The Santa Fe New Mexican from Santa Fe, New Mexico • Page A004

A-4 THE NEW MEXICAN Friday, December 30, 2011 Movement put down roots in Northern N.M. Slaves: Scars and marks recorded held in a large tent erected on the Sombrillo ranch, and summer solstice celebrations held in the Jemez Mountains, attracted politicians such as Govs. Bill Richardson, Bruce King, Gary Johnson, Garrey Carruthers, Toney Anaya and David Cargo, as well as Tom Udall, first as attorney general, then as a U.S. congressman and now as a U.S. senator.

Yogi Bhajan and other Sikhs were regular contributors to the campaigns of both parties. By the time of his death on Oct. 6, 2004, of heart disease at age 75, Yogi Bhajan was wealthy, politically connected and, some would say, New Mexico's most successful cult leader. Yogi Bhajan taught his brand of Sikhism By Tom Sharpe The New Mexican Yogi Bhajan, also known as Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji and Harbhajan Singh Puri, was born Aug. 26, 1929, in the part of India that became Pakistan in 1947.

According to his official biography, he became a kundalini yoga master at age 16. Yoga is not typically a part of Sikh culture in India, but taken from its Hindus. Yogi Bhajan earned a master's degree in economics at Punjab University, served as an officer in the Indian army bred Arabian horses, drilled in paramilitary exercises and built an ashram and dozens of homes, including one for Yogi Bhajan with a domed bedroom and sunken bath. The American Sikhs started restaurant called The Golden Temple in Santa Fe, where Cafe Pasqual's is located today, a brass-bed store and security firm now known nationally as Akal Security. By the mid-1970s, Yogi Bhajan claimed 250,000 followers and 110 ashrams in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe, with headquarters in Sombrillo.

Turban-wearing, white-robed Sikhs, including men with full beards, became common sights around Santa Fe. Yogi Bhajan's birthday parties, Yogi: Claims of sleepovers, group Emory's researchers are including audio clips of the names as they would likely be pronounced in Africa. "These people enslaved were not just a nebulous group of people with no place and no name," said Kwesi DeGraft-Hanson, one of the researchers, who has found variations of his name, his brother's and his children's names in the database. He is originally from Ghana. Eltis and his researchers acknowledge the database may not help African Americans with genealogical research, because records on the Africans once they were freed from the ships are harder to find, if they exist at all.

However, the project provides another piece in a major jigsaw, and helps put together a bigger picture of slavery, Walvin said. Before this project, Eltis and others assembled a database of 35,000 trans-Atlantic slave ship voyages responsible for the flow of more than 10 million Africans to the Americas. Together, the two databases provide some details on the horrific voyages of the Africans, including the Obamas. The Xerxes, which carried one of the unidentified Obamas, was a 138-foot schooner that began its voyage in Havana with a crew of 44. Five guns were mounted aboard when the ship left on a slave purchasing trip to Bonny on Feb.

10, 1828. Sailing under the Spanish flag, the ship's captain, Felipe Rebel, purchased 429 slaves, nearly one third of them children, before setting out on a return trip to the Americas. But on June 26, 1828, the Xerxes was intercepted and forced to dock at an unknown Cuban port. By then, 26 slaves had died. The other unidentified Obama, who was 6-foot-3, was one of 562 Africans shackled in the belly of the Midas.

The vessel was a Brig, a fast, maneuverable ship with two square-rigged masts. It was equipped with eight guns. Midas' captain, J. Martinez, and a crew of 53 left Cuba on an unknown date. It left Bonny with 562 slaves but was intercepted.

It docked in Cuba on July 8, 1829 minus, 162 slaves who had died during the voyage. Some slaves freed from seized ships were returned to Africa, but not always to their original homelands. Some were sent to Liberia or were allowed to remain free in the cities where the courts were located. Some may have been re-enslaved, and some died on ships that were returning them to Africa. Continued from Page A-l lost.

Africans captured by the Portuguese were baptized and given "Christian" names aboard the ships that were taking them into slavery. But original African names surnames were uncommon for Africans in the 19th century are rich with information. Some reveal the day of the week an individual was born or whether that individual was the oldest, youngest or middle child, or a twin. They can also reveal ethnic or linguistic groups. The president's father was from Kenya, on the eastern coast of Africa, and Eltis said it was rare for captives to hail from areas far from the port where their ships set sail.

The unidentified Obamas on the slave ships sailed from west Africa. Walvin, author of The Zong, a book about the slave trade, said there were Africans who had been brought great distances before they were forced onto ships. "Often their enslavement had begun much earlier, deep in the African interior, most of them captured through acts of violence, warfare or kidnap, or for criminal activity," Walvin said in his book, which chronicles the true story of a captain who ordered a third of the slaves aboard his ship thrown overboard because of a shortage of drinking water. Obama's ancestors, a nomadic people known as the River-lake Nilotes, migrated from Bahr-el-Ghazal province in Sudan toward Uganda and into Western Kenya, according to Sally Jacobs, author of The Other Barack, a book about the president's father. They were part of several clans and subclans that eventually became the Luo people of Kenya, Jacobs writes.

