Native Americans Archives - Page 13 of 22

This Memorial Day, Honor the Water, Remember the Fallen, and Protect the Mounds

FishHabitat.orgThe Ohio River Water Walk is the third Nibi walk — FishHabitat.org
The Ohio River Water Walk is the third Nibi walk

Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today

Officially, Memorial Day is a day on which war dead are honored. Unofficially, it’s a universal day of remembrance for all who have passed on. Many Americans will visit cemeteries over this holiday weekend in order to offer prayers, respect and honor to the graves of warriors and non-warriors alike.

Americans take great care in honoring their dead with fine monuments marking their lives and impact they have made on the world. To express anything other than respect for these sites would be considered downright un-American. The ancestors of Native peoples, however, are frequently not afforded this most basic level of humanity. Our dead often rest in mounds or sites that are marked with far more subtle methods than stone markers.

“There are cemeteries in Europe that are as old as our Native burial mounds here in the U.S. The only difference is that they have headstones with last names that can still be found in the immediate community,” said Kim Wesler, former director of the Wickliffe Mounds site in Kentucky.

The Ohio River Water Walk is the third Nibi walk lead by a group of Anishinabe grandmothers who pray for the water and raise awareness about the pollution that plagues this element that is essential to life. They began the walk in Pittsburgh on April 22, Earth Day, and are concluding their journey on Memorial Day near Wickliffe Mounds, a gesture that sends a poignant, potent message in both time and place.

Once a notorious example of racial disregard for Native burial sites, Wickliffe Mounds now stands as a tribute to what can be accomplished by tribal and mainstream collaboration in reclaiming the sacred.

The Nibi Walkers traveled 981 miles from the source to the mouth of the Ohio River, the most polluted river in America in efforts to reconnect people with the sacred element essential to life. Completing the journey at Wickliffe Mounds has an added bonus of underscoring the treasured graves of Native ancestors that have too often been disrespected and desecrated by mainstream America.

On this Memorial Day in Kentucky, commemorations will include ceremony not only for the war dead of the U.S., but for the many warrior and non-warrior Native ancestors, perhaps killed in defense of their homelands.

Sharon Day, Ojibwe, leader of the walk noted that the Ohio River valley is home to many sacred sites and burial mounds. “It is sad to see such a sacred area treated so badly by pollution and disregard for the ancestors who lie here,” she said.

Sharon Day, Ojibwe, begins the first leg of the day of Nibi Walk along the Ohio River in Cincinnati. (Mary Annette Pember)

Looting of Native graves by amateur and professional collectors in search of artifacts was not an uncommon practice in this region. According to historians with the Ancient Trail of Ohio, hundreds of mounds in Ohio alone have also been destroyed by farming and development.

For generations, Wickliffe Mounds exemplified disrespect for Native sacred places and burial sites.

The modern story of Wickliffe Mounds began in 1932 when Fain King, the owner of the site opened a number of burial mounds on his property, unearthing the bones of hundreds of men, women and children from the Mississippian culture. According to the Kentucky Parks Service, they were likely buried around 1200 A.D. in the large settlement located on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. King created a roadside tourist attraction from his find. He dubbed it “The Ancient Buried City,” where he offered paying customers a close up view of the remains. After removing the tops of the mounds, he built walkways over the graves where ancestors lay interred with pottery and other items. One of the opened mounds offered for public view contained the remains of many infants. The operation continued until 1983 when it was given to the Murray State University of Kentucky. Murray State operated the site until 2004 when Kentucky State Parks took over, making Wickliffe Mounds the 11th Kentucky state historical site.

Wesler, archaeologist and current director of the Remote Sensing Center at Murray State, was charged by the university with taking over the site in 1983. Although he had little knowledge at the time of the cultural concerns of Native peoples regarding treatment of remains, he knew immediately that the bones needed to be taken off display. “I got a crash course in Native American cultural awareness,” he recalled.

“I soon learned that when you define the past as family, you take it personally,” he remarked about those early conversations with tribal peoples whose ancestors are interred in the mounds.

The road to reburial was not easy in those early days for a traditionally trained archaeologist like Wesler. “The archaeological establishment was strictly anti-reburial in those days,” he recalls. One of his colleagues threatened to sue him if he went through with reburial efforts. He was threatened with legal action from a tribe upset about not being involved in consultations. Many community members also expressed anger over the reburial efforts and the decision to remove remains from public display. “The bones were on display for over 60 years. People grew up seeing them and wanted their children to see them. It was sort of a tradition here,” he said.

Chickasaw Nation Lieutenant Governor Jefferson Keel, with Kylo Prince, who is Lakota/Ojibwe from Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba, and Thomas Pearce, of the American Indian Movement of Indiana and Kentucky at an honoring ceremony to rebury ancestral remains at Wickliffe Mounds.

As he worked to make contacts and build relationships with the Native community, Wesler took the bones off display and replaced them with plastic replicas. The plastic bones served as placeholders, he said, as he struggled to strike a compromise among stakeholders.

The plastic replicas and walkways over the gravesites remained until 2011 when the Chickasaw Nation assisted in reburying the remains. The Oklahoma Intertribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes determined that since the Chickasaw were the closest living descendants of the Wickliffe ancestors they should lead reburial efforts.

