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NATIVE AMERICAN GRAVES PROTECTION AND REPATRIATION
REVIEW COMMITTEE MEETING
NOVEMBER 1, 2 & 3, 1996
MYRTLE BEACH, SC
VOLUME 2
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1996
(Note: Software updated in October 2010. While content remains unchanged, formatting (to include transcript appearance and page numbers) may differ from original.)
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 2
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 3
NATIVE AMERICAN GRAVES PROTECTION AND REPATRIATION
REVIEW COMMITTEE MEETING
8:30 a.m.
Saturday, November 2, 1996 Lopez Room
Sands Ocean Club
Myrtle Beach, SC
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Ms. Tessie Naranjo, Chair
Ms. Rachel Craig
Mr. Jonathan Haas
Mr. Lawrence Hart
Mr. Daniel L. Monroe
Mr. Martin Sullivan
Mr. Phillip L. Walker
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS REVIEW AGENDA - TESSIE NARANJO ...... 6
DISPUTE OVER AN ONEIDA WAMPUM BELT ...... 7 MARTIN SULLIVAN ...... 7 ONEIDA NATION OF WISCONSIN ...... 9 DEBORAH DOXTATOR ...... 9 ANOKI SCHUYLER ...... 10 LEANDER DANFORTH ...... 10 BRUCE ELIJAH ...... 10 DEBORAH DOXTATOR ...... 15 BRUCE ELIJAH ...... 18 CAROL CORNELIUS ...... 26 MICHAEL LOKENSGARD ...... 39 DEBORAH DOXTATOR ...... 42 BRUCE ELIJAH ...... 42 FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ...... 48 RICHARD KOONTZ ...... 48 BREAK ...... 61
DISPUTE OVER AN ONEIDA WAMPUM BELT - CONTINUED ...... 61 ONEIDA NATION OF NEW YORK ...... 61 MICHAEL SMITH ...... 61 KELLER GEORGE ...... 73 BRIAN PATTERSON ...... 79 LEANDER DANFORTH ...... 82 MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ...... 82 LUNCH ...... 128
SPECIAL INVITATION TO THE COMMITTEE FROM THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY ...... 129 DEANNA J. KERRIGAN, PROGRAM OFFICER ...... 129 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STATUTE IN THE SOUTHEAST PRESENTATIONS ...... 134 BILL DAY ...... 134 ROLAND PONCHO ...... 151 MICHAEL HANEY ...... 153 BREAK ...... 183
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STATUTE IN THE SOUTHEAST PRESENTATIONS - CONTINUED ...... 183 JOYCE BEAR ...... 183 BOBBY C. BILLIE ...... 190
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 5
SHANNON LARSEN ...... 192 BOBBY C. BILLIE ...... 197 NADINE HORNE ...... 206 JONATHAN LEADER ...... 221 PUBLIC COMMENT ...... 232 RICHARD EDWARDS ...... 232 SHANNON LARSEN ...... 236 DAVID JUMPER ...... 238 BILL DAY ...... 242 SHANNON LARSEN ...... 242 BOBBY C. BILLIE ...... 244 NADEMA AGARD ...... 247 RICHARD EDWARDS ...... 255 NADEMA AGARD ...... 257 MEETING RECESS ...... 267
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 6
1 REVIEW AGENDA - TESSIE NARANJO
2 TESSIE NARANJO: This morning's agenda is the
3 Oneida dispute over the wampum belt. What I'd like
4 to do is ask Jonathan Haas to excuse yourself from
5 the panel.
6 JONATHAN HAAS: But I'm here.
7 TESSIE NARANJO: But you're here. I'd also
8 like to mention that the order that you see on the
9 agenda is the order that the--that the testimony
10 will--will take place: first of all is the Oneida
11 Nation of Wisconsin, second is the Field Museum of
12 Natural History, third the Oneida Nation of New
13 York, and then after that discussion by members of
14 the Review Committee.
15 What I'd also like to say next is that I have
16 asked Marty Sullivan, one of the Repatriation Review
17 Committee members--or the NAGPRA Review Committee
18 members to be in charge of this morning's session.
19 So I will now turn over the--this portion of--of the
20 dispute to Marty Sullivan.
21 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Frank.
22 FRANK MCMANAMON: Thank you. Thank you, Martin
23 and Madam Chair. If I could just--just two
24 administrative issues for the--the Committee and the
25 members of the public who are here. Once again, as
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 7
1 we've been reminding people or asking people
2 throughout the meeting for--for members of the
3 public who are here if you wouldn't mind signing in.
4 If you didn't sign in, if sometime during the--the
5 morning or the afternoon you could sign in at the
6 back table so we have a record of who attended the
7 meetings.
8 And again to remind the members of the public
9 that this is a--an open public meeting of the Review
10 Committee set up by the Secretary of the Interior to
11 help with the implementation of--of NAGPRA, and the
12 Committee is conducting its business in public. But
13 by and large, the--the dialogue and the exchange or
14 communication occurs between the Committee and
15 between the Committee and the people who will be
16 making presentations today. Thank you.
17 DISPUTE OVER AN ONEIDA WAMPUM BELT
18 MARTIN SULLIVAN
19 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Thank you, Frank. I think
20 everyone is aware that the issue for presentation to
21 the Committee this morning is one which involves a
22 number of parties and goes back a number of years.
23 And it has to do with the current custody and a
24 claim initially made by the Oneida Nation of New
25 York and then contested by the Oneida Tribe of
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 8
1 Wisconsin regarding a wampum belt which is currently
2 held at the Field Museum in Chicago.
3 Our intention this morning is for the members
4 of the Committee to have the benefit of
5 presentations by each of the parties to this
6 dispute. And as Tessie Naranjo has said, there is
7 no inherent logic or bias or prejudice intended in
8 the sequence of the presentations. That is the way
9 in which the agenda went out and was constructed.
10 It will give us an opportunity to hear from all
11 parties.
12 It's our preference as a Committee to ask each
13 of the parties to make a presentation in sequence
14 before we ask individual questions of the claimants
15 or the parties. And there--a time will come,
16 therefore, toward the end of the morning when it is
17 very likely that members of the Committee will have
18 questions for all of the parties, so that we may
19 have something like a dialogue. But it is equally
20 clear that the matter under consideration is one
21 that's very important to all parties, and it has
22 certainly necessitated on your part a tremendous
23 effort of research and concern as well as the
24 expense and difficulty of getting here to this
25 meeting, which the members of the Committee fully
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 9
1 understand and appreciate. It's a serious matter.
2 We will give it our very serious attention and hope
3 that the conclusions that we might reach, the
4 findings that we might share will be of value to all
5 of the parties. We do this in the spirit of trying
6 to bring us all together to be of one mind, if that
7 is possible.
8 The sequence then will be to begin with the
9 Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. And the agenda allots
10 approximately one hour for presentation. And so the
11 Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin, if you--whoever will be
12 initiating that presentation, if you'll come forward
13 and identify yourself.
14 ONEIDA NATION OF WISCONSIN
15 DEBORAH DOXTATOR
16 DEBORAH DOXTATOR: Good morning, Committee
17 members. My name is Deborah Doxtator. I'm the
18 Chairwoman for the Oneida Tribe of Indians of
19 Wisconsin. And I'd like to extend our greetings to
20 you this morning. I would like to start by
21 introducing an elder from our community this
22 morning, Anoki Schuyler who has escorted me to this
23 meeting to serve as an interpreter of our language.
24 And he is going to do some introductions for our
25 party and then we will proceed into our
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 10
1 presentation. Anoki.
2 ANOKI SCHUYLER
3 ANOKI SCHUYLER: (Native American language.)
4 Thank you.
5 LEANDER DANFORTH
6 LEANDER DANFORTH: (Native American language.)
7 BRUCE ELIJAH
8 BRUCE ELIJAH: Good morning. We bring--we
9 bring greetings to you from my peoples, the Clan
10 Mothers of my Nations. We are matriarchal society.
11 We bring greetings in a sense that we say that we
12 still follow those traditions, that culture that was
13 given to us at the beginning of time. There is
14 distinct areas and places where we still call those
15 rivers by the language that is given to us by the
16 Creator. We can still sing and honor the trees and
17 the winged ones, our relatives, our brothers and
18 sisters, the relatives. And we can still say that
19 the medicines, the plants, the trees, that in our
20 area we can honor them. We can sing to them. We
21 can bring to them those songs that was given to us,
22 when there was a time that we were able to
23 communicate with that life.
24 I just want to say that this young lady is
25 coming around and smudging. In our ways, when we
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 11
1 talk about creation is that this is the first things
2 that we do. And by smudging is that it reminds of
3 our--of our existence as human beings because we
4 were the last ones. And so, every time we come
5 together, this is one of the first things that we
6 do. And so we want to share that with you. We hope
7 that you can take that in, and--and it will take
8 away any problems or--or maybe a burden that you may
9 be pulling or pushing or carrying. It will take
10 that away.
11 And maybe at this point in time, we can say
12 that within our greetings is that we greet you. We
13 can still do that. We can greet each other in the
14 most honorable way. And that is to remind ourselves
15 that as human beings there was instructions that was
16 given to us in the same way that Leander mentioned
17 this morning, we greet each other. And it's ironic
18 here we're at the East Coast, you know, where
19 everything began to change for us.
20 And in the same way, we can still stand here
21 and say, greetings, greetings to that culture, that
22 Western civilization that came to us. Still in
23 here, with all of the atrocities that we have gone
24 through, we can still do it in a good way and in a
25 good mind that we can remind ourselves as the sun
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1 rises from the East that that is our eldest brother.
2 We can say that we're still honorable people. We
3 can still say that we're following the instructions
4 that was given to us. We can still say that we're
5 carrying out the instructions in the ways that we
6 are supposed to look after the future generations,
7 the seventh generations.
8 We can still say that, in our language, we can
9 say that in our teachings and in our ceremonies we
10 still have our Indian names, our (Native American
11 language) names, our real names, that there are some
12 of us that don't need a number because we know who
13 we are in Creation. And as we stand here, we hold
14 the wampum so that we know that the peoples that
15 we've come to meet will know who we are. We can
16 still say to Creation, as the sun is our witness,
17 from the beginning of time, that we can still
18 acknowledge all of the life forces.
19 And so we greet you, again. We come together
20 again, and we can say that, hopefully, all is well
21 with you. We hope that your families, your
22 relatives, your communities, and your nations of
23 people who you represent is in a good way. And if
24 not, then maybe we can share with you how it is to
25 feel good about our ways and our teachings and those
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1 ways which was given to us when Creation was given,
2 that we all are interconnected and interrelated, and
3 that we live as a family, that we--in our teachings,
4 it's inclusive; it's not exclusive.
5 We are a society where there is no class
6 society, as we know that those who came across the
7 waters lived in a class society. If there was ever
8 a time when you see when your people seen a utopia,
9 this was the place, where people lived in harmony
10 with all of life. And to this day, we still follow
11 those instructions. And hopefully, that as we come
12 here, we can share that with you, to feel good,
13 because every person, I don't think would want to
14 deny that, a feeling good and feeling at peace with
15 oneself.
16 And so we come here and we ask those Creations,
17 all of those gifts that is given to us, to be able
18 to have that good mind, to be able to clean your
19 eyes so that you can see. You can see where you've
20 come from, you can see where you're at, and you can
21 see where you need to go or where you should go or
22 where you want to go.
23 And also we say we clean your ears so that you
24 can hear, not only hear of each other as we speak to
25 each other, but to be able to hear our ancestors and
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1 what was--what they told us; those stories, those
2 legends. And how we are to--and not only told us
3 but they showed us. And to this day, we can show
4 that. We can demonstrate that. It's as if it
5 happened yesterday. And to be able to have that
6 opportunity to be able to share that with our young
7 ones and to be able to share that with grandchildren
8 and, hopefully, that we can have a vision of the
9 seventh generation into the future, that we can
10 still do that.
11 And we say to you that, as we drink that cold
12 water, the very things of life that all life needs
13 to survive, and as you take that first gulp of that
14 water, it will clean your throat so that for many of
15 us there's pain right here, right across here.
16 (Indicating.) It hurts us to speak of honesty. We
17 hope that it will clear that for you, so that you'll
18 be able to speak from the heart. For many of us, we
19 say our--our heads are detached from our bodies. We
20 can't feel.
21 So we smudged this morning so that you can feel
22 what you see. You can feel with what--with how you
23 speak. You can feel with what you hear. And so we
24 want to do that this morning with you. (Native
25 American language.)
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 15
1 DEBORAH DOXTATOR
2 DEBORAH DOXTATOR: On behalf of the Oneida
3 Nation of Wisconsin, I am honored to have the
4 opportunity to address the National Review Committee
5 on a matter of utmost importance to the Oneida
6 people: the repatriation of the Oneida Nation belt.
7 I appreciate the commitment and effort that each of
8 the members of the Committee has made to realizing
9 the goals and objectives of the Native American
10 Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
11 Through your review of the information
12 submitted by the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and the
13 Oneida Indian Nation of New York, you have
14 undoubtedly become aware of the differences which
15 unfortunately exist among the Oneida people. As we
16 have stated in our previous submissions to the
17 Committee, the belt is best thought of as the
18 property of the entire Oneida Nation, of which both
19 the Wisconsin and New York communities are members.
20 All Oneida people can trace their ancestors
21 back to--to a time when a single, unified Oneida
22 Nation occupied a portion of what is now central New
23 York State. Unfortunately, however, that nation has
24 been truly unified--has not been truly unified since
25 the early 19th Century. Internal divisions, as well
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1 as enormous pressure for removal in the face of
2 westward expansion by both the State of New York and
3 the United States, led to the separation of the
4 Oneida people into three communities located in
5 Wisconsin, New York, and Ontario, Canada.
6 Through your review of our submissions, you are
7 also undoubtedly aware that the three Oneida
8 communities are currently embroiled in a land claim
9 controversy which has been in the United States
10 courts for decades. We have won-- We have won
11 important victories in that effort. However, a
12 settlement acceptable to all parties has yet to be
13 reached.
14 It should be emphasized that we are not here
15 today to discuss land claims, nor is our claim for
16 the wampum belt motivated by our efforts to settle
17 our land claim. Our claim for the wampum belt
18 arises instead out of our identity as Oneida people
19 and the belt's central role to our heritage and
20 culture. We do not, and we cannot, dispute that the
21 Oneida Nation belt is also important to the Oneida
22 Nation of New York. We would submit, however, that
23 the belt is most closely identified with our
24 community for reasons included in the submissions
25 previously made to the Committee.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 17
1 We would like to take this opportunity to try
2 to add what additional information we can to the
3 record and specifically address some of the
4 contentions made by the Oneida Nation of New York in
5 their October 24th and October 29th submissions to
6 the Committee. The contentions can basically be
7 broken down into two categories: those having to do
8 with our identity as Oneida people and those having
9 to do with the particular wampum belt in question.
10 Our presentation today is an effort to do both of
11 those.
12 I would like to ask the other members of our
13 party at this point to stand and--and introduce
14 themselves to the Committee, and then I'll--I'll
15 give you a brief overview of the rest of the
16 contents of our presentation.
17 My name is (Native American name) and I am a
18 part of the On^yote?a⋅ka Nation. If those other
19 members of our party would please stand and
20 introduce themselves.
21 LLOYD SCUTTER: My name is Lloyd Scutter. My
22 Oneida name is (Native American name).
23 FRANCIS SKENANDOA: My name is Francis
24 Skenandoa.
25 LEANDER DANFORTH: Leander Danforth (portion of
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1 tape inaudible.)
2 AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Portion of tape inaudible.)
3 AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Portion of tape inaudible.)
4 MICHAEL LOKENSGARD: My name is Michael
5 Lokensgard. I am (Native American language), chief
6 of the Bear Clan, (portion of tape inaudible).
7 AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Portion of tape inaudible.)
8 DEBORAH DOXTATOR: Thank you. After my
9 presentation, we will have a presentation by Bruce
10 Elijah on the origin of the wampum from a cultural
11 and heritage standpoint. And following him will be
12 Dr. Carol Cornelius, who will give a historical
13 presentation of the wampum belt and its history and
14 how it had traveled to Wisconsin. And then finally,
15 we'll have a legal presentation by Attorney Mike
16 Lokensgard on the legal issues related to the
17 repatriation of the wampum belt. And then we'll
18 have some closing remarks, and that will be the
19 conclusion of our presentation. Thank you.
20 BRUCE ELIJAH
21 BRUCE ELIJAH: It is told to us in our
22 teachings of how the wampum came about. It is told
23 to us that as our peoples came together before the
24 contact, it was because our population was growing.
25 There need to be some kind of ways of how we--of how
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1 we communicated with our communities in the areas
2 of--of where our peoples lived. To give you an
3 example, I guess, you take the whole eastern coast
4 up to the southern part of James
5 Bay and then on down to what is now the--the
6 beginning or the head waters of the Mississippi and
7 on down and halfway down to--to this area and back
8 to the coast again. That's the influence that our
9 people had. That was our territories.
10 And again, I want to say that, you know, we're
11 noted as a people who--when we say Iroquois, that
12 was terrible people, you know. When you say (Native
13 American language) or how we--how we introduce
14 ourselves as Haudenosaunee, the People of the
15 Longhouse--what it says and what it depicts in the
16 history books is this terrible people, awful people.
17 Yet, if you listen to the Haudenosaunee, the
18 influence that they had was they didn't have to do
19 away with anybody because there is some things that,
20 I guess, is not so much a diversity, it's the things
21 that we had in common, and the things that we have
22 in common is our love for the land.
23 And so, we needed something that would signify
24 and show who we were and the message that we
25 would--that we could bring with each other. And so
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1 the wampum was made, and they says it was from the
2 seashell, the clam, the purple one. And some of
3 them had a little tinge of--of white in it. And
4 depending on the colors was in the meanings as to
5 what they were supposed to be.
6 We say (Native American language). (Native
7 American language) is what we use to identify that
8 we bring a message. And how we came to each other's
9 territories--like I say, there was many nations--is
10 that we would build a fire. And we would set our
11 condolence cane between two sticks and begin to set
12 out the wampums, the message that we bring.
13 Sometimes it took for days to explain what that was.
14 But it was all in goodness as to how we come
15 together.
16 And how do we--how do we look at the sun? How
17 do we address to the waters? How do we address to
18 the land? The land, in our language, we say (Native
19 American language). What that means is "Our
20 Mother." And She provides all the things that we
21 need to do. If we're hungry, She gives us. If
22 we're sick, there's the medicines.
23 And if we need to, when we're deep in thought,
24 to think as to who we are, then we can go to the
25 mountains, we can go by the water. We can go to the
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1 plains, to the fields, to open fields. We can go
2 into the woods to find that peace, that safe place.
3 And that's where everyone of you can do that too. I
4 know that as a child he would be able to do that.
5 You know of a place where you went to where no one
6 else would listen to you. And then the songs that
7 came with that.
8 And so in the same way, we began to say, well,
9 we need to record our history. And Leander said
10 this morning is that our history is recorded also in
11 the stars and the heavens. Those are the ones that
12 weren't able to give us that message because it is
13 told to us that every child that comes into this
14 world carries a message. So as we know that some of
15 those ones leave early, go back. But that's where
16 they are is the stars in the heavens. We have what
17 we call the Seven Dancers, or the Big Dipper, which
18 tells us when to do our ceremonies.
19 And so in the same way is we--we began to
20 understand the stars and the heavens, that in the
21 same way maybe we can take the symbolism of that and
22 begin to put it in the wampum, so that we can carry;
23 we can touch; we can feel; we can see it; we can
24 record our history of our peoples. And the reason
25 why we use that is because if it burns, well, you
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1 know, you know what happens to paper. That, we'll
2 just have to restring it.
3 And so, when they come into contact, they wrote
4 many papers, and I want to say that also is that
5 when they found out that there was some significant
6 meaning to these wampums, you know, the new
7 settlers, they decided that they were going to make
8 lots of wampum belts too, and try to duplicate as
9 they did with our constitution. We are the
10 foundation of democracy. We gave to the world
11 democracy; for the people, by the people. And so
12 the wampum belts do that.
13 But I want to take it a little bit closer to
14 what the wampums mean. It's not an object. It's
15 not an it. You cannot put a price tag on it. It
16 doesn't belong to the person who made it. It
17 doesn't belong to the few individuals who were
18 there. It belongs to all of the peoples.
19 And we refer to it in the same way as we say
20 that those life forces out there are our brothers
21 and our sisters, because in all of life there is
22 female and male. And among you is, in the same way
23 of this belt, is our Grandmother. Our Grandmother
24 is there who has the patience, who has seen many
25 winters, has experienced life to hold that child.
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1 You know how that little baby, sometimes no matter
2 what we do, that baby cries. But soon as the
3 grandmother holds that baby here to the heart in a
4 very short time-- And that's what that wampum is
5 supposed to do to us, with us. It's supposed to
6 give us that feeling of security. It's supposed to
7 give us that feeling of--of that we're safe; we're
8 in a good place; we're in a healthy place. And so
9 that's the reason why they went after--they went
10 after that.
11 They took away our Grandmother. They took away
12 our grandfathers. And you see that in our
13 communities now. We have old people's homes; you
14 know, you split them; you take them away from the
15 family. You take the children; you put them in day
16 care centers, you know. You break the family up.
17 Our wampum doesn't do that. Our wampum is
18 inclusive. That is in those shapes of the squares.
19 They interconnect; they interrelate. In the center
20 of that is the heart, and that's the heart in here.
21 And so for many years, we could only hear the
22 words because we could not see. I want to say to
23 you that it wasn't until a few years ago that I get
24 to see the wampum belt. In here, (indicating), it
25 was in here, embedded in here through the stories
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1 and the legends that they told. And they always
2 said, someday, maybe you will be able to go and find
3 our Grandmother.
4 And so I guess we ask you is that, are you
5 taking care of our Grandmother? Do you know the
6 songs that need to be sung? Do you know the words
7 that she needs to hear? Are you going to deprive
8 her of her grandchildren? And there are so many of
9 our peoples who wait for that time when that
10 Grandmother comes home, as with our children. We're
11 fighting in our communities and our regions to bring
12 our children home through the system. Through your
13 system, it was taken away from us where we don't
14 have any say as to how we are interrelate, to be a
15 family as one. And we know the stories of how that
16 came about, the atrocities, the conniving, all of
17 those things that was told to us that that's what
18 would happen. We were foretold.
19 But again, we come into this time and to say
20 we're willing. We're willing, and there's still
21 time. There's still time that we can clean our
22 ears, clean our eyes, clean our throats. There's
23 still time. We feel that there is. There is hope.
24 So the wampum belts means a lot to us. In the
25 treaties and agreements, since we were not the ones
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1 that--that said we wanted treaties. You have to
2 understand that treaties came about because of
3 encroachments on our land. When you said share the
4 land, we knew what that was. Like I say, we gave
5 that. You say share the wealth, we knew what that
6 was because that's what we did, because you did not
7 find anybody hungry. You did not find anybody sick.
8 You did not find anybody neglected. The history,
9 your history, will tell that also.
10 And so we come into that time again where we
11 say we have an opportunity here to bring--if there
12 was ever anything that was going to help to bring
13 peace to--not only to our peoples, to the world, to
14 fulfill that, then this is the time. We're willing
15 again to share that. But first we need to take care
16 of her. We need to sing to her. We need to talk to
17 her. We need to tell her that we never forgot. We
18 need to tell her honestly that there was things that
19 prevented us from achieving, but our paths will meet
20 again.
21 So with that, I want to say that that's
22 the--that's how we look at the wampum. And there
23 will be many more, and there will be many more to
24 come, because we will continue as a nation, as a
25 people, because there is a need in this time. There
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1 is nobody that can sit here that can say that we
2 don't need peace in our lands or throughout the
3 world. We believe that we have the answer because
4 that was our instructions. Hau.
5 CAROL CORNELIUS
6 CAROL CORNELIUS: (Native American language.)
7 My English name is Dr. Carol Cornelius, and my part
8 of the presentation is to present you a summary of a
9 document that we submitted called "The Oneida Nation
10 of Wisconsin, Cultural Continuity and Historical
11 Documentation." And we also presented a 70-page
12 chronology.
13 The Oneida tribal belt was created shortly
14 after the Revolutionary War to--to solidify the
15 reunification of the Haudenosaunee people. The belt
16 and seven original treaties were entrusted to the
17 care of Elijah Skenandoa, Turtle Clan chief (portion
18 of tape inaudible). The belt was brought to
19 Wisconsin by Elijah Skenandoa. Very clearly
20 discussions and decisions, major decisions, were
21 made by our--by our Oneida ancestors at that point
22 in time to entrust him to bring those to Wisconsin.
23 We can speculate that the possession of the belt and
24 the treaties in Wisconsin ensured our continuing
25 identity as Oneidas and our entitlement to treaty
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 27
1 annuities.
2 Historically, these were times of uncertainty,
3 and major decisions had to be made to ensure our
4 survival. Elijah Skenandoa faithfully honored his
5 responsibility as a Keeper of the Wampum to take
6 care of the belt and the treaties. He refused
7 offers from collectors and from the State Historical
8 Society. He would not loan them the belt. He
9 wouldn't sell the belt for any amount of money.
10 Several documents attest to the Oneida tribal
11 belt's acquisition in Wisconsin. First, it said
12 that the grandson of Elijah Skenandoa supposedly
13 sold the belt. The collector Wyman had been
14 observing the belt for at least ten years. And when
15 first seen, it was in the hands of the old chief,
16 along with the old buckskin bag, silver pipe, and
17 the seven treaties.
18 A quote from the Wyman accession records says,
19 "These articles form the chain of evidence of the
20 absolute authenticity of the Oneida belt as a Six
21 Nation Council belt, without which no session could
22 be held." Attempts were made by the purchaser during
23 the lifetime of the chief to obtain this belt from
24 him but he resisted all offers and said that 500
25 dollars would not buy the belt. The Wisconsin
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 28
1 necrology series also placed the treaties in the
2 post office at Oneida, and bequeathed the treaties
3 and the belt to Charles Cornelius, who through
4 genealogical research appears not to exist.
5 Next, we have--there are two articles in the
6 Brown County Democrat. On January 21st, 1898, in
7 the safe at the post office at the Oneida
8 Reservation had been found the original copies of
9 seven treaties. On September 2nd, 1904, there's a
10 newspaper article that says, "There is great
11 excitement and tribulation among the Oneida on their
12 Indian reservation," says the (portion of tape
13 inaudible), "the fact having finally leaked out
14 among them that their cherished relic, their famous
15 wampum belt, has been taken from them and is now in
16 a Chicago museum. Every possible effort has been
17 made to keep from the great body of Oneida Indians
18 knowledge of the fact that this greatest treasure of
19 this once powerful Indian tribe, one of the Five
20 Great Nations, had disappeared from the reservation.
21 But now the facts are out. The Indians are highly
22 indignant. The wampum belt of the Oneidas,
23 magnificent in its composition and exquisite in its
24 workmanship, has always been in the keeping of the
25 hereditary chief of the tribe. All efforts to have
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 29
1 and even loan it to the Wisconsin State Historical
2 Society proved unavailing. The last hereditary
3 chief was the venerable Skenandoa, who died a few
4 years ago. It is said that shortly before his
5 death, he entrusted the belt to an old relative, a
6 squaw, with instructions to keep it under a
7 successor--until a successor to him had been
8 elected. This was done. The present chief is
9 Cornelius Hill."
10 The article tells how the collector heard about
11 Skenandoa's death and quickly drove from Chicago and
12 obtained the belt and the seven treaties. The
13 article tells then the Oneidas were very upset and
14 were going to meet to discuss this situation.
15 The treaties and the belt were separated at
16 some point because the--the belt was purchased by
17 Wyman in Wisconsin and placed in the Field Museum
18 and the treaties are in the Newberry Library in the
19 Ayer collection.
20 There is a Field Museum catalog which states
21 "People: Iroquois, Oneida, Locality: New York." It
22 may well be that the person who filled out this card
23 knew of Oneidas only from New York; didn't know
24 there were Oneidas in Wisconsin.
25 The lengthy written description from the Wyman
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 30
1 accession record clearly states Wyman saw this belt
2 in the possession of Chief Skenandoa in Wisconsin
3 and had tried to purchase it at an earlier date.
4 There seems to be conflicting reports surrounding
5 where the belt actually went and how it was
6 obtained, but we do know that Wyman did obtain it.
7 Our goal is to have the Oneida tribal belt
8 returned to the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. The
9 belt has great cultural significance and is an
10 object of cultural patrimony, as are all wampum
11 belts. The decision was made by our ancestors to
12 bring the belt to Wisconsin, and today we honor that
13 decision of our ancestors. There is no
14 documentation at any point in history that anyone
15 protested the belt and the treaties coming to
16 Wisconsin. Therefore, we must assume this was an
17 agreed-upon decision by the Oneida leaders of that
18 period.
19 Our cultural continuity as Oneidas can be
20 examined by documenting the continuance of our
21 culture through our--certainly, as you have heard,
22 through our language, through our government, our
23 ceremonies, our schools, our family systems, and our
24 land base. We continue to govern ourselves under
25 the chiefs council system after we moved to
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1 Wisconsin. This is a consensus decision-making
2 process. Our land base was defined in an 1838
3 treaty, which our chief signed. Even though our
4 lands were allotted in 1892, we maintain the
5 original boundaries. Our ceremonies and our
6 medicine doings continue to be held. And they had
7 to go underground, as is the history of many Indian
8 nations across this country, because of church
9 disapproval. People--our elders tell us about this.
10 We have it in our oral tradition.
11 In the 1970s was the first time when we started
12 to revive our traditional longhouse and
13 re-established it. And now we conduct our
14 ceremonies. We have the whole cycle of ceremonies
15 and do them every year. We have six faith keepers,
16 who have been acknowledged by the Chiefs Council of
17 the Thames. The Oneida language continues to be
18 spoken in our community to the present day. Our
19 Nation has invested and supported the continued
20 preservation of our language as a national priority.
21 We have established our own school system, which
22 incorporates the culture and language in the
23 curriculum on an even basis with academics. Our
24 high school student council operates on the clan
25 system. We offer cultural management courses for
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 32
1 our employees.
2 Historical documents illustrate that upon the
3 move to Wisconsin we continued to plant corn, beans,
4 and squash; (Native American language), our
5 sustainers, the Three Sisters. And we continue to
6 do that to this day. We have our traditional foods.
7 We have established the Oneida Cultural
8 Heritage Department, which offers language and
9 culture classes to all employees. We highly value
10 the extended values system and promote our values
11 throughout the nation.
12 When we moved to Wisconsin, we did not change
13 our government. In a 19--or 1834 letter to Colonel
14 Boyd, a U.S. Indian agent, there was a request for a
15 school for educating the children. It was signed by
16 the chiefs of the Oneida Tribe: Elijah Skenandoa,
17 Henry Powlis, Adam Swamp, Cornelius Stevens, Neddy
18 Atsiguet, Cornelius Beard, Thomas King, Daniel
19 William, and Daniel Bread.
20 From this letter, we can propose that the
21 Oneidas of Wisconsin continued the Council of Nine
22 Chiefs as it had been in New York. The selection of
23 the chiefs may have changed to follow the pine tree
24 chief process, which recognized leaders with--on
25 their demonstrated abilities and influence.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 33
1 However, we did find a 1921 photo of Oneida,
2 Wisconsin, clan mothers. So there appears to have
3 been a mixture of both the hereditary system and the
4 pine tree system of selecting chiefs. But we did
5 continue to govern by chiefs.
6 Overall, we have documented the names of 40
7 Oneida chiefs who served our people in Wisconsin
8 between 1822 to 1936. These chiefs made all
9 governmental decisions relating to the issues facing
10 Oneida people in Wisconsin. We were obviously
11 recognized by the U.S. Government because we
12 continued to receive our annuity payments when we
13 made--signed the 1838 treaty.
14 Since 1822, there are continuous documents
15 that--and consistent records which record the
16 signatures of Oneida chiefs on annuity payments,
17 treaties, letters to Indian agents, correspondence
18 to local government officials, and church documents.
19 There is evidence that we experimented with other
20 forms of government but rejected them and returned
21 to the chiefs council system.
22 In 1925, during the Minnie Kellogg era, the
23 Onondagas came to Oneida, Wisconsin, to reinstall
24 the nine chiefs and the subchiefs. There was great
25 celebration and press coverage of this historic
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 34
1 event.
2 Although the formation of an IRA government was
3 a volatile issue for many reasons, the major reason
4 in 1936 that we joined the IRA system was stop--to
5 stop the loss of our land base. We had 65,400 acres
6 in the 1838 treaty, and by 1934 we were down to just
7 a couple hundred acres due to allotment. So this
8 was a dire need of our people. They were ensuring
9 our survival. And even within the IRA elected
10 system of government, the Oneida Nation continued
11 the consensus decision-making process by
12 establishing the general tribal council and vesting
13 all governmental authority in the general tribal
14 council, which means every Oneida person over the
15 age of 21.
16 The Oneida business committee was delegated in
17 1947 by the power of the general tribal council to
18 conduct the affairs of the Nation. The adoption of
19 this form of government did not diminish our
20 identity as Oneida people, but did, indeed, solidify
21 our identity as Oneidas by securing our land base.
22 Our government, over the years, whether chiefs are
23 elected, have always preserved our identity as
24 Oneidas.
25 There were many pressures exerted on us, and in
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 35
1 documents I've talked a lot about the Federal
2 policy, New York State, Ogden Land Company, and the
3 church, all of which combined in the form of Eliaser
4 Williams (phonetic) to remove us to Wisconsin. And
5 our documents tell you about the resistance to that.
6 People did not want to move. This was a horrendous
7 time in our history. There is even evidence that
8 within that first Christian party they did not agree
9 and, in fact, opposed the move.
10 Beginning in 1822, groups of Oneidas moved to
11 Wisconsin. By 1838, there were 654 Oneidas in
12 Wisconsin, of the estimated total population of
13 1,500. So almost half moved to Wisconsin. In the
14 treaties of 1824, 1829, 1830, and 1840, provisions
15 were made for annuity payments to follow us to
16 Wisconsin and to provide for a teacher here. We
17 continued our relationship between the three Oneida
18 communities. People began--continued to migrate to
19 Wisconsin, even into the early 1900s. And there
20 have always been marriages between our communities.
21 On February 25th, 1846, a treaty was made at
22 Albany, New York, with the Oneida Indians, which
23 recognizes all three communities. Therefore, all
24 Oneidas continue to have rights, and the chiefs from
25 each area signed the treaty. And it says in the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 36
1 treaty that there were three parties, whether
2 belonging to the first Christian party, the second
3 Christian party, or the Orchard party of said
4 Indians. So we came together as a Nation in 1846.
5 All three communities were recognized in the 1846
6 treaty.
