John Sinclair, chairman of the Little Shell Band of Chippewa, is in Washington, D.C., today to testify to exactly that point.

Matthew Brown of the Associated Press reports here that the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, including Chairman Byron Dorgan (D., N.D.) and Montana Sen. Jon Tester, say the process for obtaining federal recognition for tribes is broken.

“They point to the experience of Montana’s Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa, which filed its recognition petition in 1978, the same year the current process was established by Congress.

“It took 31 years for the tribe to get a negative decision from Interior’s Bu-reau of Indian Affairs – an outcome Montana’s Congressional delegation has vowed to overturn,” Brown writes.

Sinclair says the Little Shell spent $2 million over the years trying to meet requirements that generated 70,000 documents – a stack 35 feet high. “The process is completely run amok,” he says.

“Simply put, the administrative recognition process is a mess and, in all fair-ness and justice to Indian people, the Congress must step in and fix it,” he says in a statement.
Meanwhile, the state of Montana recognized the tribe nearly a decade ago. Its 4,300 members have no reservation, but mostly live in and around Great Falls.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Federal recognition, Little Shell Chippewa, Native American news, U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester

White House tribal summit is Thursday!
Thursday, of course, is the first White House tribal summit in 15 years, since President Clinton hosted tribal leaders. Hopes are high because the concern for tribes evidenced by then-candidate Barack Obama as he campaigned in Indian Country. This Green Bay Press Gazette story nicely lays out the issues. Can you say health care, crime, education? Just about everything that’s been under-funded for decades now in Indian Country will certainly be discussed.

Little Shell Chippewa to address “broken” recognition process
Only representatives of federally recognized tribes were invited to the White House meeting. That dis really stung state-recognized tribes, one of which – the Little Shell Band of Chippewa in Montana – saw their three-decade bid for federal recognition rejected last week. Tomorrow, Little Shell leader John Sinclair will be in Washington for a Senate Indian Affairs Committee oversight hearing. Sinclair will testify about a recognition process that Sen. Jon Tester – who invited him to the hearing – calls “broken.” Tester, fellow Democratic Sen. Max Baucus and Montana GOP Rep. Denny Rehberg all are pushing legislation that would grant the tribe that long-overdue recognition. The hearing will be webcast.

Standing Rock leader: Fighting Sioux nickname debate not a priority
In North Dakota, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has yet to schedule a vote on the University of North Dakota’s use of the Fighting Sioux nickname for its teams. The NCAA strongly terms tribal nickname for teams “hostile and abusive”; North Dakota decided to resolve that by leaving it up to the tribes. The Spirit Lake Sioux have OK’d the nickname, but the Standing Rock remain divided. An Oct. 30 deadline passed with no resolution, and the state Board of Higher Education agreed to a 30-day extension. Now, the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer reports here that new Standing Rock chairman Charlie Murphy says resolving the controversy isn’t a top priority and that furthermore, the tribe rejects any deadlines imposed by the board.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Federal recognition, Fighting Sioux, Little Shell Chippewa, Native American news, Presidential Barack Obama, Spirit Lake Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Tribal Nations Conference, U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, University of North Dakota, White House

This issue is fresh on our mind because of this week’s refusal by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to grant federal recognition to the Little Shell Band of Chippewa – even though the state of Montana recognized the tribe nearly a decade ago, and the state’s congressional delegation is pushing legislatively for recognition.

The Little Shell, of course, are not alone. They’ve got plenty of company in the Lumbee in North Carolina, the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape in New Jersey – the list goes on and on. Tribal people all – but they won’t be able to voice their concerns about Indian Country to President Barack Obama at Thursday’s meeting. That’s despite the fact that Obama received overwhelming support from Indian tribes – federally recognized and others – during his presidential bid.

“I don’t begrudge our federal brothers and sisters one iota. I know they deal with different issues in some respects and I think having an audience to deal with those types of issues is appropriate,” the Rev. John Norwood who heads the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tells Indian Country Today. “But to be snubbed and not to be told that there will be a meeting for us state recognized down the road is surprising.”

The president’s invitation to the first-ever Tribal Nations Conference came during the National Congress of American Indians’ annual meeting in Palm Springs.

“This organization is the National Congress of American Indians. It’s not the National Congress of the Federally Recognized American Indians,” says Larry Townsend, the tribal veterans service officer for the Lumbee Tribe.

Norwood tells Indian Country Today that the state-recognized tribes are thinking about coordinating their efforts to deal with their collective issues. Sounds like a good idea – even if it won’t happen in time for Thursday’s meeting.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Federal recognition, Little Shell Chippewa, Lumbee, Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, Native American news, President Barack Obama

Here’s the editorial in today’s Missoulian newspaper concerning the rejection of the Little Shell Band of Chippewa’s three-decade pursuit of federal recognition:

The Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians waited more than 30 years for the U.S. government to formally recognize them. First, they were flat-out ignored. Later, the Department of the Interior simply delayed its decision time after time.

