9 September 2000 thru 23 May 2000

(These are national news stories that I have found and clipped to post here for your information. Follow the "next" image thru the archives to 11 June 1999)

9 September 2000

Indian Affairs Head Apologies for Agency's 'Legacy of Racism'

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The head of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs apologized for the agency's "legacy of racism and inhumanity" that included massacres, forced relocations of tribes and attempts to wipe out Indian languages and cultures.

"By accepting this legacy, we accept also the moral responsibility of putting things right," Kevin Gover, a Pawnee Indian, said in an emotional speech Friday marking the agency's 175th anniversary.

Gover said he was apologizing on behalf of the BIA, not the federal government as a whole. Still, he is the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to make such a statement regarding the treatment of American Indians.

The audience of about 300 tribal leaders, BIA employees and federal officials stood and cheered as a teary-eyed Gover finished the speech.

"I thought it was a very heroic and historic moment," said Susan Masten, chairwoman of California's Yurok tribe and president of the National Congress of American Indians. "For us, there was a lot of emotion in that apology. It's important for us to begin to heal from what has been done since non-Indian contact."

Lloyd Tortalita, the governor of New Mexico's Acoma Pueblo tribe, welcomed the apology but said, "If we could get an apology from the whole government, that would be better."

Although Gover's statement did not come from the White House, President Clinton's chief adviser on Indian issues, Lynn Cutler, said Gover sent her a copy of his speech late Thursday and the White House did not object to it.

Canada's government has formally apologized for abuses in government-run boarding schools for Indians but has rejected calls for a broader apology. Australian Prime Minister John Howard also has rebuffed repeated calls for an apology to that country's Aboriginal population for similar abuses there.

Gover recited a litany of wrongs the BIA inflicted on Indians since its creation as the Indian Office of the War Department. Estimates vary widely, but the agency is believed responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indians.

"This agency participated in the ethnic cleansing that befell the Western tribes," Gover said. "It must be acknowledged that the deliberate spread of disease, the decimation of the mighty bison herds, the use of the poison alcohol to destroy mind and body, and the cowardly killing of women and children made for tragedy on a scale so ghastly that it cannot be dismissed as merely the inevitable consequence of the clash of competing ways of life."

The misery continued after the BIA became part of the Interior Department in 1849, Gover said. Children were brutalized in BIA-run boarding schools, Indian languages and religious practices were banned and traditional tribal governments were eliminated, he said. The high rates of alcoholism, suicide and violence in Indian communities today are the result, he said.

"Poverty, ignorance and disease have been the product of this agency's work," Gover said.

Now, 90 percent of the BIA's 10,000 employees are Indian and the agency has changed into an advocate for tribal governments.

"Never again will we attack your religions, your languages, your rituals, or any of your tribal ways," Gover promised. "Never again will we seize your children, nor teach them to be ashamed of who they are. Never again."

___

On the Net:

Bureau of Indian Affairs: http://www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.html

National Congress of American Indians: http://www.ncai.org/

8 September 2000

Thanks for the Miracle of Corn

By Edythe Preet Los Angeles Times Syndicate

(Los Angeles Times Syndicate) -- In the first book of the Old Testament, (Genesis 42:1) we read: "Jacob saw there was corn in Egypt." That does not mean the pyramid builders munched corn-on-the-cob to fortify their labors.

The sweet corn we know and love is strictly a New World food. Confusion stems from the fact that when the Bible was translated into English during the reign of King James I, the word "corn" was a generic term meaning the seeds of all cereal grains (wheat, rye, barley, oats) much as "berry" means any small succulent fruit.

On November 4, 1492, when Columbus landed on a Caribbean island, his diary records that the Taino natives grew a grain called mahiz which was "well tasted baked, dried and made into flour." In English, the word became "maize," but early settlers stubbornly continued to call the grain "Indian corn." They also refused to eat it, a fact that more than once nearly destroyed the New World's colonial settlements.

Most of the first Europeans to arrive in the Americas had been city dwellers. They were not accustomed to hunting and they suspected that the foreign plants in their new home were poisonous. Their Old World crops failed, and harsh early winters caught them unprepared. Surrounded by a cornucopia of plenty, English settlers at Jamestown, Virginia, were reduced to eating rats and shoe leather and would have starved if the local Powhatan Indians had not given them hundreds of bushels of corn.

Similarly, the colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts, would have perished in its first winter had not the Pilgrims discovered large caches of corn that had been buried by the Cape Cod Pautuxet tribe.

The native peoples of the Americas revered maize. The Taino word, mahiz, means "bread of life" or grain of the gods" and many tribes had legends telling how corn came to be. In most cases, corn was given to humankind by woman -- symbol of Mother Earth, the guardian of all that walks or grows upon the land.

The real miracle of corn is that the wild grass came to be domesticated at all. Bound in its neat package of tough husk, it is nearly impossible for corn to reseed itself. Unlike other grains, corn cannot be broadcast on the wind or strewn upon the ground and left to the vagaries of the elements. Even if the cob fell to the earth freed of its husk, the seedlings would choke each other because the kernels are set so closely together. Each corn seed must be deliberately planted in its own little hillock of earth. Then the seedlings must be watered, weeded, nourished, watched over and tenderly cared for just as Corn Mother instructed her lazy sons to do.

Archaeologists theorize that corn was first cultivated in Peru where the Incas believed maize was a gift from their sun god, Inti. The earliest motifs of maize, its stalks, ears and tassels are found in Inca ruins, and dried ears of corn thousands of years old have been discovered in Inca graves. Sculptured corn stalks stood in temple gardens; the husks and silks were fashioned in silver, and the corn kernels were made from solid gold. Confidant that they were Inti's direct descendants, Inca nobility sipped sweet maize drinks from gold cups fashioned like ears of corn.

