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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 2008)
News from Indian Country Page 9 Spilyay Tyrnoo October 23, 2 0 0 8 Arapaho want Yellowbear out of boundary suit C H E Y E N N E , Wyo. (AP)— T he N o rth ern A rapaho Tribe says it will vigorously oppose an a tte m p t by a trib a l m em b er serving time on a m urder con viction to intervene in the tribe’s federal lawsuit against the state o f W yom ing a n d F re m o n t C ounty over a long-stand in g boundary dispute. Andrew John Yellowbear Jr. last week filed a m otion to in tervene in the trib e’s lawsuit. T h e trib e sued the state and county last m onth, arguing that they had been im properly tax ing trib al m em bers living in Riverton and other areas nearby. A Therm opolis jury in 2006 convicted Yellowbear o f m ur der in the death o f his daugh te r, 2 2 -m o n th -o ld M arcela H ope Yellowbear. She died at a hospital in 2004 after suffering a skull fracture, b ro k en arm , burns to her fingers and other injuries. Yellowbear has m aintained that the state lacked jurisdiction to p ro secu te him . H e claims th a t R iverton, w here th e girl suffered her injuries, lies in “In dian Country.” T h e W y o m in g S u p rem e C ourt upheld Yellowbear’s con viction in January. T h e co u rt ruled Riverton is no longer “In dian Country” for legal purposes. H ow ever, the 10th Circuit C ourt o f Appeals in Denver this spring ruled that Yellowbear was entitled to make an argum ent b e fo re U.S. D is tric t Ju d g e Clarence Brimmer o f Cheyenne th a t the state sh o u ld n ’t have prosecuted him. Yellowbear and his court-appointed lawyers are pressing that point in Brimmer’s court. T im K ingston, a Cheyenne lawyer representing Yellowbear, said his client wants to get in volved in the tribe’s lawsuit to make sure his legal interests are protected. “ T h e p u rp o s e o f M r. Yellowbear moving to intervene in the tribe’s case is that the le gal issue is essentially the same: w hether the particular property that the tribe’s case has to deal with, or Mr. Yellowbear has to deal with, is on tribal land, or ‘Indian Country,”’ Kingston said. Yellowbear has argued th at the federal co u rt system could b e tte r p ro te c t him from bias and make sure th at he receives a fair trial. “ I t ’s a se n sitiv e is su e ,” K in g s to n said. “A n d M r. Yellowbear w ould say th at he believes that the federal court is best situated to ensure that his legal rights are protected, and that he can receive a completely fair trial, unfettered by any lo cal issues, or potential local bias.” D esp ite th e W yom ing Su prem e C o u rt’s ruling th at the sta te h ad ju risd ic tio n to try Yellowbear, K ingston said, “I don’t believe that the Wyoming Supreme C ourt has definitively determ ined the the issue o f ju risdiction, state or federal, with regard to Riverton.” M ark H ow ell, sp o k esm an fo r th e N o r th e r n A ra p a h o Tribe, said Friday that the tribe strongly opposes Yellowbear’s efforts to intervene in its law suit against the state and the county. H owell said the tribe’s law suit focuses on a 1905 act o f Congress th at opened up res ervation land around R iverton to s e ttle m e n t by n o n -trib a l members. H e said that the state contends th at the act rem oved the land’s legal status as p art o f the W ind River Indian Res ervation, while the tribe holds that it did not. “They are m ost interested in keeping their case clean, and away from the criminal aspects,” Howell said o f the tribe. “The reason that the tribe filed the case w hen they did is because they did n o t w ant the question o f jurisdiction o f the 1905 act area to be decided in the con text o f Mr. Yellowbear’s crimi Remains should be returned to Onondagas SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP)— T h e N ew Y ork S tate M u seum should return the dis p uted centuries-old rem ains o f at least 180 individuals to th e O n o n d a g a In d ia n N ation, according to a fed eral review panel. T h e state m u seu m h ad said it could n o t conclusively determine the cultural origins o f the remains, which were discovered in 1967 in Tioga County and date to between 1000 and 1550. B ut the N ational N ative American Graves Protection a n d R e p a tria tio n R eview Committee voted 5-1 during a meeting Saturday in San D i ego that the remains should be recognized as Onondaga an d re tu rn e d to th e trib e w ith in 90 days, th e O nondaga’s attorney, Joseph Heath, said Wednesday. ‘W e are in the middle o f discussing it am ong our hier archy and counsel. We obvi ously w ant to do the right thing and I can’t imagine that we w on’t follow the recom m endation o f the com m it tee,” said Lisa Anderson, coor d in ato r for the state’s Indian repatriation program. “B efore we started turning over rem ains, we w anted to be entirely sure we w ere retu rn ing them to the right people,” she added. F or the O nondagas, the de c is io n is a s ig n ific a n t o n e , H eath said. “The O nondaga N ation be lieves it has a spiritual obligation to take care o f and protect all the ancestors within its aborigi nal territories. These ancestors ... are part o f a shared identity and culture,” H eath said. “D eath is a journey with the Creator. W hen these bones were dug up, the journey was inter ru p ted for these individuals,” held by the State University o f N ew York at Binghamton until M arch 1989 w hen they w ere tran sferred to th e N ew York State Museum. T h e rem ain s re p re se n t at least 180 individuals, including about 122 adults, according to state archaeologists. Many are single bones, b u t in oth er in stances there were nearly com plete skeletons. In 1990, Congress passed the N ative American Graves P ro tection and R epatriation A ct, requiring states to inventory, catalog, and where possible, iden tify, Indian burial sites. The state completed its inven tory o f the Engelbert site in 1998. “ I t ’s a c o m p lic a te d site. There were two different people w ho lived there/’ Anderson said. | A ccording to' th e state 'mu seum , there are 10 burials at th e E n gelbert site from after 1400 th at are clearly identifi able as