Last week there was a wave (albeit a small one) of renowned publications to declare they will henceforth no longer run the pejorative ‘Redskins’ whenever they cover anything related to the Washington team – though Mother Jones did state they reserve the right to resurrect the racist epithet if it’s in a quote. Indian Country Today Media Network will provide updates as other publications join the no-more-Redskins chorus.
Photo courtesy Slate.com
Editor David Plotz wrote in an editorial August 8 that Slate will no longer run ‘Redskins’ in prose and decried the name as “dated.” Plotz wrote: “So while the name Redskins is only a bit offensive, it’s extremely tacky and dated—like an old aunt who still talks about ‘colored people’ or limps her wrist to suggest someone’s gay.”
Photo courtesy Motherjones.com
One day after Slate’s announcement to henceforth purge the Redskins name from their magazine, Mother Jones followed suit and declared the name “an absolute embarrassment.” Though Mother Jones journalist Ian Gordon did state that should they cover Redskins owner Dan Snyder, they may have to resurrect the name again: “There is a chance, however, that the term will end up back on our pages,” he wrote. “We certainly won’t strike it from a quote. And if we end up writing a post or two about how Snyder still hasn’t changed the name, despite increasing scrutiny, we reserve the right to use it again—if only to highlight how incredibly out-of-touch and backward the Washington football team’s owner truly is.”
Photo courtesy Newrepublic.com
These days it’s not uncommon for announcements to come via tweet. Editor of The New Republic Franklin Foer, in admiration of Slate Editor David Plotz’s position against using the Redskins name, tweeted August 8 that The New Republic, likewise, will cease all uses of the name and that they will make it official by changing their publication’s stylebook.
Photo courtesy Washingtoncitypaper.com
In early October 2012, the Washington City Paper provided their readers an opportunity to rename the Washington Redskins so as to avoid using the “racist nickname.” Their readers finally voted on a new name: “the Washington Pigskins.”
Photo courtesy Kansascity.com
In response to a reader who declared it a trivial policy for the Kansas City Star not to run ‘Redskins’ in their paper, Public Editor Derek Donovan reiterated the Star’s long-held policy with a blistering public response: “… I see no compelling reason for any publisher to reprint an egregiously offensive term as a casual matter of course.”
Tulalip artists tap into the world of skateboard art
Skate decks and trucker hats, by Tulalip tribal member Ty Juvinel. Photo/Kim Kalliber
By Kim Kalliber, Tulalip News
Growing up on the Tulalip Reservation in the 70s, skateboarding wasn’t a thing. Of course there wasn’t a lot of cement around the rez in those days either. But that time is changing and Native Americans are taking the skateboarding world by storm, with sleek designs and styles that reflect their Native culture.
As a kid, my mother, Tulalip tribal member Sherrill Guydelkon (Williams), made a daily trek in her old VW bug to Bellingham, where she attended college. My brother and I would happily tag along when we could to skate the campus, making use of any small inclines and stairwells that got in our path.
Exhibit photo of Tracy Nelson, La Jolla Band of Luiseno Indians. Founder of Full Blood Skates, 2008. Photo/Kim Kalliber
As a teen in the 80s I moved to the city and discovered the world of skateboarders. It was the punk scene, and man was it cool. We wore leather jackets, had colored hair, we listened to bands like Circle Jerks and Bad Brains and skateboards were the mode of transportation. Skaters kept to empty lots and were continuously kicked off city streets. I remember a slew of ‘No Skateboarding Allowed’ signs posted around businesses and sidewalks – followed by a storm of ‘Skateboarding Is Not A Crime’ stickers. Remember those?
I am now in my 40s and my boyfriend and I still have a decent collection of skateboards. One of my best friends has an entire wall in his very “grown-up” house dedicated to skateboards. Skateboarding’s not just a fad, it’s a way of life, something you never outgrow. No longer strictly associated with rebellious youth and kept to empty swimming pools and vacant lots, it’s a mainstream sport, with skate parks sprouting up across the nation.
When you think of skateboarding, it’s not just a board with wheels; it embraces a wide style of art, design, fashion and music. And skaters should be taken seriously. You don’t just pick up a board one day and begin gliding jumps and riding rails. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of devotion. Skateboarding is an art form, a lifestyle and a sport.
Most people are aware that in the 60s skateboarding became huge in California, where boards were used as something to keep surfers moving during down times and flat waters, but what they don’t know is that skateboarding has a history with Indigenous peoples as well. Early skating can be traced to Native Hawaiian surfers, and to this day, Native Americans turn to skateboarding, not only to keep youth engaged in sports and stay fit, but as a means to convey their cultural identity.
