NOVEMBER 1, 2000
5
Indian Tribes Reach Agreement on Native Remains
DENVER, CO. (AP) The re
mains of 350 unidentified Indians
stored in the basement of the Colo
rado History Museum for the past
century will be returned to 12 Indian
Tribes, including one in North Da
kota, under an unusual agreement.
Instead of waiting for state mu
seum officials to sort out the identi
ties, the Tribes are working together
to return the remains to their proper
homes, said Ute Mountain Ute Chair
man Ernest House Sr.
"In the Indian world, once the re
mains are not turned back to the
Earth where they came from, there is
a soul that is still out there still wan
dering out on the Plains," he said.
The remains, ranging from skel
etons to bone fragments, represent
Peyote Raid Riles Church
Leader Once Again
SALT LAKE CITY, UT. (AP) - The
leader of a self-described American
Indian church in Spanish Fork said
his church and home were raided by
police wielding a search warrant.
It's the second time in three months
that police in Utah have seized
peyote buttons from a high-ranking
member of the church.
Church leader James Mooney said
up to 15 Utah County sheriff's depu
ties searched the 6-acre Benjamin
complex, home to the Oklevueha
Earth Walks chapter of the Native
American Church.
Mooney was not arrested after the
search. He said police confiscated a
computer and about 12,000 buttons of
peyote, or some 33 pounds, from a
metal vault. Peyote is a hallucinogenic
cactus plant grown in Texas and re
garded as sacred by Indians who use
the buttons during prayer rituals.
According to a copy of the search
warrant, deputies also took waiver
forms for church ceremonies, church
donation slips and a pipe, which
Mooney claims was sacred.
Mooney said "nine-tenths" of the
building searched by police was the
church where he and his members
worship, which also serves as the liv
ing quarters for Mooney, his wife and
seven children.
"This is the most incredible intru
sion on the First Amendment,"
Mooney said. "I kept saying, 'Do you
realize you're on church property?'"
Officials with the Utah County
Sheriffs Office refused comment.
In August, police in Weber County
raided the Ogden home of Nick Stark
and confiscated $10,000 in cash and
3,500 peyote buttons. Stark is a
medicine man who runs the Ogden
chapter of the Oklevueha Church.
Stark was charged with possessing
peyote with the intent to distribute
it, a second-degree felony punishable
by up to 15 years in prison and a
$10,000 fine. He is awaiting trial.
Mooney claims Oklevueha has
thousands of members.
Federal Drug Enforcement Admin
istration regulations state that
peyote use is legal only in "bona fide"
American Indian church ceremonies.
bodies that were discovered during
construction projects, erosion and
farming since Colorado became a
state in 1876, said Lt. Governor Joe
Rogers, who helped broker the agree
ment. The 1990 Native American Grave
Protection and Repatriation Act re
quires remains to be returned to
Tribes, but it imposes strict require
ments on those listed as culturally
unidentifiable to make sure they are
returned to the proper Tribe since
Tribal customs vary.
Museum officials have returned
four sets of skeletal remains over the
past 10 years to the Ute and Pawnee
Tribes.
They have several hundred more
boxes of remains from Pueblo Indi-
CHAMPAIGN, IL. (AP) Ameri
can Indian activists demanding the
University of Illinois do away with
its Chief Illiniwek symbol and mas
cot demonstrated outside Memorial
Stadium recently, trying to persuade
football fans filing in for the Home
coming game against Iowa to join
their cause.
Some fans stopped to poke fun at
the protesters while others tried to
shout down their prayers. '
The protest came three days before
the university's Board of Trustees ex
pects to receive a report from a re
tired judge hired to examine the con
troversy surrounding the chief.
American Indians, as well as some
professors and students, consider the
Chief Illiniwek character portrayed by
a university student as racist and de
meaning. They want the university
to do away with both the character
and the nickname Fighting Illini.
