Feed aggregator

David Bender's Nearly Paleo Rubbed Ribs (Courtesy of ICTMN)

In a story on ICTMN this week, Bender describes how to make a Paleo warrior, caveman style feast for the big game.

That means we’re going commando—no bread, no buns and no sugar.

So with that I give you something we all crave: food you can eat with your hands! That’s right football fans, sans fork and spoon.

Now, what would a Super Bowl party be without chips and appetizers? In this article I have suggestions for snacks (sweet potato chip), appetizers (paleo patties), a condiment (guacamole) and an entree (ribs).

Bender’s post includes a shopping list and recipes. OK, it’s time to get to the kitchen . . .

Funny film gives a unique look at frybread
This week’s second brunch tidbit also involves work in the kitchen.

Have a look at this “frybread “mockumentary” piece featured on Azfamily.com. Stacey Delikat takes us through a synopsis of the funny film.

“More than Frybread” is the brainchild of Mesa filmmaker Travis Holt Hamilton.

The movie follows members of twenty-different Native American tribes as they seek to compete in the made-up “Worldwide Fry Bread Association” competition in Flagstaff.


Courtesy of AZFamily.com.


Hamilton, who has made four other films about Native Americans, says he got the idea for the mockumentary after spending time living on a reservation as a missionary.

“Numerous people have made frybread, everyone claiming their bread is the best,” he explained. “So we thought, let’s kind of play that up and have a competition that these tribes are competing for the championship title.”

To learn more about the film visit Frybreadmovie.com.

Jenna Cederberg

Char-Koosta News reported this week on a meeting between Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes officials and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol representatives as they discussed the possibility of CSKT switching to enhanced tribal identification cards.

Char-Koosta’s Lailani Upham reported on the meeting:

According to Lynn Shozda, CBP Public Affairs Liaison and Agriculture Specialist, the meeting was to share information on requirements and the data components for enhanced tribal ID cards and to get a dialogue going on how to address border issues and concerns regarding cultural items crossing back and forth from the U.S. and Canada.

Security and privacy issues of the enhanced IDs was discussed. Tribal leaders also expressed concerned about the lack of sensitivity and knowledge border control agents when it comes to dealing with tribal members and cultural items.

“The staff at the border are not getting adequate training as it refers to tribes, religious items and the disrespect of the items by staff, and the rights tribes have crossing the border as to treaties agreed to by Canada and the United States,” said Laurence Kenmille, CSKT Records Research Manager.

Vernon Finley, of the Kootenai Culture Committee, suggested a source with Montana’s Office of Public Instruction as a great resource for cultural training for the seven reservations in Montana.

Upham notes in her story the recent push by border control to get tribes to switch to enhanced IDs.

Since 2008, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been working with Native American tribal officials to enhance their existing tribal identification cards. So far, five tribes have made the switch. The Kootenai of Idaho, the Pascua Yaqui of Arizona, the Seneca of New York, the Tohono O’odham of Arizona, and the Coquille of Oregon are the listed tribes that put the ETC’s into effect last year.

Enhanced Tribal ID Cards are like the Enhanced Driver’s license that is being used in a handful of states. The identification cards contain radio identification frequency (RFID) microchips that are compliant with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.

Jenna Cederberg

The Wounded Knee Memorial has been neglected for many years until Tribal member steps in to restore it. (Photo by Karin Eagle, courtesy of Native Sun News)

WOUNDED KNEE – On a cold, windy morning, the mass grave site of the victims of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre is lonely and desolate.

The grave itself is surrounded by a cemetery, and backed by a log cabin church. Trash blows in from the surrounding area, empty beer boxes blowing up against and getting hung up on the chain link fence. There is little honor and reverence to be found in what should be the most revered site of the Lakota people.

With a strong mind and a generous heart, one Oglala man has taken on the responsibility of caring for the resting place of those victims of such a tragic and devastating event in the history of the Lakota people.

Julian Brown Eyes, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and owner of Competitive Masonry out of Rapid City, has taken the initiative in redoing the brick area surround the mass grave.

Donating all the materials needed as well as asking his employees, all Natives, to volunteer for such a poignant task, the renovation is being done at no cost to the descendants or the tribes who have people buried there.

Brown Eye’s has invited his own daughter, up and coming singer and guitarist as well as model and photographer, Juliana Brown Eyes, of Scatter Their Own, to document the project in its entirety.

Julian Brown Eyes has stated that he is not doing this for any recognition, and does not want a big fuss made of it, but is doing this for the honor of the people who had fled the US Government to avoid imprisonment, and instead met their deaths, elders, women and children alike, unarmed, ill and brutally murdered.

Contact Karin Eagle at staffwriter2@nsweekly.com. Copyright permission by Native Sun News, www.nsweekly.com.

A new study released by University of Washington School of Medicine researchers has bad news for fans of spam.

Foxnews.com posted a Rueters Health story reporting that Native Americans who ate the processed meat were two times as likely to develop diabetes.

Two thousand Native Americans from several states and tribes were a part of the study. None had diabetes when it began.

After five years, a follow-up survey found that 243 people had developed diabetes.

Among the 500 people in the original study group who ate the most canned processed meat, 85 developed diabetes. In contrast, among the 500 people who ate the least amount of “spam,” just 44 developed the disease.

