Many Doubts About New Leader : Newport Man Gets Sioux War Bonnet With Reservations

Dinah Crow Dog is a sturdy woman with intense dark eyes that speak of a time when the Sioux Nation ruled the plains and the rich Black Hills to the west.

The discovery of gold and white man’s greed long ago stripped the Sioux of their large empire, and today as Crow Dog talks she does so with the quiet authority of a tribal elder intent on preserving the traditions and ways of the grandfathers.

That is why, she says in halting English, she is so upset with “this man, Phil Stevens, this white man who calls himself chief. . . .

“We are being disgraced by this man,” said Crow Dog, the daughter of a tribal spiritual leader. “Our own people are disgracing us by giving the white man a war bonnet.”

As Crow Dog spoke, 12 miles up the road from here in Mission, Newport Beach millionaire Phillip J. Stevens was being installed as “Itancankel”--

or special chief--in an elaborate ceremony complete with the smoking of the pipe, the burning of sweet grass and traditional tribal dances.

Stevens, 59, was also given the name Waha-Can Kala Uha Mani, or Man Who Leads With the Shield, during the 14-hour ceremony that ended at midnight Saturday.

The entrepreneur-engineer had sought the title for almost a year, promising to lead a holy crusade to regain 1.3 million acres of sacred Black Hills land from the federal government.

Yet from the very beginning, Stevens’ involvement stirred controversy among the 68,000 Sioux scattered throughout the South Dakota reservations.

First there were questions about his motives. Why was this rich Californian, who made his millions by working on missile systems and building power plants, so interested in the plight of the Sioux?

And then there were doubts about the wisdom of his plan, which called for wresting $3.1 billion from Congress as compensation for stealing the Black Hills from the Sioux in 1877.

Everything about Stevens, it seemed, provoked debate.

There was a stink over whether Stevens could wear a war bonnet and whether it could be made of eagle feathers--He settled for a bonnet of dyed chicken feathers. And finally, there were questions about whether Phil Stevens was really part Indian or was merely a bored, rich white man who simply wanted to play chief.

But at the ceremony, where he was flanked by four Sioux chiefs in full ceremonial garb, Stevens appeared undaunted by all the criticism and pledged his sincerity in working to win justice for the Indians.

With his wife, Joan, and son, Greg, looking on approvingly, Stevens received the war bonnet and shield in a long ceremony witnessed by 1,000 curious Sioux, most of whom arrived in time for the traditional powwow, and the new chief’s offering of food and other gifts.

In his acceptance speech, which he read from a prepared text, Stevens promised to “carry the battle lance of justice” in the struggle to recover the Black Hills, along with fair compensation.

His first acts, he said, would be to seek a meeting with U.S. Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel and to request a public hearing on the Black Hills issue.

Won’t Use Bullets

“The taking of the Black Hills,” Stevens said, “is comparable to denying all Americans access to their churches and synagogues.

“We will not use bullets and arrows, but truth and justice,” he said. “This is not a war on the United States of America. I believe when the American people see the injustice that has been done here, they will want to help.”

But like everything else about Stevens’ involvement here, the ceremony was not without controversy.

Just minutes after receiving the war bonnet, Stevens was served with a court summons notifying him that a group of Sioux elders had filed suit demanding that Stevens once and for all prove his claim that he is a great-grandson of the warrior chief Standing Bear.

“The defendant is impersonating an Indian, claiming Indian heritage that is questionable and remains unproved,” said the lawsuit, which was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Rapid City by the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council, an advisory group to the eight Sioux tribal councils.

The treaty council said Stevens’ ancestry could not be traced in tribal records, so there was no way to prove he truly is a descendant of Standing Bear.

‘Barking of a Dog’

Homer Whirlwind Soldier, one of Stevens’ staunchest supporters, dismissed the suit as “just the barking of a dog.” He said tribal records were notoriously incomplete, and besides, enough of Stevens’ relatives had been found to substantiate the lineage. Two Oglala Sioux tribesmen, Richard and Jim Standing Bear, who said they are related to Stevens, were introduced during the ceremony.

Pausing only to don his new war bonnet, Stevens met with reporters outside his motel room and responded to the lawsuit by acknowledging that “there are some individuals who disagree with me.”

