The Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1988-07-20

              Single
Parenting
See Page 3
A View From
The East
See Page 5
Ross Swimmer Meets With
Red Lake People's Council
See Page 5
The
Oji bwe
"News by and for the Ojibwe Nation"
News
c Copyright Ojibwe News 1988
THIRTY-FIVE CENTS
Founded at Bemidji, Minnesota in 1988
Volume 1 Issue 9
Wednesday, July 20,1988|
A Weekly Publication
Bemidji, Minnesota 56601
Two Men
Indicted in
Buffalo and
Horse Fraud
Fargo, ND (IPN) - A man
who allegedly used the
name of the Chippewa tribe
in North Dakota to obtain
buffalo, and another man
who allegedly attempted to
defraud the federal
government; will be
indicted by a grand jury,
said government officials.
The men allegedly
schemed to defraud the
Bureau of Land
Management's wild horse
adoption progr am,
authorities said.
Jerry A Cudworth, 38, of
Sheyenne, and Glenn
DeLorme, 40, of St.
Michael, have each been
charged with six felony and
misdemeanor counts of
mail fraud, making false
statements, inhumane
treatment of wild horses
and failure to report the
starvation deaths of more
than 100 horses from a
lerd of about 400, said the
U.S.' Attorney's office and
the FBI.
Cudworth was also
charged with three counts
of defrauding the National
Park Service in the sale of
45 buffalos from the
Theodore Roosevelt
National Park in western
North Dakota
Cudworth allegedly used
the name of non-federafly
recognized Chippewa
ndian tribe in North Dakota
to obtain the buffalos,
which are valued at about
$100,000, said the FBI.
Cudworth and DeLorme
received a summons to
appear before a federal
magistrate in Fargo July
26. The indictments came
after a 1 5 - m o n t h
nvestigation by the FBI
inda 4-month
nvestigation by the BLM,
officials said.
t. Berthold
Tribes Thirst For
Water
Fort Berthold Indian
Reservation, N.D.
The White men who took
the West's land and water
from the Indians promised
their treaties would last "as
ong as the grass grows
and the water flows."
This year, no grass
grows and no water flows
Dn the Fort Berthold Indian
Reservation.
But the summer's
devastating heat and lack
of rain has special
bitterness for the almost
4,000 members of the
Three Affiliated Tribes who
ive on the reservation.
They feel long-broken
promises by the
government helped destroy
a way of life that might
have allowed them to
weather the drought.
The elders who are
enduring 106 degree days
and cloudless skies atop
sunbaked Missouri River
bluffs remember the 1930s
drought, before the big
dam s cam e. Then,
Mandan, Hidatsa and
Arikara Indians lived in the
river bottoms and were
nearly self-sufficient
through the Great
Depression.
(Continued on Page 2)
Leech Lake Election Contested
By Raymond C. Beaulieu
Staff Writer
Cass Lake, MN - A group
of about 30 people
attended a meeting
Monday morning at the
Leech Lake Reservation
Business Council offices.
The meeting was to have
set the date for a new
election as ordered by
Judge Peggy Treuer in a
July 15 decision.
The morning meeting
was attended by two of five
council members. With no
quorum present little
business could be done.
Chairman Hartley White
and Council Representative
Gladys Drouillard discussed
with the group problems
and possible solutions to
the election problems
currently faced by the
tribe.
Accusing the Chairman
of the Minnesota Chippewa
Tribe of "undermining the
Leech Lake Band,
Chairman White said he
would try and get him fired.
In a Notice of Motion and
Motion for Intervention and
in support of Petition for
reconsideration/rehearing,
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
Chairman, Darrell "Chip"
Wadena, notified Election
Judge Margaret Treuer of
his intention to "intervene"
in the matter. Chairman
White said that he was as
"angry, upset and
broken-hearted as you
are." He also accused the
MTC chairman of "using
that constitution the way
he wants to use it." "Are
there two constitutions",
White asked.
Calling the current
situation a "conspiracy"
and that "they wantd my
mouth shut."
Chairman White received
applause as he told the
crowd that he had fired
tribal attorneys Harold
"Skip" Finn and Kim
Mattson.
At a meeting later in the
day with a quorum present
the Tribal Council voted to
accept Judge Treuer's
ruling that a new election
be held and that the June
14 election was invalid.
The Council also voted
unanimously to oppose any
appeal of Judge Treuer's
ruling, to disqualify the
present election board and
to rescind the seating of
Myron Ellis and to reinstate
Dan Brown as District 3
representative.
Another meeting is
scheduled for Wednesday
at 7 p.m. at the Leech Lake
Bingo Palace.
Walter "Frank" Reese
who launched the protest
said that primary elections
were the only way to go.
"We'll have the same
problems if we do not cure
the problem now," he said.
He also commended Judge
Treuer on her courage in
ordering a new election.
Photo by Don i
POW-WOW FEVER-
CATCH IT !
Mazaadidi  Reunion
By James Johnson
News Staff Writer
"We come together to
touch the earth of our
ancestors . . . and
remember," was the theme
of the July 10 reunion of
the decendents of Dennis
Mazaadidi at the Santee
Sioux Indian Reservation in
Nebraska.
Laura Morgan of Red
Lake, one of the many
people who helped
coordinate the reunion,
said it took nearly three
years of planning,
organizing and researching
to bring together more
than 250 known
decendents of Mazaadidi.
According to research
conducted by the families,
the history of their
ancestors is quite a story.
In the winter of 1862-63,
about 1,600 Dakota
Indians, mostly women and
children, were confined at
Fort S n e I I in g , in
Minneapolis, following the
1862 Dakota Uprising.
Frightened, uprooted and
uncertain of the fate of
their missing relatives,
they suffered severe
hardship. At least 130 died
during their long months of
captivity.
