In the past few years bones more than 9,000 years old have been found and they do not resemble those of American Indian ancestors.

Until these new developments the popular scientific version that began in the 1960's has always been of one migration across Beringia by a Mongloid people with round heads, flat and broad faces with pronounced cheekbones, shovel-shaped teeth, and small noses with high bridges.

The new finds have elongated heads, eyes closer together and set deeper, prominent noses, with short bridges, and teeth flat in the back. These are the shapes of Caucasoids, who have more of a resemblance to ancient Asians that are a close match to early Europeans, rather than today's white people.

And now a custody battle ensues over the remains of the "Kennewick man" a 9,300 skeleton that was discovered in 1996 in Kennewick, WA, on land that is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. They are now defendents in a court case based on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, that requires the return of remains to their respective tribes.

The Research

There are about 20 sites in North America with bones aged 8,000 to 10,000 years. Since these remains were mostly fragments they were not studied closely, and only younger bones 3,000 years old had been used as evidence.

D. Gentry Steele, a professor at Texas A&M University, began taking a closer look, and found that these older bones compare very closely with ancient south Asian people, such as the Ainu, which are a Japanese tribe. The Ainu have been linked to early Australian aborigines, and some scientists have linked the Ainu to the Norse.

However, Steele does not say that the prehistoric paleoamericans are descended from Europeans. Many scientists are trying to do away with the terms such as Caucasoid and Mongoloid. There have been independent studies of ancient peoples in Asia and South America where long-headed people have lived.

The new finds are:

• Kennewick Man: 9,300 years old. Found at Kennewick, WA.
• Spirit Cave Man: 9,400 years old. A cave near Fallon, Nevada.
• Wizard Beach Man: 9,200. Found in the mud flats of Pyramid Lake, Nevada.

Comments:

• Jack D. Forbes, professor emeritus of American Indian studies at the University of California at Davis:
  "Utter nonsense." A "wish" of some Europeans to be first. He doubts the motives and documentation of the scientists who have out forth this theory.
• James Chatters, anthropology consultant in Washington state:
  This changes the picture.
• Dennis Stanford, Chairman of the Smithsonian Anthropology Department:
  Wonders why there have been so many discoveries in a short time after a hiatus of 40 years. His hope is that it is a story for the times to "tie the so-called races together."
• Douglas Owsley, chairman of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian:
  Wonders how many migrations there were and their point of origin.
• Rick Hereidia, spokeman for Deganawidah Quetzalcoatl University, a tribal college in Yolo County, California:
  A culture that has been so abused wants to hold onto its own.
• The Mike Smith, Editor Wannabe:
  These sound like Smiths to me. Smiths unite. We've been everywhere and it's all ours.

There. I said it and now I'm in trouble. Anasazi is officially politically incorrect.

On the surface this seems to be a simple matter, but let us look a little deeper into this current determination by two groups to have their own way, while having it both ways. This may offend some, but no one of the people I know of personally even cares. They want firewood, water, food, and be allowed to live their peaceful lives.

Director Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma of the Hopi Tribe Cultural Preservation Office states that the term "Anasazi" is derogatory. This is a Navajo word meaning "ancient enemy." His position is that since the Hopi religion does not call anyone an enemy it is not right to refer to the Hopi as enemies.

Not quite as serious perhaps, but nevertheless of some concern are these terms that are falling into disfavor.

• The use of the word "primitive" now means "inferior."
• "Ruins" to describe ancient structures because this word seems to confuse Congressmen. "Why fix it up?"
• "Ancient" because describing peoples with the word puts the living ancestors in the past tense. (It's OK to say "ancient structures.")
• "Rock art." Rewrite the books! According to Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma, again, to call these paintings "art" is like calling the Bible a book. His words, and now I'm offended.

A 350 year-old treaty with the Mattaponi Tribe, the oldest treaty with any tribe, has been declared to be invalid by the Attorney General of Virginia.

The reasoning behind this is that the treaty was made before the United States was a country.

King William County and Newport News Water Works are planning a dam on the Mattaponi River that would flood 1500 acres to form a reservoir for Newport News.

This would cover 100 burial sites of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey tribes, and would ruin the spawning run for shad and herring, which the Mattaponi have depended on for many years.

The environmental impact is still being studied, and the other side of the issue is that Newport News, VA, will have to be evacuated since the treaty is invalid now.

Now that would be an impact.

These have certainly always been connected, but this is an example of a very difficult choice for a needy people.

The Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma has put forth a proposal to build a casino on their burial ground, and not all within the tribe agree.

One of the reasons cited for the need for this project is cuts in government help to the tribe, which has been trying for nine years to build a casino in Kansas.

Leaford Bearskin, chief of the tribe, says that the enterprise is needed to provide hospitals, roads, and schools. Fran Davidson, who often visits the spirits of ancestors there, says that this is "abominable."

Since the 3,800 member tribe is recognized by the Federal Government, the Wyandottes have control over the two-acre piece of land which is in the middle of downtown Kansas City, and just a few blocks from the government center.

The city, the state, and four other tribes are blocking the effort, and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas has put forth an amendment to limit the use of the tribes' property to that of a cemetary only.

This might be a case where the Native Graves Act could work against its supposed intent.

First the history: In the 1934 the San Juan Southern Paiute tribe was "swallowed up" by the Navajo Nation when Congress included the Paiute land in the Navajo Reservation, and the Paiutes were included in the Navajo rolls. It was years before the Paiutes were ever aware of this, since they speak neither English nor Navajo.

The 60's and the 70's were hard times for the Paiutes, for they kept their language and their customs, and this created difficulty getting job training in the Navajo system.

It wasn't until 1990 that the Paiutes were recognized as a tribe - which was strongly opposed by the Navajo Nation - but they were still without land of their own. This little tribe of 300 people has been angry for a long time.

The Navajo are now considering transfering 5,100 acres of land to the San Juan Southern Paiutes, and they may have a home of their own for the first time in generations.

In February, the American Indian Radio On Satellite (AIROS) Network will have its first special programming on the Internet. The webcast will be from 7-9 pm United States EST every night Mon-Thu from February 16-19 and 23-26 at www.nativetelecom.org.

The program will be radio coverage of the 1997 Fulbright Symposium on Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World. Also included will be a mix of indigenous music, interviews with key symposium participants, and news on symposium events and topics.

Topics discussed include indigenous intellectual property, heritage and land management, indigenous identity and film, cultural tourism, and many other topics relevant to indigenous cultures from around the world.

The AIROS Network Manager John Belindo states that they are webcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

For more information including how to take the feed and broadcast it on your local airwaves contact AIROS at (800) 571-6885.

Now here is something different. Once again this is an e-mail from The Blue Eagle Newsletter.

Welcome to GrayTrivia. Starts at 8:30 EST and runs for one hour. After the game, you are invited to stick around and discuss the trivia questions, ask some of your own, or just participate in friendly chat.

Every week I send out a quote and links to a site or sites on the internet. I take my questions from these links (the blue links below) and anywhere from 35 to 40 questions.

The links are always Native American related. For most questions asked, one point is given to the first person who answers. There are also oldies that are asked which give all who answer within 10 seconds, two points.

My trivia is like an open book test in school, you can print out the sites and use these print outs to answer questions if you want to. I am a believer in passive as well as aggressive learning. Some players just try to test their knowledge without reading the sites while others read and try to remember. We always have fun.

Occasionally, a subject may be sad or even horrifying-but during those sessions, we learn together, we find and build strength from one another, and we feel that to be aware is a good strategy for avoiding such atrocities in the future.

Come join us. GrayDeer.

Navajo Nation President Albert Hale claims that the NASA project named Lunar Prospector will commit sacrilege on the moon. The Prospector is already in orbit and at the end of its mission will crash onto the lunar surface. But this time there is a difference: onboard are the cremated remains of Eugene Shoemaker, a former astronaut.

Hale states that this is offensive to many tribes in the U.S. and that using the moon as a burial ground is "a gross insensitivity to the beliefs of many Native Americans." Hale says that the moon is sacred, most tribes have rituals involving the moon, and that this action is an infringement on Native American's religious rights.

Navajo Nation Albert Hale once again argues sovereignty for the Navajo Nation, this time claiming that the Navajo are better qualified to design and operate their own welfare system.

First some facts and figures:

• Nauru: Population 10,000 Area 8.2 sq. miles.
• St. Vincent: Population 120,000 Area 150 sq. miles.
• Tuvala
• St. Kitts and Nevis
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Dominica
• Seychelles
• Kiribati
• Grenanda
• Tonga

I take it back. Navajo Nation President Albert Hale has outdone himself with this one. His idea is to close ALL roads on the reservations in New Mexico and Arizona as a show of sovereign strength.

His proposal would include county roads and state and federal highways, and the purpose of this is, in his words, "to educate America."

