Native Americans Archives - Page 17 of 22

Spokane baseball team works with tribes over name, logo

Washington State Sen. Andy Billig can do nothing about the controversy surrounding the NFL Washington Redskins’ nickname other than have an opinion.

The Salish language version of the Spokane Indians’ logo (ICTMN)

But, as co-owner of the Spokane Indians minor league baseball team, he is in position to deal with any problems Native Americans may have with that name.

Indian Country Today Media Network reports Billig has.

In 2006, the Spokane Indians organization began exploring options for a new team logo and met with the Spokane Tribe of Indians tribal council and the tribe’s culture committee. Through that eight-month process, the baseball organization came up with a new logo depicting a red “S” with an eagle feather accent.

The baseball team worked with five tribes in the Spokane area through the Upper Columbia United Tribes and specifically with the Spokane Tribe of Indians since its name is derived directly from their nation.

“We use no Native American imagery associated with our team,” Billig said. “We told the Spokane tribe, ‘If we need to change our name because it is offending people in our community, we will consider that. How could we not consider changing the name of it’s offensive?”

Reporter Rodney Harwood says because the team conducted itself in a respectful manner, the Spokane Tribe of Indians came up with new logos in both English and the Salish language, which is the regional language of the Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, Colville and Kalispell nations.

The baseball team will use the Salish logo as its major imagery on home uniforms in 2014.

“I learned so much during this process,” Billig told Harwood and ICTMN. “This collaboration with the Spokane Tribe is the greatest accomplishment of my professional career with the team. It encompassed so much of what we’re about as an organization and a community. It was about respect and there was this added bonus: it was good for business even though that’s not what we went into it for.”

Billig’s opinion on Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder’s refusal to change the team’s name? “Of course the name is wrong,” he said.

China Ban On West Coast Shellfish Hits Tribal Divers

Lydia Sigo, a geoduck diver and member of the Suquamish Tribe, is out of work right now because of China's ban on shellfish imports. She says her mortgage is due. "I can't keep going on like this very long." | credit: Ashley Ahearn — Lydia Sigo, a geoduck diver and member of the Suquamish Tribe, is out of work right now because of China’s ban on shellfish imports. She says her mortgage is due. “I can’t keep going on like this very long.” | credit: Ashley Ahearn

Ashley Ahearn, Earth Fix

Update Dec. 24, 9:00 a.m.: NOAA’s Seafood Inspection Program has issued a report to Chinese officials with its findings regarding the tainted geoducks from Alaska and Washington. In the letter, U.S. authorities note the actions that have been taken in response, ensure that geoduck clams and mollusks for export from Area 67 meet safety requirement and request lifting of China’s ban on shellfish imports.

Ninety percent of the geoduck harvested in Washington are sold to China and Hong Kong. It’s an indicator of how much the Northwest shellfish industry relies on exports to China.

In early December, the Chinese government instituted a ban on all shellfish imports from a large swathe of the West Coast after finding two bad clams. One from Alaska had high levels of the biotoxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning. The other came from Puget Sound and tested high for inorganic arsenic. Washington does not test for arsenic in shellfish.

Read: China Imposes First-Ever West Coast Shellfish Ban
Read: Arsenic Was Toxin Of Concern In Wash. Geoduck Shipment

The crushing economic impacts of China’s move are hitting tribal fisherman in Puget Sound hard for the holidays.

At the Suquamish Tribe’s reservation on Puget Sound, Suquamish geoduck diver Lydia Sigo stands on a dock that would usually be crowded with boats bringing in their catches of geoduck. The clams can fetch up to $150 per pound in China. But today it’s quiet. There are no boats on the water — none of the 25 Suquamish tribal divers are working right now.

“That’s 25 families that really need to buy their kids Christmas presents or pay their mortgage, pay their rent,” Sigo says. “For me, I can’t keep going on like this for very long.”

The tribe is losing $20,000 each day that the ban is in place, but the impacts of the ban are being felt well beyond the reservation.

