's constitution and amendments, according to a tribal media release. A letter from BIA Regional Director Jeanette Hanna to Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith stated that the Region "... has recommended approval of the vote on removal of Secretarial oversight." "By removing the BIA from the process we have made our government stronger," Smith said in the media release. In the tribe's recent general election, voters re-affirmed to remove BIA oversight from the tribe's constitutional issues. The results affirmed a constitutional amendment approved by Cherokee voters in 2003, according to the tribe. Copyright c. 2007 The Muskogee Phoenix. --------- "RE: Court sides with Narragansetts" --------- Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:42:08 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="APPEALS COURT RULES FOR NARRAGANSETT IN LAND CASE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.projo.com/news/content/TRUST_LAND_07-21-07_NP6F0I7.31dc049.html Court sides with Narragansetts in key ruling on land By Katie Mulvaney Journal Staff Writer July 21, 2007 An appeals court ruled yesterday that the federal government could take 31 acres into trust for the Narragansett Indian Tribe in a case at the crux of a struggle between the state and the tribe over control of tribal lands. A divided 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the U.S. Department of Interior could hold the land for the Narragansetts, freeing it from state and local laws and placing it solely under tribal and federal authority. The property sits across Kings Factory Road from the tribe's other 1,800 acres in Charlestown. Set on a hillside just north of Route 1, it is the site of a troubled housing project for the tribe's poor elders. While Narragansett leaders celebrated the decision as an affirmation of the tribe's rights, state and local officials declared it "devastating" for Rhode Island. They promised to appeal. "Attorney General [Patrick] Lynch thinks that these issues are so important and have such far-reaching impacts on Indian law both locally and nationally that he plans to appeal to the [U.S.] Supreme Court," his spokesman Michael J. Healey said of the closely watched case. The Narragansetts bought the 31 acres in 1991 to build housing for its elderly members. That project, mired by mismanagement, stalled when the tribe began construction without securing state and local permits. The state and the Town of Charlestown filed suit against the Interior Department after it agreed to take the land into trust for the tribe in 1998. U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi ruled in the department's favor in 2003. A three-judge panel from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in 2005. The full appeals court decided to take up the case, at the state's request, and lawyers for the state and the U.S. Justice Department argued before the judges in January. In yesterday's 4-to-2 opinion, Judge Sandra L. Lynch disputed the state's argument that the Interior Department could not take land into trust for tribes that were not recognized at the time of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. The Narragansetts won recognition in 1983. The secretary of the interior, she wrote, viewed the act as intended not only "to remedy past wrongs, but also to encourage strength and stability of tribal communities." "Based on this view, it would make no sense to distinguish among tribes based on the happenstance of their federal recognition status in 1934," she said. Additionally, Judge Lynch dismissed the claim that the 1978 agreement that gave the tribe its 1,800 acres barred the federal government from placing the 31 acres in trust. The Narragansett Tribe filed suit in 1975, seeking the return of 3,200 acres stretching from Route 1 north to Narragansett Trail in Charlestown. After more than a year of talks, a settlement was reached in 1978 between the tribe, state, town and federal government that gave the Narragansetts 1,800 acres. Lynch took issue with the state's notion that if the 31 acres was taken into trust, that it should be held to the same terms as the tribe's other land. The 1978 settlement, which became federal law, places the 1,800 acres under the state's civil and criminal laws. Lynch interpreted the 1978 settlement literally, noting that it stated that "the settlement lands shall be subject to the civil and criminal laws and jurisdiction of the state of Rhode Island." "No other provision of the Settlement Act directly provides for state jurisdiction outside of the settlement lands," Lynch wrote. "No language in the act applies state law to lands the tribe might later acquire." More importantly, she added, no language explicitly limits the Interior Department's power to take lands into trust. The court challenged the state to turn to Congress, if it wished to change federal law. "The judiciary may not usurp the role of Congress," she said. In dissenting opinions, Judges Jeffrey R. Howard and Bruce Selya criticized the majority for taking too narrow a reading of the 1978 land settlement. "[The] majority gives short shrift not only to the interests of the State of Rhode Island but also to the carefully calibrated arrangements crafted between the state and the tribe," Selya wrote. "It strains credulity to surmise, as does the majority, that the state would have made such substantial concessions - including the transfer, free and clear, of 1,800 acres of its land - while leaving open the gaping loophole that today's decision creates." The issues, he said, would benefit from consideration of the Supreme Court. Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas praised the decision. "It shows that the tribe does have these federal rights." Thomas said the land would be used for housing for the elderly, but state leaders worried yesterday that the ruling could clear the way for the tribe to build a casino, smoke shop or other industry - without state oversight. "For the first time in the constitutional history of Rhode Island, this decision will create Indian Country in our state," said Jeff Neal, Governor Carcieri's spokesman. "The tribe will now claim an exemption to state law on any land it wants to take into trust." The opinion paved the path for the Narragansetts to seek lands from "Woonsocket to Westerly," he said. "If this decision stands, it could be devastating to Rhode Island sovereignty and to the ability of its citizens to control what happens inside the state's borders," he said. He added: "The irony of this decision is that the 1,800 acres of settlement lands might be the only place where the state can successfully uphold its sovereignty. That's an absurd situation." The same court ruled last year that the state could enforce its laws on the Narragansetts' 1,800 acres in the smoke-shop case. John Brown, a tribal councilman and medicine man-in-training, relished yesterday's decision as critical in protecting the Narragansetts' interests as well as the federal government's right to take land into trust for tribes. But he braced for a Supreme Court, and probably a congressional, battle ahead. "This is not the end of this," he said. "The tribe will now claim an exemption to state law on any land it wants to take into trust." Jeff Neal, spokesman for Governor Cacieri kmulvane@projo.com Copyright c. 2007 The Providence Journal Co. --------- "RE: MOWA sue for Federal Recognition" --------- Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:42:08 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MOWA TAKE RECOGNITION FIGHT TO COURT" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.al.com/news/press-register/index.ssf?