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Canku
Ota
(Many Paths) An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America |
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August
2017
- Volume 15 Number 8
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"Wáa
sá iyatee?"
The Tlingit Greeting How are you? |
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"TSENEAGA"
Dog Days Yuchi |
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"A Warrior
is challenged to assume responsibility, practice humility, and display
the power of giving, and then center his or her life around a core of
spirituality. I challenge today's youth to live like a warrior."
~Billy Mills~ |
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Our Featured Artist: | Honoring Students | |
Institute
Of American Indian Arts Announces Artist-in-Residence Lineup
Since August 2015, the Institute of American Indian Arts has hosted month-long artist residencies, and recently the school announced its lineup for the Fall 2017 Artist-in-Residence program. Native American and First Nations artists visit the school in Santa Fe, New Mexico to make art and interact with both the campus community and the Santa Fe arts community. The program also includes public receptions and artist talks with each of the artists. |
First
Sherman Alexie Scholarship Recipient Chosen
The first recipient of the Sherman Alexie Scholarship for the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts has been named. Jamie Natonabah, Diné, will receive $7,500 each semester for four semesters, for a total of $30,000, $24,000 of which will apply to tuition. The remaining $6,000 will help her to pay for travel, books, lodging, and meals during the five residencies in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Our Featured Story: | First Person History: | |
101
Tips For Landing Native American Scholarships
Dear Student, In the 21st century, a college degree is almost essential to achieving financial independence. But college remains a hideously expensive, unattainable
dream for many Native Americans. Doesnt it? Contrary
to conventional wisdom, however, college can be affordable if
you know the secrets to earning the financial assistance you need.
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Who First
Mined Copper Twenty-five
years ago two men discovered the tracks of a hedgehog in the snow a
few miles from Ontonagon and followed them to a ledge of rocks near
Minnesota Copper Mine. They began digging and soon struck the entrance
to a small cavern in the rock; continuing the excavation they soon found
that the cavern had been formed by human agency. A well defined vein
of native copper running through the rock, and numerous stone hammers
scattered about proved that the excavation had been made for mining
purposes.
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Education News | Education News | |
Marching
To A New Beat: Team B.C. Brings New Anthem, Custom Drums For Indigenous
Games
Team B.C. will be arriving at the North American Indigenous Games in style with a brand new theme song to drum up enthusiasm and energy. After a provincewide competition, the team's new anthem, composed by William Wasden Jr. from the Kwakwa_ka_'wakw Nation, was revealed just days before 2017 games, which begin Sunday and run through July 23. "The song is steady and upbeat and is meant to be used for celebrating and uplifting spirit," said Wasden. |
Beating
The Toughest Odds, New Graduate On The Pine Ridge Reservation Accepted
To Seven Ivy League Colleges
On South Dakotas Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota people, many students only dream of going to college. More than 60 percent of children on the reservation live below the poverty line. Statewide, the high school graduation rate for Native American students is less than 50 percent. And life expectancy in Oglala Lakota County, where Pine Ridge Reservation sits, is the lowest in the United States. But this year, one Lakota student at Red Cloud Indian School defied the negative statistics that continue to plague young people on Pine Ridge. Not only is nineteen-year-old Jacob Rosales going to college this fall, but he was accepted into seven of the nations eight Ivy League universities. |
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Education News | Education News | |
Red
Lake Nation Wants To See A 100 Percent High School Graduation Rate
The Red Lake Nation Tribal Council has set its Native American youth a bold goal: 100 percent graduation rate for Red Lake students. The council wants all students to earn a high school diploma, whether they go to school on the reservation or in other school districts. "We want our kids to succeed and this resolution demonstrates our commitment," said Annette Johnson, Red Lake Nation tribal treasurer, who earned a B.S. in accounting from Bemidji State University in 1998 and a masters in tribal administration from the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 2013. "Education is critical and important for our youth," she added. |
Trail
Of Tears: From A Middle School Student's Perspective
The Trail of Tears set a national precedent for the confiscation of Indian lands This persuasive essay was submitted to ICTMN by Matthew Scraper, Megan Scrapers father. Megan, 12, is a student at Marlow Middle School in Oklahoma. They are citizens of the Cherokee Nation, and Matthew pointed out that their last name is an English translation of the Cherokee word "disugasgi," which means something along the lines of "the one who repeatedly scrapes the skin." She chose to write about the Trail of Tears on her own when given a class assignment. |
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Honoring | Honoring Students | |
Oglala
Sioux Activist Wins Award For 'Sticking Neck Out'
It takes a lot of courage to stick your neck out, but one Rapid City resident has been dubbed a hero for doing just that. Charmaine White Face, an Oglala Sioux scientist, environmentalist and activist, has been named a Giraffe Hero by the Giraffe Heroes Project, a nonprofit organization that encourages people to "stick their necks out for the common good." White Face, who learned of the honor just days before it was announced last Wednesday, was surprised. |
Unity
Conference Selects Flathead Youth Group As Tribal Youth Council Of The
Year
A Flathead Reservation youth group was selected as the Tribal Youth Council of The Year at the UNITY (United National Indian Tribal Youth) Conference in Denver last week. Last spring, a group of Arlee and St. Ignatius students formed The NkWucin One Voice Youth Council as a support entity for each other and the youth community. Tribal youth develop leadership skills as part of the councils promotion of a drug- and alcohol-free lifestyle
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Honoring Students | Education News | |
Chantelle's
Quilt Goes To Washington
She was just 12 years old when she made her first star quilt. Now at 28, one of her beautifully handcrafted signature star quilts will grace the walls of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Indian in Washington D.C. as part of their permanent collection of Northern Plains Quilts. Chantelle Blue Arm, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, has been creating, selling and winning art shows with her signature star quilts ever since she made her first one in the seventh grade at Cheyenne Eagle Butte middle school, where she learned the art of quilting in a home economics class. |
Tribal
Canoe Journey: Tribes Depart Washington On Epic Voyage
Julian Brave NoiseCat (Secwepemc/St'at'imc) is one of two recipients of the 2017 CJF-CBC Indigenous Journalism Fellowships, established to encourage Indigenous voices and better understanding of Indigenous issues in Canada's major media and community outlets. He is reporting on the annual Tribal Canoe Journey paddle to Campbell River, B.C. with generous support from the fellowship.