7 In 1848, we had a July 4th picnic in which we
8 invited the Oneidas from the Thames to come to talk
9 about reunifying our two communities. There is an
10 1880 letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs
11 discussing the homeless Oneida Indians. These were
12 the ones that kept coming later, and they--they had
13 not--didn't have a land base. But when we did the
14 allotment in 1892, we included all of them; everyone
15 got some land.
16 During the 1970s, there were land claims
17 meetings; numerous meetings between the three
18 communities. In the late 1970s, there was a
19 historical meeting held in Oneida, Wisconsin, at
20 Chicago Corners, in which the grand council and
21 representatives of all the Oneida communities came
22 to Wisconsin. After the 1985 Supreme Court decision
23 on our land in our favor, a unified proposal of the
24 three communities was submitted.
25 In the 1980s, the Council of the Thames, the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 37
1 Chiefs Council, acknowledged our faith keepers. We
2 have continued to work with the Oneida Chiefs
3 Council of the Thames in our efforts regarding
4 repatriation, and we have an agreement with them.
5 And we have gone to them.
6 It is only in the last few years that this
7 spurious notion has surfaced that the Oneidas of
8 Wisconsin and the Thames are no longer Oneidas.
9 Historical facts show the devastating impact of the
10 treaties on all Oneidas. The Oneida people moved to
11 Wisconsin, the Thames, Onondaga. Therefore, all
12 Oneidas were pressured to move. The impact of the
13 removal policy, the treaties, and Christianity was
14 devastating to all Oneidas. However, none of these
15 things make any of us any less Oneida. We have
16 maintained our identity.
17 On the continued usage of wampum: In 1822,
18 wampum strings were used with the signing of the
19 treaty for our lands out there. In 1925, when the
20 Onondagas came to reinstall the chiefs, there is
21 documentation of wampum. In 1955, 13 strings of
22 wampum were collected from Mrs. Swamp from Oneida,
23 Wisconsin reservation and are currently at the
24 Beloit College. And these 13 strings of purple
25 wampum are used in our system to where if a chief is
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 38
1 out of line, it's a way of giving him three warnings
2 to straighten up, to get back in line.
3 In the 1970s, the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin
4 logo was developed. There's a copy in your packet.
5 And the Oneida tribal belt is a prominent part of
6 that logo, which illustrates that we had continued
7 knowledge of that belt within our community.
8 In the 1970s, we began a tremendous
9 revitalization of our cultural ways. Traditional
10 weddings were conducted with strings of wampum and
11 in our language. In the 1970s, a chief from the
12 Thames came to our longhouse with wampum to initiate
13 discussion of land claims. And since 1979, we've
14 been using an invitational wampum to have the
15 (Native American language), one of our important
16 ceremonies, conducted in our community. And as this
17 ceremony is being held, the leader holds the strings
18 of wampum from every nation that's come to
19 participate with us. And the one we just had
20 October 20th to 24th, 1996, there were over 60
21 representatives from the Haudenosaunee communities
22 to take part in that.
23 In summary, our representatives here today are
24 from the Oneida communities in Wisconsin and the
25 Thames. We represent a unified position regarding
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 39
1 the Oneida tribal belt and other matters of
2 repatriation. Among us are condoled chiefs, faith
3 keepers, and our women.
4 The history of the Oneida Nation remains a
5 complex issue. The great law of peace explains the
6 four white birds of peace which extend outward to
7 invite other nations to join. Therefore, the great
8 law is inclusive; it is not exclusive. The Oneida
9 Nation of Wisconsin did not forfeit its identity
10 through a geographical move. We have always been
11 Oneida and always will be Oneida. We ask you to
12 honor the decision of our ancestors by returning the
13 belt to the Oneidas of Wisconsin. (Native American
14 language.)
15 MICHAEL LOKENSGARD
16 MICHAEL LOKENSGARD: Good morning, members of
17 the Committee. My name is Michael Lokensgard. I'm
18 an attorney on staff for the Oneida Nation of
19 Wisconsin. I'd like to keep my remarks as brief as
20 possible both due to an attempt to stay within
21 allotted time and also due to the fact that many in
22 our delegation are traveling back to where it is
23 already very, very cold, yet this afternoon.
24 What we have endeavored to show this morning,
25 and what the focus of our presentation has been, is
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1 to show the continued cultural affinity both of the
2 wampum belt and the continuous existence of the
3 Oneida people, whether they reside in Wisconsin,
4 Canada, or in New York. We--we've done this in an
5 effort to show that Wisconsin is the more
6 appropriate claimant of the belt in question,
7 although as we have stated throughout this process,
8 there is--we do not dispute that the belt is, in the
9 best sense, the communal property of the Oneida
10 Nation as a whole.
11 Where I think that we differ is in exactly what
12 the conception or that conception of the Oneida
13 Nation is. Much is not in dispute regarding the
14 belt in terms of its creation, in terms of
15 individuals who held it in the 18th and, possibly,
16 early 19th Century. Where we differ is the notion
17 that all Oneida people remain members of that
18 nation, and the Wisconsin Oneidas are not, as has
19 been stated, a, quote, "new tribe," unquote. Each
20 community is--is recognized as a successor in
21 interest in the original Oneida Nation, in contexts
22 such as land claims, etcetera.
23 The Wisconsin Oneidas also have made a point of
24 recognizing each of the other communities at times,
25 even though the Federal government, for various
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 41
1 reasons, may not have. In the past, land claim
2 settlements have been rejected as not providing for
3 all members of the Oneida Nation. The Wisconsin
4 Oneidas have never harbored any reservations
5 regarding the recognition of the members of each
6 community as Oneidas. And that what we would
7 emphasize is that as the belt is most properly
8 the--the property of the Oneida Nation as a whole
9 and that there are constituent members of that, we
10 realize, practically, however, that--and for the
11 reasons that we've detailed in our submissions
12 previously, we feel that the Wisconsin Oneidas are
13 the most appropriate claimant to the belt.
14 To very briefly summarize what has--what has
15 gone on then, what we have endeavored to do is
16 answer some of the questions regarding the
17 continuity of the Oneida people as well as some
18 additional specifics regarding the question of the
19 belt's physical presence in Wisconsin, which is
20 somewhat of an issue in the accession records and
21 other things. The Field Museum's records are not
22 terribly clear. As Dr. Cornelius stated earlier,
23 there is additional information which does show that
24 the belt was--was located in the state of Wisconsin,
25 with the Oneida people there.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 42
1 In conclusion, I would like to call on our
2 Chairwoman again, Ms. Doxtator to take over, to
3 close our presentation. Thank you.
4 DEBORAH DOXTATOR
5 DEBORAH DOXTATOR: From a governmental
6 perspective, I would like to thank the Committee for
7 listening to us this morning and for reviewing the
8 information that we have submitted. And I guess I'm
9 compelled to tell you how important it is for us to
10 recognize that all Oneida people continue to be
11 Oneida people and that our identity is very
12 important to all of us. And I know that we need to
13 work together for the continuation of the Oneida
14 Nation into the future for those next seven
15 generations. All three communities of Oneida
16 people, we need to be looking out for the interest
17 of those next seven generation of Oneida children
18 who are coming behind us to continue our identity,
19 our uniqueness, and our--our sovereigness as
20 Oneidas. And so I plead with you that we can come
21 to a result that will be in the best interests of
22 all the Oneidas for the next seven generations.
23 Thank you.
24 BRUCE ELIJAH
25 BRUCE ELIJAH: In that particular belt you will
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 43
1 see that there are six squares, and there is the
2 heart in the middle of that square. But you can
3 also see the paths of--of where they interconnect.
4 And that's to recognize our diversities. But we
5 work on our commonality in how we look at--at
6 creation, how we carry that out.
7 I want to tell you that as Haudenosaunee
8 people, we have continued on. There are many more
9 squares to add to that, because since then we have
10 made treaties with the Sioux, the Oglalas. We have
11 made treaties with the Navajos, the Hopis, the
12 Seminoles, with the Cherokees, with Osage, the
13 Arapahos, and there's so many more that I can't
14 mention at this point in time because I forget. But
15 we have, and we will continue to do so. So that
16 belt and those squares and those hearts are going to
17 continue. Not because we made it, because people
18 who came together and says: Yes, this is what we
19 believe in. Yes, we carry out those instructions
20 that the Creator gave to us.
21 In our community, we're having a ceremony
22 tonight. That's why so many others could not make
23 it. We call it (Native American language), which
24 means that we honor all the ones who have gone on
25 before us from the beginning of time. And to say
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 44
1 that, humbly, that we can come at this point in time
2 and say we're trying to do our best; show us; come
3 to us. And then when we dance, you should see the
4 spirit within our peoples, because we know that it
5 goes on all night, and we know that normally we
6 can't do that. And we bring people who are able to,
7 in every which way they can come, in wheelchairs or
8 crutches or--or maybe we might have to carry them.
9 And when they come, by the end of that night, before
10 the morning comes, is that they, too, are dancing.
11 And so that belt is going to continue. Those
12 squares are going to continue. Not because we say,
13 but because we give that hope to people. When we
14 say democracy, is that it's inclusive. And wouldn't
15 it be nice if maybe someday that the peoples who
16 came to our land can take that too, and they can be
17 added to those squares and to those hearts, because
18 that's what we offered and that's what we gave so
19 freely.
20 And so with that, in closing, I want to say to
21 you that from our peoples and from our nation is
22 that we send good greetings to all of your womens,
23 because they are the givers of life. They bring
24 life into this world; that we hope that they are all
25 well. We hope that whatever is in front of them,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 45
1 that they can see beyond; that they can give hope;
2 that they can give willingly to bring a child into
3 this world; that we are there, and we greet them
4 with songs and ceremonies and all of the tools that
5 they need to survive in these times that we're in.
6 So we send greeting to your women of your nations
7 and your peoples.
8 And also we send--from the leaders, we say the
9 spokespeoples, the chiefs, the faith keepers. We
10 say they are the ones who are chosen by the women,
11 by the clan systems, that they, too, send their
12 greetings of good health, good message, and a good
13 spirit. To the peoples of your nations, your
14 leaders, however way they may be chosen, and
15 hopefully, there's ways that--that still they carry
16 out in your instructions, in your teachings, in the
17 ways that was given to you, so that all peoples will
18 be represented. And so we put our minds together
19 and we send that message to the mens, to the faith
20 keepers, to the ones that make sure that the
21 ceremonies continue, that those teachings continue,
22 however hard it may be. And so we send that message
23 of good health, good spirit, and good mind. So be
24 it in our minds.
25 And also to the parents, to the mothers and to
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 46
1 the fathers, at times they're so worried about
2 feeding their families, and they're so worried about
3 having a home or roof over their heads and to put
4 clothes on their back. Sometimes it's hard for them
5 to look beyond in the immediate family. So we too,
6 in our ceremonies tonight, we will include all of
7 those, all of those peoples, all of those parents,
8 the mothers and the fathers, to give them that hope.
9 And we will use our Grandmother, (portion of tape
10 inaudible), so wherever they may be, they'll get a
11 little boost here or there to feel good about who
12 they are. And so we send that message to the women,
13 and to the men, the parents of your nations, your
14 peoples, so that they may be well.
15 And also to the youth, to the young ones, who
16 ask many questions, dreams that they have through
17 the legends that is shared with them. To those
18 little ones that run about that seem to not have a
19 care in the world. They're running about, and they
20 chase after each other, and sometimes they come in
21 and they're crying because they might have fell or
22 whatever. And to those little ones that crawl about
23 on our Mother Earth. You know, everything they
24 touch, they want to put in their mouth, and you
25 know, we watch out for them.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 47
1 And to those ones who are in a cradle board.
2 We say--we hang them here, you know, to watch what
3 we're doing, and sometimes on the back of the
4 mother. Sometimes in the meetings, we set them
5 right there, right in the middle so that they hear
6 all the caring that we have, all the loving that we
7 have; that they see and that they witness, so we
8 too, from our communities, from our young ones, from
9 our little ones, for those ones who have yet to
10 come, who are still in the womb. We bring our minds
11 together, and they, too, send a message of good
12 health and of good spirit.
13 To the youth, the future leaders, to see how
14 they're going to demonstrate how we are as human
15 beings that we're going to do everything that we can
16 to give hope to that seventh generation. Because if
17 it wasn't for those little ones and if it wasn't for
18 those young ones, and they says there's going to
19 come a time, if we don't watch out, there won't be
20 no little ones, and when that time comes, there's no
21 need for us to meet, is there?
22 And so let's honor that willingness of that
23 hope. So we send that message of good health and
24 good spirit to the youth, to the little ones, to
25 your little ones of your nations, of your people.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 48
1 So be it in our minds. Hau. Thank you.
2 MARTIN SULLIVAN: All of the members of the
3 Review Committee express our thanks to Chairwoman
4 Deborah Doxtator, to the elders, and to the members
5 of the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin and your advisors
6 for coming and making this journey, as have the
7 members of the Oneida Nation of New York and--and
8 other parties with a concern. We appreciate also
9 your staying pretty close to the one-hour time
10 limit. And to the members of the Oneida Nation of
11 New York, you've got another five minutes when your
12 hour comes, in fairness.
13 We have time before we break to hear the point
14 of view of the Field Museum. And the wampum belt in
15 question has been in the custody of the Field Museum
16 for some time. The Field Museum has articulated its
17 position relative to the question of right of
18 possession. And at this time we invite the
19 representative of the Field Museum to come forward.
20 FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
21 RICHARD KOONTZ
22 RICHARD KOONTZ: Good morning. I am Richard
23 Koontz. I am the general counsel at the Field
24 Museum. Is this operating for me? Okay.
25 I'd like to begin today by saying that the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 49
1 Field Museum's position is that the Oneida wampum
2 belt in its possession that is the subject of this
3 hearing should be returned to the Oneida people.
4 And I hope that the obstacles to that return can be
5 mollified, if not removed, today.
6 The Field Museum has offered to return the
7 wampum belt to both the Oneida Indian Nation of New
8 York and the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin.
9 We did learn yesterday that there is some interest
10 by the Onondaga in the belt, but I'd like to reserve
11 any comments on that until the end of my
12 presentation about the two tribes that are here
13 today.
14 There's been some statement in the letters that
15 the various counsel have sent that the Field has
16 already made a decision to repatriate the belt to
17 New York. That is not true. We have never made and
18 are unable to make a determination of which group's
19 claim is stronger. If you look at the terms of
20 NAGPRA, its competing claims provision provides that
21 if a museum cannot clearly determine which
22 requesting party is the most appropriate claimant,
23 then it retains the item until the requesting
24 parties agree upon a disposition.
25 I think it's important to review for this
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 50
1 Committee the museum's various actions with respect
2 to this belt. I'll discuss the accession records
3 and other records that the museum has, the methods
4 in which summary and consultation were carried out,
5 the board of trustee action on the return of the
6 belt, and the text and circumstances of the
7 publication of the notice of intent to repatriate.
8 Let me start with the accession record. And I
9 just have one question here: Is everyone familiar
10 enough with the accession record, or would it help
11 if I read it?
12 Go ahead and just--just discuss it? All right.
13 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Yes.
14 RICHARD KOONTZ: There's not adequate specific
15 evidence in the written record of the Field Museum
16 that the Field Museum could rely upon to clearly
17 determine which tribe should get the belt.
18 The museum accession record for the wampum belt
19 at issue does not give a clear indication of the
20 origin of the belt. It does not specifically
21 indicate, "This belt was collected in New York."
22 Now, there's an accession record a little bit
23 further on in that same group of accessions that
24 says, "This belt was collected in Wisconsin."
25 There's another one that says, "This belt was
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 51
1 collected in Maine." There's no statement like that
2 in the accession record for this belt, that's in our
3 accession record.
4 It does, however, refer to New York a lot.
5 There are a variety of references to the background
6 of the belt, maybe three or four places in the
7 record. And they're all--do refer to New York.
8 These references might provide a good basis for
9 inferring that the belt was collected in New York
10 except for the historical situation of the migration
11 that was occurring at about the time the belt was
12 collected.
13 We have gotten evidence from the New York
14 Oneida that interpret these references in light of
15 specific fact. One of those, in an early letter,
16 refers to Chief Skenandoa and the fact that he lived
17 and died and is buried in New York. On the other
18 hand, from Wisconsin we've heard that there's a
19 confusion about a number of Chief Skenandoas and
20 that the belt did travel to Wisconsin with a Chief
21 Skenandoa. Then New York counters that if the belt
22 did travel to Wisconsin, that's fine, but its
23 removal wasn't authorized from New York.
24 So, based on our evidence, the actual written
25 documents we have, there are a whole variety of
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 52
1 competing interpretations of that evidence. And
2 it's really beyond the capability of the Field
3 Museum to really nail down all of those competing
4 interpretations and make a decision: yes, we'll
5 give it to New York; yes, we'll give it to
6 Wisconsin.
7 Another bit of written evidence that has been
8 discussed about the belt that's in the Field
9 Museum's collection is the catalog card. And
10 there's a catalog card that has a field called
11 "Locality." And in that locality it says, "New
12 York." Now, again, you're able to draw, perhaps,
13 some inferences from that, but our practice with
14 respect to catalog cards and what that locality
15 field means is primarily to talk about the
16 geographic affiliation of the group from which the
17 item was collected. It isn't a specific statement
18 that this belt came from New York. Again, is that a
19 fair inference? Possibly. But it's not a
20 definitive statement that we collected this belt in
21 New York.
22 Let me move on to the summaries and
23 consultations because some confusion does arise
24 from--from what happened there. The Field Museum
25 has not made a determination of cultural affiliation
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 53
1 of the wampum belt that excludes or prefers either
2 tribe. The initial summary of material on which the
3 wampum belt in question was listed was labeled only
4 Oneida, and exactly the same summary was sent to
5 both the Wisconsin group and the New York group.
6 Both tribes sent the Field Museum letters on
7 November 16th, 1993, indicating that they had
8 received the summaries.
9 Unfortunately, on the summary there's a
10 statement that the belt was collected in New York.
11 That sentence is on the summary. This is either a
12 mistake or it's an inference by the person that had
13 created the summary from all those references to New
14 York in the written records that maybe it's likely
15 that this was collected in New York. But again,
16 it's not based on any other evidence than what is
17 already in that accession record and on the locality
18 card. So it's a bit of an overstatement. It's a
19 bit of a conclusion from what's in the actual
20 written evidence.
21 Given all the time we spent on summaries for
22 our large collection, and the time we had to
23 complete them--over 750 summaries went out--perhaps
24 some misstatement was inevitable. But I just want
25 to assure the Committee and the parties that that
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 54
1 statement on the summary is based on nothing but
2 those two written records.
3 With respect to consultation, the New York
4 Oneida expressed interest--interest in the wampum
5 belt by phone to us very early in 1994. They sent
6 us a formal written request for the belt dated
7 February 7, 1994. The Field began to review the New
8 York Oneida request pursuant to the process outlined
9 in our internal policy.
10 The Wisconsin group expressed interest in the
11 same wampum belt in late May 1994, three months
12 after the formal request for the belt by New York.
13 Wisconsin visited the Field Museum in July to
14 examine a variety of items that were on that
15 summary, including the belt, and they made oral
16 representations to us at the time of the visit to
17 say that they were very interested in the belt.
18 Their formal request is dated October 12, 1994. But
19 from the Field Museum's perspective both claims were
20 very timely under the provisions of NAGPRA.
21 The Field Museum staff have evaluated the
22 claims of both groups independently under the terms
23 of NAGPRA and the internal policy that we have.
24 Under that policy there are two possibilities. One
25 is a hands-down win. Every single element of
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 55
1 repatriation under NAGPRA is satisfied and will be
2 returned. The other one is compromise of claim.
3 That is, some of these things are open. There are a
4 variety of elements in NAGPRA and the various
5 interpretations of the statutory language can be
6 rather complex so that, yes, an item is important so
7 does that make it cultural patrimony, but the
8 various property law concepts in the definition of
9 cultural patrimony fit this particular object as
10 well as a determination of its cultural importance.
11 We go through each of those things. If--if each one
12 of those isn't clearly satisfied, but the evidence
13 looks like it's tilting that way, then we're able to
14 make a determination that, yes, this item is most
15 likely repatriatable--or repatriatable, but we're
16 not sure. So then we go under the part of the--the
17 repatriation policy of the Field Museum called
18 compromise of claim.
19 I just want to emphasize that that is really
20 based on the fiduciary duty responsibilities of any
21 museum. The Field Museum is organized under the
22 Illinois Not-For-Profit Corporation Act. And that
23 Act imposes the duty of due care on museum directors
24 to use due care with respect to the collections.
25 That means that we either have to show there's a
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 56
1 pretty clear case under NAGPRA to return something,
2 and therefore, it's not frivolous to return it. Or
3 it's a protection of assets in the sense that we're
4 not going to use a tremendous amount of time and
5 money to continue a dispute that doesn't have a
6 clear resolution. That that's also within the
7 concept of due care. But one of those two things
8 has to be established in order for us to have a
9 documented case that our museum directors are acting
10 within the purview of the kind of due care that they
11 use.
12 So after the Field Museum staff, which would
13 include our Native American curator, our registrar
14 who's responsible for the day-to-day management of
15 the repatriation effort and that also is very
16 familiar with the museums records, and the internal
17 counsel, that is myself, have reviewed all of the
18 material that we've been sent and has been developed
19 as a part of the consultation. Then we make a
20 decision. And with respect to the belt we made a
21 decision to return under a compromise of claim
22 theory.
23 Our next step was to take the item to our
24 board. The compromise of claim was offered to both
25 tribes, both the Wisconsin group and the New York
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 57
1 group. The Field Museum Board of Trustees however,
2 only officially approved return to the New York
3 group. That action was taken on October 24, 1994.
4 However, the minutes of that board meeting clearly
5 reflect awareness of the Wisconsin competing claim.
6 They show that the board expected that the Review
7 Committee would hear the competing claims. The fact
8 that the Board took action initially on the New York
9 claim as opposed to the Wisconsin claim is solely a
10 result of the staff having processed the first claim
11 the museum received, i.e., New York's, first. That
12 board action does not indicate an unwillingness to
13 return the wampum belt to the Wisconsin. Knowing of
14 the competing claims, the Field Board waited to take
15 further action by vote approving any return
16 involving Wisconsin until there was some resolution
17 of the dispute. That's what this board action is.
18 Let me move on to the notice of intent to
19 repatriate. Throughout the first quarter of 1995,
20 the Field Museum was drafting and redrafting a
21 notice of intent to repatriate. We had several
22 consultations with the National Park Service on what
23 this should say because we knew there was a
24 competing claim. We weren't quite sure how to
25 balance the fact that our Board had said, let's
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 58
1 return to New York, with the fact that we had a
2 competing claim. But nevertheless, we determined
3 and published a notice of intent on March 1, 1995,
4 that says that the Field Museum is planning to
5 repatriate the belt to the New York Oneida. The
6 notice of intent, though, does specifically refer to
7 Wisconsin's competing claim.
8 The purpose of the notice of intent was solely
9 to do what the statute contemplates, which is to
10 enable other individuals, Indian tribes, and Native
11 Hawaiian organizations to determine their interest
12 in the claimed objects. In the light of allusion to
13 the competing claims of Wisconsin, the text itself
14 of the notice of intent invokes the Act's competing
15 claim provisions and so is clear that repatriation
16 would not proceed until the two Oneida groups had
17 come up with a resolution of the belt's disposition.
18 In order to prevent any misapprehension from
19 the publication of this notice of intent that might
20 be interpreted to favor one side, the Field sent a
21 letter on January 13, 1995, to both the New York and
22 Wisconsin groups indicating that the notice of
23 intent would refer to repatriation to New York only
24 but the museum would not be returning the wampum
25 belt until the competing claims are resolved.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 59
1 In conclusion, I'd like to say that the
2 museum's written records and material developed in
3 its consultation with the two groups have not
4 indicated a clearly more appropriate claimant for
5 the belt. The Field has been consistent throughout
6 in its consultation and its board of trustee action
7 and in the notice of intent in not preferring one
8 claimant over the other.
9 I'd like to say also that whatever resolution
10 we may be able to come up with today, tomorrow, or
11 in the next few weeks, would be subject to another
12 review by our board of trustees, but they're
13 prepared for a return that would involve both
14 groups.
15 I want to return just briefly to the Onondaga.
16 As I mentioned, there's a letter that came yesterday
17 from the National Park Service from counsel for the
18 Onondaga Nation, which I understand is also a
19 Federally-recognized tribe, in which it stated that
20 the Onondaga Nation thinks the belt should be
21 returned to them. And they feel they are the wampum
22 keepers of the Confederacy.
23 I just want to make a few points. One, the
24 Field Museum hasn't been contacted about the belt.
25 We did not send the Onondaga the summary with the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 60
1 belt listed on it. I'd just like to know if the
2 Review Committee, at some point today, has any
3 thoughts about how this new development might be
4 addressed. The second point I want to make,
5 however, is that if the Field Museum does receive a
6 request for this belt from the Onondaga we'll, of
7 course, review it under the same policy guidelines
8 which embody the principles of NAGPRA that we would
9 with any request. We've got to, at least, respond
10 to any tribe that makes a request for something and
11 evaluate under the terms of NAGPRA those--that
12 tribe's claim for something.
13 That's it for now.
14 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Thank you very much,
15 Mr. Koontz. We appreciate getting a history of the
16 Field Museum's actions and responses with respect to
17 this belt. And the question you posed about the
18 Review Committee's questions or position regarding
19 Onondaga Nation, I'm sure, will arise in the course
20 of questions that we may all have and discussions we
21 will have after the Oneida Nation of New York has
22 had it's opportunity to--to present. Okay?
23 We will take a 15-minute break at this point so
24 that we can return refreshed and again alert, to be
25 able to listen with full attention to the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 61
1 presentation of the Oneida Nation of New York.
2 Thank you.
3 BREAK
4 MARTIN SULLIVAN: (Portion of tape inaudible.)
5 Representatives of the Oneida Nation of New York
6 have also come at great difficulty--a great distance
7 to be able to share their point of view and their
8 claim with the members of the Committee this
9 morning. And we turn now to them and ask them to
10 step forward.
11 DISPUTE OVER AN ONEIDA WAMPUM BELT - CONTINUED
12 ONEIDA NATION OF NEW YORK
13 MICHAEL SMITH
14 MICHAEL SMITH: Good morning. My name is
15 Michael Smith. I represent the Oneida Indian
16 Nation. With me are Keller George, Wolf Clan
17 representative; Marilyn John, Bear Clan Mother;
18 Clint Hill, a Turtle Clan representative; Brian
19 Patterson, a Bear Clan representative; also, Tony
20 Wonderley, the Nation historian; and John Taksuda,
21 Assistant General Counsel for the nation.
22 When we originally made a submission in the
23 matter, we suggested a decision rule we thought that
24 was simple, intuitive, straight-forward, in keeping
25 with the core meaning of repatriation, and keeping
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 62
1 the Committee out of political and legal matters
2 that go way beyond repatriation issues. If I
3 understand the Wisconsin Tribe's presentation, they
4 want the belt. I'm not sure I understand what the
5 decision rule is. We suggested the rule that if
6 it's made in New York, it should go to New York; and
7 if it's made in Wisconsin, it should go to
8 Wisconsin. It seemed to us to keep--the Wisconsin
9 idea of repatriation, we didn't hear it today, but
10 the Wisconsins speak in all other forms about
11 repatriation to New York. It's an important matter
12 to them. They speak of it often. They did not--it
13 was not mentioned here today, but that it's
14 fundamentally inconsistent with whatever decision
15 rule leads to a repatriation in Wisconsin.
16 The materials that the Wisconsins produced
17 which speak of repatriation, speak of repatriation
18 in New York because it is termed "the homeland." It
19 was always termed "the homeland." When we're done
20 and you ask questions, you'll ask them where the
21 homeland is; they will tell you they think it is New
22 York. You will ask them if they believe that
23 members should be repatriated; they will tell you,
24 yes, they should be repatriated to New York, and
25 they wish to.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 63
1 The rule that we described for deciding the
2 case, deciding the dispute--return the thing to its
3 origin--is simple enough. In response, what--what I
4 think we're hearing is that there are a couple of
5 reasons not to do that. The Wisconsin Tribe is
6 driven to the view that there are not two Indian
7 nations, which is the law and which binds the
8 Committee, but there is really one Oneida Nation.
9 They speak of the Oneida Nation in anthropological
10 or genealogical terms, and sure enough you can draw
11 arrows. They don't speak of it in terms of
12 sovereignty, recognition, and political
13 jurisdiction.
14 They also-- Apart from this--what I guess I've
15 termed as a shorthand, this pan-Oneida view--they
16 also speak at great length in their writings, and
17 even here today, about the legitimacy of
18 governments. They're telling you that your decision
19 turns on your view about the relative legitimacy of
20 governments. They've asserted in their papers that
21 the Oneida government simply went to Wisconsin. I
22 think the implication of that is it disappeared in
23 New York. They told you in their papers that
24 there's a government in Wisconsin, in case their
25 government is not the right one, which is also an
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 64
1 important government, and you should consider the
2 relevant legitimacy of that government in Canada,
3 outside of the United States and outside of NAGPRA,
4 in determining these things.
5 Issues about the identity of sovereign
6 nations--whether there is a pan-Oneida theory that
7 would be legitimized or not, issues about the
8 relative legitimacy of governments are not issues
9 for the Committee to consider. What they haven't
10 told you, or maybe they have, actually, you'll
11 remember, fairly early on, you were told that this
12 is not about land claims. Well, I think it was sort
13 of Freudian. The reality is that these two nations
14 are essentially at war. They are at war over
15 matters of political jurisdiction, government,
16 sovereignty, territory, and finances. They are as
17 fundamentally opposed, at this unfortunate moment in
18 time, as they can be. And the wampum belt is a core
19 window into that dispute.
20 If the issues in the case are simply those
21 governed by NAGPRA, which could be described, in our
22 view, as returned to its origin, well, then, I think
23 the matter could be decided consistent with the
24 NAGPRA Statute in a way that does not involve the
25 Committee in the dispute between two sovereigns, and
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 65
1 particularly does not involve the Committee in
2 political and legal matters that--and implications
3 that you can't foresee or imagine.
4 The reality is that the Wisconsin Oneida tribal
5 government has taken the position in rights in the
6 last 20 years with the Department of Interior that
7 no government should have been recognized. And if
8 you think this is an antiseptic theoretical or
9 academic issue, think about that. That no
10 government should be recognized in New York; that to
11 do so would be an affront to the sovereignty of the
12 Wisconsin Tribe.
13 They have taken the position that the casino
14 the Oneida Nation opened in New York; that profits
15 from the casino should go to Wisconsin. They should
16 share. You see, the sharing theory has a lot of
17 implications. They should share the casino.
18 Last month, I think it's fair to say,
19 unbelievably, to my client, and we think in the
20 Indian community--we have a USET resolution
21 concerning this--the Wisconsin Tribe bought land on
22 my client's reservation in New York and is asserting
23 in a letter to the governor the right to govern it
24 as a sovereignty, and they've asserted the right to
25 govern the entire reservation as a sovereignty, to
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 66
1 share the (portion of tape inaudible.)
2 The--the pending litigation in the land claims
3 case involves the (portion of tape inaudible)
4 disputes among these parties. It is the case, it is
5 the situation, that until several years ago the case
6 was presented on a fairly unified front to the court
7 and the issues before the court were essentially
8 whether this grouping of clans had a right to be in
9 court, and the court said they did. The court has
10 left to another day how to kind of divide damages in
11 the case.
12 The parties are now in ongoing, compelling,
13 important negotiations about how to resolve the
14 matter, and they involve the political and legal
15 issues that the Wisconsin Tribe would have you
16 decide. How are hundreds of millions of dollars in
17 damages to be shared? Should they be shared? How
18 is land to be shared? Should it be shared? How is
19 political authority to be recognized? Should it be
20 shared; can it be shared? The matter is either
21 going to be decided by a United States court or by a
22 bill in Congress. That is true. The timing of that
23 is uncertain.
24 It is unfortunate, in my view, that the
25 discussion about repatriation of an important item
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 67
1 to its origin would be sidetracked by these
2 political and legal issues, which I think are
3 fundamentally not a part of the NAGPRA Statute and,
4 certainly, not within the commission of this
5 Committee. The Department of the Interior
6 recognizes these tribes as separate Indian tribes.
7 We have provided to you the Department view by
8 affidavit that the Oneida Indian Nation has existed
9 at all times and the view that the Oneida Tribe of
10 Wisconsin is a successor which was created at an
11 uncertain time, probably sometime in the late
12 18--19th Century.
13 We don't--my client has not challenged the
14 legitimacy of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of
15 Wisconsin as an Indian tribe. They have a
16 reservation; they have tribal status; they are
17 sovereign. We do not spend our papers attacking
18 their legitimacy, their right to exist, and their
19 right to be recognized. But what we emphasize is
20 that there is no dispute in Federal law about our
21 existence forever. We state a primary, not a
22 secondary, right to the belt. We describe a direct,
23 and not a derivative, right.
24 The interest of the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin
25 as an emotional or academic or historical matter to
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 68
1 develop is understandable. Their ancestors made the
2 belt. But, as my client says, we are their
3 ancestors. We are not an offshoot of the Oneida
4 Indian Nation, and there is no basis in law for you
5 to determine that.
6 There are some things here that are agreed.
7 It's agreed that the belt was made in New York.
8 It's agreed that the belt depicts a New York
9 Confederacy. It's agreed that the Wisconsin Tribe
10 did not exist when the belt was made, and they,
11 literally, say that in their missive. It's agreed
12 that when people have written about this belt over
13 the years, they have referred to New York, in a
14 meaningful way, and not to Wisconsin. Tuscanondo
15 (phonetic) in New York, the great meaning of the
16 belt relates to Tuscanondo and, in many respects, to
17 his relationship with the government, as well. And
18 I think it's agreed that the belt relates to
19 treaties that have to do with New York and not
20 Wisconsin.
21 You know, maybe the belt went to Wisconsin and
22 maybe it didn't go. The fundamental importance and
23 role of the belt in New York, I think, is not
24 disputed. The--what I suppose is disputed, also,
25 though, is whether the belt had a right to go from
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 69
1 New York. Everyone agrees it was communal property
2 in New York. That, I think, is a fundamental
3 proposition, if you're going to think about this
4 problem. It was communal property incapable of
5 alienation; national property in New York. No one
6 has authority to remove national property in the
7 tribal view. If we accepted that the young Elijah
8 Skenandoa, who was born in 1810--and may have been a
9 teenager at the time his authority is being
10 discussed--if we accepted that he was a chief, and
11 we'll return to that, no chief would have authority
12 to remove national property. My clients here today,
13 who are clan mothers and clan representatives, have
14 no authority to dispose of national property. I
15 believe the Wisconsin Tribe would tell you that the
16 decisions these same people made to sell land were
17 illegal, that the sales were illegal, and that the
18 law should set aside those sales. That's their
19 fundamental position everywhere but here; that the
20 actions undertaken by contract by those people
21 should be set aside. But with respect to the wampum
22 belt, there's a different position.
