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The Rise of Indigenous Peoples Day

By Matt Remle, Indian Country Today Media Network

On October 6, 2014, in a packed Seattle city hall council chambers room, the Seattle city council voted unanimously to rename the second Monday in October, the federal holiday Columbus Day, to Indigenous Peoples’ Day for the city of Seattle. The room erupted in emotion with loud cheers, the sound of drums and the sight of over joyed, smiling and crying faces followed by an impromptu singing of the AIM song in the halls of Seattle city hall.

The Seattle city council vote followed the previous weeks unanimous vote by the Seattle school board to both establish the second Monday in October as a day of observance for Indigenous Peoples’ and to make a board commitment to the teaching of tribal history, culture, governance and current affairs into the Seattle public schools system.

The origins for both the Seattle city council and Seattle school board resolutions date back to 2011, when I was attending an Abolish Columbus Day rally in downtown Seattle. As I was listening to the beautiful songs of a local canoe family, I started thinking about South Dakota and their successful effort to change Columbus Day to Native American Day. That night I decided to contact members of the Seattle city council, as well as, my local State Legislatures to see if they might be willing to do something similar on either the City or State level.

To my surprise, the following morning I got a phone call from Washington State Senator Margarita Prentice and proceeded to have a long conversation about the genocide brought by Columbus to our Native relatives in the Caribbean and how she would love to sponsor a resolution on the State level. She simply asked that I draft a resolution and seek support from area tribes first before she would sponsor the resolution.

Elated, I immediately contacted Theresa Sheldon and Deborah Parker from Tulalip, who were both policy analyst for the Tulalip Tribes at that time, and whom currently sit on the Tulalip Board of Directors, to let them know the news. They agreed to take the resolution to the 2011 Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians annual conference and put the Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution before the conference for a vote. The resolution was unanimously approved, and although the resolution ultimately did not succeed on the State level, the seeds of the Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution for Seattle were sown.

When Minneapolis approved its Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution in the early spring of 2014, I figured now might be a good time to revive our efforts in Seattle especially given that we had two new Seattle city council members who had been responsive to the needs and issues of Seattle’s Native community. I again reached out to the Seattle city council members and before the day was over council member Kshama Sawant responded back that she would sponsor an Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution and asked if I would draft one for her.

I drafted a resolution and sent it out to other members of Seattle’s Native community for additional input. From there a grassroots effort was underway to build broad base support for the resolution. By the time the resolution was presented to the Seattle city council for vote, we gained the endorsement of forty various community organizations, non-profits, human rights organizations, local and national tribal organizations and letters of support from numerous area tribes.

In drafting the resolution, one thought was that we should be pushing for something more than just the renaming of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, so language was included to have the Seattle city council “encourage” the Seattle public schools to adopt the guidelines established by the 2005 H.B. 1495 and the subsequent Since Time Immemorial Tribal Sovereignty curriculum [STI] that was developed out of it.

Many within the Native community had tried for years to get the Seattle public schools to adopt the STI curriculum, but had always been met with resistance. We figured if we could get the Seattle city council to pass a resolution calling on the school district to adopt the curriculum, we would have good leverage to pressure the school board to adopt it.

Over the summer, a letter was sent to the Seattle school board from the Seattle Human Rights Commission, an early resolution backer, to inform them of the efforts being worked on with the Seattle city council surrounding the Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution and to encourage them to align efforts with the city to meet the goals of the proposed resolution.

In late July, I was contacted by the Seattle city council and was told that they were ready to put the resolution to the full council for vote. I was given two possible dates to introduce the resolution, one in August and one in September. Since the September date fell on the day before school started in the Seattle area, we went for the September date knowing that we would most likely generate wide-spread media attention and given that Columbus is often one of the things students learn about first, we figured this would be a good strategy to get the evils committed by Columbus on the minds of students.

Up until the September 2^, Seattle city council hearing we largely kept the Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution from the media spotlight. Days before the council meeting we released a press release on the Last Real Indians webpage, whom I am write for. The idea was that we would be asserting our voice on this issue and establish the framework for which the issue would be discussed on our own terms. As the massive rally descended upon the Seattle city council hearing on September 2, the mainstream press was playing a game of catch up on our resolution that had already generated Turtle Island-wide buzz amongst Native communities.