During the 2012 ceremony celebrating the reburial of over 400 ancestors from the mounds, Jefferson Keel, Lt. Governor of the Chickasaw Nation noted in his speech that in the past, Wickliffe was a place of desecration. Certainly no Native person would have wanted to visit such a place. Carla Hildebrand, manager of the site that is now owned and operated by the Kentucky State Parks Service, recalled Keel’s words.

“He spoke positively about the growing cooperative relationship between tribes and mainstream officials that allowed the reburial to happen. He said, ‘Now we can move forward,’” she recalled.

The story of Wickliffe Mounds is profound according to Hildebrand. She reports that numbers of Native groups such as the Nibi Walkers now stop in to pay their respects. “I’m happy that the mounds are getting the respect and attention due them,” she said.

“I’m grateful I got to keep those promises made to Native people along the way,” Wesler said.

The history of Wickliffe Mounds reflects a slowly maturing societal opinion regarding Native burial sites, noted Wesler.

Hildebrand noted that in recent years many people expressed discomfort about having the plastic bone replicas on display. “People’s sensibilities are maturing, we are seeing a change in attitudes. People from differing backgrounds would tell us they thought even the plastic replicas were disrespectful,” she said.

Unfortunately, however, modern farming, graveling and urban sprawl continue to take a toll on sacred sites, according to the Ancient Trail of Ohio website. Following are three examples in a long list of ongoing battles between developers and preservationists over protecting sacred sites.

Wal-Mart has a history of destroying sacred sites. They have built or attempted to build stores on burial mounds in Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia, California, and Hawaii. In 2004, Wal-Mart opened a store in Mexico City within view of the 2000-year-old pyramids of Teotihuacan despite protests by local residents.

The owner of Wingra Redi-Mix in Wisconsin wants to destroy a bird effigy mound on his property in order to get at copy million worth of gravel buried beneath. The mound, part of the Ward Mounds, have been called the “Heart of the homelands of the Ho-Chunk Nation.” Effigy mounds in Wisconsin were built as long ago as 700 BC.

The Wingra Redi-Mix Quarry has been bulldozed as close to the bird effigy mound as possible. Wingra Redi-Mix seeks to destroy the mound to reap the copy0 million of sand and gravel. The mounds on the property are protected by a burial site protection act. (WisconsinMounds.com)

Recently preservationists narrowly succeeded in saving the most important surviving Adena earthworks in the Ohio Valley from developers.

A magnetic survey done in 2005 revealed the Junction Group below the surface.

Sharon Day is pondering the significance of finishing her 981-mile journey along the Ohio River near Wickliffe Mounds. Seeing the destruction of the water, earth and sacred sites along the way brings home a message from a long ago Shawnee leader, Tecumseh, who called on people to unite and take action to protect the earth.

“….soon the trees will be cut down to fence in the land. Soon their broad roads will pass over the graves of your fathers and, the place of their rest will be blotted out forever. The annihilation of our race is at hand unless we unite in common cause.”

Training begins for Hardin jail; no inmates yet

This 2009 photo shows the entrance to the Two Rivers Detention Center in Hardin. / AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File

By Matthew Brown, The Associated Press

BILLINGS — A private corrections company from Louisiana is starting to train guards — but still doesn’t have any inmates — for a jail in Hardin that has sat vacant since it was built in 2007, company and town officials said Monday.

Steve Afeman with Emerald Correctional Management said a warden and other personnel have been hired and about 30 guards will be training through the week at the 464-bed Two Rivers Detention Facility.

The company intends to solicit inmates from Native American tribes, counties and the U.S. Marshals Service, Afeman said.

No agreements have been reached, and Chief Deputy Rod Ostermiller with the Marshals Service in Billings said he is not aware of any discussions between his agency and the Lafayette, Louisiana-based company.

The $27 million jail rose to notoriety in recent years after its backers failed to get any contracts for inmates, prompting desperate Hardin officials at one to point to offer to take in suspected terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A California man later duped officials with a grandiose plan to turn the jail into a military training camp.

The jail is owned by Hardin’s economic development agency, Two Rivers Authority. Emerald signed an operating contract with the authority on May 6 to run the jail, Two Rivers Chairman Jon Matovich said.

Two Rivers would receive 50 cents per day for every inmate under the terms of the deal, Matovich said.

“Everything is signed, the ball’s in (Emerald’s) court and they’re doing a great job,” Matovich said. “Anything that goes on at the facility from now on is Emerald’s stuff. As soon as they get their staff trained and get things rolling, I’m sure they will have some inmates.”

Afeman said representatives of Emerald planned to meet with leaders of tribes from Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas beginning Wednesday to gauge their interest.

Afeman said in April that the company had reached a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in which the agency endorsed the company’s plans. But on Monday, Afeman said there was no agreement with the federal agency and that Emerald was working directly with the tribes.

A former employee of the Wyoming Department of Corrections was hired as warden, Afeman said. Kenneth Keller spent three decades with the state agency and in 2008 was appointed warden of the Wyoming Honor Farm, a minimum security facility in Riverton for inmates preparing to re-enter society.

Report: Pedestrian Deaths Disproportionately Affect Native Americans In Wash. State

Screen_Shot_2014-05-20_at_1.40.46_PM — Bill Kramme Flickr

By Rae Ellen Bichell, KPLU

Listen to report

Pedestrians of American Indian descent at are at higher risk of death in Washington state, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Complete Streets Coalition, a branch of Smart Growth America.

