OPA

From prosperity to poverty and back again--three times! That’s the story of North Carolina's Cherokee Indians, as told in a new booklet published this week by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

“Indians of North Carolina," second in a series of regional brochures devoted to the life and times of American Indians, traces Cherokee history in the State from the 18th century to date. According to the booklet, progress of the tribe has been phenomenal in almost every field. For example:

Education---Percentage of Cherokee children attending public schools near the reservation is increasing each year. This practice, encouraged by both tribal leaders and BIA, will become more widespread as North Carolina public school facilities permit.

Industrial development---Using a combination of revolving BIA credit funds and tribal money, the tribe has encouraged the establishment of industry on the reservation to provide more jobs for Cherokees. Tribal investments in plants has totaled more than $230,000.

Tourism---Some five million tourists visit the reservation each year. The Boundary Tree Tribal Motel Enterprise is owned and operated by the Cherokees near the southern entrance to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, as well as many other tourist facilities.

The 16-page booklet includes photographs and maps. Copies are available at 15 cents apiece from Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. A discount of 25 percent is allowed on quantity orders of 100 or more, to be mailed to one address.

Federal supervision has been terminated for four more rancherias in California in accord with recent legislation, the Department of the Interior announced today. The newly terminated Indian lands are North Fork and Picayune, in Madera County; Graton in Sonoma County; and Pinoleville in Mendocino County.

Under a Congressional Act of August 18, 1958, naming 41 rancherias, and a 1964 amendment to include the remaining 74 California rancherias or reservations, Indians are permitted to distribute lands and other rancheria assets among themselves.

A distribution plan generally calls for surveys and appraisals of the lands and, in some cases, completion of certain land improvements before title is given to individual Indians. The termination action, which thus far has affected a total of 26 rancherias, means that the Indians are no longer eligible for special Federal services because they are Indians but have the same status as other California citizens.

Termination of the four rancherias removes trust restrictions from nearly 275 acres and involves 78 Indians: 1 Mono on the North Fork; 10 Chukchansis on the Picayune; 2 Pomos on the Graton; and 65 Pomos on the Pinoleville Rancheria.

The action becomes effective upon publication in the Federal Register of a notice signed by the Secretary of the Interior.

American Indian art--just now becoming widely recognized in the United States--has already found a solid niche abroad.

From the arts and crafts markets of the Southwest, the Plains, Oklahoma, and Alaska, a collection of these "cultural ambassadors" have been touring the world under the joint auspices of the Interior Department's Indian Arts And Crafts Board, the United States Information Agency, and the State Department.

Paintings in oil and tempera, flamboyant with color and rich with spiritual nuance; sculptures of native North Carolina wood, or soapstone, or ivory from the tusks of walruses; basketry and rugs that fingers have woven while mind and eye create one-of-a-kind designs; and jewelry of 80ft-sheen silver, heavy with stone inlays, massive yet superbly delicate in form--these are the silent but eloquent emissaries that have opened the world's eyes to the native culture of America.

From Dakar to Vientiane, from Brasilia to Tokyo, in United States diplomatic quarters on all continents the State Department's "art in embassies” program is also going American Indian. In New Delhi, for example, Ambassador and Mrs. Chester Bowles display an antique Chilkat (Alaska) blanket, woven of cedar bark and mountain goat wool by an unknown artisan. Because these blankets are so unusual, other Indian tribes often acquired them from the Chilkat for use as ceremonial shawls. The Chilkat blanket keeps company in New Delhi with "The Conquerors," a dramatic painting by a modern Navajo artist, Patsy Miller.

So impressed has officialdom in India been with the American Indian arts and crafts on display there, that the Government of India recently presented to the Institute of American Indian Arts (a Bureau of Indian Affairs school in Santa Fe) a group of Eastern arts and crafts from the dismantled India Pavilion of the New York World's Fair.

The Institute, in turn, is planning an East-West Indian exhibition, with the donated collection to be displayed side by side with American Indian arts and crafts of comparable kinds.

Through the Institute, founded four years ago, the Federal Government is helping preserve end foster the artistry of American Indians. Operated on the premise that self-discovery through art is at least part of the answer to the dropout problem, the Institute has gathered under its adobe rooftops an imposing roster of American Indian teachers who, themselves, have made names in the world of art, music and dance. These teachers are helping Indian and Eskimo teenagers to translate their natural artistic instincts into creative modes of expression.

