Shooting for Avatar 2, the sequel to James Cameron’s world wide box office smash, begins in 2015, and new casting call information reveals the inclusion of Native Americans in supporting roles. Filming will be split between Manhattan Beach, California, and a location in New Zealand.
The film is currently set for a December 2016 premiere in the United States.
A direct sequel to the first film Avatar 2 it’s believed the plot will follow Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who uses the technology to transfer his consciousness in to the body of his Na’vi, so he can live a fresh life with princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). Something tells us this won’t go smoothly however.
Also reprising their roles are Sigourney Weaver as “Dr. Grace Augustine”, Stephen Lang as “Colonel Miles Quaritch,” and Joely Richardson is rumored to be newly joining the cast.
Although the status of the idea is unknown, James Cameron has stated that he wants to film Avatar 2 at a higher frame rate that usually used, and possibly as high as 60fps, something usually reserved for video games. Since most theaters don’t run at this rate it may only be reserved for special circumstances or the future when higher frame rates might become the standard.
Cameron has also expressed interest in filming some scenes at the deepest location on earth accessible by humans, the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Though again the status of this is not clear.
Cameron who wrote, will direct and produce the film has his work cut out over the next few years as he’s agreed to two more Avatar movies, Avatar 3 and Avatar 4. Judging from the fact that the first Avatar was one of the highest grossing films of all time, continuing the franchise makes sense.
Actress Misty Upham has officially been declared a missing person reports Us weekly.Indian Country Today reports that the 32-year-old actress was last spotted leaving her sister’s apartment in Muckleshoot, Washington on October 5.
She is best known for her role as housekeeper Johnna Monevata in the film “August: Osage County” which starred Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep. Other film roles include 2008’s “Frozen River” and 2013’s “Jimmy P.” She had also filmed a part in the upcoming movie “Cake” alongside Jennifer Aniston.
Upham’s father, Charles Upham who first raised the alarm released a statement saying, “”Misty is considered an endangered missing person due to a medical condition. She has not been in contact with her family or friends since her disappearance.”
Charles Upham says the last time he saw his daughter she sounded suicidal.
“She told me and her mom that we didn’t have to worry about her anymore … I thought it sounded suicidal myself, so I called the police,” Charles Upham told The Hollywood Reporter.
“She’s always been a suicidal person,” he said, “She used to make (suicide) threats sometimes, but she never went through with it.”
Those with information on Upham are asked to call the Auburn police department (253) 288-2121, case no. 14-13189.
Like most chefs, Sean Sherman practically lives in the kitchen. But in his spare time, this member of the Oglala Lakota tribe has been on a quest to identify the foods his ancestors ate on the Great Plains before European settlers appeared on the scene. After years of researching and experimenting with “pre-colonization” foods, he’s preparing to open a restaurant in the Twin Cities this winter that showcases those foods, reborn for contemporary palates.
Sherman, who calls himself the Sioux Chef, grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. It’s where he first started to learn about the traditional foods of the Plains, whether it was hunting animals like pronghorn antelope and grouse,or picking chokecherries for wojapi, a berry soup.
“We were close to the Badlands and its sand hills, which is not the best growing area by far,” says Sherman, who’s now 40. “But we would also spend weeks in the Black Hills, crawling around and learning stuff.”
Sherman’s grandfather was among the first Native American children to go to mission schools on the reservation, and he was one of Sherman’s first teachers. Forced assimilation during the 19th and early 20th century wiped out much of Native American food culture across the country. When his grandfather died when Sherman was 18, he was left with many unanswered questions.
In the meantime, Sherman worked his way up in the restaurant world, eventually becoming an executive chef at Minneapolis’ La Bodega in 2000. Around the same time, he had the idea to write a Lakota cookbook. Although there were some Native American cookbooks already on the market, he says he found that most of them focused on the Southwest or made too many generalizations about food across regions and tribes.
When he tried to learn more about the wild game — and especially the plants — native to the Great Plains, he came up short. He says many Americans don’t have a sense of the Lakota diet beyond bison or frybread. (Frybread is actually a fairly recent addition and has a complicated history.)
“There wasn’t a lot of information out there, so I devised my own [research] plan,” he says. “I spent years studying wild edibles and ethnobotany.”
