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1920s Silent Film, Native American Cast Get Due Decades Late

By David Warren, The Associated Press

A long-lost silent film admired by historians as a rare visual account of Native American customs is being released after a private detective in North Carolina stumbled across a damaged copy.

“The Daughter of Dawn” — first screened in Los Angeles in 1920 — features a large cast of Comanche and Kiowa people and shows scenes of buffalo hunting and ceremonial dances obscured by time. The copy, discovered more than a decade ago, has been restored and was screened in Texas this week, ahead of its commercial release later this year.

“We were just so stunned that it existed,” said Jeff Moore, a project director for the Oklahoma Historical Society, which purchased reels of the film from the detective in 2007.

The delicate restoration work took years, and an orchestral score was completed in 2012. A year later the Library of Congress added the movie to its National Film Registry, describing the work as “a fascinating example of the daringly unexpected topics and scope showcased by the best regional, independent filmmaking during the silent era. …”

The same year the movie was first screened, it survived a fire that destroyed the Dallas warehouse where the small Texas Film Co., which produced “The Daughter of Dawn, stored most of its work.

Somehow, a copy ended up in the care of a North Carolina resident, who offered five nitrate celluloid reels to the private detective as payment in an unrelated matter, Milestone Film owner Dennis Doros said.

The detective then sold the reels of the movie — shot in the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma — to the Oklahoma Historical Society for more than $5,000 before Milestone was recruited as the distributor. The historical society retains ownership of the original nitrate film, which is being stored at the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Los Angeles.

“It’s a really compelling story for film restoration,” Doros said. “There’s still hope for lost films. How many times do you get to premiere a film 95 years after its production?”

An initial screening of the 87-minute, black-and-white film was held this week at an Amarillo library.

“The village scenes, the hunting scenes all look very accurate,” Michael Grauer with the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum told the Amarillo Globe-News. “It’s a little bit Hollywood-ed up. … But the fact that they used native actors was groundbreaking, really quite astonishing.”

Two of the approximately 300 Comanche and Kiowa people in the film, which portrays a fictional love story that also serves as a record of Native-American traditions, are children of legendary Comanche chief Quanah Parker, whose exploits were widely recounted on the frontier.

Author S.C. Gwynne, whose book “Empire of the Summer Moon” accounted the rise and fall of the Comanche, said during his research he came across only one film germane to the tribe, a two-reeler western from 1911 called “The Bank Robbery” in which Parker had a role.

“I would think that a film featuring only Native Americans would possibly be unique,” he said. “Who at that time only made a film featuring Native Americans? That, to me, is something of great rarity.”

Moore said the Oklahoma Historical Society had known about the film because years ago it had obtained the works of a photographer who was on the movie set, but it was thought the film was lost.

“This is so visually interesting and it is very much an Oklahoma story because you have two of the premier tribes in the state, and then you have the horse culture,” he said. “It’s so indicative of the southern plains.”

Bryan Vizzini, an associate professor of history at West Texas A&M University, said “The Daughter of Dawn” was a striking departure from the racial stereotypes found in films from that time, such as D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation.”

“And here’s this small independent film company that gets it right,” Vizzini said. “It’s a very un-Hollywood kind of experience.”

The film will be released on DVD and Blue-ray, and made available through online outlets.

15th Annual Indian Market & Powwow

By Lynne Valencia, KUSA-TV

KUSA – Tesoro’s annual Indian Market & Powwow features premier Native American artists from all over the country, primarily with roots in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.

The 15th annual Indian Market & Powwow is on Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17, 2015 on the grounds of The Fort at 19192 Highway 8 in Morrison.

The event runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and features American Indian art, cuisine, dance, music and hands-on educational activities for kids.

Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for students with a valid ID. Seniors, Tesoro members and children under 12 are free.

This year’s Indian Market & Powwow will feature the art of:

• Pahponee – Woodlands-style traditional and contemporary pottery

• Eddie Morrison – contemporary wood and stone sculptures

• Nelson Garcia – hand-designed and handmade jewelry

• Carol Snow – pen and ink, watercolor and oil paintings

• Lynn Burnette Sr. – watercolor, oil and acrylic paintings, bronze sculptures and more

New artists include Karen-Lyne Hill of the Onondaga Nation Snipe Clan, who is skilled in the traditional form of Iroquois raised bead work and Ronnie-Leigh Goeman. Goeman grew up on the Onondaga Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy located in Upstate New York. She began making baskets as a teenager and, as she grew older, many traditional Iroquois women taught her the importance of balancing old traditions with individuality.

