OPA

Three major exhibitions of Indian arts now being shown by museums administered by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior were described today by Secretary Rogers C.B. Morton as “demonstrating the vitality of contemporary contributions to the arts by modern Indian people”

The Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma, is presenting through September 14 the first historic survey to feature 43 paintings created during the past four decades by 42 outstanding Indian artists of the Southern Plains region.

The Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Montana, is exhibiting through September 30a collection of contemporary paintings by 44 Indian artists of." Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, the first extensive exhibition ever assembled of modern works by Indian artists from the three state area.

A collection of 78 contemporary quillworks by 28 Sioux craftsmen is on view at the Sioux Indian Museum in Rapid City, South Dakota. This comprehensive exhibition, which will continue through September 30, is the first presentation to document the variety and stature of this rare art form practiced by contemporary Sioux craftsman.

The use of porcupine quills for esthetic purposes is one of the most unique concepts in the arts of the North American Indian, according to Myles Libhart, Director of Museums for the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, who coordinated the exhibitions.

Contemporary Southern Plains Indian Painting first exhibition to document the varied development of modern Indian art.in the region. An 80 page catalog has been published in conjunction with the exhibition illustrating the 43 paintings in color along With photos and biographical sketches of the artists. Priced at $3.50, the, catalog is available from the Oklahoma Indian Arts and Crafts Cooperative, Box966, Anadarko, Oklahoma 73005, an Indian owned and operated organization.

The exhibition, Contemporary. Indian Artists, Montana- Wyoming- Idaho, is the most extensive exhibition ever organized of works by Indian artists who represent 13 tribes in the region. It reflects participation of the Plains Indians in the contemporary life of the American West • An 80 page catalog priced at $3.50 is available from the Tipi Shop,. Inc., Box 1270, Rapid City,' South Dakota 57701, a non-profit educational organization.

"Interior's interest in the arts begins with programs to recognize and promote Indian arts," Secretary Morton said. "These exhibitions are a striking illustration of the manner in which Indian artists and craftsmen are helping to broaden and enrich contemporary art in the United States."

The exhibitions were organized by the Indian Arts and Crafts 'Board, established by the Congress in 1935. The Board serves as an informational, promotional and advisory clearinghouse encouraging the development of outstanding contemporary Indian, Eskimo, and Aleut Artists. The Board administers and operates the three Museums which are presenting the exhibitions.

After the current showings, the exhibitions will begin a two year tour to other museums and galleries throughout the regions served by the 'Board's Museums .

Regulations have been issued to govern distribution of I $5,199,660.20 for the Miami Indians of Oklahoma and Indiana, Louis R. Bruce Commissioner of the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs, announced today. The new regulations establish qualifications for enrollment and the deadline for filing applications to update the roll of Miami Indians prepared pursuant to a 1966 Act of Congress.

The money comes from settlement of Indian Claims Commission Dockets no. l24-C, -0, -E, -F, 131, 253, 255, and 256. Pursuant to the Act of Congress signed by President Nixon June 2, 1972, all persons of Miami Indian ancestry born on or prior to and living on the date of the Act, and whose names or the name of an ancestor appears on one of the following rolls, shall be entitled to share in the distribution of judgment funds awarded the Miami Indians of Oklahoma and Indiana:

Roll of Miami Indians of Oklahoma and Indiana prepared pursuant to the Act of October 14, 1966 (80 Stat. 909).

Roll of the Western Miami Tribe of Indians of June 12, 1891, prepared and completed pursuant to the Act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 1000).

Roll of Miami Indians of Indiana of June 12, 1895.

Roll of "Miami Indians of Indiana, now living in Kansas, Quapaw Agency, I. T., and Oklahoma Territory".

Roll of Eel River Miami Tribe of Indians of May 27, 1889, prepared and completed pursuant to the Act of June 29, 1888 (25 Stat. 223).

Persons whose names appear the roll of Miami Indians of Oklahoma and Indiana prepared in 1966 will not be required to reapply for enrollment. They will, however, be required to furnish current information as to their whereabouts. Names of such enrollee’s who are not living on June 2, 1972, shall be deleted from the roll upon receipt of satisfactory proof of death.

Applications for enrollment may be obtained from and must be filed with the Area Director, Muskogee Area Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Muskogee, Oklahoma, 74401. They must be postmarked on or before midnight December 2, 1972.

