Native American Prayer and Wisdom's topics - tribe.net

Longest Walk II DENIED press conference at Native American Museum!

2008-05-12T12:12:55Z

This message just came in from the group "Red Road Awareness" and I am now turning this one over to my companions here online. I am SHOCKED and ANGRY that a Native Museum would refuse the Longest Walk people to simply use a spot at the museum so that they could hold a press conference about this IMPORTANT event .... the Longest Walk teams have given SO MUCH for all of us in this huge effort....only to be refused a simple thing like this request. AND! by a NATIVE MUSEUM!!!!

I think we might want to let the person here know how we react to THAT kind of behavior?
hugs,
Bluejay
_________________________________

Matthew just hung up from the curator of the Native American Museum in Terre Haute named Jane Creedon... We were trying to find a place to hold a press conference to raise awareness for the walk with the media... She told Matt that she wanted nothing to do with the walk... She said it was "not their policy to get involved with any kind of political issues" and she wanted nothing to do with us or the walk and would not support it in anyway... She said they dealt only with "the people of that area, Miami, Kickapoo, Wea..." When asked if she would support one of those tribal members if they were on this walk, her answer was a resounding "NO...."

Feel free to call her and voice your opinion:
Native American Museum
5170 E Poplar Dr
Terre Haute, IN 47803
(812) 877-6007

Toksa,
Red Road Awareness

posted in Native American Prayer and Wisdom - 3 replies

Call for Submissions - “The Next Seven Generations”

2008-05-11T23:18:13Z

Call for Submissions

“The Next Seven Generations”

We are seeking submissions for the 2008 Children of Many Colors Native American Powwow program. The topic is what does the future hold for our next seven generations?

What do you see for the future of Indian people? What do you see for the future of our Earth? What are you doing about it?

Last year’s powwow program was very well received with the short stories collectively known as “Why We Sing, Why We Dance”. We would like this year’s program to include a broad spectrum of people, view points, ideas, and inspiration.

Details

Your submission will be considered for inclusion in our annual powwow program. If there are more submissions than we can fit in the program, we may publish a book. If your submission is chosen for the program, you will receive a copy of the program. If we create a book, it will be available for purchase online at Lulu. com; as a small non profit group, we regretfully cannot afford to give free copies of the book to everyone who participates.

Submissions should be two pages or less. Longer submissions will be considered, particularly from people involved in the preservation of indigenous cultures and our planet. Photographs of the author are welcome. Jpeg images and word documents sent via email are preferred; we will accept typed and written submissions as well. We will make every effort to return photographs or stories that are sent through the mail, although we cannot guarantee their return.

For the powwow program, we generally alter photographs into black and white line drawings. If we publish a book, we will have the option of using color or black and white images. Sending an image or written submission implies your consent that Redbird uses the image or written submission.

Submissions may be edited for grammar, spelling and length only. It is our intention to represent the Native American community with its own voice and through its own people. Any editing will be for the purpose of improving the clarity of the submission, and not to alter its ideas or content.

This is an open call for submissions. We are not putting any restrictions on who may respond. We would like to hear from members of the Native American community across the western hemisphere. If you have a tribal affiliation, please state it. If you are of multi-ethnic heritage, don’t be afraid to say so. If you wish for people to be able to contact you, please include public contact information.

If you are doing something about the future of the planet and indigenous people, please, tell us about it. What do you envision for the generations to come? What struggles and triumphs do you foresee? How will we keep our cultures alive? What is your role in doing so?

We would very much like to hear from leaders, decision makers, and tribal council persons. We would love to hear from children and elders. We are equally interested in the thoughts and visions of the rest of the community.

Climate specialists, biologists and others working in the earth sciences are also welcome to contribute. We would like to create a work that offers inspiration and encourages responsible activism to a wide audience. While Redbird is a Native American and environmental organization, our readership will be people from all ethnic backgrounds and all walks of life.

Deadline for submissions is June 1, 2008. Please consider responding before the deadline, so we will have time to read and review all submissions, and design a powwow program that is both attractive and informative.

(In order to receive a copy of the powwow program, please include your mailing address with your submission. We will notify you after June 1 if your submission is used in the program, or in a book format. Last year we were able to use all but two submissions on the topic “Why We Sing, Why We Dance”. As long as your submission is relevant to the topic, and suitable for a general audience, including youth, your chances of inclusion are good.)

Where to Send Submissions

By Email: redbirds_vision@hotmail.com (for email submissions, word documents and jpeg images)

By Mail: Redbird, P.O. Box 702, Simi Valley, CA 93062

What is Redbird?

Redbird is a 501(c)(3) non profit association based in southern California. We are focused on Native American cultural awareness and environmental activism, as well as meeting the needs of disadvantaged families and individuals. The Children of Many Colors Powwow is our signature event. We welcome you to visit our website at www. RedbirdsVision. org to learn more about our mission, our history, and our vision for the future.

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Graduation Inspiration

2008-05-10T16:47:53Z

Out of tragedy, success
Grad achieves top honors in wake of horrific losses
By Karrey Britt
May 10, 2008

It seemed fitting that 27-year-old Willow Abrahamson Jack was the first to walk across the stage and receive her bachelor’s degree Friday during Haskell Indian Nations University’s commencement ceremony.

That’s because fellow students, teachers and family say she is a leader and an inspiration.

“When I see what Willow has went through, it’s incredible to finally see this day,” said her mother, Rose Ann Abrahamson, of Sacramento, Calif. “She persevered despite the many challenges and obstacles that she had to face.”

About three years ago, Willow lost her husband, Daryl, and 4-year-old daughter, Maliah, in a rollover accident near Butte, Mont. She and her son, Nakeezaka, who was 6 at the time, survived, but Willow suffered severe injuries to her spine, pelvic region and head. Doctors told Willow, an award-winning jingle dancer, that she would need a wheelchair or walker.

“I was feeling like the whole world was caving in. It was like I was living a real-life nightmare, something I would never want to see anybody go through,” she said.

“It was a really, really, really hard time. All of my hopes and dreams were completely crushed. I felt like giving up.”

What kept her going was a visit a month after the deaths from the Dalai Lama, who after hearing her story wanted to meet her. He reminded Willow that she still had a son and happiness to share.

“It was a humbling experience,” she said.

In fall 2006, she returned to Haskell where she and Daryl had earned associate’s degrees just months before the fatal accident.

“I decided I can’t be sitting there acting like a crybaby. I am the mother and the father now. I have a child to raise. I’ve got to quit this road of self pity,” she said.

Just as Willow and Nakeezaka were settling down and “things were fine,” tragedy struck again. They were in another rollover accident last June on the South Lawrence Trafficway. They were taken by helicopter to Kansas City hospitals. Her son broke his arm and femur. She shattered her pelvic region and her right knee. Doctors, again, told her that she would need a wheelchair or walker.

“I thought about giving up a lot last summer,” she said. “But, me and my son — we helped each other.”

Willow said she often thought of the passage: “This too shall pass.”

On Friday, she walked across the stage with Nakeezaka, who will turn 9 on Mother’s Day. Both waved to the cheering crowd with big smiles on their faces. The announcer read that Willow dedicated her graduation to her son and daughter. She graduated magna cum laude.

“This is like completing that walk that I wish they could have been here for. This was our plan for our family,” she said.

Today, she will be the head lady dancer at Haskell’s powwow — a high honor. Last month, she helped organize Haskell’s first Indigenous Empowerment Summit.

Her sister, Leela Abrahamson, 17, said she admires Willow and her accomplishments.

“She’s amazing and always has a positive aura,” Leela said. “She’s one of those women who leads by example.”

Willow will pursue a master’s degree in social work at Kansas University in the fall. She would like to establish community-based programs on American Indian reservations and work on preserving Native American culture and traditions.

“Whether I make pennies or I don’t make anything, I don’t really care because it’s about living a happy life,” she said.

Originally published at: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/may/10/out_tragedy_success/

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Elders Meditation - Control Your Thoughts

2008-05-09T16:41:59Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 2

"Think only about what is holy. Empty your mind."
--Archie Fire Lame Deer, LAKOTA

If we let our minds wander, we will come up with a lot of junk: maybe bad thoughts about a brother or sister, maybe angry thoughts, maybe self-pity thoughts. Our minds are not the boss. We can instruct our mind to think about whatever we want to think about. We cannot stop thinking, be we can choose what to think about. The Elders say we move towards what we think about. That's why they say, "Think about what is holy, think about the Grandfathers, think about culture, think about values, think about ceremonies, and think about good."

Great Spirit, today, empty my mind and let me experience what it would be like to think about what is holy.

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Elders Meditation - What is Your Medicine?

2008-05-09T15:35:40Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - April 22

"Each creature has a medicine, so there are many medicines. Because they are so close to the Creator, they are to communicate that medicine. Then they bring help and health."
--Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA

The Elders say everything has a purpose and everything has a will. We should never interfere with purpose or the will of everything. Every plant, creature, animal, insect, human being has a purpose to be here on the Earth. Each has a special medicine to contribute for the good of all things. Each person also has good medicine, a special talent, a special gift. These medicines are to help others or to help make us healthy. What is your special medicine?

