A photo that made the rounds on Twitter Sunday evening has sparked backlash against a cheerleading squad from the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada.
The squad tweeted a photo taken during a practice event that showed 18 girls wearing cowboy costumes and “Indian” themed regalia. The squad members wore clothing that looked like pieced-together buckskin dresses, parted their hair and wore long braids, and put on headbands with feathers in their hair.
Valerie Timmons, the president of the university, said that the cheerleading coach has apologized for the team’s “culturally inappropriate themes and costumes.
“Further steps will require that the team’s coaches and team members discuss this matter as a group with the university’s Executive Lead on Indigenization and take cultural sensitivity training,” Timmons’s said in a statement. “Once these discussions have taken place, the university will determine whether further disciplinary actions are required.”
The photo was also posted on Instagram and received 44 likes before it was removed. U of R faculty, staff and students were outraged by the photo.
“I was disturbed by the image, and I thought that the team, like all of us who live in Saskatchewan, likely need formal education on the topic,” Andrea Sterzuk, an associate professor, told CBC.ca, “because treating First Nations and Métis women as a costume objectifies them, and that behavior, I think, contributes to their dehumanization, which is a larger problem that I think all Canadians need to be concerned about.”
Ryan Deschamps, a doctoral student at the university, told CBC.ca, “I thought we were kind of past this issue. I think it was something that we’ve seen in the news that’s obviously insensitive to certain people and I don’t understand how that actually happened.”
At least 10 percent of the students at the university are of aboriginal descent. It is also home to the First Nations University of Canada.
Someone using the @UofRCheer Twitter account responded to the backlash on Saturday: “We apologize for the photos, they have been removed from all of our social media. Our last intention was to disrespect anyone.”
Irish culture is filled with tales of fairies, banshees and leprechauns, and there is nothing as Irish as a good story. It only makes sense then that there could be a good Native American story about the Irish, maybe as unprovable as the others, but as one archaeologist said, “Anything is possible.”
There are records that suggest the Irish came to America before Christopher Columbus, but while there is no solid evidence, there certainly are hints.
One of the first recorded curiosities originated in 1521, when Spaniard Peter Martyr took reports from Columbus and other explorers who had investigated the Southeast coast of today’s South Carolina and Georgia. A baptized Chicora Native and a Spanish explorer reported to Martyr that they had come upon a group of people who called themselves the Duhare.
The Duhare were different than the Chicora Natives in the area. While all of the local Natives were described as having varying degrees of brown skin, the Duhare were described as white-skinned with brown hair that hung to their heels. They were said to herd deer in the way that Europeans herded cattle. Martyr wrote that the fawns were kept in the houses and the deer would go out to pasture during the day, returning at night to suckle their fawns. After the deer had nursed their young, they were milked and the milk was turned to cheese.
Deer milk has been celebrated in Gaelic poetry but usually in mythical situations. Reindeer were herded in Scotland until the 1300s, and a paper by Erin NhaMinerva, from Ireland, mentions deer being milked, but more in mythic terms than as a regular part of the diet.
Three Irish Men by Albert Durer, 1521.
There was other evidence that these Duhare could have been Irish. They were said to keep poultry, chickens, ducks, geese and other similar fowl, and potatoes were said to have been grown in the area, though they were not yet an important food in Ireland.
While the word Duhare may have a bit of an Irish ring to it, no Irish historian could be found to say it was derived from the old Irish language. And besides the few unusual incidents above, the Duhare lived as the neighboring Natives did.
In West Virginia, there was a ruckus when Dr. Barry Fell, a professor emeritus at Harvard University, said he found writing on a rock he described as “Christian messages in old Irish script.” Although he was the editor and co-author of eight books that deciphered ancient writings, Fell found himself discredited by other experts when it came to this particular rock writing. In a blog called Bad Archeology, Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews says Fell’s arguments were not convincing. Fitzpatrick-Matthews wrote, “His [Fell’s] analysis of supposedly Celtic elements in Native American placenames and languages is fanciful; his identification of scratches on rock surfaces as Irish Ogham script shows his lack of familiarity with real Ogham.”
