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DICK DALEY: This is another in a series of special programs on American-Indian rights and public policy, which took place recently at The College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth. The topic of this session was Native American hunting and fishing rights. Clyde Atwood of The saint Scholastica Indian Studies Department introduced the main speaker.

CLYDE ATWOOD: Tonight we have a man from the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation over by Hayward, Wisconsin, who is becoming quite well noted in the state of Wisconsin and especially among Indian circles, as one who has great future visions for Indian people and especially for his own people.

For one of the things that we're constantly aware of today is Indian rights, and the need to be able to clarify those rights in today's society. Most of those rights are incorporated into the treaties between Indian tribes and the US government. So that we're faced from time to time in having to consider those rights and the legal courts of the country.

And this is one of the things that we will be discussing tonight is especially concerned the hunting, fishing rights of Indian people upon the reservation areas. I get amused many times when I listen to the news media and I read in the newspaper how people of this country are protecting the animals from all other kinds of evil.

It is very amusing when I think about this in terms of the philosophy of Indian people and how they view people themselves as fitting within the universe in relation to all other things. And sometimes I wonder if maybe we aren't fooling ourselves when we say we are protecting those animals. As I think back as far as I can, and then from my point of view into the past and think of the thousands of years that these animals have existed without man's assistance, and it becomes extremely amusing to me when I read those comments about how we continue to protect them.

Our main speaker this evening is Rick Baker. He's the president tribal chairman of the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation, Chippewa. He was the first treasurer for the National Tribal Council Association of American Indians. There is a period of time when he was so busy that he had to give up the office. And just recently he was re-elected as treasurer again.

He serves as consultant to the Office of Management Budget to the Department of Interior and to the Public Health Service. And with that, I present to you, Mr.. Rick Baker.

[APPLAUSE]

RICK BAKER: Before we get started, maybe it should be appropriate talk a little bit about Indians, where they come from. What is the basis for their ideals or principles? Why do Indians behave the way they do? Why are they so difficult? Historically, I think historical picture, I suppose, will develop.

Today's attitudes form a foundation for position of Indian people. Before getting into that, I like telling you that Indian people I think are all just about like me. Our backgrounds are well founded in this continent. My grandfather in my father's side was a medicine man, as was my great grandfather. I am a product of the Winnebago people.

I'm a product of [INAUDIBLE]. That is the Indian culture on my father's side. My mother's lineage comes from [INAUDIBLE]. That is patches, one of the chiefs of the Chippewa nation. My grandfather in 1952 died at the age of 95. He can remember back in the 1860s when the development of northern Wisconsin's territory was in its beginning stage.

I remember as a young boy my grandfather, father and I used to go hunting on the rivers at night hunting deer. Not because we were sportsmen, because we had to provide for the family to feed them. In the course of our various hunting trips, he used to discuss with me and tell me about what it used to be like years ago, what the original agreements were as his father understood them, what the land was like before the invasion of the White man.

The habitat of natural resource before the lumber industry stripped the land. This is where Indian people come from. And maybe this is why I am like I am today. I am disappointed with the principles upon which this country was founded. And I say to you, Rick Baker, tribal chairman, and those who believe like me won't be celebrating bicentennial next year.

And I suppose in keeping with the Indian moral principle, I must tell you, I'm also an ex-convict. I do that because it is honest. And if I say anything that will disturb people here tonight, this will be brought up and forth, and you'll hear about it. And I want you to hear about it from me first.

But I think this country owes a great deal to Indian people. It has adopted from Indian people some basic concepts and principles and called it democracy. The Greeks weren't the sole possession or the possessors or the inventors of that principle. Indian councils throughout the ages and generations have made this a practice. Our failure was that we didn't see or foresee the necessity for writing this down on paper, birch bark or deer hides.

The other contributions to this Republic have gone largely unnoticed. And in fact, this country has gone so far as to strip the Indian people of its humanity. It certainly hasn't adopted the major principles as described by Indian people. One of these things being that we should forgive one another.

