New Mexico tribes appeal federal judge's decision

c. AP
January 06, 2001 

SANTA FE (AP) - New Mexico Indian tribes with casinos have appealed a federal 
judge's refusal to throw out a lawsuit brought against them by the state 
attorney general.
Attorney General Patricia Madrid sued a dozen casino-owning tribes last 
summer for not making payments to the state as required in gambling compacts 
signed in 1997.

In December, U.S. District Judge Bruce Black ruled that his court had 
jurisdiction over the matter and that the state could pursue legal action 
against the tribes to resolve the revenue-sharing dispute.

The tribes this week appealed that ruling with the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of 
Appeals in Denver.

The tribes argue that they have sovereign immunity from the state's lawsuit 
and only the U.S. Congress can authorize such litigation.

The tribes also contend that the federal courts lack jurisdiction to hear the 
case.

The state sued the Jicarilla Apache and Mescalero Apache Tribes, and the 
pueblos of Acoma, Isleta, Laguna, Pojoaque, Sandia, San Felipe, San Juan, 
Santa Ana, Taos and Tesuque. The Mescalero Apache Tribe did not join the 
others in seeking to have the case dismissed.

Tribal leaders formally announced in April they would no longer make gambling 
payments to New Mexico unless a federal judge ordered them to do so. They 
said the revenue sharing rate - 16 percent of slot machine proceeds - is 
illegally high.

Their announcement came after the Legislature in March rejected a proposed 
compact - the product of nine months of negotiations. The rejected proposal 
was a 20-year pact with a revenue sharing rate of 7.75 percent of slot 
proceeds.

Madrid has said if the courts rule in the state's favor and the tribes still 
refuse to pay, they could risk having their casinos closed. The casinos will 
remain open during the litigation.

- - - - - -

Clarkson helps keep Cherokee culture alive 

By Paul Tackett 
c. Tulsa World 
1/3/01

A challenge for many modern Indians is keeping hold of their culture along 
with their traditions and language.
Long ago, an attempt was made to eradicate their way of life and replace it 
with more of a Caucasian philosophy. 

Today, persecution of the Indian people for their way of life is not as 
deliberate, but the struggle can still be difficult.

A Broken Arrowan is a pillar of strength for her community and her tribe, 
even at the age of 19, as she starts on her life's journey.

Rachel Clarkson is a sophomore at the University of Central Oklahoma in 
Edmond and is Cherokee. On many occasions she will visit local schools and 
share Cherokee stories, culture and give performances by playing the Native 
American flute.

During the month of November, which was designated as American Indian 
Heritage Month, Clarkson visited Vandever Elementary School, 2200 S. Lions 
Ave. She told stories and played songs on her flute.

"I feel that education is the seed that provides spiritual and individual 
growth. I believe that education is so important for all people and 
especially for my tribe. The Cherokees since the beginning have always felt 
education was important. The Cherokees allowed the missionaries to work with 
their children because they believed that reading and writing were so 
important," she said.

"I believe for our tribe to remain strong for our future generations, we must 
keep our traditions, culture and language alive and pass them along to our 
young people.

"Education must be a priority among our peoples."

Clarkson's array of awards, scholarships and memberships to community 
organizations makes it easy to understand why she is a devoted member of her 
tribe and heavily involved within her community.

To start off, Clarkson was the first runner-up in the Miss Cherokee pageant 
in August. She won awards for best Cherokee essay, highest scholastic 
achievement and the Heritage award for knowing the most about Cherokee 
heritage and culture.

Also, Clarkson is the 1999-2000 Miss Indian U.C.O. 

This role has given her the opportunity to visit schools and talk with 
students about the importance of an education, setting goals and striving to 
reach those goals.

"Children today need to feel important and know that they are needed and can 
make a difference. I encourage students to become active in school 
organizations and contribute to family, school and community. Students who 
are involved in activities and organizations are better prepared for peer 
pressures and have a feeling of self-confidence. This would also discourage 
dropout rates," Clarkson said.

Clarkson has been on the Dean's Honor Roll and Greek Honor Roll every 
semester while in college.

In November, she was the recipient of the Catch a Dream scholarship, which 
was given in Albuquerque, N.M.

This scholarship is given to an outstanding Native American who has 
contributed to their tribe and community with emphasis on academic 
achievements.

In addition, this particular scholarship will aid in Clarkson's education all 
the way through graduate school.

She was awarded the Presidential Leadership scholarship at UCO, also in 
November. Her academic performance and leadership roles in organizations on 
campus and in the community helped her in the selection process.

Lastly, she received a four-year minority scholarship to UCO, was a recipient 
of the Trail of Tears scholarship and also an academic scholarship through 
the Cherokee Nation.

Clarkson is a pre-med major and said she would like to work at an Indian 
hospital or facility to help serve Native Americans.

"I am very honored to be a recipient of these scholarships and feel fortunate 
to have these scholarships to fund my education. 

"I have always worked hard as a student to maintain good grades and have been 
involved in organizations and clubs within my school and have been active in 
volunteer work in my community," said Clarkson.

Membership of community organizations for Clarkson include: a member of the 
Presidents Leadership Council, a member of the Sigma Kappa sorority where she 
holds the public relations office, a member of the University Center 
Activities Board, a member of First American Student Association and a member 
of Auxiliary Enterprises and Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Furthermore, Clarkson is a member of the Cherokee National Historical 
Society, Indian Territory Arts and Humanities Council and has served as a 
tribal youth member for the Cherokee Nation.

If that is not enough, look for Clarkson as she has been chosen as one of the 
12 Cherokee women for the 2000-01 Cherokee calendar to be in print this month.

She is the daughter of Randy and Mary Clarkson, granddaughter of Pete and 
Hazel Clarkson of Broken Arrow and Bernice Drywater of Tahlequah.

- - - - - -

Washington's side of Lewis and Clark 

By Katherine Long
Seattle Times 
January 07, 2001 

They shot through a series of horrendous whitewater chutes in dugout logs. 
They were the first white explorers to view the dry high country of the 
Palouse. They met more Native American tribes here than in any other area of 
the country. And they first glimpsed the Pacific Ocean while camped out near 
Ilwaco, Pacific County.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's six-week trek through Washington in 
1805-06 is more interesting than most people realize.

Now, state historians are trying to give the Washington leg of the expedition 
a big public-relations boost, just in time for the bicentennial of the 
expedition. They also want to try to do a better job of explaining the role 
Native Americans played in helping the explorers navigate through the 
northwest to the Pacific.

"There are great stories on the Washington side," said Dave Nicandri, head of 
the Washington State Historical Society. "We're not trying to take undue 
credit; really all we are looking for is equity."

"We're doing all kinds of things to get Washington on the map," said 
Congressman Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, who views promoting the Washington 
story as a good economic-development move - after all, the bicentennial is 
sure to bring thousands of tourists to Washington and Oregon.

Not everyone agrees that Washington has failed to toot its historical horn. 
Vancouver historian Martin Plamondon II notes that the state has had a Lewis 
& Clark Advisory Committee for 30 years and has built three interpretive 
centers, using "not a dollar of federal money."

But even Plamondon agrees that some other states have hogged the historical 
spotlight. "Dakota, Montana and Missouri think they've got the whole story," 
said Plamondon, who recently published the first of a series of Lewis and 
Clark trail maps.

Washington's latest project to promote the expedition's route is a series of 
50 roadside interpretive signs, funded through federal and state dollars, to 
be posted at state parks and turnoffs. There are also plans to try to improve 
the Washington site where the Corps of Discovery first camped in sight of the 
Pacific Ocean.

Sculptures ordered

And New York artist Maya In, who created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 
Washington, D.C., has been commissioned to do four sculptures along the trail 
that will commemorate the important discoveries made by Indians and 
non-Indians.

It's part of nationwide plans to commemorate the three-year bicentennial of 
the expedition, beginning in 2003. The National Lewis & Clark Bicentennial 
Council has designed the entire lower Columbia River region as a site along 
the trail to be nationally spotlighted.

Most history books say the expedition ended its mission in Oregon, where the 
explorers built Fort Clatsop, near Astoria, as their winter quarters.

But Washington historians believe the mission was really over when the 
explorers laid eyes upon the Pacific Ocean on Nov. 15, 1805, while camped out 
in Washington state near the present-day Ilwaco, at a site the explorers 
called Station Camp.

Some published maps even show the expedition traveling on the Oregon side of 
the Columbia - when, in fact, they camped primarily on the Washington side, 
Baird said.

Decision on winter camp

Baird said one of the most interesting moments of the expedition happened in 
this state, at Station Camp, when Lewis and Clark held a vote among the 35 
members of the expedition to decide where they would spend the winter - 
Washington or Oregon. Significantly, every member of the party was asked to 
vote, including an African-American slave, York, and a Shoshone woman Indian 
guide, Sacajawea.

One of the most harrowing and miraculous feats was the expedition's trip 
through the long and short narrows of the Columbia River, near The Dalles, 
Oregon; the whitewater rapids were flooded when the Columbia River was 
dammed. Plamondon said the chutes were "horrendous whitewater features, with 
high lava walls on each side. It's amazing they got through and didn't lose 
anyone."

Insults went unheeded

Plamondon and Nicandri also think history - and the explorers themselves - 
overlooked or misinterpreted meetings with Native Americans.

For example, Clark frequently complained that the Indians were stealing from 
the party. He didn't realize that the native Chinook Indians controlled a 
large stretch of the Columbia River, and expected strangers to pay a toll to 
use the river. "The problem was, if you didn't do that, you were insulting 
the local Chinook," Plamondon said.

Plamondon said the expedition encountered more Indian tribes and bands while 
in Washington than in any other state. The tribes lived on the Washington 
side of the Columbia because they liked to keep the river between themselves 
and their Oregon enemies, and because the north side of the river received 
the sunlight and was warmer in the fall. 

Lewis and Clark camped out where the Indians lived, and that underscores the 
important role Native Americans played in helping the expedition reach the 
ocean. "This was a joint venture, from beginning to end," Nicandri said.

Won't get it right

Brian McCormack, a Lewiston, Idaho, landscape architect and member of the Nez 
Perce tribe, has been hired to help tell the Native American part of the 
expedition story for the interpretive-sign project. But he said many tribes 
are leery of the whole celebration and worried that, once again, the 
historians won't get it right.

The Nez Perce once occupied areas throughout southeast Washington, northeast 
Oregon and northern Idaho. When the Lewis and Clark expedition reached the 
Nez Perce after a disastrous and nearly fatal crossing of the Bitterroot 
Mountains, the Nez Perce Indians helped nurse them back to health and send 
them on their way.

McCormack will be interviewing tribal leaders and historians to determine 
what parts of the Native American story to tell. It's not likely to be a 
comfortable story. While Lewis and Clark are viewed as heroes because their 
stories and maps helped ignite the opening of the American West, the 
expedition and its aftermath brought disaster in the form of diseases and war 
upon Native American tribes.

`Station Camp' plans

Nicandri said historians are also seeking $3 million from the Legislature 
this session to make improvements to "Station Camp" - the point of land on 
the Columbia River, just west of the Highway 101 bridge in Washington side, 
where the expedition camped with the Pacific Ocean in sight.

