These are newsgroup postings and newspaper stories ...there's a lot of text here so I've forgone adding graphics. These will change semi-regularly, to provide an update on political issues of interest in Indian Country. You may also want to check some of the links on the Native American Links page for more information.

Makah Indians Hunt for Whale
.c The Associated Press By PEGGY ANDERSEN 5/10/99

SEATTLE (AP) -- Seven Makah Indians in a cedar canoe began hunting for a gray whale on Monday -- the tribe's first such expedition since it won the right to restore the traditional whale hunts that had been banned for 70 years.

The whaling crew had intended only to go on a practice run in the Pacific Ocean near Neah Bay, said Keith Johnson, chairman of the Makah Whaling Commission.

But protesters were following the crew's 32-foot canoe and their support boat, so the tribe issued a 10-day hunting permit that requires other vessels to stay at least 500 yards away. Under the tribe's arrangement with the Coast Guard, the Makah can declare the zone for safety reasons.

"So now we've got a whaling permit, so we're going hunting,'' Johnson said.

Jonathan Paul of the Sea Defense Alliance, an anti-whaling group, said the Coast Guard had arrested two protesters and towed their motorboat away. Coast Guard officials could not immediately confirm that.

Paul also said no whales had been caught by midafternoon.

The Makah, whose whaling tradition dates back centuries, were granted the right to whale under an 1855 treaty. The hunts stopped in the 1920s because commercial whaling had brought gray whales to the brink of extinction.

When grays were taken off the Endangered Species List in 1994, the tribe moved to resume the hunts. The federal government supported their bid before the International Whaling Commission, which has banned commercial whaling since 1982.

The Makah were allocated 20 whales through 2004 -- a maximum of five per year. They are prohibited from selling edible whale parts.

No Kill on Makah Tribe Whale Hunt
.c The Associated Press By PEGGY ANDERSEN 5/11/99

NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) -- The first harpoon toss shot harmlessly over the top of a gray whale as it rolled in the Pacific, on the first day of whale hunting by Makah Indians this spring.

Seven Indians in a 32-foot cedar canoe had intended only to practice on Monday, but protesters who oppose their plans to kill gray whales were closing in. As a result, the tribe issued a 10-day hunting permit that requires other vessels to stay at least 500 yards away, said Keith Johnson, chairman of the Makah Whaling Commission.

Under the tribe's arrangement with the Coast Guard, the Makah can declare such a zone for safety reasons.

The harpoon shot missed because "the whale rolled and the harpoon went over the top,'' Johnson said.

The whaling crew prepared this morning to head back to sea for another try, but a forecast for rain and wind during the day could be a problem.

Two members of the anti-whaling group Sea Defense Alliance were arrested Monday for investigation of assault. One of two protest boats was seized and towed to the Coast Guard station in Neah Bay, the northernmost tip of the Lower 48 states.

Jacob Conroy, 23, of Seattle and Josh Harper, 24, of Eugene, Ore., are accused of throwing smoke bombs, shooting chemical fire extinguishers into the faces of the Makah whalers, shooting flares over the bow of the canoe and threatening the lives of the whaling crew.

"We did it for the whales,'' Harper said as he and Conroy were led to a sheriff's van for transport to jail in Port Angeles, about 50 miles east.

The Makah, whose whaling tradition dates back centuries, were granted the right to whale under an 1855 treaty. The hunts stopped in the 1920s because commercial whaling had brought gray whales to the brink of extinction.

When grays were taken off the Endangered Species List in 1994, the tribe moved to resume the hunts. The federal government supported their bid before the International Whaling Commission, which has banned commercial whaling since 1982.

The Makah were allocated 20 whales through 2004 -- a maximum of five per year. They are prohibited from selling edible whale parts.

The tribe was cleared to whale hunt last October and issued a 10-day hunting permit the following month. Weather, equipment and other problems prevented the novice crew from landing one of the 40-ton mammals during the migration from Alaska to Mexico.

The plan is to strike a whale with a harpoon, then finish it off with a .50-caliber rifle.

Makah Indians Kill Gray Whale
.c The Associated Press 5/17/99

(Makah Indians Kill Gray Whale Off Pacific Coast for First Time in More Than 70 Years)

NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) -- For the first time in more than 70 years, Makah Indians seeking to re-establish their whale-hunting tradition harpooned and apparently killed a gray whale off the Pacific coast this morning.

