Labor Day Pow Wow Schedule.

Louis Campbell (Lumbee) - Photo: Vincent Schilling.

Louis Campbell (Lumbee) – Photo: Vincent Schilling.

Check out our Pow Wow listings here.

Twitter: #ICTMNWeeklyPowWowPlanner

Leech Lake Labor Day Pow Wow, September 2–4

Leech Lake Veterans Grounds next to the Palace Casino on Palace Drive

Cass Lake, MN  56633

For more information: go to http://www.llojibwe.com/ or

https://www.facebook.com/Leech-Lake-Powwow-Committee-270735403027667/

 

Ashland Labor Day Pow Wow, September 2–5

Northern Cheyenne Reservation

Between Ashland & St. Labre  off U.S. 212

Ashland, MT  59003

For more information: go to http://cheyennenation.com/Public%20Information.html

 

Totah Festival Pow Wow, September 3

Farmington Civic Center

200 West Arrington

Farmington, NM  87402

For more information: go to https://farmingtonnm.org/events/totah-festival-indian-market-pow-wow/ or

https://www.facebook.com/Totahfestival/

[Read more…]

Native Cartography.

tribal-nations-map-aaron-carapella

I have long coveted this map, but like many coveted things, it’s out of my budgetary reach. Aaron Carapella (Cherokee) is still making Indigenous based maps, the latest a pre-contact map of South America’s Indigenous peoples.

A new pre-contact map by Aaron Carapella promises to be the most comprehensive snapshot of South America’s Indigenous Peoples.

Carapella, the 36-year-old architect behind a growing collection of Tribal Nations maps, in October released a map depicting 720 tribes of South America in their original locations and identified by their traditional names. Where possible, the rising cartographer also included historic photos of people or places.

“I focused on traditional homelands, or where the tribes were when the Portuguese or English or French came and took over,” Carapella said. “I tried to put the tribes where they were before they were shifted around and merged with other tribes, and I used their traditional names—the names they called themselves before European contact.”

The latest installment marks completion of Carapella’s plan to map the entire western hemisphere, a project that started about two decades ago. Carapella, who is of Cherokee descent, was a teenager exploring his own heritage in Oklahoma and wanted a map of tribes that he could hang on his bedroom wall.

When he couldn’t find anything comprehensive, he decided to make his own. He spent 14 years and visited 250 tribal communities as he researched and created his first Tribal Nations map. Released in 2012, the map depicts traditional names and locations of 590 tribes in the United States.

From there, Carapella expanded beyond the “artificial borders” and mapped Canada, Alaska, Mexico and Central America. He also offers a map of the entire North American continent identifying more than 1,000 tribes and absent any lines drawn between states or countries.

His map of South America also shows tribal nations without political borders. From the Wayuu on the northern tip of the continent to the Manek’enk on the bottom of Cape Horn, Carapella mapped as many tribes as he could in their original locations.

That, in itself, proved more difficult than Carapella imagined. Some tribes have lived on the same land since time immemorial while others were relocated, confined to reservations or combined with other tribes.

“It’s hard to find a map or anything that pinpoints where these people were actually from,” Carapella said. “The Europeans didn’t stop to make maps of where people were. That wasn’t their goal.”

aaron-carapella-tribal-nations-map

You can read and see more here. You can read about Aaron’s first map, the 1490 Turtle Island, here. Aaron’s website: http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com/.

Washington State Natives: No DAPL.

Indian Nations from the Pacific Northwest came to support the Standing Rock Sioux. Courtesy Gyasi Ross.

Indian Nations from the Pacific Northwest came to support the Standing Rock Sioux. Courtesy Gyasi Ross.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II welcomed a delegation of eight Indian nations from Washington State on Tuesday August 30 who joined the growing opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline that threatens the tribe’s water supply and sacred places on Oceti Sakowin Treaty lands.

The Yakama Nation, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Lummi Nation, Puyallup Tribe, Nisqually Indian Tribe, Suquamish Tribe, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and Hoh Tribe traveled with a large delegation from the Pacific Northwest with a sacred totem pole to demonstrate spiritual support. After a blessing at the Standing Rock camp near the river, the totem pole will be permanently raised at the Turtle Lodge on the Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba next week.

