The Oneida Indian Nation and the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), which lead the national Change the Mascot campaign, responded today to reports that the blogger hired just two weeks ago to defend the Washington NFL team’s use of a racial slur is resigning.*
Oneida Nation Homelands, NY (PRWEB) July 08, 2014
Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter and NCAI Executive Director Jackie Pata said in response to this latest development*:
“The growing opposition to the team’s name is about far more than any one person—it is a civil rights and human rights issue and it is time for the team and the NFL to stand on the right side of history and change the mascot.
“In trying to continue profiting off of a racial slur, Washington team officials have attempted to assemble a political attack machine, but that has only underscored their insensitivity. Dan Snyder selected a person who financially harmed Native Americans to run a foundation to defend his team’s name.** Then Snyder hired a blogger to defend the name, even though that person previously publicly insulted Native Americans and also references the team’s name in a list of racial slurs.*** The fundamental lesson in each of those humiliating episodes should be obvious: there is simply no way to justify promoting, marketing and profiting off of a dictionary-defined racial slur.
“The only tenable solution for the team is to recognize that the R-word racial epithet is deeply offensive to Native Americans, to quit pretending that this word somehow honors them, and to stop using this slur. If Dan Snyder wants to stop embarrassing himself, his team, its fan base and the NFL, then he should approach the issue of the name from an honest and genuine standpoint.”
*Blogger hired to defend Redskins name resigns after two weeks, 7.8.14, cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24610931/blogger-hired-to-defend-redskins-name-re-signs-after-two-weeks
**Redskins foundation head drew criticism in I.G. report, 3.17.14,
usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/03/27/washington-redskins-orginal-americans-gary-edwards-inspector-general/6983217/
***Washington’s blogger-turned-lobbyist faces scrutiny, 7.8.14, http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/07/06/washingtons-blogger-turned-lobbyist-faces-scrutiny/
A new study from Colorado School of Public Health shows that despite some modest improvements, poor oral health remains a major problem in the Navajo Nation and among American Indians overall.
“The oral health among Native Americans is abysmal with more than three times the disease of the rest of the country,” said Terrence Batliner, DDS, MBA, associate director of the Center for Native Oral Health Research at the School of Public Health. “The number one problem is access to care.”
The study, published recently in the Journal of Public Health Dentistry, showed that 69.5 percent of Navajo children had untreated tooth decay. While that’s better than the 82.9 percent in 1999, it’s still unacceptably high.
“The percentage of children with untreated decay appears to have declined in the past decade, although it remains today substantially higher (three to four times) than national averages,” the study said.
Batliner and his colleagues, including Patricia Braun, MD, MPH, who directed the study on the Navajo Nation, looked at 981 children in 52 Head Start classrooms on the reservation. Of those, 89.3 percent had oral disease in the past and 69.5 percent had untreated tooth decay.
That 69.5 percent of untreated decay compares with 20.48 percent among all other race and ethnic groups.
The Navajo Nation is the largest reservation in the country, stretching over 25,000 square miles. Much of it is remote with 22 dental clinics serving 225,639 residents. The dentist-to-patient ratio is 32.3 dentists per 100,000 residents, among the lowest in the country.
The researchers found that half of all Native American children need to be treated in the operating room due to the severity of their oral disease.
To increase access to care, Batliner advocates the creation of dental therapists for the reservation.
“They learn how to do fillings and extractions along with providing preventative services,” Batliner said. “This program has proved to be a raging success among tribes in Alaska. The quality of care is good.”
The American Dental Assn. opposes dental therapists and has filed suit to block their use on tribal lands.
“The American Dental Association is fighting the idea of dental therapists,” Batliner said. “But many of us perceive dental therapists as a Native solution to a Native problem. Children and adults are suffering and this is a solution that can help.”
WASHINGTON – The U.S. government turned its back on the descendants of freed slaves of Native Americans, swindling them out of lucrative land royalties allotted to them as children, a class action claims in federal court.
Leatrice Tanner-Brown and the Harvest Institute Freedman Federation sued Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewel and Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn, seeking an accounting of revenue from leases on land promised to children of Freedmen, who were liberated by citizens of the so-called “Five Civilized Indian Tribes” or Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw and Seminole nations.
According to the complaint: “The Five Civilized Tribes allied themselves with the Confederacy during the Civil War and attempted to maintain slaves following the War. As a result of the Tribes’ disloyalty to the United States during the Civil War all territory owned by the Tribes was forfeited. The status of the Tribes was reestablished under treaties entered in 1866.”
Some of the forfeited land was allotted to the freed slaves and their descendants.
The Department of Interior in 1908 agreed to keep track of revenue from leases on land granted to Freedmen minors or their descendants.
“Notwithstanding demand from plaintiffs for an accounting of revenue from leases on restricted lands during the period that these lands were held by Freedmen minors and not subject to alienation, defendants have failed to provide the requested accounting,” the complaint states.
“Under the Act of May 27, 1908, restrictions against alienation of Freedmen allotments … were not removed. Accordingly, any royalties derived from leases on [Freedmen] allotments should have been accounted for by the Department of Interior under the terms of the Sections 2 and 6 of the 1908 Act,” according to the complaint. “These failures were not innocent. They were the result of a deliberate strategy to swindle land and money from Freedmen.”
The claims says many of these allotments were for oil-rich land, and the government allowed grafters and speculators “anxious to obtain oil-rich lands for little or no payment to allottees” to exploit the often unsophisticated and uneducated Freedmen.
According to the complaint, there were 23,405 Freedmen in 1914.
“Defendants breached their duty to avoid conflicts of interests and to monitor Freedmen allotments in favor of alienation of European settlers, Oklahoma statehood, and corporate interests,” the class claims.
They want an accounting of money collected from the allotted lands and declaration of the government’s fiduciary duties.
They are represented by Paul Robinson Jr. of Memphis, Tenn.
Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is partnering with two Native American tribes in Fort Peck, Mont., to build affordable, high design housing, the website beforeitsnews.com reported Wednesday.
According to the report:
“Brad Pitt has been partnering with Fort Peck, MT’s Sioux and Assiniboine nation tribes to build 20 super green homes for residents whose income levels are at or below 60 percent the area’s mean income, with a percentage of the homes reserved for seniors and disabled veterans.”
The Make It Right website defines the existing situation in Fort Peck in these terms:
“Currently, more than 600 people are waiting for housing. Overcrowding is a chronic problem on the Fort Peck Reservation, where multiple families commonly live together in two bedroom homes.