Creator, today, help me discover and use my medicine to serve a greater good.

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Indian Voters Send Obama And Black Caucus Message:

2008-05-09T15:33:46Z

Indian Voters Send Obama And Black Caucus Message: Get Off Our Back!

Native Americans across the country are getting fed up with the double talk coming from presidential candidate Barack Obama saying he supports the sovereign status of tribal governments while supporting the Congressional Black Caucus on several bills that include terminating federal recognition of the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation.

Full press release:
http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/58698

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Carpinteria High protests removal of Indian mascot images

2008-05-09T15:31:10Z

Carpinteria High protests removal of Indian mascot images
April 24, 2008

CARPINTERIA, CALIF. \u2013 More than 600 students at Carpinteria High School are protesting a school district decision to remove images of the school's Indian warrior mascot.

A student who is a member of the Chumash tribe complained the school's mascot \u2013 an American Indian wearing a headdress \u2013 perpetuates stereotypes and offensive to Native Americans.

The Carpinteria Unified School District board voted 3-2 this week voted the Warriors team name can be retained but murals, paintings, statues and other Indian depictions around the campus will have to go.

More than 600 students marched from the campus to the district superintendent Paul Cordeiro's office on Wednesday to protest the vote. The Indian imagery issue will be on the agenda at the next school board meeting.

School board member Amrita Salm says the warrior image \u201cis discrimination, disrespectful and propagates ethnic stereotypes.\u201d
Article: www.signonsandiego. com/news/ state/20080424- 0538-ca-brf- cencoast- indianimagery. html

Carpinteria HS Web Site: www.warriorcountry. com
Carpinteria Unified School District Board: Web: www.cusd.net
Email C.U.S.D. Superintendent Paul A. Cordeiro: pcordeiro@cusd. net
Email Principal Gerardo Cornejo: gcornejo@cusd. net

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Elders Meditation - Understanding the Seen and Unseen

2008-05-09T15:28:22Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - April 25

"In some mysterious and wonderful way you are part of everything, Nephew. And in that same mysterious and wonderful way, everything is a part of you."
--Nippawanock, ARAPAHOE

In order to experience this, we must be aware of how limited our senses are—eyes, ears touch, smell, taste. These senses help us to function in the Seen World. What we see is interpreted by our minds and put inside our belief system, and this can become our reality. But there also exists an Unseen World. In this world we experience connectedness; we experience the mystery; and we experience another whole point of view. If we pay attention to both the Unseen World and the Seen World, our belief systems will print in our mind a new and wonderful reality. We will see and know we are a part of everything.

Great Spirit, today, give me the knowledge to know this mystery.

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Korean War veteran from Hoopa attends Medal of Honor ceremony

2008-05-09T15:25:43Z

Korean War veteran from Hoopa attends Medal of Honor ceremony 04/10/2008
http://www.times- standard. com/ci_8874141? source=rss
<http://www.times- standard. com/ci_8874141? source=rss>

On some nights, Army veteran Lawrence Orcutt has a nightmare about
running across a bare hill. The enemy is shooting at him and he's
carrying ammunition and grenades to a man he called "The Chief."
As he runs back toward his platoon, he crosses a river and falls into
it.
Orcutt's real life memory of this moment during the Korean War has
lodged itself in his life, very much like the grenade shrapnel that is
still in his arm.
"I used to just sit there and deal with my memories myself,"
Orcutt said. A Hoopa resident and a member of the Yurok tribe, Orcutt
recently begun getting treatment with Veteran's Affairs.
Although the memories are apart of his post-tramatic stress, they are
also apart of a moment in history. The man Orcutt was bringing grenades
to was Master Sgt. Woodrow W. Keeble, the first full-bloodied Sioux
Indian to be awarded the Medal of Honor. Keeble was awarded the honor
for his role in the victory at the hill Orcutt still dreams about.
On his own, Keeble took out two enemy machine-gun encampments with
grenades and killed 16 enemy soldiers, saving the lives of the men with
him that day near Sangsan-ni, Korea.
"He was a good man," Orcutt said about Keeble, who Orcutt and
other men called "Woody," or "Chief."
"It was a pretty long raid," he said. "He went right in and
took care of everything."
Orcutt and his wife, Barbara, were two of 250 people invited to witness
the ceremony in Washington D.C. last month. They watched with veterans,
politicians and other Medal of Honor recipients as President George Bush
awarded the medal posthumously to Keeble, who died in 1982. Keeble's
stepson Russel Hawkins accepted the honor on Keeble's behalf.

The story of Keeble's medal spans more than half a century. The
application papers for the honor were lost twice since they were
submitted about 60 years ago. In recent years, efforts began anew and
affidavits from witnesses in his platoon, including Orcutt's, were
collected. Finally on March 3, the medal was awarded, much to the
pleasure of Keeble's family and the men who served with him.
Orcutt and his wife were still teeming with excitement when they talked
about the trip.
"It was sure interesting, " said Orcutt, who has numerous honors
himself, including a Purple Heart. He and his wife talk about their
visits to the White House, the Pentagon and the big buses they traveled
around town in.
"They had these two buses, big fancy new ones," Orcutt said.
"We all got in, they had police cars escorting us ... we even ran
the red lights."
Orcutt said he may have been the only person in attendance who was also
on the hill that day in October 1951. Many of the men he served with and
kept in touch with have already passed away.
His son, Kevin Orcutt, said the experience seems to help his father vent
his emotions.
"Some of the things that he's been going through in getting his vet
benefits has really stirred up those feelings in him," Kevin Orcutt
said. Lawrence Orcutt has been getting treatment for his post-tramatic
stress and for his hearing loss as well. The trip has added to the
recovery process.
"It makes me feel a little better, especially toward Woody, but I
still have my nightmares," Lawrence Orcutt said, adding that he is
glad he started getting help for the stress.
"It catches up with you," he said. "I think if I didn't, I
wouldn't be alive."

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Elders Meditation - The Right Time

2008-05-09T15:21:43Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 8

"Anyways, with medicine there's a time and a place for everything. It only comes around once. You have to get it at the right time."
---- Cecilia Mitchell, MOHAWK

The old ones say two things must be present for a miracle to take place. One, the right time. Two, the right place. This is why we need to honor our ceremonies. Ceremonies are done in an order. This order is applied to open a "door" to the right time and place of the medicine. This door opens to the Spiritual World. The Spiritual World is available to us at the right time and the right place.

My Creator, let me be patient today so the timing is right.

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Daily Feast - A Slip of the Tongue

2008-05-09T15:16:16Z

May 9 - Daily Feast

Sentences half spoken and beyond total hearing are the source of difficulty. Only in the bright light of reason and understanding can these cloudy mishaps be corrected. Some are simply tuned to hear the negative - even when it was never intended to be. They hear with an ear that is already bent toward trouble and only too willing to pass it on. We might consider what we want to hear - because everyone has moments when words tumble out with little meaning. Whether it is a slip of the tongue or simply filling in a quiet spell, we are sometimes guilty of speaking when we should have been listening. The tongue is a little member and sometimes kindles quite a fire when it should spit on the matches.

~ We are becoming like them.....all talkers and no workers. ~

BLACK HAWK

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Walk for the Missing in Canada--

2008-05-09T15:10:39Z

http://walk4justice.piczo.com/?cr=6

Hey everyone, I don't think that I sent this link to the main page for this amazing event. So, posted that here for you all. The webpage has the route that will be followed as well as the dates they will be in the various areas.
Blessings,
Bluejay

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Yankton hog farm clash widens

2008-05-09T15:09:25Z

Yankton hog farm clash widens

May 2, 2008
Stephanie Woodard
Indian Country Today

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417274

County sides with farm, while UN listens and South Dakota claims neutrality

MARTY, S.D. - On May 1, the BIA sent a letter to Charles Mix County, asserting its ownership of BIA Route 29 on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, according to Nedra Darling, a bureau spokesman in Washington, D.C.

Construction crews have been using the road to begin building a hog farm that would produce 70,000 pigs annually on private land within the reservation's boundaries.

When construction began in early April, the Yankton Sioux Tribe took steps to bar the facility's owners, Long View Farms, of Hull, Iowa, from the reservation. These measures included passing an exclusion order against the farm and asking the BIA to confirm its jurisdiction over the road, which would effectively deny the farm access to the building site.

''We've completed our part of the bargain,'' said Darling, referring to a deal the BIA struck with the county in 1994. In return for maintaining and patrolling the road, the BIA would gain ownership of it.

''We've invested over a million dollars of federal money in the route and have added it to our inventory,'' she said. ''This should not be new information to the county.''

While these legal actions were taking place, the farm's owners continued to work on the facility, and tribal members staged a peaceful protest, citing environmental and public health risks. The farm is within a few miles of many tribal facilities and institutions, including two Sun Dance grounds, five sweat lodges, homes, a cathedral, a Head Start center, a school, a hospital, a casino-hotel, the tribal hall, Ihanktowan Community College and more. Also in the vicinity are the town of Wagner, wetlands, the Ogallala Aquifer and a creek that empties into the nearby Missouri River.

