Lewis Trondheim's place to ramble about Native topics (and Alcon's if he wants)

[minionofmidas]

Mother of all Bumps

This is an overview of major Indian Nations, with total population figures (Census. Anyone who can point me towards a site with Tribal Roll membership data would rise immensely in my estimation), population figures of associated reserves, no. of people from these nations to live on these reserves, and data on people who claim to still use the traditional language around the home. Also included are some small but linguistically conservative groups.

The overview will be organized in approximate geographic order, NE - MW - SE - W.

Passamaquoddy
A small people of about 2400-3500 people* whose reservation in Maine's Eastern corner is called Indian Township and has about 700 inhabitants, the vast majority of them Indians (the tribe is too small for data on Passamaquoddy residence on the rez to be available. In such cases, no. of Indians has been used as a standin.) What earns it its place here is that there are still about a thousand speakers of Passamaquoddy, an Algonquian language, in the US, almost all of whom in Maine.

*The census bureau has a report with a) no. of people of Indian race only who wrote in only this tribe; b) no. of people of Indian race only who wrote in this and possibly other tribes; c) no. of people of Indian and possibly other races who wrote in only this tribe; d) no. of Indian and possibly other races who wrote in this and possibly other tribes. I'm quoting figures a) and d), ie the smallest and highest figures.

Iroquois
There are 45 to 81k Iroquois in the US, including 14 to 27k Mohawk, 11 to 15k Oneida, and 7 to 12k Seneca. (And some Cayuga, some Onondaga, some Tuscarora, some Oklahoma Seneca-Cayuga who are the descendants of those "Mingoes" Fenimore Cooper wrote about, and many people, mostly ones with little link to the reservations, that identified merely as Iroquois.)

The US Mohawk reservation is St Régis, which straddles the New York-Québec border and used to be a famous AIM stronghold (still is, for all I know). There are also several Mohawk reserves deeper in Canada. There are several Seneca reservations in Western New York, the largest being Cattaraugus and Allegany. There are some Oneida left in New York state, but most were deported to Wisconsin in the 1840s, where Oneida (West) Reservation lies right outside of - and I mean right outside of - Green Bay. The largest non-Mohawk Iroquois reservation in the world, and the largest reserve by population for anybody in the whole of Canada, is Six Nations (the sixth nation here are not the Mohawk but the Delaware, btw.) not far west of the Niagara.
There are 2700 people (2500 Iroquois) residing on St Régis, 2400 (1800) on Cattaraugus, 6800 (1100) on Allegany, marred by the white man's town of Salamanca, and 21,300 people on Oneida West, of whom however just 2800 are Iroquois.

Iroquois languages, not counting Cherokee, are still spoken by about 3100 people, of whom about 1800 are in New York (about half Seneca, slightly fewer Mohawk) and about 500 are in Wisconsin (and speak Oneida) and the rest is scattered. There are still a few Iroquois speakers in Oklahoma but then, there are still a few blacksmiths in England.

Delaware
Lots of people claiming to be Delaware - 8300 to 16,300. Some are in Oklahoma, where the last quasi-tribal remnant ended up after 300 years as a group of frontier specialists - scouts, translators, that sort of thing. Some are recent migrants from Six Nations. Some belong to triracial isolate groups that have recently embraced Delaware identity. Most are just White people who're proud of their bit of Indian ancestry.
There's also the Brotherton and Stockbridge nations, who came into being in the historic period from partly Delaware (and partly Southern New England Algonquian) stock, but they're not included here.
300 people claim to speak Delaware in the US.


Menominee
7900 to 9800 Menominee in the US. 3200 people in Menominee County / on Menominee reservation in Wisconsin, of whom 2700 are Menominee. Several tiny scattered groups also claiming Menominee identity. 800 people still speaking the language, of whom 500 in Wisconsin.

