Canku Ota - September 20, 2003

	Canku Ota
	(Many Paths)
	An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America
	September 20, 2003 - Issue 96


	"niyáwë skênö"
	The Mingo Greeting
	This phrase means hello, how are you?, how do you do?, good, well, or just fine.
	Moonlight Bears

	"NASANMUYAW"
	Full Harvest Moon
	Hopi

"We only ask to survive so that we can remain who and what we are - and for that we will always thank the Creator. We ask only the chance to pass on our way of life and our love for the Creator to our children and grandchildren." Harriett Starleaf Gumbs Shinnecock

We Salute
Chickasaw Nation

More than 2,000 families are now enjoying in-home computer access thanks to the Chickasaw Nation Computer Literacy and Distribution program, which refurbishes and distributes excess tribal computers as well as computers donated by businesses and government agencies.

According to the director of the program, Cliff Jones, it was implemented in February 2002 to make computer equipment available to students, elders and others, who may be unable to afford it. The program is providing a much needed service.

For the last 3 1/2 years, Paul and I have shared "Canku Ota" with you, at no charge.
To date, we've received no funding for our work, either.
But, we now have a dilemma, and we need your help.

Our Featured Artist:		Health and Wellness
Margaret Coel Margaret Coel is the New York Times best-selling author of the acclaimed Wind River mystery series set among the Arapahos on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation and featuring Jesuit priest Father John O'Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden. She is a native Coloradan who hails from a pioneer Colorado family. The West — the mountains, plains, and vast spaces — are in her bones, she says. She moved out of Colorado on two occasions — to attend Marquette University and to spend a couple of years in Alaska. Both times she couldn't wait to get back.		Pathways to Better Health Breathing in the clean air that surrounds us is a gift that we may take for granted. But for a growing number of Indian people who suffer from asthma, this gift is withheld. This is especially so as our numbers of off-reservation communities increase in America’s inner-city areas. Even more disturbing for us is its increase among our children. Like other minorities in the United States, our people tend to live in poverty and, as a result, are surrounded by the very things most likely to trigger asthma. If we or our children suffer from this condition, lack of money and bad living conditions may prevent us from seeking medical help and the medicines that will control it. More often than not, the only time we come in contact with the systems and people who can help is at a hospital emergency room when crisis hits. And at that point, our chances of dying from asthma are 50 percent.

Thunderhawk - Our Featured Story:		Northwestern Wisconsin First Person History:
Thunderhawk The Curse of the Robin Redbeast by Geoff Hampton Writer Geoff Hampton shares this story that should delight both young and old. Thunderhawk is taking a well earned break ... short too! ... he'll be back next issue.		Reminiscences of a Pioneer Missionary - By Rev. Chrysostom Verwyst (Part 3) submitted by Timm Severud (Ondamitag) After eating supper I went alone to the crossing mentioned above. There was a small clearing near by in which I noticed a fire burning. Probably the people had been burning brush and chips on the land that afternoon and had fled into the woods or to town when news of the Indian foray came. Seeing nothing suspicious I walked a few rods from the road into the woods, stood my gun up against a tree, and lay down and slept soundly until morning, for I was tired out by the day's work and my trip to the village and return. I learned afterwards that some men, who had been working on the Fox River Canal near Little Chute and whose folks lived in or near Holland-town, had been on their way to this village that night.

Education News		Student News
Cherokee Helps Promote Tradition of Reading What do the Stilwell Elementary School, the Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) program, the Cherokee Nation Realty Department, and the Cherokee Nation Early Childhood Unit have in common? Radena Rutherford. Rutherford, an employee of Cherokee Nation Realty Services for more than six years, participated in the RIF program as a first grader at the Stilwell Elementary School and now is an active member of the Cherokee Nation Early Childhood Unit's third annual RIF Book Selection committee.		Local Children Get Down and Dirty Kids, water and mud just seem to naturally attract each other and that explains the success each year of the adobe brick building activity at Naaba Ani Elementary. For the past 11 years the earth science/materials science unit which includes math, social studies, language arts and art has been eagerly anticipated by the annual group of fourth and fifth graders in the school's gifted program. The hands-on, minds-on unit is called Adobe Rock ‘N Roll. It combines the ancient art of making adobe with the modern world of materials science. Materials science is the study of solid matter, both organic and inorganic.

Student News		Student News
Eager for School As the second week of a teachers strike unfolds in Marysville, some families and students are searching for an academic booster shot. New youngsters have started showing up at the Tulalip Boys and Girls Club education center, where they can take computerized reading tests, get help with math or do arts and crafts. Some parents have been looking for workbooks at local stores to sharpen their children's skills during the extended summer break.		Yale Graduate Honored at Rosebud Go out and seek the weapons of the white man, cultivate that arsenal and use it to empower your people. These were the words spoken to Wizipan Garriott by his Unci Edna Little Elk when he left for Yale University four years ago. He is the son of Charlie Garriott and Elizabeth Little Elk of Grass Mountain and graduated with a degree in American History/Pre-Law from the Ivy League institution in May 2003. He was honored by his family last month in a special ceremony held in conjunction with the 127th Annual Rosebud Fair.

