_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 15, ISSUE 015 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, WOTANGING IKCHE - Lakota - Common News Wotanging Ikche and Native American News Copyright c. 1996-2007 nanews.org Aboriginal/AmerIndian Perspective about the First Nations of Turtle Island April 9, 2007 Pomo chidodapuk/flowers moon Klamath kapchelam/gathering moon Algonquin Suquanni kesos/moon when they set Indian corn +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Much more happens in Indian Country than is reported | | in this weekly newsletter. For daily updates & events | | go to http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm | +-------------------------------------------------------+ Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin -- Blackfeet -- News for All the People Ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min -- Ojibwe -- We Are Talking About Ourselves Aunchemokauhettittea -- Naragansett -- Let Us Share News Kanoheda Aniyvwiya -- Cherokee -- Journal of the People O Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse -- Creek -- People's New News O o O Acimowin -- Plains Cree -- Story or Account O o O Tlaixmatiliztli -- Nahuatl -- News O o o o o O Agnutmaqan -- Listuguj Mi'kmaq -- News O o O Sho-da-ku-ye -- Teehahnahmah -- Talking Birchbark O o O Un Chota -- Susquehannic Seneca -- The People Speak O Ha-Sah-Sliltha -- Ditidaht Nation -- News of the People Ximopanolti tehuatzin, inin Mexika tlahtolli -- Nahuatl -- For you we offer these words It-hah-pe-hah Ah-num pah-le -- Chickasaw -- Together We Are Talking Dineh jii' adah' ho'nil'e'gii ba' ha' neh -- Navajo Nation -- What's Happening among The People News Okla Humma Holisso Nowat Anya -- Choctaw -- People(s) Red Newspaper Hi'a chu ah gaa -- Pima -- The stories or the talk of the People s ch mA mL tL squee Lux -- Okanogan -- News from the People Native American News -- Language of the Occupation Forces ++>If you speak a Native American language not listed above, please send us your words for "News of the People." We'd rather take up this whole page saving these few words of our hundreds of nations than present a nice clean banner in the language of the occupation forces who came here determined to replace our words with their own. email gars@nanews.org with the equivalent of "News of the People" in your tribal language along with the english translation <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is produced in straight ASCII text for greatest portability across platforms. Read it with a fixed-pitch font, such as Courier, Monaco, FixedSys or CG Times. Proportional fonts will be difficult to read. <================<<<< >>>>================> This issue contains articles from www.owlstar.com; www.indianz.com; www.pechanga.net; www.indiancountrytoday.com; Mailing Lists: Chiapas95-En, Frostys AmerIndian, Remember The Cherokee/Tsalagi and Native American Poetry; UUCP Mail IMPORTANT!! ----------- In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, all material appearing in this newsletter is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for educational purposes. <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is a way of keeping the brothers and sisters who share our Spirit informed about current events within the lives of those who walk the Red Road. ++ It may be subscribed to via email by sending a request from your own internet addressable account to gars@speakeasy.org ++ It is archived at http://www.nanews.org <================<<<< >>>>================> +-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --+ + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + | As historian Patricia Nelson | | Once a language is lost, it is | | Limerick summarized in "The | | gone forever | | Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken | | * Of the 300 original Native | | Past of the American West... | | languages in North America, | | "Set the blood quantum at | | only 175 exist today. | | one-quarter, hold to it as a | | * 125 of these are no longer | | rigid definition of Indians, | | learned by children. | | let intermarriage proceed as | | * 55 are spoken by 1 to 6 elders;| | it had for centuries, and | | when they die, their language | | eventually Indians will be | | will disappear. | | defined out of existence." | | * Without action, only 20 | | "When that happens, the federal | | languages will survive the next| | government will be freed of | | 50 years. | | its persistent 'Indian problem.'"| | Source: Indigenous Language | +-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --+ | Institute | |http://www.indigenous-language.org| This issue's Quote: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + =================== Along the U.S.-Mexico border, the body count continues to pile up daily. Meanwhile, the Minutemen patrol the U.S.-Mexico border and shameless politicians find it easy to denounce illegal immigration as the cause of all the nation's problems - including linking it with "the war on terror." Amidst all the clatter, the only views not being heard are the ones that matter most. Thus here, we bring you a truly historic column, featuring the views of those that have come before us to these lands: American Indians: "It's never been clear to me why animosity exists toward today's immigrants, considering the founding fathers arrived as immigrants. Are today's anti-immigration voices afraid of a new Manifest Destiny? ... Many Native prophecies foretell the demise of U.S. indigenous people from European invaders. But the stories also speak of a time when the land will be reclaimed by indigenous people." Perhaps the time has come." __ Jodi Rave reports on Native issues for Lee Enterprises. +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Indian Pledge of Allegiance | The Indian Pledge of Alleg- | | iance was first presented | I pledge allegiance to my Tribe,| on 2 December '93 during the | to the democratic principles | opening address of the Nat- | of the Republic | ional Congress of American | and to the individual freedoms | Indian Tribal-States Relat- | borrowed from the Iroquois and | ions Panel in Reno, NV. NCAI | Choctaw Confederacies, | plans distribution of the | as incorporated in the United | Indian Pledge to all Indian | States Constitution, | Nations. | so that my forefathers | | shall not have died in vain | Walk in Beauty! Night Owl +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Journey | In the summer and early fall | The Bloodline | of 1998 the Treaty Unity Riders | | rode a thousand miles on horse- | For all that live and live by law | back, carrying a staff and | We Stand, we Call, We Ride | praying each step of the way. | For All that fear and fear by sight | | We Hear, we Listen, we Ride | These prayers were offered for | For all that pray and pray by strength| each of us, and that the Unity | We Feel, we Move, we Ride | of all Peoples might happen. | For all that die and die by greed | | We Hurt, we Cry, we Ride | Tatanka Cante forwarded this | For all that birth and birth by right | poem on behalf of all the Unity | We Smile, we Hold, we Ride | Riders that we might stop and | For all that need and need by heart | ask if the next words we say, the | We Came, we Went, we Rode. | next act we make is for the good | | of the People or is it from ego | Treaty Unity Riders | for self. +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ O'siyo Brothers and Sisters The Lovely Janet sees the bubba behind a recent attempt to keep Indian Mascot names from being banned in Tennessee. --- I wish I could say I were surprised, but I'm not. The Indian mascot simply won't slink off into the shadows of shame it deserves. The NCAA finally allowed itself to see the truth about Indian mascots, and even the long-defiant Chief Iliniwek tradition finally retired. I think most of us are resigned to the professional teams hanging stubbornly to their insulting cartoon Indians and droning mock chants. Even major league baseball in their inaugural "civil rights games," had the insensitivity to make one of their invited teams the Cleveland Indians, represented by the bucktoothed-grinning Chief Wahoo. These aren't kids playing games, they're big-bucks corporations with a trademark stake in their identity, and a little matter of insulting a shrinking section of the population just isn't worth the trouble of changing. Now, along comes Representative Mike Bell of Tennessee with his proposed legislation to prohibit his state from banning American Indian mascots. Seems some of his constituents were concerned that their school athletes and cheerleaders might have to change uniforms and learn a few new cheers. They were dismayed that this longstanding "honor" of the people displaced from their state might be banished. That begs for an examination of "honor." Where I come from, when a person is to be honored, we hold a dance. We give the honored person tobacco and gifts. Everybody there shakes his hand and cogratulates him. Somebody may give a laudatory speech pointing out the honored person's accomplishments. There's generally a big feed to go along with it. White folks do it a little differently when they're honoring other white folks. There's a fancy-dress dinner, long speeches about the honored person, and gifts. If the person is REALLY special (and if they're no longer alive to treat to dinner and drinks), a street, park or airport may be named for him, or a nice bronze statue placed in a park. Only when white folks honor Indians, do they choose to depict them as distorted cartoons and mock their traditions and songs. Rep. Mike Bell dishonors his state by hanging on to the notion that this qualifies as "honor." +/// Janet Smith owlstar@bellsouth.net /*/+ P. O. Box 672168 OwlStar Trading Post + / * Marietta, GA 30008, U.S.A. http://www.owlstar.com * + jewelry, music, flags, herbs --- Breaking News: Legislation that would prevent the state from ever banning American Indian mascots at schools passed the Tennessee House on Monday. The companion version is scheduled to be discussed in the Senate State and Local Government Committee next Tuesday. Write the Governor of Tennessee voicing your opposition to this slap in the face today. It was your letters and emails that forced Tennessee to try and convict the killer of an Indian brother a few years ago. Phil Bredesen Governor, State of Tennessee Governor's Office Tennessee State Capitol Nashville, TN 37243-0001 Phone: 615.741.2001 Fax: 615.532.9711 Email: phil.bredesen@state.tn.us Dohiyi Ani Oginalii , , Gary Smith (*,*) wotanging@bellsouth.net P. O. Box 672168 (`-') gars@nanews.org Marietta, GA 30007, U.S.A. ===w=w=== http://www.nanews.org ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ----------- Editorial Section: - Rail blockade planned . Bubba Mentality as relations Sour - Bill would prevent State - First Nations halt from banning Team Names flawed Treaty Process - Artman ushers in - Pact to improve leadership changes at BIA Aboriginal School achievement - Progress, distress share stage - Reconciliation: at Cobell hearing We weren't Supposed to Survive - Consultation Forum - Reconciliation: works towards decolonization Beyond Teepees and Igloos - Royalties at Risk - Me'tis vets demand - Cheyenne honor Little Wolf more recognition from Ottawa - First Female Indian Officer - Alberta tearing up sworn in Metis Hunting Deal - Tribe uses Terrorism Tool - Children's Ministry to track Asthma takes over Xyolhemeylh - Native American Spirit - Canada plays dirty tricks rises above Stereotype on Akwesasne Mohawks - DOE relents - Probable cause Standards in dispute with Tribes apply on Indian Land - Major League Baseball - Blackfeet Nation 'Drops the Ball' to relinquish Detention Center - JODI RAVE: Native Artist - Child Welfare System biased shares life's work - Native Justice - DOUG CROW: Tragedy isn't only -- Traditional practices thing Red Lake has to offer wanted in Courts - YELLOW BIRD: Women of color, - Rustywire: The Other Brother rainbow of views - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days - MILLER: United States - Lee Goins Poem: Cry - ducks Treaty Responsibility Then You'll Know How To Smile - NAVARRO: Return of La Otra - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: Bill would prevent State from banning Team Names" --------- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 08:11:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="REDNECK WANTS TO SAVE MASCOT NAMES FROM NCAA AND INDIANS" URL: http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/ article/0,1406,KNS_348_5460372,00.html Indian mascots could be safe Bill would prevent state from banning sports teams' use of names and images By LUCAS L. JOHNSON II, Associated Press April 3, 2007 NASHVILLE - A Tennessee lawmaker wants to prevent the state from ever banning American Indian mascots at schools. Rep. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, is sponsoring legislation that specifies no state agency would have the authority to prohibit public or private institutions from continuing to use American Indians with symbols, names and mascots. The measure was scheduled for the House floor Monday, but Bell deferred action. The companion version is scheduled to be discussed today in the Senate State and Local Government Committee. Bell said he proposed the bill after American Indian activists went before the state's Human Rights Commission earlier this year and asked its members to ban what they consider offensive American Indian mascots and symbols in state public schools. The activists said about two dozen high schools and 80 middle and elementary schools in Tennessee use American Indians in their team name. South-Doyle (Cherokees) is the lone Knox County high school that uses an American Indian team name. Bell said his constituents were concerned that two schools in their district would be affected. "They came to me and said, 'Hey, they're not going to take this away from us are they?' " Bell said. Under the legislation, "local communities would decide whether they want to use Indian names, mascots and symbols, and not the state," Bell said. His bill says that the schools' use of the mascots "honors" American Indian heritage. According to the National Congress of American Indians, debate over American Indian sports mascots dates back to the 1970s, when The University of Oklahoma changed its mascot, Little Red. In 2005, the NCAA banned the use of American Indian mascots in postseason tournaments. In Tennessee, the University of Tennessee Chattanooga stopped using Chief Moccanooga as its mascot in the mid-1990s when activists asked the school to change. The school's sports teams are now nicknamed the Mocs. Adam McMullin, spokesman for the National Congress of American Indians, said his group opposes Bell's legislation and would rather see states ban the use of American Indian mascots. But if the decision were left up to local governments, as Bell is proposing, McMullin said he hopes "communities would make the right decision." The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association and Tennessee School Boards Association said Monday they haven't taken a position on Bell's legislation. But Stephen Smith, the state school boards' director of government relations, said the measure "is a different type of legislation than we've seen before." According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Tennessee is the only state proposing such legislation this year. In the past few years, legislation that would ban the use of American Indian mascots instead of protect them was introduced in California, Oklahoma and New Jersey, said Nithin Akuthota, a policy specialist for the NCSL's Institute for State Tribal Relations. None of those bills passed. But Bell said he's optimistic about his bill's chances this year. "It's getting support," he said. Copyright c. 2007, Associated Press. All rights reserved. Copyright c. 2007, KnoxNews. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Artman ushers in leadership changes at BIA" --------- Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 07:54:53 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ARTMAN ASSUMES BIA HEAD" http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/002177.asp Artman ushers in leadership changes at BIA April 2, 2007 After more than two years of uncertainty, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is taking steps to stabilize its leadership team in Washington, D.C. The BIA suffered a leadership void when entrepreneur Dave Anderson left the agency in February 2004. But that changed when Carl Artman, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, was confirmed as assistant secretary with near unanimous support last month. Now that Artman is in place, he is making changes of his own. Effective today, George Skibine, a member of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, will serve as the acting principal deputy assistant secretary at the BIA. "George Skibine is an able executive with long experience in Indian affairs," Artman said on Friday. Artman's confirmation and Skibine's appointment mark the end of a shaky time for the BIA. For the first time since the self-determination era, the agency's top two positions were held by non-Indians. Jim Cason, the associate deputy secretary at the Interior Department, had been running the BIA for more than two years. Mike Olsen, an attorney who has been given another Interior job, was the acting principal deputy for 18 months. Neither Cason nor Olsen were nominated by the president or confirmed by the Senate to their posts. Despite the changes, the BIA's team remains up in the air. With the clock ticking on the Bush administration, Artman said he will continue to search for a permanent principal deputy. Skibine, meanwhile, assumes even more duties in his new role. A longtime employee of the BIA, his official title is director of the Office of Indian Gaming Management. He also serves as the deputy assistant secretary for policy and economic development but in an acting capacity since the administration has not made a permanent appointment. At one point, Skibine had been offered the job, which was created by a reorganization of the BIA, but declined. Lance Morgan, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and CEO of Ho- Chunk Inc., also was offered the job but instead chose to serve as a consultant for Anderson on policy and economic development issues. Ho- Chunk Inc. owns Indianz.Com and its sister e-commerce site AllNative.Com. With less than 18 months remaining in the Bush administration, Artman doesn't have much time to make an imprint on Indian Country. His priorities include Indian education, the methamphetamine crisis and land- into-trust applications. Artman has expressed confidence in other senior officials who were brought on board before his nomination. The team includes Tom Dowd, a member of the Hopi Tribe of Arizona who runs the newly-created Bureau of Indian Education; Chris Chaney, a member of the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma who heads up law enforcement; and Pat Ragsdale, a member of the Cherokee Nation who serves as director of the BIA. Copyright c. 2007 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: Progress, distress share stage at Cobell hearing" --------- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 08:11:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="COBELL HEARING" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414816 Progress and distress share the stage at Cobell hearing by: Jerry Reynolds / Indian Country Today April 6, 2007 WASHINGTON - Faint signs of progress on the Cobell v. Kempthorne lawsuit alternated with veiled alarms March 29 to produce an ambiguous hearing record before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The lawsuit, in its 11th year before the courts, seeks an accounting of the Individual Indian Money trust, as well as a restatement of accounts reflecting losses due to IIM mismanagement by the Interior Department. The administration of President George W. Bush has put forward a framework for settling the accounts that offers $7 billion for an end to IIM and tribal trust claims, aggressive measures against land fractionation and voluntary Indian self-determination within a trust relationship based on technical assistance. In a nutshell, it has seized upon the Cobell settlement as a fulcrum to transform the trust relationship. The offer has been unceremoniously rejected by lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, who has called it "an insult," "a slap in the face," "so absurd," "diabolical" and worse. Congress will have to approve any settlement that takes place outside the courts. The progress, such as it was, originated with John Bickerman of Bickerman Dispute Resolution in Washington, one of two mediators appointed by Congress to get the litigants negotiating with one another. "Unfortunately our efforts were utterly unavailing," Bickerman said, repeating previous characterizations of the animosity between Interior and the plaintiffs. He added, "Nothing has changed." But he also chastised both Interior and the plaintiffs for their intransigent positions on a settlement figure. "The plaintiffs have made inflated statements about the value of the case and did not acknowledge the litigation risks they have if they proceed." Interior's arguments for a settlement below $500 million ultimately boil down to "evidentiary hurdles," in essence a lack of evidence to prove the plaintiff case, given the many records that have gone missing over the years. "Therefore they limit their estimate of liability," Bickerman stated, in written testimony for himself and his colleague in mediation, Charles Renfrew. "Relying on evidentiary barriers should not be the basis for a congressional resolution of these issues if the underlying arguments are valid. "We believe that plaintiffs' underlying arguments are generally valid. While the Administration understates its exposure, the plaintiffs have unrealistic expectations about the value of their claims if there is no settlement. The plaintiffs' assumptions about how a court is likely to act are unlikely to be realized." Bickerman also said the plaintiff assumptions as to historical interest rates on unpaid funds are questionable, and added that a settlement demand of $27.5 billion, presented by the plaintiffs in December 2005, rests on an estimate of funds unpaid to beneficiaries at 20 percent, "but we have not found any data supporting this rate." Bickerman said the mediators believe that a settlement figure between $7 billion and $9 billion "can be supported by the available data using reasonable economic assumptions. More time and analysis will not yield a result that is more precise or less arbitrary. However, we continue to believe that the $7 billion to $9 billion estimate is reasonable." He emphasized that the sum is adequate to settle the IIM lawsuit, not the tribal trust claims and land management issues that are part of the administration's settlement offer. In questioning after Bickerman's testimony, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., the committee chairman, asked Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne about the $7 billion to $9 billion estimate of liability. Kempthorne said he would like to see Bickerman's research. To the same question, Cobell said, "At least he's getting in the ballpark." Bickerman's further testimony, in concert with occasional remarks from committee members, made it clear how far the argument for terminating the trust relationship at the root of Cobell has progressed on Capitol Hill. Without a legislative settlement, according to Bickerman and Renfrew, "The Department of Interior's ability to serve Indian country has been and will continue to be compromised. So much of the policy affecting Indian country seems now to be made through the prism of the Cobell litigation. The beneficial trust relationship between the federal government and Indian country is in jeopardy as a result of this litigation. "... The Executive Branch has used the litigation to try to argue that the trust responsibility is an anachronism that should be terminated. ... "Any effort to terminate this trust relationship faces insurmountable political hurdles that will doom a legislative solution. Moreover, trust termination is not an essential or desirable element of a deal. Trust reform can be achieved so that there is no meaningful risk of future litigation." Dorgan expressed similar concern for Indian country at large if the Cobell litigation goes on indefinitely. Early in the hearing, he asked if the Department of Justice should be reduced to the "Department of Liability." Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Consultation Forum works towards decolonization" --------- Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 07:19:01 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414781 Indigenous Peoples Consultation forum works towards decolonization by: Jerome Clark April 2, 2007 PHOENIX - Tribal, national and international leaders met at the Arizona state Capitol on March 8 as part of an Indigenous Peoples Consultation, hosted by the Legislature's Native American Caucus and organized by the Nahuacalli, Embassy of the Indigenous Peoples. The consultation was a daylong series of events that included an overview of its goals and objectives, statements by dignitaries and guests, and the reading of the Indigenous Peoples Proclamation on the floor of the state House of Representatives. It was held to provide a forum for Arizona and Sonoran tribal leaders to discuss issues of global impact in the context of international law. High-priority subjects included self- determination, decolonization and sacred sites, as well as border crossing issues. "The Indigenous Peoples Consultation has as its purpose an assertion of the self-determination, sovereignty and autonomy of indigenous peoples and our territories," said consultation co-organizer Tupac Enrique Acosta, Xicano Nahuatl and community leader. "The event today, which took place at the state Capitol, was the implementation of a strategy by the indigenous leadership in the region to come together and assert the right of self- determination and take a stand on the declaration of indigenous peoples." A prepared statement read on behalf of Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., stated: "Each of the [seven] nations has a rich culture, history, language and strong government. Today's Indigenous Peoples Consultation [...] celebrates these strengths and the need to ensure that all indigenous communities are honored and that all communities, indigenous and non, work to improve the health care and education, eliminate poverty and stop human rights violations to indigenous peoples. This week's discussions and celebration are important if we are to decolonize and be united in our advocacy for the promotion of indigenous rights and cultural preservation." Organizers and speakers of the consultation share the common goal of bringing justice to the indigenous peoples of the territories now known as North and South America. Shannon Rivers, Akimel O'otham and co-organizer of the consultation, said, "In order for us, as indigenous peoples, to have a level playing field, we have to bring our issues to the international community. "We are literally telling the country that there are indigenous issues that need to be addressed. What we did today was a creation of a thought process of decolonization." The Indigenous Peoples Consultation has been developing since the Third Committee of the General Assembly in the United Nations rejected a declaration put forward by the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. For decades, indigenous leaders have been pushing for the international community to recognize their rights to self-determination and rights to their territories. The rejection of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in November 2006 was a serious loss for the millions of indigenous people worldwide and their struggle for liberation. Wilton Littlechild, secretariat of the Permanent Forum and a presenter, spoke on the forum's humble beginnings and of the first and second Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples. "We decided we were going to declare a decade for indigenous peoples. [...] One of the objectives of the decade was to a pass United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous people. Sadly to say, that was not met in the first decade. "We are now in the second decade, the theme of which is 'partnership for action and dignity.' That is what I see here. ... Arizona is leading the world," Littlechild said after the reading of the proclamation. The organizers and speakers are certain that indigenous peoples' participation in the international struggle is one worth fighting for, and that efforts similar to the consultation will help the movement. Speaking on the 500 years of colonization and the contribution of the consultation in decolonization, Acosta said, "The fact is we will never recover unless we face [colonization]. And that is what we are doing with these types of actions. "It is to the benefit and betterment of the world for the future generations. We can't allow these things that have happened to us to be repeated." Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Royalties at Risk" --------- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 08:11:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HOUSE HEARING REACHES FEW CONCLUSIONS" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414819 'Royalties at Risk' hearing reaches few conclusions by: Jerry Reynolds / Indian Country Today April 6, 2007 WASHINGTON - A hearing in the House of Representatives on royalties collected from oil and gas on federal lands by the Minerals Management Service didn't reach any certainties beyond the assertion of Mark Gaffigan, acting director of natural resources and environment at the Government Accountability Office. Gaffigan told the House Resources Committee that MMS's leading problems in the proper collection of royalties are lack of skilled personnel and timely information. In boom times for oil and gas, trained personnel gravitate toward the higher pay of the private sector (MMS is a part of the Interior Department). And MMS has not developed the information systems to track the administrative cost and revenue impact of key programs. Committee members heard Gaffigan out and didn't disagree. MMS has come under a storm of criticism for bungling lease contracts with oil companies that left out a key "price threshold" clause. The standard clause links oil and gas royalty payments to the rising price of oil on the theory that deep-water oil exploration is prohibitively cost intensive. The lower upfront royalty encourages oil exploration and development; the later high royalty, paid from found oil as it rises in price, in a sense recompenses the federal Treasury for value lost on non- renewable national resources at the front end of the lease. But the price threshold was left out of the leases in question, at a cost of billions of dollars in public revenue. Tribes haven't needed the price threshold debacle to accuse MMS of under-collecting royalties due to Indians for leases on federal land. David Lester, executive director of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, said oil and gas companies report their production - and by extension the royalties due tribal resource owners - on "the honor system," which "persists to the detriment of Indian royalty owners" only. C. Stephen Allred, assistant secretary for land and minerals management at Interior, acknowledged that the MMS royalties collection process "begins when companies calculate their payments for royalties owed the federal government." He compared it to tax collection at the Internal Revenue Service, which similarly accepts reports and payments into its accounting system (of course in most cases, employers have already withheld an IRS portion from employee paychecks). Then the MMS audit and compliance program assesses the company royalty payments for accuracy. Committee questioning made it clear that MMS has turned to a regime of compliance review procedures as a supplement to full-dress audits, where an auditor knocks on a company's door and demands to see the books. The less thorough compliance review procedure is another sore point for CERT. "We have no confidence at all in compliance review," Lester said. Allred noted that the Office of the Inspector General at Interior has approved compliance review as a useful tool. He added that compliance review is a function of limited resources. "And given the resources we have, we need to try to cover the largest population of royalty figures that we can. If we do just audits, we will cover a much smaller portion of that population." Other problems for Indians are royalties-in-kind, "a fraction of the oil and gas that the MMS then sells to recover the government's share of oil and gas revenue," according to Gaffigan; and royalties-in-value, "a fraction of the revenues companies receive from sale of oil and gas produced on federal leases." Historically, oil royalties have been collected in value, but recently MMS has expanded its royalties-in-kind collections, exchanging the oil for other oil that has gone into the nation's Emergency Petroleum Reserve. "Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, MMS is charged with ensuring that the revenues it receives when it sells RIK oil are at least as great as the revenues it would have received had it taken the royalties in value," Gaffigan stated in written testimony. Data limitations at MMS mean that a determination cannot be made, Gaffigan said, but again the CERT tribes have little doubt they are losing money. CERT also weighed in against MMS resistance to well-by-well reporting, which Lester described as being susceptible to swindle. "A mineral operator can keep a lease in force in perpetuity, even after the primary lease term has expired, as long as the lease is producing 'in paying quantities' on a major part of the lease. This is true whether the lease is 160 acres or 250,000, and regardless of the number of wells. However, if the operator does not report on a well-by-well basis [but on the well production of the lease property as a whole], there is no accurate way to know whether the production is 'in paying quantities.' When the 'major part' of the lease is not producing 'in paying quantities, ' the wells must be shut in and the lease expires. Once wells are shut in, the only way to resume production is to negotiate a new lease. To ensure correct pricing, the mineral operator's production on a well-by-well basis should be recorded." Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Cheyenne honor Little Wolf" --------- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 08:11:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LITTLE WOLF HONORED" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/04/05/news/state/25-wolf_g.txt Cheyenne honor Little Wolf Chief led ancestors of today's tribe to homeland in 1879 By BECKY SHAY Of The Gazette Staff April 5, 2007 LAME DEER - When members of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe gathered Wednesday to commemorate the 1879 homecoming of Chief Little Wolf, their present-day leader asked them to keep one word in mind: Home. "We have a homeland because of his leadership," President Eugene Little Coyote said. Little Coyote and other dignitaries addressed about 200 people in a commemoration of the 126th anniversary of Little Wolf's April 1 return with about 350 Northern Cheyennes to their traditional homeland in Montana. "Home," Little Coyote said. "I'm going to keep repeating that word. This is our home. They brought us here, they led us here." Some tribal members don't know much about Little Wolf and his impact on the Cheyennes, Little Coyote said. "It was intended to be that way through decades and generations of assimilation-based education," he said. "Real Cheyenne tribal history was not taught (in schools)." Tribal Councilman Joe Fox Jr. talked about how the Cheyenne came home to live in peace and that Little Wolf was a courageous leader who brought them back. "We forget this sometimes," Fox said. "We take it for granted." He encouraged people to follow the Northern Cheyenne tradition and spread the history shared at the commemoration. "Cheyennes don't have history books," Fox said and tapped his chest. "They are kept here, in our heart, and told over and over. ... Pass this along to your grandkids, so they can tell their grandkids." Ivan Posey encouraged the group to spread the word of Cheyenne contributions to society and to teach their children traditional ways. Posey is a Northern Cheyenne descendant of Little Wolf. He is also part Arapaho-Eastern Shoshone from Wind River in Wyoming and is chairman of the Eastern Shoshone Business Council. "We need to educate non-Indians about us," Posey said. "But we need to start educating ourselves about ourselves." Alcohol, drugs and violence sometimes permeate Indian Country, Posey said. "A lot of times in Indian Country, we're still going home," he said. "We still haven't got there yet." Posey said that when the bands followed Little Wolf home from Oklahoma, they helped the weaker members. Today, there are people who need help, Posey said, whether that is to learn the language or traditional songs or to sober up. "A lot of our old people are leaving us," Posey said. "It's our responsibility to carry on." The commemoration began at the tribe's Charging Horse Casino instead of the Little Chief Capitol Building grounds as planned because of snow left from last week's spring storm. Here's some of the history shared at the commemoration: Little Wolf was the Sweet Medicine Chief of the Council of 44 Chiefs and a headsman of the Elk Horn Society. In 1877, many Cheyennes were moved to Indian Territory in today's Oklahoma, where they led "intolerable lives," Little Coyote said, with malnutrition and daily deaths. The bands of Indians wanted to return to their homeland, but the non-Indian army would not let them. "Little Wolf said, 'Tell them we're going home, even if you attack us,'" Little Coyote said. Chief Dull Knife, also known as Morning Star, took his band to Fort Robinson, Neb., and Little Wolf continued with his band to Montana and reached the headwaters of Otter Creek and the Yellowstone River on April 1, 1879. "We want to remember," Little Coyote said. "Because if that didn't happen, we might not have a reservation today, we might not have a tribe." The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation was created by presidential executive order in 1884 and expanded to today's boundaries - nearly doubling it - with a second executive order in 1900. "Remember: Home. We're home," Little Coyote said. Little Coyote and other dignitaries led about 80 people on a walk from the casino to the Lame Deer Cemetery, where Little Wolf's grave is surrounded by a fence with panels in the tribe's morning star design. "This is a simple, yet powerfully symbolic gesture," Little Coyote said and began walking his people down the road and across a field of snow and mud. The Northern Cheyenne are different from other tribes that have history in their escapes from forced removal of their lands, Little Coyote said. The Cheyennes were removed and returned home through harsh elements and constant threat of attack and death. "What distinguishes us is we were going home, and what distinguishes us is we made it home," he said. Copyright c. The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: First Female Indian Officer sworn in" --------- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 08:11:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MONTANA AIR NATIONAL GUARD" http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20070406/NEWS01/704060317 First female Indian officer sworn in to the Montana Air National Guard By RICHARD PETERSON Tribune Staff Writer April 6, 2007 BROWNING - Surounded by Blackfeet tribal leaders and the state's top military brass, 2nd Lt. Amber Gopher raised her right hand, repeated the commissioning oath, and became the first Native American female to be a commissioned officer for the Montana Air National Guard's 120th Fighter Wing. She was sworn in by 1st Lt. Carla Lott, the first Native American female commissioned officer in the Montana Army National Guard. Both women, Blackfeet tribal members from families with rich military histories extending generations, returned to their hometown of Browning for Thursday's emotional and colorful ceremony. "This is a historic occasion for the Montana National Guard," said Maj. Gen. Randall Mosley, as hundreds of spectators, including tribal veterans adorned in eagle feather war bonnets, looked on inside the Blackfeet Community College. Gopher also was honored during a name-giving ceremony in which tribal spiritual leaders presented her with her great-grandmother's name, "Good Victory." "This is a very appropriate name because today she has accomplished a good victory," said Blackfeet Tribal Councilman Tom Thompson. Marvin Weatherwax, one of the tribe's cultural leaders and a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, presented Gopher and Lott with eagle feathers. "This is the highest award we can give," said Chief Earl Old Person. "Let this eagle feather be your guide as you make the next step in life." Seated in the audience were dozens of Gopher's relatives, including two uncles who each served 25 years in the U.S. Air Force. "From day one, everything she's done in life has been done at 100 percent," said Myra Magee, Gopher's mother. Gopher, 29, a registered nurse, joined the Guard in 2001 in search of a challenge and an opportunity to serve her country, she said. "In a short period of time she advanced through the ranks," Mosley said. Lott, whose uncles and grandfathers have served in every branch of the military, is the first female in her family to enlist in the military. Her oldest daughter, who recently graduated from basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, is keeping on with the family tradition. A distribution platoon leader for the E 145th FSC, 163rd Infantry Battalion in Helena, Lott said it was an honor to return home and recite the oath given to Gopher. "This is the feel-good part of my job," Lott said. "This is home and it's so comfortable." Lott's uncle, Smokey Henricksen of Browning, said his niece's military service is inspiring to many young people on the reservation. "We have a lot of kids here who are really lost. Carla grew up here and they may see what she's accomplished," Henricksen said. Copyright c. 2007 The Great Falls Tribune. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Tribe uses Terrorism Tool to track Asthma" --------- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 07:57:34 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="EASTERN BAND LOGGING PATHS TO ASTHMA" http://citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770404017&source=rss Tribe uses terrorism tool to track asthma by Jon Ostendorff April 4, 2007 CHEROKEE - Tribal health officials are using hand-held computers designed for responding to bio-terrorism attacks to help them find out what is making people sick with asthma on the Qualla Boundary. Eight workers from the Cherokee Indian Hospital this week are surveying 54 homes using the GPS-linked machines to record the presence of mold, water drainage problems and life style choices like smoking and keeping pets inside. The data will be complied into a report in May using the tribe's geographical information system, which will allow researchers to factor in air quality as a potential cause. Officials say the survey marks the first time the hand held computers, on loan from North Carolina, have been used to document an ongoing public health problem. The state uses them for tracking injuries from a terrorism attack. Asthma has become a serious problem for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. About a third of the 9,000 people who use the hospital are asthmatic. Asthma rates in Western North Carolina normally higher than average. Buncombe County's rate in 2005 was about 5 percent higher than the state average, according to the state's Center for Health Statistics in its most recent report. Health officials suspect air pollution may be to blame. "It is a really a cool technology," said Jody Adams, the hospital's public relations officer. "My hope is they will find more uses for it. It will tell us what things in the community, and in that home, that we need to go back and look for." The tribe got a $30,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the study. It will pay for a consultant and data tracking, including an asthma registry at the hospital. Once the study is complete, the EPA will get the tribe's data to add to its database on asthma, Adams said. One cause health officials suspect in the asthma problem is the tribe's aging housing stock. Surveyors spent a recent morning at the home of Betty Maney in the Big Cove community. She is taking care of three granddaughters, who all have asthma. Maney lives in a 30-year-old home built by the Qualla Housing Authority. Maney's home is one of the nicer ones, but it still has problems that can lead to asthma-causing mold. It is built on a concrete slab with no basement. The land slopes toward the foundation and a nearby creek branch can make places in the yard wet. Maney said she has repeatedly asked for help from the Housing Authority. She's hoping the survey will help. "I hope it does," she said. "I'd like to see some sort of action taken on it." Officials plan to discuss the study results with the families that participated in the survey to help them find potential solutions to their asthma problems. After that, they hope to use the survey to convince tribal government to take action, including making improvements to aging homes. Contact Jon Ostendorff at 828-452-1467, via e-mail at jostendo@ashevill.gannett.com Copyright c. 2007 Asheville Citizen-Times. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Native American Spirit rises above Stereotype" --------- Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 07:54:53 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WHO WE ARE" http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20070331/NEWS01/703310351 Who We Are: Native American spirit rises above stereotype Nearly 8,000 in region stake claim to a proud heritage Diana Louise Carter Staff writer March 31, 2007 Classmates of 17-year-old Mike Schmitt have asked him why he doesn't sport a Mohawk hairstyle. He is, after all, a Mohawk. Mike, a junior at McQuaid Jesuit High School in Brighton, blends in with a million boys and men who wear their hair cut short all over but a little longer on top. Usually G. Peter Jemison of Victor, Ontario County, wears the business casual uniform of polo shirt and khakis. But when he attended Gov. Eliot Spitzer's inauguration in January, he wore traditional Seneca attire, including a feathered headdress, as he was representing the Seneca Nation of Indians. A woman passing by raised her hand and said "How," mimicking the greeting Hollywood mistakenly attributed to all Native Americans more than half a century ago. It seems that even in 2007, the image of Native Americans is shrouded in hoary stereotypes. "There still is a misunderstanding about who Native Americans are, and it's often framed through political lenses," said Jemison, manager of Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor. "I don't know if there is a group quite like us in terms of the level of stereotyping." The Rochester area, once the exclusive homeland of the Seneca, today is home to nearly 8,000 people who claim some Native American heritage, with about 2,300 of them identifying primarily as Native American, according to 2000 census figures. They are students and state employees, like Schmitt and Jemison, but also frequently ironworkers, machinists, nurses, professors, professional athletes and artists. Perhaps 80 percent are from one of the Iroquois nations that make up the indigenous people of upstate New York - Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and Tuscarora - while the rest come from some of the 500 other native nations across North America, including Navajo, Ojibwe, Cherokee and Lakota. A diverse lot, they share celebrations of Native American heritage, while continually trying to educate others about who they really are. Jobs drew people here The first large migration from reservations to the Rochester area followed World War II. Jeanette Miller, director of the Friends of Ganondagan and Jemison's wife, was born here in the post-war era. Miller's father came from the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ontario. Her mother grew up on Akwesasne, the Mohawk reservation on the St. Lawrence River that straddles the U.S.-Canadian border near Massena. "There wasn't much work on the reservations at the time," Miller explained. "Rochester was booming." Her father found a job as an ironworker, as did many Mohawk and Seneca men. Her mother, trained in the domestic arts at a convent-run school, first worked as a seamstress for Hickey-Freeman, the menswear manufacturer. "When we got together with the other Indians in the community, it was more of a social event," Miller said. Feeling isolated, the families gathered to break bread - and drink - with people like themselves, says Miller. "Our generation - there is no drinking. We don't do that," said Miller, referring to the alcoholism that has plagued the native community. Today's gatherings focus on recapturing cultural traditions nearly lost in the 20th century. Twice a month a small group meets at Ganondagan to speak Mohawk. Participants start by reciting the Thanksgiving Address, a prayer that begins and ends most Iroquois gatherings. Tom George, 66, of Farmington, Ontario County, offers suggestions or corrections when others struggle for the right word as they count and play bingo in Mohawk. "It's my culture, and I've always spoken that way," George said. A retired ironworker, he used to speak in Mohawk with fellow ironworkers or when he talked with his parents over the phone. "I would like to see a lot of people speak it." For generations, native children were punished for speaking American Indian languages in state or federally sanctioned boarding schools designed to forcibly assimilate them into the mainstream culture. "We were converted, told that our language was bad," said Sid Hill, the chief of chiefs, or Tadodaho, of the Iroquois Confederacy, who lives on the Onondaga reservation south of Syracuse. "You're supposed to have religious freedom in America," Hill said, but for decades, Native American religious practices were suppressed or outlawed. Today many Iroquois who were brought up as Christians are trying to return to their ancestral religion. Hill said even those who cling faithfully to the Native American traditions find themselves walking in two worlds. Among Longhouse followers, a 10-day mourning period is practiced after a death. On the last day, the community's leaders and the family decide where the deceased's possessions go, he said. That practice can bring them into conflict with probate laws. "It's always a conflict of trying to do both ways," he said. Miller's mother and the mother of Martha Fahrer, a Cattaraugus Seneca who heads the Native American Cultural Center on East Main Street, were original members of Ojisto, a social club for Indian women formed in the 1940s. Fahrer said that club and others sought the grants that started the cultural center 35 years ago. At first both a social hub and social services center, the center's role has changed as federal grant programs for Native Americans have dried up. Now the agency administers solely a job-training program for Native Americans. Migration from reservations, Fahrer said, dropped off in the 1980s as Rochester's building boom came to halt. Holding onto heritage In the same decade, Ganondagan State Historic Site opened. It has become not only a historic and hiking attraction but also a place to learn about Native American culture. This May, the site will host its second historic re-enactment of fur trade events that took place there when the Ontario County hilltop was home to thousands of Senecas in the 17th century. The site's staff and the Friends of Ganondagan have lined up $9.4 million in donations toward a $13 million, 30,000-square-foot arts and education center they hope to build within three years. In Rochester, where the nearest Indian reservation is 50 miles away and the nearest Indian-run schools are even farther, cultural learning nevertheless begins early for Native Americans. Rochester schools offer an extended day program at School 19 on Seward Street for students of Native American heritage. Currently about 250 are eligible but about 40 attend. "What they're learning here will teach them who they are," said Perry Ground, director of the cultural resource center. Many students come from low-income families, are biracial or triracial and start out with little knowledge of or pride in their native heritage, said Ground, who is a professional storyteller on the side. "I found a way to use my culture to support myself and teach others about Native Americans," he said, adding that he hopes his example and the lessons the students learn there will inspire them. In 2006, St. John Fisher College hired literature scholar Scott Lyons, who is Ojibwe, not only to teach courses in Native American literature but also to start the area's first Native American studies program at the college level. Until now, students have had to go to Syracuse University, the State University of New York at Buffalo or Cornell University in Ithaca to pursue native studies in depth. Also last year, a group of teenagers formed the local chapter of United National Indian Tribal Youth. They meet twice a month, once for business and once to socialize with others of similar heritage. "We're all getting good grades, being active members of the community. Part of this is prepping for college," said the group's president, Dalton LaBarge, 16, a junior at Wilson Magnet High School. "We want to bring the native community out of the background." But like older organizations, one purpose of the group is to build camaraderie among people who feel isolated and marginalized by the mainstream culture. Before the arrival of Europeans in the 1600s, the Iroquois "flourished as a people," said Tadodaho Sid Hill. "We had a government, ceremonies, a way to conduct ourselves." And those ways even influenced the people who came later. The Iroquois style of governance is said to have inspired the American founding fathers' federation style of democracy, as Ben Franklin commented on it in his writings. The power that Iroquois women hold in their society helped inspire the 19th-century women's rights movement that grew out of central New York. Iroquois people - who call themselves Haudenosaunee - say the creator gave them the game of lacrosse that they've shared with the world, although the Cherokees might argue about who got that gift first. "All our teachings tell us we're part of the land. We're part of the environment. Everything we do is in (accordance) with the seasons," Hill said. The land is so much a part of Iroquois identity that the Seneca word for Seneca, Onondowahgha, means "people of the Great Hill," referring to a hill at the southern end of Canandaigua Lake, the original home of the Senecas. Land remains a critical issue for New York's Native Americans as most Iroquois nations continue to press legal suits to reclaim their aboriginal lands, lost in questionable treaties in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Native Americans are still here and still following their traditions, Hill said. "We've been here for thousands of years. How we are today - yes, we've assimilated. But we still feel we have certain rights as indigenous people." DCARTER@DemcoratandChronicle.com Copyright c. 2007 The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, All rights reserved. --------- "RE: DOE relents in dispute with Tribes" --------- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 07:57:34 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NATURAL RESOURCES ASSESSMENT AT HANFORD" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/ breaking/story/8762509p-8664146c.html DOE relents in dispute with tribes, states By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer April 3, 2007 The federal government has reversed its policy in a long-running disagreement with the tribes and states of Oregon and Washington and agreed to do a natural resource damage assessment at the Hanford nuclear reservation. The assessment will look at damage caused by unintentional releases of radioactive and hazardous chemicals from the nuclear reservation to plants, animals and the Columbia River. The states and the Yakama, Nez Perce and Umatilla tribes had filed a lawsuit in federal court regarding natural resource damage issues, including a demand that an assessment be done. The Department of Energy had argued in legal documents that it's too early to do a natural resource damage assessment. Once cleanup is completed, federal Superfund law allows other governments - such as tribes and states - to file claims against DOE if damages remain. However, DOE announced Tuesday that it and other federal agencies now plan to conduct a phased assessment of damages. The assessment may be used to guide cleanup decisions. Copyright c. 2007 Tri-City Herald. --------- "RE: Major League Baseball 'Drops the Ball'" --------- Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 08:21:29 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MLB INCLUDES CHIEF WAHOO TO HONOR CIVIL RIGHTS" http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8674 Major League Baseball 'Drops the Ball' in Inaugural Civil Rights Game says NCAI WASHINGTON DC April 2, 2007 In a groundbreaking event intended to honor the Civil Rights movement, Major League Baseball (MLB) "dropped the ball by including the racially offensive Cleveland Indians" in the inaugural game, according to National Congress of American Indian (NCAI) President Joe A. Garcia. "We commend MLB for implementing the Civil Rights Game to pay homage to the historic Civil Rights movement that changed this country," said Garcia. "But at the same time, it is absolutely irresponsible to include a team such as the Cleveland Indians, whose buck-toothed Indian mascot promotes blatant racism, mockery and negative stereotypes of Native Americans." The exhibition game was held March 31 in Memphis, TN., a central location of the Civil Rights movement. Arlen Melendez, chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and a Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says the inclusion of the Cleveland Indians in this historic event is disappointing. "In 2001 the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights publicly called for an end to the use of Native American images and team names by non-Native schools because they are disrespectful and offensive to American Indians and others who are offended by such stereotyping," said Melendez. "While MLB has made many excellent and positive contributions to America's civil rights achievements, Cleveland's mascot and its association with the first Civil Rights Game is particularly inappropriate." NCAI, the largest and oldest Indian organization in the U.S., has passed a number of resolutions condemning the use of Native mascots in sports organizations across the country; whether they are at the local level, college level or high profile teams in organizations such as MLB or the National Football League (NFL). NCAI supports an ongoing lawsuit filed against the trademark use of the Washington Redskins' mascot. NCAI recently worked with the National Collegiate Association of America (NCAA) to ban the use of Indian mascots and imagery in college teams and the association banned the use of Indian mascots in post-season play, resulting in the recent discontinued use of the University of Illinois' mascot Chief Illiniwek. "It's time for Chief Wahoo to go the way of Chief Illiniwek," said Garcia, referring to Cleveland's mascot. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: JODI RAVE: Native Artist shares life's work" --------- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 07:57:34 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JODI RAVE: DEFINING CULTURE" http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/04/04/jodirave/rave7.txt Defining culture: Prominent Native artist shares his life's work at UM By JODI RAVE of the Missoulian April 4, 2007 George Longfish never comes up short on imagery or words when he presses a paint brush to canvas. The internationally recognized artist's work is as provocative as the names he gives each art piece, titles such as, "Good-bye Norma Jean, The Chief is Dead," or "I Will Never Be the Same When I Leave My Father's Lodge," or "Don't (mess) With a Boy Named Sue." On Tuesday, Longfish stood inside the Montana Museum of Art and Culture at the University of Montana where two gallery halls recognize his prominent role in the contemporary Native American art movement. He looked at his "Sue" painting from which a tough-and-hard warrior stares back. "He's like somebody I wouldn't want to meet in an alley," Longfish said. "It would be like, OK, see you later." Longfish, who makes his home in Berwick, Maine, arrived in Montana after missing in action for more than three decades. He's in town to lecture during a national traveling exhibition in his honor called, "George Longfish - A Retrospective," which can be viewed on campus until April 20. The Seneca and Tuscarora artist studied painting, sculpture and film at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he graduated in 1972. He arrived in Missoula the same year to become director of the University of Montana Graduate Program in American Indian Art. He stayed until 1973. The program ended the same year. It was unique then and has never been duplicated. The UM program attracted evolving Native American artists from throughout the country. Longfish was able to influence emerging artists, many who have led successful art careers. The professor encouraged students to break away from stereotypes in their art and to experiment with a range of styles and techniques. Personally, he likes glitter. "Formally his work is very engaging," said Ted Hughes, a UM art graduate student. "He uses all these vivid colors. They are organized in a pleasing manner. He uses triangles, squares and circles.... He uses bold strokes." And he succeeds at bridging the spiritual subject matter of Native America, and the warrior culture, with the European tradition of high modernist painting in the form of abstract expressionism, Hughes said. After leaving Montana, Longfish spent the next 30 years as a professor of Historical and Contemporary Native Arts at the University of California at Davis where he also served as the university's director of the Carl Gorman Museum from 1974-96. As a painter, he has led Native art trends and raised the stature of the contemporary Indian art movement. His work is collected in major U.S. museums, including the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Longfish continues to be bold and experiment. Today, he is drawn toward text. The more words he uses, the less he relies on a multicolored palette. Sometimes he looks at his old work and wonders, "Who the hell painted that?" he said. "What I'm doing is becoming more clear and evident in my painting. Boom, there it is." His work is a testament to the versatility he has long taught to students. "It's a mixture of humor and serious subject matter," said Manuela Well-Off-Man, Montana Museum of Art and Culture curator, who became aware of Longfish's work when she lived in Germany. She said she admires how his style and use of iconography inspire an open dialogue among art viewers. His message is political and very approachable. "It's not politically- correct art," said Well-Off-Man. "It's not pointing a finger." One of his works of art depicts a photo of Longfish standing below Chicago skyscrapers. The black-and-white image is imprinted with stacked red-lettered words that read: "Tribal. Seneca. Warrior. Artist. Healer." The image is meant to remind people that Natives are very much a part of contemporary culture. Too often, he said, people look at an Indian and fall into a stereotypical greeting. They want to call him "chief," he said. "It's hard for them to say hello to you in the present time. It's like the only way they can connect to you is to go into the past." They grapple with reality: "You survived?" Gallery talk Artist George Longfish discusses his artwork Thursday, April 5, at 6 p.m. at the Meloy Gallery, Montana Museum of Art and Culture, University of Montana. An artist's reception is also scheduled the same day from 5-7 p.m. Reporter Jodi Rave can be reached at 406-523-5299 or at jodi.rave@lee.net Copyright c. 2007 Missoulian, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Tragedy isn't only thing Red Lake has to offer" --------- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 07:57:34 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="DOUG GROW: THE UNREPORTED SIDE OF RED LAKE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.startribune.com/465/story/1096386.html Doug Grow: Tragedy isn't only thing Red Lake has to offer By Doug Grow, Star Tribune April 3, 2007 We always show up for Red Lake's tears. The discovery on Sunday of the bodies of two little boys -- 4-year-old Tristan White and his 2-year-old brother Avery Stately -- two years after the horrific shootings at Red Lake High School means that we in the media again are trying to report about Red Lake. Red Lake Band member Tom Barrett, who with his wife, Karen, chose to leave the Twin Cities 15 years ago and raise their family on the reservation, understands the media's job. Still, he often doesn't recognize his home when he sees our reports. "There was one story I saw, after the little boys were found, where the reporter was talking about how the mother had held on to hope in a place where there is none," said Barrett. "I thought that was taking it a little too far. When you see stories about Red Lake you'd think we all must walk around with dark clouds over our heads." The Barretts have known tragedy. Their oldest son, Robert, drowned a few years ago when his boat capsized. Two of his nephews were killed in shootings. Another relative was indicted in a killing. "Hard and tragic as that all sounds, this is where we live," Barrett said. And there is another side to the place. The Barretts' daughter, Rose, graduated from Red Lake High, is a student at Bemidji State and plans to return to the reservation to teach. Their son Tom Jr. was a star player on Red Lake's basketball team this year, will graduate fourth in his class and will attend a community college on a basketball scholarship. He also dreams of coming back to the rez to teach. There's not always a cloud over Red Lakers. Since the shootings, a group called Warrior Down has formed at the high school. Students with at least a C average were eligible to join. When they saw a fellow student having a tough day, it was their job to help lift that student up. Starting Wednesday, a youth leadership conference is to be held on the rez. Indian kids from throughout the state are expected to attend workshops ranging from Native American religions to beauty tips for young women to building self-esteem. But much of the positive is not even known on the reservation, Barrett admitted. "Even here it seems like the negative is magnified," he said. So he's not shocked that people outside Red Lake have negative perceptions of the place. This year, school officials and parents concerned about safety issues decided to have Kelliher/Northome forfeit a basketball game rather than play at Red Lake. "We know there are people who are scared to come here," Barrett said. There are many stories like that. But there are stories of hope, too. In November, when Avery and Tristan disappeared, all the barriers that ordinarily separate Red Lakers from each other, and from whites surrounding the reservation, fell away. "There were people coming from all over," Barrett said. "Nobody was asked to come. They just showed up. Nobody wanted to give up on those kids." This search, grounded in hope, ended in tears. But that's not always how stories end on Red Lake. Doug Grow - dgrow@startribune.com Copyright c. 2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: YELLOW BIRD: Women of color, rainbow of views" --------- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 08:11:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW BIRD: WOMEN OF COLOR CONFERENCE" http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=33350& section=columnists&columnist=Dorreen%20Yellow%20Bird Women of color, rainbow of views Dorreen Yellow Bird April 5, 2007 As Herald readers know, there are comparatively few people of color in the Red River Valley. So, during Women of Color Week - March 26-30 - when I helped moderate a panel of such women, it was a good chance to visit with some women of color who we have in this area. These are remarkable women who are talented and have worldwide experiences that can help bring understanding to our community. Here is a list of the panel of women from Women of Color Week and a little of what I learned from them: Sonia Brumskill of New Jersey, a world traveler who works at Grand Forks Air Force Base; Amie Jatta, of Oslo, Norway, who originally is from Gambia and will graduate from UND in May; and UND graduate students Ruby Rivera of New York City and Puerto Rico, Pratibha Kumar of Bombay, India, Julii Green of San Diego and Twyla Baker- Demaray of New Town, N.D. As each of these women took turns talking about "Trends of Women of Color Today and Tomorrow," I found some common themes. For example, women of color are taking their place among leaders, not only in our communities but also around the world. They have an understanding of world cultures and can blend ideas. Women of color living in North Dakota and Grand Forks have learned about the people here, and perhaps that will help bring about understanding. On the lighter side, most of the panelists agreed that they didn't like winter in North Dakota (and weren't crazy about mosquitoes in the summer, either). We've heard that before. It's probably the most common complaint from people who live on the coasts or other places far away from the state. Something else that North Dakotans take for granted but that these people from other areas noticed is our "trusting and friendly" attitude. Rivera was amazed when she first moved here and saw cars outside of grocery stores with doors unlocked and engines running. It's one of those North Dakota things, we all said. We like to have our cars toasty warm when we get back into them after shopping; there's no need to freeze the ice cream rock solid. The mention of unlocked cars inspired a light-hearted discussion about how fast such a car would be snatched up in the women's home cities. There would be people who would wait for a local to go into the store, then that car would be gone, the women concluded. Then again, a North Dakotan said, we now have automatic locks that keep the doors locked while the car is running. True, I answered, but that has been a fairly recent invention. Years ago, people left their cars running and doors open and, I might add, few cars were stolen. Pratibha Kumar from India likes the attitude of people in North Dakota and ventured to say she didn't mind the weather. I invited her to go howling with the wolves in late spring. That trip will show her what a real North Dakota night sky looks like, and she might hear a wolf answer her howl. We'll see. It didn't happen for me. Women who have traveled from other countries to study in North Dakota come from worlds that are different from our wide-open and cold country, we agreed. We talked a little about religions, class systems and the troubles in the Middle East. There wasn't enough time to explore those issues in any depth, only to give us a taste and desire for more information. I didn't mention Native American culture because I am so familiar with it. But one of the panelists, Twyla Baker-Demaray, is a friend from the Three Affiliated Tribes. She talked about how she grew up with a different culture and has adjusted to the many differences. It seems strange to call American Indian culture "different." But as we learned in our discussions, there are people in the United States who think that the Indian population in North Dakota lives in teepees and speaks only a little English. All in all, it was a good discussion - one that I'd say needs to be repeated and explored with a broader and larger audience. We need to hear what these young people from other countries are saying, and they need to get to know us better, too. --- Dorreen Yellow Bird is a reporter and columnist. Her columns appear Wednesdays and Saturdays on the opinion pages of the Herald. Reach her at (701) 780-1228 or dyellowbird@gfherald.com Copyright c. 2006 Grand Forks Herald, Forum Communications Co., Fargo ND. --------- "RE: MILLER: United States ducks Treaty Responsibility" --------- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 08:11:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MILLER: INDIAN HEALTH" http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414814 Miller: United States ducks treaty responsibility on Indian health by: Robert Miller / Lewis & Clark Law School April 5, 2007 American Indians have access to federally paid health care based on hundreds of treaties the United States signed with Indian nations, under the accepted federal practice of more than 100 years and as a requirement of the trust responsibility the United States owes the Indian nations to care for their welfare. Indians have not, however, received their fair share of federal health care, especially in light of this heightened duty. In fact, a July 18, 2003, study by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights titled "A Quiet Crisis" found that ... the federal government's rate of spending on health care for Native Americans is 50 percent less than for prisoners or Medicaid recipients, and 60 percent less than is spent annually on health care for the average American. Clearly, the United States is not fulfilling its treaty and trustee responsibility to provide health care to American Indian people. This issue has been brought to the forefront again by the Bush administration's attempts to block reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. The IHCIA was first enacted into law in 1976 and signed by President Gerald Ford, with the intention of bringing the level of Indian health up to that of the general U.S. population. Since then, presidents Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton have all signed reauthorizations. The IHCIA expired in 2000 and has been only temporarily funded by Congress and President George W. Bush in the interim. Since 2001, it appears that the White House and the Department of Justice have been opposing its reauthorization. In late 2006, a Justice Department "white paper" that opposed the bill was circulated to conservative Republican senators. (The department now denies that anyone was authorized to circulate it.) Some Republican senators put a hold on the IHCIA reauthorization bill and thus prevented the bill from being considered in the last days of the 109th Congress. The National Indian Health Board has called on Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to withdraw this white paper and their objections to the IHCIA, but the Republican Policy Committee has informed senators' offices that it will