But he said he had no plans to meet with his opponents to try to resolve the issue.

Stevens’ heritage--he claims to be three-sixteenths Sioux--was just one of a range of issues that created controversy in the Californian’s quest to lead the Sioux nation.

Some saw him as a self-promoting egomaniac who stands in sharp contrast to the retiring, almost passive demeanor of other Sioux leaders.

Others, like Crow Dog, were appalled by Stevens’ highly publicized three-day tour of the reservation, in which he traveled in a caravan of 18 cars and vans, and was accompanied by six burly security guards and as many as 35 reporters.

Support by Oglalas

In addition, there were questions over just what kind of support he enjoyed, even though he continued to claim that the “majority” of the Sioux were behind him. On some levels the support appeared shallow--of the eight tribal councils, only the Oglala Sioux voted to endorse him--and many of the spiritual leaders and more traditional elders openly rejected the idea.

Yet he did win the backing of several influential factions, including the Whirlwind Soldier, Red Cloud and Fast Horse families, and most of the veterans associations on the reservations.

But even as the installation ceremony was held in an old basketball gymnasium in Mission, Crow Dog and about 60 other traditional leaders met in the small town of Rosebud to voice their opposition, vowing never to recognize him.

“He will not be our chief,” Crow Dog said. “Our elders and traditional people and the whole Sioux nation did not give him this authority. Just look what they have done to our traditions.”

Called a Mockery

Crow Dog and other Sioux leaders charged that the ceremony, while colorful, made a mockery of Sioux tribal customs.

They noted that:

- Even if Stevens’ claim to Sioux ancestry is true, tradition says that only full-blooded Indians can become chief. At the very least, the chief must be an enrolled member of the tribe, which Stevens is not.

- Traditionally a chief had to earn the position through years of courageous and honorable deeds. Even then, the ceremony itself could take a year, with the chief retiring to a sacred place for months on end to seek direction and confer with the spirits.

- Stevens made a sham out of the pipe ceremony by smoking it indoors and in front of television cameras, which some say is strictly forbidden.

- Custom calls for the new chief to give all his material possessions away to his tribe as a symbol of his commitment to his people. Stevens, instead, gave away hot dogs, soap, bread, soft drinks, coffee cups and bags of salt and sugar in a symbolic gesture keeping with tradition.

“The general feeling here is that we’re playing around with something that we shouldn’t be,” said Russell Eagle Bear, a tribal councilman for the Rosebud Sioux. “Chief-making is very sacred. Only a special person can be chief, and many of us feel like we have a white man here wants to be an Indian.

‘All We Have Left’

“It is really a question of following tradition, which is about all we have left,” he said.

Organizers of the ceremony denied that they had trampled on tradition and said that ceremonial rites varied from tribe to tribe.

“This is all in accordance with tradition,” said Edd Charging Elk, one of the Rosebud Sioux who supports Stevens.

What was important, said Charging Elk, was Stevens’ proposal, which called for the 1.3 million acres of unoccupied land in the Black Hills National Forest to be returned to the Sioux. All privately held land there, as well as Mount Rushmore and Ellsworth Air Force Base, would be excluded from the settlement.

But even that caused problems.

A similar bill calling for the return of the same land has been pending in Congress for the past two years, stalled in committee because of opposition from South Dakota’s senators.

That bill, sponsored by Sen. Bill Bradley (D-New Jersey), differed only in that it provided for no financial payment to the tribe.

Compensation for Gold

Stevens said the $3.1 billion would compensate the Sioux for the billions of dollars of gold taken out of the Black Hills since they were illegally seized 111 years ago in violation of the 1867 Fort Laramie Treaty, which ceded the sacred hills to the Great Sioux Nation.

But some Indians felt that Stevens should have worked with supporters of the Bradley bill. Instead, they said, he seemed obsessed with leading the charge and wearing the war bonnet.

“If Phil Stevens wants to help us,” said an editorial in the Sioux weekly newspaper, the Lakota Times, “let him help us as a soldier and not a general. At first we supported his efforts, but we believe it crossed the line of traditional decency when he began to regard the wearing of a war bonnet to be of more importance than supporting the wishes of the people.”