OPA

"Three From Santa Fe" is the title of an exhibition of paintings, ceramics and sculpture to be shown May 7 through June 28 in the Department of the Interior Art Gallery, 18th and C Streets, NW, Washington, D.C.

Sponsored by Washington's Center for Arts of Indian America, the three featured artists are employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, working and teaching at the unique Institute of American Indian Arts, at Santa Fe, N. M.

Mrs. Stewart L. Udall, President of the Art Center, noted in announcing the exhibit that all three artists have international, reputations. Other internationally famous artists who have been featured at the Gallery during the past year include Yeffe Kimball, noted for her acrylic paintings, Maria Martinez, potter of San Ildefonso, and her son and grandson, Popovi and Tony Da, potters and artists.

The new group includes Otellie Loloma, a Hopi Indian from Second Mesa, Ariz., who teaches ceramics, painting, cultural studies and traditional dances at the Institute; Fritz Scholder, Mission Indian from California, an instructor in Advanced Painting and Art History; and James McGrath of Tacoma, Wash., the Institute's Director of Arts.

Mrs. Udall said that most of their exhibited works will be offered for sale during the two-month span of the showing.

All three of the artists have had works shown in national as well as international exhibits, including one at Blair House in Washington; the Edinburgh and Berlin Art Festivals; the Alaskan Centennial; Washington's Indian Art Center, and Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Okla.

An interesting sidelight of the group showing is that Loloma and Scholder are Indians, while McGrath is non-Indian.

While the Indian artists show some non-Indian influence in their work, there is no doubt that McGrath has become very much involved with the mystical and esoteric aspects of the Pueblo Indian idiom of the Santa Fe area, and shows unusual sensitivity for Indian feelings. His work incorporates such materials as feathers, rawhide, sinew and branches in its execution.

Miss Loloma came into the non-Indian world from a reservation background. After training at the School for American Craftsmen, Rochester, N. Y., she began to merge her new-found technical training with the natural shapes and forms of her Hopi inheritance. Today, although her work has a contemporary feeling, she is very much involved in traditional Hopi philosophy and this gives a spiritual dimension to her creations.

Scholder, although of Mission Indian descent, had little access to his Indian background until he joined the Institute's arts faculty in 1964. He had already received recognition for his paintings, identified with abstract expressionism and pop art. Now, Scholder has combined his former way of painting with Indian subject matter, resulting in a new series of pop or Indian "protest art."

The Gallery will be open to the public for "Three From Santa Fe" from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M., Monday through Friday, except holidays. Admission is free.

Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus said today that he had reluctantly requested Attorney General Griffin Bell to take legal action to protect the water rights of Indian tribes on five reservations in northern Montana. The suits were filed by the U.S. Department of Justice April 5 in the Federal District Court for Montana.

Andrus said that he asked the Justice Department to file stream adjudication suits in the Federal courts because the Montana legislature was proposing to pass legislation which would give state courts jurisdiction over Indian water rights issues.

"I recommended the action very reluctantly," Andrus said, "since it has been and continues to be my hope that the matter could be settled by negotiation. I want to stress that negotiation is not precluded by the suits and is still possible. While President Carter's water policy supports negotiated agreements for settlement of water disputes, it also supports the position that any litigation of Indian claims should take place in Federal courts."

Andrus said that it was part of his fiduciary responsibility as trustee for the Indians to keep Indian water rights issues in Federal courts ''when and if they had to be settled in court." He said that the United States Constitution initiated the tradition that Indian affairs be handled by the Federal Government rather than state or local governments.

Andrus said the Department's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard and Interior Solicitor Leo Krulitz discussed the proposed legislation with Montana Lt. Governor Ted Schwinden, Attorney General Mike Greeley and other Montana officials in January following a meeting with tribal leaders of the state

Gerard, who is himself a Blackfeet Indian from Montana, said that members of his staff have worked closely with the tribal leaders and with state representatives, beginning last fall, to explore possibilities for handling conflicting water claims through negotiation. Re said he had been hopeful that such a process would be developed and Indian water rights issues would not be included in the state legislation.

He also noted that tribal leaders generally accept the Federal court-s as neutral forums for issues that involve a large proportion of a local community but are concerned that "state judges who are elected by a local community are sometimes subjected to political pressures."

Gerard said that his office had suggested amendment of the state bill to provide, in lieu of including tribes within the Montana State jurisdiction process, a resolution of Indian/non-Indian water questions through a state/ tribal compact. He said, "I am disappointed that this was not done. I still think it is very important for all of us to try to build on points of agreement toward negotiated settlements, rather than adopt attitudes of confrontation and dissension."

Defendants in the suits are the State of Montana and ·various persons and entities claiming rights in the water systems.