23 If it was communal property in New York, it
24 couldn't be taken from New York. It's--it's a
25 conceptual hurdle that I don't think can be jumped.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 70
1 You did--it's not enough to say it was communal
2 property in Wisconsin. They have to explain how
3 communal property could be removed from a tribe in
4 New York. I suppose one way to do it is to say,
5 well, there's really only one tribe, but that is not
6 the law.
7 Beyond that, I believe we dispute whether it
8 was ever used as communal property in Wisconsin. No
9 one has told you it was. If you read the Wisconsin
10 submission, the first one, I think it was the thick
11 one, there's an initial indented quotation in Native
12 language and then in English, which would appear to
13 be a reading of the belt; given, by the way, by
14 someone who is not a member of the Oneida Tribe of
15 Wisconsin, but that's beside the point. If you look
16 at the end of it, it says the belt is supposed to be
17 taken out every so often, or every year, and read,
18 or something like that. That's the point. There's
19 no evidence that ever happened in Wisconsin. The
20 only evidence, if you believe their submission, is
21 that it was put in a safe somewhere, held my a
22 non-Indian.
23 If you--if you're going to look at the problem,
24 you've got to focus at its core on whether this was
25 communal property in New York and how communal
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 71
1 property could be taken by anyone. If it's
2 incapable of alienation by anyone, the status of the
3 anyone doesn't matter. And if it was taken to New
4 York, you've got to--Wisconsin, you've got to ask:
5 How is it communal property there? What evidence is
6 yet--is there that it was ever held that way?
7 I guess I return to the essential notion that
8 unless you view the case as a return to origin,
9 which I think is an objective, simple, and agreed
10 resolution, that--and--and an agreeable way that
11 avoids any of the legal controversy that goes way
12 beyond a two-hour discussion or the context of this
13 dispute--unless you take that view of the matter,
14 really we're all sort of stuck in the mud, for the
15 time being. The matter of these other matters,
16 these matters of political legitimacy, sovereignty,
17 movements of governments, recognition, are matters
18 which are currently before the courts, currently
19 before the Department of the Interior. The parties
20 here have met with Secretary Babbitt, himself, and
21 with his special assistants on these matters, and
22 they are pending matters; undecided. And, at this
23 point, people are entering in discussions with the
24 State to produce legislation to go to Congress.
25 So, you know, it is fair to say that the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 72
1 presentation of the issue, just as a wampum belt
2 issue, may be possible in a very narrow way. But
3 if--the issue must be understood as an issue of
4 political sovereignty, legitimacy, recognition on
5 those sorts of matters. It's really not something
6 you can decide. It is, you know, something that
7 will await a court decision or a congressional
8 action, perhaps. But it is not a wampum belt issue,
9 if you would.
10 It's the--it's the nature of sovereignty, I
11 guess, that sovereigns disagree sometimes. This is
12 an issue that I don't think, if it's viewed that
13 way, a Federal advisory committee wants to weigh
14 into. Two sovereigns have the right to disagree.
15 We believe they should at least consider the
16 proposal that we made for agreement on the matter.
17 I'm sort of stunned that we've been in here nearly
18 three hours and no one has mentioned that we
19 presented a proposal for agreement. Maybe it's
20 agreeable; maybe it's not. I sort of get the
21 feeling it's not, but it's certainly not from outer
22 space. It's a good faith effort to use a process
23 here to avoid continued disunity on issues that
24 should not separate people, and to basically solve
25 the matter that, unless it's viewed simply in the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 73
1 way I described, you really can't solve.
2 We remain available to discuss that proposal.
3 Beyond that, I think, I've said what I need to as a
4 lawyer. I'm going to ask Keller George to speak.
5 Let me say, my client spoke to you all in Anchorage
6 for probably better than an hour, and we don't
7 intend to repeat all that. They've told you their
8 feelings. I don't think there's really a dispute
9 about (portion of tape inaudible), and we don't see
10 the need for a display, you know, as it were.
11 Keller will speak, and it may be that someone else
12 will speak briefly, and then we'll take your
13 questions. Thank you.
14 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Smith.
15 KELLER GEORGE
16 KELLER GEORGE: Once again, it's a pleasure to
17 come before you and speak to the NAGPRA Committee,
18 as we had opportunity in Alaska just about a year
19 ago. And we met with you, and we--and we told you
20 our feelings about the belt and the things that had
21 happened a long time ago. But I need to talk about
22 one thing in particular of when, as eloquently as
23 Bruce Elijah from the Oneida of the Thames, when he
24 came up and interpret the opening and his comments
25 that he made of being able to hold the belt, to look
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 74
1 at the belt, and to explain the belt. And they've
2 talked of being able to be on their reservations and
3 the acreage that they had. And I think a number was
4 mentioned in Wisconsin of the acreage of the
5 reservation that is there.
6 But because of the removal or the moving to
7 Wisconsin and to the Thames, it left the Oneidas
8 that were in New York without a homeland. We did
9 not have that opportunity to raise our children in
10 the longhouses of our ancestors. We have lost a lot
11 as far as when it comes to language, when it comes
12 to ceremonies.
13 But since 1985, when we came on to 32 acres
14 that was left by Bill Rockwell, one of the chiefs
15 from a long time ago, that maintained that land and
16 give it back to the Oneida Nation. And our people
17 moved on it in the '60s and began to operate once
18 again and to build a longhouse and to have our
19 ceremonies. Since 1985, we have continued the round
20 of ceremonies. In fact, we have a ceremony coming
21 up, our harvest ceremony, when we get back home.
22 These are the things that we did not have because of
23 the removal of Indians to another land.
24 For the first time I seen the belt, other than
25 in pictures, when I traveled to Chicago and viewed
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 75
1 it at the Field Museum as Jonathan Haas showed it to
2 us. And the feeling that was there, the spiritual
3 meaning, and for the first time I believe that
4 the--that the belt seen the light of day, and we
5 burned the sacred tobacco and said our prayers and
6 give thanks to being able to bring that belt out
7 into the sunlight again. Getting back, I'm almost
8 62 years old. I grew up without a homeland. I did
9 not have that longhouse that I could enter in to
10 call my own, or the land to walk upon and to feel
11 good about Mother Earth for myself or carry out the
12 responsibilities that the Creator gave--passed down
13 to us.
14 For many, many years, over 150 years had passed
15 when the Oneida New York people were forgotten
16 people, without a homeland to raise their children,
17 to teach them the things that they needed to know of
18 the ceremonies and the language. We have brought
19 that back now. We have an active language program,
20 and all the ceremonies are participated in by the
21 people of the Oneida Nation. This brings sadness to
22 my heart that we do have this dispute, but the belt
23 was made in New York, it was used in New York, and
24 in the spirit of the word, in repatriation, go back
25 its--to where it belonged, I believe is New York.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 76
1 I--I spilled my heart to you before, and you know
2 all of our feelings on how we feel. There have been
3 some unfortunate things that have taken place over
4 the last year or so. But this is not the place, I
5 think, to discuss those. But the--the reason that
6 we're here is to see where this belt is going to go.
7 Wisconsin has said in their presentation that
8 it belongs to all Oneida people and that they do the
9 ceremonies and that they have their longhouse. But
10 the one thing they didn't say to you is to follow in
11 the direction of the peacemaker when he was here was
12 that we get our birthright from our mothers; not our
13 fathers, but from the mothers. The clanships come
14 from the mother. The mother--the woman gives life,
15 and that's where we get our clanship from, not from
16 the father, but only from the mother. That's why we
17 may--have maintained that strict matrilineal line
18 for all of these years. Maybe that's the reason why
19 we're low in numbers, because we have not gone
20 beyond that and enrolled people into our nation;
21 that their clan does not come from the mother. I
22 believe that's fundamentally important to the
23 great--teachings of the great law. The great law
24 also teaches that when you leave that circle, that
25 you leave naked and you take none of these things
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 77
1 with you. And the establishment of an elective
2 system in Wisconsin, I believe, brings that out.
3 I think, from our perspective of how the people
4 of New York believe, we would be hopeful that
5 someday this dispute could be taken care of, but as
6 we see it, a lot of the happenings within the past
7 month or so is an attack on our sovereignty. I feel
8 strong that the only people that can determine who
9 the leadership of any nation is is the people
10 themselves, with the women, the holders of the clan,
11 the holders of the title, the holders of the earth,
12 by the selection process that was used, selected by
13 the clan mothers, and the women of the clan, as the
14 Wolf Clan has selected me to be the representative.
15 Yes, it's true that I am not a condoled chief, but
16 someday, perhaps, I will be, or somebody from my
17 clan will be. It's going to take us time; an awful
18 long time. Over 150 years has passed since the
19 migration to Canada and to Wisconsin has taken
20 place. The people in New York have suffered greatly
21 because of that, and have just now began to pull
22 themselves up and walk our Mother Earth and our
23 lands in dignity.
24 Also, it was mentioned that the Onondagas went
25 to Wisconsin and reinstated the traditional chiefs.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 78
1 Well, according to the great law, in the condolence
2 process, only the elder brothers, which are the
3 Mohawk and the Seneca, can condole the Oneidas and
4 the Cayugas which are the younger brothers; not the
5 Onondaga, but the Mohawk and the Senecas have to do
6 the condoling of the traditional chiefs.
7 Although I have lost the ability to speak my
8 language fluently because of being removed and
9 having to attend boarding schools during my
10 growing-up years, thankfully, I was able to, at the
11 leadership of my great-grandmother, and my two
12 grandmothers, one on my mother's side and one on my
13 father's side, to have had partial understanding of
14 the words that were spoken this morning. But a lot
15 of us have to rely on translation. We have lost so
16 much, and we are asking that this one thing, the
17 wampum belt, be returned to its rightful ownership,
18 and we maintain that is in New York.
19 My father comes from the Oneidas of the Thames,
20 as Bruce Elijah and several other people that are
21 here today. There, too, they have not adhered to
22 the matrilineal lineage of our people. I know that
23 is--is so. Even so as the traditional chiefs of
24 Canada is not the legitimate government of the
25 Thames, neither is it the government of Wisconsin.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 79
1 As I stand here and--and--things that are going
2 through my mind to try to make it clear to you where
3 this belt should go, I think that a lot of things
4 have to be worked out, and I think the only way that
5 that will ever happen is if Wisconsin and Oneida can
6 use that power of a good mind and agree, because I
7 don't think that you can make that decision for us.
8 So with that, I'll cut this short. But you
9 have heard us once before; all the concerns and a
10 lengthy talk with you, an emotional talk, where
11 it--where it enabled us to try to put across our
12 thoughts why we think that belt should come back to
13 its original place and be shared by the Oneida
14 Nation.
15 We thank you for your time, and hope as we come
16 to the question period that we can answer the
17 questions for you. With that, that will be the end
18 of my presentation.
19 BRIAN PATTERSON
20 BRIAN PATTERSON: (Native American language.)
21 I am (Native American language,) known to you as
22 Brian Patterson. I am from the Bear Clan. I live
23 in Otsdalondo (phonetic), which is the territory of
24 the Oneida and the On^yote?a⋅ka. I am of the Bear
25 Clan.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 80
1 I stand before you today as a--as--as a man, as
2 a person, (Native American language) person, that
3 has survived since time immemorial through my
4 mother's lineage. That's how I have my clan, my
5 name, and who I am as a person. I wasn't aware this
6 morning was going to be a cultural lesson or a
7 history lesson. If that was the intent, there's a
8 lot more to be said. I did my opening, my
9 thanksgiving for the nation, for all people, this
10 morning, at the sunrise.
11 The Otsdalondo territory I reside in was not a
12 territory that--it was not always possible for me to
13 live in this land. I grew up with the Senecas and
14 Cattaragus. I grew up in the Newtown Longhouse
15 (phonetic), and that's where I was able to retain
16 our ancient way of life. In '85--in 1985, I was
17 afforded the opportunity to move home for the first
18 time in my life and to live on the homeland of my
19 ancestors. My people have lived within our
20 territory since time immemorial. The decisions of
21 my ancestors, as the decisions of everyone's
22 ancestors in this room, the decisions of my
23 ancestors is where my home is.
24 I--I travel every day through the heart of
25 a--of a town that today is called Oneida Castle.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 81
1 Oneida Castle is the home of Chief Skenandoa. His
2 home is now a cornfield. Across--all that is
3 remembered of this home is a boulder which sits
4 across the road that has a plant--a plaque on it
5 that someone had sprayed some graffiti on at one
6 time. That's all that's left.
7 Our alliance in the Revolutionary War should
8 have secured our place in history forever. When
9 Wisconsin sold Mother Earth and removed to
10 Wisconsin, they also sold the bones of our
11 ancestors, the legacy of our people, of who we are
12 as a people. You see, land was--was national
13 ownership. No one had--had that right that was
14 spoken of earlier.
15 There is so much to be said. There was so much
16 said in Anchorage, that I would--I choose not to
17 reiterate what has been said. But I will remind
18 you, the Committee, that in Anchorage, after a lot
19 of discussion within our council, within--amongst
20 our clan mothers, our elders, our people, and with
21 the whole philosophy of who we are as a people
22 regarding the seven generations, the faces yet
23 unborn, the faces still to come before us, I said in
24 Anchorage that we are prepared to allow for the
25 Oneida people, regardless of where they live, in
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 82
1 what community they live, to come to visit the belt.
2 We have, in good faith, gone one step further with
3 the proposal that is before you at this meeting.
4 In Oneida, we still retain our ancient way of
5 life, to the best of our ability, for the sake of
6 the future generations. And in this ancient way of
7 life is filled with policy, protocol, and procedure.
8 And with that said, I would like to invite my
9 brother back up to do a formal closing in our
10 language. I understand Bruce Elijah from Canada has
11 done a--somewhat of a closing in the English
12 language. But protocol would be for my brother to
13 come up and close it in our language. (Native
14 American language.)
15 LEANDER DANFORTH
16 LEANDER DANFORTH: (Native American language.)
17 MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE
18 MARTIN SULLIVAN: We express our thanks to all
19 of you and to the Oneida Nation of New York for
20 presenting your views. We turn now to the process
21 of a finding. And as we enter that, it may be
22 useful if we remind ourselves what a finding is and
23 what the role of the Review Committee is in
24 attempting to move toward a finding.
25 This is, in no way, a judicial process or a
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 83
1 trial. It is very clear within the statutory
2 language of NAGPRA that the Review Committee's
3 authority is simply to make a finding, which is
4 advisory and which can be a recommendation and which
5 may be admissible, if need be, in a court of law.
6 But this is not a court of law, and we are not
7 trying to move toward a legal decision in which
8 there is a winner and a loser and possibly a
9 precedent that has legal implications.
10 On the other hand, it is more than a debate in
11 which parties come forward and make a case, and we,
12 the Review Committee, try to score their
13 presentations in some fashion and, on the basis of a
14 ranking in a debate format, arrive again at either a
15 winner or a loser. Our task simply is, first, to be
16 fair, as fair as we can be, and that is an
17 obligation, to be open-minded and to be thorough;
18 that is an obligation.
19 We have a caution, and both of the parties of
20 the Oneidas have expressed this caution to us and we
21 bear it in mind. And that caution is that a finding
22 should have its implications only as to the wampum
23 belt and not to other matters under dispute or
24 discussion between the parties, certainly not
25 including land claims, legal issues, court
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 84
1 proceedings, in which this Review Committee has no
2 place and no standing. And as we are cautious about
3 that, we ask you to be cautious about that and not
4 to rely upon any findings or questions or
5 observations made in this process in any context
6 other than in the context of the wampum belt.
7 Our task, therefore, is to try to arrive at an
8 outcome in the form of a finding, which is fair and
9 which is as right as it can be. And we are limited
10 by the process of a finding. Because we are not a
11 court, a time will not come when the people here at
12 this table go out of the room and talk together and
13 come back like Judge Wapner in People's Court and
14 tell you how it's going to be. There is no
15 commercial break in this. This is simply a process
16 in front of all of you in which we have the
17 opportunity to ask questions of each other, of the
18 claimants, and of the Field Museum which is present,
19 and in that process, attempt to fashion, again,
20 before all of you, some points on which a finding
21 can be conveyed. And we know it is the desire of
22 the parties that that finding be conveyed to you
23 today, and we hope before noon, because we
24 understand that many of you must return home. And
25 we want to, to the extent that we can, provide you
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 85
1 guidance before it's time for you to depart.
2 If there is any analogy at all to a court or a
3 legal process it might be in reference to a probate
4 court in which a gift has come from the past, from
5 ancestors; one unbroken gift, one single gift, one
6 indivisible gift. And there are descendants. And
7 the descendants all wish the power of that gift
8 and--and the presence of that gift in their
9 community. And that, I think, is the greatest
10 challenge, the challenge of custody and what form of
11 custody arrangement is in the best interests of--of
12 Oneida Nations and Oneida people.
13 So as we begin our discussion, we might frame
14 three general categories of questions and comment.
15 First, as to the wampum belt itself, and whether, as
16 an object, it falls within the definitions that are
17 set forward in NAGPRA and the history of that belt.
18 The second kind of questions would be as to the
19 claimants and as to their standing under NAGPRA and
20 as to the degree and extent of their cultural
21 affiliation with that belt. The third category of
22 questions that might come after those discussions
23 and address the issue of custody, how it's to be
24 maintained and with what kinds of access for which
25 people.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 86
1 Do other members of the Committee have other
2 suggestions about kinds of questions or process that
3 we should follow at this point?
4 Okay. Let's begin then with refocussing on the
5 wampum belt itself, which is now in the custody of
6 the Field Museum. And it's asserted by both the
7 Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin and the Oneida Nation of
8 New York that this is an object of cultural
9 patrimony. And it has been suggested in the written
10 submissions and orally that it is a national belt.
11 It is a belt of a nation, as distinguished perhaps
12 from a clan belt. There has been a written
13 submission by a party which is not here, the
14 Onondaga Nation, an inference of which might be that
15 it is more than a national belt, that it may be,
16 possibly, a confederacy belt.
17 But, specifically to the questions that have
18 been addressed by the claimants, we might first
19 discuss among the Committee, and then ask questions,
20 as to whether this wampum belt does represent an
21 object of cultural patrimony and what kind of
22 cultural patrimony it is.
23 Members of the Committee?
24 DAN MONROE: It seems clear to me that this is
25 unquestionably an object of cultural patrimony.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 87
1 PHILLIP WALKER: And is something that is
2 symbolic of--of the tribe. You know, it's
3 emblematic of a piece of cultural patrimony.
4 LAWRENCE HART: It's clear it does not belong
5 to an individual nor a clan. It belongs to the
6 nation, and therefore, it is an object of cultural
7 patrimony.
8 RACHEL CRAIG: As I listened, I think--I think
9 it's important to all of the Oneida. The wampum
10 belt is important to all of the Oneida, and they
11 have a reverence for it. So I would consider it
12 a--an item of cultural importance to all of them.
13 That's what--that's what--that comes over, in
14 spite--in spite of other verbiage that has crossed,
15 I can feel this reverence of cultural patrimony
16 towards that wampum belt from all of the groups. We
17 haven't heard from Canada. But I would imagine that
18 they would feel the same way as--as both of the
19 groups do.
20 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Do members of the Committee
21 have questions for the claimants or for the Field
22 Museum about the belt itself?
23 We'll turn then to the question of whether the
24 two claimants who have made representations to the
25 Field Museum meet the test under NAGPRA of having
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 88
1 standing, and then the question of the extent to
2 which each has a cultural affiliation with the
3 object. It's not possible to do this in terms of
4 first New York and then Wisconsin or first Wisconsin
5 and then New York, I don't think. But members of
6 the Committee do you want to comment on the general
7 question?
8 DAN MONROE: As a national belt and as a
9 national object of--of patrimony, in terms of the
10 cultural and the history, it seems notwithstanding
11 the rents and tears of the pressures of the past and
12 the tragedies of the past that the Oneida are a
13 people, they share a culture, and that regardless of
14 whether they now reside in New York or Wisconsin or
15 Canada, that that cannot be erased. So my from
16 standpoint, both the Oneida in New York and the
17 Oneida in Wisconsin have standing in this matter.
18 RACHEL CRAIG: I agree.
19 TESSIE NARANJO: I also agree that both have
20 standing.
21 PHILLIP WALKER: I do as well.
22 LAWRENCE HART: I acknowledge that both have
23 standing.
24 MARTIN SULLIVAN: The questions then address
25 the very difficult history; difficult to document,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 89
1 difficult to track down. And I think on behalf of
2 the Committee it might be useful at this point to
3 acknowledge the diligent, hard work done by all
4 parties to try to reconstruct that very terrible
5 time and--and difficult-to-document history in which
6 that belt left New York, came to Wisconsin, and,
7 ultimately, came to the Field Museum. Whatever
8 other outcomes occur from this dispute resolution, I
9 think that we agree that you as parties have given a
10 gift to your communities and to your descendants in
11 that so much more is now known and has been shared
12 about that belt and its history and about the
13 history of the communities. And that, in itself,
14 seems to be a good thing.
15 It has been mentioned by both parties, and also
16 by members of the Committee, that the Oneida
17 community at Thames in Canada under the Council of
18 Chiefs there, that's also a group of people whose
19 origins are with the Oneidas at the time when all
20 Oneidas lived in New York. And I wonder if members
21 of the Committee have any observations or--or
22 questions for any of the parties regarding a
23 claimant who is not with us principally because
24 NAGPRA, as a piece of United States legislation,
25 addresses only the interests and
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 90
1 sovereignty--sovereignty rights of Native
2 communities within the United States borders.
3 TESSIE NARANJO: I have a question for--for the
4 Oneida representative of-- I want to know who are
5 the representatives from Canada, and if they would
6 please acknowledge themselves. I'd like to
7 recognize them.
8 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Could you--would you come
9 forward just so that we have a record and can
10 indicate that you're here.
11 Just state your names to the microphone. Thank
12 you.
13 BELANGER BROWN, SR.: I am (Native American
14 name.) I'm chief of the Bear Clan. And my English
15 name is Belanger Brown, Sr.
16 CHARLIE ELIJAH: I'm Chief of the Wolf Clan,
17 and my name is (Native American name), Great
18 Mountains, and my name is Charlie Elijah.
19 BRUCE ELIJAH: My name is (Native American
20 language,) Wolf Clan, and my English name is Bruce
21 Elijah.
22 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Thank you very much.
23 TESSIE NARANJO: Before you leave, I'd like to
24 ask another question. And the second question is:
25 What is the Thames Oneida relationship to the
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1 Wisconsin Oneidas, and at the same time, what is
2 their relationship to the New York Oneidas?
3 BRUCE ELIJAH: In our--there's another wampum
4 called the circle wampum, and that there's two of
5 the 50 chiefs that we have within the confederacy
6 within the Six Nations, the outside of that circle
7 is intertwined by a bead of wampums; two
8 intertwined. And it's the political and the
9 spiritual that have to work together. And I think
10 we're the only nation that's left is that as
11 Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations or Haudenosaunee
12 that still follow that. That we can't separate our
13 beliefs with our political; it's one. It's as one.
14 And so we have maintained that. If you can see
15 that, throughout the history, the documentation that
16 is taken is that there was many movements amongst
17 our people. There was a reason why. It wasn't just
18 because we wanted to go take a holiday. There was
19 reasons why we had to move. And so what we did was
20 we took our best peoples to go to a safe place to
21 keep those teachings, and that place was chosen in
22 Canada, what it now in Canada. We don't consider
23 ourselves Canadians; we don't consider ourselves
24 Oneidas of the Thames. We consider ourselves as
25 (Native American language) On^yote?a⋅ka.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 92
1 And so we are the keepers, I guess, of the
2 teachings, the ceremonies. And we have maintained
3 that connection with both. We have offered to both
4 a place for them to sit in the political forum,
5 within the grand council. We have also gone to both
6 and offered the teachings of the prophecies so that
7 there will be some day that we will come back
8 together. And for just briefly, I guess we can say,
9 when I outlined that--that territory, it's not just
10 Oneida Wisconsin or Oneida New York or in Canada, it
11 encompasses half the continent. That's our
12 territory. So no matter where we go, that wampum
13 can go wherever it's needed; wherever our peoples
14 are.
15 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you.
16 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Lawrence Hart.
17 LAWRENCE HART: Before they depart, I'd like a
18 question from them, if I may.
19 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Yes, sir.
20 LAWRENCE HART: I'd like to ask if this matter
21 has been taken to the Haudenosaunee, specifically to
22 the fire keepers; just for information.
23 BRUCE ELIJAH: Yes, it has. I guess, there's
24 other documentations that you will find that back in
25 the--back in the '60s and even back in the '40s was
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 93
1 that we had set a--I guess talking amongst
2 ourselves, that there would be a committee set up
3 within the Iroquois Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee,
4 to begin to--to regain and get back
5 these--these--these belts, not only the belts, but
6 our medicine bundles too, because they're not only
7 here, in the United States or in Canada, they're
8 also over in Europe. They're all over the place.
9 And so, we have set that out, numerous times we can
10 give you letters that was sent out to--to Congress
11 at that time, and even prior, too, that we wanted to
12 bring our--our bundles back home. Yes, it goes
13 further back. It is documented.
14 MARTIN SULLIVAN: I'd like to ask a question of
15 Mr. Koontz, on behalf of the Field Museum, if--if
16 you can. One of--the point that Mr. Elijah has just
17 made is a point of great frustration for many Native
18 tribes and communities because objects of great
19 concern are, in fact, in other countries, as well as
20 in the United States. Could you speak to the
21 general repatriation policies of the Field Museum
22 and as to whether it is possible within those
23 policies for the Field Museum to repatriate an
24 object to an entity which is not in the United
25 States and, therefore, not technically a NAGPRA
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1 party.
2 RICHARD KOONTZ: Sure. Let me just say
3 that--to start out, that the Field Museum has a
4 variety of repatriation policies in place. We had a
5 policy that predates NAGPRA which says that, with
6 respect to human remains, any people anywhere in the
7 world can request repatriation of human remains, and
8 we'll return them on the condition that they're
9 reinterred. At the end of that policy it says, we
10 don't really know what to do about objects, but
11 we're willing to talk about objects. So there is
12 board-made policy. The board has recognized that
13 there may be circumstances where, you know,
14 regardless of whatever legislation exists, where we
15 would consider return of objects. But it's--oh, I
16 won't call it an afterthought, but it's--there's
17 very little guidance more than the general idea that
18 we would consider objects.
19 With--with NAGPRA and the Native American
20 situation, we have treated that as a modification of
21 that earlier policy: that general repatriation
22 situations from around the world are governed by
23 this more global, what we call our human remains
24 policy, but there's a modification of that because
25 NAGPRA gives us very specific guidelines about the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 95
1 kinds of circumstances and criteria that we should
2 look at when we're making repatriation decisions to
3 Native Americans. One of those criteria is this
4 question we discussed so much yesterday of
5 Federally-recognized tribes.
6 So, in the context of this case, yes, there's
7 policy authorization to have a discussion with a
8 tribe that's not a U.S. tribe. We'd be very
9 concerned about the fact that Federally-recognized
10 tribes are given authorization by the U.S. Congress
11 to make these kinds of claims, and if they establish
12 their claim, then they have a legal right to that
13 object under NAGPRA. So, again, in the context of
14 this case, if there was some request by a Canadian
15 group, we would consider that, but it would have to
16 be in the context of the other groups that have made
17 the claim. We would not go out on a limb and say,
18 gee, the other tribes have really established a
19 great case, and they have a legal right, and Canada
20 may have established a great case, but there's no
21 legal right there, and if the other tribes opposed
22 the inclusion of Canada in that, you know, we would
23 say, no. We would say here are the people that have
24 established some legal right under an existing
25 Federal law.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 96
1 So, yes, the Field Museum would consider
2 including a Canadian group in the discussion of the
3 disposition of this belt. Again, part of that
4 discussion with the board would be, no, this group
5 doesn't have a right that arises under Federal law,
6 but if all of the other claimants who had come
7 forward agreed that there could be some kind of
8 participation by Canada, I--it would at least be
9 feasible that our board would approve some kind of
10 arrangement like that.
11 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Koontz. Are
12 there questions for Mr. Koontz?
13 LAWRENCE HART: You mentioned the rejection by
14 the board of trustees by the compromise of claim
15 theory. Was it by an overwhelming vote or by a
16 majority? I just want a sense of it.
17 RICHARD KOONTZ: It's actually not the board of
18 trustees' doing. It's really my doing. I am the
19 third person in line to review repatriation claims
20 at the Field Museum. Jonathan Haas, as the Native
21 American curator, would review the historical data
22 that's available in the context of his understanding
23 about the particular object. Janice Klein, as the
24 registrar, would also review the same kind of
25 material, and then it comes to me. And I look at:
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 97
1 given this Statute, given the responsibility of the
2 board, how good is the case?
3 And, we came down, in our opinion, on obviously
4 an object of cultural patrimony; obviously
5 culturally affiliated with the groups that requested
6 it; both groups are Federally-recognized tribes.
7 Then we get to the difficult issue of today, which
8 is right of possession. I determined under the full
9 definition in the Statute that there was not right
10 of possession.
11 MARTIN SULLIVAN: By the Field Museum, or by
12 the two--
13 RICHARD KOONTZ: There was not right of
14 possession by the two tribes--
15 MARTIN SULLIVAN: --by the two tribes.
16 RICHARD KOONTZ: --that the Field had right of
17 possession. That is based on the latter half of the
18 definition; that is there's a general definition
19 about an object. It was alienated with authority of
20 alienation.
21 Then there's language that says, well, that
22 might be a taking. So if it's a taking, look at
23 otherwise applicable property law. Today, I don't
24 think we can talk about part two, because the
25 Statute begins to suggest, and certainly the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 98
1 regulations have made clear, that there is a problem
2 with the jurisdiction of the Review Committee and
3 that you couldn't consider claims based on
4 constitutional issues.
5 Certainly, in the way that the regulations
6 spell out the right of possession, you've taken just
7 the first part of that definition about authority to
8 alienate, and the takings considerations have been
9 removed from the statutory definition and stuck in
10 another part that says, don't bring this up unless
11 you're willing to come to the Review Committee with
12 an order from a court of--competent to hear those
13 kinds of claims.
14 So, just to tell you where we're coming from,
15 you know, my analysis of the right of possession,
16 for purposes of settlement discussions or
17 compromises of claim, based on state law that I
18 think arises under the definition, resulted in a
19 determination that the Museum had right of
20 possession.
21 All you can do, I think, today, is look at that
22 first half of the definition, you know. Our
23 analysis of that first part of the definition, there
24 might be some questions, but it's a pretty strong
25 case that no right of possession under that first
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 99
1 one, under that first part about somebody with
2 authority to alienate actually alienated to the
3 Field Museum. We don't know a whole lot about the
4 transaction between Chief Skenandoa's grandson.
5 We're not even quite sure who he is. But--and so,
6 you know, would a tribe be able to meet the actual
7 burden that's spelled out in the Statute, which is,
8 basically, that the tribe has the burden of going
9 forward.
10 This is probably a long answer to your
11 question. In any event--
12 DAN MONROE: Yes.
13 RICHARD KOONTZ: I'm the one that-- Sorry.
14 I'm the one that went to the board and said, I think
15 the board has right of possession. If--because this
16 belt is so important, we should proceed under a
17 compromise of claim theory, and the board approved,
18 you know, given that windy explanation you just
19 heard. Given that theory, they approved return
20 under a compromise of claim theory.
21 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Any other questions of
22 Mr. Koontz?
23 Thanks a lot, we appreciate it.
24 Between the matter of standing and the matter
25 of custody, then come a couple of more questions
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 100
1 which are appropriate for us to examine for the
2 record in the course of a finding. Both the
3 Wisconsin Oneida and the New York Oneida have
4 represented that they can be appropriate claimants
5 because they are Federally-recognized tribes and
6 because they can demonstrate a cultural affiliation
7 to the belt in question. Do members of the
8 Committee have observations about that, with respect
9 to either of the tribes and their claims?
10 PHILLIP WALKER: Well, if I might say--I mean,
11 one of the way--one possible way of looking at this
12 is: Does one group have a stronger claim than the
13 other? And I think that--that it's in NAGPRA--it's
14 a well-established principle, especially vis-a-vis
15 human remains, that cultural affiliation is an
16 either/or proposition. That is that either a group,
17 a tribe, is culturally affiliated with a--with a set
18 of human remains or it is not. There is--in the
19 development of this legislation, I know the
20 anthropological community repeatedly discussed this
21 issue and brought up the fact that this doesn't make
22 any sense anthropologically; that there are degrees
23 of cultural--all types of degrees of cultural
24 affiliation with human remains. But the Congress,
25 for whatever reason, did not listen to--to our
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 101
1 concerns about this, and the law, as it stands, and
2 what--what we're responsible for interpreting, says
3 that cultural affiliation is binary. That is that
4 either a group is culturally affiliated or they're
5 not culturally affiliated with human remains.
6 And I don't--I don't see, reading the Statute,
7 any reason to believe that items of cultural
8 patrimony fall into a different category. That is
9 that there is a special case for items of cultural
10 patrimony which would say that--that items of
11 cultural patrimony, where the degree of cultural
12 affiliation is a significant fact regarding items of
13 cultural patrimony, as opposed to the situation with
14 human remains.
15 So--so that--do you--my point, then, is
16 that--that if there's a finding of cultural
17 affiliation with an item of cultural patrimony,
18 then--then both groups, or however many groups are
19 involved, have, in my view, have equal standing and
20 equal claim.
21 MICHAEL SMITH: May I speak to that point?
22 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Yes, you can, of course,
23 Mr. Smith.
24 MICHAEL SMITH: Just briefly. Respectfully, I
25 think the Statute says something else. I don't
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 102
1 believe the Statute says that you should determine
2 cultural affiliation as binary; it's either/or. I
3 think the Statute is pretty clear that it
4 contemplated groups with different levels of
5 cultural affiliation. It contemplated that
6 ultimately the group with the closest cultural
7 affiliation would get the object. The statute
8 refers to the most appropriate claimant. Claimants
9 can only be Indian tribes under the Statute, or
10 descendants. And they all must establish cultural
11 affiliation. You can only have a most appropriate
12 claimant if you can contemplate two claimants, both
13 with cultural affiliation. That, alone, which
14 speaks directly to cultural patrimony tells me that
15 the Statute envisions, not either/or, but degrees.
