At night before I go to bed, I think about all we have and I pray that what needs to be done can be completed. In the morning when I wake up I have to sit down and pray for the guidance and wisdom and the knowledge of how to do what is needed. You can't do everything at once and sometimes things don't come out the way you want or according to the timing you want. I think people in our country tend to put things in their own time frame. I try not to do that. I pray about these things and put it all in the Creator's hands. I have to believe that it will all be taken care of in the Creator's time, in Spirit time. I have to believe that it will all be good. 
     As an administor for 15 years I sometimes feel overwhelmed and frustrated. I have had to learn through prayer that things will get done. Of course, you also have to work to make things happen. We don't have control of people. Only the Creator has that power. What is needed is constant prayer for all people, and being in the moment, right then and there. I have to practice that each morning before I go forth-pray and tell myself I can do it. I ground myself so I can be balanced before I venture on from one thing to something else. There are a lot of projects and things to be done and protected. People ask me how I keep going and I tell them the Spirit keeps me going. It gives me the strength to continue on. 
     I was raised by my grandmother, Angelina Campbell. She was a strong woman and had a special way about her. She showed me things about food and herb gathering, and I traveled with her and I learned from her through going about life. In college I found out what really happened to the Indian people. Our land was taken and the people were hunted, killed, raped and punished for practicing their culture. My parents didn't talk about it because I think they were afraid. After time in college, I came back and wanted to work with the Indian community but couldn't get a job. I did work for CETA as an outreach worker and I learned about the programs and services for the Indian community. Nobody trained me. I had to just get in there and learn myself. I also learned peer counseling. 
     Eventually I got a call to work for our tribe. That was difficult. Some of our youth were starting to think about suicide and I realized I needed to know more than just about physical services. So I started traveling to the Shaker Church. I really liked the ceremonies but not some of the Christian influences. I met with some of the elders and received spiritual training up north at Smith River. You prayed for people and laid on hands. I traveled there every weekend. I was searching. That was a turning point in my life. You prayed and prayed. They taught us how to receive. Every time you asked a question they'd say, "Pray about it." That is the Indian way. If you want to know something, you go pray about it. You always receive but a lot of times you don't pay attention to the Spirit. 
     When you pray for someone, sometimes things come in visions. You have to be careful. One vision I had was very emotional. I saw a little cross in a field. Later on, a friend of ours passed away and sure enough, when we went to grave site, there was this same little cross. I didn't want to see this. I had to deal with the fear of what I had seen and with the fact that what I saw was real. I believe these things are shown so you can pray against it-so it won't happen or it will be easier. You have to believe that. When you see something it is important to pray and ask why it is being shown. It is also important to have other people support you and guide you. Eventually you have to get to the point where your faith is strong enough that you really believe in the good. You truly have to believe in it. 
     I would like to see more spiritual things happen here. It is hard because a lot of our spiritual leaders have passed on. No one takes on a complete spiritual role, because it it's such a tough job. You have to carry yourself a certain way and eat certain foods. My grandmother was to be a spiritual leader but she wouldn't accept it because of the discipline. It's not in my memory to know anyone of our tribe who took on the spiritual role completely. We have always called on outside people. Some people have been given the gifts but they can't live the life. I tell you, it would be a hard task to take on, but I hope someone will do it.       As kids, we didn't get involved in anything. We went to school and that was it. I tried to stay at my friends house and my grandma swooped down and picked me up. I think she was afraid I might get hurt or something. Life was really strict. We couldn't go to the show except maybe once every month or two. Back at the old Coyote Valley, Catholic sisters came in and we hid from them. But they were really nice so we started going to church. They picked us up and took us to catechism in Calpella. We got to go there and do something different. So, we were raised Catholic. The sisters helped us out-gave us Christmas presents and social service for the people. That's what drew people in. I think all children should have a spiritual upbringing, but this kept out our traditional ways. 
     In our Shaker religion, we don't use the Bible. We just pray and receive. One Indian friend told me what he learned from the Bible, and I told him we don't use the Bible. We pray and receive straight. He was dumbfounded and wanted to debate about it. I said, "Well, I'm not going to argue with you. That is the Indian way." Ever since then, he tried to convince me this wasn't right. I thought, "This is sad. Here is an Indian, and he doesn't know that you can receive straight." He didn't believe that we were worthy of that. I was shocked. That's what the Christian ways do. Even with the Shaker religion, I had a hard time. At first they weren't Christian, but people were getting arrested for practicing ceremonies so they had to incorporate under a church to protect the members. Christian influences came in. Now there are Shakers who use the Bible, but a lot of the old Shakers won't allow you to preach the Bible or say anything from it. You just pray, chant, ring bells and have visions. This is the Indian religion. I think that Christianity has hurt the Indian people. A lot of people are becoming aware of the effect it has had on us. 
