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Canku
Ota
(Many Paths) An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America |
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January
2020
- Volume 18 Number 1
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Yaxei
haa satee, aax hoon gei
The Tlingit Greeting “It is good to see you, all my relations!” |
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"Opolahsomuwehs"
whirling wind month Passamaquoddy |
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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 | |
Global artist Ron Senungetuk, died at age 86 In an art student's 2006 Master's thesis, sculptor Abraham Anghik Ruben is quoted as saying, "[Ron] Senungetuk's timing was impeccable. He came at a time when Alaska Natives needed an infusion of culture and art to prepare for the changes that were coming," said Ron's former student. "He was able to change the course of Alaska art history single handedly, both Native and non-Native contemporary art." The quote appears in Charis Ann Gullickson's thesis for the University of Tromsø, Norway. Later in her paper, Gullickson said Ron's "pursuit to promote Alaska Native pre-contact art, by updating it into a contemporary artform, is a kind of political agenda. Essentially he is giving life to an art form that was devastated by colonialism." |
Choctaw Basketball Player Inducted Into Naismith Hall Of Fame Rosalie Ardese was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball
Hall of Fame September 6, 2019, as a member of the Wayland Baptist University
Flying Queens basketball team. Ardese played for Wayland between 1974
and 1975. |
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Our Featured Story: | First Person History: | |
Sisters In Red: Ignacio Girls Basketball Brings Uncomfortable Conversation To Gymnasium Justa Whitt entered the gymnasium at Ignacio High School to take an extraordinary team photo back in December. What she saw sent chills down her spine. Each coach and player on the girls varsity basketball team had a red or black handprint painted over their mouths that extended to their cheekbones. They lined up in their uniforms with a basketball in hand, put on a stoic expression and posed. |
Sacred Dakota Peace Pipe Sells For $40,000 And Buyer Gives It Back To Minnesota Tribe |
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Education News | Education News | |
The Best Native Books Of 2019 Winter is a time for storytelling. Whether conversing
with friends around a crackling fire, curling up with a book on a cozy
couch, or jogging with earbuds while keeping a New Years resolution,
were entering the time of year when stories hold a special place
in our lives. For many of us, this means short days and cold nightstime
wed like to pass lost in narratives that entertain, challenge, and
inspire us. Were also entering a sacred time celebrated by holiday
gift giving. On the precipice of these dual seasons, Id like to
highlight some of the best Native books published this past year. I implore
you all to acquire, consume, and share them with others.
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Navajo And Pueblo Youth Make It To Cross Country National Finals There was a strong showing of Indigenous runners at this weekend's USATF National Junior Olympic National Cross Country Championships in Madison, Wisconsin. On a day where wind chills hung around 10 degrees and the ground remained frozen, Dine' and Pueblo runners competed against the best youth from across the country. |
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Education News | Preserving Language | |
Cherokee Students To Revisit "Lion King Jr." In Upcoming Performances Several years ago, Cherokee students took to the stage and presented "Lion King Jr." which was the first musical production in the history of Cherokee Central Schools (CCS). Now, many of those same students a lot of them now seniors at Cherokee High School, are revisiting the play for a set of upcoming performances. "Our senior class this year is filled with kids that I have always called 'The Trailblazers'," said Michael Yannette, Cherokee Performing Arts program director. "They started the Performing Arts Program at CCS when they were in middle school with 'Lion King Jr.' They have grown so much now and have had years of performing experiences in musicals and as part of the Cherokee Chamber Singers." |
Elevating the Oral Tradition When Marcus Briggs-Cloud, MTS '10, began to sing in his native Muscogee language in the main hall at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology this past October, it was a testament to the survival of his community and culture through centuries of genocidal efforts against indigenous peoples in the United States. But Briggs-Cloud, who was there to celebrate the official opening of the museum's new video installation "Revitalizing Indigenous Languages," aimed to highlight more than the narrative of survival. There's a grassroots renewal of indigenous languages underwaywhat he called the "sacred work of generating new, fluent speakers." And that's a story worth telling. |
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Preserving Language | Our Natural World | |
Language Update It has been a busy buys season for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation
Language Department. Our new online dictionary, at potawatomidictionary.com,
has been getting over 100 unique views daily. The dictionary is downloadable
in the Google App store. We are also working on developing a PDF downloadable
