harassment of Indian traditionalists on the Pine
Ridge Reservation. In the next three years, 69 peo-
ple affiliated with the resistance effort will be killed.
Although Wilson’s police force will be implicated
in many of the murders, every case will remain un-
solved by the FBI.August 27The Canadian Supreme Court decides the
Lavell case.
In Attorney General Canada v. Lavell, Jeannette
Lavell, an Ojibway Indian, challenges the pro-vision in Canada’s Indian Act (see entry for
APRIL 12, 1876) that revokes an Indian woman’s
Indian status when she marries a non-Indian. The
Canadian Supreme Court finds against Lavell and
holds that the Indian Act does not violate the
guarantee of equality provided for in Canada’s
Bill of Rights. (See also entry for SEPTEMBER 2,
1981.)September 24A Chippewa leader claims Italy “by right
of discovery.”
Adam Nordwall, a Chippewa leader who partici-
pated in the Alcatraz occupation (see entries for
NOVEMBER 20, 1969, and for JUNE 11, 1971),
steps out of a plane after landing at Rome’s Fi-
umicino airport, declares that he has discovered
Italy, and claims it for his people. The tongue-in-
cheek gesture is meant to illustrate the absurdity
of the claims of Christopher Columbus and other
non-Indian explorers to Indian land by right of
discovery. Nordwall explains to the press that the
only difference between his claim and Columbus’s
is that the Italian explorer “came to conquer a
country by force where a peaceful people were
living, while I am on a mission of peace and
goodwill.”November 19The Supreme Court brands Washington
fishing regulations as discriminatory.
In Puyallup Tribe, Inc. v. Department of Game, the
Supreme Court rules that the state of Washington’s
regulations on Puyallup fishermen discriminate
against Indians. The state bans net fishing, an In-
dian fishing technology, but not hook-and-line
fishing, the method most often used by non-In-
dians. Although the ruling reaffirms Washington’s
right to impose nondiscriminatory regulations on
Indian fisherman, the ruling is considered a vic-
tory in the Puyallup’s long battle to exercise their
fishing rights.Sacheen Littlefeather, holding the speech she read
at the 1973 Academy Awards on behalf of Marlon
Brando, who declined the Best Actor Oscar in a show
of support for the Wounded Knee occupiers. (AP/
Wide World Photos)