One Moment At A Time

One Moment At A Time

By: Pamela Waterbird Davison

Copyright 2007

Listen…
For the opportunity to grow. It exists in every moment of every day. It waits to be
heard through the noise of our fears. Be quiet and listen. Not all our questions need
to be answered right now. Wait to let the seeds take root and sprout before we
decide it’s time to harvest. Some things just take time.

Pay attention…
To the weeds of fear threatening to choke mind and spirit. Clear the clutter and get
down to the heart of the matter. Study what is there, seek the truth, then discard
what would deny us the feast of who we might become. This cannot be neglected.

Commit…
To expanding heart and soul with every possible good thing there is. Be vigilant. Be
honest. Be compassionate - for only unconditional love will bring about the fruit
which will sustain us.

Listen…
And hear what Great Spirit would have us know. In our solitude we will find the voice
to guide us. Release the burdens our world would offer and let us be who we
are…parents of the future, of our very own legacy. If somehow we should fail each
other, let us learn to forgive. When it is time for our harvest we will have much to be
grateful for.

This is what it means to weigh the truth every moment of every day. Listen, pay
attention, commit, then listen some more. And never forget compassion. After all,
we’re in this together and we’re all learning to grow one moment at a time.

Featured website: National Indian Education Association

Residing on a fraction of their original land, American Indians and Alaska Natives live like conquered people, dependent upon the federal government, in what was once their own country. Not only have they consistently been at the mercy of the racism and greed of the later Americans, but the life of American Indians and Alaska Natives has also been affected by shifting federal relationships with the tribes. The United States government has been unaccountable for violations of treaties made with the tribes-there are hundreds of broken treaties-and the federal government has been free to reduce the size of the reservations to which it consigned the people after having taken away their land.

What is called Indian education is a mirror of the shifting federal-tribal relationship. Begun in the nineteenth century, Indian education was seen as a device for forcing the assimilation of Indian children into the majority's social system. It was also a means of changing Indian adults from hunters to farmers on small land plots set aside by the federal government, thus providing greater areas for the influx of non-Indians moving westward. The original mission schools, supported by European companies, philanthropists, religious groups, and the federal government were later joined by a network of industrial boarding schools whose purpose was to separate children from their cultural background and force them into America's mainstream. The schools provided scant rudiments of the majority culture's education, focusing primarily on agrarian training.

In 1928, a study by the Brookings Institution of public and Bureau of Indian Affairs (government) schools brought to the attention of the federal government the deprivation and abuse of Indian children attending those schools. The study, which came to be called the Meriam Report, had a significant impact upon governmental policy. Resulting in the authorization of programs for improving the education of Indians, it brought about a period of change known as the Indian New Deal. Federal financial aid was provided to local districts, reservation day schools, and public schools which had been established on Indian trust lands.

The period of termination, which came a brief twenty years after the Indian New Deal, resulted in the termination of the federal relationship with many tribes. Many schools previously supported by federal funds were closed. American Indian and Alaska f Native children as well as adults suffered yet another downward swing. Education and culture once again suffered. Following the civil rights movement and a decade of Indian activism, Indian education in the 1970s became the beneficiary of a national interest in ethnicity and an expanded funding of various educational programs. Unfortunately, under the Reagan Administration, the duration of this latest period of reform is nearing its demise.

Want to know more? Click here: http://www.niea.org/

A Painter's Life

By: Andi Murphy

CROWNPOINT, N.M.—One self-taught Navajo artist went from hoping to make a sale from his art to being bombarded with requests for his beautiful paintings.

William "Willie" Murphy, 57, was born in Crownpoint and attended Gallup High School where he took an art class for three years.

One of the art students was advanced and already using oil paint while the other students, including Murphy, had to study books and basic technique.

"We were sitting the other way and he was painting," Murphy said. Watching the other student paint, Murphy knew that's what he wanted to do.

When he graduated high school in 1968, he got a job with the Navajo Nation. About his artistic skills, Murphy said, "I didn't think I had the talent. I didn't bother with it after high school."
It wasn't until Murphy turned 28 that he decided to paint. After being laid off from his job, Murphy didn't have any money to support his family.

"I told him that he should paint and he could do a real good job," said Oleta Murphy, his wife of 33 years. She had noticed that his artistic skills were good and had potential.

Get the whole story here: http://www.reznetnews.org/article/feature-article/painter%2526%2523039%3Bs-life

Check out his website here: http://www.williemurphy.com/

Native American leader Heart dies

Carole Anne Heart, the executive director of the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board died Friday, Jan. 25, at Rapid City Regional Hospital Auxiliary Hospice House after a battle with cancer.

Heart, 61, served as president of the National Indian Education Association in 2001.

“Carole Anne Heart, Sicangu Lakota, had a great spirit that illuminated her work and her life,” said current NIEA president Willard Sakiestewa Gilbert.

Heart was an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Yankton Sioux Tribe.

The Return of Native Americans as Immigrants

By: Louis E.V. Nevaer

As the immigration debate rages throughout the nation, the lingering, but unspoken, fear is that illegal immigration from Mexico heralds the return of the Native American.

“The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages,” Samuel Huntington famously argued in Foreign Affairs magazine in March 2004, unleashing a firestorm of protests among U.S. Hispanics and Latinos. “Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves — from Los Angeles to Miami — and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream.”

In fact, almost all Mexican immigrants are descendents of North America’s indigenous peoples. As Native Americans, they are terrifying precisely because they have a moral claim to migrate throughout the nation-states imposed on their lands.

