Where Incas Ruled, Natives are Hoping for Power

Achacachi, Bolivia - After centuries of misery and discrimination, indigenous people across the region are flexing their political muscles, moving to wrest power from the largely European ruling elite but also dreaming of an independent state.

Such a state could look a lot like this bleak town in the highlands, where the police and central government authorities were chased out long ago, their offices destroyed by seething Aymara Indians. The Bolivian flag has given way to the seven-color Wipala, the flag of the Indian nation. Roads linking this landlocked country to the world were also blockaded frequently, a lever to prod the government to meet ever-tougher demands.

The political awakening has extended into Peru, where indigenous people have also closed highways and taken over some small towns. In Ecuador, groups of the Pachakutik movement have pledged to step up protests meant to force the resignation of President Lucio Gutiérrez, whom they helped to put in power but who has fallen out of favor over his free-market policies.

It is in Bolivia, the most indigenous country in Latin America, where they hold the most influence. One crossroads for the two visions of Bolivia will come Sunday, when a referendum is held on the issue of how to use the country's abundant natural gas, either exporting it in the hope of conventional economic development, or keeping it for use at home. The outcome could ignite new protests unless President Carlos Mesa is able to finesse the issue through his complicated five-question ballot.

Support Kalyn Free, Choctaw, For Congress

Kalyn Free, a member of the Choctaw Nation, is supported by Moveon.org in her run for Congress from the 2nd Congressional District in Eastern Oklahoma.

Roller-coaster life of Indian icon, sports' first star

July 15, 1912: Jim Thorpe reigns at Games

One was a well-to-do Scandinavian royal, the other an unassuming American athlete born in a one-room cabin in rural, destitute Indian territory. On July 15, 1912, in Stockholm, few could question who ruled the day.

"Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world," said Sweden's King Gustav V.

"Thanks, King," Jim Thorpe replied.

Thorpe had just captured a gold medal in the decathlon, his second after winning the pentathlon days earlier -- remarkably winning eight of the two events' 15 individual segments.

Major Indian burial site uncovered

Archaeologists are sifting through 80 sets of centuries-old human remains and artifacts discovered in a Lafayette construction site that could provide new insight into the lives of those who inhabited the region long before the Spanish arrived.

With at least as many Native American remains and artifacts -- including projectile points, stone mortars and beads -- still hidden beneath what soon will be two dozen upscale homes, experts say they may have discovered one of the region's last large, and largely intact, Indian burial sites.

Joy Harjo's New CD Native Joy is now available!

Joy Harjo's New CD Native Joy is now available by mail order in prerelease. A sample song and ordering information are available.

A Native child left behind

"Cindy Sohappy was 16 when she died of acute alcohol poisoning at her boarding school in December of 2003.

After a six-month investigation and consideration of involuntary manslaughter charges against federal employees of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs' residential school, the U.S. Attorney announced this week that no charges will be filed in the case.

In Utah, Ancient Ruins Are Revealed After Long Wait

HORSE CANYON, Utah, June 30 — Archaeologists pulled aside a curtain on Wednesday to reveal what can only be called a secret garden: the pristinely preserved ruins of an ancient civilization that was long ago lost to the mists of time in the remote cliffs of eastern Utah, then resolutely protected over the last 50 years by a stubborn local rancher who kept mum about what he knew.

The ruins, called Range Creek, are spread over thousands of acres, much of it in inaccessible back country and reachable only through a single-track dirt road once owned by the rancher and recently bought by the State of Utah. Preliminary research dates the settlement from about A.D. 900 to 1100, during the period of the Fremont Indian culture.

More Slot Machines for Tribes, and $1 Billion for California

SACRAMENTO, June 21 - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger struck a bargain on Monday with five California Indian tribes that will provide the state with a quick cash infusion of $1 billion while permitting a sizable expansion of tribal gambling operations in the state.

The deal is a sharp reversal for the governor, who in his campaign last fall demonized the tribes as a "special interest" that did not pay a fair share of its billions of dollars in gambling revenue to the state.

The five tribes that signed new compacts with the state own something less than 20 percent of the slot machines now in operation at 50 Indian casinos around California. Mr. Schwarzenegger said he hoped the dozens of other casino-operating tribes would reach similar agreements with the state.

Deal Is Near on Casinos in California

LOS ANGELES, June 16 - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is about to conclude a deal with California Indian tribes that will bring a major expansion of gambling on tribal lands while providing the state a bigger share of their casino revenues.

The agreement would essentially undo compacts between the state and the tribes negotiated five years ago by former Gov. Gray Davis, under which the tribes pay virtually nothing to the state from their estimated $5 billion in annual gambling revenues.

State officials said Wednesday that they hoped to announce an agreement next Monday with five tribes that would bring the state an immediate infusion of $1 billion in badly needed cash and annual payments of several hundred million dollars for the next 25 years.

When the Bush Energy Policy Confronts Ancient Art

PRICE, Utah - Blaine Miller, a quiet, slow-talking 57-year-old archaeologist, has made a career of studying the haunting scenes of net-wielding hunters and sinuous horned snakes on the smooth rock faces of Nine Mile Canyon near here. His colleagues consider him a leading expert on the 400- to 1,500-year-old images etched and daubed on the canyon walls. But Mr. Miller's bosses at the Bureau of Land Management barred him from evaluating recent proposals for natural gas exploration around the canyon after a gas company executive complained about his work.

Mr. Miller said he had sought more stringent protections for the rock art than the government eventually required. His bosses said he had the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The quiet drama that has played out in the last year because of Mr. Miller's removal from the development review reflects not just the polarization typical of battles between industry and preservationists, but also the pressures on the regulators controlling federal land.