The county strikes back

In response to the BIA's declaration of ownership, the three-person commission of Charles Mix County voted on May 5 to rescind the 1994 deal. The vote was 2 to 1, with Sharon Drapeau, Ihanktowan Dakota, the only Native member of the commission, voting in the minority.

The next step could be a lawsuit.

''They're going to force a court challenge,'' said John Stone, Ihanktowan Dakota, vice chairman of the tribe's Business and Claims Committee, an elected group.

''The commission's decision doesn't preclude anyone going to court,'' Drapeau said.

At press time, neither the BIA nor the U.S. attorney for South Dakota, Marty Jackley, commented on the likelihood of a lawsuit.

The state of South Dakota appears to be taking a neutral position, despite having dispatched more highway patrolmen to the protest site than are normally on the roads at any one time throughout the entire state. South Dakota also has a long history of contentious attacks on the Yankton Sioux Tribe, which it has attempted to ''disestablish'' through a series of lawsuits.

''Our position remains that this is a dispute between the tribe and a private company,'' said Mitch Krebs, press secretary to Gov. Mike Rounds.

The world responds

International expressions of support for the tribe have poured in. Andrea Carmen, Yaqui and executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council, an advocacy group, presented a statement on the Yankton's behalf to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues meeting in New York City during the last week of April. According to William Means, Oglala Lakota, IITC board member, that statement can now be referred to the U.N. General Assembly and other U.N. agencies, including the Human Rights Council and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

''The U.S. has been challenged by CERD before,'' Means said. ''In this case, we've asked for an oral intervention on the Yanktons' behalf. What the U.N. can offer is a moral standard relating to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.''

Well-wishers have arrived at the Yanktons' protest site from elsewhere in the county; around the state, including a group from the University of South Dakota; and several foreign countries. ''We've had people from Spain, Russia, Palestine and more,'' reported Stone.

Racism rears its head

This widespread backing is in sharp contrast to the mindset of some people at home, Stone said. ''Racism is prevalent in our local government. Last year, the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] demonstrated this in a lawsuit they settled with Charles Mix County.''

The ACLU case was the second one the organization had brought against the county, which has experienced rampant harassment of Indian voters and later-unproven accusations of voter fraud among indigenous people. Under the terms of the settlement, negotiated in 2007, the county agreed to federal supervision of its elections until 2024. An earlier suit resulted in one of the Charles Mix County school boards agreeing in 2003 to an election system that did not dilute the Native vote.

According to local news stories Indian Country Today has monitored for nearly a decade, harassment has not been confined to voting. Police malfeasance appears to have been extreme in the county, which has been referred to repeatedly as ''Alabama in the '50s.'' Reported and/or adjudicated incidents include police brutality and harassment of tribal members when driving off-reservation, with arrests and tickets issued for such offenses as dusty license plates.

''This attitude is not characteristic of the majority of county residents,'' Stone said, ''but unfortunately it is found among our officials.''

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Daily Feast - Suppertime

2008-05-09T13:39:41Z

May 8 - Daily Feast

There is something very good about suppertime. Suppertime is more than just a time to eat - it is warm with happy memories. A few sunny hours to run barefoot after school, a time of homecoming and hearing what everyone else did during the day. Suppertime means watching Grandmother make digalvnhi, Cherokee grape dumplings, and hearing her sing as she worked. A day, a time, an hour never stands on its own, but is bolstered by all those hours that have gone before. Nothing is ever lost - not even the simplest things - for time enhances what has been dear to us. We tend to look back and think something no longer exists. But it does, in all the lovely hours that wait for us - like suppertime - like singing in the kitchen and warm bread baking. This is not just memory, it is sharing life.

~ We do not want riches, we want peace and love. ~

RED CLOUD

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Judge calls Indian `tribe' bogus, orders it to pay damages

2008-05-08T19:10:45Z

Judge calls Indian `tribe' bogus, orders it to pay damages

By PAUL FOY – 2 days ago

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A federal judge has ordered a $63,000 civil judgment against four people who claim to be chiefs of an American Indian tribe in eastern Utah.

The men, who organized at a fast-food restaurant and say they have hundreds of tribal members, refuse to recognize federal or state laws, have issued their own drivers' licenses and filed countless lawsuits against Utah authorities for ignoring their purported sovereignty.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Stephen P. Friot ordered the men to stop pretending to be American Indians and pay Uintah County damages. He called their tribe a "complete sham."

The group calls itself the Wampanoag Nation, borrowing from the name of Mashpee Wampanoag Nation, a Massachusetts tribe that greeted the Pilgrims in 1620.

Officials with the federally recognized tribe told The Associated Press the Utah men were obvious impostors.

The tribe, which has strict rules of lineage dating to the 19th century, often deals with phony membership claims, said Gayle Andrews, a spokeswoman for the Mashpee Wampanoag Nation.

"A lot of white people are like, `I'm Wampanoag,'" Andrews said. "But you can't just Google yourself into membership. It's not doable."

Members of the Utah group have challenged traffic stops and other encounters with authorities, filing a host of lawsuits and unenforceable debt judgments against prosecutors, law enforcement officers and judges.

In one of its most audacious claims, the group recorded a $250 million debt against Uintah County Attorney JoAnn Stringham with a state agency.

Uintah County, in turn, filed a counterclaim alleging racketeering and fraud.

Friot ruled that the four men and their organizations owe money to the county for damages caused by excessive litigation.

The group's leader is Dale Stevens, 69, who lives without phone service in an unincorporated part of Uintah County. He claims 13 acres in the county are sovereign. Efforts to reach Stevens were unsuccessful Monday.

"We're concerned about the judgment against the people of our tribe," said Martin Campbell, 56, who claims to be the law enforcement minister for the Wampanoag Nation of Utah.

Campbell maintained he had some Indian blood but said none of the leaders or members ever offered proof of Indian ancestry. The tribe has been unsuccessful in getting federal recognition, he said.

All four men represented themselves at trial and insisted their actions were legal. Friot, a federal judge in Oklahoma, traveled to Utah to hear the case because federal judges here have been sued by Stevens.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hiPdf8pXmpqsuNu4PF-SYSIOyHhwD90G23HO4

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Honoring the Past, the Flandreau Santee Sioux

2008-05-08T19:05:17Z

Understanding the present, by honoring our past...

During this week in 1863, the Flandreau Santee Sioux people were forced to move from their traditional homeland in Minnesota. More than 1,000 people were taken to a reservation in a desolate part of South Dakota.

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Elders Meditation - Touch the Earth

2008-05-08T18:50:35Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - April 29

"The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power...The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing..."
--Luther Standing Bear, OGLALA SIOUX

Have you ever noticed the relationship between children and the soil? Watch how happily they are touching the dirt. The children play in it and eat it. If you are stressed, go to a spot on the Earth, sit down, put your fingers in the dirt, dig in it. Wash your hands in the soil. When you touch it, notice what it does to your hands. Our bodies love to touch the Earth. Sometimes we get too busy and forget these simple things. Maybe you'll even want to plant a garden or flowers. These things are mentally healthy.

Great Spirit, today, let me touch the Earth so the Earth can touch me.

posted in Native American Prayer and Wisdom - 1 reply

Tribal funerary items for sale

2008-05-08T18:38:38Z

As the tribal historic preservation officer for the Wiyot Tribe, I am concerned with the sale of items taken from Indian graves during the early part of the 20th century. While grave robbing was both common and legal at the time, the contemporary purchase of these items by collectors is deeply disturbing. Fortunately, both state and federal law now prohibits disturbing and looting graves.

Many of these items were found in graves on Indian Island in Humboldt Bay. One of these sites (Tuluwat-67) is designated a National Historic Landmark. Tuluwat was also the site of an orchestrated massacre of the Wiyot during their annual World Renewal Ceremony the morning of Feb. 26, 1860.

University of California Berkeley archaeologist L. L. Loud excavated at Tuluwat in 1913. Those burial Items have since been repatriated to the tribe. Subsequent amateur excavation was conducted. . . Artifacts from these private collections are now apparently being sold at local shows and online. Most recently, a large collection, reportedly from dentist H. H. Stuart, was offered at the Mann Indian Art Show.

I implore anyone who purchased items from this dealer or through other venues to contact the Wiyot Tribe and consider returning these items to our Heritage Center. Make no mistake -- these cultural materials are likely from burials, are extremely sensitive to the Wiyot culture and descendants, and are vessels of power and legend that need to come home.

Please contact the Wiyot Tribe at 1(707) 733~5055 if you have information on these items.