The results of the Indian art education program have captured the interest of professional schools of art and sculpture, and have singled out the Institute as a fount of prize-winning art and literature. Many of its graduates have moved on, with scholarships, to further study. Some have already established their reputations among art lovers. At exhibitions around the country, the work of Institute artists, sculptors, carvers, potters and designers of textiles and jewelry are met with enthusiasm by critics and collectors. Some of their creations have found their way into international circles - as gifts from the President and Mrs. Johnson to visiting dignitaries.

Merchants in England, France, Germany, and Scandinavian countries have indicated an interest in handling Indian arts and crafts and at home, the biggest department stores in several major cities have already held special exhibition sales.

The reopening in 1964 of the Interior Department's seventh-floor Art Gallery as the setting for what may have been the first major exhibition of American Indian art ever to be shown in the Nation's Capital and the pacesetter for a series of subsequent exhibitions there and in commercial galleries throughout the East.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall summed the reason Why Indian art seems to have such universal appeal: "Indian artists possess the gift of sharing the timeless values of Indian culture--love of the land, a tranquil sense of harmony with nature, and the mystique of a time when their people walked here alone. From no other hands and spirits do we receive an artistic contribution more uniquely American."

When the first year's operations under the War on Poverty were summed up recently, the record showed that Indian reservation communities were among the most responsive of all groups to the self-help challenges of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.

Projects for young people -- Operation Head Start for the preschoolers and the Neighborhood Youth Corps to help needy high school students stay in school -- have become the most popular EOA activities in Indian communities. The impact of these programs also has led to a growing interest, and demand for participation, in the broader Community Action Programs which call for a heavy measure of local initiative and persistence. Meanwhile, ten Indian areas have agreed to play host to hundreds of unemployed and untrained young men in the Job Corps.

The record of Indian participation in EOA activities to date is as follows:

Neighborhood Youth Corps

More than 15,000 young Indians have been enrolled in these part-time work and part-time study programs designed to put $1.25 per hour into the pockets of needy students and thereby enable them to complete their schooling. The demand at present is greater than current funding can meet; and while 28 Indian communities in 21 States are conducting NYC programs, another 12 communities have asked for funds to enroll an additional 4,000 students.

One Indian leader commented, in pleading for more funds, that the NYC not only provides needy young people with necessary money for personal expenses and family help, but also gives them a chance to discover their way in the working world. NYC enrollees are placed in part-time public service jobs such as hospital aides, assistants in libraries, maintenance helpers in schools, clerks, conservation and reclamation aides, and helpers in daycare centers for children of working mothers.

Operation Head Start

Commenced last 'summer as a means of easing the way for culturally deprived children who would be faced with the fearsome First Grade in September, this program had lived up to its name. All communities report excellent school adjustment on the part of the 1,700 head-starters on the reservations and several thousand others in off-reservation head-start programs.

Since the summer venture, Head Start has now been incorporated into the Community Action Program.

Community Action Programs

Over $7.3 million in grants have thus far been made to 49 Indian reservation communities to launch a variety of self-help community improvement programs. Typical projects planned by the Indians include training for available jobs in the community; surveys of manpower availability; operation of nursery schools for children of working mothers; surveys of educational levels of reservation residents; recreation and physical fitness classes for adults; home management and home care courses for women; community garden projects; and Operation Head Start. More than $1.8 million of CAP money thus far distributed to Indian areas has gone to the Navajos, who constitute about 25 percent of the total Indian population on reservations.

VISTA

At least 235 Volunteers in Service to America (the domestic equivalent of the Peace Corps) have already been assigned to Indian areas, and applications are pending from tribal authorities for nearly as many more. Among the 70 projects now under way by VISTA workers are adult education classes, preschool programs, remedial reading classes, recreation activities and services to agricultural extension workers.

Job Corps

Six of the ten Job Corps Centers scheduled for Indian areas are already activated. They are: Winslow, adjacent to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona; Mexican Springs, on the New Mexico side of the Navajo Reservation; Poston, on the Colorado River Reservation near Phoenix, Arizona; San Carlos, on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona; Neah Bay on the Makah Reservation in Washington State; and Kicking Horse on the Flathead Reservation in Montana.

Other EOA Programs

Activities under two other provisions of the anti-poverty legislation are moving ahead: Loans to generate small business; and "work experience" programs which combine actual job experience with training for the hard-core untrained-unemployed.

Work experience projects administered under the Bureau of Family Services, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, are now in operation on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation on the Canadian border of North Dakota, one of the Indian poverty centers; and on the Fort McDermitt Reservation in Oregon. The loan program for small business is administered by the Small Business Administration, and requires the creation of a Small Business Development Committee as the channeling agency. Thus far, nine loans have been made to Indian groups -- two in Alaska, and seven in Minnesota.