Ojibwa, aka Chippewa
106k to 150k people in the US, and vast numbers in Canada too. Scattered over a vast no. of small and large reservations from Isabella in Michigan to Turtle Mountain in North Dakota. Largest nations are the Sault Sainte Marie Ojibwa, who have two small reservations in the western UP but have always resided mostly offrez, the Red Lake Ojibwa in far northern Minnesota, the Minnesota Ojibwa, which is the confederation of all the MN Ojibwa rezes except Red Lake, including the similarly large Leech Lake and White Earth - people usually identify by reservation anyways; and Turtle Mountain.
Wisconsin's Ojibwa reservations are smaller. The largest group here bears the beautiful name of Lac Courte Oreilles.
Principal rez populations:
25,800 (1200 Ojibwa) at Isabella. The titular nation here is called Saginaw Ojibwa.
2900 (1900) at Lac Courte Oreilles
5200 (4900) at Red Lake. 7500 to 8000 people expressly claim to be Red Lake Ojibwa.
9200 (3000) at White Earth. 5800 to 7500 White Earth Ojibwa total
10,200 (4000) at Leech Lake.
8300 (7500) at Turtle Mountain. 13,100 to 14,900.
8100 to 11,000 Sault Sainte Marie Ojibwa around, but just 10% are reservation folk.
Obviously, people far away from the rez are more likely to just put Ojibwa etc, but at least some reservation folks will do the same thing, leading to undercount in the figures for "Red Lake Ojibwa" and similar categories. This applies everywhere.
Other reservations/nations of not utterly minuscule size: Bay Mills and L'Anse/Keweenaw Bay in Michigan, Bad River, Fond du Lac, Lac du Flambeau, Red Cliff, Saint Croix in Wisconsin, Bois Forte, Mille Lacs, Grand Portage in Minnesota. Little Shell (named for a historical leader) are a federally sort-of-recognized, but landless group living mostly on the diverse reservations in northern Montana.

8400 speakers left in the US. 4300 in Minnesota, 1300 in Michigan, 1200 in Wisconsin. Didn't take down ND for some reason, but should also be thereabouts.

tbc

[minionofmidas]

Ottawa
At some point there were numerous Ottawa reservations in Western Michigan, which were dissolved in the 19th century - without removal. People just stayed in the area, many blending more, and others less, wholly into White society. Only one very small group accepted a new reservation in Kansas, and was later further deported to Oklahoma. Three groups of Michigan Ottawa have won federal recognition and small pro forma reservations in the 80s and 90s: The Grand Traverse (500 of whom have settled on their reservation), Little River and Little Traverse (in the eastern UP) Nations. There are two further, quite sizeable, Ottawa reserves in Canada, one on Manitoulin and the other on Walpole Island.
All things considered 6400 to 10,700 people claim Ottawa descent in the US today, mostly in Michigan. 600 People in the US (and presumably more than that in Canada - the Canadian Ottawa are a famously conservative bunch, partly because they received traditionalist immigrants from Michigan in the 1830s and 40s crunch time) still speak the language, almost all in Michigan.

Potawatomi
15,800 to 25,600 people claim Potawatomi descent, a startling number given the small size of recognized Potawatomi nations. Then again, these stretch from Ontario through Michigan, Wisconsin and Kansas to Oklahoma, testimony of the path of removal...
In the 2000 census, almost 800 people claimed to speak Potawatomi, a very high figure probably related to an undergoing conscious effort to keep the language alive.

