This Week in Native American News (10/4/19): Regaining Culture, A Navajo for President, and a Halloween Reminder
October 4, 2019
A Day at Camp in Solomon
Campers and staff gather for a group photo at the 2019 Solomon Youth and Elder Camp. Photo: JoJo Phillips, KNOM.
Half a century ago, the dining hall of the Solomon Bed and Breakfast was a one-room schoolhouse. This week, it has returned to form.
There are globes and magic markers and heavily graffitied, giant sticky-notes on the walls; a few fishing poles rest in a corner; a standing bicycle faces an oversized, toy firetruck. Around the long, oak dining table sit fifteen-or-so campers, ranging between five and fourteen years old. Camp staffer Jennifer Curran is circling the table, kid-by-kid, with a tray of halved English muffins, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni slices. It’s pizza day. The campers, however, are focused on what’s in front of them. They are perched on the edges of their chairs, writing intensely; some of their feet swing inches above the hardwood floor.
The campers are writing nominations for a Youth Tribal Council. Later in the day, they will cast official ballots.
THE WEEK-LONG, 2019 SOLOMON YOUTH AND ELDER CAMP, held in September at the Solomon Bed and Breakfast, served as a backdrop for an Alaska Native community’s continued quest of reclaiming their status as a city. Infrastructure issues and environmental concerns remain obstacles, but Solomon’s leaders believe answers can be found by turning towards their youngest generation.
Read the Full Story Here -THEN- Be Sure to Read about LIM’s 2019 Camp in our upcoming Northern Lights Newsletter
We Didn’t Stand a Chance Against Opioids
The author’s cousin Keith (left) has struggled with opioid addiction; Keith’s mother’s grave (right). (Photos: Joshua Hunt)
My ancestors had no written language, so they told their stories to the trees. Ten thousand years after the Tlingit people settled Alaska’s southeastern archipelago, these islands remain stippled with monuments to their myths: totem poles, carved from massive logs of cedar and adorned with images of animals and spirits, rise up from the damp earth like great scrolls. When I was young, my grandmother taught me how to read them.
The first lesson was this: Always start at the bottom, then cast your eyes upward in search of the unfolding story. This became, for a time, my preferred way of investigating the world around me.
Read the Full Story: one Alaska Native tells how the opioid epidemic affected his family
Did you know there’s a Navajo man running for president in 2020
In a video launching his presidential campaign, Mark Charles, hair tied in a tsiiyéeł, a Native American hair knot, introduces himself in the Navajo language.
“Yá’ át’ ééh. Mark Charles yinishyé,” Charles says.
“Tsin bikee dine’é nishłí. Dóó tó’aheedlíinii bá shíshchíín. Tsin bikee’ dine’é dashicheii. Dóó tódích’ íi’ nii dashinálí.”
Roughly translated, Charles is explaining that his father was Navajo and his mother Dutch American. What doesn’t need explaining is that if Charles were elected in November 2020, he would become the first Native American president of the United States.
Read the Full Story Here -THEN- Watch His campaign video
*LIM does not endorse any political candidate or party - we are simply highlighting a Native individual as we often do in our “This Week in Native News”
As Halloween Approaches, Here’s your Friendly Annual Reminder that Native Americans are People Not Costumes
Photo by John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images
I am Dena’ina Athabascan and Unangan (Aleutian), an Alaska Native living in California. As a Native person, there is not a day that passes where I don’t come across some form of exploitive, anti-Native behaviors in play. Not a day.
Native imagery is everywhere in the United States. Our images, symbols, and cultures are used as commodities and novelties. Natives are used as logos, from butter packaging to cigarettes to baking soda to clothing. Natives are used as Halloween costumes. Native tribe names are used by the U.S. military as names for weapons. Native tribe names are used as names for vehicles. Natives are used as mascots for sports teams.
Racism toward Native people is normalized, so much so that many people do not see it as racism at all. Racist stereotypes of Native people are seemingly ingrained into the psyche of people starting in childhood, some subliminal, some direct.
Read the Full Story Here
This Week’s History Lesson:
The Native Americans Who Assisted the Underground Railroad
In an interview conducted in 2002, the late Helen Hornbeck Tanner, an influential historian of the Native American experience in the Midwest best known for her magisterial Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History (1987), reflected on the considerable record of “coexistence and cooperation” between African Americans and Indians in the region. According to Tanner, “[an] important example of African and Indian cooperation was the Indian-operated Underground Railroad. Nothing about this activity appears in the historical literature.”
Native American Jewelry Tells ‘Stunning Stories’ of Indigenous People
For generations, Native American artists have passed down design techniques to enhance the beauty of their jewelry. In creating jewelry to gift, trade and sell with other tribes and internationally, their goal has always been to make sure the stories of indigenous people live forever.
“Sharing these stories really keep the culture, the spirituality all of that alive for people,” said Kathleen McDonald, executive director of the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian.
Watch This: Inside the Fight to Save Alaska's 20 Native Languages from Dying Out
It’s hard to fit all the news in a little space.
To read all of this week's news, visit the LIM Magazine.
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