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News from Indian C ountry
Page 5
Spilyay Tymoo
January 1, 20 0 9
Klamath Tribes are seeing a brighter future
C H ILO Q U IN (AP) — Stand
ing in the shadows o f a dilapi
dated lumber mill, Jeff Mitchell
picked up a piece o f firewood
from the pile on the cold con
crete floor and held it in the
sunlight.
“This is the tribes’ very first
timber-based industry in over
50 years since termination,”' said
Mitchell, a member o f the tribal
council o f the Klamath Tribes.
“Five years from now we're go
ing to look back and say this is
where it started.”
. The Klamath Tribes were one
o f the wealthiest in the United
States in 1954 when Congress
terminated their tribal status.
Officially, the decision was
supposed to assimilate Indian
people into society, but tribes
have long felt it was a grab o f
their valuable timber holdings.
T he K lam ath, M odoc and
Yahooskin Band o f Snake Indi
ans, lumped together on a res
ervation after being driven from
th e ir n ativ e te rrito rie s, lo st
nearly 900,000 acres (364,200
hectares)— a parcel that eventu
ally was sold o ff for private tim-
berlands and ranches, turned
into rural subdivisions, and in
corporated into two national
forests.
W ith th e reserv atio n and
their identity as Indians gone,
many tribal members sank into
poverty and left their homeland.
But in 1986, the tribes won
restoration o f their tribal status.
Now, 22 years later, they are
on the verge o f buying back a
piece o f their old reservation:
90,000 acres (36,422 hectares)
o f lodgepole pine known as the
Mazama Tree Farm.
Edison Chiloquin, a
descendant o f the ch ief
f o r whom the town is
named, refused to cash
the p a y -o ff checks and
burned a sacred fire un
til the governm ent gave
him 580 acres back.
They hope to revive the tim
ber industry that once sustained
them as part o f a larger cam
paign to remove dams from the
Klamath River to bring salmon
back to their territories.
The Trust for Public Lands,
a nonprofit land conservation
organization, helped arrange an
option for the Klamaths to buy
Hopi top leaders resigning
amid political turmoil
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP)
The two top leaders o f the Hopi
Tribe were planning to resign
Dec. 31 in hopes o f putting to
rest what has been political chaos
on the northern Arizona reser
vation.
H opi Vice Chairman Todd
Honyaoma Sr. announced last
m onth that he would resign if it
would restore peace to the Hopi
people.
H e said that he will make
good on the promise and leave
the position.
“ f th o u g h t a b q u t .it lo n g a n d
hard,” he said. “I may only have
a year to go, but I think this is in
the best interest o f my family
and my constituents that I get
out.”
C h airm an B en N uvam sa,
w ho was sworn into office in
March 2007 after a special elec
tion, announced his resignation
during a Tribal Council meeting
Monday.
“The fact o f it is people are
torn, families are torn apart, and
it's even gone into our kivas,”
he said. “So I think that maybe
if I to o k m yself o u t o f th e
equation, then maybe things will
settle down.”
T h e T rib al C o u n cil was
scheduled to meet this week (af
ter deadline for this newspaper)
to consider w hether to accept
Nuvamsa and Honyaoma’s res
ignations.
I f the resignations are ac
cepted, it w ould leave a rare
vacancy in the leadership posts.
The leaders’ terms were set
to end in December 2009.
According to the H opi con
stitution, those positions would
have to be filled through an elec
tion. In the meantime, the tribal
secretary would be next in com
m and, follow ed by the tribal
treasurer, but they would not
have the authority to preside
ov&YTfibaT Council meetings. .
Nuvamsa, whose authorities
as chairman were suspended in
September, and Honyaoma had
clashed for much o f Nuvamsa’s
time in office. The tangle led to
a suspended appellate court,
raised allegations o f fraud and
disrespect for traditional leaders
and divided the Tribal Council.
F o rm e r co u n cil m em b er
C aleb Jo h n so n , w hose term
ended last month, described the
relationship between Nuvamsa
and Honyaoma as a bad mar
riage now faced with divorce.
N uvam sa’s weakness, he said,
w as
stu b b o rn n e ss ,
an d
H o n y ao m a’s' was his lack o f
managerial experience.
“I f both o f these two people
had put the interest o f the tribe
first and n o t tried to pro tect
th eir ow n tu rf, th en I think
so m eth in g could have b een
worked out,” he said. “But that
just didn't happen.”
