Opinion ID: 412102
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The rights reserved by the 1898 Agreement were reserved communally.

Text: 43 Article IV of the 1898 Agreement must be construed as a retention of communal use rights by the Tribes in the ceded lands. Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Ass'n, 443 U.S. at 679, 99 S.Ct. at 3071. In negotiating the 1898 Agreement the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes bargained as an entity for rights which were to be enjoyed communally. United States v. Washington, 520 F.2d at 688. The Tribes owned the Reservation in common at the time of the 1898 Agreement, and they maintained a communal cattle herd, purchased with Tribal cession funds, from 1895 into the early part of this century. 44 The 1978 Memorandum of Understanding properly recognizes that the Article IV right to graze ceded lands is a tribal right for adjustment by the tribe. Whitefoot v. United States, 293 F.2d 658, 663 (Ct.Cl.1961), cert. denied, 369 U.S. 818, 82 S.Ct. 629, 7 L.Ed.2d 784 (1962). We agree with the district court that use of the communal grazing rights by the Tribes as an entity and by Indian livestock owners residing on the Reservation will further the objective of self-sufficiency implicit in the 1868 Treaty and the 1898 Agreement. 45