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

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September 2021 - Volume 19 Number 9
 
 
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"Wáa sá iyatee?"
The Tlingit Greeting
How are you?
 
 


Ears of Sweet Corn

 
 
"NASANMUYAW"
Full Harvest Moon
Hopi
 
 
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"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice."
~Cherokee~
 
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We Salute
Residential School Survivors Reflect On A Brutal Legacy: 'That Could've Been Me.'

It's been 51 years since Deedee Lerat, 60, attended the Marieval Indian Residential School on her home reservation of Cowessess in Saskatchewan, Canada. But the memories of the abuses the Salteaux Cree woman endured there still haunt her. “There was so much fear,” she says.

The fear came rushing back when the Cowessess First Nation announced on June 23 that it had discovered 751 unmarked graves at the site of the school. “I would like answers,” says Lerat. “Why weren't they reported? Why wasn't this stopped?” She was five years old when she was forced to attend Marieval. “That could've been me.”
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Our Featured Artist: Honoring Students

"Thor: Ragnarok" director Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo developed a comedy about Native American teens in Oklahoma that stars four young Native actors

Seminole/Muscogee Creek filmmaker—and now showrunner—Sterlin Harjo called me from the cab of his pickup truck while he was out running errands around Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's a town he loves in a state he loves, the place where he has made most of his films. And the feeling is reciprocated; he now has a spot on the Oklahoma Walk of Fame, just in front of the city's local art-house theater, Circle Cinema.
 

Potawatomi Leadership Program Class of 2021

The 2021 Potawatomi Leadership Program participants spent the summer learning about the Citizen Potawatomi Nation virtually due to the pandemic. The 2021 class consisted of 23 members, and the Hownikan asked every participant some introductory questions. Meet 12 of them now:
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Our Featured Story: First Person History:

The First Step is to Understand What's There'

The city of Albuquerque will become the first US city to use ground-penetrating radar to search for remains of Native American children buried in unmarked gravesites over a century ago.

Mayor Tim Kellen announced the plan over the weekend at a public acknowledgement ceremony near the site of the former Albuquerque Indian School Cemetery, now a public park. The City of Albuquerque's Parks and Recreation Department and University of New Mexico are working with an archaeologist to use non-invasive ground penetrating radar (GPR) in order to investigate the remains at the former Indian School site, Kellen said.
 

A New Chahta Homeland: A History by the Decade, 1890-1900

Iti Fabvssa is currently running a series that covers the
span of Oklahoma Choctaw history. By examining each
decade since the Choctaw government arrived in our new
homelands using Choctaw-created documents, we will get
a better understanding of Choctaw ancestors' experiences
and how they made decisions that have led us into the present. This month, we will be covering 1890-1900, a decade that was dominated by negotiations about Choctaw allotment and U.S. interference in Choctaw governance.
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Education News Education News

Partnership Provides Opportunity To Teach A More Inclusive History Regarding Kansas Boarding School

When Citizen Potawatomi Nation District 4 Legislator Jon Boursaw receives a request to share Potawatomi history with others, he rises to the occasion. The Kansas Historical Society's Director of Museum and Education Division, Mary Madden, recently reached out to Boursaw for consultation and to discuss updating the museum and nearby Baptist Mission. He agreed to help educate others on Citizen Potawatomi Nation's history tied to the building and surrounding area in a new video exhibit.
 

Outstanding Native American First-Year Student Award, 2020-2021

"Tommey Jodie is a LEAD scholar though our program here at the Native American Research Training Center. The main purpose of the LEAD program is to assist in the success of their academics through their first year. Through her first year at the University of Arizona Tommy has demonstrated great determination in succeeding in her first year through her leadership in virtual activities, volunteering in her community, attending webinar trainings and always punctual and present at program meetings.
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Preserving Language Preserving Language

Two Navajo Broadcasters Make History Announcing D1 College Football Game In Navajo Language

Two men from the Navajo Nation made history at Saturday's Rio Grande Rivalry game, with a first-of-its-kind radio broadcast in Albuquerque. For the first time ever, two men from the Navajo Nation announced a D-1 college football game in the Navajo Language.