From terraced gardens high in the Andes, corn cultivation spread northward. Both the Mayan and Aztec civilizations revolved about the propagation of this sacred food. Planting was a critical time, and the right moment was a matter of supreme importance. Aztec planting was accompanied by a ritual sacrifice of a human heart, itself the kernel of life; the sacrificial victim's body was discarded like a withered worthless husk. On the great Mayan calendars, the pictograph for the month of planting maize was a circle quartered by a cross with a small dot in each section -- a seeded corn mound.

Century by century, and mile by mile, cultivation of corn spread until it became the primary food for most Native American tribes. In Mexico and the Southwest, stone-ground cornmeal is still made into tortillas, or mixed with meat and steamed in dry husks as tamales.

When ashes accidentally fell into some cooking pot eons ago, corn kernels swelled, slipped their skins and smoke-flavored hominy resulted.

The favorite dish at the first Thanksgiving feast in Plymouth must surely have been the exploding popcorn given to the Pilgrims by Chief Massasoit.

But maize is a tyrannical plant, each corn seed demanding its own weed-free plot of ground and excessive amounts of water (4,300 gallons for each bushel of harvested grain). Maturing ears require constant protectionfrom all manner of feathered, six-footed and four-footed nibblers. And so nutrient absorbing is it that once soil has grown maize, five to 12 years must pass before the land returns to its original fertility.

It is a mystery how the ancient horticulturists discerned corn's quirky biological requirements. When the European settlers arrived, they found carefully tended cornfields that were quite unlike grain fields at home. There, seed broadcast on the wind grew in scattered patches wherever it fell. Here, they found evenly spaced corn mounds watered by intricate irrigation systems. In each mound, four to six corn kernels were planted plus a few seeds of two other New World foods: beans and squash.

In Iroquois myth, corn, beans and squash are three inseparable sisters. Today, the threesome is known as the ``Indian Triad,'' and when eaten together forms a perfect food. Corn provides protein and niacin while beans and squash contribute the amino acids necessary for digestion.

Were the original inhabitants of the Americas nutritionists as well? No one knows, but corn, beans and squash were always eaten together and always planted together. As the corn plants grew straight and tall, beans climbed and flourished on the stalks and squash plants covered the ground, their vines and leaves inhibiting the growth of pesky weeds.

Growing corn was a sacred task. To ensure that the corn would grow tall and strong, some tribes "fed" the corn spirit with bat guano hauled to the fields from far distant caves while others buried a fish in each mound.

To beseech Corn Mother for a harvest with many golden ears, women danced around the plants in slow circles, shaking their hair and encouraging the hair-like corn silk to flourish. To guarantee that maize would always be plentiful, the best ears were kept for seed.

How could these early agriculturists have known that "feeding the Corn Spirit" would provide vital nutrients that the nitrogen-hungry plants were leaching from the soil? How could they have known the vital correlation between corn silk and kernel -- that each strand of silk must be fertilized by pollen for its embryo kernel to grow fat and full of sweet white milk?

And how could they have known that their cross-pollinization planting method would create the only six varieties of corn in existence -- sweet corn, dent corn, pod corn, flint corn, flour corn and popcorn? The answers are lost in history and only one thing is known for certain: Even biogenetic engineering has not been able to develop another strain of the maverick wild grain, Zea maiz.

When the first Europeans settled the New World, they, too, learned to love the "grain of the gods." One of the first dishes adopted by the colonists was m'i sicquotach, a tasty corn-bean mixture that the English called succotash. Cornmeal cooked into flat cakes was handy to carry on long journeys, thus its name ``journeycake.'' Colonists learned to make hearty meat stews with the Three Sisters, and to boiled or roasted corn on the cob they added their own special touch -- butter, for the people of the Americas had no milk cows or dairy products.

By mid-18th century, European colonists had completely accepted corn as their staple food. Nothing from the plant was wasted. Kernels were eaten raw, dried, cooked, parched, popped or ground into flour. Cobs were fed to the livestock. Stalks were used to build shelters, roofs and fences. Dried silk was steeped in water to make medicinal teas. Husks were wrapped around other foods for cooking purposes, woven into mats, baskets and clothing or tied up as brooms or dolls for the children.

Today, the world-wide annual harvest exceeds 500 million metric tons, and half of that measure is grown in the United States. Corn has been inextricably woven into the daily life of everyone who has ever lived in the Americas, and its cultivation has spread around the globe.

During late summer when the harvest is peaking, we tip our hats to the brilliant Native American agriculturists who nurtured corn, reverenced it and coaxed it into the forms we know and love.

(Edythe Preet is a freelance writer living in Australia.)

7 September 2000

Indian tribe needs alligator wrestlers

HOLLYWOOD, Florida (AP) -- The Seminole Indian tribe of Florida has job openings for anyone willing to take the world by the tail.

The ad reads this way: WANTED. Alligator wrestlers. Must be brave and a risk taker. Males and females OK. No experience needed.

"Traditionally, Seminoles have done this," tribe spokesman Chuck Malkus said. "The reason why we have the job openings is because tribe members now are going into banking, communications, e-commerce and law school, so we have a shortage of candidates."

The pay is $12 an hour, plus health and life insurance, which is a good thing.

Every day at the Okalee Village and Museum, Seminoles jump into a 6-foot-deep swimming pool, stalk a 7-foot alligator hiding on the bottom, and grab the reptile by the tail to the delight of paying tourists.

The goal is to wrestle the alligator out of the pool, sit on its back and pry open its jaw, which holds 80 sharp teeth.