Over 50 inter-tribal American Indian dancers and drum groups will share their heritage through traditional dance and regalia.

Alongside celebrations of art, dance and other cultural heritage, Tesoro’s Indian Market & Powwow honors outstanding American Indian Veterans each year. This year’s honoree is Bob Iron, Pawnee-Crow. Iron served in the United States Army, SP4, from 1968 to 1971 and is a Vietnam combat veteran. He is a treasured member of the Indian Market & Powwow family – his family drum group, Pawnee Spotted Horse, has performed at Indian Market & Powwow for many years. Iron will be honored for his service and sacrifice in a ceremony during Sunday’s festivities.

For more information: Tesoro Cultural Center

Eric Shepard named General Counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission

Source: National Indian Gaming Commission

WASHINGTON, April 29, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) Chairman Jonodev Chaudhuri announced Eric Shepard as the Commission’s General Counsel. Shepard has been acting General Counsel since September 2012. Shepard will continue to provide legal oversight, guidance and assistance to the Commission in carrying out its responsibilities under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

“I am grateful to Eric for his steadfast leadership as the acting General Counsel at a time of transition for the NIGC,” said Chaudhuri. “Eric has been a consistent source of counsel, legal insight, strategic thinking and collaborative spirit and he will continue to serve the NIGC well in the years ahead.”

Prior to joining the Office of General Counsel (OGC), Shepard was the Attorney General for the Colorado River Indian Tribes, for more than a decade. While in this position, he served as the chief legal officer and principal advisor to the Chairman and Tribal Council on litigation, federal and state legislative and regulatory affairs, land use and economic development proposals. Before serving the Colorado River Indian Tribes Shepard clerked for the Indian Country Environmental Justice Clinic and the Conservation Law Foundation, and served as a fellow at the Soros Open Society Institute in Bucharest, Romania.

“I am honored Chairman Chaudhuri has asked me to serve as the General Counsel of the NIGC,” said Shepard. “I look forward to continuing my work with the talented and committed attorneys and staff of the Office of General Counsel. I am committed to serving my client, the Commission, as well as maintaining and building relationships with tribes, tribal regulators, and the Indian gaming industry.”

The National Indian Gaming Commission is committed to the prompt and efficient regulation of the Indian gaming industry spanning more than 450 gaming establishments, associated with nearly 242 tribes across 28 states. The Commission’s dedication to compliance with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act ensures the integrity of the $28 billion Indian gaming industry. To learn more, visit www.nigc.gov and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The National Indian Gaming Commission is an independent regulatory agency established within the Department of the Interior pursuant to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988.

Colorado Senate weighs bill limiting Native American mascots

By The Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — Legislation to prohibit Native American mascots at Colorado schools unless a tribe approves faces its toughest test in the state Senate.

The proposal passed the House this month by one vote with every Republican opposed. Now it’s up for a vote in a GOP-led Senate committee on Wednesday.

The bill would direct schools to get permission from a panel of tribes to use or continue to use Native American mascots. Schools that don’t get permission would have to stop the use within two years or face a fine of $25,000 a month.

Schools and lawmakers opposed to the bill have cited the costs of switching mascots and updating uniforms as a major concern.

Supporters say the state should not condone derogatory team names at schools.

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Online:

House Bill 1165: http://bit.ly/1CfwQRo

Native Americans may lack access to health insurance in Montana

Report highlights the disparity in insurance access among Native communities

By S. Vagus, Live Insurance News

A new report from the Alliance for a Just Society, Indian People’s Action, and the Montana Organizing Project suggests that Native Americans may not have as much access to Montana’s health insurance exchange as they should. Approximately 6.5% of Montana’s population is comprised of Native Americans, with an estimated 1.7% of enrollees in the state’s health insurance exchange falling into this demographic. The report highlights barriers that exist in the state that may be preventing Native Americans from receiving medical care.

There are significant barriers blocking Native Americans from the coverage that they need

The report notes that access to insurance coverage does not guarantee quality medical care. According to the report, the delay in expanding the state’s Medicaid program has prevented many people from receiving the care that they need, as a significant portion of consumers cannot afford coverage offered through the state’s health insurance exchange. The report also notes that there has been a significant lack in outreach to Native American consumers, which means that these consumers are not being made aware of the services offered by the state’s insurance exchange.

