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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 2011)
■P News from Indian Country Pgge 7 Spily^y Tyrnoo June 15, 2011 New Mexico tribes line up against casino Tonkawa Tribe pays $2 A LBU Q U ERQ U E, N.M. (AP) — New M exico’s Indian tribes are lining up against one of their own as the federal gov ernment once again is consider ing a controversial proposal to let a northern New M exico pueblo partner with a Santa Fe art dealer to build a hotel and casino along the Texas-New Mexico border. The N ew M exico Indian Gaming Association Inc., which represents tribal casino opera tors, recently filed comments with the Bureau of Indian Af fairs opposing the plan, accord ing to Mark Chino, president of the M escalero Apache tribe, w hich op erates Inn o f the Mountain Gods resort and ca sino in the Ruidoso area. The group’s attorney declined to release a copy of the com ments, but Chino said they are basically the same objections the tribes had when the project was first proposed— and rejected— under the Bush Administration. Those objections are based on questions about the tribes claim to the trust land and its distance —more than 300 miles— from the pueblo. “First of all, we don’t believe that the project is going to ben efit the people o f the Jemez Pueblo, because as we argued back then that the developer is the one that appears to be the major beneficiary of the project as opposed to the Pueblo of Jemez and the people of Jemez,” said Chino, whose tribe stands to lose the most among New Mexico Indian gaming operators if the Anthony project is ap proved. Gaming has been on the de cline during the recession, he said, and competition from a new casino just over 100 miles away and close to the populous El Paso-Las Cruces m arket “would devastate our hospital ity enterprises hei;e in Ruidoso. We have invested millions and millions of dollars in our hospi tality enterprises. And that would certainly take away the lion's share of our business.” Chino said his tribe also dis agrees with Jemez Pueblo’s at tempt to claim a historical con nection to the land in question. “We believe that the Mescalero Apache have a much greater historical connection to that area of the Southwest,” he said. The Jemez Pueblo is located in northern New Mexico be tween Albuquerque and Santa Fe, along a corridor that already has a number of Indian casinos. U nder the p ro p o sal, the Jemez Pueblo and a Santa Fe developer and art dealer, Gerald Peters, would build a $55 mil lion casino and hotel in Anthony. The plan was shot down in 2008 by the BIA, which said it was too far from the pueblo to gen erate jobs for the tribe. The Obama Administration reopened the request for the Jemez proposal and a handful of other off-reservation casinos last year, but no one seems to know why, Chino said. “Everyone we have talked to hasn’t been able to explain it,” said Chino. “I am at a loss as to why the federal governm ent chose to reopen those. If you go back... they determined it wasn't a viable project for a num ber of reasons. And now the O bam a A dm in istratio n , for whatever reasons, has chosen to take a second look at it... There has to be some kind of push from officials somewhere in the administration to tell the Inte rior Department down to BIA, “let’s do this again, let’s come to a different conclusion. It doesn't pass the smell test.” The BIA did not respond to questions from the Associated Press about the reason for the new review. The governor of the Jemez Pueblo could not be reached. But a spokeswoman for Peters, D enise R am onas, d isputed Chino’s assertions that Peters, rather than the Pueblo, had the most to gain. She cited a June 2008 ruling from the National Indian Gaming Commission that she said found that all the agree ments between the pueblo and Peters complied with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. M any, in c lu d in g Gov. Su san a M artin ez, are c o n cerned about the precedent that would be set if the project is approved. There currently are only five off-reservation casinos in the United States, all of which are within easy com muting distance of the tribes who run them. Salmon canning Preparing fish prior to the canning process are Warner Williams, Josie Williams, instructor Danita Macy, and Jaime Smith (from left). Warm Springs is at 1500-foot elevation so salmon should be in the canner with 12 lbs of pressure for 100 minutes. If you would like more information on salmon canning or would like to participate in upcoming fruit canning classes contact OSU Extension at 541-553-3238. Yvonne Iverson/Spilyay Universities partner to save dying languages ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - Hutke Fields pictures a time when younger generations of Natchez people use his tribe’s Native tongue at ceremonies, while sharing oral histories and during everyday talk at home. But Field’s vision is compli cated by the fact that only six people, out o f about 10,000 members of the Natchez tribe in Oklahoma, still speak the lan guage. “We’ll lose it if we don’t use it,” said Fields, who received as sistance last year during a work shop d ed icated to h elp in g American Indian communities in Oklahoma to bring back dis appearing languages. Fields is a participant in the Breath of Life project—a joint effort by experts from the Uni versity of Texas at Arlington and the University of Oklahoma — in w hich linguists m entor American Indians so they can better recover endangered lan guages. It is modeled after a project at the University of California, Berkeley. “We are growing field lin guists,” said Colleen Fitzgerald, associate professor and chair woman of UT Arlington’s Lin guistics Department. “We are transferring knowledge to com munity members so they can teach their own languages.” The first workshop was held in sum m er 2010 at OU in Norman, Okla., which is also the site o f the Sam Noble Okla- y homa Museum of Natural His tory. Members of three Ameri can Indian communities took part: the O