Tribes laud Biden designation of national monuments in California

President Joe Biden this week announced plans to designate two new national monuments in California as part of his “America the Beautiful” initiative to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

The Chuckwalla National Monument in the southern desert region encompasses about 260,000 hectares (624,000 acres) near Joshua Tree National Park on the ancestral lands of the Iviatim, Nüwü, Pipa Aha Macav, Kwatsáan, and Maara’yam peoples – today, the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan, and Serrano Nations.

“The area includes village sites, camps, quarries, food processing sites, power places, trails, glyphs, and story and song locations, all of which are evidence of the Cahuilla peoples’ and other Tribes’ close and spiritual relationship to these desert lands," Erica Schenk, Chairwoman of the Cahuilla Band of Indians, said in a statement.

To the north, the Sattitla Highlands National Monument will protect 90,650 hectares (224,000) acres of ancestral lands in Shasta-Trinity, Klamath, and Modoc National Forests near Mount Shasta. This region is sacred to the Pit River Nation and will safeguard critical water resources and rare wildlife species.

In Biden’s final days in office, his administration has issued several environmental protections. On Monday, he banned oil and gas drilling in more than 24 million hectares ( 600 million acres) of coastal waters; on Dec. 26, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland instituted a 20-year ban on mining activities in portions of South Dakota’s Black Hills; and on Dec. 30, his administration announced a 20-year withdrawal of all oil, gas and geothermal development in Nevada’s Ruby Mountain area.

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Little interest in Arctic oil and gas leases

The Interior Department announced this week that no bids were submitted for the second oil and gas lease sale in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

This sale, required by the 2017 Tax Act, aimed to generate $2 billion over 10 years but failed to attract interest. The first sale was held under the Trump administration and also saw little demand, raising only $14.4 million.

All previous leases have been canceled, leaving no active leases in the area.

Interior Department Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis said the lack of interest shows the Arctic Refuge is too special to risk with drilling.

“The BLM [Bureau of Land Management] has followed the law and held two lease sales that have exposed the false promises made in the Tax Act. The oil and gas industry is sitting on millions of acres of undeveloped leases elsewhere; we’d suggest that’s a prudent place to start, rather than engage further in speculative leasing in one of the most spectacular places in the world.”

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Documentary about tribal disenrollment dropped from film festival

Film director Ryan Flynn says he was “elated” in October when his documentary “You’re No Indian” was selected for screening at the 36th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, which runs through Jan. 13 (see film trailer, above).

The film concerns the growing trend of tribal disenrollment by which some Native American tribes strip individuals and families of their citizenship, making them ineligible for federal benefits and services and, as the documentary stresses, shares in casino revenue.

“When they announced the film schedule, we sold out on the first day,” Flynn said. “And then in mid-December, we got an email saying there had been a scheduling error, and they wouldn’t be able to move forward with our screening.”

Flynn said he was heartbroken.

“I don't mean heartbroken for myself,” he said. “It's for the people whose voices you have been systematically silenced by the powers that be.”

Indigenous rights attorney Gabe Galanda, a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in California, told VOA that approximately 10,000 tribal citizens from almost 100 tribes have been disenrolled.

VOA reached out to the film festival for comment.

“Due to an unforeseen scheduling error, the festival was unable to proceed with screenings of the film YOU’RE NO INDIAN,” a spokesperson responded via email. “The festival programming team reached out to the filmmaker to explain the situation and offered to reimburse the director for any non-refundable festival travel fees that may have been incurred.”

Federal report shows Native Americans wrongfully billed for health care

Native Americans are twice as likely to have medical debt sent to collections, with average debts that are one-third higher than the national average. This problem is worsened by limited access to year-round health care through the Indian Health Service and inconsistent Medicaid coverage between states, reports the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The IHS is responsible for providing free health care services in regional clinics. Where specialty services aren’t available, patients may be approved for emergency care outside the program at no cost.

Errors in bill processing and payment delays mean Native individuals are frequently billed for debts they should not owe, the consumer protection bureau says. Improper medical debt can damage individuals’ credit, making them ineligible for jobs, housing, loans and educational opportunities.

The Indian Health Service is responsible for providing free health care services in regional clinics. Where specialty services aren’t available, patients may be approved for emergency care outside the program at no cost.

Read more here.