While a decision was made on September 2 to hold the vote off until October 6, we were able to secure the endorsement of Seattle’s Mayor Ed Murray a generated nationwide attention on our Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution.

Throughout September, we keep up a steady stream of pressure on both the Seattle city council and Seattle school board with emails, petitions, phone calls, and letters of endorsement from area Tribes and other supporters, as well as, built broad support through social media campaigning.

For me personally, it was phenomenal to see such a concerted and collaborative joint effort develop between Seattle’s urban Native community, Tribe’s and Tribal leaders. By time the October 1 Seattle school board vote and the October 6 Seattle city council vote came around a true urban and Tribal partnership was firmly established. The Seattle city council vote saw testimony given from tribal leaders David Bean (Puyallup), Fawn Sharp (President of both the Quinualt Indian Nation and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians), Mel Sheldon (former Chair of the Tulalip Tribes), as well as, numerous members of Seattle’s urban Native community.

Throughout the whole process, we keep the perspective that we are simply part of a larger movement being fought on the local grassroots level to not only abolish Columbus Day, but see our communities rise up and assert our own voices on our own terms on issues of importance to us.

We sought to show the power our communities possess when we come together unified under the belief and knowledge that what we do today is both work to heal past generations and lift the spirits of our future generations.

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Mitakuye oyasin.

Matt Remle (Lakota) lives in Seattle. He works for the office of Indian Education in the Marysville/Tulalip school district. He is a writer for Last Real Indians @ www.lastrealindians.com and runs an online Lakota language program at www.LRInspire.com. He is a father of three and the author of Seattle’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution.