"Here, there's no falling asleep at the wheel. You have to be 100 percent alert," said Michael Osceola, a 26-year-old Seminole who has been wrestling gators for five years.

Lance Holmquist of Key Largo is one of six people who have applied since the ad ran last week in the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale. So far, no women have applied.

Holmquist, a 39-year-old charter boat captain, said he has experience if wrestling with sharks counts.

"I'm kind of quick and agile. I can lift my own weight a lot of times. I thought it was a good opportunity," said Holmquist, who is 6 feet tall and 190 pounds.

Historically, Seminole Indians wrestled alligators in the Florida swamp for survival. The reptiles could be tied up and kept alive until they were needed for food, and their skins were traded for gunpowder, tobacco and other items.

In addition to having sharp teeth, gators can spin violently. Tangling with one can be dangerous, even for experts.

In February, Seminole Indian Chief James Billie lost a finger while wrestling an alligator in front of about 100 tourists in the Everglades. Billie, chairman of the 2,200-member tribe, started wrestling alligators at age 5, but it had been 10 years since he had taken on a gator.

Apparently, most of those who have applied got an itch for adventure from watching TV's "Survivor."

"They think they can be a real survivor every day," Malkus said.

2 September 2000

Survey Says American Indians Often Victims of Predatory Lending

(Washington-AP) -- A new survey shows American Indians often get some bad deals when it comes to loans.

The National American Indian Housing Council says 68 percent of tribes surveyed reported having members who were victims of exploitative loan practices.

The questionable practices include charging interest rates as high as 25 percent on home improvement loans and from 18 to 24 percent on mobile home loans.

Council Executive Director Christopher Boesen (BOH'-sen), says the problem is widespread.

Boesen says many Indians have little experience with personal banking or mortgages issues, so they don't know they're victims until it's too late.

31 August 2000

FBI Agents Stripped of Media IDS at Neo-Nazi Trial

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho, (Reuters) - Seven undercover federal agents, who posed as journalists to photograph protesters at a civil trial targeting the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations group, were stripped of their media passes Thursday following a reporter's complaint.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents had obtained the media credentials earlier this week in the trial aimed at bankrupting one of the most potent forces in the U.S. white supremacist movement.

Capt. Ben Wolfinger of the Kootenai County Sheriff's department said Thursday he had not hesitated to issue the media passes to the agents -- who at the time were dressed in photographer's vests and carrying camera equipment but identified themselves as FBI.

But Sheriff Rocky Watson ordered the passes revoked after a reporter covering the trial from the Spokane Spokesman Review complained about the situation.

"I didn't think it was going to that big an issue," Wolfinger said in a telephone interview. "So we have revoked those passes and are taking them as they are showing up today."

"What happened is they were here trying to blend in with the media so they would take photos of the protesters who are here protesting the trial."

An FBI spokesman in the agency's Salt Lake City regional office, which dispatched the agents, had no immediate comment.

There have been very few protesters and no reports of problems at the closely-watched trial that began Monday under tight security.

The case was brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of local woman Victoria Keenan and her son who claim Aryan Nations security guards beat them in 1998. The Keenans, who are white and part Native American, say they were driving past the compound when their car backfired. A truckload of armed guards, believing a gun had been fired at them, chased after the pair and shot at their car.

Eventually, the two were forced into a ditch, where Victoria Keenan said one man struck her with the butt of a gun and another hit her son as he cowered on the floor. Two men were sentenced to prison for the attack.

The lawsuit charges Aryan Nation's 83-year-old leader Richard Butler with recklessness and negligence in supervising his security force. Legal observers say the Aryan Nations could end up losing its 20-acre (8-hectare) compound at nearby Hayden Lake as well as possible punitive damages which could mean bankruptcy for the high-profile hate group.

During this week's testimony, lawyers for the Southern Poverty Law Center have grilled witnesses in attempts to tie the racist group's leader to the actions of his security guards. Butler's lawyer has argued that while his client may be a racist, he does not condone violence and that the guards were off duty when the Keenans were assaulted

31 August 2000

Burglars Snatch Artifacts from Washington Museum

CENTERVILLE, Wash. (AP) -- Twenty-two artifacts were stolen from an American Indian art exhibit by burglars who managed to disabled security alarms and remove a museum door.

Beaded bags, moccasins and a bone breastplate were among the objects snatched Tuesday night from at the Maryhill Museum of Art in a south-central Washington.

"It was very selective. They broke into very specific cases and took specific pieces," said Lee Musgrave, a museum curator. "It's impossible to put a financial value on these things."

After disabling layers of complicated alarms, burglars removed a door and its frame to reach the art works and broke into two cases. "They ripped the entire door off," Musgrave said.

The thieves also ransacked the museum's tiny donation box.

The items stolen probably were taken specifically for private collectors, Sheriff Bob Kindler said, but "we certainly want all the pawnshops and antique dealers and galleries dealing in Native American art to be aware."

The museum is about 90 miles east of Portland, Ore.

31 August 2000

Most Indians haven't benefited from 1990s casino boom, analysis shows

SAN CARLOS, Arizona (AP) -- The plaque outside the Apache Gold Casino declares the $40 million hotel, golf and gambling resort has "helped enable the San Carlos Apache Tribe to give a better quality of life to its tribal members."

But seven years after the casino opened -- and four years after the debut of a glittering new complex -- many Apache families still crowd in small apartments or mobile homes.

The reservation's unemployment rate has climbed from 42 percent in 1991 to 58 percent in 1997, the latest year available. The number of tribal members receiving welfare has jumped 20 percent. And the tribal government still grants home sites without water and sewer connections.

