Canku Ota - A Newsletter Celebrating Native America April 8, 2000 - Issue 07

Yá'át'ééh!

The Diné (Navajo) Greeting - pronounced Ya'`a't`e'e'h!.

"Hello.", "Hi.", "How are you?", "How are things?"

Tabehatawi

The Month (Moon) of the Frog

ASSINIBOINE

"Black Elk Oglala Sioux Holy Man 1863-1950 You have noticed that everything as Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round..... The Sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.... Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.

We salute- Mary Ann Andreas California Lt. Governor Cruz M. Bustamante named Mary Ann Martin Andreas, tribal chairwoman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, as the first recipient of the Woman of the Year award to be issued by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. "Chairwoman Andreas is a remarkable person because of her personal triumphs and the progress she has achieved on behalf of not only her own tribe, but for all of California's tribes," Bustamante said in making the award. "This is a woman who grew up in a house with dirt floors and no running water or electricity." click here

Artist: Donald Vann The images of full blood Cherokee artist Donald Vann speak of peace and tranquility; of solitude. They speak of yesterday's tradition and tomorrow's promise. Through his work, Donald takes the viewer to a place that is as real to him as the tangible world. To see his paintings is to feel the crunch of snow beneath one's feet, to hear the wind whisper through the aspen trees, to smell the wood smoke and buffalo hide tipis. click here		Blue Eagles sent to Canku Ota by Jaime, age 10, grade 5 One day when the continents were connected and the Earth was new, a young Cherokee warrior called Running Bear went to hunt in the magical woods. While he was hunting, he looked up in the trees to see if any animals were there. He didn't see any animals. He saw something even better, something that no one had ever seen before. ... click here

Omaha Tribal Songs Fill the Web The Omaha Indian Tribe from Nebraska, with the aid of American Folklife Center, is using the World Wide Web to help preserve their language and songs. click here		Canada's Inuits Ask to Hunt Endangered Whale An Inuit native community in northern Canada said it had asked the federal government for permission to hunt and kill a Bowhead whale, an endangered species that was pursued to near extinction in the 1800s. click here
Totem Pole Tells Story of School's Beloved Cedar "Please save our tree!" a class of first-graders wrote school officials last year, when they learned that a school expansion would take out the more than 30-foot-tall landmark on Capitol Hill. click here		Helping Students Blossom That's what the Tulalip Mentoring Program promises its 20 middle-school students in the hope these young Native Americans will change their outlook on school. Healthy friendships with adult volunteers can help cut absenteeism and improve academic achievement, program administrators say. click here
Indian Art-The Real Deal So you're enchanted by the intricate patterns of Navajo rugs. Or you've always dreamed of owning an elaborately carved Hopi kachina. But you don't know what's authentic, what's a good deal, what's popular this year. This is a good time to learn. click here		Pow Wow Do's and Don'ts We are always glad to see people attend pow wows, and learn more about our cultures and ways, but sometimes not everyone acts as they should. Here are some general guidelines to follow: click here
Slice of Buffalo Lung Beats Potato Chips Any Day Alma Snell says a slice of roasted buffalo lung beats a potato chip any day. And its better for you, too, she contends. Snell, an elder in the Crow Tribe, shared some of her knowledge about traditional foods and medicines during the recent "Enhancing Tribal Health and Wellness in the New Millennium" conference in Billings, which was sponsored by tribal leaders from Montana and Wyoming. click here		Victor Rocha-Warrior and High-tech Sleuth It's 3 a.m. and while most of Indian country is sleeping, warrior and high-tech sleuth Victor Rocha is brewing his fresh morning edition of California Indian Gaming News. Working up to 16 hours a day -- seven days a week -- without salary, Rocha is a man with a mission. With 25,000 to 30,000 online page hits a day, Rocha's website shows that just about everyone from the Department of Justice, to tribal members, reads the digest online. click here
Preserving The Mother Tongue Harry Running Walker remembers the lesson. Dog, he told the teacher who pointed to an animal in a picture. Cat. "Sunka. Kidi." The 9-year-old used the wrong language. He spoke Dakota, his birth language. And the teacher went to the principal. He never guessed someone would try to turn the tables. That, this time, he'd be the one giving the lesson. click here		Fading Indian Languages Carry a Powerful Message To many Native Americans, language is a gift from God. They believe it is bestowed on the people by their Maker, like the ability to breathe or to think. To them, so sacred is the genesis of speech that they include it in their creation stories. click here

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

Classmates Piece Together Whale Bones Amid the Pepsi vending machine, fliers touting an upcoming dance, teens dressed in Fubu and Old Navy and other ordinary features of high-school life is a rather extraordinary thing: a 700-pound skeleton of the gray whale Makah tribal members killed last year. click here

About This Issue's Greeting - "Yá'át'ééh!"

Navaho is an American Indian language spoken by between one hundred twenty and one hundred forty thousand people in the Southwestern United States. Navaho is a member of the Athabaskan family of the Na-Dené group of languages. It is considered to be closely related to Apache.

In Every Issue ...

This Date click here		Recipe: Wild Onions click here
Story: The Gift Of The Whale click here		What is this: Whale Tales click here
Project:Make A Whale Mobile: click here		this issue's Web sites click here

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