Table Of ContentThe Praeger Handbook on
Contemporary Issues in
Native America,
Volumes 1 & 2
Bruce E. Johansen
PRAEGER
The Praeger Handbook
on Contemporary Issues
in Native America
Recent Titles in Native America: Yesterday and Today
Bruce E. Johansen, Series Editor
George Washington’s War on Native America
Barbara Alice Mann
The Native Peoples of North America: A History, Two Volumes
Bruce E. Johansen
Daughters of Mother Earth: The Wisdom of Native American Women
Barbara Alice Mann, editor
Iroquois on Fire: A Voice from the Mohawk Nation
Douglas M. George-Kanentiio
Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark,
and Manifest Destiny
Robert J. Miller
The Praeger Handbook
on Contemporary Issues
in Native America
Volume 1
Linguistic, Ethnic, and
Economic Revival
(cid:2)
Bruce E. Johansen
Foreword by Philip J. Deloria
(cid:2)
NATIVE AMERICA: YESTERDAY AND TODAY
Bruce E. Johansen, Series Editor
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johansen, Bruce E. (Bruce Elliott), 1950-
The Praeger handbook on contemporary issues in Native America / Bruce E. Johansen ;
foreword by Philip J. Deloria.
p. cm. — (Native America : yesterday and today, ISSN 1552–8022)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN–13: 978–0–275–99138–8 (set : alk. paper)
ISBN–13: 978–0–275–99139–5 (v. 1 : alk. paper)
ISBN–13: 978–0–275–99140–1 (v. 2 : alk. paper)
ISBN–10: 0–275–99138–5 (set : alk. paper)
[etc.]
1. Indians of North America—Social conditions. 2. Indians of North
America—Government relations. 3. Indians of North America—Politics
and government. 4. Self-determination, National—United States. I. Title.
E98.S67J65 2007
973.04′97—dc22 2006100439
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2007 by Bruce E. Johansen
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006100439
ISBN–10: ISBN–13:
0–275–99138–5 (set) 978–0–275–99138–8 (set)
0–275–99139–3 (vol. 1) 978–0–275–99139–5 (vol. 1)
0–275–99140–7 (vol. 2) 978–0–275–99140–1 (vol. 2)
ISSN:1552–8022
First published in 2007
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cont ents
(cid:2)
Volume 1: Linguistic, Ethnic, and Economic Revival
Foreword by Philip J. Deloria vii
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction xvii
Dedication: On the Passing of Vine Deloria Jr. xxi
1 Back from the (Nearly) Dead: Reviving Indigenous Languages
across North America 3
2 Where Has All the Money Gone? 49
3 Economic Revival: Up from the Bottom on the Reservation 79
4 High-Stakes Genealogy: When Is a Pequot Not a Pequot? 121
5 Names and Games: The Controversy Regarding
“Indian” Sports Mascots and Place-Names 143
Comprehensive Index I
Volume 2: Legal, Cultural, and Environmental Revival
Introduction vii
1 Cast among the Living Dead:
Banishment Is Back 185
vi Contents
2 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: The Curious Conviction of
Leonard Peltier 197
3 Grandfathers of Akwesasne Mohawk Revitalization:
Ray Fadden and Ernest Benedict 209
4 Mestizo Nation: La Plaza de Seattle 229
5 Back to Bushmeat and Berries 245
6 The New Inuit 269
7 The High Price of Uranium in Navajo and Dene Country 295
8 Catharsis vis-à-vis Oppression: Contemporary
Native American Political Humor 309
Selected Bibliography 355
Comprehensive Index 379
Foreword
(cid:2)
C
asinos. And more casinos. And yet still more casinos.
I refer not to a building boom in American Indian gaming establishments but
to the single-note theme sounded by most Americans when the subject is the state
of contemporary Native America. “How come ‘they’ are ‘allowed’ to have casinos?
Why do ‘they’ get such special treatment? How much ‘Indian’ do I have to be
in order to get my share?” And so on. Such conversations happen on airplanes,
on the sidelines of soccer games, at dinner gatherings, and in a hundred other
venues—all settings that tend to foreclose the detailed discussion of issues and
histories that would answer such questions. It is not easy to convince a casual
questioner to explore topics such as the unique constitutional status of tribal enti-
ties, the political relation between state and federal governments, the long history
of treaty-making, the shorter history of federal program development, the budget
cuts of the Reagan era and the concretizing of sovereignty practices, legislation
concerning gaming and the resulting regulatory apparatus, and the ways tribes
determine their membership—all of which make up only a few of the necessary
information points for the discussion of casinos that Americans claim to crave.