/ base/news/1185009391321800.xml&coll=3 MOWA sue for federal recognition By ROBERT McCLENDON Staff Reporter July 21, 2007 The MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians is taking its fight for federal recognition to the courts. A lawsuit filed by the tribe Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Mobile seeks to do what decades of battling with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and several congressional bills could not -- gain official recognition from the Department of the Interior and the access to the millions of dollars in aid programs and grants that comes with it. Leaders of the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians have just about exhausted other avenues open to them in their pursuit of federal recognition: The federal Bureau of Indian affairs, which is tasked with determining what is a legitimate tribe and what is not, denied the MOWA petition and its appeals, and a congressional bill that would recognize the MOWA languishes in committee. Similar bills have failed to gain traction in the past. A federal lawsuit is generally considered by experts in Indian law to be a tribe's last resort because the process is arduous and prohibitively expensive. Montgomery lawyers Lee Hamilton and Landis Sexton, who are representing the MOWA, are working on contingency, meaning they will reap a percentage of any cash awarded the MOWA in the event the suit is successful. That sum could be staggeringly large because the tribe is seeking damages to compensate them for money they missed out on through the years because of their lack of recognized Indian status. Neither attorney has experience in Indian law, although Hamilton said he has done independent research on the subject and has been preparing for the lawsuit for more than a year. "There's only a handful of attorneys in Alabama who know as much about Indian law as I do," he said. "And there's no substitute for having the merits of the facts on your side," Sexton added. Federally recognized tribes have access to special economic development grants and money for education and health care. There is precedent for tribes taking the judicial route to recognition. Earlier this week oral arguments began in a Washington state tribe's case against the government. And last year a federal court stepped in to force the bureau to make a decision in the case of a Massachusetts tribe. The thrust of the MOWA complaint against the government is two-fold. The first argument is that the tribe was guaranteed sovereignty in the early 19th century by way of a treaty, and the federal government never legally revoked that sovereignty. Specifically, the suit alleges that the Choctaw Indians who remained in their native lands rather than moving to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears, the group from whom the MOWA trace their lineage, were granted their sovereignty by the 1830 treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. However, Hamilton and Sexton acknowledge that in order for the treaty argument to hold up in court, the MOWA will have to prove that they are indeed the descendants of the Choctaw protected by the treaty. This is the second part of the MOWA complaint. It essentially rehashes in broad strokes the MOWA claim to tribal identity as asserted in the MOWA's petitions to the bureau during the late 1980s and early'90s. The suit claims that the bureau violated its own procedure in its handling of the MOWA's case, saying its decision was "arbitrary, capricious and otherwise not in accordance with the law." Although the suit itself doesn't make specific allegations as to why the bureau may have torpedoed the MOWA petition, Hamilton and Sexton said they believe that anti-MOWA lobbying executed by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians played a significant role. MOWA leaders say the two groups pitted themselves against the MOWA to protect their share of the gaming market. The Mississippi Choctaws operate two major casinos outside Philadelphia, Miss., and the Poarch Creeks operate casino-style bingo parlors on the tribe's reservation near Atmore and on tribal lands near Wetumpka. The same MOWA leaders have also said their tribe will not pursue gambling as a means of generating income. As evidence that the MOWA are a legitimate tribe, the complaint provides documentation referring to a school constructed in Mount Vernon in 1835 "built for government school for Indians by Indian labor" and a 1910 U.S. Census Bureau report referring to MOWA families as Indian. Gary Garrison, a spokesman for the bureau, said it was against policy to comment on pending lawsuits, and he was not familiar enough with the MOWA's petition to comment on the bureau's rationale for denying it. Previous Press-Register articles about the bureau's rejection of the MOWA petition cite a bureau official who characterized the MOWA claim as "incredibly incompetent or even fraudulent." A bureau historian said in the same article that the MOWA claim was rejected principally because the group was unable to trace their ancestry all the way back to the Alabama Choctaw of the early 19th century. The historian did say, however, that the genealogy they presented going back to the Civil War era was solid. The MOWA are recognized by the state of Alabama, and many of them live on a state-designated reservation straddling the border of Mobile and Washington counties. Tribal Chief Wilford Longhair Taylor said he decided to seek judicial recognition out of respect for the efforts many of his people have put into getting the tribe recognized. "Lots of my elders have been counting on me. Many of them have passed on," he said. "So I thought it was the right thing to do." Copyright c. 2007 Press-Register. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Pills and Pain: Medicine crisis" --------- Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:42:08 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="OVERSUBSCRIBING BLAMED FOR DRUG CRISIS" http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ article?AID=/20070722/NEWS01/707220316 Pills and pain: Long waits for care, overprescribing of medicine blamed for crisis that's scarring Indian Country By KAREN OGDEN Tribune Enterprise Editor July 22, 2007 BROWNING - Louis Gobert was prescribed methadone - a powerful, highly addictive painkiller - for chronic migraines. The agony developed after a botched eye surgery that forced the young man to leave the Marine Corps and return home to the Blackfeet Reservation, according to his grandmother. For Gobert, like many others on the reservation, the pills led to a new, more miserable problem. Gobert soon began "doctor shopping," hitting up clinics and pharmacies in Browning, Cut Bank and at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Fort Harrison outside of Helena - nearly three hours away - to get more meds. Then he began to visit "pill houses" on the reservation. "He was gobbling them like candy," said his grandmother, Connie Bremner. Gobert overdosed three times, and was flown each time to Great Falls by Mercy Flight. "One of these days you're going to be alone and there won't be anyone there to realize what is happening," his grandmother warned last summer. A few weeks later, on Sept. 2, Gobert died of an overdose at age 31 . Prescription painkiller addiction on Montana's reservations is rampant. On the Fort Peck Reservation, drug counselors have seen patients mutilate themselves in order to get pills. In remote communities like Heart Butte, a wind-battered village on the Blackfeet Reservation, residents can point out the "pill houses" where addicts go for narcotic painkillers, opiates like Vicodin, OxyContin and morphine patches. But the original source of the drugs is often the local clinic or hospital run by the federal government's Indian Health Service. Heavy prescribing of narcotic painkillers at IHS clinics is fueling serious painkiller abuse on Montana's reservations, say health and law enforcement officials working in Indian Country. "You talk to people and they say they just gave me these painkillers to take until I can get this surgery done," said Angeline Wall, quality assurance coordinator at Crystal Creek Lodge, an in-patient drug and alcohol treatment center in Browning. "And then you come to the hospital and the first thing they ask them is 'Do you need more pain pills?' It isn't like ... 'Should we be cutting down on your pain pills?' It's like, 'Do you need any more?'" The IHS, in a written response to the Tribune's questions, denied that overprescribing of painkillers is a problem at the agency's clinics. "Current case loads do not preclude IHS doctors from upholding the standards of care, which include rational prescribing decisions based on their medical training," the statement said. Perfect storm of factors A perfect storm of factors is feeding the pill problem: grinding poverty coupled with handsome prices for contraband pills (a methadone tablet sells for up to $20 on the Blackfeet Reservation), a long history of addiction in American Indian communities and the fact there is no charge for patient visits or prescriptions at IHS clinics. Some allege that crushing workloads for IHS doctors and political pressure on physicians from tribal officials and relatives - a function of life in close-knit reservation communities - also are to blame. Another culprit, they say, is a budget crisis within the IHS that is forcing patients nationwide to wait months and often years for hip replacements, knee repairs and other badly needed surgeries. There were 5,170 Indian patients on the waiting list last year in Montana and Wyoming combined. To tide them over, doctors prescribe painkillers that are feeding the epidemic, health officials say. "It