John Jones, a geoduck diver with the Suquamish Tribe, is out of work right now
because of the Chinese ban on shellfish imports. (Photo: Ashley Ahearn)

“My brothers are from Port Gamble and they’re out of work,” says John Jones, another Suquamish diver. “They shut down diving everywhere, not just for us but for the state. It impacts a whole lot of people, not just this community but all communities throughout Puget Sound, Alaska, Oregon.”

The shellfish industry in Washington is worth $270 million annually, and China is the biggest market for exports.

Waters from which China no longer permits the
import of clams, oysters and other bivalves.

This is the broadest shellfish ban China has ever put in place, but it’s not the first time China has banned a major import from the U.S. Beef imports from the U.S. have been banned for the past ten years. More recently, China rejected about half a million tons of U.S. corn because it contained a genetically modified strain.

Chinese officials have been slow to reveal details of their shellfish testing methods. That’s prompted some to raise concerns about political motivations behind the shellfish ban.

“It is possible that it could be retaliation for something,” says Tabitha Mallory, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program. “That has happened in the past.”

In 2010 China banned salmon imports from Norway, just after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the political activist Liu Xiaobo.

Mallory says it’s unclear what kind of larger political statement China could be making with the shellfish ban.

“I think it’s good to consider all the possible motivations for this,” Mallory says. “But I don’t think that we should write off the possibility that it is a legitimate accusation.”

How a staffer brought a powerful senator around to reform U.S. Indian policy

The new book on how congressional staffer Forrest Gerard and Sen. Henry Jackson changed national policy for Native Americans Cover by JiaYing Grygiel

A new book by former “Seattle Post-Intelligencer” Editorial Page Editor Mark Trahant tells how Sen. Henry M. Jackson, an advocate of policies that could have killed Native Americans’ cultural heritage, changed while working with a Native American congressional staffer.

By Pete Jackson, crosscut.com

The following registers a 10 on the chutzpah meter, the platinum standard for subjective book reviews: Noodling a volume about a critical period in the struggle for Indian self-determination — a publication supported by a foundation that I’m involved with — that analyzes the legacy of one of my long-deceased family members. Hmmm.

Notwithstanding my credibility-defying baggage, Mark Trahant’s The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars: Henry M. Jackson, Forrest J. Gerard, and the Campaign for the Self-Determination of America’s Indian Tribes, is very much worth a gander. It illustrates better than anything I’ve read in years that politics is not a Skinner Box or series of algorithms. Politics revolves around human nature, egos, and ambitions seen and unseen.

With this history, Trahant, the former editorial page editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, sets the burst of 1970s legislative progress affecting Indian Country within the broader context of major misfires, in particular the odious policy of “termination” that aimed to liquidate tribal sovereignty across the land.

Forrest Gerard, an unsung congressional insider and member of the Blackfeet tribe (who eventually became an assistant Secretary of the Interior during the Carter administration), is the tale’s hero. Gerard had the credibility, bureaucratic savvy, and political smarts to convince his boss, the bete noire of Indian Country, that it was time for a wholesale shift.

Henry “Scoop” Jackson is the boss and Interior Committee chairman, the unmovable senator who moves. And Abe Bergman, the Seattle pediatrician and star of Ric Redman’s The Dance of Legislation, is the gadfly finagler for Indian healthcare. Throw in presidential ambitions, Bobby and Ted Kennedy, George McGovern, James Abourezk, an Oklahoma senator’s wife, turf battles, the National Congress of American Indians, and the farsighted (you heard me) leadership of Richard Nixon and his aide, former Seattle land-use attorney John Ehrlichman. The first line of Trahant’s book could have been, “No one could have made this stuff up.”

Termination was conceived during the Truman Administration and found full expression during the Eisenhower years. The mission was to assimilate American Indians by paying off outstanding claims and neatly extinguishing — terminating — the special government-to-government relationships.

