Ann, need your help to find history on a Kenneth Su

Hi, I was given a gift for completing my bacherlors degree. It is a lovely painting of oil on canvus done in likely the 1970s. I know the artists name is Kenneth Su but I do not have any tribal history of the artist Kenneth Su at all. I would do anything to find out about him. Can you help me? He is supposed to be part native himself but I cant really get anwhere finding out his personal history. Help me if you can.My grandmother and grandpa are both  deceased so cannot help me at all

What do you know about Kenneth Su? I can tell the painting is very old. If anyone can find out something as truth I respect your abililty tremenduously Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Deb aka CheyFire

Native Americans of the 19th Century

    The cultural experiences of Native American women and children and their societal views were heavily influenced by their perception of white society and the foreigners that had come to invade their homeland. The fear that each culture experienced toward the other was often based on rumor and suppositions, as well as negative experiences, on both sides. Whites were afraid that native people would kill and eat them, while the Native American women also feared the exact same wild behavior from the whites. In the second half of the19^th century Native women had already survived several atrocities perpetrated by the white man and had been forced to make numerous adjustments to their lifestyle. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 257-8)

     The values of the Native American woman were in many respects, not any different from the values expressed within the heart and soul of all women. A woman’s survival instinct and her fierce desire to protect her child were no different whether the woman was white, Native American, or African American. The survival instinct is inherent in every human being.

     According to the definition by the Ridhwan School, founded in 1976 by A. Hameed Ali, the “instinct for survival, which translates into fear of annihilation and death, is the energy behind adaptation and hence, conditioning…So we can say that it is due to the instinct for self-preservation that acquiescence to the coercive forces in the environment occurs.”

     These new white strangers had invaded their home land and killed off many of their young braves. Some women chose to remain near the military forts and survived by performing the duties of a prostitute and handmaiden for the male soldiers. These female Natives were referred to as “black dirty squaws” and were hated by the white women as well as by their own tribal people. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 257).

     At other times, Native American women were forced to live at the edge of the Army camps. As the white man traveled west and took more land, pleasant looking young Native maidens were often kidnapped and raped by the white men who terrorized and burned their land. They were forced into servitude and not permitted to leave until the white man had no further need of their services. By then there was really no place else for them to go and they would remain as a “squaw” at the edges of the camps(DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 258).

     At other times when looking back at the values of the white woman verses the Native American female, values were obviously influenced by the legacy of the Colonial women to these later frontier white women. White women were more submissive to their husbands and their central focus was to serve at home and at church. They were involved in the political aspects of the country but more in an influential yet indirect way.
    Native American women on the other hand were more respected within their own clan. The heritage and decisions of the tribe involved their women and there was no need for politics. The Native tribe was formatted and run quite differently than the American culture(DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, chapter 4-5).

     The lives of the Natives were also profoundly disrupted by illness, warfare, death, and disease brought to their land by the white man (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 287.) Sexually transmitted diseases caused a great deal of infertility among Native women and thus the genocide of a race and a culture was direct and indirect at the same time (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 259).

     Boarding schools came into existence for several reasons in the 19^th century. It was a meager attempt of the whites to control and civilize the Native Americans that they viewed as uncivilized heathens. It was also a way of passively destroying the Native way of life by forcing all “Native” ways to be eliminated (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p 393). Later Natives would be taken into captivity and forbidden to speak their Native tongue, to dress in their own clothing, or to worship in their own ways.   

    The boarding schools the Native children were forced to attend were a horror story. Very few of the Natives were receptive to the idea of attending the white man's schools. They would view the experience as an opportunity to learn how to fit in and belong more to the white mans way of life. Most of the children were literally taken away from the parents.  History and research into the boarding schools and interviews conducted with Native Americans who attended proved the schools were cruel places. The smallest of children were not allowed to speak their Native tongue or ever allowed to see their parents.

      According to an article by Amnesty magazine, the purpose of the schools many times were to “beat the Indian out of them.” (Smith, 2009) Boarding schools in Canada and the United States “virtually imprisoned” the Native children that were viciously taken from their parents and held as if imprisoned at them. The children were separated from their only home, their birth parents, their tribe, their faith and beliefs, and forbidden to even dress in their own clothing. Infractions of the rules met with severe punishment (Smith, 2009).

      The abuse of the Native children included beatings, starvation, physical abuse, sexual abuse at the hands of some, and always emotional neglect and spiritual annihilation. These abuses have only recently come into public knowledge and the churches and government response has been hard fraught in the legal system.

      The newspaper in Toronto wrote that “Canada settles abuse case that spanned generations First Nations Indians mistreated while at church run schools.” (Krause, San Francisco Chronicle, 2006)  Many of the things that went on in the schools were good and in our text it explains how the purpose initially was to help Native Americans, and later other immigrants, learn more about American culture and values, but America was still developing its belief system. America is slowly learning to respect the diversity within its borders and to me, that is how it should be.

  

Reference

DuBois, E.C., Dumenil, L. (2005). Through Women’s Eyes: An American History with Documents. Massachusetts/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.

A.H. Almaas. (2009) Ridhwan Foundation, Survival Instinct-Psychological  Instinct for Survival, Retrieved on April 4, 2009, from  http://ahalmaas.com/Glossary/s/survival_instinct.htm

Smith, A. (2009) Amnesty International USA. Amnesty Magazine. Soul Wound:
The Legacy of Native American Schools. Retrieved on April 4, 2009, from http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/soulwound.html

Krauss, C.,   (April 27, 2006). San Francisco Chronicle. Canada settles abuse case that spanned generations First Nations Indians mistreated while at church-run schools. Retrieved Thursday, April 27, 2006 from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/27/MNGFNIG4JC1.DTL

       

Native Healing Ways and Cancer

Native American healing is a broad term that includes healing beliefs and practices of hundreds of indigenous tribes of North America. It combines religion, spirituality, herbal medicine, and rituals that are used to treat people with medical and emotional conditions.....

http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/MindBodyandSpirit/native-american-healing

Native Health

Perhaps you may have gathered that I have a love for all my Native brothers and sisters and the utmost respect. I want to reach out and share health topics that will help teach not only the ways of Western medicine, but teach in such a way that even great healers within any clan or tribe can speak with even greater truth.

I found this site that has many links on health care for The Pima Indians: Pathfinders for Health.
http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/pima/

I focus very often on diabetes because the Western diet and lifestyle has caused huge imbalances within the body. Diabetes results from obesity, poor nutrition, and causes more health complications than any other illness that I can think of right now.

Diabetes leads to vision loss with diabetic retinopathy and circulatory problems that result in blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes. Beyond these things diabetes is the number cause of renal (kidney) failure and that leads to dialysis. Renal failure causes problems with high blood pressure and nutrition needs. Decreased circulation and diabetic neuropathy leads to poor peripheral circulation and limb loss through amputations.

The greater the knowledge any people can possess then the greater their control over their own health and destiny. Knowledge, it is said, is power. But power without wisdom is useless. We must do more than "know", we must be wise.

Chey

Diabetes and Native Americans

http://vltakaliseji.tripod.com/Vtlakaliseji/id2.html

among Native Americans. Complications from diabetes are major causes of death and health problems in most Native American populations. This information on Native Americans and Diabetes is taken from the American Diabetes Association.

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease that affects the body's ability to produce or respond to insulin, a hormone that allows blood glucose (blood sugar) to enter the cells of the body and be used for energy. Diabetes falls into two main categories: type 1, which usually occurs during childhood or adolescence, and type 2, the most common form of the disease, usually occurring after age 45.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that has no cure.

