Paging Gazhekwe

[gazhekwe]

ICTMN’s Rob Capriccioso Discusses Billion-Dollar Settlement on NPR
By ICTMN StaffApril 16, 2012

Indian Country Today Media Network’s Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Rob Capriccioso appeared on National Public Radio to discuss the recent decision by the Obama Administration to resolve 41 long-standing disputes with Indian tribal governments over the federal mismanagement of trust funds and resources for a sum of $1.023 billion.

“Some people are very excited to have a President that they strongly supported having his administration make this kind of progress that no other presidents have done for many many years,” Capriccioso tells host Michel Martin, “so for them it’s an obvious win-win situation. Others are looking at the dollar-amount—one billion is a lot of money, no doubt, but divided [among] 41 tribes becomes much less money.”

To listen to the interview, visit NPR.org.

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Original story:
Obama Moves to Settle 41 Tribal Trust Cases for $1 Billion

By Rob Capriccioso April 11, 2012




WASHINGTON – The Obama administration announced April 11 its intent to resolve 41 long-standing disputes with Indian tribal governments over the federal mismanagement of trust funds and resources.
Ignacia Moreno, assistant attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice, said the settlements will amount to a combined total of $1.023 billion to the 41 tribes for past federal mismanagement.
Beyond money, the settlements also set forth a framework for promoting tribal sovereignty and improving nation-to-nation federal-tribal relations, while trying to avoid future litigation through improved communication, Moreno said.
.....

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[gazhekwe]

Susan Shown Harjo is a well respected thinker. In the following article, I think she hit on a good definition of the Privilege we keep see running our political world, but she didn't quite come out and say it.

White Privilege, by Susan Shown Harjo

Suzan Shown Harjo [[Cheyenne & Hodulgee Muscogee), an award-winning columnist and a poet, writer, curator and policy advocate, who has helped Native Peoples to protect sacred places and recover more than 1 million acres of land, is president of The Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C.

White privilege in America first stood for wealth advantage, the provenance of white men, no matter how amassed, deserved, shared or inbred. Among its prominent symbols are oil baron J.D. Rockefeller, Monopoly guy with a fistful of cash, television’s The Millionaire, film’s Gordon [[“Greed is good”) Gekko and cartoonish tycoon Donald Trump.

The Republican presidential primary has supplied 2012 models for white and privileged Americans: Newt Gingrich, with his fat-cat “historian” consulting fees and half-million-dollar Tiffany account; Rick Santorum, with his McMansion in the suburbs of the Washington, D.C. he despises but cannot bear to leave; and the presumptive GOP nominee, Mr. 1%, Mitt Romney, with his car elevators, Cayman Islands shelters and undisclosed tax returns.

No one should have been surprised to learn that Romney has secret designs to gut the housing and education departments—two of the federal agencies most responsible for providing a leg up to the impoverished and disadvantaged—in order to help pay for his priority: tax breaks for billionaires.

It was no stunner either that his “all moms are working moms” rule does not apply to mothers on welfare; he says their toddlers should go to day care so the moms can have the “dignity of work.” That rich white men are out of touch with the majority of poor people and single parents is no news flash, although the past months’ headlines suggest otherwise.

What isn’t covered in the context of white privilege are such stories as the General Services Administration scandal over a 300-employee conference that cost $823,000 and continues to topple its top executives. The real scandal and a really good example of white privilege is the fact that the GSA officials who’ve resigned, been fired or remain under investigation were ever hired in responsible jobs and paid annual salaries at or near the quarter-million-dollar mark. Imagine so many non-white officials with such poor judgment [[or even with good judgment) being hired in the first place.

Now we come to the overtly racial aspects of white privilege. Notice I did not mention Herman Cain, former Republican presidential candidate and past CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, as a model of white privilege. That’s because I have questions: if a black man joins white men and takes on their prejudices and their privileges, is he part of white privilege and is there such a thing as black privilege?

Similar questions could be asked about Justice Clarence Thomas, who is the second African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and whose white wife is an ardent opponent of President Obama. When Thomas votes against Native American land rights actions, does he do so as one who enjoys the privileges of white privilege, or does he have a unique perspective as a black man or from a perch of black privilege? When he joins the high court’s Catholic majority in citing the Catholic Church’s 500-plus-years-old Doctrine of Discovery as the first legal justification for the wholesale theft of Native lands, is he voting from white European [[inherited American) privilege or simply as a practitioner of Catholicism?

Many white folks have privileged a certain history and narrative that whitewashes their ancestors’ actions and unclean hands, that justifies ongoing unjust or racist actions and that perpetuates their privilege. This is accomplished through legal, educational and social systems, where only certain privileged ones may dissect race and other races in “scholarly,” “scientific” or “objective” terms.

An example of this is in American sports, where only the Native Peoples, to the exclusion of all others, are lampooned, dehumanized and slurred. When African American fans of the Washington, D.C. football team defend its disparaging name, are they acting out of white privilege or black privilege; and, if the latter, why? When Native American fans of teams with racist stereotypes defend them, are they just floating down the mainstream? Are they acting out of white privilege or Native privilege and, if the latter, what on earth would that be?

All sorts of excuses are made for whites who harm non-whites, mainly that they act out of fear. No one really acknowledges what their fear is: That non-whites, once in charge of anything, will be as bad to the whites as they have been to us.
George Zimmerman’s defense against murder will likely be “fear.” He was booked as “white” after he profiled, stalked, shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old, who was walking home. With one parent who is white and the other from Peru, the shooter’s been reported as Hispanic, white Hispanic or white. Radio personality Rush Limbaugh, one of the most ostentatiously privileged of the white media, froths at the mouth when Zimmerman is called white or white Hispanic, or the killing of the teenager was a white-on-black crime.

Too much white privilege; too few answers.