Helene Rouvier Loleta

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Rare Voice Lost - Aileen Figueroa

2008-05-08T17:49:09Z

rare voice lost
Published: April 19, 2008

http://www.triplica te.com/news/ story.cfm? story_no= 8396
<http://www.triplica te.com/news/ story.cfm? story_no= 8396>

Submitted photo

If she hadn't run away, things might be different.
As a young Yurok Indian girl, Aileen Figueroa was forced into a boarding
school in Hoopa along with her sister, Lydia.
It was the early-1900s, a time of assimilation. The girls were forbidden
to speak their native tongue, and only allowed to converse in English.
That did not stop Aileen and Lydia from speaking Yurok.
"They would, at night, put their beds together to speak their language,"
said Kathleen Vigil, as she reminisced about her mother Aileen, who died
last week.
When caught, the girls were scolded by their teachers and punished with
swats from a ruler, Vigil said.
"Every time they spoke their language, they would get reprimanded, " she
said. "They decided to run away."
Aileen left the school with another friend, leaving her sister behind.
For three days, Aileen and her companion traveled along trails and
camped through the nights until reaching Redwood Creek, where they were
caught by truant officers.
Vigil said her mother was allowed to go back to Klamath, while her
friend was forced back to the boarding school.
"She said that she got to stay with her family," Vigil said, "and that's
how she began to keep her language."
Aileen learned everything about the Yurok language, becoming fluent.
Before she died from complications of pneumonia April 11 at the age of
95, she was one of only about a dozen living Yurok Indians who have that
distinction of being fluent.
"She was one of the last fluent speakers of the Yurok language," said
Lisa Sundberg-Maulson, who grew up knowing Aileen and even learned to
weave her first basket from the Yurok elder. "She dedicated her whole
life to preserving the culture and the language."
Aileen spent more than 60 years teaching the Yurok language and culture
to anyone wanting to learn, and was a master basket weaver and singer of
native songs.
Though she was not a proficient writer of the language—it was only a
spoken dialect before documentation started in the 1960s—she helped
others to create the first phonetic Yurok alphabet. She was also
instrumental in organizing the Yurok Elder Wisdom Preservation Project,
which uses new technologies to document Yurok language and culture
passed down from elders.
As a teacher, Aileen worked with her daughter at the American Indian
Academy in McKinleyville and taught at other schools throughout Humboldt
and Del Norte County, including Margaret Keating Elementary in Klamath.
"If it wasn't for people like her, us younger Indian generations
wouldn't have access to continuing, to having a part of our heritage
from that time," Sundberg-Maulson said. "She is the people that lived
here before."
With Aileen's death, the Yurok Tribe now must struggle to gather
information on its language before it is lost.
"There's not too many fluent Yurok speakers left," said Carole Lewis,
the Yurok Tribe's language programs coordinator. "All of our speakers
are pretty much in their 80s and 90s ... and the rest, they're all new
learners."
As more elders die, Lewis said some Yurok words and phrases might
disappear with them. That is why the tribe is rushing to "save the
language," she said, by working with linguists to record and document as
much as possible.
Aileen's death silences an invaluable resource, Lewis said.
Whenever Lewis encountered words she didn't know, or had a question
about a particular phrase, she could always call Aileen for an answer.
Even now, Lewis thinks of questions she wants to ask Aileen, then
remembers that she can't.
"We're feeling the loss already," she said. "In terms of the language
and in addition to the personal loss."
Aileen's daughter struggles with the passing too, but she remembers the
time she spent with her mother and what she taught her.
"She taught me how to be who I am, how to be Indian, how to take care of
people, how to feed people," Vigil said. "You feed the people. You make
sure the people get fed and you take care of the kids, and you take care
of all the kids."
Now Vigil must pass this knowledge along without her mother by her side,
to ensure that future generations learn the language that her mother
found so important to preserve.
Vigil remembers a story of her mother that perhaps exemplifies Aileen's
attitude the best.
About five or six years ago, Vigil and her mother went to a Yurok
cultural meeting in Klamath where the tribe's headquarters are located.
Upon entering the meeting, which was already in progress, Aileen yelled
out, "Aiy-yu-kwee' !" which in Yurok means "Hello!"
The people at the meeting, Vigil said, turned to Aileen and reminded her
that they were having a cultural discussion, not one about language.
"She said, `You know you can't have culture without your language.
That's our identity.'"

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Elders Meditation - Speak No Ill of Others

2008-05-08T16:54:17Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - April 26

"If those bad words come, I let them come in one ear and go out the other. I never let them come out of my mouth. If a bad word comes in your ear and then comes out of your mouth, it will go someplace and hurt somebody. If I did that, that hurt would come back twice as hard on me."
--Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA

What do we do with temptations when they come? What do we do when we hear gossip? What do we do when we hear bad things? If we hear these things and pass them on we will not only hurt the other person, but we will do harm to ourselves. We must be careful not to hurt others. Whatever we sow we will simultaneously reap for ourselves. We must be accountable for our own actions.

Great Spirit, today, let no words come from my lips that would hurt another.

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Elders Meditation - Think of the Generations

2008-05-08T16:52:27Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - April 27

"The law is that all life is equal in the Great Creation, and we, the Human Beings, are charged with the responsibility, each in our generation, to work for the continuation of life."
--Traditional Circle of Elders

Every generation is accountable to leave the environment in healthy order for the next generation. Every generation is accountable to teach the next generation how to live in harmony and to understand the Laws. We need to ask ourselves, "What are we teaching the next generation?" Each individual is directly accountable.

My Creator, teach me inter-generational responsibility.

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14th Annual Native Arts Festival & Mothers Day Pow-Wow

2008-05-08T16:50:46Z

14th Annual Native Arts Festival & Mothers Day Pow-Wow

Date: Saturday May 10, 2008
Time: 10:00 am - 7:00 pm

Location: Grants Pass, Oregon
Phone: 541-742-0215
Notes: People of the Earth Foundation, a Grass Roots Organization Presents the 14th Annual Native Arts Festival and Mothers Day Pow-Wow in Riverside Park at Grants Pass, Oregon. Benefiting the encouragement of the Native Visual and Performing/Cultural Arts. One of the largest Native events in southern Oregon today. Vendors call Rocky at 541-531-6104. Information/Performers call Jack at 541-472-0215.
E-mail: nativeartsfestival@yahoo.com
A free public event.

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Yurok elder Aileen Figueroa

2008-05-08T16:41:36Z

Respected elder's lifelong work will continue 04/18/2008
http://www.times- standard. com/localnews/ ci_8969494
<http://www.times- standard. com/localnews/ ci_8969494>

To' kee kem ney-wu chek.
For many, who respected and loved Yurok elder Aileen Figueroa, the
phrase "I will see you again," offers solace after the death of
the talented singer and devoted teacher of the Yurok language, who will
be remembered tonight at her wake.
As early as 1927, Figueroa was sharing her use of the native language to
preserve the culture when she sang at age 15 for a University of
California, Berkeley researcher. She died last week at 95.
It's a mission the Westhaven resident pursued right up to her passing.
She and her daughter Kathleen co-taught two Yurok language classes at
the American Indian Academy at McKinleyville High School five days a
week as well as a weekly public class at United Indian Health Services'
Potawot village in Arcata.
The daughter of Maggie and Henry Pilgrim, Figueroa was born in 1912 on
the lower Klamath River and later fled from her forced enrollment in the
Hoopa Boarding School -- a move away from the widespread effort to
squash native cultural and toward a life of making sure the cultural not
only survived but thrived.
"She dedicated her life to sharing it," friend Lisa
Sundberg-Maulson said.
And that sharing wasn't just limited to the North Coast. After Figueroa
sang at the American Indian Folk Festival in Washington, D.C. in the
mid-1970s, representatives from the Smithsonian Institution traveled to
the North Coast to record her singing and that of others.

As well as teaching the Yurok language for more than 60 years, Figueroa
was instrumental at the very basic level of making the language
available in written form with the use of the synthetic or phonetic
alphabet -- originally developed for the International Airline Authority
that would allow weather transmissions be translated from the reporting
language to the receiving one simultaneously.
The developer of that language -- a friend of then Humboldt State
University social psychology professor Tom Parsons -- gave Parsons full
access to what he described as a single-sound alphabet. The professor
used the alphabet known as Unifon to put the Yurok language in written
form. Identified as an excellent speaker, Figueroa was recruited to help
with that effort, Parsons said.
"Our purpose was to get people talking," he said.
Parsons, who has since retired to Decatur, Georgia, worked with Figueroa
for at least 15 years, interviewing her and scheduling presentations for
his classes.
He had high praise for the elder's singing.
"Aileen had a beautiful voice," Parsons said, "a very high
female falsetto."
It was the cultural voice -- whether through her expert basketweaving or
the determination to live the language in all that it means to be Yurok
-- that will live on.
"She was just constantly teaching the culture to keep it alive,"
Sundberg-Maulson said. "She just lived being Yurok."
As Yurok language advocate Leo Canez noted, "Aileen said if you're
going to learn the language you need to live the language."
That means, he said, everything having to do with being a Yurok person:
respecting yourself, respecting others, respecting the environment,
honoring the relationship with the ceremonies and the traditional way of
life of the Yurok people.
"That's all part of the language," Canez said. "She always
said you can't separate your language from your culture. It's all
one."
Canez, who studied the language with Figueroa for more than three years,
said her work with high school students underlined the need to carry the
Yurok language and culture forward. He's working in that direction by
teaching three introductory Yurok language classes through HSU's
American Indian Studies Program.
Figueroa is, in fact, the inspiration for ongoing organization of the
Yurok Elders Wisdom Preservation Project -- an effort to use digital
media technology to preserve the wisdom and knowledge of elders for
future generations.
With just a handful of native speakers of the Yurok language left, the
work will continue.
It seems ultimately appropriate that the language would escort the
esteemed elder to her next journey.
"She just sang songs and went to sleep," Sundberg-Maulson said.
"She died singing Indian songs."
A wake will be held at the Westhaven Fire Department, 446 6th Ave. in
Westhaven from 7 tonight to 7 a.m. Saturday. All singers and drummers
are invited to honor her. Funeral Services will be held on Saturday at
the McKinleyville High School main gym at 1300 Murray Road, at 11 a.m.
followed by a Reception at Trinidad Town Hall and Trinidad Elementary
both on Trinity Street in Trinidad.