Washington placed 36th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in a ranking of the most dangerous states to the least dangerous based on the Pedestrian Danger Index, a combined measure of total pedestrian deaths, annual pedestrian deaths and the percentage of people commuting by foot over the past five to eight years. The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area ranked 49th out of 51 large metro areas.

But for Washingtonians of American Indian descent, the statistics aren’t as reassuring. Nationwide, Native Americans have higher rates of fatal traffic accidents than other ethnicities. But that difference is particularly notable in Washington state where all other ethnic groups’ fatality rates are consistently lower than national averages.

‘The Gap, Unfortunately, Is Widening’

The Washington Traffic Safety Commission doesn’t plot pedestrian deaths against ethnicity, although it does publish statistics on factors like age and gender. A report on factors in Washington pedestrian fatalities from 2008 to 2012 acknowledges that “Native Americans are disproportionately killed in pedestrian crashes, representing 8.4 percent of pedestrian deaths but less than 2 percent of the total population.”

“The gap, unfortunately, is widening,” said MJ Haught, a program manager and tribal liaison for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. Over the course of the past few decades, Haught said, the rate of Native American fatalities went from about 2.4 times that of the general population to 3.3. And in 2013, she said, “the data told us that Native American fatalities are 3.9 times higher than the general population. This is obviously not the way we want to go.”

Unlike Other Groups, Native Americans More At Risk On Rural Roads

Both statewide and nationwide, most pedestrian deaths occur in the more populated urban areas. But according to state data, more Native Americans were killed in crashes on rural roads than on urban ones, opposite the pattern seen with pedestrians of all other ethnicities.

Why? There’s no easy answer, but here are a few factors to consider.

Washington state has 29 federally-recognized American Indian tribes. Alaska, California and Oklahoma are the only other states with more tribes within their borders. According to 2010 U.S. Census data, only six states have American Indian and Alaska Native populations greater than that in Washington.

Each reservation is its own sovereign nation with its own laws, which means roads and signs are built and distributed differently. In rural areas, on tribal lands or off, there aren’t always sidewalks, and not all roads are well-lit.

According to the Center for Disease Control and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Americans of Native American and Alaska Native descent tend to be at higher risk of car injuries overall, not just as pedestrians. Some tribes don’t have seat belt laws.

“If you drill down, a huge factor is unbelted fatalities,” said Haught. “The unbelted fatality rate for native Americans is 7.2 times higher for Native Americans in Washington.”

Alcoholism is often cited as a contributing factor. But intoxication, particularly intoxicated pedestrians, is a contributing factor across the board and is not limited to one ethnicity.

Fatality Rate Likely Underreported

Even with the comparatively high rate of Native American pedestrian deaths reported, we may not be getting the full picture. Because each reservation is a sovereign nation, not every tribe shares data with the state, and the data that is available is conservative.

“The rates for fatalities are coming in with death certificates. We’re pretty good at getting all the reports that happen on Washington land, but not necessarily the reports from reservation land. That varies very much by the tribe and the reservation,” said Haught. “We are confident that the traffic deaths are underreported, so it’s an even worse problem than we realized.”

Thomas Holsworth is commander with the Colville Tribal Police Department in Nespelem, in northwest Washington. The reservation covers 1.4 million acres and, as in many rural areas, most of the roadways that crisscross it are narrow, windy country roads without sidewalks.

“The pedestrian walkways are basically the dirt shoulders of the roadways,” says Holsworth. “But I think a lot of it is, they just tend to walk more, sometimes out of necessity, because … they may not own an operable vehicle. There are others that just like to get out and walk, and there’s not a whole lot of safe places to do that.”

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation have gone to great lengths to try to reduce traffic-related deaths on tribal lands, assimilating state traffic codes into their tribal code and launching multiple highway safety programs. Funded by a state grant, the tribes ran a public education campaign to increase awareness about using seat belts, driving under the influence, and launched projects to identify problem roads and walking paths.

In the last five years, Holsworth says, there has only been one pedestrian fatality.

Racism claim dooms bid to honor Mark Twain in Nevada

By Martin Griffith, The Associated Press

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A state panel has effectively killed a bid to name a Lake Tahoe cove for Mark Twain, citing opposition from a tribe that says he held racist views on Native Americans.

The Nevada State Board on Geographic Names this week voted to indefinitely table the request after hearing opposition from the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, whose ancestral homeland includes Lake Tahoe.

Supporters had sought to name a scenic cove on the lake’s northeast shore for Samuel Clemens, Twain’s real name.

But Darrel Cruz, head of the tribe’s cultural resource department, said Twain was undeserving of the honor because of derogatory comments about the Washoe and other tribes in his writings.

Among other things, he cited Twain’s opposition to the naming of the lake as Tahoe, which is derived from the Washoe word “da ow” for lake.

Cruz also objected to a Twain quote about Lake Tahoe: “People say that Tahoe means ‘Silver Lake’ — ‘Limpid Water’ — ‘Falling Leaf.’ Bosh! It means grasshopper soup, the favorite dish of the digger tribe — and of the Pi-utes as well.”

Cruz said Washoes dislike being referred to as the “digger tribe,” a derogatory term applied to some tribes in the West who dug roots for food. Other tribes ate grasshoppers.

“Samuel Clemens had racist views on the native people of this country and has captured those views in his literature,” Cruz wrote in a letter to the board. “Therefore, we cannot support the notion of giving a place name in Lake Tahoe to Samuel Clemens.”

