Native Sites

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are forging on – once again – in their effort to be a part of the management operations at the National Bison Range in northwestern Montana.

A newborn bison is seen at the National Bison Range in early May. (Photo by KURT WILSON/Missoulian)

As Missoulian reporter Vince Devlin reports, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will go ahead with an environmental assessment for a funding agreement recently filed by CSKT that would allow the tribe to be involved in certain operations and programs at the range.

A similar funding agreement was thrown out be a judge several years ago, as Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has continually fought against tribal involvement efforts.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which filed

the lawsuit that got the last agreement thrown out and has long fought any tribal involvement at the Bison Range, indicated it would again oppose a funding agreement.

“When people have a chance to evaluate the funding agreement on their own, they’ll be hard-pressed to figure out how PEER came to some of the allegations they make,” said CSKT spokesman Rob McDonald.

McDonald noted that an investigation by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Interior last year found, on virtually a point-by-point basis, no merit in PEER’s longstanding charges of wrongdoing by CSKT employees who worked at the Bison Range under two previous funding agreements.

PEER has also previously claimed previous funding agreements “ceded control” of the Bison Range to the tribes, which was never the case.

Jenna Cederberg

A ranch owner in Oregon wants to help restore hope in Texas, where a highly revered rare white buffalo calf was found dead.

This undated handout photo provided by Cynthia Hart-Button shows Chief Hiawatha, a white buffalo bull. (Photo courtesy of AP, via the Great Falls Tribune)

Apparently slaughtered, the loss of the Lightning Medicine Cloud at the Lakota Ranch near the North Texas town of Greenville shocked the people there.

Cynthia Hart-Button has offered up white bull bison, Chief Hiawatha, to ease the pain, according to Linda Stewart Bull, for the Associated Press.

“It’s a sad tragedy,” she said of the calf’s death. “So, instead of them thinking that they lost their hope, we’re bringing their hope back in a different way.”

Hart-Button said she hopes the bull, named Chief Hiawatha, will produce another white calf for the Lakota Ranch. The bull will turn 7 on May 16.

She said Hiawatha has been like a guard dog, growling when someone comes near who “is not good in spirit.”

Lightning Medicine Cloud’s arrival last year was heavily celebrated.

According to Lakota Sioux lore, the goddess of peace once appeared in the form of a white buffalo calf.

As a non-albino white buffalo, Lightning Medicine Cloud was revered by Native Americans. Thousands of people of all races attended a naming ceremony for the unusual calf last year, and Little Soldier called it the “hope of all nations.”

Little Soldier said he found the calf dead and skinned, a few feet away from where it was born a year ago. Little Soldier said the calf’s mother, which was found dead and skinned the next day, was poisoned. The calf’s father was struck and killed by lightning in April.

An inspiring graduation story from Missoulian reporter Chelsi Moy:

Frank Big Man holds his daughter Mahala on the University of Montana campus, where he will graduate Saturday with a bachelor’s degree in community health. (Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian)

During the five years that Frank Big Man attended the University of Montana, the 27-year-old guesses he failed 10 college classes.

The highest grade he received in physics after his third try was a D.

Big Man didn’t have an easy college career.

It wasn’t easy leaving his home on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and his Crow family. It wasn’t easy when his baby daughter was diagnosed with hip dysplasia, an abnormal formation of the hip socket, at 2 months old. As a patient with type 1 diabetes, it wasn’t always easy maintaining his blood sugar. Finances were never easy.

Countless times, Big Man thought about giving up. One time, he even tried. But with the support of university faculty and Big Man’s resilience and perseverance, he will accept his college diploma on Saturday.

Big Man is the first in his family to earn a college degree.
With one final left earlier this week, he watched as his 4-year-old daughter Mahala ran around the Payne Family Native American Center, happy and full of life.

The sight brought tears to his eyes.

“It’s not about me,” he said. “It’s about the little ones. I want to give them the tools that I never had.”

Big Man wants his daughters to see him in a cap and gown, accepting his diploma on Saturday. As they begin school in the coming years, he wants that memory to stick.

“I thought about giving up so many times,” he said. “I’m glad I stuck with it for them. So they can look up to me.”

Big Man took five years to earn a bachelor’s degree in community health at UM, after having fulfilled his general education requirements at Chief Dull Knife College, a two-year community college on his home reservation.

When he attended elementary school in Colstrip, he was placed in special education classes, though looking back, Big Man is not really sure why. It made him intimidated by other students, however, a feeling he never quite shook.

Growing up, no one ever talked with him about the importance of education.

Yet, he never doubted attending college. He was convinced a college degree was the path to good, high-paying jobs.

He liked exercise science and maintained a healthy lifestyle playing basketball. When he enrolled at UM, he declared his major as exercise science, but was unable to meet the rigor of the curriculum, especially the required science courses. He switched his major to community health and aims to get into the field of diabetes prevention.

Big Man had a large support system from faculty in the Health and Human Performance Department, as well as American Indian Student Services.

But his wife, Lea, was among his strongest supporters.
The family survived their daughter’s medical needs and numerous trips to the Shriners Hospital in Spokane. They survived Big Man’s temporary hospitalization when his blood sugar spiked.

The family also weathered the past couple of years with the help of food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Need Families, a federal subsidy program.

This fall, however, Big Man’s financial student assistance ran out at the same time as the family’s TANF funding.

He was six credits – two classes – short of graduation when he typed an email to academic adviser Blakely Brown, a nutrition and community health professor, thanking her for all of the support over the years. He had no money to pay for his last six credits. He had already pawned his bike – a gift from his father after his car broke down – for $100 to buy diapers for baby Mahlonie.

Maybe someday he would return to the university to complete his degree, but in the back of his head Big Man knew better.

***
“It was a real sad email to get,” said Brown, who still gets emotional thinking about it. Within five minutes, she was on the phone to the chair of the department and American Indian Student Services, trying to figure out ways to help Big Man afford six credits.

