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...A Forum for American Indian Issues...
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Wed Apr 11, 2012 at 18:57:20 PM PDT
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Long before Europeans had even dreamt about the possibility of the Americas, the Bitterroot Salish, also known as the Flathead, were living in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. For many generations the Bitterroot Salish occupied western Montana and the area east of the Rocky Mountains past the red paint caves near present-day Helena. They maintained a winter camp at the confluence of the Madison, Gallatin, and Jefferson Rivers east of the Rocky Mountains and they hunted as far east as present-day Billings and south into Wyoming. They were friendly with the tribes to the west, all the way to the Great Salt Water Mystery (Pacific Ocean).
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Mon Apr 09, 2012 at 18:58:40 PM PDT
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Any careful examination of the religious freedom of American Indians, especially as it pertains to aboriginal religious practices, since the foundation of the United States in 1776 is uncomfortable for those who would like to believe that America has championed religious freedom. American Indian religious freedom has been at best ignored, and more often it has been actively suppressed. As a Christian nation-a concept which has been consistently upheld and supported by the Supreme Court-the United States has been compelled to give Indians the gift of Christianity as a part of its program of forced assimilation. By the 1970s, however, the winds of change began to blow across the political landscape.
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Sun Apr 08, 2012 at 09:01:09 AM PDT
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James K. Polk was the dark horse who became President of the United States in 1845. Polk set four goals for his administration and two of these had major implications for American Indians: (1) the acquisition of the Oregon Territory, and (2) the acquisition of California and New Mexico. Polk himself had little direct contact with Indians, but the policies established during his administration had long-lasting ramifications for Indian tribes and Indian people.
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Wed Apr 04, 2012 at 16:18:52 PM PDT
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When the Europeans first encountered the Indian nations of North America they assumed that leadership must be inherited through the male line. That is, the "king" was always the son of the previous "king." The idea of matrilineal inheritance-that is, inheritance through the female line rather than the male line-was inconceivable and baffling to the Europeans, even though it was common among Native Americans. For most Indian people, on the other hand, the idea that leadership should be based on genetics or biological inheritance was ludicrous. Leadership, according to most tribal traditions prior to the European conquest, was based on wisdom, skill, experience, and oratorical skill.
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Mon Apr 02, 2012 at 17:32:25 PM PDT
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The history of Indian nations within the United States has been one of loss of Indian land and sovereignty. There have been some attempts to reclaim those things.
In 1974, New York traditional Mohawk from the Caughnawaga Reserve in Canada and the St. Regis (Akwesasne) Reservation in New York occupied an abandoned 612-acre girls' camp at Moss Lake, New York. The traditionals declared that they were re-establishing the Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh on their homeland. The Ganienkeh Manifesto called the occupation a means to
"regain lost pride, lost belief in humanity, and to offset escapes from reality like alcohol, drugs and suicides that are destroying the Indian people."
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Sun Apr 01, 2012 at 15:43:03 PM PDT
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Welcome to the 10th edition of First Nations News & Views. This weekly series is one element in the "Invisible Indians" project put together by Meteor Blades and me, with assistance from the Native American Netroots Group. Last week's edition is here. In this edition you will find a story about First Nations pipeline protests in Vancouver, a look at the years 603 and 1916 in American Indian history, three news briefs and a big collection of linkable bulleted briefs. Click on any of the headlines below to take you directly to that section of News & Views or to any of our earlier editions.
Laughter is the Best Medicine
By navajo
 Navajo Night Dance Clown
Today we feature medicine clowns in honor of April Fools' Day. Many American Indian cultures have medicine people whose focus is emotional and spiritual healing though humor and parody. The English term clown is translated in various native languages to refer to members of a community who are considered tricksters, riddlers and jokers but who are also healers, mediators, oracles, counselors, storytellers and teachers. The Hopi Hyoka is the best-known example. Some tribes traditionally viewed medicine clowns as shape-shifters and changelings. As with other aspects of indigenous religions, the clowns were suppressed and demonized by invading European religious leaders who considered them a threat to their conversion-to-Christianity crusade. Eventually, Indian religion was banned entirely. But the custom of the clown was kept alive through oral history. An example of their practice is conflict resolution. The medicine clown would reenact the conflict using humor and satire. Once everyone was laughing the conflict could be resolved because of the mood. The Wampanoag Ahanaeenun are an example of contemporary medicine clowns who keep their traditions alive using technology and the written word to maintain the spiritual and emotional well-being of their community in a modern society.
