Keith Harper says he always wanted a career that helped his people—indigenous people.
Harper’s dream, which he cultivated while a student at UC Berkeley, was more fully realized this week when he became the first Native American of a federally recognized tribe to earn the post of U.S. Ambassador. This week, he begins his new job as the U.S. representative on the United Nation’s Human Rights Council, which is meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.
As a young man, Harper attended UC Berkeley, where he graduated in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology. He would later return to Cal to address a group of Native American students, says Bridget Neconie, Native American Outreach Adviser in the undergraduate admissions office.
Having completed law school at New York University in 1994, Harper became an attorney and began to make his dream come true. A member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, he helped represent a half-million Native Americans who claimed in a class-action lawsuit in 1996 that the federal government, which had held their families’ land in trust for a century or more, had failed in its fiduciary duties.
More than a decade later, he was part of a legal team that helped secure a $3.4 billion settlement in the landmark case, which was approved by a federal judge in 2011.
The U.S. Senate, in a 52-42 vote last week divided along party lines, confirmed Harper for the post of U.S. ambassador, with support from California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.
“Ambassador Harper is well-qualified for this position and he had strong backing, including from within Indian country,” Sen. Barbara Boxer said in a statement Wednesday. “I was proud to support his nomination as the first U.S. Ambassador from a federally recognized tribe.”
Tribal leaders across the nation also praised Harper for winning the post. “Ambassador Harper is an attorney who has dedicated his career to the injustices facing Native peoples,” leaders of the National Congress of American Indians said in a statement. “Issues surrounding Indigenous peoples have emerged prominently on the agenda of the United Nations, and Ambassador Harper will be a valuable resource to the Human Rights Council.”
Some Senate Republicans refused to back his confirmation because of his involvement in the class-action case and for being a major campaign fundraiser, known as a bundler, for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. Harper brought in more than $500,000 for the campaign.
“Mr. Harper is just another example of a campaign bundler wholly ill-suited to serve in the diplomatic post for which he’s been nominated,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. McCain added that Harper and his legal team received excessive attorneys’ fees in the class-action case—also a point of contention among some tribal leaders. Harper’s firm and two solo practitioners earned nearly $86 million in attorneys’ fees, according to court documents cited by the Washington Post.
At a news conference in Geneva on Monday, Harper said he will represent oppressed people around the globe and will support the work of non-government organizations that promote human rights. “In our work here, we must never forget our duty to champion the rights of the most vulnerable and to speak for those who have no voice,” Harper told reporters. “Whether those champions are in the media or are those from civil society or human rights defenders, the United States will continue to stand with you.”
With backing from the United States, Harper said, the Human Rights Council, established in 2006, has put a spotlight on human rights issues in Syria, North Korea, Iran and the Central African Republic.
In a 2007 interview posted on the website of New York University’s law school, Harper talked about his mission to serve Native Americans. “ I decided to work in Indian Law,” he said, “because I strongly believe that the law can be utilized to achieve real benefit for our tribal communities through securing their common rights and protecting our lands and way of life.” He added that the landmark case, Cobell v. Kempthorne, was “mostly about one woman, Elouise Cobell, saying enough is enough—a trustee needs to be accountable and is not the boss but a servant….” The settlement included $1.5 billion in payouts to the 500,000 members of the class action; a $1.9 billion program to consolidate land to help tribes benefit from agriculture, business and housing development; and a $60 million scholarship fund.
The most rewarding part of his career, he said, “is working with American Indian people. There is nothing better for me than to meet with Native clients and figure out ways to solve the problems they confront. Indian people are poised for greatness and I feel very fortunate to be able to be part of the machinery that will permit us to achieve that.”
At a wide ranging press conference during day three of the NCAI gathering in Anchorage yesterday, BIA Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn said the concept of taking land into trust for Alaska tribes is a popular one.
“Even though we don’t have a rule in place that allows it, we have applications,” Washburn said.
A recent DC district court decision affirmed the Interior department’s authority to take Alaska tribal lands into trust if tribes request it and the Secretary of Interior approves the request. Washburn said although the decision is being appealed, the court was clear in the assertion. He said the issue is also supported by two other entities.