The Dakota Uprising was
the result of almost a
century of forced change
of the people, and being
pushed off their lands as
the white settlers moved
into the region. By the
1850's, most of the Dakota
people had been confined
to small reservations, and
under pressure to give up
their traditional way of life.
By August of 1862, many
of the Dakota people felt
they had no other choice
but to fight. In the six
weeks of conflict, some
500 white settlers and
soldiers, and an unknown
number of Dakota people
died. When the fighting
ended, some fled to the
west or into Canada.
Others were captured and
confined to Fort Snelling.
In  May  1863,   the
surviving 1,300 people from
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ft
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rVV>,
the interment camp were
taken in t wo small
river-steamers down the
Mississippi and up the
Missouri Rivers to Crow
Creek in southeastern
South Dakota. Crow
Creek was a small,
drought-striken place that
was soon dotted with many
Dakota graves. Those
who survived were
uprooted again three years
later and moved to the
Santee Reservation in the
northeast corner of
Nebraska.
The reason for the
Mazaadidi reunion is to
honor Mazaadidi and his
wife Pazahiyayewin, and
all the Dakota people who
lived and died during this
period of American
history, and also to all
those that followed and
made it possible for them
to live today.
The reunion events
included a pipe ceremony
at the cemetery in Santee,
a flag raising ceremony at
the Santee Tribal Pow
Wow Grounds, a noon
pot-luck meal, games and
recreation, and an evening
feast. Morgan said that
someone was also
video-taping the entire
day.
The flag raising
ceremony was to honor
deceased family veterans.
Morgan said that family
members have died in all
past American wars.
A m em or i al book
containing photographs
and family trees from all
the families is set to be
published soon. "... so
fifty years from now our
kids won't have such a
hard time doing the same
thing we did," Morgan said.
Relatives from as far
away as Florida, New
Jersey, California and
other states came for the
one-day event. Morgan
said there are family
members living in almost
all of the 50 U.S. states.
(Continued on Page 6)
Indian Group Won't
Appeal Court Ruling on
Hunting Agreement
Duluth, MN (AP) - The
Fond Du Lac Reservation's
Business Committee has
decided against appealing
a judge's ruling
implementing their hunting
and fishing agreement with
the state.
The decision Friday
means the band has
conceded it doesn't have
-authority to withdraw from
the pact immediately, but
will have to wait a year or
so, said Fond Du Lac
Chairman Robert "Sonny"
Peacock.
"I have lots of questions
about the agreement and
so do many others,"
Peacock said. "But Fond
Du Lac is obligated under
judicial order to give a
year's notice if we intend
to withdraw. What other
recourse do we have?"
Peacock said the
business committee also
decided to file the
intent-to-withdraw notice
Friday.
"They must give a year's
notice if they intend to
withdraw, there is no other
way to do it," said Steve
Thome, deputy
commissioner of the
Minnesota Department of
Natural Resources.
"It's clearly stated in the
agreement. The legislature
approved it, the Indians
approved it and the federal
judge approved it," Thorne
said. 'We're more than
happy to sit down with the
new officials and negotiate
problems, but if they
wanted to cancel the
agreement immediately,
they would have had to
take it up with the courts."
The band had until 4:30
p.m. Friday to appeal the
June 8 decision of U.S.
District Court Judge Harry
McLaughlin that
implemented the hunting
and fishing agreement.
Under the agreement
between the state and the
Fond Du Lac, Grand
Portage and Bois Forte
bands, the state would pay
the bands a total of $5
million annually to refrain
from exercising certain
hunting and fishing rights
in Northeastern Minnesota
Those rights were reserved
by the Chippewas under
the Treaty of 1854.
Fond Du Lac members
voted in a June 14
referendum to withdraw
from the agreement and
elected Peacock and two
other anti-agreement
candidates to the business
committee.	
Friday's decision was a
reversal of the stance the
business committee took at
a public meeting Thursday
night, when a motion to
appeal McLaughlin's
decision was voted down
and another was passed to
choose the fastest route to
get out of the agreement
"Obviously, somebody
changed their mind
Friday," said Esther
Nahgahnub, one of the
leaders of the
anti-agreement faction
Nahgahnub said Peacock
and other newly elected
tribal leaders who had been
voted in. on promises of
scuttling the agreement
immediately didn't live up
to their pledges.
"We've been fighting this
agreement every step of
the way," Nahgahnub said,
"In the end we were
defeated by our own and
here we thought all this
time that the state was our
enemy."
She also said, however,
that the new officials hands
had been tied by the
band's previous leaders,
who had accepted the
provision requiring a
one- year notice
withdrawal.
g a
for
Indians Say Isuzu Ads
In  Poor   Taste
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Minneapolis, MN
An automobile advertising
campaign comparing a
Cherokee Indian on his
horse to an Isuzu Trooper
vehicle has been crticized
by an American Indian
organization and some
area residents as racist.
"These ads are stupid,
ignorant, demeaning and
degrading," Vernon
Bellecourt, a
representative of the
American Indian
Movement, told The
Minnesota Daily, the
University of Minnesota's
newspaper.
The complaints
prompted Twin Cities
television stations to pull
two Isuzu automobile
commercials off the air, the
Daily reported last week.
Isuzu officials deny the
commercials are racist and
say they sought advice
from the Cherokee
National Tribal
Headquarters in Oklahoma
when making the
commercials.
AIM also is demanding a
national apology and is
planning protest
demonstrations at Isuzu
dealers in 20 cities around
the country, Bellecourt
said.
Last month, KMSP-TV
and KSTP-TV pulled ads
off the air and, on June 27,
WCCO-TV and KARE-TV
stopped airing them.
"We try to be sensitive to
any group which has a
complaint," Elliot Bass, s
(Continued on Page 7)