Read more: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...#ixzz1sdFAVQ1F

My takeaway is this: Privilege was limited to white people for hundreds of years, thus became known as White Privilege. We are making strides to break down the barriers and provide opportunity to all, resulting in a few who manage to break into Privilege. Not too surprisingly, they are just as obnoxious to the unprivileged as the White Privileged people. What we need is awareness by the privileged that everyone does not have it the same as they do, and with Privilege comes Responsibility to keep from steamrolling the people who are not in the Privileged stratosphere. --Gazhekwe

[Pam]

Gaz, have you ever seen this movie? I ran across this while looking for something else. It was made in the early 60s but wasn't widely released until a few years ago.

http://youtu.be/9VepP9Eyfp0

[gazhekwe]

Hi,Pam, no I have not seen it. Thank you for posting the trailer for us. Editing to add some thoughts about the film. I had seen the trailer a few years back, but did not see the movie. I am sorry but the relationship I have with alcohol includes not wanting to see our young people being so reckless with it.

As for me, I am grieving, must cut my hair off. See next post.

[gazhekwe]

Lightning Medicine Cloud, Sacred White Buffalo, Killed and Skinned

By ICTMN Staff May 4, 2012





According to a Fox News report, the extremely rare and sacred white buffalo born last year, has been found dead and skinned along with its mother.

Lightning Medicine Cloud, born May 12, 2011 on a stormy night at the Lakota Ranch in Greenville Texas, was a natural white buffalo—an extremely rare occurrence, happening an estimated once per ten million births. In June, a naming ceremony attracted over 2,000 visitors to the ranch, and a report on the proceedings cited beliefs held by some Lakota that the calf was the third white buffalo ever, and the first male in 150 years. Such a white buffalo is tied to the story of White Buffalo Calf Woman, and is the most sacred animal, perhaps the most sacred thing on the planet, to the Lakota people.

In March, the discovery that a ranch in Hunt, Texas offered the chance to kill a white buffalo for $13,500 sparked outrage in Indian country. A day after the news broke, the owner of the ranch told Indian Country Today Media Network that he would cease offering the white buffalo hunt. The buffalo being killed at that ranch and others, like those being born on a ranch in Bend, Oregon, are not natural white buffalo—as an expert told ICTMN in March, knowledge of genetics has allowed modern breeders to engineer white bison.

The annual Greenville Scholarship Native American Powwow, which was traditionally held in late January, had been moved to the weekend of May 11-12 and called [[perhaps unofficially) the First Annual Lightning Medicine Cloud Powwow in the buffalo calf’s honor.

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http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...#ixzz1tvTrgOIY

[gazhekwe]

Detroit American Indian Community Celebrates Grand Re-Opening of Health Clinic

Native News Network Staff in Native Health.

DETROIT – American Indian Health and Family Services of Southeastern Michigan is celebrating its Grand Opening of its renovated medical and behavioral health clinic tomorrow, May9th, which is also National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day.

American Indian community elders, the architect and the staff
worked to incorporate American Indian culture and teachings into the design.

The event will begin at 4:30 pm and last until 7:30 pm. American Indian Health and Family Services of Southeastern Michigan is located at 4880 Lawndale Street in Detroit.

George Martin, a well known and respected Ojibwe elder, will conduct a ceremonial blessing as part of the opening celebration. The celebration will also include an art display and performances, traditional Native games and songs and food. Educational material on children's mental health will be distributed.

“Events that draw us together in celebration, especially celebration of children and their voices, add to feelings of worth, love and support for a child. Those are tools they have to build great character and rebound from traumas,” stated Ashley Tuomi, executive director of American Indian Health and Family Services.

“We express our emotions in many ways. Our job as Behavioral Healthcare Providers is to help children and their families learn to communicate their emotions in healthy, balanced ways. This event highlights how emotional expression can be fun as well as meaningful,” commented Tina Louise, director of Healthcare and Recovery for the agency.

The clinic was renovated with funds from the agency's Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention Grant through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to help the agency build increased capacity to provide prevention services to its clients.

“We had a generous contractor, Restoration Tradesman Corporation that completed a $200,000 remodel for only $112,850,” said Scott Bowden, facilities manager.

The 1,600 square foot remodeled clinic also includes two additional exam rooms. Architect Jeff Royer worked with American Indian community elders and agency staff to incorporate American Indian culture and teachings into the design. The remodel, along with integrating a behavioral health specialist and beginning to train all of the staff in suicide screening, prevention and intervention, will allow the agency to continue to serve the needs of the American Indian community in southeastern Michigan. There are close to 60,000 American Indians who live in the Detroit metropolitan area.

“Mental health is how we think, feel and act when facing life's situations. It's important that we begin to educate children at an early age, so they understand the impact and importance of mental health. Children experience a wide range of feelings every day, and we hope that they will feel the love of their community, the value of their voices, and have fun!” added Nickole Fox, the Heath Education Director at the agency in hopes in drawing a large crowd to the Grand Opening.

posted May 7, 2012 6:00 am edt

http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/det...th-clinic.html

[gazhekwe]

From a Private Living Room to a Public Exhibit, 100-Year old Totem Pole from Ketchikan, Alaska and 125 Native Objects on Display in Ohio

By ICTMN Staff May 9, 2012

From a private collection to a free public exhibit, Jim and Vanita Oelschlager are giving the University of Akron, and those in northeast Ohio a chance to see some incredible pieces of American Indian culture.

The University of Akron’s Center for the History of Psychology are housing the Jim and Vanita Oelschlager Collection, a Native American Ethnographic Exhibition entitled “Connecting Objects to their People: From the Arctic to Arizona.”

The exhibit runs through October 14, from Mondays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m.

The Akron-area couple has held these items in their home, summer retreat and offices, and those that will be displayed are but a fraction of their entire collection. The free exhibition displays cultural objects from the 1800 and 1900s. There will be four different regions represented: the Arctic/subarctic, the Northwest Coast, the Great Basin and the Southwest.

The exhibit is being co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and Classical Studies, the Myers School of Art, and the Center for the History of Psychology.The Oelschlagers' fascination with American Indian culture led them to building their private collection with everything from tools, blankets and baskets to famed photographer Edward Curtis books and prints and western bronzes.

The totem pole, 6-feet tall, more than 100-years old and hailing from Ketchikan, Alaska, took the couple years to obtain. They had to convince the Alaskan woman who owned it to part ways with the iconic carved artwork. Called ‘Totem Pole with Frog, Eagle and Fish” has a striking eagle’s head on its top, its white and red wings fully spread.For more on this exhibit, click here.