How Does it Affect Native Americans?

Prevalence :

Prevalence of type 2 diabetes among Native Americans in the United States is 12.2% for those over 19 years of age. One tribe in Arizona has the highest rate of diabetes in the world. About 50% of the tribe between the ages of 30 and 64 have diabetes.

Today, diabetes has reached epidemic proportions

Of equal concern is the fact that type 2, or adult-onset diabetes, is increasingly being discovered in Native American youth.

Diabetes Rapidly Increasing Among Native Americans, Alaskans

Reported in the December, 2000 issue of Diabetes Care: Diabetes has been growing in prevalence among Native Americans and Alaskan Natives,according to a recent study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found a nearly 30 percent increase in diabetes diagnoses among these populations between 1990 and 1997. During this time period prevalence among women was higher than among men, but the rate of increase was higher among men than women (37 percent v. 25 percent). The increase in prevalence was highest in Alaska, where it rose 76 percent during the 1990s, and lowest in the Northern Plains region of the United States, where it rose by 16 percent during this time period.

Obesity and Native Americans:

According to the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the "thrifty gene" theory proposes that African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans inherited a gene from their ancestors which enabled them to use food more efficiently during "feast and famine" cycles. Today there are fewer such cycles; this causes certain populations to be more susceptible to obesity and to developing type 2 diabetes.

Native Americans and Diabetic Complications:

The serious complications of diabetes are increasing in frequency among Native Americans. Of major concern are increasing rates of kidney failure, amputations and blindness.

Ten to twenty-one percent of all people with diabetes develop kidney disease. In 1995, 27,900 people initiated treatment for end stage renal disease (kidney failure) because of diabetes. Among people with diabetes, the rate of diabetic end stage renal disease is six times higher among Native Americans.

Diabetes is the most frequent cause of non-traumatic lower limb amputations. The risk of a leg amputation is 15 to 40 times greater for a person with diabetes. Each year 54,000 people lose their foot or leg to diabetes. Amputation rates among Native Americans are 3-4 times higher than the general population.

Diabetic retinopathy is a term used for all abnormalities of the small blood vessels of the retina caused by diabetes, such as weakening of blood vessel walls or leakage from blood vessels. Diabetic retinopathy occurs in 18% of Pima Indians and 24.4% of Oklahoma Indians.

What is Needed?

In ideal circumstances, Native Americans with diabetes will have their disease under good control and be monitored frequently by a health care team knowledgeable in the care of diabetes.

Patient education is critical. People with diabetes can reduce their risk for complications if they are educated about their disease, learn and practice the skills necessary to better control their blood glucose levels, and receive regular checkups from their health care team.

People with diabetes, with the help of their health care providers, should set goals for better control of blood glucose levels, as close to the normal range as is possible for them. Health care team education is vital. Because people with diabetes have a multi-system chronic disease, they are best monitored and managed by highly skilled health care professionals trained with the latest information on diabetes to help ensure early detection and appropriate treatment of the serious complications of the disease. A team approach to treating and monitoring this disease serves the best interests of the patient.

Knowledge is power. Learn what you can, talk to your health care provider and use what you learn to help yourself beat this horrible disease.

It has been a long time

It is sometimes sad to see our soldiers die and be wounded so very young.

Senate backs overhaul bill that 'will save lives'

I received this in my nursing news from the ANA so I wanted to share it.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/352846_healthcare27.html

Senate backs overhaul bill that 'will save lives'

Last updated February 26, 2008 11:02 p.m. PT

By JUDY HOLLAND
P-I WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- In the first major overhaul of the Indian Health Service in more than a decade, Congress moved Tuesday toward bolstering health-care screening, illness prevention and mental health benefits for Native Americans.

The Senate-approved legislation would infuse $35 billion over 10 years into the Indian Health Service to improve tribal health care for 1.8 million American Indians and Alaska Natives on reservations. The lawmakers voted 83-10 in favor of the legislation.

In recent years, the Indian Health Service has been funded at about $3 billion annually.

The bill would bolster mental health programs and patient screening for cancer and diabetes, expand disease prevention programs and recruit nurses and doctors to serve American Indian populations. It would also modernize and build health clinics and increase tribal access to Medicare and Medicaid.

The House is expected to take up the measure later this year.

Seattle is home to the largest urban Indian health clinic in the country.

The Seattle Indian Health Board on 12th Avenue South provides a full range of medical, dental, lab and pharmacy services along with programs aimed at drug and alcohol abuse to about 7,000 Native Americans each year.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., hailed passage of the measure as "a major step, something that the Indian tribes have really been pushing."

"It updates the law so they can do the kind of preventive care the rest of America has," Murray said.

The Indian Health Care Improvement Act, which was last reauthorized in 1992 and expired in 2000, will focus on preventive care that can stave off illnesses prevalent on reservations such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease, Murray said.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said the federal government has a responsibility to Native Americans after "we took their land, put them on reservations, signed treaties and made promises" we haven't kept, especially with regard to health care.

"This will save lives," Dorgan said.

Under treaties signed by the U.S. government and Indian tribes, the federal government is obligated to provide health care for Native Americans.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said improved health care for Indian tribes is long overdue.

"It's been a neglected part of our health care delivery system," Cantwell said.

The Senate also approved on a vote of 56-38 an amendment by Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., that would grant the Indian Health Service the authority to more evenly distribute funding for construction of its health facilities.

Smith complained about an "archaic formula" under which most of the funding for construction and modernization of tribal clinics goes to fewer than 10 states.

He said states that are not receiving construction dollars for Native American health facilities include New York, Texas, Michigan, California and Washington.

Cantwell said the Smith measure could benefit Northwestern tribes by steering more federal construction dollars their way.

"It's a positive step for a more adequate distribution of resources to the Northwest," Cantwell said.

The Senate also amended the bill to exclude most abortions at Indian health clinics and ban spending on programs that discourage gun ownership.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, applauded the anti-abortion provision, saying the majority of the Senate "has now shown they agree with most Americans that government funding of abortion is morally wrong."

A similar House bill is expected to come up in the Energy and Commerce Committee in the next few weeks, said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who heads the health subcommittee of the panel. It must clear the House Ways and Means panel before heading to the floor.

Pallone predicts the measure "will move fairly quickly" to approval in the House.

Pallone, vice chair of the Native American Caucus, said health care for American Indians is "far inferior to that of the average American."

He said hospitals and clinics on reservations are in disrepair and have difficulty finding specialized physicians, dentists and podiatrists.

"There is a huge disparity between the health care they get and that of average Americans," Pallone said.

$35 BILLION

Amount over 10 years that the Senate-approved legislation would put into the Indian Health Service to boost tribal care.

1.8 MILLION

Number of American Indians and Alaska Natives on reservations who would be affected by the legislation. HEALTH CARE

BY THE NUMBERS

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., cited these grim health-care statistics for Native Americans:

The infant mortality rate is 150 percent greater for Native Americans than Caucasians.

Native Americans are 2.6 times more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes.

Life expectancy for Native Americans is nearly six years less than the rest of the U.S. population.

Suicide rate for Native Americans is 2.5 times higher than the national average.

Health care expenditures for Native Americans are less than half of what America spends for federal prisoners.

© 1998-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Truth out articles, a new horizon to me

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/053107A.shtml

This article can be found in the Truth Out publication found online at the site above. It is not my writing and I only share the information to stimulate our thinking and strengthen our will to survive as a people and a culture.I may or may not agree, so do not find fault for my sharing it here. Form your own opinions, I only want the Native culture to be educated and this is another way I have found to share.

