News from Indian Country
Pcije 7 Spilyay Tymoo April 15, 2004
Pre-Easter
collision
claims five
near Klamath
KLAMATI I FALLS (AP) - A colli
sion east of here that claimed five lives
of a family from Beatty was a tragic
end to a willing volunteer's trip to Kla
math Falls to pick up Easter supplies
for her church.
It ended on Oregon 140 cast of
Klamath Falls Saturday evening in a
collision that killed Cleora Godowa, 60,
a daughter Marilyn, 25, granddaugh
ters Vijune Arnett, 18, and Jamie Smith,
2, and great-granddaughter Ticrra Wil
son, 3.
Residents said Godowa readily vol
unteered for the 90-mile round trip.
"That was just Cleora," said
Madeline Hutchinson, a pastor of the
town's Assembly of God church. "If
she wasn't heading out to help this per
son, it was to help that one."
The right rear tire on Godowa s car
blew out at 4:50 p.m., sending it into
the path of an oncoming pickup. All
five were ejected and pronounced dead
at the scene, state police said.
Oregon State trooper Phil Browder
said what he saw when he got there 90
minutes later will stick with him for
ever. "Stuffed Easter bunnies, chocolates
and diapers strewn all over the road,"
said Browder, who said it was the worst
he had seen in more than 20 years on
the job.
"I got up this morning to put Easter
eggs out for my own kids before I left
for work. I couldn't help but think,
here's a family that won't get to do this
toda)'. Just horrific."
Trooper Mark Moore said Kevin
Newman, 41, of Bly, the driver of the
pickup, had no time to take evasive
action. "He did everything he could to
avoid this, but he really had no chance,"
Moore said,
Moore
Amberg, 44, also of Bly, were treated
at the scene.
Browder said there were "very dis
tinct marks on the pavement from a
tire failing."
Witnesses in another vehicle re
ported seeing a plume of smoke near
Researchers eye Sacagawea's illness
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Sacagawea's near
fatal illness during the Lewis and Clark
Expedition may have been the result
of a miscarriage from a second preg
nancy, two St. Louis scholars believe.
1 listory professors Peter Kastor and
Conevery Bolton Yalcncius of Wash
ington University have been scrutiniz
ing the explorers' journals from their
1804-06 westward expedition. The
journals, they said, offer clues -through
euphemisms common at the
time but since largely forgotten - indi
cating that Sacagawea may have be
come ill while carrying a second child.
"We can't tell for sure, we'll prob
ably never really know," Yalcncius said
Friday. "What we're, trying to do is raise
this as a possibility. There's a lot that
these journals have to say about how a
woman's body was understood."
Sacagawea was a Shoshone Indian
teenager when she, her husband,
French-Canadian fur trader Toussaint
Charbonneau, and their infant son
joined Meriwether Lewis and William
Clark's expedition in what is now North
Dakota during the winter of 1804 05.
She was the only female on the ex
pedition and served as an interpreier
as Lewis and Clark explored territory
acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. I ler
presence also provided proof to other
American Indians of the expeditions
friendly intentions.
Lewis and Clark maintained exten
sive diaries that provided a glimpse of
the time, helped define boundaries, even
offered detailed descriptions and draw
ings of previously unrecorded species.
But Kastor said scholars have failed
to recognize the literary conventions
taken by the explorers, including the
use of euphemisms, borne partly out
of modesty, in describing issues related
to women's health.
The journals noted that Sacagawea
became extremely ill when her son, Jean
Baptistc, was about 6 months old.
"If she dies, it will be the fault of
her husband as 1 am now convinced,"
Clark wrote.
1 .ewis wrote that Sacagawea suffered
from "an obstruction of the mensis (sic)
in consequence of taking could (sic),"
or "taking a cold." Sacagawea eventu
ally recovered.
Kastor and Yalcncius deemed it odd
that the explorers blamed Charbonneau
for Sacagawea's illness.
"I ler menstrual periods may have
been out of order in some way that's
not related to reproduction, because
that was a possibility at that time,"
Yalcncius said. "But we think it's more
likely that they were using 'taking a cold'
as a euphemism for pregnancy, as was
commonly done. She may have had a
miscarriage."
Another pregnancy so soon after the
birth of Jean Baptistc would explain
why C Mark blamed Charbonneau for
Sacagawea's illness, Yalcncius said, not
ing that the explorers apparently
thought Charbonneau "should be ex-
FBI releases agency documents
and passenger "lames
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - The FBI
has released nearly 800 pages of ma
terial sought by attorneys for Leonard
Peltier, the American Indian activist
serving two life sentences in the 1975
slayings of two FBI agents on a reser
vation in South Dakota.
The documents outline agents' work
as they checked with informants, in
cluding sources within the Seneca In
dian Nation, and followed up on sus
pected Peltier sightings before his ar
rest, attorney Michael Kuzma said.
