of the petition, a statement attesting that the signatures were affixed on the dates shown and by the individuals whose names appear thereon, and that to the best of his/her knowledge the signatories are eligible, entitled, or qualified voters.

(b) Only an eligible, entitled, or qualified tribal voter shall be recognized as a valid collector of petition signatures.

§ 82.8 Filing of petitions.

All petitions submitted pursuant to this part must be filed with the local Bureau official having administrative jurisdiction over the tribe. No petitions will be accepted until a spokesman for the petitioners declares that he/she wishes to make an official filing. Once a declaration of the official filing is made and the petition is given to the local Bureau official, that official shall immediately enter on the petition the date of receipt (this date becomes the date of official filing) and shall inform the spokesman for the petitioners that no additional signatures may be added and that no withdrawal of signatures will be permitted. The local Bureau official shall also acknowledge, in writing, receipt of the petition, indicating the exact number of signatures which are attached and the official filing date. Upon this written acknowledgment of the petition, the local Bureau official shall publicly post at the local Bureau unit serving the tribe a statement of the matter proposed in the petition. This statement shall remain posted for a period of 30 days from the official filing date.

§ 82.9 Challenges.

(a) Once an official filing has been made, the local Bureau official shall immediately have copies made of the petition and its signatures. The local Bureau official shall keep these copies at the Agency or field office for 15 days following the date of official filing, during which time they shall be available for examination by authorized voters of the tribe upon request. During this 15-day period, challenges of signatures may be filed with the local Bureau official.

(b) Challenges will be considered on the following grounds:

(1) Forgery of signatures; and (2) Lack of proper qualifications of a signer.

No challenge will be considered which is not accompanied by supporting evidence in writing. In the event that an individual's name appears on a petition more than once, all but one of the names shall be stricken.

§ 82.10 Action on the petition.

(a) Within 30 days after the official filing date, the local Bureau official shall forward to the Area Director, or when the Area Director is the local Bureau official, directly to the Commissioner, the original of the petition and its accompanying signatures, together with recommendations concerning challenges and conclusions concerning: (1) The validity of the signatures; (2) The adequacy of the number of signatures; and

(3) The propriety of the petitioning procedure.

(b) The Area Director or the Commissioner, as the case may be, shall within 45 days after the official filing date decide upon each challenge and the sufficiency of the petition and announce whether the petition shall be acted upon. If a decision is reached that the petitioning action is for any reason insufficient, the spokesman for the petitioners and the governing body of the tribe will be so informed and given the reasons for the decision. If a petitioning action warrants action by the Secretary or Commissioner, the spokesman for the petitioners and the governing body of the tribe concerned will be so informed. The decision in such matters shall be final. The procedures for implementing any action initiated by the acceptance of a petition will be determined in accordance with pertinent directives and regulations.

§ 82.11 Duration of petition.

Any petition submitted under this part, shall be considered only for the purpose stated therein. Once a petition has been acted upon, it shall not be used again.

§ 83.1 Definitions.

As used in this part:

Area Office means a Bureau of Indian Affairs Area Office.

Assistant Secretary means the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs, or that officer's authorized representative.

Autonomous means the exercise of political influence or authority independent of the control of any other Indian governing entity. Autonomous must be understood in the context of the history, geography, culture and social organization of the petitioning group.

Board means the Interior Board of Indian Appeals.

Bureau means the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Community means any group of people which can demonstrate that consistent interactions and significant social relationships exist within its membership and that its members are differentiated from and identified as distinct from nonmembers. Community must be understood in the context of the history, geography, culture and social organization of the group.

Continental United States means the contiguous 48 states and Alaska.

Continuously or continuous means extending from first sustained contact with the non-Indians throughout group's history to the present substantially without interruption.

Department means the Department of the Interior.

Documented petition means the detailed arguments made by a petitioner to substantiate its claim to continuous existence as an Indian tribe, together with the factual exposition and all documentary evidence necessary to demonstrate that these arguments address the mandatory criteria in §83.7(a) through (g).

Historically, historical or history means dating from first sustained contact with non-Indians.

Indian group or group means any Indian or Alaska Native aggregation within the continental United States that the Secretary of the Interior does not acknowledge to be an Indian tribe.

Indian tribe, also referred to herein as tribe, means any Indian or Alaska Native tribe, band, pueblo, village, or community within the continental United States that the Secretary of the Interior presently acknowledges to exist as an Indian tribe.

Indigenous means native to the continental United States in that at least part of the petitioner's territory at the time of sustained contact extended into what is now the continental United States.

Informed party means any person or organization, other than an interested party, who requests an opportunity to submit comments or evidence or to be kept informed of general actions regarding a specific petitioner.