16 Beyond that, I believe there are other portions
17 of the Statute which don't deal directly with
18 objects of cultural patrimony, but which do deal
19 with, I think, remains that speak to the group with
20 the closest cultural affiliation as one of the, sort
21 of, descending measures of how to decide these
22 measures. So, I--I really don't think it's the case
23 that the Statute simply says, that if anyone can
24 establish cultural affiliation, they're all on equal
25 footing. I don't believe that's what it says.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 103
1 And--and to that point, I think, really, that
2 the probate analogy, which in a way that you might
3 not expect relates to that, is wrong. The probate
4 analogy imagines similarly situated descendants in
5 the same way that the binary view of cultural
6 affiliation imagines, at least for purposes of the
7 law, similarly situated descendants. It is the law
8 of the United States, binding on the Committee, and
9 reflected in NAGPRA's definition of Indian tribe,
10 that there are two separate tribes here. And it's
11 also the law of the United States that the existence
12 of the Oneida Nation is forever, and that the Oneida
13 Tribe of Indians has existed since some date, and
14 you can argue about the date, but the point's made.
15 It is true, when you began, that the purpose of
16 the Committee, I guess, is to be fair, but it's not
17 the only purpose. It's also to execute the
18 requirements of the Act, which is, in many respects,
19 and perhaps in your mind, a different issue. The
20 Act refers to Indian tribes and their recognition
21 and to (portion of tape inaudible) first to the most
22 appropriate claimant. It's fundamental to much of
23 our position that these terms of the Act are
24 operative, and they have meaning, and they have to
25 be applied. And that if they're applied, it's not a
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 104
1 stretch to say that the group which existed for all
2 time is the group that is the most appropriate
3 claimant, really without denigrating much of the
4 history that occurred thereafter.
5 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Smith.
6 Does anyone, representing the Wisconsin
7 Oneidas, wish to speak to that question or to
8 related questions of standing?
9 Rachel?
10 RACHEL CRAIG: Survival. Survival is a strong,
11 strong force. I know it is. And when the pressures
12 became too strong for some people, they--they
13 thought of ways of where they might survive better.
14 And some of them went to Wisconsin; some of them
15 went to Canada. I'm sure they took the best people,
16 or people they--that they could influence, with
17 them. And they left their homeland. That's--that's
18 a hard decision. That's a really difficult
19 decision. I know wherever I travel, I'm--I'm still
20 Alaskan. In our land claims, I--I chose to be with
21 my village people. And I know it was a difficult
22 decision for your ancestors in that long-ago time.
23 And they left a few people to tend the fires.
24 I would--I would think, with--with all the
25 history that has gone on between the peoples, I know
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 105
1 you still consider each other your brothers and
2 sisters; one people. We--we do the same thing in
3 Alaska. I belong to the Inupiat Circum Polar
4 Conference. And we have some people in Alaska, some
5 in Canada, some in Greenland. And in spite of the
6 political divisions, we know we are one people, and
7 we try to work within that organization on problems
8 that are--that are common to us. And today I am the
9 Chair of the Elders Conference of the Three Nations
10 including--including Russia. So I know it is a
11 difficult decision.
12 I would hope--I would hope that somehow you
13 would--you would--you would look on a higher plane
14 to find who should have the wampum. And I know if
15 you work together-- I haven't--I haven't heard that
16 I worked, and we worked, and we worked, and they
17 decided, and they decided; I haven't heard that from
18 any of you. And--and I don't know if you have.
19 I--I know it would be difficult with your--with your
20 traditions of your fathers and so forth, some of us
21 have had to overcome those too. But somebody has to
22 step forward and say, we're doing it for our
23 children because we want them to have a better life,
24 and not be burdened with all this baggage that we
25 have had to carry over the generations. Somebody
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 106
1 has to do that. We have had to do that. Thank you.
2 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Thank you, Rachel.
3 Mr. Lokensgard, did you want to make a comment?
4 MICHAEL LOKENSGARD: I guess it would be just
5 in terms of briefly responding to a particular
6 exhibit attached to the October 24th letter
7 forwarded by Attorney Smith, having to do with the
8 affidavit of one Leslie Gaye (phonetic) in the
9 context of a particular lawsuit. I mean, as--as we
10 have endeavored to state, there is maybe a
11 difference of opinion on how--how the groups
12 consider themselves. The particular case in
13 question arose as a result of an effort on the part
14 of Oneidas of New York to recover the remaining
15 property in U.S. versus (portion of tape inaudible),
16 indicated in 1920 that there was some sort of right
17 to the case in question being Oneida Indian Nation
18 of New York versus (portion of tape inaudible). The
19 case itself is in abeyance pending the settlement of
20 a larger Oneida land claim matter. That matter
21 specifically recognizes all three communities as
22 successors in interest to that claim. To the extent
23 that those three communities, we would argue, have
24 an undivided interest in that claim at this point,
25 the--the bigger picture indicates that, you know,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 107
1 all of those communities are recognized as
2 successors.
3 The affidavit in question was prepared for a
4 very specific purpose, basically to state that there
5 was a distinction in the Federal government between
6 the New York and Wisconsin Oneidas, and we don't
7 dispute that. But--and the affidavit also refers to
8 the recognized government of the New York Oneidas,
9 at that time, being under a different system as
10 well, under one Jacob Thompson. Again, and not
11 disputing--and as I stated earlier, the Oneidas of
12 Wisconsin have no dispute that there has been--I
13 mean, that there has been and they have recognized
14 the Oneida presence in the state of New York. I
15 think, though, in the broader pictures, the--the
16 parties are more--more appropriately thought of as
17 all successors in interest, and the Supreme Court
18 land claim decisions, to date, have identified them
19 as such.
20 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Okay.
21 MICHAEL LOKENSGARD: Yes. Thank you.
22 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Thank you. We placed the
23 parties under practically impossible time
24 constraints this morning. And we now have to place
25 ourselves under some time constraints in order to
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 108
1 help you and also to move ahead with the other
2 business on the agenda.
3 One of the questions which has been raised,
4 both by the claimants and by Rachel Craig, is the
5 extent to which an outcome, a disposition, which
6 puts the wampum belt in one set of hands versus
7 another, provides for the needs for all Oneida
8 people and provides a method of access. The
9 Committee has been provided, as everyone is aware, a
10 great deal of documentary submission on a number of
11 points, and those we all take to be part of the
12 record as we work toward a finding. There is not
13 time to go back and rehearse those.
14 But it may help us if a representative from the
15 Wisconsin Oneidas and a representative from the New
16 York Oneidas could--could both speak to the
17 question: If custody of this wampum belt left the
18 Field Museum and came to you and to your nation,
19 what steps do you propose in terms of access and use
20 and education for all Oneida people?
21 New York?
22 MICHAEL SMITH: I think it's sort of easy for
23 us to respond to it. We provided a short, two-page
24 proposal for agreement. We haven't heard word one
25 about it. But it envisions the following: that
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 109
1 upon return of the wampum belt to its origin in New
2 York, it would be made available to all Oneida
3 people, all (portion of tape inaudible), to all
4 members of the Oneida Tribe of Indians in Wisconsin,
5 and indeed, all Thames Band members of Canada who
6 wish to see it.
7 Beyond that, frankly, we sort of scratched our
8 heads and thought, is it possible to do more in the
9 real world to be true to the conceptual repatriation
10 issues here and still to do something practically
11 meaningful for other people who are involved in the
12 dispute. And--and we're open to suggestions, but
13 thought that the--the farthest that one practically
14 could go was to agree to what is essentially
15 standard museum-loan type arrangements so that the
16 belt could physically travel to the Oneida Tribal
17 Indian Reservation in Wisconsin and be present there
18 for whatever purposes, you know, for whatever period
19 of time to be negotiated.
20 And the proposal that I think we provided
21 everyone yesterday morning envisions that we would,
22 you know, physically meet within the next 30 days
23 and work out the details of those written
24 agreements, because I think they should be embodied
25 in enforceable written agreements. And we would
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 110
1 endeavor to complete that process in 30 days from
2 now.
3 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Could you remind us again
4 when the--the core of that proposal for access was
5 presented to the Wisconsin Oneida's?
6 MICHAEL SMITH: The-- Well, the answer goes
7 like this. We raised, at the NAGPRA proceedings in
8 Anchorage, a willingness to make it available to
9 everyone. That's over a year ago. Over the last
10 two or three months, I spoke with two different
11 attorneys for the Oneida Tribe of Indians, one here
12 and one not here, indicating that we should jointly
13 ask for these proceedings and discuss the matter for
14 two reasons; on grounds that this, as indicated, is
15 really not the appropriate place to decide most of
16 the core issues and the hope that we can talk about
17 some of this. I was not that optimistic about the
18 discussions, but I thought it was worthwhile to try.
19 And yesterday morning, we formally had written
20 out some of--a preliminary one. Because we
21 hadn't--like I said, since no one called me back. I
22 just never got called back. I spoke--we then filed
23 our submission. I spoke with one of the lawyers
24 after we filed our submission, and I called her
25 again, I guess, last week, and indicated again that
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 111
1 I thought we should jointly confer and discuss. She
2 said she didn't think we should confer, we couldn't
3 reach an agreement. We should have the proceeding.
4 We then had typed out, not withstanding all of that,
5 a proposal for agreement in the hope that when it
6 was sort of stated clearly and without a lot of
7 baggage that some of the sense of it would be more
8 apparent. But that we would get some reaction and,
9 of course, we have.
10 So the short answer is that the physical
11 document was submitted yesterday. The longer answer
12 is that there's some discussion before that.
13 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Okay. Thank you. A comment
14 from other Oneida's?
15 DEBORAH DOXTATOR: For the Oneida Nation of
16 Wisconsin we are agreeable to working out those
17 kinds of arrangements. I guess I would like to note
18 that on a couple of occasions the New York Oneida's
19 have alluded to the fact that people could come to
20 visit the belt. And I think it's significant that
21 we'd be able to work on an agreement that Mike Smith
22 was just talking about in terms of the belt being
23 able to visit the communities for ceremonial
24 purposes for the cultural significance that it
25 carries to our people. And so I think that that's
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 112
1 going to be a very necessary and important component
2 to work out amongst the communities, because as they
3 were explaining the wampum this morning, it's--it is
4 looked upon as, like, one of our Grandmothers that
5 gives us those good feelings as a child. That's a
6 feeling of security and comfort in knowing who we
7 are. And so I think that's the most important
8 component of--of the belt coming back to our--our
9 nation and being utilized by our people.
10 I wanted to give a little explanation. We were
11 not present at the Alaska meeting but in the last
12 two to three months when these overtures have been
13 being made to our community--I don't want to go into
14 a lot of detail about it--but there have been other
15 political activities taking place between the
16 communities regarding our land claim. And I don't
17 want to get into those specifics, but that is the
18 reason why we have not responded at this point,
19 because of the other political activity that is
20 taking place between the--the two Oneida communities
21 from New York and Wisconsin. But I won't go into
22 the--the real details of that. I don't think it's
23 necessary for you to--have to get into those
24 specifics. It's unfortunate, I will say that. But
25 that is the reason why we have not responded to
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 113
1 those overtures. It's because of those other
2 political activities taking place. So we would be
3 willing to work that out so that the cultural
4 significance of the belt to our people and our
5 identity will be carried out.
6 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Miss Doxtator. Are there any
7 questions from the Committee members with respect to
8 that?
9 MICHAEL SMITH: Can I ask--she's the only one
10 with authority. Do my ears deceive me or is there
11 an indication that this memorandum of understanding
12 is generally agreeable? Because that's sort of what
13 I'm hearing.
14 DEBORAH DOXTATOR: It--it wouldn't be at this
15 point. I'd have to go back to our General Tribal
16 Council. We have a governing structure and a
17 process whereby I have to consult with other bodies
18 within our government. I cannot make that sole
19 decision on my own.
20 MICHAEL SMITH: Let me put it differently. Are
21 you suggesting that you wish to do that, to present
22 this memoranda of understanding to your governing
23 council?
24 DEBORAH DOXTATOR: Not that specific one. We
25 would have to discuss what we would--we would be
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 114
1 willing to agree to. I know we haven't really
2 gotten into the details of that. We would have to
3 look at it in more--in more detail to see if it
4 meets those needs of the cultural significance to
5 the communities.
6 MICHAEL SMITH: May I--I (portion of tape
7 inaudible). If understand the simple purpose of the
8 NAGPRA Statute, as it relates to the Committee
9 dispute resolution, is to facilitate dispute
10 resolution. And if that's appropriate, if there is
11 a core to that thought, it is with dispute between
12 sovereign Indian tribes where, respectfully, Federal
13 advisory committees (portion of tape inaudible). We
14 have submitted the memorandum of understanding
15 proposal because we think it helps the Committee go
16 about as far as they're able to go, to actually
17 facilitate a resolution. If what I'm hearing is
18 that the gist of the proposal is one that we ought
19 to discuss, forget the details, nobody (portion of
20 tape inaudible), and that the representatives of the
21 government who are here from Wisconsin wish to
22 present the concept to the Wisconsin government, I
23 mean, I've got to tell you, I think that's a major
24 event in the hearing, and it's hard to see how we
25 can do anything but follow that process.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 115
1 MARTIN SULLIVAN: I don't think we need to hear
2 any more.
3 MICHAEL SMITH: Unless her lawyer tells her not
4 to do it.
5 MICHAEL LOKENSGARD: And not withstanding
6 that-- I think that to--to further clarify the
7 point as well, I mean, pardon me, the vast majority
8 of our delegation arrived extremely late last night.
9 It's not easy to fly to Myrtle Beach. It took me
10 two days. It took them quite awhile. There was a
11 fire at the airport in Raleigh Friday night.
12 I think that what--in looking at the--the
13 agreement which--which I received yesterday and then
14 very late last night was able to--to share with some
15 of our delegation and the rest of them only this
16 morning, I think that the question that it comes
17 down to is that--I don't--we're not disagreeing
18 what--what I think that Ms. Doxtator had said was
19 that, any--an agreement, obviously, would have to
20 contemplate the ability not only of people to visit
21 the belt wherever it may be but to accommodate the
22 ability or to allow the ability of the belt to
23 travel for ceremonial or other purposes, ideally, to
24 all three communities.
25 The hang-up, quite frankly, I think, is
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 116
1 it--item number one, that--that any--if that is the
2 ultimate intent, is it really necessary for this
3 Committee or anybody to make a specific statement as
4 to one entity with which or to which it ought to be
5 repatriated. I think that the details of the rest
6 of that can be banged out one way or the other. And
7 I think the regulations provide for that and some of
8 the savings clause provisions that were done. And
9 I--I think that, to clarify, that I--what I--what I
10 think I'm trying to say is that it may be possible
11 to go down that road without the initial decision to
12 repatriate to one or the other, which is going to be
13 the most hard to take on either party. Also, I
14 think that that at least, potentially, something
15 done in that matter is going to avoid all of us a
16 lot of headache in Federal court down the road. I
17 apologize to anybody in the--in the Oneida Wisconsin
18 delegation if I have spoken presumptuously. But I
19 think that that is--that that is, in essence, what
20 we would be prepared to discuss, and qualitatively,
21 it may not be that different. But I think it's that
22 initial determination which may be rendered largely
23 superfluous, and the other points are agreeable.
24 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Okay. Thank you. I know Mr.
25 Koontz wants to say something too.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 117
1 Mr. Smith, you'll get your sound bite.
2 MICHAEL SMITH: Everything's been said; I'm
3 just not sure everybody said it. I just--I mean, I
4 guess it's important that we understand. I'm not
5 sure that you all understand it. I'm not sure I
6 understood it. I think--I think we are in
7 agreement, for purposes of the current discussion.
8 That's what I'm trying to feel my way around. It's
9 not an unimportant thing to be clear about. We
10 don't want to be unclear.
11 If--if the point is that this should be the
12 subject of discussion between two sovereign nations
13 and that the general outline is a framework of
14 possible agreement, that's a good thing. And I
15 think I agree that it eliminates, at least for
16 today, the need for intrusion into the discussions
17 between those two sovereigns. But I want to be sure
18 that that is what he means to say.
19 MICHAEL LOKENSGARD: I think what I mean to say
20 is that there is a large realm of issues that are
21 discussable, having to do with the travel and with
22 the actual issues that I think are more important to
23 our respective clients without the initial
24 determination that there is necessarily a, quote,
25 "more appropriate claimant," unquote. And to the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 118
1 extent that some kind--I mean, yes, you know, we
2 ought to talk about it, if it's possible, from that
3 sort of a starting point; that we ought to talk
4 about some way in which, for reasons in an agreement
5 which could be put together, which would, in fact,
6 allow the belt to be where it needed to be for
7 whatever reason. Sure.
8 DEBORAH DOXTATOR: I just wanted to let the
9 Committee know that I was answering that question in
10 the context of the fact that you were asking both
11 parties if we were determined to be the party of
12 custody of the belt would we be agreeable to those
13 types of discussions. That's the context that I
14 answered the question in.
15 DAN MONROE: Marty, could I say something?
16 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Yeah.
17 DAN MONROE: Given the--given the history and
18 the relationship at this point, I--I'm very
19 encouraged that there's a willingness to talk. I
20 think that all parties understand that there is also
21 a great deal of delicacy about who says what right
22 this second. I would encourage that we limit--if
23 there is a commitment and a willingness to talk,
24 that we not force either of the parties to dance
25 that sort of delicate line, not knowing exactly what
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 119
1 they're representing because they have not had a
2 chance to consult, understanding as attorneys, those
3 that are representing the two tribes as attorneys,
4 the necessity to serve their clients well. I think
5 that it's important if we're able to say that
6 there's a willingness to talk around this general
7 notion that has been put on the table, that we limit
8 any further discussion, and we just ascertain that
9 there is a willingness to talk.
10 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Members of the Committee,
11 want to respond to that?
12 LAWRENCE HART: Mr. Chairman, I--I concur with
13 that, and I'd like to make a remark in conjunction
14 with--with that.
15 At the conclusion of the testimonies for both
16 groups, something was done that was, to me,
17 extremely profound and moving. And I suppose I say
18 this from my Peace Chief tradition, but I think it
19 has a bearing, because within the tradition of the
20 Oneida Nation, there is the teachings of the
21 peacekeeper.
22 The last person to speak for the Oneida Nation
23 of New York asked a member of the Oneidas of--Oneida
24 Tribe of Wisconsin to do a traditional closing. It
25 was as if one group made a most symbolic gesture and
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 120
1 then the other group responded. (Indicating.) And
2 this gesturing that I'm doing is important. It came
3 and it was answered. Here. (Indicating.) And
4 here. (Indicating.) I'm not unconvinced that--or
5 I'm convinced it could--it can happen again on
6 deeper and lasting issues.
7 I'm ready to say to our Committee that we ought
8 to defer so that more of that can happen. Here.
9 (Indicating.) And here. (Indicating.) Both groups
10 have a way to do that. Both groups can put their
11 hearts and minds together based on a great law. And
12 we ought to allow for that; that any further
13 contemplation by our Committee would be an
14 intrusion.
15 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Tessie.
16 DAN MONROE: I--I--
17 BRUCE ELIJAH: I just wanted to say, the
18 question was asked: What are we doing for the
19 future? Exactly this, with everything that we do
20 and how we go about it is for our future. The
21 question was asked is that: Well, they haven't
22 gotten anything from the Oneidas on the Canadian
23 side to say a claim to this. We don't need to. We
24 don't have to, because we know that that's something
25 that--that's not up to you. That's up to us as we
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 121
1 come back together. That wampum has to travel, and
2 there's a lot of responsibilities that go with that,
3 you know. And so-- It would take a long time to
4 explain to you how we're going to do that. But we,
5 you know, we can do that, and we will do that. And,
6 again, you know, we can show you, a few months from
7 now, maybe a year from now, or whatever length of
8 time, maybe even invite--even invite you to show you
9 what we're doing and how that is enhancing our
10 people.
11 I just wanted to answer that; everything that
12 we do, you know. But we have to go through
13 protocol; not only our protocol, but also the
14 outside's protocol. It's sad to say, you know. For
15 us, when we say "private property," there's no such
16 thing with us, within our culture. Private
17 property. Huh-uh. It's the Creator. It's for the
18 Creator as to how we conduct ourselves.
19 DAN MONROE: Marty?
20 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Yeah.
21 DAN MONROE: I understand repatriation to deal
22 with attempting to remedy injustices, in large
23 measure. And it's very painful at all times that
24 those injustices occurred, and it's especially
25 painful in this case, because to have an object of
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1 cultural patrimony is to have an object that is
2 central to the spirit and soul of a people. It
3 hasn't really a lot to do, in the end, with IRAs,
4 sovereignty agreements, land disputes, financial
5 matters. And at the same time, it's very hard to
6 separate all those things.
7 As a Committee, it's easy and understandable
8 that we sit behind a desk, which is not great in the
9 first place; that not all of us are Native American;
10 many of us represent museums. But there is a spirit
11 on the part of every member of this Committee. It's
12 very painful. This dispute, personally, is very
13 painful for me, because this wampum has to do with
14 the soul of the Oneida people, and they were divided
15 by the force of events outside their control more
16 than a century ago. But they are still connected.
17 For this Committee to act and to make a
18 determination of who has a greater right for
19 possession, I think, would be a horrendous mistake.
20 I think that what occurred here today gives me great
21 hope and makes me feel much better, because there is
22 the beginning of an opening. And if the Wisconsin
23 Oneida and the New York need to, and have to,
24 continue disputes in court over land matters and
25 other matters, so be it. But I think looking
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 123
1 forward to seven generations, which is a good rule
2 for any people, that this is an important matter,
3 and it goes way beyond those disputes, which will
4 eventually be forgotten. But this object, as an
5 integral part of the Oneida people, won't be
6 forgotten.
7 So I would recommend that the action of this
8 Committee be to encourage the parties to continue
9 the discussion that began here today, which gives me
10 great hope. And that we make no finding other than
11 the recommendation and guidance that that discussion
12 is very important, that we would do all in our power
13 to be of assistance to proceed and to help with it,
14 and that we encourage it be done, and that no
15 decision whatsoever be made as to who has a greater
16 right of possession at this point, until those
17 discussions have occurred. And I would encourage
18 that if it takes a long time to do that, take a long
19 time to do it. But come to some resolution within
20 the context of the Oneida people, not within the
21 context of this Committee or some other mechanism or
22 a court. Thank you.
23 RACHEL CRAIG: I feel much better. Not only
24 myself, but for you too. I'm hoping--I'm hoping
25 that you will be able to talk so that when you go to
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1 each other's homelands, on each other's lands, that
2 you won't have to look back; that you will be
3 comfortable with each other.
4 It's difficult when somebody--somebody, a third
5 party, has to make a decision for you. It just
6 wedges you deeper. And we wouldn't want to see that
7 happen to you.
8 I agree that we should leave it up to you to
9 work out your differences and your agreements, and I
10 wish you good luck and Godspeed.
11 MARTIN SULLIVAN: It's my sense that all
12 members of the Committee share the feelings that
13 Rachel Craig and Lawrence Hart and Dan Monroe have
14 expressed. Really, it isn't appropriate to impose
15 upon you to listen to us any longer now that you
16 have stated that you want to listen to each other.
17 And that seems to be the next, and most positive,
18 step.
19 For the record of the finding, it may be useful
20 for the Committee to note that the Field Museum has
21 expressed its readiness to proceed with the
22 repatriation and that the parties before us have
23 expressed a desire to work together so that the
24 claim can be a unified claim, or it is nearly a
25 unified claim as is possible to reach. And, as
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 125
1 Rachel has just said, it is our hope that that will
2 be the thing that happens next and the thing that
3 moves quickly.
4 Are there any comments from the Committee or
5 further elements of the finding?
6 Frank?
7 FRANK MCMANAMON: Thank you, Madam Chair. I--
8 I think this is a wonderful moment that we seemed to
9 have reached here, and I just want to make sure
10 that--that we bring it to--to some closure with
11 the--with the Committee's action. I--I understand
12 you to have said that at this point you don't feel
13 that there's a need to issue a formal finding, and
14 I--I would agree with that. I think there's
15 agreement here among the parties--between the
16 parties to talk. And that really was what--one of
17 the things that the Committee has been encouraging
18 in this matter all along.
19 I would suggest that the--the two thoughts
20 that--that Marty just summarized in terms of that
21 willingness to work together, the Committee's
22 willingness to continue to be of assistance, if
23 necessary, and--and also, I think, a profound thank
24 you from the Committee to the--all of the--of the
25 involved parties here, including the Field Museum,
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1 simply take the form of a letter from the Chair to
2 each of the parties; something indicating that this
3 discussion occurred and--and that this is the way
4 it's--it's--it appears to be moving and encouraging
5 that movement.
6 I--it seems to be acceptable to the--I see from
7 nods of the heads from Committee members. Since the
8 dispute is really placed on the agenda for the
9 Committee because the--the tribes or the museum have
10 asked for it, I just want to be sure, and a simple
11 nod of the head will do, from the--the respective
12 heads of the delegation, that the Committee not
13 issuing a formal finding, but simply, in a simple
14 letter, stating what I just stated would be
15 acceptable.
16 I see Mr. George is saying that that is all
17 right.
18 And from the Oneida of--the Oneida Tribe of
19 Wisconsin, is that acceptable?
20 MICHAEL SMITH: I think the parties sort of
21 suggested it was acceptable. I sort of (portion of
22 tape inaudible.)
23 FRANK MCMANAMON: Is that true for-- Yes, I
24 see nods also from the Oneida of Wisconsin and from
25 the Field.
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1 RICHARD KOONTZ: I'm still not a hundred
2 percent sure what's happening. There will be no
3 finding at this time, and there will be a
4 recommendation that the two Oneidas groups have a
5 discussion, reach what terms they can, and that
6 would be submitted or discussed with the Field in
7 some way?
8 FRANK MCMANAMON: Yes.
9 RICHARD KOONTZ: And then--
10 FRANK MCMANAMON: Proceed.
11 RICHARD KOONTZ: And not bring up trouble into
12 the middle of it, but out there is still the
13 Onondaga, somewhere. And we haven't brought them
14 into the discussion, either. We don't know about
15 that yet.
16 So it's very important for these two groups to
17 have a discussion. A great deal of nervousness on
18 the part of the museum. But let's work all of this
19 out between the two groups, and all of that work is
20 done, and (portion of tape inaudible), and we've had
21 a lot of discussion, much more discussion, about
22 Canada than we have about Onondaga today.
23 So, again, the process that's described, I
24 think, is great, but--
25 FRANK MCMANAMON: I take that to be a nod. I
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 128
1 take that to be a nod of the head.
2 RICHARD KOONTZ: A nod of the head. I don't
3 know how much of that needs to be in the letter.
4 MARTIN SULLIVAN: None of it.
5 DAN MONROE: I--yeah. I think the intent is
6 that the museum has expressed its willingness to
7 repatriate. The Committee is saying the proper way
8 to make these decisions is for the Oneida people to
9 make the decisions, and that that is our
10 recommendation.
11 MARTIN SULLIVAN: We thank all of you. We know
12 it has been much work and a long and a difficult
13 journey. And we have learned from you. We hope
14 that this will not the format in which we see you
15 again, but we do hope to see you again, and we wish
16 you all a safe journey. We'll take a lunch break.
17 LUNCH
18 TESSIE NARANJO: This afternoon we're going to
19 hear from several people, the first one being Deanna
20 Kerrigan, and then after that Bill Day, Michael
21 Haney, Bobby Billie, Nadine Horne, and Jonathan
22 Leader.
23 Then at 4:30, we are going to open up the
24 discussion for the general public, and have them
25 come up giving us their comments. The meeting is
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1 supposed to last until 5:30, but if, in fact, it
2 doesn't, we can adjourn early.
3 I will start off with--with any--before I get
4 started--we get started, any--any thoughts, any
5 comments, from the Review Committee?
6 Okay. Good. Jonathan, are you here? Yeah,
7 Jonathan's here.
8 Let's get started then, and we'll invite Deanna
9 Kerrigan, who is the program officer for the
10 American Association for State and Local History to
11 come give a presentation.
12 SPECIAL INVITATION TO THE COMMITTEE FROM THE
13 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY
14 DEANNA J. KERRIGAN, PROGRAM OFFICER
15 DEANNA KERRIGAN: First of all, can you all
16 hear me okay? All right. I know from sitting in
17 the back of the room that some parts of this room
18 can be a little deadly. So if you can't hear me,
19 just raise you hand.
20 Distinguished colleagues, I thank you for your
21 generous invitation to come to this meeting and for
22 allowing me the opportunity to learn from you today.
23 I have learned a great deal. And I am pleased to
24 have an opportunity to introduce you to the American
25 Association for State and Local History and invite
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 130
1 you to become part of what we think will be an
2 exciting new program.
3 AASLH is a non-profit, membership-based public
4 history organization, headquartered in Nashville,
5 Tennessee. I don't know how many of you are
6 familiar with Nashville, Tennessee, but we are
7 probably not famous for public history. We are more
8 famous for country line dancing, the Grand Ole Opry,
9 and a really sickening combination of sweets called
10 Goo Goo Clusters. We are also sequin capital of the
11 entire world.
12 We were established 56 years ago to assist in
13 the advance of state, provincial and local history.
14 Our services to the field have been many, and
15 include: a monthly newsletter; a quarterly
16 magazine, History News; technical publications;
17 mentorship activities for new people in the field;
18 and also professional development opportunities
19 around the country. And I left some information
20 about the association and our services on the back
21 table, so please feel free to take those.
22 The AASLH membership is comprised of
23 individuals and institutions across North American,
24 with the majority being small and mid-sized
25 historical societies, libraries, archives, cultural
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 131
1 centers, and museums. And we feel that this is very
2 significant because the smaller and mid-sized
3 history organizations are generally the ones in much
4 closer contact with their community, their
5 community's needs, and their community's history.
6 Our membership has, for some time, requested
7 that AASLH more aggressively address the needs of
8 tribal museums and cultural centers, and this leads
9 me to our new journey. Early this year, we surveyed
10 tribal museums and cultural centers across North
11 America. What, we asked, are your key critical
12 issues and concerns? Is there interest for a
13 special initiative from the association? And, if
14 so, how can our association be of assistance to you
15 in addressing these key issues? And the responses
16 were both enthusiastic and encouraging.
17 We heard from over 50 tribal museums and
18 cultural centers, who shared with us their hopes,
19 challenges, and frustrations, which were many. And
20 I'm sure you can imagine what the top issue was; it
21 was definitely NAGPRA and many issues of NAGPRA.
22 Other key issues were opportunities to share
23 information with other tribal museums and cultural
24 centers and the need for funds to implement new
25 plans.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 132
1 In September, the Native American History
2 Initiate Group met at the AASLH annual meeting in
3 Nashville. The steering committee of 27 individuals
4 representing 12 nations and 20 institutions has
5 taken on the task of leading our organization in a
6 long-term journey that, we hope, will be very
7 exciting and rewarding for all involved.
8 We heard a great deal today about cultural
9 objects and artifacts and their significance to us.
10 And, indeed, they are incredibly significant in the
11 telling of our stories. If they were not as
12 significant, we certainly would not have all been
13 here this morning to talk about them. And that's
14 wonderful; these conversations that are going on.
15 What we also find rewarding in the field are
16 the relationships that bring us together and provide
17 opportunities to address challenges and conflicts.
18 The challenges and conflicts that are going on now
19 with NAGPRA, and will continue to go on, are just
20 one of many. These relationships include our
21 relationship to our members, your relationship to
22 each other as colleagues and as friends, our
23 relationships with our respective communities, and
24 our relationships with our children and in our
25 conveying our history and our stories to them.
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1 It's not the association's intent to run a
2 Native American program, to make decisions for
3 tribal museums, or to implement some kind of
4 preconceived agenda. I think we can all admit that
5 that's been done. And we would like to actually
6 have the steering committee have an extremely active
7 role in this process. But rather, this--it's our
8 intent to establish long-term relationships with
9 Native historians, museums, archives, and cultural
10 centers, to provide services that are desperately
11 needed, and to ultimately see the Creation of a
12 Native-run, Native American association of museums.
13 The steering committee's short-term goal is to
14 lead a one-day intensive workshop on NAGPRA at the
15 1997 annual meeting in Denver, Colorado. We are
16 also working toward offering sessions and
17 round-table discussions throughout the meeting that
18 deal with specific issues identified in the
19 questionnaire.
20 Our theme for the meeting, because, of course,
21 you have to have a theme, is Crossing the Great
22 Divide. I'm sure after the past couple of days, you
23 can imagine the rich possibilities of this theme.
24 On behalf of the Native American steering
25 committee, the AASLH council, and our members, it is
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 134
1 my pleasure to invite you to join us in Denver on
2 October 1st through 4th, and my pleasure to invite
3 the NAGPRA Committee to possibly meet with us in
4 some way during that time. I encourage you to come
5 and share your experiences, your stories, and your
6 challenges. I encourage and welcome you to add to
7 the rich program the steering committee is
8 developing. And I urge you to help us all in
9 crossing the great divides we face every day. Thank
10 you very much.
11 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you, Deanna.
12 The next person on our agenda is Mr. Bill Day,
13 and there are several others who are included in
14 this--these round of--of presentations, but I would
15 ask each one of the presenters to take no more than
16 half an hour. And in that case, then we can hear
17 from everyone.
18 Mr. Bill Day.
19 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STATUTE IN THE SOUTHEAST
20 PRESENTATIONS
21 BILL DAY
22 BILL DAY: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I'm
23 going to reserve some of my time for Chairman Roland
24 Poncho of the Alabama-Coushatta, when he comes back
25 in.
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1 I am hoping that you have heard--listened, I
2 know you've heard--what we have had to say and what
3 some of these lawyers have to say about sovereignty.
4 The Tunica-Biloxi are a sovereign nation. We have
5 our own police force. We have our own courts, and
6 when you step on to that reservation, you are not in
7 Louisiana. And the only Louisiana authority that
8 had any authority on that reservation until recently
9 was the State Historic Preservation Officer. That
10 is no longer the case. Our tribe is the first tribe
11 in the nation to achieve elimination of the SHPO.
12 We now do our own historic preservation.
13 That was important to us for a number of
14 reasons. Beginning in 1991, I helped Senator Rick
15 Fowler write the amendments to the National Historic
16 Preservation Act, and it's only taken us since 1991.
17 While it's taken you a few years to get some
18 regulations, the regulations on that still have not
19 been written. Guidelines that I was able to
20 demonstrate went way beyond the law and were racist
21 in their concept and their expression.
22 And I'm not going to argue that point, but what
23 I am going to say is that opportunity is available
24 to any Indian tribe; tribe, in the concept that is
25 expressed in the law. And I beg of you people,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 136
1 don't force the hands of Federally-recognized Indian
2 tribes by involving yourselves in something we think
3 is beyond your realm, your charge, which I have read
4 more than once, of established procedures and
5 statutory law with regard to Indian tribes.
6 I have been through the three days of the USET
7 conference, in which every speaker alluded to some
8 new attack, subtle or direct, on the concept of
9 tribal sovereignty. That is all we have. That is
10 all we have. And it did not come easily. I
11 listened to attacks on housing, our health programs,
12 social service programs, our law enforcement
13 programs. In fact, when I spoke before the USET
14 convention, I said, you know that book some of you
15 people read says, God giveth and taketh away, but I
16 think he spoke first to Congress and whispered then
17 to the NAGPRA Committee.