There was a progressive, fix-it undercurrent to the new paradigm that resonated with members of both parties, although most leaders in Indian Country knew that termination spelled cultural genocide. Jackson, who helped create the Indian Claims Commission in the 1940s in a similar fix-it vein, quickly embraced termination. In 1958, he sponsored the Senate companion bill to the notorious House Concurrent Resolution 108 that enshrined the policy.

At the time, most Indian issues fell within the purview of the Senate’s Interior Committee, which conflated America’s first inhabitants with questions of natural resources, territories, and national parks. It was a systemic reality reflecting the federal government’s patronizing approach: Just lump Indians in with minerals, mines, and public lands.

The beginning of a sea change came with New Mexico Sen. Clinton Anderson’s failure to stop the return of Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblos. With even President Nixon and Colorado’s Rep. Wayne Aspinall advocating the return of the sacred lands, Anderson came up with an ill-considered last hurrah, a bill to give the Taos Pueblo Indians use of the area while denying them the title to it. Scoop, Anderson’s successor as Interior chairman, unwisely followed his mentor’s lead (the transfer was, nevertheless, approved in a 70-12 vote). Trahant frames this as an issue of personal loyalty within the gentlemen’s-club culture of the United States Senate (Disclosure: In the 1960s, Anderson introduced his recently divorced twenty-something secretary to a middle-aged Scoop. At least one of its byproducts is grateful for that).

Scoop’s voting on the Taos Pueblos’ question is a stickler, one that fuels cynicism about American politics. Consider, similarly, Sen. Dan Inouye’s support a few years ago for opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. Was it a thoughtfully considered move or evidence of brotherly piety for Ted Stevens? Both? Loyalty shouldn’t trump the greater good, we know. We also know that men aren’t angels and governing involves compromise, sometimes too much, in fact.

New Year’s Eve Flash Mob Round Dance Plans Spark Arrest Threat From Mall of America

ICTMN Staff

12/27/13

The organizers of a flash mob round dance to celebrate the second winter of Idle No More at the Mall of America on New Year’s Eve have been threatened with arrest.

On Christmas Eve, Idle No More Duluth founder Reyna Crow received a letter from Mall of America officials.

“It has come to our attention that your group is planning a political protest at Mall of America in connection with Idle No More, a tribal group opposed to recent Canadian legislation,” reads the Mall of America’s letter, which was delivered to Crow by courier.

“Any attempt by your group to conduct a protest is a violation of MOA policies and will subject your group to removal from MOA property, and potential arrest by tthe City of Bloomington police department,” the letter read. “Although your group attempted a gathering last year on MOA property, a similar attempt will not be tolerated and we will utilize additional actions to prohibit any such gathering, including trespassing the organizers of the protest.”

Among other egregious effects, “The Idle No More group caused disruption to our customers, tenants and employees, and resulted in a significant commitment of time and resources by our security and management teams,” the letter continued. “Mall of America is a private commercial retail center, and we prohibit all forms of protest, demonstration and public debate, including political activity aimed at organizing political or social groups.”

As far as Idle No More Minnesota’s Facebook Page is concerned, the celebration of the second winter of the movement, which began as a series of teach-ins at the end of 2012, is still on.

“The characterization of the Round Dance as a protest is not only incorrect, it is insulting”, said Crow in a statement on Christmas Day. “If the Idle No More flash mob Round Dance that was held there last year is a ‘protest,’ so are the Christmas carols and the other flash mob events that have been held there.”

RELATED: Idle No More, Indeed

Idle No More began at the end of 2012 as a series of teach-ins conducted by four women, and it was low-key until Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence began a hunger strike. This brought national and then international attention to the movement, which morphed into a broader attempt to show the world the ways in which so-called indigenous issues are everyone’s issues.

The letter’s characterization of the round dance as a protest was completely wrong, Crow wrote in an editorial in the Duluth News Tribune last January.

“A flash mob is a large group of people who gather, ideally in an instant, to perform a unified action in a public place, often a song or dance. In this case, participants are performing a round dance,” she wrote.

