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Saturday, September 28, 2002Subject: Indian Site Preservation Pushed Indian Site Preservation Pushed By KIM BACA Associated Press Writer http://www.activedayton.com/shared/news/ap/ap_story.html/National/AP.V5643.AP-Sacred-Sites.html For centuries, young American Indians have run a series of trails that stretch from the muddy red waters of the Colorado River to the Arizona-California line. Running the trail has been at the center of the Quechan Nation's religion, traditions and history. Now 30 young men are running to try to save the paths for the next generation. The runners are making a 700-mile relay trek through California to focus attention on state legislation that seeks to protect ancient sites like the one they hope to safeguard from becoming a gold mine. The group wants Gov. Gray Davis to sign a bill that would require local governments to notify a tribe of proposed construction within 20 miles of a reservation and to protect sacred sites from development. Opponents of the bill said it could grant tribes veto power over both private and public land. The California Chamber of Commerce said the bill threatens to delay or stop public improvement projects, school buildings and new homes. Davis, who has until month's end to sign or veto the bill, has not publicly taken a position. ``This is not only for politics,'' said 15-year-old runner Richard ``Ticky'' Smith, a Quechan tribal member who has sweated through triple-digit temperatures in California's Central Valley this week. ``It's for all the elders--the ones that passed on, the ones who are sick, the ones who can't run or walk or hear or see. It's also for the future.'' The run began last Friday in Sacramento, Calif., and is expected to end Saturday at the tribe's Imperial Valley reservation. The proposed mine site--at Indian Pass, a remote spot near the Arizona-California line--sits on federal land outside their reservation. Lillian Sparks, an analyst for the National Congress of American Indians, said no state has enacted legislation similar to the bill before the governor. ``California is really taking initiative to protect Native American sacred places, and we're hoping other states will follow through until we can get protection at the federal level,'' said Sparks. Across California, about 300 sites that average a quarter-acre each need protection, according to the Native American Heritage Commission. Under the legislation, a local government would hire an outside investigator such as an anthropologist to check historical records and determine whether a site has long been considered sacred. The investigator also would look at whether the area has a shrine or other religious artifacts. The bill stems from Quechan opposition to plans by Glamis Gold Ltd., a Reno, Nev.-based company that wants to build an open pit gold mine on 1,600 acres of BLM land near the tribe's reservation. The Bureau of Land Management parcel includes a site of religious ceremonies that contains ancient pottery shards and petroglyphs. Charles Jeannes, senior vice president of Glamis, said the proposed state bill could ruin the company's efforts to create an operation on which it already has spent $15 million. Jeannes said the bill now on Davis' desk would hamper development statewide by only allowing construction of projects on sacred sites that have an overriding environmental, public health or safety reason. ``It's a fairly narrow exception and it gives the native tribe any right to veto any project they deem sacred,'' he said. The Clinton administration rejected the gold mine plan, citing ``undue impairment'' to Quechan sacred land, but the Bush administration rescinded that ruling in October 2001. Quechan president Mike Jackson said the issue is about continuing a tradition for his 3,000 tribal members. ``We want to preserve our history just like any other person,'' he said. ``We should enjoy our religious rights like anybody else.'' On the Net: The bill, SB1828: http://www.sen.ca.gov Indian Pass: http://www.sacredland.org/indian_pass.html California Chamber of Commerce: http://www.calchamberstore.com Subject: Telescope opponents take U protest to KSTP-TV Telescope opponents take U protest to KSTP-TV Mary Jane Smetanka http://www.startribune.com/stories/459/3326974.html Published Sep 26, 2002 SCOP26 Protesters pounded drums and waved signs in front of KSTP-TV in St. Paul on Wednesday, trying to get Hubbard Broadcasting CEO Stanley Hubbard to pull financial support that will allow the University of Minnesota to buy time on a controversial Arizona telescope. In two weeks, university regents are expected to vote on a proposal to buy time on the telescope on Mount Graham, which traditional Apache tribal members say is sacred and is being desecrated by development. Last year, Hubbard gave the university $5 million so the school's Astronomy Department could buy time on the telescope, which will be completed in 2004 and will be the most powerful in the world. Before daylight Wednesday, someone climbed the antenna behind the station and hung a 