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Canku
Ota
(Many Paths) An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America |
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November
2020
- Volume 18 Number 11
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"Wáa
sá iyatee?"
The Tlingit Greeting How are you? |
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'KELMUYA'
Fledgling Raptor Moon Hopi |
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"How Long
are we going to let others determine the future for our children. Are
we not warriors? When our ancestors went into battle they did not know
what the consequences were going to be. All they knew was that if they
did nothing, things would not go well for their children Do not operate
out of a place of fear, operate from a place of hope. With hope everything
is possible. The time is now."
~Crazy Horse~ |
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Our Featured Artist: | Honoring | |
Native Words In Print: Author Launches Campaign To Open A Publishing Press For Native Writers Amber McCrary has a dream and is raising money to start a publishing press for Indigenous writers, called Abalone Mountain Press, which will create books for Native people by Native people. According to McCrary, there are only a handful of publishing presses that publish only Indigenous writers and even less that are owned by Indigenous people. The idea to start the press began after graduating from a creative writing program. |
ChangeMakers: Brenda and Benay Child, Channeling Ojibwe Pride From One Generation To The Next Brenda Child says shes always been proud to be Red Lake Ojibwe. Its something she learned from her mother and strives to pass on to her two children. As a historian, Child has studied the day-to-day lives of previous generations of Ojibwe people, including her own family. She thinks about how her grandparents spoke the language and harvested wild rice, but also how hard it must have been for her grandfather to be dispossessed of his land. |
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Our Featured Story: | First Person History: | |
The Thanksgiving Myth Gets A Deeper Look This Year On a frigid November morning inside a tractor barn in northeast Montana, 10 members of the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes joined in song to bless a thirty-aught-six hunting rifle, and to lift up the spirit of a buffalo they were preparing to kill. One man played a painted hand drum. Others passed around burning sage. The hunt that followed took place on Turtle Mound Buffalo Ranch, 27,000 acres of rolling pasture on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. Every stage of the hunt was marked by a ceremony to give thanks for a buffalo that descends from animals killed to near-extinction by white settlers in the late 19th century. |
'Jim Crow, Indian Style': How Native Americans Were Denied The Right To Vote For Decades Pvt. Ralph W. Anderson, a Navajo who had served in the U.S. Army in World War II, had a question about the U.S. policies that kept him and other Native Americans from voting. In his May 4, 1943, letter from Fort Knox, Ky., he wrote: "We all know Congress granted the Indian citizenship in 1924, but we still have no privilege to vote. We do not understand what kind of citizenship you would call that." |
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Preserving Language | Preserving Language | |
Return Of Mohegan Elder's Diaries To Help Revitalize Language The diaries of the last fluent speaker of the Mohegan-Pequot language have returned home. On Nov. 4, the papers of Fidelia "Flying Bird" Fielding, who died in 1908, were transferred from Cornell University Library to the Mohegan Tribe. Mohegan Tribal Historic Preservation Officer James Quinn traveled from Uncasville, Connecticut, to Cornell's Ithaca campus to receive the rare manuscripts from Gerald R. Beasley, the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian. Beasley was accompanied by Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty, associate university librarian; and Anne Sauer, the Stephen E. and Evalyn Edwards Milman Director of the library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. |
THE INSPIRING QUEST TO REVIVE THE HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE Pelehonuamea Suganuma and Kekoa Harman were bright-eyed
high schoolers in Honolulu when they first crossed paths, in the 1990s.
The two were paired for a performancea ho'ike, as such shows
are known in Hawaiian. Both teenagers had a passion for hula and
mele (Hawaiian songs and chants), and they liked performing at
the school they'd chosen to attendKamehameha High School, part of
a 133-year-old private network that gave admissions preference to students
of Hawaiian Polynesian ancestry. Still, one part of Hawaiian culture remained
frustratingly out of reach for Pele and Kekoa: the language.
