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WE, THE MEMBERS OF THE PONCA TRIBE OF NEBRASKA

in order to restore, preserve and protect all rights aboriginally held by our people and their descendants, promote peace, prosperity, happiness, and the general welfare of the members of our Tribe and our posterity, to exercise home rule, to assert our inherent sovereignty, to protect our right of self-government, to conserve custom, to improve our social order, to protect our rights as individuals, to promote our economic welfare, to promote domestic tranquility, to promote business enterprises both cooperative and individual, to promote educational opportunities for all Ponca people, to consolidate our land holdings by purchase, exchange, transfer, gift, or otherwise, do ordain and establish this Constitution in accordance with our inherent sovereignty, and all previous aboriginal rights of our members and Treaties previously entered into with the United States of America.

from the Preamble of the Ponca Constitution