Here’s the story from the Associated Press:

ROCKY BOY – U.S. Sen. Jon Tester says he’ll work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies to help Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation recover from flood damage.

The Montana Democrat toured the Chippewa Cree Tribe’s reservation Saturday with three representatives of FEMA who were assessing damage as a first step to a possible presidential disaster declaration, which would bring in emergency money.

Tester is a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, which oversees FEMA.

Tester says the area looks to him worthy of disaster declaration but he’s not sure that will happen.

Recent flooding took out roads and bridges, left more than 200 homes without drinking water and about 500 housing units with water damage.

Tags: Chippewa Cree, Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, flooding, Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, U.S. Senate Homeland Security Commitee

The International Whaling Commission, which held its annual meeting last week in Morocco, has granted permission to Inuit people in Greenland to add humpback whales to the list of those they’re allowed to hunt.

This Agence France-Presse report by Holly Fox in Deutsche Welle details that the Inuit can kill nine humpback whales per year through 2012, in addition to the 178 minke whales, 19 fin whales and two bowhead whales they’re allowed to hunt annually. The number of fin whales will be reduced by nine, so the total stays the same, according to AFP.

Ane Hansen, Greenland’s fishing and hunting minister, told the commission that “our rights will be violated if we can’t get this resolution.”

Indigenous groups from several countries are exempt from a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, the report says.

Gwen Florio

Oglala Lakota actor Tatanka Means to star in ‘Scoundrels’ episode
Rapid City native Tatanka Means (photo above, courtesy of Mihio Manus/Viewfinder Photography) will guest star in the second episode of the new ABC show “Scoundrels,” set to air tonight. Means, an Oglala Lakota tribal member, is the son American Indian Movement activist and actor Russell Means. The Rapid City (S.D.) Journal has the story here.

Seneca Nation – ‘We Are Not a Piggy Bank’
The Seneca Nation isn’t alone in protesting New York’s law, passed last week, that will tax cigarette purchases by non-Natives in Native-owned smoke shops. The Jamestown Post-Journal chronicles the opposition here. Tribal leader J.C. Senca says that “We are not a piggy bank the state can break open to grab extra cash.” Some New York assemblymen also object, saying the new law will drive business from their area.

Navajo Nation awaits decision on whether president can seek third term
Ballots won’t be printed for Navajo Nation elections until there’s a decision as to whether President Joe Shirley Jr. can seek a third term, the Navajo Times reports here. The Navajo Board of Election Commissioners had ruled Shirley’s run invalid, but Shirley has appealed.

Left-wing South American leaders back indigenous rights
The presidents of Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia have signed a declaration to promote indigenous rights. But even as the leaders met, Ecuador’s main indigenous organization protested, saying it had not been consulted, according to the BBC, here. The group, Conaie – the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador – represents about 40 percent of Ecuador’s population.

Australian indigenous group wants stripper deported
Desecration of sites sacred to indigenous people appears to be a problem the world over. According to ABC News, here, a powerful indigenous group in Australia is seeking the deportation of a French woman who was filmed stripping down to a bikini atop the sacred rock of Uluru. The woman described her actions as a “tribute” to aboriginal culture.

Gwen Florio

Tags: ABC, aboriginal, American Indian Movement, Bolivia, cigarette taxes, Conaie, Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, Ecuador, indigenous, Joe Shirley Jr., Native American actors, Navajo, Navajo Board of Election Commissioners, Oglala Lakota, Russell Means, Scoundrels, Seneca Nation, Tatanka Means, Tribal smoke shops, Uluru, Venezuela

I went up to the Blackfeet Reservation this week to talk to people there about the Cobell case settlement. When I went, on Wednesday, the Senate was preparing to debate a jobs bill that contained approval for the $3.4 billion settlement for Indian people defrauded by the U.S. government of royalties on their land. It seemed that, after generations of being shorted, people might finally get some of the money owed them. A day later, the jobs bill seemed dead and the settlement was once again up in the air – all of which underscored the resignation voiced by the people with whom I spoke for this story:

BROWNING, Mont. – Frank Still Smoking is 76, an age where he’s seen a lot of his contemporaries pass on.

They died, he believes, without receiving justice – in the form of money due them from the U.S. government for mismanaging royalty payments on tribal lands to the tune of billions of dollars over several generations.