When they reached Station Camp, Lewis and Clark had arguably reached the end 
of their mission. But until recently, Fort Clatsop - the party's winter camp, 
on the Oregon side - was considered the end of the Lewis and Clark trail.

"Fort Clatsop is really more properly thought of as their first stop on the 
way home," Nicandri said.

Station Camp is poorly marked and almost inaccessible because Highway 101 
runs right by it, Nicandri said. Visitors risk getting clobbered by cars 
streaming along the highway if they want to stand where Lewis and Clark once 
camped. "It's a very nondescript wayside, not at all improved," he said. "It 
doesn't even begin to hint at the importance of this site."
__________________________________________
Ancient Sounds

Woman follows dream to reclaim Wampanoag language

By GREG SUKIENNIK
Associated Press
1/7/2001

BOSTON - It started with a dream.

Jessie Little Doe Fermino saw Indian ancestors she didn't recognize, speaking 
a language she knew but couldn't understand.

It was Wopanaak - the Wampanoag language that hadn't been written or spoken 
for almost 150 years.

"I got these feelings in me of wanting to know what Wopanaak was, how it was 
used," Fermino said.

Seven years after she had that dream, the 36-year-old former social worker is 
working fall time to teach fellow tribal members what she learned.

"I started looking around for documentation, thinking there was none, and 
instead I found a huge body of native written documents," said Fermino, who 
earned a master's in linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Wampanoags' legacy includes a letter to the Massachusetts General Court, 
the colonial name for its legislature, written June 11, 1752, pleading with 
lawmakers to keep white settlers from taking their land.

The first Bible printed in the New World was a Wopanaak translation of the 
King James Bible printed at Harvard in 1663, by John Eliot. The Wopanaak 
language was translated into phonetic English by missionaries such as Eliot, 
who believed it was their duty to convert the Indians to Christianity. The 
different spellings of the tribal name and the language are a result of 
trying to write down the distinct Indian vowel sounds using the highly 
irregular English spellings of the 1600s.

Wopanaak reflects the Wampanoags' own beliefs about their relationships with 
each other and the world around them.

"In a lot of ways, it's the essence of being part of a circle or a tribe," 
Fermino explains. "You place someone else first, not always yourself. ... You 
are responsible to your whole people, and that's reflected in the language."

For example, in statements addressing other people, the speaker comes last, 
not first. When you mean "I see you," you say "you see U

In Wopanaak, that's "kunaush", (pronounced kuh nah'sh). 

Kinship is also distinctively expressed. The word for a sister or a father or 
a mother cannot stand alone; it requires a possessive attachment indicating 
distinct relationship to another person, such as "my sister" or "your father" 
or "her mother."

"The point," said Fermino, "is that for all kinship terms every human being 
is one individual who is part of a larger circle, Ad that relationship to the 
rest of the circle is expressed through the language."

The stem for "mother" is -8hkas, pronounced oo' kas. The "8" is not a typo: 
it's a letter for the "oo" sound in the Wopanaak language. But that stem is 
not a distinct word on its own. It needs to belong to someone. To say "my 
mother," for example, it would be "n8hkas" (noo' kas).

Fermino's classes are restricted to Wampanoags. They are held in Mashpee, 
where she lives, and in Aquinnah, on Martha's Vineyard.

Her students have fundamental goals. They want to learn enough Wopanaak to 
converse with each other, write poetry, read the writings of their ancestors 
and sing and pray in their own language.
"As a tribal people we know we always had our own language," said Tobias J. 
Vanderhoop, 26, of Aquinnah, a member of the Gay Head Aquinnah Warnpanoag 
tribal council. "For a lot of us there has always been a wish we could speak 
our own language." 

To hear the language spoken evokes emotion that is hard to put into words, 
Vanderhoop said. 

"Chills just overtake you," e said. "Not only are you hearing your language, 
but you can understand it, and you know your ancestors can understand it. So 
it is a very powerful thing." 

The Wampanoags, whose name means "People of the light," are one of a number 
of American Indian tribes who are taking steps to revive or reclaim their 
languages, spurred by the dropping numbers of fluent speakers, particularly 
among children and young adults.

"The time is pressing against survival," said Greg Bigler, co-founder of the 
Oklahoma Native Language Foundation in Sapulpa. "That's why efforts have to 
be made to do whatever can be done."

Scholars believe some 300 native languages were spoken in North America when 
European colonization began. That has dwindled to about 155 languages today.

"Language reclamation may seem like a novelty. But in 20 or 30 years it's 
going to be the norm," Fermino said. 'Within a generation you could lose 
nearly all the fluency of native speakers."

- - - - - -


Utah Case Tests American Indian Law

By ROBERT GEHRKE
.c The Associated Press
1/8/2001

BENJAMIN, Utah (AP) - James Warren ``Flaming Eagle'' Mooney says he has seen 
people who use the peyote cactus freed from drug addiction and mental 
illness. 

Now the mystical medicine he administers to his followers could cost Mooney 
his own freedom. 

On Oct. 10, sheriff's deputies raided Mooney's home and his adjoining church, 
seizing a ceremonial pipe, a computer and 33 pounds of peyote. Mooney was 
charged with a dozen counts of drug trafficking and one count of 
racketeering. 

If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison. 

He has also become a peyote pariah, scorned by medicine men convinced peyote 
should be reserved for American Indians. 

A defiant Mooney says he will do what it takes to get the medicine to those 
who need it. 

``Being prosecuted and facing these charges, this is coming from my heart, I 
consider it an honor,'' he said. 

For the roughly 250,000 members in 100 branches of the Native American 
Church, peyote ceremonies are a sacred sacrament, the flesh of God put on 
earth to provide clarity and bring followers closer to the Creator. 

It is illegal to ingest peyote, a hallucinogen, in Utah and at least 27 other 
states. But in 1994, Congress carved out exemptions for ``the practice of a 
traditional Indian religion'' by members of federally recognized tribes. 

Utah County Attorney David Wayment argues the exemptions don't apply to 
Mooney, who is not enrolled in a tribe and administers peyote primarily to 
whites. 

``Whether or not Mr. Mooney can possess peyote, certainly he cannot be 
distributing peyote to non-Indians,'' Wayment said. 

Mooney said he was a member of the Oklevueha Seminole Band - which is not 
federally recognized - until the new chief threw him out for conducting 
peyote ceremonies. He makes no apologies for giving peyote to whites. 

Prohibiting anyone from taking part in peyote ceremonies would violate the 
First Amendment, Mooney argues. He has sued Utah County in federal court 
claiming religious discrimination, and wants the county to return roughly 
12,000 bulbs of peyote seized from his home. 

The tiny, spineless peyote cactus grows in the desert of southern Texas and 
northern Mexico. The bulbs are eaten or brewed into a tea consumed during 
prayer ceremonies that can last all night, said Edward Anderson, a botanist 
in Phoenix and author of ``Peyote: The Divine Cactus.'' 

The plant is bitter and can cause vomiting. It also contains a small amount 
of mescaline which heightens perceptions of colors and intensifies other 
senses. The effect is about a thousand times less powerful than LSD, Anderson 
said. 

Mooney, 57, who says he is a descendant of the Seminole chief Osceola, is a 
practicing Mormon, but also leads the Oklevueha Earthwalks Native American 
Church. 

He spent 10 years in law enforcement, six working in the Utah State Prison. A 
commendation from Gov. Mike Leavitt for his prison work hangs on the wall of 
his church. 

While working in prison, Mooney met Victor Bailey, who had bounced in and out 
of jail before taking peyote. Now Bailey says his life is in order, he is 
married and is an active Mormon. 

Others tell similar stories: Gaylen Nebeker said peyote weaned him from 
cocaine and saved his marriage. Shauna Sudbury said it enabled her to stop 
taking medications for manic-depression. Lianne Morrow said it healed 
emotional scars from a divorce. 

``This has brought me a lot closer to God. It has helped me to heal,'' 
Nebekar said. 

Mooney said he was cured of manic-depression by peyote. 

``Since I have been on this planet with the peyote, we have helped thousands 
of people get off heroin, come to terms with whatever their same-sex 
identities are'' and overcome other challenges, he said. 

But Wayment argues Mooney heads a drug distribution ring, using ``roadmen'' 
to dispense peyote across the state. Distribution charges against one of 
Mooney's associates are pending. 

Mooney is also scorned by medicine men who bristle at his practices, 
including seeking $200 donations from those who attend his church services. 

Mooney said the donations offset church costs, and that no one who couldn't 
afford to pay has been turned away. 

He has been disavowed by branches of the Native American Church and was 
forced to resign as vice president of a Salt Lake City NAC chapter. 

``Indians have no remorse for what has happened to him,'' said Dan Edwards, 
director of American Indian Studies at the University of Utah. ``It's like 
(whites) have taken our land, you've taken our culture and now you're taking 
our religion, and Indians feel it's sacrilegious.'' 

Church leaders also fear that spreading ritual peyote use beyond American 
Indians could result in Congress rescinding the exemptions they worked hard 
to win. 

- - - - - -

Robe has tale to tell

Enhanced images show warrior's combat feats 

Laura Behenna
Helena Independent Record 
January 7, 2001 

TOWNSEND, Mont. -- The painted bison robe was found in a pile of refuse that 
had been set out for garbage collection about 10 years ago. Kay Ingalls, an 
employee of the Broadwater County Museum in Townsend, saw the robe as she was 
passing by and asked permission to take it to the museum.

The family of John and Dorothy Deadmond had owned the robe for more than 100 
years. It was faded and damaged, said Rose Flynn, the museum's director. The 
museum sent it to Denver for cleaning and repairs before it was put on 
display. But the story the faded images might tell remained a mystery until 
recently.

Museum volunteer Troy Helmick invited Janis Bouma, a district archaeologist 
at the Townsend Ranger District, to take a look at the robe. Bouma, who was 
studying American Indian rock art for the Forest Service, had been using 
digital photographic enhancement techniques to help identify and date images 
that had been painted and carved into rocks. Helmick thought her expertise 
might help in finding out more about the bison robe.

Bouma was so intrigued that she's chosen the robe as the subject for her 
master's thesis in anthropology at the University of Montana.

"It was a pretty amazing war record of some American Indian from the 1800s," 
she said. "It really is an interesting story of somebody's life."

Using a computer to enhance digital images of the robe, she's been able to 
identify pictures of horses and warriors that are difficult to see with the 
unaided eye.

Bouma said the images in this type of art often tell a whole story about a 
warrior's prowess in battle or in capturing horses for his tribe.

"Counting coup and stealing horses -- those were ways you gained status in 
your culture," she said. "These bison robes were worn depicting your war 
record for everyone to see."

Sometimes, elders were paid to paint their memories on bison robes or linen 
cloth. The Great Northern Railway commissioned many such art pieces, she said.

This robe is one of only a few existing that show a certain decoration on the 
bridle of a horse, Bouma said. "It's a `horse medicine' bundle that was put 
on the halter or bridle to give the horse more strength when hunting buffalo, 
and more protection against the enemy" during battle, she said.

The robe features other pictures depicting horse stealing, decorated guns, 
quivers, and gun-vs.-bow combat, she said.

Examining those details would have been impossible without the help of 
digital enhancement. The painted images had become so faint over the years 
that some colors were no longer visible.

Using digital photo enhancement, Bouma said, "You can zoom in very close to 
the image and blow it up very large; you can see the pigment and make 
particular colors brighter."