Haunting Young Singer Punctuates First Nations Pipeline and Oil Tanker Protest
By navajo and Meteor Blades
 11-year-old singer-protester Ta'Kaiya Blaney in traditional canoe Rain is an eternal presence in the region and did not stop the large crowd from gathering in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Many First Nations people turned out in full traditional regalia, perfectly designed to deal with rain. Among the many speakers was famed environmental advocate and climate-change activist Bill McKibben:
Along with protecting this most beautiful coastline, and along with protecting all the people and other creatures that have been here for so long, you also have the great honor and the great burden of having to help protect the rest of the planet.
What they want is for British Columbia to be a kind of carbon portal, a kind of carbon gateway for oil and coal ... and we just can't let that happen. That oil has got to stay in the ground.
McKibben's reference is to the tar sands oil of Alberta, much in the news in the United States because of opposition to the 1661-mile Keystone XL that builder TransCanada has proposed to deliver the hydrocarbon in those sands, bitumen, in a slurry from Canada to the Texas Gulf coast where most of it will be exported. McKibben and hundreds of other pipeline foes, including many American Indians, were arrested for protests around the White House last summer.
The Vancouver protesters object to the proposed $5.5 billion (Canadian) Northern Gateway pipeline to be built by Calgary-based Enbridge. It would carry slurry bitumen the 731 miles from Bruderheim, Alta., to Kitimat, British Columbia. The Despite significant financial and other benefits being offered First Nations people, some 60 percent still oppose it on environmental, social and cultural grounds.
Edwin Newman (Heiltsuk First Nation) one of the main organizers of this event, said, "We are trying to protect a way of life, a way of life that we've enjoyed as Heiltsuk people and as coastal people since time immemorial. We're pleading with our coastal neighbours to stand with us to fight this issue."
The Heiltsuk, which, with two neighboring First Nations people once populated a large portion of the central coast of British Columbia, are now based at Bella Bella on Campbell Island, 250 miles south-southwest of Kitimat and vulnerable to tanker spills. A Heiltsuk member read a statement in opposition to allowing pipelines and oil tankers passage through their territory.
The most moving speaker, who actually sang her protest, was Ta'Kaiya Blaney (Sliammon First Nation), an 11-year-old actress, singer and songwriter who performed her song "Shallow Waters" (lyrics) for the crowd. Released in early 2011, the song warns that an oil spill along the northwest coast could end all hope of maintaining traditions for coastal First Nations people. A spill would devastate marine life and coastal habitat. The lyrics and melody are hauntingly beautiful.
The studio version is here with amazing images and Blaney in her traditional cedar bark regalia. The documentation is very well done. It's had 87,333 views. Her crying voice pleads to our emotions to listen, please listen, and do something.
The crowd, led by the First Nations, then marched to Enbridge Northern Gateway offices and surrounded the building, trapping the people inside for a time.
The demonstration ended peacefully.
(First Nations News & Views continued below the frybread thingey)
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Sat Mar 31, 2012 at 20:12:35 PM PDT
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The expansion of the American empire westward across the Mississippi River was motivated by greed and supported by God. During the nineteenth century American greed was manifested in an obsession for privately owned land and for gold, silver, and other precious metals. Americans believed that the role of government was to obtain land and mineral rights from the Indian nations that owned them and then give them to entrepreneurs for private exploitation. Many Americans believe that their God has made them a chosen people with dominion over both nature and all pagan nations.
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Fri Mar 30, 2012 at 18:00:27 PM PDT
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European interest in the area which would later become the state of Michigan began in the seventeenth century and was driven by two concerns: (1) to expand the lucrative fur trade with the Indians, and (2) to discover a water-based passage to the Pacific Ocean. The French expedition led by Étienne Brule reached Michigan in 1622, finding it occupied by the three Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Three Council Fires Confederacy: Ojibwa, Ottawa, Pottawatomi. In 1668 the French established a permanent settlement at Sault Ste. Marie as a base for their Catholic missions.
