In Concho, Oklahoma, a dispute over the Arapaho Indian tribe's Sun Dance Ceremony is back in tribal court. The controversy is the subject of two recent articles by the Associated Press. The Shoshone and Arapaho Tribal Court and the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribal Court previously issued injunctions prohibiting the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribe of Oklahoma from holding the Sun Dance Ceremony because it violated the ceremony's secrecy when it permitted an anthropologist to attend and write about the dance. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has refused, however, to enforce the tribal court orders. Last week Patrick Spottedwolf was among a group of Oklahoma Arapahos who ignored the tribal court injunctions and began to build a ceremonial arbor to conduct the ceremony. This led some 20 to 50 people, including members of the Northern Arapaho Tribe in Wyoming, to take the law into their own hands. They attacked the group preparing the ceremony, cut down the arbor with chain saws and set it on fire. Then Spottedwolf was charged with contempt for violating the tribal court injunctions. He has pled not guilty, claiming that the injunctions unconstitutionally violate his freedom of religion.
The Indian Civil Rights Act, enacted by Congress in 1968, requires that Indian tribes exercising their rights of self government abide by most of the provisions of the Constitution's bill of rights. The Act prohibits tribes from making or enforcing any law that prohibits the free exercise of religion. It does not impose establishment clause constraints on tribes.