The Tulalip Hibulb Cultural Center is celebrating this identity with a temporary exhibit. Ramp It Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America, organized by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, highlights the exciting world of Native American skateboarding.
The exhibit, on display through October 13th 2013, features vintage and contemporary skate decks, art and photos. You can also view rare video footage of skaters, including James & Richard Tavarez of the famed Zephyr surf team, which led to the Dogtown Z-Boys skate team, and the 4 Wheel Warpony team at the All Nations Skate Competition.
Exhibit photo of a man on a pap holua, Hawaii, 1937. Hawaiians also “surfed” on land using long, narrow papa holua, or sled, made from two wooden runners held together by woven matting or crossbars. Photo/Kim Kalliber
But it’s the stories that accompany these classic images that really get the blood pumping – you can practically hear the grinding of wheels. From early Hawaiians that “surfed” the land on longboards, to kids in the 80s, skating in their basements and backyard ramps on reservations across the U.S., to modern day concrete warriors, skating and filming in national competitions and operating their own design companies.
Local artist Louie Gong, a Nooksack tribal member, known for his bold designs on shoes and skateboards was in attendance at the exhibit’s opening reception on August 9th, showing his 2010 handmade Dog Deck. Louie uses a utilitarian style, utilizing resources found in the environment to create things that are useful in everyday life, as an art form and educational tool.
“Every design has a story behind it and represents values and personal style. And with every piece, I think, how am I going to use this as a teaching tool?” explained Gong. Keeping this in consideration, Gong created the Dog Deck, which is a rez dog design. “I started thinking about what it means to grow up in a tribal community, and I remembered the rez dogs. These dogs roam around in packs and usually don’t have one particular owner, yet they survive. Generally we think of them in a negative light, but when I really reflected on the rez dogs in my community, after I was an adult, the characteristics they exhibited are actually positive. I try to show kids that rez dogs are cool; they’re resilient. And if it wasn’t for the fact that some of our ancestors displayed that same positive resilience, we wouldn’t have the opportunity to stand here in this room and talk about these things and express our self-determination.”
Tulalip tribal member James Madison, one of eight tribal member artists who contributed to the exhibit, explained what it means for these traditional Coast Salish artists to step outside of their routine and join the ranks of graffiti artists. When Mytyl Hernandez, Marketing, and Tessa Campbell, Curator, from Hibulb, approached the Tulalip team of artists and asked them to design skateboards, James recalls his initial reaction was, “Skateboards?! We’re busy carving totem poles.” But recognizing the value in this work, not just as a means to reach out to native youth, but to show that Tulalip artists continue to evolve and move forward
Artists James Madison, Tulalip, (left) and Louie Gong, Nooksack. Photo/Kim Kalliber
in their craft, they dove right in, creating 10 decks, a handful of trucker hats and a mammoth graffiti wall.
“The artwork that we do, we put our stories in them and we teach our kids, and show who we are as people,” said Madison. “We can go anywhere and people know who Tulalip is; they know because of our art and they know because of our culture.”
Tulalip artists involved in the exhibit are Steve Madison, James Madison, Joe Gobin, Mike Gobin, Mitch Matta, Trudy Particio, Doug Seneca and Ty Juvinel. And who would have thought that these traditional Native artists would be rattle canning stencils and tagging skulls on graffiti walls? Skating really does bring out the cool kid in everyone.
For more information on the Tulalip Hibulb Cultural Center, visit www.hibulbculturalcenter.org.
Native boards on display at the exhibit. Left to right: Spirit Feather, by Traci Rabbit, Cherokee Nation, for Native Skates, 2008. Apache Mountain Spirit Dancer, by Joe Yazzie, Navajo, for Native Skates, 2008. Legacy, by Bunky Echo-Hawk, Yakama/Pawnee for Native Skates 2007. Photo/Kim Kalliber
Graffiti wall created by Tulalip tribal artists. Photo/Kim Kalliber
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Add warm water in small amounts and knead dough until soft but not sticky. Adjust flour or water as needed. Cover bowl and let stand about 15 minutes.
Pull off large egg-sized balls of dough and roll out into fairly thin rounds. Fry rounds in hot oil until bubbles appear on the dough, turn over and fry on the other side until golden.
Serve hot. Try brushing on honey, or making into an Indian Taco.
Buttermilk Fry Bread
Substitute buttermilk for water. Follow the same recipe.
