#46 - Inside Indian Country: A Discussion on Kool-Aid, Pork Chops and Indian Law - Guest: Bryan Dupuis - Tribal Research Specialist: The Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Aaron Brien (00:01):
Are you good at 12121212? I

Shandin Pete (00:07):
wonder why they say Mic check? One two. Why not
like, mic check? A B.

Let's do this.

Okay. Just curious. Yeah. You kind of seem
like you're in a mood.

Oh, dude, my job man. Bad day. Uh, when when
don't i Hold on? I'm getting acall

the hotel telephone.

Hello? Is this 1997

coming to the party that a motor in.

It's like it's supposed to be a Best Western
but I think it was kind of oneof the more like travel lodges
or whatever they used to be.
It's like a motel dude. So I'min miles. Montana. Miles says
Mark last night. Yeah, I was inBismarck. Yesterday. I was in
Bismarck all day. Yeah. SoBismarck do a site visit we go
and look at some stone featuresthat I'm working on. We work on

(01:25):
this big project called Northplains connector, which is like
a power company grid united. Sothey're doing all this pre
permanent team survey work wherewe're doing archaeology survey
My guys are. There's likeseveral tribes. We call them
tribal cultural specialists. Sothey find cool stuff. US tipples

(01:46):
go out. We look at the coolstuff. Yeah, so that's what I
was doing today. And miles inBismarck and then left Bismarck
about two o'clock stopped dead.
Theodore Roosevelt National Parkand had a quick meeting with
their cultural resourcespecialists. And then left there

(02:08):
got to mile city which will bedoing site visit tomorrow. And
then yeah, man, I mean, I'm justtired it was today I had to like
I had to pull up my big boypanties and go outside and just
didn't like it.

That's quite the agenda.

Dude, like it's like it's typical life. Yeah,
like it's crazy, man. It's notrealistic way of living. It's
not even a realistic way ofculture.

It's not weird.
That's all gone it's notsustainable. It's not
sustainable living.

No, no there's a high rate of burnout high rate
of burnout

yeah

well, opioid addiction

right up there with opioid addiction

this is this is this is typical life look at
this I bought a Mountain Dew andmelatonin What does

just put a melatonin in that Mountain Dew
bottle what's gonna happen wellit's weird I don't know man.

Oh no, let's get rolling

oh yeah all right.
We got Brian we hear he'srejoining us the rare while
we've had one No I think tworeturning guests right I think I
think we had Mike back twice andmaybe John back twice.

What didn't John he was like part of a group right?

This was like episode or two or three maybe
we're doing some social mediaaction you're gonna social media
Okay, let me um, man I comeacross this song. I want you to
listen to this first thoughfirst. So we're gonna let's see
share sound Yeah. Gotcha. Listento the song. We're all going to

(04:21):
take a lead. Good and Brian. Youdidn't know.

I don't want to do this. I'm just

I'm just kidding.
Yeah, winded up, pinch thethroat. If you pinch the throat
and just scream for about one totwo seconds. And if you're
singing contemporary, wherepeople will pick you up and
that's a hot lead man. Listen tothis, man. This is a good song.

It's a contempt tune.

No, no, I wish a Noah we still got to do that
episode that way. We previewsome contempt history I don't
think we're quite theauthorities on that or anything
for that matter but now let'scome yeah we can hear it is the
source of this okay

pretty awesome

exam comes from learn it you can tell

(06:06):
here we lose you good

can you hear me?

Yeah I can hear you that's cool tune Can you
hear us?

Yeah like oh my Can you hear me? Yeah oh yeah yeah
interesting all right

yeah nice little tune there tell they're just
going over it somebody in themiddle is Ribbit or something
part again hey that's prettygood play that again yeah here
goes comes to your companywhat do they say

I don't know what that is

okay Okay one more time

Bryan Dupuis (07:48):
nickname and maybe they forgot what it is

I don't know I don't know

okay, that's enough I don't know if that's
entertaining.

I don't know what he says. I don't
know, don't know where thatrecordings from.

I don't know. This is from those reel to reels. You
know.

To me, it kind of has like Nez Perce Colville
human Tila can hold on to that,you know, like Yeah, maybe?
Yeah, I don't know.

I think it's, I think it's the same. Well, it's
from it's from the same reel toreel and I've been playing these
tunes from so I think the lastepisode I played that that owl
dance is owl dance tune youknow, it's from that same. I
think it's that same group, butit's the other side of the real

(09:38):
you know, ever Ribbit place

for

good, good. Yeah, well, anyway, we've got Brian to
pull you back in. He's gotsomething to say. Now. I'm going
to preface this with with theBit of a congratulations to
Brian. He finished he finishedhis law degree man. That is

(10:08):
awesome. That is so awesome man.
This guy, this guy if you seehim he's still the guy that
hangs out at the gas stationwith the half drink and pop
leaning against the seeds he'sstill he's still just just a
regular dude, man. And he put itin his mind to get a large

(10:31):
degree and he did it, man.

But one thing you can do Brian is say you're a
regular dude, because guys whoare regular dudes don't have to
see that. Hey, I'm just aregular Joe. Yeah, that's
probably not.

You're not Yeah, let's Yeah.

It's kind of wondering. I was like, I wonder
if I even look like a lawstudent Sansom like donors walk
through the hallway and reallylooking at me like, like, Oh,
don't worry during the summerthe building's open to the
public. Go here like I justgraduated. I was just say,
careful, shamed out. Suit andtie our time or so.

I Excuse me, are you looking for free legal help?

Yeah. Don't cut it anymore.

You look like the guy on the other side of the
law. That's cool, man. I likeyou. I like you when regular
people do cool shit, you know?

Yeah, it is. Yeah.
Yeah. So big, bigcongratulations to you, man. And
this the Indian law episode isoverdue. It's gonna go the way
it's gonna go. Okay. Is thatwhat's going down right now?
This is this is the Indian lawepisode. We're gonna go through

(11:59):
everything. Indian law. Pull upyour textbook. Actually, it's a
packet, pull out packet be

a reading, if you will,

reader. What's that?

All the guys download your PDFs before the
episode?

Yeah, did you download and read the 60 page?

This is the first time our guests were I guess
sent us a readerDid you Brian? Brian, let me ask
you this. Let me get us back onChuck is Shawn. I know. Okay,
what is Was there a particularfocus in your law degree that
you chose? Or, Hey, first, wheredid you go to law school.

So I went to university, Alexander blue, the
third school of Locke Universityof Montana. Um, see, I went I
went to Salish Kootenai Collegeand studied with Sean dean here.
I did hydrology, and I kind ofpolitical aspirations, maybe go
a legislator out. But we had todo a lot of law classes on that

(13:09):
degree track, like environmentallaw, water law, NEPA in federal
Indian policy. So I kind of hadthat interest in continuing
education. So when I went to lawschool, I was more geared for
environmental law. But Irealized my passion was an
Indian law. You know, they werethe cases that just really

(13:30):
infuriated me and, and made melike, you know, want to make a
counter argument or, you know,inside, but environmental law
does overlap a lot with Indianlaw. So I, you know, I still get
the kind of use that knowledgeand expertise as well. But yeah,
I definitely my passion is anIndian law. I took every Indian
law class, I could accept itquick because it conflicted with

(13:51):
one of my other classes. So Iwas feeling when I didn't get to
take was there. Mm

hmm. So you kind of had a focus in Indian law at an
environmental law or no?

Yeah, I did some environmental law classes.

what's your what's your plan? Do you have a plan?
Or is this still fresh?

Yeah, I just kind of keep my options open. There's
about four opportunities at thetribe. I could kind of go like I
wanted to go criminal or, likein house counsel, like kind of
maybe for the exec team or, or,or even energy keepers, I think,
was looking maybe to get anotherlawyer on board and go work for

(14:37):
the dam. Mm hmm.

