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

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January 2017 - Volume 15 Number 1
 
 
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"Wuneekeesuq"
The Wampanoag Greeting
Good Day
 
 


Narwhal (Monodon monoceros)

 
 
"Táan Kungáay"
Bear Hunting Moon
Haida
 
 
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"A Warrior is challenged to assume responsibility, practice humility, and display the power of giving, and then center his or her life around a core of spirituality. I challenge today's youth to live like a warrior."
~Billy Mills~
 
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We Salute
Ponca Elder 'Stands For Standing Rock'

She orders her coffee black and indulges in a thick slice of carrot cake, which she agrees would best be enjoyed outside near the fire pit blazing on the patio of this mid-town Tulsa coffee shop. Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca, has made the more than hour long drive south into the city from her rural home near Marland. She's here to talk about getting arrested, of all things, and to speak at a peaceful rally a little later downtown.
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Our Featured Artist: Honoring Students
New Kenojuak Cultural Centre Gets $100K Donation In Annie Pootoogook's Memory

As a personal tribute to the late Annie Pootoogook, the foundation that awarded her the Sobey Art Award in 2006 is donating $100,000 to help build Cape Dorset's proposed Kenojuak Cultural Centre and Print Shop.

 
NSU Names Corntassel 2017 Sequoyah Fellow

Dr. Jeff Corntassel, associate professor and director of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria, will be the Northeastern State University College of Liberal Arts 2017 Sequoyah Fellow.

The Sequoyah Fellow program provides an opportunity for NSU and the College of Liberal Arts to recognize an outstanding scholar in the field of Native American studies.

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Our Featured Story: First Person History:

Honoring Corn Mother

There is one Supreme Being of power and wisdom, the Chief above, Nishanu Natchitak. He rules the world. But he made Mother Corn intermediary with human beings on earth.

At the time of the beginning, there were no living creatures of any kind in the light of the sun on the lap of mother earth. All were still covered beneath her bosom. All creatures were striving and doing their best, each in its own way, but they all met difficulties and obstacles, which were hard to overcome.

 

History of the
Ottawa and Chippewa Indians
of Michigan

Chapter Ten
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News and Views Banner
Education News Education News
Saginaw Chippewa Academy Students Take To The Stage For "An Anishinaabe Carol"

The Anishinaabe Bimaadiziwin kinomaage ininiwag (teacher men) Aaron Chivis, Nathan Isaac, Joe Syrette, Matthew J. "Cubby" Sprague and James Day, and kinomaage kwe Cecilia Stevens collaborated on the script and translations for the program.

Day served as emcee for the event and Melissa Montoya, tribal education director, welcomed parents and community members.

 

 
Sealaska Heritage Institute Releases 6 Children's Books

As part of its Baby Raven Reads program, Sealaska Heritage Institute released six culturally-based children's books that reflect the Native worldview.

Included is a three-book set derived from ancient creation stories that have been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. The set includes Raven and the Box of Daylight, Raven Brings us Fire, and Origins of Rivers and Streams. The books were adapted from oral histories by Pauline Duncan and illustrated by Lindsay Carron.

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Education News Education News
Glenna Halliwill Teaches The Art Of Fry Bread Making At Seventh Generation Workshop

Glenna Halliwill received a "Fry Bread Queen" apron from Sheila and Tonia Leaureaux at Gun Lake's Powwow, and on Dec. 12, she put it to use when she taught Seventh Generation's Fry Bread Workshop.

"When I was asked if I would be willing to teach the class, I kind of laughed. I didn't think many people would sign up, but the class was full within two hours, and it had twice as many people as I thought," Halliwill said.

 
Head Start Powwow Brings Families And Community Together To The Beat Of The Drum

Little moccasins stomped to the beat of the drum during the 41st annual Head Start Powwow. Families were treated to music, dancing, and an Indian taco feed at the Ronan Event Center. "Our goal is to celebrate the children," said Early Childhood Services' Cultural Coordinator Myrna Dumontier. "It's their powwow."

"We Are Grateful" was the theme of this year's powwow. "We are grateful for the healing that comes in being unified, striving for health and wellness," Dumontier said. "Our families growing stronger and our elders being honored and respected."

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Education News Education News
Indigenous Biology

Before presenting this information, I would like to apologize to tribal elders for speaking on things of a sacred nature as a young person. I am still learning. However, I speak these words respectfully, abiding by protocol, and in a good way. I hope to build on what Western science teaches the public by using their tenets and vernacular to show readers how Indigenous knowledge can help society protect Mother Earth and all life here.

