And this group was comically inept, a tiny bunch in Colorado claiming to be Munsees.
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http://www.bia.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/text/idc-001389.pdfp. 1
We recommend that the Munsee-Thames River Delaware Indian Nation (hereinafter
referred to as MTD) not be acknowledged as an Indian tribe....
The MTD is a recently formed group which did not exist prior to 1974. The group
focused around one individual and did not evolve from a tribal entity which has existed
on a substanUally continuous basis from historical. times until the present. It had no
characteristIcs of an Indian tribe which has maintained tribal relations over the years.
Concurrently:, no evidence was submitted by the petitioner or found by the staff which
indicates that the group ever had any political existence prior to 1974, the date of its
founding. There is substantial evidence that the group never existed as a political
entity.
The MTD appears to have been a very recent collection of six to 20 individuals, with
no previous social interaction, familial connections, common cultural or historical
knowledge. Although the members claimed to be of Indian descent, none have
documented:, or appear to be able to document, their Indian ancestry. At present, the
MTD appears to have disbanded entirely.
p. 3
While most of the members of the petitioning group resided in the Pueblo Colorado
Springs area during the 1976-77 period, there is no evidence to indicate that the MTD
was anything more than a group of disparate individuals attracted to the activities of
Clyde Richard Bungard, the leader and self-proclaimed chief and priest of the group.
The MTD was organized and it s organization was repeatedly modified through the
efforts of Clyde Richard Bungard. It has no Delaware or Munsee antecedents.
p. 4
Other than the tribal roil, which only lists names and ages of members, no genealogical
information wus submitted with the petition. A review of newspaper accounts and
other records, however, verified the existence of slightly more than half of ·those
listed on the MTD roll. Researchers were unable to verify the existence of the
remainder of those listed on the roll. Clyde Bungard, organizer of the petitioning
group, did not provide evidence to substantiate his claim to Indian ancestry. In an
article published in Wassaja in March 1978, however, Bungard wrote that he was
descended from B. Delaware, Elahtut, and a non-Indian who Elahtut married "back
east," in the 18BO's.
Members of Elluhtut's sister's family living today, however, deny any relationship and
claim that Elahtut was unmarried, Childless, and never left Oklahoma. Although in
several instances Bungard listed the place of his birth as Santa Clara County,
California, no record could be found of his birth in Santa Clara County or California
State vital records. A record of his birth, however, was found in the State of Ohio
vital records. This record indicates that Bungard and his parents were non-Indian.
One former member of the group claimed
that most of the 34 names on the MTD roll
were fictitious, created by Bungard to impress state and Federal authorities with the
size of his following.p. 7
....in the Spring of 1974, a news item appeared in the Pueblo
Chieftain newspaper relating to the arrest of a non-Indian female friend of Bungard.
This incident and the series of incidents which followed show how Bungard's concept of
tribal chief developed, how the idea of the MTD originated, and show how
Bungard, who referred to himself as William Lee Little Soldier, managed to establish a
relationship with one agency of the Federal government.
Bungard's friend was arrested by an officer of the Colorado State Division of Wildlife
for the illegal possession of 50 eagle feathers. Newspaper accounts of the incident
report that Littlei Soldier had "recently moved to Pueblo."
In defense of the woman, Bungard told authorities that he was the owner of the
feathers; that one of them had been owned by the "Thames Delaware" tribe for 90
years; and that neither he nor his friend were aware of the eagle feather law. He
maintained, however, that as a Delaware Indian he had a right to possess the feathers.
Despite testimony by Bungard that the feathers belonged to him and that as a
Delaware chief he was entitled to possess them, on November 12, 1974, the woman
was convictec of illegally possessing eagle feathers. The verdict was appealed.
During the early stages of the incident (in June) Bungard made no known claim to
being a chief. His claim that he was a Delaware chief was later added to his account
as the trial progTessed, probably in November.During the period between the original verdict and the hearing of the appeal, Bungard
worked to perfect his Indian story, developing two typewritten forms, one entitled
"Request to Receive Eagle Feathers For Use In Religious Ceremony" and a second
entitled, "Certification of the Tribal Status of Applicant," both of which were
forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife.
Bungard or an associate apparently filled out the first form. The second stated in part
that William Lee Little Soldier "according to Bureau files is a Thames Delaware chief
and priest ... Canadian Bureau files list him as a hereditary tribel (sic) Chief and a
member of the Snake Clan and Eagle Nob Religious Society". The certification carried
the signature of Shirley Plume, then Superintendent at the Standing Rock Agency. The
"Request to Receive 11 was dated May 10, 1974 and the certification was dated
May 20, 1974..
