MARYSVILLE, Wash. — In Snohomish County, and north along I-5, the Washington State Patrol has a new holiday speed trap.
It’s aimed at shoppers who are speeding to the mall.
Monday morning, the State Patrol put a plane in the sky to catch holiday speeders near the Premium Outlet Mall at Tulalip.
The pilot measures special markers along Interstate 5, then checks speeds using a stop watch.
With eyes in the air, he radios to troopers on the ground.
On the first day of speed shopping patrol, one trooper nailed a driver going 85 in a 60 mile an hour zone.
The State Patrol says nearly half of the speeders in November and December admit they’re speeding to shop.
“Obviously, holiday shopping is frustrating. It’s a mad dash in and out of stores. We would urge people to be calm and collected as they are driving down the road.” said Trooper Mark Francis.
The special shopping speed trap is extended from Marysville, up through Skagit and Whatcom Counties until the end of December.
The State Patrol has a planned holiday emphasis for Thanksgiving all along I-5.
In Response to Tribal Consultation & Feedback, Buy-Back Program Announces Solicitation for Cooperative Agreement Applications from Tribes
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of President Obama’s commitment to help strengthen Indian communities, and following nation-to-nation consultations with tribal leaders, the Department of the Interior is expanding the implementation strategy for the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program).
The move to engage a significant amount of tribal governments expands on the Department’s initial plan to launch pilot efforts with less than a dozen tribes, allows for a greater amount of engagement across Indian Country, and provides more flexibility and transparency for tribal governments. The cooperative agreements would make funds available to tribal governments to implement key aspects of the Buy-Back Program, such as owner outreach and education. Tribes have the opportunity to actively participate in the process, including identifying acquisition priorities, which will improve the program’s effectiveness and efficiency while minimizing administrative costs.
“This is a major step forward toward strengthening tribal sovereignty by supporting consolidation of tribal homelands,” said Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell. “We are moving quickly to establish individualized cooperative agreements, which address the specific needs of each tribe and provide resources for tribal communities to implement the program. Although the task ahead is challenging, we have been given a historic opportunity to work together with Indian Country to meet this challenge.”
The Buy-Back Program was created to implement the land consolidation component of the Cobell Settlement. The Settlement provided for a $1.9 billion Trust Land Consolidation Fund (Fund) to consolidate fractional trust or restricted land interests across Indian Country. The Buy- Back Program allows interested individual owners to receive payments for voluntarily selling their land. All lands sold will immediately be held in trust for the tribe with jurisdiction.
Interior holds about 56 million acres in trust for American Indians. More than 10 million acres are held for individual American Indians and nearly 46 million acres are held for Indian tribes. The Department holds this land in more than 200,000 tracts, of which nearly 94,000 – on about 150 reservations – contain fractional ownership interests available for purchase by the Buy-Back Program.
This solicitation will expand the program implementation work already underway and requests tribes to work with Interior to determine the estimated schedule in which they wish to ultimately conduct outreach and engagement. An open solicitation period will be held through March 14, 2014, during which tribes with jurisdiction over these most fractionated locations are invited to submit letters of interest or cooperative agreement applications for participation in the program.
Additional solicitations will follow this initial period. Significant outreach, mapping and mineral evaluations are already occurring at many locations.
“We have heard from tribal leaders and individual landowners that they want predictability and transparency on the timing of implementation efforts,” said Kevin K. Washburn, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. “This open solicitation puts much of the timing in the hands of tribal governments and will allow the program to move on a quicker timeline.”
Implementation decisions will still rely on a number of factors, such as the severity of fractionation; degree of ownership overlap between tracts; geographic location to maximize efficiency and resources; appraisal complexity; and overall interest of the tribe as indicated by their cooperative agreement application.
More information on this solicitation is available here.
Outreach and tribal engagement will also continue with the tribes that represent the locations with the remaining 10 percent of fractionated lands. Flexible purchase ceilings will be used to protect against the risk of premature exhaustion of the available funds.
The program also released an Updated Implementation Plan today, which builds upon significant consultation and feedback from tribal nations over the past year. Updates outlined in the plan include a number of steps that tribal nations can take now to prepare for involvement in the Buy- Back Program. These steps include increasing owner awareness of the value and benefits of participation in the program and designating an authorized tribal point of contact to engage with the Program.
The Updated Implementation Plan can be found here.