Commissioner Louis R. Bruce of the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today that two highway construction contracts totaling nearly $7.6 million have been let by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for projects on the Arizona portion of the Navajo Indian Reservation.

One is a $5,344,476 contract funded jointly by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the National Park Service for construction of an all-weather highway between Chinle, Ariz. and the Navajo Community College at Tsaile, and access to scenic overlooks within the Canyon de Chelly National Park at four locations. It involves 24.4 miles of bituminous surfaced highway and 5.3 miles of paved access roads. Low bidder was Wylie Brothers Contracting Company, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The other is a $2,253,358 contract for construction of 10.6 miles of bituminous surfaced highway and a 144.8 foot two-span bridge that will complete an all-weather highway between Window Rock, Ariz., seat of the Navajo Tribal government, and Interstate 40 at Lupton, Ariz. Construction will take place between Oak Springs and Lupton, Ariz. Low bidder was Armstrong and Armstrong, Roswell, New Mexico.

Appointment of Harold W. Schunk as superintendent of the Turtle Mountain Indian Agency, Belcourt, N. Dak., succeeding Knute H. Lee, who transfers to the Indian Bureau's Aberdeen, S. Dak. area office as director of schools, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay. Both moves are effective November 21.

Mr. Schunk, who has been administrative officer in charge of the Bureau's field office at Sisseton, S. Dak. for the past year and a half, first came with the Bureau in 1933 as camp manager at Rosebud Agency, S. Dak. From 1934 to 1953 he served at Cheyenne River Agency, S. Dak., as school principal, agricultural instructor, and education specialist. He was born at Philip, S. Dak., in 1907 and is a graduate of Southern State Teacher's College, Springfield, S. Dak.

Mr. Lee has been superintendent at Turtle Mountain for the past year and before that was principal of schools at the Standing Rock Agency, Fort Yates, N. Dak., for eight years. He first came with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1939 as a teacher of agriculture at Fort Totten, N. Dak.

He also served as stockman-farmer at the Crow Creek Agency, Fort Thompson, S. Dak., and as reservation principal at Cheyenne River Agency, Cheyenne River, S. Dak. Before joining the Indian Bureau in 1939 he was a school superintendent and principal in several N. Dak. communities. He was born in Delisle, Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1910 and graduated from Minot State Teacher's College in 1932.

Reappointment of Harry J. W. Belvin, Durant, Oklahoma, as principal chief of the Oklahoma Choctaw Indian Nation for a four year term was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Belvin, who was first appointed to the position in 1948, was renamed on the basis of balloting by the tribal members from September through October 10. In the tribal election he received 5,254 votes and his opponent, Hampton Anderson of Atoka, 2,602.

Tribal members also expressed a preference for the four-year term by a margin of roughly two to one.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced that James N. Lowe will transfer December 1 from the Washington staff of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Sacramento, Calif., area office where he will take over the duties formerly performed by Assistant Area Director Henry Harris, Jr., who resigned from the Bureau on November 9.

Mr. Lowe came with the Bureau as a member of the program coordinating staff last September after a career of nearly 30 years in Government service with State and Federal agencies. His early service included 10 years as a county agricultural agent in Oklahoma and Kansas, and eight years as a regional agronomist with the Soil Conservation Service. During World War II he spent two years with the Board of Economic Warfare and successor agencies and in 1945 returned to the Department of Agriculture with the Production and Marketing Administration.

From 1947 to 1951 he was stationed in Mexico City working for the Bureau of Animal Industry on the foot-and-mouth disease eradication project. For three years before coming with the Indian Bureau he was an industrial specialist with the Production and Marketing Administration headquartered in Washington, D. C. He was born at Warren, Ark., in 1898 and is a graduate of Oklahoma A. and M. College.

Mr. Harris has been assistant area director for the Bureau at Sacramento since February 1951. His previous Government career included work with the War Relocation Authority, the Social Security Board, and the Works Progress Administration.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced that membership rolls will be required for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians under recently enacted legislation providing for termination of Federal supervision over the property and affairs of western Oregon Indians in the next two years.

The decision was based on the fact that these two groups are the only ones affected by the western Oregon legislation which have tribal assets. Compilation of the rolls is the first step in determining which individual Indians are entitled to a beneficial interest in the assets or in the proceeds if a sale should be favored by the tribe.