New Activities Under EOA

Indian communities are responding to the Medicare Alert project, fundable under the Economic Opportunity Program, to alert every senior Indian citizen to the importance of registering for medical assistance under the new Medicare legislation.

For the young age group, plans for the Upward Bound program are under way. This program is aimed at disadvantaged high school youth with academic promise. It would provide special college orientation experiences, remedial or enrichment courses designed to give them a start toward higher education. At least 15 tribes have thus far submitted "letters of intent" to the Economic Opportunity Office indicating their desire to participate.

Thomas H. Tommany, a Creek Indian from Oklahoma, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Haskell Institute at Lawrence, Kansas.

Established in 1884 as a boarding high school, and the alma mater of numerous Indians prominent in public life today, Haskell moved into a new phase in its , history last year. The high school program was closed out, new curricula and facilities were created, and Haskell became the first Indian school offering vocational and technical training exclusively at the post-secondary level.

Tommany, 53, is a graduate of the University of Kansas who also holds a graduate degree in education from the University of Oklahoma. He has served as teacher, counselor and administrator in a number of BIA schools during the past 27 years. For two years prior to his new appointment he served as assistant general superintendent of schools and other community services for Navajos. He is a member of Phi Delta Kappa education fraternity and the American Association of School Administrators.

In announcing his appointment, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash said: “Mr. Tommany brings to Haskell, in this new period of the school's long history, not only the rich experience of his professional career but the special insight that an Indian can bring to the situation of teaching Indian young people."

Tommany succeeds Floyd E. Stayton, who served as Superintendent at Haskell for three years. Stayton will become Director of Schools in the Bureau's Anadarko, Oklahoma Area Office. From this post he will direct the shaping of curricula and goals for six boarding schools which serve Indian students from many parts of the Nation. In addition to Haskell, these include boarding high schools at Chilocco, Riverside and Fort Still, Okla.; an elementary boarding school at Concho, Okla.; and a demonstration school, also at Concho.

The Miccosukee Indians of Florida and the Red Lake Chippewas of Minnesota soon will have new agency heads, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash has announced.

Reginald C. Miller, the first superintendent of the four-year-old Miccosukee Indian Agency in Florida, leaves that post this month for a new assignment as superintendent of the Red Lake Chippewa Reservation.

Lawrence J. Kozlowski will succeed Miller at Miccosukee Agency headquarters in Homestead, Florida. Kozlowski formerly was assistant superintendent of the Great Lakes Indian Agency at Ashland, Wisconsin.

The Miccosukee Agency was established following organization of the Miccosukee - a band of Seminole-Creeks - into a tribal entity. This group of Indians had been the most isolated in the United States, living in the alligator-infested swamplands of southern Florida. Their forebears had fled to the area rather than be party to Seminole treaties with the United States during the era of Andrew Jackson.

Miller won a superior performance award in 1963 for helping the Miccosukees establish new homes on the dry fill bordering the Tamiami Trail and launch a business with a BIA-funded restaurant and motel. He also directed completion of a school for about 35 Miccosukee children, ranging in age from 6 to 16, who had never before attended school.

Kozlowski brings to the Miccosukee Agency a background of work of education. His 15 years of service in Indian affairs includes work among Alaska natives, a people as remote in environment as the Miccosukee have been.

At Red Lake, Minnesota, Miller replaces Jerome F. Morlock, who recently became Area Forester in the Bureau's Sacramento, Calif., Area Office.

The assignment is a return engagement for Miller. He was administrative officer of the Red Lake sawmill operations in the 1950's. A graduate of Haskell Institute, Miller's career with the Bureau began in 1938 and has taken him to numerous posts including duty tours at Albuquerque, New Mexico; Phoenix, Arizona; Billings, Montana; Aberdeen, South Dakota; Dania, Florida; and Washington, D. C.

Dale M. Baldwin, a career employee of 17 years' service, will head the Bureau of Indian Affairs area office in Portland, Oregon, the Department of the Interior has announced.

The transfer from his present post as Superintendent of the Nevada Indian Agency at Stewart, Nev., will be effective March 20, 1966.

In 1965 Baldwin was cited for outstanding performance during his five years of work with the 26 tribal groups throughout Nevada.

His advancement to Area Director will place under his administrative purview nearly all the Indian tribes of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. He will succeed Robert D. Holtz, who retired in December 1965.

