Image provided by: The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Warm Springs, OR
About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (June 9, 2005)
News from Indian Country Pqge 9 Spilyy Ty moo June 9, 2005 Red Cloud seen as warrior and diplomat (AP) - Red Cloud started down l he path of becoming the most photographed American Indian of the 19th century one spring morning in 1872, a few blocks from the White I louse. Before meeting with Presi dent Ulysses S. Grant, the Lakota chief agreed to sit for Mathew Brady, famed for his Civil War-era photographs and his portraits of the prominent. Two days later, Red Cloud posed at the nearby studio of Alexander Gardner, Brady's former assistant anil one of the founders of American photo journalism. That session yielded a picture that was a bestseller in its day ami is one of the earli est, most striking photographs of an Indian chief in his prime. "My great-great-grandfather was both a leader and a warrior, but he was also a man," Dorene Red Cloud, 34, an artist in Gardner, Mass., tells Smithsonian magazine. The chief, she says, wanted Washing ton leaders to see him as a dip lomat, "minus the glamour or pomp or circumstance of feath ers and beads." Not much is known about Red Cloud's visit to Gardner's studio, says Frank Goodyear 111, a curator of photographs for the National Portrait Gallery and author of the 2003 book "Red Cloud: Photographs of a Lakota Chief." Gardner made Navajo Council upholds same-sex marriage ban ALBUQUERQUE (AP) -The Navajo Nation Tribal Council has voted to override a veto of a law that bans same sex marriage on the nation's larg est Indian reservation. The council voted 62-14, with 12 delegates abstaining or absent, to override the decision by Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. last month to veto the Dine Marriage Act of 2005. Dine is the Navajos' name for them selves. The act defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman and prohibits plu ral marriages as well as marriage between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, brothers and sisters and other close relatives. "In the traditional Navajo ways, gay marriage is a big 'no, no,'" said Kenneth Maryboy, a delegate from Montezuma Creek, Utah, who voted in fa vor of the ban. "It all boils down to the circle of life. We were put on the Earth to produce off spring." Gay activists who argued that such a law imposes a western Christian perspective on a cul ture that historically has been tolerant and respectful of ho mosexuals, expressed disap pointment in the vote. "My feeling is that the rea son they overrode the president's veto is that they have a huge animosity toward the president," said Percy Anderson, a gay rights organizer who started a Web site and petition to lobby against the marriage act. Anderson, who previously held an elected office in the tribe's Manuelito, N.M., chapter, said he believes the council is locked in a power struggle with the Navajo Nation president. "They want to show the presi dent that they arc the governing body," Anderson said. "It has to do with a mentalitv the council has, and it's been building for (Please support the businesses you at least four different plates, and the session was arranged by a wealthy land speculator named William Blackmore, who was collecting photographs for a museum about native peoples he'd opened in 1867 in his hometown of Salisbury, En gland. The Scottish-born Gardner, once a Glasgow newspaperman, had been living in Washington since 1856. He started as Brady's assistant and occasional bookkeeper, but launched his own studio in 1863, after what D. Mark Karz, in his "Witness to an lira: The Life and Photo graphs of Alexander Gardner," calls an "amicable" break with Brady. In 1865, Gardner pub lished a volume of frontline Civil War scenes, "Gardner's Photo graphic Sketch Book of the War." I le also won recognition for his images of Abraham Lin coln and other leading figures. I le made his mark not with technical innovations but by "af fecting public awareness," Katz writes, whether through "au thentic images of the horrors of the battlefield" or mug shots of the Lincoln assassination con spirators. After the war, Gardner briefly went West, where he documented treaty signings be tween Indians and U.S. officials. Gardner retired in 1879 and died three years later at age 61. years. The more they do this, however, the more they pro mote an image to Navajo vot ers that will ultimately get them replaced and elected out of of fice." Maryboy said he doubts there will be a political backlash for his vote. He said his con stituents overwhelming oppose gay marriage and generally dis approve of gay relationships. "My constituents told me to vote against approving same-sex marriage," Maryboy said. "My supporters told me to stay firmly against it, especially the minis ters who join people in marriage. They said, 'What are we going to do if two people of the same sex want us to marry them?' They're really concerned about that." Nevertheless, leaders of groups such as Native Out in Phoenix, Ariz, and the Dine Coalition in Albuquerque, con tended their intense lobbying efforts in the last month had positive effects. A discussion was sparked across the reservation about what it means to be gay in Navajo tradition and they managed to convince 14 mem bers who originally voted for the Dine Marriage Act to reverse their stance. "Today, we were actually only four votes over from the 59 needed to override the veto," Anderson said. He praised the delegates who changed dieir votes. "We