Press release -
The Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF) has awarded the Tribal Education Departments
National Assembly (TEDNA) with grant monies to develop Indian education professional
development materials, and promote and market the ILTF Indian Land Tenure Curriculum.
In recognition that education of tribal youth is one of the most important areas of sovereignty,
TEDNA and ILTF will spend the next year working collaboratively to create professional
development materials that support the ILTF Curriculum and incorporate the Curriculum into
schools across the nation.
The ILTF Curriculum was designed with Native American tribal issues and values in mind, but
the context illustrates the important relationship between land and people in general, not just
Native Americans. The main goal is for students to become intellectually reconnected to the
land and aware of its importance to their past, present and future.
“We hope to introduce the Curriculum into schools to reestablish the relationship between land
and people while focusing on Native American views of the human relationship to land. We
believe that these efforts will strengthen tribal youths’ understanding of who they are as Native
American people. We also believe that this can help improve school performance by increasing
student self-esteem and school engagement,” said TEDNA President Quinton Roman Nose.
ILTF Program Officer, Terry Janis explains, “TEDNA is an ideal partner as it has a nationwide
network of tribal education departments, private businesses and government employees working in education. Our message, one of traditional Native American land values, will reach all tiers of education.”
There's more here: http://www.tedna.org/news/iltf_tedna_pr.pdf
Monday, May 12, 2008
Camp Chaparral - Yakama Nation - Healing With Honor
In 1990, Joe Jay Pinkham, Secretary for the Yakama Nation, suggested the formation of an all-Indian Healing Camp for Indian Veterans. Subsequent development of an all-cohort Indian Group at American Lake VAMC didn't work because of infighting among the various participating tribes.
In May of 1991, in Toppenish, Washington, an Advisory Council was formed to address American Indian Health and healing within the VA. The Yakama Nation authorized the use of Camp Chaparral, on its sacred land, in 1991; funding became available in November of 1991 and the first Camp was held in 1992.
The Camp, which assumed the name of the sacred ground on which it was held, Camp Chaparral, was formed to teach or sensitize VA and other practitioners who work with Indian Veterans on the American Indian Traditional Methodology of Healing. The rest is history.
For the first four years, there was a progressive “journey” through the VA system, “from the eyes” of an American Indian veteran. An additional objective was to develop a significant percentage of VA staff with intimate personal awareness and sensitivity for American Indian culture. They were also provided a sense of American Indian culture and invited to apply a holistic approach to the care of Indian veterans.
Today, the camp concentrates on providing a unique and positive experience to the VA staff. It includes hands-on interaction with Native American warriors, spiritual leaders, traditional healers, and tribal Elders and families from the Yakama, Umatilla, Nez Perce, Sioux, Makah, Lummi, Warm Springs, Karuk, and Colville tribes.
Want to know more? Click here: http://www.waterplanet.ws/cc/Site/Home.html
In May of 1991, in Toppenish, Washington, an Advisory Council was formed to address American Indian Health and healing within the VA. The Yakama Nation authorized the use of Camp Chaparral, on its sacred land, in 1991; funding became available in November of 1991 and the first Camp was held in 1992.
The Camp, which assumed the name of the sacred ground on which it was held, Camp Chaparral, was formed to teach or sensitize VA and other practitioners who work with Indian Veterans on the American Indian Traditional Methodology of Healing. The rest is history.
For the first four years, there was a progressive “journey” through the VA system, “from the eyes” of an American Indian veteran. An additional objective was to develop a significant percentage of VA staff with intimate personal awareness and sensitivity for American Indian culture. They were also provided a sense of American Indian culture and invited to apply a holistic approach to the care of Indian veterans.
Today, the camp concentrates on providing a unique and positive experience to the VA staff. It includes hands-on interaction with Native American warriors, spiritual leaders, traditional healers, and tribal Elders and families from the Yakama, Umatilla, Nez Perce, Sioux, Makah, Lummi, Warm Springs, Karuk, and Colville tribes.
Want to know more? Click here: http://www.waterplanet.ws/cc/Site/Home.html
Celebration, somber protest at Capitol
By: Kara McGuire
After years of preparation, Minnesota kicked off its 150th birthday celebration week Sunday, the actual anniversary of Minnesota's statehood. There was no cake and it was too windy to light 150 candles anyway, but the citizens who came out to remember Minnesota's past and ponder its future were treated to a wagon train, remarks by several politicians and, on a more solemn note, a protest.