Though Spam is a brand-name pork product, the lower-case term is also used to describe any kind of processed, canned meat, Fretts said. Canned meat is available freely to many Native Americans on reservations as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food assistance program.

However, a nutritionist from Harvard said his research found a link to higher diabetes risk from consumption of certain unprocessed meats as well.

“I think what this study indicates is processed meats should be a priority for reduction (in the diet), especially among American Indians where they can go to food assistance programs and they can get discounted spam,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health who was not involved in the study.

Jenna Cederberg

Custom holds that in the Amazonian Xavante tribe, the more successful the man, the more children he is allowed to have.

As Charles Choi reports on MSNBC’s science section, a new study shows how that cultural practice has led to a rapid evolution of certain human features within the tribe.

The findings are part of a Federal University of the Rio Grande do Sul study examining how culture can affect the more rapid evolution of human features. The study included an examination of several thousand members of six South American tribes.

Their research found that one group, the Xavante, had significantly diverged from the others in terms of their morphology or shape, possessing larger heads, taller and narrower faces and broader noses. These characteristics evolved in the approximately 1,500 years after they split from a sister group called the Kayapo, a rate that was about 3.8-times faster than comparable rates of change seen in the other tribes.

The major changes the investigators saw apparently occurred independently of the effects of climate or geography on the Xavante. Instead, cultural factors appear responsible. For instance, in the Xavante village of Sao Domingo, a quarter of the population was made up of sons of a single chief, Apoena, who had five wives. The tribe’s sexual practices allow successful men in that group to father many offspring, which in turn means that any traits of theirs can quickly dominate their population.

Jenna Cederberg

Indianz.com featured a Miami Herald story Wednesday about two counties in Florida where voters approved a plan to install off-reservation slot machine at local dog and horse race tracks.

As the Herald reports, the vote come despite state legal officials offering opinions that the state cannot approve the plan due to conflicts with gaming agreements with local tribes.

Indianz.com explains that “approving slot machines outside of south Florida would violate the Class III gaming compact with the Seminole Tribe. Gadsden and Washington counties are in northern Florida.”

More legal and legislative action is sure to come, according to the Herald. Several sets of legislation have been proposed to help the counties get around the tribal gaming compact.

Two Senate bills would make slot machines legal in the two rural counties, and one bill, proposed by Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Boca Raton, would open the door for at least three other counties — Palm Beach, Brevard and Lee — to hold referendums to bring the so-called Class III slot machines to town.

Under an amendment to Sachs’ bill last week, any county commission that decided by Tuesday to call a voter referendum on slot machines could be grandfathered into the bill. Palm Beach officials had called for the referendum in December. Brevard made a similar decision on Jan. 24. And, after a last-minute addition to the Lee County Commission agenda Tuesday, the commission voted 3-2 to hold a referendum there too.

Jenna Cederberg

The four objectors to the historic Cobell land trust mismanagment settlement say they’re not backing down, even after their names and phones numbers were published in an open letter printed online and sent to thousands of plaintiffs prompted them to receive angry phones calls.

As Associated Press reporter Matt Volz reports, Carol Good Bear is one of the objectors that received a flood of angry phone calls.

At first, the resident of New Town, N.D., hung up on the angry voices at the other end. After 15 calls, she unplugged her home phone and started screening her cellphone calls.

She said she worries for her safety now that her address is in the hands of hundreds of thousands of people who might blame her for holding up their money.

“To put my name out there for the public, I think that’s scary that these attorneys would use this tactic and intimidate me into dropping my appeal,” Good Bear said. “I don’t have protection. If somebody is upset about all this and comes at me with a gun, what am I supposed to do?”

The Cobell settlement was approved by the courts last fall after almost 16 years of court battles. Payments were scheduled to be send out in November before the objections were filed.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys, led by Dennis Gingold of Washington, D.C., wrote in their letter that the “hopes and wishes of 500,000 individual Indians” had been delayed by those four people. If it wasn’t for them, the first payments would have been made before Thanksgiving, the letter said.

“There is little doubt that they do not share the desires or care about the needs of the class, over 99.9 percent of whom support a prompt conclusion to this long-running, acrimonious case,” the attorneys wrote.

The letter went on to list the names, phone numbers and addresses of Good Bear; Kimberly Craven of Boulder, Co.; Charles Colombe of Mission, S.D.; and Mary Lee Johns of Lincoln, Neb. The attorneys invited people to “ask them directly about their motives” and cautioned them to “please be civil in your communications.”

Jenna Cederberg

After a short vacation, Buffalo Post will return Jan. 31.

Aloha,

Jenna Cederberg

Missoulian reporter Vince Devlin introduces us to Joe Durglo and gives an update on the issues the new Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal chairman has on his plate:

PABLO – The new chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes says he’s not going to try to guess what message members may have been sending last month when they turned four out of five incumbents on the Tribal Council out of office, just two years after re-electing all other five incumbents on the 10-person governing board.

Joe Durglo (Courtesy of CSKT)

The defeat of one of those council members, former chairman E.T. “Bud” Moran, meant CSKT would have a new leader for the next two years no matter what.

Durglo, 50, a St. Ignatius native who has served on the council since 2006, says he never had the chairmanship as his goal when he entered tribal politics.

