If seniority prevails

A headline of the Indian Country Today Media Network put the Oregon occupation in perspective: “Oregon Militia Seizes Paiute Territory.”

A group headed by Nevadan Ammon Bundy seized a federal government building on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon on Jan 2. The refuge was formed from Northern Paiute territory in 1908. The Paiutes had been ejected from the land in 1878.

In fact, Field Marshal Bundy—as Indian Country Today has referred to young Ammon—is the son of Cliven Bundy, who staged a standoff at his Clark County ranch in 2014, complaining that his family had held that land long before the Bureau of Land Management arrived in Nevada, which was not true. Indian Country Today reports that Cliven’s ranch, too, is in Southern Paiute territory.