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I'm also User: nocturneblau I was trying to get something done while I was blocked from logging in as lpdoyle managed to screw that up too! what are the odds...

User:Lpdoyle


  • Deloria, Jr., Vine, ed. American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1985.
  • Deloria, Jr., Vine and Clifford M Lytle. American Indians, American Justice. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1983.
  • Duthu, N. Bruce. American Indians and the Law. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2008.
  • Goldberg, et al. Indian Law Stories.
  • Johansen, Bruce E. Enduring legacies: Native American Treaties and Contemporary Controversies. Praeger 2004
  • Johansen, Bruce E. The Encyclopedia of Native American Legal Tradition. Greenwood, 1998.
  • Wilkins, David E. American Indian Sovereignty and the U.S. Supreme Court: The Masking of Justice. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1997.
  • Wilkins, David E. and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark. American Indian Politics and the American Judicial System. Rowman @ Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2011.



Montana v. United States
Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe
Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association [1](Cornell)
Tribal sovereignty in the United States


dissent in Montana v. US [2] Harry Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall

"In negotiating the 1851 treaty, the United States repeatedly referred to the territories at issue as "your country," as "your land," and as "your territory." See Crow Tribe of Indians v. United States, 151 Ct. Cl. 281, 287-291, 284 F.2d 361, 364-367 (1960)."
"It is hardly credible that the Crow Indians who heard this declaration would have understood that the United States meant to retain the ownership of the riverbed that ran through the very heart of the land the United States promised to set aside for the Indians and their children "forever." Indeed, Chief Blackfoot, when addressed by Commissioner Taylor, responded: "The Crows used to own all this Country including all the rivers of the West." Id., at 88. (Emphasis added.) The conclusion is inescapable that the Crow Indians understood that they retained the ownership of at least those rivers within the metes and bounds of the reservation [450 U.S. 544, 579] granted them. 15 This understanding could only have been strengthened by the reference in the 1868 treaty to the mid-channel of the Yellowstone River as part of the boundary of the reservation; the most likely interpretation that the Crow could have placed on that reference is that half the Yellowstone belonged to them, and it is likely that they accordingly deduced that all of the rivers within the boundary of the reservation belonged to them.
In fact, any other conclusion would lead to absurd results."


dissent in Lyng v. Northwest 1988 [3] William J. Brennan, Jr.

"Because the Court today refuses even to acknowledge the constitutional injury respondents will suffer, and because this refusal essentially leaves Native Americans with absolutely no constitutional protection against perhaps the gravest threat to their religious practices, I dissent."
..."As the Forest Service's commissioned study, the Theodoratus Report, explains, for Native Americans religion is not a discrete sphere of activity separate from all others, and any attempt to isolate the religious aspects of Indian life "is in reality an exercise which forces Indian concepts into non-Indian categories." App. 110; D. Theodoratus, Cultural Resources of the Chimney Rock Section, Gasquet-Orleans Road, Six Rivers National Forest (1979). Thus, for most Native Americans, "[t]he area of worship cannot be delineated from [p460] social, political, cultur[al], and other areas o[f] Indian lifestyle." American Indian Religious Freedom, Hearings on S. J. Res. 102 before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, 95th Cong., 2d Sess., 86 (1978) (statement of Barney Old Coyote, Crow Tribe). A pervasive feature of this lifestyle is the individual's relationship with the natural world; this relationship, which can accurately though somewhat incompletely be characterized as one of stewardship, forms the core of what might be called, for want of a better nomenclature, the Indian religious experience. While traditional Western religions view creation as the work of a deity "who institutes natural laws which then govern the operation of physical nature," tribal religions regard creation as an ongoing process in which they are morally and religiously obligated to participate. U.S. Federal Agencies Task Force, American Indian Religious Freedom Act Report 11 (1979) (Task Force Report). Native Americans fulfill this duty through ceremonies and rituals designed to preserve and stabilize the earth and to protect humankind from disease and other catastrophes. Failure to conduct these ceremonies in the manner and place specified, adherents believe, will result in great harm to the earth and to the people whose welfare depends upon it. Id. at 10.
In marked contrast to traditional Western religions, the belief systems of Native Americans do not rely on doctrines, creeds, or dogmas. Established or universal truths -- the mainstay of Western religions -- play no part in Indian faith. Ceremonies are communal efforts undertaken for specific purposes in accordance with instructions handed down from generation to generation. Commentaries on or interpretations of the rituals themselves are deemed absolute violations of the ceremonies, whose value lies not in their ability to explain the natural world or to enlighten individual believers, but in their efficacy as protectors and enhancers of tribal existence. Ibid. Where dogma lies at the heart of Western religions, Native American faith is inextricably [p461] bound to the use of land. The site-specific nature of Indian religious practice derives from the Native American perception that land is itself a sacred, living being. See Suagee, American Indian Religious Freedom and Cultural Resources Management: Protecting Mother Earth's Caretakers, 10 Am.Ind.L.Rev. 1, 10 (1982). Rituals are performed in prescribed locations not merely as a matter of traditional orthodoxy, but because land, like all other living things, is unique, and specific sites possess different spiritual properties and significance. Within this belief system, therefore, land is not fungible; indeed, at the time of the Spanish colonization of the American Southwest,
all . . . Indians held in some form a belief in a sacred and indissoluble bond between themselves and the land in which their settlements were located. (E. Spicer, Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960, p. 576. 1962)
For respondent Indians, the most sacred of lands is the high country where, they believe, prehuman spirits moved with the coming of humans to the Earth. Because these spirits are seen as the source of religious power, or "medicine," many of the tribes' rituals and practices require frequent journeys to the area. Thus, for example, religious leaders preparing for the complex of ceremonies that underlie the Tribes' World Renewal efforts must travel to specific sites in the high country in order to attain the medicine necessary for successful renewal. Similarly, individual tribe members may seek curative powers for the healing of the sick, or personal medicine for particular purposes such as good luck in singing, hunting, or love. A period of preparation generally precedes such visits, and individuals must select trails in the sacred area according to the medicine they seek and their abilities, gradually moving to increasingly more powerful sites, which are typically located at higher altitudes. Among the most powerful of sites are Chimney Rock, Doctor Rock, and Peak 8, all of which are elevated rock outcroppings. [p462]
According to the Theodoratus Report, the qualities "of silence, the aesthetic perspective, and the physical attributes, are an extension of the sacredness of [each] particular site." App. 148. The act of medicine-making is akin to meditation: the individual must integrate physical, mental, and vocal actions in order to communicate with the prehuman spirits. As a result,
successful use of the high country is dependent upon and facilitated by certain qualities of the physical environment, the most important of which are privacy, silence, and an undisturbed natural setting. (Id. at 181)


Opinion of the Court[edit]

Effects[edit]

Controversy[edit]

Legacy[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0485_0439_ZS.html
  2. ^ http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=450&invol=544
  3. ^ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0485_0439_ZD.html

External links[edit]

Lpdoyle (talk) 00:37, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

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