NDN News August 20
Kerchee
By MICHAEL OVERALL
c. Tulsa World
8/19/00
Although the specific design remains to be decided, the figure of an American
Indian male will stand on top of the state Capitol's new dome, officials
announced Friday.
Suggestions for the dome statue ranged from simply farcical, such as a giant
orange construction cone, to the seriously complex, like Will Rogers riding
astride a galloping pony.
But art experts, as well as the general public, gave overwhelming support to
the idea of an Indian figure for the dome, said Betty Price, executive
director of the Oklahoma Arts Council and an advisor to the Capitol
Preservation Commission.
In charge of choosing artwork to go along with the $20 million dome, the
commission voted unanimously for an Indian statue after hearing input from
art historians and scholars.
Members also reviewed suggestions that Tulsa World readers submitted via
e-mail.
"But almost everybody -- the historians, the artists, the general public --
agreed that we should pay tribute to our Native American roots," Price said.
"That heritage is something unique to Oklahoma, a defining part of who we are
as a state."
The commission will begin contacting Oklahoma artists next week to invite
detailed proposals for the statue, Price said.
That design must not portray a specific individual or represent any
particular Indian tribe, the commission decided. Guidelines for the artwork
approved by the commission call for a generic male figure.
"We feel it's important not to single out any one person or group," Price
explained, "but to choose a design that stands for all of Oklahoma."
Although always intended to have a dome, the Capitol has never had one
because the state ran out of money for it before construction halted in 1917.
Following the original design for the Capitol, the top of the dome will have
room for a bronze statue up to 20 feet tall. But even that gargantuan size
will seem small compared to the 155-foot height of the dome itself.
"For it to be appreciated from the ground, the artist will have to design
something very strong and bold, with simplicity," Price said. "It's going to
be a tremendous challenge."
And the design work will have to progress very quickly, too. The completed
statue must be ready before the dome's construction is finished in fall 2002,
Price said.
Whoever wins the design competition, the artist is guaranteed to have the
most talked-about work of art in the state.
And potentially the most controversial, too.
Many have criticized the construction of the dome in the first place. Others
have said the dome shouldn't be capped by any expensive artwork.
But the $300,000 cost for the statue will be covered by private fund-raising,
Price said.
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Honoring the Spiritual at a Shrine to the Material
By GRACE GLUECK
August 18, 2000
ASHANTUCKET, Conn. -- The din of slot machines and the cries of croupiers
cannot really be heard in the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center,
although it is just down the trail from its parent, the colossal Foxwoods
Resort Casino. Nevertheless their proximity on this 1,400-acre reservation
points up the anomaly that -- only in America! -- a gambling casino has
hatched a serious museum.
Staff members at the museum seem slightly uncomfortable with the casino's
glittery presence, like a child painfully aware in public of a parent's gold
tooth.
They are quick to point out that the casino and museum are entirely separate
endeavors. Yet there is no getting away from the truth that were it not for
the casino and its undisclosed but estimated annual $700 million take (25
percent of the slot machine revenue goes to the state of Connecticut) there
would be no research library and museum.
Nearly $200 million of the casino's profits went into the museum complex, a
massive edifice of stone and glass designed by the New York firm of James
Polshek & Partners, which opened in 1998. Planned as a center for public
education, it houses research libraries with some 35,000 books and documents
on North American Indians, vast halls of life-size dioramas depicting the
history and folkways of indigenous North Americans before European contact,
and an art gallery devoted to their cultural heritage.
Occupying a mere 4,200 of the complex's 308,000 square feet, the Mashantucket
gallery appears to be the museum's smallest component. But it is an elegant
one, well-suited to presenting "Rain: Native Expressions From the American
Southwest," its second special exhibition since the opening. The show was put
together by a respected outside source, the Heard Museum of Phoenix, and
appeared at the British Museum before coming to Connecticut. (In October the
Mashantucket gallery will mount its first show drawn primarily from its own
collections, "Gifts of the Forest: Native Traditions in Wood and Bark." ).