Collusion between the U.S. Government and Wall Street to deprive Native Americans of their treaty-guaranteed property goes back to the beginning of the country. Over two and a half centuries, that collusion has comprised both brutal coercion and devious subterfuge, ethnic cleansing coinciding with kidnapping and religious persecution.
While alienating indigenous property in the past entails many broken promises and treaties between the United States and American Indian tribes, the failure to prosecute corporate criminality on Indian reservations in the present is a symptom of the demise of the rule of law in the US that undermines the U.S. Constitution and protections that guard against corporate corruption of governance at all levels. As indigenous governments in the United States assert jurisdiction over their resources under national and international law, the corrupting influence of Wall Street threatens not only Indians and their sacred grounds, but democracy itself.
As Jewell Praying Wolf James writes in his August 2013 special supplement to Whatcom Watch, The Search for Integrity in the Conflict Over Cherry Point as a Coal Export Terminal, the Lummi Indian Tribe ancient village and burial ground at Cherry Point is in the way of progress. As such, Pacific International Terminals, its financial backer Goldman Sachs, and Edelman — the world’s biggest public relations firm — have their work cut out for them.
Having recently settled a $1.6 million lawsuit for illegally and intentionally bulldozing the ancient Cherry Point Lummi village of Xwe’chi’eXen — the first archaeological site placed on the Washington State Register of Historic Places — Pacific International Terminals is actively seeking to corrupt local and tribal elections, as well as influence members of Congress. While PIT — one of the largest marine operators in the world — was able to avoid criminal prosecution for desecrating sacred Lummi grounds, it isn’t leaving anything to chance when it comes to securing approval for its project on Lummi Reservation lands previously stolen by U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs agents on behalf of illegal white settlers.
History, as they say, has a way of repeating itself.
Forty years after the United States stopped spraying herbicides in the jungles of Southeast Asia in the hopes of denying cover to Vietcong fighters and North Vietnamese troops, an air base here is one of about two dozen former American sites that remain polluted with an especially toxic strain of dioxin, the chemical contaminant in Agent Orange that has been linked to cancers, birth defects and other diseases.
On Thursday, after years of rebuffing Vietnamese requests for assistance in a cleanup, the United States inaugurated its first major effort to address the environmental effects of the long war.
“This morning we celebrate a milestone in our bilateral relationship,” David B. Shear, the American ambassador to Vietnam, said at a ceremony attended by senior officers of the Vietnamese military. “We’re cleaning up this mess.”
The program, which is expected to cost $43 million and take four years, was officially welcomed with smiles and handshakes at the ceremony. But bitterness remains here. Agent Orange is mentioned often in the news media, and victims are commemorated annually on Aug. 10, the day in 1961 when American forces first tested spraying it in Vietnam. The government objected to Olympics sponsorship this year by Dow Chemical, a leading producer of Agent Orange during the war. Many here have not hesitated to call the American program too little — it addresses only the one site — and very late.
“It’s a big step,” said Ngo Quang Xuan, a former Vietnamese ambassador to the United Nations. “But in the eyes of those who suffered the consequences, it’s not enough.”
Over a decade of war, the United States sprayed about 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, halting only after scientists commissioned by the Agriculture Department issued a report expressing concerns that dioxin showed “a significant potential to increase birth defects.” By the time the spraying stopped, Agent Orange and other herbicides had destroyed 2 million hectares, or 5.5 million acres, of forest and cropland, an area roughly the size of New Jersey.
Nguyen Van Rinh, a retired lieutenant general who is now the chairman of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, has vivid memories of hearing American aircraft above the jungles of southern Vietnam and seeing Agent Orange raining down in sheets on him and his troops. Plants and animals exposed to the defoliant were dead within days. Many of his troops later suffered illnesses that he suspects were linked to the repeated exposure to Agent Orange, used in concentrations 20 to 55 times that of normal agricultural use.
“I would like to have one message sent to the American people,” Mr. Rinh said in his office, where a large bust of Ho Chi Minh, the wartime leader and icon, stared down from a shelf behind his desk. “The plight of Agent Orange victims continues. I think the relationship would rise up to new heights if the American government took responsibility and helped their victims and address the consequences.”
Those who have worked on the issue say the American government has been slow to address the issue in part because of concerns about liability. It took years for American soldiers who sprayed the chemicals to secure settlements from the chemical companies that produced them. The United States government, which also lagged in acknowledging the problem, has spent billions of dollars on disability payments and health care for American soldiers who came into contact with Agent Orange.
