The United South and Eastern Tribes and the National Congress of American Indians are seeking a reversal of the Obama administration’s approval of the Cape Wind project that would bring giant wind turbines to Nantucket Sound.

The site is sacred to the Aquinnah Wampanoag and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes, whose sunrise ceremonies would be disrupted by the planned 130 turbines.

As Indian Country Today’s Gale Courey Toensing writes here:

Both tribes vigorously opposed the project. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made a well-publicized visit to the area in February, inviting the press to accompany him on a Coast Guard ship to the wind factory site in the middle of Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound.

Salazar’s task was to weigh the value the Obama administration places on respecting an irreplaceable and immovable American Indian sacred site against the worth and importance of a privately-owned for-profit renewable energy plant that could be built elsewhere.

On April 28, Salazar gave his stamp of approval to the plant. The project is still in the permitting process with local and federal agencies.

USET, which represents 25 tribes from Maine to Florida, passed a resolution last month seeking a reversal, while NCAI’s resolution asks that the decision be reconsidered.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Aquinnah Wampanoag, buffalo post, Cape Wind, Gwen Florio, Horseshoe Shoal, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Mashpee Wampanoag, Nantucket Sound, Native American news, U.S. Interior Department, Wind energy

Child death in foster care causes First Nations outcry
Twice in six months, children from the Sturgeon Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan have died in foster care under suspicious circumstances. The most recent case, that of a 22-month-old child, has prompted calls for a public inquiry, according to this CBC report. The little boy, Evander Lee Daniels, drowned in a bathtub and also had been scalded, according to this earlier CBC piece. watch a video, here.

Some Wind River Reservation residents told to seek high ground during floods
Even though floodwaters are receding in central Wyoming, residents in the Wind River Indian Reservation community of Sharp Nose are being told to seek higher ground because of rain and snow last night. With snow falling at about an inch an hour, authorities feared more flooding along the Wind River, according to the Casper (Wyo.) Star Tribune, here.

New dorm goes up at Crazy Horse Memorial
The nearly-completed Crazy Horse Student Living and Learning Center was open to the public yesterday. The $2.5 million dorm will house the Summer University Program at Crazy Horse Memorial, sanctioned by the University of South Dakota’s Department of American Indian Studies, according to this Rapid City (S.D.) Journal story by Tyler Jerke.

Cape Wind opponents see parallels with gulf oil catastrophe
Indian Country Today’s Gale Courey Toensing wrote here last week about the massive wind-power project off the coast of Massachusetts, which is vehemently opposed by the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag nations. Opponents say the mitigation opposed for the Cape Wind project is akin to the safety measures that so badly failed on the BP rig now spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Fort Niagara adds Native American interpreters for truer history lesson
Every summer, Fort Niagara in New York hires history lovers and actors from Niagara University to portray characters who might have populated the region, and to explain its history to tourists. This year, those history interpreters include Jordan Smith, a Niagara Falls Native American educator, in the role of a Mohawk Indian, and Brenda Patterson, who is Tuscaroran and plays the role of a Seneca woman. The Mohawk and Seneca tribes are part of the Iroquois Confederacy. Read more here in the Niagara Gazette.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Aquinnah Wampanoag, BP oil spill, Cape Wind, Crazy Horse Memorial, Crazy Horse Student Living and Learning Center, Eastern Shoshone, First Nations, Fort Niagara, foster care, Gulf oil disaster, Interior Department, Iroquois Confederacy, Mashpee Wampanoag, Mohawk, Northern Arapaho, Oneida, Saskatchewan, Sturgeon Lake First Nation, Tuscarora, University of South Dakota Department of American Indian Studies, Wind River, Wind River Indian Reservation

Even though Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has approved the Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound, foes of the giant offshore wind power project say they won’t give up.

Those foes include Wampanoag tribes, who objected to the project because it will interfere with sunrise ceremonies off Mashpee.

As Indian Country Today’s Gale Courey Toensing writes here:

The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe of Cape Cod and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) on Martha’s Vineyard have vigorously opposed the project. The wind energy plant would obscure their view of the rising sun in ceremony, and the Sound, which was once dry land, is where their ancestors lived and were buried. Both nations have urged the secretary to require Cape Wind to relocate the project a few miles further offshore where they would be out of sight.

Those objections remain, even though Salazar says the size of the project has been reduced, to 130 turbines, and steps will be taken to mitigate their visibility.

Salazar’s decision is “a federal embarrassment,” Buddy Vanderhoop, a Wampanoag tribal member and commercial fisherman, tells the Boston Herald, here.

“It’s a slap in the face to all the tribes all over the U.S. who are backing us, and all of the people who make their living” on the waters that would be affected, he says.

