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Canku
Ota
(Many Paths) An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America |
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February
2020
- Volume 18 Number 2
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"Posoh!"
Menominee "Hello! " |
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"Kohmagi
mashath"
The Gray Month Pima |
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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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Our Featured Artist: | Honoring Students | |
Joan Naviyuk Kane, Alaska Some people call King Island the heart of a mountain.
My ancestors survived on King Island for millennia, but our language is facing the pressure of tremendous erasure. But I'm using my voice, my writing, and my family to preserve my heritage. |
How A Native American Coming-Of-Age Ritual Is Making A Comeback The Ojibwe, one of the largest indigenous groups in
North America, with communities from Quebec to Montana, are revitalizing
the "berry
fast," a coming-of-age ritual for girls.
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Our Featured Story: | History: | |
Maine To Become First State To Prohibit Native American Mascots In All Public Schools Twenty years ago, Maulian Dana was watching a Maine
high school basketball game between two teams called the "Indians" and
the "Warriors." Her gaze drifted toward the student sections, where she
saw kids chanting and dancing with fake feathers and war paint on their
bodies. It was the first time she saw things she knew as "sacred and religious"
to the Penobscot Nation being "mocked and degraded."
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We Might Have Been Wrong About The Mysterious 'Lost Civilisation' Of Cahokia Nestled on the banks of the Mississippi River, the forgotten city of Cahokia was once a bustling metropolis, the largest and most cosmopolitan hub north of Mexico, home to the Mississippian indigenous culture. Today, no one knows what happened to it. Tens of thousands of its inhabitants are merely said to have 'disappeared', leaving behind their giant earthen mounds, spread across 13 square kilometres (5 square miles).
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Education News | Education News | |
NTU Builds Second Campus Navajo Technical University's (NTU's) Chinle instructional
site began in 2006, and was originally housed in a modest 936- square-foot
rental space within a strip mall. Today, the site occupies its own land
and houses a 6,000-square-foot classroom building that opened in February
2019, and a 20,000-square-foot academic building that will open in May
of next year.
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How One Minnesota University More Than Doubled Its Native Student Graduation Rate Charles Golding looked for two things when he was researching
colleges: a top economics program and a connection to his native culture.
A Google search led him to the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, a
state flagship school with prize-winning economists and a history of indigenous
activism.
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Native Vote | Native Vote | |
Lt. Governor Flanagan Receives National Native American Leadership Award Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan
today was awarded the Native American Leadership Award by the National
Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in Washington, D.C. The highest-ranking
Native woman elected to executive office in the history of the United
States, Lieutenant Governor Flanagan was recognized for her work raising
awareness of issues affecting Native communities, increasing civic engagement,
improving lives in Indian Country, and transforming tribal-state relations
in Minnesota.
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North Dakota Tribes Score Key Voting Rights Victory North Dakota officials have reached a settlement with two Native American tribes over the state's restrictive voter identification law. The settlement, announced on Thursday, includes a legally binding consent decree to ensure that Native American voters are not disenfranchised. It is a major victory for the tribes and pending formal approval by tribal councils will resolve two lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the law, which requires voters to show an ID with a residential address. |
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Read!!! | Read!!! | |
Band Member Wins Children's Literature Award Johnny's Pheasant, written by Cheryl Minnema and illustrated
by Julie Flett, is the winner of the twenty-third annual Charlotte Zolotow
Award for outstanding writing in a picture book. The award is given by
the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC), a library of the School
of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Johnny's Pheasant
was edited by Erik Anderson, and published in the United States in 2019
by the University of Minnesota Press.
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Sorell Wins 4 American Library Association Awards Three books and an audiobook written or co-authored
by Cherokee Nation citizen Traci Sorell won four American Library Association
awards at its mid-winter meeting held Jan. 2428 in Philadelphia.