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Education News | Education News | |
To Serve Better "Anytime that you can raise awareness, or address the invisibility of Native American issues in the academy is incredibly impactful." For Sarah Sadlier, studying history isn't merely about understanding the past but about the insight it lends the present and guidance it provides for the future especially when it comes to law. "[There's an] incredible amount of connection between the law and history," says Sadlier, who is currently pursuing joint Ph.D. and J.D. degrees with a focus on Native American history and American Indian law at Harvard. "Historical research is often a great asset when doing legal research." |
The Power Brokers In the spring of 1870 Congress was in the process of
debating the Indian Appropriations Bill. While the bill's main purpose
was to renew or enhance funding for Native peoples and communities, it
contained a rider that finally formally ended what is known as the treaty
period of federal Indian policy: no longer would Indian tribes be treated
as independent nations. Rather, Native people would be treated as individuals,
and they would henceforth be considered "wards" of the state. Native Americans
weren't considered, and certainly were not treated as, citizens (of the
United States or any other nation). Instead, the rhetorical categories
of the "Great White Father" and his pitiful "Red Children" were codified
into law. But this had been merely one of many possible futures, as Pekka
Hämäläinena Finnish scholar of American Indian historymakes
clear in Lakota America, his profound history of the Lakota people.
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Honoring | Honoring | |
ChangeMakers: Sean Sherman, Teaching Indigenous Food Traditions As Cultural Preservation Sean Sherman, 46, is a Minneapolis-based chef focusing on preserving Indigenous food traditions and educating people about Indigenous culture. Sherman leads the way in revitalizing traditional Native cuisine and helping others re-learn their ancestral roots. His work focuses on educating people about ancestral diets, culinary practices and the understanding that food is medicine. Sherman got his start in a kitchen in Rapid City, S.D., called the Sluice. Now based in Minneapolis with his wife Dana Thompson, they run the Sioux Chef which Sherman officially launched in 2014 though he says the concept had been decades in the making. They also run the nonprofit Natifs, and the newly-launched Indigenous Food Lab, a "nonprofit kitchen focused on creating access to Indigenous education and foods" located in the Minneapolis' Midtown Global Market on Lake Street. |
The Remarkable And Complex Legacy Of Native American Military Service What has compelled so many thousands of American Indians, Alaskan Natives and Native Hawaiians to serve in the U.S. military? It's a question the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian aims to answer with a new book and exhibition devoted to the subject, launching today, November 11, Veteran's Day. Much of what they document in Why We Serve, Native Americans in the United States Armed Forcesa 240-page book that synthesizes established and novel scholarshipmay come as a surprise to non-Natives. "The history of Native American service has always been viewed in a reductionist way by the military and by non-Native American society," write authors Alexandra Harris and Mark Hirsch, senior editor and historian, respectively, at the museum. Natives Americans are 'great warriors.' And yet, "not every tribe had a so-called warrior tradition," they write, "many have had distinctly pacific practices, and most balanced warfare with traditions of diplomacy and peace." |
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Connections | Education News | |
11 Arizona Tribes Among Broadband License Winners The Federal Communications Commission has granted broadband spectrum
licenses to 11 Arizona tribes in what FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called a
"major step forward in our efforts to close the digital divide
on tribal lands." The awards,
announced last week, were the result of a "first of its kind" Rural
Tribal Priority Window that gave tribes the chance to apply for and
receive spectrum licenses at no cost. Those licenses which can
be used for high-speed wireless broadband are usually auctioned
off to the highest bidder. |
Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee Secures FCC Spectrum License To Expand Economic Development Opportunities On The Uintah And Ouray Reservation The Ute Indian Tribal Business Committee is pleased
to announce that its application to the Federal Communications Commission
("FCC") has been approved to award the Ute Indian Tribe ("Tribe") a license
for 2.5 GHz spectrum across the Uintah and Ouray Reservation ("Reservation").
The Tribe had applied for this license under the FCC's Tribal Priority
Window, which, subject to certain restrictions, provided Indian tribes
the first opportunity to procure a license for spectrum within their tribal
lands and to do so at no cost to tribes.
