Here is a summary of some of the top Native American-related news stories in the U.S. this week:
Lawmakers Consider Seating Cherokee Nation Delegate in US House
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. is urging Congress to honor a bargain made nearly 200 years ago to seat a Cherokee delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The 1835 Treaty of New Echota set terms for the tribe's removal from Georgia to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma and included a Cherokee delegate to Congress.
"The carefully constructed promise...was in fact critical to secure the agreement of the Cherokee People," Hoskin told the House Rules Committee Wednesday, reminding them the treaty led to the deaths of thousands of Cherokees along the 1,000-mile Trail of Tears.
Detail, 1835 Treaty of New Echota, Art. 7, promising the Cherokee Nation a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"The Treaty of New Echota is a living, valid treaty, and the delegate provision is intact," he said. "Lapse of time cannot abrogate a treaty."
The Cherokee Nation has selected former President Barack Obama adviser Kimberly Teehee to fill the seat. If confirmed, Teehee would join six nonvoting delegates representing the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States Virgin Islands.
"This can and should be done as quickly as possible," Committee Chairman James McGovern said. Lawmakers may first examine whether the treaty applies to other federally recognized Cherokee tribes in Oklahoma and North Carolina.
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FBI director Christopher Wray testifies for a second day before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Washington, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022.
FBI Head to Congress: Oklahoma Caseload Is Draining Agency Resources
FBI Director Christopher Wray says his agency's caseloads in Oklahoma increased dramatically following a U.S. Supreme Court decision giving federal and tribal governments, not the state, authority to prosecute violent crimes by or against Native Americans in more than 40% of Oklahoma.
The 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma blocked state government prosecutorial authorities in areas of eastern Oklahoma because, the court ruled, Congress never disestablished the Muscogee (Creek) Nation there.
"In response the FBI surged national resources to ensure it was able to address its mission requirements to investigate major crimes in the newly designated Tribal Territory," Wray told members of the House Committee on Homeland Security Tuesday. "These surges subsequently caused resource strains on other investigative programs and threats."
In June 2022, Supreme Court justices reversed McGirt, ruling in Castro v. Huerta that "the Federal Government and the State have concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country."
That decision has taken some of the pressure off the FBI, Wray said, and could reduce agency caseloads in Oklahoma by up to 20%.
"This would free FBI resources to return to other national threat issues, while still providing Tribal communities with the FBI law enforcement services they've historically relied on," he said.
Tribes regard the Castro-Huerta decision as an attack on their sovereignty.
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Harvard Museum to Return Native American Hair Samples
Harvard University has apologized for holding and is pledging to return to tribes and families hundreds of hair samples taken from Native American children in the federal boarding school system.
In 1930, physical anthropologist and Colorado State Museum curator George Woodbury launched a study of the structure of Native American hair to determine Native Americans' racial origins.
He collected hair samples from hundreds of Native American children in federal boarding schools, comparing them to hair samples from indigenous individuals in Canada, Asia, Central America, South America and Oceania, as well as mummified remains found in Colorado. And he took them with him when he became a lecturer at Harvard in 1935.
"We recognize that for many Native American communities, hair holds cultural and spiritual significance, and the Museum is fully committed to the return of hair back to families and tribal communities," Jane Pickering, director of Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, said November 10.
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Jesse Tarango, left, chairman of Wilton Rancheria, and his mother, Mary Tarango, look at an enlarged photo of a statue of the late William Franklin Sr. during a groundbreaking ceremony for a Native American monument at Capitol Park in Sacramento, Calif.
California to Honor Indigenous Northern California Tribes
State and tribal officials in California have broken ground on a monument honoring the Miwok and Nisenan peoples of Northern California. It will replace a statue of the controversial Spanish Catholic missionary Junipero Serra, which protestors toppled in July 2020 at the height of protests following the killing of George Floyd.
Serra was an 18th century Spanish missionary who founded a string of Roman Catholic missions in California to convert Indigenous peoples. In 2015, the Vatican canonized him as a saint. But for many Native Americans, Serra is a symbol of colonial oppression.
Serra's statue in the state capital Sacramento will be replaced with a bronze statue of the late William "Bill" Franklin, a well-known Miwok tribe member whom Assemblyman James C. Ramos called a "fierce protector and preservationist" of cultural dances and other ceremonies.
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Item in the Placer Herald newspaper Auburn, Ca., Dec. 3, 1864.
Feds Seize Purported Native American Scalp from New England Auction Dealer
The FBI is investigating whether an artifact up for sale by a Maine auction house is as advertsed: a Native American scalp.
Acting on a tip, investigators got a search warrant and seized from Poulin's Antiques and Auctions an item labeled as a "Mescallaro [sic] Apache scalp."
The 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act criminalizes the purchase, sale or transport of Native American remains.
"There is a process underway to determine whether the item is human, whether it is Native American, and whether, if Native American, the remains are that of a person who was a member of a particular tribe," Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Casey said.
No charges have been filed against the auction house, he added.
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California Tribes Hail Dam Removal Plan After 20-Year Fight
The largest dam removal in US history has received final federal approval in a major victory for environmentalists and Native American communities. The four dams along the border of California and Oregon have been blamed for the decline of salmon and other species. VOA reporter Matt Dibble filed this story:
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California Tribes Hail Dam Removal Plan After 20-Year Fight