sage, O toe and Natchez. Linguists and American Indi ans will be able to work together again next May. The project re cently got a funding boost that vail allow for a second workshop, Fitzgerald said. The project team received a total of $90,000 in grant money from the National Science Foun dation, an independent federal agency that helps support re search at colleges and universi ties. The grant is spread over two years. Besides training American Indian community members to be linguists on the ground, UT Arlington will be working to cre ate linguistic databases that will ultimately enable the creation of online dictionaries and collec tions of texts in various lan guages, Fitzgerald said. Each community will have a database w hich w ill also be stored in a repository at the Noble museum. Oklahoma was described as a “hot spot” of linguistic diver sity by experts in N ational Geographic’s Enduring Voices Project, said Mary Linn, associ ate curator of American Indian languages at the Noble museum and an associate professor of anthropology at OU. As N orth A m erica was settled by whites, many tribes 'I grieve daily over the loss o f cultural values... ” <c were forced to move to Okla homa. As a result, there is not only a great deal of linguistic diversity, but also high levels of language endangerment, Linn said. The languages grew even more endangered as American Indians assimilated to English- speaking culture that dominates society. “It’s hard to resist shifting to English,” Linn said, adding that many small tribes picked up the languages of larger tribes. Today, language sleuths rely on tribal records, grammar and alp habets that w ere often chronicled by missionaries, mili tary generals and tribes. Presi dent Thomas Jefferson also col lected word lists, Linn said. Fields said the project allowed his community to computerize a dictionary and research. Now, Natchez people in South Caro lina can practice w ith their Natchez friends in Oklahoma. This also allows Natchez histo ries to flow more readily from elders who still tell of their con tributions to America as farm ers expert in corn and beans. Their histories tell of a people displaced from the Gulf Coast and of deaths from influenza that followed early encounters with European explorers. “I grieve daily over the loss of cultural values,” said Fields, principal chief for the tribe. “It takes a com m unity and economy and people who want to preserve.” million to settle lawsuit In its lawsuit, Gaughan OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — T he Tonkawa Tribe of claimed the Tonkawa Tribe Oklahoma has paid $2 mil breached management con lion to a Las Vegas gaming tracts and suspended the management company that com pany’s license without alleged in a lawsuit the tribe cause and in violation of its violated management agree own procedures. In connec m ents w ith the com pany tion with the setdement, the when it took over control of tribe dismissed efforts to sus two tribal casinos in north- pend the gaming licenses of central Oklahoma and barred Gaughan and two key em com pany em ployees from ployees who had previously been cleared of wrongdoing them. Gaughan Gaming, which by the National Indian Gam had managed the Tonkawa ing Commission. Gaughan officials said the Indian Casino in Tonkawa and the tribe's City Lights Ca company operated the Tribe’s sino in N ewkirk near the casinos for more than three Kansas border since 2007, years, making well in excess sued the tribe in March al of $52 million for the tribe. leging that tribal officials forc G aughan’s m anagem ent ibly evicted Gaughan and its agreement said the company employees from the casinos would receive 30 percent of the casinos’ net profits as and took over their control. An attorney for Gaughan, compensation for its services. Gaughan’s contracts with Mike McBride of Tulsa, said last week a settlement agree the tribe were set to expire in ment was reached over the July at the Tonkawa Indian past week in U.S. D istrict Casino and in Septem ber Court in Oklahoma City, be 2012 at Native Lights. John Gaughan, CEO of fore a panel of the Ameri can Arbitration Association the company, said issues that and before the Tonkawa led to the dispute originated Tribal Gaming Commission. with disagreem ents with a “It was unfortunate that couple of tribal leaders. “But we greatly appreci Gaughan had to pursue liti gation and arbitration. But ated the experience of work ultimately Gaughan prevailed ing with the NIGC and help and ju stice p rev aile d ,” ing the peo ple o f the Tonkawa Tribe. We w ish McBride said. An attorney for the tribe, those tribal members nothing Gary Pitchlynn of Norman, but the best in the future,” said the tribe paid far less to Gaughan said. Gaughan under the settle G aughan becam e in m ent agreem ent than the volved with the tribe’s casi com pany w ould have re nos after they were shut down ceived had it continued to by the NIGC in part because manage the casinos. it did not have an approved “I don’t consider it a win management contract to op for G aughan G am ing,” erate the Tonkawa Indian Pitchlynn said. “They essen Casino. G aughan’s law suit tially setded for far less than said the company helped the what they were scheduled to tribe reopen the gaming op erations. make.” He said the casinos have The tribe was fined $1 mil made more money and have lion by the Financial Crimes been maintained better since E nfo rcem ent N etw ork, the tribe hired its own employ which found that large cash ees to manage them. transactions at the Tonkawa The casino management Bingo and Casino were not company’s license was sus reported, as well as evidence pended on Sept. 28, the same that organized crime figures day the tribe ordered com had used the casino and off pany employees out of the track betting operation to casinos. launder money, according to “E veryth in g has been the tribe’s website. The law good since then,” Pitchlynn suit said the tribe was placed on probation. said. 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