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group and click on Save Changes.

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[NativeNews] Labels for Education

     From: chutwood



The Labels for Education programs trades labels from specific
products for educational equipment (PCs, AV-equipment, etc.).  The
Puyallup Tribal School, Chief Leschi, is a participant in the program.

There's an extra need for labels now due to the recent earthquake in
Washignton State.  The tribal headquarters building has been red-
tagged and the infra-structure of the tribe is scrambling to find
places to get back into business.  This is particularly significant
because the building itself is one that was 'occupied' by the Puyallup
and was the beginning of rebuilding our land base.  It had first been
an indian hospital...a four-story brick monster. Then it became a TB
hospital and later Cascadia...a juvenile jail.  Washington State
decided it was too costly to operate and maintain and decided to sell
it.  As it had been Puyallup trust land and was given up (?) to
become an indian hospital, the Puyallup people decided they wanted it
back.  It took occupying it to do so.  We used it originally as
tribal offices and our first tribal school.  The building was in such
bad shape, that eventually the school portion was condemned. We now
have a great new school building, but are terribly short on basic
equipment and furnishings.  With the tribal building now red-tagged
due to the earthquake, we both grieve the loss of this symbol...old
and decrepit as it was...and the enormous task of what to do now.
FEMA will not help in repairs or removal (remember, we're talking a
huge four-story brick former hospital).  The cost for the tribe to
remove and rebuild is out of the question.  Having such a small land
base, we're going to have to lease space.  All this means, is less
monies going to support tribal services...such as the school.

So, if you have any of the labels I've listed below hanging about your
house, please consider sending them to Tami Cooper, Chief Leschi
Schools, 5625 52nd St. E., Puyallup, WA  98371.  These labels WILL
make a difference.

Cambells:  All soups, tomato juice and recipe mixes.
Pepperidge Farm:  Breads, croutons, rolls, stuffing, cookies,
goldfish, snack mixes, frozen garlic breads, cakes, turnovers,
dumplings & puff pastry.
Swanson:  Broths and poultry.
V8:  vegetable jice, Splash, Healthy Request vegetable juice
Franco-American: Gravies, Speghettio's and pasta
Prego:  Pasta sauces
Pace:  Salsa, picante & Picante ConQueso and food service products

GM (General Mills) Box Tops for Education (on lots of cerel boxes,
etc.)

You can visit Chief Leschi online at http:/www.leschi.bia.edu.  So
many people wish to make a difference, improve a child's chances.
This is an easy way to do so. This school supports children from many
ndn Nations.  I hope you'll consider saving your labels and sending
them to Chief Leschi.

Storm Reyes

From: ErthAvengr@...

There was a storm tonight at 7:00pm Mountain time at Slim Buttes, Mission Flats
and Wounded Knee in South Dakota. It is suspected a tornado. 80 mile and hour
winds at least were clocked and three trailors were overturned and the families
need help. One family member was hurt and in the hospital. It is not known yet
if there were more people hurt.

There was hail and tremendous rain at Wounded Knee and it is not known yet of
damage done there. It is reported that a cloud came down which leads to the
assumption considering the damage that it was a tornado.

Help is also needed out at the Stronghold with manpower and any supplies that
people can send. ...propane, clothing, tarps, etc. Any further information on
the current situation at the Stronghold and any donations can be obtained by
calling Garvard Good Plume at  308-862-2582.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Akwesasne, moment of truth

Posted: May 30, 2003 - 10:38am EST
http://indiancountry.com/article/1054305629

Akwesasne Territory, or St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, is a highly embattled
Indian community, with a governance system of crisscrossed jurisdictions and a
long history of internal political strife. It is also a recognized bellwether
community that has often signaled futuristic visions and courses of action to
national Indian country.

A major casino deal with New York state, likely to be approved by the feds,
could see Akwesasne the owner of a lucrative gaming establishment in the
Catskills region of New York. This would be one of three such casinos that New
York�s Republican Governor George Pataki is looking to deal out to New York
tribes ready to make the big leap to well-resourced economic recovery. The
Akwesasne Mohawks, as represented by the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal government, are
in line for one of the Catskills casinos, a very promising site that could rival
the Pequot and Mohegan casinos in Connecticut. However, other tribes are quickly
elbowing their way into the regional package. The deal even as presently
contemplated is quite unique. The line up of players is not likely to occur
again and the Mohawks are at the crossroads of a major decision with stakes
unlikely to be as high again.

Intense negotiations between the tribe�s negotiators and the state this past
season have produced a Memorandum of Understanding, which will be voted upon in
referendum by tribal members this summer. The MOU was substantially discussed at
tribal information sessions last week. It comes in the company of several major
issues that New York is desperately seeking to settle with the Mohawks,
principally a long-standing land claim and the more recent and very heated
question of price parity between reservation retailers and surrounding
non-Native businesses.

Land and taxation are thorny issues that pull much emotional and economic
investment for many tribal members. Nevertheless, their convergence with a
comprehensive economic package for the Mohawks is fateful, as all future trends
are against successful settlements of Native land claims via the higher courts.
Only the present circumstances in New York, with a Republican governor facing
severe economic shortages and a state long tormented by decades-old land claims,
open the way for serious win-win negotiations and deal-making. The potential
agreement is conflict-resolution of historic proportions and the present
leadership, if it handles it correctly, could catapult their tribe into a
position of major economic recovery and influence in two regional economies
within New York.

On the American side of the reserve, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe is the federally
recognized government. This is the government that has negotiated so far with
New York. It faces a sweeping election in three weeks. Two of the present three
chiefs are stepping down and the third, Alma Ransom, is campaigning for
re-election. This government faces challenges for comprehensive representation
by two other governments, the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs (Longhouse)
government and the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (Canadian side of the reserve).
Neither has legal standing in the present deal as offered. One represents the
traditional clan system, which conducts ceremonies at two rival longhouses on
the reservation. Some marriages and births are registered with the Nation. The
other government is Canadian-based with no jurisdiction in the U.S. land claim
cases.

The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe has had its ups and downs. Corruption, perhaps not
endemic but frequent enough, has taken its bites. Community confidence in the
tribe is not high. A community war over business policy and practice resulted in
two members killed in a shoot-out in 1990. The present government, beleaguered
and not always cogent, nevertheless transitioned the tribe from much more
splintered times. It is about to retire, at least by two thirds, as a new
generation arches to its feet.

This is important. The new generation at Akwesasne looks good (which is also
true for Indian country at large). The new educated generation is idealistic yet
pragmatic and well trained. Native nations do well to aggressively incorporate
their college graduates in their home operations. At Akwesasne this became
obvious in the information sessions, as young professionals asked good, sound
and unemotional questions about the deals being proposed. Not for this young
Indian crowd the basking in old feuds; they were looking for practical answers.
It gave one the sense that a well-reasoned application of tribal sovereignty,
one that works to improve people�s lives, is being sought. From the quality of
young professionals at the Akwesasne session, we believe it will be found.

The U.S. side tribal government, as well as the Longhouse and Canadian-side
governments, all have grounds for improvement. All hold firm in various areas
and all move forward in their own way. The new generation that takes over these
institutions, we believe, could bring refreshed notions of community improvement
and community unity.

Advice to young leaders: keep your jurisdictional base, keep your territorial
integrity, keep your distinctive culture, never waiver on the issue of your
inherent sovereignty. But strive for an economic base, without which all the
rest becomes a far-off dream. A nation with professional and political resources
can resolve issues and can solve problems. A nation with economic resources can
enhance and improve health and education services for its people, employing the
best trained among them in the best possible working conditions. A nation with
resources can create a land acquisition office that couples new families and
young people with lands in the expanded vicinity of the present nation. It can
support its traditional culture with passion. It can support entrepreneurs and
capacity building among all of its people and institutions. It can rebuild and
expand itself, giving its new generations a good opportunity to compete and
thrive as communities and cultures of people. The jealousy that often divides us
is dissipated when benefits can be shared.

But it has to be done right. It requires a truly committed, honest and
high-minded work force and good, practical management. This is for a new
generation�s time and creativity. The deal proposed by the Mohawk tribal council
has its weaknesses. The price parity agreement required a bit more backbone. The
protection and support of private sector family businesses within the
reservation is also crucial in future nation planning. The Mohawk people based
in other jurisdictions need more generous treatment, a more inclusive approach
to their well-being. Land acquisition is a key issue; it needs more detail and
strength. Traditional crafts need continued protection from taxation, even if
retail businesses are taxed by the tribe. But these are issues to be re-designed
and adapted within a good-minded approach. They need not be deal-breakers.

The next few weeks are a make-or-break time for the Mohawk people, as several
tribes are lined up on the Catskills casinos. Akwesasne�s chance for this
lucrative and long-term revenue stream could easily go by. The coming shakedown
of local and state governments due to a stagnated national economy, plus the
impending serious cutbacks in federal subsidies to health and education give all
tribes pause as to their security of place and potentials. All tribal
communities will be severely challenged to effect the economic planning and
resolution needed to carry their people through the next several generations.
Times are getting tough.

We hope Mohawk voters will choose to leave their new generation with the proper
resources. These are times that call for decisive action. The moment is ripe for
another Haudenosaunee nation, a well-deserving one, to choose the route of
economic growth. Land can then be secured, politics can be re-strengthened and
future generations will have the opportunity to speak for the lives of their
communities.

�2003 Indian Country Today

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Special Report: Violent crime increasing on Arizona reservations

Posted: May 30, 2003 - 11:26am EST
by: Mark Shaffer / Correspondent
http://indiancountry.com/article/1054308646

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - Call it just another depressing day on the job here at the
local U.S. Attorney�s Office, where Joe Lodge sorts through the paperwork of yet
another grisly death.

A Navajo Nation man, Jacob Miera of Kayenta, has just been taken into custody
after his two-week-old daughter was pronounced dead in the emergency room
because of 12 rib fractures, a broken collarbone, a fractured forearm and
multiple abrasions on her face. Miera claims he tripped and fell on the child.

Lodge, an assistant U.S. attorney responsible for northern Arizona, reads more,
then shakes his head. Since the office opened two years ago it has been awash in
documents from a tidal wave of violent crime that has engulfed Indian country in
this part of the Southwest. And, 99 percent of it is attributable to alcohol,
Lodge says.

Forty percent of all violent crime which occurs on the nation�s reservations
happens in the northern half of Arizona, Lodge said. The violent-crime rate on
the Navajo Nation is six times the national average, and in some towns, like
Tuba City, Kayenta and Chinle, the per capita violent-crime rate is much higher
than that.

There were 25 violent crimes per 1,000 U.S. residents in 2001, according to
Department of Justice statistics, the latest figures available.

In a two-year period ending last Sept. 30, the Flagstaff U.S. Attorney�s Office
handled 65 prosecutions in death cases, 38 of which were first- or second-degree
murder cases and the other 27 involving the lesser charge of manslaughter.

"It used to be that two intoxicated guys would get in a fight where the most
serious weapon was a knife and they knew or were related to one another," Lodge
said. "Now, there are guns involved and it has become increasingly random. The
violent-crime rate is just astronomical on the Navajo Nation, and the
overwhelming majority of the cases involve abuse of alcohol."

And, the acceleration in the number of alcohol-related crimes isn�t just limited
to Navajo.

Hopi Tribal Judge Delfred Leslie says he�s seen a large surge on his dockets of
alcohol-related crime.

"In fact, that�s about the only thing I deal with anymore," Leslie said.
"There�s been a huge increase in these types of crime. I�d say it�s about double
of what it was 10 years ago."

The results of it have been shocking, to say the least.

Lezmond Mitchell of Round Rock, Ariz., has become the first American Indian on
death row in a federal prison since the federal death penalty was reinstated
nine years ago. A federal jury decided he should be sentenced to death for a
carjacking resulting in death.

Mitchell, who was intoxicated at the time, was convicted in the October 2001
carjacking and murder of a 63-year-old grandmother, Alyce Slim, and her
9-year-old granddaughter, Tiffany Lee, in the Chuska Mountains north of the
tribal capitol of Window Rock. Both of the victims were beheaded and Slim was
stabbed 35 times.

Slim and Lee had been en route to see a traditional medicine practitioner in New
Mexico in Slim�s pickup when they were abducted. They picked up Mitchell and a
juvenile accomplice, Johnnie Orsinger, while they were hitchhiking. Orsinger
also is facing murder charges.

Then, there was the case of a Navajo woman, Charlotte Brown, who also was
hitchhiking in May 2002 on one of the main thoroughfares which crosses the
three-state reservation.

Brown was kidnapped and raped by a heavily intoxicated group and then the
killers pummeled her head with rocks before dumping her body in the nearby
hills. Three men and a juvenile are awaiting trial in Phoenix for that slaying.

Another Navajo woman, Elvira Charley, is awaiting sentencing for the New Year�s
Day 2002 first-degree murder of three of her children. Friends and family said
Charley had been drinking heavily in the days before the tragedy and she had
been arrested for extreme DUI less than a week before the crimes.

Charley killed her daughters, ages 9 and 11, and son, 10, by putting a
.22-caliber rifle against their heads and firing as they slept.

In another incident last October, Larry Wilson, a Navajo who had a blood-alcohol
level nearly five times the legal limit, crossed the center line of U.S. 180 in
the Four Corners area while traveling 95 mph. Wilson collided head on with a
California couple, killing both instantly. He is awaiting trial after being
indicted on two counts of second-degree murder.

The federal government has conducted two major undercover investigations of
bootlegging operations on the Navajo and Hopi reservations during the past 20
months, resulting in 44 convictions.

But bootlegging is a misdemeanor resulting in probation on a first conviction.
Since then, 21 of the 44 people have been arrested and sent to jail for a year
for other bootlegging convictions.

Lodge said that "we will continue to be aggressive in trying to get rid of
liquor in both on-reservation and off-reservation law enforcement operations."

But the social woes leading to violence are much deeper than alcohol, said Louis
Denetsosie, the Navajos� acting attorney general.

"There�s nearly 50 percent unemployment on the reservation," he said, "and I�ve
talked to a lot of social workers who always point to the breakdown in the
traditional family. We are a society in transition, and the number of non-native
speakers now outnumbers the number of Native speakers."

In addition, Denetsosie said, there�s limited deterrent effect on the
reservation because there are only about 300 Navajo police officers on the
nation�s largest reservation and that it has fewer than 100 jail cells.

"We can only send people to jail for one year maximum, and with the lack of jail
space it tends to be a lot less than that in most cases," Denetsosie said.

Dana Russell, a member of the Navajo Tribe who is CEO of the Flagstaff-based
Native Americans for Community Action, also said the breakdown of the
traditional family structure is the main reason behind the drinking and violent
crime crisis.

"When you combine all the economic problems along with so many single parents,
the lack of education and the alcohol and drug abuse woes, it would surprise me
if there wasn�t a wave of violent crime. The proliferation of satellite TV
brings all that sex and violence into the most isolated areas now," Russell
said.

Russell said he has an elderly mother and aunt living alone in the Navajo
countryside and "I�m really concerned about them. You�d be crazy not to be
concerned given what�s happening."

�2003 Indian Country Today

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Radmilla's ex gets 30 years

Partner of ex-boyfriend may get death penalty

Larry Di Giovanni Staff Writer
http://www.gallupindependent.com/05-30-03radilla.html

WINDOW ROCK � While former Miss Navajo Nation Radmilla Cody's ex-boyfriend has
started serving a 32-year federal prison term, an accomplice still faces the
prospect of having the state of Oklahoma put him to death.

