And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 00:13:20 EST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mime-Version: 1.0 Denver, the crossroads of Indian country By James Brooke c.1999 N.Y. Times News Service DENVER -- In the old days, when Ute was the lingua franca of what is now Colorado, Indian bands would travel the Old North Trail, skirting the Rocky Mountains to camp and trade in cottonwood groves here at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. This year, near Confluence Park, Denver's convention center is host to a string of modern Indian gatherings: Indian youth, Indian scientists, Indian gambling executives, Indian bison managers and Indian artists. Next month, thousands of Indian dancers and traders are to converge at a bend in the South Platte for the Denver March Powwow, the annual kickoff of the West's powwow season. "Denver has become the crossroads again, the place to meet and to exchange," Jack Gladstone, a Blackfoot musician from Montana, said during a break between performances at an annual Indian market here. In the far-flung archipelago of Indian country, Denver is emerging as the informal capital. Denver has the nation's largest concentration of national Indian groups, about 15 associations ranging from the leading Indian law firm to the leading scholarship fund. Propelling Denver to center stage have been the city's neutrality in tribal affairs and its centrality in transportation. Free from the political sway of a large reservation, Denver is a seven-hour drive from Colorado's only reservations, the two Ute homelands in the state's far southwest corner. "In the urban Indian political world, Denver is the primary city," Kevin Gover, assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, said from Washington. Gover, an Oklahoma Pawnee who most recently lived in New Mexico, observed, "If we need a location where we are not favoring one group over another, Denver is neutral ground." Midway between the large reservations of the Northern Plains and the Pueblos and reservations of the Southwest, Denver is at the geographic center of Indian America, the nation's fastest growing racial group. "It's regionally accessible -- it is a day's trip home for most people," said David Cournoyer, a South Dakota Rosebud Sioux, who is spokesman for the American Indian College Fund, an educational group based here. Denver's new $5 billion airport, with its white-peaked terminal, designed to look like tepees billowing on the prairie, has emerged as a hub for the airports that serve Indian country: Billings, Mont.; Cortez, Colo.; Dickinson, N.D.; Farmington, N.M.; Rapid City, S.D., and Riverton, Wyo. "Denver is centrally located as far as airplane travel, and we have clients all over the country," said Walter Echo-Hawk, a Pawnee who is a lawyer for the Native American Rights Fund, the nation's leading Indian law firm. "We moved here because we didn't want to be branded as a regional organization, which you do if you are in the Southwest or the Northwest." Indian leaders also praised the city's racial tolerance. Enveloped by the largest metropolitan area in the Rockies, Denver is a city with a black Mayor, Wellington E. Webb. One of Colorado's Senators, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Northern Cheyenne and a Republican, is the only Indian in Congress. "Denver has a welcoming personality," said Kay Culbertson, an Assiniboine-Sioux from Montana. "I have gone to Rapid City, to Billings, and I have felt the racism." Ms. Culbertson, who runs the Denver Indian Health and Family Center, a government-supported clinic, said that Denver's booming economy drew Indians from reservations with high unemployment. "My parents moved here because they wanted us to succeed, but to still be Indian people, to be proud of being Indian," said Ms. Culbertson, who moved here in 1966. "Many native American people have realized that Denver represents the chance to realize the American dream, that you can be prosperous." While about 4,000 Utes live on reservations in Southwest Colorado, about 25,000 Indians live in the greater Denver area. Of the Denver population, about one-third are Lakota Sioux and about one-third are Navajo, largely descendants of Washington's relocation policy of the 1950s. Although Indians are Colorado's smallest racial minority, accounting for 1 percent of the population, they are the fastest growing group in Colorado schools, jumping by 51 percent in the 1990s, to 8,000 students today. Indian residents here face many of the hurdles that Indians face nationwide. Barely half of Denver's American Indian students complete high school by the age of 20, the lowest rate for any racial group in the school sysem. About two-thirds of American Indians now live in cities. To help build an off-reservation sense of identity, Denver has granted the region's Indian community a park area, Tallbull Memorial Park, where there are regular powwows, sweat lodges, lacrosse games and running meets. Colorado's largest powwow is the Denver March Powwow, which has ballooned in 25 years from a small affair with a $6,000 budget to a gathering with a budget last year of $200,000 and an attendance of 55,000 people. "There is camaraderie all around," said Grace Gillette, the executive director. "People are laughing, greeting, shaking hands. A lot of people, especially in the Plains, have cabin fever at that time, and they just want to dance. They want to show off the dance outfits they made during the winter." With many roads in Indian America leading to Denver, it would be the ideal location for a permanent Indian convention and cultural center, says Danny G. Abbott, chief executive officer of the Native Power Corp., an energy consulting company here. "Denver is the natural spot," he said. "If you are going from Billings to Albuquerque, you are going to stop in Denver." Donna Shakespeare Cummings, an Arapaho who was selling her traditional dolls at an Indian market here recently, has a different idea. "Denver represents the homeland where the Arapaho once used to live," Mrs. Cummings said, noting that the county immediately east of Denver is called Arapahoe County. More than a century ago, the Arapaho were moved from Denver to Wyoming, where they now share a reservation with the Shoshones. "It would be really cool if Denver opened up some land for the Arapaho to come down here again." Distributed by The Associated Press (AP) http://www.startext.net/news/doc/1047/1:BPAGE18/1:BPAGE18022199.html &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