But James Hulse, history professor emeritus at the University of Nevada, Reno, said it’s irrelevant whether Twain’s writings were insulting to Native Americans.

The cove should be named for Twain because he praised Tahoe’s beauty while visiting the lake in 1861-1862, and he became one of America’s most beloved authors after assuming his pen name as a Nevada newspaper reporter around the same time, Hulse said.

“In his early days, (Twain’s) ironic-comic mode was insulting to everyone, including governors, legislators, mine bosses and journalistic colleagues,” he told the board. “He learned and overcame his prejudices far better than most of his contemporaries and successors.”

Thomas Quirk, an English professor emeritus at the University of Missouri and leading Twain scholar, said the author eventually overcame his racism against blacks. But Quirk said he has found no evidence that he significantly changed his views on American Indians.

Twain did not embrace the idea of idolizing what he called the “noble red man,” Quirk said, and poked fun at writer James Fenimore Cooper for doing so.

“When it comes to African Americans, he was ahead of his time substantially,” he said. “When it comes to Native Americans, his record is not very good. If he were alive today, he would sing a different tune.”

Board member Robert Stewart, who initiated the plan to name the cove for Clemens, said it’s unlikely it would resurface.

He said he dropped his support of it, even though he learned about a later letter Twain wrote objecting to the treatment of tribes in Arizona and New Mexico.

“I have a great deal of respect for the Washoe Tribe. And if their cultural committee is unhappy with naming the cove for Mark Twain, I’m not going to fight them,” Stewart said. “We need to show sensitivity to the tribe.”

Stewart said he still believes the cove near Incline Village is where Twain camped and accidentally started a wildfire while preparing to cook dinner in September 1861. But David Antonucci, a civil engineer from Homewood, California, maintains Twain camped on the California side of the lake.

It’s the second time the bid to name the cove for Twain failed. In 2011, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names rejected the request after the U.S. Forest Service said Twain’s influence on the Sierra Nevada lake was minimal and other historical figures were more deserving of the honor.

Supporters sought to honor him because there is no geographic feature in the state named for Twain, whose book “Roughing It” put Nevada on the map.

Frustration grows among Native Americans due their share of $3.4B land-royalty settlement

By MATT VOLZ, Associated Press

HELENA, Montana — Laura Juarez is supposed to receive close to $1,200 as her share of a $3.4 billion settlement among hundreds of thousands of Native Americans whose land-trust royalties were mismanaged by the government for more than a century.

The Bakersfield, California, notary public was going to pool that money with her husband’s share, along with a portion of what was coming to her father’s estate, to send her 17-year-old daughter to a student-ambassador program in Australia.

But the money, which she expected in December, still hasn’t come and her daughter isn’t going on next month’s trip.

The payments have been held up by more than 2,400 appeals by people who were ruled ineligible to participate in the settlement. As the special master appointed to the case goes through those appeals, Juarez and other American Indians are growing increasingly frustrated over what they see as justice delayed.

“It seems as if the Native Americans are being screwed again,” said Juarez, a 39-year-old member of the Comanche nation. “I know several others who have given up on it. It’s created a sour taste in their mouths. We get our hopes up just to have it knocked down.”

The 493,724 beneficiaries identified as of the beginning of May already know how much they are supposed to receive from the settlement — the individual payments range from $850 to nearly $10 million — and many had earmarked those amounts to splurge on big purchases or simply pay their bills.

The delays have resulted in complaints to the claims administrator, an online petition and even a letter from Montana Sens. Jon Tester and John Walsh about a lack of transparency and misinformation regarding the payments.

“This delay is placing a financial burden on Montana families, and forcing many who are expecting payments to take out loans that they are now unable to repay,” the April 3 letter to the settlement’s claims administrator, Garden City Group, said.

Jennifer Keough, Garden City Group’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, did not return a call for comment.

The attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit, recognizing the frustration, plan to ask a federal judge this week to allow the distribution to take place before the appeals are finalized.

“The agreement says that no trust administration class payments can be made until all the members are identified,” said David Smith, an attorney for Kilpatrick, Townsend and Stockton LLP. “There are a lot of appeals, and many are extremely lengthy. We want to make sure everybody has a chance to participate in the settlement and it’s not a rush job.”

At issue is the second of two distributions in one of the largest U.S. government settlements in history, prompted by a lawsuit filed in 1996 by Blackfeet elder Elouise Cobell of Montana. Cobell sued the government after realizing that many Indians who owned land held in trust for them by the government lived in poverty with no accounting of the royalties they were due when the Interior Department leased their land for development, exploration or grazing.

The lawsuit claimed the Interior Department mismanaged and squandered billions of dollars that were supposed to go to the landowners since the 1880s, but incomplete and missing records prevented them from determining how much was lost.

It took about 14 years to reach a settlement with the government, then another year for Congress to approve the deal in December 2010. It wasn’t until December 2012 that all the appeals over the settlement were dismissed and the first monetary distributions were mailed.

Those 339,106 beneficiaries, called the historical accounting class, received a flat payment of $1,000 apiece. That was the easy part.

The second round of distributions go to what is called the trust administration class in varying amounts based on a formula that looks at 10 years of the highest earnings in the royalty accounts held by the government, which are called Individual Indian Money trust accounts.

