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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 20, 2007)
News from In4ian Country nr_„ Nevada tribal members try to preserve Hungry Valley SPARKS, Nev. (AP)— W hen they look put over the barren lan d o f H u n g ry V alley ju s t n o rth w e s t o f S p ark s, S c o tt Nebesky and Arlan Melendez see a dusty plain ridden w ith trails, gun shell casings and signs that have been knocked down and ignored. O n the other hand, they see an opportunity to help preserve a piece o f northern N evada’s American Indian heritage. “We’ve been environmental ists ourselves,” said Melendez, tribal chairm an o f the Reno- Sparks Indian Colony. “We’re really concerned about plant and animal life and the trees. ... We know through our ancestors it is the crossing o f Indian tribes. There were many tribes cross ing that area that jvent b ut to California and Susanville and Tahoe.” The colony’s H ungry Valley land is about 1 mile wide by 3 miles long with about 400 resi dents. The parcel hosts a small subdivision o f 150 homes, along with a gym, community center and H ead Start program for children. In 2002, it was the site o f .a battle over the Oil-Dri Corp.’s desire to mine clay from two open pits and process it into cat litter-—a battle the Ghicago- based company lost when the tribe and others persuaded the Washoe County Commission to deny a special-use perm it for the project Protecting and preserving the land in Hungry Valley is impor tant for protecting his people’s culture, Melendez said. Misus ing the land could lead to de struction o f artifacts such as tribal petroglyphs or undiscov ered Objects like arrowheads. T h e R e n o -S p ark s In d ia n C olony is im m ediately in te r e s te d in m a in ta in in g th e sustainability o f the land—-spe cifically th e la n d ’s ability to absorb water into aquifers. However, with every dirt trail that off-highway vehicle riders use or create, dirt is displaced and fine clay is compacted, caus ing erosion and degenerating the earth’s ability to absorb much- needed water. “This place is absolutely in u n d a te d w ith tra ils,” said Nebesky, colony planning direc tor. H e referred to a map that shows Hungry Valley’s proxim ity to Sparks, Reno, Golden Val ley, Sun Valley and A ntelope Valley. ‘*We want to manage the ba sin for its natural resources: the water,” he said, adding that wa te r th a t c a n ’t seep in to th e ground will evaporate. The majority o f trails follow the contours o f the area, but some travel straight up hills, con tributing to erosion. Hungry Valley has attraeteti attention from various groups who want to keep it available for recreation, such as the Friends o f Hungry Valley, which consists o f local citizens, some o f whom ride dirt bikes and off-road ve hicles. T h e R e n o -S p ark s In d ia n Colony is n o t opposed to the u se o f th e s e v e h ic le s, b u t wants a closer eye kept on des ignated areas. T he C arson City office o f the U.S. Bureau o f Land Man agement has responsibility for H ungry Valley as p art o f 5.3 million acres overseen by one ranger and one law enforcement officer. Mark Struble, spokesman for the BLM C arson City office, said monitoring off-road vehicle use was nearly impossible. “I t’s frustrating to the tribe, we know,” Struble said. N eb esk y e m p h asized th e colony and Friends o f Hungry Valley have a similar interest in taking better care o f tiie area. The colony, in its desire to pre serve the natural terrain o f the land, only wants limits on where off-highway vehicles are used. “We’re n o t out to eliminate O H V use on public lands,” he said. “T hat’s a recreational use th a t m any peo p le, including tribal members, participate in. But our homes are fixed to the ground. O H Vs have w heels; they can move to other locations. Why n ot w ork ou t a situation where O H V use is limited?” T h e R eno-S parks In d ian C olony rep resen ts Paiute, Shoshone and Washoe tribe mem bers with a formal government form ed in 1935. T he colony’s downtown Reno property includes a smoke shop and other colony buildings on property the colony has owned since 1917. Nebesky said Washoe County identified Hungry Valley in an area for potential development over the next 20 years. Melendez said decisions on such growth should not be made w ithout tribal council input. “We have a real concern with any type o f planning,” he said. “We are trying to make sure th a t we p ro te c t w h at’s really near us.” Melendez said the space in Reno was not sufficient to serve the American Indian population in Reno and Sparks, which is the reason the colony acquired the H ungry Valley property. Indian artifacts found at Camp Shelby H A T T IE S B U R G ; Miss. (A P)-i'^Long b e fo re ! tan k s rumbled along dusty roads and field artillerists zeroed in on dis tant targets in the vast piney woods o f M ississippi’s Camp Shelby military training site, the bow and arrow was the weapon o f choice for the area’s ancient inhabitants. Native American tribes, prob ably the ancestors o f today’s Mississippi Band o f Choctaws, hunted the forests and fished the creeks within the 136,000 acres that now encompass the nation’s