There are morals and ideals are such that we can allow one another to make their contributions in society. And when mistakes are made and the debt is paid, they are willing again to give this opportunity to those who would make that attempt to serve the community, its people.

I don't see this happening today. One of the great problems our society has rests in the failure of our civilization not only to communicate those principles, but to put them in our policy papers and our law. For that reason, I've been especially proud to have been elected twice to national office, the National Tribal Chairman's Association.

These people have full knowledge of my background. And in spite of that background, the Office of Management and Budget and States Interior Department, the United States Public Health Service and the two major political parties in this country has offered me the opportunity to participate in the development of Indian business.

I can't give you any measure of what success that is but at least the opportunity my people at home are aware of this. And for that reason, I'm proud to be their chairman. Before proceeding with the problems of hunting and fishing, I think it's necessary to understand the reasons why we're in this particular predicament today.

I want to read to you from the American Indian Journal, a descriptive position of the Indian, his treaties and the Constitution of the United States. The historical background behind the issue. To give you an idea of why we have failures to recognize the position of Indian people.

Indeed, why should there be a controversy at all over Indian hunting and fishing? The language, the intent is plain. It's written in the language that this country uses as it's official language and communication. I would offer you this from the journal. Agreements between nations have been called a variety of names including treaties, alliance, convention, compact.

The subject matter of these agreements has included matters of peace and friendship, trade, commerce and international boundaries. In the latter half of the 20th century, such agreements have contemplated regulation of the use of the oceans, the seas and regulation of conduct of nations beyond the terrestrial boundaries of this planet.

While the scope of such agreements may soon assume international proportions, there is difficulty enough in resolving and enforcing the terms of existing international agreements. Treaties and agreements have existed as long as there have been distinct independent political units by which men have governed themselves.

Treaties is a matter of international law and political judgment. The most prominent example of this effectiveness of political judgment and the establishment of alliance among Indian-American Indian nations is the founding League of the Iroquois, a Confederation of five and later six Iroquois speaking nations. Since international law prescribes no form for treaties, treaties may be oral or written.

In practice, treaties usually take the form of written documents signed by duly authorized representatives of the negotiating parties. Treaties are officially concluded when it is clearly apparent that each of the parties have given their consent. And I think what we've got to underline or underscore in this definition, we must emphasize, duly authorized. It's necessary in order for these agreements to have status.

With discovery of the new world by European nations, those nations found it necessary to regulate the rivalries in the quest for territory. The doctrine of discovery gave the European nation, which first planted its flag, the right to regulate territorial interests between itself and other Europeans. It did not settle the boundary issues between the European discoverer and the Indian nation whose territory was claimed.

While written documentation may have been a new addition to the treaty experience for most American-Indians, the political tool itself was well known. In those early years, the most important matter to form the subject of treaty negotiations were the settlement and the establishment of geographical boundaries and the establishment of alliances of military aid and neutrality.

In view of the fact that Indian tribes organize into distinct governmental units, it is not surprising that the European nations treated them as sovereign nations before the founding of the United States. One attitude of sovereign nations is the power to make treaties. This attribute was exemplified by the Dutch and the English, who clearly recognized the existence of sovereign authority in Indian tribes when they negotiated treaties with them.

As sovereign and independent nations, Indian tribes were beyond the control of European nations unless a formal agreement [? surrending ?] that independence had been reached. The importance of economic relations between the Indians and the United States was recognized in the Constitution of the United states provided in Article I Section 8, Clause 3 as follows, the Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations among the several states and with Indian tribes.

This Constitution and the laws of the United states, which have been made in pursuant to their pursuance thereof, and all the treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United states shall be the supreme law of the land. Unlike the European nations which recognize the international character of Indian tribes and consequently entered into treaties with them, the United States government attempted to use the treaty to solve what it saw as a domestic problem.