As presented here, "Rain" explores the profound spiritual involvement of six
southwestern cultures -- the Hopi, Navajo, Apache and Tohono O'odham of
Arizona and the Zuni and Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico -- with the
powerful but sparse resource that makes life and growth possible. On view are
more than 120 objects expressing the theme of rain: paintings, pottery,
kachina dolls, baskets, sculpture, jewelry, clothing, textiles, rattles and
other musical instruments, bearing such ancient water symbols as clouds,
butterflies, frogs, turtles, lightning and rainbows.
Taking a cue from the practice of most ethnographical museums, the exhibition
does not deal with its objects purely on aesthetic terms, but puts them in a
context, here the highly particularized one of southwestern Indian belief.
"In this show our goal is to tell a cultural story, not necessarily an
aesthetic one," said Steve Cook, assistant curator for ethnography at the
museum. With a slight smile, he added, "One of the driving forces behind it
was the urge to counter the classic Hollywood rain dance image."
The objects in this amply stocked but uneven presentation range from
ancestral Pueblo water pitchers (650-1325 A.D.) to folksy narrative textiles
depicting updated versions of Noah's Ark woven in the 1990's by Sadie Begay,
a Diné (Navajo) who is a Christian. On the pitchers, the spiral designs
evoking water are augmented by stylized ziggurat shapes that are rooted in
antiquity, but that persist like other ancient symbols in contemporary work.
A particularly outstanding exhibit is a textile (circa 1920) woven by a
revered Diné medicine man, Hosteen Klah (1867-1938). His sophisticated design
takes elements from the Navajo night chant, replete with references to rain
and rain-related phenomena. Among them are evocations of a rainbow guardian
that protects the elements in the textile, and two large figures with horns,
the Mountain Sheep gods who bear on their backs sacks of black clouds filled
with fruit and other earthly yields.
Another key object is a richly allusive sand painting-made-permanent, "Rain
in the Line of the Sky" (1993), by a contemporary Navajo, Joe Ben Jr. In it,
the rain-making sky is depicted as a black ground (of pulverized coal), with
a sun underlined by four triangles that symbolize clouds. A scintillating
evening star stands for White Shell Woman, caretaker of rain. A bed of white
clouds on the line of the sky also indicates rain: white and yellow for
quiet, steady female rain on the left side; thunderous male rain on the right
in blue and black. The artist ground his own materials for this impressive
work, among them azurite, diamonds, gold, lapis and hematite.
A lively contribution to comic relief is provided by Roxanne Swentzell of the
Santa Clara Pueblos, in the form of "It's Raining" (1984), a large but squat
ceramic sculpture of a humanoid creature. He is seated with hands
protectively atop his head, wearing a jester cap and painted from head to toe
in black and white horizontal stripes. It's a contemporary version of a
sacred clown, called a "Kossa" in the Tewa language of Santa Clara. In
ceremonies like the Corn Dance, the Kossa accompanies songs with descriptive
gestures of such phenomena as rains, clouds or rivers. Given a sinister
scowl, this one looks capable of all kinds of mischief.
Kossas are shown in action in watercolors by J. D. Roybal of the San
Idlefonso Clan. In one, of a pueblo corn dance (1968), they accompany women,
depicted in their roles as connectors between this world and the hereafter.
The women dance barefoot, emphasizing their connection to the earth.
Kachina dolls, always associated with rain, assert a strong presence in the
Hopi section of the show. Among them are a Sa'lakot male and female, tallest
of the Kachinas, who appear at certain initiation ceremonies. Their
headdresses of clouds and rain reach into the sky; rain falls from their eyes
and rainbows run from their mouths. Both are dressed in eagle-feather robes;
the male wears a kilt with cloud symbols.
Rain evocations can be auditory, too, as demonstrated by displays of drums,
rattles and even a fiddle made from the center stalk of the maguey cactus
plant. These instruments are used to create sounds from thunder to the patter
of a gentle fall.
If some of the contemporary work seems a little slick and market-conscious,
obviously made to appeal to commercial tastes, it doesn't vitiate the show's
overall strength. There are marvelous objects here, put together in a
strongly themed and inviting exhibition that holds promise for what's to
come.