Under Public Law 588 of the 83rd Congress the two Indian groups are now given six months in which to prepare a tribal roll and submit it to the Secretary for publication in the Federal Register. If the Indians fail to compile a roll within the time limit, the Secretary is required to prepare a roll on their behalf. The law also provides for appeals to the Secretary for modifications in the rolls as published.

Rolls will not be required for the other 58 bands and groups involved in the western Oregon terminal legislation but may be submitted in the discretion of the tribal groups.

Public Law 588 is one of six Indian "termination" laws enacted by the 83rd Congress and approved by President Eisenhower. The other Indian groups covered are the Menominees of Wisconsin, the Klamaths of Oregon, the mixed bloods of the Uintah-Ouray Reservation in Utah, four scattered bands of Utah, and the Alabama and Coushatta Tribes of Texas.

It is a great pleasure to be with you today. I bring greetings from Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Louis R. Bruce.

The Department of the Interior, on behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, accepts with great pride the contract for the first Army Junior ROTC unit ever installed at an all-Indian high school.

Fort Sill Indian School, I am sure, is justly proud of this achievement and honor. The staff of this fine institution is aware of the importance ROTC can play in the life of this country.

ROTC training at Fort Sill will give to young Indians an opportunity to prepare for military service in at least two ways: It will make it possible for them to receive initial training toward becoming commissioned officers if they desire Army careers and it will give them valuable training that could prove highly important to them--and the Nation- - should some emergency arise.

By enrolling in the Junior ROTC, students here help prepare themselves for such Army officer-producing institutions as West Point, Senior ROTC schools, and officer candidate schools.

The Army Junior ROTC came to Fort Sill High School because the Indian teachers, parents, and students here wanted a ROTC unit.

Indian Tribes represented by the students in this area - - the Fort Sill Apache, Kiowa, Comanche, Caddo, Delaware, and Wichita -- have a great history of outstanding "achievements for Indian people and their country.

The Department of the Interior is pleased to note that the active Army instructors for Fort Sill’s Junior ROTC will be American Indians. We believe this bodes well for the success of the program.

That policy is in line with President Nixon's self-determination .program for American Indians. Indian leaders today seek their own paths of development and achievement. They are leading into an age that will be largely determined by them.

They are following a self-determination policy President Nixon stressed in a special message to the Congress on July 8, 1970, when he called for a “new era in which the Indian future is determined by Indian acts and Indian decisions.”

A very significant part of the new Bureau of Indian Affairs program calls for more Indian control of education programs. For Indian education programs to become truly responsive to the needs of Indian children and parents, control of education programs must be in the hands of Indian communities.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is moving fast toward achievement of that goal. Now - - in 1972 -- BIA has 15 Federal schools controlled by Indian corporations, 75 other educational programs operated by tribal groups, 3 reservation junior colleges controlled by Indians, and 200 BIA schools with Indian advisory school boards or education committees.
In the last two years education funds in the Bureau of Indian Affairs increased by nearly $20 million, making available $174 million in the 1972 budget for Indian education programs.

The amount of money available for Indian scholarships has increased five times in the past four years, rising from $3 million in 1968 to more than $15 million in 1972.

Students who enroll in the Junior ROTC program at Fort Sill High School can qualify themselves better to compete for four-year Army ROTC scholarships that are worth about $10,000 over a four-year period at colleges and universities which have Senior ROTC programs.

The Department of the Army has found that a large number of four-year scholarship winners are students who availed themselves of the privilege to participate in Junior ROTC programs. The Junior ROTC is an integral part of our Nation's strength. It helps prepare young people for military duties they may have to assume in a national emergency. While America is a peaceful country and does not covet the territory of any other Nation, it must keep its defense forces in a state of readiness.

President Nixon has underscored the need for the United States to maintain a strong defense posture. Only recently, he said that he has found it does not pay to deal from weakness when you sit across the bargaining table from the great powers of the world.

Americas Indian people have always responded to the defense needs of their country. Since World War I their young men have served in our served forces with honor and distinction.

The highest United States military honor -- the Congressional Medal of Honor -- is given for military heroism “above and beyond the call of duty. Three American Indians have received that honor. 'They are Jack C. Montgomery a Cherokee, and Ernest Childers, a Creek, who served in World War II and Mitchell Red Cloud, a Winnebago from Wisconsin, who served in Korea.