Read more

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/05/09/from-a-private-living-room-to-a-public-exhibit-100-year-old-totem-pole-from-ketchikan-alaska-and-125-native-objects-on-display-in-ohio-111899#ixzz1uNMs44k0

[gazhekwe]

Here is a sneak preview trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOqSi...endscreen&NR=1

and a little more info:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSfpP...endscreen&NR=1

More about the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM02qJg9uHc


Opening June 1 in our area:

MI / Birmingham	Uptown Palladium 12	June 1
MI / Canton	Emagine 18	June 1
MI / Novi	Emagine Novi 18	June 1

[gazhekwe]

Samuel Tso, 89, a United States Military Veteran and Navajo Code Talker passed away the evening of May 9 at the San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington, New Mexico, surrounded by family members.

According to a Navajo Nation press release, Nation President Ben Shelly ordered the Navajo Nation flag to be flown at half-staff from May 10 – 14 to honor another heroic Code Talker and his services during World War II.

“The Navajo Nation has lost another Code Talker and that saddens my heart. The Code Talkers have brought great pride to our Nation and the loss of Samuel Tso saddens not only myself, his loss saddens the Navajo Nation. On behalf of the First Lady, the Vice President, and the Navajo people, we offer our prayers, condolences and words of encouragement to the Tso family. Samuel Tso was a true Navajo warrior,” Shelly said in the release.

Tso was born June 22, 1922, at Black Mountain, near Many Farms, Arizona and was Zuni Tachiinii and born for Nakai Dine’e. He often told stories about making up his birthdate to get jobs.

Tso was not one of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers, but still played an integral role in the outcome of WWII.

Funeral services are pending with Desert View Funeral Home in Shiprock, New Mexico.

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[gazhekwe]

Elizabeth Warren and the Politics of Being Indian

By Lindsey Catherine Cornum, May 11, 2012

I listen to NPR nearly every morning just to have some background noise as I fry up an egg, toast a tortilla, and put an ice-cube in my tea so I can gulp it down before scrambling to find my keys and a clean pair of socks. Most days the most relevant news for my life is the weather report. But I listen anyway, lampooning the earnest voices, slowly shaking my head, and waiting until I turn on my computer to find the perspectives I actually care about.

This past Wednesday morning, however, I was greeted by a sound quite foreign. It was the word “Cherokee,” as in the Cherokee tribe, as in Indians being discussed on national radio. The whole phrase was “highly contested Cherokee heritage” and it was in reference to Elizabeth Warren, the democratic rival of that handsome devil, Republican Senator Scott Brown. The two are currently locked in a mud-slinging senate race in Massachusetts that has attracted massive media attention and been described at times as “intense,” “Hot! Hot! Hot!” and, more solemnly, “a reflection of the troubled soul of our broken nation.”

Both candidates have taken to accusing the other of ethical missteps, the most recent being that Warren’s characterization as a “minority professor” in the directory at Harvard Law School was a wanton, self-serving lie. Warren claims she self-identified as a minority on account of her Cherokee heritage and with the intention of meeting others with similar backgrounds. Now Brown’s supporters are calling for Warren to release her personnel files and academic applications so they can wave them around and yell about how affirmative action is a total scam.

The scam seems to lie in the fact that the amount of Cherokee blood Warren has coursing through her veins has been quantified as a mere 1/32nd. This constitutes “cheating” in many people’s minds because anyone who has only 1/32 Indian blood couldn’t possibly be a real Cherokee; they are obviously just a ruthless schemer using a flawed system to fuel their own twisted ambition. “CherokeeGate” has thus not only opened the old arguments against affirmative action, it has re-opened the even older debates about what makes a real Indian. As with most cases of Indians in the news, the loudest voices in this controversy have been patently misguided and often racist.

To begin with, anyone who still believes blood quantum is a true measure of identity is living in the 19th century. Blood quantum, the measure by which the government determines one’s degree of Indian ancestry, has got to be one of the most plainly hypocritical logics the American government has ever used to disenfranchise people. At the same time America was using the “one drop” rule to categorize as many people with African ancestry as slaves as possible, they were using a reverse “one drop” rule on Indians in order to categorize them as white in the hopes this would loosen ties to the communally held land settlers desperately wanted.

Yet, if Warren claimed 1/32nd Cherokee heritage and was dark-skinned, I bet the conversation would be a lot different. The problem is Warren just doesn’t look Cherokee enough. Because of her physical appearance, many believe she has not had a genuine minority experience and does not deserve to claim minority status. To some degree, that is correct. As a light-skinned woman whom most people read as of Western-European descent, Warren has probably never experienced outright racism first-hand. Because she is granted white privilege based on her white appearance, however, does not necessarily mean she is just white—this applies not only to Elizabeth Warren but to all light-skinned people with non-European heritage. Though they must be held accountable for their conditional privilege and to the communities they purport to belong to, their decision to connect to their heritage is theirs alone. Nobody gets to decide that for them but their ancestors.

Unfortunately, in defending herself and her choice to list herself as minority professor, Warren has relied on her own reductionist interpretations of Indianness. While she did give a sincere account about the family history she was told and raised on, she has also tried to confirm her Cherokee ancestry by pointing to the high cheekbones of her grandfather. I mean, a part of me gets it. For those of us who do not look Indian enough [[which these days requires full-blown regalia or being dead) or those of us who are cut off from our tribal communities, there is a struggle to identify what exactly is Indian about us. That sometimes comes out in misguided generalizations that we know will be understood by the ignorant, Hollywood-fed American public. In many cases those ignorant, Hollywood-based images are some of the only ways we know ourselves what constitutes an authentic Indian.

For me, being Navajo is a political identity based on the fact that I have ancestors that inhabited this land with alternative systems of governance that were then completely destroyed by the settlement of Americans. For Warren, it seems, being Cherokee is not just about her grandfather’s handsome bone structure but a sense of place [[from her Oklahoma upbringing) and a family tradition carried down through orally-transmitted stories. Though this is only conjecture on my part and though I do wish Warren had a history of serving and being accountable to the Cherokee people she is so proud to be tied to, I have few problems with somebody who self-identifies as part Indian based on oral history and a connection to land.

