CHAPTER 17: Indian Issues in California Today

It is a hot, dry, windy day and our car sways in the gusts as we drive east on Interstate 10 through the pass between Mt. San Jacinto and Mt. San Gorgonio. Fields Road is an inconspicuous turn off just after a temporary truckers weigh station. We proceed north on Fields and we're immediately in the country, with small residences, occasionally, on either side of the road. After a stop, we draw close to the fiesta site and a young man with long, black braided hair, carrying a video camera, motions us to turn left into a grassy field, where we follow other cars along a dusty path to a parking spot.

It is a now familiar scene; we have been here several times for the annual fiesta, Memorial Weekend. The booths that form a giant U-shape facing the little museum have all received a brand new exterior and roof of fan palm fronds. The circular dirt stage has been raked and cleared of rocks. And the flag is flying briskly from the pole in the center of the compound. People have brought folding chairs, where some are awaiting the new performance. Others are standing in lines waiting to place food orders, for Indian Tacos, fry bread, and other treats. Still others are milling about, in front of booths, checking out jewelry, sketches, rattles, and other crafts. The museum association has a large booth, with books, newletters, and membership forms. The museum itself is open and people move in-and-out, studying the many historic artifacts of Cahuilla and Serrano origins.

There's a blast from the loudspeaker and the official host for the day returns with news that the next event will be bird singers from Mohave. People re-claim chairs and others stand around the circle. The Mohave men line up in front of two microphone stands and take their gourd rattles out of their carrying bags. They are followed by eight women, young and old, dressed in bright red dresses with blue and white trim.

The male voices begin a song that has become familiar to us, over the years; it is one of the hundreds of bird songs sung by people throughout the southern deserts. Both beat and melody are accommodated by their steady play of rattles, shaken and swirled to produce a wonderful combination of sounds. After a moment of reflection, the women begin to move in rhythm with the rattles and voices. It is the dance of desert women, extremely subtle, almost all in the way the feet address the earth. Occasionally, they grasp their long skirts and pull them outward, moving their feet a little more rapidly, and swaying to left and then to right. The male singers come to the end of their song, punctuated by a more aggressive shake of the rattle and a more gutteral "Hu-hu-Ah" voice. The dancers stop and look at each other and at the singers. Momentarily, another song is begun.

As we listen and view the scene, our eyes move across the platorm and over the booths and into the distance where Mt. San Jacinto rises abruptly, like a huge curtain. The wind rakes through the pass and across the museum grounds, and the flag cracks, occasionally. Spirits are high and people, friendly. Later, a circle dance begins and Anglo hands join Native hands in no special order, moving slowly, sensually in a long spiral, carressing Mother Earth.

While European presence in the New World had begun in the 16th Century, it was the 19th Century that was by far the most disasterous time for the indigenous people of this New World. It was during this century that Native Americans were forcibly removed from all United States territory east of the Mississippi River. But it was also during the latter part of this century that Native Americans came to understand that there was no safety in so-called "Indian Territory" either. Beginning in California, as we have seen, and then expanding across the Mississippi, north and south, all of the West was carved up for Euro-American settlement. It was during this time that Indians who had not died of European diseases or starved or been killed were herded onto reservations, representing a ridiculously tiny fraction of the lands they once occupied. Late into the century, a loose and desperate alliance of Plains Indians struggled to maintain their lifeways and their lands, precipitating the last and worst Indian Wars and succumbing, ultimately, after the slaughter at Wounded Knee.

In California, disease, starvation, and murder had taken a higher toll and the security of reservations had not come when promised and needed. As we have seen, the final push to establish reservations and rancherias did not occur until the very end of the century and only then as a consequence of radical reform movements. While California wound up in possession of the largest number of reservations of any state, they were mostly the smallest reservations of any state as well, many being 25 acres or less.

Reservation life, in its 150-year history, has never been a pleasant or secure existence. From beginning to end, reservations were plagued by encroachment from Euro-American miners, loggers, cattlemen, and settlers who ignored reservation boundaries and profited from the impotence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs or anyone else to defend the reservations' sanctity. The fact of the matter is that, when non-allotted lands were sold to Whites, the Whites were usually already de facto residents. Beyond that, reservation land was usually poor land; in California, the official policy of Federal and State officials was to place Indians on the poorest and least desirable land available. With their cultures under outrageous attacks, under assimilationist policies, and without much basis for reconstructing any effective economy, most reservations sank into hopeless poverty. Alcoholism, lack of medical care, crime, and suicide predominated.