Interested party means any person, organization or other entity who can establish a legal, factual or property interest in an acknowledgment determination and who requests an opportunity to submit comments or evidence or to be kept informed of general actions regarding a specific petitioner. "Interested party" includes the governor and attorney general of the state in which a petitioner is located, and may include, but is not limited to. local governmental units, and any recognized Indian tribes and unrecognized Indian groups that might be affected by an acknowledgment determination.

Letter of intent means an undocumented letter or resolution by which an Indian group requests Federal acknowledgment as an Indian tribe and expresses its intent to submit a documented petition.

Member of an Indian group means an individual who is recognized by an Indian group as meeting its membership criteria and who consents to being listed as a member of that group.

Member of an Indian tribe means an individual who meets the membership requirements of the tribe as set forth in its governing document or, absent such a document, has been recognized as a member collectively by those persons comprising the tribal governing body, and has consistently maintained tribal relations with the tribe or is listed on the tribal rolls of that tribe as a member, if such rolls are kept.

Petitioner means any entity that has submitted a letter of intent to the Secretary requesting acknowledgment that it is an Indian tribe.

Political influence or authority means a tribal council, leadership, internal process or other mechanism which the group has used as a means of influencing or controlling the behavior of its members in significant respects, and/or making decisions for the group which substantially affect its members, and/or representing the group in dealing with outsiders in matters of consequence. This process is to be understood in the context of the history, culture and social organization of the group.

Previous Federal acknowledgment means action by the Federal government clearly premised on identification of a tribal political entity and indicating clearly the recognition of a relationship between that entity and the United States.

Secretary means the Secretary of the Interior or that officer's authorized representative.

Sustained contact means the period of earliest sustained non-Indian settlement and/or governmental presence in the local area in which the historical tribe or tribes from which the petitioner descends was located historically.

Tribal relations means participation by an individual in a political and social relationship with an Indian tribe.

Tribal roll, for purposes of these regulations, means a list exclusively of those individuals who have been determined by the tribe to meet the tribe's membership requirements as set forth in its governing document. In the absence of such a document, a tribal roll means a list of those recognized as members by the tribe's governing body. In either case, those individuals on a tribal roll must have affirmatively demonstrated consent to being listed as members.

§ 83.2 Purpose.

The purpose of this part is to establish a departmental procedure and policy for acknowledging that certain American Indian groups exist as tribes. Acknowledgment of tribal existence by the Department is a prerequisite to the protection, services, and benefits of the Federal government available to Indian tribes by virtue of their status as tribes. Acknowledgment shall also mean that the tribe is entitled to the immunities and privileges available to other federally acknowledged Indian tribes by virtue of their governmentto-government relationship with the United States as well as the responsibilities, powers, limitations and obligations of such tribes. Acknowledgment shall subject the Indian tribe to the same authority of Congress and the United States to which other federally acknowledged tribes are subjected.

§ 83.3 Scope.

(a) This part applies only to those American Indian groups indigenous to the continental United States which are not currently acknowledged as Indian tribes by the Department. It is intended to apply to groups that can establish a substantially continuous tribal existence and which have functioned as autonomous entities throughout history until the present.

(b) Indian tribes, organized bands, pueblos, Alaska Native villages, or communities which are already acknowledged as such and are receiving services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs may not be reviewed under the

procedures established by these regulations.

(c) Associations, organizations, corporations or groups of any character that have been formed in recent times may not be acknowledged under these regulations. The fact that a group that meets the criteria in §83.7 (a) through (g) has recently incorporated or otherwise formalized its existing autonomous political process will be viewed as a change in form and have no bearing on the Assistant Secretary's final decision.

(d) Splinter groups, political factions, communities or groups of any character that separate from the main body of a currently acknowledged tribe may not be acknowledged under these regulations. However, groups that can establish clearly that they have functioned throughout history until the present as an autonomous tribal entity may be acknowledged under this part, even though they have been regarded by some as part of or have been associated in some manner with an acknowledged North American Indian tribe.

(e) Further, groups which are, or the members of which are, subject to congressional legislation terminating or forbidding the Federal relationship may not be acknowledged under this part.

(f) Finally, groups that previously petitioned and were denied Federal acknowledgment under these regulations or under previous regulations in part 83 of this title, may not be acknowledged under these regulations. This includes reorganized or reconstituted petitioners previously denied, or splinter groups, spin-offs, or component groups of any type that were once part of petitioners previously denied.

(g) Indian groups whose documented petitions are under active consideration at the effective date of these revised regulations may choose to complete their petitioning process either under these regulations or under the previous acknowledgment regulations in part 83 of this title. This choice must be made by April 26, 1994. This option shall apply to any petition for which a determination is not final and effective. Such petitioners may request a suspension of consideration under § 83.10(g) of not more than 180 days in

order to provide additional information or argument.