Mr. Shear, the American ambassador, sidestepped a reporter’s question after the ceremony about whether the United States would take responsibility for the environmental and health effects of Agent Orange.
“There is a disconnect between what America has done for its soldiers and what America has done for Vietnam,” said Charles Bailey, the director of the Agent Orange in Vietnam Program, an effort by the Aspen Institute, a nongovernmental organization based in Washington, to reach common ground between the United States and Vietnam on the issue. “I’m sometimes glad I’m not a U.S. diplomat in trying to square that circle.”
A class-action case against chemical companies filed in the United States on behalf of millions of Vietnamese was dismissed in 2005 on the grounds that supplying the defoliant did not amount to a war crime and that the Vietnamese plaintiffs had not established a clear causal effect between exposure to Agent Orange and their health problems. The United States government is rolling out a modest $11.4 million program to help people with disabilities in Vietnam, but it is not explicitly linked to Agent Orange. The oft-repeated American formulation is “assistance regardless of cause.”
When environmental factors are linked to disease, proof positive is sometimes hard to determine. American military studies have outlined connections between Agent Orange and myriad ailments, while Dow Chemical maintains that the “very substantial body of human evidence on Agent Orange establishes that veterans’ illnesses are not caused by Agent Orange.”
In Vietnam, there are many cases in which links to Agent Orange appear striking.
Nguyen Van Dung, 42, moved to Da Nang in 1996 with his wife and newborn daughter and worked at the former American base, wading through the knee-deep mud of drainage ditches and dredging them with a shovel. During the first 10 years, he, like other employees, harvested fish and eels from the large ponds and canals on the air base grounds, taking them home almost daily. Studies later showed high concentrations of dioxin in the fat tissue and organs of the fish.
The couple’s first daughter is now at the top of her class, but their second child, also a girl, was born in 2000 with a rare blood disease. She died at 7.
Their son Tu was born in 2008, and he was quickly found to have the same blood condition. With regular transfusions, he has defied his doctor’s prediction that he would not live past 3, but he is nearly blind, with bulging eyes that roll wildly, and he speaks in high-pitched tones that only his parents can understand. His chest cavity is so weak that he cannot breathe if he lies on his stomach.
What caused the birth defects, and who is to blame? Detailed medical tests are out of the question for Tu’s parents, whose combined monthly income is the equivalent of $350, much of which goes to medical care.
But Luu Thi Thu, the boy’s mother, does not hesitate to assign blame.
“If there hadn’t been a war and Americans hadn’t sprayed dioxin and chemicals into this area, we wouldn’t be suffering these consequences,” she said.
“What happened to my son is already done, and nothing can change that,” she said. “The American and Vietnamese governments need to clean up the Da Nang airport so that the next generation will not be affected.”
Le Ke Son, a doctor and the most senior Vietnamese official responsible for the government’s programs related to Agent Orange and other chemicals used during the war, said the debates should take a back seat to aid. “We spend a lot of time arguing about the reason why people are disabled,” he said. “One way or another they are victims and suffered from the legacy of the war. We should do something for them.”
Most of my gardening tips have been about planting, harvesting and preserving (or cooking) fruits and vegetables. This week I’d like to dedicated this column space to something a little more beautiful and delicate, something with a touch more impermanence: bouquets.
Arranging a bouquet can be as simple as gathering a bunch of flowers and sticking them in a vase or a mason jar. And guys? Stepping out into the garden and returning with a thoughtfully plucked bundle of flowers is much more romantic then coming home with a half-wilted, plastic-covered handful of flowers with a grocery store price tag. And gals? Guys like to get flowers from their sweethearts too . . . they just may not know it yet.
Beautiful, low-maintenance flowers that make awesome bouquets include hydrangeas, zinnias, dahlias, sunflowers and feverfew. There are also the classic bouquet makers: roses, daffodils, daisies and lilies. Really you can put anything into a bouquet but these flowers are great choices with a hardy vase life. Hydrangeas, roses, zinnias, feverfew and certain kinds of daisies also make great dried flower arrangements for a more permanent arrangement.
If you want to up your game and create something that really stuns, or perhaps you want to make your own bouquets for a special event like a wedding, there are a few simple tips to remember.
First, you can make beautiful bouquets with just one type of flower. Gather a bunch of zinnias or peonies, for example. Gather a lot more than you think you’ll need because you are going to really want to pack them together. Strip off all of the leaves and cut the stems so that they are lush with the jar or vase that you are going to place them in, you’ll want the outside flowers to be resting on the lip of the vase. Viola! This is also a great option for a simple, elegant and contemporary bridal bouquet. Cut the stems to your desired length and then secure them together with florist tape or several large rubber bands. Conceal the rubber bands with a wide, beautiful bow.