Make It Right’s work on the Fort Peck Reservation began in June 2013 with community-driven design meetings. Tribal leaders and future homeowners met with Make It Right’s architects and designers to discuss housing needs and vision for their new neighborhood. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2014.
The solar-powered homes will have 3-4 bedrooms and 2-3 bathrooms … Home ownership will be structured through a Low Income Housing Tax Credit Rent-to-Own program with ownership transferring to the tenant after 15 years of renting.”
Pitt’s Make It Right began as an altruistic effort to rebuild one of the most flood-ruined neighborhoods of New Orleans. Since 2008 a part of the Lower 9th Ward near the Claiborne Avenue Bridge has blossomed with 100 new homes.
In recent years, Pitt’s organization has taken on somewhat similar projects in Kansas City, Missouri, and Trenton, New Jersey. As of June, there was only one Make It Right home under construction in New Orleans.
Watch Pitt discuss his vision for Make It Right in Kansas City in the video below.
In comparison to predecessors who have led the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Jon Tester (D-Montana) is a different creature. He’s not too prickly, nor harsh with staff; he’s not seen as overly idealistic, nor super controlled. And he doesn’t appear to have a passing interest in Indian issues, either; in other words, he’s not intent on leaving them behind when he finds a bigger fish to focus on.
While he’s been in the Senate since 2007, he’s still a farmer. Before that, he was a music teacher, and he has a Bachelor of Science in music, too. His wife: also a farmer. He’s visited the reservations in his state. He knows why the Indian vote matters, especially now as the Senate – part of a currently dysfunctional Congress, he laments – hangs in the balance.
Visiting him in the Hart Senate Office Building, it’s clear that he is a comfortable, candid, common-sense man who is focused on Indian stuff because he cares about it, and he wants to get it right. In person, he seems nicer, more jolly, than one gets a sense during committee hearings. He seems good, normal, real—a tribal ally who has a chance to show real power in this domain for years to come if he so chooses and if the voters in his conservative state continue to keep him in office.
He has been in the Senate for a rather short time to already be leading a committee. But it was his destiny after senior Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus retired to become an ambassador to China, and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) decided to move on at the beginning of this year to chair the Small Business Committee.
Cantwell has been criticized for not moving as much critical legislation as Indian country would have liked during her year holding the gavel, and Tester knows the score there. It’s one reason why he’s already passed 15 pieces of legislation through the committee on housing, education, water rights, and a sure-to-be complicated legislative fix to the 2009 Supreme Court Carcieri decision that limited the Department of the Interior’s ability to take lands into trust for tribes. With four hearings scheduled for July alone on some touchy subjects, including gaming and the Cobell settlement, at a time when many of his colleagues are prepping for summer break, perhaps his biggest challenge will be to not flood the engine.
On a late-June humid day in Washington, he wore a white dress shirt, top buttons unbuttoned, no tie, no suit coat. Famous crew cut front and center. Simple desk. No ornate decorations on the walls.
“Welcome,” he said, first looking at the reporter’s colorful tie, lamenting that he’s been instructed to wear toned down ties when he appears on television. “That’s a tie I’d like to wear on TV.”
And, with that, an interview began, touching on a range of pressing issues Tester says he wants to accomplish alongside his Indian allies—making clear that he can only be successful if Indians are willing to take responsibility and lead the way on improving their own prospects.
You have really started out of the gate running. How are you feeling at this point in your chairmanship?
I think we are in pretty good shape. We have pushed a lot of bills out of the committee. We really have taken some of the less controversial bills and moved down the line. I think our next challenge is taking the bills that we’ve gotten out of committee and the ones that don’t get taken up by unanimous consent, figuring out a strategy for the lame duck. Maybe an omnibus Indian bill going forward that could include a lot of stuff, including, potentially, a Carcieri fix. Secondly, particularly related to the hearings we’ve held on education, we need to write up an education bill, get it out of committee. The same thing may be true of economic development: get a bill that deals with economic development in Indian country, and get it out of committee.
Was Sen. Cantwell’s tenure last year – which some people criticized as moving too slow – necessary to get you to this point of action?
Maybe it was. I never thought about it that way. I think Maria did a great job as chairman of the committee. When she stepped aside and I took over the committee, knowing Mary [Pavel, staff director of the committee] for many years, I asked her to characterize the easy bills, the medium bills, and the tough ones. And we proceeded from there. Because we kept the same staff, it allowed Mary to have a solid scope of the landscape because she had worked a year with Maria on the committee.
How are you getting along with these staffers who you didn’t choose?
They’re all really good folks. I like them. They all bring different levels of expertise to the table; like to have fun; easy to be around. It’s a very good staff.
One thing that some in Indian country were worried about given the rapid exit of Sen. Cantwell was that it might take you another year to build your own machine.
Thankfully I have known Mary since I got here [to the Senate]. And I was confident that she would not put substandard people around here, and she hasn’t.
You mentioned an omnibus Indian bill that would hopefully tie in several Indian-focused legislative efforts. When would something like that happen, and are you talking about a standalone bill focused just on Indian issues?
Yeah, there are two ways to approach it. We could look for different bills to attach things on as amendments. Or we could put a standalone together. To be bluntly honest with you, I’ve got to talk to Harry [Reid, Senate Majority Leader (D-Nevada)]. I haven’t talked to him yet, because we haven’t talked as a staff yet on what we want to do. If Harry says no, we can’t do an omnibus bill, then we fall back to tell him that we want to attach them to bills to get votes on them…. We didn’t do all this work just for show. We are going to try to get something functionally done at the other end.
Do you worry if it’s a standalone bill that would present too many opportunities for other senators to want to get their compromises in there; whereas if it is attached to another bill, it might be less likely to be tinkered with?
There are some advantages and disadvantages going both ways, and you have touched on them. The advantage of a standalone Native American bill is that it has never been done before, and you have some great Native bills out there right now that have been carried by both Republicans and Democrats. So I think we could have a truly bi-partisan effort moving forward here. I think the big issue is going to be whether there is going to be enough time. Will Harry give me enough time to do a Native American bill?
Majority Leader Reid has been vocal on Indian issues lately, leading the way against the Redskins team name, introducing legislation to expand trust lands for Nevada tribes.
Yes, he was very supportive when I took the gavel, and he told me to get to work and do some stuff. So I can always remind him of that when I go to ask him about this bill.
