Good Morning NUNAverse,
The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in Palm Springs, California, are hoping to expand their reservation by about 2,650 acres. California’s Senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla have announced they intend to introduce legislation to right a wrong made by the Bureau of Land Management in a 1999 land exchange with the tribe. As a result of federal policy, a large portion of the tribe’s land has been divided into even and odd parcels, known as a “checkerboard,” with ownership between the tribe, federal government, and private landowners. Over the past few decades, the tribe has initiated a series of land transfers with the United States government to consolidate their land and reclaim historically and culturally valuable areas, according to the tribe. The new legislation, already sponsored by Congressman Raul Ruiz in the House, should correct the previous oversight and puts about 2,650 acres of Agua Caliente land into trust.
The English Premiership Rugby team based in Exeter, Devon, known as the “Exeter Chiefs” are preparing to change their branding after calls from a majority of their supporters. In a statement Exeter stopped short of confirming their future plans but said a decision on “what the club will do next” would be forthcoming “within the next few weeks.” Several members of the club’s board are understood to be strongly in support of rebranding after complaints that the existing imagery is disrespectful to Indigenous peoples in North America. While no formal vote was taken at the club’s annual general meeting in midweek, the Guardian understands that 70% of the feedback from fans via email backed a branding change. There is mounting pressure on the club, champions of both Europe and the Premiership in 2020, to follow the example of several US-based professional sports teams who have changed their names or iconography.
Two tribes in Delaware are buying back land that had been part of their ancestral homelands. The Washington Post reported Sunday that the Nanticoke Indian Tribe acquired 30 acres in Millsboro this fall. The Lenape Indian Tribe is expected to close a deal in early 2022 for 11 acres near Fork Branch Nature Preserve in Dover. Behind the land deals are partnerships between the individual tribes and several other entities. They include the environmental nonprofit Conservation Fund, the state of Delaware, and a private conservation group located near Wilmington that is called Mt. Cuba Center. Blaine Phillips, a senior vice president for the Conservation Fund, said the land deals are “about restoring culture. It’s about honoring their ancestral rights.” Leaders of both tribes said they tried for years to buy the parcels of the land., but said that they either couldn’t make the deal come together or lacked the money.
A bipartisan government agency tasked with providing voting information to the public is working to make it easier for some Native peoples to vote. This week, the agency – The US Election Assistance Commission (EAC) – released voter registration forms translated into three Native languages: Yup’ik, Navajo, and Apache. The Apache translation, a primarily spoken language, takes listeners through the National Mail Voter Registration Form in audio format only. The announcement marks the commission’s first effort to expand voter registration access to Native communities. The National Mail Voter Registration Form – used to register U.S. citizens to vote, to update registration information and provide state-specific instructions – now exists in 21 languages. Translations were provided by translators and speakers from each community, according to the commission.
Keep reading for a full news update.
Thanksgiving:
Representing In Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: Wampanoag Elders Provide A Blessing And Land Acknowledgement
Native News Online, November 25
Millions of viewers who tuned in today to watch the 2021 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade were treated with a blessing by Mashpee Wampanoag tribal elders Carolyn Wynne (Otter Clan) and Siobhan Brown, who acknowledged the Lenape territory of Manahatta. The blessing, which was written and shared with us by members of the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project, (WLRP.org) will air exclusively in the Wampanoag language, but translates in English to the following: “Creator and Ancestors, we honor you for all things. We honor the Lenape people of Manahatta and all our relations. Now we are here; and will always be here. And so it is.” Portions of the performance were spoken in Wôpanâôt8âôk, the language of the Wampanoag People. Positioned behind the two elders for television cameras were Wampanoag Nation singers and dancers who gifted viewer with a performance of a song known to the tribe as the Calumet, which connects the four directions and honors all relations.
Indigenous People Bring Different Thanksgiving Perspective
AP News, Alastair Lee Bitsóí, November 25
The predominant version of the Thanksgiving story often skips an uncomfortable history. For instance, in the real story, the alliance between the colonists and the tribe soured quickly as the Europeans found ways to take more and more land, resulting in King Philip’s War, which ended with the deaths of about 40% of the tribe. For many Native Americans, the first Thanksgiving marked the beginning of a brutal colonization of Indigenous peoples. The San Juan School District serves students who are mostly Diné (Navajo) and Ute. How much of the traditional Thanksgiving story gets taught is up to local teachers and schools. Across Utah, second graders learn about Thanksgiving as a civic holiday, and fifth graders begin to look at the impacts of colonization, including the historical record of how Native Americans were in conflict with European colonists, says Mark Peterson, public relations director for the Utah State Board of Education.