This vilification of immigrants differs from the same sentiment of earlier generations. Previously, Americans debated and settled immigration issues through legislation: the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 to keep French and Irish Catholics out, the anti-Papist sentiment that fueled Nativism in the 19th century aimed at Italian, Irish and German immigrants, the xenophobia that culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” of 1907 aimed at the Japanese.

In “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,” Huntington argued that the Mexican state was complementary to the American one, both heirs of Europe and the Enlightenment. This suggests that the cultural conflict he fears is between Western versus Native American.

There's more here: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=0d7ce12ef7b01fe9806ce6d90e349853

Indian Country Could Back Obama on Super Tuesday

By: Ketaki Gokhale

Barack Obama is big in Indian Country, even though he’s done everything wrong.

He hasn’t attended the annual National Congress of American Indians meet, or rolled out a comprehensive Native American agenda, or even addressed the rumors of his own Native heritage—but he has still, somehow, managed to capture the imagination of Indian Country, say Native American commentators and community activists.

Whether that wave of goodwill is enough to carry him to “Super Tuesday” primary victories in the states of Alaska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Arizona, remains to be seen.

“Obama represents a break from the old—something fresh and new,” says Paul DeMain, managing editor of the Northern Wisconsin-based newspaper News from Indian Country. “Native people are looking at him as someone who can empathize with other people of color.”

DeMain has a hunch that those coming out in support of Obama are the young and the highly educated. The younger generation is trying to define itself in new political terms, he explains. “When I looked at who’s on his list, I saw lots of family names I recognized,” he says. For example, the daughter of LaDonna Harris, an outspoken Comanche leader who donated to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s presidential campaign last year, is now involved with the Obama campaign, says DeMain.

Want to know more? Click here: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=4522817d4da4721f47cfbe6b0fa7fd7f

Federal study backs up land claim by Tigua tribe

The Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A new federal study supports long-held claims by an American Indian tribe that the state of Texas stole 36 square miles of tribal territory in El Paso.

The 172-page report, completed last year, was obtained by the San Antonio Express-News under a Freedom of Information Act request. Now, members of the Ysleta Pueblo del Sur, known as the Tiguas, are trying to determine what to do with the information in the study.

The territory, which the tribe lost in 1871 when the Texas Legislature used it to incorporate the town of Ysleta, is now home to tens of thousands of homes and businesses.

''The real huge problem here is, what do you do about it?'' Tom Diamond, the attorney for the 1,600-member tribe, told the newspaper.

There's more here: http://www.woai.com/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=06e1f9a8-2104-43e5-a936-9011e681f890&rss=69

Northern Cheyenne Indian Nation seeks donations for Sand Creek Massacre project

By: Bobbie Whitehead

LA JUNTA, Colo. - The Northern Cheyenne Indian Nation continues to work on its Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site project, this time creating an educational program for the tribe as well as trying to acquire a portion of the site.

To support the tribe's plans, the Northern Cheyenne needs additional funding and is accepting donations to help with its Sand Creek programs.

''We are contemplating acquiring some land there that could come up for sale,'' said Steve Brady, Northern Cheyenne and co-chair of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site Committee for the Northern Cheyenne Indian Nation. ''We're working toward that end.''

Currently, the majority of the 12,300-acre Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site is privately owned.

But the National Park Service as well as the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma has acquired about 3,000 acres of the site, with the 1,465 acres acquired by the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma placed in a federal trust in 2005 for management as part of the national historic site, according to Brady.

Continue reading here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416529

It Does Not Take Many Words

By: Pamela Waterbird Davison

copyright 2007

“It does not take many words to speak the truth.” This quote has been attributed to many historical figures in North American Indian country. Chief Joseph, Nez Perce, and Black Elk, Lakota, both have been claimed to utter these words. Most likely every leader within the sovereign nations has probably said something along these lines at some point or another.

“It does not take many words to speak the truth.” It does take courage and conviction of what is right and wrong. These words belong to the people. If I speak an untruth it not only hurts everyone around me, it also damages my relationship with Great Mystery, for I have vowed to be a warrior of truth, and a warrior never forgets a vow.

“It does not take many words to speak the truth.” It cannot be justified by half-truths, explained away by circumstance, excused by incident. Truth knows no prejudice and is not fooled by arrogance. It is no accident nor will it be denied.

“It does not take many words to speak the truth.” And I am not afraid.

Featured website: First Nations Development Institute

Our Mission: Through a three-pronged strategy of education, advocacy, and capitalization, First Nations Development Institute is working to restore Native control and culturally-compatible stewardship of the assets they own - be they land, human potential, cultural heritage, or natural resources - and to establish new assets for ensuring the long-term vitality of Native communities.

Philosophy: A Native American tribe is more than the sum of its parts. It embodies the mystique of its community, the circle of inclusion. Within each member it generates powerful feelings of cultural solidarity. That precious spirit cannot survive without the underpinnings of economic development. But the development must be for everyone, for the tribe as a whole — not just a few. That is the Native American understanding.

Check it out! http://www.firstnations.org/

Students participate in Indian Education project

By: Charles S. Johnson

HELENA - Several hundred high school students gathered at the Montana Historical Society on Wednesday to learn from experts about American Indian music and drumming, beadwork, storytelling and a host of other topics.

The Historical Society, Helena High School and the Office of Public Instruction sponsored the event for government students as part of the state's Indian Education for All program. Nine programs were offered, with the students picking several to attend and complete worksheets.

