Black Swallowtail Butterfly - Papilio polyxenes

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Blackfoot/Sámi) from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada is the 2018 recipient of the Sundance Institute Merata Mita Fellowship—an annual fellowship named in honor of the late Maori filmmaker Merata Mita (1942-2010). The announcement was delivered today at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Maiyah King was just a toddler when she first started drawing with her grandmother.

"She always wanted me to draw elephants," said Lori Wilson, her grandmother. "I don't know how many thousands of elephants I drew. But as a two-year-old she got into drawing. We would draw for hours on end." Today, Maiyah, 14, still draws but has moved from crayons to acrylic paint. Her artistic skills are now taking her to New York City for a weeklong artist in residency program at one of the most prestigious art schools in the country, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

The American Indian College Fund and the Coca Cola Foundation honored 35 American Indian scholarship recipients at its 2017-18 Coca-Cola First Generation Scholarship banquet at the American Indian Higher Education Consortium Student Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Mitch Walking Elk and his students are unlikely Vatican visitors. But if all goes as planned, they will meet with Vatican officials in May with a plea: "Rescind the historic papal decrees that justified the domination of native peoples."

At the March 12 Tribal Council meeting, Principal Chief Bill John Baker signed into law a $10,000 pay increase for 45 certified teachers at the Cherokee Immersion Charter School and Sequoyah High School.

There's a new class in Yorkton, Sask., for First Nation students that's laying a good foundation for their future.

In Construction 101, students from grades 10 to 12 are learning how to build a tiny house.

The Red Lake Senior High School (Red Lake Ogichidaag Team #7235), participated in their first robotics event March 2 and 3, 2018 at the first ever Great Northern Regional Robotics Event held in Grand Forks, ND.

At the event, the Ogichidaag were awarded the Rookie Inspiration Award – which according to FIRST Robotics; "Celebrates a rookie team"s outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers, both within their school, as well as in their community."

Fort Lewis College student Aaron Toledo carefully handled his utility knife while removing the outer layer of plastic from a wire before stepping aside for another student to work.

"This sure feels like peeling potatoes," Toledo said on Wednesday.

His work was inspected by Berlyn Hubler, tribal program coordinator for GRID Alternatives, a nonprofit solar installer based in Oakland, California.

And I do mean America. But he's not a citizen of the United States, Mexico or Canada. He's a true native, a Mohawk, a member of the Iroquois Confederacy. He was born and raised on the Six Nations reservation in Ontario, where lacrosse isn't a religion in the poetic sense, it is a religion in the ACTUAL sense. It is the "medicine game," the "gift of the Creator," and is known as Tewaaraton. This young Mohawk first picked up a stick at the age of 3, and his older brother has been training him ever since.

Teenage basketball players on two Indigenous club teams in Vancouver are preparing to compete in a massive tournament that's being held in the city for the first time.

The Junior All Native Tournament is a competition between young Indigenous basketball players from all over B.C. Many teams represent a certain First Nation or village, but others, like the teams practising in Vancouver, comprise of players from many different nations.

The Jocko Valley folks, as well as folks from throughout the Flathead Indian Reservation, congregated in the Arlee Community Center Sunday to honor the accomplishments of the Arlee Warriors basketball team, that just won the second — consecutive to boot — boys state basketball championship in Arlee High School history.

Tahlequah Public Schools students who are at risk of hunger during an anticipated Oklahoma teacher walkout on April 2 will have a container filled with a week's worth of food and hygiene supplies thanks to the Bear Necessities Coalition.

Coconino Community College students who want to become Certified Nursing Assistants or Licensed Nursing Assistants now have another scholarship opportunity.

Thanks to The Peaks Health & Rehabilitation in Flagstaff, CCC now has $5,000 to create scholarships for five CNA and LNA students to help with the cost of their classes at the College and certification by the State. Each student will receive a $1,000 scholarship.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was well-represented at a recent running event on the coast. The Emerald Isle race was held on Saturday, March 10 and included a marathon, half-marathon, and 5K races.

Kallup McCoy II participated in the marathon portion of the event, and his girlfriend, Katelynn Ledford, ran the 5K event along with four other Cherokee youth including: Native Walkingstick, Kallup McCoy III, Ashton Brady, and Michell Gayosso.