There is no single Cherokee experience just as there is no single Indian or American experience. Yet, people who invoke their Indian heritage are disproportionally held to a higher burden of proof. You can tell anyone you are descendent from Swedish royalty without problem, but try being accepted as really Indian, without knowing some sacred rites or sporting dark, brooding looks and you’re out of luck. People who are an estimated 1/33rd Irish, such as President Obama, are not viciously attacked when invoking their heritage. They are not asked to release documents to prove that their trip to Ireland was not an attempt to cheat a system that unfairly grants favors to white people.

It may be true that some people out there have checked the Native American box because they want an “exotic” background that some will see as sexy and some college official will see as good for “diversifying” campus. But I am willing to bet, in fact I am fairly certain, that the vast majority of people who claim to be Indian on their college application, either as students or professors, don’t do so to pull a fast one on the system. They did so because they sincerely count themselves as proud members of their tribes. They did so because anything else would be a betrayal of where they came from and who they stand for. They did so because even if they don’t look the part, they are the Indian that refused to disappear. If you think being an Indian is some golden ticket to success, you have five-hundred years of history to catch up on.

Unfortunately, I never hear about that history and all the other people who worked and struggled to check the Native American box on a college application on NPR. The lack of indigenous presence in the media makes possible the wanton racism that has been expressed around Warren’s Indian identity. I guarantee that if a wider variety of stories about Indians were presented in the mainstream media, beyond the usual “Poor, Drunk Indians Continue to be Tragic” specials we see every five years, it would be a lot harder for people to get away with the casual racism that is leveled at Indians much too often.

In this case, it’s as if conservatives have been storing up all the unoriginal stereotypes of Indians they can think of, just waiting for a chance to unleash them all in one gushing flow of digital racist vomit. On Twitter this was manifested through the trending hashtag#ElizabethWarrenIndianNames which included such zingers as Pocca-hot-mess [[a clever variation on the tired Pocca-hot-ass) and Lia-watha. Meanwhile, Ann Coulter at her ever-insightful best wrote a piece called “Elizabeth Warren’s Indian Name: Dances with Lies” which opens with, “Elizabeth Warren, who also goes by her Indian name, ‘Lies on Race Box,’ is in big heap-um trouble.”

If Elizabeth Warren hasn’t been a victim of racialized verbal violence before in her life, she certainly is now. Welcome to the good life.

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[gazhekwe]

What’s the Deal with Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee?

May 15, 2012 By Suzan Shown Harjo

What’s up, you ask, with the “Native American” uproar in the Elizabeth Warren-Scott Brown race for U.S. senator from Massachusetts? The politics part is easily understood; the Indian part is a heavier lift, involving legalities of Native nations and tribal citizenship. You don’t have to be a lawyer—only a reader—to understand the issues.

The Brown camp says Warren said she was Native American to get a job teaching at Harvard Law School in the early 1990s, when the university needed to defend its diversity record. Warren says she didn’t know Harvard listed her that way, but she listed herself as Native American in 1986-1995 legal directories, “because I thought I might be invited to meetings where I might meet more people who had grown up like I had grown up.”

Born and raised in Oklahoma City, Warren cites her grandfather’s “high cheekbones” and a “family that has talked about…tribes, since I’ve been a little girl.”

She claims Cherokee and Delaware; a genealogist in Boston says she’s 1/32 Cherokee. A tribal citizen must have at least one tribal citizen ancestor. Her ancestors are not on the Cherokee Nation citizenship rolls, which included the Delaware Tribe throughout Warren’s life, until 2009.

Of those who falsely claim to be tribal citizens, most claim Cherokee and varying percentages of Indian blood. Blood quantum was an imposed anthropological/federal construct, until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Martinez case in 1978 [[after Warren became a lawyer) that only the Indian tribe could determine tribal citizenry. Cherokee Nation did not adopt the federal blood quantum standard.

Warren’s defenders and detractors have blamed, smeared and minimized Cherokees, Cherokee Nation and Native Americans generally, with sophomoric language usually heard only at sports events featuring “Indian” stereotypes.

Those who point out that she is the same amount of Cherokee blood as the Cherokee Nation chief are off point and beside the point. Why? Let’s review. Tribal citizenry is political, not racial, and Cherokee Nation uses a family [[descendant) standard, not a blood quantum requirement.

When people legitimately claim particular Native nations, they are saying they are tribal citizens of one and eligible for citizenship and/or culturally tied to another. When people claim particular tribes and aren’t tribal citizens, they are promoting a false impression of tribal citizenship [[and tribal experience and sanctioning), even if they never use the word citizen. People are Native American because Native nations they say they are; not because of the magic wand of self-declaration.

Native Americans are not the same as, for example, Irish-Americans, Japanese-Americans or Kenyan-Americans. Our nationalities are in our Native nations, which are more like Ireland, Japan or Kenya, with a political nation-to-nation relationship with the U.S. We are equivalent to the relatives of the hyphenated Americans in their old countries—more like the Irish, Japanese or Kenyans—still in our countries, only surrounded by the U.S. on our original lands.

Upon hearing this, non-Native people usually have one or more of these reactions: 1) now I understand, 2) I still don’t get it, 3) that’s not true, or 4) let’s put a stop to that! All too often, Native rights are viewed as unconstitutional super rights, and litigation ensues. The Supreme Court has ruled that Indian rights are not superior rights and do not violate the constitutional rights of non-Indians; they simply are different.

The Supreme Court ruled in the 1974 Mancari case that the Indian-preference hiring among qualified candidates in the Bureau of Indian Affairs was not race-based, but political [[federal-tribal and tribe-citizen relationships): “The preference, as applied, is granted to Indians not as a discrete racial group, but rather, as members of quasi-sovereign tribal entities whose lives and activities are governed by the BIA in a unique fashion.”

In the landmark affirmative action Bakke decision in 1978, the high court rejected use of the Mancari ruling by non-tribal citizens, noting in a footnote: “In Mancari….we found that the preference was not racial at all, but ‘an employment criterion reasonably designed to further the cause of Indian self-government and to make the BIA more responsive….’”