Courtesy Ossie Michelin, APTN National News This photo of 28-year-old Amanda Polchies kneeling before Royal Canadian Mounted Police while brandishing an eagle feather during anti-fracking protests in New Brunswick has become iconic as a symbol of resistance to destructive industrial development—and of women’s role in fighting for the water.
As Amanda Polchies knelt down in the middle of the blocked-off highway with nothing but an eagle feather held aloft separating her from a solid wall of blue advancing police officers, she prayed.
“I prayed for the women that were in pain, I prayed for my people, I prayed for the RCMP officers,” the 28-year-old Elsipogtog First Nation member told Indian Country Today Media Network. “I prayed that everything would just end and nobody would get hurt.”
As Polchies faced off against hundreds of RCMP officers on the highway near her community, she couldn’t help but notice how many of those beside her were indigenous women—the keepers of the water, fighting to keep fracking chemicals out of the ground.
“So many people got hurt,” she said as she recalled “looking around, seeing all of these women.”
Mi’kmaq women face police in anti-fracking protest on October 17, 2013, in New Brunswick near Elsipogtog First Nation. (Photo: Twitter)
Polchies was just one of the dozens of indigenous people who grappled with fully armed RCMP officers just south of a town called Rexton on October 17, 2013. Very early that morning, the RCMP had moved in on an encampment of Mi’kmaq Warrior Society members and others as they slept. They were enforcing an injunction against the blockade of a worksite for SWN Resources Canada, the company that has been searching for shale gas in the area since spring.
Photos and video of the raid show several snipers wearing camouflage or dressed all in black lying in surrounding fields. Hundreds of photos have emerged on social media from this day that show Indigenous people—both men and women of all ages—confronting police. But it’s hard not to notice how many of those images show indigenous women. Many women can be seen drumming, singing, praying and even smudging RCMP officers with the cleansing smoke of sage, cedar, sweetgrass or other traditional medicine.
By the time Polchies arrived that afternoon, the situation had become a standoff. On one side, RCMP officers in a straight line across the highway. On the other, opponents to shale gas—the majority of them Mi’kmaq. Before long, the situation became a fight. Arguments erupted, women screamed, and weaponry was raised. The RCMP used tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and even dogs. Polchies saw two women hit with pepper spray in the face. Seeing these women in pain “spoke to” her, she said.
“I just realized I had a feather in my hand,” Polchies said. “I just knelt down in the middle of the road and I started praying.”
Polchies didn’t realize it at the time but a reporter with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network snapped a photo from behind with his phone and posted it to Twitter. That image of Polchies kneeling down with a raised eagle feather, facing a line of officers in front of her, has come to symbolize the conflict between First Nations and the government-supported oil and gas companies that covet the resources under their land. And central to that conflict are women, the defenders of the water.
Mi’kmaq women stared down RCMP officers near Elsipogtog First Nation on October 17. (Photo: Twitter)
SWN Resources Canada, a subsidiary of Texas-based Southwestern Energy Company, has a license to explore 1 million hectares in the province of New Brunswick. While the company has only been searching for shale gas deposits, protesters believe that once they find them, it won’t be be long before the company employs the controversial technique known as fracking to get at it. Many fear that the practice, which involves injecting toxic chemicals into cracks in the rock to loosen the deposits, will contaminate and destroy local water systems. Protesters want to see SWN pack up and go home. Many women have been arrested, jailed and even injured as they passionately defend their life-giving water supply. Protests have been ongoing since June.
Indigenous women are traditionally responsible for water, said Cheryl Maloney, who is from Shubenacadie First Nation, a Mi’kmaq community near Truro, Nova Scotia, and is president of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association.
“Women have a connection to the water based on the moon and our cycles,” Maloney told Indian Country Today Media Network. “But that alone doesn’t explain the intense connection that our young people, the seventh generation have.”
There is an awakening going on, she said, with young women revitalizing their culture after years of seeing it being oppressed and taken away from their families through residential school.
“All the prophecies are pointing to these young people,” she said. “Our young people are spiritually awakened. Make no mistake, they are spiritually driven and following their ancestors.”
Haley Bernard, 22, of Pictou Landing, Nova Scotia, heeded the call. The recent graduate of Cape Breton University in Mi’kmaq Studies gave her support on the front lines on October 17, answering her best friend Suzanne Patles’ cry for help.
“Women are protectors of the water, we have water in our body, we carry a child, and they’re covered in water, so we’re meant to do that. We’re supposed to do that,” said Bernard. “We know the law, we know our treaties, we know what we’re supposed to protect.”
