[NN-Dialogue] Wotanging Ikche--nanews09.007
Gary Night Owl
nn-dialogue@nativenet.uthscsa.edu
Wed Feb 14 01:47:44 CST 2001
_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ O
' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) O o O
/ / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ O o O
(_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' O o o o o O
____ _ , ___ _ , ___ VOLUME 09, ISSUE 007 O o O
/ ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' February 17, 2001 O o O
/ /-< / /--/ /-- Pima the gray moon O
__/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, Lakota dark red calves moon
KANOHEDA ANIYVWIYA Ha-Sah-Sliltha Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin Un Chota
Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min Aunchemokauhettittea
Ximopanolti tehuatzin, inin Mexika tlahtolli It-hah-pe-hah Ah-num pah-le
( N A T I V E A M E R I C A N N E W S )
This issue contains articles from Our Red Earth, First Nations,
RezLife, TN AIM & ndn-aim mail lists; Newsgroup: alt.native;
UUCP email;
http://www.oklahoman.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=636459
http://www.lakotanationjournal.com
http://www.timesfreepress.com/2001/feb/03feb01/webmoccbend.html
Articles appearing have been previously posted for public dissemination
and/or permission for inclusion has been secured.
Letters of authorization are on file. A list of those granting permission
to repost their words in this issue are listed at the end of part A.
I thank each of you for allowing your words to be shared with the people.
IMPORTANT!!
-----------
To all who send copywrite protected articles, make very sure you have
permission from the copywrite holder (a newspaper, the AP, a magazine, an
author) because a new law is now in effect that says you can be prosecuted
even if there is no monetary gain. Just because a newspaper has a website
where it posts some or all of its editions does not grant permission for
their redistribution. Be careful and be sure you pass on the items you do
with full permission.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, all material appearing in
this newsletter is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving this information for educational purposes.
<----<<<< >>>>---->
This newsletter is a way of keeping the brothers and sisters who share our
Spirit informed about current events within the lives of those who walk the
Red Road.
++ It may be subscribed to via email by sending a request from your own
internet addressable account to gars@speakeasy.org
++ It is archived at http://www.nanews.org
"Listen to all the teachers in the woods. Watch the trees, the animals
and all living things - you'll learn more from them than from books."
__ Joe Coyhis, Stockbridge-Munsee
+- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+
| Indian Pledge of Allegiance | The Indian Pledge of Alleg-
| | iance was first presented
| I pledge allegiance to my Tribe,| on 2 December '93 during the
| to the democratic principles | opening address of the Nat-
| of the Republic | ional Congress of American
| and to the individual freedoms | Indian Tribal-States Relat-
| borrowed from the Iroquois and | ions Panel in Reno, NV. NCAI
| Choctaw Confederacies, | plans distribution of the
| as incorporated in the United | Indian Pledge to all Indian
| States Constitution, | Nations.
| so that my forefathers |
| shall not have died in vain | Walk in Beauty! Night Owl
+- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+
+- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+
| Journey | In the summer and early fall
| The Bloodline | of 1998 the Treaty Unity Riders
| | rode a thousand miles on horse-
| For all that live and live by law | back, carrying a staff and
| We Stand, we Call, We Ride | praying each step of the way.
| For All that fear and fear by sight |
| We Hear, we Listen, we Ride | These prayers were offered for
| For all that pray and pray by strength| each of us, and that the Unity
| We Feel, we Move, we Ride | of all Peoples might happen.
| For all that die and die by greed |
| We Hurt, we Cry, we Ride | Tatanka Cante forwarded this
| For all that birth and birth by right | poem on behalf of all the Unity
| We Smile, we Hold, we Ride | Riders that we might stop and
| For all that need and need by heart | ask if the next words we say, the
| We Came, we Went, we Rode. | next act we make is for the good
| | of the People or is it from ego
| Treaty Unity Riders | for self.
+- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+
O'siyo Brothers and Sisters!
The `S word' has been struck down in additional states. I can only
wonder if it is simply because the residents tired of the rhetoric,
the officials became embarrassed to discover what it meant, or just
another domino falling. No matter the reason, it's a relief it is
happening. There were hold-out bastions that continued to believe it
was stylish to have "Jim Crow" stable hand statues in their yard long
after the marches in Selma and Greensboro brought home how utterly
racist they were. We can hope even the bigots in the remaining states
will also come to the realization racist labels don't enhance their state's
image or tourism income; and the `S word' will be removed in the holdout
states.
I hope most readers of the newsletter include the Carlisle archives
reproduced by Barbara Landis in their reading. I am constantly astounded
by the self-righteous condescension that drips through each one. I have
noticed similar rhetoric from the University of Illinois and other places
that feel like they "honor" us by naming teams after us and doing stupid
Hollywood chants. Dear Bubba... Lose the name. Lose the chants. Get a
life that isn't wrapped in velour buckskin, and leave the First People out
of your carnival acts.
, , Gary Night Owl gars@nanews.org
(*,*) P. O. Box 672168 gars@speakeasy.org
(`-') Marietta, GA 30007, U.S.A. gars@olagrande.net
===w=w=== gars@sdf.lonestar.org
----------- News of the people featured in this issue ----------
- Standing Rock Sioux - Alberta Eyes Province-wide
Defend Burial Grounds Native Police
- Nothing Sacred - Indian Nations back Bend Plan
- ICT editorial: - 25 Years of Unjust Incarceration
Chiapas and the Mexican Tinderbox - Peltier:
- Schools for Chiapas Because Somebody has to Pay
- Delewares/Cherokees - Native Prisoner
go to Court over Land -- Medicine Teachers Program
- Indians Added to -- Internet Gives Prisoners Link
Arkansas Scholarship Eligibility - History: Carlisle Indian School
- The Mapuce People of Chile Speaks - Rustywire: Kinlani
- Ethnic Cleansing in Equador - Poem: Smoke
- S**aw Abolished - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days
from B.C. Place Names - Language Key to Preserving
- Who Is a Seminole/ Native Culture
Who Gets to Decide - Upcoming Events
- Five Lakota Women Arrested - Native America Calling
--------- "RE: Standing Rock Sioux Defend Burial Grounds" ---------
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 07:24:46 -0600
From: Gary Smith <gars@Speakeasy.org>
Subj: NA News Item
- - - - - - -<Forwarded news>- - - - - - -
filename="STANDING ROCK"
STANDING ROCK SIOUX DEFEND BURIAL GROUNDS
by Bill Weinberg
Native Americas Winter 2000 Hemispheric Digest
In November 2000, a federal court issued a temporary restraining order
that shut down operations at an Army Corps of Engineers hydroelectric
plant on the Missouri River in an effort to safeguard Indian graves that
had been exposed by record-low water levels.
The order, issued by U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann in Aberdeen,
S.D., represents the first breakthrough in a dispute between Great Plains
tribes and the corps over Indian graves impacted by hydro-dams on the
Missouri. Before building a series of dams on the Missouri decades ago,
the federal government promised to conduct an archaeological survey of the
impacted areas and move Indian remains. But the low water levels in the
reservoirs, caused by drought, have uncovered coffins and other artifacts-
evidence that the promise was not kept. In August, more than 100 graves
had been exposed along Lake Oahe near Wakpala, S.Dak. Local Indians have
responded by posting guards to protect the graves from looters.
The suit before Judge Kornmann was brought by the Standing Rock Sioux,
whose reservation is bisected by Lake Oahe. The tribe is seeking a
permanent limit on the lake's water level to prevent further erosion of
the banks and exposure of any more graves. The tribe also wants the
government to build a protective wall around graves already exposed. The
court order allows no more than a six-inch drop from the lake's current
level.
The Army Corps of Engineers increased flows at the Fort Peck Dam in
Montana and the Garrison Dam in North Dakota to compensate for halting
operations at the Oahe but still maintains that the court order will cost
the federal government $3 million by forcing the Western Area Power
Administration to buy power elsewhere.
Standing Rock leaders expressed satisfaction with the court order. "It's
a step towards trying to resolve it," tribal council member Jesse Taken
Alive told the New York Times. "At least the court system is listening to
us in this matter."
Copyright c. 2001 Native Americas, the award-winning publication
of Akwe:kon Press of the American Indian Program at Cornell University
--------- "RE: Nothing Sacred" ---------
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 07:24:46 -0600
From: Gary Smith <gars@Speakeasy.org>
Subj: NA News Item
- - - - - - -<Forwarded news>- - - - - - -
filename="BURIALS"
Nothing Sacred
by Daniel Kraker
A DECADE AGO, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
(NAGPRA) cleared the way for Indian tribes to recover cultural artifacts
and human remains from museum collections. After a lengthy Native American
lobbying effort, spearheaded in large part by the Hopi, George Bush
finally signed the bill in 1990. Under the terms of the legislation,
federally funded institutions are required to provide summaries of their
collections and release items of cultural and religious significance to
tribes that request their return. NAGPRA seemed to be a monumental victory
for Native Americans. However, its unforeseen consequences have created a
serious health threat: Hundreds of artifacts have been contaminated with
arsenic, mercury, and other toxins applied by museums themselves.
Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, director of the Hopi tribe's Cultural Preservation
Office, first learned about the poisoning in 1995. He was at Harvard's
Peabody Museum arranging for the repatriation of three Hopi artifacts
known as Katsina Friends. During discussions with Peabody officials, he
discovered the unfathomable: The Friends had been poisoned to prevent
insect decay. To the Hopi, these objects are much more than mere
assemblages of leather and feathers, yarn and paint. "In Hopi," explains
Kuwanwisiwma, "these objects have life and spirit. [They] are just like
your son, your mother. It's part of our living human community that has
been contaminated with poison."
By the time Kuwanwisiwma learned about the poisons, the Hopi had already
repatriated some sixty objects and returned them to their owners on the
reservation, who performed reconsecration ceremonies to welcome the sacred
items back to their homeland. Many of the items were restored with new
feathers and paint. Most ominously, many artifacts had already been worn
and used in ceremonies, stored in clan houses, and even brought into
underground, poorly ventilated religious chambers called kivas.
MUSEUMS APPLIED pesticides to organic materials from the mid-nineteenth
century until the 1970s. Mercury and arsenic were the most common
pesticides employed, but other chemicals that are now banned for use as
pesticides were also applied, including carbon tetrachloride and ethylene
dichloride, which are both classified by the EPA as probable carcinogens.
The thinking was that contaminated artifacts would be forever safely
ensconced in glass. But that all changed when NAGPRA became a federal law
a decade ago. Tribes like the Hopi, the Hoopa of Southern California, and
the Seneca Nation of New York are all bringing artifacts back to use them
in ceremonies. This has taken museums by surprise and presented a whole
host of public-health concerns. And it has underscored a fundamental
disparity between museums that have treated these artifacts as relics
needing to be preserved at all cost and tribes, especially the Hopi, who
see these objects as living, sacred beings.
The fact that some artifacts are well over two hundred years old and
still exist in museum collections is testament to how well these
contaminants have worked. But the residues that these poisons left behind
pose serious, and in some cases severe, health risks to Indian tribes. A
few years ago, the Hopi tried to repatriate artifacts from a collection in
Santa Fe's School of American Research. "One item," says Kuwanwisiwma,
"was found to have three hundred to four hundred times the accepted level
of arsenic. It is so hazardous that the Arizona Poison Control Center
simply told the Hopi tribe, 'Please never ask for it back.'" Lucas Namoki,
a Hopi tribal member who works for the Indian Health Service, doesn't
understand why collectors didn't tell the Hopi people that they had
applied chemicals to their artifacts. He considers this just another
example of the lack of communication between the Hopi and non-Indians.
Arsenic and mercury, both used well before their health and
environmental risks were fully understood, are of most concern to tribes.
They "affect a wide variety of target organs," explains Kathy Makos, an
industrial hygienist at the Smithsonian Institution. "The predominant
symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning include severe gastrointestinal and
central nervous system problems, while long-term overexposure could lead
to lung or skin cancer. Exposure to inorganic mercury primarily targets
the nervous system and kidneys." Making matters worse, it could be a
number of years after someone is exposed to a pesticide residue before the
symptoms of chronic poisonings are seen.
Makos is quick to point out that while a serious concern, with proper
tribal education and close communication between museums and tribes, the
risk posed by pesticide contamination should be easily controlled. "It's
not the fact so much that you have a serious hazardous pesticide on an
object," she says, "as much as how is that object going to be handled,
where is the contact, what is it going to mean to that person's short term
or long term health? That's a classic public health evaluation." In other
words, if tribes know what pesticides are present on an object and in what
quantity, they can manage the risks involved with handling that object.
But for the most part they haven't been able to do this, because museums
often don't have accurate records of what has been applied to collections.
It is possible to reconstruct pesticide histories through anecdotal
information and old records, but according to Micah Lomaomvaya of the EPA-
funded Hopi Pesticide Program, it's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
Most museums don't have the resources to go back painstakingly through old
archives. One of the few museums that has, the Arizona State Museum in
Tucson, was only able to do so with the help of a grant from the National
Park Service, which administers NAGPRA. Nancy Odegaard, a conservator at
the museum, feels that institutions are "understandably overwhelmed" by
the task. Luckily for them, NAGPRA does not require museums to reconstruct
pesticide histories of their collections. Pesticides were not even
mentioned until the final regulations of the statute, which have only been
effective since 1996.
