Reporter Volume 25, No.23 April 7, 1994

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Bureau Staff
The university will host a conference, "Voices from Turtle Island:
Issues of Contemporary Native Identity" on April 8-10. Free of charge
and open to the public, it will cover issues pertinent to Native
Americans and the general public. All events will take place in Room
170, Fillmore Quad in the Ellicott Complex, with the exception being a
Saturday social scheduled for the Buffalo Room in the Fargo Quad of
the Ellicott Complex.
	The conference will open at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 8, with
a reception and screening of an unedited version of "The Broken
Chain," a 1993 TNT film about Mohawk leader Joseph Brant and the
effects of the U.S. revolutionary war on the Iroquois Confederacy. A
discussion will follow led by Tuscaroran Rick Hill, UB lecturer and
consultant to the film's producers.
	Over the next two days, seminars and workshops will be led by
speakers from Native American communities in New York, Washington
State, Ontario and Quebec. Topics include the importance of indigenous
languages, the disempowerment of women, U.S.-Canadian imposed borders
and native sovereignty.
	A traditional Iroquois social on Saturday, April 9, will
include a dinner by Newtown Longhouse and a performance by the Seven
Clan Singers of the Tuscarora Territory.
	Among the other invited guests are John Mohawk, author, Seneca
negotiator and a lecturer in American studies at UB; Janet McCloud of
the Tulalip tribal group in Washington State, a well-known organizer
for Native American rights; Tom Porter, traditional sub-chief of the
Akwesasne Mohawk nation; Katsi Cook, Mohawk activist and former editor
of Akwesasne Notes, and others.
	"Our goals," said one of the conference organizers, "are to
create awareness of Native American issues within the university
community, and to strengthen the relationship among Native American UB
students and other native student populations and local native
communities."
	Organizers said they hope to reach Native students from other
Western New York colleges, the reservation communities of Akwesasne,
Onondaga, Tonawanda, Allegany, Cattauraugus, Tuscarora and Six
Nations, and the non-reservation communities in Buffalo and Niagara
Falls.
	"We especially hope to attract Native high school students
because as young adults, they are facing many questions about their
identity as Native people and could benefit from some of the issues to
be discussed at the conference," the organizer said.
	The conference is sponsored by the Council of Ongwehonwe
Graduate Students at UB and the UB Native American Peoples' Alliance.
It is co-sponsored by the Dean of Arts and Letters, the Department of
American Studies and the Native American Studies Program.