The Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1988-06-29

              Profile: Paul Day
See page 2
Kid's Korner
See page 3
■■■
Legal Landmarks
See page 6
The
National
Historical
Society
Will Vote
on Indians
Remains
Proposal
Omaha, NB (IPN) - The
Nebraska State Historical
Society executive board will
vote June 24 on a new policy
dealing with Indian skeletal
remains, said the society's
director.
Under the new proposal,
Indian skeletal remains found
in the future would be offered
to tribes for burial if tribal
identity can be determined,
Director James Hanson said.
It was proposed earlier in
the year to return all skeletal
remains and artifacts to tribes,
but a bill was not brought to
the Legislature.
Feds Should
Defray Indian
Fishing Law
Enforcement
Madison, WI (IPN) - Li.
Gov. Scott McCallum has
asked the U.S. Justice
Department for federal funds
to help pay the expanded law
enforcement costs incurred
during the Chippewa Indian
spearfishing season.
McCallum made his
request while he was in
Washington attending a trade
advisory committee. "This is
not a frivolous request on the
state's part," McCallum said.
The law enforcement costs
during the season totaled
$300,000 and Gov. Tommy
Thompson has signed a bill
that provides $200,000 in
relief. Thompson said he
believes the federal
government should pay the
remaining $100,000.
Sen. William Proxmire
(D-WI) and Rep. David Obey
(D-WI), are working with
state officials to convince the
Justice Department they
should help Wisconsin with
its law enforcement
expenses, McCallum said.
Minneapolis
Man Indicted
in Murders of
Three Indian
Women
Minneapolis, MN (IPN) - A
Minneapolis man has been
indicted by a Hennepin
County grand jury in the
deaths of three Native
American women.
(Continued on page 7)
Oji bive
"News by and for the Ojibwe Nation"
News
© Copyright Ojibwe News 1988
THIRTY-FIVE CENTS
Founded at Bemidji, Minnesota in 1988
Volume 1 Issue 6
Wednesday, June29, 1988
Bemidji, Minnesota 56601
Independence Day Special
Morrin Gives History Lesson
By Bob Jourdain
News Staff Writer
On June 22, at an informal
gathering in St. Paul, some
college students from
Macafester heard a brief
informative message
concerning the continuing
protest situation at Cass
Lake.
Lawrence Humphrey of
Leech Lake cited the
upholding of treaty rights,
election reform,
accountability of tribal
leadership, and the hope for
an improved tribal
government as some
reasons for the protest
encampment. Mr. Humphrey
went on to say that they
would stay until tribal leaders
listened to their demands."
Then followed a quick
chronological look at the
history, through a
presentation by John Morrin
of Anishinabe Akeeng, as to
what had led to the present
situation, "what had
happened to our people, and
what has happened to our
ability to govern ourselves."
Morrin began with the
General Allotment Act.
"The General Allotment Act
of 1887 was intended to break
up the land bases of the
Indians ... the government
wanted to assimilate us ...
never realizing that our
thinking was opposite to
theirs. Our people thought
collectively; they were not
individualistic. The idea that
you can do what you want,
get a big house ... is not a
part of our culture or part of
our spirituality. But still, the
Allotment Act was very
devastating ... the Merriam
Report of 1928 found that 100
million acres of Indian land
had been lost. Our land base
was completely destroyed.
"In    1934,    the
Reorganization Act, or the
Howard - Wheeler Act, was
the Indian New Deal under
the Roosevelt Administration.
What John Collier, the
Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, had in mind was to let
Indians govern themselves...
up to that time, Indians had
chiefs and decisions were
made by concensus. The
Reorganization Act reinforced
self-government; but now, the
States began to come onto
the reservations and they
assumed certain
jurisdictions. In 1934, due to
the breakdown of our culture
and families, some due to the
boarding school system
wh ere families were
separated, . . . the
government said they had a
charter that would recognize
Indians... to make sure they
had education services,
medical services, certain
social service help, food and
money. These services had
already been guaranteed
through the treaties but never
owned up to. The charter
was adopted in 1936 ... but
this had nothing to do with
our culture; now, our chiefs
were being pushed aside and
other individuals, like lawyers
who had moved in, were
making decisions ... ofter,
they made decisions on their
own. And, this was the
situation in 1936.