As the heavy beat of a drum echoed throughout the museum, some students watched Indians dance and play the instrument.

Around the corner inside a gallery, some students learned about the tools and weapons that tribes used to hunt bison and other animals.

Get the whole story here: http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/01/24/news/state/55-education.txt

Last full-blooded Eyak dies at 89

By: Mary Pemberton

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Marie Smith Jones, who worked to preserve her heritage as the last full-blooded member of Alaska's Eyak Tribe and the last fluent speaker of its native language, has died. She was 89.

Jones died in her sleep Monday at her home in Anchorage. She was found by a friend, said daughter Bernice Galloway, who lives in Albuquerque.

"To the best of our knowledge she was the last full-blooded Eyak alive," Galloway said Tuesday.

"She was a woman who faced incredible adversity in her life and overcame it. She was about as tenacious as you can get."

As the last fluent speaker, Jones worked to preserve the Eyak language, a branch of the Athabaskan Indian family of languages, said Michael Krauss, a linguist and professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who collaborated with her.

Jones helped Krauss compile an Eyak dictionary, and Jones, her sister and a cousin told him Eyak tales that were made into a book.

The Eyak ancestral homeland runs along 300 miles of the Gulf of Alaska from Prince William Sound in south-central Alaska east to the town of Yakutat. Jones was born in Cordova in 1918, and grew up on Eyak Lake, where her family had a homestead.

In 1948, Jones married William F. Smith, a White Oregon fisherman who met Jones while working his way up the coastline, Galloway said.

The couple had nine children, seven of whom are still alive. None of them learned Eyak because they grew up at a time when it was considered wrong to speak anything but English, Galloway said.

Expectations

By: Pamela Waterbird Davison

Copyright 2007

Expectations leak out of us everyday in every way. Somehow we overflow with ideas of how we think people should behave or respond. And when our expectations are not met we become severely disappointed, laid to waste, and languish in our discontent; because that, too, is what we’ve come to expect.

We imagine our just rewards and cannot find the answers when compensation is not forthcoming. We call out to God, “Why has this happened? I’ve done everything. I can’t understand it.” Even God fails to come forward with a reasonable explanation.

Then we penalize the perpetrators of our anguish only to find in the end that what we’ve really done is punish ourselves. Joy disappears between the layers of mistrust we leave behind and it’s very sad indeed.

But what if we could change our perspective and expectations? What if there were a way to eliminate so much heartache and despair?

There are two very simple things to be done.

First is no incentive other than making your presence in someone’s life the very best it can be without waiting for the same in return. Even if you fall short of their expectations, yours will have been met. There is nothing more satisfying than knowing you’ve lived up to what you believe is the best you can offer.

Second is by far the most worthwhile of endeavors. Forgiveness is and always will be the greatest challenge human’s face. Yet it is the single thing we can do for our fellow humans and for ourselves that will free us from the tyranny of disenchantment and grant us tranquility unrivaled by any other emotion, including love, only because forgiveness begins with love.

What if we made the decision to love regardless of vows broken, harm committed, or expectations unmet? What if love was the only motivation to give of your self to anyone? Not acceptance, appreciation, or other recognition. Only love.

You may be cynical at first. It’s allowed. But I assure you that if you love without expectation you will find yourself freer than you ever thought possible.

We Indians are taught to learn from our elders and the stories they bring us, yet the greatest elder of all is the one living inside you. Listen, learn, forgive, and love. You won’t be disappointed.

Brown Receives Scholarship for Navajo Language Study

By: Carolyn Gonzales

Tavish Brown grew up in Naschitti, N.M., located between Gallup and Shiprock on the Navajo reservation. While still a student at Newcomb High School, where he graduated in 2005, Brown knew what he wanted to do: study the Navajo language. Brown is the UNM undergraduate recipient of the 2007 Robert W. Young Scholarship, which supports students studying Native American linguistics.

“Barbara Howard was my high school Navajo teacher. She told me that she was getting old and that I should learn Navajo and come back and take her spot,” Brown recalled. Howard also encouraged Brown to form a Navajo dance group at the school, which he did. Called T’iis Nideesghizh Bitsoόké, or “Grandchildren of Newcomb,” the group was influenced by the Dinétah Navajo Dancers; Brown is now one of their performers.

Brown speaks highly of the Navajo language program at UNM. “Ms. [Roseann] Willink helps us with difficult words, tongue twister words. She breaks them down, explains their history. She also explains the difference between some Navajo words used in New Mexico and those used by Navajos in Arizona,” he said.

Willink also helps her students to learn and understand old Navajo words that are not in use today, Brown said. He noted that the Navajo equivalent of the phrase, “let’s go,” has evolved from “tsotti’” to “tį́.”

“People who are fluent notice that others speak in a chopped up or abbreviated form. Only medicine men still speak the language in its full form,” Brown said.

Brown said that his parents speak Navajo, as does his older sister Tamara, a student at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His younger sister, Kendra, at Newcomb, doesn’t have the language fluency either. Brown said that mispronouncing words in Navajo can be embarrassing because they can be “bad words.”

The beauty of learning Navajo at UNM, he said, is that he is learning it while also learning more about culture and tradition. “Words are tied into ceremony. You can’t understand the words without their cultural context,” he said.

Want to know more? Click here: http://www.nativebiz.com/community/News,op=visit,nid=17613.html

January 23, 1919: Native American Code Talkers are put into service by the U.S. Army.