But after it was clear someone would have to replace Moran, Durglo says he felt his education, experience and business background – he spent 15 years in economic development before being elected to the council – might be of value.

“So I threw my hat in the ring,” Durglo says. “I’ve been fortunate to work with a couple of different chairmen, and serve as vice chairman to Bud, and I’m very appreciative council selected me.”

It’s no small matter.

The chairman heads a sovereign nation that is also the largest economic force in Lake County. The tribes employ 1,200 people directly and another 400 or so at places such as Salish Kootenai College and KwaTaqNuk Resort, have a payroll of $30 million annually, and spend $35 million more on vendor goods and services.

Durglo assumes the chairmanship at a key time on at least two fronts.

Each day brings CSKT closer to its probable takeover of Kerr Dam from PPL Montana in 2015, something the tribes have been saving for, and aiming to do, for some 30 years.

“The river corridor is a sacred place to us,” Durglo says, “and it will give us some control over the resource. We have to be prepared to operate the facility, and have to understand how the industry works. There’s a lot of work involved.”

That includes fully staffing a relatively new CSKT Department of Energy and agreeing on a purchase price. The two sides started the process more than $40 million apart.

The tribes’ ongoing water rights negotiations with the state of Montana also face a deadline.

“We need to complete (them),” Durglo says. “We’re on a tight timeline now. There’s a short window – we need to have it done by the next legislative session.”

But Durglo says both sides have worked well together, and technical teams from both sides are meeting regularly.

The tribes’ on-again, off-again involvement with the National Bison Range has largely disappeared from public view in recent months, but Durglo says CSKT is “actively communicating” with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about another partnership at the national wildlife refuge, which is located on the Flathead Indian Reservation.

“We want to be careful, and have all our ducks in a row,” he says, “but I believe we’re fairly close. We’re still working on it.”

As he spoke in his new office, an array of curriculum materials from Nkwsum, the Salish Language Institute, were laid out on a table from a meeting the chairman had earlier Wednesday morning.
Preserving Native languages has been a priority for many tribal leaders and council members over the years, Durglo says, and he and others want to make sure it remains so.

“We talk language often,” he adds. “A lot of energy and effort have been devoted to continuing the language.”

So, even though 80 percent of the council’s incumbents lost their re-election bids, Durglo says the work they were involved in carries on through the change in leadership and council makeup.

“The council and previous leadership established good goals,” he says. “I certainly think the folks selected (in the December election) are good people, with a good diversity of experience. I’m encouraged by their approach and input. They’re a very thoughtful bunch, and I think they’ll serve the membership well.”
A 1980 graduate of St. Ignatius High School, Durglo earned a degree in business administration from Montana State University in 1985.

He worked for the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project before joining the team that created S&K Development, which built the tribally owned KwaTaqNuk Resort in Polson.

Durglo also helped establish S&K Holding, and Sovereign Leasing and Financing.

The latter aids tribal organizations with leasing options, and loans money to entrepreneurial tribal members for business startups and expansions.

“With my business background, that’s one other thing I’d like to focus on: individual tribal members and their economic development,” Durglo says.

Story and photo by Karin Eagle, Native Sun News Staff Writer

Debra White Plume, Oglala, Kandi Mosset, Mandan/Arikaree, Marie Randall, Oglala, and Tantoo Cardinal, First Nations Cree, presented their voices at the first Winyan Ituwan, “Vision of the Women.” (Photo by Karin Eagle)

PORCUPINE – With not a drum in sight, there was still a pounding of heartbeats that could be felt like a reverberation from the largest drums. The heartbeat of the women gathered on the lands of the Oglala Lakota pounded steady and hard as the women’s voices gathered to speak and encourage one another in an effort to not only encourage the men, but to call on the younger women to pick up the fight that was started generations ago by the great-grandmothers, grandmothers and mothers of today.

In Porcupine, the first of four gatherings of Native women called Winyan Ituwan, or Vision of the Women, was held this past Sunday. The Lakota leadership of Debra White Plume and Babe Poor Bear, both Oglala Lakota, pulled a wide variety of Lakota and Dakota women together in order to reestablish their power and what Alex White Plume, Oglala activist, termed “the spiritual law which men do not act on anything without, which is what women are”.
Emceeing the event were Poor Bear and Cordelia White Owl, who is also Oglala Lakota.

Each taking a turn at introducing the powerful women who, at all ages, have either stood up for the Lakota people’s human or civil rights, the preservation of culture and language and the environmental issues that have and will impact the health and well-being of the Native peoples of this land.

According to elder Marie Randall, the Lakota winyan – the women – carry the foundation of Lakota life. Randall talked about her desire to teach the Lakota language to her takoja, or grandchildren, in their schools but was initially denied because of the requirements that the state enforces, citing her lack of a teaching degree. Because she is a natural and lifelong speaker of the Lakota language, she was eventually able to obtain a teaching certificate through the state and was finally able to fulfill her own dream of teaching the Lakota language in her community school.

“I am not afraid to be Lakota,” said Randall, which incited a huge round of applause and trills from the women in the audience.
Deb White Plume, who in the summer of 2011 had been arrested in Washington, D.C., during a protest of the Keystone XL Pipeline, proposed to cross Lakota treaty lands, spoke passionately and proudly of the work that has already been accomplished on environmental issues with the leadership of Native women. The mining companies that are seeking renewal permits at the uranium mines near Crawford, Neb., a half-hour from the southern border of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, are currently being fought against.