About 75 American Indians and supporters gathered on sacred ground at Indian Mounds Park on Sunday morning for a march to the Capitol, holding banners with phrases such as "take down the Fort"-- a reference to Fort Snelling, which they said played a key role in abuses of Minnesota's native tribes. Others wore black masks and carried scaffolding with 38 nooses in remembrance of the 38 Dakota men executed in Mankato by order of President Abraham Lincoln, on Dec. 26, 1862.
"We tried to encourage [sesquicentennial organizers] to use this year for truth-telling," said Gustavus Adolphus scholar Waziyatawin Angela Wilson. According to Wilson, Minnesota leaders "refused and wanted to continue with their birthday celebration and not let truth-telling get in the way."
On Saturday, the Dakota protesters briefly stalled the Sesquicentennial Wagon Train as it approached its camping area at Fort Snelling. Police removed several protesters from the path of the train, which left Cannon Falls seven days ago on a circuitous 101-mile trip to the Capitol. It arrived Sunday afternoon and this time police kept the two groups separated.
Keep reading here: http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/18848444.html
After years of preparation, Minnesota kicked off its 150th birthday celebration week Sunday, the actual anniversary of Minnesota's statehood. There was no cake and it was too windy to light 150 candles anyway, but the citizens who came out to remember Minnesota's past and ponder its future were treated to a wagon train, remarks by several politicians and, on a more solemn note, a protest.
About 75 American Indians and supporters gathered on sacred ground at Indian Mounds Park on Sunday morning for a march to the Capitol, holding banners with phrases such as "take down the Fort"-- a reference to Fort Snelling, which they said played a key role in abuses of Minnesota's native tribes. Others wore black masks and carried scaffolding with 38 nooses in remembrance of the 38 Dakota men executed in Mankato by order of President Abraham Lincoln, on Dec. 26, 1862.
"We tried to encourage [sesquicentennial organizers] to use this year for truth-telling," said Gustavus Adolphus scholar Waziyatawin Angela Wilson. According to Wilson, Minnesota leaders "refused and wanted to continue with their birthday celebration and not let truth-telling get in the way."
On Saturday, the Dakota protesters briefly stalled the Sesquicentennial Wagon Train as it approached its camping area at Fort Snelling. Police removed several protesters from the path of the train, which left Cannon Falls seven days ago on a circuitous 101-mile trip to the Capitol. It arrived Sunday afternoon and this time police kept the two groups separated.
Keep reading here: http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/18848444.html
Friday, May 9, 2008
Quotes
"There is a circle of people, so many hundreds of people there, watching and being a part of it. Young and old alike are out there dancing towards the center, where the dancers are...when you are there in that circle you can't help but feel the energy go around and around and around...you can just feel it." -
Delmar Boni - Apache
Delmar Boni - Apache
Featured tribe - Delaware
A confederacy, formerly the most important of the Algonquian stock, occupying the entire basin of Delaware river in east Pennsylvania and south New York, together with most of New Jersey and Delaware. They called themselves Lenape or Leni-lenape, equivalent to 'real men,' or 'native, genuine men'; the English knew them as Delaware, from the name of their principal river; the French called them Loups, 'wolves,' a term probably applied originally to the Mahican on Hudson rivers, afterward extended to the Munsee division and to the whole group. To the more remote Algonquian tribes they, together with all their cognate tribes along the coast far up into New England, were known as Wapanaehki, 'easterners,' or 'eastern land people,' a term which appears also as a specific tribal designation in the form of Abnaki.
By virtue of admitted priority of political rank and of occupying the central home territory, from which most of the cognate tribes had diverged, they were accorded by all the Algonquian tribes the respectful title of "grandfather," a recognition accorded by courtesy also by the Huron. The Nanticoke, Conoy, Shawnee, and Mahican claimed close connection with the Delaware and preserved the tradition of a common origin.