“He was so incredibly close and it would just take one more very big concerted effort to help Frank reach this goal,” Brown said.

American Indian Student Services came up with financial support and Brown found a way to pay Big Man in exchange for office work.

Scott Richter, chair of the Health and Human Performance Department, went down to the pawn shop where Big Man hocked his bike and bought it back. The department didn’t have any financial assistance to offer, Richter said, but it was something that he personally could do. After all, it was Big Man’s primary mode of transportation.

“When he walks across the stage (on Saturday), that will be one I treasure the most,” Richter said. “He had to overcome many things.”

Big Man is thankful for the support he received, though he was never good at asking for help, not financially or academically. He wanted to believe he could figure out things on his own.

That’s why Big Man doesn’t consider his journey particularly inspiring. He’s not proud of the work he’s accomplished because it was such a struggle. But others will tell you that Big Man has shown resilience in the face of hardships.

“I have more admiration for students in his situation who graduate against all odds, as opposed to those who enter with a national merit scholarship,” said Sharon O’Hare, director of UM’s Office of Student Success.

“He has stayed the course to meet his degree goals in spite of all these very significant barriers that came up along the way,” Brown said.

And now he has a new dream – to one day pursue a master’s degree. He hopes to find work around Missoula and to pay off student loans. In the end, he wants what’s best for his two daughters and to be able to provide for his family.

And if that means more school, then that’s what Big Man aims to do.

Are you registered? Are you ready to vote?

Chaske Spencer. Courtesy of Racebending.com

Nonprofit Native Vote has teamed up with movie star Chaske Spencer to make sure that answer is yes all across Indian Country.

Spencer is the star of a new video produced to convey the important role Native people can play by casting their votes this election season. Don’t be left out, he says in the short public service announcement video released this week by nonprofit group, Native Vote.

Native Vote is a non-partisan initiative of the National Congress of American Indians. NCAI sent a press release promoting the video Thursday.

Recent data suggests that over one million eligible American Indians and Alaska Natives were not registered to vote during the last election cycle; 34 percent of the total Native population is over 18 and eligible to vote.

Election day is only six months away. Here’s five things NCAI says can change that statistic.

Spencer is known for his year-round work to help improve the lives of Natives.

Spencer is actively involved in raising a national awareness of Native issues, especially through his organization, United Global Shift. United Global Shift empowers people from around the world to create sustainable, lasting change in their communities and countries.

Jenna Cederberg

By Vince Devlin, of the Missoulian:

Tim Ryan explains to fifth-graders from Ronan Middle School how a fish trap was made and used at the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ annual River Honoring on Tuesday. The event brings hundreds of fourth- and fifth-graders to the lower Flathead River for two days of education. (Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian)

ALONG THE LOWER FLATHEAD RIVER – Why would bull or cutthroat trout hang a left or right from the Flathead River and swim up some little tributary once a year?

Fifth-graders from Ronan Middle School had lots of theories Tuesday morning at the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ annual River Honoring.

“To look for food,” guessed one.

“Hibernating?” asked another.

“Migrating!” shouted a third, and the man asking the question, Tim Ryan, couldn’t disagree with that.

“Yes, they’re moving from one place to another,” Ryan said. “But does anyone know why?”

Then a young boy offered the answer – to spawn – that Ryan was looking for.

It was, Ryan, explained, the opportune time for Native peoples to go to work catching fish – and it was considerably more involved, not to mention effective, than grabbing a pole and worms.

For more than a quarter of a century, the tribes have paid tribute to the river where Pend d’Oreille, Salish and Kootenai Indians have traveled, camped, hunted, fished and found solace for thousands of years.

For two of the days each May, the River Honoring brings virtually every fourth- and fifth-grader who attends public school on the Flathead Indian Reservation – plus schools from as far away as Trout Creek and Missoula – to this part of the lower Flathead River, at the north end of the Moiese Valley.

See a video of the River Honoring here.

About 1,000 students spent Tuesday, or will spend Wednesday, going through some of the more than 20 educational stations at this relatively remote spot 14 miles southwest of Ronan.

“One day it will be up to their generation to take care of the river,” explained Germaine White, information and education specialist with the CSKT Natural Resources Department, “and the hope is to instill a sense of what a special place this is.”
They couldn’t have picked a nicer day if they had custom-ordered it.

Under a warm May sun, as some learned traditional Native games such as shinny and run-and-scream, others visited tepees where they learned about everything from wetland ecology to air and water quality.

***
At his “ancestral skills and technology” station a few yards from the Flathead River, Ryan – a partner in EthnoTech, a cultural resource consulting and heritage education firm – had constructed a pretend stream and some very real traditional fishing equipment.

It included a fence-like weir that stretched from imaginary bank to imaginary bank, save for an opening in the middle, which contained what one student described as “the fish-catcher trap thing-ee.”

“Right,” Ryan said with a smile. “The fish trap.”
He’d made the trap from sandbar willow, he told them, with help from beavers.

When beavers take down willow trees to construct their dams and lodges, Ryan said, what is left eventually sprouts the fairly thin shoots that are the perfect material for fish traps.

Longer shoots were used to make the cone-like enclosure, while short ones were shaved into sharp points on one end and bound to the opening at an angle. Fish could enter unscathed, but would run into the sharp points if they tried to exit.

“Every time I do one, I thank the beaver for helping make my ribs for the fish trap,” Ryan said.

Even so, curiosity killed the cat, not necessarily the fish.
“Fish are smarter than we think they are,” Ryan said. “They won’t just swim into a trap, they’re a little leery.”

But they did want to return to the Flathead, he said, and so they’d mill around the weir and trap, searching for ways through.

“That’s where you guys come in,” Ryan said. “What do you do when you get around water?”