You recently held a hearing on tribal economic development. Everyone talks about wanting to fix the economies of struggling reservations, but that kind of talk has happened throughout American history, really. How do you change that?
I tell you how to change it. We don’t fix it from Washington, D.C., and they don’t fix it on the ground. We have to work together. That’s one of the reasons why we have tried to be as transparent and as encompassing as we can be on this committee. We need Native Americans’ input. The programs that we set up and potentially fund, they have to be held responsible for doing the right thing to be sure their kids are getting an education, or the money is being spent right for economic development.
If tribes think that I can fix their economy, I can’t. The whole Congress can’t fix their economy. The truth is, with good communication, working together, we can fix it together. I’ve also got to find Indian leaders who are willing to step up. And I think we’ve found some who are willing to step up and say this is what we need to do in Indian country to make things work, and then we [Congress] need to support it.
The principle of self-determination has been around for a long time, and some tribes have been able to more successfully take advantage of the opportunities involved with it. Why have some tribes not been able to take advantage of those opportunities?
I don’t know. Sometimes the federal government holds them back. Some tribes have done it better than others. We had a hearing in Montana on Indian healthcare, and it was very apparent to me that the tribes that were block granted the money were doing a better job than the others. That’s about self-determination and them taking responsibility.
The tribes that are doing very well have now been able to become a part of the American political system, hiring strong lobbyists, making big campaign finance donations. What is your role in thinking about all that and how it juxtaposes against the needs of the most struggling tribes?
Every one of those tribes that are struggling has opportunity, and I think we have to figure out ways that they can expand on that opportunity. But it really has to be driven from the local level. You know, I can’t walk on to [the] Crow [reservation] and say, you know, you guys have great opportunities in tourism, and we need to do this, this, and this. That isn’t going to work. They need to come with the program and ask if there is any way for the federal government to help out.
You want tribes, especially ones that are struggling, to be bold in taking advantage of self-determination opportunities.
Yes, that’s right. Make no mistake: I know how difficult it is. When you’re poor, you’re poor. It’s hard to come up.
Is the Congress being bold enough in pushing new economic endeavors?
No, and part of it has to do with the economic constraints we have on us due to the debt, wars, and everything that has transpired over the last 15 years. There are limited opportunities now, but we need to take advantage of the limited opportunities that we have.
Does this situation change for the better while you are serving in Congress?
Well, I hope so. But this is a pretty dysfunctional place. I wish I could tell you this place is running like a Singer sewing machine, but it ain’t. It’s pretty tough. We can have the best ideas, and somebody will put a hold on them, and then that’s that. But that doesn’t mean you don’t keep trying. And, by the way, if you keep trying, I think that sets a really good example for the folks in Indian country.
Is the administration being bold enough on tribal economic development?
I think they’re pretty good, but they’ve got a ways to go yet, too. I think they’ve done some really good work, but they are under the same fiscal constraints that we are.
Would you support the president creating a Cabinet level Native affairs position?
I think, absolutely, it would be a great idea. Number one: they would have a better understanding of the challenges in Indian country than I would. Second: that voice out there talking about what needs to be done is important because it not only helps Indian folks, it helps everybody.
Jodi Gillette and other advisors in this administration focused on Indian issues are not Cabinet level.
I tell you, Jodi Gillette has as much influence right now as any Cabinet person. She’s got the president’s ear. I think, regardless of what the position is called, you have to have someone that the president trusts and will listen to.
Would you like to see the president create a tribal economic development council composed of Indian leaders?
I think it’s a good idea. If in fact this is something that can happen, we will talk about it as a committee, and send a letter off.
You’ve said your clean Carcieri legislative fix that would help reservation economies still faces a lot of hurdles.
Yes, and it’s no different now than ever before.
What does that mean?
That means that we’ve got to find 60 votes, and there are people out there on the Democratic side who don’t like it, and I’m sure there are people on the Republican side who don’t as well. This is truly going to have to be a bipartisan effort, or it isn’t going to work to get a clean fix. Our challenge is going to be finding those 60 votes. I think a clean fix is the way to go, but I am not stupid about the legislative process. We need to get it through. I don’t think that two classes of Native Americans is a good idea. So we’ve got to find the 60 votes. We’ve got to do some serious talking with Sens. [Dianne] Feinstein, Jack Reed, [Chris] Murphy, [Richard] Blumenthal – these are all friends of mine – to let them know that I do not see the boogeyman out there in this bill that they do. We’ll see how effective I am in that.
Three SCIA chairmen before you have said the same thing about trying to build a coalition—
It’s never happened.
What makes you the one?
I’m a better guy. [laughs] No, I don’t know. A lot of it is timing; a lot of it is luck, too. Just as everything else, you push forward, and maybe the key will fit the lock.
So you’re working your Democratic friends?
We haven’t started yet. We’ve passed it out of committee. I have not had the hard conversation with Dianne [Feinstein] or any of the other four.
What is the hard conversation?
The hard conversation is to sit down with them and say I want to make this real. We need to figure out a way to allay their fears. If we’re successful in doing that, fine. If it comes to a point that we can’t be successful, then it becomes a little more difficult. Feelings get hurt and all that stuff. But I think that we’re all grownups here, and I think this issue has been around long enough that we should be able to get to the root problems and get them resolved.
Your vice-chair, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), how important is he in all this?
He is very important. He and [Sen. Jerry] Moran [R-Kansas] are the two keys to this puzzle. Moran because he is a co-sponsor. And if Barrasso were to come out hard against it, it would make this thing very difficult to pass.
In your ideal world, would he be working arm and arm with you on this?
In my ideal world, he would be.
And he’s not?
Well, we haven’t had that conversation yet, either. I don’t know where he’s at. I know where Jerry is. And Jerry is willing to go to the mat for us. Hopefully he will go to the mat with Barrasso. At the very least, Barrasso has to be neutral. If he’s opposed to it, we’ve got a problem. We don’t absolutely need him, but it would make life easier if we have him.
In committee, Sen. Barrasso recently proposed an amendment to study Carcieri and its effects on tribes, and it passed. More study?
Yeah, that’s something we do here all the time. We study stuff all the time, and then we study it some more. I think Carcieri is a known entity, and I don’t think it necessarily needs to be studied anymore.
Turning to your focus on Native education, all these hearings—is it because you were a teacher?
