Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2008-05-01

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INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4-5
CLASSIFIEDS 7
Leech Lake District
Rep. D. "Hobbit" Finn
and Gang Of
Mouseketeers
page 5
Luke Lashes Out Again!
page 5
"Snitch-Snatch" Wilson
Confesses Leech Lake
RTC Corruption
page 5
Another side
needs to be told
page 4
"Healthy Brains for
Children" - a new [and
much needed] project
to reduce FASD
page 4
Red Lake man sentenced to 144 months in prison
for sexually abusing a minor
A 44-year-old Red Lake man
was sentenced today in federal
court to 144 months in prison
in connection with sexually
abusing a 15-year-old girl Jan.
30, 2007, at the Seven Clans
Casino and Hotel in Thief River
Falls.
United States District Court
Chief Judge James Rosenbaum
also sentenced Simon Anthony
White Jr. to a lifetime of
supervised release April 29 in
Minneapolis. White pleaded
guilty in September 2007 to
one count of sexual abuse of a
minor, a charge to which he was
indicted for in March 2007.
"What you have done is a
horrifying, unspeakable crime,"
Judge Rosenbaum told White.
"There is not an excuse for it,
and 12 years is an appropriate
sentence. The community needs
that."
According to a Federal Bureau
of Investigation affidavit,
authorities responded to a
report of a sexual assault that
occurred in a hotel room. The
victim told police that she had
been sleeping and when she
woke up, White was on top of
her. She added that White had
non-consensual intercourse
with her.
A cousin of the victim, who
was also staying in the hotel
room, told police that she was in
the shower during the assault.
When she got out ofthe shower,
she heard the room door close
and saw the victim "texting"
while in bed. The victim had
typed "he raped me" in her text
message.
Certified Red Lake Tribal Council Candidates
At the Special Tribal Council
Meeting held on April 17, the Red
Lake Tribal Council certified the
following candidates to run in the
Red Lake Tribal Council General
Election, May 21,2008:
Ponemah District:
Glenda J. Martin, Incumbent
Clifford C.Hardy
Williamette Hardy-Morrison
Roy Nelson, Sr.
Donna J. Whitefeather
Redby District:
Allen Duane Pemberton,
Incumbent
Vince Brown
Rodney Prentice, Jr.
Judy Roy
Michael G. Srillday
Gloria Whitefeather-Spears
Red Lake District:
Donald "Dudie" May, Incumbent
Geraldine "Jaye" Brun
Leland "Lee" Lussier, Jr.
Donna Sumner
Little Rock District:
Richard Barrett, Sr., Incumbent
Kathy Spears Dudley
Gary Jourdain, Jr.
Charles Prentice, Sr.
Lyndell Jon Roberts
On Wednesday, May 21,2008,
the following polling sites will be
open from 8:00 a.m. until 8:00
p.m. for residents to vote:
Ponema Community Center
Redby Community Center
Red Lake Community Center
Little Rock Community Center
Non-residents and any resident
Shakopee,
Mdewankaton
Sioux joust
over tribe's
land buys
Associated Press
SHAKOPEE, Minn. - City
leaders in this fast-growing
suburb of Minneapolis are
concerned about more than
$100 million in land purchases
by the casino-enriched Shakopee
Mdewakanton Sioux Community,
which is returning much of the
land that once belonged to its
ancestors to its natural state.
Shakopee city leaders said
they're concerned the tribe is
strategically buying parcels of
land in order to block areas where
the city had been planning to
expand.
"It appears they're out to
garner as much as they can
get, wherever they can get it,"
Shakopee Mayor John Schmitt
told the Star Tribune. And they
have the war chest to do it."
Once the tribe owns much
of the land in question, it holds
prescribed burns as a method
of helping native plants thrive
against invasive species. And
the tribe's land manager, Stan
SHAKOPEE to page 6
Fishing nets get trapped in ice,
go missing on Mille Lacs
Associated Press
GARRISON, Minn. - A dozen
gillnets set by Chippewa Indian
bands became trapped in ice floes
and went missing this past week
on Lake Mille Lacs, reviving the
debate over tribal fishing on one
of the state's premiere walleye
lakes.
The 100-foot nets disappeared
Tuesday and Wednesday near
Garrison on the west side of
the big lake, said Sue Erickson,
spokeswoman for the Great
Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife
Commission, an intertribal
agency that oversees treaty rights
on behalf of its 11 member
tribes.
Officials weren't sure if the
nets that remained missing as
of Friday were still catching fish,
Erickson said. She said it was
possible they became balled up.
"The nets that were recovered
were shredded by the ice,"
Erickson said. "They were not
catching anything. Generally
speaking, when nets become
balled up, they don't catch
anything."