Tribes To Mourn On Thanksgiving: ‘No Reason To Celebrate’
AP News, William J. Kole, November 25
Members of Native American tribes from around New England are gathering in the seaside town where the Pilgrims settled — not to give thanks, but to mourn Indigenous people worldwide who’ve suffered centuries of racism and mistreatment. Thursday’s solemn National Day of Mourning observance in downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts, will recall the disease and oppression that European settlers brought to North America. It’s the 52nd year that the United American Indians of New England have organized the event on Thanksgiving Day. The tradition began in 1970. Indigenous people and their supporters will gather at noon in person on Cole’s Hill, a windswept mound overlooking Plymouth Rock, a memorial to the colonists’ arrival.
Law:
Legislation May Expand Reservation
Native News Online, Jenna Kunze, November 24
The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in Palm Springs, California, are hoping to expand their reservation by about 2,650 acres. Two senators from California, Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein (both D-Calif.) have announced they intend to introduce legislation to right a wrong made by the Bureau of Land Management in a 1999 land exchange with the Tribe. The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians have occupied land in and around Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley since time immemorial. As a result of federal policy, a large portion of the Tribe’s land has been divided into even and odd parcels, known as a “checkerboard,” with ownership between the Tribe, federal government, and private landowners. Over the past few decades, the Tribe has initiated a series of land transfers with the United States government to consolidate their land and reclaim historically and culturally valuable areas, according to the Tribe. The new legislation, already sponsored by Congressman Raul Ruiz (D-CA) in the House, should correct the previous oversight and puts about 2,650 acres of Agua Caliente land into trust.
MMIW:
Violence Against Indigenous Women Is A Crisis, Report Finds
AZ Mirror, Shondiin Silversmith, November 24
Violence against Indigenous women in the U.S. is a crisis, but the extent of the problem remains unknown, according to a report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. And gathering the data needed to figure out just how big the problem is is complicated by a history of police racism and prejudice that has left Indigenous people feeling that there is no reason to seek help from law enforcement agencies, leaving untold numbers of cases unreported — and uninvestigated. The report, which was published Nov. 1, comes two years after more than a dozen members of Congress wrote a letter to the GAO requesting an investigation on missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States. With no centralized database among the thousands of federal, state and tribal entities, there is limited data on missing and murdered Indigenous people. In 2020, over 9,500 cases involving Indigenous people were reported, and nearly 1,500 were still active cases at the end of 2020.
The lack of overall data is only one of the issues that local MMIW advocate groups and tribes have been talking about for years, and now that the MMIW crisis has more of a national spotlight, federal and state entities are starting to pay attention.
Native Mascots:
Exeter Chiefs To Ditch Native American Branding After Consulting Fans
The Guardian, Robert Kitson, November 25
Exeter Chiefs are preparing to ditch their Native American branding after calls from a majority of their supporters to make a change. In a statement Exeter stopped short of confirming their future plans but said a decision on “what the club will do next” would be forthcoming “within the next few weeks.” Several members of the club’s board are understood to be strongly in support of rebranding after complaints that the existing imagery is disrespectful to indigenous people in North America. While no formal vote was taken at the club’s annual general meeting in midweek, the Guardian understands that 70% of the feedback from fans via email backed a branding change. There is mounting pressure on the club, champions of both Europe and the Premiership in 2020, to follow the example of several US-based professional sports teams who have changed their names or iconography.
Other:
2 Tribes Are Buying Back Parcels Of Their Ancestral Homeland
AP News, November 27
Two Native American tribes in Delaware are buying back land that had been part of their ancestral homelands. The Washington Post reported Sunday that the Nanticoke Indian tribe acquired 30 acres in Millsboro this fall. The Lenape Indian tribe is expected to close a deal in early 2022 for 11 acres near Fork Branch Nature Preserve in Dover. Behind the land deals are partnerships between the individual tribes and several other entities. They include the environmental nonprofit Conservation Fund, the state of Delaware and a private conservation group located near Wilmington that is called Mt. Cuba Center. Blaine Phillips, a senior vice president for the Conservation Fund, said the land deals are “about restoring culture. It’s about honoring their ancestral rights.” Leaders of both tribes said they tried for years to buy the parcels of the land. But they said that they either couldn’t make the deal come together or lacked the money.