And Audra Parker, executive director of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, says that “the fight is far from over. It will ultimately be decided in a court – and based on facts, not politics.”

The Wampanoag, along with the Alliance, are preparing a legal challenge.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, Aquinnah Wampanoag, Cape Wind, Martha's Vineyard, Mashpee Wampanoag, U.S. Interior Department, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Wampanoag, Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, Wind power

Maybe this is meant as a spoof. Maybe not.

Either way, it’s a commentary about a new board game, King Philip’s war, that we posted about, here, a couple of days ago.

The game is based on a conflict in the 1700s between colonists and tribes in what is now New England. As tended to happen in those cases, things went badly for both sides, but much worse for the tribes in question.

One of the ways to score points in the game is by staging a massacre. The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe has objected to the concept of the game.

The post from Mike Spence that refers to the game says in part:

Of course the best way to educate people is by letting them pretend they are Native American tribes whose sole goal is to ambush or massacre colonists. Jeez, is there anything the PC police won’t come down on you for nowadays?

Read it and see what you think.

Gwen Florio

Tags: board game, buffalo post, Cultural insensitivity, Gwen Florio, King Philip's War, Mashpee Wampanoag, Mike Spence, Navajo Nation, politically correct

A new historic board game based on colonial times in New England is rankling tribes who feel it perpetuates stereotypes of Native Americans as savages.

“From what I’ve seen right now: totally inappropriate, highly offensive, nowhere near ready to be in production,” said Annawon Weeden, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoags in Massachusetts, tells Eric Tucker of the Associated Press, here.

“It’s just a way to have fun reliving a tragedy.”

The game, “King Philip’s War,” refers to the deadly struggle between colonists and tribes in the 17th century.

Tucker reports that it’s been developed by a company partly owned by former major league pitcher Curt Schilling. Tucker writes:

But Schilling, who won World Series with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Boston Red Sox, said historical events should not be whitewashed for fear of offending someone. King Philip’s War helped forge early American identity, even if it “clearly exposed the horrible side of humans in some cases,” he said.

“If everyone intent on keeping historical events stopped at content that might seem offensive, we’d lose sight of the horrific mistakes this nation, the world and the human race are capable of, and that would be a horrific thing,” Schilling said in an e-mail sent through his publicist.

The game was designed by John Poniske, a middle school social studies and English teacher at Antietam Academy in Hagerstown, Md., who said he came up with the idea after reading a military magazine article about the war.

The game involves scenarios such as ambushes, massacres or spying.

A Facebook group, Stop the Release of King Philip’s War, has more than 340 members and urges MultiManPublishing to halt production.

The war took place from 1675-76 and was named for Philip — also called Metacom. He was leader, or sachem, of the Wampanoag people. During the war from 1675-76, settlers were attacked, villages were burned and thousands of Native Americans died. King Philip was beheaded in 1676.

Gwen Florio

Tags: board game, buffalo post, Cultural insensitivity, Curt Schilling, Facebook, Gwen Florio, John Poniske, King Philip's War, Mashpee Wampanoag, Metacom, MultiManPublishing, Native American news, Stop the Release of King Philip's War

Federal consent for Cape Wind, a 130-turbine wind project off the shores of Massachusetts, has stalled because two tribes object to its potential effect on historic and ceremonial sites.

The Wampanoag tribes, whose name translates to “People of First Light,” say the hundreds of square miles in Nantucket Sound must provide an unobstructed view of the rising sun in order for the tribes to continue ceremonies that are centuries old, according to this New York Times story. The story goes on to report that the tribes want the federal government to designate the sound as a “traditional cultural property” and prohibit the project from being built there. Both the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) are involved.

The turbines would be sunk on a shallow ocean bottom that long ago, before being covered by seawater, was a tribal burial site, the tribes say.

“It is a place where our ancestors are buried,” George “Chuckie” Green, a historical officer for the tribe, tells the Times’ Evan Lehmann. “It is a place that is principal to our practices. An unobstructed view of the eastern sun is paramount to our religion.”

Supporters of the wind farm say that if the tribes’ objections stand, it could set a legal precedent that could affect other planned wind farms along the coast.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Aquinnah, buffalo post, Cape Wind, environment, Mashpee Wampanoag, Native American news, Wampanoag of Gay Head, wind farms

The brunch is going to have to stretch over the entire weekend because I’m headed for the National Folk Festival in Butte, America, as soon as I’m done typing. Given how I overindulged last weekend at the Arlee Celebration, I’m going to make a mighty attempt to stay away from the food vendors. But here are some tasty virtual dishes: