October 2013 - Page 2 of 19

American Indian College Fund Fundraising Gala Raises $550,000

Source: Native News Network

DENVER – The American Indian College Fund is projected to raise $550,000 to support Native American student scholarships at its 18th annual Flame of Hope Gala, held on October 10 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dr. Cheryl Crazy Bull to begin the celebration and dinner.

Native artist Steven Paul Judd, Kiowa and Choctaw, created a painting live at the event, which was awarded to the donor providing the largest gift. The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Tribe took the painting for their donation of $50,000. A silent auction including art by the nation’s top Native artists, and entertainment by Native musicians, including classical guitarist Gabriel Ayala and the dance and music group Brulé, were featured. Haskell Indian Nations University alumnus Dominic Clichee spoke during the program.

The American Indian College Fund honored the Northwest Area Foundation of Minneapolis for funding a $1 million, one-year Tribal College Leaders in Community Innovation Award, providing financial assistance for tribal college programs impacting local communities at Leech Lake Tribal College in Minnesota; Sitting Bull College in North Dakota; Oglala Lakota College in South Dakota; Stone Child College in Montana; and Northwest Indian College in Washington State.

Honoring AICF $1 million partnership with the President and CEO of The Northwest Area Foundation, Mr. Kevin Walker.

The American Indian College Fund wishes to express gratitude to the 37 individual, corporate, foundation, and tribal nation sponsors that made this year’s Flame of Hope Gala a tremendous success.

Flame of Hope Sponsor:
USA Funds

Keeper of the Flame Sponsor:
Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of Minnesota

Vision of Hope Sponsors:
The CocaCola Company
Comcast NBC Universal
Lannan Foundation
Nissan North America
San Manuel Band of Mission Indians

Circle of Hope Sponsors:
Anheuser-Busch Companies
AT&T
The Richard Black Family: Richard, Heather, Kara, and Erica
Ford Motor Company Fund & Community Services
McDonald’s Corporation
Target Corporation
Travelers
UPS Foundation
US Bank
Walmart Foundation
Wieden + Kennedy

Spirit of Giving Sponsors:
CBS Corporation
FedEx
Grotto Foundation
Jenzabar
Mattel
Peskoff Foundation
The Tierney Family Foundation
United Health Foundation

Visionary Sponsors:
Amergent
Kimberly S. Blanchard
Dine College
Kauffman and Associates, Inc.
Leech Lake Tribal College
National Indian Gaming Association
MAG Mechanical

Ignite the Flame Sponsors:
Aramark
Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College
College of the Muscogee Nation
Northwest Indian College

Proceeds will benefit Native education.

‘It’s always been about the hatred of Indian skin’: Native Americans, allies protest Washington Redskins in Denver

Courtesy Tessa McLeanDemonstrators march with signs toward Invesco Field in Denver, Colo., to protest the Washington Redskins name as the team arrived at the stadium, Oct. 27, 2013. — Courtesy Tessa McLean
Demonstrators march with signs toward Invesco Field in Denver, Colo., to protest the Washington Redskins name as the team arrived at the stadium, Oct. 27, 2013.

By Simon Moya-Smith, NBC News

Hundreds of people rallied in Denver on Sunday to protest the name of the Washington Redskins and to send a message to team owner Dan Snyder that the nickname is derogatory to Native Americans.

Two Native American organizations, American Indian Movement Colorado and Idle No More Denver, began the demonstration Sunday morning as the team prepared to kick-off against the Denver Broncos.

Tessa McLean of the Ojibwe Nation and youth council leader of AIM Colorado, told NBC News that they marched to Sports Authority Field from nearby Auraria Campus and met the players and coaches with placards, drums and a bullhorn as the team pulled into the parking lot.

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McLean added that Native Americans and their allies spent Saturday afternoon making signs for the demonstration, some reading “Change the Name” with others declaring, “What’s in a name? Everything!”

“(Redskins) is a term that was created for proof of Indian kill,” she said, referencing the early-American sale of Indian scalps.