These petroglyphs in West Viriginia were thought to be carved in Ogam, an Irish script used from the 6th to 8th centuries. (Courtesy Roger Wise)
Nicholas Freidin, doctor of philosophy and anthropology professor at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia said: “The whole thing is simply rubbish, part of the ‘lunatic fringe’. There is no evidence whatsoever of any European presence in West Virginia before the 17th century. To perpetuate this nonsense would be a disservice to both Native peoples and professional archaeologists.”
And yet, in the 1500s, the Vikings described the Irish as able seamen who traveled extensively and great distances, as far as Iceland in the 10th century. In 2000, adventurer Tim Severin published a book called The Brendan Voyage about a journey he made in a leather-bound boat built to sixth-century Irish standards. His goal was to see if he could follow the path of an Irish monk who is said to have sailed from Ireland to Greenland and then Newfoundland.
According to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, Saint Brendan, the Irish monk who sailed to a wooded paradise, lush with fruits. He had endured a “pelting with rock from an island of fire, seeing a pillar of crystal and encountering a moving island before finally coming upon the Promised Land, which came to be referred to as the Fortunate Islands.
St. Brendan and his Brethren setting sail, artist unknown. From Rev. Denis O’Donoghue, St. Brendan the Voyager (Dublin: Brown & Nolan, 1893) frontispiece.
Brendan explored the area for seven years before returning to Ireland, his boats filled with gems. No one is exactly certain where the Fortunate Islands were, although Columbus mentioned them in Martyr’s book.
The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia and other sources speak of the Irish being the first white men to come to the Americas before Columbus, perhaps as many as 1,000 years before. The glory of that adventure is given to “MacCarthy, Rafn, Beamish, O’Hanlon, Beauvois, and Gafarel,” in a book called Saints In The Limelight by Siglind Bruin.
Those accounts match the Vikings’ claims that the Irish occupied an area south of the Chesapeake Bay called Hvitramamaland (Land of the White Men) or Irland ed mikla (Greater Ireland), notes the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.
The New Advent says the Shawano Indians recognized a white tribe in Florida, said to have had iron implements. “In regard to Brendan himself the point is made that he could only have gained a knowledge of foreign animals and plants, such as are described in the legend, by visiting the western continent,” New Advent writes.
Interestingly, Martyr’s book refers to islands within Columbus’s route along the North American coast as the Fortunate Islands.
“All things are possible,” Kent Reilly, professor of archaeology at Texas State University and field anthropologist consultant for the Muscogee Nation of Florida, said. “There were many Europeans here; there were the Welsh in 1288, and the Vikings. But there is no archaeological evidence, no ceramics or metal, and as far as I know, there are no stories among the Southeast peoples about white-skinned, blue-eyed people in that area. There is no archaeological evidence, as far as I know.”
According to a website called, “Hidden Ireland: A Guide to Irish Fairies,” Saint Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland but, “from among the ancient tribes and kingdoms of ancient Ireland, whose religions worshipped the trees and lakes, stones and animals of the wild landscape. Such gods and beliefs would not die easily.”
Would it be so hard to imagine if the Irish left their increasingly Christian homelands in search of a place they could follow their ancestral traditions? In any case, it makes a nice story, and as History.com notes, “Spinning exciting tales to remember history has always been a part of the Irish way of life.”
TULALIP — As of 2:31 p.m. on Friday, March 14, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and Marysville Fire Department are still on scene at the Battle Creek Golf Course investigating a death reported at around 1:20 p.m. The person who called 911 reported that there was a deceased person found on the 13th fairway of the golf course. At this time, the death is not believed to be suspicious.
Sheriff’s Office personnel on-scene believe that the deceased person found is male, and was the victim of an accident, possibly when a lawnmower flipped over on top of him. Identification of the deceased, as well as the confirmed cause and manner of his death, will be provided by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner. There will be no additional updates from the Sheriff’s Office prior to the ME’s release of this information.
Without surprise, the National Energy Board has approved the reversal of the Line 9 pipeline. This pipeline crosses every single tributary that flows into Lake Ontario, and cuts up the north shore of the St. Lawrence river….
