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Canku Ota

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(Many Paths)

An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America

 

January 12, 2002 - Issue 53

 
 

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"Yá'át'ééh Bina"

 
 

Navajo

 
 

"Good Morning! "

 
 

 by Leland Bell

 
 

PAAMUYA

 
 
Joyful Moon
 
 

Hopi

 
 

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"And when your childrens' children think themselves alone... they will not be alone ... At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land."
~Chief Seattle~
1855

 

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We Salute
Navajo Code Talker David W. Tsosie

He's in the winter of his life. Time is the only thing that marches now for Navajo Code Talker David W. Tsosie, 78, of Bloomfield.

The Navajo Nation and the Marine Corps bypassed the Purple Heart-awarded World War II veteran for a Congressional Silver Medal for Navajo Code Talkers. More than 200 Code Talkers received the medal in front of 3,000 people during a Nov. 24 ceremony in Window Rock, Ariz. Tsosie's invitation was taken back just days before the ceremony, because his Code Talker service was unconfirmed, according to the Navajo Nation.

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School News Banner
The information here will include items of interest for and about Native American schools. If you have news to share, please let us know! I can be reached by emailing: Vlockard@aol.com

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Artist:
Iroquois Beadworkers

From striking beaded clothing to souvenir beaded pincushions, the artistic, cultural, economic and political significance of beadwork in the lives of Iroquois people is explored in a new exhibition, titled Across Borders: Beadwork in Iroquois Life. More than 300 examples of stunning beadwork, including moccasins, picture frames, and bags, will be on display to illustrate how placing thousands of tiny glass beads on fabric is ultimately linked to the identity and survival of Iroquois people. The exhibition traces the story of Iroquois beadwork from pre-European contact to the present.

 

Navajo Hour
by John Rustywire

In the early morning hours, somewhere near Grand Falls Mills North Winslow, Arizona, in Kaibeto, Gray Mountain, and Lechee on the Navajo Rez, an old Sanii (grandmother) would turn on the Philco radio and find KCLS in the wind.

Borden Milk he would say, turn the can around and cut out the coupon on the back, they were worth a penny a piece. Be sure and save them, Borden Milk, the best canned milk in Navajoland; they used to pay for the hour slot. Some people sound good on the radio, their voice carries far, and when they speak you can listen to them all day, they have a voice that lifts you up.

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News and Views Banner

2001 Mascot Review

Winners
The United States Commission on Civil Rights, the highest official governmental body of its kind, issued a statement on the use of American Indian Images and Nicknames as Sports Symbols ...
Losers
The North Dakota Board of Higher Education, Grand Forks, and the University of North Dakota all became major league losers when the North Dakota Board of Education sold out to Nazi enthusiast, Ralph Engelstad. Engelstad, a gambling tycoon, threatened to withdraw funding for "Engelstad Stadium" unless the University of North Dakota retained its "Fighting Sioux" nickname and related stereotypic logos ...
 

Tribe Donates to Indian Scholarship

DENVER — Throughout its 12-year history, the American Indian College Fund has depended on the kindness of strangers to keep its scholarship program alive, collecting donations from corporations and individuals but not from the Indian tribes.

The reason was obvious: With poverty ranking as the foremost social ill among most Indian nations, dedicating money to anything beyond basic tribal necessities was virtually impossible.

But those days may be drawing to an end. Last week, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in Prior Lake, Minn., donated $900,000 to the college fund, marking the first tribal donation in the fund's history.

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Culture Mixes With History in Break Out Run

BUSBY - Running through the Black Hills under a starry winter night sky was the most memorable leg for Krystal Two Bulls, a 16-year-old from Lame Deer.

“It was calm,” she said. “The mountains protected us from the wind.”

The long stretches of road between here and western Nebraska gave Two Bulls and 54 other runners - some with flecks of sacred sage leaves and cedar needles tucked in their shoes - a chance to think about their lives and about a similar 400-mile foot journey made by ancestors 123 years ago.

 

Can-do Canoe: Carving an Identity With Work, Sacrifice

SUQUAMISH - The young tribe members who paddled the new and wood-hewn canoe around a corner of Kitsap Peninsula to the dock at the Suquamish Tribal Center were exhausted but proud when they got there.