Minnesota Case Fits Pattern in US Attorneys Flap
    By Tom Hamburger
    The Los Angeles Times

    Thursday 31 May 2007

A prosecutor apparently targeted for firing had supported Native American voters' rights.

    Washington - For more than 15 years, clean-cut, square-jawed Tom Heffelfinger was the embodiment of a tough Republican prosecutor. Named U.S. attorney for Minnesota in 1991, he won a series of high-profile white-collar crime and gun and explosives cases. By the time Heffelfinger resigned last year, his office had collected a string of awards and commendations from the Justice Department.

    So it came as a surprise - and something of a mystery - when he turned up on a list of U.S. attorneys who had been targeted for firing.

    Part of the reason, government documents and other evidence suggest, is that he tried to protect voting rights for Native Americans.

    At a time when GOP activists wanted U.S. attorneys to concentrate on pursuing voter fraud cases, Heffelfinger's office was expressing deep concern about the effect of a state directive that could have the effect of discouraging Indians in Minnesota from casting ballots.

    Citing requirements in a new state election law, Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer directed that tribal ID cards could not be used for voter identification by Native Americans living off reservations. Heffelfinger and his staff feared that the ruling could result in discrimination against Indian voters. Many do not have driver's licenses or forms of identification other than the tribes' photo IDs.

    Kiffmeyer said she was only following the law.

    The issue was politically sensitive because the Indian vote can be pivotal in close elections in Minnesota. The Minneapolis-St. Paul area has one of the largest urban Native American populations in the United States. Its members turn out in relatively large numbers and are predominantly Democratic.

    Heffelfinger resigned last year for personal reasons and says he had no idea he was being targeted for possible firing. But his stance fits a pattern that has emerged in the cases of several U.S. attorneys fired last year in states where Republicans wanted more vigorous efforts to legally challenge questionable voters.

    Politics have always played a role at Justice and other Cabinet-level departments. But, critics say, Bush administration strategists went beyond most of their predecessors - Democratic or Republican - in seeking ways to convert control of the federal government into advantages on election day.

    And the Heffelfinger episode has contributed to a backlash among some Minnesota Republicans. Sen. Norm Coleman, a Bush loyalist in the past who is facing reelection next year, has called on Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales to resign - largely as a result of the U.S. attorney firings and the revelations about Heffelfinger.

    A hint at why Heffelfinger's name was on termination lists that Justice Department officials and Bush political strategists put together emerged when Monica M. Goodling, the department's former White House liaison, testified last week before the House Judiciary Committee about the firings.

    Goodling said she had heard Heffelfinger criticized for "spending an excessive amount of time" on Native American issues.

    Her comment caused bewilderment and anger among the former U.S. attorney's supporters in Minnesota. And Heffelfinger said it was "shameful" if the time he spent on the problems of Native Americans had landed him in trouble with his superiors in Washington.

    But newly obtained documents and interviews with government officials suggest that what displeased some of his superiors and GOP politicians was narrower and more politically charged - his actions on Indian voting.

    About three months after Heffelfinger's office raised the issue of tribal ID cards and nonreservation Indians in an October 2004 memo, his name appeared on a list of U.S. attorneys singled out for possible firing.

    "I have come to the conclusion that his expressed concern for Indian voting rights is at least part of the reason that Tom Heffelfinger was placed on the list to be fired," said Joseph D. Rich, former head of the voting section of the Justice Department's civil rights division. Rich, who retired in 2005 after 37 years as a career department lawyer - 24 of them in Republican administrations - was closely involved in the Minnesota ID issue. He played no role in drafting the termination lists, which were prepared by political appointees.

    Justice Department officials refused Tuesday to confirm whether particular U.S. attorneys may or may not have been on one of the termination lists prepared by D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Gonzales. But Dean Boyd, a department spokesman, did say that "the Justice Department and the attorney general have been and remain committed to working on issues of importance to Native Americans."

    Boyd cited cases in which Justice Department lawyers have gone to court to uphold Indian voting rights.

    Suspicion of Indian voter fraud was strong among Republicans in the upper Midwest in advance of the 2004 election. The GOP blamed what it said was fraud on Indian reservations for the narrow victory of South Dakota Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson over Republican candidate John Thune in 2002.

    It was in this environment, Rich says, that he got an Oct. 19, 2004, e-mail from an assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota named Rob Lewis, informing him about possible voter discrimination against Indians.

    Described as a matter of "deep concern" to Heffelfinger, the issue arose from Kiffmeyer's directive in the fall of 2004 that tribal ID cards could not be used for voter identification off reservations

    About 32,000 Indians live off-reservation in Minnesota, mostly in the Twin Cities.

    In the e-mail - which Rich described to The Times - Lewis wrote that Kiffmeyer's memo had sparked "concerns regarding possible disparate impact among the state's substantial Indian population."

    "Disparate impact" is a term used in civil rights litigation to describe a circumstantial case of discrimination.

    After reviewing the matter, Rich recommended opening an investigation.

    In response, he said, Bradley Schlozman, a political appointee in the department, told Rich "not to do anything without his approval" because of the "special sensitivity of this matter."

    Rich responded by suggesting that more information be gathered from voting officials in the Twin Cities area, which includes Minnesota's two most populous counties.

    A message came back from another Republican official in the department, Hans von Spakovsky, saying Rich should not contact the county officials but should instead deal only with the secretary of state's office.

    Von Spakovsky indicated, Rich said, that working with Kiffmeyer's office reduced the likelihood of a leak to the news media.

    The orders from Schlozman and Von Spakovsky, who wielded unusual power in the civil rights division, effectively ended any department inquiry, Rich said.

    "It was apparent to me that because of these extremely tight and unusual restrictions on the investigation that this matter had political implications," Rich said in an interview.

    Rich is now working for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which was formed at the request of President Kennedy in 1963 to combat discrimination.

    Schlozman, who served briefly as U.S. attorney in Missouri and brought a voting fraud case shortly before election day last year, was not available for comment, Justice Department officials said. Von Spakovsky, now at the Federal Election Commission, said through a spokesman that he could not comment.

    Kiffmeyer also did not respond to requests for comment.

    With the Justice Department inquiry going nowhere, lawyers for the Indians asked the federal courts to intervene. A few days before the November 2004 election, federal District Judge James Rosenbaum ordered that tribal identification cards be accepted at the polls.

    After Heffelfinger resigned, the Justice Department replaced him with someone more attuned to the administration's views.

    On his way out, Heffelfinger recommended that Joan Humes, the No. 2 person in the office, be named interim U.S. attorney. But Humes was rejected by the Justice Department - in part, Goodling testified, because she was known to be a "liberal."

    The job went to a conservative Justice Department employee, Rachel Paulose. She had Ivy League credentials, brief experience as a prosecutor, and as a private lawyer had helped bring election lawsuits on behalf of the Minnesota GOP. She declined to comment for this article.

    One of Paulose's first acts in office was to remove Lewis, who had written the 2004 e-mails to Washington expressing concern about Native American voting rights in Minnesota, from overseeing voting rights cases.

    For his part, Heffelfinger said, he took Goodling at her word and believed that he was on the termination lists for his zeal in confronting problems facing Indian country. But Heffelfinger said he did not know whether voting rights in particular affected his standing with Washington.

    "I was just flagging an issue and giving an opinion," he said. "I think that's the kind of analysis a U.S. attorney is supposed to do."