Other students, alumni and top
university officials maintain Chief
Illiniwek honors the school's tradition
and the state's Native residents.
George Two Eagles drove 12 hours
from Asheville, N.C., recently to dis-
ans who lived hundreds of years ago
in southwest Colorado that will not
be covered by the agreement. Those
will remain in a special vault in the
museum basement.
Other Tribes signing the agree
ment included the Northern Utes,
the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes
of Oklahoma, the Comanche Tribe of
Oklahoma, the Fort Sill Apache Tribe,
the Kiowa of Oklahoma, the North
ern Cheyenne, the Northern Ute, the
Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, the
Oglala Sioux, the Rosebud Sioux,
and the Three Affiliated Tribes of
North Dakota, the Mandan, Hidatsa
and Ankara. All of the Tribes passed
through Colorado at one time or an
other. The Tribes hope to have a ceremony
next spring to turn over the remains
for burial, House said.
They plan to identify all the re
mains before burying them, a task
that could be difficult since DNA test
ing requires a distant relative, and
the Tribes are not sure where to start.
Nationwide, some 14,000 human
remains have been returned to
Tribes under the 1990 law out of
200,000 that had been identified
nationally as of last year.
On the Net:
Museum: http:coloradohistory.orgcolorgdohistorymuseum
Protest Outside University of Illinois Stadium
pel that notion. He said UI's chief is
the mos offensive of the American
Indian mascots used by colleges.
The young student, dressed in Na
tive garb, dances across the football
field at halftime.
"The mascot is not the most serious
issue facing us, but we've got to start
with basic human dignity," George
Two Eagles said.
Jim Maasberg, a Columbia resident
with two children studying at Illinois,
said a recent demonstration was rude
and inappropriate.
"They're doing more detriment to
their own good," Maasberg said.
Asked whether he believed the chief
was racist, Maasberg shook his head
and said, "No, it's an honor."
Vernon Bellecourt, Executive Direc
tor of the National Coalition on Rac
ism in Sports and Media, said Ameri
can Indians get to decide what's an
honor and what's an insult.
Bellecourt's group, which led simi
lar demonstrations against profes
sional teams such as baseball's At
lanta Braves and Cleveland Indians,
organized the Homecoming prayer
and pipe ceremony.
"We're here to remind you that
we're offended by racism in sports,"
Bellecourt said. "We refuse to have
our culture degraded for your fun
and games."
The protesters have been here be
fore, and the university is engaged
in a yearlong discussion of the issue.
The Board of Trustees hired retired
Cook County Judge Louis Garippo to
gather information and report back
to them. The school also invited people
on all sides to write or otherwise share
their views regarding the chief.
The judge is expected to deliver his
report to the trustees this week and
then to present it at a public meet
ing next month. The report will be
posted on UI's web site (http:
www.uiuc.edu) as soon as trustees
have received their copies.
Garippo has said he will not offer
recommendations, but the activists
outside Memorial Stadium said they
believe the report is another step to
ward retiring the chief.
Several people at the protest were
wearing T-shifts suggesting a re
placement team name and symbol
the Illinois Prairie Fire.
Virtual Gaming Could be the Wave of the Future
Conference in Las Vegas,
f '' C! f ' J1' '. , Nevada attracted people
f i ' S ' 0 IT. from all over the globe
"r '. ' " m'V , ira this year. People with
J;') v (iJ , V . tsa an interest in gaming
VH1- ,5 1 - ! ,:7I-V . mzn came from throughout
- - m si i i" - - ac;a the United States,
y I f I 111' - S Canada, Central and
I II 'A if ul T oi South America, France,
Vx ' C . J j J ' Austria, Monaco and
f I V- 80 Japan
' r. i , , Pictured here is a
j " virtual Blackjack game
f i!i I f ' that was just one of
Zr' '., the many new gaming
fr-T options featured at
v".,";., the conference.
I ",-C2!lrp I photo by Brent Merrill