NATIVE_NEWS: ... With the Native Americans, you could go on forever.''
And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: "... With the Native Americans, you could go on forever.'' Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Search for answers in 1921 race riot turns to a Tulsa cemetery 2.22 a.m. ET (732 GMT) November 23, 1999 http://www.foxnews.com/nav/wires_news.sml By Kelly Kurt, Associated Press TULSA, Okla. (AP) A commission investigating one of the nation's worst acts of racial violence will seek city permission to dig in a Tulsa cemetery in a search for mass graves. The Tulsa Race Riot Commission agreed Monday to move ahead with a plan for limited excavation at Oaklawn Cemetery in its effort to define what happened here 78 years ago. Also Monday, the commission took up the issue of reparations, including scholarships, museums, memorials and direct payments to race riot survivors and victims' families as restitution for one of the nation's worst acts of racial violence. Historians say up to 300 people, mostly blacks, were killed when deputized white mobs burned 36 blocks of the city's black Greenwood business district in May 1921. The National Guard has been accused of being slow to respond and of also being involved in the attack. Rumors of mass graves from the riot have long been disputed. But state archeologist Bob Brooks says ground-penetrating radar has shown signs of disturbed soil and a pit at a roughly 15-square-foot unmarked site in the Oaklawn graveyard. And an elderly man has told investigators that, as a boy, he saw crates of black bodies there in the riot's aftermath. Brooks said excavation of a 3-foot by 6-foot area would enable forensic scientists to determine if any bones date to the time of the riot. "We're not trying to disturb these people,'' he said. "We're just trying to determine if they're there or not.'' Even with city approval, no excavation will likely take place this year, Brooks said. Meanwhile, the commission is scheduled to issue its findings and make a recommendation on reparations to the Legislature in January. A vote on reparations is expected at the commission's next meeting, which has not been scheduled. "I think money talks,'' said commission member Eddie Faye Gates. "It shows you're serious. It's a justice issue.'' But state Sen. Robert Milacek, a fellow commission member, said legislators may not support reparations. "If you do this for Tulsa, where do you stop?'' he said. "... With the Native Americans, you could go on forever.'' The committee on reparations suggested direct payments based on the precedent set by the Florida Legislature in the case of the 1923 Rosewood Massacre. Florida awarded victims' families as much as $150,000 each. Ms. Gates, who has located 64 race riot survivors, said she isn't afraid to fight for reparations. "The Oklahoma Legislature has never gone along easily with laws that benefited minorities and women,'' she said. Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
NATIVE_NEWS: A New Mexico county is ground zero for hunger in America
And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from mtiwmhc06.worldnet.att.net (mtiwmhc06.worldnet.att.net [204.127.131.41]) by a.mx.tdi.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id CAA50103 for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tue, 23 Nov 1999 02:51:56 -0500 (EST) Received: from sharp-points ([12.66.96.31]) by mtiwmhc06.worldnet.att.net (InterMail v03.02.07.07 118-134) with SMTP id 19991123075037.KZSJ3446@sharp-points for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tue, 23 Nov 1999 07:50:37 + Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 01:50:04 -0600 To: Ishgooda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: A New Mexico county is ground zero for hunger in America Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit A New Mexico county is ground zero for hunger in America 12.49 a.m. ET (600 GMT) November 23, 1999 http://www.foxnews.com/nav/wires_news.sml By Pauline Arrillaga, Associated Press ZUNI PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) Social worker Olivia Nastacio drives the back streets of the Zuni Indian Pueblo, past a jumble of traditional adobe and unhomely cement, pointing out desperate lives. In one cement house lives a family of 26. Half receive food stamps, half government commodities lard, cheese, powdered milk, canned food, chicken. Still, Ms. Nastacio says, "they don't have enough food.'' Down the road, a woman has been left to care for her four grandchildren after their alcoholic mother ran off. One day Ms. Nastacio dropped by and learned the woman's Social Security check had been stolen and the cupboards were bare. "She had no food nothing. Just a can of commodity lard.'' In a country experiencing its longest economic boom in peacetime history, McKinley County, N.M., is still a portrait of despair. Last month, a U.S. Department of Agriculture study found that 10 million families, or 9.7 percent of U.S. households, didn't get enough