The most recent feature in Indian Country Today Media Network’s “Best Indian food of 2013″ details a rare delight once served abundantly by the Passamaquoddy people.

As Jackleen De La Harpe writes, it’s a dish that has some teeth to it.

In Indian country, frybread, Indian tacos, curly fries and pizza have become as “traditional” as the dancing and socializing of annual pow wows and celebrations.

Food is at the heart of most celebrations, and fast food, in many ways, has taken the place of local cooking. Yet in many regions, familiar foods are being quietly revived or have quietly endured—traditional dishes may include fish caught in the dip net (salmon), greens gathered by hand (milkweed), or dishes that rely on an ingredient that is hard to come by—such as corn soup, red chile stew or muskrat.

Many adults haven’t tried smothered muskrat but Hilda Lewis, a Passamaquoddy tribal member living in Maine, is hoping to change that – for her family at least.

. . . Lewis, Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point, tribal elder and former tribal council member, says traditional foods served at Indian Days include hulled corn soup and moose-meat chili or stew. And one dish that has almost disappeared—smothered muskrat.

The recipe is simple, she says. First, chop off the tail, then drop the entire muskrat into the pot of water with potatoes, onion and shredded carrot. When the meat is tender, the muskrat, sans tail, is served “with the teeth showing,” she adds. The potatoes and onions are heaped on top, hence, the term smothered.

Muskrat has fallen out of favor as a dish because there isn’t as much trapping being done, Lewis explains, which means the toughest trick when cooking a muskrat is getting a muskrat. The best way to do that may be to ask around to see if someone has a few in their freezer.

Muskrat, about the size of a mink, can weigh up to four pounds and has a rich golden-brown pelt and teeth a bit like a beaver. There isn’t much meat on a muskrat, Lewis says, but the flavor is good, like rabbit with an herbal taste.

. . .

Lewis has cooked muskrat for her sisters and their husbands, and this spring, she is thinking about introducing her grown children to muskrat. All four, who range in age from 31 to 52 years old, have never eaten muskrat, and she believes they will like it.

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Jenna Cederberg

A tribe working to rebuilt its nation under its first female chief traveled hundreds of miles seeking inspiration from the successful Confederated, Salish and Kootenai Tribe in Montana.

As Char-Koosta News reporter Alyssa Nenemay writes, the Delaware tribe located in Oklahoma traveled to the Flathead Reservation recently to meet with tribal officials there.

The Delaware, or as they were traditionally known “Lenape,” were among the first tribes to come in contact with Europeans in the 1600s. Forcefully relocated westward from their aboriginal territory along the Delaware River, the tribe’s historical relationship with the US Government is strained with war and resistance. The Delaware have received and lost federal recognition three times.

“We are survivors and adapters,” said Delaware representative Nate Young. “We’ve had a hard history but we’re trying to move forward. We’re looking for fresh ideas and that’s why we came here. We’re so impressed with everything the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes has been able to accomplish.”

Chief Paula Pechonick was recently appointed to lead the Delaware. She told Nenemay that “it’s time for women to step forward and take the lead, especially in these times. I really think Creator had a hand in me becoming the first female chief.”

During their two-day tour, the Delaware chief and tribal council members met with department heads to share ideas on how to expand on similar ventures, as well as learn how to establish and run new ones.

“Each tribe faces unique circumstance but we can all help each other to move forward,” said CSKT Chairman Joe Durglo. “I think we have some of the best staff in the country. They help us every day and I don’t know where we’d be without them.”

Jenna Cederberg

Terrance Guardipee creates his art on pieces of the past. Checks, receipts stocks, WWII ration books all become his canvas.

In that way, Blackfeet artist has created a beautiful fusion of Native imagery and historical documents.

Missoulian reporter Cory Walsh talked with Guardipee about his inspiration and a new show he is showing in Kalispell, Mont.

Guardipee incorporates the documents from the 19th century, including maps of Montana, to explore the growth and change in the state at that time period, show where the Blackfeet Tribe protected its territories and relate the stories of ancient warriors.

