Ayahuasca vine / Photo by Paul Hessell, Flickr, Creative Commons By Christina Callicott / 03.04.2017 PhD Student in Cultural Anthropology University of Florida Introduction I’m guessing that by now most of my readers will have heard of this stuff called “ayahuasca.” Everyone from Stephen Colbert to the New Yorker is talking about it, some in[…]
Kumeyaay coiled basket, woven by Celestine Lachapa, 19th century / Photo by Durova (Wikimedia Commons), San Diego Museum of Man By Dr. Margaret Field / 12.19.2013 Professor of American Indian Studies San Diego State University The Kumeyaay Community of Baja California Anthony Pico, PhD, tribal chairman of the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, speaking at[…]
People at the United Tribes Technical College Powwow are photographed as an ambrotype in 2016. The crowd raised their right hands in support of Native Americans everywhere. / Ambrotype by Shane Balkowitsch Using an early photographic process, one photographer hopes to draw a line connecting what happened to the Dakota people in Mankato, Minnesota, 155 years[…]
Huckleberries / Creative Commons Forced assimilation destroyed most nations’ diets, but now Native youth are learning to integrate local foods back into their daily lives. By J. Gabriel Ware / 06.06.2017 Researcher Abaki Beck, 23, has vivid childhood memories of helping her mother, grandmothers, and aunts pick traditional foods and medicines on the Blackfeet Nation[…]
Cofán Dureno indigenous activist in the Ecuadorean Amazon. / Rainforest Action Network, Creative Commons By Dr. Jorge Gómez Rendón / 12.19.2013 Professor of Anthropology University of Amsterdam Indigenous Languages in Ecuador: Survival and Change Distribution of Quechua sub-groups. Kichwa is shown in light blue / Wikimedia Commons Ecuador is the smallest of the Andean countries[…]
An activist at a protest rally at the White House against the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines in Washington, D.C. Kevin Lamarque By Dr. Rosalyn LaPier / 03.21.2017 Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Montana Visiting Professor of Women’s Studies, Environmental Studies, and Native American Religion, Harvard Universtiy The Lakota phrase “Mní wičhóni,”[…]
The Kaminaljuyú clay figurine from the Middle to late Preclassic (1500 BC – 150 AD). (Kaminal Juyú from the Ki´ché words meaning “hills of the dead.”) / Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York By Guity Novin / 03.23.2014 Graphic Designer, Artist The Maya of Mesoamerica, together with the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of[…]
Navajo pottery / Dallas Museum of Art By Guity Novin / 03.23.2014 Graphic Designer, Artist The graphic design of the native American pottery is original and almost always symbolic . Technically, all known Pre-Colombian American pottery was made entirely by hand and there is no evidence that a native American potter ever invented the potter’s[…]
By Mark Sorensen / 03.07.2017 The Power of Human Connection Forty years ago, I moved to the heart of the Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona. I was a graduate student, working on my PhD at the University of Illinois, and I wanted to live for a while among the People, the Diné, to find out[…]
Photograph of Geronimo kneeling with his rifle, by Ben Wittick, 1887 / Wikimedia Commons In 1906, Geronimo published his autobiography recounting the fascinating story of his life, from his years as a resistance fighter, to his capture and subsequent period of celebrity in which he appeared at the 1904 St Louis World Fair and met[…]
A woman holds Pope Francis’ head during his meeting with representatives of indigenous peoples at the Vatican on Feb. 15, 2017. L’Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP By Dr. Rosalyn LaPier / 02.16.2017 Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Montana Visiting Professor of Women’s Studies, Environmental Studies, and Native American Religion, Harvard Universtiy For several[…]
Road Canyon Citadel. Photo from Bureau of Land Management / Flickr. By permanently protecting an area rich in indigenous cultural history, Obama has shown that some things are worth more than money. By Jacqueline Keeler / 01.06.2017 On Dec. 28, with only 22 days left in office, President Obama set aside nearly 1.35 million acres in[…]
By Anthony Finley Co. of Philadelphia via Wikimedia Commons. To deal with a Trump administration, the tribal nation might now want to use that 200-year-old treaty right. By Tristan Ahtone / 01.04.2017 As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to occupy the Oval Office, much of Indian Country is bracing for the worst. But the U.S. Congress[…]
Selu, Cherokee “first woman” and corn goddess On the Passing of Mary Brave Bird (“Crow Dog”) By April Weller Cantrell On February 18, 2013, my husband, Mark, came to the doorway of our family room and told me he had just read that Mary Brave Bird (Crow Dog) had passed from this life on to[…]
By Robert Lindneux in the Woolaroc Museum, Bartlesville, Oklahoma From the National Park Service The Trail of Tears Historic Trail follows the land and water routes followed by American Indians during removal. The largest group of Cherokees followed the land route, leaving Tennessee in the late fall of 1838 and arriving in Indian Territory in[…]
