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The Spring Beauty
An old man was sitting in his lodge, by the side of a frozen stream. It was the end of Winter, the air was not so cold, and his fire was nearly out. He was old and alone. His locks were white with age, and he trembled in every joint. Day after day passed, and he heard nothing but the sound of the storm sweeping before it the new-fallen snow.
One day while his fire was dying, a handsome young man entered the lodge. His cheeks were red, his eyes sparkled. He walked with a quick, light step. His forehead was bound with sweet-grass, and he carried a bunch of fragrant flowers in his hand.
"Ah, my Son," said the old man, "I am happy to see you. Come in. Tell me your adventures, and what strange lands you have seen. I will tell you my wonderful deeds, and what I can perform. You shall do the same, and we will amuse each other."
The old man then drew from a bag a curiously wrought pipe. He filled it with mild tobacco, and handed it to his guest. They each smoked from the pipe, and then began their stories.
"I am Peboan, the Spirit of Winter," said the old man. "I blow my breath, and the streams stand still. The water becomes stiff and hard as clear stone."
"I am Seegwun, the Spirit of Spring," answered the youth. "I breathe, and flowers spring up in the meadows and woods."
"I shake my locks," said the old man, "and the snow covers the land. The leaves fall from the trees, and my breath blows them away. The birds fly to the distant land, and the animals hide themselves from the cold."
"I shake my ringlets," said the young man, "and the warm showers of soft rain fall upon the Earth. The flowers lift their heads from the ground, and the grass grows thick and green. My voice recalls the birds, and they come flying joyfully from the South-land. The warmth of my breath unbinds the streams, and they sing the songs of Summer. Music fills the groves wherever I walk, and all Nature rejoices."
And while they were thus talking, a wonderful change took place. The Sun began to rise. A gentle warmth stole over the place. Peboan, the Spirit of Winter, became silent. His head drooped, and the snow outside the lodge melted away. Seegwun, the Spirit of Spring, grew more radiant, and rose joyfully to his feet. The Robin and the Bluebird began to sing on the top of the lodge. The stream murmured past the door, and the fragrance of opening flowers came softly on the breeze.
The lodge faded away, and Peboan sank down and dissolved into tiny streams of water, that vanished under the brown leaves of the forest.
Thus the Spirit of Winter departed, and where he melted away the Indian children gathered the first blossoms, fragrant and delicately pink, the modest Spring Beauty.
This is an Ojibwe legend that I first heard as a youngster one spring as we admired patches of spring beauty nestled in sunny spots in the woods. Here, I am fortunate to have a patch of wild spring beauty that pops up in my front yard, usually late in April. They live on the roots of a great ash tree that unfortunately had to be cut down a couple of years ago. I hope they can continue to survive, though their host tree is gone.
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Glorioski, Check this out, and this is 2010
This is from CBC News, cite at the end.
First Nations leaders in Manitoba are expressing outrage about an online classified ad that offered to round up and "extract" aboriginal youth from parts of Winnipeg and transport them like wild animals to reserves or an area of the city where many aboriginal people live.
The ad, titled "Native Extraction Service," was posted on the website
UsedWinnipeg.com, but was taken down by 1:38 p.m. CT on Thursday.
Underneath the title was a picture of three aboriginal males, who look to be in their mid to late teens.
The text of the ad read: "Have you ever had the experience of getting home to find those pesky little buggers hanging outside your home, in the back alley or on the corner???
"Well fear no more, with my service I will simply do a harmless relocation. With one phone call I will arrive and net the pest, load them in the containment unit [[pickup truck) and then relocate them to their habitat.
It doesn't matter if they need to be dropped off on Salter [[Street, in Winnipeg's North End) or the rez, I will go that extra mile." The North End of Winnipeg is where many city dwellers of First Nations descent live.
"My service is free because I want to live in the same city you do, a clean one," the ad said.
On Thursday, First Nations leaders at Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak [[MKO), an organization representing most First Nations communities in northern Manitoba, said they want police to investigate the ad as a hate crime. [Northern Chiefs -- Gaz]
"The way it's worded, 'to relocate them to their habitat.' Here we are trying to teach our kids better. The kids out there are told they're not wanted," said MKO Grand Chief David Harper. "This is unacceptable," he added.
The website where the ad was posted is owned by a Victoria-based company called Black Press, which owns a separate enterprise called UsedEverywhere.com.That business operates 47 online classified sites, including the UsedWinnipeg.com site.
On Thursday, UsedEverywhere.com apologized for the ad, which had been posted at midnight on Wednesday.
General manager Tish Hill said it was pulled after users deemed it offensive. Hill said that although the company conducts active monitoring of ads that get placed, offensive material does slip through on occasion.
While Hill said she would not reveal to CBC News who posted the ad, she said the information would be turned over to police should they choose to investigate.
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Maple Sugaring
In Ojibwe tradition, this month is the Maple Sugar Moon, iskigamizige-giizis. This time of year, the maple sap begins to flow, as long as the days are warm and the nights are cold. In the past, the Ojibwe people would leave their winter homes and travel to places where their clan or village collected and boiled off the maple sap to make sugar.
There is a story told of one woman, Susan Johnston, Ozhaguscodaywikwe of Sault Ste. Marie, who would go to Sugar Island with her daughters and they would return with up to two tons of sugar. She was the daughter of Waubojiig, a principle chief, the wife of John Johnston, fur trader. [Woman of the Green Glade, White Fisher]
Their daughter, Jane, Obaabaamwaywaygiizhigokwe, married Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Indian agent. She was the source of the information Henry provided to Longfellow as he wrote the Song of Hiawatha. [The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky Woman]
Maple sugar is made by tapping the trees, in such a way that the tree is not permanently injured or starved. The sap flows from the tap into a bucket from which it is collected and poured into large pots on fires constantly tended. The object is to boil off the water and eventually produce sugar.
Though iron pots were not available until Europeans came to trade, it was still possible to boil the sap in bark containers, for as long as the liquid remains above the fire level, the bark will not burn. There is also a way to reduce the liquid by pouring the raw sap into shallow containers to freeze overnight. With the ice removed, there is a much greater concentration of the sweet nectar that will eventually become sugar.
The sap will flow as long as the days are mild and the nights are freezing. Once it slows down, the tap holes are carefully plugged to help the tree heal.
We tapped three trees in our yard and used our wood heating stove to boil the sap to produce sugar. A couple of quarts of sap made about a pint of good syrup in about 12 hours. You have to be careful not to boil it too hot or it will scorch. We never processed it until it turned to sugar, so I don't know how that works. I am very impressed with Ozhaguscodaywikwe and her family making as much as a couple of tons of sugar. It was a valuable commodity and must have brought a good income for her family.
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Sappy story
I wish I had kept my taps and buckets! I noticed yesterday that the tree in our front yard is weeping tears of sap onto our driveway. I don't recall this happening before, so I hope the tree is OK. We have four maples we could tap. I don't believe any are actually sugar maples, but we have found any maple will produce a sweet sap that can be boiled into syrup. In fact, birch sap can also be tapped and yields a wintergreen flavored syrup. I have not tried other trees but the idea is intriguing that more kinds of syrup can be tried.
It really isn't practical for us to do it here since we have no continuous economical heat source like a wood stove, and outdoor burning is prohibited. :mad:
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Manabozho and the Maple Trees
This is an Ojibwe story. In some parts of our land, this person is called Nanabozho or Nanabush. In others, he is Manabozho.
A very long time ago, when the world was new, Gitchee Manitou made things so that life was very easy for the people. There was plenty of game and the weather was always good and the maple trees were filled with thick sweet syrup. Whenever anyone wanted to get maple syrup from the trees, all they had to do was break off a twig and collect it as it dripped out.
One day, Manabozho went walking around. "I think I'll go see how my friends the Anishinaabe are doing," he said. So, he went to a village of Indian people. But, there was no one around. So, Manbozho looked for the people. They were not fishing in the streams or the lake. They were not working in the fields hoeing their crops. They were not gathering berries. Finally, he found them. They were in the grove of maple trees near the village. They were just lying on their backs with their mouths open, letting maple syrup drip into their mouths.
"This will NOT do!" Manabozho said. "My people are all going to be fat and lazy if they keep on living this way."
So, Manabozho went down to the river. He took with him a big basket he had made of birch bark. With this basket, he brought back many buckets of water. He went to the top of the maple trees and poured water in, so that it thinned out the syrup. Now, thick maple syrup no longer dripped out of the broken twigs. Now what came out was thin and watery and just barely sweet to the taste.
"This is how it will be from now on," Manabozho said. "No longer will syrup drip from the maple trees. Now there will only be this watery sap. When people want to make maple syrup they will have to gather many buckets full of the sap in a birch bark basket like mine. They will have to gather wood and make fires so they can heat stones to drop into the baskets. They will have to boil the water with the heated stones for a long time to make even a little maple syrup. Then my people will no longer grow fat and lazy. Then they will appreciate this maple syrup Gitchee Manitou made available to them. Not only that, this sap will drip only from the trees at a certain time of the year. Then it will not keep people from hunting and fishing and gathering and hoeing in the fields. This is how it is going to be," Manabozho said.
And, that is how it is to this day.
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Who Discovered Maple Syrup? Algonquin version
Woksis was going hunting one day early in March. He yanked his tomahawk from the tree where he had hurled it the night before, and went off for the day. The weather turned warm and the gash in the tree, a maple tree, dripped sap into a vessel that happened to stand close to the trunk.
Toward evening Woksis's wife needed water in which to boil their dinner. She saw the trough full of sap and thought that would save her a trip to get water. Besides, she was a careful woman and didn't like to waste anything. So she tasted the maple sap and found it good-a little sweet, but not bad. She used it to cook her venison.
When Woksis came home from hunting, he smelled the unique maple aroma and from far off knew that something especially good was brewing. The water had boiled down to syrup, which sweetened their meal with maple. Woksis found the gravy sweet and delicious.
He spread the good news how the Great Spirit had guided his wife in making the delicious new food, Sinzibuckwud [[drawn from the wood). Soon all the women were sugar-making [[seensibaukwut) and the braves began performing the Sugar Dance.
Thereafter, maple sugar was produced and celebrated each spring after the long, cold winter during the Season of the Melting Snow.
To show language similarities, in Anishinaabemowin, Sugar is Siisibaakwat [[Fiero spelling). I heard this story as a young girl, but the resourceful woman was called lazy because she didn't want to go to the trouble of hauling water. In that, I feel a certain amount of internalized stereotyping. I like this version which plays up her resourcefulness and thrift.
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The Origin of Mandaamin, Indian Corn, Part I
The snow around here is going, going, GONE! Stories will cease with the waning moon, so only a few more are left for the season. Here is a story as recorded by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, with the unsung efforts of his wife, Jane [[Obaabaamwaywaygizhegokwe).
“Mon-Daw-Min or the Origin of Indian Corn: An Odjibwa Tale.” Originally published in 1956 by Michigan State University Press. Schoolcraft, H.R. Schoolcraft’s Indian Legends: Algic Researches. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1956. pp. 58-61.
In times past, a poor Indian was living with his wife and children in a beautiful part of the country. He was not only poor, but inexpert in procuring food for his family, and his children were all too young to give him assistance. Although poor, he was a man of a kind and contented disposition. He was always thankful to the Great Spirit for everything he received. The same disposition was inherited by his eldest son, who had now arrived at the proper age to undertake the ceremony of the Ke-ig-uish-im-o-win, or fast, to see what kind of a spirit would be his guide and guardian through life. Wunzh, for this was his name, had been an obedient boy from his infancy, and was of a pensive, thoughtful, and mild disposition, so that he was beloved by the whole family.
As soon as the first indications of spring appeared, they built him the customary little lodge, at a retired spot some distance from their own, where he would not be disturbed during this solemn rite. In the meantime he prepared himself, and immediately went into it and commenced his fast. The first few days he amused himself in the mornings by walking in the woods and over the mountains, examining the early plants and flowers, and in this way prepared himself to enjoy his sleep, and, at the same time, stored his mind with pleasant ideas for his dreams. While he rambled through the woods, he felt a strong desire to know how the plants, herbs, and berries grew, without any aid from man, and why it was that some species were good to eat, and others possessed medicinal or poisonous juices.
He recalled these thoughts to mind after he became too languid to walk about, and had confined himself strictly to the lodge; he wished he could dream of something that would prove a benefit to his father and family, and to all others. "True!" he thought, "the Great Spirit made all things, and it is to him that we owe our lives. But could he not make it easier for us to get our food, than by hunting animals and taking fish? I must try to find out this in my visions."
On the third day he became weak and faint, and kept his bed. He fancied, while thus lying, that he saw a handsome young man coming down from the sky and advancing towards him. He was richly and gaily dressed, having on a great many garments of green and yellow colors, but differing in their deeper or lighter shades. He had a plume of waving feathers on his head, and all his motions were graceful.
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Maandaamin, Part II
"I am sent to you, my friend," said the celestial visitor, "by that Great Spirit who made all things in the sky and on the earth. He has seen and knows your motives in fasting. He sees that it is from a kind and benevolent wish to do good to your people, and to procure a benefit for them, and that you do not seek for strength in war or the praise of warriors. I am sent to instruct you, and show you how you can do your kindred good."
He then told the young man to arise, and prepare to wrestle with him, as it was only by this means that he could hope to succeed in his wishes. Wunzh knew he was weak from fasting, but he felt his courage rising in his heart, and immediately got up, determined to die rather than fail. He commenced the trial, and, after a protracted effort, was almost exhausted, when the beautiful stranger said, "My friend, it is enough for once; I will come again to try you;" and, smiling on him, he ascended in the air in the same direction from which he came.
The next day the celestial visitor reappeared at the same hour and renewed the trial. Wunzh felt that his strength was even less than the day before, but the courage of his mind seemed to increase in proportion as his body became weaker.
Seeing this, the stranger again spoke to him in the same words he used before, adding, "Tomorrow will be your last trial. Be strong, my friend, for this is the only way you can overcome me, and obtain the boon you seek."
On the third day he again appeared at the same time and renewed the struggle. The poor youth was very faint in body, but grew stronger in mind at every contest, and was determined to prevail or perish in the attempt. He exerted his utmost powers, and after the contest had been continued the usual time, the stranger ceased his efforts and declared himself conquered. For the first time he entered the lodge, and sitting down beside the youth, he began to deliver his instructions to him, telling him in what manner he should proceed to take advantage of his victory.
"You have won your desires of the Great Spirit," said the stranger. "You have wrestled manfully. Tomorrow will be the seventh day of your fasting. Your father will give you food to strengthen you, and as it is the last day of trial, you will prevail. I know this, and now tell you what you must do to benefit your family and your tribe. Tomorrow," he repeated, "I shall meet you and wrestle with you for the last time; and, as soon as you have prevailed against me, you will strip off my garments and throw me down, clean the earth of roots and weeds, make it soft, and bury me in the spot. When you have done this, leave my body in the earth, and do not disturb it, but come occasionally to visit the place, to see whether I have come to life, and be careful never to let the grass or weeds grow on my grave. Once a month cover me with fresh earth. If you follow my instructions, you will accomplish your object of doing good to your fellow-creatures by teaching them the knowledge I now teach you." He then shook him by the hand and disappeared.
In the morning the youth's father came with some slight refreshments, saying, "My son, you have fasted long enough. If the Great Spirit will favor you, he will do it now. It is seven days since you have tasted food, and you must not sacrifice your life. The Master of Life does not require that."
"My father," replied the youth, "wait till the sun goes down. I have a particular reason for extending my fast to that hour."
"Very well," said the old man, "I shall wait till the hour arrives, and you feel inclined to eat."
At the usual hour of the day the sky-visitor returned, and the trial of strength was renewed. Although the youth had not availed himself of his father's offer of food, he felt that new strength had been given to him, and that exertion had renewed his strength and fortified his courage. He grasped his angelic antagonist with supernatural strength, threw him down, took from him his beautiful garments and plume, and finding him dead, immediately buried him on the spot, taking all the precautions he had been told of, and being very confident, at the same time, that his friend would again come to life. He then returned to his father's lodge, and partook sparingly of the meal that had been prepared for him. But he never for a moment forgot the grave of his friend.
He carefully visited it throughout the spring, and weeded out the grass, and kept the ground in a soft and pliant state. Very soon he saw the tops of the green plumes coming through the ground; and the more careful he was to obey his instructions in keeping the ground in order, the faster they grew. He was, however, careful to conceal the exploit from his father. Days and weeks had passed in this way. The summer was now drawing towards a close, when one day, after a long absence in hunting, Wunzh invited his father to follow him to the quiet and lonesome spot of his former fast. The lodge had been removed, and the weeds kept from growing on the circle where it stood, but in its place stood a tall and graceful plant, with bright-colored silken hair, surmounted with nodding plumes and stately leaves, and golden clusters on each side.
"It is my friend," shouted the lad; "it is the friend of all mankind. It is Mondawmin [[the name for corn). We need no longer rely on hunting alone; for, as long as this gift is cherished and taken care of, the ground itself will give us a living." He then pulled an ear. "See, my father," said he, "this is what I fasted for. The Great Spirit has listened to my voice, and sent us something new, and henceforth our people will not alone depend upon the chase or upon the waters."
He then communicated to his father the instructions given him by the stranger. He told him that the broad husks must be torn away, as he had pulled off the garments in his wrestling; and having done this, directed him how the ear must be held before the fire till the outer skin became brown, while all the milk was retained in the grain. The whole family then united in a feast on the newly-grown ears, expressing gratitude to the Merciful Spirit who gave it. So corn came into the world, and has ever since been preserved.
http://www.learningtogive.org/materi.../MonDawMin.asp
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Opichi, the First Robin
Long ago, as it still is today, it was the custom for a boy who reached a certain age to go into the forest and wait for a dream. He would build a small lodge and go without food for many days in the hope he would be visited by some animal or spirit of the forest that would take pity on him and give guidance and power.
There was a boy named Opichi who reached that age. Opichi's father was very respected in the village and he was determined that his son would be given a dream of such power that no one else could compare with him. So eager was the father for his son to get power that he insisted the boy go on his dream fast before the last snow left the ground, even though most boys would wait until the time when the ground was warm and the leaves returned to the trees.
"My son is strong," said the father. "He will go now. He will gain greater strength from the cold."
Opichi was a boy who always wished to please his parents and so he did as his father said. They went together into the forest and the father selected a spot on top of a small hill. There Opichi made a small lean-to of saplings, covering it with hemlock boughs. He sat beneath it on the bare ground with a thin piece of deerskin wrapped about his shoulders.
"I will return each day at dawn," the father said. "You will tell me then what you have seen."
That night the north wind, the icy breath of the Great Bear, blew cold. Opichi's mother was concerned, but the father did not worry. "My son is strong," he said. "This cold wind will make his vision a better one."
When the morning came, he went to the lean-to and shook the poles. "My son," he said, "tell me what you have seen."
Opichi crawled out and looked up at his father. "Father," the boy said, "a deer came to the lodge and spoke to me."
"That is good." said the father. "But you must continue to fast. Surely a greater vision will come to you."
"I will continue to watch and wait," Opichi said.
Opichi's father left his son and went back to his lodge. That night a light snow fell. "I'm worried about our son," said Opichi's mother.
"Do not worry," said the father. "The snow will only make whatever dream comes to him more powerful."
When morning came, the father went into the forest again, climbed the hill and shook the poles, calling his son out.
"Father," Opichi said as he emerged, shaking from the cold, "last night a beaver came to me. It taught me a song."
"That is good," said the father. "You are doing well. You will gain even more power if you stay longer."
"I will watch and wait," said the boy.
So it went for four more days. Each morning his father asked Opichi what he had seen. Each time the boy told of his experiences from the night before. Now hawk and wolf, bear and eagle had visited the boy. Each day Opichi looked thinner and weaker, but he agreed to stay and wait for an ever-greater vision to please his father.
At last, on the morning of the seventh day, Opichi's mother spoke to her husband. "Our son has waited long enough in the forest. I will go with you this morning and we will bring him home."
Opichi's mother and father went together into the forest. The gentle breath of the Fawn, the warm south wind of spring, had blown during the night and all the snow had melted away. As they climbed the hill, they heard a birdsong coming from above them. It was a song they had never heard before. It sounded almost like the name of their son. Opi chi chi. Opi chi chi.
When they reached the lodge, Opichi's father shook the poles. "My son," he said, "it is time to end your fast. It is time to come home."
There was no answer. Opichi's mother and father bent down to look into the small lean-to of hemlock boughs and saplings. As they did so, a bird came flying out. It was gray and black with a red chest. "Opi chi chi. Opi chi chi."
So it sang as it perched on a branch above them. Then it spoke.
"My parents," said the bird, "you see me as I am now. The one who was your son is gone. You sent him out too early and asked him to wait for power too long. Now I will return each spring when the gentle breath of the Fawn comes to our land. My song will let people know it is the time for a boy to go on his dream fast. But your words must help to remind his parents not to make their son stay out too long."
Then, singing that song which was the name of their son, the robin flew off into the forest.
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Story of the First Robin, another version
This is the version I heard. I suspect it was specially arranged for kids, as no one dies and there are lessons for kids about responsibility.
Long long ago, the People had fire, but they did not have a way to start fire, so they had to keep it going day and night. They would carry live coals with them when traveling so they could start fires for their night camps.
It was the custom for the eldest boy in the family to take his turn for keeping the fire going at night once he reached a good age for doing so. In this one village, there was a very influential man who always liked to be first with things, so the other people would continue to respect him. His son was just a little boy, but he kept telling him about the keeping of the fire,and how important it was, and what a fine young man he would be once he could keep the fire all night.
The little boy was eager to try it, but his mother worried that he was still too young and would not be able to stay awake long enough. The father grudgingly agreed. Month after month, the impatient boy and father and the cautious mother sparred. Finally, the boy prevailed and the parents gave their blessing for him to try. The mother resolved to stay awake herself just in case the young boy fell asleep and the fire started to go out.
The night wore on, and the boy sat up by the fire, singing to himself and sometimes getting up and walking about to sort the firewood. Satisfied that he was getting along all right, the mother lay down to be comfortable and she soon drifted off to sleep. In her dreams the boy began to nod off and she desperately wanted to help him, but she could not move.
Meantime, a little brown bird was sleeping on a branch near the warm fire. As the fire began to cool, the bird awoke and saw the boy was sleeping soundly.
Oh, no! This will never do! thought the bird, Opichi by name. If the fire goes out, the boy will be in big trouble, and the people will be cold and not be able to cook their food!
Down she flew to the fireside. She tried in vain to wake the boy, but the fire was almost out. Quick as thought, she leaped to the very edge of the coals and began fanning them with her wings. As a little flame flared, she quickly fed it a twig, then another, then another, until the fire was going just a bit. She quickly gathered more sticks and took up her post by the fire.
When the sun came up, Opichi was still there, fanning the tiny fire as the little boy slept on. The father, coming to see how his son was doing, was astonished at the little bird, whose breast had been scorched red by the heat of the fire. Her head was blackened by the ashes she had scratched up to get the twigs into the fire.
The father woke up his son and showed him the bird. He told his son they had both learned a lesson that night. The father had learned not to rush things so much, and he was very grateful that his son would not have to bear the burden of his impatience. The little boy had been spared the shame of letting the fire go out. The father and son both spoke to the bird.