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Wed Mar 28, 2012 at 20:38:34 PM PDT
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The common stereotype of American Indians paints a picture of them as horse-mounted, nomadic, buffalo hunters. This stereotype is often based upon the Northern Plains Indians which the American traders, missionaries, and military encountered in the nineteenth century. However, not all of the Indian nations of the Northern Plains were buffalo hunting nomads: the tribes of the upper Missouri River Valley-the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara-were sedentary agriculturalists. These villages raised corn, beans, sunflowers, tobacco, pumpkins, and squash. They produced not only enough agricultural products for their own use, but also a substantial surplus which was traded to other tribes, and later to the Europeans and Americans. Their agricultural surplus brought them wealth and political power.
Shown above is a painting of a Mandan village by George Catlin.
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Tue Mar 27, 2012 at 20:34:01 PM PDT
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By 7000 BCE, American Indians were living in Arizona's Verde Valley. While these earliest inhabitants of the area had a hunting and gathering subsistence, by 700 CE there were farmers, called the Southern Sinagua people by archaeologists, living in the area. At this time they were growing crops similar to other Southwestern peoples: corn, beans, squash, and cotton. By 1000 CE their population had increased and they had begun to build cliff dwellings. Life in the Verde Valley, however, was interrupted in 1064 when the Sunset Crater volcano erupted, spreading a half billion tons of ash across 800 square miles. The Southern Sinagua people temporarily abandoned the valley.
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Sun Mar 25, 2012 at 15:38:38 PM PDT
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Welcome to the ninth edition of First Nations News & Views. This weekly series is one element in the "Invisible Indians" project put together by navajo and me, with assistance from the Native American Netroots Group. Last week's edition is here. In this edition you will find news briefs a look at the year 1622 in American Indian history, and some linkable bulleted briefs. Click on the headlines below to take you directly to that section of News & Views or to any of our earlier editions.
Editor's Note: We recently reported that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has given an extremely rare and extremely controversial approval for the Northern Arapaho of Wyoming to kill two bald eagles for religious purposes. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act forbids non-Native people to kill the eagles or possess any parts of the birds. American Indians can apply to obtain eagle feathers or carcasses from a federal repository in Colorado for ritual use. The USFWS permit states that the Northern Arapaho may kill or capture and release the birds after the ceremony. Just how controversial this decision is can be seen in the fact that not just environmental advocates but also members of the Eastern Shoshone tribe, who share the Wind River Indian Reservation with the Northern Arapaho, oppose the killing of the birds.
Because of the controversy, we asked two highly respected veteran diarists at Daily Kos to explore the issue from their distinct points of view. Lineatus is a longtime birder and raptor bander. Ojibwa is an academically trained Indian historian who regularly carries out traditional ceremonies.
-Meteor Blades
Killing Eagles for Ritual Purposes Needs Thorough Reassessment
By Lineatus
 Golden Eagle
(Photo by Lineatus) We have two eagle species in the US - Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Golden Eagles are found primarily in the West and North, where they favor grasslands, mountains and other open country. (They are also found in Europe and Asia.) They prefer to nest on rocky cliffs, but will use trees if they are large enough to support their massive nests. Their prey is primarily mammals, especially ground squirrels and rabbits. But they have been recorded killing prey as large as antelope and deer.
 Golden Eagle nest site above Merced River,
Yosemite National Park
(Photo by Lineatus)
Bald Eagles range across the country, especially in the winter when they wander widely, and prefer to live near water. They primarily nest in trees. They take a wider variety of prey than Goldens, with an emphasis on fish and waterfowl, along with mammals, birds and scavenged food (i.e., carrion). They sometimes gather in large groups when there is an abundant food source, like a salmon run or a waterfowl wintering area.
Typical for a large bird at the top of the food chain, eagles are slow to mature and slow to reproduce. They take at least five years to reach sexual maturity, and their first breeding attempts are less likely to be successful. They lay one to three eggs (most commonly two) with an interval of two to three days between eggs. These hatch after incubating for five to six weeks, normally a few days apart, and the eaglets fledge 10-12 weeks later. (Males, being smaller, typically leave the nest earlier than females.) Young birds will spend several months learning to hunt with their parents before heading out on their first migrations.
 Bald Eagle nest, central California
(Photo by Lineatus) Because the time from first egg-laying to independence is so long, eagles begin nesting very early in the year, even in snowy regions. If the nest fails past the first few weeks, it's usually too late for them to make a second attempt for the year. Frequently, only one chick will reach fledging stage. Second (and third) eggs and chicks are an "insurance policy" to make sure that at least one bird survives to fledge.