Armed conflict between land-hungry US citizens and the Indian tribe determined to prevent the loss of their lands were frequent in the early treaty making period. To keep the peace, the United States sought to make treaties that would define the boundaries of the various Indian nations and the United States in order to separate the Indians from the White settlers.

Since the US government officials viewed the treaties as a method of controlling domestic disturbance, they refused to recognize the Indian treaties were agreements between sovereign nations, therefore part of international law. In the minds of many US officials, Indian treaties did not have the same legal force and effect that treaties with foreign nations have.

Perhaps the basic contention of Indians today with respect to their treaty rights is not that the treaties could not be repealed, abrogated or superseded, but that were not given the dignity which such legal grievance should receive. The United States is deadly serious when speaking of land cessions, the ceding of Indian lands made by tribes under those treaties.

When it comes to the fulfilling of duties of the United States under those same treaties, however, we are told that the treaties are either old, they have been superseded by subsequent legislation, or they do not mean what they plainly say. The question of dignity of Indian treaties have been of continuing controversy between knowledgeable and the ignorant.

Federal officials who have never studied law and who know virtually nothing of treaty rights and international principles of law have been placed in charge of the most sensitive relationships with Indian tribes. And have assumed that because treaties are now a century old, they must not have any effect as legal instruments defining actual legal rights.

The case of Turner versus the American Baptist Missionary union gave an eloquent definition of legal status of Indian treaties with respect to their dignity as treaties. That definition is, it is contended that a treaty with Indian tribe has not the same dignity or effect as a treaty with a foreign or independent nation. This distinction is not authorized by the Constitution.

Since the commencement of the government, treaties have been made with Indians, and the treaty making power has been exercised in making them. They are treaties within the meaning of the Constitution, and as such, are the Supreme law of the land. In 1828, Attorney General William Rhett, or Rhett rather, wrote an opinion for President Andrew Jackson, in which he discussed the question of dignity of Indian treaties as follows.

If it be meant to say that although capable of treating, their treaties are not construed like the treaties of nations absolutely independent, no reason is discerned for this distinction in the circumstance that their independence is of a limited character. If they are independent to the purpose of treating, they have all the independence that is necessary to the argument.

The point then once conceded that the Indians are independent for the purpose of treating, their independence is to that purpose as absolute as that of any other nation. The argument, therefore, that Indian treaties are of no consequence has no basis in law. Although it received little basis in fact, by the refusal of federal agency officials to live according to the laws of the United States.

I might add, this holds true for the general public. But continual and blatant violation of federal laws by the executive branches of government must not be permitted to repeal legal rights written into law in treaties ratified by the United States Senate. In 1871, the House of Representatives jealous that the president and the Senate could conduct relations with Indian tribes and commit the United States to monetary obligations without participation by the House, forced passage of an act which can be found in 25 USC 71.

Which provided as follows quote, "No Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty. No obligation of any treaty lawfully made and ratified with any such Indian tribe or nation prior to March 3, 1871, shall be hereby invalidated and impaired."

After that date, the United States could make agreements with Indian nations which were ratified by Act of Congress. This is merely a change in form, not in legal effect. Such agreement still constitutes agreements between nations. Many Indian people today contend that the return to treaty relationship and the accompanying recognition of sovereignty is the only way to keep non-Indian governments from interfering with the affairs of Indian governments.

Underlying this attitude is the belief that Indian treaties deserve to be accorded the same dignity as any legal document governing relations between any other nation. The fact remains that there is no legal reason why Indian nations cannot make agreements or treaties with the United States today. The last agreements between Indian nations and the United States occurred in 1911.

So that is the best definition that I was able to find and offer you today with respect to the legality of Indian treaties. For the purpose of discussion tonight, we must recognize the failure of those treaties, the attitude of the American public in general, superiority and greed of the national public corporations and interest.

You've got to recognize these influences have superseded the constitutionality of the law upon which this nation is founded. It is invalid because we're not keeping the Constitution. The Constitution has failed for Indian people. All these fine glossy words that are written upon the statues, the monuments we see in Washington and all the words that are offered in our history courses to our children written by the daughters of American Revolution, the prime example of moral failure.

