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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Here‘s the entire story from the Associated Press:

HELENA, Mont. – Montana’s attorney general has declined a request by the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council to investigate the death of an inmate at the Hill County Detention Center in Havre.

Steve Bullock called the Nov. 23, 2009 death of 18-year-old A.J. Long Soldier a tragedy, but said the findings of the coroner’s inquest were fairly presented and nothing suggested that Long Soldier died of criminal means.

Officials have said Long Soldier died of acute alcohol withdrawal and council chairman James Steele Jr. questioned whether Long Soldier received inadequate medical care because of his race.

Bullock’s May 28 letter to Steele noted that Long Soldier’s mother has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission regarding the circumstances of her son’s death.

Tags: A.J. Long Soldier, buffalo post, Gwen Florio, Hill County Detention Center, James Steele Jr., Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, Montana Human Rights Commission, Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, Native American news

Here’s the entire story from the Associated Press:

HAVRE, Mont. (AP) — A group of tribal leaders is asking the state of Montana investigate the death of a teenager who died at the Hill County jail.
In a letter sent earlier this month, the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council questions whether A.J. Long Soldier Jr.’s race was a factor in his treatment. The 18-year-old died Nov. 23 of what a coroner found to be acute alcohol withdrawal.
Long Soldier had been arrested on a misdemeanor warrant four days before his death at Northern Montana Hospital. A coroner’s jury ruled in March that detention officers were not criminally liable in Long Soldier’s death.
“Will anyone be held accountable for the obviously incorrect assessment of A.J.’s serious medical condition that directly led to his death,” said the letter, written by council chairman James Steel Jr.
A spokesman for Attorney General Steve Bullock said the office was reviewing the letter, which was received May 12.
Long Soldier, a star athlete who led Hays-Lodgepole to a Class C state basketball championship as a sophomore in 2007, had been enrolled at Haskell University in Lawrence, Kan. He was arrested while he was home attending his grandfather’s funeral.

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Tags: A.J. Long Soldier Jr., buffalo post, Fergus County, Gwen Florio, Haskell Indian Nations University, Hays-Lodgepole High School, Hill County, Hill County Attorney Gina Dahl, Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, Montana Division of Criminal Investigation, Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, Native American news, Northern Montana Hospital

This center in northern Wyoming was a long time in the making. Diane Cochran of the Billings (Mont.) Gazette reports on the opening in the Inter-Tribal Wellness center, which will treat addictions among tribal members from Wyoming and Montana.

SHERIDAN, Wyo. – With the Big Horn Mountains in the distance and the Tongue River just outside the back door, the Inter-Tribal Wellness Center is well-situated to reconnect clients with the land.

The newly opened addictions treatment center for American Indians sees strengthening patients’ ties with their tribal roots as a step toward recovery.

“It’s going to be based on people becoming authentic and finding themselves and reconnecting with their history and culture,” said JuDee Anderson, the center’s clinical director.

After standing vacant for more than two years, the facility that once housed Thunder Child Treatment Center has re-opened as the Inter-Tribal Wellness Center.

It is a collaboration among 11 American Indian tribes in Wyoming and Montana that are represented by the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council.

Its approach to recovery is different from that of most treatment programs, said its director, Myron Littlebird.

“We’re trying to get away from the standard 12-step treatment,” Littlebird said. “We’re looking more toward cultural and spiritual treatment. … We’re trying to get them back into the way they grew up.”

Tags: Alcohol abuse, Bighorn Mountains, buffalo post, drug addiction, Gwen Florio, Inter-Tribal Wellness Center, Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, Myron Littlebird, Native American news, Thunder Child Treatment Center, Tongue River

Mike Black, the newly appointed director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was in Montana this week to deliver a message:

“I’ve met with my staff and emphasized the fact that the central office works for the regions, works for the tribes and works for the individuals,” Black told members of the Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council. “It’s not vice versa.”

Black traveled to Billings, Mont., just days after his Monday appointment was announced by Larry Echo Hawk, assistant secretary of Indian Affairs. As Susan Olp of the Billings Gazette writes here, it was familiar territory for Black: He worked in Billings for 16 of his 23 years with the BIA.

Black, who is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, told tribal leaders that he is sure of is the commitment on the part of Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Echo Hawk to improving services to tribes:

That commitment starts with the president, Black said.

“We have a prime opportunity under President Obama’s administration,” he said. “He’s brought to light Indian issues more so than I think any president has in a long time, and that’s permeating down through the organization. We need to jump on that opportunity.”

Black touched on issues of interest to the leaders, including the reservation roads program, restoring land back to the tribes and coordinating with other agencies, such as the Indian Health Service, when interests overlap.

He says, the agency is full of public servants who take their mission seriously.