feel they voted their conscience," Anderson said. "We're grateful to them for do ing that." A spokesman for Shirley said the president would issue a state ment this weekend responding to the veto override. "The president wants to diink about what he's going to say now," George Hardeen, a spokesman, said after the vote on Fridav. Delegate Larry Anderson of see in the Spilyay. Thank you! After meeting with Pres. Grant the first time, in 1870, a frus trated Red Cloud was quoted as telling Secre tary of the Interior Jacob Cox that the treaty was "all lies. " The best-known Indian leader of his time, Red Cloud had become a warrior in clashes with the U.S. military in the northern Plains. In 1868, he re luctantly signed the Fort Laramie Treaty, which reaffirmed the 1 jikota's hunting rights, sectioned off the Great Sioux Reservation and required the government to remove military forts. But the government didn't hold up its end of the deal, and even built a new fort on Lakota soil. After meeting with Grant the first time, in 1870, a frustrated Red Cloud was quoted as telling Secretary of the Interior Jacob Cox that the treaty was "all lies." He added: "We have been driven far enough; we want what we ask for." Officials, meanwhile, had hoped to wangle from Red Cloud access to the Lakota's gold-rich Black I lills which they obtained years later. During the chief's second Fort Defiance, Ariz., the author of the Dine Marriage Act, did not return numerous phone calls. But in a statement he re leased immediately after the president's veto, he said Nava jos were saddened that Shirley vetoed the marriage act. "The president's abuse of the veto power necessitates the re evaluation of the president's veto power," Larry Anderson said. He also sponsored the legis lation to overturn Shirley's de cision. Supporters of the mar riage act said the goal of the law is to promote family values and preserve marriage as a sacred union between a man and a woman. en My WOacjG ""l wwrurr 5 j iii.il nn. J mem mm - mwiJt. j J I r-wr Hunan. i I " fr lli 1357 N. Hwy. 97, Redmond, OR 97756; (541) 504-1402 visit to Grant, in 1872, Red Cloud sensed more respect, and as a kind of diplomatic gesture, Goodyear says, he agreed to have his picture taken. In years to come, Red Cloud would journey from his home in Pine Ridge, S.D., to Washing ton eight more times and hob nob with officials from three other administrations, fre quently on his own initiative. Photographers clamored to cap ture him on film, and the 128 known photographs of the chief trace his quest to hang onto influence while most people believed American In dian culture would go the way of the dinosaurs. In photographs from the 1880s, Red Cloud sports short hair and tailored suits, which he had hoped would help win over U.S. leaders. Those efforts proved futile, and he let his hair grow. The final portraits show a frail, white-haired, nearly blind old man, seemingly wistful for his tribe's glory days. I le died in 1909 at age 88. But at Gardner's studio in 1872, Red Cloud fixes his gaze direcdy forward a "strikingly modern" view, Goodyear says, that distinguishes this image from the rest: "I le's at the top of his game as a diplomat and tribal leader. You can sense this is not a defeated man." & ss) (30&3ft Council suspends tribal judge charged in drug case FORT WAS1IAKIF., Wyo. (AP) - A tribal judge charged with being part of a drug ring on the Wind River Indian Reservation has been suspended without pay by the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Joint Business Council. Judge Lynda Munnell was arrested May 27 in a drug bust that netted 18 other people, The joint council suspended her last Thurs day, according to Chief Tribal Judge John St. Clair, Munnell, also known as Lynda Noah, was charged with threats against a federal officer, distribution of prescription pills and conspiracy. Meanwhile, Munnell and 17 other defendants appeared before U.S. Magistrate Michael Shickich in Casper for detention hearings. Munnell and 12 others were ordered to remain in federal custody, while four were released on bond. Another defendant, in the late stages of pregnancy, is also not in custody and is scheduled for a detention hearing Monday. Authorities said the Wind River Indian Reservation based drug ring brought in methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana from Mexico and also sold prescription drugs, some of which were thought to have come from the reservation's Indian Health Ser vices clinic. Oklahoma tribal official critical of attacks on sovereignty OKLAI lOMA CITY (AP) - An Oklahoma Indian tribal leader says tribes must wield political power to combat a national move ment to erode their sovereign rights. John "Rocky" Barrett, long time chairman of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a panelist dur ing a session last week at the 18th-annual Sovereignty Symposium, said "right-wing nuts" aim to reduce the economic gain that gam bling has brought to American Indian tribes. "Never in the history of the United States have tribes been allowed to profit at the expense of the European invaders ever and it will not happen now," he said. He predicted Congress will alter the 1988 federal law that con trols Indian gaming. Among other things, Congress will protect states against tribal efforts to establish casinos in their ancestral lands, he said. That tactic his been used by some Oklahoma tribes that were moved here from other states. AMiLELMlE) pall gOtsoraitt $35 Square Foot! Huge 4-bedroom, 2-bath Only one available Huge Island Kitchen J