Tribal Fishing Rights Cases Hit the 9th Circuit

By June Williams, Courthouse News Service

SEATTLE (CN) – Native American tribes fighting over fishing rights in Washington asked the 9th Circuit to intervene in separate proceedings last week.
The cases stems from a 1974 injunction by U.S. District Judge George Hugo Bolt in U.S. v. Washington that affirmed certain tribal fishing rights the state had been denying.
Among numerous subproceedings, the Tulalip back in 2005 requested a permanent injunction to prevent the Suquamish from fishing in waters outside their usual and accustomed, or U & A, grounds, an area determined by the 9th Circuit in 1990. The Suquamish were accused in that case of fishing on the east side of Puget Sound, in violation of court order.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez last year clarified “the geographic scope” of the Suquamish fishing grounds in Bolt’s decision. He said Bolt “relied heavily” on the reports of anthropologist Dr. Barbara Lane, who testified about various tribes’ traditional fishing areas in the 1974 case.
Martinez said it was “nearly certain” Bolt intended to include Possession Sound and waters at the mouth of the Snohomish River in the Suquamish U & A.
“On the other hand, there is an absence of evidence in her [Lane’s] report regarding Suquamish fishing in the waters on the eastern side of Whidbey Island such as Skagit Bay, Saratoga Passage and its connecting bays Penn Cove and Holmes Harbor, and Port Susan,” the July 29, 2013, ruling says. “Therefore the court finds that Judge Boldt did not intend to include these areas in the Suquamish U&A.”
The Tulalip appealed the decision to the 9th Circuit. After a three-judge panel’s Aug. 8 hearing in the Tulalip dispute, it heard the appeal by the Quileute and Quinault tribes of a similar decision by favoring the Makah tribe.
The Makah filed their Bolt subproceeding in 2009 to determine the boundaries of U & A fishing areas for the Quileute and Quinault tribes. The Ho tribe opposed the Makah’s motion as an interested party. In the complaint, the Makah argued the tribes intend to harvest Pacific whiting outside their traditional fishing grounds, which would affect the Makah’s catch. Pacific whiting travel from south to north, so the Quileute and Quinault would harvest the fish before the Makah.
Martinez let the case to proceed to trial by granting the Makah partial summary judgment last year. The Quileute and Quinault objected, arguing they waived sovereign immunity in the 1974 case only for determining their fishing rights in Washington. They claimed the court did not have authority over waters outside the 3-mile limit from the shore.
Martinez found that “incorrect” on July 8, 2013, saying the court’s jurisdiction extends to all treaty-based fishing and not limited to Washington waters.
The Quinault and Quileute’s claims of sovereign immunity also failed.
“The tribes came to Court in 1970 asking the court to determine and enforce their treaty rights, and they subjected themselves to the court’s jurisdiction for all purposes relating to the exercise of their treaty rights,” he wrote. “The Quinault and Quileute objections to the Makah motion for partial summary judgment on jurisdiction are thus without merit.”
Ho intervened in the appeals by both tribes.
With the 9th Circuit hearing the Tulalip case first Wednesday, Mason Morisset, representing the Tulalip, said Judge Bolt never “called out the specific waters we’re dealing with here.”
The lower court erred in finding the Suquamish regularly fished the east side of Whidbey Island in the past, he added.
Although the Suquamish fishing grounds extended north to Canad’s Fraser River, the tribe “would have to go out of their way” to fish on eastern Whidbey Island, Morisset said.
“In this case, there’s no evidence that the Suquamish went out of their way,” he said.
Judge Consuelo Callahan asked Morisset about the findings by an anthropologist that the Suquamish “traveled widely in the Puget Sound area.”
Morisett said this was true of “all the tribes,” and “it’s not evidence to make a general statement.”
The Suquamish may have traveled to the eastern parts of Whidbey Island and done some fishing, “but that doesn’t rise to the level of a usual and accustomed fishing place,” the attorney added.
Though Morisset called it “very telling” that the Suquamish did not contest Judge Bolt’s definition of their territory for 30 years, Callahan said “that doesn’t negate that they may have a right to do it.”
Howard Arnett, representing the Suquamish, said the tribe regularly fished in East Puget Sound based on historical reports.
“The testimony is clear,” he said. “They went there often. They went there frequently and they fished along the way – enough to establish that the entire area is a U & A.”
The Quileute, Quinault and Ho tribes dispute the finding they waived sovereign immunity, their attorney, Lauren King, said. The tribes agreed to court determination of fishing rights only in Washington State waters, she added.
With Callahan asking why the court shouldn’t “rule here that if you’re in for a penny then you’re in for a pound,” King said it would contravene Supreme Court precedent. “The Supreme Court said if you’re in for a penny, you’re in for a penny,” King said.
Callahan countered that “every single one” of the fishing rights cases involved interpretation of the same treaty.
King did not get far with her explanation that the tribes waived sovereign immunity only for one part of the treaty involving Washington fishing rights.
“If it involved all things in the treaty, we’d be here talking about hunting, about making war on other tribes,” King said.
But Callahan said the tribes’ approach seems to be “we waive sovereign immunity piece by piece until we don’t like what a court does.”
The Makah, represented by Marc Slonim, repeated their position that sovereign immunity was not an issue.
“Sovereign immunity is not a defense as to how an issue will get decided,” Slonim said.
He argued that the determination of the Quileute and Quinault traditional fishing grounds is “no different” from all of the other tribal determinations under the original U.S. v Washington case.
Callahan asked if the subject matter of this case was “inextricably linked” with U.S. v Washington.
“Absolutely,” Slonim replied.
The heart of the original case was the determination of usual and accustomed fishing grounds, the attorney added.
“You have to know where usual and accustomed fishing grounds are to adjudicate the treaty rights,” Slonim said. “The United States has said explicitly that the place these issues should be resolved is in U.S. v. Washington.”
Washington Assistant Attorney General Joseph Panesko also weighed in on the tribes
claim of sovereign immunity, saying it was “patently false” to claim the state has no regulatory authority over the waters in dispute.
He called the tribes “disingenuous” for claiming they never waived immunity over the waters. He said if they succeed in arguing Judge Bolt’s decision doesn’t affect the ocean waters, the state wouldn’t be bound by an injunction in the case.
“The state would be cleared to start regulating all tribal harvests of crab and a few other resources that the state does manage beyond the three mile line,” Panesko said. “The state could require regulatory permits, impose excise taxes on fish that tribal members bring in from beyond that 3-mile line – ”
Laughter broke out in the courtroom as Callahan translated.
“You’re saying be careful what you ask for,” she said.
Judges Jay Bybee and Richard Paez joined on the panel.