 

Challenging Indian Land Trusts

Challenging Indian Land Trusts
    By Michelle Chen
    In These Times

    Monday 18 February 2008

    Across Indian country, two things are never in short supply: rich natural resources and endemic poverty. That paradox is driving a longstanding battle between indigenous people and the government trust that holds money generated from their lands.

    The class-action lawsuit, Cobell v. Kempthorne, targets a federal trust fund that handles revenues from activities like oil drilling and logging on land owned by individual Indians and tribes. The trust's financial operations-covering more than 56 million acres and dating back for more than a century-have left a spectacularly messy paper trail. Many beneficiaries say they are in the dark about how much has been paid out and what is still owed, and charge that the system has drained wealth from Indian communities.

    "We know that the government collected our money, but it hasn't been paid to us as individual Indian beneficiaries," says Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet Nation member who initiated the suit in 1996 on behalf of several hundred thousand account holders.

    The battle is finally drawing to a close. On Jan. 30, U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled that the trust's finances are beyond salvaging. Calling for a settlement, he denounced the Interior Department's "unrepaired, and irreparable, breach of its fiduciary duty over the last century."

    The decision builds on a 1999 ruling that ordered a management overhaul and a complete accounting-to comply with the trust's orignal mandate and federal reforms enacted in 1994. As In These Times went to press, the Interior had not issued a formal legal response to the decision.

    The department has spent years retooling its accounting systems, but various court reviews found the trust in chronic disarray. Not only are financial records inaccurate or missing, critics say, but many landowners have little information on their lands and lease activities, or even the value of their assets, aside from sporadic checks issued by the government.

    The system disbursed about $300 million to individuals and $500 million to tribes last fiscal year, and holds hundreds of millions in individual-account funds.

    Whatever the exact amount that has been unpaid, Cobell says, evidence of a swindle is strewn across Blackfeet territory. Though the earth is replete with oil, timber and other resources, she says, "there is poverty all over the place."

    Around the turn of the 20th century, the government established the trust system to manage lands on behalf of Indians, based on the presumption that natives lacked the competency to control their resources. Today, the government says the trust functions primarily as an institutional conduit for land-based revenues, produced under agreements between landowners and business interests.

    But the trust looks different from Jay Dusty Bull's spread, which spans about 8,500 acres near Browning, Mont. To the 23-year-old Blackfeet member, his family's grazing leases provide a financial boost but hardly compensate for the theft his ancestors suffered.

    "A hundred years ago, were our Indians - who didn't speak English, who couldn't read or write - given that same opportunity?" he says. "No. 'Sign an X here. Here's $40.' Billions of dollars could have been taken off of our land a hundred years ago, and we don't know."

    Defending its ongoing accounting work, the Interior argued that a "statistical sampling" of records for several thousand transactions had uncovered only a small percentage of errors, and that "additional work would neither produce a better result nor be cost effective."

    But official probes haven't be so reassuring. In 2002, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth held then-Secretary Gale Norton in contempt for failing to initiate the historical accounting process years after Congress had mandated it. The Interior Department, he wrote, had "indisputably proven ... it is either unwilling or unable to administer [the trust] competently."

    Court-appointed Special Master Alan Balaran reported similarly dismal findings. Inspecting a Dallas branch of the Minerals Management Office in 2003, he noted the "chaotic" disorganization of financial documents, along with the "unexplained presence of an industrial shredder" - before office staff forced him to leave.

    Outside the courtroom, advocates have pressed Congress for legislation to completely overhaul the trust's management and accounting systems. For many landowners, balancing the government's books would be one small, overdue counterweight against a legacy of injustice.

    "We need to have a much fairer process," Dusty Bull says. "[We need to] make sure that our children, our grandchildren, our generations to come, do not have to go through the same process."

  -------

Why is Dog not dogged for insulting Natives?

TV bounty hunter Duane `Dog' Chapman apologizes for using racial slur in phone call - AOL News

 

Our country remains with the American Native at the bottom of the list, worthy of insults with no fluff.  Either way, I have turned it over to the grandmothers and grandfathers and they have dealt with him as they see fit.

 

TV bounty hunter Duane `Dog' Chapman apologizes for using racial slur in phone call

By JAYMES SONG,

AP

Posted: 2007-11-01 13:27:35

HONOLULU (AP) - Television bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman has apologized for repeatedly using a racial slur in a profanity-laced tirade during a private phone conversation with his son that was recorded and posted online.

Chapman, star of A&E's hit reality series "Dog the Bounty Hunter," issued a statement Wednesday apologizing for the comments after The National Enquirer posted a clip of the conversation in which he uses the word "n----r" in reference to his son's girlfriend. The word is frequently referred to as the "N-word" because of its painful history as a racist epithet associated with slavery in America.

"We take this matter very seriously," A&E spokesman Michael Feeney said in a statement Thursday. "Pending an investigation, we have suspended production on the series. When the inquiry is concluded, we will take appropriate action."

The recording was first posted online by the Enquirer. It was unclear who recorded the conversation or how the tabloid obtained the 1 1/2-minute clip in which Chapman uses the slur six times.

"There's no problem with how the tape was obtained and Dog has acknowledged its authenticity, and admitted to using the racist language," said David Perel, the Enquirer's editor-in-chief.

In the conversation, Chapman urges his son, Tucker, to break up with his girlfriend. He also expresses concern about the girlfriend going public about the TV star's use of the word.

In the clip, Chapman also stated he does not care that his son's girlfriend is black.

In a statement, the 54-year-old Chapman said he has "utmost respect and aloha for black people who have suffered so much due to racial discrimination and acts of hatred.

"I did not mean to add yet another slap in the face to an entire race of people who have brought so many gifts to this world," he said. "I am ashamed of myself and I pledge to do whatever I can to repair this damage I have caused."

Chapman said, "My sincerest, heartfelt apologies go out to every person I have offended for my regrettable use of very inappropriate language. I am deeply disappointed in myself for speaking out of anger to my son and using such a hateful term in a private phone conversation."

Chapman said the clip was completely taken out of context.

"I was disappointed in his choice of a friend, not due to her race, but her character," he said. "However, I should have never used that term."

Chapman said he is meeting with his spiritual adviser, Rev. Tim Storey, who is black, and hopes to meet with other black leaders, "so they can see who I really am and teach me the right thing to do to make things right, again."

Civil-rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton is among the leaders Chapman contacted. In a letter Thursday to the bounty hunter, Sharpton wrote that as a minister, he would be inclined to meet "despite the racist and grotesque things I heard you say."

"Be assured that I will not sanitize the kind of hate language that leads to the hate action that has left so many people vulnerable in America today," Sharpton wrote.

Chapman's show was in its fifth season and is one of A&E's top-rated programs. The series follows Chapman and his tattooed crew as they track down bail jumpers in Hawaii and other states.

The Honolulu-based bounty hunter first grabbed headlines for apprehending serial rapist and Max Factor heir Andrew Luster in Mexico in 2003.

On the Net:

A&E:

http://www.aetv.com/

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

11/01/07 13:26 EDT

Dog was a bounty hunter, now we are hunting him

To all my sisters, brothers, fathers and mothers, to all my grandmothers and grandfathers here to be and those who were, I lay this outrage before you as I have copied from my sisters site "Native American Moments" and ask that the Great Spirit and Mother Earth let this man now reap what he has so foolishly sownd

To the Spirits of the East, I honor you. To the spirits of the North, I honor you. To the spirits of the south I honor you. And to the spirits of the west, I honor you and ask that the sun may not set and the full moon rise and pass again that Dogs transgressions be avenged in your own way, in your own time.

