December 15, 1890 - Chief Sitting Bull is murdered outside his home at Standing Rock, ND
December 16, 1882 - The Hopi reservation is established in Arizona
December 18, 1971 - Alaskan Native Claims Act is signed into law
December 26, 1862 - 38 Dakotas are publically hanged in largest mass execution in U.S. history
December 29, 1890 - Wounded Knee massacre of Big Foot's Lakota. In less than ten minutes, more than three hundred old men, women, and children are massacred by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry
Information provided by Native American Rights Fund. "We ask for nothing more and will accept nothing less than the U.S. government keeping the promises it has made to Native Americans." - John E. Echohawk, Executive Director, NARF
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
'Pulling Down the Clouds' unites many authors' voices
By: Konnie LeMay
WASHINGTON - It begins beautifully with Pulitzer Prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa.
Starting with the famed author of ''House Made of Dawn'' is, of course, a great way to begin anything, but especially what is probably the largest gathering of contemporary Native writers on one compact disc.
''Pulling Down the Clouds: Contemporary Native Writers Read Their Work'' is an anthology of works by various writers read by the authors themselves. It pulls together a portion of the Native Writers Series undertaken for nine nights during each of the last four years at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
Tanya Thrasher, Cherokee and editor of the CD project, said that after four years of invitations to writers to read their work, ''we have this amazing collection of audio recordings ... just the magnitude, just the power of every author and the talent they have.''
The result is a satisfying mixture of familiar universal stories with personal insights, a smattering of humor and even one song. The stories are told through the eyes of the authors or through their characters, like Momaday's empathetic envisioning of Sacagawea's thoughts as she traveled with Lewis and Clark; or the examination by Louise Erdrich, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, of the wisdom told by wolves to a once-suicidal old man from her Anishinaabe heritage: '''We live because we live.' ... The wolves accept the life they are given.''
Read more here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416151
WASHINGTON - It begins beautifully with Pulitzer Prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa.
Starting with the famed author of ''House Made of Dawn'' is, of course, a great way to begin anything, but especially what is probably the largest gathering of contemporary Native writers on one compact disc.
''Pulling Down the Clouds: Contemporary Native Writers Read Their Work'' is an anthology of works by various writers read by the authors themselves. It pulls together a portion of the Native Writers Series undertaken for nine nights during each of the last four years at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
Tanya Thrasher, Cherokee and editor of the CD project, said that after four years of invitations to writers to read their work, ''we have this amazing collection of audio recordings ... just the magnitude, just the power of every author and the talent they have.''
The result is a satisfying mixture of familiar universal stories with personal insights, a smattering of humor and even one song. The stories are told through the eyes of the authors or through their characters, like Momaday's empathetic envisioning of Sacagawea's thoughts as she traveled with Lewis and Clark; or the examination by Louise Erdrich, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, of the wisdom told by wolves to a once-suicidal old man from her Anishinaabe heritage: '''We live because we live.' ... The wolves accept the life they are given.''
Read more here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416151
Sherman Alexie wins the National Book Award
By: Mary Ann Gwinn
SEATTLE (MCT) - Seattle author Sherman Alexie has won the National Book Award for his highly autobiographical novel for young people, ''The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.''
Alexie got the news the night of Nov. 14 at the awards ceremony in New York. He won for best book in the young people's literature category. In his acceptance speech, Alexie, an author of 19 books of fiction, poetry and essays, quipped, ''Wow ... I obviously should have been writing YA [young adult] all along.''
He credited Alex Kuo, a creative-writing teacher at Washington State University who gave him an anthology of American Indian writing. It helped persuade him to become a writer. ''I had never read words written by a Native American. The first one was a poem about frying baloney ... I grew up eating fried baloney. The other was a poem by Adrian Lewis, and the poem had the line, 'Oh, Uncle Adrian, I'm in the reservation of my mind.' I knew right then when I read that line that I wanted to be a writer. It's been a gorgeous and magnificent and lonely 20 years since then.''
''I am in post-traumatic shock-stress syndrome,'' Alexie said later. ''It's just astonishing. It's all because 27 years ago, I went up to my mom and dad and asked if I could leave the rez school, and they said yes.''
He thanked his wife, his two sons and his editor, ''who edited me, even though I can be an arrogant bastard.''
Read the full article here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416191
SEATTLE (MCT) - Seattle author Sherman Alexie has won the National Book Award for his highly autobiographical novel for young people, ''The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.''
Alexie got the news the night of Nov. 14 at the awards ceremony in New York. He won for best book in the young people's literature category. In his acceptance speech, Alexie, an author of 19 books of fiction, poetry and essays, quipped, ''Wow ... I obviously should have been writing YA [young adult] all along.''
He credited Alex Kuo, a creative-writing teacher at Washington State University who gave him an anthology of American Indian writing. It helped persuade him to become a writer. ''I had never read words written by a Native American. The first one was a poem about frying baloney ... I grew up eating fried baloney. The other was a poem by Adrian Lewis, and the poem had the line, 'Oh, Uncle Adrian, I'm in the reservation of my mind.' I knew right then when I read that line that I wanted to be a writer. It's been a gorgeous and magnificent and lonely 20 years since then.''
''I am in post-traumatic shock-stress syndrome,'' Alexie said later. ''It's just astonishing. It's all because 27 years ago, I went up to my mom and dad and asked if I could leave the rez school, and they said yes.''
He thanked his wife, his two sons and his editor, ''who edited me, even though I can be an arrogant bastard.''
Read the full article here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416191
Friday, November 30, 2007
Quotes
"When the Earth is sick, the animals will begin to disappear, when that happens, the
Warriors of the Rainbow will come to save them." -
Chief Seattle - Suquamish/Duwamish
Warriors of the Rainbow will come to save them." -
Chief Seattle - Suquamish/Duwamish
Seasons
A legend - origination unknown
There was an Indian Chief who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest.. in turn.. to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.