Winnebago
A Siouan people whose original homeland lies around Green Bay and Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin. If "Winnebago" sounds Algonquian to you, that's because it's the Algonquian name for them. If "Winnipeg" sounds similar, that's because it's a cognate - a separate word, separately coined by a separate Algonquian group for a wholly separate group, separately borrowed into English, but with the exact same etymology of "people of the smelly water".
In the mid 19th century there have been a number of failed Winnebago reservations in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota and finally, since 1862 in Thurston County, Nebraska. Large numbers of Winnebago never moved to these reservations, but instead disappeared into thinly populated northern Wisconsin. The US finally gave up the attempt to round up and deport these people to Nebraska in the 1880s  - especially as deportees frequently were back in Wisconsin within a year or two as the US seems to have lacked the cheek to imprison these people (like they did to Geronimo's Apache). As you may be guessing by now, the Wisconsin Winnebago (who now officially call themselves the Ho-Chunk, while the Nebraska group retains the name of Winnebago) lived a culturally conservative life on the very margins of the cash society for a century, and today are making a decent living from their three casinos. Their modern "reservation" consists of I-don't-even-want-to-know-how-many small plots in 12 Wisconsin Counties and one in Minnesota. It has a thousand inhabitants. The Nebraska reservation has 2600 inhabitants, but only a slight majority of that figure are Winnebago.
The total Winnebago population is 7400 to 9700. The Winnebago language still has 1700 speakers, mostly in Wisconsin with 400 in Nebraska.

Mesquakie (Fox)
There are three communities today that the BIA considers to be "Sac and Fox" ones, none of them back home in Illinois. Traditionalists, from any of these groups, would insist that there is a Mesquakie (or Fox) Nation in Tama County, Iowa and two Sac (also spelled Sauk) Nations in Kansas and Oklahoma. The total population of these groups is 4200 to 6600. It is however only with the Tama County group that I'm concerned here: The reservation has 800 inhabitants, of which 700 are Indians. The Sac and Fox languages have 800 speakers, of which 600 are in Iowa. Notice something?

Kickapoo
To conclude with the "midwestern arch-traditionalist groups" theme... the epitome of this cultural response. The Kickapoo's traditional homeland, insofar as it can be determined, would be right around Toledo and Detroit. There was a Kickapoo reservation in Illinois at one point in the early 19th century, replaced by one in Missouri where most people never settled, instead roaming far and wide to the southwest in search of a lifestyle free from white meddling. Eventually, one relatively (but only relatively) assimilationist group (under the prophet Kanakuk, whose name seems to have been stolen by a Christian fundamentalist camp) settled on a reservation in Kansas, while the others were on a reservation in Oklahoma and in Coahuila, Mexico, where they received land at Nacimiento de los Kikapu (right nearby is Nacimiento de los Mascogos, a settlement of Seminole Maroons who also fled the US.) There was an additional exodus to Mexico at the time of the breakup of the Oklahoma reservations, consciously furthered by the Kickapoo's agent at the time who thought them a "bad influence" on other Indians around them. The remaining Oklahoma Kickapoo still included many arch-traditionalists, but they presumably weren't as dominant anymore.
Eventually the traditionalists became migrant agricultural laborers, still refusing, on religious grounds, to live in anything but wikiups and to learn fluent English, though Spanish is okay. Most came to hold both US and Mexican citizenship.
Grass mats were frequently replaced by cardboard as building material, though:

This photograph is from the site outside of Eagle Pass, Texas, underneath the International Bridge, which developed into a traditional gathering point of Kickapoo and was eventually legalized, in 1983, as the Traditional Kickapoo Nation of Texas Reservation.
As of the 2000 census, 3500 to 5100 people in the US claimed Kickapoo ancestry. 4400 people lived on the Kickapoo reservation in Kansas, of which 800 were Indians (more Kansas Kickapoo live elsewhere, presumably). 18,500 people live on the former Kickapoo reservation in Oklahoma, of whom 2300 were Indians - knowing Oklahoma I doubt that most of these are Kickapoo, though. The Texas reservation had 400 all-Indian residents. 400 people in Texas and 400 people in Oklahoma (and others in Mexico) still speak Kickapoo, while the language is extinct in Kansas.