Kelso’s successful Indian Education programs mix classroom, culture

By Lauren Kronebusch, The Daily News

Kelso’s Indian Education Program shares the qualities of Hermia, a pint-sized but spirited character featured in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”: “Though she be but little, she is fierce.”

The core of the program is a small classroom on the first level of Wallace Elementary School. It protects a wealth of history. A glass display case full of traditional Native American objects greets visitors at the front entrance. Several bookshelves laden with children’s and educational books about Native American culture sit against a wall adorned with dream catchers. In the back of the classroom a map of the United States is stabbed with push pins locating which tribes students in the program have roots.

Shelley Hamrick, the program’s coordinator since 1997, sees the classroom as the source of the program’s strength and uniqueness. When the district formed its diversity committee around 1995, it had a broad mission that the room came to physically exemplify.

“(The district wanted) to make kids feel connected and included,” she said. “And then they saw everything that we have.”

Hamrick smiles as she sweeps her hand through the air to point to dozens of artifacts in the room, donated over time by community families. The district decided to give the program its permanent home at Wallace in 1997, when it moved from a portable classroom to a room inside the school.

Native American cultural education is having a big year in Kelso and the state. Kelso’s annual Pow Wow will celebrate its 30th anniversary in May. In March, Washington’s House of Representatives formalized the Friday after Thanksgiving as Native American Heritage Day.

Kelso created its program in the 1970s in response to the federal Indian Education Act, adopted in 1972 to restore and preserve cultural traditions weakened when many Native American children were sent to boarding schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“It was kind of like (the government, schools and tribes) wanted to bring that (knowledge) back to the people,” Hamrick said of Kelso’s participation in the Indian Education Act.

Few other districts in their area have built up their Indian Education programs as thoroughly as has Kelso. When Hamrick began as a tutor in 1989, the program had about 240 students. The program has 400 students this year. Hamrick said the district now includes students with ancestral links to 63 tribes. The program’s success, Hamrick said, has been a result of a close working relationship between her and district administrators that Hamrick said fosters a sense of inclusion for the district’s Native students.

Hamrick said the program’s educational and cultural missions reinforce each other.

“Many students who were really, really struggling in school, they’d get some extra help in school, and they’d start valuing their culture, because they (didn’t) have that connection to the reservation anymore or maybe they didn’t at all,” she said.

Wallace Elementary students beat on a rawhide drum with LaMere. Photo/ Roger Werth / The Daily News

Lory Evans brings her two grandchildren to Tuesday’s culture class. She said it has helped her and her children feel more connected to their Native American heritage.

“I thought they should have some of the culture,” Evans said. “I never got any (cultural education) when I grew up so I wanted them to have some.”

Her granddaughter Kaydince Evans talked excitedly of the free “Ratatouille” cooking book she got from the program. Her grandson Quincy Evans picked “Buffalo Before Breakfast,” a Magic Tree House series novel. He said it only took him a few days to read. Both books come from First Book Grants, which donated more than 2,200 books in the last five years.

Marie Dancing Star LaMere, a Native drummer, singer, dancer and educator, teaches the program’s culture class.

She said she thinks Native Americans learn differently. Like herself, she said her students are more oral learners. LaMere said that’s why she tries to teach her culture class through demonstration and activity.

“I think that’s our culture,” she said. “Just like our stories — they’re passed down from generation to generation (through speech).”

Program tutor and parent Elizabeth Jones said the culture class has helped keep her and her children connected to her tribe, the Lummi of western Washington.

“It’s so hands-on, they don’t even realize they’re (learning),” Jones said. “They don’t understand that while they’re having fun, they’re getting the education part of it, too.”

LaMere said her culture class is most effective for a simple reason: it’s fun.

“Kids love movement,” she said.

LaMere’s class involves plenty of it. The room boomed Tuesday night with the guttural voice of a raw hide drum, beaten as LaMere sang a coastal Native American song to the class. Students circled the display case, rowing along to her song with drum sticks.