In the end, one often simply observes that the situation is far more complicated
than the questioner could ever imagine, a highly unsatisfactory response for all
concerned, and one that actually fails to advance, even in a small way, the goal of
educating non-Indians to the challenges and creativities characteristic of Indian
country, past and present.
Bruce Johansen’s H andbook of Contemporary Issues in Native America offers
answers to that one-note question, but it goes far beyond. Johansen insists not
only on the complexity of this single issue, for example, but of its place within the
broader and more complicated panorama that is Native America today. Gaming, in
his treatment, fi ts within the larger practices of cultural, economic, political, legal,
viii Foreword
linguistic, and even nutritional revival. Fitting these pieces together, Johansen
shows Indian people engaged across a dauntingly broad front in a struggle for
survival and autonomy. Like all broad fronts, a certain amount of unevenness
haunts the struggle: A political success is qualifi ed by a legal setback; an effort at
rethinking food is crossed by the challenges of poverty and environmental change.
And yet Johansen’s treatments—informed by decades of personal and intellectual
observation and experience—suggest that despite the challenges, along that broad
front, Native American people and societies are indeed resurgent.
This book fi ts logically into Bruce Johansen’s own journey as a writer and scholar
and reveals him to be a gift-giver of the fi rst order. What do I mean by that? Here
is a favorite example: My son’s high school civics teacher asks students for fi ve
infl uences on U.S. democracy. The supposedly right answers from the textbook
are (in mildly simplifi ed form): English common law (visible, for instance, in the
Bill of Rights); natural law, as expressed by John Locke; classical republicanism,
translated from ancient Rome by Jefferson and others; Montesquieu’s concern
with territorial expansion and the separation of powers; and (most vaguely) the
general sense of religiosity found in early America.
“Are there only fi ve?” I ask.
“Well, that’s all that are on the test.”
Grumbling about the mind-killing nature of contemporary education and yet
smiling at the possibility of an important educational moment, I pull down from
the shelf Bruce Johansen’s and Donald Grinde’s E xemplar of Liberty: Native A merica
and the Evolution of Democracy. “Take a look at this,” I tell him, “and go back and
ask your teacher about the Iroquois Confederacy.”
Exemplar of Liberty and Johansen’s earlier sole-authored book Forgotten Founders:
Benjamin Franklin, the Iroquois, and the Rationale for the American Revolution (which
is on the shelf in my offi ce rather than at home) stand as signal contributions to
our understanding of the early republic. As if it were somehow o utrageous to add
one more element to the standard list of fi ve European infl uences, however, white
scholars of the Iroquois and conservative pundits viciously attacked these books fol-
lowing their publication. And here one is able to make clear the distinction between
so-called scholarly contributions and the giving of gifts. Johansen’s great gift was his
willingness to stand and fi ght, sharpen his arguments, intensify his research, and
push his assertions, all in the face of a withering assault from a number of quarters.
If it no longer seems a particularly outrageous assertion that perhaps the Iroquois
Confederacy offered both model and advice to Franklin and other founders (and it
should not), we have Bruce Johansen (as well as Grinde and a number of their other
comrades) to thank for that. If a sixth infl uence on U.S. democratic government—
an aboriginal infl uence—has not yet made its way into high school civics textbooks,
Johansen and others have nonetheless given us the tools to continue to question the
master narrative. Alterations in that narrative require repeated challenges, but we
can be confi dent that time, quite literally, will tell. Our entire national culture, in
this sense, owes a debt of gratitude for this gift—and for the others that emerge from
Johansen’s substantial body of writings.
Foreword ix
My father, Vine Deloria Jr., was a longtime supporter of Bruce Johansen and
his work and wrote forewords to a number of Johansen’s books. With these vol-
umes, Professor Johansen returns the favor, offering an extensive and heartfelt
dedication to my father. I feel fortunate—and honored—to be able to send my
appreciation, and that of my family, caroming back again in his direction. For
us, this dedication comes as yet one more gift from Bruce Johansen. For you, the
reader, these volumes make up another kind of gift, for they offer the stories and
the tools to think richly about the state of contemporary Native America. Here
one can move beyond the single-note concerns surrounding public perceptions
of Indian gaming into a complicated series of issues, treated with the complexity
and insight they deserve. I imagine my father looking across from the other side,
smiling with his own approval at yet one more educational moment, courtesy of
Bruce Johansen.
Philip J. Deloria