Tink Tinker of the Osage Nation and a professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at the University of Denver, told the crowd that the issue demonstrates a history of racism toward Native Americans.

“It’s always been about the hatred of Indian skin,” he said.

Basim Mahmood, whose ancestry stems from east India, told NBC News he was there to protest against discrimination.

“As a person of Indian origin, I stand in solidarity with them because we are all fighting the same thing — which is racism,” he said.

Radio ads, paid for by the Oneida Indian Nation in New York, have aired in cities where the Washington Redskins are scheduled to play. Prior to Sunday’s match-up between the two teams, Denver’s Sports Station KDSP-FM ran the latest ad.

Courtesy Tessa McLean

Reddog Rudy, a member of the American Indian Movement Colorado and of Ute and Chicano heritage, protests outside of Invesco Field in Denver, Colo., Sunday, October 27, 2013.

Oneida Nation has encouraged Americans to lobby the NFL in support of the name change at www.changethemascot.org, a website that debuted at the beginning of the 2013-14 football season.

The issue over the team name has even prompted comments from President Barack Obama who said that were he the owner of the team, he would consider changing the name.

“I’ve got to say, if I were the owner of the team and I knew that there was a name of my team, even if it had a storied history that was offending a sizable group of people, I’d think about changing it,” he said.

Washington D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray chimed into the debate earlier this year by stating that if the team wishes to relocate within the district’s borders from its base in Landover, Maryland, Snyder would need to consider changing the name.

On Oct. 9, Snyder released a statement saying that he “respects the opinion of those who disagree” with his position, but reiterated that he remains immovable on the subject, citing an acclaimed team history.

“We owe it to our fans and coaches and players, past and present, to preserve that heritage,” he wrote.

Numerous sports writers and publications including Mother Jones, Slate and the New Republic have recently announced that they have instituted policies against using the team name in their stories.

This week, officials of the NFL will meet with the Oneida Indian Nation in New York City to discuss the caustic subject of a name change, the Associated Press reports.

Debra Preston of the Omaha Nation, who was at Invesco Field protesting with her 8-year-old granddaughter, Lilliah Walker, told NBC News she was there in honor of Native American children and elders.

“We want Indian mascots to be deleted from mother earth,” she said. “This is our country, our nation, and we’re sick and tired of racist names being used against us.”

A group of Native Americans have sued the Washington Redskins arguing against the team’s trademark rights to the name. Trademarks that are deemed racist are illegal under U.S. federal law.

Texas inmate denied locks of dead parents’ hair

Texas prison inmate William Chance poses for a photo at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Michael Unit on Oct 1.(Photo: Michael Graczyk, AP)

Michael Graczyk, Associated Press

TENNESSEE COLONY, Texas (AP) — William Chance wants to connect to the spirits of his dead parents from his prison cell. All he needs is a lock of their hair for a Native American ritual he believes will help find them.

It’s not an easy task for an inmate in the Texas prison system, which considers the hair a security risk and has barred Chance’s family from delivering it. A federal appeals court says the request appears harmless and has sent the case back to a lower court for review — a ruling that could stretch Chance’s already long wait into 2014.

“The hair is just the connection to their physical spirit,” Chance, 57, said from East Texas’ Michael Unit prison, where he’s among some 85 prisoners who participate in Native American religious activities about twice a month. “This is something that our family has always done. The fact I’m not allowed to do that, it makes me feel bad.

“Sometimes I feel haunted, like I’m letting them down, and I realize my life in the past has been a pretty big disappointment for them.”

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled Texas should not have flatly denied Chance’s access to the hair, but agreed other requests he sought on behalf of a group of Native American prisoners were properly refused, such as smoking a nearly foot-long peace pipe and burning ceremonial herbs for what’s known as the Smudging Ritual.

Prison officials argued inmates sharing a pipe would be a risk for spreading disease and smoke from burning herbs threatened to set off fire detection systems.

