Image provided by: The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Warm Springs, OR
About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 16, 2004)
News from Indian Country Page 8 Spilyay Tymoo September 16, 2004 German scholar lives GALLUP, N.M. (AP) - The sandy-haired boy sat in the pub lic library in Berlin, swallowing whole every book he could find about America. The books he liked best told of Indians, Indi ans rode horses, raised animals, lived romantic, adventurous lives. The boy's life, on the other hand, was spare and lonely. His father had abandoned the fam ily, and his mother and stepfa ther were strict as stone tablets. As he read, the boy dreamed that one day he might visit America, perhaps meet some Indians, maybe even ride a horse. In 1961, when he was 17, the boy left Germany and came to , the United States - to live. When he got off the plane in New York , City and saw no bows and ar- ' rows, he asked, "Where are all the Indians?" , The boy, Peter Handeland, is ' now 60 years old and he is talk ; ing to a classroom of students. Handeland's students this evening are mostly Navajo, and iMarch for unity in Hawaii j HONOLULU (AP)-A unity ; march through Waikiki on Mon ' day drew some 20,000 Native ; Hawaiians and their supporters, ; police said. ! The marchers - representing 'various groups and mostly dressed in red T-shirts - called attention to a number of issues they said threaten Native Hawai- ! ian rights, entitlements and ben- efits. ! The areas of concern included ; forced leasehold conversions, a challenge to Kamehameha Chickasaw Nation airing TV ads ' ADA, Okla. (AP) - The ; Chickasaw Nation is airing a ' series of television ads across the j state in an effort to strengthen I the tribe's economic position. ! Although the ads are airing j just months before a key vote on ! a state question on Indian gam ; ing, tribal officials said the ads !are designed to uplift tribal ; members and are not politically j motivated. ' "This is unrelated to any state question," said tribal spokes- Tribe works to restore native oysters and culture SQUAXIN ISLAND, Wash. (AP) - The mud sucks at Brian Allen's hip-boots as he walks across the beach, searching for the elusive Olympia oyster. The tiny, tasty oyster once covered south Puget Sound beaches like a white blanket, and played a starring role in local Indian tribes' diet and economy. ', But pollution drove the Olym pias to the brink of extinction during the 20th century. Now the Squaxin Island Tribe is working to restore Olympias to their rightful dominance, both on the beaches and on their din ner tables. Allen, a tribal shellfish biolo gist, liked what he saw one morn ing this summer on the eastern shore of Squaxin Island. "They're all over the place. This is dynamite," he said. The Olympia oysters the tribe planted two years ago have spawned a successful wild oys ter bed. But why the fragile, fickle Olympias thrive on one beach and wither on another remains a mystery. For biologists, it's a scientific puzzle. For tribal members, sav ing the Olympia oysters may be the key to preserving an impor tant part of their culture. Salmon are the iconic animal for Puget Sound tribes. Tribes still celebrate the big yearly runs of salmon from the ocean to the he is their German instructor at the Gallup branch of the Uni versity of New Mexico. If you wonder what a Navajo might gain from learning Ger ,man, you've never been in a Pe ter Handeland class. He clearly is the center of attention, stud ied as closely as a list of vocabu lary words. The boy who yearned to ex perience the mysteries of Indi ans today has become a part of Indians, and they a part of him. "It was my destiny," he likes to say. After English classes in Mas sachusetts, the German boy, now a young man, enrolled at Texas Lutheran College. Most Indians were out West, he quickly realized. In Texas he read an article in Life magazine about a blizzard in New Mexico that left hundreds of Navajos stranded in 6-foot drifts, their livestock lying in the snow like frozen logs. "That sealed things for me," Schools' Hawaiians-only admis sion policy and homelands is sues. "Right out from under us, in our own homelands, our lands and our benefits are being sto len from us. And we say, 'No more,'" said Victoria Holt Takamine, president of Ilio'ulaokalani, a cultural pres ervation coalition. The marchers