Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

A new true crime documentary series looks at the murder of activist Annie Mae Aquash, whose body was found on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge reservation in 1976.

A Mi’kmaq Native from Nova Scotia, Aquash was a teacher and mother who was active in the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the 1970s.

Her disappearance and murder shook the Native community deeply for generations.

Yvonne Russo is the director and producer of Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae.

“I’ve always known Annie Mae’s story growing up because I was a kid on the reservation. And also, AIM was pretty prominent during that time. Decades later, who knew that, as a filmmaker, this project would be presented to me? So I said, ‘Yes, I’m definitely interested,’ but I knew that I needed to call home and seek some guidance with regards to this story and speaking to elders and community, because it was kept silent for decades, people were afraid of the truth.”

Russo worked on this four-part docuseries for six years.

She says nearly 50 years after her death, the fight for justice for Aquash never ended, especially for her family.

“There was a botched autopsy. There were lots of misinformation out there, we’ll just say, and they wanted to know the truth. When I learned about all the harrowing efforts they did to seek truth and justice, it made me realize, you know, in this day and age that the past is still present in Indian Country in terms of the crimes that happen on reservations, and the injustices that happen within our communities. And maybe question, why cases -as it pertains to missing and murdered Indigenous people – why aren’t they being solved?”

Russo says she and her team wanted to get all sides represented, which included talking to people active in AIM and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But they had to also be shrewd with some accounts.

“As you know, in Indian Country, sometimes it could be a double-edged sword, because you hear many different accounts of what people think happened to her, and for us, the responsible way, at least, you know in the reporting is that we have to corroborate, but also give meaningful consideration to what people are saying. And it can’t be hearsay. One thing when you have somebody saying they heard something happen, because so and so and so and so told them, Well, okay, that’s fine, but that’s not actual proof.”

Russo says she’s very happy with the end result of this project. And she made sure that Aquash’s family, including her daughter Denise, was pleased with the results as well.

“What it meant for me was, it’s like repatriating her mom’s story, but repatriating also like her legacy and all of us understanding what Annie Mae stood for, and it was important that the story brings healing to the community. You know, healing in the form of even like a spiritual justice.”

Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae is now available on Hulu.

And today is Native American Heritage Day, an occasion to reflect and appreciate the contributions the First Peoples of the North American continent have provided, including serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.

 

 

Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

AI image generated by DeviantArt

Today is the Thanksgiving holiday, which means many things to many people across the U.S.

For years, the event was portrayed as a cheerful feast between Pilgrims and Native Americans. But critics say this whitewashes the conflict and animosity that has marked the centuries since the Mayflower’s arrival at Plymouth Rock, and some Native people boycott the holiday.

Others use it to gather relatives and friends, to celebrate the resilience of Native Americans despite war, disease, and colonization.

However you celebrate Thanksgiving – or, alternately, Turkey Day – we at National Native News are grateful for your listenership and support.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage is known for its exhibits and cultural programs.

But as Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA tells us, the center’s Indigenous awareness programs are growing in popularity, especially during Native American Heritage month.

Almost 700 students filled the auditorium at East Anchorage High School this month to learn about Alaska’s many different Native cultures and their values.

The team from the Alaska Native Heritage Center had a warm reception from students for two separate programs this month.

“We do a lot of amazing stuff. It fills my cup.”

Chris Delgado manages the Heritage Center’s cultural awareness programs and says they can be customized to meet the needs of a wide variety of organizations.

“We have National Park Service. We’re working with the FBI. We are working with the United States Air Force.”

Maureen Cronin, an academics coach at East High, is not surprised that companies want to invest in programs that raise their employees’ cultural awareness.

She says cultural literacy is important everywhere, but especially at East, which has students from fifty different cultures and is one of the most diverse schools in the nation.

“It’s really important to demystify cultural generalities, and it’s important to develop cultural understanding.”

And cultural appreciation for what the Heritage Center calls the genius of Indigenous culture, or “Indigi-nuity”.

“That’s how we survived out in the Arctic, back in the day.”

Colton Paul, a six-time gold medalist at the Arctic Winter Games who demonstrates traditional Alaska Native games at the workshops, says the athletes and their feats of strength and endurance epitomize “Indigi-nuity.”

“They can jump so high. They can kick way above their heads. I remember when I was a little kid, I would see these other kids kicking way above their heads, I would think, ‘That is right above the stars. That’s so high.’”

The cultural awareness trainers at the Heritage Center say they’ve noticed that when people gather to learn about another culture, they also learn to build better relationships with each other.

Regrowth and renewal were the themes of a special replanting ceremony in Blue River, Oreg. this month.