It's been hard to pinpoint when the robe was made, she said, but she has 
narrowed the robe's date to between about 1850 and 1890. She believes it 
originated in the Blackfeet tribe.

Digitally enhanced details also help to date the robe, she said. "If there 
are guns or horses, we know it was after European contact in some form." 
Europeans came to this region in the late 1700s, she said. Other pictorial 
details that help determine the date include designs of captured or traded 
guns, styles of soldiers' costumes, and shapes of horses' hooves. This robe 
had no beadwork, which appeared only in later artwork, she said.

Digital enhancement can offer valuable and fascinating information not 
accessible with other research tools, she said, and her work with enhanced 
images has piqued museum visitors' interest in the bison robe. "I've given 
several presentations about digital enhancement at the museum, and when you 
could actually see the enhancements, people ran straight over to the robe to 
look closer."

"It's a really neat piece of Montana history. I think it's pretty great that 
we have something right in a local museum that you would (otherwise) have to 
travel to the Smithsonian to see. But it's actually in Townsend, and if not 
for a local volunteer who recognized the fact that it was indeed a bison robe 
that had some sort of paintings on it, it would not be here today. It would 
have been thrown out." 
________________________________________
Tribes find similarities across strait

Russian delegates glean insights from NW experts 

Cate Montana
Indian Country Today 
January 7, 2001 

For the first time in history, there has been a major cultural exchange 
between representatives of indigenous peoples in Russia and tribes of the 
Pacific Northwest.

Representatives from five indigenous nations spanning distances of more than 
6,000 miles across Siberia and the Russian Far East met with tribal leaders, 
managers and elders last month to learn about this country's indigenous 
rights, sovereignty and natural resource issues.

The exchange was organized and funded by Pacific Environment, a nonprofit 
environmental consulting group from Oakland, Calif.

In addition to tribes, the delegation met with legal experts, representatives 
of government agencies, wildlife biologists, nongovernmental organizations 
and industry leaders to get a handle on the full range of resource 
perspectives.

"As Siberia and the Russian Far East are increasingly coveted for their oil, 
timber and other resources by both Moscow-based corporations and Western 
multinationals, indigenous rights in Russia are at a critical juncture," 
Pacific Environment's Sibyl Diver said.

"The conditions in Russia now are very similar to those of the American West 
about 50 years ago. There's a growing movement within the Russian indigenous 
community that is challenging Russian society to recognize its native 
peoples."

Diver said the Russian delegates hoped to learn about tribes' histories and 
to gather lessons from the tribes' "past mistakes and current actions" in 
their struggle to regain their rights.

The delegates met with representatives of the Makah, Hoh, Quinault, Warm 
Springs and Jamestown S'Klallam tribes.

Misha Jones, consultant and translator for the group, said delegates were 
granted a potlatch welcome everywhere they went. And, amidst all the planned 
talks on a busy agenda, they gleaned surprising perspectives.

Jones said it was very important for the Russians to learn about treaties 
from the tribal viewpoint because they are just beginning to look for a way 
to get the same kind of guarantees from the Russian federalist government.

"There is a federal law that exists in Russia now that looks at the 
guarantees for indigenous peoples," he said. "But it's very much of a 
framework law. The procedures that would need to be enacted, the regulatory 
laws, et cetera, are all in the future."

Jones said one thing the delegates found curious was that even though 
treaties have been in place for hundreds of years in some places in the 
United States, tribes still have to fight for the rights implied by the 
treaties.

Bobby Brunoe, general manager for the natural resources department of the 
Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, says delegates were very curious about 
how the tribe governed itself and how it was able to reserve rights and 
implement the treaty.

"I think what they noticed from us is how we work in a political system 
here," Brunoe says. "They noticed from each of the tribes they went to that 
everybody had legal representation of some type and that that is something 
they would probably have to do in their country."

Brunoe says one of the things that amazed him was how similar the issues were 
between indigenous tribes in the United States and Russia.

Considering the historical parallels between the two nations, the 
similarities aren't too surprising.

For example, while European settlers were moving westward across North 
America in the 19th century, European Russians were forging east toward 
Siberia and ultimately to Alaska in search of territory, furs and other 
natural resources. As in North America, this resulted in the slaughter of 
native populations, slavery and annexation of native lands.

The social dislocation and termination of traditional ways of life led to 
widespread poverty, disenfranchisement and alcoholism throughout Russian 
native communities -- conditions that haven't changed a lot in many areas.

And tribes struggle to have a say in use of lands they have called home for 
hundreds of years.

"Tribal lands are managed without any input from indigenous people or 
long-term non-native residents," says Lyudmila Ignatenko, a representative 
from the Ketkino-Pinachevskaya Native Community Organization in Kamchatka.

"It has become impossible to accurately evaluate the threat of development to 
Kamchatka. Therefore, our main goal is to identify truly independent and 
willing researchers and experts and invite them to join us in our work 
(fighting irresponsible development on indigenous lands)."

Many communities are so isolated there are no roads and no infrastructure. 
Often the natural resources, such as timber and metals, are vast and much of 
the land is pristine. As opposed to the United States where tribes are 
struggling for restoration of natural resources, Jones points out that 
Russian tribes are striving for preservation of virgin territories.

To keep their lands from being exploited while seeking rights, income, health 
benefits and education, tribes have to walk a fine line.

While Western consumer interests jockey for position in the wings, tribes 
have to deal with a new government equally unsure of itself in terms of 
development and the environment. Privatization of property is still a novel 
and often unpopular concept. But privatization is one of the few ways the 
tribes might be able to secure a land base to call their own.

"The bottom line is, you can talk cultural, you can talk economic, you can 
talk spiritual values and those are all essential to nations," Jones says. 
"But for the Russians, the key at this point is title, private title to land 
which they do not hold."

With the first exchange a success, Jones says delegates might develop long- 
and short-term projects with some of the tribes they visited.

- - - - - -

Seminole Tribe Begins Work on Hard Rock 
Café-Themed Casino in Hollywood, Fla. 

By Erika Bolstad
The Miami Herald
Jan. 9, 2000

The Seminole Tribe of Florida broke ground Monday on its largest venture 
ever, a $300 million Hard Rock Cafe-themed casino, hotel and entertainment 
complex on its Hollywood reservation. 

The 750-room hotel off U.S. 441 is an ambitious leap from the bingo parlors 
that marked the start of the tribe's gambling operations in the late 1970s, 
said Chief James Billie, the Seminole tribal chairman. 

"It's been a long time coming, folks," Billie told about 500 people who 
streamed onto the site of the new casino Monday. 

The crowd watched as tribal officials and the project's developers 
ceremoniously turned over the dirt in a sand sculpture shaped in the Hard 
Rock Cafe's famed guitar motif. 

The project, which is being developed by the Baltimore-based Cordish Company, 
is expected to be open within 20 months. 

Site preparation has already started on the lakefront property, which just 
two months ago was home to more than 90 homes at an upscale mobile-home park. 

The park's former homeowners' association has sued the Seminole tribe, 
claiming the mostly French-Canadian seasonal residents weren't given enough 
notice of their eviction. They're seeking compensation for the expense of 
moving or selling their homes at a financial loss. 

The pending lawsuit didn't seem to worry tribal officials, who beamed with 
pride as guests chowed down on barbecue and listened to the band Nine Days. 

The project will take up as much as 100 acres when it's complete, said Tim 
Cox, the tribe's operations officer. The 17-story hotel will be one of the 
tallest buildings in the area, visible from the Florida Turnpike and even 
Interstate 75, Cox said. 

"We're talking about changing the whole skyline over here," he said. 

Tribal officials said Monday that the splashy groundbreaking was just a sign 
of the excitement they believe that the casino will bring to the area, 
especially the run-down U.S. 441 corridor. 

"We don't want to keep it a secret," said Max Osceola, the Hollywood 
representative on the Seminole tribal council. "We want everybody to come." 

The project's developers -- who specialize in urban renewal projects -- are 
also developing a Hard Rock Cafe-themed hotel in Tampa for the tribe. Cordish 
is expected to break ground on the $100 million Tampa location next month. 

Tribal officials are hoping to have official permission to offer what's known 
as Class 3 gaming at their Hollywood casino, Billie said. 

The tribe is currently only authorized to offer Class 2 gaming, which 
includes poker, bingo and other low-stakes games. Class 3 includes Las 
Vegas-style table games as well as the most lucrative gaming of all -- slot 
machines. 

State officials and the Seminoles have sparred over whether the tribe has the 
right to offer Class 3 gaming, even though many of the tribe's casinos 
already offer slot machines. 

"They have absolutely been engaging in illegal Class 3 gambling for the past 
10 years," said Assistant Attorney General Jon Glogau. 

The state has refused to negotiate a gambling compact with the Seminoles, and 
when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt proposed regulations that would have 
brought the state and the tribe together, State Attorney General Bob 
Butterworth sued in federal court. 

The suit and an administrative process designed to achieve a compromise have 
stalled, and aren't expected to come back to life anytime soon, Glogau said. 

Meanwhile, tribal officials say they continue to seek their Class 3 gaming 
status, but they've been very successful with the current formula. 

"If we get it, we get it," Billie said. "We do very well with what we've 
got." 

- - - - - -

White Oak, Okla., Indians Troubled by Faulty Casino Report 

By Mary Pierpoint
Indian Country Today
Jan. 4, 2000

WHITE OAK, Okla.--Shawnee Tribal Chairman James Squirrel said he is disturbed 
by recent Associated Press reports that stated the tribe plans to build a 
casino on former allotted land held by tribal members in Johnson County, Kan. 

The tribe's recent re-recognition by the federal government raised questions 
about allotment land held in a restricted status by heirs of original 
allottees. 

Squirrel acknowledged that land once allotted to Shawnee tribal members in 
Kansas has remained in the Newton McNeer family since around 1826. 

He went on to say the immediate goal for the tribe is to get organized to 
help make things better for tribal members and that the use of land known as 
Shawnee Reserve 206 remains in the air as far as the tribe is concerned. 

The land in question is in one of the most affluent counties in Kansas. One 
tract is in Desoto township and the other, larger one is in Shawnee township. 
The total land area is nearly 109 acres, he said. Another area in Miami 
County in restricted status, similar to that in Johnson County, is held by 
members of the Miami tribe. 

"The story made it sound like we were going to go right up there tomorrow and 
put a casino in," Squirrel said. He also said that Greg Pitcher, described in 
the AP story as director of the Shawnee Tribe was actually in charge of the 
Administration for Native Americans grant. 

"We got a grant to redo our constitution and we hired him to do it," Squirrel 
explained. 

Pitcher was unavailable for comment because of a death in his immediate 
family. 

Squirrel said the tribe is not trying at this time to set up a reservation on 
the land in Kansas. "If the opportunity presents itself we will, any tribe 
would." 

Approximately 38 heirs, descended from the original allottees, have to decide 
what to do with the tracts of land in Johnson County. 

A source close to the Cherokee Nation said there was an attempt a few years 
ago to possibly open a casino on Shawnee land in Kansas, but the proposition 
was voted down and nothing has been done since that time. 

"Some years ago as we were a part of the Cherokee Nation," Shawnee Vice 
Chairman Ron Sparkman, a McNeer heir, said. "The Cherokee Nation was 
considering doing a joint venture but it never did materialize." 

