Tribal Government

Like many Navajos, 68-year-old Eva Haswood is confused by the choices she faces in Tuesday's Navajo Nation primary election--and she is not getting much help from those running for office. With 15 faces in this year's race for leader of the country's largest Indian tribe, Haswood says that she has no idea who all the candidates are, much less what they'll do for her.

Heavy shelling and gunfire rocked the northern district of Yemen's capital for a second day, as tribal forces clashed with government troops, leaving at least 34 men dead. The sounds of antiaircraft fire and mortar shelling reverberated across the district of Hasaba in Sana as fighting pitted President Ali Abdullah Saleh's forces against opponents, including supporters of Sadiq Ahmar, head of the powerful Hashid tribe and Saleh's onetime ally. After a nighttime lull, fighting started again early Tuesday close to Ahmar's fortified residence, despite reports of attempts at a tribal mediation to end the street battle.

The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians on Friday became the latest California tribe to open its own tribal court, designed to hear civil cases and give members a chance to mediate disputes within their own culture. "This is a historic day for the tribe as we constitute the first formal court system on the reservation," tribal chairman James Ramos told more than 100 guests who came to the Highland reservation to watch the swearing-in of Chief Judge Joanne Willis Newton, three appellate judges and a judge pro tem. Each judge stood in black robes before Ramos and repeated an oath to apply "the San Manuel judicial code fairly and equally to all persons who will come before this court."

The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians on Friday became the latest California tribe to open its own tribal court, designed to hear civil cases and give members a chance to mediate disputes within their own culture. "This is a historic day for the tribe as we constitute the first formal court system on the reservation," tribal chairman James Ramos told more than 100 guests who came to the Highland reservation to watch the swearing-in of Chief Judge Joanne Willis Newton, three appellate judges and a judge pro tem. Each judge stood in black robes before Ramos and repeated an oath to apply "the San Manuel judicial code fairly and equally to all persons who will come before this court."

A prominent Indian leader on Wednesday dismissed as a "ludicrous proposition" Gov. Gray Davis' desire to collect an additional $1.5 billion a year in gambling revenue from California tribes, and said most tribes would be content to live with their existing 20-year agreements with the state.

When he needs groceries, J.C. Garcia bypasses his local market and drives 10 miles to another store so he doesn't bump into the man who stabbed him in the chest. It's been nearly four years since Garcia was severely wounded by his then-brother-in-law, a Pojoaque Indian, who has said he acted in self-defense. During that time, authorities were unable to prosecute the case because of jurisdictional confusion relating to Indian sovereignty.

Bolstered by last week's historic meeting with President Clinton, Native American leaders from Alaska to Florida met here Thursday with senior White House officials to press for strengthened sovereign status. American Indian nations are not used to speaking with one voice about anything, but they are united over concern about confusing and often volatile overlap between tribal government jurisdictions and federal Indian policies.

When Wilma Mankiller talks about her job, she describes it as "something like running a big corporation and a little country at the same time." What she doesn't say is that she is making history. At 47, Mankiller straddles the worlds of mainstream baby boomers and rural American Indians--whose very survival has been her driving force since the 1960s. It's a balance she preaches to all American Indians. "Dual status is critical to our survival as a culturally distinct people," she said.

From their homes of mud brick, 250 Indians of New Mexico's Pueblo Laguna tribe head down the road each day to what seems another world--their jobs at Laguna Industries, a tribal company that last year produced $15 million in mobile communication stations and other high-tech hardware for the U.S. military. At the Ft.

Here on the West Coast, the Indian powwow is a tradition as ancient as Sputnik. Unlike the Plains Indians, for whom the powwow is an ancient and venerated tradition, the tribes of California never gathered that way and, among themselves, still don't. But when many American Indians throughout the country began to move to urban areas in the second half of the century, the intertribal powwow became a way for Indians from many parts of the nation to stay in touch.

A Montana man has been acquitted of assault charges by a federal appeals court because he doesn't meet the definition of an Indian, never having joined the Blackfeet tribe from which his mother descended or accepted federal benefits to which Native Americans are entitled. Tuesday's ruling by the 9th U.S.

Confronting the prospect of failure after seven years in Afghanistan, the U.S. military is crafting a new strategy that is likely to expand the power and reach of that country's tribal militias while relying less on the increasingly troubled central government. Under that approach, U.S. forces would scale back combat operations to focus more on training Afghan government forces and tribal militias.

The Riverside County Sheriff's Assn., a union representing thousands of employees, has warned its members and the public to stay away from the Soboba Indian casino near San Jacinto because of recent violence. The group urged its roughly 3,700 members to visit other casinos until the situation at Soboba was "stabilized."

On the thickly forested hillsides, puffs of white smoke mark the sites of artillery strikes. The winding mountain road is full of rattletrap trucks and buses piled high with tables and bedding, the possessions of fleeing families. War has come to this scenic highland valley.

Iraqi soldiers Monday rescued eight tribal sheiks who had been taken hostage a day earlier, killing four kidnappers and arresting six others, an Iraqi military spokesman said. The Sunni and Shiite sheiks are part of a movement in Diyala province to organize their tribes to fight the Sunni insurgent groups in their region, including Al Qaeda in Iraq, that are attacking the U.S. military and the fledgling Iraqi government.

When Pechanga Indian leaders hired anthropologist John Johnson in 2004, they had one request: find out if the Madariaga clan were truly members of the tribe. Generations of them had grown up on the reservation. Family patriarch Lawrence Madariaga, 90, had built his home there, erected the local clinic, served on tribal committees and lived on Hunter Lane, named after his great-grandmother, Paulina Hunter. He even received a lifetime achievement award from the tribe.

The Riverside County Sheriff's Assn., a union representing thousands of employees, has warned its members and the public to stay away from the Soboba Indian casino near San Jacinto because of recent violence. The group urged its roughly 3,700 members to visit other casinos until the situation at Soboba was "stabilized."

Confronting the prospect of failure after seven years in Afghanistan, the U.S. military is crafting a new strategy that is likely to expand the power and reach of that country's tribal militias while relying less on the increasingly troubled central government. Under that approach, U.S. forces would scale back combat operations to focus more on training Afghan government forces and tribal militias.

A group of Sunni tribal leaders in beleaguered Al Anbar province said Thursday that it intended to form a national party to oppose insurgents such as Al Qaeda in Iraq and reengage with Iraq's political process. The announcement came after 200 sheiks said to represent 50 tribes met here and agreed to form a provincial sheiks council and hold the first convention in May of their new party, called Iraq Awakening. Sheiks from three other provinces will attend, organizers said.

Clashes between foreign militants allegedly tied to Al Qaeda and local militias left 58 dead and scores wounded Wednesday in the restive South Waziristan region, officials said. The fighting erupted after armed tribal volunteers backed by paramilitary forces and even a pro-Taliban militant group attacked the positions of Uzbek militants in the Shin Warsak area of the mountainous region bordering Afghanistan, officials said. Those killed included 44 Uzbeks and local supporters.