Report – Indigenous languages at serious risk on Canada’s Pacific Coast
Only a few people still speak the indigenous languages of the First Nations on the Pacific Coast of Canada. As detailed in this story, and the video above, a report by The First Peoples’ Heritage, Language and Culture Council says eight of the 32 languages of British Columbia are endangered and 22 nearly extinct. Only about 5 percent of the indigenous population is considered fluent, and most of those people are older than 65.

Federal judge rules Wyoming county voting system hurts Indians
A federal judge in Wyoming has ruled that the system of electing county commissioners in Fremont County dilutes American Indian votes and must be changed. This Casper (Wyo.) Star Tribune reports says U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson gave the county until June 30 to submit a new plan. The county is home to the Wind River Indian Reservation, with its Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes. The Star Tribune praises the ruling in this editorial, which says that Johnson’s strongly worded ruling should lead to fairer representation for voters on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Tucson Symphony Orchestra performs at Tohono O’odham Nation

Tohono O'odham elder Lucyann Joaquin watches the Tucson Symphony Orchestra String Quartet perform at Archie Hendricks Sr. Skilled Nursing Facility on the Tohono O'oodham reservation near Sells, Ariz., Saturday May 1, 2010. (Greg Bryan/Arizona Daily Star)

It was the first time he and the majority of those attending the recital – the first of three the TSO performed on the nation Saturday – had ever seen an orchestra concert, the Greg Bryan of the Arizona Daily Star writes here.

“As far as the adults, it feels like their lives are just (about) working, and they never seek it out,” said Allison Francisco, the Tohono O’odham Nation Cultural Center & Museum artist liaison. She was responsible for bringing the TSO to the nation for three concerts.

Denver Art Museum to renovate historic American Indian, Northwest Coast galleries
The Denver Art Museum opened in 1925, becoming the first American museum to collect Native American objects as art rather than artifact. This summer, the museum reports here, it’s renovating and reinstalling its American Indian and Northwest Coast art galleries. They’ll be open to the public through June 13, then will close until early 2011, when they’ll reopen in a 23,000-square-foot gallery that includes new interactive, artist-centric displays.

New book contrasts Sitting Bull and Custer
Just when you think nothing new can possibly be written about the Little Bighorn, along comes “The Last Stand,” by Nathaniel Philbrick. The Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger says of it, here, that “the latest retelling of the iconic confrontation between whites and Native Americans is written not so much for battle buffs as it is for a more general audience interested in learning about clashing cultures and warring ways of life.” And, he says, it contrasts the “womanizing, publicity-seeking George Armstrong Custer against Sitting Bull, the stoic and contemplative leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota.”

Navajo heroine Ellen Tsosie returns in new book aimed at young readers
Arizona author Seth Muller has written a new book featuring a young Navajo girl, Ellie Tsosie, who made her debut in “The Mockingbird’s Manual,” a 2009 novel about how she learns to talk to birds. Now, according to this Arizona Daily Sun report, Ellie Tsosie is back in “The Day of Storms.” It’s all part of the “Keepers of the Windclaw Chronicles” series aimed at readers ages 8 to 12.

Tags: buffalo post, Denver Art Museum, Eastern Shoshone, Ellen Tsosie, First Nations, Fremont County, Gwen Florio, Hunkpapa Lakota, Indigenous languages, Keepers of the Windclaw Chronicles, Language and Culture Council, Little Bighorn, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, Nathaniel Philbrick, Native American Art, Native American news, Navajo, Northern Arapaho, Seth Muller, Sitting Bull, The Day of Storms, The First Peoples' Heritage, The Last Stand, The Mockingbird's Manual, Tohono O'odham, Tucscon Symphony Orchestra, U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson, Wind River Indian Reservation, Wyoming

It’s a stirring quote, one that quite rightly spurs emotion:

“Our land is everything to us. . . . I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it — with their lives.”

So stirring, in fact, that as Politics Daily tells us here, Sarah Palin uses it to begin Chapter 3 of her book, “Going Rogue: An American Life.”

One problem. Palin attributes it to legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.

Various sites are having a field day with this one, reporting that it actually comes an essay by John Wooden Legs that is included in the book “We Are the People: Voices From the Other Side of American History.”

That book says Wooden Legs was referring to the defeat of George Armstrong Custer at the Little Bighorn, and that the complete quote goes thusly:

“Our land is everything to us. It is the only place in the world where Cheyennes talk the Cheyenne language to each other. It is the only place where Cheyennes remember the same things together. I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it — with their life. My people and the Sioux defeated General Custer at the Little Bighorn.”

Well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Gwen Florio

Tags: "Going Rogue", buffalo post, Cheyenne, George Armstrong Custer, John Wooden, John Wooden Legs, Little Bighorn, Native American news, Sarah Palin, Sioux, UCLA

LaShawna Rides The Bear helps a visitor book a guided tour of Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. (Lorna Thackeray/Billigns Gazette)

LaShawna Rides The Bear tells the story of the Little Bighorn Battle all day every day, to hundreds and hundreds of people over the course of the summer.

So she didn’t take notice of one of the visitors on her Apsaalooke Tours bus at the battlefield. But the visitor took notice of the tour guide, who is Crow and Sioux, and who greets her visitors in Crow before switching to English.

The man, an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Land Grant office, was so impressed with Ride the Bear’s presentation, that he’s invited her to the annual First American Land Grant Consortium conference in Washington, D.C., in October. Read the details here.

Nice story, isn’t it? It gets even better. Rides the Bear is pretty insistent that her fellow tour guides accompany her.

“We all work together. We all do the same thing,” she says.

So the guides are raising money to make that happen, in party by raffling off a beaded miniature cradle-board.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Apsaalooke, buffalo post, Crow Tribe, Little Bighorn, Native American news