The partnership the Shawnee made an Olathe, Kan.-based company, Butler 
National Corp., was never severed. If and when a casino is built, Butler 
would be in charge of running it, Sparkman said. 

The Loyal Shawnee Tribe as it was formerly known, was absorbed by the 
Cherokee Nation through an 1866 treaty, but retained separate heritage, 
culture and traditions. 

The Omnibus Indian Advancement Act signed by President Clinton re-recognized 
the tribe. 

However, members of the Shawnee council are quick to point out they are not 
just a "Johnny come lately" tribe, but have had a full, functioning 
government which has continued to function since their absorption by the 
larger Cherokee Nation. 

"We have always, even though we have been assigned to the Cherokee Nation, we 
have maintained our own tribal government, ceremonies, language and customs," 
Sparkman said. "A lot of these news articles give the appearance that we are 
just now getting started as a tribe. They are untrue. We have always 
maintained our own identity while we have been in Oklahoma. Its not like we 
are establishing a new tribe. 

"There is a point that we would like to make. This land has always been 
Shawnee land. It has never been a part of Kansas," Sparkman said. "The news 
articles are promoting the fact that we can't wait to get up there and we 
can't wait to start gambling. At sometime in the future, we will take a look 
at it. But right now they are trying to say it is our priority and that isn't 
true. We have a lot of work to do before we can even look at that." 

Newton McNeer, an original allottee, refused to leave his land in Kansas 
during the removal of the Shawnee to Oklahoma. Unlike members of the Delaware 
Tribe, forced to choose between their land and their tribal membership, he 
retained not only his allotted land, but his tribal membership. 

Sparkman said he believed that there were around 38 heirs to the original 
McNeer allotment. 

"I don't know if this is a true statement, but visualize this," Sparkman 
said. "There were approximately 2 million acres of Shawnee land there. Then 
you had this family and one other family, called the Black Snake family who 
refused to give up their land and they fought for it. I'm sure somewhere some 
government official said, 'We've taken 2 million acres, let them stay.' That 
must have been what happened." 

Shawnee Reserve 206 brings many interesting questions into play as to 
possible future use. BIA officials believe it could possibly come under the 
jurisdiction of the Shawnee Tribe since federal recognition, but also said it 
would have to meet the requirements in the Indian gaming act as far as 
ownership and control by the tribe. 

There is also a question about some of the heirs, non-tribal members who are 
enrolled elsewhere. On top of all of that, the Horton Field Office of the BIA 
said that before the land could be leased or sold, not only would approval 
have to come from the BIA, but also from each and every heir of Shawnee 
Reserve 206. 

Sparkman said he believed the land had trust status. But BIA representatives 
said the land isn't actually considered trust land under the legal 
definition. Whether or not it will be given that status remains to be seen. 
Kansas state officials confirmed that the land has never been taxed by the 
state. 

"It doesn't have the same Indian country status as if it were on a 
reservation or adjacent to one. Currently it's without tribal jurisdiction," 
said BIA Central Office Program Analyst Eric Wilson. 

Although it isn't impossible for the Shawnee to gain control over the Johnson 
County land, there would be obstacles. 

Antoinette Houle, realty specialist at the Horton office, explained the 
status of the land owned by the Shawnee heirs. 

"A fee patent was issued to an Indian individual of the Loyal Shawnee. The 
fee patent has certain restrictions. It cannot be sold without the permission 
of the BIA. The owners can't sell or convey without approval from the BIA. 
Trust status of Indian land like this has the federal government's name on 
the title. 

"It is restricted land," Houle said. "The trust land usually has a tribe 
exercising jurisdiction over trust land. The Indian gaming act requires that 
some tri
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tulsa Indian chamber head named 

Tulsa World
1/10/01

Tulsa businessman J. Roger Peacock has been named chairman of the Tulsa 
chapter of the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of Oklahoma.

Peacock, a member of the Cherokee Nation, said he wants the chamber to 
promote Indian- owned businesses and form a working relationship with Tulsa 
Mayor Susan Savage.

The chamber meets on the second Thursday of each month at 11:30 a.m. at the 
Tulsa Country Club. The luncheons are open to the public.

Tulsa attorney Dawn Pratt Herrington, the outgoing chairwoman of the Tulsa 
chapter, is the new state board president. The organization has chapters in 
Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Ada.

- - - - - -

Miami-Dade cops take woman from Indian 
reservation to get her testimony 

The Associated Press 
Jan. 9, 2001

MIAMI -- Miami-Dade police waited until the ex-girlfriend of a Miccosukee 
Indian charged with drowning their two children left the reservation, and 
then took her into custody to force her testimony.
Officers took Sheila Tiger to a local hotel and held her for three days 
as a material witness until she gave a videotaped deposition that could be 
used at Kirk Douglas Billie's first-degree murder trial if she doesn't appear 
to testify.
Billie, 32, is charged with pushing a Chevrolet Tahoe containing their 
sons, Keith, 3, and Kurt, 5, into a canal in a fit of rage at Tiger. His 
trial in state court is scheduled to begin next week.
Billie has pleaded innocent and says he did not know the boys were in 
the car when he pushed it into the water.
Miccosukee leaders have forgiven Billie and a tribal court has refused 
to allow state prosecutors onto the reservation to subpoena several key 
witnesses, saying the reservation is a sovereign nation. A federal judge then 
upheld the tribe's right to keep prosecutors off its land.
Prosecutor Reid Rubin said Tiger's videotaped testimony is important, 
because statements she made to the police implicating Billie in their sons' 
deaths could not be used against him if she fails to testify at the trial.
In her original statement to Miami-Dade police, given shortly after the 
boys' deaths on June 26, 1997, Tiger said she visited Billie while he was 
being held by tribal police. That was before the truck and boys were found.
"I asked him where were the boys at, but he wouldn't tell me, and I 
asked him, 'But you know that they were in the back,' and he said, 'Yeah.' 
And I asked him if they were OK, and he said, 'Yeah,"' Tiger told detectives.
But in a sworn statement given to Billie's defense attorneys a month 
later, she backed away from her earlier statement.
"I'm absolutely convinced that Kirk did not know the boys were in the 
Tahoe," she wrote. "I believe that Kirk would never hurt the kids. He loved 
them."
The Miami Herald reported in its Tuesday editions that sources it didn't 
identify said Tiger's latest videotaped testimony -- given last month -- is 
more vague than the original account she gave police. But the newspaper 
report did not specify how.
Billie, who had a history of domestic violence, called Tiger the day of 
the boys' deaths and told her he was coming to her house, according to state 
prosecutors in Miami-Dade County.
Tiger left in the Tahoe and drove with her three children to pick up a 
friend, Melody Osceola. She then went to another friend's home, while Osceola 
drove away in the Tahoe with the children.
Osceola soon noticed Billie was following her, so she went to her 
father's house and got out of the truck, holding one of Tiger's children. 
Billie ran over and took the truck, with Keith and Kurt, still inside, 
prosecutors say.
Authorities later found the Tahoe and the boys' bodies in a nearby 
canal, off the reservation.

- - - - - -

Tribe purchases last big piece of lake property

Spokesman-Review
Julie Titone 
January 9, 2001 

Coeur d'Alene _ The largest piece of undeveloped shoreline on Lake Coeur 
d'Alene has been purchased by the Coeur d'Alene Tribe from Wallace 
businessman Harry Magnuson.

The 387 acres of largely wooded land includes 2.5 miles of shoreline 
extending from Windy Bay south to 16-to-1 Bay.

Magnuson said Monday that he bought the land 35 years ago, and later got to 
know tribal members through a mutual interest in preserving the old mission 
at Cataldo.

"We've been talking on and off for 15 years that the tribe would like to own 
it, but they didn't have the resources to buy it," Magnuson said of the 
lakeside property. In the last year, we've gotten serious and they said, 
`Let's do it."'

Ernie Stensgar, tribal chairman, said "This is the completion of a long 
journey back to the lake."

The land was purchased from the Kootenai Land Co., owned by Harry and Colleen 
Magnuson and their five children. The undisclosed price was paid with tribal 
casino profits, 25 percent of which are designated for land acquisition 
within the reservation.

"Our economic recovery has made this possible," said Stensgar. "But Harry 
Magnuson has done more than his part to make it happen. He understands local 
history and tradition, and recognizes the importance of this land to the 
tribe."

Magnuson continued to work with the tribe even though he might have gotten a 
higher price from another buyer, Stensgar said.

The sale represents the tribe's first substantial land purchase since the 
Homestead Act of 1906. That removed tribal members from land along the 
lakeshore, and stripped the tribe of its land base, according to tribal press 
secretary Bob Bostwick.

The tribe owns only about 70,000 acres within the 345,000-acre reservation. 
Its ancestral homeland extended across North Idaho, Eastern Washington and 
Montana. That included all of Lake Coeur d'Alene. A recent court decision 
confirmed tribal ownership of the southern third of the lake, which includes 
Windy Bay. The state has appealed the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Magnuson's understanding is that the tribe intends to leave the land 
undeveloped. "I think they're going to use it as a park and recreational area 
for their members," he said.

According to Bostwick, the future of the property hasn't been decided.

"You have so many things to consider, including economic development 
potential, economic diversity," Bostwick said. "You're also going to consider 
our natural resources department, environmental issues, history, culture, 
traditions."

- - - - - -

Miami lawsuit funded by developer with casino interest

c. AP
January 09, 2001 

PAXTON, Ill. (AP) - A New York mall developer who has branched into Indian 
casino consulting is bankrolling the Miami Indians' legal battle for 2.6 
million acres of land in central Illinois, an investment the tribe and its 
lawyer kept secret for months while insisting their lawsuit had nothing to do 
with casino gambling.
Thomas C. Wilmot Sr. of Rochester, N.Y., told The Associated Press he 
invested in the Miami claim because of the potential to develop a casino. But 
Wilmot said the tribe leaders are open to any settlement that compensates 
them for ancestral land they say they never ceded to the United States.

The Miamis sued landowners in 15 central Illinois counties last summer. 
Former Gov. Jim Edgar and current Gov. George Ryan brushed off land claims by 
the Miami and other tribes as ploys to get casino licenses - something both 
administrations opposed.

Residents are fighting the lawsuit alone while Attorney General Jim Ryan asks 
a federal judge to let the state intervene to help defend them. The 
governor's aides have called the lawsuit just another casino bid.

Wilmot said he was "paying most of the legal fees" as a business investment. 
For months, the Miami Nation has refused to identify who paid its lawyers.

"People with money to invest are looking for legal loopholes to make a lot of 
cash fast and casinos is a way to do it," said Rich Porter, who formed a 
citizens group opposed to the Miami claim.

Nick Palazzolo, a spokesman for the governor, said, "This proves what we've 
been saying all along, that casino gaming is the preferred end result of this 
assault on landowners in eastern Illinois."

The tribe's spokesman, George Tiger, and its lawyer, Tom Osterholt, have said 
the Miami do not want a casino even though Chief Floyd Leonard has said he 
might settle the lawsuit for a gaming license.

Wilmot, who met Tuesday in Miami, Okla., with tribal leaders, attorneys and 
consultants, said his company is contracted to build and operate a casino or 
other developments, "but at this point it's just too speculative to have any 
ideas."