The latest revisions of NAGPRA also only require museums to share with
tribes what they know, and because of the dearth of historical records and
the age of many of these artifacts, most collections managers know very
little. While many museums have gone beyond the regulations and warned
tribes about what might be present on objects, others, quite legally, have
told tribes only what they know certainly: nothing.
For this reason, even with the 1996 regulations, many tribes remain
unaware of the potential poisoning of their artifacts. With little success,
Kuwanwisiwma has appealed to the Park Service to bring national attention
to the issue so that all tribes can make informed decisions about how to
proceed with repatriation. The Hopi are also actively sharing what they
know with other tribes, many of which still have no idea that what they
have repatriated may be poisoned. Even the Navajo, whose reservation
completely surrounds Hopi land, have only just learned about the issue.
In the absence of thorough documentation, tribes are eager to test
artifacts before repatriating them. But tests are expensive and without
knowing precisely what to look for, broad spectrum tests (costing a few
thousand dollars) must be used. While arsenic and mercury are the most
common pesticides found on Indian artifacts, according to Nancy Odegaard
there are at least ninety-one chemicals that have been used over the past
two centuries. Testing also often requires the removal of part of an
object, which might not be acceptable to some tribes.
Assuming a tribe is able to scrape together funds to test an artifact,
and it does come back positive, Micah Lomaomvaya says that it's still
unclear what the Hopi should then do. "It's all up in the air right now,"
he says. "We need to come together, hopefully, to develop a way to create
a solution -- whether or not it's just creating a facility to house these
items into perpetuity, or if there's a possible way to decontaminate these
items, how much is it going to cost, and who's going to pay for it." The
"we" he's referring to includes Indian tribes, museums, and the federal
government. Only recently have they begun to work together. In the past
year, museums have held workshops in Arizona and Southern California to
educate tribes about the hazards that pesticides pose. A national
symposium that will bring together all parties involved in the issue --
conservators, Native Americans, health professionals, and federal
officials -- to map out strategies is scheduled for March.
As with many politically charged issues, the devil is in the dollars.
Most Indian tribes don't have anywhere near the funds needed to thoroughly
document, test, and possibly decontaminate the many thousands of artifacts
housed in museums around the world. Kuwanwisiwma believes that the museum
community is liable to provide this funding. This position, he says, has
"caused mixed reaction. Some museums are I'm sure honest by saying that
they don't have the financial resources and were typically bewildered in
terms of the technical aspects of laboratory testing, because this is a
new frontier."
Museums also correctly argue that they applied pesticides in good faith
to preserve objects, and had no way of knowing that they would someday
return to cultural use on reservations. Makos believes that neither tribes
nor museums can afford to act alone on this issue. "It's not a question of
tribe versus museum resources," she says, stressing that this is her
opinion and not that of the Smithsonian, "but whether tribes and museums
are willing to organize together to convince Congress and the NAGPRA
office to fund this mandate."
In the meantime, the Hopi have placed a temporary moratorium on the
physical repatriation of artifacts to the reservation. Lomaomvaya is
collecting the artifacts that have already been returned to the tribe and
bringing them to a temporary storage facility at the Museum of Northern
Arizona in Flagstaff.
The irony isn't lost on the Hopi. A century ago, museum collectors left
the Southwest with wagonloads of artifacts, ostensibly to "preserve" them.
Now, ten years after the passage of NAGPRA -- an official promise to
return these artifacts -- the Hopi are once again seeing their sacred
objects leave the reservation. And once again, they're going to a museum.
Daniel Kraker is a writer living on the Hopi Indian Reservation.
He also reports on Native American issues for KNAU Public Radio in Flagstaff.
--------- "RE: ICT editorial: Chiapas and the Mexican Tinderbox" ---------
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 10:26:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Paul Pureau <paul_pureau@yahoo.com>
Subj: ICT editorial: Chiapas and the Mexican Tinderbox
Mailing List: Our Red Earth <OurRedEarth@yahoogroups.com>
Feb 07, 2001
Chiapas and the Mexican Tinderbox
Within two weeks of the Chiapas uprising of January 1994, two North
American Indian delegations had found their way to that embattled corner
of southern Mexico, where Maya village people were saying "enough is
enough" to 500 years of colonial racist mentality.
The Internet and satellite communications, better access to
transportation and the growth, over the past 25 years, of an international
Indigenous network made such a quick and interested response by North
American Indians inevitable.
The Zapatista uprising has turned into a controlled, simmering conflict
that seven years later shows no sign of abatement or resolution. The
Zapatista have organized congresses in the jungle, attended international
meetings from New York to Madrid and generated a major democratization
movement within Mexico. Their photogenic, masked leader, Subcomandante
Marcos, has become a celebrated writer and poet, as well as revolutionary;
but he is best identified for his assertion of being under the command of
the Maya village elders, whose people make up the Zapatista troops.
Named after the Zapotec Indian revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata, whose
famous motto, "Land or Death," broadcast the aspirations of millions of
Mexican Indians in the 1910s, the Mexican Indian movement called attention
to the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on
Mexican campesinos. In particular, the new agreements called for
widespread privatization of Indian "ejidos," agricultural lands reserved
by villages and regional Indian populations as a result of the Mexican
Revolution of the early 20th century.
The net effect of privatization by corporations, which tend to grow
crops for export rather than local consumption, is to drive out the
smaller farming families and to jack up the price of food so that many
people can not afford even minimum nutrition. The many dislocated families
end up in the larger urban centers, ringing Mexico City with a population
of some 20 million people, concentric circles of brown humanity suffering
ever more deeply from endemic poverty, unemployment, hunger and disease.
(Mexico's Indians are not alone in this; it happens throughout Latin
America.)
While Native communities have never had easy access to industrial goods,
as recently as 20 years ago, Chiapas and other Indian areas of southern
Mexico boasted excellent food and other home products markets. People were
poor but they were not starving. Their way of life was their social safety
net. The "new" globalization economics have upset this apple cart but a
new one has yet to be put in its place.
Rather than encourage all efforts to sustain, recreate and develop
locally productive agriculture that can actually feed people directly -
for which there is great agitation among Mexican Indian people - all
international policies seem to be working from high-capital, global
financing perspectives. The result is to dictate a fully industrialized
agriculture, with the consequent displacement of millions and millions of
people.
This is the migration coming north from Mexico and Latin America. It
scares many North Americans who respond by militarizing the border under
an anti-drug, anti-brown hysteria, while greatly benefiting from the cheap
labor provided by Mexican Indians in California's fields and service
industries.
Many Mexican people make their way north. More and more they come as
Indians - as Zapoteca, as Mixteca, as Maya from various ethnias. As
migratory patterns expand, the so-called "maquiladora" or assembly
industries of the U.S.-Mexico border create a new in-between land, massing
increasingly skilled workers and launching people north. These are trends
and realities of the modern age, new migrations that will ultimately
change the face of North America.
Those early North American Indian delegations were right to seek contact
with the Chiapas reality, just as so many Native people have visited each
other all over the world. More and more, Native people are aware how
issues and situations in far-away places can have important effects whole
countries away. More than ever, the sharing of knowledge, objectives and
potential futures among Native peoples, is seen as an essential part of
future survival.
=====
Paul Pureau
Thank you for your participation at Our Red Earth.
--------- "RE: Schools for Chiapas" ---------
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 20:29:48 -0600 (CST)
From: fzln <fzln@fzln.org.mx>
Subj: Schools for Chiapas
English version
Schools for Chiapas Update
Schools for Chiapas has sent you this email because you have personally
subscribed to a monthly mailing about indigenous Maya schools in Chiapas,
MEXICO.
Schools for Chiapas ~ Email Feb. 3, 2001
English Language Index
1. Students, teachers, and peace in Chiapas
2. Report from Oventik, Aguascalientes II
3. Report from Francisco Gomez, Aguascalientes III
4. Chiapas Spanish School and Maya Languages Institute
5. The Little Yellow School Bus for Peace
6. Immediate needs of autonomous schools in Chiapas, Mexico
7. Subscribe / Unsubscribe
I. Students, teachers, and the three "signals" for renewing peace
negotiations in Chiapas
"No one should trust the bad government even if there is a new person in
charge," commented a 14 year old student during one late night discussion
outside the massive new library at Oventic, Aguascalientes II. "However if
Fox sends the three signals then it will be possible to try talking again.
" Most students attending Zapatista schools echoed the sentiments of this
young woman whose grandfather was killed by paramilitaries in 1998.
"The government must release our prisoners, pull its troops back from
the seven positions, and honor the accords of San Andres which were
previously negotiated", was the often repeated message of teachers,
students, and parents during the New Years Education Caravans for Peace.
"Without these three "signals" there will be no discussions with the new
president or his government."
"We probably should have asked for more, but if Mr. Fox will honor these
three demands we will send our leaders back to the discussion table,"
explained a member of the school board at Oventic Aguascalientes. "We're
very happy that the bad government has let teacher Pedro Cafe' visit us,
but they think this (visit of Schools for Chiapas director Peter Brown) is
a very big thing," continued this tiny Tzotzil man as the members of the
school board laughed and nodded in agreement. "It is a nice thing for all
of us to look at Pedro Cafe' one again; but unless our three signals that
we have asked for are accepted we will never, never go back to discussions
for peace. Pedro Cafe' should never have been expelled. You must be
certain that everyone in Mexico and the other places you come from
understands this is the word of all the indigenous peoples of Chiapas. We
will never meet with Mr. Fox unless he honors our three signals!"
"It is fine with us that our leaders go to Mexico City, but we are very
worried that they will never return," was how one particularly articulate
16 year old student summed up her response to the plan to send twenty-
three EZLN commanders and Subcommander Marcos to the capital. "Almost
every night I dream about the commanders being killed; we students discuss
this often among ourselves. We hope that all Mexicans who have a soul and
those around the world who care for the indigenous will help protect them
on their trip because we cannot travel with them or defend them ourselves."
Dozens of indigenous students, teachers, parents, and community leaders
made similar requests that autonomous school supporters accompany the
Chiapas Peace Delegation when they travel to Mexico City in late February
2001. Therefore Schools for Chiapas has finalized plans to help accompany
the Zapatista leadership from Chiapas (Feb. 25, 2001) to Mexico City
(March 10, 2001) and back to Chiapas (date still to be announced). Mexican
and international volunteers will ride on the Little Yellow School Bus for
Peace for as short as a weekend or for the entire journey.
"Those supporters of autonomous schools who wish to travel to Mexico
City must cover their own expenses, since no school funds can be used for
accompaniment or observation activities," explained Peter Brown. "In
addition, international supporters who travel with Schools for Chiapas
must pledge to follow Mexican law and avoid participation in political
activity while they visit Mexico."
In cooperation with dozens of Mexican and international organizations
and individuals, the Little Yellow School Bus for Peace will leave
Northern California on Feb. 1, 2001 as the twenty-second Education Caravan
for Peace (see itinary below) carrying school supplies for autonomous
schools in Chiapas. After dropping school supplies in the autonomous
communities the Education Caravan for Peace will end and the Little Yellow
School Bus for Peace will join the accompaniment team to the Chiapas Peace
Delegation. Contact peace_bus@hotmail.com.
2. Update on "First of January" Secondary School at Oventik,
Aguascalientes II The approximately 140 students who have completed their
first semester of studies presented a variety of cultural which were well
received during the New Year's 2001 celebrations. These celebrations were
attended by over 6000 indigenous people from the highlands of Chiapas
including the families and community members of many students. The
indigenous teachers report that the students are studying hard and
learning. The new curriculum and alternative teaching methods are being
refined. A major expansion of the library facility is complete and there
are plans for the construction of a new kitchen, latrines, and language
studies center. Students will be on vacation until Feb. 26 to help with
the harvest in their home communities. A major report about the opening of
this school is under preparation and will be available in six to eight
weeks. Volunteers are needed for Chiapas Schools Construction Teams and
Education Caravans for Peace in April, July, and August! Internationals
(619) 232-2841, email: schoolsforchiapas@schoolsforchiapas.org Mexicans
living in Mexico 01-5761-4236, e-mail fzln@fzln.org.mx
3. Update on the secondary school under construction at Francisco Gomez,
Aguascalientes III Five classrooms now dominate the one hectacre site of
the second autonomous, indigenous school in Chiapas, Mexico. Concrete
block walls and floor are covered with a tin roof making the school
building one of the most impressive structures in this small rain forest
center - only the new concrete church matches the school! These classrooms
will be used for teacher training as soon as funds are available to
install lighting, windows, and doors. Volunteers are needed for Chiapas
Schools Construction Teams and Education Caravans for Peace in April, July,
and August! Internationals (619) 232-2841, email:
schoolsforchiapas@schoolsforchiapas.org Mexicans living in Mexico 01-5761-
-4236, e-mail fzln@fzln.org.mx
4. Chiapas Spanish School and Maya Languages Institute Classes in Spanish
or Tzotzil begin every Monday in the highlands center of Oventik,
Aguascalientes II. Tuition is $90 per week; rustic room and board is $50
per week. Native speaker instruction combined with total cultural
immersion program. Volunteer opportunities available. (619) 232-2841.E-
mail:schoolsforchiapas@schoolsforchiapas.org
5. The Little Yellow School Bus Press Briefing - Feb. 2, 2001 San
Francisco, CA, USA San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano to Greet The
Little Yellow School Bus for Peace
A ragtag collection of Mexican and U.S. students, teachers, and peace
activists have united to purchased an ancient school bus in California
with the goal of assisting the Zapatista rebels of southern Mexico in
their quest for a better life.
