The U.S. Department of Education ruled Nov. 30 that Chief Illiniwek can stay on as the University of Illinois’s Native American mascot. Some were quick to claim a reversal for Indian-rights groups. Yeah, sure. Here’s what’s happened in the week since:
1) Heileman Brewery was banned from selling Crazy Horse beer in Minnesota when state public safety commissioner Michael Jordan ruled that the brand implies an association with the Indian leader.
2) The Chumash Indians of southern California, the Washington Post notes, are demanding that the town of Malibu require that ocearLfront building siites get an inspection for Indian burial grounds (which can be carried out only by a certilied Indian, at rates up to $ 46,000).
3) In Bailey, Colorado, two local whites (one claims a Chaddo Indian grandmother) are suing in U.S. district court after neighbors in the residential area objected to the pair’s starting raging fires in the yard of heir home in enactment of a “Lakota sweat lodge rite.”
4) The Idaho Nez Perc, meanwhile, are beside themelves that the Spalding- Allen collection of Nez Perc artifacts — bought by an Ohio settler for $57 last century and currently in the custody of the Ohio Historical Association – – has been assessed at $ 1 million. The regalia should be returned to the Clearwater River, according to the tribe’s spokesman, Herman Reuben, and its ethnographer, Allen Slickpoo, St.
One solution is in sight: An amendment just passed the U.S. Senate that would allow unlimited boxing (presumably including no-holds-barred matches) on federal Indian reservations. If that passes, the Nez Perce will be able to buy their treasures back.