On the Web: Yurok elder Aileen Figueroa lent her voice to UC Berkeley's
Yurok Language Project, which is working to preserve the Yurok language.
Visit http://linguistics. berkeley. edu/~yurok/
<http://linguistics. berkeley. edu/~yurok/> .

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Elders Meditation - What Measure of Success?

2008-05-08T16:32:37Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - April 28

"Indians living close to nature and nature's ruler are not living in darkness."
--Walking Buffalo, STONEY

There are many Indian people who are living according to nature and according to ceremony and culture. They may not have a lot of material things, but that doesn't mean they are not successful. What is success anyway? Can success be measured by material things? What is it we are really chasing anyway? The Elders say that what everyone really wants is to be happy and have a peaceful mind. Material things by themselves do not bring happiness and peace of mind. Only spiritual things bring happiness. When we live a spiritual life we will not have darkness. Instead, we will be happy.

Great Spirit, today, let me walk the Red Road.

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Elders Meditation - Everything is Backwards

2008-05-08T16:30:32Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - April 30

"Modern civilization has no understanding of sacred matters. Everything is backwards."
--Thomas Yellowtail, CROW

Modern civilization says, don't pray in school; don't pray at work; only go to church on Sunday. If you don't believe what I believe, you'll go to hell. Deviancy is normal. Our role models cheat, drink and run around; these are the people in the news. The news sells bad news; no one wants to hear good news. Kids are killing kids. Victims have little protection. Violence is normal. Leaders cheat and lie. Everything is backwards. We need to pray for spiritual intervention. We need to have guidance from the Creator to help us rebuild our families, our communities and ourselves. Today, I will pray for spiritual intervention from the Great Spirit.

Grandfather, we pray for your help in a pitiful way.

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Elders Meditation - Father Sun

2008-05-08T16:28:45Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 1

"All living creatures and all plants derive their life from the sun. If it were not for the sun, there would be darkness and nothing could grow—the earth would be without life."
--Okute, TETON SIOUX

This is why we call the sun, Father Sun. Father Sun shines life on Mother Earth and from this Father and Mother all life forms exist and continue to reproduce. The Sun shines on all; it is not selective. We should not allow anything to block the Sun from shining on the Earth. We must not pollute the air because the pollutants block the light of life to the Earth. If the Earth cannot receive this light, then life will start to be affected. We must live in harmony with the Sun and Earth. Otherwise, we are harming ourselves.

My Creator, give me the wisdom to live in harmony with all things.

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Elders Meditaiton - Nature is My Teacher

2008-05-08T16:22:39Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 3

"But I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit."
--Walking Buffalo, STONEY

Nature is the greatest teacher on the Earth. Nature produces many different plants, animals, trees, rocks, birds, insects and weather patterns. Nature designed all these various things to grow and multiply while at the same time live in harmony with each other. We can learn a lot of we observe and study Nature's system of harmony and balance. Today, go sit on a rock and quietly observe and ask to be shown the lessons.

Great Spirit, Nature is my teacher. Today, let me be the student.

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Elders Meditation - Two Worlds

2008-05-08T16:20:18Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 4

The whole religion is like a preparation. It's a preparation for going to the Good Land or to the place of your ancestors. We all have to go through it. We all know this.
---- Horace Axtell, NEZ PERCE

There are two Worlds that exist. The Seen World and the Unseen World. Sometimes these worlds are called the Physical World and the Spiritual World. The Elders say, when it is time to go to the other side, our relatives will appear a few days before to help us enter the Spirit World. This is a happy place; the hunting is good; the place of the Grandfathers, the Creator, the Great Spirit, God, is a joyful place.

Grandfathers, today, let me look forward to the Wpirit World. Bless all my Relations.

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Elders Meditaiton - The Coming Together Time

2008-05-08T16:18:32Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 5

"There are many things to be shared with the four colors of man in our common destiny as one family upon our Mother the Earth."
---- Traditional Circle of Elders, NORTHERN CHEYENNE

The Elders tell us the time will come when the four colors of Man will unite into one family. According to prophecies, we were told this would happen when the Sun was blocked in the Seventh Moon. There was an eclipse of the Sun in July, 1991. We are now in a new Springtime called the Coming Together Time. Each of the four colors of man has knowledge that the other colors need to heal their families. Let us all be willing to sit in a circle and respect our differences.

Creator, let me be willing to have an open mind.

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Elders Meditation - Awaken to the Teachings

2008-05-08T16:16:47Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 6

"We must remember that the heart of our religion is alive and that each person has the ability within to awaken and walk in a sacred manner."
---- Thomas Yellowtail, CROW

The Native Spirituality is full of life. When we seek it we become alive. Even if we have gone astray and have conducted ourselves in a bad way, we can look within and have a new awakening to life. Maybe we have drunk too much alcohol; maybe we have cheated on our spouse; maybe we have done things that make us feel guilty and ashamed. If we look outside ourselves, we will not find life; if we look inside, we will find life. Anytime we choose to change our lives, we only need to look inside. How do we do this? Take some sage and light it, close your eyes and say to the Great Sirit, I'm tired, I need your help. Please help me change.

Great Spirit, I know you exist inside of myself. Let me awaken to your teachings.

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Elders Meditation - Be Aware of the Earth

2008-05-08T16:14:05Z

Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 7

"We must all become caretakers of the Earth."
---- Haida Gwaii Traditional Circle of Elders

Mother Earth is the source of all life. We should not only be concerned about the part of the Earth we live on, but we should be concerned about the parts of the Earth that other people live on. The Earth is one great whole. The trees in Brazil generate the air in the Untied States. If the trees are cut in Brazil, it affects the air that all people breathe. Every person needs to conscientiously think about how they respect the Earth. Do we dump our garbage out of the car? Do we poison the water? Do we poison the air? Am I taking on the responsibility of being a caretaker of the Earth?

Great Spirit, today, I will be aware of the Earth. I will be responsible.

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Daily Feast - Enjoy now

2008-05-07T20:25:01Z

May 7 - Daily Feast

If we ignore everything beautiful and look down the road to some future time, chances are it will be the same. This is the time, the e to a, the now, the present, to see the dearness of other people, the chance to be grateful - to enjoy. Why wait? Perfect times are elusive. They create an atmosphere that life should be lived on some high emotional level instead of experiencing love. Time goes by. The peaks were not what made life worthwhile - but the in-between times that gave us a chance to stand in the quiet of a wooded glen, even if it is just in our hearts, and know that love made it all worthwhile. Love will continue to make each a giant of peace in our souls.

~ I want to tell you if the Great Spirit had chosen anyone to be chief of this country, it is myself. ~

SITTING BULL

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Daily Feast - Family

2008-05-07T19:22:44Z

April 29 - Daily Feast

Life stirs up our priorities - makes us think beyond our usual knowledge. There are enormously important things basic to all of us such as the family. The family as a whole is important, and so is each individual. Family makes us consider health and spirit and the capacity to take care of ourselves. The invisible circle gathers all we love close to us. But the final arc involves the making of who we are personally. Each person must know contentment, must be in awe, reverent toward the spiritual, recognize truth, and not go strictly by the depths and height of feelings. Searching for happiness leads us far afield when the search is for self, for a divine connection, a knowing that we are indeed divinely centered. We are a part of the earth, part heaven, one with every living thing. For this reason we love. The ga lv quo di, the precious, the dear truth is that we love.

~ It is the command of the Great Spirit, and all nations and people must obey. ~

BIG ELK

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Indians & Payday Loans: The New Money Changers

2008-05-07T19:18:52Z

Indians & Payday Loans: The New Money Changers
Jerilyn DeCoteau - Indian Country Today
Apr 29, 2008

DeCoteau: The new money changers
© Indian Country Today April 28, 2008. All Rights Reserved
Posted: April 28, 2008
by: Jerilyn DeCoteau
In 1933, at the depth of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt said, ''Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men ... Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money.''

Fast-forward to 2008, on the brink, some say, of the worst financial crisis since the Depression. The new money changers entice, ''Come, I'll lend you $325 if you pay me back $793.''

Predatory lending is gaining much attention lately, primarily due to the subprime mortgage lending crisis. A recent study by the First Nations Development Institute, funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, shows that predatory lending has long been a concern for Indian country, and that the larger concern is with other predatory lending practices, such as payday loans and loans against tax refunds, also known as RALs or ''Refund Anticipation Loans.''