“Yakama is humbled and honored to stand beside our brothers and sisters of the Standing Rock Sioux. We’re observing a peaceful and prayerful gathering to move an entire country. We stand united in solidarity with the natural laws of this land, advocating for responsible decision making and honorable communications,” said Yakama Chairman JoDe Goudy.

“Together, we express to the U.S. government that now, more than ever, is the time to fulfill the trust obligations laid out within the treaties and historical interactions with the Native peoples of this land. Until such things come to pass, the spirit and voice of all peoples shall unite with Standing Rock. One voice, one heart, and one spirit to speak for those things that cannot speak for themselves.”

[…]

Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby, who also serves as NCAI president, said, “We are a placed-based society. We live where our ancestors are buried. Our culture, laws, and values are tied to all that surrounds us, the place where our children’s future will be for years to come. We cannot ruin where our ancestors are buried and where our children will call home, uproot ourselves and move to another place. We cannot keep taking for granted the clean water, the salmon and buffalo, the roots and berries, and all that makes up the places that our First People have inhabited since time immemorial. Our futures are bound together.”

More than 150 tribes so far have sent resolutions and letters of support to show solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux and the Seven Council Fires of the Lakota’s efforts to stop the pipeline.

“Words can’t express how thankful we are for all of the prayers, support, letters and donations we have received,” said Archambault. “It inspires us every day on our mission to protect this area for future generations and all who use it.

[…]

“I am here to stand with the Standing Rock people because my people are facing the same threats to bear the risk of development for the Puyallup Tribe,” said Councilman David Bean. “It’s an LNG terminal that will be built in the middle of our reservation and threaten our treaty protected resources.”

[…]

“Everyone has heard that this pipeline would be more than 1,100 miles long and would transport more than half a million barrels of crude oil every day across our lands,” said Cedric Good House, a traditional leader for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

“What they don’t know are the irreplaceable sacred places across the landscape and the deep cultural and spiritual knowledge that is tied to them,” he said. “These are the places and the knowledge that make us who we are today as a tribe. I plan on telling my grandchildren about the time when tribes across the country stood up and fought for treaty, culture, and the future. And we fought for the future of safe drinking water for all Americans. No longer is the world watching us, the world is with us.”

Water protectors at Standing Rock. (Photo: Courtesy Steven Sitting Bear/Standing Rock Sioux Tribe).

Water protectors at Standing Rock. (Photo: Courtesy Steven Sitting Bear/Standing Rock Sioux Tribe).

Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

Dave Archambault Sr. has an excellent column up at ICTMN: Anti-DAPL: Are You a TRAITOR or PATRIOT? – Also, Navajo Nation Lends Support to Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Against Dakota Access.

Via ICTMN.

Changing Public Perception.

Photo courtesy First Nations Development Institute. Reclaiming Native Truth, a Native-led two-year research project, aims to improve mainstream perceptions of Native Americans.

Photo courtesy First Nations Development Institute.
Reclaiming Native Truth.

Changing public perception tends to be a Herculean task, and certainly will be in this case, battling a whole history of lies, distortions, and stereotypes. There’s also the massive problem of a complete lack of education. In the U.S., history which is taught is strictly white-washed, and it too is full of lies and distortions. The average person in uStates doesn’t know one accurate thing about Indigenous peoples.

A $2.5 million Native-led research project, announced this morning, will spend two years studying mainstream perception of Native Americans and developing long-term strategic campaigns to address the public’s misperceptions.

Reclaiming Native Truth: A Project to Dispel America’s Myths and Misconceptions is a joint project between the First Nations Development Institute and Echo Hawk Consulting, with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

“Native Americans and their communities are blocked from reaching their full potential by harmful stereotypes, misperceptions, and lack of awareness,” said Michael E. Roberts (Tlingit), president and CEO of the First Nations Development Institute and co-director of Reclaiming Native Truth, in a press release Tuesday morning.