does create addiction, but also it creates another economy on the reservation that people are able to sell these drugs," said Jim Kennedy, service unit director at the Blackfeet Community Hospital in Browning. "The drug problem is so rampant here with the pills." As of April, the hospital had a $1.3 million backlog of patients waiting for elective surgeries. Although most of those patients who are on narcotic painkillers take them responsibly, it's one more way that addictions start and narcotics find their way into the wrong hands. "If we could take care of their medical needs there wouldn't be the need to give them pain medication," Kennedy said. Joseph Erpelding is a Billings orthopedic surgeon who works on the Crow and Cheyennereservations on a contract with the IHS. He estimates that two-thirds of his patients awaiting surgery in the last two years were on opiates such as Percocet and Vicodin - mostly patients in need of major procedures such as a total hip or knee replacement or surgery for a slipped vertebra. Most are suffering from debilitating pain and need powerful pain relief, Erpelding said. And for some, narcotic painkillers are the best long-term solution. But the prevalence of narcotic painkillers as a stopgap for timely treatment concerns Erpelding, who has seen IHS patients wait as long as six years for a hip replacement. There is almost an expectation that problems will be treated with narcotics, Erpelding said. "You start this whole culture of people seeking this." "Hillbilly heroin" To be sure, the IHS isn't the only source of prescription narcotics on reservations. Nor are reservations the only communities battling the prescription drug epidemic. Abuse of painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin was blamed for doubling the number of fatal accidental drug overdoses nationwide between 1999 and 2004 in a report released early this year by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rural areas are among the hardest hit. OxyContin, a powerful opiate painkiller used to treat cancer patients and others with severe pain, has devastated entire communities in Appalachia, where the drug is dubbed "Hillbilly Heroin." Addiction rates also are high in the West, where Montana teens rank sixth nationwide for abuse of psychotherapeutic drugs and ninth for abuse of painkillers, according to a 2006 report from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In the past year, the Tri-Agency Safe Trails Task Force, which investigates drug cases across six counties in northcentral Montana, has seen eight deaths from prescription drug overdoses in its territory. Most of the victims were not tribal members, said task force agent Pete Federspiel, who notes that the problem is widespread on Montana's Hi-Line. "The scope of the problem in Montana is about to break wide open," said Lily Yamamoto, planning director for the Montana Board of Crime Control. Canada shares drug problem Canada's public health agency also faces criticism for overprescribing painkillers on Indian reserves. Richard MacLachlan, chairman of a Health Canada committee investigating the problem, called prescription drug abuse the "No. 1 health issue" on the country's Indian reserves in a March interview with the Halifax Chronicle Herald in Nova Scotia. On the province's Indian Brook Reserve, at least 300 of the 1,400 residents are addicted to prescription drugs, estimated Chief Alex McDonald. "Everybody thinks we have it so good because we get free drugs," McDonald told the Herald. "People got to know the truth." There is little data on the depth of the prescription drug problem in Montana's Indian Country. But nationwide, American Indians and Alaska Natives showed higher rates of dependence on or abuse of psychotherapeutic drugs, pain relievers and tranquilizers than for all other races in a federal report based on the 2002 to 2004 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. Epidemic hits home for tribal councilman "As far as the pill epidemic, it's really evident," said Blackfeet Tribal Councilman Rodney "Fish" Gervais. "People are dying." Last year, pill-seeking burglars jimmied the lock on the backdoor of his mother's home as she slept. The thugs clubbed 65-year-old Norma Lee Dumont over the head as she lay in her bed and cleaned out the prescriptions in her medicine cabinet, leaving behind the TV and other valuables. Police found the stick used to attack Dumont in her yard with her hair still on it, Gervais said. The blow damaged Dumont's vision in one eye and left her traumatized during her final days. She died in December, six months after the attack, of a pre-existing heart condition. The attack wasn't the first time the pill problem scathed Gervais' family. His son Leroy, a criminal justice student at the Blackfeet Community College, became addicted to prescription meds. At one point Leroy reached out, telling his dad he was "F'd up on pills." But, Rodney Gervais says he was naive. He didn't understand the danger of his son's problem, or how or why someone could be addicted to medication. When Leroy died three years ago of a bacterial infection at age 24, the autopsy showed "he had every pill known to mankind in him," his father said. "He had gone to a pill house just prior to his death." Gervais said he believes Leroy's addiction stopped him from taking care of himself, and from seeking help when he got sick. By telling Leroy's story, his father hopes to stop other young people from abusing pills. Gervais has made the prescription drug abuse problem one of his top priorities since he was elected to the tribal councilin 2006. "There's people who are literally flourishing financially off the sale of these drugs on the reservation," he said. "It's an epidemic and it threatens the stability of our reservation community. It's just got to be eradicated." Tribal members returning to the reservation from urban areas helped introduce prescription abuse and pill dealing, Gervais said. Some blame IHS hospital He also points the finger at the local IHS hospital. "Even the IHS will tell you they've got the same people in line there every day." When Kennedy took the helm at the Blackfeet Community Hospital three years ago, he wanted to find out why patients sometimes waited hours to see a doctor. To investigate, he hung out in the clinic's waiting rooms. Kennedy watched pill seekers with bogus complaints of back pain, migraines and other ailments clog the system. "They were taking up all the slots," he said. People with "silent killers" such as diabetes or heart disease would tire of waiting and walk out in frustration. Kennedy said his clinic is "working internally" to control the number of drugs put into the community, but declined to elaborate. "Our medical staff recognizes this as a problem," he said. Gervais said the tribe is working with the IHS and with several law enforcement agencies to curb the problem, but - like his son's addiction - it already has spiraled out of control. "We're having a hard time playing catch up," he said. Addicts strain treatment program At Browning's Crystal Creek Lodge, the substance abuse treatment center, Unit Manager Sandra Calf Boss Ribs said she would like her staff to get more training on the treatment of prescription drug addicts. The center, run by the tribe and partially funded by the IHS, has seen an upswing of addicts on opiates and other prescription drugs, as well as methamphetamines. "The whole dynamic of our patients has changed so dramatically in the past two years," Calf Boss Ribs said. "Now we're really happy when we see someone who's just an alcoholic." Much of the increase in drug users is from meth addicts and some heroin users. But patients addicted to painkillers are a "big percentage of it," said Wall, the quality assurance coordinator. Their needs strain the system. Alcoholics usually stay at the 18-to 20-bed clinic for a month or two. Opiate addicts may need up to six months of treatment. And because narcotic addicts require more attention, the center sometimes has to leave beds empty, despite a waiting list of roughly 20 people. "We have to look after them in a whole different manner because their withdrawals are really intense," Calf Boss Ribs said. Addicts coming off opiates can suffer cold flashes, vomiting and other symptoms that disable them for five days or more. One of the few accredited, in-patient treatment centers in the West for Native Americans, the center takes addicts from as far away as Alaska, California and Washington State. Two beds are always left open for pregnant women. "Most of the pregnant ladies that come in are opiate users," Calf Boss Ribs said. If left untreated, their babies can suffer dangerous withdrawals at birth. And