“This is the first time that the Lobos and Aggies football game here in Albuquerque is the first time it's been broadcast,” said Cuyler Frank with KCZY 107.3 FM. “Glen and I are the first to do it. So this is going to be the first time it's going to be on a radio station on the Navajo Nation from Albuquerque.”
 

Course Aims To Keep Stoney Language Alive For Generations To Come

A new language reawakening program is giving young adults of Stoney Nakoda First Nation in Alberta a fully immersive experience — with the goal of reclaiming the Stoney language and keeping it alive for generations to come.

For five months, a group of 12 people between the ages of 18 and 26 will be taught Stoney, known locally as lethka, in the First Nation nestled in the foothills west of Calgary.

Mentors — including knowledge keepers, pipe holders and elders — use traditional activities and ceremony to teach the language.
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Honoring Students Education News

How Native Students Fought Back Against Abuse And Assimilation At US Boarding Schools

As Indigenous community members and archaeologists continue to discover unmarked graves of Indigenous children at the sites of Canadian residential schools, the United States is reckoning with its own history of off-reservation boarding schools.

In July 2021, nine Sicangu Lakota students who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania were disinterred and returned to their homelands at Whetstone Bay in South Dakota.

 

Hopis Make A Trek Across Reservation Lines To Greet Bearsun

August 13, 2021 marks Day 40 on Bearsun's journey from Los Angeles to New York to raise awareness about mental health, autism, cancer and environmental defense and the disable community and as of today he is in Cuba, NM.

If you are not an avid user of social media such as Facebook, Instagram or TicTok, this may be the frst time you are seeing any news about Bearsun and wonder just what all the to-do is about. On the other hand if you are an avid user of social media you may have noticed all the pictures of so many who are positing to their profles including many Native people, as well as our own Hopi people.
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Education News Education News

Cartographer Focuses On Storytelling While Mapping Histories Of Places

Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal member Margaret Pearce, Ph.D., took one cartography class at University of Massachusetts and spent the next several decades of her life creating and teaching others the art of map-making.

"I'd always been an outdoors kind of person and also a kind of a pen-and-ink person," Pearce said. "And when I learned cartography, or at the time that I was interested in cartography in college, it wasn't really on computers yet. It was still being taught at pen-and-ink level, and that really appealed to me."

 

When Gordon Ramsay Received A Lesson From Malia Crowe

 Malia Crowe found herself in a familiar forest, readying for one of the most nerve-racking opportunities of her life.

Food was prepped, she had practiced her lines, and now it was time to wrangle the butterflies in her stomach. He could be here at any moment. The TV cameras had already been in place for a while, her friends were also waiting patiently. Maybe he had booked an early flight back to Cornwall?

That's when the tall and extremely present figure stepped into eyesight, with cameras and a no-nonsense director in tow. Gordon Ramsay was actually in Cherokee, North Carolina.
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Living Traditions Living Traditions

New Cherokee National Treasures To Be Honored During Holiday

This year's Cherokee National Treasures will be honored during a virtual ceremony at the 69th annual Cherokee National Holiday.

Cherokee National Treasures preserve and promote Cherokee art and culture, according to the tribe.

“The distinguished Cherokee National Treasures actively work to preserve and revive traditional cultural practices that are in danger of being lost from generation to generation,” a news release from the tribe states.
 

How A First Nations Restaurateur Found Her Family Through Food

For much of her life, Inez Cook knew nothing about her biological family. Though her birth certificate identified her as adopted, she had no idea that she was born a member of the Nuxalk Nation, one of the First Nations of Canada, until she reached adulthood. At the age of one, she was forcibly taken from her parents in Bella Coola by the Canadian government and given to a white family to raise.
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Preserving Language Living Traditions

Senate Committee On Indian Affairs Passes Durbin Feeling Native American Language Act

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on Aug. 4 passed the Durbin Feeling Native American Language Act of 2021, a bipartisan bill named in honor of the late Cherokee linguist.

