Cross Posted at Native American Netroots
Welcome to News from Native American Netroots, a Monday evening series (delayed until Wednesday this week) focused on indigenous tribes primarily in the United States and Canada but inclusive of international peoples also.
A special thanks to our team for contributing the links that have been compiled here. Please provide your news links in the comments below.
1976 deaths still haunt Halbritter
. . .
In Washington, he wrote, "when I was 21, an event occurred...known as the "Trail of Broken Treaties." It was a Native American protest against the federal government that ended in a standoff lasting several weeks in the offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
It was 1972, and it was "a great awakening for many Native American people, and for me in particular," Halbritter wrote. "I started to think about where... we were going as a people and what it was we were trying to do."
"I came back to Central New York and got involved in the issues here," Halbritter said. "The big issue that happened was the fire where my aunt and uncle (Samuel and Janice Winder) burned to death and the City of Oneida refused to send the fire department to their assistance. I was living on the territory and the fire was right across from my trailer."
With no assistance from any of the public safety agencies, "the bodies just laid there smoldering."
"The odor, the aroma from that fire drifted right over to where we lived in our trailer...to this day when I smell something (similar), it all of a sudden will trigger a reaction," he said.
GOP-led filibuster blocks resolution of Indian lawsuit
WASHINGTON - Native Americans spent 14 years in court to win the multibillion dollar Cobell lawsuit. Now they'll have to wait some more, this time for congressional approval, before they get their money from the federal government.
The $3.4 billion settlement, known as the Cobell lawsuit for lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, was tied to a contentious package of tax breaks and unemployment benefits that came up three votes short Thursday of the 60 needed to prevent a Republican-led filibuster.
Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., didn't allow a separate vote on the Cobell settlement because he didn't want to break into pieces the bill known as the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act.
UC Davis Native American studies profwins Guggenheim fellowship
Zoila Mendoza, a professor of Native American studies at UC Davis has been awarded a prestigious Guggenheim fellowship to continue her research on a recurring pilgrimage that Peruvian highlanders take through the Andes.
Mendoza, an anthropologist who has been studying the dances, music and festivals of her native Peru, said she was surprised and honored by the award from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. She had just returned from a month of research in Peru when she received the news.
"This is the perfect time for me," Mendoza said. "This is exactly what I needed right now to encourage me to finish this new, challenging project that I have been doing."
Artists Sought for the Cherokee National Holiday Art Show
The Cherokee Nation is looking for talented Native American artists to participate in the 2010 Cherokee National Holiday Art Show, which will award a total of $10,000 in prize money.
"This juried art show has nine categories of art available including a youth category," said Marie Smith. "Many of the artists on display will be award-wining artists from many different genres."
Along with the traditional category, which awards $700 to the winner, there are eight additional categories for each participant to enter. Other categories this year will include contemporary pottery, paintings, drawings, graphics, and photography standards, sculpture standards, contemporary basketry, textiles and weaving, diverse arts, and youth.
Tribe, national monument partner on repository
After 11 years of planning, a modern museum repository for artifacts and archival material of early Mormon settlers and the Paiute Tribe has opened in northern Arizona.
Monument superintendent John W. Hiscock said the May 23 opening of the $2 million facility is the result of a joint venture between Pipe Spring National Monument and the Kaibab Band of Paiutes.
The two already share museum space at the park’s visitor center, but the facility will now have a new, separate repository to preserve materials vital to understanding the area’s culture and heritage.
Trahant: Expanding access to oral health through innovation
.....And, like most health issues, the data shows that Indian country is at the low end of the spectrum. One study described it this way: The American Indian/Alaska Native "population has the highest tooth decay rate of any population cohort in the United States: 5 times the U.S. average for children 2 – 4 years of age. Seventy-nine percent of AI/AN children, aged 2 – 5 years, have tooth decay, with 60 percent of these children having severe early childhood caries (baby bottle tooth decay). Eighty-seven percent of these children, aged 6 – 14 years, have a history of decay – twice the rate of dental caries experienced by the general population."
The study, by David A. Nash at the University of Kentucky and Ron J. Nagel with the Indian Health Service, found that "lack of access to professional dental care is a significant contributor to the disparities in oral health that exist in the AI/AN population. Two major factors contribute to inadequate access to care: The relative geographic isolation of tribal populations, particularly in Alaska; and the inability to attract dentists to practice in IHS or tribal health facilities in rural areas."
Op-Ed Piece
At end of the day, may honor remain
...[Jim] Thorpe's son, 72-year-old Jack Thorpe, understandably wants the celebrated American Indian's remains returned to his native Oklahoma. A lawsuit recently filed in Scranton seeks to transfer Thorpe's body to tribal grounds from his current resting place, the Carbon County community named Jim Thorpe - a picturesque town and popular weekend getaway that also bills itself as "the Switzerland of America."