But the court described the hair lock as “benign.”

Chance, whose grandmother was a Cheyenne from Lame Deer, Mont., was more than 15 years into a 65-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault when his parents died in 2008 and 2009. He asked the state to allow him possession of 4-inch locks of their hair about as thick as pencil lead for the “Keeping of Souls” practice, so he can mourn the deaths and reconnect with them for their “path to the creator.”

When the state denied the request, the Texas Civil Rights Project filed a lawsuit in June 2011 on Chance’s behalf. It argued the prohibition violates the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which bars discrimination or unduly burdensome restrictions on individuals and religious organizations.

“The spirit of a person remains in the remnant,” said Chance, who was convicted in 1992 by a Denton County jury. “And your behavior while you’re carrying this … you give them a little spiritual power so they can travel on the way,” he explained, saying it’s like a “guardian angel.”

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice says it denied Chance’s request because items that aren’t from approved vendors could be used to smuggle in drugs and contraband. Inmates must also purchase anything they want through the prison commissary, agency spokesman Jason Clark said.

Chance does have a “medicine bag” approved by Texas prison officials that includes an 8-inch strand of horse hair threaded through a hawk’s wing bone. According to court documents, those items were procured though vendors approved by the prison system.

Attorney Scott Medlock, who handled Chance’s case, said it was “odd and very strange” the prison agency would allow Chance to have natural items such as horse hair, but refuse his request for his parents’ hair.

“He’s not making this stuff up,” Liz Grobsmith, a Northern Arizona University anthropologist with expertise in Native American religions and how they’re practiced in prisons, said Tuesday. “One of the most common basic items in the medicine bundle is a lock of the deceased’s hair.”

She said Chance “cannot follow the prescribed ritual according to his faith,” equating it to “a Catholic wanting to go to church and take communion and being told you can’t have absolution and can’t take communion.”

A scheduling conference is set next week before a federal judge in Tyler, where the hair issue is set for trial in January. In the meantime, Chance said a brother has the hair for safekeeping.

“Let’s just say I’m not happy with the 5th Circuit’s ruling because of the fact the most important parts of Native American spiritual practices were dismissed,” he said. “Spirituality of the Cheyenne people is really heart-touching.

“I’d like to have my so-called day in court.”

Lou Reed Dead at 71, lyrics to “Last Great American Whale”

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Rock legend Lou Reed has died at the age of 71. Reed recorded four essential albums in the late ’60s with the Velvet Underground, and went on to an acclaimed, if uneven, solo career. Both the Velvet Underground and Reed himself were always more influential than successful; Brian Eno once remarked that only 100 people bought the first Velvet Underground album, but every one of them went on to form a band. Velvets songs such as “Sweet Jane,” “Heroin,” “Rock and Roll,” and Reed solo tunes like “Walk on the Wild Side,” “Satellite of Love,” and “Perfect Day” never threatened to top the pop charts (although “Wild Side” did make it to no. 16 in 1972), but will continue to get heavy play as long as music snobs congregate in dingy college dormitories.

In 1989, Reed released New York, which was hailed by critics as a brilliant comeback, if not the best album of his career. New York was a commentary, often spiteful, on both the city and ’80s culture in general; targets included such emblematic figures as Mike Tyson, Bernard Goetz and Morton Downey. One song, “Last Great American Whale,” addressed the environment with an allegorical tale of a massive sea creature summoned by an Indian tribe but killed accidentally by “some local yokel member of the NRA.”

The man who wrote the definitive song about hard drugs (“Heroin”) and one of the great tributes to the power of noisy, rebellious music (“Rock and Roll”) didn’t have an “Indian song” per se, but “Last Great American Whale” was in the ballpark.