The unrecovered nets have
stirred hard feelings around
the lake, where some anglers
and residents are still unhappy
with a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court
decision affirming Chippewa
NARF, ACLU Ask Federal Court
To Stop Disenfranchisement Of
Alaska Natives
ACLU News Release
ANCHORAGE — On behalf
of four Alaska Natives and four
tribal governments, the Native
American Rights Fund (NARF)
and the American Civil Liberties
Union filed a motion in federal
court today ordering state and
local elections officials to provide
effective oral language assistance
and voting materials to citizens
who speak Yup'ik, the primary
language of a majority of voters in
the Bethel region of Alaska. The
motion comes in a lawsuit filed
in 2007 charging state and local
elections officials with ongoing
violations of the federal Voting
Rights Act. 'The state of Alaska
and city of Bethel continue to
violate the Voting Rights Act by
blocking Alaska Natives from
participating in the democratic
process," said NARF attorney
Natalie Landreth, who is lead
co-counsel in the case. "Election
officials expect Yup'ik
voters to understand translations
which are incomprehensible ,
inaccurate, confusing, and cause
them to vote the wrong way.
Under federal law, state and local
elections officials must provide
oral language assistance in Yup'ik
and ballots and other voting
materials translated into Yup
'ik - an obligation with which
they have never complied." In
the motion filed today in federal
district court in Anchorage,
plaintiffs Anna Nick of Akiachak,
David O. David of Kwigillingok,
Billy McCann and Arthur Nelson
of Bethel, and the native villages
of Kasigluk, Kwigillingok,
Tuluksak, and Tuntutuliak asked
the court to order state and
local election officials to comply
with the voter and language
assistance provisions of the
Voting Rights Act before the
August primary elections and
to appoint federal observers
to oversee future elections in
the Bethel area through the
end of 2012. Specifically, NARF
and the ACLU are seeking to
ensure that people who need
assistance to vote receive it from
someone of their own choosing,
and that election officials provide
bilingual staff to help voters at
the polls and translate ballots
and other election materials and
information into Yup'ik
ALASKA to page 6
DNA links
Juneau man
to ancient
remains
BY KIM MARQUIS
Juneau Empire
JUNEAU, Alaska - Fernando
Rado's family got .a whole lot
bigger when he found out
through the results of DNA
testing that he is a descendant of
an ancient man whose remains
were found in a glacier nearly 10
years ago.
The news also answered a
question many people ponder
throughout their lives: Where
am I from?
"There's a globe of the Earth
and there's a point right there
where you come from ... it's a
lock in the picture for me," Rado
said.
Rado was one of 250 Native
people to be tested for a DNA
match to the remains, which were
found by hunters in a melting
glacier in British Columbia in
1999.
Scientists believe the man
died 200 to 300 years ago, or
possibly longer, according to
Sealaska Heritage Institute,
which sponsored the tests with
DNA to page 6
VOICE      OF      THE      PEOPLE
White, the cousin and another
man had been drinking in the
room earlier that morning.
White and the other man
were both hotel employees. The
other man left the room and told
police when he returned he saw
White standing outside his hotel
room door in the hallway. When
the man entered the room, he
saw that the victim had texted
the message "he raped me" on
the man's cellphone.
The court later learned
through consensual DNA testing
that White was the assailant.
This case was the result of an
investigation by the Red Lake
Police Department and the
Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and was prosecuted
by Assistant U.S. Attorney Erica
H. MacDonald.
voter who may be out of town on
election day for whatever reason,
may vote at the absentee polling
site which is now open Monday
- Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. The
absentee polling site is located
at the Red Lake Nation College,
Red Lake, Minnesota. Per the
Notice of Election, the absentee
polling site will also be open from
1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. on the two
weekends prior to the election
day. These dates being May 10,
11,17, and 18,2008.
Resident invalids/homebound
people may also vote absentee.
Please contact the Absentee Ballot
Committeeat (218)679-2860 and
two committee members will
go to your home and assist you.
hunting and fishing rights in
east-central Minnesota under an
1837 treaty.
Every spring, eight Chippewa
bands, including two from
Minnesota, set gillnets and use
spears to harvest spawning
walleyes in Lake Mille Lacs.
They typically set the nets in
the evening and pick them up
the next morning. Erickson said
she thought the unrecovered
nets were owned by Wisconsin
Chippewa members, not the two
Minnesota bands party to the
treaty: the Mille Lacs and Fond
du Lac bands of Ojibwe.
Steve Fellegy, an angler who
lives on the lake, said the missing
nets likely contain rotting walleyes
that will go to waste. He said the
netters should have anticipated
shifting ice conditions.
"There is the potential for
reckless wanton waste of fish,"
Fellegy said. "At the end of 72
hours or four days, surely they're
getting to the point of spoiling.
An ungutted walleye doesn't last
long on ice in a refrigerator."