As the convicted "kingpin" of an international drug trafficking and money
laundering operation that involved himself, Cody and 14 others from 1995 to
2000, Darrell Dwight Bellamy, 34, agreed to plead guilty to three of four felony
counts in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Those
counts, stemming from his drug distribution and money-laundering activity, have
resulted in Bellamy serving concurrent sentences that will total 32 years behind
bars.

He was sentenced in late April.

Meanwhile, a cohort of Bellamy's, Marlin James Mack of Tulsa, Okla., still faces
the possibility of having an Oklahoma jury recommend the death penalty for his
involvement in drug-related crimes tied to Bellamy's operation. Mack, nicknamed
"Mack 10," is already serving a life term in prison stemming from the federal
part of his conviction.

Oklahoma state prosecutors tied Mack to aggravated circumstances surrounding a
double homicide in February 2000. According to an indictment, Mack shot two men
in the head inside a car and later set it on fire after suspecting they had
stolen some of his cocaine. The murders occurred in Tulsa, the hub of Bellamy's
illegal enterprises.

The illegal operation that Bellamy, Mack and Cody were involved in distributed
hundreds of kilos of cocaine, "crack" cocaine and thousands of kilograms of
marijuana from Mexico into Phoenix and on to Tulsa and Detroit. Money from
illegal drug proceeds was laundered through several Las Vegas casinos, banks and
money-transfer operations, with Cody participating in wire transfers to Bellamy
on at least two occasions, evidence showed.

David Harper, a courts reporter who has covered the story for the Tulsa World,
said under federal sentencing guidelines, Bellamy will have to serve 85 percent
of his 32-year term behind bars, making Bellamy eligible for release in about 27
years, when he'll be 62. Once released, he will be under eight years supervised
probation.

Bellamy, who's from the Phoenix area and had what Cody described as a "six-year
abusive relationship" with her, did not have to plead guilty to count 2 the
federal government's "drug kingpin" statute.

"They found a deal whereby Mr. Bellamy could still salvage some part of his
life," Harper said Thursday.


Bellamy forfeited nearly $3 million in criminal proceeds, including interest in
a condominium in Fountain Hills, Calif., a house in Phoenix, two vehicles, two
boats and personal watercraft. He met Cody while she attended community college
in Mesa, Ariz., and paid for her apartment.

The 50-page criminal indictment in U.S. District Court for the Northern District
of Oklahoma in Tulsa was handed down against Bellamy, Cody and cohorts in July
2001. Cody who evidence showed not only helped Bellamy wrap hundreds of kilos of
marijuana but also trafficked cocaine through airports by strapping it tightly
to her body pleaded guilty in March 2002 to "misprison of a felony," or failure
to report a felony. She was considered a "lesser player" by federal prosecutors
and the move helped her avoid a trial by jury.

In early January, Cody began serving a 21-month prison sentence at the Phoenix
Correctional Institution. That was also a break for her, as lead Prosecutor
Douglas Horn had said she would likely serve her time in Texas or California.

Cody, of Leupp, Ariz., was Miss Navajo Nation 1997-98. An accomplished singer of
traditional Din songs, her music made her a finalist for a Native American
Grammy award. Critics of Cody noted that in effect, she led a double life:
visiting Navajo schools, the Navajo Nation Fair and Native American festivals
all across the United States, telling children to "stay off drugs." Meanwhile,
she continued her relationship with a drug kingpin.

The circumstances of Cody's March 2002 plea agreement became known last December
after the Navajo Times published an apology letter from her without an
explanation at least initially spelling out the details of what she was
apologizing for.

The July 2001 federal indictment alleged that Bellamy took part in the torture
of an Arizona woman with hot oil and an iron after he learned that $291,000 in
drug proceeds was missing. The grand jury also accused him of laundering drug
proceeds by gambling millions of dollars in Las Vegas casinos under a false name
while using the Social Security number of his infant son.

Cody has said that her relationship with Bellamy was "destructive," and that the
two "cheated" on each other. But she said she felt in fear for her life when
around him and could not break off the relationship. At one time, she said
Bellamy stuck a gun in her mouth and threatened to kill her.

Prior to his late April sentencing, Bellamy had pleaded guilty to his crimes in
October 2002. From April 2002 until his capture on June 10, 2002 in Long Beach,
Calif., Bellamy had appeared on the U.S. Marshals Service's 15 Most Wanted
fugitives list.

Cody, 28, who is biracial African-American on her father's side, and Navajo by
her mother was raised by her Navajo grandmother, Dorothy Cody. She grew up in a
sheep-herding lifestyle near Grand Falls on the Little Colorado River east of
Flagstaff.

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FREE LEONARD PELTIER!! "YOU ~ARE~ THE MESSAGE"

from Erth...thanks!  ..:)

Sent by cwhiteface............thanks

Defenders of the Black Hills: Court Date of June 30th Postponed
http://www.defendblackhills.org

Defenders,
      This is to notify you that Judge Schreier has granted a motion from Sturgis
to continue the trial at a later date.  This means there will be NO court days
on June 30, July 1-2-3.  I repeat, there is no court on June 30, July 1-2-3.
      The trial will be rescheduled for a later date.  As soon as we are
notified, we will let you know.  Please tell all your contacts about this change
in the situation.  We will continue to plan for the new trial date, and to get
even more people involved.
      The next Regular Defenders Meeting is June 28, at the Mother Butler Center,
Rapid City, starting at 1:00 pm.
Charmaine White Face

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

From: kanatiiosh@...


Haudenosaunee Environmental News Report
May/June 2003


This month's report contains 3 articles and a Website Review.  The first article
discusses some good news about EPA Region 2 Office switching to emission-free
wind power. The second article is about spring songs of survival.  The article
examines the importance of the red-winged black bird and spring peeper, their
songs, habits, and the importance of looking at the health of these species as a
reflection of the well-being of our marsh lands.  The third article is a note
concerning
the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).  The
article discusses current changes to the civil penalties part of the rule for
museums that fail to repatriate items. The Website of the Month is written about
the National Tribal Environmental Research Institute.

New additions to the Website:  There is a new "Coming Events" section that can
be found by scrolling down the left frame.

The above articles with artwork and pictures are available at:
http://www.hetfonline.org/pages/MayJuneNewsReport.htm

TABLE OF CONTENTS


1.  EPA Region 2 Office Switches to Emission-free Wind Power

2.  Spring Songs of Survival:  Red-winged Blackbirds and Spring Peepers

3.  A Note:  Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Regulations
Civil Penalties: Final Rule

4.“The Website of the Month” National Tribal Environmental Research
Institute


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

From: "Karen McCormick" <taoistpearl@...>

"Ishi in Two Worlds" is a profoundly
moving story, "like Robinson Crusoe in reverse"

06/01/2003 - OREGON

JEFF BAKER

At the quiet center stood a man. He never said his real name -- to
say it aloud to strangers would be unthinkable for a California
Native American from the Yahi tribe -- so he became known as Ishi,
his people's word for man. He spent almost 40 years living in
isolation in the Mount Lassen foothills, one of the last dozen Yahi
who hid themselves to avoid the white men who nearly wiped out their
tribe.

When they were all gone but him, when Ishi was a tribe of one, he
walked out of his carefully concealed world and into Oroville,
Calif., where he was found near a slaughterhouse on Aug. 29, 1911.
The townspeople, unlike those who massacred thousands of Yana and
Yahi Indians 50 years earlier, were concerned about this frightened
man and baked him pies when they heard he wasn't eating.

Two anthropologists at the University of California, Alfred Kroeber
and T.T. Waterman, arranged to have Ishi taken from the Oroville jail
to San Francisco, where he lived in a museum. Friendly and curious,
Ishi taught Kroeber and Waterman much about his language, culture and
customs and learned to live in a world unimaginably different from
the one he had known. He died of tuberculosis in 1916.

Ishi's story was well-known during the last five years of his life
but faded from memory until 1961, when Theodora Kroeber, the 64-year-
old wife of Alfred Kroeber, wrote a remarkable book called "Ishi in
Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America"
(University of California Press, $16.95 paperback, 255 pages). It
became a best seller, much to its author's surprise and delight, and
sold more than 1 million copies. It is the June selection of The
Oregonian Book Club.

Other books have been written about Ishi, movies have been made and
poems have been written -- William Stafford wrote one called "The
Concealment: Ishi, the Last Wild Indian." Stafford caught the essence
of Ishi's life in the wilderness when he wrote that "In order to
live, he had to hide that he did." Kroeber took that life and
presented it in a way that has moved two generations of readers and
fills her daughter, herself an internationally famous author of more
than 50 books, with a quiet pride.

"It makes people cry -- still," Ursula K. Le Guin said. "It's a
wonderful story, like Robinson Crusoe in reverse. It's very hard not
to identify with, but the other reason it makes people cry is my
mother wrote it from the heart. She did a great deal of research --
she took that aspect of it very seriously -- but she was deeply
emotionally involved. It's a work of art."

Le Guin was born in 1929, long after Ishi's death, and knew nothing
about him growing up. Her father "wasn't a reminiscer," she
said. "This was a long time ago, and it ended for him in considerable
pain and grief. His first wife died of tuberculosis in 1911 and Ishi
died of tuberculosis in 1916. It wasn't a good time for him, and he
wasn't one to talk about old times, anyway."

Alfred Kroeber and Waterman -- along with Saxton Pope, a doctor from
the hospital next to the museum where Ishi lived -- formed close
friendships with Ishi and went back to his home country for an
extended camping trip in 1914 that helped them understand how the
Yahi had lived. When Ishi died, Kroeber was in New York and opposed
an autopsy, writing a colleague that "if there is any talk about the
interests of science, say for me that science can go to hell. We
propose to stand by our friends."

Kroeber, a respected authority on California Indians, never wrote
about Ishi.

"My memory of it is that people would ask my father, 'Why don't you
write a biography of Ishi?' and he would say, 'No, why don't you ask
my wife?' " Le Guin said. "She had begun to become a writer. She
started very late, and she had published a couple of kids books and a
book called 'The Inland Whale,' which is a retelling of a California
Indian story. She was equipped not as an anthropologist but as a
writer and researcher to tell this story, but she did have a deep
interest in Indians, particularly California Indians."

Theodora Kroeber began researching Ishi's life in the mid-1950s. An
outgoing woman, known as "Krak" (rhymes with "lake") to her family
and friends, she often discussed her work with her daughter and three
sons. Le Guin remembers her mother being horrified by what had been
done to the Yana and Yahi and struggling to put it into words.

"She had trouble writing the massacre chapters," Le Guin said. "She
was not a violent woman, and she didn't like to write about violent
stuff. It must have been hard for her."

Before 1850, there were about 3,000 Yana and Yahi (a geographic and
linguistic group of Yana to which Ishi belonged). By 1872, there were
only about 30 Yana left and only about a dozen Yahi, including Ishi,
who probably was born in 1862. Kroeber wrote that these Native
Americans had no weapons of war and did not take scalps, unlike the
white men who killed them indiscriminately. During one massacre of
the Yahi, four men found a group of about 30 Indians, many of them
women and children, hiding in a cave and opened fire. One man felt he
had to change from a rifle to a revolver because the larger gun "tore
them up so bad," particularly the babies.

"They hunted them as if they were coyotes," said Le Guin, noting that
white men of the time referred to the Indians as "diggers, which
sounds awfully close to another word people use to dehumanize other
people."

Those who massacred the Yahi in the cave thought they had achieved a
final solution to their "Indian problem." Instead, Ishi -- a boy of
no more than 10 -- and about a dozen other Yahi, including his
mother, disappeared into the upper reaches of Mill and Deer creeks,
concealing themselves for decades from the newcomers they rightly
feared.

"A rock, a leaf, mud, even the grass/Ishi the shadow man had to put
back where it was," Stafford wrote.

In 1908, engineers for a power company stumbled onto the last Yahi
camp. Two of them, an old man and a younger woman, fled through the
brush and were never seen again. An old woman was left in camp as the
white men looted it, taking every possession. When they returned the
next day, she was gone. She was Ishi's mother; he carried her away
and nursed her until she died. Three years later, tired and alone, he
entered civilization.

"Part of the power and durability of the book is that it presents us
with the moral dilemma of the white occupation very directly and
inescapably," Le Guin said. "It's a question of who's responsible for
what, how much responsibility can we bear, and how much can we
accept."

After he entered Oroville, Ishi accepted his fate with much more than
stoicism or resignation. Kroeber, Waterman and the others who knew
him described him as bright, patient, congenial, self-aware and
dignified. He knew he was in a world far different from the one he
came from. He never tired of asking questions about what he didn't
know or explaining his life to those interested in it and taught
others his language while learning English. If those responsible for
him did things that might seem unscientific almost 100 years later
(Ishi worked as a janitor and demonstrated how to make tools and bows
at the museum), they prevented him from being exploited in the
traveling shows popular at the time and treated him with friendship
and respect.

"We knew many things, and much that is false," Pope wrote. "He knew
nature, which is always true. His were the qualities of character
that last forever. He was kind; he had courage and self-restraint,
and though all had been taken from him, there was no bitterness in
his heart. His soul was that of a child, his mind that of a
philosopher."

Alfred Kroeber read his wife's book and gave it his blessing but did
not live to see it published. He died in 1960. Le Guin, married and
living in Portland but not yet a published writer ("poetry doesn't
count," she joked), had read and edited various chapters and was
thrilled for her mother.

"We could talk shop. She liked to show me things and get me to line-
edit, and I'm a pretty good line editor. And I'd show her things. She
wouldn't line-edit but she'd say, 'What's this story about?' " Le
Guin said with a laugh. "We were a peer group of two."

Asked if "Ishi in Two Worlds" influenced her as a writer, Le Guin
didn't hesitate.

"I was sort of going my own route already," she said. "The story, I
think, influences everybody who reads it. It's become part of one's
imaginative equipment. That this could happen to a person, that this
did, the emotional implications of the story -- it's like any great
story. It's bound to influence you."


Jeff Baker: 503-221-8165; jbaker@n...

�2003 OregonLive.com.

From:  http://www.kumeyaay.com/news/news_detail.html?id=2212







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Norton calling witnesses in trust fund trial
   MONDAY, JUNE 2, 2003
http://INDIANZ.COM/News/show.asp?ID=2003/06/02/cobell

   The plaintiffs in the billion-dollar Indian trust fund suit rested their case
on
   Friday, paving the way for the Bush administration to defend its historical
   accounting and reform plans.

   U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth spent most of the month of May receiving
   testimony critical of the Department of Interior's efforts. He will now hear
   from another group of witnesses whose goal is not only to prop up the
   government's plans but to convince the court not to interfere with them.

   The first scheduled witness is John Langbein, a Yale University law professor
   who is considered an expert on trust and reform issues. Last year, he
   appeared at the height of the Enron financial accounting scandal, calling on
   Congress to enact strict standards on company pension plans, the type that
   caused Enron employees to lose their life savings.

   "Unless you change [the law], I can predict to you with utter certainty that
   such cases will happen again, as they have repeatedly in the past," Langbein
   told the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs in written testimony.

   Langbein isn't expected do the same for two plans Secretary of Interior Gale
   Norton submitted to the court this past January. Rather, as Department of
   Justice attorney John Stemplewicz said in an opening statement May 1, he
   will testify that the plaintiffs' competing proposals require acts of
Congress,
   something beyond Norton's control.