Leading the project will be a 20-person committee of some of Indian country’s most well-known and well-respected experts. More than half of the committee spots have been confirmed, including:

Cheryl Crazy Bull (Sicangu Lakota), president, American Indian College Fund

Ray Halbritter (Oneida), Oneida Indian Nation representative and CEO of Oneida Nation Enterprises

Jacqueline Pata (Tlingit), executive director, National Congress of American Indians

Sara Kastelic (Alutiiq), executive director, National Indian Child Welfare Association

Dr. Adrienne Keene (Cherokee), scholar, writer, blogger, and activist

Judith LeBlanc (Caddo), director, Native Organizers Alliance

Denisa Livingston (Navajo), community health advocate, Diné Community Advocacy Alliance

Nichole Maher (Tlingit), board vice-chair, National Urban Indian Family Coalition, and president, Northwest Health Foundation

Erik Stegman (Assiniboine), executive director, Center for Native American Youth

Mark Trahant (Shoshone-Bannock), editor of TrahantReports

Nick Tilsen (Oglala Lakota), executive director, Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation

“Over the next two years, this project is focused on understanding the true extent of society’s negative and inaccurate perceptions of Native Americans and finding the best means of overcoming them,” said Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee), president and CEO of Echo Hawk Consulting and co-director of Reclaiming Native Truth.

Specific goals of the project include improving portrayal of Natives in media, ensuring Native participation in government, addressing grant-funding inequalities and including accurate Native history in public school history courses.

If you’re one of the many people who don’t know much about Indigenous peoples, that’s easily remedied. Most Nations/Tribes have their own websites, which are full of information, and there’s a whole lot of Native journalism going on. Just a few good sites to read on a regular basis: Indian Country Today Media Network, Indianz.com, Native News Online, Indian Country News, and Native Voice One. There’s no shame in ignorance, as long as there’s an attempt to learn.

Via ICTMN.

Angela Sterritt.

Gitxan artist and CBC journalist Angela Sterritt spent five days in China creating this mural. (Angela Sterritt).

Gitxan artist and CBC journalist Angela Sterritt spent five days in China creating this mural. (Angela Sterritt).

A Gitxsan artist from British Columbia is among several artists from around the world chosen to create murals at a mountain village resort in China.

“To be able to put Gitxsan people on the map and shed light on the reality and history of Indigenous people in Canada is something I am very grateful for,” Sterritt said.

Angela Sterritt, who is also an award-winning journalist, spent five days painting her mural on a 10-seven-foot wall in a resort on Mount Longhu in Jiangxi, a province in southeast China.

She travelled to China at the invitation of Karl Schutz, a German-born Vancouver man known for establishing an acclaimed series of murals in Chemainus, B.C., in the 1980s.

Schutz, in turn, was invited to organize the mural project by Steven Liu, a well-known Chinese entertainer, who “wanted to create a global mural attraction in his artisan village,” according to Schutz.

“I found Angela’s website on line and was amazed about her powerful art … her painting is awe inspiring,” said Schutz.

Sterritt made the journey with her young son, Namawan, who also helped with the project.

The mural Sterritt painted is a re-creation of one of her existing works, called First Contact, which she says is about the resilience and strength of Indigenous women. It is a striking image is of an Indigenous woman facing the viewer, while helicopters hover behind.

“It depicts a woman whose connection and love for her community, family, the land and her culture eclipse fear instilled in us at the time of first contact,” Sterritt said.

“As a Gitxsan woman, I’ve been gifted Sip’ xw hligetdin — the strength to speak out — through my art and as a journalist. This piece speaks to Indigenous women rising from the ashes [using] what has been within her all along — her culture, in this case from the Wolf Clan, an Owl Crest and a Big Raven House.”

The full story is here. Angela Sterritt’s site.

Oh, Canada, For Effing Shame.

Jennifer Dorner posted this image after dropping her kids off on the first day of school in Montreal. (Courtesy Jennifer Dorner/Facebook).

Jennifer Dorner posted this image after dropping her kids off on the first day of school in Montreal. (Courtesy Jennifer Dorner/Facebook).