LaMere said the program reaches students at a level beyond the cultural and educational.

“I think it touches on a spiritual level as well,” she said.

Jackson County being pressured to open satellite office for voters

By Andrea J. Cook, Rapid City Journal

Despite complaints from four Native Americans, South Dakota Secretary of State Jason Gant has asserted that all Jackson County residents have the same access to voter registration and absentee voting as every South Dakotan.

“We are 100 percent equal across the state,” Gant said Thursday. “Every South Dakota county has at least one location within their county borders where people can absentee vote face-to-face.”

Four Lakota residents of Wanblee, a Jackson County community on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, have filed a federal lawsuit claiming the county is discriminating against Native Americans by not providing their community a satellite office for voter registration and absentee voting.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Vice President Thomas Poor Bear is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims that the Jackson County Commission does not have a legitimate reason to refuse their request. It also states that the county has access to Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funding to help offset the cost of the satellite office.

On Friday, the plaintiffs filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier to issue a preliminary injunction ordering Jackson County to open a satellite office in Wanblee for the remainder of the time leading up to the election.

As of 5 p.m. MST Friday, there was no court record of a decision by Schreier.

Jackson County Auditor Vicki Wilson would not comment on the details of the lawsuit, which is being handled by the county’s insurance company.

Wilson did say that before the state’s voter-registration laws changed, she had traveled to Wanblee to register voters when a notary’s signature was required.

During that time, Wilson said, she rarely had requests for absentee ballots.

Residents can now request a voter-registration form at the courthouse or go online and mail it to the county auditor’s office. Monday, Oct. 20, is the last day to register to vote in the Nov. 4 election.

Absentee ballots can be requested up to 5 p.m. on Nov. 3. Absentee ballot requests are available online, but they must be notarized before they are mailed to the auditor. Completed ballots can be returned by mail.

“That’s the same as it is in every other county that has a county seat,” Gant said.

The lawsuit claims that Native American residents in Jackson County are required to travel twice as far as white residents to register in person or vote absentee. Wanblee is about 27 miles, or 32 minutes by car, from the county seat at Kadoka, according to the plaintiffs. They say making the trip is also a financial hardship on Native Americans.

According to court documents, Jackson County commissioners were asked in May 2013 to establish a satellite office, but they denied the request because they did not know if their available HAVA funds would cover the cost. Under the HAVA program, counties can be reimbursed for election expenses, but only up to the amount allocated by the state to each county.

Jackson County has until Wednesday, Oct. 15, to reply to the plaintiffs’ complaint.

Actress Misty Upham from ‘August: Osage County’ is missing

November 8, 2013. Cast member Misty Upham attends a screening of the film "August: Osage County" during AFI Fest 2013 in Los Angeles. (Reuters) — November 8, 2013. Cast member Misty Upham attends a screening of the film “August: Osage County” during AFI Fest 2013 in Los Angeles. (Reuters)

By Foxnews.com

Actress Misty Upham has officially been declared a missing person reports Us weekly. Indian Country Today reports that the 32-year-old actress was last spotted leaving her sister’s apartment in Muckleshoot, Washington on October 5.

She is best known for her role as housekeeper Johnna Monevata in the film “August: Osage County” which starred Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep. Other film roles include 2008’s “Frozen River” and 2013’s “Jimmy P.” She had also filmed a part in the upcoming movie “Cake” alongside Jennifer Aniston.

Upham’s father, Charles Upham who first raised the alarm released a statement saying, “”Misty is considered an endangered missing person due to a medical condition. She has not been in contact with her family or friends since her disappearance.”

Charles Upham says the last time he saw his daughter she sounded suicidal.

“She told me and her mom that we didn’t have to worry about her anymore … I thought it sounded suicidal myself, so I called the police,” Charles Upham told The Hollywood Reporter.

“She’s always been a suicidal person,” he said, “She used to make (suicide) threats sometimes, but she never went through with it.”

Those with information on Upham are asked to call the Auburn police department (253) 288-2121, case no. 14-13189.

Court orders tribal night deer case re-opened

TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press

SUN PRAIRIE, Wis. (AP) – A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered a Madison judge to reconsider a decades-old ruling barring Chippewa tribes from hunting deer at night across much of northern Wisconsin.

A three-judge panel from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found hunting deer at night probably isn’t as dangerous as U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb concluded in a 1991 ruling barring tribal night hunts, noting that four other states allow such hunts, Chippewa hunters’ safety record is outstanding and hunting during the day is probably more dangerous than at night because more people are out and about.

“All that can be said is that on the present record there is scant reason to think that safety concerns justify forbidding Indians to hunt deer at night in the thinly populated (by human beings) northern part of Wisconsin,” Judge Richard Posner wrote for the panel.

The order doesn’t mean Chippewa hunters can go after deer at night. But it does mean Crabb must reconsider her 1991 decision.

Sue Erickson, a spokeswoman for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, which oversees the Chippewa’s off-reservation treaty rights, said the tribes are reviewing the ruling and are “pleased that the court recognized the regulated type of night hunt they’ve proposed doesn’t present safety issues.”

A state Department of Natural Resources spokesman said the agency was reviewing the decision and consulting with the state Justice Department. A DOJ spokeswoman had no comment late Thursday.

The DNR has long banned hunting deer at night for safety reasons. The Chippewa have pushed for years for a tribal night deer hunt in the ceded territory, a gigantic swath of northern Wisconsin that the bands handed over to the federal government in the 1800s.

The tribes tried to convince Crabb in 1989 to exempt tribal hunters from the state prohibition during a court battle over treaty rights in the ceded territory, but she ruled in 1991 that night deer hunting is dangerous and that the state ban applies to the tribes.

The Chippewa renewed their push for night hunting in 2012 after legislators angered the tribes by allowing hunters to kill wolves at night. The Chippewa consider the wolf a spiritual brother.

The tribes asked Crabb to revisit her 1991 ruling, saying the state believes night hunting is safe it allows the wolf hunts. The DNR also instituted night deer hunting programs to slow chronic wasting disease, protect crops from deer depredation and prevent car-deer collisions. They also said tribal hunters would be required to lay out lines of sight during the day in their hunting area and submit a shooting plan for approval.

In December, Crabb said the tribes had failed to prove that circumstances had changed sufficiently to reopen the 1991 decision. She noted state officials did almost all the night hunting and most of it was designed to slow chronic wasting disease. Legislators also ended night wolf hunting after one season, she said.

But the 7th Circuit’s Posner noted Oregon, Washington, Minnesota and Michigan all allow tribal night hunts and that deer hunting has grown considerably safer in the last 20 years.

The Chippewa’s hunts would be tightly regulated with shooting plans, he said, adding that tribal members already can hunt deer at night on their reservations and are clearly proficient since there’s been only two or three recorded hunting accidents involving American Indians in the ceded territory.

Lake Traverse Indian Reservation receives $63.5 million in fractionated land purchase offers

Participants in Voluntary Land Buy-Back Program Have 45 Days to Respond

Source: DOI Media Release
WASHINGTON – Building off of sustained momentum from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program), Deputy Secretary Mike Connor today announced that purchase offers worth more than $63.5 million have been sent to nearly 2,800 landowners with fractional interests on the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation in South Dakota (homeland of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate). Interested sellers will have until November 24, 2014, to return accepted offers.

The tribe will host an outreach event on Wednesday, October 15 at the Tribal Elderly Center in Agency Village, S.D. The all-day event will feature speakers from the Buy-Back Program and staff available to help landowners with questions about their offer packages. Landowners can contact the tribe’s staff at: 605-698-8296 or 605-698-8203.

As part of President Obama’s pledge to help strengthen Native American communities, the Buy-Back Program has successfully concluded transactions worth more than $146.4 million and has restored the equivalent of more than 280,000 acres of land to tribal governments.

“The Buy-Back Program is a unique opportunity and I am encouraged by the growing interest we are seeing in the Program across Indian Country as well as the partnerships we are developing with tribal governments as implementation moves to each location,” said Deputy Secretary Connor. “Payments through Program sales are already making a significant difference for individuals, families and their communities. We will continue to work closely with tribal representatives to ensure that individuals are aware of this historic opportunity.”