As long as he could remember, Philip Johnston had loved the Navajo culture and language. By age five, he had learned the tribal language well enough to serve as a translator for his missionary parents. By age nine, when most boys his age were riding bikes and trading baseball cards, he had served as an interpreter for a Navajo delegation sent to Washington, DC, to lobby for Indian rights. He had no way of knowing it at the time, but his affinity for, and mastery of, the Navajo tongue would one day help to save the lives of countless United States Marines.

In time, Johnston would leave the American Southwest and the people he loved to serve in World War I. After the war, he would earn his civil engineering degree at the University of Southern California. December 7, 1941, found him hard at work as an engineer for the city of Los Angeles. At the time, Johnston was in his 50s and well beyond the grasp of his local draft board; however, his experiences on the battlefields of Europe in a earlier time motivated him to try to put into action a plan that he was sure could help the war effort.

Johnston’s hope was to help the Marine Corps protect their communications so well that every Marine who wore the uniform would be provided a huge advantage in combat. His idea revolved around a code. But, unlike many coding systems, this code was not dependent on a complicated machine or a series of numbers or ciphers. Rather, the heart of his proposal rested on the language of the Navajo Indians. He was convinced that, used properly, the Navajo dialect would provide unprecedented security to those who would need it most. All he needed was a chance to prove it.

Native American Code Talkers are put into service by the U.S. Army, January 23, 1919

For more information click here: http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00034.cfm

A Good Time to Remember Standing Bear

By: Kevin Abourezk

As the country honors the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. this week, I think it's a good time to remember a man many consider to be our country's first civil rights activist. He is widely known in Nebraska, but I would dare say few have heard of him beyond the state's borders.

He is Chief Standing Bear of the Ponca Tribe.

In January 1879, Standing Bear and 30 of his followers left Indian Territory in Oklahoma to return to their former lands in Nebraska. You see, as it had done to so many Native people, the U.S. government had forcibly moved the Poncas from their homes and sent them to Oklahoma two years earlier.

But Standing Bear and his followers preferred their homelands along the Niobrara River to the barren earth of Oklahoma. Then the chief's son died. But before Bear Shield died, he asked his father to bury him in the soil of his homeland.

Like any father, Standing Bear wanted to fulfill his son's dying wish. So on Jan. 2, 1879, he and 30 followers left for Nebraska. Two months later, they were arrested, and Standing Bear was put on trial.

The trial of Standing Bear lasted two days. Shortly after it ended, the chief offered this impassioned plea to the court in an effort to prove he was a human being and entitled to the same right to freedom as every human being: "That hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both."

About two weeks later, federal Judge Elmer Dundy ruled that "an Indian (is) a person within the meaning of the law," entitled to the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. The decision allowed the Ponca to return to their lands and freed Standing Bear.

Get the whole story here: http://www.reznetnews.org/blogs/red-clout/good-time-remember-standing-bear

Grandmother Spider steals the Sun

A Cherokee Legend

Now, when Earth was brand new, there was much confusion, for there was darkness everywhere. All of Earth's Peoples kept bumping into each other, and were often hurt. They all cried out for light, that they might see.

Fox said that he knew of some people on the other side of the world who had plenty light. He said that it was nice and warm, but those people were too greedy to share it with anyone else. Possum said that he would steal Sun. "I have a beautiful, bushy tail," he said. "I can hide the Sun in all of that fur. Let me try."

So Possum went to the other side of the world and found the Sun. It was hanging up in a Tree and lighting up everything. Possum took a piece of the Sun and hid it in the fur of his tail. But Sun was so hot that it burned all of Possum's tail hairs off. To this day, Possum has a bare tail. The people discovered Possum and took the piece of the Sun back.

Buzzard said, "I will take the Sun myself. I will put it on my head, so that I can see where I am going with it." So he tried to take the Sun too. He flew to the other side of the world, and dived down to snare the Sun in his claws. But it was so hot that it burned all of Buzzard's feathers off of his head. To this day, Buzzard's head is bald and ugly. The people discovered Buzzard, and took the Sun back.

Then Grandmother Spider said, "Let me try."

First, she made a very thick clay pot, big enough to put the Sun in. Then, she spun a web which reached all the way to the other side of the world. She was so small and quiet that these people did not notice her at all. When she was ready, she quickly snatched up the Sun in her big clay pot, and hurried back home along her web. Now her side of the world had light, and warmth.

Everyone rejoiced at Grandmother Spider's gift.

Spider Woman brought the Sun to the Principal People, the Cherokee, but also the gift of fire. She also taught them to make pottery.

Native American Stories

By: Joseph Paige

Native American stories have always been about much more than mere entertainment, and served as a way to transmit faith and culture from generation to generation. While certainly interesting and entertaining, there is always much for the listener to learn, whether that listener is a Native American child learning the proper way to interact with elders and other moral and cultural values, or an anthropologist seeking to better understand indigenous peoples.

As the Europeans seized control of the continent, often they expended a great deal of effort on converting the native peoples from their own faiths, and all too frequently the concept of conversion by the sword or other coercive means was used, making Native American stories essential to the preservation of indigenous culture. Preserved by oral traditions that reached back for generations, Native American stories were able to keep ancient ways of life alive, helping these traditions to survive the constant assault of the continued pressure from the Europeans and the changes they wrought.

However, not all Native American stories were about the past at first telling. Many took current events and placed them within a context that fit the Native American culture, presenting happenings from the indigenous perspective, rather than what became the prevailing European point of view. Native American stories served an important role in recording events and in passing news.

