cultural resources

NYTs: “Running from Despair” — Profile of Wings of America

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the NYTs:

SANTA FE, N.M. — On a cold Saturday morning last month, 16-year-old Chantel Hunt ran across a highway onto a gravel road where the snow under her shoes packed into washboard ripples. She ran around a towering red rock butte, past two old mattresses dumped on the roadside, and into the shadow of a mesa she sometimes runs on top of.

Hunt, a high school junior and a resident of the Navajo Nation, was on a short training run for the national cross-country championships being held Saturday in San Diego. Her team, Wings of America, has risen to prominence with an unlikely collection of athletes. It is a group of American Indians from reservations around the country, and a Wings team has won a boys or a girls national title 20 times since first attending a championship meet in 1988.

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Pokagon Lawyer Becomes Director of Mitchell Museum of the American Indian

Singel

By Charles Storch |Tribune reporter

February 4, 2008

A tribal lawyer turned academic is to take over this week as executive director of the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, marking the first time in the Evanston institution’s 30-year-history that it will be led by a Native American.

John Low, 51, of Park Ridge, is familiar with the Mitchell, having been a curatorial assistant there a few years ago. He said he hopes to use that knowledge and his contacts in the Native American community to build on the museum’s strengths.

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Treuer in the LA Times

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From the LA Times:

Native American languages are dying out with the elders.

By David Treuer, Special to the Los Angeles Times
February 3, 2008

Photo illustration by Mark Todd

Only three Native American languages now spoken in the United States and Canada are expected to survive into the middle of this century. Mine, Ojibwe, is one of them. Many languages have just a few speakers left — two or three — while some have a fluent population in the hundreds. Recently, Marie Smith Jones, the last remaining speaker of the Alaskan Eyak language, died at age 89. The Ojibwe tribe has about 10,000 speakers distributed around the Great Lakes and up into northwestern Ontario and eastern Manitoba. Compared with many, we have it pretty good.

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Anthropologists, Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Council investigating discovery of human remains

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Saginaw Chippewa Tribe inspects Flint site where bones were found

FLINT — Members of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe were in Flint today inspecting land that is believed to be an Indian burial site.

Earlier this week, construction crews dug up several bones on Stone Street and Third Avenue, which officials now believe could belong to as many as five people. An anthropologist determined the bones are from Native American people and pre-date the 20th century.

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U.S. v. Gonzales et al. — Makah Whalers — Hearing re Pre Trial Motions

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

In response to the pre-trial motions that have been filed, the district court will hear these motions on February 19 and 20, 2008. There will be a full evidentiary hearing on these motions. The court also granted the Makah Tribe’s motion for leave to appear as amicus in this case.

DCT Scheduling Order

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U.S. v. Gonzales et al. — Makah Whalers — Up to Date Materials

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

The Makah whaling case in federal court is turning into a very interesting discussion of whaling treaty rights and federal criminal procedure.

Here are the current materials in United States v. Gonzales, et al., No. CR 07-5656 JKA (W.D. Wash.):

United States v. Gonzales Indictment

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Makah Tribe Proposed Amicus Brief in Federal Whaling Prosecution

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The Makah Nation has filed a motion for leave to file an amicus brief in the United States v. Gonzales whaling prosecution. Here are the materials, including Defendant Noel’s opposition to the motion:

Makah Amicus Brief

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Makah Tribal Court Whaling Trial Delayed

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From Indianz:

Makah Nation delays trial for unauthorized hunt

Monday, January 21, 2008

The Makah Nation of Washington has delayed a trial for five members accused of an illegal whale hunt.

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Winters Centennial Conference — Santa Anna Pueblo — June 9-12, 2008

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

THE WINTERS CENTENNIAL:
WILL ITS COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE ENDURE?
June 9-12, 2008
Hyatt Regency Tamaya — Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico

The year 2008 marks the centennial of Winters v. United States, in which the Court formulated the reserved water rights doctrine now broadly asserted by Indian tribes and federal agencies. The decision, because of its enduring promise of justice to Native Americans, marks one of the great achievements of American jurisprudence.  The decision made possible the continuity of many Indian communities and non-Indian communities alike, along with the protection of important environmental resources. Now, one hundred years later, the question is whether the promise of Winters will be fulfilled. In celebration of the Winters Centennial, the Utton Transboundary Resources Center and the American Indian Law Center will convene a major symposium in June 2008 along the waters of the Rio Grande near Albuquerque. The symposium will review the legal and cultural history of the decision, assess the contemporary consequences of the reserved water rights doctrine (both nationally and internationally), and project the significance of Indian water rights into the 21st Century. The goal of the symposium is to assemble Indian reserved rights policy makers and decision makers at all levels in order to deepen the understanding of the effect of Winters and to advance the dialogue regarding the future role of reserved rights.

LATs Article on NAGPRA and UC Berkeley

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From the LA Times:

UC Berkeley’s bones of contention

Native Americans say Hearst Museum is violating a law on returning ancient remains. But officials say finding rightful recipients is often impossible.

Bone of contention

Robert Durell / TPN
American Indians protest at the University of California, Berkeley, last October over the university’s storage of tribal remains.

BERKELEY — There is a legend at UC Berkeley that human bones are stored in the landmark Campanile tower. But university officials say that’s not true.

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