continue to oppose reauthorization of the IHCIA, claiming that it is "race-based" legislation. In a Senate hearing on March 9, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., slammed the white paper, taking the White House and DOJ to task for the manner in which it was released and its contents. Republican Sens. Craig Thomas, Wyo. , and Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, also voiced concerns about the department's stance on the IHCIA reauthorization and how the bill was killed in the 109th Congress. In addition to questions about IHCIA reauthorization, the Bush administration has also targeted the elimination of health care for urban Indians. The administration tried to eliminate the entire Urban Indian Health Program from the 2007 budget, but Congress restored it. Now the administration has again removed the entire $33 million program from its proposed 2008 budget. In addition to cost-saving concerns, the administration claims to be worried that serving urban Indians is largely a race-based action which federal courts would disapprove of, a White House spokesman told the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on March 8. The alleged problem lies in the possibility that some people who are of Indian heritage but not enrolled in federally recognized tribes might receive care at Urban Indian Health Service facilities. But this argument is clearly specious. In fact, the definition of an Indian to be served under the IHCIA is the same as it has been for the past 30 years and is similar to the definition of Indian found in Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. The U.S. Supreme Court long ago laid to rest the idea that government programs for the benefit - or even to the detriment - of Indians is a racially-based "affirmative action" issue. In 1974, the Supreme Court stated in Morton v. Mancari that the relationship of the United States to the Indian nations and their citizens is a political and treaty-based relationship and is part of the federal government's government-to- government relationship with Indian tribes. Thus, congressional acts regarding tribes and Indians are not racial or affirmative action laws but political and diplomatic acts of the Congress vis-a-vis the tribal governments and authorized by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. On March 7, a bipartisan group of representatives introduced House Bill 1328 - to reauthorize and even strengthen the IHCIA; a House committee held hearings on the bill on March 14. The SCIA is also preparing its own bill to reauthorize the IHCIA. Hopefully, Congress and the president will reauthorize the IHCIA and restore the treaty and trust responsibility obligations of the United States to protect the health of its Indian citizens and to attempt to bring health care protections for Indians up to the same standards that all Americans enjoy. --- Robert Miller is a law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland, Ore., and the chief justice of the Grand Ronde Tribe. He is the author of "Native America: Discovered and Conquered." Copyright c. 1998 - 2007 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: NAVARRO: Return of La Otra" --------- Date: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 04:08 am From: Chiapas95-english Subj: En;Jornada,L.H.Navarro:Return of La Otra,Mar 27 Mailing List: Chiapas95-En This message is forwarded to you by the editors of the Chiapas95 newslists. To contact the editors or to submit material for posting send to: . Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 15:59:40 +0200 From: "Dana Aldea" La Jornada, Published in Spanish, March 27, 2007 The Return of la Otra The Zapatistas Have a Diagnosis and Map of Social and Political Conflicts in the Country that Is Not Possessed by Any Other Type of Political Force By Luis Herna'ndez Navarro The second phase of The Other Campaign began this Sunday. Six comandantes, seven comandantas, and a subcomandante will again travel around the country as a call to initiate the global Campaign for the defense of the indigenous lands and autonomous territories in Chiapas, Mexico and the world. The first stage of the Other Campaign encountered unexpected circumstances. First there was the repression in Atenco, which meant temporarily suspending the national tour. Then it was the Oaxaca uprising, which changed the dynamic of social confrontation in the country. Finally there was Calderon's electoral fraud, and victory, [of the Mexican presidency]. Although la Otra wasn't strong enough to free the Atenco prisoners or manage to punish those responsible, they managed to organize a permanent solidarity campaign to assure the issue wasn't forgotten. The county of Oaxaca opened a focus of attention in public opinion and the media, which meant that media coverage of la Otra, already small, became even more limited. Before Oaxaca, the Zapatistas had problems with the decision to continue its policy of maintaining broad alliances, which included Andres Lopez Obrador and the PRD, when one of The Other Campaign's central objectives was to clearly differentiate themselves from them. Finally, the electoral fraud and the triumph of Felipe Caldero'n modified the scheme in which la Otra was conceived. The Zapatistas presumed that the winner in the elections would be Lopez Obrador, and they prepared for that. The fraud changed this result. Subcomandante Marcos denounced the fraud a few hours after it was perpetrated. However, the EZLN didn't take part in the civil resistance actions that took place against it. This position was a step away from a some members of the la Otra and from the intellectual sector, usually supportive of it's positions. The new phase of la Otra begins in a complex political panorama. In Chiapas, the new governor Juan Sabines, who formally won the elections with the acronym of the PRD, has allowed the recomposition of the PRI. The former leader of the party, Sami David, heads the state governments Strategic Projects Corporation. The son of the infamous Roberto Albores Guillen was appointed secretary of Economic Promotion. The leader of the cattle farmers and town councilor of Comita'n, Jorge Constantino Kanter, has a magnificent relation with the heads of state. Occurring simultaneously to this re-accommodation in the state government, the dispute over paramilitary groups and reclaimed lands in the hands of the Zapatista support bases has been revived. Armed organizations from the PRI, like the URCI and Opddic, are seeking to stay on land where rebels and democratic rural organizations are working, and they regularly harass its members. 'Environmental' initiatives, under the pretext of defending the environment, seek to despoil other rural groups of the land they have possessed for years. On the national scope, the Felipe Calderon government has been consolidated in spite of everything. The new ISSSTE law was approved without much political cost in the short term, and it's fight against drug trafficking, although it has lacked real successes, has public opinion approval. Only the rise in the price of tortilla has eroded the presidential image. It still awaits to be seen what price will be paid for its attitude taken in the debate of the legalization of abortion in Mexico City. The Progressive Extensive Front (FAP) hasn't formally dissolved. It's members are essentially still voting together. However, in current state elections, like in Yucatan and Durango, they're divided. Their participation in the National Democratic Convention (CND) is more formal than real. The second CND assembly demonstrates the significant amount of citizens who still resent the electoral fraud while acknowledging Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as their legitimate president. However, this force seems to have little to do with the El Peje national tour, dedicated to building an electoral force alien to the peoples immediate problems. Despite the repression in Oaxaca, the APPO still has an undoubted capacity for resistance and mobilization, not enough to force Ulises Ruiz's resignation but enough to show his illegitimacy. However, elections to renew local councils and congress have put many members in a markedly electoral dynamic, and in complex and difficult negotiations with FAP. All these elements mark the return of la Otra. The Zapatistas, as seen on Sunday 24, possess an undeniable force within Chiapas and great support from outside of Mexico. The participation of Via Campesina was notable with messages from Joao Pedro Stedile and Rafael Alegria. Today they have a diagnosis and map of the social and political conflicts in the country that aren't possessed any other type of political force. In addition, they count on a directory and network of movements based across the whole country, which are usually ignored by political parties. If they manage to give a structure and a stable national coordination to those pockets of resistance that today work separately - though in politics nothing is certain - the plans of the right-wing will run aground. But the prediction of coming confrontation over the pretension of the government to destabilize their territories, the space occupied by cenedista activism, and against the option of diverse social forces in favor of the construction of representative politics through electoral means and the self-isolation of the mainstream sectors of society, is likely. The coming months will be decisive. translation: Deano http://www.narconews.com/Issue45/article2606.html -- To subscribe from this list send a message containing the words subscribe chiapas95 (or chiapas95-lite, or chiapas95-english, or chiapas95-espanol) to majordomo@eco.utexas.edu. Previous messages are available from http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html or gopher to Texas, University of Texas at Austin, Department of Economics, Mailing Lists. --------- "RE: Rail blockade planned as relations Sour" --------- Date: Monday, April 02, 2007 06:05 pm From: Kahente Doxtater Subj: Rail Blockade Across Canada Planned As Relations Sour Mailing List: Frostys AmerIndian Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SIMPCW AND SHUSWAP WIN COURT BID" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.clearwatertimes.com/portals-code/list.cgi? paper=7&cat=23&id=865555&more= First Nations victorious By THE TIMES April 2, 2007 Simpcw successful in Supreme Court bid to halt treaty process Simpcw First Nation and the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council (SNTC) were successful in their application to the B.C. Supreme Court, last month, to delay the finalization of the treaty between B.C., Canada and the Lheidli T'enneh. The SNTC, a political organization representing ten of the southern Shuswap communities, is working to promote a just resolution of the land question. The SNTC asserts the Crown did not act honorably in reaching a final agreement and the land and resource base that forms part of the treaty is actually the traditional territory of the Secwepemc peoples. "We have not been consulted in this process and the final terms of the treaty will irreparably harm our rights and title to our traditional territory," said Chief Wayne Christian, co-chair of the SNTC. The judge ruled the matter should be heard Apr. 5. The B.C. treaty process requires a band submit a Statement of Intent map, outlining their asserted territory. No proof of use of land or occupation is required. The SNTC claims the traditional territory of the Secwepemc people is being enroached upon by the Lheidli T'enneh in the areas of McBride, Valemount and half way down the Kinbasket Reservoir. Although the 10 bands filed a Protective Writ in 2003, they state the Crown have failed to acknowledge the matter, and have chosen instead to continue with a process that pits bands against bands. "We are confident that our evidence supports our title to the area in the McBride to Kinbasket corridor and we are very disappointed that government has failed to recognize and address this important issue much earlier in the treaty process," said Chief Keith Matthew of the Simpcw First Nation. "This is not a case against the First Nation, it's against a treaty process that is flawed, and the Crown that drives that process." Copyright c. 2007 Clearwater Times. --------- "RE: Pact to improve Aboriginal School achievement" --------- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 07:57:34 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="EDUCATION AGREEMENT SIGNED" http://www.firstperspective.ca/fp_combo_template.php?path=20070403pact Pact signed to improve Aboriginal school achievement by Joseph Quesnel April 3, 2007 An agreement has been signed in British Columbia that seeks to improve the performance of Aboriginal students in a BC school district. Port Moody-Westwood MLA Iain Black and Burquitlam MLA Harry Bloy joined Aboriginal leaders and Coquitlam school district officials recently to sign the district's first Aboriginal enhancement agreement to help improve Aboriginal student achievement, according to a recent government news release. "Education is crucial to Aboriginal achievement and preserving Aboriginal culture, and the signing of this agreement illustrates our ongoing commitment to both," said Black. "This agreement shows the Province, the district and Aboriginal communities are focused and working together to support Aboriginal students so they can achieve their best," said Bloy. "We want Aboriginal student completion rates to improve, and this agreement will help to reach that goal." There are 1,188 Aboriginal students in the Coquitlam school district this year - 3.7 per cent of the district's total enrolment. The district serves the Kwikwetlem First Nation people and lies within the shared traditional territories of the Tsleil-Waututh, Katzie, Musqueam, Squamish and Sto:lo Nations. The agreement sets out four goals in the areas of Aboriginal culture, safety, student achievement and completion rates. The goals are to improve Aboriginal student success by: - Increasing knowledge and respect for Aboriginal culture and history for all students; - Increasing the number of Aboriginal students who report feeling safe and a sense of belonging; - Improving Aboriginal student achievement; and - Improving Aboriginal student grade-to-grade transition rate and school completion rate. "This agreement serves as a foundation to provide Aboriginal communities with a voice in the education of Aboriginal students," said Education Minister Shirley Bond. "The Province continues to work with school districts and Aboriginal communities to increase Aboriginal student success and create a learning environment where all students feel safe and comfortable, and can flourish." Working closely with the local Aboriginal communities and the Ministry of Education, the school district developed several strategies to help reach its goals, including: - Creating Aboriginal student leadership opportunities - Unveiling and distributing Aboriginal artwork for display in school districts to increase Aboriginal presence. - Using math and reading resource kits for elementary Aboriginal students - Having evening tutoring programs available for Aboriginal students - Increasing