Why are Indian Reservations So Poor? Forbes writer John Koppisch says it's because of a lack of individual property rights. In a
detailed response, the executive director of non-profit organization Village Earth says: "I find it ironic how academics and journalists try to come up with new theories to explain poverty on reservations but fail to take into account the obvious. The government owes Native Americans at least 45 Billion dollars yet, in the settlement offered by the Obama administration, they are being compensated for less that .06% of that."
[more inside]
posted by desjardins
on Dec 14, 2011 -
101 comments
Fred Martinez was nádleehí, a male-bodied person with a feminine nature, a special gift according to his ancient Navajo culture. He was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was brutally murdered at 16. Two Spirits explores the life and death of this boy who was also a girl, and the essentially spiritual nature of gender. (previously)
posted by Trurl
on Nov 10, 2011 -
15 comments
"Because you know most babies don't cry ..." "In South Dakota, Native American children make up only 15 percent of the child population, yet they make up more than half the children in foster care. An NPR News investigation has found that the state is removing 700 native children every year, sometimes in questionable circumstances. "
posted by HuronBob
on Oct 25, 2011 -
95 comments
"Indian country begins where the serene prairie of Custer county gives way to the formidable rock spires marking out South Dakota's rugged Badlands. The road runs straight until the indistinguishable, clapboard American homesteads fade from view and the path climbs into a landscape sharpened by an eternity of wind and water. At this time of year, the temperature slides to tens of degrees below freezing and a relentless gale sets the snow dancing on the road, a whirligig of white blotting out the black of the asphalt."
A sobering look at
one Native American community and their hopes during the Obama years, by
The Guardian's Chris McGreal.
posted by saturnine
on Jan 10, 2010 -
18 comments
War Dances:
“I wanted to call my father and tell him that a white man thought my brain was beautiful”. Sherman Alexie doing his thing in The New Yorker, excerpted from his upcoming book (
early review; interview
1,
2.)
posted by Non Prosequitur
on Oct 5, 2009 -
45 comments
Archaeologists and Native Americans race against the border fence. The REAL ID act authorized government agencies to bulldoze long-standing environmental, cultural and anthropological standards. But a team of activists worked delicately behind the scenes to win millions of dollars in federal funding and the go-ahead for a last-ditch effort to study ancient artifacts. Archaeologists have faced similarly rushed projects
elsewhere along the fence route.
posted by univac
on Mar 31, 2009 -
46 comments
Tales of the Beanworld ("A most peculiar comic book experience") recently resumed publication after a long hiatus. It's a strange and abstract mix of Native American mythology and culture, with a strong ecological focus, into an wonderfully charming cosmology. While it certainly invites, uh,
overthinking, it's also entertaining on a purely casual level.
A sample
short Beanworld story is on the Dark Horse Comics Myspace page.
If you have questions about it, the
BeanWeb just may have answers, along with illustrations from the comics. There is now a
Beanworld Wiki to supplement it, and creator Larry Marder keeps a
blog where he talks about things bean.
Okay, now that it's properly introduced... the
real point of this post is to link to
this awesome Beanworld Flash cartoon, animated by Fashionbuddha and with music by They Might Be Giants!
posted by JHarris
on Dec 20, 2008 -
17 comments
Helen (Hunt) Jackson was an
author and an activist.
Her mom died when Helen was 14, her dad 3 years later. Helen's first child died at 11 months, her second at 10 years old. In 1879 she was
inspired after hearing Chief Standing Bear describe how the U.S. government took Native Americans' land.
She began to publish in support of Native American rights. 1881 brought her book
A Century of Dishonor [pdf], branded with the words "Look upon your hands! They are stained with the blood of your relations".
In 1883, she published her most famous work,
Ramona, a novel about racial discrimination set in California.
If that's too much to take in, and now you need some kitties, she's still got you covered.
Letters from a Cat (1879) is being featured at
Archive.org today.
[more inside]
posted by cashman
on Aug 25, 2008 -
7 comments
On November 29, 1864, John Chivington led the Colorado Volunteers in a dawn attack in which at least 150 Cheyenne men, women and children were slaughtered (many of their corpses grotesquely mutilated), bringing a new wave of Indian-white conflict to Colorado's high plains along the Santa Fe Trail. The
Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site was officially dedicated
today.
See photos of some of the
people involved, read some contemporary
propaganda concerning the event, as well as actual
testimony from witnesses and perpetrators.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Apr 28, 2007 -
17 comments
Say you live in a forest and have limited resources. You need to make signposts to point out trails, water sources, meeting places and the like, but your readers might speak a variety of languages. Also, you want the signposts to last a really long time. What do you do? Create
trail trees! Now say you live in the 21st century. What do you do?
Create a database! And
blog about it!
posted by DU
on Apr 13, 2007 -
20 comments
When Everybody Called Me Gah-bay-bi-nayss - an ethnographic biography of Paul Peter Buffalo, son of Ojibwa medicine woman and grandson of the great chief Pezeke. Buffalo died in 1977, but spent his last dozen years chronicling his heritage and the things the elders told him. Be sure to check out the entry on John Smith, a wonderful character more popularly known as
Wrinkle Meat.
posted by madamjujujive
on Nov 16, 2006 -
8 comments
Lakota Winter Counts. Lakota and other plains tribes counted time by winters. An appointed recorder would choose one major event to mark the year, depicting that event by
name and symbol. Early records dating back to the 10th century were often painted on
buffalo skins; more recent winter counts were recorded as
text journals. These fascinating records offer insight into natural and historic events for our land that precede accounts of European settlers. - more -
posted by madamjujujive
on Apr 26, 2005 -
12 comments
" Fifty years ago, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormon Church, began a foster care program for American Indian children. Between twenty and fifty thousand children, mostly Navajo, participated in what was called the Indian Student Placement Program....Through Placement, children had the opportunity to grow up in families – white Mormon families – while attending day schools in Utah and across the West. Placement also had a theological motivation. Championed in the ‘50s by an LDS Church leader named Spencer W. Kimball, Placement grew from a sense of commitment to the Indians – then regarded as descendants of the original people of the Book of Mormon. Listen to the amazing story, full of first hand accounts from both sides
here
posted by BrodieShadeTree
on Dec 21, 2004 -
18 comments
The Kumeyaay Nation of southern California.
'This Web site is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the Kumeyaay culture. Kumeyaay.com tells the story from the Kumeyaay perspective, and is the premiere source for Kumeyaay Indian information.' With an interesting
history, language and culture section.
posted by plep
on Nov 12, 2003 -
6 comments