"We get no help from the casino, no money, nothing," said Pauline Randall, 75, a lifelong resident of San Carlos.

Similar complaints echo across the 1.8-million acre reservation in east Arizona, but they could just as easily be heard on many other Indian reservations across the country that have built casinos in the past decade.

Despite an explosion of Indian gambling revenues -- from $100 million in 1988 to $8.26 billion a decade later -- an Associated Press computer analysis of federal unemployment, poverty and public assistance records indicates the majority of American Indians have benefited little.

Two-thirds of the American Indian population belong to tribes locked in poverty that still don't have Las Vegas-style casinos.

And among the 130 tribes with casinos, a few near major population centers have thrived while most others make just enough to cover the bills, the AP analysis found.

Despite new gambling jobs, unemployment on reservations with established casinos held steady around 54 percent between 1991 and 1997 as many of the casino jobs were filled with non-Indians, according to data the tribes reported to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

"Everybody thinks that tribes are getting rich from gaming and very few of them are," said Louise Benson, chairman of the Hualapai Tribe in northwestern Arizona, one of two tribes with casinos that failed during the 1990s.

Of the 500,000 Indians whose tribes operate casinos, only about 80,000 belong to tribes with gambling operations that generate more than $100 million a year.

Some of the 23 tribes with the most successful casinos -- like the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Tribe in Minnesota -- pay each member hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

In Scott County, which includes the Shakopee reservation south of Minneapolis, the poverty rate declined from 4.1 percent in 1989 to 3.5 percent six years later. The reservation's unemployment rate also plummeted from 70 percent in 1991 to just 4 percent in 1997.

Such success stories belong mostly to tribes with casinos near major population centers.

The tiny Mashantucket Pequot tribe of Connecticut reported more than $300 million in revenue in the first five months this year from its Foxwoods Casino, located between New York and Boston.

And the Seminole Tribe's Hollywood Gaming Center on Miami's Gold Coast generates more than $100 million a year with pull-tab slot machines. The unemployment rate on that reservation, however, still was 45 percent in 1997, and the average poverty rate in the two counties it touches rose from 10.4 percent in 1989 to 12.1 percent in 1995.

For many of the 130 tribes with Las Vegas-style casinos, such as the San Carlos Apaches, gambling revenues pay for casino operations and debt service, with little left to upgrade the quality of life.

In counties that contain reservations with casinos, the poverty rate declined only slightly between 1989 and 1995, from 17.7 percent to 15.5 percent, the AP analysis founds. Counties with reservations with no gambling saw their poverty rate remain steady at slightly more than 18 percent.

Nationally, the poverty rate hovered at near 13 percent during the period.

In California, the Tachi Yokut Tribe in the San Joaquin Valley brags on its Web site that its Palace Gaming Center has provided employment for tribal members, helped raise education levels and upgraded housing.

But the poverty rate in Kings County, which includes the tribe's small reservation, climbed from 18.2 percent in 1989 to 22.3 percent in 1995. The reservation's unemployment rate dropped slightly to 49.2 percent in 1997.

Jonathan Taylor, a research fellow at the Harvard University Project on American Indian Economic Development, said many investments gaming tribes have made in social and economic infrastructure don't translate into immediate improvements in quality-of-life indicators like poverty.

"You see investments arising out of gaming taking hold slowly in greater educational success, greater family integrity, greater personal health, greater crime prevention," he said.

There are some optimistic signs that tribes hope to build on when the casino construction loans are repaid.

The analysis indicates casino gambling has slowed, though not reversed, the growth of tribal members on public assistance. Participation in the Agriculture Department's Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations increased 8.2 percent from 1990 to 1997 among tribes with casinos, compared with 57.3 percent among tribes without them.

And economic development has been spurred in communities near tribal casinos, according to an analysis of county business patterns.

The Oneida Indian Nation in central New York has become the largest employer in Oneida and Madison counties, thanks to a casino that's generating more than $100 million in annual revenues. A championship golf course and convention center are under construction.

But the new jobs have not reduced unemployment for Indians. Tribes with established casinos saw their unemployment rate rise four-tenths of a point to 54.4 percent between 1991 and 1997, the AP analysis found.

Jacob Coin, former executive director of the National Indian Gaming Association, said that's because 75 percent of jobs in tribal casinos are held by non-Indians.

At the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation along the California-Arizona-Nevada border, the unemployment rate climbed from 27.2 percent in 1991 to 74.2 percent in 1997.

Tribal administrator Gary Goforth acknowledged few of the 675 jobs at the tribe's two financially troubled casinos are filled by tribal members. "Not everybody wants to be a dealer, or a housekeeper or even a manager in the restaurant," he said.

San Carlos Apache Tribal Chairman Raymond Stanley said about 80 percent of the 360 casino resort employees are tribal members. He said the casino also provides a $65,000 monthly dividend to the tribe that has paid for seven new police cars and small clinic.

But Stanley said it's not enough to meet the needs of the 10,500 tribal members, 6,000 to 7,000 of whom remain on public assistance. Because the tribe's unemployment rate remains above 50 percent, it is exempt from the 1996 welfare reform law that limits recipients to five years.

"We really don't have a lot to show for it at the moment," he said. "The real benefit right now is employment."

9 August 2000

Indigenous People Celebrate Their Heritages at UN

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A Lakota Indian chief performed a sacred pipe ceremony on the grounds of the United Nations and offered a prayer for world peace Wednesday to mark the International Day of the World's Indigenous People.

The event highlighted U.N. efforts to raise the profile of indigenous people and treat their sufferings as more than just a footnote in the wider struggle for human rights.