     I have learned about our spiritual traditions and have started to practice Indian ways. Our spiritual tradition is taboo to some of the people, especially the more Christianized Indians. Some of our people were afraid of the Bear dance last summer. They had never seen anything like that before. They have superstition about this and think we are trying to do something bad. They are afraid but they aren't sure what they are afraid of. Christianity has said the Indian ways are bad; they call them Pagan. The more we do ceremonies, the more people come to see them and the more our children become aware of their culture. This will make them stronger. I feel like we are going toward our spiritual tradition. The timing of this has to do with the Spirit. If I jump ahead it's not going to work. It is my goal to get the people in the spiritual direction and I need help to do this. Sometimes people are placed in your path who are sent there to do certain things. What has distracted me has been the gaming but without that and the revenue, we won't be able to do what we want to do. 

 
Our tribe lived in a village at Lake Mendocino. This was the old Coyote Valley. We had about five houses on 101 acres. I lived there with my grandmother. A lot of other kids lived with her too. It was a good area to play. It was a beautiful valley. There were meetings when the work on the dam started. As a kid you don't know much about what is going on. You just see things, but no one tells you anything and you aren't involved in it. I do remember that we were loaded up in a big truck and the family took us to the top of the hill across the way to five acres they had bought. Our family had put their money together. The government only paid for improvements on the homes. They made us leave and didn't pay us. The white people's homes were moved for them but we had no legal services or friends to help. This was not too long ago, in 1959. I was in grammar school. There we were, living in shacks. We had a main cook house. We added a tent over a floor and that was our sleeping place. There were four cabins for twenty or thirty people. Then we built a house. My cousin wanted to go to school and applied for Bureau funds and we were told we  had been terminated and we couldn't get them. This was when we graduated from high school. 
     I became involved in tribal things after the Mendo-Lake Pomo Council came along. They established the Cultural Center and I started going to meetings. The Bureau of Indian Affairs had field representatives who came if they heard there was trouble. People were afraid of them because if they were turned in, the Bureau could decide to remove them from the land or discipline them. What they said, we had to do. That is the fear I saw growing up. We didn't know what a tribe was supposed to be. After we were told our tribe was terminated, our status wasn't restored until the 1970s. We filed a lawsuit and found out that we were never legally terminated because we hadn't received any money for our land or for to pay our families to move. We didn't know anything about our rights. We just helped each other as a family. Finally, we started to have meetings as a tribe. Doris Renick led the council and helped us get get funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. That began to happen in the late 1970s. 
     Then the Bureau started giving workshops on self-determination, what it is to be a tribe. We had an office in Ukiah. We had classes, brought singers from Lakeport and Hopland; our kids learned to dance. We finally received a block grant for land acquisition in 1977 or 1978. Our land's Federal Trust status came in 1979, but we still didn't truly know our rights as a tribe. 
     You can talk about law and process but until you actually go through something, you don't completely understand it or feel it. We created our tribal law but enforcing it was another story. Local law enforcement can enforce our laws or not, depending on what they want to do. Ironically, it wasn't until the Polly Klass incident that we learned first hand what tribal sovereignty is. 
     The FBI had removed the Schwarm family that was housing Richard Allen Davis on the Coyote Valley Reservation so their house could be searched. Then the FBI wanted to move the family back on the land and keep them as friendly witnesses. To us they were squatters and we wanted them off. For one thing, we didn't want the public to think we were harboring these people. We knew that by tribal law, we had the right to exclude people, but local law enforcement didn't believe that. Before this incident, we had wanted to evict this family, but we would have had to go to Federal Court which would take forever and we didn't have the funds. We had filed trespassing papers, but the county wouldn't enforce them because they didn't have the backing of the District Attorney. The DA said this matter wasn't on their priority list. The local deputies were afraid they could be charged with false arrest since the people had a dime store lease signed by a member. By our law, the member had no authority to lease a home here. A lease would have to go to the Tribal Council for approval and then to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for certification. So, when the local law enforcement said, "They have a lease," we said it wasn't valid. 
     The FBI wanted to bring the people back to the land to sign off on an inventory sheet. Polly Girvin-Montoya and Caroline Hirshman, who are attorneys, helped us develop an exclusionary ordinance saying they couldn't come back on the land. The FBI told the local law enforcement that we did have the right to exclude people at the entrance. The FBI said they would work with us and we believed them. Then all of a sudden, they packed up, said they were going to leave in an hour and that the family was coming back. We quickly had a letter faxed from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Sheriff's Department to validate our authority. We also developed a letter to the family saying they weren't allowed on the reservation, period. We deputized some tribal members to block the entrance, stop and search cars at the entrance and were able to say "yes" and "no" about who we wanted to come on the land. The sheriff's department knew that we knew our rights, so the police stood there and kept out the people we didn't want in. This was a first. 
     We understand more about sovereignty now. Going through that exercise showed us our rights-that we could develop tribal laws and have them enforced. Local agencies like the dog pound can't come on unless we give them the authority. For awhile our own tribal council didn't believe they had the authority to create an exclusionary ordinance. It was a big step for them and for all the tribes. Now the council knows they can do this. We also made the claim that the Bureau has no authority to intercede in our elections. If there is disagreement, we don't have to rely on the Bureau. We don't want them so involved. 
     Some of our members who live off the reservation had never dealt with any tribal matters, and they wanted to control how we did things. They weren't here when we were struggling. I have had to explain to them what a tribe is. A tribe takes care of its members; if someone falls, you pick them back up. This is not like a business where if you don't perform, you're out. 

 
Members here are descendants from original allotees from the prior Coyote Valley Reservation. These names are on a list. Some people pulled their names off our member list to go to another tribe before we got into the gaming. Then when gaming started, some of them wanted to get back on the roll. We had to tell most of them "no." 
    Gaming has provided funds for many programs and services to members such as recreation activities, cultural songs and dances. We have more funds for health care services, and an elder program with nursing care and house cleaning. We have money for land acquisition, housing assistance, to purchase our members homes from HUD, to make house repairs, to acquire things like washers and dryers and an allowance for utilities. Some of the people have built decks. We are able to do beautification on the land-to put in lawns, flowers, trees. Beautifying the reservation will make people feel better-make their spirit's rejoice. This will change their attitude about life. 
Our per capita pays members an amount that is about equivalent to welfare. If a person goes to work, what they make does not lower the per capita. Going to work will enhance their financial situation. We give a monthly gift certificate per adult for food. They can't get any alcohol or tobacco with that. 
     Our education project was just funded by the state. We applied as a consortium of tribes and were turned down last year in favor of a non-profit organization. They went defunct so this year we were accepted. A non-profit doesn't have the same commitment as a consortium which by its nature has a responsibility to pass money down to its member tribes. Each tribe in the consortium will get money to do the projects they want-tutoring, cultural classes, etc. When we had to go to the county for grants, if you didn't write the proposal correctly, you didn't get the money. Some of our kids have been passed through public schools but don't have the skills. We feel it would be best to have an entire K-12 school program here. 
     Now I am having to focus my time on this gaming issue. I am calling on our staff to keep up with the local politics and keep the programs going because I won't have time to do it. If we don't have the gaming revenue, we are going to be set back to very poor position because we have lost our funding sources. We would have to keep a core staff-secretary, fiscal, administrator, health. Any money that we got would have to go to them. Now we have twenty-five employees in our tribal programs and over 200 people employed at our casino. Job priorities are first given to tribal members, second to Indians and then to the rest of the community. Everyone has to pass drug testing. If they fail, they have thirty days to clean up and during that time they have the right to request rehab. Then they can come back to work if they pass the drug test so this is incentive to clean up. Some people can't handle working every day. Some have child care or other problems, so we want part time work programs for these people. 

 
Some of the tribes want to give up tribal sovereignty to local jurisdiction so they can keep their casinos. The Indian Gaming Act is a federal law that makes us go to the state to negotiate a compact. That should never have happened. We should have negotiated with the federal government, but I guess some people thought the Indian Gaming Act wouldn't have happened otherwise. We have to be careful what we agree to. History repeats itself. In the past, under local jurisdiction, our land was taken. We were killed, run off our land, put in boarding schools, made slaves, and made to not use our language. Grandmother was afraid to teach us our language because of fear we could get hurt. Federal people had to be forced to help us. It took other people who knew and cared about Indians to help us and enforce laws that would protect us. We still have to fight to protect our rights. To put us back under local law is another form of termination: "Too bad what we promised you!" 
     This is a crucial moment for Indian people and Indian sovereignty. Now we know what sovereignty is and we are going to fight for it. We are at the negotiating table and it doesn't matter who doesn't want us there. Our funding helps us to get out there and fight for the protection of our tribe. The tribes are a political force, not just a group of Indian people. 
     Those Indian people and attorneys who want us to waive our sovereignty to get a gaming agreement with the governor say we can amend it later. Few things have been amended later. We were held to a gag order by the governor. That was crazy. Some tribes agreed to not rock the boat and go along with it. I was faced with having to decide how best to protect our tribal and casino employees, our debts, vendors, services and projects. "Are we going to give up rights for this? What do you do as a leader?" We decided, "We're not going to do it." Now we have to battle with tribes that are for local jurisdiction and those that are playing the fence. We are lucky that some other tribes feel the way we do and are also refusing to sign agreements with the State that impinge on our sovereignty. They got tired of lawyers who became involved in closed door strategies without seeking council from the tribes that hired them. 
     Our tribe wants to ensure that our children are taken care of in the future. This takes time. Indian Gaming requires us to follow Federal laws and regulations. We have had to develop and write up policies like any business but gaming laws are new and particularly complex. They involve us with the FBI, the National Indian Gaming Commission, and the IRS. Our policies and regulations are not ready-made. They have had to be drafted, approved, and implemented to ensure legality and fairness. We have been in business only a little over two years. By some people's standards, we are expected to all get along and do a perfect job. This is not possible. 
     We are going through growing pains but are learning from our mistakes. We have helped our tribal members and greater community by providing employment, by supporting local vendors and by making community donations. For this we are happy.