Indians Cite Culture Loss, Seek Ban on Bogus Jewelry

Decrying the steady erosion of their cultures, delegates to an American Indian conference Sunday called for an embargo on the importation of bogus Indian jewelry flooding the U.S. market from the Far East, costing American tribes millions of dollars in lost revenue.

At the same time, delegates said political pressure should be placed on museums and universities to give back Indian religious artifacts, bones and other tribal properties that are considered sacred.

“We feel our customs are ours and we should be the ones to manufacture them,” said Issac Urquidi, a member of the Mescalero branch of the Apache Tribe and a retired banker who lives in Los Angeles.

Urquidi made his comments to reporters during “Summit ‘88,” a three-day conference sponsored by the Alliance of Native Americans, which concluded at Cal State Northridge on Sunday.

Fake Trade Worth $50 Million

Urquidi said the trade in fake Indian merchandise may reach $50 million and includes turquoise bracelets, rings and pendants, sacred pipes and Hopi kachina dolls that are being assembled in Taiwan and the Philippines.

“I was in Venice, Calif., at a small museum,” Urquidi said, “and there were Hopi sacred artifacts for sale. They should not be for sale. They should be with Indian people.”

He said Indian artifacts taken from the United States nearly a century ago have wound up in European and Soviet museums and that pressure should be placed on foreign governments to return the tribal items.

“A museum in Dresden has one of the richest amounts of American Indian artifacts, “ he pointed out.

On other subjects discussed at Sunday’s conference, delegates were told that the Indian population in Los Angeles, although numbering more than 90,000, is virtually ignored by local governments.

“You have 200 tribes represented in the Los Angeles area,” said Daniel Tom of Norwalk, a Piute and Pomo Indian who works for Rockwell International. “In Los Angeles County, they have only one Indian social worker for all the Indian population. All they spend for Indian mental health is $135,000. As a group, we’re kind of ignored.”

Plans for Lobbying

The conference organizers said they hope to establish an Indian political action committee to lobby politicians on tribal issues.

The conference called for more funds to aid homeless Indians and for the establishment of an Indian cultural center in Los Angeles that would provide a centralized site for various tribal ceremonies.

About 300 Indians from about 20 tribes attended the conference, Tom said.

A list of resolutions approved by the delegates will be given to presidential candidates Michael S. Dukakis and George Bush, he added.

Organizers also said they hope to present President Reagan with the resolutions.

Reagan angered Indian leaders earlier this year when he told Soviet university students that “maybe we made a mistake” by maintaining Indian cultures.

The Alliance of Native Americans was formed last March and the summit was billed as a rare gathering of rural and urban Indians.