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Living Traditions | Living Traditions | |
Alaska
Native Women In Bristol Bay Salmon Fisheries
During our first week and half in the field, we had some incredible experiences. We conducted our first interviews; tried subsistence-harvested foods, including berries and sockeye salmon; and watched fishermen set their lines in anticipation of the king salmon arriving. We also had a fourth member join our team. Kitty Sopow hails from Sitka, Alaska, and is interning with the Bristol Bay Native Association (BBNA) for the summer. She has a dog named Fawn and shared some of her own subsistence practices with us. She fishes for salmon, hunts deer, and harvests mushrooms, berries, and medicinal herbs like Devils Club. Kitty assisted us with interviews and served as our community liaison. |
A Taste Of 'Cherokee Cooking Talking bean bread, hominy, and a one-of-a-kind cookbook with its last surviving author
Nancy Plemmons pulls a bag out of the freezer. "This sochan might look bad now, but it's delicious," she chirps. Plemmons is a full-blooded member of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, living on tribal land outside Murphy, North Carolina. She gathered these wild greens in her front yard months ago. Before they soften in the pork fat pooling in her skillet, they're a frosty mass the emerald color of first growth. "This is a spring tonic, and everybody eats it. Everybody! Even Bill."
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Ancient Traditions | Ancient Traditions | |
Ancestral
Puebloans Used Fire To Communicate
Across Vast Distances
|In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set about bringing the United States out of the Great Depression with his New Deal. These efforts included a number of things that became a part of everyday life, such as the ending of Prohibition, the establishment of Social Security and the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which put unemployed men to work in a time when jobs were hard to find.
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Prehistoric
Fish Trap And Petroglyphs Found On Kodiak Island
Alutiiq Museum archaeologists have located the remains of a stone fish trap and an associated set of petroglyphs on northern Kodiak Island. The features are believed to be prehistoric and reflect Alutiiq salmon fishing traditions. While petroglyphs are a well-known feature of Kodiaks cultural landscape, the fish trap is a rare find. It is the first intertidal fishing structure identified in the Kodiak region.The trap lies in the lower intertidal zone, a muddy area below the mouth of a productive salmon stream. At high tide, salmon headed up the stream could swim over the stone-walled feature, but as the tide dropped, fish were stranded in one of two corrals. The walls of the corrals are incomplete today. |
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Education News | Living Traditions | |
Chemist
and Mi'kmaq Scholar Team Up To Study Healing Powers Of Birch Bark
Two professors at Cape Breton University a chemist and a Mi'kmaq scholar have been awarded $150,000 to study the healing powers of birch bark. Tuma Young, assistant professor of L'nu studies, and Matthias Bierenstiel, associate professor of chemistry, are combining traditional knowledge and fundamental science to determine how and why the bark works to soothe skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis. |
Clam Chowder, Corn, Lobster: Fourth Of July Summer Classics Are All Native The most classic Fourth of July foods are based in authentic Native cuisine, but for the first 100 years after the pilgrims arrived, they wouldn't even eat the foods Europeans now claim as their own. That's right. New England Clam Chowder would have
been better named Indigenous Chowder, according to Lorén Spears,
Narragansett, executive director of the Tomaquag
Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island. And turkey was only part of the
first Thanksgiving feast. A clambake steeped with shellfish, including
succulent
lobsters, was also served on that dubious day.
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Education News | Living Traditions | |
Chocolate Time Travel In A Cocoa Bean Craft culture
is alive and well in Santa Fe. Multiple micro-breweries, coffee roasters
and a robust farm-to-table movement have all been fully integrated into
the enthusiastic and ever-burgeoning local foodie scene. But with last
autumn's arrival of Cacao Santa Fe, the "City Different" has its first
bean-to-bar chocolatiers who think the experience of eating chocolate
gets better the more you know about the art and culture of chocolate-making.
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Long Time Coming: American Indian Cultural Center And Museum Takes Shape At the junction of three major interstates in Oklahoma
City sits the skeletal ribs of what is to be the American Indian Cultural
Center and Museum. It has been a dormant site for years due to a lack
of funding and an inability to reach a consensus between tribes and
the state. That squabble has finally, after 23 years, been resolved
and the museum will now see construction crews returning to finish it.
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About
This Issue's Greeting - "Wáa
sá iyatee?"
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"How
are you?" is "Wáa sá iyatee?" in Tlingit. That is pronounced similar to
"wah sah ee-yah-te." But that is not generally used as a greeting. Modern
Tlingit people sometimes greet each other with "Yak'éi yagiyee" which
literally means "good day."
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Nature's
Beauty:
Eclipse: Who? What? Where? When? and How? |
This
Issue's
Favorite Web sites |
A
Story To Share:
When Tcikabis Trapped The Sun |
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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.
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Canku Ota is a copyright © 2000
- 2017 of Vicki Williams Barry and Paul Barry.
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The "Canku Ota - A Newsletter
Celebrating Native America" web site and its design is the
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Copyright © 1999-
2017 of Paul C. Barry.
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All Rights Reserved.
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