The four suits filed by the Department of Justice ask for a declaration of the Indian water rights on the Marias, Milk, Poplar and Flathead River systems. The five reservations involved are Flathead, Blackfeet, Rocky Boys, Fort Peck and Fort Belknap.

The other two Montana reservations, Crow and Northern Cheyenne, already are in litigation, in Federal court about water rights on the Tongue and Bighorn River systems.

The Montana bill, SB76, would establish a system to adjudicate all water rights issues in the state.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs will establish a new Office of Technical Assistance and Training at Brigham City, Utah, on the campus of the BIA ­operated Intermountain Indian School.

Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus formally approved the new unit recently. Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard said that the establishment of the new Training/Technical Assistance Center is part of an overall management improvement effort for the Bureau. "The implementation of the Indian self-determination policy has resulted in increased program responsibility and authority at the local reservation level," Gerard said adding: "Consequently, the need for technical assistance and training has greatly increased at this level, also. The new office at Brigham City will be responsive to this need.''

The Office of Technical Assistance and Training at Brigham City will be part of the BIA's central office organization. It will serve more than 280 Indian tribes, 218 Alaska villages, 13 Alaska Native regional corpora­tions, 82 BIA agencies and 12 BIA area offices. It will provide training, research assistance, needs assessment, evaluation and technical assistance services to Native Americans and BIA staff.

Gerard has stressed the need for basic, systematic changes in the BIA management approach to be responsive to Indian tribal needs under a policy OL self-determination.

On December l, 1978, he appointed John Artichoker, then the Bureau's Phoenix Area Director, to head a task force to plan needed improvements in the training and technical assistance services.

The BIA now has a small training group and an Indian police academy at Brigham City. These units, together with a planning support group from

Billings, Montana and some units of the Indian Education Resources Center, headquartered at Albuquerque, New Mexico, will be consolidated in the first phase of the plan being implemented.

Gerard said he expects the unit to be operational this fall.

Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus and Edward E. Hopson, Sr., President of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation in Alaska, today signed an agreement conveying land to the Arctic Slope Eskimos mandated by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

"In addition to resolving major land issues, this agreement "is the first in the history of the Native Claims Settlement Act in which private lands are placed under the Endangered Species Act," Andrus noted

Features of the pact include:

Facilitating environmentally sound oil and gas development in the arctic which could lead to exploratory drilling within a year;

Consolidating land ownership patterns around the village of Anaktuvuk Pass within the boundaries of the Gates of the Arctic National Monument, thus facilitating Federal management and -reducing operating costs of both the monument and the Native lands;

Reducing private inholdings within Gates of the Arctic National Monument by more than 115,000 acres, thus saving the Federal government substantial costs of land acquisition; and

Land use restrictions along the Colville River to protect one of the more important breeding grounds for the Peregrine Falcon in North America.

The signing concludes six months of intensive negotiations concerning the conveyance and exchange of lands within the Kurupa Lake, Killik River and other areas of the Arctic Slope Region.

“Our Native Corporation will now move to develop the mineral potential of our lands and, hopefully, lessen our Nation's dependence on foreign energy," Hopson said.

He added that "the agreement to protect the falcon in the Arctic shows the ability of the Department of the Interior and a major landowner to allow resource exploration and development and yet to pay attention to the concerns for its wildlife, environment and culture. “

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett will be the United States delegate to the Sixth Interamerican Indian Congress in Pátzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico, April 15 through 21, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Commissioner Bennett will be accompanied by Indian leaders and other advisers.

The Congress meets quadrennial under provisions of a treaty to which most Latin American countries are signatories, for the purpose of exchanging information, views and experiences.

Four Indian tribal leaders will be in the delegation: Wendell Chino, President of the National Congress of American Indians and President of the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council, Mescalero, N. Mo; Cato Valandra, Chairman of the Rosebud Tribal Council, St. Francis, S. Do; Roger Jourdain, Chairman of the Red Lake Tribal Council, Red Lake, Minn.; and Vernon Jackson, general manager, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, Warm Springs, Ore.

Another adviser will be Mrs. LaDonna Harris, a Comanche active in Indian affairs and wife of Senator Fred Ro Harris of Oklahoma.

Arrow, Inc., an Indian betterment organization, and the Association on American Indian Affairs are participating in financing the attendance of the individual Indian advisers.

The United States delegation is to meet in Mexico City on April 14.

Sessions of the Congress will be held at Pátzcuaro beginning Monday morning, April 15, and will continue through Sunday, April 21.

Commissioner Bennett will report at the opening session on developments in Indian affairs in the United States since the Fifth Interamerican Indian Congress was held in Quito, Ecuador, in October 1964. He is a member of the Oneida Indian tribe of Wisconsin and is the first Indian to serve as United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs since 1871 and the second Indian ever to hold the position. He took office April 27, 1966.