[WMS]

New Mexico
S is Senate, H is House. (42 and 70, of which 13 and 21 over 5%)

I did say I'd get to this one day. Slow day at work, so...*swears at the malfunctioning NM Legislature site* In 2 pieces, due to the length requirement.
Main data source, with tons of information from the time of redistricting. "A Citizen's Guide to Redistricting" in particular has some amusing historical data of how badly things were done in the past.
Note: The Natives would've had only half the House districts they do now if Anglo Rep Gov Johnson hadn't vetoed the original Dem plan - the original Hispanic-favored plan, that is. Odd bedfellows can and do show up sometimes in NM.

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There isn't "as injun" a district in the House because this area got split among 4 different House districts in order to increase the number of Native seats.

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The first one.

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As I relayed to you once before be careful in assigning the racial/ethnic status of a person based on appearance - I've known Hispanics paler than Anglo-Saxon me, and NM tends to have a lot of 'more than one race' types of people. And the surnames are all over the place as well. Anyway, the second one. I'd vote for 'Navajo enough' of a Representative.

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Not so sure about Lidio G. Rainaldi being white either.

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The third one. I'm pretty sure Patricia A. Lundstrom is actually Native, although as I said above, 100% certainty is not easy to come by.

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Yes, the Jicarilla Apache are included. And W Bernalillo (more on that below) is properly included in the district. It also includes the really, really, really low-population parts of Rural Sandoval County in the SW that I'm not certain have people in them at all.

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George J. Hanosh I'm not certain about one way or the other. On a human interest side note, I'm pretty sure I saw him in the waiting room while I was getting an endoscopy a few months back...and in the prep area...he was getting something else ending with -oscopy.

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The fourth one, in part, spun off from NW NM. As for the 'stretches onto the official rez' bit...maybe a little bit in the SW part of the San Juan part of the district, but not by much. And this time I think you're right about the Hispanic Representative part, although I wouldn't be that surprised if W. Ken Martinez had some Native blood. But you'd have to ask him.

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If the Pueblo is stronger and the Navajo is weaker, does that mean the Jicarilla Apache part is in the middle?

[WMS]

Part 2.

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Native area in the SW part of the District probably accounts for most of this.

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You forgot something. See H49. And some of the Checkerboard is Pueblo, not Navajo.

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Native area appears to be in SW of district, again.

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Actually, it stretches E almost to Bloomfield. That's important because the rural areas in between them appear to be where the Natives live.

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Native areas are mostly in the SW of the district, although it appears some Navajo Trust lands poke into S2 from the SE.

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Yup, THE Isleta Pueblo House district.

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Yup, THE Mescalero Apache House district. Good old W. C. "Dub" Williams. Nicest politician at the Legislature that I met back in 2000.

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Yup, THE Isleta Pueblo Senate district.

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"It appears some Navajo Trust lands poke into H3 from the SE."

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And a pretentious art colony for color.

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Oh yeah, good old BernCo Precinct 31. The overwhelming majority - and I mean it with the overwhelming part - of the population in this part of H12 is Navajo, from the To'hajiilee Reservation. IIRC they're a part of the Navajo Nation that wandered its way down there some time back and are kind of like a colony. While Laguna has land in this area, they have very few people here - maybe a few manning the gas station (in 2000-1 data, anyway). I think there's a casino in this area but since I don't gamble I'm not sure. Oh, I don't think it's really the Checkerboard in this area either. And that precinct should never have been attached to H12, but the arrogance of the Valley Hispanics in saving their incumbents has no limits, since that idiotic assignment had to do with what I noticed was the Prime Directive of the Dems in BernCo of keeping EVERY Democratic seat intact despite population shifts (I'm looking at YOU, H19) (although H17 was the one most at risk of getting properly squashed), and the ripple effect required the Dem in H12 to grab Pct 31 for the population. Before 2000 it was in H65, where it belongs.

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Alamo Bend Navajo Reservation, Lewis. It really should've been put in H69 but Native power was not at the top of the redistricters' agenda.

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Yup, THE Mescalero Apache Senate district.