To Father Sky and Mother Earth I honor you and to the wind that bnrings the breath of life or the winds of destruction, and to the water springs that bring the force of all life, I give this man and his transgressions to you.

NEWS ON DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER

Don’t know if any of you are fans if this side walk commando Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman. I’m not since I already know too much about this puke from Denver as it is. Being a former bail bondsman and did my share of “collecting” in my day, I found his show quite annoying to say the least.

Imagine walking into a church and pissing on the Holy Cross thendisrespecting the preacher in front of his parish. Well that’s liken to what he did at a Pow Wow in Hawaii. I am making sure everyone has a chance to read this accounting of his lack luster performance in front of hundreds of Natives in Hawaii. And I will bet he thinks this would not get off the island. Well, power to the internet since I have the story here. And since I do not believe in re-inventing the wheel I am re-printing this story in it’s entirety and giving credit to the author who originally broke this story. So now he's also a low life creep. Course I always thought he was anyway.

The only suggestion I would offer those who are as enraged about this punk of a person is to hit him in his pocket book. Contact A&E, the station his lame and foolish show airs. Let him know his ego cost him his job. To boycott or cast a negative light on anyone who airs his smack may cause the ones who sign his check to throw him in the rubbish where he belongs. Protest any sponsors who advertise when his show airs. Let them know this conduct is not acceptable and will not be tolerated by Native and non Native people here in the US and where else his stupid show airs. Hit Duane “Puppy” Chapman in his wallet.

From: WEST WIND DANCER
Date: Oct 28, 2007 12:18 PM


Duane Chapman, aka "Dog the Bounty Hunter", recently made atestosterone-induced appearance at the Hawaii Pow Wow. He spoke highly  of his career, and mentioned his native ancestry. However, in the end, his actions brought shame to the sacred drum and anger to hundreds of local elders.

Red Warrior, a southern drummer, who hails from San Diego, was singing a song in honor for all Code Talkers (Native American War Veterans and non-native veterans whom were honored by the military, in WWII) Then "The Dog's" youngest son picked up a drum stick and began uncontrollably beating the drum next to Red Warrior. The remainder of the honor-song was interrupted by the teen celebrity's mock drumming.

At the conclusion of the performance, Red Warrior asked "Whose kid was interrupting the song?" The Dog replied, "You don't talk to the boy, you talk to the man!...I am the Dog. Do you want a piece of the Dog?"

Shocked and appalled at the bounty hunters disrespect, the drummers looked at each other in disbelief. "The Dog" began to call on the drum's veteran singers to stand up and challenge him. Dog became furious and began to swear at the drummers. "Do you want some of the Dog?"

A drummer placed his drumstick onto the drum, approached The Dog and said "Yes, I will have a piece of the Dog,”

Outside of the arena, The Dog and the disgruntled drummer stood face to face. "Lets go to the side and take care of this like men.", as The Dog challenged the old indian

"No, we're going to take care of this in front of everybody. I'm not afraid of you." The veteran drummer spoke loud and clear.

The Dog persisted, "You're sitting with nothing but bitches here."

"How could you talk to your elders like that?"

The Dog barked, "As far as I'm concerned, they're nothing but pussies!"

The Dog walked off and challenged the drummer to "settle this like men."

The drummer replied, "We'll do this in front of everyone.". At which point Chapman’s harsh criticisms and vulgarities echoed throughout the parking lot.
The drummer was steadfast, "You're supposed to be a movie star, 'The Dog,' but you are nobody. You have brought shame to the drum."

Duane "The Dog" Chapman has disappointed and enraged the Native American community with his behavior, and insensitivity toward our fathers & grandfathers. Behavior of this type may be tolerable onTV shows but will not be tolerated at any Native American Pow Wow.

I hope you are as pissed as I am. It is bad enough there is little respect for Indigenous cultures world wide. This is a total out rage. Like I said, we should send a message to all advertisers and A&E letting them know, Dog has to go. And we the people have the power to alter his course in history and career. Don Imus paid the ultimate price for a similar transgression. So what’s good for the goose is good for the gander eh.

BOYCOT DOG, BOYCOT HIS SPONCERS, BOYCOT A&E



Your Devils Advocate
Buffalohair

Healing for the Military

I haven't posted anything in a long time due to time commitments and work, but this article was too good to not share.

 

from the September 13, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0913/p20s01-usmi.html

Federal government taps ancient healing methods to treat native American soldiers The veterans administration teams up with medicine men to use sweat lodges and talking circles to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder.

By Jennifer Miller | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

 

Rock Spring, N.M.

In a dusty lot on the Navajo reservation, a cleansing ceremony is about to take place. Women sit on rickety chairs outside a hogan, (a circular, squat Navajo home with a dirt floor). A line of parked cars sizzle in the Southwestern sun. Suddenly, a pack of horses rushes into view. They stop just short of the hogan, their hooves beating up a cloud of dust.

A man appears in the doorway – an unassuming figure, dressed in a work shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. He is a medicine man who has spent decades learning ancient Navajo healing techniques. He waits for the lead rider – the patient – to dismount and then ushers him inside.

For the next hour, the spiritual leader, Alfred Gibson, conducts an "enemy way" ceremony, a form of Navajo therapy that cleanses physically and mentally ill individuals by forcing them to confront their pain.

The technique is increasingly being used across the American West to help native American soldiers deal with the traumas of war.

While healers on Indian reservations have always employed such methods, the government offers most returning native American soldiers standard Western psychological counseling and medical help. Now, however, native American leaders and the Department of Veterans Affairs are teaming up to use both approaches in hopes of better serving the needs of Indian soldiers.

Mr. Gibson, for one, works during the week as a counselor at the Na'nizhoozhi Rehabilitation Center, a treatment facility in Gallup, N.M., run by tribal entities and the local county government. To help patients battle addiction and psychological trauma, Na'nizhoozhi often pairs psychotherapy and medication with sweat lodge ceremonies and drumming sessions. But the goal, Gibson says, is always to "do away with the medication – to help patients learn the traditional ways of healing."

Similarly, Veterans Affairs hospitals throughout New Mexico now run special programs for native American vets that include talking circles, sweat lodge ceremonies, and gourd dances. "We have to allow native Americans the opportunity to explore the culture that has been damaged, if not taken away," says Dr. James Gillies, a psychologist in the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) clinic at the VA Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M. "To be a soul doctor is to embrace the souls of the people you work with."

• • •

Native American vets have a real need for this kind of attention. Tribal members join the military at higher per capita rates than almost any other minority group. They also tend to suffer disproportionately from the effects of war – as evidenced in high drug-abuse and suicide rates among returning soldiers. Studies have shown that native Americans who served in Vietnam were far more likely to struggle with PTSD than white soldiers.

Counselors and tribal leaders believe a more "holistic" approach to treating the problem – combining traditional and modern methods – should help a new generation of soldiers now returning from Iraq.

"The 'enemy way' ceremony rejuvenates them," says Gibson. "The songs, prayers, drumming, and herbs we use cleanse the body from the effects of war."

The morning after the ceremony, Gibson and I sit on a sagging couch in the empty hogan. I ask if he believes one healing ceremony can provide a long-term release from the psychological imprint of combat. Gibson says that a series of ceremonies are often required, each addressing a different aspect of the patient's illness. "And it depends on the individual," he says. "It's just like a person who's addicted to alcohol. If he wants to get help, he will get better. But if he's two ways about it, it won't help him."

Dr. Gillies sees the benefits of marrying both approaches. He says modern Western therapy teaches vets "how to think about trauma" in a systematic and linear fashion. The basic treatment asks combat veterans to talk about their painful experiences in war. "We ask them to slow [the experience] down," Gillies says. "To approach it again and again." Each time, the memory is supposed to be a little less painful.