Sens. Brian Schatz, (D-Hawai'i) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced the bill, which was initially proposed by former Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) in 2020. Udall proposed the legislation on the 30th anniversary of the Native American Language Act signed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.

 

Squamish Drum Helped Cheer On Canadian Athletes At Tokyo Olympics

There weren't any fans cheering on Canadian athletes at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but you could hear the beat of a custom-made drum from the Squamish Nation of British Columbia.

Squamish artist Tsawaysia Spukus created the drum for Team Canada's Chef de Mission Marnie McBean, who wanted a loud way to support athletes after cheering, clapping and whistling were banned by Olympic officials because of COVID-19.

“That's my first Olympic drum,” said Spukus, whose English name is Alice Guss, in an interview Monday morning.
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Living Tradions   Education News

Monument To Indigenous Women Will Replace Columbus Statue In Mexico City

A pedestal in the center of Mexico City that once hosted a statue of Christopher Columbus has stood empty since last October. Now, reports Johnny Diaz for the New York Times, a sculpture of an Indigenous woman is set to replace the controversial explorer's likeness.

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced plans for the new statue last Sunday, on Mexico's Day of the Indigenous Woman.
 

Highly Recommended! SHARICE'S BIG VOICE: A NATIVE KID BECOMES A CONGRESSWOMAN

Sharice's Big Voice is a picture book whose contents make the case for why picture books should be read by everyone. If you're teaching social studies, teach this book and do a study of this page. Start by reading Article 6. Then, ask students to do research on the Treaty With the Winnebago, and the other items on that page. Put them into chronological order, after having read Article 6.
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Honoring   Honoring

Toupin Descendant Receives Recognition As One Of Oklahoma's 40 Under 40

Oklahoma Magazine recently named Citizen Potawatomi Nation Health Services Director of Clinical Operations, Lauren Bristow, as one of the top 40 young professionals in Oklahoma. The publication recognizes 40 individuals annually who "reach beyond the expected" and make a positive impact in their communities and state as a whole.

"I was so surprised and humbled that I would even be considered," Bristow said.
 

Minnesota Names Its first Native American Poet Laureate

Minnesota has made history by naming its first Native American poet laureate: Gwen Nell Westerman, an English professor at Minnesota State University Mankato and citizen of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe in South Dakota.

Westerman's appointment was announced at a Thursday, Sept. 9, news conference at the Minnesota Humanities Center in St. Paul.
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Living Traditions Honoring Our Ancestors

Apology Not Accepted
Hopi Religion, a Religion That Was Never Conquered

On June 13, 2000, Bishop Donald E. Pelotte, Bishop of the Diocese of Gallup, NM of the Catholic Church delivered an apology from the Pope to Hopi religious leaders and cultural advisors in the chambers of the Hopi Tribal Council in Kykotsmovi. The Pope’s apology sought forgiveness for the abuses Franciscan missionaries had inficted on Hopi people during the mission period (1629-1680)---abuses documented in Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History, a collaborative project between The Hopi Tribe and the University of Arizona. Those abuses included the forced labor of Hopi men, the suppression of Hopi religion, and, worst of all, the rape of Hopi women.
 

Ancient Footprints Could Be Oldest Traces Of Humans In The Americas

White Sands National Park, in southern New Mexico, is known for chalk-coloured dunes that stretch for hundreds of square kilometres. But at the height of the last Ice Age, the region was wetter and grassier. Mammoths, giant sloths and other animals walked the muddy shores of shallow lakes that grew and shrank with the seasons. And they had company.