The new Hockaday exhibit will have multiple images of Running Eagle, “one of the only women to become a warrior,” he said. While there’s a waterfall named after her in Glacier National Park, his work is way of spreading her story across the country.

In addition to Blackfeet figures, Guardipee uses traditional symbols in his work, such as lodge designs. He’s had the training and fully understands what they’re used for. A viewer could see an old photograph of a lodge and see the same, he said.

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By Vince Devlin, of the Missoulian:

POLSON – You can look at the potential questions and problems facing many Indian people across the nation when it comes to the Affordable Health Care Act, and quickly check off all the ones that don’t apply on the Flathead Reservation.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai people are a federally recognized tribe, so no problem there. Members can be enrolled in the tribe at birth, so children’s standing isn’t in question like it is for members of some tribes. There is no reservation residency requirement like ones that are posing problems for others.

When you’re done, Kevin Howlett says, just understand: The Affordable Health Care Act will still present issues locally, for many people of Indian descent.

Howlett, director of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Health Department, stresses that everyone currently eligible for tribal health care will continue to be eligible.

But those who aren’t enrolled members may be subject to tax liability if they don’t purchase insurance for coverage they already qualify for.

“I anticipate problems, not for tribal members who are being exempted, but I do think there will be issues for descendants who can and do receive health care from us,” Howlett says.

The law, as written, exempts enrolled tribal members from having to purchase health insurance.

“We have a lot of people who are not enrolled, for whatever reason,” Howlett says. “It’s really unclear” how the new law will affect them.

“We do know they’ll come to the tribes asking for answers,” Howlett says. “But we don’t have them.”

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ICTMN’s Jorge Martin Melchor was on assignment last weekend at the 2013 AIGSA Fashion Show at Arizona State.

The event showcased a host of looks by Native designers. Melchor’s video gives a good look at the fashion show.

Gerard Begay, the fashion show’s organizer, said he started the event to show off the talents of Native American designers. “There’s a lot of Native American designers out there who aren’t recognized,” he said. He added that he also wanted to show non-Native people how Native culture is evolving. “I wanted to showcase that we are changing, we are constantly changing with today’s society,” he said.

The show is part of a weeklong celebration of Native culture at ASU.

Jenna Cederberg

Almost 330 people around the country have become members of the emerging Una Tribe, “mixed-blood tribe” being formed by a family in Eugene, Ore.

As KEZI.com reports, the Lake family there has already created a website and declaration of creation to attempt to get around blood quantum laws.

The Lake family who lives in Eugene says each family member has a fraction of their blood that is Native American. But that fraction of blood is not large enough to be considered a member of their ancestral tribes, so they’re starting their own tribe for people like them.

“I have been told my whole life that I’m Native American, both my father and my mother are Native American, all together I’m one-eigth,” said Richard Lake III, Una Tribe Founder.

That one-eighth tribal blood doesn’t allow Richard Lake III to be considered part of an ancestral tribe.

. . .

But one Klamath Tribe member says it takes more than a bit of Native American blood to be a part of a tribe.

“The ancestral memories of that are generations and generations of a single people living together sharing memories and developing language,” said Gordon Bettles, Klamath Tribe Member.

. . .

Even though they’re not recognized by the government or other tribes, the Una mixed blood tribe thinks in 10 years you’ll be hearing a lot about them.

“Our end goal is set up a reservation for our members to be able to live on or visit,” said Richard Lake III.

Jenna Cederberg

A 10-year-old boy accused of several crimes, including theft, will get a new hearing after a judge initially set bail in the case at $500,000 after protests from his outraged family.

The Missoulian’s Vince Devlin reports that Isaiah Shane Nasewytewa, the 10-year-old St. Ignatius boy who lives on the Flathead Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana, is currently being held at the Reintegrating Youthful Offenders Correctional Facility.

His family has said they can’t pay that high of bail.