The concept is similar to that behind the "enemy way" ceremony, but it lacks the cultural and spiritual foundation that forms the basis of Gibson's work. After working on the Acoma Pueblo reservation outside Albuquerque, Gillies began to see that the Indian veteran population responded to this added cultural component. They are dealing with what he calls "intergenerational trauma": The struggles they've faced as native Americans often compound the effects of their PTSD.

With its lamps and bookshelves, Gillies's office feels like a small study. The young-looking doctor has the kind of relaxed demeanor that puts his patients at ease. While traditional psychotherapy and medication have their place, he says, you also have to work "within the mythology, the ritual" of the people you're dealing with.

Twice a month, Gillies moderates a talking circle made up of mostly Vietnam-era native American vets. The meeting has no formal structure, and participants say there is less interruption than during normal group therapy sessions.

Gregory Gomez, an Apache Indian who served with the Marine Corps in Vietnam, participates in the talking group. He says it helps him be "a little more rested, a little stronger to deal with the outside society."

Mr. Gomez, a large, expressive man with a gray ponytail and a single red feather earring, has a degree in social work and is well versed in Western forms of therapy. He also participates in the VA's standard PTSD program and meets with Gillies for individual counseling. But the talking circle addresses what he calls his "Indian world-view." "We're dealing with our spiritual needs," he says. "In other groups, there's a void."

Gomez doesn't have an easy definition for what spirituality is. As he puts it: "It's 24/7, a way of life. It's not a religion, but [the notion that] we don't own anything in this world. Our job is to help Mother Earth."

• • •

The sweat lodge is another cleansing tool centered around the connection to Mother Earth. Gillies and his native American patients convinced the VA medical center in Albuquerque to build one on a sandy plot behind the PTSD clinic.

"It's a place for cleansing our soul," says Ambrose Willie, a reed-thin man who served with the Army in Vietnam. Mr. Willie surveys the construction site, scrutinizing a series of prairie dog holes. In his barely audible voice, he wonders how to remove the rodents. Ultimately, he decides that prairie dogs and humans can cohabitate. The sweat lodge "teaches us to live in harmony with our surroundings," he says.

Willie explains that the main elements of the sweat lodge – fire, water, and stone – represent the basic elements of nature. He and Gomez have long anticipated the lodge's completion. They believe it can bring them one step closer to mental stability. "When we leave the doorway," Willie says, "our mind, body, and spirit are one."

Up in Window Rock, Ariz., 170 miles north, Gibson holds a similar view. "When soldiers go overseas, we give them warrior ceremonies to armor and protect them against the battle," says the medicine man. "When the soldier comes back, we have to remove that armor, to help him reconnect with his home."

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

HOPE Visions of Whitefeather

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgdxt_espoir-visions-de-plume-blanche

I hope the above link works. This is a video that was sent to me and is absolutely beautiful. I take no credit for it whatsoever except to share it.

 

 

Duration: 08:06 Taken: 02 octobre 2006 Location: -

HOPE (Visions of Whitefeather)

directed by Catherine Margerin
Visionary Willy Whitefeather
produced by Mary Mathaisell

This animated visual film short you are about to see is a story of prophecy.
The story of man going down the wrong path, with one day the possibility of finding the path of peace and love. What we are seeing around the world with wars, genocide, diseases, climate change such as global warming, and potential earth changes that have been foretold by many seers and indigenous peoples. This is that story in animated visuals and soundtrack that will shake you to your roots. We must shift to this path, without hesitation.

Directed by Catherine Margerin, produced by Luna Media. Its is being posted with consent and vision of Willy Whitefeather, visionary for "HOPE"

Bruce Weaver is currently working on a feature documentary which has this story come to life with interviews with such visionaries as Willy Whitefeather and many other visionary and seers of our time.

"Hope" is a unique and powerful short film with a message of peace for the future. Combining animation, archival footage and live action, in a multi-layered non-linear story, the film brings the viewer on a fascinating journey through human existence. 'Hope' is shaped around the knowledge and ideas of Willy Whitefeather, a man in his sixties of Cherokee ancestry, a fascinating storyteller, healer, survivalist and an individual of wisdom and heart. Using traditions and stories from Native American and world cultures, the film combines dreams, images and reminiscences from our collective memory to send a message of hope for the future. Now is the time to reconnect with Spirit, to recognize the effects of our actions, to evaluate the underlying causes of suffering andto reshape our life and our world into a harmonious one.
The film has a visually superb and beautifully dynamic look. The animated scenes are in styles reminiscent of Pueblo pottery design, Sioux painted hides, Petroglyph drawings and Hopi mural paintings. The sound track is similarly layered with the sounds of a beating heart, breathing, wooden flutes, drums, rattles, a traditional Cherokee lullaby and original music. "Hope" urges us to change course and follow a path of wisdom, responsibility, beauty, simplicity and gentleness. Catherine Margerin, a commercial director, known for her unique painterly style animation, is the director of "Hope".

 

 

Tribal leaders plan meeting on global warming

Tribal leaders plan meeting on global warming

Corinne Purtill
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 4, 2006 12:00 AM

As a child reared in New Mexico's Tesuque Pueblo, Louie Hena played in waist-deep snow in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Less than 50 years later, the snow reaches only to his ankles.

Wahleah Johns, 31, grew up without running water or electricity on the Navajo Reservation. After years of worsening drought, her family now must drive even farther to find water for their personal use and livestock.

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Native American communities are witnessing firsthand the effects of a warming planet. Representatives of more than 50 tribes from Alaska to the Mexican border will gather on the Cocopah Reservation near Yuma on Tuesday and Wednesday for what organizers are billing as the first tribal conference on climate change.

They'll share information on the signs of global warming observed on reservations across the continent. Tribal leaders will discuss alternative energy and traditional, sustainable ways of life on their reservations. They also will talk about the effects of U.S. climate-change policy on their land and people.

"Native people have a close relationship to the land, culturally, spiritually, economically," said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Minnesota-based Indigenous Environmental Network and a conference speaker.

Climate change, he said, "is becoming a human rights issue."

A living threat For many American Indian tribes, the effects of climate change, the rise in global temperature caused by heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, are not an abstract possibility. They are happening.

"I've seen whole banks of trees (along the Rio Grande) eroded away from a single flooding in the spring," Hena said. "I've seen birds going south when they should be going north."

Extended drought is shrinking water supplies and hammering wildlife on reservations in the Southwest and Midwest. Traditional ceremonies based on seasonal changes have been disrupted by prolonged summers and delayed rainy seasons.

Melting ice in the Arctic Circle is destroying the foundation of Inuits' homes and threatening entire villages with relocation.

A national climate-change assessment published in 2000 said climate change posed health, environmental and economic risks to the more than 565 recognized tribes and Alaska Native communities in the United States.

Adjusting to the environmental changes wrought by global warming takes money and technology, commodities scarce on many reservations, the government report said.

Finding solutions In addition to comparing problems, conference participants also will discuss renewable-energy and sustainable-living solutions under way on many reservations.

An increasing number of tribes are taking advantage of their reservations' unique geography to invest in solar and wind energy. Tribes can sell the power generated to local utilities and can sell carbon credits to companies or individuals looking to offset their own carbon emissions.

Tribes are also looking to old ways of life for answers to new environmental problems.

In the mid-1990s, Hena started teaching a two-week course on traditional uses of the environment for everything from erosion control to medicine. Native people from across the U.S., Canada and South America have since attended the course.