And then finally, on Tuesday, the Little Shell got their answer – and it was a rejection.

The fact that it took the Interior Department so long to deny the tribe’s claim for federal recognition is not so surprising as their reasons for the rejection. According to John Sinclair, tribal chairman for the Little Shell, the Bureau of Indian affairs felt that the tribe’s community cohesion is insufficient, and that it has not garnered enough recognition from other sources.

Somehow, after all their years of research, the Bureau of Indian Affairs must have missed the fact that the tribe of more than 4,000 members, many of whom live in the Great Falls area, has been pushing for some form of recognition since the 1860s – as a community. Few individuals, let alone groups numbering in the thousands, could have maintained that sort of commitment in the face in bureaucracy for a lifetime, let alone across generations.

That alone is proof enough of community for us.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: buffalo post, Federal recognition, Little Shell Chippewa, Native American news

Is it just us, or is “Get over it” one of the more offensive phrases in the English language? Nona Main says she hears it a lot.

Main is Gros Ventre, from the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern Montana, and she says people often tell her that the racism she perceives is all in her head, according to this story in Indian Country Today.

“A lot of that goes with the fact that a lot of people think that we have a victim mentality,” Main says. “And they say, ‘Get over it. It happened a long time ago.’ It didn’t happen a long time ago, it’s still happening. I’m not trying to play the victim, I’m trying to educate you about what’s going on in my world so you guys can stop treating people this way. I don‘t treat you that way.”

Main was part of a panel discussion on racism in Montana. Titled “There’s an Elephant in Our Community,” the event was sponsored by Not In Our Town, an organization against racial discrimination, and the Unitarian Universalist Fellow-ship church at MSU-Billings as part of American Indian Heritage Day. Main is a student at MSUB.

She says comments on the local paper’s Web site are an example of where negative stereotypes of American Indians prevail whenever there is a story about them.

“If you go on there, and you read the things that people say on there, you feel like saying, ‘Why can’t these people come up to me and tell me that to my face rather than hide behind a computer with a name that nobody knows you by? Can you come up to me and tell me that to my face what you think of me? Can you do that?’ And I don’t think any of them can.”

On this particular point, we heartily concur with Main.

And speaking of Indians in Montana, members of that state’s congressional delegation say they’re moving quickly on a bill to grant federal recognition to that state’s landless Little Shell Band of Chippewa. The tribe, whose 4,300 members live near Great Falls, Mont., has been formally seeking recognition for three decades. Today, the Bureau of Indian Affairs turned them down.

“It kind of hurts, naturally, but it’s not the end of the line,” Little Shell elder Roger Salois, 72, tells the Associated Press, here. “…But we’re still together, and we’re still Little Shell.”

The Little Shell have proven their persistence. Now it’s time for the state’s elected lawmakers to do the same.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Federal recognition, Fort Belknap Reservation, Gros Ventre, Little Shell Chippewa, Montana State University Billings, Native American news, racism

As we have been for years now, we remain mystified by the BIA’s actions regarding the Little Shell Band of Chippewa in Montana. Today’s action cites the “lack of community and outside recognition” even though the state of Montana has long recognized the tribe. Let’s hope the legislative process works better than this one.

Here’s the entire text of the story from the Associated Press:

By Matthew Brown of the Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. – The Department of Interior has declined to formally recognize Montana’s Little Shell Tribe, its tribal chairman said Tuesday.

Tribal Chairman John Sinclair said its 4,300 members will pursue recognition through Montana’s congressional delegation, which has sponsored bills to circumvent the interior department.

“It’s going to be a lot harder. We’re going to have to fight in the House and Senate,” Sinclair said.

Nine years ago, Montana formally recognized the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The tribe has been trying to gain federal recognition since 1978.

Sinclair said the tribe was turned down over two factors: lack of community and of outside recognition.

“They’ve got their rules, and you’ve got to fit into the slot. But we know who we are,” he added.

The tribe’s drive for acknowledgment dates back to the late 1860s, when Chief Little Shell and his band were excluded from a federal treaty signed with related tribes.

Little Shell’s descendants spent time in Canada, where some married French-Canadian fur trappers whose influence can be seen in today’s tribal song, a fiddle jig.

They later returned to Montana, scattering across the northern part of the state. The largest concentration – several hundred members – lives in Great Falls.

Tags: buffalo post, Little Shell Chippewa, Native American news

For reasons we’ve given up trying to understand, the Bureau of Indian Affairs yesterday delayed by a single day its long-awaited decision on federal recognition for the Little Shell Band of Chippewa, in west-central Montana. (The state has recognized the tribe, and its congressional delegation supports recognition.) Given that the Little Shell formally began the process 31 years ago – and more generally sought it in the 1860s – what’s one more day? Still, we’re not holding our breath. That said, we’ll update as soon as we hear something.