(IT WAS A GREAT SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!) Giant puppets and maverick San
Francisco politician Tom Ammiano will greet the battered school bus for a
press briefing and send off ceremony on the steps of San Francisco City
Hall at 12pm on Friday, Feb. 2, 2001. An event at the Unitarian Church in
Berkeley on Saturday evening (from 6 to 9pm at the Unitarian Church in
Berkeley -near campus on corner of Cedar and Bonita)will raise funds for
indigenous schools in Chiapas.
"The Little Yellow School Bus for Peace will travel over 8000 miles to
deliver school supplies to Maya schools in Chiapas, Mexico and then the
bus will accompany Zapatista leaders to Mexico City," explained Berkeley
organizer Sylvia Romo. "We are visiting schools in the Bay Area collecting
students' letters and artwork which will be delivered to indigenous
schools in the Mexican southeast." The Maya peoples of Chiapas, who have
been in revolt since Jan. 1, 1994, recently announced their intention to
send twenty-three commanders and the eloquent Subcommander Marcos on a
peace mission to the Mexican capital. The Zapatista rebels plan to leave
Chiapas on Feb. 25 and arrive in Mexico City on March 10, 2001. The
Mexican government has announced that Mexican and internationalists, who
accept the Zapatistas invitation to accompany the peace delegation, will
not be harassed by government authorities.
"Get on the bus!," exclaimed Ms. Romo in response to questions of how
the public can help. "We need individuals and organizations to make the
project their own by purchasing school supplies, buying a tank of fuel
for the bus, or sending volunteers to travel with The Little Yellow
School Bus for Peace from northern California to southern Mexico."
Organizers also explained that supporters who can only travel for short
period of time will join the bus at different points on its long journey.
The following is a list of events scheduled in Mexico and USA for the
Little Yellow School Bus for Peace:
Feb. 1, Thursday Santa Cruz, CA:
12:45 School visit at Westlake Elementary School
7-9pm Speeches and Presentations at the Resource Center for Nonviolence,
music and food (515 Broadway), 3$
co-sponsored by MECHA of UCSC and SIPAZ
Feb. 2, Friday San Francisco, CA:
9am School visit at Oakland Arts/Far West High School
12-1pm Photo-op at City Hall with Supervisor Tom Ammiano and Freedom
Rising: Arts and Revolution puppets (meet on Polk St. side)
3:30-4:30pm School visit to Making Waves program at San Pedro School, San
Rafael
Feb. 3, Saturday Berkeley, CA:
6-9pm Potluck dinner at Unitarian Church in Berkeley (near campus on corner
of Cedar and Bonita), please bring a dish or a donation for the bus.
Sponsored by Students for Chiapas at UCB
Feb. 4, Sunday Santa Barbara, CA:
5-7pm Potluck dinner with speeches at Unitarian Society Parish Hall (1535
Santa Barbara St.), 5$ donation. Co-sponsored by American Indian Airwaves,
Coyote Radio, Schools for Chiapas, PAZapatista, Social Justice Commission
Feb. 5, Monday Santa Barbara, CA:
9:30am School visit at McKinley School
Los Angeles, CA: School visits
Feb. 6, Tuesday Los Angeles, CA:
11:30am-1pm Readings and speeches at Occidental College (1600 Campus Rd.)
6-7pm Press conference and rally at Echo Park United Methodist Church (near
intersection of Sunset Blvd. and Alvarado at Alvarado and Reservoir)
8pm Potluck dinner at the Peace Center. 8124 W. 3rd. St., between Crescent
Heights and La Cienega-. Sponsored by the Chiapas Coalition '98
Feb. 7, Wednesday San Ysidro, CA:
5-6:30 pm San Ysidro Border Crossing: U.S. supporters will enter Mexico to
carry school supplies collected in Baja California across the border and
place them on the school bus bound for Chiapas. Meet at the trolley stop at
5pm!
Feb. 8, Thursday San Diego, CA:
10:30 am Press briefing, Chicano Park
11 am-1 pm Students' Picnic at Chicano Park. Students deliver letters and
help paint the bus.
4-6 pm City Heights' Recreational Center, Students deliver sports equipment
for Chiapas
6:30-8:30 pm: Dinner &Cultural Program at The Big Kitchen, $10 (3003
Grape, Golden Hill)
Feb. 9, Friday Tucson, AZ:
7pm Chicanos Por La Causa Youth Drop-In Center, Speeches, reading of "Old
Antonio" by eduacator and actor Ernie McCray , and potluck dinner (250 N.
Silverbell, corner of Silverbell and Fresno). Co-sponsored by the Mechistas
of Tucson, AZ
Feb. 10, Saturday Tucson, AZ:
12-2pm Community and student potluck with speeches, dramatic readings and
video presentation at Ha:sa~ cafeteria (1333 E. 10th St.)
Feb. 11, Sunday El Paso, TX:
7pm "Party for Peace", dramatic reading of the Story of Colors, music and
speeches at The Bridge Center for Contemporary Art (downtown at the corner
of Stanton and San Antonio), $3 for a dramatic reading of the Story of
Colors, music and speechesco-sponsored by Cinco Puntos Press, Las Americas
Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Immigrant Law Enforcement Monitoring
Project of El Paso.
Feb. 12, Monday BORDER CROSSING El Paso/Juarez
6:30/9am Radio Show with Paul Strelzin
Fiesta en Juarez (to be confirmed)
Feb. 12, Monday Crossing the U.S. / Mexico Border, Juarez
Feb. 13, Tuesday - Chihuahua
Feb. 14, Wednesday, Ji'menez
Feb. 15, Thursday, Torreo'n
Feb. 16, Friday - Zacatecas
Feb. 17, Saturday San Luis Potosi'
Feb. 18, Sunday - Leo'n
Feb. 19, Monday - Quere'taro
Feb. 20, Tuesday - DF
Feb. 21, Wednesday Tlaxcala
Feb. 22, Thursday - Oaxaca
Feb. 23, Friday San Cristo'bal de las Casas
Feb. 24, Saturday - La Realidad, Aguascalientes I
Feb. 25, Sunday Oventik, Aguascalientes II
For more information on events in your city please contact:
Santa Cruz - Ukahri Rivas (831)421-9467
Bay Area - Sylvia Romo (510) 858-3600
Santa Barbara - Faviana Hirsch-Dubin via email: faviana5@aol.com
Los Angeles - Peace Center (310) 836-6316 or Sherry Klein (323) 874-5356
San Diego - Elizabeth Sa'enz-Ackermann (619) 232-2841
Tucson - Naomi Mudge (520) 624-4130
El Paso - Susie Byrd at Cinco Puntos Press (915) 566-9072
Events in Mexican cities FZLN at fzln@fzln.org.mx or (52) 5761-4236
Donations for the Little Yellow School Bus: Send your checks payable to
GRASS ROOTS EVENTS, INC and mail them to: AFSC/The Little Yellow School
Bus, 1129 "G" St., San Diego, CA 92101 or bring them personally to Little
Yellow School Bus event at your city.
Sponsors of the Little Yellow School Bus for Peace include: American Indian
Airwaves, Big Noise Films, Casa Bonampak, Chiapas Coalition '98, Cinco
Puntos Press, CISPES, Coyote Radio, Perio'dico "El Tiempo", FZLN, Global
Exchange, the Human Bean Co., Independent Media Center, Marin Interfaith
Task Force, MECHA of UCSC, MECHA of Tucson High School, Mexican Solidarity
Network, Office of the Americas, PAZ at UCSB, San Diegans for Democracy in
Mexico, San Francisco Zapatista Committee, Schools for Chiapas, SIPAZ,
Students for Chiapas at UCB, and the World Beat Center.
For more information contact: <peace_bus@hotmail.com>
6. Immediate needs during the travels of the Little Yellow School Bus for
Peace
a. Food for the 140 students attending the "First of January" Secondary
School at Oventic, Aguascalientes II
(approximate cost for food is $2 per day per student.)
b. Metal windows and doors for five classroom in Francisco Gomez,
Aguascalientes III
(approximate cost is $750 per classroom)
c. Electrical and lighting systems for the five classrooms at the secondary
school under construction at Francisco Gomez, Aguascalientes III
(approximate cost is $150 per classroom)
d. Sports equipment for the First of January Secondary School, Oventik,
Aguascalientes II
a. Basketballs and nets
b. Volleyballs and nets
c. Soccer balls
d. CD's for the music programs being developed at both secondary schools.
All music styles are welcome. Addition CD players also needed.
7. Subscription and unsub
A. To receive an update about the junior high school at Oventik
Aguascalientes II and other indigenous schools in Mexico about once a
month, please send the following message to
<schoolsforchiapas@schoolsforchiapas.org.>:
subscribe mexicopeace <your address>
Schools for Chiapas * Chanob Junetik ta Chiapas * Escuelas para Chiapas
Chiapas Schools Construction Teams * San Diegans for Peace in Mexico
1717 Kettner Blvd., Suite 125
San Diego, CA 92102
(619) 232-2841 FAX (619) 232-0500
Chanob Junetic ta Chiapas * Escuelas para Chiapas
Calle Emiliano Zapata 1994, Oventic Aguascalientes II
San Andre's Sacamch'en de los Pobres, Chiapas, Mexico
Donations and pledges to the program are vital! We accept monthly pledges
via visa or master card. Schools bonds are also available. Join us!
*******************************
schoolsforchiapas@schoolsforchiapas.org
www. schoolsforchiapas.org
--------- "RE: Delewares/Cherokees go to Court over Land" ---------
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 09:02:13 -0800
From: "Jess Hansen." <mikola18@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subj: "Delawares, Cherokees go to court over land"
Mailing List: First Nations <First_Nations@home.ease.lsoft.com>
http://www.oklahoman.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=636459
2001-02-10
By: DON DIEHL, 'Oklahoman' Staff Writer
TULSA - "A conflict between two Indian tribes in northeast Oklahoma
will go before a federal judge next week. Lines have been drawn between
the Cherokees and Delawares over issues that leaders of both tribes say
threaten their sovereignty.
The 10,500-member Delaware Tribe has headquarters at Bartlesville in
Washington County. Chief Dee Ketchum said the tribe would like to advance
its economic development programs and maintain its identity but the
Cherokee Nation is hindering such plans by challenging its right to own
and govern land.
Cherokee leaders say they are simply concerned about maintaining their
sovereignty. "The issue is land," Cherokee spokesman Mike Miller said. But
Delaware leaders say the tribe paid more than $150,000 to the Cherokee
Nation in the past so it could have land and a base for its operations.
The Delawares became part of the Cherokee Nation in 1867 when they were
forced to move to Oklahoma from Kansas."
--------- "RE: Indians Added to Arkansas Scholarship Eligibility" ---------
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 07:21:42 -0600
From: "John D Berry/grad/res/Okstate" <berryj@okstate.edu>
Subj: (FWD)Indian News 02-04-2001
----- Forwarded by John D Berry/grad/res/Okstate on 02/05/2001 07:25 AM
Indians added to scholarship eligibility list
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
February 3, 2001
American Indians now are eligible to apply for one of the state's four
minority scholarship programs that previously were available only to
blacks, Hispanics and Asians.
The Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved the policy
change Friday.
Only black students were eligible when the four scholarships were
created in 1994 and 1995. The programs were amended in 1997 to include
Hispanics and Asians.
The Arkansas Department of Higher Education proposed that American
Indians be added to the list of eligible minority groups after an American
Indian couple were told they didn't qualify for the scholarship and filed
a lawsuit.
The four scholarships include the Freshman/Sophomore Minority Grant
Program, which provides $1,000 to students who major in teacher education;
the Minority Teacher Scholars program, which provides $5,000 to students
in teacher preparation programs in exchange for a 5-year in-state teaching
commitment; the Minority Masters Fellows Program, which awards $7,500 to
students in exchange for a two-year in-state teaching commitment; and the
Southern Regional Education Board Doctoral Scholars Program, which awards
full tuition and a $12,000-a-year stipend. In exchange, students agree to
teach for every year they receive a stipend.
