CHEYENNE, Wyo. – The case of an eagle killed for religious purposes could end up where it began four years ago – on the Wind River Reservation, home of the Northern Arapaho Tribe.

Tribal court will be the venue where Winslow Friday is tried for shooting a bald eagle for the tribe’s 2005 Sun Dance, although other options are still possible if it cannot be resolved there, federal court officials said.

Friday had been scheduled for jury trial in District Court Oct. 5 but the case was continued until Nov. 23, pending the outcome of tribal court proceedings.

“I think it needs to play itself out in tribal court,” an assistant U.S. Attorney said. “As I understand it, it’s a legal issue under tribal law as well as federal law.”

For some tribal members, a resolution involving tribal values may seem more just than federal courts that have upheld eagle protection and possession laws as the least restrictive way to protect the birds and still permit their traditional use by Natives.

“The bird has already been used in a ceremony – in the highest ceremony of the Northern Arapaho Tribe – I still feel that it’s a not-guilty situation,” said Nelson White, keeper of the tribe’s sacred bundle and a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe Council of Elders. “That’s the way the Creator made us – not the federal government.”

The eagle was part of a bundle placed on the center pole in the Sun Dance circle, he said.

Friday, who was not available for comment, had awaited a possible plea agreement on a misdemeanor charge of violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which carries a potential fine and/or jail sentence of up to one year.

In tribal court, at least the issues would be more readily understood, said Chris Schneider, an attorney for the Northern Arapaho Tribe.

In an appeal before the 10th Circuit Court in 2008, Schneider said Friday would not have been convicted under traditional tribal law which, unlike Eurocentric law, may be unwritten and which predates the existence of the U.S.

Despite eagle protection laws, the FWS allows members of federally recognized tribes to use eagle feathers and parts for religious purposes, but generally prohibits the killing of eagles.

The agency maintains the National Eagle Repository near Denver, to which dead birds are sent and then kept for distribution to qualified applicants. The waiting list for feathers is lengthy and the birds are sometimes decomposed when they reach recipients.

The eagle for the Sun Dance was to be taken from the wild and, while federal “fatal-take permits” were said to be available, no individual tribal member had ever applied for or received such a permit, it was noted at an earlier court hearing.

The charges against Friday were initially dismissed in federal court in Wyoming, but the government reinstated the charges on appeal to the 10th Circuit Court and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case.

Jim Barrett, federal assistant public defender in Cheyenne, who represented Friday, said the 10th Circuit and other circuit courts have made a decision that the present FWS policy is the “least burdensome on the practice of religion,” but said he believes it could be “less burdensome.”

“The permit process could be more straightforward,” allowing those who find and report eagles killed by electrocution or accident to keep them, he said, calling for a “more common-sense approach” that, although perhaps not perfect, would offer “some relief” from shortcomings in the existing system.