Jump in, splash around, right? That’s all it took, Ryan said, a little commotion in the water upstream, and the fish would dart through the opening of the trap in an effort to escape.

The Indians didn’t worry about smaller fish that could squeeze through the weir, or swim back out of the trap, Ryan told them. They wanted there to be fish down the road.

“They’d say, ‘That’s OK,’ ” he said. “ ‘We’ll let them grow up, and catch them next year.’ ”

***
At the other end, Ryan tied the trap closed with rope made from dogbane, also known as Indian hemp, showing them how he crushed the plant’s stem with his fingers so he could strip off the bark, then rolled what was left between his hands to begin turning it into cordage.

No one had to reach past the pointed sticks and into a trap to extract a fish, Ryan said.

“You know what happened to the last student who tried that?” he’d warn.

You simply untied the one end, let the fish slide out, then tied it back up and put it back in the stream.

The design is so simple Ryan was able to call on students such as Kaley Brown and Dray Wieting to come up and explain the basics of the trap before he’d said a word about them.

But even the kids may have marveled at the ingenuity it certainly took centuries ago to figure out how to turn willow into a one-way underwater holding cell and dogbane into the cords to tie it all together.

“We all come from a long line of smart, intelligent ancestors,” Ryan told the kids. “If your ancestors didn’t figure things like this out, you might not be here today. I’m Salish, Pend d’Oreille and Kootenai, and I’m also Irish, English, Scottish and French, and I’m really proud of all those heritages. You should be proud of your heritage, too. All of our ancestors had to figure out how to live in the wilderness, and that’s part of our common heritage.”

A UN official assigned to examine the U.S.’s implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples may recommend to a special UN council that the Black Hills, including Mount Rushmore, be returned to the Sioux tribes.

According to Associated Press reporter Suzanne Gamboa, the official has spent the past weeks meeting with tribal officials and doing research.

James Anaya said land restoration would help bring about reconciliation. He named the Black Hills as an example. He said restoring to indigenous people what they have a legitimate claim to can be done in a way that is not divisive “so that the Black Hills, for example, isn’t just a reminder of the subordination and domination of indigenous peoples in that country.”

Anaya met with government officials and tribal representatives from Arizona, Alaska, Oregon, Washington State, South Dakota and Oklahoma both on reservations and in urban areas, the AP reported.

Anaya said he heard universal cries from the Native Americans and Alaska Natives for the federal government to protect their tribal sovereignty and for more ability to control their own affairs.

He added provisions in the Violence Against Women Act, recently approved in the Senate, give tribes the ability to prosecute people who commit violent crimes against Native American or Alaska Native women, even if they are not native peoples. That provision has been opposed by some Republicans in Congress. The House is expected to move on the act as soon as next week, with Republicans possibly drafting and pushing their own version.

Jenna Cederberg

The world premiere of the first mainstream movie about lacrosse is set to premiere in Syracuse, New York, this week.

Neal Powless is surrounded by "Crooked Arrows" promotional material in his office at the Native Student House at Syracuse University. (Photo by Mike Greenlar / The Post-Standard)

The town – and more importantly its Native people – played a big role in making “Crooked Arrows.”

In fact, as Sarah Moses of the Syracuse Post-Standard reports, the movie has Neal Powless to thank for much of its real-life flair.

Powless, a member of the Eel Clan of the Onondaga Nation and director of Native Student Program at Syracuse University, said signing on to work with an independent film about a Native American lacrosse team was a huge risk for him.

“I was told if I did this movie I was no longer Neal Powless of the Onondaga Nation,” he said. “I was no longer Neal Powless of Syracuse University. I was on my own.”

It’s taken at least six years to get the film made. Powless was brought on early and went from being a consultant to a co-producer, the Post-Standard reported.

During the casting calls, the producers asked Powless to help find a team of great Native American players to play roles on the Crooked Arrows’ Hero Team.

The producers were looking for three things: the look, the acting ability and the lacrosse skills, Powless said.
“Instead of hiring actors and teaching them to play lacrosse, they wanted lacrosse players who had acting ability,” Powless said.

Eight lacrosse players from or near the Onondaga Nation were selected to be on the team and most of them had never been in front of a movie camera.

In case you’re in the area, “Crooked Arrows” premieres in Syracuse on Wednesday at the Crouse Hinds Theater at the OnCenter.

Jenna Cederberg

Interior to require disclosure of ‘fracking’ chemicals on Indian, public lands
Just what goes into the fluids used in hydraulic fracking?

Residents on Indian Reservations where companies want to use the controversial technique to drill for oil will soon have a better idea thanks to new regulations put in place by the Interior Department last week.

Associated Press reported Matthew Brown has the full story:

The Obama administration said Friday it will for the first time require companies drilling for oil and natural gas on public and Indian lands to publicly disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations.

The proposed “fracking” rules also set standards for proper construction of wells and wastewater disposal.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the long-awaited rules will allow continued expansion of drilling while protecting public health and safety.

“As we continue to offer millions of acres of America’s public lands for oil and gas development, it is critical that the public have full confidence that the right safety and environmental protections are in place,” Salazar said.

Read the full story here.

Killing of bald eagles divides Native American tribes
The bald eagle is a sacred bird. There is no question about that. But as Reuters reporter Laura Zuckerman found out, there’s some disagreement between tribal members on exactly how to best honor traditions and the beautiful bird.

Salmon, Idaho – A plan by a Native American tribe to kill two bald eagles for use in a religious rite has drawn the ire of a fellow tribe, which says it doesn’t want any eagles sacrificed on the Wyoming reservation they share.

An attorney for the Eastern Shoshone tribe told Reuters on Thursday that killing bald eagles on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming would violate its religious beliefs, threaten tribal sovereignty and was “unacceptable.”