“Our water at our home has tested so high for radiation and arsenic, which is what happens where uranium mining is being done,” said Debra White Plume, wife of Alex. “But there hasn’t been one single shovel dug in those mines since we have started these challenges, which shows how much power we as women have,” she said.

White Plume spoke eloquently about the need to stand up and have a say in any of the issues that are directly affecting Native peoples.

“I want to stand up. Who else wants to stand up?” asked White Plume. This drew a huge, minute-long response in applause and trills and whistles from the audience.

Tantoo Cardinal, a First Nations Cree from Canada whose community is at ground zero of the tar sands oil mines near Fort McMurray. She remembers not having any awareness of her language or culture, as it had been outlawed.

The Canadian government, she maintains, knew that the power of the First Nations people came from their strong tie to the language and the cultural beliefs and practices so they outlawed all of it, creating a division among the people who struggled to maintain that tie and the ones who passively went with the laws.

“I remember that my mother and I had a strong division because I didn’t get married in the Catholic Church, which she thought would put her straight in hell,” remembers Cardinal. “She was so mad at me. That’s how strong that division was.”

Cardinal, who is a very passionate speaker, unafraid of expressing all emotions, spoke about the predicament First Nations and Native American women have found themselves in.

“The women’s place has not been honored or respected by the civilization that came across the ocean,” said Cardinal. “The land itself, Mother Earth, is being treated in the same abusive ways that many of our women are being treated. It has to stop; it doesn’t have to be this way,” she said.

Kandi Mosset from New Town, ND, a member of The Three Affiliated Tribes, addressed the audience with a powerful blend of humor, emotion and energy. She spoke rapidly yet so eloquently that many audience members mentioned that she made them feel that they were going through what she was experiencing. A younger woman, Mosset nevertheless has all the passion and steel resolve to correct the environmental issues that are currently plaguing her tribes’ land, water and air.

Pulling no punches, Mosset lays the blame exactly where she sees it belongs – on her elected tribal leaders.

“Tex Hall is the current tribal leader, but he is not my leader. I am sorry if he has any relatives here, but I don’t know how that man sleeps at night,” said Mosset.

Elaborating on that thought, she explained that it is the tribal leaders who have allowed so many oil wells to be dug on reservation lands, with some rigs within a few hundred yards of Lake Sakakawea, from which the tribes receive drinking water.

There are several documented cases of spills and leaks into the lake, all of which add up to the formation of a lake filled with pollutants deadly to wildlife, as well as to humans.

“My Dad used to dip his cup into the lake when we were out on a boat and drink it,” said Mosset, “But you would never even think to do that now. And yet that is where we swim and go fishing.”
Mosset also spoke about having to throw fish that was caught in the lake back if it was too large to decrease the amount of contamination that might be ingested.

Mosset, who herself is a cancer survivor and refused chemotherapy and radiation treatment, felt that there was a calling for her, but she wasn’t able to figure out exactly which way she would be of most help to her people.

“I told Mom, ‘I’m an average volleyball player and okay basketball player, (and) I can sorta bake’,” said Mosset. “The only thing I’ve ever done was get in trouble in school for talking too much. Aha!”

Using what she termed her “gift of gab,” Mosset began to use her voice to bring attention to the environmental impact the oil mines on the reservation were having, which are many and certainly not limited to oil spills and leaks.

Leaky valves on holding containers, while not visible to the naked eye, can be seen leaking clouds of vapor into the air through an infrared camera. Hydraulic fracturing is being done on reservation lands, which requires several million gallons per year to accomplish. Hydraulic fractures form naturally, as in the case of veins or dikes, and are one means by which gas and petroleum from source rocks may migrate to reservoir rocks.
However, oil and gas companies may attempt to accelerate this process in order to release petroleum, natural gas, coal seam gas or other substances for extraction. This technique is often called fracking.

When the water is done being used, it is so highly contaminated that it is supposed to be properly disposed of, but several residents of the reservation have witnessed the trucks meant to haul the fracked water to its disposal location instead dumping the water on the side of the road, near the fracking site.

The trucks themselves have created their own environmental issues, as well. Crop yields have gone down due to the incredibly high traffic which generates so much dust that it creates its own haze in the air. This also leads to respiratory issues for people with asthma and allergies.

Another issue that the trucks have created is road hazards due to time-pressed drivers. A friend of Mosset, identified only as Candi, was killed due to the utter carelessness of one of the oil mine company’s trucks, who are all on time schedules to move as much water as possible in one day. A large billboard with Candi’s photo on it urges drivers to “Think before they pass.”

“You can’t taste it, you can’t see it, you might be able to smell it, but it is affecting you and will be affecting you down here in Pine Ridge,” warned Moffet, referring to the winds that blow the pollution down to the south and through the Missouri River.
Davidica Little Spotted Horse, Oglala Lakota, the founder of Independence Through Music, which was created on the reservation to help combat suicide, dropout rates and violence in the communities, spoke about her program. The ITM artists, all local up-and-coming musicians, are given mentorship geared at taking their music careers in a more productive route. They are taught how to manage their careers, book gigs and produce the music that they write, sing or perform to.