The event was also to highlight the history of Native Americans in the McKenzie River Corridor.

About 30 people gathered to accept white oak seedlings that were blessed and sprinkled with tobacco.

Dietrich Peters of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde coordinated the event.

“Come on up, we’ll get you some tobacco, and you can offer your prayers as well.”

Katherine Wilson of the group McKenzie Reel said while much of this was to help restore Blue River’s landscape after the devastating Holiday Farm Fire of 2020, it was also to highlight the activity of Native people who crossed through before colonization.

She said there was one clear takeaway from the event by those present.

“Well, by the sounds of the sobs, the healing. The river and the land just seemed to be so joyous. It was healing, and I didn’t expect that.”

Attendees took oak tree seedlings to plant across the region. Wilson says she’ll hold similar events soon, to complement Blue River’s natural rejuvenation as it keeps building homes and facilities.

 

Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Photo: This is a station at the Navajo Nation Chinle Chapter where logs from national forests are chopped into firewood for tribal families to heat their homes in the winter. (Courtesy National Forest Foundation)

The U.S. Forest Service is spending another $20 million to remove flammable underbrush and logs from forests.

Some of the funding will be used to turn that chopped timber into firewood for Indigenous families to heat their homes.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel has more.

The National Forest Foundation’s Wood for Life project is similar to a food bank. But instead of food, it delivers firewood to tribal families – at no cost.

The nonprofit is receiving $250.000 to remove logs from forests in Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming.

That will produce firewood for half-a-dozen tribes – Shoshone Bannock, Shoshone Paiute, Eastern Shoshone, Northern Arapaho, Ute Mountain Ute, and Navajo Nation.

Rosanna Jumbo-Fitch is the Navajo Nation Chinle Chapter president.

She says thousands of families in her community receive wood through the project.

“It’s a huge benefit, because it’s used for warming the home, cooking, and everyday needs. And our biggest population that we serve is our elderly population, those that are 65 and older.”

Nationwide, in counties with a high percentage of tribes, roughly one-third of households rely on firewood to heat their homes. That’s according to Census Bureau data.

Long before there was a designated day to give thanks, there was a time when expressing gratitude was a form of deep spirituality.

Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA looks at the word for “thank you” in three different Alaska Native languages, starting with Yup’ik, or Yugtun.

For Ossie Kairaiuak, Quyana is a word with deeper layers of meaning – one with roots to a culture of sharing food gathered from the land and the sea.

Ossie grew up near Bethel, Alaska in Chefornak, where he absorbed the true meaning of “quyana”.

“As I got older, I was able to help my father more. And I watched him butcher seals that my brothers caught. And then he would hand me the choice parts. which are the shoulders of the seal, and he would say, ‘Here. Gives these to these elders’.”

As Ossie carried the seal meat to his elders, he remembers how full his hands were.

“I gently use my feet to knock on their door, and the would open it up and they would say, ‘Oh, my. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.’”

“Gunalchéesh.”

X’unei Lance Twitchell (Lingít) has dedicated his life to spreading knowledge about the languages and cultures of Southeast Alaska, where he teaches Lingít at the University of Alaska Southeast.

“Some of our elders like the late Kingeesti, David Katzeek, used to talk about the power of this phrase, and how much emphasis and love you could put into it, sometimes by dragging out that last syllable, gunalchéesh.

Kay Wallis is Gwich’in, a traditional healer who believes “mahsi’ choo” carries great spiritual energy.

“It isn’t just a casual thank you. It’s mahsi’ choo. It means so much to me. Your kindness.”

She says her people’s long history has shown that gratitude helps to heal from sickness and trauma, and also, survive hard times.

“When I talk about my elders, most of them have passed. But they all remember hunger. They remember the starvation period. And then when somebody would just share a bone with them, a moose bone, a caribou bone, or a piece of fish, mahsi’ choo.”

Wallis says most of us today have never known such hardship and the importance of sharing what little you may have to give.

“Mahsi’ choo. You’re keeping me alive. You’re keeping my family alive. Thank you from my heart.”

She says the word, mahsi’ choo, comes from a time when gratitude was a way of life.

 

Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Photo: Fin whale draws community to the mudflats. (Darian LaTocha)

A frozen whale is beached on the mudflats near Anchorage, Alaska.

The unusual sight draws hundreds of people every day to see and experience it firsthand.

Scientists have identified it as a rare fin whale.

After researchers took samples to find out what caused the whale’s death, they left nature to do its work.

As Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA tells us, some are hoping to salvage parts of the whale, before the tides take it back out to sea.