60-foot yellow banner that included the words "Mount Graham is sacred." It was removed by 9 a.m. Hubbard declined to speak to reporters. Through a spokesperson, he indicated that he will not reconsider his donation. "We are committed to the university, and that commitment is not going to change," he said. "We have a contract with the University of Minnesota, and the entire situation rests in the hands of the university." Relevant Links: Mount Graham: Sacred Mountain, Sacred Ecosystem - http://www.seac.org/seac-sw/mtg.htm Mount Graham International Observatory - http://mgpc3.as.arizona.edu http://www.indianz.com/News/show.asp?ID=2002/09/26/telescope Subject: Indian student top of his class Tucson, Arizona Tuesday, 24 September 2002 http://www.azstarnet.com/star/tue/20924STUDENTOFWEEK.html Star-Eyewitness News 4 Student of the Week Antonio Benavidez, 17 Tops his high school class and takes university math By Inger Sandal ARIZONA DAILY STAR Senior Antonio Benavidez is ranked No. 1 in his class at Desert View High School, and is on track to be the first American Indian valedictorian in the school's history. Benavidez, who turns 18 on Saturday, has maintained an A-plus grade average, with a heavy schedule of advanced placement classes. He's already taken university-level math and is auditing a class three evenings a week at the University of Arizona that extends calculus to three dimensions. "He is very focused and very disciplined - much more than most high school students and more than most college undergraduates, too," said Lisa Berger, a graduate teaching assistant in the UA's math department. Berger used to teach pre-calculus at Desert View, and Benavidez was one of her students. Berger described him as a bright, intuitive teen who works extremely hard. Also, she said, "He's one of the nicest kids I've had the pleasure to teach." Benavidez is researching universities and considering the UA and Arizona State University, where he has studied math the past three summers. "I'm thinking of studying pure mathematics or going into some field of engineering, probably computer-related," he said. Benavidez comes from the Tohono O'odham Nation. He discovered he liked algebra in the eighth grade in Gila Bend. Although some people find math cold and impersonal and write it off as soon as it gets difficult, Benavidez said, he sees beauty in its structure. "Even though it gets complicated, it always returns back to the elements of being simple. Math is built on very simple things." His mother, Martha Murillo, is a strong influence. "She has always been positive," he said, "and she puts her kids first." Benavidez has two sisters. Murillo, who lives in Ajo, said her son attends Desert View in Tucson's Sunnyside district because he thought it would be more challenging. "It was hard for me to let him go away," she said, adding he has always earned top grades and was eighth-grade valedictorian. Murillo said her son encouraged her to continue her education, and he also tutors an older cousin, who attends Pima Community College, in math. "I'm very proud of him," she said. "He's a great son." Joni Keating, Desert View's adviser for American Indian students, said Benavidez is the top-ranked student in his class in academics and is certain to be valedictorian or tie for the honor at the school, which opened in 1985. The school at 4101 E. Valencia Road has about 90 American Indian students, with most coming from the San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation. The next largest number come from the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. * Contact reporter Inger Sandal at 573-4115 or at isandal@azstarnet.com Ariz. reservation schools denied funds THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002 http://www.indianz.com/News/show.asp?ID=2002/09/26/school The Arizona Board of Education is withholding more than $30,000 per month from schools on on the Tohono O'odham Reservation. The board said the money will be disbursed when a public school district corrects financial problems. Five schools and about 1,200 students are affected. Get the Story: O'odham school funds held up (The Arizona Daily Star 9/25) Subject: Life in Uptown, Chicago's Indian country Life in Uptown, Chicago's Indian country September 22, 2002 BY STEPHEN J. LYONS http://www.suntimes.com/output/books/sho-sunday-power22.html The stories and essays in Roofwalker portray women and men negotiating an impossible path between Native American culture and a transplanted urban life in Chicago. Susan Power, awarded the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for the 1994 novel The Grass Dancer, is a product of such extremes, and her experience dominates this masterly mix of fiction and nonfiction. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are 15,496 American Indians and Alaska Natives from more than 100 tribes in Cook County. Power's mother is Dakota; her father an Albany, N.Y., white. The author herself has red hair--like "Black Hills gold"--a detail that surfaces throughout the book to metaphorically answer her own query, "Half Yanktonnai Dakota (Sioux) and half white, I tortured myself with the obvious question: Whose side am I on anyway?" Roofwalker contains seven short stories and five essays, every one of them a keeper. New arrivals afflicted with "relocation fever" struggle to salvage satisfying lives in the city's Uptown neighborhood. The men have dark and empty eyes like "watermelon seeds," and they often run back to the reservation. The women are left behind to negotiate hard times and raise children in stuffy apartments. They know that the city offers an economic upward mobility that the reservation does not, but they also know the disruptive cost of relocation. A rich cultural past is sometimes their only salvation. In the powerful title story, 10-year-old Jessie mourns her father's leaving, but is strengthened by her grandmother's stories from North Dakota's Indian country. "When I was little I had blind faith in family legends, my grandmother's stories, and even in my handsome father, who was temporarily lost, searching for the road Grandma Mabel told me was beneath my own feet. After all, he had been the one to catch me before I slipped to the floor, the one who kept me in the world once my mother released me. Grandmother Mabel told me that life is a circle, and sometimes we coil around on ourselves like a drowsy snake." Never bitter, and never overtly depressing, Power uses a tone that maintains dignity for her characters and even allows playfulness and humor. In the delightful "Angry Fish," a Native American named Mitchell finds a small plastic statue of St. Jude that comes to life and petulantly demands that his poems be transcribed, "maybe put together a little chapbook." Mitchell soon finds St. Jude to be more of a curse instead of a blessing and the ending is too good to reveal here. "Chicago Waters" is one of the finest essays ever written about Lake Michigan. Power recalls swimming in the lake alone as a young girl and with her entire family. She learned to skip stones across the water's surface and to read the colors of the lake like a mood ring. To Power, the lake was instructive. "Once I stopped struggling with the great lake, I flowed through it, and was expelled from its hectic mouth." In the poignant essay "Museum Indians," Power's mother weeps before a stuffed buffalo at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. "'I am just like you,' she whispers. 'We should be in the Dakotas, somewhere a little bit east of the Missouri River. This crazy city is not a fit home for buffalo or Dakotas." Only later do we learn that Power's mother has been living in Chicago for 55 years. Some attachments are too strong to be broken. "On the reservation," Power writes, "memory is a sap that runs thick and deep in the blood. The community memory is long, preserving ancient jealousies, enmities, and alliances, until they become traditional. In my family, memory was a soldier's navy blue tunic, stiffened on the left side with a splatter of sacred brown blood." Roofwalker is a significant book for Chicagoans who want to further understand the elements of diversity that make the city so culturally attractive. The writing should resonate with all of us. For the Native American experience in urban America, as isolated as it might appear, is the American story of rising above impossible odds in an attempt to remake oneself while preserving traditional roots. Power reshapes this age-old story with poetic grace and universal appeal. Stephen J. Lyons is a fiction writer living in Monticello, Ill. Subject: Indiana news: Indian Days may not see many Native Americans and more Indian Days may not see many Native Americans By JOE ATKINSON Courier & Press staff writer 464-7450 or atkinson@evansville.net September 21, 2002 http://www.myinky.com/ecp/local_news/article/0,1626,ECP_745_1430969,00.html Angel Mounds Historic Site will celebrate American Indian Days next weekend - and the celebration will be held without many area American Indians. Several American Indian groups will skip the event as part of a statewide boycott of sites run by the Department of Natural Resources. The boycott started more than a year ago in protest of department policies on site preservation and the handling of American Indian remains, said Mary Alexander, executive director of the American Indian Center of Indiana. Angel Mounds itself has been a focal point for much of the controversy, including questions about preservation and about the department's transferring the site's only American Indian employee, Bill Spellazza, off the site. Spellazza has since been returned to Angel Mounds. "The employment issue with Bill Spellazza was the straw that broke the camel's back," Alexander said. "If it hadn't been for the Native American community speaking out against his transfer, I think he'd still be (in New Harmony where he was temporarily transferred) - I don't think it was anything honorable by DNR, but that they felt like they were pressured into doing that." That's part of the reason the boycotting groups may actively protest Native American Days next weekend, Alexander said. So