Little Spotted Horse then introduced one of the artists under ITM, Sheldon King, who performs under the stage name Lakota Samurai. King performed a rap song that he wrote about the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Madonna Thunder Hawk was invited to speak about the Indian Child Welfare Act, but she would address some information about activism. She invited her friend Phyllis Young, who is a newly elected council person for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Young called for more Wall Street demonstrations, specifically in the Black Hills.

Thunder Hawk, who maintains that she is in her seventies yet looks decades younger, works for the Lakota Peoples Law Project, which is charged with the goal of making sure that ICWA laws are followed by the states and that the tribes are made aware of their rights and responsibilities to the children they are supposed to be protecting.

“I am in my seventies, and I have been doing this for a very long time now. We need our young women to now pick up the fight,” said Thunder Hawk, looking around the room at the large number of younger women, teenagers and small children.

Troylynn Yellow Wood, Oglala and Northern Cheyenne, spoke on behalf of her aunt, Vivian Locust. She spoke with a heartfelt passion about the true roles of the Lakota women and of certain ways the women were supposed to conduct themselves. This presentation was told in such a manner that it captured and held the attention of the youngest audience members, which, due to their unexpected stillness, caught the attention of the adults in attendance.

Yellow Wood’s soothing tones, as well as the content of her presentation, were well received by the gathering of women. She came armed with a fistful of notes that she took based on what her aunt wanted to share with the Winyan Ituwan.

Due to the fact that there was a mixed crowd, meaning men as well as women in attendance, Yellow Wood was hesitant to share much of what was written out of respect for the males. She said that it’s not right to speak about those things in front of men because you never want to shame the male relatives. It was at Yellow Wood’s house in Denver that Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was picked up for the journey to the place near Wanbli where she was murdered.

Faye Spotted Eagle spoke about taking the initiative to teach the language to her tiwahe, or immediate family circle. She invited her relatives over, and they all made the decision together to learn the language and pass it on to the next generation. While attending the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Language Summit in Rapid City, Spotted Eagle was surprised when a Maori speaker pointed out that it was very sad that there were no young people in attendance at the summit. The majority of Lakota, Dakota and Nakota speakers were all over the age of fifty.

The Brave Heart Society was established and the people involved have actively worked at reestablishing the language of daily life. The young women involved introduced themselves in the Lakota language, and a prayer in Lakota was offered by one of the youngest members. The prayer offered was a prayer that was written by Ella Deloria and was offered during the time when the sun dance tree was cut down before being placed in the middle of the arbor. The prayer offers the people’s apologies to the birds for taking their home.

Pearl Means, who is Dine’ and the wife of activist and cancer survivor Russell Means, spoke emotionally about her husband’s fight and defeat of throat cancer. She shared how the different tribes across the country, as well as here on Oglala lands, offered ceremonies and medicines to Means in an attempt to change the course of his illness. At a recent checkup, Means was told by a doctor that “you will not die of cancer.”

Pearl Means offered that the power of women is to nurture and to pray for the people. Later on, Russell Means emphatically said, “I beat cancer because of my wife!”

Nearing the end of the event, a meal was served to the gathering by the youngest women in attendance. During the meal, an honoring song was sung by Tianna Spotted Horse and Autumn Two Bulls while star quilts and gifts were presented to Cardinal and Mosset. The audience lined up to shake their hands and offered them encouragement and gratitude for the help that they offered the Oglala people.

The evening concluded with words of encouragement from two of the strongest supporters of women’s voices, Alex White Plume and Russell Means, during which time it was announced by White Plume that Means would be joining forces with the Treaty Council of the Oglala to fight for the sacred Black Hills

Little Spotted Horse and one of her daughters drew the evening to a close with a musical performance.

Contact Karin Eagle at staffwriter2@nsweekly.com. Copyright permission by Native Sun News, www.nsweekly.com.

A ski area in Utah is resting its season’s hopes on members of the Northern Ute Tribe.

As the Associated Press reports via CBS, the snow has yet to come this year to many parts of the west.

So, Park City Mountain Resort recruited the Norther Ute Tribe to perform a snow blessing.

Park City has been forced to make 40 percent more snow than at this time last year.

“Our snowmakers have been working around the clock, so we said it is time to put in a call to Mother Nature,” said Krista Parry, marketing director at Park City Mountain Resort.

She also called on a friend, Frank Arrowchis, who led a similar ceremony at Arches National Park to bless the Olympic Flame during the torch relay in 2002.

Arrowchis led the prayer Saturday in English, followed by one in Ute by Spiritual Leader Albert Lance Manning.

“We hope our prayers are answered because it’s for everybody,” Arrowchis said. “Prayer has a lot of power if it’s done right. We hope we do get some snow. If we don’t, we tried.”

As of Monday, the blessing hadn’t produced the much-needed snow.

Jenna Cederberg

Mark Trahant

A question for any Republican running for any federal office: If you are successful repealing “ObamaCare,” what happens to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act?

South Dakota’s Rep. Kristi Noem illustrates the GOP’s mixed message. Her web page says: “I will support efforts to fully repeal the health care bill.” A few clicks later, she adds, “a lack of resources and medical staff are constantly the biggest hurdles to quality health care on our reservations. Improving access and quality of care should be a key priority.”