History is replete with examples of predatory practices involving American Indian assets, from theft of land to gross underpayment for the lease or sale of natural resources. Now predators are reaching directly into Natives' pockets for their paychecks. This is in large part because vulnerable American Indians have no assets to steal other than their paychecks.

Many of those who use payday lenders lack access to mainstream banking services, either because there are no such institutions nearby or because borrowers lack collateral (for example, no home equity), have poor credit or no credit history. To get over a financial crisis, such as a car repair, medical bills, a missed mortgage payment or a heating bill in winter, these folks have no choice but to turn to predatory lenders. This fairly describes the situation with many Indian borrowers: they live on the edge and the next urgency could push them over - or into the warm welcome of a predatory lender.

Payday lenders tend to cluster around low-income areas, such as military bases, and there is evidence that they are targeting Indian reservations. South Dakota eliminated usury laws in 1980 as a means of attracting financial services businesses. As compared to other states, it now has the highest number of banks per capita and the second-highest number of payday lenders.

On Nov. 26, 2007, the Rapid City Journal observed, ''Rapid City, with its proximity to Ellsworth AFB [Air Force Base] and its growing Native American population, is particularly vulnerable to the payday industry. Pennington County has just 12 percent of the state's population, but it contains almost one-quarter of its payday lending operations.''

As many as one in five members of the armed forces took out a payday loan in 2005, a Pentagon report said last year, contributing to rising debt levels that interfere with troop deployment and service members' security clearances.

The Center for Responsible Lending reported in 2006 that payday loans cost $15 - $30 per $100 for a two-week term, resulting in effective annual rates of 390 percent to 780 percent interest. The typical payday borrower rolls his loan over several times and eventually pays back $793 for an initial $325 loan. Ninety percent of the revenue generated in the payday-lending industry comes from fees charged to borrowers.

In the editorial ''Beyond Payday Loans'' in The Wall Street Journal [Jan. 24, 2008], former President Clinton and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, ''Imagine the economic and social benefits of putting more than $8 billion in the hands of low- and middle-income Americans. That is the amount millions of people now spend each year at check-cashing outlets, payday lenders and pawnshops on basic financial services that most Americans receive for free - or very little cost - at their local bank or credit union.''

The number of payday lenders has exploded in the last 20 years. In the early 1990s, there were around 300 payday lending outlets in the United States; today there are more than 22,000. For comparison purposes, there are 13,300 McDonald's and 7,087 company-operated Starbucks restaurants, according to those chains' Web sites. In New Mexico, there are four payday lenders for every McDonald's. New Mexico does not regulate payday lenders.

According to the CRL, the payday lending industry is dominated by large regional or national lenders that provide only payday loans, and multiple service lenders that offer an array of fringe banking services such as check cashing, money orders and bill-paying services. The CRL also notes that banks are becoming more active in the industry by providing capital to payday lenders and entering into partnerships (called ''rent-a-charter'' deals) to originate payday loans in states that prohibit stand-alone payday lending. With backing from large banking institutions, imagine the powerful lobby payday lenders have. What can be done to protect paychecks, income tax refunds and economic stimulus payments?

The tide is starting to turn. State legislatures across the country are considering bills aimed at curbing payday lending. The CRL estimates that states that ban predatory lending save their citizens $1.4 billion in predatory lending fees each year. Federal regulations adopted in late 2007 set a 36 percent annual rate cap for lending to military personnel. On Jan. 7, 2008, the Department of the Treasury proposed a rule to limit the ability of tax return preparers to market RALs.

Tribes can act, too, to protect their citizens. Financial education is the first line of defense, and should include basic instruction about money management, credit repair, savings and investment.

Second, alternatives to predatory lenders must be made available. Several tribes have programs that provide low-cost loans and other banking services, credit counseling, credit-building loans and matched savings.

Third, tribal laws and regulations are needed. Tribes can adopt usury caps and lending laws. Many tribes have commercial codes, but few have consumer protection codes. A notable exception is the Blackfeet Tribe, which has a comprehensive code that sets a 21 percent annual percentage rate interest cap. These anti-predatory practices and laws are replicable and most tribes are willing to share their experiences.

Predatory lending is a nationwide problem; but for Indian tribes, the bleeding of assets away from tribal communities has consequences of greater dimension. The very survival of tribes is linked to securing comprehensive strategies for economic improvement. Many Indian people are poor, and when even paychecks are taken from them, the dream of homeownership and building stronger communities is beyond hope.

The First Nations' study is available at www.firstnations.org.

Jerilyn DeCoteau is director of policy at First Nations Development Institute. Sarah Dewees, director of research at First Nations Development Institute, contributed to the piece.

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Reflections on the Pope's Visit - Indian Country Today

2008-05-07T19:13:20Z

Reflections on the Pope's Visit
Rob Capriccioso - Indian Country Today
Apr 29, 2008

Benedict XVI: Reflections on the pope's visit to America
© Indian Country Today April 28, 2008. All Rights Reserved
Posted: April 28, 2008
by: Rob Capriccioso
Click to Enlarge

AP Photo/Kevin P. Coughlin, Pool -- Pope Benedict XVI clasped his hands as he acknowledged the crowd during a Mass at Yankee Stadium in New York April 20.
WASHINGTON - Pope Benedict XVI is no doubt beloved by many American Indians, but after his recent U.S. tour, some are questioning his positions regarding the well-known historical religious and cultural oppression of Native peoples.

And some American Indian scholars are using his visit as an occasion to raise questions about church doctrine and statements from the pope himself involving Christianity's sometimes brutal role in the colonization of the Americas.

During the pontiff's journey to the U.S., which started April 15 and lasted more than five days, he met with President George W. Bush and attended major religious ceremonies in Washington and New York City. He received high praise for his visit to a Jewish synagogue and for reaching out to people of many faiths. He also faced head-on the Catholic Church's recent sexual abuse scandals by meeting with victims who had suffered at the hands of priests.

The pope's goodwill visit also saw him touch on the treatment of American Indians in the United States. After praising America April 17 as a land of opportunity to a crowd of 46,000, he expressed concern that the country's founding promise fell short for many Indians and blacks.

''Americans have always been a people of hope,'' the pope said during a Mass at Nationals Park, home of Major League Baseball's Washington Nationals. ''Your ancestors came to this country with the experience of finding new freedom and opportunity.

''To be sure, this promise was not experienced by all the inhabitants of this land - one thinks of the injustices endured by the Native American peoples and by those brought here forcibly from Africa as slaves.''

Some Native leaders were quick to praise the pope's comments.

''I commend Pope Benedict XVI for making this bold, and very true, statement with the world watching,'' Joe Garcia, president of the National Congress of American Indians, said in a statement. ''Native people have suffered greatly since the arrival of European settlers as they were displaced and then later subjected to U.S. government policies of termination and assimilation.''

Others said the pope seemed to be casting blame on early American colonists without taking responsibility for historical actions taken against American Indians by the Catholic Church and other Christian religious leaders during the so-called New World era.

''In one sense, what the pope said was right on,'' said Robert Miller, a professor of law at the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore. ''But on the other hand, it totally ignores the history of the church and its historic role in colonization.''

''His comments could lead one to believe that the Holy See's historical legacy had nothing to do with the injustices he referred to,'' said Steven Newcomb, co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and author of the new book, ''Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.''

As Newcomb points out in ''Pagans in the Promised Land,'' documents from the 15th century, such as the papal bulls, clearly show the papacy played a role in the genocidal onslaught that impacted millions of indigenous people on the North American continent.

In a 1436 bull, Pope Eugenius gave permission to Portugal to convert indigenous residents of the current Canary Islands to Christianity and to control their lands; in 1455, Pope Nicolas authorized Portugal ''to invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue all Saracens and pagans'' who had previously made their homes in North America.

Pope Alexander VI continued the domination in 1493, issuing three bulls that confirmed Spain's title to lands on this continent because, he proclaimed, the New World had been ''undiscovered by others.'' Alexander also granted Spain any other lands it might discover in the future provided that they were ''not previously possessed by any Christian owner.''

Newcomb and other Indian leaders have worked for decades to get the Vatican to rescind or apologize for the papal bulls. They have been unsuccessful, despite support from some Catholic leaders in the United States.

''He comes here and acknowledges injustices were done,'' said Newcomb, who is of Shawnee and Lenape descent, ''but he doesn't acknowledge these reprehensible documents that really set up authorization for brutal colonization.''

Miller said he would be surprised if the church were ever to make an official apology for the papal bulls. Yet he does find it quite ironic that during his recent visit, the pope faced U.S. survivors of sexual abuse from priests and told them he is sorry for the sins.

''He'll address a sex scandal involving living priests,'' Miller said, ''but he won't apologize for or withdraw the historical papal bulls.''

Indian scholars, too, are concerned that Pope Benedict's most recent words about indigenous people seem to contradict statements he made just last year when speaking to Latin American bishops in Brazil. On May 13, 2007, the pope said the ancestors of contemporary Indians were ''silently longing'' for Christ and seeking God ''without realizing it.''

''In effect, the proclamation of Jesus and of his gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbus cultures,'' the pope said, ''nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture.'' He added that a return to indigenous religions ''would be a step back.''