He learned more from oral histories and also started reading historical first-contact accounts written by Europeans, although they weren’t always helpful.
“A lot of those first-contact reports focused on what the men were doing [hunting], not on what the women were doing — processing all of the food,” he says.
One of his breakthroughs came when he lived in Mexico for a while. He discovered that the traditional methods of drying and grinding food in that region were similar to those his tribe had once used, and indigenous people all across North America were working with ingredients like corn, beans and squash.
Back in Minnesota, he continued to try and piece together a picture of the traditional diet of the local Dakota and Ojibwe tribes. He also spent a lot of time traveling across the state, adding more staples to his growing list, including bison, venison, rabbit, river and lake fish, trout, duck, quail, maple sugar, sage, sumac, plums, timpsula or wild turnip, wild rice, purslane, amaranth, maize, and various wildflowers.
Identifying the ingredients has only been half of the challenge, however. He’s also had to figure out how to preserve everything. He’s relied mostly on a food dehydrator (for efficiency), but he’s also experimented with drying by sun and wood fire.
“I want to figure out how I can use wild flavors in season, because they might be gone in a two-week period,” he says. “The biggest part of the Native American cuisine is just that method of preserving foods. That’s what people were doing during the whole summer season — preparing for the next long winter.”
Sherman started Sioux Chef as a catering business in Minneapolis and hopes to open his restaurant sometime this winter in the Twin Cities. He says the area’s diverse population and vibrant food scene offer the “best platform to showcase what we can do with these foods.”
Some chefs have tried similar concepts in other regions. Nephi Craig brings Apache and Navajo influences to the food he prepares at the Sunrise Park Resort Hotel in Arizona. The Misitam Cafe in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., has won national acclaim.
Sherman says his restaurant will feature a seasonal menu with family-style dishes, like wild rice flatbread, cedar-braised bison, smoked turkey wasna, seared walleye with sumac and maple sugar and balsam fir iced tea. Most of his ingredients will be sourced from local farms. Some farms, like Wozupi, work with local tribes to grow indigenous plants and preserve heirloom seeds.
Sherman says his goal is to bring a sophisticated touch to traditional ingredients, and he hopes it will be a way to share old traditions with new diners. “We need this kind of restaurant all over the place,” he says.
But other groups on reservations are interested in reviving pre-colonization foods to reincorporate them into local diets. The Traditional Western Apache Diet Project and the Crow Creek Fresh Food Initiative are offshoots of a food sovereignty movement that is picking up steam on several reservations around the country. A recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture also found that several indigenous foods that aren’t widely consumed anymore are highly nutritious.
If his restaurant is successful, Sherman hopes he can expand the concept and create similar ones across the country, training young Native American chefs in keeping their tribes’ best culinary traditions alive.
Do you have Native American artifacts and antiques you would like more information about? Perhaps you would like to know how much they are worth? Bill Lee, an accredited appraiser will be providing information and current market values on items, Saturday, October 18 at the Tulalip Hibulb Cultural Center.
This turtle was carved on the hull of a 600-year-old canoe found in New Zealand. Turtles are rare in pre-European Maori art. The engraving might be a nod to the Maori’s Polynesian ancestors, who revered the seafaring reptiles. (Tim Mackrell, Conservation Laboratory, The University of Auckland)
Sophisticated oceangoing canoes and favorable winds may have helped early human settlers colonize New Zealand, a pair of new studies shows.
The remote archipelagos of East Polynesia were among the last habitable places on Earth that humans were able to colonize. In New Zealand, human history only began around 1200-1300, when intrepid voyagers arrived by boat through several journeys over some generations.
A piece of that early heritage was recently revealed on a beach in New Zealand, when a 600-year-old canoe with a turtle carved on its hull emerged from a sand dune after a harsh storm. The researchers who examined the shipwreck say the vessel is more impressive than any other canoe previously linked to this period in New Zealand. [The 9 Craziest Ocean Voyages]
Separately, another group of scientists discovered a climate anomaly in the South Pacific during this era that would have eased sailing from central East Polynesia southwest to New Zealand. Both findings were detailed Sept. 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Canoe on the coast
The canoe was revealed near the sheltered Anaweka estuary, on the northwestern end of New Zealand’s South Island.