It was also the first time the annual day was celebrated since the U.N. Economic and Social Council decided late last month to establish a permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

The forum will have 16 representatives and for the first time give indigenous people a separate voice within the U.N. system.

Placing special emphasis on indigenous children and youth, organizers and participants gathered at the United Nations to inhale incense and watch Chief Arvol Looking Horse chant prayers and pass around the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe used in the ceremony.

Several people marked the opening of a two-day conference by donning traditional, and often colorful, garments.

"We would urge the young indigenous people present at today's events to defend their traditions, customs, songs, dances, poems, cultural knowledge, and science," said Bacre Waly Ndiaye, director of the New York office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"These are part of the rich indigenous heritage. They are precious gifts from your elders and ancestors," Ndiaye added.

But U.N. officials also noted that indigenous children often suffered disproportionately compared to other groups, sometimes as a result of simple omission.

"We observe that indigenous children, and that includes adolescents, are usually the most marginalized children in the world today," said Andre Roberfroid, deputy executive director of UNICEF, the U.N. Children's Fund.

The abuses cited most often were racial discrimination, sexual abuse and forced conscription.

While the United Nations was recognized as having made efforts to address the plight of indigenous people, there was also some criticism.

"I think there is a willingness on the part of the United Nations that is not reflected in the willingness of the member states, said Alberto Saldamando, a representative of the International Indian Treaty Council. Many member states lacked the political will to carry out the recommendations of U.N. experts, he added.

7 July 2000

Federal Court Ruling May Mean Millions for Tribe

HOUSTON A federal court has ruled that European settlers wrongfully took a 2.8-million-acre tract of Texas forest from the Alabama and Coushatta Indians, possibly entitling the tribe to millions of dollars in reimbursement.

The June 19 ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims could force the federal government to pay the tribe for timber, oil, natural gas and land it never got to sell, the Houston Chronicle reported Friday.

Justice Department lawyer Patricia Weiss said the agency was reviewing the ruling, and had not yet decided whether to ask the court to reconsider. The claims court would ultimately decide how much the tribe receives.

"It's potentially a huge sum. I don't know how large yet. It is into the millions," said Alan Minter, an attorney representing the tribes.

The case, initiated by the Alabama and Coushatta tribe in the 1960s, centers on recognition of rights to the tract that runs from the Louisiana border to just north of Houston. Such land rights can only be severed by Congress with a treaty or resolution.

Since Congress never formally got the land from the tribe, the federal government had a legal duty to protect the land from European settlers, the court said.

The Alabama and Coushatta began its fight for the land rights in 1967 with the now-defunct Indian Claims Commission. In 1983, Congress passed a special resolution that enabled the tribe to file the lawsuit.

19 June 2000

Girls Ordered to Prove Gender Lose Court Appeal

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A group of Oglala Sioux girls who were required to prove their gender before playing in a 1995 basketball tournament in Rapid City, S.D., lost a Supreme Court appeal Monday.

The court, without comment, refused to revive a lawsuit by the girls and their mothers against the tournament's sponsor, their school and others.

The lawsuit, contending that the incident left the girls depressed and embarrassed, sought to collect monetary damages for racial and sexual discrimination, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and mental anguish.

Lower courts threw out the lawsuit.

The girls, all 10 to 12 years old at the time, represented the Pine Ridge Reservation's Loneman School in a tournament sponsored by the Young Men's Christian Association.

After the Loneman team won a semifinal game against the Hermosa School, that team's coach complained that one or more of the Loneman squad's eight members were really boys.

Before the championship game, the eight Loneman team members were taken into a restroom where the girls demonstrated that each was in fact a female.

The 1997 lawsuit named the YMCA, the Loneman School, the Custer School District (where the Hermosa School is located) and various individuals as defendants.

A federal trial judge dismissed the case after ruling, among other things, that the girls and their mothers had failed to offer any proof of racial or sexual bias.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal last November.

The appeal acted on Monday argued that the girls and their mothers were not given enough time to gather evidence that might have pointed to racial and sexual discrimination.

"No other teams were subjected to the search. ... The Indian coach's word that his players were female was not sufficient to end the matter when challenged by a white team and coach," the appeal said.

The case is Davenport v. YMCA, 99-1732.

19 June 2000

Court Gives Indian Tribe a Chance to Prove Claim on Colorado River Water

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court jeopardized the allocation rights of urban water users in Arizona and Southern California today by ruling that an Indian tribe is entitled to seek additional rights to Colorado River water.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices said the Quechan tribe should have the opportunity to prove its claim that it owns about 25,000 acres of Fort Yuma Reservation land straddling the river on the border between the two states.

Unless the tribe is found to be the land's owner, it would have no claim to the water.

The decision, although it does not end the dispute that in one form or another has been before the nation's highest court since 1952, is a victory for the tribe and the Clinton administration. It signals a defeat for Arizona and California officials who had argued that the tribe sold the disputed land to the federal government for $15 million in 1983.

The Quechan tribe's claim is the last unresolved part of a case that began as a water-use feud between Arizona and California.

Just last month, California and six other states appeared on the verge of a historic agreement that would give Southern California a 15-year deadline to cut its use of Colorado River water.

Under a 1922 agreement, California, Arizona and Nevada share 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the river's lower basin, with California getting 4.4 million, Arizona 2.8 million and Nevada 3,000.

An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or a year's supply of water for a family of four.

The upper basin apportionment is also 7.5 million acre-feet _ with Colorado receiving 3.8 million, Utah 1.7 million, Wyoming 1 million and New Mexico 838,000 in a normal year.

But California's average demand over the last decade has been about 5.2 million acre-feet, and the state traditionally has taken surplus water from Arizona and Nevada.

