Ambush

Ambush Nobody paid any attention last July when Congress routinely passed Public Law 887, entitled "Wyandotte Tribe Termination of Federal Supervision." But last week Kansas' Senators and Representatives discovered they should have been listening to the rustling in the woods. Public Law 887 gives the Wyandotte Indian tribe of northeastern Oklahoma full title to two valuable acres of land in the heart of downtown Kansas City, Kans., estimated variously to be worth as much as $1,500,000.

An Indian cemetery established in the 18403 when the Wyandottes moved to Kansas from Ohio and Michigan, the land was part of the property ceded to the Federal Government in 1855 in exchange for lands in Oklahoma. However, the Wyandottes insist they never did convey title to the cemetery to anybody. For more than 60 years they have been seeking to regain possession, but each attempt was blocked by Kansas' Representatives in Washington. Finally, this year, the tribe employed an old-fashioned tactic: ambush. Public Law 887 was presented to Congress as an Interior Department bill, and the Interior Department unwittingly neglected to tell any of Kansas' Senators or Representatives about it. Last week, while Kansas Citians raged and Kansas' red-faced Congressmen fired off telegrams to Washington, Lawrence Zane, a custodian in the Miami, Okla. post office and duly elected chief of the 900-member Wyandotte tribe, told how simple it was. Said he: "We kept it quiet."*

And the chief was not through. He set Kansas City to squirming with an announcement that the acquisition of the cemetery was only the first step in a fullscale Wyandotte campaign. The tribe has its sights set on an additional 1,940 acres, much of it in downtown Kansas City. Explained Chief Zane: "We've decided to go on the warpath to protect our rights. Our ancestors used tomahawks; we're using law books."

*In California a group of Indians had less luck, got a flat Department of Justice rejection of their claim that they own almost all of the land in the state.

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