It’s nice to have it both ways. At least on paper. But it is an important question because the Affordable Care Act – ObamaCare – includes the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. If you repeal one, you repeal both. Sure, you could pass another Indian Health Care Improvement Act, but that’s a tall order.

But this dilemma shows the larger Republican problem with health care reform. If not the Affordable Care Act, then what? And once a proposal is on paper, do the numbers add up? Do the ideas really reduce health care costs and by extension the single largest budget issue facing the federal government?

Don’t hold your breath waiting for real answers. The problem in our political discourse is that folks are not required to give answers as complex as the problems. It’s enough to say, “I am against ObamaCare,” without detailing what should happen next.

First, it’s important to repeat, over and over, that many of the provisions of the Affordable Care act do not begin until 2014. There remains plenty of time in this election cycle to repeal, replace, beef up, add the public option, or somehow amend the Affordable Care Act.

Only one thing: You need the votes to do that. There has to be a majority in the House, a supermajority in the Senate of 60 votes, and a president who all agree. That would require a November 2012 sweep that’s currently not showing up in any of the polls. In fact: The opposite seems more likely today. The most recent fights over the payroll tax has given Democrats hope of retaking that chamber. Real Clear Politics says the odds favor Republican control the Senate but, more important, a sweep of the toss-up races would only result in 55 seats, well short of a supermajority.

Of course a Republican president could throw up all sorts of roadblocks to implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Mitt Romney, for example, has talked about granting a 50-state waiver. But that, it seems to me, is the best and a rather limited alternative to repealing ObamaCare.

As I mentioned last week: The Supreme Court could also strike down the act. But it’s far more likely that it would strip the individual mandate to purchase health care insurance, leaving the remainder of the law intact. The Obama administration makes an interesting pitch to the court for the mandate, citing a Nixon Administration’s plan as well as Romney’s Massachusetts’ plan because it “has strengthened private employer-based coverage: despite the economic downturn, the number of workers offered employer-based coverage has actually increased.”

A second issue before the court is the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Some states say that part of the law goes too far and is “coercive.” (But that’s a tough case to make in a voluntary program because a state could simply quit Medicaid.) States are looking for an out because Medicaid is the most expensive item in their budgets, adding up to nearly a quarter of all state spending (when you include the federal match). Medicaid is also problematic for the Indian health system. On one hand it’s an important funding stream for people who are eligible. On the other hand states set the rules for services and eligibility – even when the federal government pays 100 percent of the costs.

The word “repeal” carries certainty. It makes it seem like if only we voters elect … then, finish the sentence, and all of this mess goes away. Only a repeal requires as much consensus as putting forth an alternative. And that’s not a likely election outcome.

Minnesota Democrat Susan Allen (Courtesy of ICTMN)

On her website, Allen states, “I am a passionate supporter of marriage equality. As a lesbian, I feel this inequality every day. I will use my position as State Rep to speak loudly against the marriage amendment and in favor of equality for all Minnesota families. . .”

When speaking to Indian Country Today Media Network, Allen said, “This is a big win as an LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) candidate, for communities of color and especially for the American Indian community. I felt that this is important to be running as an out, lesbian, Native American. It is interesting that some publications for Native Americans they are reluctant to print that. I think that this is something that we’re struggling with in minority communities. I think it is really important to start talking about that and to have some sort of healing process.”

Perma pictographs link tribal people to the dawn of their being
Char-Koosta reporter Bernie Azure takes readers to the Perma pictograph site near the Flathead Indian Reservation where a remediation process is taking place to ensure the ancient site remains intact.

A rock panel containing an ancient pictograph was illegally removed years ago, portions of the remaining pictograph remains above the missing panel. ( Photo by B.L. Azure)

Last week, representatives from the Cultural Preservation Office, the Division of Fire and the Salish Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee Elders Committee journeyed to the Perma pictographs to assess damage and to begin planning for projects to mitigate the damage and to curtail future potential for damage by limiting access to the area.

According to Ira Matt of the CPO, the pictographs remained essentially intact for thousands of years until being discovered. Since the 1960s there have been at least a half dozen incidents of vandalism and looting of the pictographs as well as incalculable incidents of damage to the surrounding delicate landscape due to overuse of the area for camping and partying. Also lost, as result of looting is the spiritual offerings left at the area that has been used for vision quests.

California tribes see economic growth beyond casinos
An economic forecast seminar in California made note that economic opportunities beyond gaming exist and can help tribes thrive.

The conference, as OrovilleMR.com reports, was attended by members of numerous tribal members and associations. It also examined what could be done to help business thrive for tribes.

The Center for Economic Development is currently working on two efforts for Indian tribes: developing the infrastructure to get high-speed Internet to the 111 tribes in California, and working with the U.S. Economic Development Administration to identify 20 Northern California tribes to assist with economic development strategies.

Another panelist, Craig Norte of the Federal Reserve Board, listed five barriers to obtaining bank loans: land complexity in terms of legal issues, such as land being held in a trust for a tribe; the lack a legal infrastructure; geographical remoteness; lack of communication; and the low-to-moderate incomes and “checkered credit” on reservations.

Jenna Cederberg

High school students in a South Dakota town are helping to bring bison back, thanks to a program that encourages consumption of the sacred animal through cooking and other classes.