The president's greatgrandfather's name was Obama. Obama is derived from the word "bam," meaning crooked or indirect, she said in her book. But it's also possible that Obama was a name used by other cultural groups in Africa and for whom the name had a different meaning. The slaves found aboard intercepted ships provided their names, ages and sometimes where they were from through translators to English and Spanish speaking court registrars who wrote their names as they sounded to them. Body scars or identifying marks also were recorded.

The details were logged in an attempt to prevent the Africans from being enslaved again, which didn't always work. rumors about his relationship with his assistants. A codicil trust to support 15 of his assistants, new Mexican file photo and worked as a customs agent in New Delhi. In 1954, he married Inderjit Kaur Khalsa, also known as Bibiji, now living in Los Angeles. They have two sons, Ran-bir Singh Bhai of Los Angeles and Kulbir Singh Puri of Albuquerque, and a daughter, Kamaljit Kaur Kohli of Albuquerque.

In 1968, Yogi Bhajan emigrated to Toronto, then to Los Angeles, where he began to attract young Americans hungry for his version of Sikhism, which blended yoga, vegetarianism, enterprise and abstinence from drugs and alcohol. By 1970, his followers began to congregate in New Mexico, buying 40 acres in Sombrillo, near Espanola, where they Yogi Bhajan's life was marked by to his 1987 will called for a living Bhajan's estate, based on sales in recent years. With Yogi Tea sales of $27 million in 2009 in the United States and Europe, the Eugene Register-Guard estimated the heirs might be owed another $485,905 by the end of 2012 plus what they might gain from selling the trademark to others. A separate but related case was brought in Oregon state court by the ministers of the religious trust, Unto Infinity, against Golden Temple. This month, a Portland, judge ruled that Golden Temple's CEO, Kartar Singh Khalsa, unjustly enriched himself and other company executives at the expense of Unto Infinity.

Monetary damages have yet to be determined, but Unto Infinity is seeking $50 million. Several other trademarks used by Golden Temple, in addition to Yogi Tea, remain in contention. Soni, Puri's attorney, said these rulings prove that not all the assets of the estate were identified partly because the trustees for the assistants did not thoroughly investigate. "We demonstrated there are trademarks that the trustees did not appreciate, recognize, pursue, claim that we, at great personal expense, have been able to secure," he said. The litigation over Yogi Tea has been covered closely by the Sikh News Network (sikhnn.com).

A November article there pointed out that the assistants are "Caucasians" who converted to Sikhism and assumed their Sikh surnames, posting photographs of the former assistants who were not wearing the turbans or dress worn by traditional Sikhs. "Peraim Kaur, one of his personal staff members, in her testimony for another lawsuit in Oregon, described how she worked long hours for little pay," says the article. "She told the court she had no vacations and was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also is common knowledge that his personal staff was discouraged from having outside relationships." The Sikh News Network's correspondent on those stories, Kamalia Kaur, described herself as a "survivor of the YB Yogi Bhajan cult." Kaur, now 58 and living in Bellingham, said she joined Yogi a a I massages "on assignment with the U.S. State Department in Afghanistan." She did not return an email seeking comment on this story.

Soni dismissed Kamalia Kaur's allegations: "We have resisted getting involved in that kind of silly debate. If she's got an ax to grind, she's got an ax to grind. If her experience is less than optimal, that's fine. "What exactly is a cult? Every born-again community, whether it's Baptist, Anglican, Buddhist, every one of them is a cult. Cult, unfortunately, has a negative suggestion and implication." Kaur is hardly the only former Yogi Bhajan disciple to break with 3HO.

Guru Sant Singh Khalsa, who in 1982 unsuccessfully challenged the U.S. Department of Defense's rule banning servicemembers from wearing traditional Sikh garb, said he became disillusioned after visiting India and realizing that real Sikh culture was different than Yogi Bhajan had led him to believe. Now living in Yuba City, Calif, Gura Sant said Yogi Bhajan's devotion to tantric yoga, astrology and other "new age" practices would be forbidden by traditional Sikhs, who also would abhor the "cult of personality" that sprung up around him. He recalled that Yogi Bhajan collected art that traditional Sikhs would consider pornographic and regularly slept in his room with one of his "secretaries" while his wife slept in another room. As early as 1977, Time magazine took notice of rumors about Yogi Bhajan's assistants.

"Bhajan has repeatedly been accused of being a womanizer," it said in a story about 3HO. "Colleen Hoskins, who worked seven months at his New Mexico residence, reports that men are scarcely seen there. He is served, she says, by a coterie of as many as 14 women, some of whom attend his baths, give him group massages, and take turns spending the night in his room while his wife sleeps elsewhere." Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe sfriewmexican.com. Continued from Page A-l was delaying distribution of funds to the trust by claiming she knew nothing about it. In a counterclaim, Puri asked that the trustees be removed because, as three of the 15 assistants benefiting from the trust, they are in breach of their fiduciary duties.

