The Santa Fe New Mexican from Santa Fe, New Mexico • 26

D-2 THE NEW MEXICAN Sunday May 16 1993 Zuni jewelry Campbell says the law as is should be given a chance to work But Richard Shiff who directs the Center for the Study of Modernism at the University of Texas at Austin says the act is already a working example of the law of good intentions and unintended consequences a total says Shiff just sort of gets worse and worse even though everybody is trying to do the right appropriate and authentic Indian artists did the work The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in Charlottesville Va concerned about the First Amendment rights of artists like Rorex wants to bring all sides together in search of a compromise Sen Jeff Bingaman D-NM wants to amend the law limiting its application to traditional crafts associated with particular tribes like Navajo rugs and 'Non-Indians have stolen everything we had our land our resources and now that the concept Indian has become a marketable commodity they want to steal that from usf David Bradley Santa Fe painter And yet says Walkingstick when she met Jimmie Durham she knew goes a Durham argues that the whole concept of confines Indians on a commercial and cultural reservation He has refused to seek a His critics say all a dodge Nonetheless with his identity in doubt and in fear of fines nervous galleries in Santa Fe and San Francisco canceled Durham shows after the law passed Since then in the February issue of Art in America Geoffrey Stamm assistant general manager of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board warned that when enforcement begins Jimmie Durham is selling art work as a Cherokee and he does not have certification from the tribe he will be Durham apparently took the threat seriously He has since written Art in America citing the law and declaring am not an American Rorex finds herself in the cultural twilight because the Cherokees require that members trace their ancestry to someone on the tum-of-the-century Dawes Rolls She cannot Other tribes require a minimum blood quantum or birth on the reservation Some are matrilineal others patrilineal As soon as the law passed the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee Okla closed its doors because two-thirds of its master artists were undocumented It reopened a month later with a new category non-government enrolled descendants of a tribe to describe their status Other venues have avoided problems by promoting themselves differently The Colorado Indian Market in Denver became the Colorado Indian Market and Western Roundup have never and will never regardless of the law ever ask to see the blood quantum papers of says Jan Esty who puts on the market one of the largest in the nation Most recently Esty raised a stink when the city of Denver turned over a $200000 Indian art project for the new international airport being built on an old Indian meeting ground to the Western Indian Chamber so they could ensure that The entire family can get great haircuts from licensed professional stylists at everyday low prices And you never need an appointment Stop in at our convenient mall location At MasterCuts we trim prices not quality $495 Kids Cut (12 and under) Save $2 Reg $695 Sorry no double scounts $695 Adult Cut Save $2 Reg $8 95 Sorry no double discounts MasterCuts INDIAN Continued from Page D-l ries about those artists the law locks out really good Native American people are getting says Haskew are the only group of people in the United States who have to prove they are who they say they To the many defenders concern is mis placed They contend that art- ists like Rorex who cannot prove tribal descent are pretenders who have benefited from their identification at the expense of authentic Indians Phony Indians are a big issue in Indian Country Phony artists Phony writers Phony New Age medicine men and spiritualists with hippie psuedo-In-dian names Phony Indians taking college scholarships and jobs away from real Indians Worst of all many of these papier-mache Indians have become totems of Indian culture have stolen everything we had our land our resources and now that the concept Indian has become a marketable commodity they want to steal that from says David Bradley a Santa Fe painter In the absence of official enforcement of the Arts and Crafts Act Bradley has emerged as the Indian art vigilante outing those he believes to be poseurs Bradley a Chippewa says the Indian identity has never had more allure the age of multicultural-ism it is much more