As Kristi Eaton of the Associated Press reports, the program is also inspiring a reconnection to culture.

The program was started by Flandreau Santee Sioux tribe and South Dakota State University researchers at Flandreau Indian School.

The school began preparing school meals with fresh bison meat last year as part of the pilot project.

Nearly 20 professors across five departments at SDSU are involved in the project, which they hope will be used as a model among other tribes trying to revive the demand for bison.

Although bison tastes a bit different — some think it has a sweeter, richer flavor than beef — Flandreau Indian School senior Dillon Blackbird said he prefers school meals served with bison because it’s “real meat.”

One of more than 30 students from the Flandreau Indian School to take part in cooking workshops with bison as the main ingredient, Blackbird said he now knows how to whip up his own dishes with bison, which has less fat and fewer calories than beef.

“I make basic stuff: tacos, enchiladas, spaghetti, lasagna,” Blackbird said.

SDSU researchers want other teenagers to follow Blackbird’s lead, creating a market within the tribe for the next 40 to 50 years and changing the way members think about the animal.

Jenna Cederberg

As the relentless winter continues to batter Alaska, the village of Nome is anxiously awaiting a one-of-a-kind shipment to help it get through the wicked weather.

The town is monitoring closely the progress of a Russian tanker filled with heating fuel and gasoline that is attempting to reach the town through the ice-over ocean, as ICTMN reports via the Associated Press.

The tanker’s slow trek is being aided by a Coast Guard icebreaker crew.

Nome finds itself strapped for gas and heating oil because a tanker that was supposed to deliver a shipment in the fall was blocked from doing so due to severe storms. This time around, failure is not an option. According to an Associated Press report, a barge delivery of fuel would not be possible until the spring. If the tanker manages the delivery, it would mark the first time petroleum products had been delivered to a western Alaska community in winter, the AP said.

Be sure to check out the link ICTMN provides to the Dec. 30 story in the Alaska Dispatch about tanker’s trek.

ICTMN has video on the story as well.

Jenna Cederberg

The U.S. Postal Service is still deciding whether it will close hundreds of mail processing center across the country. Communities that may be affected by the closures have expressed concern about a multitude of negative consequences that may arise if the postal services are eliminated.

The Arizona Daily Star reports that in the case of the Tohono O’odham Nation, the consequence could be an interruption in voting rights.

The loss of the center would mean fewer days to get mail-in ballots in across Arizona.

But it would be worse for voters in the Tohono O’odham Nation, (county recorder F. Ann Rodriguez) said.

The only post office in the 4,460-square-mile nation is in Sells, and there is no home delivery or pickup. It would take a week or more for a voter in a remote area to pick up a ballot at a post office box in Sells, and he or she would have less than 10 days to mark the ballot and return it, Rodriguez said.

“There is no question that the changes proposed by the postal service will impact Native American voters far more extensively than the voters in the metropolitan areas,” Rodriguez said in a letter to the Postal Service.

The Postal Service disputes these numbers, but local officials continue to take action.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors plans to vote today on a resolution to oppose the plant closure because of the potential for “disenfranchising Native American voters,” among other reasons.

The draft resolution states that Pima County stands to lose 440 jobs, $30 million in economic activity and $4.8 million in federal, state and local tax revenue.

Jenna Cederberg

The state of Maryland granted its first formal recognition of a tribe there this week.

As Michael Dresser of The Baltimore Sun reports, members of the Piscataway-Conoy Tribe celebrated after the executive order recognizing the tribe was read.

For Mervin Savoy, recognition was sweet — even if it came more than two centuries too late.

Savoy was one of hundreds of Piscataways who gathered beneath the State House dome in Annapolis Monday as Gov. Martin O’Malley issued executive orders formally recognizing the Native American tribe as a distinct people. It is the first time Maryland has given formal recognition to a tribe.

The recognition will mean a lot of things for the tribal members, that go beyond the symbolic distinction of official status.

The designation also could make it easier for Piscataway-owned businesses to qualify as minority business enterprises — a status that could help them win state and local government contracts, the governor’s office said.

One benefit recognition will not confer on the Piscataways is the right to open casinos — a lucrative revenue source for Native American tribes in other states. O’Malley spokeswoman Raquel Guillory said that as part of the agreement that led to formal recognition, the Piscataways have renounced any plan to get into the gambling business. The executive orders specify that they do not grant any “special privileges” related to gambling.

Jenna Cederberg

The current statistics are shocking enough, and a new clarification of definition of rape may highlight more troublesome, increased numbers of rape cases in Indian Country.

As Rob Capriccioso reports on ICTMN, the Obama Administration recently expanded the official definition of rape. That could help tell a more accurate picture of sexual assaults across the country and help define a solution.

In the past, the numbers have shown Native women are more than three and half times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape.

That revelation was made clear January 6 when the Obama administration announced that the federal government would also begin counting rapes toward women that were done by an object or mouth on the vagina or anus without consent, and it would begin counting rapes of children and men as well. The new data will be collected for the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The new definition is more consistent with state laws and local crime reports, administration officials said.

Obama administration officials said the new measuring methods may lead to an increase in the number of counted rapes nationwide, including those in Indian country.