They say he didn’t have an enemy
His was a greatness to behold
He was the last surviving progeny
The last one on this side of the world

He measured a half mile from tip to tail
Silver and black with powerful fins
They say he could split a mountain in two
That’s how we got the Grand Canyon

Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale

Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes
Some say they saw him off of Florida
My mother said she saw him in Chinatown
But you can’t always trust your mother

Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day
The lighthouse glows ghostly there at night
The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor’s son
And he’d been on death row since 1958

The mayor’s kid was a rowdy pig
Spit on Indians and lots worse
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
Life compared to death for him seemed worse

The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing
And tried to conjure up a storm or rain
The harbor parted, the great whale sprang full up
And caused a huge tidal wave

The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief
The tribe let out a roar
The whites were drowned, the browns and reds set free
But sadly one thing more

Some local yokel member of the NRA
Kept a bazooka in his living room
And thinking he had the chief in his sights
Blew the whale’s brains out with a lead harpoon

Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale

Well Americans don’t care for much of anything
Land and water the least
And animal life is low on the totem pole
With human life not worth more than infected yeast

Americans don’t care too much for beauty
They’ll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They’ll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
And complain if they can’t swim

They say things are done for the majority
Don’t believe half of what you see and none of what you hear
It’s like what my painter friend Donald said to me,
“Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they’re done”

NCAI Prez Demands New Farm Bill After Blizzard That Killed 100,000 Animals

Christina RoseDead cattle await burial on the Pine Ridge Reservation after the record-breaking, rogue blizzard that hit South Dakota in early October. Newly elected NCAI President Brian Cladoosby is urging Congress to pass the stalled farm bill, which would help aid those who lost livestock in the disaster. — Christina Rose
Dead cattle await burial on the Pine Ridge Reservation after the record-breaking, rogue blizzard that hit South Dakota in early October. Newly elected NCAI President Brian Cladoosby is urging Congress to pass the stalled farm bill, which would help aid those who lost livestock in the disaster.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Fresh from his election as the 21st president of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), Brian Cladoosby has made it a priority to get aid for tribal members whose homes or livestock were wiped out by the record-breaking, early-season blizzard that devastated South Dakota and the Pine Ridge Reservation earlier this month.

The government may have reopened, but in the wake of its 16-day shutdown, a key farm bill still languishes that would provide assistance to ranchers and landowners who lost millions when 100,000 cows, horses and other animals died in the blizzard, many of them on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

“As I begin my term, my thoughts and prayers are with the South Dakota tribes,” Cladoosby said in a statement, his first since being elected on October 17. “The Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes have been devastated by the recent storm that swept the Great Plains—and the federal government failed, again, to maintain treaty agreements that ensure disaster relief is provided when citizens are in distress. When the federal government neglects citizens in times of emergency, the effects can be long term.”

One of the bill’s provisions would be to make disaster relief available under the Livestock Indemnity Program, which would pay ranchers part of the animals’ market value, Reuters reported on October 8. The deadline to extend the 2008 farm bill was October 1—the very day that the government stopped working. Now the government is back in business, but a vote has yet to be held.

Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives are scheduled to meet next week to try and reconcile their respective versions of the bill, according to the Billings Gazette. It had already been stalled for months before the shutdown.

During the shutdown, livestock producers could not file the paperwork on their losses with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Agency, Reuters said. All that state and tribal authorities could do was tell them to carefully document the losses as they buried their cattle and horses in mass graves.

Cladoosby, who is also chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, said thresholds for assistance should be lowered for federal tribal disaster assistance and urged Congress to make Native issues a priority in the “post-shutdown calendar.”

Collapsing homes and widespread livestock losses are just the beginning, Cladoosby said, since the damage will cause tribal ranchers and farmers in South Dakota for years “as they will now have to rebuild their livelihoods from scratch.”

The first step, he said, should be to pass the farm bill.

“Allowing the current Farm Bill to lapse without action, coupled with the government shutdown, meant that support systems at the Department of Agriculture were unavailable to Native farmers and ranchers during this terrible storm,” Cladoosby said.

“Congress must pass a Farm Bill that will support tribal nations and others around the country who are in dire straits and it must keep nutrition programs with farm policies because there should never be a disconnect between food production and feeding people,” he said. “Congress must act immediately to provide rapid recovery for our tribes and work to ensure that political gamesmanship and inactivity does not harm Native peoples again.”