Nuvamsa said his time in of
fice has been physically and
emotionally exhausting.
H e successfully fought an
attempt by the Tribal Council to
oust him over residency require
ments.
T he form er U.S. Bureau o f
Indian Affairs superintendent
also had been charged criminally
while in office and had warrants
issued fori his arrest. S o m e o f
those charges still are pending,
b u t N uvam sa has m aintained
he’s done nothing wrong.
N uvam sa said he plans to
revive a tribal consulting and
training business he ran before
he ’took his first political post
with the Hopi Tribe as chairman.
H onyaoma, a heavy equip
m e n t o p e ra to r an d fo rm e r
council m em ber) said he will
focus on his family, a wife and
three children in Hotevilla on
Third Mesa.
“I feel relieved a little bit,”
he said.
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the 90,000 acres (36,422 hect
ares) from a holding company.
T he price has n o t b een dis
closed, but $21 million the tribes
hope to get from the federal
government is expected to cover
the bulk o f it.
T he Mazama is the biggest
o f 32 p ro p erties th e tru st is
w orking to restore to Indian
people.
It has been a long and bumpy
road.
Mitchell grew up camping out
with his dad at fire lookouts and
guard stations, watching over the
tribes' forests in the 1950s.
“There used to be plenty o f
work around here then,” his dad,
Ben Mitchell, said. “We never
wanted for anything. Everything
was here.”
W hen he wasn’t working for
the tribal forestry program, Ben
M itchell was w orking for his
brother-in-law’s logging outfit,
setting choker — wrapping the
end o f the steel cable around
the log so it could be yarded up
the hill to the landing - or hook
tending on the landing where the
logs were loaded onto trucks.
W hen he w asn’t w orking, he
hunted and fished on forests
and creeks now blocked off by
subdivisions.
All that changed w hen the
tribes lost the only hom e they'd
ever known.
Tribal m em bers were paid
o ff from the sales, given checks
for thousands o f dollars, more
m oney th an m any had ever
seen. Some bought cars, others
got drunk.
A few, like Edison Chiloquin,
a descendant o f the chief for
w hom the tow n is named, re
fused to cash the checks and
burned a sacred fire until the
government gave him 580 acres
(235 hectares) back.
“We just didn't have sense,”
said Ben Mitchell. “Back then,
everyone looked dow n up o n
him. But he was the only smart
person in the bunch.”
Since then, the tribes’ hopes
would surge and wane with each
new development. Amid a wa
ter crisis, the Bush administra
tion considered returning na
tional forest lands that came
from the reservation, but noth
ing came o f it.
O ther private parcels came
up for saleFbut were out o f the
tribes’ reach.
Still, they developed a formal
plan for managing the forests
they hoped to get back.
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Handcrafted flutes stolen
APACHE, Okla. (AP) -
The son o f a renowned N a
tive American artist is hop
in g a set o f h a n d c ra fte d
flutes that were stolen from
him are returned.
T im T ate N evaqu ay a
awoke on a recent morning
to find his hom e in Apache
had been vandalized and five
flutes he had placed in his
vehicle gone.
“W hen I found out they
took these flutes, it’s just re
ally upsetting,” Nevaquaya
said. “They were really spe
cial instruments.”
The stolen flutes include
a distinctive white pine flute
N evaquaya an d his w ife
m ade w hile on a trip .to
Florida, which he said “really
means a lot to me.”
N evaquaya v alu ed his
four missing flutes at about
$1,100 and one belonging to
his b ro th e r, C alv ert, at
$1,000.
/ ‘T hat was his pride and
joy,” Nevaquaya said o f the
flu te, w h ich his b ro th e r
played during concert perfor
mances. “That was something
he never wanted to give up.”
The Nevaquayas are two
o f the four sons o f D oc Tate
N evaquaya, a C o m an ch e
flutist who is considered one
o f the great Native A m eri
can artists o f his generation.
He was named an Oklahoma
Treasure by- the G overnor’s
A rts Award in 1995. D o c
Nevaquaya died the follow
ing year.
The brothers have carried
on the flute-playing tradition
and were slated to provide
music for thé Comanche El
ders Day program in Lawton.
They have gotten instru
ments to perform with, but
there are certain subtleties in
tone and texture that separate
a concert-quality flute from
a sta n d a rd creatio n , T im
Nevaquaya said.
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