The question today, almost a century later, is whether anything has happened to change this gloomy picture of reservations. And the answer is that many changes have occured, though the situation often remains desperate. It is really not possible to generalize, here; one needs to examine each reservation individually. While advocates of assimilation remain, the movement was significantly displaced, in the early part of this century, and there is a remarkable renaissance of Native American cultures, today. Some tribes have made huge strides in breaking into modern economic strategies and are investing in long-term tribal institutions for health care, education, and economic investment. Perhaps most remarkable of all, tribes are going into court and winning cases. One of the most remarkable instances was the litigation for and ultimate return of spiritually significant Blue Lake to the people of Taos Pueblo.

How have these changes come about? One of the crucial factors and, ultimately, the most important one is some degree of communication and unity among Native American tribes. In early historic times, the tribes always suffered by being small, separate, and sometimes mutually competitive. The common Euro-American strategy was to divide and conquer. The United States experienced its greatest military disasters, in the late 19th Century, when Indians achieved a higher degree of unification and mutual commitment. That tendency continued into the 20th Century in small ways where Native people found issues of mutual interest. In more recent time, just as there has been a strong revival of interest in individual cultural heritage, there has also been a rising ability to cooperate and join in mutual action. Perhaps "unity" is too strong a word; but Native Americans are no longer out of touch with each other and are not likely to be divided over issues of their well being.

Two of the earliest media of unification were the Society of American Indians and the Native American Church. While several organizations, like the Indian Rights Association, had existed in the 19th Century, they were predominantly non-Native organizations motivated by social reform. The Society of American Indians, founded in 1911, was expressly organized as a Native American association motivated by the need to express a united voice and its offices were established in Washington, D.C., where they could monitor the operations of Congress and the BIA. The leadership of the Society was a group of well educated Native Americans and the general theme of its early annual conferences was development of tribal economies and self-help through better education. Nevertheless, the Society of American Indians ultimately fell victim to factionalism promoted on the double axes of peyote use and assimilation.

"Torn by dissension, the Society of American Indians declined after the end of World War I. Its last annual conference was held in 1923. In calling for educational reform, codification of Native American laws, citizenship for Native Americans, and simplified procedures enabling Native Americans to sue the federal government, the SAI was ahead of its time; but like other Native American groups, it was unable to transcend tribal and intratribal rivalries." (Olson and Wilson, 1984; 95)

Developing at approximately the same time, the Native American Church was considerably more successful in remaining an effective long-term lobbying organization; it continues in existence today. The Native American Church grew out of the 19th Century peyote cults which developed during the last quarter of the 19th Century, along with the Ghost Dance, the Dream Dance, and the Sun Dance, as reactions to the extremes of cultural stress. All were attempts to revitalize indigenous spiritualism; some, like the Ghost Dance, made exaggerated promises of salvation from European domination. While these movements were, needless to say, frightening to antagonists of the Native Americans, they were no more popular among Euro-American reformers, who saw them as counter-movements to assimilation and embarrassing indications of ineducability.

By the turn of the century, a strong coalition of Euro-Americans and non-peyote Native Americans was bringing pressure through Federal and state governments to outlaw peyote use. In response, separate peyote cults began to unite and to defend themselves as religious institutions under the First Amendment. The so-called Mescal Bean Eaters, a group of Winnebagos, went so far as using the Bible in their services and changed their name to the Union Church in 1909. By 1918, the pressure against peyotists had become so great that many of the small groups united under the title of the Native American Church. While defense of the spiritual use of peyote required years of lobbying and many hardships, it was generally successful and the Native American Church remained in tact. In 1965, Congress declared the religious use of peyote under the auspices of the Native American Church exempt from Federal drug enforcement. While it is a success story, the Native American Church was rather clearly successful for exceptional reasons, namely the narrow focus of interests on the right to use peyote in spiritual practices. The NAC never commanded the interest or support of the majority of Native Americans.

While the Supreme Court had ruled, in 1884, that the Fourteenth Amendment did not automatically make Indians citizens of the United States, many Indians had become citizens nevertheless. This was possible by marriage to U.S. citizens, by military service, by allotment, and by other means. The First World War had brought many Indians into citizenship through military service; but in 1924, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, granting all Native Americans citizenship in the United States. Indians automatically became citizens of the states they inhabited and this precipitated a variety of issues regarding jurisdiction over reservations. In a succession of litigations, it was established that Native American citizenship did not terminate Federal responsibility for Indians nor did it offer jurisdiction over reservations to the states.