The Quechan tribe's claim on river water is relatively small, at about 1 percent of that allocated from the lower basin.

But the 78,000 acre-feet "is not an insignificant amount of water," the justices were told when the case was argued in April. "It comes out of the hide of the Arizona and Southern California urban water users."

Monday's decision ordered a court-appointed special master to study the tribe's claim to the land and, if it is legitimate, how much water should accompany the land. The special master then would make a recommendation to the justices, who would decide whether to accept it.

The tribe contends it has owned the disputed lands since the reservation was created in 1893, and that $15 million it was paid in 1983 was to compensate for previous trespassing and a history of broken promises by the federal government.

"We hold that the claims of the United States and the tribe to increased water rights for the disputed boundary lands of the Fort Yuma Reservation are not precluded by the consent judgment" in 1983, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court.

Her opinion was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer.

Dissenting were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas.

Writing for the three, Rehnquist said the federal government and the tribe were barred from raising the claim now because it could have been decided in an earlier phase of the case.

The case is Arizona vs. California, 8 Original.

___

On the Net: For the decision: go to http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct and click on "this month's decisions."

Supreme Court site: www.supremecourtus.gov

Native Americans Debate Mascots, Team Names

(Fort Lauderdale, Florida-AP) -- Seminole Chief Jim Billie has upset some other American Indians by saying he doesn't care if the Florida State University mascot is named after his people.

American Indian activists complain such mascot names are derogatory, and a growing number of schools, universities and national teams have decided to get rid of them.

Florida State has been under pressure to give up its Seminole nickname. But Billie says the tribe has never considered the nickname offensive, adding he thinks the school chose it because the Seminole tribe was never defeated.

13 June 2000

Peltier supporters lobby Clinton for executive clemency

Peltier, the American Indian serving two life sentences for the fatal shootings of two FBI agents, was denied parole by a court officer Monday

By Raju Chebium
CNN Interactive Correspondent

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Leonard Peltier's supporters said Tuesday the ailing American Indian leader's failure to win parole is a great injustice and reiterated that he did not kill two FBI agents at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota on June 26, 1975.

The FBI said the issue of whether Peltier killed agents Ronald A. Williams and Jack R. Coler has been settled decisively by the courts.

David Williams, the FBI special agent for Wisconsin who has broad knowledge of the case, also noted that the Supreme Court has twice declined to consider the Peltier case, proving there was nothing legally wrong with the way his case was handled.

On Monday, a parole examiner recommended that Peltier be held in prison until his next full parole hearing in 2008. The U.S. Parole Commission will review the recommendation, a process that could take months.

Peltier, 55, is being held at the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. In 1977, he was sentenced to two life in prison terms.

"What it boils down to is he will not be released unless he confesses to a crime he did not commit," said Jennifer Harbury, one of Peltier's attorneys. "It's probably the worst civil rights case facing the U.S. government right now."

Williams said it is normal for clemency petitions to be submitted to the White House in the final months of a presidency. He said Peltier's supporters may be increasing their lobbying efforts, mindful that this is President Clinton's final year in office.

"There is a certain timing issue here that can't be ignored," he said.

Peltier was one of four American Indians accused in the killings of Williams and Coler in the summer of 1975, after a shootout erupted between the agents and American Indian Movement activists.

The shootout resulted after the agents pursued a robbery suspect into the Pine Ridge reservation where AIM delegates were attending a conference.

Harbury said the shootings took place against the backdrop of two years of violence and harassment at Pine Ridge. Harbury said the harassment was widely believed to have been the work of "vigilantes" working for a tribal leader who was in league with the FBI.

A series of deaths on the reservation also contributed to a climate of fear and tension during the conference, Harbury said. Many believed the FBI was somehow connected to the deaths of some 60 American Indians, she said. So when the FBI came barging in, AIM members believed they were the targets, she said.

In the ensuing gun battle, the agents were first wounded, then shot at point-blank range in the head. One American Indian also died. Two suspects were acquitted in 1976 by a jury that found they fired at the agents in self-defense. A third was freed for lack of evidence in the bid to catch the agents' killer.

Peltier, who had fled to Canada after the shootings, was extradited, tried, convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in 1977.

His conviction came amid widespread accusations that the FBI had coerced witnesses, used perjured testimony and suppressed evidence at the trial.

Peltier has suffered from health problems in recent years, including borderline diabetes and a series of small strokes. He is also said to be nearly blind in one eye.

His case has generated international attention, with several European governments, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu Tum, actor Robert Redford and other Hollywood celebrities demanding his release.

Harbury accused the FBI of having fabricated evidence to convict an innocent man and a well-known activist in hopes of destabilizing the American Indian Movement, a civil-rights group.

The Pine Ridge shootings occurred at a time when the FBI was actively targeting minority-rights groups, saying they posed a threat to national interests and security, she charged.

She pointed to what she called many bogus claims by the FBI, saying even the prosecutor in the case has said repeatedly that he does not know for certain that Peltier was the triggerman. Harbury further alleged that ballistics reports showed the bullets that killed the agents could not have come from Peltier's gun.

Williams said two eyewitnesses testified that Peltier was the only American Indian with a gun that could fire the type of bullets that killed the agents.

He also said Peltier was known to have a violent past, citing the activist's arrest on charges of attempting to kill a Milwaukee police officer in 1972; Peltier was found not guilty of that charge.

Williams added that Peltier himself has admitted to firing at the agents, citing Peltier's 1981 interview with the CBS News program "60 Minutes."

Peltier's supporters have acknowledged that they are lobbying President Clinton to issue an executive clemency. The FBI has said it opposes clemency for a man convicted of killing two of its own.