The crux of the lawsuit apparently involves a federal law designed to give Native American artifacts back to their tribal homelands. To those of us outside the courtroom, it seems a legal long shot. After all, the law most likely aims to recover from private collections and museums any funerary items that had been plundered from places such as pueblos, battlegrounds and sacred sites.
By contrast, Jim Thorpe's body was interred in Pennsylvania by mutual agreement. Two merging towns (Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk) brokered a deal with Thorpe's third wife, agreeing to rename the community in his memory.
TGen find aids kidney disease fight
Researchers at the Translational Genomics Research Institute have identified a genetic link to kidney disease in a DNA study of Native Americans in Arizona. The study found five genetic biomarkers associated with kidney failure, all within a receptor gene previously linked to diabetic kidney disease. This means that the receptor gene may signal in five ways that diabetes-related kidney disease could be on the horizon.
Native American T.I.O. launches progressive loan program
If John Moss’ five year goal comes true, most tribes will have sustained success in the world of business via non-traditional sources, such as international development banks.
"It’s still a process that’s being completed, but it’s something that has been done in other countries for the past 30 years, it’s just something new to the U.S.," said Moss, founder/CEO of Native American Trade Information Office.
NATIO falls under the umbrella of Caddo Asset Services Help Community Development, a nonprofit company that provides referral services to Native-owned businesses to help them succeed.
Tim Giago: A Native American newspaper was born on July 1, 1981
On July 1, 1981, a small, weekly newspaper was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The paper was named The Lakota Times for the people it would serve. My great admiration for the Navajo Times prompted me to add Times to the title.
I started the newspaper because the Indian reservation, with a population of more than 30,000, where I lived had no newspaper.
The Lakota Times grew quickly and soon was the largest weekly newspaper in the state of South Dakota. It filled a gap in Indian country that had never been readily addressed by the white-owned daily and weekly newspapers in the state. For the first time in the history of the state an Indian-owned newspaper began to take a close look at the lives of the Native people.
The mainstream media at the time did occasional stories on the people of the reservations, but for the most part those stories usually involved criminal activities or situations of national notoriety like the takeover at Wounded Knee in 1973.
Bolivia indigenous greet the New Year
June nights on Bolivia’s high plains are dry and piercing cold. But at 5:30 a.m. in El Alto, a city of one million, it’s time to celebrate. The sun will soon rise and a new year begin.
Walking through the darkness in small groups, people converge on a square that looks over the city of La Paz to the snow covered mountains beyond. The new year’s festival is held on the southern hemisphere’s winter solstice, which this year fell on June 21.
"I came here because these are my roots," said Virginia Callisaya Aliaga, a nurse who lives in El Alto. "We’re waiting for the sun, so he will bless us."
To quote the contributor of this article, "this one pisses me off."
2.5 million to perpetrate a lie? This is a news piece tonight, it will
be an action piece in a near future diary. Volunteer/s to put together an
action diary would be most welcome.
Sotheby's to Sell Custer's Last Flag, Preserved Until now at Detroit Museum
One hundred and thirty-four years ago today, George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry were overwhelmed near the Little Big Horn River by warriors of the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. No survivors remained among those who fought under Custer’s direct command and few physical artifacts of the battle were left on the field, the Indians carrying with them anything that might reflect on their prowess or prove to be of utilitarian use. But a cavalry guidon, or swallow-tail flag, was hidden under the body of a dead trooper and discovered three days after the battle by Sergeant Ferdinand Culbertson, who was assigned to a burial party. Today Sotheby's announces that this sacred relic, emblematic of one of the most significant events in American history, will be offered for sale in October 2010: Custer’s Last Flag: The Culbertson Guidon from The Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Since 1895, this fragile silk flag has been preserved at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The guidon had been given by Culbertson to Charles and Rose Fowler of Detroit in approximately 1880. The flag was purchased from Rose Fowler Reidel, by a public contribution in 1895. It will be offered for sale at Sotheby’s in October 2010 with an estimate of $2/5 million and proceeds from the auction will be used by the museum exclusively for future art purchases. The guidon will be unveiled to the public in September.
"This immortal battle flag represents the spirit, the bravery and the tragedy of one of the most dramatic moments in American history," commented David Redden, Vice Chairman of Sotheby’s. "Battle-worn and bullet-torn, the Culbertson Guidon conjures the ferocity of that terrible battle."
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SPECIAL UPDATE: This diary is the first one ever Rec'd by one of my daughters. One of the three finally decided to join us here, she'd been looking at this shade of orange for almost six years now, when she was still a teenager. I am respecting her request that I not directly out her as my daughter, some things never change. :-)