Trying to stay local.

Yeah, I definitely want to stay in Missoula if I
can. But it's reallycompetitive. Since this has the
only law school in the statehere in Missoula. A lot of
people don't want to leave afterthey graduate.

Right. Right, right. Well, You got plenty of
opportunity? I think? I don'tknow. I never did like that word
or that phrase, you know, is Oh,you got a lot opportunity. But I
don't. I don't know if that'snecessarily true for Indian

(15:19):
dudes, you know? We don't Ithink

it's it's it's just the same man. Yeah, it don't
apply to us, I think. I mean,there is opportunity, but our
opportunities are verydifferent. Like, yeah, the
average Indian newsopportunities are not what
everybody else is, even with alaw degree. Yeah. Yeah, you

(15:44):
know, you got to, it's whatwe're all taught, you know, you
have to work twice as hard to dothis kind of work. To prove your
point just to prove mediocrity,you know,

I never really applied for a lot of
internships, and I kind of justfigured my best opportunity to
get employed would be through atribe or through my tribe. And
so I didn't even look at a lotof those. Just regular
internship opportunities throughschool. Yeah, I would maybe be
disadvantaged, but a lot ofnative students come in and kind

(16:18):
of dig themselves a hole throughthose doctrinal those beginning
courses. And so they're tryingto figure out why that is, and,
and maybe ways to combat it. AndI know, it's like, I was really
able to connect through a lot ofthe principles of law through
Indian law, just because I livedit on the reservation. I'm like,
oh, that's why we have leaseslots. Oh, that's why lands in
trust. Like things startclicking and making more sense

(16:42):
of why things are the way theyare back home.

Some of that case law you're reading probably head
auntie, your uncle or grandpa.
That's cool, man. So did youhave a follow up Aaron? Or are
you done with your line ofquestioning?

I'm just trying to get our witness leave China.
Time to get our first timelisteners. It's a no. All right.
Oh, I'll give him the basics.
I'm given given them the basics,because we just we have a
tendency to just get rolling.
And then people are like, Whothe hell are they talking to?
Which is part of our charm. Oh,eight for the record. Yeah,

(17:28):
Brian, you didn't know this.
This is one of the sidebarconversations, but I've never
listened to our podcasts untilyesterday. The day before
yesterday. First time, man.
First time I ever listened to mypodcast. So then today, I listen
to another episode. And I'mgonna say man, uh, Brian, I
don't know if you listen, butit's not bad.

I actually enjoy how they actually use that one,
the last episode I was on as anexample for other classes, or
I'll throw it up there when wetalked about some international
law concepts. And I'm like, oh,man, like, was better worded or,
you know, more versed on likelegal concepts going in and
showing this to other lawstudents. So it sounds good. A

(18:18):
lot of people gave me a lot ofpositive feedback on it. That's
awesome. And then yeah, itwasn't. So it's too early to
mention that. Oh, man, that oneabout this novel. laugh about
it.

Cool. Well, I'm glad people are listening. I'm
glad Aaron finally listening.
I'll ask him, you know, becauseI put a lot of hard work into
editing news. You know, it's alot a lot of nights and
oftentimes I feel unappreciated.
Despite the accolades that Aarontries to give me, you know, deep

(18:51):
down I feel I feel bad for theimbalance. That don't feel bad
at all. No, but I'm glad helistened

neither by neither.
Nor do

I friend nor doing awesome yeah, feeling awesome.
You do all that? No. Yeah. No,you're good. That's good. It's
good. Anyway. So Brian comeshere on round two is, apparently
he's going to try to redeemhimself because he didn't do his
homework last time and we shothim some hard questions. And we

(19:30):
challenged his thought histhoughts on it but he's come
prepared now. With a jurisdoctorate. Is that what it's
what it is juris doctorate, sothere's, we can call a doctor.
We can call you Dr. DE Puia. Yougot a street name? What's your
street name? United. United.
What's your street

one of them was hubcap. Albert Kaya and couldn't
that.

Oh, I know. I know what you mean.

Cat and then Dyson hubcap run it to Eagle called me
hubcap.

I know I know what it is. You're probably one of
the coolest names. That is.
hubcap, but I got the one I gotit. Doc Doctor dirty belly. Oh.
Dirty. Dirty belly. That was thenickname given to Brian by the

(20:30):
late Bronson McDonald Why did hecall you to dirty belly?

I can't remember if he said look like Charles
Bronson. Or, or what was it lasttime? I was at Dairy Queen. It
was like dirty belly. ThatBronson I've turned around. I
hadn't heard that name andyours. Remember why? Well
because I wear that thatnecklace and sometimes I brush

(21:01):
up against stuff and I alwayshave like little dust spot on my
shirt. Always dirty and hestarted calling me dirty belly.
That's what it was.

Man Bronson himself wasn't shorter. No nicknames.
Brian Donna. Brandon. BrownAdamovich. Charles Bronson was
one brown stain. Antonio. We hadwe had names for him, man, like

(21:38):
all over is crazy. You know,it's funny. Fun fact about the
late Bronson McDonald that youget since you brought him up. I
always enjoy talking about it.
Yeah, he used to live with me.
He's 16 years old. He lived withme. 1516 years old, the guy
could whip out a friggin rounddance. The saddest round dance
song you've ever heard iscomposed beautifully. Never had

(22:00):
a girlfriend gets a girlfriendno longer can make love songs.
It just was like Branson. You'resuch a wordsmith, a poet. Free,
free love, and then fell in loveand Your songs are shit and

used it up. Used it up. Yeah. Let me lay down Dr.
Dirty belly is. Here he's gothe's got something to tell us.
Now. One, I want to hear itbecause this is going to kick us
off. Because we're ready. We'vebecome the student. But the

(22:40):
student always has these oddquestions. So we're gonna, let's
see what you got, man. What doyou got? Yeah, I

want to maybe drive a fun discussion about oh,
hey, I know he's in the samesentence. But you know, they
poke holes in our just SupremeCourt decisions and some of the
recent ones because just Yeah,man. I mean, they really flip

(23:09):
flop. And I think they're, youknow, there's a lot that could
be unpacked there. Right.

Right. Well, yeah, that's,

I feel a bit ambushed.

Feeling attacked?
Like unprepared.

Well, I think you'd have to draw a scenario for us
or give us some talking point.
You're leading the course today.
Yeah. Tell us what you want totalk about. Because hey, if
there's anything I can do, man,I keep pushing my way through
anything. Bring

Good Rosco man.
Yeah. Imposter Syndrome you fakeit till you make it yeah

tipos getting it down jump in law school

know is a kind of a there's this discussion
sometimes we have in class whereit's Supreme Courts trying to
kind of figure out somethingwith the tribe and they're
always like, well is thisIndians do an Indian things? Now
a lot of times everyone in theclass looks at me being like the
only Indian students wanting tobe two of us and so I could look

(24:17):
the other guy hate No, but theyalways want an honest answer
like we're supposed to just bethe all keepers of all this
knowledge and speak for alltribes and yeah, you know, he
just always just be like, Well,duh, obviously you guys don't
wear a belt buckle shoes and youknow, shoot black powder rifles

(24:37):
anymore like you guys are ableto evolve the law was able to
evolve I think Indians should beable to evolve and but it's kind
of weird like the courts alwayslike Man, this Indians do an
Indian things. What are those,you know, look like and did they
do this traditionally? Andthankfully for stick game, we
kind of can gamble and havecasinos, you know, but it's like

(24:59):
just Just some of their, theirlogic man, it's just difficult.
So always always, uh, you know,any opportunity I can to maybe
poke fun at the highest court?
You know, I maybe I'll take ittake the opportunity, but

Well, I'm curious about this, this idea of
tradition? Well, I mean, itsounds like the Think of
tradition as in some era, right?
Is it? Is it? I mean, is itlegally defined? Is tradition
legally defined? My firstquestion,