In an October 1999 open letter to his supporters, Peltier wrote: "many years of my life ... have been stolen from me. I know that my own persecution has become a symbol of the persecution all of our people face everyday."

"But, I have not given up hope for freedom," he wrote. "Today I am asking you to stand up and represent me and everything I am so proud of."

13 June 2000

Indian Activist Peltier Denied Parole at Hearing

LEAVENWORTH, Kansas (AP) -- Leonard Peltier, the American Indian serving two life sentences for the fatal shootings of two FBI agents, was denied parole by a court officer after a hearing Monday.

The parole examiner recommended that Peltier's sentence be continued until his next full parole hearing in 2008. The U.S. Parole Commission will review the recommendation and make a final decision.

One of Peltier's attorneys, Carl Nadler, said at a news conference that the decision would be appealed.

On June 26, 1975, FBI agents Ronald A. Williams and Jack R. Coler pursued a robbery suspect into the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. A shootout erupted with activists from the American Indian Movement, and the agents were first wounded, then shot in the head.

Two suspects were acquitted and a third freed for lack of evidence. Peltier, after fleeing to Canada and being extradited to the United States, was convicted and sentenced to consecutive life terms in 1977, despite defense claims that evidence against him had been falsified.

Peltier, 55, has suffered from health problems in recent years, including lockjaw, borderline diabetes and a series of small strokes. He also is said to be nearly blind in one eye.

"He is being denied parole because he will not admit he shot the agents in the way the FBI says he did," said one of his attorneys, Jennifer Harbury. "He is being forced to admit to a crime he did not commit."

Peltier, considered by many supporters to be a political prisoner, has drawn attention from domestic and international human rights activists.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark said releasing Peltier would be a step toward reconciliation between the government and American Indians.

Also supporting Peltier at the news conference were representatives of Amnesty International, the National Council of Churches and the Assembly of First Nations in Canada.

12 June 2000

American Indian Activist Convicted of Killing Two FBI Agents Denied Parole

(Leavenworth, Kansas-AP) -- An American Indian activist serving two life sentences for the 1975 deaths of two F-B-I agents has been denied parole.

An attorney for Leonard Peltier (pehl-TEER') says he'll appeal today's decision.

Peltier was convicted of the shooting deaths of the agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Two other suspects who were members of the American Indian Movement were acquitted and a third freed for lack of evidence.

Peltier, now 55, has suffered health problems in recent years and is said to be nearly blind in one eye.

His supporters say evidence against him had been falsified.

Peltier's next parole hearing is scheduled for 2008 but his sentence is reviewed every two years.

1 June 2000

In Alabama, Columbus Day Does Double Duty Honoring Indians

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Christopher Columbus, who's credited with discovering America, will share his state holiday with American Indians.

The Alabama Legislature has voted to make the second Monday in October do double duty as Columbus Day and American Indian Heritage Day. The combination that will begin Oct. 9 is the first by any state.

"Columbus did not discover America. He found we were here already. It's a recognition that has been long deserved," Nancy Carnley, secretary of the Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe, said Wednesday.

A survey of state holidays by the National Conference of State Legislatures found several other states have days set aside to honor American Indians -- often the fourth Friday in September -- but they are not official holidays where state offices close.

Since 1990, South Dakota has had an official holiday on the second Monday in October for Native American Day. The state does not recognize Columbus Day.

Two Democratic legislators who serve on the Alabama Indian Affairs Commission, Sen. Jimmy Holley and Rep. Jeff Dolbare, sponsored the bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Don Siegelman.

Holley said members of the commission felt Indians were long overdue for recognition by a state whose name comes from a tribe in central Alabama. He said that placing American Indian Heritage Day on a day that was already a state holiday won't cost state government more money.

"I see this as where this state is headed. We are trying to heal old wounds," said Wilford Taylor, chief of the Mowa Band of Choctaw Indians.

While Americans of European ancestry usually look on Columbus as an important historical figure, many American Indians see him as the first of the European explorers who exploited and murdered their ancestors and introduced new diseases that killed many Indians.

Wabun-Inini, national representative for the American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council, said the organization considers Columbus a colonial pirate who should not be glamorized.

"We commend the state of Alabama for their vision and reaching out to the Indian people," he said Wednesday. "We would hope other states would follow the lead of Alabama."

This is not the first time the Alabama Legislature has created a dual state holiday. In 1994, the Legislature decided to recognize the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. on the third Monday in January, which was already a state holiday honoring the birthday of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Darla Graves, executive director of the state's Indian affairs commission, said the Census Bureau estimated Alabama had 28,000 American Indians in 1998. But she expects they have been undercounted and the real number exceeds 50,000.

"It hasn't always been politically correct to acknowledge your Indian ancestry," she said.

"To help reverse that, she said the commission plans to work with tribes across the state to have a big celebration each American Indian Heritage Day.

30 May 2000

Did Baum Want to Wipe out Indians

(Syracuse, New York-AP) -- Was the man who gave us Dorothy, Toto and the Cowardly Lion a racist who advocated genocide for American Indians?

Some historians and Native American groups think so.

Their evidence -- a pair of editorials L. Frank Baum wrote in 1890, ten years before he penned "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."

Baum published the editorials in a newspaper he ran in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The first appeared just before U-S soldiers massacred 300 Lakota Sioux (soo) at Wooded Knee and called for the "total annihilation" of Indians.

A historian says Baum was writing as a booster of the local economy and feared the region's Indian tribes would scare off potential settlers.

Tim Giago, a Lakota Indian, has written about Baum's Indian editorials. His ancestors were at Wounded Knee, and he says he takes Baum's anti-Indian views personally.

24 May 2000

The White House: Office of the Press Secretary President Clinton Speaker Hastert Announce Bipartisan Agreement On...