“It kind of took my breath away, really, because it was so carefully constructed and so big,” said Dilys Johns, a senior research fellow at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
The hull measured about 20 feet long and it was made from matai, or black pine, found in New Zealand. The boat had carved interior ribs and clear evidence of repair and reuse. Carbon dating tests showed that the vessel was last caulked with wads of bark in 1400.
Johns and colleagues say it’s likely that the hull once had a twin, and together, these vessels formed a double canoe (though the researchers haven’t ruled out the possibility that the find could have been a single canoe with an outrigger). If the ship was a double canoe, it probably had a deck, a shelter and a sail that was pitched forward, much like the historic canoes of the Society Islands (a group that includes Bora Bora and Tahiti) and the Southern Cook Islands. These island chains have been identified as likely Polynesian homelands of the Maori, the group of indigenous people who settled New Zealand.
The boat was surprisingly more sophisticated than the canoes described centuries later by the first Europeans to arrive in New Zealand, Johns told Live Science. At the time of European contact, the Maori were using dugout canoes, which were hollowed out from single, big trees with no internal frames. In the smaller islands of Polynesia, boat builders didn’t have access to trees that were big enough to make an entire canoe; to build a vessel, therefore, they had to create an elaborate arrangement of smaller wooden planks.
The newly described canoe seems to represent a mix of that ancestral plank technology and an adaptation to the new resources on New Zealand, since the boat has some big, hollowed-out portions but also sophisticated internal ribs, Johns and colleagues wrote.
The turtle carving on the boat also seems to link back to the settlers’ homeland. Turtle designs are rare in pre-European carvings in New Zealand, but widespread in Polynesia, where turtles were important in mythology and could represent humans or even gods in artwork. In many traditional Polynesian societies, only the elite were allowed to eat turtles, the study’s authors noted.
Shifty winds
A separate recent study examined the climate conditions that may have made possible the long journeys between the central East Polynesian islands and New Zealand. Scientists looked at the region’s ice cores and tree rings, which can act like prehistoric weather stations, recording everything from precipitation to wind patterns to atmospheric pressure and circulation strength. [10 Surprising Ways Weather Changed History]
Because of today’s wind patterns, scholars had assumed that early settlers of New Zealand would have had to sail thousands of miles from East Polynesia against the wind. But when the researchers reconstructed climate patterns in the South Pacific from the year 800 to 1600, they found several windows during the so-called Medieval Climate Anomaly when trade winds toward New Zealand were strengthened.(That anomaly occurred between the years 800 and 1300.)
“There are these persistent 20-year periods where there are extreme shifts in climate system,” the study’s head author, Ian Goodwin, a marine climatologist and marine geologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, told Live Science. “We show that the sailing canoe in its basic form would have been able to make these voyages purely through downwind sailing.”
Goodwin added that a downwind journey from an island in central East Polynesia might take about two weeks in a sailing canoe. But the trip would take four times that if the voyagers had to travel upwind.
A group in the Boise area is in the midst of fundraising for a new attraction in the Northwest. It’ll be called the Northwest Science Museum.
Stan Lutz, left, and Doug Bennett stand with a mastodon skull in the Vision Center, a smaller version of what they hope to build.
Credit Jessica Robinson / Northwest News Network
They envision a 350,000-square-foot space full of fossils, rocks and animal specimens. But this isn’t your usual natural history museum. It’s designed by creationists.
Most scientists, textbooks, and natural history museums would tell you the Earth is several billion years old, that plant and animal species evolved over time, and that dinosaurs died out millions of years before our human ancestors appeared. You might even take that as a given. But a large segment of the population believe something else happened.
It’s the story Doug Bennett wants to tell in the museum.
Creationist view
“The first thing you’re going to see as you walk up to the building is a full-scale Noah’s Ark,” Bennett pointed out.
That ark, and Noah’s flood, are key to the way Bennett sees the history of the earth. To him, it explains many of the geological formations and how fossils were distributed. Bennett is among the 42 percent of Americans who have a creationist view of the world. He believes the earth and all life were created in their present form in one week, about 6,000 years ago.
To Bennett, evolution isn’t about science, it’s about morality.
“If you can make up a system that says there is no god, that things just happen by chance, then we’re not accountable to any higher being,” he said. “And so you can do what you want and have no consequence.”
