Viewing page 23 of 113

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

- 3 -
itself either under a written constitution or in accordance with unwritten customary law. If on the other hand, the recommendation is to the effect that the constitution of an Indian tribe might be repealed by an Act of Congress, it is a very strange proposal to come from a body of men dedicated to a democratic form of government. Tribal constitutions under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 were adopted by a majority vote of the members of the tribe, and are open to amendment and to revocation by a vote of the same members, not by an Act of Congress.

3. The reference to the Handbook of Federal Indian Law in the following paragraph on the same page is silent on the Revised Edition of that Handbook which appeared in 1943. The intention here appears to be to stress the out-modedness of a book published in 1940, and the fact that the book was later revised would have minimized this point.

Anyone familiar with Title 25 of the United States Code must realise that it is no substitute for the Handbook of Federal Indian Law, even if the former should

22