For the ocean to reclaim the whale, it will take high tides at their peak to move it off the mudflats.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Alaska whale stranding coordinator Mandy Keogh says that will probably happen sometime in mid-December.

“For the community of Anchorage, it’s probably an opportunity they won’t get again.”

Keogh says fin whale are listed as an endangered species and it’s rare to see them in the Upper Cook Inlet.

This one was a young female and already quite big.

“It’s a 47-foot whale. You know when these whales grow to be well over 70 feet, so this is actually a fairly young animal. So, when you think about it, they would almost you know more than not quite double in length when that was an adult.”

Keogh says NOAA has had a lot of questions about whether parts of the whale can be salvaged.

She says rules regulating that comes under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which allows Alaska Natives to harvest the meat and whale parts. because of their long tradition of using them for food, as well for their arts and crafts.

“No one else can collect any more mammal parts, so we really need people to leave the animal alone or, if there are Alaskans in the area that are salvaging parts, to give them space so that they can do it safely.”

Michael Livingston is an Unangax from the Alaskan Peninsula.

“There was a ton of people walking out there on the on the ice, and it was just a real powerful to be in her presence for a few minutes.”

He says the whale is a gift.

“How large she is and how graceful she is. even in her passing — to see her fluke to see her tail and how large it was how powerful was and muscular. It was just a really inspiring to be that close to a whale and to be in her presence.”

Livingston says there is a group of people organizing a blessing for the whale.

In Oregon, a coastal piece of the Siletz Tribe’s ancestral territory has been recently restored, nearly 170 years after Congress created the reservation’s boundaries.

Twenty-seven acres of Cape Foulweather on the Oregon Coast have been reacquired by the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.

The tribe purchased the land from the McKenzie River Trust last month, with a $2 million grant from NOAA.

Angela Sondenaa is director of the tribe’s Natural Resources Department.

“It really is an amazing opportunity for us to become stewards again.”

She hopes to reintroduce cultural burning to the coastal prairie section, to rejuvenate its ecosystem.

“Cape Foulweather is an incredibly diverse and sensitive ecological area. It’s been a cultural gathering site for millennia. And it will provide direct opportunity for tribal members to gather and resume subsistence harvest in the rocky coastline there.”

The Siletz reservation was established in 1855 by Congress and President Franklin Pierce.

It was further diminished through land cessions.

And hopes run high that Congress will pass a bill that would help Native Americans get home mortgages.

Dakota News Now reports that Senate Bill 1941 would permanently fund the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Native Community Development Financial Institution lending program.

While some proponents like U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) say they’re confident the bill will pass with bipartisan support, others point out that the bill was introduced in June of 2023 and has been stuck in a Senate Committee since March of this year.

Just 38% of Native Americans own a home in South Dakota.

 

Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Photo: Roy Kady sits in southwestern Colorado, adorned by a textile he wove from the wool of a Navajo-Churro sheep. (Chris Clements / KSJD)

On the Navajo Nation, a rare breed of sheep is treasured by herders and weavers.

The sheep were once nearly driven to extinction by the U.S. government.

Chris Clements and Clark Adomaitis visited a community celebration of the breed in southwest Colorado.

Navajo-Churro sheep, a breed considered sacred to the Navajo, are a source of community and artistic expression for a group of herders and weavers in the Four Corners region.

At Fozzie’s Farm in Lewis, Colo., Tyrrell Tapaha wove the beginnings of a Navajo tapestry with a loom.

He used wool from flocks of Churro sheep that he dyed brilliant shades of lavender, red, pink, and orange.

“In the summer times, I’ll pull 16-hour days weaving. It’ll be like three in the morning. This is my whole life. This is how I make my income.”

Tapaha, a member of the Navajo Nation, is part of a group of apprentice weavers in the Four Corners region who are herding Churro sheep.

In the late 1500s, Spanish colonists brought the Churro to the region, and Navajo people came to depend on them for the breed’s meat and uniquely durable wool.

But Churro sheep almost became extinct — twice.

During the Long Walk of the Navajo in 1863, the U.S. military forced the tribe to relocate as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

U.S. government livestock reduction policies during the Dust Bowl decimated the breed again.

Roy Kady is a master fiber artist and sheep herder from Goat Springs, Ariz. He led the group of apprentices, including Tapaha.

Kady spoke to around 20 community members at Fozzie’s Farm about the history of Churro sheep.

He and his apprentices were at Fozzie’s as part of a partnership with Montezuma Land Conservancy, a land trust that manages the farm.

They allowed Kady and his apprentices to graze their sheep at the farm. In return, the weaver provided education on the breed to the general public.