Help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can go only so far, even with the Stafford Act allowing tribes to apply in their own right, Cladoosby said, because aid doesn’t kick in at the amounts of money that people make, and lost in the disaster. The dollar amount triggering aid eligibility needs to be lower, he said.

“The high monetary damages threshold hampers impoverished areas because what is lost by low-income citizens often does not meet the required amount,” Cladoosby said. “The federal government has a fiduciary duty to protect tribal citizens, but without changes to the threshold, tribal citizens will continue to suffer from the consequences of disasters.”

He added the lack of action not only violated treaty and sovereignty rights but also cut off food supply to many tribal members.

“These failures of Congress prolong the claims process and inhibit Native food production and economic development,” Cladoosby said. “Further, with no Farm Bill and the lack of government funding for food assistance programs, many tribal citizens were left without access to food all while these vital programs are used as political bargaining chips. No one—especially our tribal citizens most in need—should ever have to go without food while being used as pawns in the lawmaking process.”

Indian Law Attorneys’ Advice to Tribes: ‘Stay Out of the Courts!’

By Gale Courey Toensing, Indian Country Today Media Network

During a impersonation of President George Bush Sr. on Saturday Night Live some years ago, comedian Dana Carvey made the following joke: “We have learned well the simple lesson of Vietnam: Stay out of Vietnam!”

Indian law experts are giving the same advice about United States courts, but it’s no laughing matter.

At the National Congress of American Indians 70^th Annual Convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in October, Richard Guest, the Native American Rights Fund’s lead staff attorney in Washington, sounded the alarm.

Since John Roberts was made chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006, Guest said, “We’ve had one win and nine losses in front of the Roberts court. And our message as we sat in Reno at the mid-year [NCAI] meeting and we‘d just been handed the decision in the Baby Veronica case – that message is still true here today: Stay out of the courts!”

Guest, NARF founder and director John Echohawk, and NCAI general counsel John Dossett have worked together for years on the Tribal Supreme Court Project and updated convention attendees about their current work.

“The federal courts are not your friends anymore,” Guest continued. The majority of judges sitting on the lower federal courts were appointed by Bush II – very conservative, have no understanding of Indian country at all. No interest in your issues. And that can be said of the Roberts court as well. It’s a very difficult place for tribes to secure victories.

The NARF still wins about 50 percent of its cases in federal courts, Guest said, but the challenge is in determining which cases will go up to the U.S. Supreme Court.“There are a lot of cases to keep track of that may be headed toward the Supreme Court and that’s one of the things the Tribal Supreme Court Project does,” Echohawk said. The project works with the tribal parties involved to brief the issues and bring all the experts – Indian law attorneys, Supreme Court practitioners – together in the hope of changing the losing record, he said.

There was no reason for the Supreme Court to grant review in the Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl case, Guest pointed out. Although he did not claim outright that the high court’s decision to grant cert was politically influenced, his descriptions of the powerful players brought in by the plaintiffs suggest that the fix was in for that to happen. “The petitioners secured the assistance of a Supreme Court practitioner, Lisa Blatt, who wrote a brilliant amicus brief. She brought in Paul Clement, the former solicitor general of the United States, along with Gregory Garre, another solicitor general of the U.S. under the Bush administration. And they wrote amicus briefs on behalf of the adoptive couple, on behalf of the baby girl, on behalf of the birth mother, all indicating reasons why the court should grant review.”

Foremost among the amici’s strategies was to use the scare tactic of promoting the idea that the Indian Child Welfare Act, which seeks to protect Indian children by keeping them with Indian families, was unconstitutional – that Indians do not deserve special treatment or protections under federal law, Guest said. “And as soon as they got review granted they backed away from that position. But it was a case that should never have gone to the Supreme Court of the United States. Having those nine justices decide whether Baby Girl belongs with father or with adoptive couple in South Carolina – why is that an issue for the U.S. Supreme Court?”

