78 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 184 
Indian and went to his pueblo to live. His name was Jose Rey 
Toledo.] The decision of the court is to be found in Federal Sup- 
plement, vol. 119, No. 3, pp. 429-432, April 26, 1954. The plain- 
tiffs charged that the pueblo— 
has refused them the right to bury their dead in the community cemetery; denied 
them the right to build a church of their own on Pueblo land; prohibited them 
from using their homes for church purposes; refused to permit Protestant mis- 
sionaries freely to enter the Pueblo at reasonable times; deprived some of them 
of the right to use a communal threshing machine which threatened the loss of 
their wheat crop. They also allege that the officials of the Pueblo threatened 
them with loss of their birthrights, homes and personal property unless they 
accept the Catholic religion. [Ibid., p. 430.] 
Thus, it would appear that the issue was one of freedom of con- 
science, freedom to worship as one pleased. But this is not the way 
the court saw it. ‘The question for decision,” it ruled, 
is not whether the tribal government has the right to interfere with the religious 
beliefs and practices of its members, but whether or not the objectionable actions 
of the Pueblo come within the scope of the Civil Rights Act and whether this 
court has jurisdiction of this case as it is presented by the complaint. [Ibid., p. 
431. 
ae an action to succeed under the Civil Rights Statute which plaintiffs rely 
on, at least two conditions must exist. First, a person must be subjected to the 
deprivation of some right. . .. Second, the action complained of must have 
been done under the color of a statute .. . of astate ... [Ibid., pp. 431—432.] 
It has, indeed, been held that the powers of an Indian tribe do not spring from 
the United States although they are subject to the paramount authority of 
Congress . . . Their right to govern themselves has been recognized in such statutes 
as the Indian Reorganization Act, Act of June 18, 1934... . [Ibid., p. 4382; 
emphasis mine, L. A. W.] [Furthermore], Pueblo Indian communities do not 
derive their governmental power from the State of New Mexico. .. . [Ibid., 
p- 480.] [The court held that] the defendants did not act under color of State 
law. . . . [therefore] no violation of the Civil Rights Act has been alleged, and 
the Court, therefore, has no jurisdiction of the case. ... The complaint, there- 
fore, will be dismissed. [Ibid., p. 432.] 
The gist of this is: A Pueblo Indian community has a legal 
right to govern itself. If, therefore, it wishes to require its members 
to behave in certain ways and to prohibit them from behaving in 
others, it has a legal right to do so. It must not be taken for granted 
that the Bill of Rights applies naturally and of necessity to Pueblo 
Indians; it does so only if their respective pueblo governments specify 
and assert that it does. 
This episode has thrown considerable light, I believe, upon the 
relationship of Catholicism to aboriginal Indian culture at Sia. The 
heretics rejected Catholicism as they did the pagan beliefs and rites 
of Sia; there was no indication whatever that they considered the 
elements of Catholicism at Sia as being Christian. The orthodox 
Sia, on their side, regarded these elements as an integral part of 
their religion and way of life. 
