A pumpjack recovers oil in Osage County near Sperry. [Photo by Nate Billings, The Oklahoman Archives]

Geoffrey Standing Bear, chief of the Osage Nation, has been fighting the same battle in different arenas for three decades, carrying on a tradition of tribal sovereignty far older than himself.

“We will fight — we will always fight — to defend our land,” he said Friday.

Standing Bear's latest skirmish began Sept. 29, when a New Mexico attorney, Maria O'Brien, sent him a letter on behalf of the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office.

O'Brien wrote that a recent water well permit granted by the Osage Nation's Environmental and Natural Resources Department was unlawful because the tribe doesn't own the water of Osage County.