A picture posted by mother Jennifer Dorner has started yet another conversation about why not to wear costume headdresses. She took the image while dropping her children off for their first day of school at Montreal’s École Lajoie on Monday, August 29. The image shows a Grade 3 teacher in a headdress in front of the children, and according to Dorner, smaller headdresses were being handed out for the children to wear.

Sarah Dorner, Zoe’s mother, told thestar.com that her daughter refused to wear the headdress.

“We have been teaching our children that costumes like that are inappropriate,” Dorner also said. “The other kids in the class were all wearing them.”

“A lot of children aren’t necessarily taught cultural sensitivity or have much awareness about indigenous cultures,” she went on to say. “But in our family we have many indigenous friends, so it’s a conversation we’ve had many times.”

Gina Guillemette, a Margeurite-Bourgeoys school board spokesperson, told news outlets that the two teachers seen sporting headdresses have backgrounds in anthropology and history and are introducing indigenous history into the curriculum. Guillemette also told CBC News the headdresses worn by teachers were a way for the kids to know which “family, or class, to go to.”

Guillemette told the Gazette that “the teachers decided to wear hats to symbolize that they were Native chiefs,” to separate their students from another Grade 3 class.

Right. So naturally, you could not be bothered, as educators, to thoughtfully choose a particular tribe, maybe one in your actual part of the world, find out what their traditional regalia might be, and actually ask members of that tribe if it would be okay to dress in a certain item. Oh, that would be bringing Indians into things, and I guess you can’t have that in a school, it might poison young minds with the truth or something. As Adrienne Keene wrote on Native Appropriations, this is not a lightweight matter:

Adrienne K of Native Appropriations writes that a non-Indian casually wearing an Indian headdress “furthers the stereotype that Native peoples are one monolithic culture, when in fact there are 500+ distinct tribes with their own cultures. It also places Native people in the historic past, as something that cannot exist in modern society. We don’t walk around in ceremonial attire everyday, but we still exist and are still Native.” She also draws attention to the deep spiritual significance of a headdress and maintains that when a non-Indian wears one “it’s just like wearing blackface.”

Getting back to the teachers at  École Lajoie, they seem to not only miss the point, they are determined to miss the point:

“No offence was intended—if any parents were offended, we apologize,” Guillemette told the Gazette. “We didn’t want to offend anyone. It was the opposite; we wanted to sensitize the students to the contributions of native communities.”

Oh For Fuck’s Sake! What about the children you offended, do they not count? And there’s that magical if – if you were offended, words of the classic notpology. You sensitize students to the contributions of native communities by appropriating a headdress unique to specific tribes, and mashing up all tribal cultures into one messy clump? You sure as hell don’t sound like educators to me, you sound like flaming assholes who live to perpetuate stereotypes.

“How can they possibly be teaching an authentic understanding of indigenous culture? Dorner asked thestar.com. “It doesn’t help their cause to say that. If anything, it makes it even more distressing.”

This isn’t the first time Dorner has addressed cultural sensitivity with the school either. In 2014, “they were doing a play where Santa goes to Africa and gets Ebola and gets sick and the local tribes are dancing around him and my daughter was going to be in blackface,” she told the Gazette.

“We managed to convince the school not to do blackface at the time, but they still kept the story line. Santa ends up being saved by scientists who come from the North Pole.”

She met with the school multiple times in 2014, according to the Gazette to discuss “cultural appropriation and this kind of insensitivity and was hoping that we had come to some kind of understanding, but apparently not. Which is why I’m particularly upset this time. The message doesn’t seem to be sinking in.”

Canadians, please, wake the fuck up. This school, and its staff, should be shamed into the ground by a whole lot of very angry people. Apparently, the open bigotry at this school strikes too many people as just fine, and that is seriously fucked up.

Full story at ICTMN.

Dakota Access: Indigenous Round Up.

DAP

As the number of water protectors continues to burgeon on the banks of the Cannonball River in protest of the Dakota Access oil pipeline’s route across Standing Rock Sioux ancestral, treaty-protected lands, national media outlets are starting to pick up the story.

Both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have run pieces, and The New York Times published an op-ed by Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman David Archambault II, as well as a detailed explanation of the issues. But Democracy Now! has been out in front with in-depth reports on more than one night. Last week we brought you the independent news show’s initial report.