It was anticipated that this information be released on March. 19th. Instead the rubber-stamping came early.
Indigenous peoples whose territories are being attacked by this project have been silenced throughout this process. It is our communities, and other communities of colour, who primarily live fenceline with the tar sands, its mining, infrastructure and refineries. It is our Sacred sites that are being desecrated by the shady movements of corporate imperialists and colonial-capitalists.
Line 9 shows us exactly what environmental racism looks like, from Aamjiwnaang to Jane & Finch – telling us that bodies of colour and Indigenous bodies are expendable for the larger project of profit. Line 9 is but expanded infrastructure to move the Athabasca tar sands eastward – it is an embodiment of the slow industrial genocide that is being committed by TransCanada, Enbridge, Suncor, and the Government of Canada, to name a few.
This deep rooted social disconnection from the land is fostered by the occupation of our Nations’ territories. The attack on Indigenous bodies and bodies of colour are but a glimpse into the functions of this White supremacist, settler-colonial death culture that seeks to consume, corrupt and conquer.
On March 19th, let us keep close the truth of the violence that is this pipeline: an apparatus of tar sands destruction that seeks to poison that which sustains us and those faces not yet born. On this day we will be connected with each other in struggle as we fill our hearts with love for the wild and carry inside us a hunger for justice. March 19th Take Action Against Line 9!
We are requesting solidarity actions by friends in struggle who share Enbridge as a common enemy – from the West to the East, Enbridge’s toxic tendrils are an affront on Indigenous Sovereignty and the health of all of Creation.
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Only you, your community and your affinity groups know what action is best to take in your area. Get in touch with us if you want to confirm an action. #Line9IndustrialGenocide
Be safe, be strong!
Keep your ear to the ground, because there are more battles ahead. Stop the beast! #NoLine9 #NoEnergyEast
Note: For more background on Enbridge’s Line 9 tar sands pipeline and the recent approval it received by Canadian regulators, click here.
In this photo taken Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010, a sign announcing the acceptance of electronic Benefit Transfer cards is seen at a farmers market in Roseville, Calif. Credit Rich Pedroncelli / AP Photo
Washington state policymakers are pondering whether to make an end run around looming cutbacks in the federally-funded food stamp program.
This would mimic what Oregon and three eastern states just decided to do.
In 15 states and the District of Columbia, low-income households get extra food stamps if they’re also getting help paying their heating bills. Washington, Oregon and California are among the states running things this way. Idaho does not offer the added benefit.
This winter, Congress tried to trim the ballooning costs of the food stamp program by setting a higher threshold for what’s come to be called “Heat and Eat.” The provision would decrease food stamp benefits for about 100,000 households in Oregon and twice that many in more populous Washington.
Now, Oregon’s governor has approved a restructure to low-income heating assistance to negate the federal policy change. And Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says his state is discussing the same.
“We’re going to look at anything we can do, but that’s not going to get done today,” he said.
The trim back of food stamp benefits doesn’t take effect until the fall here. A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal gave voice to fiscal conservatives by rebranding the Heat and Eat benefit, “Cheat and Eat.”
Congressional negotiators booked $8.6 billion in savings from tightened eligibility for food stamp benefits over the next decade. Because of the state workarounds, those savings are now in doubt.
In Oregon, the avoided decrease to food stamp benefits averages around $58 per month per household. In Washington and California, the average cutback per household is a little bit higher.
“We all respect freedom of speech, but the [U.S. Patent and] Trademark office has rejected names which are considered offensive and they should do it now,” Pelosi said at an event hosted by the National Congress of American Indians. “They can keep their name on the team, but when it comes to all the stuff — that’s serious money. So I think that is one path that we can go.”
Pelosi told The Hill in October, that the name should change saying that the “R-word” is insulting and a racial slur to Native American people. “”It’s time to choose another name,” she said during the NCAI event. “In fact, it’s long overdue.”
This is the first time that Ms. Pelosi has publicly put pressure on the trademark office to use its power to make a change. The U.S. Patent and Trademark office declined to offer a statement on Pelosi’s remarks, the Huff Post said.