In a landmark study published on 23 September in Science, researchers suggest that human footprints from an ancient lakeshore in the park date to between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. If the dating is accurate — which specialists say is likely — the prints represent the earliest unequivocal evidence of human occupation anywhere in the Americas.
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Living Traditions Honoring Our Ancestors

Mink Brings Visual Uniformity, Creativity To Cherokee Nation

TAHLEQUAH – When one drives around the Cherokee Nation reservation and CN-owned properties, you may notice artistic signs and graphics as well as the annual Cherokee National Holiday poster art.

This is the work of CN Communications graphic design lead Dan Mink.
 

Ancient Americans Made Art Deep Within The Dark Zones Of Caves Throughout The Southeast

On a cold winter's day in 1980, a group of recreational cavers entered a narrow, wet stream passage south of Knoxville, Tennessee. They navigated a slippery mud slope and a tight keyhole through the cave wall, trudged through the stream itself, ducked through another keyhole and climbed more mud. Eventually they entered a high and relatively dry passage deep in the cave's "dark zone" – beyond the reach of external light.
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Living Traditions Living Traditions

A Brand-New Museum In Oklahoma Honors Indigenous People At Every Turn

At 175,000 square feet, the new First Americans Museum (FAM) in Oklahoma City is the largest single-building tribal cultural center in the country, honoring Oklahoma's 39 tribal nations and housing the National Native American Hall of Fame. The museum opened this month after three decades of planning, and a design process that strove for an architectural masterpiece that would be meaningful to the tribes represented within it.
 

'Coming Full Circle': Native Tapped To Lead National Parks

For the first time, a Native American may become the director of the National Park Service.

President Joe Biden nominated Charles F. "Chuck" Sams III Wednesday and will be considered by the U.S. Senate. If confirmed, he will be the 19th permanent director of the National Park Service.

A National Park Service director was last confirmed by the Senate during the Obama Administration.
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Climate Change Living Traditions

Hopi Ranchers From Selected Range Units Must Reduce Their Livestock By 100%

Kykotsmovi, AZ. – August 13, 2021 The Hopi Tribe has issued Executive Order #011-2021 Range mitigation and livestock reduction in response to the State of Exceptional Drought on the Hopi Reservation on July 20, 2021 and accordance with the State of Arizona listing 5 counties as disaster areas, including Navajo and Coconino counties, which the Hopi reservation lies within.
 

OUR HOME, OUR STORY

In September 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, WWF worked with Indigenous leaders and photographer Jason Houston to gather stories from Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Here, four members of the Oglala Lakota Nation share, through their own words and images, stories from their lives.
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Preserving Language Living Traditions

A Cave With Ancient Drawings Has Been Sold, But Not To The Tribe That Hoped To Buy It

O'FALLON, Mo. — A Missouri cave containing Native American artwork from more than 1,000 years ago was sold at auction Tuesday, disappointing leaders of the Osage Nation who hoped to buy the land to "protect and preserve our most sacred site."

A bidder agreed to pay $2.2 million from private owners for what's known as "Picture Cave," along with the 43 hilly acres that surround it near the town of Warrenton, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) west of St. Louis.
 

Grand Ronde Tribe Reclaims Willamette Falls, As Work Begins To Tear Down Oregon City Mill

After a private blessing and a prayer, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde invited gathered media to watch as an excavator tore into a wall of the old, abandoned paper mill that the tribe says has stood on its ancestral grounds for too long.

The tribe held a symbolic demolition event at the old Blue Heron Paper Mill at Willamette Falls on Tuesday, representing a small step toward removing the industrial site and returning it to Indigenous hands.
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About This Issue's Greeting - "Wáa sá iyatee?"
"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."
Nature's Beauty:
Corrn (aka Maize)
 
This Issue's
Favorite Web sites
 
A Story To Share:
The Legend Of Maize
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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 - 2021 of Vicki Williams Barry and Paul Barry.
 

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