Professor, because like they had the Indian Indian
crimes courts. Yeah. Somethinglike that is like an 18 or the
basically outlawed being Indian,you couldn't sing or dance and
right, and a lot of our rituals,and then now, they tried to be
like, Oh, is this Indians do anIndian things? I'm like, well,

(26:02):
through federal policy andassimilation tactics, they, they
wanted us to fold in thissociety. And it might be any
difference, but then they almostlike use that when they're
looking at cases like, Well, isthere a difference? And it's
like, why? I think you guystried to, you know, determine
that through their policies. Andso it just kind of frustrates me

(26:24):
because I, I know, there's stilla connection there. And, and,
you know, people are still ableto practice their culture. But
you know, it's just, and you'remore limited fashion than we did
you know, 150 years ago orsomething, but

Right. But it has the court ever legally defined.
What a Native American traditionis not like

that I've seen like, because they had that
Tahitian case up in Alaska.
That's pretty bad. It's a reallybad and like, like, well, this,
you know, they don't live inteepees. They don't, buffalo,
these aren't Indians. And soit's like, kind of why they
don't have reservations upthere. And they're more like
corporations, which may haveworked out in their favor in the
long run, but it's like, he's,they're Alaskan Natives. You
know, instead buffalo, orhunting waters and said, TPS,

(27:12):
they live in an igloo. But Imean, they're still kind of
doing similar things. And so Iremember I just was really
frustrated with the court. Andthey're, they're analogies. And
so I just, you know, I just,they tend to just kind of
overlook tradition, or, or thevalue or anything like that. of
heritage, oral oral history,oral tradition, you know, they

(27:38):
don't really value that in thelegal system. So it was
definitely not something thatworked in our favor. Right.

Well, that's kind of the work that you do. Aaron,
right. Is you lean on pasttradition to uphold present law.
Is that right? Is that kind ofwhat Jebel historic preservation
is all about?

Yeah, I mean, our job is to enforce federal law,
the archaeological ResourceProtection Act, the National
Historic Preservation Act.
Antiquities Act, yeah, our job,that's our job. And and, like, I
guess, our job is to build acase for certain portion
portions of that law. Thebiggest thing is the National

(28:20):
Register of Historic Places hasthese designations to call
criteria, right. And it's, it'sall under the National Historic
Preservation Act. And our job isto use those criteria for any
eligible properties. So it'shistoric sites, and it's theirs.
If it meets any of themcriteria, it's supposed to give
us certain protections for thatsite, but really doesn't because

(28:41):
it's, it's a law that doesn'thave a lot of teeth. It's really
easy to challenge. That's kindof the nature of our job.

But in all that, all that you just said, is there
any legal definition of what aNative American tradition ought
to be? Or who defines that?
Yeah, heritage,

heritage, just as any, any ritual custom that is
taught through inculturation. Sothere's, there's a loose
definition of what culture isand which Heritage's and

is it bound by by a certain time period or, or a
length of practice?

Maybe it's more like the tribes definition,
isn't it? Like what the tribedefines? In some

cases? Yeah, a tribe can define what that is,
but under under certain federallaws, there's you know, that
terms use section or whateverthere's, there's there's terms
used in there. And the red roomis heritage culture, which is
defined again, you can justGoogle it, give it a Google even

(29:53):
Bing Bing for us all Yes.
Googlers Yeah. Who

are we asked Jeeves? Remember asked G. Yeah.
So we're

asked Jeeves? Do I Do I remember asked James. So
what we do when we actually dois there's a section of the
National Historic PreservationAct, okay? That that takes into
consideration. Its impactedcultural resources on tribes,
and that's called Section 10601.
Our job is to do what what'sknown as Section 106

(30:30):
consultation, where I was kindof getting that is consultation
is the time to make thosedefinitions. And that's when
it's taken to the county in thepotential impact of Cultural
Resources. That's what it saysin the area of potential effect.
It also kind of functions underNEPA. So NEPA does it just has

(30:51):
to take into account thecultural environment, but it
doesn't have like a section forcultural environment. It
defaults to, to the to theNational Historic Preservation
Act, so work heavily in NEPA andheavily in NHPA

a lot of acronyms

Yeah, dude, and like you're asking me this and
this week, dude, like? Like,honestly, God just spent the day
with four other tipples, dude,

well, this is the thing, man. I know you don't
want to talk about it. But I'mcurious. This is because Brian,
because Brian saying that theSupreme Court of the United
States of America has this. Thisthe wrong sort of idea about

(31:44):
Native tradition and or culture,and that it's sort of stuck in
the past? Man, that's what Ithink that's what I got. Was
that right? Brian? Yep. Okay.
And then you're saying, well,through this, all these acronyms
you just threw at me? And Idon't know what

these aren't. These aren't considered laws, native
federal Indian laws, these arejust federal laws that impact
tribes, right? Oh, believe it ornot, some of the most powerful
cases we've been able to fightin the Supreme Court have been
through cultural resource law.
Yes, don't pipeline was stopped,right, because of cultural

(32:23):
resource law, the whole dapplesthing, right, that all had to do
with a misunderstanding andconsultation under Section 106.
So like some of these biglandmark cases that we have
today, have a direct connectionto cultural resources, our
Native American GravesProtection, and repatriation
protection, it's really easy.

(32:45):
And I'll let Brian talk. It'sreally easy to think of federal
Indian law as those you knowthat of course, we know John
Marshall and and MarshallTrilogy is the foundation for
federal Indian law. But we alsodon't ever take into the account
the impacts of the Europeancrown on that those kinds of

(33:07):
decisions prior to creating anenvironment for that kind of
thing to live to counter to whatlike the royal proclamation said
right, so the royal proclamationand a lot of ways protected
tribes. And they called the OhioRiver Valley, Indian Indian
reserve. So now, when, when theoverthrowing of the British
government or the crown, it'sthe culture of the American

(33:30):
people to to to rebel againstthe policies, and the
proclamations of the crown. So Ioften wonder if those cases
would have been the same hadthat not happened? Because it's
not it's not the punk rock thingto do. Right? You want to rebel
against the Crown? The Crownsays don't go west of the of the
Ohio River Valley as that isdeemed Indian land. Oh, I get

(33:54):
it. You know what I mean? OnceOnce those court cases once once
the US defeats the crown. Nowit's, it's the trend of the day
to, to rid themselves of thoseold policies represent the
crown. So I wonder, my question,I guess my thought is that had

(34:14):
that proclamation not been madewith the expansion West? I know
what would have happened, whatwould have happened wouldn't
have happened in the same waybecause not only was it
happening military wise, it washappening. Cultural wise, it was
also happening in the courts. Soit's like a three pronged
approach to the expansion. Wes,it was very I I think it would

(34:35):
be different but the legalscholar,

the Aaron Brin trilogy is over let's okay.
Yeah, let's weigh in on thisBrian.