And, like many stories in many cultures, Native American stories also served as a means of instructing children in right behavior, presenting heroes and heroines modeling ideal behavior in often difficult circumstances. From Native American stories, children learned the values and customs of their culture, like children everywhere do through the stories they are told.

Native American stories offer a fascinating glimpse into a culture that endured great stresses and hardships, and still managed to survive, even to grow and blossom with the passing years. Serving as the guardians of faith and tradition, Native American stories have a special place not only in indigenous culture, but also in the American culture as a whole.

Ghost Village Relic

By: Rachel D'Oro

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Four decades after it was abandoned, King Island holds an almost mystical pull for former inhabitants and their descendants, its crumbling homes still perched on stilts, clinging to the steep, rocky terrain.

Until recently, little else remained of the island, an Inupiat Eskimo village, except for traditions, memories and artifacts scattered at museums around the nation. Then came word from a stranger nearly 2,000 miles away who said she possessed an ancient mask a relative brought back from Alaska more than a century ago.

On the back of the relic was a faint inscription: "Taken from a medicine man's grave on King Island."

The woman from northwest Washington e-mailed Charlene Saclamana, tribal coordinator with the King Island Native Community based in Nome, a city 80 miles southeast of the tiny Bering Sea island where many of its residents relocated.

Marilyn Lewis said she wanted to return the wooden mask to its rightful owners. Two weeks later, she traveled to Alaska to deliver the artifact, which is now on display at the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum in Nome, named after the museum's late founder, a gold rush pioneer.

"It gives me and my family something tangible from our past. We've lost so much of the culture," said Saclamana, whose parents lived on King Island. "We were eager to have the mask back in our possession. We never had anything that well preserved from the island."

Read the whole story here: http://www.reznetnews.org/article/news/ghost-village-relic

Remaining Oneida elders want language to live on

ONEIDA — She remembers speaking Oneida as a child, in the days when she could still use it to converse in living rooms and corner stores across the reservation. Almost a century later, Maria Hinton is running out of people to talk to.

"There is nobody to speak with," the 97-year-old great-grandmother says in exasperation. "I'm just walking around my house speaking to myself."

Unique for its whispered syllables, Oneida uses only 15 letters and three symbols to convey a daily life deeply rooted in nature. The words often evoke a moving image, relying on the senses to illustrate a moment. The word for bear clan, "oskle7wake," describes the glistening powder color of the animal's face.

Hinton is one of three elders left who speak this vivid tongue, surviving matriarchs from the last generation to communicate in Oneida. Most members of the Wisconsin tribe today know basic vocabulary but can't use it in conversations.

Want to know more? Click here: http://www.nativebiz.com/community/News,op=visit,nid=17590.html

Minimum Requirements - part 1

Minimum Requirements

By: Pamela Waterbird Davison

Copyright 2008

Did you know that every single person walking this planet is a sacred being? There’s not a one among us who is not capable of being a “spiritual leader”. Think about it!

Every one who believes in a Greater Being also believes we come directly from Creation itself. If we consider this one thing for just a moment we realize the significance we carry in this manifestation we call life. To me it’s like we’re all small expressions of Great Spirit. After all, we call ourselves children of God. Wouldn’t that mean we are therefore an extension of our parent?

At the same time we are ash and dust, elements of Mother, and we belong as much to her as we do to our Father. Honor thy Mother and Father is not an outmoded old commandment. It is a literal statement issued by our Sacred Mother and Father. Even when winds blow so hard we can barely survive or when a most fervent wish is not granted, we are supposed to honor the most sacred aspects of our existence.

Taking this idea one step further requires us to look at the possibilities. We are meant to be “spiritual leaders” of our own lives. If we are given the tools to journey to Mars, cure polio, and build cities of great excitement, then would we not also be given the ability to understand our own path and the righteousness of our being?

It seems to me we greatly underestimate the value we hold in the eyes of our own Creator. Not in the eyes of our fellow man, not in the eyes of our birth parents, but in the eyes of our Real Parents. So it only stands to reason that we should be falling to our knees in gratitude, not for our smallness or unworthiness, but for the largest and most amazing gift we are…representing Spirit to the universe, far and wide, full and unknowing.

I say we have it in us to be so much greater than we give ourselves credit for and I can’t help but wonder what this place would be like if we all saw ourselves as a Dali Llama, a Buddha, a Christ, an Allah, or anyone else who speaks to your creation. What if our soul/sole purpose of being here together was to see that sacredness in each other for what it is?

I’m guessing this is one reason why my ancestors never held any one person up as a single “worthy” entity. Great warriors were held in high regard, just as any elder or chief, but there were/are no “spiritual warriors of greatness” above us. Each person was/is held to the belief that we all must be who we must be and no one person is superior to another in any way.

We are all sacred. If everyone walked as though this were truth without question, imagine what our way of life would be.

Our minimum requirement for today is to understand and accept the unbelievable gift we are. If I am a waitress who offers a comforting smile that says I understand to a customer whose loneliness and fear bring out their worst, or a driver who allows someone to get in front of me without angry words or expectations of gratitude, then I am being Sacred. Every little gesture becomes much more important. Every word I utter becomes much more momentous. And with each step of this understanding I get a little closer to being what I’m supposed to be.

What an awe-inspiring thought!

The Crying Song

An original legend

By: Pamela Waterbird Davison 2006

The Crying Song

Long, long ago, when the people were new to the land and barely a voice could be heard by Father Sky, one warrior set out to search for a way to make his prayers known.