“One from the secretarial commission on trust reform, which was set up at the department of Interior and it’s a blue ribbon panel of outside independent experts, who said we think this would be a good idea,” Washburn said. ”We also heard from the Indian Law and Order Commission which set a whole chapter on Alaska because they were looking at issues for Indian Law and Order all over the country but the issues in Alaska are very serious and so they set aside chapter two.”
NCAI President Brian Cladoosby, middle, BIA undersecretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn, middle, and NCAI executive director Jacqueline Pata, left. (Photo by Lori Townsend, APRN – Anchorage)
Trust status for Native lands would allow more tribal authority and jurisdiction over certain criminal behavior on those trust lands. The Indian Law and Order Commission sees it as a way to better address the high rates of domestic violence and sexual assault in Alaska Native communities.
DEMING – The 306 people facing loss of Nooksack Indian Tribe membership have won a round in tribal court, getting a judge to order the tribal council to stop its latest effort to oust them.
The Thursday, June 12, ruling from Tribal Court Chief Judge Raquel Montoya-Lewis stems from a March 2014 Nooksack Court of Appeals ruling. The appeals judge panel had ordered a halt to the process of removing people from tribal enrollment rosters until the tribal council could draw up an ordinance spelling out the procedures for stripping people of tribal membership. Such an ordinance also would require approval from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the appeals court ruled.
But in mid-May the tribal council began sending out new notices to some members of the affected families, scheduling July disenrollment hearings before the tribal council under the terms of a 2005 tribal membership ordinance that received BIA approval in 2006. Gabe Galanda, the Seattle attorney representing the threatened families, went back to court to challenge the legality of that maneuver.
After an earlier hearing, Montoya-Lewis agreed that the tribal council was out of bounds.
“This approach appears to be an attempt to circumvent the very clear holdings of the Court of Appeals,” Montoya-Lewis wrote.
While the judge’s ruling delays the move to strip the 306 of tribal membership, it likely will not stop it. There appears to be no legal obstacle to the process, once the tribal council passes the necessary ordinance and gets federal approval. Nooksack Tribal Council Chairman Bob Kelly, who has pushed for the disenrollment, was recently reelected and has the support of a majority of council members.
The disenrollment controversy began in early 2013 after Kelly and a majority of other council members agreed that members of the Rabang, Rapada and Narte-Gladstone families had been incorrectly enrolled in the 2,000-member tribe in the 1980s, and their enrollments should be revoked.
Since then, members of the affected families have mounted a vigorous legal and public relations effort to retain their Nooksack membership. That membership entitles them to a wide range of benefits, among them fishing rights, health care, access to tribal housing and small cash payments for Christmas and back-to-school expenses.
Those facing the loss of tribal membership have based their membership claim on their descent from Annie George, who died in 1949. Members of those three families have introduced evidence that Annie George was Nooksack, but those who want the three families out have noted that George’s name does not appear on a list of those who got original allotments of tribal land or on a 1942 tribal census, and those two criteria determine legal eligibility for membership.
NV Energy, part of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holding company, is seeking regulatory approval in Nevada to buy the second US largest solar project to be located on tribal trust lands.
Construction of the 200MW (AC) PV project on the Moapa River Indian Reservation northeast of Las Vegas would begin after expected fourth quarter approval by the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada of the proposed purchase, and completion of final contracts.
Moapa Band of Paiutes acting chairman Greg Anderson tells Recharge the tribe hopes to have the project in fully commercial operation in 2016. It will be sited on land leased by the tribe which has about 400 members on the reservation.
Courtesy photo Members of the Paskenta Band of the Nomlaki Indians delivered petitions Thursday to the Central California office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
SACRAMENTO >> Around 120 members of the Paskenta band of Nomlaki Indians, led by Chairman Andrew Freeman, traveled by bus Thursday to deliver petitions to Central California Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Troy Burdick calling for affirmation of a Tribal Council elected in May.