Yeah, them in the row Proclamation was a big
reason for the RevolutionaryWar. Wait, don't

wait now the row proclamation. Sorry, I'm sorry,
Royal

inflammation.
Yeah. Were they established theline? I believe it the
Appalachians and they said we golast year so subject to the
Indians, which kind of appliedour sovereignty and our
authority to regulate peoplethat entered our territories.
And then, like John QuincyAdams, like George Washington
were land speculators and goingover trading with these tribes
and getting large swaths ofland. And so, you know, they

(35:17):
kind of felt like it was theirright to do that. So and they
name was crazy, the Boston TeaParty, they dressed up like
Indians to kind of throw it inthe face of the crown. And but,
you know, John Marshall reallyhad to carefully navigate that
with the Marshall Trilogy Actswas kind of same thing with
Johnson V. McIntosh. So they'restill going less to the, you

(35:39):
know, where they weren'tsupposed to, and buying land
from tribes. And, and so JohnMarshall, it was kind of a
constitutional crisis, becausehe needed the states to buy in,
you know, to the constitutionalbargain for, you know, the
experiment of America to work.
But he also needed to, like,navigate these rights that the

(35:59):
tribes had. And so it's kind ofa lot of similar things that
were going on with the crown,and land speculators with the
royal proclamation with JohnsonV. McIntosh. And the government
was really poor after theRevolutionary War. So they're
rewarding war veterans withland. And they just happen to
suppose we have a controversywhere land that was bought from

(36:20):
a tribe overlapped with landthat was given to a veteran, and
later on determined land didn'toverlap, but they still wanted
to kind of figure out the issue.
So Marshall really had tocarefully navigate that. So
they, that's when he kind ofcame up with the term use of
factory rights. Like we had aright to occupy the land. And so
he kind of was like, Oh, well,you know, they don't own land,

(36:41):
like European counterparts, youknow, to leave it in their
hands. It'd be like a wildernessbasically, is what he's saying,
which is kind of kind of weirdtoday when you think about
conservation. So but that's awhole nother conversation. But
yeah. So it's just, you know,kind of makes me wonder if
things really would have beendifferent because it seemed like
wow, there's similar argumentsbetween land speculators are

(37:04):
trying to expand their wealthand move west and then they're
trying to deal with these tribesthat obviously live there and
and how do they kind ofhopefully go about that? Yeah.
Boy, I

thought was that that's the Wabash Land Company.
Right.

So that sounds familiar. Yeah. Yeah, actually
was like a field on sitetogether. They were like a
couple of different landspeculators, but there was like
a big one that was buying up alot of land.

Johnson. He represented he. I can't remember
man, it's been so long. He heeither will see the president of
the Wabash Land Company, orMacintosh.

Yeah. Specifics now. Yeah. With Mr. Cover the
holding kind of the outcomes ofthat.

Are you looking at Chandi?

Yeah. That was like the, the problem I always
had is like, you know, they,they basically said, we had a
right to occupy land, eventhough we entered treaties is
like nation, the nation, right?
And so we're supposed to belike, equivalent nation was
sovereign rights. And then, youknow, they're like, Oh, you just
occupied the land and then weget these reservations. And they

(38:22):
allot it and they're like, Well,you don't really know how to pay
taxes or keep your land so we'regonna hold it in trust for you
and so it's like all the timewe've never owned our own land
and it's like I It's justfrustrating here

every day wait, what? Pat my belly and rub my
head

man, I didn't know what just happened in this
episode. I didn't know whatdecks because you're talking
about at all. One thing now whatdo you mean I don't know you
guys talking about Wabash LandCompany. What was it? What did

(39:17):
you say? What's this weird wordof you said Brian. It's a weird
word.

Yeah, pretty perfunctory.

prefilling stuff rectory Yeah, us Are you see?
Try

in your use of fucktard Yeah. Just to keep this
podcast clean. It's just gonnabe saying those words here. What
are they? Yeah, no, I want Iwant to try to keep up but man I
I kind of got lost a little bit.

Oh my bad. Yeah, I just No, no. Straight. There's
Renton.

I know both of you. Were going off on. Aaron
was spilling all these acronymsand you're talking about Wabash
and I don't know what man, I'mlost. I'm lost. So this is the
deal, though this is what I getout of it. This is what I heard
is that, and I've said thisbefore a number of times is that

(40:15):
our, our legal system, or legalsystems of different tribes
across the, across the NorthAmerican continent, were
essentially subjugated andplaced into a foreign legal
structure. Right? Let me say ityourself. You said this about

(40:37):
the idea of land ownership,right? So these guys come in
with this idea of what landownership ought to be. And it's
not matching the practice andcustom of tribes and how they're
dealing with the land, whichapparently they think is in

(40:57):
holdings of the tribes in NorthAmerica. And then what Aaron is
essentially saying is thatbecause of this royal
proclamation, and because of thedemeanor of the colonists and
the east, and there is whatwould you call it a proclivity
to rebel? Is that even the rightword? Prochnow.

I didn't, I didn't say proclivity. I just said, I
wasn't saying anything legal,

whatever. No, no, I'm saying proclivity. Okay. You
go.

I was saying the culture of the time was to rebel
against anything that wasEnglish. Yeah. Policies, and it
was the policies of the Royal ofthe crown. The Royal
Proclamation was a policy fromthe crown. So all I was saying
is, I wonder if it would havechanged things. Yeah,

(41:48):
proclamation wasn't there.
Because now anything thatinvolves expansion into that the
Ohio River Land, base and allthat, that Valley, it's now it's
like, in the culture of the daywas like, well, that's where we
weren't supposed to go. We'renot going to be told we're not
going to follow those policiesof the crowd. To me, I think it
has an impact that people don'ttalk about. Yeah. So in the
crown wasn't protecting tribeswhat they were doing, it was

(42:13):
economically not viable to keepsending people over there. So
they said, Hey, man, you guysquit going over there. So they
do this Majan airy line Saintdon't go over there. Wow. Within
what, eight years, theRevolutionary War starts.

Okay. Okay, because that's not Yeah,

1763 Sure, Mt. 65.
Something like that. Yeah, royalproclamation. John. Got to know
this stuff.

I don't know. I mean, I'm not I'm not I'm not
hung up on the dates oranything. I'm hung up on

case dates due dates.

Okay, so I'm gonna get hung up on a date.

Thomas Jefferson, who I believe was the either the
President or the Vice Presidentof the Ohio River Land Company.
Okay, because either him orGeorge Washington. I don't know.

1763

They were they they were they were told they can't
expand west of the RoyalCommission. That's all the land
they own. That's all the OhioLand Company. Okay, you're
telling me there's nocoincidence within a couple of
years. The Revolutionary Warstarts. Come Yeah, man. Yeah, ma
Shawn Dean. That Kool Aid.

I'm not No, I'm not arguing against it. I'm just
trying to summarize in layman'sterm, the minus the word
proclivity, which has thisgender be jokey.

Are you saying Indians can't use that word?
That would you say me

now back off you know what I like is when like
when a new word comes out, inlike a rap song. And then that
then you hear it on every rapsong? Like remember, remember?
prerogative, prerogative was aword that came out oh my

god. You just showed your age. You said
prerogative and then you referto it as a rap song listen to
rap, just call it Oh, you listento that song. Hey, you've been
listening to that raplike you don't listen to you

(44:30):
don't listen to that high noonand go hey, have you listened to
high Nunes new power song? Do weknow we know that part of it?

Is that new old style song? That new? New
original style song?

Killing me. You're killing me.

On the bottom of knowledge of things because none
of these things hardly Okay.

Oh, neither do I need to do it? Well,

like you did. So

I say, Brian, when we started, I said, I'm gonna
boost my way through this

bar, man you are.
So I'm trying to I'm trying tountangle the BS here. So you're
saying, and I believe in man,you know, that idea that's a
sort of a human sort of a humanconstruct to do the thing that
somebody's telling you not todo, at least for adolescents, at
least for adolescents, they'regonna rebel. So I can see that

(45:35):
kind of fanning the flames ofrebellion and, and then Pair
that with what Brian was sayingabout this. Well, I don't know
if you're saying that. But whatI was saying, summarizing about
this legal tradition gettingplaced upon the tribes, you
know, it's like the idea, youknow, you show up and say, well,

(45:57):
there's nobody here, let's,let's start cutting these trees
down and build a nice littleplantation. Nobody here. There's
no fence. I guess nobody's usingit. Right? Yeah, yeah. So this
is what I want to know. Okay,keep going. Okay, this is what I
want to know. Okay. So what Iwant to know, is how does that
translate over into the current?