“They’re helping their brothers, their cousins, their moms, their dads and we have some of the most dedicated workforce,” he said. “And I want to be able to improve on that, to give people the tools they need to do their jobs the way they want to do that.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: BIA, buffalo post, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Gwen Florio, Indian Health Service, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Larry Echo Hawk, Mike Black, Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, Native American news, Oglala Sioux Tribe, President Barack Obama, U.S. Interior Department

A lot was going on yesterday at the Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council meeting.

The group heard from Jefferson Keel, president of the National Congress of American Indians, who made a rare visit to Montana.

And, it asked Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock to look into the circumstances surrounding the death of 18-year-old basketball star A.J. Longsoldier, who died shortly after he was taken from a northern Montana jail to a nearby hospital.

Susan Olp of the Billings Gazette has the story here:

Keel, who is Chickasaw, spoke about the Indian Health Care Improvement Act; the problem of inadequate and deteriorating reservation housing, and the overwhelming issue of under-funding for Indian Country issues in general.

Tribal Leaders Council James Steele Jr. of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, talked about the difficulty of maintaining reservation roads with federal funding.

But perhaps the most emotional issue was the approval of the resolution calling for action surrounding the death of Longsoldier, from the Fort Belknap Reservation and a former basketball standout at Hays-Lodgepole High School. He was jailed on an alleged probation violation. During his two days in jail, he complained of feeling ill, and was twice taken to the hospital and died the second time:

While in jail, he appeared to be hallucinating, was talking to himself and pulled out some of his hair. An autopsy determined that LongSoldier died from acute alcohol withdrawal. A coroner’s inquest in March found that the detention officers were not criminally liable in the death.

Tracy King, president of the Fort Belknap Tribal Council, who attended the inquest, raised the issue at the meeting. King said more should have been done for LongSoldier to help save his life.

He called the handling of the youth in jail “a civil rights violation.”

“I see too many of our youth being railroaded by systems that don’t work in their favor,” King said.

Dr. Kathleen Masis, who works for the Tribal Leaders Council, calls his death a warning.

“It means we need to make sure what is represented as happening never happens again, to an Indian or non-Indian.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: A.J. LongSoldier, buffalo post, Chickasaw, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, Gwen Florio, Hays-Lodgepole High School, Indian Health Care Improvement Act, James Steele Jr., Jefferson Keel, Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, National Congress of American Indians, Native American news, NCAI

Tribes are losing their languages and traditions as their elders die.

That’s doubly sad because those same traditions can be used to confront today’s challenges, tribal leaders said at a meeting on spirituality and wellness this week of the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council.

Elders need to be sure to pass on those traditions, Joe Iron Man reminded the group, according to this Billings Gazette story. “They never teach. They take it with them,” says Iron Man, a spiritual leader from the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.

Cochran reports that Iron Man, who is Cree and Gros Ventre, is mentoring five young men, teaching them how to perform traditional sun dances.

Joseph Stone, a clinical psychologist, tells Cochran that reviving such traditions, lost when Indian children were sent to Christian boarding schools or when families tried to assimilate into white culture, can help tribal members who have lost their way.

“I don’t get the luxury of standing here talking about this stuff as though it’s a theory,” says Stone, who is Blackfeet. “It’s my story.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: Blackfeet, buffalo post, Fort Belknap Reservation, Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, Native American news, Native traditions

Actually, it just sucks, even if “An American Debt Unpaid: Stories of Native Health” puts it far more politely than that. And the headline on this Billings (Mont.) Gazette story about the 59-page booklet compiled by Health Rights Organizing Project, uses the nice word “lacking.”

But this issue makes us mad, and we don’t feel like being nice about it.

So we’re glad the Health Rights Organizing Project, a coalition of grass-roots community organizations around the country is on the case. The booklet includes anecdotes from Indian people who have struggled in their attempts to get care.

The booklet includes the story of Claudette Blackhawk of Wyola, Mont. She went to see an Indian Health Service doctor in January 2008 after noticing that her arms were getting thinner and her belly larger. The HIS told Blackhawk that was part of aging. Four months later, she was diagnosed with tumors in her uterus, appendix and left ovary.

“I’m sharing my story because no one should have to go through what we’ve gone through,” Blackhawk says. “We should feel that our doctors are listening to us, treating us as human beings and giving us care that we can trust.”

The hope, Henry Pretty On Top, a member of the Crow Tribe, tells the Gazette, is that the booklet will convey the message that change is needed.

“Health care reform is in the forefront now,” says Pretty On Top, who met with members of the Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council to discuss the issue. “Specifically, our concern has been passage of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.”

The booklet has been handed out in lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to underscore the need for the reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, which expired in 2000 and was extended only through 2001. Last Congress, the Senate passed an Indian health care bill, but it did not pass in the House of Representatives.

Gwen Florio

Tags: "An American Debt Unpaid: Stories of Native Health", buffalo post, Health care reform, Health Rights Organizing Project, Indian Health Care Improvement Act, Indian Health Service, Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, Native American news