Education News		Education News
Indians' College Numbers Grow by Degrees A handwritten list in 13-year-old Emerette Frank's binder keeps her focused on her strategy for getting to college: *Study longer.* Don't watch TV until all work is done. Go to tutoring. Be prepared!		Tribal Leaders Working to Establish Art Institute Campus in Cherokee If all goes according to plan - and there's still plenty left to do - a third regional institute of higher learning could be made available to area residents by fall 2005. That's when the committee working to establish a branch campus of the Institute of American Indian Art, with its headquarters in Santa Fe, N.M., hopes to begin enrolling students in the first tribal college east of the Mississippi and located on the Cherokee Indian Reservation.

Education News		Sports
Hopi Language Project a Reality for Tuba City School District It’s taken years to get the local village support and community interest past political obstacles, but this spring Tuba City High and Tuba City Junior High Schools will begin offering a Hopi language program, utilizing everyday Hopi conversation as its basic foundation. Many factors in the past year have propelled the Hopi Lavayi program forward at Tuba City Unified School District. Support from TCHS Principal Adelbert Goldtooth, District Associate Superintendent Dr. Harold G. Begay and District Office of Public Relations Director Rosanda Suetopka Thayer facilitated the program. Marvin Lalo, director of the Hopi Lavayi Project at the Hopi Tribe, put forth relentlessly optimistic efforts.		Soccer Comes to the Rez The term rez ball may take on a whole new meaning in a few years — one where the nets are on the desert ground instead of silhouetted against a reservation sky — if a sports movement started here takes hold. Basketball rules supreme when it comes to sports on the Navajo Nation, but the first baby steps toward making soccer a viable athletic option for reservation youths are being taken by a group in Tuba City. The group, sanctioned as Pilot Region 1440 by the American Youth Soccer Organization, started play Saturday with 16 teams for players ranging from age four to age 12. Soccer is the top sport in popularity world-wide, and has slowly but steadily grown more popular in the United States over the past 20 years.

Living Traditions		Living Traditions
Family and Friends Celebrate Campbell’s Return "I told my mother I just wanted a small family meal," but that wasn’t to be. Relatives, veterans, friends and community residents wanted to welcome Shannon Campbell, Iraq combat veteran home, Dakota style. Campbell, a mother, daughter, head start teacher, and tank mechanic, served in Iraq for nine months and returned home where veterans of Vietnam conducted a welcoming and cleansing ceremony to help her deal with combat memories.		Make Oct. 25th Paul and Sheila Wellstone World Music Day I am standing in the northwest corner of Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, in front of a silver monument that looks like a heart, a broken heart really, and I am thinking about how wrong the world has gone, how Minnesota Mean it all feels. I'm thinking about how much everyone I know misses the man I've come to visit, how sick I am of sitting around waiting for change, and about what might happen if I ask you to do something, which is what I'll do in a minute.

A Little Timmy Story ... Funny		Living Traditions
At The Speed of Fright I have been known to do some really dumb things in my life, just like most of the rest of you and those that will not admit it are at that moment face to face with their own stupidity. When I was 9 the Volunteer Fire Department had a skate swap and I picked up a pair of size 9 speed skates. Unfortunately I wore size 5 at the time. However that would not dissuade me and when Mom pointed it out, I merely said, 'Heck, I will grow into them.' I really wanted a set speed skate figuring that when the ice conditions were right they would be the perfect things for skating with a sail.		Teaching Young Children about Native Americans Young children's conceptions of Native Americans often develop out of media portrayals and classroom role playing of the events of the First Thanksgiving. The conception of Native Americans gained from such early exposure is both inaccurate and potentially damaging to others. For example, a visitor to a child care center heard a four-year-old saying, "Indians aren't people. They're all dead." This child had already acquired an inaccurate view of Native Americans, even though her classmates were children of many cultures, including a Native American child.

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About This Issue's Greeting - "niyáwë skênö"

Mingo is a northern Iroquoian language of people politically distinct from the League Iroquois originally inhabiting the Ohio drainage in western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and northern West Virginia. It has not been the primary means of communication for any community since the disintegration of the Northwestern Confederacy. Its use as a second language in certain enclaves in certain situations has preserved it down to the end of the twentieth century

This Date In History		Recipe: Great Starts


Story: The Lazy Rabbit		What is this: Blue Jay


Craft Project: Stencil Leaves		This Issue's Web sites


Opportunities
"OPPORTUNITIES" is gathered from sources distributed nationally and includes scholarships, grants, internships, fellowships, and career opportunities as well as announcements for conferences, workshops and symposia.







	Canku Ota is a free Newsletter celebrating Native America, its traditions and accomplishments . We do not provide subscriber or visitor names to anyone. Some articles presented in Canku Ota may contain copyright material. We have received appropriate permissions for republishing any articles. Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monetary gain to those who have expressed an interest. This is in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.

	Canku Ota is a copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 of Vicki Lockard and Paul Barry.

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