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Indeed, some of the Jicarilla Apache are here in the W. Santa Clara Pueblo definitely is here, and it appears that a tiny bit of San Juan Pueblo (but not the really inhabited bit) is here.

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Indeed. Including what is bound to be YOUR favorite, Pojoaque Pueblo, because they are rather radical. Beginning to encroach on leftist Yupdom...

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Including San Juan Pueblo, which is the contact ZIP code given by its Representative...is this a Pueblo Representative, I wonder?

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And a pretentious art colony for color. Again.

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And some Jicarilla Apache areas.

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Ah, this area. I remember the Native American Coordinator for the Bernalillo County Clerk's Office talking about this 'area of interest'. Although I'm not 100% clear on why there is this Native cluster, the area is the poorish minority ghetto area. Mostly Hispanics, but it looks like the Natives are here as well. Lots and lots and lots of 'multi-family housing' (i.e., apartments of all types). I suspect that the Natives here are ones 'off the res' who are working in Albuquerque and this is the area they can afford apartments in (they have my sympathy on that topic, for certain).

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See S17.

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See S17.

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See S17.

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Welcome to SIPI!

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See S13.

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See S17.

There Lewis, does that help?

Quite a fascinating thread.
Which congressional district in the nation has the highest percentage Native population? Is it Arizona 2? Alaska at large? Something in Oklahoma?

Arizona 1, 22.6%, followed by New Mexico 3, 19.6%.

Under yet another revision of my old version of the 2001 Congressional boundaries (yeah, yeah, I'll post it one of these months) in which I managed to include Sandia Pueblo (the inhabited bits) in NM-3 along with all other Native areas I could find (except for one), I got NM-3 up to 22.5% Native (and for the record 38.9% Hispanic and 36.01% white - I'd love to see the Dem primaries there ). The last real Native area, the Mescalero Apaches in the SE, are too far away and surrounded by too many whites and Hispanics to include without lowering the Native percentage. So AZ-1 wins.

[minionofmidas]

Hi!

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Not so sure about Lidio G. Rainaldi being white either.

Yes, I know that rednecks like you traditionally used not to consider Italians as fully white.
I don't find it very surprising that Whites can win areas like this - quite besides turnout and age differences, Whites are going to be much less likely to vote for Indians than vice versa. And Navajos might be unwilling to vote for Zunis and vice versa, too.

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The third one. I'm pretty sure Patricia A. Lundstrom is actually Native, although as I said above, 100% certainty is not easy to come by. [/quote]
I'm quite 100% certain that her father was born in North Dakota of Swedish immigrant parents. Google is amazing.
I've found exactly nothing to claim her as part Native, but 100% certainty is indeed not easy to come by. She looks a wee bit as if she might conceivably be.

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George J. Hanosh I'm not certain about one way or the other. [/quote]I think this is his father... (Hanosh was born in Albuquerque and lives in Grants. And he was a garage owner in Grants from 1970 onwards, ie presumably after his father retired or passed away.)

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The uranium mine at Laguna was in operation from 1953 to 1983. Hanosh is a Christian Arab name.

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The fourth one, in part, spun off from NW NM. As for the 'stretches onto the official rez' bit...maybe a little bit in the SW part of the San Juan part of the district, but not by much. And this time I think you're right about the Hispanic Representative part, although I wouldn't be that surprised if W. Ken Martinez had some Native blood. But you'd have to ask him. [/quote]He'd probably not know. Anyways, "some Native blood" doesn't count. Tribal membership counts.

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If the Pueblo is stronger and the Navajo is weaker, does that mean the Jicarilla Apache part is in the middle?
[/quote]It means the Pueblo percentage is higher and the Navajo percentage lower, silly. If Jicarilla is here then the Jicarilla percentage is obviously higher as well, as the district is smaller.

[minionofmidas]

text

Oh yes, forgot about those Navajo enclaves.