--------- "RE: The Mapuce People of Chile Speaks" ---------
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 05:44:17 EST
From: MAPULINK@aol.com
Subj: THE MAPUCHE PEOPLE OF CHILE SPEAKS
Mailing List: RezLife <rezlife@yahoogroups.com>
THE MAPUCHE PEOPLE OF CHILE SPEAKS
January 27th, 2001
The community Pascual Cona (Lleu-Lleu Region- Chile) and the Mapuche
Arauco-Malleco Coordinating Committee would like to denounce to the
International community, the following:
1. Yesterday, Friday January 26, 2001, our community started the symbolic
process of taking back the Mapuche land stolen, in this case by the Chilean
entrepreneur Osvaldo Carvajal, through a peaceful demonstration that lasted
only a few minutes.
2. This demonstration was quickly repressed by a large group of the
Chilean police (uniformed and plain clothed) who used rubber bullets and
tear gas. The protesters left the place and went back to their homes.
3. The police force continued its repressive action by chasing the Mapuche
people into their homes. One of the demonstrators was wounded in his right
eye by a rubber bullet and has been hospitalized in the Concepcion hospital.
Ten people were arrested, 9 men and a woman.
4. Among the people arrested there are three Lonkos (leader of a Mapuche
Community): Bautista Ancalao Necul, Lonko of the Tranicura I Mapuche
Community, Jose Marihuen, Lonko of the Tranicura II Mapuche Community and
Manuel Fren, Lonko of the Kuyinco Mapuche Community. Also arrested was
Maria Llanquileo, leader of the Mapuche Arauco-Malleco Coordinating
Committee. During the arrestment the police and their weapons threatened
the Mapuche people with death.
5. As a result of this brutal repression, Hector Llaitul, a mapuche Social
worker, was also arrested. He is now in the Hospital of Canete, in critical
condition wounded by rubber bullets in his body, head, face and arm, which
has not been extracted yet.
6. On Saturday, 27 of January, the Judge of Canete approved the detention
of six of the arrested Mapuche people and one released. The other three has
been put under a Military Court (Bautista Ancalao Necul being one of them).
The six men are in the jail of Lebu City and the woman in the jail of
Arauco City.
7. By order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, last Saturday, the
Intendent of the 8th Region, presented a request to impose The Law of
Internal National Security against the Mapuche people detained. This will
be resolved on Monday, January 29, 2001.
We would like to state that our struggle to recuperate our ancestral land
will continue, because we are aware that through the struggle, is the only
way to achieve our right to land and autonomy, so we can expel from our
land the entrepreneurs, the tourist industry and the forest companies that
are getting rich with our poverty and the repression exerted against us.
Pascual Cona Mapuche Community
The Mapuche Arauco-Malleco Coordinating Committee
(translated by Hugo Torres-Cereceda )
_________________________________________
Bautista Ancalao Necul, Lonko of the Tranicura I Mapuche Community, visited
Winnipeg ( Canada) on February, 2000 and managed to meet with different
people and organizations, where he presented the struggle and situation of
the Mapuche People in Chile.
I urged you to write letter of denunciation so we can get the release of the
Mapuche brothers and sisters arrested in Chile.
Please write to:
Mr. Ricardo Lagos Escobar
President of Chile
e. mail : presidencia@segegob.cl
or:
Mr. Jose Miguel Insulza
Minister of Internal Affairs
e. mail: presidencia@segegob.cl
or:
Jose Antonio Gomez Urrutia
Minister of Justice
e-mail: presidencia@segegob.cl
Please send copies of this email to friends and organizations that would be
interested in supporting this campaign.
Also sent copies to:
Comapudehuma e. mail : comapu@netexpress.cl
And
Mapuche Committee on Human Rights, Canete-Chile
Fax: 56-41 619830
For more information please contact:
Hugo Torres-Cereceda
Ph. (204) 453-8581
Fax: (204) 453-8581
e. mail : bhjanijm@mb.sympatico.ca
______________________________________________
Mapuche International Link
Enlace Mapuche Internacional
6 Lodge Street,
Bristol. BS1 5LR, England.
Tel/Fax +44-117-927 9391
Cellular: 07720049628
e-mail: MAPULINK@aol.com
http://members.aol.com/mapulink
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->
For Rezlife yahoogroups http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/rezlife
--------- "RE: Ethnic Cleansing in Equador" ---------
Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2001 11:40:10 -0500
From: not@inthe.game (justanoldman)
Subj: HEYYYY!!
Newsgroup: alt.native
.. & now that I've got your attention..
d'laan'te'... The stink of deception & leading people of the Nations
on wild-goose/wild whale chases & the euro-invented lunacy of "race", more
drivel from govt agents endlessly pretending to care & that they "know the
truth" about Leonard & AnnieMae but actually producing nothing but their
own hot air, & similar idiocies are still too thick in this ng for me to
even consider returning, but since I am told there are still a few
true-hearts hanging around here for some reason, & many REAL lives are at
stake I will hold my nose & step in here for one (1) post.., for the love
of my relations, & with the hope that I can distract a few to take time
off from the bullshit & help save Indian lives.
I hate to spoil the good time you folks are having here but some, like
myself, are still fighting as rear-guard in the WAR OF GENOCIDE & the
ETHNIC CLEANSING that happens to be ongoing in this hemisphere gadamit!!
Maybe one or two will get their heads out of the stuff many seem to think
important, such as exchanging drool with racist trolls & spending precious
minutes on ball-team mascots (a bizarre expenditure of time & energy which
doubtless has saved many an Indian life, according to the bourgeois values
of some self-styled 'leaders').
Listen up...
There are, at this very moment, over 13,000 Indians on the verge of
being erased from the face of this planet, sitting in the campus of the
University of Ecuador in Quito. That's 13,000+ Indian men, women, children
& elders. The police & army surrounding them have been sporadically firing
thousands of rounds of bullets & tear gas at them for the past 8 days. To
date (as I was told before telephone went dead last night) over 30 have
been killed & over 600 wounded. They have little food left & only what
water remains in the fountains to drink since the water supply was shut
off on Thursday. On Friday the govt of Ecuador, under orders from
Washington DC, declared an official State of Emergency. It is now illegal
for more than 3 people to meet & converse together for any reason, & the
army is fanning out across the country & arresting every single Indian
leader, elder & voice & "disappearing them" for "security reasons" without
any need for due process. Antonio Vargas, elected leader & spokesman for
CONAIE, was arrested last week, secured his release via a writ of habeas
corpus, but was "disappeared" again when the state of emergency was
declared.
The situation is desperate & the govt of Ecuador & their masters in
Washington, capital of the greatest Whore State in the world today, does
not want the world to know what is going on. The CONAIE website
[www.conaie.org] was hacked last night to remove all of the eleven (11)
boletins posted by CONAIE since 01 January 2001, describing the current
crisis & pleading with good hearts (especially those of their North
American relations) for attention & support. [Maybe I should pass on your
apologies for ignoring them & tell them how busy most are discussing
whale-shit again..]
As you may recall, [which I seriously doubt] the Indians of Ecuador
marched in January, 2000. They marched on Quito in columns that swelled to
well over one-&-a-half-MILLION Indians, to protest the privatization of
the fresh water supply of their country, & the turning over of control of
Ecuador's economy to the Federal Reserve Bank of the USofA, conditions
demanded by the IMF & the World Bank for a loan to Ecuador.
The need for that loan was created when one single New York City-based
investment dealer named Marc Helie, a partner in the Wall Street firm of
Gramercy Advisors, who refused to agree to a one month extension of the
pay-out on the Ecuadorean bonds that his firm held. He still openly brags
that he is, "the man who brought Ecuador to its knees, single-handed". In
the single news report describing his "triumph" (The Globe&Mail - Report
on Business 19 Jan 2000 pp b1-b8), Helie's firm is described as, "..
specializing in making money from economies on the brink of disaster.."
But did Gramercy Advisors or this carpetbagger Helie get a single voice of
disapproval or condemnation from a single American citizen, let alone from
any Indian in the USA for their destabilization of an entire country?
Naahh.. Too busy with whale-shit & sports-team mascots...
The Quecheu Indian Nations in Ecuador, who are a 'minority' of 45%-65%
of the country's population, marched. They were then as they are now,
UNARMED. The students & labour unions joined them, & when several army
units joined their ranks (90% of the Ecuadorean army are Indians) the
government of President Jamil Mahuad was toppled. After a few days, the
Vice-President, Gustavo Noboa, was named President & made promises (signed
accords 17 July, 2000) to the Indians that the fresh water of Ecuador
would never be sold to the US & Italian-based multi-national corporations
that had "bought" it, small farners would be forgiven their debts to the
govt & fuel prices would be frozen for 2 years...
So the Indians went back to their villages & farms. The army was given
a huge pay-raise (US "aid"). With the Indians in uniform bought off, all
promises & signed accords were immediately forgotten. Now water for the
sheep & small plots of maize in that DESERT climate costs 35-cents (USD)
per gallon, when the average Indian farmer/shepherd makes LESS than $500
(USD) per year. And the sucre, the currency of Ecuador that constituted
all of whatever meagre funds & savings the Indians held, is now worthless
paper, replaced by the US dollar which none but the ruling families of
Ladinos can afford, as dictated by the US Federal Reserve Bank & the IMF.
Last week's directions from the US govt also resulted in the declaration
that the labour unions in mines & oil fields (all 100% USA-owned) were now
illegal, & the price of gasoline was raised by 200% (while exports of
Ecuador's huge oil reserves to the USA shot up from 65% of national
production to 100%). As an added blow, bus fares were boosted by 75%.
(That's devastating because 99% of the Indian farmers bring their produce
to regional markets by bus.. Their soil is so poor that they can carry
their yields in a basket).
"Coincidentally", the USA has also completed construction of their new
naval base at Manta & is building ten (10) more military bases in Ecuador
(3 along the border with Colombia & 7 'elsewhere') under the usual PR
cover of "fighting the war on drugs" (ie, to crush the "subversive"
Indians) - Can't let the po' folk (esp with skin-tones other than white)
mess up the spread of "US democra$$y" by insisting they exist & have
rights now, can we?
So CONAIE, with the 100% support & direction of the thousands of Indian
families they represent, organized another march on Quito beginning the
first week in January, 2001. The Ecuadorean army, with US military
"advisors" openly in full uniform whispering in the ears of the local army
commanders, is now going on a rampage of arrests with no warrants,
thousands have been "detained" with no indiaction of whether they are dead
or alive, & CONAIE & labour union offices are being trashed & padlocked.
And all the self-styled "activists" on alt.native are too busy with
whale-shit & the usual crap about "blood-quantum" to notice what is
happening to their relations in Ecuador, to denounce what is being done to
the right of self-determination of indigenous Nations in Ecuador, or the
blood that is being poured into the soil of Ecuador from the bodies of
dead Indian men, women, children & elders.. Rights & blood as precious as,
& part of, your own... And some still wonder why I left this cyber-place
in disgust..
Given a small windfall that permits me the means to travel, I leave for
the region tonight. If my contacts are still alive & can get me into
Ecuador I'll try to send back first-hand reports somehow, although I doubt
what good such efforts would do with the likes of many posts I see here
today.. Family & kinship are ignored & whales, "race-crap" & twinkie-fests
continue to suck in so many here, so many times, that it's too nauseating
to stay.
Hasta luego.. y hasta la victoria siempre!
jaom/e'ne'thekwe'
"..Otra vez siento bajo mis talones el costillar de Rocinante; vuelvo al
camino con mi adarga al brazoe"!
ps - Those 11 bulletins from CONAIE to the world & erased from their
website last night, pleading for support, are en route to my friend
Frosty, along with 2-3 newpaper articles about thew situation
inadvertently published contrary to the USA-imposed press-blackout.. I
hope Frosty will post them on his e-list or whatever the heck it's
called, for you to read & distribute.. if you give a damn about relations
being butchered in the "U$A's national intere$t", that is..
--------- "RE: S**aw Abolished from B.C. Place Names" ---------
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 09:17:31 -0600
From: Gary Smith <gars@Speakeasy.org>
Subj: NA News Item
- - - - - - -<Forwarded news>- - - - - - -
filename="S**AW"
"Squaw" abolished from B.C. place names
Victoria, B.C. - A term that has been unintentionally insulting
Aboriginal women for centuries has been officially eliminated from all
place names throughout British Columbia.
The word "Squaw" has traditionally been used by Aboriginal people
throughout Canada and the US to describe an Aboriginal woman and was
intended with respect. But since the arrival of European settlers to
Canada's East Coast in the 1500s, the word has been derived to mean the
opposite of what it was intended.
The Canadian Oxford Dictionary labels it "offensive." And for that
reason Aboriginal groups, including the First Nations Summit and the Union
of B.C. Indian Chiefs, have been struggling to get the 11 place names in B.
C. removed.
Saskatchewan, Alberta, Prince Edward Island and the Yukon have already
removed the word from geological sites. Dozens of American states have
also done the same.
The derogatory word will soon be taken off the famous wilderness sites
of Squaw Creek, Squaw Fish Lake, Squaw Mountain and Squaw Range, along
with several others.
Before the Atlas is rewritten, people living in the area will be
consulted, including Aboriginal groups, historical societies and
government officials.
And although that won't happen for sometime yet, one change has already
taken place. The freshwater fish known as "squawfish" has already been
renamed to "pike minnow" by fish scientists.
