Cherokee legend...
A long time ago, the people of the old town of Kanu'ga'la'yi on Nantahala river, in the present Macon County, North Carolina, were much annoyed by a great insect called Ulagu. Large as a house, it used to come from some secret hiding place and snap up children and carry them away. It was unlike any other insect ever known and the people tried many times to track it to its home, but it was too swift to be followed.
They killed a squirrel and tied a white string to it, so that its course could be followed with the eye, as bee hunters follow the flight of a bee to its tree. The Ulagu came and carried off the squirrel with the string hanging to it, but darted away so swiftly through the air that it was out of sight in a moment. They repeated the operation with a turkey, then a deer ham, but nothing worked. At last they killed a deer and tried again. This time the load was so heavy that it had to fly slowly and so low that the string could be plainly seen.
The hunters got together for the pursuit. They followed it along a ridge until they saw the nest of the Ulagu in a large cave in the rocks below. On this, they raised a great shout and made their way rapidly down to the mountain and across to the cave. The nest had the entrance below with tiers of cells built up one above another to the roof of the cave. The great Ulagu was there, with thousands of smaller ones, that we now call yellow-jackets. The hunters built fires around the holes, so that the smoke filled the cave and smothered the great insect and multitudes of the smaller ones, but others which were outside the cave were not killed, and these escaped and increased until now the yellow-jackets, which before were unknown, are all over the world. The people called the cave Tsgagunyi "Where the yellow-jacket was", and the place from which they first saw the nest they called "Atahita" "Where they shouted" and these are their names today.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
American Indian Higher Education Consortium Prepares for New Leadership
By: Mary Annette Pember
Carrie Billy of the Navajo tribe will take over the position of executive director of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium effective June 1.
She replaces Dr. Gerald Gipp of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, who has served as executive director since 2001. Billy, currently serving as the organization’s deputy director and director of STEM development, has worked in American Indian higher education circles for a number of years. She joined AIHEC for the second time in 2001. An attorney, she served as Federal Relations Counsel for the organization from 1997 to 1998.
From 1998 to 2001, Billy served as the first executive director of the White House Initiative of on Tribal Colleges and Universities under the Clinton administration. During her tenure, TCUs received their largest ever federal funding increase as well as the establishment of the American Indian Teacher Corps Program, the Tribal College Technology Information Program and other important advances in tribal college funding and programming. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona and Georgetown University Law School.
In addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations of the central AIHEC office in her current position, she oversees the American Indian Measures for Success data collection initiative which is defining, collecting and reporting quantitative and qualitative indicators of American Indian student and institution success. She also oversees the Indigenous Evaluation Initiative, a multi-year effort to develop a framing for indigenous evaluation, which will synthesize indigenous ways of knowing and western evaluation practice.
“AIHEC is on the cusp of our growth potential,” Billy says.
She notes that the tribal college movement is maturing and has reached a firm foundation and is now ready to move into new development activities.
There's more to the story here: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_11050.shtml
Carrie Billy of the Navajo tribe will take over the position of executive director of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium effective June 1.
She replaces Dr. Gerald Gipp of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, who has served as executive director since 2001. Billy, currently serving as the organization’s deputy director and director of STEM development, has worked in American Indian higher education circles for a number of years. She joined AIHEC for the second time in 2001. An attorney, she served as Federal Relations Counsel for the organization from 1997 to 1998.
From 1998 to 2001, Billy served as the first executive director of the White House Initiative of on Tribal Colleges and Universities under the Clinton administration. During her tenure, TCUs received their largest ever federal funding increase as well as the establishment of the American Indian Teacher Corps Program, the Tribal College Technology Information Program and other important advances in tribal college funding and programming. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona and Georgetown University Law School.
In addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations of the central AIHEC office in her current position, she oversees the American Indian Measures for Success data collection initiative which is defining, collecting and reporting quantitative and qualitative indicators of American Indian student and institution success. She also oversees the Indigenous Evaluation Initiative, a multi-year effort to develop a framing for indigenous evaluation, which will synthesize indigenous ways of knowing and western evaluation practice.