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Indeed. Including what is bound to be YOUR favorite, Pojoaque Pueblo, because they are rather radical. [/quote]As in not all that traditional.
Pojoaque was abandoned for a decade until the great depression, when Antonio José Tapia came home after working twenty years in Colorado and Montana coalmines, and found Anglos and Spanish attempting to homestead and Nambe people grazing their sheep on Pojoaque lands but noone living in the ruined Pueblo itself, figured he couldn't possibly be the last survivor, and went round talking people who (or whose parents) were originally from there into resettling at Pojoaque. [/previous knowledge]
His grandson is the current tribal president. The fight to evict squatters was obviously not successful, as there's twohundred-odd tribal members and several thousand reservation residents (and three CDPs within the reservation, one of which including the Pueblo proper), a clear majority of them Hispanic.

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Including San Juan Pueblo, which is the contact ZIP code given by its Representative...is this a Pueblo Representative, I wonder?[/quote]Sorry, Nick Salazar was born and still lives in Chamita, the Spanish squatter community (ca 1400 inhabitants) in the western part of the reservation's boundary. And it's not even called San Juan Pueblo anymore. (Hey, two more new things I learned thanks to you!)

[WMS]

Hi!

Well hi there

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Must...resist...very...bad...joke...
Hmm, those might be good reasons why so few Natives actually represent the districts drawn specifically to represent Natives. I find it boggling that a 70.5% Native district elects a white boy, but oh well. I have my own, more cynical, view on this - the Natives do what the NM Democratic Machine tells them to do, and the Machine is run by Hispanics and Whites, and if they want to put one of their own in the Legislature, why, that's what happens! I note that this is completely consistent with your other reasons. And might I add, Hispanics aren't likely to vote for Natives either - over at Acoma Pueblo, my parents told me about a tour they took in which the Native guide gleefully told them about the many past crimes of the Hispanics against them (the whole chopping off a foot from every Acoma male over 25 part in particular upsets them - see Juan de Onate, eh King? ) and as related in my last post the redistricting tussle up here was Natives vs Hispanics more than Natives vs Whites. As for your last point...oh yeah, Navajos and Pueblo peoples have been enemies for damn near a millennium. The Pueblos' ancestors were known as the Anasazi, and the word 'Anasazi' is a Navajo word...for "enemy ancestors".

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*gasps* See my above commentary wondering how such heavily Native districts elect these people. Meh, at least I brought new information to life even if I was wrong. And the site I know you got your information from doesn't mention her mother's side at all...darn it.

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The uranium mine at Laguna was in operation from 1953 to 1983. Hanosh is a Christian Arab name.[/quote]

I still saw him at the hospital building, Christian Arab or not. And that would have to be his dad, given that he'd be all of 13 years old in November 1951. And I'm really amazed the Natives would keep voting for someone involved with the uranium mining in the area!

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Yeah, considering the circumstances in which a lot of these things happened, it's probably not high on the agenda at family reunions. Are you sure it doesn't count? Well, that's at least a metric that is more consistent, although there are tribal members living outside rez boundaries of course. I doubt the tribes make their lists available on the Internet though.

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I fully admit I was being a smartass over your leaving the Jicarilla Apaches out of your description. So how does the Jicarilla being here compare this district, H65, with S22? Does it keep the "stronger Pueblo, weaker Navajo" aspect you pointed out, or does that change with the new additions?

[minionofmidas]

I still saw him at the hospital building, Christian Arab or not.

Yeah, there are several allusions to his health problems floating around the web.

One additional factor to mention: Native percentages of these areas are rising. Some of these people have been in office, or at least in elective politics, since back when native percentages would have been lower. Who knows who'd win an open-seat primary for Hanosh's or Rainaldi's seat?

As to machine... no. Primary elections, and turnout in general elections, in Navajo Country (at least in Arizona) are notoriously hard to predict precisely because of the lack of a functioning machine.

[WMS]

Oh yes, forgot about those Navajo enclaves.

