American Indians

FOUR years later, the grieving parents are doing OK. Better than OK. They cruise through most days upbeat -- determinedly grateful for all the good things given them since the worst day of their lives. They've received a pat on the back from the president. They've been given, free and clear, a new home on 5 1/2 acres, a mini-palace of stone and clay, which they've filled with gifts of paintings and statues and prayer quilts and hand-woven rugs. A veritable museum of tributes.

When Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" premiered last December, the action-filled film set against the backdrop of the Maya empire launched the career of a young Texan named Rudy Youngblood. In interviews plugging the movie, Youngblood, who plays the film's central character, Jaguar Paw, routinely discussed his Indian ancestry and his connections to three American tribes.

Caught between the competing demands of politically powerful Indian tribes and labor unions, lawmakers return from spring recess this week to weigh a major gambling expansion. Whether they approve or reject compacts that could triple the number of slot machines those tribes operate, the Legislature's decision will have far-reaching implications for the state and possibly for lawmakers' own political futures. Five Southern California tribes have struck deals with Gov.

Jonathan Windy Boy was a longtime champion of the international Grass Dance competition, a native event in which the object is to simulate the natural movement of tall prairie grass swaying in the wind. But, recalled Windy Boy with a laugh, "that was many years and about 40 pounds ago." Now Windy Boy moves his considerable frame around the House chamber in the state Capitol here, bargaining and cajoling as a leader of the 10-member Native American caucus in Montana's state Legislature.

The California Senate on Thursday approved compacts allowing six Indian tribes to expand gambling despite objections from some labor unions. If approved by the state Assembly, the pacts negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would allow five Southern California tribes to increase their number of slot machines from 10,000 to 32,500. The state anticipates that the compacts would add $506 million to its coffers in the fiscal year that begins in July.

RACHEL SECAN came to Jamestown wearing her Pocahontas costume and pink snow boots. She was hoping to see something about her favorite Indian princess. Why the fascination with Pocahontas? "She sings good," said the 4-year-old redhead from Raleigh, N.C., who owns a well-worn DVD of the Disney movie. Although I didn't dress in fringed, faux deerskin, I came to Jamestown expecting what Rachel expected: Pocahontas.

American Indian women are more than twice as likely to be raped as other U.S. women, and the suspects often go free because of confusing police jurisdictions, Amnesty International said. The human rights group reported that at least 1 in 3 Indian women will be raped or sexually assaulted, compared with fewer than 1 in 5 U.S. women overall.

More than 142 years after a band of state militia volunteers massacred 160 Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in a misdirected act of vengeance, a memorial was officially dedicated Saturday. The Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, 160 miles southeast of Denver on Big Sandy Creek in Kiowa County, pays tribute to those killed in the attack of Nov. 29, 1864.

It's a measure of how rich some Indians have become off gambling that one tribe has a spare $20 million to spend on pressuring legislators into making it even richer. "Pressure" is the polite word. "Bullying" also is being bandied. As in: "Bully tactics aren't going to work."

Labor's fight to organize Indian casino workers in California spilled into the presidential campaign Wednesday when a Native American leader accused a union of trying to derail a Democratic forum envisioned for the Morongo Indian Reservation this summer. The event's organizer said the union had pressured candidates to skip the debate because the tribe-owned casinos were strongly opposed to unionization. A union officer denied the accusation. Only two presidential candidates -- New Mexico Gov.