to eat in 1996-98. New Mexico topped the list, with 15.1 percent of its households, or 101,000 families, experiencing food insecurity. "If Americans knew the extent of hunger in this country, they would be shocked,'' says Deborah Leff, president of America's Second Harvest, which distributes meals to 189 food banks nationwide. "They don't believe that in a country so rich so many people can be suffering.'' Lying in the hills and red rock buttes of northwestern New Mexico, McKinley County is in the heart of Indian country, encompassing a chunk of the Navajo reservation as well as the Zuni and Ramah Navajo reservations. Indians make up 72 percent of the county's 67,558 people and are primarily self-employed, making jewelry, rugs and pottery. It is an economy rooted in tradition but cursed by poverty. With a per capita income of $11,869, the county is one of New Mexico's poorest. The 1998 unemployment rate of 8.2 percent was almost double last year's national rate, and 22.5 percent of its population 15,193 people are on food stamps, the highest proportion in the state. "There are a lot of economically marginalized people in that region: Native Americans on reservations, a lot of immigrants, a higher population of elderly,'' Ms. Leff says. It's a typical weekday afternoon at the New Mexico Human Services Department in Gallup, the McKinley County seat. The lobby is packed with women filling out paperwork while their babies crawl on the cold tile. Diana Spencer, a Navajo, sits off to one side, her 1-year-old son, Belson, cooing in her lap. The 28-year-old mother of three is applying for food stamps for the second time. "I didn't want to come in, but my mom made me,'' she says, a look of shame clouding her brown eyes. Four years ago she and her husband were laid off from a jewelry store. She found a sales job paying $700 a month, but her husband, a stonecutter, is still looking for work. With $171 a month in food stamps, Mrs. Spencer can provide three small meals a day for her family. Without it, she and her husband skip meals, and her children eat only potatoes and tortillas. "We try to work, but it doesn't cover everything,'' she explains. "At least now we get a complete meal, with meat and vegetables.'' Some trace the predicament to the collapse of traditional farming, and are trying to reverse it by going back to the land. This summer 50 families on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation in Arizona's Sonoran Desert cultivated gardens as part of a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Volunteers helped them plant gardens using seeds for traditional foods such as corn, squash and tepary beans, a heat-tolerant crop that can help regulate blood sugar and combat high levels of diabetes in the Indian population. They provided tools and fencing, plus help for elderly gardeners. "Some people say, 'Isn't this just nostalgic?' It's literally a matter of physical and cultural survival,'' says Tristan Reader, co-director of Tohono O'odham Community Action, which won an $80,000
NATIVE_NEWS: Thanksgiving Gathering at Minnehaha Spiritual Camp
And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 00:00:11 -0600 To: power4u [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: power4u [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Thanksgiving Gathering at Minnehaha Spiritual Camp Thursday, November 25th, 1999, 2:00 PM The Minnehaha Spiritual Camp will be reflecting and honoring the sacredness of all life down at the Four Sacred Oaks this Thanksgiving, and we invite you to join us in our giving of thanks to this land that has brought the four colors of man together for the last 15 months to stand up and defend Grandmother Earth. At this time when the State of Minnesota is preparing to raid our non-violent camp, and to desecrate this sacred land, we are gathering to remember our ancestors who planted these trees here in the four directions, and who are buried here where the rivers meet. We are also gathering to renew our commitment to always resist cultural genocide and injustice, and to renew our spirits to continue this struggle to stand with this sacred site until the end. Even if they bulldoze this place of peace, this place of prayer, we will never stop telling the truth about this place and what it means to Native Americans, and all people of conscience. We must still protect the sacred spring, the waters of life. for the future generations Jim Anderson (612) 910-0730 live simply - UNINTENDED RECIPIENTS - This message is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Any other distribution, copying or disclosure is strictly prohibited. Nothing within this message should be construed as endorsing, promoting or abetting any illegal or unethical activity. - Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
NATIVE_NEWS: What Suffragettes owed the Iroquois