Rick Bruesewitz, Department
of Natural Resources areas
supervisor in Aitkin, said the
Chippewa bands are responsible
for collecting the nets, which
MILLE LACS to page 3
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Volume 19 Issue 52
May 1, 2008
Crow elder, educator Alma Hogan Snell dies at 85
Alma Hogan Snell, a Crow ethnobotanist and grandaughter ofthe late Crow medicine woman
Pretty Shield, explains traditional healing and wellness philosophies.
Associated Press
BILLINGS, Montana - Crow
tribal elder Alma Hogan Snell,
a tribal historian, educator and
herbalist, has died. She was
85.
"She was an educator of
the highest regard among
the Crow people," said Lanny
Real Bird, business instructor
and teacher of Crow Indian
studies at Little Bighorn
College. "She was a living
library of information and
knowledge of Crow protocols
and foundations."
Snell, of Fort Smith, died
Monday in Billings.
She specialized in the
knowledge of herbs and healing
and was a frequent lecturer
and consultant at the college
and shared what she learned
with tribal members and the
non-Indian community. "She
was an ambassador off the
reservation promoting native
knowledge and native ways of
thinking," said Tim McCleary,
anthropology professor at
Little Bighorn College.
Just before she became
ill, McCleary was working
with Snell on a project with a
botanist from Montana State
University.
"She was always so
accessible," he said. "She was
always seeking to build on what
her grandmother taught her. It
was living scholarship."
Snell received an honorary
doctorate from Montana
State University in a special
ceremony in Billings last
week.
"We knew she was gravely
ill," MSU president Geoff
Gamble said Wednesday. A
delegation of faculty and others
from MSU traveled to Billings
with her gown and hood and
Gamble called and read the
certificate that conferred the
doctorate, he said.
"She was weak, but I think
she was delighted that we
were able to do that," Gamble
said. Her son, Bill Snell, is
expected to attend an honors
dinner Friday evening and
be on stage during MSU's
graduation Saturday to
formally receive his mother's
doctorate, Gamble said.
"She was just a remarkable
individual," Gamble said. "I'm
obviously deeply saddened that
she won't be with us, but what
a great life. She did so much
good for the state."
Snell, the granddaughter of
Crow medicine woman Pretty
Shield, also wrote two books:
"Grandmother's Grandchild:
My Crow Indian Life," and "A
Taste of Heritage."
Panel addresses violence
against Native women
Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A
three-day conference was held
in Anchorage to look at the issue
of violence against Alaska Native
women.
The panel, which concluded
Wednesday, included some ofthe
state's most prominent Alaskans
and top law enforcement
officials.
A separate panel of four
women who had been raped
or physically abused spoke out
about their experiences. Among
them was U.S. House candidate
Diane Benson. She told the
crowd that she was repeatedly
sexually abused in foster care.
Benson has talked publicly
about her experiences for a
dozen years.
Papers shed light on
Cherokees relocation, boost
By PAM SOHN
Chattanooga Times Free Press
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -
Jamie Russell reverently runs
his finger down page after
photocopied page, looking at
names, seeking special ones.
He can't stop smiling. Like
everyone who looks at the words
from the long-forgotten and
nearly 200-year-old papers _
documents that show how
Cherokee Indians lived while
stockaded in Chattanooga just
before the infamous Trail of
Tears _ he understands the value
these pages hold for finding
family and local history.
"Some of these names _
families _ are still prominent
in the Cherokee society today,"
says Russell, who is Cherokee.
"This is a very valuable thing
to have here."
Recorded by Albert S. Lenoir,
a federal Indian commissioner
during the Cherokee and
Creek removal from 1836 to
1838, the papers list names
such as Songshell, Raincrow,
Calvin Wolf, Ave Vann and
Chugualookee. They show that,
over time in the encampment
at New Echota, a Cherokee
capital just north of Calhoun,
Ga., Songshell and others had
PAPER to page 6
Tribes, feds
sign off on
Columbia River
agreement
By SHANNON DfNINNY .
Associated Press
DALLESPORT, Wash. (- The
leaders of four American Indian
tribes and federal hydropower
regulators on Friday celebrated
a landmark agreement intended
to improve fish runs in the Pacific
Northwest, just days before a
deadline for a new regional
salmon recovery plan.
Native prayers and songs,
congratulatory gifts and
emotional speeches were offered
all around at a traditional salmon
bake at Columbia Hills State
Park, overlooking the Columbia
River. Tribal representatives
remembered the role of salmon
and steelhead in their territory
and expressed hope the accord
will restore fish to the river and
its tributaries.
However, a fifth tribe has so far
refused to sign off on the deal,
the state of Oregon remains
unconvinced, and environmental
groups fear the agreement
doesn't go far enough to protect
endangered and threatened fish
TRIBES to page 7