The group is demanding the BIA allow the tribe to exercise its sovereign right to determine the tribe’s governing body, according to a press release issued Thursday morning.
The move comes in response to a letter Burdick issued Monday recognizing Freeman and four ousted members of the tribe as the last uncontested, duly elected Tribal Council.
David Swearinger, vice chairman; Leslie Loshe, treasurer and Geraldine Freeman, secretary were removed from the Tribal Council during an April 12 General Council meeting of the tribe. Allen Swearinger, member at large, did not attend a subsequent meeting in May and was replaced on the Tribal Council as a result.
A “Tribal Police” force of about 30 armed men in uniform representing the ousted members attempted early Monday to shut down Rolling Hills Casino, which is owned by the tribe and remains open under those aligned with Andrew Freeman. Armed security employed by the casino prevented the shutdown, but a standoff continues at the Corning property.
The tribal members aligned with Andrew Freeman claim the tribe’s constitution allows the voting members of the tribe to submit 30 percent of their signatures in order to propose legislation for the tribe. The signatures of members were gathered to be submitted to Geraldine Freeman, whom Burdick’s letter recognizes as secretary.
Under the tribe’s constitution, when 30 percent of the tribe’s eligible voters sign an initiative it must be certified by the tribal secretary and voted on by the Tribal Council. If the Tribal Council rejects the initiative, then the tribal members must be provided the opportunity to vote on the matter, according to the release.
Upon receipt of the signatures, the BIA is prohibited from interfering with or disrupting the tribal process, thereby allowing the tribe to resolve the dispute pursuant to the tribe’s own governing documents and processes, the release said.
On Friday the 13th, President Barack Obama will be visiting tribal Leaders and other tribal members during his visit to the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. In light of this historic day, we know that you in Indian country will be there in person or spirit.
We want to hear from you tomorrow on Twitter.
So, if you want to join us or tweet to us, correspondent @VinceSchilling will be listening and tweeting live from our @IndianCountry twitter account. All day long, we are asking for your comments, pictures, thoughts and tweets.
We will be tweeting using the #PrezRezVisit hashtag.
So whether you are on site in North Dakota, watching coverage in Alaska or Florida or blogging from San Francisco, ICTMN wants to hear your thoughts and see your pictures from the day. We will be retweeting you and might include among the day’s best tweets in our follow up article.
Federal officials on Tuesday June 10 announced major changes in advice to pregnant and breastfeeding women by recommending consumption of at least eight ounces of low-mercury fish per week.
It is the first time that the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration have issued recommendations on the minimum amount of fish that pregnant women and children should eat. The previous advisory, issued in 2004, included only maximum amounts to protect their fetuses and young children from mercury, which can harm developing brains and reduce IQs.
“Eating fish with lower levels of mercury provides numerous health and dietary benefits,” Nancy Stoner, the EPA’s acting assistant administrator for the Office of Water, said in a statement. “This updated advice will help pregnant women and mothers make informed decisions about the right amount and right kinds of fish to eat during important times in their lives and their children’s lives.”
Under the long-awaited, proposed new guidelines, pregnant and breastfeeding women are advised to eat a minimum of eight ounces and no more than 12 ounces of fish with low levels of methylmercury, including shrimp, pollock, salmon, canned light tuna, tilapia, catfish and cod. That is equivalent to two or three fish servings per week. Young children, according to the advisory, also should have two or three smaller servings of low-mercury fish, or three to six ounces, per week.
As in the old recommendations, pregnant and nursing women and young children are advised to avoid four high-mercury fish: tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico, shark, swordfish and king mackerel.
The agencies also reiterated their specific recommendations for limits on albacore (or white) tuna: no more than six ounces a week for pregnant and breastfeeding women. Children, they say, should eat no more than one to four ounces of albacore tuna weekly.
Advice about consumption of tuna has been highly controversial, with the fishing industry criticizing limits and health advocacy groups pushing for the FDA and EPA to add it to the list of fish to avoid.