The first son went in the Winter, the second in the Spring, the third in Summer, and the youngest son in the Fall.
When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.
The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.
The second son said "no" it was covered with green buds and full of promise.
The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful. It was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.
The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.
The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree's life.
He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If you give up when it's Winter, you will miss the promise of your Spring, the beauty of your Summer, the fulfillment of your Fall.
There was an Indian Chief who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest.. in turn.. to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.
The first son went in the Winter, the second in the Spring, the third in Summer, and the youngest son in the Fall.
When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.
The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.
The second son said "no" it was covered with green buds and full of promise.
The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful. It was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.
The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.
The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree's life.
He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If you give up when it's Winter, you will miss the promise of your Spring, the beauty of your Summer, the fulfillment of your Fall.
BIA to consider moratorium on uranium mining leases on Navajo trust land
By: Jerry Reynolds
WASHINGTON - Congressmen, Navajo leaders and federal agency leaders alike heard the grim legacy of past uranium mining on Navajo lands and learned of nuclear industry efforts to stockpile uranium mining permits for future use.
Midway through a roundtable on uranium mining, hosted by Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., Nov. 8, the solution seemed to become obvious to everyone at once: first clean up the abandoned uranium sites that threaten Navajo health and groundwater, then place a federal moratorium on new Navajo-based uranium mining until the cleanup is accomplished. The Navajo Nation already has a moratorium in place, but uranium mining interests are approaching off-reservation owners of individual allotted trust lands with lease offers, according to nation representatives at the roundtable. A federal moratorium would forbid uranium mining leases on any and all Navajo trust land.
''Congressman Udall,'' said Mitchell Capitan, founder of Eastern Navajo Dine' Against Uranium Mining, ''communities across New Mexico and the Four Corners [of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado - i.e., Navajo land] are saying the same thing we are. Clean up the uranium messes before creating new ones. We are in agreement with our brothers and sisters, the pueblos and Lagunas are here, our Anglo and Hispanic communities. New uranium mining threatens us all. We need a federal moratorium on new mining.''
There's more here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416131
WASHINGTON - Congressmen, Navajo leaders and federal agency leaders alike heard the grim legacy of past uranium mining on Navajo lands and learned of nuclear industry efforts to stockpile uranium mining permits for future use.
Midway through a roundtable on uranium mining, hosted by Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., Nov. 8, the solution seemed to become obvious to everyone at once: first clean up the abandoned uranium sites that threaten Navajo health and groundwater, then place a federal moratorium on new Navajo-based uranium mining until the cleanup is accomplished. The Navajo Nation already has a moratorium in place, but uranium mining interests are approaching off-reservation owners of individual allotted trust lands with lease offers, according to nation representatives at the roundtable. A federal moratorium would forbid uranium mining leases on any and all Navajo trust land.
''Congressman Udall,'' said Mitchell Capitan, founder of Eastern Navajo Dine' Against Uranium Mining, ''communities across New Mexico and the Four Corners [of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado - i.e., Navajo land] are saying the same thing we are. Clean up the uranium messes before creating new ones. We are in agreement with our brothers and sisters, the pueblos and Lagunas are here, our Anglo and Hispanic communities. New uranium mining threatens us all. We need a federal moratorium on new mining.''
There's more here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416131
From San Francisco to D.C.
By: Shadi Rahimi
SAN FRANCISCO - In the three decades since Mohawk student Richard Oakes first dove into the ice-cold waters of the San Francisco Bay and set off a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island, thousands have returned to honor those who ignited a national movement.
This year, as the sun rose above the blue-green waters still tinged with black from a 58,000-gallon oil spill in early November, activists from the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement era vowed more change.
In addition to protests reignited this year around the desecration of sacred sites and burial grounds and the return of ancestral remains from University of California - Berkeley, Natives here are helping to revive the Longest Walk of 1978.
''It's the continuation of the 'Longest War' that started when the first Indian blood was spilled on this land, which is still being done today - it's just more subtle,'' said Bill ''Jimbo'' Simmons of the International Indian Treaty Council.
Simmons, 52, walked the entire five-month journey in 1978. Next year, on Feb. 11, he and others will depart after a ceremony on Alcatraz to trek 4,400 miles across 11 states until they reach Washington, D.C.
There, thousands will add the message that ''all life is sacred'' to campaigns around global warming, said Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement. Walkers will pick up debris that public buses will collect for recycling, he said.
Want the whole story? Click here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416194
SAN FRANCISCO - In the three decades since Mohawk student Richard Oakes first dove into the ice-cold waters of the San Francisco Bay and set off a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island, thousands have returned to honor those who ignited a national movement.
This year, as the sun rose above the blue-green waters still tinged with black from a 58,000-gallon oil spill in early November, activists from the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement era vowed more change.
In addition to protests reignited this year around the desecration of sacred sites and burial grounds and the return of ancestral remains from University of California - Berkeley, Natives here are helping to revive the Longest Walk of 1978.
''It's the continuation of the 'Longest War' that started when the first Indian blood was spilled on this land, which is still being done today - it's just more subtle,'' said Bill ''Jimbo'' Simmons of the International Indian Treaty Council.
Simmons, 52, walked the entire five-month journey in 1978. Next year, on Feb. 11, he and others will depart after a ceremony on Alcatraz to trek 4,400 miles across 11 states until they reach Washington, D.C.
There, thousands will add the message that ''all life is sacred'' to campaigns around global warming, said Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement. Walkers will pick up debris that public buses will collect for recycling, he said.
Want the whole story? Click here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416194
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