"Little Opichi! Thank you so much for your kindness and bravery in keeping the fire going for our people. We will always be grateful to you, and happy to hear your joyful song. We will always remember what a friend you are to us. None of us shall hurt you. You will always wear these colors as a badge of your courage and loyalty."
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The Bear's Feast, Part One
One day near the end of summer, Mkwa [[Bear) decided to give a feast to celebrate all the good food and to gather everyone for a good time in the good weather. He gathered food for some time and when he was almost ready he sent his friends Bineshiisak [[Birds) to invite everyone to the feast.
Bineshiisak flew here, there and everywhere and invited all they met to the Bear's feast. All they spoke to eagerly agreed to attend the feast, Mooshkaas [[Crane), Amik [[Beaver), Wawaashkesh [[Deer), Maingan [[Wolf), Mkina [[Turtle), Wagosh [[Fox), and more.
As the day of the feast arrived, the sun shone beautifully. Mkwa carefully laid out the feast, with everything just so. Wiiaas [[Meat), Netawging [[Vegetables), Manomin [[WIld Rice), all laid out in order. At the very end of the table he placed his little boxes of Siisibaakwaat [[Sugar).
Soon, everyone was arriving and circling the table, exclaiming about the bounty before them. There was much talking and laughing among the guests as they waited for the feast to begin. At last Mkwa stood before them and gave his opening greeting, talking about the wonderful generosity of Gzhemnido and Gushnaan Aki, then inviting everyone to step up and help themselves.
Soon, though, there was an outcry! "There is no Mide [[Grease). Mkwa has forgotten the Mide."
"Oh, that will never do," said Mkwa. I must take care of that right away."
He had built a hot fire to make tea for later, and he took a bark bowl to the fire and set it down. He then began to dance around the fire, holding his paws over the coals. Soon his paws became very hot, and he wrung them over the bowl. Good clear grease ran down into the bowl. Mkwa kept doing that until the bowl was full, then he set it on the table after the meat.
The feast then went on and everyone ate till they were beyond full and enjoyed themselves very much. Afterward, they sat around the fire with cups of hot Labrador tea, and told stories about hunting and great things they had caught or harvested. Mooshkaas [[Crane) had more fun than anyone, as his loud voice was busy laughing and talking all evening with stories of things he had seen. Late into the evening, everyone ate some more, then everyone curled up to sleep til morning.
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Gaz, our grandson is coming to stay with us for a few days during March break. I've enjoyed these stories so much, I'm going to print them and read them to him. He will be 9 years old in May and I think he will enjoy these as much as I have.
Thank you for relaying them here. :)
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Nine is a perfect age for these stories. I remember hearing them from a very young age, but they really started to take hold for me around 8 or 9.
The dark of the moon will be tomorrow and the snow is all gone. It's maple syrup time, and time for the regular stories to be sent home until next winter. I will finish up the last story, The Bear's Feast, Part II, tonight. From time to time a story might pop up as circumstances arise during the spring and summer. If we get a substantial bit of snow to keep us quiet this month, there can be a few more stories.
Over this past winter, some of my favorites have been the story of Shingebiss, the cheery little winter duck, Opichi, The Man Who Loved Ravens. Does anyone else have favorites?
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The Bear's Feast, Part Two
Mooshkaas [[Crane) had such a great time at Mkwa's feast, and so did everyone else. They talked about it for many days. Mooshkaas decided he would like to have a feast too. He wanted to make his feast as good as Mkwa's or better, so everyone would have a great time and talk about how great it was.
Mooshkaas did just like Mkwa, he gathered food for some time and when he was almost ready he sent Bineshiisak [[Birds) to invite everyone to the feast.
Bineshiisak flew here, there and everywhere and invited all they met to the Bear's feast. All they spoke to eagerly agreed to attend the feast, Mkwa [[Bear), Amik [[Beaver), Wawaashkesh [[Deer), Maingan [[Wolf), Mkina [[Turtle), Wagosh [[Fox), and more
As the day of the feast arrived, the sun shone beautifully. Mooshkaas worked very hard to lay out the feast, with everything just so, just like Mkwa had done. Wiiaas [[Meat), Giigoonh [[Fish), Netawging [[Vegetables), Manomin [[WIld Rice), all laid out in order. At the very end of the table he placed little boxes of Siisibaakwaat [[Sugar). He was satisfied that everything was just like Mkwa's Feast.
Soon, everyone was arriving and circling the table, exclaiming about the bounty before them. There was much talking and laughing among the guests as they waited for the feast to begin. At last Mooshkaas stood before them and gave his opening greeting, talking about the wonderful generosity of Gzhemnido and Gushnaan Aki and his friends, then inviting everyone to step up and help themselves.
Soon, though, there was an outcry! "There is no Mide [[Grease). Mooshkaas has forgotten the Mide." In so carefully copying Mkwa, Mooshkaas had made the same mistake!
"Gaa injida," he cried, "I didn't mean it! I will see what I can do."
Mooshkaas remembered how Mkwa had gotten Mide, and he decided to try it himself. He built a hot fire and he took a bark bowl to the fire and set it down. He then began to dance around the fire, holding his feet one after the other over the coals. Poor Mooshkaas didn't have big fat paws like Mkwa, and he soon burned his feet and legs and ran crying to the river to soak them. That is why Mooshkaas' legs are so bare even today.
The feast then went on without the Mide, and still everyone ate their fill and had a good time. Whenever they talked about the feast though, everyone talked about how Mooshkaas burned his feet. Mooshkaas had to be satisfied with that as he nursed his poor sore feet back to health.
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Some Fun Music to close out our feast
This is Harvey Dreaver doing his thing at the Oji-Cree Hand Drum and Round Dance Contest last week. The man rocks that drum, and can he sing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSnFzguL7JA
The words to the song:
Take my hand walk with me together you and I. Always remember this sweetheart, I will always be here for you
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Man, these little guys should win it all, they rock my world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX6q1usX9b4
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Welcome to my Happy Place
I can't wait to get up home this spring. This video is all about Bay Mills. It never shows the town of Brimley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVKCXT3hFLg
And here is a better view of a sacred place, the view of Spectacle Lake from the top of Mission Hill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN6n6JPHsHs&NR=1
Beyond, you can see where Whitefish Bay empties into the St. Marys River. At Gros Cap on the Canadian side is the Prince Wind Farm, Canada's leading power generator.
Behind, in the woods, is the cemetery where our people/s remains have been buried for the past hundred fifty years.
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Interesting Article about Smudging for Purification
This article discusses many aspects of smudging while noting the need for correct attention to details relating to purification and reducing non-spiritual distraction. NOTE: Use of the term Shaman and discussion of exorcism do not come from native tradition. There is a danger of mixing New Age into ancient traditions. For community or healing ceremonies, a native spiritual leader should conduct the ceremony so as to keep the ceremony on traditional ground. Of course, if you want to purify your house for springtime, which I am going to do on Saturday afternoon, you can do your own ceremony. This will give you pretty good directions for doing that. I will use sage or sweetgrass for the house. If we are going to try and appease Michepichu, we need a spiritual leader and maybe cedar and tobacco.
Smudge Sticks: Not Just Blowing SmokeBy Chris Capps 10/20/09
From the Ojibwe tribes to the south and the Cree to the north along the Upper Peninsula and parts of Canada, smudging has been a long standing tradition that has been integrated into the New Age community with open arms. The ritual has long been revered as a symbol of purification, and is traditionally used in conjunction with a sweat lodge [[such as during the Inipi ceremony performed by the Lakota people) to purify the soul. Modern smudging is often used in the interest of purifying houses of evil spirits and negative energy.
The traditional view of smudging was that it disrupted negative spirits in the environment, allowing for them to be cleaned in a ritual sweat lodge. The modern interpretation of smudging is that during a ritual, such as the spiritual house cleansing ritual [[similar in some respects to a catholic exorcism) the smudge stick is carried through the house and its smoke wafts up and attaches to everything it touches. It then draws out the negative energy in these locations and transports it elsewhere, where it is replaced by positive energy.
Contrary to popular belief, shamans and medicine men object to using the breath to blow smoke, as the human breath is considered disrespectful and imperfect. They suggest using a feather or large leaf to fan the embers. Other tips are to use a large seashell to hold the smudge stick in, turn off electric distractions while smudging, meditate, and cleanse your own mind prior to engaging in this [[or any) ritual. Though it is commonly used as a ritual cleansing of negative energies and spirits, some shamans also suggest you use smudge sticks when you meditate on important future events, when you are depressed, when you are inexplicably feeling a negative "vibe" about your surroundings, and after you have spent time with someone who is sick.
Common sage [[salvia officinalis), a member of the mint family, is often used in smudging rituals, and has been documented as a mild antibiotic as well as an astringent, estrogent, antifungal, anhidrotic, and antispasmoid. Other commonly used plants are white cedar [[a tradition in Ojibwe tribal rituals), Pine [[known to alleviate hunger), Lavender [[used since pre-Roman days as a cleansing agent), Sweet Grass [[also known as hierochloe odorata meaning literally 'sweet holy smelling grass), mugwort [[to be used with caution as it contains a toxin known as thujone which in large amounts can be harmful), and finally Copal.
In exorcising ghosts, smudging has often been reported with great success at first, but persistent ghosts often find their way back to a house that was cleansed only once using smudge sticks. This could be largely because smudging is primarily used as a cleansing ritual, and ghosts [[as we understand them) are not merely entities that can be cleansed from a location through chemical means. There is also, however, magic in intent, which should be more effective in guiding spiritual entities to their final destination. This has been seen as a more effective means of "cleansing" for haunted houses, as it gives all occupants involved a sense of closure.
A smudging ritual typically involves binding the smudge stick, lighting it in a vessel of some sort [[such as a large seashell), moving to every room in the house, and using a fan to billow the smoke out into the room. Some obvious precautions should be implemented, however, when using smudge sticks. Obviously ensure every room is well ventilated. Smoke inhalation is bad news for everyone, and tar is produced with the burning of any leaves, even spiritually cleansing ones. Pregnant women should not be around burning mugwort as the thujone previously mentioned is particularly dangerous to them when implemented in large amounts.
Smudging, if done properly is a powerful cleansing ritual that can help maintain a positive environment, but it is not the spiritual cure-all that some advertisements would have you believe. If used in conjunction with powerful spiritually positive choices, meditation, and a spiritual attitude, it can be an effective symbol to help bring peace and prosperity to its users.
http://www.unexplainable.net/artman/...le_14080.shtml
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Well, I couldn't do my spring purification ceremony yesterday. I couldn't get into the right frame of mind. Hopefully today will be better. I'm having a hard time getting clear of distraction and clutter.
Some of the preparation steps:
1. Clear your mind of distractions and be ready to concentrate on the ceremony. The smoke carries your thoughts to the spirits. What do you want to say?
2. Clear the area of electronic interference. Shut off radio, tv, cell phones, landline phones, computers, including any peripheral devices like DVD or CD players.
3. Create a clear space free of clutter to begin the ceremony.
4. Gather your sage and the earthenware bowl or abalone shell to hold it.
5. Now, put the unlit sage into the bowl. Clear your mind of negative thoughts and distractions. If others are present they must do so as well. It might help to close your eyes and breathe deeply. Get into a peaceful, centered state of mind.
6. See your space filled with peace and light, protected from darkness and distraction. Think about what you want to accomplish with the ceremony, purification of yourself and your space, cleansing from the winter attitudes.
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Thanks for the advice Gazhekwe!
It speaks volumes about Michigan. It is a lot more than cities and politics and industry and money. It is about people who were living there for thousands of years and a spirit of community on the one hand and meditation on a personal side too. Thanks for your stories. I recognize the algonkian vocabulary which stretches out to the east of Québec here.
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Aanii, Canuck! I'm glad you are enjoying this thread. There are lots of different kinds of info in here. Our language started on the eastern seaboard, around the mouth of the St. Lawrence. On the way to our new homeland around the Lakes, a lot of people stopped here and there, and so the language lives on in different ways in those places.
My mother's people were from Quebec, around Rimouski.
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Well, I am trying to do a smudge before I start a project tomorrow. I might have to wait til just before, things are very complicated around here and I am trying to listen to the health care debate/vote also. Just in case anyone else has a clearer head, I will put the rest of the recommended steps down now.
7. Once you have your mind clear and can envision your spirit and your place as you wish it to be, calm, peaceful and light, you can go ahead and light your sage. NOTE that I have not given any steps for preparing the sage. Just make sure it is pure and not the kind from the spice aisle at the grocery. Put it in your shell or earthenware bowl to keep things safe and light it. This is a good time to take off your glasses so as not to block the smoke.
8. Once it is burning, gently fan the flames out so you just have glowing embers, you don't want a bonfire. Some people recommend using a natural fan of feathers, or cedar maybe, not your hands. For a personal ceremony, though, I think your hands are fine. As the smoke rises, you can use your hands or the fan to waft the smoke toward you and around you, over your head, down your body. Don't inhale it though.
9. Slowly carry the smudge through the house room by room. In each room, make sure the smoke goes into every corner. Trace around the edges of the walls and around the windows and doorframes. Crisscross the thresholds.
10. While you are smudging, keep your thoughts positive and remember what it is you want to accomplish.
11. When complete, take the smudge out and extinguish the fire. You can keep the remainder of a smudge stick for another time. If there is only a little bit left, you can burn it in your fireplace, or scatter it respectfully in a good place outside.
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mingan
Thanks Gazhekwe!
There is also the Mingan archipelago National park which happens to be on the north shore of the gulf of St Lawrence right across from Rimouski at the start of Gaspé Peninsula. I read about your mom's family being from Quebec. I am trying to find some info on the Ancestry.ca site about my grandmother's birthplace. Her grandfather was living in Ishpeming Michigan when her parents were married in 1890 in StVenant Qc on the border of Vermont and New Hampshire. Her brother was born in London, Michigan and later moved to Ottawa Ont. It is usually possible to find birth records for catholics born in Quebec fairly easily online because everything has been photographed. I cant find her birth records in US or Canadian databases. But I am looking into it.
I just came across this article about a cree filmmaker whose film "Reel Injun" just came out. It is about depictions of Indians in Hollywood films. I once worked on a series for the film company
that produced his work: Rezolution Pictures. I was working as a scenic painter in different locations in Kahnawake reservation which you mentioned before. That's a place with a lot of history! There is a people much maligned and admired at the same time for their steadfastness before so much adversity over a long period. I went to the Pow wow a couple of years ago with my kids and was really impressed by the strength and the humor of the people.
http://www.hour.ca/film/film.aspx?iIDArticle=19478
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That's very interesting, thanks for posting it. There have been several books written on the subject. It really points out the power of movie characters as role models, particularly for young people who don't live in Indian communities. It is funny how he says, as he sits astride a horse on the plains of Minnesota, that he finally feels like a real Indian. I would love to see the movie.
Here is a trailer for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqVmqK5Nbuk
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Sherman Alexie wins a prize! Ahaaw!
Sherman Alexie wins 2010 Pen/Faulkner fiction prize for 'War Dances'
By Jacqueline Trescott
Wednesday, March 24, 2010; C02
"War Dances" by novelist Sherman Alexie has won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the organizers announced Tuesday.
The prestigious annual award, presented by the Washington-based PEN/Faulkner Foundation, was given to Alexie because of his book's breadth of topics and innovative style, judges said. "War Dances" consists of short stories interspersed with poems.
"That book was the one we all liked immediately," said Kyoko Mori, one of the three judges. "There was something special about the range of characters. It was like watching a dance. I liked how some of the characters were unlikable but compelling."
Alexie was still absorbing the news Tuesday. "It's so cool. You just look at the list of people who've won and it is legendary," he said. "Just having that status was incredible."
He acknowledged that the book's format is unusual. After publishing the young adult novel "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" in 2007, "I wanted to write a book that was a reverse of that," Alexie said. "I wanted to do a weird book and reestablish my independent, small-press roots."
Alexie, 43, likened his writing process to "mixing an old-school music cassette."
"When you construct a mix tape, the first song you come out with has to be a barnburner," he said. "You come out with Marvin Gaye."
Mori, a Washington-based writer, thought the juxtaposition of forms in "War Dances" made it rise above the other entries -- about 350 novels and short story collections this year. "I usually don't like books that combine prose and poetry," she said. "But here the poetry was like listening to an interlude and got you ready for the next story."
Al Young, another judge and the former poet laureate of California, praised the gumbo of story lines. " 'War Dances' taps every vein and nerve, every tissue, every issue that quickens the current blood-pulse: parenthood, divorce, broken links, sex, gender and racial conflict, substance abuse, medical neglect, 9/11, Office Narrative vs. What Really Happened," Young said in a statement.
Alexie, who lives in Seattle, won a National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2007 and this week, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas. He is a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian who grew up on a reservation 50 miles northwest of Spokane. Severely ill as a child, he overcame his conditions and set out for a life of reading and writing. In high school he was the only Native American and became a scholar-athlete, later writing about those experiences in "True Diary."
Many of Alexie's works have been honored, including a story collection, "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," which was a PEN/Hemingway Award winner for best first book of fiction. The attention led to a film, "Smoke Signals," which won two awards at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.
Alexie, who receives $15,000 for the PEN/Faulkner honor, will be saluted May 8 on the 30th anniversary of the program.
The other finalists -- Barbara Kingsolver, Lorraine M. Lopez, Lorrie Moore and Colson Whitehead -- will also be recognized.
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U-M initiates process for returning American Indian human remains
By Rick Fitzgerald
Public Affairs
U-M has begun outlining a process for the transfer of Native American human remains to Indian tribes.
Vice President for Research Stephen Forrest said the most recent activities are in response to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s March 15 publication of a final rule clarifying how museums and other agencies — including the university — should handle Native American human remains that are under their control but for which no culturally affiliated Indian tribe has been identified.
Other resources
• Web site of the Advisory Committee on Culturally Unidentifiable Human Remains under NAGPRA
• Culturally Unidentifiable Native American Inventory Database for the U-M Musem of Anthopology
“Now that the Department of the Interior has clarified the rule for transferring culturally unidentifiable human remains, it is important that the university reach out to tribal leaders and facilitate the transfer process,” Forrest said.
Forrest said he anticipates having a process in place by the time the new federal rule takes effect May 14. The university has in its possession the remains of about 1,390 individuals unidentifiable with an existing tribe.
“The rule change recently announced provides a clear path for the transfer of the human remains in our possession,” Forrest said. “We will move down that path in a transparent, swift and respectful manner.” Officials and traditional religious leaders will be included in the consultation process. A letter to relevant tribes will be sent soon.
Last fall Forrest appointed the 12-member Advisory Committee on Culturally Unidentifiable Human Remains under NAGPRA to provide advice and guidance on the procedures used to notify and consult with groups from whose tribal or aboriginal lands the remains were removed. The new rule was adopted because the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 did not include rules for the disposition of culturally unidentifiable human remains.
The Department of the Interior published a proposed rule for public comment in 2007. The department received 138 written comments from Native American tribes and organizations, museums and scientific organizations, federal agencies and the public. The final rule addresses issues raised during that process.
NAGPRA required federal agencies and organizations that receive federal funds to submit to the Department of the Interior inventories of Native American human remains in their possessions and to include their best judgment as to whether the remains are culturally affiliated with a present day Indian tribe or known earlier group or are culturally unidentifiable because no shared group identity can be reasonably traced.
Culturally affiliated remains are repatriated upon request after a public comment period.
The new rule specifies that after appropriate consultation, transfer of culturally unidentifiable remains is to be made to an Indian tribe from whose tribal or aboriginal lands the remains were excavated or removed.
The U-M Museum of Anthropology has in its collection unidentifiable Native American remains from archaeological sites in 37 states.
Now that the new rule has clarified the process, Forrest said his office will be the university point of contact for requests and will take the necessary steps to facilitate the transfer of Native American human remains in the U-M collection to tribes.
http://www.ur.umich.edu/update/archives/100326/remains
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Such a beautiful moon tonight!
It is the first full moon after the equinox and is called the Egg Moon, Grass Moon or Easter Moon. It will be full at 10:25 pm our time.
Here is an interesting article about it from Earthsky:
http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2010...n-near-saturn/
This is the start of a new moon on the Ojibwe Calendar, where it also has several names, depending on the location of the people using the name, or whether it is a cold spring or a warm one. I have not heard the frogs or loons yet so I would pick the first name for this new moon this year. I think the snowshoes were not an issue here this year.
Iskigamizige-giizis Maple Sap Boiling Moon
Omakakiiwi-giizis Frog Moon
Bebookwedaagime-giizis Snowshoe Breaking Moon
Maango-giizis Loon Moon
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Ziigwan - Springtime Tasks
It is past time to be in the sugar camps working. Here are some of the things that were done:
The women made birchbark baskets to hold the sap, and small containers to hold the sugar.
The men cut cedar shakes to direct the sap from the tree into the basket
The men cut holes in the trees and positioned the cedar shakes.
For 20-30 days, everyone worked on the sugar. The children helped tend fires and gather sap. The women tended the sap as it boiled,
The men went fishing often on the ice, and the fish was cleaned and dried or smoked for preservation.
Once the sugaring was done, fish began spawning and everyone went to the streams to catch as many as possible. We still do this today when the smelt are running. There used to be sturgeons, and of course, muskies, pike and walleye, bass and trout. Fish were a huge source of food and trade. Drying and smoking the fish continued full time.
Cedar and basswood bark was harvested, for building wigwams, making rope.
Early spring food plants and medicines were gathered, wild leeks, skunk cabbage, jack in the pulpit,
During Springtime when people came together, there would be a big celebration and feast, and during this time, many ceremonies would take place, such as vision quests, naming ceremonies, spiritual gatherings, music and dance.
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Chocolate Easter Bunny Ears
Well, maybe not really, but here is the reason those ears are so nice and long, according to MicMac legend. The MicMac are still up on the east coast near the mouth of the St. Lawrence and southward into Maine.
How Rabbit got his long ears
A long time ago when Rabbit was first on this earth he had very short ears. One day he had nothing to do. He was very bored so he decided to play a trick on all the other animals.
He told Beaver, "Did you know that the sun is not going to rise again?"
Of course Beaver told Squirrel and Squirrel told Chipmunk and Chipmunk told Skunk and so on. The story soon got around and all the animals were worried.
The animals were all upset. They said, "If the sun is not going to shine anymore it will be dark and cold like winter. We will have to gather our food and get ready right now."
Even Bear was worried. He began to eat and eat the blueberries around him so he could grow fat and store his food. Squirrel was busy gathering all the nuts he could find. Everyone was busy getting ready for the sun not to shine again. They had no time to play even though it was a nice summer day.
Now Rabbit really thought this was funny. He hid in the bushes. He was laughing and laughing as he watched the other animals all running around trying to get ready for the sun not to shine anymore. Along came Kluskap. Normally the animals were all very glad to see Kluskap. They usually gathered around to talk to him. But this day no one ran up to greet him.
Kluskap asked Bear, "How are you? How is everything going?"
Bear said, "I don't have time to talk to you."
Kluskap just kept walking. No one paid any attention to him. Kluskap went back to Bear.
"What's wrong with you? You're not talking to me. What is going on? Talk to me. Something is wrong!" Kluskap said.