The whaling crew, in a traditional, hand-carved cedar canoe, struck the whale at 6:55 a.m. under gray and misty skies.

Support crews in motorized boats moved in with guns and fired at least two shots to try to make the kill as the wounded whale towed the canoe through choppy seas about one-eighth of a mile offshore near Point of the Arches.

The water turned red as the whalers then stuck the giant mammal with two more harpoons.

After the later strikes, the canoe was no longer being dragged, but the whale was not visible on the surface. A kill could not immediately be confirmed, but television pictures shot from helicopters showed crew members hauling on the harpoon lines and moving slowly toward shore. Large amounts of blood could be seen around the 32-foot canoe.

Tribal members said they planned to beach the whale and cut it up, sharing the meat and oil.

Today's hunt climaxed months of training by the canoe's crew and tense confrontations with antiwhaling protesters. For centuries, the tribe at the tip of Washington's Olympic Peninsula had hunted the huge grays that migrate along the Pacific Coast between Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

"We're obviously very upset that the Makah went ahead with killing an innocent, sentient creature in such a bloody and untraditional way,'' said Jake Conroy of Sea Defense Alliance. "We find if very hurtful and despicable that they did destroy that whale's life.''

The crew rested Sunday, a day after spending 10 1/2 hours paddling around the Pacific. They threw a harpoon twice Saturday, but the whales escaped apparently unharmed.

The Coast Guard seized three boats from whaling protesters Saturday. Protesters had vowed to maintain their presence, but no protesters interfered during this morning's hunt.

"I think the tradeoff -- boats for a whale -- is pretty fair,'' Paul Watson, skipper of the Sirenian and head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, had said earlier. "I'm pretty sure they would have taken a whale if it wasn't for those small boats.''

On the Makah reservation at Neah Bay, about 8 miles north of the hunting grounds, the taking of the whale was greeted by many with a mix of reverence and jubilation.

"It was just overwhelming,'' said Joddie Johnson, owner of the Makah Maiden restaurant in Neah Bay, where the morning breakfast crowd, nearly all tribal members, applauded as the hunt was broadcast live on TV.

"I've been telling people, there's no words that can express what's inside,'' she said. "Very full of pride, honor ... respect of the whale for the warriors and the warriors' respect for the greatness of the whale.''

When grays were taken off the Endangered Species List in 1994, the tribe moved to resume whale hunts guaranteed under their 1855 treaty. The usually placid marine mammal can grow up to 45 feet long.

The tribe had stopped hunting in the 1920s, after gray-whale populations were decimated by commercial whaling. Tribal leaders decided to resume as a way to preserve their culture on their remote reservation here, at the northwest tip of the Lower 48 states.

The U.S. government supported their bid before the International Whaling Commission. Under the plan, the tribe is not allowed to sell edible whale parts and can kill only five whales per year through 2004.

Makah Tribal Hunters Take Whale
.c The Associated Press By PEGGY ANDERSEN 5/18/99

NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) -- Hundreds of Makah Indians waited for hours in a chilly drizzle to celebrate the rebirth of an ancient tradition over the corpse of a gray, female whale.

The Makah's whaling crew delivered the whale Monday, culminating months of preparation and controversy as the tribe greeted the first whale landed by the tribe in more than 70 years.

Environmentalists decried the killing, which was accomplished through a combination of the traditional -- the cedar canoe, its hand-carved paddles and the whalers' ritual prayers -- and the modern, including .50-caliber rifles and motorized boats.

"We're obviously very upset that the Makah went ahead with killing an innocent, sentient creature in such a bloody and untraditional way,'' said Jake Conroy of the anti-whaling group Sea Defense Alliance.

It took about 11 hours for a Makah fishing boat to tow the whale home to this waterfront community of 2,400 people, which is tucked into the shoulder of Cape Flattery.

The Makah welcomed the whale with sacred songs, an honor guard escort and ceremonies. Harpooner Theron Parker performed a ritual to release the soul of the whale to the sea.

"I'm here for my great-grandfather,'' said Ron Johnson, who grew up hearing stories about his whaling forebears and traveled over 100 miles to be part of the celebration. "He's dancing in heaven.''

No living Makah had whaled until now, and only a few elders remembered the taste of whale meat. Some who didn't remember wanted to know what they had been missing.