Identifying the people in that second class — which also contains members of the first class — has proven to be a challenge due in part to the Interior Department’s incomplete record-keeping, Smith said. For example, the Interior Department had no records for thousands of people in Oklahoma who had made claims, leading to an extension of the appeals period while they tried to prove their claims by going to the state courts for documentation.

Plus, there were no known addresses for 65,000 people identified as beneficiaries, which Garden City Group has been able to whittle down to about 14,000, Smith said.

The search for those still on the list continues, though it won’t hold up the payments, he said.

That’s little consolation to the beneficiaries who are waiting. Not only are their payments delayed, but their checks are diluted when more class members are added.

In Juarez’s case, she was told last summer she would receive $1,260. As of February, that had been reduced to $1,197 with the addition of more beneficiaries.

“If they’re entitled to that money, that’s great — awesome — but the timing is taking way too long,” Juarez said. “A deadline is a deadline. They are holding up so many people.”

Re-visioning Native America: Matika Wilbur’s ‘Project 562’ kicks off at Tacoma Art Museum

Matika Wilbur’s ‘Project 562’ kicks off at Tacoma Art Museum this weekend

By Rosemary Ponnekanti, The News Tribune

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/05/16/3197717/re-visioning-native-america.html?sp=/99/1683/#storylink=cpy

When Northwest artist Matika Wilbur was at an airport with her 9-year-old nephew, they happened upon a display case of Swinomish tribal art — their own people. Except the label explained, “The Swinomish were a hunter-gatherer tribe who lived in the Puget Sound region …”

Wilbur’s nephew turned to her, and asked sadly, “Aunty, why does it say ‘we were,’ not ‘we are?’ ”

The answer to that question opens at the Tacoma Art Museum on Saturday. Wilbur, a Swinomish/Tulalip photographer, is unveiling the first part of her “Project 562,” a multiyear, multimedia odyssey to document every recognized Native American tribe in the United States — to show, in fact, the “we are.”

Supported by the museum from the beginning, the project’s nearly halfway done, with 200 out of (now) 566 tribes documented in startling silver gelatin portraits, audio interviews and short films. Around 40 of the portraits will be on view at Saturday’s opening, along with Wilbur herself to give a talk on her journey to turn around the imagery of contemporary Native America.

“When you Google ‘African American’ you get beautiful images of people doing what we do now — kids on swings, businesspeople in suits,” says Wilbur. “If you Google ‘Latino’ or ‘Asian American’, the same. But for Native American, what you’ll find is images of previous centuries.”

That kind of negative, stereotypical imagery, Wilbur adds, affects self-esteem, worsening problems in many tribes of alcohol addiction, drug use and teen suicide.

“As a teacher, I lost a lot of students to suicide,” she says. “I argue that image does affect our consciousness, our children. It’s been proven in studies.”

Four years ago, Wilbur decided to change that imagery.

“I’m hopeful, I believe things can change,” she says. “I thought, what if things could change for young people? What if I could be a part of that? That was my dream, my goal.”

Planning, applying for grants, doing a Kickstarter campaign, contacting tribes and finally driving around the country, she has covered 60,000 miles since November 2012, spending around five days in each place, taking audio and photographic portraits of at least three men and three women in each tribe, thus the name “Project 562.” Along the way she’s raised national media awareness through NBC, NPR, BBC, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, even Buzzfeed.com.

“What I’m attempting to do is to offer a contemporary image that showcases our heroes,” says Wilbur.

And much of the credit goes to the Tacoma Art Museum. With a budget of $500,000 to pay for travel and costs for a book, films and educational curriculum, Wilbur “desperately needed a big institution to put their name on the project.” Most of the institutions she approached either doubted or laughed at the project — except Tacoma.

“(Senior curator) Rock Hushka was like, ‘Let’s do it. I’ll help you. What do you need?’” Wilbur says. “That’s not what museums normally do. They usually borrow your work when it’s finished.”

Wilbur also points out the museum got on board long before they accepted the enormous Haub collection of Western art, much of which comes from that previous-century perspective on native identity.

And so, this weekend, TAM gets to host the inaugural “Project 562” exhibition through October, before it travels to other venues. (The Haub wing opens shortly afterward.)

“‘Project 562’ provides ample evidence of the diversity and vibrancy of contemporary Native Americans,” says Hushka. “Only a photographer of Wilbur’s caliber could capture this with such grace and clarity.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by various lectures, as well as being the centerpiece for the museum’s annual Native Northwest Community Celebration on May 31. A member reception Saturday night will include hoop dancers from Phoenix; singers from the Swinomish and Tulalip tribes; a blessing from the Puyallup tribe and more.

Wilbur also is collaborating with fashion designer Bethany Yellowtail (Crow Nation) on a “562” fashion line, which the artist hopes will fund the project into the future. The first items are scarves that double as shawls, with design elements (cedar, cracked earth) that tell stories from different tribes.

What speaks loudest in “Project 562,” however, are Wilbur’s portraits. Shot against desert landscapes, calm Puget Sound waters, city streets or plain walls, they show tough teens, patient elders, cowboys, young women in denim, older women in regalia. And while the background is important — places her subjects felt most tied to — it’s reduced to black-and-white, while the people themselves stand out in color.

Spending up to three hours, Wilbur also interviewed her subjects extensively, diving into their deepest dreams and loyalties.