largest reserve component train ing site about 12 miles south o f Hattiesburg. Carved out o f the D e Soto National Forest in portions o f Perry and Forrest counties and activated as a World War I train ing camp in 1917, the site was named in honor oflssac Shelby— Indian fighter, Revolutionary War hero and the first governor’b f Kentucky. An estimated 100,000 military personnel train annually at the site today. Archaeological excavations now under way at sites north o f Shelby’s m odern-day can to n m ent area, however, have un earthed arrow heads, shards, stone tools,' baked clay 'cooking pits, san d sto n e clusters, and other artifacts and organic de posits that provide evidence o f Native American activity there many centuries ago. “We think some o f the roast ing pits with burned clay are pre ceramic, before the invention o f pottery, dating the sites to some w here betw een 2000 to 1500 years B.C.,” said Rita Fields, cul tural resource manager for the M ississippi M ilitary D e p a rt ment. Responsible for the identifi cation and protection o f historic structures and archaeological sites o n M ississippi N ational G u a rd p ro p e rty a ro u n d th e state, Fields discovered four Camp Shelby sites during tim ber-clearing operations following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Log gers were shooed away from the historic sites, located along a creek that snakes through the area. ■ Fields, a Collins native and 2001 graduate o f the master’s degree program in anthropology at th e ; University o f Southern M ississippi, called u p o n her fo rm e r m e n to r in th e university’s anthropology and sdciology department; E d Jack- son, for help in investigating the C am p Shelby sites. Jack so n quickly responded. U nder a student internship program and partnership agree m ent with Camp Shelby, Jack- son organized a team o f USM anthropology students to handle the field excavations and provide laboratory analysis o f the find ings. Jackson and Fields co-di- rect the ongoing work. “ My stu d e n ts are g ettin g valuable field experience, as well as a paycheck,” said Jackson. O ne o f the students, Nikki Leist o f Bolton, said, “It’s one o f th e great learning experi ences we get studying under Dr. Jackson ja and I love playing in the dirt all day.” Jackson said “prehistoric fea tures” were found during small- shovel digs at.tw o o f the sites in 2006, including some arrow heads buried deep in the sandy Soil. It wasn’t until earlier this year, however, that Jackson and Fields utilized remote sensing, or “ground radar,” at the other two sites to see if that technology could speed the hunt for evi dence o f past civilizations. Bryan Haley o f the Center for * Airchaeological Research at •the U niversity o f ¿Mississippi conducted the rem ote sensing tests in September, producing maps that could b etter target spots for digging, which earlier this fall and is wrapping up this weekend. “I f remote sensing methods prove to be applicable to the prehistoric site settings such as those found at Camp Shelby,” Jackson said, “the technology has the potential to provide an im portant new tool for evaluat ing site significance, augmenting presently em ployed standard archaeological survey and test ing methods. “W hat readings from the re mote sensing survey might be revealing will no t be known un til they are ‘g ro u n d -tru th e d ’ through archaeological excava tion,” he said. Once archaeological materi als are recovered, Jackson said they will be cleaned, appropri ately labeled and analyzed at Sum’s Prehistoric Archaeology Laboratory. Materials then will be conserved and curated ac cording to procedures employed by the Mississippi Military D e partment. Indians protest use of treated sewage on sacred peaks PASADENA; Calif. (AP)— C hanting and beating drums,« American Indians marched to a federal appeals court to oppose the use o f treated sewage to make snow in Arizona riioun- tains they hold sacred.. A bout 150 activists marched Tuesday to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court o f Appeals for a heating in the case. A three-judge panel o f the court ruled in March that using the treated wastewater to allow expansion o f the A rizona Snowbowl resort would violate the religious freedom o f Navajos, Hopis and 11 other tribes who had sued to block the expansion. However, the full appellate court decided to rehear the case. Snowbowl’s owners and the fed eral government had urged the court to reconsider, arguing that the earlier ruling broke federal precedent and incorrectly ap plied provisions o f the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. - The 777-acre resort rests on the western flank o f the San Fran cisco Peaks north o f Flagstaff. Resort owners also want to re move about 100 acres o f forest and add a fifth lift to attract more skiers oh manmade snow. “T he peaks are central to the practice o f the H opi religion,” said p ro te s te r L eigh Kuwanwisiwma, director for the religious beliefs, McFadden said: H opi Cultural Preservation Gff- “I believe their prayers will not fice in Arizona. “The mountains be devastated.” and the kachina spirits ... repre But Howard Shanker, an at sent