My grandmother told many stories. They were often ancestral instructions, although I didn’t realize it at the time.

 
Kapua Sproat Named Associate Director Of Ka Huli Ao Center For Excellence In Native Hawaiian Law

Kapua‘ala Sproat has been named Associate Director of the Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law. The Center, headquartered at the William S. Richardson School of Law, specializes in teaching and producing scholarship about Hawaii's unique culturally based legal framework.

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Education News Education News
Experiences To Last A Lifetime

From cataloging the Oneida Nation Library's collections to handling a variety of retail tasks at local SavOns, those enrolled in the Oneida Indian Nation's Youth Work Learn (YWL) program had a very productive summer. The YWL program, established more than 20 years ago, has provided Oneida and American Indian youth an introduction to the professional world placing youth into various settings during a six-week period.

"Ever since I was a little girl I loved reading and I love books," said Sadie Shenandoah-Stanford (Wolf Clan). As such, Sadie jumped at the chance to help librarian Kathy Sochia with several tasks during the summer program. "This program really helps prepare you for the real world. I'm learning skills I would need for a job. I'm going to have experience."

 
Sitting Bull College
Master's Program
First In North Dakota

Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D., has paved the way for master's degree programs at North Dakota tribal colleges — its latest program focuses on studies on water quality.

SBC Agriculture Division Director Gary Halvorson said SBC is the first tribal college to offer a master's degree in the state and, to Halvorson's knowledge, the first nationwide to offer it in the sciences. The tribal college of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe was started in 1973.

 

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Preserving Language Living Traditions

See One Woman's Amazing Project To Save A Vanishing Native American Language

As a direct result of colonization, many indigenous languages throughout the Americas have disappeared or are in danger of doing so. In the US alone, there are 130 endangered Native American languages. Among them is the Wukchumni language, spoken by the Yokuts of California. There is just one remaining fluent speaker: Marie Wilcox, who is fighting to keep Wukchumni alive.his short film, directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee for Go Project Films, is dedicated to her. In the film, Wilcox says that she stopped speaking Wukchumni when her grandmother died. However, when she heard her sisters trying to teach their daughters, she started to go back to it word for word. Over the course of seven years, she and her daughter, Jennifer, worked on making a Wukchumni dictionary.

 
Osage Nation Museum Receives Large Donation From Assistant Principal Chief Of The Osage Nation, Raymond Red Corn

Hallie Winter, Curator at the Osage Nation Museum, announced today the largest gift of photographic material in the museum’s 78-year history: Approximately 1,000 photographs and documents related to Osage history donated by Osage Nation’s Assistant Principal Chief, Raymond W. Red Corn. Red Corn said “I want to dedicate this collection to the memory of my parents, Raymond Red Corn Jr. and Waltina. My father had a collection of Ho-ta-moie photographs and rare 1895 stereoviews of Pawhuska, which he gave me, forming the core of this collection. I hope people enjoy seeing these photographs as much as I enjoyed collecting them.

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Preserving Language Living Traditions
Tuba City Primary School Honors Navajo Language Student Achievement

Students gathered with their parents, grandparents, teachers and community members Dec. 10 in the Tuba City Primary School cafeteria for a traditional meal to celebrate tribal language fluency in classroom programs that are part of the students' daily academic work.

Navajo language instructors Royd Lee, Ella Bedonie, and Violet Tso make sure their students have a daily lesson in the Navajo language using conversation, color and number identification, questions and descriptions of things they see every day.

 
Osage Nation Wins Competitive Award To Help With Smart Growth America

Osage Nation’s work to make our community a more attractive destination has helped us win a national competitive award.

Smart Growth America—a national nonprofit that advocates for better cities, towns, and neighborhoods—announced today that Osage Nation is among 6 winning communities that will receive a free foundation for smart growth technical assistance workshop in 2017. Through the program, Osage Nation and the city of Pawhuska will receive hands-on assistance from national experts on Smart Growth 101.

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A Poem   A Pledge
One Poem

Here, the sentence will be respected.

I will compose each sentence with care by minding what the rules of writing dictate.

For example, all sentences will begin with capital letters.

Likewise, the history of the sentence will be honored by ending each one with appropriate punctuation such as a period or question mark, thus bringing the idea to (momentary) completion.