"I told Eli, `You're not going to school today. This is a historic day for the Makah,''' said young mother Rebekah Greene as the 30-foot, 5-inch whale was butchered on the beach in fading daylight.

Far into the night, members of the community pitched in to help carve up the animal, peeling back an inch-thick layer of blubber to reveal the whale's red meat. The animal was believed to be at least 3 years old.

Some meat will be cured for a few days in preparation for a big feast -- probably this weekend -- for the Makah and visitors. Some will be distributed to tribal members, with the blubber rendered into oil for cooking and dipping.

The tribe is guaranteed whaling rights by its 1855 treaty, but the Makah tradition stopped in the 1920s, when commercial whaling decimated global whale populations. The United States supported the tribe's bid before the International Whaling Commission, and in 1997 the tribe was allocated 20 whales through 2004.

The hunt was filmed by helicopters and shown across the region. Makah whalers struck the giant mammal repeatedly with harpoons and with two shots from a high-powered rifle, staining the choppy waters with blood in an attack that lasted eight minutes.

The Makah, whose fishing and logging enterprises have struggled with the decline of those resources, hope the hunt will help restore tradition and pride.

The successful hunt "restores a missing link in our heritage,'' said Arnie Hunter, vice president of the tribal whaling commission, who was in a support boat when the whale was killed.

Anti-whaling demonstrators, who were here for two months last fall and returned as early as March to oppose the hunt, were not present when the whale was killed. Conroy said activists would renew their protests if the Makah try to kill another.

The communal hunt, involving many families, was considered the best way to resurrect the tradition by pooling available resources. The next hunt, which has not been scheduled, will be a family affair.

Tulalips show support for whalers
© 1999 The Daily Herald Co. 5/17/99

Tulalip tribal members took their black ceremonial canoe to Neah Bay to show support for Makah tribesmen who early Monday morning harpooned and shot a whale. The Tulalip Tribes support any tribe that carries out a part of their cultural heritage, Tulalip tribal spokesman John McCoy said in a press release Monday. At least 20 Tulalip Tribes members made the trip north on Sunday, said McCoy, who was attending a meeting Monday of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians in Oregon. "All tribes across the North American continent have practiced their culture in private to keep their roots alive ...," he said in a written statement. He added that whaling opponents have practiced a double standard: "It is acceptable for the dominant society to practice their way of life, but not acceptable for Native Americans to practice ours." The Tulalip group was the second tribe to turn out in support of the Makah's right to hunt whales; members of the Puyallup Tribe arrived last week with their canoe.

After the Hunt, Bitter Protest and Salty Blubber
By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK c. New York Times May 19, 1999

Wash. -- Some jubilant Makah Indians feasted on the blubber and raw whale meat and declared themselves spiritually transported back in time. Others spat the meat out onto the beach or struggled to wash it down with that most traditional of beverages, Coca-Cola. Protesters called, "Shame on you!" from boats huddled out in the coastal fog of Neah Bay.

On the day after the Makah killed a 30-ton, 30 1/2-foot-long female gray whale in the chill waters of the Pacific Ocean near the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, the tribe's first such kill in 75 years, hundreds of Makah Indians gathered on the beach for their first taste of whale meat, the principal source of food for their whaling ancestors.

The tribe set to work Tuesday on dismantling the huge carcass, all in preparation for a series of feasts that tribal leaders say will help reconnect the Makah to the traditions and ceremonies of their forefathers and reinvigorate members of all ages on a reservation where half the people live below the Federal poverty line and some Makah youth battle with modern scourges like drugs.

"It's a great day, a historic day for the Makah," said Ben Johnson Jr., the tribal chairman, "but there are a lot of other hurdles we still have to jump over, many things to work on."

The Makah men who killed the whale plan to freeze and cure much of the meat for ceremonies they will hold in the coming weeks, and the bones are to be strung together for a display at the Makah Museum.

But even as the Makah were celebrating their success in killing the whale, which lay partly carved under a blue tarp on the beach today, controversy over the event continued, clearly intensified by the widespread television broadcast of the whale being harpooned, shot and spilling a stream of red blood into the Pacific.

Protesters gathered here and at a rally on Monday night in downtown Seattle, and a group of whale-watch tour boat operators from Canada showed up to voice their opposition to the killing. Computer hackers got into the tribe's Web site, turning it red with dripping blood and changing "Neah Bay" on the map to "Death Bay."