Anchor Amy Goodman has since interviewed both Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II and Ojibwe activist, journalist, author and sometime vice presidential candidate Winona LaDuke. Both reports aired last week, as support from Indian nations and people continued to grow to several thousand.

Watch Archambault and LaDuke below, and read the stories at Democracy Now!, including an August 30 report on the Black Lives Matter movement’s visit to the spirit camps..

Full Story.

[Read more…]

The Last Word: Chairman David Archambault II.

The protests at Standing Rock. Ruth Hopkins has a good column about watching the feds, and why they are so distrusted. If you hadn’t read it before, catch it now. Revos.2040 breaks the news that the Army Corp of Engineers do not have a written easement for Dakota Access. Mike Myers has a wonderful column up on the Ties That Bind, about the Haudenosaunee Confederation’s longstanding treaty with the Sioux Nations.

Josue Rivas is doing incredible work, documenting the protectors and life at the camp.

A young warrior at the opposition to Dakota Access Pipeline.

A young warrior at the opposition to Dakota Access Pipeline.

proxy

School has started for the children at the camps. The 2016 Tribal Summit will take place as planned, and there will be discussion about the pipeline. Pow Wow is on, and Sacred Stone Camp will have information and education booths up.  We stand, not only for ourselves, but for all people. Please, don’t lapse back into resignation, don’t let weariness win. We have been fighting for hundreds of years. The camps in this one resistance have been standing for 5 months now, since April, and we are not going to stop now, so please, don’t you stop either. We must endure, and every voice, every signal boost, every supply, every donation, every person who comes to the camps, you hold us up, you brace the foundation of our obligation to and protection of our earth, our water. We still need help. Holler, shout, spread the word, signal boost, please! Join us, stand with us. Come to camps. If you can’t, please signal boost, send or drop off supplies, or donate. Sign the petitions, whatever you are able to do!

Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

About this ^ last, because I’m sure someone somewhere will be offended. If you look at Etsy, or any other site where people sell stuff, you will always find a fucktonne of people happily appropriating all things Indigenous. Non-Indigenous people run around wearing Plains headdresses with abandon, people dress up as “Pocahotties” and all kinds of other thoughtless, bigoted isht. If you’re one of those people, this last applies. If you know one of those people, this last applies. If you’re busy making money and taking advantage of appropriating Indigenous culture, the very least you could do is to support those you rip off.

35.

John F. Kennedy. Whitehouse.gov.

John F. Kennedy. Whitehouse.gov.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy often gets credit for serving as president during the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s, but the man beloved for championing African-American rights and working to eradicate poverty was assassinated before he could fulfill his promises to Native Americans.

Just 11 days before winning the 1960 election, Kennedy called for a “sharp break” from past Indian policies. That included termination policy, which severed tribes’ special relationships with the federal government, divided reservations into private ownership and sought to assimilate Indians into full citizenship.

Kennedy pledged to reverse termination policies, making a “specific promise of a positive program to improve the life of a neglected and disadvantaged group of our population,” he wrote in an October 28, 1960, letter to Oliver La Farge, president of the Association of American Indian Affairs.

“My administration would see to it that the Government of the United States discharges its moral obligation to our first Americans,” he wrote, promising better education and health care, access to federal housing programs, increased economic opportunity and “genuinely cooperative relations” between Indians and federal officials.

“Indians have heard fine words and promises long enough,” he wrote. “The program to which my party has pledged itself will be a program of deeds, not merely of words.

Yet Kennedy failed to live up to those words, said Thomas Clarkin, a history professor at San Antonio College and author of the 2001 book Federal Indian Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. Kennedy, who was assassinated after serving 1,036 days in office, was a transitional president, bridging the gap between the termination policies of the 1950s and the more sympathetic Indian policies enacted during the ‘60s and ‘70s.

[Read more…]

Dakota Access Pipeline Protest: All We Want Is Clean Water.

Still Here. Still Standing. Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition. Dakota Access Pipeline Approval Disappoints by Dallas Goldtooth.

#Simon Moya-Smith. #NoDAPL. ICTMN.

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