Native American blessing attempts to remove “Talladega Jinx” from famed speedway

We’ve been posting a lot about non-Native people appropriating Native American ceremonies for their own purposes as a result of the recent deaths in a so-called sweat ceremony run by a New Age guru. Here’s a story about the flip side of that particular coin. In this case, Racin’ Today makes much of the so-called Talledega Jinx that haunts the NASCAR track that supposedly is built atop Native American burial mounds.

Rick Humphrey, president of the Talladega track, called in Robert Thrower, tribal historic preservation officer and cultural authority director for the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama. Thrower performed a blessing asking that balance be restored to the land.

“With the controversy that surrounded Talladega when we first opened, it’s a possibility that there has always been some unbalance here,’’ Humphrey says. ”I’m confident in saying that after this ceremony however, we don’t have to worry about that anymore and we are looking forward to a great AMP Energy 500 race weekend.’’

More swift foxes to roam Fort Peck Reservation
The Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana has been instrumental in the restoration of the swift fox, an endangered species, to its traditional territory. The fox once was completely wiped out in Montana, but an estimated 500 now roam the state. Now, 30 more swift foxes have been released on the reservation, joining that thriving population. Les Bighorn, a wildlife technician for Fort Peck Fish and Game, tells the Billings Gazette, here, that the species is also a central character in the creation story of the Assiniboine tribe and an important cultural icon.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Little Shell Chippewa, Native American news, Poarch Band of Creek, Swift foxes, Talladega Jinx

File this one in the dog-bites-man category: There’s yet another delay in the quest for recognition by the Little Shell Band of Chippewa who live in and around Great Falls, Montana.

The Associated Press reports that the decision, expected today, has been delayed at least one more day. The tibe’s The 4,300 members first formally petitioned the Bureau of Indian Affairs for recognition back in 1978, but its original quest dates to the late 1860s, when Chief Little Shell and his band were excluded from a federal treaty signed with related tribes.

In other news from Indian Country, David Beaulieu, who once headed the Center for Indian Education at Arizona State, moves into a similar position at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he’s already a professor in the School of Education.

Here’s the entire text of the AP story:

MILWAUKEE (AP) – The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is establishing an institute for American Indian education.

It’s named for a Stockbridge Mohican woman Electa Quinney, who is also a Wisconsin educator.
David Beaulieu is a professor of educational policy and community studies in UW-Milwaukee’s School of Education. He will head The Electa Quinney American Indian Education and Policy Studies Institute, which is still in the planning stages.

He has previously served as president of the National Indian Education Association. He was also the director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Indian Education from 1997 to 2001.

In a news release, he says the institute’s research, service and learning opportunities will focus on American Indians and on non-Indians interested in working with tribal communities.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Arizona State University, buffalo post, David Beaulieu, Education, Little Shell Chippewa, Native American news, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

“Dance Me Outside” centerpiece of film festival
The Common Ground film festival in Middletown, Conn., this week will feature Native American films, including the 1994 drama, “Dance Me Outside,” about an Ontario reservation, and “These Walls are My Reservation,” about the urban Indian experience. See Hartford Courant story here.

First living artist featured at Museum of the American Indian
The exhibit of Brian Jungen’s work at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., is the first solo show of a living Native American artist at the museum. Jungen tells NPR that much of his work is a response to the hostility and stereotypes that he faced as a person of First Nations ancestry. Listen here and see a slideshow, too.

Native American artists’ installations featured at Fabric Works
Philadelphia’s Fabric Workshop has long been dedicated to that unique art. Now it’s showing “New American Voices,” the work of five artists, two of them Native and one Latino. The Philadelphia Inquirer says, here, that Marie Watt’s “Cave” simulates “a process of cultural transmission that predates history.” There’s a slideshow with this one, too.

Energy bigger than gaming for tribes?
Energy could prove bigger than gaming for tribes, according to Jim Gray, principal chief of the Osage Nation and chairman of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes. His comments are made in advance of the group’s annual conference, this year titled “Indian Energy Solutions,” to be held Nov. 3-5 in Tulsa. Read about it here in Indian Country Today.

Politics roils Little Shell search for recognition
The Billings (Mont.) Gazette reports here that political infighting has again gripped the Little Shell Band of Chippewa, involved in a decades-long quest for federal recognition. A faction of tribal members is calling for an election to challenge the legitimacy of tribal Chairman John Sinclair.

Gwen Florio

Tags: "Common Ground Film Festival", "Dance Me Outside", "These Walls are My Reservation", Brian Jungen, buffalo post, Council of Energy Resource Tribes, Fabric Works, Federal recognition, Little Shell Chippewa, Marie Watt, Museum of the American Indian, Native American news, Osage Nation