When asked about high levels of mercury in light tuna, Dr. Stephen Ostroff, the FDA’s chief scientist, said during a call to reporters on June 10 that the agencies included only four fish on the “do not eat” list because “they have consistently shown higher levels of methylmercury.”
“We will continue to look at levels of methylmercury in a variety of fish and in the future make recommendations about other fish as well,” he said.
Orange roughy and marlin also have slightly higher concentrations than most fish, added Elizabeth Southerland, EPA’s director of the Office of Science and Technology. She said the agencies are asking the public to comment on whether those fish should be added to the list of fish to avoid.
Environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the FDA and EPA earlier this year, saying that the 2004 advisory was out of date and that women should be advised to eat less mercury-contaminated fish. They also are seeking clearer recommendations and labels that are easier for women to understand. EPA and FDA officials on Tuesday declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Environmentalists on Tuesday said they were disappointed by the proposed changes, mostly because of the lack of warning labels on canned tuna.
“Over one-third of American’s exposure to methylmercury is from tuna, because tuna are higher-mercury fish and Americans consume so much,” said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project. “Albacore ‘white’ canned tuna generally has three times as much mercury as ‘light’ tuna. However, Americans consume about three times as much of the light variety. Therefore, each variety—’white’ and ‘light’—contributes a staggering 16 percent of Americans’ dietary exposure.”
Representatives of the fish industry lauded the new advice, saying it “clears the water on outdated seafood guidance for pregnant and breastfeeding women.”
“FDA is working to translate years of important nutrition science into updated advice, and that’s exciting,” Jennifer McGuire of the National Fisheries Institute, which represents seafood companies including Gorton’s Inc. and Bumble Bee Foods, said in a statement. “Expectant moms and health professionals alike have been confused about seafood advice during pregnancy and FDA has begun the process of setting the record straight that fish should be a pregnancy staple.”
The advice can be confusing, since research has found both benefits and dangers to eating fish. Studies have linked pregnant women’s high mercury consumption in seafood to reduced IQs and memories and other neurological effects in their children. The findings are based on two decades of tests of school children in the Faroe Islands, who were highly exposed in the womb through their mother’s consumption of whale meat, as well as several dozen other human studies.
At the same time, research has shown that fish consumption provides vital nutrients, Omega-3 fatty acids and protein, for fetal brain growth, and that children’s IQs increase when their mothers had eaten low-mercury fish.
“We don’t think women would accrue the same benefits in terms of health and development if they were to use supplements in place of fish,” Ostroff said.
FDA officials said their analysis of data from more than 1,000 pregnant women found that 21 percent ate no fish in the previous month. Those who did ate less than the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend.
For wild fish, EPA officials warned recreational and subsistence fishers to follow all local advisories, and if there is no posted advisory, to limit consumption to six ounces per week for women, and one to three ounces for children—with the added precaution to not eat any other fish that week. (A three-ounce piece of fish is about the size of a checkbook.)
Before finalizing the rules, the two agencies plan to hold public meetings and will solicit comments for 30 days.
For the EPA’s and FDA’s specific recommendations for children and women, click here. For a list of fish that the Monterey Aquarium considers safe and sustainable, click here.
RESIST: The Unist’oten Call to the Land is a documentary film that visits the fourth annual Environmental Action Camp, hosted on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory by the Unist’ot’en(C’ihlts’ehkhyu/Big Frog) clan. By re-instituting a Free, Prior, and Informed Consent Protocol on the bridge over Wedzin Kwah into their traditional territories, the Unist’ot’en are reasserting their indigenous sovereignty and standing up to industry and government who want to destroy their lands The focus of the film includes the exploration of the environmental, legal, and social issues surrounding hydraulic fracturing, tar sands, and the proposed Kinder-Morgan, Pacific Trails Pipeline, and Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline projects in British Columbia. The film’s themes also include indigenous sovereignty and decolonization, as well as documenting one of the most important resistance camps in North America and the movement it is a part of.