I think I get it already.

One route that would be affected is Interstate 19, which is the main commerce route between Tucson and Mexico.

Now this is the way to run a government. The Navajo Nation Council is preparing to pass a resolution to postpone the 1998 elections until 2000. This would give the President of the Navajo Nation Albert Hale, and the Navajo Nation Council two more years of office that they will have legislated for themselves.

The reasoning behind this is sound: Tribal Council districts are being reapportioned and the governing body of the Navajo Nation doesn't want to confuse anyone.

To accomplish this legally all the council has to do is change the government into a form called Title Two.

A spokesman for the legislation says that he feels that this resolution may frustrate some of the voters, and might even cast a "dark cloud over the tribal council."

The K'eit'aan'yalt'i items of the Navajo have been found in the Arizona State Museum in Tucson, Arizona and have been returned to the people.

These are symbols of the modern Navajo government, which was created in the 1930's, and they are the equivalent to the parliamentary system's mace and rod.

Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico has asked for recognition of the World War II Navajo Code Talkers.

This group of about 450 Navajo soldiers greatly contributed to our victory by speaking a coded form of Navajo to further confuse the Japanese cryptographers.

LoRenzo Bates, the general manager at Navajo Agricultural Products Industry (NAPI), has big plans. A yes vote at the winter session of the Navajo Nation Council will be the first step in what could be a real boon for the Nation.

Bates is asking for $10 million to break ground on a potato processing plant that would handle 600 million pounds of potatoes a year. The final product would be 300 million pounds of french fries and tater tots.

And there are plans for the 300 million pounds of waste. Bates says that waste would feed 50,000 head of cattle and since the feed lot is right next door, why not? At this time 14,000 cattle are fed at the NAPI lot.

Now I don't get this one. The signs on the Navajo Nation announce that a "Squaw Dance" is up ahead. The events calendars for Navajo ceremonies say "Squaw Dance." This is what they use and so I ignorantly used it. Now, the information is that a "Squaw Dance" should really be called Ni'daa' or the Enemy Way ceremony.

The word "squaw" is a derogatory term, and many are campaigning to change, for example, the name of Squaw Mountain. So, if it's wrong, why is it all over the place? As a conversation piece? "Yeah, that's what it says, but we don't want you saying it."

Arizona Senate Joint Resolution 1001 proposes to rename Arizona 51, now known as the Squaw Peak Parkway, to the Ronald Reagan Parkway.

Native Americans believe the name is a French corruption of an Iroquois word for female genitalia, and once meant prostitute.

This has been developing since early winter of 1997 and has reached serious proportions. Parties on both sides of the issue have been resolute and unyielding. This is how it began. Updates and a related story follow.

There is panic in Montana and the solution is slaughter; 1100 bison in 1997 and the program has begun anew. The state of Montana has a serious problem and this is their answer. Here it is as of this writing.

The bison in Yellowstone Park are carrying a disease called brucellosis. This is considered to be a threat to the cattle business, as the bison wander in and out of the park, and any cattle that become infected cannot be marketed.

If Montana loses its brucellosis-free status the cattle industry would be devastated.

Except:
Brucellosis does not seem to affect the health of wild bison, which have lived in Yellowstone for 80 years and have never infected cattle. The same is true in Grand Teton National Park, which borders Yellowstone, and where cattle have grazed inside the parks mingling with the bison for 40 years.

But:
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, (APHIS), which is a federal agency within the Department of Agriculture, is threatening the removal of the brucellosis-free status. Hence, the panic and the slaughter.

Although:
APHIS states that there must be a "known focus of infection in any domestic species." An interesting note is that a law was added to this in 1964 to include ranched bison, but this does not apply to wild herds.

Meanwhile:
Many concerned people are working with the ranchers: building and repairing fences, hazing the bison back into the park, working with feeding programs. This is a large operation involving everything from computers to snowmobiles and aerial fly-overs.

In their efforts to guard the lives of the last wild buffalo, a protective group called "Buffalo Nations" has a full-blown operation going. They are video-taping and keeping a flow of news releases going.

A "Bison Safe Zone" is established by local people who are placing signs in their yards as sanctuary for the buffalo, with the idea that the DOL cannot shoot them there.

Buffalo Nations calls for people to monitor the borders of the park as volunteers to guard the lives of the last wild buffalo. They offer to supply food and shelter to those that "take a stand for the buffalo this winter."

And the battle began. This is how the story unfolded.

• As of December 31, 1997 no buffalo have been killed.
• January 1998: Heavy snow limits feeding. 250 buffalo are at the edge of the park. DOL ready to take action. Confrontations are imminent.
• Mid-January: Conflicts begin in earnest.
• January 15 - 16: Buffalo Nations volunteers and the DOL collide at Duck Creek. DOL attempts to haze buffalo using firecrackers shot from guns; volunteers use their bodies. Buffalo run down residential streets where children are walking to school.
• DOL hazes buffalo on private land despite owner's protest.
• In separate incident a volunteer trespasses and is attacked by the landowner in a snowmobile. The volunteer is knocked down and his foot run over. Charges filed by both parties.
• January 18: A volunteer finds lug nuts on her rear tire have been loosened.
• January 21: DOL baits buffalo with hay and five buffalo are sent to slaughter. These are the first.
• A volunteer locks himself to a trailer containing four buffalo to be relocated. He is cut free and charged with obstruction.
• January 29: Montana Department of Livestock shoots three Buffalo Cows and their three baby calves. Two were radio collared.
• A teenager, Corey Mascio from New Hampshire, was arrested for obstruction. He drove his snowmobile between the Buffalo and the DOL guns, trying to protect the three calves and their mothers.
• Mike Mease, co-founder of Buffalo Nations, was arrested for simple tresspassing and obstruction, as he was trying to film the shoot. He was physically detained and restrained from filming before he was arrested. His video camera was confiscated, and he was jailed at Galletin County Jail, Bozeman, Montana.
• This brings to date a total of 5 arrested so far in attempts to protect the Yellowstone Buffalo herd, who are being shot down as they wander off National Park Service lands in search of food.
• Rosalie Little Thunder, a Lakota co-founder of Buffalo Nations, who is onsite states: "You never get used to it. It's a shock. The buffalo are victims of pathological politics."
• Sheriff Bob Pierson calls the Buffalo Nations group, "Environmental Terrorists".
• Activists claim: Total taxdollar loss to date: $331,500 and counting.
• February 2, 1998, 11:30 P.M.: The Montana Department of Livestock hazed three bison down the middle of Highway 191 north towards the capture facility on Duck Creek in West Yellowstone, Montana. One Buffalo Nations volunteer attempted to turn the buffalo off the highway and into the woods, and was bumped at least twice by a Department of Livestock vehicle.
• February 5, 1998: Buffalo protesters sentenced. Daniel B. Howells, Adam Horowitz and Roger D. Vincent told to pay a $70 fine each and given a six-month jail sentence with all but one day suspended. Buffalo Nations leader Michael Mease pleads not guilty to obstructing a peace officer and requests a jury trial.

$329 million has been appropriated "to acquire and preserve historically or environmentally important land."

The list includes 100 sites from 35 states and specifies spending $15 million to buy remaining private tracts of land along the Appalachian Trail, $13 million to buy critical winter grazing land just outside Yellowstone Park for the park's elk and bison and $86 million to buy and start removing two dams on Washington state's Elwha River to restore the ecosystem around Olympic National Park.

Well, what next? Wolves are under the gun now, and this involves the National Wildlife Federation, who is trying to save the wolves, and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), who wants them shot.

There is understandable concern by the ranchers, because wolves have always received bad press, but various educational projects are underway to tell the true story.

Now this is kind of neat. First Nations Development Institute has donated $34,777 to the Hopi village of Paaqavi for the development of a quilter's enterprise.

This may sound like a small matter to some, but could make a huge difference to this small village. Hopi tribal unemployment is 30 per cent.

The money will help purchase supplies, seek business opportunities, and study trademark issues.

The winter storm in upper New York has brought out the best in people, and a reminder that there is wisdom in simplicity.

The Amish of the Franklin-Clinton Counties area have come to the aid of their more modern neighbors who were hard hit by the loss of electricity and shortage of gasoline.

Since the Amish do not rely on electricity their cheese factory was still in operation and they have been processing milk that would otherwise be wasted. Entire herds of cattle have been lost because the electric milkers are useless. They are also sharing use of their horses and Dietz lanterns.

This is not the first time that these simple-living folks have shown the way. They have been using fish that the St. Regis Indians threw away; processing in a hot pack bath until even the bones were edible.

Help for upper New York has also been coming from Ohio, New York City, and California.

With all of the confrontations, and factions bumping against each other across our nation, maybe the easiest thing to remember is that there is no law against kindness.

People are people and a review of some of the issues concerning Native American Indians is a look at all of us: