By Gregory B. Hladky, of the Hartford Advocate:

About two centuries ago, a Connecticut Paugussett woman wove a beautiful basket out of wood splints using the traditional method of local Native peoples. The basket was sold to a farm family, traveled to Ohio, eventually returned to this state and now rests in a museum here.

It’s extraordinary for having survived. It’s even more extraordinary because we know exactly who made it.

Museums across the world are now engaged in a phenomenally difficult effort to match individual names to pieces of American Indian art, to recognize their creators as artists rather than simply labeling these works as generic “artifacts” from a particular tribe or era.

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Native Americans seen through Swiss eyes
Karl Bodmer depicted the life of Native Americans before the white settlers flooded their lands and changed their lives.
Bodmer’s paintings are known to have strongly and accurately reflected Native culture. He explored the Americas from 1832 to 1834, swissinfo.ch reports.

Today there is an upsurge in interest in Bodmer’s work. Gasser’s film – “Bodmer’s Journey” – has won prizes at festivals in New York and Los Angeles and will be presented at the Washington environmental film festival in March.

In addition, the Oklahoma University Press is about to publish the first English translation of the complete text of Maximilian’s account of his journey illustrated by Bodmer

Feds drop legal effort to restore tribal management at National Bison Range
From Rob Chaney, of the Missoulian:

The debate over who manages the National Bison Range has moved out of the courtroom and back to the negotiating table.

A federal judge has OK’d the requests by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to drop an appeal over their 2009 annual funding agreement. Two separate lawsuits challenged the arrangement, and the court found the federal agency hadn’t properly followed the National Environmental Policy Act. The arrangement would have allowed Flathead Indian Reservation members to manage bison on the range as well as handle visitor services, fire protection, maintenance and scientific research.
Read the rest of the story.

Children’s book exhibit depicts Native path to diabetes prevention
An exhibit at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston, Ill., is featuring a series of watercolor paintings taken from books that aim to raise diabetes awareness among Native children, the Evanston Trib reports.

The traveling exhibit, “Through the Eyes of the Eagle: Illustrating Healthy Living for Children,” first opened in 2006 at the Global Health Odyssey Museum at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The exhibit’s appearance at the Mitchell Museum is its first and only scheduled showing in Illinois.

The forty-four watercolor and gouache illustrations on exhibit at the Mitchell come from a series of educational storybooks targeted to Native children, ages four to nine. The tales are populated with Native American and animal characters and modeled on age-old Native storytelling techniques. The stories explain the ravages of diabetes while encouraging Native youngsters to return to a traditional lifestyle of physical activity and healthy eating — practices that have been shown to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.

Jenna Cederberg

One gigantic portion of reclusive billionaire Margaret A. Cargill’s fortune will be set aside to benefit Native America culture and art, it was announced last week.

Cargill lived a “low-profile” life and died in 2006. Now money from the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, which figures to have assets of $4 billion or more, is going to help Native American culture and folk art flourish, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The foundation will have three branches and will be known as the M.A.C. Foundation.

Cargill, who loved weaving, glass art and jewelry-making, was an heir to the privately held Cargill agribusiness fortune. Plans call for her share of the company to gradually be liquidated and transferred to her charities starting this spring and continuing over the coming 41/2 years.

The result could be a reversal of fortune for two genres that have long been like backwoods cousins to more favored — and urban — precincts of the arts.

. . .

Native American initiatives will begin the foundation’s grant-making, starting late this year or early 2012 with a program focused on the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Then M.A.C. will roll out Native American programs for the Southwest and Upper Midwest, after which it will be ready to begin making grants for folk art.

Jenna Cederberg

Whichever holidays you celebrate throughout the year, here are a few gift ideas Buffalo Post stumbled upon in the past month that keep the Native flavor in focus. More ideas? Let Buffalo Post know by posting items in the comments section. Enjoy:

Rosetta Stones Endangered Language Program, which works with native groups to customize Rosetta Stone software for exclusive use in language revitalization. There are a number of options. RosettaStone.com has the kits. Take an interactive tour of Rosetta Stone Navajo, released in 2010.

In Montana? The Native America Made in Montana seal will let you know which items are legitimate. Eligibility requires an individual to be enrolled (including Little Shell) and to produce a finished product or serve that is created, made and produced in Montana, resulting an added value of 50 percent or more, the Char-Koosta newspaper reported.

For some stocking stuffers, pick up Tanka Bites. This American Indian natural food producer was listed in the AP’s gift guide.

Make a hiker, camper or climber happy with Tanka Bites, a preservative-free trail snack inspired by the Lakota Indians. The spicy blend is made of pounded dried buffalo meat, dried cranberries and peppers, including habanero. The editors of Backpacker magazine recommend them…, the AP said.