Susquehannock, based o n th e ceram ics an d co p p er artifacts found at the site. Be cause the Susquehannock don’t exist today as a distinct cultural or political entity, the rem ains Heath said. T he remains were unearthed by a bulldozer during construc tion o f the Southern Tier E x pressway w est o f Bingham ton n ear N ich o ls. T h e so ?called Engelbert site sits on a knoll 20 to 30 feet above the floodplain of the Susquehanna River, lo cated about 200 feet away. The remains were originally are cu lturally u n id en tifiab le, A nderson said. A d d itio n a lly , th e S u sq u e h a n n o c k tr a d e d a n d liv e d a m o n g m an y tr ib e s th ro u g h o u t th e Susquehanna River valley from upstate N ew York dow n through the Chesa peake Bay region. “O ur position was we need to contact all these other groups before we could reach a deci sion. It was our impression that there were others interested,” A n d erso n said. H ow ever, no o th e r trib es h av e m ade any claims on the remains. The majority o f the remains were from a second group o f b u ria ls th a t p re d a te d th e Susquehannock. State archae ologists, however, said they were considered a different people from the Onondaga and also not culturally identifiable with any m odern tribes. B ut the O nondagas argued that the state based its conclu sion on purely scientific evi dence, and ignored the federal law’s instructions to consider a “totality o f evidence,” including kinship, an th ro p o lo g ical evi dence, linguistics, folklore and oral tradition. Historically, the Onondagas lived mostly in central New Y ork, b u t th eir te rrito ry stretched into the Southern Tier, where they lived near the Cayugas and O neidas, two other members o f the six-na tion Iroquois Confederacy. “In their oral tradition, they have been here since the beginning o f time. But cer tainly, th e y ’ve b e e n h e re longer than 500-600 years,” H eath said. Some scholars have found evidence dating the confed eracy back to the 900s, which m eans the separate tribes have been here m uch longer, H eath noted. A lso a c c o rd in g to O nondaga oral history, the trib e a d o p te d th e Susquehannock peoples and brought them into the con federacy, H eath said. Linguis tically, the Susquehannock language is m ost closely re lated to the Onondagan dia lect o f Iroquioan, he added. nal case. T hat is precisely why they filed the civil case that they did.” Howell said he didn’t have a figure o f how many tribal m em bers live in disputed areas, and also didn’t have a figure o f the am ount o f tax revenue the tribe claims the state and county have collected improperly. Howell said the tribe has en tered a m ediation agreem ent with the City o f Riverton. H e said the tribe is prepared to try to negotiate payments to the city to cover any lost revenues if the court rules in the tribe’s favor. H e said F rem ont County and the state have not expressed an interest in working out a similar arrangement. Loan office opens on South Idaho reservation FO R T HALL, Idaho (AP)— A Denver-based banking com pany founded in 2001 to serve the Native American community has opened a loan office on a re s e rv a tio n in s o u th e a ste rn Idaho. T he Native American Bank also has loan offices in Montana and Alaska. D ave G ilm an , th e b a n k ’s chief executive officer, says the loan office that opened on the F ort Hall Reservation in Idaho this m onth could eventually be expanded in to a full-service banking location. Gilman, says N ative Ameri cans face credit challenges be- causé reservation land is held in a trust by the federal govern m ent and can’t be used as col lateral when they try to obtain loans. The Native American Bank offers lending programs to help Native Americans own homes and develop businesses. Trust fund Building Pride In OilJL C o m m u n ity , O ne Sidewalk A t A T im e. (Continued from page 1) A m ore recent change to the tru st fund happened in 2006. This change was in ten d ed to correct an aspect o f the trust fund that had come to be seen as inequitable to some benefi ciaries. Before the 2006 change, the am o u n t o f each in d iv id u al’s tru st fu n d disb u rsem en t was closely tied to the stock market. The fund manager, in order to g ro w th e fu n d , in v e s te d in stocks, as is com m on in such arrangements. There was some inequity in this in that the amount disbursed to the beneficiaries varied from year to year, depending on how th e s to c k m a rk e t h ad p e r formed, said Ray Potter, tribal chief financial officer. In extrem e cases, he said, one sibling might receive a few thousand dollars m ore or less than another, due to the vary ing perform ance o f the market. In order to avoid this situa tion, m anagem ent and Tribal Council developed a new plan regarding the fund investment. A ccording to the plan, the trust fund assets are invested m ore cautiously, in bonds, as the youth approaches the age at which he or she will begin to receive disbursements. F ro m b irth to age 10, the beneficiary’s trust assets can be invested 90 percent in stocks, and 10 percent in bonds. The percentage o f stocks to bonds then gradually changes over time. The ratio is 80 per cent in stocks to 20 p ercen t bonds at age eleven; 70 percent stocks to 30 percent bonds at age twelve; 60 percent stocks to 40 percent bonds at age 13; and so forth until the ages o f 18 to 21, when the ratio is 10 percent stocks and 90 percent bonds. T he idea is that any m ajor swings in the stock m arket that happen w hen a person is zero to 10 years old will be leveled out by the time the beneficiary begins to receive disbursements at age 18. With this approach, each ben eficiary should receive about the same am ount, roughly $10,000 to $11,000 on average. E ventually, this new plan should also increase the am ount o f money disbursed to the ben eficiaries, said Potter. Provide Your Input a n d J o in u s (541) 460-3004 jgree neiftws tri hes.org I T7 wHI Vote YES on Measure 9-58 Election Day: November 4 V i ■■ \p M À First Nation Media Printed & Designed L Healthy Jobs. Healthy Communities. VOTE YES FORA COCC CAMPUS IN MADRAS Paid for by COCC Yes! 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