“While it is true that INM has organized around gravely serious causes, … the characterization of the round dances as ‘protests’ is not just incorrect, it’s insulting,” Crow continued. “Not understanding is one thing. Telling a substantial segment of the community that it is unwelcome to make use of the mall—which does seem to gladly function as a sort of public square when it comes to Santa Claus and Christmas trees—to hold a brief and joyous dance with song reflecting traditional Anishinaabeg cultural values—is a message this community should be ashamed of.”

Indeed, the four women who founded Idle No More and first coined the hash tag—Jessica Gordon, Sylvia McAdam, Sheelah McLean and Nina Wilson—were named by Foreign Policy magazine as among the 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2013.

Disruption or celebration? Perhaps the video below of last year’s Idle No More Mall of America flash mob round dance will shed some light.

Boeing Has Jobs for STEM Students

BoeingThe Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Boeing seeks Native business to partner with and Native students who could be potential Boeing employees. — Boeing
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Boeing seeks Native business to partner with and Native students who could be potential Boeing employees.

Gale Courey Toensing, 12/26/13, ICTMN

Jonathon GreyEyes has one word of advice for Native students interested in pursuing challenging, satisfying and well paid careers: STEM.

Okay, it’s really four words—science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Those are the areas of study students should focus on in order to move ahead in the 21st century global workplace, GreyEyes says.

GreyEyes, a Navajo Nation citizen, is a small business liaison officer for the massive, multinational Boeing Company, the world’s leading aerospace company and the largest manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft combined. Boeing also designs and manufactures rotorcraft, electronic and defense systems, missiles, satellites, launch vehicles and advanced information and communication systems. In short, the company is involved in everything that flies and/or uses technology, which is to say just about every business and employment opportunity in the global marketplace.

Grey Eyes says STEM is the smart career path for Native scholars. (courtesy Jonathon GreyEyes)

As a small business liaison officer, GreyEyes works to increase small and diverse business participation in support of the Boeing’s company goals and objectives. As a Native American, he tries to engage Indian country as much as possible by seeking out not only small Native-owned businesses for Boeing to partner with, but also Native students who are potential Boeing employees.

“My responsibilities primarily are to maximize opportunities for small businesses of any type to participate [in] Boeing’s activities,” GreyEyes told Indian Country Today Media Network. “Now, being Native American, I’ve tried to seek out Native American companies to participate in the different research, primarily research and development.”

Boeing and other large companies that receive government contracts actively recruit employees in the Native American community, GreyEyes said. “There’s lots of opportunity in just about any field in which somebody would want to work. For most jobs a college degree is going to be required. I think across the board—not just in the Native American community, but in any group that you want to look at. We’re seeing a decline in [students pursuing] the STEM fields…and so I would encourage students (and I’m encouraging my own children) to focus on these areas where they have an aptitude and an interest because there’s a lot of opportunity in [these] fields.”

One of the ways he seeks out both small Native-owned businesses and Native students is through the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, whose mission since 1977 has been to substantially increase American Indian and Alaska Native representation in the STEM fields—as students, professionals, mentors, and leaders, according to its website.

A young visitor to Boeing’s Future of Flight tour.

The AISES national conference is one of the big annual events that Boeing supports every year. The company interviews and hires new employees there. “It’s very important to Boeing to give everybody an opportunity to participate with Boeing either as an employee or as a subcontractor—and, fortunately, that’s why people like me have a job maximizing opportunity!” he said. GreyEyes is a lifetime member of AISES as a Sequoyah Fellow. The program was named in memory of Sequoyah, who perfected the Cherokee alphabet and syllabary in 1821, resulting in the Cherokee Nation becoming literate in less than one year, according to the AISES website. “In this spirit, AISES Sequoyah Fellows are recognized for their commitment to AISES’s mission in STEM and to the American Indian community. They bring honor to AISES by engaging in leadership, mentorship, and other acts of service that support the students and professionals in the AISES family,” the site says.