Plume's signature, however, was apparently forged. She swore in an
affidavit three years later that she did not provide, or sign a certificate for William
Lee Little Soldier; that his name was not on the Standing Rock Sioux roll; that her
agency held membership records of the Delaware tribe; and that
neither she nor her
staff was acquainted with or ever had any dealings with Bungard or Little Soldier.There is no indication as to where or how Bungard got Ms. Plume's name. Ms. Plume,
however, received nationwide publicity on her appointment as the first Indian woman
superintendent.
p. 9
In the summer of 1976, Bungard visited the East coast, where he attended a "powwow
of the Delaware nation" near Bushkill, Pennsylvania. A skeptical reporter noted
Bungard was "blond and a half breed." Bungard told the reporter that there were 39
members in his bribe in Colorado. This is the first recorded instance in which he
actually claimed he had a following. Researchers, however, could find no evidence to
substantiate that. he had any such following at this time.
There is substantial evidence to indicate that Bungard made efforts to recruit
members. These, were apparently recruited at large and not from any existing
community. There is no evidence that any of them, including Bungard, could establish
Indian ancestry from the Delaware tribe or any Indian tribe which existed historically,
as required by SE!ction 54.7(e).
While on the 1976 trip in the East, Bungard apparently made . his first serious attempts
to recruit me members, with a modest degree of success. Researchers were able to
establish that at least three people moved to Pueblo, Colorado, at Bungard's behest
during this period.
There is also some indication that
Bungard attempted to raise money through a
program of selling memberships in the Delaware Nation for $22.42. The fee was in
part to cover the expense of
the sweat lodge ceremony, which Bungard admitted was
occasionally held in a shower stall when time did not permit construction of an
authentic sweat lodge. This appears to be his first efforts to develop a group or
organization.
According to one former member of the group, the requirements for membership were
1/16 degree Inolan blood, but no proof was required. There is also no indication that
the members were required to be of Delaware descent or of one specific tribe. The
applicant simply was required to fill out a personal information card. "Anyone could
join if they just eame to Little Soldier and filled out a card," an informant told an
Acknowledgment researcher.
No documentation was submitted nor could the Federal Acknowledgment researchers
find any evidence that any members of the group were of Munsee or Delaware descent.
None of the individuals listed on the MTD roll applied for per capita payments in the
Delaware judgllumt award in Indian Claims Commission Dockets numbered 298 and 72.
There was a belief in the group that at least two of Bungard's followers were enrolled
with recognized Indian tJribes, Navajo and Chippewa. Both claimed to be 1/16 degree
Indian. Neither could be found on the rolls of the respective tribes claimed. There
was one member of the group who was apparently associated with an unrecognized
group.
p. 10
Following the POWWOW in Pennsylvania in 1976, Bungard and his wife, Princess White
Deer (aka Wanda W. Lee), spent part of the summer in Woodstock, New York, a
community of artists. While at Woodstock, he convinced a number of people to
support him finllneially in the purchase of land and the construction of an authentic
"big house" for the Munsee-Thames River Delaware. He was able to raise enough
money to pay $500 down on four acres of land near Marbletown, New York, which was
to be purchased for a total cost of $7,000. However, one informant noted Bungard's
backers withdrew their support and the Munsee-Thames River Delaware Nation made
no further payments on the land.
After a lengthy exchange of letter and telephone calls between Bungard and the seller,
no further payments were made. The mortgage was foreclosed in early 1981, after
further attempts to contact Bungard failed.
Back in Colorado, in the Fall of 1976, Bungard made a second effort to acquire land
using an approfu!h similar to that used in Woodstock, New York. The Pueblo Chieftain
newspaper carrie:d an article in January 1977 entitled "Fair-Skinned Chief Dreams of
Center," in which Bungard presented plans for a commercial campground and Indian
cultural center, and noted that donations were needed to fund the project. Apparently
unsuccessful in his attempts to solicit funds for his project, Bungard attempted to have
the State of Colorado donate 160 acres of land to the MTD. Although the attempt
failed, he did manage to arrange a personal meeting with the Executive Director of
the State's Commission on Indian Affairs, from whom he requested assistance with his
project. The Executive Director refused to cooperate and wrote the Bureau of Indian
Affairs questioning the legitimacy of the group. Bungard was successful, in securing
some exemptions as an Indian tribe from Colorado sales and use taxes through other
channels in July 1977.
In a further effort to gain State recognition of the MTD and his position as leader,
Bungard made an unsuccessful attempt to receive authorization from the State to
issue driver's licenses and license plates to "tribal members." Despite his failure to
receive the authcll'ization, he developed a "homemade" driver's license and license
plates for his personal automobile and used them until his new wife, Vickie Lee Little
Soldier (aka Vickie Jarvis), was arrested for driving an unregistered vehicle and driving
without a valid driver's license. The license plates for the automobile were hand
painted with the letters DPL-1, above which was painted the word, "Diplomat."
The incident involving the automobile and driver's license was one of a series of
brushes with the law, dating from March until July 1977. These ultimately resulted in
the arrest of Bungard, Vickie Jarvis, and several other members of the group on
charges of possession of more than one ounce of marijuana. Bungard pled guilty to the
charge of possession and was subsequently sentenced to six months in jail. All but one
month of the jail. sentence was suspended in favor of two years probation.
With police scrutiny of the group intensified as a result of the marijuana incident,
dissension increased among Bungard's associates, and they began to leave the area.
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Groups like this make you want the govt to sue for frivolous waste of taxpayer funds.