If mixing and matching several types of flowers it may help to do a little planning before you start cutting. Bigger flowers can be accented with smaller flowers, for example. Also think about the colors you’ll be using. Light pink zinnias would pair well with dark pink gerbera daisies. Red dahlias would pair well with other red or orange flowers. Yellow daffodils and yellow roses may not look so great together—that’s a lot of yellow and their shapes are so different that it would be hard to create any cohesiveness for the eye to follow.
Cut all of the stems for your arrangement at the same time and slightly longer than you’ll think you need them, making room for error. Cutting the stems at an angle helps the flower suck up water. The flowers at the back of your arrangement should have longer stems than the plants towards the front. And don’t forget that you can use things other than flowers in your arrangements! Ferns, leaves, a curly thin twig, and ornamental grasses all make great additions to a bouquet and help fill in space while creating visual interest.
And don’t forget your greatest resource: the Internet. A quick images search will earn you thousands of pictures for inspiration. With a little practice you may even find yourself with a new hobby or a new job as a florist!
Darla Antoine is an enrolled member of the Okanagan Indian Band in British Columbia and grew up in Eastern Washington State. For three years, she worked as a newspaper reporter in the Midwest, reporting on issues relevant to the Native and Hispanic communities, and most recently served as a producer for Native America Calling. In 2011, she moved to Costa Rica, where she currently lives with her husband and their infant son. She lives on an organic and sustainable farm in the “cloud forest”—the highlands of Costa Rica, 9,000 feet above sea level. Due to the high elevation, the conditions for farming and gardening are similar to that of the Pacific Northwest—cold and rainy for most of the year with a short growing season. Antoine has an herb garden, green house, a bee hive, cows, a goat, and two trout ponds stocked with hundreds of rainbow trout.
Darla Antoine on a recent visit to Washington State (Courtesy Darla Antoine)
Lateesha “Teesha” Mae Jack, 21, passed away August 5, 2013.
She was born April 12, 1992 in Everett, WA to Rainey Jack Sr. and Roseanne Iukes. She graduated from Tulalip Heritage High School. She loved playing Call of Duty, and basketball.
She is survived by her parents, Rainey Jack Sr., Roseanne Iukes; siblings, Veronica Iukes, Jennifer Flores, Jesse Wolf-John, Loreal Jack, Rainey Jack Jr., Terrell Jack; her daughter, Maliya Henry; grandparents, Mary Jack, Geraldine and Hank Williams, Nelson and Jennifer Iukes; numerous, aunties, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins, and friends.
She was preceded in death by brother, James Titus Jack; grandfather, Windy Jack; uncles, Harvey Jack, Harold Enick and Gerald Enick.
A prayer services will be held Sunday, August 11, 2013 at 1 p.m. at Schaefer-Shipman Funeral Home with an Interfaith Service following at the Tulalip Gym at 6 p.m.. Funeral Services will be held Monday, August 12, 2013 at 10 a.m. at the Tulalip Gym with burial following at Mission Beach Cemetery.
Arrangements entrusted to Schaefer-Shipman. Marysville.
Jeffery Ernest Jack, 51, of Tulalip, WA passed away August 4, 2013 in Everett.
He was born December 7, 1961 in Everett to Sandy and Henrietta Jack.
Jeff is survived by his sisters, Roxanne Miramontes, Shirley Jack and her husband, Terry McGovern and Sandra Senner; nieces, Rocio Hatch, Jasmine Ancheta, Jacque Nye; nephews, Roberto Jack, Kody Johnson, Richard Johnson, Joshua Senner; aunt, Beverly Grant; uncle, Mike Cladoosby; and numerous cousins; and his special Wayne Peters.
He was preceded in death by his father, mother, grandparents, Ernest and Lena Cladoosby; brother, William Jack; and sister, Brenda Jack.
Jeff loved making people laugh. He was uncle dad and he will be missed by all.
A Service will be held Thursday, August 8, 2013 at 1 p.m. at Schaefer-Shipman Funeral Home with an InterFaith Service following at 6 p.m. at the Tulalip Gym. Funeral Services will be held Friday at 10 a.m. at the Tulalip Tribal Gym with burial following at Mission Beach Cemetery.
Arrangements entrusted to Schaefer-Shipman Funeral Home.