Sweating, panting and beaming, the six young men and one woman were greeted by their community on shore with chants and songs, drums and solemn respect.

The seagoing canoe, which was built by a group of six young men over three months, was the first in four generations to be hand-carved by a group of tribe members.

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Take a Virtual Tour into Ojibwe History

Great ideas often take great partnerships.

That's the lesson the Fond du Lac and Cloquet school districts have learned over the past five years as they've worked together with the Blandin Foundation to develop a local and regional Ojiibwe Culture/History curriculum on a CD-ROM for area schools.

The curriculum targets fourth and fifth grade students and is funded by a $270,000 grant from the Blandin Foundation.

 

Third Grade Social Studies Project

Hau, Kola This is Lakota for "How do you do, friend?"

We are in Ms.Schmaltz and Sioux's third grade class at Rosebud Elementary in Rosebud, South Dakota.

We are trying to visit as many places as we can this school year. We are asking for your help by telling us about the area in which you live and e-mailing us back. We are mapping the places we've been to on a big map, and would enjoy hearing about the places where you all live.

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The Yurok Archive: Collecting, Protecting the Paper Record of a Native People

Students, teachers, and parents of the Margaret Keating School, which is located on the Yurok Reservation, in northwestern California, were dining on the last school day before a holiday when they were presented with their new computer. Dr. Thomas Gates, head of the Cultural Department of the Yurok Tribe, rolled out a cart with the computer, still boxed, and discussed with the assembly the department's plans for the tribal archives Web site. The students showed interest in learning about using the computer for access to the Internet. The teachers were interested in finding out more about the tribal collections held in the archives.

 

Rare Old Nez Perce Documents Published

LEWISTON - Indian Agent James O´ Neill was trying to dodge the usual bureaucratic hoops and hang on to an increasingly shaky peace in Lapwai 135 years ago.

"The Indians (Nez Perce) are divided among themselves and the non- treaty side are using this argument, that the government will take their own time for fulfilling the stipulations of the new treaty as they have the one of June 1855 and they say possibly never pay them," he wrote to his superiors.

"They cannot or will not understand why, when their money is ready for them, that they cannot have the benefit of it, and I sincerely think that to continue putting them off and paying them in promises will result in serious difficulty."

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Native American Entertainers Seeking the Spotlight

Shan Redhouse-Baldwin grew up wondering why Native Americans on TV had blue eyes.

"We used to have a lot of questions for my mom," says Redhouse-Baldwin, 28, a Navajo who grew up in Arizona and Utah.

"They used to film Westerns in Monument Valley. They were right there on the reservation, and they still didn't use Native American (actors)."

 

Tribal Actors Found it Hard to be Stern

MISSION — Laughter fills the room where former cast members of two Hollywood films made in the 1950s gather to remember their brief acting careers and take a look at some still photographs taken during the filming.

Both films, "The Great Sioux Uprising"and "Pillars of the Sky,"were shown as part of a double feature Friday afternoon at the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute.

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Air Force-NAU Matchup 'a Bench Mark' for Navajo Players

FLAGSTAFF - The Navajo Nation's basketball-crazy fans routinely pack its field houses with upward of 5,000 fans. Its teams have dominated basketball among the midsize Arizona high schools in recent years.

But all that fervor and success have seldom translated into players for Division I-A basketball programs.

So tonight's 7:05 tip-off at Walkup Skydome between Northern Arizona University (7-4) and the Air Force Academy (5-6) has more than a little significance for the nation's largest Native American tribe.

 

Tuba City's Lamoni Yazzie – USAF Academy's Star Of The FALCONS

When Lamoni Yazzie was named team captain for the 2001-02 Air Force basketball team, he knew that it would mean more responsibility on and off the court. He also welcomed the challenge with open arms.

"It was a great honor to be named team captain,"said Yazzie. "I am really thankful for the opportunity to play another year and honored to be named captain. I owe a lot to Coach (Joe) Scott and his staff and it is a privilege to play for them."

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Montana State Student Compiles Crow Stories

In the way of the Crow, storytellers have passed down the traditions and history of the people word by word, from one generation to the next, since the beginnings of the tribe.