“Not all of the Navajos went on the Long Walk. The ones that didn’t were the ones that helped save this breed of sheep. They took it with them across the San Juan River, hid high in the mountains, and some down in Canyon de Chelly.”

Tapaha described the responsibility he feels to keep the tradition of sheep herding and fiber weaving alive.

“We don’t own it. It’s knowledge that we should pass on since we don’t have ties to it in that way. You don’t have to practice this. You don’t have to live this way, but just as long as you know.”

For lunch, the weavers roasted a sheep they slaughtered earlier in the morning.

Attendees gathered around the grill and watched the fire hiss and sputter as the mutton cooked.

Above the flames, wisps of grayish-yellow clouds slid over the farm and nearby Sleeping Ute Mountain.

Kady discussed sheep herding’s importance to generations of his family.

“I’m filling these big shoes that my mother wore as an agro-pastoralist. I continue those traditions with the next generations to come. In caring for the land, in turn, the land takes care of you.”

Kady said that today, younger generations don’t need to weave rugs and textiles solely to sell products, as was common during the trading post era.

“That was imposed on us as a part of colonization because this was being woven for the trading post, for their sole purpose to sell it to the tourists and to profit from three or four times fold. Now, you’re the artist. Now, you’re in control of your own artistry, your interpretation of what you want to design and to weave.”

Tapaha is one of Roy Kady’s many fiber-weaving apprentices. He’s grateful for Kady’s leadership.

“There’s always a teacher and a student, and I think that dynamic has always been positively enforced in my life.”

Kady added: “I was once them, their age, and I was once taking that unknown path and wondering where my life would be. Continuing that journey in my life into old age makes me happy. It fulfills me.”

The legacy of Navajo-Churro sheep herding and weaving will live on in similar community celebrations.

They’re happening all across the Navajo Nation, most recently at the Dził Ditł’ooí School of Empowerment, Action, and Perseverance (DEAP) in Navajo, N.M., where Kady visited last week to give weaving demonstrations to students.

Kady and his apprentices continue to educate the public about spinning and dyeing Churro wool, and the history that lives in between each thread.

A new mobile clinic is now serving about 2,000 Tribal patients in rural Nevada.

It’s one of the latest beneficiaries in the region of a federal grant program.

KUNR’s Maria Palma reports for the Mountain West News Bureau.

The unit will provide services to both the Lovelock Paiute Tribe and the Yomba Shoshone Tribe.

Without a mobile clinic, medical staff would make weekly trips in multiple vehicles covering hundreds of miles to provide medical services. 

Cathi Williams-Tuni, Chairwoman of the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe, says it’s a dream come true. 

“We have the remote locations at Yamba and Lovelock and sometimes to go out to Lovelock, they always have to take the four by fours, because of the roads. Much of the road is dirt.”

Clinical nurse Joy Schultz says the mobile clinic will bring people immunizations, lab testing, physician and nurse visits, wound care, prescription medicine distribution and education.

“We can say we’ve actually saved lives, we’ve saved limbs, we’ve saved communities from COVID.”

The new mobile clinic was funded through a $670,000 Rural Emergency Health Care grant, provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

 

Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

(Photo: Ken Lund via Flickr)

Audio available by 12pm ET

Tribes in California are celebrating after state officials approved the renaming of more than 30 place names containing the derogatory S-Q word across 15 counties.

Jacob Resneck reports.

Most of the place names are county roads but also at least one cemetery and a building containing the S-Q word that only in recent years has universally been recognized for what it is: a racial slur against Native American women.

“It will undo the derogatory language that is not only defamatory but erases our history and hence us as a people.”

That’s Greg Sarris, chairman of the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria north of San Francisco Bay.

“And, you know, there’s a lot in that sentence, but it’s so true. I mean, I don’t think people understood that the S-Q word is comparable to for us to the N-word.”

The renaming initiative is the fruit of Assembly Bill 2022. Under the legislation passed two years ago the geographic places will be renamed in consultation with California tribes with priority given to honoring tribal cultures and Indigenous languages.

With a second Trump term near, tribes in Oregon and elsewhere are concerned for their environmental restoration efforts.

KLCC’s Brian Bull reports.

In his first presidential term, President Donald Trump opened up lands considered sacred to Native people for development, as well as rolling back dozens of environmental protections.

In a call with tribal officials, Gov. Tina Kotek (D-OR) said she’ll stand with Oregon values as the White House changes hands again.

“My hope is that we’ll see respect and cooperation from the federal administration to work with our tribes.”

Gov. Kotek said she’s focused on the Columbia Basin Initiative, which worked with President Joe Biden to restore fish runs.

