Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Awareness Day. May 5, 2018.

From the Governor's office:

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Awareness Day

CHEYENNE, Wyo. –A proclamation recognizing May 5, 2018 as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Awareness Day was signed by Chairman Clint Wagon of the Eastern Shoshone Business Council and Roy Brown of the Northern Arapaho Business Council. The proclamation was distributed across the State. Governor Matt Mead joins the Chairmen of the Tribes recognizing the importance of raising public awareness of this critical issue.

Lex Anteinternet: The Shoshone - Arapaho Disagreement comes to a head...

I reported on this event back on October 10, when it first hit the news:

Lex Anteinternet: The Shoshone - Arapaho Disagreement comes to a hea...: There's a truly odd spectacle playing out in Fremont County, Wyoming, but it's getting little attention. As has been noted her...

There's been no news on it since, and I wondered what was going on.

Well, today the Tribune has a followup article, and there's been no resolution of the crisis.  Indeed, it's even odder than originally reported.

In terms of news, this matter is actually going before the Tribal Court this Wednesday.  The issue will be whether the court can be dissolved by the Joint Business Council if only the Shoshones are recognizing the council.  The Court has already issued a preliminary order that it cannot, and in fact has held the sitting Shoshone members of the JBC in contempt at the rate of $150 a day for attempting to dissolve it and cease funding it. The Arapahos, who had asked the BIA to fund separate institutions including a court, as they no longer participate in the JBC, are ironically now funding the Tribal Court.   The JBC has asked for the BIA to restore a BIA court, which it threatened to do, but which it has not.

It's hard to see a resolution to this occurring, or at least one that doesn't involve the Federal courts.   And indeed there's a case in Federal court right now about whether or not the Arapahos can demand separate treatment from the Federal government in light of its independent sovereignty.  Those who argue against it, at least on practical grounds, note that its tough to have two separate bodies of law in the same geographic area, including two separate courts and two separate game and fish codes.

The Shoshone - Arapaho Disagreement comes to a head in Tribal Court

There's a truly odd spectacle playing out in Fremont County, Wyoming, but it's getting little attention.

As has been noted here before, the Arapahos have pulled out of the Joint Business Council, the body that has administered the Reservation for quite some time.  Outnumbering the Shoshones, they have become discontent with the council and have been moving towards separate administration for quite awhile.

Now this has expressed itself, of all places, in the jointly administered Tribal Court.  It has the appearance of a real disaster in the making.

Apparently the Bureau of Indian Affairs has quit funding the court (and perhaps other things as well).  Indeed, the BIA has apparently announced that it will recreate a Bureau of Indian Affairs Court, which the Wind River Reservation  has not had since taking over the administration of its legal system in the 1970s.  BIA courts administer according to "traditional" concepts, so its unclear if the Law & Order Code of the Wind River Reservation will apply in the BIA Court, should it be restored.  The Law & Order Code, for its part, is a joint code, and in recent years the Arapahos have crated their own legal code that applies to some things, but not all.

Following this, the Joint Business Council, which now seats only Shoshone members, the Arapahos, in the style of Irish Nationalist of the teens, aren't taking seats, determined to lay off all the Court's employees, which would effectively shout it down and require the BIA to step in. The Tribal Court judge, however, who right now has the unqualified worst legal job in the State of Wyoming, issued a ruling vacating that order, although its not clear how the employees of the court will be paid.  The Court ruled that the Eastern Shoshone Tribe could not act in vacuum without the Arapahos, which makes some sense, but which is ironic in light of the threat of the Arapahos just a couple of years ago to form their own court.

What a mess.

All of this, of course, is illustrative of preserving a dicey decision.  The Shoshones had not really wanted the Arapahos on their reservation in the first place, they were enemies.  The allowance for them to be there was temporary, in the 1870s, but its obviously permanent now.  In human terms, that's not very long ago.  And now a problem that's been brewing has really come to ahead.

Tuesday, March 30, 1909. The Army abandons Ft. Washakie.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 30: 

1909. On this day, the U.S. Army abandoned Ft. Washakie. The post had previously been also known as Camp Brown and Camp Augar.. The post had lately been a 9th Cavalry post.

The facilities for the post remain in large part today, having gone over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Ft. Washakie, the town, is the seat of government for the Wind River Indian Reservation. The structures provide good examples of the period stone construction used by the Army at that time.

Ft. Washakie during a visit by President Arthur in 1883.

Some former cavalry structures at Ft. Washakie now in use as industrial or storage buildings.

Last prior edition:

Monday, March 29, 1909 Nibelungentreue

1900s, 1909, Austro Hungaria, Germany, Politics, Taxes