   Key to implementing Norton's plans is the government's second witness:
   special trustee Ross Swimmer. Swimmer, a former Reagan administration
   official, has been deposed once in the Cobell case, and once for the Navajo
   Nation's $600 breach of trust claim, but his appearance in the trial will be
his
   first on the stand.

   Swimmer is largely responsible for a reform plan that calls for the
   reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the expansion of the
   Office of Special Trustee (OST). Although tribes and the plaintiffs oppose the
   changes, he is moving forward as the trial proceeds.

   Associate Deputy Secretary Jim Cason and Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles
   are considered possible witnesses for the defense but are not definite.
   Others on the government's list include employees from KPMG, an
   accounting firm; Edward Angel, an historian who has worked with the
   Department of Justice on record collection issues; and Joseph Rosenbaum,
   the accountant that produced the infamous Ernst & Young report that
   purported to show a $61 discrepancy in four trust accounts.

   The trial could be over by the end of the month, the plaintiffs believe. They
   are asking Lamberth, at the conclusion of the proceedings, to call another
   trial to determine the balances of the Individual Indian Money (IIM)
   accounts. If the court agrees with the request, and there are no delays
   sought by the Bush administration, they say the six-year-old case can be
   wrapped up by the end of the year.

   In other trust-related developments:

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 28
{ http://www.indiantrust.com/_pdfs/20030528DeniedMottoStayContempt.pdfdenied } a
motion by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, former Interior solicitors Ed
Cohen and John Leshy; and current Interior solicitor Edith Blackwell to stay
contempt proceedings before U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. The three are
accused of violating court orders against destruction of trust records.

The Department of Justice filed a brief
{ http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/cases/cobell/docs/pdf/05292003_motion.pdf } on May
29 seeking to disqualify special master Alan Balaran from the case. The 15-page
brief accuses Balaran of "actual bias" against the government, citing a recent
report that was allegedly drafted with the help of a contractor who worked for a
company that had a contract dispute with the Department of Interior.

The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) met on May 29 to discuss
participation in the case. Tribal leaders are considering filing a brief to halt
the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the expansion of
the Office of Special Trustee (OST).

The Department of Interior on May 30 announced the first of several briefing
sessions on the reorganization. The first will take place June 3 in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, at the DoubleTree Hotel. Meetings are planned in each of the 12 BIA
regions but officials have not released a full schedule.

   Relevant Links:
   Indian Trust: Cobell v. Norton - http://www.indiantrust.com
   Cobell v. Norton, Department of Justice -
   http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/cases/cobell/index.htm
   Indian Trust, Department of Interior - http://www.doi.gov/indiantrust

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Suit seeks land payment

By PETER HARRIMAN Argus Leader

published: 6/2/2003
http://www.argusleader.com/news/Mondayarticle4.shtml

Tribe wants money for Fort Randall Dam

The landmark Cobell v. Norton lawsuit disclosed the longstanding mismanagement
of approximately 500,000 individual Indians' trust accounts worth billions of
dollars by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Now a suit scheduled to be filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C.,
on May 30 on behalf of the Yankton Sioux Tribe seeks to show the same BIA
mismanagement of trust assets owned by tribes.

At issue is payment for Yankton tribal land flooded when the Fort Randall Dam
was completed in 1956 to create Lake Francis Case. In addition, the tribe wants
a percentage of revenue from hydroelectric power generated by the dam, according
to Sherwyn Zephier, a Marty Indian School art teacher and Yankton tribal member
who promoted the suit. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates the dam produces
about $30 million in hydroelectric revenue annually.

But that might be just the beginning. There is a possibility the litigation
could encompass tribal trusts nationwide. The Yanktons' lawsuit was filed by Los
Angeles lawyer Gary Frischer and Jeffrey Herman, of Herman and Mermelstein, of
Hollywood, Fla. Now Frischer will be spending most of the next month in South
Dakota, North Dakota and Nebraska, trying to interest other tribes at
reservations such as Pine Ridge, Standing Rock and Cheyenne River in filing
similar suits.

"I've got a full calendar next month," Frischer says.

Frischer went to the

Yankton tribal council with the proposed suit about two months ago and made a
presentation of the issue to tribal members. By a 90 percent referendum vote,
the tribe decided to go forward with the suit, he says. Frischer says he
litigated multi-district class action lawsuits 23 times with famed San Francisco
lawyer Melvin Belli, who died in 1996.

"Mel and I pioneered this field," Frischer says.

Frischer and Herman earlier this year filed a $25 billion lawsuit against the
federal government for setting up Indian boarding schools in South Dakota,
Arizona, Utah New Mexico, Minnesota and California where Indian students were
physically abused. Zephier is a plaintiff in that suit. Frischer says a similar
suit against the Roman Catholic Church will be filed this month. Frischer
estimated that there are 300,000 former boarding school students still living.
"I have a feeling between 25,000 and 50,000 people will be a part" of those
class action suits, he says.

Frischer's expertise and reputation prompted Zephier to bring his concerns about
Yankton tribal trusts.

"I knew it would take a law firm really skilled in this particular area," he
says.

Frischer says he is a newcomer to tribal trust issues, but Zephier says, "I grew
up around it. My father was the Yankton Sioux Tribe's first vice chairman. All
my life I was aware of everything happening politically with the tribe. That was
instilled in me my entire life. Since my father has passed away, I've picked up
the torch. I proposed the suit to Gary, and it went from there."

Frischer says he became convinced tribal trust concerns were worthy of
litigation when he began to hear "hundreds of stories" like Zephier's while he
was interviewing people for the boarding school abuse suit.

The Yanktons' lawsuit asks for a declaration that the BIA and Secretary of the
Treasury have failed to give a complete accounting of tribal trust funds, as
required by law. It asks for an injunction requiring the defendants to provide
that comprehensive accounting. It also requests lawyer fees and "other relief as
may be just and equitable."

Frischer says he and Herman are taking the case on a contingency basis.

"This doesn't cost the tribe anything up front. In our world, it's all
contingency. The better we do for them, the better we do for us. But it's all
our risk," Frischer says.

"There is some overdue justice, some accounting due and some accountability,"
Zephier says. "We would like to know where our money went."

The Fort Randall Dam, he says, "was built illegally on our land. There was no
agreement with our tribe. There was an agreement between the Corps and the BIA,
one government agency to another. But there was no negotiation with the tribe."

The Cobell suit, filed in 1996 by Eloise Cobell, treasurer of Montana's
Blackfeet tribe, is the catalyst for ongoing efforts to do a sweeping reform of
the way the federal government carries out its fiduciary responsibility to
Indians whose land and natural resources it has managed in trust since 1903. It
also seeks to correct gross accounting and recordskeeping errors in Individual
Indian money accounts, and missed payments to those accounts that total at least
$2 billion, and possibly much more.

While the trust mismanagement issues in the Yanktons' suit are allied with those
in the Cobell litigation, Frischer hopes the two won't be combined.

"It could happen," he acknowledges, "but we hope not. Our suit is a little bit
different.

"Cobell is for individuals. This is for the tribe, the land that is held in
common.

"I think we're going to stay out of the Cobell thing."

Reach Peter Harriman at 575-3615 or pharrima@....

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The small tribe with a big claim on East Texas

Court recommends $270.6 million be awarded to Alabama-Coushatta

By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Sunday, June 1, 2003
http://www.statesman.com/asection/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/news_e39d6\
ab0111e103b10d2.html

LIVINGSTON -- Frank Sylestine feels at home in the East Texas woods. It's no
wonder: His ancestors settled here before Napoleon sold the Louisiana territory
to the United States.

Sylestine, 26, a member of the Alabama-Coushatta Indian tribe, lives with his
wife and daughter on the tribe's reservation amid the loblolly and longleaf
pines. He works for the state as a forestry technician. He walks in the woods
for relaxation and exercise.

He is a product of a people who established villages with wooden cabins and
fruit trees along the Trinity and Neches rivers more than 200 years ago. Their
hunting and trading domain eventually stretched from the Sabine River westward
for about 125 miles and from the outskirts of what is now Houston northward for
about 70 miles.

In a sense, the Alabama-Coushatta owned this vast terrain. And, in a sense, they
still do.

The small, little-known tribe has won a stunning federal court victory in a
30-year quest for redress for the loss of ancestral lands. Unless Congress
ignores long tradition, the tribe stands to receive one of the largest
settlements of an Indian land claim in the nation's history.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which reviewed the matter under a special
referral from lawmakers, has recommended that Congress award the tribe $270.6
million for oil and natural gas production, timber harvesting and trespassing by
non-Indian settlers during the 109 years from 1845, when Texas became a state,
to 1954, when Congress suspended the federal government's role as guardian of
the tribe's land and other interests.

The court found that the federal government breached its legal duty when it
stood by idly as the State of Texas doled out land grants to non-Indian
settlers. By the mid-1800s, the tribe was forced onto a reservation of 1,111
acres in Polk County.

What's more, the court concluded that the tribe's land rights have never been
terminated. That means the tribe still holds aboriginal title to 5.5 million
acres of East Texas. Aboriginal title is the right to occupy and possess
homelands.

"It's a little bit mind-boggling," Sylestine said in a classic understatement.

Few people outside the tribe and a small circle of lawyers and government
officials are aware of the ruling, which the claims court sent to Congress in
October. Eight months later, lawmakers have not filed a bill or otherwise taken
action on the matter. Nevertheless, legal scholars say Congress almost always
approves the court's recommendations.

But the tribe's unexpired aboriginal title adds an unprecedented wrinkle. Tribal
leaders have not said what they would expect to receive, in land or money, for
relinquishing aboriginal title. It is unlikely that Congress would pay the tribe
for more than a century of damages without also resolving the potentially far
more valuable title issue.

A resolution is essential because the ruling clouds the ownership of billions of
dollars worth of land and improvements in all or portions of 11 counties. The
area includes small towns such as Livingston and posh suburban enclaves such as
The Woodlands; Sam Houston National Forest, Huntsville State Park and most of
Big Thicket National Preserve; portions of the Sabine, Neches, Trinity and San
Jacinto rivers; and long stretches of farmland and pine forests dotted with
catfish restaurants and homes, churches and service stations.

Armed with the ruling, the tribe could now sue the state, the federal
government, local governments, businesses, institutions and individuals in an
effort to regain the land and to eject more than 500,000 people living there.

Tribal leaders say they have no desire to pursue such a provocative course,
calling it a last resort for prodding Congress to fashion a settlement if one
cannot be achieved through friendlier discussions.

"This tribe has absolutely no interest in displacing private landowners," said
Don Miller, a lawyer for the Alabama-Coushatta. "Just the fact that this opinion
exists is going to concern some people, I suppose, but we don't want to throw
any fuel on that fire. No court's going to kick all these people off the land,
and if they do, there's going to be a shootin' war."

No compensation

Many tribes lost land to non-Indian settlers, and some have sued for land or
money. But the Alabama-Coushatta tribe is among a much smaller number that lost
land with no compensation or federal action to terminate, or extinguish,
aboriginal title. A 1974 Supreme Court ruling allows federal courts to hear
tribal suits seeking possession of land long held by non-Indians.

The Passamaquoddy tribe's effort to regain control of 60 percent of Maine was
settled by Congress for $81.5 million. The Catawba received $50 million to
settle their land claim in South Carolina -- but not before threatening to
deliver a summons to each of more than 61,000 people occupying 144,000 acres.
And a judge's $105 million award to the Sioux for the federal government's
seizure of the Black Hills in South Dakota and Wyoming was upheld by the Supreme
Court, although tribal leaders have refused the money, demanding instead the
return of what they consider sacred ground.

The recommended compensation of $270.6 million for the Alabama-Coushatta would
be the largest settlement of a land claim by a single tribe in U.S. history. The
largest Native American land claim settlement, for $962 million and 44 million
acres, involved Indians, Aleuts and Inuits represented by numerous native
village and regional corporations in Alaska.

The Alabama-Coushatta lost their land despite assurances from some of the most
important figures in Texas history that they would be secure.

Even Mirabeau Lamar, implacable foe of Indians generally, said in his 1839
presidential address to Republic of Texas lawmakers that "the hand of friendship
has been extended" to the Alabama-Coushatta "for the protection of their
property and persons," along with "a promise that they shall not be interrupted
in the peaceful enjoyment of their present possessions."

A year earlier, President Sam Houston, who had led Texas forces to victory in
the war for independence from Mexico, told lawmakers that "Indian lands are the
forbidden fruit in the midst of the garden." He later instructed a
representative to inform the Alabama-Coushatta that "they are under the
protection of the government."

That the Alabama-Coushatta survived at all is a result of their peaceful nature,
coupled with a warmhearted and cheerful disposition, according to Jonathan Hook,
author of "The Alabama-Coushatta Indians," one of few scholarly works on the
tribe. Most other Texas Indians were exterminated or driven into other states.

"Back in the 1700s and 1800s, when the land was being settled, the Indian tribes
didn't have any concept of land ownership," said Kevin Battise, chairman of the
Alabama-Coushatta tribal council, a seven-member governing panel.

"We tried to live in harmony with nature. But the loss of our land base
decimated the tribe. We weren't allowed to go off the reservation to hunt."

Battise is pleased but by no means cocky about the claims court's decision. He
hopes it will lead to a settlement in Congress. But he almost recoils at the
fallback option of suing current occupants of the aboriginal lands.

"We live in good harmony with all the counties around us," Battise said. "We
like to be neighborly. Filing a case like this would turn those relationships.
We would file only as a last resort. I don't know what the future holds for us."

The possibility of such a lawsuit has provoked virtually no reaction across East
Texas because hardly anyone is aware of it.

On the reservation

The tribe has about 1,000 members, down from as many as 2,500 in the early
1800s. Roughly half live on the reservation 17 miles east of Livingston.

The reservation has a laid-back, woodsy feel to it.

Modest houses are sprinkled through the forest. A convenience store, tobacco
shop, health clinic, Head Start center for preschoolers, gymnasium, senior
center, tribal offices and Presbyterian church are clustered here and there.

A campground, adjacent to Lake Tombigbee -- named for the river in Alabama,
where the tribe's ancestors once lived -- offers everything from recreational
vehicle hookups to tepees, even though tepees were not historically part of the
tribe's culture.

"They are a fairly traditional tribe," said Terry Bruner, a tribal government
services officer for the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian
Affairs. "They have a lot of regard for history and elders."

The tribe's symbol -- a double-headed woodpecker in shades of black, red and
white -- represents the blending of the Alabama and Coushatta tribes into a
single tribe. The tribes had a common culture but separate leadership when they
began to move into East Texas from Louisiana in the late 1700s, fleeing the
English and later the Americans.

Many Alabama-Coushatta still speak a native language, Alabama. Tribal council
meetings are conducted in a mixture of English and Alabama, often in the same
sentence. One recent meeting included a discussion of a high school basketball
game in which the Big Sandy school district's team, half of whose members are
Indians, had to put up with chants and tomahawk-chop gestures by students from
the opposing school.

A strong sense of community has spared the Alabama-Coushatta the high rates of
alcoholism and suicide found in parts of Indian country. Many members of the
tribe have diabetes, though, perhaps reflecting a modern diet rich in fast foods
and sugars and a lifestyle more sedentary than that of their ancestors, who were
hunters, fishermen and farmers.

Unemployment is high -- 11.2 percent, more than 5 points above the statewide
rate, according to the Census Bureau. Tribal leaders say the actual percentage
is in the high 30s or low 40s, counting stay-at-home parents and people who have
stopped looking for work.