(46:21):
The current understanding,understandings and decisions
made by the Supreme Court? Whatdoes is I mean, this is still

interesting, because there's this concept
like race judicata, like oncethey decided, it's already
decided. So if a case kind ofhas the same facts, you're not
really supposed to kind ofrehash it. And those kind of
looking for fairness and thelegal system like, Okay, if we
wrote this way, we got to kindof be like that for everybody.
So part of the Marshall Trilogyworks to be Georgia, they said

(46:57):
state law shall have no effectin Indian country. And, and it's
been like that for 150 years.
But then recently, they haveCastro Huerta come out last
year, from the Supreme Court,and we're like, wow, things have
changed since werster. There'sreally no legal argument for it.
But now states do have legalauthority in Indian country. And
and so it just, is that the

one which which was which court cases that
you're talking about?

Oklahoma, I believe, okay. Yeah. And so I
think it will add some pretty,pretty bad facts. I think it was
like abuse of a child, maybemaybe sexual abuse, I can't
remember. But this guy wasgetting charged through state
board. And they're trying to saythat the feds should have
jurisdiction through the MajorCrimes Act. But a lot, the other
side is like, oh, no, they'regonna let these you know,

(47:49):
criminals out free. And in thestreet, it was like, No, it
wasn't that's no jurisdiction,which which prison should he go
to federal or state? SupremeCourt, typically, states have no
authority in Indian country. Soit should have either been the
tribes or Feds or both shouldhave had jurisdiction. But
Castro word that came out lastyear, they basically overturned

(48:11):
werster part of the MarshallTrilogy, that they now states
now do have authority in IndianCountry over criminal matters.
So it was as a non Indian onIndian crime. So as a non Indian
perpetrator, committing assaulton an Indian child. And so
typically, how the legal systemwas traditionally set up the

(48:32):
feds, or the tribe would havejurisdiction or both in because
there's no double jeopardybecause they're separate
sovereigns, right. But then thestate prosecuted the guy. And so
they're like, Hey, wait, nowstates, the state law has no
effect in Indian country. And sothat's kind of the whole
question. And so now, theybasically overturned it. And

(48:54):
there's no legal rationale, youknow, and they just kind of
basically say, things havechanged since we're stirring.
It's like, did all these legalprinciples from you know, like,
we're still politicallydistinct? Nations, you know,
we're, yeah, so I mean, it'sjust, I don't know. I'm not sure

(49:14):
if that's exactly where yourquestion was gone. But it seemed
like the court like, changed itsmind flip flopped, and and it
just kind of was frustrating.
And they

didn't give no clarification on the statement
you said about, well, thingshave changed. They didn't give a
legal

now, they basically just said things
aren't as they were back, youknow, and obviously, like, yeah,
that was 1850s. You know, a lotof things are, are different,
but Right. Right. It's justthat's not really how the law is
supposed to work. You know,like, it's not like, oh, things
changed. You're gonna changeyour mind now. Yeah.

Well, Ah, this is a lot to consume. And so then
back to I. Okay, so if theSupreme Court can say, well,
things have changed, then as faras tribal law, the same holds

(50:20):
true right tribal law. Like,like what Aaron was saying that
as far as tradition isconcerned, the tribes can define
what is or isn't tradition. Thatis that, is that kind of what
you said there? Aaron, I caughta little

glimpse of that. I was saying within consultation,
yeah, yeah, we have we, we havesome authority on that. The
problem is, is there's nofederal law that gives us force
or any of anything, you know, soright. It's all within the
constraints of whatever that is.
So in in, in Section 106,competent consultation, we do

(50:55):
have quite a bit of authority ifthe if we catch if the project
is consulted, right. But that'snot always the case, though. And
the problem with that is wedon't, there's no, there's a
hard way to challenge it,because the law of the law
states is to make a good faitheffort. But federal agency has
to make a good faith effortthat's really hard to take to

(51:17):
court and be like, hey, theydidn't do that. Well.

They didn't bring doughnuts on, ya know, that
effort yourself.

A lot of things in law are like that, because they
always say, Well, if it's blackand white, there wouldn't be a
controversy and it would getsettled before it even went to
trial or anything. And so it's alot of gray areas, and it's who
can make the most compellingargument. It's, like job
security for lawyers. But, youknow, I sometimes it's kind of a

(51:50):
frustrating because, you know,that's like capitalism, you
know, people with the most moneycan kind of maybe in a sense by
verdicts or sway the court, youknow, by being able to hire the
better attorney. Hmm.

Very interesting.
Well, so, yeah, well, I guessit's like what you said
consultation. It's justconsultation, right.

I mean, yeah, that consent, what consultation
consultation,

so sort of, like, sort of like sort of like asking
the death row, inmate what hewants for his last meal, right.
You're gonna die anyway, butwe're gonna let you show to
choose what you want to eat. Youknow, before you die, do you?

Do you want to sauce very steak?

whole platter of TV dinner sells berries. Which
is pretty tasty, by the way.
Yeah.

longtime listener sidetrack here on food for a
second one second. Yeah, youever notice Have you ever seen
like people eat pork chops? No,I haven't. Dude, I know. I have
a theory. It's like only anIndian thing. That eat pork. I
don't Yeah, I don't see whypeople eat pork chops. I only

(53:14):
ever see Indian people buy porkchops or eat pork chops. What do
name one white person you knowthat eats pork chops.

Well? Yeah, I can't I can't Why. How many
Indian homes

have you been in in your whole life on any res pork
chops for either serve the nightbefore and or that night? That
tells me it's happened prettyregularly. Right?

I had a menudo I had a bullet Menudo in which a
full porkchop was dished with.
Don't my new Legos cooked withlike the full porkchop was in
dama nudo. Yeah, okay. i Okay.
All right. I'm just saying

like it's weird dude. And and I don't know if
this is on every request butI've seen pork chops served with
applesaucecan come? If people can comment
or something or email I want toknow where what are the recipes
that are happening not becauseI've seen it. Pretty regular man
pork chops and applesauce. I'mtelling you man pork chops. It's

(54:14):
I don't ever see I never want tolike a white person's house and
your kids are all sitting at thetable eating pork chops. Dude,
I've never seen it. Okay,

Supreme Court decisions man pork chops and
applesauce just don't makesense. It doesn't make sense

but Brian, have you seen it and seen home of non
Indian people eating pork chops?

No. I seen a big old farmer guy coming through
rich lines once impulse on orderpork chop sandwich.

I mean, that counts. I think we'll count that
ah, Shandy. Yeah,

I mean the art to

sandwich those all different animals too.

Well yeah because when you eat it on a plate that
requires some different methods

to consume shot I could see Shawn Dean wants to
get back on track no I don't Ithink I think the pork chop
triggered something in himagency road something happened
something happened with porkchicken bake even GOD

OH MAN Yeah shake and bake oh yeah James the game
dude just the thing about theshaken bake though that I always
has had a complaint about is Imean he took you take all this
time the shake the pork chop orand or chicken noodle baggie and
on you you shake it up and putit on the whatever the cooking

(55:47):
pen and you cook it up and thenyou when you take it out you
pick it up or run a fork acrossit it just all falls off. Like
it didn't stay put you knowright? You have that experience.
Oh yeah, yeah, it just falls offand then you know he's kidding.

Oh, dude, but But you were really kid and all the
shakin all the shaking fallsoff. Yeah, but dude, you eat
your food. And then you do thatswipe?

Or it's gonna say Oh, boy. Yeah, you get a full
blast of the bake. You got toshake the bake

with the ice cold glass of orange Kool Aid boy of
heaven on earth.

Yeah. Orange cooler. I prefer the green.
Yeah, orange is orange. We'll dothe grape grape.

Sleeping on Orange dude. Recently, I heard somebody
say red kool aid was theirfavorite non red. Who are you?

