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The National Park Service is renaming one of Yellowstone National Park’s largest mountains to honor Native Americans. Parks officials say the original name is an affront to Indigenous people. The new name reflects recommendations from the Rocky Mountain Tribal Council. Taylar Stagner from Yellowstone Public Radio reports.
Yellowstone National Park is changing the name of Mount Doane to First Peoples Mountain. It’s located east of Yellowstone Lake and settlers named the mountain after Gustavus Doane who has been cited as instrumental in the conquest of the area.
According to a Yellowstone National Park press release, Doane led an attack in 1870 against a band of Piegan Blackfeet and killed 173 Indigenous people including elders and children suffering from smallpox.
The event is called Maria’s Massacre and Doane boasted about that attack for the rest of his life. Tribes have been calling for the renaming of the mountain for many years. Two years after the massacre, Yellowstone was named the first national park.
Members of a Native American Methodist Church in Oklahoma said the congregation has been targeted numerous times by intruders who inflicted thousands of dollars of damages.
KCCO-TV reports officials with the church, located in Norman, thought the suspects were looking for money. Instead they left $10,000 worth of damages and stole candy and chips and drove a butcher knife into a table.
Reverend Justine Wilson said she thinks that was a message and many parishioners don’t feel comfortable coming back to the church until the suspects are caught.
The church had been raising money for a new sanctuary but that will now go towards repairing the damage.
Authorities in Brazil said on Tuesday they arrested a second man in connection with the disappearance of an Indigenous expert and a British journalist.
The New York Times reports officials were shifting from a search-and-rescue operation to homicide investigation. Police say they arrested the brother of a fisherman who was detained last week.
Journalist Dom Phillips was reporting on patrol teams that Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira helped create to tackle illegal hunting and fishing in the area – work that led to threats against Pereira.
Reuters reports the two were in a remote area that has the world’s largest number of uncontacted Indigenous people and has become a center for drug smugglers, illegal logging, and mining.
A Senate committee later this week will hold a listening session called “Cannabis in Indian Country”.
Marijuana Moment reports the Senate Indian Affairs Committee will meet on June 17.
Chairman Brian Schatz (D-HI) said it’s an opportunity for tribes to offer feedback to Senate staffers on cannabis issues.
In March, nine senators sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to direct federal prosecutors to not interfere with tribes that pursue cannabis legalization polices. The Department of Justice used to follow a guidance from the Obama Administration that embodied that kind of prosecutorial discretion.
But that was rescinded by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions along with another memo that sought to curtail prosecutions in states with legal cannabis markets.
The senators are urging Garland to reinstate that prosecutorial discretion.
A former tribal vice chairman and tribal council speaker for the Navajo Nation has died.
Edward T. Begay died on June 12. He was 87.
Begay helped secure the first gaming compact with the State of New Mexico.
He also led a delegation to the United Nations to advocate for the recognition of the human rights of the Navajo people.
Navajo council member Amber Kanazbah Crotty said, “Many of us are here because we were able to hear his words in fighting for our people and making decisions that are in the best interest.”
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