version. We recently started a Potawatomi Youth Choir. We have currently about 12 kids participating. They have been learning different Christmas songs in the language. They have been working on Silver Bells, Frosty the Snowman, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Let It Snow. We shared some of the songs on our Potawatomi Language Facebook group around Christmas. By the time this comes out, the kids will have performed at the Foster Parent Appreciation Dinner, the Oklahoma Indian Education Conference hosted at the Grand Casino Hotel & Resort as well as Christmas caroling with our adult language class at elders housing and Citizen Place North. |
Wadasé Zhabwé's Telemetry Stuns Experts Winter is finally here, although looking at the forecast here in Oklahoma, you might not know it. The first week of winter brings a welcome warm spell with temperatures in the high 60s. That may sound unusual, but it's on par with the rest of the year. Spring gave us more than our total yearly rainfall in one season; summer's green hung around well into fall; and fall seemed to just skip right into winter. Our winters here rarely bring us picture-worthy snow. But this time of year does bring migratory birds of all kinds, and it signals breeding season for raptors, including eagles. This year's winter in particular is the winter we have waited on since we started sharing Wadasé Zhabwé's story six and a half years ago. Like a broken record, stuck on repeat, we kept saying, "One more season of her telemetry data, and we will know where she nests." In fact, there's a worn spot on the corner of our desk where we superstitiously knock on wood during tours when we talk about how long she's worn her GPS telemetry backpack. |
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Native Voices | Education News | |
South Dakota Tribes Making Second Attempt To Repeal 1863 Dakota Removal Act Tribes in South Dakota are trying again to gain support from state lawmakers to repeal the 1863 federal law banning them from Minnesota. The legislative State-Tribal Relations Committee moved in a 6-3 vote on Wednesday to introduce a resolution during the 2020 legislative session requesting Congress repeal the federal Dakota Removal Act, which forced the tribe onto South Dakota reservations following the 1862 conflict that included the mass hanging of 38 Dakota men. |
Indigenous Education Grows and Gifts Ceremonial Tobacco Last January, RRC Indigenous Wellness Advisor Donna Glover had an idea. She saw that the College had a traditional medicine garden, but they were not growing tobacco. Glover took it upon herself to change that. Tobacco is one of the four sacred medicines in Indigenous culture and Glover felt that it was important for the College to create a relationship with the medicine themselves. "Anyone can go to the gas station and buy tobacco, but we wanted a special connection," she says. |
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Living Traditions | Living Traditions | |
Sisters Enjoy Creating Cherokee Art Together It could be said that two Cherokee sisters who are multi-talented artists came to it naturally. Shirley Sims, of Christie, and Carlene Wiley, of Watts, grew up in Pumpkin Hollow near Briggs. They made beadwork as children whenever they could find or purchase beads. Later, they made baskets and were naturals at it. Sims said she got started with basket making in 2001 while taking a computer class at Skelly School near Watts. She was asked to if she would be interested in working on baskets. At first she was hesitant, but then she did it and got into it. |
Snoqualmie Tribe kicks off Washington's first Native Arts Week by buying a Native design brand Louie Gong began his entrepreneurial art journey by
painting Native American patterns and designs on Vans slip-on sneakers.
In 2008 he founded Eighth Generation,
a design studio that collaborates exclusively with Native American artists
across the country to create authentic Native American products. In 2016,
Gong (Nooksack) opened a brick-and-mortar shop at Pike Place Market. Today,
Eighth Generation becomes the Snoqualmie Tribe's most recent cultural
investment.
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Repatriation | Living Traditions | |
Cornplanter's Pipe Tomahawk Officially Repatriated To Seneca Nation Nation leaders welcomed officials from the New York State Museum to Salamanca on January 9, 2020 to announce that a pipe tomahawk originally given to the respected Seneca leader and diplomat Cornplanter by George Washington has been officially repatriated to the Nation. The announcement took place at the Nation's Onöhsagwe:de' Cultural Center, where the pipe tomahawk has been on loan to the Nation since March. |
Stitches Through Time Once a month, Higbee family members gather at a Citizen Potawatomi
Nation-owned restaurant to discuss their heritage, Potawatomi culture
and build camaraderie. We call the group the cousins because were
all cousins, said the head of the Higbee family, John Dragoo. |
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Living Traditions | Repatriation | |
Historic Preservation Brings Traditional Choctaw Skirt Back To Life Since March of 2018, the Historic Preservation department
staff and tribal members have been working together to learn about Choctaw
textiles that go back thousands of years. Through this community effort,
we learned enough to create a completed an vlhkuna, a skirt, modeled after
a 1700s bison wool and plant fiber skirt. According to an anonymous French
chronicler writing in the mid-1700s, Choctaw women made a fabric,
partly of (bison) wool, and partly of fibre from a very strong herb which
they spun. This fabric was double like two-sided handkerchiefs and thick
as canvas, (about 22.5 inches wide and 33.75 inches long).
