Red-headed Woodpecker
(Melanerpes erythrocephalus)

Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau offered a unique gift to Michelle Obama today, during the Trudeau family's visit to the White House: an aboriginal beaded cape.

Students from Eagles Nest Intermediate School in Tuba City competed against 20 other Arizona schools in an annual math competition in individual and team settings.

Bernie Sanders (I- VT) visited the Navajo Nation March 17 and put on a rally at Twin Arrows Navajo Casino Resort before an enthusiastic crowd of thousands of people and addressed Native American issues.

Sanders said there is sadly no discussion that since settlers first came to this country, Native Americans have been lied to, they have been cheated and negotiated treaties have been broken.

Jane Sanders, wife of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I- Vermont), visited the Apache Stronghold at Oak Flat campground, a sacred site to the San Carlos Apache, calling attention to the fight against a land swap that will allow mining in the area.

The controversial rider, which circumvented normal legislative procedures, was attached to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act.

Oneidas, and other Haudenosaunee, rely on legends to teach them life lessons, history, the importance of taking care of the earth, and more. Such stories have been passed down from generation to generation with each family emphasizing a particular point or adding embellishments.

And while these stories have certainly been told orally and written down (see Legend of the Mosquitoes and Autumn Color) several Oneida and other community members have put the legends to canvas.

"The Wilderness Skills of Our Ancestors" demonstration on Feb. 20 at the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways provided a packed room of participants with some indigenous knowledge and offered insight into the past.

Jim Miller of Willow Winds gave a spirited interactive demonstration that featured multimedia and some handson opportunities to learn about the tools and products used back in the day.

EIGHT YEARS AGO, Delia Bull Waskewitch's ancestors visited her in a dream. She and her husband had just driven six hours from their home in Onion Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan to the foothills of the ­Rockies in Morley, Alberta. There, she had made offerings of tobacco to the mountains and the sacred Bow River, and asked for the grandfathers' help with a work problem.

The National Museum of the American Indian’s George Gustav Heye Center in New York’s exhibition “Unbound: Narrative Art of the Plains” opens March 12 and continues through Dec. 4 in the museum’s East Gallery; admission is free.

“Unbound” reflects the dynamic tradition of narrative art among Native Nations of the Great Plains. The exhibition traces the evolution of the art form from historic hides, muslins and ledger books to a wide selection of contemporary works by Native artists, the majority commissioned by the museum exclusively for this exhibition.

Last year curators at the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum, Buffalo, Wyo. were excited to erect an Indian tipi, designed and inspired by Bilford Curley Sr., Northern Cheyenne elder and society man, and painted by Jim Starkey (Defender Eagle), Cheyenne River Sioux. The unique and colorful tipi will be displayed on the museum grounds throughout the summer season, a highlight for museum guests, said Museum Director John Gavin.

A new website created with a primarily Native American audience in mind is posting news, features, sports and weather entirely in Lakota — the first of its kind to do so — in an attempt to help preserve a language that after forced assimilation policies is now spoken by fewer than 2,000 people.

On February 22nd 2016 a delegation of Haudenosaunee Chiefs and Clanmothers and observers met with federal representatives. The meeting was held in the Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building a few doors from the White House. The meeting was to recognize and honor the signing of the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua.

The howling old north wind is afraid to come to the country around the Gulf of Mexico. Only now and then does this cold fellow dare to come into the south, and when he does he does not stay long. He is afraid of the strong young south wind. Once the two winds had a great fight. There are still signs of that fight in the southern woods. The Natchez and the Tejas Indians, who lived along the Gulf, had a story to tell about the north and the south winds and why the moss that grows in the trees is a sign of their fight.

The common perception of why the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' ancestors remained in North Carolina after the Trail of Tears in the 1830s is that many of them hid in western North Carolina's mountains.

During a presentation at the Trail of Tears Association Conference at Cape Girardeau, historian and genealogist Anita Finger Smith of Cherokee, North Carolina, covered the five circumstances during the early 19th century that contributed to the EBCI's ancestors remaining east.

When headdresses make the news, the story usually revolves around non-indigenous people wearing them — and whether that's appropriate.