Book Review of Brian Edward Brown, Religion, Law, and the Land: Native Americans and the Judicial Interpretation of Sacred Land

Abstract:     
Professor Wildenthal reviews Professor Brown's book, "Religion, Law, and the Land: Native Americans and the Judicial Interpretation of Sacred Land" (Greenwood, 1999). Brown discusses several court cases in which American Indian tribes have challenged government actions threatening lands held sacred according to Native American religious traditions - most notably, Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 485 U.S. 439 (1988), in which the Supreme Court rejected a challenge by the Yurok, Karok, and Tolowa Indians of northern California to a proposed government logging road through a mountainous part of the Six Rivers National Forest, not owned by the tribes but which they viewed as sacred.

Wildenthal praises the eloquence and insights of Brown's book, but suggests that it could have placed its discussion of the cases in better context by discussing more thoroughly other scholarly analyses of the issue. The review elaborates on several aspects of the prevailing judicial treatment of Indian sacred-site claims, identified by Brown. Wildenthal generally agrees with Brown that courts have often failed to appreciate the history and context of Indian religious freedom issues.

Keywords: American Indian, Native American, religious freedom, Free Exercise Clause, Establishment Clause, First Amendment, sacred sites, Brian Edward Brown, Six Rivers National Forest

JEL Classifications: K10

Accepted Paper Series