The office has rejected related trademarks such as, Redskins Fanatic, Redskin Rooters and ICTMN reported that Redskins Hog Rinds was also rejected in January due to “redskins” being a “derogatory term.”
A lawsuit to revoke the NFL team’s name is currently pending before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and in January, The Washington Postsaid that a decision was expected soon. In 1992, Suzan Harjo brought a similar suit but it was thrown out on a technicality in 2009.
Press Relase, The National Congress of American Indians
WASHINGTON, DC – The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) appreciates the efforts of the Department of the Interior in issuing a new legal opinion and working to provide further guidance in defining the tribes “under federal jurisdiction” as of 1934 in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2009 Carcieri v. Salazar decision regarding the Indian Reorganization Act. The opinion, however, highlights the need for Congress to make clear that all Indian tribes are under federal constitutional authority to regulate.
The Indian Reorganization Act was enacted in 1934 to restore Indian tribal governments and tribal lands after the failed federal policies of termination and assimilation. The Act ensured that the tribal way of life would continue and thrive. In its Carcieri decision, the Supreme Court determined that the Secretary of the Interior does not have authority to take land into trust for tribes that were not “under federal jurisdiction” prior to 1934. However, the Court did not define what it means for a tribe to have been “under federal jurisdiction” as of the enactment of the IRA.
According to the DOI opinion, M-37029, the term “under federal jurisdiction” is ambiguous and undefined, therefore the DOI has the authority to determine which tribes do and do not fall under the statute and will proceed to make decisions about trust agreements accordingly. In previous legal work, NCAI has taken the view that the Constitution devotes authority in Indian affairs to the federal government and that the only question is whether an Indian tribe exists, as in the Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. v. Sandoval in 1913.
Of the opinion, NCAI President Brian Cladoosby stated:
“NCAI is pleased the Department of the Interior has addressed one of the many problems created by the unclear and damaging language in the Carcieri decision. It is encouraging to see a federal agency work to strengthen the trust relationship – particularly the DOI, as one of their fundamental tasks is fulfilling the United States’ trust responsibility to tribal nations.
The opinion is encouraging, but Carcieri still stands. Tribes need a permanent, legislative solution and NCAI will continue to work towards a clean Carcieri fix. All tribes must be treated equally but as long as Carcieri is upheld, that is not possible and that is unacceptable.”
The Carcieri decision has affected all tribes – even those “under federal jurisdiction” as of 1934. Processing delays in trust land applications, additional bureaucratic red tape for potential economic investors, and confusion over legal jurisdiction are just a few of the consequences.
More importantly, the decision is a direct attack on tribal sovereignty. Indian trust land is the foundation of tribal economies and the only real federal protection of tribal authority from state and local governments.
NCAI is committed to the preservation of tribal sovereignty and ensuring a robust nation-to-nation between tribes and the federal government. We will continue to support and work with tribal leaders to advance these priorities.
Lakota members marched during the annual Liberation Day commemoration of the Wounded Knee massacre. People carried American Indian Movement flags and shot rifles into the air as part of the celebration. Photo: Deep Roots United Front/Victor Puertas
On February 27, Oglala Lakota and American Indian Movement activists joined in a four-directions walk to commemorate Liberation Day, an event to mark the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. As they do each year, four groups gather to the north, south, east and west and then walk eight miles until converging on top of Wounded Knee, where they honor the fallen warriors and the tribe’s rich history of resistance.
“It is an acknowledgement of the resiliency of who we are as a people,” explains Andrew Iron Shell, an organizer and activist of the Sicangu Lakota Nation. “It gives permission and courage for our up-and-coming generations to face the challenges of their time.”
The history of the occupation began with a massacre more than 100 years ago. On a cold day in December 1890, the United States army killed 300 Lakota men, women and children in a massive shoot out after a member of the First Nations refused to give up his arms. It marked the first bloodshed on Wounded Knee – although there had been many massacres of First Nations people by the colonialists before it. The event was also considered the end of the Indian Wars.