You FIEND!

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Now that's an interesting story. And rather amusing. My radical comment was related to them being probably the most left-wing Native group in the state. Certainly over any and all issues which might impact them...casinos, roads, etc. I think they're the most AIM-ish of the Native tribes in NM. Or as I said, your type of people.

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I was going off of ESRI and government data on the San Juan Pueblo name. I figured it was one of those things where it was the typical...err, Hispanicized, I suppose...name of a 'native' place. I will note that the United States Postal Service still uses "San Juan Pueblo". Mind you, for the same ZIP code they also use "Ohkay Owingeh", the one the H40 rep used, so both names seem to be valid...and "Chamita" is not acceptable for that ZIP code. Still, the new information is always nice to know.

[WMS]

I still saw him at the hospital building, Christian Arab or not.

Yeah, there are several allusions to his health problems floating around the web.

One additional factor to mention: Native percentages of these areas are rising. Some of these people have been in office, or at least in elective politics, since back when native percentages would have been lower. Who knows who'd win an open-seat primary for Hanosh's or Rainaldi's seat?

As to machine... no. Primary elections, and turnout in general elections, in Navajo Country (at least in Arizona) are notoriously hard to predict precisely because of the lack of a functioning machine.

Well, I can confirm it in person then. Poor guy.

Interesting point. Of course, who knows what the latest gerrymandering in 2011 by the NM Dems will do up there...and yes, they will most certainly adjust the boundaries to minimize primary challenges in addition to general challenges.

Really? I think it might be different in Pueblo areas, although that is unclear. And I think the political elites in Native areas are plugged into the machines, anyway, most of the time, regardless of the populations - with notable exceptions such as John Pinto, S3, who aided the ousting of Manny Aragon in the Senate, and Ray Begaye, H4, who won my respect back in 2000 for suggesting that perhaps everyone in the Legislature, staff and politicians alike, could wear bolo ties as an alternative to regular ties, since this IS New Mexico, after all...he got shot down by stuffy liberal lawyer Raymond Sanchez, the head of the Dems in the House at the time. Which is one reason I enjoyed Sanchez going down the next election. Actually, Ray Begaye wanted to wear full Native dress in the Lege.

[minionofmidas]

Ray Begaye wanted to wear full Native dress in the Lege.

I approve of that.

Although I can't begin to tell you how much I would approve if he were also a young attractive Yuman female.

[WMS]

Ray Begaye wanted to wear full Native dress in the Lege.

I approve of that.

Although I can't begin to tell you how much I would approve if he were also a young attractive Yuman female.

So did I, but blame those stuffy lefty trial lawyers for shooting that down.

Well, you can't have everything.

[minionofmidas]

Ray Begaye wanted to wear full Native dress in the Lege.

I approve of that.

Although I can't begin to tell you how much I would approve if he were also a young attractive Yuman female.

So did I, but blame those stuffy lefty trial lawyers for shooting that down.

Well, you can't have everything.

So your legislature has a dress code?
Weird.

[WMS]

Ray Begaye wanted to wear full Native dress in the Lege.

I approve of that.

Although I can't begin to tell you how much I would approve if he were also a young attractive Yuman female.

So did I, but blame those stuffy lefty trial lawyers for shooting that down.

Well, you can't have everything.

So your legislature has a dress code?
Weird.

Yup. It certainly did in 2000. I haven't been up there since then, but since the Dems still run the place...

[minionofmidas]

And the price for most aesthetically pleasing US State Representative of either gender goes to...



Jonathan Windy Boy, Rocky Boy's Ojibwa, representing the 32nd district (Rocky Boy's, Fort Belknap, ranching county in between and stretching almost to Fort Peck) in Montana's State House.

We have a runner-up!



Christopher Clark Deschene, took out a white incumbent in the primary for AZ-2. Here pictured at the DNC, to which he was elected as a pledged Obama delegate.