If food is abundant, the adults will feed all of the chicks, but if prey becomes scarce, they will focus their efforts on the larger, more vigorous eaglet(s) and the smaller, weaker siblings will likely die. After leaving the nest, young birds still need to learn to hunt; more than half don't master the skills and die before their first winter is over. About 10 percent to 20 percent of eagles actually make it to breeding age.
Such a low reproductive rate is sustainable. Over the course of a lifetime, a breeding pair only need to produce two offspring who themselves live to breeding age to maintain a stable population. Unfortunately, human activities (especially over the past century) have led to population declines. Habitat loss is one factor as is loss of hunting grounds to agriculture, and loss of nesting sites to logging. Intentional and unintentional killing is another. Eagles were early on targeted by ranchers who thought they killed livestock, especially calves and lambs. In one of the first laws protecting animals, intentional killing of eagles was outlawed in 1940 by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. But the birds still face accidental killings from electrocution on power lines, hitting wind turbines, and secondary poisoning from baits set for ground squirrels and other prey species.
 Adult and sub-adult Bald Eagle
(Photo by Lineatus) And for Bald Eagles, a devastating population crash caused by widespread use of DDT occurred in the post-World War II years. The pesticide didn't kill them outright but built up in their systems through their prey base (especially fish and waterfowl) and caused eggshell thinning, leading to breeding failures. When DDT was banned nationwide in 1972, several generations of breeding birds had been lost, and the species was placed on the Endangered Species List in 1976. Since the DDT ban, numbers have rebounded solidly with the help of major reintroduction efforts in the earlier years. The species was officially delisted in 2007. Some raptor biologists opposed the delisting. They weren't sure populations had recovered sufficiently and some saw it as a ploy by the Bush administration to try to tell an environmental good-news story while allowing various areas to be opened to oil, gas and coal interests with fewer constraints.
Though delisted, the birds remain protected by the Eagle Protection Act. That law has been amended to acknowledge the significance of eagles to Native Americans to some extent, but still limits possession of feathers and other artifacts with tight regulations. With healthier eagle populations now, should those regulations be revisited to allow taking of eagles by Native people for ceremonial purposes? If so, what revisions are appropriate? Should there be different policies for Golden and Bald Eagles, based on differing population trends?
I am myself conflicted.
My main problem is with killing a member of a species that is long lived and slow reproducing, especially in the name of religious freedom.
My objection is not about killing as part of a ritual in and of itself. If the rituals involved killing, say, ducks, then no problem. They are abundant and reproduce quickly. It's not even really about killing raptors, as much as I love them. If they wanted to take a certain number of redtail hawks every year, I would be okay with it (although admittedly not thrilled). But redtails are doing reasonably well in the world, even expanding their territory in many areas. The loss of a few would have minimal impact on the population.
It's also not about exemption from laws in the name of religious freedom, in and of itself. If a religious practice has no harmful effect on anyone other than the practitioner, I have no objection. Muslim women (and Sikh men) should be allowed to wear head coverings in their workplace; Native Americans should be able to use peyote (though not, say, when they're driving buses).
So that's what it's not about for me. What is it about?
It's the conflict between religious freedom and other legitimate concerns. An analogy is a church that wants to get a permit for a religious procession that will block city streets. The city should make the process as transparent and reasonable as possible, but it should also be able to say, "You can't block the streets around fire stations and hospitals." There are sound reasons why these protections for eagles were enacted. The rules were not created with the intent of discriminating against Indians, though they have had that effect, they were created because populations of slow-reproducing birds were threatened (critically, in the case of Bald Eagles).
The Eagle Protection Act has been modified some to accommodate Indian concerns and should be further amended to make it more workable. But any changes should be made with consideration of both biology and tradition. The government should make the process less opaque and open it up as much as is reasonable.
If it was a very limited take, and it was timed so as not to cause problems for breeding birds or fledglings, it would be easier to support. I think the loss of a handful of eagles each year (Bald or Golden) would not have a significant impact on the population and could be safely allowed. Oddly, the thing that I'm sure many people might find hardest to deal with is the thing I could best accept the practice of taking an eaglet from a nest, raising it to a certain age, then killing it ceremonially. (Nest cams have got a lot of people very attached to baby eagles.) As I explained, eagles often have more than one chick hatch, but only one lives to fledge. Taking a young bird that would likely have died anyway seems the least bad option. It also frees the parents to concentrate their efforts on the remaining youngster both before and after fledging, thus giving it a better chance at survival.