“AIHEC is on the cusp of our growth potential,” Billy says.
She notes that the tribal college movement is maturing and has reached a firm foundation and is now ready to move into new development activities.
There's more to the story here: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_11050.shtml
Navajo journalist Shebala wins Distinguished Lecturer Award
By: Sam Stoker
FLAGSTAFF - It seems life has come full circle for Navajo Times senior reporter Marley Shebala. On Thursday, the Associated Press -the same newswire service she said 20 years earlier had told her nobody was interested in stories from the Navajo Reservation- awarded her with the Distinguished Lecturer Award at the 2008 Eunson Awards Ceremony.
Each year the Associated Press and Northern Arizona University recognize one NAU alumnus/a who has distinguished themselves in the field of journalism with the Eunson Award. Likewise, the Eunson Award program also recognizes a distinguished lecturer.
During Shebala's speech at the ceremony she spoke of the importance of journalists utilizing their roots and experience in the field. "It is important to use the expertise of, and to continue to understand, where you come from," she told the audience.
The statement was drawn from her own experiences as a Native American woman journalist. In the 20-plus years since she began her career, Shebala has dealt with racism from the white community as well as periods of disdain from her own community. She said it was an understanding of her roots as well as a commitment to accurate reporting that have pulled her through periods when she doubted her ability to continue in the field. She is now recognized as one of the finest community and investigative reporters in the state.
Keep reading here: http://www.navajohopiobserver.com/main.asp?SectionID=23&SubSectionID=23&ArticleID=6821
FLAGSTAFF - It seems life has come full circle for Navajo Times senior reporter Marley Shebala. On Thursday, the Associated Press -the same newswire service she said 20 years earlier had told her nobody was interested in stories from the Navajo Reservation- awarded her with the Distinguished Lecturer Award at the 2008 Eunson Awards Ceremony.
Each year the Associated Press and Northern Arizona University recognize one NAU alumnus/a who has distinguished themselves in the field of journalism with the Eunson Award. Likewise, the Eunson Award program also recognizes a distinguished lecturer.
During Shebala's speech at the ceremony she spoke of the importance of journalists utilizing their roots and experience in the field. "It is important to use the expertise of, and to continue to understand, where you come from," she told the audience.
The statement was drawn from her own experiences as a Native American woman journalist. In the 20-plus years since she began her career, Shebala has dealt with racism from the white community as well as periods of disdain from her own community. She said it was an understanding of her roots as well as a commitment to accurate reporting that have pulled her through periods when she doubted her ability to continue in the field. She is now recognized as one of the finest community and investigative reporters in the state.
Keep reading here: http://www.navajohopiobserver.com/main.asp?SectionID=23&SubSectionID=23&ArticleID=6821
Monday, April 21, 2008
Katrina, Rita and the Houma: A Nation in Recovery
By: Victor Merina
HOUMA, La.—Up the bayou. Down the bayou. Across the bayou.
For a visitor to this stretch of Louisiana, those are the directions you quickly learn while traveling the waterways and roadways of this southeastern region of this Southern state.
For those at home in the bayou, no weathervane is needed to guide you. No compass readings are required. There is the water's landmark, the signpost of the bayou to tell you which way to drive, which way to travel.
Louisiana may be best known as the home of Mardi Gras and the football Saints, as a stirring pot of jazz and blues and zesty cuisine. Thanks to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it may forever be the memory stick for disaster, for images of broken levees and a stifling Superdome, and for tales of heroism and despair in now-familiar places like the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
But it is also Indian Country, land of the mostly forgotten. It is home to the United Houma Nation, nearly half of whose members were displaced up and down the bayou, their homes battered by hurricane winds or flooded by avalanches of water.
"Our people suffered a lot, and many people don't know that," said Brenda Dardar Robichaux, principal chief of the Houma Nation. "We're still recovering, and it's been a slow process."
With 17,000 enrolled members, the Houma constitute the largest tribe in Louisiana. Over the centuries, they have found themselves moving farther down the bayou, historically pressed by the encroachment of European and American newcomers whose appetite for land pushed them on their southward migration and whose later discoveries of oil and gas made the Natives vulnerable to land grabs.