18 I understand the humanistic viewpoint of
19 wanting to help others, but this is not a just
20 world. It's not a perfect world. And the processes
21 that we have gone through are available to anyone.
22 That's all they have to do. They don't need someone
23 else coming in and opening a door that should never
24 be touched. And I'll leave that subject.
25 And I've heard some stories here that I happen
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 137
1 to know are quite true from Indian people out here.
2 Let me tell you our story. We were in the DeSoto
3 journals. The Quiz-Quiz is where DeSoto discovered
4 the Mississippi River that we had been living on for
5 about a thousand years. We don't think he
6 discovered the Mississippi River. We think we did,
7 or others before us. And we do know for a fact that
8 he did not arrive on the river bank dressed in his
9 court finery. In fact, they were in rags because
10 they had encountered an Indian called Tascaloosa,
11 and they were as naked as we. The only thing is, we
12 weren't ever naked, you know, we're not--
13 I went through three years of college Spanish,
14 when I went back to school to--and got a couple of
15 more degrees, so I could at least talk with
16 archaeologists and anthropologists. I grew up
17 speaking French and some of the Tunica language and
18 some of the Choctaw language. I'm not going to do
19 what I have seen some of these fringe groups do,
20 begin speaking you--to you in English and say
21 (Native American language), my English fails me.
22 No; I won't do that. Because my English does not
23 fail me.
24 In 1541--at least that's who we think we are
25 because certainly the Valhalla of our learning,
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1 Harvard University, published two major
2 publications, "Tunica Treasure" and "Tunica
3 Archaeology", which major archaeologists and others
4 have since agreed, the Quiz-Quiz was Tunica. Why
5 Tunica? Well, a number of reasons, you know, that
6 ubiquitous thing that archaeologists deal in,
7 pottery shards. There was another thing, an
8 observance of DeSoto--he couldn't read and write.
9 He had somebody else do that--that when they arrived
10 at the Tunica complex the first thing they did was
11 capture 300 of the women, which was a typical
12 DeSotoan thing to do. But then the journals say
13 that within three hours, the Quiz-Quiz was able to
14 summon 6,000 warriors, at which point, DeSoto said,
15 excuse me, I believe I'm mistaken. Here are the
16 girls back. But where were the men? They were
17 working the fields, the corn fields.
18 Now, I know about stable isotopic examination
19 of human remains, but, believe me, we've always
20 known that we've eaten corn. We still venerate
21 that. We call it (Native American language). Every
22 year, which our people go to the water, and there's
23 a corn cross placed on their head, and it's not a
24 Christian cross, and then we feed the dead because
25 we honor them. That's where the men were. They
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1 were working the fields. The only Indians in the
2 entire world, I believe, that didn't get the message
3 that fieldwork was woman's work. It's one of the
4 things that helped define us.
5 And shortly after the passage of DeSoto, he
6 went into our other territory in Arkansas, all the
7 way back into Eastern Oklahoma to a place called
8 Spiro, which until recently has been considered
9 Caddo. Several major archaeologists now say, that's
10 not the case. It's Tunica. Caddo and us will work
11 that out. I'm not worried about that. But we were
12 once a great people, involved in trade and
13 entrepreneurship that was recognized in 1730 by the
14 French Governor Perrier, who said the Tunica are the
15 wealthiest Indians in the Mississippi Valley.
16 The next encounter we had with the Europeans
17 was on the Yazoo River; a place that's known to
18 archaeologists as Hayes Bluff, where we continued
19 doing what we still do; building mounds. And there
20 are Creek Indians in here, and I don't want to speak
21 out of turn with this, but in their green corn,
22 there's a mound. It's something that we have here.
23 It was 1698 when French Jesuits came down the
24 Mississippi River when we next appear in written
25 history. We were no longer just west of Clarksdale,
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1 Mississippi, or in Arkansas. And DeSoto brought
2 some things with him in his diplomacy that we now
3 call disease germs. And it got even worse when the
4 French Jesuits arrived because just over the hill
5 were the Chickasaws in Northeast Mississippi. And
6 the Tunica made a terrible mistake; they allied
7 with the French in 1698. And all of the sudden,
8 England realizes there are French Catholics on that
9 river. Their allies were the Chickasaws, and they
10 were a much more powerful nation. So they moved in
11 1706 to the Yazoo River. And that oppression
12 continued. And they moved even further down the
13 river to where the state prison is today, at the
14 confluence of the Red River and the Mississippi.
15 Again, repeating that pattern that they had always
16 kept, of being on a major stream and the confluence
17 of a smaller, because they could control the
18 commerce. And, again, we made a very terrible
19 mistake: we joined the French in the killing of the
20 Natchez, but we didn't get all of them.
21 In 1730, the remnant group of the Natchez, led
22 by Serpent Pique, the Tattooed Serpent, arrived at
23 the Tunica village at the Angola site and said,
24 let's be red brothers, bury tomahawk, have big
25 pow-wow. And we said, okay. That night, of course,
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1 the Tunica were attacked by the Natchez and some of
2 their allies, half of the Tunica were killed. Chief
3 Coihuro Juligo who had guided Bienville and St.
4 Denis to what is now known as Natchitoches were
5 killed.
6 We were a much smaller group. We moved
7 downstream again, about two miles, to a place much
8 more easily defended, known to people nowadays as
9 the Trudeau Site, from 1730 until the end of the
10 so-called French-Indian War, in which England got
11 everything east of the river. And so here we are a
12 tribe that has allied with France for nearly a
13 hundred years, and in the very best of Hollywood
14 tradition, when England sent the Major John Loftus
15 expedition up the Mississippi to reconnoiter their
16 new land, the Tunica popped out of the trees and
17 ambushed their new English landlords, at which point
18 in time, we were told to find someplace else to
19 live.
20 We made an alliance with Spain. Spain moved us
21 to where we are now in 1772, and where we have been
22 since, on what was originally a ten-league square
23 Spanish land grant. 1779, the Tunica warriors
24 joined Governor Bernardo de Galvez when Spain
25 decided to join the Americans in the American
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 142
1 Revolution, and with the help of the Tunica
2 warriors, Spain captured what is now called the city
3 of Baton Rouge. The English fort at Fort Butte
4 Bayou Manshack on the Mississippi River. Fort
5 Pamude at Natchez surrendered. The Tunica then,
6 with their Spanish allies, captured the English fort
7 at Mobile and then at Pensacola.
8 The history books don't tell you that, but
9 those four battles were probably the most important
10 battles to the American Revolution because the
11 Mississippi River was cut off for English resupply
12 from the West. And they could not be resupplied
13 from the Gulf Coast. So it all began and ended on
14 the East Coast because of our involvement. And one
15 of our people was made a brigadier general.
16 With the advent of the signing of the Louisiana
17 Purchase another invasion occurred. Those second
18 and third sons of the Americans, who had no right of
19 standing under primogenitor, began to take our land.
20 And we had no standing in court. We've now found
21 the grave of Chief Melacon, who in 1840 found a
22 family that's still there, a white family, fencing
23 off a major portion of the Tunica lands. He went
24 over and pulled up a fence stake and for that he was
25 shot and killed. We took that to court. We were
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 143
1 told we had no standing. We weren't citizens. And
2 we went to the Federal land commissioner, whose
3 decision is still on the books today, in which he
4 said, "It is not that they are Indians, but rather
5 that they are savages and have not done with the
6 land as God intended. So, therefore, they do not
7 need it." We learned well from that. We didn't
8 pull up any more fence stakes. And so what was ten
9 square leagues was, until just a few years ago, 134
10 acres.
11 But what about that Trudeau Site. In 1965, a
12 guard from Angola State Prison discovered that site.
13 Harvard had been looking for it for a number of
14 years in the lower Mississippi Valley surveys and
15 never found it. He did. He dug 150 tribal graves,
16 and he took the goodies. The human remains were
17 thrown into the Mississippi River. This person then
18 contacted Stu Neitcel, an archaeologist who happened
19 to live in that area. Harvard wrote a book, a
20 little pamphlet about him called "The Great Son."
21 Stu Neitcel, good guy, knew him for many years,
22 contacted Dr. Jeffrey Brain from Harvard; didn't
23 contact us. But he knew what the guy had. He had
24 discovered the Trudeau Site. So, Dr. Jeffrey P.
25 Brain offered to purchase these grave-robbed goods.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 144
1 Now, I certainly don't have an doctorate in
2 anthropology and archaeology, but I took a few
3 courses in it, and I--I think that one of the things
4 that I remember from some of those first classes is
5 that was an unethical thing for, particularly, an
6 archaeologist to do because that encouraged pot
7 hunting. But, be that as it may, the guy didn't
8 want the $8,000; he wanted 50,000. So Dr. Brain
9 says, fine. Ship all these things, all two and a
10 half tons of it, to the Peabody, and we'll form a
11 consortium to get you your 50,000. A few years
12 later, when the guy hadn't been paid and he filed a
13 lawsuit, the rejoinder from Harvard was, pretty much
14 like I heard about cultural patrimony and right of
15 possession today, from a lawyer, he was asked, you
16 do have title to these things, don't you? And he
17 said, no, I don't have any title to them. And he
18 said, well, I guess we'll have to keep them. So
19 they did, for ten years. They did not properly
20 curate them, but they produced two major scholarly
21 publications, plus a little, popular book.
22 When this came to light, the State of Louisiana
23 filed a lawsuit against Harvard saying these things
24 belong to the people of Louisiana. So they were
25 sent back to Louisiana in care of the state museum,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 145
1 the Cabilldo. We then filed a lawsuit to recover
2 these as those things of our ancestors. The State
3 of Louisiana actually joined us in that lawsuit.
4 And after 15 years of litigation, the court decision
5 was that grave goods belonged to descendants, and
6 that decision went all the way and was confirmed up
7 to the Supreme Court. And that legal decision is
8 one of the foundation decisions creating NAGPRA. It
9 is not something that I come to lightly.
10 Let's examine, for a moment, how the state
11 museum, the Cabilldo, took care of what Harvard has
12 called the world's largest collection of Indian and
13 European artifacts from the Colonial period of the
14 Mississippi Valley. For ten years, they were placed
15 in a leaky shed, outside, in the French Quarter,
16 behind Madam John's Legacy, with no security, in
17 grocery store boxes, cardboard boxes, in which iron
18 kettles were placed on top of fragile ceramics. You
19 see, we couldn't get them back immediately, even
20 though the court said they were ours, because, as
21 was said, the Indians can't take care of these. And
22 I don't exaggerate in that.
23 But we built a museum. They said, okay, now
24 you got a museum. You can have them. And I brought
25 them back, and I opened up the boxes, and I said,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 146
1 Oh, my God, what has happened? These are not the
2 beautiful photographs that I see in the "Tunica
3 Treasure" or in pictures of records. It's
4 destroyed. I brought in two professional
5 conservators and said, can you save this? And, if
6 so, how much? Well, we can save some of it. How
7 much? A million--million and a half dollars. Well,
8 our tribal budget at that time was $700,000, and
9 here we have a museum--it was a HUD grant. We
10 didn't pay for it ourselves--and junk, and no way to
11 pay for a conservator. We built our own
12 laboratory. I got a grant from the Park Service to
13 bring in professional conservators to train two of
14 our people. We now have a highly sophisticated
15 artifact conservation laboratory. We have two
16 fully-qualified American Indian conservators. We
17 have treated almost 200,000 artifacts. We have not
18 lost one. Our reputation as conservators is good
19 enough to earn us contract work from the United
20 States Corps of Engineers and the State of Louisiana
21 as contract archaeologists. And we are now
22 reproducing reproductions for the University of
23 Arkansas and the University of Mississippi State
24 Museum.
25 We did that before the casino. That was still
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 147
1 on 134 acres. And our laboratory--I was out at the
2 University of Arizona for a summer. Coming back on
3 the highway, I got alongside a tractor trailer rig
4 and looked at that and it was a refrigerated
5 trailer. And I got to looking at that some more
6 and, you know, that thing is steel and aluminum and
7 it's insulated. And I got on the CB and I asked the
8 guy where I--where can I get me a used one of those.
9 That's what I did. I got a used trailer with a hole
10 in the side for $250. I got another one for a
11 thousand. We joined those at right angles and in
12 one of them we built a storage facility; totally
13 environmentally controlled. In the other we built a
14 laboratory and soon ran out of space. We now can
15 treat right at 125 metallic objects at one time in
16 the laboratory.
17 And in our museum, what do we do with these
18 things that were robbed from ancestors graves and we
19 don't have the human remains? We can't put it back
20 in the ground with the right people, which is what
21 we would have done. We got back a cigar box full.
22 We built our museum in the form of a southeastern
23 temple mound, earthen sided. But you go inside.
24 And we put these things all together there. And the
25 human remains we got back were buried under the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 148
1 floor of that museum and that is as close as we
2 could put those people back together. We don't know
3 if we have done the right thing. We know what was
4 the wrong thing. But we, to this day, don't know
5 have we done the right thing.
6 But because we went through the process that is
7 prescribed in the law and met all of the
8 qualifications, and we're certified as bona fide
9 American Indians under those guidelines and under
10 the law, a sovereign nation, we were able to get a
11 casino. And is that good, bad, or indifferent? It
12 has a lot of sociological problems with it. We're
13 all aware of that. And it's not a very big casino.
14 But it took four years of dealing with the State
15 Historic Preservation Officer and Louisiana
16 politics, because SHPO's are gubernatorial
17 appointments. Machiavelli would have been a student
18 at some of the things we have gone through. Would
19 you believe that for 40 years there was a cattle
20 auction operation where we wished to put the casino
21 and yet a contract archeologist, with interest in a
22 state business, said that's the most important
23 historic site--archeological site ever discovered in
24 Louisiana. Lee did every kind of testing, shovel
25 testing, pedestrian surveys, magnetometers, metal
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 149
1 detectors and never found a single shard. But yet
2 when he told the tribal Chairman, Mr. Earl Barbry
3 who stood here, take the bulldozer and clean all
4 this mess off from the--literally, a pile of manure,
5 so that my instruments will work, the Chairman did
6 that. The next thing we knew there was a letter
7 from the State Historic Preservation Officer to the
8 Department of the Interior charging us with a
9 violation of section 110(k) of the National Historic
10 Preservation Act, which is anticipatory destruction
11 of an archeological site in which there are no
12 federal permits that were available for funding.
13 We're guilty of that. I thank God that there are
14 some thinking people in Washington, D.C. The BIA,
15 the Department of the Interior, sent their own chief
16 archeologist down and he agreed with my assessment:
17 You can't have a violation of 110(k) if there isn't
18 anything there to violate.
19 But to make a long story short, we--we got the
20 casino built. And then the State said, well, of
21 course, you realize you have to have a driveway
22 permit. Well, I said, okay. What's it cost? You
23 build a three-lane, four-lane for 2,000 yards either
24 side of the casino entrance, State Highway 1. Now,
25 they didn't require Wal-Mart, which is only a
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 150
1 quarter mile away to do that. But that's what we
2 had to do. Then they said, look, you're going to
3 have all these people in here. What are you going
4 to do with the sewerage? We'll hook it up to the
5 city sewers. Sorry, we've got all the manure that
6 we can handle already. We had to build a hundred
7 thousand gallon retaining tank and have it pumped
8 out every few weeks, or-- What are you going to do
9 for water? Be glad to sell you water at $1.70 per
10 thousand gallons. Yeah, I know, but everybody else
11 pays 60 cents. I know, but this is a casino. Well,
12 this is a community which Wal-Mart killed. All the
13 little businesses had to close. A dying town.
14 Every Wednesday, I had to add an extra ten minutes
15 to getting to work because of the lines in front of
16 the welfare office, to get the food stamps in that
17 community. We now employ 3,000 people. We're the
18 largest employer in five parishes. You think it's
19 over with? No.
20 But what has it allowed us to do? Put screens
21 on houses that didn't have them five years ago; put
22 running water in houses that didn't have them five
23 years ago; to replace old worn-out automobiles; to
24 provide a per capita income to people who had none.
25 We think we've used it wisely, and we think that we
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 151
1 have used our position as a sovereign nation wisely.
2 And we have climbed forcibly from the bottom of the
3 socioeconomic ladder where we were placed 250 years
4 ago.
5 And I have gone over my time, but that's not
6 unusual for me, Tessie. The--I thank you for your
7 attention. And I would request that you would make
8 a moment or two for Chairman Roland Poncho of the
9 Alabama-Coushatta Nation. Thank you again.
10 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you, Mr. Day.
11 ROLAND PONCHO
12 ROLAND PONCHO: (Native American language.)
13 Thank you, very much, for the opportunity for a
14 couple of minutes of your time that I can introduce
15 myself, my people. I am with the Alabama-Coushatta
16 Tribe of Texas. We were probably the only Indian
17 tribe that voluntarily moved from one area, and we
18 were asked once we got to another place, if we
19 wanted to move. We're originated from just north of
20 Montgomery at Ft. Toulouse. Ft. Toulouse was built
21 for us when they--in settled times, by the French.
22 The Coushattas lived along the banks of the Coosa
23 River, and where it joins the Coosa and Tallapoosa
24 River, which forms into one river named after our
25 tribe, the Alabama. It goes downstream as Alabama.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 152
1 This was our original homeland.
2 But with the English coming, our people were
3 not comfortable. So they moved from that area,
4 ending up in Louisiana and into Mexico, which was
5 later Texas. Some of our people went across into
6 Louisiana and remains as the Coushatta Tribe, and
7 some of them moved north into Oklahoma called the
8 Alabama-Quassarte. They're our descendants. And we
9 remain in east Texas.
10 I have been instructed by our council and our
11 people that we will represent ourselves; no one will
12 represent us. So, it is very important that this
13 Committee would stick to their statement this
14 morning that they would be fair, open-minded, and
15 thorough. That is the only way that it can happen.
16 I'm sure the members of the Committee can
17 produce a ten-page summary of their background quite
18 easily. However, there is one page that cannot be
19 assimilated by non-Indians. This one page is about
20 the--coming from the heart, being Indian, and
21 especially those that speak the Indian language--I
22 speak both Alabama and Coushatta--within our
23 language is embedded a protective measure warning us
24 against non-Indians, or whites, to be specific.
25 It's embedded in our language. For some reason, the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 153
1 non-Indians, or the white, were our enemies. So our
2 language tell us, watch out for them. I hope that
3 that is not the case; that you will produce that one
4 page that reflects the heart and minds of the
5 people, the Indian people, who are here.
6 I know the NAGPRA didn't come about because
7 some government official said one day, Indian people
8 need this NAGPRA. Let's put it in force. No, it
9 took many years of miles, expenses, of Indian people
10 promoting this, that it was necessary. After a long
11 fight it came to be. So the systematic process as
12 mentioned in 25 C.F.R. has got to keep moving, from
13 the Indians'--from the Indians' perspective. As I
14 understand it, it is--it is about rights, of lineal
15 descendants, Indian tribes, Hawaiian Natives. It is
16 about their rights, about our rights.
17 I think that one page of your resume should
18 take that to heart. And I am going to keep you to
19 your word that you are going to be fair,
20 open-minded, and thorough. (Native American
21 language.)
22 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you.
23 Michael Haney.
24 MICHAEL HANEY
25 MICHAEL HANEY: I was at the book store, and
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 154
1 someone left this there. Does it have a plane
2 ticket in there, or a free golf round or something?
3 We'll auction it off.
4 RACHEL CRAIG: We'll tell you all the secrets.
5 ROLAND PONCHO: I could have spoke longer.
6 MICHAEL HANEY: Hey, we're still looking out
7 for each other, there.
8 I want to thank the members of the Committee
9 for allowing--allowing me to testify here, and it's
10 good to see many of you again here. I've come to
11 know many of you by name and reputation and meet you
12 personally. I serve on a board of-- What's that
13 called, Marty? The American Indian--
14 MARTIN SULLIVAN: --Indian Ritual Object
15 Repatriation Foundation.
16 MICHAEL HANEY: --Foundation with Marty
17 Sullivan, here, and we're--we take up this issue as
18 well. We recently published a guideline, a book, a
19 handbook, to maybe put some of the regulatory
20 language in--in English, or our English, layman's
21 English here, and it's called "Mending the Circle."
22 And I'm very proud of that, and of Dr. Sullivan's
23 contribution. And I enjoyed your tacos a couple of
24 weeks ago. We went out to the Heard Museum and--but
25 the weather was a little unkind over there, you
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 155
1 know.
2 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Just like now.
3 MICHAEL HANEY: Yeah, we go there to Phoenix
4 and we thought we have nice weather, and we--
5 Anyway, I'm certainly glad again to--to see
6 that we have a member of a tribe from Oklahoma,
7 Lawrence Hart, a new member of the-- I guess it's
8 his first meeting here, from the Cheyenne Arapaho
9 Tribe. He and I have worked together the last few
10 years, sit on many panels, and I'm just happy to
11 hear that someone from Oklahoma's here.
12 My name is Michael Haney. I'm a member of the
13 Newcomer Band of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.
14 My father is a little Creek and Seminole. My
15 mother's a full-blooded Lakota, a Sioux woman there.
16 So I got to kind of struggle between a, you know, a
17 real strong spirit to do whatever is necessary to
18 take care of our relatives, and my father's side
19 that says, be careful, you know, this is a very
20 dangerous thing that you're doing and always consult
21 your ceremonial people. So I'm half Sioux and half
22 Seminole, and I'm a little white too, but I can't
23 prove it. So I don't talk about that so much there.
24 I know you want nothing but evidence here at these
25 hearings here.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 156
1 But, being from Oklahoma, we're in a really
2 unique and--and sort of frustrating position.
3 There's only two tribes. There's 39
4 Federally-recognized tribes in Oklahoma, 320,000
5 Indians. A lot of them look just like I do;
6 full-blooded Indians; speak the language. We like
7 to dance. We like to, you know, have a good time.
8 But we've always kept our ceremonies intact. And I
9 think that's probably the most important is that the
10 only reason we're here 500 years after we found that
11 lost Italian Columbus, the only reason we're here, I
12 think, is not because of the--of the good-willed
13 Federal policies or the ambitions of westward
14 expansion, but it's because we held true to our
15 ceremonies, that we follow those original
16 instructions, that we passed down from generation to
17 generation the rules of how to conduct ourselves
18 here on this earth. And we still teach these songs
19 and ceremonies and dances to our--to our young, to
20 our youth. And they, too, participate in these
21 ceremonies.
22 And we have, in Oklahoma, we only have two
23 tribes that are Indigenous to the State of Oklahoma;
24 the Wichita and the Caddo. The rest of us, like the
25 Cheyenne and Arapaho, come from Montana, you know,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 157
1 the Powder River Basin area. We have the Modocs,
2 from--Captain Jack's people, from California, that
3 live in the northeastern part of Oklahoma. We have
4 the people from--some people from the Iroquois
5 Confederacy. There's a tribe that calls itself the
6 Seneca-Cayuga that lives in the northeast. In
7 Miami, Oklahoma, there are the Miamis there. We all
8 come from different areas, but the fact is, is that
9 we are miles, hundreds, if not thousands, of miles
10 away from our ancestral homelands.
11 And it really hurts me as a Seminole, when I
12 hear about our graves being threatened or destroyed
13 or excavated or bulldozed down because of a highway
14 project, because of a shopping mall project, or a
15 housing development. And I was one of those people
16 that traveled, you know, as the minco from the
17 Alabama-Coushatta talked about, to meetings back and
18 forth across this country. Because in 1978, I was a
19 part of a group that walked, physically walked,
20 across this United States. We started out in
21 Alcatraz Island, and we walked all the way to
22 Washington, D.C., in 1978, to protest some real
23 serious legislative attempts to abrogate treaty
24 rights. And we didn't have any money. We
25 didn't--we didn't hire any lobbyists, like Ross
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 158
1 Perot says. We--we just did it ourselves. We
2 walked 3,000--I think 3,400 miles.
3 But along the way, one of the things that--we
4 have community forums, you know, sponsored by
5 churches and local groups when we came into a
6 different community, but one thing I noticed that we
7 kept hearing horror stories about Indian graves
8 being unearthed, about Indian remains being used as
9 ashtrays and, you know, items of trade and
10 curiosity. Our artifacts or shaker objects were
11 being traded, being dug by a--excavated by boy
12 scouts and, you know, well-meaning people. But--who
13 ordinarily wouldn't do that, but they feel that we
14 are a little bit less than human.
15 So a group of us started about--and I went
16 to--then we had a coalition called United Indian
17 Nations in Oklahoma, and I went to them and I talked
18 to them about the need for legislation to protect
19 our unmarked human burials. It's true that in most
20 states cemeteries are protected by already in-place
21 cemetery laws. But our ancestors and our people
22 didn't mark them with traditional headstones and
23 church cemeteries. So that put them at risk. There
24 was no law to cover them, no law to protect them.
25 And they were at the mercy of these unscrupulous pot
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1 hunters, that can--that can excavate a mound and
2 sell an urn for $50,000; sell a stone ax for
3 $17,000.
4 And so we formed a committee and a group of us
5 went around state to state where our tribes come
6 from; Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, went to
7 Alabama, there's a law in place there, Georgia,
8 North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida. And we
9 proposed--and we worked with the local
10 archaeologists often, since we do agree on this, you
11 know, that the pot hunters are something that we
12 need to eliminate to protect them. So we found
13 grounds that we could agree on. And together we
14 proposed legislation that would protect unmarked
15 human burials or Indian burials grounds and sacred
16 sites.
17 And so it was a state-by-state effort. And
18 then finally in 1990, after a couple years of going
19 back and forth, and some members of the Review
20 Committee were a part of that consultation, NAGPRA
21 was finally agreed upon, and we got a lesson in
22 lobbying there. I mean when we went home during
23 summer session, we had a 17 vote lead in the Senate.
24 We came back after--after everyone had campaigned,
25 and we lost that lead. Their lobbyists stayed in
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 160
1 there. You know, the lobbyists for Sotheby's, the
2 lobbyists for Christie's, the lobbyists for the
3 antique art dealers association that was out of
4 Santa Fe, I believe. They spent large amounts of
5 money protecting their rights to what they call free
6 enterprise, but their right to excavate or
7 desecrate, in our opinion, the final resting places
8 of our ancestors.
9 And so it was enacted. So it's been six years.
10 And I--I want to commend the Committee. I want to
11 commend all of you that have worked patiently and
12 diligently to bring forth your--your tribal
13 positions on how this process has to work. But
14 there's been a couple of-- Of course, it's not
15 complete. I know, as--as a lobbyist we have to go
16 back and keep going back until we get what we want.
17 We're not at that point yet.
18 Being from Oklahoma, we had to set up
19 committees all over the different parts of this East
20 and Southeast to let us know when there was
21 something in the paper about a burial ground being
22 disturbed, about a university class of
23 archaeologists going out and getting a grant,
24 because they could get public money to dig my people
25 up. Isn't that something? Public money to dig us
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 161
1 up, to mine us, actually. And when we find this
2 out, we go and we--we bluff them. There's no legal
3 position for us to protect often these sites that
4 are on private land. They're not on public land.
5 It's limited to just Federal property and tribal
6 property in the law. We have to--use, you know,
7 the--the morality. 500 years since you've come here
8 to our country, and when we were asked to stay, we
9 asked the Federal Government to please call off the
10 longest undeclared war in history, and that's the
11 war against American Indians right here in our own
12 homeland. Even in death we can't escape these
13 people, these colonialists.
14 So we have to work at that in a--in a diligent
15 manner. In three years we're going to--we're going
16 to be in the 21st Century. And I would like to see
17 all of the human remains that are in repositories,
18 all of the sacred objects, all of the (portion of
19 tape inaudible), the pipes, the things that's
20 important for my people back home to have in our
21 ceremonies. I would like to see them completed by
22 the 21st Century, so that we could walk hand in
23 hand, you know, people to people, government to
24 government, into that new century, as relatives, as
25 equal standing, you know. I think that's what the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 162
1 Creator wanted all of us to have here. He didn't
2 give my people, you know, title. But he did--we do
3 feel we have a responsibility to protect this earth,
4 as I think that every one of you do, protect the
5 atmosphere, protect the land, protect the waters.
6 And I think we're doing that, but we have to take
7 care of these ancestors here.
8 My--the tribes that I represent, the Five
9 Tribes in Oklahoma, we call it--we're called the
10 Five Civilized Tribes, and, yeah, I get a little
11 kick out of that too. Because the Seminole, we
12 still haven't signed a peace agreement with the
13 United States. I don't think we will, you know. We
14 seen how they treated the treaties with other
15 nations, and I think that would be a mistake.
16 However, we do have agreements, and we were
17 forced agreements for removal, you know, and we were
18 kind of tricked into that. My--my tribe--Oseola
19 (phonetic) was tricked into confinement and died in
20 prison. And they cut off his head. In the 1860s,
21 the Department of Army issued a--the surgeon general
22 issued a memorandum. The science of archaeology was
23 just a new discipline. And they wondered, how come
24 these Indians blindly follow their leaders into
25 battle, against overwhelming odds? How come these
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 163
1 Indian people blindly follow these leaders, you
2 know, when they know their certain demise? So it
3 must--they must have these huge brains, you know,
4 big, powerful brains here. So they went about
5 measuring. And they ordered that these Indian
6 leaders, wherever they be found, be decapitated, and
7 their heads sent to the Department of Army.
8 It was only when we found irrefutable evidence
9 and confronted the Smithsonian with this memorandum
10 they finally admit, yes, we have heads of your
11 leaders here. They have heads of the leaders of my
12 people and many of the people in Oklahoma. And we
13 still want them back. But that just goes to show
14 you all is that they--how they misunderstood,
15 because they measured--they measured the wrong
16 organ. They should have measured the heart, the
17 love that we have for one another, the love that we
18 have for this way of life, the love that we have for
19 our religion, the love that we have for these
20 original instructions. That's immeasurable.
21 And I think that's your responsibility to
22 convey to Congress; is that take the testimony you
23 hear--the emotional, and I think, you probably
24 understood that very first meeting here, that this
25 is going to be an emotional issue here. And I--I
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 164
1 commend you for being able to, you know, to listen
2 and to take everything in. Because often I know
3 it's very, very hard. I know I hate more than
4 anything to go back to Oklahoma and tell people from
5 the Creek Tribe, tell people from the Apache, tell
6 people from the Delaware Tribe that we cannot save
7 the final resting places because there is no law.
8 The law only handles things that are--only includes
9 Federal land, Federal properties, Federal monies are
10 used, you know.
11 So what--what I've attempted to do is use a
12 myriad of laws, including the Historic Preservation
13 Act, which is under amendment here. And I really
14 want to thank my friend here, Bill Day, you know,
15 for pointing out that, you know, that the--that the
16 new NAGPRA--that the new Historic Preservation Act
17 does provide for tribes, in 638, these services, and
18 I encourage you all to do it. And the latest
19 communication I have is that 12 tribes have recently
20 applied to contract for the SHPO services, and I
21 think that we should all do this.
22 Where I'm from, in Oklahoma, they take the
23 Historic Preservation Act money and they--they give
24 it to the rich philanthropists to rebuild their oil
25 tycoon houses or rebuild bricktown or put flowers
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 165
1 and azaleas on the capital lawn. And that was
2 supposed to be to go to our purpose of identifying
3 these sacred and historical significant sites and
4 then developing a historic preservation plan, a
5 plan, to protect them. And--and they've been
6 shirking their responsibility. We've let them.
7 So I think it's time that we do this ourselves.
8 It's true that no one's going to protect our
9 relatives but us. So we have to do it ourselves.
10 And I think we all should do what the Tunica-Biloxi
11 has done and--and get that money from--from these
12 fat cats over in the Historic Preservation Office.
13 Our--our SHPO officer is just a golf-playing partner
14 of the governor, you know, and that's his
15 credentials, you know, and he's an Indian expert all
16 of the sudden, you know. I should be a white
17 expert. I should have a doctorate in Caucasian
18 studies. You know, I--I speak the language, been to
19 your schools, and your religion, you know. You
20 know, and I--you could get a Ph.D. and not even see
21 an Indian, you know, and be an expert and be a SHPO
22 officer and not even meet an Indian.
23 It wasn't that long ago, I--I was in Phoenix,
24 oh, ten, twelve years ago, and they asked me to
25 speak at the Society for American Archaeology. The
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 166
1 next day it was billed, I saw in the paper, I was
2 the first Indian to ever speak there, and live--no,
3 no. (Portion of tape inaudible.)
4 Do you remember that, Marty, when I came down
5 there? But they had a room about this big. But it
6 was so filled. I had a little infant with me there,
7 and it was my turn to change the Pampers, you know.
8 So, I had to go up to the hotel and change him and
9 come back. By the time I got back, there was lines
10 trying to get into that room. So we had to open the
11 grand ballroom down there. And it filled, you know,
12 600 people, and there were still people trying to
13 get in. And I thought it was unusual that
14 these--that these archaeologists--they're dedicated
15 to mining, literally, mining, my people, but they've
16 never even heard from us. I thought it was funny
17 that they've heard from Dr. Ortez (phonetic), but
18 they never considered him an Indian because he's an
19 "ologist," you know. So if you're an Indian and you
20 get a Ph.D., you cease being an Indian, according to
21 these guidelines.
22 But we talked to them about how we felt when
23 you unearth our remains, our ancestors. We
24 talked--we told them about how it endangered us
25 spiritually, maybe even physically. And that we had
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 167
1 to get them back into the earth. We told them
2 that--that among my people--I'm an Alligator
3 Clan--our clan does the burial--and I'm taught from
4 birth there, that when we--when we turn what we call
5 the fresh-turned earth there, even before we do that
6 there's--there's a medicine that we use. And
7 we--it's--I can only compare it to like handling
8 uranium ore, you know. It wasn't that long ago,
9 they didn't--it was a nice rock, but they didn't
10 know that it could hurt you. People played with it,
11 even had some Pueblo people mining it without these
12 protective clothing and they got ill. In our
13 reckoning, this is the same thing. You know you
14 touch that--that uranium, you handle it, you know,
15 you have to wash off, because that could contaminate
16 and even kill you, develop cancer. You may even
17 pass it on in your genes to the next generation.
18 In our way of looking at things, the same thing
19 is true when you're handling remains, when you're
20 handling fresh-turned earth, when you're
21 handling--when you're handling artifacts or--or
22 funerary objects that's been in and around those
23 bodies. And that we have to take a--when we sing a
24 song, that's putting on the protective glove. When
25 we do this prayer, or do a sweat, that's putting on
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 168
1 these protective clothings. Then, and only then,
2 after we have done this, can we go about doing our
3 business. And when we finish--and when we finish,
4 we do the same thing. We wash off. We don't take
5 it into our houses, because it's our understanding
6 and teaching that it will even make your--your
7 people sick, people that come into your house can
8 truck it in. So we wash very thoroughly, and we--
9 It's important, I think, for others to--to know
10 this, especially some of our youth that are working
11 in these museums now. Even our women don't touch
12 them. Women are the most powerful thing on earth,
13 in our reckoning. The regalia that we wear during
14 these ceremonies are made by women past
15 child-bearing age, by these clan mothers. Because
16 we recognize that a woman in child-bearing age is a
17 very powerful, powerful thing. And that, as a
18 life-giver, no one else could do that but our women.