What GreyEyes does at Boeing, essentially, is match jobs to businesses. He looks at the scope of work that the company intends to subcontract and then provides the program manager with as many opportunities and alternatives in terms of small businesses that can provide the services. “In the area of research and development it’s typically very specialized. I don’t get involved until it’s [a job] over $650,000—that’s a government threshold for requiring a subcontracting plan—so that would be a small contract and some of the large contracts would be in hundreds of millions of dollars.”

GreyEyes said he loves his job and the most exciting thing is the variety of projects the company pursues. “I always tell people I’m living in a Star Trek world. Some of the contracts that we’ve won just stagger the imagination. I’m always amazed at the types of things we research. We have thousands of investigative researchers researching anything you can imagine,” he said.

Boeing is the world’s leading aerospace company and the largest manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft combined. (Boeing)

One of Boeing’s recent innovations was the development of the Standoff Patient Triage Tool—an instrument Homeland Security dubbed as technology “to boldly go where no medical responder has gone before.” The wireless gizmo can detect a person’s vital signs—including whether a person is alive or dead—remotely from up to 40 feet away. The original intent was for battlefield use, but like other inventions developed for war the tool has numerous civilian applications including at fires, car crashes, mass casualties and other disasters.

Boeing has a number of programs that benefit its employees, including a program that pays employees to get graduate degrees, GreyEyes said.

There is a Native American affinity group to support the sizeable number of Native employees in the company, GreyEyes said. The group is organized regionally and nationally and is involved in all aspects including recruiting and mentoring Native students. “They might be showing them what life is like at a large corporation, helping them understand why education is so important and how it’s going to benefit them when they come to a large corporation like Boeing.

“In addition, through AISES we talk students through all stages of their education from middle school on through graduate school, and we try to get them tied in to particular people at Boeing who might be good contacts for when they’re ready to look for employment and then at events like the AISES national convention where we have several people doing active hiring and interviewing on site—members of the affinity groups are involved in all those stages, and it’s not part of their job it’s just something they do on top of it because it’s important,” GreyEyes said.

Once people are employed at Boeing, the affinity group brings everyone together to talk about what life is like there and whether any issues the affinity group should raise need to be addressed. “It’s just general support for each other,” GreyEyes said.

To view the range of job opportunities at Boeing, log onto its website at Boeing.com and click Careers on the menu bar.

Daybreak Star takes fundraising campaign online

by JOHN LANGELER / KING 5 News

SEATTLE — Staff for the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center have started an online fundraising effort to offset around $280,000 in debt. The center, which operates in Seattle’s Discovery Park, has struggled in the wake of grant and other program cuts.

“It is a really urgent situation. We really have to pay attention and get our bills paid for,” said Jeff Smith, board chairman of the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation which operates the facility.

Smith said staff considered closing Daybreak Star in September, when it appeared the situation was a “crisis”.

Since then, explained Smith, staff has been cut and the budget of the non-profit has been balanced. It now has six months to pay back about half of its debt.

“We’re motivated to work really hard to raise money so it doesn’t go out of business,” said Smith.

Daybreak Star opened in 1977, seven years after about 100 Native Americans scaled the fence at what was then Fort Lawson, demanding part of the property which was being decommissioned by the federal government.

The confrontation led to the City of Seattle setting aside land for Daybreak Star in Discovery Park.

Smith does not believe Daybreak Star will close. It runs five programs in the community for Native Americans which he said are in solid shape.

Online fundraising for Daybreak Star is on Indiegogo.com.

Second Sign Does Little to Correct the Racist Nature of First Sign at Sonic in Belton, MO

This sign was Version II: Attempt to rectify Version I

By Levi Rickert, Native News Online

BELTON, MISSOURI – As if the first sign was not bad enough, an attempt to fix an obvious racist message on the portable sign at the local Sonic Drive-In in Belton, Missouri on Sunday was not much of an improvement.