One of the great reformers of the 1920s and '30s was John Collier who became Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in 1933, under President Roosevelt. Collier had emerged as a leader in the protection of Indian rights in the early 1920s when there was a resurgence of attacks on Indian landholdings. Under President Warren Harding's administration there was a significant move to appropriate Indian lands and convey them to non-Indians who, in the eyes of that Administration, might use them more effectively for the benefits of modern technological society. This was especially dramatic in the case of attempts to alienate a substantial portion of pueblo lands in New Mexico. The movement was accompanied by familiar attempts to suppress participation in tribal customs. Fortunately, public opinion was effectively amassed against the forces of the Harding Administration, and the worst offenses were thwarted. John Collier was one of those responsible. He organized the American Indian Defense Association in 1923 with an ambitious agenda, "the end of land allotments in severalty, improvement of educational and health services, legislation allowing Native Americans to participate in decisions affecting their welfare, establishment of tribal governments, and recognition of tribal customs." (Olson and Wilson, 1984; 97-98)

Under Roosevelt's Administration, Collier was the author of the Indians' version of New Deal social policy. Throughout his first year of office, he worked to reform the Bureau of Indian Affairs, especially by moving it more toward an advisory, rather than supervisory, agency. He furthered Native American participation in Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps and also established the Indian Emergency Conservation Work program. Collier promoted education through public and reservation schools and discouraged the assimilationist boarding schools. But the real heart of the Indian New Deal was the Indian Reorganization Act, which passed in 1934, a testimony to Collier's patience and skill as a negotiator.

The Indian Reorganization Act strongly reflected Collier's belief that Native Americans should decide assimilation on their own terms and that they should retreive their communal wisdom and authority. As submitted to Congress, the IRA included four sections. First, it allowed Native Americans on reservations to establish local tribal governments and tribal corporations for economic development. Second, it provided training in education, public health, law enforcement, and resource management, so that reservations could be improved. Third, it terminated the Dawes Act and provided a path through which allotted lands could merge with community land to re-form communally owned and administered reservations. And fourth, it established a Court of Indian Affairs, which would hold jurisdiction over crimes committed on reservation and issues relating to any Native American.

Collier faced enormous odds in gaining approval of this Act. Within the Euro-American population there were rigidly divided sides, including those harboring economic self-interests, who were always opposed to stabilizing the reservations, and reformers and assimilationists who were not ready to admit that these policies had failed. Within the Native American population there were equally strong divisions, including well assimilated Indians, those who feared for their own self-interests, and many who saw specific aspects of the Act as inconsistent with their own tribal aims or values. Like most Federal programs, as viewed through Native American eyes, the IRA was either short of being effective or way overbearing. For some suspicious Euro-Americans of the '30s, Collier was running dangerously close to Communism in his enthusiasm over Native American communalism.

Nevertheless, with only partial support from both communities, the Indian Reorganization Act was passed, though heavily amended. The existence of an Indian Affairs Court was lost outright and various budgetary cuts were suffered, having some impact on securing and developing reservation lands. The largest areas of loss lay in specific regulations relating to the consolidation of tribal land and in provision for tribe-by-tribe ratification of the act. The latter suffered from extreme ambiguities since tribal organization and authority was diverse. Oddly enough, Native Americans living in Alaska and Oklahoma (former "Indian Territory") were not considered under the provisions of the IRA and had to be brought under it separately, within the following year. For all of Collier's hard work and in the end, "less than 40 percent of all Native Americans were eligible for IRA benefits from the beginning." (Olson and Wilson, 1984; 122) Many Native Americans did not live on reservations; many tribes or tribelets were not recognized by the BIA (a condition of IRA benefits); and many recognized tribes with reservations still did not see ratification of the IRA as advantageous to them. Symbolic of the diversity of dissent was the Act's rejection by the Navajo, America's largest tribe.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the IRA lay in the fact that Collier arranged to protect it through a legal opinion written by Felix Cohen, which anchored an understanding of relations with Indian tribes in Chief Justice John Marshall's words of 1830-2. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester vs. Georgia were two crucial cases in developing the legal foundation of Native American rights. Not only was the legal relationship of the Cherokees and the State of Georgia at issue, but perforce so was the legal relationship of any Indian nation and the United States, since this had to be decided in order to proceed with litigation. It was within these opinions that Marshall described Indian tribes as "domestic dependent nations," meaning that they were separate sovereignties with respect to the United States yet dependent and domestic to the United States, hence, falling short of being international entities. In reaching back to Marshall, Cohen ignored the 1871 move to terminate Indian sovereignty; this opinion has been the basis of virtually all tribal litigation with the Federal government since 1934.