This particular injustice might have been added to the seemingly endless list of offenses by the government against Indian people had it not been for the work of Elouise Cobell, who, like Still Smoking, is a member of the Blackfeet Nation.

Fourteen years ago, Cobell sued the government, demanding compensation for the hundreds of thousands of Native Americans defrauded of their money.

In December, after repeated setbacks, a $3.4 billion settlement in Cobell v. Salazar was announced. It was described as one of the largest class-action lawsuits in history. Indian Country celebrated.

And then – nothing.

The settlement, which needs congresssional approval before the money can be distributed, has faced one delay after another, most recently on Thursday night, when Senate Republicans used a filibuster to kill the jobs bill to which the settlement was attached.

“It’s just a wait-and-see game now,” a weary-sounding Cobell said in a telephone interview Friday. “We were so disappointed and disheartened this didn’t get approved because it affects so many people’s lives.”

In Browning, 2,200 miles away from the political power games in Washington, Still Smoking wonders if he’ll end up like his friends, dead before he ever sees a penny of the money due him.

As always, we’ll keep posting updates as the settlement progresses – or not. Someday, someday soon, we hope to write that people are actually getting their money. In the meantime, we’ll try to be patient, too.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Blackfeet Tribe, buffalo post, Cobell v. Salazar, Elouise Cobell, Gwen Florio, Indian trust case, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Jobs bill, Sioux, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Interior Department, U.S. Senate

Here’s how Susan Olp’s story of the Billings Gazette begins:

The Battle of the Little Bighorn is known around the world.

On Friday afternoon, about 500 people from as far away as England came to the Real Bird Ranch, adjacent to the Little Bighorn Battle Monument, north of Garryowen, to see the battle for themselves. The Real Birds, members of the Crow Tribe, have put on the re-enactment for about 17 years.

Visitors sat in bleachers overlooking the Medicine Trail Coulee, near where Lt. Col. George Custer and the 7th Cavalry met decisive defeat on June 25, 1876. The brown Bighorn River drifted along lazily in the background.http://buffalopost.net/wp-admin/post-new.php

Authenticity is critical to the success of the re-enactment of the battle, said Ken Real Bird. Members of the cavalry wear uniforms and use firearms similar to the ones fired in the battle.

Those who portray the Cheyenne and Sioux warriors are only permitted to wear breechcloths and moccasins. Most paint themselves and their horses with symbols of red, white, yellow and black.

Between 70 and 80 people re-enact the roles of the soldiers, the warriors and tribal members. Friday’s presentatoin of the battle was choreographed by retired Lt. Col. Bobby Jolley, from Fort Lewis, Wash.

Steve Alexander, from Monroe, Mich., portrayed Custer. Frank Knows His Gun, a member of the Ogallala Sioux Tribe, portrayed Crazy Horse.

Want more? There’s a whole photo array, a schedule of events, and of course the rest of this most excellent story. Click here.

Gwen Florio

Tags: 7th Cavalry, Apsaalooke, Battle of the Little Bighorn, Bighorn River, buffalo post, Cheyenne Tribe, Crazy Horse, Crow Tribe, Garryowen, Gwen Florio, Little Bighorn Battle re-enactment, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, Medicine Traile Coulee, Native American history, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Real Bird Ranch

The red carpet premiere of “Twlight Saga: Eclipse,” the latest movie based on the teen vampire books by Stephenie Meyer, was about more than glitz and glamour.

As USA Today tells it here:

For Gil Birmingham (Billy Black), a big cause for celebration is Twilight’s embrace of Native American actors and themes, “especially that we are cast in a contemporary setting as opposed to a historical one,” he said. “I’m so excited to maybe get a whole new generation of Native American actors into the spotlight.”

The Twilight series features the Quileute Nation, based on the Olympic Peninsula, and – unlike too many other movies these days (see previous post, here) – actually hires Native actors, such as Birmingham, who is Comanche, to play Native roles.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Billy Black, buffalo post, Comanche, Gil Birmingham, Gwen Florio, Native American news, Quileute Nation, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight - Eclipse, vampires, werewolves

Here’s a good column from Jim Kent of the Rapid City, S.D., Journal about how summer is fraught with historic meaning in the West, especially for Native Americans. The National Days of Prayer to Protect Native American Sacred Places brings this to mind:

The first week of summer has different significance for different people. Among Native Americans, it’s a time of balance.

On the one hand, there’s the anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It was the greatest victory by this country’s indigenous people over forces of the invading armies – and invading is precisely what they were.