The same goes for Michigan v. Bay Mills Community, Guest said. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether a state can challenge a tribe’s right to open a casino in this case, which involves a three-year old conflict over an off reservation tribal casino in northern Michigan. The high court will not rule on whether the off reservation casino is legal; it will decide whether the state has the legal standing to challenge a tribe’s right to open the casino. The ruling can potentially impact tribal sovereignty throughout Indian country and be as devastating as the Supreme Court’s 2009 Carcieri ruling, which limited the U.S. Department of the Interior’s ability to take lands into trust for tribes recognized after 1934, Guest said.

“When you have states or local governments on one side [of a case] and Indian tribes or tribal interests on the other side, [the Supreme Court is] interested,” Guest said. “They’re interested in being able to define what state authority is going to be over Indian activities.”

The Tribal Supreme Court Project attorneys are asking tribes not to file individual briefs in the Bay Mills case but rather to sign on to the project’s amicus brief on the “strength in numbers” theory. For more information contact Guest at Richard.g@narf.org or Dossett at jdossett@ncai.org.

Before Schimmel: The Indian Women Who Became Basketball Champions

Montana State University News ServiceSome of the women from the 1904 Fort Shaw basketball team. Pictured in the front row, are Genie Butch, Belle Johnson, and Emma Sansaver. In the back row, from left, are Nettie Wirth, Katie Snell, Minnie Burton and Sarah Mitchell. — Montana State University News Service
Some of the women from the 1904 Fort Shaw basketball team. Pictured in the front row, are Genie Butch, Belle Johnson, and Emma Sansaver. In the back row, from left, are Nettie Wirth, Katie Snell, Minnie Burton and Sarah Mitchell.

Tip-off to basketball season is right around the corner. Shoni and Jude Schimmel are back at the University of Louisville, poised for another run at the national championships. Two years ago, Tahnee Robinson became the first Native American woman to be drafted by the WNBA and last spring, Angel Goodrich became the second. Indian girls are playing at many schools across the country and basketball reigns supreme throughout Indian country.

But Indian women and basketball are not as new as many think. In 1904 the women’s basketball team at Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School in Montana were world champions.

This arch at the site of the Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School proclaims the team as World Champions. (Jack McNeel)

Basketball was in its infancy, but rez ball was born.

James Naismith invented the game just 13 years earlier, so it truly was a new sport. Even during those 13 years it had evolved to something more resembling the game today. The clock didn’t stop, so the scores were lower and field goals only counted for one point, but the young women ran the full court as they do today. The uniforms could better be described as bloomers and the ball was slightly larger back then.

The History Museum in Great Falls, Montana contains a display of items and photos from the 1904 Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School basketball team including uniforms. (Jack McNeel)

The young women on the Fort Shaw team came from seven tribes throughout Montana and Idaho. Some of the girls had played shinny or double ball, but had likely never played this new sport. Their first game was against a high school boy’s team in Great Falls. The young ladies rode 40 miles in horse drawn wagons to play that game, winning and actually doubling the score of the boy’s team.

That was just the beginning. They beat the men’s teams at the University of Montana and Montana State by scores of 25-1 and 22-0. At halftime they entertained with songs on the mandolin and violin, recited poetry, sang and did Native dances. Teams didn’t want to play them.

A granite monument below the arch contains a photo and the name of each team member along with a steel basketball. (Jack McNeel)

The 1904 World’s Fair was held in St. Louis, Missouri. Fort Shaw Indian School Superintendent Fred C. Campbell arranged for the team and other Fort Shaw students to attend and live in tipis at the Indian Exhibit. They performed dozens of times showing their basketball talent as well as musical talents to raise money for the trip.

Missouri had put together an all-star team—their coach studied Fort Shaw and spent the summer preparing for them. They thought they were ready. It was a best of three series. The score in the first game was 24-2 in favor of Fort Shaw. Missouri requested a several week delay before the second game—the final score of which was 17-6, again in favor of Fort Shaw. They were declared world champions.