- - - - - -
Oklahoma Tribes Wary of English-Only: American Indians say initiative is
discriminatory, could disrupt tourist economy
c. KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS
August 19, 2000
TULSA, Okla. -- Tribal leaders are opposing an "English-only" initiative
slated for the ballot in the next state election. The proposal would make
English the only language recognized in the state. Opponents see it as
far-reaching discrimination aimed at minorities.
Petitioners gathered enough signatures to place the proposal on the
ballot and the Oklahoma Supreme Court is reviewing it. Minority leaders in
the state plan to challenge the petition's legality.
Tribal leaders from the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole and
Muscogee (Creek) nations support a resolution opposing the ballot initiative.
They say it is not only discriminatory, but would have a strong, negative
impact on Oklahoma's economy. The state spends $2.5 million on tourism with
tourism offices in Japan, Brazil and Germany and it markets tourism in
Switzerland and Austria. Tribal leaders are questioning whether the
English-only law means closing down those offices, since they aren't using
only English.
Cherokee Nation's deputy chief, Hasting Shade, said, "English is not in
any danger of becoming extinct. And, if this ballot initiative were just a
vote of confidence for the English language, I wouldn't be speaking against
it. Instead, the hidden intent of this law is to make it harder for people of
whom English is not their primary language to remain a part of Oklahoma's
society.
"English is my second language, it shouldn't have to be my only one,"
Shade said.
GOP Gov. Frank Keating, in a speech to the American Indian Chamber of
Commerce in Tulsa, called the proposed law, "narrow-minded, mean-spirited,
petulant and not good for our state."
He went on to say, "We have the most Native Americans of any state in the
union, and we are proud of that. We are finally bringing the
African-Americans into the mainstream, and the Hispanics are a growing
community and far more important to our economy than they were even 10 years
ago. Why stiff any of these people and say they are not fully part of our
society? What makes us a prosperous society is when we embrace everyone."
Principal Cherokee Chief Chad Smith said, "I don't know what we'd do with
the name of the state. Oklahoma is a Choctaw word. I'll guess if this passes
we'll just have to come up with something else to use."
- - - - - -
BIA: Group not recognized
c. Tulsa World
8/19/00
Acting Director Stan Speakes says there is only one official Cherokee Nation.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs said Friday that it doesn't recognize a
controversial group calling itself the "Cherokee Nation" that is issuing car
tags in northeastern Oklahoma.
In a letter to Chad Smith, chief of the federally recognized Cherokee Nation
in Tahlequah, the BIA said it "never has maintained a
government-to-government relationship with this group or organization."
There is "only one recognized Cherokee Nation," acting BIA Director Stan
Speakes said in the letter.
"This is undeniable evidence of consumer fraud" on the part of the group
posing as the tribe, Smith said, adding that "it's a shame someone would prey
upon our good Cherokee people like that."
Julian Fite, general counsel for the federally recognized Cherokee Nation,
said the other group "has no right whatsoever to issue car tags."
State and local law enforcement officials notified the federally recognized
Cherokee Nation that "illegal" car tag selling is occurring.
- - - - - -
Missed deadline loses funds
By BARBARA HOBEROCK
c. Tulsa World
8/18/00
21 Oklahoma school districts forfeited $651,000 for Indian education
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Twenty-one Oklahoma school districts missed a June 2
deadline to apply for $651,000 in federal funds for Indian education
programs, a U.S. Department of Education spokeswoman said Thursday.
Most of the districts in the country got this right and applied correctly,"
said Melinda Malico, Department of Education spokeswoman.
In Oklahoma, 338 districts made the deadline and received $12.7 million to
pay for tutors, school supplies, teachers and other items. The $12.7 million
benefitted 104,238 children, and the $651,000 would have aided another 5,355,
Malico said.
She said she could not release the list of schools that missed the deadline.
However, Tulsa Public Schools was not among them. The district received
$407,000, said Joe Birdwell, TPS director of governmental and vocational
programs.