So far, Bennett and the other founders have set up a smaller version of what they hope to build – they call it the Vision Center. They’ve rented a space in a business park at the edge of Boise and put in displays, including a huge mastodon skull whose tusks fill the center of the room.
‘The most controversial stones in the world’
Bennett said the idea for the museum was an inspiration from God.
Creationists say this stone from Ica, Peru shows a T-rex interacting with a human.
Credit Jessica Robinson / Northwest News Network
“I think everybody needs to see the evidence we will have in the museum,” he added. “One of the things we have here in this vision center is probably the most controversial stones in the world. Because they show man and dinosaurs interacting.”
In one of the glass cases, Stan Lutz, one of the other founders, pointed out a collection of “Ica stones,” which he said are ancient stones from Peru.
“This stone right here, you can see there’s a man on it riding on a triceratops dinosaur,” he said.
Lutz pointed to a tan colored stone with a man on a lizard-like creature.
“We have rocks showing at least 14 species of dinosaur that are all accurately drawn,” he said.
This isn’t the only evidence they’ll display. In fact, Bennett said they’ll even show the argument from the other side, what he calls the “naturalistic perspective.”
“We want to bring that out and say, ‘Ok, people. Let’s make your choice here.’ Don’t just believe because you’re being told that. Think for yourself. Use critical thinking and think, does this make sense?” Bennett said. “Or is it better to believe what the Bible says — that God created all things.”
The museum in Idaho joins at least a dozen creation museums in other states trying to provide a counterweight to prevailing scientific thought. One museum near Mt. Saint Helens uses the mountain’s explosion as proof that the earth can change rapidly. This year, the Creation Museum in Kentucky hosted a much-discussed debate between the museum’s founder and science personality Bill Nye.
Creationism vs intelligent design
But Casey Luskin, from the Discovery Institute in Seattle, said in many ways, the real debate has moved on.
“I definitely think the conversation about origins has shifted a lot, over the last probably 15 or so years,” he said.
“Intelligent design starts with the data. Whereas creationism starts with the Bible,” he explained. “Intelligent design doesn’t say the earth is 6,000 years old, whereas creationism — that’s a major claim that creationists will make. And so, when people conflate the two, it’s an attempt to try to dismiss the arguments for design in nature without actually addressing them.”
On a visit to the museum’s Vision Center, Laura Wallace of nearby Nampa browsed the displays and found herself divided — between two different views of the history of the earth.
“I don’t know, I mean I believe God could do either,” she said. “If he wanted to do it in a million years he could have. Or if he wants to do it in 4,000 years he could do it. So I don’t know — I guess I’m kind of waffling. I don’t really have a definitive answer on that, but that’s ok, sometimes you don’t have all the answers either.”
Maybe not. But the founders of the museum want to give her a place to look.
The Seminole Tribe of Florida has proposed a partnership between its Hard Rock International casinos and the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin, a deal that could channel millions of dollars in profits from the Badger State back to Florida.
The proposal to open an $808 million casino complex at a now-shuttered, off-reservation dog track in Kenosha is in the hands of Gov. Scott Walker. The Menominee say they need a cash partner or they can’t get their casino off the ground.
Talks between the Seminoles and Menominee have been going on for more than a year. Frank Fantini, CEO of the Fantini Gaming Report, called Hard Rock “a very big brand, known internationally. The brand has a great reputation … it would give immediate visibility to the casino in Kenosha.”
Even though the Wisconsin Menominee are among the poorest Native American people in the country, winning approval from Gov. Walker is still viewed as dicey. The governor has said he would approve the Kenosha casino only if each of the state’s other 10 tribes blessed the proposition — effectively giving each tribe veto power over the proposal. He also has said a tribe must show that an off-reservation casino would result in “no new net gaming.”
Two of the 11 tribes, both with casinos — the Forest County Potawatomi and the Ho-Chunk — so far have refused to endorse the project, saying the Hard Rock will siphon off too large a share of their profits.
Wisconsin Indian gaming is a $1 billion industry, with $50 million going to the state.
Amy Marsh, an aide at the Wisconsin Capitol, told Sunshine State News, “Gov. Walker has until Feb. 19 to make a decision, but meanwhile the tribes have to work out their differences.”