The tribe and its consultants apparently do have ideas, according to an Oct. 
10 memo from an economic development official to the Ford County Board 
detailing contacts he had with Wilmot's company beginning in 1999.

"We were told the tribe wanted to purchase land to develop a resort hotel, 
golf course and casino. We were told the Miami Tribe felt they had a valid 
treaty claim to a large tract of land in east central Illinois that they 
would forgo in exchange for a casino license," wrote John Goldrick, executive 
director of the Community and Economic Development Foundation.

Goldrick refused to be interviewed for this story, but his memo also said he 
was invited to meet in Springfield with representatives of the governor, the 
tribe and Wilmot's company. There, he learned negotiations with the Miami 
dated to 1996.

The memo matches stories told by Indian artifacts dealer Tom Julian, a 
Minnesota-based consultant who has said the Miami were shopping for land on 
Interstate 57, near the rural Ford County town of Paxton for a resort to 
include an American Indian museum, golf course and casino.

Jim Kingston, mayor of Paxton for the last 24 years, said Thomas Wilmot Jr. 
told him the tribe was looking for 500 to 1,000 acres for a development that 
might include a casino.

The Wilmots also met in Washington with retired U.S. Rep. Thomas Ewing, 
R-Ill., and sent two $1,000 checks to the campaign of his newly elected 
replacement, U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Ill., who said he gave the money back 
to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

"I am going to do everything in my power to make sure this land grab does not 
occur," Johnson said.

Wilmot was more forthcoming than the tribe. Tiger and Osterholt refused to 
say who paid the Miami's legal bills. Osterholt told the Champaign County 
Board in October that someone else was paying the bills and he was "someone 
who believes in" the Miami cause.

Asked Monday if Wilmot was that person, Tiger first would not answer, then 
said the tribe was paying its own bills. He said nobody should draw 
conclusions based on Wilmot's history with Indian tribes.

Wilmot invested $4 million over five years in the Golden Hill Paugussetts' 
efforts to get government approval for a casino on the Bridgeport, Conn., 
waterfront. Wilmot is chairman of the board of mall developer Wilmorite Inc., 
but said a separate company he runs with his son is researching other tribal 
claims that could lead to casinos.

Tiger acknowledged Wilmot is a consultant but said Wilmot has no authority to 
speak about the tribe's intentions.

- - - - - -

Ancient cave art faces modern threat 

Dominican development eroding legacy of the Taino 

By Susannah A. Nesmith
ASSOCIATED PRESS 
Jan. 8, 2001 

SAN CRISTOBAL, Dominican Republic, — Ancient drawings on cave walls, the 
work of a now-extinct people, are being threatened by the need for concrete 
blocks and heartburn relief. More than five centuries ago, Christopher 
Columbus landed on this island and set in motion events that would wipe out 
its Taino Indians. Now limestone mining threatens some of the last remaining 
evidence that Tainos lived here: thousands of drawings and carvings left in 
caves they considered sacred sites. 

HERE ARE copulating birds that themselves became extinct, a fish, 
lizards, cute figures that look like creatures from another planet — drawings 
in charcoal that one could imagine influencing Picasso. Archaeologists 
believe the oldest drawings are up to 2,000 years old, but no one is certain 
because you would have to destroy them to carbon-date them.
“These caves have been compared to the pyramids of Egypt in terms of 
their importance to Caribbean native culture,” says Domingo Abreu, who has 
been exploring the caves for more than 20 years and gives tours to students 
and tourists.
Australian archaeologist Robert Bednarik, who has visited caves here, 
in Puerto Rico and in Cuba, says the Pomier Caves are the most extensive 
example of prehistoric art yet discovered in the Caribbean, containing works 
by Igneri and Carib Indians as well as the Tainos. He is adamant about 
protecting the site, noting the Tainos left little else behind.
“There is plenty of limestone they can mine without coming near the 
caves,” he said. “I don’t understand why this even has to be an issue.”

IMPORTANT TO ECONOMY
Yet mining is important to the economy here. A long-impoverished 
island, the Dominican Republic has recently experienced the kind of economic 
growth it had longed for, amounting to 40 percent in the past four years. 
That boom has been fueled, in part, by construction — buildings of concrete, 
concrete made with limestone.
One of the miners in the area, GAT Industries, also sells the 
limestone to an American antacid manufacturer, GAT Vice President Camilo 
Andres Tavares said.
“We expect private investment and the mining concessions we hold to be 
respected,” he said. “We support the coexistence of mining and the 
environment.”

Five of the 54 caverns already have been damaged or ruined by the 
explosions, and only 11 of the rest are within the Anthropological Reserve, 
which is protected by the government.
Mining is prohibited within the park, but its border runs close to the 
protected caves and GAT and other companies mine as close as 33 feet from the 
caves.
A study funded by the U.N. Development Program in 1995 recommended 
mining be prohibited within 660 feet of the park border, which also protects 
a million-strong bat population. The government’s newly created Ministry of 
the Environment is studying measures to better protect the caves.

DAMAGED DRAWINGS
Meanwhile, the explosions and debris from the mining have blocked 
entrances, tumbled down cave walls and damaged the drawings inside.
They were painted on with charcoal mixed with animal fat, probably 
from manatees, archaeologists say, and have been protected by the natural 
humidity in the caves, which reach down to 1,000 feet below sea level. 
Environmental activists have big expectations for the caves. 
Architects have drawn plans for an environmental education center with 
walkways to make it easier for visitors to see the drawings. The plans even 
include sanitation projects for the surrounding community. The cost: $1.7 
million.
“We’ve found in these caves pictures that match what the early 
Spanish priests recorded about the Tainos,” Abreu tells a group of students, 
after leading them crawling on their stomachs through tight tunnels and up 
near-vertical walls.
“The Tainos left information here, about the caves, how to get through 
them, about the birds of the island, about their beliefs,” he explains.
Inside the caves, Tainos drew birds crouching with their wings folded 
tightly in front of small tunnels and birds in flight before the openings of 
huge caverns. There are pictures of people catching birds in their hands as 
they fly by. A Spanish priest who arrived shortly after Columbus wrote that 
there were so many birds that the natives caught them this way. Other 
chroniclers wrote about the Taino pipe-smoking ceremony, which also is 
recorded on the cave walls.
Many of the cave entrances are marked with carvings of fearsome gods — 
warnings to people of the future that these places are sacred.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Indian affairs bureau ends dispute over Rincon bloodline 

Agency won't revoke chairman's status

By Chet Barfield 
UNION-TRIBUNE 
January 10, 2001 

RINCON INDIAN RESERVATION -- As his tribe prepares to open San Diego County's 
newest casino tomorrow, Rincon Chairman John Currier has something else to 
cheer: 

The U.S. government is no longer threatening to revoke his status as an 
American Indian. 

Who belongs and who doesn't is an issue that's upheaving many tribes in 
California and elsewhere, especially when casino revenues become part of the 
mix. 

After a nine-month tug of war, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs is bowing 
out of a Rincon enrollment dispute that threatened the eligibility of Currier 
and 70 members of his extended family. They stood to fall just below the 
tribe's minimum requirement of 1/8 Rincon blood. 

The decision, stated in a Jan. 3 letter from Interior Assistant Secretary 
Kevin Gover, who heads Indian Affairs, left Currier relieved -- but upset 
over the harassment and embarrassment he says he has endured from his tribe 
and others. 

"We're celebrating because, yes, the truth came out," he said. "But we are 
hurt, we are scarred . . . and we are very distrusting of the Bureau of 
Indian Affairs." 

The battle at Rincon has divided the 600-member North County tribe. It also 
demonstrates the thorny thicket Indian tribal membership can be. 

The story at Rincon might seem like simple arithmetic, but it gets a little 
complicated. 

At issue was the blood percentage of one of Currier's great-grandparents, who 
died in 1954 at age 81. Critics said he had been listed on earlier rolls as a 
full-blooded Rincon Indian when he should have been 3/4. 

Three generations down the line, that meant Currier's Rincon blood would be 
3/32, just below the minimum threshold. 

In 1991, the Indian affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C., agreed the 
numbers should be retroactively changed. But no action was taken until last 
year, when opponents of the family's enrollment revived the issue. 

Since April, Currier and his cousins have been pleading their case to bureau 
offices in Riverside, Sacramento and Washington, D.C. They argued the records 
that had been reviewed were wrong and provided others to back their claim. 
They also contended their due-process rights were violated by the bureau's 
handling of the case. 

And they said the whole thing was politically motivated, the result of a 
conspiracy by a faction of opponents. 

While awaiting a decision, Currier was re-elected last month by a 2-1 margin 
for a second term as chairman. One of his cousins, Vernon Wright, also was 
elected to the governing council. 

Gover's Jan. 3 letter says the bureau overstepped its bounds in this case and 
should "cease and desist" any further proceedings. He said the tribe should 
decide its membership. 

Currier said, however, that some damage can't be undone. He said his 
leadership has been undermined, he's been ridiculed in American Indian 
circles and his safety has been threatened. 

Virgil Townsend, the American Indian agency's Southern California 
superintendent, said his office acted in good faith to try to resolve the 
conflict fairly. 

"We don't have a vested interest in this matter," he said. "We're not paid 
for deciding one way or another." 

Others at Rincon are angered by the outcome. 

"We are being run by a government that does not have enough blood to be 
enrolled in our tribe," said former Chairman Ed Arviso, who lost to Currier 
in the past two elections. "I'll just ignore them." 

Patty Duro, an elder who was on the enrollment committee that revived the 
status challenge, said she disagrees with the bureau decision but isn't 
bitter. 

"This is a bump in the road, and we'll get over it," she said. 

Duro and Arviso said the larger issue is that blood requirements intended to 
preserve tribes are a double-edged sword. Unless members marry other members, 
each generation has only half the fractional quotient of the one before. 

Currier said arguments over the fractions miss the point. 

"I've known I was American Indian since I was a little kid," he said. "I'm 
also Italian, German and French, and I'm proud of it all. . . . My identity 
is who I am as a person, my integrity, my honorableness. 

"It doesn't matter what the bureau has done. I was an Indian before, and I 
was going to be one after." 

- - - - - -

Three sides debate North Slope drilling

Meeting marks beginning of debate on oilfield expansion 

New York Times 
January 10, 2001 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Oil companies, conservation groups and Indian communities 
squared off before a panel of scientists here over two days this week, 
presenting clashing visions of the impact of expanding oil and gas drilling 
on the country's Arctic frontier -- Alaska's North Slope.

Industry experts said that new technologies for efficiently finding and 
drilling for oil have sharply reduced pollution and other environmental 
problems and that their studies show wildlife generally is not harmed by the 
work.

But scientists from conservation groups said the expansion of the oil fields 
would irrevocably mar one of the country's wildest, and most fragile, 
landscapes. And leaders for Eskimo communities said that although they 
benefited from the oil industry, development was leaving deep scars on their 
culture.

Both sides agreed, however, that momentum has never been more strongly on the 
side of the oil companies.

With the meeting, the panel, convened by the National Research Council at the 
behest of Congress, began an 18-month study of the effects of the maze of oil 
fields, pipelines, roads and causeways that has unfurled from Prudhoe Bay, 
the site of a large oil find 32 years ago, on the environment, landscape and 
residents.