"Well, don't you know?" Bear said. "The sun is not going to shine anymore and we have to hurry up. I have to get ready for winter now. That is what everyone is doing."
Kluskap told bear, "Whoever told you that story is lying. It's not true."
So Kluskap called a meeting with all the animals and they all gathered around him in a circle. He got to the bottom of it.
He said, "Who told you Bear?"
Bear said, "Raccoon told me."
And Raccoon said, "Well, Chipmunk told me."
Everyone said who they heard the story from, all the way down to Beaver.
Beaver said, "It was Rabbit that told me."
Kluskap said, "Well, where is Rabbit?"
Rabbit was really scared so he hid in the bushes. Kluskap knew for sure then that Rabbit had started the story.
"Where is Rabbit?" he asked again.
"Not here. He is gone. He must be hiding," Beaver said.
Kluskap went and looked in the bushes. He found Rabbit and when he did he grabbed him by his ears and lifted him up. That is how Rabbit got his long ears.
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Some Big Moccasins, Walking On
Wilma Mankiller, women’s rights heroine, walks on
By Rob Capriccioso
Story Published: Apr 6, 2010
Story Updated: Apr 6, 2010
WASHINGTON – Wilma Mankiller, former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, passed away at age 64 in the morning hours of April 6 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Mankiller was best known for her leadership of her tribe, at which she served 12 years in elective office, the first two as deputy principal chief followed by 10 years as principal chief.
During her time in office and beyond, she was viewed nationwide as a strong Native American advocate, and had many friends in the women’s rights movement.
Mankiller retired from public office in 1995, but was never far from the public eye, serving as a board member on various organizations, including the Women Empowering Women for Indian Nations nonprofit. She also shared her wisdom at several learning institutions, including the University of Arizona.
Among her many honors, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.
“Our personal and national hearts are heavy with sorrow and sadness with the passing this morning of Wilma Mankiller,” said Chad Smith, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, in a release.
“We feel overwhelmed and lost when we realize she has left us but we should reflect on what legacy she leaves us. We are better people and a stronger tribal nation because her example of Cherokee leadership, statesmanship, humility, grace, determination and decisiveness. When we become disheartened, we will be inspired by remembering how Wilma proceeded undaunted through so many trials and tribulations.
“Years ago, she and her husband Charlie Soap showed the world what Cherokee people can do when given the chance, when they organized the self-help water line in the Bell community. She said Cherokees in that community learned that it was their choice, their lives, their community and their future. Her gift to us is the lesson that our lives and future are for us to decide. We can carry on that Cherokee legacy by teaching our children that lesson. Please keep Wilma’s family, especially her husband Charlie and her daughters, Gina and Felicia, in your prayers.”
Mankiller requested that any gifts in her honor be made as donations to One Fire Development Corporation, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing Native American communities.
Tax deductible donations can be made at www.wilmamankiller.com as well as www.onefiredevelopment.org. The mailing address for One Fire Development Corporation is 1220 Southmore Houston, TX 77004.
According to the Cherokee Nation, Mankiller’s memorial service will be held April 11 at the Cherokee Nation Cultural Grounds in Tahlequah, Okla.
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/ho.../90011057.html
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Some words of comfort
These words came after Wilma Mankiller's passing, but they also apply to the passing of other loved ones.
We are all better because of her extraordinary presence.
With her passing, we all must work even harder in trying to fill the immense void.
We are, indeed, fortunate, to now have her as one of our spirit guides.
May our tears wash away our sadness so we may see to follow her path of righteousness.
Gwen Shunatona
Prairie Band Potawatomi
Pawnee, OK
[Note: Prairie Band Potowatomi originally came from southern Michigan and northern Illinois. They were sent to Kansas and Oklahoma during the infamous Removal era of the 1830s.]
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Having the honor of working here in the Oklahoma Region we are morning the loss of a vibrant leader for her people as well as all....
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Just a little more about Wilma Mankiller
Obama, BIA head and others praise Mankiller’s life, legacy Oklahoma City, Oklahoma [[AP) April 2010
http://indiancountrynews.net/images/...illerwilma.jpg
President Barack Obama and others are praising the life and legacy of former Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller.
Mankiller battled numerous ailments, including breast cancer and lymphoma, but it was pancreatic cancer that took her life April 6. She was 64. Funeral services were scheduled for April 10th at 11am in Talequah, Oklahoma. Obama said Mankiller transformed the relationship between her tribe and the federal government and served as an inspiration to all women.
Bureau of Indian Affairs head Larry Echo Hawk says her childhood, her family’s financial struggles and relocation to California as part of a federal government program helped her gain insight on how to improve the lives of her people.
Cherokee Chief Chad Smith said when tribal members can be inspired by Mankiller’s grace in the face of so many trials and tribulations.
Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole says we won’t soon see anyone like Mankiller again.
Comments on Passing of ex-Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller
*****
“I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Wilma Mankiller today. As the Cherokee Nation’s first female chief, she transformed the Nation-to-Nation relationship between the Cherokee Nation and the Federal Government, and served as an inspiration to women in Indian Country and across America. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, she was recognized for her vision and commitment to a brighter future for all Americans. Her legacy will continue to encourage and motivate all who carry on her work.” – President Barack Obama.
*****
“We are saddened by the passing of our friend Wilma Mankiller, a woman who exemplified the enduring strength of the human spirit. As the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, she was not only the guardian of the centuries-old Cherokee heritage but a revered leader who built a brighter and healthier future for her nation. During her two terms, she worked to create jobs, break down social and economic barriers, improve access to health care, and address the roots of both rural and urban poverty. She led her people with dignity and grace, fostering a sense of community, cooperation, and shared values.” – Former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.p...=8853&Itemid=1
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And here is some Sugar
This video shows how to finish the maple syrup into sugar. It's about the end of the maple season here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdVZL...layer_embedded
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The man behind the sugarmaker
This is about Jim Northrup, 'Nish writer and husband of the sugarmaker in the preceding video. Direct from his own writings, his history:
I used to be known as a bullshitter but that didn't pay anything. I began calling myself a storyteller - a little better, more prestige - but it still didn't pay anything. I became a freelance writer. At first it was more free than lance, then I started getting money for my words [[Rez Road Follies, p. 2)
Here he wrote about Sugar Bush:
Yup, we made maple syrup again. The cycle of seasons continues and we were able to gather our share of the annual gift. I told my grandson, Aaron, the Creator must like us: we were given syrup again.
Last month, my brother, Vern, Aaron, and I made snowshoe trails to walk on at the sugar bush. We did a good job but at the last minute we moved the sugar bush. We went to another place that had hip-deep snow. My cousin, Chuck Greensky [[identified as Chuck Greenday in a story by Julie Shortbread), and our kids made new trails in the new sugar bush. We like taking our kids along when we do things like this. It gives them fuel for their I-used-to-go-to-the-sugar-bush-with-my-dad stories. I think the cold outside air makes you sleep more. After breaking trails all day, we went home and slept like Rip Van White Guy.
My brother, Russ, and cousin, Butch Martineau, are at their sugar bush. Butch said he tapped one tree that squirted like a fire hydrant, cutting trenches in the snow. I told him all my trees squirt like that. Russ and Butch like sugar bush and the storytelling that goes on there. Russ did a great imitation of a Sawyer elder talking sugarbush: "You just tap the trees and then you just wait." He used the gestures and voice that we all recognized as belonging to one of our family members. It is the kind of story you hear around a boiling kettle of hot sap, eyes burning in the wood smoke. .....
Read more here:
http://www.turtletrack.org/Issues00/...imNorthrup.htm
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Spring Beauties, Post #301
My Spring Beauties are blooming! They came out on Friday, and today the sun is perfect for their picture.
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The struggle continues
UP mine threatens sacred tribal rights
BY JESSICA L. KOSKI
For far too long, the voices of affected and concerned Ojibwa people have been ignored in the midst of Kennecott's proposed Eagle Mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
I am a member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, and we did not invite Kennecott, a subsidiary of multinational mining giant Rio Tinto, to come into our ceded homelands and reservation territory to explore for minerals, blast into our sacred site, and leave behind a dying legacy of colonialism.
Indigenous peoples throughout the world are on the front lines of similar pressures to develop resources within their homelands, with little regard for their aboriginal rights. There is little mainstream media attention bringing awareness to these issues, despite a global movement for indigenous rights and numerous case studies on the impacts of mining and other extractive industries on indigenous communities.
In addition to the proposed Eagle Mine, Rio Tinto's intentions to open up six additional mine sites, and increasing mineral exploration throughout the entire Lake Superior basin, are threatening Ojibwa treaty rights. Through treaties with the federal government, Ojibwa leaders ensured permanent reservations and retained rights to hunt, fish and gather on ceded lands. If the water and land are polluted from harmful mining, how will our treaty rights and cultural values be honored and continue into the future?
Under Michigan law, a mining permit applicant must demonstrate that a mine will not pollute, impair or destroy natural re-sources. Unfortunately, Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality [[now folded into the Department of Natural Resources and Environment) failed to place the burden of proof on Kennecott to prove that it can mine safely.
There is no example of a successful sulfide mine with similar design and location as Kennecott proposes. The potential for mine collapse and irreversible acid mine drainage makes the proposed Eagle Mine especially controversial due to its location within a delicate watershed and underneath the Salmon Trout River, which flows directly into Lake Superior.
A sacred site to the Ojibwa people, Eagle Rock, stands at the heart of resistance as Kennecott's proposed mine portal. On Aug. 19 last year, Administrative Law Judge Richard A. Patterson recommended that Eagle Rock be protected as a place of worship. However, Steven Chester, the previous director of the DEQ, ignored this recommendation and approved Kennecott's mining permit on Jan. 14. Chester alleged that Eagle Rock is not legally a place of worship because it does not consist of any built structures, which is rooted in his subjective understanding regarding a place of worship. This is ethnic discrimination in the enforcement of Michigan's environmental policies.
These issues demand national attention and the mobilization of citizens and leaders before Kennecott continues to assert its ability to move full force ahead despite an appeals process and without approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act. The EPA should be obligated to protect sensitive areas of national significance like the Great Lakes.
The protection of Eagle Rock should also be enforced under the U.S. Constitution's Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. Furthermore, we need stronger laws specifically dedicated to the conservation of Native American sacred places. We cannot stand to lose the places that reinforce our relationship to the sacredness of Mother Earth and our identity as a people.
Jessica L. Koski of Baraga is a graduate of Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College and Michigan Technological University. She is currently working on a master's degree at Yale University.
http://www.freep.com/article/2010041...-tribal-rights
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Why Are Traditions Important?
This is from a teaching given by Dr. Rosemary White Shield, Anishinabe/Choctaw, in a session on Nokomis Endaad [[Grandmother’s House). White Shield is the curriculum developer, coordinator and researcher for the Native American Parenting Traditions Revisited Program. She is also a consultant for the Minnesota Department of Health. The teachings were from the Fourth Annual Red Lake Drug and Gang Summit in February.
... White Shield cited historical trauma as being significant and alcohol as the common denominator. “Some Native scholars say that the effects of historical trauma are now being passed down generation to generation. There is an effort among many Indian nations to heal the effects of historical trauma, and learning about these factors is key to that healing.
Historical trauma refers to a cumulative wounding across generations as well as during one’s lifetime. Victims of genocide during Indian-European wars is estimated to be up to 13 million indigenous people. Using conservative estimates, 2/3 of indigenous people in North America were exterminated between 1500 and1900; and 90 percent of American Indian children were forcibly placed in boarding schools by 1930. The theory goes on to say that there is an “intergenerational transmission,” meaning there is a psychological transfer of trauma response across generations.
Her presentation described that colonization and forms of assimilation result in “altered states of self,” a loss of traditional values and culture. Colonization has historically used sexual violence as a primary tool of genocide – for Native women – to stop them from being mothers. The presentation states that colonization encompasses a wide range of strategies, “not only to destroy peoples, but to destroy their sense of being a people.”
The answer according to White Shield is the decolonizing of indigenous minds by re-centering indigenous values and cultural practices within research practice, and an essential piece is an indigenous peoples’ struggle for self-determination.
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/88845717.html
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Gaz
There are three subjects that will grab my immediate attention. They are: Peggy, Handball, and Maple Syrup.
Re: Ziigwan - Springtime Tasks. A splendid brief describing the art of "sugaring."
I submit a description of a more modern preparation, but not as charming, for making syrup.
YOUR QUOTATIONS:
It is past time to be in the sugar camps working. Here are some of the things that were done:
The women made birchbark baskets to hold the sap, and small containers to hold the sugar.
The men cut cedar shakes to direct the sap from the tree into the basket
The men cut holes in the trees and positioned the cedar shakes.
For 20-30 days, everyone worked on the sugar. The children helped tend fires and gather sap. The women tended the sap as it boiled,
MY EXPERIENCE.
To wit: Counterpoint:
[[A Mom and Pop operation.)
December 1: Make weekly trips to the Log Cabin Restaurant in Gladstone and garner the empty liquor bottles that, by previous agreement, they had saved for me. They would be sterilized and sealed during the winter months.
March 1, any year.
Retrieve 5280 feet of miscellaneous plastic tubing from the crawlspace under the house. 50 separate coils of varying lengths. Each spile and tee branch on every coil has a metal tag, numbered to correspond to the tags hanging on 325 trees. [[Our own Maple Sugar Bush.)
Tune up the gas engine drill, put on the snowshoes and pray to all of the “sugar gods” that the 3 feet deep snow will not be to soft. A firm, hard crust will let me glide, as fast as I can move my legs, and let me tap all of the trees in 2 days, and install the appropriate tubing.
Day 3. Distribute, anchor and connect 8- 50 gallon plastic barrels to their proper roadside location. They serve as the collecting points when the deluge of sap, whimpering a bit at the beginning of a “run” and then rising to the crescendo of a tsunami, and then you know that all is right with the world and the heavens.
That is just the “road” work. The Sugar shack comes next!
Digression!
[[At the end of a season, every inch of tubing, fittings, 50 gallon barrels, 5 gallon barrels, [[about 50) , hydrotherms, thermometers, and any and all instruments used in the process of sugar making are sterilized and sealed for next year’s use.)
10 face cords of firewood had been cut, split and stacked in the sugar shack during the summer. [[Five full cords had been cut and stacked to warm the house.)
Day 4. Undress the stainless steel evaporator. Fill the sap pan with water and give it a “wet” run. Good. No leaks. Check the 300 gallon storage tank for leaks.
3 - 50 gallon barrels on the pickup truck and 4 other barrels in the shack plus the 50 - 5 gallon pails were standing at attention as additional storage.
Happiness was when the sap was running like an iceboat during the day and then, at night, a deep freeze set in, resulting in a freezing of the sap, we happily chopped away the ice which was pure water and made the remaining sap richer in sugar content.
The early run’s of sap were the very best. The highest one I ever had was 6%.
That let me boil 15 gallons of sap to get 1 gallon of syrup. Near the end of the season, 2% or less demanded 40 or more gallons of sap.
Any syrup maker will agree that a very light colored maple syrup, rapidly boiled, has the cherished qualities that tantalize the tongue. A very dark and heavy maple syrup is sold to the commercial “sugar beet” syrup makers so they can claim that 2% of their product is maple syrup. [[Syrup Makers disdain any dark syrup.) Caveats abound when buying corrupt, mixed syrups.
Back to the “liquor” bottle reference. Next to Peggy and a Potato, a Galliano bottle, filled with a clear, 7.1 [[degree) maple syrup, is a maiden no man should ever deflower.
Various remarks about our methods of syrup making.
1. Absolute sterility of all the equipment and tools used.
2. Not a single additive is added to the sap.
3.The boiling temperature of water is taken twice daily, at 10:00 am and 4 pm.
Water does not always boil at 212 degrees. We always had variations between 211.4 and 212.3 degrees. Elevation and atmosphere are always conundrums.
4. Perfect syrup is accomplished when the final temperature of the sap, in the “finishing tank,” is 7.1 degrees over the actual boiling point, as described above.
A special thermometer, graduated in 1/10 degrees, and a Hydrotherm, are the ultimate instruments used to produce perfect syrup. A Hydrotherm displays the combination of temperature and density with a 1 % margin.
5. Too thick syrup will crystallize and too thin syrup will develop mold.
Now, with all that razzle dazzle information, why is it I always go back to that very first effort when my pal K.O and I made a 2 quart batch of syrup, using copper pipe for spiles, 1 gallon, plastic milk jugs to hang on the spiles, five gallon pail to collect the sap from the jugs and our “finishing technique” which pronounced the syrup as being finished by the diminishing size of the bubbles.
Probably just what the natives did a couple of hundred years ago.
To summarize:
Making Maple Syrup is NOT an art form.
Making Maple Syrup is NOT a manufactured mystery or miracle.
But,,,, it is the closest thing to making love, ,,,but not quite.
Yes, everything that goes around,,,,,,,,,,
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Tom, the process you and KO devised was the one we used on our ten trees. The level of expertise you developed is impressive. I am reminded of the legendary Susan Johnston, Oshawgushcodaywikwe, who with her family produced close to THREE TONS of syrup per season.
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Gaz: 3 tons=6000 pounds=540 gallons of syrup. [[11.1 pounds per gallon. Over a period of 12 years we made 900 gallons, with our best year being 105 gallons.
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It does sound unbelievable, doesn't it? I am sure it was the output of the whole bush, not just the one family. They still call the place Sugar Island, up in the St. Marys near the Soo.
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And if you cross over the St. Mary's river, from Neebish Island, you could well be within spitting distance of the property that used to belong to Bill and Agnes Heimiller. Agnes was my maternal "great-aunt." Barbeau was their mailing address.
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I was just in Barbeau last fall. The place still looks about the same. Still no traffic light.
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The Ongoing Sedona "sweat lodge" story
Motivational speaker Ray hit with another lawsuit
By Felicia Fonseca
Flagstaff, Arizona [[AP) April 2010
http://indiancountrynews.net/images/...y-mug-shot.jpgAn Arizona self-help guru charged with manslaughter in the sweat lodge deaths of three people has been sued by several people who contend they lost out on thousands of dollars paid in advance for self-help seminars that were never conducted.
A lawsuit filed April 2 in Maricopa County Superior Court contends James Arthur Ray and his Carlsbad, Calif.-based company, James Ray International, misled plaintiffs during sales pitches for the events and haven’t responded to calls or letters requesting refunds.
Ray has been named in other civil lawsuits that accuse him and the owners of the retreat where he held a deadly October sweat lodge ceremony of negligence, fraud and other actions. Sweat lodge ceremonies commonly are held by American Indian tribes to cleanse the body.
The lawsuit accuses Ray of breach of contract, consumer fraud and unjust enrichment. It names three plaintiffs but estimates up to 1,000 people are similarly situated.
Susan Smyser of Las Vegas, paid nearly $8,000 for two events; Patricia Franklin of Mesa paid almost $3,350 for two events; and Kim Wilson of Los Angeles paid more than $12,500 for four events, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs contend Ray used prepaid fees to cover past events or fund his own wealth. They also say he lacked the assets or capital to conduct events or refund advanced fees without continued sales and collection of those fees.
A refund policy posted on Ray’s Web site says buyers have three days from the date of a transaction to cancel. Event registration fees then are considered nonrefundable, though the policy doesn’t address what happens when Ray cancels an event. Buyers can make a one-time transfer by paying an additional fee for an event held within a year of the one they initially signed up for, the policy states.
A representative for Ray said his attorneys haven’t reviewed the complaint.
Ray stopped holding events shortly after the two-hour ceremony he led near Sedona in October resulted in the hospitalization of 18 people and the deaths of Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y., James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee, and Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minn.
Prosecutors have said that Ray recklessly crammed more than 50 people inside the structure. His attorneys have called the deaths a tragic accident, and Ray has pleaded not guilty to three counts of manslaughter. His criminal trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 31.
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oe Rose: The Oskibimadizeeg (The New People)
A little talk about the Seventh Fire.... The New People [Oss' kih bih ma' diz eeg]. Be sure and watch the youtube at the end.
Welcome to IndianCountryTV - Spirituality Produced by Nick Vander Puy
Reserve, Wisconsin [[www.IndianCountryTV.com)
According to some Ojibwe prophecy, during the time of the Seventh Fire, which is figured to have started with the boat landing spearfishing protests in Wisconsin in the late nineteen eighties, a new people will emerge to retrace their steps back to natural living.
During this time, the journey of the natural people of the earth, the Oskibimadizeeg, [[the New People) will take them to elders for advice.
According to teachings in The Mishomis Book the light skinned race will be offered a choice between following the road towards unlimited technology and spiritualism. If the slower, less damaging path towards spiritualism is followed the Seventh Fire will light the Eighth Fire, an era of peace, brotherhood, sisterhood, and love.
During the Native American Week at Northland College, Ashland, Wisconsin in March Professor Joe Rose [[Bad River Ojibwe) talked about the emerging New People.
"There are four colors on the medicine wheel, red, white, black, and yellow. They will come together during the time of the Seventh Fire."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65V02...layer_embedded
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Why does our history begin on the east coast?
By Jack D. Forbes
News From Indian Country April 2010
Heretofore the history of the United States has been largely treated as the story of a process, rather than the complete history of a land “from sea to shining sea.” And this process always begins either in Europe or on the Atlantic Coast of North America.
Allow me to contrast the history of England with the history of the United States. In the history of England one finds that a “land,” i.e., England is the focus, and events tend to be portrayed from earliest times to the present even though sources might be archaeological, geological, paleontological, or literary.
Thus, the story of England is not the story of the Celtic migrations, the Roman conquest, or of the Germanic migrations, or the Danish invasion, or the Norman French conquest. Rather it is the story of the land and its peoples regardless of race, culture, languages, or origin.
These different peoples may settle in England from various directions, arriving on a variety of coast lines.
But United States history and regional histories, [[such as the history of “the west” or ‘the south”) are virtually always focused on the westward movement of the British or English peoples across the Atlantic and then the subsequent growth and expansion of the area of British control.
This is followed by the British colonial rebellion against Britain, the development of the United States of North America, soon to be called the United States of America, and the expansion and growth of the dominant white population of the United States and their culture, literature, and institutions. Significantly, the growth and decline of the Spanish and French empires in North America and the adjacent Caribbean receive scant attention usually. Thus, for example, the establishment of Jamestown in Virginia in 1607 is given great attention “as the birthplace of America” while the Spanish settlements of St. Augustine [[1565) and Santa Fe [[ca. 1598-1610) are often ignored.
Once British North America [[Canada) has made it clear that it will not join the USA, its history is dropped except for brief mention of the effort to conquer it in the War of 1812. Similarly the other British colonies that remained with Britain, such as Barbados, Jamaica, Bermuda, and the Bahamas, cease to be areas of U.S. history interest, in spite of the fact, I might add, that Native American captives [[slaves) from the mainland were often sold to those islands. But then, the entire subject of the enslavement of the First Americans is very lightly treated, and usually not at all.
Since there commonly is no attempt whatsoever to tell the story of the settlement of the Americas by Native Americans, except perhaps for a very brief reference to the Bering Straight theory; and certainly no attempt to reconstruct the history of the First Americans, we are presented with the fact that United States history is not the history of the land called variously North America, “America,” or the United States. Instead it is a racially focused history telling the story of only one great people and their institutions.