"Things never changed for
many years, but during the
Depression, the rest of the
country was experiencing the
poverty that Indians had
always experienced. Heads
of families got $30/month, but
these were good times, not
hard times... the Depression
was good for us... it brought
money into our families ...
we were able to lift ourselves
up, but we were doing it as
individuals. Our leadership
was non-existent
"E ven though the
Reorganization Act said they
would try to restore land
bases and the Indians were
allowed to purchase parcels
of land, research shows that
much of these were swamp
lands. They did get some
good lakeshore property but
nothing really substantial from
which to create an economic
base to help our people.
"So, in the late 1940's,
there was another
contradiction. One other
contradiction had been that in
1924 when they made us
citizens, the government
violated our constitutional
rights to freedom of religion...
they outlawed tribal religions.
After World War II when the
(Continued on Page 3)
Racism   Against   Indiana
Conference Held in Wisconsin
Racine, WI (IPN) - There
are no candidates running
for the U.S. Senate in
Wisconsin that have
publicly stated support for
the Chippewa Indian
treaties, a former state
representative told a
conference on racism.
While no cadidates
publicly support Indians,
Rep. F. James
Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has
pressed to have Indian
treaties abrogated, said
former state Rep. Sharon
Metz (D-Green Bay), now
the executive director of
the Luth eran Human
Relations Association in
Milwaukee.
"When we think about
education (about racism),
you think about educating
children," Metz said. "But
a lot more edudation has
to be done. We have to
educate politicians at the
highest level."
Metz also criticized
President Reagan's recent
comments that maybe the
U.S. should not have
humored the Indians by
giving them reservations.
The churches in
Wisconsin have not been
actively speaking out
against racism, Metz said.
"The churches have sort
of remained silent," she
said. "Silence speaks
louder than words."
The Great Lakes Fish
and Wildlife Commission
and the Lutheran Human
Relations Association
sponsored the conference
at the Johnson
Foundation's Wingspread
conference center.
"Education has got to
be the name of the game,"
Thomas Maulson, a
member of the Lac du
Flambeau Chippewa tribe,
told the conference. "We
have to change the
system and speak up and
educate the people who
want to hurt the Indian
people."
Indians also need to be
educated, because they
have made racial remarks,
he said. The remarks
were usually a result of
frustration experienced by
Indians after being
harassed for exercising
their treaty fishing and
hunting rights.
Maulson said it should
also be noted that not all
people in Wisconsin,
Indian or non-Indian, are
racist. "We've got to
educate the people out
there and we have to
educate our people, too,
that not all white people
are racist," Maulson said.
"If we can curb racism in
Wisconsin by the
education process,"
everyone is better off.
Ron Smith, a member of
the Mole Lake tribe,
talked about a program to
mediate between the Mole
Lake Indians and
non-Indians in the
Crandon area. Some
protests against Indian
off-reservation treaty
rights have occurred
there, he said.
Crandon school children
will be invited to the
reser vati on to help
Indians make birchwood
canoes, Smith said.
Non-Indians will see that
the Indians have
something to contribute
to society, and that
Indians can teach
non-Indians new skills, he
said.
Indians have been
subject to cultural racism,
paternalistic racism, overt
racism in the form of
violent attacks; and
covert racism including
Reagan's remarks on
Indians, said Stanley
Webster, executive
director of the Wisconsin
Indian Resource Council
Inc. at the University of
Wisconsin - Stevens
Point.
Webster said the kind of
program Smith proposes
could help reverse
culltural racism, including
the imposition of an
outside culture on Indians.
