Canku Ota - August 10, 2002

	Canku Ota
	(Many Paths)
	An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America
	August 10 , 2002 - Issue 67


	*"Mique Wush Tagooven"*
	The Ute Greeting
	"Hello, My Friend"


	"TSENEAGA"
	Dog Days
	Yuchi

"After we get back to our country it will brighten up again, the Navajo will be as happy as the land, black clouds will rise and there will be plenty of rain. Corn will grow in abundance and everything will look happy." Barboncito, Navajo Head Chief

We Salute
Rudy Rojas

His brown skin baked in the intense heat, his gaze focused on the glow of the white-hot rocks and his ears attuned to the gourd rattles and prayer chants of the sun dancers.

In the darkness, a message resonated from the fiber of Rudy Rojas' soul. His spirit self spoke: "You're learning your culture – get involved with it."

Before that sweat lodge ceremony, Rojas was a "surfer trapped in a business suit," spinning his wheels, working at an advertising agency.

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

Artist:
Martha Redbone

Nominated for four Native American Music Awards, singer/songwriter Martha Redbone has been described by Billboard Magazine's Larry Flick as "a true original; the kind of artist who sets trends, as opposed to following them". She grew up in New York and Kentucky. An unlikely combination that you can hear in her flow: the staccato melodies of the city, mixed with the easy, wide-open praise song of a country choir. Martha Redbone was mentored by legendary musician, Walter 'Junie' Morrison, who was an original member of the Ohio Players and later, Parliament Funkadelic. Now a kid sister to the funk, she even sang backup vocals on the Mothership reunion album with George Clinton.

Totem Pole Will Return to Alaska

A totem pole that has played a colorful role in University of Northern Colorado history since 1914 will return to its Alaska home this fall.

The Tlingit Indians crafted the Brown Bear Totem, which UNC students know as Totem Teddy.

The totem pole mysteriously disappeared from Angoon, Alaska, in 1908.

Six years later, it appeared at UNC — a gift from U.S. Commissioner of Education for Alaska Andrew Thompson, an 1897 UNC alumnus.

Thunderhawk The Legend of the Dragon’s Tail - Part 1 by Geoff Hampton Writer Geoff Hampton shares this story that should delight both young and old.		10 Ways to Fight Hate A project by Southern Poverty Law Center In the next issues of Canku Ota, we are going to share ideas with you about learning and teaching tolerance. Perhaps this will inspire you to come up with your own ideas to share.

News and Views Banner

Caddo Grandmothers Nurturing Tribe BINGER -- Tribal politics have changed dramatically from those days when male Caddo elders conducted business under a big shade tree. The tree remains standing. The men aren't -- at least not in the tribe's modern council chambers. The men have scattered to the four winds, leaving the tribe in the hands of five elder women, or as they prefer to be known, the "Caddo grandmothers."		Educators Stress Traditional Knowledge Venetie elder Maggie Roberts summed up the essence of education in just a a few words. "What we remember, we have to pass it on," she said Wednesday, speaking to a gathering of more than 30 educators during the opening day of the Association of Interior Native Educators annual conference at the Chena River Convention Center.

Gwich'in Clothing Made to 19th Century Order Women from five N.W.T. communities have finished a labor of love ... and culture. They've been sewing five traditional Gwich'in tunics over the last year and a half. Some of the women have travelled far; many of them spent weeks away from home. They're from Inuvik, Aklavik, Fort McPherson, Tsiigehtchic and Yellowknife.		Totem Pole Will Carry Blessings to New York In Northwest tribal cultures, grief is a burden not to be carried alone. And so it seemed natural, tribal members say, for the Lummi Nation to help the larger nation share the burden of grief after Sept. 11. Lummi master carvers have crafted a healing totem pole they will take across the country this month, with ceremonial stops along the way to seek healing prayers, blessings and songs of elders from at least 25 tribes. The pole will then be given in New York to the families of victims of the terrorist attacks.

Navajo Student Values Washington Experience WASHINGTON, DC - She is only going to be a high school junior, but that did not stop Lucille A. Woodie from taking advantage of spending a summer in Washington. After completing her sophomore year of high school in May, Woodie decided she needed to experience life beyond the Navajo reservation. She packed her bags and headed to Alexandria, Va., to spend the summer with her brother and sister-in-law. After considering several different places to work, Executive Director Michelle Brown-Yazzie hired Woodie as a high school summer intern at the Navajo Nation Washington Office. It was an offer Woodie was not about to pass up.		Navajo Nation Awards Students Chief Manuelito Scholarships FARMINGTON The Navajo Nation presented 64 Navajo youths each with a $7,000 college scholarship during its 2002 Chief Manuelito Awards Ceremony held Friday at the Courtyard Marriott. This is the 22nd year the scholarships have been awarded. Graduating high school seniors had to maintain a grade point average of 3.0 or a B, or have scored 21 or higher on the ACT exam in order to apply for the award. They also had to take a Navajo language and Navajo government class. The students, who must be at least one-quarter Navajo, can apply each year as long as they maintain a 3.0 average with 12 college-credit courses each semester, for an additional $7,000 scholarship.

Longboat Left Great Legacy for Native Athletes Winnipeg will host the North American Indigenous Games this summer. These games are held every two years, alternating in venues in the United States and Canada. Today's competitors also look to our past at the great athletes who broke the trail, and one of the greatest was Tom Longboat. His name draws immediate respect in Indian Country. Annually, the top aboriginal amateur athlete in Canada receives the Tom Longboat award and his name lives on.		History Too Important to Let Slip Away Coeur d'Alene _ Once, Beatrice Miles and her husband gave away their stories of Indian life, and authors and historians from across the country carried them away. But the interviews sometimes took hours and eventually the couple began charging for the stories. At her last sitting with historians three years ago, Miles charged $200. "They were surprised," said the 86-year-old Miles, one of the oldest members of Idaho's Nez Perce tribe. "In the beginning, they got the stories for free."

Paddle to Quinault 2002 Under Way TAHOLAH - Hundreds of years ago, just about everyone here was familiar with the quiet slurping sound that paddles make as you slice them through the ocean waters. It was a common sight to see cedar canoes filled with tribal members who sang as they propelled themselves forward, drawing strength in song during the long hours spent navigating the Washington coast.		For Quinault Indian Women, Weaving Really is a Labor of Love TAHOLAH - When Quinault Indian Nation women weave cedar bark, sweet grass or other gifts borrowed from nature, their creations take on a life of their own. "You have to have good thoughts when you weave, because those thoughts will go into what you make," said Alaina Capoeman, of the Quinault Indian Nation. "I try to think about who I'm making it for."

Read for Life Scholarships ST. PAUL, Minn., June 17 /PRNewswire/ -- IndiVisual Learning, LLC, a leading provider of engaging academic intervention programs, in co-sponsorship with Hewlett-Packard, announced today that it will award two $25,000 'Read for Life' scholarships to two deserving public, private, charter or parochial schools throughout the country. Schools must demonstrate financial need, or a high ESL, ELL or LEP population and a staff dedicated to working with technology-based education solutions. Each 'Read for Life' Scholarship includes a wireless mobile lab with five in-class computer based reading workstations and three years of unlimited student use of IndiVisual Reading.		Intertribal Agriculture Council Scholarship Program The IAC Scholarship Program was developed to encourage students with demonstrated scholastic ability to seek higher education programs in agriculture and natural resources. We have focused on building a funding base for the program as well as having auctions, raffling horses and seeking funding from corporations and private business. The Board of Directors also amended the charter by obligating all corporate dues paid to the IAC to the Scholarship Program. It is the intent of the scholarship program to continue to award $300 per semester to the selected students until they receive a Bachelor of Science Degree, providing they maintain full-time enrollment and a 2.0 grade point average. In addition, the IAC is working to increase the scholarship fund to a point where full scholarships can be offered.

"Once Again Mission of Love Foundation Makes Dreams Come True on Pine Ridge"

My name is Richie Plass. I am a Menominee, Stockbridge/Munsee Indian from the Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. I have lived in Warren, Ohio since May of 2000. On May 15, 2002 I was honored to be part of "The Mission of Love Foundation" group of volunteers who went to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to build an addition onto an existing home and build another home from the ground up for two families. What follows are my observations, words and feelings of this trip/project. Normally pictures would accompany an article like this, but I have chosen to try and "paint images in thought and words" for everyone. I will do this with poems I wrote while I was on this trip.

In Every Issue Banner

About This Issue's Greeting - "Mique Wush Tagooven"

The Ute Indians ranged across much of the northern Colorado Plateau beginning at least 2000 years B.P. (before present). The very name �Ute,� from which the name of the state of Utah was derived, means "high land" or "land of the sun." The Ute language, Southern Numic, belongs to the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages shared by most of the Great Basin tribes. The Utes, however, included mountain-dwellers as well as desert nomads

This Date In History		Recipe: Salsa

Story: How the Buffalo Were Released on Earth		What is this: Killdeer

Project: The Beading Loom The Box Loom		This Issue's Web sites


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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Crow Camp Merges Past, Future FORT SMITH - When fire threatened to cancel the camp for 130 students on the Crow Reservation, camp director Lanny Real Bird didn't flinch. Real Bird, along with other administrators, teachers and elders dedicated to preserving the tribe's traditions, had worked too long to give up. So they moved the important two-week camp from the Big Horn Mountains to Fort Smith and the camp began as planned.		Native's Making the Grade Wisconsin's first public school was opened in 1828 by a Stockbridge-Munsee Indian named Electa Quinney, who brought the New England concept of a free school with her when the government moved her Mohican tribe from New York to Wisconsin. Quinney taught in a one-room school in Kaukauna where Indian and white students, most of them poor, could learn together. It was a strong start, but two centuries later, Wisconsin's 12,311 American Indian students lag behind their white classmates by nearly every measure: