Spectacular long exposure photo of lightning strikes. Credit: n5mbm.net

At least three American Indian tribes in Oklahoma have sent representatives to the Houston area to help with Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.

Celebrating the culmination of a multi-year art experiment, Heritage Hotels threw open the doors on June 28th to 24 Native artist designed guest rooms at Nativo Lodge in Albuquerque for public viewing. In the past month, hotel visitors have had the pleasure to stay in any one of the rooms decorated with hotel walls beautified with Native designs.

Dr. Davis E. Henderson is leaving Pueblo Pintado, New Mexico, to take up his appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders at the University of Mississippi. He will be the first Navajo hired by the department and will join four other American Indians who serve on the faculty at Ole Miss.

Her name is Katsitsiase or Betty Brant.

I know her as Ista in Mohawk, that is Mother and she is such a wisdom keeper. Ista lost her partner/husband this past year and I lost my partner two years ago so it brought us closer I think! But the love that we both had and lived help us both in so many ways and that love grows in both of us for life, Creation, Mother Earth and our people all peoples!

"It is not a question of if our students will go to college; it is a question of which college they will attend," said Cindy Giago, Oglala Lakota, head of Anpo Wicahpi Pine Ridge Girls' School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Coconino Community College, in alliance with three other educational institutions, will be working to steer minority students into Science Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers.

The subject matter in this story is enough to make you cry. We're talking traditional crops, but not just any traditional crop, we're talking onions, Tohono O'odham tribal onions that flourish in the dry Sonoran desert of Southern Arizona where they go dormant through the arid months, but come alive in both summer and winter rainy seasons.

AISES Enrichment Camp Makes Science Fun

Ever eat a s'more made in a solar oven or fish with a robot-powered boat? That's what Eagle Butte students designed and engineered at the American Indian Science and Engineering Society's (AISES) Science and Engineering Enrichment Camp July 10-14, 2017 in South Dakota.

n picture books for children, talking bears outnumber Native Americans nine to one. According to data from the Cooperative Children's Book Center, a research library based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that gathers information on children's and young adult literature, major U.S. and Canadian presses in 2016 published a total of 3,400 children's books. Of those, only 35 were about Natives, or 1 percent.

As Ka-Voka Jackson knelt among the streams and wild plants of Arizona's Glen Canyon and tilled the earth with her hands, the UNLV student thought of the generations of Hualapai tribe ancestors who had done the same before her.

Out came the invasive ravenna grass weeds that had grown over the years, posing a wildfire risk as they squeeze out native plants central to the culture, religion, and history of Jackson's Native American forebears.

Dental Health Aide Therapist or DHAT programs were pioneered in the U.S. by the Alaska Native tribes in the early 2000s. Today the Swinomish Tribe in Washington also has a DHAT program and in Oregon, the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians welcomed their first Dental Health Aide Therapist in July.

A special collection of artifacts from a northern Manitoba hockey team made up of residential school survivors is headed to the Hockey Hall of Fame Museum in Toronto.

The items — including jerseys, banners and special memorabilia — from the Sagkeeng Oldtimers team are being donated by Darlene Ahmo, the daughter of team founder Walter Fontaine and manager Verna Fontaine.

Bleu Adams doesn't consider herself much of a "people person," which is why she knows she picked the wrong profession to be in — a profession she enjoys nonetheless.

Adams runs her own restaurant. She said she named her business after herself, calling it the "Black Sheep." With tattoos and a nose ring, she said she's always struggled to fit in.

Ojibwe culture is not matriarchal in the anthropological sense. We trace our clan affiliation through our fathers rather than our mothers. Traditionally our hereditary chiefs have been men.

Hearing these facts, an outsider might get the idea that Ojibwe women are not in the forefront of our communities. Even the thought of expressing such a notion to the strong Ojibwe women in my immediate family makes me shiver a bit with fear.

The 96th Annual Santa Fe Indian Market hosted by the Southwest Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) is over but the artists are still glowing from their awards and honors. Many are tired, some are taking time off as it is the end of a production cycle and the start of a new one. Others are still giddy and celebrating or thinking what the next piece will be. It’s all good.

Original beadwork, birch bark and textile artwork by five contemporary American Indian artists will be on display alongside the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) artifacts that inspired them, in the new exhibit "Renewing What They Gave Us: Native American Artists in Residence," Saturday, September 23, 2017-Sunday, April 22, 2018, at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The American poet Layli Long Soldier's debut collection, "Whereas," is in part a response to the Congressional resolution of apology to Native Americans, which President Obama signed in obscurity in 2009. There were no Native Americans present to receive the apology, as most never knew an apology was made. In an introduction to the title poem, Long Soldier writes: "My response is directed to the apology's delivery, as well as the language, crafting and arrangement of the written document."

A Seattle family has donated a valuable Chilkat robe to the Sealaska Heritage Institute in an effort to return it to its ancestral home and repatriate it to tribal people, SHI announced in a press release.

"These donors easily could have sold the robe for thousands of dollars to a private collector, and it would have been lost to us. Instead, the family elected to return it to the tribes," said Rosita Worl, Sealaska Heritage Institute president. "We believe the Chilkat robe is imbued with spiritual dimensions, and because of this noble family, we are welcoming an ancestor home."

Listen to an orca. Spend some time in a 1890s jail cell. Let artifacts and your imagination take you to major battlefields. Meet some pioneers of Northwest aviation. Get to know some of the best emerging Northwest Native artists.

All in one day.

New Mexican locals and visitors alike will have the rare opportunity to experience the complete collection of first edition prints by famed Santa Clara Pueblo artist Helen Hardin when her show "Spirit Lines" goes on display at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (IPCC) this fall. Hardin's work will be showcased in the center's newly-renovated South Gallery at 2401 12th St NW, Albuquerque from November 11, 2017, through March 4, 2018.