OPA

A group of 120 Papago Indian children will join spring visitors to Washington on May 15 as the result of a lot of hard work and a determination to learn a little more about life beyond the reservation.

The children, junior high students from Oasis School in Sells, Ariz., on the Papago Reservation, will spend four days sightseeing, performing Indian dances and explaining Papago history, religion and culture to school and YMCA "Indian Guide" groups in the Capital area.

The children raised much of the money to make the trip by selling lunches, sponsoring car-washes, movies, community clean-ups and other projects. Additional help came from the Pima County school system, private donations and the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

"These kids need to know more about other Americans," Hercel W. Merchant, superintendent of the school, said. "They need to see for themselves how other people live and make a living, and at the same time they should see and touch the things that they have read about in books, back on the isolation of the reservation.

"They must participate in order to understand," he said, "but up until recently, many Indians never left the reservation."

The Papagos’ three-bus convoy, which will carry a doctor and a nurse as well as a chaperon for every five children, will stop to present performances in New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina enroute to Washington. On the return trip stops will be made in Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

While in Washington the youthful Papagos will meet with Robert L. Bennett, Commissioner of Indian Affairs; visit the White House and the Capitol; make radio and television appearances, meet their Congressmen, and attend a major league baseball game.

American Indians, who still prize eagle feathers for ceremonial status, are joining the fight to save the national bird from extinction. The Red Lake Band of the Chippewa Tribe has designated its 400,000-acre reservation in north-central Minnesota as a Bald Eagle Sanctuary.

The Chippewa lands are on an important eagle migration route and have several active nests. Rare except in Alaska, bald eagles are one of the species Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has designated for management and study under the Endangered Species Act of 1966.

The sanctuary will be dedicated May 12 in ceremonies that also signal the completion of a wildlife marsh restoration project on the reservation.

Other species of wildlife -- waterfowl, muskrats, and minks -- will also enjoy protection under the Red Lake marsh project covering 8,300 acres.

Restoration of the marshes began in 1965 with a $380,000 project of the Accelerated Public Works program. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife directed the undertaking, which diverted water from the Clearwater River to cover 5,000 acres of drained land.

More recently, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed restoration of another 3,300 acres of marshes bordering the Red Lake River channel, at a cost of $176,000.

Wild rice production -- both for wildlife feed and for harvesting has already begun. An estimated 150,000 pounds of wild rice will be harvested annually on the restored marshes.

Hunting and trapping, traditional occupations of the Chippewas, together with wild rice sales, are expected to bring about $100,000 income each year to the tribe.

And then, there’ll be the eagle feathers. The Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife has a standing order from some Indian tribes for feathers of eagles that die in the sanctuary. Donation of the feathers is permissible as long as they are used only for ceremonial purposes.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has signed a $12,000 contract with Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity, a non-profit organization with headquarters in Norman, Okla., to finance the recruiting of Indians for Peace Corps work in South America.

In announcing the contract today, Robert L. Bennett. Indian Affairs Commissioner, said: "We are. pleased to cooperate in a joint venture by the Peace Corps and the Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity that will open the doors to many American Indians for Peace Corps service."

Bennett continued: "Our employment assistance centers, located strategically throughout the country in regions where Indians are concentrated, will work closely with OIO in finding Indian men and women whose abilities would make them of special value to the Peace Corps.

"With so many Indians in South America, the concept of peop1e-topeople will take on the added dimension of Indian-to-Indian. American Indians are products of a dual culture, and therefore possess a built-in understanding of the needs of rural peoples of other countries who are facing the encroachments of modernity upon their traditional life patterns. I also feel that the opportunity to live and work with our neighbors 'south of the border' will add breadth and depth to the role of Indians on the American scene," Bennett said.

The Peace Corps-OIO-BIA program, known as Project Peace Pipe, was launched recently with the signing of a contract between OIO and the Peace Corps. The BIA contract with OIO completes the cooperative package.

Project Peace Pipe provides for selection of about 30 Indians with agricultural, technical and related skills to receive five weeks of preliminary training at the University of Oklahoma before entering upon three months of Peace Corps training this summer. Those successfully completing both training programs will be assigned to Latin American nations.