The people of the area gave notice in 2006 of their opposition to the Pacific Trails Pipeline and accused the company of avoiding consultation with the hereditary owners and chief, by approaching individual bands and tribal councils. The companies involved, Apache Canada and Chevron Canada in a 50-50 ownership agreement, tout in press releases that they have the support of 15 of 16 Indian bands, which only have jurisdiction on reservations. The film examines the differences between the imposed colonial Indian Act and the traditional governance systems of hereditary clans and chiefs.
The camp is also in the path of the Enbridge pipeline, another project the people oppose, which would carry tar sands oil through the territory. A unique aspect of the Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) that the Pacific Trails Pipeline would carry to Kitimat for export to Asia, is that it is produced using a process called fracking. There is a sizable shale deposit of LNG in northeastern BC, around the areas of Fort St. John and Fort Nelson, whose rivers and creeks flow to the Liard River and other tributaries that eventually empty into the Arctic Ocean. This particular process of extraction is particularly toxic to eco-systems because it involves injecting chemicals into the earth and creating small explosions, and these chemicals seep into the shale formation releasing gas, but also poisoning aquifers and water sources, despite safety measures. If the Pacific Trails Pipeline is built, it would pave the way for Enbridge and other proposed gas and oil pipelines, what has been called a “Carbon Corridor.”
Through the construction of a cabin, a traditional pithouse, and permaculture garden on the proposed pipeline routes, the Unist’ot’en and their allies have thus far been successful at preventing construction on the projects that would illegally cross into their territories and cause further damage to their traditional food systems and ways of living. The Unist’ot’en people ask for grassroots support in their fight against corporations and industries aiming to destroy this beautiful land they live on. We aim to not only create a window through which the viewers can witness the ongoing struggle faced by the Unist’ot’en, but help them engage in the movement as they see fit, as the issues explored in the film have moved outside of the indigenous sphere and are destroying an environment which we must preserve in order to continue to exist as a species. By creating a piece that is not only educational and motivating, but also artistic, we hope to leave the viewers with a desire to expand on what we have given them and add to the collective story of history in the making.
The environmental, racial and social issues of this movement effect EVERYONE of US ! GET UP ! GET OUT AND RESIST !
More information on the Uni’stot’en People and there camp can be found at – unistotencamp.com
Team of students from TCTC just finishing the new smokehouse at the Hibulb Cultural Center.
TCTC students build new smokehouse at the Hibulb Cultural Center
By Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News. Photos by Francesca Hillery, Tulalip Public Affairs.
The Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve has a new smokehouse, thanks to a team of students from the Tulalip TERO Construction Training Center (TCTC). Instructor Mark Newland and his students completed the structure in three days. After the work was finished, Hibulb staff and the Rediscovery program served a lunch of traditional foods and honored Newland and his team with blankets.
“Everything went well with the smokehouse. Everyone seemed happy with how it turned out,” said Rediscovery Program Coordinator, Inez Bill-Gobin.
She plans to use the smokehouse for community purposes, and for classes offered at the center through the Rediscovery program. The first group to use the smokehouse will be the canoe family, who hopes to incorporate traditional foods and traditional food preparation into their summer activities.
A lunch traditional foods was served after the work was completed. Rediscovery program Coordinator Inez Bill-Gobin thanked those that worked on the new smokehouse, and talked about its importance.
Bill-Gobin said, “For the continuation of our culture, we need to have these things in place.”
The smokehouse was built to replace the old smokehouse after its roof collapsed. The old structure came from the original cultural resources building, and was not the most structurally sound. The new smokehouse is built to last, complete with stained siding, a tin roof, and extended eaves on both sides for covered space to prepare racks of fish, clams, or meat.
Teams from TCTC may return in the fall, at the start of a new term, to complete other projects at the Hibulb Cultural Center, including a covering over the fish cooking pit and a boardwalk through the Natural History Preserve.
Every day, aboriginal culture is borrowed, copied, dressed up or watered down. Is that art? Or is it stealing? Appropriation, it turns out, is all about the attitude.