Howard F. Johnson, 54, a veteran of more than 32 years Federal service, has been appointed Special Liaison Representative to the Seneca Nation of Indians, it was announced today by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett.

Bennett also announced that John L. Pappan, 40, now superintendent of the Fort Hall Agency, Fort Hall, Idaho, will succeed Johnson as superintendent of the Osage Agency, Pawhuska, Okla.

Johnson's transfer from Pawhuska to Salamanca, N. Y., will be effective March 10. The position of special liaison representative has been vacant since the transfer of Sidney M. Carney last year to be Area Director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Anadarko, Okla.

The position of special liaison representative was established to assist the Senecas of New York with a rehabilitation program after one-third of one of their reservations was taken for the Kinzua Dam Reservoir. Congress voted approximately $15 million to recompense the tribe for the land taken and to finance the rehabilitation program.

Johnson was born at Gravity, Iowa, on September 21, 1913. He received his Bachelor of Science Degree from Colorado State College in 1935 and in September of that year entered Federal service with the Department of Agriculture. He transferred to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1940 as an assistant soil technologist at the Navajo Agency. He has held progressively responsible positions since, including service as Superintendent of the Blackfeet Agency, Browning, Mont., from 1957 to February 1964, and Superintendent of Osage since the latter date.

Pappan, of Kaw Indian descent, was born at Newkirk, Okla., on March 8, 1927. He received his Bachelor of Science Degree from Oklahoma A & M College in 1950 and later joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs staff at the Colorado River Agency as a soil conservationist. He served in progressively responsible positions until his appointment in July 1946 as superintendent at Fort Hall.

Superintendent Pappan will report at Pawhuska after winding up his affairs at Fort Hall.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett today hailed the amendment to the Adult Vocational Training Act as one of the most helpful pieces of legislation ever approved to assist the Indian people.

The amendment increases the authorization for annual appropriations from $15 million to $25 million o President Johnson announced February 5 that he had signed the legislation.

"When President Johnson signed the bill," said Bennett, "he noted that many Indian people and families have been able to learn a saleable skill through this program. It has helped them become self-sufficient and no longer dependent upon the Federal Government."

The Bureau helped find off-reservation jobs for 2,649 Indians during fiscal year 1967. In the same period, 4,785 Indians began adult vocational training. The increased funds, when voted by the Congress, will finance a substantially larger training program.

With the proposed additional AVT funds, a backlog of requests for help would be eliminated and additional on-the-job training opportunities could be offered.

Indians have participated in AVT programs in 23 Western States in 408 schools. Over 1,000 vocational courses are offered to them, representing more than 100 different occupations.

"As a result of this training, over 80 percent of those persons who have completed training under the program and who desire employment are now employed," said Bennett.

"With this increased authorization, the Bureau of Indian Affairs can expand its training, particularly for the younger adult generation, which has become enthusiastic about the success stories of Indians who have 'made it' outside Indian land areas." Each year, there has been an increase in the. Demand for Adult Vocational Training services, particularly by the younger people, and approximately 25 percent of those who have applied have had to accept a delay in entering training. The higher authorization is expected to meet the current demand.

The premier showing of the John Hoover collection of Eskimo art in bone, ivory and wood, is scheduled to open January 15 in the Department of the Interior's Art Gallery, 18th and C Streets, N.W.

The exhibit will be open free to the public, M6nday through Friday from 10:00 a. m. to 4: 00 p. m. and will run through March 29, according to Mrs. Stewart L. Udall, president of the Center for Arts of Indian America, exhibition sponsor.

Entitled, "Qilaut," the Eskimo word for communication with the spirits, the show consists chiefly of pieces of great anthropological significance. Some of the objects are religious, some utilitarian. Some are at least 2,000 years old, according to James McGrath, acting art director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, N. M. McGrath, along with Yakima Indian sisters, Liz and Sue Sohappy, came to Washington to set up the exhibit. Both girls attend the Santa Fe school.

The owner of the collection, John Hoover, is a well-known Aleut artist of Edmonds, Washington, who with his wife, Barbara, and three children support themselves by fishing trips to Alaska, in addition to selling John and Barbara Hoover's artwork. Hoover purchased the items, some of which have yet to be fully identified, from a former Indian trader's family.

The exhibit is set up in categories such as Birds, Seal Hunting, Fishing, Whale Hunting, and Tools. Under these general headings are included skin scrapers, carved objects, spearheads, net shuttles, talismans for seal and whale hunters, a stone lamp, hunting implements, knives, marrow picks, combs for fur and hair, many ceremonial objects, ivory puppets, and dolls.