the addicts themselves are getting younger. An adult treatment center, Crystal Creek is now seeing patients as young as 18. "It's all ages," Calf Boss Ribs said. "The kids in the schools are snorting pills." Where there's a will ... Opiate users often start using prescription drugs recreationally, and soon find themselves addicted, Calf Boss Ribs said. Others get started from prescriptions, she said. One addict told Calf Boss Ribs that "our hospital is like a drug store." The IHS is becoming more aware of the drug abuse problem, and "not prescribing them as readily as they were in recent months," Calf Boss Ribs said. But addicts still are getting pills. Late last month, Calf Boss Ribs watched a known opiate user stroll into a waiting room at the clinic and ask a patient if she had her pills yet. It was clear, she said, that the woman wasn't asking out of concern. "I was shocked that she was bold enough to do that," she said. Nor are the "pill houses" scattered across the reservation discrete. Calf Boss Ribs recently rode through Heart Butte, an isolated community of 700 south of Browning, with a local woman who pointed out the pill and drug houses. "She said, 'They sell this here and this there,'" recalled Calf Boss Ribs, who was saddened by how few houses were clean. The addiction problem cuts across the social fabric, she said. "We have a lot of prominent people in the community who abuse prescription drugs." Politics and pills The close-knit power structure on reservations - where clinic personnel may be related to tribal council members or have relatives coming in for treatment - exacerbates the pill problem, said Bill Walston, a family practitioner who was fired from the Fort Belknap IHS clinic two years ago during his probationary period. Walston claims he was fired in retaliation for addressing the drug problem and other issues at the clinic. He has since been rehired by the IHS in Montana. "There's a huge amount of pressure from the community on the physicians to prescribe this stuff," said Walston. "Especially if they're people that are family members of council members. There's a lot of political pressure. I encountered it myself." Any clinic that provides free health care is a target for pill seekers, said Joseph Ramos, senior clinical instructor for the Department of Surgery at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Ramos, an expert in pain management and painkiller addiction, is not familiar with the IHS' narcotics policies. But wherever office visits and prescriptions are free "it really increases the odds that a patient who may have an addiction will go ahead and give it a try," said Ramos, who served on a Colorado drug task force that helped create a statewide prescription drug monitoring database. Doctor shopping Law enforcement officials complain of a lack of cooperation from the IHS. "As we were doing outreach with local law enforcement about the source of these prescription drugs, one of the things they continually brought up is the frustration because there's very little communication with the IHS, " said Yamamoto, with the Montana Board of Crime Control. "We hear these anecdotal stories about people getting hundreds of tablets." Addicts who are patients of the IHS can take advantage of the disconnect between the reservation and neighboring communities to go "doctor shopping" for multiple prescriptions, said Federspiel, with the Tri-Agency Safe Trails Task Force. A three-woman drug ring working out of Rocky Boy's hit up doctors and pharmacists in at least four different communities, receiving thousands of pills from 2001-2003. One of the women visited eight doctors in the space of two months, including two doctors on the same day (see accompanying story). That was a big case. Often, dealers are working with smaller quantities or are opportunists selling their own legitimate prescription to make a buck. "A prescription for 120 hydrocodone can be sold for $300," Federspiel said. "For a lot of people in a depressed area, a depressed economy, $300 is a lot of money." Investigators have found elderly people selling their prescriptions to make ends meet, he said. "We've got a huge problem up here with prescriptions," Federspiel said. "We've been buying pills on the reservations through informants. There's a lot of people that are telling us about it." A not-so-risky business Sellers peddling small quantities of prescription drugs are almost immune from prosecution. "We have prosecuted some people for the smaller amounts of prescription pills, but we could backlog the federal system with just prescription medication," Federspiel said. Usually, the feds only prosecute repeat offenders or cases that turned violent, he said. The tribal courts also aren't aggressively prosecuting pill dealers, Federspiel said. From his observations through the drug task force, it appears that IHS clinics are prescribing more narcotic painkillers than others. "On the reservation there's kind of a shortage of doctors," he said. "I think the doctors out there see a lot of people and they don't have the time that other doctors do" to watch for pill seekers. The issue isn't limited to Montana. An 18-month drug investigation in North Dakota's Rolette County, home to the Turtle Mountain Reservation, netted 10 people in October. Officers made more than 250 controlled drug buys of everything from meth and prescription drugs to marijuana. The dealers acquired the majority of the painkillers through Medicaid or the IHS, County Attorney Mary O'Donnell told the Grand Forks Herald. Deep wounds On the Blackfeet Reservation, Connie Bremner still grieves the loss of her grandson Louis - a talented artist who adored his two young sons. She juggles the demands of raising them with her job as director of the tribe's Eagle Shield Senior Center. Bremner raised Louis from the time he was 10 after his mother became disabled, and looked to him to care for her when she got old. "Instead, I have two little boys, 3 and 5 years old, and I should be rocking in my rocking chair right now," said Bremner, 72. Louis' helicopter flights to the ER made an impression on his youngest boy. As a Mercy Flight chopper flew over Bremner's house in Browning recently, 3-year-old Rio pointed at it and said: "There goes my daddy." --- Drug Facts About methadone Methadone is a synthetic narcotic that has been used for more than 30 years to treat heroin addicts. About seven years ago, methadone came into vogue for treating patients with severe pain because it is effective, less expensive than many opiate drugs and less addictive than oxycodone, said Montana Medical Examiner Gary Dell. However, methadone also is commonly abused as a street drug because of its euphoric effect and is "less forgiving than other narcotics in terms of causing death," Dell said. A dose that gives a high to an abuser with tolerance can kill someone who has never used it or has lost their tolerance, Dell said. Montana has one to two methadone overdose deaths a week, Dell said. There is no sign of more deaths from methadone overdoses on reservations than in other areas, he added. Most abused There are three classes of prescription drugs that are most commonly abused: Opioids, which are most often prescribed to treat pain,-examples include: codeine, oxycodone (OxyContin and Percocet), and morphine (Kadian and Avinza); Central nervous system (CNS) depressants, which are used to treat anxiety and sleep disorders-examples include: barbiturates (Mebaral and Nembutal) and benzodiazepines (Valium and Xanax); Stimulants, which are prescribed to treat the sleep disorder narcolepsy, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and obesity-examples include: dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine and Adderall) and methylphenidate (Ritalin and Concerta). Health risks The health risks associated with prescription drug abuse vary depending on the drug. For example, abuse of opioids, narcotics and pain relievers can slow or stop breathing. The abuse of depressants, including benzodiazepines and other tranquilizers, barbiturates and other sedatives, can result in seizure, respiratory depression and decreased heart rate. Stimulant abuse can lead to high body temperature, irregular heart rate, cardiovascular system failure and seizure. Inappropriate use of prescription drugs, including use without a prescription or medical supervision, or using in a manner other than exactly as prescribed, can lead to addiction in some cases. Prevention How can you help prevent prescription drug misuse or abuse? Keep your doctor informed about all medications you are taking, including over-the-counter medications. Take your medication(s) as prescribed. Read the information your pharmacist provides before starting to take medications. Ask your doctor or pharmacist about your medication, especially if you are unsure about its effects. - From the Office of National Drug Control Policy --- Reach Tribune Enterprise Editor Karen Ogden at kogden@greatfallstribune.com or at 791-6536 or 800-438-6600. Copyright c. 2007 The Great Falls Tribune. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Indian Affairs will discuss Draft Housing Bill" --------- Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:22:01 -0400 From: "Piatt, Barry (Dorgan)" Subj: Senate Indian Affairs Committee will discuss draft housing bill Attached, and with text pasted in below, is a news release announcing a hearing by the Senate Indian Affairs to discuss draft legislation being prepared by Chairman Dorgan on Indian housing. If you need additional information, or have questions, please contact me at the telephone number or e-mail address listed below. Barry E. Piatt Communications Director U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) PHONE: 202-224-1191 E-Mail: barry_piatt@dorgan.senate.gov For Immediate Release CONTACT: Barry Piatt Tuesday or Brenden Timpe July 17, 2007 PHONE: 202-224-2551 U.S. SENATE INDIAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE TO EXAMINE CHAIRMAN DORGAN'S INDIAN HOUSING BILL (WASHINGTON, D.C.) - U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) announced Tuesday the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee will conduct a hearing Thursday, July 19 on discussion draft legislation to respond to chronic housing problems on the nation's Indian reservations. The hearing will begin at 9:30 AM. It will take place in the Indian Affairs Committee hearing room, Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building. Chairman Dorgan is preparing the draft legislation which would reauthorize and improve the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act (NAHASDA). Dorgan said the purpose of the hearing is to garner input and suggestions on the legislation as it is still being developed. "The federal government has a trust responsibility to provide adequate housing on Indian reservations, but it has failed to meet that responsibility for many decades. In many Indian communities, housing conditions are little better than in Third World countries," Dorgan said. "The draft legislation we will discuss aims to respond to that crisis by putting the federal government on track to meeting its trust obligations to American Indians." Among those scheduled to testify are: Panel I Rodger J. Boyd, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Native American Programs, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Panel II David Brien, Chairman, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, North Dakota; Waldo Walker, Chairman, Washoe Tribe of Nevada; Aneva J. Yazzie, Chief Executive Officer of the Navajo Nation Housing Authority; Terry Nutter, Executive Director, Copper River Basin Regional Housing Authority, Alaska; Marty Shuravloff, Chairman, National American Indian Housing Council. --------- "RE: Tribal Housing act underfunded" --------- Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 07:24:13 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRIBAL HOUSING ACT SHORT OF FUNDS" http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/ap_alaska/story/9146279p-9062772c.html Tribal housing act underfunded, Indians tell senators By JENNIFER TALHELM, Associated Press Writer July 19, 2007 WASHINGTON (AP) - Tribal leaders said Thursday that they need more money to help meet housing needs on reservations where thousands of American Indians live in substandard homes with no indoor plumbing or central heat. Speaking to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee during a hearing on Indian housing, tribal leaders urged senators to renew the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act, which has helped tribes get federal grants to build new homes. Before the act, tribes were building an average of 2,000 homes a year. In the program's first year, tribes built 6,000, said Marty Shuravloff, chairman of the National American Indian Housing Council and a member of the Lesnoi Village on Kodiak Island, Alaska. "Indian country needs NAHASDA reauthorized because it directly affects our health and welfare," Shuravloff said. But Indian leaders also said the program is drastically underfunded and asked senators to support increasing its budget. David Brien, chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota, said the Bush administration's budget request for the program - about $627 million - is far less than the $1 billion tribes and national advocacy groups say is needed. Funding also has been virtually flat for the last several years. That's "too low for its real promise to be realized," said Aneva Yazzie, who heads the Navajo Housing Authority, which serves Navajos in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Tribes on rural reservations struggle to provide water, sewer service and electricity, meaning building costs are higher than in other communities. As costs have risen, tribes also have had to put more money into keeping up existing homes, leaving them less able to build new houses, Yazzie said. As a result, housing shortages on reservations are severe. Almost half of the homes on reservations are considered too small or substandard. About 90,000 Indian families are homeless or have inadequate housing, according to the National American Indian Housing Council, which estimates about 200,000 new homes are needed on reservations across the country. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he was sympathetic, and criticized the administration's budget request. Dorgan pushed an official from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to answer whether he agrees that more money is needed for the program. Dorgan pointedly repeated his question when the official, Rodger Boyd, deputy assistant secretary for Native American Programs, answered that HUD was committed to trying to leverage funding from elsewhere to supplement the budget. "These are third-world conditions," Dorgan chided. "Do you not agree the need to adequately fund the program is also a critical need?" Copyright c. 2007 The Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company. --------- "RE: Eastern Band takes new tack on Housing" --------- Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 07:24:13 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="EBC CREATES NEW HOUSING SOLOUTION" http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770719117 Tribe takes new tack on housing by Jon Ostendorff, jostendorff@citizen-times.com July 20, 2007 CHEROKEE - Construction of townhomes for members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is almost finished under a new program using casino profits to improve housing on the Qualla Boundary. The Heritage at Soco Valley development will have 40 two- and three- bedroom units when it is finished. The first stage is set to open next month. Crews this week are finishing siding and interior trim work. The development is a departure from decades of government-built housing on the Cherokee Indian Reservation that focused on low-cost homes on scattered, one-acre sites. "It is really exciting," said Paulette Cox, divisional administrator for the tribe's Housing and Community Development Division. "There is such a need for housing." Trust land Part of the need for new housing in Cherokee comes from the way the government set up the reservation, also called the Qualla Boundary. Land in Cherokee is held in trust by the federal government. In Cherokee, people do not own land. Instead, they have what's called a "possessory interest." Tribe members are entitled to build on their land. But they couldn't historically borrow money against their holdings to help with the costs as their neighbors might do in Swain or Jackson counties. This meant tribe members who wanted to live on the boundary had to take small, low-interest government mortgages. The homes were built by the Qualla Housing Authority, a federally funded public housing program run by the tribe. Aging homes have many tribe members in poor living conditions. Health workers suspect indoor air pollution in some of the homes has caused the Eastern Band to have a higher rate of asthma than its neighbors. The casino, which brought in an estimated $240 million for tribal government last year, has provided more options. Tribe members get twice-annual payouts, which allow them to afford better housing. Total payouts for 2006 came to about $8,000 for each member. The tribe's new program for housing means members can use their possessory interest in the land as collateral on private mortgages guaranteed by the tribal government. The government is able to set aside 3.5 percent of the casino money - about $4.2 million a year - to build homes. The homes, like those at Heritage at Soco, will be sold to tribe members or rented to nonmembers who work in Cherokee. A new concept Principal Chief Michell Hicks made housing a top priority when he took office four years ago. He is running for re-election and has said better housing is still a top goal. To help guide the tribe's new approach to housing, he tapped Warren C. Smith, former director of housing for Virginia's Department of Housing and Community Development. Once the casino had fixed some of the money problems, the next hurdle was a lack of choices in housing types. Smith and his staff found not everyone wanted the traditional one-acre lot and home. The market was begging for housing that required no yard work and was located close to town. From that need, the Heritage at Soco was born. "It's brand-new," Smith said. "I think it's a very positive thing. The way that we are looking to create these opportunities and serving these needs is a brand-new concept." The new townhomes start at about $150,000. A two-bedroom unit is 1,174 square feet The homes feature stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors, ceramic tile, garages and community amenities such as a pool, fitness spa and a homeowners association. Two other developments are planned that offer more of the traditional homes-on-lots setup. But the townhomes, so far, have been the most popular. The waiting list has about 20 families. Smith said the tribe also is looking ahead to a time when it will need housing options for nonmembers who come to work in Cherokee. The Eastern Band plans to double the size of the casino by 2010 and add 1,000 jobs. The casino is already one of the largest employers west of Asheville. Hammers and nails Loretta Brockington already has her application in to buy one of the townhomes. She grew up in Cherokee but moved to Missouri 10 years ago. At 67, she's ready to come home. With the year-round employment generated by the casino and with the new housing choices, the decision was an easy one to make. "It is just perfect for me at my age," she said. "I am an artist. I'd rather do landscape portraits than work in the yard." Paul Smith, no relation to Warren Smith, is the housing production manager for the division. It's his job to supervise the company - Meadows Homes of Knoxville - that is building the townhomes. Tribal government workers and construction companies owned by tribe members also are involved in the project. The townhomes are modular. Once the foundations were installed, the company brought them in on trucks and put the pieces together. Construction started in March. The first part of the development - 22 units - is rising up on one side of U.S. 19 in the Wolfetown community east of the casino. The second part, which will be 19 rentals, will be on the other side of the street. Smith plans to have the first phase ready next month. The back of the first phase borders Soco Creek and will have a walking trail. The town homes are designed to fit a variety of lifestyles. They are handicapped accessible and offer options for up or downstairs bedrooms. "I like being an innovator," Smith said. "It gives a diversification of housing - not just scattered sites but a community-type development. I am real proud to be associated with it." Contact Jon Ostendorff at 828-452-1467, via e-mail at jostendo@ashevill.gannett.com Copyright c. 2007 Asheville Citizen-Times. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Battle over Beer brews on Border" --------- Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:24:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-16-reservation_N.htm Battle over beer brews on border By Judy Keen, USA TODAY July 16, 2007 WHITECLAY, Neb. - The Jumping Eagle Inn, one of four stores selling beer here on the border of South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, is hopping. Several customers spend $19.50 for a carton of 30 beers. Then they drive north toward the reservation, where alcohol is banned. Some customers buy one beer at a time and spend their days and nights in this unincorporated town of 14. At 7:55 a.m. on a recent weekday, a dozen men are waiting for the Jumping Eagle to open. By 8:10 a.m., they're drinking from silver cans. Others hang out in vacant buildings or panhandle outside the two grocery stores. A man sleeps on a sidewalk, flies swarming around his face. The stores here sell the equivalent of about 10,000 cans of beer daily, according to the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission. Much of the beer - the stores don't sell hard liquor - makes its way onto the reservation. Some tribal leaders are infuriated by the stores' proximity to the dry reservation. They have fought for years to close the stores and plan to ask the Nebraska Legislature again next year to curtail the sale of alcohol to a population wracked by alcoholism. Legal vs. 'moral' issue The situation in Whiteclay is "gut-wrenching," says Indian activist Russell Means. "I don't even like to drive through it because I see my people suffering. I cry." Six people, including Means, were arrested last month when they blockaded the road between here and Pine Ridge and tried to search vehicles for beer. "I've never considered myself a bad guy," says Stuart Kozal, 48, a part- owner of the Jumping Eagle. He's a businessman who obeys the law, he says. He interrupts a conversation to tell an inebriated man who wants to buy a beer, "No, you've had too many, buddy." It's illegal to sell alcohol to anyone visibly intoxicated or underage. Consumption on store property and sales on credit are prohibited. Hobert Rupe, executive director of the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission, says liquor licenses can't be revoked without proof of violations of the regulations. "The licensees are acting in conformance with the law as far as we can tell," he says. If Whiteclay's stores were closed, he asks, "Would you stop alcohol abuse? Unfortunately, no. ... You just shift the problem to other places." Rupe says the commission supports stronger law enforcement in Whiteclay. Kozal says he'd consider closing his store "if I honestly thought that doing away with Whiteclay would do away with the problem on the reservation with alcohol." It wouldn't, he says. "It's got to come from within the person." Tom Poor Bear, 51, a tribal council member, agrees that the Oglala Sioux people are responsible for their alcohol problems. "Alcohol has weakened my people. Believe me, I know the pain of alcohol because I have tasted the alcohol and I've felt the weakness," he says. However, he says store owners and Nebraska politicians must share responsibility because they are taking advantage of "people who have to live in a poverty-stricken area. Hope has been drained from them." The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is home to about 20,000 people. More than half live under the poverty line, and the tribal government says the unemployment rate exceeds 80%. Suicide, infant mortality and fetal alcohol syndrome rates are high. In 2006, Shannon County, which is part of the reservation, had South Dakota's highest number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities. Kozal and others here say closing the beer stores would not end those problems. "They'll just go somewhere else," says Mary Eckholt, 79, who has lived here for almost 50 years and runs a gift shop. Banning alcohol doesn't make sense, she says. "The whole country tried it once with Prohibition, and it didn't work." Bruce BonFleur, 55, who runs a ministry in Whiteclay, says solving the problems here will require "moral leadership on both sides." Legislation on tap The battle over Whiteclay has prompted years of marches, protests and efforts to persuade the Nebraska Legislature to close the stores or reduce the number of licenses. Legislation that would tighten liquor laws has never made it out of committee. Mark Vasina, president of Nebraskans for Peace, a social justice group that supported the blockade and lobbies the Legislature, says another attempt to pass a Whiteclay bill will be made next year. "If what goes on in Whiteclay went on in downtown Lincoln, there would be community outcry and something would be done about it in a very short time," he says. Poor Bear and others say Whiteclay was part of the reservation in the 1880s and should be returned. He also blames Whiteclay for the unsolved 1999 murders of two tribe members whose bodies were found just across the state line in South Dakota. For some tribal leaders, Whiteclay is a symbol of their neighbors' indifference to the reservation's problems, says Frank LaMere, an activist from Nebraska's Winnebago tribe. "We as Nebraskans have blood on our hands," says LaMere, 57, who was arrested during the blockade. "I am growing impatient with those who refuse to see the death and destruction we have wrought on Pine Ridge. ... The next time I get arrested, it's going to be at the Nebraska State Capitol." Duane Martin Sr., a Pine Ridge activist who heads the Strong Hearts Civil Rights Movement, plans more blockades. "We have to open up the eyes of the world to the devastation here," he says. Loren Black Elk, 47, whose brother Wilson Black Elk was one of the 1999 murder victims, acknowledges that he drinks and spends time on the streets of Whiteclay. He doesn't think closing the stores would make any difference. "You can't stop alcohol," he says. Copyright c. 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. --------- "RE: Nothing grand about bumpy Skywalk Road" --------- Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:25:56 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ROUGH 14-MILE RIDE TO SKYWALK" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.lvrj.com/news/8517267.html Nothing grand about bumpy Skywalk road Tourists arrive grumpy after 14-mile ride to canyon rim By CHRIS KAHN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS July 15, 2007 PHOENIX - Before they get to the Grand Canyon's glass-bottom Skywalk, most visitors are treated to an unexpected thrill, 14 miles of dusty, axle-busting road that twists around Joshua trees on the Hualapai Indian reservation. That ride should get much easier over the next few years, the Hualapai tribe said Friday. The Hualapai said they've reached an agreement with a nearby landowner to pave the old washboard road. "It's such a relief," said Sherri Yellowhawk, CEO of the Grand Canyon Resort Corp., the tribe's business arm. "Usually (tourists) are upset by the time they get there." About 100,000 people have visited the massive horseshoe-shaped observation deck since it opened in March. The Skywalk offers straight-down, spine-tingling views 4,000 feet above the canyon floor and is an important source of income for the Hualapai, who rely on tourist dollars, and David Jin, the Las Vegas businessman who paid for its construction. But bringing people to the remote western edge of the canyon has been difficult. The tribe operates a small airport near the Skywalk, but most visitors still come by car along Diamond Bar Road. The rugged dirt road has claimed numerous vehicles as tourists flocked to the west rim. The Hualapai wanted to pave it for years, Yellowhawk said, but Nigel Turner, who owns the Grand Canyon West Ranch, blocked the construction with a lawsuit. Turner said he worried the road would endanger the ancient Joshua trees, some of which are a few centuries old. He worried that a paved road would transform the region into a busy tourist center like the canyon's popular south rim, 90 miles to the east. "I bought the ranch really to protect it, and to have it for eco-tourism, and my concern was that a paved road coming through the ranch was going to do a lot of destruction to the environment," Turner said. "That's not the business we're in. The people here want a lot of quiet and tranquility." The Hualapai recently paid Turner $750,000 to settle the lawsuit and clear the way for road construction. "You can only go so far with these fights on your own," Turner said. Yellowhawk said it will cost about $20 million to build the road, which will be treated with organic oil to keep tires from kicking up dust and stones. She said $12 million of that will come from federal grant money. The other $8 million probably will come from future profits from the Skywalk and other tourist attractions on the reservation. Diamond Bar Road will stay open during construction, Yellowhawk said. Copyright c. 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2007 Las Vegas Review-Journal. --------- "RE: Early Native American images still echo" --------- Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:24:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WHITE VIEW OF A RED WORLD" http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/22/sunday/main2714842.shtml Early Native American Images Still Echo Paintings Dating Back 400 Years Show How Native Americans Captured The Imagination LONDON April 22, 2007 (CBS) The early paintings of native North Americans done by English colonists provide an interesting glimpse into how the colonist not only saw the new people they encountered in America, but also how they saw themselves. Now there is rare exhibit of some of the watercolors done by a man named John White, who was part of the first group of English settlers trying to colonize America in 1585. His work is being shown at the British Museum in London. "It is sort of what we call first contact images," Kim Sloan, the curator of the exhibit, told CBS News foreign correspondent Mark Phillips. "In other words, they show the Native Americans before the Europeans arrived or at the very moment that they arrived." The images depict first Indians colonists encountered, the Algonquians, who lived on the coast of what is now North Carolina, but was then called Virginia, after the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I. Sloan said the paintings can't be trusted completely because the English are seeing the culture for the very first time from their own unique perspective. "They are going to see it through their own eyes," said Sloan. "Through eyes that are used to the European, to the English, to the Elizabethan court." She showed Phillips a painting of one of the chiefs in which he is standing in a pose often used to depict powerful European men. "So the chief is seen in a familiar pose - one hand on hip, the other on his weapon, his legs flexed with power," she said. "There's a message in these pictures: these people are different, but not that different. We can work with them. More to the point, we can use them." Joan-Pao Rubies is an authority on early American colonization at the London School of Economics. He says the pictures in the exhibit set out what would become the basic equation in the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized. "These people also have the basics of civil life: they live in families they have basic institutions; they have chiefs; they have the rudiments of religion," Rubies said. "I think that's the crucial message here, they are not beyond the pale; they are not something totally different." The Algonquians had structured towns. They had organized fishing and agriculture industries. All that was important to those who had invested in the very risky business of settling the new world, and who were trying to convince the queen and her court that the American adventure was a worthwhile proposition. These pictures weren't about art. They were advertising posters. "They got 115 people who were willing to risk their lives - because these were very, very dangerous voyages at the time - and to bring their children, and John White actually brought his daughter who was pregnant at the time who gave birth shortly after they arrived," Sloan said. But the intriguing first encounter between the European and Native American cultures already had the seeds of destruction in it. In one painting, a Native American child is carrying a European doll, which was probably a gift and was probably infected with the diseases that the white man brought to America, and for which the local tribes had no natural defenses. For them, this encounter was the beginning of the end. "Well, smallpox, measles, typhus," said Rubies. "Smallpox is usually one of the crucial ones. There are waves of illnesses that come, every 10, 20, 30 years, which decimate whole villages, which make it absolutely impossible for the natives to ever learn from the new technologies and mount a challenge. In effect they are constantly losing manpower." As it happened, the first English coastal settlements would fail. Relations with the natives that had apparently started so well, soon broke down. War with Spain and the arrival in English waters of the Armada, diverted English attention elsewhere. And the colonial process would be put on hold until the settlement of Jamestown, twenty years later in the Chesapeake Basin. But as the first colonial adventure died out, John White's pictures began to take on a life of their own. White's original paintings may only have been seen only by the influential members of Elizabeth's court. Prints made from engravings of the pictures by Dutchman Theodor de Bry were distributed all over Europe. And because no other similar pictures were made for a couple of centuries, this was the image of the American Indian that was so indelibly tattooed on the European heart. It's still there and can be seen in today's Hollywood image of the Indian. "It's because they're based on white," Sloan said. "It's because those images became the Hollywood version for all of Europe for 200 years." Because they're delicate watercolors and sensitive to light, the paintings are only exhibited occasionally and briefly. But they'll soon be going home for two showings, home to where John White recorded this historic encounter, home to America. Copyright c. 2007 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Ojibway: Like Boulders on the Path" --------- Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:42:08 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WHAT DOES GOD, THE SACRED... ASK OF US NOW" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415441 Ojibway: Like boulders on the path by: The Rev. Paul Ojibaway July 20, 2007 "We are the ones we have been waiting for." This final line from an oration ascribed to the elders of the Hopi, I don't know from where or when, sent to me by a friend, has stayed in my mind. Like a shadow, these words lengthen as the days each draw to dusk; sometimes they push me more down the daily path where I meet the unexpected boulders that are hard to get around. And the question comes again: "What am I waiting for?" In the last weeks a host of Indian friends called and wrote about their hurt, anger, frustration and bewilderment at Pope Benedict XVI's recent words to the indigenous in Brazil and to the world. For me, and so many Indian Christians of all paths, the urgency of the controversy feels like another huge boulder on the path we didn't expect or need. "Who am I waiting for?" The global community is in a profound and painful shift that we have yet to understand or know where it is taking us. Many see again the painful collision between the "Old World" and the "New" that has not ended after five centuries, or so it feels like when the Catholic Church speaks in ways that alienate. World views are in collision and the dust is everywhere. But it is more than that. It is also the vast shift in migration South to North across the developed world that will change cultural, social and institutional life for everyone and the very notion of what it means to be a nation-state when borders no long hold in and leave out. The impact of globalization shifts the political and economic power West to East and back again. And in the midst of all this, the indigenous everywhere are caught in the middle and suffer the consequences in all aspects of their lifeways. And all indigenous have a stake in the conversation. Even the dust feels sometimes like rocks. The questions we ask ourselves and of each other are changing, evolving; and so they must. The persistent question, for instance, of whether one can be an authentic Indian and Christian at once really no longer holds. The reality is always more than "either/or." Same with the question of which is the defining inclination of identity - Indian first, Christian second, or vice versa. Am I a citizen of a nation or an indigenous citizen of the world? We need to find new questions, new ways to get around and understand the boulders that divide the path and keep us apart. We are the choices we have made as much as we are children of our parents and their choices. Among ourselves we have rocks in the path we have to struggle to get over, or under, or just get past: religious and spiritual conflict, the destructive impact of adaptation, assimilation, racism, cultural disintegration, et al. We may have different names for all the rocks, yet we always know them by their feel. We can't blame eac h other for the rocks or continue to throw them when we can't get past the stops along the path. A larger dialogue is beginning to force its way into our consciousness and our communal experience as individuals, tribes and nations, one that is beginning everywhere among the indigenous of the world and has yet a defining method or process. You just have to listen to the crosswinds, the voices that are getting stronger. Look to our storytellers, artists, novelists, academics, healers, cultural bridge-builders - they are beginning to speak a new story about ourselves. It's a story based in the dialogue about the future, about healing the past, and about the very possibility of life itself. The collision of world views felt in Brazil between church and the indigenous isn't down there; it is a collision felt across Native America in the soul of every person, family and tribal community where faith and religious practice divides and alienates. How important and valuable it is that our indigenous brothers and sisters stood up and challenged the singular power of the pope and demanded a different consideration of what the past means and what the future holds for them in Latin America. The dialogue will not now go away for them - it is only now just beginning and on different terms, and it will take us beyond where we think possible if we care for it. To every table we come to talk, in every circle we sit and seek wisdom. We bring unique and invaluable gifts; we are the ones we have been waiting for. We know what adaptation means in ways others do not - we have been adapting to each other since beyond memory. We know multicultural life in ways others can only imagine because we have had to struggle with intertribal, interracial life at home, in the cities and in between and account for the consequences. We are challenged in this encounter between ourselves and the world to be more self-aware, intentional and determined to build circles and not walls, to do the ways of healing when we can't wait any longer for that "other" to get it, or let go, or just get out of the way. As a man of faith I also know I am, as one theologian put, a parent and child, teacher and student of my culture, traditions and spirituality. In whatever council fire we sit, however, we pray for wisdom, life, or healing, in the end for pope and Andean chief, councilperson or the ordinary Indian man or women struggling to live in a good way, the only lasting and important question we have to ask each other is and will remain: "What does God, the Sacred as we know it, ask of us now?" --- The Rev. Paul Ojibway, S.A., is a member of the Fond du Lac Band, Lake Superior Chippewa and Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, in residence at Orinda, Calif. Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Guiding the Spirit" --------- Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:42:08 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="OJIBWAY SPIRITUALITY" http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/ articles/index.cfm?id=46529§ion=homepage Guiding the spirit Jana Hollingsworth Duluth News Tribune Sunday, July 22, 2007 Dan Jones remembers from his childhood a cold washcloth being rubbed across his face before sunrise. It was wiping charcoal off his forehead, placed there before bedtime to protect him against the recently deceased. An Ojibwe belief says that spirits revisit their lives at night for four days after death, and during that time small children and babies are vulnerable. "He doesn't know it, but if he gets lonely, he may take someone with him," said Jones, an Ojibwe language instructor at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, about the dead at a spring language session on the reservation. "When the spirit sees charcoal [the face is] blurred, and he can't see who it is." That belief, and variations of it, is one of several still practiced by some Ojibwe who follow traditional ways. While many Fond du Lac band members are now practicing Catholics, some on the reservation have never wavered from tradition. "My mother said you go one way and that's all," said Gerry L. Defoe, a Mille Lacs band member who lives on the Fond du Lac Reservation. "You can't have both." Traditional faith Lee Staples is a spiritual leader for the Mille Lacs Reservation, and performs most traditional funerals at Fond du Lac. He said that to understand Ojibwe beliefs about death, one must understand beliefs about life. "We have within us Anishinaabe spirit, and we just occupy this physical body during that lifetime," he said. "There is ... a reason for us existing on this earth, a reason that the creator put us down." When someone dies, Staples' job is to send the spirit to another world, he said. "I always think it must be wonderful to know when you go down the path, that you accomplished what Manidoo [creator] wanted you to do on this earth," he said. Practices and beliefs After