19 So it's--it's a--it interferes with our ceremonies.
20 So our women don't touch this in our clan, just the
21 men. They even--only the women make our regalia.
22 That's out of respect. That's not discrimination.
23 That's respect for their power.
24 And I think as long as we keep doing these
25 things, as long as we listen to our elders about how
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 169
1 to develop this process, talk with one another, is
2 that then we're going to be successful, in this
3 particular issue of getting our relatives out of
4 those repositories and back into the earth, so this
5 natural process of decomposing, or becoming what we
6 call, one with the earth, can be complete. And
7 we--we still bury our people in a similar way.
8 When I--and when I go to excavations in this
9 part of the area, I can still, when we--when there's
10 a burial urn. We really don't know what goes on
11 after we die. Sometimes we think it's a little
12 pretentious to even guess, like contemplating your
13 navel, you know, or those kinds of exercises. We
14 just call it the great mystery, you know. I think
15 we have our hands full just being good citizens here
16 while we're here on this earth. So if--if our
17 relatives that are passed on, they may get thirsty,
18 so we put a--we put a water vessel in with them.
19 They may get hungry, so we'll put some food in with
20 them. They may need a favorite tool, so we'll
21 provide them with that tool. We've got (portion of
22 tape inaudible), not all of us. We have a Christian
23 influence too, and we have this new policy of--we're
24 now having cemeteries around churches, only the last
25 50 years.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 170
1 My people are 20,000 years old. We've been
2 around here 20,000 years. So we was only given an
3 eviction notice in the 1830s. We've only been in
4 Oklahoma for 160 years. So I still feel a home
5 here. I still feel a home here. When I walk on the
6 earth around this--around this part of the country,
7 I'm literally walking on the dust of my ancestors.
8 We've been here so long, because generations have
9 lived and died, and lived and died, and lived and
10 died, and lived and died, that all of the things
11 that--that did live, the four-legged, the things
12 that swim, the things that crawl, the things that
13 fly, and my people are all buried together. You
14 would have to go through four layers of earth to get
15 to the crust, that's how long my people have been
16 here. And that's our claim. That's our
17 preponderance of evidence.
18 Any materials that may be in a Federal, state,
19 or private repository, we want them back, every one
20 of them, every one of them; historic, nonhistoric,
21 prehistoric, prewhite, pre-everything. We want them
22 all back. And that's our--that's our final position
23 on that. We will not cease, and that's our policy
24 within the tribes of Oklahoma, until we have gotten
25 them all back and their materials. We
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 171
1 have--certainly, we have no objection to making some
2 sort of replicas, if that's what you want. But the
3 real things, we want them back. We think it's
4 important for the health of our nations. We think
5 it's important for the--for the ceremonial people to
6 be successful and for the general well-being of our
7 tribes that we need to take care of this. We know
8 it is wrong, you know, for us to ignore it.
9 For so long, you know, often we let things go
10 by we know was wrong. You know, we're often
11 criticized, you know, how come you're just now
12 talking about this? Well, we've--we've had a
13 history of being ignored. We've had a history of
14 being the silent people, the invisible people here
15 in our own homeland. We're just now getting
16 political strength and power and the attention to
17 make these wishes and demands known. So we're
18 making them now.
19 And our position, again, with the--with the
20 prehistoric, or what do you call it, culturally
21 unidentifiable? In Oklahoma, the Five Civilized
22 Tribes, we--we are the treaty signers. We have
23 agreements with the United States. And I think that
24 we're--and we're making, with all of our Five
25 Tribes, we have cousins and relatives here in the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 172
1 Southeast, all--four of us, with the exception of
2 the Chickasaw. The Poliboundry (phonetic) North
3 Carolina Cherokees, and the Poarch Band of Creeks,
4 and the Miccosukee and the Seminole Tribe of
5 Florida; they're--they're all cousins. And so
6 before we take on this task of--of finalizing and,
7 you know, developing a final position on this, we've
8 asked to meet with our relatives here in the
9 Southeast and Bill Day, Chairman of that group,
10 has--has agreed to meet, and we're going to develop
11 a consultation process, and we're going to talk
12 about these things together.
13 And I think it's important, you know, as
14 tribes, that we don't jump into things, you know.
15 That's been my caution. I've always kind of been
16 the one to be hasty and quick to do things. And I
17 was kind of the one that they--I was always told,
18 you know, not to put your hand in that fire, it's
19 hot. But sometimes the old burnt hand teaches best,
20 you know. And I've had my hand burned a few times.
21 I've stood in front of bulldozers to stop
22 excavations. I stood under a bridge in Nashville
23 and met--when he was Senator Gore, and now he is
24 Vice President Gore. If you look at the Democratic
25 platform, it has protect Native American graves on
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 173
1 their platform. He came and stood with us one--one
2 Christmas, underneath the Jefferson Street bridge in
3 Nashville, Tennessee, to protect 28 Cherokee,
4 Chickasaw, and Shawnee graves. We have to do this
5 sometimes because it's right. We don't have the
6 law; we don't have the legal authority to do that,
7 but we have the moral obligation to protect those
8 that can't protect themselves; our youth and our
9 elders and those that have gone on before us.
10 That's my responsibility. And that--I think that's
11 all of our responsibility of those that are here,
12 just as we share the responsibility of protecting
13 this earth and passing on a higher quality of life
14 to our children than we have enjoyed here, to rid
15 some of these obstacles that have inhibited us,
16 inhibited the--the growth of--of our respective
17 tribal governments.
18 And I--I certainly want to commend the--the
19 Clinton administration for signing this Executive
20 Order 13007, on May 24th of this year. It's called
21 the execute--the Sacred Sites Act. Many--many of
22 you may be familiar with it. And it points to an
23 important problem that I'd like to share with the
24 Committee, is that there's a myriad of policies
25 within the Federal government regarding graves
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 174
1 protection and repatriation, and not one of them is
2 the same; not one of them is the same. I recently
3 found out that there is a--that there is a person
4 within the Department of the Interior that's
5 supposed to be coordinating NAGPRA and grave
6 protection activity. Do you know who that is? Any
7 one of the Committee members?
8 That's what I thought. I didn't know it
9 either. It's a man named Donald Sutherland, and
10 he's in the Office of Trust Responsibilities. And
11 they're supposed to be working with us as tribes,
12 but how could they when even the Committee doesn't
13 know his name. I had to corner Ada, last week at
14 the N.C.--Ada Deer, the Assistant Secretary, and
15 asked her why haven't your office helped us a little
16 bit. Well, we do have someone, Mike, you know.
17 But, we gave him the job, probably didn't give him
18 any extra training or any extra money, but, like a
19 lot of our tribal governments do, you know, we just
20 say--give them extra duties. And so he's the
21 person. And so--so now we have a--a coordinator,
22 someone to coordinate with, hopefully.
23 But we go through the Park Service. We go to
24 EPA. And one of my concerns is a lot of these large
25 industries that are locating in and around burial
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 175
1 sites are getting permits from the Corps of
2 Engineers. And they're getting them without doing
3 these archaeological impact surveys or the
4 environmental impact statements. So we go to the
5 EPA and ask them, how come you're giving these soil
6 erosion permits? How come you're giving these
7 utility wetlands permits, and not doing the--and not
8 doing the 106 surveys mandated by the Preservation
9 Act? And I got a letter back from the Environmental
10 Protection Agency, and she basically said--and
11 that's Carol Browner (phonetic)--and we all like her
12 as tribes, thank you very much--and we got a letter
13 back, and she basically said that we're developing
14 regulations for the implementation of this. And she
15 wrote back to the Illinois Environmental Protection
16 Agency, because they contract, you know, that--that
17 duty. They, like, contract out to the State. So I
18 thought, since you're contracting the money, it's a
19 Federal program, shouldn't 106, you know, be
20 mandated? And it's not, because they--they haven't
21 developed the regulations. It says, do what you
22 usually do. What they usually do is just go ahead
23 and dig us up anyway.
24 So we have a presidential executive order
25 saying we want to protect sacred sites. We want to
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 176
1 protect Native American grave sites, historically
2 significant sites, and sacred grounds. And then we
3 have agencies that are still not developing
4 regulations and guidelines. We're being dug every
5 day of the week, someplace around the United States,
6 particularly here in the Southeast. There's nowhere
7 you can dig, nowhere you can build a road, put a
8 house, without coming across one of my ancestors
9 here. So there's a real need to push.
10 We got a NCAI resolution asking the Secretary
11 to sign the regulations that you've developed so
12 that--because it's my understanding that we cannot
13 even sue. I want--I want to sue this university
14 because it is flagrantly not--not consulting with
15 us. And they said, we will--they got--they got good
16 advice in their (portion of tape inaudible), they
17 can sue, but they won't win because there's no
18 regulations in there. There's no--and they're true.
19 We asked--we got Virginia Boynken (phonetic), you
20 know, from (portion of tape inaudible). She was one
21 of our guests last week at a repatriation summit.
22 And she says, yes, it's true, you cannot sue until
23 we get those published and, you know, a comment
24 period, and finally in place.
25 So six years after the Act, you know, I'd like
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 177
1 for us to put a--go back to our congressional
2 people. I'd like for this Committee to push and
3 these tribes, I'll commit to you, that we'll go back
4 to Oklahoma and push as much as we can to get
5 those--get those signed. But we need that
6 protection. It's been estimated, within the next
7 ten years, if these sites aren't protected, they're
8 all going to be destroyed, never--never to come back
9 again. We're losing this forever.
10 And we--we really think it's important
11 that--that there be some sort of standardization;
12 that there--the BLM--I have a BLM policy that said
13 they will no longer fund burials. Have you seen
14 that one? They will--they will no longer fund
15 repatriation processes, so that puts that expense
16 upon the tribe. And a lot of our tribal budgets, we
17 didn't get money for it, so some of us don't have
18 the money to travel to reclaim those ancestors.
19 And, finally, I'd like to make a statement
20 about the non-Federally recognized tribes. I'm
21 married to a Yuchi. Have you ever heard of a Yuchi,
22 anybody? Well, they're--my wife's a very beautiful
23 lady, but a very ornery one, too. She told me don't
24 you come back home, you know, from this NAGPRA
25 meeting without telling our story about the Yuchi
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 178
1 people. Now it's true we have groups out of here
2 that calls themselves the Over-The-Hill Cherokees or
3 Around-the-Bend Shawnees, and we've got people
4 running around calling themselves Sparkling Deer
5 Woman and, you know, all sorts of made-up Indian
6 names, you know, and different chiefs speaking up,
7 you know. But it's also true that there are
8 historic tribes that deserve attention or a
9 case-by-case examination. And this would be a good
10 example; the Yuchi people.
11 They're a ceremonial people. They share a
12 stomp dance like the rest of our five tribes.
13 They--they have their own language. If you read
14 accounts from Lewis and Clark, they were the--the
15 first people that he came up--when they were--when
16 they came to Columbus, around Columbus, Georgia,
17 they wrote in their--in their books there that they
18 found a village of 10,000 people, that, you know,
19 had temples and the mounds and so forth. And--and
20 they're not even covered under this--under this
21 Peyote Act. They even have some people that are
22 part of the Native American Church. But because
23 they're not Federally recognized, it's a felony for
24 them to even practice that religion. A felony.
25 They put them in jail for having this sacrament
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 179
1 caught with them.
2 We have a--our sister, who's going to be
3 talking about the, you know, the Alabama-Coushatta
4 that my brother brought up, part of the Creek
5 Nation, (Native American language), the other
6 grounds there that are independent, that have their
7 own languages and ceremonies and chiefs. They, too,
8 would like to take control of their--of their own
9 materials and--and artifacts.
10 And it's true that, you know, I'm a Seminole
11 and I want to be buried in a Seminole way. I don't
12 want to be buried in any other way but the Seminole
13 way. Because I kind of have to--I had a checkered
14 past. Some of my people know that here, you know,
15 and I fully expect to have to argue my case when I
16 get up there, you know. And while I'm up there
17 pleading my case, I don't want any of the
18 archaeologists down here digging me up, you know,
19 and interrupting my, you know, my pleadings there.
20 And so I would certainly recommend that you be
21 careful about developing a blanket policy; a brush
22 stroke that would catch everyone. Because I think
23 it's almost impossible to deal fairly with these
24 historic tribes.
25 I know of another one, the Begesic (phonetic)
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 180
1 people, up there in Connecticut. There, you know,
2 they--they've been there for thousands of years.
3 Everybody knows about them, fought the Pequots and
4 everything. But their land got stolen by King
5 George, and then of course the American Revolution
6 come by and they stole it from England. So, in
7 their Federal court case, the official position of
8 the United States was that: King George stole it
9 from you; we stole it from King George; we don't owe
10 you anything. So, basically, their legal opinion
11 is: we stole it fair and square. We don't owe you
12 anything. You'll never get Federal recognition.
13 And under existing laws, they do not have a standing
14 to talk about the artifacts and the objects taken,
15 that has been found, or accumulated of their
16 ancestors.
17 So, I would--I would like to, you know, to
18 recommend that you some how develop a guideline for
19 a case by case, because certainly there are still
20 tribes out there that are deserving of this
21 recognition, that have a history and language. And
22 I just have to--the point that just last month, the
23 great Delaware Nation recently got Federally
24 recognized. This is the Delaware Nation that--the
25 first treaty signed in this nation was with the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 181
1 Delawares. And, you know, they controlled all of
2 Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey and New York.
3 They got kicked all the way to Oklahoma, and now
4 they currently own one-half acre; 10,000 of them,
5 and they own one-half acre.
6 And, you know, I don't want to keep on and on
7 about the injustices, but I do think that--that we
8 can correct some of these wrongs that have--that
9 I've heard in the past. And that, together, with
10 your help and your understanding, I think that we
11 could develop a real course of unity, of
12 understanding, you know, for us to take into the
13 21st Century.
14 And with that, I would like to ask--I have
15 another member of our committee that's come here,
16 and I would like to ask Joyce Bear, who is the
17 Repatriation Officer and NAGPRA Coordinator for the
18 Muskogee Creek Nation to please come forward and
19 (portion of tape inaudible).
20 And I thank you again for your time, and I
21 would like to invite you to come to Oklahoma, and
22 have a meeting, and eat some fry bread with us
23 there.
24 TESSIE NARANJO: You know what, Joyce, I have a
25 suggestion. Could we give the--the people in the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 182
1 audience a little bit of time to--
2 JOYCE BEAR: Sure.
3 TESSIE NARANJO: --go to the bathroom, drink
4 coffee--
5 JOYCE BEAR: Oh, sure.
6 TESSIE NARANJO: --whatever, for 15 minutes.
7 And when we come back, we'll--we'll listen. Thank
8 you. Fifteen minute break.
9 LAWRENCE HART: Madam Chair, could I speak,
10 just a minute?
11 TESSIE NARANJO: Yes.
12 LAWRENCE HART: I'd like to, for--on behalf of
13 the Committee, acknowledge the invitation that was
14 extended to us by the American Association for State
15 and Local History from Program Officer Deanna
16 Kerrigan. I think it's an invitation worth
17 considering. Those of you who were not here, you'll
18 find some information on the table. Take some of
19 the information to those in your tribe who are the
20 tribal historians, museums directors, in addition to
21 yourself as a NAGPRA representative or staff person
22 that deals with NAGPRA.
23 But I appreciate Ms. Kerrigan's presence and
24 the invitation.
25 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you. Thank you, Joyce.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 183
1 BREAK
2 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STATUTE IN THE SOUTHEAST
3 PRESENTATIONS - CONTINUED
4 TESSIE NARANJO: We've got a long--relatively
5 long list of people that want to make a
6 presentation, but those that we have noted on our
7 sheet are--the ones that I'm going to name, who are
8 left to make their formal presentations: Bobby
9 Billie, Nadine Horne, and Jonathan Leader.
10 Before we--we recognize those three
11 individuals, I'd like to recognize Joyce. And Joyce
12 is from Oklahoma, and we listened to her yesterday
13 for just a little bit, and she wants to make a few
14 more comments.
15 Before you start, Joyce, I also want to mention
16 that I know we're all tired, and because we need to
17 respect others who are also wanting to make a
18 comment, limit your--limit your talk to--for the
19 ones that are formally recognized, limit your talks
20 to no more than 30 minutes. And if you exceed that,
21 I must tell you that your time is up. So thank you
22 for understanding that.
23 Joyce.
24 JOYCE BEAR
25 JOYCE BEAR: Thank you. Again, my name is
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 184
1 Joyce Bear, and I'm from the Muskogee Creek Nation.
2 I'm the Culture and Historic Preservation Officer.
3 As I had said yesterday, to--I'm kind of the new kid
4 on the block. I just newly have been appointed to
5 this position. I've been a teacher for many years,
6 and I'm just now coming into a whole new field. I'm
7 not an archaeologist; I'm not an anthropologist.
8 I'm a teacher, and I teach middle school.
9 What I would like to tell you about is--is some
10 of the things about NAGPRA that I have already
11 experienced within the last six weeks that I've been
12 with my tribe. NAGPRA, sure, it's new, and we have
13 a lot of faults, but things are working. Some of
14 the things are working. And one of the things is--I
15 wanted to point out, is, with--when--mainly, in our
16 tribe, to identify ourselves, we have to know, of
17 course, our language; we have to have a land base;
18 we have to know who our people are and who we are.
19 I'm of the Loachapoka tribal town. That comes
20 from a little, bitty community, and it's right
21 between Auburn and Montgomery in Alabama.
22 "Loachapoka" means "where the turtle sits" or "where
23 the turtle resides." Some people call it "the
24 gathering of the turtles." I've often wondered what
25 my little--my little tribal town would have been if
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 185
1 it had been able to stay in Alabama, because now
2 Loachapoka town is Tulsa, Oklahoma. My grandparents
3 had the first post office there. So we have grown,
4 but I've often wondered about what that little
5 community would have grown to be if they had left
6 our people there.
7 My grandparents came from Loachapoka on my
8 mother's side, but my dad's people came from the
9 lower Creeks, and they came from down in Eufala
10 (phonetic), which was down in Georgia, I think,
11 wasn't it? And so the homelands have been taught to
12 our people; was down in Georgia and Alabama. So we
13 still respect those lands, and we still respect them
14 as though that is home.
15 And I'd like to tell a little story about what
16 happened to me two years ago when I had--I came back
17 down in the area, and like Mr. Haney had--had said
18 earlier, it feels good to walk on the soil of
19 homeland. Because even though this is--I am five
20 generations later, I still refer to the Southeast as
21 being homeland, because this is the way I was
22 taught, you know, from my parents, my grandparents.
23 And I went into Loachapoka, and I walked
24 around. I took pictures, and there's a big sign
25 that says, "Loachapoka," and I thought it was just
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 186
1 so neat. Of course, I had to ask the directions to
2 get there. And this--this gentleman that I--we kind
3 of flagged down on the highway, he said, "Oh, you
4 mean Poka. Yeah, Loachapoka. Yeah, it's just down
5 the corner here." You know, of course, though, they
6 don't speak like we do. And I went into the little
7 community and looked around. And it's just a little
8 dent in the road, and if you--if you blink your eyes
9 as you go through, you will miss it because it is
10 that small.
11 It's mainly a black community. There's a very
12 few that--non-Indians or Caucasians that live in
13 that little town. And as I looked around and took
14 pictures and just kind of spent a, you know, just
15 about an hour or so there, and I was leaving and I
16 thought: Well, I'd like to take something home.
17 And so I reached down and I picked up four little
18 rocks. And I took these rocks home with me.
19 And I have a great-uncle that's 87--or 89 years
20 old. He just had a birthday last month. And his
21 name is Geronimo, Geronimo Alexander. And Uncle
22 Geronimo said, you know, I went up to him and I
23 said, "Uncle, I have something from home." And he
24 said, "What you got from home, baby?" And I said,
25 "I have a part of the homeland." And he said, "A
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 187
1 part of the homeland?" And I said, "This came from
2 Loachapoka." And he said, "Loachapoka?" And I
3 said, "Yes, this came from Loachapoka, Alabama, and
4 I want you to have part of homeland."
5 This man took that little rock, and he held it
6 so close to his little--little heart, and he said,
7 "All my life, I've wanted to go back. I heard about
8 it from Grandma," he said, "and I always wanted to
9 go back, but I never could," but he said, "Now, I
10 have part of the homeland." That's how we're
11 taught.
12 In the state of Georgia, there's a lot of
13 controversy. There's a big project going on there,
14 and it is with the DOT, the department of
15 transportation. What this project is, is they're
16 building highways. For every community that is at
17 least a population of 5,000 to 6,000; they're
18 four-laning into a major highway and connecting all
19 of Georgia. Every time they go across a river or a
20 little creek, they run into a site. These are sites
21 where our homes were because we are Creeks. We
22 built our--our homes by the rivers and the streams
23 in the southeastern continent. These were our
24 highways; those rivers.
25 And so they--they run into these little
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 188
1 artifacts. They run into these little shards,
2 pieces of clay, pottery. And so, they have to call
3 us, and they do. And I'm--I'm thankful they do,
4 because they have to get our permission, and they--
5 And this is where I'm saying, NAGPRA is working.
6 It's helping.
7 And just this last week I was in Georgia four
8 days. I flew in on Monday. I saw a site that
9 afternoon. The next day I drove to about 60 miles
10 away from Macon and saw another site where they had
11 been ready to build another road. And then the next
12 day, I went over to another community about 75 miles
13 from Macon, and I saw another site there. And so,
14 it's working, because this construction cannot go
15 without our say-so. So, they are working with our
16 people. NAGPRA, some phases of it, is working.
17 We had another site a few months ago where a
18 waterworks program for a community was being
19 enlarged. There was some bodies that were ran into
20 as they were enlarging this waterworks. There was
21 two bodies there. There was no alternative route.
22 They had to move those graves. They had to ask our
23 permission to do that. And, yes, our people okayed
24 it. And it was done. They were moved just a little
25 ways away. The graves are unmarked, and no one
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 189
1 knows where they are. And so, of course, they're
2 back to rest.
3 The medicine man that I work with, he told me
4 that these were ancient people. And we don't do a
5 ceremony for them, because when their loved ones put
6 them away, the ceremony was done. We can't do a
7 Christian ceremony over them, because in that period
8 of time, these people were not Christianized,
9 because Christianity didn't come until the Europeans
10 came here. They had their own way of putting away
11 their loved ones.
12 So, all we did was had them reinterred. We did
13 not do it. The people that removed them from the
14 ground put them back. Because there again, we're
15 not--and me being a woman, I'm not allowed to do
16 that. I'm not even supposed to really look at them.
17 I'm certainly not supposed to touch them.
18 So these are the things that are happening in
19 Georgia, and it's a hot spot right now, because
20 there's many, many construction roads going in
21 there. And it will continue on. And we're in
22 another--another real big project with the--the
23 Okmulgee oil fields. And I'm sure a lot of you have
24 already heard about that one. But we're hoping that
25 they won't come into our--our beloved mounds because
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 190
1 we refer to the Okmulgee oil fields, or those mounds
2 up there in Okmulgee National Park, as being the
3 cradle of the Muskogee Nation. So we don't want the
4 cradle, where our first beginning started, we don't
5 want it disturbed. (Native American language.)
6 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you, Joyce.
7 Mr. Billie.
8 BOBBY C. BILLIE
9 BOBBY C. BILLIE: You might be offended what
10 I'm going to say, but the truth needs to be here,
11 and the--the people itself needs to speak. Our
12 ancient relative have no voice today. For that, we
13 come to speak for them. And they're angry of the
14 people, say we not do recognize them, who they are.
15 I hope the Indian people itself do not speak that
16 way. We knew who they are. We knew who we are.
17 And also Seminole people is sovereign nations,
18 the Independent Traditional Seminole Nation of
19 Florida. I explained to you why are the sovereign
20 nation, they will not--they cannot accept other law;
21 only the natural law the Creator have given. They
22 have to follow for that they are sovereign nations.
23 We cannot accept the man-made law. It's not
24 powerful as they think they are. Everything above
25 here is the Creator's way of life. That's what the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 191
1 law is. It's supposed to be--all people is supposed
2 to follow that law. People should realize that.
3 Some of you call yourself Christians; you know what
4 I'm talking about. We don't call ourself
5 Christians. We call ourself--we're living the law
6 of the Creation. We followed the natural law. We
7 followed a way of life that's a life the Creator
8 have gave us. We still hold on to that law that
9 make us the sovereign nation of the Indigenous
10 people.
11 I'm also speaking for all Indigenous people of
12 our world. They are struggle as same as we are.
13 Some of them get killed, even us speaking today.
14 And you don't realize what happen outside; the
15 systems, what they doing to these people. They
16 might even on the paper, but they are following the
17 old--their law, their rights. They have way of life
18 to live in, practice, as you are, the--all different
19 nations. I think we all need to understand that.
20 And then I have something she wrote for me
21 because being traditional, following our way of
22 life, I never went to school. My great-great-uncles
23 and grandmas and grandfathers tell me, "Do not touch
24 the pen. Do not touch the papers. That will
25 destroy your life."
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 192
1 When we trying to hold onto this, they took it
2 away from us and they burn it into the fire. That's
3 what certain to go. That's what they used to told
4 us. And we see what's happened--they were talking
5 about. And to the mind of the people, they don't
6 use the mind anymore. They don't use the heart
7 anymore. They don't use what the Creator have gave
8 us. Everybody use the mad-made material and that's
9 all it is today. And they still saying, "This is
10 the way to go," but it's not. We're heading to the
11 darkness of all Creations. We all need to wake up.
12 SHANNON LARSEN
13 SHANNON LARSEN: This is a statement that was
14 dictated to me by Bobbie. I've not changed his
15 language or his words.
16 "My name is Bobby C. Billie, Spiritual Leader
17 of the Independent Traditional Seminole Nation of
18 Florida. My grandpa was Ingraham Billie. His
19 great-great-great grandpa was Sam Jones or Arapeika.
20 Ingraham died 114, and Sam Jones or Arapeika died
21 250 or somewhere along there. These are the leaders
22 of my Nation, and the others broke away, the Cow
23 Creek and the other Seminoles, and now they call
24 themselves the Seminole Tribe, Incorporated, and the
25 others call themselves the Miccosukee Tribe,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 193
1 Incorporated. Those were part of the Nation at one
2 time, but now American people call them recognized
3 tribes.
4 I don't know what modern history is, but they
5 usually learn it from the book. But I know my
6 history, the way the Creator has passed it on to us,
7 which is the law, the way of the Creations. All
8 life; respect, protect, and care for it. That's the
9 law of the Independent Traditional Seminole Nation
10 of Florida and what they stand for.
11 The Creator has passed it on to us and we
12 cannot change it. Whatever we say, we have never
13 changed it. That is the only law we know. We
14 cannot accept the other law they tried to pass onto
15 us. It's not good for us, and it's not good for the
16 earth. It's not good for all Creations. And we are
17 part of Creation, and that's why we cannot accept
18 the man-made law. We have to live by the natural
19 law.
20 Every time we come to a meeting like this, or
21 try to protect our ancestors and ancient relatives,
22 you keep taking out these papers saying, this is the
23 law, and this law is the United States system of
24 government. And it only mentions the Seminole
25 Tribe, Incorporated, and Miccosukee Tribe,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 194
1 Incorporated, and that is good, because we don't
2 follow the United States system of government.
3 When the Creator created us, He gave us the
4 right to use the earth wherever we might be. We
5 were not given any boundaries by the Creator. The
6 only boundary we were given was not to go into the
7 sky. That is the only boundary we have.
8 Indigenous natural people and the natural
9 systems on this earth, they work closely together.
10 For that reason, we have survived on this earth for
11 over six million years." That's longer than 20,000,
12 over six million years. "We have our roots deep in
13 the earth. We have our mind deep in the sky.
14 You have a right to force your own law on your
15 own people, but I will stand up for my rights; my
16 rights of my land and of my people's future, and
17 rights of my younger generation.
18 American people have continually done things
19 illegally where the Indigenous natural people are
20 concerned. When are you going to be honest and do
21 the right thing?
22 The burial grounds are resting places of our
23 ancestors and ancient relatives and must be
24 respected and left untouched. The rights of our
25 ancestors and ancient relatives must be honored and
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 195
1 respected.
2 If I go into your graves, your grandpa or
3 grandma or your ancestors, and take their watches,
4 their eyeglasses, their bones, how would you feel?
5 We feel angry and hurt seeing what you American
6 people are doing to your ancestors and ancient
7 relatives. I don't know how you take care of your
8 grandpa, your grandma, your aunts, your sisters and
9 brothers, and your children. But we treat them in a
10 respectful way. We put them nicely into the earth,
11 spiritually; their items, their belongings, all
12 things, to him, to her. That is how we do our
13 people who have passed on. We don't just dump them
14 there.
15 In the wartime, they were fighting for their
16 rights. Sometimes they died in the woods, but that
17 is where they found their resting place. And that
18 is their right. We cannot understand why you people
19 cannot respect our resting grounds. Is it because
20 they don't have a stone marker? Would that make a
21 difference? You put up markers on empty graves of
22 military people who aren't even buried there, and
23 you respect an empty grave. Why can't you respect
24 ours?
25 The taking of our ancestors and ancient
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 196
1 relatives from the earth, and their things, violates
2 the rights of all Indigenous peoples. It is against
3 the Creator's law.
4 Our villages have never been abandoned, no
5 matter how old, maybe six million years or older.
6 Respecting the nature, we leave the villages when
7 the natural resources begin to run low, so that the
8 nature can renew itself. But we always return when
9 the nature has renewed itself. This is our way of
10 life.
11 When you find an old village, we have not
12 abandoned it. It is still our homesite. But
13 because of keep-out signs, private ownership, state
14 and Federal parks, we cannot visit these areas like
15 we used to. But they are our homes today as they
16 were yesterday, and we ask that you respect them and
17 leave them alone.
18 The Independent Traditional Seminole Nation of
19 Florida, a sovereign Nation, has a right to protect
20 grounds, village sites, and ceremonial sites, and a
21 right to be included on a government-to-government
22 basis. We have been recognized under the Creator's
23 law and organized under the natural law system, and
24 we follow the traditional laws. We have had a body
25 of government long before the Europeans arrived on
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 197
1 our land. Our history comes from over six million
2 years. We know who we are, and we know who the
3 people are. You cannot separate us from our
4 ancestors and our ancient relatives."
5 BOBBY C. BILLIE
6 BOBBY BILLIE: Thank you. And I'm going to try
7 and explain to you about how we related to you call
8 a ancient burial. And to our--to our minds, we
9 don't look at the ancient people, but when we look
10 at today, we are ancient people because the early of
11 days when the--when the earth is young, everything
12 is young. But during the day, and we get older,
13 even we sitting here now, we a day older. We not
14 younger, when you--we look back. So you need to
15 understand what you talking about.
16 So, we have to continue the older and older.
17 We might be reborn, but we still same body of
18 the--we're younger days. So, there's no such a
19 thing, today is younger days. Today is olden days.
20 And when you look back, the Indigenous natural
21 people have right mind, call them, back there, is
22 the younger day. Today's old ancient. We are
23 ancient people.
24 So when I speak--to trying to speak the
25 language of the--the foreign language, foreign
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 198
1 language, I try to speak today. Also, they
2 backwards to me. And the Native Indigenous tongue,
3 most people, they speak the same way I do. But only
4 English the one that's backward.
5 So when you interpret the things, everything
6 backwards all the time. So, for somehow you need
7 you to turn around what you see, what you hear.
8 Maybe we can all work together to understand better,
9 but I don't know. Maybe that's the way you borned
10 with. I don't know how we can change that. But I
11 hope you do try and understand Indigenous people,
12 their right of minds, why they protect themself, why
13 they protect them--their ground, their burial.
14 Another thing I see day before yesterday, when
15 our younger people, we don't teach them from the
16 death. We keep it separate. When the body has--has
17 die, there's certain people to do things. The
18 certain clan, we follow the clan system and they
19 have been picked so the certain people can take care
20 of those things.
21 So, when I went to the burial past this week, I
22 see the young people digging up our ancestors. What
23 kind of future you teaching them? That's why I
24 think European lifestyle kill themself, each other,
25 all the times, and still and abuses each other all
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 199
1 the time. And then you introduce the Native people,
2 and then followed on the same system. And I hope
3 you change that teaching too.
4 When you see this too young lady, that's about
5 20 or 21 years old, digging up our--my ancestors,
6 it's not good. They said they doing this for
7 education, but you educate yourself to digging up
8 our ancestors is not going to help anybody. And now
9 used to be pot hunters, but now they turn
10 themselves--call themself the doctors, anthropology
11 or archaeology. So that we still continue today.
12 Also, you going to recognize people, if
13 somebody come to you for asking to recognition, I
14 urge you to ask all Indian nation ask them to who
15 these are, because in the Florida, a lot of our
16 re-enactors, be it acting like Seminoles or Creek
17 and the others became-- they think they are Indians
18 because they being re-enactors for so long. So they
19 asking for recognition for Indians. So those kind
20 of--we have to deal with down there. Is not doing
21 any good for us, you recognize the white people in
22 Indian--call themselves the Indians. It damage
23 stuff of the real people and taking a direction
24 that's a different way. And it make us more angry,
25 more and more. And also ancient relative get angry.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 200
1 And also when that happens, also damage of the
2 people and minds, of the bones, and the eye. That's
3 what become when the--when the ancient burial, when
4 they gets angry. And we go in the air now, and
5 affecting all people. And that's why Indigenous
6 people, we have to take care of it and do it the
7 certain way, we take care of our--the people passed
8 on.
9 And that's why we said, do not touch it.
10 You're going to bring something you cannot deal with
11 yourself. You cannot--you're going to bring
12 something up. You cannot do anything with it. And
13 I see some of the people been dugging up our
14 ancestors for so long, when I visit with them, it
15 seems like the--the body sit there and you talk to
16 them, it seems like they talking back to you, but
17 you don't receive the life of the person you
18 speaking to. They've got cold minds, have the cold
19 feelings. They seemed like they looking at you, but
20 it's just blocking what they do not really sees you.
21 That's what happened to these people because they
22 messing with the death. If you want to do the right
23 thing, leave alone, leave it alone. And you can
24 have a right mind to do the right thing.
25 Every year, every thousands of years, the land,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 201
1 the earth changes, maybe every four thousand years,
2 or maybe every four million years, also the earth
3 changes. Sometimes you just look at the simple
4 thing. If you build a road, you packed it real good
5 hoping nothing happened, even lot--lot of car and
6 trucks go by. But every time the--everything goes
7 by, when you, maybe one or two years, the road
8 demolished again. You have to redo it all the time.