After its premier in Washington, the exhibit will be displayed at the Santa Fe school. A photographic catalog describing the various pieces, and containing several Eskimo songs, will be issued to those who attend the Washington showing.

WASHINGTON – Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today announced that the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI), a Bureau of Indian Affairs-operated institution of higher learning in Albuquerque, N.M., will receive $531,000 to aid in the development of American Indian small business under an agreement with the Small Business Administration (SBA). SIPI is a two-year institution that provides general education, business, science and technical instruction at the associate degree and certificate levels for American Indians and Alaska Natives.

“Entrepreneurship is a cornerstone of tribal economic self-determination,” Martin said. “With this agreement, SIPI will play an important role in nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit that is so vital to building strong reservation economies.”

Under the agreement, SIPI will develop and implement a small business development training program targeting American Indian entrepreneurs located in the nation’s most disadvantaged tribal areas. It will tailor existing SBA training and materials for use in Indian Country and develop new curricula on starting and growing a small business.

In addition, SIPI will hold training sessions on reservations around the country and increase outreach to remote sectors where Indian people live and work. Training curricula will be available online, as well as through compact disk and correspondence courses, with topics such as starting and managing a small business, writing a business plan, identifying start-up costs, marketing, procurement, wages and benefits, tax and accounting basics and tribal business law.

The Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs has responsibility for fulfilling the Department’s trust responsibilities to individual and tribal trust beneficiaries, as well as promoting the self-determination and economic well-being of the nation’s 562 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. The Assistant Secretary also oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is responsible for providing education and social services to approximately 1.4 million individual American Indians and Alaska Natives from the federally recognized tribes.

TEMECULA, CALIFORNIA - The U.S. Department of the Interiors Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Aurene M. Martin, met here today with representatives of various State and Federal agencies and tribal leaders in a "rapid response" assistance effort to help some 2,750 members of a dozen Native American tribes who have been affected by three major wildfires in southern California. Ten deaths have been reported, an estimated 30,000 acres have burned and 130 homes have been destroyed on reservations of tribes in the region.

Martin says she has approved a plan for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to shift its resources to provide $723,000 in emergency funding for assistance to eligible tribal members impacted by the devastating fires. Martin says she is working within the Department of the Interior and with other federal agencies to identify sources for additional assistance that could be quickly utilized to assist the tribes.

"We have gathered the resources of the Federal government to help the tribes and tribal members who have been devastated by the recent wildfires," Martin said today. "The Pacific regional office of the BIA has taken hundreds of applications for assistance so far. Today, we have gathered the leading partners in our rapid response effort. Tribal governments that were not directly impacted by the recent fires, along with the State of California, have joined us in this important effort. For example, the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians offered its government offices for this meeting of tribal, state and federal agencies today. On the federal side, we have brought together the resources of BIA, FEMA - the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Indian Health Service to identify immediate and long-term assistance for the twelve affected tribes.

"I have approved the transfer of federal dollars within BIA to provide direct assistance to many who have suffered damages on California reservations in recent weeks. We are looking for more avenues of financial assistance for these tribes and their members." California tribes reported with direct impacts from recent wildfires include:

• Barona Band of Mission Indians - 8 deaths and all 6,296 acres of reservation land burned. 35-40 homes and a daycare lost.
• San Pasqual Band of Diegueno Indians - 2 deaths and all 1,380 acres of reservation land burned. All of the approximately 70 homes on the reservation were burned.
• Rincon Band of Mission Indians - Over 20 homes lost and three-quarters of the 4,269 acre reservation were scorched.
• San Manuel Band of Mission Indians - All 700 acres burned with 2 homes destroyed.
• Capitan Grande Band of Diegueno Mission Indians - All 15,753 acres of reservation land burned.
• Viejas Band of Mission Indians - 100 of 1,609 acres burned.
• Inaja-Cosmit Reservation - All 852 acres burned.
• Santa Ysabel Band of Mission Indians - 150 of 15,527 acres burned.
• La Jolla Band of Luiseno Indians - More than 2,000 acres of the 8,541 acre reservation burned.
• Sycuan Band of Mission Indians - 30 acres burned.
• Two reservations, the Ewiiaapaayp Band of Kumeyaay Indians [formerly the Cuyapaipe Band of Mission Indians] (5,464 total reservation acres) and the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians (1,802 total reservation acres), were threatened by wildfires and faced evacuation orders, but have not reported damaged lands or property.

The Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs has responsibility for fulfilling the Department's trust responsibilities to individual and tribal trust beneficiaries, as well as promoting the self-determination and economic well-being of the nation's 562 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. The Assistant Secretary also oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is responsible for providing education and social services to approximately 1.4 million individual American Indians and Alaska Natives from the federally recognized tribes.