“This major policy change will lead to more accurate reporting and far more comprehensive understanding of this devastating crime,” said Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to Obama, in a press conference call. She called the old data “incomplete,” and said that “it has not captured the true impact of this crime.”

Capriccioso also discusses in his report how decreased federal funding for certain programs inhibits the prosecution of attackers and resources available to victims of rape in Indian Country.

Jenna Cederberg

Mark Trahant

Mark Trahant is a writer, speaker and Twitter poet. He is a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and lives in Fort Hall, Idaho. Trahant’s recent book, “The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars,” is the story of Sen. Henry Jackson and Forrest Gerard.

This election ought to be about one issue, a referendum on health care reform.

Republicans say it’s about repealing Obamacare. Every candidate has pledged to repeal the law (as if presidents had such power) as a first act in office. But then what? What actions would follow to improve health care and dramatically lower the costs? Is there a conservative alternative? (I don’t see kicking young people off of Medicare as a solution – that idea doesn’t drive costs down).

But the “what next?” question remains a tough one for President Obama and the Democrats. The Affordable Care Act was a baby-step, a beginning, not an end.

This single election question matters because the cost of health care is the federal deficit. We are paying far too much for an inefficient health care system when we also have an aging population that is facing expensive medical care. Just think, if we solve this one problem, then the rest of the budget is manageable.

But if we fail to reach a national consensus then the budget obligations to pay for existing problems are many times greater than our resources.

The Congressional Budget Office puts it this way: “Projected growth in entitlement spending explains almost all of the projected growth in noninterest spending – and the two big government health care programs that largely drive that increase. Medicare and Medicaid are responsible for 80 percent of the growth in spending over the next 25 years and 90 percent of the growth by 2080.”

And what drives that unsustainable growth? The CBO says two things: “The aging of the population and the rapid growth of per capita health care costs.” Remember the number of those eligible for retirement – the baby boom generation born between 1946 and 1964 – continues to swell. The number of older Americans is going up from 13 percent to 20 percent by 2035 while the share of Americans aged 20 to 64 is falling from 60 percent to 55 percent.

The military is a good example of the demographic riddle. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in his last budget message to Congress, said “sharply rising health care costs are consuming an ever larger share of this department’s budget – growing from $19 billion in 2001 to $52.5 billion in this request.” Gates argued for increased fees from working-age retirees saying the current system is unsustainable. “And,” he said, “if allowed to continue, the defense department runs the risk of the fate of other corporate and government bureaucracies that were ultimately crippled by personnel costs, in particular, their retiree benefit packages.”

Multiply the Pentagon’s dilemma across government. Or throughout the private sector. Then the scope of the problem is visible. Add to that landscape complexity those Americans who cannot afford health insurance. Medical issues don’t vanish because someone doesn’t have insurance – they just get most costly and show up on another budget line.

That’s why I think a key part of reform is improving health care delivered via government agencies such as the Indian Health Service or the Veterans Administration. We also need to see how the health exchanges will work – and to get hard data about their effectiveness. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that there is wide, bipartisan support for the idea of exchanges. The trick, then, is to build on that consensus and make the exchanges effective.

So how do we Americans debate health care reform? We make certain this is the single issue for the 2012 election year.

Reserve votes to allow eviction of gang members

A CTV News report from Alberta, Canada (see the full video report here) details a new bylaw OK’d by voters there that would allow tribal officials to remove gang members from the reserve.

The Samson Cree Nation is a violence-plagued reserve, CTV reports.

The band agreed to take the issue to a vote after the July death of the chief’s five-year-old grandson in a drive-by shooting, as well as ongoing gang violence.

There are believed to be about 12 gangs in the four First Nations communities in the Hobbema area.

“It is considered necessary for the health and welfare of the Samson Cree Nation to regulate the residence of its citizens and other persons on the reserve,” states the bylaw, which also includes a provision requiring prospective new residents to apply to a residency tribunal before moving in.

SBA introduces new course for Indian entrepreneurs
In a press release this week, the U.S. Small Business Administration announced a new program aimed at helping entrepreneurs in Indian Country get their business dreams off the ground and into action.

“Native American Small Business Primer: Strategies for Success” is a free, self-paced online business course developed for Native American business owners.

The new online course: emphasizes business planning and market research as essential steps to take before going into business; informs Native American entrepreneurs about the legal aspects of starting a business, including the type of ownership (legal structure) and licensing; and provides key information on seed money for starting up, raising capital, and borrowing money. In addition, there is a section on how to estimate business start-up costs that can help assess the financial needs of going into business.

Craven appeal of Cobell moves forward
ICTMN’s Rob Capriccioso has the latest on an appeal to the historic Cobell land trust settlement given final approval by the courts last year.

The settlement terms have irked some, such as Kimberly Craven, Capriccioso reports. Craven filed an appeal to the settlement in September and has continued to file documents with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as objections to her appeals have filed in. The appeals will most likely delay settlement payments to thousands.

Of note, Craven labels the proposed distribution of the settlement as “upside-down” in that “greatest alleged injuries” would receive “the least amount of money.” The brief also states, “[c]lass members with no hope of recovery have an interest in a settlement that wildly overcompensates them at the expense of class members who do have legitimate claim.”

Cobell lawyers have previously argued that Craven is speculating that class members suffered different types of individualized damages.

Jenna Cederberg