March 10, 2010

Roaming Buffalo Clan
C T Terrell Unit
1300 FM 655
Rosharon, TX 77583

Dear Brothers, Aho.

Thank you for your Letter 3/3/10, which confirms some past correspondence and provides me with the request, assignment and other information that I requested. You may, of course, respond directly to Frederick Leonard, Clerk at Stony Run, if you wish, with any expressions that you might wish to convey to the Meeting as a whole; but I am effectively your ‘point of contact‘ in this service. I am pleased to have contact information for your volunteer-visitor and I intend to contact her in order that our path as we walk together with you is smooth.

It will be, I think, of great interest and satisfaction to you to hear that we have received a response from Oliver J. Bell, Chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice (TBCJ). In the organization of the Texas state government, the TBCJ has oversight responsibility for the prison system and therefore his is both an official response and authoritative, that is, a binding directive to his subordinates. In addition to providing us with us with copies of directives (“policies”) that immediately govern your religious practice, his letter include the following:

“…These policies will guide the Roaming Buffalo Clan on how to comply with the TDJC policies and procedures. Once established, our staff will work to create opportunities for the offenders to pursue their religious beliefs and participate in religious activities and programs that do not endanger the safe, secure and orderly operation of the agency.”

In my view, this letter amounts to a formal notice by the state of Texas of “accommodation in principle” of a Native American religious organization at C T Terrell Unit. You will notice that the chairman recognizes the Hoop by name in his letter (several times, in fact) and does not qualify or restrict in any way approval to individuals separately. By his authority then, I suggest that you are entitled to form and operate a peaceable, orderly and transparent association among yourselves, by yourselves and for yourselves, not necessarily under the guidance or authority of anyone outside the institution, although I would say that you are free to do so if you can and if you wish. With this approval in hand, I think that you will find that obstacles and obstructions that you have met locally in the past will be removed, especially if you now make applications and requests in a Good Way. Let me know again how things are in about a month.

Still, we are not all out of the woods yet. While I am gratified by this response from TBCJ, I will not feel relieved of my obligation to you until you have achieved “accommodation in fact”, that is, that you are truly able to combine in a Hoop for traditional ceremonies and observances, at least presently to the extent provided for in these known and approved policies and procedures. I will, as you request, supply you again with copies of your constitution documents so that you can resubmit them for acceptance - I wouldn’t say for “approval“; I’d say that because they were submitted as an attachment to my appeal to TBCJ they have, in effect, already been approved.

The way ahead is not entirely clear and it is not now guaranteed to be easy for you, but I believe that the way is now opening for you. I suggest that your ‘strategy’ be to arrange and conduct yourselves so that you begin to approach the full accommodation for your traditional spirituality that is now provided for in the policy and procedure directives. That’s a fair bit of work and will probably take you some time, but there it is - hokahey ! hokahey !

But be advised that the limits of your accommodation are, in some ways, contingent upon your own actions. Basically, it’s a “behavioral” model: desired action is positively reinforced with more latitude; undesired action is negatively reinforced with less. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. One question: is there one among you who believes himself - and others believe him - to be qualified to lead a Pipe Ceremony ?

Now, in looking over these TDCJ policies and procedures, it is not clear to me that, in all circumstances, they would fully meet the prevailing legal standard for the burden of your religious practice, and this is something that I intend to look into further. However that may be, I think that you are in a very poor position to assert rights in excess of prescribed limits. An enlargement of the extreme boundaries of limitations must, I suggest, be left to others on the ‘outside’, advocates for your cause. Any questioning or testing by you of these limits as now established will almost certainly be viewed as a challenge to authority and will likely be dealt with as a disciplinary problem. I think that you will have enough to do for now - especially in the absence of an outside volunteer advisor from within your own spiritual frame - simply to form and operate a Hoop up to the full range of opportunity now affordable. Let me - between now and when accommodation-in-fact has been achieved - see if there is more or else required of me in this work with you.

I have found it unwise to claim as well as difficult to establish in this work a cause-and-effect between Friends’ actions and improvements in institutional conditions. As a companion of mine in this ministry once said, “You can get just about anything done as long as you are willing not to take credit for it.” If your condition continues to improve (as I think it has already), let it be to the credit of those who actually make the positive changes. Let your thanks be to the Creator, who oversees all these things. My satisfaction will be that I heard this call and answered.

Mitakuye oyasin,
William O. Miles