Guest Blog: U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

On Sept. 13th, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly approved the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It has taken over twenty years for the passage of a declaration outlining the minimum floor of human rights for indigenous peoples around the globe. Four nation-states opposed adoption of the Declaration - the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is no surprise to Tribal Nations in the United States that the supposed advocate for human rights around the world continues to oppose basic protections for those Native to this land and other lands. Even with this opposition, the overwhelming majority of U.N. members (143) voted in favor of these basic protections to provide guidance around the globe.

Art. 31 of the Declaration states that indigenous peoples have the right to control and protect their cultural traditions and expressions including in sports. As an alum of the University of North Dakota School of Law, I am still deeply offended by the continued exploitation of my People, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate, commonly referred to as the 'Sioux' by non-Natives. Not only is this offense a continuing educational barrier that should be removed to serve the educational needs of Native peoples in the area, but now it is a violation of the basic human rights principles of indigenous peoples recognized around the world.

May 2008 will mark the tenth year since my graduation from UND and in 2008 we will see the 60th anniversary for the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. With the addition of the Sept. 13th, 2007 passage of the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, isn't it about time that the major public university in the state of North Dakota stop violating Native human rights with the use of the offensive 'Sioux' mascot and start joining in the worldwide movement to accord Native peoples with the basic dignities of life that all other populations are entitled to?

For more information on the Declaration: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/declaration.html

Angelique EagleWoman
(Wambdi A. WasteWin)
UND Law Class of 1998

Sympathies to Professor EagleWoman

Wambdi WasteWin:
Hou koda. Toked yaun he? Uabida. Çia wowiyuBkiâ niye.
Colleen
(I apologize in advance for the crudity of my message.)

I would like to express my sincere sympathies to Professor Angelique EagleWoman whose mother passed away unexpectedly.

The following poem was written about the death of a brother, but I hope its message is appropriate and meaningful.


WHAT I HAVE TRIED TO SAY TO YOU

That there are ways to love the life you haven't had,
ways to forgive the one you have.
That while your brother wasn't killed
to test anyone,
his death is, somehow, allowed by the mystery
requiring our lives to have this
permanent pull at the middle.
Our lives are what they have been:
unrevisable, changed only in our responses,
if we are still ready, somehow, for the next day,
the next person, poem, chance, even prepared,
however unready, for the next death.
Can we permanently grieve the boy
without hating what has become of him?
What has become of him?
He has returned to mystery,
the same one that is our life,
mine and yours this morning,
the continuing shapes we never see
up there, this afternoon, tomorrow:
so he is already, ahead of time,
in everything we do. I feel it, often,
that I am living my life in part for him,
not permanently dead in us, but telling
how we'd rather he had lived than not.
Remember our game of listening in the park
to hear the woods fill up with sounds,
birds, mostly, from farther and farther away
the longer we listened. He seems now
especially to have listened,
raptly, eyes closed, as if to singing,
as if he were entering the song,
and like the way he usually walked
far ahead of us or far behind -
already gone to his own music.
When I think how long it is
since he has entered all silence,
it takes me by the heart to think
those sounds like light have stayed
in whatever we are left to be.
That songs we heard those days
are from the place he's gone away to,
a singing in the mysteries connecting us,
if we can stop and be quiet and listen.
(Easy, LSU Press, 1999)

Surrounded by Capitalism

It is with great pleasure that I post this article by Wambdi A. WasteWin (Angelique EagleWoman.) I hope that her monthy contributions to this site will give us something to think about.

Surrounded by Capitalism

One of the greatest challenges currently facing Tribal Nations and indigenous peoples in North America and South America is the ability to sustain economies while surrounded by capitalism. Traditional tribal values are often at odds with the economic philosophy that Tribal Nations are now surrounded by with the formation of the European-descendant countries (e.g. Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, etc.). Tribal Nations now find themselves in the midst of capitalist market economies that are navigated successfully by those motivated by self-interest and greed.

These types of economies have made it possible for sharp dealings, outright theft, false promises, and governmental/legal sanctioning of the dispossession of tribal peoples from their resources, lands, and any other item found to have value on the capitalist market -- including cultural and spiritual items and ideas. The blatant stealing of Native cultural and intellectual property is prevalent from public school mascots to name brand clothing, automobiles, government symbols, marketing campaigns, and military equipment. Capitalist market economies are based upon the fast buck and catchy advertisement with no regard for the distortion created or the lives impacted when important and sacred Native imagery is transformed into slogans and disconnected from Native culture.

Through the lens of a capitalist market economy, the tribal values are viewed and relegated to “primitive,” “socialistic,” and “wasteful” where every idea and product is not directed to purchase on the market. In turn through the lens of tribal values, the capitalist values are viewed as actively encouraging greed, treachery, lies, and fraudulent behavior.