Noting that Yogi Bhajan was suffering from physical and mental ailments at the time the codicil was signed, the counterclaim says the "assistants to Yogi Bhajan signed his name to the documents." In April 2009, state District Judge James Hall dismissed the trustees' complaint but left the counterclaim intact. Hall retired at the end of 2009, and the case was transferred to District Judge Sarah Singleton, who waited until Nov. 7 to hold her first meeting on the case. She set a trial date for March 19. Neither the trustees' lawyer, J.

Katherine Girard, nor the trustees themselves, Sopurkh Kaur Khalsa, Shakti Parwha Kaur Khalsa and Ek Ong Kar Kaur Khalsa, have been available for comment. Puri's attorney, Surjit Soni of Pasadena, Calif, agreed that the former assistants are due income from the trust. But he said that because Yogi Bhajan had handled his family's financial affairs, "like most guys tend to do," Puri was unaware of his donations to the living trust. Soni, who is also Puri's nephew, said he is asking the judge to apply community-property rules to the case, so that the "marital estate" is divided in half and payments to the 15 assistants come out of Yogi Bhajan's portion, not Puri's. Not until 2009, five years after Yogi Bhajan's death, did Puri move to open Yogi Bhajan's will to probate proceedings in state District Court in Santa Fe.

Judge Barbara Vigil assigned Christopher Cullen, a Santa Fe lawyer, as the personal representative of the estate, but "gave him very specific but very limited instructions about what he could investigate and how he could investigate," Soni said. As a result, Cullen was unable to identify all of the assets of the estate, and Vigil ordered the probate closed, "saying no other assets have been discovered," Soni said. "We disagree with that because we don't think the investigation was complete." He said he is appealing that closure. This year, the estate became significantly more valuable because of a federal trademark case over Yogi Tea a blend of black tea, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, ginger and peppercorns that Yogi Bhajan used to serve at his kundalini yoga classes and went on to sell at his restaurants and health-food stores. In 2004, a Eugene, company called Golden Temple of Oregon began marketing Yogi Tea, using Yogi Bhajan's name and likeness, under an agreement with him.

This continued for four years after his death, with royalties split between Puri, the assistants' trust and a religious trust. In 2008, Golden Temple quit paying royalties and using Yogi Bhajan's name and likeness, but continued to use the name Yogi Tea to begin selling another tea called just Yogi. Puri sued, and this fall an arbiter ordered Golden Temple to cease using the trademark by Jan. 1 and pay $822,302 to Yogi Some names reveal the day of the week an individual was born, birth order or background. Bhajan's Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization, or 3HO, 40 years ago after taking a kundalini yoga class with her husband at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia Years later, while living in the Bay Area of California, she began questioning the "organization's dysfunctional side," she wrote in an email "Soon was shunned and former students started calling me and telling me their horrible stories.

Then I got a threatening phone call." Kaur eventually divorced her husband, who remained with Yogi Bhajan's organization. She gave up custody of her three children, turned over her money to her ex-husband, "and hit the streets. But I couldn't stop studying the story of my life," she wrote. "When you lose the years 18-37, your prime, to serving a sociopath, you might as well dedicate a few years to warning and educating others about authoritarian groups." She now moderates an online forum called "The Wacko World of Yogi Bhajan" on which both Kaur and others have referred repeatedly to Yogi Bhajan's assistants as his harem. But that may the least of the charges on trie website, where Yogi Bhajan is accused of a variety of illegal activities, including fraudulent marketing schemes, drug dealing and corruption.

Recently, Kaur has pointed out that one of Yogi Bhajan's former assistants was an aide to former Gov. Bill Richardson. "Siri Trang Kaur is one of the younger women listed among the fifteen 'personal assistants' in Bhajan's trust," she wrote. "She's cut in for six percent of the distribution in the trust that's part of Bibiji's continuing legal dispute with the harem." Siri Trang Kaur, who sometimes uses the last name Khalsa, is listed as an associate of Albuquerque political and public relations specialist Doug Turner in a firm called Policy and Positions. The company's website says she was the director of marketing for the firm that first brought Yogi Tea and other Golden Temple products to the market, worked as a foreign policy adviser in Richardson's 2008 presidential campaign, and that she is now Plan: Population grew by 13 percent was underpopulated by more than 3 percent.

The plan adopted by Hall shifts fewer than 25,000 New Mexicans into new districts. The other plans had proposed shifting between 185,000 and 264,000 people. "Such a shift in districts is not necessary to correct the population imbalances in the current plan," the judge said. Under the adopted plan, the current districts remain mostly intact and the voting performance of the districts would not change. The changes affect Roosevelt County, with Portales remaining in the 3rd District and most other parts of the county going into the 2nd District.

Most of Rio Rancho will be unified in the 3rd District. Continued from Page A-l between various communities of interest and, to a reasonable extent, respects boundaries of political units," Hall said. District boundaries must be adjusted for population changes over the past decade. The goal is to equalize district populations as much as possible to ensure that each New Mexican's vote is of equal weight. That's necessary to comply with the legal requirements of one person, one vote.

According to the 2010 Census, the state's population grew by more than 13 percent. With that growth, the 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts were overpopulated by 1 to 2 percent, while the 2nd Congressional District.