I’ve always had sympathy for those European immigrants who, in search of any job they could get, found themselves wearing a U.S. Army uniform staring down hundreds of Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho. Bad move.

But the reality is that these warriors were merely fighting to protect their homelands, their women, children and way of life. And wouldn’t you if any of those anticipated invading armies we’ve been sending troops to keep in their foreign lands since 1946 ever made it to our shores?

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 7th Cavalry, 9/11, Arapaho Tribe, Battle of the Little Bighorn, Bear Butte, buffalo post, Cheyenne Tribe, Devil's Tower, First Amendment, First Peoples, Gwen Florio, Harney Peak, Lakota, Mount Rushmore, National Days of Prayer to Protect Native American Sacred Places, Native American news, U.S. Army

There’s a crying need for more and better housing on many Indian reservations. The shortage is acute and the quality of existing homes is shameful. And don’t get us started on the unemployment problem.

A new federally funded home-building project on the Crow Reservation in southern Montana takes aim at both those issues. Not only will it provide 27 news homes, and put 25 people to work, those homes also are being built by the tribe’s own Good Earth Lodges program.

Good Earth Lodges both makes the blocks for the homes, and then puts up the houses.

Cedric Black Eagle told Billings Gazette reporter Susan Olp, here, about the project and the problems it will address:

On the Crow Reservation, he said, homelessness exists, but it is masked by overcrowding. Often, multiple families live in the same single-family dwelling.

The tribe’s Housing Authority has 1,800 applications for housing. Each year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocates funding enough to build five houses.

The compressed earth block and housing program is the culmination of a research and development project funded by the Division of Energy and Mineral Development, Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development. The goal was to determine if the raw materials needed for the blocks could be found on the Crow Reservation, if the blocks could withstand Montana’s climate, and if a work force could be put in place to carry out the program.

The answer was yes on all three counts, said Larry Lee Falls Down, project manager of the Good Earth Lodges.

“We all know the saying – if this was easy, everyone would do it,” Falls Down tells Olp. “This hasn’t been easy, not everyone is doing it. But we are doing it, and we are going to continue doing it. We will build these houses, and we will continue to build more houses.”

Both the University of Colorado Boulder and the Mortenson Center for Engineering and Developing Communities also are involved with the project.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Cedric Black Eagle, Crow Indian Reservation, Crow Tribe, Good Earth Lodges, Gwen Florio, Mortenson Center for Engineering and Developing Communities, Native American housing, Native American news, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, University of Colorado

Just catching up with this extremely interesting story by Kevin Abourezk of the Lincoln Journal-Star.

It’s about Mark Awakuni-Swetland, who teaches the Omaha language in Nebraska. Abourezk lays out the dilemma thusly:

Those who oppose his efforts to preserve the Omaha language say he has falsely claimed to be an Omaha tribal member to win lucrative federal grants and gain tenure as a University of Nebraska-Lincoln assistant professor of anthropology and ethnic studies.

“He’s not an Omaha,” said Jeff Gilpin, an Omaha tribal council member. “We proved that. He doesn’t belong to any clans of the Omaha people there.”

But those who know Awakuni-Swetland say he has never claimed to be anything more than who he is – a non-Native teacher trying to help the Omaha people.

“He’s never said that he was a member of the Omaha Tribe,” said Emmaline Walker Sanchez, an Omaha tribal member who has worked with Awakuni-Swetland to preserve the Omaha language for 10 years. “But he was adopted by some enrolled tribal members.”

Barb Stabler-Smith said her parents, now deceased adopted him and also inducted him into the Black Shoulder Buffalo Clan.

But other tribal member have gone before the University of Nebraska Board of Regents, seeking his removal as a professor.

Abourezk says each side claims the tribe’s support.

Awakuni-Swetland says he obtained tribal permission to teach the Omaha language more than a decade ago.

Only about 25 elders, out of 6,000 tribal members, speak the language fluently, and some tribal members say those are the peole who should be teaching the language.

It’s a tough issue, one that brings to mind a recent story (see previous post, here) about a young non-Native man teaching Lakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, seemingly with no controversy.

We’ll be following Abourezk’s covering of this case and will keep you posted.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Cultural insensitivity, Cultural Survival, Gwen Florio, Native American languages, Native American news, Omaha language, Omaha Tribe, University of Nebraska, University of Nebraska Board of Regents