Yeah, I mean, both flavors of Red was not good.
strawberry or cherry. Ah, yeah,you know, you know someone mix
the good bad. Well, what Wait,there was those there's those
there was those ones who arealways insist on making the Kool
Aid with a warm water. So the sothe sugar would melt faster. And

that's a chemist though.

So you gotta wait three hours for in the fridge
and

then well, that's, you know, that's a native that's
thinking long term and they'resitting there saying you know
what, Cooley drinking is amarathon. It's not a sprint. You
know? Brian, what's yourfavorite Kool Aid color, man?

Yeah, what you got? Right blue.

I like that Tropical Punch or too sharp,
sharp,

very sharp, blueberry, or

I'm a bit I'm shocked that you would say that.
But you know, that's I respectit. I'm a bit traditional. I'm a
bit Orthodox and it's orangekool aid for me, man. I gotta
stay with the basic format.
Basic form and

yeah, I'd like to read

Oh, Mr. Red. No, dude. No,

no, that's awful.
Yeah, tastes like poison orsome.

What about what about the Kool Aid that don't
have enough sugar garbage? Yeah,there's no level of waiting 10
years old in the anticipationone when they come out with a
pitcher and they're gonna do therefills and you're like, Oh,
snap. We're getting some KoolAid and take a blast. Take a

(58:44):
splash and it's underwhelmingYeah, yeah, go from elated to
like, this is dogshit

you knew when it was well sweetened and made well
because there was like a littlebit of foam on the top, you
know, like a little bit.

Dude, you knew you were gonna buzz there you were
he was milkyhe was gonna rip down he was
like, Oh, my muscles are gonnahurt.

Let's go walk around. He was gonna walk around
man. Okay. Anyway, I don't knowif this is gonna Wow, your, your
podcast. We're still going. I'mstill going. People don't

listen to our podcasts. I'm learning this
after listening. They don'tlisten to it for the
intellectual conversation. Theylook for it for the transition
where the only people who can gofrom talking about federal on
the lotto cool Eat. We're theonly people mad. Nobody's
getting it. Nobody's gettinganywhere else. We got a monopoly

(01:00:09):
on transitions.

Shandin Pete (01:00:12):
Yeah, the hard turns the hard turns. Yeah.
Well, that's good man. That'slife. Okay.

Aaron Brien (01:00:18):
That's the skip Brian back involved. Let's

settle back in.
Open back your real

question. Simple question, man. How are you? How
do you, Brian definesovereignty? Tribal sovereignty?
Let's hear it. Yeah.

Bryan Dupuis (01:00:32):
To me, it's the ability to govern your people in
your land, and in govern yourresources. And so it's just just
full autonomy to just yeah,basically make all decisions
regarding your your people as awhole, and then how you govern
your your territory and interactwith other sovereigns and then

(01:00:55):
their territories.

What if those decisions are deemed bad?

Man, that sovereignty, I think,

still should be still should be the train wreck
let it let it fix itself? Well,it's,

I guess, like being backed by EU because like,
Yeah, who's the problem? Like wewere looking at, like tribal
leadership, you know, and someare theoretically thinking, you
know, generations ahead and kindof bigger picture. And sometimes
tribal members are upset, youknow, at the immediate
decisions. And so it's like, youknow, so I guess he thought

(01:01:32):
you're talking like theleadership being upset or the
membership being upset? And so Iguess, you know, those are kind
of two different.

Well, I guess, I guess. I mean, let's take North
Korea, for example. Like theyhave, they have sovereignty to
do what they wish. However,there's, apparently, there's a
number of human rightsviolations. Well, human rights
violations as determined by someworld governing organization, I

(01:02:02):
suppose. But I think formajority of the world, I'd say
from what we know about whathappens in North Korea, that we
would all think that wasprobably morally wrong or bad.
Well, what's going on? So, Iguess, sovereignty, and that
sort of dilemma presented withthat sort of dilemma? Should I

(01:02:27):
should that be allowed? Orshould that be? What sort of, is
there a provision aboutsovereignty when things become
poor start to stray from generalhumanities moral compass? Yeah,
it's, it's,

it's difficult, because I get, you know, we got
obviously like to have morals asa whole, but then it's like,
once you start letting one groupbe able to tell another group
what they can or, or can do it,it takes their sovereignty away.
And, and so that's where Istruggle with it. It's kind of
that's what happened to Indiantribes in the sense and, like,
we feel like we know what's inyour best interests, you know,

(01:03:08):
so they try to dictate that. Andso it's like, yeah, I don't
agree with what Kim Hong goonsdoing, you know, but at the same
time, you know, if you startletting other people tell other
people what to do, theyeventually could come after you.
Right, right.

Let's see. So, how can we how can we confuse this
even more, so All right, okay.
So sovereignty is is sort of a,an inherent right, to govern
oneself in the way that theydeem fit. Okay. And how would
they deem, who are, I guess, dowould it even matter to anyone

(01:03:56):
looking outside in what thatdeeming process is, and what fit
might be defined as? or is thatpart of what sovereignty is is
not even worrying about? Whoought to know or who ought to be
a part of developing thoseconstructs of fitness? And or of

(01:04:18):
deeming things fit?

That because then, you know, traditionally, just
from what I've read, it seemedlike things wild, you know, are
varied wildly. It were sometribes there was no real
government structure, just kindof when something would happen,
they would address it and thenothers, like the Iroquois
Confederacy, the Hoda shoniknows like five tribes a they

(01:04:51):
had these different processesand how you'd go about maybe,
like, modern day bringing aclaim like I even heard this
person, you know, damaged me inthis way. And then they could
have people speak on theirbehalf and almost kind of like
out of court and evidence and,and stuff like that. And so it's

(01:05:11):
you know, at that time in lawthat dated back to like, even
like 1000 ad in long, you know,long before we had any European
contact, some tribes are alreadykind of having some of those
systems in place where othertribes had no systems in place,
and it worked for them. Right.
And so and so I guess it justkind of, I guess, depends on the
need, and the group that's, youknow, what, what needs they're

(01:05:35):
trying to fulfill.

Okay. So in the history of the North American
continent, and all the thingsthat happen in relation to
colonialism, and assimilativepolicies, etc. The tribes were,

(01:06:01):
I guess, in sort of a, were wereput into a state of disarray. I
mean, economies were destroyedand devastated intergeneration
intergenerational ties weredisrupted. We know all these
things that happened, you know,and then things are pretty bad,

(01:06:25):
you know, from the stories thatwe know and hear about how
things were and how in I thinkthat's, it's sort of where I
think it is thought of mine is Ithink that's where we had a, the
traditions of the outside worldsort of leak in. Because you had
a, you had a number of, I guessyou could call them the same

(01:06:49):
things that you were speaking ofearlier, these inland
speculators, but these were ourour own tribal members. That
became sort of theseintermediaries between the
modern, modern, modern, moremoral lens in the traditional

(01:07:10):
moral lens, and started todefine sort of what was what
they thought was important tomake it in the world. And I
mean, it's not, we're not thereanymore, right? We're not, we're
not in a state of destitutionanymore. Our kids don't get sent
off to boarding schools. I mean,some things are still present

(01:07:34):
addiction, alcoholism, stillissue those kind of things, you
know, but that's, you know, sortof humanity thing in this day
and age. So what's what'sstopping us then from sort of
sort of rewinding the clock abit, or taking a step back to
more of a modern, modernapproach to where we were
looking at the constructs ofwhat we deem, you know, right or

(01:07:55):
fit in, in order to address someof the ills that had happened
from the past? What's What'sstopping us from doing that?