Dangerously high winds forced U.S. President Joe Biden to cancel a trip Tuesday to the Eastern Coachella Valley, where he was to announce the creation of two new national monuments in California that will honor Native American tribes.

Winds began gaining strength across Southern California as forecasters warned of "life-threatening, destructive" gusts. The president was in his limousine ready to leave Los Angeles when the event was canceled. The White House initially said Biden would speak in Los Angeles but later announced the event would be rescheduled at the White House next week at a time when others could attend.

The National Weather Service said it could be the strongest Santa Ana windstorm in more than a decade and it will peak in the early hours of Wednesday, when gusts could reach 129 kilometers per hour. Isolated gusts could top 160 kph in mountains and foothills.

Biden's announcement was part of his administration's effort to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 through his "America the Beautiful" initiative. But the cancellation of the trip was also a stark reminder of another administration priority: climate change and the increasing effects of extreme weather.

The proclamations name the Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park and the Sattitla National Monument in Northern California. The declarations bar drilling and mining and other development on the 2,400-square-kilometer Chuckwalla site and roughly 800 square kilometers near the Oregon border in Northern California.

The new monuments protect clean water for communities, honor areas of cultural significance to tribal nations and Indigenous peoples and enhance access to nature, the White House said.

Biden, who has two weeks left in office, announced Monday he will ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters, including in California and other West Coast states. The plan is intended to block possible efforts by the incoming Trump administration to expand offshore drilling.

SEE ALSO:

Biden, in 11th hour action, bans new offshore oil and gas drilling in most federal waters  

The flurry of activity has been in line with the Democratic president's "America the Beautiful" initiative launched in 2021, aimed at honoring tribal heritage, meeting federal goals to conserve 30% of public lands and waters by 2030 and addressing climate change.

The Pit River Tribe has worked to get the federal government to designate the Sattitla National Monument. The area is a spiritual center for the Pit River and Modoc Tribes and encompasses mountain woodlands and meadows that are home to rare flowers and wildlife.

SEE ALSO:

Biden designates national monument at site of Carlisle Indian school

Several Native American tribes and environmental groups began pushing Biden to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument, named after the large desert lizard, in early 2023. The monument would protect public lands south of Joshua Tree National Park, spanning the Coachella Valley region in the west to near the Colorado River.

Advocates say the monument will protect a tribal cultural landscape, ensure access to nature for residents and preserve military history sites.

"The designation of the Chuckwalla and Sattitla National Monuments in California marks an historic step toward protecting lands of profound cultural, ecological and historical significance for all Americans," said Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for Public Land.

The new monuments "honor the enduring stewardship of Tribal Nations and the tireless efforts of local communities and conservation advocates who fought to safeguard these irreplaceable landscapes for future generations,'' Hauser said.

Senator Alex Padilla of California called the new monuments a major victory that will safeguard the state's public lands for generations to come.

Designation of the Chuckwalla monument "accelerates our state's crucial efforts to fight the climate crisis, protect our iconic wildlife, preserve sacred tribal sites and promote clean energy," Padilla said. The new Sattitla monument, meanwhile, ensures that land that has "long served as the spiritual center for the Pit River and Modoc Nation" will "endure for generations to come," Padilla said.

The Chuckwalla monument is intended to honor tribal sovereignty by including local tribes as co-stewards, following in the footsteps of a recent wave of monuments such as the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which is overseen in conjunction with five tribal nations.

"The protection of the Chuckwalla National Monument brings the Quechan people an overwhelming sense of peace and joy," the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe said in a statement. "Tribes being reunited as stewards of this landscape is only the beginning of much-needed healing and restoration, and we are eager to fully rebuild our relationship to this place."

In May, the Biden administration expanded two national monuments in California — the San Gabriel Mountains in the south and Berryessa Snow Mountain in the north. In October, Biden designated the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary along the coast of central California, which will include input from the local Chumash tribes in how the area is preserved.

Last year, the Yurok Tribe in Northern California also became the first Native people to manage tribal land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed by the tribe, Redwood National and State Parks and the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League, which is conveying the land to the tribe.

The 2024 elections in the U.S. highlighted the growing impact of Native American voters, especially in swing states such as Arizona. Home to 22 tribes, Native voters played a key role in that state’s results.

Unfounded claims of voter fraud and election irregularities four years ago triggered a surge of restrictive voting laws across the United States for this year’s vote, raising concerns about potential harassment and intimidation of voters and poll workers.

