I
I 2
Smoke Signals
"Kennewick Man" Remains to go to Five Northwest Indian Tribes
Determination by Interior Secretary
follows two years of scientific examination
of 9,000 year old skeletal remains.
The Department of the Interior
provided its determination of the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers that the
bones of the 9,000 year old human
skeletal remains known as
Kennewick Man be given to the five
Indian Tribes that have collectively
claimed him as their ancient ances
tor. The decision was announced in
a letter from Secretary of the Inte
rior Bruce Babbitt to the Secretary
of the Army Louis Caldera and rep
resents the culmination of a thorough
process of scientific examinations and
investigations.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
currently is responsible for the skel
etal remains, which are now located
at the Burke Museum of Natural
and Cultural History in Seattle.
Under an agreement with the corps,
the Interior Department agreed to
determine the proper disposition of
the remains under the Native Ameri
can Graves Protection and Repatria
tion Act of 1990 (NAGPRA).
"This is a unique case on so many
levels." Babbitt said. "The bones are
of great antiquity and were found in
the shallows of the Columbia River
without an archaeological context.
The Department completed a careful,
detailed series of scientific investiga
tions involving world-class experts to
learn as much as possible. All that
information is now available to any
one, and is posted on the Internet.
After evaluating this complex situa
tion, I believe that it is reasonable to
determine that the Kennewick Man
remains should be transferred to the
Tribes that have jointly claimed him
Tribes that have inhabited, hunted
and fished this area around the
confluence of the Columbia and the
Snake Rivers for millennia."
Secretary Babbitt based his deter
mination on two grounds. First, he
concluded that the remains were cul
turally affiliated with the five Tribes
making a joint claim. "Although
ambiguities in the data made this a
close call, I was persuaded by the
geographic data and oral histories of
the five Tribes that collectively as
sert they are the descendants of
people who have been in the region
of the Upper Columbia Plateau for a
very long time," Babbitt explained.
Second, Secretary Babbitt con
cluded that the land adjacent to the
river shallows where the more than
380 pieces of bone were found scat
tered had been determined by the
Indian Claims Commission to be the
aboriginal land of a number of the
five Tribes that are currently claim
ing the skeletal remains. The land
is currently federal land managed by
county government as Columbia
Park in Kennewick, Washington.
The Department of the Interior
reviewed geographical, kinship, bio
logical, archaeological, anthropologi
cal, linguistic, oral tradition and his
torical information to make this de
termination. All lines of evidence
were deemed equally important.
Pieces of metacarpal and rib bone
were also sent for DNA analysis to
three renowned laboratories: Yale
University, the University of Califor
nia at Davis and the University of
Michigan. None of the laboratories
was able to extract DNA for analysis
due to the antiquity and mineraliza
tion of the more than 9,000 year old
bone.
"Clearly, when dealing with hu
man remains of this antiquity, con
crete evidence is often scanty, and
the analysis of the data can yield
ambiguous, inconclusive of even con
tradictory results," Babbitt said. "We
worked hard to gather and analyze
all information and evidence that
might possibly be relevant and these
investigations and documentation
were essential to my determination.
If the remains had been 3,000 years
old, there would be little debate over
whether Kennewick Man was the
ancestor of the Upper Plateau Tribes.
The line back to 9,000 years, with
relatively little evidence in between,
made the cultural affiliation deter
mination difficult."
The Secretary's determination
would preclude further study of the
remains by the public. His letter and
other accompanying documents, sci
entific expert reports, and radiocar
bon and DNA analysis are available
on the Department of the Interior's
web site, with a web link off the In
terior home page or at http:
www.cr.nps.govaadkennewick.
r,
11
Every elected official at
every level of government
takes an oath to uphold
the U.S. Constitution.
You sometimes wonder
if they have read the
U.S. Constitution."
Elizabeth Furse
Tribes Oppose Sovereignty Challenges
Continued from page 1 -
ernment leaders who question
Tribal sovereignty.
"Every elected official at every
level of government takes an oath
to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
You sometimes wonder if they have
read the U.S. Constitution," she said.
Furse cited Section 6 of the docu
ment, which refers to "all Treaties
made, or which shall be made, un
der the Authority of the United
States, shall be the supreme Law
of the Land; and the Judges in ev
ery State shall be bound thereby,
anything in the Constitution or
Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding."
Stensgar moderated the discus
sion. He chose Rankin for the
panel because the outspoken com
missioner has clashed with Tribal
views from time to time.
For example, Rankin believes
that Tribal members should be re
quired to pay property taxes on
non-Tribal reservation land. But,
Rankin noted, he sided with the
Tribe in opposing a nudist resort
and a railroad-refueling depot.
Audience member Louis Stone, a
Colville Tribal leader, took Rankin
to task for his support of an English-only
ordinance in Kootenai
County, calling it "a personal attack
on our culture." The ordinance was
approved in 1997.
Rankin responded that he is not
opposed to the use of other lan
guages in society, only in govern
ment business. Ballots and drivers'
licenses should not be printed in
multiple languages, he said.
"I advocated official English,"
Rankin responded. "It (the ordi
nance) was directed against immi
grants who refuse to use this lan
guage." Rankin disagreed with Stone's
contention that he was guilty of cul
tural "ethnic cleansing."
On The Net:
Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians: http:www.atni.org
Republicans Attack Process of
Federal Recognition for Tribes
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) The
federal government should stop rec
ognizing American Indian Tribes for
the next six months and investigate
the recognition process, a handful of
Republican House members said re
cently. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn.,
accused the Clinton administration
of letting donations from Tribes and
supporters of Tribal groups influence
the recognition process.
"The administration is playing fast
and loose in this process," Shays said.
He refused to give specifics, though
he accused officials from the Bureau
of Indian Affairs of selectively quot
ing from experts' opinions to support
Tribal recognitions.
"There is a plethora of money that
is coming into play and that is dis
torting the process," Shays said.
Stephanie Hanna, a spokeswoman
with the Department of the Interior,
which oversees the BIA, called Shays'
accusations "absolutely ridiculous."
Since 1980, 15 Tribes have received
BIA recognition and 15 have been
turned down, Hanna said.
"There have been hardly any
Tribes recognized during the Clinton
administration," said Hanna. "And
the ones that have, have gone
through an extensive process."
There are currently 227 Tribes
seeking federal recognition 11 of
which are in Connecticut. The
Paucatuck Easterns and the Eastern
Pequots, both of which claim descent
from the historic Eastern Pequot
Tribe, each recently won preliminary
recognition from the BIA. The fed
eral agency is seeking to determine
if those groups, which share a reser
vation in North Stonington, repre
sent two Tribes or one.
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., said there
should be a six-month moratorium
on recognitions while the process is
investigated.
"I want to make sure the process is
so sound that you can say, whether
you're a member of a Tribe or a mem
ber of the outside community, that
the process was fair," Wolf said.
Once a Tribe gets federal recogni
tion, it can obtain rights to build a
casino.
Wolf said his call for a recognition
moratorium is not related to his op
position to a bid by eight Virginia
Tribes to win federal recognition.
Hanna said a moratorium is use
less because it sometimes takes as
long as three years for a Tribe to be
recognized. However, she said its
likely there will be a few Tribes that
are recognized within the next six
months.
Connecticut Attorney General Ri
chard Blumenthal has also requested
a temporary halt to Tribal recogni
tions, but BIA Director Kevin Gover
told him that a moratorium would be
detrimental to the Indian groups
seeking federal acknowledgment.