Eighty-threeyears later, on Feb. 27, 1973, about 200 Lakota members took siege of the town of Wounded Knee. Reclaiming a location that was written in the history books as a place of defeat, the Lakota stood their ground. They were there in protest of a failed attempt at impeaching the tribal president at the time, Richard Wilson, who was known to be corrupt and abusive. Initially a protest against the tribal government, the occupation took a turn when U.S. police forces arrived. The protestors switched the occupation’s focus to the United States’ frequent violation of treaties.
The armed warriors maintained control over the town for 71 days while the FBI encircled them. At the final standoff, two warriors were killed, about 12 people were wounded and over 400 were arrested. The Oglala were able to harness national attention through their occupation, using the spotlight to question the United States’ treatment of First Nations people.
As history passed, later generations rarely heard about the occupation of Wounded Knee — or about first nation people at all. This skewed national memory should be unsurprising: When you have a society and a nation built upon the subjugation of people of color, you can expect nothing more than the constant erasing of certain histories.
Ongoing genocide
I recently visited Prisoner of War Camp 344, also known as the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It wasn’t my first time in the sovereign Oglala Sioux Nation, but it was my first time joining in the ceremonies celebrating the 41st annual Liberation Day to remember the 1890 reoccupation of Wounded Knee.
The vibrant American Indian Movement flags waving in the harsh South Dakota winter wind reminded me of the old black and white photos I used to see in my history books. The Lakota would not disappear without a fight, regardless of what the United States’ intentions were. Children walked alongside elders who had taken part in the occupation, showing clearly the group’s intergenerational wisdom. These are children who are stripped of learning their people’s history in schools, but instead learn it through stories and dances. They are children who live in a sovereign nation that contains two of the poorest counties in the United States and who recognize the threats their families face every day.
One of these threats come from the so-called town of White Clay, Neb., where visitors can witness the way violence against the First Nations people has changed — but not disappeared — over the generations. Consisting of only 12 people and four liquor stores, White Clay was once part of a 50-square-mile buffer that prevented alcohol from entering the reservation. In 1904, President Roosevelt signed an executive order that removed 49 of those square miles. Since then, the town’s economy has been driven by the $4 million in alcohol sales to the people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. There is no legal place to drink in or around White Clay: Alcohol containers can’t be opened on the property of the distributor, it’s prohibited to drink in the street, and the reservation is dry territory. Yet, somehow, the town of 12 people manages to keep four liquor stores open. Barely two miles from the reservation’s epicenter, and less than 200 feet from the dry reservation line, the town perpetrates a type of violence that is, on the reservation, known as liquid genocide.
The reason for this name becomes apparent when one examines the teenage suicide rate on the reservation, which is 150 percent higher than the U.S. national average for this age group. Many attribute this death rate to the sale of alcohol to minors, which White Clay store owners are known to do. The liquor stores also break the law by selling to intoxicated people, and by trading alcohol for pornography, sexual favors — including from minors — and welfare checks. The effects of free-flowing alcohol are devastating: On the reservation, 90 percent of all court cases are related to alcohol use.
Kate, a Tokala warrior, believes that alcoholism is part of a larger problem of the disappearance of indigenous culture. For her, the only way to live in the geographical region of Pine Ridge is the indigenous way. “We are the ones on the back roads, still chopping wood. We are living the way we used to live,” she said. “It’s not hardship; it’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Kate and many others know that alcohol was introduced to her people as a means to steal from them. Living deeply connected to the history of their nation, they believe that if they shake free of the colonized mindset, alcohol wouldn’t even be an issue.
Threats to the land
In addition to trying to close down White Clay, the Oglala Lakota Nation is actively fighting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. This 1,700-mile pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels of crude oil each day from western Canada through South Dakota en route to Texas. At two points it would even intersect with a pipeline that serves as a main water source for the Sioux Nation, affecting all of the Pine Ridge reservation as well as the nearby Rosebud reservation.
Advocates for the pipeline argue the pipeline is the safest way to transport crude oil. TransCanada, the company in charge of the pipeline, predicted that the first Keystone pipeline, which runs from Alberta to Illinois, would spill once every seven years. During its first year in operation, it spilled 12 times. The Lakota, along with other First Nations, have vowed to use direct action to stop construction of the pipeline.