“To the Eastern Shoshone, the eagle is our messenger to the creator. There’s a very spiritual relationship between eagles and the creator, and to harm eagles in any way is unacceptable,” the tribe’s attorney general, Kimberly Varilek, told Reuters.

The other tribe, the Northern Arapaho, hopes to capture the eagles on the 2.2 million-acre reservation rather than on public lands elsewhere in Wyoming as spelled out in a federal permit.

The fact that two tribes do not share the same beliefs about the handling of a bird sacred to both speaks to the complexity of two sovereign nations inhabiting a single reservation.

The disagreement has bubbled to the surface since March, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted the permit to the Northern Arapaho to capture the iconic birds off the reservation because of the objections by the Eastern Shoshone.

But Wyoming bans the killing of bald eagles in the state, which the Northern Arapaho say makes it virtually impossible for them to carry out their plan. They have since filed an amended complaint asking to take the birds from tribal land.

“It’s a permit for a tribal member to get arrested and prosecuted by the state government instead of the federal government,” said Andrew Baldwin, attorney for the Northern Arapaho.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said in an email that it was working closely with Wyoming and the Northern Arapaho “to identify a solution that is satisfactory to all parties.”

The Eastern Shoshone are not inclined to wait. The tribe this week filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking permission to advise the federal judge in the lawsuit about tribal members’ religious, cultural and legal objections to the killing of bald eagles on the reservation, which is inhabited by 3,500 Eastern Shoshones and 9,600 Northern Arapahos.

It is mostly illegal to kill the national bird, which was removed from the U.S. federal threatened and endangered species list in 2007 but still is safeguarded by laws like the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

The plan by the Northern Arapaho to use bald eagles in their has stirred debate outside Indian lands.

Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, has called on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to clear bureaucratic hurdles and ensure tribes receive feathers and eagle parts for use in their rituals.

The service has a national repository for eagles and eagle parts, taken from eagles that died naturally, and the parts are distributed to Native American tribes for their use in religious rites

By Karin Eagle, Native Sun News Staff Writer:

Three generations of Sicangu Lakota: (Left to right) Clifford “Pops” Marshall Sr., Dacie Marshall and Owen Marshall. (Photo courtesy of Owen Marshall, via Native Sun News)

ROSEBUD – Kevin Costner was amazed when he couldn’t find any Indian horseback riders for some of the scenes in his movie, “Dances with Wolves.”

He finally enlisted the help of some of the mixed blood Indian cowboys that were still riding the rodeo circuit in the 1980s.

But the bygone days of Indian cowboys has not been forgotten and there will be an honoring ceremony to commemorate those days.

A family of the well-known, well respected and much missed rodeo announcer, Clifford “Pops” Marshall Sr., will be remembering him with an event that invites men and women from the rodeo circuits to participate in various competitions at the 4th Annual Clifford “Pops” Marshall Sr. Memorial Chute Out.

The event will be held in Rosebud on May 26, 2012 at “high noon” at the John Waln Memorial Arena.

Entries are open, with events including a Seniors Wild Horse Race, Senior Bulls, Jr. Wild Horse Race, Mexican Poker and Wild Memorial Ride.

The Marshall family opens the memorial to other families who wish to have their loved ones remembered during the Chute Out.
“We had put this event on because we love our hometown cowboys and wanted them remembered for years to come to help families heal,” explain Owen Marshall, son of Pops Marshall. “Memorial rides and honoring all keeping the families involved and busy, help the healing process.”

The additional memorials include those for, Tressie and Eddie Farmer Sr; Austin Janis; Doc Menard Sr; Wilma Whipple; James Fallis; Cecil Scott; Tuck Colombe; Pete Wilcox; Keith Whipple; Roger Larvie Sr.; Floyd Clairmont; Seth-Henry Dubray; Marion and Jeri Murray; Jeff Waln; Arron Larvie; Gladys Two Charge and Jody Thin Elk.

This year will include the memory of Ted “Gov” Means, who passed away earlier this year.

“It started with my dad Cliff. He was a rodeo announcer. He loved the bull riding and wild horse race. You can hear the excitement in his voice when the events came close,” said Owen Marshall, who founded the memorial along with Alex Whipple. “Powwow has their way of honoring people so we wanted to create a place to honor our cowboys and cowgirls.”

More information about the memorial Chute Out is available through Owen Marshall, who can be reached by phone at (605) 828-2039.

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

Seized by white settlers 150 years ago, the lands of the Four Corners is finally back in the hands of the ancestors of the Native people who first lived there.

Martha Knight (left) and Hawk Rosales of the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council walk through the 164 acres donated to the council by Save the Redwoods League of S.F. (Photo courtesy of Lance Iversen / The Chronicle)

As Peter Fimrite of the San Fransico Chronicle reports – the 164-acre property in Mendocino County borders the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park – was gifted to the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council by the Save the Redwoods League in March.

“Our ancestors’ spirits now are dancing in the wind and the trees knowing that Mother Earth will be saved there and protected,” said Priscilla Hunter, the chairwoman and co-founder of the InterTribal council, which represents 10 federally recognized tribes with ancestral ties to the area. “I can hardly wait to go up there and have our celebration.”

The League, which has owned the property since 1997, donated Four Corners to the council on March 29 in return for a conservation easement preventing future development on the land, which is covered with 150 acres of second- and third-growth redwoods and Douglas fir.

As part of the easement, the council will establish a $150,000 stewardship fund that will be invested, said Ruskin Hartley, executive director of Save the Redwoods League. He said the interest will be used to pay for upkeep, conservation and a restoration program, including a major effort to improve habitat along the Mattole River for coho salmon and steelhead trout.

The InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council is made up 10 federally recognized tribes with ancestral ties to the area, Fimrite reported.

The council was fundraising to buy the Four Corners land and the donation was a “wonderful surprise,” one member said.

It is the first time the league has entered into a conservation agreement with a California Indian tribe.

Jenna Cederberg

Indianz.com posted this story of the Steve Cross Wednesday. Cross is a Quebec Mohawk who helped raise New York City’s (new) tallest building.

Globe and Mail reporter Kim Mackrael was in NYC to watch Cross do his work. Here is the story:

Iron worker Steven Cross uses a hammer to adjust the flanges of an iron column on the 100th story of One World Trade Center in New York, April 30, 2012. The addition of iron columns to the 100th story pushed the height of One World Trade above that of the Empire State Building today. (Photo courtesy of LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS)

Steve Cross knew he was making history on Monday afternoon when he wriggled a bolt into place in the steel column that turned One World Trade Center into New York City’s tallest skyscraper.

The 36-year-old ironworker from the Kahnawake reserve in Quebec was just metres away from a cluster of reporters perched atop the building to capture the moment when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building.

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Mr. Cross is part of a long tradition of Mohawk skywalkers who have helped construct the buildings that punctuate the Manhattan skyline. His father, grandfather and both of his great-grandfathers all did the same work, and he installed the columns on Monday afternoon alongside his cousin, Adam, who is from the same reserve.

Dubbed Freedom Tower, the building is meant to replace the twin towers that were destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001. After the addition of two steel columns on Monday, the tower’s skeleton stands slightly more than 381 metres high – just edging out the Empire State Building.

The columns were added the day before the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden, adding further significance for many of those who watched.

“I know a lot of people that have a lot of ties to this building and this site,” Mr. Cross said in an interview Monday evening. “Everybody wanted it, and to finally have it done – and then to be a part of it, it’s good. Actually it’s great.”

If the 124-metre-tall needle that will go on its roof is counted, the building will become the tallest structure in the U.S., surpassing even the Willis Tower in Chicago. It’s expected to be completed next year.

Groundbreaking on the tower took place in 2006, and construction started about a year and a half ago.

Mohawk labourers have been working on bridges and skyscrapers for more than 100 years, when a number of them were hired to construct a bridge over the St. Lawrence River near their reserve. Their ability to work high above the ground – seemingly with no fear – quickly impressed their employers.

Since then, generation after generation has travelled to New York, where Mohawk men have worked on most of New York’s biggest projects, from the Empire State Building to the George Washington Bridge.

Mr. Cross, who has been an ironworker in New York for about a decade, said he doesn’t find it particularly nerve-wracking to be working hundreds of metres above the ground, but he never takes his safety for granted.

“I guess it’s kind of, I don’t know about scary, but it keeps you on your toes. You go to work and every day could be your last, you never know. That’s scary just in itself,” he said.

He added that he’s usually filled with a sense of awe just knowing that he’s among the first to be on top of a new building. “I may never have a chance to be there again, but I get to see it from the ground up, which is pretty cool.”

Leaders on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation are trying to find ways to stop statistics like this: One in four children born there suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome.

A man drinks a beer while standing with other American Indians on the streets of Whiteclay, Neb. (File photo by William Lauer, courtesy of Associated Press)

Alcohol is not sold on the reservation but it is in nearby cities. That prompted Oglala Sioux tribe to file a lawsuit accusing the retailers and others of knowingly contributing to the reservation’s alcohol-related problems.

But, as Grant Schulte reports on the Great Falls Tribune website, beer companies have filed several motions to have the suit dismissed.

Lawyers for the beer companies said in court papers that such an order would force Whiteclay’s beer stores to discriminate against American Indians from Pine Ridge.

“The absurdity of this request cannot be understated,” said Jerald Rauterkus, an attorney for State Line Liquor in Whiteclay. The tribe “is seeking an order from this court that would actually command retail defendants to refuse the sale of their otherwise publicly available goods to members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe who live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation based solely on their race and ethnicity.”

Are there other answers to the problem? That remains to be seen.

Randall Goyette, an attorney for the Jumping Eagle Inn store in Whiteclay, said the alcohol problems on Pine Ridge “can only be due to personal conduct.

Jenna Cederberg

Congratulations to Jessa Rae Growing-Thunder!

Photo courtesy of KRTV.com.

From Poplar, Montana, Jessa was crowned the new “Miss Indian World” Saturday at the 29th Annual Gathering of Nations in New Mexico, David Sherman of KRTV reports.

Miss Indian World is selected by acquiring points in a variety of categories and must be knowledgeable about the tribe(s) and traditions she will be representing. In addition, contestants earn points through a public speaking event, interviews with judges, a talent presentation, and a dance competition featuring PowWow music.

At the end of the five day competition, Growing-Thunder was crowned after earning the most points.

Derek Mathews, founder of the Gathering of Nations, said, “The Miss Indian World title is one of the most prestigious honors among Native American and indigenous people. The winner provides a cultural link between tribes and helps bring together native and indigenous people throughout the world.”

Growing Thunder, 22, will travel to native and indigenous communities around the world on behalf of the powwow.

She is currently attending college at Ft. Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.

Jenna Cederberg

The term “minority status” and how it was used by Harvard University made headlines last week, after a challenger to U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren criticized the Warren and Harvard for touting her Native American heritage.

Courtesy of the Boston Herald

The Boston Globe and Herald have been following the story.

The latest Globe story, by Stephanie Ebbert, reports that Warren has long been considered a “minority” law professor.

Warren’s challenger is calling for her to “come clean” about using the Native heritage to get a job. Just how much of a controversy should this be?

Warren’s unexpected minority status sparked controversy last week, when the Boston Herald reported that the school had named her a minority professor in the 1990s at a time when the campus was facing criticism about preponderance of white men on the faculty.

In a 1996 article, the Harvard Crimson quoted a Harvard Law School spokesman saying that the faculty of 71 included one Native American – Warren – in addition to a few black and Hispanic professors and 11 women.