“The Killing of Crazy Horse” by Thomas Powers, is getting rave reviews. See for yourself – does it cover the real Crazy Horse? One reviewer said:

“The Killing of Crazy Horse” takes on the mythology and the history of the man and his age. Thomas Powers — whose work as a journalist peering into the shadows of the intelligence world has served as surprisingly apt preparation — nimbly traces the mixture of legend, tacit knowledge, and hearsay that represents the canon of Crazy Horse studies. The Sioux Wars of the 1860s and ’70s comprised a world with a social structure all its own.

Last but not least, a full-blown Santa Christmas wish list. If you can’t find what you’re looking for here, it’s going to be a long holiday season. Thanks to A New Way blog for the suggestions.

Jenna Cederberg

What historians believe is the oldest birch bark canoe in existence was found in the barn of an English estate this year, having rested there for decades after traveling from Canada to Europe in the late 1700s.

BBC Cornwell reports that the “unique survival from the 18th Century” is thought to have been brought from Canada by Lt John Enys, who fought in Quebec during the American War of Independence. The BBC reports that Enys discovered the canoe sometime during his personal travels in Canada.

It goes on display at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth early next year.

The canoe will then be returned to Canada. Exactly where the canoe originated and by which Canadian tribe it was crafted will then be investigated by the Canadian Canoe Museum.

Jenna Cederberg

Native-owned public TV station holding auction this week
KSKC-Public TV, broadcasting from its home on the Salish Kootenai College campus on the Flathead Indian Reservation, will kick off its annual fundraiser on Monday. The live broadcasts and auctions are legend in the area. You can get any number handmade, hand-painted items, or even a year’s worth of cookies (a dozen delivered to you each month), as the Missoulian’s Vince Devlin reported this week.

The TV station is only one of a few on Native-owned in the country. Station manager Frank Tyro keeps things running there, with local content and regular public TV programming.

Tune in to see for yourself this week (you can watch online, too!) and give to a good cause.

MTPR new director Sally Mauk talks with Native journalist Duncan McCue
Listen to the interview: Duncan McCue has been a TV reporter with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the last 12 years, producing stories for the CBC’s flagship evening news program called “The National.” He’s also one of the few Native journalists in Canada. In this feature interview, McCue talks with News Director Sally Mauk about his career – and about reporting on Native issues.

Little Bighorn monument still awaits improvements
Its a popular monument in dire need of more space, and talks about upgrades first discussed almost 30 years ago at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument are set to start again.
As the Billings Gazette reporter Lorna Thackeray reports, Battlefield Superintendent Kate Hammond has scheduled meetings to talk about fixing issues like museum overcrowding, park lot woes and a “chronologically backward” tourists roadway.

Hammond wants all stakeholders at the table. But that’s a tall order

Moving forward has never been easy at the 1876 battlefield surrounded both by controversy and the Crow Reservation.

Expanding park boundaries seems always to be the sticking point. In the past, the Crow Tribe has resisted efforts to enlarge the park, which Hammond said would require congressional approval. It is unlikely Congress would approve a boundary change without the tribe’s support.

The Custer Battlefield Preservation Committee, a nonprofit organization set up with the idea of buying land for the National Park Service, has 3,500 acres of land it would love to donate, said Jim Court. Court is a former Little Bighorn Battlefield superintendent and was chief fundraiser for the Preservation Committee.

A ‘Good Day to Die’ wins another award
Received more good news from “A Good Day to Die” filmmaker Lynn Salt this week: The film, based on the story of Dennis Banks and the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.) movement he co-founded in 1968, won Best Documentary at the American Indian Film Institute Film Festival in San Francisco.

“We are moving toward distribution and will let you know when we have it,” Salt said in an e-mail.

Buffalo Post will keep readers updated as well.

Jenna Cederberg

Here’s a few bites of news from the previous week, enjoy:

C&A Tribes create Oklahoma’s first educational tribal TV station
A conversation between old friends in 1992 has now turned into a TV station that is the first educational tribal channel. It will serve the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma.
As reported from a press release on the Native American Times, key to the completion of the project was Billy-Talako Williamson, who worked for 28 years to bring the station to life.

The Federal Communications Commission issued an experimental license to the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes and on September 27th, 2010 the tribes received notice that they had been awarded a grant for construction of the Cheyenne & Arapaho Television Station.”

U.S. Attorney Cotter unveils Indian Country Crime Unit
This story on the Missoulian’s webpage details a new force that will be used to help Indian reservations prosecute crimes. Montana U.S. Attorney Michael Cotter’s office met with several tribes in Montana to introduce the unit.
A press release from the District of Montana detailed which assistant district attorneys will make up the Indian County Crime Unit in the state:

The newly created Indian Country Crime Unit is comprised of six Assistant United States Attorneys, three of whom are filling new positions afforded by the Department of Justice in conjunction with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s initiative to focus on improving public safety in Indian Country nationally. The Unit is headed by veteran Indian Country Assistant United States Attorney Lori Suek (Billings). The team is comprised of attorneys Vince Carroll (Great Falls), Jessica Betley (Great Falls), Danna Jackson (Helena), Laura Weiss (Great Falls), and Mike Wolfe (Helena).

