Good morning, NUNAverse,
These are the top five biggest stories from across Indian Country brought together in once place. In this weekly media clips roundup, take a look back at what our readers were engaging with the most from the past week of news:
The remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, were found last week buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school — one of the institutions that held children taken from families across the nation. Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation said in a news release that the remains were confirmed last weekend with the help of ground-penetrating radar. From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into Canadian society.
The Biden administration is making $1 billion available in federal grants to expand the availability of high-speed internet on tribal lands. The grants come from the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and were included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. The program will prioritize the deployment of broadband to underserved households on tribal lands, according to a release. It also invites proposals that address the digital divide, including those related to telehealth, education, and workforce development.
The Passamaquoddy Tribe in Maine has bought back Kuwesuwi Monihq, or Pine Island, which was taken from them more than 150 years ago. In 1794 the island was officially granted to the tribe by Massachusetts for their service during the revolutionary war. But after 1820, when Maine became its own state, colonialists changed its title and voided the treaty. In March, with a grant from conservation charities, the tribe raised $355,000 and finally bought the island back.
Cleveland’s Baseball Team said yesterday that it now has a final list of possible new team names from an initial pool of nearly 1,200 entries. It is vetting the possible team names for legal purposes after months of research and discussions with fans. In December, the team said they were changing their name for the first time since 1915. Dating to 1865, Cleveland’s Baseball Team has previously been called the Spiders, Blues, and Forest Citys. Among the most popular names pushed by fans on social media are the Spiders, Guardians, and Avengers.
Native News Online published a piece covering 22-year-old Shina Novalinga (Inuk), who began learning the art of throat singing from her mother during the ongoing pandemic. To mark her progress, Novalinga began recording videos of her progress and posting them to TikTok, where she has amassed more than 2.3 million followers. Novalinga, who has lived in Montreal with her mother and four sisters most of her life, is intimately connected to the art of throat singing: her mother is one of the few culture bearers that kept it alive after missionaries tried to remove it from Native culture.