Last fall, two exhibits opened in Montreal, both centred on aboriginal themes. Beat Nation, a multimedia presentation by aboriginal artists who’d mixed hip-hop culture with their own iconography, opened at the Museum of Modern Art on October 16. The next day—purely by unfortunate coincidence—the Museum of Fine Arts boutique unveiled Inukt, a new product line featuring aboriginally-flavoured clothing, accessories and homewares.
Beat Nation was an unapologetic, boundary-crossing exploration of tradition and modernity, and largely a critical success. Inukt was a confused, haphazard jumble, and a public relations disaster.
Like its mock, made-up name, few of Inukt’s products bear any resemblance to Inuit art. This April, the website advertised everything from T-shirts and tote bags to throw pillows and arm-chairs, adorned with portraits of random Plains Indian chiefs, bought from an online stock image gallery. Other T-shirts feature west-coast imagery—though the items themselves have Anishinaabe names. And then there are the “Eskimo doll” key-chains, miniature versions of embarrassing kitsch holdovers from a less sensitive time, their survivors now scattered across dusty thrift store shelves around the country. “The cultural mishmash here hurts my head,” wrote Chelsea Vowel, a Montreal-based Métis blogger.
Inukt’s designer, Nathalie Benarroch, is Canadian; a self-described fashionista who’d just returned to her home country after 23 years in Paris when she launched Inukt. “I saw this country with a totally new outlook than the one I had when I left,” she states on her website (inukt.com). “Canada is beautiful and has an overall good reputation, but it still lacked glamour … Hence came the idea to renew with the history, culture and codes of Canada, while reinterpreting them fashionably, giving them a contemporary edge and exposing choice artists and artisans that are the New Canada.”
Her attempt to glamourize, however well-intentioned, didn’t fly. In fact, it crash-landed pretty much out of the gate. Within hours of Inukt’s opening, Benarroch had received so much flak on her Twitter and Facebook accounts, many from First Nations critics, that she had to shut them down.
“Some people wrote whole tracts on [her social media accounts], explaining how exactly [Inukt’s products] encroached on their culture, and yet still Benarroch was uncomprehending,” says Isa Tousignant, the reporter who covered the controversy in the Montreal Gazette.
Five hours after Tousignant’s article was published, the museum boutique withdrew its Inukt products from sale. What went wrong? Lots, and Benarroch was only a small part of it.
The appropriation of aboriginal culture has been going on since first contact. In some ways, it’s part of living in a multi-cultural world; that’s why you don’t have to be Inuit to paddle a kayak, or First Nations to wear moccasins.
But there are limits. Sylvie Laroche, manager of Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts boutique, claimed she didn’t see anything wrong with Inukt: “It’s tourist season now, and Europeans are nuts for this type of product,” she told The Gazette at the time.
“The free market idea doesn’t correspond to cultural responsibility in lots of ways,” says Tania Willard, curator of Beat Nation. “We can say people shouldn’t do that and it’s not respectful, but if people are buying it, that’s what’s going to happen.”
Inukt is hardly the worst offender. The headdress, a spiritual, sacred symbol for Plains Indians cultures, is one of the most controversial cultural objects out there. Headdresses are earned, not bought; eagle feathers are symbols of honour, and aboriginal activists in the U.S. compare warbonnets to army veterans’ medals. So when “hipster headdresses” became trendy, or when H&M Canada released a line of faux headdresses (featuring pink, green and purple feathers) last year, it was a problem. When Victoria’s Secret had lingerie models in headdresses in 2012, it was a problem. This past March, when cheerleaders at the University of Regina posted a photo to Instagram that revealed the team dressed as “cowgirls” and “Indians,” it was misappropriation, verging on racism.
Today, these transgressions don’t slip by without an uproar. “We have gone through the atrocities to survive and ensure our way of life continues,” Navajo Nation spokesman Erny Zah said in an interview following the Victoria’s Secret fiasco. “Any mockery, whether it’s Halloween, Victoria’s Secret—they are spitting on us. They are spitting on our culture, and it’s upsetting.” For the record, H&M withdrew their line with apologies. The cheerleaders were reprimanded and sent to cultural sensitivity classes. Victoria’s Secret also issued an apology, stating, “We absolutely had no intention to offend anyone.” Maybe so, but that naiveté is part of the issue. And Inukt is no exception.