far, no decision has been made as to what will happen during the event itself. "In terms of the actual event, if there will be people picketing -I think there will be some meetings going on this weekend to organize that," Alexander said. "If there is going to be a demonstration, it will be a peaceful demonstration; it will be a chance for the Native American community to voice their concerns with what's been going on with DNR." Officials at Angel Mounds, however, said they aren't terribly concerned about the boycott affecting Native American Days, which will run Friday and Sept. 28. Area school children will take part in several events Friday, while Sept. 28 will play host to everything from a planetarium presentation and craft presentations to a spear throwing competition. The boycott hasn't affected attendance at the park, said Mike Lindermann, Angel Mounds' site manager. Despite the fact the site opened late this year, attendance figures are nearly the same as the year before, he said. "Our figures are holding firm from last year, and the donations are at least double from what we had last year from the public," Lindermann said. "We opened a month later this year, and we're within 200 people of our year-to-date from last year -so even with losing that month, the attendance is almost the same." Lindermann said he expects to see that trend carry over to Native American Days. Budget cuts at the Department of Natural Resources forced Angel Mounds to cut the event's typical third day this year, though, which makes it hard for Linder-mann to speculate what the attendance will be this year. Two sites offer Native American events By ROGER McBAIN Courier & Press staff writer 464-7520 or rmcbain@evansville.net September 26, 2002 http://www.myinky.com/ecp/events/article/0,1626,ECP_765_1439918,00.html Organizers say it's more a case of coincidence than competition, but a history of controversy figures into the scheduling of two separate Native American events this weekend in Southern Indiana. The best-known is the 20th annual Native American Days at Angel Mounds State Historic Site, presented on a Mississippian American Indian site east of Evansville. After a year of state budget cuts and public protests, with some American Indian groups shunning the event as part of a statewide boycott of Department of Natural Resources sites, Native American Days will go ahead in an abbreviated form with American Indian presenters, demonstrators, traders and three dancers, performing to recorded music. Instead of running into the night and extending over three days, as it has in the past, this year's Native American Days will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. "We hope everything works out fine for everybody." - Patricia Warner, a member of the Pike County Arts Council whose family plans to attend both Native American events The area's new event is a Native American powwow making its debut as part of this year's Pike County Arts Festival, an annual children's hands-on art fair at Hornady Park in Petersburg, Ind. The Petersburg powwow, coordinated by the same group that presented Native American Day programs at Angel Mounds in previous years, will feature Indian traders, demonstrators, drummers and What: Native American Days When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday Where: Angel Mounds State Historic Site Admission: Free with a $5-per-car parking fee Information: Call 455-3478 What: The Pike County Arts Festival and the First Day of the Eagle Powwow When: Powwow events run 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Other arts festival activities will run 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Where: Hornady Park, Petersburg, Ind. Admission: Gate admission, $2; crafts activities, free Information: Call (812) 354-6511, 354-6860 or 354-2800. scores - perhaps hundreds - of dancers competing for $2,000 in prize money, said Don Cox. Cox is president of the Shadow of the Buffalo, a not-for-profit organization that promotes Native American events in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. He coordinated American Indian dancing demonstrations and other activities at Angel Mounds in 2000 and 2001. The groups aren't returning to Angel Mounds this year for a couple of reasons, Cox said. For one, they weren't invited back. In response to statewide budget cuts and a drop in local funding for Native American Days, Angel Mounds is spending only $5,000 to $6,000 - about half of last year's budget - on the event this year, said Mike Linderman, Angel Mounds site manager. This year, three members of the Haskell Nations University Dancers from Lawrence, Kan., will demonstrate and explain a variety of Native American dances, including men's traditional, fancy and grass dances and ladies' traditional, fancy and jingle dress dances. They'll perform to recorded music, said Linderman. For another thing, some of the groups that have participated at Angel Mounds in previous years have joined other Native Americans boycotting Indiana DNR sites this year to protest a variety of issues ranging from the