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Canku Ota
(Many Paths)
An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America

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October 2013 - Volume 11 Number 10
 
 
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"Manahoo "
Paiute

"Welcome"
 
 


Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis )

 
 
"Cawapekasna wi"
Moon when the wind shakes off the leaves
Lakota
 
 
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"Remember to live a good life, and do good things with each day that you are given. Help each other and encourage each other to be good people. "
~Joseph Flying Bye~
 
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We Salute
Diane J. Humetewa

Responding to widespread requests from tribal leaders and Indian legal advocates, President Barack Obama has nominated a Native American to serve on the federal bench.

The president announced September 19 that Diane J. Humetewa is a nominee for the U.S. District Court for Arizona. She is a Hopi citizen, and from 2002 to 2007 she served as an appellate court judge for the Hopi Tribe Appellate Court.

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Our Featured Artist: Honoring Students
Native American Artist Teaches Heritage to Local Students

Toma Villa was a kid playing in an Oklahoma storm tunnel when a friend first handed him a can of spray paint. In the '90s, his family moved to southeast Portland's Mt. Scott neighborhood, and he rarely put the can down, spending his time on the streets tagging buildings and train cars.

Villa recounts this time matter-of-factly. "It's just how I grew up," he says. "Everyone grew up with graffiti over here. Everyone had their own little tag name."

 
Fruits and Vegetables Abound at Indian Wells Elementary

Over the last four years, Indian Wells Elementary School students have eaten approximately $70,000 worth of fruit and vegetables.

For the fifth year in a row, the United States Department of Agriculture selected Indian Wells Elementary to receive the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.

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Our Featured Story: Northwestern Wisconsin First Person History:
Sneed Named NIEA Teacher of the Year

Cherokee High School auto mechanics teacher Richard Sneed has been selected by the National Indian Education Association as the Classroom Teacher of the Year. Sneed was selected from a national pool of thousands of Native educators across the country teaching at all levels from elementary through college.

 
Autobiography of
Black Hawk

Part 2
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News and Views Banner
Changing Times Healthy Living
Oneida Indian Nation Launches "Change the Mascot" Ad Campaign Against D.C.'s NFL Team

The Oneida Indian Nation today announced a new advertising campaign to urge Washington, D.C.'s professional football team to change its name. The first ads will air on sports radio in Washington, D.C. in advance of Washington's season opening game against the Philadelphia Eagles. As the first radio spot notes, the National Football League's Commissioner Roger Goodell was right to recently condemn an Eagles player's usage of a racial epithet.

During a recent interview with ESPN Radio about Riley Cooper's offensive remarks, Commissioner Goodell said, "Obviously we stand for diversity and inclusion. Comments like that, they are obviously wrong, they are offensive and they are unacceptable. There is no one that feels stronger about that than the NFL, our teams and our players."

 
Dennis Banks to Lead 18,000 Mile "Declare War on Diabetes" Motorcycle Run in 2014

Dennis Banks, 77, a cofounder of the American Indian Movement, has announced a 18,000 mile motorcycle run across America with hundreds of American Indians participating to "declare war on diabetes."

His announcement was distributed through a news release Sunday from his foundation, the Nowa Cuming Institute. The news release states:

"The Nowa Cuming Institute has issued a Declaration of War on Diabetes."
"Diabetes is at an epidemic state in Indian country and must be halted,"

said Banks, who was diagnosed with diabetes four years ago and has reversed his diabetes through a strong diet.

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Preserving Culture Preserving Cultures
Three Named
Cherokee National Treasures

hree Cherokee artists were honored as Cherokee National Treasures this year before the Cherokee National Holiday during Labor Day weekend.

One is a talented painter. One is a beadwork artist who brought Southeast beadwork back to the Cherokee people, and the other is a river cane flute maker and cultural specialist.

 
Glenwood Springs "Sweats" Attempt to Revive Ute Indian Culture

A member of the Ute Indian Tribe is holding traditional sweats in Glenwood Springs in an effort to keep his culture alive. Each month, Kenny Frost takes a small group into the depths of a cave warmed by natural hot springs. The cave is where his ancestors came to heal. And, he hopes his sweats bring back to life a culture that's losing its traditions quickly. Aspen Public Radio's Marci Krivonen reports.

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Preserving Culture Healthy Living
'Jonesy' Leaves Readers Jonesing For More

Sheep mean a lot to the Navajo people and in a unique way of showing their importance, Navajo illustrator Jonathan Nelson has created a comic book about the modern life of a sheep living on the Navajo Nation.

 
Chili Cook-Off Emphasizes Healthy Ingredients

When it comes to chili, these women knew what to do as they put their personal recipes to the ultimate test during the Utah Navajo Fair Chili Cook-off on Sept. 13.

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Living Traditions Preserving Language
Warhol's Cowboys And Indians At Oregon Tribal Museum

This month, a tribal museum in Pendleton is going Pop Art. Tamastslikt Cultural Institute is the place that celebrates Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla tribal culture. But right now it's exhibiting a series of Andy Warhol panels, in a collection entitled "Cowboys and Indians". This is one of several events the museum planned to mark a milestone.

