The First Salmon ceremony being performed. U.S. Department of Agriculture , Public Domain Indigenous people from around the world revere certain traditional foods as sacred. By Dr. Rosalyn R. LaPier / 06.15.2018 Associate Professor of Environmental Studies The University of Montana The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling, on June 11, that asked Washington state to remove culverts that block the migration of salmon.[…]
The unfinished Crazy Horse memorial in Custer County, South Dakota. Bernd00/Wikimedia Commons More than a century after he died, the Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, who famously fought General Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn, is thought of as transcendent force. By Dr. Henry Adams / 10.29.2017 Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History Case Western Reserve University[…]
It’s not too late to explore our ancient history, and we can begin by grasping a better understanding of tribal perspectives on landmarks, place names, and the historical people and events that make them significant. / Photo by DEA/F. BARBAGALLO/De Agostini/Getty Images The ancient history of this country is often overlooked. Here are landmarks significant to[…]
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 Pope Francis, defending Native American protests on the North Dakota pipeline issue, said indigenous cultures have a right to defend ‘their ancestral relationship to the Earth.’ By Dr. Rosalyn R. LaPier / 02.16.2017 Associate Professor of Environmental Studies[…]
Sam Oozevaseuk Schimmel, 18, has grown up in both Alaska and Washington state. He is an advocate for Native Alaskan youth. / Photo by Kiliii Yuyan, NPR More than 50 years after the federal government forced hundreds of Native Alaskans into boarding schools, their descendants are haunted by — and trying to overcome — residual trauma.[…]
Cherokee Heritage Museum / Photo by Wesley Fryer, Wikimedia Commons How many Native Americans died on the Trail of Tears? By Dr. Ellen Holmes Pearson Professor of History University of North Carolina, Asheville The “Trail of Tears” refers specifically to Cherokee removal in the first half of the 19th century, when about 16,000 Cherokees were forcibly[…]
By Dr. Susan Stebbins Professor of Cultural Anthropology State University of New York at Potsdam Introduction When most of us who now live in the United States and Canada learn about the history of our homeland, material starts with Christopher Columbus’s landing on islands in the Caribbean in 1492. Little attention is given to the[…]
Basketry bowl with checkerboard and arrow head motif / Mint Museum Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 04.25.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief 1 – The New World 1.1 – Introduction Indigenous visual arts traditions in the Americas span thousands of years, representing cultures from Mesoamerica to the Arctic. The New World refers to the western hemisphere,[…]
Overview of Pueblo Bonito / Photo by John Wiley, Wikimedia Commons By Dr. P. Scott Corbett, et.al. Professor of History Ventura College Introduction In Europe supported by Africa and America (1796), artist William Blake, who was an abolitionist, depicts the interdependence of the three continents in the Atlantic World; however, he places gold armbands on the[…]
In the 19th century, federal policy shifted from a policy of extermination and displacement to assimilation. The passage of the Civilization Fund Act in 1819 allocated federal funds directly to education for the purpose of assimilation, and that led to the formation of many government-run boarding schools. / Photo by Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images. More than a century ago, the last[…]
Sculptural ceramic ceremonial vessel that represents a dog, c. 100-800 C.E., Moche, Peru, 180 mm high (Museo Larco). This spotted dog is represented in several scenes of Moche art accompanying Ai Apaec, the Moche mythological hero. By Dr. Sarahh Scher / 08.27.2016 Visiting Lecturer in Art History Salem State University A Complex Culture Moche architects and artists[…]
By Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank / 08.09.2015 Assistant Professor of Art History Pepperdine University Wanted: stunning view Cliff dwellings, Ancestral Puebloan, 450–1300 C.E., sandstone, Mesa Verde National Park, (photo: Steven Zucker, CC: BY-NC-SA 2.0) Imagine living in a home built into the side of a cliff. The Ancestral Puebloan peoples (formerly known as the Anasazi) did just that in some of[…]
Photo by Ivor Molleema, Florida Department of State In an unprecedented discovery, archaeologists identify a site where prehistoric people once buried their dead—now submerged beneath the waves. By Megan Gannon / 02.28.2018 Venice is Florida’s unofficial capital of fossil hunting. Divers and beachcombers flock to this city on the Gulf Coast, mostly seeking palm-sized teeth[…]
Direct genetic traces of the earliest Native Americans have been identified for the first time in a new study. The genetic evidence suggests that people may have entered the continent in a single migratory wave, perhaps arriving more than 20,000 years ago. 01.03.2018 The data, which came from archaeological finds in Alaska, also points to[…]
Wakeah Jhane’s mother and little sister in family heirloom cradleboard / Photo provided by Wakeah Jhane Native women are once again embracing the cradleboard because it’s both artistic and utilitarian. By Chelsey Luger / 01.02.2018 There are strollers and swings, high chairs and play yards, vibration seats and musical floor mats. When it comes to devices[…]
“Greg is the first Native man I ever heard talk in such depth about what happened to him. He let us know that we can no longer be silent.” All photos by Mary Annette Pember By Mary Annette Pember / 12.28.2017 By the numbers, Native Americans reliably top lists of violence, poverty, unemployment, and addiction in the United States. Taken alone,[…]
By Dr. E.M. Rose / 11.21.2017 Visiting Fellow, Department of History Harvard University Two of the most famous Native Americans in early colonial history may well have met in London. Matoaka, nicknamed Pocahontas, who lived near the Jamestown settlement in Virginia and Tisquantum, better known as Squanto, who greeted the Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts, were[…]
Bessie Black Horn created the Many Hands shirt around 1910 to commemorate the “multiple handshakes” that her husband, Chief Daniel Black Horn, had with European dignitaries. / Photo by Daniel Black Horn By Dr. Stephen E. Nash / 05.11.2017 Archaeologist and Historian of Science Denver Museum of Nature & Science In late 2013, I got[…]
To Hopi traditionalists—Hopis who practice traditional culture—the humble one-seed juniper tree has deep cultural meaning. / Photo by Mark Sykes In the American Southwest, the loss of juniper trees at the hands of mining and development could cost the Hopi a crucial part of their heritage. By Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa (left) and Dr. Chip Colwell[…]
Colorado River. AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File By Dr. Rosalyn R. LaPier / 10.08.2017 Associate Professor of Environmental Studies The University of Montana The environmental group Deep Green Resistance recently filed a first-of-its-kind legal suit against the state of Colorado asking for personhood rights for the Colorado River. If successful, it would mean lawsuits can brought on behalf of the river[…]
The family story Perline Boyattia grew up with said her ancestors were Cherokee Indians. Her oral history was similar to the spoken record of other black families in Oklahoma. / Photo by Jenni Monet A landmark decision offers opportunity for healing between descendants of slaveholders and slaves. By Jenni Monet / 09.06.2017 Four days after[…]
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[…]