Many of the Spirit People Intertribal Family will be traveling today to visit with the people of Reedy River Intertribal at the Longhouse located in South Carolina. It is a much needed retreat after the hard work involved with presenting a powwow.
There will be no posts to the blog during this time, but we invite you to visit the archives in our absence.
We will return Monday, June 11, and posts will resume, June 12.
Wishing you all a good journey and a well deserved rest.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Ho-Chunk reclaim mounds at Highway 16 wayside
By Trevor Kupfer
In an emotional ceremony Monday afternoon, the Ho-Chunk Nation reclaimed the Kingsley Bend Wayside Effigy Mounds in a state-agreed transfer from the Department of Transportation.
About 40 people gathered at the site to celebrate the unlikely repatriation by a people who were previously unrecognized by federal or state organizations, yet restrengthened to preserve a sacred piece of land.
"We have persevered and today we stand here at another historic moment," said Ho-Chunk Nation representative Ona Garvin. "The mystery will remain and we will remain awe-struck and admiring of the efforts of a people who were born, lived and died and created these mounds as a memorial to those who respected, revered and loved as a Ho-Chunk Nation."
Department of Transportation representatives Kevin Chesnik and Gwen Carr presented a letter from Gov. Jim Doyle and DOT Secretary Frank Busalacchi to the Ho-Chunk Nation that certified the transfer of the Wisconsin Dells site on Highway 16. The moment held a special significance for Carr, who is also a member of the Cayuga Nation in New York.
"This is a very, very special day for me as an employee of DOT and also as an American Indian woman," she said. "My tribe has no land ... so to be able to stand here as an Indian woman and to be able to say that I have been part of repatriating a parcel of land, no matter how large or small, back to the people, for me personally and spiritually, it's a very important occasion."
Click here to read the full article: http://www.wiscnews.com/pdr/news/155666
In an emotional ceremony Monday afternoon, the Ho-Chunk Nation reclaimed the Kingsley Bend Wayside Effigy Mounds in a state-agreed transfer from the Department of Transportation.
About 40 people gathered at the site to celebrate the unlikely repatriation by a people who were previously unrecognized by federal or state organizations, yet restrengthened to preserve a sacred piece of land.
"We have persevered and today we stand here at another historic moment," said Ho-Chunk Nation representative Ona Garvin. "The mystery will remain and we will remain awe-struck and admiring of the efforts of a people who were born, lived and died and created these mounds as a memorial to those who respected, revered and loved as a Ho-Chunk Nation."
Department of Transportation representatives Kevin Chesnik and Gwen Carr presented a letter from Gov. Jim Doyle and DOT Secretary Frank Busalacchi to the Ho-Chunk Nation that certified the transfer of the Wisconsin Dells site on Highway 16. The moment held a special significance for Carr, who is also a member of the Cayuga Nation in New York.
"This is a very, very special day for me as an employee of DOT and also as an American Indian woman," she said. "My tribe has no land ... so to be able to stand here as an Indian woman and to be able to say that I have been part of repatriating a parcel of land, no matter how large or small, back to the people, for me personally and spiritually, it's a very important occasion."
Click here to read the full article: http://www.wiscnews.com/pdr/news/155666
Remember These Words
continued...
Don't let anyone hold your happiness in their hands; hold it in yours, so it will always be within you reach.
Don't measure success or failure by material wealth, but by how you feel; our feelings determine the richness of our lives.
To be continued...
Don't let anyone hold your happiness in their hands; hold it in yours, so it will always be within you reach.
Don't measure success or failure by material wealth, but by how you feel; our feelings determine the richness of our lives.
To be continued...
Medicine men for the 21st Century
By Kirsten Scharnberg
Tribune national correspondent
PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Albert Laughter kneels near the fire pit in the center of the tepee, arranging his ceremonial arrowheads, bowls and pipes. He lays out the all-important eagle feathers, reverently unwrapping them from an American flag.
The fifth-generation Navajo medicine man has trained most of his life to treat the people of his tribe with the traditional healing methods of Native Americans from this region of the country: powwows, sacred dances, sweat lodges, purification ceremonies, natural herbs.
But these days his job is very different.
Laughter is employed by the federal government. He primarily treats military veterans suffering from the trauma of combat. And the tepee in which he does much of his work sits not on an American Indian reservation but on the grounds of the Bob Stump Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Prescott.
"I guess I'm a true 21st Century medicine man," Laughter said. "They call me on my cell phone to make appointments, and I get much of my work thanks to two modern wars -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- that began at the start of this century.
Native American veterans face unique struggles upon returning home from war, including high rates of post-combat stress. Now a mix of modern and traditional medicine is helping them heal.
"Since World War II, when Navajo Code Talkers became an essential part of the U.S. armed forces, Native Americans have had some of the highest per capita rates of military service of any demographic group in the United States, a trend that has only increased as poverty on reservations has risen and young men and women seek better economic futures.
Unfortunately, Native Americans also have faced some of the biggest difficulties upon returning home from combat. Studies of Native American vets from the Vietnam War era, for example, revealed alarming rates of suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism and homelessness, particularly when they returned from war to remote reservations with little access to mental heath care.
Want to read the whole story? Click here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-ptsd_04_scharnbergjun04,1,1567532.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true&track=rss
Tribune national correspondent
PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Albert Laughter kneels near the fire pit in the center of the tepee, arranging his ceremonial arrowheads, bowls and pipes. He lays out the all-important eagle feathers, reverently unwrapping them from an American flag.
The fifth-generation Navajo medicine man has trained most of his life to treat the people of his tribe with the traditional healing methods of Native Americans from this region of the country: powwows, sacred dances, sweat lodges, purification ceremonies, natural herbs.
But these days his job is very different.
Laughter is employed by the federal government. He primarily treats military veterans suffering from the trauma of combat. And the tepee in which he does much of his work sits not on an American Indian reservation but on the grounds of the Bob Stump Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Prescott.
"I guess I'm a true 21st Century medicine man," Laughter said. "They call me on my cell phone to make appointments, and I get much of my work thanks to two modern wars -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- that began at the start of this century.
Native American veterans face unique struggles upon returning home from war, including high rates of post-combat stress. Now a mix of modern and traditional medicine is helping them heal.
"Since World War II, when Navajo Code Talkers became an essential part of the U.S. armed forces, Native Americans have had some of the highest per capita rates of military service of any demographic group in the United States, a trend that has only increased as poverty on reservations has risen and young men and women seek better economic futures.
Unfortunately, Native Americans also have faced some of the biggest difficulties upon returning home from combat. Studies of Native American vets from the Vietnam War era, for example, revealed alarming rates of suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism and homelessness, particularly when they returned from war to remote reservations with little access to mental heath care.
Want to read the whole story? Click here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-ptsd_04_scharnbergjun04,1,1567532.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true&track=rss
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