Editors' Commentary

This issue contains six articles that cover a range of important topics that broaden our understanding of American Indian experiences during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The themes of this exciting compilation focus on matters of native organizations, restorative justice, apology and reconciliation, racialized federal law, archaeology and Indians, and gender issues. It also presents a special section featuring a keynote speech given before an audience of the American Indian Studies Consortium conference in February 2005 at Arizona State University.

Jennifer Denetdale discusses issues pertaining to connections between tradition narrative and the contemporary status of Navajo women. She finds that the colonization of the Diné by the U.S. government not only changed the traditional nature of the Navajo structure of government, but it also undermined the rights of their women. Assimilation policies, she stresses, relegated them to the lowly status of non-Indian women, meaning they were denied economic and political opportunities. Even women elected to the Navajo Nation Council were discouraged from seeking leadership positions in that governing body. Yet, Navajo women are not victims. Denetdale stresses that they struggle to reclaim their places in Diné society.

Barbara Gray (Kanatiiosh) and Pat Lauderdale's study of restorative justice focuses on models found in Navajo and Haudenosaunee societies. Noting the disruptions that colonization and imposed Western structures have caused Indian cultures, they argue that increased funding to programs following Western modes of law enforcement and punishment neither prevent crime nor heal indigenous communities. They suggest that these communities would be better served by using those funds to restore traditional webs of justice that seek to restore balance, harmony, and diversity among their people while preventing criminal behavior.

Steven Crum's article sheds light on two twentieth-century organizations, the Brotherhood of North American Indians and the League of North American Indians (LONAI), that have received scant scholarly attention. Formed in 1911, the Brotherhood not only sought unity among Indians, it also advocated such issues as Indian citizenship, Indian preference in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and compensation for lost lands, which all eventually became law. Yet, the organization disintegrated in 1913 because of opposition from the Society of American Indians and negative press. Founded in 1935, LONAI, among other things, endeavored to protect the Indian land base, promote Indian sovereignty, and empower Indians through unity. Offering an explanation of why LONAI disappeared in the 1960s, Crum suggests that younger activists during that decade gravitated toward the National Indian Youth Council, an organization headed by college-educated leaders.

Steve Russell examines the racialized prosecution in federal Indian law resulting from a series of nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. Supreme Court decisions that eroded the sovereignty of Indian nations. These cases created jurisdiction gaps in Indian Country, gave rise to a specter of double jeopardy, denied Indians criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians, and produced situations involving the denial of due process. Russell concludes by noting that Congress and the Supreme Court must resolve those problems by returning jurisdiction on Indian lands to Indian governments.

The controversy between Indians and archaeologists is the focus of Adam Fish's study. Fish deconstructs the proscience rationale expressed the Bonnischen v. the United States cases, which overturned a 2000 secretary of interior decision to repatriate the Ancient One, a set of 9,000-year-old human remains also known as Kennewick Man, to the Umatilla, Colville, Nez Perce, Yakama, and Wanapum peoples under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. Fish stresses that the work of archaeologists (which the judges in the case found to be the only sound method for recovering information about the distant past when it comes to the Ancient One) is marred by subjectivity and flawed scientific methodologies. He suggests that tribal narratives are the most accurate means to determine cultural lineage of old Native remains.

Christopher Buck's discussion of the Kevin Gover's controversial apology on behalf of the BIA in 2000 provides insight into the process of apologizing and adds a context to Gover's speech. By most accounts, Gover, a Pawnee and then-assistant secretary, gave a moving...