The Buy-Back Program implements the land consolidation component of the Cobell Settlement, which provided $1.9 billion to purchase fractional interests in trust or restricted land from willing sellers at fair market value within a 10-year period. Individuals who choose to sell their interests receive payments directly into their Individual Indian Money (IIM) accounts. In addition to receiving fair market value for their land based on objective appraisals, sellers also receive a base payment of $75 per offer, regardless of the value of the land.

Consolidated interests are immediately restored to tribal trust ownership for uses benefiting the reservation community and tribal members. For example, the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation recently announced that the tribe is embarking on a $9 million housing program, aided by the recent acquisition of land through the Buy-Back Program.

Sales of land interests will also result in up to $60 million in contributions to the Cobell Education Scholarship Fund. This contribution is in addition to the amounts paid to individual sellers, so it will not reduce the amount landowners receive for their interests.

There are almost 245,000 owners of nearly three million fractional interests, spanning 150 Indian reservations, who are eligible to participate in the Buy-Back Program. Many see little or no economic benefit from what are often very small, undivided interests in lands that cannot be utilized due to their highly fractionated state.

Offers are currently pending at a number of additional locations with deadlines approaching soon, including the Northern Cheyenne (Oct. 17), Flathead (Oct. 24), Umatilla (Oct. 31) and Crow (Nov. 21) Indian Reservations.

Landowners can contact the Trust Beneficiary Call Center at 888-678-6836 with questions about their purchase offers. Individuals can also visit their local Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) or Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) office, or find more information at www.doi.gov/buybackprogram/landowners in order to make informed decisions about their land.

Individual participation is voluntary. A decision to sell land for restoration to tribes does not impact a landowner’s eligibility to receive individual settlement payments from the Cobell Settlement, which are being handled by the Garden City Group. Inquiries regarding Settlement payments should be directed to 800-961-6109.

Tribal-state relations improved, not healed

By Mark Walker, Argus Leader

On the eve of Native American Day in South Dakota and near the anniversary of statehood, some of the state’s prominent Native Americans talked Sunday in Sioux Falls about tribal-state relations at statehood in 1889 compared to now.

Wayne White Wolf Evans summarized tribal-state relations in South Dakota during the course of almost 125 years as an “abusive relationship” the nine tribes can’t seem to escape.

To get out of an abusive relationship, he said, there has to be a power greater than the abuser.

Perhaps that power lies in the outstretched hands of the state’s residents, he said.

“Where does the tribe go to get this power, Congress?” Evans said. “State government is not going to do it. Maybe the citizens can do that.”

There’s a difference between now and 1889, said keynote speaker Frank Pommersheim during the event at the downtown library.

There has been some improvement, but not enough, said Pommersheim, a University of South Dakota Law School professor and tribal judge.

Resolution on issues such as land and political involvement still needs to be attained.

“Those lingering problems, which are very significant, over land and participation in the political process continue to exist, and we still, yet, from my point of view, have not had a meaningful statewide conversation about this that involves a significant number of state officials and tribal officials,” Pommersheim said.

Billy Mercer of Sioux Falls, who was among those attending Sunday’s forum, said the forum gave him a firm understanding of what happened during statehood at the county level.

He also took a moment to ask whether the mayor or any of the legislative candidates were attending the meeting.

He found out there were none and said that disappointed him.

“Nobody was here on the political level,” Mercer said. “They are quick to point out a park where alcoholic Native Americans are hanging out, but when you have people here who are Native American trying to discuss things, on a functional level, they’re not here. That’s discrimination.”

Assistant U.S. attorney in Sioux Falls J.R. LaPlante also was among those attending the event. He said having conversations about the tribal-state issues still needing to be overcome is critical.

“I think anytime you can look to litigation as a last resort … that’s good for us as taxpayers, I think it’s good for us as a state. I think it improves and increases understanding but also leads to more meaningful solutions,” LaPlante said.

Grant money to advance Native American cancer study

An educational partnership aims not only to fight the disease among the Native American population, but to engage more students of native descent

By Charly Edsity, 12 News & The Arizona Republic

There isn’t a word for cancer in most indigenous languages, yet it affects Native Americans at an abnormally high rate.

The Partnership for Native American Cancer Prevention (NACP), a joint effort between Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona Cancer Center, is the recipient of a $13 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, that will be split between the both universities.

“People die of cancer in Native American populations higher than other groups,” said Jani Ingram, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at NAU and member of the Navajo Nation.

According to the Intercultural Cancer Council, cancer is the third-leading cause of death among Native Americans, but there is no conclusive evidence to determine why.

Since 2002, NACP has worked to understand the reason cancer affects Native Americans, specifically tribes in the Southwest, at higher rates and seeks to engage Native American college students in entering science fields to help further research.

NAU’s program has 10 student researchers working under Ingram, some whom have been personally impacted by the deadly disease.

“It started with my grandfather, who worked in uranium mines and he died from lung cancer,” said NAU senior Erik Peaches, who is of Navajo descent.

Erik Peaches, NAU senior, works in lab as part of the Native American Cancer Prevention project at NAU.(Photo: 12 News)

In recent years, cancer spikes among older Navajos have been attributed to uranium exposure, a mining industry that boomed on the Navajo Reservation during the 1950s. The radioactive element still threatens communities surrounding abandoned mines and even contaminates drinking water.

NAU senior Ethan Paddock’s grandmother battled breast cancer that he says was caused by uranium exposure on the Navajo Nation.

“My family is from Cameron (Ariz.) and I know there is a huge uranium deposit over there,” Paddock said. “And it’s actually affected my grandmother and (she) got breast cancer.”

After a round of chemotherapy, Paddock’s grandmother has been declared cancer-free, but most with the disease don’t have the same outcome.

The grant money will continue the research being conducted in the Hopi, Navajo and Tohono O’odham communities, work that Ingram said more Native American students should consider.

“If it is a native student, a Navajo student, a Hopi student working on an issue that’s really important to their community, the passion is just right there,” Ingram said.

SD group tries to recruit Native American referees

Wayne Carney, executive director of the South Dakota High School Activities Association, was instrumental in starting a program to recruit and train Native American referees. (Photo: Bob Grandpre / For the Argus Leader ) — Wayne Carney, executive director of the South Dakota High School Activities Association, was instrumental in starting a program to recruit and train Native American referees.
(Photo: Bob Grandpre / For the Argus Leader )

By Associated Press

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) – Finding referees for middle school games in communities on Native American reservations can sometimes be impossible in South Dakota.

In some cases, it’s even led to people getting pulled from the stands to call games, the Argus Leader reported Sunday. Emergency volunteers aren’t necessarily certified, which means they are less familiar with protocols when it comes to calling a fair contest, helping players learn a sport properly and handling games.

The South Dakota High School Activities Association in 2008 partnered with the Oglala Lakota College coach and athletic director Mary Tobacco to try to solve the problem. Together, they have developed a program to recruit and train Native American referees.

The program includes middle school basketball – the most popular sport in the area – volleyball and football. It involves 13 schools in two conferences. And this fall, a milestone will be reached when an all-Native American crew of referees participates in varsity football games in the region for the first time.

“We have to educate ourselves on the rules and get physically ready for the demands of fast play,” said Nick Hernandez, lead official in the all-Native American crew. “As a crew, we want to be prepared because the game has a lot of rules. We must be able to facilitate all those rules and provide a fair game.”

Activities Association executive director Wayne Carney said the lack of certified officials on reservations was especially problematic during the state tournament. He said foul numbers were lopsided because what was being called during regular season wasn’t consistent with the rules enforced during the state tourney.

Hernandez, a former high school player at Red Cloud, became certified about six years ago. He has been the coordinator of football officials in subvarsity games for the past three years, making game assignments.

Hernandez also is responsible for recruiting potential referees, and his efforts appear to be paying off: Twenty active men and women are on the basketball officiating list, up from less than five before the program kicked off.

Information from: Argus Leader, http://www.argusleader.com