 
Oklahoma Standards For Native American Language Instructors Changed

Desa Dawson, director of World Language Education for the state of Oklahoma, told attendees of the 3rd Annual Dhegiha Gathering at the Cherokee Nation Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Aug. 6-7, that Oklahoma is on their side when it comes to preserving Native American languages.

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Education News

Preserving Language

The Little Earth Red Bears Baseball Team Wins Big

The Little Earth Red Bears won the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board Youth Baseball League Championship this summer in the 10 Year Old And Under division. In celebration of the team's success, Little Earth of United Tribes (Little Earth) hosted an awards banquet on Aug. 7 at the Little Earth Neighborhood Early Learning Center.

 
Ojibway Language Tutor? There's An App For That

An app for smartphones and tablets is breathing new life into aboriginal languages.

"It helps them …how to say the words through the audio," said Darrick Baxter, president, Ogiki Learning Systems, which is based in Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation, located 165 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

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Healthy Living Living Traditions
Touring Hopi Via A 10K Running Race At Dawn

I run. And I weep. My tears may come from the fact that it’s 6 a.m., or perhaps from the burning in legs and lungs as I try to hold the pace of the leaders. But I’m pretty sure my sobs come from a deep joy inspired by the way the rising sun lights up the ancient buildings of Old Oraibi on a mesa distant, and the way it does so at the very moment that gravel road gives way to a narrow rain-dampened trail. This trail, I imagine, has been trod for centuries by runners vying against one another, or heading off to distant farms to tend to the corn. My 97 fellow runners and I, it seems, have transcended time.

 
Cherokee Artist Boney Jr. Showing Work In Solo Exhibit

A special solo exhibition of contemporary art including paintings, drawings and mixed media art created by Cherokee artist Roy Boney Jr. is on display through Sept. 21 at the Rosemary Ellison Gallery inside the Southern Plains Indian Museum.

Boney is a full-blood citizen of the Cherokee Nation and works for the CN Education Services as language technology specialist. He has won awards and honors for his art and has exhibited across the country and internationally, including Art en Capital Salon du Dessin et de la Peinture à l'Eau held in the historic Grand Palais in Paris, France.

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Preserving Culture   A History Lesson

Piki Bread: Food, Art and Tradition

Blue-corn flour, cream-colored with specks of purple, rests in a white plastic bowl in the kitchen of departed elders, where Joyce and Morgan Saufkie sip coffee. Joyce is up early on a warm Friday to greet visitors and to bake piki bread for them.

With her are granddaughter Maria Saufkie and Maria's boyfriend, Julian. Morgan says a quick hello, greeting the visitors with a careful eye, and repairs to a sunny window seat in the front room near Joyce's basket-weaving. Morgan and Joyce have been married 58 years.

 
Native History: A Treaty, A Peach Tree Murder and A Squirrel Smackdown

In the original documents of the New York area, Natives were referred to only as barbarians, savages or heathens. Settlers made constant complaints of livestock stolen by Natives, or encroachment on now Dutch property that had been their homeland for more than a millennium.

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Healthy Living   A History Lesson
Awesome Aztec Superfood Is Also Beautiful in Your Garden

"What are we going to do with that?" was my first thought when my husband Andy said he had planted amaranth in our garden. I'd see amaranth in health food stores before, and I knew it was a grain, but I had no idea how to harvest it or what we would do when it was harvested.

 
Whitestone Hill 150 Years Later,
1863-2013

The wind blew in gusts across the vast open plains. The Dakota and Lakota people who have lived here for millennia are people of the stars, and some of them say too that they are people of the wind. The wind isn't just the defining characteristic of prairie life, but a part of the indigenous culture.

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Education News   Living Traditions
Educational Book on Traditional Wild Rice Gathering Now Available

The Saginaw Chippewa Tribe’s Environmental Department is pleased to announce the release of a book entitled, “Manoomini-miikaans –The Wild Rice Road.”

 

Young Beauties In Aged Feathers

The contestants at the Junior American Indian Beauty Contest on Thursday may have been young, but the dresses many of them were wearing weren't.

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A History Lesson   A Poem
Pop Quiz:
10 Basic Constitution Questions!

Can you pass a 10-question quiz on the Constitution? Let’s see if you know the basic facts about our nation’s most enduring document.

 
Four Candidates Campaigning To Be Next NCAI President

Want to know what the next president of the National Congress of American Indians will be like? Take a look at the pace of the candidates in the weeks leading to NCAI’s convention and election.

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In Every Issue Banner
About This Issue's Greeting - "Manahoo"
 
The Paiutes, along with the Great Basin peoples "speak languages in the Numic group of the large Uto-Aztecan family of languages. The Uto-Aztecan language family in many parts of the Southwest and go through Mexico and all the way down to South America.
Nature's Beauty:
Red-tailed Hawk
 
A Story To Share:
Eagle and Red Tail
 
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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 - 2013 of Vicki Williams Barry and Paul Barry.
 

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