Malico said a memo to some districts from a technical assistance center gave
"incorrect or confusing information as to the specific deadline for the
applications."
Jacob Tsotigh Jr., a program director for Inter-Tribal Associates, mailed
some districts a letter in March indicating that the application for the
funding "may not arrive at your school district until the end of April or the
first of May."
In the letter, Tsotigh told the districts that he was told "the application
deadline then would not be until the end of August."
Tsotigh said the information was "correct at the time."
"We were just forwarding (to) our applicants that it might be that scenario,"
Tsotigh said. "It may or may not happen."
The applications with the deadlines printed on the front were sent to
districts in May, Malico said. The deadline was also published in the Federal
Register and on the U.S. Department of Education's Web site.
"Some (districts) looked at the date, taking the information we had given
them, and just put it aside, thinking the deadline is not correct," Tsotigh
said.
Inter-Tribal Associates partners with the University of Oklahoma to provide
assistance to public schools. Tsotigh said it is one of 15 technical
assistance centers funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
"Their job is to provide technical assistance on the use of grants," Malico
said. "It is the responsibility of the grantee or applicants to pay attention
to the due date."
While Tsotigh said he had heard discussions that the deadline would be
extended for schools which missed it, Malico said that is not the case.
"There is no way for us to reopen the competition once it is completed,"
Malico said. "We do not reopen competitions. We get late applications
regularly. We have to stick to a deadline to get funds out in a timely
manner. It would difficult to rerun the entire competitions. We are talking
well over 300 grants."
- - - - - -
Vietnam memorial visits Nespelem
Remembrance stirs strong emotions in those who served in war
c. Spokesman-Review
Tracy Ellig
August 17, 2000
Five bikers riding Harley-Davidson motorcycles escorted 58,219 names of the
dead over the Cascades on Tuesday from Ferndale to the Colville Indian
Reservation.
The riders -- members of Combat Veterans International -- represented just
the first in a series of honors and ceremonies surrounding The Moving Wall, a
half-sized replica of the Vietnam Memorial wall that will be on display in
Nespelem until Wednesday.
The replica officially opens to visitors at 9 a.m. today. It stands in a
baseball field in front of the main tribal council offices at the Colville
Indian Agency campus.
During its stay, volunteers will continuously read aloud the names from the
wall. On Saturday, there will be a free dinner at 3 p.m. and a traditional
powwow at 7 p.m. Throughout its stay, veteran groups will have ceremonies at
the replica. An open microphone will be available for those who would like to
share their memories of the war or of loved ones. The wall leaves at 5 p.m.
Wednesday.
The Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington, D.C., and the replicas that tour the
country are among the most powerful and evocative war memorials in the
nation. That's why American Legion Post 114 at Nespelem wanted to bring the
half-sized wall to the reservation.
"It is a place to start healing and a place to get those memories of the war
out," said Clarence "C." George, a Vietnam veteran and post commander.
George saw one of the replicas three years ago.
"It helped me relieve a lot of emotions and feelings that had been bottled up
in Vietnam," he said. "It's almost impossible to put into words, but it is
like removing a weight."
The emotion stirred up by visiting the replica was so potent that George was
unable to approach close enough to read any of the names.
"I don't know if I can do it this time either," he said. "These are all our
brothers who didn't come back. A lot of us have been feeling guilty that we
came back and they didn't."
George applied for the replica to come to Nespelem three years ago, a
necessary step to get one of the highly sought-after traveling walls.
The first traveling wall was constructed in 1984 as the brainchild of Vietnam
veteran and San Jose resident John Devitt. There are now three walls managed
by Vietnam Combat Veterans Ltd., a nonprofit organization also in San Jose. A
seven-day visit to a community costs $3,000.
The replica's visit to Nespelem is sponsored by the Colville Business Council
and American Legion Post 114. Personnel at Fairchild Air Force Base and the
Washington Air National Guard have volunteered assistance, George said.
"I hope this helps a lot of people," George said. "A veteran has taken a long
step when they can come up and face the wall."
Rick
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Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.
-- Albert Einstein