The claim was repeated in a later Crimson story that called Warren the first woman with a minority background to receive tenure.

Warren, a Democrat who is challenging US Senator Scott Brown, does have Native American blood, her campaign said Friday.

But when asked about it Friday, she told reporters that she did not know Harvard was promoting her as a minority professor.

Hoop Dancing highligted on Canada’s ‘Got Talent’

Lisa Odjig performed her incredible hoop dancing on a national stage. (Photo courtesy of Bluechristmas.org, via ICTMN)

Lisa Odjig is a world champion hoop dancer. And thanks to her “incredible” talents, Canadians across her country are much more familiar with exactly what hoop dancing is.

As Sam Laskaris of ICTMN explains, Odjig was a contestant on Canada’s “Got Talent” TV show.

Odjig, a two-time world hoop dancing champion, was one of 36 contestants who advanced to the semi-final round. But after her second national TV appearance on Apr. 22, Odjig was eliminated the following evening during the show’s results broadcast when the semi-final votes were announced. Anybody could vote for their favorite performer by phone, text, Facebook, Twitter or online.

. . .

Thanks to her appearances on Canada’s Got Talent, Odjig has already started lining up some other gigs as various organizers of festivals throughout Ontario have shown interest in having her perform at their events.

Blackfeet ask for more openness about oil, gas exploration

“We need an interpreter.”

Missoulian reporter Tristan Scott continues to bring us news from the Blackfeet Reservation, where many residents feel the oil companies looking to capitalize on the natural resources there speak a foreign language. More needs to be done, some say, so residents can understand what exactly oil and gas extraction might mean for their lands.

Here’s the story from Scott:

BROWNING – Speaking to an uncomprehending group of federal and tribal land managers, Diane Calflooking Burd delivered an impassioned and articulate entreaty in her native Blackfeet language.

Then, after a long pause, she drove her point home in English.
“That’s how all this technical language from the oil companies sounds to us,” she said. “We need an interpreter, because they don’t tell us nothing.”

Calflooking Burd was among several dozen tribal members who gathered last week in a conference room at the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Browning to learn more about oil and gas exploration on the Blackfeet Reservation. The meeting was arranged by the Bureau of Land Management and BIA, with the purpose of informing tribal members who have leased portions of their allotted land to energy companies for oil and gas exploration.

Read the rest of the story.

As Bison Return to Prairie, Some Rejoice, Others Worry
The return of bison to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation has been getting a lot of press lately. And the latest to weigh in, with a story by Nate Schweber, is the NYT’s.

Worth the read if you’re not full yet.

Jenna Cederberg

Groups working to form the nation’s first tribal national park on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation moved one step closer to their goal this week.

The National Parks Service announced Thursday that the final General Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement for the South Unit of Badlands National Park has been completed and released, a NPS press release said.

The South Unit of Badlands National Park is entirely within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota. The Park Service and the Tribe have worked together to manage the South Unit’s 133,000 acres for almost 40 years. If a tribal national park is enabled by Congress through legislation, the Oglala Sioux people could manage and operate their lands for the educational and recreational benefit of the general public, including a new Lakota Heritage and Education Center.

Work to create the official national park has been ongoing since 2006. Partner groups include the NPS, Oglala Sioux Tribe, and the Oglala Sioux Parks and Recreation Authority.

Under the plan, the National Park Service and the Tribe will focus on restoring the health and vibrancy of the prairie to enhance wildlife habitat, expanding bison into the South Unit, providing roads and trails and providing greater opportunities for visitors to experience the natural grandeur of the South Unit and the heritage of the Oglala Sioux people.

The National Park Service is expected to sign the Record of Decision for the GMP/EIS this summer; however, congressional legislation is necessary before the Service can implement the Plan’s Preferred Management Option. In the meantime, the Park Service and Tribe may prepare for and implement appropriate parts of the plan and identify the components of a tribal national park that need to be addressed by legislation.

Here’s the full press release from NPS:

BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK, S.D. — Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis today announced the release of the final General Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement for the South Unit of Badlands National Park, recommending the establishment of the nation’s first tribal national park in partnership with the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

“Our National Park System is one of America’s greatest story tellers,” Salazar said. “As we seek to tell a more inclusive story of America, a tribal national park would help celebrate and honor the history and culture of the Oglala Sioux people. Working closely with the Tribe, Congress, and the public, the Park Service will work to develop a legislative proposal to make the South Unit a tribal national park.”

The South Unit of Badlands National Park is entirely within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota. The Park Service and the Tribe have worked together to manage the South Unit’s 133,000 acres for almost 40 years. If a tribal national park is enabled by Congress through legislation, the Oglala Sioux people could manage and operate their lands for the educational and recreational benefit of the general public, including a new Lakota Heritage and Education Center.

The GMP/EIS reflects the goals of the National Park Service’s recently released “A Call to Action” plan for the Service’s next 100 years that emphasizes a system of parks and protected sites that more fully represent our nation’s natural resources, history and cultural experiences. The tribal national park would seek to promote an understanding of Oglala Sioux history, culture, and land management principles through education and interpretation.

“Continuing our long-standing partnership with the Tribe, we plan to focus on restoration of the landscape, including the reintroduction of bison that are integral to the cultural stories and health of the Oglala people,” said NPS Director Jon Jarvis.

“We will offer expanded access and opportunities for visitors to experience the beauty and utility of the prairie as the Oglala Sioux have for centuries.”

The National Park Service, Oglala Sioux Tribe, and the Oglala Sioux Parks and Recreation Authority have been cooperatively developing the GMP/EIS for the South Unit of Badlands National Park since early 2006. The management plan acknowledges the important partnership between the National Park Service and Oglala Sioux Tribe and establishes a common vision for managing resources and visitor use in the South Unit.