Exit polls showed a shift in Native American support toward Republican Donald Trump, driven by economic concerns and alignment with his party’s traditional values.

Biden apologizes for federal boarding school system

During his October visit to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, President Joe Biden delivered a long-awaited official apology to Native Americans for the Indian boarding school system that severed the family, tribal and cultural ties of thousands of Indian children over multiple generations.

“I say this with all sincerity: This, to me, is one of the most consequential things I've ever had an opportunity to do in my whole career as president of the United States,” Biden said, calling it his “solemn responsibility.”

In a related story, the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in May launched the National Indian Boarding School Digital Archive, a public archive of information on boarding schools and students that includes documents, photographs and other ephemera.

Supreme Court: Feds must pay for tribal health care programs

In a landmark June decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Indian Health Service (IHS) must fully reimburse tribes for the administrative costs of running their own health care programs.

Chief Justice John Roberts explained that if the federal government’s position had prevailed — opposing payment of administrative costs — it would have created a “systemic funding shortfall” for tribes that chose to manage their own health care programs, thus imposing “a penalty for pursuing self-determination.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that the ruling could cost the government as much as $2 billion.

The 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act allows federally recognized tribes to contract with the Indian Health Service to operate their own health care programs, which IHS would otherwise manage. When a tribe opts for this arrangement, IHS provides the funds it would have used to run those programs.

Museums, institutions, under pressure to return Native remains

The Interior Department issued new regulations in 2024 to improve compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Passed in 1990, it calls on federally funded museums and other institutions to inventory and return to tribal communities all ancestral remains and funerary objects.

The new rules cut out a loophole that allowed institutions to hang onto “culturally unidentifiable” remains and give tribes a greater say in the process. Throughout the year, institutions have made some progress, but as ABC News reported in November, nearly 500 museums and federal agencies have so far failed to identify or make available for repatriation more than 90,000 remains and associated cultural objects.

South Dakota governor banned from nine Indian reservations

Since taking office in 2019, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has had a tense relationship with the nine tribes in her state. Tensions escalated in January when Noem accused Mexican drug cartels of operating on reservations and then later suggested that tribal leaders were “personally benefiting” from that drug trade.

Oglala Lakota tribal president, Frank Star Comes Out, who had earlier declared a state of emergency over drug use and violence on the Pine Ridge Reservation, accused Noem of being politically motivated and in February became the first of nine tribes to ban her from the reservation.

Land Back movement sees some wins

The Land Back movement, a push for the return of lands lost to colonization, grew in momentum in 2024, and several tribes regained control of land or ancestral territories.

Among the successes, the Yurok Tribe of coastal California signed a memorandum of understanding to co-manage with the National Park Service 50 hectares (125 acres) of land they lost after the California gold rush in the mid-19th century.

TheLeech Lake Band of Ojibwe reclaimed more than 4760 hectares (11,000 acres) of ancestral land that the federal government seized from them in the 1940s.

And in the largest ever return of Indigenous land, the nonprofit Trust for Public Land returned 12,545 hectares (31,000 acres) to the Penobscot Tribe in Maine, with no easements or restrictions on its use.

Birth of white buffalo viewed as a blessing and a warning

A rare white buffalo calf was born June 4 in Yellowstone National Park's Lamar Valley, an event of profound cultural and spiritual significance for many Native American tribes.
According to Lakota tradition, White Buffalo Calf Woman appeared to the Lakota people during a time of great need, bringing them the sacred pipe and teachings of harmony, respect and gratitude for the Earth.

The pipe has been passed down for generations and is now held by Chief Arvol Looking Horse from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, who explains the tradition in the video below:

Looking Horse presided over a ceremony in Yellowstone June 26, naming the calf Wakan Gli, (“Sacred Return”) and warning that the calf’s birth was both a fulfillment of prophecy and a warning for people to unite and protect the earth.

Each year, the Sitanka Wokiksuye, or Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride, remembers the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre with a 14-day journey on horseback from the Cheyenne River Reservation to the site of that violence on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation.

By the late 1880s, the Native American Lakota tribe was confined to reservations, their traditional ways of life forbidden, and the buffalo, critical to their survival, were decimated. Left to survive on inadequate U.S. government rations, the Lakota and many other tribes found hope in the Ghost Dance, a messianic movement that promised a return to their former way of life.