For her part, Polchies never planned on becoming a symbol. When the line of RCMP officers moved forward, she remained on her knees.
“I heard someone behind me saying, ‘Keep praying if you’re not going to get up.’ That’s what I did.”
All she could see was darkness from the uniforms that surrounded her.
“I just closed my eyes and held my feather and prayed for protection,” she said. “Then all of a sudden there was light.”
Polchies said that’s when RCMP officers moved to the other side of the road and started arresting people. One of the women Polchies saw was 66-year-old Doris Copage, a respected Mi’kmaq Elder from the Elsipogtog First Nation.
“I got pepper sprayed, I didn’t know what that was and I didn’t think they would do anything to the women,” Copage told Indian Country Today Media Network.
Armed with only a crucifix, Copage had set out that day with her husband in response to a call for help from the protest site. Seeing the gravity of the situation, Copage started to recite the rosary with the community’s priest, also present.
“The [RCMP officers] were really mocking at us, talking and laughing,” Copage said, adding that she questioned one of them at the frontline.
“I asked him, ‘Are you really ready to kill the Natives?’ ” she said, and was shocked by his answer.
“He looks at me and says, ‘Yes, if I have to,’ ” Copage said. “I said, ‘How many are you planning to kill?’ He didn’t say how many. He put his three fingers out.”
Copage told the officer that the indigenous people had no protection and that she had only came out as an Elder to pray. She intends to continue standing up for her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and the community.
“I want to call it ‘protect,’ ” said Copage, rather than “protest.” “We are here to protect our water, our land. We have a river. It’s a beautiful river, we love it and we respect it.”
Of the 40 people arrested, three men are still in custody, with no trial date in sight. Aaron Francis, Germaine “Junior” Breau and Coady Stevens, members of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society, pleaded not guilty in New Brunswick Provincial Courthouse on Friday November 8, according to a statement from the society.
“I am happy they have entered their plea of not guilty,” said Susan Levi-Peters, former Chief of Elsipogtog First Nation, in a statement on November 8, “and I am saddened that they are still locked up for protecting our women and elders who were for fighting for our water and land.”
Blockades have been in the news lately, given indigenous resistance to fracking and other industrial invasions around Turtle Island.
But a different sort of blockade is happening across the Pacific at the tranquil Nara Park in Japan, about 300 miles southwest of Tokyo. It’s a deer park, meaning it is filled with gardens and deer—the Sika deer, Cervus nippon to be exact, also known as the Japanese deer—that are spotted and thus appear fawnlike.
“The park is home to hundreds of freely roaming deer,” according to the website Japan-Guide.com. “Considered in Shinto to be messengers of the gods, Nara’s nearly 1,200 deer have become a symbol of the city and have been designated a natural treasure.”
Shinto, the site explains, means “the way of the gods” and is the indigenous faith of the Japanese people, “as old as Japan itself.” It and Buddhism are the main religions in the country today.
Visitors can buy little crackers to feed the deer. Though the animals can get feisty if they think you’re about to hand over a cracker, they are for the most part tame, the site says, even bowing when offered food, as the website Kotaku.com notes.
In August the deer staged a sit-in of sorts on the road that bisects the park.
A successor for former state Sen. Nick Harper of Everett could be known by Thanksgiving, and Democratic state Reps. John McCoy of Tulalip and Mike Sells of Everett are both seeking the position.
Democrats in the 38th Legislative District will meet Nov. 26 to nominate three people for the seat which opened up when Harper unexpectedly quit Saturday. He announced his resignation following the Legislature’s special session.
Under party rules, the district’s 28 elected and appointed precinct committee officers are eligible to vote. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Everett Labor Temple.
Names of the top three candidates receiving votes will be forwarded to the Snohomish County Council, which will choose one of them to take Harper’s place.
The County Council could make its decision the very next day — which is the eve of Thanksgiving. Council Chairwoman Stephanie Wright said if it can’t be done that quickly, it will happen the following week.
Harper resigned Saturday with a year left in his term, saying he needed to give up the job he won in 2010 in order to spend more time with his wife and two young children.
His successor will serve in next year’s legislative session and would have run for a full-term in 2014.
Candidates for the appointment are starting to surface.
McCoy, the retired general manager of Quil Ceda Village, was first elected to the House in 2002. Sells, the secretary-treasurer of the Snohomish County Labor Council, was first elected to the House in 2004.