Recruitment will be nationwide. Schools and youth centers will be among the places that the recruiting teams of Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity focus their attention.

Art objects by the famed San Ildefonso Pueblo, N. M., potter, Maria Martinez, her son, Popovi Da, and her grandson, Tony Da, have been assembled for showing in the Department of the Interior's Art Galleries in Washington, D. C., May 16-June 30, Mrs. Stewart L. Udall, president of the Center for Arts of Indian America, announced today. The artists will be present in the Galleries at various times during the first week.

Works in the showing include 10 pots by Maria, 12 by Popovi Da and 13 paintings by Tony Da. In addition there will be a number of photographs and photomurals of the Pueblo and the family at work by a Santa Fe photographer, Laura Gilpin. The photos include recent portraits of the artists and some taken by Miss Gilpin at various times in the past.

The exhibit was assembled by the staff of the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, the Bureau of Indian Affairs school for young Indian artists, dancers, writers, and craftsmen. The main pieces are from the private collection of the Village of San Ildefonso and the Santa Fe Indian Arts Fund. The exhibit includes some of the finest works the artists have produced.

A number of older pieces of San Ildefonso pottery and textiles -- some made even before Maria Martinez was born more than 80 years ago -- will be included in the show to demonstrate the development of her art and the origins of some of her designs.

The continuous artistic production through three generations began many years ago when Maria and her husband, Julian, worked to recapture traditional Pueblo pottery designs and production techniques. She would shape the clay into graceful bowls, stately water jars and flat plaques. He would lay on vegetable-based glazes in patterns inspired by designs from prehistoric pottery or symbols unique to the Pueblo. After Julian's death, the family continued the tradition, believed to be, unique in America.

The galleries, on the seventh floor of the Interior Building, will be open Mondays through Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The Department of the Interior has recommended to Congress enactment of legislation designed to amend the Indian Long-Term Leasing Act of 1955.

Present law is inadequate for development of Indian lands for recreational, business, residential and other non-agrarian uses, the Department said. Under its terms, provision is made for leasing Indian lands for periods of 25 years with a renewable option for an additional 25 years. Grazing leases under the same law are restricted to la-year terms, with provision for 25-year agricultural leases only in cases that involve making substantial improvements on the land.

A bill now before Congress provides for 55-year leasing authority for Indian lands, with the grazing and agricultural periods to remain the same.

As a change in the new bill, the Department proposes that leasing authority be extended to a minimum of 65 years for non-agrarian purposes and 40 years for farming leases.

The Department also has asked that 99-year leases be extended to the following reservations: The Pueblos of Pojoaque and Tesuque in New, Mexico; Hualapai, Yavapai, Havasupai, Gila River Pima, and San Carlos Apache Reservations of Arizona, and Tulalip, Swinomish and Lummi of Washington.

Since 1959, six exceptions have been made in the Long-Term Leasing Act of 1955, in order to permit 99-year leasing for maximum development. Those reservations already enjoying 99-year leasing authority under the 1955 act are: Agua Caliente (Palm Springs, Calif.); Navajo; Hollywood (Fla.) Seminole; Southern Ute; Fort Mojave; and Pyramid Lake. Congress has also authorized 99-year leases on the Colorado River, San Xavier, and Salt River Pima Maricopa Reservations by other legislation.

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of Federal legislation to establish a special three-judge Federal District Court to settle a disputed boundary between the Navajo and Ute Mountain Indian Tribes in New Mexico. Several millions of dollars are at stake.

The disputed area is a strip of land immediately south of the Colorado border approximately two miles wide and ten and one-half miles long. The United States holds the title to the area in trust for one of the two tribes and both claim it.

The dispute developed from the following facts:

The Navajo boundary in the area was fixed by a treaty of June 1, 1868 which provided a boundary "parallel of longitude which if prolonged south would pass through Old Fort Lyon, or the Ojo-de-oso, Bear Spring." The boundary was surveyed and monumented in 1869, but the monuments cannot now be located. The Ute Mountain boundary was established by an Act of Feb. 20, 1895 in terms of II all of townships 31 and 32 of ranges ….. 16.”

It is "reasonably apparent, II that the Navajo boundary, if resurveyed in accordance with the original field notes, would overlap a portion of the two townships, the Department reports.