And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: +=+KOLA Newslist+=+ 2000-39 Why is Leonard Peltier still in jail?! = Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 13:23:40 -0800 From: "Andre P. Cramblit" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Organization: www.ncidc.org Subject: [FN] Native Role In Womens Rights Via: [EMAIL PROTECTED] PBS Omission--What Suffragettes Owed The Iroquois Pacific News Service By Jacqueline Keeler EDITOR'S NOTE: Villainized as savages, American Indians nonetheless provided models for female equality that inspired America's first suffragettes. Documentaries like PBS's "Not for Ourselves Alone" unfortunately omit the role of American Indians in the shaping of American democratic ideals. PNS commentator Jacqueline Keeler, a member of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux, is a Bay Area writer and filmmaker. The new PBS series on women's fight for the vote is marred by a major -- but not surprising -- omission. "Not for Ourselves Alone" documents 70 years in the lives of two remarkable women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who galvanized American women to fight for citizenship and equality. But the new documentary, by Ken Burns, does not ask an important question -- where did they get the idea? The narrator notes that when the women organized the first women's rights convention in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York, and demanded the right to the vote "not one nation in the world ... allowed women to vote." In fact, there was a nation in their midst that gave women -- and only women -- the right to vote. Only a stone's throw from the Wesleyan Chapel where the conference was held, women of the Iroquois Nation had been electing leaders for centuries. The women of Seneca Falls were very well aware of this. In those days, before the reservation system, American Indian communities and European American communities were in daily contact with each other. Seneca was the name of one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois, and Lucretia Mott, a well-known abolitionist and Stanton's mentor, spent the summer of 1848 with Seneca women in nearby Cattaragus. There she saw women reorganize their nation's governmental structure -- and she then headed directly to Seneca Falls and inspired Stanton to put on the convention. Historian Sally Roesch Wagner notes, "Stanton envied how American Indian women 'ruled the house' and how 'descent of property and children were in the female line'" -- rights women did not have under American law. At the convention, Stanton read her "Declaration of Sentiments" (patterned on the Declaration of Independence) which stated a woman was, "if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead," and had "taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns." A woman was "compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master" and she had no rights to her children in the case of divorce. American Indian women were quick to notice that women's rights were curtailed under Christianity and civilization. Alice Fletcher, an ethnographer, told delegates to the 1888 International Council of Women of an Indian who told her, "As an Indian woman I was free. I owned my own home, my person, the work of my hands, and my children would never forget me. I was better as an Indian woman than under white law." The first part of the documentary ends with black and white men dropping the cause of universal suffrage to ensure Negro suffrage. But American Indian men were noted for their continued support of it. In 1893, when suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage was arrested for the criminal act of trying to vote in a school board election, the Iroquois once again stepped in to support her. After she was released they honored her by adopting her into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk nation and with the name, "Karonienhawi", Sky Carrier. None of this appears in Burns' documentary, though as Laguna/Sioux Indian scholar Paula Gunn Allen notes, to "search the memories and lore of tribal peoples . . . The evidence is all around us." American Indian egalitarian societies not only inspired democracy but also inspired Marx, John Locke, and Rousseau, as well as Stanton and Anthony. Yet my ancestors were villainized as "savages." Europeans noted with horror our habits of bathing frequently, derision of authoritarian structures, and worst of all, their "petticoat governments." Yet, these qualities (except the last) have come to be the mark of Americanism and modernism. To become an American is therefore a large part to become "Indianized." http://www.ncmonline.com/commentary/1999-11-19/pbs.html Jacqueline Keeler 3329 LOS PRADOS #4 o SAN MATEO, CA o 94403 PHONE: 650-286-9222 o EMAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- André Cramblit, Operations Director The Northern California Indian Development Council ( http://www.ncidc.org ) NCIDC is a non-profit organization that helps meet the social, educational, and economic development needs of American Indian communities. NCIDC
NATIVE_NEWS: LEONARD PELTIER: April/May 1976