For a nation whose land and sovereignty has been threatened for hundreds of years by U.S. politics, the Keystone XL pipeline is part of a long history of threats to the Lakota Nation – and to the earth itself.
“They want to get rid of the Lakota, the protectors of the earth,” said Olowan Martinez, an organizer in the Lakota community. “But what they don’t know is when they get rid of the Lakota, the earth isn’t too far behind. Our people believe the Lakota is the earth.”
President Obama is scheduled to be make a final decision on the pipeline by the middle of 2014. While the Lakota are hoping he will not approve the project, they are also getting ready to stand up and fight. During the Liberation Day celebrations, the Lakota’s dances and stories relayed messages about sacred water and Mother Earth. The tribe has also united with other First Nations to organize a three-day direct action training called Moccasins on the Ground, which was designed to prepare people to act if the pipeline is approved.
“Dead or in prison before we allow the Keystone XL pipeline to pass,” the Lakota warriors, many mounted atop horses, repeated during the Liberation Day celebration. Their words carried the weight of 521 years, and counting, of lived resistance.
The Washington legislature adjourned its 60-day session just before midnight Thursday night.
In the final hours, lawmakers passed a bipartisan update to the state’s two-year budget. They also sent the governor a bill to give military veterans in-state tuition to attend college. And reauthorized a fee that pays for homeless housing.
But it’s what lawmakers did not do this legislative session that may stand out most for voters.
No gas tax increase
One major item lawmakers could not agree on — a gas tax increase to fund road projects and transit. It’s something Governor Jay Inslee has pushed for since taking office.
As the legislative session wound down, the blame game was just winding up.
“It’s obvious to me that over the last month the leadership in the House and the leadership in the Democratic side of the Senate were not interested in getting a revenue package out of the session,” said Republican Curtis King, co-chair of the Senate Transportation Committee.
Not so, responded Democrat Judy Clibborn, chairs of the House Transportation Committee. She blamed the Senate majority for not producing a gas tax package that could pass out of its own chamber.
“I am frustrated as anybody,” said Clibborn. “We worked very hard to get this done. It’s been a year-and-a-half to two years for me.”
A $40 million penalty?
Item number two on the did-not-pass list: a requirement that school districts use a federally-approved student test for any teacher evaluation. Why does this matter? U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has told Governor Inslee without this requirement Washington could lose its federal No Child Left Behind waiver. And with it control of $40 million in federal funds to help struggling students.
House Democratic Leader Pat Sullivan called the testing mandate flawed and said he’s prepared to pay the penalty.
“So be it,” he said. “If Arne Duncan wants to withhold 20 percent of funds from our poorest schools then I guess that’s his prerogative.”
Out in the Capitol Rotunda, State Schools Superintendent Randy Dorn was incensed at the bill’s demise.
“Adults not doing what’s right for kids,” he said.
Dorn blames the state’s teachers union for killing the bill.
Separate pot markets
Item number three on the did-not-pass list: a plan to roll Washington’s medical marijuana market into the state’s new, recreational pot marketplace. Republican State Senator Ann Rivers, one of the lead proponents of this merger, says Washington’s current unregulated medical marijuana industry is an invitation for federal intervention.
“We’re not showing a good faith effort to get it under control so the feds have nothing to judge us by.”
But Democrat Roger Goodman in the Washington House believes it was premature to change the medical marijuana system and it would have hurt patients. He wants to wait a year and isn’t worried about the feds sweeping in.
“They’re watching closely, we’re listening carefully,” says Goodman. “I think the chances of federal intervention are limited particularly as we show to them and continue to communicate with them that we’re working on it in advance of the next legislative session.”
So what else died in the Washington legislature this year? Dueling proposals on the minimum wage. A tax on e-cigarettes. And a ban on gay conversion therapy.
But the past 60-days in Olympia also featured some surprising bipartisan breakthroughs. A big one: undocumented students won access to state financial aid to attend college. But there’s no guarantee they’ll get that money because the program is already underfunded.
Much of this session was about the fall elections ahead. Control of the Washington Senate looks like it’s up for grabs for the first time in a decade.