His heart was red and pure where he laid upon the soft, soft grass, crying and crying. He cried for the beauty surrounding him in all the trees, animals, and sky; so unbelievable and beyond anything he could imagine. He cried for the beauty of his people, young and old, bold and brave, humble and grateful. He cried so Great Mystery would know the true intent of his walk.

Many times did Grandmother Moon pass over his face, and even when his voice began to crack, blood dripping from his chin, he continued to cry. Such was the depth of his love for all Creator had given him in this life. Still, he could not hear his words rise above the mountains.

The visions came to him, one by one, where he saw the land and the people as he hovered above them. From such great heights, the absolute warrior witnessed everything his people longed to say, and he moved higher. His body was dying, not from hunger, but from thirst, so long had it been since water touched his lips. Yet, he did not worry for he was changing.

He became removed from his human form, taking on the shape of a bird much more powerful than any other. His breast pounded with the sounding of the people’s drum, a heartbeat in time with Mother Earth. He grew claws strong enough to carry the people’s words to Great Mystery, and he flew higher and higher.

When he reached Creator he spoke of the things lingering in the hearts of red people everywhere, and his words were heard, for from that moment on he was appointed carrier of prayers, hopes, and dreams.

Today we look up, searching for Eagle, our ultimate warrior, carrying our hearts to the One who would listen, and we can still hear him crying, his voice like a sweet, sweet song.

What is...

The Indian Self-determination & Education Assistance Act?

Signed into law on 4 January 1975, this legislation completed a fifteen-year period of policy reform with regard to American Indian tribes. Passage of this law made self-determination, rather than termination, the focus of government action, reversing a thirty-year effort to sever treaty relationships with and obligations to Indian tribes. The disastrous consequences of termination, combined with aggressive Indian activism, had encouraged a reexamination of government policy. During the 1960s, the War on Poverty's Community Action programs, with their philosophy of "maximum feasible participation of the poor," also encouraged a change in direction. Significant too were President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1968 congressional message on Indian affairs entitled "The Forgotten American" and Richard M. Nixon's official repudiation of termination in 1970.

A policy of self-determination committed the federal government to encouraging "maximum Indian participation in the Government and education of the Indian people." The 1975 legislation contained two provisions. Title I, the Indian Self-Determination Act, established procedures by which tribes could negotiate contracts with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to administer their own education and social service programs. It also provided direct grants to help tribes develop plans to assume responsibility for federal programs. Title II, the Indian Education Assistance Act, attempted to increase parental input in Indian education by guaranteeing Indian parents' involvement on school boards.

Subsequent amendments to the Self-Determination Act adopted in the 1980s and 1990s launched self-governance. Under this program, tribes would receive bloc grants from the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to cover a number of programs. In 2000, about half of the bureau's total obligations to tribes took the form of self-determination contracts or bloc grants. Additionally, seventy-six tribes had contracted for health clinics, diabetes programs, mobile health units, alcohol and drug abuse clinics, and Community Health Representative programs through the Indian Health Service. As amended, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act stands as one of the twentieth century's seminal pieces of federal Indian legislation.

Culture by Momaday at the Rasmuson Theater

By: Jerry Reynolds

WASHINGTON - Writing and language are not identical. The tradition of oral storytelling is much more ancient than writing, and author N. Scott Momaday may well be onto something when he says, ''Writing gives us a sense of false security. ... Everything in the oral tradition is just one generation away from extinction.''

By extension, everything in the written tradition could also be at risk in a generation; but cultures based on writing, which is most of them these days, don't see beyond the illusion of durability provided by material pages, not even as volumes of writing vaporize daily in cyberspace.

It's a viewpoint, apparently Momaday's own. But he would be a more convincing advocate of these and other positions if he were not a past master of both writing and public reading, as he proved again Nov. 28 at the National Museum of the American Indian's Rasmuson Theater. To hear him was to suspect that the divide between oral and written storytelling is no more vast than that between the arts and sciences - people, special people perhaps, will always bridge it; and other people, perhaps no less special, will always possess the aptitude to appreciate and embrace their achievement.

And so with Momaday, the great and greatly honored writer (Pulitzer Prize for ''House Made of Dawn,'' National Medal for the Arts, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, recipient of Italy's highest literary award, poet laureate of Oklahoma in the state's centennial year) who reads from manufactured pages in a deep-pitched, authoritative yet friendly voice that doesn't know the meaning of off-balance or unnatural or out-of-key, as if born for the improvisational stage. (Another of Momaday's views is that live theater - calling all Native-language Shakespearians: he mentioned ''Hamlet'' - is contemporary culture's nearest approximation to oral storytelling.) He closed with an oral reading of surpassing satisfaction for the audience, but it was based on a piece of his writing that is surely in the first rank of artful prose.

There's more here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416426

Developer must repair, protect Indian mounds

By: Amy Rinard

Summit - State officials have ordered Pabst Farms developers to repair and better protect American Indian effigy mounds near a large construction site after work crews damaged the panther-shaped burial sites. Pat Manders, who lives near the Pabst Farms property, notified state and local authorities of the damage done to the mounds. Tire ruts are visible in an American Indian mound on the Pabst Farms property south of I-94. The mounds have now been surrounded by protective fencing.

Workers put up fencing Wednesday along the edges of the three earthen mounds on land that Pabst Farms Development owns east of the site of the Aurora hospital under construction at the southeast corner of I-94 and Highway 67.