The Seminoles-Menominee partnership would mark the first time for any out-of-state tribe to manage a casino in Wisconsin.
Hard Rock International CEO Jim Allen claims the site would be a regional draw.
“We believe there are a tremendous amount of people in the state of Wisconsin today who are going to casinos in Illinois,” Allen says. “We think a facility so close to the Illinois border will bring those people back to the state of Wisconsin and bring back those jobs and revenues to the state of Wisconsin.”
Allen says there have been talks with the dissenting tribes about revenue-sharing, the talks have gone well and he’s hopeful his team can get everybody on board.
The agreement between the Menominee and Hard Rock — including the percentage of profits the Florida Seminoles tribe would receive — has been kept under wraps.
“The question is, do we really want that revenue from the casino … being sent to Florida?” asked Richard Monette, a University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor. “That percentage becomes key, and those factors should be public.”
He predicts Hard Rock would expect to receive 30-to-35 percent of the Kenosha casino’s total revenue, and as much as 40 percent. Monette is also director of the Great Lakes Indian Law Center.
Not all stakeholders are impressed with the Seminoles or think they should be anywhere near the Wisconsin tribal gaming industry.
The Milwaukee media have given a lot of exposure to public filings from the National Indian Gaming Commission, showing the Seminole Tribe has paid more than $12 million in fines handed down by the federal government since 1997 — more than any other tribe in the nation.
It has, for example, left George Ermert, spokesman for the Potawatomi, expressing “serious concerns” about the Seminoles being involved in Wisconsin’s tribal gaming industry.
“There are some serious issues with leadership,” Ermert told Shereen Siewert of the Gannett Wisconsin Media Investigative Team. “We’re talking about FBI investigations, leaders who have been indicted on charges of conspiracy, embezzlement, money laundering. (Seminole Tribe Chairman) James Billie himself was tossed from office because of the things he did.”
The Seminole Tribe of Florida acquired the Hard Rock corporation for nearly $1 billion in 2007. Hard Rock has 174 venues in 54 countries, including 138 cafes, 17 hotels and seven casinos, according to the company.
The Seminoles operate six casinos in Florida, two of which use the Hard Rock name. Combined, the Florida casinos have about 12,500 slot machines and 340 table games.
The 11 Wisconsin tribes share a percentage of their casino profits. These per capita payments — dispensed evenly to enrolled tribal members — are among the perks of successful Indian gaming ventures.
But of all 11 tribes, the Menominee give the least to individuals — about $75 a year in 2012, for example. The Potawatomi, by comparison, paid each tribal member $80,000 in 2012.
Gannett reports that the Menominee have pledged to spend gaming revenue on human and social services — including college scholarships — if their Kenosha proposal is approved.
It was a morning of music, dance, speeches, a little rain and a lot of protest as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights officially opened in Winnipeg.
“With the placement of this final stone, at the heart of our circle, it is with great pleasure that we now declare open the Canadian Museum for Human Rights,” Gov. Gen. David Johnston stated as the centre stone — part of a circle of hand-gathered stones from national parks and national historic sites — was set in place during the opening ceremony Friday.
Inside the event, hundreds of dignitaries gathered and heard speeches about the genesis and purpose of the $351-million museum.
Meanwhileoutside, dozens of protesters used the media spotlight to bring attention to issues of murdered and missing women, First Nations water rights, the disappearing traditional lifestyle of First Nations and the Palestinian conflict.
“What happens when these guys over here, with their suits and ties and their outfits, destroy everything?” one First Nations protester yelled.
‘You have to shine a light in some dark corners in Canada’s history because we have to know, I think, where we came from to know where we’re going.’— Stuart Murray, museum president and CEO
As strains of O Canada rang out, it mixed with songs of First Nations women protesting and was punctuated by a woman yelling, “Your museum is a lie.”
One of the first groups to arrive brought their message of the struggle of Palestinian people in Gaza.
They said they feel overlooked and will continue to push in the hopes that eventually they will be featured in the museum.
The protesters said they were upset the issue is not being recognized at the museum, even though they have met with museum representatives over the past couple of years to have it featured in one of the galleries.
Other protesters called on the museum to recognize what they said was the historical “genocide” committed against First Nations by the Canadian government. They drummed, performed ceremonial smudges, chanted and carried placards.