Efforts are underway to improve access to health insurance

In the earliest days of the state’s insurance exchange, Native American organizations were not provided with grants from the federal government that would pay for insurance navigators. These navigators are meant to assist consumers in enrolling for health insurance coverage through a state exchange. The navigators also provide information concerning the provisions of the Affordable Care Act and can provide some insight on the availability of subsidies being offered by the federal government. Without navigators, Native communities were unable to access the information that these navigators were meant to provide. Now, however, certified application councilors are available to take on the role of navigators.

Expanded Medicaid system may be helpful

Montana is still planning to expand its Medicaid system, but this could take time. Implementing the expansion may ensure that more Native peoples have access to health insurance coverage, but outreach efforts will have to increase if the state wants to ensure that these people are even aware of the expansion. Without outreach, many Native consumers may not know that they are becoming eligible for health insurance through Medicaid.

One month after opening, UW Intellectual House forges community space

By Chetanya Robinson, The Daily of University of Washington

Ross Braine, tribal liaison and director of the Intellectual House, has been involved in trying to make the Intellectual House a reality since he was a student at the UW in 2007. Photo/ Chetanya Robinson

Almost a month to the day that the Intellectual House celebrated its grand opening, Ross Braine celebrated a quieter, but no less powerful victory.

On a day that coincided with the First Nations at UW’s annual powwow near Husky Stadium, Braine saw the Intellectual House being used as a gathering place. Students from Lummi Island and Crow powwow dancers met in the large meeting hall, while at the same time students cooked for Native elders in the Intellectual House’s kitchen.

The Intellectual House -— a modern, 8,400 square foot longhouse-style building — had become the gathering place the UW Native community had dreaming about for almost 40 years.

“That was an awesome day,” Braine said. “That’s what this building has already become, and what was needed for all these years.” But, he added, it was just one day out of many.

Braine has been involved in the Intellectual House project since he was an undergraduate in 2007. With two jobs now — director of the Intellectual House and UW tribal liaison — and working toward his masters in information management at the UW all simultaneously, Braine is busy. In the big picture, his job as director is to manage and grow the Intellectual House.

Even though it’s been open for a month, the Intellectual House still has a few finishing touches to go before it’s fully complete, Braine said.

“It seems like we could have used a little more time, because we’re still going through punch lists,” he said.

His punch list is full of needs like paint sanding, making sure the right locks are on the right doors, and ordering microphones. Despite the little challenges, the Intellectual House has been in demand for bookings. It gives priority to events with an indigenous focus, said administrative coordinator Casey Wynecoop.

The space has already been used for a variety of events. On April 16, UW Interim President Ana Mari Cauce spoke about racism and equality before an audience who packed the large hall. The space has been used by a campus alliance for minority students in STEM fields who showcased their research projects. Upcoming bookings include an event focused on indigenous food and ecological knowledge, and a camp for at-risk high school students from migrant families.

The Intellectual House will also host many graduations, said Wynecoop, including the first annual Raven’s Feast graduation appreciation for native students, held for the past 20 years at the Daybreak Star Cultural Center in Discovery Park. Now that the Intellectual House is open, Wynecoop said, it can be a focus for cultural events on campus.

The Intellectual House has provided a space that has brought the community closer together, said Andrea Fowler, of the First Nations at UW student group.

“We know it’s a privilege to have that space here at such a large university, and it’s really supported the students,” Fowler said. “So far I’ve noticed a change this spring that we’re a lot more community-oriented and together and really getting more grounded in the culture …. I think that’s going to be a great support for them, that’s something that they need to be grounded in to succeed.”

Braine said he would have benefited from a place like the Intellectual House when he was a student.

“I think if I had had a house like this when I was an undergraduate it would have been easier to find where I was,” he said.

Braine was involved in trying to make the Intellectual House a reality as an undergraduate at the UW. Mentors like Julian Argel, who died in 2012, and Marvin Oliver, had tried to do the same in the 1970s. Braine keeps a photo of Argel in his office and credits him with keeping the idea of the Intellectual House alive.

In Braine’s office is also a framed print by Marvin Oliver, a retired professor of American Indian Studies at the UW and Adjunct Curator of Contemporary Native American Art at the Burke Museum, showing longhouses by the water near what is now Husky Stadium, a common sight before European arrival in Seattle.

From the beginning, Braine said, the planners of the Intellectual House project intended for there to be a second longhouse building next to the current one, focused on teaching and learning, which might hold classrooms or conference rooms. Half of the estimated $8 million budget for that second building will need to be raised before planning can start. However, plumbing and electricity are already installed.

Even with phase two of the project in the distant future, the completed building constructed of sturdy cedar has been inspiring people.

On April 24, the Intellectual House was host to Deconstructing Earth Day, a roundtable discussion organized by Sean Schmidt of the UW Sustainability Office. About a dozen people sat in a circle in the large, cedar-scented room to talk about sustainability and how it relates to diversity and social justice.

Pennsylvania House of Representatives member Brian Sims, the first openly gay elected state legislator in Pennsylvania and the first openly gay college football captain in the NCAA, was one of the guests who told his story. He said he struggles sometimes to find authenticity in city life, and wondered how urban Native Americans find authentic spaces in the metropolis.

In answer, Abigail Echo-Hawk, a member of Seattle Women’s Commission and a tribal liaison for UW Partnerships for Native Health, said she thought such authentic places can be created, that the Intellectual House is one of them.

“I sit in a space that’s sacred,” she said. “We’re just at the beginnings of something that can grow bigger.”

Maine Native Americans want state to come to the table on deal for elvers, other fish

By The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s American Indian tribes want state officials to come to the table for a potentially wide-reaching agreement about the way the tribes harvest commercial fish.

Passamaquoddy legislative Rep. Matthew Dana says members of Maine’s tribes have fished for thousands of years and deserve a bigger role in state decision making. His bill would allow for cooperative management of lucrative marine species such as lobsters, clams and baby eels.

The tribes’ request represents a broadening of an earlier drive by the tribes to get reach agreement with the state about fishing for baby eels. The Passamaquoddies and state regulators clashed last year about a state requirement that tribal elver fishermen be subject to individual quotas. The tribe eventually relented.

Video Surfaces Of Native American Actors Being Called “Overly Sensitive” On Adam Sandler’s Set

“If you’re overly sensitive about it…then you should probably leave,” a producer is heard telling a group of Native American actors.

By Emily Orley, BuzzFeed News

A video has surfaced from the set Adam Sandler’s new film, The Ridiculous Six, in which a producer tells many offended Native American actors to leave if they’re “overly sensitive.” The released cell phone video — from Native American actor Goldie Tom, obtained by the Indian Country Today Media Network — shows a heated discussion before dozens of Native Americans walked off set after feeling misrepresented.

“There’s a stereotype going on,” one of the actors says. A producer responds, “Here’s the thing: If you’re overly sensitive about it, then you should probably leave. That’s the most important thing, we don’t want to offend anyone.”

The actors try to explain why the characters’ names — specifically Beaver’s Breath and No Bra — are offensive. “We don’t need to sell our people out,” another actor says. “I understand completely, but we’re not going to change Beaver’s Breath. That’s in the movie,” the producer responds.

The crew also try to tell the actors that “Adam’s making fun of himself” more than he’s making fun of Native Americans. “Does he make fun of the Jews?” one of the actors asks to no response. “I really think you guys are the good guys,” another crew member says.

“We want to know why our advisor is leaving because he felt disrespected,” an actor says, noting the movie’s cultural advisor, Bruce, wasn’t able to talk with Sandler when he wanted to. A specific wedding scene in which a teepee wasn’t accurately decorated, which one of the female actors said was “insensitive” and “insulting,” is what allegedly hurt the cultural advisor.

Native American actor Loren Anthony, who walked off the set of The Ridiculous Six, told the Indian Country Today Media Network last week he was reluctant to take the part in the first place. “I was asked a long time ago to do some work on this and I wasn’t down for it. Then they told me it was going to be a comedy, but it would not be racist. So I agreed to it but on Monday things started getting weird on the set,” he told the website.

When news broke on April 23 that many Native Americans had walked off the set, Netflix issued the following statement: “The movie has ridiculous in the title for a reason: because it is ridiculous. It is a broad satire of Western movies and the stereotypes they popularized, featuring a diverse cast that is not only part of — but in on — the joke.”

Netflix did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment about the new details that have emerged from the video. BuzzFeed News has also reached out to Anthony and Tom for comment, but has not yet heard back.