Catskills Casino Advances in Deal Between Tribe and State

A $500 million Las Vegas-style casino in the Catskills moved significantly closer to reality yesterday when the Pataki administration signed an agreement with the Cayuga Indian Nation, settling the tribe's 200-year-old claim to 64,000 acres in upstate New York in exchange for casino revenues.

If it is built, the casino in Monticello in Sullivan County will be the closest one to New York City, only 90 miles away, and will dwarf the four Indian gambling halls already operating in the state. With analysts estimating that it could pull in $1 billion a year in revenues, the casino would likely pose significant competition to the Atlantic City gambling resort and the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut.

Developer Unearths Burial Ground and Stirs Up Anger Among Indians

LOS ANGELES, May 28 - With the precision of a watchmaker, an archaeologist clasped a small paintbrush and gently swept the brown, sandy dirt off the spine of a Native American woman buried some 200 years ago.

From the condition of the bones, the archaeologist, Penny Minturn, deduced that the woman was 30 to 40 years old when she died, had suffered from arthritis and had recently given birth, and that her diet had probably consisted of shellfish, native plants, nuts and berries.

U.S. apology to Indians considered

WASHINGTON -- An official apology for the way the United States and its citizens have mistreated American Indians and the country's other indigenous people is starting to move through Congress.

"I know there's potential for this being controversial," said the apology's author, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. He recalled the barrage of vitriolic phone calls a few years ago that blocked a similar attempt by former Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, to obtain an official apology to the descendants of former slaves.

"But the circumstances are different," he said. "With the maturity of the sovereign tribes being acknowledged, the opening this fall (on Washington's Mall) of the museum recognizing the contribution of Native Americans, this is a moment that could be used, not to heal all old wounds, but to start building a new relationship."

Iqaluit Journal: Snuffing Out a Smoky Way of Life in the Canadian Arctic

IQALUIT, Nunavut - Smoking bans are infiltrating even the haziest corners of tobacco-loving cultures. When Ireland moved to ban cigarettes from pubs last year, the world watched in wonder. The Netherlands, facing its own ban in 2005, has experienced a hullabaloo over the issue. The shivering sidewalk smoker has become a predictable part of the Manhattan winter streetscape.

But all that may pale compared with the icy Canadian Arctic. Smoking has been an integral part of life here since European whalers introduced tobacco while docking in the region's fjords in the late 19th century. It is so common among the native Inuit who dominate the local population that grandfathers are known to light up with their grandchildren during breaks from hunting.

Portion of Indian Island returned to Wiyot tribe

EUREKA -- "We're about to create history," said City Manager David Tyson at the Eureka City Council meeting on Tuesday night.

The Council Chambers were packed with supporters of a resolution to return 40 acres of Indian Island to the Wiyot people. The resolution passed with the unanimous support of the council, making Eureka the only city in California to return a sacred site to native people.

Explorers Still Seek El Dorado in the Mountains of Peru

CUZCO, Peru - It was just a sparkle on the horizon, where the sun hit what appeared to be a flat plain on an otherwise steep, untamed mountain in the Peruvian Andes. But Peter Frost, a British-born explorer and mountain guide, surmised that the perch would have made a perfect ceremonial platform for Inca rulers.

So Mr. Frost and the adventure hikers he was leading slogged through heavy jungle growth and at 13,000 feet uncovered remnants of the Inca civilization that flourished here. They found looted tombs, a circular building foundation and the stonework of an aqueduct.

The discovery in 1999 of Qoriwayrachina (pronounced co-ree-why-rah-CHEE-nah) was instantly hailed as a major find. It evoked the romantic image of the swashbuckling explorer unearthing a Lost City, an image embodied by Hiram Bingham, the American who in 1911 made the greatest Inca discovery of them all, Machu Picchu.

First Book Award Competition

Guidelines for the First Book Award Competition from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas are now available.

Guatemalan Jungles Yield a Wealth of Maya Treasure

For archaeologists, the digging this season has been especially good at remote Maya ruins in the jungles of Guatemala.

Beneath a royal palace in the ancient city of Waka, they made a rare discovery: the tomb of a Maya queen who reigned more than 1,200 years ago. The royal skeleton rested on a stone platform, surrounded by fineries of wealth and power like pearls, obsidian, crown jewels of carved jade and the remains of what appeared to be the queen's war helmet.

At the eighth-century city of Cancuén, archaeologists uncovered a stone panel decorated with beautiful images and inscriptions carved in high relief. Experts described the panel, portraying ceremonies at the royal ball court, as a masterpiece of Maya art.

Peabody’s Closure Could Signal Financial Downward Spiral for Hopi Tribe

Black Mesa learned that beginning in 2006, PWCC will commence shutting down mining operations which means a direct loss of $7.7 million or approximately 1/3 of the Hopi Tribe’s operating budget.

“If Mohave is not guaranteed an alternate water supply, Peabody will begin partial shutdown by the end of 2005 for a few months and launch full closure from 2006 for four years,” John Wasik, Peabody’s group executive for southwest operations, told the crowd consisting of tribal council members and department managers last month.

The mines closure spell a significant decrease in scholarship funding for the Hopi tribe. Peabody has since contributed $2.7 million dollars since 1987 and contribute $165,000 annually for Hopi scholarships.

Discovery Pushes Back Date of 'Classic' Maya

A discovery of monumental carved masks and elaborate jade ritual objects in 2,000-year-old ruins of a city in Guatemala is raising serious questions about the chronology of the enigmatic Mayan civilization. In many respects, the city appeared to be ahead of its time.

The leader of excavations there, Dr. Francisco Estrada-Belli of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said yesterday that the city, Cival, appeared to have been one of the earliest and largest in what is generally regarded as the preclassic period. But it has been found to have all the hallmarks of a classic Mayan city: kings, complex iconography, grand palaces, polychrome ceramics and writing.