Fort Shaw was to close as a boarding school in 1910. The basketball team members went their separate ways, but their story continues to be told. PBS produced a movie called, Playing for the World. In 2004, Happy Jack Feder wrote a book called Shoot, Minnie, Shoot! Another movie was produced with that same title. In 2008, Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith produced another book titled Full-Court Quest: The Girls from Fort Shaw Indian School Basketball Champions of the World.

Paulette Jordan, Coeur d’Alene tribal member, played the role of Minnie Burton in the video. Jordan was a basketball player through four years of college at the University of Washington so the role came naturally. Minnie Burton was also an Idaho resident and a member of the Lemhi Shoshone Tribe.

“There was a lot of pride in playing the role of Minnie,” Jordan said. “I felt a strong relationship to Minnie who was a leader on the team. She was a natural, tall like me, and strong. She was a full-blood Indian. They were not just winners, but gracious about it. They kept winning and every time the hate became less… began transforming into respect. I believe that team had influence on the popularity of basketball into tribal culture that lasts to this day.”

The Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School no longer stands, although a couple of small stone buildings still occupy the site—but the basketball team has not been forgotten. A large steel arch has been erected with the words: 1904 World Champions. Beneath the arch is large granite stone with a steel basketball mounted on top with a photograph of the 10 young women on the team and the names of each player engraved in the stone. It’s a wonderful tribute to an incredible team that shocked the world in 1904.

Angel of the Winds Casino breaks ground on hotel expansion

An artist's rendering of what the new hotel at the Angel of the Winds Casino will look like, once it's complete in 2015.— image credit: Courtesy image. — An artist’s rendering of what the new hotel at the Angel of the Winds Casino will look like, once it’s complete in 2015.
— image credit: Courtesy image.

By Kirk Boxleitner, Arlington Times Reporter

ARLINGTON — Friday, Oct. 25, saw the Angel of the Winds Casino officially break ground on construction of a new $20-million, 125-room, five-story hotel.

“This is the next step in our growth of the Angel of the Winds Casino,” said Koran Andrews, CEO of the Stillaguamish Tribal Enterprise Corporation. “We continue to look at what our guests want, and develop those amenities.”

“We are truly blessed to have an opportunity to add a hotel to our facility, and provide more services to our guests,” Stillaguamish Tribal Chair Shawn Yanity said of the expansion, which will add more than 100,000 square feet to the casino, in the form of not only a new hotel, but also a new gift shop and smoke shop, as well as a porte-cochere to centralize guests’ entrances to the property. “Not only are we growing our tribal economy, but we’re growing the local economy, too, by increasing job opportunities and tourism.”

According to Travis O’Neil, general manager of the Angel of the Winds Casino, planning for the new hotel expansion began roughly 18 months ago, but the possibility of such an expansion was factored into the casino’s plans shortly before its previous expansion six years ago.

“We’ve got a master plan, but we also listen to our guests,” O’Neil said. “We blocked out the space for this sort of expansion, because we always had in mind that the Angel of the Winds Casino would become a destination resort. We might as well reach for the stars. We’ve got a good group of people, who do their best for our guests, and the Stillaguamish Tribe has been willing to support us, so long as they see our accomplishments.”

As far as O’Neil is aware, the Angel of the Winds Casino is one of the last, if not the last, casino on the I-5 corridor to add its own hotel, and he touted the new hotel — which is anticipated to open in the winter or spring of 2015, creating an estimated additional 50 jobs for the local community in the process — as “moderately priced, but not lower-end.”

“The hotel will be just as comfortable and nice as they’ve come to expect from the casino,” O’Neil said. “It promises to be a very good complement to the World’s Friendliest Casino.”

Beyond the jobs that will be created once the new hotel opens, O’Neil also touted the local construction jobs that will be created in the meantime, since he expects that the Bellingham-based Excel Pacific will retain a number of subcontractors, whose employees he believes will likely include more than a few folks from Marysville and Arlington.