Yes, I think that’s fundamentally the root of it all. My folks strongly believed in public education, that it was a key to success. My grandmother moved to this country because of education. My mother and her three sisters and brother got degrees. Both my brothers have degrees. Education was pound into us as being very important. It is the key to our democracy. It is the key to economic development. It is the key to our future. If we are able to unleash the minds in Indian country, Indian country will flourish.
And you have proposed a Native language restoration bill. I know you didn’t grow up speaking a Native language, so why was that component meaningful to you?
It’s because of the information I have learned since sitting on the committee. Native language speakers do better in school, and they stay in school. Those are two big problems in Indian country—academic achievement and dropping out. If we can fix those two with language, we need to push language.
You held a higher education hearing that pleased many Indian higher ed advocates because they have felt their issues have been neglected by the administration to date.
It’s low hanging fruit, from my perspective. Tribal colleges are sitting there, ready to give skills to people to fill the jobs that are needed in Indian country. I think the tribal colleges are a huge asset. We are very fortunate in Montana because all seven tribes have tribal colleges. If we are able to leverage that tribal college system throughout the country, it will help with unemployment rates.
Over at the Indian Health Service, is Dr. Yvette Roubideaux going to be re-confirmed as director?
I don’t know. I think there are some communication issues that need to be worked out, and I’ve told her exactly that. There needs to be a lot better communication between tribes and her. I think she is trying to do that. But the well may be a bit soured because there are a lot of Native folks out there who don’t like her. I believe from a personal standpoint that I don’t have a problem with her. She is a delightful woman. But the Indian Health Service is in tough shape, and there needs to be the leadership there that pushes the envelope and listens to the people on the ground—tells them no when they have to tell them no, but comes up here and tells us [Congress] no when we need to hear that, too.
The reason I say I don’t know if she’ll be confirmed is I don’t know if she has the votes on the committee. That’s the problem. By the way, when Sylvia Burwell [the new director of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Roubideaux’ new boss] was in here, I talked to Sylvia specifically about her and asked her to do an assessment.
At the Department of the Interior, Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn has pushed some progressive proposals lately – improving the federal recognition process, wanting to get lands put into trust for Alaska tribes, thinking about Native Hawaiian recognition – what do you think about all that?
I think it’s very, very, very good. I think Kevin Washburn is a great guy. I wish other members of the agency would push us harder at the congressional level, because I think there are people here who want to be pushed harder. [Sen. Heidi] Heitkamp [D-N.D.] is a prime example. I’m a prime example. If you come in and demand more, we’re probably going to deliver more.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Les James, right, who is Miwuk-Chukchansi, beside two examples of traditional housing called umachas with tribal elder Bill Tucker, a Miwuk-Paiute, seen to the left, on a tour of a village site in Yosemite Valley just a few yards from the main loop road driven by thousands of visitors. A umacha is constructed with a frame of cedar poles covered by cedar bark using wild grape vines to tie joints together, according to Tucker and James. Photographed on Monday, June 9, 2014 in Yosemite National Park. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA — Fresno Bee Staff Photo
Editor’s note: Information in the third and fourth paragraphs has been revised to clarify details.
Two little American Indian girls hid motionless in a cave, covered in brush as soldiers passed through Yosemite Valley.
Older members of their Yosemite tribe made a quick escape up a steep, rocky canyon, and the girls were temporarily left behind, told not to make a sound.
This was the mid-1800s during the era when armed soldiers marched into Yosemite Valley not as explorers, but as men out for blood. At the first, they burned villages and stores of acorns, meat and mushrooms. Later on, they patrolled, yet the fear of them remained.
One of those concealed girls, Louisa Tom, lived to be more than 100 years old. She never got over those early images. Into old age, when uniformed park rangers entered her village in Yosemite Valley, she would run and hide behind her cabin, recalls great-granddaughter-in-law Julia Parker, 86, who has worked in the Yosemite Indian museum for 54 years.
For many American Indians, the inspiration for Yosemite National Park did not start with flowery prose from John Muir or a romantic vision of Galen Clark in the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias as its “first guardian.” It began with murder and destruction.
For them, the story of Yosemite since the mid-1800s is tragedy and tears, yet resilient Native Americans have survived and still live in this mountain paradise.
“We’re still here, living in the Yosemite Valley,” Parker says. “So you can’t keep a good people down.”
On Monday, many descendants of these “first people” will attend a ceremony in the Mariposa Grove to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Yosemite Grant Act — precursor to national parks. Les James, 79, a tribal elder active in Yosemite’s native community, will say a blessing, but he won’t be celebrating.
“The changes, the destruction, that’s what I don’t like about it. You destroyed something that we preserved for thousands of years. In 150 years, you’ve ruined it.”
For most of his life in the Yosemite area, James has worked to return cultural activities. He also had a 31-year career in Yosemite, starting in 1959, making trail and warning signs. Over his lifetime, there have been 24 park superintendents.
Helen Coats, 87, is the great-granddaughter of that little girl hiding in the cave. Coats, born in Yosemite Valley, lived in its last native village, destroyed by the Park Service by 1969.
She now lives down Highway 140 in the Mariposa area. She sees “busloads after busloads” of tourists pass by every day. Sometimes, it makes her sad.
“They are just trampling my home to death.”
A dark chapter
To understand the viewpoint of Yosemite’s first people, go back to March 27, 1851 — about 13 years before the Yosemite Grant Act was signed.
On that spring day, during a hunt for Indians who were rumored to be living in a mountain stronghold, the first publicized “discovery” of Yosemite happened.
The natives living in this ethereal place were called the Ahwahneechees, and they already were competing with the Gold Rush to survive. In 1849, there were 100,000 miners swarming the foothills, wrote Margaret Sanborn in “Yosemite: Its Discovery, its Wonders and its People.”
After an attack on a trading post on the Fresno River near Coarsegold owned by pioneer James Savage, 23 natives were killed by a volunteer company. The group, led by Savage, became the Mariposa Battalion. Federal Indian commissioners — eager to make treaties — told Savage to not “shed blood unnecessarily.”
The battalion discovered Yosemite searching for Indians. During early military expeditions, some natives were shot and killed or hung from oak trees in Yosemite Valley.
Lafayette Bunnell, a battalion member, recorded Chief Tenaya’s reaction finding his son shot in the back trying to escape.
“Upon his entrance into the camp of volunteers, the first object that met his gaze was the dead body of his son. Not a word did he speak, but the workings of his soul were frightfully manifested in the deep and silent gloom that overspread his countenance.”