the heart and soul o f our to rn e y re p re se n tin g several tribes, said the government “will community.” The U.S. Forest Service leases contaminate their religious free th e la n d to th e A riz o n a dom” if snowmaking is allowed. The appellate panel did n ot Snowbowl Resort. A t the hear ing, the 11-judge court ^ as< to ^ ,; •immediately rule in the case. Arizona Snowbowl opened the agency had the right to peri- “ mit snowmaking on its own land. late in three o f the last four Lane McFadden, an attorney years because o f lack o f snow, representing the Forest Service, b u t is set to o pen Thursday, also said he co n sid e re d the which would match its average opening date. The resort brings treated wastewater to be safe. “I would let my lads play in an estimated $10 million annu ally to Flagstaff’s economy. that water;” he said. As for im posing on Indian Spilyay Tymoo December 20, 2 0 0 7 Many facing homelessness on reservations DULUTH, Minn. (A P)-^ Homelessness is prevalent on A m erican In d ian reserv a tions in northern Minnesota, but that doesn’t mean you’ll fin d p eo p le living u n d e r bridges o r in shelters, accord ing to researchers w ith the Wilder Foundation. Using a broader definition o f homelessness, researchers found that more than 1,200 p e o p le on n o rth e rn Minnesota’s reservations are homeless o r doubled up in the homes o f friends or fam ily members. T he study, released last w eek, sh o w ed th a t m any people didn’t meet the fed eral definition o f homeless b u t w ere living in o v e r crowded homes with multiple families. “ E v e n th o u g h p eo p le might be staying for a long period o f time in that status, it isn’t necessarily a stable way to live b ecau se th ey are b o u n cin g back and fo rth among so many different set tings,” . said Ellen Shelton, a researcher who analyzed data for the study. R esearchers co n d u cted 674 interviews in fall 2006, focusing on the Red Lake, L eech Lake, W hite E arth , Mille Lacs, Bois Forte and F ond du Lac reservations. Only Red Lake has a home less shelter. /i; L e s t ^ 'D t i f t , ¿a m ental health supervisor for i the Bois Forte Band o f Lake Superior Chippewa, said it’s not hard to find homeless people in N ett Lake when using Wilder re searchers’ d efinition o f homelessness. “You could see it if you ride around the village here; see h o w m any cars are parked in one driveway,” said D rift, w ho grew up on the reservation and remembers seeing multiple families hy ing in o n e hom e. “I.ju s t, thought o f it as relatives tak ing care o f relatives.” -,; T he study also show ed th at 98 percent o f people doubled or tripled up with extended family would pç^- fer to have their own hops- ing Almost half o f those con sidered hom eless „or ne;ar homeless by the researchers are children, and less than-a third o f the adults in those categories were employed, according to the study. D rift said 42 families are on th e Bois Forte housing waiting list out o f about 600 members on the reservation. A t Fond du Lac, about 250 families are on a similar wait ing list out o f 1,800 members on th e reservation, chair woman Karen Diver said. The Fond du Lac reserva tion hopes to build 24 units o f multifamily housing arid has applied for 30 Federal E m ergency M anagem ent Agency trailers left over frotii Hurricane Katrina. Officials are waiting to see if the'trail ers can withstand Minnesota winters. But Diver said providing housing is only a first step in reducing th e ; n u tiib e r: ti£ homeless. g “Ju s t providing them a house isn’t going to solve the problem ,” Diver said. “It’s the stability and maintenance o f being able to stay in hous ing that becomes the long term key.” Prenatal care improves for Oklahoma Indians OKLAHOM A C ITY (AP)—-A new study has found improvements in prenatal care patterns among American In dian women in Oklahoma. In 1994, Oklahoma State D epartm ent o f Health offi cials reported a large dispar ity between American. Indian and white pregnant women in. term s o f access to and us age o f early prenatal care. Now, a new study indi cates those differences have been essentially eliminated for Oklahoma’s American In dian maternal population, the h e a lth d e p a rtm e n t said Wednesday. “Finding ways to reduce health disparities can save lives and improve the over all h ealth o f O k lah o m a’s mothers and babies,” Secre tary o f Health and Commis sioner o f H ealth D r. ;Mike C ru tch er said. “T h e w ork done by tribal leaders in this area is commendable.” ; ; > H e said p re n a ta l c^re identifies and treats risks that can lead to problems such as p re -te rm labor, low b irth weight and infant or mater nal mortality. C ru tc h e r sa id w o m a n should have their first p re natal care visit withint ,the first three m onths o f preg nancy. The.new study found dis parities still exist in other ar eas o f pregnancy and infant h e a lth fo r O k la h o m a 's A merican Indian wom en. These women were more likely to have their first baby before the age o f 18 com pared to white women (24.5 percent vs. 14.3 percent). ^ Warm Springs Market ~ Indian Jirts Crafts 2132 Warm Springs St. Warm Springs, 0^97761 (541)553-1597