The Native News Online ran a story yesterday and an Opinion on the inappropriate racists sign late Sunday night. At the time, it was not known to the Native News Online staff that there were two versions of the sign in front of the Sonic.

Version I:

“‘KC CHIEFS’ WILL SCALP THE REDSKINS FEED THEM WHISKEY SEND – 2 – RESERVATION.”

Apparently, someone told the author of the sign, it was offensive to American Indians.

Version II:

“‘KC CHIEFS’ WILL SCALP THE REDSKINS

DRAIN THE FIREWATER — OUT OF THEM”

The second version – while slightly blurry – was posted on a Twitter account. Social media has kept this story alive.

The Native News Online staff contacted Sonic Drive-In earlier today for confirmation that photograph was legitimate.

The response from Sonic’s Patrick Lenow, vice president of media relations for the 3,500 chain:

“There were two offensive, wrong messages posted. Our understanding is that the first was displayed for about 15 minutes and a poor attempt to rectify it was posted for about 10 minutes, so both were part of the same incident. Both messages are unacceptable and contrary to the values of our company. Sonic and the local owner are sorry that such unacceptable messages were posted for any duration and are working through a process to prevent any type of reoccurrence.”

When the Native News Online yesterday contacted Mr. Lenow and Robert Stone, franchisee of the Belton Sonic, neither of the two revealed there were two different messages.

Mr. Stone indicated he would not fire the employee who posted the sign, but would educate his entire staff about what is appropriate.

House Farm Bill Provision would make eating fish more dangerous

As featured on eNews Park Forest.com, Dec 5, 2013

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–December 5, 2013. It’s farm bill debate time—again. And as conferee members saddle up to the negotiation table to attempt yet another meeting of the minds before the winter recess, most of the public watching and waiting for word on a resolution are focused on issues like food stamps and milk.

What most are not waiting for and has not been at the forefront of the media and public discussion concerning the pending farm bill negotiations are the small but dangerous provisions of the House bill concerning the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (expanded and overhauled as the Clean Water Act (CWA) in 1972) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to regulate pesticides used near, over, and in water. It should be.

Seeking to nullify the Sixth Circuit’s ruling in National Cotton Council v. EPA and the resulting general permit, sections 12323 and 100013 amend CWA to exclude pesticides from the law’s standards and its permitting requirements. Known as the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), CWA requires all point sources, which are discernible and discreet conveyances, to obtain either individual or general permits. Whether a point source must obtain an individual or general permit depends on the size of the point source and type of activity producing the pollutants. Regardless of whether it is a general permit or individual permit, an entity cannot pollute without a permit and in most cases can only permit in the amounts (called effluent limitations) and ways prescribed in the permit.

Separate, but inextricably linked to the NPDES program, are CWA’s water quality standards, under which states are responsible for designating waterbody uses (such as swimmable or fishable) and setting criteria to protect those uses. If a water body fails to meet the established criteria for its use, then it is deemed impaired and the states, or EPA, if the state fails to act, must establish a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), a kind of pollutant diet. The system comes full circle in that impaired waters with TMDLs can be integrated into the NPDES permits.

Neither CWA nor the NPDES program are perfect, but one need look no further than the fish we eat to understand the important role that this critical environmental framework plays in limiting human exposure to pesticides and other toxins.

CWA, Fish, and the Pesticide Connection

In the recently released Environmental Health Perspectives’ article, Meeting the Needs of the People: Fish Consumption Rates in the Pacific Northwest, the complexities of the CWA, its NPDES progam, and its water quality standards criteria are laid out in a disturbing tale of environmental justice and failing bureaucracies.

In short, Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest eat a lot of fish. It’s part of their culture and a way of life preserved in their legal and tribal rights, but they are facing increasing health risks due to the toxic chemicals in those fish. The solution to this problem seems fairly straight-forward: reduce the toxins in the water so that the levels in the fish are safe to eat. It’s a solution envisioned by CWA and its web of regulatory protections, however, as the article explains, “One of the variables used to calculate ambient water quality criteria is fish consumption rate.”