With climate change threatening native lands, traditional survival methods are all the more relevant, Hena said.

A global issue Forming a Native American response to the Bush administration's climate-change policies is one of the conference's goals. North American tribes have started to fight U.S. climate-change policies that they perceive as harmful.

In 2005, an Inuit group filed suit against the U.S. government, claiming that the government's failure to curb greenhouse gases was destroying the Inuits' culture and environment.

Last month's U.N. climate-change conference in Nairobi concluded that the planet's poorest people produce the fewest greenhouse gas-causing emissions but are bearing the brunt of global warming's harms. Indigenous rights groups complained that the conference largely overlooked their concerns.

For a member of the Navajo Nation living without running water or electricity, "their carbon footprint is a lot smaller than someone maybe who lives in Phoenix," said Johns, an environmental activist and conference speaker. "How do you communicate that?"

Rabbit Shoots the Sun

Rabbit shoots the Sun

It was the height of summer, the time of year called Hadotso, the Great Heat. All day long, from a blue and cloudless sky, the blazing sun beat down upon the earth. No rain had fallen for many days and there was not the slightest breath of wind to cool the stifling air. Everything was hot and dry. Even the rose-red cliffs of the canyons and mesas seemed to take on a more brilliant color than before.

The animals drooped with misery. They were parched and hungry, for it was too hot to hunt for food and, panting heavily, they sough what shade they could under the rocks and bushes.

Rabbit was the unhappiest of all. Twice that day the shimmering heat had tempted him across the baked earth towards visions of water and cool, shady trees. He had exhausted himself in his desperate attempts to reach tem, only to find the mirages dissolve before him, receding further and further into the distance.

Now, tired and wretched, he dragged himself into the shadow of an overhanging rock and crouched there listlessly. His soft fur was caked with the red dust of the desert. His head swam and his eyes ached from the sun's glare.

'Why does it have to be so hot?' he groaned. 'What have we done to deserve such torment?' He squinted up at the sun and shouted furiously, 'Go away! You are making everything too hot!'

Sun took no notice at all and continued to pour down his fiery beams, forcing Rabbit to retreat once more into the shade of the rock. 'Sun needs to be taught a lesson,' grumbled Rabbit. 'I have a good mind to go and fight him. If he refuses to stop shining, I will kill him!'

His determination to punish Sun made him forget his weariness and, in spite of the oppressive heat, he set off at a run towards the eastern edge of the world where the Sun came up each morning.

As he ran, he practiced with his bow and arrows and, to make himself brave and strong, he fought with everything, which crossed his path. He fought with the gophers and the lizards. He hurled his throwing stick at beetles, ants and dragonflies. He shot at the yucca and the giant cactus. He became a very fierce rabbit indeed.

By the time he reached the edge of the world, Sun had left the sky and was nowhere to be seen.

'The coward!' sneered Rabbit. 'He is afraid to fight, but he will not escape me so easily,' and he settled to wait behind a clump of bushes.

In those days, Sun did not appear slowly as he does now. Instead he rushed up over the horizon and into the heavens with one mighty bound. Rabbit knew that he would have to act quickly in order to ambush him and he fixed his eyes intently on the spot where the Sun usually appeared.

Had heard all Rabbit's threats and had watched him fighting. He knew that he was lying in wait among the bushes. He was not at all afraid of this puny creature and he thought that he might have some amusement at his expense.

He rolled some distance away from his usual place and swept up into the sky before Rabbit knew what was happening. By the time Rabbit had gathered his startled wits and released his bowstring, Sun was already high above him and out of range.

Rabbit stamped and shouted with rage and vexation. Sun laughed and laughed and shone even more fiercely than before.

Although almost dead from heat, Rabbit would not give up. Next morning he tried again, but this time Sun came up in a different place and evaded him once more.

Day after day the same thing happened. Sometimes Sun sprang up on Rabbit's right, sometimes on his left and sometimes straight in front of him, but always where Rabbit least expected him.

One morning, however, Sun grew careless. He rose more leisurely than usual, and this time, Rabbit was ready. Swiftly he drew his bow. His arrow whizzed through the air and buried itself deep in Sun's side.

Rabbit was jubilant! At last he had shot his enemy! Wild with joy, he leaped up and down. He rolled on the ground, hugging himself. He turned somersaults. He looked at Sun again - and stopped short.

Where his arrow had pierce Sun, there was a gaping wound and, from that wound, there gushed a stream of liquid fire. Suddenly it seemed as if the whole world had been set ablaze. Flames shot up and rushed towards Rabbit, crackling and roaring.

Rabbit paused not a moment longer. He took to his heels in panic and ran as fast as he could away from the fire. He spied a lone cottonwood tree and scuttled towards it. 'Everything is burning!' he cried. 'Will you shelter me?'

The cottonwood shook its slender branches mournfully. 'What can I do?' it asked. 'I will be burned to the ground.'

Rabbit ran on. Behind him, the flames were coming closer. He could feel their breath on his back. A greasewood tree lay in his path.

'Hide me! Hide me!' Rabbit gasped. 'The fire is coming.'

'I cannot help you,' answered the greasewood tree. 'I will be burned up roots and branches.'

Terrified and almost out of breath, Rabbit continued to run, but his strength was failing. He could feel the fire licking at his heels and his fur was beginning to singe. Suddenly he heard a voice calling to him.

'Quickly, come under me!' The fire will pass over me so swiftly that it will only scorch my top.'

It was the voice of a small green bush with flowers like bunches of cotton capping its thin branches. Gratefully, Rabbit dived below it and lay there quivering, his eyes tightly shut, his ears flat against his body.

With a thunderous roar, the sheet of flame leaped overhead. The little bush crackled and sizzled. Then, gradually, the noise receded and everything grew quiet once more.

Rabbit raised his head cautiously and looked around. Everywhere the earth lay black and smoking, but the fire had passed on. He was safe!

The little bush which had sheltered him was no longer green. Burned and scorched by the fire, it had turned a golden yellow. People now call it the desert yellow brush, for, although it first grows green, it always turns yellow when it feels the heat of the sun.

Rabbit never recovered from his fright. To this day, he bears brown spots where the fire scorched the back of his neck. He is no longer fierce and quarrelsome, but runs and hides at the slightest noise.

As for Sun, he too was never quite the same. He now makes himself so bright that no one can look at him long enough to sight an arrow and he always peers very warily over the horizon before he brings his full body into view.

From the Archives of Blue Panther

from the site:

http://web.telia.com/~u15508742/animals.htm

Animal Legends

The Eagle

The eagle is a great sacred bird. Our favorite is the golden or war eagle,
which we call "pretty-feathered eagle", because of his beautiful tail
feathers, white, tipped with black, which we use for decorative and
ceremonial purposes. A single tail feather was often rated as equal in value
to a horse.

In time passed, the killing of an eagle was something that concerned the
whole town. This could only be done by a professional eagle killer, chosen
for the purpose on account of his knowledge of the prescribed forms and
prayers to be said afterwards in order to obtain pardon for the necessary
sacrilege, and thus ward off vengeance from our tribe.

The eagle must be killed only in winter or late fall after the crops were
gathered and snakes retired to their dens. If killed in summertime a frost
would destroy the corn, while the songs of the Eagle dance, when the
feathers were brought home, would so anger the snakes that they would become
doubly dangerous. That is why the Eagle songs were never sung until the
snakes had gone to sleep in the winter.