Prime example of greed, and I think a prime example that would support the charge that America has caused and affected a great crime against the race of man. Given the examples of some of these failures, in 1837, the treaty was made with the Chippewa nation. And I would remind you, there was no issue of conquest.

The United States did not embark upon military action that it would affect the sovereignty of the Chippewa nations. Instead, they made a treaty in 1837 that said, I will do this, this, this, this if you will cede the territories. One of the things they said, you'd have your hunting and fishing rights.

On top of that, we're going to pay you what the land is worth. I don't think my people who are being arrested for hunting and fishing on ceded territories today would think very much of this treaty.

About a year ago, Congress in all its goodness decided that after approximately 140 years, it's about time we're going to pay these Indian people for that ceded territories in the South since they're hollering so much before our Claims Commission. So they went to work and made an assignment.

They said, we're going to give you $0.72 an acre for those acres down in the South there. And this has got to be based on 1837 prices. And you ain't going to receive no interest for those 140 years. Well, I didn't think that was a very good deal when that thing was proposed. And I still don't. You know, I wished I could buy a land like that. And I'd like to make a few treaties like that too.

My contention is if they want to buy it in 1837 prices, then pay the interest from that time on till the time they pass over the returns. If they don't want to pay the interest, then buy it at 1975 prices like everybody else has to do.

[APPLAUSE]

And I think there's something attached to this problem that even has greater significance. It's of greater importance. And this has a direct reflection upon the quality of law that exists in this country. And it has to do with this 1837 treaty and the monies that are supposed to be paid to the heirs of that treaty.

Here's a case where Indian people had to go to court against the United States as the United States as a defendant. The plaintiff winning the case, but the United States retained the right and privilege as a defendant to tell a plaintiff what he can do with that money. And damn it. That's not right. I know of no other precedent, no other place in the annals of law where the defendant has the right to tell a plaintiff what he can do with his money.

But it happens to Indians. It remains for second and third class citizenship in a country that was originally ours. And I tell you, I'm not celebrating a bicentennial. I got nothing to celebrate.

I was down to the bank here a while back talking to a banker about these very same things. And I suppose it's because the Lac Courte Oreilles got off its haunches, decided to challenge the system, to modify the system, become involved in this division of wealth process.

Of course, when we did that we got a lot of these people always saying, well G, how come you're always talking about treaties? It's always the past. Why don't we start over? The banker said to me, look, you've got a lot of things happening at Lac Courte Oreilles these days, and you've got a chance to go ahead and build. We're going to help you build if you just give us a chance to help. And forget about that past. Let's start over from here.

Well, I thought that was pretty damn silly. And I told him, Mr. Banker, what you're asking me to do is something you wouldn't do yourself. I like to assume that 140 years ago my grandfather as chief of this tribe come into your bank. you had $10 million in your bank. He went to work and borrowed 9 million of it. You only had a million left. He borrowed most of it. 9 million, he said, well, we'll pay you one of these days.

140 years ago my grandfather did that. And now I'm chairman of the Tribe. He called me in and say, hey, Rick, that $9 million you borrowed 140 years ago, you haven't paid for it. How's about paying it back? And I said, what did you think if I said, well, let's not talk about 140 years ago. Let's forget about that. We got your $9 million. We can do a lot to help you now. You see.

And it's this attitude that I'm talking about. The same attitude is embedded in the handling of all our treaties, even 1837 treaties. They have contracts no good with any people. We haven't got the humanity. We haven't established enough or realigned the boundaries of humanity to include Indian people in this country today. Contracts and treaties are no good. Fine.

But let's start doing the right thing. Damn it. If you don't want to honor the treaties, let's cancel them. You take the hunting and fishing rights, and give us the land back. That's my position.