These stories are from James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Mooney was an ethnologist that worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Between 1887 and 1890 he did fieldwork with the Cherokee, mainly in North Carolina but also in Oklahoma. He published[…]
By Kenneth Greg Watson Historian Current scientific data indicate that Native Americans arrived from Siberia via the Bering Sea land bridge about 12,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age. Native Americans in King County, who are united by a common Lushootseed or Salish language system, believe they were created in this area at the[…]
The pipeline leaked an estimated 176,400 barrels of crude into Ash Coulee Creek near Belfield, North Dakota. (Photo: North Dakota Department of Health) Monitoring equipment failed to detect the breakage, and it is unknown how long the pipeline was leaking before a landowner discovered it By Nika Knight / 12.13.2016 A pipeline just two and[…]
Photo b y Pax Ahimsa Gethen By Nancy Romer / 12.12.2016 The power of this strategy impacts everyone who enters the camp and the movement; the pull of this approach is enormous. Victory… for now. After eight months, starting with a few hundred young Native Americans and swelling to up to 15,000 people in the[…]
By Matthew A. McIntosh / 12.04.2016 Brewminate Editor-in-Chief The Army Corps of Engineers, on orders from President Obama, has issued directives that Dakota Access Pipeline construction be halted based on its current easement projection. DAPL will not be allowed to run the pipeline through the Missouri River as planned. As protesters celebrate the victory, law[…]
The Oceti Sakowin camp is seen in a snow storm during a protest against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, November 29, 2016. / Credit: Stephanie Keith/Reuters By T.J. Raphael / 12.01.2016 Snowfall has made its way to North Dakota, adding an element[…]
Water protectors on horseback at the Oceti Sakowin camp. (Photo: Reuters) “I signed up to serve my country and my people.” By Nika Knight / 12.02.2016 As tensions grow in North Dakota, with multiple eviction orders facing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in their battle against the Dakota Access Pipeline, U.S. military veterans on Friday[…]
Rally against the Dakota Access Pipeline, St. Paul. MN, September 13, 2016 – Flickr CC Licensed photo Conflict of interest not just on display but flouted. President-elect Donald Trump has officially endorsed the Dakota Access Pipeline, a project in which he holds two different investments. The controversial project originates in the Bakken oil fields (fracking[…]
The Oceti Sakowin camp is currently home to thousands of water protectors and allies. (Photo: Reuters) ‘If the Army Corps tears down this protest camp hundreds more will spring up in its place,’ says filmmaker Josh Fox By Deirdre Fulton / 11.26.2016 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Friday informed Indigenous water protectors and[…]
North Dakota is stretched thin in its battle to protect the Dakota Access pipeline construction: Costs are nearing $15 million, and police reinforcements are diminishing. By Jenni Monet / 11.23.2016 Photos by Rob Wilson Agents with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be the latest agency assisting Morton County Sheriff Department deputies to guard[…]
Water protectors march against the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Photo: Andrew Cullen/Reuters) “Let’s stop this savage injustice being committed right here at home. If not us, who? If not now, when?” By Nika Knight / 11.24.2016 Over 1,000 U.S. military veterans are planning to “deploy” to join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and peacefully support the[…]
Members and supporters of the Arapaho and Cheyenne Native American tribes, 2014. AP Photo/Brennan Linsley By Dr. Billy J. Stratton / 11.21.2016 Professor of Native American Studies and Contemporary American Literature University of Denver Every Thanksgiving weekend for the past 17 years, Arapaho and Cheyenne youth lead a 180-mile relay from the Sand Creek Massacre[…]
Photo by Rob Wilson Trump will try to fast-track fossil fuel projects across the country. That makes the final months of President Obama’s term more important than ever. By Tom Goldtooth and Annie Leonard / 11.18.2016 With Donald Trump’s presidency on the horizon, it is now more important than ever for President Obama to stop[…]
By Liam Purvis / 11.03.2016 Important Tips for Non-Natives Who Want to Support Standing Rock A brief disclaimer: As a relatively young white man, I am not an expert in white allyship for native causes, and am in no way a spokesperson for any indigenous movement. I was inspired to write this piece only because[…]
(Rob Wilson photo) Amnesty International are sending a delegation of human rights observers to monitor the response of law enforcement to the protests. Native American leaders vowed on Saturday to protest through the winter against a North Dakota oil pipeline they say threatens water resources and sacred lands and are planning lawsuits over police treatment[…]