Pechanga's Culture of Corruption VII: Pechanga Expert Contradicts Pechanga DISenrollment UPDATED!

What better way to control the voting in the tribe than to eliminate a large voting bloc? Compare it to say, the Republicans eliminating a voting area, like the Northeast, so that many liberal votes would no longer count. Sound fair?

Here's a story from 2006 that shows that the TRIBE hired the foremost expert to prove that Paulina Hunter was NOT Pechanga. Except, the preponderance of the evidence showed she was. How to get around those FACTS? Don't use the report, make believe they didn't even pay for it.

TEMECULA ---- A renowned anthropologist hired by the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians to study their lineage and ancestry has called the tribe's recent disenrollment of a large family from its rolls "unfortunate and not based on solid evidence."

"They ignored whatever I did in their decision-making," said John Johnson, who was hired by Pechanga to determine whether Paulina Hunter was one of the tribe's ancestors. "It's too bad economics and politics have been injected into (tribal lineage rulings)."

Johnson has worked as curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History since 1986. He earned his doctorate in anthropology at UC Santa Barbara and teaches a course called "California Indians" at the campus. For more than three decades, he has worked on detailed studies and recordings of California Indians' archaeology, archival records, cultures and history. OP: Dr. Johnson works with Las Padrones, the HISTORICAL records of the Spanish missionaries begun before Abraham Lincoln was BORN.


He researched the Hunter lineage as a paid independent consultant.

Last month, Pechanga's enrollment committee handed down a ruling that rejected an appeal by Hunter's descendants, a family of about 100 adults, to reverse the tribe's decision to disenroll them. OP: And our children too, about 100 and our spouses, another 70.

When Pechanga disenrolls a family, it not only strips the extended family of their membership in the tribe, but also health insurance, college scholarships and other benefits provided by the tribe, including thousands of dollars in casino profits tribe members get each month.

The Hunters are the second large family in two years to be booted from the tribe's rolls, in addition to the large Apis clan. There is talk that another family is set to be disenrolled from Pechanga soon.

Hired by Pechanga two years ago, Johnson researched whether Hunter was of Temecula descent. He made his comments on the tribe's ruling earlier this month, after it rejected the Hunter appeal. He said he is "90 percent" sure Hunter was an original Pechanga Indian, based on all the available documentation.

The reason he said he cannot be 100 percent sure is because when studying the lineage of Luiseno Indians ---- who include the Pala, Pauma, Rincon, La Jolla, Soboba and Pechanga bands ---- there are three "primary" mission record books missing that detail births, marriages and deaths from 1835-1852. These books were established when the mission was founded.

The name "Luiseno" derives from their having lived at or near the Spanish mission San Luis Rey, established in 1798 and located in northern San Diego County near Oceanside.

Hunter was born sometime during the 1830s or 1840s, and lived on the reservation in Temecula, Johnson's research shows. That is the tie her descendants point to to show they are Pechanga descendants.

Determining exactly who Paulina Hunter's parents are is not cut and dried without those primary record books, Johnson said. With that, he made his determinations using other various baptismal and marriage records, California census books, Pechanga Indian census records, genealogical evidence and other sources, he said.

He determined that Paulina Hunter was an original Pechanga Indian based in part on the fact that the man most likely to be her father, Mateo Quasicac, was the only person listed from "Pechanga" in census books from that time.

Moreover, he said, Hunter was listed on tribal rolls in the late 19th century and was the recipient of Pechanga Reservation allotment No. 62.

"Paulina Hunter would not have been given an allotment if she was not of the Temecula Indians," Johnson said. "So, why was she given an allotment?"

What's more, anyone currently enrolled in the Pechanga band whose ancestors were born between 1835 and 1852 would have the same trouble proving their heritage using primary resource books, he said.

"They are all in the same boat as Paulina Hunter," Johnson said. "She is not unique."

Johnson said he wrote a lengthy report to the tribe detailing his results in 2004, and sent a letter to them reiterating his findings a few months before the enrollment committee's August ruling.

Pechanga Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro would not comment on Johnson's remarks. He did not respond to requests for an interview. OP: In Macarro's hometown of Colton, that would be enough to be labeled "pussy".

In an August statement, Macarro said the decision to deny the Hunter appeal was reached after months of investigation and hearings.

"This is a very complex intertribal matter involving Pechanga history and genealogy," he wrote. "Questions about citizenship, therefore, are resolved by the Pechanga enrollment committee, the government body with the proper authority and ability to determine if a person meets criteria for Pechanga citizenship.

OP: See A'amokat's comment in the comment section below, but let's take Macarro's statement on ABILITY. Who you you choose?

The FOREMOST authority on California Indians genealogy or:

Ruth Masiel - uneducated homemaker, slept through one Hunter hearing, puppet of daughter Jennie Miranda
Bobbie LaMere - Casino employee, who got family members enrolled while a moratorium is in effect.
Ihrene Scearce - BIA clerk reprimanded for changing records, stole from tribe (as per Ed Burbee)
Frances Miranda - barely educated homemaker

"The insinuation that these actions are motivated by politics or profits is reprehensible. The fact is that disenrollments occurred long before Pechanga ever opened its gaming facility." OP: But never entire families of members, and their VOTES

One Hunter family member who asked not to be named because she said she would face retaliation as she lives on the reservation, said Pechanga enrollment committee members are taking the word of former Tribal Chairman Vincent Belasco Ibanez, who is finishing up an eight-year prison term for child molestation, over Johnson's findings.

Ibanez was known as a local expert on the preservation of American Indian artifacts and for conducting nature walks and seminars on native plant species for the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony east of Temecula. OP: Yet, Ibanez (related to Ed Burbee,see previous posts) was NOT alive when Paulina Hunter ws, and Pechanga has SWORN depositions from tribal members taken in the LUISENO language that Paulina Hunter was a tribal members. Let's see, tribal members, alive, giving SWORN testimony, or a child molester? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

The Hunter family member also said that because records show Paulina Hunter's mother was baptized at the San Luis Rey Mission, enrollment committee members are taking it to mean she was from there. But everyone traveled to that mission to be baptized during that century, she said.

"These people are targeting certain families," said the Hunter family member. "They are just throwing out all the facts. It's all about financial gain. It's all about more money."

The ousted members of the Apis family turned to the courts to plead their case, but have not won a verdict. Indian sovereignty and disenrollment have taken on a new significance around the nation, with the rise of Indian casinos and the money and political clout that accompany them. Pechanga is not the only tribe to disenroll some of its members.

"I don't agree that it was an unfortunate mistake. In my opinion it was a premeditated decision to disenroll the Paulina Hunter descendants," said John Gomez Jr., a spokesman for the 130 disenrolled adult Apis family members.

"We've been proud of (our heritage) and participated in the different aspects of being a tribal member, an Indian person ---- and one decision has all that taken away. We can't participate in tribal affairs, we lose our health benefits, the children lose their culture. That's the most devastating because that is your identity." OP: Similarly, Hunters have been on the tribal council, water committees and worked to build the health clinic.