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Ancestral Human Remains And One Funerary Object Recommitted To Earth An Aug. 22, 2019 Recommitment to Earth ceremony was held for ancestral human remains from the Sloan Museum of Flint, Mich. The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe and its Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways, and with assistance from the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation & Repatriation Alliance (MACPRA) and Mille Lacs Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, recommitted to the earth the ancestral human remains of nine Native American individuals and one funerary object from the Sloan Museum. | |
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Education News | Education News | |
The Gallery Experience Raises More Than $11,000 For Pawhuska Schoolteachers In its second year, The Gallery Experience art-driven fundraiser topped its inaugural year's collection by $9,000 with a total of more than $11,000 raised from art purchases and live auction bids at the Dec. 5 event. Osage artist Addie Roanhorse hosted The Gallery Experience fundraiser in support of Pawhuska Public School teachers at her Big Rain Gallery in downtown Pawhuska for the second year in a row. The Gallery Experience received a sponsorship from Osage Casino, which helped pay for costs associated with the event. |
Five Colleges, Inc., Receives $2.5M Grant For Native American And Indigenous Studies Good news was delivered to several Western Massachusetts colleges and universities looking to enhance their study of Native American and indigenous cultures and history. Five Colleges, Incorporated has been awarded a $2.5 million, four-year grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help its member campuses transform how they approach Native American and indigenous studies, with the goal of enhancing teaching, learning and scholarship in the field. | |
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Repatriation | Repatriation | |
100 Pieces Of Tewa Pottery Returned To Their Ancestral Home In The Rio Grande Valley SANTA FE, NM This month, the Poeh Cultural Center at the Pueblo of Pojoaque in New Mexico unveiled a collection of 100 pieces of Tewa pottery, newly restored to the land where they were created. The exhibition, titled Di Wae Powa: They Came Back, signals the start of an extended partnership between the Smithsonians National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and Pueblo communities. Until now, the collection was maintained at the NMAI. The arrangement materialized after Pojoaque Pueblos former governor George Rivera, then-lieutenant governor Joseph Talachy, and the Pueblos Historic Preservation Officer Bruce Bernstein first proposed to NMAI in 2015 that the pots be returned to their communities. NMAI agreed to a long-term loan. |
Bill To Place Lands In Tennessee Into Trust Passes House The House of Representatives has passed legislation that would put 76 acres in east Tennessee, containing several historic sites to the Tribe, into trust for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Historic Lands Reacquisition Act (H.R. 453), introduced by Rep. Charles J. Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) on Jan. 10, 2019, passed the House on Dec. 16, 2019. "For the second year in a row, the House agreed to a widespread bipartisan fashion to maintain a commitment to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians by placing specified lands and easements in Monroe County, Tenn., into a trust for the use and benefit of the Tribe," Rep. Fleischmann said in a statement on Dec. 16, 2019. The Cherokee Nation has a rich history in the Third District, and I am grateful to be engaged in the process to safeguard the story of the Eastern Band in the Cherokee towns of Tanasi and Chota." | |
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About
This Issue's Greeting - "Yaxei
haa satee, aax hoon gei"
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“It
is good to see you, all my relations!” is "Yaxei haa satee, aax hoon gei"
in Tlingit. That is pronounced similar to "yuckx-ay haa satee, aax hoon
gay".
The Nadene languages form another linguistic family; its branches include Athabascan, Haida, and Tlingit. The Haida and Tlingit tongues are spoken in parts of Canada and Alaska. As a whole, the Nadene languages have tones that convey meaning and some degree of polysynthesism. The verb is characterized by a reliance on aspect and voice rather than on tense. |
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Nature's
Beauty:
California Condor Gymnogyps californianus |
This
Issue's
Favorite Web sites |
A
Story To Share:
Bringing Prey-Go-Neesh Home |
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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
- 2020 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-
2020 of Paul C. Barry.
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All Rights Reserved.
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