Under the plan, the National Park Service and the Tribe will focus on restoring the health and vibrancy of the prairie to enhance wildlife habitat, expanding bison into the South Unit, providing roads and trails and providing greater opportunities for visitors to experience the natural grandeur of the South Unit and the heritage of the Oglala Sioux people.

The National Park Service is expected to sign the Record of Decision for the GMP/EIS this summer; however, congressional legislation is necessary before the Service can implement the Plan’s Preferred Management Option. In the meantime, the Park Service and Tribe may prepare for and implement appropriate parts of the plan and identify the components of a tribal national park that need to be addressed by legislation.

Depending on Congressional action, the South Unit could be being administered through a variety of options, including as a unit of the National Park System managed by tribal members hired as NPS employees or managed by tribal members as employees of the Tribe. The plan proposes no change in overall responsibility or management absent Congressional legislation.

The “Call to Action” goal of engaging youth has already begun at Badlands where tribal and non-tribal students will work together as seasonal NPS employees this summer, receiving training and experience in the responsibilities of being National Park Service rangers.

“These are our future rangers,” said Badlands Superintendent Eric Brunnemann. “These are the young people that may lead a tribal national park into the future. I do see a time when our rangers will routinely work side-by-side with tribal biologists, archeologists, and paleontologists.”

In 2010, nearly 1 million visitors traveled to Badlands National Park and spent $23 million in the Park and surrounding communities. This spending supported more than 375 area jobs. With expanded future opportunities for recreation and education in the South Unit, a tribal national park is an exciting prospect for South Dakota.

During World War II, the War Department established the Pine Ridge Aerial Gunnery Range from lands within the Reservation. In1968, the Gunnery Range was declared excess, and Congress conveyed most of the lands to the Tribe with the provision that the South Unit be administered by the National Park Service.
In 2003, the Tribe formally requested government-to-government negotiations regarding management control of the South Unit, and the Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Tribe agreed to use the general management plan process to explore options for greater involvement in the South Unit.

Jenna Cederberg

A herd of bison moved to the Fort Peck Reservation in March welcomed its first baby bison – a bright-eyed bull calf.

The first calf from the transferred Yellowstone Park bison herd at the Fort Peck Indian Reservation was born Sunday morning. The mother watches over it just hours after its birth. (Photo courtesy of the Great Falls Tribune/By Richard Peterson)

The move of the genetically pure herd from Yellowstone didn’t come without controversy, but for now all the focus is on the celebration of new life.

Great Falls Tribune reporter Richard Peterson has the story:

In the hours that followed its birth, the calf’s mother continued to lick and bathe her offspring while other bison surrounded the baby on a warm windy day on the rolling prairie.

“They’ve been doing a good job of protecting him,” said the Tribes’ Buffalo Ranch Manager Tote Gray Hawk. “They don’t let him drift too far away.”

It’s the first birth of a bison calf since the herd was transferred 500 miles to Fort Peck from a quarantined state Fish, Wildlife & Parks holding facility near Corwin Springs on March 19.

. . .

There are 61 bison in the herd but the new bull calf born Sunday won’t be counted among the other animals until it turns one year old, Magnan said. The tribes’ fish and game wardens have been closely monitoring the herd and believe more calves could be on their way.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we have four or five more within the next week or two. They’re ready,” Magnan said.

Jenna Cederberg

By Kim Briggeman, of the Missoulian:

The way Geraldine Pete sees it, a treaty that’s been broken might as well be erased.

Geraldine Pete shows the roll of paper on which she wrote out part of the Hellgate Treaty of 1855. Pete then invited the public to erase it at last weekend’s Kyi-Yo Indian Celebration at the University of Montana. Pete’s “Big Mistake Art Event” was meant to produce dialogue about a broken treaty that drove the Salish from their lands. (Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian)

That was what the University of Montana art student had in mind when she lugged rolls of art paper 30 feet long and 3 1/2 feet wide to the Kyi-Yo Indian Celebration in the Adams Center last weekend.

On them she wrote the first few articles of the Hellgate Treaty of 1855, the one that ostensibly created the Flathead Reservation, and invited powwow attendees to have their way with it.

Pete even provided erasers, a pink one labeled “For Big Mistakes” and a blue one that said “OOPS.”

Her abstract of the “Big Mistake Art Event” said it was meant to provide “comic relief for a devastating historic occurrence” – even as she realized there are those who wouldn’t view a treaty more than 150 years old as such, and even more who have no idea what the Hellgate Treaty was.

“It’s my first art installation, and it has to do with social practice artwork,” explained Pete, who enrolled in the art program at UM after receiving a graduate degree in counselor education. “It involves everything here – the energy, the dancing and just participating in the celebration. And I think erasing is one way to celebrate.”

Sheryl Noethe had another way.

Noethe is Montana’s poet laureate and co-founder of the Missoula Writing Collaborative in Missoula area schools. She spent much of Saturday at the annual powwow, which is produced by UM’s Kyi-Yo Indian Club.

At one point during the afternoon session, Noethe stopped in the Adams Center lobby to admire Pete’s art project and express her own feelings about the government’s historic betrayal of its contracts. Noethe has no Native heritage, and at first she wasn’t sure if it was her place to mess with the treaty on the wall.

But at Pete’s invitation, she took a Magic Marker and went to town. In bright red ink, she branded the whites who forged the treaties thieves, liars, murderers and fake Christians.
When she was done, she turned around and “made a sound like, ‘That felt really good,’ ” Pete said.

Then Noethe handed Pete the marker and thanked her.

“I sure celebrated,” Noethe said. “It felt really good to be able to tell the truth and to express those feelings, because I do want the Native American community to know there are white people who care and who are not haters.”

***
The Hellgate Treaty, signed at Council Grove west of Missoula in July 1855, was one of a series of treaties negotiated between the U.S. government and tribes of the Northwest. Isaac Stevens, Indian commissioner and the governor of Washington Territory, led the talks with representatives of the Bitterroot Salish, Pend d’Oreille and Kootenai.