William Ray Jr., chair of the Klamath Tribe, then spoke about protecting salmon and two species of sucker fish.

“Our biggest concerns about the incoming administration is the water delivery systems and how it’s gonna affect our endangered species of C’waam and koptu mullet species.  If all the water delivery agreements are gonna be fulfilled at 100%, extinction becomes real viable.”

President Trump has discussed diverting water from the Columbia River to California, and also questioned the need for protecting the endangered Delta smelt there.

A new study shows that wildlife migration routes in the West will likely shift because of climate change.

That’s why researchers worked with biologists from the Southern Ute Tribe to find out how to tackle the problem.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel reports.

Researchers used GPS data from dozens of elk collared by the Southern Ute Tribe in southwestern Colorado. 

They analyzed their current migration patterns – and projected how they will look in 2050 as temperatures rise and precipitation declines. They also considered continued growth and development and the traffic that comes along with it. 

They found elk could be more spread out in the winters as snowpacks shrink. And in the summers, herds could be more compacted as their range is cut by about half. 

That means new wildlife crossings – like bridges and tunnels – will be needed, says Caitlin Littlefield.

She’s with Conservation Science Partners and the study’s lead author.

“Wildlife crossings can enable continued access to new or expanding ranges, or continued access to resources like, say, forage that’s shifting in time and space.”

Littlefield says the study shows state and federal agencies the need to invest in wildlife crossings that consider the climate’s impact on animal movements.

 

Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Photo: Hanging Flume in the Dolores River Canyon near Uravan, Colo. (Simon Foot / Flickr)

President Joe Biden has created more national monuments in a single term than any president since President Jimmy Carter left office in 1981.

Tribes and environmental advocates are pressing him to do even more.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Rachel Cohen reports.

After President Donald Trump shrunk the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante monuments in Utah, Biden’s first step was restoring them. 

“And because of that, he really started thinking about monuments right from the get go. So you see much more activity than you usually see during the first term.”

Justin Pidot is a professor at the University of Arizona law school, who worked in the Biden and Obama administrations.

He says Biden has had a particular focus on monuments proposed by tribes. That includes Avi Kwa Ame established last year in Nevada. It’s a site sacred to the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, among others.

Before leaving the White House, Biden could designate more national monuments.

Local campaigns are advocating for protection of the Owyhee Canyonlands on the border of Oregon and Idaho and the Dolores Canyons in southwest Colorado.

The Alutiiq Museum received about $150,000 to revamp the Koniag Cultural Library.

The grant comes as it’s finishing construction on its new building.

As KMXT’s Brian Venua reports, staff say it’s good timing to have even more to show off at its future grand reopening.

The Alutiiq Museum has been closed for over a year for an expansion to nearly double its size.

Museum officials plan to display more items from its collections as well as feature more art from contemporary culture bearers.

But now with this grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the museum will make it easier than ever to access its library, too.

“In the past, we had a library – I don’t think anyone knew that.”

That’s Amanda Lancaster, the museum’s curator of collections.

Since 2018, the library has served as the official tribal library of Koniag, Kodiak’s regional Native corporation.

“It was in the basement, it was very inaccessible, you had to make an appointment, you had to have a staff member with you just because it was in the basement and sort of more of a staff space.”

The library features thousands of printed materials, hundreds of audio/visual items, and well over 10,000 photos as part of the collection for people to research Alutiiq culture.

The new funding will help the museum pay for renovations for a more friendly library space.

Lancaster says they’re aiming to have matching shelving units, furniture for a seating area and computers for research.

Patrons won’t need appointments or staff supervision just to be in there – they’ll just need to check in and use the library at their leisure.

‘We’re just hoping that it will make it much more accessible so that people will want to come and use it.”

While the new money won’t cover new acquisitions, it could make room for future donations.

“It’s going to be much larger and much more spacious and (have) space to sit and read.”

It’s also a reason to recatalog and reorganize all of those resources.

“I’m just really excited to have one sort of dedicated project where we make sure everything’s in the right space.”

After the renovations, the grant will also pay for an outreach effort to solicit comments on how to make the library as useful as possible.

The Alutiiq Museum is set to have a grand reopening in May.

California will remove the S-Q word, a derogatory term for an Indigenous woman, from more than 30 sites.

The state’s Natural Resources Agency announced last week, the L.A. Times reports.

In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed a bill into law requiring the term to be removed from all geographic features and place names in the state.

It follows a similar move by the U.S. Interior Department.

In 2021, Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) declared the term derogatory and established a process to remove names from federal lands.

Renaming in California is expected to take place in early 2025.

 

Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.