The tribe is eager for economic development. A casino boosted the tribe's
fortunes for eight months until it was closed in July under a federal court
order obtained by John Cornyn, then the state attorney general and now a U.S.
senator. The Alabama-Coushatta are lobbying the Texas Legislature to allow
gambling to resume.

A persistent friend

The tribe's approach to the land claim has necessarily been one of patience and
persistence. Serendipity has helped, too.

A review of thousands of pages of testimony, legal briefs and other records
shows that the tribe might not have prevailed in the claims court but for the
devotion of amateur historian Howard Martin, who spent 50 years filling a study
attached to his garage with every scrap of information he could find on the
Alabama-Coushatta.

Martin grew up in Livingston, playing football and attending school with
Indians. He earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's
in education, both at the University of Texas, then served as a naval commander
in World War II. He worked for years as research director for the Houston
Chamber of Commerce.

Martin was fascinated by Indian lore and the early history of Texas, perhaps
because his relatives, including the outlaw John Wesley Hardin, were part of
Polk County's white influx during the 1860s and '70s. On business trips to
Washington, he would take a few days of vacation to comb through files at the
National Archives and other depositories for information about the tribe. He
studied field notes at the Texas General Land Office for more than 2,500 land
grants, using those observations to locate Alabama-Coushatta villages and
trails. He had Spanish records translated into English.

In short, he compiled a history of the tribe. His materials eventually filled 25
boxes, each 3 feet long.

Martin had already done extensive research by the time two Texas lawyers -- Alan
Minter of Austin and Tom Diamond of El Paso -- figured out in the late 1960s
that the tribe might be able to pursue a land claim. Minter and Diamond are
still involved in the case; 10 percent of any award the tribe wins would be
shared by them, Miller and the Native American Rights Fund, a nonprofit group in
Boulder, Colo., that has assisted with the litigation.

Martin, who died in 1995 at the age of 78, never took a penny for his research
or his role in the case, which included testifying as an expert witness during a
1986 trial held by the claims court in Austin and Washington.

Although the tribe's claim drew unrelenting opposition from the U.S. Department
of Justice, which even now has reserved the option of challenging the court's
recommendations before Congress, the government's expert witness, Lawrence
Kelly, a history professor at the University of North Texas, was so impressed by
Martin's trove of documents that he exclaimed under oath at one point: "His maps
are the greatest things."

For example, Martin found an 1829 map in the Texas State Archives showing three
Coushatta villages and two Alabama villages. It was prepared by Stephen F.
Austin, the impresario who recruited 300 American families to settle in his
colony under Mexican rule.

Martin's collection also included an account by Austin's cousin, Mary Austin
Holley, who toured the area in 1831. She suggested that the Alabama-Coushatta
were such a dominant presence in the region that they did not fear competition
for the land or its resources: "In autumn, when their crops are laid by, they
range the country in small parties, to procure a winter's stock of venison and
bear's meat, leaving their villages often without a single individual to protect
them."

These and other records helped convince the claims court that the
Alabama-Coushatta established aboriginal title by virtue of their continuous
occupancy and use of the land from 1800 to 1830. The records also showed that
the Indians' civilization was doomed even as it reached its zenith in the early
part of the 19th century. An influx of non-Indian settlers -- encouraged by
Mexico, the Republic of Texas and finally by the State of Texas -- forced the
Indians from their villages and hunting grounds. They have struggled ever since
against unemployment, poverty and cultural assimilation.

Unlike conventional legal title, aboriginal title is not recorded on a deed or
in a courthouse. It is nevertheless a well-established legal principle,
recognized not only by the United States but also by the previous sovereigns in
the area at issue: the Republic of Texas, Mexico and Spain.

Aboriginal title endures in perpetuity unless it is abandoned by a tribe or
extinguished through formal action by the sovereign, such as by treaty, by
military force, by purchase or by the exercise of complete dominion. None of
those things has occurred in the more than 200 years that the Alabama-Coushatta
have lived in East Texas.

The State of Texas, because it is not a sovereign, had no power to terminate
aboriginal title. So the Indians' forced relocation to a reservation established
by the state in 1854 did not cancel their land rights. Congress enlarged the
reservation to 4,182 acres in 1929 after years of ignoring the tribe's desperate
need for more land.

The claims court said the federal government could not be held liable for the
failure of previous sovereigns to respect the Indians' aboriginal title. So the
recommended compensation of $270.6 million covers trespassing and resource
extraction only on the 2.8 million acres of aboriginal land that the tribe lost
after Texas became a state, not on the 2.7 million acres that Mexico and the
Republic of Texas granted to non-Indian settlers.

Government inaction

The federal government had a special duty to protect the Indians' land rights.

The U.S. Constitution assigns responsibility "to regulate commerce . . . with
the Indian tribes" to the federal government. And the Indian Trade and
Intercourse Act, enacted in 1790 and amended several times, prohibits the grant,
purchase or other conveyance of Indian lands without a federal treaty.

President George Washington, explaining the act's intent, told the nation's
tribes that the United States pledges "fatherly care" to ensure that "you cannot
be defrauded of your lands." That principle has been upheld by a series of
Supreme Court decisions faulting the federal government for failing to oversee
and protect various tribes' interests in land, minerals and other resources.

The federal government had a duty to investigate whether the State of Texas'
land grants were issued subject to the Alabama-Coushatta's right of occupancy
and whether the recipients of the grants respected that right, the claims court
said.

"However, the record shows that the federal government failed to provide any
protection or assistance to the tribe," the court said, adding that the
government even failed to act when land that was not granted to settlers was
taken from the tribe.

"Accordingly, we recommend . . . full monetary compensation to the tribe for
2,850,028 acres of the tribe's aboriginal lands illegally occupied by non-Indian
settlers after 1845," the court said.

Damages accrued until 1954, when Congress and Texas agreed to shift
responsibility for the tribe to the state. In 1987, as a result of another
revision in policy on Indians, the tribe came under federal protection and
supervision again.

Despite the shabby treatment they received, the Alabama-Coushatta have been
loyal to Texas. They fed and cared for Anglo settlers who surged through their
villages in the Runaway Scrape of 1836 as Mexico's army advanced before the
Battle of San Jacinto, where Houston and his forces secured independence for
Texas.

Members of the tribe served in three branches of the Confederate military:
cavalry, navy and infantry. Perhaps their most important role was operating
flat-bottom boats on the Trinity River, delivering produce and other supplies
requisitioned by Confederate authorities.

Long claim process

The tribe's land claim has a tortuous history.

The tribe first sought relief in 1971 from a special commission established by
Congress to hear Indian claims. The Indian Claims Commission found the tribe's
petition worthy but rejected it because it was filed 20 years after the
deadline.

So the tribe, arguing that it never received the required notice of the deadline
from the Interior Department, turned to Congress. In 1983, lawmakers approved
special legislation, known as a congressional reference, allowing the tribe to
pursue a lawsuit in the claims court. In such cases, the court functions as an
adviser to Congress on a claim that seems to have merit but cannot be pursued
through ordinary legal means.

The claims court struggled with the case. The first judge, as well as a
substitute appointed after the first judge died, concluded that aboriginal
title, if it was established at all, expired because of the influx of settlers
before Texas became a state. The Justice Department agreed. But a three-judge
review panel of the court rejected that analysis and ruled in favor of the
tribe.

Unlike its rulings on other claims against the government, the court's decisions
on congressional references cannot be appealed to a higher court. The
recommendations go directly to Congress.

Lawmakers almost always follow the court's advice.

The reason is simple, according to Jeffrey Glosser, a lawyer who has written on
congressional references and who advised the tribe. It would have been futile
for an earlier Congress to refer a dispute to the claims court unless it
expected a future Congress to be bound by the court's judgment. So current
lawmakers, who also want their actions honored in the future, generally feel
obligated to give their blessing to the court's recommendations.

No bill has been filed to compensate the Alabama-Coushatta, and President Bush's
proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning in October contains no
recommendation for payment.

The state's congressional delegation has been quiet on the issue. Republican
Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Cornyn did not respond to repeated requests for
comment.

U.S. Rep. Jim Turner, D-Crockett, whose district includes nearly all of the
tribe's aboriginal lands, has not taken a position on compensation for the tribe
but wants any settlement to protect current occupants of the land.

"Any settlement of this claim by the federal government will require a
relinquishment of all claims to ownership of land by the tribe and the tribe's
relinquishment of all claims against third parties for damages," Turner said in
a prepared statement.

The Alabama-Coushatta have no shortage of projects on which to spend a financial
windfall, including more houses, new roads, sewer hookups and a nursing home.
Sylestine, the forestry technician who is also assistant chief of the tribe's
volunteer fire department, wants to build a second fire station for the
reservation.

"It's in the back of your mind," Sylestine said, "but since the money's not
here, you don't plan on what you don't have."

rhaurwitz@...; 445-3604
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Relevant Links:
   Alabama-Coushatta Tribe - http://www.alabama-coushatta.com

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Feds backing Miccosukees in water dispute
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/local/5987711.htm

MIAMI - Miccosukee Indian Tribe members and environmentalists are getting closer
to forcing South Florida water managers to clean up polluted waters before
pumping them into the Everglades.

In a 19-page brief released Friday, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson joined
a federal appeals court in saying that the South Florida Water Management
District should comply with the strict standards of the U.S. Clean Waters Act.

The act would force the district to obtain a federal permit and clean
floodwaters before they are pumped into the Everglades. The Supreme Court, which
the district has asked to overturn the appeals court ruling, had sought the
opinion of the solicitor general, who would argue the case before the high
court.

But the court can still decide to take up the district's appeal.

As many as 432,000 gallons of water are released into the Everglades each minute
at a flood-control pumping plant in Southwest Broward County. The water is
polluted with phosphates picked up from fertilizers. Environmentalists say
phosphates degrade the Everglades' delicate ecosystem, and the Miccosukees say
the plant pumps polluted water into their land.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Get the Decision:
   MICCOSUKEE TRIBE OF INDIANS OF FLORIDA v. S. FLORIDA WATER MGMT.
   DIST., No. 00-15703 (11th Cir. February 01, 2002)
http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/11th/0015703opn.html


   Relevant Documents:
   Docket Sheet: No. 02-626
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/02-626.htm

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Tribe that aided Lewis and Clark now seeks help
Lawmakers try to reverse federal ruling that deemed group extinct

By LEWIS KAMB SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/124653_chinook02.html

Nearly two centuries ago, a group of Native people helped members of a tattered
federal expedition survive a bitter winter at the mouth of the Columbia River.

Today, the Chinook Indian Tribe is hoping Congress can get the federal
government to return the favor.

In a last-ditch effort to save the southwest Washington tribe from bureaucratic
extinction, U.S. Rep. Brian Baird plans to introduce legislation calling for
federal recognition of the Indians who helped Lewis and Clark through the final
months of their cross-country trek.

Chinook tribal members and a group of lawmakers, including members of Washington
and Oregon's congressional delegations, hope that bicentennial celebrations of
what is arguably the United States' most famous expedition will help leverage
support for the proposal.

"It would be a great travesty if the tribe that helped Lewis and Clark most at
the mouth of the Columbia River was not recognized as we celebrate the
expedition's anniversary," Baird said in a recent interview.

The Democrat from Vancouver said he is finishing a final draft of the bill,
which he plans to introduce to the House this summer. It will seek to reinstate
official status stripped from the Chinook under the Bush administration.

Last July, President Bush designated 2003-06 as the "Lewis and Clark
Bicentennial," calling on the federal government to work cooperatively with
tribal, state and local governments and other entities to honor the historic
three-year expedition and its members, known as the "Corps of Discovery."

But just two days after the Bush administration invited Chinook tribal members
to dine in the White House and join in the bicentennial's announcement, the
administration officially declared the tribe "extinct."

Assistant Interior Department Secretary Neal McCaleb ruled that the tribe did
not meet three of the seven criteria used by the federal Bureau of Indian
Affairs to officially acknowledge a tribe.

The ruling stripped the Chinook of the status tribe members had sought for more
than two decades. The tribe had received recognition in January 2001 during the
waning days of the Clinton presidency.

Seeking to reaffirm that status, a delegation of tribe members, including
Chinook Tribal Chairman Gary Johnson, returned to Washington, D.C., earlier this
month to meet with Baird and other lawmakers, forming a plan to draft
legislation.

Aside from taking the matter to court, congressional action is the last
alternative the Chinook have to gain recognition. That could bring reservation
land with federal money for schools, cultural activities, health care, social
services and economic development.

"Recognition means everything to us," Johnson said recently. "One of our key
goals is to rebuild our tribal community so it can survive into the future, and
that's almost impossible without it."

Baird's will be the second bill introduced in the House this year seeking to
restore official status to Washington tribes stripped of the status under the
Bush administration.

In January, Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, sponsored a measure seeking
acknowledgement of the Duwamish, whose most revered leader, Chief Seattle, lent
his name to the state's largest city. That proposal remains in the House
Resources Committee and has yet to get a hearing, an aide to McDermott said
recently.

In Northwest culture and beyond, the place of the Chinook -- a tribe of skilled
navigators and traders who became the hub of Northwest commerce for centuries --
is perhaps even more influential.

The tribe has given name to a town, a river, a westerly wind and the world's
largest species of salmon. A U.S. Army helicopter even takes its name from the
Chinook.

Today, most of the tribe's roughly 2,000 members live in traditional Chinook
territory straddling the tail waters of the Columbia in Washington and Oregon.
Tribe members continue to practice cultural and subsistence activities, such as
hunting and fishing, wood carving and basket making, Johnson said.

But in the eyes of the U.S. government, the Chinook are officially "extinct."

In his ruling, McCaleb said the tribe did not meet three criteria for
acknowledgment. He said that:

The tribe did not maintain political influence over its members from historical
times to the present.

A predominant proportion of its members do not comprise a distinct social
community.

It has not been identified historically as an "Indian entity" by outside
observers on a continuous basis.

"The Chinook are one of the best-documented tribes in the Pacific Northwest --
but officially, they don't exist," said Stephen Dow Beckham, a Lewis and Clark
College history professor who has researched the tribe for years. "The absurdity
of the bureau's position is staggering."

The change of heart in recognizing the tribe is nothing new for the Chinook.

Although the Chinook first signed a treaty with the United States in 1851, the
tribe was never approved by the U.S. Senate. Four years later, the tribe
rejected a treaty offered by then-Washington territory Gov. Isaac Stevens, who
used trading jargon based on Chinook language to negotiate treaties with other
tribes across Washington.

The tribe turned down the treaty because it would have relocated tribe members
miles from the area where they traditionally had lived.

A Supreme Court ruling in the 1930s acknowledged the tribe and gave Chinook
members tens of thousands of acres of allotments within the timber-rich Quinault
Reservation. But in the early 1950s, the BIA apparently removed federal
recognition.

The Chinook's modern-day quest for acknowledgement dates back to 1979, when the
tribe sent a letter of intent to the BIA. Since then, the tribe has provided
more than 3,000 historical documents outlining its history.

Those documents detail official government-to-government relations between the
tribe and the United States for decades, meeting "criteria by criteria" the
requirements for recognition, Beckham said.

The Clinton administration agreed and two years ago officially recognized the
Chinook.

But the Quinault Nation, another southwest Washington tribe, appealed that
decision, eventually leading to McCaleb's reversal.

Quinault members argued that officially recognizing the Chinook would lead that
tribe to assert equal rights over controlling the Quinault Reservation -- and
the potential for a Chinook casino that could compete with the Quinault Beach
Resort and Casino in Ocean Shores.

Johnson said nothing could be further from the truth.

"All we want is to be treated the same as any other recognized tribe," he said.
"Our people have struggled for more than 150 years, since the time of the first
treaties. It's certainly time for some justice to prevail."

CRITERIA FOR RECOGNITION

"Federally recognized" tribes have a special, legal relationship with the U.S.
government. This relationship is referred to as a government-to-government
relationship.

The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs provides services to about 1.5 million
American Indians and Alaska Natives who are members of more than 562 federally
recognized Indian tribes in 32 contiguous United States and Alaska. There are 29
federally recognized tribes in Washington. Here are the government's
requirements for granting federal recognition:

The petitioner has been identified as an American Indian entity on a
substantially continuous basis since 1900.

A predominant portion of the petitioning group comprises a distinct community
and has existed as a community from historical times until the present.

The petitioner has maintained political influence or authority over its members
as an autonomous entity from historical times until the present.

The group must provide a copy of its present governing documents and membership
criteria.

The petitioner's membership consists of individuals who descend from a
historical Indian tribe or tribes, which combined and functioned as a single
autonomous political entity.

The membership of the petitioning group is composed principally of persons who
are not members of any acknowledged North American Indian tribe.

Neither the petitioner nor its members are the subject of congressional
legislation that has expressly terminated or forbidden recognition.

Source: Governor's Office of Indian Affairs; federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.

P-I reporter Lewis Kamb can be reached at 206-448-8336 or
lewiskamb@...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Relevant Links:
   Chinook Nation - http://www.chinooknation.org

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Investigate officer

Editorial Board Argus Leader

published: 6/2/2003
http://www.argusleader.com/editorial/Mondayfeature.shtml
Confrontation with inmate could be an accident or an attack

There's little agreement in the case of Keeler Hopkins Jr., a 21-year-old
arrested May 17 after a stop by Charles Mix County sheriff's deputies, Lake
Andes Police and Bureau of Indian Affairs officers.

All we really know for sure is that Hopkins was injured by the flashlight of
Lake Andes Officer Jeremiah Nelson.

"The clearly agreed-upon fact is the head and the police officer's flashlight
made contact," said Jennifer Ring, executive director of the American Civil
Liberties Union of the Dakotas.

Some local Native Americans say the handcuffed Hopkins was knocked down and
attacked by Nelson.

Nelson's report says the contact was accidental. Hopkins was in BIA custody for
a tribal assault warrant. Hopkins bolted. Nelson's flashlight accidentally hit
Hopkins, after Nelson chased the fleeing Hopkins and finally tackled him.

As far as the police chief is concerned, that's all he needs to know. No plans
to investigate. No plans to look into the allegations.

"I'm going by my officer's account," said Lake Andes Police Chief R.G. Svatos.
"He swore an affidavit. It was notarized."

And that's it.

Ring says Hopkins also has a statement, and that constitutes a complaint.

"We're going to see if the department responds," she said. "If the department
responds appropriately, this is not going to be a major issue for the ACLU."

It seems Ring already has her answer.

It's the wrong answer.

Lake Andes is fortunate to have a chief who supports his officers.

But any city is in peril when a chief won't even look into complaints. And this
isn't the first time there have been allegations that race has played a part in
police-citizen relations:

S In 2000, Ricky Powells, a black resident, said Nelson made racial slurs
against him and even wrote a racial slur on his house. Svatos says the
allegation was false. He said Nelson "knows better than that."

S That same year, another Lake Andes officer, Michael Atwood, was accused of
choking a 12-year-old Indian boy. Svatos said the incident was resolved. Atwood
still is an officer.

The disputes can't continue, said Kevin Tronvold, a corrections officer at the
Springfield state prison who used to own a service station in Lake Andes.

"This town is going to die without everybody getting along," he said.

It might be too much to ask - right now - for everybody to get along.

But police at least ought to take complaints seriously and look into them.
Svatos isn't even giving lip service to that.

Right now, there's no reason to believe or disbelieve either account of the
Nelson-Hopkins confrontation. It could have happened either way - accident or
attack.

Hopkins was, after all, being held on a tribal warrant for assault.

Nelson, for his part, has a history of antagonism toward Native Americans,
according to tribal members.

We might never know who's telling the truth. But someone isn't.

Svatos owes it to all the people of Lake Andes - regardless of race - to look
into what happened.

It's what any chief interested in truth and justice would do.

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Indian drop out rate high

By Venita Jenkins Staff writer
http://www.fayettevillenc.com/story.php?Story=5666844

MAP: NORTH CAROLINA INDIAN TRIBES
http://www.fayettevillenc.com/photos/2003/jun/n02tribes.jpg

American Indian students drop out of school more frequently than any other
minority group in North Carolina.

According to a report given to the state Board of Education by the state
Advisory Council on Indian Education, many of those Indian students say they
just don't feel like they fit in at school.

It is a problem that Cape Fear region school systems are paying special
attention to, especially those in Robeson County. Lumbee Indians, concentrated
in Robeson, make up more than half of the Indian students in the state school
system.

And in Robeson County, almost half the students who dropped out in 2002 were
Indians, according to the report.

Needed money

James Oxendine of Rowland briefly became one of the dropout statistics.

He left school six months ago to find work. He had become a father and needed
the money.

"I thought I could make it without an education,'' he said. "There were more
opportunities out there than going to school. School was boring.''

Oxendine, who is 18, eventually returned to school and was able to catch up and
graduate May 23.

But most of the nearly 500 American Indian students in the state who dropped out
of high school last year did not return.

Indian educators say the state needs to look at more ways to keep those students
from dropping out.

The state Advisory Council on Indian Education works to identify issues that
affect the academic achievement of Indian students. It consists of Indian
parents and educators, and representatives from the UNC Board of Governors, the
General Assembly and the North Carolina Commission on Indian Affairs.

The council's report on dropouts provided insight for Indian communities, said
Priscilla Maynor, senior assistant to state schools Superintendent Mike Ward.

"The state is looking at a number of things in the report to help curb the
dropout rate,'' Maynor said. "The report examines things that have an impact not
only on American Indian students, but on all of the more than 20,000 students
who dropped out of school last year. This is an issue we have to look at closely
and analyze.''

The council's report mentioned several reasons that Indian students leave
school. They included conflicts between home and school, dysfunctional home
life, and poor attendance.

The report included interviews with students who are Lumbee, Haliwa-Saponi and
Waccamaw Siouan. Many students said they had difficulty fitting in with
non-Indians at school.

"Learning to live in two worlds may be a challenge for many of our young
people,'' said Louise Maynor, chairman of the state advisory council. "We are
not making scientific claims. We should at least investigate how much these
students are affected by their cultural environment and their attempt to succeed
in the mainstream culture.''

Maynor, who is Lumbee, is an English professor at North Carolina Central
University. She said the state board was eager to learn what is happening among
Indian students.

"We need to get a handle on dropouts and find out why we are still on the bottom
in terms of dropout rates,'' she said.

The Indian student population has a dropout rate of 2.5 percent. Hispanic
students are second at 2.09 percent, followed by blacks at 1.89 percent.

Lumbees, most of whom live in Robeson County, account for 10,249 of the nearly
19,000 Indian students enrolled in North Carolina public schools.

During the 2002 school year, 261 of the 545 dropouts in Robeson County were
Indians.

Robeson County school officials developed a plan last year to reduce the number
of students leaving school. The county had a dropout rate of 7.23 percent, the
highest in the state. The state average was 3.86 percent.

Robeson school officials worked on programs to identify students who might drop
out and encourage them to stay in school, said Alphonzo McRae, interim
superintendent. When students do drop out, school officials make home visits
throughout the year to persuade students to return to school.

"Early on we realized that we had a high number of Native American students
dropping out of school," McRae said.

He said that school officials hope to provide the kind of support that can get
students back in school and keep them there once they return.

School officials have also concentrated their attention on ninth- and 10th-grade
students, those most prone to drop out, he said.

Program starts early

In Hoke County, officials have a program in grades six through nine to help
students get ready for the pressures of high school, said Tim Farley, assistant
superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

"Some students start dropping out of school mentally in the fifth or sixth
grade," he said. "We wanted to work with them early. We think this program has
helped."

Farley said the program includes all races, but the system considers Indian
students an at-risk population. Like Robeson, Hoke County has a high percentage
of Indian students.

State officials and Indian leaders say finding a solution to the dropout problem
is difficult.

Returned to school

For James Oxendine, it was mainly the need to make money that drove him from
school. Seeing friends who had dropped out earning quick cash made his decision
to leave easier, he said.

But Oxendine had little luck finding work to support his child. He returned to
school two months after dropping out. He stayed after school to make up
coursework and took online classes to earn the credits he needed to graduate on
time.

Oxendine has enlisted in the Army. He plans to go to college after leaving the
military and start his own business.

"Coming back changed the way people looked at me,'' he said. "They see me as a
person instead of a dropout.''

State officials and Indian leaders say they want to see more success stories
like Oxendine's. But first they have to speak openly and frankly about the
problem, said Derek Lowry, the dropout prevention coordinator for the Indian
Education program in Robeson County.

"We are the silent minority,'' he said. "We have failed them by not mentoring
them and steering them in the right direction.''

Parents are major influences when students are thinking about dropping out,
Lowry said. School officials check to see whether parents have a high school
education when investigating reasons a student drops out.

State officials hope that adding an American Indian history course this fall and
intensifying recruitment of Indian teachers will help persuade students to stay
in school.

The Lumbee Tribal Council formed an education committee in August to look into
issues facing Lumbee students, including the high number of dropouts.

The tribe understands that the dropout issue is not just a school problem, said
Alex Baker, a spokesman for the Tribal Council.

The Lumbees are fortunate to have a large number of Indian teachers in Robeson
County, Baker said. There are 457 Indian teachers employed by the school system.

"We are blessed as a tribe to have so many qualified educators. Not all tribes
have that,'' he said.

Now the Indian community needs to work on changing students' views about leaving
school, Baker said.

"This is what the youth of today sees in our community. They see someone who has
his education and makes a decent living or maybe just enough to get by
day-by-day,'' he said. "Then there is the high school dropout who lives down the
street selling drugs. He has ... $100 tennis shoes and cash in his hands. What
incentive is there for them to get their education? These kids are nearsighted.
They don't see down the road. We need to change their perception.''

Staff writer Venita Jenkins can be reached at jenkinsv@... or
(910)738-7630.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Get the Report:
Remaining and Becoming (State Advisory Council on Indian Education 2003 Report)
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/school_improvement/indianed.html


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Education leader confronts low graduation rate among Indians

Brenda Wade Schmidt Argus Leader
http://www.argusleader.com/news/Saturdayfeature.shtml
published: 5/31/2003

John Derby knows the value in giving children a good start in life.

Derby, the Sioux Falls School District administrator in charge of Indian
Education, grew up in an orphanage and went on to earn a doctorate in school
administration.

Now at age 60, he hopes his influence will persuade Native American students to
stay in high school. Only about a quarter of the Native American high school
students in the district now graduate. His goal is to improve that rate.

"I think it goes back to being able to know you can do it," he said. "A lot of
times, it's just that lack of confidence."

At two Sioux Falls middle schools, Derby is implementing programs designed to
help younger students make the connections necessary to keep them on track. The
district has 787 Native American students.

The classes teach Native American children about traditions and cultural
heritage but also about expectations and strategies to help them through high
school. The program has been offered at Lincoln and Washington high schools in
the past and, administrators say, it has made a difference for students.

About 140 Native American students are enrolled at Axtell Park and Whittier
middle schools. The new classes there will teach traditional native values such
as courage and bravery and will tutor students who need extra help with academic
studies. The classes also will be offered part time at Roosevelt and Joe Foss
high schools this year.

Already, Derby is making a difference, said Diana Messick, Whittier principal.
He is accessible, has helped the school hire a Native American education
assistant and makes sure kids are recognized for their talents, she said.

"He provides leadership and vision and resources for what's possible. He's a
good role model," she said. "I'm really impressed with what he's done so far
because it has really had an impact on kids in my building. There's action
behind his words."

At a school powwow, he recognized students for academic, athletic and art
accomplishments. With the help of the new education assistant, students are
learning respect for their culture and working on projects using hides and
making shawls, Messick said. Students also are learning about their own families
and history, critical at a time when young people want to know who they are, she
said.

The Sioux Falls School District has had an Indian Education office since 1972.
It is funded partly with federal money.

Derby replaced Marilyn Charging, who left the Indian Education office in fall
2001 to be the director of education equity in the Sioux City, Iowa, school
district.

Under Derby's tenure, the office mission has changed direction to become more
academic-oriented, said Superintendent Jack Keegan. Some resources that would
have been spent on social services in the past have been redirected toward
instruction, for example.

The goal is to find ways for students to stay in Sioux Falls and complete their
education instead of moving back to the reservation, Keegan said.

"We're starting to see some movement in terms of the graduation rate," Keegan
said.

Derby knows Native Americans who have been become successful in education and
other professional careers, said Bill Smith, director of instructional support
services.

"I think that is one of the things he brings us is the big picture of seeing
what happens to Native American kids from elementary through post high school
and the challenges they run into and the sensitivity to that," Smith said. "He's
really had a lifelong commitment to educating Native American kids."

It is best to catch kids early, especially helping them at the middle school
level, Derby said.

"As they go through the system ... we notice a number of our students start
falling behind," he said. By the time they get to high school, the requirement
of 22 credits to graduate can overwhelm some, he said.

He hopes to increase the graduation rate to 50 or 75 percent, a goal that could
take 10 years, he said.

"The more students we can get through our system, the better our community is,
and the better it is for our kids," Derby said.

Derby hopes new opportunities for students will make a difference just as they
did in his life.

He was born in March 1943, to a 19-year-old mother. He was taken to the South
Dakota Children's Home, an orphanage that later became the Children's Home
Society. Derby lived at the facility, which was then located on East 10th
Street, until he graduated from Washington High School in 1960.

"I took advantage of the opportunities given me," he said of growing up.

The environment was stable at the orphanage, with a two-woman staff guiding him
while he was there.

"They were my parents," he said. "I look back on it as a positive time. It gave
me a foundation."

He had the opportunity to play on a city baseball team and was encouraged to
continue with the sport when he showed athletic talent. He earned a baseball
scholarship to Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, Iowa, and got the chance to
sign on as a pitcher with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago White Sox.

He chose college, instead.

"He really had goals in his life," said Ken Kessinger, who supervised the summer
baseball program for the city at the time. "Through plain hard work and
perseverance, I think he's accomplished many of those goals."

Now he's attacking a different goal.

"Coming back here was kind of my calling," Derby said. "For some, college seems
distant. But if they can get through our curriculum here in Sioux Falls, they're
going to experience all of the opportunities given me."

After a year at Buena Vista, Derby transferred to the University of South
Dakota, where he earned a bachelor's degree in physical education in 1964. He
followed that with a master's degree in guidance and counseling in 1971. In
1980, he earned his doctorate from the University of North Dakota.

In between, Derby was a teacher in Minnesota and North Dakota and an
administrator with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He later was director of the
U.S. Department of Education's Indian Fellowship Program, president of the
Sisseton Wahpeton Community College and academic dean of the United Tribes
Technical College in North Dakota.

This spring, in addition to handling his administrative duties, Derby's
long-standing love of baseball led him to coach the Roosevelt High School team.
His players went from a losing record in the regular season to state champions.

Derby's friend, Duane Mackey of USD, said even though Derby grew up in Sioux
Falls, his Native American heritage and culture never left him.

"He's always known that is his identity," Mackey said. "Because maybe he didn't
have mentors from his own family at times, he certainly learned a lot from his
other mentors."

Derby has a sincere desire to help children, and he knows firsthand their
challenges, Mackey said.

"He's had some very difficult experiences in his own personal life. Out of that,
he sees a strong need to help others," Mackey said. "He wants to do as well as
he can there - more for the people he's serving than himself."

Reach Brenda Wade Schmidt at bschmidt@... or 331-2321.

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Student article causes uproar in Roseburg

The Associated Press June 1, 2003
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=62417

ROSEBURG � Members of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians are upset
about an article in Roseburg High School�s student newspaper, which referred to
the school�s American Indian emblem as �Tonto� and alleged that tribe members
used drugs and scalped people.

Sherri Shaffer, the tribe�s chief executive officer, called district
superintendent Lee Paterson after she read the story.

�There�s nothing more insulting to a Native American than calling him Tonto,�
she said.

James Osborn, the 18-year-old assistant editor of The Orange R, said he wrote
the story as a satire after hearing rumors of changes to the school�s emblem.

Osborn said he was trying to make a statement about the harm stereotypes can
cause but that in conveying the message it �somehow got warped.�

The school has used the image of an Umpqua Indian as a symbol for the past 100
years, Paterson said, but is planning to redesign the coat-of-arms and
letterhead in order to be more culturally sensitive.

The emblem recently featured in The Orange R shows a male Umpqua in profile,
wearing a single eagle feather in his braided hair. Beneath him is a shield and
an ax crossed by an eagle feather-adorned peace pipe.

Shaffer said that the student newspaper story gave a distorted view of the
customs and habits of local American Indians.

Journalism teacher Gwen Bartlett said that students generally are given free
rein to express their thoughts in the publication without censorship.

But Bartlett admitted that the story contained inaccurate information and used
no sources.

She said the controversy after its publication was a valuable learning
experience for her students.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Questions or comments about the Orange R? E-mail them at:
oranger@...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
American Indian Sports Team Mascots
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"Little drops of rain wear away the greatest of stones."
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End Racial bigotry NOW!
http://ishgooda.org/racial/
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"Indian" Mascot and Logo Taskforce
http://pages.prodigy.net/munson/
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SEOklahoma University
http://www.sosu.edu/slife/savages/
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Monroe Gilmour, Coordinator
http://www.main.nc.us/wncceib/
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UND BRIDGES
http://www.und.edu/org/span/bridges/main.html



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Art smarts: Persevering to paint and eat
John Potter
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2003/05/31/build/opinio\
n/potter.inc

CARTOON:
http://www.billingsgazette.com/rednews/2003/05/31/build//opinion/images/potter.j\
pg

WELL, WHATEVER

The other day I had an epiphany about my thighs.

See, at some point a long time ago, I figure, my thighs got lost. And now,
wherever they go, they just gotta stick together.

Buddy system. Pretty smart.

But enough about them. I wanna talk about Art. No, not your Uncle Art in
Absarokee. I mean, ART.

Art who, you ask? MY Art, that's whose (lonewolfgallery.com ).

But before we go much further, let's take this little pop-quiz -- just to see if
YOU have what it takes to be an artist. Here we go: Six kings of England have
been called George, the last being George the Sixth. Name the previous five.
(Answer at end of column.).

Meanwhile, back in our last episode (if you can remember back as far as two
weeks ago), I had gone and up-and-died on you guys. And while going toes-up made
my paintings worth a lot more money, it didn't do much for my social life. In
fact, some readers were rather stiff to the idea of my passing, voicing their
displeasure with me and threatening grave consequences.

Hey, be nice! Cadavers are people too, you know!

So anyway, I'm "back" -- and I'm here to report that there ain't no bright light
at the end of the tunnel. Just a big slab of frybread, slathered in
honey-butter, topped with a dollop of blackberry jam and sprinkled with
chocolate chips.

But I digress.

The best thing about being "back," is that now I can get down to the business of
being an artist.

You see, an artist needs two lifetimes -- one to learn HOW to paint, and
another, simply, to PAINT.

Another good thing about being "back," is being invited to show your work at
exciting new art shows, like the Big Ol' Hairy Arizona Art Show that I was
recently involved with.

OK, it was actually called the Best of the West Fine Art Show and Sale.

Apache lingo

The exhibit was sponsored by the Diamond West Gallery in Pinetop, Ariz., and
held at the fashionable Hon-Dah Resort/Casino on the nearby Fort Apache Indian
Reservation.

"Hon-Dah" is the Apache word for "welcome! Spend money!"

LOTS of art-lovers heard the "welcome" part, and came in droves (and other SUVs)
to view paintings by some of the country's best and most well-known artists ...
annnnd, me.

Unfortunately, not all the art-lovers have a comprehensive grasp of the Apache
language.

Even though sales may have been down, this was an excellent show, nonetheless.
It was well-orchestrated by the organizers (who treated the artists as if they
were royalty). The collection of artwork on display was rich in beauty, variety
and theme. But the "Best" part of the show was that a generous portion of the
proceeds from the sale of artwork went to benefit youth programs run by the
White Mountain Apache Tribe.

Subliminal appeal

As for me (lonewolfgallery.com), well, I sold enough to cover plane tickets for
my wife and myself, and still buy a slab of frybread or two. But that's all.

Which makes me wonder, sometimes, whether or not I was smart in choosing Art as
a career.

I DO know one thing though: There are no subliminal messages in this column,
and, choosing Art as a career had nothing to do with "smarts."

Art chose ME.

And while Art and I may not be getting rich at all, there's one thing we've
learned from the wisdom of our thighs -- you've got to stick with it.

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Pueblo Finds Use for Tons of Manure Left at Closed Racetrack

Saturday, May 31, 2003
http://www.sfnewmexican.com/print.asp?ArticleID=28016

SANTA FE, N.M. - When Pojoaque Pueblo purchased the Downs at Santa Fe racetrack
six years ago, pueblo leaders envisioned holding concerts and other outdoor
events at the track.

There was one very smelly problem though - tons and tons of horse manure left
from nearly three decades of horse racing.

Horse racing has not been held at the track since the pueblo took it over and in
recent years numerous houses have been built in the area.

The presence of the manure - an estimated 200,000 cubic yards - has led to a
steady stream of complaints from the homeowners. Santa Fe County, in turn, has
told the pueblo it must remove the manure before it can be issued a zoning
permit to hold events at the track.

The pueblo, with the help of cement plant near Albuquerque, is going to be able
to get rid of about 5,000 cubic yards of manure.

As part of a pilot program, the pueblo will transport 1,000 tons of the smelly
stuff to the Grupos Cementos de Chihuahua Rio Grande cement plant in Tijeras,
N.M.

The plant will get the manure at no cost and will use it as part of a
reclamation project at the limestone surface mine it operates at the Tijeras
site.

"The resolution of this situation in finding a beneficial use for the manure
gives us hope that our investment in the Santa Fe Downs will be realized and
that we will soon be able to proceed with our plans to hold events at the
track," said Pojoaque Pueblo Lt. Gov. George Rivera.

The pilot program started this month and will end in mid June. If the program
goes well, the pueblo will look at trying to move more of the remaining manure
to other mining areas for reclamation purposes.

Prior to reaching the agreement with the cement plant, the pueblo had estimated
it would have to spend from $1 million to $2 million to get rid of the manure.

Al Romero, a program coordinator for WERC, a Consortium for Environmental
Education and Technology Development, has been working with the pueblo. With the
help of Holland Shepherd, senior reclamation specialist for the New Mexico
Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Romero began identifying
potential partners in the project.

"This hasn't been an environmental issue yet," Romero said. "We want to keep it
that way through utilizing methods of prevention and careful planning."

A spokeswoman for the consortium said Friday while it may be some time yet
before the pueblo can start planning for concerts and other events at the track,
the pilot program is a positive move in that direction.

"Once they feel that it is a success, they will explore options for moving the
rest of the manure," said Linda Fresquez, a media specialist for WERC.

The consortium is comprised of New Mexico State University, New Mexico Institute
of Mining and Technology, the University of New Mexico, Dine College and Los
Alamos and Sandia national laboratories.

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Let the Games Begin: Potential ugliness could erupt in New York Unless
recognition and tax collection issues are resolved

Posted: June 02, 2003 - 10:39am EST
by: Tom Wanamaker / Correspondent / Indian Country Today
http://www.indiancountry.com/article/1054564980

All eyes watching Indian gaming should focus on New York in the coming months.
Two "situations" are currently brewing; their resolution may have significant
implications for Indian gaming in other states. One concerns the possible
precedent of "out-of-state" tribes operating gaming facilities in states other
than where they are recognized. The other involves demands by the state
legislature that state taxes be collected from businesses operating on
reservation land. Both, especially the latter, could turn ugly if not handled
properly.

"Out-of-state"

The Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma plans to build and open a Class II bingo
hall in the town of Aurelius, some 35 miles southwest of Syracuse. Local
officials, regardless of their stance on gaming, insist that the tribe follow
local building codes and permit ordinances. As a federally recognized sovereign
Indian nation, tribal leaders say they need not adhere to local and state laws.
While similar conflicts have erupted around many Indian-operated businesses
around the country, this situation takes on an added twist in that the
Seneca-Cayugas are federally recognized in Oklahoma, but have won a land claim
settlement (for which its compensation determination is currently under appeal)
in New York.

Today�s Seneca-Cayugas are descended from Seneca and Cayuga Indians who were
forced from their western New York homelands after the Revolutionary War.
Members of the two tribes banded together and eventually resettled in
northeastern Oklahoma, where they received federal recognition as a single
entity.

Further complicating matters, the Oklahoma tribe and the Cayuga Indian Nation of
New York, descendants of Cayugas who remained, have an outstanding joint land
claim against the state for over 64,000 acres around the northern end of Cayuga
Lake. Last year a federal judge ruled in favor of the tribes, awarding them some
$247 million. The state, various local governments and thousands of private
landowners promptly appealed, sending the case back into the bowels of the court
system.

The ongoing land claim has galvanized a significant portion of the local
populace against Indian sovereignty. Signs proclaiming "No Reservation, No
Sovereign Nation" dot the countryside in the land claim area of Cayuga and
Seneca counties. The locals oppose what they called a "Balkanization" of the
region, which they say creates different laws for different groups of people and
smacks of preferential treatment.

For their part, Seneca-Cayuga leaders have attempted to come to an understanding
with county and town leaders. While the tribe continues to reject demands that
they submit to local building codes, tribal leaders did offer Cayuga County a
check, with no strings attached, for $15,000 late last year and have offered to
negotiate similar payments in the future. The county rejected the check, which
was written for an amount slightly higher than the previous year�s tax bill for
the 229-acre parcel now owned by the tribe.

Town officials insist that they will immediately get a court order to halt any
bingo hall construction at the site, but have not indicated the degree, if any,
of force they are willing to use. Tribal leaders are equally determined to press
forward with their plans.

The larger issue, however, involves the Seneca-Cayugas� "out-of-state" status.
Certainly, nobody denies that the land claim area was once home to the current
tribe�s ancestors. But the fact that the Seneca-Cayugas are federally recognized
as an Oklahoma tribe and not a New York one is crucial. The Indian Gaming
Regulatory Act of 1988 gives federally recognized tribes permission to negotiate
compacts with the state in which their territory is located, but doesn�t
directly address the concern of where a tribe is recognized.

Although their land claim award victory against the state is under appeal, the
Oklahoma tribe believes that any land they reacquire within the claim area
instantly reverts to "Indian country" and is thus not subject to state and local
legal and tax provisions. Local politicians believe otherwise. It will be
interesting to observe the manner and the speed with which the BIA and the
National Indian Gaming Commission rule on this matter, which could have
implications for dozens tribes now residing elsewhere than their original
homelands.

The tax man cometh?

New York�s other "situation" is so potentially dangerous, it boggles the mind
that the legislature had the irresponsibility to force it.

On May 2, the legislature finally released its budget proposal for the current
fiscal year (which in New York begins on April 1). The fact that the Assembly
and Senate were late with their budget for the 19th straight year, while
appalling, is of little consequence here; nor are the specifics of their
budgetary differences with Republican Governor George Pataki.

What is incredible is that in its budget the legislature included revenue
projections based upon the collection of sales taxes on gasoline and tobacco
sales to non-Indian customers at reservation businesses. Yes, the state is
hemorrhaging financially, with a projected budget deficit well into the billions
of dollars.

Legislators project that some $186 million can be collected in 2003, while
another $374 million would come to the state in fiscal year 2004. But, aside
from the shaky reliability of these revenue projections (upon what are they
based?) what were New York�s Assembly members and senators thinking?

The last time Albany tried to collect such taxes, in 1997, violence erupted in
both the western and northern parts of the state. After weeks of blocked
Interstates and threats of serious bloodshed, Pataki wisely ceased further
collection attempts and has since pursed a policy of government-to-government
negotiations with New York�s resident tribes.

After overriding Pataki�s vetoes of their proposed budget on May 14, legislators
are playing politics to force the governor�s hand. Pataki has been mum on
whether or not he will comply with the Legislature�s insistence that Indian
businesses collect state taxes. Likewise, the Legislature has not indicated any
coherent mechanism for making such collections likely or even possible.

After Sept. 11, 2001, New York�s legislators had the foresight to authorize a
half-dozen Indian casinos in hopes of tapping into their revenue stream for the
state coffers. Today, only one of those casinos (in Niagara Falls) is up and
running, but not for lack of effort on the Indian side. The Seneca Nation of
Indians� feat of getting that establishment up and running in a mere 100 days
following their own positive referendum was remarkable. The Senecas are
currently looking to site their second casino, while Pataki and the St. Regis
Mohawks on May 12 signed an agreement for the first of the three Catskill
casinos, leaving two more open for compact negotiation.

These casinos will certainly provide much needed revenue for the state. Most
savvy Indian leaders have realized that the de facto price for a compact is a
portion of slot machine revenue and seem generally willing to negotiate it.
Pataki and the Mohawks, as reported in Indian Country Today, (Vol. 22 Issue 49)
were also able to come to an agreement on price parity as a way to solve price
competitiveness while not seeking to forcing state tax laws on the sovereign
Indian nations.

But New York�s elected legislators, in trying to force reservation business to
collect taxes, appear to have lost touch with the reality that exists within the
state�s borders. Indian business owners and tribes virulently oppose acting as
state agents and have demonstrated their commitment to standing by what they
believe. Forcing the issue, as the Legislature is doing, is irresponsible and
even reckless.

The resolution of the tax issue will be fascinating. Let�s hope it can be done
peacefully.

�2003 Indian Country Today

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Drilling for gas seen as threat to rock art

By Joe Bauman Deseret News staff writer
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,505037340,00.html?

Concerns about protecting archaeological treasures are pitted against hopes to
develop natural gas leases in Nine Mile Canyon.

Drilling gas exploration wells could damage pictographs and other ancient
treasures in the canyon and a tributary, according to the curator of archaeology
at the College of Eastern Utah museum, Price.

The Bureau of Land Management's Price Field Office recently issued an initial
finding that the project would cause no significant environmental impact. A
final decision is pending.

BLM approval is required before the Bill Barrett Corp., Denver, can work on the
seven exploration wells it wants to drill. The agency's Price office wrote an
environmental assessment on the project, yet as of Sunday it had not posted the
assessment on the Internet.