Connecticut’s Governor Tried To Crack Down On Predatory Lending And Got Accused Of Being Racist

dannel-malloy-ap-638x430 — CT Gov. Dannel Malloy (D)
CREDIT: AP

By Alan Pyke, Think Progress

As federal officials attempt to thread the needle between restricting predatory lending and ensuring that emergency loans remain available to America’s poorest, they’re trying to create a new and adaptable system of rules. But in one state, the traditional approach to payday lending is producing a strange public relations fight between lawmakers, a governor, Native American tribes, and a mysterious D.C.-based conservative PAC.

Months after Connecticut regulators imposed a large fine on an unlicensed internet lender, a series of billboards showed up near the state’s highways accusing Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) of attacking the economic future of American Indians. The campaign made a big splash in a state that has two Indian-run casinos, and reportedly even featured a billboard in New York City’s Times Square. But nobody’s sure who is really paying for the billboards, and both Connecticut’s own tribes and the Otoe-Missouria insist they are not involved.

Connecticut is one of 15 states that uses a low interest rate cap to effectively ban payday lending. But an online lender affiliated with the Oklahoma-based tribe found a way into the Nutmeg State anyway.

The state responded with a $1.5 million fine, $700,000 of it charged personally to Otoe-Missouria tribe chairman John Shotton. A judge rejected the Otoe-Missouria’s argument that its tribal sovereignty prevented Connecticut regulations from applying to its corporate partners. It is the second time in the past couple of years that a court has found that borrowing a tribal group’s name and legal authorities does not give a payday lending company immunity from regulation. Such partnerships remain rare – just 63 out of more than 560 federally recognized tribes have opened payday lending partnerships – but they return a tiny proportion of lending revenues to actual Native Americans in exchange for the theoretically legal indemnity the partnerships afford to the businesses that make the real money.

The fines were announced in January, but the billboards have put them in the news again. The signs are just one piece of an inflammatory campaign against Malloy backed by a D.C.-area conservative nonprofit with anonymous donors. Billboards, direct mail ads, and online communications paid for by the Institute for Liberty (IFL) accuse Malloy of destroying the economic future of native peoples. The group publicly accused Malloy of “bigotry against Native Americans” and operates a website replete with vaguely-captioned stock photos of people in stereotypically tribal garb. A journalist named Johnnie Jae who managed to contact the individuals in the stock photos told ThinkProgress that “the regalia is authentic, [but] the main issue is that these families had no idea these images were being used for this campaign and were appalled.”

IFL President Andrew Langer told ThinkProgress the group has been following payday lending regulations “for a good 18 months now” and said their focus is on the sovereignty of the tribes involved in cases like the Connecticut one. “We think this tribe has a right to engage in this business, and we think the state of Connecticut has no legal authority to go after them,” Langer said.

When the legal theory around tribally-affiliated lending evaporated in a Connecticut courtroom earlier this year, it set off a strange firestorm in the state that might end up further tightening Connecticut’s laws on the loans.

State Rep. Matt Lesser (D) is sponsoring a bill he hopes will sharpen the state regulations that made the $1.5 million fine possible. Current law limits the penalties for violating Connecticut’s interest rate laws to the amount by which the customer was overcharged. “We’re taking it a step further and saying that any loan that exceeds the cap, the Department of Banking can declare it unenforceable, null-and-void,” Lesser told ThinkProgress. “We’re hoping it creates that extra incentive for these payday loansharks to respect our laws and stay out of our state.”

Because IFL is a 501(c)4 nonprofit, it does not have to disclose who is financing its attacks on Malloy. “I will neither confirm nor deny that we’ve received money from tribal industries or payday lending companies,” he said, “but I will say that if they are supporting us I wish they’d support us more.”

“They deny that it’s the Koch brothers, for whatever that’s worth,” Lesser said. “You can sort of look at who benefits and draw your own conclusion.” The two national trade associations who have the most direct interest – the Native American Financial Services Association (NAFSA) and the Online Lending Assocation (OLA) – each emphatically denied involvement to ThinkProgress, with NAFSA’s spokesperson adding that the IFL campaign has “done more harm than good” to the Otoe-Missouria’s cause.

Enforcing rate caps like Connecticut’s can be important to protecting consumers, Pew Charitable Trusts small-dollar lending expert Alex Horowitz told ThinkProgress, but they’re not the only option. “Rate caps are important and states should continue to set them. If they don’t want payday lenders to operate in the state, they should set them at 36 percent or less,” he said. But a more flexible sliding rate cap system like the one in Colorado has kept credit available in emergencies and pushed average interest rates on the loans down to 115 percent – extremely expensive, but about a third of what unregulated states routinely see.