[APPLAUSE]

I was reading a book a while ago. We're talking about attitudes that perpetrate high crime. One of these things is apathy. Ain't enough for you to recognize, hey, Indians got good teeth. And we all sit back and do nothing. And it's not enough. We got to get our heads out of the sand. There's this ostrich policy that this country is infected with isn't sufficient. We've got a moral problem here that needs dealing with.

And we need people from all walks of life who have a conscious concern for the integrity of this nation, who are involved with religious principles and concepts not only on Sunday morning but throughout the week. And have the opportunity to stand before the legislature, the public, and say, this is not right. We have an obligation. We're not carrying it out so good.

I'm reading article by a fellow named, Parker. He's a Seneca Indian. This was back in about 1915. He was the editor of The Quarterly Journal. And he was talking about the Indians and it's treaties, the high crimes against the race of man.

He charges that the United States has robbed a race of man of its intellectual life, of its social organization, of its native freedom, of its economic independence, of its moral standards and racial ideals, of its good name among the peoples of the Earth, and its definite civic status.

These are seven great crimes against the race of man this country is guilty of. Each of these things are essential to man or nations. But these crimes were committed all in the name of Republic, in the interest of greed, materialism, all to the dishonor of this country and rendering our moral standard wretched.

Pretty dismal, but there's a ray of hope here. It goes on to say, that there's a trace of consciousness exists, however, a faint vestige of Christian principles that cries out and says, well, but we've given you so much for those seven grave crimes. We've given you seven great gifts.

Erroneously, he says, we've given you reservations. We've given you the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We've given you Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. We've given you clerks with its attendant paternalism. We've given you food and clothing. We've given you a new civilization. But most of all, we've given you a new great religion.

So they've extracted a price from Indian people, their territories, all their lands, their status in the community of men. First, we've had to pay was the status of an animal. They did the same thing to the Negro, enslaved them.

Built the continental railroad by reducing the Chinese to beasts of burden. When Grant Sherman-- the extermination policy to this country-- were in full force, it was because this nation reduced the Indian people to the state of animals in order to offset any cry of indignation from the standpoint of humanity or religion that might crop up because of extermination and massacre.

Why do you think we could have conducted the Second World War as efficiently as we did? As an example, look to the Indochina war. The Indochinese-- by propaganda in this country-- we're not reduced to such a status where the general outcry of indignation of the American people would be stifled to the point where slaughter could have been allowed.

In World War Two, the propaganda machinery went into effect, and were able to reduce the dignity of the status of those men that this country was engaged in. The same thing happened to the Indian people. And that's why we had an extermination policy in this country.

We have yet to recover fully from that onslaught. Our second third class citizenship exists in most every measure of law. Until today, we can't even find sufficient support to the Constitution that would prevent further transgressions upon the rights, the treaties as guaranteed by that Constitution.

The Lac Courte Oreilles tribe has made an attempt to challenge legally in the courts. And I say that it's unnecessary. It should be unnecessary. A recent court case here in Washburn County, the issue of rising. This question clearly identified and not only the treaties of the 1800s, but a public law 280, which identifies the retention of treaty rights.

But yet we find the state ignoring principles that are so obvious. Placing financial and economic burden upon Indian people. It borders on slavery. Slavery existed because of the excuse was a moral excuse that was used. Here we have a legal one.

Yet we have part of the Constitution that says neither slavery or involuntary servitude will exist in this nation. We have a lot of things being said in this nation about rights, principles. The big question for me is, for who are they talking about? It hasn't been Indian people. We've suffered the brunt of expansion.

Our humanity stripped from us. I think as American people, we owe it to ourselves and our children to reverse these tendencies so that our people who follow or have to pass judgment on this past century, will have to pass judgment upon this nation, won't have to be too severe. I think rather than hunting and fishing, we should be talking about the central issues.