It is told that one man deliberately killed an eagle in defiance of the
ordinances and the he was constantly haunted by dreams of fierce eagles
swooping down upon him in his nightmares,

From the Archives of Blue Panther

from the site:

http://web.telia.com/~u15508742/animals.htm

More on the Cheyenne

Location: The Cheyenne Indians lived in the Great Plains area, east of the Rocky Mountains and west of the Mississippi River. Today they are settled in Montana and Oklahoma.

History: The Cheyenne first lived in the eastern portion of the United States. They lived in fixed villages and used the land for farming. Some moved west and southwest. Eventually, they moved into the plains area, in the woodlands of the Mississippi River Valley.

Language: The Cheyenne dialect is part of the Algonquin language family. Their alphabet only contains fourteen letters which can be combined to form words and phrases. Today, the United States government is working to convert the Cheyenne to an English-only speaking tribe. The Cheyenne are trying desperately to keep their language alive despite the government’s recent attempts to make their language extinct.

Daily Life: Before the sun rose, the Cheyenne began preparing for the day. Building the fire was the first task to be completed. The women woke to get the water from the nearby stream, while the men and boys went to the stream to bathe. As dawn continued, the camp became livelier. The women made the morning meal and the boys herded the horses back into camp.

After the meal, announcements were made by the old crier who circled the people on his horse. When he was finished, the people went about their daily activities. The children would scatter about the area to swim, run, and model images out of clay. The women of the camp had many activities to keep them busy. They would go off in groups to gather wood and roots early in the day. This was their time for joking and laughing. They gathered sticks from the ground and broke dead branches off the trees in the forest. The wood was divided up, formed into bundles, and strapped on their backs. They then set out for camp. The older men made bows, arrows and pipes, while the young men spent time enhancing their personal appearance or listening to wise men.

Many men hunted game to provide the camp with food. As day turned into night, the Cheyenne people prepared for the meal. This was the lively event of the day in which music, dancing and various other activities took place. After a few hours, the camp became silent as people turned in for the night.

Best Known Features: An important Cheyenne custom was the smoking of the peace pipe. There were strict rules that were practiced during the smoking of the pipe. A prayer was offered before the first smoke. Most men had their own specific way to smoke the peace pipe.

Another tradition of the Cheyenne was their story telling, which could only be done by certain people. These stories were often related and followed a structure.

 

References

• Grinnell, George Bird. The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Ways of Life. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1962.
• Hoebel, E. Adamson. The Cheyenne’s: Indians of the Great Plains. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.

Written by: Summer Smith

Cheyenne Indians

 

Cheyenne Indians

 

Northern Cheyenne Territory

 

The Cheyenne are north American Plains Indian people of Algonkian stock who inhabited the regions around the Platte and Arkansas rivers during the 19th century.

Before 1700 the home of the Cheyenne was in central Minnesota, where they farmed, hunted, gathered wild rice, and made pottery.

They later occupied a village of earth lodges on the Cheyenne River in North Dakota; it was probably during this period that they acquired horses and became more dependent on the buffalo for food.

After the town was destroyed by the Ojibwa (Chippewa), the Cheyenne settled along the Missouri River near the Mandan and Arikara Indians.

Toward the close of the 18th century, smallpox and the aggression of the Dakota decimated the village tribes at the same time that the horse and gun were becoming generally available in the northeastern plains.

The Cheyenne moved farther west to the area of the Black Hills, where they developed their unique version of the tepee-dwelling nomadic Plains culture and gave up agriculture and pottery.

During the early 19th century, they migrated to the headwaters of the Platte River.

In 1832 a large segment of the tribe established itself along the Arkansas River, thus dividing the tribe into northern and southern branches. This division was made permanent in the First Treaty of Ft. Laramie with the U.S. in 1851.

Cheyenne religion recognized two principal deities, the Wise One Above and a god who lived beneath the ground. In addition four spirits lived at the points of the compass.

The Cheyenne were among the Plains tribes who performed the sundance in its most elaborate form. They placed heavy emphasis on visions in which an animal spirit adopted the individual and bestowed special powers upon him so long as he observed some prescribed law or practice.

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Violence against Women

“Violence against Native women not a part of our traditional communities”
Feds, Indian leaders confront frightening statistics

 

Sam Lewin 9/21/2006

The numbers offered by advocacy groups can seem difficult to believe. A group called the American Indian Women’s Chemical Health Project asserts that three-fourths of Native American women have experienced some type of sexual assault in their lives. The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control’s figures on sexual assault-while significantly lower than that of the health project’s-are nonetheless frightening: American Indian and Alaskan Native women are significantly more likely (34-percent) to report being raped than black women (19-percent) or Caucasian women (18-percent).

While accurate figures on the problems of domestic violence and sexual assault are notoriously tough to quantify, Native American leaders have long recognized something is seriously wrong. In Denver, over 100 representatives from American Indian and Alaska Native tribes recently met with officials from the Department of Justice to address the problem, which National Congress of American Indians president Joe Garcia called an epidemic.

This epidemic not only impacts the individual women and families affected, it undermines the stability of the community as a whole," Garcia said. "Women play an honored and respected role in Native communities. Violence against Native women is not natural and is not a part of our traditional communities. Traditional Native cultures valued respect, honor, and compassion for all living things."

NCAI officials say the meeting with the DOJ happened after President Bush signed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act into law. The measure included a portion applicable to Indian Country.

The NCAI was a strong supporter of reauthorization of the law, saying in a statement the law recognizes “the unique impact and disproportionate levels of violence committed against Indian women. It would enhance the civil and criminal justice response; improve services and outreach to victims; provide resources for sexual assault victims through rape crisis centers and state coalitions; help children and youth who experience or witness violence; aidtribal victims; and support prevention, health, housing and economic security programs designed to stop violence and help victims.”

"American Indians, in general, experience per capita rates of violence that are much higher than those of the general population," said the NCAI’s Juana Majel-Dixon, citing the center’s statistics, during the Denver conference. “One out of three American Indian and Alaskan Native women are raped in their lifetime, compared with about one out of five women in the overall national statistic. These statistics must change and I am confident that this consultation will help facilitate that."

Back in Oklahoma, tribes have also taken on domestic violence. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s family violence prevention program, for example, routinely issues calls to remind area Natives about the services they offer including: individual and family counseling, weekly support groups, emergency housing and transportation, and court advocacy. The program also runs transitional living program that assists victims of domestic violence in achieving independence. Clients willing to sign and complete a service plan can also receive assistance with rent, utilities, clothing and/or food. These services are available to members of any federally recognized tribe.

http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8201

Strength of the Wolf

 

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack~ 

Kipling  

Wolves travel great distances in search of Truth and Knowledge and are thought to return to the clan to teach and share their Medicine. 

Wolf Medicine is enigmatic, it empowers the teacher hidden deep within to come forth and aid the children of Earth in understanding their place in the Universe.

Wolves sing out loud the haunting song of my spirit
Lift me high with your poignant melodies
What wisdom do you cry out for all to hear?
That they long to understand

What secrets you have hidden what knowledge
Do you share with us?
If we listen with our hearts we can hear you
Whisper your language so clear.

The words you speak are hidden in riddles
Are as old as time its self.
Your memories you keep to yourselves
Shared with chosen few.

The mysteries that surround you, known only
By those who listen.
Your beauty, your grace, your silent journey
Shrouded by the mists.

Wolves sing, take my spirit with you now
and Sing the songs that move my soul
I will sing the same song as you have
Wolf song Wolf singer Wolf spirit

~We shall be known by the tracks we leave behind~

http://www.btinternet.com/~seamaid/Wolves.htm