Calling themselves the Native American Spiritual Awareness Council, a group of Indian inmates in a Massachusetts state prison meet to share their spiritual beliefs and strengthen their Indian identity. Prison administrators, however, interfere with the religious group by restricting it to Indians enrolled in a tribe and by forbidding it to use pipes, drums, and other items the council regards as sacred. In the lawsuit Trapp et al. v. DuBois et al., the Massachusetts Superior Court agrees with the prisoners that their right to freedom of religion is being violated. It orders the prison to allow all Indian inmates to participate in the council and to permit the group access to its religious paraphernalia.
Income from Arctic refuge leases is included in the federal budget.
Due to the efforts of the congressional delegation from Alaska, $1.4 billion from leases to oil companies for the use of land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is included in the federal budget bill. The measure is meant to pressure the government to open up the refuge to oil drilling so this money can be raised (see entry for 1987). Opponents to allowing drilling in the refuge include environmentalists, who maintain the companies will destroy the delicate wilderness area, and the Gwich’in Indians, who fear drilling will decimate the refuge’s caribou herd on which they, as subsistence hunters, depend for their survival. The Alaskan delegation’s agenda is thwarted only when President Bill Clinton vetoes the budget bill in its entirety.
The Mescalero Apache approve a nuclear waste storage facility.
On January 31, the Mescalero Apache vote down a referendum allowing a consortium of nuclear energy companies to store waste on their reservation. Immediately, the tribal government, which supports the building of the waste storage facility (see entry for FEBRUARY 15, 1994), launches a massive campaign to persuade tribe members to sign a petition calling for a second referendum on the issue. Under great pressure from their leaders, 30 percent of the tribe signs the petition, which by the tribal constitution allows the government to hold another vote. On this second round of voting, the referendum passes.
A Native sentencing circle banishes a rapist.
Billy Taylor, a 28-year-old man of the La Rouge Indian Band in La Rouge, Saskatchewan, requests that the band’s sentencing circle administer his sentence after he is convicted of rape. At the band’s office, friends and family of Taylor and the victim discuss the case for six hours before deciding to banish Taylor to an uninhabited island near La Rouge for one year. Food will be delivered to the island once a month, but otherwise Taylor will have no human contact during his banishment. The unusual punishment emerges from a growing movement among Canadian Natives appalled by the high number of Natives serving time in prison. They hold that, following their traditions, Native lawbreakers should receive alternative sentences determined by the people of their communities.
Disney’s Pocahontas premieres.
Walt Disney Studios releases Pocahontas, an animated theatrical feature film about the life of the daughter of Chief Powhatan and her contact with the Virginia colonists in the early 17th century (see entry for DE CEMBER 1607). Although well received by the general public and critics, many Indians take exception with the film’s disregard for the known historical facts about Pocahontas. In the movie, she meets the English as a beautiful woman, whereas the actual Pocahontas was no older than twelve at the time. The plot also resurrects the legend of Pocahontas as an eroticized helpmate of the colonists—a popular 19th-century representation used to imply that “good” Indians encouraged whites to overrun their lands.
The Jemez Pueblo field criticism over the gallo.
The annual St. John the Baptist Day celebration at Jemez Pueblo is closed to the public following a campaign of animal-rights groups against the gallo, or rooster pull. During this ritual, which probably originated with the Spanish conquistadores, men named John or Juan honor their patron saint by sacrificing a rooster. The rooster is buried up to its neck in the ground of the pueblo square. On horseback, gallo participants compete to be the first rider to grab the rooster’s head, which is often torn off from its body. The Pueblo believe that the blood from the rooster fertilizes and renews the earth.
Native activists take over Gustafsen Lake.
A group of Natives began occupying a site sacred to the Shuswap on Gustafsen Lake, in British Columbia. The activists came to the sacred grounds to protect Percy Rosette, a Shuswap spiritual leader. The legal owner of the site, Lyle James, a non-Indian rancher, had given Rosette his permission to hold a Sun Dance at Gustafsen Lake in early June. When Rosette later refused to leave the area, however, he was harassed and threatened by James’s ranch hands. The activists are also angered by the Canadian government’s delay in settling the land claims of British Columbian Natives.
On September 11, two and a half months into the tense standoff, a pickup truck carrying several activists is blown up by a device planted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The incident leads to a 45-minute gunfight between the Natives and 400 heavily armed officers. The activists surrender six days later.
The Chippewa occupy Ipperwash Park.
Claiming that the land belongs to them, about 30 Chippewa activists take over the Ipperwash Provincial Park on the shore of Lake Huron in southwestern Ontario. Two days later, one of the occupiers, 38-year old Anthony “Dudley” George, is shot to death by police. The protest ends after the Canadian government on September 12 agrees to return the disputed area to the tribe and to fund an environmental cleanup of the site. (See also entry for MAY 1997.)
The Navajo Nation dedicates a memorial park to Navajo (Dineh) war casualties.
At the Navajo (Dineh) capital of Window Rock, Arizona, a ceremony is held to dedicate the Navajo
Nation Veterans Memorial Park. The memorial is meant to honor all Navajo warriors who have given their lives to protect the Navajo way of life, including the soldiers who have died fighting in American wars.
“[This day is] dedicated to memorialize those who have given the ultimate sacrifice in the services of our country, our land and the Dine [Navajo] way of life, those who gave of themselves in blood; those who bravely fought and have since deceased; those who stood ready in times of peace and those who are still holding vigilance for peace and democracy.”
—Navajo Nation president Albert Hale, during the dedication of the Navajo Nation Veterans Memorial Park
World History