§ 83.4 Filing a letter of intent.

(a) Any Indian group in the continental United States that believes it should be acknowledged as an Indian tribe and that it can satisfy the criteria in § 83.7 may submit a letter of intent.

(b) Letters of intent requesting acknowledgment that an Indian group exists as an Indian tribe shall be filed with the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street, NW., Washington, DC 20240. Attention: Branch of Acknowledgment and Research, Mail Stop 2611MIB. A letter of intent may be filed in advance of, or at the same time as, a group's documented petition.

(c) A letter of intent must be produced, dated and signed by the governing body of an Indian group and submitted to the Assistant Secretary.

§ 83.5 Duties of the Department.

(a) The Department shall publish in the FEDERAL REGISTER, no less frequently than every three years, a list of all Indian tribes entitled to receive services from the Bureau by virtue of their status as Indian tribes. The list may be published more frequently, if the Assistant Secretary deems it necessary.

(b) The Assistant Secretary shall make available revised and expanded guidelines for the preparation of documented petitions by September 23, 1994. These guidelines will include an explanation of the criteria and other provisions of the regulations, a discussion of the types of evidence which may be used to demonstrate particular criteria or other provisions of the regulations, and general suggestions and guidelines on how and where to conduct research. The guidelines may be supplemented or updated as necessary. The Department's example of a documented petition format, while preferable, shall not preclude the use of any other format.

(c) The Department shall, upon request, provide petitioners with suggestions and advice regarding preparation of the documented petition. The Department shall not be responsible for

the actual research on behalf of the petitioner.

(d) Any notice which by the terms of these regulations must be published in the FEDERAL REGISTER, shall also be mailed to the petitioner, the governor of the state where the group is located, and to other interested parties.

(e) After an Indian group has filed a letter of intent requesting Federal acknowledgment as an Indian tribe and until that group has actually submitted a documented petition, the Assistant Secretary may contact the group periodically and request clarification, in writing, of its intent to continue with the petitioning process.

(f) All petitioners under active consideration shall be notified, by April 16, 1994, of the opportunity under §83.3(g) to choose whether to complete their petitioning process under the provisions of these revised regulations or the previous regulations as published, on September 5, 1978, at 43 FR 39361.

(g) All other groups that have submitted documented petitions or letters of intent shall be notified of and provided with a copy of these regulations by July 25, 1994.

§ 83.6 General provisions for the documented petition.

(a) The documented petition may be in any readable form that contains detailed, specific evidence in support of a request to the Secretary to acknowledge tribal existence.

(b) The documented petition must include a certification, signed and dated by members of the group's governing body, stating that it is the group's official documented petition.

(c) A petitioner must satisfy all of the criteria in paragraphs (a) through (g) of § 83.7 in order for tribal existence to be acknowledged. Therefore, the documented petition must include thorough explanations and supporting documentation in response to all of the criteria. The definitions in §83.1 are an integral part of the regulations, and the criteria should be read carefully together with these definitions.

(d) A petitioner may be denied acknowledgment if the evidence available demonstrates that it does not meet one or more criteria. A petitioner may also be denied if there is insufficient evi

dence that it meets one or more of the criteria. A criterion shall be considered met if the available evidence establishes a reasonable likelihood of the validity of the facts relating to that criterion. Conclusive proof of the facts relating to a criterion shall not be required in order for the criterion to be considered met.

(e) Evaluation of petitions shall take into account historical situations and time periods for which evidence is demonstrably limited or not available. The limitations inherent in demonstrating the historical existence of community and political influence or authority shall also be taken into account. Existence of community and political influence or authority shall be demonstrated on a substantially continuous basis, but this demonstration does not require meeting these criteria at every point in time. Fluctuations in tribal activity during various years shall not in themselves be a cause for denial of acknowledgment under these criteria.

(f) The criteria in §83.7 (a) through (g) shall be interpreted as applying to tribes or groups that have historically combined and functioned as a single autonomous political entity.

(g) The specific forms of evidence stated in the criteria in §83.7 (a) through (c) and § 83.7(e) are not mandatory requirements. The criteria may be met alternatively by any suitable evidence that demonstrates that the petitioner meets the requirements of the criterion statement and related definitions.

§ 83.7 Mandatory criteria for Federal acknowledgment.

The mandatory criteria are:

(a) The petitioner has been identified as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900. Evidence that the group's character as an Indian entity has from time to time been denied shall not be considered to be conclusive evidence that this criterion has not been met. Evidence to be relied upon in determining a group's Indian identity may include one or a combination of the following, as well as other evidence of identification by other than the petitioner itself or its members.