Later, Tenaya tried to escape by plunging into the river, but was spotted. “Kill me, sir captain! Yes, kill me, as you killed my son; as you would kill my people, if they should come to you! … Yes, sir American, you can tell your warriors to kill the old chief … you have killed the child of my heart …”
The assault would splinter the Ahwahneechee tribe — some fleeing over the Sierra, others rounded up in the foothills.
Their descendents live on. Today, at least seven organized Native American groups have traditional ties to Yosemite, according to Laura Kirn, Yosemite’s cultural resources program manager.
But the pain of their past lives on, too.
Jack Forbes, a former American Indian studies professor at the University of California at Davis, writes about the previous era in “Native Americans of California and Nevada.” He suggests few chapters in U.S. history are more brutal and callous than the conquering of California Indians.
He writes: “It serves to indict not a group of cruel leaders, or a few squads of rough soldiers, but, in effect, an entire people; for the conquest of the Native Californian was above all else a popular, mass enterprise.”
Weight of difference
Coats was born in Yosemite Valley in May 1927.
As a child, she loved to roam and pound berries atop boulders in her village, where women pounded acorns. Sometimes she would dress in buckskin and beads to visit grandmother Lucy Telles weaving baskets for tourists.
It was a good childhood, Coats says, but she couldn’t help notice being treated differently than white children. She recalls that at her Yosemite school, she drew pictures or made dolls, and then was met with an encouraging “Oh, that’s so nice” from the teacher.
“They didn’t try to teach us,” Coats says of schooling for natives. “I guess they thought we wouldn’t make a good pupil maybe for reading and writing.”
Coats was born in the “old Indian village,” tents by current-day Yosemite Village, which now includes a large gift shop, market and pizzeria. In the early 1930s she was moved to a new Indian village near Camp 4, more than a mile away with 17 small cabins. Kirn says the move was to provide more privacy and better housing.
But Coats sees it differently. “The old village, we were too visible. People could really see us there, the way we lived in tents, you know. We were the poor people of Yosemite.”
The Indian cabins lacked what other park houses had, like private bathrooms, warm water, bigger windows and second stories, Coats says.
Feeling the power
Walking through a Yosemite Valley meadow, Bill Tucker, 75, points to plants his Miwuk and Paiute people ate. Many also were used for healing.
Coats recalls a doctor who said her great-grandma would die overnight, but family members placed cooked wild onion on her chest. “Next morning, she was fine.”
In the meadow, Les James looks up at the cliffs. “I can feel that power.”
“Everything is living on Mother Earth,” he says, and even the rocks have stories. Like El Capitan, the world’s largest granite monolith. The name “captain” was thought fitting for this massive stone, but according to native legend, it was named after one of the smallest creatures: An inchworm.
This comes from a tale about the rock’s creation, much like the “Tortoise and the Hare.” The story goes that two children sleeping on a stone awoke to find it grown. All kinds of animals tried to scale its sheer face to rescue them. Then came a little worm.
“This little guy, he’s the underdog,” James says, “and they laugh at him about what he’s going to do, inch his way up and save the kids.” But the worm succeeds. “Even if you’re a little guy, don’t worry, you’ll be famous someday,” James says with a smile.
El Capitan is not El Capitan. It’s the “Measuring-Worm Stone.”
Many visitors today miss Yosemite’s wonder, says Lois Martin, 70, who grew up in the native village and is chairwoman of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation. “It’s so commercialized.”
But many hold to a hope that in Yosemite, humanity might still connect to indigenous roots shared by all. The late David Brower, the Sierra Club’s first executive director, once said people need places to be reminded that “civilization is only a thin veneer over the deep evolutionary flow of things that built him.”
Meadow manhole
Walking through green grass in Yosemite Valley, James and Tucker come upon concrete. Tucker, a retired park plumber, says it’s part of an old sewer line — a manhole in the meadow.
It gets him thinking about his 30-year career in the park. Memories of burst sewer lines and the wastewater treatment ponds in Tuolumne Meadows, in the high country, give him chills.
Many of Yosemite’s American Indians also worry about species management: the killing of “non-native” fish and plants considered invasive in Yosemite Valley, such as blackberry bushes, which have been sprayed with pesticides. Over five years, 40 acres have been treated with a weed killer, Kirn says. “We believe that if an animal does digest it, it’s about as safe as a chemical can be.”
Yosemite’s first people weren’t trying to preserve an untouched wilderness, but they understood nature and lived light on the land. They had the advantage of thousands of years of experience.
The park often has glossed over the native role in the evolution of Yosemite’s meadows, says University of California at Davis lecturer M. Kat Anderson in “Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources.” For example, the natives regularly set fires to help oaks produce more acorn.
“They told us how many mushrooms to pick, how many fish to catch,” James says of the Park Service. “They think we didn’t know that. We taught them that.”
Park officials over the years gradually have come to recognize the value of native stewardship.
Some of the natives, however, question how the Park Service manages things.
In the Camp 4 parking lot, James and Tucker spot a new paved trail leading toward Yosemite Falls. They don’t understand how the park is touting removing pavement in the Mariposa Grove as more is laid down in Yosemite Valley.
Yosemite National Park spokesman Scott Gediman said the native community has many legitimate concerns, but the park gets almost 4 million visitors a year, and managing the place is “always a balancing act.”
But, he said, “our highest calling and our No. 1 priority is always preserving the natural environment of Yosemite, and the less development the better.”
Coats says she understands why the Park Service does some construction: “The park is kind of like Disneyland. There’s so many people in there. I can kind of relate to them fencing off things because in the old days they didn’t have to do that.”
What, then, is the value of the indigenous perspective in this new, much more populated and modern Yosemite? Maybe it boils down to this, says James: “For thousands of years, we were here before them. That’s because we lived by nature’s law. If you don’t live by nature’s law, you are not going to survive. That’s really the bottom line.”
Losing home
Archaeological evidence shows people in Yosemite Valley about 7,000 years ago, Kirn says. In areas bordering the park, evidence dates back 9,500 years. That’s about the time people perfected hunting woolly mammoths.
That residency in Yosemite ended for many in the 1960s when descendants of those original people, like Coats, were told to leave.
A bed of pine needles covers the place where Coats’ cabin once stood, but the 87-year-old still can find her way to this spot, following the boulders.
This was the park’s last native village. In the 1960s it was decided only natives with full-time work could live in Yosemite. As many lost seasonal employment, like Coats, who did tourists’ laundry, their homes were destroyed by the Park Service.