At one time, being citizens of Native nations meant speaking heritage languages, exercising traditional religions and engaging in cultural ways of making a living, building a home, preparing a meal, wearing clothes. Today, few Native Americans can do all of those things. In fact, a tribal citizen need not do anything beyond simply being a tribal citizen. Native Peoples have citizenship criteria, as do all countries, but there is no citizenship test.

No one wants to test Warren or burden Harvard, but they should explain to law professors who are tribal citizens why her “Native American” claims and hire had nothing to do with them or their opportunities. Questions abound, but few are being asked or answered.

Suzan Shown Harjo [[Cheyenne & Hodulgee Muscogee), an award-winning columnist and a poet, writer, curator and policy advocate, who has helped Native Peoples to protect sacred places and recover more than one million acres of land, is president of The Morning Star Institute in Washington, DC.

Read more:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...#ixzz1uxplzBR8

Editing to add comment: In my experience administering affirmative action plans in Michigan, one requirement of listing a native person as a minority was proof of tribal affiliation or community recognition. We did have lots of people claiming native ancestry that had no way of proving it or even knowing which tribe to claim. There are always opportunists.

[gazhekwe]

On May 20 a great celestial event will take place: The moon will obscure the sun—almost. Although the moon made its closest approach to Earth for the year a couple of weeks back, it has now receded to the point where its disk will not quite cover the sun.

The result is a more spectacular than usual eclipse called a Ring of Fire, in which the moon moves directly in front of the sun but the difference in size leaves a flaming red ring around the edges. Millions along the eclipse’s path will be riveted, but among Indigenous Peoples the site is not so compelling. In fact, they may hide.

This annular eclipse will cut a swath through Indian Country. In the southwestern U.S. the eclipse goes right through Navajo territory, but the Nation won’t be opening its borders to onlookers any time soon: An eclipse is considered a bad omen, and the tribe’s most traditional members will stay inside. The tribe is not even letting tourists in to see it on parts of the reservation, Melba Martin, a Navajo teacher and amateur astronomer who serves as the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s ambassador to the Navajo Nation, told Indian Country Today Media Network.

Eclipses are a touchy subject, as it turns out. The Navajo word for eclipse is Eating the Sun, and the most traditional will not even leave the house during it, let alone find a way to watch it.“When there is an eclipse, either lunar or solar, this is a sacred time where the sun, the moon and the earth are kind of like in an intimate position when they line up, so it’s such a sacred thing that’s happening, you don’t look at these things that are happening out in the sky,” said Rudy Begay, a Navajo cultural resource specialist working with the federal government.

Stay tuned for more detailed coverage on ancient cultures and the eclipse over the weekend, as well as tips on how to watch safely. Meanwhile, watch the NASA video below to find out why this event is taking place and what it will do to our shadows. Then click here to find the level of visibility in your state.

Read more: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...#ixzz1v9wsIOkd

[gazhekwe]

Regarding Johnny Depp’s Portrayal of Tonto

By Ungelbah Daniel-Davila

May 19, 2012

Everyone in Indian country is in an uproar about Johnny Depp playing Tonto in the upcoming flick, The Lone Ranger, but for the wrong reasons. From what I’ve read online, most people are outraged by the decision to have a non- Native portray a supposedly Native character — a legitimate objection considering Hollywood’s track record when it comes to casting Native roles with any kind of integrity. And then there are some Natives out there who are in the camp of, “It’s just entertainment, who cares.”

Of course, as the opposition will argue, we care because for as long as Indigenous people have been a presence [[or lack of presence) in media, beginning with the Romantic literature of the 1800s, a certain Native image has been created and sold by non-Natives with little to no understanding or compassion for the cultures they represent. The result of this, as I have written about before, has been identified as cultural appropriation and genocide.

But, to me, the crux of the issue is not that a non-Native is playing Tonto, but that Tonto continues to exist.

I’m glad Depp was cast as Tonto and I can’t think of anyone better to portray him. Tonto is a character that is and always has been a simulation of Indigenous-ness. He was created out of lies and cultural misconceptions and that, I think, is how he should remain. As we all know, the word “tonto” is a Spanish word that translates to “stupid” in English. So that, for starters, is an indication of the motivation behind the development of the character.

Tonto is the epitome of Indigenous cultural misrepresentation in cinema, and a symbol of everything Hollywood has ever done wrong to Natives.

Now, for Hollywood to dredge up that kind of degrading material and re-sell it for the brainwashing of another generation rather than make a picture written, directed and portrayed by American Indians — of which there are many — is a whole other issue, and one that I feel should be more closely examined. But the argument that a “real Indian” should have played Tonto is, I think, ultimately wrong.

Since the first “real Indians” appeared in “Indian” roles in the movies, they have been playing roles like Tonto. Roles that were not created to represent them or the people they come from. They lack the truthfulness and complexity of the cultures and people they make a mockery of. These roles are shallow and blatantly disrespectful simulations — dangerous lies marketed as the real thing. The truth is that with the exception of some independently made pictures, there are no Native roles in Hollywood to even choose from.

There are no Native stories, presence or voice at the major motion picture companies and so the only roles a Native actor has to choose from are roles like Tonto. Roles that are meant, and have always been meant, to degrade them, their families and the communities they come from. Roles designed to eliminate the Native voice from any type of collective discussion while mis-educating, however subliminally, the viewer, Native and non-Native alike.

I’ve talked to some of the older generation who grew up watching the original Tonto, and other westerns, who said as kids they thought that was how they, as “Indian” were supposed to be. They rooted for the cowboys. For a “real Indian” to play Tonto today would be a disgrace, and I’d like to believe that no self respecting Native actor would have chosen that role. Instead of furthering the stereotype and lending credibility to it, we should be putting our energy into creating real roles for ourselves, in every form of media — building a voice and an image that will no longer stand for this continued slandering.

For a Native actor to play the role of Tonto would have been the most damaging decision, because instead of rejecting that type of Native portrayal, he would have validated the character’s original intended message, that Native men are all Tontos.

Ungelbah Daniel-Davila studies creative writing and indigenous studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Read more:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...#ixzz1vLWDUBrb

[Pam]

I thought Johnny Depp was part native?

[gazhekwe]

Maybe yes, like Elizabeth Warren is part native. See some opinions I posted on that, above.