And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: While Peltier fought extradition from BC Canada...Peltier's co-indicted defendants Robideaux and Butler were being tried in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. During the proceedings, the contradictory affidavits of Myrtle Poor Bear surfaced, as did a memo from the FBI to local law enforcement agencies accusing AIM of plotting ten violent crimes including the assassination of south Dakota Governor Richard Kneip. What became known as the "Dog Soldier" Memo, issued in May 1976 (FBI Memo, "Internal Security", #281785Z, May 1976) from FBI headquarters in Washington, claimed that "AIM members who kill for advancement in AIM objectives have been training since the Wounded Knee incident in 1973...these Dog Soldiers, approximately 2,000 in number...are undergoing guerilla warfare training experiences." The memo sent to FBI offices throughout the country accused AIM of plotting to blow up the state capital in Pierre, South Dakota; snipe at tourists; assault the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls Sou! ! ! th D akota; and pull off other violent guerrilla attacks. Perhaps in an effort to undermine the work of Senator Abourezk who had been seeking congressional review of FBI activities in South Dakota, the memo named his son Charles, as being, "involved with the Dog Soldiers." FBI Director Kelley, subpoenaed by the defense in Cedar Rapids, testified that there was no evidence upon which to base any of the accusations in the memo. The memo, used to stir up FBI and police sentiment against AIM, was a completely fabricated creation of the FBI. Trudell said of the Cedar Rapids trial:" We were able to show the jury that the FBI instigated a program to neutralize AIM. We were able to show the local media that the FBI version of the June 26 shoot-out was a lie. We developed a lot of support in Cedar Rapids. The judge wanted to hear the story, so we told him." The jury had no choice but to acquit Butler and Robideaux." The two denied shooting the agents, and testified that their actions on June 26 were solely in defense of the women and children who were fleeing the camp. They were acquitted on July 17, 1976. In the meantime, a post-conviction hearing in the Marshall case revealed the contradictory affidavits of Myrtle Poor Bear, and the involvement of Price and Woods in obtaining them. Medical records were also presented which showed that Poor Bear had a record of 105 recent clinical and hospital admissions for "bizarre behavior," "psychosis and depression," and other physical and mental anomalies. her father, Theodore Poor Bear, testified that she, "makes up stories and other things." Myrtle herself later testified that agents Price and Wood showed her photographs of the body of Anna Mae Aquash; she said they told her "if I didn't do what they said I'd be dead like Anna Mae Aquash...they kept reminding me I'd end up like Anna Mae." (Myrtle Poor Bear testimony before the Minnesota Citizens Review Commission, February, 1979; videotape by Karen Northcott.) She told reporter Jim Calio of People magazine that they threatened her and her daughter. She said, "I signed the papers without reading them; all I wanted was to go home. (People Magazine, April 20, 1981) With the affidavits of Poor Bear proven phony, the prosecution could not use her against Butler and Robideaux, nor could she be used to convict Means who was eventually acquitted on the charge of killing Montileaux. Dick Marshal, however, remained in prison, as did Peltier, awaiting the decision of Justice Schultz. On June 18, Schultz ruled that the US government had presented enough evidence to warrant Peltier's extradition. the extradition order would have to be executed by Canadian Justice Minister, Ron Basford; Peltier was held in solitary confinement at Okalla prison. On December 18, 1976, Basford signed the extradition order, and Peltier was delivered into the hands of the US authorities. In the meantime, charges against Jimmy Eagle had been dropped when it was proven that he had not been at the Jumping Bull complex in June 26, but had been at his grandmother's home in Pine ridge. Prosecutor Hurd had already supplied two witnesses - prisoners Melvin white Wing and Gregory Clifford - who were willing to testify against Butler, Robideaux, and Peltier, but that he refused Eagle himself said later that he was pressed to testify against Butler, Robideaux and Peltier, but that he refused. When charges against him were eventually dropped, Butler and Robideaux having been acquitted, Peltier became the last available suspect upon whom the FBI could pin the deaths of their agents. Peltier was held in Fargo, North Dakota, while awaiting trial. the victory in Cedar Rapids had given his defense committee confidence that they could win in Fargo. ! ! ! The Cedar Rapids trial had brought out evidence of FBI harassment of witnesses, tampering with evidence, brutality, perjury,
NATIVE_NEWS: WOUNDED KNEE BACKGROUND: FBI has a LONG history of this....