"They are acting totally differently from their ancestors, who were sad and somber and respectful after a hunt," said Paul Watson, leader of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, one of the conservation groups that had tried to disrupt the hunt. "We'll mourn for the whale. They're acting like a bunch of redneck hunters having a good old time."

Tribal leaders, who petitioned the International Whaling Commission for the right to kill up to five whales a year for the next four years for "subsistence and ceremonial purposes," said they might not conduct another hunt until fall, when the gray whales pass through here on their southward migration.

In any event, they have their hands full with the huge mammal and plans to distribute food from it to the 1,700 Makah who live on the wind-swept tribal land here at the northwest tip of the continental United States.

Many Makah chewed for hours on small chunks of blubber that, they said, had the consistency of taffy and a strong, salty taste. The meat can be softened by boiling, cured or smoked to a jerky-like consistency or even fried or grilled.

"It's not like we have a bunch of favorite recipes to work with," said Richard Markishtum, a 32-year-old fisherman. "This may be an ancient tradition, but it's all new to us."

Whether whale meat will again become a major source of food here remains to be seen.

"I think it's a much more complicated issue than whether or not they just like the taste of whale meat," said Larry Zimmerman, director of the American Indian and Native studies program at the University of Iowa.

"They may like it, they may not like it," Zimmerman said. "They may say they like it because the dominant society is trying to get them to stop eating it. They're going to have to decide on their own terms."

Members of the West Coast Anti-Whaling Society, echoing concerns of other protesters, said they feared that the Makah's hunt would open a Pandora's box of petitions by other groups for the right to hunt whales, and more broadly could lead to relaxation of the bans that many countries, including the United States, have imposed on all commercial whaling. (Some nations, including Norway, Russia and Japan, continue to engage in the practice and many aboriginal groups, including some in Alaska, are allowed special subsistence or ceremonial privileges to hunt.)

Already, two coastal tribes in British Columbia are asking for the right to hunt gray whales, a move the British Columbia Government vows to fight.

But the Makah said that the whale taken on Monday, near Father and Son Rocks off Olympic National Park, will not be used for commercial purposes. Instead, they said, it and any other whales killed will be for tribal use only, or to share with other Indian groups. Members of the Quillayute, Hoh, Tulalip and Puyallup tribes have gathered here in the past few days to help celebrate the successful hunt.

"This is not about money," said Theron Parker, who threw the first harpoon on Monday morning and got to partake of the first piece c ut from the whale when it was towed to shore that evening. "This is about a great tradition. It's about calling out to our ancestors. It's all about who we are as a people."

Makah Celebrate Whale Hunt Success
.c The Associated Press By PEGGY ANDERSEN 5/22/99

NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) -- Makah Indians joined with neighboring tribes today to celebrate their first successful whale hunt since the 1920s, haling as heroes the whalers who revived their ancient tradition.

Hundreds watched as the Makah whaling crew led a parade of a dozen floats down the reservation's main street. Several meals -- some using meat from the slain whale -- were being served over the course of the party, interspersed with songs and dances from guests and hosts. Many waited in line to snap photos with the eight whalers.

On Monday, the crew paddled its canoe off the country's northwesternmost tip to kill a 30-foot gray whale using a harpoon and a .50 caliber rifle. The kill renewed a tradition guaranteed by the tribe's 1855 treaty but abandoned decades ago when commercial whaling decimated the species.

The Makahs moved to resume whale hunts when gray whales were removed from the Endangered Species List five years ago. In 1997, the tribe was given permission to hunt 20 whales through 2004.

Anti-whaling activists contend such hunting is illegal and fear it will lead to a worldwide renewal of commercial whaling. Two were arrested during Monday's hunt.

"Too often, the history of Indian treaties has been a history of broken promises,'' tribal chairman Ben Johnson said Saturday in a statement. He thanked Americans who have "demonstrated understanding and tolerance for the ways of Indian culture.''

Not everyone was celebrating. Two protest boats sat offshore, and demonstrators vowed to continue on at the small reservation.

"We want them to know we're still here,'' said Jonathan Paul of the Sea Defense Alliance, whose group had two boats seized last week. "We're not leaving just because they killed this first whale. They want to kill more.''

Dozens of protesters also gathered about 20 miles east of the reservation to caravan to the edge of the Makah reservation -- a weekly routine begun before the hunt. A low-key, peaceful memorial for the whale was also planned.

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