In a letter dated January 23, 2012 to the
Te-Moak Tribal Council in Elko, Lois Whitney and Myron Tybo informed Council Members a meeting had been held January 21, 2012
to discuss enrollment issues at which the “majority of the people in attendance expressed that the enrollment committee
altered their family enrollment,” which the letter maintains is “unconstitutional and a violation.” The
letter called on the Tribal Council to investigate its enrollment process.
Reminding the Te-Moak Tribal Council they
are responsible to “promote the welfare of ourselves and descendants,” the letter claims the Council and Enrollment
Committee “used malice to disenroll members,” and demands that disenrollment be dissolved “in its entirety,
including the Enrollment Committee, and that the Enrollment Ordinance, characterized as not approved or enforceable, be abolished;
and that all members’ documents be protected and that members be allowed to review their family enrollment files.
The letter maintains tribal members “were
denied due process” and demands the Council “immediately reinstate” all federally-recognized enrolled Te-Moak
Tribal members.
Joe McDade of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Eastern Agency; Bryan Bowker, Area Director of the BIA’s Western Regional Office; Ken Salazaar, Secretary of the Interior;
and Larry Echohawk, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, also received a copy of the letter.
In addition, a Support Document, aiming for 1,000 signatures,
being circulated opposing “altering Shoshone blood and disenrolling members,” notes that on February 1st,
2012, Tribal members “plead[ed] with the Te-Moak Council to cease tribal disenrollment and reinstate members’
status,” and called for a resolution for a referendum vote by the people to determine Tribal membership, which was defeated
by the Council with Tribal Chairman, Brian Cassadore, casting the tie-breaking vote against the referendum. The Document characterizes
the Tribe’s current review process as “equivocal to entrapment and denying membership cards takes away rights,
privileges and membership.” Disenrollment cuts people off from tribal rights
including homes, land assignments, health care and the right to vote and hold office.
The Support Document, based on the Tribal
Constitution’s Bill of Rights which allows members “to seek redress of grievances;” notes “to avoid
Tribal retaliation, signatures will be held under seal for only the Secretary of the Interior to witness.”
The Te-Moak Tribe blood-degree individuals
have determines enrollment as outlined in the original Constitution and By-Laws of the Te-Moak Bands of Western Shoshone Indians
of Nevada approved August 24, 1938 under the auspices of the U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Indian Affairs.
The 1937 Constitution’s Article II
states membership “shall consist” of “[a]ll persons of at least one-quarter degree of Shoshone Indian blood
whose names appear on the official census roll of the Elko Colony as of January 1, 1937” and “[a]ll persons of
at least one-quarter Shoshone Indian blood residing in the territory of the Bands whose names appear on the official census
roll of the Carson Indian Agency as of January 1, 1937” who “make written application to the Te-Moak Western Shoshone
Council” as well as “[a]ll children of at least one-quarter degree of Indian blood born to any member.”
In addition, the 1937 Constitution allowed
admittance “to membership” of “any other person whose name appears on the official census roll of the Carson
Indian Agency as of January 1, 1937.”
The Constitution permitted the Council
to cancel membership upon application by any adult person “to sever his tribal relations.” In addition, the Tribal Council was given authority to “promulgate ordinances subject to review by
the Secretary of the Interior governing adoption and compulsory loss of membership.”
In 1982 the Constitution was amended and
likewise mentions “the official census roll of the Elko Indian Colony as of January 1, 1937, hereinafter called Base
Roll 1.” However, there is and never has been, an Elko Indian Colony official
census roll.
The Amended Tribal membership section also
includes “descendants of members of the Tribe born after the effective date of this Constitution, provided, such descendants
possess at least one-quarter degree Te-Moak Indian Blood” and “[a]ny person who does not appear on either Base
Roll 1 or 2, who has at least one-quarter degree Shoshone Indian blood and who can establish residency for himself or his
ancestry in the Te-Moak census area as of January 1, 1937.”
In 2003 when members began to be disenrolled
by the Te-Moak Council, the U.S. DOI BIA wrote to the Chairman expressing that the BIA office had been receiving calls and
visits from individuals who themselves or their children were being disenrolled by the tribe “due to a blood degree
decrease initiated by the Tribe.”
Acting Superintendent Robert R. McNichols
told the Chairman the BIA had not “received any official documentation” regarding Tribal “correction to
blood degrees of individuals” and informed the Tribal Council “you may be making blood degree changes without
authority for those listed on the Indian Census of 1937, an official federal document.”
McNichols acknowledged the Tribe could
make changes to an “individual’s blood determination if a mathematical error is made or if an error is apparent
on the record” but “must provide our office with documentation to support the change so that we can make an official
request to the Regional Office to have the record changed,” as well as requiring that “all individuals and their
heirs” be notified about the correction on their blood degree and provided “with a hearing and their appeal rights
prior to taking action on any disenrollment.” Absent such a hearing, the tribe would be denying individuals “due
process.” Further, McNichols told the Chairman, “Any action taken by the tribe illegally will not be honored by
the Bureau of Indian Affairs and our records will remain the same.”
Further, in August of 2005, the BIA informed
the Acting Enrollment Officer for the Te-Moak Tribe that the Tribe’s request for 18 individual blood degree changes
required additional documentation. Again the BIA letter cautioned, “Because blood degree changes may have an adverse
effect on numerous descendants involved; all persons who would be affected by the changes should be notified by the tribe
in writing of the change being considered and given the opportunity to show evidence why the change should or should not be
made.”
The BIA pointed out that as the Te-Moak
Tribe “does not have an official base roll or a reconstructed base roll the Tribe does not have the authority to change
any individual’s blood degrees that are listed on the Northeastern Nevada Indian Census of January 1, 1937” which
is “the official record of the Bureau of Indian Affairs” and that all blood degree requests for changes must be
approved by the BIA “prior to the Tribe changing their official records.”
Further correspondence from the BIA directed
to the Chairman in 2008, related that “individuals are enrolled under the laws that are in effect at the time the application
is filed;” meaning new membership requirements contained in the amended Constitution would “affect only those
individuals who submit an application on or after the date of approval of the new membership provisions.”
In addition, the BIA informed the former
Chairman the new requirements cannot be applied to individuals “who were enrolled under the old membership requirements.”
Joe McDade of the BIA in Elko, himself
a Te-Moak Tribal member, said by phone February 27, 2012, “I know what you’re referring to about the BIA letting
them know about their concerns with the disenrollment. I’m not really sure that that process isn’t a Tribal issue
providing they’re not doing it violating people’s rights or in conflict of their Constitution. If they’re
doing it in violation of people’s rights and in violation of their Constitution then there’s probably going to
be an issue with that. The problem comes in interpretation: what the Tribal Council interprets as being what their Constitution
says and what other entities say it is, that’s where the problem comes in.”
McDade said he supported the statements
made by McNichols in his letter of 2003 but said, “The Tribe has a different interpretation sometimes than what the
Bureau has.”
Regarding the Tribe contacting people and
telling them they have to return their membership cards with threat of litigation without confirmation of disenrollment criteria
from the BIA, McDade said. “All of their enrollment meetings are closed meetings, I think; and it’s difficult
to determine what happens. We haven’t seen anything official here on any of the actions that they’ve done.”
“That enrollment issue is pretty
much a local matter with the Tribal Council. The only thing when the BIA would be involved; and that’s if they were
notified that there were changes to the official blood quantum that’s listed on one of those census rolls. If they’re
changing those, it has to come to the federal agency to make the change; and then if it’s a mathematical error or something
like that because those are federal records.”
“I know it’s a contentious
issue. The Superintendent hasn’t been involved in those issues. Number 1: we haven’t been asked; and number 2:
we haven’t seen any official actions that’s been taken that’s come through here.”
“Until something comes through here
and I’m officially able to take a look at it, I really can’t comment one way or the other on that.” McDade
acknowledged that changes to the official census have to come through the BIA “if we are made aware of it.”
The information would have to come from
a Tribal group. “Officially, it would have more weight if it came from a Tribal Council; certainly an individual can
ask us about that and we would have to respond one way or the other; but if I don’t have the documentation in front
of me, I wouldn’t know what to ask.”
McDade said his membership in the Te-Moak
Tribe “has nothing to do with my position here.” McDade said official actions “if we’re made aware
of those and they come through here then we’ll have to respond one way or the other. Nobody’s asked. We hear this
stuff going out there; and the Tribe’s reluctant to ask the Bureau to be involved in things like that, especially matters
of enrollment; that’s pretty much a local issue.”
The Council in order to act on disenrollment
is required to have resolutions of support from all the Bands, including the Battle Mountain
and South Fork Bands. However,
in 2006 the South Fork Band “voted
in favor of a resolution in opposition of the disenrollment by the Te-Moak Tribal Council of Western Shoshone” and demanded
that the Te-Moak Council “stop and desist any further actions of disenrollment of the Te-Moak Tribal members”
and resolved that members disenrolled should be re-enrolled “back to their original status as members of the Te-Moak
Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada.”
Likewise, the Battle Mountain Band Council
on December 14, 2007 and on May 6, 2010 issued resolutions opposing the “disenrollment procedures of the Te-Moak Tribe
of Western Shoshone.” The Wells Band and Elko Band are both being contacted
to ask for resolutions in opposition to disenrollment.