The Lenape, or Delaware proper, were composed of 3 principal tribes, treated by Morgan as phratries, viz: Munsee, Unami, and Unalachtigo, besides which some of the New Jersey bands may have constituted a fourth. Each of these had its own territory and dialect, with more or less separate identity, the Munsee particularly being so far differentiated as frequently to be considered an independent people.
The early traditional history of the Lenape is contained in their national legend, the Walam Olum. When they made their first treaty with Penn, in 1682, the Delaware had their council fire at Shackamaxon, about the present Germantown, suburb of Philadelphia, and under various local names occupied the whole country along the river. To this early period belongs their great chief, Tamenend, from whom the Tammany Society takes its name. The different bands frequently acted separately but regarded themselves as part of one great body.
About the year 1720 the Iroquois assumed dominion over them, forbidding them to make war or sales of lands, a condition which lasted until about the opening of the French and Indian war. As the whites, under the sanction of the Iroquois, crowded them out of their ancient homes, the Delaware removed, to the Susquehanna, settling at Wyoming and other points about 1742. They soon crossed the mountains to the headwaters of the Allegheny, the first of them having settled upon that stream in 1724. In 1751, by invitation of the Huron, they began to form settlements in east Ohio, and in a few years the greater part of the Delaware were fixed upon the Muskingum and other streams in east Ohio, together with the Munsee and Mahican, who had accompanied them from the east, being driven out by the same pressure and afterward consolidating with them.
The Delaware, being now within reach of the French and backed by the western tribes, asserted their independence of the Iroquois, and in the subsequent wars up to the treaty of Greenville in 1795 showed themselves the most determined opponents of the advancing whites. The work of the devoted Moravian missionaries in the 17th and 18th centuries forms an important part of the history of these tribes.
About the year 1770 the Delaware received permission from the Miami and Piankishaw to occupy the country between the Ohio and White river south, in Indiana, where at one time they had 6 villages. In 1789, by permission of the Spanish government, a part of them removed to Missouri, and afterward to Arkansas, together with a band of Shawnee. By 1820 the two bands had found their way to Texas, where the Delaware numbered at that time probably at least 700. By the year 1835 most of the tribe had been gathered on a reservation in Kansas, from which they removed, in 1867, to Indian Territory and incorporated with the Cherokee Nation.
By virtue of admitted priority of political rank and of occupying the central home territory, from which most of the cognate tribes had diverged, they were accorded by all the Algonquian tribes the respectful title of "grandfather," a recognition accorded by courtesy also by the Huron. The Nanticoke, Conoy, Shawnee, and Mahican claimed close connection with the Delaware and preserved the tradition of a common origin.
The Lenape, or Delaware proper, were composed of 3 principal tribes, treated by Morgan as phratries, viz: Munsee, Unami, and Unalachtigo, besides which some of the New Jersey bands may have constituted a fourth. Each of these had its own territory and dialect, with more or less separate identity, the Munsee particularly being so far differentiated as frequently to be considered an independent people.
The early traditional history of the Lenape is contained in their national legend, the Walam Olum. When they made their first treaty with Penn, in 1682, the Delaware had their council fire at Shackamaxon, about the present Germantown, suburb of Philadelphia, and under various local names occupied the whole country along the river. To this early period belongs their great chief, Tamenend, from whom the Tammany Society takes its name. The different bands frequently acted separately but regarded themselves as part of one great body.
About the year 1720 the Iroquois assumed dominion over them, forbidding them to make war or sales of lands, a condition which lasted until about the opening of the French and Indian war. As the whites, under the sanction of the Iroquois, crowded them out of their ancient homes, the Delaware removed, to the Susquehanna, settling at Wyoming and other points about 1742. They soon crossed the mountains to the headwaters of the Allegheny, the first of them having settled upon that stream in 1724. In 1751, by invitation of the Huron, they began to form settlements in east Ohio, and in a few years the greater part of the Delaware were fixed upon the Muskingum and other streams in east Ohio, together with the Munsee and Mahican, who had accompanied them from the east, being driven out by the same pressure and afterward consolidating with them.
The Delaware, being now within reach of the French and backed by the western tribes, asserted their independence of the Iroquois, and in the subsequent wars up to the treaty of Greenville in 1795 showed themselves the most determined opponents of the advancing whites. The work of the devoted Moravian missionaries in the 17th and 18th centuries forms an important part of the history of these tribes.