The study is likely to influence debate over the proposed expansion of oil 
drilling into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which lies to the east of 
Prudhoe Bay and is thought to sit atop significant oil reserves.

The contrasting views presented before the panel frame what is likely to be 
President-elect George W. Bush's first environmental battle.

Bush said in his campaign that a cornerstone of his energy policy would be to 
open the coastal plain of the refuge to drilling, which was also a goal of 
his father's administration. The Prudhoe oil fields are dwindling and oil 
companies have been eager to move east into the refuge and west into other 
federal lands.

But environmental groups say they will fight hard to keep oil rigs out of the 
refuge, which has often been described as an American Serengeti because of 
its grand vistas and masses of migrating caribou and other wildlife.

Oil industry representatives said they are convinced that Republicans in 
Congress, riding a wave of worries about energy shortages and spurred by an 
oil-friendly president, would be able to garner sufficient votes to authorize 
drilling in the reserve. 

- - - - - -

First Native American Bank Launched

By REUTERS
January 10, 2001 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Native Nations Securities, a New York-based 
broker-dealer, became the first full service Native American-owned investment 
bank after purchasing fixed-income house Freeman Securities, the company said 
on Wednesday.

Native Nations was formed to serve the American Indian community, which 
before now, ``was underserved by large investment banks who generally only 
wanted to get in on larger gaming deals,'' CEO Paul Savage said in a 
telephone interview.

Chairman Valerie Red-Horse said the purchase was part of, ''our efforts to 
give all the tribes in this country a voice on Wall Street.''

With the purchase of Jersey City, N.J.-based Freeman, the bank will add a 
full range of fixed-income banking capabilities for customers on top of an 
existing wholesale equities brokerage, Savage said.

Not only does the firm want to lead manage smaller deals, but also join 
syndicates on larger securitizations, Savage said.

Native Nations wants to increase its banking with American Indian 
institutions, predominately tribes, and will add corporate finance, venture 
capital, municipal finance, asset management and trading to its roster of 
offerings.

Another focus of the firm is training American Indians in the ways of Wall 
Street, but it is having trouble convincing potential candidates to move to 
New York. Currently 10 percent of the staff is American Indian.

Red-Horse, a Cherokee, started the firm in February 1999, using Wall Street 
connections developed from a previous job with Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Native Nations' first round of financing as a newly merged entity will be a 
private placement that will only be pitched to tribal entities and accredited 
investors who are American Indians, Savage said.

The addition of Freeman Securities, established in 1905, will bring municipal 
and corporate finance, asset securitization, high-grade and high-yield 
corporate sales and trading, research, mortgage-backed sales and trading, 
clearing and custody services, securities lending and asset management to 
Native Nations.

- - - - - -

High Court Considers Tribes' Privacy Rights

BY BART JANSEN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 11, 2001 

WASHINGTON -- Indian tribes asked the Supreme Court Wednesday to protect 
confidentiality of their correspondence with federal agencies in a water 
dispute, but several Supreme Court justices suggested the tribes want a new 
exemption to disclosure laws. 
The case hinges on whether the Department of the Interior must disclose 
all records it gets from tribes, even when acting as trustee to protect their 
reservations and natural resources. 
The Klamath Water Users Protective Association in California is fighting 
to get records that four tribes -- Klamath, Hoopa Valley, Kurak and Yurok -- 
shared with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said what troubled her was that Indians could 
get correspondence between irrigation farmers and the federal government, 
while tribes could keep their own similar records secret. 
"It looks like it's not evenhanded," she said. 
Chief Justice William Rehnquist noted that Congress in 1976 considered 
and rejected a proposal to exempt tribes from Freedom of Information Act 
disclosures about documents exchanged with federal agencies. 
Under questioning from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a government lawyer 
conceded that the law doesn't explicitly protect tribal letters from 
disclosure. 
But Malcolm Stewart, assistant to the solicitor general, argued that 
tribes deserved confidentiality because of the special relationship tribes 
enjoy with the government as their trustee. 
The decision in the case, expected by June, could ripple across the 
country. The federal government protects tribal resources on 54 million acres 
of reservations held in trust. 
More than 100 tribes from the Rio Grande River to the Canadian border 
joined the Klamath case. They compare the records to confidential documents 
shared between a client and lawyer, and worry outsiders will gain an 
advantage over them if federal officials disclose the information. 
But irrigators, joined by several news organizations, contend the public 
has a right to know how the government is handling water cases crucial in the 
West for balancing development and farming against fish conservation. 
The case pits irrigation farmers who rely on water from Upper Klamath 
Lake against Indian tribes interested in keeping water flowing in the Klamath 
River 200 miles to the Pacific Ocean. Endangered sucker fish live in the lake 
and threatened coho salmon swim in the river. 
In 1996, the irrigation group, covering 200,000 acres in southern Oregon 
and northern California, filed an FOIA request for documents between the 
tribes and BIA about the Klamath project and an Oregon state groundwater 
adjudication. 
BIA released some documents, but withheld seven letters totaling 31 
pages. A federal judge ruled the agency didn't have to release the records; 
the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed that ruling 
in August. 
Federal lawyers, joined by the National Congress of American Indians, 
argued that releasing the documents would in essence violate the 
attorney-client privilege because federal agencies are obligated to protect 
reservation land, water and other natural resources. 
Justice Stephen Breyer wondered aloud how to protect tribes without 
tampering with the disclosure law. 

- - - - - -

Reserve with no Indians being taken to court by band councillor 

SCOTT EDMONDS
c. CP
11 January 2001 

WINNIPEG (CP) - The courts are being asked to open the books on a Manitoba 
Indian reserve which some band members allege has become the private business 
of a white chief and his family. 

They say few real Indians even live on the Buffalo Point First Nation in the 
extreme southeastern corner of Manitoba. "This is just a huge embarrassment 
for Indian Affairs and the Canadian government," Henry Boucha of Warroad, 
Minn., said Wednesday. 

He's one of the estranged band members seeking to regain control of land they 
say has been appropriated by the extended family of Jim Thunder (born James 
Conover). The family is all white despite their recognition as status Indians 
by Indian Affairs. Thunder was raised on the reserve. 

His son John is the current chief - a title his father passed on without any 
election. Thunder could not be reached for comment Wednesday. 

Boucha says only a handful of real Indians live on the reserve. The rest of 
the residents are either Thunder's family or white cottagers who lease land 
there. 

It appeared last year that the long-standing feud between the Thunders and 
estranged band members - many living in the United States - might be settled. 

A deal was brokered with the involvement of Indian Affairs that was to lead 
to the first band elections in half a century. 

But that has fallen apart, Boucha said. 

"We haven't got anywhere. John Thunder basically backed out of that deal. 
There have been no meetings between the band members and the Thunders 
regarding any election." 

So now, Robert Kakaygeesick, is going to court. He's a band councillor who 
isn't related to the Thunders and who they've made a director and shareholder 
of their development corporation. 

Buffalo Point Development Corporation Ltd. is believed to control most of the 
money that flows through the reserve. 

"Robert's been director and shareholder of this corporation since 1997. 
However, he has never received any minutes of any meeting, never received any 
financial disclosure from the corporation," said lawyer Norman Boudreau. 

"Basically he doesn't know what's going on with this corporation." 

The lawyer wants the courts to do several things: open the books, order 
compensation for Kakaygeesick, freeze the assets of the corporation and 
replace both Thunder and his father Jim with new directors. They are the only 
other directors listed. 

"Obviously it's related to the governance (issue) because it is our belief 
that a good chunk of the money goes through this corporation," Boudreau said. 

Boucha said Indian Affairs has forced the band into court. 

"They say it's an internal problem. They want to force us into court. They 
want the courts to decide." 

No one at Indian Affairs in Winnipeg was available for comment. 

Buffalo Point sits on Buffalo Bay, Manitoba's only direct access to Lake of 
the Woods. The lake is prime cottage country in northwestern Ontario. 

Buffalo Point sports its own resort and 300-berth marina where expensive 
pleasure craft dock for the summer. 

It was also touted as a site for one of the aboriginal casino licences the 
province handed out last year although it didn't make the final cut. 

Streets have names like Kiowa Place and Arapaho Bay, but the majority of 
residents, at least in the summer, are the white owners of hundreds of 
cottages. 

In addition to revenue from the cottage development and marina, taxpayers 
provide more than $600,000 a year through Indian Affairs to provide services 
on the reserve. Boucha said it's more like $850,000. 

"I think this is going to open up a big can of worms." 

----------------------------------------------------
Caddo museum to open 

By Ron Jackson
The Oklahoman
01/12/2001 

BINGER — Wilson Daingkau’s job title has changed at least twice since being 
hired last week to oversee the Caddo Nation’s new tribal museum. What hasn’t 
changed is Daingkau’s passion for art or the museum’s potential. 

“The Caddo people don’t have a clue what they’ve got here,” Daingkau said. 
“If you stop and think about it for a minute, they’ve got a monopoly on what 
they own. Every tribal nation does if they would wake up. 

“No one else can show what the Caddo people have here. Just look at the Caddo 
pottery. Each piece tells a history. You can see how it was made, and if you 
look closely, even see the fingerprints of their ancestors.” 

Ancient treasures such as the Caddos’ signature pottery will be showcased 
Saturday at the museum’s grand opening. Doors open to the public at 10 a.m., 
and once inside, visitors will experience the ever-expanding artwork of the 
Caddo Nation. 

Daingkau, whose latest job title is collections manager, thinks it will only 
take one glance for onlookers to be hooked. 

The grand opening is being promoted as a world-class art show — one that will 
feature Caddo Nation art and artisans from various disciplines. Seven 
original paintings from the late T.C. Cannon are scheduled for display, in 
addition to contemporary artworks from up-and-coming Caddo visionaries. 

Cannon’s paintings have been temporarily loaned to the museum from private 
collections. 

Riding on the success of the show might be the survival of the museum. 
Organizers hope the show’s success will be the catalyst for a large 
membership drive so a foundation for private donations can be formed. 

“I’m feeling a lot of pressure,” Daingkau said. “But I’m convinced people 
will be blown away.” 

Daingkau said he plans to run the museum primarily on private donations. He 
envisions the museum’s being the tribe’s hub for learning and art, complete 
with a new library and educational facility for after-school programs. 

Resident artists, symposiums, lectures, shows, featured artists, and a 
rotating art series are all part of Daingkau’s vision. 

At the core of these plans are the Caddo artists themselves. 

The Caddo’s artistic talent pool is deep, Daingkau said. They include 
Anahwake Nahtanaba, a painter who lives in Tulsa, jeweler Merle Keyes of 
Lawton, potter Geraldine Red Corn of Norman and painter Charlie Arnold of 
Binger. 

“Arnold is a very promising student,” Daingkau said. “He’s being recruited 
everywhere. And he’s going to go somewhere with his art if he chooses. He’s 
that good. 

“I’m very proud to be here.” 

No matter what job title he wears. 

Getting there 
Take Interstate 40 to U.S. 281 and turn south, then continue through Hinton 
and Lookeba. Take State Highway 152 east, and then turn right onto U.S. 281 
again. The Caddo Nation tribal complex and museum is on the corner on the 
east side of the road. For more information call (580) 656-2244. 