New documentary recounts bizarre climate changes seen by Inuit elders
We had a lot of movies on the Post recently (there are a lot of Native issues being brought to life on screen these days) as it coincides with Toronto’s imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival.
Here’s one more the check out: A subject in the documentary “Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian,” soon-to-run on PBS, acclaimed Nunavut filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk takes a look at the effects of global warming on Natives in northern Canada. “Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change,” with environmental scientist Ian Mauro.
Their findings are bleak, as reported by the Globe and Mail in a piece that ran before the documentary was screened. You can find a trailer for “Inuit Knowledge” with the story.

Flathead Indian Reservation sees centennial of white settlement
This year marks the centennial of homesteading on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana, a painful time that saw much of the reservation’s Indian land sold off to non-Natives. In today’s Missoulian, Vince Devlin has a pair of stories told from both the perspective of the Salish, Kootenai and Pend d’Oreille tribes who watched their lands vanish, and from that of the whites who moved there, often not knowing how those lands were obtained. “They were certainly brave souls,” Joe McDonald says of the homesteaders. “Most came in and didn’t know the politics” behind the opening of the reservation to non-Indians. McDonald’s own father sold off two of the family’s tribal allotments to pay for a casket for his little brother. The situation led to the tribes becoming minorities on their own lands.

Voting site set for Shannon County, S.D., and Pine Ridge Reservation residents
It looks as though a plan has been worked out for voting in Shannon County, S.D., home to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Rapid City Journal reports that beginning Tuesday, Shannon County voters can cast ballots for the upcoming general election at the county’s Lakota Language Program office in the old hospital at Pine Ridge.

Advocate for Native American art dies
The New York Times says Ralph T. Coe, “played a central role in the revival of interest in Native American art, from the ancient to the modern.” Coe – known as Ted — headed the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., from 1977 until 1982. He was 81 when he died Sept. 14 at his home in Santa Fe, N.M.

First Nations chiefs protest deplorable school conditions
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs helped lead a demonstration in Winnipeg Friday to protest problems at schools in First Nations communities. The group said that schools in three Manitoba First Nations are closed, while others are overcrowded, and that the buildings are moldy and deteriorating, according to the Vancouver Sun.

Second Navajo Nation casino to open Oct. 13
The Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise has announced that the Flowing Waters Navajo Casino will open Oct. 13. Gaming there will be more limited than at the Fire Rock Navajo Casino, according to the Navajo Times. There will be no card games and slot machine players compete against each other instead of against the house, the story says.

Gwen Florio

New regulation takes aim at fake Native American arts and crafts
“Falsely suggesting goods are Indian- or Alaska Native-made could be harder to get away with now that Congress has approved changes to the 1990 Indian Arts and Crafts Act,” Associated Press reporter Sue Major Homes writes. The revisions are part of the Tribal Law and Order Act, and expand the number of agencies that can investigate suspected violations.

First Nations leaders heading for Washington, D.C., to protest tar sands development
Tomorrow, a number of First Nations leaders from Canada will meet with officials in Washington, D.C., “to persuade officials to reject a pipeline project they say would pump more ‘dirty oil’ from Alberta into the United States,” the Canadian Press reports. “Francois Paulette, of the Smith’s Landing Treaty 8 First Nation, says he wants to talk to U.S. politicians about pollutants from the oilsands.”

One of original Navajo Code Talkers dies
Indian Country today has an Associated Press story reporting the death of Allen Dale June, one of the 29 original Navajo code talkers who confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in their native language, has died. He was 91, and died of natural causes at a veterans hospital on Sept. 8, according to the story.

Thousands take part in annual Trail of Tears Motorcycle Ride
Actually, make that tens of thousands, according to Trevor Stokes of the Times Daily in Alabama’s Tennessee Valley. The ride memorializes the forced, deadly relocation of Cherokee people who lived east of the Mississippi River in 1838.

Early voting on Pine Ridge Reservation faces roadblocks
The issue actually involves Shannon County, S.D., but of course that’s where the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is located. The Rapid City Journal reports that voters cannot cast an early ballot without traveling to Hot Springs in Fall River County or applying by mail for an absentee ballot. Voting in Shannon County has been the focus of controversy in recent years, especially after 2002, when Democrat Tim Johnson wrestled a Senate race away from Republican John Thune by just over 500 votes – with Shannon County votes being the last counted, prompting allegations of fraud.

Gwen Florio