A few families with full-time work were moved elsewhere. Parker says, “When they separated us, I couldn’t go out there and sing a song, I’d be disturbing the neighbors.”
Today, the community is rebuilding its village. Included in the 1980 general management plan, it will be used for ceremonies and gatherings.
The project hit a rough patch a few years ago. Roundhouse beams were deemed unsafe and the park put a stop to construction. Yosemite’s native community needed to follow building codes.
“They’ve got codes for churches, bowling alleys, everything else, but not for roundhouses,” James says. “The white man is trying to tell us how to build a roundhouse when he doesn’t know how to build it himself.”
This month, a compromise was reached. An American Indian engineer will be hired.
Kirn is eager to see the roundhouse built. “It’s a place in which they can continue to be present in the park and work in partnership with all of us to maintain the sacred nature of Yosemite.”
Preserving culture in national parks is taking on growing importance, says William Tweed, retired chief park naturalist at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, in “Uncertain Path: A Search for the Future of National Parks.”
“In this new century, where nothing natural or wild seems beyond the threatening reach of humankind, the cultural values associated with national parks may ultimately be their most important feature.”
The return of culture
In the last half century, spiritual camps were started — ceremonies for healing and honoring all life, and an annual spiritual walk, tracing ancestors’ steps over the Sierra.
The walk is important to Tucker, as it’s a time of learning. Like above Mono Lake, when children see the sunrise for the first time, glittering on distant water. And watching kids turn into young adults, helping elders carry backpacks and pitching tents before thundershowers.
There also are sunrises over Tenaya Lake, known by the first people as “Lake of Shining Rocks” for granite domes rolling above the water. Tucker thinks of those mornings. “Pretty soon that good ol’ fog comes up out of that lake, and just kind of dances out there.”
Tucker also helps with bear dances, ceremonies held three times a year in Yosemite to honor the bear as it awakes from winter, forages in the summer and returns to hibernation with the onset of new snows.
The natives share a special connection with the bear, says Jay Johnson, 82, a Miwuk and Paiute instrumental in the native community and who worked in park forestry for 41 years.
Johnson’s aunt once spoke to a bear lying in the road after a line of angry motorists failed to clear the path. “Uncle, you’re going to have to move,” she told the bear in her native language. “We have to go down after groceries, after food.” The bear moved.
Johnson has worked to get the Miwuk tribe federally recognized. But an application, submitted in the early 1980s, remains before the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Many suspect their homeland being in a national park has played a role in the delay.
“As long as they keep pushing us back, we’re like a lost tribe,” says Coats, who is Miwuk and Paiute.
Finding a voice
After basket weaver Lucy Telles died, Parker, her granddaughter-in-law, was asked by the Park Service to fill her place in the Indian museum.
But Parker said she “wasn’t scholarly,” couldn’t make baskets and wasn’t from Yosemite. The orphaned Pomo and Coastal Miwok woman moved to the park at age 17 and a year later married a native to Yosemite.
Yet she gave it a shot and learned to weave when she was about 20. One day, she heard things said of natives that weren’t correct, “so I thought I better answer the question and put my basket down. And now my grandchildren say, ‘You can’t stop talking, Grandma!’ ”
Today, four generations of women in her family weave baskets and share native stories. Parker’s baskets have been given to the queen of England, king of Norway and the Smithsonian Institution.
In earlier years, Parker also worked in the gift shop of glamorous Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite Valley. “I was probably one of the first Indian ladies to work in the gift shop. When I worked in the gift shop, they had me stand in the corner like a wooden Indian. They didn’t think I could handle any of the cash register.” One day she filled in for a cashier but was told she couldn’t handle more than $10.
Eventually, she was made manager of a new Indian shop. Parker’s request that five American Indians work there was granted.
At 86, she still is in the museum. Earlier this month, Parker was awarded the Barry Hance Memorial Award, an honor presented annually to a park employee for strong work ethic, good character and love for Yosemite. Over 54 years, “sometimes I think, is it worth all this? Having people ask you, ‘Are you a real Indian?’ ”
But then, “If I wasn’t here, who would be here?”
Parker makes a point to connect with children when they visit. They like her stories, baskets and games. She likes helping them think about grandmas. She wants them to know a grandma’s stories are important.
Coats feels the same. “Ask your grandparents. They are not going to tell you nothing unless you say, ‘What happened in your day?’ They are going to think you’re not interested. … The way you learn our history is through us. You don’t read this in books. You have to read it through the elders.”
Making peace
Walking from Yosemite’s last native village, Coats thinks about what happened to her ancestors, the killings and the displacement.
“They came and took what they wanted, as they did all over America. … There’s always going to be a little anger inside.”
But, she adds, “What good is it to get angry? You can’t do anything with anger. Some things you have to accept — but you never forget, you pass on your history.
“The more people become aware of some of the background of the Native Americans, the more I think they try to understand. I think understanding can bring people closer together, to maybe work together, instead of being prejudiced — and that goes both ways.”
Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/06/27/4000788/an-ancient-connection.html?sp=%2F99%2F217%2F&ihp=1#storylink=cpy
In this June 23, 2011, file photo, Chief Judge Richard F. Cebull makes a speech during a naturalization ceremony at the federal courthouse in Billings, Mont. (AP Photo/Billings Gazette, James Woodcock, File)
By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A group of American Indians wants a court to preserve and eventually release an investigative file containing inappropriate emails sent by a federal judge, including a racist message involving President Barack Obama.
Two Indian advocacy groups from Montana and South Dakota and a member of the Crow tribe filed a petition in U.S. District Court in California asking for the file to be preserved as evidence.
The groups want to know if Chief District Judge Richard Cebull made biased decisions from the bench. Their next step will be to file a lawsuit seeking public release of the documents, plaintiffs’ attorney Lawrence Organ said Wednesday.
Cebull was investigated after forwarding a racist message involving Obama. A judicial review panel found he sent hundreds of emails from his federal account that showed disdain for blacks, Indians, Hispanics, women, certain religions and others. He was publicly reprimanded and retired last year.
The investigation found no evidence of bias in his rulings. Organ said the only way to know that for sure is through the release of the emails.
“The fundamental principles of our entire legal system fall apart if a judge doesn’t come in with a neutral position,” Organ said. “If there are other decision makers involved, we’re not asking for their private email accounts. All we want to see are the emails accounts they used as government officials.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has said its file on Cebull is confidential.