“I asked them where they grew up, why they stayed or left, about their family and what’s not in the history books about their people,” she says. “Then I talked about more serious things — what does it mean to be a sovereign nation? About assimilation, education, values, wellness, racial stereotypes … and what does it mean to be a member of your community? … That question is important for me, because it grapples with the concept of being ‘Indian enough.’”

While Wilbur’s work asks big questions and has been described as provocative, Wilbur says what matters most is how it attempts to connect actual living Native American cultures with the rest of Western society, reversing the “historical inaccuracies about Indian identity.” It also creates a central location where those cultures have visual representation.

“It’s more about the intimacy of the portraits and the stories they convey,” she says. “It’s also time we allowed our young Native people to see themselves in a positive light. To move beyond poverty porn and give them something hopeful.”

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/05/16/3197717/re-visioning-native-america.html?sp=/99/1683/#storylink=cpy

U.S., Canadian, tribal leaders discuss Salish Sea’s environmental, economic concerns

April 30, 2014 By ELLIOTT SMITH

As featured in The Bellingham Herald

This isn’t breaking news, but salmon and orcas don’t stop at the border. They don’t show passports and clear customs or shop at the duty-free store.

The environment doesn’t stop at the border and neither does the economy. A healthy economy depends on a healthy environment and we must work across the border with our Canadian and tribal/First Nations partners to ensure both.

Salish Sea and tribal nations. Map source: Seattle University

This week in Seattle, Western Washington University is the proud lead organizer of the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference bringing together about 1,200 of the top marine science professionals, First Nations and tribal leaders, industry executives and policymakers who make decisions about resource management on our shared waters. The Salish Sea encompasses all of the inland marine waters of southern B.C. and Western Washington, from the Johnstone Strait at the top of Vancouver Island to the bottom of Puget Sound near Olympia. The Salish Sea also includes the Georgia Strait in Whatcom County and B.C., as well as the San Juan Islands, Hood Canal and the Strait of Juan de Fuca out to the Pacific Ocean.

Our region’s future demands that we have serious conversations across international and jurisdictional boundaries about the decisions before us in marine resource management. Since the 1970s, Western has reached beyond the Canada/USA border with our research and teaching on environmental and economic issues. WWU’s Huxley College of the Environment and Center for Canadian-American Studies have been leaders in thinking, and acting, across the border with common sense solutions for over 40 years.

This week, we live it.

This is not underwater tree hugging. The Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference is an important dialogue about the future of our marine waters and the jobs that depend on them.

We cannot just yell at each other about coal trains and jobs. We must sit down at the table together and weigh the pros and cons of decisions that will affect our children’s health and economic well-being for generations to come.

This week, Western provides that table, and the forum for the exchange of information that will lead to intelligent decisions. More than 450 scientific presentations will be delivered this week at the Washington State Convention Center by scientists from both sides of the border. The goal is, quite simply, to provide the best scientific and policy research that can lead to decisions that will foster the long-term health of the Salish sea and the economy that depends on it.

It is crucial that we work with our neighbors and partners to understand the latest scientific research, so we can make the smartest decisions for our region’s future. Western Washington University’s mission is to serve the people of our region by encouraging learning. This week, we proudly carry that mission forward as lead organizer of the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference.

Bellingham is at the heart of the Salish Sea, and WWU is proud to be at the heart of this important conference.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elliott Smith is the 2014 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Administrator at WWU. Find him on twitter at @soundslikepuget.

New York State Charges Passamaquoddy Fisheries Official With Elvers Poaching

WCSH6/NBC affiliatePassamaquoddy fisheries official charged with fraud while helping Unkechaug Indian Nation implement an eel management plan. — WCSH6/NBC affiliate
Passamaquoddy fisheries official charged with fraud while helping Unkechaug Indian Nation implement an eel management plan.

Gale Courey Toensing, ICTMN

The Passamaquoddy Tribe’s battle with the State of Maine over Native fishing rights became an interstate issue recently when New York State authorities lodged multiple felony poaching charges against a Passamaquoddy fisheries official who is helping the Unkechaug Indian Nation implement its eel management plan.

But according to Fred Moore III, the Passamaquoddy Tribe’s Fisheries Committee Coordinator who was charged, the fight for Native fishing rights is soon to become a bigger issue than the battles in Maine and New York.

Moore, his two sons and five other Native men, including citizens of the Unkechaug, Shinnecock, Mohawk and Anishinaabe nations, were charged with possession of American eels in excess of the New York State limit; possession of undersized American eels, and not having a state-issued food fish permit. All three charges are considered felonies because the value of the eels in the group’s possession was more than copy,500. They were also given misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to commit a crime and using an eel trap with a mesh size smaller than the minimum limit allowed, according to Lisa King, spokesperson for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), in an e-mail response to an ICTMN request for comment.

King said the eight men “surrendered themselves” to DEC officers on April 8. She did not respond to questions seeking the state’s position on tribal sovereignty and aboriginal fishing rights. The men are scheduled for arraignment on June 25.

The Passamaquoddy Tribe has been locked in battle with the State of Maine for the past two years over the tribe’s treaty and aboriginal right to fish for elvers, tiny baby American eels also known as glass eels. Citing concerns about the dwindling number of American eels available, the state wants to limit the number of permits the tribe issues. The tribe says every member has an inherent right to fish, but its conservation plan limits the total amount of elvers the tribe can harvest. Ironically, until this year the state limited the number of permits it issued but allowed an unlimited harvest of baby eels. This year under threat from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) to shut down the fishery, the state has caught up to the Passamaquoddy’s traditional conservation knowledge and reduced and limited the total allowable catch.

