Last month was full of news about the Iroquois Nationals’ futile battle to travel to the World Lacrosse Championships in England. The problem? First U.S. Homeland Security, and then British officials questioned the validity of their Haudenosaunee Confederacy passports. Now, the Associated Press’ Samantha Gross, who covered much of the original controversy, follows up with this story on the Iroquois Nations’ longtime fight for respect for have their sovereignty and identity:
ONONDAGA NATION, N.Y. (AP) — A group of young men have gathered in the longhouse for the feather dance, and the sounds of their singing filter outside, where Mohawk Chief Howard Thompson sits.

His people call him Onerekowa, the name his predecessors have borne for a thousand years. Each month, when he gathers with the 49 other chiefs from the six Haudenosaunee nations, he stands to speak in the language of his ancestors. And when the 50 come to a decision, they don’t take a majority vote. Instead, as it has for a millennium, the leaders of the Iroquois Confederacy decide by consensus.

Today Thompson awaits the start of a meeting of the Haudenosaunee Peace and Trade Committee, where tradition will grapple with the outside world. The issue is passports.

Last month, the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team missed their world championship in Britain rather than travel overseas under U.S. or Canadian passports. Their Haudenosaunee passports were deemed inadequate in a post-9/11 world — partly handwritten, lacking in high-tech security features.

Haudenosaunee Documentation Committee chairman Karl Hill peers fiercely from behind wire-rimmed glasses as he explains how the confederacy has spent upward of $1 million to bring their identification into line with the U.S. government’s new standards. For now, the handwritten Haudenosaunee passports can still be easily counterfeited, he says.

But, he adds, that would never be reason enough for the lacrosse players to travel on another nation’s document. Such a choice would be a betrayal of their national identity — an identity he says is as valid as ever, even though his people shop in American malls and watch American television and study at American colleges.

We are a nation, he insists, and it matters.

“It means that we’ve survived,” he says.

“The fact that we’re still here is a testament to our survival. Now why on earth would we give that up and call ourselves U.S. citizens?”

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The Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team suffered injury as well as insult when they were prohibited from traveling to Great Britain recently for the World Lacrosse Championship because of their Haudenosaunee Confederacy passports.

The team incurred a lot of costs while awaiting the (non)resolution to the dilemma.

Yesterday, the Seneca Nation stepped up with a $10,000 check to help them defray expenses.

“The one thing that we did not want to compromise on was our passport,” said Ansley Jemison, general manager of the lacrosse squad, tells the Buffalo News, here. “We did this for all Native People, not just the Iroquois Confederacy.”

As the News’ Steve Brachmann writes:

Percy Abrams, executive director for the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse team, shows his Iroquois Nation Haudenosaunee passport. (AP/Bebeto Matthews


Jemison was on hand with Percy Abrams, executive director of the team, and Emmett Printup IV, a member of the team and the Tuscarora Nation, to accept a check presented by Seneca Nation of Indians President Barry E. Snyder Sr.

Snyder said he had heard of the team’s delay in New York City but decided to offer the support after he was contacted by Jemison. Snyder said he felt an obligation as a member of the Seneca Nation to offer support to the team.

“I don’t practice, I don’t run with them, but I know that being on a lacrosse team is hard work,” Snyder said.

Snyder also had harsh words for the British, who refused to recognize the team’s Haudenosaunee passports and blocked it from the competition.

“United Kingdom, shame on you,” said Snyder, who added that whatever the reasons were for not allowing the Haudenosaunee passports, the players should have been allowed to play the game, which was originated by Native Americans.

Brachmann writes that the team lost nearly $60,000 in the debacle.

Gwen Florio

This story comes from Felicia Fonseca, based in the Southwest for the Associated Press, who writes frequently on Native issues:

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — An American Indian lacrosse team’s refusal to travel on passports not issued by the Iroquois confederacy goes to the heart of one of the most sensitive issues in Indian Country — sovereignty.

The rights of Native nations to govern themselves independently has long been recognized by federal treaties, but the extent of that recognition beyond U.S borders is under challenge in a post-Sept. 11 world.

After initially refusing to accept Iroquois-issued passports because the documents lack security features, the State Department gave the team a one-time waiver.

The team maintained that traveling on anything other than an Iroquois-issued passport would be a strike against the players’ identity. But the British government wouldn’t budge in denying team members entry into England without U.S. or Canadian passports, leading the Iroquois Nationals to withdraw Friday from competing at the World Lacrosse Championships in Manchester in the sport their ancestors helped create.

“Any documents or IDs we put forth recognizing our members should also be recognized by the federal government and other governments,” argued Sanford Nabahe, a member of the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone, who — like many in the American Indian community — closely followed the Iroquois’ passport dispute. “The (federal) government has given us that autonomy.”

The Iroquois, whose members mostly live in New York, Ontario and Quebec, along with the Hopi and Western Shoshone are among the few American Indian nations in which members have had a form of their own passports.

The understanding that the Iroquois Confederacy’s lands are independent from the U.S. is taught early on in school, team member Gewas Schindler said Thursday as the team waited out the dispute in New York.

“You know that as a young person that you are sovereign, that you are not part of the United States,” he said. “We were the first people here.”

But some say the team’s adamant position went too far.

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“Frustrated and tired” Iroquois Nationals head home
This Montreal Gazette story describes the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team as “very frustrated and tired” as they head home after losing a high-profile battle to travel to the World Lacrosse Championships in England on their Haudenosaunee Confederacy passports. Jessica Shenandoah, Iroquois Confederacy secretary, says that “it hasn’t killed our effort. We’re still going to continue it. This is not the end.” Watch a video, here.

