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(Photo: Jordan Uplinger / Wyoming Public Media)

Next week, Wyoming lawmakers will meet at the state Capitol to decide what subjects interim committees should focus on between now and next year’s legislative session.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Chris Clements spoke with the chairman of one committee, who’s the only Native American legislator in the state.

The Select Committee on Tribal Relations is set to hear updates on investigations into missing and murdered Indigenous people.

And it could discuss how tribal, state and federal law enforcement manage crime on and around the Wind River Reservation.

Fort Washakie Representative Ivan Posey co-chairs the committee.

“The people in the federal system on a reservation really don’t have that luxury of knowing who’s been arrested or what they’re arrested for.”

That’s because there’s often as many as three separate jurisdictions involved in criminal cases, including the feds.

Posey is a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, and says one of his priorities for the interim is to have a committee hearing take place off the reservation so that more non-tribal members can attend, too.

“There’s still a lack of understanding or lack of knowledge on tribal issues.”

That includes some of his fellow representatives, Posey says.

Interim committee topics will be finalized on April 8.

A conservative political party in Belfast has pulled the emergency brakes on new plans for Ireland’s Indigenous language.

As Seo McPolin reports, Irish may not be arriving into the island’s newest central station anytime soon.

For just a few hundred thousand quid, Ireland’s newest and now biggest public transit station was to get signage in the Irish language.

Even though it’s twice as old as English, Irish has been suppressed for centuries – and it appears to be happening again.

Members of the right-wing, pro-British party the DUP are objecting to the new signs and got a judge to halt their installation, for now.

They want a debate in their assembly, which might be required under power-sharing rules created by the Good Friday Agreement.

It’s the latest chapter in the long saga of a language that dates back to the Roman Empire.

A former tribal assistant chief is sharing his Native culture, and food through his business.

Brian Bull spoke with Jason Harris about Bow and Arrow – a food truck roaming South Carolina.

Harris and his wife Melissa have both worked in tribal government and still consider themselves ambassadors of a sort. Only instead of discussing policy over the table, they share Catawba history and culture over the counter.

“One of the things that we have not been good at, especially as Catawba, is we don’t share our culture as well as we probably should. So that’s kind of given us an opportunity to answer people’s questions about not only the food, that’s just a starting point. But we can actually get into other conversations. It helps bring our communities together even more.”

Many visitors to the Bow and Arrow are non-Natives, so Harris feels this is a great way to connect with others.

The menu has frybread as the basis for its entrees.

“We have ‘The Bow’ which is a ground beef-based Indian taco with the trimmings that go with that, and then we have ‘The Arrow’ which is chicken on frybread.  Then we have a bison Indian taco, we haven’t seen a whole lot of that out there in Indian Country. And then we do a strawberry dish that is my wife’s grandmother’s recipe, and it is just out of this world.”

The Catawba are South Carolina’s only federally-recognized tribe, so Harris says it’s great to represent his culture and share his passion for good food at the same time.

“We get to feed people. (laughs) Everybody’s got to eat!  And then we get to share a little bit of our culture too, so it’s been really nice to do that.”

The Harris’ black and turquoise truck roams the areas on and near the Catawba reservation, sharing Native cuisine to powwow crowds and passersby alike.

 

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