[Pauline Girvin-Montoya, a federal Indian law attorney and tree sitter is Director of the Mendocino County Inter-Tribal Repatriation Project.]

California Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the source of power from which all other powers derive. In the context of Indian nations, it is the power to regulate one's territory and people.15

Sovereign power comes from a different source for different nations. For the Hopi it derived from the Kiva societies and the religious elders. The Hopi have a religious sense of sovereign governance. Supreme Court law has defined Indian tribes to be nations within a nation, affording them a status higher than states. A nation signs a treaty. A nation enters into government-to-government relations with the federal government. 

Tribal status is based on treaties, executive agreements and the federal Constitution. However, in the early years the Supreme Court also held that Congress has a plenary power over Indian nations -- absolute power. This way the government could abrogate the terms of numerous treaties. The Supreme Court could also duck an issue by asserting the political question doctrine. This, in essence, provided a way to defer to the Congress as the federal entity most appropriately suited to handle policy issues. The combination of the plenary power doctrine and the political question dodge has allowed for the implementation of many anti-Indian laws. 

Indian sovereignty has developed against a backdrop of federal and state hostility. The original treaties were signed to stop wars and to gain millions of acres of land from the Indians. Since then, the federal government has made several efforts to assimilate Indians into the mainstream. During the "allotment" period -- late 1800s to the early 1900s -- reservations were carved up into private property holdings per individual family. This opened all the "surplus land" in the reservations for white settlers. Through the privatization of the tribal land base, vast numbers of acres went out of Indian ownership. Starting in the 1950s, there was an attempt to terminate Indian nations in California. Federal trust responsibilities and Indian tribal status were eliminated through Congressional law and reservation-based Indians were forced to relocate to urban settings. 

The current period of Indian self-determination was initiated in the Richard Nixon era with the passage of the Indian Self Determination Act. Indian tribal sovereignty is deferred to by Federal authorities as Indian nations wean themselves from dependency on the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Tribes are enacting governing laws and learning what it is to be a nation. Their heart knowledge of how to care for their own people is becoming more effective than dependence on the Bureau of Indian Affairs or agents of a distant Federal government. 

For Indian nations, sovereignty is a dynamic struggle. Tribes must maintain programs, services and community safety against ongoing efforts by the Federal and State governments to undermine tribal jurisdiction. Through the plenary power doctrine Congress was able to create Public Law 280, which puts Indian tribes in California under state criminal law. In most other states this is not the case. Congress also reacted with backlash legislation by passing the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act a year after Indian gaming rights in California were upheld by the Supreme Court. This legislation mandates that Indian nations compact with state governors regarding their gaming operations. 

Strong lobbies from state and local governments want to take away the perceived "special status" of the Indian people. This anti-Indian lobby is illustrated in the tribal fishing rights struggle. Fishing rights were hard-fought-for in California, in Washington, in Alaska, and elsewhere. Citizen groups, who came out en masse with vigilante tactics, tried to destroy the treaty-based rights of Indians to fish in a broader ratio than is afforded to non-Indians. Fishermen on the Mendocino Coast are still aghast and upset that the Klamath River-area tribes have executive order/treaty based rights to fishing. People forget that the white invaders' occupation of this land was gained by treaty. They need to honor the contracts made by their forebears. Honest and decent business people should respect the contracts on which their nation is based and on which their occupancy of this territory is premised. 

In California, the history with the Indians is so bleak and barbaric that the true story wasn't included in school curriculums. The articulated Indian policy of California was extermination. Bounties were paid by the state legislature for Indian scalps. Indian slavery was allowed by state act. Indians were deemed trespassers on the public domain. And the eighteen treaties with the California Indian nations were never honored by the U.S. Congress because of a formidable California lobby based on Gold Rush fever. California citizens and legislators assumed that treatied lands might contain gold so they successfully lobbied the U.S. Senate not to ratify these treaties. The years of early California statehood introduced a period of brutal racism and massacre of Indians. The Advisory Council on California Indians Policies has submitted a report to Congress detailing these "inequities" which still persist today. This report is now avaliable for public review. 

