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Mr. WARREN. My name is Ed Warren. I serve with the Alaska Native Coalition for Chilkat Indian Village.

Mr. NANWOK. Caleb Nanwok.

Mr. FROST. My name is Paul Frost, Alaska Native.

Mr. JACOBSON. Desa Jacobson, Alaska Native.

The CHAIRMAN. If you will mail your statements to the following address: Select Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. On the envelope, attention: Alaska Hearings.

[Prepared statements not read and given to the committee appear in the appendix.]

With that, I would like to thank all of you for patiently sitting by and listening to your brothers and sisters testify today. I would like to thank all of you who participated in these hearings and to assure you that your words are very important and will be seriously considered. I suppose the test would be results. I am a firm believer in results. You will get results. Thank you very much.

[Whereupon, at 5:27 p.m., the committee adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the chair.]

APPENDIX

Additional Material Submitted for the RECORD

TESTIMONY OF

MITCH DEMIENTIEFF

President

TANANA CHIEFS CONFERENCE, INC.

Hearing Before

SELECT COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

U.S. SENATE

on

THE STATUS OF ALASKA NATIVES

MAY 27, 1989

Anchorage, Alaska

Mr. Chairman, Members of the

Committee. My name is Mitch Demientieff. I am President of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, a regional Native non-profit corporation serving 43 villages within the Interior of Alaska. I wish to think the Committee for its time and effort in coming to Alaska to investigate the status of Alaska Natives. As you may know, the terms of the Alaska Native Claims Act required the Department of the Interior to conduct an inquiry into the status of the Alaska Natives and report to Congress in 1985. That report was completed but never transmitted to Congress because of the concern within the Department that the study would support the need to fully implement the general federal policies regarding Indians in Alaska. We wish to thank the Committee for taking the time to investigate the status of Alaska Natives in light of the failure of the Department in fulfilling its statutory duty.

Alaska Natives, in general, share many concerns with our brothers and sisters in the Lower '48. We are concerned about our land and the preservation of our hunting and fishing rights, which in Alaska we refer to as subsistence. We are concerned about battling alcohol and drug abuse because it is a major cause of death among Alaskan Natives and destruction of Alaska Native families. We are concerned about the preservation of our tribal governments, customs and traditions to provide for social order within Native society and to reflect our unique history and culture. We are concerned about the education of our children, which is needed if they are to compete in an increasingly technological world. And we are concerned about the preservation of Native religion and preserving and protecting religious freedom for our people.

There are many people who would argue that Alaska Natives are different, and we would agree in the sense that there are major differences between all Indian people. Just as the Apachee differ from the Navajo and Navahoe differ from the Seminole, so Alaska Natives whether they are Yupik, Athabascan, Tlingit, or

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Inupiat

differ from the tribes of the Lower '48 and from each other. We share, however, the common fact that we are the original occupants of this land, with a culture, language, and identity which we wish to preserve. We are similar in the sense that we want to protect our land, or at least that which we have been able to retain, and we are the same as other Native Americans in our desire to preserve our culture and lifestyles from assimilation into the European immigrant culture.

Alaska became part of the United States under the Treaty of Cession between the United States and Russia. In the treaty, the United States guaranteed that the tribes of Alaska would be treated in the same manner as tribes in the Lower '48. We believe that the current policy of self determination for Native Americans, is appropriate and should be applied to Alaska in the same manner as it is applied in the Lower '48. What follows in our testimony, are specific recommendations to the committee on how to implement that policy.

ALASKA NATIVE REVIEW COMMISSION

The recent proposal to establish an Alaska Native Review Policy Commission raises a number of concerns. It is commonly stated that federal policy toward Alaska Natives is unclear and needs to be developed. We believe that the policy is clear, but the implementation has not been consistent. In 1971, President's Nixon's Indian policy statement set the stage for our current National policy of Indian Self-Determination. Alaska Natives were specifically included within that policy. In implementing this policy, Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination Act which authorized tribes to directly contract for the provision of services to Indian people provided by the federal government. Again, Alaska Native tribes were specifically included within the terms of the statute. Since 1972, Congress has enacted numerous law which specifically included Alaska Natives within the tribal self-determination policies of the United States. The most recent amendments to ANCSA, declared that Alaska Natives would

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