Assimilation never died, as a movement or as a desideratum for some people. After World War II there was an aggressive policy aimed at relocation of Native Americans out of reservations and into urban areas. This policy was carried out by the War Relocation Authority and Native American relocation was linked with the massive problem of relocating thousands of Japanese Americans from internment centers in which they had been held, throughout the war. For Native Americans, the policy culminated in House Concurrent Resolution 108, in 1953; this act aimed at ending the Native American's status as a ward of the Federal government and suggested that "Indians within the territorial limits of the United States should assume their full responsibilities as American citizens." (Baca, HNAI, 4; 235) It was called termination.

Throughout the same period there was a move to bring to a close all Federal debts to Native Americans. The Indian Claims Commission was created, in 1946, to receive all claims for lost land and to compensate tribes for justified claims, once and for all. They were given the impossible task of finishing this project in less than ten years. Much of the problem for Native Americans revolved around demonstration of "justified" claims, of course, and this included proving occupancy of homelands from time immemorial. More threatening yet was the hostile position taken by the Department of Justice throughout; they entered the scene as antagonists, attempting to minimize any and all settlements. But most angering to Native Americans, perhaps, was the overriding policy, throughout, that settlements would result in compensation only and never in the return of land titles. For the Taos Pueblo this was unacceptable, with respect to their sacred Blue Lake which had been appropriated by the Federal government into Kit Carson National Forest. Likewise, this was not acceptable to the Pit River tribe, of Northern California, who in 1963 rejected the settlement of $0.47 per acre on their claim of 3,368,000 acres of land taken from them in the mid-1800s by gold diggers. (Olson and Wilson, 1984; 138)

Termination was regulated by a three-step process, including four tests of a tribe's readiness. "The effects of termination were: fundamental changes in land ownership patterns; the end of the trust relationship; the imposition of state judicial and legislative authority; the end of state tax exemptions; discontinuance of special federal programs for tribes and individuals; and the end of tribal sovereignty." (Ibid., 236) The impact of throwing Native Americans to the jurisdiction of individual states was so potentially devastating that the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 had to be passed in order to give them basic protections due any American citizen. By 1970, Richard Nixon declared that termination was "morally and legally unacceptable" and asked for repeal of HCR 108. In all, 109 tribes or bands had been terminated, though only 11,466 individual Native Americans were affected.

Throughout the West, Federal Indian policy had been dominated by the common interests of Euro-American settlers who wanted land to farm or ranch and who saw no need to heed the interests of indigenous people who, so far as they were concerned, had no interests of significance. If settlers acknowledged any claim on the part of indigenous people, it could be more than adequately served by isolating them in some unwanted and apparently uninhabitable piece of land far away from rich soil and abundant water. To this general attitude had been joined the special interests of those who sought to capitalize on timber or mineral resources. In spite of the appeals of reformers and cultural insights offered by the Bureau of Ethnography, beginning in the 1880s, public opinion had remained fixed by the fact that Indian wars continued in the plains throughout this period. In the end, it had been the de facto dissolution of Indian life and the reduction of Indians to a "harmless poverty" that paved the way for the more constructive relationships of the New Deal era. But as Indian population trends began to turn around, in the mid-1900s, the contemporary period of Native American life was initiated into existence.

Today, there is really no question about Indians choosing their traditional economic basis, whether on or off the reservation; for American culture and its economic and political regimes leave no opportunity for anything but submission to American economic and political realities. The question, then, is how to remain "Indian" in a world whose economic and political determinants all belong to a non-Indian society. While there are clearly differences from one group of Native Americans to another, and from individual-to-individual, what we are witnessing today is the survival of Indian spirit, that is, the survival of a need to be Indian and to preserve, therefore, at least the social culture and, perhaps, some portion of the political culture.

While no treaties negotiated with California Indians were ever approved, the treaty-relationships, Congressional acts, and court opinions established between the Federal government and Native Americans elsewhere are naturally extended into California as the legal basis of Native American rights and relationships in this state. At any rate, the suit for damages stemming from the loss of the treaties of 1851, implicitly accepted the treaty rights of California Indians. As Native Americans throughout the United States have learned to employ the legal system with increasing effectiveness, this legal status, as a "domestic dependent sovereignty," has proved to be a strong basis for litigation. The greatest remaining problem in California itself has been the documentation necessary for tribes and tribelets to qualify for the Federal Registry and, consequently, to be in a position to assert full rights as a Native American tribal organization.