9 And if you look at the old, ancient burial,
10 Indigenous people, throughout the six million years,
11 and our knowledge way back into the bottom of the
12 ocean, we have lived and survived of the time. And
13 during the time of changing and then we took some of
14 those bad--bad minds and then they cleansed the
15 earth, and they put us on the bottom of the ocean.
16 So we didn't come from this level of the time--this
17 time. We came from more than--longer than that.
18 I didn't see nobody in this room speaking about
19 those things. Nobody speaking about their old,
20 ancient relative, but we do. We do still connected
21 with those people. We still remember the first
22 Creation of the people. We still connected with
23 them. We still have a voice, has pass it on to us.
24 We still speak in their voice, even today. We still
25 carry on the Creator's voice. We speaking to
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 202
1 the--our kids, hoping they carry on with it. Even
2 we still carry on the Creator's son, his voice. He
3 has bring it to us.
4 Some time I will ask the non-Indian people, if
5 you religions, if you are Christians, if you talking
6 about the same people we talking about, why you
7 doing this--doing--you're doing it today. In our
8 way, the Creator's law, do not kill; do not steal;
9 but that's what we happening today. Our ancient
10 relative have been steal, been robbed, make money
11 off of it and put in the buildings.
12 But some time I speaking to a archaeology.
13 They have no believe in Creator. They have no
14 believe in create their own kids. That surprise me.
15 But those kind of people do this thing for our
16 ancestors and our relative. How we going to go
17 through with this kind of mind to tell them to leave
18 our burial alone, because their ancestor is--I don't
19 know what the doctors means, but it means something
20 to them, or the monies. That's what they're after.
21 That needs to be stopped if they are human
22 beings, as you says you are. But if you don't, we
23 don't see you as a human beings. When the--the
24 Creator give us a way of life, respect one another,
25 all Creations, no matter what it is, that's what we
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 203
1 following. That's what all people should do.
2 I thinks--the first million years all
3 Indigenous people has been give living forever, so
4 we don't have no burial at the time. But maybe over
5 two, three years--billion years back, and then
6 that's when the--the burials start. So when that
7 happens, the different mounds-- Well, today, we
8 don't do that anymore.
9 I don't want to describe too much about it. We
10 don't do those things, but it's my second time to do
11 this. I'm not going to do that anymore, because
12 it's not the way we do it. We don't describe it.
13 But this is how it is. (Indicating.)
14 Different layers have different respect to human
15 people: a high, or low, in between, those (portion
16 of tape inaudible). But the different family have
17 different type of things they do. But those things
18 may be a million--million years back into about a--a
19 thousand years or more. And then we became, because
20 we've been pushed around so much. So we cannot
21 bury--we don't bury our bodies anymore. And that's
22 how we do, even today, the--the spirits have to be
23 alive to go on continue on their journey.
24 But what the Creator have told us: you a guy
25 of the earth; you a caretaker of the earth; you
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 204
1 responsibility to do what I need to do. So most
2 Indigenous people, that's how they supposed to
3 teach: do not disturb of water; do not disturb the
4 air; do not disturb of the natures; do not disturb
5 of the Mother of the earth. That's our
6 responsibility the Creator have gave us, all
7 Indigenous people. I think that's what we all need
8 to do.
9 When the first European come to our land, they
10 have nothing. They have starving. An old, old man
11 used to go out and hunt the fire woods at the ocean,
12 nearby, sometime that the ocean washed in. That's
13 what he used to go gather their fire woods. So he
14 walked to the--the ocean, and he looked up and he
15 found something, really strange animal. But he sit
16 down and look, but he just can't figure out what it
17 is. So he went back and told the rest of them, the
18 elders, and they came back and looked at them and
19 there was more coming in. And they telled him, go
20 tell the rest of them come on, see what's going on.
21 So they went back and bring the whole village out
22 and looked at them.
23 But what--what they have found, the people,
24 themself, got all different color of hair. And they
25 have the hair all over the bodies. But when you
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 205
1 looked at yourself today because you shave and you
2 wash yourself, and you call yourself human being.
3 But back in those days, when you looked at the first
4 people, they was not. The hair all over, maybe just
5 the eye you could see. When we walked up--when they
6 walked up to them, they feel their hair and they
7 feel their skin, and they was saying, they looked
8 like alive, but they seemed like they don't have the
9 blood, but they still bleed--breathing. And then
10 they feel their hair, and they have different hair.
11 And we look--and they looked up closers, and somehow
12 some got skin--got spotted skin, and they describe
13 it--they don't know what kind of animals are. But
14 then they were trying to talk to them, and
15 they--they couldn't understand it. They have their
16 language, but they don't know what they're saying.
17 But left them at the beach, and they'd go back and
18 check on them, some guide them, so the brave--
19 We have our clothes back then. We have our
20 skin, the natural clothes we were wearing. And then
21 they were starving, so we invited it. We give them
22 food. We teach them how to survive. We feed them.
23 We teach them how to plant food, and we teach them
24 how to take care of the families. And then they
25 were asking place to live. So at the time, they
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 206
1 make their own reservation, the first reservation.
2 They create their own reservation. They mark the
3 ground. This is--that's what we want. They said,
4 okay, you can take that.
5 So, European lands, we know where the European
6 land is: the first reservation they create, that's
7 where it is. I think that's what the rest of them,
8 all Indigenous people's land. So that's when we
9 agreed for you to live on. So you know--we know
10 where it is, was European lands. The rest of them
11 Indigenous land. And to this day, we still have a
12 record in our minds. So I want you to know that.
13 We still sharing with you our land. You living on
14 our land, but you said, it's ours. But wake up,
15 it's not. The land cannot be taken away. The all
16 peoples belonging; that's how we feel. That's why
17 we let you live on--on our land. So we--you come to
18 talks about who's the landowner, think about it
19 before you say who's the landowner. Thank you. I
20 appreciate it.
21 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you, Mr. Billie.
22 Nadine.
23 Thank you, Mr. Billie.
24 NADINE HORNE
25 NADINE HORNE: (Native American language.) I'm
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 207
1 Nadine Horne. There's something that I want to say,
2 because we--we heard this morning about Canadian
3 tribes. I am an Indigenous person of North
4 American, from a sovereign nation of modern people.
5 This issue of border is a government entity. In
6 Canada, we're called Amerindians. In this part of
7 North American, we're--seem to be called Native
8 Americans. We are Indigenous people of North
9 America. I don't think this border should be
10 something that we, as Indigenous people to North
11 America, should recognize. There is a Jay treaty
12 which does permit us, and there--there is border
13 problems now today, from the New York side of the
14 border which I cross to go home, because that is my
15 home, across the river, the St. Lawrence, in
16 Gananoque, which means "by the rapids."
17 I don't consider myself a Canadian, and be not
18 offended, I really don't consider--consider myself a
19 United States citizen. Native people in the United
20 States were the very last people to even be
21 identified as United States citizens.
22 I prefer to carry a passport from my nation. I
23 prefer to use that sovereignty that is accepted in
24 40 member states of the United Nation countries. It
25 was very hard fought for. So, please, even as
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 208
1 Indigenous tribal people here, do not allow that
2 border, because your numbers are much smaller in the
3 United States. And perhaps why--that's why the
4 Government agencies that do make statutes and laws
5 only want to stay and deal within those borders.
6 The last census of recognized tribes were just a
7 little under two million population in the United
8 States. In Canada, it's close to eight million. If
9 we gather and don't look at that border, we have a
10 mighty large voting block. I don't think the
11 countries want to see that happen. I just wanted to
12 make that statement, because the United States
13 Native Americans are related to me, just as the
14 Amerindians or Inuits. As Indigenous people, we are
15 all the same. And I learn that continually when I
16 go to the United Nations.
17 I'm a Mohawk Indian, and I do live in Georgia.
18 I have lived there, resided there, for 23 years.
19 Prior to that, I--I am an American citizen by birth,
20 they tell me, because I was born in Brooklyn, which
21 probably, at the time, in 1944, had the largest
22 American Indian population on the East Coast, over
23 150,000. That is where the first Native American
24 community center became, developed. And it was put
25 together without anything such as called as grant
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 209
1 money. It was put together by iron workers that
2 worked to climb steal. It was put by women who
3 beaded dolls and made Indian baskets and anything
4 they could sell so they could have a center,
5 identifiable in New York.
6 When I moved to the Southeast, I saw something
7 that was something I didn't see up North, growing up
8 in New York and in Canada, at home, was the
9 desecration of grave sites. I was very unfamiliar
10 with the digging of graves. I had no idea that
11 human beings could do this to one another. I don't
12 think there is a Caucasian person in this room that
13 would allow one of their pets that they grew up as
14 children, their puppies or their cats or dogs, to be
15 dug up and used for DNA study, for any kind of
16 experiment, or to find out what it ate. I really
17 don't think so. I use that analogy, not that we are
18 animals, but it seems history has proven that we
19 have been looked at as specimens. Archaeologists
20 have not been our friends. We have, when you talk
21 about us, we are simply historical elements.
22 To use--to use a similar happening, I do sit on
23 a similar board. We don't meet once a year. We
24 meet every month. And it is--they are hard issues
25 that come up on a state repatriation law. And I
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 210
1 appreciate what you do and how hard it is. And
2 we're coming up to our year 1997, and we are going
3 to be doing what you're doing now. And it's going
4 to be very difficult. You will--you handle it on
5 the Federal end. We handle state, on the State of
6 Georgia. And all those little, bitty museums do not
7 want to let go of their pieces. Most of them have
8 not even started their inventories, which are due
9 the end of this year. So our work was cut out for
10 us.
11 But back to archaeologists, I find it really
12 strange that in Young Harris, three years ago, in
13 north Georgia, a very historic site, over 10,000
14 years, the biggest statement across the headlines of
15 the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Business Journal
16 was we ate beans, corn, and squash. It--it's
17 outstanding that this is still something that you're
18 still finding out. We're still alive. If you want
19 to know about us, I really think it's important that
20 you come to us.
21 You've written so many books about us. And
22 I've read some; I've read some. But I also read a
23 lot of Native American literature, and Vine Deloria
24 is one of my sacred favorites. There's a book, and
25 I encourage people that are dealing with Natives, is
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 211
1 to read "Red Earth, White Lies." This is the--the
2 most current book. And it talks about this
3 scientific dilemma, because it seems that scientists
4 and doctors and such always have three hands. It's
5 on one hand there's this, and on one hand there's
6 that, and then somewhere behind the back there comes
7 another. But there is so much scientific theory
8 with the Bering Straits, yet there's another group
9 of archaeologists that say something else. So what
10 has so much of this proven for us? It needs to
11 stop.
12 Federal monies with NAGPRA is stopping Federal
13 projects, or monies where a Federal dollar is
14 involved. Most states do not have state
15 repatriation laws and grave protection. Those that
16 have it, such as Georgia, it has no teeth. It only
17 has two Federally-recognized Indians sitting on the
18 board. The rest are these new
19 non-Federally-recognized or state-recognized
20 Indians. In some ways, it is a stumbling block for
21 Federal tribes to come in, because these states have
22 created their own tribes that they want to deal with
23 without any recognition procedures. They just made
24 some people Indians, tribal, sovereign, legitimate,
25 with no recognition procedure. And this becomes a
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 212
1 stumbling block for Federally-recognized tribes to
2 deal with these museums that are on state levels,
3 because-- I'm here today because of this Georgia
4 council. They are paying for me to be here. It was
5 a very big argument whether they would let me come,
6 because state-recognized tribes wanted to come.
7 However, I don't see them in the room. The chairman
8 of my board, this council for the state, is a Lower
9 Muskogee Creek, which we heard Mr. Day talk about
10 one of their chiefs reburying in Florida. They
11 have--this particular tribe has been turned down
12 twice by the Bureau of Indian Affairs as no cultural
13 identities.
14 What I have been working on very, very hard is
15 to keep the--the continued tribal government erosion
16 by state legislatures. In the State of Georgia, in
17 1993, they recognized three tribes as legitimate.
18 I'm going to pass out to you a resolution that I
19 went before the Joint Council of the Cherokee Nation
20 and the Eastern Band of Cherokees. I have been
21 working with the Eastern Band and the Muskogee Creek
22 Nation through letters and papers, loading down
23 general assemblies from New Jersey to Pennsylvania,
24 to question in what they are doing. In some cases,
25 these legislators and senators think they are doing
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 213
1 what is known in the '90s as the politically correct
2 thing, by giving someone their heritage right. Now,
3 that should not be state rights.
4 I'm going to read you what the--what this
5 resolution--I'd never written a resolution before in
6 my life, and I'm really stunned that it passed with
7 no corrections. So, I was happy. This is the
8 Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the Cherokee
9 Nation Joint Council, October 4th, 1996, Resolution
10 4:96:1996.
11 "Whereas, in 1993, the State of Georgia
12 official recognized as legitimate American Indian
13 Tribes of Georgia the following tribes, bands,
14 groups and communities: one, the Georgia Tribe of
15 Eastern Cherokees; two, the Cherokee of Georgia
16 Tribal Council; and three, the Lower Muskogee Creek
17 Tribe. And two of the above-mentioned groups, the
18 Cherokee Heritage codifying this recognition as a
19 statute known as OCGA44-12-300; and
20 Whereas OCGA44-12-300 is a direct affront to
21 the sovereign rights of the Eastern Band of Cherokee
22 Indians and the Cherokee Nation, two of the
23 Federally-recognized Cherokee Indian tribes; and
24 Whereas, the Federally-recognized tribes, we
25 have certain rights. One of which is that we are
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 214
1 treated by the Federal Government as sovereign
2 nations with all the rights of a sovereign nation;
3 and
4 Whereas, it is our understanding that the
5 Federal Government possesses the exclusive authority
6 to recognize or to acknowledge American Indian
7 tribes; and
8 Whereas, the Department of Interior and through
9 the Bureau of Indian Affairs maintains the
10 responsibility for addressing specific applications
11 for Federal recognition; and
12 Whereas, as sovereign nations, we have the
13 collective right to determine our own citizenship in
14 accordance with our own customs, traditions, and
15 procedures; and
16 Whereas, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
17 and the Cherokee Nation deem it necessary to protect
18 the future erosion and dilution of tribal government
19 sovereignty by the continued recognition of Cherokee
20 tribes by the State of Georgia or any other state in
21 the United States.
22 Now there be it resolved, by the Eastern Band
23 of Cherokee Indians and the Cherokee Nation in joint
24 council assembled, at which a quorum is present,
25 that the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 215
1 Cherokee Nation do hereby oppose state recognition
2 by the State of Georgia or other states in the
3 United States whether throughout existing or future
4 Cherokee legislation.
5 Be it finally resolved, that the Eastern Band
6 of Cherokee Indians and the Cherokee Nation do
7 hereby commit to provide support opposing state
8 recognition in cooperation with other
9 Federally-recognized tribes in order to protect
10 tribal government sovereignty."
11 This is the first resolution ever passed on
12 opposing state recognition. There have been many
13 letters in the past which have been very, very
14 useful by the Five Tribes--Civilized Tribes of
15 Georgia, the Five Indigenous Tribes of Georgia.
16 This is being fought very hard. Myself and five
17 other urban Indians, you heard today talk about
18 lawsuits, filed suit against the State of Georgia
19 last year in recognizing tribes. This should not be
20 state rights. In actuality, they did it
21 unconstitutionally to their own constitution. They
22 tagged bills. They were not germane. The Bill of
23 Rights says they cannot legislate or change a
24 person's--I lose the word--the status of a citizen
25 by legislation. That, in fact, did the same. There
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 216
1 are so many things in their constitution when they
2 made this legislation that is illegal.
3 When we brought them up to Federal court, the
4 State of Georgia, as Florida did last year, they
5 stood on the 11th Amendment, and said, we will not
6 be sued. So we're taking them to state court. At
7 this point, we have the Eastern Band of Cherokee
8 Indians signed on. We are looking for other
9 Federally-recognized tribes. I hope the future with
10 this--this joint resolution that the Cherokee Nation
11 will come on this.
12 When this lawsuit came about and was told about
13 in the first of '95, what immediately happened in
14 Washington was the Lumbee Nation, which is the
15 largest state-recognized tribe in the United States,
16 who claims to have a membership as large as the
17 Navajo Nation, lobbied in Washington. And with
18 downsizing of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, what
19 they tried to do was to drop the recognition
20 procedures, historically, to 200 years. That's just
21 one point. Two hundred years, to me, means you came
22 on a boat. I have Caucasian friends that have a
23 much longer history in this country than 200 years.
24 This would change-- This is not an affront to
25 Bobby Billie. This is not an affront to the Yushi
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 217
1 people. We know the historic nature of these
2 tribes. Georgia was the 13th state to go for state
3 recognition. There are certainly
4 Federally-recognized Cherokee and Creek Tribes for
5 these people to have gone for citizenship. No one
6 in America goes to Poland to become a U.S. citizen.
7 There are reasons why, because they are not who they
8 say there are.
9 And to the--and to the United States and
10 Georgia, as a state, to actually create a tribe with
11 no recognition procedures is about as unethical as
12 has been done. Yet, Pennsylvania, last year, was
13 getting ready to do this and so was New Jersey. The
14 tribes are unbelievable. I have never heard so many
15 flowery Indian names of their chiefs and their
16 chairmans and their Indian princesses and
17 great-great-great-great grandmothers. They're--they
18 showed up at the Georgia General Assembly--I cried
19 when--and lobbying in Committees. I cried for one
20 reason. My grandfather never dressed like those
21 people. I'm 52 years old. They came in beaver
22 hats. They came in full buckskins and beads and
23 flutes playing through the halls of the General
24 Assembly. And the sad part is they smelled because
25 they haven't got a figure or a clue how to clean
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 218
1 those buckskins and take care of them. The sad part
2 is that they represented us and people thought they
3 were Indians.
4 And when I lobbyied with the Speaker of the
5 House, which is Tom Murphy, who's a very, very
6 powerful man, he's 78 years old, and he has not lost
7 one bit of his wit, and he understood the economics
8 and the (portion of tape inaudible) of what was
9 happening with bills coming through Georgia for HUD
10 housing and Indian commissions which would not be
11 Native, they would be state-recognized Indians. He
12 saw the bureaucracy there, and strangely enough,
13 this will be familiar to a lot of folks, he wanted
14 to get rid of the Indian problem. So he was willing
15 to work with me, and he got in the well. But the
16 most--to--to make so many people realize the
17 knowledge of Indian people. This is a very bright
18 man who holds an enormously powerful political seat
19 in Georgia. He held my hand, and said, "Nadine, do
20 you mean to tell me, there are people that still
21 live on reservations?" He had no clue.
22 So when those of us that go into lobbying, go
23 into general assemblies, and speak to your senators
24 and legislators, they come under a third-grade
25 education on the majority of who we are. They
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 219
1 assume we all carry medicine bags. They assume if
2 you wear a choker, you're an Indian. Honest--honest
3 to goodness, if you can speak a few words of
4 Cherokee, you are one. The stereotype is: well, he
5 has high cheekbones, they must be. The--the--we're
6 all supposed to be dark-skinned. We're all supposed
7 to have straight black hair. These are the
8 stereotypes that come out, but these are the things
9 that are being used for recognition.
10 For non-Federally-recognized tribes to come
11 under NAGPRA, there's no room for them. For
12 historically placed tribes that have been sovereign
13 government nations continuously and have their
14 identification, and they are not Federally
15 recognized, I suggest that the Federally-recognized
16 tribes be their sponsors. You say there's not much
17 time. To meet once a year is just unreal.
18 I'm going--I'm going to close; I promised only
19 15 minutes. But, I suggest that when you have this
20 hearing again, the dialogue and the questioning
21 should not be those anthropologists again and the
22 scientists. I have respect for you because I have
23 worked with you, myself. But your history is not
24 good with us; it's not good with us. I believe
25 Federally-recognized elder leaders should sit down
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1 with these tribes for--they should come under
2 repatriation. They should have their sacred objects
3 returned to them. On unidentifiable cultural items,
4 geographically--as I have worked with the Cherokee
5 Nations and we have talked about this, and I have
6 talked with my own elders--to rebury
7 geographically--to rebury geographically, on
8 something that will be protected.
9 But somewhere, I want to see happen--for myself
10 and for my grandfather and for my ancestors that are
11 going to be unidentifiable, somewhere buried perhaps
12 in the Southwest, because we don't know really where
13 they belong--I want to see a plaque of how this
14 happened. I want to see it written. I want it told
15 why this happened and why it's going on. So
16 perhaps, it will never happen again, not just to us,
17 but to any other people, and maybe to people's pets
18 in their backyards. This should never have
19 happened. And it needs to be put somewhere where it
20 is said. When you go to Europe and you see the
21 atrocities there--they didn't tear those
22 concentration camps down. America tries to bury
23 theirs. They've dug them up and now we're going to
24 get them buried. But somewhere there must be a
25 plaque that says what has happened, so it won't
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 221
1 happen anymore. (Native American language.)
2 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you, Nadine.
3 Jonathan?
4 JONATHAN LEADER
5 JONATHAN LEADER: A tough act to follow. My
6 name is Jonathan Leader, and I am the Deputy State
7 Archaeologist for South Carolina and the head of the
8 office of the state archaeologist. I am very
9 pleased--very pleased to have this opportunity to
10 address the Committee, the staff, and distinguished
11 guests on certain implementation of the Native
12 American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act for
13 this state. I suspect that our experiences in many
14 ways mirror those in other states and regions.
15 The 1963 Enabling Act, which was revised in
16 1990, that established the South Carolina Institute
17 of Archaeology and Anthropology also mandated its
18 duties. Specifically, these include the conducting
19 of research on behalf of the state's
20 archaeological--the state, a formation updating the
21 state's archaeological site files from all work
22 conducted within the state's borders, and the
23 curation of all state materials recovered by funded,
24 permitted, or otherwise required archaeological
25 activities. A later law, the South Carolina
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1 Underwater Antiquities Act, specifically invested
2 the institute with oversight and compliance
3 management for submerged sites on state lands with
4 the continued emphasis on site files and curation
5 materials. It should, at this point, be noted that
6 we are separate as an agency, totally distinct from
7 the State Historic Preservation Office or the South
8 Carolina Department of Archives and History.
9 Since the late 1970s, the Institute has been
10 directly involved in an increasing way in the
11 protection of burials within the state. Each Deputy
12 State Archaeologist and the Deputy State
13 Archaeologist for Forensics have acted as
14 coordinators between the concerned public, county
15 coroners, and local and state law enforcement to
16 ensure understanding of the compliance of South
17 Carolina's burial laws. South Carolina's burial law
18 does not make a distinction between those burials
19 that are found within cemeteries, those burials that
20 are found outside of cemeteries, those burials that
21 are 1,000 years old, 10,000 years old, or
22 yesterday. Violation of any of those is a felony in
23 this state.
24 I am happy to say the state has a
25 zero-tolerance stance of the violation of sepulcher,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 223
1 and has effectively prosecuted looters and vandals
2 under the felony provisions. This stance is
3 reflected in the provisions in the Underwater
4 Antiquity Act, which allows the Institute to shut
5 down construction or development, indefinitely, if
6 necessary, upon the finding of human remains.
7 Strangely enough, the passing of the Native American
8 Graves Protection and Repatriation Act has, in fact,
9 hampered our work in ways that could not have been
10 foreseen. But I got ahead of myself.
11 The passage of the Federal Act finds a highly
12 receptive audience in SCIAA, at least in my office
13 of the state archaeologist. While we had not
14 preferentially targeted Native American graves, we
15 were already in an active stance for protection of
16 burials and had sharply curtailed the circumstances
17 under which research could be conducted on any human
18 remains. This included, as a matter of regulation
19 for state archaeological materials, a ban on the
20 publication of burial photographs, unless for
21 stringently defined scientific purposes; a ban on
22 the display of human remains for exhibit, both of
23 these supported by state law; scrutiny and
24 certification of research plans involving human
25 burials by an oversight committee; and the explicit
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 224
1 understanding that burials, when encountered by
2 chance, should be left where they are with all due
3 dignity and respect.
4 The sole overriding factor for the state
5 regulation was the safety of the burials, not
6 research. Human remains threatened by erosion or
7 unintentionally uncovered by a variety of
8 activities, and thus made vulnerable to looting or
9 vandalism, were to be recovered and kept safe,
10 again, with all due regard for dignity. Reinterment
11 of these remains and associated materials were
12 provided for, as was input from next of kin and
13 lineal and cultural descendants as to final
14 disposition.
15 Up to this point, I've been referring to state
16 materials, which are primarily excluded by this
17 Federal law. Nonetheless, both the Institute and
18 quite a number of state agencies have entered into
19 partnerships with Federal agencies and conducted
20 archaeological research. The materials collected
21 have been curated at the Institute, and of course,
22 they do fall under direct purview of this Act. In
23 addition, several agencies, most notably the Army
24 Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Forest Service, and the
25 Soils Conservation Service, have also deposited
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1 materials recovered in South Carolina within the
2 state's depository. And they are covered as well.
3 What was not deposited were large sums of
4 money, sufficient to fund the work mandated by the
5 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation
6 Act's regulations. Nonetheless, from the point that
7 the Act came into being to the final reports of
8 notifications that certain collections were required
9 to be completed last November, and notwithstanding
10 the massive downsizing in state government, we moved
11 ten staff members, leaving a skeleton crew, no pun
12 intended. We got the job done and on time. A feat
13 that was apparently too much for the much better
14 funded and equipped United States Air Force. In our
15 case, this was an act of selfless dedication and
16 professionalism on the part of the institute
17 curator, Ms. Sharron Pekrul, with assistance as
18 possible from Mr. Keith Derting and Mr. Harold
19 Fortune. Ms. Pekrul, if she wished, could take next
20 year off in compensatory time.
21 In the course of this work, we co-sponsored,
22 with the council of South Carolina Professional
23 Archaeologists, in 1991, a symposium to discuss the
24 needs and requirements of the new law and to ensure
25 its familiarity with all of our colleagues. Guest
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1 speakers included National Park Service
2 archaeologists, state archaeologists, forensic
3 anthropologists, and representatives of the tribal
4 entities of South Carolina. Invited but unable to
5 attend were Chief (portion of tape inaudible) of the
6 Catawba and Chief Creel of the Edisto.
7 I think that it is fair to state that a great
8 deal of good will was engendered by this meeting,
9 and that for some of my colleagues, unfortunately,
10 this was the first time they'd ever spoken with
11 Native Americans. Interactions and assistance from
12 both directions have continued ever since. In the
13 course of complying with the regulations, contacts
14 now exist between the Institute and the Cherokee of
15 North Carolina and Oklahoma, the Catawba, the
16 Edisto, the Chicora, the Santee, the Peedee,
17 Chicora-Waccamaw. All of the Native American groups
18 were provided with the necessary documentation as is
19 (portion of tape inaudible), and invited to attend a
20 meeting held last February in Columbia to discuss
21 our next steps. For those who could not attend, I
22 offered to travel at my own expense to meet with
23 them. Luckily for my maxed-out Visa card, this was
24 not necessary, at least not yet.
25 Unfortunately, of all the groups contacted,
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1 only the Cherokee and the Catawba are Federally
2 recognized. None of the rest of the groups are
3 fully enfranchised by this Act, although several of
4 them are clearly historical. As you might imagine,
5 the majority of discussions centered around the
6 proposed regulations for disposition of human
7 remains of culturally unidentified. That is to say,
8 unidentified due to affiliation with
9 non-Federally-recognized Native American groups.
10 It was cold comfort for me to enfranchise these
11 Native Americans throughout the process and invite
12 them to participate as representatives of their
13 entities, and yet have nothing to tell them in terms
14 of their legitimate concerns. Hopefully, the draft
15 recommendations recently sent out will be
16 implemented with corrections addressed elsewhere, as
17 soon as possible. And I would also like to add that
18 I am in full agreement that the definition of who is
19 and who is not a Native American or a tribal entity
20 should be in the hands of the Federal government,
21 not the states, and certainly not the agencies, as
22 gatekeepers or otherwise.
23 This is probably a good time to briefly delve
24 into some of the problems of this Act. None of the
25 comments I will make should be misconstrued as a
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 228
1 lack of support for the law, for that is not the
2 case. Every new law goes through a period of
3 adjustment, but what's simple and direct to the
4 authors becomes esoteric to the reader and
5 labyrinthine to the people that have to make it
6 work. I have nothing but the highest respect and
7 admiration for anyone courageous enough to volunteer
8 to serve during such a period.
9 It was voluntary. Right?
10 Yeah, I thought so. Just checking.
11 First, I am pleased to say that the
12 disenfranchisement of appropriate but
13 non-Federally-recognized groups, one of my greatest
14 concerns, appears to be shortly belonged to the
15 past. Every once in a while, it is nice for the
16 state government to be ahead of the curve.
17 Second, the lack of funding to meet this
18 mandate is, I believe, all of us would agree, a
19 national scandal. Not everyone is willing to damage
20 their health, as my staff did, for their
21 professional sense of ethics. And they should not
22 be asked to do so without proper support.
23 Third, regulations need to be written by the
24 people who have to implement them. Several areas
25 are still, pardon the expression, mushy, and frankly
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1 undoable at present. This has been, again, covered
2 under separate letter. I will not go further at
3 this time. I will say that the regulations get
4 better and better over time, and they're a lot more
5 fun to read.
6 Fourth, in a similar vein, it's somewhat
7 mind-boggling to have compliance before regulations,
8 as did occur last November. While I kidded earlier
9 about the United States Air Force, about their
10 noncompliance, they did have a point. They, at
11 least, should not be asked to comply with a draft.
12 As my people would say, it's (portion of tape
13 inaudible), it isn't done.
14 Fifth, there is still wide-spread ignorance
15 concerning this law on the part of Federal agencies,
16 museums, and collections. Some of us are neither
17 museums or Federal, we are collections. Yes, okay.
18 I'll (portion of tape inaudible), and of course, on
19 other groups, including Native Americans. I know
20 that Dr. Tim McKeown and a host of others have been
21 holding marathon workshops, but as usual, with a new
22 law, considerable more work has yet to be done.
23 Sixth, and this is a little bit out in left
24 field, so bear with me, earlier I alluded to the
25 inadvertent difficulty the law made to our
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 230
1 enforcement strategies. Somehow, various state and
2 local law enforcement agencies now believe that the
3 passage of this law makes all concerns of Native
4 American grave violations the problem of the Federal
5 Government. I don't have a clue as to why. And
6 unfortunately, this scuttled my most recent case
7 dealing with the looting of graves in this, and two
8 other states, which were transported to this state
9 for sale, due to delays over jurisdiction.
10 Tim, don't forget to educate them as well.
11 Right.
12 These six points notwithstanding, the process
13 of implementation in this state has been remarkably
14 smooth. Dr. Bruce Rippeteau, Director of SCIAA, and
15 the State Archaeologist, and I would like to thank
16 you for this opportunity to address the Committee
17 and assure you of our continued support. Thank you.
18 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you, Mr. Leader.
19 I'd like to talk to the Review Committees for
20 just--Review Committee for a couple of minutes. And
21 propose a readjustment in our schedule. We're, for
22 today we're scheduled up until 5:30, but I think
23 we're all very tired. And I think that there's
24 another consideration. One of our Review Committee
25 members is leaving at 5 o'clock. He has to catch an
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 231
1 airplane at 5:00. In that case, if we--if we can
2 leave today at 5:00 and reconvene at 8:00 tomorrow
3 morning in order to catch up on some--on some of the
4 other items on the agenda for Sunday afternoon we
5 could include Marty, in fact, who's leaving at 5:00,
6 and have him participate in the--in--in his--with
7 his input for the activities for tomorrow. So
8 that's my suggestion. Is that--how does that sit
9 with you all? Is that okay? Okay.
10 Then--then it's agreed that we meet tomorrow
11 morning at 8 o'clock, and that we do as much as we
12 can until 8:30, and then at 8:40 then, Jonathan, you
13 will take over as Chair for the Hawaiian dispute for
14 the rest of the morning. Is that-- Okay.
15 JONATHAN HAAS: So what's going to be from 8:00
16 to 8:40.
17 TESSIE NARANJO: Eight to 8:40 we're going to
18 try to get as many of the items done--
19 JONATHAN HAAS: So we're going to tackle some
20 of these issues?
21 TESSIE NARANJO: --on Sunday afternoon.
22 JONATHAN HAAS: Okay.
23 TESSIE NARANJO: The items for Sunday
24 afternoon. All right? Let's do it that way. Then
25 we've got about 20 more minutes then. In that case
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 232
1 I'd like to ask any other members of the public who
2 wish to make any comments to do so. And we'll
3 accept comments up until 5 o'clock. Thank you.
4 PUBLIC COMMENT
5 RICHARD EDWARDS
6 RICHARD EDWARDS: Under the circumstances, I'll
7 try to be very brief. My name is Richard Edwards.
8 I'm a Professor of Law at the University of Toledo
9 College of Law in Toledo, Ohio. I've taught public
10 international law for many years. This fall, I'm
11 teaching for the first time, I was asked to teach a
12 course in Native American law. And I'm learning a
13 great deal as a neophyte in that area.
14 I am an Associate Member of the Antique Tribal
15 Art Dealers Association that's been mentioned here
16 today. I'm not a dealer, but I have been a
17 collector for some 50 years. The oratory you've
18 heard has been outstanding, as I expected it would
19 be. And I can not hope to match it and will not
20 try. But there are four points I would like to make
21 quickly.
22 One, like Mr. Lawrence Hart this morning, I was
23 deeply affected by what happened. Tears came to my
24 eyes when the Oneida representative from New York
25 called on the Oneida from Wisconsin to give the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 233
1 traditional closing. Some persons in this room may
2 know Francis Stuart, a medicine man from the Crow
3 Nation. His medicine bundle forbids his family from
4 crying. I'm a friend but not a part of his family.
5 And I hope it was okay for me to cry. When minutes
6 of this meeting are prepared I hope that you will
7 record what was done in those minutes. And that
8 with respect to the closing, I could not understand
9 what was said, but I sensed that the person was
10 speaking with great responsibility for what he said.
11 And I hope that what he said will be translated and
12 put in your records, and that the summary of what
13 was said, which a person like myself could not
14 understand, will appear in your minutes.
15 The second thing I'd like to say is that I have
16 listened carefully to the comments both yesterday
17 and today about this problem of--on
18 Federally-recognized and non-recognized tribes. And
19 somehow I would hope that the same spirit that came
20 out this morning with respect to the Oneida's would
21 somehow prevail here. And that persons like Bill
22 Day and Bobby Billie will somehow be able to get
23 together and together make some suggestions as to
24 what might be done. One possibility, and I don't
25 know if this is more than a possibility, would be
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 234
1 for somehow for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to set
2 up a special category of tribes that would be
3 recognized for NAGPRA purposes but would not result
4 in those persons necessarily getting all the other
5 benefits that Indians might enjoy under Federal law.
