In the March issue of Seattle Met, Lia Steakley recounted of the Duwamish Tribe’s century-and-a-half struggle for land and official recognition in a way that actually makes sense of the whole labrynthine saga. (It might break your heart too.)

Now P-I stalwart Paul Shukovsky, who’s covered the Duwamish issue for a decade, reports that the tribe is appealing to the Obama administration for funds to help see through its lawsuit against… the federal government. That lawsuit was provoked by the Bush administration, which overturned a Clinton official’s last-minute recognition of Chief Seattle’s people as a bona fide tribe. But the Obama administration has now inherited it. So The tribe is asking it to help fund a lawsuit against itself.

That’s not the last irony here. The tribe has lawyers working pro bono, but needs $128,000 to hire an anthropologist to make its historical case. Many Northwest Indian scholars have passionately endorsed the tribe’s claims. Surely anthropologists aren’t more mercenary than attorneys (even if they tend not to be as wealthy). No one will do it pro bono?