It is an “east coast history” which subordinates the continent’s story to an ethnocentric and geocentric distortion.
It is my argument that US history, constructed in such a fashion, is inherently biased. It also deprives us and our youth of a deep and full understanding of the story of our land, a story which must begin when North and South America broke loose from their ancient connections with Europe and Africa and moved across the Earth’s surface to their present location, a movement which eventually sees North and South America combining to form the continent called America, joining together where Panama and Colombia meet.
Needless to state, the history of the various climatic ages and of the Ancient Americans, with their epochal migrations and colonizing of every section of the hemisphere, forms a fascinating and essential part of the history of our land; but one which is ignored, in spite of the fact that a significant percentage of our population [[all who are of Mexican, Central-South American, Puerto Rican, and American Indian ancestry), have direct ties to that marvelous story. Large numbers of African-Americans also had ancestors who were ancient pioneers of the Americas.
Thus I call upon educators and upon the public to demand history texts and curricula, which are free of racial preferencing and of ardent imperialism and which, instead, tell the incredibly rich and beautiful history of all of our peoples. We can start our American history from the west, from the north, from the south, from the east. California, or Alaska, or Oregon, or Mexico can begin our story. California does not have to wait until 1848 to become part of our land. It was a part of our “country” long before Columbus, and long before Jamestown or Plymouth Rock.
In short, we must try to persuade our European-American fellow-citizens to stop their fascination with the triumphs and adventures of their European ancestors and ask them to come home to America, the real land, and its entire history.
Jack Forbes has been writing about the history of our land since the 1950s. His most recent effort to awaken interest in Ancient American History is his book “The American Discovery of Europe,” about Indians crossing the Atlantic to Europe and elsewhere long before Columbus’ voyage,
News From Indian Country
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.p...=8809&Itemid=1
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Ways of thinking about things
The history piece above is a look at shifting how we look at things. As we go through our suns, moons and seasons, the more years that pile on, the more things seem to come up that we just believe or accept because they are. How often do we think about shifting our outlook for a fresh perspective.
Example, someone posted last night on my Facebook page that they were so excited making a ceremonial dress for their little girl for her naming ceremony next month. She is so anxious to get everything traditional and everything right for this event. Wouldn't you know, someone commented that they thought we are only supposed to make ceremonial garb in the winter, not in the spring or summer. Hmmm.
Is this a tradition that has spiritual meaning? Or is it based on the traditional lifestyle, when spring, summer and fall were so busy that any time taken for personal pursuits could have a negative impact on the family and maybe even the whole community? One less person available to fish, hunt, filet and hang fish and meat for drying, gathering fruits, berries, nuts and seeds to put up for winter, could make a big dent in the community stores for the coming winter season.
Nowadays, we do not live a traditional lifestyle for the most part. We probably have jobs to make money to buy our food and clothing. Sure, we may also hunt and gather foods in the traditional ways, but that does not usually make up the mainstay of our winter diet. Those of us who are not busy with such pursuits are not impacting the community by not producing food and goods for community use.
Another issue is the materials used in the regalia. Feathers, skins and bone beads could involve killing birds and animals for their hides and feathers and bones. Spring is no time to be hunting just for decoration, but there would be hunting for food and those creatures that serve as food do have hides and feathers that could be harvested for future use in ceremonial garb. Nowadays, we can order those things from places like Crazy Crow and Noc Bay Trading Company year round should we choose to go that route.
So, would it be OK for the woman to make the regalia now, to prepare for the ceremony? Tradition tells us that Indian communities in the old days did take time to prepare for feasts and celebrations at times in the Spring and Fall. Did that include making regalia? Maybe not, but it might include refurbishing and adding to what we had already. Repairing and refreshing decoration happened year round.
It is something to think about.
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Echohawk for Supreme Court?
American Indian Supreme Court push
Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/ho.../91030729.html
WASHINGTON – Justice John Paul Stevens’ retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court has some tribal legal advocates calling for an American Indian replacement.
Stevens, who announced April 9 he would retire in late June or early July, has served on the court since 1975. A member of the court’s liberal voting bloc, he slowly grew stronger on tribal issues, including sovereignty, during his tenure, legal observers said. Still, the consensus is, he had a long way to go.
“Justice Stevens’ record on Indian issues is a mixed bag,” said Chris Stearns, a Navajo attorney for Hobbs Straus Dean & Walker and a commissioner with the Seattle Human Rights Commission. “His 35-year tenure on the court meant he was involved in some of the most significant cases in Indian law history.
“He wrote the Supreme Court’s 1989 opinion affirming the Boldt decision upholding Washington tribal fishing rights and rejecting the state of Washington’s appeal led by then-Attorney General Slade Gorton. That case remains one of the most profound recognition of the power of treaties.”
Stearns added that Stevens was “the lone voice of reason” on the court during the controversial Carcieri decision of 2009, in which he argued in favor of the Narragansett Tribe’s position.
On the other hand, Stearns noted that Stevens sometimes dissented against tribal interests in cases favoring tribes, such as Cabazon, which involved gaming, and Holyfield, which involved the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Matthew L.M. Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University, expanded on Stevens’ anti-tribal decisions, saying that his legacy in Indian law is “very, very bad.”
Fletcher said that Stevens was particularly tough in the area of federal Indian law preemption cases, where all tribal taxation cases fit.
“During the 1970s and through the 1980s, the tax cases were hit and miss because the court was unsure how to handle them. But in 1989’s Cotton Petroleum case [[authored by Stevens), the court placed the advantage squarely with the states and local governments. From then on, the court only took cases far out of step with its settled understanding. …”
Fletcher also believes Stevens would “have eviscerated tribal sovereign immunity long ago,” since he often has argued against any form of immunity, tribal, federal and state, for decades, to little or no avail.
Many Indian law experts believe the Supreme Court is weak on tribal issues because it has never had any knowledgeable members of that field.
To remedy the situation, some Native American-focused organizations are rallying for an Indian face on the bench. John Echohawk, director of the Native American Rights Fund, has been floated as the most common name, even receiving a nod in The Nation publication, which is influential in some Washington circles.
Richard Guest, a legal expert with NARF, said officials with his organization are soon to have a meeting with White House officials regarding Echohawk’s qualifications, which range from tribal and federal expertise to nonprofit and legal aid issues.
“We believe we have a strong case to share regarding John Echohawk – not only because he is a strong Native American legal authority, but he also has diversity of perspective.”
The National Native American Bar Association is also pushing for a Native candidate, sending the White House a letter April 14 to make that case.
“Our first goal is to try to get a Native person in there,” said Heather Dawn Thompson, the immediate past president of the organization. “It’s always a long shot, but we actually think we have as good a shot as anyone else.”
Reasons for hope include a USA Today poll last year that indicated a majority of American people saying they’d like to see an Indian nominated to the court.
Plus, Thompson said the wide-ranging legal experience of Indian law experts should be a factor.
“Every Native attorney is a constitutional scholar, by definition. In this field, you just have to be a state and federal law expert. … every single issue that could come up is addressed in this field.”
Fletcher took a hesitant view of the likelihood of a Native selection. “Sadly [[very, very sadly), John Echohawk [[or any other American Indian, or Indian law-focused practitioner) is definitely not a serious contender. Most realistic possibilities for the Supreme Court nomination are already federal or state judges in order to avoid the obvious question, ‘What is the nominee’s judicial experience?’ And there simply are not any American Indians on the federal bench, and only a small handful on state appellate benches.”
The NNABA has long made the case that the absence of Indian federal judges across the board needs to be remedied, especially since such cases tend to disproportionately affect Native Americans.
Among the non-Indian names mentioned for the bench, none are notable on Indian issues, and there is little consensus on who would be best in terms of tribal affairs.
President Barack Obama is expected to make a decision on his selection by summer. No matter the candidate, a tough confirmation battle is expected in Congress, given the increased politicization in that body lately.
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Apology Resolution C
Brownback urges apology resolution public ceremony
Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/na.../91908859.html
SAN DIEGO – Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., envisions a public ceremony to announce the passage of the Native American Apology Resolution.
The Kansas senator introduced an apology in 2004 in partnership with former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, of the Northern Cheyenne Nation. The Senate finally passed a version of the resolution last October and President Barack Obama signed it into law as part of a defense appropriations bill in December.
“I’ve been pushing the administration to have a major public ceremony, but they aren’t taking it on yet,” Brownback told Indian Country Today at the National Indian Gaming Association’s annual Indian Gaming Trade Show & Convention in early April.
Brownback was a guest speaker at the convention where he discussed the apology during a NIGA membership meeting. He is stepping down from his Senate seat this year to run for governor in Kansas.
He handed out copies of the resolution, which says in part that Congress, “apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States.”
The resolution also “urges the President to acknowledge the wrongs of the United States against Indian tribes in the history of the United States in order to bring healing to this land.” It comes with a disclaimer that nothing in the resolution authorizes or supports any legal claims against the United States and that the resolution does not settle any claims against the United States.
“Now this may seem like just words, but we worked five or six years to get these passed and we were never able to get one passed. This has been a long time coming. I think this is historic and I think it’s incredibly significant. Canada did this [[issued an apology to the First Nations) and I thought it was a very significant thing, but it has to be the president,” Brownback told the audience.
He said the resolution was not the end, but the first step toward a healing process.
“It’s my hope that tribal leaders here will see this as a positive step forward on healing and making a full reconciliation between the U.S. and tribal leadership, tribal leadership and the states and the states recognizing the sovereignty that’s there.”
The presidential signing of the bill took place without any fanfare or announcement just before Christmas. Like the eternal philosophical puzzler, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” questions soon popped up regarding the validity of an apology that no one knows about.
Brownback hoped tribal leadership would put forward an effort in the form of resolutions from the National Congress of American Indians, the United South and Eastern Tribes and NIGA urging Obama to have “a very public ceremony, invite the tribal leadership to be there and then the country knows about it. We passed it, but nobody knows about it. It isn’t like it didn’t happen, because it did, but you need to bring the resolution to the country. The words have been stated and now it is law,” Brownback said.
In late February, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, urged Obama to publicly acknowledge the Native American Apology Resolution.
“This apology deserves national recognition and public acknowledgment. To give true hearing to the apology, we respectfully request that you hold a White House ceremony with tribal leaders to formally issue the apology to Native peoples. We also look forward to additional steps in an action plan that will help to right the past wrongs,” the FCNL said.
Brownback and a number of legislators have sent a letter to the president urging him to hold a ceremony, and a similar letter from the NCAI is circulating among tribal leaders.
Tribal leaders at the NIGA event are confident a ceremony will take place this year. While the public ceremony is hugely important, they said they recognized that the president may have other pressing, priorities. The leaders suggested a good time for an apology ceremony would be around the time of the second Native American Heritage Day in November and that they are hopeful it will take place then.
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So, what do you think?
Did you know about the Apology Resolution before reading about it here [[post 350)? If so, where did you find out about it?
Do you think there is merit in the Apology Resolution?
What do you think would be helpful about making the Apology Resolution public and celebrating it? Or is it all so wrong?
Considering the viewpoint expressed by Jack Forbes in post 347 above, Why does our history begin on the east coast?, could celebrating the Apology Resolution promote some opening in our way of teaching our history?
Here is the text of the Resolution:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...S.J.RES.14.IS:
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Couldn't resist sharing this, first cartoon, be sure and click to play it:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ann...rc=nl_opinions
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Race in Hollywood Movie Month TCM -- Indian series
Tuesdays and Thursdays in May beginning at 8 pm on TCM:
http://www.tcm.com/2010/naof/index.jsp
Movies to be shown range from the 1913 silent, Squaw Man to the 1998 Sherman Alexie Indie, Smoke Signals, and 1999's Naturally Native. Included is a documentary, 1930 Silent Enemy that deals with hunger in winter for a pre-contact Anishinaabek tribe. Indian actors portray all the major characters.
Actors portraying Indians include Sal Mineo, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Donna Reed. Movies in the 90s finally began to maximize Indian actors in Indian roles. Stereotyping and prejudice will be covered in host commentary.
This site has a wonderful overview of the movie Silent Enemy, what led to it, how it was made and what has happened to it since. http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/silentenemy.php
Excerpt:
The Silent Enemy is not a documentary, but a dramatized narrative film that focuses on the role of hunger [[the silent enemy of the title) in the lives of a small band of Ojibway natives, and how a conflict between two band members over the manner in which to obtain food is finally resolved. The cast is entirely composed of natives and the band's manner of living is authentically portrayed, with the incidents in the story being based on the writings of Jesuit missionaries who lived amongst the Ojibways during the 17th and 18th centuries.
Seventy-one years after it first appeared, The Silent Enemy continues to fascinate. Do not be turned off by the thought that this is just some wilderness documentary. This is a remarkable time capsule showing a way of living that, as the film's producers rightly anticipated, has largely disappeared. The routines of everyday living are well contrasted against the forces of nature that have to be dealt with—snowstorms, scavengers [[such as wolverines) who steal game from traps, and wild predatory animals. The filming of the latter, particularly a fight between a mountain lion and bear over a dead deer, and towards the end of the film, the caribou migration and hunt, are beautifully caught on film.
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Thank you Mickey Hart for the Drum songs.
Brian @ stoned.com
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Drum Songs, Yes, and Working to Protect Eagle Rock
BigB Kchiamoo, I love Mickey Hart, too. One who understands the heartbeat of the people.
The following link is to an article and video interview about the women camping to protect Eagle Rock in the UP Huron Mountains from mining. Charlotte Loonsfoot is interviewed. The story and interview skirt the issue of protection of water. Rio Tinto proposes a copper and nickel mine in the Yellow Dog Plain area. The Yellow Dog River is in danger from mining effluent, and it drains into Lake Superior. It has been said that the proposals submitted by the company and accepted by MI Dept of Natural Resources were deficient in environmental protection.
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.p...=9021&Itemid=1
Excerpt:
When Charlotte Loonsfoot and her family were coming back to Eagle Rock the other day from Baraga, Michigan, along a long and bumpy road, their small car broke down. Al Hunter and I picked them up on the road and brought them into camp.
Loonsfoot didn't complain at all. She was smiling and proudly carrying a brand new blue and green Pendleton wool blanket. She'd received this blanket from a Keweenaw Bay Chippewa elder earlier in the week for helping start the camp at Eagle Rock [[Migiziwasin) to protect a sacred site.
She wants Rio Tinto Zinc mining company to leave Ojibwe ceded territory.
This link is to an article discussing the DEQ approving the mining despite Native rights and environmental concerns:
http://headwatersnews.net/mining-blo...pper-michigan/
Excerpt: Consistent with AIRFA [American Indian Religious Freedom Act], Administrative Law Judge Richard Patterson ruled in August of 2009 that both Kennecott and the MDEQ “did not properly address the impact on the sacred rock outcrop known as Eagle Rock,” further stating that “the excavation and drilling in the immediate area of Eagle Rock and fencing it off will materially affect its use as a place of worship. This should in some manner be accommodated, and would best be done so by relocating the access to the mine to a location that will not interfere with that function.” Ignoring both federal law and the judge’s recommendations, the DEQ decided that Eagle Rock did not constitute a place of worship and that Kennecott could retain its plan to blast beneath the outcrop.
NOTE: The American Indian Religious Freedom Act was signed into law by Jimmy Carter in 1978, finally granting to American Indians the religious freedom guaranteed to everyone else in the Constitution.
This article touches on the environmental concerns. I need to find an update that shows how DEQ as it was at the time, knuckled under and approved it anyway:
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=1218 [[2005)
Like the Crandon project in the Wolf River watershed, the Eagle deposit threatens the pristine Yellow Dog and Salmon Trout Rivers with sulfuric acid mine drainage and heavy metal contamination. The proposed underground shaft would extend beneath the headwaters of the Salmon Trout River.The timing of Kennecott's permit is highly unusual. The State of Michigan has not yet come up with rules and regulations to implement the recently passed nonferrous metallic mineral legislation. Why is Kennecott submitting a permit application before the state has even agreed to a set of mining regulations? And why is Kennecott opposed to a hydrological study of the Yellow Dog Plains proposed by the U.S. Geological Survey?
The article reports on the public hearing, and on the deleterious effects of the same kind of mine at Flambeau in Wisconsin.
DEQ's Approval and some history, January 2010
http://lakesuperiorminingnews.net/20...cott-approval/
Excerpt:
Swept under the rug are comments made by the state’s commissioned rock mechanics expert, Dr. David Sainsbury, that the company’s mine plan was
“technically antiquated, sloppy and equivalent to high school level work.” Sainsbury also insisted that the DEQ kept relevant local geological information out of his reports and repeatedly said that Kennecott’s conclusions regarding the ability of the mine to not collapse
“are not considered to be defensible” and does “not reflect industry best practice.”
The report also says DEQ ignored certain concerns of violation of Michigan laws because they couldn't afford to enforce the laws.
Oh, yes, let's don't forget, there was a ruling that Eagle Rock could not be a place of worship because it isn't a building.
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We are all a gift to the Earth -- Eagle Rock
I would love to hear what you all think about this. I have been to the Yellow Dog Plain near Eagle Rock, and it truly is a sacred place. When I heard about Rio Tinto's plan to mine sulfides, nickel and copper there, I was horrified. As the plans made their way through the system, getting shot down time after time, I was reassured. I should have known. The evil that is greed will always return, and will ultimately prevail.
Here are some teachings directly from a man raised in the area:
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.p...=9051&Itemid=1
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Stereotyping and Sports Logos
Anybody have anything to say about this?
'Redskins’ may have psychological impact beyond Native Americans
Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/ho.../93776164.html
WASHINGTON – At the home base of the controversially-named Washington Redskins football team, a new study on possible widespread harms resulting from stereotypes of Native Americans is drawing reactions.
The study, published by Chu Kim-Prieto, a psychologist with the College of New Jersey, suggests stereotyping of American Indians is a psychological process that actually encourages a broader attitude that affects all minority communities, not just the ones being actively stereotyped.
“In other words, my stereotype is your stereotype, too,” Jenn Fang, an Asian American advocate, summarized in a recent blog post regarding the study.
Kim-Prieto said she began the research when she was a graduate student at the University of Illinois, which until 2007 featured the infamous Chief Illiniwek mascot. Like the Washington Redskins, many Native Americans decried the Illinois mascot, saying it degraded their culture, and was a racist misrepresentation.
The researcher conducted her experiment through two separate studies, in which she showed students either a picture of Chief Illiniwek, or a generic University of Illinois logo. Next, students were given a questionnaire asking them to rank their agreement with statements regarding Asian American stereotypes.
The findings indicated that students who first viewed stereotypical images of Chief Illiniwek were more willing to promote stereotypical statements about Asian Americans. The same was true of students who read a fictional biography of Chief Illiniwek, compared to students who read a generic description of an arts center.
“We usually think about racism as something that’s motivated by racial hatred of a targeted ethnic group,” Fang blogged about the findings. “Instead, this study tells us that even exposure to racial stereotypes appears to encourage an overall more black-and-white [[pardon the pun) outlook on the world – even against unrelated groups.”
While Kim-Prieto didn’t research whether the same effects might result from the Washington Redskins team name and logo, she said her findings indicated that similar stereotyping problems could arise from the situation.
A variety of psychological scholars have already offered expert opinions on the harmfulness of the Redskins’ name and logo. And historians and legal experts have noted that the word “redskins” was historically used by the U.S. government as a way to refer to bounties it placed on scalped Indian heads.
“Social science research shows that the use of ethnic slurs like ‘redskin’ perpetuates harmful stereotypes and leads to discrimination,” the authors of a legal brief supporting opponents of the name wrote in an opinion to the Supreme Court last fall.
Psychology scholars, hailing from top institutions nationwide, added in the brief that the effects of American Indian sports mascots are especially harmful to Native youth, tending to lower the self-esteem of Indian children and young adults. They cited studies showing that exposure to Indian sports mascots depress the self-esteem and feelings of community worth and limit the aspirations of Native high school and college students.
Kim-Prieto’s new work on the matter has caught the attention of Philip Mause, a lawyer for a group of Indian plaintiffs suing to get the Redskins’ trademark revoked.
“We are happy to see psychologists doing important work that confirms our argument that these stereotypes are harmful,” said Mause, of the Drinker Biddle firm.
“I think it should be clear to the Redskins’ owners, based on this kind of research, that they are going to be facing litigation from a variety of people for a long, long time. Simply put, they should just change the name.”
Top policy makers, some whom have offered legislation against stereotypical representations of Native Americans, are also paying credence to the new psychological research.
“I think it is more important than ever to address and eliminate derogatory stereotypes of Native Americans, which often includes their portrayal as school mascots,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., after learning of the study.
“I agree that stereotyping Native Americans as mascots for example makes it more acceptable to apply stereotypes in other situations. I continue to pursue support for my legislation and the elimination of derogatory stereotyping of Native Americans.”
Pallone introduced a bill before the House of Representatives last November that would identify derogatory mascots in schools and create a grant program to assist in changing offensive images. It’s called the NATIVE Act.
Fang, meanwhile, sees a way for minorities to unite over the findings of the study.
“What more evidence do we need that in combating racism, coalition-building between minority communities is not only beneficial, but necessary?” she asked in a recent blog post.
“For too long, we’ve approached the struggle to end the racism [[or other -isms) that we face as an individual battle. We’ve seen plenty of examples of divisive in-fighting that pits one minority group against another – as if we’re competing to prove which of us is ‘most oppressed.’ But here’s convincing data to demonstrate that we’re all up against the same problem. Despite all ideas to the contrary, we’re really all in this anti-racism boat together.”
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More on Eagle Rock I
The fight will continue for KBIC
Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/na.../94594944.html
BIG BAY, Mich. – The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Tribal Council promised it would continue to fight the Kennecott Eagle Minerals nickel and copper mine even if the owner moves the entrance, at a meeting with those defending sacred Eagle Rock May 8.
In mid-April, Kennecott started initial work on its mine – dubbed the Eagle Project – but has reportedly offered to move the mine portal about 100 yards west of Eagle Rock, that has been a site of Ojibwa ceremonies for at least 170 years. Since April 23, American Indians from several tribes and non-Natives have been camping at the base of sacred Eagle Rock to protect it from bulldozers.
“What we are trying to do here is save Mother Earth,” KBIC Tribal Council President Warren “Chris” Swartz told campers during an official council meeting in the shadow of Eagle Rock. “Mother Earth is crying for our help. We are here today to try to support her [[Mother Earth) and to save the fish, the swimmers, the crawlers and the four leggeds and the fliers here. I am really honored to be here [[Eagle Rock).”
After a tobacco offering that included praying in all four directions around the encampment’s “sacred fire,” Swartz said those defending Eagle Rock should never give up their fight and pledged neither would the tribal council.
“Our brothers and our sisters here have been making us aware of Kennecott Minerals Company coming here and starting to mine underneath migi zii wa sin [[Eagle Rock).”
The future of the protesters' children and their children is what’s at stake, said KBIC Tribal Council Vice President Susan LaFernier, who’s been fighting the mine for six years.
“I just want to say thank you to you people. It’s been a longer journey for a lot of people.