If an adult bird is captured and killed, then I have more concerns, mostly related to breeding. Also, there's something inherently upsetting in thinking about ritually killing a bird that might have survived 20 to 30 years in the wild, with all the obstacles we've created for their survival. That's the bird we want in the gene pool, and that's the bird who should be teaching youngsters how to survive.
At the minimum, I'd hope that the hunt would be limited to fall and early winter and after youngsters have fledged, learned to hunt from their parents and departed and before the next breeding season begins.
One argument I totally don't accept is: A lot of the birds are killed by power lines and autos and windmills, so what's a few more for ceremonial reasons? I have been involved in trying to stop those deaths too, so this one just doesn't cut it for me. If it's bad for them to die by accident, how is it not bad for them to be killed intentionally?
For Many Indians, Eagle Feathers Remain Big Medicine
By Ojibwa
Eagles have a special spiritual significance for many, but not all, American Indians. In some cultures the spirit or soul of the eagle might visit a person during a vision quest; in some cultures eagle medicine was associated with war and the wearing of eagle feathers symbolized war honors.
 Crow Chief Plenty Coups in eagle feather headdress
courtesy of Montana State Historical Society On the Northern Plains, eagles were seen as a source of spiritual power. Hunting eagles, particularly golden eagles, was a dangerous feat performed by men who possessed special power to do so. Among the Cheyenne, the only eagle hunters were old men who had ceased being active warriors. On a hilltop, the hunter would hide in a pit covered with poles, twigs and grass, with a dead rabbit or other small mammal placed on top as bait. When an eagle swooped down to take the meat, the hunter would try to grab it by both feet, pull it into the pit and wring its neck. The eagle's feathers were used in making bonnets and for decorating shields.
On the Central Plains, Omaha warriors recognized for bravery were allowed to wear a Crow Belt bustle: two trailers of hide covered with feathers hung from the belt with eagle wing pointer feathers protruded upward from the base of the bustle. The main body of the bustle was made of an eagle skin with head and tail still attached. For the Omaha, the eagle was associated with the destructive powers of the Thunder Being and the destructive nature of war. To wear the Crow Belt, a warrior had to be the first to strike an unwounded enemy in battle; to be the first to touch a fallen, live enemy; to be the second to touch a fallen, live enemy; and then to repeat all three of these deeds of valor.
The Cahuilla in California believed that the eagle lived forever and, by permitting itself to be killed by people, assured them of life after death. Eagles' nests were closely watched and a feast was held when the eggs were laid. When the birds were well-feathered, one would be removed and raised in a cage. When the bird was grown, the Eagle-Killing Ceremony would be held. This included singing songs about the death of eagles and dancing with the eagle.
During the reservation era, U.S. officials, as leaders of a "Christian nation," felt they had not only the right but also the obligation to eradicate all symbols of Indian religions, including the wearing of eagle feathers. On some reservations those who wore or displayed eagle feathers were imprisoned. In 1884 the United States formally outlawed all Indian religions.
The war against Indian religions abated during the administration of Franklin Roosevelt. But in 1940 it took on a new dimension with the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of Interior issued regulations restricting the taking, possessing and transporting of bald and golden eagles and their parts, which directly undermined traditional Native peoples who use eagle feathers for religious purposes. Under the act, individual spiritual leaders and traditional practitioners were persecuted. As with most federal legislation affecting Indians, there was neither testimony from Indians nor any consideration of Indian religions before the vote was taken.
In 1962 Congress modified the act slightly to provide an exception for Indian religious purposes.
But in 1974, 14 Indians were arrested in Oklahoma on charges relating to the possession and sale of illegal feathers. From the government's viewpoint, the arrests were made to stop trade in the feathers of protected birds, viewing this trade as contributing to the near extinction of the birds. Some Indians, on the other hand, felt that the government's action was really an attempt to retaliate for actions such as the 1973 takeover of the hamlet of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota by traditional Lakotas and other members of the American Indian Movement.
In subsequent court cases, lawyers argued unsuccessfully that Indians had no choice but to buy religious objects and clothing from craftsmen who knew the old skills that are needed to make them. The government pointed out that the arrests had been made of Indians selling feathers to white undercover agents not to trade or sale among Indians.