work-experience opportunities for Aboriginal students - Ensuring early assessments for special needs interventions. - Developing Aboriginal literacy initiatives and resources such as Journey to Literacy and Aboriginal Big Books. "I am honoured to sign this document as it solidifies a promise to the Aboriginal people of this area" said Lorraine Richard, Metis, Ojibway / Aboriginal Parent Focus Group Organizer, SD #43. "The agreement is a guide, designed to help all of our children be the best people they can possibly be, academically, spiritually and physically. This is no longer a dream; it is a realization for success for our children." "We recognize there is not one educational model that fits all and, by providing quality learning opportunities, we can meet our district's diverse student needs," said Melissa Hyndes, Coquitlam school board chair. "As a proud signatory of this Aboriginal enhancement agreement, we are committed to continuing this collaborative journey to ensure success for each and every one of our Aboriginal students." This is the 32nd Aboriginal enhancement agreement completed in B.C. The agreements support the Province's Pacific Leadership Agenda to build new relationships with First Nations, and to close gaps in health, housing, education and economic opportunities, said government officials, in the release. According to the BC government, the Aboriginal Enhancement Agreements are one component of the Province's strategy to improve Aboriginal student achievement. Others include the new First Nations education jurisdiction agreement and developing Aboriginal content for K-12 curriculum. Copyright c. 2007 First Perspective. --------- "RE: Reconciliation: We weren't Supposed to Survive" --------- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 07:53:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RECONCILIATION: THE STO:LO" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/03/30/Stolo/ 'We Weren't Supposed to Survive' Seeking reconciliation with BC's First Nations. First in a series. By Sandra Shields TheTyee.ca March 30, 2007 [Editor's Note: This weekend we should learn whether the first final agreement reached under the B.C. treaty process has been accepted by its community, the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation near Prince George. Two years ago, the government of British Columbia and First Nations leaders laid out a vision for a "New Relationship," spurring initiatives aimed at "closing the gap" between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal British Columbians. In this four-part Tyee Solutions Reporting Fellowship series, writer Sandra Shields looks at steps being taken in her home community of the Fraser Valley, and explores whether all this talk is changing things on the ground. To learn more about Shields, her series and Tyee fellowships, go here.] "Ask the average person in the valley who the Sto:lo are," Gwen Point says, "and they will say, 'I don't know.'" A Sto:lo cultural leader and long-time educator, Point recently became one of a handful of Aboriginal professors at the University College of the Fraser Valley. "Before reconciliation can occur," she says, "people have to know who we are and they have to understand what happened here." Like most of my non-Aboriginal neighbors, I knew next to nothing about the Sto:lo when my husband, photographer David Campion, and I moved from downtown Vancouver to a farmhouse on the side of a mountain across the Fraser River from Chilliwack. It was when a friend lent us the Sto:lo Atlas, a beautiful and fascinating book, that we began to learn something of the history that lies outside our back door. People of the river Sto:lo means river. Archeologists say that the Sto:lo have been living in the floodplain along the Fraser River for more than 350 generations. Part of the Coast Salish peoples, the Sto:lo include 24 bands located between Vancouver and the Fraser Canyon north of Yale. First contact with Europeans came in the form of smallpox in 1782. The disease traveled along Native trade routes and when it reached the valley it is believed to have killed two out of every three people, decimating the estimated 60,000 Sto:lo living here. Thirty years later, when Simon Fraser made it to the lower reaches of the river that would soon bear his name, he encountered abandoned villages and a people still in recovery. In the 50 years after Simon Fraser passed through, life along the river continued much as it had for generations. The Hudson's Bay set up forts, some of the Sto:lo men traded salmon, and some of the Sto:lo women married Hudson's Bay men. It was in the spring of 1858 that everything changed. Within four months, 30,000 miners arrived fresh from the rowdy California frontier and began digging up the banks of the river in search of gold. Settlers followed and B.C. implemented a policy of "benevolent assimilation." The priests at St. Mary's Mission established a boarding school to educate Sto:lo children and the Sto:lo were confined to reserves that amounted to less than one per cent of their territory. Within a generation, by the 1880s, there were more settlers than Sto:lo. Canada passed the anti-potlatch law and the drumming, singing and winter dances that had ordered Sto:lo cultural and spiritual life became illegal. The first person in Canada to go to jail under the new law was a man from Chilliwack and fear spread throughout the valley. Until the 1960s, those who continued to practice their traditions did so in the utmost secrecy. "The idea was to colonize," Gwen Point says. "We weren't supposed to survive. The devastation that happened to the Sto:lo community since contact, we are still living with that today. Our children are struggling in education. Our people are over-represented in the prisons. We are only beginning to come into our own and that's because many of our people are turning back to our culture and taking an active part in the decisions being made in all areas such as education, health and self government." More than sorry The way history is remembered affects all of us deeply. Again and again, in countries around the world, the experience of having been victimized travels through generations carrying with it a call for truth and justice. South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was part of a growing international movement that links reconciliation with healthy democracies. Simply put, reconciliation is about moving from antagonism to trust and respect. It is linked to the functioning of democracy because it creates the kind of relationships that increase social capital. In B.C., reconciliation moved out of the shadows in the spring of 2005 when Premier Campbell announced the creation of the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation. Vancouver-based author and community organizer Jessie Sutherland has been involved in frontline reconciliation work in communities across Canada as well as the Middle East, Africa and South America. She warns that reconciliation is often used as a buzz word by those in power who think they can say Sorry and then move on without addressing the underlying issues or doing the long hard work of sorting through contested histories, rooting out injustice and learning to share power. Wary of a cultural understanding that sees reconciliation in terms of contrition and forgiveness, Sutherland prefers to use a broader definition that views reconciliation as a process by which systems of domination are transformed into relations of mutuality. She explains that reconciliation must come from political leaders and from ordinary people. Even those who have suffered or benefited little from the past absorb the beliefs and attitudes that underpin conflict, so while systemic restructuring is essential, the hearts and minds of the people must change too. The steps are as familiar as they are difficult: a joint search for truth, justice, and healing. Every reconciliation process is unique, but it is generally agreed that if tough issues aren't dealt with, they only get worse with time - which goes a long way towards explaining the complex knot that the B.C. government and First Nations leaders have begun to try and unravel. New relationship The waterslide in the resort community of Cultus Lake near Chilliwack was closed on the gray December day when I went looking for the Soowahlie Band Office. The directions from the gas station clerk took me down a road that turned to gravel and disappeared between pine trees. Two kilometers of mud and potholes later, I found Grand Chief Doug Kelly in the campground headquarters that doubles as his office. Kelly works with Sto:lo Tribal Council, an alliance of eight Sto:lo bands. When I confessed that the muddy rutted road to his office made me wish for four-wheel drive, he laughed and told me about a letter to the editor that appeared in a local paper. "It was basically saying we're a tax burden, that everything First Nations get is a handout and all we do is take, we don't pay taxes, all those old arguments. Well, our national chief had done some work and concluded that First Nations governments receive approximately half the funding that other local governments get." Kelly did a bit more research, came up with some figures, and wrote his own letter to the editor. "Chilliwack residents," he said, "receive something like $12,000 per person in terms of value of services from Canada, B.C. and the city. Sto:lo residents living on reserves in and around Chilliwack receive about $7,700. That's why our roads aren't paved, that's why we don't have sidewalks, that's why we don't have light standards." Kelly cut his political teeth young, first serving as chief of Soowahlie in 1983 when he was 22 years old. He was a founding member of the B.C. Treaty Commission and in the spring of 2005, he was on the executive of the First Nations Summit when Aboriginal leaders and the provincial government drafted the vision for the "New Relationship." "It was exciting," he says. "Three years earlier we had been fighting the referendum on treaty-related issues and suddenly we were talking about doing business in a new way." These days, he wonders when the change in perspective at the upper level of government will make its way down the chain of command. "The premier talks about it being a new relationship but right now it's from the neck up," he says. "It hasn't got to the arms and legs, all those civil servants who actually do the work of the province of B.C." To ensure that happens, he says "First Nations need to make clear and pronounced statements about what we want and how that change ought to be carried out." Reconciliation season The farmhouse where I live sits on the north shore of the Fraser River in the traditional territory of the Leq'a:me'l First Nation. There were once several large villages here and the Sto:lo say this is where the Halkomelem language likely originated. A 20-minute drive to the west, the Xa:ytem Interpretive Longhouse stands on the site of a 9,000 year-old Sto:lo village. This past October, a gala ceremony here drew the lieutenant-governors of both British Columbia and Washington State to celebrate the return of the site to the Sto:lo. The ceremony at Xa:ytem was part of an unprecedented spate of reconciliation-themed events that took place in the Fraser Valley last year. They began in February when Washington State acknowledged responsibility for the murder of a 14-year-old Sto:lo youth in 1884 - an acknowledgement that was helped along by a powerful locally-produced film, The Lynching of Louie Sam. In August, a somber ceremony marked the return of the land and buildings of St. Mary's residential school to the Sto:lo. Then in October, the Sto:lo celebrated the repatriation of T'xwelatse, an ancient stone statue, from the Burke Museum in Seattle. Grand Chief Clarence Pennier was on the podium at several of these ceremonies. A long-time Sto:lo leader, he first sat on council in his home community of Scowlitz in the early 1970s. These days, Pennier is the president of the Sto:lo Tribal Council. After more than 30 years of fighting for the recognition of Aboriginal rights and title, he has no illusions about the government's motivation for the new relationship. "We have to ask Campbell: 'What made you do a 180?'" he says. "It's not his heart. It's court cases. When he lost his own case, he couldn't appeal it because he had been elected by then, but he understands why he lost. As a province, B.C. doesn't actually own the land and resources. That's what the courts say. That's what the constitution says." Pennier points out it has been First Nations' persistent search for justice that lies behind the pivotal court cases that changed the government's position and led to the recent spate of ceremonies in the valley. "The return of St. Mary's took 20 years," he says. "It was 15 years for Xa:ytem and T'xwelatse took 14 years." "The ceremonies are important," he says. "They raise people's awareness that things can change at the political level and they help to establish relationships." But he is quick to say that much more is needed. "Unless people see change happening in communities, in policies, in legislation, then people will gear up again. If we can't get anything politically, we have to try direct action." "It's about respect," he says. "It's how we live together and create a better future for all of us." Australia says 'Sorry' Reconciliation caught the attention of ordinary Australians in 1997, the same year that the Delgamuukw decision rewrote the nature of Aboriginal- Crown relations in B.C. While newspapers here tried to convey the meaning of a complex legal case that left most British Columbians bored, scared or confused, headlines in Australia told the riveting tale of a judge and WWII fighter pilot who was transformed into a passionate advocate demanding his country apologize to indigenous Australians. When Sir Ronald Wilson took on the job of leading a public inquiry into Australia's residential schools, he believed, like most Australians, that Aboriginal children had been taken out of wretched conditions and given the benefits of white society. Instead he heard months of testimony about the tragic repercussions of a policy that severed children from their language, culture and lands, destroyed families, and left an intergenerational legacy of lost parenting skills, shattered physical and mental health, and high mortality rates. Sir Ronald demanded that Australia acknowledge its crime and make reparations to the "stolen generations." Prime Minister John Howard thought indigenous Australians had won too many concessions already, so he said "No." The furor that ensued plunged Australia into an intense debate about the responsibility of present generations for past crimes. The tide peaked on May 28, 2000, when a quarter of a million Australians walked across the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Planes flew overhead and wrote "Sorry" in the sky. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians looked one another in the eye and smiled. The walk inspired Australian author Kate Grenville to write Secret River, an acclaimed novel that uses her ancestors as a jumping off point for exploring the consequences of settling on land that already belongs to someone else. Last year, at Vancouver's Writers Festival, she said the walk came about because people felt in their guts the need to do something. Moving out of denial "Do British Columbians feel the need for reconciliation in their guts?" Chilliwack writer Stephanie Gould asked me one afternoon. She thought not. I met Gould last spring when she helped organize a film festival about the survival and revival of Indigenous culture in the Pacific Northwest. Hugh Brody, the author, filmmaker and anthropologist who currently holds the Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Studies at the University College of the Fraser Valley (UCFV), was the motivating force behind the festival that played first at the British Museum in London and a month later at UCFV. Opening night drew a 100 people to Chilliwack City Hall. During the discussion, a young girl of Aboriginal ancestry raised her hand. "The films made me think about what we have lost," she said and her quiet voice broke. She recovered and continued. "I feel like here at the film festival, what was taken away from us is being given back." That weekend, while the rest of the valley basked in the first warm weather in months, a group of several dozen of us, mostly middle-aged white people, sat in a darkened theatre and watched film after film that showed a version of history none of us had learned in school. After one film, a man blurted out, "This history is so recent - it happened yesterday. And it's so embarrassing." Late on Sunday afternoon, a woman asked, "How do we, as non-Aboriginal people, support others in moving out of denial about what happened here?" To sit through the film festival was to feel the need for reconciliation in your guts. And it wasn't comfortable. "What has taken place in the Fraser Valley," Hugh Brody said in a recent conversation, "happens all over the world where cultures collide and then have to deal with the fallout of these encounters and the pain and disarray that always seems to come with them." He pointed out that when people are in denial, or when they are unaware of the history they live with, they create risks to themselves and to one another. "If communities are to live together in a healthy way," he said, "they must avoid these non-truths." The right path From the field above my house, you can see the lights of Chilliwack, 10 kilometres away across the Fraser River. This central region of the valley has been home to a concentration of Sto:lo communities for thousands of years. Prior to the smallpox epidemic, this was one of the most densely settled areas of the continent north of Mexico. Today, while communities like the Leq'a:me'l live on rural reserves, across the river in Chilliwack nine of the Sto:lo bands have much of their land base within the boundaries of the steadily growing municipality. Joe Hall is chief of one of those bands, the Tzeachten First Nation. He is also the president of Sto:lo Nation, an alliance of 11 bands from throughout the valley. I met him at his office just south of Chilliwack's Wal-Mart and Canadian Tire in the Sto:lo Nation Government House. This used to be the site of the Coqualeetza Industrial Institute, a residential school that closed in 1940 and was replaced by an Indian hospital that operated until 1969 when Canada ended its policy of segregated health care for Aboriginal people. "This is a new path," Chief Hall says about the provincial government's reconciliation efforts. "It's the right path, and the bugs are going to work themselves out, maybe not as quickly as we would like, but it did take many years to develop the situation we're in." After decades of sparring with the city of Chilliwack, Hall now enjoys a good relationship with the municipality. "Maybe we had to go through that to get to here, but the importance of having a better working relationship is priceless because it's so much easier to work in an environment of cooperation than one where there is constant controversy and debate." He feels these good news stories need to come out of the closet. "A tiny example in the Tzeachten community is the shopping centre we built. We didn't lease it out, we own it. We got Save-On-Foods, Tim Hortons, and Royal Bank to come on and that was unheard of in this area. It's made us a player in the local economy." As Hall sees it, politicians in B.C. are leading; citizens and bureaucrats are lagging behind. "I know it's been said a lot, but we need to educate the public. Unfortunately the loudest and most controversial people who speak about these initiatives are often the redneck component of our society and the people who are probably in support of reconciliation stay quiet - they don't want to run into their redneck neighbor and have to battle it out." "And in some cases the bureaucrats, as a component of the community, don't understand what the new relationship is trying to achieve. Then they are left to implement initiatives and the danger is that it never actually filters down." Bottom up or top down In Australia, the challenge has been to get reconciliation to filter up. The last week in May has become National Reconciliation Week, organized by the non-governmental organization Reconciliation Australia which is working to close the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Public pressure has led the government to introduce sweeping policy changes, but they have come under fire for being disorganized, under-funded, and failing to include Indigenous voices. In B.C., the courts have acted as our conscience, and economic pain motivated politicians to finally respond. The resulting reconciliation process has been mostly top down, but ultimately it must take root among ordinary British Columbians. The unfinished business of reconciliation may be uncomfortable, but it is not going away. Later this year, as part of the settlement with residential school survivors (who continue to wait for cash compensation), Canada's first Truth and Reconciliation Commission will begin traveling the country to acknowledge the legacy of residential schools. National Chief Phil Fontaine, himself a residential school survivor, has said that, "First Nations are determined to send the message to the world that 'Never again' will such a racist agenda be tolerated in Canada." In B.C. one of the main thrusts of the new relationship is closing the socio-economic gap. The efforts of the province and Aboriginal leaders to change the realities of shorter life expectancy (seven years below the provincial average for First Nations), higher incarceration rates, and lower incomes and graduation rates will ensure the statistical gap, with its subtext of injustice, continues to make headlines. Treaties will also continue to appear in the headlines, starting this weekend with the results from Prince George of the Lheidli T'enneh vote on the first final agreement to be reached under the B.C. treaty process. Two other agreements, these with the Tsawwassen and Maa-nulth First Nations, will also be voted on by their communities later this year, while 51 First Nations remain engaged in the process. In the Fraser Valley, the nations affiliated with Sto:lo Tribal Council are among the 40 per cent of B.C. First Nations currently abstaining from treaty talks, while Sto:lo Nation (which represents eight bands at the treaty table) is pushing to have a final agreement in place by spring 2008. In the summer of 2008, the People Together Foundation, under the leadership of Chief Leonard George and Lt. Gov. Iona Campagnolo, is reaching out to ordinary British Columbians and inviting them to join a Walk for Reconciliation that will be held in Vancouver to mark B.C.'s 150th birthday. In a good way You can catch a glimpse of the Kilgaard longhouse while driving the #1 Highway from Abbotsford to Chilliwack. Last October, when the stone statue T'xwelatse was repatriated from Seattle's Burke Museum and returned to Sto:lo territory for the first time in over 100 years, the longhouse was filled with a capacity crowd that included many non-Aboriginal valley residents who had never seen the inside of a longhouse before, never heard the honor songs of the Sto:lo or seen the sacred masks that were danced that night. Standing four feet high, with elliptical eyes, a curious smile and an undeniably strong presence, the granite statue is far larger than any other Pacific Northwest stone sculpture that survives from pre-contact times. According to Sto:lo history, the stone holds the shxweli or life force of a Sto:lo ancestor, a man named T'xwelatse who got into trouble for fighting with his wife and was turned to stone. For generations, the stone stood before Sto:lo longhouses as an embodiment of the teaching that human beings must learn to live together in a good way. Since receiving this fellowship, I have discovered a great deal about the place that I now call home. The Sto:lo are as much a part of the Fraser Valley as the cedars that grow on the mountains and the salmon that spawn in the rivers. The human history of the valley runs back thousands of years, a reality that many of us newcomers are only just beginning to appreciate. In the following weeks, this series explores what is being done in the valley to move away from the divided past of the last 150 years and create a shared future. Upcoming articles visit the valley's schools, forests, and negotiating tables to find out if the new relationship is changing things on the ground, and to search for answers as to how we can all learn to live together in a good way. The Tyee, thetyee.ca Copyright c. 2003 - 2007. --------- "RE: Reconciliation: Beyond Teepees and Igloos" --------- Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 08:11:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RECONCILIATION: THE HUMANS BEYOND THE STEREOTYPES" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/04/06/Reconcile-Ed Beyond 'Teepees and Igloos' Reconciling with First Nations begins in the classroom. By Sandra Shields TheTyee.ca April 6, 2007 Tyee Interview [Editor's Note: Two years ago, the government of British Columbia and First Nations leaders laid out a vision for a "New Relationship," spurring initiatives aimed at "closing the gap" between Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal British Columbians. This is the second article in a four-part Tyee Solutions Reporting Fellowship series by Sandra Shields, who is looking at steps being taken in her home community of the Fraser Valley. To learn more about Shields, her series and Tyee fellowships, go here.] Reconciling with First Nations: A Reader-funded Solutions Series about the Reconciling with First Nations series Cedar shavings pile up and kids cluster around as carver Tom Patterson coaxes the rough shape of a bear cub out of one end of an 11-foot log. The sidewalk behind Deroche Elementary School is serving as Patterson's makeshift carving studio for six weeks while he carves a house post for the school's front entrance. Lunch break brings a steady flow of students; after a few weeks Patterson already knows most of their names. He swaps stories and cookies with the stream of young onlookers and lets those who are keen try their hand at carving. I came to Deroche Elementary to find out what kids today are learning about Aboriginal people. The question seemed fundamental to the idea of a new relationship. My own 1970s education taught a version of Aboriginal culture and history that ran to little more than teepees, igloos and the fur trade. That truncated account supported the story mainstream Canada still likes to tell itself over beers after work. Since beginning this project, I've heard variations on it from valley rednecks and urban sophisticates alike. The story goes that before the settlers arrived there weren't many people here and they weren't really using the land. The government created reserves and gave Aboriginal people the benefits of technology and education. Usually the conclusion is some twist on how it all happened a long time ago and Aboriginal people should get over it. In questioning Sto:lo leaders about the new relationship, one of the themes that kept recurring was the need for ordinary British Columbians to better understand what happened here. In the literature about reconciliation, the point is made repeatedly that shifts in worldviews are part of the process. I was in South Africa during the heady days when Nelson Mandela was president and the oft-heard refrain was that hope for a shared future lay with the children. By venturing into Deroche Elementary, I hoped to get a feel for the story the next generation of British Columbians will be telling. Inner-city in the country In many respects Deroche is like an inner-city school in the country. "We draw from five trailer parks and two reserves," principal Murray Butt tells me one afternoon in the library. "A lot of our kids come to school not ready to start school." The school runs a breakfast club, has a pre- kindergarten program, an Aboriginal support worker, and "puts a real focus on literacy and numeracy right off the bat." Murray Butt brought his high energy and ready smile to Deroche Elementary six years ago. Soon after he arrived he was asked whether a weekend visitor to the school would find any clues to tell them how unique the student body was. "Fifty per cent of our students were Aboriginal," Butt says, "and there was nothing in the school that reflected that." The staff put the goal of raising awareness of Aboriginal culture into the school's growth plan, but it was a meeting between Butt and Johnny Williams, a parent from the nearby Scowlitz reserve, that really got the ball rolling. Williams was an Aboriginal support worker in the Abbotsford school system and was able to guide staff in making culturally appropriate choices. "We were lucky to have a person with his skills to help us," Butt says. Williams connected the school with a Sto:lo artist and soon there was Aboriginal artwork on the walls. The school's logo was redone with an Aboriginal design and emblazoned on T-shirts worn proudly by kids and teachers. Although there was some initial uncertainty from a few non-Aboriginal parents, often it was the result of misunderstandings such as when one mom thought the Halkomelem words her child was learning were replacing French lessons, and generally staff has been able to allay concerns. Resources for teaching Aboriginal content have expanded exponentially in the last 15 years. In November, the province released a 200-page guide for including Aboriginal culture in every subject from art to math. As well, teachers have access to Aboriginal presenters from the community who come into the classroom to share traditional knowledge about subjects as wide ranging as carving, making bannock and learning about local plant life. All kids benefit "We make sure there is an opportunity every term for doing something that is related to the culture," Murray Butt says. In the past, Aboriginal students were pulled out of class for cultural learning and staff at Deroche felt it was important to change that. "We do it for all of our kids, we don't want just the Aboriginal students to benefit from learning about the culture," Butt says.