“Thank you for everyone who is protecting the rock and the land and the water and it is for our seventh generations – our next seven generations – that’s always been our stand since 2004 when we first opposed the mine in our resolution. May our God and Creator be with you all – to bring peace to you.”
http://images.bimedia.net/images/KBIC--WEB.jpg
KBIC tribal council member Isabelle Helene Welsh thanked the Eagle Rock defenders and praised the non-violent protest.
“My heart is with you, walk in love, walk in peace and wisdom.”
Swartz reminded campers that KBIC filed a “lawsuit hoping to overturn the state permit for the nickel and copper mine” because the council believes the project “doesn’t meet legal requirements for protecting the environment.
“I am personally not against mining but I am opposed to the sulfide mine process. The sulfide mining process, I know for a fact, is going to have some detrimental effects to the environment” including groundwater, nearby streams and the Great Lakes, he said. “Those streams feed into Lake Superior, the largest and most precious body of water in the world.”
Holding a ceremonial walking stick, KBIC council member William “Gene” Emery said he’s worried about the environmental effects of sulfide mining on fish and drinking water because when “even the dust hits water, that makes your chemicals and that floats out into [[Lake Superior).”
It is inevitable that dust will escape from ore moving equipment and from accidents involving the trucks hauling sulfide mine waste, said Emery, the tribal council assistant secretary. The dust is “going to settle on the trees and you are going to get rain and that’s going to go into your streams.”
Several Eagle Rock defenders briefed the council about the outpouring of support from hundreds of people during the first two weeks bringing food, firewood and other donations. The campers said they are embarrassed to ask for financial support to pay rent and utilities.
KBIC member Glen Bressette, who lives almost two hours from Eagle Rock, said the campers take turns returning home to visit their children.
“I keep my bundles there and bring my physical here,” said Bressette, 38, of Harvey, Mich. “When we come here [[to Eagle Rock) we call it home too.
“We need other people to help us so we can go back to our families. They need us – we can’t do this alone. We have all races and walks of life who have come here – all colors, creeds and nations – the same way that our medicine wheel shows us,” said Bressette, using his finger to make a circle.
On his knees, Bressette prayed in Ojibwa and spread tobacco on the sacred fire.
“I am offering up our prayers to you and our grandmothers and grandfathers to help us. They tell that story about a stick and another stick and another stick and how much stronger it gets as we all blend together and how much strength that brings us. Che megwich for bringing that strength here.”
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Eagle Rock II
Among the tribes included in the encampment are Ojibwa, Lakota and Cherokee.
Eagle Rock Activity
May 11 – Woodland Road LLC announced that it withdrew a permit application for a $50 million, 22-mile haul road – paid for by Kennecott Eagle Minerals but to be used by many businesses – that would connect the remote Eagle Mine to an ore processing facility at the former Humbodlt Mill in west Marquette County – thus preventing 100 trucks from being routed daily through Marquette and other cities.
On May 7, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment was prepared to decide whether to issue a permit for the road project. The Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this year filed federal objections to the DNRE issuing a permit for the road involving issues that include wetlands mitigation and possibly using other routes.
May 12 – Kennecott Eagle Minerals and Keweenaw Bay Indian Community officials met to discuss Eagle Rock and an ongoing lawsuit. Both sides declined comment on what happened during the meeting.
May 13 – At KBIC’s request, EPA officials from Region 5 in Chicago visited Eagle Rock and its surroundings. Tribal officials declined comment, and an EPA spokesperson said May 17 that she was checking on information that could be released about the visit.
May 15 – A pro-mine ATV rally scheduled for Eagle Rock was scaled back reportedly at the request of Kennecott officials. About 20 ATVs showed up near Eagle Rock and stayed only a few minutes.
May 15 – About 40 people attended a “treaty rights” presentation by several people at Eagle Rock including a Native American activist, who would only identify himself as “Just Another Guy from the Rez.” The effects of sulfide mining were outlined by retired iron ore miner Bob Tammen of Duluth, Minn. and mine critic Chuck Glossenger of Big Bay, Mich. A mine spokesman also attending the presentations.
Also, KBIC member and mine opponent Jessica Koski, who addressed Rio Tinto [[Kennecott’s parent company) annual stockholders meeting in London April 15, returned to the Upper Peninsula from her environmental management master’s studies program at Yale University.
May 18 – The Eagle Rock defenders continued erecting a cedar fence around their encampment in response to a fence being constructed by Eagle Project mine officials.
On May 17, Kennecott started erecting a fence on the north and east sides of the Eagle Rock encampment – less than 50 yards from the campers, said American Indian Levi Tadgerson.
“Everyone at Eagle Rock has been working hard to put up our own cedar fence, and Kennecott is just putting their fence up around it,” stated a May 18 communique from the campers on standfortheland.com, a blog. “We are calling all friends and concerned citizens to please stop by Eagle Rock. … we really need you and your support.”
“It helps with morale and these are very challenging times,” the campers said. “We must stand united and we need lots of people to stand with us.”
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The Gloves are off at Eagle Rock
- Kennecott mining company has completed its perimeter fence and says anyone who breaches it will be arrested.
- Protesters continue to work on their own fence.
- Keweenaw Bay Tribal Council member and former chairman Fred Dakota recommends KB stop using its resources to fight with the mining company in the courts and work on getting jobs for Community members instead. [[Fred did time for corruption after a long stint as tribal chairman.)
- Two tribal members were arrested at the site this afternoon.
2 protesters arrested at Michigan mine site
By JOHN FLESHER [[AP) – 53 minutes ago
BIG BAY, Mich. — A small group of protesters stayed put Thursday after being ordered to leave the entrance of a planned nickel and copper mine in the Upper Peninsula, near what an American Indian tribe considers sacred ground. Two people were arrested.
Police said one person was sitting on top of Eagle Rock, a 60-foot-high outcrop where members of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community conduct religious pilgrimages. She remained there past the 9:30 a.m. deadline and was arrested, State Police Sgt. J.M. Bruno said. One other person also was arrested.
Both were charged with misdemeanor trespassing and released on personal recognizance bonds, State Police Lt. Robert Pernaski said.
He declined to identify them because they had not been arraigned. But supporters said they were Charlotte Loonsfoot, 37, and Chris Chosa, 29, both members of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.
As many as 20 people have camped at the site during the last month. Kennecott Eagle Minerals Co. officials warned them to leave by Thursday.
When officials got to the site, six protesters were there, Pernaski said.
Kennecott Eagle spokesman Matt Johnson handed them a letter asking them to leave, saying it wasn't safe for them to be there because it's a construction site.
By noon, the site was empty but for company officials and a few police officers. There were a number of tents still up and the protesters' camp fire, which they consider sacred, was smoldering near the base of the rock.
The entrance is state land that Kennecott is leasing. Kennecott believes the mine could produce as much as 300 million pounds of nickel and about 200 million pounds of copper. Kennecott is owned by London-based Rio Tinto PLC.
While the Upper Peninsula has a long and colorful history of copper and iron mining dating from the mid-1800s, its copper mines have closed and only two iron operations remain, both in Marquette County. The new mine would bring badly needed jobs to the area.
The site is within an undeveloped area of Marquette County known as the Yellow Dog Plains, prized by environmentalists and sports enthusiasts for its quiet woods and rivers near Lake Superior.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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A meditation for Eagle Rock and the Gulf of Mexico and the Whole Earth
Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 28
"The land is a sacred trust held in common for the benefit of the future of our nations."
--Haida Gwaii - Traditional Circle of Elders
The Creator made the Earth to support life so that life would continue to reproduce, everything would support one another, and future generations would have the same benefits of supply and beauty as the generations that preceded them. This cycle will only continue to the degree that we make choices and decisions for the future generations. Today, we are too greedy and selfish. We are cheating our children, grandchildren, and the children unborn.
www.whitebison.org
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How Oil Companies have laid waste the land over the years
Spill reinforces oil bad will for American Indians
By Cain Burdeau
Pointe-Au-Chien, Louisianna [[AP) May 2010
News From Indian Country
http://indiancountrynews.net : 30 May, 2010, 14:30
Like many American Indians on the bayou, Emary Billiot blames oil companies for ruining his ancestral marsh over the decades. Still, he’s always been able to fish – but now even that is not a certainty.
An oil spill – 5 million gallons and counting – spreading across the Gulf of Mexico has closed bays and lakes in Louisiana’s bountiful delta, including fishing grounds that feed the last American-Indian villages in three parishes. It is a bitter blow for the tribes of south Louisiana who charge that drilling has already destroyed their swamps and that oil and land
companies illegally grabbed vast areas.
“Once the oil gets in the marshes, it’s all over, that’s where your shrimp spawn,” said Billiot, a wiry fisherman with tough hands, his fingernails caked with bayou dirt. “Then we’re in trouble,” he said in a heavy French-Indian accent.
In the month since an offshore drilling platform exploded, killing 11 workers, BP PLC has struggled to stop the leak from a blown-out underwater well. Recently, engineers finally succeeded in using a stopper-and-tube combination to siphon some of the gushing oil into a tanker. In Pointe-Au-Chien, 60-year-old Sydney Verdin felt a tingle of vengeful satisfaction at BP PLC’s misfortune over the oil spill.
“I’m happy for the oil spill. Now the oil companies are paying for it the same way we’ve had to pay for it,” said Verdin, disabled by a stroke, as he sat in his living room and watched his grandchildren play.
Even before the leak, oil’s influence on the south Louisiana landscape was unmistakable. Signs warning about underground pipelines are everywhere. So are plastic poles in canals to show the pipelines’ location. Out in the marsh, oil and gas facilities are often the only lights visible at night.
Since the 1930s, oil and natural gas companies dug about 10,000 miles of canals, straight as Arizona highways, through the oak and cypress forests, black mangroves, bird rushes and golden marshes. If lined up in a row, the canals would stretch nearly halfway around the world. They funneled salt water into the marshes, killing trees and grass and hastening erosion. Some scientists say drilling caused half of Louisiana’s land loss, or about 1,000 square miles.
“If you see pictures from the sky, how many haphazard cuts were made in the land, it blows your mind,” said Patty Ferguson, a member of the Pointe-Au-Chien tribe. “We weren’t just fishermen. We raised crops, we had wells. We can’t anymore because of the salt water intrusion.”
As companies intensified their search for petroleum in the 20th century, communities where the Choctaw, Chitimacha, Houma, Attakapas and Biloxi tribes married Europeans in the 1800s have seen their way of life disappear.
“This is not a two-week story, but a hundred-year story,” said Michael Dardar, historian with the United Houma Nation tribe. “Coastal erosion, land loss and more vulnerability to hurricanes and flooding all trace back to this century of unchecked economic development.”
Oil companies have long argued that their drilling in south Louisiana consistently was approved by federal and state agencies and did not violate the law. Most attempts to get oil companies to fill in the canals have failed in court. Land claims have proven hard to win because south Louisiana’s American Indians have not won recognition as sovereign tribes by the federal government.
The damage didn’t end with the canals. U.S. Geological Survey scientists say sucking so much oil and gas out of the ground likely caused the land in many places to sink by half an inch a year. In boom days in the 1970s, Louisiana’s coastal wells pumped 360 million barrels a year, an eighth of what Saudi Arabia ships to the market today.
Oil wells also discharged about a billion gallons daily of brine, thick with naturally occurring chemicals like chlorides, calcium and magnesium, as well as acids used in drilling.
To many Indians, oil has meant an unmitigated disaster. “They never done nothing for me,” Billiot said. Pointing across canals and open water at the village’s edge, he said: “You see where all that water is: It was all hard ground. You could walk from here all the way out there. They started making cuts, the water come in. It didn’t take too many days to make a canal. A big machine and they’re done. One little stream of water here, after so many years it eat up, and that’s why everything is wide open right now.”
In addition, American Indians say land and oil companies seized swamps that rightfully belonged to them. They’ve sued unsuccessfully to regain vast areas now owned by large landholding and energy companies.
Joel Waltzer, a New Orleans lawyer who’s worked on an aboriginal land
claims lawsuit for the Pointe-Au-Chien tribe, said Indian tribes were so
isolated they missed the opportunity to claim ownership of swamplands
after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
“They were not English speaking; they were completely illiterate and they had no means to make it to New Orleans and make their claim,” Waltzer said.
Much of south Louisiana was claimed by the federal government and sold off at 19th-century auctions to land companies. By the 1900s, oil companies bought much of the land in south Louisiana. Allegations abound among Indians that oil companies hoodwinked them into selling even the small bits of land they owned.
“They take the land. That was years ago,” said Ranzel Billiot, a 30-year-old shrimper and one of Emary Billiot’s cousins. “A lot of the older people they took the land from didn’t know how to read or write.”
About 40 years ago, Verdin, the 60-year-old from Pointe-Au-Chien, his father and a cousin took shotguns and stood in the way of a Louisiana Land and Exploration Co. marsh buggy crew digging a trench that was about to go through a nearby Indian burial ground.
“We said: If you go one more step, you’ll risk your life,” he recalled. “They didn’t go through the burial ground. I can’t think of one Indian who ever made any money from oil.”
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A meditation for the Earth and her children
Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 31
"Sell a country? Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the Earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?"
--Tecumseh, SHAWNEE
The White Man's way is to possess, control, and divide. It has always been difficult for Indian people to understand this. There are certain things we cannot own that must be shared. The Land is one of these things. We need to re-look at what we are doing to the Earth. We are digging in her veins and foolishly diminishing the natural resources. We are not living in balance. We do not own the Earth; the Earth owns us. Today, let us ponder the true relationship between the Earth and ourselves.
Great Spirit, today, let me see the Earth as you would have me see Her.
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Memorial Day, Remember the Ogichidak (Warriors)
COMMUNITY, FAMILY and SPIRITUALITY: VETERANS
Native American people who served in the United States armed services are greatly honored in the American Indian community. The translation for soldier, warrior, protector and helper are all the same word. In Dakota that word is Akicita and in Ojibwe it is Ogichida.
As Ed Godfrey, a Dakota/Lakota veteran explains, "It was always the warrior who was first in defending Mother Earth. It was his duty to be first. It is a part of traditional values, a part of protecting against any outside invasion that would endanger the people, our people and the land."
It is a remarkable fact that Indian people served the United States long before they were even given United States citizenship. In fact, between 1917 and 1918, over 10,000 American Indian people enlisted into the armed services to serve in World War I. Although this was the greatest number of enlisted peoples from any one non-anglo culture, citizenship [[with the right to vote) for Native Americans was not granted until 1924.
The warrior is seen as having an important and ongoing role. As Chief Ernest Wabasha, hereditary chief of the Dakota people, explains. "Sometime in the future we believe that we will be back to protect the environment and everything else."
http://www.ktca.org/powwow/comfamspirit/veterans.html
And from the US Navy:
As the 20th century comes to a close, there are nearly 190,000 Native American military veterans. It is well recognized that, historically, Native Americans have the highest record of service per capita when compared to other ethnic groups. The reasons behind this disproportionate contribution are complex and deeply rooted in traditional American Indian culture. In many respects, Native Americans are no different from others who volunteer for military service. They do, however, have distinctive cultural values which drive them to serve their country. One such value is their proud warrior tradition.
In part, the warrior tradition is a willingness to engage the enemy in battle. This characteristic has been clearly demonstrated by the courageous deeds of Native Americans in combat. However, the warrior tradition is best exemplified by the following qualities said to be inherent to most if not all Native American societies: strength, honor, pride, devotion, and wisdom. These qualities make a perfect fit with military tradition.
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-1.htm
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Ode-imini-giizis, Strawberry Moon
How good Mother Earth is, to give us Wild Strawberries! I found a patch growing in my lawn and am hoping for berries soon.
Ode = Heart
Odemin = heart berry
You can see why, because the berry is red, and when you cut it in half it resembles a heart. It is a sacred berry for that reason, used in ceremonies for strength and fortitude. For example, in sweat lodge, just after the second opening, a container of water is passed, with halved strawberries floating in it. Everyone drinks from this.
My favorite way to eat wild strawberries is with a little canned milk. That's how we ate them when I was a child. Sooo good and what a reward for hours of picking. My mom was always proud of me for picking clean. Neither my brother or sister picked clean, hulls, stems and grass were always in with their berries. The secret? I was the one who had to clean the berries when we got home. She never caught on and switched the chore around.
Wild strawberries, though tiny, are just little flavorbombs, well worth the trouble of crouching for hours to pick them, then the tedious chore of cleaning them without losing any juice.
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Native apology said out loud
Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/ho.../95111209.html
WASHINGTON – The main Congress member pushing for an official apology to Native Americans for historical injustices has said his piece out loud, leaving some wondering if President Barack Obama will take a similar step.
During a May 19 ceremony at the Congressional Cemetery chapel, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., read the Native American Apology Resolution to tribal representatives of five tribal nations. Brownback was the main sponsor of the Senate version of the resolution, which passed Congress last fall. He had been pushing for the measure since 2004.
Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., author of the legislation in the House, was also on hand.
“There is a rich history here, and there is a past wrong,” Brownback said at the event, addressing tribal leaders. “The U.S. government saw Native Americans not as people, but as a problem. This apology is an effort to start a reconciliation process to rebuild relations and it starts now.”
http://images.bimedia.net/images/29-52-brownback-2.jpg Cherokee Chief Chad Smith [[left) spoke with Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who read the Native American Apology Resolution during a ceremony at the Congressional Cemetery.
Obama signed the resolution into law in December as part of another piece of legislation to no fanfare, perplexing many Native Americans regarding his sincerity, since the White House did not issue any announcements.
The president to date has not expressed intentions to say the apology out loud, as has been done for other disenfranchised groups on other contentious issues in U.S. history.
Brownback touched on the Obama issue in a January interview with Indian Country Today, saying he thought the president should hold an event with many tribal officials in attendance. He reiterated his desire in April, saying he’s been “pushing the administration to have a major public ceremony, but they aren’t taking it on yet.”
When asked again May 26 if Obama will make an out-loud apology, Shin Inouye, a spokesman for the White House, said he had “no updates on this issue.” The White House has been asked since January if Obama would consider such a move.
“For an apology to have any meaning at all, you do have to tell the people you’re apologizing to,” Robert T. Coulter, executive director of the Indian Law Resource Center, has said regarding the silence.
The resolution, as signed by Obama, provided no financial reparations for past wrongs. In written words, it apologized “on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native peoples by citizens of the United States.”
Besides Brownback and McDermott, two other Congress members were in attendance at the Congressional Cemetery ceremony, Lois Capps, D-Calif., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii.
Ed Shelleby, a spokesman for McDermott, said his office has “only heard positive responses” regarding the apology.
The event was organized by the Faith and Politics Institute as part of a larger ceremony honoring the 36 Indians who are buried in the Congressional Cemetery. The organization often works in a bipartisan manner with members of Congress on faith and spirituality matters.
“We wanted to do something via a congressional ceremony to honor Native heroes,” said Robin Fillmore, a program director with the organization.
Fillmore explained the institute worked with Cherokee Chief Chad Smith to help plan the event, though it was Brownback’s idea to attend and read the apology. Brownback has worked with the institute in the past.
The institute had long been wanting to work with tribal nations, but this was the first time it had done so, Fillmore said.
Fillmore said it was difficult to reach tribal nation officials to participate in the ceremony. Thirteen tribes have individuals buried in the cemetery; five nations had representatives at the ceremony. There are 564 federally-recognized tribes nationwide.
The National Congress of American Indians served as a co-sponsor of the event.
NCAI Deputy Director Robert Holden said at the ceremony that “dignity is taking a long step in being restored” through the federal apology.
“And from this day we all will do many important things together. It starts here with this [[apology), this long process. This is a historic event in the history of this nation.”
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Some good questions
Saving Eagle Rock – a Sacred Site to Native Americans – from Kennecott Mining
Commentary by Laura Furtman |
June 5, 2010
Read more articles in Indigenous Peoples
I spent most of the month of May at Eagle Rock in the Yellow Dog Plains of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Yes, I am one of the people who was camped there in an effort to save Eagle Rock, a sacred site to the Native American community, from the grip of Kennecott Minerals Company. The site is about 25 miles from Marquette and 45 miles from the reservation of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community [[KBIC), but what happens there has serious consequences for anyone living in the Lake Superior region.
My job at camp was to help prepare and serve up the meals. Just like in most homes, our kitchen was a place where people liked to congregate and talk. As a result, I heard all kinds of things about what was going on and I have a number of questions that need to be answered, especially since our camp was shut down by the police on May 27. Tell me:
- What exactly do the 1842 and 1854 treaties say about the land where Eagle Rock is located? Is it ceded territory or unceded territory? Someone needs to look at the original documentation and press the federal government to enforce the treaties as written. This is a federal, not state issue.
- Where does the KBIC Tribal Council stand on the desecration of Eagle Rock? Council members won’t give a straight answer to this question or stand up for the KBIC tribal members who were arrested at Eagle Rock on May 27 and charged with trespassing. To me this suggests the Council has sold out its people and become a silent partner with the mining company.
- Is the KBIC Tribal Council running the show? Shouldn’t other tribes whose ancestors traveled through the Yellow Dog Plains have a say as to what happens to this sacred site?
- Was there an exchange of money or some sort of agreement struck between the KBIC Tribal Council and Kennecott? The Council won’t say, but if there was, a community referendum vote should have been held. This never happened.
- Did the KBIC Tribal Council apply several years ago, as reported, to list Eagle Rock as a historic site? If so, where is the paperwork?
- Who initiated the removal and arrest of the KBIC tribal members who were camped at Eagle Rock? Was it the KBIC Tribal Council? The FBI? The Michigan Attorney General’s office? Kennecott?
- Why was Homeland Security invoked for the arrest of the KBIC tribal members? When a white woman was arrested several weeks ago and charged with trespassing at Eagle Rock, I am told only one squad car was called to the scene. Contrast that with the 20 squad cars, ambulance and fire truck that were called upon for the arrest of two tribal members! Surely this smacks of racial profiling. And what kind of tab will the taxpayers be hit up with for this nonsense?
I respectfully ask all members of the Lake Superior community, whether you live in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin or Ontario, to please consider the above questions and seek out the answers. We simply cannot leave the fate of a shared treasure, Eagle Rock, in the hands of a single tribal council that appears to be in partnership with the mining industry.
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2010/6/...nnecott-mining
I have some questions of my own:
Is it true that the approval of the permit for Kennecott to begin operations was based upon some strange conclusions at outgoing MiDEQ?
- Despite a judicial ruling to the contrary, Eagle Rock is not a place of worship, since there is no building. A place of worship must be a building.
- DEQ is unable to enforce the various rules and environment laws that needed to be reviewed and attended to in the permitting process.
This link is to the Final Decision of DEQ to approve the permit:
http://tinyurl.com/23pku53
I'm going to look up the Treaty of 1842 mentioned on Page 4, and above in Furtman's questions. More later...
