Last month was full of news about the Iroquois Nationals’ futile battle to travel to the World Lacrosse Championships in England. The problem? First U.S. Homeland Security, and then British officials questioned the validity of their Haudenosaunee Confederacy passports. Now, the Associated Press’ Samantha Gross, who covered much of the original controversy, follows up with this story on the Iroquois Nations’ longtime fight for respect for have their sovereignty and identity:
ONONDAGA NATION, N.Y. (AP) — A group of young men have gathered in the longhouse for the feather dance, and the sounds of their singing filter outside, where Mohawk Chief Howard Thompson sits.

His people call him Onerekowa, the name his predecessors have borne for a thousand years. Each month, when he gathers with the 49 other chiefs from the six Haudenosaunee nations, he stands to speak in the language of his ancestors. And when the 50 come to a decision, they don’t take a majority vote. Instead, as it has for a millennium, the leaders of the Iroquois Confederacy decide by consensus.

Today Thompson awaits the start of a meeting of the Haudenosaunee Peace and Trade Committee, where tradition will grapple with the outside world. The issue is passports.

Last month, the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team missed their world championship in Britain rather than travel overseas under U.S. or Canadian passports. Their Haudenosaunee passports were deemed inadequate in a post-9/11 world — partly handwritten, lacking in high-tech security features.

Haudenosaunee Documentation Committee chairman Karl Hill peers fiercely from behind wire-rimmed glasses as he explains how the confederacy has spent upward of $1 million to bring their identification into line with the U.S. government’s new standards. For now, the handwritten Haudenosaunee passports can still be easily counterfeited, he says.

But, he adds, that would never be reason enough for the lacrosse players to travel on another nation’s document. Such a choice would be a betrayal of their national identity — an identity he says is as valid as ever, even though his people shop in American malls and watch American television and study at American colleges.

We are a nation, he insists, and it matters.

“It means that we’ve survived,” he says.

“The fact that we’re still here is a testament to our survival. Now why on earth would we give that up and call ourselves U.S. citizens?”

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Tags: Haudenosaunee, Iroquois, Lacrosse, Mohawk, Native American sovereignty, Onondaga, World Lacrosse Championships

At the National National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha in Fonda, N.Y., a powwow was held recently – a sign of the heritage of the shrine’s namesake, who needs only a certified miracle before she can be canonized as a Roman catholic saint.

If that happens, Kateri Tekakwitha, who was Mohawk-Algonquin and lived in the 1600s, would become the first Native American saint.

To some, it’s only a matter of semantics.

“I grew up thinking of her as a saint, because that’s how my people revered her,” Theresa Steele, a Canadian-born member of the Algonquin nation and member of the shrine’s board of directors, tells Nancy Wiechec of Catholic San Francisco, here. “We’ve always seen her that way.”

As Wiechec writes:

Orphaned at age 4 during a smallpox epidemic, Kateri was left pockmarked and nearly blind by the disease. Later, when she embraced Christianity and prayer and refused to marry, she was scorned by other Mohawks. She was taken from her village to a Mohawk Catholic mission in Canada for her own safety. There she taught prayers to children and tended to the sick and elderly.

Blessed Kateri is patron of American Indians, ecology and the environment and is held up as a model for Catholic youth. The U.S. church marks her feast on July 14.

Msgr. Paul A. Lenz, vice postulator for Blessed Kateri’s cause, told CNS that documentation supporting a healing through her intercession was sent to the Vatican last year.

Kateri Tekakwitha died – her skin reportedly clearing at the moment of her death – April 17, 1680, at a mission near Montreal, in her early 20s. She was declared venerable in 1942 and beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Algonquin, canonization, Gwen Florio, Kateri Tekakwitha, Mohawk, National National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, Native American news, Pope John Paul II, Roman Catholic, sainthood

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

Kyi-Yo powwow at the University of Montana
It’s the longest-running student powwow in the country. The Kyi-Yo Pow Wow is going on this weekend at the University of Montana, and as usual, it’s a cultural and visual feast. “For us, this is life. There is no reconnection to the past for us. You might see it that way, but this is the life that we live,” Billy Wadsworth, lead singer of a Blood drum circle, tells the Missoulian’s Michael Moore, here.

Tobacco giant Philip Morris funds anti-Native cigarette campaign
The huge Philip Morris tobacco company has begun an extensive ad campaign urging New York state to collect taxes on cigarettes sold in Indian reservations. This story by Indian Country Today details those efforts, involving full-page newspaper ads and a website, collectthetaxny.com.

First Nations community kicks out drug, alcohol abusers
The hereditary chiefs of Ahousaht, a First Nations community on Flores Island in British Columbia, have banished a dozen drug and alcohol abusers, the Vancouver Sun reports here. The chiefs said the wrenching decision was made after many warnings, and that the 12 can’t return until they’ve sought help.

Judge halts election of new Navajo Council
Although Navajo Nation voters decided in December to reduce the size of the council from 88 to 24 members, candidates filed for 88 seats. So, according to the Navajo Times, a judge has issued a temporary restraining order to stop the election from going forward until the issue can be resolved.

Group seeks Alaska Native center in downtown Anchorage
A nonprofit called Sobermiut is trying to create an Alaska Native community center in Anchorage, according to the Anchorage Daily News. The idea is to put Native kids in touch with elders, in a setting that mirrors the dynamic found in traditional communities.

