Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly

Jessie Little Doe Baird was overcome at the news that her 17 years of linguistic work — resurrecting the language the Wampanoag people spoke and wrote until at least the mid-1800s — had landed her a MacArthur Fellows "genius grant" of $500,000.

Two extremely rare relics of Chief Manuelito's wife Juanita were unpacked and welcomed by three generations of her descendants last week at the Navajo Nation Museum, where they will be on loan from the Autry National Center for six months.The dress and saddle blanket woven by Juanita, who died in 1910, were carefully lifted out of their cardboard boxes, unfolded and put on display as part of the Chief Manuelito exhibit, which opened Aug. 27.

Twin brothers Caleb and Jared Dunlap graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 2009, and their sights are now set on medical school. But, the two say, they've come long way already.

On a wide grassy bank of the Missouri River on the Yankton Sioux/Ihanktonwan Oyate Reservation in South Dakota, Brook Spotted Eagle stands watching five young girls raise a tepee. It's early August, and the girls are taking part in a four-day coming-of-age ceremony revived in the 1990s by the Brave Heart Women's Society.

The first item of business for students visiting the Alaska Room at Anne Wien Elementary is getting dressed.

Thursday afternoon, Ann Pearson’s third-grade class, arriving from Arctic Light Elementary, did just that.

In the summer of 2009, Leech Lake Tribal College student Marie Kingbird-Lowry participated in NASA research to route a high-voltage power line through the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in north-central Minnesota. Kingbird-Lowry said the experience with NASA has given her a desire to be a role model, leading the way for other Native American young people to get involved in NASA projects.

Solar Car Team Wins National Title

The Choctaw Central High School Solar Car Team has an opportunity to participate in the World Solar Car Race in Australia in 2011 after winning a national championship this summer.

The team won the Hunt-Winston Solar Car Challenge, a cross-country race.

Wednesday, it was the Hoop Game.

The Native American Club at Senior High has been celebrating American Indian Heritage Week during its lunch hours and Wednesday was game day.

Apparently, vegetables taste better when eaten by the kids who grew them.

"Yeah!" confirmed Laneisha Clah, 8.

Cheerful supporters watched as Alanna Yazzie was crowned after the two-hour pageant held in the college's Little Theatre.

Choctaw storyteller Tim Tingle remembers the first time he tried to tell an audience about the Trail of Tears.

He used historically accurate facts. The entire front row walked out.

Tingle was one of the organizers and presenters at the 5 Tribes Story Conference at Bacone College.

American Indian traditions are alive and well at Mission San Juan Capistrano, thanks to a small group who have maintained the art of basket weaving.

Teeter Marie Olivares Romero, Ellen Sue Olivares and Kim Olivares Leone teach basket weaving the first and third Wednesdays of each month at the mission. It has become an integral part of the mission's efforts to preserve the area's history and traditions.

What started as a six-week project for engineering freshmen is helping to create culturally sensitive and energy-efficient housing for a small California Indian tribe.

A yurt-style house design conceived in last spring’s E10, Engineering Design and Analysis, was used as the base concept for several successful housing grant applications by members of the Pinoleville Pomo Nation (PPN), who will use the funds to build up to 26 new homes in the Mendocino County community of Ukiah, California.

Some 20 to 30 Cayugas, most of them adults, would gather to talk about old and new business. Often discussion would turn to their ancestral homeland that encompassed 64,000 acres around the north end of Cayuga Lake.

“It was always the wish — the dream — that all the people had to be able to come and settle on our own land,” Jimerson recalled