Finder to a Freedom of Informa
tion Act request, the FBI turned over
797 of the 812 pages collected by the
Buffalo field office in the Peltier case.
It withheld 15 pages, citing exemptions
for national security concerns and to
prqtect the privacy of agents, accord-.
':ing 'to" Court documents.
Peltier's attorneys said Monday they
would fight to see the withheld mate
rial.
"We're going to argue that the ex
emptions are being improperly in
voked," Kuzma said.
Peltier supporters are seeking tens
of thousands of pages of FBI docu
ments from field offices nationwide as
they fight to overturn his conviction.
"I believe the sheer volume of ma
terial that wasn't released or turned
over to Leonard's defense attorneys
warrants Leonard's immediate release
from prison," Kuzma said. "Unfortu
nately, it doesn't work that way."
A Nov. 14, 1975, memo outlines an
unidentified source's claim that he saw
Peltier at an Indian convention at a
Buffalo hotel in October 1975, four
months after the shooting. Another
source believed hc spotted R'ltier in
Steamburg, near the Sciiccas' Allegany
reservation, teaching Indian dances,
Kuzma said.
Paul Moskal, an FBI spokesman in
Buffalo, said he was unfamiliar with the
content of the documents, released
through the agency's Washington head
quarters March 16, and could not com
ment. Peltier, 59, was convicted in 1977
of killing the two F'BI agents during a
standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Res
ervation. Both agents, who the FBI said were
searching for robbery suspects, were
shot in the head.
Peltier was charged with taking part
in the slayings, but whether he fired the
fatal shots was never proved.
The case has become a rallying point
for American Indian and human rights
activists, who believe Peltier is a politi
cal prisoner. I Ie was the subject of sev
eral documentary films' and the :ocst'
selling novel "In the Spirit of Crazy
I lorse" bv Peter Matthiessen.
Community club offers support
Navajo boxer will jab at Olympics
the tire about the time it veered across
the center line and was broadsided by
the pickup.
Moore said investigation is continu
ing but that it appears none of the five
was wearing a seatbelt.
About 800 people live in the unin
corporated Beatty area. Most are mem
bers of the Klamath tribe, as were the
five victims.
Word spread quickly through the
town.
"They call this place the Indian Tri
angle," said Brittany Baldwin, 18,
Godowa 's great-niece who grew up with
Arnett and graduated with her last
spring from Bonanza 1 ligh School.
"Native Americans live by each
other every day. We know all about each
other and are always helping one an
other out."
Pastor Hutchinson said Godowa's
volunteerism, from driving neighbors
to doctor's visits to cooking meals at
the community center, was well known.
"You never know what's going to
happen," she said. "This was a day that
everyone thought they'd be happy on
Easter. It just didn't end that way."
Godowa is survived by her husband,
James, three sons, a daughter and
grandchildren. Plans for a memorial
service are pending.
PI IOENLX, Ariz. (AP) - Sixteen-year-old
Lowell Babe jabs at the air,
his feet dancing around the threadbare
ring in the tiny Navajo outpost of
Chinle.
I Ie turns up the CD of OutKast's
"I Like the Way You Move" to help
him concentrate as he does his evening
workout.
"Any day I don't practice, I feel an
emptiness," Lowell said. "If I didn't box,
I'd be bigger, fatter. I'd talk back, have
no respect.
"I'd just be an ordinary person."
Lowell hopes boxing will take him
to college and to the Olympics in 2008.
For hundreds of kids, a humble gym
built by Lowell's father, Cal, has been
the center of their struggle to stay away
from smoking, drinking and gangs, to
learn discipline and respect, to break
past ordinary to extraordinary.
The gym, home of the Damon-Bahe
Boxing Club, recently served as the set
for an independent film, "Black Cloud,"
produced by former child star Rick
Schroeder, who was in the boxing
movie "The Champ" in 1978.
"I was inspired by what 1 heard
about this man helping kids overcome
alcoholism and gang violence through
the sport of boxing," Schroeder said.
"I drove up to meet him, watched box
ing tapes of Lowell, his other sons and
other boxers he's trained.
"1 asked if I could use their story as
a launching point for a dramatic movie.
Their boxing club was the genesis for
it."
The foundation of the gym was
poured where the corral of the family's
sheep camp used to stand.
"I spent everything I had on it," Cal
said.
Boxing was the ticket out of trouble
for Cal, who at 13 had been arrested
in nearby I Iolbrook.
"I was in and out of jail, arrested
for breaking and entering, and about
to go to reform school," Cal said.
The judge released him if he prom
ised to leave town.
He and his mother went to Fort
Defiance and lived with his grandfa
ther, Lee Damon, a Marine who won
all -service championships, had qualified
for the ( Mympic trials and was running
a boxing gym. I Ie put Cal into the ring.
"Boxing pulled me out of trouble,"
Cal said. "It gave me something to do.
It showed me I wasn't bad. It was the
key thing that changed me."