While the takeaway from the article is somewhat defeating and shows the far-reaching weaknesses of existing risk assessment methodologies, the underpinnings of the article —the connection between a water body’s water quality criteria, an entities NPDES permit, and the safety of the fish we put in our mouths— cannot be dismissed as irrelevant tales of woe. Whether the system is functioning perfectly or not, the point is that a system exists that contemplates the risks inherent to consuming toxin-laced fish and has the potential to protect the general consuming public.

From Fish Back to the Farm Bill

What does not have this ability is the Federal, Insecticide, Rodenticide, and Act (FIFRA). It is this federal framework, however, on which supporters of the House provision hang their hats and point to as the already-in-place protective standard capable of preventing water pollution from pesticides. Beyond Pesticides has debunked this argument in more ways than one. Other environmental advocacy groups have also pointed out that the sky has not fallen since EPA’s implementation of the general pesticide permit under CWA.

The Clean Water Act is intended to ensure that every community, from tribe to urban neighborhood, has the right to enjoy fishable and swimmable bodies of water. There is a lot of work still to be done to improve the nation’s waters and protect the health of people dependent on those waters. Without the Clean Water Act, there are no common sense backstops or enforcement mechanisms for reducing direct applications of pesticides to waterways. It may not be perfect, but it is better than nothing, which would be the effect of the House farm bill. We can’t afford to lose these protections.

Tell your Senators to oppose any efforts to undermine the Clean Water Act.

For more information, read our factsheet, Clearing up the Confusion Surrounding the New NPDES General Permit and visit our Threatened Waters page.

Sources: Environmental Health Perspectives, Natural Resources Defense Council, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.beyondpesticides.org/

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Sacajawea: If Not For Her, We Could Be Saluting the British Flag

By Jack McNeel, Indian Country Today Media Network

Few women in U.S. history have had more influence on the nation’s history than the young Lemhi Shoshone woman, Sacajawea. It’s very likely that Lewis and Clark would never have reached the Pacific Ocean had it not been for her help. White settlement would have been different. Indian wars throughout the western half of the country would have been altered. We might even be saluting the British flag rather than the American flag. Sacajawea’s role was gigantic.

The gold dollar coin bears Sacajawea’s image.

Innumerable statues have been created of her, she has graced postage stamps and the copy gold coin bears her resemblance. Despite that, there is great confusion and disagreement about this remarkable woman. No photos exist of her, so images and statues reflect what their creator thinks she would have looked like. There is disagreement about the spelling and pronunciation of her name, even where she was born and certainly where she died. But there is no disagreement as to her role in U.S. history. The Lemhi Shoshone people claim her, but others disagree.

Sacajawea was 11 or 12 when she was captured by the Hidatsa. A couple years later she married Charbonneau. When he was hired by Lewis and Clark as an interpreter she was included because they thought she might prove helpful when they reached her homelands in what is now Montana and Idaho. Four years had elapsed since her capture so she was probably 16 when she joined the expedition.

Dr. Orlan Svingen, a historian, and professor at Washington State University, has worked with the descendents of Sacajawea, the Agai Dika people, since 1991. “Sacajawea, carrying a child, speaking Shoshone, talking to a Frenchman… She disarmed anybody because she was a woman with a child,” he said. “On top of that, when she came to this country (western Montana) she knew people and could speak with them.”

Leo Ariwite, a Lemhi cultural person, and Dr. Orlan Svingen talk in the Lemhi Valley of Idaho. (Jack McNeel)

Perhaps her first major influence on the expedition came in early May when the pirogue (boat) she was in with Charbonneau at the helm capsized. Lewis describes Charbonneau, writing, “Charbono cannot swim and is perhaps the most timid waterman in the world.” The boat contained instruments, books, medicine, much merchandise, “in short almost every article indispensably necessary to further the views, or insure the success of the enterprise,” Captain Lewis wrote.