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Moore, who is working at Unkechaug under tribal authority, told ICTMN that the matter of Native fishing rights is soon to become a central issue for eastern coastal nations. The Penobscot Nation is already embroiled in a federal lawsuit against the State of Maine over hunting and fishing rights. The lawsuit is supported by the Interior Department, which has entered the case as both intervener and plaintiff, and the Passamaquoddy Tribe is thinking about intervening, Moore said. In an interview with ICTMN, Passamaquoddy Chief Clayton Cleaves at the tribe’s Sipayik community, said the council will also consider a separate legal action.

“What we’re doing here is providing Unkechaug with technical assistance in implementing their eel management plan,” Moore said. “But we’re also here to assist other tribes in formulating a position for a class action suit against the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. The ASMFC has an American eel management plan that deals purely with member states and only references Native Americans. We don’t want equal status [with states]—want to be exempt from inadequate management mechanisms which cater to the economic interests of competing jurisdictions. We can’t have any part of it because they‘re completely inconsistent with indigenous culture.”

The ASMFC, created in 1942 by Congress, represents 15 Atlantic coastal states with a stated mission of “promoting and protecting Atlantic coastal fishery resources.” Each state has three representatives on the commission: the director of the state’s marine fisheries management agency, a state legislator, and an individual appointed by the state governor to represent “stakeholder interests,” according to the organization’s website. The United South and Eastern Tribes’ 26 member tribes, whose aboriginal and reservation territories are predominantly along the Atlantic coast, are not represented on the commission.

Moore said he wasn’t fishing on the night of March 28 when the men were ticketed for violations, but that the group had fishing permits issued by Unkechaug. The DEC was alerted to the group’s activities in a creek on Long Island’s east end and waited in the weeds for the tribal members to come back and start emptying their nets of elvers, Moore said.

“They were aware that the Unkechaug had issued permits, but they made a policy statement by charging us and basically treated these folks like they’d just robbed a 7-11 at gunpoint,” Moore said. “And to be branded as poachers is laughable—Passamaquoddy has offered the state assistance in apprehending poachers.”

If DEC authorities hadn’t “pounced” on the group, Moor added, they would have seen the men stock most of the elvers above artificial barriers—which is one of the conservation techniques he is implementing for the Unkechaug.

Unkechaug Chief Harry Wallace called the charges “ridiculous…. It was a multi-tribal project, and the whole idea is to restore the fishery all along the northeast coast,” he said. “If we don’t do it the whole fishery will be destroyed if they [the state] continue their practice.”

The creek is in Unkechaug aboriginal territory, where members exercise aboriginal fishing rights, Wallace said.

New York State allows a massive taking of eels six inches and longer, but prohibits the taking of elvers. The tribe has imposed a moratorium on the taking of adult eels, each of which can spawn tens of millions of elvers, Wallace said.

“Our goal is to restore 50 percent of what we take. We put them above a manmade obstruction so their chances of survival are enhanced,” he said. “This is a Native practice.”

To date, the Nation has successfully stocked more than 10,000 glass eels into Mill Pond and East Mill Pond at the headwaters of the Forge River adjacent to the Unkechaug Indian Reservation near Mastic, New York, said Wallace, adding that the DEC violated its own policy by filing felony fishing charges against Nation members and employees operating under the authority of the Unkechaug Nation American Eel Management and Restoration plan without first consulting the Nation.

“After being advised that Unkechaug eel restoration activities were being conducted under license issued by the Nation, ranking officers and representatives of the DEC acknowledged that they were aware of the license but refused to void the charges,” Wallace said. “Instead, DEC officials made racially disparaging remarks concerning the inherent rights and responsibilities of Native Americans, insisting that the Unkechaug eel fishery is a front for the illegal exportation of glass eels to other states.”

The Nation is contemplating legal action against the state, Wallace said.

On April 17, Chief Clayton Cleaves and Chief Joseph Socobasin of the Passamaquoddy communities at Sipayik and Motahkomikuk, respectively, wrote a letter of “support and commitment” to Wallace.

“Please be assured that your efforts to secure the rights and interests of your people while ensuring the sustainability of the American eel within their natural range will benefit all Native people on the east coast, including others who do not understand the cultural and spiritual relationships we have developed over several millennia of existence within our territories,” they wrote.

The chiefs said they are committed to working with Unkechaug “in defense of the marine environment, its resources and fishing rights of indigenous people.”

Tulalip TV program explores diabetes in first Tulalip Health Watch episode

Tulalip-Health-Watch-4 — Tulalip TV’s Tulalip Health Watch will air this summer and will focus on health issues Native Americans face today.
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

TULALIP, WA – Tulalip TV viewers will soon be able to watch a new informational program called “Tulalip Health Watch,” which focuses on health issues Native Americans face today.

In the program’s first episode, “Diabetes,” the disease is examined through interviews with health professionals at the Tulalip Karen I. Fryberg Health Clinic. Viewers will learn the fundamental characteristics of diabetes, along with resources available for testing, prevention, and treatment.

Diabetes affects 57 million Americans, and only 8.3 percent are diagnosed. But more shocking are the epidemic proportions of diabetes in Indian Country with 16.2 percent Native Americans and Alaska Natives diagnosed.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Indian Health Service, Native Americans are at a 2.2 times higher risk than their non-Indian counterparts. Between 1994 and 2004 there was a 68 percent increase in diabetes diagnosis in American Indian and Alaska Native youth, aged 15-19 years old.