Copyright c. 2001 The First Perspective
By Taiga Communications Inc. at Brokenhead First Nation, Scanterbury, MT
--------- "RE: Who Is a Seminole/Who Gets to Decide" ---------
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 07:15:30 -0600
From: "John D Berry/grad/res/Okstate" <berryj@okstate.edu>
Subj: (FWD)Indian News 01-30-2001
----- Forwarded by John D Berry/grad/res/Okstate on 01/30/2001 07:18 AM
Who Is a Seminole, and Who Gets to Decide?
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
The New York Times
1/29/2001
SEMINOLE, Okla. ? Polly Gentry's skin is black. But she says she is an
Indian. A black Indian.
For generations, a little-known chapter of America's racial history
shows, she and other descendants of escaped slaves have been members of
the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. Even on the tribal council, descendants
of slaves have sat alongside descendants of native people.
Until last summer. Then, in the middle of a bitter legal battle over $56
million in federal funds, Seminoles with native blood voted to strip the
people who call themselves black Seminoles of tribal membership.
Suddenly, Ms. Gentry said, "My skin makes a difference."
The battle over the place of the black Seminoles is now at the center of
two federal lawsuits that challenge basic notions about race in America.
Although the issue has been addressed before, the cases give new
currency to the question of who is an Indian.
Experts in Indian law say the Seminole cases provide a view of often
hidden battles over tribal membership across the country, as gambling
revenues and federal land payments have given Indians something to fight
over.
"This has become one of the major hot-button issues in Indian Country:
Who is an Indian? And, just as important, who decides who is an Indian?"
said Robert A. Williams Jr., director of the Indigenous Peoples Law and
Policy Program at the University of Arizona College of Law.
Few tribes share the Seminoles' unusual history. But many are split by
race conflicts, which sometimes pit members with more Indian blood against
those with less, said Robert B. Porter, director of the Tribal Law and
Government Center at the University of Kansas School of Law.
"The future," Mr. Porter said, "has to be tribes clarifying what it
means to be an Indian."
Here, along the dirt roads in the scrubby countryside east of Oklahoma
City, the end of a 200-year-old racial partnership is a raw subject. It
was here that both black and blood Seminoles were forced to move from
Florida by the federal government in the 1840's. So it is here that
cousins of different colors, who still live side by side, accuse each
other of racism, opportunism and betrayal.
The argument is much the same in courts in Oklahoma City and Washington.
The Seminoles' legal battle centers on the $56 million that Congress paid
to the tribe in the early 1990's to compensate for the federal
government's seizure of much of Florida in the 1820's.
When the government of the 15,000-member tribe began distributing the
money a few years ago, only Indians by blood were permitted to receive
benefits for such things as school lunches, health care and job training.
Black and blood Indians say that decision was guided by Interior
Department officials. Interior Department lawyers say they were doing
nothing more than advising the tribe as it made its own sovereign
decisions.
The other day, Roosevelt W. Davis Sr. pushed up on the collapsed roof of
his two-bedroom shack and said that was what it meant to be a black Indian.
Mr. Davis, 75, is a retired laborer who collects old cans to add to his
$500 monthly Social Security check.
Not long ago, he said, the tribe sent him $5,000 in housing assistance
and then demanded he return the check when its officials realized his
family was listed on the tribal roll of black Seminoles, not on the roll
of blood Seminoles.
Black and blood Seminoles have intermarried over the generations. But
some blacks who say they have Seminole blood cannot prove their link to
registered blood Seminoles. Others insist on preserving their identity as
descendants of Africans.
The eyes of Sylvia M. Davis, Mr. Davis's 46-year-old daughter, filled
with tears as she described how the roof collapsed after a storm last
summer, forcing her father out of the shack.
Her father, who is staying at a friend's apartment, "calls me every
night," she said. "He just talks about how long does he have to wait till
he can get his house fixed."
The answer to that may depend on how the courts view the claims by the
2,000 black Seminoles that their history shows that they, too, owned the
Florida land. Some historians say the escaped slaves lived free as farmers,
warriors and political leaders among the Indians, who were themselves
exiles and runaways from other tribes. The name Seminole itself, some
historians say, meant pioneer or seceder.
But Justice Department lawyers and some blood Seminoles argue that some
Seminoles owned black slaves before the Civil War.
Because the tribe has sovereign immunity from lawsuits, the black
Seminoles sued the Interior Department alone in the first suit, which was
filed in 1996. The department's Bureau of Indian Affairs acts as trustee
of the $56 million fund, and the black Seminoles said the bureau should
assure that they were not the victims of discrimination.
The black Seminoles are represented by a New York lawyer, Franklin B.
Velie of Salans Hertzfeld Heilbronn Christy & Viener, and two of his
nephews, Jonathan T. Velie and William Velie, lawyers in Norman, Okla.
In legal papers, the black Seminoles' lawyers say federal officials and
blood Seminole leaders motivated by racism "plotted to exclude" the black
Seminoles. Interior Department lawyers and Seminole leaders denied those
assertions in interviews, saying that there was no plot and that all
decisions had been made in an effort to distribute the money as Congress
intended.
But the black Seminoles' lawyers discovered a series of memorandums
written by federal officials from the 1970's to the 1990's that they say
show an effort to deceive Congress.
In 1976, as the tribe pressed its land claim, Bureau of Indian Affairs
officials prepared a history of the black Seminoles. It concluded that in
the 1700's some of the blacks "became essentially free under the
Seminoles" and that the "very close relationship" continued in the 1800's.
But that report, which was the basis of the battle to follow, concluded
that the former slaves did not own the Florida land at the time the
federal government seized it in 1823. The black Seminoles were recognized
as members of the tribe in a treaty with the federal government in 1866.
Their lawyers now say that simply acknowledged a relationship that already
existed, while some blood Seminoles say the post-Civil War federal
government forced the tribe to accept the blacks.
The status of the black Seminoles in 1823 is critical. In 1976 the
federal Indian Claims Commission concluded that 1823 was the date of the
federal seizure of the Florida land. The commission said Congress should
make a compensation payment to the "Seminole Nation as it existed in
Florida" in 1823.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs memorandums show that beginning in the
1970's, blood Seminoles expressed concerns about sharing any eventual
payment with the blacks. In an interview, the Seminoles' chief, Jerry G.
Haney, described the issue as political rather than racial in nature.
He said the tribe had moved to exclude the black Seminoles partly
because modern blacks ? unlike their ancestors, who had dressed as Indians
and learned the Seminole language ? had drifted away from cultural
identification as Indians.
Interior Department officials, he added, had told the blood Indians that
the money was to compensate for the stolen lands and "the blacks were not
landowners."
Dwayne Miller, a full-blood Seminole and a tribal council member, said
in an interview that he believed the blacks should be paid by the federal
government for their hardship in the forced removal from Florida. But, he
said, "I don't think they should take it out of our money."
By 1990, the lawyers for the black Seminoles contend, maneuvering to cut
the blacks out of the $56 million had become explicit.
A Bureau of Indian Affairs official in Oklahoma wrote a report of a
meeting that September in which an Interior Department lawyer named Janet
Spaulding conferred with Seminoles. The memorandum said the treatment of
the black Seminoles was "a very sensitive matter" and hinted that an
effort to exclude them might draw resistance in Congress.
The report said Ms. Spaulding outlined "options" regarding the black
Seminoles. One of them, said the memorandum, was "Possibility of plan
slipping through if Congress is busy with the Middle East crisis on their
mind" ? an apparent reference to the tensions that would soon lead to the
Persian Gulf war. That, the black Seminoles' lawyers say in legal papers,
suggested an effort to keep Congress from realizing that the tribe planned
to exclude the blacks.
In the end, the act appropriating the money said it was "for the benefit
of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma," leaving the status of the black
Seminoles murky.
In an interview, Ms. Spaulding, who is still an Interior Department
lawyer, denied that she had worked to hide anything from Congress or to
exclude the black Seminoles. She said the writer of the 1990 memorandum
might have misunderstood the advice she gave the tribe. "I certainly
didn't plot with them in any fashion," she said.
A supervising Interior Department lawyer, Robert J. McCarthy, said
federal officials always believed that the black Seminoles should share in
the money if they could prove that "their ancestors were members of the
tribe in 1823." He pointed to a 1991 memorandum suggesting that the tribe
be encouraged to permit the black Seminoles to try to prove such
membership.
But in the black Seminoles' lawsuit in federal court in Oklahoma last
year, Justice Department lawyers representing the Interior Department took
a sharply different position.
They suggested that only Seminoles by blood could have been members in
1823. "Presuming the plaintiffs have no Seminole Indian blood," the
lawyers wrote, "they cannot legitimately claim harm from exclusion of
funds to which they are not entitled."
In fact, the federal government lawyers have fought the black Seminoles'
case aggressively. In 1998 the government won a trial court ruling that
dismissed the case on the grounds that the Seminole tribe was an
indispensable party that could not be sued because of its sovereign
immunity.
In 1999, the federal appeals court in Denver reversed that ruling and
said the trial court had to decide whether in "good conscience" the case
should proceed even without the tribe.
The trial judge in that case had taken no new action when the battle
grew more heated with last summer's referendum stripping the black
Seminoles of tribal membership. After the referendum passed, the Interior
Department declared that this disenfranchisement was illegal and said the
department would not recognize any tribal government that did not include
the black Seminoles. Eventually, that action could mean the federal
government could freeze payments.
--------- "RE: Five Lakota Women Arrested" ---------
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 12:28:42 EST
From: ErthAvengr@aol.com
Subj: Five Lakota Women Arrested
Mailing List: ndn-aim <ndn-aim@yahoogroups.com>
http://www.lakotanationjournal.com
FIVE LAKOTA WOMEN ARRESTED
Staff tries to protect confidentiality of clients
By Karen L. Testerman
Journal Managing Editor
EAGLE BUTTE - Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal police arrested an office
director, several staff members and supporters after they barricaded
themselves in an office to protect domestic violence victims and offenders
files.
Program Director Janet Collins and staff members June Runs After and
Georgia Taylor of the Family Violence Prevention Program were charged with
trespassing on tribal property and taken into custody January 26. They
were released on Personal Recognizance bonds the same evening.
Carmen White Horse, an advocate at the Sacred Heart Women's Shelter, and
Willie Dolphus, co-director of the South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic
Violence and Sexual Assault, were also arrested.
A restraining order preventing tribal personnel from taking the file
cabinet was issued the same evening of the arrest, was dismissed five days
later on January 31. The named individuals on the restraining order
claimed sovereign immunity, Collins said.
The tribal council held meetings January 29, 30 and 31 to determine
whether the names could legally be released. A decision was not made by
press deadline. "We're still trying to keep the focus on the issue of
confidentiality and stay away from the politics," Collins said. "We
realize a lot of program directors are watching to see what happens with
our program. A lot of them deal with confidentiality issues and the
outcome of this case will set precedence." All tribal employees and
elected officials involved were told not to speak with the press, Collins
said.
CRST officials did not return calls by press time. The standoff began
January 25 after Treasurer Clark and Administrative Officer LaPlante
requested a list of clientele assisted by the program.
Collins refused to release the list citing a possible breech of client
confidentiality. "The treasurer said she wanted the list to make sure the
clients weren't `double dipping,'" Collins said. "I advised her that I
didn't feel comfortable in giving her the list and asked her to wait until
the contract specialist returned and she agreed. The contract specialist
informed me that I needed to provide the list to the treasurer."
In an effort to protect the confidentiality of her clients, Collins said
she again refused to release the names and also refused to allow access to
the file cabinet containing clientele files.
"I advised the administrative officer that I was going to contact my
program manager in Washington and he told me he wouldn't allow me to make
that call. He said, `If you make that call, I'm going to fight you for
insubordination.'" she said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->
To subscribe to this group,send an email to: ndn-aim-subscribe@egroups.com
Archived on line at: http://www.eScribe.com
FREE LEONARD PELTIER
--------- "RE: Alberta Eyes Province-wide Native Police" ---------
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 07:24:46 -0600
From: Gary Smith <gars@Speakeasy.org>
Subj: NA News Item
- - - - - - -<Forwarded news>- - - - - - -
filename="NATIVE POLICE"
Alberta eyes province-wide native police
Would be first in Canada:
Provincial force could address pay, political problems
Rick Mofina Southam News
Alberta is considering creating Canada's first province-wide native
police service.
Insiders say a sense of frustration bordering on crisis has prompted
Alberta's Justice Department to explore restructuring its First Nations
policing system.
Canada has nearly 130 First Nation police agencies, some with
jurisdiction over vast areas in Northern Ontario, Quebec and the Northwest
Territories, but none are province-wide.
An Alberta Justice official confirms the province is in the early stages
of studying new First Nation police models and is considering a provincial
force.
"We think it's something worth exploring, that it may result in a more
efficient police service to our First Nations in the province," said Bart
Johnson, spokesman for Alberta's Justice Department.
Native leaders have suggested a treaty-based model that could reach
across provincial boundaries, extending over areas of Alberta,
Saskatchewan, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories.
Underscoring the urgency of the issue is the fact two of Alberta's nine
First Nation police services, those of the Keetaskenow and Hobbema bands,
recently shut down and other Alberta native police agencies are said to be
facing difficulties.