“Canada uses aboriginal culture to sell itself or exotify itself,” says Tania Willard. “[Benarroch] said she was celebrating Canadian culture. And Canadian culture is in some ways an appropriation of aboriginal culture, and that’s a problematic history, and one that, today, we’re trying to right.” It’s not that non-native people shouldn’t be inspired by native art, says Willard. In fact, she has no harsh words for Benarroch herself. “The main thing there is to treat those designs with respect … and respect is acknowledging the original artist and acknowledging the original use of that work.”
With Inukt’s moccasins, Benarroch did manage to show some respect: she worked with Wendake, an aboriginal-owned business from the Huron-Wendat First Nation in Quebec, and mentions them on her website. Today, Benarroch says, she’s more sensitive to the issue: her latest designs lean away from First Nations symbols, instead using generic Canadian icons such as the maple leaf. (“Is that okay?” She asks plaintively when we speak on the phone.)
“That doesn’t mean other products in their line aren’t problematic,” says Willard. “I think the artwork [Inukt] is using for its clothing line should be properly credited as well. And I think they’d be more successful if they did that.”
It’s tricky. People take it for granted that aboriginal culture is free to imitate, steal and exploit. Then again isn’t that, rightly or wrongly, the way all culture evolves?
“Art is something we are inspired by and respond to, and we want that to be there,” says Willard. “I think that’s what makes art beautiful, the exchange in it. But how we do that—I think we can do that with a level of respect.”
But in the world of art, design and fashion, there are no rules. Lines are meant to be crossed. Should aboriginal culture, then, be off-limits?
Pallulaaq Friesen models an amauti made by Charlotte St. John; white inner duffles by Saskia Curley; mittens by Shepa Palluq; headband by Pelagie Nicole; kamiks provided by Friesen’s aunt. Photo by Dave Brosha
Amautis, Inuit women’s coats featuring characteristically wide hoods to carry babies in, aren’t what most people would consider sacred, but in terms of cultural identity, they might as well be. Whether they’re made from seal, caribou or eider duck skins depends on the region, and a young mother’s amauti is different from that of a widow. For many Inuit seamstresses, the patterns they use are part of their family heritage.
So when Donna Karan, the fashion designer and creator of DKNY, sent representatives to the western Arctic in 1999 to buy up Inuit garments, including amautis—presumably to inspire a future fashion collection—a million red flags flew up. Until then, amautis hadn’t gone the way of the ubiquitous, mass-produced parka; for the most part, you could only buy authentic amautis in the Arctic.
Pauktuutit, a Nunavut organization representing Inuit women, launched a letter-writing campaign to Donna Karan. Putting designer amautis on the shelf, they said, would erode a vital Inuit artform.
It worked: DKNY never released an amauti collection. But the case raised some urgent questions. What if it happened again? For many Inuit seamstresses, making garments such as amautis is essential to their livelihood. In 2001, Pauktuutit launched the Amauti Project, establishing the garment as a case study on how to protect Inuit culture from future threats. The workshop concluded, “All Inuit own the amauti collectively, though individual seamstresses may use particular designs that are passed down between generations.”
That’s still not enough, legally speaking, to stop DKNY, or any other designer for that matter. Since 2001, Pauktuutit has focused on intellectual property law to protect cultural objects. But though it and other Inuit organizations are active in the World Intellectual Property Organization and have been lobbying for over a decade, it’s still the federal government that decides the official policy.
And the federal government’s position so far doesn’t help much. In response to a WIPO questionnaire on the protection of, among other things, aboriginal culture, in 2002, Industry Canada stated: “[Some] aspects of folkloric expressions, which are in the public domain, are available without restrictions and thus serve to enrich the fabric of Canada’s multicultural society.”
Since 2002, that hasn’t changed. Even if it does, it might only create more problems.