Communication problems were said to be rampant. “Not a tenth of what was said was understood by either side,” reported a Jesuit priest who observed the negotiations. When Chief Victor of the Salish resisted leaving the Bitterroot, Stevens inserted confusing language that established a “conditional reservation” south of Lolo Creek. It took another 36 years, but the Salish were eventually all banished from their homeland.

Congress ratified the treaty and President James Buchanan signed it. It was proclaimed on April 18, 1859.

Similar scenes played out time and again during America’s westward movement, Noethe said.

“When the military just wanted to go out and battle and kill Indians, those American presidents at that time basically said, ‘Yeah, we’ve got to settle these savages so we can expand our land,’ ” Noethe said. “Everything that was promised, it was all a lie. They weren’t given any land. They were driven to the place nobody wanted.

“So it’s been lies and dishonesty and murder for so long. When Americans talk about other countries and talk about savagery and barbarism, well, we are no different, what we did is no different. But it’s kind of just not talked about.”

Pete said she didn’t know what reactions her interactive art piece would invoke. The Kyi-Yo Club debated for an hour whether to even allow it. Some students questioned whether it would invoke negative vibes at an event designed to be a celebration.

Pete pointed out the theme of this year’s powwow was “Empowerment through Education.” She said that’s why she wanted to display her inaugural piece there.

“I think it’s really important for even the kids to read it and wonder what does this mean? What is it about?” she said.

By early Saturday afternoon a number of youngsters had added or subtracted to the art piece. “And I’ve seen some older people come by and say, ‘It’s good to see this, but I’ll think about it and come back and see if I want to write something,’ ” said Pete.

Noethe’s contributions in bright red attracted more attention to the exhibit in the final hours of the powwow. Another woman was inspired to amplify on Noethe’s sentiments in her own language.
“She even drew a horse on the edge,” Pete said.

The reactions took unexpected twists and turns. Some defended parts of the treaty, which assigned exclusive fishing and hunting rights to tribal members on the reservation.

Others mentioned “it would be nice for Indians to rewrite their own treaty with the mainstream culture and see what that would be like,” Pete said.

History can’t and won’t be changed, but Pete said that wasn’t her point. It was more to provide a base for coming to terms with a tragic chapter in a people’s history and erasing boundaries between cultures, Native and otherwise.

A native Dine’ (often referred to as the Navajo People) from the Four Corners area in the Southwest, Pete spent time before the powwow’s grand entry Saturday afternoon helping her 8-year-old son and a close friend don dancing regalia. Her son’s friend, she said, is from Deer Lodge and his roots are French-Irish.
“We’re so diverse now, so it’s like let’s move on,” she said. “It’s there. We know it’s there, but let’s do other things that instill positive outlooks for our children.”

The Hellgate Treaty is just a start for Pete. A donation box at her exhibit didn’t attract much attention (“I can pay for half the erasers,” she joked) but she said the Missoula Art Museum might be interested in a collaboration.

Other “big mistake” treaties at other powwows may be in her future, perhaps at a Gathering of Nations that draws tribes from across the nation.

“I’d like to do more to see where it leads,” Pete said, “because I felt like this was just a test.”

Missoulian reporter Kim Briggeman takes us inside the Kyi-Yo powwow held on the University of Montana’s campus last weekend.

Three-year-old Jerome Vielle of Lethbridge, Alberta, waits for dancing to start during the grand entry of the Kyi-Yo Pow Wow on Saturday at the University of Montana. The powwow is the largest, longest-running, student-organized powwow in the country. (Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian)

It’s one of the oldest campus powwows around and this year was another celebration to remember.

The sun is coming up on a new powwow season, the perfect time for Diana Cote of Arlee to bring her group of young drummers back to the University of Montana.

“We’ve been singing ever since my boys were just babies,” Cote said Saturday as she waited to perform at the 44th annual Kyi-Yo Celebration. “My oldest boy is 40, so we’ve been singing for awhile.”

Cote’s name in her native Bitterroot Salish is Scnpaqci – or Sunrise. That’s the name of her drum group, too.

“You know when the sun first comes up, that’s when you awake, so when you think of sunrise you’re awaking to the drums,” she said. “So I always have youngsters at my drum. They’re just learning to sing.”

The philosophy fit well into the theme of this year’s powwow – “Empowerment through Education.”

Cote’s drum was set up on the east side of the Adams Center arena. Even as she spoke, another of the professional drum groups on the west side launched into a song with a pulsing beat.

“We’re not entering into the contest because we’re not trying to say we’re the best or nothing,” Cote said. “We’re just honoring our way of life to sing and be one with the creator and earth.”
Cote, who’ll turn 61 in June, said sometimes during the summer powwows she’ll notice a small boy or girl nearby watching the group.

Read the rest of the story.

And don’t miss the video of Kyi-Yo.

A young dancer at the 2011 Kyi-Yo Celebration. (Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian)

One of the country’s oldest college powwows, the 44th Annual Kyi-Yo Pow Wow, will begin Friday at the University of Montana in Missoula. Grand Entry begins at the Adams Center at 7 p.m. Friday, then at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

The event is a celebration full of music, drumming and dancing. If you’re in the Missoula area head out to the event.

And, check out the Missoulian’s coverage of the event. Also, UM’s student newspaper, the Kaimin, recently detailed some of the challenges this year’s organizers have faced as they plan the giant celebration. The story also notes the historic significance of the powwow:

Kyi-Yo, which translates to bear in the Blackfoot language, was founded in the 1950s, Alvernaz said, and its mission is promoting pride and positive identity in Native American culture among students at UM, according to the group’s website. Alvernaz said the group aims to educate the Missoula community through dance, music and social interactions.

More information can be found on the Kyi-Yo website.

Jenna Cederberg