The issue of tribal government is complicated in California. As we have seen, political organization in California indigenous cultures was often rather informal and, even where formal, it was usually not an organization that demanded conformity to a central authority. The chief was more nearly a cultural icon than legislator. On the other hand, American political philosophy is based on institutionalization of authority and power; and America anticipates the same basic political structure in any sovereign society with which it has relations. This anticipation places a burden on Indian tribes to conform politically just as they have been forced to conform economically. For some tribes in California, like the Yurok, this has been a real burden that has been extremely divisive within the tribe. In fact, the Yurok's reticence to create an American system of tribal government prevented them from pursuing Federally available benefits and defending themselves in legal cases, for many years.

As established in the Indian Reorganization Act, the paradigm for contemporary Native American political relations requires the creation of a tribal council which can speak for the tribe with authority and administer law-and-order on the tribe's land. The Bureau of Indian Affairs continues to act as the Federal agency in communication with these tribal councils, operating from within the Department of the Interior. But this situation is far from effective and even involves a wide variety of real risks. Does the BIA advocate for the Indians within the Federal government? If not, who does? How do Native Americans express a political voice in America? At the same time, if the BIA is not an advocate but merely a neutral agency for dealing with Indians, then they are open to lobbying by other American interests who want something from Indian land. The potential for abuse should be obvious since, with the powers that the BIA wields through Federal aid and programs, it can clearly influence the selection of tribal councils and benefit external lobbying interests in the process. In some respects the situation has not changed. Is the Federal relationship with Indians meant to promote their welfare and enhance their cultural possibilities or is it meant to contain them and continue the long process of stripping them of everything they possess? It seems that, whenever land is taken away from Indians, the Federal response is limited reimbursement, after years of exhausting litigation. But, while the reimbursement is always economically helpful, the principle remains that Indians continue to lose the land on which they live. One of the few exceptions to this principle was the relatively recent return of their sacred Blue Lake to the people of Taos Pueblo.

Reservation economy, as noted earlier, is deprived of the natural resources that traditional cultures could count upon. Consequently, Native Americans find themselves in a desperate situation where simply feeding themselves is difficult; many remain dependent upon Federal aid for food, health care, and education. But it is clear to all Native American groups that breaking the cycle of dependency is essential to long-term survival. The question, then, is what resources are actually available on reservations and rancherias to provide a basis for economic development --- employment, purchasing power, self-financed education, and development of comprehensive community health care. The traditional resources attached to any body of land, of course, are forests, minerals, water, fish, and game; but each of these presents problems when looking toward economic development in today's world.

Logging and mining both require substantial capital outlays for which most Native American tribes are ill prepared. Thus, it becomes tempting to develop these resources by inviting outside companies to come onto Indian land. This, of course, opens up huge possibilities for fraud and there is no adequate regulation of how the profits paid to tribes will be distributed or used for the benefit of the community. Since water, fish, and game are all resources that transcend specific boundaries, they all come under state and Federal jurisdiction. California tribes tend to lose water resources to external diversions rather than being in a position to develop them. While game may provide some small and diminishing level of individual sustenance, it is not available for commercial development. Nor has fishing been an easy resource to develop. Fish and Game authorities, while willing to allow fishing for individual sustenance and cultural continuity, have continued to block commercial use of fishing as an economic opportunity for Native Americans. Then, too, the major fish resource of California natives was the salmon which has been so badly threatened by interior land development --- mining, logging, cattle grazing, and damming of the rivers --- that their availability even for individual sustenance is questionable.

Thus the predominant question for any group of Native Americans is how to use their land and unique rights to create an economic basis from which to provide education, healthcare, and social development on reservations. It is ironic that all of the new economic opportunities being tested by Native Americans, today, capitalize on the two most obvious weaknesses of Euro-Americans, greed and waste. It was the Euro-American thirst for fast riches through gold, more than any other factor, that led Americans to violate Indian land and Indian lives, in the West, at least. And, today, Native American communities are beginning to capitalize on the same basic greed by offering high-stakes gambling on reservation land. Several tribes have moved from 80% unemployment to 100% employment, with additional moneys available for development of social institutions and long-term investment. Of course, while state and Federal governments ought to be delighted by the fact that Native Americans are freeing themselves from the cycle of dependency, they are also jealous of Indian profit-taking in any form; and they are swayed by lobbying complaints from Euro-Americans who do not relish the competition. Foresighted Native American leaders are not planning on the gambling boom being available to them as a permanent economic opportunity.