set out from Fort DeRussy and walked along Kalakaua Avenue to the Waikiki Shell, where a rally was held. wdmaftjftobyn Elliot, tref f looking at how we work with Oklahoma, and this is how we do that on a broad scale." Former Bureau of Indian Af fairs head Neal McCaleb and tribal legislator Judy Goforth Parker are among those featured in the spots. Future ads will fea ture other well-known Chickasaws. McCaleb said the ads are intended to focus on the Ada-based tribe's economic growth and unity. rivers with ceremonies and feasts. But if salmon are the spe cial guest stars, oysters were the daily bread. among Navajos out of says Handeland. "I would go to New Mexico to live with Nava jos. He took a Greyhound bus from San Antonio and arrived in Gallup in August 1970. It was not easy being a stranger in a strange land. But Handeland's kindness, his strong work ethic and great cu riosity quickly won him fans. Most important, Navajos de tected from him a genuine in terest in their lives. He didn't seem to want anything at all from them except to try to un derstand. One day a Gallup High School student, a Navajo, asked Handeland if he'd like to visit his home. Eyes widening, Handeland said yes. The Hudson Ranch is located in Tse Yah To, about 20 miles west of Gallup. "One look," says Handeland, "and I saw the land I had read about and dreamed of as a boy." too T" A Gathering of Native American Businesses & Tribal Enterprises Hosted by ONABEN & ATNI-Economic Development Corporation October 27th - 28th, 2004 Embassy Suites Portland Airport, Portland, OR See www.ONABEN.org for registration forms and more information Trade Show hosted by the Oregon Native American Chamber of Commerce Flirdbuflsteirs Ss JUSTER He returned the following weekend, and the one after that. The Hudsons Tom and Dor othy and their nine kids - intro duced him to herding sheep and cattle. They took him to a ro deo and fed him mutton stew and fry bread. They even put him atop a horse. After a while, the Hudson boys asked Handeland if he wanted to live with them on the ranch. He moved into a hogan that had no electricity or run ning water. Each morning he rose at 5:30 to haul water for the family. After classes in Gallup, he came back to ride, round up animals, chop wood. Late at night, he did his lesson plans by lantern in the hogan. "Being out there built up my stamina," he says. "It made me more sensitive to Navajos." After four years on the ranch, Handeland moved on. Anxious to teach on the reservation, he took a job at Tohatchi High at October 4th - 8th Kids - be sure to watch Z21 News at 6 p.m. each night for answers to Buster's questions about fire safety in Central Oregon, affinity for Indian life School, where he stayed two years. From there he went to the College of Ganado, in Arizona, then for 24 years he taught at Window Rock High School, in troducing students to verb con jugation and German potato salad. Four years ago, he retired to Gallup, where he had started. He took an adjunct teaching post at Gallup-UNM. He be came Herr Professor. One recent afternoon after class, Handeland traveled to the Hudson Ranch. He hadn't been - to Tse Yah To in some time and he wanted to see old friends. "It still looks the same," he says as he peers into the log and mud hogan where he lived in the early '70s. The hogan is now a guest cot tage, used mostly for storage. When Handeland lived here, he witnessed a Blessing Way, a spirit-lifting ceremony, and he learned the role of a medicine . man. When the Hudsons told him of the Long Walk, he told th inrDDDU I them of the Holocaust. "He was such an influence here," Anthony Hudson said. "He made me feel comfortable about the outside world. I hadn't spent much time around a white man. I was about to enter el ementary school in Gallup and I was worried. He got me to stop worrying." If life on the Hudson Ranch gave him an education, the years he spent in Window Rock gave him purpose. So many young Navajo men there were without fathers, just as he had been as a boy. In response, Handeland became godfather to a dozen young Navajo males. In turn, his "sons" became devoted to him and remain so. When one of his sons asked Handeland to be godfather to his soon-to-be-born child, Handeland said, "When do I start?" Handeland was there soon after a tiny girl came into the world two years ago in Fort Defiance. ' 0 iver 0