About the year 1770 the Delaware received permission from the Miami and Piankishaw to occupy the country between the Ohio and White river south, in Indiana, where at one time they had 6 villages. In 1789, by permission of the Spanish government, a part of them removed to Missouri, and afterward to Arkansas, together with a band of Shawnee. By 1820 the two bands had found their way to Texas, where the Delaware numbered at that time probably at least 700. By the year 1835 most of the tribe had been gathered on a reservation in Kansas, from which they removed, in 1867, to Indian Territory and incorporated with the Cherokee Nation.
Award honors Keeble as a true hero
As posted on Grand Forks Herald.com
BISMARCK — It was heartwarming to learn that the late Woodrow Keeble has been selected for North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award.
Many North Dakotans and Americans have only recently learned of Master Sgt. Keeble’s heroism in the Korean War. His record and his life demonstrate the highest degree of loyalty and courage that a nation can witness from a citizen.
This humble Dakotah warrior from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation did not and would never have sought to be recognized for saving the lives of his fellow soldiers. That his recently bestowed Medal of Honor was long overdue is a measure of past injustice. That it was awarded is a sign of welcome change in the national consciousness.
In tribal life, Keeble is one of the most respected warriors of the 20th century, a person who brought honor to his family and tribe. It remains the work of good people now to commend this man, tell his story and affirm his legacy as a hero for all people of the nation.
North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven and the many people who have worked for and supported the nomination of Keeble for the Rough Rider Award are to be commended for their fine work.
BISMARCK — It was heartwarming to learn that the late Woodrow Keeble has been selected for North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award.
Many North Dakotans and Americans have only recently learned of Master Sgt. Keeble’s heroism in the Korean War. His record and his life demonstrate the highest degree of loyalty and courage that a nation can witness from a citizen.
This humble Dakotah warrior from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation did not and would never have sought to be recognized for saving the lives of his fellow soldiers. That his recently bestowed Medal of Honor was long overdue is a measure of past injustice. That it was awarded is a sign of welcome change in the national consciousness.
In tribal life, Keeble is one of the most respected warriors of the 20th century, a person who brought honor to his family and tribe. It remains the work of good people now to commend this man, tell his story and affirm his legacy as a hero for all people of the nation.
North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven and the many people who have worked for and supported the nomination of Keeble for the Rough Rider Award are to be commended for their fine work.
Duwamish tribe sues to reverse 'extinct' status
By: Paul Shukovsky
The Duwamish -- the tribe of Chief Seattle -- is suing the federal government to reverse its determination that they are extinct as a people.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, asks the court to declare that the Duwamish are a federally recognized tribe.
Such a designation is critical: It brings money for housing, health care, education and cultural programs. It also allows tribes to put land into protected status for a reservation and to open casinos.
Without recognition, the chances are greatly increased that the Duwamish could eventually disappear, its members assimilating into the general population. Today, the tribe has 500 to 600 members.
Among the suit's numerous allegations against the government is that the Interior Department ignored evidence in favor of the Duwamish because of "its politically driven desire" to declare that the tribe no longer exists.
The Duwamish received federal acknowledgement in the waning hours of the Clinton administration, only to have the decision quickly reversed in 2001 by the incoming Bush administration, which cited procedural errors by its predecessor.
Keep reading here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/362170_duwamish08.html
The Duwamish -- the tribe of Chief Seattle -- is suing the federal government to reverse its determination that they are extinct as a people.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, asks the court to declare that the Duwamish are a federally recognized tribe.
Such a designation is critical: It brings money for housing, health care, education and cultural programs. It also allows tribes to put land into protected status for a reservation and to open casinos.
Without recognition, the chances are greatly increased that the Duwamish could eventually disappear, its members assimilating into the general population. Today, the tribe has 500 to 600 members.
Among the suit's numerous allegations against the government is that the Interior Department ignored evidence in favor of the Duwamish because of "its politically driven desire" to declare that the tribe no longer exists.
The Duwamish received federal acknowledgement in the waning hours of the Clinton administration, only to have the decision quickly reversed in 2001 by the incoming Bush administration, which cited procedural errors by its predecessor.
Keep reading here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/362170_duwamish08.html
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