The federal government hopes the two closures will be temporary, said
Peter Fisher, director general of aboriginal policing for the Solicitor-
General.
Mr. Fisher said his department, the province and native officials are
consulting to find solutions to the problems Alberta is facing.
"What everyone is searching for is what is the best approach," he said,
adding he does not sense "some kind of blanket problem."
Sources have cited political influence by local bands, bureaucracy and
the administration of funding as factors creating problems for some of
Alberta's native police departments.
While the province has approximately 90 First Nations officers, it has
about 100 First Nations police commissioners, said Bob Krewenchuk,
president of the Alberta First Nations Chiefs of Police.
Alberta's First Nations police chiefs also cite pay equity as an issue.
They can only allot an average of $60,000 to $65,000 for salary and
resources for a First Nations officer. That rate is said to be the lowest
for First Nation police officers in Canada, far below the Ontario average
of $90,000.
Forming a province-wide native force would cut the number of
commissioners and reduce political influence and financial red tape, while
improving salaries, skills and advancement for officers, according to a
provincial Justice Department summary obtained by Southam News.
Native officials countered with a treaty-based model that would
accomplish the same. Rather than one province-wide structure, it would be
divided into the three components for the bands under Treaty 6, Treaty 7
and Treaty 8.
The treaty groups were established by signed agreements with the Crown
in the late 1800s. The treaties established territories and reserve
boundaries for such bands as the Wood Cree, Blackfoot and Blood tribes.
Basing policing on the treaty structures could extend the jurisdiction
of a new native force across provincial boundaries. For example, First
Nations Treaty 8 covers 23 native communities in Alberta, but if a native
force was extended to cover other bands in the treaty, it would add 15
communities in Saskatchewan, British Columbia and the Northwest
Territories.
Many officials in the native policing community have questioned the
federal government's commitment to its First Nations policing policy,
which the federal Solicitor-General's Department began administering in
1992.
Copyright c. 2001 National Post Online
National Post Online is a Hollinger/CanWest Publication.
--------- "RE: Indian Nations back Bend Plan" ---------
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 09:29:15 -0500
From: Tom Kunesh
Subj: "Indian nations back Bend plan"
Mailing List: TN AIM <tnaim@usa.net>
This story appeared in The Times Free Press on Saturday, February 3, 2001
12:00:00 AM
http://www.timesfreepress.com/2001/feb/03feb01/webmoccbend.html
Indian nations back Bend plan
By Kathy Gilbert, Staff Writer
Five American Indian nations agreed Friday to support legislation
proposed by Congressman Zach Wamp, R-Chattanooga, to add Moccasin Bend to
the federal park system.
"We encourage you to proceed expeditiously. Generations have waited for
this moment," stated officials of the Five Civilized Tribes in a letter to
Rep. Wamp. The Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole
nations say they believe they have ancestral homes and burial sites on
Moccasin Bend.
Rep. Wamp could not be reached for comment.
Friday's letter is good news for Chattanooga, said Mickey Robbins,
president of the Friends of Moccasin Bend. Friends is a non-profit
organization named by the city and Hamilton County in 1996 as an agent to
pursue national park status.
The park will be linked to the Tennessee Riverwalk and add a "second-
night" attraction to the Tennessee Aquarium, Mr. Robbins said. A 1996
economic study estimated the park could attract 600,000 people every year
and spark $21.2 million in new spending in the county, he said.
"It's going to become a tremendous asset to Chattanooga," Mr. Robbins
said.
Last week, Rep. Wamp said he planned to move quickly on the park
legislation. His proposal excluded a 156-acre parcel owned by the city and
county and leased to Wes Brown through 2005 for the Moccasin Bend Public
Golf Course. A 1998 National Park Service study recommended the golf
course property be included in the park. The park service still stands by
that recommendation, said Pat Reed, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National
Military Park superintendent.
Tom Kunesh, a member of the Chattanooga InterTribal Association,
protested the golf course's exclusion.
But the Five Civilized Tribes said the park was too critical to hold out
for perfection.
"We prefer the National Park boundary include what we consider to be
hallowed ground contained in the golf course," states the letter from
members of the cultural preservation committee of the Five Civilized
Tribes. "However, the goal of creating the park is the most important
objective. We ask that appropriate language be made part of the
legislation so that the golf course may be added later."
Local attorney Mike Mahn and Jay Mills, co-vice president of the Friends,
talked to the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma this week, along with
Vicky Karhu, local liaison to the tribes. Ms. Karhu also is director for
the Chattanooga Indigenous Resource Center and Library in Red Bank.
Moccasin Bend, named for its foot-shaped appearance and location at a
curve in the Tennessee River, is rich in American Indian and Civil War
archeological and historical sites, Mr. Mills said.
Rep. Wamp's legislation would add 896 acres to the federal park system.
It grandfathers in the state mental health hospital at the tip of the bend
and includes a nearly completed donation of 96 acres from the Rock-Tenn
Corp. to the Trust for Public Land.
In 1950, Congress enacted legislation authorizing the secretary of the
interior to accept a 1,400-acre donation of Moccasin Bend land to
Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. In 1953, Tennessee Gov.
Frank Clement blocked the appropriation. Soon after, the city of
Chattanooga built a sewage treatment plant near the site of historic
Brown's Ferry. Much of the area, including the golf course land, was named
a National Historic Landmark in 1969.
-------------------------------
Chattanooga InterTribal Association (CITA)
http://www.chattanooga.net/cita/
Native American Indian Association of Tennessee
http://www.chattanooga.net/naia/index.html
Native Nashville
http://www.nativenashville.com/
--------- "RE: 25 Years of Unjust Incarceration" ---------
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 08:03:45 EST
From: Baambi1@cs.com
Subj: --25 Years of Unjust Incarceration * my letter to representa...
To: ShngSprt@aol.com
Dear Senators:
Sincerely,
This Tuesday marks the 25th year of the unjust imprisonment of Leonard
Peltier. Please respond to this injustice by investigating inappropriate
actions by the FBI and the Prosecution in the case of Leonard Peltier.
I am asking, as my Representative's, for help in the declassification of
the 6000 documents pertaining to the Peltier case still being withheld by
the FBI. I, as well as all of his supporters, believe these documents
contain evidence that will further expose misconduct in the gaining of
Leonard Peltier's conviction. There disclosure, could lead to Peltier's
acquittal. 12,000 FBI documents were released in the early 1980's pursuant
to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Among them was a ballistic test
reflecting Peltier's innocence and prompting the Eighth Circuit to
conclude:
"There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard
Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been
available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the
inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government's case."
What else is being held from the American people concerning this man? I
ask again that you help by urging that these undisclosed documents be
released. I also urge that you discuss this unfair imprisonment with our
new President, in the hopes of finally finding a fairness within a new era,
a pulling together of all peoples. What a triumph for a new President.
Donna Hastings-NY(aka Baambi)
--------- "RE: Peltier: Because Somebody has to Pay" ---------
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 07:24:46 -0600
From: Gary Smith <gars@Speakeasy.org>
Subj: NA News Item
- - - - - - -<Forwarded news>- - - - - - -
filename="PELTIER COMMENTARY"
Because somebody has to pay
By ROSANNA DEERCHILD -- Winnipeg Sun
February 3, 2001
The sound was low. Like the rumble of thunder that folds out and fades.
It was as though the dark clouds of a harsh, chaotic storm had exhausted
itself. The colour was the deep purple streaks of dawn. A long night was
over. We could breath long and slow again. Relax. Finally.
It was about mid-summer when I first heard. Word from the moccasin
telegraph was that after 25 years in prison he would be set free.
U.S President Bill Clinton was going to grant clemency to Leonard
Peltier as his last act in office. I didn't believe it. Last time he was
up for parole, in 1998, supporters rallied. They said this is it. It's
different this time. He will be let go. But he was denied.
But this time it was different. This was no parole hearing. This was
clemency from the president himself.
His story is compelling. Full of mystery, myth, drama and events that
seem to happen only in Hollywood movies.
Leonard Peltier was a member of the American Indian Movement. AIM
originated in the United States and seeks to expose the oppressive racism
faced by Native Americans. It was at its strongest in the 1970's.
The FBI began an aggressive campaign to infiltrate and destroy what they
saw as a threat to the American way.
On June 26, 1975, FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams went to Pine
Ridge, S.D., looking for someone who stole a pair of boots. They were
following a red truck when a shootout broke out. When it was over, the two
FBI agents were dead. AIM members Peltier, Jimmy Eagle, Darrelle Butler
and Bob Robideau were arrested. Butler and Robideau plead self-defense and
were acquitted. The government dropped charges against Eagle. That left
Peltier. He was arrested in Canada, where he had fled. He was extradited.
Leonard was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
There were serious flaws in the investigation and trial. A woman who
claimed to be Peltier's girlfriend said she saw Leonard kill the FBI
agents. Later, she recanted, saying the FBI coerced her into lying. In
fact, she wasn't even at the shoot-out.
Twenty five years later, the call for Peltier's freedom has grown from
the single cry of Indian people to include political groups, leaders and
celebrities of all races.
Again and again he has been denied. Peltier said that at his 1998 parole
hearing, they admitted they don't know who killed Coler and Williams. But
someone has to pay.
Saturday, Jan. 20, 2001 arrived, Bill Clinton's last day. Everyone was
positive. Even Peltier himself made preparations. His grandson made up his
room. Homecoming parties were planned. The excitement was overwhelming. I
started to really believe it might just happen. But it didn't.
Leonard Peltier was not granted clemency. Because someone has to pay.
But what they don't realize is that they no longer have just Peltier in
jail. He is not merely an Indian serving time for a crime he probably
didn't commit. He's a political prisoner. A warrior. A living casualty in
the unofficial war against the Indian.
And if he dies in jail, Leonard Peltier will be called a martyr.
Leonard Peltier is living proof of the racism faced by Aboriginal
Peoples in both countries. By making him pay, they make all Indians pay.
By denying his freedom, they deny all Aboriginal Peoples.
The dark clouds roll back in. The sky grows dark. The thunder grows
louder.
Rosanna Deerchild can be reached by email at rdeerchild@aptn.ca.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@wpgsun.com.
--------- "RE: Native Prisoner" ---------
Date: Mon, 12 February 2001 20:55:07 -0530
From: "Janet Smith" <jansatlcom.net@mindspring.com>
Subj: Prisoners' Pen Pal List
Tell a Native American Prisoner someone cares!
The following is a portion of the list of Native American Prisoners
incarcerated in prisons throughout the United States. The full list
is found at the Native Prisoners Pen Pal list at the following web site:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/9118/penpal.html. The list is
compiled from contributions by Wotanging Ikche readers, other friends and
from Laura Brooks' research on Native American Spiritual Freedom in Prison.
If you know of a Native prisoner who would like to be included here, please
e-mail Janet Smith at jansatlcom.net@mindspring.com. My thanks to Laura
Brooks for giving this list a home on the web.
-- - - -
Peltier, Leonard
#89637-132
Box 1000
Leavenworth, KS 66053
Birthday: 9/12/44
Ancestry: Ojibwa-Lakota
-- - - -
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 19:40:11 -0800 (PST)
From: orion-c@webtv.net
Subj: Has anyone ever heard of this?
Mailing List: Iron Natives <ironnatives@yahoogroups.com>
DRAFT: 14 September 1999; for discussion purposes only. Send suggestions
for funding to derrico@legal.umass.edu
Medicine Teachers Program for Prisons
Submitted To: ____________________________
Proposed Starting Date: Immediate
Duration of Project: Ongoing
Funding Requested: _________/year
Contact: _________________________
Proposal Summary
A regional program is needed to provide Native American spiritual
guidance in prisons. The program would involve men and women from
Pequot, Wampanoag, Narraganset, Nipmuc, and other Native American
Nations in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
The program would enable Native Medicine Teachers to conduct spiritual
ceremonies in prison. It would also support an association of spiritual
leaders for continuing work with released prisoners. It would be a
source of information for prison administrators and others.
The program would foster ongoing spiritual education among Medicine
Teachers from all Nations involved in the project. The program would
strengthen and enrich Medicine Teachings for the benefit of all persons,
not only those in prisons.
The program would provide a prototype for other Native American
communities and prison programs.
The idea for such a program grew from discussions with Slow Turtle and
Medicine Story at gatherings of the Native American Spiritual Awareness
Council in a state prison at Gardner, Massachusetts, and with Ed Sarabia
and Mikki Aganstata, in the context of their work with Indian Affairs in
Connecticut. This proposal was drafted by Peter d'Errico of Leverett,
Massachusetts, one of a group of attorneys representing inmates in
Massachusetts to extend and protect rights to Native American spiritual
freedom.
Project Description
The Legal And Spiritual Situation
Courts and other legal institutions have explicitly recognized the
significance of Native American spirituality at least since federal
passage of the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act. This
recognition has extended to jails and prisons across the country. Native
Americans in prison are participating in a general resurgence of Native
spiritual practices.
The law has moved to accommodate spirituality in state and federal
prisons, but not without struggle and resistance.
Many prison administrators are skeptical about Native American
spirituality. They do not understand, for example, that Native spiritual
teachings and practices are integrated into daily life, rather than
reserved for a special day of the week.
Administrators are often hesitant to permit use of sacred pipes and
tobaccos, associating such items with a "drug culture." Beads and
headbands, which have been recognized by courts as significant aspects
of spiritual practice, are sometimes associated by prison officials with
the insignia of gangs and considered contraband.
Experience shows that inmate involvement in Native American spirituality
includes persons who do not have "recognized" status as Native
Americans. Spiritual Circles are usually open to all persons, without
regard to "blood quantum." This is as it should be in the eyes of
Medicine Teachers, who take the view that Native American spirituality
is a matter of values and attitudes, not genetics. This is also in
accord with United States Constitutional law, which prohibits government
from establishing, as well as from interfering with, religion.
A Twofold Problem
Native American spiritual freedom in prison is a twofold problem:
1. Prisoners need ongoing, regular access to native spiritual teachers;
2. Prison administrators need to be advised by native spiritual leaders.
These problems center on one factor: the availability of Medicine
Teachers. Traditional medicine men and women are not usually on a prison
payroll as chaplains. Many are not willing to be on a payroll.
Traditional medicine people usually cannot afford on their own to travel
regularly from prison to prison.
Prisoners therefore have a difficult time finding and maintaining
regular contact with spiritual advisors. Prison administrators are left
with no one outside the inmate population to consult about Native
spiritual practices.
The Regional Context
This region is one in which a program to support Medicine Teachers for
prison work would be especially useful and practical. Connecticut is the
only state in this region to permit a Purification ("sweat") lodge in
prison (Over half the states across the country, and all provinces in
Canada, permit lodges in prison.) In Massachusetts, Native American
spiritual practices are currently the subject of state court action,
which has resulted in a preliminary injunction in favor of inmates
regarding possession of sacred items and access to the Circle. In both
these states, one or two spiritual teachers volunteer their time to work
with many inmates in state and federal prisons. Connecticut has hired a
Native man to work as a chaplain within the system. This is a positive
step, though the need is greater than a single person can handle.
The Proposed Solution
A program to support Medicine Teachers engaged in prison work would
bring together spiritual teachers for learning and training. Their work
together would strengthen spiritual practices in many communities, while
providing for the specific needs of prisoners. Such a program would also
become the basis for inmates released from prison to continue spiritual
practices that have become part of their rehabilitation.
The program would enable Medicine People in the region to meet, consult,
learn from each other and from Teachers from other regions, train new
Teachers, and coordinate prison visits. The program would provide a
credible source of information for prison administrations.
Support would be provided for ongoing work with persons released from
prison, with Purification lodges and other ceremonies conducted
regularly throughout the region. Travel stipends would help defray costs
of prison visits and other activities. Publications about the program
and about Native American spirituality would be made available for all
interested persons.
The administrative structure of the program would be built from a
consortium of Native Nation offices in the region.
Go to main page, Native American Spiritual Freedom in Prison
This WWW page was constructed by Peter d'Errico.
Comments and suggestions for funding to:
derrico@legal.umass.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 12:34:00 -0500
From: "Janet Smith" <owlstar@speakeasy.org>
Subj: PRISON CORRESPONDENCE
from: orion-c@webtv.net <orion-c@webtv.net>
August 1, 2000 -- Internet Gives Prisoners Link to Outside World
CHICAGO, IL -- The Internet is helping death-row inmates and other
prisoners to plead their cases and seek pen pals, sparking outrage among
many families of victims and creating a new debate about the rights of
the growing number of prisoners, The New York Times reported.
According to the Times, no American prison allows inmates access to the
Internet, but prisoners use third-party services, usually for a fee, to
reach out to a potentially huge audience.
In Texas, dozens of inmates like Michael Blue, who is on death row,
appear on Web sites saying they were wrongly convicted of murder.
One inmate in Alaska, Askia Ashanti, appears on a Web site looking for
"a pro bono attorney or $5,000 to $10,000 in funds to hire an attorney."
And Beau Greene, who is imprisoned in Arizona, appears on a Web site in
a picture, cradling a cat and asking for pen pals. Mr. Greene is
described as "bored and lonely with a surplus of time."
Victims' rights groups complain that it is humiliating for victims and
their families to see prisoners on such Web sites. The groups also
complain that some people browsing the Internet might begin
correspondence with violent criminals without knowing the details of
their crimes.
In the face of such criticism, officials in New York and Arizona have
enacted policies or laws that forbid prisoners to use third-party
Internet service providers. Washington and other states have debated
similar measures.
But many civil libertarians say these measures violate the First
Amendment rights of inmates. Eleanor Eisenberg, the executive director
of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said her group was
considering filing a lawsuit against the Arizona measure.
"It clearly impinges on an inmate's First Amendment right to
communicate," Ms. Eisenberg said. "It also chills the rights of third
parties who have committed no crimes."In one case, Eisenberg said,
prison officials censored the mail of an attorney who had sent his
client legal documents that he had downloaded from the Web.
The Internet has also become a tool in championing the causes of
individual inmates, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, who defenders contend was
wrongly convicted of killing a police officer in Philadelphia in 1981.
At least a dozen Web sites carry details about the case and history of
Mr. Abu-Jamal. One of the largest sites, operated by a private
anti-death-penalty group in New York called Refuse and Resist, describes
the inmate as "a prominent radio journalist" being punished because he
"allowed the angry and anguished voices of the oppressed onto the
airwaves."
A page on the Web site calls the police account absurd and says that
witnesses in Mr. Abu-Jamal's defense were harassed by law enforcement
authorities. The site invites people to join marches around the country
on Mr. Abu-Jamal's behalf. It also encourages Web site visitors to print
and send the posting to others.
Except in very few cases, inmates have not been able to raise sizable
amounts of money through the Internet, despite their frequent requests
for contributions, or to secure pro bono lawyers to defend them.
Brian Henninger, a spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the
Death Penalty, said that group had used its Web site to "build a
campaign of support for inmates." The anti-death-penalty group has
posted online petitions, as well as sample letters to Congress and state
governors asking for appeals and clemency for inmates.
The Canadian Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty allows any American
inmate to post background information at no cost. And some defense
lawyers have used the Internet to plead the cases of their clients.
In most cases, the prisoners are simply looking for people to write
to them, a way of whiling away the hours in their cells.
American prison authorities have long read inmates' mail, except for
legal correspondence and letters to elected officials. But in recent
years, prisons have made it more difficult for inmates to have contact
with people on the outside, said Steve Bright, the director of the
Southern Center for Human Rights, an advocacy group for inmates' rights.
"It used to be viewed as a positive to stay in touch with the outside
world, since the idea was that people would be rehabilitated and then
returned to society," Mr. Bright said. "Now the attitude is to make the
prisons as punitive as possible and make the prisoners as miserable as
possible."
Source: The New York Times, August 1, 2000
Copyright 2000, The American Civil Liberties Union
Janet Smith
Owlstar Trading Post
http://www.owlstar.com
-- - - -
New! Native American Prisoners' Penpal Network:
http://members.tripod.com/~foltz.k/pages/atlantahome.html
Right now, it contains applications submitted by native inmates of the USP
Atlanta federal prison with the high hopes of obtaining pen pals and
communication with the outside world. Most, if not all, these men, are
incarcerated very far from home, isolated, and away from their families
and contact.
Remember, when contacting an inmate, if you want to send something to them,
make sure ahead of time what can and cannot be sent. Items such as money,
stamps, tobacco, sage, etc. cannot. Some items have to be designated for
group use rather than individual, so please be sure to check ahead of time.
Keep them in your prayers and let them know they are NOT forgotten.
Janet Smith
Yufala Star Clan of the Muskogee Creek
Owlstar Trading Post -- www.owlstar.com
---------------------------------
Please especially remember Leonard.
Leonard Peltier #89637-132, Box 1000, Leavenworth, KS 66053
---------------------------------
Dear Janet,
Eddie Hatcher was moved from Central Prison in North Carolina to a county
jail. His new address is:
Eddie Hatcher, Robeson County Jail,122 Legend Road, Lumberton, NC 28358.
Thanks,
Marsha Shaiman
On Indian Land, PO Box 2104, Seattle WA 98111
---------------------------------
Standing Deer's new address:
Robert H. Wilson #640539, Estelle Unit, 264 FM 3478,
Huntsville, TX 77320-3322
--------- "RE: History: Carlisle Indian School" ---------
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 22:54:16 -0500
From: Barbara Landis <blandis@epix.net>
Subj: Carlisle's INDIAN HELPER: January 27, 1888
[Editorial Note: These reprints are being included in this
newsletter so that you might know the mind of those who
ran institutions like Carlisle.]
THE INDIAN HELPER
-----------------------------
~~ FOR OUR BOYS AND GIRLS ~~
=============================
VOLUME III CARLISLE, PA.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 1888 NO. 24
=============================
DARE.
----
Dare to be brave in the cause of the right,
Dare with the enemy ever to fight.
Dare to be loving and patient each day,
Dare speak the truth whatever you say.
Dare to be gentle, and orderly, too,
Dare shun the evil whatever you do
Dare to speak kindly, and e'er be true,
Dare to do right and you'll find your way through.
Dare to he honest, good, and sincere,
Dare to please God, and then never fear.
-[Selected.
----------------
ENGINES AND BOYS
----------------
Last Saturday there was a grand procession from the Junction to the
School. The new engine marked, "Uncle Sam, Indian School Carlisle, Pa.,"
had come, and it took forty boysthat day to draw it to its new quarters.
This seems a good many, even for a first class hand engine. But when one
comes to think of it, they must be very remarkable boys to have it take
only forty of them to run `Uncle Sam.' The business has never been done
so cheaply before.
It is a very pretty engine resplendent with red and gilt, but the
important thing about it is that it will do good work. It is soon to be
taken out to be tried. It was made in Brockton, a town in Massachusetts
where they turn a great deal of iron into gold. How do they do this? By
manufacturing machinery, selling it and making money on it.
Talking of engines brings to mind steam engines, locomotives and all
the other kinds and this instead of making us say "engines and boys,
brings us to a boy and engines.
Because we owe almost all the wonderful work that steam engines do to
a boy who lived nearly one hundred and fifty years ago he did not do all
his work when he was a boy but he began it, for it was then that he
found out how very strong steam was, and he resolved to make steam his
servant. What did he have to find this out with? Only what everybody else
had, a tea-kettle. But he was always asking himself the "whys" of things,
why the steam lifted up the top of the kettle, and why it could not be
made to lift up something else, too.
The Man-on-the-band-stand can foretell one thing. It is the boys and
the girls who are always thinking and studying, and trying to answer
their own questions who are going to do the most for themselves and
others.
Is it going to be engines and boys, or boys and engines here?
----------------
BE NEAT.
----------------
You can tell a great deal about the character of boys and girls by
looking into the rooms they occupy, or even into their desks. If the
books are jumbled together and pushed in, with the slate on top, and
crumpled papers in the corner you may be pretty sure that their work is
of the same careless, slovenly character. Be neat.
Don't throw bits of paper on the floor.
Don't be careless with your rooms or your desks, and don't do anything
in a slipshod way. It pays to be honest and true! It pays to be police,
and it pays to be neat, and orderly.
I heard once of a lady who wished to take a little girl and educate
her.
There were three or four that seemed worthy, and she could not decide
which one to choose. At last she invited them to spend a week with her.
The first would come down to breakfast with her dress and hair in
disorder the second left her books and work lying just where she had
used them; the third did not see the dust on the thing in her room,
while the fourth not only kept herself and her room neat, but also
helped to put away what the others left lying around. Can you guess
which one the lady chose? I think I heard you say "The last one!" Yes,
and she never regretted doing so, for the little girl grew up to be not
only a self-helper but a helper of other people. People wonder how she
manages to get so much work done.
------------------------
(Continued on Fourth Page.)
==========================================
(p 2)
The Indian Helper.
-----------------------------
PRINTED EVERY FRIDAY, AT THE INDIAN
INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, CARLISLE, PA. BY THE
INDIAN PRINTER BOYS.
-----------------------------
Price: - 10 cents a year.
(Five cents extra for every change of address
after once in the galley.)
==============================
Address INDIAN HELPER, Carlisle, Pa.
==============================
Entered in the P.O. at Carlisle as second class
mail matter.
==============================
THE INDIAN HELPER is PRINTED by Indian boys, but
EDITED by The-Man-on-the-band-stand, who is NOT an Indian.
==============================
The INDIAN HELPER is paid for in advance, so do not hesitate to take
the paper from the Post Office, for fear a bill will be presented.
===============================
The four pupils who visited in Washington for four days last week saw
a good deal of the city in their few days' visit, and enjoyed themselves
very much. They went to the Capitol, even to its dome, to the Army and
Navy Departments, to the Senate, which however was not in session, to
the House Of Representatives, and to Mrs. Cleveland's reception. Here,
as one of the crowd, they had the pleasure of shaking hands with that
lady. It was a great satisfaction, no doubt, but, like so many other
people, they would have liked the sweetness a little longer drawn out,
for they were obliged to pass by so quickly that, really, they had no
chance to see how Mrs. Cleveland looked. So, after passing out from the
Blue Room they doubled on their steps, a practice not altogether
peculiar to Indians, and by looking through a window from another room
managed to get a good view of the fair hostess.