International Sovereignty

In the New World Order, the struggle for Indian sovereignty becomes the litmus test for all people's rights. When the Zapatistas took a stand on the first day NAFTA was to be implemented, a large message was sent to the world. The Indians there realized that in a dirty side deal to NAFTA, the Mexican constitution -- crafted by Zapata and the Mexican Revolution -- had been fundamentally altered. The constitution afforded a communal land base for Indian nations and impoverished campesinos called the ejido system.

To get to the NAFTA bargaining table, the Mexican Congress amended the Constitution to allow for privatization of the Indian communal land. Hearing of the sweatshops on the border of Mexico and the United States, the Indians knew that they were next in line. Soon there would be vast agra-cooperatives financed by North American dollars and large financial enterprises to which they would become the slave class. 

Knowing that sovereignty requires a land base and that privatization of land would lead to further impoverishment, the Maya Indians of Mexico took a stand against NAFTA. The shot against NAFTA that ricocheted out of Chiapas was similar to Tianamen Square. International attention focused on a small Indian army giving a voice to the struggles of many working people who are worried about the New World Order, which includes Fast Track, NAFTA and GATT. 

In this new order the citizens become the pawns of a large brokered deal made by multi-national corporations. We were honored that the Maya Indians took the first stand. They were willing to shed blood for their people and territory. After the stand at Coyote Valley -- which in a microcosm was a training ground in the struggle for sovereignty -- Priscilla, her mother Delma, and I and a handful of others went to Chiapas to stand with the Indians against the International New World Order, the international field of corporate powers. In this plan the rich get richer. Minority people stay at the level of fast food servers and store clerks. The Indians become the slaves once again and all the power is vested in the hands of relatively few people. 

On our trip, we learned that the rebirth of Indian nationhood would develop when the eagle meets the condor, when the north joins the south, when the Indians of the entire continent stand for their sovereignty together. A new dawn will be coming. The Indian nations are the teachers of all those who believe in democracy. Remember, the United States modeled its representative democracy on the Iroquois confederacy and their Long House assembly. 

Ancestor spirits hover over this land. We are not alone. We are here in the territory of native peoples whose ancestors are right near by. The European invader has much to learn from both the political and spiritual power of the Indian nations that still survive. If they hearken back to their forebears who fought the British and resisted unjust laws, those who understand democracy at its core should stand by the Indian nations in this struggle today. 

Spiritual Sovereignty

Ancestor spirits are disturbed and crying out. Very important ceremonial material is being improperly treated in dusty drawers of universities and museums. This is a mental health issue for Indian nations. By bringing sacred materials back to the Round Houses and reburying Indian remains, we mend the broken circle. Repatriation means "to bring home" -- bringing home materials that were stolen at the time of conquest. This is a healing. The spirits will be at peace. The ceremonies will be properly honored. 

Under the terms of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Round House traditional practitioners will work hand in hand with tribal leaders. The strength of tribal nations is being honored by this law. If the tribe has no Round House, we can bring back sacred materials to restore a native religion. There are no conditions for the return of sacred and ceremonial items. The Indian nation states its claim that a sacred or ceremonial object should never have been alienated. There was no power to sell it. Under traditional laws and customs, nothing could be sold or removed from the Round Houses. There could only be conveyances of ceremonial regalia within a family or within the cultural context of the nation but not outside it. 

We need to keep a close ear to the Indian nation's struggle to survive and to be respectful in their territory. If the prophecy is correct, reuniting the eagle and the condor will bring renewed vibrancy to our entire continent. 

15 Pauline Girvin-Montoya, "Tribal Sovereignty," Sojourn Magazine, Volume 2: Issue 1, Winter 1998 <http://www.gracemillennium.com/sojourn/winter98/html/montoya.html>.

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