symbol—$1 million for each year it has appeared on
the flag of New Mexico.
July
Leaders of Zuni Pueblo and the Navajo
Nation celebrate the return of ancestral
lands.
Zuni Pueblo governor Malcolm Bowekaty, Navajo
president Kelsey Begaye, and Zuni Pueblo head coun-
cilman Eldred Bowekaty attend a ceremony at which
the first parcel of the Fort Wingate (New Mexico)
Depot Activity Property is officially transferred to the
Department of the Interior on behalf of the Navajo
and Zuni Nations. Members of the Navajo Nation
and the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico worked together
to bring about this transfer of land from the Depart-
ment of Defense to the Department of the Interior,
which will now hold it in trust for use by the tribes.
August
Canadian officials square off with the
Micmac over fishing rights.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Coast Guard
seize about 2,000 lobster traps and arrest four
Micmac in Burnt Church, New Brunswick, for
violating restrictions on off-season trapping. The
Indians maintain that these restrictions do not
apply to them, citing a September 1999 ruling of
the Supreme Court of Canada. The court upheld
a 1760 treaty between the English and the Indians
of Canada’s Atlantic coast that granted these tribes
the right to make a “moderate livelihood” through
year-round hunting and fishing.
August 7
Ishi’s brain is repatriated.
A group of elders from the Pit River tribe travel to
Washington, D.C., to take possession of the brain
of Ishi, the last Indian of the Yahi tribe (see entry
for AUGUST 1911). Ishi spent his final years at the
museum of the University of California in San
Francisco, where he developed a relationship with
anthropologist Alfred Kroeber. Against Ishi’s wishes,
Kroeber had Ishi’s body autopsied after his death in
1914 and sent his brain to the Smithsonian for study.
As distant relatives of the Yahi, the Pit River Indians
lobbied for the repatriation of the brain, which they
plan to bury at a secret location at the foothills of
Mount Lassen near Redding, California.“This may be one of the most
egregious cases of violating
a Native American. He was a
real friend to the white man.
He spent virtually all his wak-
ing hours telling us about his
culture, and he was anxious
to return to the land of dead
when he passed away.”
—University of California
historian Nancy Rockafeller,
on the treatment of Ishi’s remainsSeptember 8The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
apologizes to American Indians.
As assistant secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
Pawnee tribe member Kevin Gover issues a formal
apology to American Indians on behalf of the Bu-
reau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The apology is part of
a ceremony commemorating the 175th anniversary
of the BIA’s formation (see entry for 1824). Gover
admits that “this agency participated in the ethnic
cleansing that befell the Western tribes.” In addi-
tion to faulting the BIA for forcing Indians from
their land and undermining their cultures, he cites
the agency’s recent failures to alleviate alcoholism,
violence, and other problems plaguing American
Indian communities. Also speaking at the event is
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who tells the BIA’sP