Sacajawea was calm despite having her newborn son with her and was able to retrieve many scientific instruments and books. Their medical supplies were lost but they were able to continue westward. Without her help, at that point, the expedition would have been much more difficult and less successful.

According to Svingen, well before they reached what is now Idaho, Sacajawea said, “This is the home of my people.” It was August 8, 1805. They soon met some of her own, the Lemhi Shoshone people. The expedition was in desperate need of horses, winter was approaching and a massive mountain range separated them from the Columbia River and the Pacific coast. With the aid of Sacajawea as both an interpreter and friend to both the expedition and the tribe, horses were obtained and a guide, an elder they called Toby, was provided to lead them over the mountains. Without the tribe’s help and Sacajawea’s assistance, this likely would have ended Lewis and Clark’s exploration.

2. A highway in eastern Idaho is designated as the Sacajawea Historic Byway. (Jack McNeel)

“This was huge!” Svingen said about Sacajawea and the tribe’s help. “This was like atomic energy! This was enormous!” Had Lewis and Clark not reached the Pacific, they would not have been able to claim the land for the United States.

Many questions will likely remain unanswered but few will argue the importance of Sacajawea to the Lewis and Clark expedition or to her impact on U.S. history.

National Chief Atleo Attends Nelson Mandela Services in South Africa

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo is among the official delegates from Canada attending services for Nelson Mandela.

He, along with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and 18 other political leaders including premiers and members of Parliament, are en route to South Africa for the memorial service to be held in Johannesburg on December 10, as well as Mandela’s lying in state in Pretoria on December 11.

The human-rights icon died on December 5 at age 95. He had served both in prison, for 27 years, and as president, for four, as the country began dismantling the system of segregation known as Apartheid. Known as Madiba by his people, the son from a line of hereditary Thembu chiefs spent most of his life fighting discrimination and racism, and championing human rights.

“The life, work and spirit of Nelson Mandela—or Madiba, as he was called by his people—was deeply connected to First Nations in Canada not only as a fellow indigenous leader but also because of his incredible struggle for justice and reconciliation that resonates so deeply with the struggle and aspirations of our peoples,” Atleo said in a statement on December 8, upon the delegation’s departure. “Our traditions call upon us to always be mindful of the importance of such commemoration, celebration and respect to be shown to the family and to the people united in marking this loss. I will travel to South Africa as a humble representative of our indigenous traditions to pay our respects and to stand in honor of this great leader and inspiration for Indigenous peoples and for the world.”

Also part of the delegation are Northwest Territories Premier Bob McLeod and Yukon Premier Darrell Pasloski. The NW territories will lower their flags to half-mast from sunrise to sunset on Wednesday.

“Much will be said about the character, influence and strength of Nelson Mandela in the coming days,” McLeod said in a statement. “This is an opportunity to reflect on our own experience and those around us who have carried great personal burdens. Our experiences in the North, particularly those related to residential schools, require strength and a true spirit of reconciliation for all northerners. I will be taking this week to reflect on how we can continue to work together to reconcile our past and our differences as we move forward.”

Alberta Premier Alison Redford, who worked with him as a young lawyer during the 1990s as part of a team that was laying the groundwork for a post-Apartheid South Africa, is also part of the delegation.

“Nelson Mandela was a towering icon, a giant of a man and an enormously inspiring individual who courageously spent his life fighting racism, oppression, and injustice,” she said in a statement upon his passing. “He used his days walking this earth to bring freedom, equality and human rights to his people, his country and to the world.”

Redford’s grief, both personal and professional, echoed the appeal that Mandela held for Natives and non-Natives alike.

“I will always remember him as a dignified and kind man with a sparkle in his eye, who used humor to diffuse tense situations,” she said. “He taught me that the best advice comes from people who have been working in the trenches, and that leaders have to sacrifice. I remember his wisdom, his optimism and his patience. He knew that no matter what he had accomplished that there was always another challenge ahead of him and another hill to climb, and that his work was never done until he breathed his last breath.”