The U.S. Army interpreted the dance as a call to arms and sent the 7th Cavalry to suppress the dancing and arrest Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull, who the U.S. government believed was orchestrating rebellion.

Sitting Bull was shot dead, and his half-brother, Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitanka, dubbed Big Foot, led his followers to consult with the Oglala leadership on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The Army intercepted them and forced them to camp at Wounded Knee village; the next day, while confiscating weapons, a shot rang out, triggering the Army to open fire. By the end of the day, Big Foot and about 300 Lakota, including unarmed women, and children, lay dead. The event was celebrated as a victory for the U.S. Army, and the government awarded Medals of Honor to 20 cavalry soldiers for their actions.

This year, the Big Foot riders and their supporters hoped that President Joe Biden might revoke those medals.

Oliver “O.J.” Semans has spent years lobbying U.S. administrations to “take back honor wrongly bestowed.” The Sicangu Lakota voting rights advocate from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota lost many ancestors in that violence and said, “If Biden’s going to do anything, the best day would be December 29th” as that is the anniversary of the massacre.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the Remove the Stain Act in 2019, calling on the Army to revoke those Medals of Honor. Despite some bipartisan support and backing from Native leaders and advocacy groups, the bill did not advance.

Administrative action

This July, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a review of medals of honor given for what he called the “engagement” at Wounded Knee to assess whether awardees violated the laws and military ethics of the era.

"It's never too late to do what's right," said an unnamed senior defense official quoted in the Pentagon press release that announced the decision. "And that's what is intended by the review that the secretary directed, which is to ensure that we go back and review each of these medals in a rigorous and individualized manner to understand the actions of the individual in the context of the overall engagement."

Austin directed a review panel of five members – three from the Department of Defense and two from the Interior Department -- to gather all relevant historical records and assess the actions of those soldiers based not on today’s standards but by those at the time.

"This is not a retrospective review," said another unnamed DoD official in the same Pentagon press release. "We're applying the standards at the time. And that's critical because we want to make sure that as these are reviewed and as a recommendation is made to the secretary and then to the president that we have applied the standards appropriately, while ensuring that we look at the context.”

The U.S. Army’s 1863 General Orders No. 100, also known as the “Lieber Code,” banned using excessive force, killing noncombatants, attacking during a ceasefire, and looting.

The Army held two sets of hearings on the matter in early 1891, interviewing officers and witnesses that included newspaper reporters, a surgeon and a Catholic priest.

“The Army was on the cusp of being a modern professional force, and so they at least made an effort to investigate allegations of crimes at Wounded Knee,” said Dwight S. Mears, author of “The Medal of Honor: The Evolution of America's Highest Military Decoration.”

In the end, the Army excused the cavalry’s actions as accidental and unintentional, and the U.S. Secretary of War recommended commendations.

“There was no political will to prosecute anybody, but they did collect a lot of evidence,” Mears said, “and if you sift through that with a critical eye, you can find a whole bunch of places where officers misrepresented themselves, which is a crime under oath.”

Three months after the massacre, the first Medal of Honor for Wounded Knee was awarded to an officer who, according to the medal citation “killed a hostile Indian at close quarters, and although entitled to retirement from service, remained to the close of the campaign.”

An award without guidelines

The U.S. Medal of Honor was created in 1863 to recognize acts of bravery, gallantry, and other distinguished actions in battle.

"But the Army didn't publish any standards for awarding it until 1889, so the commanding general of the Army just gave the medal out however he saw fit,” Mears explains.

In 1916, Congress directed the Army to review more than 2,600 medals and determine whether any had been issued “for any cause other than distinguished conduct by an officer or enlisted man in action involving actual conflict with an enemy.”

After an eight-month review, the Army struck more than 900 medals from the record. All of the Wounded Knee medals remained in place.

This year’s Wounded Knee review panel was given until October 15 to present its findings. By mid-November, Cheyenne River Sioux President Ryman LeBeau reported that the panel had voted three-to-two in favor of maintaining all medals awarded.

Semans believes that review was flawed from the start.

“Military historians weren’t used, and it was done over such a short period of time that evidence really couldn’t be put together,” he said.

Senator Warren and South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds asked the Interior and Defense departments to extend the review’s deadline to give stakeholders — including tribes, survivor descendants and historians a chance to weigh in.