The dispute over the area became active during the past decade when oil was discovered in the Four Corners area. The two tribes entered into an agreement in 1957 to lease the area jointly and place all revenues in a joint account pending a settlement of the dispute. Originally, because of the leasing pattern, the agreement covered a two-mile area on each side of the disputed strip. A supplemental agreement approved Sept. 8, 1965 eliminated both two-miles areas from the joint leasing agreement.

As of February 1965, bonuses, royalties, and rentals in the joint account totaled $5,768,226, although that amount would be reduced by severance and other State and local taxes. Accrued interest on the principal in the joint account was an additional $969,843.

The maximum either tribe could expect to receive if it established full title to the land would be about two-thirds the joint account.

Legislation now being considered by Congress provides that a special three-judge court in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico would decide the case with the right of direct appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

In recommending passage of the legislation, the Department of the Interior proposed an amendment to eliminate language which suggested that the United States was a party in the proposed litigation. The amendment proposes substitute language to the effect that the United States, which holds the legal title to the land in trust, consents to the litigation so that the issue between the two tribes may be settled, but that the United States has no beneficial claim to or interest in the land involved and shall not be joined as a defendant in the litigation.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today issued the following statement on the restoration of Fort McDowell in Arizona:

"In visiting Fort McDowell Indian Reservation, Ariz., recently I noted the initial attempts being made to stabilize remnants of two of the structures built and utilized by the Army when the post was an active military establishment. Tribal leaders and officials of the Salt River Indian Agency have indicated their willingness to initiate a restoration and preservation project on these dilapidated buildings and environs. This is a worthwhile endeavor, and I commend the Council on Abandoned Military Posts for encouraging its undertaking.

"Of particular interest is the significance of Fort McDowell to the present-day metropolitan area of Phoenix. Fort McDowell was established in 1865 as a base of operations against the aborigines ranging the Mazatzal Mountains and the Tonto Basin. Jack Swilling, who had commanded the Confederate troops in the engagement in 1862 at Picacho Pass, undertook in 1867 to supply hay from the Salt River plain to Fort McDowell. From this activity he organized a party to build the first irrigation canal, and the settlement which later became Phoenix was begun.

''Whatever can be done to retain those relics of the old post which first attracted settlement to what developed into Arizona's most populous community should be encouraged."

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall said today that recent weeks had brought "heartening examples of solid economic gains for American Indians as the result of a determination to put tribal resources and energies to work for the benefit of all."

Udall approved plans last week for a multi-million dollar forest product complex on the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon that will create 250 jobs for Indians and bring about $2 million in annual revenues to the tribe.

"This is not a Federal project," Udall said. "The money involved is tribal money and the basic negotiations were between tribal officials and officers of the Jefferson Plywood Co. of Madras, Ore., the firm that will run the sawmill and plywood complex under contract with the tribe.

"Indians will be represented on their board which fill direct operations from harvest through sale. The direct benefits, such as an Indian payroll of $1.5 million annually, will be great, but equally important will be the experience gained, by a people learning, under our competitive American enterprise system, to put their resources and their abilities to work for a better future."

Udall noted also that during a trip to Arizona last month he helped break ground for an industrial park on the Gila River Reservation south of Phoenix.

"Five industrial firms -- producing products ranging from marine hardware to asphalt -- will form the nucleus of an industrial complex of tremendous growth potential," he said. "And the tribe has a detailed social action and community development program underway so that individually and collectively the tribe can grow with the industry.

"These are results of programs operated by the Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs that brought 26 new industrial plants to Indian areas in the past year," Udall said. "And these plants are to create 1,700 new jobs.

"A little more than a year ago I suggested at a conference of tribal, Congressional and Government leaders in Santa Fe, N. M., that 'the time has come to operate on our hopes instead of our fears.' I think we are beginning to see the results of that policy in action now."