Patchwork Of Inconsistent
Laws Concerns U.S. Judge
>iS
OKLAHOMA CITY
Participants in an inaugural
symposium recently on
Native American Law had
sessions on ramifications of
cooperation between the
states and sovereign Indian
nations.
Speaker after speaker went
through the need for such
cooperation during the
opening day of the three-day
meeting June 1.
U.S. District Judge Lee
West told the symposium
that states with large Indian
Deputations have a "confusing
and complex set of laws
because they have to take in
three sovereign entities.
"It is a patchwork of
inconsistencies" because the
determination on whether a
case will be tried'in federal,
state or tribal court depends
on whether the crime was
committed in Indian country,
and whether those involved
were Indian or non-Indian,
West told the sovereignty
symposium.
The symposium, titled
Indian Law in the 1990's, was
coordinated by the Oklahoma
Supreme Court, the National
American Indian Court Clerks
Association and Arrow Inc., a
Washington-based charitable
corporation that serves tribal
court clerks. Plans are
underway for the second
session in Oklahoma City on
May 31 - June 1,1989.
"Indian courts and Indian
jurisdiction have exploded in
recent years," said Browning
Pipestem, adjunct professor
of law at the University of
Oklahoma Law School.
Pipestem warn ed
non-Indian lawyers they had
better learn tribal court
procedure and tribal law
because "you are going to be
in Indian court on causes of
action that arise in Indian
Country."
One way to ease the
problem of the triple
sovereignty would be to have
cross-deputization of federal,
state, and Indian law officers,
Pipestem said.
The only people who have
a problem with cross
deputization are lawyers," he
said. "The police are always
looking for help."
The reason we have Indian
governments and courts is
because we can do things
different," said Phil Lujan,
director of Native American
Studies and an assistant
professor in the Department
of Communications at the
University of Oklahoma and a
judge on three Indian courts.
Lujan said Indians and "the
dominant society" have
different views on all manner
of things and when a tribal
court decision comes out
differently than it would in a
state or federal court, "that's
the way it's supposed to
happen :"
Why should brown people
have white law?"
He and other speakers also
touched on economic
development for Native
Americans.
"Wealthy people don't have
imagination and they're not
going to sponsor Indians
because we're quaint," Lujan
said. "They want to make
money."
Although the Indian culture
must be preserved, "We can't
sing ana dance our way into
the next century, or we'll be
gone... Tribal governments
are the vehicles to carry the
Indian people into the next
century," Lujan said.
[Reprinted with permission of
Sho-Ban News]
'Tradition' Blocks Progress
BOULDER, COLO.
Indian tribal governments
often are held back and their
efforts at development made
ineffective by the cultural
heritage the tribes seek to
preserve, says an authority
on Indian issues.
Indians, as well as
non-Indians, use Indian
tradition and culture to block
progress on reservations,
Philip "Sam" Deloria said
during a legal conference on
Indian issues at the University
of Colorado School of Law in
Boulder.
Tribal governments face
unique problems because
they must not only govern but
also preserve traditions, he
said.
Among non- Indian
governments there is "a
perception that Western
(European) culture will always
be around," Deloria said
during the June 8 conference,
but tribal governments are
charged with preserving a
fragile tradition that is
constantly being
overwhelmed by white
culture.
Non-Indians applaud tribes
for their efforts at "approved
forms of economic
development" such as arts
and crafts, Deloria said. But
when efforts are made to
attract mainstream industry
to reservations, non-Indians
charge tribes are
"peddling their sovereignty."
As sovereign entities,
reservations should have the
same that states do to offer
any incentives they wish to
spur economic development,
Deloria said.
It is time that Indians and
non-Indians get past the
"romantic tradition" that all
development on reservations
must "have something to do
with Indian culture," he said.
Also duing the conference,
a specialist in tribal finance
(Continued on Page 3)
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