And club, it's skepticism, just skepticism on
the system, you know, the buy inskepticism of, you know,
basically trust in the USgovernment, you know, it's kind
of a pendulum flip back andforth and say, I sometimes err
on the side and, and other timesare totally against us. And
there's a lot of really badhistory that we had to overcome

(01:08:27):
as tribes. And so I think a lotof that is just skepticism, you
know, and I hear a lot ofopportunities that tribes have,
but then they're like, Oh,that's too good to be true or
not, you know, they wouldn'tcome to us if it was really that
good. And so, you know, tribeswere turned down, like really
good economic developmentopportunities, or, or, you know,

(01:08:49):
opportunities to maybe joincases that could have had a
different outcome, and, and justall across the board, just kind
of skepticism of, you know,basically what the outcome is
going to be. Because, you know,traditionally it never was in
our favor, a lot of times,right.

I guess what I'm talking about is, so I guess,
for example, I've used thisexample, often and probably two
romantically, I guess, in a way,but I think about the legal or
the ancient legal system, orsort of the traditional tribal
system. And I think of the whip,you know, public whipping of

(01:09:28):
people when they did somethingwrong. What and it seemed to
work, I mean, well, it worked ina time period, it worked. When
tribes were more cohesive andtogether and people sort of had
aligned beliefs and alignedthoughts and aligned pursuit of
what ought to be to be achieved.
What what what stopping tribesfrom exerting sovereignty and

(01:09:51):
taking back some of those, thosetraditions in an incremental way
so that and further helps toalign sort of beliefs and
thoughts, structures and norms.

There's a lot of tribes actually kind of gotten
that restorative justice modeland start bringing back in
customary law. I know NavajoNation is a good example there
peacemaking courts. Lakotas havesomething in the works. So they
might have something to learn afew examples in school. And so

(01:10:29):
I've learned about restoringharmony or restoring balance
after like, an injusticehappened. And so it's not like a
punitive model like the Americansystem like orient throw in a
jail cell for 20 years, youwon't do that again, you know,
it's like more, how can werepair the damage? It's done?
How can we repair thisrelationship, you know, and kind

(01:10:50):
of keep the peace among peopleas a whole. And so there's a lot
of tribes there kind of go inthat route. And the courts have
shown law deference towards itand kind of allowed it to
happen. But then some culturalexperts are then worried. You
know, like, we all got likethat, you know, maybe uncle
Jimmy, you know, US customarylaw, you'd have a DUI or

(01:11:14):
something. You gotta be careful.
We started using

Unknown (01:11:23):
alcohol.

Yeah. This is homegrown man. That in issue
anymore, but yeah. Yeah. I don'tknow. I just curious about it. I
don't know. I don't know a lotabout the legal construct of
sovereignty. But there's a book.

There's a book written by a guy named Keith
bass. Okay. So and it's calledthe third space of sovereignty.
Oh, it's really interestingread, man.

It's yeah, pretty cool.

I think that's it.
The third space of sovereignty.

Okay. We'll Google that up and find out. Give it a
Bing Yeah.

are also our local tribe. Compared to scrutiny
tribes. The late went on atanner when she was chief judge.
For example, I used at the lawschool for customary law, when
students would kind of wonderwhat it looked like is when
people illegally poacher shootdeer, instead of just giving
like the traditional $100, fine,she would make them go meet with

(01:12:39):
the culture committee, and theyget balled out by the elders,
and then kind of explained whythings are important. And then
make them write up kind of aletter or paper, like explaining
what they learned. And thenshe'd post them outside the
court on the wall, and you couldyou could go in there and like
read what these kids had towrite and, and how they'll do
that again, and they didn'trealize the importance of it,

(01:13:00):
and then they kind of getconnected with their culture.
And so a lot of that disharmonyhere are those restorative
models, or they talk about a lotof reconnection. And so I have
like that example. Like they gotto reconnect with their culture
and understood the importance ofit.

That's pretty good. I like that. Does that
still happen or no? Is thatsomething? Was that just her?

Sure after she she passed if I think it's what she
Plouffe now, I'm not sure if hestill does the same thing or
not?

Yeah. Third space of sovereignty is Kevin Bruce.
Bruyneel BRL. Yeah, Bruyneel.

Bass. So wrote another book that I know wisdom
sits in places and

sits in place.
Yeah. Okay, well, that'sinteresting, man. And, I don't
know. It's like, it's like thisaspiration of mine, I guess, to
see, to see more effort to fortribes to sort of adopt a
different way of doing thingsbut you know, I don't I'm

(01:14:09):
working on that. And I don't Idon't sit in the trenches in
that so I'm sure it's harderthan I think to do. And just
like any any quasi democracy,you know, you're you're you live
and die by the vote and that'sthat's pretty true here. Where

(01:14:30):
we come from as you know, you dosomething that might you might
think is progressive and ahandful of people that get
that's going to be great and youknow, if it doesn't align well
with the with the majority ofthe population then you're out
and your ideas are out and butto get a nice crisp job

(01:14:51):
afterwards. Next department headof grants and procuration
Gearman procurement Yeah, grantsand procurements. Yeah. at IHS
or so I don't know. Unlessyou're a one term, then you
might, you know, maybe asupervisor position Dental.

(01:15:15):
Don't know, I don't know whereI'm going with this. I just was
curious about this sovereigntything. And from your experience
your law experience knowing theUnited States legal tradition
along with the current triballaw, you know, what are we
doing, man? What are we doing?

(01:15:38):
Are we just copying ustradition? Are we we trying some
new different? I guess, acrossthe country?

It depends like tribe tribe, some tribes are
really scared to do anythingdifferent. And I think
unfortunately, tsk T falls alittle under that umbrella. You
know, we have the, the IndianReorganization Act.
Constitution. And so it's allboilerplate language. And we
still have blood quantum, youknow, which is an assimilation

(01:16:08):
tactic. And so it's kind of, youknow, but I think they're also
kind of scared to kind of doanything different, you know,
and maybe what the outcomesmight be. But then you see,
other tribes are doing reallywell at that. And, yeah, Japan
have taken initiative. And Idon't know if they just have the
right people in the rightpositions, you know, like the

(01:16:29):
pasady to kind of go that routeor, you know, are they just
saying screw? Let's do it. Youknow, like, what do we got to
lose?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a strange one. I don't
know. I just don't know. How tofollow up on this night, and I
forgot it. Oh, they're gonnasay, Oh, yeah. I'm curious. Oh,
Aaron's getting tired. Look athim. Stuck. Alright, your

(01:16:58):
partner, you want to jump in onthis? I've been saying a lot
things. I'm waiting for Aaron,because he asked the initial
question about sovereignty. Ithink it was smokescreen. So he
could shoot off a text or two.
Is that true? No, no. Is heengaged? He's listening.

That's unfair question. That's it? No, I'm
good. I'm listening. No, youwere talking. And you're saying,
I had a follow up for that. AndI forgot. So stay quiet
thinking, Oh, he's gonna come upwith this thing. This is your
teammate. It weird.

I did it. Well, I'm sorry. What did I do? What
did I do?

Disaster question.

I don't have a question. Okay. I relented, and
this is it. Well, this goes offtopic. So what I want what I
want to share and give everyonea chance to reflect on all the
things that Brian and I justsaid, to be fair and inclusive.
So everybody can be heard. Italked a lot on this. You did?

(01:18:08):
Yeah. That was good man. Proudof you.

I'm a pessimist, dude. I don't, I don't have any
faith in the federal government.
I don't, I don't believe in ourform of tribal government now.
So I'm down for whatever man,like, there's never been a
system created by the USgovernment, that favorite tribal
peoples, it'd be no differentfor anything from the the

(01:18:30):
reorganization act, or any nonIra tries. So it's still all
just following the template of afake representative democracy
that, in fact, cannot work inpopulations that are small, it
just can't can't functionbecause there's no n a minute T
and N.

