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Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 05:37:08 -0800 (PST)
From: dave evad <treeear@yahoo.com>
Subject: Fwd: Yankton Sioux Update
To: treeear@yahoo.com
 
 

> For immediate release: February 17, 2000 9:00 pm
>
> For more information contact Tessa Lehto at (605)
> 491-1237 or (605) 384-5838 or (605) 384-3641.
>
> Remains of Relatives Laid to Rest, While Others Remain
> Under Water
> By Tessa Lehto
>
> Imagine going to the cemetery to visit your mother's
> grave and not finding it. Imagine how you'd feel, the
> wind howling around you and going through the
> cemetery, row by row, reading all the headstones, all
> the markers, thinking maybe she's over here. Imagine
> pouring over the lists of names from the cemetery and
> seeing that she was supposed to be there, but you
> couldn't find her. Then wondering for the next fifty
> years where she was. Wondering if she was safe.
> Wanting to visit her grave on holidays, wanting to
> pray for her spirit and not knowing where to find it.
> Imagine telling your children that grandma's grave is
> missing and no one knows where it is.
>
> Imagine wondering if the skulls lying on the dry
> riverbed belong to your mother, your father, your
> sister, your brother, your grandma, your grandpa.
> Imagine wondering if the bones finally laid to rest on
> a hill overlooking the river are your relatives. Is
> that grandma up on that lonely hilltop? Is that dad?
> Imagine wondering if the bones now lying under several
> feet of water belong to your family members. Imagine
> trying to explain it to your five year old
> granddaughter when she asks, "Grandma, did we forget
> our grandmas and grandpas down there?"
>
> These experiences have all happened in recent weeks to
> members of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. Yesterday, the
> first day allowed by law, the Tribe buried the remains
> of their relatives collected on a harsh January
> Wednesday. Several hundred gathered to honor the
> relatives in a simple ceremony.
>
> At the scaffold holding the remains of the relatives
> in simple wooden boxes, covered with a buffalo robe
> and with spirit food, prayers were offered, songs were
> sung, the drum beat steadily, and then the U.S. Army
> Corps of Engineers spoke. They offered no condolences,
> no apology, merely saying it was a matter of
> procedural and communications problems and working
> together. A stunned crowd continued their vigil,
> proceeding up the hill, energized by sundance songs as
> the young warriors carried the relatives in the simple
> wooden boxes on this cold, cold day.
>
> The service continued as veterans performed their gun
> salute and members from various Christian
> denominations also offered songs, prayers and
> thoughtful words of condolence for the relatives of
> those being buried. The young warriors gingerly
> lowered the boxes by ropes as snowflakes began to
> fall. It was then that the tears flowed and the
> relatives were laid to rest, after laying under the
> river for fifty years.
>
> Then the sadness set in with the realization that
> there are still so many loved ones under the icy
> water, their burial site already completely inundated.
> In the coming months the Tribe will seek to fully
> resolve the matter.
>
> For immediate release: February 18, 2000      3:00 pm
>
> For more information contact Tessa Lehto at (605)
> 491-1237 or (605) 384-5838 or (605) 384-3641.
>
> YST Demands Congressional Action
>
> The Yankton Sioux Tribe is demanding that the United
> States Congress investigate actions by the U.S. Army
> Corps of Engineers relating to the White Swan burial
> grounds over the last fifty years. ?There are many
> improprieties and  illegalities which we are currently
> investigating,? said tribal attorney Mary Wynne.
>
> At an intertribal meeting on the subject,
> representatives from the Tribe received verification
> that the Corps of Engineers is in violation of a
> number of laws, most aggregiously the National
> Historic Preservation Act, Sections 106 and 110, but
> also a programmatic agreement made in 1993 and signed
> in 1994. Alan Stanfill, of the Advisory Council on
> Historic Preservation, a federal agency whose
> executive sits on President Clinton?s cabinet, spoke
> to the group and delineated violations by the Corps.
> In addition, an official from the Corps, Candace
> Gorton, admitted that the Corps is indeed in violation
> of the agreement. ?I admit for the Omaha office that
> we have not fulfilled the terms of that agreement.?
> Gorton then suggested that a new agreement be entered
> into. ?If they didn?t honor the first one, why would
> we think that they would honor another one? It?s
> ridiculous,? said Tim Mentz, Tribal Historic
> Preservation Officer for the Standing Rock Sioux
> Tribe. Mentz has been working with the Yankton Sioux
> Tribe on the White Swan case.
>
> Under the previous programmatic agreement the Corps
> made a commitment to conduct two cultural resource
> management plans per year with a remedial action plan
> for each site; the Corps has not conducted any of the
> plans. The Yankton Sioux Tribe is requesting the
> Advisory Council issue a foreclosure against the Corps
> for failure to follow federal law. A foreclosure may
> be used as documentary evidence in a court of law, and
> historically, one has never been overturned in federal
> court. Stanfill said, ?When an agency enters into an
> agreement, they do not aspire to doing it, they are
> committed to meeting the terms.?
>
> In addition, the Yankton Sioux Tribe has repeatedly
> requested the locations of cultural sites along the
> Missouri River from the Corps, only to be denied. ?We
> conclude that they?re deliberately stonewalling us.
> They have clearly not followed the law. When will it
> end? We are a small tribe that has had to spend a lot
> of money to get them to comply with the law. It?s
> simply outrageous,? said White Swan descendant Faith
> Spotted Eagle.
>
> ?It?s clear there are other artifacts there which are
> pre-historic and the Corps has admitted knowledge of
> this,? said Wynne.
>
> ?Under the auspice of the National Historic
> Preservation Act, the Corps should have provided
> information to the Tribe regarding the other sites,?
> said Terry Gray, Coordinator for the Rosebud Sioux
> Tribe NAGPRA/Sicangu Culture Resource Management
> Committee. ?The Corps should sponsor a series of
> discussions for all the river tribes to result in a
> parallel management plan.?
>
> Spotted Eagle continued, ?Now we are meeting with
> other Dakota, Nakota and Lakota Tribes and we are
> seeing that we have a lot in common. We may have to
> take further action. The Tribe has been seriously
> damaged by this entire matter, and something needs to
> be done. This is not over by any means just because
> the burial ceremony for the few remains we were
> allowed to pick up is over. The Corps forced us to
> leave more than thirty graves down there at our sacred
> site which are now underwater. How can this have
> happened in this day and age? It will take us a long
> time to forget that the Corps wanted to lock our
> ancestors for thirty days in a tin dumpster-like box.?
>
> Jolene Arrow, a member of the tribal negotiating team,
> said, "If it was white people's parents laying down
> there this would  never have happened."
 

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