Other promising developments within the past year, cited by Udall, are:

• The dedication of a new electronic connector plant on the Seminole Indians reservation at Hollywood, Fla. The site is leased by the tribe to the Amphenol Corp. of Chicago. The plant will have an initial workforce of 200, one-half of whom will be tribal members. The company is already looking to future expansion
• On the Makah Reservation in Washington, Indians are repairing and enlarging a pier to serve as the floating fish processing facility of the Cape Flattery Company. Cape Flattery will process all kinds of fish into fish protein concentrate, a product recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human consumption. This is one of the first private domestic ventures in this field. A separate pilot plant is to be constructed under a program sponsored by the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries.
• The Indians, in addition to owning a part of the business through an investment of $50,000 of their own funds, will share in the plant employment and will operate a fleet of fishing vessels to provide, daily, the 200 tons of fish the company is expected to process.
• The Navajo Tribe will begin construction next week on a plant at Fort Defiance, Ariz., where General Dynamics Corporation will produce components for the Standard Missile. The tribe will provide training facilities during the construction period for Navajos expected to fill most of the 200 jobs to be created by the plant. Annual payrolls are estimated as approaching three-quarters of a million dollars
• The receipt of $757,938 in high bonus bids for copper leases on the San Xavier Reservation in southern Arizona. Tribal officials anticipate that this figure will be far surpassed by tribal revenues resulting from royalties and mining payrolls.
• The receipt of $2.6 million in high bonus bids for new oil and gas leases by the Tyonek Village of Alaska which used $12 million in earlier oil lease funds to completely refurbish their village and acquire real estate in downtown Anchorage, renting office space to clients who include the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

"These are solid achievements in just one field of endeavor," Udall said. "They will be matched by progress and innovation in the areas of education, on-the job training and relocation programs, as we expand our efforts and further develop the new feeling of partnership in progress that is developing under Commissioner Bennett in the Bureau of Indian Affairs."

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today issued the following statement on education programs for Indian children:

"Indian children in Federal schools are handicapped educationally, economically and geographically through physical and social isolation from the mainstreams of American life. Many are further handicapped by an only partial understanding of the English language, if, indeed, they speak English at all.

"The programs of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, applied to Federal Indian schools over the past six months have been a direct and effective frontal assault on the pressing problems of these youngsters.

"In this short span of time we have seen, not only real progress in closing the gap that separates many Indian children from the non-Indian contemporaries but also a new spirit of enthusiasm and support for education develop in families and tribal leaders in Reservations across the nation.

"The Quie Amendment to this milestone legislation would exclude Federally educated Indian children from this Act and would take from these children the hope of continued progress toward educational equality with the rest of the nation and quash the new hopes and new aspirations developing for the Indian peoples who would assist their children to the life of economic and social equality that has been denied.

"It is inconceivable that these projects which have meant so much in terms of academic progress and improved self-image could be summarily abandoned.

"This program has made an appreciable and measureable difference in the lives and achievement of these children. These programs represent an effective discharge of the federal obligation to these children and should be continued."

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of three bills affecting Indians now before Congress. One bill would- increase the appropriation authorization for Indian adult vocational education programs and the other two would permit tribes to issue long-term land leases for industrial and commercial development of reservation properties.

In recommending passage of a bill which would increase the vocational training appropriation authorization from $15 million to $20 million annually, the Department suggested an amendment bringing the authorization to $25 million to meet an anticipated heavier demand for these services.

The Department noted a steadily increasing use of 'vocational training among young Indians. In Fiscal 1966, more than 5,000 heads of families or single persons received institutional vocational training and an additional 1,652 Indians were placed in on-the-job training, the Department said.

By Fiscal 1969, the Department estimated, most of the 5,400 Indian students graduating from high school that year and an undetermined number of drop-outs will need vocational training if they are to compete successfully for jobs. The expected increase in demand, together with increased opportunities for on-the-job training, because of increased industrial activity on or near reservations, will require an increase in funds, the Department said.

The two leasing bills would affect the Hualapai Reservation in northwest Arizona and the San Carlos Apache Reservation in the southeastern part of that state. The Department said that both reservations possess lands suitable for extensive tourist and recreational development and that the San Carlos Tribe has received several proposals for industrial projects.

The lack of authority to enter into property leases for longer than 50 years has discouraged lending institutions and developers in both areas, the Department said. Authority to offer leases up to 99 years has already been extended by special legislation to nine reservations with beneficial results, the Department noted, and would have the same affect for the two Arizona tribes, making possible maximum use of tribal land resources and increased employment for tribal members.