6 This would--takes care of this immediate problem
7 with human remains but not then bring that--make
8 that problem control. The other issues on the
9 agenda control the human remains matter.
10 With respect to this somehow I feel like that
11 we're really dealing, and I teach international law,
12 but somehow a higher. We're beyond international
13 law here. That we're talking about the respect of
14 people and their ancestors. And we ought to think
15 of it in that way. And I would urge this Committee
16 to pay less attention to the law and the specifics
17 there, necessarily, than what you in your hearts
18 sense is right. That's what I sense this morning
19 was done, and I think that's what is so important
20 here.
21 The third point. For over 25 years, I've
22 taught public international law. Those of us who
23 teach in the international law field, frankly, avoid
24 the term "sovereignty." I've heard it more here
25 today than I've heard for 25 years among my friends
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 235
1 in international law at conferences. But we have
2 tried, if anything, to limit the application of the
3 word "sovereignty." We have found there's a need to
4 get together to sort of surrender the rights of
5 sovereignty rather than--than to--to develop and
6 build on them. And I think particularly, for
7 example, in our own country in 1976 the Foreign
8 Sovereignty Immunities Act that limits the ability
9 to form countries to enjoy immunities in the State
10 and Federal courts. Apparently now tribes now have
11 more immunities in some respects than foreign
12 governments like France or England.
13 And finally, I would mention you have received
14 the memorandum and/or a copy of it issued by the
15 trial--Federal trial judge in the Corrow case. I
16 think that this is a matter that this Committee
17 needs to follow carefully. I, for one, am concerned
18 that what may happen in the legal realm here, and
19 (portion of tape inaudible) don't appeal in the
20 Tenth Circuit, may have some effects on what you do.
21 All I can say is that the way a court and jury in
22 that case went about deciding the issue of whether
23 something was not cultural patrimony was quite
24 different from the way I've seen this
25 court--Committee operate. And it seems to me like
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 236
1 the way you've done it makes a lot more sense than
2 what happened in that case. Thank you very much.
3 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you, Mr. Edwards.
4 If there are no more comments, then--
5 SHANNON LARSEN: (Portion of tape inaudible.)
6 TESSIE NARANJO: All right.
7 SHANNON LARSEN
8 SHANNON LARSEN: (portion of tape inaudible.)
9 I don't have my paper here with me, but one question
10 he keeps asking me, and I can't answer it, is: Why
11 does the SHPO office in Tallahassee, Florida, still
12 issue permits to excavate burial grounds? Why do
13 they still issue permits for research mortuary
14 behavior of the Indigenous people? He can't
15 understand it when he hears about the NAGPRA law
16 that you want to repatriate and get back the things
17 that were stolen, that permits are still being
18 issued to do this.
19 He's also wondering about some of the language
20 in the Act itself where it talks about intentional
21 excavations, and he just has questions about those
22 kinds of things. But particularly why are permits
23 still given to go into his burial ground, study the
24 way that they buried them, and so forth, when the
25 whole new spirit is to stop doing this?
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 237
1 TESSIE NARANJO: Tim, are you going to attempt
2 to answer that? Frank.
3 FRANK MCMANAMON: Well, I'll try. In terms of
4 the State of--State of Florida, the State Historic
5 Preservation Office in Florida issuing permits, that
6 must be a matter of state law--
7 SHANNON LARSEN: It is on state--
8 FRANK MCMANAMON: --and on state lands.
9 SHANNON LARSEN: It's state lands, but also on
10 the National Forest, Federal lands.
11 FRANK MCMANAMON: Well--
12 SHANNON LARSEN: There's actually--in (portion
13 of tape inaudible), it says that it's okay to study
14 the mortuary behavior in certain instances. But
15 this is the protocol that--that was written by
16 (portion of tape inaudible).
17 FRANK MCMANAMON: Well, I'm not familiar with
18 that protocol. It must be specific to that forest
19 or the forests in Florida or to the forests in the
20 Southeast. The--the Native American Graves
21 Protection and Repatriation Act does permit new
22 excavations and it does make certain requirements
23 for inadvertent discoveries that have to do with
24 recording and if--if remains are to be--to be
25 removed. The intent, I believe, of the law was not
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 238
1 to prevent archaeological
2 investigations--archaeological excavations, pardon
3 me, on Federal lands. It was, however, to ensure
4 that the appropriate tribes were consulted with,
5 which is a requirement of the Statute. And that if
6 the excavation resulted in the recovery of Native
7 American human remains or funerary objects or other
8 types of artifacts covered by the Statute, that the
9 disposition of those remains and artifacts was to
10 the appropriate--appropriate culturally affiliated
11 tribe.
12 TESSIE NARANJO: She had an additional question
13 about intentional excavations.
14 FRANK MCMANAMON: Well, that was what I--I was
15 just trying to--to say, that the Statute does permit
16 new excavations, intentional excavations, but it
17 requires consultation with the appropriate
18 culturally affiliated tribe before those excavations
19 are undertaken. And it requires that if human
20 remains or objects as described in NAGPRA are
21 recovered during the course of those excavations,
22 that those be disposed of to the culturally
23 affiliated tribe.
24 TESSIE NARANJO: David.
25 DAVID JUMPER
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 239
1 DAVID JUMPER: I wanted to ask him. And he
2 probably overlooked it. I guess that--
3 If they're not culturally related or identified
4 before it has been dug to be identified, how do you
5 justify it?
6 FRANK MCMANAMON: The--the new excavations and
7 inadvertent discoveries sections--there's sections
8 of NAGPRA--only apply on Federal and tribal lands.
9 And--and there--there are questions as to which
10 Indian tribes and Native Alaskan Organizations have
11 a--have a cultural affiliation with archaeological
12 sites on particular Federal lands. In some cases,
13 it's quite clear which tribes would have occupied
14 those territories in the past. In other cases,
15 it's--it's less clear. In the Southeast, with the
16 national forests and the national parks here, it may
17 be less clear than it is in some of the public lands
18 in the western part of the country.
19 But it's--it's up to the Federal agencies that
20 are responsible for managing those lands to make a
21 determination of which tribes ought to be consulted
22 with in the case of--of new excavations, or
23 contacted in the case of inadvertent discoveries.
24 Many agencies are proactively identifying those
25 tribes. And while I don't think a lot of this has
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 240
1 occurred yet, we have encouraged those land-managing
2 agencies to meet with the tribes and to develop
3 written protocols and written agreements, so that if
4 they plan a new excavation or--and more likely, if
5 they encounter an inadvertent discovery, that they
6 will have already had some consultation with the
7 tribes. They will already know whom to contact
8 within the tribes, who's the appropriate
9 representative, and things of that sort. It may be
10 that there will be more than one tribe. It may
11 frequently be the case that there will be more than
12 one tribe that would be contacted. But if we depend
13 on the--the Federal lands that are in question.
14 TESSIE NARANJO: Jonathan.
15 JONATHAN HAAS: Could--I'd like to make one
16 comment that may--may address some of this too, and
17 maybe--probably going to get Frank back up again,
18 and that has to do with future applicability of
19 NAGPRA, because it seems to me from our discussions
20 that we've had in the past, particularly, I believe,
21 at Anchorage and maybe in Los Angeles, where we
22 begun to address the future applicability parts of
23 this. That even for human remains that come from
24 private land, once they go in to an institution that
25 is under the NAGPRA mandate, they go into the NAGPRA
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 241
1 process.
2 So NAGPRA may not be able to stop excavations
3 on state and private lands by these institutions.
4 But I think there are mechanisms to bring those
5 remains in to the NAGPRA process with future
6 applicability. So that if they are excavated and
7 they come to the Florida State Museum, or wherever
8 they are, I don't mean to just pull a name out of
9 the hat, but if they come to one of those Federal
10 agencies or museums that are receiving Federal
11 funds, then they fall under NAGPRA and are subject
12 to repatriation under the same guidelines as all
13 other human remains that are in those institutions.
14 Aren't I--aren't I reasonably correct on that?
15 DAVID JUMPER: Is there a time limit on that
16 (portion of tape inaudible).
17 JONATHAN HAAS: I'm sorry?
18 DAVID JUMPER: Is there a time limit of
19 (portion of tape inaudible).
20 JONATHAN HAAS: Remind me.
21 TIMOTHY MCKEOWN: (Portion of tape inaudible)
22 future applicability. I can't remember what it is,
23 but there is--
24 JONATHAN HAAS: There is a time limit, but
25 we're not--we don't know exactly what it is. I'm
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 242
1 sorry. We--I wasn't--I wasn't prepared to talk
2 about this, explicitly. But there is and that is
3 working its way through now.
4 TESSIE NARANJO: Mr. Day, you were next.
5 BILL DAY
6 BILL DAY: Thank you, ma'am. I just would like
7 to know when is your next scheduled meeting and
8 where?
9 TESSIE NARANJO: At the moment, we're thinking
10 of spring of next year, possibly March, in
11 Washington, D.C.
12 BILL DAY: So, I'll become an official elder in
13 Washington. I would like to schedule us to discuss
14 some problems in the Southeast, particularly with
15 the State of Mississippi. And is that possible to
16 do so now and make that request now? And to, of
17 course, have present our attorneys. We would be
18 most appreciative. It would take at least an hour.
19 TESSIE NARANJO: Tim will jot that down.
20 BILL DAY: Thank you.
21 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you, Mr. Day. I see a
22 hand up way up there, but, Shannon, you--you
23 wanted--you--to say something.
24 SHANNON LARSEN
25 SHANNON LARSEN: Yeah. I'd--I'd just like some
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 243
1 clarification of what, actually, if you could tell
2 us, what would be a reason given for any further
3 excavation on Federal or state land? The only
4 reasons that we've been given is that an
5 archeologist came in and submitted this research
6 paper and would want to bring in students from the
7 universities. It's a known burial site, and
8 (portion of tape inaudible).
9 To me, that's not a good enough reason to allow
10 this to happen. It's not even a good reason when
11 they say they want to (portion of tape inaudible).
12 There is no good reason to do this.
13 We always go around. We've been with Bobby on
14 all of these sites, and it's terrible. And it's
15 terrible for him to have to look down into the holes
16 and see his relatives there. We have to demand that
17 you all, please, put them back. Once you take them
18 to the museums and study them, it's not the same.
19 I'm sorry for this, but I have had to go through
20 this, really, and it's not the same when you take
21 them out of the ground for these ridiculous reasons,
22 and put them in the plastic bags, and then he has to
23 try real hard to get them back. I don't understand,
24 anymore, the reason that you're doing it. I just
25 simply don't.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 244
1 BOBBY C. BILLIE
2 BOBBY C. BILLIE: I think I'd like to say
3 something about the person that we going to lose the
4 job, the archaeology. I think you're gonna have
5 more job than you ever dreamed because you're gonna
6 put all the remains back to the ground. And you
7 make money, so much on that, so you have to spend
8 money to put it back. So that's how we feel. And
9 it took us 500 years to come in here to speak to you
10 when it first they came about. We fighting over to
11 the different things over the years.
12 You hear some people for different purpose, but
13 you never heard about the Indigenous people. Those
14 are the people that speak what needs to be heared,
15 but you never been until you meet them. You need to
16 bring those people to hear from them their rights.
17 They are the first people on this earth. They have
18 a right as much as you are. They have a right to
19 speak for their land, for their ancestors. Many
20 times you thought you got rid of us, but we're still
21 here because our believing. But that would be loss,
22 I'm sure, you do not want to survive. You're gonna
23 hold on with us. And so if you want to see the
24 future, hear us, to understand us, we can guide you
25 in a good way. But if you don't, you're not going
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 245
1 to solve anything.
2 While you sitting here, you're trying to figure out
3 on how we going to prove that, how we gonna create
4 this. And again, you trying to bring the ideas.
5 It's not the way the Indigenous people follow their
6 law. It has been create already. We follow it. So
7 we telling you to do this, to put back and not to
8 touch it. That's the law of the all Creation. If
9 you can't understand that, we have to force you to
10 make--to do the right thing. It all can happen
11 because our believing.
12 I want you to go back and think about it,
13 because you gonna need to understand what we saying.
14 Maybe I'm going to turn around here and you're not
15 going to see me, but you're gonna hear me about it.
16 And I want you to understand, you're not gonna lose
17 your job, you're gonna have--create your own job to
18 put these remains back. We cannot touch them
19 because we have been--they touch them when they
20 first put back into the earth. We gonna guide you
21 to do this; you need to do this. That's what we
22 gonna do.
23 So you don't have lost a job. You got so many
24 things you have dug up to put back. So that's all I
25 have to say.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 246
1 And I wish I could sit down and talk with you
2 all, what happened to other country, all Indigenous
3 people, I'm sure you--you seen it but you don't--you
4 do not understand their feelings. I never seen it,
5 but some people from the countries, they have
6 related to me the message, just the message come to
7 me. I have touch them, but their voice, another
8 person come to me. They said, we understand. We
9 gonna support you, what you do for all of our
10 ancestors of the earth.
11 Sometimes Indigenous people call the elders,
12 they not talking about the--the human life. When we
13 call the elders, we talking about the water; we
14 talking about the trees; we talking about the air;
15 we talking about the sky, the stars, the earth, all
16 connections. Some people said I'm the tribal
17 elders, sometimes we hear that, we can't even bury
18 sometime. Indigenous people don't see the elders
19 themself, we just learning.
20 My grandfather, he was--
21 TESSIE NARANJO: Mr. Billie. Mr. Billie, it's
22 getting close to closing time, and there's one more
23 lady I've got to acknowledge in the back. So, if
24 you'll close your remarks, I'll--I'll accept that
25 one lady's comments.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 247
1 BOBBY BILLIE: Okay.
2 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you.
3 BOBBY BILLIE: My grandpa died 135 years old,
4 but he never called himself elders. I'm just a
5 learner. I'm still learning, no matter how old I
6 am. But he never called himself the elders. So
7 that's how the Indigenous people represented
8 themselves, respect the all Creation on the same
9 level. There's no higher level.
10 So when I hear the--some of the nation, we the
11 highest, we the chief, we the so-and-so, we don't
12 see that that way. Thank you.
13 TESSIE NARANJO: We'll accept one last comment
14 from the lady in the back. I think it's that last
15 seat. You had your hand up. Nadema, was it you?
16 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Yeah.
17 TESSIE NARANJO: Or the lady behind you?
18 Nadema, you'll be our last person to make a
19 comment. And I want to remind the rest of the
20 people in the audience who want to make a comment
21 that we--you have one more chance tomorrow from 11
22 o'clock to 12 o'clock. Thank you.
23 NADEMA AGARD
24 NADEMA AGARD: Can I make a comment on some
25 issues that are not relevant to this--
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 248
1 TESSIE NARANJO: If you'll--if you'll tell us
2 your name, Nadema.
3 NADEMA AGARD: Okay. My name is Nadema Agard,
4 and I'm the Repatriation Director for the Standing
5 Rock Sioux Tribe. We have some--we received a grant
6 from the National Park Service, a NAGPRA grant, to
7 visit some museums that have Sitting Bull's
8 belongings. We have fulfilled that requirement.
9 And in addition, I asked for an amendment, so we
10 have completed 12 repatriation visits since March.
11 And I have a lot of questions. There is a lot of
12 situations that are kind of murky, and we're not
13 sure about certain things.
14 I had my committee meet with me before we came
15 to this meeting because I represent Standing Rock
16 Sioux Tribe's eight district members, one of which
17 Beverly Ironshield, who spoke yesterday, is a
18 representative of Bear Soldier. And there
19 are some questions they have about: number one,
20 sacred objects on display; the--number two, the
21 rights of tribes and private collectors; number
22 three, birth amulets; and number four, Sioux tribes
23 viewing all Sioux bands--the belongings of all Sioux
24 bands.
25 And the reason why we have those questions is
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 249
1 because we received a call from Cheyenne River
2 saying that Cheyenne River repatriation person went
3 to a museum and they denied them access to
4 non-Cheyenne River collection. And so when we go to
5 museums, our first priority, of course, is for our
6 reservation, like we will look at Standing Rock's
7 collection, if they have one, first. And then, if
8 they don't have a Standing Rock collection, then we
9 have to look at the Sioux collection, and determine,
10 by looking at the designs and various things,
11 whether or not they're from Standing Rock or from
12 the area. Now this individual went to a museum and
13 they were from Cheyenne River, and it was told to
14 them that they could only look at things that said
15 Cheyenne River. I wanted to know if they--if a
16 museum could do that to our tribes. That was
17 my--one of my questions.
18 The other question was we went to Denver to see
19 the collection at the Colorado Historical Society in
20 the Denver Art Museum, and we worked with Mr. Roger
21 Echo Hawk. And he said that they had taken the
22 birth amulets and they had tried to x-ray them
23 to--to find out if there were any human remains
24 inside of the birth amulets, because that's where
25 their umbilical cords of babies are--were put,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 250
1 and--and so they said that it was really hard to
2 determine whether there were actually any human
3 remains because at this point there was--the--the
4 human remains had disintegrated and they didn't know
5 whether it was the dust of human remains or just,
6 you know, the dust inside of whatever it was.
7 And then I got a call that--that there was a
8 new--there was something in the works about the
9 rights of tribes and private collectors. And I
10 wanted to know if that was true; that, in fact, do
11 tribes have any rights regarding private collectors.
12 And after we go on repatriation visits, and we
13 tell people, these are sacred objects, please don't
14 display our burial moccasins, please don't display
15 our medicine bundles, what are the--what are our
16 rights?
17 TESSIE NARANJO: The first question was a
18 museum question, and I'd like either you or you to
19 respond to that.
20 DAN MONROE: With respect to museums saying you
21 can only look at-- I don't know how you make that
22 determination as a museum. I would suggest that it
23 would be, perhaps, good to contact the museum and
24 indicate to them that that sort of practice is not
25 accepted practice in the rest of the field. I think
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 251
1 that people who come to consult should be able to
2 have access to any parts of the collection they
3 wish. And I think that, by and large, that's the
4 approach for most museums.
5 Jonathan?
6 JONATHAN HAAS: It's a more complicated issue.
7 We have--I don't think we were that museum, but we
8 have collections that are ceremonial collections
9 that come from--we know the provenance coming from
10 specific groups, and those groups have asked us to
11 restrict access to those collections. And
12 we're--I'm just giving my experience here. I'm not
13 giving you the law, and I'm not--I think the
14 law--again, this has to do with issues of cultural
15 affiliation in terms of the law and things like
16 that. But we find ourselves in a dilemma where
17 you've got ceremonial material that all of your
18 records indicate belongs to a particular group, and
19 another group wants to see it, who doesn't, from
20 your records, have cultural affiliation with
21 the--with that material. And--and that presents a
22 dilemma for us in terms of being open and in terms
23 of--but, at the same time, trying to respond to
24 the--the desires of tribes.
25 DAN MONROE: How--
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1 JONATHAN HAAS: We've--we've had a similar
2 situation regarding human remains in which we had
3 one group wanting to see human remains of another
4 tribe. And I contacted the other tribe, and they
5 said, we really don't want them seeing the human
6 remains from our tribe. And what we've done is
7 tried to make it a communication between the groups
8 rather than between us. So we are not trying to
9 mediate in this. And we've--we've tried to say--
10 NADEMA AGARD: Let me clarify.
11 DAN MONROE: Jonathan, I--I'm not sure that
12 that was--
13 NADEMA AGARD: That wasn't--that wasn't the--
14 DAN MONROE: --the question.
15 NADEMA AGARD: --that wasn't the question. It
16 was: if we go to see a collection, and if they
17 don't have things that are--if they don't say
18 Standing Rock, if it just says Sioux, we want to
19 know that we have the right to--to view them.
20 Because in my experience in the 12 institutions that
21 I visited since March, the museums have been very
22 cooperative, and, in fact, we've gone to museums and
23 said, we don't want to look at the Oglala, because
24 they've had the Oglala things out. They've had
25 things out from Rosebud.
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1 And so I've had to revise our letter that goes
2 out to say, on Standing Rock, we have--we're in two
3 states, we're in North Dakota and we're in South
4 Dakota. So--and that there are Dakotas on--in
5 Standing Rock and there is Lakotas in Standing Rock.
6 So we have Cuthead Band. We have Upper Yanktonais
7 Band, but we have Hunkpapas and we have Sihasapas.
8 So I've had to clarify to the museums, because when
9 we go to the museums sometimes they'll just take
10 everything out that's Sioux, whether it's Oglala,
11 Rosebud, Brule, and they won't know that Standing
12 Rock people are not Oglala, Brule, and other bands
13 of the Sioux.
14 So what I'm saying is that if we go into a
15 museum, this specific museum--I won't mention the
16 name--if we went into this museum and they said,
17 well, you can only look at the stuff that's labeled
18 Standing Rock. Do they have the right to--to do
19 that? Or can we look at the stuff that's labeled
20 Sioux, also?
21 JONATHAN HAAS: I--in that--in that
22 circumstance, I think that, yes, that both the
23 law--well, I don't--I can't speak for the law. I
24 speak sort of for myself on this, but I think museum
25 ethics, as well as my interpretation of the law,
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 254
1 would say that, yes, they would have to provide you
2 access to Sioux material (portion of tape
3 inaudible), except for the, you know, when I said,
4 though, that there are exceptional circumstances and
5 it can be more complicated. I think that
6 you--you've just outlined the circumstances which
7 I'm talking about. And I think those are valid,
8 difficult situations that have to--have to be dealt
9 with individually. But I think, generally, that
10 museums need to provide access to all material
11 that's potentially affiliated with your tribe.
12 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Do you want to go to the
13 other questions?
14 NADEMA AGARD: Yeah. I--I don't know. Do you
15 want to answer my questions?
16 RICHARD EDWARDS: I want to comment, at some
17 point, on the burial moccasins and the amulets, if I
18 could. But I'll wait until everyone is finished.
19 NADEMA AGARD: Okay. Well, the other--the
20 question was about the birth amulets and the
21 determination of whether or not there were human
22 remains and the inconclusive evidence determining
23 whether or not they were considered human remains,
24 because if they have umbilical cords inside of them,
25 then we consider them human remains. But then the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 255
1 museum's saying, well, we don't know if they're--if
2 they have any in there because it's so old. It's so
3 deteriorated. We've tried to find out by x-raying
4 it, but we can't really determine. Your comment,
5 sir.
6 RICHARD EDWARDS
7 RICHARD EDWARDS: I'm Richard Edwards. I'll
8 make two comments on the matter of amulets and
9 burial moccasins. I think this Committee is going
10 to have to deal with the amulet problem at some
11 point, not only with respect to museums but private
12 collectors, because under the Native American Graves
13 Protection Act, it's a crime to sell human remains
14 unless you have right of possession as defined in
15 the Statute. And those of us who are collectors
16 don't want to be in that position. You will look at
17 catalogs of Sotheby auctions and frequently see
18 amulets shown.
19 The difficulty is that in many cases amulets
20 were made for sale to whites and do not contain
21 human remains at all, and you may not know what the
22 situation is with respect to a particular amulet
23 unless you have very good provenance data as to what
24 happened, who made it, how it was transferred, or in
25 fact, somebody x-rays it or takes it apart. But a
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 256
1 very large number of these amulets, in fact, do not
2 have human remains.
3 With respect to burial moccasins, there seems
4 to be a misnomer that these really were made for
5 burial. In some cases that is the case, but we know
6 of moccasins that are completely worn out from use
7 that are beaded on the bottoms. There are some
8 illustrated, I believe, in some of the books. In
9 addition, there are photographs of persons on
10 delegations where you can see their foot turned up
11 and you can see that they were wearing a moccasin
12 that was beaded on the bottom. It is my
13 understanding, from some things I've read, that
14 during the time, particularly when the Sioux people
15 were beading everything very elaborately, that
16 persons riding horseback wanted it to be able to be
17 seen that their moccasins were beaded on the bottom.
18 And so they were beaded in that situation.
19 So, although there were moccasins that persons
20 made--made especially just for burial, in many
21 cases, that's not the case with respect for
22 moccasins with beaded soles. So, it makes it a very
23 difficult matter of determining whether or not
24 these, in fact, are grave goods.
25 MARTIN SULLIVAN: Could I ask Frank to help us
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 257
1 with something--
2 NADEMA AGARD
3 NADEMA AGARD: Thank you for this comment, but
4 we will go to our elders to determine whether or not
5 these moccasins are beaded. And as far as the birth
6 amulets go, we will go to our elders to determine
7 whether these are birth amulets that have human
8 remains inside. We have our--our elders have a way
9 of knowing these things. But that's--that's
10 our--our way, we don't disclose it. So--and we're
11 quite aware of the fact that there are beaded
12 moccasins, beaded-sole moccasins that are not
13 burial. But we--we want to look at all of them so
14 we can determine which ones are burial.
15 But I'd like the Committee to answer
16 that--those other questions that I posed earlier.
17 TESSIE NARANJO: And one more time, the
18 amulets, the second question, we're on to that one.
19 Right?
20 NADEMA AGARD: Yeah. It was about--
21 TESSIE NARANJO: Is it or is it not--
22 NADEMA AGARD: --that they could not determine
23 whether or not there were any human remains. They
24 couldn't tell whether they were--there were human
25 remains, whether there weren't. There was no
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 258
1 indication one way or the other.
2 DAN MONROE: And the question was?
3 NADEMA AGARD: The question was: Would
4 they--could the tribe still claim them as human
5 remains if this was the--the situation?
6 MARTIN SULLIVAN: I wanted to ask Frank to help
7 us go back to the legislative intent. At a meeting
8 a long time ago, we discussed the distinction
9 between human remains and sacred objects.
10 FRANK MCMANAMON: Right.
11 MARTIN SULLIVAN: And one of the working
12 definitions was that human remains are the things
13 that are the residue of death or dismemberment, not
14 of natural processes of the body, at least that's
15 what I recall.
16 FRANK MCMANAMON: That's right. The--in fact,
17 it was the last time the Committee met in the
18 Southeast. We had a very long discussion and we
19 were dealing with the regulations about what would
20 be considered to be human remains and how we would
21 deal with artifacts into which human remains were
22 integrated; so shirts that had scalps, or bracelets
23 that had human hair incorporated into them. And I
24 would actually have to go back to the regs and take
25 a closer look at that definition.
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 259
1 It looks like Jonathan has done that. Why
2 doesn't he take a shot at it first.
3 JONATHAN HAAS: "Human remains means the
4 physical remains of a human body or a person of
5 Native American ancestry. The term does not include
6 remains or portions of remains that may reasonably
7 be determined to have been freely given or naturally
8 shed by the individual from whose body they were
9 obtained, such as hair made into rope or nets. For
10 the purposes of determining cultural affiliation," I
11 think this is the operative clause, "human remains
12 incorporated into a funerary object, sacred object,
13 or object of cultural patrimony, as defined below,
14 must be considered as part of that item."
15 NADEMA AGARD: The reason why I brought this
16 issue up is because according to our elders these
17 birth amulets, which they consider human remains,
18 should be buried. And I, personally, but I cannot
19 express my own personal opinion, don't believe that
20 they are under the same category as hair shirts,
21 because of what the distinction is, and because of
22 the--the fact that those are very personal objects
23 that belong to the babies when they're born and
24 their mothers have those things. And they're
25 supposed to be close to that person throughout life
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 260
1 and not be separated or put in a museum.
2 So is there some kind of regulation that--or
3 can we review that in the law and somehow look at it
4 again so that we could look at birth amulets as a
5 different category, because I don't see it in the
6 same category as hair shirts and the other hair
7 nets, you know, things that are made out of hair.
8 Because I--I accept the category with regard to hair
9 shirts, and I accepted that. I understand that.
10 But birth amulets is a completely different
11 situation. It's a completely different situation.
12 And I think, you know, we have to--I need to
13 get some kind of direction here from the Committee
14 as to bringing this up again, because it's--it's a
15 really important issue right now for us, because we
16 have been seeing a lot of birth amulets when we go
17 to these repatriation visits. So, I feel that--I'm
18 not satisfied with your answer.
19 FRANK MCMANAMON: It wasn't an answer.
20 NADEMA AGARD: I mean it--it was a question?
21 FRANK MCMANAMON: I have another question.
22 I don't--what's--where--where are the birth
23 amulets found? Are they found in graves or are they
24 artifacts that were purchased and are now in--in
25 collections?
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 261
1 NADEMA AGARD: Probably both. I--I really
2 can't answer that question. Beverly, could
3 you--would you be able to answer that question as to
4 where these birth amulets would be--would they be
5 found in graves?
6 Yeah. Okay. She says, yeah, they would be
7 found in graves.
8 FRANK MCMANAMON: Well, if they're found in
9 graves, they're funerary object and--or unassociated
10 funerary objects, perhaps. So, one of those
11 categories would--would hold. If they weren't found
12 in a grave, then I--I think one would really--a
13 museum, if they had a--or a tribe, if they were
14 attempting to have it repatriated, I would look at
15 the facts of the individual case.
16 The--the discussion that I recollect the
17 Committee having about situations in which human
18 remains, parts of human bodies were incorporated
19 into an artifact, had to do with concerns about
20 affiliation, for one thing, and--and that's the way
21 we've written the regulation; to have the
22 affiliation for those sorts of artifacts determined
23 based upon the total artifact and not upon the
24 particular piece of human remain that was in it.
25 That was one concern.
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1 The other concern, it seems to me, was that
2 some Committee members, and perhaps the entire
3 Committee, was concerned that if artifacts that did
4 incorporate human remains into them began to be
5 considered simply as human remains then the
6 potential was there for the destruction of artifacts
7 that would have--would have a significance for--a
8 greater significance, perhaps, to the--to the tribe
9 or perhaps to another tribe.
10 So, I'm not sure that there is a--there is an
11 answer to your question that would apply across the
12 board. It would, I think, be important to look at
13 the--the range of things. That would be my
14 interpretation.
15 PHILLIP WALKER: Yeah. I think the truth is
16 that we didn't--in thinking about this, we didn't
17 consider birth amulets, but obviously, the--from the
18 definition, I guess you would consider placenta
19 freely shed, you know. We--we were thinking of hair
20 and--and teeth that were shed.
21 JONATHAN HAAS: I'd like to try and--and give
22 you an answer, as opposed to what we're giving you
23 so far. I don't know if this is a satisfactory
24 answer, but it seems to me there might be a couple
25 of options in terms of birth amulets, depending on
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 263
1 the circumstances of the individual object.
2 I--and--and I mean--I don't mean disrespect in that,
3 or questioning that. I just know that there
4 are--there may be different circumstances. But
5 it--it seems to me it might be possible to request
6 the repatriation of those birth amulets, either as
7 sacred objects or as unassociated funerary objects.
8 That there are avenues to do that.
9 When you do that, regardless of whether or not
10 they are sacred objects or not, what happens to them
11 after they go back is up to the tribe, and if the
12 tribe wants to rebury them, even thought they've
13 claimed them as sacred objects, it seems to me that
14 there's nothing the Committee has ever said that
15 would--that would prevent that from happening. So
16 you could reclaim these things--you know, just
17 trying--trying to give a specific answer to it, it
18 seems to me--it could be claimed as either
19 associated--or unassociated funerary objects or
20 sacred objects. And--and rebury them depending on
21 your tribal religious leaders.
22 That's--that's one answer, and it may not be a
23 satisfactory one. I'm just trying to, again, point
24 to an avenue where--where the law may be made to
25 work even though the law isn't always clear on the
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 264
1 issue.
2 DAN MONROE: I--I think the answer is that
3 there is no class of--of distinction that would
4 apply to all birth amulets. In other words, it
5 really has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
6 Some of these were made--some of these are true
7 birth amulets; some of them were made for sale to
8 tourists. Looking at the provenance, I think, would
9 be critical; the testimony of traditional religious
10 leaders would certainly be a major factor. But the
11 long--the short answer is, there--within the current
12 law, there is not anything that I could see that
13 would universally apply.
14 NADEMA AGARD: And then I'd like to have your
15 comments or reaction to the--the private collectors.
16 There's a rumor going around that there's going to
17 be some kind of change in the NAGPRA law regarding
18 private collectors?
19 TESSIE NARANJO: I haven't heard that one.
20 NADEMA AGARD: Okay. Thank you.
21 JONATHAN HAAS: Well, but--but I'd also like to
22 point out for the record that this Committee didn't
23 know about any of the amendments that were going for
24 the NAGPRA record. We were not explicitly notified,
25 were we?
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 265
1 No. And we--so this Committee was actually out
2 of the loop on the--the amendments to NAGPRA. So
3 there could be amendments out there, you know, a
4 whole bunch of amendments to NAGPRA out there that
5 we don't particularly know about.
6 BILL DAY: But that would apply immediately to
7 the Fifth Amendment and private property and
8 (portion of tape inaudible).
9 FRANK MCMANAMON: Just to clarify, the
10 Department of Interior was also out of the loop.
11 The only one in the loop on that set of amendments
12 was the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. So, we
13 didn't deliberately not provide (portion of tape
14 inaudible).
15 NADEMA AGARD: Okay. My last--
16 JONATHAN HAAS: Well, but we didn't know. We
17 didn't know. So we--there may be something out
18 there.
19 NADEMA AGARD: Okay. There may be.
20 JONATHAN HAAS: But I doubt it.
21 NADEMA AGARD: Okay. The last point that I
22 wanted to make was that--about--I wanted to have
23 your comments or clarification on, once we go into
24 museums and we tell people, these are--we look and
25 we identify these things and we say, these are
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 266
1 sacred objects. We don't want to display them.
2 What, in the law, protects us from the museums
3 displaying them?
4 MARTIN SULLIVAN: The only--I think the only
5 thing in the law that protects you is--is
6 repatriation. There--there is--there is a question
7 of good practice and ethics in museums, which is not
8 a binding, legal standard.
9 NADEMA AGARD: Thank you very much.
10 TESSIE NARANJO: With that, the meeting is
11 adjourned.
12 DAN MONROE: Madam Chair, may I please say one
13 thing?
14 TESSIE NARANJO: Yes. Yes, one more.
15 DAN MONROE: I want to address very briefly
16 that we were asked a question about a situation with
17 a SHPO's office in Florida, and we didn't respond.
18 I want to clarify that the reason we didn't respond
19 is that we cannot respond to a specific situation as
20 a Committee. It's not even necessarily clear
21 whether the Committee as a committee has any role to
22 play, and therefore, you didn't get a response. It
23 doesn't mean that the members of the Committee don't
24 care. It doesn't mean that there may not be an
25 issue there. It just means that those specific
Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 267
1 situations with very little description are things
2 that it's extremely difficult to say anything about
3 or even to determine whether it's the business of
4 the Committee to respond.
5 So I wanted to clarify that. I'd be happy to
6 sit down with you and talk about that situation in
7 greater detail.
8 TESSIE NARANJO: Thank you. We'll see you all
9 at 8:00 tomorrow morning.
10 MEETING RECESS
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Lesa K. Hagel Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298