Photo of Tanya Tagaq by Patrick Kane
Tanya Tagaq defies tradition. A fiercely talented trailblazer from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, she shook the world stage with her unique brand of throat-singing in 2001; since then, she’s collaborated with Bjork and the Kronos Quartet, and released two albums as well as a live recording (listen to her latest album, Animism, here).
While throat-singing is usually performed by two women, she sings solo. Her guttural energy has been labelled as primal, orchestral and free jazz. You wouldn’t want to restrict that. But despite her critical acclaim worldwide, not everyone back home approves.
“When I first started singing,” she says, “I was accused by fellow Inuit of appropriation.”
She was in her 20s. “I was putting it to music and doing it by myself, and there was a massive backlash … There were people who created a Facebook page to get me to stop. I heard Pauktuutit had a problem with me. All that was really hurtful.”
To her critics—most of them from an older generation, and, she adds, most of them never having been to one of her shows— she’d adulterated an artform that, like the amauti, is deeply rooted in Inuit culture. To Tagaq, what she’s doing is clearly not misappropriation: she is Inuk, and so her music is still Inuit art.
“I’m not trying to talk for everyone,” she says. “I’ve been though a lot of the stereotypical ideas of what Inuit people go through, so [throat-singing] is like protest music to me. I didn’t want to stand with a partner, nicely making some sounds … I don’t want to sound victimy to people.”
She recalls a non-Inuit woman from Cambridge Bay, Tagaq’s hometown, who grew up in the North and has taken up solo throat-singing. “I thought it was so cute,” Tagaq says, genuinely pleased. “If you’re from the North, that’s good. If you’re born and raised up there, and you’re part of the culture, then good, go ahead. But if you’re from Montreal and you’re just trying to sound cool, then no, that’s not OK.”
For artists venturing into aboriginal culture, “You need to make sure that you’re respecting the people,” she says, “and if one person [from that culture] has a problem with it, then it shouldn’t be done.” But what of her own critics?
Sometimes, she concedes, you can’t win. If her non-Inuit friend in Cambridge Bay had been the trailblazer, championing solo throat-singing, “I would’ve been fine with it,” says Tagaq. “But I think other people might not have been. The people who had a problem with me would’ve had a way bigger problem with her.”
Photo courtesy of Jeneen Frei-Njootli
To Jeneen Frei-Njootli, a young Vuntut Gwitchin artist from Old Crow, Yukon, the very idea of tradition is flexible. Consider what her own culture has adopted: coffee whitener, snowmobiles, fiddling. “Why can’t coffee whitener be a Vuntut Gwitchin food?”
There are some Vuntut Gwitchin stories she’d like to represent in her performances, installations and sculptures. But “because I don’t know them well enough, I am not allowed to use them,” she says. “That can also be counter-productive, because I’m a young person, I want to learn more about [these stories]. I want to interact with them and feel like they’re my own too. At this point, it’s really important to have as few barriers as possible for people who want to be knowledge-holders.”
Through her art, she hopes to lower those barriers. But being a cultural ambassador, she says, has its downsides. “It’s exhausting,” she says. As a student at Emily Carr School of Design, she often became the designated aboriginal expert, instead of getting to talk about her own work.
On a daily basis, she finds herself confronting people who, for instance, find it acceptable to wear feathered headdresses to parties. “How do you teach people the complexities of a situation … without alienating them? Talking about cultural appropriation in the bathroom of a bar is the worst way to learn.”
In the end, it shouldn’t be an artist’s burden to teach the world about cultural sensitivity. But for now, it’s emerging artists like Jeneen Frei-Njootli, established performers like Tanya Tagaq, and active curators like Tania Willard who are helping explore the boundaries of cultural appropriation and exchange, and nudging people toward the latter. At the same time, they’re challenging their own communities to embrace change. It’s up to the public to follow through.
Aboriginal culture “is not stagnant,” says Frei-Njootli. “It evolves and it grows. And I want to be a part of that.”
Keith Harper says he always wanted a career that helped his people—indigenous people.
NV Energy, part of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holding company, is seeking regulatory approval in Nevada to buy the second US largest solar project to be located on tribal trust lands.