Plaintiffs in the case are South Dakota-based advocacy group Four Directions, Montana-based Indian People’s Action, and Sara Plains Feather, a member of southeastern Montana’s Crow Tribe.
Four Directions was involved in a voting rights lawsuit that sought to force several Montana counties to establish satellite voting districts on reservations. Cebull ruled against the Indian plaintiffs in that case, which was later settled after the 9th Circuit overturned his ruling.
Cebull himself and 10 others requested the misconduct investigation after The Great Falls Tribune reported the judge forwarded an email in February 2012 that included a joke about bestiality and Obama’s mother. Cebull apologized to Obama after the contents of that email were published.
The investigation looked at four years of Cebull’s personal correspondence sent from his official email account.
Cebull told the 9th Circuit panel that his “public shaming has been a life-altering experience.” Nominated by former President George W. Bush, he received his commission in 2001 and served as chief judge of the District of Montana from 2008 until 2013.
Named as defendants in the case were the office of 9th Circuit Executive Cathy Catterson and the Committee on Judicial Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States.
Ninth Circuit spokesman David Madden said he could not comment on the pending petition.
The plaintiffs attempted in May to directly petition the 9th Circuit. That was rejected by the court’s clerk, who said the petition needed to be filed first at the district court level.
QUAPAW, Okla. — Members of the Quapaw tribe are teaming up with descendants of African-American slaves to research and preserve an archaeological site that contains the remains of their ancestors.
The burial sites were discovered on land that the Quapaw Tribe purchased in 2013. The land was part of the Thibault Plantation near the Little Rock Port Authority. Before that, it was part of the Quapaw’s historic reservation.
John House with the Arkansas Archaeological Survey estimated that the Native American graves at the site date back to 1400 to 1600, while the African-American graves in the same location probably date back from before the Civil War to the early 1900s.
House also said it is not uncommon for a prehistoric grave site to later serve as a grave site for other cultures.
“This is a very special place on the landscape,” House said in a statement. “So much of Arkansas’ history is told only through the lens of what occurred after white Europeans came here. But there were centuries of prior history, very much of it involving the Quapaw Tribe and other Native American tribes.”
John Berrey, chairman of the tribe, said, “We aren’t sure yet exactly what we will do at the site, so the immediate desire is to simply not disturb it.”
Tribal members recently met with members of the Preservation of African American Cemeteries to discuss the preservation of the site, but both groups said they wished to keep the burial site’s exact location a secret to prevent looting for historic artifacts.
This discovery comes on the heels of a similar one last summer, this one near Osceola, in northeastern Arkansas.
Berry said at that time that it was a Quapaw settlement, part of the area where Quapaws made contact with Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1541, their first contact with Europeans.
Berrey also said that increased revenue that tribes have now from casinos and other businesses aids them in protecting tribal artifacts and cultural sites.
On Tuesday, the National Congress of American Indians sent a letter to FedEx CEO Fredrick W. Smith encouraging him to dissolve his company’s relationship with the Washington Redskins on the grounds that the team name is pejorative and that by using it the team continues to honor the legacy of a segregationist.
“We are asking for you to help us stop Washington’s NFL football team from using FedEx’s name to endorse a dictionary-defined racial slur and promoting the legacy of the infamous segregationist who decided to use this slur to brand the team,” the letter reads. “At FedEx field, your company is allowing its iconic brand to be used as a platform to promote the R-word – a racist epithet that was screamed at Native Americans as they were dragged at gunpoint off their lands.”,
The “infamous segregationist” mentioned in the letter is former team owner George Preston Marshall, who is remembered for his long refusal to include African Americans on his team’s roster. The lower level of FedEx field is named for Mr. Marshall.
The letter, signed by representatives of the Oneida Indian Nation and United Church of Christ, was sent to Smith after the U.S. patent office declared last week the team name is “disparaging to Native Americans” and cancelled six of its federally protected trademarks.
Following that landmark decision, individual Native Americans and former Federal Communication Commission officials are again calling on the FCC to reconsider the use of the name during broadcasts.
In a letter sent to Snyder earlier this year, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, former Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Nicholas Johnson argue that an indecency case could be made against broadcasters who air the disparaging word on the air, Politico reported.
“It is impermissible under law that the FCC would condone, or that broadcasters would use, obscene pornographic language on live television,” the letter, obtained by Politico, reads. “This medium uses government owned airwaves in exchange for an understanding that it will promote the public interest. Similarly, it is inappropriate for broadcasters to use racial epithets as part of normal, everyday reporting.”
Hundt spoke to Indian Country Today Media Network and said that the FCC should reevaluate whether or not Snyder is “fit” to have licenses from the FCC. By “fit,” Hundt said he means “a person of appropriate character.”
“The FCC should consider whether Mr. Snyder is fit to own radio station licenses given that he uses radio stations to broadcast an ethnic slur,” he said. “These licenses are owned by the public and they are given to individuals for the purpose of serving the public interest. The FCC does not give radio station licenses to felons; it doesn’t give radio station licenses to people of bad character. Historically, [the FCC] has been reluctant to give broadcast licenses to people who advocate racially intolerant positions.”
Hundt added that it’ll take financial pressure for Snyder to change the team name and that Native Americans should petition the FCC to reconsider the use of the slur on broadcast radio and television.
“Unfortunately the team owner has been completely deaf to the public opinion – that he should get a new name for the team,” he said. “And the only way to get the team renamed is to inflict economic impact on Mr. Snyder. This is sad, but true. Therefore it’s a very good idea to ask that [FedEx] publically state that they don’t want their name on the stadium, associated with this derogatory racial slur. Only if money talks will [Snyder] walk away from the name.”
Native Americans have already begun efforts against FedEx’s association with Snyder and the Washington team.
Jacqueline Keeler, Navajo and Yankton Dakota writer and activist, launched a campaign on Change.org to encourage consumers to boycott FedEx until Smith divests from the team. The petition – aptly titled, “Pledge to Stop Using FedEx While They Still Quietly Support Washington ‘Redskins’ Shameful Mascot” – asks individuals not to patronize FedEx while it remains associated with the team.
“The idea that a company as large and ubiquitous as FedEx could support an overt slur of Native people and not experience any negative side effects shows how marginalized Native people are in this country,” Keeler wrote in a message to ICTMN. “This company would never become part owner in a team that bore the name of an offensive ethnic slur of any other group in this country.”