Sonya Ermine wanted to be in on the joke.

The Sturgeon Lake Central School teacher began learning Cree several years ago for many reasons, but humour was the catalyst.

"When I hear other people talking in the Cree language and they're laughing and laughing, I wonder what they're saying, but it must be funny. I love that sense of humour," Ermine said recently before heading back into her Grade 1 classroom.

Steven Wilson is always a little nervous to sing the national anthem before a sporting event.

Until the microphone is in his hand.

This weekend, Wilson performed the anthem on a larger stage than normal: the Class A state boys basketball tournament in Rapid City.

Indigenous languages once considered nearly extinct could be heard echoing through the halls of Northern Quest Resort and Casino this week.

Small children called out to parents, and friends hailed one another with Salish-language jokes. All were attending the 2018 Celebrating Salish Conference, which ended Friday.

rt of the wrestling tag team Delta Delta Theta it"s an opportunity for him to live his childhood dream of championship title matches and pinfalls.

"It"s crazy. It"s insane. I was a little kid just wanting to do this, so it was just fun for me," he said. "It"s so surreal, and I"ve met some people that I never thought I would meet. It"s just one of those things you can"t really explain it."

During the first part of the nineteenth century, the American government policy was to remove Indians from east of the Mississippi River and to "give" them reservations in Indian Territory. The primary argument in favor of Indian removal claimed that European Christian farmers could make more efficient use of the land than the Indian heathen hunters. This argument conveniently ignored the fact that Indians were efficient farmers and had been farming their land for many centuries.

Skullyville, Oklahoma – Tuesday 23 March 1847
On that spring day, as Major William Armstrong surveyed those who had gathered in the small timber agency where he lived, he must have experienced mixed emotions. For one thing, the meeting had been summoned to raise money for "the relief of the starving poor of Ireland", the birthplace of his own father.

For another, while the crowd included many missionaries and traders, much of the $170 subscribed at day's end would come from the chiefs of the Choctaw Nation, who were also present.

Law enforcement is finally cracking down on the scourge of counterfeit Native American jewelry, which has run rampant in the Southwest for decades. A watershed moment is set to arrive on March 27, with the sentencing of Albuquerque jewelry dealer Nael Ali, who has pleaded guilty to fraudulently selling "Native American" jewelry made in the Philippines.

On Wednesday afternoon, it was possible that the paint was still wet on Karen Savage's submission to "Phenomenal," an upcoming art exhibition of works by women of color.

The topic is just as fresh.

For years, Ojibway author and playwright Drew Hayden Taylor heard that some Germans are so fascinated by First Nation culture that they throw festivals similar to powwows.

There is even a name for Germans obsessed with First Nation culture: Indianthusiasts.

One day, four-year-old Ann Thomas Callahan was told to get ready. She put on a dress, and was proud to wear it. Her father packed a lunch and together they travelled to the File Hills Indian Residential School near Balcarres, Sask., by horse and wagon.

She was excited about the prospect of being able to see her sister, who was already at the school, but on the ride through the bush, she noticed that her father was unusually quiet.

The roots/rockers who have been lighting up the music world all the way from the James Bay in remote Northern Ontario have just released their highly-anticipated third album, HIGH ROAD, on February 23rd. It's an album about resilience, something Midnight Shine's frontman Adrian Sutherland knows firsthand.

The Oneida Indian Nation donated the bronze statue to commemorate the opening of the museum in 2004. Created by Edward Hlavka from St, George, Utah, "Allies in Peace, Partners in War," stands 20" feet tall and weighs 1,925lbs. George Washington stands alongside the Oneida diplomat, Oskanondonha, or Skenandoah, and Polly Cooper--an Oneida woman who came to the aid of Washington"s troops at Valley Forge in 1777-78.

"Warriors in Khaki: Indian Doughboys in the Great War" was the featured presentation to a packed room at the library during the Platte County Historical Society's meeting Jan. 31.

Doug Cubbison, curator for the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum in Casper, showed slides as he discussed the service of Native Americans from Wyoming during World War I. He said the museum's "Warriors in Khaki" exhibit was inspired by a quote from the book "Americans at the Front" by F.A. McKenzie.