Mr. Childers retired from the army and is now serving with the Department of the Interior’s Job Corps program.

Many of you, I am sure, are familiar with one of the most brilliant tactics devised by the U. S. forces to confuse the enemy in World War II when an American Indian language was used as a “code” for sending radio messages in the Pacific Theatre of operations.

The code was highly sophisticated use of the language and dialects of the Navajo Indian tribe, practically an unknown tongue at that time.

Ordinary codes used by the military were considered obsolete within 24 hours, but the Navajo “code” was so effective that it remained unbroken throughout the war and the story of its use was a hidden chapter in military history until V-J Day.

Ernie Pyle, the famous war correspondent, wrote about the project as one of those primarily responsible for the victory in Japan. Noting the success of the code in confusing the enemy, Pyle said “practically nobody in the world understands Navajo except another Navajo.”

Indians are subject to the same laws and requirements for military service as all other citizens.

In World War I, more than 8, 000 served in the Army and Navy, 6, 000 by voluntary enlistment. This great demonstration of patriotism was a significant factor in bringing passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. In World War II, 25,000 Indian men and women served in the Armed Forces.

You can readily see that America knows it can count on its Indian people for prompt response to defense needs of their country.

I congratulate the Fort Sill Indian School for installing an Army Junior ROTC Unit. I am sure both the school and Nation will benefit from this development.

Thank you.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced an administrative realignment in the Bureau of Indian Affairs which will bring the Cherokee Agency, Cherokee, N. C., on December 1, under direct supervision of the central office in Washington, D. C.

The North Carolina agency, which has been under direction of the area office at Minneapolis, Minn., for the past four years, is the closest of all Indian Bureau field offices to the Nation's capital. Because of this proximity and its comparative remoteness from area offices, the agency is being brought directly under Washington office supervision.

In the move Joe Jennings, superintendent of the Cherokee Agency, will transfer to the Washington office as a member of the program coordinating staff. William E. Ensor, Jr., administrative officer at Cherokee, will take over local supervision of the agency as acting superintendent.

In his new post in Washington Mr. Jennings will join a staff group which has the task of developing cooperatively with the various Indian tribes programs designed to promote their economic and social advancement and to prepare them for eventual independence of Federal supervision.

Apart from the shift in supervision from Minneapolis to Washington, no other fundamental change in the status of the Cherokee Agency is contemplated.

Mr. Jennings, a veteran of 23 years with the Indian Bureau, has been superintendent at Cherokee since 1946. He entered the Indian Service in 1931 as superintendent of schools at Pine Ridge Agency, S. Dak., and later was named superintendent of all Bureau schools in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa. In 1939 he transferred to the central office and was given general supervision over Bureau schools in the southeastern area. After; six years in this position he was shifted to the Cherokee Agency in 1945 as acting superintendent and one year later was named superintendent. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and holds a Ph. D. from George Peabody College, Nashville, Tenn.

Mr. Ensor has been administrative officer at Cherokee for the past nine years and has been an employee of that agency since 1929. He entered the Indian Service in 1928 as assistant clerk at Tuba City, Ariz.

Commissioner Louis R. Bruce of the Department of the Interiors Bureau of Indian Affairs today announced that the United States Army has installed the first Army Junior ROTC unit at an all-Indian school at Fort Sill Indian School, Lawton, Oklahoma. The ceremony was held in the gymnasium of the Fort Sill School at 10 a. m., CDT.

Fort Sill Indian School has an enrollment of about 300 students, of whom about 125 are boys. Indian tribes represented include the Fort Sill Apache, Kiowa, Comanche, Caddo, Delaware, and Wichita, all southern Oklahoma groups.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of the Interior were represented by William L. Rogers, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Land Management. Lieutenant General Patrick F. Cassidy, Fifth U.S. Army Commanding General, presented the Army Junior ROTC contract to Eddie Lara, President, Fort Sill Indian School Board, a Kiowa Indian and an Army veteran of the Korean War.

Both the invocation and benediction for the ceremony were delivered in Indian languages by prominent religious leaders of various Oklahoma' Indian tribes. Master of Ceremonies was Jack B. Williams, Superintendent.

Master Sergeant Jimmie R. Holder, a Delaware Indian with more than 18 years active Army service and senior enlisted instructor of the new Junior ROTC unit, was present at the ceremony.