Tribal Relations Committee

People who vandalize petroglyphs, pictographs and historical inscriptions would be fined under a bill recently passed by the state Senate. The measure also sets aside funding to survey, document and model all known pictographs and petroglyphs on state land in Wyoming.

The Select Committee on Tribal Relations is working on a bill draft that would return improperly collected online sales taxes back to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes. The legislative committee discussed the issue at an interim meeting in Fort Washakie on Aug. 26.

More than a thousand rock art sites have been documented across Wyoming, with locations in every county in the state – but almost a quarter of them have been vandalized, by things like initials chiseled into stone or bullet marks.That’s according to state archaeologist Spencer Pelton, who spoke to the Select Committee on Tribal Relations in Fort Washakie at the first of their two interim meetings. This year, the group of legislators had a new item on their agenda – how to best protect and preserve Indigenous rock art throughout the state.

On Wednesday, Nov. 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments regarding the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). ICWA was passed as a direct response to the forced assimilation policies of the federal government. As a result, many Indian children lost connection to their culture because of boarding schools as well as a high number were removed from their families and put into non-Indian homes.

Legislators learned about innovations at the Northern Arapaho Tribe’s health clinic when they gathered in Fort Washakie for a tribal relations committee…