And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The Department of Justice, created by congress in 1870, received a budget of $50,000 in the following year for investigating and prosecuting federal crimes. In 1906 the department formed its own private Bureau of Investigation, which allied with Chicago businessman A.M.Briggs in 1917. Briggs was the founder of the anti-labor vigilante organization, the American protective league, which had helped Justice Department investigators track down draft evaders, and had been accused of assassinating labor leader Frank little in Montana. After WWI, in 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer led the Justice Department in a crackdown on suspected "aliens who are members of the anarchistic classes." He was assisted in his efforts by twenty-four year old Justice Department Investigative lawyer J Edgar Hoover. on the night of January 2, 11920, ten thousand people were arrested across the country in what became known as the notorious Palmer Raids. The questionable conduct of the age! ! ! nts in the fields brought accusations against the Justice Department hat its investigators were out of control. Palmer replied that "alien agitators" were seeking to destroy US homes and religion, and that if "some of my agents...were a little rough or unkind...I think it might be overlooked." It was. In the 1960s the FBI turned its attention to civil rights movement among the southern blacks. Released FBI documents reveal that in 1961 the FBI passed information about two Freedom Rider buses to Thomas Cook, a Ku Klux Klan member in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1963, Hoover's chief aide, William Sullivan, suggested that the FBI find and support a black leader "to take [Martin Luther] King's place." King became a central target of the FBI. The FBI Counterintelligence Program, known inside the bureau as COINTELPRO, sought to "prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement." [FBI Memo, "Airtel to SAC Albany,"c.1968; reprinted by National Lawyers Guild in Counter-intelligence, January, 1980] In the 1970s the FBi turned its COINTELPRO agents onto the New Left, and when traditional Indians began protesting, the FBI turned its attention to the AIM and its leaders. One FBI memo released through the Freedom of Information Act recommends a "full investigation of local AIM chapters, it s leaders and members," and adds that "Any full investigation involves a degree of privacy invasion and that of a person's right to free expression." After exposure of Durham, an FBI document states: " As a result of certain disclosures regarding informants, AIM leaders have dispersed, have become extremely security conscious and literally suspect everyone." [FBI Memo, Re;"American Indian Movemen5t, Investigative Techniques," c. 1975] FBI documents also reveal that friendly media were used extensively against AIM as they had been used to discredit martin Luther King and other black leaders. The use of the media took two forms: the manipulation of information to the general media, and the feeding of stories to the willing, cooperative media. In 1978, the National lawyers Guild published a list of national media that had cooperated with the FBI COINTELPRO operations [Public Eye, National Lawyers Guild, Washington, DC, April, 1978] That list included the Hearst Newspaper chain, Associated Press (NY), New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Milwaukee Journal, Los Angeles Examiner, US News and World Report, Arizona Daily Star, other newspapers, and radio and television stations. An FBi memo dated march 13, 1973 outlines how a Seattle radio reporter, Clarence McDaniels, was used as an unwitting informer during the Wounded Knee siege. McDaniels was sent to Wounded Knee by Seattle radio station KIXI and used by UPI because he was trusted by Indians whereas the UPI reporter was not able to gain that trust. Little did McDaniels know, however, that KIXI was working in league with the FBI. The memo from Washington, DC headquarters to the Minneapolis Field office reads: "McDaniels is expected to continue furnishing complete coverage of activities at Wounded Knee to KIXI by phone and tapes. He will be requested to do a special story on Seattle area participants. he is unaware that his stories are not be publici! ! ! zed in full or that the intelligence information and his tapes are being furnished to the FBI. KIXI officials request he not be contacted at Wounded Knee; however, if any specific information is needed by the FBI, KIXI is willing to pass on the request as normal duty assignment with no reference to the FBI." [FBI Memo, Headquarters to Minneapolis, teletype, March 3, 1973, Re: "Media, KIXI, Seattle, Washington"] The military - FBI siege at Wounded Knee was later revealed as part of the Defense Department domestic counterinsurgency plan code named Garden Plot. In 1975, Reporter Ron Ridenhour, who had
NATIVE_NEWS: Minnehaha Spiritual Camp
And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from imo-d05.mx.aol.com (imo-d05.mx.aol.com [205.188.157.37]) by a.mx.tdi.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA43562 for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tue, 23 Nov 1999 19:25:22 -0500 (EST) Received: from [EMAIL PROTECTED] by imo-d05.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v24.4.) id v.0.2127c441 (3976); Tue, 23 Nov 1999 19:14:59 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 19:14:58 EST Subject: (no subject) Thursday, November 25th, 1999, 2:00 PM The Minnehaha Spiritual Camp will be reflecting and honoring the sacredness of all life down at the Four Sacred Oaks this Thanksgiving, and we invite you to join us in our giving of thanks to this land that has brought the four colors of man together for the last 15 months to stand up and defend Grandmother Earth. At this time when the State of Minnesota is preparing to raid our non-violent camp, and to desecrate this sacred land, we are gathering to remember our ancestors who planted these trees here in the four directions, and who are buried here where the rivers meet. We are also gathering to renew our commitment to always resist cultural genocide and injustice, and to renew our spirits to continue this struggle to stand with this sacred site until the end. Even if they bulldoze this place of peace, this place of prayer, we will never stop telling the truth about this place and what it means to Native Americans, and all people of conscience. We must still protect the sacred spring, the waters of life. for the future generations Jim Anderson (612) 910-0730