U.S. Voting Material Released In Apache, Navajo, And Yup’ik
Native News Online, Jenna Kunze, November 27
A bipartisan government agency tasked with providing voting information to the public is working to make it easier for some Natives to vote. This week, the agency— The US Election Assistance Commission (EAC)— released voter registration forms translated into three Native languages: Yup’ik, Navajo, and Apache. The Apache translation, a primarily spoken language, takes listeners through the National Mail Voter Registration Form in audio format only. The announcement marks the commission’s first effort to expand voter registration access to Native American communities.The National Mail Voter Registration Form– used to register U.S. citizens to vote, to update registration information and provide state-specific instructions – now exists in 21 languages. Translations were provided by translators and speakers from each tribal community, according to the commission.
Famous Dave’s BBQ Founder Inducted Into National Native American Hall Of Fame
Star Tribune, Gita Sitaramiah, November 26,
A lifelong love of ribs has had its rewards for Dave Anderson, founder of Famous Dave’s BBQ, and the latest is induction into the National Native American Hall of Fame. The National Native American Hall of Fame serves as a resource for identifying and honoring contemporary path makers, new heroes and significant contributors to American society. Other honorees represent politics, science, the military and the arts. Pulitzer Prize-winning Minnesota novelist Louise Erdrich was inducted two years ago. Anderson, 68, who is part Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and Choctaw, was honored for his personal and professional success in business. He was CEO of the Lac Courte Oreilles tribal enterprises from 1982 to 1985, and created the LifeSkills Center for Leadership, an organization dedicated to supporting at-risk Indian youth. Anderson opened the first Famous Dave’s in Hayward, Wis., in 1994. The publicly-traded chain has grown to more than 100 locations. Anderson left the company in 2002 when President George W. Bush appointed him assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior’s Indian Affairs office.
Native American Leaders Say Chaco Prayers Being Answered
AP News, Susan Montoya Bryan, November 25
The Indigenous leaders from the Hopi Tribe in Arizona and several New Mexico pueblos were beyond grateful that the federal government is taking what they believe to be more meaningful steps toward permanent protections for cultural resources in northwestern New Mexico. It’s a fight they’ve been waging for years with multiple presidential administrations. They’re optimistic the needle is moving now that one of their own — U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — holds the reins of the federal agency that oversees energy development and tribal affairs. Haaland, who is from Laguna Pueblo and is the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency, joined tribal leaders at Chaco on Monday to celebrate the beginning of a process that aims to withdraw federal land holdings within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of the park boundary, making the area off-limits to oil and gas leasing for 20 years. New leases on federal land in the area will be halted for the next two years while the withdrawal proposal is considered.
Racist Teddy Roosevelt Statue To Relocate To North Dakota; Tribal Leaders Say They Were Not Consulted
Native News Online, Jenna Kunze, November 24
As employees and spectators gear up for the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, the controversial Theodore Roosevelt statue depicting—literally— racial hierarchy, still stands at the head of the parade route on Manhattan’s Central Park West. But it won’t for much longer. Last week, the North Dakota-based Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation— set to open in 2026—finalized an agreement with the American Museum of Natural History to take the statue on “long term loan” and eventually repurpose it into its own “contextualized” exhibit. The statue depicts the 26th president on horseback flanked below by two sparsely-clothed men: a Native American on one side, a Black man on the other. It’s not just the levels of the statue that protesters react to, but the president himself: Roosevelt supported the land allotment system that favored conservation, but at the cost of displacing Natives of their land–more than 230 million acres of it.
Controversial Murals Removed From Courthouse Head To College
AP News, November 25
Two courthouse murals that were taken down last month in Columbia amid concerns that they depict an attempted lynching, a white man pointing a gun at a Native American man and enslaved people building the courthouse have a new home. The murals are headed to the private Columbia College, where Sidney Larson, the late artist who painted the murals, taught for more than 50 years, The Columbia Daily Tribune reports. The murals will be stored at the college until an exhibit can appropriately highlight the educational and historical purpose of the artwork, college President David Russell wrote in a letter last week to Presiding Commissioner Dan Atwill. Opponents of the murals have argued that the subject matter has no place in a courthouse because of its scenes of extrajudicial punishment. Those who argued in favor of keeping the murals said the depictions represent county history, however negative, and should be presented with more context.