This map shows the ceded area for the 1842 Treaty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:18...OfLaPointe.jpg
Treaty wording:
THE Chippewa Indians of the Mississippi and Lake Superior, cede to the United States all the country within the following bounderies; viz: beginning at the mouth of Chocolate river of Lake Superior; thence northwardly across said lake to intersect the boundery line between the United States and the Province of Canada; thence up said Lake Superior, to the mouth of the St. Louis, or Fond du Lac river [[including all the islands in said lake); thence up said river to the American Fur Company's trading post, at the southwardly bend thereof, about 22 miles from its mouth; thence south to intersect the line of the treaty of 29th July 1837, with the Chippewas of the Mississippi; thence along said line to its southeastwardly extremity, near the Plover portage on the Wisconsin river; thence northeastwardly, along the boundery line, between the Chippewas and Menomonees, to its eastern termination, [[established by the treaty held with the Chippewas, Menomonees, and Winnebagoes, at Butte des Morts, August 11th 1827) on the Skonawby river of Green Bay; thence northwardly to the source of Chocolate river; thence down said river to its mouth, the place of beginning; it being the intention of the parties to this treaty, to include in this cession, all the Chippewa lands eastwardly of the aforesaid line running from the American Fur Company's trading post on the Fond du Lac river to the intersection of the line of the treaty made with the Chippewas of the Mississippi July 29th 1837.
ARTICLE 2.
The Indians stipulate for the right of hunting on the ceded territory, with the other usual privileges of occupancy, until required to remove by the President of the United States, and that the laws of the United States shall be continued in force, in respect to their trade and inter course with the whites, until otherwise ordered by Congress.
Lands reserved for the Chippewa of KB in the 1854 Treaty:
The United States agree to set apart and withhold from sale, for the use of the Chippewas of Lake Superior, the following-described tracts of land, viz:
1st. For the L'Anse and Vieux De Sert bands, all the unsold lands in the following townships in the State of Michigan: Township fifty-one north range thirty-three west; township fifty-one north range thirty-two west; the east half of township fifty north range thirty-three west; the west half of township fifty north range thirty-two west, and all of township fifty-one north range thirty-one west, lying west of Huron Bay.
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My head is spinning!
I have just macheted my way through DEQ's final order approving the permit for Kennecott to mine under Eagle Rock.
The foundation findings were that the Petitioners, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Huron Mountain Club, Yellow Dog Watershed Conservancy and National Wildlife Federation did not provide sufficient evidence to support their claims challenging the data submitted by Kennecott to support their application.
What troubled me was a section beginning on Page 4 where DEQ appears to join with Kennecott in opposing the Petitioners, rather than maintaining a neutral position as one might expect of a reviewing agency.
It is true that the finding ruled that Eagle Rock, not being a building, did not fall under the regulations requiring consideration as a place of worship [[PAGE 6). It also ruled [[PAGE 4) that the Petitioners submitted information that KBIC would provide witnesses to support their standing to maintain the petition and receive notice. For some reason, the decider found that this information constituted a stipulation that the spiritual significance of Eagle Rock, as well as any rights KBIC may possess under the 1842 Treaty WERE NOT AT ISSUE IN THIS CASE. I find this extremely troubling, since those are the precise issues that KBIC is concerned with, and which still remain unaddressed.
I did not find any admission by the decider that there are a lot of rules and laws and DEQ doesn't have the resources to enforce them all. That apparently stems from an interview in September 2008 where then Director Steven Chester admitted the agency did not have the resources to carry out its duties.
The agency also will issue surface-water-discharge permits, which allow companies to pump limited amounts of pollutants into lakes and streams, to ``minor facilities'' without first conducting an on-site inspection. ``In some cases, we'll have to rely on people's honesty and integrity,'' Chester said.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/...910.xml&coll=7
Here is another article indicating flaws in the permitting process:
Michigan Fails to Follow Own Law In Kennecott Approval
On June 21, 2006, Maki submitted a list of 91 questions that required response from Kennecott. Maki admitted, under oath, that he did not convey Sainsbury’s concerns to Kennecott and Kennecott was never asked to respond to those concerns:
QUESTION: “In your questions to Kennecott, did you raise anything connected to Sainsbury’s concerns?”
MAKI: “No, not specific; no.”
QUESTION: “Did you ask Kennecott anything about the effects of this mine on the Salmon Trout River to satisfy Sainsbury or the public’s concerns?”
MAKI: “I did not, not in this document. No, I didn’t.”
QUESTION: “Did you. . . raise a question to Kennecott in connection with the statement of Sainsbury that subsidence is a concern in all underground mining applications?”
MAKI: “I did not; no.”
QUESTION: “Has the concern of Sainsbury about the long-term time-dependent behavior of the crown pillar ever been considered to this date?”
MAKI: I don’t know. . . not to my knowledge, no.”
At this point, Maki admitted his lack of competency as leader of the team reviewing Kennecott’s application and recommending approval:
QUESTION: “You really don’t know what your own questions are asking, do you, sir, to be honest?”
MAKI: “To be honest, I do not have that expertise to be able to define and analyze what those questions really mean.”
October 26, 2008
http://lakesuperiorminingnews.net/20...cott-approval/
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NWF predicts BP-Type Disaster on the Yellow Dog Plains
Please note, today's post start with #367 above.
Behind the News From Andy Buchsbaum – National Wildlife Federation
Coming soon: Michigan’s version of the BP disaster
June 4, 2010 by Andy Buchsbaum
- A company with a history of polluting that wants to take valuable resources from deep underground.
- An industrial extraction operation with high risks to hundreds of miles of coastline, spectacular waters, a vibrant fishery…. and human life.
- An agency that promotes the industry rather than regulating it.
- No contingency plan if [[when) the operation goes wrong.
Sound familiar?
I’m not just talking about the BP oil spill. The same scenario is playing out right here in Michigan. Kennecott Eagle Minerals Corp. is about to start digging for nickel and other minerals underneath the headwaters of the U.P’s Salmon Trout River, which runs through the largest stand of old growth forest east of the Mississippi and into Lake Superior. Kennecott plans to blast through a sacred Native American site, Eagle Rock, into sulfide ore bodies that produce acid mine drainage when they come into contact with air and water….. which inevitably they will do. This operation not only is likely to scar this magnificent landscape for hundreds of years. It also has a significant risk – according to the state’s own experts – of a mine collapse, endangering human life and draining the river.
What’s Kennecott’s plan if any of these disasters come to pass? It doesn’t have one.
This mine was vetted and recommended for approval by the Michigan Office of Geological Survey, part of the DNRE and the state equivalent of the now-infamous U.S. Minerals Management Service.
Why?
Well, the head of the Survey’s mining team called the mining project “my baby” and identified Kennecott as his “customer.”
During the application process, he admitted that he concealed an expert memorandum that reported on the risk of mine collapse, after which he was suspended …. and then reinstated as head of the mining team after an internal state investigation said he was motivated by ignorance, not malfeasance. [[Well, that’s a relief, right?) Another member of the state’s mining team formed a business partnership with Kennecott employees to offer mining services to the private sector [[the partnership was dissolved after it became public). Finally, the Governor’s UP representative who helped her formulate her position on the mine has also left government service to work for….. you guessed it: Kennecott. The mining team recommended approval to the Michigan DEQ before it merged with the DNR to form the DNRE. And just days before that merger – perhaps to avoid tarring the new DNRE with this terrible decision – a mid-level DEQ staff member gave final approval to the operation of the mine.
And we thought MMS was corrupt.
NWF and its partner organizations [[Yellow Dog Preserve, Keewenaw Bay Indian Community, and Huron Mountain Club) have filed multiple lawsuits to stop the mine. So far, we’ve only slowed it down, but the major litigation is just beginning.
Meanwhile, members of the tribe and local residents are taking matters into their own hands, camping on Eagle Rock to stop Kennecott from destroying it. Several have been arrested, but they keep at it. And yesterday, over 100 people rallied against the mine on the steps of the state capitol building. Read the latest on these activists at www.StandfortheLand.com. Or check out Save the Wild UP’s website, www.SavetheWildUP.org.
I’ll be writing about this travesty more often, now that the state has approved it and the action on the ground is heating up. To read a more detailed history, check out NWF’s sulfide mining web page.
Or even better, watch the movie! NWF has co-produced an award-winning documentary on the mine called Mining Madness, Water Wars: Great Lakes in the Balance.
This mine is a massive disaster waiting to happen, and the state’s complicity is an outrage. Call your elected state officials and the Governor to let them know.
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Discussion? Pretty please?
Does anyone want to talk about the Kennecott situation? I am hugely upset about it. I have been to the Yellow Dog Plains and it is a most pristine and beautiful area. The waters of Lake Superior are not immune to pollution, should there be a problem with the mine and its effluents.
Has anyone been to Sudbury, Ontario? A peek at Google Earth will show you the terrible effects of nickel mining. The tailings and deadness stretch for miles around the town, surrounded on the perimeter by pristine forests. When you drive into Sudbury, all of a sudden you drive out of the forestlands into a moonscape.
I can't figure out how to upload the image, but here is a tinyurl link to it:
http://tinyurl.com/28utyge
Here is a map of the Yellow Dog Plains with directions to Eagle Rock:
http://www.savethewildup.org/eagle_r...directions.pdf
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=sudbur...ed=0CBQQ8gEwAA
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I'm back from my northern excursion. I couldn't go across to Eagle Rock because I had my husband's pet car, but I managed to talk to someone who was there at the encampment for a time. I asked him about the condition of the area since Google maps shows it looking all brown and stripped already. He said it has been logged over in the past few years. When I was there, it was pristine. Logging can look ugly, but this would not be the first time the area was logged. That area was heavily logged in the last part of the 1800s, and the early part of the 1900s. I couldn't find anyone who knew what the next steps are for the KBIC or any of the other groups.
Meantime, this thought was posted to me by White Bison:
"The faces of our future generations are looking up to us from the earth and we step with great care not to disturb our grandchildren."
--Traditional Circle of Elders
The leaves, when they are finished with their life on the trees, will return to the Earth. The leaves that return to the Earth are the future trees. So inside the Mother Earth are the future forests. The human, when finished with its life on the Earth, will return to the Earth. So in the Earth are our future grandchildren. Knowing this, we should be respectful of the place where our future generations live. Only take from the Earth what you need. Every time you pick a plant or Medicine, leave an offering and leave a prayer. Be respectful and walk in a sacred way.
Great Spirit, teach me to respect the place of future generations.
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It's Powwow season! Lots going on this coming week:
Tomorrow in Grand Rapids --
Enigokamigak Powwow, Gathering of the World
Come and Dance with 1,000 People from Around the World!
Where: On the shores of the Grand River at Ah-Nab-Awen Park [[Downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan)
Free Parking [[GVSU Seward ramp on Lake Michigan Dr.)
When: Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Time: 11:00 am Food booths, crafts, artists, music
2:30 pm Tribal representatives welcome
4:00 pm POW WOW begins Everyone invited!
Everyone is invited to join Native American/First Nation peoples for this Pow Wow in a Celebration of Welcome to representatives from more than 100 countries as they gather for an historic, one- time event in the Uniting General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
MC: Derek Bailey Head Dancers: Male: Derrick Bressette [[Canada) Female: Wilma Kelly Host Drum: Chippewa Travellers [[Central/Southern Ontario, Canada) Mr. George Martin, respected head veteran dancer Keynote speaker Richard Twiss will be giving the Pow Wow blessing
At Birch Run --
June 25-27- WORLD OF ONE 4th Annual
Location: 11600 N. Beyer Road, Birch Run,MICHIGAN.
Schedule: June 25 Friday 3-9
June 26 Saturday 10-8 and
June 27 Sunday 11-5.
Admission: $7.00 daily pass and $20.00 [[3 day weekend pass).
Birch Run Expo Center.
Over 80 vendors * Food, Jewelry, Art Work and more.
FREE Parking* FREE 12 Under * FREE Door Prizes * FREE Lectures/Demos * 50/50 Raffles * Raising Money for "Breast Cancer Awareness" and "No More Silence Against Domestic Violence"
Contact: For the women of Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Mount Pleasant Michigan Spaces Available 877/296-2746. Vendors/Musical Bands/Artisan/Performers Volunteers Please Call 248/935-8441. PowWow Info: Ms Margo 248/935-8441
At Bay Mills [[Brimley), there's Honoring the Veterans Powwow --
19TH HONORING OUR VETERANS POWWOW
Location: The Bay Mills Softball Field - Brimley, MICHIGAN.
Notes: Contest PowWow.
Contact: 906/248-8118, Email: ajcameron@baymills.org, Website: www.baymillspowwow.org.
At Sarnia --
June 26-27 - 49TH AAMJIWNAANG FIRST NATION POWWOW
Location: 978 Tashmoo Avenue - Sarnia, ONTARIO, CANADA.
Notes: Traditional PowWow.
Contact: 519/336-8410, Email: aamjiwnaangpowwow@hotmail.com, Website: None.
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If you listen to the pow wow drums...
A good description of a Baraga pow wow by Centria, a Yooper blogger. Baraga is home to the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community discussed above in the Eagle Rock stories.
http://centria.wordpress.com/2009/07...r-be-the-same/
If you listen to the Pow Wow drumsyou will never be the same
July 25, 2009
The Baraga Pow Wow started last night.
Hundreds of folks gathered to listen to the Native American drums, to dance in the arena, to pray, to socialize, to gather together as families, tribes or nations.
Have you ever heard the drum beat and the call of the singers? If you have, it stays with you forever. The eerie cry in Ojibway [[or whatever language your Pow Wow brings) wakes up something deep inside of us. Something which has been sleeping, or missing, or gone. You can hear the drum beat and suddenly youre carried back to some ancient memory of the land, of another time, of another language which beats deeper than any words or syllables.
http://centria.files.wordpress.com/2...pg?w=500&h=666
The Drum
Eyyy-Eee! The singers shrill and the Manido looks down from the sky and shrills back its eagle cry. You stand quivering by the Pow Wow arena, wanting to dance, longing to dance, and when the announcer says, Inter-tribal! you can enter the arena and your feet hit the soil like the drum beat. Up and down you pound the drum of the earth, around and around. If you dare.
http://centria.files.wordpress.com/2...pg?w=500&h=400Grand Entry
I have a long history with the Native Americans, the Anishnabe, here in this area. Way back in 1987 I heard the drumbeat for the first time, and it awakened slumbering embers within. Back in 1988, I danced in this arena, feeling the wind in my hair, returning to a Time before my conscious mind was born. For about seven years I attended ceremonies and lodges with these people.
Every year, now, I return to give thanks to that which has helped me to awaken deeper to who I am. Its a time of deep appreciation, gratitude and honor.
It was hard to come this year, with a camera, and take photos. Very hard. My native friend, Denise, had to hold my hand and go ask the people permission for me to take a photo. Dont know why it was so hard. Some people believe that when you take a photograph, your spirit can be stolen in that photo. Theres all sorts of etiquette and protocol involved. I didnt want to be stealing any spirits, or to be disrespectful in any way.
So Denise took charge.
http://centria.files.wordpress.com/2...pg?w=500&h=750Cute young dancer
It really wasnt hard. No one said no. My main source of irritation [[dont really want to go into this right now, but heres the gist) is that my cameras zoom has gone kaput. OH NO! This may involve the purchase of a new camera, and after buying a laptop computer this weekthats financially challenging, to say the least. Thank goodness for the crop feature on the computer. Otherwise, youd simply be viewing dots on the horizon, which may have barely resembled humans.
http://centria.files.wordpress.com/2...pg?w=500&h=667Look at her dance!
Today it was fun to spend time talking with friends, listening to the drum, watching the people in their multi-colored regalia. You can eat fry bread or wild rice soup or an Indian Pizza. [[I bought Denise one after she so kindly asked folks to pose for photographs.)
http://centria.files.wordpress.com/2...pg?w=500&h=281
More dancing! Shawl dancing and jingle dresses everywhere.
Theres more photos to show you [[and tomorrows outdoor adventure may involve the Pow Wow again) so stay tuned until tomorrow for more pictures. Hopefully everyone will have the opportunity to attend a Pow Wow at some time. Stand very silently and let the drum beat mirror the beat of your heart. Something very precious may awaken with you.
Shhh! Can you hear the drums now, out the window, down the road? Theyre calling for you
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Did you see this Gaz? Dancers at the Social Forum in Detroit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcltQdkD04c
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No, I didn't, thanks for posting it. It's an intertribal song. The dancers are, from this end, women's traditional, men's traditional, Jingle dress, Jingle dress, butterfly, grass dancer, men's fancy dancer, and I can't see the one at the very end.
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Rio Tinto gets OK to start US mine construction on Upper Peninsula
By John Flesher
Traverse City, Michigan [[AP) June 2010
Mining giant Rio Tinto said during June it would spend $469 million developing the Kennecott Eagle nickel and copper mine in Michigans Upper Peninsula, with construction starting this summer.
The mine should begin producing minerals by late 2013, the Anglo-Australian company said. It expects Kennecott Eagle to yield annual averages of 17,300 metric tons of nickel and 13,200 metric tons of copper over six years. It will be the only U.S. mine with nickel as the primary mineral.
Rio Tinto said in February 2009 it was delaying work on the project because of poor market conditions. The announcement June 16 signals the companys renewed confidence in Kennecott Eagle, spokeswoman Deborah Muchmore said.
The long-term demand outlook remains strong for both nickel and copper and bringing Eagle on stream will give us greater benefit from that growth, Andrew Harding, CEO of Rio Tinto Copper, said in a statement.
Aside from the underground mine, the investment will cover costs of buildings and other infrastructure, plus upgrades of the Humboldt Mill near Ishpeming, where mine rock will be crushed and minerals extracted. It also will pay for a new road between the mine and the mill.
The project has divided the local community. American Indians and environmental activists have conducted vigils and sit-ins recently at the site in Marquette Countys Yellow Dog Plains, saying the drilling would desecrate sacred ground and pollute waters that flow into nearby Lake Superior.
A protester was convicted June 15 of trespassing on state land leased to Kennecott Eagle, and two others are scheduled for trial in August.
Rio Tinto said the mines construction won approval under some of the most stringent environmental permitting rules in the U.S.
This reflects an environmentally responsible and community-focused operation, Harding said.
Although the company says it has secured all necessary permits, opponents insist Kennecott Eagle cant legally move forward because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has yet to issue a permit for underground wastewater injection.
It is a misrepresentation at best for them to claim anything other than that, said Michelle Halley, attorney for the National Wildlife Federation.
Kennecott Eagle initially applied for the EPA permit but now says the water system has been redesigned in a way that makes it unnecessary. EPA says it is still investigating the matter.
State regulators issued environmental permits in 2007, but opponents are challenging them in court.
The company says its operation will employ about 200 full-time workers in the economically struggling region, while about 500 contractors will be hired for construction.
Rio Tinto said it is exploring for additional mining opportunities in the Upper Peninsula, which it called a highly prospective region for nickel and copper.
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.p...=9400&Itemid=1
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Land Claims
I spent the weekend in Cayuga territory, at the head of Cayuga Lake, one of the easternmost of Finger Lakes. On our journeys, as we headed down the west side of Cayuga Lake, we kept seeing signs that said: No Sovereign Nation, No Reservation, and some other things in smaller print that we couldn't read. After seeing a dozen or so, I finally got the driver to stop so I could read one. It had some other slogans about no Land Claim, No Special Rights, and referred to a website www.ucelandclaim.com, Upstate Citizens for Equality.
A little research uncovered the information that in 2000, the Cayuga won a substantial damages award for the mishandling of their land, and the land in question was granted to them. In 2005 the Court of Appeals threw out the Land Claim and reversed the damage award.
At some point, the Cayuga Nation applied to put 125 acres of its ancestral homeland into trust, to make it sovereign and enable them to develop business for their economic well being. This is being strenuously opposed by the non-Cayuga citizenry in Seneca and Cayuga Counties.
Now the non-tribal citizens are in an uproar because the uppity tribespeople are trying to use their land in ways that the good citizens of NY cannot. They want to open a bingo hall in Aurelius, which is on Indian Land. No citizens have been displaced as a result of the court case. But the good citizens of upstate NY see this as exercising "special rights" which they think is highly unfair.
The truth of the matter is that sovereignty is something that belongs to tribes and cannot be taken away. It is not special rights given to them by the US.
The tribe is also publishing information on its website:
http://www.cayuganation-nsn.gov/Home...ationlandtrust
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EPA Weighs in on Eagle Rock
Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/na.../95615974.html
BIG BAY, Mich. As the top government official who oversees Great Lakes water quality stood on the edge of sacred Eagle Rock, overlooking a pristine expanse of the Yellow Dog Plains, she gained a better understanding about why the state-owned land is sacred to Michigans Ojibwa.
I very much understand what their concerns are and that is one of the things we are considering as we moved forward on this, said Tinka Hyde, Water Division director for Environmental Protection Region 5. We realize that Eagle Rock is of cultural and religious importance to the tribe.
Hyde was one of three EPA regional bosses from Chicago and the agencys tribal liaison for Michigan who were given a tour of the area May 13 by officials from the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community during a two-day visit to Michigans Upper Peninsula.
Members of numerous tribes including Ojibwa, Cherokee and Lakota had been camping at the base of Eagle Rock since April 23 in hopes of preventing Kennecott Eagle Minerals from building a nickel and copper sulfide mine named the Eagle Project. At the companys request, state and local police officers raided the encampment May 27 arresting two campers.
Under federal treaties, Ojibwa have rights to hunt, fish and gather on the state of Michigan owned land. The state leased the land to Kennecott with the understanding that all permits must be approved.
Hyde said any ruling the EPA makes about the withdrawal of state and federal permit applications by Kennecott subsidiaries will be based solely on environmental protection laws, primarily the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act.
Kennecott officials are now proposing an above ground system to discharge mine wastewater thus have withdrawn their EPA permit application for underground pipes named the Treated Water Infiltration System.
The KBIC Tribal Council has filed suit against Kennecott and opposes what they describe as an effort by mine officials to circumvent an EPA permit by using insulation to protect the pipes above ground instead of the original plan to use soil noting that mine officials admit in design plans that the pipes will remain at the same elevation.
The EPA is evaluating how or whether the Safe Drinking Water Act regulations apply to that situation, Hyde said of the mines withdrawal of an EPA permit application for an underground TWIS.
The EPAs authority over the mine is fairly limited in many respects, Hyde said adding the agencys job is to determine whether activities planned are regulated by or meet Safe Drinking Water Act regulations and are appropriately implemented as to be compliant with that law.
Meanwhile, as the deadline arrived to respond to state concerns about wetlands and other issues, Woodland Road LLC withdrew its application for a state permit to construct a $50 million 22-mile haul road to be paid for by Kennecott.
The road would stretch from the remote mine site in north Marquette County to the mines ore processing facility at the former Humboldt Mill.
Before it was withdrawn, the EPA and other federal agencies had filed concerns over the state permit application for Woodland Road.
If they chose to submit a new application we [[the EPA) will review the project as we have in the past, Hyde said. A new but likely similar route is being examined to prevent about 100 rock laden trucks from a daily drive through Marquette and other cities.
The National Wildlife Federation has said the withdrawal of the two permit applications by Kennecott subsidiaries amounts to playing the system.
Led by EPA Region 5 Acting Administrator Bharat Mathur, the group was invited by the KBIC Tribal Council to visit Eagle Rock and meet with the council during a two-day [[24 hours total) whirlwind tour to the Lake Superior basin area of Michigans Upper Peninsula. Appointed acting region 5 administrator three years ago [[May 2006), the Eagle Rock visit was Mathurs last on-site visit as regional EPA boss because Susan Hedman took the reins of the Chicago office May 24. Hedman had served as environmental council to the Illinois attorney general and as senior assistant attorney general since 2005.