In 1978, the Eagle Protection Act was further amended to let the Secretary of the Interior allow Indians to take eagles for religious purposes.
In 1986, the Supreme Court stepped in with its ruling in United States vs. Dion. This involved a Yankton Sioux who was convicted of hunting eagles. The Court found that Congress had abrogated treaty hunting rights with both the Eagle Protection Act of 1940 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973.  Winslow Friday
(photo courtesy of his family) In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order allowing eagle feathers and other animal parts to be made available to Indian tribes for religious and ceremonial use. As part of this process, the National Eagle Repository was established in Colorado. It receives bodies of eagles killed by cars or power lines and provides them on request to Indians for ceremonial use. It's an imperfect situation, with an average wait of three-and-a-half years for obtaining an eagle carcass. Also, some traditionals feel the eagles that have been killed accidentally are not ritually clean and should not be used in ceremonies.
In 2005, Winslow Friday (Northern Arapaho) killed an eagle on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming to help with his family's Sun Dance obligations. Among the Arapaho, Sun Dance sponsorship is both an honor and a responsibility. For the sponsors' relatives, this is a communal obligation, including the need to obtain an eagle for use in the ceremony. This eagle must be pure: It cannot have died through poison, disease, accident (often the case in roadkill) or electrocution.
In response to Friday's arrest, the Northern Arapaho tribe filed suit in a challenge to the Eagle Protection Act. While federal law allows tribal members to kill bald eagles for spiritual purposes, there is no clear way of obtaining a federal permit, they said. In fact, none had been granted since amendments to the act. Since the eagle was killed by Friday for religious purposes, the tribe argued that government's requirement for a "fatal-take permit" runs counter to their First Amendment guarantee to the free exercise of religion, and wanted the Feds to make it easier for tribal members to kill eagles for ceremonial purposes.
Federal District Judge William Downes dismissed the case against Friday:
"Although the government professes respect and accommodation of the religious practices of Native Americans, its actions show callous indifference to such practices. It is clear to this court that the government has no intention of accommodating the religious beliefs of Native Americans except on its own terms and in its own good time."
The government appealed. In 2008, in U.S. v. Friday, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver overturned the lower court's ruling and ordered Friday to stand trial. He appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. In the appeal, his attorney pointed out that the government's fatal-take permit for eagles was not well known, and tribal members as well as the government's own field agents were unaware of it.
Friday's attorney wrote:
"Yet still the government wants to punish criminally a tribal member who took a bird, no longer listed on the Endangered Species List, for a religious ceremony performed for centuries by his tribe, even though that bird faces a far, far greater threat from utility companies, whose power lines kill thousands of raptors, including eagles, every year."
In 2009, the Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari and Friday dropped his fight, pleading guilty to killing an eagle. The prosecution then transferred the case to the Shoshone and Arapaho Tribal Court at Wind River. He was fined $2500 and his hunting privileges on the reservation were suspended for a year. In federal court, Friday had faced a possible sentence of a year in jail and a $100,000 fine. Those charges were dismissed.
(First Nations News & Views continued below the frybread thingey)
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Thu Mar 22, 2012 at 09:44:15 AM PDT
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The Great Basin is an area which includes the high desert regions between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. It is bounded on the north by the Columbia Plateau and on the south by the Colorado Plateau. It includes southern Oregon and Idaho, a small portion of southwestern Montana, western Wyoming, eastern California, all of Nevada and Utah, a portion of northern Arizona, and most of western Colorado. As with Indian people in other culture areas, there are many places in the Great Basin-water sources, hot springs, isolated rock formations, rock art sites, mountain peaks, and caves-which the Indian nations of this area consider to be sacred.
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Tue Mar 20, 2012 at 18:16:09 PM PDT
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Interest in a scientific understanding of the history of North America prior to the European invasion and a desire to obtain legislation to protect our ancient heritage from looting and vandalism began to coalesce in the late nineteenth century with the formation of several groups and government agencies. The groups included the Archaeological Institute of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Anthropological Association of Washington (which would later become the American Anthropological Association). The primary government agency concerned with antiquities was the Smithsonian's Bureau of Ethnography.