Buffy Sainte-Marie told reporters on Friday afternoon that Canada and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights should be using the term ‘genocide’ to describe the residential school experience. (Jillian Taylor/CBC)
Their sentiments were echoed by legendary Canadian musician Buffy Sainte-Marie, who is performing at the museum’s opening concert Saturday night.
Sainte-Marie told reporters that Canada and the human rights museum should use the term “genocide” to describe the residential school experience.
“I think the museum needs to be much more honest, much more bold and much better informed,” she told reporters Friday afternoon.
“I don’t really think that some of the museum people are truly aware of what our history has been.”
Sainte-Marie admitted that she hadn’t seen all the galleries in the museum yet, but added that her expectations were not high.
Group cancels performance
Saturday’s concert was supposed to feature First Nations DJ group A Tribe Called Red, but the group pulled out on Thursday, citing concerns about how the museum portrays aboriginal issues.
“We feel it was necessary to cancel our performance because of the museum’s misrepresentation and downplay of the genocide that was experienced by indigenous people in Canada by refusing to name it genocide,” the group said in a statement Friday.
“Until this is rectified, we’ll support the museum from a distance.”
Museum president and CEO Stuart Murray said the museum will and should spark protest and debate. The vision for the museum has always been to allow people to voice their opinions, he said.
“The Canadian Museum for Human Rights will open doors for conversations we haven’t had before. Not all of these conversations will be easy. We accept that but we will not shy away,” he said.
Officials said they are open to talking to different groups and will update the museum’s content as human rights issues unfold around the world.
‘The journey is finally beginning’
In addition to the opposition from protesters, the museum has faced construction delays leading up to Friday morning’s grand opening ceremony, which began with an indigenous blessing led by elders, including a First Nations prayer, a Métis prayer and the lighting of an Inuit qulliq, or oil lamp.
The ceremony was attended by numerous dignitaries including the Governor General and former Manitoba premier Gary Doer, who is now Canada’s ambassador to the United States.
Current Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger, Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz and the museum’s national campaign chair, Gail Asper, spoke at the event, while the program also featured special performances from Canadian vocal quartet the Tenors, YouTube singing star Maria Aragon and Winnipeg singer-songwriter and fiddle player Sierra Noble.
Asper paid tribute to her late parents, Babs and Israel Asper, who were the driving forces behind the museum.
“Neither my father Israel nor my mother Babs [is] here alive to celebrate with us, but I know they would be filled with gratitude and joy that the journey is finally beginning, this beautiful journey of education and, most importantly, action,” Asper said during the ceremony.
A children’s dance finale, representing Canada’s next generation of human rights leaders, concluded the opening ceremonies program.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper wasn’t in attendance. A spokesperson said his schedule did not permit him to be there.
Heritage Minister Shelly Glover, who attended the opening ceremony, said the museum is an important space.
“This is a museum that will provide information and an educational opportunity to so many Canadians, and it’ll make you proud to be a Canadian,” she said.
When asked about the protesters outside, Glover said she would like people to take a look at the museum before judging what’s inside.
Lightning rod for protests, questions
The country’s new national museum is located next to the Forks National Historic Site, where the Red and the Assiniboine rivers meet in downtown Winnipeg.
Designed by world-renowned architect Antoine Predock, the museum with its Tower of Hope and sweeping windows forms a new silhouette on the city’s skyline.
The museum has been a lightning rod for protests, and some academics say they’re concerned the content may be susceptible to interference by governments, donors and special interest groups.
“The most important concern is not the concern of individual communities who are disputing the exact manner in which their wrongs have been depicted, but rather the overall issue of independence,” said Michael Marrus, an expert on international human rights at the University of Toronto.
Glover said at the opening ceremony that the museum “must present a balanced and factually accurate account of both the good as well as the bad.”
Murray said the museum has not been subject to any interference, and the content does expose Canada’s human rights failures.
“You have to shine a light in some dark corners in Canada’s history because we have to know, I think, where we came from to know where we’re going,” he said.
This 400-year-old pine dugout canoe will be on display Sept. 27, 2014, through May 2015 at the Chickasaw Cultural Center as part of “Dugout Canoes: Padding through the Americas.”