Billy Mills back in Kansas with scholarships for Native students
Billy Mills, who won Olympic gold in the 10,000-meter run in 1964, was back in Kansas last week to give out scholarships to Native students. Mills was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, went to the Haskell Indian School in Kansas after being orphaned, and the rest, as they say, is history. But even after his Olympic glory, he faced discrimination. Read about his talks with students in the Kansas City Star.

Gwen Florio

Tags: 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Ahousaht, Alaska Native, Alcohol abuse, Anchorage, Billy Mills, British Columbia, buffalo post, drug abuse, First Nations, Flores Island, Gwen Florio, Haskell Indian School, Kyi-Yo Pow Wow, Mohawk, Native American news, Navajo Nation, Philip Morris, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Seneca, Sobermuit, University of Montana

Tetona Dunlap is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Montana. She is an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.

If well-behaved women seldom make history, this explains why two influential women who passed away this past week will never be forgotten.

On April 6, Wilma Mankiller died after battling pancreatic cancer. Three days later Minnie Two Shoes died after her own struggle with cancer. I had the chance to meet both of these inspiring Native American women through journalism.

Mankiller came to speak to my class when I participated in the American Indian Journalism Institute in South Dakota in 2003. Mankiller was the first woman to serve the Cherokee people as principal chief. She was an advocate for Native American and women’s rights. She has also written two books. One is an autobiography titled, “Mankiller: A Chief and Her People” and “Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women.” As a result of her activism, she was received several awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. She was also inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in New York City in 1994.

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Tags: Alcatraz island, Alcatraz occupation, American Indian Journalism Institute, American Indian Movement, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, Assiniboine Sioux, buffalo post, Cherokee, Fort Peck Reservation, Gwen Florio, Minnie Two Shoes, Mohawk, MTS Productions, Native American Journalists Association, Native American news, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Richard Oakes, Tetona Dunlap, Urban Indian Relocation Program, Wilma Mankiller, Women's Hall of Fame

Blues Indigo is the theme, with yet another lineup that gives us the blues because we aren’t there.

Murray Porter, who is Mohawk from the Six Nations Reserve, starts off the evening. Porter’s performance on the Steinway piano designed especially for the Olympics is featured in the video above. Here’s his MySpace page.

Then there’s Leanne Goose, who is Dene/Inuvialuit from the Arctic Circle town of Inuvik in the far western Northwest Territories, just a slice of the Yukon between it and Alaska. Experience her high-energy roots music in the video below, or on her Web site.

Rounding out the evening are performances by Shakti Hayes, Jared Sowan (also on MySpace), and Pat Braden, (here, on MySpace).

For a complete schedule of events at the First Nations Pavilion, click here.

Gwen Florio

Tags: 2010 Winter Games, buffalo post, Dene, First Nations, Four Host First Nations, Inuvialuit, Inuvik, Jared Sowan, Leanne Goose, Mohawk, Murray Porter, Native American news, Northwest Territories, Pat Braden, Shakti Hayes, Six Nations, Steinway, Vancouver Olympics

Two widely disparate acts are featured tonight at the First Nations Pavilion at the Vancouver Olympics.

Kinnie Starr (video above), who is of Mohawk and European heritage, performs her blend of hip-hop and alternative songs. Her music has been performed on the TV show “The L Word.” Read an interview with her here, and check out her MySpace page here.

Then there’s Soul Paua (video below), who’ve come all the way from New Zealand to perform their contemporary music with Maori and Polynesian influences. You can find out more about them on their Web site.

For coming events at the First Nations Pavilion, check here.

Gwen Florio

Tags: "The L Word", 2010 Winter Games, buffalo post, First Nations, Four Host First Nations, Kinnie Starr, Maori, Mohawk, Native American news, Polynesian, Soul Paua, Vancouver Olympics

Here‘s how the New York Times describes the new graphic novel, “Journey into Mohawk Country,” told through the point of view of white adventurer Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert.

The graphic novel “Journey into Mohawk Country,” by the artist George O’Connor, tells the tale of a 23-year old surgeon and adventurer, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, who was charged with forging new trade relationships for the Dutch colony. In the winter of 1634, he and two friends set off from Fort Orange, in present-day Albany, north to Iroquois country, where the Mohawk tribe controlled the most important trade routes in the region. Van den Bogaert, a likely ancestor of Humphrey Bogart, chronicled the journey in a diary that was later translated by Charles Gehring, the director of the New Netherland Project at the New York State library.

If you go to the site, you can click and drag your way through an excerpt of the novel. It’ll be interesting to see how the Mohawk people are portrayed.

Gwen Florio

Tags: "Journey into Mohawk Country", Fort Orange, George O'Connor, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, Iroquois, Mohawk

There were mixed emotions as the 2010 Vancouver Olympics torch relay made its way through the Kahnawake Reserve in Canada yesterday.

The torch was carried by Kahnawake Mohawk member and Olympic medal winner Alwyn Morris, who told the crowds, “This is a torch to light your dreams … and in 20 years, you could be holding your own,” according to this Montreal Gazette story.

Some people wept as the torch passed. And a few turned out to protest the torch run, and its presence on the reserve was only guaranteed after negotiations that kept the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (who usually accompany the torch) off reserve land. The Mohawk Peacekeepers accompanied it through Kahnawake instead.

But Rhonda Kirby, part of the Mohawk Spirit organizing committee, tells the Gazette that “that controversy was the voices of a few and not the opinion of the community.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Alwyn Morris, buffalo post, First Nations, Kahnawake, Mohawk, Mohawk Peacekeepers, Native American news, Royal Canadian Mounted Police