Elsewhere on its Internet site, the BLM Price Field Office posts this
description of the region: "Nine Mile Canyon has the greatest concentration of
rock art sites in the U.S.A."

Nine Mile Canyon is northeast of Wellington, Carbon County, and southwest of
Myton, Duchesne County. It is actually much longer than nine miles. The BLM's
listing of important archaeological sites alone covers more than 24 miles.

Indian art on the canyon walls covers three cultures � the archaic, Fremont and
Ute. The earliest may be 2,000 years old.

Agency officials say they mailed copies of the assessment to 30 groups and
individuals. They also posted a brief notice on the state BLM web site.

"It's a 30-day public comment period. It expires June 13," Patrick Gubbins, BLM
field manager, told the Deseret News.

Gubbins wrote in a cover letter about the initial finding, "BLM has determined
that no significant impacts would occur as a result of the implementation of
this project and that an environmental impact statement is not required."

During a 100-day construction period, up to 2,000 trips to the site could be
made by "construction crews, drill operators and supper services," says the
assessment. The average would be 20 round trips daily. The BLM estimates current
traffic at 126 round trips per day.

Archaeological sites are located near three of the proposed wells, the document
adds.

Dust kicked up by traffic on the dirt roads "could obscure visibility of the
rock art and accelerate the erosion of the rock art surfaces. Due to the
narrowness of the road in Dry Canyon and the size of the equipment being
transported to the pads, vibrations could also affect rock art," it says.

The assessment calls the dust from the 2,000 round trips "minimal when compared
with the estimated 46,000 round trips in the canyon."

Some documented archaeological sites in the region are especially vulnerable
"and are more likely to be unintentionally adversely impacted."

One proposed gas well, called the Jack Creek 19-2 well, is adjacent to a
well-known petroglyph panel. "In this area, we know habitations are commonly
found in association with rock art.

"There is a high probability of affecting subsurface sites in the drilling of
this well. . . . The context of the natural landscape around the site will be
lost," notes the assessment.

The document recommends that an archaeologist monitor construction and that to
protect a site near one well "a fence should be created along the boundary of
the site to prohibit travel and access."

Nine Mile Canyon has "probably 10,000 archaeological sites and hundreds of
thousands or rock art panels," said Pam Miller, assistant director of the
College of Eastern Utah museum in price, and the museum's curator of
archaeology.

Having worked in Nine Mile Canyon for many years, she says it is known as the
world's longest art gallery.

Increased traffic from the construction project could be a serious problem, she
contends. "The dust affects the rock art, it makes animals sick, it makes people
sick, it covers the crops."

A proposed gas well in Dry Canyon would be "right adjacent to an archaeology
site," she said. "There's rock art there and there're two granaries."

New sections of road would have to be built to accommodate the drilling, she
said, and roads draw increased traffic.

"There's probably three of those wells that shouldn't be there at all," Miller
said.

"We're not talking about the Bob Marshall Wilderness here," said Dean Nyffeler,
BLM geologist and project manager. It's a canyon with a back-country road, he
added.

Gubbins said development leases have been in place for a number of years, as has
a 20-inch pipeline. Ranching and tourism take place there, and the project's
traffic and dust are considered to be capable of mitigation, he added.

Bill Walsh, chairman of the protectionist Nine Mile Canyon Coalition, fears the
project would cause major changes to the nature of the canyon. "They may well
disturb some archaeological treasure."



E-MAIL: bau@...

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Dam fires up archaeologists

Animas-La Plata will drown area linked to ancient Puebloans

By Associated Press June 2, 2003
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_2005193,00.ht\
ml

DURANGO - Archaeologists are scrambling to learn about the early ancestral
Puebloans before a portion of their native Ridges Basin is covered with water.

"We suspect that Ridges Basin was among the earliest year-round settlements in
the Southwest," said Jim Potter, the archaeologist in charge of the four-year
study that's part of the preparation for the Animas-La Plata water storage
project.

Archaeologists have two more summers before the project creates a lake in the
basin only slightly smaller than Vallecito Reservoir.

The excavation is focusing on the settlement's ancestral Puebloans, forerunners
of the cliff dwellers farther west who occupied the area from A.D. 750 to 850.

The people lived in "pit houses," excavations typically 6 feet deep and 18 feet
wide with walls lined with stone and adobe. The roof was constructed of large
beams covered with brush and earth.

The structures housed five to seven people, who entered by ladder from a hole in
the roof.

Using augers to drill test holes, researchers look for charcoal, which indicates
a hearth or the residue of a burned roof that collapsed into a pit. If the
strike is successful, a backhoe opens a trench from which hand digging is
started.

Artifacts discovered include pointed and cutting stone tools, bone tools, bits
of pottery, basketry and burned kernels and cobs of corn.

Red ceramic objects native to Dolores and decorative ceramic pieces attributed
to the Navajo Reservoir region tell archaeologists that the ancestral Puebloans
had contact with neighboring communities, Potter said.

Potter and his field crews were hired by the Ute Mountain Utes, who are
responsible for the management of cultural resources found during the dig. About
25 tribes have an interest in the area, including the Hopi, Zuni and Acoma. The
project marks the first time a tribe has administered a project on federal land.

The basin also contains segments of trails used by Spanish explorers and early
Utes traveling between Ignacio and Towaoc.

There also are clues that attest to the presence of Basket Makers as early as
A.D. 500 and Utes after 1300, Potter said.

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story lead from Victor Rocha...thanks!
for gaming news see:
http://www.pechanga.net



QUOTE/UNQUOTE: "Indian tribes are not individuals or groups of individuals, they
are governments," Foreman said. "As a matter of federal constitutional law,
Indians are not a racial classification. It's a political classification. . . .
We're not talking about the federal government giving the tribes anything. We're
talking about something that the tribes already had, but which has not yet been
taken away from them."
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/06/01/IN\
309837.DTL>read story >>>



<http://www.projo.com/news/bobkerr/projo_20030601_sunco01.84f44.html>COLUMN: One
bad idea, and another and another
(RHODE ISLAND) -- In the struggle between the Narragansett Indians and the State
of Rhode Island over which will profit more from the social and physical
deterioration of the public, there have been some really dumb moves and a few
insulting ones.



<http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0601fortapache01.html>H\
igh<http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0601fortapache01.htm\
l> court rides to the rescue of Fort Apache
(ARIZONA) -- A stroll along Officers Row of this decaying Army post conjures up
images of John Wayne, horse soldiers and Indian bands led by Geronimo.



<http://newsobserver.com/nc24hour/ncnews/story/2583456p-2397485c.html>Tribe
hopes to raise money through golf tournament
(NORTH CAROLINA) -- Golf is one way the Occaneechi Indians can raise money to
help establish a permanent tribal center, leaders say.



<http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=2338>Cher\
okee ballots will be hand-counted
Byrd asked for recount after election
(OKLAHOMA) -- Today�s recount of ballots cast in the race for Principle Chief of
the Cherokee Nation is being done by manually. That means the new results may
not be available until Saturday.



<http://www.imdiversity.com/Article_Detail.asp?Article_ID=16899>State Installs
First of Piestewa Freeway Signs
(ARIZONA) -- Transportation crews posted six Piestewa Freeway signs Friday on
State Route 51 to honor Army Spc. Lori Piestewa, who was killed in Iraq.



<http://www.trib.com/AP/wire_detail.php?wire_num=177131>Tribes blast Jack Morrow
Hills plan
(WYOMING) -- The Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes are lambasting a
plan for oil and gas development in the Jack Morrow Hills area of the Red Desert
because it doesn't adequately protect holy sites.



<http://www.daily-times.com/Stories/0,1413,129~6574~1428489,00.html>Shiprock
wants new fair board elected
Current board has no intention of leaving
(NEW MEXICO) -- Charley P. Joe may be walking a political tightrope. The
Shiprock Chapter House is planning to elect a new Shiprock Northern Navajo
Nation Fair Board during its June 8 meeting.



<http://www.imdiversity.com/Article_Detail.asp?Article_ID=16901>Senator
Discusses Health-Care Issues in Yankton
(SOUTH DAKOTA) -- The health care system in the United States is ailing, Sen.
Tim Johnson was told Thursday during a tour of Avera Sacred Heart Hospital in
Yankton.



<http://www.thenewmexicochannel.com/news/2240712/detail.html>Mescalero Tribe
Tightens Fire Restrictions
Land Closed To Public On Weekends, Holidays
(NEW MEXICO) -- The Mescalero Apache Tribe has closed its land to the public on
weekends and holidays under tougher fire restrictions.



<http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/105438216557350.x\
ml>Northwest governors meet to discuss wild salmon plan
(OREGON) -- Governors from four Northwest states will meet this week to forge a
new consensus on ways to restore wild salmon runs without breaching the four
lower Snake River Dams.



<http://www.adn.com/business/story/3218415p-3243984c.html>Cutting big deals
Native firms make successful pitches for federal contracts
(ALASKA) -- Barney Uhart is regarded as a shrewd and successful businessman. A
rainmaker who is steering his company, Chugach Alaska Corp., on a profitable
ride out of bankruptcy. But not too long ago, Uhart was getting doors slammed in
his face in the Lower 48.



<http://www.imdiversity.com/Article_Detail.asp?Article_ID=16900>4-H Traditions -
WVU Extension Awaits Ruling on Indian Camping Practices
(WEST VIRGINIA) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture has finished investigating
allegations that West Virginia's 4-H program used offensive American Indian
traditions at its summer camps, but 4-H leaders said Friday they have not been
informed of the findings.



<http://www.marionstar.com/news/stories/20030601/localnews/404504.html>Restorati\
on of a native tongue
(OHIO) -- Imagine having to depend on someone of another race to help you speak
in your native tongue.



<http://www.marionstar.com/news/stories/20030601/localnews/404466.html>Indian
languages struggle to survive
(OHIO) -- Chester Trigg is proud to say he has both Comanche and Cherokee blood
in his heritage. It's a pride he's trying to install in his younger daughter as
he teaches her the Native American ways, many which he had to teach himself.



<http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~26~1423537,00.html>BOOK REVIEW:
Hillerman slips a bit in 'The Sinister Pig'
(COLORADO) -- Tony Hillerman is always tuned in to what's happening on the
Navajo Reservation, so it's no surprise that his 17th Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee
mystery is about oil, gas and coal royalties that the federal government has
failed to pay to the Navajos over the years.



<http://durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&artic\
le_path=/news/news030601_1.htm>Artifacts unearthed at future A-LP reservoir site
(COLORADO) -- They were there for only 100 years. But the early ancestral
Puebloans who inhabited Ridges Basin left tantalizing clues for archaeologists,
who are trying learn as much as possible about them before a portion of the
basin is covered with water.



<http://www.latimes.com/la-me-duroville30may30,1,603351.story>A Dangerous Slum
Sprouts in the Desert
Feds try to close village, which sits on sovereign Indian land. Its founder
gears up for expansion.
(CALIFORNIA) -- In a sprawling shantytown between the Salton Sea and a toxic
dump site, children play barefoot on dirt roads, running beside leaking sewer
lines and piles of rotting garbage thick with flies.






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Escribe archives
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Native News Online
a Service of Barefoot Connection

FREE LEONARD PELTIER!! "YOU ~ARE~ THE MESSAGE"


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Reminder from Eni..thanks!


Just why the Indians shouldn't vote is something I can't understand.
http://www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html
>"<http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/wpa:@field(DOCID+@lit(13151021))>\
The Life of Henry Mitchell,"
>Old Town, Maine,
>Robert Grady, interviewer,
>circa 1938-1939.
><http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html>American Life Histories,
1936-1940
>On June 2, 1924, Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in
the U.S. Because the right to vote was governed by state law, until 1948 some
states barred Native Americans from voting. In a WPA interview from the 1930s,
Henry Mitchell describes the attitude toward Native Americans in Maine, one of
the last states to comply with the Indian Citizenship Act:
>One of the Indians went over to Old Town once to see some official in the city
hall about voting. I don't know just what position that official had over there,
but he said to the Indian, 'We don't want you people over here. You have your
own elections over on the island, and if you want to vote, go over there.'
>
>"<http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/wpa:@field(DOCID+@lit(13151021))>\
The Life of Henry Mitchell,"
>Old Town, Maine,
>Robert Grady, interviewer,
>circa 1938-1939.
><http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html>American Life Histories,
1936-1940
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Native Americans
>During Mathematics Class, (detail)
>Indian School,
>Carlisle, Pennsylvania,
>Frances Benjamin Johnston,
>photographer,
>1903.
><http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/pphome.html>Prints and Photographs Division
>
>At the time of the Indian Citizenship Act, the Dawes Severalty Act shaped U.S.
Indian policy. Since 1887, the government had encouraged Native Americans to
assimilate. Hoping to turn Indians into farmers, the federal government
redistributed tribal lands to individuals in 160-acre allotments. Unclaimed or
"surplus" land was sold, and the proceeds used to establish
<http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/pan:@field(NUMBER+@band(pan+6a06568\
))>Indian schools where Native-American children learned reading, writing, and
the domestic and social systems of white America. By 1932, the sale of both
unclaimed land and allotted acreage had resulted in the loss of two-thirds of
the 138 million acres Native Americans held prior to the Dawes Act.
>
>In addition to extending voting rights to Native Americans, Congress created
the Meriam Commission to asses the impact of the Dawes Act. Completed in 1928,
the Meriam Report described how government policy oppressed Native Americans and
destroyed their culture and society.
>
>The poverty and exploitation resulting from the paternalistic Dawes Act spurred
passage of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. This legislation promoted Native
American autonomy by prohibiting allotment of tribal lands, returning some
surplus land, and urging tribes to engage in active self-government. Rather than
imposing the legislation on Native Americans, individual tribes were allowed to
accept or reject the Reorganization Act. From 1934 to 1953, the U.S. government
invested in the development of infrastructure, health care, and education, and
the quality of life on Indian lands improved. With the aid of federal courts and
the government, over two million acres of land were returned to various tribes
during this period.
>
><http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/wauhtml/aipnhome.html>American Indians of
the Pacific
Northwest<http://content.lib.washington.edu/cgi-bin/htmlview.exe?CISOROOT=/loc&C\
ISOPTR=734>
>
><http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aipn:@field(DOCID+@lit(p734))>Sali\
sh Man Named Paul Challae and Small Child,
>Montana,
>date
unknown.<http://content.lib.washington.edu/cgi-bin/htmlview.exe?CISOROOT=/loc&CI\
SOPTR=641>
><http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aipn:@field(DOCID+@lit(p641))>Sali\
sh Man and Woman Sitting on Rocks,
>Montana [?],
>date
unknown.<http://content.lib.washington.edu/cgi-bin/htmlview.exe?CISOROOT=/loc&CI\
SOPTR=750>
><http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aipn:@field(DOCID+@lit(p750))>Sali\
sh Woman and Children,
>St. Ignatius Mission, Montana.
>1924.
>
><http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/wauhtml/aipnhome.html>American Indians of
the Pacific Northwest integrates over 2,300 photographs and 7,700 pages of text
relating to Native Americans of two cultural areas of the Pacific Northwest.
Many aspects of life and work, including housing, clothing, crafts,
transportation, education, and employment are illustrated in this collection
drawn from the extensive holdings of the University of Washington Libraries, the
Cheney Cowles Museum/Eastern Washington State Historical Society, and the Museum
of History and Industry in Seattle.
>    * Listen to Native American music.
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/omhhtml/omhhome.html>Omaha Indian Music features
traditional Omaha music from the 1890s and 1980s. The multiformat ethnographic
field collection contains 44 wax cylinder recordings collected by Francis La
Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and
speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and
speeches from the 1985 Hethu'shka Society concert at the Library of Congress.
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/omhquery.html>Search by keyword or browse the list
of recorded
<http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/omhbib:@field(NUMBER(@range(m0001+m\
99999)))>music.
>
>    * View photographs documenting Native American life in the 1930s and 1940s.
Search the collection, <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html>FSA/OWI
Photographs, 1935-1945 on reservation or Indian.
>
>    * <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html>The George Washington
Papers, 1741-1799 include many references to Indian treaties and rights; to
explore this aspect of Washington's correspondence,
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mgwquery.html>search the collection on Indian
rights and Indian treaties.
>
>    * <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mcchtml/corhome.html>Words and Deeds in
American History contains
<http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mcc:@field(SUBJ+@band(+Indians+of+N\
orth+America+))>three features highlighting aspects of Native American history
in the Northern and Central U.S.
>
>    * <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/archive.html>Search the Today in
History archive on Native American to read additional features including pages
on <./may28.htm#jimthorpe>Jim Thorpe, the Cherokee chief
<./oct03.htm#johnross>John Ross, the Paiute writer and translator
<./oct14.htm>Sarah Winnemucca, and the <./dec29.htm>Wounded Knee Massacre.
>
>
>
<http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/ngp:@field(NUMBER+@band(ndfahult+b2\
52))>Descendants of the Original Inhabitants of Dakota Territory (detail),
Job V. Harrison, photographer,
circa 1900.

