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.
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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.
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