profitable to claim a minority a person of color and especially an American says Bradley Indian activist Suzan Shown Harjo one of the prime movers behind the Indian Arts and Crafts Act says Americans grow up thinking of Indians as history not current reality as a part of their common heritage not a big leap from that to cultural says Harjo a Cheyenne and former head of the National Congress of American Indians the only group who seems to have people who pretend to be says Richard Glazer Danay a painter and member of the federal Indian Arts and Craft Board which must interpret the 1990 law In the 1980s the number of Americans identifying themselves as Indians jumped 38 percent to nearly 2 million a huge increase that had more to with fashion than fertility Another 5 million Americans claim some Indian ancestry By contrast only about 12 million Americans are members of the more than 300 federally recognized tribes Those 12 million are unique citi- zens not only of the United States but of the independent sovereign Indian nations those tribes represent Danay who is half Caugh-nawaga Mohawk and half Jewish a ac 11: jQsy MasterCuts income for some very poor Americans Campbell a Northern Cheyenne and accomplished Indian jeweler says the act was needed to set a uniform national standard amid a proliferation of state Indian art laws It did so by toughening an unen- forced 1935 federal prohibition on counterfeit Indian products Campbell says the new law also offered non-enrolled Indian artists a chance to instead seek certification as from the tribe of their ancestry Yet two and a half years since the law was enacted the Indian Arts and Crafts Board a tiny independent agency within the Interior Department has yet to begin writing regulations In the meantime ad hoc forcement has been accomplished through innuendo and fear got people jumping off of bridges and cutting their wrists for no says Campbell Take the case of Jimmie Durham In the past 30 years Durham has established himself as a respected Wolf Clan Cherokee performer poet writer visual artist and political activist For many years he was a leader in the American Indian Movement But Durham was never an en- rolled Cherokee and his authenticity has been challenged nothing but a jack white man with some kind of victim says David Bradley only way he can fulfill it is by saying the most downtrodden disenfranchised person you can MasterCuts family haircuttcrs Villa Linda Mali 471-2022 knowledges that a natural to the arts and crafts law is unconstitutional unfair Because his tribe is of Canadian origin Danay who teaches Indian history at the University of California at Riverside under the law bill himself as an Indian artist Yet Danay says he ultimately concluded anything the not strong that it ought to apply to writers and filmmakers and lecturers anyone who calls themselves Indian without any form of proof or Painter Kay Walkingstick who teaches at Cornell University disagrees To Walking-stick an enrolled Cherokee documentation makes perfect sense for hiring scholarships and tribal benefits But not art should be free it should be open it should have to do with deepest she says about wrangling about an Indian and not an a very odd law very says Walkingstick polarized a lot of That is not what its authors anticipated was never intended to be some kind of witch says Sen Ben Nighthorse Campbell D-Colo a co-sponsor when he was in the House It was supposed to be a bill to protect people from unknowingly buying cheap imitation Indian products It is estimated that imports siphon 10 percent to 20 percent from the $400 million to $800 million Indian handicrafts industry an important source of "I U1TIU A 1 'hi: BPEGDAL "Ty'lz Regis Cotporanon 1993 A I i 1 js liobfi Any Perm Sorry no double discounts MasterCuts 0 ETJ Explorer package 931A includes: Air Conditioning Big P233 Tire Power Windowslock Bear Window Wiped Defroster 2 Ranger XIT Supercab 1 package 853A Includes AMTM Stereo Cassette Sliding Beer Window Power Steering Chrome Bear Step Bumper fz I 150 Supcrcab paukaje 5S7A Includes Air Conditioning Power Wlndowvlocks AMTM Stereo Cassette "Clock Speed ControlTllt Steering Wheel 1 mn wimerss SHARE III ovzzjj YY i I- mi -7 Vi NM i i EACH riOIITII! an Extra SIX "1 a prize i (y 1 I JACKPOT HOTLINE 435 3313 C-y CANDY POPCORN SOFT DRINKS COFFEE 21 HOURS A DAY 7 DAYS A VYLCK 1 1 AH i Cl rCrCjFcnita Fc Auto HiH'C-CJO -R ll 'll i mu rr 15 North cf on 23 1 io 1 1 a i (Y th I n-1 19 A i I i 4 i 1 I 4 TP 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