CASH-STRAPPED TRIBE PLANS CASINO ON BURIAL GROUND.(MAIN)

Byline: -- Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- For generations, American Indians have been dogged by poverty, their traditions weakened from within and without. But few things have encapsulated their plight as neatly as this: a proposal by a tribe to build a casino on an Indian burial ground.

``The tribe is small and needs money to survive. An economic development project like this will give us the money to be self-sufficient,'' said Leaford Bearskin, chief of the 3,800-member Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma.

``That they would think so little of their ancestors and elders and heritage to propose doing this, it's really abominable,'' said Fran …