Kelly Wright, who worked for former state Rep. Liz Loomis and ran for Marysville mayor in 2011, said Monday he would put his name in, too. But he said he intended only to be a caretaker of the seat through the next session and would not run for a full term afterward.
If Sells or McCoy is selected for the Senate, a similar process will be conducted to fill the vacant House seat.
When Clarissa Rizal completed her apprenticeship with 96-year old Chilkat weaver Jennie Thlunaut in 1986, she wasn’t fully aware of the responsibility she’d been entrusted to carry. She didn’t know that Thlunaut, one of the last and finest Chilkat weavers of her generation, had taken on only one other apprentice, her daughter, who was no longer living. Rizal also didn’t know that only a very few other women, such as Maria Ackerman Miller, possessed an in-depth knowledge of Chilkat weaving traditions at that time.
Photo by Peter Metcalfe Chloe French weaves her first Chilkat robe during a weavers’ demonstration at the Sharing Our Knowledge Conference at Centennial Hall in 2009.
When Thlunaut herself died just a few months after their apprenticeship was complete, and Miller a few years later, Rizal gained a keen awareness of the importance of her role in carrying her mentor’s teachings forward.
Nearly 30 years later, sharing Thlunaut’s teachings is still a huge part of Rizal’s life, but the sense of urgency she felt in her 20s is gone. In the last few decades, the art form’s fragile position in being understood by only a few weavers has been strengthened by a wave of renewed interest across multiple generations of Tlingit women, and a few men.
“If Jennie Thlunaut could see the number of weavers out there now who are actually weaving, it would make her so happy,” Rizal said. “At the time — 30 years ago — she couldn’t find anybody.”
Some of these committed weavers will be gathering for a public weavers’ demonstration at the “Sharing Our Knowledge” conference over the next three days at Centennial Hall. The demonstration, which will include Chilkat, Ravenstail and cedar bark weaving, will take place off the lobby of the conference center. Those who aren’t attending the conference can access the weaver’s demonstration on Friday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $5 for those who are not participating in the conference and includes access to the conference’s artists’ market.
The demonstration was organized by Lily Hope, Rizal’s daughter, who, like her mother, weaves and teaches both Chilkat and Ravenstail styles. Hope said she’s lined up nearly 20 weavers, who will share works in progress, talk about materials and techniques and answer questions from the public.
Hope, who won first place in the 2010 Sealaska Heritage Institute’s Juried Art Show in the traditional category for her weaving “Copper Child,” will be among the weavers demonstrating Chilkat in the lobby.
Rizal, who is in Colorado and probably won’t make it to this year’s conference, said the last time the weavers held the demonstration, at the 2009 clan conference, it was a huge hit. Initially scheduled for a two-hour slot, the event spilled over into an all-day event due to public interest.
In the intervening years, interest in weaving has continued to grow, Rizal said, a trend she attributes in part to the connections made possible by Facebook and other social media sites. One traditional weavers’ group on Facebook has close to 400 members.
“The Native community has jumped on board with Facebook,” Rizal said. “It’s just crazy what’s taking place now with weavers.”
Though this is good news for the continued strength of the art form, the influx of so many new weavers also brings up interesting questions about how the art form is learned and practiced, questions rooted in deeper issues of what it means to those who do it.
For Hope and her mother, who are Ravens of the T’akDein Taan Clan, weaving isn’t a past time, or even a craft. It’s an activity that’s deeply connected to their identity as Tlingit women and an integral part of their spiritual lives.
Hope will lead a presentation that touches on some of these topics during the conference. Her talk, “Tuwulatseen x’óow. Strength Giving Robes: Origins and Spiritual Meanings of our Ravenstail and Chilkat Weavings,” is based on her experiences as a weaver and teacher, and on her historical research of written and oral records. It begins at 1:30 p.m. in the Egan Room on Saturday.
“In the past few years there’s been a discussion about the ‘rules and laws’ of Chilkat and Ravenstail weaving, and I wanted to talk about that in professional place, with my peers, where we can continue the discussion,” Hope said.
Hope will also talk about the differences between the two forms. Ravenstail is an older form than Chilkat, one that had actually passed out of practice when it was rediscovered by Canadian artist Cheryl Samuel in the 1980s. When Samuel began teaching the form in 1989, after years of research, Rizal was in her first class.
Hope said it’s significant that Chilkat came down to students through the teachings of a living master weaver, Thlunaut, while Ravenstail did not; in her talk she will discuss how this difference manifests in the spiritual development of the two styles.