Archaeologists from the Wisconsin Historical Society inspected the mounds Tuesday and ordered the fencing to prevent further damage. "We responded immediately," Dan Warren, development manager for Pabst Farms, said Wednesday.

Get the whole story here: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=708257

9th Circuit issues decision in aboriginal title case

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled against a member of the Karuk Tribe of California who claimed aboriginal title n a national forest.

Karen Lowry was charged with trespassing in the Klamath National Forest. The U.S. Forest Service said she didn't have a special-use authorization and hadn't received an Indian allotment for the property she was occupying.

As part of her case, Lowry raised an aboriginal title defense. Her parents and grandparents have lived in the Oak Bottom area of the forest since the late 1800s and the Karuk people have occupied the same area for thousands of years.

Lowry argued that it was up to the government to prove she didn't have aboriginal title. But the 9th Circuit, in what it called a "question of first impression," said the burden was on the defendant.

In the unanimous decision, the court said "if we were to place the burden on the government, we would create a presumption that Indians have an individual aboriginal claim until the United States proves otherwise. Such a presumption might prove unworkable in a number of ways—not the least being that it might subject some national forest system lands to multiple claims of ownership and leave the United States unable to manage its lands effectively."

The court also ruled on the merits of Lowry's claim and said she didn't prove aboriginal title to the parcel she occupied. Her ancestors lived on nearby parcels but not on the same plot of land, the court said.

"There is no basis in the case law to expand a claim of individual aboriginal title based on occupancy of one parcel of land to include another parcel that was never so occupied," the 9th Circuit stated.

Who is Waterbird aka Weighs The Truth?

I am a passionate person. Everything I do carries with it the depths of who I am. I believe in living every moment of this life to its completeness. No matter what the feeling might be, it is necessary to own each and every part of ourselves if we are to honor Spirit. I believe Spirit intended it to be this way.

That’s why I choose to make something of myself regardless of what people might think of me. I will not compromise the things I believe in. I will not denigrate the teachings so humble and real.

These are the things I believe in…

Family, both those we are born to and those whom we select throughout the course of our lives make us who we are. This idea includes those who have hurt us the most. Take myself for example. I am Cherokee, Scottish, Choctaw, and who knows what else. I’ve become so diluted that most folks won’t even acknowledge me as one of their own. So who am I entrusted to? Who do I belong to?

I believe in my gifts. It wasn’t always that way. Always there has been someone who was more than glad to show me just how “un-special” I really am. My gratitude for them runs deeper than I can explain. Somehow, managing to balance my gifts with humility has kept me sane. I am no different from the rest of humanity. I hurt and bleed as anyone else.

Personal responsibility is crucial to any path, but most especially to those who walk a path of truth and trust. No one can own what belongs to me but me. Even if I allow others to detract me from my goals, I must follow where Spirit leads me. I trust the truth.

The truth is we are all here to help each other understand. Exactly what that understanding is I can not say for everyone, but I can say for me. I cannot fix you with my love. I cannot heal your wounds. I cannot tell you what your path should be. I understand it is not my place to interfere with your process, but it is meant for me to serve.

These are the things I believe in most of all. I can believe in myself or another human being, but it’s those intangible things which we can’t really touch or express which speak the loudest to me. I know somewhere inside you, you understand precisely what I’m referring to.

And if I can stand for only one thing…it’s this: The spirit world “gets it” and we’re all a bunch of dorks.

I don’t want to wait until I’m in the spirit world to “get it”.

What do you believe in?

Do you know...Ken Blackbird (featured artist)

Ken Blackbird, a Native American Photographer, is an Assiniboine member of the Fort Belknap Indian Community of Montana. He specializes in textured portraits of life – people interwoven within their environments. Each photograph illustrates a moment captured – a story. The passion of every day life illuminates upon Mr. Blackbird’s canvas. He seeks to document life as it should be – people steeped in their rituals, today and always.

Currently, Mr. Blackbird’s work can be viewed at the British Museum in London, Montana Historical Society, National Museum of the American Indian, and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.

His current commercial client list includes Sapphire Strategies representing the Coeur D’Alene Tribe (www.sapphirestrategies.com), S&K Technologies (www.sktcorp.com), United States Justice Department, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, Turtle Island Publishing, Inc. (www.turtleisland.com), American Indian College Fund, Pyramid Communications (www.pyramidcommunications.com), National Institutes of Health, Senator John Tester Campaign, Montana, and Turner Broadcast Network.

“We (Native Americans) were always typecast by Edward Curtis, the 19th-century photographer; I wanted another way to look at Native Americans, something that had never been done before. I try to make photographs that say something." - Ken Blackbird, 2005

Check out some of his work here: http://www.kenblackbird.com/Ken_Blackbird/Portfolio_/Portfolio_.html

Tribal members honor leaders with Buffalo Dance during annual All Kings Day event

By: David Collins

With the sound of jingle-bell leggings and gourd rattles, Pueblo of Pojoaque buffalo dancers celebrated a new year and marked the final day of the Christmas season Sunday by honoring their elected officials.

Area pueblos hold feasts and dances Jan. 6 to celebrate All Kings Day, a traditional Christian holiday commemorating the arrival of three kings to visit the newborn Jesus.

Outside the home of Pojoaque Gov. George Rivera, the pueblo's secretary, treasurer and lieutenant governor stood by their governor, each cradling in their arms ceremonial canes as they watched the Buffalo Dance. The canes are a symbol of pueblos' legal authority, Rivera said.

The Buffalo Dance honors the animals that have sustained Pueblo people, Rivera said. On this occasion, "dancers are dancing on behalf of the leadership, to lead with strength," Rivera said.