In summary, you can try to claim native ancestry because your family says your great grandmother was a Cherokee princess or whatever, but unless she or someone you can trace to is on the tribal roles, you cannot claim that you are a member of a native tribe.

In fact, Depp does not assertively claim native ancestry, he says he is just guessing:

Depp has surmised that he is part Native American, saying in 2011, "I guess I have some Native American [in me] somewhere down the line. My great-grandmother was quite a bit of Native American, she grew up Cherokee or maybe Creek Indian. Makes sense in terms of coming from Kentucky, which is rife with Cherokee and Creek."^[7][8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Depp

So, Depp does not know what tribe, and his statement says two different things. She was quite a bit of some kind of Indian, or she grew up some kind of Indian. Growing up Indian usually means your parents were Indian and raised you in an Indian community. Being a bit of some kind of Indian usually means you were raised in a white community and claimed your great grandmother was a Cherokee princess. Growing up in a native family or community is a whole lot different than growing up in a white family and community. This was great grandmother, so she was likely born near the turn of the 20th century. If her family could pass for white, they probably did so. If they did not pass for white, Depp would have a lot of relatives in the Indian community and should be a lot more aware of that ancestry and background.

Since Depp has no apparent connection with any Indian relatives or community, he has no experiences to connect him to any insights into playing a native role. Therefore, the author of the article I posted concludes he is the perfect person to play the Hollywood stereotype character Tonto.

In fact, Depp could, should he feel so inclined, check the tribal roles for each of the tribes he thinks he grandmother could be, and find out if she or her parent is on the roles. He might be able to show that in fact, he does have tribal connections. Since he would be finding this out after he is grown [[he was born in 1963), none of such possible connections have shaped him to date, so we have to go on his upbringing as a white man.

[gazhekwe]

Coming From Akwesasne? Get Out of the Car

By Dave Staddon

May 21, 2012

I work for the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe as public information director. My reservation is in Canada and my legal residence is within the jurisdiction of the Saginaw-Chippewa Reservation in Michigan.

Akwesasne is Mohawk territory and the U.S.-Canada border runs through it. Because is it an active border with six jurisdictions, [[provincial, state, federal and county and Tribal) there are always some policing agencies in the area. Since 9/11 the number of agencies [[10 at last count) enforcing all brands of law became increasingly visible. So, being pulled over at least once in my career at Akwesasne would seem inevitable.

Last December, while on my way from work for an eye appointment, I noticed a U.S. Border Patrol van following me closely. Clearly I was being observed. When I turned off he turned on his lights and pulled me over.

The officer approached my car and I rolled down the window. He asked, “Where are you going?” I replied, “To an eye appointment.” He asked, “Where do you work?” I told him about my role with the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe. He said that he worked closely with the tribal police and I told him that I knew the tribal police chief, one of the detectives and that a friend of mine had recently retired from Border Patrol, but name-dropping didn’t help.

He asked for my identification. He then asked, “Have you ever been stopped before?”

I told him, “No.”

He then asked, “You mean you’ve never been stopped?”

I said, “No. I’ve never been stopped.”

He asked, “Do you have anything against you?” I wasn’t sure what he meant. He had a heavy accent and was difficult to understand. He asked again, “Do you have anything against you?”

I guessed that he meant any pending criminal charges or warrants. I told him I did not.

He then asked for permission to search my car.

I asked, “What for?” No answer. I asked him, “What is your probable cause to search?” Still no answer. I said, “I don’t think a search is reasonable.”

He said, “You have a right to say, ‘No.’”

I replied, “OK. I’m saying ‘No.’ You have no reason to search my car.”

He said, “But you were coming from Akwesasne.”

I replied, “I do that every day. That’s where I work.”

He said, “You say ‘No.’ That makes me suspicious.”

I said, “Fine. Be suspicious all you want.”

He took my identification back to his vehicle, then returned. I gave him my business card.

“I ask you again, have you ever been stopped?”

“No,” I replied.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

I said that I had been stopped for speeding a while back, but I thought he was asking about border patrol.

“Now that is what I’m getting at!” he declared and smiled like I admitted to selling state secrets.

I simply didn’t understand the question’s context.

“When was that?”

I wasn’t sure, “I think it was two years ago in September,” I answered.

He then asked me, “What happened in 1973?” What!? 1973?!

“Uh….. the war in Vietnam ended?” Then the light bulb came on, “I got arrested for possession of marijuana, but the charges were dropped.”

“So you do have something against you!” he exclaimed.

I said, “Hey, that was 38 years ago and the charges were dropped.”

He then asked again to search my car. I refused. He looked annoyed and said he would call out a canine unit.

I said, “Fine! Knock yourself out! You’re the one standing out there in the freezing cold rain, not me.”

He looked more annoyed and said, “It will take at least 45 minutes for the dog to get here because we don’t have a dog in our sector.”

Baloney. The K-9 unit arrived in about seven minutes. After a lengthy conversation between the two officers, the K-9 handler approached my car.

"Does he still have your ID?” he asked.

“Nope, I have it. Would you like to see it?”

“Yes,” he answered. He also asked me if I had ever been stopped by the border patrol.

I told him, “No.”

He said, “But you have a Michigan license.”

I replied, “Yes, I do. That’s my legal residence. I’m a registered voter there and my passport is registered there. I file my taxes there and file a tax return in New York as an out-of-state worker. Lots of people work in New York, but have their legal residences outside of New York. Nothing illegal about that.”

He then stated, “But you won’t give us permission to search.”

I said, “I’m a U.S. citizen and am protected by the Constitution against unreasonable search. You guys have no real reason to search my car and no probable cause.”

He then told me he was going to run the dog around my car and I would have to stand outside while he did that.

I got out and locked my doors. The first officer asked me if I wanted sit in his vehicle.

“No thanks.”

It is a lot easier to get into a police vehicle than to get out of one. So I stood outside. He ran the dog around my car with no results. He looked a little puzzled and ran the dog again. No results again. He walked the dog back to his truck and told me that I was free to go.

I was surprised how bold and suspicious the officers are in their attempt to police an area that is already over-policed. Now I know what the Mohawks and other residents of this area have to go through.

