page_title: American Indian Religious Freedom Act
section_title: Effects
hierarchical_section_title: American Indian Religious Freedom Act / Effects
caption_attribution_description: English: Tipi for peyote ceremony
context_page_description: The American Indian Religious Freedom Act, Public Law No. 95-341, 92 Stat. 469, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1996, is a United States federal law, enacted by joint resolution of the Congress in 1978. Prior to the act, many aspects of Native American religions and sacred ceremonies had been prohibited by law.
  The law was enacted to return basic civil liberties to Native Americans, Inuit, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians, and to allow them to practice, protect and preserve their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise their traditional religious rights, spiritual and cultural practices. These rights include, but are not limited to, access to sacred sites, freedom to worship through traditional ceremonial rites, and the possession and use of objects traditionally considered sacred by their respective cultures.
context_section_description: Native American tribes had traditionally been closely associated with their lands, and their religious practices and beliefs were based in specific geographic areas.  Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association (1988) is a landmark case in the Supreme Court's decisions affecting Native American religion under the AIRFA.  The bureaucratic decisions to alter land sites implemented by the Court on this case, constitute invasions of tribal self-understanding.  This case helped to prove that the dissipation of tribal identity is the consequence of land desecration.  The fact that land desecration is allowed to happen so easily is a result of the absence of enforcement and stability within the terms of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
  The Forest Service wanted to build a road that went directly through the sacred lands of the Yurok, Tolowa, and Karok tribes. Under Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, in 1988 the tribe filed suit against the government for denying their rights to religious freedom under the first amendment by ruling in favor of the United States Forest Service. Tribal leaders testified that the road would destroy parts of the pristine mountains and high country that the tribes considered sacred and essential to their religious beliefs and practices. They expressed their concerns in court, outlining the burden imposed upon their religious freedom. However, the court determined that, because the tribes had not stated a requisite legal burden on those rights, that they could not receive protection under the AIRFA.
  The Theodoratus Report was a comprehensive study prompted by the American Indian Religious Freedom Act during Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n (1988) and conducted by the United States Forest Service in order to evaluate policies and procedures to protect Native American religious cultural rights and practices.  This study was done in order to provide definitive information on the effects of the Forest Service's actions on Native American religious culture in high country.  This study was completed in April 1979 and was titled Cultural Resources of the Chimney Rock Section, Gasquet-Orleans Road, Six Rivers National Forest and was written by Dr. Dorothea J. Theodoratus, Dr. Joseph L. Chartkoff, and Ms. Kerry K. Chartkoff. It was a compilation of ethnographic, archaeological and historical data that identified the culture contained in the area that the Forest Service proposed to be the site of the Chimney Rock Section of the Gasquet-Orleans Road.  This culture belonged to the Yurok, Karok, and Tolowa peoples.
  In its final recommendations, the report criticizes the Forest Service for ignorance of the physical and historical significance and religious importance of the site proposed for road construction. The report warned the Forest Service against the ruinous impact of road construction, and its logging and mining operations. It said the philosophy that high country is solely a natural resource to be managed and improved was at fault. The report traced the long history of this site as sacred to succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples, whose connection could be documented from prehistory. The report stated that the only appropriate management of such land should be its preservation in a natural state.
  The Theodoratus Report, in effect, established a guideline by which the Forest Service would be able to understand the importance of land to Native American culture.  Because they had commissioned the report and recognized its significance they conformed with the AIRFA in the Lyng case, but it was the Theodoratus Report, not the AIRFA, that compelled the Forest Service to follow the report's collection of data on the religious significance of the high country.  However, nothing within the AIRFA prevented the Forest Service from ignoring the warning of its own commissioned report concerning the destruction of the Yurok, Karok, and Tolowa religious traditions.    
  This case's decision states that tribes have no First Amendment right of religious fre
caption: A Peyote Ceremony Tipi used by members of the Native American Church
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