A native of New Castle, Pa., Baldwin is a graduate of Oregon State College and has spent much of his career in the Northwest. His first post with the Bureau of Indian Affairs took him to the Colville Indian Agency at Nespelem, Wash., as a soil conservationist. Two years later he moved to the Umatilla Agency in Oregon, and later served at the Fort Hall Agency in Idaho.

In 1957 he joined the Washington, D. C., staff of the Bureau as a program officer and in 1959 was appointed superintendent of the Fort Peck, Mont., Indian reservation.

Baldwin is an Army veteran of World War II. He entered the service as a private in 1943 and was honorably discharged in 1946 with the rank of captain.

A four-day camp-in at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago is planned by Montana's Blackfeet Indians for March 9-12.

Tribal Chairman Earl Old Person and veteran Boy Scout Leader Francis Guardipee will preside over the event in the lobby of the windy city's biggest hotel as a promotion, not a protest.

The Tribe hired exhibit space for the national convention of the American Camping Association, hoping to interest camp owners and operators in establishing residential camps on the Blackfeet Reservation.

The reservation abuts Glacier National Park and faces the Canadian province of Alberta, in an area considered ideal for summertime swimming, boating, fishing and hiking.

An economic feasibility study by the Bureau of Indian Affairs showed that a parcel of land on the shores of Lake St. Mary, adjacent to Glacier National Park, has outstanding potential for this kind of use-and revenue from the lease of this property would help the tribe invest in further community improvements.

Lake St. Mary is 10 miles long and a mile wide. Nearby is Duck Lake, known the world over for its fishing and waterfowl. The annual North American Indian Days summer event at Browning is also within driving distance. Although the area is virtually unspoiled, transportation by bus and rail is good, and hospital and medical facilities are available nearby.

Blackfeet Indians are in tune with the times. Most of them speak English fluently; many are farmers or stockmen; others are employed in businesses or are in public service jobs.

It is not unusual to see older Blackfeet men with hair in braids, and women wearing shawls in place of coats. Some are still versed in the sign language of the Plains and can communicate with other Tribes in this fashion. Blackfeet names are sometimes as picturesque as the tribal name, but many families have French and Scottish surnames, a reminder of their early contacts and intermarriage with Canadian trappers and traders.

The Indian children of Montana generally attend public schools and a growing number are enrolling each year in colleges.

Young and old alike, all Indians are citizens of the Unites States, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of citizenship. At present there are many young men from the Blackfeet Tribe serving in the armed forces.

Mr. Guardipee, one of the old-timers, has been active in Boy Scouting since the Scout movement started in the United States in 1910. He was Tribal Chairman Old Person's Scoutmaster about 24 years ago when the Blackfeet Troop attended an International Jamboree in France. Both men are today ardent advocates of organized outdoor training and education programs for young people.

The Blackfeet Tribe is one of several Western Indian tribes interested in developing sites for residential youth camps.

John C. Dibbern, a career BIA employee and former university professor, is slated to head Bureau activities in connection with Missouri River Basin development, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash has announced.

With headquarters in Billings, Mont., Dibbern will head a staff of economist, soil scientists, and engineers engaged in continuing studies to protect the interests of Indian landowners in the multi-State Missouri Basin area.

Main activities of the office are: (1) to appraise lands to be taken for water development; (2) to determine irrigation potentials on Indian lands with a view to tie-ins with larger water development projects; and (3) to study the economic and social impact upon Indian communities of Missouri River Basin development in all its aspects--irrigation, flood control, river navigation, hydroelectric power generation, soil erosion control, and fish and wildlife conservation.

Dibbern's career in the Federal Government began with the Forest Service in 1945 While he was completing doctoral work in plant ecology. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

His first post with BIA was at Sells, Ariz., where he directed forestry operations and range management on about three million acres in the Papago, Gila Bend, and San Xavier Indian Reservations. He subsequently was transferred to a similar assignment on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.

In 1956 he became assistant to BlA's Assistant Commissioner for Resources in Washington, D. C., and a year later he was appointed Superintendent of the Colorado River Reservation in Arizona. Prior to his new assignment, he served five years as assistant director of economic development for the Gallup, N. Mex., Area Office of BIA.

Dibbern is a native of Los Angeles, Calif., and an Army veteran of World War II.

He succeeds Walter Fuhriman, who was BlA's Director of the Missouri River Basin Investigation Project for 15 years until his retirement in December 1965.

WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHES ESTABLISH PRIMITIVE AREA

The White Mountain Apache Tribal Council has voted to set aside a 7,400-acre tract on its Arizona reservation as a primitive area for the next five years. The area, which includes Mount Baldy on the east boundary of the reservation, will not be subject to any development, timber cutting, or vehicular traffic, except as needed for fire or insect control operations. It will remain under tribal control and-is not part of the National Wilderness Preservation system.

NDEA INSTITUTES FOR TEACHERS OF INDIAN STUDENTS

Six universities and colleges this summer will sponsor National Defense Education Act Institutes Which will be of special interest to teachers from schools that enroll Indian students. Bureau of Indian Affairs, public, and nonprofit private school teachers are eligible to attend. The programs are planned to improve education for the disadvantaged.

The sponsoring institutions are: Arizona State College, Flagstaff, Ariz.; University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans. ; University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N. Mex.; Utah State University, Logan, Utah; Western Washington State College, Bellingham, Wash.; and Western Montana College, Dillon, Mont.

SEMINOLES CONTRACT FOR ON-THE-JOB TRAINING

The Seminole Tribe of Florida, Inc., was recently awarded a $5,750 contract by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide on-the-job training for 20 tribal members at two South Florida reservations. The trainees will receive instruction in woodworking skills at Big Cypress Reservation and in textile machine operation at Brighton Reservation.

LAND DEVELOPMENT AT FORT HALL

An additional 2,300-acre tract on the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho has been opened for irrigation. The project is a Bureau of Indian Affairs' supervised program of "unitization" - combining the property of various Indian owners for management purposes--and conversion from grass land to irrigated farming. The land, once depleted of good native grazing grasses, was reseeded "to crested wheat grass and has steadily increased in value and productivity since the program started. It has been leased by its owners for a 16-year period for irrigated farming.

Total annual cash income in 1951, when reseeding of the tract began, was $154; during the 1952-1965 period this figure increased to $462. Today, under a development type lease, the land is expected to bring an income of $55,000 annually to its owners.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT SEEKS INDIAN WORKERS

Representatives of the Department of Defense's Contract Administrative Services Office met recently with Bureau of Indian Affairs employment assistance officers in several major industrial cities. Their aim is to seek ways of stimulating Indian employment with defense contractors.

A major responsibility of the Office is to ensure fair employment practices and nondiscrimination in hiring by defense contractors.

INDIAN CLAIMS COMMISSION ACTIONS

More than 850 claims against the United States have been filed with the Indian Claims Commission by various tribal groups. As of January 1, 1966, 177 were disposed of by awards.; 167 by dismissals for such reasons as the claimant's failure to prove entitlement, filing by an improper claimant, and lack of jurisdiction by the Indian Claims Commission. There are now more than 500 claims pending before the Commission.

NORTHERN PAIUTE CLAIMS CASE

United States Government attorneys are appealing the Indian Claims Commission decision of 1965 in the Northern Paiute Claims Case (Docket No. 87). The U. S. Court of Claims has been asked to review the issues of title, minerals and the right of the Northern Paiute Nation and Bands, as petitioner, to represent the 'Mono" group of Indians. The Northern Paiutes have filed a counter-appeal based on the question of land value.

In the orders previously issued, the Indian Claims Commission granted an award of $935, 000 as payment for 3.1 million acres of land in California and Nevada (the Mono Tract) taken in 1B53 and 1B63; $15, 790, 000 for 11.6 million acres taken in California and Nevada (Paviotso Tract) in IB53 and IB62; and $3,650,000 for 10.5 million acres in northern Nevada and southern Oregon, with small portions in Idaho and California, taken in 1872.

TWO SOUTH DAKOTA RESERVATIONS, TO GET PLANNING ASSISTANCE

The first Federal grant to an Indian area under the Urban Planning Assistance Program (Section 701) of the Housing Act of 1954 will go to aid two South Dakota Reservations, the Urban Renewal Administration has announced. The 1954 Act was amended in 1965 to include Indian reservations.

The State of South Dakota will receive a $44,190 grant to aid the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Reservations in programs of comprehensive planning for growth and development. The funds will be used for population studies, economic analyses, planning community improvements, housing, roads, schools, and for other socioeconomic planning.

Because the two Reservations are in officially designated redevelopment areas, the Federal grant will cover three-fourths of the total costs of planning activities, expected to take two years. It will be supplemented by $14,731 in local funds.

Crow Creek is in Buffalo, Hughes, and Hyde Counties; Lower Brule is in Lyman and Stanley Counties. There are approximately 1,700 Indians, mainly Sioux, living on or near the two reservations.