Chronology of American Indian History

May

The Grammy Awards add a Native American
music category.
The National Academy of Recording Arts and
Sciences votes to create a new Grammy Awards
to honor each year’s best Native American music
album. Previously, Native American artists were in-
cluded under award categories for new age and folk
music. Although news of the award is embraced by
the Native American music industry, it raises ques-
tions about what criteria the academy will use to
define who is and is not a Native American artist.
(See also entry for MAY 2001.)

Summer

Wildfires across the West threaten ancient
Anasazi ruins at Mesa Verde National Park.
Wildfires raging across the western United States
move into Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.
By July 27, 23,000 acres in and near the park are
burned. Mesa Verde, known for its Anasazi cliff
dwellings, is likely to have other as-yet-undis-
covered but significant archaeological finds. Park
personnel and archaeologists work quickly to iden-
tify undiscovered sites ahead of the flames, hoping
to create firebreaks around them or help firefight-
ers steer the fires away from them. At least a dozen
new sites are found.

June 22

Grand Ronde Indians agree to the display of
a sacred meteorite.
To avert a court battle, the Grand Ronde Tribal
Council makes an agreement with New York City’s
American Museum of Natural History regarding the
10,000-year-old Willamette meteorite. Called To-
manowas by the Indians, the meteorite, the largest
ever found in the United States, is considered sacred
by the tribe. The Grand Ronde Indians of Oregon
will allow the museum to exhibit the 16-ton rock
at its new planetarium in exchange for access to the
meteorite for a religious ceremony once a year. The

museum, in turn, promises to place a permanent

plaque by the object to explain its religious signifi-

cance to museum visitors.

June 25

Activist Winona LaDuke accepts her second

Green Party nomination for the vice

presidency.

At the Green Party convention in Denver, Colo-

rado, Ojibway environmentalist Winona LaDuke

agrees to run for vice president on a ticket with

presidential nominee Ralph Nader. LaDuke and

Nader had also been nominated by the party four

years earlier (see entry for AUGUST 29, 1996).

The Green Party platform calls for the release of

Leonard Peltier (see entry for APRIL 18, 1977 and

entry for JANUARY 20, 2001), a halt to the exploi-

tation of natural resources on Indian land, and

the creation of “reservation economic zones” to

improve employment opportunities for Indians.

The Nader-LaDuke ticket will receive 2.7 percent

of the popular vote.

July

Indian leaders lobby for trademark

protection for tribal symbols.

In meetings with representatives of the U.S. Patent

and Trademark Office, Indian leaders ask that tribal

symbols be given the same legal protections applied

the symbols of nations and states. While these sym-

bols can be used by business concerns, they cannot

be trademarked by them, thus discouraging their

commercial use.

The issue emerged two years earlier in a dispute

between the trademark office and the Pueblo Indians

of Zia. The Zia Pueblo were outraged when, over

their objections, the office permitted a tour company

to trademark a logo incorporating the Zia sun sym-

bol. This sacred design, which features a red circle

with sixteen lines radiating from it, has been in use at

Zia since 1200. To draw attention to their cause, Zia

leaders demanded that New Mexico legislators pay

the tribe $74 million for the state’s use of the Zia sun