There's more here: http://www.reznetnews.org/article/feature-article/katrina%2C-rita-and-houma%3A-nation-recovery
HOUMA, La.—Up the bayou. Down the bayou. Across the bayou.
For a visitor to this stretch of Louisiana, those are the directions you quickly learn while traveling the waterways and roadways of this southeastern region of this Southern state.
For those at home in the bayou, no weathervane is needed to guide you. No compass readings are required. There is the water's landmark, the signpost of the bayou to tell you which way to drive, which way to travel.
Louisiana may be best known as the home of Mardi Gras and the football Saints, as a stirring pot of jazz and blues and zesty cuisine. Thanks to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it may forever be the memory stick for disaster, for images of broken levees and a stifling Superdome, and for tales of heroism and despair in now-familiar places like the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
But it is also Indian Country, land of the mostly forgotten. It is home to the United Houma Nation, nearly half of whose members were displaced up and down the bayou, their homes battered by hurricane winds or flooded by avalanches of water.
"Our people suffered a lot, and many people don't know that," said Brenda Dardar Robichaux, principal chief of the Houma Nation. "We're still recovering, and it's been a slow process."
With 17,000 enrolled members, the Houma constitute the largest tribe in Louisiana. Over the centuries, they have found themselves moving farther down the bayou, historically pressed by the encroachment of European and American newcomers whose appetite for land pushed them on their southward migration and whose later discoveries of oil and gas made the Natives vulnerable to land grabs.
There's more here: http://www.reznetnews.org/article/feature-article/katrina%2C-rita-and-houma%3A-nation-recovery
Reburial on hold for 87 American Indian remains
By: Cindy Carcamo
HUNTINGTON BEACH – A plan to rebury the last 87 American Indian remains found on the Brightwater Hearthside Homes site on Monday is on hold after American Indian officials complained to the state's Coastal Commission that the developer is not appropriately documenting all grave items found on the site.
Officials also alleged that the developer is not being forthcoming about its archeological findings on the Bolsa Chica Mesa site.
"This is so he can hurry up and get a burial and get the OK to finish building and selling homes to make a profit,'' said Gabrielino-Tongva leader Anthony Morales, who lodged a complaint at last week's Coastal Commission meeting. "It's a business. We're an obstacle to him. … Our culture is in his way."
It's the latest twist to plague the 300-home project, which sits on a site believed to be an ancient burial site and village once shared by the Gabrielino-Tongva and Juaneño Band of Mission Indians.
Over the last 30 years, archeologists discovered 174 ancient American Indian remains, half of them unearthed in the past 20 months. Human remains can mean whole sets or a fragment belonging to a person.
Want to know more? Click here: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/grave-site-developer-2020274-commission-goods
HUNTINGTON BEACH – A plan to rebury the last 87 American Indian remains found on the Brightwater Hearthside Homes site on Monday is on hold after American Indian officials complained to the state's Coastal Commission that the developer is not appropriately documenting all grave items found on the site.
Officials also alleged that the developer is not being forthcoming about its archeological findings on the Bolsa Chica Mesa site.
"This is so he can hurry up and get a burial and get the OK to finish building and selling homes to make a profit,'' said Gabrielino-Tongva leader Anthony Morales, who lodged a complaint at last week's Coastal Commission meeting. "It's a business. We're an obstacle to him. … Our culture is in his way."
It's the latest twist to plague the 300-home project, which sits on a site believed to be an ancient burial site and village once shared by the Gabrielino-Tongva and Juaneño Band of Mission Indians.
Over the last 30 years, archeologists discovered 174 ancient American Indian remains, half of them unearthed in the past 20 months. Human remains can mean whole sets or a fragment belonging to a person.
Want to know more? Click here: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/grave-site-developer-2020274-commission-goods
On this day in history...
April 21, 1869 Ely Samual Parker/Hasanoanda (Seneca) becomes first Native American Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
A Sachem and Civil War adjutant to Ulysses Grant, Ely Samuel Parker was an important figure in the Seneca Indian nation during the first half of the nineteenth century. Trained as an engineer, Parker was deeply involved in the Senecas' land disputes with the Ogden Land Company and he played an important role in interpreting Seneca culture for a white audience, most notably as a consultant for Lewis Henry Morgan.
