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More News from Indian Country £5 m K R,e8 Utah custody fight complicated by tribal law SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Heather and Clint Larson hoped they’d be spending Christmas' with a newly adopted 6-month-. old boy. Instead, after a monthslong court battle, the couple had to hand him over to representatives o f the birth mother’s American Indian tribe, Minnesota's Leech Lake Band o f Ojibwe, and watch him being driven away. “It was horrific. We lost our child,” said Heather Larson, 29, o f South Jordan. T he wrenching, personal struggle for both sides has been complicated by a jurisdictional fight over who has the author ity to decide what should hap pen to the boy, named Talon. Arguments have hinged on whether the boy should be sub ject to the Indian Child Welfare Act, a 1978 law designed to give tribes more control over deci sions involving Indian children. While legal details of most custody disputes are not readily available to the public, lawyers for both sides described the dis pute for The Associated Press. The boy, now in tribal cus tody, is in a suburban Minneapo lis foster home with his two brothers, according to Frank Bibeau, an attorney with the tribe. The Larsons, who had been taking care of the boy since he was born last summer, aren't giving up. “We're not done fight ing,” Heather Larson said. But Talon’s birth mother, a m em ber o f the Leech Lake Band o f the Ojibwe Indian tribe, also is intent on regaining custody. “H e’s my son, he’s mine and my husband's son, he's the brother o f my other children, he’s the grandchild o f my mom. He’s ours,” Natasha Roybal told KSTP-TV in Minneapolis. . The AP was unable to reach Roybal for comment. The Larsons, their attorney and the adoption agency say the Indian Child W elfare A ct shouldn't apply to the boy be cause he doesn’t meet member ship requirements. The birth mother’s attorney, Shannon Smith, said the woman is a member of the tribe and her two other children are treated as members. Smith said it’s clear that Talon should be considered a member, too. David Simmons, director of government affairs at the Na tional Indian Child Welfare As sociation in Portland, said it looks like the Utah adoption agency didn’t do enough inves tigating about whether the 1978 law would apply to Talon. Denise Garza, director o f Heart and Soul Adoptions in Farmington, Utah, which facili tated the adoption, said the agency acted properly and did its homework, b ut the birth m other wasn’t u p fro n t with them. Garza said she couldn’t provide additional details. “I f the birth mom would have told us the truth from the very beginning, this whole thing would have played out very dif- ferendy,” Garza said. She said the adoption agency has dealt with the Indian Child Welfare Act and Indian tribes in the past without major prob lems. “We’ve never dealt with a case like this before,” Garza said. “It’s something you hope no one ever has to go through.” State officials, who haven’t been involved in the case be cause it’s a private adoption, said Heart and Soul’s license is up to date and there have been no sanctions against it. The Larsons, who have a 7- year-old son, were excited about the prospect of adding to their family. Earlier this year, Heart and Soul connected them with the pregnant Minnesota woman. O ver the following m onths, H eather Larson and Roybal talked regularly, met in person in Utah and became friends. Just before Talon was born, the Larsons learned he would likely struggle with drug-related problems after birth. It didn’t deter them. The birth mother came to Utah and Talon was born June 9, dealing with effects o f pre scribed methadone, according to Smith. He spent the next nine days in the hospital, m ost of them with the Larsons by his side. A day after Talon was born, the birth mother relinquished her rights, Larson and Smith said. In Utah, unlike many other states, there’s no grace period for backing out after the document is signed. “When those papers were signed, it was a sigh of relief, a sigh of Wow, this is really hap pening,”’ Larson said. ‘W e were able to let ourselves go and fall in love with him.” But a few days later, Roybal was full of regret. She wanted her baby back. “She didn't feel right about any o f it,” Smith said. While she was in Utah giving birth, tribal officials in Minne sota began looking into reports that her two other sons weren't in a safe environment, Smith said. The tribe took custody of the two sons, according to Smith, and began looking into the boy born in Utah. Bibeau, the tribe’s attorney, said no one is questioning the Larsons’ ability to care for the boy. “We’re n o t saying the Larsons are bad people but vic tims of Heart and Soul,” he said. A tribal court in Minnesota decided in October that the boy belongs with the tribe. A state judge in Utah said she didn't have the authority to supersede the tribe, attorneys said. T he decision was finally made that the boy would leave Utah on Dec. 14. “We held him every minute of every day that we could,” Larson said. By then, Larson said Talon had gotten over his withdrawals and other health problems. He was