The important thing is to know your rights. You have to give permission to a search or they have to have a search warrant. If you lock your car doors when exiting your vehicle, the officers cannot simply open your doors without your permission or a search warrant. Be polite but firm. If you are Indian and your territory is on a border, be careful for what you wish for in terms of law enforcement funding and presence. The U.S. is eager to establish their forces on our borders and within our territories.

Dave Staddon is the public information director for the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe.

Read more:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/ict_sbc/coming-from-akwesasne-get-out-of-the-car#ixzz1vVdjQr5L

[gazhekwe]

Johnny Depp Adopted Into Comanche Nation

By ICTMN Staff May 21, 2012

Actor Johnny Depp, who will play Tonto in the upcoming film version of The Lone Ranger, has been adopted by the Comanche Nation.

The character of Tonto, in this latest telling of the story, is said to be Comanche—a bit of information that LaDonna Harris, an esteemed Comanche who is president and founder of Americans for Indian Opportunity [[AIO), found very interesting.

“Johnny is reprising the historic role of Tonto, and it seemed like a natural fit to officially welcome him into our Comanche family,” Harris said, according to a release. “I reached out, and Johnny was very receptive to the idea. He seemed proud to receive the invitation, and we were honored that he so enthusiastically agreed.”

The traditional ceremony took place on May 16 at Harris’s home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Comanche Nation Chairman Johnny Wauqua was on hand, as were AIO’s staff and close family members. At the end of the ceremony, in accordance with tradition, Depp gave gifts to the attendees as a sign of gratitude.

“Welcoming Johnny into the family in the traditional way was so fitting,” Harris said. “He’s a very thoughtful human being, and throughout his life and career, he has exhibited traits that are aligned with the values and worldview that Indigenous peoples share.”

The Lone Ranger, which is currently filming, is being directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and is set for a May 31, 2013 release. The Depp-Verbinski-Bruckheimer team previously collaborated on three films in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

From left: Honorable Johnny Wauqua, Comanche Nation Chairman; LaDonna Harris, President of Americans for Indian Opportunity; and actor Johnny Depp. Photo by Celli Crawford

Read more:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/05/21/johnny-depp-adopted-into-comanche-nation-114174#ixzz1vXLrsYAl

Caution from Gazhekwe re qualification to create a Native American character: Adoption into a tribe does not instantly convey any particular insight into what it means to be Native American. A person that did not have that upbringing will still be the same person as before. From his prior roles, I would expect him to work very hard to create the character called for by the script and the director. I am not aware of any native background there. As others have said, the role started as your basic Hollywood good Indian stereotype.

In the 1981 movie, Legend of the Lone Ranger, Tonto was played by Michael Horse, Yaqui Apache-Swedish-Hispanic actor. He was not the same Tonto played by Jay Silverheels at all. Never once did he go into town for supplies and end up getting beat up by drunk white cowboys.

[Pam]

Hey, Pam, about Johnny Depp

Well, that's cool. He couldn't find any pants without holes to wear though?

I don't think I've ever actually seen the Lone Ranger and Tonto in any version.

[gazhekwe]

He does look schmutzy, doesn't he? For a ceremony, yet. The chief is wearing business attire, and LaDonna is in full regalia. See what I mean, just at the ceremony, he doesn't "get it" at all.

I always liked Tonto. He was the only Indian on TV [[except for Chief ThunderThud) who didn't look like a maniac and then get bloodily killed. Used to irritate me that he was so smart he saved the Ranger from death and from then on, he was so stupid he couldn't do anything without the Ranger having to save him.

[gazhekwe]

Finding the First Americans

By ANDREW CURRY

Published: May 19, 2012

For many decades, archaeologists have agreed on an explanation known as the Clovis model. The theory holds that about 13,500 years ago, bands of big-game hunters in Asia followed their prey across an exposed ribbon of land linking Siberia and Alaska and found themselves on a vast, unexplored continent. The route back was later blocked by rising sea levels that swamped the land bridge. Those pioneers were the first Americans.

The theory is based largely on the discovery in 1929 of distinctive stone tools, including sophisticated spear points, near Clovis, N.M. The same kinds of spear points were later identified at sites across North America. After radiocarbon dating was developed in 1949, scholars found that the age of these “Clovis sites” coincided with the appearance at the end of the last ice age of an ice-free corridor of tundra leading down from what is now Alberta and British Columbia to the American Midwest.

Over the years, hints surfaced that people might have been in the Americas earlier than the Clovis sites suggest, but the evidence was never solid enough to dislodge the consensus view. In the past five years, however, a number of discoveries have posed major challenges to the Clovis model. Taken together, they are turning our understanding of American prehistory on its head.
The first evidence to raise significant questions about the Clovis model emerged in the late 1970s, when the anthropologist Tom Dillehay came across a prehistoric campsite in southern Chile called Monte Verde. Radiocarbon dating of the site suggested that the first campfires were lighted there, all the way at the southern tip of South America, well before the first Clovis tools were made. Still, Professor Dillehay’s evidence wasn’t enough to persuade scholars to abandon the Clovis model.

But in 2008, that began to change. That year, researchers from the University of Oregon and the University of Copenhagen recovered human DNA from coprolites — preserved human feces — found in a dry cave in eastern Oregon. The coprolites had been deposited 14,000 years ago, suggesting that Professor Dillehay and others may have been right to place humans in the Americas before the Clovis people.

This discovery inspired other scholars to re-examine old finds with new techniques. In the 1970s, for instance, a farmer in Washington State found a mastodon rib with a bone shard lodged in it, as if the mastodon had been killed with a weapon. Since the mastodon remains predated the earliest Clovis sites by eight centuries, the nature of the finding was initially disputed. But in 2011, researchers led by the Texas A&M archaeologist Michael R. Waters announced that by analyzing the rib and the embedded fragment using scanning and modeling techniques, they had confirmed that the embedded bone was a spear point — strongly suggesting that humans in the Americas were hunting the animals with bone-tipped spears long before the end of the ice age.

The Clovis model suffered yet another blow last year when Professor Waters announced finding dozens of stone tools along a Texas creekbed. After using a technique that measures the last time the dirt around the stones was exposed to light, Professor Waters concluded, in a paper in Science, that the site was at least 15,000 years old — which would make it the earliest reliably dated site in the Americas.