The fallout from Connecticut’s decision is coming just as federal regulators are in the process of writing the first-ever national code for payday lending, auto-title lending, and other forms of expensive small-dollar credit.

The fines are “kind of a traditional tactic,” Horowitz said, “but they’re doing it very aggressively.” Applying that classical enforcement approach gets a bit slippery when the lender is attached to a tribe. The Connecticut dispute, Horowitz said, “underscores why the CFPB’s rules are so important. While there’s been some uncertainty in the courts about how to handle state-tribe disputes, it’s clear that a federal rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau trumps the other ones and would set a floor on rules for all of these.”

With its new regulations, the agency seeks to balance genuine consumer demand for emergency loans with the public interest in preventing the most predatory and abusive features of the traditional business model. While many states have taken Connecticut’s approach of preventing payday lenders from operating in any form, a handful of others have attempted the kind of hybrid system that CFPB is now aiming to build into federal law. The final rules are years away, but they will likely be modeled on the approach that states like Colorado take: limit the cost of these loans, prohibit the most egregious fine-print tricks lenders use, but make sure this lending remains economically viable so that desperate low-income people have somewhere to turn.

The idea that tightly-regulated payday loan shops can be a genuinely valuable service for the poor may need a lot more time to sink in in places like Connecticut that have decided a ban would be better.

“When you talk to folks [about] how they wound up paying these back,” Lesser said, “it’s often by doing the things they probably should’ve done in the first place. Turn to family and friends and existing resources to make up that difference.”

“Poverty stinks. It’s tough. But eventually people are going to have to reckon with the cycle of poverty and debt these guys are foisting on them.”

Tiny tribe faces conflict after using adoptions for business growth

A brother and sister fight over members who were adopted to start ventures.

Alturas Rancheria’s tribal administrator Wendy Del Rosa, left, poses with former Bureau of Indian Affairs official Wayne Smith. Del Rosa says adding five tribe members through adoption was a mistake. Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee

By The Associated Press

ALTURAS, Calif. — A tiny, casino-owning Native American tribe in Northern California has pursued an unusual strategy to boost revenue: adoption.

The Alturas Rancheria in Modoc County has adopted five members – two of whom are non-Indian – in recent years, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The new members have come with ambitious plans to make money, including a cigarette manufacturing plant. But the plans have fizzled out, and the adopted members have contributed to conflict among the tribe, according to the Bee.

The fight has landed in state and federal courts, and it recently required the U.S. Postal Service to decide which of the feuding members was entitled to receive the tribe’s mail.

The adoption of non-Indian people by a Native American tribe is unusual and raises concerns, experts said.

“It’s not necessarily against the law to adopt a white person. But if there’s no historical connection to the tribe, it sounds like a scam to take advantage of their membership for business reasons and manipulate the tribal government,” Howard Dickstein, one of the nation’s foremost tribal lawyers, told the Sacramento Bee.

The Alturas Rancheria has between three and seven members depending on who is counting, making it among the smallest of the 566 federally recognized tribes.

Siblings Phillip and Wendy Del Rosa are the only two current tribal members who can trace their blood line to an original member of the 20-acre rancheria. Phillip Del Rosa said the tribe wanted to diversify its investments, which included the Desert Rose Casino. In 2003, it adopted Darren Rose, a Karuk and Shasta Indian, to build a second casino at a much better location off Interstate 5 in Yreka.

It later adopted Calvin Phelps, a cigarette manufacturer from North Carolina. Phelps was sentenced to 40 months in prison in 2014 after pleading guilty to federal fraud charges involving his North Carolina tobacco business. Wendy Del Rosa said Phelps remains a member of the tribe.

But the second casino, cigarette business and other ventures put forward by the tribe’s adoptees did not pan out, and the adoptees have now become part of tribal conflict, the Bee said.

Phillip Del Rosa and his sister are now feuding and have formed alliances with adoptees, the Bee reported. At stake is about $2 million a year in revenue, including $700,000 a year from the tribe’s Desert Rose Casino.

As the conflict goes on, federal and state officials have frozen hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds for the tribe. U.S. Postal Service Administrative Law Judge Gary E. Shapiro ruled last month that Rose is entitled to receive the tribe’s mail.

Wendy Del Rosa said that looking back now, the adoptions were a mistake.

“When Phillip and I took over, we didn’t know what we were doing,” she said. “We should never have adopted anybody into the tribe.”