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Sun Mar 18, 2012 at 15:29:00 PM PDT
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Welcome to the eighth edition of First Nations News & Views. This weekly series is one element in the "Invisible Indians" project put together by Meteor Blades and me, with assistance from the Native American Netroots Group. Last week's edition is here. In this edition you will find a focus on Native and AIDS/HIV, a look at the year 1824 in American Indian history, five news briefs and some linkable bulleted briefs. Click on any of the headlines below to take you directly to that section of News & Views or to any of our earlier editions.
The Red Road Needs More Than Red Ribbons
By Aji
 When you think of the face of HIV/AIDS, it probably doesn't look like this - but maybe it should. Meet Kyle. He's a young American Indian man. And he's HIV-positive.
Tuesday, March 20, is National Native HIV and AIDS Awareness Day.
American Indians now constitute the third-fastest-growing ethnic group with new diagnoses of HIV and AIDS: 10.4 for every 100,000 persons. At first glance, that number seems much smaller than the rate for Hispanics, at 27.8/100,000, and that for African Americans, at 71.3/100,000.
However, the numbers are deceptive. First, as with everything else related to American Indian health, rates of HIV and AIDS are without doubt substantially underreported. Second, "current" estimates are already seven years out of date: The most recent global figures compiled by the Centers for Disease Control are from 2005, and the trends indicate greater rates of infection since then. Indian youth are becoming infected with HIV at faster rates than whites, with shorter survival times.
Third, talking about rates of HIV/AIDS in American Indian communities in terms of numbers per 100,000 population misses the forest for the trees. In the 2010 census, a mere 5.2 million people identified themselves as American Indians, either wholly or in part. That's only 1.7% of the total U.S. population of some 308 million people. At that level, a diagnosis rate of 1/100th of a percent is a great deal more significant for the entire ethnic group.
And, according to CDC research covering diagnoses between 1997 and 2004, of all ethnic groups, American Indians and African Americans have the shortest rates of post-diagnosis survival: 67% and 66%, respectively, at the end of the period's nine-year follow-up.
For a demographic in which 26% of those infected don't even know they have HIV, awareness has now become a matter of both individual and ethnic survival.
It can be disheartening to read the literature of the world of HIV/AIDS awareness and outreach. Even efforts geared toward people of color regularly omit American Indians. Those that do remember to include them too often do so from a dominant-culture perspective that doesn't even realize that there are cultural and other differences that must be recognized and incorporated into any successful outreach program. This approach makes Indian health, wellness and survival a mere afterthought. And all the red ribbons in the world won't do a thing to increase awareness of the growing threat that HIV and AIDS present to our communities, much less enhance prevention and ensure survival.
The good news is that several Indian nations have already taken steps to create HIV/AIDS awareness, education, diagnosis, and treatment programs that are culturally relevant and respectful of tradition. Partnering with the Indian Health Service and other public health entities, these efforts target this most underrepresented and underserved of populations in concrete ways.
The Navajo Nation helps administer perhaps the most comprehensive programs currently in existence. The Navajo AIDS Network, founded by Melvin Harrison, partners with the Gallup [New Mexico] Indian Medical Center to provide counseling and case management services to Navajo patients diagnosed with HIV. The group also offers testing and educational services.
The GIMC itself is a valuable resource: Geared explicitly toward tribal members, it works closely with both the Indian Health Service and traditional hataa'lii, or medicine persons, to provide comprehensive medical and spiritual healing for HIV and AIDS (as well as for any other illness, injury or condition).
The lack of awareness spurred the 2006-2007 Miss Navajo Nation, Jocelyn Billy, to make HIV/AIDS education and outreach the service program for her year in office. Ms. Billy connected with the young people, the group most at risk, and helped adults navigate the gaps between traditional ways and modern medical realities.
Admirable as such efforts are, they aren't enough, of course. What's needed is the sort of full-bore commitment to HIV/AIDS awareness in Indian Country that is seen in other public health contexts - for cancer, heart disease or illnesses that are not seen as belonging to some marginalized "other." On March 14, the White House announced that President Obama has appointed Dr. Grant Colfax as the new director of the Office of National AIDS Policy.Colfax is widely regarded as a public health expert on HIV and AIDS. Now would be a good time to push him and his agency to expand their work to include culturally appropriate outreach, education and treatment among our Native populations.
The models are already there: Other programs are taking shape around the country. For a glimpse of some of the events currently planned for Native communities for the coming week, visit NHAAD.org's site, which features a clickable map.