It is also the case, as we have long seen, that Euro-American society is the most wasteful society in the world, in stark contrast to the conservative indigenous societies that they replaced. America is rapidly turning itself into a landfill and this has been dramatized by several emergency situations where Eastern cities have found themselves temporarily without any place to put daily mountains of garbage. But beyond garbage production, there is a fightening accumulation, in America, of toxic materials --- partially used or completely unused excesses --- that need to be disposed of and that threaten air, land, and water if not disposed of properly. And beyond the merely toxic materials, lie the truly horrifying supply of nuclear wastes, lethal materials that will continue to be lethal for thousands of years. Given the state of panic that American society is now facing with regard to its problem of wastes, it is tempting for Native Americans to offer reservation lands, at a price, for American dumping grounds. It is even more tempting to offer certain deviations from strict control under Environmental Protection Agency rules, which do not presently have jurisdiction on reservation lands. But the cultural contradictions involved for Native Americans are obvious and often strong.

There is, of course, the ever-present possibility of capitalizing on Native American culture itself through its artistic development and evolution. Individual artists, like Peter Calnimptewa, a Hopi kachina carver, have achieved such recognition for their excellence and inventiveness that they can demand a very high price for their works. But tribal organizations have also been able to promote their arts collectively, rather than just individually; an example, perhaps, is the collective promotion and sale of Zuni stone carvings, or fetiches. In California, one should think of Harry Fonseca and Frank LaPena. Also, the art of basketry has recently experienced a genuine revival through the California Indian Basketweavers Association.

The weakness of the arts as a basis for economic development is, of course, its complete dependence on the promotion of individuals and, also, its complete vulnerability to the support --- aesthetic and financial --- of Euro-American patrons. While all Native American cultures were rich in artistic sensitivity, not all of these arts were expressed in areas that Euro-Americans are ready to appreciate. Baskets, ceramics, woven rugs, silver jewelry, and carvings (in wood and stone) from the Southwest continue to offer economic opportunities to these people. Carved masks and beautifully ornamented boxes from the Northwest are also viable products. But California arts have suffered from a general lack of patronage, as do most Indian arts in the residue of the country.

One way for the individual to approach the choices for economic development is, of course, to leave the reservation, seek higher education, and secure a Euro-American-style career. While for the individual, this may be a path to survival, we must ask whether it represents a viable collective opportunity. Individuals living off of the reservation find themselves increasingly distanced from their indigenous cultures. They can return to the reservation for visits and they can attend the growing number of Pow Wows and Festivals around the country, but is this enough cultural reinforcement to maintain their heritage as Indians? Indeed, when a couple begins to bring up children outside the reservation, how can they maintain and pass onward any real sense of their culture? Interestingly enough, the stress on cultural survival is so strongly felt that Indians of all tribal affiliations have begun to share their concerns and have created networks for communication. There is a booming presence of Native Americans on the InterNet, in e-mail lists and on the World Wide Web.

Interestingly, as Native Americans continue to become dispersed through the country and as they strive to keep themselves in communication, they are becoming a political force that questions the Euro-American power dominance. Tribal separatism was a weakness that allowed Euro-Americans to trample over one tribe after another as well as to sets tribes against each other. But tribal unity is a force to be reckoned with. Native Americans, over the years, have learned how to use the American system of courts; and precedent-setting cases have created a sound basis for Indian rights claims. But Indians are also finding themselves united and vocal in political conventions and at polling places. Their causes have been articulated by the media to increasing degrees and with increasing accuracy throughout the last decade. The two-hour video presentation, "Surviving Columbus, " produced in 1992 and highlighting the Pueblo People is a wonderful example.

While we used to talk about survival as just bare physical endurance, many Native American societies, today, are surviving in that real sense that their cultures are alive-and-well and promise genuine continuity into the distant future. At the present time, Euro-American culture has produced a disasterous relationship with the natural environment and this will either lead to its decline or require enormous changes. It does not seem foolish or naive to imagine, today, that Native American will indeed play an important role in leading us to a meaningful and self-sustaining future with our environs.

Bibliography

Baca, Lawrence. "The Legal Status of American Indians" in HNAI, 4

Castillo, Edward D. "Twentieth-Century Secular Movements" in HNAI, 8

O'Brien, Sharon. American Indian Tribal Governments (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989)

Olson, James S. and Raymond Wilson. Native Americans in the Twentieth Century (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1984)