- - - - - -

A history of America's first treaty, with the Iroquois Confederacy.
January 7, 2001
Wampum Belt 

First Chapter: 'Treaty of Canadaigua 1794' 

By FRED ANDERSON

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
TREATY OF CANANDAIGUA 1794 
200 Years of Treaty Relations Between the Iroquois Confederacy and the United 
States.
Edited by G. Peter Jemison and Anna M. Schein.
Illustrated. 333 pp. Santa Fe, N.M.:
Clear Light Publishers. Paper, $14.95.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--

Indian land-claims cases in the federal courts typically generate substantial 
news coverage but little real understanding. Everybody knows that native 
peoples were dispossessed of lands by means that included coercion, violence, 
theft and fraud. And no one doubts that when courts order millions of dollars 
paid to Indian tribes, they compensate the descendants of Indians long dead 
for the misdeeds of equally long-dead whites. But many Americans find that 
curious. Slavery, after all, was also wrong, yet courts haven't ordered that 
African-Americans be compensated for their ancestors' sufferings. 

The legal reason is simple enough. Long ago, the United States government 
dealt with Indian nations not as wards but as equals, maintaining diplomatic 
relations with them by treaty agreements. Since treaties represent contracts 
between nations, modern tribes presumably retain the right to insist that the 
government perform its obligations, or pay damages if it does not. The larger 
context to this straightforward legal relationship is, however, much more 
complicated. 

Anyone interested in the legal and historical issues at stake in current 
Indian land-claims cases would do well to start with ''Treaty of Canandaigua 
1794,'' edited by G. Peter Jemison and Anna M. Schein. (Jemison is a Heron 
clan member of the Seneca Nation and the manager of Ganondagan State Historic 
Site; Schein is the university librarian of the West Virginia University 
libraries.) Reading their book takes perseverance, though, for this is not a 
conventional history but an assemblage of ceremonial recitations, speeches, 
photographs, scholarly essays and 18th-century documents, all of which 
emerged from a bicentennial commemoration of the Treaty of Canandaigua, on 
Nov. 11-12, 1994. In place of a narrative, this volume offers a mosaic of 
tradition, religion, scholarship, polemic, law and history that tends to 
dissolve conventional distinctions between past and present and invites 
readers to contemplate what Indian treaties mean. 

The 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua was the first diplomatic agreement executed by 
the United States under its new Constitution. It was by no means the first 
treaty negotiated by the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois League, an ancient 
confederacy of six nations (the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, Mohawks 
and Tuscaroras). Iroquois spokesmen at Canandaigua were more experienced 
negotiators than the United States' envoy, Secretary of War Timothy 
Pickering, and the heirs of a far richer diplomatic tradition. Two centuries 
earlier, their ancestors had negotiated a treaty with the Dutch, recording 
its provisions in the Guswenta, or Two Row Wampum Belt. The principles 
embodied in that sacred object created the basis of subsequent Iroquois 
relations with Dutch, French, British and American colonizers. 

The documents included in the appendix testify to the Iroquois's bargaining 
acumen. Unrepresented at the peace negotiations that ended the Revolutionary 
War in 1783, they found themselves, over the following decade, neglected by 
the British, pursued by American land speculators, invaded by squatters and 
besieged by the governments of New York and Pennsylvania. 

Yet at Canandaigua, Iroquois diplomats induced the United States to recognize 
the League's sovereignty over tribal territories, define the bounds of its 
landholdings in New York expansively, provide a $10,000 payment, promise 
annual delivery of $4,500 in trade goods as tokens of a perpetual alliance 
and affirm that only the federal government could negotiate for future land 
sales. In return the Haudenosaunee promised peace with the United States, 
surrendered all claims to land outside New York and agreed that American 
citizens could pass freely through their territories. In short, the League 
walked away with a terrific deal. 

Why did Pickering offer such terms? In part it was because the government 
needed Iroquois cooperation. Since the 1780's Indians farther west had 
thwarted American expansion militarily. Three years earlier, warriors of the 
Miami tribe under Little Turtle had handed the Army the worst defeat it would 
ever suffer at Indian hands, killing far more soldiers than would die a 
century later at the Little Bighorn. Meanwhile, Britain maintained forts in 
the United States' Northwest Territory; an armed taxpayers' revolt, the 
Whiskey Rebellion, was in progress in western Pennsylvania; foreign trade was 
suffering severely at the hands of the British and the Spanish; and the 
treasury was sliding headlong into insolvency. 

But weakness alone does not explain the treaty. Washington and his fellow 
Federalists, who essentially conceived of themselves as a ruling class, 
believed that the national government could -- and should -- protect 
minorities' rights. Most important, they were willing to stipulate the 
sovereignty of native peoples, and deal with them as honorably as they would 
any foreign power. 

In the two centuries following the Canandaigua treaty, the Indian policy of 
the federal government changed dramatically. The willingness to negotiate 
with native groups as diplomatic equals waned, and was finally ended by 
Congressional action in 1871. Although the United States still delivers cloth 
worth $4,500 annually to the Iroquois, courts and presidents have never paid 
significant attention to protecting Iroquois lands from encroachments. As a 
consequence, the Haudenosaunee have lost most of their lands to fraud and 
irregular sales. 

This book presents a brief for the Iroquois understanding of their 
confederacy as a sovereign nation, not a ward of the United States. The 
Haudenosaunee maintain this position by refusing American citizenship, 
insisting on self-government according to traditional forms and issuing their 
own passports. Above all, they cling to the Canandaigua treaty. 

The academic essays in this volume make plausible arguments for the 
continuing legal validity of the agreement. But in the end it is the faith -- 
invoked in the speeches of the confederacy's chiefs -- that the treaty 
represents a moral obligation as real today as it was two centuries ago that 
carries the greatest weight. Will the United States fulfill its promises and 
make reparations for its failure to abide by the terms of the treaty? Time, 
and the courts, will tell. Meanwhile, the Haudenosaunee wait. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
Fred Anderson is the author of ''Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and 
the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766.'' 

- - - - - -

THE CITY IN THE JUNGLE

Adventurous Travelers Find Drama and Mystery at Tikal 

Trish Hahn
Discovering Archaeology
5 Jan. 2001

Combining a lush tropical jungle with magnificent ancient ruins creates a 
magical mix for the adventurous traveler. And Tikal offers an abundance of 
both. Hidden in the lowland jungles of northern Guatemala, the 15 square 
kilometers (6 square miles) that comprise central Tikal contain more than 
3,000 structures — grand temples, palaces, shrines, ceremonial platforms, 
homes, ball courts, terraces, causeways, plazas of all sizes, even a facility 
for ritual sweat-baths. Some 200 carved-stone stelae and altars dot this 
once-great city, in which the Maya civilization flourished for centuries in 
the first millennium A.D. 

The ancient city, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Guatemala's 
border with Belize, is in the heart of the Tikal National Park wildlife 
preserve, which sprawls across 575 square kilometers (222 square miles) of 
exotic jungle bursting with an incredible variety of flora and fauna. 

My daughter and I had just spent a glorious week on one of the cays of the 
Caribbean Sea when we decided to travel west and sample other areas of this 
beautiful country. We crossed Belize, with its friendly people, farmlands, 
mellow traffic, and lush countryside richly decorated with tropical flowers. 
Once in Belize, passing on the opportunity to continue into Guatemala and 
explore Tikal would have been unthinkable. I knew my daughter's first 
experience with the majestic ruins would create memories to last a lifetime. 

Once we were settled into a charming 900-acre ranch with thatched-roof 
cabanas alongside the beautiful Mopan River in Belize, we prepared for our 
visit to the ancient ruins. We arranged for Guatemalan drivers to meet us at 
the border and off we went. The drivers offered us tiny squares of Chiclets 
chewing gum, which takes its name from chickle, a sap that comes from the 
sapodilla tree, or zapote, and is the base of chewing gum. The wood from the 
zapote tree was used in the lintels across doorways in many of Tikal's 
buildings. 

We decided to wander the old city without a guide, reading the signs and 
following directions. On our next visit, however, we'll hire one of the 
park's guides who offer information and history on every facet of the ruins. 
A 1.6-kilometer (one-mile) walking trail leads to the Great Plaza, with its 
magnificent Temples I and II rising on opposite sides. 

The aptly named Great Plaza covers about one hectare (2.5 acres) and consists 
of four floors of plaster, one placed atop the other at various times in 
Tikal's 850-year history. The plaza hints at the lives of the Maya when their 
civilization was at its apex. Standing here, you can visualize where they 
slept, where they worshipped, where they held ceremonies, where they ate, and 
where they played their celebrated ball games. The earliest plaza floor was 
laid down around 150 B.C.; the last came about A.D. 700. 

Tikal is famed for its superbly carved wooden lintels. The beams and lintels 
in Temple I are made of zapote, an exceptionally hard and durable 
reddish-brown wood. 

Temple I, known as the Temple of the Giant Jaguar after a motif on one of its 
carved lintels, follows traditional Maya temple construction: a heavily 
terraced, pyramidal substructure, with complicated insets and changes in the 
levels of the moldings that decorate each terrace. 

It also includes a building platform at the top, on which the building itself 
rests. This temple building comprises two obvious parts: a higher and 
narrower portion to the rear, separated from the lower front portion by 
narrow indentations, as if two different houses had been joined together. 

The stairs on Temple I are no longer suitable for climbing, but standing on 
the ground gazing at its impressive height, charted by those impossibly steep 
steps, leaves you wondering how so massive a network of buildings could have 
been accomplished. It's difficult to imagine men dragging, hauling, and 
lifting those huge blocks of stone. And it was accomplished with only stone 
tools. 

Climbing to the top of Temple II, known as the Temple of the Masks after its 
richly embellished facade, offers a breathtaking view of the Great Plaza 38 
meters (125 feet) below. We see the many stelae and altars arranged on the 
Great Plaza in two rows. No other site matches Tikal for the depth, height, 
and intricacy of its structures. 

Of course, after climbing the pyramid, our lungs are bursting and our legs 
feel like jelly. It's time to change directions, so down we go. Under the 
shelter of a thatched roof, we are greeted by a huge mask carved into the 
stone wall of a small room. It's hard to believe this well-preserved mask is 
at least 15 centuries old. An adjacent room reveals a whole wall of masks. A 
bit later, while examining the carvings on an upright stelae, we are visited 
by a coatimundi looking for food. Park guides strongly advise against feeding 
the cute little animals, as they can become aggressive in seeking handouts. 

The ruins go on and on, with surprises at almost every turn. Walking along a 
path, we see several gigantic mounds. We can only guess what lies beneath. 
Trees and twisting jungle plants seem determined to hide the fact that 
underneath these mounds lie unknown structures waiting to be excavated and 
explored. 

At Temple IV, the path leads to literally hundreds of wooden stairs that seem 
to climb right to the heavens. Though the stairs continually twist, turn, and 
straighten, they point always upward. 

After a long and tiring climb, the upper set of stairs of Temple IV looms 
before us. It is 65 meters (212 feet) to the top. We paused in our climb to 
turn around and sit for awhile. We could see in the far distance the tops of 
Temples I and II in the Great Plaza, and Temple III, which stands 55 meters 
(180 feet) high. The jungle's canopy, more than 50 meters (165 feet) high, is 
itself a powerful presence, and it seems amplified from this vantage point.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Indian leaders see hope in Bush presidency 

By LINDA ASHTON 
Associated Press 
1/13/2001

YAKIMA, Wash. - When President Clinton took office, he invited the country's 
tribal leaders to meet with him on the south lawn of the White House as 
fellow heads of state. 