"The devil is in the details,” Mears said. “If you don't know what actually happened at Wounded Knee, you might assume that every member of the 7th Cavalry, you know, just stood up and executed Lakota. And that is not what the record supports.”

To date, neither the Pentagon nor the White House has made any statement about the review panel’s findings.

“We have no additional updates to share at this time,” a Defense Department official told VOA.

The Native American Church is considered the most widespread religious movement among the Indigenous people of North America. It holds sacred the peyote cactus, which grows naturally only in some parts of southern Texas and northern Mexico. Peyote has been used spiritually in ceremonies, and as a medicine by Native American people for millennia.

It contains several psychoactive compounds, primarily mescaline, which is a hallucinogen. Different tribes of peyote people have their own name for the cactus. While it is still a controlled substance, U.S. laws passed in 1978 and 1994 allow Native Americans to use, harvest and transport peyote. However, these laws only allow federally recognized Native American tribes to use the substance and don't apply to the broader group of Indigenous people in the United States.

The Native American Church developed into a distinct way of life around 1885 among the Kiowa and Comanche of Oklahoma. After 1891, it began to spread as far north as Canada. Now, more than 50 tribes and 400,000 people practice it. In general, the peyotist doctrine espouses belief in one supreme God who deals with humans through various spirits that then carry prayers to God. In many tribes, the peyote plant itself is a deity, personified as Peyote Spirit.

Why was the Native American Church incorporated?

The Native American Church is not one unified entity like, say, the Catholic Church. It contains a diversity of tribes, beliefs and practices. Peyote is what unifies them. After peyote was banned by U.S. government agents in 1888 and later by 15 states, Native American tribes began incorporating as individual Native American Churches in 1918.

In order to preserve the peyote ceremony, the federal and state governments encouraged Native American people to organize as a church, said Darrell Red Cloud, the great-great grandson of Chief Red Cloud of the Lakota Nation and vice president of the Native American Church of North America.

In the following decades, the religion grew significantly, with several churches bringing Jesus Christ's name and image into the church so their congregations and worship would be accepted, said Steve Moore, who is non-Native and was formerly a staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund.

"Local religious leaders in communities would see the image of Jesus, a Bible or cross on the wall of the meeting house or tipi and they would hear references to Jesus in the prayers or songs," he said. "That probably helped persuade the authorities that the Native people were in the process of transformation to Christianity."

This persecution of peyote people continued even after the formation of the Native American Church, said Frank Dayish Jr. a former Navajo Nation vice president and chairperson for the Council of the Peyote Way of Life Coalition.

In the 1960s, there were laws prohibiting peyote in the Navajo Nation, he said. Dayish remembers a time during that period when police confiscated peyote from his church, poured gasoline on the plants and set them on fire.

"I remember my dad and other relatives went over and saved the green peyote that didn't burn," he said, adding that it took decades of lobbying until an amendment to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1994 permitted members of federally recognized Native American tribes to use peyote for religious purposes.

How is peyote used in the Native American Church?

Peyote is the central part of a ceremony that takes place in a tipi around a crescent-shaped earthen altar mound and a sacred fire. The ceremony typically lasts all night and includes prayer, singing, the sacramental eating of peyote, water rites and spiritual contemplation.

Morgan Tosee, a member of the Comanche Nation who leads ceremonies within the Comanche Native American Church, said peyote is utilized in the context of prayer — not smoked — as many tend to imagine.

"When we use it, we either eat it dry or grind it up," he said. "Sometimes, we make tea out of it. But, we don't drink it like regular tea. You pray with it and take little sips, like you would take medicine."

Tosee echoes the belief that pervades the church: "If you take care of the peyote, it will take care of you."

"And if you believe in it, it will heal you," he said, adding that he has seen the medicine work, healing people with various ailments.

People treat the trip to harvest peyote as a pilgrimage, said Red Cloud. Typically, prayers and ceremonies take place before the pilgrimage to seek blessings for a good journey. Once they get to the peyote gardens, they would touch the ground and thank the Creator before harvesting the medicine. The partaking of peyote is also accompanied by prayer and ceremony. The mescaline in the peyote plant is viewed as God's spirit, Red Cloud said.

"Once we eat it, the sacredness of the medicine is inside of us and it opens the spiritual eye," he said. "From there, we start to see where the medicine is growing. It shows itself to us. Once we complete the harvest, we bring it back home and have another ceremony to the medicine and give thanks to the Creator."