sleeping through the night, happy and easygoing. One of their hardest jobs was preparing their 7-year-old son Kade, who sometimes changed Talon's diapers, helped with baths and proudly showed him off to everyone at church. He relished having a little brother. “H e’s waited his whole life for this,” Larson said. Cremation pit found on Georgia island SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) - Exposed by erosion at the edge of a crumbling bluff, the pit dis covered beneath 2 feet o f sandy dirt at first appeared to be a grave just long and deep enough to bury a human body. Excavation by archaeologists on Ossabaw Island revealed something more puzzling — just a few small bones, apparently from fingers or toes, mixed with charcoal, bits o f burned logs and pottery shards predating the arrival o f the first European explorers by at least a century. The find has led researchers to suspect American Indians used the ancient pit to burn bod ies o f the dead, making it a rare example o f cremation among the early native inhabitants of the southeastern U.S. “It's a special sort of burial,” said Tom Gresham, an Athens archaeologist who worked on the excavation and serves on Georgia's Council on American Indian Concerns. “The way In dian tribes over time buried their dead varied tremendously. But tery shards they found. Though cremations are fairly rare.” Located six miles off the Sa carbon dating revealed it to be vannah coast, Ossabaw Island more recent, the find is still con remains one o f Georgia's wild sidered prehistoric because it est barrier islands. Hogs, deer, predates the arrival of the first armadillos and Sicilian donkeys European explorers in Georgia roam the state-owned island's in 1520. Crass said other prehistoric 11,800 acres o f w ish b o n e shaped uplands. Live oaks tower graves on Ossabaw tend to be above the remains of slave plan bodies buried intact, in a near tations and ancient Indian burial fetal position, in shallow bowl shaped pits. mounds. “What makes this particular Researchers have found evi dence that humans came to site unusual is that the individual Ossabaw more than 4,000 years was apparently cremated and ago. It's believed Indians at first then the remains were presum may have used the island as a ably taken from this pit and in winter camp to feed on shellfish terred somewhere else,” Crass before moving inland to hunt said. David Hurst Thomas, a cu deer in the spring. Burial mounds on Ossabaw rator o f anthropology at the typically hold intact human re American Museum of Natural m ains, said D ave Crass, JHistory in New York, said the Georgia's state archaeologist. cremation pit sounds significant. Thomas was not involved in Archaeologists said Friday that carbon dating on charcoal from the Ossabaw excavation but has the pit place it between 1290 and been studying Indian burials on neighboring St. Catherines Is 1420 A.D. A rchaeologists initially land for 30 years. Out o f about thought the pit could be 1,000 900 graves he's studied there to 3,000 years old based on pot- that predate the arrival of Eu- ropeans, only nine held cre mated remains, he said. “Based on our St. Catherines experience, this is about a one- in-100 shot,” Thomas said. “As a mortuary feature o f that an tiquity, I would say that's a big deal.” The Ossabaw cremation pit, roughly 6 feet long and 3 feet deep, had other unique charac teristics. Crass and fellow archaeolo gists, at first, suspected it might be a more modern grave be cause o f its flat bottom and straight sides. Early Indian graves tend to have round bottom s because people lacked shovels or other digging tools, said Dan Elliott, a Savannah archaeologist who helped excavate the Ossabaw pit last month. ‘We're thinking it was a fairly formal structure that was used to deflesh people -- it looks al most like a little oven,” Elliott said. “That's so far back in his tory that we don't know what was on their minds, but it shows there was a special reverence for the dead.” The state Council,on Ameri can Indian Concerns gave the archaeologists permission to excavate the, Ossabaw pit be cause erosion was destroying it. The few human bones found in the pit will be studied further in hopes of determining if they belonged to more than one per son. Once that's done, Crass said, they'll be reinterred with the C ouncil overseeing the burial. Thomas said such a find is a step in helping researchers un derstand America's early inhab itants, though why they would choose to cremate some of their dead and bury others intact re mains a mystery. “We d o n 't know w hether that's high status or low status. Is that the way you treat elders or battle captains?” T hom as said. ‘We're buried according to who we are when we die. It tells us a lot about a society by the way they treat the dead.” AG urges prosecution over Seminole gaming in Fla. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said last week he has asked the federal government to prosecute the Seminole Indian tribe over its blackjack opera tions. Meanwhile, a state H ouse com m ittee began discussing how to approach a gambling agreement with the tribe. M cC ollum sent th e U.S. Attorney's office in Tampa a let ter urging action. Since the sum mer, the tribe has been offering Las Vegas-style slot machines and card games at its casino in Hollywood under an agreement struck with Gov. Charlie Crist a year ago. The state Supreme Court has since struck down that compact, which gave the tribe exclusive rights to operate blackjack and other card games as wells as a guarantee that the state won't expand Las Vegas-style slots beyond M iam i-D ade and Broward counties. The justices said Crist didn't have authority to enter into the agreement on his own, but the games con tinue. The fact that the tribe ex panded blackjack to its Tampa and Immokalee casinos after the court ruling shows it doesn't respect the law, McCollum said. However, McCollum doesn't have the authority to stop the games because they are on In dian land. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office confirmed that «Í McCollum's letter had been re ceived, but declined to comment further. An attorney for the tribe said McCollum's request makes no sense. “There is no basis for crimi nal prosecution here. This is a regulatory issue,” said Barry Ri chard, adding that the tribe has been in regular contact with the National Indian Gaming Com mission about the issue. The tribe has already given the state more than $71 million under the compact, which guar antees Florida at least $375 mil lion over the first three years and at least $100 million a year after that. Richard said the tribe had to act quickly to set up its card tables to ensure it could meet its obligation. The money the state has already received has been set aside until the issue is resolved. McCollum's request to pros ecute the tribe was praised by Rep. Bill Galvano, who co-chairs the recently formed Select Com- m ittee on Sem inole Indian Compact Review. Galvano, R- Bradenton, said the state's con gressional delegation should also push federal authorities to stop the games. Galvano's committee met for the first time Thursday. After ward he said its mission wasn't to approve or reject the compact that Crist signed, but to proceed as if there is no compact. Federal officials pressed Florida for years to enter a com pact w ith the Seminóles. I f Florida didn't negotiate with the tribe in good faith, federal offi cials said they could approve Indian gaming without giving the state a share of the proceeds. Galvano acknowledged that the state won't get any revenue from the tribe if it doesn't ne gotiate a compact, but said the exclusive gambling rights the tribe would receive don't have to mean allowing blackjack, which is otherwise illegal in Florida. He said there is a pos sibility of negotiating exclusive geographic rights to Las Vegas- style slot m achines beyond where they are currently al lowed. For now, only Miami- Dade and Broward horse and dog tracks and jai-alai frontons can install Vegas slots. Tribes may gain more river input MITCHELL, S.D. (AP) — American Indian tribes could have more influence in m anagem ent o f the Missouri River after a by law change by the Missouri River A ssociation o f States and Tribes. The change increased the number of tribal rep resentatives on MoRAST’s board o f directors from six to 13. That puts the 28 tribes in the Missouri River Ba sin on a more equal foot ing with MoRAST’s seven member states, who also have 13 representatives on the board. Six states have two each, but Wyoming, which is not a “mainstem” river state, has only one. Eleven tribes were rep resented at M oRAST’s m ost recent meeting in Rapid City. That contrasts with a MoRAST meeting one year ago in Pierre . when no tribal representa tives attended. “That's a big step for ward, because our group has really wanted to live up to its name of represent ing both states and tribes in the basin,” said David Pope, MoRAST’s execu tive director in Topeka, Kan. “And we think we're off and running in that re gard now.” Pope said the earlier lack o f tribal involvement was indicative of a long standing problem afflict ing Missouri River organi zations. “Historically, th ere’s probably tittle doubt that the trib es have been underrepresented or not involved to the depth, at least, that probably would be appropriate for their status in the basin and the significant role that they play,” he said. “I think our group is the primary one that's re ally fully embraced their involvement.” A n o th e r change by MoRAST allows tribal representatives to be re imbursed up to $500 for trav e l to M oR A ST 's meetings, which are held throughout the river ba sin. Casinos suffer in bad economy FR E SN O , Calif. (AP) - While Indian casinos don't have to report their revenue, gam blers say they are visiting less frequently _ and wagering less. Some gamblers who would have traveled to Nevada are wa gering closer to home, casino operators say, but not enough to offset the smaller amounts of m oney they are spending, Fresnans D onna and Chuck Henderson, who used to gamble every other day, say they now visit twice a month and stick to penny slots. Gaming analysts say Califor nia tribal casino revenues are likely either flat or suffering single-digit declines. Gambling revenues in N e vada are down 22 percent from last year. í. !