<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/ngphome.html>The Northern Great
Plains, 1880-1920



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

from Andre Cramblit

For your info... this regards concern over ONE NATION, a clearly
anti-Indian/sovereignty group in Oklahoma. Keeping informed and aware is
critical to such developments...


*********** BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE ***********

On 5/31/03 at 1:05 AM Sharon Irla wrote:

From: Sharon Irla To: onenationok@..., vglasson@... Date: Sat, 31
May 2003 01:05:02 -0700 Subject: Termination of 15+ year relationship with
Farm Bureau

To Whom This May Concern:

I have been a member/policy holder of Farm Bureau of Texas and Oklahoma for
a cumulative period of over 15 years and was just on the verge of renewing
my membership and policy with Farm Bureau (of Texas) - that is until I was
informed about the "One Nation" website at the following link:
http://www.onenationok.com/index.php?menu=1


Please be hereby informed that I will not knowingly patronize any
organization, institution or business that participates in prejudicial
activities against ANY race of people and exacerbates racist behavior and
hate crimes. My policy WILL NOT BE RENEWED with Farm Bureau in any State in
the USA!

I will also consider it duty to inform family, friends and all interested
parties, of Farm Bureau's support of this "racist" organization.

Shame on You!

Sharon Irla Ellis


On 5/31/03 at 10:55 PM jkdowell <jkdowell@...> wrote:

   The newly formed racist organization, One Nation, is spreading hate, lies
and misinformation about Oklahoma native people and tribal governments
through the mail and via the internet. Founding members include Farm Bureau
Insurance.

Git-N-Go and Quik Trip stores have contributed to their cause.

   The only thing they understand is money. Obviously they do not appreciate
native clientele. If you are patronizing these corporations please consider
boycotting them and canceling your home and auto insurance with Farm
Bureau. Encourage friends and family to do the same.

   This is the kind of prejudiced misinformation that leads to hate crimes
like the 1994 execution-style murder of Donnie Beartrack by three ignorant
rednecks because they, "didn't like Indians."

We cannot afford to turn our heads and hope this kind of racist aggression
will simply go away.

Click on the link below to see their website.
http://www.onenationok.com/index.php?menu=1

http://www.imdiversity.com/Article_Detail.asp?Article_ID=16897

Student Newspaper Article Causes Concern
by AP, The Associated Press

Roseburg, Ore. (AP) _ Members of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of
Indians are upset about an article in Roseburg High School's student
newspaper, which referred to the school's American Indian emblem as "Tonto"
and alleged that tribe members used drugs and scalped people.

Sherri Shaffer, the tribe's chief executive officer, called district
superintendent Lee Paterson after she read the story.

"There's nothing more insulting to a Native American than calling him
Tonto," she said.

James Osborn, the 18-year-old assistant editor of The Orange R, said he
wrote the story as a satire after hearing rumors of changes to the school's
emblem.

Osborn said he was trying to make a statement about the harm stereotypes
can cause, but in conveying the message it "somehow got warped."

The school has used the image of an Umpqua Indian as a symbol for the past
100 years, Paterson said, but is planning to redesign the coat-of-arms and
letterhead in order to be more culturally sensitive.

"The unofficial message is that we want to move away from anything that
might offend," he said.

The emblem recently featured in The Orange R shows a male Umpqua in
profile, wearing a single eagle feather in his braided hair. Beneath him is
a shield and an ax crossed by an eagle feather-adorned peace pipe.

Shaffer said the student newspaper story gave a distorted view of the
customs and habits of local American Indians, pointing specifically to her
female ancestors who smoked prayer-pipes.

"They certainly weren't taking any drugs," she said. "It was something
spiritual. It was meaningful."

Journalism teacher Gwen Bartlett said students are generally given free
rein to express their thoughts in the publication without censorship. But
she admitted the story contained inaccurate information and used no
sources, and said the controversy following its publication was a valuable
learning experience for her students.

"We often forget that it's more than a student newspaper," she said. "This
is a learning ground and sometimes mistakes are made. That doesn't justify
it, and can't take it back from the people who were offended, but kids are
kids."

June 2, 1924: Indians become U.S. citizens today.


From Phil Konstantin's website, www. americanindian.net


*****


From http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/maxpages/classes/soc248/IndigNew.html

The word "American Indian" itself can be seen as a negative stereotype,
European colonists first lived independently of the Native Americans. Soon,
the colonists realized how valuable the land that the Native Americans lived
on was. The Power Conflict occurring at this point was specifically a
process of Internal Colonialism. The English Colonialists came over and
began to exploit the Native American land for the economic benefit of
Britain; this began the steady extermination of the Native Americans
beginning with the societies of the east. They then moved westward with
little interference from the Native Americans because of many pacts,
treaties and acts. The Native Americans refusal and inability to fully
assimilate to the incoming culture of the American Colonialists brought
hardship to them. The Native Americans were killed, enslaved, and stripped
of their rights. Acts such as the Removal Act of 1830 justified the command,
abuse and slaughter of the Native Americans.

Many laws, legislatures, and policies have been enacted to give Native
Americans their rights, however, as we will see, many of these early laws
hurt more than helped them in their quest for equality.

Eight years later, the Removal Act paved the way for the Cherokee Trail of
Tears - 1838-1839. Cherokees, Seminoles and other natives of the south were
removed by any means necessary for the advancement of the American/English
culture. The removal and placement of Native Americans continued on through
1887.

However, this was not the case everywhere. In other states such as Northern
Missouri, The Blackfeet Treaty of Fort Benton was enacted to maintain peace
between the Americans and the Indians of the North i.e. the Blackfoot tribe.
True to the times, there was much conflict. In retaliation, to their
mistreatment, a movement of rebellion by the natives spread in the form of
songs and dances. They wished for the Earth to swallow up their oppressors.
This movement was the Ghost Dance.

In the 1830's, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was established. It was
established to supervise land dealings, reservation, and provision of
supplies. It was also supposed to serve as a forum for the federal
government to better communicate and develop better relations with the
Native Americans. But instead of the Native Americans having equal
representation, the white colonists controlled the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

In 1887, The Dawes Act was passed in an attempt to force Native Americans to
adopt the individualistic European -American land values. The act stated
that reservation land should be divided between families. Colonists hoped
this would cause the native Americans to farm on its own family land,
allowing any left over land to be sold to the whites.

In 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act was passed. It granted Native Americans
the right to citizenship and voting rights. There was a conflict between the
Dawes Act of 1887 and the Indian Citizenship Act. The Dawes Act listed
Native Americans as "wards" of the government; therefore they were again
stripped of their voting rights.

In 1934, the Indian Reorganization Act was passed in an attempt to establish
Native American civil and cultural rights. It ended the common practice of
land allotment, allowed more careful supervision of land sales by the Bureau
of Indian Affairs. This act spurred many other positive actions for the
Native Americans. They were granted preferential hiring for employment and
more joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs, allowing them more representation.
Native American tribes reorganized themselves and managed to develop
councils and constitutions. Many Native American groups also began to
self-govern. They managed their own property without supervision of the
federal government.

The Indian Reservation legislatures that were passed through World War II,
and even acts that seemed fair to advancing Americans, kept the Indigenous
Peoples confined to a set piece of land. They used to roam free, with very
little confinement, safe for territorial boundaries. Now on reservations,
they were forced to stay on land given to them, and expected to be content.

(Ed's Note:  Anyone who thinks that things have changed since those dreadful
years when the People were removed from their ancestral lands, is not living
in the real world.  Open your eyes and ears ... hear the voices. Do not be
complacent ... what you do or do not do is what is in your future; and
ignorance
is guilt, not naivete.)

June 2, 1788: Today, forces under General John Sevier, will attack the
Cherokee village of Hiwassee. The American forces will be victorious, with
many of the Cherokees fleeing the area. The village will be burned.


From Phil Konstantin's website, www.americanindian.net


****


From http://www.users.mis.net/~chesnut/pages/bobbenge.htm

John Sevier led a group of whites to attack Cherokee towns. Robert saved
many of the Cherokee of Ustalli (Ustally) Town by evacuating them before and
during the attack. Ustalli was located in southwestern North Carolina on the
Hiwassee River very close to present-day Tennessee. Five of the Cherokee
rearguard were killed while trying to bide time for the evacuees, and the
white militia captured one young boy. John Sevier and his men burned the
town and attempted to run down the evacuees. Benge set up an ambush at the
mouth of Valley River which delayed the attackers and allowed the Cherokee
to reach safety. However, at this point, the little boy who had been
captured was "brutally murdered" by Thomas Christian who was quoted as
saying "Nits make lice."

Sevier and his men went to the Cherokee village of Coota-cloochee and
started to burn down about a hundred acres of corn. However, the Cherokee
John Watts, with four hundred Cherokee warriors arrived, forcing a retreat
of Sevier's men [from Evans, 1976].

Fishermen and Indian Tribes Ally

By JEFF BARNARD Associated Press Writer
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/1110/6-2-2003/20030602080005_14.html

EUREKA, Calif. (AP) - Commercial fisherman Paul Pellegrini never agreed with
much the environmentalists had to say, still resents that Indian tribes can
stretch their salmon nets across the Klamath River, and chafes at federal
fishing restrictions.

But in the aftermath of last summer's fish kill that left 33,000 salmon dead on
the banks of the Klamath, Pellegrini finds himself linked with
environmentalists, Indian tribes and federal fishery managers in a common quest
for more water for fish.

Somewhere between the farms that draw water for crops and the harbors from which
salmon boats range the Pacific for salmon, a line has been drawn in the gravels
of the Klamath and Trinity rivers.

"It all boils down to economics," said Pellegrini.

Michael Orcutt, fisheries director for the Hoopa Valley Tribe, understands it is
hard for some to overcome the long-standing divisions between commercial
fishermen and Indians, but feels there is a growing spirit of cooperation on the
lower river with the goal of more salmon for everyone.

"There's been a lot of change that's positive," said Orcutt. "We're kind of up
against the wall. The resource we both depend upon is critical."

When the federal government was forced by the Endangered Species Act to shut off
water to most of the farms on the Klamath Reclamation Project in 2001 to let
more flow down the Klamath River for threatened coho salmon, farmers quickly
mobilized.

Already organized into irrigation districts and the Klamath Water Users
Association, farmers staged demonstrations that were broadcast nationwide on
television. They found a sympathetic ear in the Bush administration, and
received $100 million in emergency aid from Congress.

"They are driving the bus," said Jimmy Smith, a former salmon fisherman who is
now a Humboldt County supervisor. "If it wasn't for the tribes and the alliances
they forged, the folks of Northern California would be at a real loss."

Fishermen have been much slower to react. Until last summer's salmon kill, those
that kept fishing were suffering quietly, ranging farther and farther from home
as federal regulations allowed them fewer and fewer fish and the market paid
them less.

Though Pellegrini had his best salmon season ever last year for fish caught, the
price has been driven so low by fish farms that he wonders if he should keep
fishing.

Last year, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, which has
long allied with environmental groups to build up salmon stocks, filed a lawsuit
challenging the federal government's plan for protecting threatened coho salmon
in the Klamath Basin.

The government's plan is known as a biological opinion under the Endangered
Species Act. It sets minimum flows the Bureau of Reclamation must provide for
salmon down the Klamath River. More water for salmon means less water for farms
on the Klamath Reclamation Project.

A federal judge in Oakland is considering whether to issue a court order sought
by commercial fishermen that would put more water down the Klamath for salmon.

In the aftermath of the salmon kill, Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties,
the cities of Eureka, Arcata and Fortuna and the Hoopa and Yurok tribes have
joined the fishermen's federation and environmental groups in the lawsuit.

"This is a major economic interest," said Glen Spain of the fishermen's
federation. "Behind every fish, people are trying to make a livelihood on a
resource being systematically destroyed by federal mismanagement."

Last September, the balance crafted by the federal government between water for
farms and water for fish broke.

Chinook salmon began dying by the thousands in the Klamath River from a
fast-spreading gill-rot disease while waiting for higher flows that would allow
them to swim upriver to spawn.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to say what caused the kill, but the
California Department of Fish and Game and members of the American Fisheries
Society pointed their fingers at the low amount of water released down the
Klamath River after irrigating the Klamath Project.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, which has had to keep one eye on the
precarious state of Klamath salmon since 1986 while setting fishing seasons up
and down the West Coast, sent a letter to the Department of the Interior this
year urging water releases to prevent another massive fish kill.

California Resources Secretary Mary Nichols also called for more water, saying
there is not enough going down the river to prevent another fish kill.

As part of the Bush administration's plan for protecting Klamath coho and
meeting federal obligations to maintain tribal fisheries, the Bureau of
Reclamation is spending $4 million to move 50,000 acre feet of water from farms
to fish. But with the snowpack 89 percent of average in the mountains, some
worry that both crops and fish could die for lack of water this year.

The Klamath's biggest tributary, the Trinity River, is also caught between farms
and fish, with more than half of its flows sent through a tunnel to generate
power and irrigate farms hundreds of miles away in the Central Valley.

The Interior Department's efforts to make good on a promise from Congress to
leave more water in the Trinity to restore salmon has been stalled by a lawsuit
brought by the Westlands Water District, which irrigates farmland outside
Fresno.

Meanwhile, Ronnie Pellegrini wonders how long the fishing tradition will last in
her family.

"It's very hurtful and hard to hear my daughter say, 'When is my daddy not going
to be able to fish anymore?'" she said. "There's been a Pellegrini fishing out
of Eureka every year since 1910. It's done once my husband's done."

---

On the Net:

Hoopa Valley Tribe: http://www.hoopa-nsn.gov

Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations: http://www.pcffa.org/

Klamath Basin Irrigators: http://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/

Reclamation Bureau Klamath Basin office: http://www.mp.usbr.gov/kbao/index.html


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