You can learn more about Kyle's daily journey on the Red Road, living as an Indian with HIV, at The Positive Project.
This week in American Indian History in 1824
By Meteor Blades
 Thomas McKenney McKenney worked diligently to get the OIA made official. In 1829, Congress did so, establishing a budget and giving the president authority to appoint a Commissioner of Indian Affairs who reported to the Secretary of War and had responsibility for "the direction and management of all Indian affairs, and all matters arising out of Indian relations."
McKenney was a great believer in "civilizing" American Indians but, during his six years at the OIA, he became a vigorous proponent of removing Indians to places west of the Mississippi River. The removed Indians included the Cherokee who had become so "civilized" that thousands of them were literate in their own language with its own alphabet when they were marched out of their homeland at gunpoint. McKenney lost his job in 1830 because another great believer in removing Indians when he wasn't actively engaged in killing them-Andrew Jackson-disagreed with his view that "the Indian was, in his intellectual and moral structure, our equal." McKenney was shocked when he later saw how brutal the murderous removals actually were in practice.
When the Interior Department was established in 1849, the OIA was moved out of the War Department and permanently named the BIA, as Calhoun had intended from the beginning. Over the next 18 years, much of its work related to distributing aid, including food, both to Indians who had been removed and were now starving in their strange new environments, and to others who had signed treaties providing annuities in exchange for great swaths of their land. Corruption was the rule of the day. Indian agents, who often bribed their way into office, cheated the tribes of what was due them in various ways, many of them becoming wealthy buying secondhand goods and wormy food with Washington's allocated funds for the tribes and pocketing the difference.
A congressional investigation in 1867 made recommendations for modest changes, some of which were enacted. However, a proposal to remove the BIA from Interior and make it an independent agency failed. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed his Civil War adjustant, Ely Parker (Seneca) as the first commissioner of the BIA with Native blood. For the next two years, under Grant's "peace policy," military conflict with the tribes was greatly reduced. But after Parker left office, that changed again. Indians were fought, defeated and corralled onto ever smaller pieces of land, often far from their home territory. By 1900, the BIA had effectively become tribal government for all intents and purposes.
Over the next century, the BIA was investigated, reformed and reorganized several times as Indian policy went from the devastating allotment period that led to the seizure of tens of thousands of acres of land, the reestablishment tribal governments under the New Deal, the termination policies of the 1950s and 1960s during which more land was taken, and the turn toward more tribal sovereignty in the '70s and '80s as a partial consequence of red militancy emerging out of the broader civil rights movement.
Today, the BIA remains at Interior and holds nearly 56 million acres of land in trust for 566 Indian tribes and Alaskan Natives. How that land gets exploited by non-Indians remains a major point of contention between the bureau and many tribes. The BIA also runs Indian schools and Indian child welfare. It provides funding and training for police forces, tribal courts, reservation road building and other operations in cooperation with tribal governments. Where once Indian employees were rare, they now make up the vast majority of the bureau's workforce, which is headed by Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echohawk (Pawnee). Having Indians in charge has not stopped many other Indians from continuing to call the agency the Bureau of Incompetence and Arrogance.
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Additional information about the BIA can be found in this diary by Ojibwa.
More below:
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The Great Basin Culture Area includes the high desert regions between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. It is bounded on the north by the Columbia Plateau and on the south by the Colorado Plateau. It includes southern Oregon and Idaho, a small portion of southwestern Montana, western Wyoming, eastern California, all of Nevada and Utah, a portion of northern Arizona, and most of western Colorado. This is an area which is characterized by low rainfall and extremes of temperature. The valleys in the area are 3,000 to 6,000 feet in altitude and are separated by mountain ranges running north and south that are 8,000 to 12,000 feet in elevation. The rivers in this region do not flow into the ocean, but simply disappear into the sand.
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| In Memoriam |
In honor of my mother, THE FLORA SOMBRERO LIND NAVAJO ENDOWMENT FUND has been set up to accept your donations.
This scholarship endowment has been established at the American Indian College Fund to honor Flora Sombrero Lind, as an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who was born at Inscription House, Arizona of the Many Goats clan circa 1925. This scholarship endowment is funded by Flora's family and friends who want to see Navajo students pursue higher education and carry on their great Navajo heritage.
Please leave a comment here if you donate.
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