The archaeological evidence challenging the Clovis model is also receiving support from genetic studies. Having compared the DNA of modern American Indians with that of groups living in Asia today, scholars have estimated that the last common ancestor of the two peoples probably lived between 16,000 and 20,000 years ago. That figure doesn’t square with the arrival of the Clovis people from Asia only 13,500 years ago.

Where does this leave us? We now know people were in the Americas earlier than 14,000 years ago. But how much earlier, and how did they get to a continent sealed off by thick sheets of ice?

Working theories vary. Some scholars hypothesize that people migrated from Asia down the west coast of North America in boats. Others suggest variations on the overland route. One theory even argues that some early Americans might have come by boat from Europe via the North Atlantic, despite the fact that the DNA of modern American Indians does not suggest European origins.
After 80 years under Clovis’s spell, scholars are once again venturing into unknown territory — and no one is ready to rule anything out yet.

Andrew Curry is a contributing editor at Archaeology magazine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/op...&smid=fb-share

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on May 20, 2012, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: Finding The First Americans.

[gazhekwe]

[Pam]

Interesting article:

http://news.yahoo.com/dna-study-seek...201144041.html

For years, varied and sometimes wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark-skinned Appalachian residents once known derisively as the Melungeons. Some speculated they were descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps from Turkish slaves or Gypsies.Now a new DNA study in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy attempts to separate truth from oral tradition and wishful thinking

[gazhekwe]

Pam, it would be interesting to see a similar analysis of the Lumbee people. That the Melungeons turned out to be African and white does not surprise me. That they went to such lengths to conceal it should surprise no one.

More on Johnny Depp and Tonto:

Who’s an Indian? Johnny Depp

By Dan Jones 5/25/2012

Of all the sovereign authority tribes once held, the least compromised by Congress is the tribe’s ability to determine who is a member of the tribe or who is an Indian. The US census of 2010 determined there were some 3 million American Indians belonging to tribes, a number that can easily be disputed. Not all American Indians care if they are counted. There’s a tribe in Florida that has never been recognized by the United States for one reason: They won’t hand over their rolls to the government. They don’t believe the enemy should know how many of them there are. To this day, they prefer to be a non-federally recognized tribe of Indians, though they still make and hand out tribal identification cards to its members, something all tribes do.

Which brings us to this recent hot-button topic: What’s wrong with Johnny Depp playing an Indian? Nothing now, because he is an American Indian. If the Comanche say it, then it is so. He has received some expert advice on Indians from none other than the political and cultural genius of LaDonna Harris. No one can argue with the fact a tribe has the right to determine who is an Indian. If the Comanche Nation wishes to adopt a space alien, it would not be in any tribe’s interest to criticize. Another tribe would only be limiting their own authority to do the same. From some of his statements, I don’t think Depp really knows enough about us to have come up with this brilliant way of eliminating all the questions about his being Indian. Again I take my hat off to Harris and the Comanche Nation for walking into the middle of what could have been a nasty long-term debate and putting an end to it. Johnny Depp is an Indian.

I really do hope that Depp has a good experience out of all this Lone Ranger business. He can do a lot to help us by shining a light on all kinds of issues in Indian country, and now that he is one of us, he carries the spirit and the responsibility. I think he might have been blown away by all the criticism, but he did ask for it. I was reading some of his interviews and the problem became very apparent—he doesn’t know much about Indians. Not that he has to, he just has to be able to act like an Indian, but check out what he said.

Speaking about the painting he took his inspiration from for Tonto said this, “It just so happens, Sattler had painted a bird flying directly behind the warrior’s head. It looked to me like it was sitting on top,” Depp revealed. “I thought: Tonto’s got a bird on his head. It’s his spirit guide in a way. It’s dead to others, but it’s not dead to him. It’s very much alive.”

It sounds like Depp didn’t know Indians wore birds on their head. In most tribes, the medicine men who wear bird headdresses. Now that he’s one of us, he’ll need to learn more to help us.

When you get down to it, the original Tonto and the Long Ranger were developed in a very racist time in America by a non-Indian. There were lots of stupid folks with stupid ideas [[kind of like today), with black face and racist comics everywhere. A sit-around-the-fort Indian runs with a masked man and they fight for justice. It was a figment of someone’s imagination for the period it was set in. Nothing profound or deep about it. You can put a medicine man in it and the result will still be a shallow, unrealistic plot.

Many Indian actors have not worked in a while and likely won’t until Hollywood starts buying screenplays written by Indians. Mr. Depp can be a real help in this area. I think he should have played The Lone Ranger and Gary Farmer should have been Tonto—that would have gone a long way to dispel stereotypes. Depp himself suggested that he had intentionally attempted to address the stereotype of Native Americans in society with his role.

“The whole reason I wanted to play Tonto is to try to [mess] around with the stereotype of the American Indian that has been laid out through history, or the history of cinema at the very least—especially Tonto as the sidekick, The Lone Ranger’s assistant,” Depp told Entertainment Weekly. “As you’ll see, it’s most definitely not that.”

So what is an Indian stereotype? One of the most common is that we are all some kind of mystic or medicine man/woman. We have seen that play out very recently when James Arthur Ray, a man playing a medicine man, killed some people in a sweat lodge. So, inadvertent as it may be, Johnny Depp is playing into the stereotypes of American Indians by playing one as medicine man, Tonto. All this because he really doesn’t know what he is doing, so I suspect it will end up a dark comedy.

So now, with advisors like Mrs. Harris and the Comanche Nation, I think Johnny Depp is well on his way to mainge some positive, needed contributions to our world. I hope it is not all make-believe, and that the spirit finds him worthy.

Dan [[SaSuWeh) Jones is the former chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. He is a filmmaker and Vice Chairman of the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission, appointed by former Oklahoma Governor, Brad Henry.

Read more:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...#ixzz1vuCvX8CM

[Pam]

Pam, it would be interesting to see a similar analysis of the Lumbee people

I tried looking this up earlier today but I couldn't find a good link. It sounded like they have been DNA tested but people can't agree on what the results mean.

[gazhekwe]

With the Lumbees, the Natives don't want them because they are really white. Go figure.