Suzette Brewer, Indian Country Today Media Network
After Dusten Brown was charged last Monday in a Charleston, South Carolina courtroom with failing to appear on Sunday for a scheduled four-hour visitation to begin his daughter Veronica’s transition to the Capobianco’s, he was ordered to “immediately” transfer the child to the couple’s custody. Monday’s order negated the proposed plan and demanded that Veronica be brought to South Carolina with no transition.
But Brown has been in Iowa with his Oklahoma National Guard unit for a mandatory training that had been on the books since January. This was known to all parties in the dispute, including Judge Daniel Martin, who issued the order.
“They absolutely knew where this man was and that he had no physical or legal way of being present for the transition visitation with his daughter,” says a source familiar with the case. “This whole canard that he somehow flouted the law is just absurd. [Monday’s order] was nothing more than posturing and intimidation, because weren’t these the very same people who had originally proposed that they would moved to Oklahoma to ease her transition? What happened to that? How did they go from moving to Oklahoma to demanding that he magically show up in South Carolina within 48 hours of the finalization of the adoption when they know he was not even in Oklahoma? As usual, they painted him with the broad stroke that he broke the law. He did not.”
As rhetoric on both sides heated up throughout the week during appearances on multiple media outlets, it became apparent to those watching the case that the Capobiancos and their legal team were prepared to enforce the judge’s order by any means necessary—even if it meant sending Veronica’s biological father to jail.
Equally, it became apparent that Dusten Brown was prepared to dig in his heels to continue his battle to seek justice in what many are calling an “unethical adoption” in which his infant daughter should never have been taken to South Carolina in the first place.
Friday evening, doubling down on their threat to seek intervention by law enforcement, the Capobiancos pressed criminal charges against Brown in South Carolina for “custodial interference.” The felony warrant carries a five year sentence and fines at the discretion of the court.
Attorneys for the Capobiancos said that the arrest was “necessary to ensure the rule of law.” They also said that officials for the Cherokee Nation and anyone refusing to divulge Veronica’s whereabouts would be “actively assisting in an ongoing felony.”
The Cherokee Nation declined to comment on the Capobiancos’ statement.
Authorities in South Carolina had been working with Polk County, Iowa authorities, who have jurisdiction over the civilian communities surrounding Camp Dodge, to arrest Brown on Sunday morning.
But that didn’t happen.
On Saturday, the Oklahoma National Guard granted Brown emergency leave so that he could attend an emergency hearing in Cherokee Nation Tribal Court on Monday without having to go absent without leave, thereby further endangering his military career. Brown and wife, Robin, then returned to Oklahoma.
“This is a purely civil criminal matter,” Colonel Greg Hapgood, a spokesman for the Iowa National Guard, said in a brief statement. “Our job was to facilitate communication with the local authorities.”
The exact Oklahoma whereabouts of the Browns, Veronica and their extended family is unknown. The Cherokee Nation had no comment.
Of all the things that veteran “weather god” Charles England regrets about his tenure as the main meteorologist for Channel 9 in Oklahoma City is that he never consulted local tribes about their knowledge of tornadoes.
The New York Times Magazine this week profiles the weather guru of Tornado Alley, as the swath of storm-prone flatlands in central Oklahoma is known. This past spring saw some of the most devastating tornadoes in history rip through the state, decimating Indian country.
“One big regret, he said, is that although he grew up surrounded by Cheyenne people in Seiling, he never asked them about tornadoes,” wrote Sam Anderson at the end of a several-page story in The New York Times Magazine of Sunday August 11. “He didn’t know any of the tribes’ severe-weather folklore or survival strategies—the wisdom they must have built up over centuries on the Plains.”
The writer was told the same thing by Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service, that little indigenous tornado knowledge had survived.
“Both men had an attitude of sad resignation,” Anderson wrote. “Despite all of our Dopplers and Storm Trackers and Dominators, the feeling seemed to be, we have lost the old wisdom forever.”
Anderson contacted the Cheyenne Nation and spoke with Chief Gordon Yellowman, who told him what little the elders are able to share.
“For the Cheyenne, the tornado is not some kind of evil predatory force or a random assault from a blind and dumb atmospheric soup with no concern for human life,” Anderson learned. “A tornado has a job, Yellowman told me, and that is to restore balance to the environment. The tornado speaks to the native people, in their respective tribal languages, in a voice that sounds like fire. Before it reaches the tribal land, the tornado tells the elders how big it’s going to be, not in the technical language of the EF scale but in colloquial terms: small, medium, big, huge. The tornado of May 31 was huge.”