Tribes historically have entered into commerce with other Tribal Nations, individual traders, and representatives from other countries. The long history of deceit and manipulation in interactions between the Tribal Nations and the European-descendant countries in North and South America can be traced back to the value conflicts between the two systems of commerce. Indigenous peoples never envisioned the world and the components of the world as commodities for exchange. The rules of trade and exchange for tribal peoples have been governed by kinship and ethical rules that were not adhered to by the Europeans and Euro-Americans that the tribal peoples were forced into contact with. The foundation of economic prosperity for Tribal Nations and indigenous peoples in the Americas has been severely undermined by the colonial mentality of parasitic draining of the indigenous host. By recognizing the challenges facing indigenous peoples, economic development strategies must address head-on the reality that the European-descendant countries intend to consign tribal peoples to the discards of the colonial depletion of these resource rich lands forming the continents of North and South America.

Angelique EagleWoman
___________________________________

Angelique EagleWoman (Wambdi A. WasteWin), Assistant Professor of Law at Hamline University School of Law, currently on visitorship with the University of Kansas School of Law and Center for Indigenous Nations Studies, member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation

Professor EagleWoman: Guest blogger

I am so excited. (Can't you just hear the music?)

Professor Anglique EagleWoman (Wambdi WasteWin) a professor at Hamline University School of Law in Minnesota has agreed to be a regular guest blogger on this site. Professor Eaglewoman has a visitorship to teach four Indian law courses at the University of Kansas Law School and Indigenous Nations Studies program for 2007-08.

Stop by tomorrow for her first posting and on the 15th of the month thereafter.

To whet your appetities, here is a personal profile she wrote for the Law Professor Blog spotlight.

Angelique EagleWoman (Wambdi WasteWin)

Hamline University

B.A., Stanford University

J.D., University of North Dakota

L.L.M., University of Tulsa College of Law

(Note: Angelique EagleWoman joined the Hamline University Law faculty last August. Her teaching areas included Contracts I, Contracts II and Native American Law in 2006-2007.)

Her story

I grew up both on the reservation and off, between Topeka, Kansas and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota. Since I was eight years old, I knew that I wanted to be a lawyer. The interest stemmed from a traumatic experience. My aunt’s husband, my uncle, was African-American and went in to pay a speeding ticket at the Shawnee County Sheriff’s office. After entering the law enforcement building, he was brutally beaten and taken to the hospital. I remember being eight years old and watching the local news showing my aunt and uncle rejoicing outside of a courtroom for winning a large monetary judgment against the Shawnee County Sheriff’s office. I viewed law as a way to remedy grave injustices and knew then that I would be a lawyer.

During my preteen years, my father often gave me political manifestos to read. I read “Custer Died for Your Sins,” “The Trail of Broken Treaties,” and “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” Through these early influences, I committed myself to becoming a voice and an advocate for my Tribe and other Tribal Nations. I feel that my path has risen up to meet me along the way.
Through my high school years, I attended both public schools and a tribal school. I applied to Stanford and was routed to a postgraduate year at the preparatory school, Northfield Mount Hermon in Massachusetts. When I flew to Northfield, it was my first experience in an airplane. During my postgraduate year, I was accepted at Stanford where I majored in political science.
From there, I took several years off to return to my home reservation and soon moved to a nearby reservation, the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota. At that time, I served as the tribal truancy officer appearing in tribal court representing the Tate Topa (Four Winds) Tribal School. I went on to become the outreach counselor at Little Hoop Community College and was invited to teach. I taught Federal Indian Law two semesters. I knew that my path was calling me to return to my dream of becoming a lawyer.

In the midst of the Indian mascot controversy, I spent a tense three years at the University of North Dakota School of Law. During the summers, I clerked at the prestigious Indian law firm of Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse & Endreson in Washington, D.C. I accepted their offer my third year and joined on as an associate attorney. During my time at Sonosky, Chambers, my interest in tribal economic development blossomed. I never acclimated to D.C. and felt that my true calling involved teaching as well as the law. I had been accepted in a Ph.D. Educational Leadership program at UND and planned to return to begin it. In the interim, I accepted a position working with the UND Upward Bound program traveling to three reservation high schools and local schools in the Grand Forks area to encourage first generation low income high school students to attend college.

After a year and a half with Upward Bound, I reentered legal practice at the request of my Tribe, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate. Representing my Tribe and working as an associate at several Indian law firms over the years, I worked on various contracts involving Tribal Nations, state governments and agencies, federal governmental agencies, and private tribal clients conducting businesses. After several years, I followed the old dream to the University of Tulsa College of Law and attained my L.L.M. in American Indian and Indigenous Studies with Honors.

I am pleased to be a new member of the Hamline Law faculty and teaching a full year of Contracts Law to first year law students. The law of contracts is a fundamental building block for lawyers working in all areas of economic development, for those who will represent clients seeking to enter into commercial relationships with Tribal Nations, and for those who will be representing Tribal Nations and other tribal business clients.

Angelique Eaglewoman