You may like to know, I do not consider this a “creative piece.”

In other words, I do not regard this as a poem of great imagination or a work of fiction.

Also, historical events will not be dramatized for an interesting read.

Therefore, I feel most responsible to the orderly sentence; conveyor of thought.

That said, I will begin:

You may or may not have heard about the Dakota 38.

 
Daily Pledge

Today is going to be a great day.

I thank the Creator for waking me up today.

I’m going to school so I can learn, go to college, and be the leader that the Creator has made me to be.

Today I will be empowered by my teachers, with the tools to be successful within my village and throughout the country.

I will apply myself daily. I study and ask questions when I don’t understand.

When I’m confronted with a problem or conflict, I think before I react.

I will ignore all negative influences in the classroom and throughout the school day.

I’m extremely proud to be the next generation of Hopi and Tewa leaders.

I accept responsibility and I love the challenge.
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Education News   Honoring
Saginaw Chippewa Academy Students Take To The Stage For "An Anishinaabe Carol"

Saginaw Chippewa Academy pre-K through sixth grade students took to the Soaring Eagle Entertainment Hall stage on Dec. 14 for the school's winter program, "An Anishinaabe Carol."

The Anishinaabe Bimaadiziwin kinomaage ininiwag (teacher men) Aaron Chivis, Nathan Isaac, Joe Syrette, Matthew J. "Cubby" Sprague and James Day, and kinomaage kwe Cecilia Stevens collaborated on the script and translations for the program.

 
Chickasaw Veterans Lay Wreath At
Tomb Of The Unknowns

Chickasaw warriors laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery Nov. 10 to honor veterans who have made the ultimate sacrifice defending freedom.

Four retired Chickasaw veterans represented their tribe at the national shrine. They included Vietnam veteran and Hank Cease (USMC), of Goose Creek, S.C.; 30-year veteran George Riddle (USA) of Yuma, Ariz.; 21-year veteran Danny Landreth (USN), of Ardmore, Okla.; and Lee Jennings (USAF), of Marlow, Okla., who served in World War II and the Korean War.
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Caring   Preserving Language
Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe Building New $13M Clinic

A clinic featuring medical, dental, behavioral and vision services will serve hundreds of members of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe and students from a federally operated boarding school when it opens its doors in mid-2017 after several years of planning and a $13 million investment from the tribe.

That investment by the tribe in the eastern part of the state is part of an agreement with the federal government, allowing the tribe to manage its own health care services and bypass some of the bureaucracy of the long-struggling Indian Health Service.

 
Hopi Language Learning And Teaching Material Available At Mesa Media, Inc.

Mesa Media Inc. will have some new Hopi Lavayi products available to purchase in time for the holiday season; 2017 Hopi Calendar, one of five tiny books, Hopi alphabet coloring book, Hopi word cloud posters, and a Hopi Language application.

Mesa Media Inc. President Anita Poleahla said the Hopi calendar is in its third print; the 2017 calendar includes 28 color pages, moon phases, most major holidays and character traits for each month.
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Learing from the Past   Learning from the Past
Paint Rock Pictographs Show Lipan Apache History

The legends of the Lipan Apache tell of emergence places, sacred ceremonies and the mythic heroes and monsters that fought in the underworld.

Remnants of these stories, told in vibrant pictures, appear in Paint Rock, Texas, where a 70-foot cliff on privately owned land contains 1,500 pictographs. The pictures stretch for a half-mile on limestone walls on the banks of the Concho River.

The site, called "significant" by the archaeologists who study it, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. But this place holds personal significance to Bernard Barcena, chairman of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. This is where Barcena traces his legacy

 
Canyon De Chelly: Stunning Views And A Window Into Ancient Lives

It has been inhabited contiguously for nearly 5,000 years, is the only National Monument owned by the Navajo Nation, and contains thousands of archaeological sites.

Yet next to its cousins—the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion national parks, and Monument Valley Park on the Navajo Reservation, where so many westerns have been filmed—Canyon De Chelly often gets overlooked by people visiting the Southwest. All are wonderful inclusions for any vacation, but Canyon De Chelly offers an identity unlike anything the others offer, and it's also part of the Navajo Reservation.

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Education News   Honoring
Chippewa Cree Baller Jaden Stanley, Bringing Game To Air Force Academy

Jaden Stanley is an unusually driven 17-year-old. This Chippewa-Cree basketball star and rez baller has got science on his mind and NBA shooting guard on his Facebook page as an occupation.