But below all the pleasant impressions, and deepened by all that they
saw and heard, is the conviction that what they can do for themselves by
the aid of their teachers is the opportunity for them. The Indians may
have to wait for Congress to act for them, but they need not wait to
learn what will make them ready to meet all the good things that come,
this waits for them. So, a little more of Carlisle, please, before they
are ready to get all the good of Washington. And the best way to find
this out was to go to Washington.
==============
Mr. Mason Pratt who since his graduation has been employed at Lehigh
at the Phoenixville Pa. Bridge Co., has accepted a higher position in
the Johnstown Steel Works, in this state. He is at home for a few days'
rest and visit before entering upon the duties of his new position.
We send you a short account of the proceedings at the last meeting of
the P. I. Society.
After roll call, the minutes were read and accepted. The president
called for new names for membership. There were none suggested. The
chairman of the committee on arrangements read her report.
Unfinished business: A letter from Mrs. Campbell, in reply to one
written to her by the society, was read. New business: One of the
members proposed that we write letters of encouragement to the girls at
Haskell Institute, who are trying to start a society. The motion was put
before the house and stood accepted. Accordingly, the following
committee was appointed to write the letters: Julia Bent, Clara Faber,
and Lucinda Clinton. Then came the general program which consisted of
songs, recitations, compositions and reading. The critic made her
remarks. A committee on arrangements was appointed, and the meeting
adjourned.
-----------
The Indian Union Debating Society held its meeting in the chapel
Tuesday evening, and gave us the pros and cons of the question of
running railroads through the Indian reservations. The pros had it, as
the judges, and the audience decided. But the cons made the best of
their side and showed themselves possessed of the imagination necessary
to put themselves in the place of the old Indians on the reservations
who are afraid of nothing so much as locomotives, except ideas. The
arguments were made with spirit, and the meeting was interesting.
----------------
Mr. Jas. Barr of Paisley, Scotland, has been visiting his cousins, the
Misses Wilson, for a few days. He intends to sail from New York for home
on Saturday. He had never seen any Indians before, and seemed greatly
interested in our work. He thinks if Buffalo Bill would convert the Wild
West show into such a school as Carlisle, a very different impression
would be made upon the people on the other side of the "big water" as to
what the United States Government is doing for the Indians.
----------------
John and Cyrus Dixon keep us in mind. Together with the renewal of
their subscriptions to the HELPER comes a club of sixteen subscribers
from the Albuquerque school. It would seem as though Henry Kendall knew
of the Dixon enterprise, for, not to be out-done, he sends us a club
from Rutgers College about the same time.
==================================================
p. 3
The carpenters are remodeling the shops.
----------------
We hear that Rosa Dion is at the Genoa School, Neb.
----------------
The herdic has been sent to the blacksmith's shop for repairs.
----------------
The painters have put up the signs over the different shops. This will
be a great convenience to visitors.
----------------
The new cart was painted by Burdett, one of the Florida Apache boys,
It is a very creditable piece of work.
----------------
The little boys' bagatelle board has been made new again. It has done
good service, and has long been a source of amusement.
----------------
Jack Mather who left us three years ago for St. Augustine, Florida,
where he has been working for himself, returned last week, sick.
----------------
Mice, mice in the Little Boys' Quarters, two-legged, white-coated mice
scampering through the halls. Too bad! Drive them out of the new
quarters.
----------------
A sample wardrobe for the boys has been made and approved. Three
wardrobes in one so that each of the three boys in the room may have his
own wardrobe.
----------------
Where are the diplomas that the harness-makers have from time to time
received from State and County fairs? They should be hung upon the walls
of the new shop.
----------------
Sweep under the beds and in the corners, boys. The Old Man has been
peeping around and did not find things as nice in the new quarters as he
would like. Too much play!
----------------
The Assembly and Reading Rooms in the quarters have been lettered, so
that hereafter visitors may know where to find them. This work was done
by Christopher Tyndall, Omaha.
----------------
When a young man sees a lady drive up to a hitching post, alight, and
begin to fasten her horse, why doesn't he go forward and fasten the
horse for her? A young gentleman does it.
----------------
A number of boys have been busy all the week cutting wood. They have
had to work fast to keep warm. As it is a good thing to work fast when
one works at all, this shows us one of the benefits of winter weather.
Miss Irvine has come back to us much better, although it will be a
little while yet before all her strength returns to her.
----------------
Thursday the teachers of Nos. 7, 8, 9, received an invitation from Dr.
McCauley for themselves and their pupils, to attend a meeting of prayer
for schools and colleges, to be held in Bosler Hall, Carlisle. But on
account of the storm only those who could ride went.
----------------
Later from the shops. The diplomas on the walls of the new harness
shop add greatly to the appearance and give credit to whom credit is
due. (The Old Man asks in a whisper if it was possible that his remarks
were overheard.)
----------------
The large boys have now a table in each room. With those in the
Reading and Assembly Rooms, there are ninety-five in all. Seventy-four
of these tables were made by Joel Tyndall, Frank Jannies, William Bull,
and William S. Bear in seventeen half days.
----------------
For a few days, a very few days, probably, the morning classes in No.
9 are to be heard by the older pupils, each leader to hear the
recitation of his own class. In the afternoon Miss Fisher, the
principal, takes the recitation. This is because Miss Bender is on duty
at the printing office until the arrival of Miss Cook who was formerly
at Carlisle.
----------------
The-Man-on-the-Rand-Stand must be pardoned if he does not exhibit his
usual sunniness of disposition and keenness of spirit. He is depressed
by the departure of his chief clerk and does not expect to be himself
again until the return of that most valued and important functionary.
Indeed, the barometer of his mood indicates falling weather, but it is
to be hoped for the sake of his dignity that this will prove nothing
less stern than snow.
----------------
Wednesday morning Miss Ely and Miss Burgess left us for a visit to the
parents of Miss Burgess, in National City, Col. If it were not that they
need rest and change after their faithful labors on our behalf, we
should be distressed to have them go. As it is, we wish them every
pleasure, and added to the amusements the zest of a little homesickness,
a tug at their heart strings that shall begin with a silken thread and
end with a Cable, or car couplings, drawing them back to Carlisle agam.
Tuesday evening they held a reception at which their friends offered
with tbeir farewells trifling solaces for their journey; most of these
were of a luscious character, but some were restorative, and others
valuable simply from their powers of attraction.
=======================================================
(Continued front First Page.)
and done so well, but the secret is this - she has a place for
everything and as far as possible keeps things in their places, so that
she loses no time in looking for mislaid articles.
Begin JUST NOW to form neat, careful habits, even in doing the smallest
things, and soon you will find it much easier to do them in that way
than to hurry through them.
----------------
DON'T JERK YOUR HORSE.
The formation of the mouth of a horse or a mule seems adapted to the
use of a bit, for guiding and restraining the movements of the animal.
The absence of teeth just where the bit usually rests favors this
controlling.
There is a great difference in the texture of the mouth or side lips
of these animals. Some are called tender-mouthed, others, hard-mouthed.
But sudden jerks and snatches hurt, annoy and irritate the animal, and
should be strictly avoided at all times.
There is an art in driving, and it is of great importance to the
comfort of the animal that the driver understands his business in using
the reins. Even a tender-mouthed horse will bear to have a plain bit
kept pretty firmly against the mouth or side-lips, if only kept there
very steadily, then, with a very little gentle draw, or variation in the
tension of either line, the horse may easily be guided to the right or
left, or brought to a stop.
It is most unfortunate for the horse that comparatively few persons
who assume the control of a team understand the art of driving well.
Livery stable horses generally fare badly, being hired out and driven by
different persons, and subjected to very different styles of handling
the reins.
As coaching around is becoming so common, it would be well for persons
contemplating it to take a few lessons from a good experienced driver
[not the jockies] in the art of properly using the reins, and not the
whip, both are easily learned and might be a great advantage to both the
horse and its owner.
Livery stable keepers and others would do well to observe some
pertinent remarks that have appeared in The Bird Call in relation to the
constant labor and imposition on the hired horses; and their abuse, in
the use of the cruel check-rein-one of the greatest, if not the very
greatest annoyance, cruelty and injury to the horse. - The Bird Call.
[A PENNA. FARMER.
----------------
"There is always room for a man of force and he makes room for many."
Enigma.
----------------
I am made of 10 letters.
My 5, 10, 4, 3, is not to succeed.
My 1, 2, 7, is a comfortable means of conveyance.
My 3, 6, 10, 8, is something we should not do too aften.
My 5, 9, 8, is a part of a fish.
My 7, 2, 9, 3, is a part of the fence.
My 5, 7, 6, 3, 4, 1, is what the children do these bright days.
My 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 is a place toward which the
Man-on-the-band-stand looks very often.
----------------
Conundrums.
----------------
Why does a miller wear a white hat?
----------------
What is the hardest key to turn?
----------------
Sit Erect.
Why is it that our young men do not sit erect in the school rooms
without being constantly told to do so? Is it weakness of the spine, or
weakness of the mind that makes them crook themselves into interrogation
points until people wonder what the question is?
----------------
Scene the other morning at the little boys' quarters.
Young Apache in Indo-English Two buttons not any me. (English - I have
lost two buttons.)
Result - Two buttons, a needle and thread change hands speedily, from
Miss Patterson's to his.
=======================================
STANDING OFFER: - For FIVE new subscribers to the INDIAN HELPER, we
will give the person sending them a photographic group of the 13
Carlisle Indian Printer boys, on a card 4 1/2 X 6 1/2 inches, worth 20
cents when sold by itself. Name and tribe of each boy given.
(Persons wishing the above premium will please enclose a 1-cent stamp
to pay postage.)
For TEN, Two PHOTOGRAPHS, one showing a group of Pueblos as they
arrived in wild dress, and another of the same pupils three years after,
or, for the same number of names we give two photographs showing still
more marked contrast between a Navajoe as he arrived in native dress,
and as he now looks, worth 20 cents a piece.
Persons wishing the above premiums will please enclose a 2-cent stamp
to pay postage.
For FIFTEEN, we offer a GROUP of the whole school on 9x14 inch card.
Faces show distinctly, worth sixty cents.
Persons wishing the above premium will please send 6 cents to pay
postage.
---------------
For a longer list of subscribers we have many other interesting pictures
of shops, representing boys at work, schoolrooms and views of the
grounds, worth from 20 to 60 cents a piece, which will be sent on
request.
=======================================================================
Transcribed weekly from the newspaper collections of the US Military
History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, PA. For more info see
http://www.carlisleindianschool.org. - Barbara Landis
--------- "RE: Rustywire: Kinlani" ---------
Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 20:54:44 GMT
From: rustywire <rustywire@my-deja.com>
Subj: Kinlani
Newsgroup: alt.native
Kinlani
It was early November and the pine trees were shaggy ready for winter.
The place was Kinlani, some called it Flagstaff up in Northern Arizona.
The Old Man had gotten up early and shoveled the driveway to the rented
home they lived in. The air was clear and frosty, the snow crunchy in
the way it sounded under his feet.
Let's go to town, he said when he came in and those four kids, three
boys and one little girl were dressed and out the door in a minute,
pulling stocking caps over their black hair. There was Sonny, Franky
and Henry, and there was Sharlene, the little one. They were just in
elementary school and they scrambled out after him. He walked fast that
Old Man.
One time when the kids were home, their Mom was talking liked she used
to do when she washed dishes, and the kids were sitting around the
table. She was talking about him, their Dad, about how they got
together way back when, and that now he sometimes just acted like an
old man. She said it like that, he was the old man. The name stuck with
him after that. He was their Old Man and he walked with them
everywhere.
He came from the reservation and his English wasn't too good, he could
understand it fairly well but had a hard time speaking it clearly. He
talked only when he had to, so he was pretty much quiet most of the
time. The place where they lived was a small apartment unit, there
were three of them close together and they shared a common driveway. It
was two bedroom place but they all fit in there, it was enough room cuz
they lived across the street from the forest.
The Old Man took them for walks every day into that the place of tall
pine trees and pine needles and underbrush that covered the ground
making a natural carpet. Those kids knew the forest and all the things
about it. They learned to sound like blue jays, making that sound with
their lips after hours of trying. The Old Man used to sit on a rock and
it seemed he could talk to them and they would come to the place he was
sitting. He could sound like a squirrel and the sparrows were just too
easy for him. He would just sit there and show them and they would try
all day long to make that simple sound.
It was Cherry Street they lived on, at the end of it near the park and
a stone throw away from the forest.
Old Man walked ahead of them and they caught up and they walked all
the way down to town, where the stores were. It was a Saturday and there
was snow on the ground and they dressed warm as they sloshed through
the snow. They liked to go to town with him, because he went to the
stores would look at the toys there with them. His eyes would light up
as th