For Rizal, the spiritual aspects of traditional weaving became clear to her only when she started weaving Chilkat robes on the advice of one of her students, Ann Smith. Prior to that she was weaving smaller projects, such as aprons. The experience of trying a robe changed her life in many ways, she said.
“The power of weaving robes is so astounding spiritually. Culturally, yes, it’s great we help our people show pride in themselves, but for the weaver, what it does for the weaver spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, is so profound that I want all the weavers, all the women who know how to weave, to do a robe because of that awesome spiritual growth that goes with that,” Rizal said.
“And when we strengthen our women, in any culture anywhere around the world, when we strengthen our women, we strengthen our families, we strengthen our ties with our children, with our men, and when we have that strength in our families it branches out in our communities, our nations and world wide,” she continued.
The three-day Sharing Our Knowledge conference was pioneered by Lily Hope’s late father-in-law Andy Hope III, in 1993 (Lily Hope’s husband, Ishmael, is Andy Hope’s son) The conference brings together cultural experts and scholars from diverse backgrounds, who will speak on a wide variety of topics including: linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, education, art and music. (See Lance Twitchell’s article in this week’s Arts for an overview of the conference.)
The weaving demonstration will be going on concurrently with the conference presentations, and will include weavers of a wide range of ages and experience levels. They include Sharon Walker, Debra O’Gara, Nahaan, Irene Lampe, Ernestine Hanlon, Shaa Hanlon, Lorraine DeAsisq, Ricky Tagaban, Marsha Hotch, Melissa Rinehart, Shgen George, Michelle Martin, Fausto Paulo, Yarrow Vaara, Della Cheney, Jackie Kookesh and Catrina Mitchell.
JUNEAU, Alaska — Language and traditions are the focus of a Tlingit clan conference taking place in Juneau through Sunday.
The event called “Sharing Our Knowledge” began Wednesday at Centennial Hall, according to CoastAlaska (http://is.gd/361JyU).
The theme of the conference is “Our Language is Our Way of Life.”
Sessions include such topics as art, music, archaeology, linguistics, Alaska Native history and indigenous law. There also are sessions on regional language programs, a Tlingit spelling bee and bringing the language into the home.
“I have a strong belief that language in the home is something that is often overlooked,” said conference executive director Gerry Hope.
The Tlingit language is disappearing and organizing committee members were concerned about a number of elders dying, Hope said. There is a need to talk to elders now, he said.
Peter Metcalf, an organizer of the conference, said the event is for more than just tribal members.
“The best part about it from my point of view is you can walk into or out of a workshop and you’ll feel welcome and understand what’s going on, with the exception perhaps of some of the Tlingit language workshops that are happening,” he said.
The clan conferences began about two decades ago. They resumed in 2007 after a 10-year pause.
Just months ago, members of the Haida First Nation raised a carved totem pole in Gwaii, a protected area, for the first time in more than 130 years. The celebration marked the 20th anniversary of the agreement that the Haida people have with the Canadian government to protect their homeland.
Jason Aslop, from the Haida Heritage Centre, talked to BBC News about the importance of the raising legacy totem pole. “Raising a pole again in Gwaii signifies our resurgence and our resilience to repopulate and take back our culture and began to put place markers back into our traditional village sites.”
Like many of Canada’s First Nation people, from the 1870s to until the 1970s, Haida children were taken from their parents and sent to boarding schools, where their cultural practices and languages were banned.
Haida First Nation peoples surround the legacy totem pole before it was raised in August. (VancouverSun.com)
The Canadian government has apologized, but despite what happened in the past, today, the Haida culture is thriving. And tourism plays a big role in the Haida people’s success.
A report from First Nations in British Columbia says the tourism industry is one of the largest economic sectors in the province, worth copy3.5 billion. The government wants to grow tourism to copy8 billion by 2016 as part of its “Gaining the Edge” policy. This amounts to a 5 percent growth each year, according to the report.
Tourism continues to grow because 1 in 4 visitors come to the province seeking an authentic aboriginal tourism experience.
Tourists are drawn to Haida Gwaii Islands on the northwestern coast of British Columbia because it is famous for sea kayaking. A BBC News report says that most tourists rent kayaks for a week, which costs about $400 for two people. An 8-day guided kayaking tour costs around $2000 per person.
Many tourists visit the centuries-old cedar poles, and long house remains at the Haida heritage sites in the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve. The Haida Heritage Center in Skidegate allows tourists to learn about their culture.