SULPHUR, Okla. – In spring 2000, a group of Florida high school students stumbled on the largest treasure trove of ancient dugout canoes ever discovered.
It is believed the Eastside High School students discovered 101 canoes. Some of the vessels are fully intact. Many are mere remnants. When radiocarbon dating was completed, scientists estimated the age of the vessels varied between 500 and 5,000 years old.
What emerged from the discovery is “Dugout Canoes: Paddling through the Americas,” a landmark exhibition to be hosted by the Chickasaw Nation at its expansive Cultural Center in Sulphur from Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014, through May 6, 2015.
The world-class exhibit will open on the same day as the 54th Annual Chickasaw Meeting and 26th Annual Chickasaw Festival gets underway throughout several sites in the 13-country tribal territory.
Dugout canoes were metaphorical pickup trucks for Native Americans. They transported food, family, tribal members, warriors and trade goods. The vessels made travel of great distances possible for Native people.
While none of the 101 dugout canoes discovered by the Gainesville, Florida, students in drought-stricken Newnans Lake 14 years ago will be displayed, ancient vessels recovered from other sites in America may be viewed, studied and researched.
The exhibition tells how infinitely important canoes were to Native Americans; how they were crafted sans modern tools and the exhaustive effort it required to build one seaworthy and with stability.
A 2011 article in The Wall Street Journal makes it clear unearthing the 101 dugout canoes from Newnans Lake would have destroyed the precious crafts. For hundreds of years, the site was covered with ample amounts of water and then exposed to the elements during periods of drought. This see-saw effect degraded the Southern hard pine canoes. In order to fully save them, an inordinately expensive process must be undertaken.
Today, according to the Journal, the dugout canoes are submerged in about 5 feet of water, encased in a protective layer of mud.
A magnificent dugout, almost 19 feet long, will be on display. It was discovered near Gainesville and is the show’s centerpiece that dates to approximately 400 years ago. It is made of pine and has a slightly raised bow and stern. A paddle was discovered with it. Other ancient examples of dugout canoes will be available for viewing.
The exhibit, with various artifacts, shows how Native Americans hunted and fished from the vessels and how they used them for other purposes.
Photos and short videos will also show the high school students’ Newnans Lake excavation and research, how vessels contained in the exhibit were preserved so they could be presented to the public and methods used to construct them by ancient people.
“Dugout Canoes: Paddling through the Americas” will be open to Chickasaw Cultural Center patrons during normal business hours.
The Cultural Center opens at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday and at noon on Sundays. It closes daily at 5 p.m. The center is closed on all federally-recognized holidays.
TULSA, Okla. – The ninth annual Cherokee Art Market will feature 150 inspirational and elite Native American artists from across the nation Oct. 11-12 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Sequoyah Convention Center at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa.
Admission is $5 per person.
The finest Native American artwork, representing more than 45 different tribes, will be displayed and sold at the Cherokee Art Market. Pieces include beadwork, pottery, painting, basketry, sculptures and textiles. Guests can also enjoy a variety of cultural and art demonstrations.
“Year in and year out, the Cherokee Art Market has proven to be one of the most prestigious Indian art shows in the country,” said Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker. “Every year our market continues to grow bigger and better. The Cherokee Art Market is a second-to-none showcase featuring world-class artisans in a variety of mediums.”
As part of the two-day event, there will be public demonstrations from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Demonstrations include jewelry stamp work technique, katsina doll making, pottery, painting and basket weaving.
Alvin Marshall’s sculpture, ‘A Little Girl’s Dream,’ was named Best of Show at the eighth annual Cherokee Art Market.
An awards reception will be held in The Sky Room on Friday, Oct. 10, at 7 p.m. in honor of the Cherokee Art Market prizewinners, with $75,000 in overall prize money awarded across 22 categories. The public is welcome to attend the awards reception for $25 per person. Tickets will be available for purchase at the door.
The Cherokee Nation Foundation will also host its live art auction at the reception to raise funds for scholarships for Cherokee youth. Artists interested in donating should call the foundation at 918-207-0950.
“Best of Show” for the eighth annual Cherokee Art Market went to Alvin Marshall for his sculpture “A Little Girl’s Dream.”
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa is located off Interstate 44 at exit 240. For more information, visit www.hardrockcasinotulsa.com or call (800) 760-6700.