In “Diabetes,” viewers will learn how a poor diet, lack of regular exercise, and a genetic pre-disposition are the leading contributing factors for 95 percent of American Indians and Alaska Native with Type 2 diabetes, and 30 percent with pre-diabetes.

Viewers will also learn how clinic staff incorporates Tulalip culture and traditions into programs available at the clinic for diabetes education, prevention, and management.

“The providers that we have here are great. The Tribe is putting money into this clinic and our goal is to be here with an open mind and heart, and to be a partner here for them regarding their health needs. We have a collaborative team here that you don’t see at other clinics,” said Bryan Cooper, Tulalip Karen I. Fryberg Health Clinic Nurse Practitioner in “Diabetes.”

“Tulalip Health Watch,” will air this summer. Future episodes will explore heart disease, obesity, and other health issues Native Americans face.

You can watch “Tulalip Health Watch” on Tulalip TV at www.tulaliptv.com or on channel 99 on Tulalip Cable.

Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

Tobacco ruling is a victory for Native American inmates

By John Hult, Argus Leader

A tobacco ban in South Dakota prisons violates the constitutional rights of Native American inmates, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

The decision affirms the ruling of South Dakota District Judge Karen Schreier, which was appealed by the state’s Department of Corrections last year.

Friday’s ruling from the 8th Circuit panel means the Department of Corrections cannot ban tobacco altogether in South Dakota prisons.

Under a plan approved by Schreier last fall over Department of Corrections objections, inmates may use a mixture of red willow bark and 1 percent tobacco in sweat lodge ceremonies.

The plan also restricted which inmates can carry the mixture to the ceremonies and lets the prison bar inmates caught using or bartering with tobacco outside the ceremonies for one year.

Lawyers for the inmate advocacy group the Native American Council of Tribes praised the 8th Circuit’s ruling Friday.

“This is an important victory for religious freedom,” said Pamela Bollweg of Sioux Falls. “As the Court of Appeals recognized, the ceremonial use of tobacco has been central to the Lakota people and many other Native American tribes for thousands of years.”

The council’s legal challenge began in 2009 when the prison rescinded its religious exception to its tobacco policy.

The Department of Corrections could appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court or ask for a review by the full 8th Circuit.

In a ruling issued Friday, the court found that the across-the-board ban on all tobacco use constituted a violation of religious liberty not outweighed by the state’s interest in maintaining order and security within the prison.

The prison banned tobacco for all reasons aside from religious ceremonies in 2000.

The Native American Council of Tribes, a group representing inmates with indigenous heritage, sued the Department of Corrections in 2009 when the exception was dropped.

Important to Lakota

Lakota spiritual leaders testified during the district court trial in Sioux Falls that tobacco has been smoked for generations in sweat lodge ceremonies.

The tobacco ties, made from tobacco, string and cloth, each represent a prayer and are burned during ceremonies. Prayer flags are larger versions of tobacco ties, each of which represents a cardinal direction.

Richard Bernard Moves Camp testified that the smoke represents the spirit, and that tobacco represents the highest offering available. Depriving tobacco from a Lakota person would be “like taking a Bible away from the church.”

The two inmates named in the lawsuit, Blaine Brings Plenty and Clayton Creek, each testified that they had used tobacco since childhood as part of religious ceremonies.

The Department of Corrections argued, however, that Native inmates had abused and repurposed tobacco meant for religious ceremonies and said that red willow bark alone is an adequate alternative.

In Friday’s ruling, the court shot down the Department of Corrections assertion the red willow bark alternative.

“We reject the defendants’ invitation to define the contours of the inmates’ religious belief,” the judges wrote.

The Department of Corrections also argued that the prison has an interest in security that overrode the right of the inmates to exercise their religious beliefs, but the appeals court said the ban did not represent the “least restrictive means” of achieving that goal.

Restrictions OK

Instead of banning tobacco altogether, the inmates said, the Department of Corrections could restrict which inmates have access to the tobacco ties, require prison officials to transport the tobacco ties or prayer flags to the sweat lodge, burn the tobacco immediately after the ceremony or perform searches of inmates immediately after the ceremonies.

Warden Doug Weber had testified that each of the alternatives were “unfeasible,” but the 8th Circuit found that the prison hadn’t seriously considered any of them.

The department appealed that revised policy, but the 8th Circuit ruled in favor of the inmates’ plan.

“The district court carefully balanced the need to fairly accommodate inmates’ exercise of their religion, taking into account the parties’ proposed remedies, while giving due ‘weight to any adverse impact on public safety or the operation of a criminal justice system’ that may result from a change in tobacco policy,” the judges wrote.

Department of Corrections Secretary Denny Kaemingk acknowledged the ruling in a statement.

“The Court of Appeals has issued their ruling on this matter,” Kaemingk said. “Throughout the proceedings, we have complied with the orders of the court and will continue to do so.”

At a glance

RULING:

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled South Dakota’s ban on tobacco in prisons violates the constitutional rights of Native American inmates.

REMEDY:

A plan allows inmates to use a mixture of red willow bark and 1 percent tobacco during religious ceremonies.

RESTRICTIONS:

Inmates may not carry the mixture and are barred from using or bartering with tobacco outside the ceremonies.