If we can't solve our deficiencies in the Constitution and the law, if we can't effectively curb the greed materialism that fosters trespass against treaties, morals, and religion, if we can't deal one another with one another as members of the human race, reestablish and replenish the lost sense of dignity, make repairs for the injustice has been heaped upon this race of man, then I say to you, you have no business asking me to join the centennial. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

DICK DALEY: Chairman Rick Baker of the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian Reservation. Then a reaction paddle began. First, Eugene Savage, a Duluth Indian activist, member of the Fond du Lac Reservation. Savage, who is currently president of the Duluth Indian Action Council, discussed at some length a number of Indian treaties, some of which are in his possession.

EUGENE SAVAGE: Some of these treaties began as far back as 1700s. I think 1789 I have a treaty. And one beginning 1831 up to the present date. And I find that in these treaties, everything that was written up, that we are the world's largest land owners and also the poorest, because everything they gave us was non-productive.

Mr. Atwood opened up the evening here talking about the DNR and all the conservationists protecting the wild animals. They did a very good job of it. The passenger pigeon is gone. The wolf packs were in danger, and they became on a protected list. The bison is gone except for maybe one or two. We have a few buffalo which are coming back because they are being cultivated.

We lost most of the beaver, and the eagle had to be put on a protected list, even to the point we are not allowed to carry feathers anymore. I think the DNR did a hell of a good job. They should have let the Indians run it. Because prior to the DNR coming in with all these conservationists, we had many buffaloes, many wolves, many beaver.

And again, I say the only ones breaking the federal laws are the federal people that are charged to protect them. And I might add a few little things here that might surprise some of you which you never hear of talking about federal people breaking federal laws. Did you know that there was 44 Indians killed since the Wounded Knee incident started by the FBI, DNR, CIA and some of the goon squad?

You never read about that. But you read about the two Marshals or the two FBI men that were killed. And we had guts enough to call Hitler a criminal with the genocide that he was exercising back in World War II. It's being practiced today right now in the United States. This is 1975. And we find that people buy properties around the lake and they claim the lake.

I got news for them. No one owns the water but the federal government. And I don't know if Mr. Atwood was in that deal at that time. I know his wife was when we went into a lake near Floodwood through a natural watercourse. There was 39 adults and one juvenile. And we were all arrested for taking wild rice on a privately-owned lake. It was privately owned until we got into district court in Duluth and found a federal law that says, the federal government owns the water.

And our lawyer who has since passed away said, tomorrow if they block the waterway, we will go in by helicopter, because they do not own the water and the federal government does. But yet they see an Indian out there on some lake that is near civilization, we're poaching. We're netting. We're gilling. We are not. We only are practicing our own privileges.

OK, I got one minute. I heard Mr. Baker say something about land deals. Grand Portage was offered $0.39 an acre for a strip of land running through to the reservation to make a national park trail. And that strip of land theoretically cut the reservation in two. And you know what they said? You can't hunt on that land. So if you wound a deer here, you got to go way down the Grand portage.

Go way around that 600 feet, and go back up, and look for your wounded deer. Otherwise you get arrested. And then we're paying $0.39 an acre for that. My mother sold her land in Bayfield for $77 an acre. There was quite a difference. We finally had to close the door on the man from the BIA. But I think there's help on the way. For the Indians and the group tonight, don't despair.

We have a American Indian Policy Review Commission that's being set up. And thank heavens, there's going to be Native Americans on it. It's not going to be all politicians or non-Indians. We are having Indians sit on this board to assess the needs, and make sure that the laws are being taken care of as promised in this particular set of treaties and not a hodgepodge thing like this book describes.

DICK DALEY: Eugene Savage of the Duluth Indian Action Council. Another participant in the reaction panel was Ray Murdock, a native of the Mole Lake, Wisconsin, Chippewa Reservation, now a Duluth resident, and who's been active in Duluth, Indian Affairs. Murdock, discussed what he said is a common misconception about Indian fishing on Lake Superior.

RAY MURDOCK: That the Indian people are the ones who depleted the lake trout of Lake Superior. That the Indian people who fished out of Odanah or Redcliff were the ones who were responsible for the depletion of all kinds of fish. I'm not aware that prior to the coming of the European to this country, that the Indian people had to have the Pollock, the Eisenhower Lock, the Saint Lawrence Seaway in order to navigate their canoes.

