BURNS-- Members of the Burns Paiute Tribe found it comical and frustrating when Ammon Bundy and his followers seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in the name of ranchers they claimed had lost the land unfairly to the federal government.

The Paiutes, too, had complaints about their treatment by federal land managers. The government seized 1.5 million acres of their people's ancestral homeland in 1879, and members waited nine decades to receive compensation checks for $743.20 each.

One person bought a washer-dryer set. Another bought college textbooks and sent in a tuition check. Some paid down bills, bought groceries and banked what was left.

When Bundy's group took over Malheur's headquarters, the gesture galvanized ranchers across the west and inspired an impassioned, sympathetic House floor speech from an Oregon congressman. Paiute tribal member Fred Townsend had been calling federal officials for years to say his people were shortchanged and he could barely get anyone to answer the phone.

Bundy said he wanted the Malheur refuge distributed to ranchers. The Burns Paiutes had roamed its fertile wetlands for millennia before the first cattle arrived there.

Then, Ammon Bundy came to town and staked his claim on another important piece of the Burns Paiutes' ancestral land. The federal government has no authority to own vast tracts of Western land, he said, and its purchase of private land to expand the refuge was an illegal act.

"The land titles need to be transferred back to the people," Bundy said.

The occupation's leaders were arrested - and one was killed - without achieving that goal, but they had already made clear that if they managed to wrest the refuge from federal ownership, none of it would return to the Paiutes.

"The Native Americans had claim to the land, but they lost that claim," Bundy's brother and fellow occupation leader Ryan Bundy told the Associated Press. "There are things to learn from cultures of the past, but the current culture is the most important."

That stoked rage among the tribe's members, who consider the federal wildlife refuge an important historical site and a modern-day resource.

A precious land

Were the Malheur refuge not a crime scene, Rena Adams Beers would have been there this January gathering willow branches along the lakeshore. She uses the supple boughs to build traditional cradleboards for her children and grandchildren.

Her great-grandson, Zach Adams, might have visited the 187,000-acre bird sanctuary to hunt, fish, and commune with nature.

Her granddaughter-in-law, Elise Adams, was forced to cancel plans to take a group of tribal youth to visit the lake and gather natural fibers. As the head of the tribe's youth program, Adams relies upon the refuge to connect kids to their heritage. Often, refuge staff are in on the effort.

Instead, the bird sanctuary is cordoned off. The last of Bundy's followers who remain there, three men and a woman, say they have no intention of leaving any time soon. Once they do, the land will remain closed as FBI investigators scour the scene for evidence and refuge employees clean up the mess.

Charlotte Rodrique, the tribe's chairwoman, said she worries what cleanup crews will find. Bundy's crew excavated roads in an area almost certain to contain tribal artifacts, and filmed themselves rummaging through artifacts stored in the refuge buildings.



"The huge heartbreak is, I don't know what they've been doing out there," Rodrique said. "I can't say with any great certainty that they haven't disturbed burials."

Tribal leaders have asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, to prosecute the occupiers if anything has been disturbed.

And while they've got the world's attention and sympathy, Townsend and other tribal leaders have begun discussing their options to revisit the 1969 payments. Copies of Townsend's old files have been sent to lawyers for inspection.

"I figured, maybe this is a good time to raise the issue one last time," he said.

The tribe's push for a legal review of the 1969 payments won't be easy, tribal law experts say.

Federal statute entitles tribes that win land lawsuits against the government to collect accrued interest. It says nothing about when interest should begin accruing.

Anthony Broadman, a lawyer who represents Western tribes in land disputes with the federal government, said complaints about inadequate compensation stemming from Indian Claims Commission suits are common, but courts can be reluctant to reexamine the old cases.

"Anything over five years old is an uphill battle," he said. "Anything over 10 years is pretty much impossible, and anything over 20 years is difficult to imagine. But every Indian law case worth fighting has been called impossible at some point."

Still, Burns Paiute leaders can't help but imagine what the tribe could do with the money.

Rodrique, the tribal chair, imagines using some of it to replace the aging trailers that house the tribal offices. Or maybe the tribe could buy some resource land, like the forests that generate revenue for other Oregon tribes. Perhaps the money could pay for a museum where the tribe could display its ancient artifacts, instead of relying upon the federal government to keep them safe.

"I don't expect our complaint to just sail through, because it won't," Rodrique said. "Just like every other thing, they're going to turn it down a couple of times and then maybe somebody will realize there's substance to it."

--Kelly House

khouse@oregonian.com

503-221-8178

@Kelly_M_House