In 1978, when Damon died of al
coholism, Cal took over the boxing club,
moving it to Ganado. In 1985, he
moved it to Chinle. About 10 years later,
he built the gym next to his house.
"When a kid has poor grades, I try
to find out why he is having problems,"
Judy said. "They feel more secure here
than anywhere else."
When kids join the boxing team, they
must adhere to strict rules, one of the
reasons the club has produced 24 na
tional boxing champions.
Lowell has won the All-Indian Na
tionals six times and National
n his wins," Cal said. "He
started boxing at 7 and was at his first
tournament at 9."
Smith, of the Native American
Sports Council, said this year is pivotal
because Lowell turns 17 and can com
pete at the adult level.
crcising proper husbandly restraint so
as not to get her pregnant again so
quickly."
Amy Mossett of New Town, N.I).,
a national scholar on Sacagawea, doubts
that the teenager was pregnant again
so soon after her first child's birth.
"I think she was just suffering com
plications from her first childbirth,
which was real common then," Mossett
said. "I guess all we can do is specu
late." But David Borlaug, president of the
I-ewis and Clark Fort Mamlan Foun
dation in Washburn, N.D., noted an
other journal reference to Sacagawea's
pelvic inflammation.
"1 would say that if not pregancy,
something of a female health issue was
going on," Borlaug said. "It's certainly
possible. Probable? Who know s."
Kastor and Yalcncius plan to present
their findings at a conference on
"Health and Medicine in the Lewis &
Clark Era."
Judge adds
payback to
jail sentence
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - A
judge has ruled that a man sen
tenced to 14 years in prison for
stealing geoducks should return
$1.1 million he stole from the
state and Indian tribes.
Pierce County Superior Court
Judge John McCarthy on Friday
ruled Douglas Tobin should pay
back $879,408.40 for 196,412
pounds of geoduck he took, and
$247,803.20 for 72,905 pounds
of crab he took between 2000
and 2002.
c ; Those amounts include'
$164,500 the government spent
on the investigation.
Deputy prosecutor Tom
Moore said it's unlikely Tobin will
be able to pay back any mi ney.
If he does, money for the crab
would be distributed between the
state Department of Fish and
Wildlife and the Nisqually Indian
tribe. The geoduck money would
be distributed among the depart
ments of Natural Resources, Fish
and Wildlife and the Nisqually,
Squaxin Island and Puyallup
tribes.
Prosecutors say Tobin, who
owned Toulok Seafoods process
ing plant in Fife, harvested geo
duck and crab in the South Puget
Sound area at times and places
closed under state and tribal law,
then sold his catch to buyers in
Canada, California and a local
man who paid cash.
Tobin had been charged with
160 crimes, including leading or
ganized crime. I Ie pleaded guilty
last April to reduced charges.
Tobin was sentenced in De
cember for theft, unlawful pos
session of a firearm and 35
felony and misdemeanor fishing
violations for taking geoduck and
crab in South Puget Sound.
Casino money pays for education
Please
support
the businesses
you see in
the Spilyay.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - California
Indian tribes that have raked in mil
lions of dollars from their casinos are
tunneling some of that money to vari
ous universities for the study of Na
tive American issues.
Tribal representatives said their do
nations are an extension of generous
philanthropy that totals an estimated
S"0 million annually.
The tribes have been one of the
largest political contributors over the
past five years, spending more than
S120 million on local and statewide
campaigns.
Some critics believe that academic
integrity is at risk when special inter
ests influence higher education. But
some experts said the tribes are follow
ing the example set by other compa
nies that have funded school projects.
"It's almost like the tribes are com
ing of age," said Sheldon Krimskv, a
Tufts University professor who stud
ies conflicts of interest that arise when
private money funds scientific research.
"Drug companies and chemical com
panies have long given professorships
or funded graduate education to help
shape the agenda of higher education."
Tribal representatives said university
programs addressing the Native Ameri
can culture have long gone
underfunded and now money is avail
able to make them stronger.
The San Manuel Band of Mission
Indians, who operate a casino in San
Bernardino County, gave $4 million to
the University of California, Los An
geles Law School.
The money will be used to estab
lish a new center that will develop
courses on California native issues and
provide tribal internships for students.
Carole Goldberg, a UCLA law pro
fessor who heads the advisory board
ot the law school's Native Nations Law
and Policy ("enter, said the tribe's gift
would not affect the way existing
courses are taught.
"It's n t as if those topics are taught
now and the tribes want them taught
differently," she said. "It's more like they
are not taught at all."
The San Manuel and the Pcchanga
Band of Luiseno Indians will fund a
UCLA Law School conference next
week on media coverage of tribal is
sues. San Manuel also gave S3 millic n to
California State University, San Bernar
dino, which named its student union tor
a historic leader of the tribe.
"We're trying to build relationships,"
said San Manuel Chairman Deron
Marquez. "Its another way for Indian
people to get the population educated
about our issues."