"That was the first time that ever occurred as far as I know," recalls 
Colleen Cawston, chairwoman of the Colville Tribal Business Council in 
northeastern Washington. 

When it comes to respect and access, President-elect Bush may have a tough 
act to follow. Cawston hopes he will continue to develop the good working 
relationship forged with the tribes. 

During the campaign, there were reports Bush favored state control of tribal 
affairs, said John Echohawk, director of the Native American Rights Fund in 
Boulder, Colo. 

"That was of great concern to tribal leaders across the country," he said. 

Since then, Bush has indicated support for tribal sovereignty, Echohawk said. 

"At this point, it's a question of whether the president-elect is going to 
follow through on those things," he said. 

Northwest tribes are also looking at Bush and his Cabinet nominees for signs 
of future policy on issues such as fish, water, management of public lands 
and management of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. 

"He has a history of promoting states' rights and local control," said 
Charles Hudson, a spokesman for the Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish 
Commission in Portland, Ore. "To the tribes, we see that as a potential for 
good things to happen regionally because we have seen recent alignment in 
tribal and state goals for salmon recovery. 

"A Bush administration would do well to allow that to flourish." 

Cawston would like the Bush administration to boost budgets of agencies that 
directly affect tribes - the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health 
Service. And Hudson would like to see more money invested in public land and 
water acquisition. 

"We hope somebody will put natural resources back on the national agenda with 
regard to tribal issues. The BIA has been preoccupied with the trust and 
gaming issues over the last decade - unfortunately, at the expense of natural 
resource issues," he said. 

Cawston also was pleased Bush decided against nominating defeated Sen. Slade 
Gorton, R-Wash., to his Cabinet. Gorton had been mentioned as a possible 
choice for interior secretary. 

Indian opposition to Gorton dates back to the 1970s, when as Washington state 
attorney general he squared off against tribes in several court cases. In the 
Senate, Gorton has been unpopular with Indians for efforts to restructure the 
federal funding system for tribes and for his support of legislation that 
would have allowed tribal governments to be sued. 

An Interior appointment had been particularly worrisome, Cawston said, 
because the federal agency has oversight for public lands and the BIA. 

Still, Hudson's not sure what to make of the Bush Cabinet nominees, from Gale 
Norton as interior secretary to Tommy Thompson as head of Health and Human 
Services to Spencer Abraham as secretary of energy. 

"He's putting together a Cabinet that on paper looks like a murderer's row 
against sustainability and sovereignty protection," Hudson said. 

Cawston said she has yet to make up her mind about Norton, a former state 
attorney general from Colorado. But Hudson said he's a little apprehensive 
about Norton, who has been described as a protege of Ronald Reagan's 
controversial, pro-development interior secretary, James Watt. 

"She has the potential to revive the Watt legacy," Hudson said. 

The nomination of Thompson and Abraham also could be causes for concern, he 
said. 

"Tommy Thompson has led a full scale war against tribal sovereignty during 
his tenure as governor of Wisconsin," Hudson said. 

"When we talk about salmon in the West, we talk about the Department of 
Energy and the Bonneville Power Administration. Spencer Abraham is a one-term 
senator that was bounced largely because of his anti-environmental record in 
Michigan." 

Bush would do well to have an Indian "desk," as Clinton did, that provided 
tribal leaders with direct access to Cabinet members, Cawston said. Federal 
agencies under Clinton also suggested policies and then asked for tribal 
contributions. 

"We were not being told, 'This is the policy you will live with,' Cawston 
said. "They said, 'This is the proposed policy. Give us your feedback.' " 

- - - - - -

Training to help work with tribes

Spokesman-Review
January 12, 2001 

Local, state and federal government employees are being offered training 
designed to help them work better with American Indian tribes in Washington 
state.

The sessions are offered by the governor's Office of Indian Affairs.

Two day-long sessions will be held 8:30 a.m to 4:30 p.m. January 18 and 19 in 
the Department of Social and Health Services, Division of Child Support 
second floor training room in Spokane.

The training covers tribal culture, history, tribal sovereignty and tribal 
government structure. Gordon James, a trainer and former chairman of the 
Skokomish Tribe, will conduct the sessions.

Cost is $75 per person. To register call (360) 753-2411. 

- - - - - -

Quanah Parker house center of ghost town 

By Ron Jackson
The Oklahoman
1/13/2001

CACHE — Weeds twist and choke a rusted roller coaster called the “Little 
Dipper.” Signs for amusement rides are faded and nearly unrecognizable. 
Windows from several of the 22 historic buildings transplanted there years 
ago are broken. And boards from some of the faded buildings — a few built in 
the late 19th century — dangle in the cool Comanche County wind. 
Former Eagle Park owner Herbert Woesner said he always wanted a historic 
ghost town. 

Now he’s got one, and its deteriorating condition has some outside Woesner’s 
family concerned. 

This wasn’t how the Lawton native envisioned things. 

“Yeah, this makes me sad,” said Woesner, 75. “I would like to have the 
so-called ghost town opened again to the public on a daily basis, but things 
have kind of been put on hold the past two years.” 

Woesner paused, then said, “We’ve just got too much government intervention. 
It’s gotten to the point where you can’t afford to do anything. You have to 
be bigger than the government.” 

Woesner still harbors bitter feelings over the park’s closure 15 years ago. 
He blames Washington bureaucracy, former President Carter and skyrocketing 
insurance that sent his annual rates from $5,000 to $55,000 in four years. 

Now, after years of hard work, his comeback hopes appear as battered as the 
aging knees that prevent his doing any serious maintenance work. 

“I’ve worried and worried about all this stuff for a long time,” he said. 
“We have, so far, done everything on our own. We purchased buildings with our 
own money. We moved them on our own. We maintained them on our own. 

“We’ve never received no grants, no funds, no nothing. We’ve done everything 
ourselves.” 

The ghost town’s showpiece is the 1884 home of Quanah Parker, the Comanche 
Nation’s celebrated last chief. The home, on the National Historic Register, 
was built by cattle barons who leased Comanche land for grazing. It was 
dubbed the Star House for the stars painted on the roof. 

In 1958, the house was moved roughly three miles to its present location, 
when Woesner purchased it from Parker’s granddaughter, Anoa Birdsong 
Wilkenson. The expansion of Fort Sill’s firing range had threatened to 
destroy the home, since it encompassed Parker’s original homestead property 
along West Cache Creek. 

“Ms. Wilkenson said, ‘We want you to have the house,’” Woesner recalled. 
“She said, ‘If you don’t save it, no one else will.’ So we made a deal.” 

Woesner has since had the roof replaced but little else. 

A musky odor permeates the Parker home as the wind passes through the 
two-story structure through holes in the floor and doorways. Original 
wallpaper clings to cracked walls, and the wooden floors creak from years of 
neglect. 

Much of Parker’s now-antique furniture remains just as it did when he died 
there in 1911 from pneumonia. 

Woesner keeps the house padlocked to discourage vandals and opens it only by 
appointment. Still, the home receives heavy tourist traffic. This winter, 
Woesner’s guest register shows visitors from Germany, Canada, Kentucky, 
Oregon, California, Kansas, Texas, New Jersey and Nevada. 

Woesner insists the house is in good shape. 

“It has a new roof on it. Sure, it isn’t new. I don’t want it to look new. 

“I’ve had literally hundreds of offers to buy the house. One even from 
Lubbock, Texas, if you can imagine that. But I won’t sell,” he said. 

Woesner vows instead to keep the house in family hands — at the center of his 
ghost town. 

Those outside Woesner’s family fear what will become of the home. 

“The last time I saw the house was two years ago,” said Sue Jones, a former 
member of the Oklahoma Historical Society. “It was just heartbreaking to see 
how it’s deteriorating.” 

Ten years ago Jones was involved in an effort to purchase and preserve the 
home. Jones wanted to see Parker’s home stand along U.S. 62 between Lawton 
and Altus, a 50-mile stretch of road known as the Quanah Parker Trailway. 

Woesner refused to sell. 

“I don’t think he’ll ever sell it,” Jones said. “But I could be wrong. 
Posterity should at some point come into play. We’re not going to live 
forever. And in all fairness to the public, the home should be preserved. 

“Having said all that, I respect Mr. Woesner’s rights as a private owner, 
and I would never be part of anything that would take that away. And we must 
not forget, if it weren’t for Herb Woesner, the Star House probably wouldn’t 
exist today.” 

Others wonder if he can do it again. 

“There is very definitely an historical significance to the house,” said 
Aulena Gibson, an Oklahoma Historical Society board member who lives in 
nearby Lawton. “I would like to see it preserved, and it’s been my 
understanding there have been several efforts to purchase the home for that 
purpose. But it’s under private ownership, and there’s nothing the Oklahoma 
Historical Society can do about it.” 

- - - - - -

Agencies to update tribe on mine cleanup

Assessment of possible health risks due for release in summer 

Karen Dorn Steele 
Spokesman-Review
January 10, 2001 

Spokane - Two federal agencies return to the Spokane Indian Reservation 
Thursday to provide an update on cleaning up the Midnite Mine, a source of 
uranium ore that helped fuel the Cold War.

The defunct open-pit mine operated between 1954 and 1981 and is now listed as 
a Superfund site.

Eight chemicals and five radioactive substances, including uranium, have 
leaked from the mine into three drainages to the south, according to a 1999 
study conducted for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

An Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry draft study of potential 
health risks to the public from the pollution will be ready for public review 
this summer, said Ric Robinson, ATSDR regional representative in Seattle.

"In the health assessment, we'll look at everything," including risks to 
tribal members, hunters, campers and downstream residents, Robinson said.

Meanwhile, the EPA has been collecting additional pollution data around the 
Midnite Mine for an ecological risk assessment, said Elly Hale, EPA project 
manager in Seattle.

Field work for the study started in 1999 and concluded last fall. The EPA is 
awaiting lab results from the fall work, Hale said.

EPA, working with the Spokane Tribe's consultants, will evaluate the risks to 
human health and the environment from the 811-acre mine.

Estimates of the Superfund cleanup tab range from $40 million to $160 
million, but could go higher. The actual cost won't be determined until at 
least 2002, when the EPA's feasibility study is finished, Hale said.

Thursday's public meeting is from 2 to 4 p.m. at the tribal Longhouse at 
Wellpinit.

- - - - - -

Davis Inlet Innu deny asking for sexual abuse immunity 

c. CP
Jan 12, 2001 

ST. JOHN'S - Davis Inlet's Innu chief denied a published report that Innu 
leaders asked for immunity from sexual abuse charges should the accusations 
be made by the children being treated for gas-sniffing. 

The St. John's Telegram quotes a child welfare official who said the Innu 
made the request as part of the deal allowing the children to get treatment. 

But in an interview with CBC Newsworld, Chief Simeon Tshakapesh vehemently 
denied that such a request was made. 

"No, no, nobody ever made that request to the government," said Tshakapesh. 
He said he has no idea where the story would come from. 

"Whoever is making these statements should come forward to the band council," 
he said. 
---------------------------------------------------