department's handling of American Indian remains to management of ancestral sites. Some had protested the temporary transfer of Bill Spellazza, Angel Mounds' only Native American employee, to another DNR site in New Harmony, Ind. Spellazza returned to Angel Mounds Sept. 6. "I don't want to get involved in the political aspects of it," said Cox, "but I'm not going against my own people." The concurrent scheduling of both Native American events this weekend is coincidence, however, said Cox. So does Patricia Warner, a member of the Pike County Arts Council. For a dozen years the annual children's arts festival has been at the end of September or the beginning of October, she said. But because of repeated experiences with rain in October, "we have permanently changed it to this weekend," she said. She has attended Native American Days at Angel Mounds for years, she said. Last year she met Cox, who arranged for a smaller group of American Indians to demonstrate native dances and crafts at the 2001 Pike County Arts Festival, presented a week after Native American Days. This year, with Angel Mounds out of the picture, Cox was able to bring a full powwow to Petersburg this weekend. Warner sees the powwow as an addition, not a new focus, for the Pike County event, which will continue to offer a variety of free, hands-on children's activities, including pumpkin decorating, face painting, and parasol and fan painting. As part of the powwow, American Indian traders, craft demonstrators and food vendors will join the arts festival's offerings of food, games and traditional crafts. Warner doesn't want the Pike County event, which usually draws 1,000 to 2,000, to compete with Native American Days, which last year drew an estimated 20,000 visitors to Angel Mounds. Warner's own children and grandchildren plan to go to Angel Mounds, she said. "We hope everything works out fine for everybody." Linderman doesn't look for 20,000 visitors to Native American Days this year for a variety of reasons. Last year's event was bigger, ran longer and featured the public opening of Angel Mounds' new visitors and interpretive center. With Native American Days' smaller dance program and reduced schedule, and with the powwow in Petersburg running the same weekend, "I'd be happy with 10,000 visitors this year," he said. Linderman expects to lose some Native American Days regulars interested primarily in seeing a drum circle and powwow, "but we're not a powwow, and we've never tried to portray our event as a powwow," he said. For those who do come to Native American Days, there will be plenty to see and do, Linderman said. In addition to dancing, this year's Native American Days will feature a living-history Cheyenne lodge demonstration, atlatl demonstrations and a competition using the atlatl - the notched stick Native Americans used to throw short spears at game and targets. Other activities will include a Native American market, food booths, games, storytelling, and hands-on demonstrations of flintknapping, basketry, shell bone and gourd carving, fingerweaving and stone tool and weapon making. Education key role of Indian Center By MARK WILSON Courier & Press staff writer 464-7417 or mwilson@evansville.net September 19, 2002 http://www.myinky.com/ecp/local_news/article/0,1626,ECP_745_1425935,00.html The American Indian Center of Indiana will use its new Evansville office as a base for educating Indians in 26 Southern Indiana counties. The Indianapolis-based organization dedicated its satellite office at the Evansville Small Business Center at 100 NW Second St. on Wednesday afternoon with native flute music, prayer and speeches. An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 American Indians live in Southern Indiana, said Melissa Williams, the Evansville native who will serve as the group's Southern Indiana regional case manager. Williams, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, based in North Carolina, has long aspired to help other American Indians reach their educational goals. "When I was in the fourth grade I had a teacher who said that I would never amount to anything because I was an Indian," she said. That, and her parents' message of "overcome, overcome, overcome," was all it took, she said. Williams said she will work with community volunteers, area businesses, schools and universities to educate area American Indians about health, education and employment issues. "We're looking at in a way that it will be center for Native American interaction and communication. This office in Evansville will help to be an outreach to the public," said Rodney Richardson, president of Council for Preservation of American Indian Culture. "Native Americans are alive and well and not behind some glass in a museum. We are an active part of society. Hopefully this will create an awareness that will change the public view of Native Americans." According to the 2000 Census, there are 305 Native Americans/Alaska Natives in Vanderburgh County. posted by Webmaster@ AIM Support 10:42 AM Last updated:
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