They weren't built at that time because the Indian people didn't need them. But those same locks and that same commerce-- both foreign and domestic-- allowed for a little number about that long with a sucking mouth to get a hold of the Lake Superior trout. It's called the Lamprey. And that situation is what helped deplete the fish in Lake Superior.

Among other things, there has never been, that I know of, great outrages from people around Lake Superior, the concerned citizens, about Seuferts and Brother Fisheries, Kemp Fisheries, any other commercial fishery operation in Lake Superior. No one says anything about them. If Indian people were to be arrested at Redcliffe or Bad River, then again, the media reports that the Indians are raising hell again, or it must be inspired by the American Indian Movement.

How many people did we get see thrown in jail in Ely when the protesters went out to protest the Boundary Waters Canoe area? If that were Indian people on the edge of that area up there or standing at the entrances to Ely handing out pamphlets along the road, how many SWAT teams would they have to bring in from the Bureau of Indian Affairs or from the Federal Marshals or from the National Guard?

What would happen? Is that there would be a bunch of Redskins in jail. I can tell you that. But as long as they use names like Concerned Sportsman, whatever other sportsman's organization, then it's all right. Then the DNR backs off. And all of the troops mellow down because, well, my god, how could you throw that many White people in jail at once? You can't.

But you can throw that many Indian people in jail at once. You can put them on reservations. You can make sure that they don't have the kind of productive land that's necessary. You can only say is that the state governments have interfered long enough with Indian people and their fishing rights, that it's time that those treaties and those commitments and that were honored.

It's time that people stopped saying that Indian people have too many rights or more rights than they deserve. And the only people that can tell them that are Indian people alone, is to say that it's now time that we take our position, and that will be through the tribal governments and the authorized representatives of the tribal people to be able to, I think, fully and comprehend what we're trying to say.

And I'm not a constitutional lawyer-- at least I haven't been for several years-- nor any kind of basis in law for that matter, but when the Indian people made those treaties, it wasn't that the federal government gave us the right to hunt and fish and gather wild rice upon the land, it was simply acknowledged that Indian people always had those rights, and that they simply were not given up.

And I think many people hold the other view. That the Federal government gave us those rights. That it was their right to give us those. And that's simply not true. It's simply a part of a treaty that says that we will have the right to hunt and fish and gather wild rice upon the land. And it's one that's always been ours, is now ours and will always be ours. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

DICK DALEY: Duluth Indian activist, Ray Murdock and Clyde Atwood of the College of Saint Scholastica Indian Studies Department, moderator of the session on Indian hunting and fishing rights had a little tale of a recent hunting season at the famous Menominee reservation in Wisconsin.

CLYDE ATWOOD: In 1968, the newspaper was quoting the DNR about how many deer there were within Menominee County. And it sounded like from the reports that the deer were so thick there that you couldn't hardly drive down the roadways without hitting one. So they set up their deer season, and they had two of them. And everybody that wanted to hunt during the main season weren't supposed to be able to get a license for the second season.

But anyhow, the big spread was that you should come and join in the big hunt, because there is no doubt that you'll be sure to get your deer because there are so many here. Well, at that time I had a work crew that was doing some cleaning up along the roadways there. And from Chicago comes a low car load of people of hunters. And they drove in, and they drove around the reservation.

And my work crew reported that they saw them about eight or 10 times driving up and down the road. Finally, they stopped late in the afternoon and says, say, we read in the paper that you have a lot of deer here. And we've driven all over the reservation here, and we haven't seen one yet. And he told them, well, we find that when we want to find a deer, we have to go out into the woods. And that's an actual happening in 1968 among the Menominees.

DICK DALEY: Clyde Atwood, moderator of a recent seminar on Native American hunting and fishing rights held at the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth. And I'm Dick Daley.