NATIVE_NEWS: NEWS BRIEFS
And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: A web-based version of today's and recent news are also available at http://www.public.asu.edu/~wendel/fyi/ Adams, Glenn. "Governor Sympathetic to Indians' Concerns on Name," The Associated Press State Local Wire, 22 November 1999. ["AUGUSTA, Maine: A bill to drop the name "Squaw" from Maine lakes, mountains and other features because many Indians consider it insulting deserves a serious look, Gov. Angus King said Monday. But King stopped short of endorsing it. State Rep. Donald Soctomah, a Passamaquoddy tribal representative, has proposed changing the names of mountains, waterways, an island and other geographic features and jurisdictions in the state that bear a name that Indians say has a pejorative connotation ... However, concerns have been raised that the issue could highlight the fact that the word is offensive to Indians, in effect creating a new hate word."] http://www.ap.org/ Arrillaga, Pauline. "Gardening Project Seeks to Restore Food Security, Tradition to Indian Nation," The Associated Press State Local Wire, 22 November 1999. ["SELLS, Ariz.: Margaret Saraficio's garden produced enough squash this fall for seven meals. To her that meant seven times she didn't have to spend money at the store... Mrs. Saraficio, a 64-year-old basket weaver, is one of dozens of people on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation who cultivated gardens this year as part of a federally funded program to fight food insecurity in poor communities ... In the old days, gardens not grocery stores dominated the landscape of the sprawling reservation in southern Arizona's Sonoran Desert... traditional gardening sustained the community until World War II took the men from their families and a devastating drought struck a few years later. One by one the gardens died off, and the native food system was replaced with government commodities. Today, with 66 percent of the reservation's 18,000 residents living in poverty, commodities and food stamps provide most of the meals for the Tohono O'odham ... The Tohono O'odham Community Food System project looks to return to the traditional ways, to improve both the availability and nutritional value of food on the reservation ... This summer TOCA volunteers helped 50 families plant gardens using seeds for traditional foods such as corn, squash and tepary beans, a heat-tolerant crop that can help regulate blood sugar."] http://www.ap.org/ Biles, Jan. "Tribal Songs Dedicated in Memory of Professor's Father," The Associated Press State Local Wire, 22 November 1999. ["LAWRENCE, Kan.: Tribal music is an integral part of being a Comanche warrior. Drum beats and chanting prepare the warrior for action by giving him the strength to defeat any adversary, the wisdom to know when to engage in combat and the restraint to apply only the force needed to establish balance in his life. Cornel Pewewardy, an assistant professor of teaching and leadership at the University of Kansas, had that image in mind when he finished his latest recording with the Alliance West Singers and Intertribal Veterans Singers. And that's why "The Warrior's Edge," an album of powwow songs from the Southern Plains for Shortwave Records, is dedicated to his father, Samuel "Doc" Pewewardy, a Comanche leader who was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and held as a prisoner of war ... "I'm showing there's a warrior amongst us who's a reflection of the warrior of the past," Pewewardy said of his father, who's in his 70s and lives in Oklahoma. "I see an arsenal in him, whether he's fighting for tribal or human rights. He's a father and grandfather. He was our Little League coach when I was growing up. He's a deacon in our church, a very spiritual man. He encompasses the warrior of today, and he's a good role model for our youths.""] http://www.ap.org/ "Court Handling of Indian Issues Knocked," The Associated Press State Local Wire, 22 November 1999. ["ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.: The American court system ignores written law and treaties in favor of a vague "public policy" driven by money and bigotry against Indians, the head of the Cherokee Nation has charged. Tribes and their lawyers must convince judges that Indians are not "Hollywood icons" but actual governments seeking redress from a fellow government, said Chad Smith, the newly elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma ... Smith also said Indians need to retain their cultural identity to change the view of the rest of the nation. The Cherokee tribe is at a crisis point because children are not learning the Cherokee language or tribal lore, he said."] http://www.ap.org/ Cox, Christopher. "The Forgotten War of King Philip; New Book Examines Dark Side of Plymouth Colony's History," The Boston Herald, 22 November 1999, 031. ["American history has a warm, prominent spot for Massasoit, the Wampanoag sachem. Not so for his son, Metacom. Just a half-century after Massasoit helped the Pilgrims