Smith, who is a shareholder of the Washington team, told CNBC host Kelly Evans that he doesn’t have a dog in the fight and was mum when asked if Snyder should change the team name.
“Well, first of all, let me answer that question from the standpoint of FedEx, which sponsors FedEx Field,” Smith said, according to USA TODAY. “We have a long-standing contract with Washington Football, Inc. The Redskins play at FedEx Field, but there are many, many other events there — the Rolling Stones, Notre Dame, Army and Navy football, Kenny Chesney. So that’s our sponsorship, and we really don’t have any dog in this issue from a standpoint of FedEx. From a personal standpoint, I’m a shareowner in the Redskins football team, but Mr. Snyder – who’s the majority owner – and the Redskins speak for the franchise,” he said.
Honorable Judge Gary Bass Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Judge Gary Bass discusses his career at Tulalip Tribal Court
By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
TULALIP – Honorable Judge Gary Bass, a Colville tribal citizen, has been a staple at the Tulalip Tribal Court for over a decade. He has witnessed the growth in staff, programs, and the selection of the court as one of three chosen as a pilot project to exercise special criminal jurisdiction as authorized by the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 over non-Indians regarding domestic violence.
Recently Judge Bass received a lifetime achievement award from the Northwest Indian Bar Association in recognition for his long-term work in Indian country. The award recognizes his 49 years of law practice and work with Native communities. Tulalip News /See-Yaht-Sub was able to sit down with Judge Bass and discuss his work in Indian country and his retirement from Tulalip Tribal Court at the end of this year.
The decision to practice law
“I was a young officer in the Army, and when you are a young officer, people that are up for special courts marshals can request that they have an officer, even though they are not a lawyer, represent them. I did that a few times and I really enjoyed it. I had never thought about being a lawyer until that time. I had an old lieutenant colonel that was my regimental commander, I went to him and said, ‘you know, I am thinking about staying in the Army or I am going to law school.’ He said, go to law school. I never knew if that was a result of him thinking I was a lousy solider or he thought law school would be a better fit for me.”
The change from lawyer to judge
“I was in King County and I had a large practice. One of the court commissioners there asked if I would like to come and sit, as what they call a pro tem judge, in King County Superior Court on ex parte, and I said yes. I did that for 20 years, two to four days a month, and that was really the start of me being a judge. The reason I came here to Tulalip is because Mike Taylor called me, and said, ‘gee you know anybody that would like to come up here and sit as the criminal court judge three days a week?’ At that time I was thinking about going semi-retired, but I said, well sure. It was three days a week but immediately it became full time, and of course I have been here ever since. It has been a great ride. I have really enjoyed it. I had never thought about becoming a tribal court judge until Mike brought the issue up. It was a better fit than being in the Superior Court because I probably would have been appointed to the Superior Court as a minority candidate, but I didn’t really want to do that. So this was the best thing that could have happened to me.”
Life at Tulalip Tribal Court
“At Tulalip Tribal Court we hear all kinds of cases. Everything you can think of, from child custody to youth-in-need-of-care cases to criminal and so forth. Our days are really pretty busy. We have ex parte that we have two times a week, where we sign orders for people that need to get orders signed for default divorces, guardianships, probates, restraining orders for domestic violence cases, and minor settlement, and once a week I have the domestic violence staff-in meeting. It gets busy.”
Law in Indian Country, what makes it so different
“Tulalip Chief Judge Theresa Pouley and I are Native Americans, and we look upon the folks that come before us in the courts differently than we would in state courts. In state courts you probably are never going to see the individual in front of you again. Here, we get so that we know all the people that come before us. We know their family and we know all the things about them. Of course we look upon them as judges, but you kind of look at it more as of an elder guide. Their welfare and everyone that comes before us is extremely important to us. It is a different relationship and you get to be a part of the community here.”
“The law is frequently the same, but the things that are different of course are elders are treated with respect. We like to let folks have their say in court, which a lot of times in state courts the things that we allow people to talk about would never ever happen. Native Americans were treated so badly by the courts and justice systems that it is important to us to let them have their say. Some things that are said are not necessarily relevant to the case, but they should be entitled to have their say. As a result, we have a different attitude towards them. We regard everybody here as our brothers and sisters, and we are responsible for trying to solve their problems.”
Tulalip Tribal Court Honorable Judge Gary Bass (seated) explains Miranda rights to students during Heritage Law Day in 2013. Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
What Tulalip gave in return
“It has made me more aware of all the problems through the years that Native Americans have had, from generational trauma from sending them to the boarding schools and all the problems that have occurred because of that. It has made me aware of that and given me much more understanding of it, and the way we do things.”
“I was never a pow wow guy. My family lived on the [Colville] reservation and we did all the things that we normally do on the reservation, but we weren’t intimately involved in the cultural aspects of the tribe. So being here has made me more aware and respectful of all the traditions and culture of Native Americans. I have learned a lot that I never knew before. It has really been instructive to me as a Native American. As a judge, it has made me more understanding, and more willing to try to help people. One of the things I have always said is, when we get done, nobody is going to have statues of us like people in Washington D.C. and we are not going to have books written about us; our main legacy is that we have made lives better for our Native American brothers and sisters. That is our legacy and that is what drives me to want to do this.”
The awards
“I received a lifetime achievement award from the Northwest Indian Bar Association. It is recognition for someone’s long-term work they’ve done in Indian Country. At this point I have been working in Indian country, either urban or with tribes, for 48 years, so it is in recognition of that. When I was in Seattle I was very active in the urban Indian community.”
“I also have a plaque from the Martin Dale Hubbell organization, which is a world wide organization that sends out surveys to judges and attorneys to anonymously rate people. This award says I am AV, which means I have the highest ranking in legal and ethical ability that they can give. For me that was a great honor because it is from your peers. “
Accomplishing the task
“I am very satisfied with my career. I don’t think if I had to go back and do it again I would do anything any different. I have been very fortunate in a lot of ways, like coming here, I think that was the best thing that could have happened to me. I never had aspirations for being a Supreme Court judge, I always wanted to be a very good trial lawyer and I think I was. The crowning pinnacle of my career has been here at the Tribal Court, because hopefully I have helped make things better for Tulalip tribal members. The whole Court has contributed to the justice system here and the Tulalip Tribal Court is recognized through the nation as either one of the best or the best tribal courts in the nation. That is a result of the teamwork from the Board of Directors to all the departments, court staff and reservation attorneys. This Tribe should be proud of its court because it truly is one of the best.”
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com
