, an unsigned editorial entitled "A Tribe is a appeared in the Raleigh, North Carolina News and Observer:1. . it's rather quizzical that North Carolina's Commission of Indian Affairs ... refuses to grant tribal status to ... the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation. The Commission's reason for refusal [is that the petitioners] can show no longstanding governmental structure that proves they were a tribe. Yet the Occaneechi... have lived. .. in Alamance County for as long as anyone can recall. An anthropologist hired by the Commission said they satisfied the state's criteria for tribal status. Commission members, who set Indian policy in North Carolina, understandably worry about the current fad for anything Indian .... And the Occaneechi harmed themselves a few years ago when they adopted some customs and regalia [i.e., powwow culture] from western U.S. tribes. .... But that lapse ca be forgiven. ... [Economic benefits would be minimal, but] recognition by the state would offer the Occaneechi their taste of official cultural pride. Most of the members of the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs are Indians representing the seven tribes and three urban intertribal organizations that do have state recognition. The Occaneechi-Saponi, a much smaller group than any with seats on the Commission, have a long history in north-central North Carolina. To achieve state recognition, they must document how they fulfill at least five of eight criteria set by the Commission, criteria that emphasize continuities of blood-persisting family names, kinship relationships with recognized tribes, group genealogiesand of location, and also take into account earlier descriptions of individuals and communities as Indian. Expressive culture appears only in the seventh of the eight criteria: "documented traditions, customs, legends, etc. that signify the tribe's Indian heritage."2 The Commission's bylaws charge it to help groups like the Occaneechi with their applications, yet the process remains antagonistic. This per

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