Soon after his speech, many Indians in both South and North America expressed concern that the pope's statements ignored the historically violent religious and cultural oppression of indigenous peoples on this continent by European Christians. They noted that the conversion of many Natives to Christianity was anything but civil, and many lost their lives trying to maintain their own cultural identities.

''His comments from a year ago showed his absolute lack of historical knowledge,'' Miller said. ''His words indicated a continued ethnocentric viewpoint that the Catholic religion is better for Indian people than their own religions.''

Research from Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate estimates that there are between 650,000 and 1 million contemporary Indians who practice Catholicism - a substantial percentage of the overall Indian population.

''We're not trying to attack the current church today,'' Miller said. ''But what are they doing to make up for these historical issues?''

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Daily Feast - May - Planting Month

2008-05-07T19:08:19Z

MAY

Ana-Sku'tee
Planting Month

We, the old settlers here in council with the late emigrants, they are perfectly friendly toward us.....we have full confidence they will receive you with all friendship.

SEQUOYAH

May 1 - Daily Feast

A country road in May hums with activity. Bees comb the clover fields for nectar. Buttercups and dayflowers open to the sun and a mockingbird sets out to mimic every sound it has ever heard - even the baby chick. Wild onions and pink verbena share the space and the buttery blooms of buffalo peas nod in spring breezes. Only now the air has warmed to the sun and the plants and leaves of oaks grow so much overnight that the sky closes in like a cocoon. Now is the time to slow down and enjoy the minute changes as they come hourly, the scents, the roadsides filled with new plants, and the green hills and valleys. They come quickly, the di ga ne tli yv sdi, changes, that sometimes mature before we see the difference. If we are not careful, our clouded thought and vision shut it out until we have missed the best part.

~ This brings rest to me heart. I feel like a leaf after a storm, when the wind is still. ~

PETALASHARO

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Michael Hull and the Sundance

2008-05-07T19:04:01Z

The Sundance is the largest and most important ceremony in the Lakota spiritual tradition, the one that ensures the life of the people for another year. In 1988 Michael Hull was extended an invitation to join in a Sun Dance by Lakota elder Chief Leonard Crow Dog- a controversial action because Hull is white. This was the beginning of a spiritual journey that increasingly interwove the life of Michael Hull with the people, process, and elements of Lakota spirituality. On his journey on the Red Road, Michael confronted firsthand the trasformational power of Lakota Spiritual practice and the deep ambivalence many Indians have about opening their ceremonies to whites.

Sun Dancing presents a profound look at the elements of traditonal Lakota ceremonial practice and the ways in which ceremony is regarded as life-giving by the Lakota. Through his commitment to following the Red Road, Michael gradually won acceptance in a community that has rejected others attempts by white America to absorb its spirtual practices, leading to the extraordinary step of his confirmation as a Sun Dance Chief by Leonard Crow Dog and other Lakota spiritual leaders.

Michael Hull , the first white man to be given a Sun Dance bundle and recognized as a Sun Dance Chief by traditional Lakota elders, has led Sun Dances in Texas since 1998. He works as a lawyer in Austin, Texas.

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Daily Feast - Don't Let Life Become Drudgery

2008-05-07T19:01:24Z

May 3 - Daily Feast

Living catches up with us quickly when we let everything become drudgery. We stop learning. We quit looking with interest, and we stop being aware of our own needs and feelings. Everything becomes routine and nothing new is on the horizon. We blame far too much on age. Age has little to do with the blue fog we let settle over us and the things we usually care about. It is our lack of energy brought about by our lack of vision. A ga yv li, the elderly, are held in high regard in all Indian tribes. They have to remember so they can tell the young - and they would tell us to watch our mouths so not to speak negatively. They would tell us to renew our vision. They say our potential is unlimited and we will know when something or someone lights our candle.

~ What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night....it is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset. ~

CROWFOOT

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Where There Is No Money

2008-05-07T18:56:41Z

Where There Is No Money
Elizabeth Bluemink - Anchorage News
May 6, 2008

Currency bypasses businesses in the Bush
OBSTACLES: A fraction of the wealth enters villages despite billions in resources.
By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK ebluemink@adn.com
EDITOR'S NOTE: The hurdles to a successful business in Bush Alaska are numerous: tiny markets, remote geography, harsh weather, massive fuel and transportation costs. But some do thrive. One study looked to uncover what it takes for businesses to succeed in rural Alaska. Here's what they found.
At the general store in Noorvik, an Inupiaq village on the banks of the Kobuk River, Pauline Morris and her customers are on a constant quest for dollars and coins.
It's not unusual for a local customer to walk into the Morris Trading Post with a $500 or $1,000 paycheck and use it to buy $20 in groceries, she says.
Typically, Morris hands them whatever cash she can spare and writes them a check for the balance. A stamp on the check identifies it as change -- it becomes a sort of "faux currency" that some will use as cash elsewhere in town.
Like most remote villages, Noorvik has no bank and no ATM. And when the trading post runs out of dollars and coins, "I have to go out and get them," Morris says.
That means a bank run to Kotzebue -- 37 miles away by plane at a cost of $170 or more round trip -- to get stacks of bills and hundreds of dollars' worth of pennies and quarters.
"I get the cash wherever I travel," Morris says.
This Bush banking method has kept small village stores running for decades. Despite communication advances like high-speed Internet that have begun to penetrate remote villages, plenty of people still lack bank accounts, Morris said.
While the cash economy has crept into most of Alaska's most remote places, its foundation -- cash, itself -- is often missing.
"In communities so small that there aren't ways to send funds electronically, the merchants and the post offices are the ones making the economy go," said Jennifer Imus, a senior manager for Wells Fargo Bank in Fairbanks.
That's in stark contrast to the enormous amount of wealth produced in some of these regions. The North Slope produces the state's most lucrative commodity: oil. The waters off the Bering Sea produce millions of dollars' worth of groundfish. The Red Dog Mine in the northwest Arctic produces billions of dollars' worth of metals. The communities do get some jobs and royalties from these globally owned industries, but relatively speaking, only a fraction of the wealth enters the villages.
"There's always economic activities that bypass these rural communities," said Scott Goldsmith, a researcher for the University of Alaska's Institute for Social and Economic Research.
His institute led a $210,000 study last year to find out how remote, locally owned small businesses in Alaska succeed in spite of the obstacles and inconveniences that result from tiny markets, remote geography, harsh weather and massive fuel and transportation costs.
The study, "Viable Business Enterprises for Rural Alaska," probed nearly 2,800 rural business licenses and queried U.S. Census data to ferret out the shared characteristics of communities where businesses have multiplied.
ISER has seen the need for this kind of data for decades, said the study's lead author, Sharman Haley, an economist at the institute.
The study found, for example, that villages close to national parks, with strong local commercial fisheries or with comparatively lower travel costs from Anchorage are likely to have a larger, more diverse set of businesses. And it found that location is more critical than population size in determining the number of businesses in a community.
It also found that the communities grow a more diverse crop of businesses by trapping "non-local dollars" -- exporting Native arts and crafts, snagging military cleanup contracts or wooing tourists, for example.
The researchers surveyed 196 business owners in 19 remote villages to find out their amounts and sources of revenue, their biggest startup and operating challenges and their biggest remaining needs, among other things.
A practical goal for the study: to help future rural business owners understand the problems they will face and to help agencies and foundations offer the right kind of assistance that will allow more remote rural businesses to prosper, the researchers said.
The majority of business owners surveyed said business training and better infrastructure and communication systems were the best things that outside organizations could offer them, according to the study.
The researchers also published in-depth case studies of more than 20 businesses in remote villages, which offer some poignant stories from rural entrepreneurs about how they succeeded or why they failed. For example:
• A tribe-owned company in Galena in the Interior prospered by contracting with the military to clean up industrial contamination that polluted land near its village.
• A family-owned logging company on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast failed after its owners took on a large contract requiring many new employees. The owners ran into financial trouble because they didn't understand cash flow, bookkeeping and the costs of maintaining employees.
• The village Native corporation for Point Lay, a small community on the Chukchi Sea coast, is introducing high-speed Internet services in their community and other villages across the state.
"It was wonderful to hear people tell their stories," said Jane Angvik, a private researcher in Anchorage who oversaw the case studies.
"It restored my hope in the tenacity of rural communities to survive," she said.
http://www.adn.com/money/story/396260.html

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Daily Feast - Ask For Help

2008-05-07T18:51:03Z

May 6 - Daily Feast

When we let down our guard, habit is waiting to reclaim its territory. It seems innocent and it is so familiar that we seldom suspect what teeth it has! Once we decide to change something, we can't expect to do it in one great sweep. What has taken us over by such tiny degrees must be edged out the same way. The fact that we are taking small steps does not minimize a very great commitment. Little by little, we reform our habits, making sure we leave no void for any other bad habit to fill. If we have a ne lo at nv, made an effort or tried to change and failed, it is probably because we tried to do it along or denied the need to change. The Cherokees believes he needs a u na li go sv, a help or a partnership, to give him support. It may be another v da di lv quo at nv, a special or blessed person that is grounded in the Galun lati.