MAY 24, 2000, M2 Communications - Today, President Clinton will be joined by Speaker Dennis Hastert in announcing a bipartisan agreement on a New Markets and Community Renewal legislative initiative. This announcement is the outcome of the commitment President Clinton and Speaker Hastert made in Chicago last Nov. to develop a bipartisan legislative initiative on New Markets and revitalizing impoverished communities this year. This initiative will help encourage private sector equity investment in underserved communities throughout the country to ensure that all Americans share in our nation's economic prosperity. The President's New Markets Initiative was originally proposed in President Clinton and Vice-President Gore's FY 2000 budget. President Clinton has highlighted the potential of the nation's New Markets in three separate trips across America to underserved inner city and rural communities like Newark, NJ, Hartford, CT, the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia, and rural Arkansas, and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in S. Dakota.

THE KEY ELEMENTS OF THE AGREEMENT ARE:

NEW MARKETS INITIATIVES:

-- The New Markets Tax Credit. Under this agreement, this credit will spur $15 billion in equity investment and will be available to taxpayers who invest in certain privately-managed investment funds and institutions, which, in turn, use these funds to finance businesses in low- and moderate-income communities. The proposal would provide a 30-percent credit (in present-value terms) for investments in a wide range of investment vehicles. Eligible investment companies include community development banks and other CDFI's, venture funds, and financial institutions such as the new investment company programs.

-- America's Private Investment Companies (APICs). Just as America's support for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation helps promote growth in emerging markets abroad, APIC will encourage private investment in this country's untapped markets. Leveraging $2 for every $1 in private investment, the agreement authorizes HUD to guarantee up to $1 billion in low cost loans to match $500 million in private investment for a total of $1.5 billion in investments in underserved communities.

-- New Markets Venture Capital (NMVC) Firms. NMVC firms will provide incentives to increase the availability of venture capital in low and moderate-income communities for small businesses. Expert guidance will also be made available to small business entrepreneurs in inner city and rural areas. Ten to twenty NMVC firms are planned. The agreement authorizes the SBA to guarantee up to $150 million in loans that will match $100 million in private equity for a total of $250 million. SBA will also have the authority to make $30 million in operating assistance grants to match equivalent private commitments.

EMPOWERMENT ZONES:

-- Expanded To 40 EZs & Strengthened EZs. President Clinton and Vice President Gore proposed and signed Empowerment Zone legislation in 1993 establishing 9 EZs across the country -- today there are 31 across America. This agreement: -- Designates a third round of 9 new Empowerment Zones (for a total of 40).

-- Expands the Empowerment Zone tax incentives to form strategic partnership with all existing EZs so that all can utilize the 20% EZ wage credit, additional business expensing, and other incentives. -- Commits $200 million in discretionary investment this year for existing EZs. -- Establishes zero-rate capital gains rollover for investments within the EZ. -- A 60% capital gains exclusion for investment in small businesses. -- D.C. tax incentives would also be extended to 2009.

RENEWAL COMMUNITIES:

-- The creation of 40 Renewal Communities (32 urban, 8 rural), designated by the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development with targeted, pro-growth tax benefits, regulatory relief,. The tax benefits of Renewal Communities would address key hurdles facing small businesses when they are just getting started

-- raising capital and maintaining cash flow. Key incentives aimed at spurring investment in Renewal Communities include:

-- Zero Capital Gains Rate on the sales of assets held for more than 5 years.

-- Increased Expensing for Small Businesses (up to $35,000 more than in current law for equipment).

-- 15% Employment Wage Credit (up to $10,000 ) for each worker.

-- Commercial Revitalization deductions for taxpayers who rehabilitate or revitalize buildings in a Renewal Community.

In addition, the New Market/Renewal Communities Agreement includes these 2 provisions:

-- EXPANSION OF THE LOW INCOME HOUSING TAX CREDIT:

To expand and improve the supply of available low-income housing, this agreement increases the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit by more than 40% to build an additional 180,000 units of affordable housing for working families over the next five years.

-- ALLOWING FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS TO QUALIFY FOR SUBSTANCE ABUSE FUNDING:

The initiative allows faith-based substance abuse prevention and treatment programs to qualify for federal funds on the same basis as other non-profits consistent with the 1996 Welfare Reform Act and the constitutional line between church and state.

23 May 2000

Brown Mouse Medicine Co. Announces the Launch of Its Web Site

TUCSON, Ariz., May 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The Brown Mouse Medicine Co., a Tucson-based authentic jewelry and American Indian goods store, announces the launch of its online store -- www.brownmousemedicineco.com. The web site features one-of-a-kind authentic Indian seed bead jewelry designed by Sibyl McLendon, the company's owner.

Also sold at the web site are metaphysical tools, wind dancers, talking sticks, focus tools and more. The site offers free shipping with every order. About The Owner

Sibyl McLendon, owner of The Brown Mouse Medicine Company, is half Navajo. She lives with her husband and youngest son in Tucson, Arizona.

McLendon's earliest memory is of a Navajo Family selling hard goods from the back of their wagon at a Flagstaff powwow. Drawn to artistic ways of expressing her heritage, she started painting with acrylics and 12 years ago took up seedbead work. This has become her primary creative outlet, though she also paints. She has added metaphysical tools, leatherwork and other creations from her heritage to the site.

For more information, please contact Sibyl McLendon, 520-325-7734, e-mail: brownmousemedco@yahoo.com or visit the site: www.brownmousemedicineco.com . This release was issued through DigitalWork.com -- Your Business Workshop More information on DigitalWork.com may be found at SOURCE Brown Mouse Medicine Co.