Phenocia Bauerle, a senior at Montana State University and an enrolled member of the Crow Tribe, has become a storyteller with a contemporary twist. She has edited a book of Crow stories that will be published next spring by a major scholastic press.

 

Elders Court Works to Save Troubled Village Teens

Emmonak -- A 16-year-old boy sits on a wooden bench before a court of elders, wiping away tears as he admits to drinking alcohol because he was angry with his parents.

The confession is not designed to elicit sympathy from a state magistrate. The boy has agreed to appear before a special court set up by the elders in his community.

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Reservation Scores a New Gym

PORTERVILLE -- "Without a vision, people perish," said former Harlem Globetrotters basketball great Meadowlark Lemon, as he stood on the court of the new $1.4 million, state-of-the-art gymnasium at the Tule River Indian Reservation last week.

"Today you have fulfilled a dream that you saw and said it was going to happen and it did," Lemon told an audience of more than 350 adults and children at the gym's dedication.

 

Hopi Athletics And Teachers Can Now Ride In Style To Long Distance Events

Polacca, Ariz. Hopi Junior/Senior High School received a nice Christmas gift. Auto Safety House from Phoenix last week delivered a luxurious travel bus to the school.

Hopi Junior/Senior High School purchased the top of the line travel bus that will be used to transport students on long distance athletic and academic trips.

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Former Tuba City High Grads Now Recruiting For Dartmouth

More and more Tuba City High School graduates are currently attending and graduating from Ivy League schools and two such representatives were here to recruit from the Honors pool at Tuba City High.

Former graduates of Tuba City District, Sophina Manheimer, Dartmouth sophomore, and Nicole Norris, Dartmouth junior gave presentations to Tuba City high academic achievers regarding Dartmouth’s longstanding commitment to educating native students.

 

Wichitan an Envoy for American Indians

Ponka-We Victors has spent a lifetime dancing the traditional steps of her American Indian ancestors.

Victors, 20, has learned the tongues of her Ponca and Tohono O'odham nations, and she knows the proud customs of her people.

In Spokane, Wash., in November, she earned an honor that she has dedicated to all those who taught her the Indian ways: the title of Miss National Congress of American Indians.

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Students to Learn Luiseno Language for Credit at Palomar

SAN MARCOS ---- Luiseno, a language indigenous to San Diego County and believed to be the first spoken here, will be taught for credit next year for the first time at Palomar College, the chair of the American Indian Studies department said on Wednesday.

If a fall offering in another native language, Cupeno, succeeds, it may also become part of the regular Palomar curriculum, said professor Linda Locklear.

 

On the Road to the Olympics

LEAD, S.D. – The list of Winter Olympic athletes for the Salt Lake Games of 2002 makes an obvious error – no American Indian athletes.

Consider that the fastest downhill skier in America, Ross Anderson, is Cheyenne and Arapaho. It doesn’t matter. His event isn’t included in the Olympics. He’s also the second fastest man in the world on skis at more than 173 miles per hour.

The Winter Olympics has not been an event that many young Native people have had an opportunity to explore and compete in at the lower levels of competition, until now.

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In Every Issue Banner

About This Issue's Greeting - "Yá'át'ééh Bina"

 

Navajo is an American Indian language spoken by between one hundred twenty and one hundred forty thousand people in the Southwestern United States.

Navajo is a member of the Athabaskan family of the Na-Dené group of languages. It is considered to be closely related to Apache

 

This Date In History

 

Recipe: Beaver

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Story: The Badger & the Bear

 

What is this: Badger

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Project: Tanning

 

This Issue's Web sites

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Opportunities

"OPPORTUNITIES" is gathered from sources distributed nationally and includes scholarships, grants, internships, fellowships, and career opportunities as well as announcements for conferences, workshops and symposia.

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  Canku Ota is a free Newsletter celebrating Native America, its traditions and accomplishments . We do not provide subscriber or visitor names to anyone. Some articles presented in Canku Ota may contain copyright material. We have received appropriate permissions for republishing any articles. Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monetary gain to those who have expressed an interest. This is in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.  
     
 

Canku Ota is a copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002 of Vicki Lockard and Paul Barry.

 

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