~ I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. ~

CHIEF JOSEPH

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'Black Hills not for sale,' Rosebud president says

2008-05-07T17:58:57Z

'Black Hills not for sale,' Rosebud president says
By Andrea J. Cook, Journal staff Monday, May 05, 2008
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2008/05/05/news/top/doc481fab4a04855392853625.txt

Attorneys are the only ones who have anything to gain if members of the Sioux Nation accept a cash settlement for the Black Hills, Rodney M. Bordeaux, president of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe said Monday.

“These law firms are always looking for a quick buck and could care less for what we feel as a people,” Bordeaux said. “All they want is money.”

Yankton attorney Doug Kettering met with about 80 Native Americans on Saturday in Sioux City, Iowa, offering to help them tap into millions setting in a trust fund. The trust was created after a 1980 U.S. Supreme Court decision supporting Sioux claims that the government had stolen the Black Hills and land east of the Hills.

“The Black Hills are not for sale,” Bordeaux said, adding a Lakota missive, “He Sapa Kin waken yelo, oheniya kik suyapo.” Translation: “Always remember the Black Hills are sacred.”

That’s the message Bordeaux grew up with and is passing on to his children.

“We must all unite and keep that message going into the future,” he said.

In these tough economic times, the money may seem tempting to some tribal members, but it is poor compensation for the nation that their Sioux forefathers fought and died to protect, Bordeaux said.

“They were fighting for our overall survival as a people and a nation,” he said. “We need to keep that alive, because that’s who we are.”

Kettering has never contacted the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Bordeaux said. The tribal council would never support accepting the money, he said.

Bordeaux said he can’t speak for other tribal leaders, but he doubts that any would support an effort to accept the settlement. To do so would be contrary to tribal philosophy, he said.

“We need to continue as tribal nations and tribal leaders and tribal members in general to remember what our forefathers fought for, and keep that fight alive,” Bordeaux said.

Any decision to dip into the trust fund would have to come from the tribes, not individual members, Bordeaux said.

Bordeaux noted that newspaper accounts of Saturday’s meeting reported that Kettering plans to hold meetings in Sioux Falls, Yankton, Mobridge and Flandreau.

“Nothing near Rosebud,” Bordeaux said. “I don’t know who’s really behind this, but they’re not representing us.”

There may be a small minority of tribal members with no sense of the sacrifices their forefathers made, people who would “basically sell out to make a few dollars,” he said.

“That money won’t last long,” Bordeaux said. “We as a people need to resist.”

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Natives & newcomers: Looking for relief

2008-05-07T17:56:42Z

Natives & newcomers: Looking for relief
Changing concepts of tribal sovereignty
Billings Gazette

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/05/04/news/state/26-native.txt

By LORNA THACKERAY
Of The Gazette Staff
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the interests of tribes in four out of five Indian cases before it in 2001, the National Congress of American Indians and other Native American groups decided that a new strategy was needed.

"The most recent Supreme Court cases make it clear that tribal governments are in an increasingly defensive posture, and it is likely that the upcoming years will prove to be even more damaging, if this defense posture is maintained," the Indian-rights advocacy group declared at the conclusion of a summit of Indian leaders that fall.

Out of that summit grew the Tribal Supreme Court Project, a project staffed by attorneys from the National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund (NARF).

"We're hopeful that we've stopped the bloodletting," Richard Guest, a Washington, D.C., lawyer for NARF, said recently. "To a certain degree, we've succeeded. We have slowed the pace of defeat."

Luck has played a part, he said in a phone interview. Most of the Indian cases accepted by the court lately have not been as clearly tied to issues of sovereignty, he said.

Lawyers working on the Tribal Supreme Court Project encourage tribes to be prudent in protecting themselves.

"We tell them that if at all possible, stay out of federal court, that federal courts are not friendly" Guest said.

They also urge tribes contemplating a court fight to consider whether a bad outcome could have damaging effects for all of Indian Country. Some tribes have decided not to petition the Supreme Court for review of an adverse ruling for that reason, he said.

Tom Fredericks, a Boulder, Colo., attorney specializing in representing Indian tribes, said tribes are learning to deal with sovereignty issues in other ways.

"In the 1970s, the pendulum went with the courts," he said. "Now they're not looking to the courts so much."

These days, tribes are relying more on Congress and the executive branch to protect their sovereignty and promote their interests, he said.

Congress has the power to do pretty much what it wants in establishing the authority of federal, state and Indian governments. When the Supreme Court ruled in a 1990 case, Duro v. Reina, that tribes did not have criminal jurisdiction over non-member Indians on their reservations, Congress acted to restore that authority to tribes. It was an important fix for Montana tribes, where 15 percent of the people on most Montana reservations are non-member Indians, Fort Peck Tribes' attorney Reid Peyton Chambers said.

Congress has also acted in other ways to strengthen tribal governments. The Indian Child Welfare Act gave tribes more control over adjudication of custody matters involving Indian children. Indian Self-determination Acts in the 1970s and 1980s required some federal agencies to contract with tribes to provide services that would ordinarily fall to the federal government. Starting in the 1990s with Violence Against Women Acts, tribal courts have been actively granting and enforcing protective orders that involve Indians and non-Indians.

Violence against Indian women has sparked new interest in Congress in restoring to tribes some criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. A stinging report from Amnesty International released last spring said American Indian women were 2.5 times as likely to be raped or sexually assaulted as other American women, and that one in three Indian women would be raped during her lifetime. The report highlighted the difficulty of obtaining justice for Indian victims when a non-Indian is the suspect.

In 2007, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held hearings and meetings with tribal leaders to discuss what Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, referred to as a "public-safety crisis."

One of Dorgan's recommendations was to establish a pilot project that would recognize the inherent authority of tribal government over some domestic and sexual violence crimes committed on Indian reservations, regardless of the race of the offender.

No legislation on the recommendation has been introduced yet, and the idea is controversial.

"There is already organized opposition to a bill that doesn't even exist," said attorney John Dossett, with the National Congress of American Indians.

Published on Sunday, May 04, 2008.

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Natives & newcomers: Lost river, lost powers

2008-05-07T17:52:46Z

Natives & newcomers: Lost river, lost powers
Changing concepts of tribal sovereignty

By LORNA THACKERAY
Of The Billings Gazette Staff
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/05/04/news/state/22-native.txt

The granddaddy of all modern sovereignty cases sprang from Montana.

The state and the Crow Tribe were embroiled in a bitter struggle for ownership of the Bighorn River. When the U.S. Supreme Court finally settled the matter in favor of Montana in 1981, the Crow had lost the banks and bed of the river that runs through the heart of their reservation.

All of Indian Country is still reeling from collateral effects of the court's ruling. In the course of deciding ownership of the riverbed, the justices severely limited tribes' ability to exert civil jurisdiction over non-Indians within reservation boundaries.

"It really all started in Montana with the Crow riverbed case," said Tom Fredericks, a Boulder, Colo., attorney who was the Department of Interior's associate solicitor for Indian Affairs at the time. "I think it was the beginning of an erosion of tribal sovereignty."
The Bighorn River runs out of Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains and onto the Crow Reservation. Claiming ownership of the riverbed and relying on its power as a sovereign, the Crow Tribe asserted that it had the authority to regulate hunting and fishing by non-Indians on the reservation, even on reservation lands not owned by the tribe or its members.

In a decision that became the basis for many to follow, the U.S. Supreme Court said: "Through their original incorporation into the United States, as well as through specific treaties and statutes, the Indian tribes have lost many of the attributes of sovereignty, particularly as to the relations between a tribe and nonmembers of the tribe."

The Supreme Court essentially said that unless Congress specifies otherwise, inherent sovereign powers of tribes do not extend to nonmembers on land owned by nonmembers, except in two instances.

Those two instances, which came to be known as the "Montana Exceptions," are: If a nonmember enters into a consensual relationship with the tribe or its members through commercial dealings, contracts, leases or other arrangements; or if conduct of a nonmember has direct effect on the political integrity, the economic security or the health and welfare of the tribe.

On their face, the Montana Exceptions seemed to open a door wide enough to walk an elephant through. Consensual agreements suggested a broad array of contact non-Indians would have with tribal members. And finding a direct effect of non-Indian activities on the political integrity and well-being of tribal members didn't appear too onerous a requirement to satisfy.

But subsequent decisions showed that establishing jurisdiction over non-Indians in most instances just wouldn't fly. Finding a circumstance that would establish either of the Montana Exceptions to the satisfaction of the court proved almost impossible.

"We've not found any case that fits those exceptions yet," said attorney Richard Guest of the Native American Rights Foundation. "They've interpreted them very narrowly."

The Montana case was pre-eminent among a slew of rulings that amounted to a court-driven reversal of how tribal sovereignty was interpreted, said Mike Eakin, a Billings attorney with Montana Legal Services Association.

"Recent decisions recede from a broad view of inherent tribal sovereignty and allow tribes jurisdiction only specifically where Congress has granted power," he said. "It's an almost complete turnaround from 'do whatever is not prohibited by Congress' to 'do only what Congress specifically says you can do.' "

Published on Sunday, May 04, 2008

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