With such a work ethic, the NBA is a definite possibility for this high-achiever. The 6-foot-5 guard, who carries a 3.92 GPA at Discovery High School in Lawrenceville, Georgia, received a full scholarship to play basketball at the Air Force Academy next season.

He was raised on the Rocky Boy Reservation, but in order to take his game to the next level, he chose to leave Montana, and the rez behind for the suburbs of Atlanta.

 
U.S. Mint To Honor Sequoyah On Native American $1 Coin

The United States Mint will honor Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee Syllabary, on the reverse side of the 2017 Native American $1 coin, which continues to feature Shoshone guide Sacajawea on the front.

The reverse (tails side) design features a profile of Sequoyah writing “Sequoyah from Cherokee Nation” in syllabary along the border of the design. Inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” “$1” and “Sequoyah” written in English in the field of the design. Having Sequoyah grace the U.S. dollar coin is a wonderful national recognition for our tribe’s renowned statesmen and creator of the Cherokee syllabary. Last year, the flip side of the Sacajawea dollar was a tribute to American Indian code talkers, and this year builds on the foundation of honoring the Indian people who have played a critical role in shaping our great country.
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Education News   Education News
NSU Names Corntassel 2017 Sequoyah Fellow

Dr. Jeff Corntassel, associate professor and director of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria, will be the Northeastern State University College of Liberal Arts 2017 Sequoyah Fellow.

The Sequoyah Fellow program provides an opportunity for NSU and the College of Liberal Arts to recognize an outstanding scholar in the field of Native American studies .During their fellowship year, recipients are given the opportunity to share their expertise with the NSU community. Past Sequoyah Fellows include former Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller, Cherokee Nation Senior Policy Advisor Dr. Neil Morton and University of Arkansas Dean of Law Stacy Leeds.

 
Native Actors Provide Own Brand Of Humor In Menominee College Plays

Two plays, N.A.P.S. and Shinnob Jep, were performed on Wednesday, Dec. 7, at the College of Menominee College in Keshena. A second performance was offered on Friday, Dec. 9, at the Norbert Hill Center in Oneida.

One of the main actors in Shinnob Jep was Jamie Funmaker, a Ho-Chunk member who is attending classes at the college, who played Al Treebark, a role that resembles Alex Trebek on the show Jeopardy.

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Education News   Education News
Joy, Healing At T-Shirt Giveaway

The little kiddos at Grandview Early Learning Center had a bit of early Christmas gift-receiving fun on Dec. 7 when James Rideout and his sister Lisa Earl visited the school with a free T-shirt for every student. And these were no ordinary T-shirts – the front bears an original Coast Salish design of two salmon in a yin-and-yang formation in the cycle of life, artwork donated by Warrior Brand Clothing Company and created by James Rideout and Warrior Brand owner Gordon Murphy. On the back of the T-shirts, the words “Water Is Life” in English and Lushootseed provide a timely and important message. Thus, the giveaway was of cultural significance as well, which was highlighted every time James Rideout and Lisa Earl taught the children how to pronounce the Lushootseed word on their T-shirts.
 
Wyandotte Nation Donates $100,000 To Wyandotte Public Schools

Wyandotte Public Schools received a benevolent donation from the Wyandotte Nation on Tuesday: A check for $100,000 to help aid the blow from crippling state budget cuts.

The tribe's Board of Directors and Chief Billy Friend presented the check to superintendent of Wyandotte Public Schools, Troy Gray and the school board at the Tribal Administration Building

.Friend said the tribe has stayed informed on how the state cuts have impacted local public school systems and wanted to lend a helping hand to its community partner.

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In Every Issue Banner
About This Issue's Greeting -'Wuneekeesuq'
"Good Day" is 'Wuneekeesuq' in Wampanoag.
Wuneekeesuq (pronounced similar to wuh-nee-kee-suck) is a friendly greeting that means "Good day!"

The Massachusett language is an Algonquian language of the Algic language family, formerly spoken by several tribes inhabiting coastal regions of Massachusetts, including Cape Cod and the Islands. It was also commonly referred to as the Natick, Wômpanâak (Wampanoag), Pokanoket, or Indian language.
Nature's Beauty:
Narwhal
 
This Issue's
Favorite Web sites
 
A Story To Share:
The Little People And The Greedy Hunters
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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 - 2016 of Vicki Williams Barry and Paul Barry.
 

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