Art is one of the main ways that tourists connect with the Haida people. An art route created throughout Gwaii Haanas allows visitors to meet local artists.
Ben Davidson, a Haida wood carver, is one of the artists that tourists can meet during their tour. “My generation and my children’s generation, really, are stepping up to the plate and relearning old traditions and wanting to be part of the culture as well as the art,” Davidson told BBC News.
Mark Williams, is founder of the Native American Paranormal Project (NAPP). He describes his group of part-time explorers as “enthusiasts” as opposed to the professional paranormal investigators portrayed on such hit shows as “Ghost Hunters” and “Ghost Adventures.”
What also sets the NAPP apart is that all the members are Native American and that the group specializes in investigating Native American landmarks rumored to be haunted.
How it all began
Mr. Williams said that he has a lifelong interest in the supernatural and is a fan of television shows like “Ghost Hunters.” One night after viewing the program, he was inspired.
He posed the following question to a friend: “How cool would it be to see Native Americans on that screen?”
NAPP was started in the fall of 2011. Since then, the group has grown to nine team members who seek out paranormal phenomena in Indian country. The group films its investigations and turns the footage into documentaries shown to audiences during film screenings.
Interest in the NAPP’s explorations has quickly grown with more than 11,000 “likes” for the group’s Facebook page.
One NAPP member is Steve Jacob, a staff member with Chickasaw Nation Arts and Humanities. Mr. Jacob and Mr. Williams met a couple of years ago at the McSwain Theatre after a screening of one of the movies in the Chickasaw Nation’s Holba Kanali Native American film series.
Their conversation revealed that both shared an interest in the supernatural and the unknown. Mr. Jacob decided to join the NAPP shortly after their meeting.
“It’s kind of like a hobby. It’s a scary hobby at times but it’s a good hobby,”
Mr. Jacob said.
Mr. Jacob’s wife, D.D. Jacob, a Chickasaw, is also an NAPP member. She decided to tag along during the group’s investigation of the Concho Indian Boarding School. Dubbed the group’s “resident skeptic,” Mrs. Jacob said she only went that first time to help her husband with the drive back from Concho.
However, based on what she has witnessed during the NAPP’s past investigations, Mrs. Jacob admitted she has become more open to the possibility the group has witnessed paranormal phenomena. She is now a permanent member of the group.
Ghost hunting
So far, the group has investigated various Native American sites in Oklahoma including the Concho Indian Boarding School in Concho, the Wheelock Academy in Millerton and Fort Washita near Durant.
Group members scout out possible sites to explore via the Internet and from word-of-mouth. Then, they approach and get permission from the appropriate tribal officials to explore the selected location.
Once at the site, members are assigned an area to record. The group doesn’t use any specialized recording equipment. All of their equipment is consumer-grade audio and video electronics.
Mr. Jacob said the group approached each site respectfully and was careful not to disturb the surroundings or any ghostly inhabitants.
At first, Mr. Williams was concerned there may be fellow Native Americans, particularly tribal elders, who might object to investigating tribal landmarks. However, the feedback the group has received after film screenings has been mostly positive.
“What’s funny is that some of our biggest supporters are the elders,”
Mr. Williams said.
Mr. Williams believes the investigative approach has been the key to success.
Jacqueline Pata, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, says the Affordable Care Act is a “very good thing for Indian Country.”
There has been much controversy about the Affordable Care Act, what some call Obamacare. The politics are beyond intense. And those computer glitches are making it virtually impossible for people to enroll.
Promise or not, treaty or not, the entire history of healthcare in Indian Country has been defined by shortages. There has never been enough money to carry out that sacred bargain.
The modern Indian Health Service was created in 1955. And over the following decades, more clinics were built, more doctors were hired, and health care for Native people improved. Still, the agency never had enough money.
In 1965 when Medicare and Medicaid were enacted into law there wasn’t even consideration about how these programs would impact American Indians and Alaska Natives. The Indian Health Service could not bill the agencies for serving eligible services. Native Americans were essentially left out of that health care reform effort.
That history of shortages is critical context to understanding the Affordable Care Act. Because from the very beginning of the legislative process, the Affordable Care Act included Indian Country. This happened because a decision was made by tribal leaders to roll the Indian Health Care Improvement Act into the larger legislation.
“Let me tell you why it was different this time,” said Jacqueline Pata, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians. For nearly twenty years tribes urged Congress to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. Then the discussion began about a health care reform.