Court records indicate (Lake County Judge Kim) Christopher set bail at $500,000 last week specifically in hopes of ensuring the evaluation takes place.

The boy’s grandmother, Dorinda Buck of St. Ignatius, protested on social and in traditional media, saying such a high bail is usually reserved for adults charged with violent crimes. The family had come to court indicating they were prepared to post bond for the $50,000 bail sought by the Lake County Attorney’s Office.

Nasewytewa came before the court because of a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge for an alleged incident at his elementary school, but that triggered the re-filing of a felony theft and burglary charge from 2012 against the youngster.

Nasweytewa’s family has said the Wa He Lut Indian School in Olympia, Wash., is willing to take him.

“He’s losing steam (at the correctional facility),” said Buck, who indicated she had spoken to her grandson on the phone since he was transported to Galen after Thursday’s District Court hearing. “He said there’s nobody his own age in there. He feels lost – he’s just a little kid.”

Court documents indicate Nasewytewa was to be held until he could be seen for the evaluation at a Shodair Children’s Hospital, but his grandmother said there were no openings available before June 6. His caseworker has since found an opening at a Bozeman facility, but that’s not for another three weeks.

“They’re trying to get it expedited, find something sooner, but so far the earliest is May 22,” Buck said.

Jenna Cederberg

The term and the industry of “tribal tourism” is catching on around the state of Alaska.

One Native corporation at the forefront of offering adventures steeped in their cultural traditions has launched a service to help others do the same, according to Associated Press reporter Rachel D’Oro.

Huna Totem Corp. opened Alaska Native Voices on Wednesday. Huna Totem is the village Native corporation for Hoonah — a largely Tlingit community of 775 in southeast Alaska — and one of the front-runners of tribal tourism, a growing trend in Alaska and nationally.

Huna has turned the closure of the cannery there in the 1950s into a positive economic driver focused on sharing its heritage.

The corporation is entering the 10th year of operating its Icy Strait Point, a long-closed salmon cannery near Hoonah that was converted to a tourism complex with offerings that include Tlingit heritage performances and nearby attractions such as nature tram rides, whale watching tours and a mile-long zipline with a 1,300-foot vertical drop. Huna Totem also is entering its 13th year of providing cultural heritage guides to visitors of Alaska’s Glacier Bay.

The corporation’s new consulting business is available to Native groups as well as communities worldwide wanting to establish tourism around their own cultures, Alaska Native Voices director Mark McKernan said. The cost will vary, depending on the extent of services sought, he said.

. . .

Since opening in 2004, Icy Strait has drawn more than 1 million visitors. Another 135,000 cruise ship travelers are expected to stop there this year. For Hoonah, the enterprise has been lucrative, bringing an enormous boost in sales taxes and creating scores of jobs for locals, officials have said.

Alaska’s off-road villages lack the luxuries seen along the cruise ship routes, however, and most don’t have a designated visitor coordinator. But an increasing number of small communities are exploring ways to set up their own brands of Alaska Native tourism.

Jenna Cederberg

You’re going to want to take a look at this collection of ledger art created by Crow warriors in the late 1800s.

Billings Gazette reporter Mary Pickett brings us the “remarkable story about . . creation and preservation” of how the art was saved by a curious Montana college professor.

BILLINGS, MONT. – Adrian Heidenreich stumbled onto the first clue of an extraordinary collection of Native American ledger art in a Billings Heights art gallery in 1968.

When he spotted a copy of a battle scene done in 1884 by a Crow artist, he was stunned.

“Oh my gosh, I have to have that,” he thought.

He learned that the original the copy had been made from was part of a collection of Indian art housed at the library at Eastern Montana College, now Montana State University Billings.

Although the original had been attributed to the last traditional Crow Chief Plenty Coups, the chief later said he did not draw it, but that the work was an accurate depiction of his experiences at a battle between Crow and Sioux warriors.

Full of action, the work simultaneously shows several events that happened minutes or hours apart.

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