The Parker Papers include correspondence, manuscripts, and printed materials relating primarily to Seneca affairs, history, language, and culture, as well as politics, education, engineering, and the Civil War. Among Parker's correspondents were Henry Clay, Millard Fillmore, Henry M. Flagler, Lewis Henry Morgan, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Daniel Webster, and Asher Wright. Several letters relate to Parker's service as engineer of public buildings in Galena, Ill., and to his Masonic activities. Among the noteworthy items in the collection are several essays on Seneca history and culture, a fragment of Parker's diary, 1847, and a significant quantity of material on the Seneca language assembled by Asher Wright.
A Sachem and Civil War adjutant to Ulysses Grant, Ely Samuel Parker was an important figure in the Seneca Indian nation during the first half of the nineteenth century. Trained as an engineer, Parker was deeply involved in the Senecas' land disputes with the Ogden Land Company and he played an important role in interpreting Seneca culture for a white audience, most notably as a consultant for Lewis Henry Morgan.
The Parker Papers include correspondence, manuscripts, and printed materials relating primarily to Seneca affairs, history, language, and culture, as well as politics, education, engineering, and the Civil War. Among Parker's correspondents were Henry Clay, Millard Fillmore, Henry M. Flagler, Lewis Henry Morgan, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Daniel Webster, and Asher Wright. Several letters relate to Parker's service as engineer of public buildings in Galena, Ill., and to his Masonic activities. Among the noteworthy items in the collection are several essays on Seneca history and culture, a fragment of Parker's diary, 1847, and a significant quantity of material on the Seneca language assembled by Asher Wright.
Cherokee Nation Provides Emergency Assistance to Storm and Flood Victims
Cherokee Nation News Release
TAHLEQUAH, OK — The Cherokee Nation is assisting Oklahoma communities in need after torrential rains and high winds caused damage to homes, property and roads in northeastern Oklahoma.
The Cherokee Nation Emergency Management (CNEM) team members are assisting local and federal organizations assess damage and clean up in communities located within Cherokee Nation’s jurisdictional area (Adair, Delaware, Mayes and Sequoyah Counties) after heavy rain and high winds recently stormed across Oklahoma.
According to CNEM Director, Tamara Copeland, members were dispatched to counties in the area and near the Arkansas state line. Copeland says that assessing the damage is the first step to obtaining approval for individual assistance to citizens impacted by the storm.
“In Sequoyah County, we assisted primarily in damage assessment with local and state officials,” said Copeland. “Muldrow was hit particularly hard.”
The results show that in Sequoyah County 224 apartments suffered damage, 477 homes and 11 businesses experienced minor damage, major damage impacted 133 homes and 14 businesses, and 33 mobile homes were completely destroyed by hail.
Get the rest of the story here: http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/2551/story.aspx
TAHLEQUAH, OK — The Cherokee Nation is assisting Oklahoma communities in need after torrential rains and high winds caused damage to homes, property and roads in northeastern Oklahoma.
The Cherokee Nation Emergency Management (CNEM) team members are assisting local and federal organizations assess damage and clean up in communities located within Cherokee Nation’s jurisdictional area (Adair, Delaware, Mayes and Sequoyah Counties) after heavy rain and high winds recently stormed across Oklahoma.
According to CNEM Director, Tamara Copeland, members were dispatched to counties in the area and near the Arkansas state line. Copeland says that assessing the damage is the first step to obtaining approval for individual assistance to citizens impacted by the storm.
“In Sequoyah County, we assisted primarily in damage assessment with local and state officials,” said Copeland. “Muldrow was hit particularly hard.”
The results show that in Sequoyah County 224 apartments suffered damage, 477 homes and 11 businesses experienced minor damage, major damage impacted 133 homes and 14 businesses, and 33 mobile homes were completely destroyed by hail.
Get the rest of the story here: http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/2551/story.aspx
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