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Living Traditions | Living Traditions | |
Cherokee Nation Formalizes Purchase Of Will Rogers Birthplace Museum In Oologah Cherokee Nation announced plans to purchase the historic Will Rogers Birthplace Museum in Rogers County. A small signing ceremony was held at the museum on Wednesday, Nov. 4 to coincide with Will Rogers' birthday and formalize the acquisition from the Oklahoma Historical Society. "Will Rogers' humor and his unique ability to make complicated political and economic issues easy to understand made him a powerful social critic and commentator. |
Progress Continues Toward Cultural Center Opening Construction continues on the 101,000 square foot Choctaw Cultural Center in Durant, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Contractors and staff are at work, ensuring the Center is a place to preserve and teach visitors about the Choctaw culture. The Center will be an immersive experience. Executive Director of the Cultural Center, Stacy Halfmoon, said, "You begin essentially at time immemorial, with Choctaw origin stories." Before entering the building, guests are treated to a ¾-mile drive highlighting native Oklahoma prairie land. The landscaping closer to the building was also carefully planted to continue this native prairie feel. |
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Living Traditions | Living Traditions | |
Cherokee Eats: Kanuchi A staple food that Cherokees look forward to in the fall is kanuchi, a hickory nut soup. Cherokee Nation citizen Roberta Sapp makes the well-known dish annually, having learned the tradition from her grandfather. Gathering: "Kanuchi is like a dessert, a sweet drink that has rice in it or has hominy in it," Sapp said. "You gather hickory nuts, then you clean them and crack them as small as you can." Hickory nuts are usually gathered in the fall, cleaned of their husks and sometimes dried before being used. |
An Ancient Squash Dodges Extinction Thanks To The Efforts Of Native Americans Last year, Eighth Day Farm in Holland, Michigan, planted some squash seeds they were given, not knowing what they would produce. When the plants eventually grew in as bright orange, two-foot-long squashes, farmer Sarah Hofman-Graham invited Michigan Radio reporter Rebecca Williams over for some soup. The squash "tasted sweet and mild," Williams reports for Michigan Radio. |
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Going Green |
A Photo Essay |
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Can Solar Power Lead The Red Lake Nation Toward Energy Independence? Two years ago, when Robert Blake put 10 people to work fastening solar panels to the roof of the Red Lake Nation Government Center, the solar entrepreneur hoped it would be the start of a lasting development. The panel installations completed the first phase of a planned 12-step solar project with big goals: Leading the Red Lake Band of Chippewa toward an energy independent future while protecting the environment. |
The
Thanksgiving Myth Gets A Deeper Look This Year | |
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Our History |
Our History |
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Cahokian Culture Spread Across Eastern North America 1,000 years Ago In An Early Example Of Diaspora An expansive city flourished almost a thousand years ago in the bottomlands of the Mississippi River across the water from where St. Louis, Missouri stands today. It was one of the greatest pre-Columbian cities constructed north of the Aztec city of Tenochititlan, at present-day Mexico City. The people who lived in this now largely forgotten city were part of a monument-building, corn-farming culture. No one knows what its inhabitants named this place, but today archaeologists call the city Cahokia. |
Remembering The Trail Of Death And Its Impact On The Potawatomi People Nov. 4 marks the 182nd anniversary of the Potawatomi arriving to their final destination on the Trail of Death at the Sugar Creek reservation in present-day Kansas. The forced removal began on Sept. 4, 1828, at Chief Menominee's village in Indiana. More than 850 Potawatomi made the journey, and 42 perished, mostly children and elderly. Written and visual records help chronicle this trying time in the Tribe's history, and utilizing these resources help Tribal members and others acknowledge the tenacity and resilient spirit of the Potawatomi people. | |
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Our History |
Girl Power!! |
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Researchers Uncover 2,000-Year-Old Maya Water Filtration System More than 2,000 years ago, the Maya built a complex
water filtration system out of materials collected miles away. Now, reports
Michelle Starr for Science
Alert, researchers conducting excavations at the ancient city
of Tikal in northern
Guatemala have discovered traces of this millennia-old engineering marvel.
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This Prehistoric Peruvian Woman Was A Big-Game Hunter Archaeologists in Peru have found the 9,000-year-old
skeleton of a young woman who appears to have been a big-game hunter.
Combined with other evidence, the researchers argue in the journal Science
Advances, the discovery points to greater involvement of hunter-gatherer
women in bringing down large animals than previously believed.
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About
This Issue's Greeting - "Wáa
sá iyatee?"
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"How
are you?" is "Wáa sá iyatee?" in Tlingit. That is pronounced similar to
"wah sah ee-yah-te." But that is not generally used as a greeting. Modern
Tlingit people sometimes greet each other with "Yak'éi yagiyee" which
literally means "good day."
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Nature's
Beauty:
Tlingit Artist Designs Stamp |
This
Issue's
Favorite Web sites |
A
Story To Share:
Raven The Trickster |
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Canku Ota is a free Newsletter celebrating
Native America, its traditions and accomplishments . We do not provide
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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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