After the dance and a prayer in Tewa language, four young dancers paused to honor the canes in the arms of elected officials.

Throughout the day, friends, neighbors and pueblo members stopped by Rivera's hilltop home, sat for a bite to eat and joined in casual conversations. Outside, older youths played hacky sack, while inside, moms kept an eye on younger kids while they enjoyed each other's company.

"I feel good that the pueblo is keeping up with its culture and ceremonies," Rivera said. "It's good to see the youth who are being brought up with them as a part of their lives."

Read more here: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/All_kings_day_Celebration_of_sovereignty_Pojoaque_Pueblo_honors

Tulalips to hold gathering of coastal Indian tribes

By: Krista J. Kapralos

Tribal leaders from Canada and the United States are expected to travel to the Tulalip Indian Reservation next month for a meeting they hope will strengthen their political ties and forge environmental priorities.

Nearly 200 people are expected to meet for the third Coast Salish Gathering Feb. 27-29 to discuss environmental issues facing coastal tribes.

Weary of being divided by an international border, Indians of the Coast Salish Region, which stretches from British Columbia to Oregon, began meeting formally three years ago. The 2005 gathering was held at the Jamestown S'Klallam Indian Reservation on the Olympic Peninsula, and the 2007 gathering was held in Duncan, B.C. There was no gathering in 2006.

"This will be a policy dialogue," said Debra Lekanof, a Swinomish tribal employee and coordinator for the gathering. "It will be a discussion and sharing of information to protect the Salish Sea eco-region."

Get the whole story here: http://heraldnet.com/article/20080114/NEWS01/654766296

Important dates in January

January 4, 1975: The Indian Self-determination & Education Assistance Act is signed.

January 23, 1919: Native American Code Talk are put into service by the U.S. Army.

Navajo Code Talkers

The code that was never broken

Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima: the Navajo code talkers took part in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They served in all Marine divisions, transmitting messages by telephone and radio in their native languagea code that the Japanese never broke.

Why Navajo?

The idea to use Navajo for secure communications came from Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary to the Navajos and one of the few non-Navajos who spoke their language fluently. Johnston, reared on the Navajo reservation, was a World War I veteran who knew of the military's search for a code that would withstand all attempts to decipher it. He also knew that Native American languages notably Choctaw had been used in World War I to encode messages.

Johnston believed Navajo answered the military requirement for an undecipherable code because Navajo is an unwritten language of extreme complexity. Its syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention dialects, make it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and training. It has no alphabet or symbols, and is spoken only on the Navajo lands of the American Southwest.

More information is available here: http://www.nativeamericans.com/CodeTalkers.htm

Identity of Yosemite Indians sought in the mists of history

By: Vanessa Colón

Who were the early inhabitants of Yosemite Valley -- Miwoks or Mono Lake Paiutes?
The answer matters to David Andrews, a Paiute who believes his ancestors' history has been underplayed by the National Park Service.

Yosemite National Park's historical displays mention both Indian groups as having a presence in the glacially carved valley. But the park has generally given the Miwok more prominence.

Andrews believes that history needs to be rewritten. He has led a two-year effort to persuade the park to give the Paiutes a more prominent role in displays chronicling the Valley's earliest inhabitants.

"What they are teaching little Johnny is false. I find it offensive," said Andrews, 55, who lives in Sacramento and is chairman of the Yosemite Mono Lake Paiute Community.

Yosemite National Park spokesman Scott Gediman said the park has based its historical displays on academic research and early historical accounts.

"If there's proof something that's been done is incorrect, we'd change it," Gediman said. But, he added, the park service remains unconvinced at this time that it has to change its exhibits.

Having Yosemite's story reflect the Paiute's role is a matter of cultural pride and historical accuracy, said Andrews, who said his effort is supported by other members of the Paiute community. It's also important, he said, for building a case with the federal government to have an Indian community formally recognized as a tribe.

Want to know more? Click here: http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/315939.html

Pair breathe life into dead language

Takelma are thought to be the earliest residents of Southern Oregon

By: Paris Achen

In 1933, anthropologist John Peabody Harrington chauffeured the last known fluent Takelma speaker, Frances Johnson, from the Siletz Reservation near Newport to the Rogue River Valley to capture some of the phrases and stories of the dying indigenous language.

During the trip, Harrington took about 1,200 pages of field notes on the language, now extinct, said storyteller Thomas Doty.

Johnson died the following year.

Seventy-five years later, Doty and author John Michael Greer hope to revive the Takelma language by writing its first handbook.

"We are basically taking an essentially extinct language and bringing it back to life," Doty said.
"Talking Takelma," the first publication of the Takelma Language Project, will draw on the work of Harrington, 1884-1961, Edward Sapir, 1884-1939, and other anthropologists.

The project began about a year ago as part of Doty's effort to make the stories and culture of Southern Oregon's oldest population available to current residents and descendents of the tribe.
No timeline has been set for its completion, as both writers are working on the project in their spare time.

An English-Takelma dictionary and a collection of traditional myths in Takelma and English are planned to follow the handbook, Greer said.

The Takelma are the earliest known people to have lived in Southern Oregon.

"They are a people we know very little about and could have known more had they not been removed or decimated by disease," said Jeff LaLande, archaeologist with the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.

Harrington and Sapir both worked with Johnson to learn more about the Takelma and about the lowland dialect of the language.

Get the whole story here: http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080111/NEWS/801110323