Others present at Eagle Rock May 13 were EPA Regional Counsel Robert A. Kaplan and Jennifer Manville, regional EPA Michigan tribal environmental liaison from Traverse City, Mich. Representing the tribal council were vice president Susan LaFernier, tribal attorney John R. Baker, and KBIC mining specialist Chuck Brumleve. The four EPA officials later met with the tribal council members including President Chris Swartz Jr.
KBIC wants to make sure the groundwater is protected, the surface is protected, Hyde said. The tribes concerned about having their access to and importance of Eagle Rock and the effects of mining may have on Eagle Rock.
During their visit to Eagle Rock, EPA officials were shown nearby streams and the Salmon Trout River, under which is located the large ore body that is targeted by Kennecott. Opponents are afraid the river could collapse into the mine and its the only known location in Michigan where coaster brook trout breed.
Those small headwaters are going into smaller streams and into the Salmon Trout River, said Hyde, adding they were given a tour of the smaller streams by well-known environmentalist Chauncey Moran, who for years has monitored and tested streams on the Yellow Dog Plains for the Sierra Club and others who have partnerships with state environmental agencies.
EPA officials did not meet with the campers or mine officials during the visit.
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Foods of the Americas
Most people know about corn and wild rice, two crops valued and harvested by Native peoples. Of course there are many other foods native to the continents that have been adopted by the mainstream culture quite seamlessly.
To name a few:
Potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Tomatoes
Peppers
Beans
Squash
Sunflower
Domestic turkeys
Blueberries
Strawberries
Chocolate
Black Walnuts
Pecans
Peanuts
Agave
And some of more recent adoption:
Amaranth
Quinoa
Salba
This is an article I enjoyed about Quinoa:
Quinoa boom
Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/global/93070194.html
In 500 A.D., the powerful Tiwanaku civilization was growing on the shores of Lake Titicaca in what is now Bolivia. University of Chicago anthropologist Alan Kolatas research in Bolivia shows that the principal food nourishing that society was quinoa, which was heavily farmed through raised-field agriculture. After the Spanish conquest of Bolivia quinoa took a backseat to potatoes and corn, but now the same food that nourished the Tiwanaku Empire is coming back.
Quinoa is a species of goosefoot. Despite appearances, it is not a grain it is instead related to spinach and beets. Today, these small seeds with a light, nutty taste are quickly catching on as a health food across the United States and Europe. In fact, quinoa imports to the United States rose from 7.4 million pounds in 2007 to 18.6 million pounds in 2009, according to statistics from the U.S. Customs Service. This dramatic increase in demand has changed the lives of Bolivias indigenous quinoa farmers who, like their ancestors, sow and harvest the plant.
Much of Bolivias quinoa grows in the southwest of the country on the edges of vast salt flats near towns like Salinas de Garc Mendoza. During the April to June harvest that quinoa is on the move to more central market Andean towns like Challapata and Huari.
Laida Mamani Nina is an agriculture student who comes from a family with a long history of farming quinoa in Salinas de Garc Mendoza. She travels to Huari during the harvest to help her father sell quinoa. Its changed everyones life, she says of the increase in quinoa prices over the past 15 years. Everyone has a car now, better incomes and better houses.
Thats not to say that most quinoa farmers are rich just doing better. Mamani Nina said her family sold 100 pounds of quinoa for $7 in the 1980s. Now the same amount of high-quality organic quinoa can sell for more than $100.
Quinoa flourishes in environments like those around Salinas de Garc Mendoza, which is a testament to its hardiness. The soil is salty and dry, and the town is located more than 12,000 feet above sea level. But quinoa grows as well as, if not better in these harsh Andean environments than anywhere else in the world. In fact, Kolata believes quinoa first developed on these high plains.
The Inca Empire expanded from modern-day Peru down into Bolivia in the mid-1400s. That civilization was also fueled by quinoa, but the Spanish conquest put an end to its large-scale cultivation. Quinoa did not fit cosmopolitan European tastes, Kolata said. They preferred wheat for bread and grapes for wine, as opposed to bread made from quinoa flour, or alcoholic drinks made from mashed quinoa seeds.
After the Spanish arrived, for hundreds of years indigenous Bolivians grew quinoa as a subsistence crop or for local sale. That changed when studies on quinoas nutritional value and organized marketing brought it to the attention of European and North American consumers in the late 90s, and as Peruvian consumption also increased.
Several things make quinoa so nutritionally special. It contains more protein and fat than rice and corn, and fewer carbohydrates. But what really draws attention is its array of amino acids, including lysine, which is unusual in plants.
As quinoas popularity and profitability grow, groups of farmers and exporters are jockeying to establish their regions quinoa as organic, fair trade and a recognizable brand. As the worlds largest quinoa exporters, Bolivia and Peru have the most to gain.
Individual farmers also have much to gain. Many are extending their fields and planting them more frequently. Sergio Nunez de Arco, general manager of U.S.-based quinoa importer Andean Naturals, worries that increased production is already taxing the land. There used to be a balance between the quinoa, llamas and fallow time, and now that balance has been broken. Sustainable needs to be defined for that area.
Nunez de Arco said Andean Naturals is financing a 1,200 acre sustainable-development project in Bolivia to determine how quinoa production can be increased without damaging the land.
Though several Bolivian and foreign organizations are sponsoring sustainability projects, Mamani Nina said hope for profit originally trumped concern for the environment. The majority of the people dont think about the environment, they think about their incomes, she said of increased quinoa production. But there are more people who are thinking about organic quinoa, and about protecting the environment, little by little.
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Something to make with Quinoa
Quinoa Pilaf
Quinoa [[Keenwa) seeds are covered with saponin, a powdery substance that protects them. To remove this, you have to thoroughly rinse them in a fine strainer until water runs clear.
To cook, use two parts liquid to one part quinoa, just like rice. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes or until grains are translucent and germ has spiralled out from each grain. All the water should have disappeared.
SERVES 4
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 small onion, diced
1 1/2 cups rinsed quinoa
1 red bell pepper, diced
3 cups water
1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce or regular low sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 cup fresh peas [[or frozen peas, thawed)
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Heat oil in saucepan; add onion and quinoa. Saut over medium heat, stirring constantly for about 3 minutes.
- Add pepper and saut an additional 2 minutes.
- Add water, soy sauce, rosemary and peas. Bring to a boil and cover; simmer 15 minutes or until water is absorbed.
- Meanwhile, roast walnuts in oven for 3-5 minutes.
- When quinoa is cooked, turn off heat and mix in walnuts.
- Let sit an additional 10 minutes and serve.
Lots of other good recipes here, though not for quinoa:
http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook/N...-Recipes-99501
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Remember the French and Indian War?
Odawa tribal members, park service mark western Pennslyvania battle date
Farmington, Pennslyvania [[AP) July 2010
National Park Service officials were joined by about 20 members of the Odawa Indians from northern Michigan to commemorate the 256 anniversary of the battle of Fort Necessity, a western Pennsylvania encounter that launched the French and Indian War.
Its an honor to be here, to make a journey similar to the journey our warriors made so many years ago, Frank Ettawageshik, past tribal chairman of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, said in a ceremony the weekend of July 4th at the interpretive center.
The tribal members were on hand for the opening of A Zhimaagnishak Miikaanhs: The Odawa Warriors Journey, a yearlong exhibit telling the story of how a young Odawa man journeying to Fort Necessity became a warrior and showcases traditional Odawa culture still practiced today.
The exhibition includes artifacts on loan from the Odawa and Fort Michilimackinac State Park in Michigan as well from the forts own collection, including an original French musket, trade gun parts, village items, the fully dressed figure of a warrior and Odawa artwork such as quill boxes, ash baskets and pottery.
Joanne Hanley, superintendent of Western Pennsylvania Parks, said the exhibit gives our visitors an opportunity to expand their understanding of the Odawa, not only who they were in 1754 but who they are today.
The park service has been telling the story of the French and Indian War at Fort Necessity for years from the British, French and Indian points of view, but the new effort asks Indian nations for their input.
Colonial troops were defeated at Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754 in a fight that signaled the beginning of a struggle for control of North America between Britain and France and marked George Washingtons first major battle and only surrender.
Park ranger Brian Reedy noted that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill referred to the French and Indian War as the first global conflict, which spread to Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and ended in the Philippines.
Members of the Odawa sang during the opening ceremony which was followed by a traditional Odawa feast that included corn soup, dried squash, trail mix and sweet water. At the afternoon memorial program, Frank Ettawageshik played a drum and sang a song for all the warriors who died at Fort Necessity as well as current veterans.
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Walk for Eagle Rock, the Yellow Dog Plains and the Rivers
From www.SaveTheWildUP.org
Join the Walk! Eagle Rock to the Bridge
Eagle Rock to the Bridge is Underway!
Walk in Margarets Shoes
Margaret Comfort of Bourbonnais, Illinois along with other dedicated individuals, hopes to raise funds and bring added attention to the threat of metallic sulfide mining and uranium mining in the UP by walking from the proposed Eagle Project site on the Yellow Dog Plains in northwest Marquette County to the Mackinac Bridge. The team will journey across the Upper Peninsula raising awareness about the harmful effects of this type of Mining. Along the way the group will be meeting with communities to:
- Highlight threats of metallic sulfide mining to the Yellow Dog Plains and our Great Lakes waters.
- Show the connection of watersheds and people of the Upper Peninsula.
- Encourage folks to join Governor Granholm for her Annual Walk across the Mackinac Bridge on September I, 2008 [[Labor Day) to show their disapproval of Metallic Sulfide Mining.
Dates and Route
*Camping and potluck dinner welcomes the public at each site.
Sunday, August 17, 4:00 pm Starting at Eagle Rock on the Yellow Dog Plains, the group will hold a blessings ceremony. Come join the group for a public forum regarding the Kennecott Minerals Eagle Mine site and the potential risks of polluting our pristine waters. Camp out and potluck dinner.
Monday Aug 18, 9:00 am Eagle Rock to Perkins Park in Big Bay. Sites 55 and 56 next to the Pavilion where we can hang out with a rally etc. Potluck at
Tuesday August 19, 10:00 am Parade through Big Bay! Bring a sign, bring the kids, decorate a bike! Then to Mike Davis and Mary ODonnells [[KCH or Remington Rd off CR 550). Follow the signs for Yellow Dog Tent City
Wednesday August 20, 9:00 am Mike and Marys to Tourist Park in Marquette along CR 550. Sites T6 and T7 closest to the beach, parking and a park area across the road for more rally gatherings. Tom Reed of Cedar Tree Institute is pulling some music together for the Tourist Park campsite and festivities start at 5:00 pm until dark or so. Bring a dish, munchies, finger food whatever! We will have a grill going.
Thursday August 21, 10:00 am We will be walking THROUGH Marquette starting at the Tourist Park entrance at 10:00 am. There are approximately five miles to walk and would love to have a large group. Our route will go from Tourist Park, through the University to 3rd St to downtown Marquette and on to the Lake shore and bike path to the Welcome Center on U.S. 41. We will then commence to the first roadside park on M-28 towards Munising and walk the rest of the day to Lakenenland Park. Bring a sign if you have one or we have extras. We will be camping at the LakenenLand Park on Thursday August 21st and will be having a campfire with a round circle chatting circle 6:30/7:00 or so with a possible wagon ride by the owner to view his many sculptures kids would have a riot here! Come through the main entrance past the lake and straight for 100 yards or so until you see our camp.
Friday, August 22, 10:00 am Lakenenland to Bay Furnace Campground.
Saturday, August 23, 9:00 am Walk through Munising for Rally/Parade. Bring your sign! Meet at Falling Rock Cafe at 10:00am for breakfast with Margaret. Camp at Bay Furnace.
Sunday, August 24, 9:00 am Munising to Seney Wildlife Refuge. Camp at Big Cedar Campground in Germfask, sites 17 and 18.
Monday August 25, 9:00 am Seney Wildlife Refuge to Germfask. Big Cedar Campground sites 17 and 18.
Tuesday August 26, All Day Rest them weary feet day. Big Cedar Campground sites 17 and 18.
Wednesday August 27, 9:00 am Germfask to Milakokia Lake [[near rte 77 & US 2 intersection). Camping at Hog Island Campground.
Thursday August 28, 9:00 am- Milakokia Lake to Naubinway [[Hog Island Campground).
Friday August 29, 9:00 am Naubinway to Little Brevort Lake [[North & South). Foley Creek Campground sites 20 and 23.
Saturday August 30, 9:00 am Little Brevort Lake to Saint Ignace. Foley Creek Campground sites 20 and 23.
Sunday August 31, 5:00pm Rally at Ojibwe Cultural Museum. Foley Creek Campground sites 20 and 23.
Monday, September 1, 7:00 am Mackinac Bridge Walk bright and early with Governor Granholm wearing our T-shirts with logo! Bridge walk is estimated to take 2 hours. Then return to St. Ignace via Bridge Authority buses.
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Opponents of Eagle Rock Mine file suit
Mining expert says flawed design will lead to safety problems By EARTHA JANE MELZER 7/14/10 1:53 PM
In the wake of the EPA’s decision that no federal permit is necessary for a controversial new nickel sulfide mine to be located on state land near Lake Superior, state officials and mining experts are questioning the state’s ability to adequately regulate the project on its own.
Rep. Bart Stupak [[D-Menominee), the outgoing congressman for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, recently warned that Michigan is not prepared to regulate Kennecott’s mining project. Stupak said that Kennecott’s parent company Rio Tinto, is known for cutting corners on environmental and safety matters and that a $17 million assurance bond put up by the company would not be enough to deal with damage that the mine could create.
The decision that the company does not require a federal permit for its wastewater system means that the responsibility for regulating operations at this massive project falls entirely to the state. Staff and funding for environmental programs, however, have taken heavy cuts in recent years and this year’s merging of the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Natural Resources, together with more cuts scheduled for next year’s budget, is expected to further erode the capacity of the state to enforce regulations that protect against environmental degradation.
According to state Department of Natural Resources and Environment spokesman Bob McCann, there are no minimum requirements for inspections by regulators and it will be lucky if officials manage to visit the mine once a year.
“For most businesses in Michigan if we inspect them once a year that’s a lot,“ he said. “We don’t have the people to be out in the field a lot and our resources are dwindling.”
MDNRE staff have warned that they do not have enough people to adequately respond to environmental complaints, and a major state environmental group, the Michigan Environmental Council, has asked the EPA to review Michigan’s air quality program to see if the state is fulfilling its duties in carrying out this federally mandated program.
Rio Tinto is expected to invest $469 million to develop the mine which is expected to produce around 30,000 tons of nickel and copper per year for the next six years.
State Rep. Gary McDowell [[D-Rudyard) — a candidate for Congress in Stupak’s district — suggested that because of the lucrative nature of the operation Kennecott would be willing to pay for needed regulation by the state.
“I believe that they want those metals badly enough that they will pay for that,” he said.
But according to McCann of the DNRE, there are no provisions in state law that would allow for that arrangement. Michigan has required Kennecott to set aside $17 million to cover the costs of closing the mine in the event that the company ceases operations before the site is returned to its previous state.
This money is not expected to cover the costs of repairing any environmental damages that may occur during the operation of the mine, McCann said. These expenses the state would have to pursue separately through legal action.
Opponents of the mine argue that the ground and surface water contamination is likely to result from Kennecott’s activities and that the state could be stuck with a decades-long cleanup with costs that could range into the billions.
Mining consultant Jack Parker says that environmental damage is likely if the mine is constructed as designed.
Parker, who holds geology and engineering degrees from Michigan Technical University and has spent several decades working in about 500 mines across the U.S. and abroad, says that flaws in the analysis of the mine’s geology means that the current design is vulnerable to collapse.
“The mine will be unstable,“ he said. “People could get hurt.”
If the mine collapses then the surface is likely to collapse and that would upset the drainage, he said. One of the reaches of the Salmon Trout River comes close to the mine and a collapse could potentially destroy parts of this tributary to nearby Lake Superior.
Parker also warned that the state does not have inspectors with the experience necessary to evaluate the plans for the Kennecott mine and that Michigan has not followed state law by requiring that mine operations consider and limit the impact of blasting on area fish populations. Kennecott has also failed to conform with state rules by demonstrating that their groundwater discharge system will work as planned, Parker claimed.
Kennecott’s operations have resulted in water contamination elsewhere
In Utah’s western Salt Lake Valley, where another Kennecott subsidiary is involved in copper mining, operations have resulted in groundwater contamination plumes that cover 70 square miles and impact the drinking water of several communities with sulfate, lead, arsenic, cadmium, fluoride, aluminum and nickel.
Douglas Bacon, a manager with Utah Department of Environmental Quality’s Department of Environmental Response and Remediation, has worked on supervising clean up of the mining area for the last 12 years.
“In the state’s opinion since 1995 Kennecott has been cooperating with remediation plans supervised by state and federal government,” Bacon said.
Kennecott, the state of Utah and the EPA have entered into a cleanup agreement under federal Superfund law and the company is carrying out and funding cleanup activities. It took nine years of work by the state to get to this point, however. Utah first filed suit against Kennecott in 1986 and was unable to get the company to agree to address its pollution until the federal government stepped in with threats of enforcement action.
Jon Cherry, who is now working to develop Kennecott’s nickel mine in the Upper Peninsula as general manager of Kennecott Eagle Minerals, previously worked on the Utah mine — where he coordinated cleanup response plans with the EPA.
In light of this history, opponents of the new UP mine have not yet given up on stopping the project. They have filed suit in circuit court in Washtenaw county, arguing that the permits were issued in violation of state mining law.
This entry was written by savethewildup and posted on July 15, 2010 at 12:12 am and filed under Economic, News. Bookmark the permalink.
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aanii, niijiiaak! I see some of you are still hanging in there. I have been pretty busy up home taking care of my dad, and he is on the mend now. This whole Eagle Rock thing has me really upset. It looks like we will never learn from our big huge mistakes and will continue to destroy our planet for greed. But! That is not why I am here talking this time. There seem to be some faithful viewers out there, and I just want to know, if I keep on keepin' on here, what is it you are really interested in seeing? Give me a clue or two, please!
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No clues, hmmm? So far it has been a mix of culture, history and current events. So far, so good?
Well, here is a thought for the day from WhiteBison.org:
Elder's Meditation of the Day - July 23
"...the greatest strength is in gentleness."
--Leon Shenandoah, ONONDAGA
Our Elders have taught us many lessons about becoming a Warrior and how to think and act like one. We have been told about the power of gentleness. We have been told about the power of the stillness. Physical power is about effort. Mental power is the opposite. It's about being effortless or less any effort. Gentleness is one of the greatest attributes of the Warrior and one of the greatest mental powers. It takes a lot of love to be gentle. Gentleness is not an ego word. Gentleness is the weapon of the Great Spirit.
My Creator, today I will be gentle with myself and with others. I will listen to the whisper of my heart and learn the power of being gentle.
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More Warnings from OGasnaanaki
New York Times, July 19, 2010
Lake Superior, a Huge Natural Climate Change Gauge, Is Running a Fever
By DINA FINE MARON of ClimateWire
The Great Lakes are feeling the heat from climate change. As the world's largest freshwater system warms, it is poised to systematically alter life for local wildlife and the tribes that depend on it, according to regional experts. And the warming could also provide a glimpse of what is happening on a more global level, they say.
"The Great Lakes in a lot of ways have always been a canary in the coal mine," Cameron Davis, the senior adviser to the U.S. EPA on the Great Lakes, said last week. "Not just for the region or this country, but for the rest of the world."
And it seems the canary's song is growing ever more halting. Lake Superior, which is the largest, deepest and coldest of the five lakes, is serving as the "canary for the canary," Davis said at a public meeting of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force last week, pointing to recent data trends.
Total ice cover on the lake has shrunk by about 20 percent over the past 37 years, he said. Though the change has made for longer, warmer summers, it's a problem because ice is crucial for keeping water from evaporating and it regulates the natural cycles of the Great Lakes.
But the warming shows no sign of abatement. This year, the waters in Lake Superior are on track to reach -- and potentially exceed -- the lake's record-high temperatures of 68 degrees Fahrenheit, which occurred in 1998.
Analysis of several buoys that measure temperatures in the lake reveal that the waters are some 15 degrees warmer than they would normally be at this time of year, Jay Austin, a professor of physics at the University of Minnesota, Duluth's Large Lakes Observatory, said in a recent interview.
His analysis of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data indicates that summer for the lake, which happens at about a 40-degree threshold, came about a month early this year.
A 'tremendously anomalous' year
"This year is just tremendously anomalous," he said. "This year ranks up there with the warmest water we have ever seen, and the warming trend appears to be going on in all of the Great Lakes."
While the warmer waters make for more comfortable swimming conditions for humans, they may also make for more habitable conditions for invasive species in places that have previously been relatively free of such pests.
Exhibit one, said James Kitchell, a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison's Center for Limnology, is the blood-sucking sea lamprey.
The jawless parasite attaches itself to the side of trout, bores a hole and sucks the trout's blood, growing to as long as 3 feet in the process, according to Kitchell. But in warmer weather, the lamprey may feed faster, grow bigger and lay more eggs, he said. The creatures will also become adults faster and require more frequent extermination, thanks to the warmer waters, warned Marc Gaden, a spokesman for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, in an interview.
Meanwhile, the dead trout, with gaping holes in their sides, will sink to the seafloor below -- far from where humans can witness the evidence.
But the full impact of decades of water warming is not bound to the murky depths.
The warming may also threaten practices that are central to the "cultural identity" of indigenous tribes that live in the Great Lakes area and depend on certain weather and water conditions to farm wild rice, according to Nancy Schuldt, the water quality coordinator of the Fond du Lac Band of Chippewa Indians.
The Fond du Lac Band lives on a 101,000-acre reservation in northeast Minnesota about 20 miles inland from Lake Superior in the far western corner of the lake.
Low water levels may mean it's not safe to get canoes into the waters and hand-harvest rice in the traditional manner, she said, pointing to a rice operation by the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa that had to shut down in 2007 after drought made it too difficult to maneuver canoes. The rice itself is at risk of being phased out by other native species, she said, noting that the rice is "very sensitive to hydrologic changes."
Though tribes in this area are doing what they can to invest in clean energy and study local water temperature trends to help plan future adaptation strategies, "there's still really fundamental questions remaining" about what the future environment will look like, she said.
A 'cultural identity' at risk of being transformed
"Will there still be wild rice? Will there still be birch bark to harvest? Will there still be a sugar bush?" she asked. "Right now, we certainly don't have those answers."
While there is a certain amount of uncertainty in predicting climate change impacts, the various models forecast that the Great Lakes region may see lower lake levels "on the order of 1 to 2 feet, said EPA's Davis.
In February, the Obama administration rolled out a five-year Great Lakes Action plan dedicated to adapting to some of these effects and restoring the area.
The plan, which would cost more than $2 billion to carry out, lays out five central goals it hopes to address in the coming years: restoring lost wetlands, controlling invasive species, tackling runoff pollution, addressing toxics like mercury, and promoting accountability and education efforts.
As water levels decline, toxics need to get cleaned up, and "fast," said Davis. "The reason is that with climate change scenarios starting to kick in, we have to get those areas cleaned up so we aren't unwittingly circulating more contaminants than we need to," he said.