Khan. And

there's none of that when you know, everybody
your system is going to break.
So it has to be a differentform. Why not use? Well, I think
you can't put the genie back inthe bottle. But yeah, I'm not a
very positive person when itcomes to this kind of stuff. So
I'm often the wrong person thattalked to like about anything
like this because for one, we astribes cannot get unified on

(01:19:17):
even what sovereignty means.
Secondly, sovereignty is amuscle that has to be exercised,
and some tribes don't want to doit. They just don't want to
exercise that muscle. So I'm abit complacent. And I pout a
little bit when it comes to it.
Because for one it takes bigbrass balls to do it, man. Yeah,
honest to God, like you got tobe willing to take on the US

(01:19:40):
government. You gotta be willingto shake the tree man. Yeah, and
a lot of us aren't. We don'twant to bite the hand. No.

X, it definitely, like wasn't a system that was
designed for us, you know, andso we kind of anomaly and think
they intended to have a placefor us in this Somebody's kind
of just had to, you know, makeit make it work. And, you know,
it's, that's kind of like, youknow, I had to kind of get over
in law school in the verybeginning, I was real frustrated

(01:20:11):
down on the whole system, butthen I was like, you know, and
also wasn't designed for us. Itwasn't meant for us, but at
least, you know, maybe now wecould try to use it in our
favor. We more understand itthan we did 150 years ago, where
it was used to our detriment.
Yeah. That's always like, thereal frustrating thing in law.
You know, it's like, when you'rereading these cases, it's hard
not to have a physical reaction.

(01:20:35):
It's not It's hard not to getupset, you know, and, and you're
generic supposed to be trying tolearn, and it's like your
heart's racing, you're sweating.
You know, you want to pass andyou know, it's always it's
always difficult, I think.

Yeah. Agreed.

So I definitely have those frustrations. Yeah.

It's hard. It's hard. Until you see the economic
state of a lot of tribes in theWest, it's really hard. For
people it's in theoretically,law can work, right. But it's
hard to accept that. Thatconcept when you're when you see
poor people, man. The attack onthe court is typically not a

(01:21:17):
privilege of poor people. Of anygroup, right? And so, when you
challenge law, it's typically aprivilege. And it's, it's
usually backed by finances. AndNative people, especially in the
West are poor. They're poorpeople. Some of these places are

(01:21:38):
like, third world conditions.
And it's hard to go there andthink, oh, yeah, I believe in
the system. Now, you know what Imean? Like, I believe that it
can work for us. It's hard. Itreally is. So I think some of
that plays a role in it. It'snot, it's not that, that we
can't win with the law. Like, Ido agree with Brian that, like,
it's the system we're given, wehave to learn to work within it.

(01:22:00):
And we can, and we have casestudy that prove that. But when
you come from a people for thelast 150 years, in some cases,
200 we don't know how to win. Wejust don't know how to find
success and things. So we, wewe, we just we self destruct and
other ways, you know, so like,it's hard for us to see long

(01:22:24):
term that when some places don'teven have, we don't we can't
even build an infrastructureliterally. So when when new
buildings go up, it freakseverybody out. Imagine
challenging the court. It'sgoing to be like such a foreign
thing.

(01:22:46):
That's my that's my two cents.
And this is all because of ChiefJustice. John Marshall. And his
three little law cases that hejust whatever decided that he
was going to just use a controlfreak, man. He's a weird guy, do
you?

Yeah, that's like weird in the beginning, they
didn't even know like, who isjust justice Chief Marshal and
Supreme Court and it's like,kinda like state Georgia didn't
even show up to their to ourarguments. Amen. present oral
argument or nothing,

dude. And then Andrew Jackson says, wife, it's
your decision, you enforce it.
You know what, even so you'vegot this highly insecure Chief
Justice who's like, God, dangit, people listen to me, you
know? Whatever do to do what youwant.

And there's too much, too much. Well, Brian,
it's been. I don't know, it'sbeen a great discussion for me.
I learned quite a bit aboutcertain things. But I want to
know, do you have anything elseyou want to add? Why,

as far as Supreme Court kind of decisions go in
Indian country, I believe was2010. Or maybe it's early 2000s.
Yeah, like the Supreme Courtproject kind of start up for
tribes started trying to kind ofunify and kind of strategizing
on their briefs. And so I justsubmit like 50 duplicated, bleep

(01:24:30):
duplicated briefs, they wouldkind of strategize like wait,
we're talking about this. We'regonna talk about that. It's
split it up. And since then, youknow, it seems like we're really
making headway in IndianCountry. You could start in kind
of the late 70s, early 80s till2010. It was kind of the Dark
Ages. You know, I think therewere two cases the tribes won
during the whole time. And it'slike one of the worst worst

(01:24:52):
periods of Indian law. Yeah, andsubscribe start kind of unifying
and using, you know, thesereally prestige Just Supreme
Court attorneys unfortunately,they're all predominantly white
males. But yeah, you know,either these these high up guys
kind of argue our cases and it'skind of working out in our
favor, you know with McGirt andCooley Cougar den, you know, a

(01:25:13):
lot of those recent ICWA likeBrackeen. And but on the other
side, you know, something we gotto be aware of in Indian
countries are this firm, I'm notgonna say their name, but
they're really anti Indian. Andthey're the ones taken up all
these cases pro bono. So they'relike hand selecting these cases
to try to overturn theseconcepts and Indian law. So

(01:25:34):
they're the one took up Brackeenthey took a coolie they, you
know, so they, they're the onestaking up all these cases. And,
and so I think it's good in someways. Like, you know, 1015 20
years ago, things might havebeen different if we could have
united as you know, 574 tribes,or Hamba, those are federally
recognized tribes, but, youknow, at least nowadays in

(01:25:54):
current day, we are starting tokind of see that unification and
seeing the payoffs from it.
Because they'll have the sameinterests and

interests in casinos. No, not as one of the
development.

Yeah, cuz I mean, that's one thing I always joke
around with any casinos, butyeah, federal policy. I mean,
yeah, it's really hard to makemoney when you don't even own
your land.

Yeah, that's yeah, that's a stereotype and it's
kind of a joke, but that'sthat's the real that's the real
deal, right? That's the productof that some of that work. Well,
that's cool, man. You know, Idon't know what else to say. I'm

(01:26:46):
a fan. I'm fan of fancy words.
So what was the one you saidagain? perfunctory use of
rectory use.

Basically, the right to occupy the right to
gather the right to hunt andfish.

Yeah, that's awesome. Feel like I feel like I
got some perfunctory theorybusiness. I gotta do it right.

Well, you're not you're not saying it right.

What did you say?
Again? I want the audience toknow how to say this word. Use
of factory use of factory use offactory okay. It's awesome man.
Around but Aaron, what's up,man? Let's wrap this. Let's wrap
this up. Man. This is a coolone. I'm glad we had a chance to

(01:27:46):
chat with Brian again. Againcongratulations on your

yeah man congratulation the
accomplishment as

well from just laying it cigarettes drive thru
window to hydrologists like nowand Indian laga no

big deal it is it's a big deal and it shouldn't it
shouldn't be taken lightly.

No, it's

it's it's a privilege to represent Indian
people is sometimes I forget itwas my job. But um it's a good
reminder that you it's it's notit's it's a responsibility but
it's it's a it's a good burdento have you know

for sure. Well, cool, man. Any last words Brian
and then we'll we'll sign aroundwhich god

yeah, just thank you guys for having me man. It's
always a joy to be asked youguys and I have a good old
conversation and

awesome, man. All right, Dr.

Recognition.

Yeah, yeah. Good, Doctor. Dirty belly out.

And dirty belly.
Alright guys, enjoy your porkchops and Kool Aid.

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#46 - Inside Indian Country: A Discussion on Kool-Aid, Pork Chops and Indian Law - Guest: Bryan Dupuis

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#46 - Inside Indian Country: A Discussion on Kool-Aid, Pork Chops and Indian Law - Guest: Bryan Dupuis