“We were sitting at an NCAI board meeting, tribal leaders around the table, and said we really have to engage in this health care debate this time around. There were those that said, “no, let’s stay where we are,’” she said. But former NCAI President Jefferson Keel knew the health care industry and he agreed with the broader approach. “So we immediately started to look at the overall health care bill, working with the members of Congress, to be able to find all those other places that it was important to insert ‘and tribes.’ So not only did we get Indian Health Care (Improvement Act) reauthorized permanently. But we were able to get provisions into Medicaid, we were able to get the tax exemption (for tribes that purchase insurance for members), we were able to include a lot of places where tribes should have been considered but probably wouldn’t have been if we didn’t integrate those two pieces of legislation.”
YouTube: Episode 1 of Treaty or Not? The Affordable Care Act & Indian Country
But there still is a question of why? Why American Indians and Alaska Natives need insurance of any kind when there is a treaty right, a statutory call to healthcare, that transcends this latest national experiment? Then recall the long history of shortages. The Indian health system has never been adequately funded, probably less than half of the appropriation that would bring about some sort of parity with other federal health systems.
The main idea in the Affordable Care Act is to require health insurance for all Americans because that lowers the cost for everyone, the so-called “mandate.” But American Indians are exempt from that mandate (even if the Indian health system does not count as insurance). So the way that exemption works, this year at least, is that American Indians and Alaska Natives will have to fill out forms for an exemption (once granted, it’s a lifetime deal). The good news here is that the whole website mess does not apply.
Then insurance itself is a complicated idea for Indian Country. What is called “third party billing” has been a small, but growing part of the financial resources for the Indian health system.
You see there is this odd American idea that links health insurance to our jobs. That’s how most Americans now get their health care — and will continue to do so even under the Affordable Care Act. But that one element is a big difference for Indian Country. Only 36 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives have insurance purchased through work — that’s half the rate for most Americans — and 30 percent of us have no insurance at all.
But the Affordable Care Act is designed to change that. The new law offers incentives for people to get health insurance coverage at a reduced rate or even free. So why would American Indians and Alaska Natives purchase insurance?
“The Indian health system is only funded at about fifty percent,” said Valerie Davidson, senior director of legal and intergovernmental affairs at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in Anchorage.
“Anybody who’s ever been to a tribally-operated program or an urban program or an IHS facility, they know the services are limited. Unfortunately there isn’t enough funding. And so we rely on those third-party reimbursements (or insurance) to make those ends meet, to be able to keep the clinic’s lights on.”
She said the Affordable Care Act is an opportunity to make sure that American Indians and Alaska Natives have additional health care coverage. “So the things that the Indian Health Service funding typically doesn’t pay for is medically-necessary travel (unless it’s considered life or limb). So generally an emergency is taken care of,” Davidson said. “But it may not cover routine travel.” She said an example would be people who live in a community without a dentist — so the only available option requires travel. “Having that extra coverage could cover the medically-necessary travel,” she said.
Insurance that covers medical travel is one reason for individuals to purchase insurance — and there are other reasons as well. A diabetes patient who’s insured would get better care, more access to the wider selection of procedures and drugs.
But the problem is that the rules for the insurance marketplaces are doubly complicated for Indian Country. Who’s eligible? How much? And, just what are the rules?
But if the law is to be successful in Indian Country there has to be a greater effort at educating people about their options. The Government Accountability Office recently said it will take a major campaign to make that so. That means hiring more people, lots of people, to help Native Americans navigate through this maze.
But there are already models for this kind of campaign. The Census was effective with “Indian Country Counts.” And, as NCAI’s Pata points out, last year’s efforts to register Native American voters is the kind of operation that’s needed. “It’s so critically important that tribes get engaged in giving direction. Tribes need to think about this the way they would with their Native Vote campaign,” she said. “They need to be able to have sign-up fairs, where they can actually answer the questions.”
So will American Indians and Alaska Natives sign up for insurance? If that happens it won’t because of a working web site in Washington, D.C. It will happen because every clinic in the Indian health system explains to patients why insurance matters and how it means more money for all.
The most important insurance program for American Indians and Alaska Natives is Medicaid.
When the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, the headline was that the majority affirmed the individual mandate. But the second part of that decision is that the United States could not force all 50 states to expand Medicaid coverage.
Medicaid is a particularly complex government insurance program for the poor. But what makes Medicaid so important is that its funding source is not appropriated by Congress. It’s an entitlement. If a person is eligible, then the money is there. Automatically.
Medicaid is also a partnership between a state government and the federal government.