To adapt to the warmer temperatures, "The most important thing we can do is to use the best science in all the initiatives that are under way," added Andy Buchsbaum, the Great Lakes regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation.
"Don't just look at the way things are now, but the way they are likely to be in the coming years, and use all the resources we have now in the service of preparing for climate change," he said.
Copyright 2010 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
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Keepers of the Fire
In the early days of settlement, the area around Wawayetenaang, It Goes Around, the Strait of Detroit, was common ground, a meeting place for many tribes. It was a throughway, a gathering place, a plentiful source of fish and game to feed many and provide stores for traveling and for winter. The People of the Three Fires camped here, as did the Sac [[Sauk), Fox, Huron, Wyandot, and more. In the surrounding areas lived the Potawatomi, the Keepers of the Fire. They were primarily farmers who provided produce for the big encampments at Wawayetenaang.
Around 1800, there were two Chiefs of the Potawatomi living north of Wawayetenaang, Tonquish and Seginsiwin. Many living in Wayne and Westland will be familiar with Tonquish, who camped with his people along the Rouge from modern day Ford and Wayne Roads, north to what is now Nine Mile in Southfield. The history of both of these men is very sketchy.
There is a story about Tonquish, that he was killed by a settler for stealing a loaf a bread cooling on a windowsill. The person killed was likely Tonquish' son, Toga, then a young man apparently overcome with the wonderful smell of the fresh bread. Upon asking for some and being refused, he just took a loaf, and for that, he was shot and killed. That just illustrates the nature of the misunderstandings between the two cultures at that time.
If a person admired something you had, that you could share, you were supposed to share it with them. It would be insulting to refuse to share. On the other hand, the settler seemed to feel very threatened by the Indian who stole from and frightened his wife.
Tonquish' people apparently moved about quite a bit, and were not farmers.
Seginsiwin was called The Fearful One in some papers discussing the treaties he signed. I have checked with some native speakers who felt his name is derived from the verb segis, he is fearful. That seems an unusual name for a leader. It would be nice to know how he came by it. His people seemed settled, and apparently were farmers.
In the Treaty of 1807, both Tonquish and Seginsiwin reserved their space of one square mile.
Tonquish's section was north of Eight Mile and East of Inkster, along the Rouge. The area today includes Beech Woods Park in Southfield.
Seginsiwin's section was along both sides of current Thirteen Mile, from Franklin Road to about Evergreen.
Seginsiwin's village was described as hilly to level with ash, sugar maple, oak and beech. Tonquish' village was described as brushy, wet, or swampy with stands of poor oak. Both villages were ceded in the Treaty of 1827. As a result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, all the tribes were forced to move to lands in Kansas or Oklahoma. By that time, life was seriously disrupted for people living transiently as did Tonquish' people. Farmers were under severe pressure to give up their land for settlement.
Just a bit of area history that is not taught in the schools.
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"Let us put our minds together as one."
--Irving Powless, Sr., ONONDAGA
If we sat in a circle and put an object in the center of the circle and we all described what we saw, everyone would see different points of view from each other. Some would even see opposites because they would be sitting on opposite sides of the circle. In other words, you don't have to see what I see for you to be right. In fact, everyone in the circle is right based on their own point of view. If we are willing to listen to everyone's point of view, then we can get a more accurate description of the object in the center. This is one way to put our minds together. When we get the clarity from each other, we should give thanks and be grateful to each other.
Grandfathers from the four directions, guide me today with Your wisdom from the east, from the south, from the west and from the north.
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An account of the removal of the Indians from southern Michigan
in 1833 a final treaty was signed to give up all reservations within three years and move west of the Mississippi. ...
Before the time set for departure, the Indians regretted their promises and vainly tried to escape from the results. It was not until 1838 that they were called together notwithstanding their remonstrances... and a band small in number compared with their early history left under an escort of US troops. ...
Some ... deserted and escaped on the way west, and some were hid in the woods and in 1839 those that were found were removed.
Copley, A. B. "The Pottawattomies." Vol. 14, [[1890): 256-267.
A tale from the early settlement of Hillsdale County:
For neighbors there were the original owners of the soil, a tribe of gentle friendly Potawatomie Indians. Old Baw Bese, the chief, had his summer camp near the new home and his winter camp on the shore of Bawbese Lake. Old Baw Bese had two wives; the young new wife rode behind him on his pony; the old wife walked and carried the burdens.
The twelve year old lad played daily with the Indian boys riding their ponies and playing their games. Besides Baw Bese were Metean, Ne-Magin-a-swot. Metean was called the Peace chief from his mild disposition. My grandfather always lived in harmony with the Indians. He treated them with kindness and justice, they looked up to him with respect and veneration and often brought him gifts; wild turkey, duck, flsh or honey If the honey were strained grandmother would not touch it, her New England housewifery spirit bringing forth the query Who knows how clean their hands were when they strained it? One day grandmother and grandfather were gathering huckleberries when an Indian from the other side of the swamp called, Weber Weber, come ober! after repeated calls grandfather went over and there found with the young Indian and his squaw, a young pappoose strapped to a board in the usual way. The young father as proud as any other young father. Grandfather whose love for the little ones had not been dimmed and by the struggle to care for his own small brood of seven admired the baby and then began calling Mother. the Indian took up the word and called Muder Muder come ober. So mother came over to admire the newcomer. This is only to illustrate the friendliness of this gentle tribe which a mistaken government not long after sent away from their pleasant camping grounds to a new home beyond the Mississippi.
http://books.google.com/books?id=BhA...20bese&f=false
More on the story of Baw Beese from Hillsdale County's history:
http://www.hillsdalecounty.info/history0067.asp
Had it not been for their Indian neighbors, the early settlers in Hillsdale County would have fared badly dur.ing the first hard winters. Though they were scions of sturdy stock, resourceful, and inured to hardships, they must of necessity have succumbed to the privation and exposure, if Baw Beese had not come to their rescue. In fact, Captain Allen did succumb and was buried as fit.tingly as possible upon his claim. But his girl-wife and her little ones came through unscathed, as did the Jones, and no small share of credit must be given to the faithful chief, who would often appear at the door laden with game and maize, a wild turkey, or a quail, throw it at their feet, stoically receive thanks, and, in all probability, join them in a meal which he had provided.
Chief Baw Beese is described by one who was his friend as tall and handsome, dignified and courteous, a noble speciman of Indian manhood, highly respected and loved by his white associates.
The removal of Baw Bese and his people:
Most Southern Michigan Indians had been relocated to reservations in Iowa and Kansas by 1838. However, because the majority of settlers in Hillsdale County admired and appreciated the local Indian population, Baw Beese and his people continued to co-exist with their white neighbors until the autumn of 1840. After one of the local pioneers wrote a letter to then President William H. Harrison requesting the removal of Baw Beese's people from the land he had rightfully purchased, federal troops were sent to roundup the "Red Men" to be escorted out of the county. It was a sad day when Baw Beese left. Schools were let out to bid the old chief and his people farewell. With Baw Beese driving a horse-drawn buggy in the lead, the federals took the Indians from the camp at Squawfield, through Jonesville and Litchfield to Marshall. From Marshall they went west, then down the Mississippi, up the Missouri River and eventually to a reservation at Council Bluffs, Iowa where Baw Beese feared his mortal enemy, the Sioux. Later, many members of the Hillsdale County band were relocated to the reservation north of Topeka, Kansas. Descendants of Baw Beese's village remained on that Kansas reservation throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. There is some historical evidence that some of the original inhabitants hid in the forests, or were hidden by settlers, and remained in the area. Other reports indicate that small groups of the Indians taken west returned to Hillsdale County and took up the ways of white men, eventually assimilating into the Euro- American culture.
Even before the Indians departed, the first school in the county was opened in the tiny settlement of Allen by Hiram Hunt in 1831. A school was also opened in Jonesville in 1832 and was attended by the youngest son of Baw Beese. Jonesville later became the first organized school district in the state.
http://www.co.hillsdale.mi.us/hc-history.htm
Another account by a settler in suppport of Baw Beese:
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.co...-03/0953092889
In some places, Baw Beese is translated as halfpenny in a Scottish dialect. It could also be translated "Little Bob" in Potawatomi. An English translation is given as Leathernose. I'll have to check that one out. Or maybe it was Baptiste. http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.co...-03/0953008204 Another translation could be Baabii, he waits, -se a little bit.
The rest of the story, from the Nottawaseppi Band of Huron Potawatomi:
Approximately 1687 to 1821 — The ancestors of what is now the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi are centered in the Huron River Valley and the southeastern part of Wayne County
1821 — 1833 Treaties — There are major land cessions by Indian tribes in Southwest Michigan and the formation of Nottawaseppi Reservation in St Joseph County. In 1833 articles supplementary to the Treaty of Chicago ceded the Nottawaseppi reserve to the U.S. government. However, The Chief of the Huron Band, John Moguago, did not sign the treaty; instead his signature on it was forged.
1840 — Forced removal of Tribal members to Kansas. During the westward trek several members escape and return to the Athens area. In the spring of 1841 other tribal members return. These members are considered the founders of what became the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi.
1845 — The Tribe acquires a deed for the Pine Creek Reservation. The property is held in passive trust by the State of Michigan.
....
1889 — A group of Tribal members purchase individually held properties in Section 23 of Athens Township. These properties become known collectively as “East Indiantown.”
...
1995 — After years of documentation and several failed attempts, the United States government restores federal recognition to the tribe on December 19. http://nhbpi.com/history.html
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Gaz-
Check your ims- I just sent one you may be interested in.:cool:
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Healing Gate information
Gaz-
I sincerely hope that I am not hijacking your thread here, but I felt that this was a relevant topic to this thread.
Perhaps you are not aware of some of the things that have been going on in regard to Native Americans and the repatriation of their culture and heritage at Fort Wayne, formerly known as Spring Wells. I am writing today to announce a new accord that has been struck between the Native American peoples of our region and the Historic Fort Wayne Coalition, along with the CoD, which will finally recognize the wrongs that have been done to those who long preceded the arrival of other cultures here in Michigan.
On Saturday, July 31, we will be welcoming our patient Native Americans back to the site in helping to facilitate a homecoming to the Fort by installing a gate in the fencing surrounding the Native American burial mound that exists on the site. We will be dismantling the barbed wire which surrounds the site as well, reducing the prison feel that has prevailed as one looks around at the site itself.
We will be hosting a LARGE gathering of Native Americans who will be assisting us with providing spiritual guidance and support as we open a long-closed fence that surrounds the mound. It will be the first time since the 60s that Native Americans will be allowed to access the site of their elders and we have named the project The Healing Gate in honor of those souls interred there. Our hope is that by starting this initiative, we can begin a Healing of the Nations and welcome our Native Americans back to a site that they occupied long before any other culture came to this country, an area that they have been fenced out of for the last half century.
In conjunction with the NAIA, we welcome back those who were so terribly wronged by the cruel and unusual punishment thrust upon them by the emergence of other cultures to the area, who basically deported Native Americans to reservations westward, thereby decimating their culture and robbing them of what was originally ALL of theirs. We are currently working on language, to be introduced to the CoD and Federal Government, to deed the area surrounding the mound BACK to the Native Americans, so that eventually we can establish an ossuary to pay homage and seek the guidance of those elders who have gone on to the other side. No longer will we tolerate the fencing out of those who so rightfully deserve to honor their people who were buried there, and we, as a Coalition, intend to pursue this to fruition.
With the help of Art Brandt, a Native American of Mohawk descent, and other various Native American entities, we intend to build a long-lasting and fruitful relationship honoring those who came to this site long before us. We are also pursuing the return of all artifacts that were confiscated from the Native Americans during the power grab that existed at the Fort with the closing of the Medicine Bear Academy and the Native American Museum which existed on the site. Additionally, we have entered into negotiations with the DHS and other institutions to restore those artifacts that were taken to their rightful owners and have them re-displayed [[or, in the case of physical remains, have them blessed and re-interred), so that all who wish to learn more about Michigans Native American history can come and do so. Our intent is to establish a new Native American Museum to adequately portray Native American involvement in the development of our region and so that as Native Americans, they themselves will have a central location, within the city confines proper, to illustrate how Native Americans lived and survived long before other outside cultures came and destroyed their culture.
I am hoping that you can attend this important function, Gaz, as I share your commitment to preserving Native American culture and history, being Cherokee myself. I extend this personal invite to you with the hope that you can share with us all in this glorious occasion. Please contact me via the pm I sent you or the e-mail provided within that pm. I would be glad to help facilitate your participation in this wonderful event, and any future events that may occur as a result of this effort.
Please say hello to Cambrian for me, too. I hope he is well and all is going in a positive direction for him!
I will provide further information as we go forward so that everyone can share in this joyous event and welcome back the return of our Native American culture!
Hope to see you at the Fort!
PlymouthRes :)
P.S. I got your e-mail after I wrote this, so forgive me if I repeated this info in my e-mail back to you!
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I am honored to be invited and will certainly be there. You have accomplished much and I am happy to see that a path has been opened to return the spiritual life of the ancient place. We are all beholden to our ancestors as they are beholden to us, and so we are beholden to all our descendants into the generations of the future. Restoring this connection in the heart of our ancient homeland will be a powerful pipeline to the wisdom of the past, present and future.
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The Mound at Fort Wayne
I am back from Fort Wayne on my way elsewhere, but I had to post here first. They weren't quite done with the gate when I left, but they did have the opening cut in the fence. There was a lot of prayer and honor and respect in cutting into the rampant grapevines and mulberry saplings that adorned the fence where the gate was to be placed. When the opening was cut, there was a distinct feeling coming through it, I would describe it as a glow, if you felt a glow rather than saw it.
There was a bit of controversy. While most of us wanted a gate in the fence so those who feel called to maintain the burial site can do so, there was a lot of concern about what that means. There are twenty year old trees and grapevines and milkweed and poke and other plants in there. Plants can be medicine. They do have spirit. What does maintenance mean to them? Should they be cut down, or trimmed and maintained in an orderly fashion? Should they be left as the Creator has put them? What should be done with the cuttings if any? Should there be a ceremonial, prayerful way of doing what is needed to bring the area back to a state of recognizable respect?
I liked the attitude of one elder who spoke. Those are ancestors. Maybe not my ancestors or your ancestors, but we live here now, and we are responsible for them. Our community is responsible.
It makes me remember how it is in the community I came from. We went with our elders at least twice a year, spring and fall, to care for the graves of our departed ones. In the spring to clean them up from winter and get them ready for summer, and in the fall to get them ready for winter. Sometimes, if there are a lot of plants, we would go more often during the summer to keep things neat.
We will be working together on how to do this respectfully, and soon I believe the mound will look like something a little more defined than a fence covered with grapevines. The sign says the Mound shows how the Mound Builders buried their dead. Well, not quite. They wouldn't have put a fence around it so no one could go there and make it nice for the spirits.
Who were these Mound Builders? We don't know what they called themselves. Mound Builders, Hopewell Culture, Yam-Ko-Desh, Prairie People. These were the names given by others to the people who went before them. What happened to them? Did they marry into the incoming tribes? Did they die out from something? Were they pushed out by incoming tribes? If so, where did they go? Some feel the Potawatomi were their descendants. But the tradition of the People of the Three Fires is that we came from the salt water, up around the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and we arrived after these people were gone. Or maybe while they were still here, depending on who you talk to. It is a mystery. But I like the idea that we as a community are responsible for the ancestors that are buried here.
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By the way, and I should have said this before! I really enjoyed meeting PlymouthRes and USNSubVet at Fort Wayne, as well as the other very dedicated people who give so freely of their time to preserve one of Detroit's most important historic sites.
The way they went to town working on the Healing Gate project, from assembling community members and putting the project in motion, to gathering all the resources, and then to furthering community discourse to arrive at a consensus of how to proceed on the project was all just beautifully done.
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Stories of the Northern Lights
Across the continent, there have been many different stories about the Northern Lights. Where I grew up, they were said to be the lights of the spirit world, or the fires of Nanabozho, who is letting us know he still thinks of us. Some people fear them, especially when they are accompanied by sounds. As in many other tribes, the lights are seen to represent the dancing of the spirits.
In some tribes, like the Fox [[formerly of Wawayetoning, Detroit area) the Northern Lights have been seen as a bad omen, of war and disease.
Here is a tale from the Labrador Inuit, as reported by the explorer Ernest W. Hawkes in his book, The Labrador Eskimo:
The ends of the land and sea are bounded by an immense abyss, over which a narrow and dangerous pathway leads to the heavenly regions. The sky is a great dome of hard material arched over the Earth. There is a hole in it through which the spirits pass to the true heavens. Only the spirits of those who have died a voluntary or violent death, and the Raven, have been over this pathway. The spirits who live there light torches to guide the feet of new arrivals. This is the light of the aurora. They can be seen there feasting and playing football with a walrus skull.
The whistling crackling noise which sometimes accompanies the aurora is the voices of these spirits trying to communicate with the people of the Earth. They should always be answered in a whispering voice. Youths dance to the aurora. The heavenly spirits are called selamiut, "sky-dwellers," those who live in the sky.
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Mandaamin
It is the time of Mandaamin, that life giving plant, corn. My mother-in-law, the queen of corn, acquired some delicious ears for us to roast on Sunday, and we all had a wonderful summer feast. The corn was juicy and delicious, "strictly fresh" according to the queen of corn, who is the family expert on all things corn. We finished up a couple of ears today, still good, though no longer "strictly fresh."
Corn has changed a lot from when it sustained us all. It is sweeter, less starchy, and not so hardy to keep. Today's table corn would not lend itself well to being dried and ground up for meal to last through the winter.
The Story of Madaamin is a story of love and conflict. It is one that always made me cry as a little girl. I posted a version earlier in posts 307 and 308, so will put a shorter version here.
There was a family that was poor but grateful for all things that they had. The father was not the best hunter, but he managed to just keep his family fed. The eldest son, reaching the age of his ceremony, went into the woods to fast and pray and wait for his vision for his purpose and spirit guidance. He prayed that he would dream something that would make it easier for people to get food. As he grew weaker, he was lying on his mat and he saw a young man coming to him from the sky.
The young man was beautiful and strong, dressed all in green and yellow, with waving golden plumes on his head. His hair was yellow.
"The Great Spirit has sent me to you, to help you in your quest. You must get up and wrestle with me, for that is the only way you can get what you want," said the visitor.
The boy knew he was weak, yet he felt encouraged, and he did get up and wrestle with the handsome visitor. He fought til he was exhausted, when the visitor said, smiling, "My friend, it is enough for now. I will come again." He left the same way he had come, to the sky.
The next day went the same, the visitor came and wrestled with the boy til he was exhausted, and left, telling him he must have courage to obtain his wish for his people.
On the third day, the fight went as before. The boy fought as hard as he could, though he felt very weak. At the end, the visitor declared himself beaten, and he came and sat with the boy.
He told the boy that he had won his wish from the Great Spirit through his courage, and tomorrow, his seventh day of fasting, would be the day he needed to fulfil his wish. His father would bring him a bit of food, and he would be stronger. He would win the fight. Once he won, he was to throw the visitor to the ground, strip him, and make a soft place in the ground and bury the visitor in it. He was to care for the grave and keep it clean, and cover it with fresh earth. If he did this, he would achieve his goal and make it easier for people to get food.
On the next day, all happened as the visitor had said, he was killed and buried. The boy cared for his grave carefully all that spring and summer. At the end of the summer, there stood stood a tall and graceful plant, with bright-colored silken hair, surmounted with nodding plumes and stately leaves, and golden clusters on each side. The boy recognized his friend, Mandaamin, friend of all people, who had provided food that would grow from the earth for all people.
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Speaking of Conflict, or Struggle...
This is a meditation from a few days ago. I have been thinking about it. I have trouble with the concept of conflict as a norm. The stories that I had trouble with as a youngster all seem to be the ones that involve some kind of conflict and somebody dies, like in the story of Mandaamin. It is a good thing to face what we fear.
Elder's Meditation of the Day - August 5
"It is a paradox in the contemporary world that in our desire for peace we must willingly give ourselves to struggle."
--Linda Hogan, CHICKASAW
The Grandfathers have taught us about sacrifice. We have been taught to pray for the people in a pitiful way. Struggle and conflict is neither good nor bad, it just is. Everything that grows experiences conflict. When the deer is born it is through conflict. When the seed first grows, it is through conflict. Conflict precedes clarity. Everything has the seasons of growth. Recognize - acknowledge - forgive and change. All of these things are done through conflict.
Great Spirit, give me the courage today to see that struggle and conflict are here to teach me lessons that are a gift from you.
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American Indian Sign Language
The legendary Indian sign language permitted trading between remote tribes with no spoken language in common. Odawa traders went as far as the Rocky Mountains, for instance. Now for the first time in 80 years, there is to be a Sign Language conference August 12-15 at Lame Deer, MT, Northern Cheyenne Reservation.
From an article in Indian Country Today:
"The conference is an important part of a National Science Foundation funded project led by Dr. Jeffrey Davis of the University of Tennessee, Dr. Melanie McKay-Cody [[Chickamauga Cherokee/Choctaw) of William Woods University and James Woodenlegs [[Northern Cheyenne) to document hand talkers from Northern Cheyenne, Assiniboine, Sioux, Crow, and several other tribes.
"The mission is to preserve Indian Sign Language through the cooperation of sign language linguists with deaf and hearing members of the North American Indian signing communities through research, video recording and a dictionary. ...."
Some very exciting news! [[paraphrasing the article) General Hugh Scott, in 1930, spent considerable resource in preserving the sign language and made some films, which have been rediscovered and restored. They are posted here:
http://sunsite.utk.edu/pisl/index.html
Back to quoting the article:
"Whether officially or unofficially considered endangered, for more than 200 years, North American Indian sign language was and is still an integral part of storytelling, ceremony and history and is still used as a practicality in many communities all over Turtle Island in some form by people who cannot hear.
"Indian Sign Language provides a broader cultural connection within American Indian communities, among communities and between Native and non-Native communities than what is afforded by American Sign Language.
It permits everyone to find in nature an image to express his thoughts on the most needful matters intelligently to any other person, wrote Mallery in his 1880 Study of Sign Language."
For the whole article:
Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/na...100131734.html
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Planning for the Seventh Generation
Elder's Meditation of the Day - August 10
"Nature is the storehouse of potential life of future generations and is sacred."
--Audrey Shenandoah, ONONDAGA
We need to honor and respect our Mother Earth. She is the source of all life. The sun shines life to the earth, then the earth produces life in all forms and in a balanced way. Everything is here to serve everything else. If we interrupt the flow in any way, we leave nothing for the future generations. Before every decision is made, we should ask, and answer, a final question; "If we do this, what will be the effects on the seventh generation? What will we cause our children to live with?" We need to have respect and love for all things and for all people. We need to do this for ourselves and for all the children still unborn.
My Creator, let me look at nature today and let me have the highest respect for all the things I see. All the two legged, the four legged, the winged ones, the plants, the water, the air, the Mother Earth. Let me have respect for myself.
http://www.whitebison.org/
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Happy Anniversary, Ravine!
Yes, this thread that Ravine started is one year old today. With nearly 10,000 views, it seems a lot of people have been following along and I hope enjoying the information and stories.
Want to keep it going?