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Honoring | Preserving Language | |
Cherokee Author Awarded $100,000 For Journalism Excellence Rebecca Nagle received the American Mosaic Journalism Prize for stories on Native peoples, migrants and 'hidden' American communities The Heising-Simons Foundation announced that freelance journalists Rebecca Nagle and Darcy Courteau are recipients of the 2020 American Mosaic Journalism Prize, which includes an unrestricted cash prize of $100,000. According to the foundation's news release, the award is one of the largest dollar amounts ever given as journalism prize in the United States. |
Mille Lacs Band Of Ojibwe Signs Historic Agreement With Minnesota Historical Society Press To Publish Multiple Books In Ojibwe The Mille Lacs Band (MLB) of Ojibwe is getting serious
about Ojibwe language revitalization and wants to deepen the resources
available to advance the language. To this end, the MLB has signed a contract
with the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) Press to publish three new
monolingual Ojibwe books. MNHS Press has published many previous books
on Ojibwe history and culture, and this foray into monolingual Ojibwe
publications marks a new venture for the press. This partnership establishes
the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe as the first entity to develop monolingual
material for release and publication with MNHS. The three books are scheduled
for publication in October 2020.
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Living Traditions | Living Traditions | |
Sean Shermans 10 Essential Native American Recipes Growing up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in
the 1970s, I ran wild with my cousins through my grandparents cattle
ranch, over the hot, sandy South Dakota land of burrs and paddle cactus,
hiding in the sparse grasses and rolling hills. We raced over the open
plains, and through shelter belts of tall elm trees, the air full of dust
and sagebrush. Our dogs chased prairie dogs, pheasants, grouse and antelope,
and alerted us to rattlesnakes and jack rabbits.
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Women Build Community Through Drumming When
people think of Native American drumming, a picture of men sitting around
a large drum 2 to 3 feet in diameter often comes to mind. Tradition allows
only men to play these drums, whether it's at a powwow, ceremony or social
gathering. However, tradition encourages women to play smaller hand drums,
roughly a foot in diameter or less, either on their own or with the men.
Every week, several Citizen Potawatomi Nation women gather to practice.
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Natives Helping Others | Saving Our Earth | |
Choctaw Nation Gives Back Through Community Partnership Fund Community is an essential
part of our Chahta culture. I'm so honored and humbled to be able to represent
the Chahta people and be a part of this great community. With current
events and what is happening with the Oklahoma Gaming Compact, I have
realized that many people are unaware of the impact our tribes have on
the State of Oklahoma. Sometimes we get so caught up in what we are doing
for the Chahta community that we forget to share all the things we do
for our local communities as well
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Largest Tribal Organization In The Nation Calls On Federal Government To Protect Wild Salmon And Indigenous People Bristol Bay tribes thankful for National Congress of American Indians support regarding Pebble Mine says Delores Larson Last month, the largest organization of Tribes in America condemned the federal government's permitting process for the Pebble Mine, highlighting the government's failure to uphold its trust responsibilities to Bristol Bay tribes. |
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Saving Our Earth | Saving Our Earth | |
Indigenous People Are At The Forefront Of Climate Change Planning In North America TEMPERATURES IN IDAHO'S COLUMBIA, SNAKE, and Salmon
rivers were so warm in 2015 that they cooked millions of salmon and steelhead
to death. As climate change leads to consistently warmer temperatures
and lower river flows, researchers expect that fish kills like this will
become much more common. Tribal members living on the Nez Perce Reservation
are preparing for this new normal.
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Washington Tribe Saves Snoqualmie Falls Land, Held Sacred, From Development For years, Native Americans who revere a towering waterfall in the
misty hills east of Seattle have opposed construction of a subdivision,
hotel and convention center on surrounding land they hold sacred. | |
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About
This Issue's Greeting - "Posoh"
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In
most respects Menominee is a typical Algonquian language. Menominee has
six vowels rather than the usual four, and has complex rules governing
vowel length, but otherwise the sound system is similar to Ojibwa, Mesquakie
(Fox) and Shawnee. The vocabulary is also similar to the neighboring languages;
especially, most Menominee words will have an exact equivalent in Potawatomi
and Ojibwa. The noun inflections are similar to other Algonquian languages,
but Menominee has a number of verb inflections not found in the other
languages, and consequently some sentences are put together in a different
way than in Ojibwa or Mequakie.
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Nature's
Beauty:
Belted Kingfisher |
This
Issue's
Favorite Web sites |
A
Story To Share:
Why the Kingfisher Always Wears a WarBonnet |
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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.
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Canku Ota is a copyright © 2000
- 2020 of Vicki Williams Barry and Paul Barry.
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The "Canku Ota - A Newsletter
Celebrating Native America" web site and its design is the
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Copyright © 1999-
2020 of Paul C. Barry.
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All Rights Reserved.
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