But for American Indians and Alaska Natives, it’s an odd marriage. The federal government picks up 100 percent of the cost. But even though the bills are paid for by Washington, each state sets the rules for eligibility about who and what will be covered.
The result is that about half of Indian Country will be covered by states where Medicaid is expanding — and the other half live in states that have said no. This means that hundreds of thousands of American Indians and Alaska Natives will lose out on expanded insurance coverage that the Affordable Care Act was designed for.
So this means that the Indian health system will essentially be split in two. There will be more money for health care in states where Medicaid expands — and less in the states that have said no. In the “no” states that will be even less money for an already underfunded Indian health system.
Watch North Dakota and Arizona. Two conservative, red states, looked at their numbers — and especially their Native American population — have already decided to expand Medicaid. If the program works in those two states, then other states with large native populations, might join the party. But if not, there is always the possibility that Indian Country could be treated as a 51st state. (The Affordable Care Act even begins that consideration by allowing a beta test of sorts for the Navajo Nation.)
The numbers are huge. The GAO says: “Excluding those already enrolled, potential new enrollment in Medicaid could exceed 650,000 out of 2.4 million (27 percent) for those identifying as American Indians and Alaska Natives alone, and almost 1.2 million out of 4.8 million (25 percent) for those identifying as American Indians and Alaska Natives alone or in combination with another race.”
NCAI’s Pata says the Affordable Care Act also “makes it really important for tribes, as they look at their health care clinics, to think of them as businesses. And not just as businesses for their tribal members, but businesses for their community, particularly the smaller tribes.”
The flip side of that idea is a shift in power from the clinic to the individual. Once someone has insurance, either through Medicaid, the marketplace exchanges, or another program, then that person might not choose to remain in the Indian health system.
“That’s the other reason why tribes need to think of (clinics) as businesses,” Pata said.
In some ways the urban Indian clinics are ahead of the Affordable Care Act. Because so little IHS funding — about one percent — goes to urban clinics, they have had to act like business enterprises.
“The greatest challenge is balancing the historical manner in which we have provided services, which have been geared around the needs of the population, with the growing demand for reaching out to other communities to get sufficient volumes to get the revenues to keep the doors open,” said Ralph Forquera, executive director of the Seattle Indian Health Board. “That balance of natives to non-natives … has always been a complex thing to manage. Some clinics around the country have seen a dramatic drop-off in their Indian participation in their clinics because the economics just don’t work. They need to go out and seek non-native people and enroll them in their programs to keep the doors open.”
He adds that Seattle has been fortunate because it’s been able preserve that balance.
But Seattle has a larger population base, something that is not true in all communities.
“It does change the dynamic,” Forquera said. “Those are some huge challenges but they are not unique to us. The tribal community clinics may be in even more challenging situation if the dynamic changes.”
He said one thing to watch is a shift away from fee-for-service payments to clinics to a more managed-care approach. For managed care to work, there has to be a larger scale, more people. “In order to be able to work in that kind of environment, you have to enroll large numbers of individuals in order to generate the revenues to pay for staff and the facilities, all the things necessary to provide the services” Forquera said. That concept could make it more difficult for Indian programs with small numbers of people.
But the Indian health system does have one huge advantage over the larger health system — and that’s underfunding. Underfunding as an opportunity? Yes. Because it’s already led to smarter, more efficient ways of operating. It’s made innovation possible.
Alaska’s dental health therapist program is a great example of that kind of thinking. “We recognized that we’re not going to be able to have a dentist in every community,” said Davidson. “So we developed a two-year training program to be able to train people to provide mid-level oral health care. Most of their work is in prevention, but they can also do exams, develop treatment plans, they can do fillings, and simple extractions.”
The payoff? “The tribal health system has been innovative by necessity. And a lot of these programs can and have served as models for the rest of the United States,” Davidson said. “Tribes have shown time and time again that we are a really good investment. We can do more with less. If you take a look at what we are able to do today, compared with what we were able to do before we were able to assume ownership of our own system, the difference is tremendous. We can take innovation to a whole different level.”
So will the Affordable Care Act work?
It’s too early to know that answer. But this is not new in history. More than sixty years ago the Bureau of Indian Affairs ran health care programs. It was awful. One doctor wrote: All we really need are good doctors, facilities and pharmaceuticals. I am weary.” Congress finally got the message in 1955 and created the Indian Health Service. But that shift — as dramatic as the one today — worked and it significantly improved the quality of life for American Indians and Alaska Natives.