“We’ve got other steps in our master plan, but it would be premature to discuss those at this point,” O’Neil said. “For right now, we just want to focus on making this hotel a success, and I just want to thank the Stillaguamish Tribe for the opportunities they’ve given me in this job. Their elders paved the way for this, and they’re supporting it because they’re mindful of leaving something to their future generations. It’s been a blessing to work with them.”

The Angel of the Winds Casino is located three minutes east of I-5 Exit 210 in Arlington.

Historic Haida Gwaii totem raising celebrates protection from logging

By Damien Gillis, October 24, 2013. Source: The Common Sense Canadian

A new video from Parks Canada follows the carving and raising of a 42-foot totem pole on Haida Gwaii this past summer. The first pole raising there in 130 years, it commemorates the 20-year anniversary of the creation of Gwaii Haanas National Park.

The Gwaii Haanas Legacy Pole was raised on August 15, 2013, at Hlk’yah GawGa (Windy Bay) on Lyell Island before a crowd of 400.

“Monumental poles are more than just art. They hold histories, they mark events and they tell stories,” explains artist Jaalen Edenshaw, whose design was chosen by a selection committee made up of a hereditary chief, two Haida citizens, a carver and two Gwaii Haanas staff members. Proposals were submitted without names attached, evaluated solely on their story and design.

In the video, Jaalen shows the different stories carved into the impressive pole, including one which symbolizes the 1980s blockade which protected the region from logging and led to the creation of Gwaii Haanas National Park. Another carved feature recognizes the formative influence of earthquakes on Haida Gwaii, which saw its famed hot springs dry up following seismic activity a year ago.

“The figure is ‘Sacred One Standing and Moving’,” Jaalen explains, “and as he moves, that’s when Haida Gwaii shakes and that’s what causes the earthquakes.”

The pole raising was a team effort, with dozens of Haida people and visitors pulling together on five long lines to erect it and lodge the base of the red cedar pole in a pre-dug hole for stability.

The whole process is captured from a bird’s eye-view via a small go-pro camera placed on top of the pole.

Navajo Energy Policy Legislation Passed and Signed by President

Source: Native News Network

WINDOW ROCK, ARIZONA – On Thursday Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly signed legislation enacting the Navajo Energy Policy of 2013 during a signing ceremony in his office. The policy will allow for the Navajo Nation to have direction and guidance for energy development and other initiatives.

For three years, President Shelly has been advocating to update the Navajo Energy Policy, which was created in 1980.

“I want to thank the Navajo Nation Council for the cooperation and the spirit of working together to pass the energy policy. It’s been a long journey. Much work from both branches of government went into today’s ceremony. Now we can move ahead with our future of renewable and non-renewable energy,”

Navajo Nation President Shelly said before he signed the legislation.

President Shelly also signed legislation allocating about $4.1 million to Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC) and a third legislation that changed the operating policies of NTEC.

“This is a great day for the Navajo Nation,”

President Shelly said after he signed the documents.

For three years, President Shelly has been advocating to update the Navajo Energy Policy, which was created in 1980. The Energy Advisory Committee that was chaired by Fred White, Natural Resources division director, created the updated Energy Policy and submitted the policy to the Navajo Council to initiate the legislative process.

“I am happy the Council passed the Energy Policy,”

White said shortly after the legislation passed earlier this week.

Navajo Council Speaker Johnny Naize, who sponsored the bill, called the Energy Policy.

“a basic framework for which our Nation can work with other entities to effectively use our resources for energy development.”

In addition, President Shelly has stated the Energy Policy puts the Navajo Nation in a better position to advocate for funding from federal sources for energy studies, projects and other programs.

The legislation pertaining to NTEC allocated $4.1 million to the company for costs relating to start up and expenses acquired during the due diligence investigation related to the acquisition of the Navajo mine.

The other legislation amends the operating policies for NTEC.