More to Whiteclay than beer
The Nebraska town of Whiteclay is notorious for the 4 million cans of beer it sells every year, mostly to residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, just across the border in South Dakota. But as Mary Garrigan of the Rapid City, S.D., Journal writes here, a lot of people also depend upon the hamlet for groceries.

Upgrade for Seattle shelter for homeless Native American youth

Labateyah House in Seattle, a refuge and a place of healing for homeless Native American youth, is about to get an upgrade. It was founded in 1992 by Native American activist Bernie Whitebear and today is an open house where homeless youth ages 18 to 22 can find a place to stay, schooling and life skills, according to Tonya Mosely of KING 5 News, here.

Alaska village youth attempt boating rescue; also involved in fending off 2007 griz attack
These two young men appear to be the ones you want around if you’re in trouble, according to The Village, here, the rural blog of the Anchorage Daily News. Michael Rock and A.J. Nakarak of Shaktoolik came to the aid of brothers clinging to a buoy after their fishing boat was swamped. And, about three years ago, they also intervened in a grizzly attack.

Vote on federal recognition for Native Hawaiians expected soon
Native Hawaiians could finally be treated the same as the nation’s other indigenous groups – but only if a U.S. Senate vote on federal recognition is taken before fall elections, according to the AP, here. That’s because the majority in the Senate might change after November, meaning that it could be years – if ever – before the matter comes up again.

Gulf tribes seek advice on BP oil disaster
Native American tribes who live along the Gulf of Mexico coast in Louisiana are seeking advice from other indigenous groups who’ve dealt with environmental disasters, according to this Voice of American story. They’ve talked to Alaskan Natives about the Exxon Valdez disaster, and also indigenous people in Ecuador about the largest environmental lawsuit in history, against Texaco over toxic waste.

Gwen Florio

This just reported by David B. Caruso of the Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — Iroquois lacrosse players who refused to travel on passports issued by the U.S. and Canada have exhausted their last option for going to the sport’s world championship in England.

Leaders of the Iroquois Nationals squad announced Saturday that a last ditch attempt to persuade British officials to recognize their passports had failed.

The players’ passports were issued by the Iroquois Confederacy of six indigenous nations.

The team had to forfeit its games in the tournament, taking place in Manchester, England.

Team lawyer Tonya Frichner says the fight will continue.

The team is already making plans for the World Indoor Box Lacrosse Championships in the Czech Republic in 2011.

She says they hope to gain international recognition by then.

The Iroquois mostly live in New York, Ontario and Quebec.

The World Lacrosse Championships began last night with Germany substituting against England for the Iroquois Nationals team that’s still stuck in the United States because of wrangling over the legitimacy of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy passports on which they’ve traveled for more than 20 years.

Click here to see the BBC report and video from the tournament. England won the first game 12-3.

Gwen Florio

Things don’t seem promising for the fourth-ranked Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team, Frank Eltman of the Associated Press writes here:

NEW YORK (AP) — Time is running out for a team of Iroquois lacrosse players who have been blocked from traveling to a tournament in England because they refuse to use U.S. or Canadian passports.

For the fourth straight day, the 23 men of the Iroquois Nationals team lingered in New York City on Friday, hoping to be given permission to board a plane for Manchester carrying travel documents issued by the Iroquois confederacy.

“We haven’t given up and we’re standing by,” said the team’s chairman, Oren Lyons.

Yet as the day drew on, there was little positive news for the squad.

The team received a letter from British officials, reaffirming that they would not be issued travel visas based on their Iroquois documents.

Team representatives said they would continue to appeal their case and repeated a request for a face-to-face meeting with British consular officials. The National Congress of American Indians, a large tribal advocacy organization, wrote to British Prime Minister David Cameron, asking him to intervene.

But the answer late in the day was still, “no,” and the odds increased that the team would miss its second game of the World Lacrosse Championships, scheduled for Saturday. It had to forfeit its first game Thursday, against England, when it didn’t arrive in time.

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This afternoon’s update from Samantha Gross of the Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — A negotiator for an American Indian lacrosse team whose Iroquois-issued passports have been at the heart of an international dispute says the squad made progress in its talks with the United Kingdom.

The Iroquois Nationals defaulted on the first game of the sport’s world championship on Thursday after the U.K. said they couldn’t enter without American or Canadian passports. The team hopes to make it to a second game scheduled for Saturday.

But a British spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policy said late Thursday in London that the government’s stance hasn’t changed.

The U.S. State Department said earlier that it failed to persuade the British government to let the team travel.

The team members are eligible for U.S. or Canadian passports but say accepting them would be a strike against their identity.

Associated Press writers Robert Burns in Washington and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

The latest from the Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — An American Indian lacrosse team whose Iroquois-issued passports have been at the heart of an international dispute will default on the first game of the sport’s world championship.

Still, organizers said Thursday the Iroquois Nationals are holding out hope they’ll be allowed into England to compete in a second game.

The team remains at a New York City hotel hours before the start of what was to be their first game of the tournament. Executive Director Percy Abrams says they “have a lot of high-level calls out for help.”

The British government said Wednesday the team wouldn’t be allowed in to play the sport the Iroquois helped invent unless members accept U.S. or Canadian passports.

The 23 members are all eligible for those passports but say accepting them would be a strike against their identity. The U.S. State Department gave the team a one-time waiver to help them get to the tourney.