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ripll movement, the country' 700 ative American lawyers are using the judicial sys- lem. "There has been more Indian litigation in lbe last 20 years," says John Echohawk, aecutivc director of the ative American Rights Fund, "than in the previous 200." Most of the conflicts, in one way or an- Olber, grow out of a commitment to the land. Despite anthropologis ' evidence that aossed the Bering Strait land bridge to North America, many tribe believe their 1a111.-:11nn: emerged from an underworld a hole in the earth known as the i- Their religion, their art and their well- are tied to the land they ha e guarded revered. ow, many generations after · settlers bnbed, swindled and threat- thousands of Native Americans out of of hectares, they are determined to restitution. In the Black Hill of Wyoming, 15 tribe Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas fighting off an effort by the U.S. Fore t · to turn their sacred ite of Medi- Wheel into a tourist attraction. The member orthem Cheyenne tribe of Deer, Mont., is battling coal miners railroad developers on their land . fear that development would bring · flooding into the middle of their re- ceremonies and di turb areas rich in plants and yellow-ocher earth aeeded for those rituals. "How would you like it if I took my picnic b ket, my family and dog· into your church while you were praying?" asks Bill TallBull, tribal el- der of the orthem Cheyenne. M any tribes are trapped between ancient environmental principles and modem economic pre ure . One Alaskan tribe, in dire need of fund , i reluctantly trying to decide whether to ign away logging rights around Prince William Sound, permit oil drilling in a delicate wild- life area, or allow an airfield to be built in the midst of a va t habitat for Kodiak bears. Other tribe have allowed waste- management companie to u e reservation land for dump and di po al ite then uf. fered from the contamination of their land and water as a re ult. Aero the vast Ari- zona tracts of the avajo ation, high- voltage wire run like ilver thread to the Pacific Ocean, carrying electricity all the way to California-but not to the 200,000 avajo who live beneath them. A central controversy hared by ative American of many tribe i the crusade to have relics and remain of Indian ance tors removed from museum and returned to the tribe for burial. Some tribe believe the soul cannot re t until the body i re- turned to nature, by burial or cremation. Hundreds of thousands of Indian corp were dug from their grave and carted away to be di played. "Grave robbing was so wide pread that virtually every tribe in the country has been victimized," says Pawnee Indian Walter Echo-Hawk, taff attorney for the ative American Rights Fund. In a landmark accord with Indian leaders last year, the mithsonian Institution agreed to sort through its collection of 18,500 re- main and return for burial all those that were clearly identifiable as belonging to a certain tribe. Stanford University then pledged to return its entire collection of re- mains of the Oblone tnbe. Other museums and collectors followed uit, and in ovem- ber Pr ident Bush igned a bill to protect Indian grave ite in the U.S. and return re- main to the tribe . In me in tances, how- ever, tnbe have actually asked a museum to retain permanent control of the objects so they could be properly conserved. In all areas of conflict, over land or tra- dition or scientific collection , years of liti- gation remain ahead. The BIA will have an uphill battle persuading ative American that it i prepared to protect their interests rather than confound them. Given the U.S. government' track record in dealing with the orth American continent' original owners, the task of rebuilding tru t will take con iderable will and faith on both ides. .,_..,,,,,NwJ~ .... , •• .,.Mtd ...... ~Mc.i> •"-~