Before Obama spoke, Crow Tribal Chairman Carl Venne asked the presidential candidate to support three proposals on behalf of Indian Country, including defending indigenous rights worldwide, appointing a Native to lead the Interior Department and honoring treaty concessions. Obama was invited to visit the tribe's homeland after leaders of the Crow, or Apsaalooke, decided to endorse the Illinois senator last week. When he took the stage, Obama announced he was proud to have been adopted - in Crow tradition - by the Black Eagle family. And he was also given a Crow name, which translates as 'That Person Who Goes Throughout Our Land And Tries To Help People,' said Laverdure.

Obama's visit to the Crow Reservation marks an unusual presidential campaign foray into tribal lands. Bobby Kennedy is arguably the last known presidential candidate to do so, campaigning on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation in 1968. He was assassinated the same year in California. In welcoming Obama, Venne prepared a statement:

'This park is dedicated to our leaders who have fought for the United States in every war since World War I,' Venne said. 'You know, during wartime bullets don't discriminate based on the color of your skin. Currently there are over 40 Crow men and women fighting in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. We honor all those serving today, and we also honor Senator Barack Obama as the man who can bring them home safely.

'We want change in America today,' Venne said. 'Instead of pouring billions of dollars into Iraq and quadrupling foreign aid to Africa, we need to spend money taking care of our needs at home, especially the forgotten first Americans.' Venne asked Obama to join more than 140 other countries who have adopted a worldwide declaration to respect and establish human rights standards around the world. The United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia - countries with significant indigenous populations - voted against the declaration last September.

'We want America to be the leader it should be around the world, and we ask that you, Senator Obama, commit to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,' Venne said. As part of his campaign policy on Native issues, Obama has said he will create a tribal presence in the White House. 'We respectfully ask for tribal representation in formulating the policies that affect us - a tribal adviser to the president in the White House, regular meetings with tribal leaders and tribal officials in key positions. We hope to see during your administration the first Indian secretary of the Interior. It is only right.'

Crow Nation leaders asked Obama to visit their reservation, where tribal communities reflect the living conditions experienced by most large, land-based tribes in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. The Crow live in the fourth-poorest county in the United States. Tribal citizens depend heavily on the Indian Health Service for 'life or limb' health care. And the unemployment rate hovers at 47 percent. Venne asked Obama to consider multimillion-acre land concessions tribes made during the U.S. treaty-making process, which ended in 1871. Tribes like the Crow gave up tens of thousands of acres in exchange for education and health care.

'In Indian Country, we want new and better programs in health, education and housing,' Venne said. 'We don't want to have to leave our homeland to get a job or a place to live. We want to have places for our children and grandchildren to live. When we send our children out into the world for their educations, we want them to be able to come home again. We have protected our homeland for seven generations, and we ask your help in protecting it for seven generations more.'

20 Years Ago Mankiller Chosen to Lead Cherokees
Twenty years ago this month, on December 14, 1985, Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. At the time Mankiller was serving as the tribe’s deputy chief under Ross Swimmer. Swimmer resigned to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Cherokee law mandates that the deputy chief assume leadership duties. In the tribal elections of 1987, Mankiller won the post outright.

Today the idea of a woman leading a tribe doesn’t seem so out of the ordinary. In Oklahoma, Kay Rhoads is principal chief of the Sac & Fox Nation and LaRue Parker is chairperson of the Caddo Tribe. Late last year Cecelia Fire Thunder became the first woman elected as president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe; but those that remember Mankiller’s ascension agree it was a defining moment.

Quotes from Wilma Mankiller:

• "Here we are standing in the shadow of the twentieth century and we are facing the same problems between the states today. We are facing problems in health care, housing, economic development, but the most serious challenge is how we define what it means to be an Indian, which is an issue of culture.”
• "Prior to my election, young Cherokee girls would never have thought that they might grow up and become chief.”
• “Individually and collectively, Cherokee people possess an extraordinary ability to face down adversity and continue moving forward. We are able to do that because our culture, though certainly diminished, has sustained us since time immemorial. This Cherokee culture is a well-kept secret."
• “There has never been a time when the media accurately depicted the issues and lives of Native people, but I believe it has become much worse in recent years as federal support for social programs has declined, as more and more tribal governments have turned to gaming to generate revenue for basic services like housing, education, and health care.”
• "As a people, we can empathize with the people of Iraq because they are experiencing many of the things we experienced as a people."
• "My name is Mankiller, and in the old Cherokee Nation, when we lived here in the Southeast, we lived in semi-autonomous villages, and there was someone who watched over the village, who had the title of mankiller. And I'm not sure what you could equate that to, but it was sort of like a soldier or someone who was responsible for the security of the village, and so anyway this one fellow liked the title mankiller so well that he kept it as his name, and that's who we trace our ancestry back to."

On June 5, 2004, France bestowed its highest civilian honor upon an Eagle Butte, South Dakota woman for her work as an Army nurse during World War II. Marcella LeBeau, 84, is one of 100 former military personnel who will received the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur during a ceremony in Paris. LeBeau, then 24 years old, served with the Army Nurse Corps’ 76th General Hospital based in Minster, England. After Allies invaded Europe on June 6, 1944, LeBeau and her colleagues treated the first battle casualties from the beaches of Normandy.

LeBeau, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux, downplayed her role May 14 during a telephone interview with the Rapid City Journal. “I would never want to take away from what our soldiers did,” LeBeau said. “It was one of my greatest privileges and honor to have cared for those soldiers.”

LeBeau treated wounded from the Battle of the Bulge, and also worked at hospitals in Belgium and France as Allied forces gained ground on German defenders. She received three service stars for her work during battles in Northern France, the Ardennes and the Rhineland. LeBeau said the closest she came to the front lines was in Belgium, as bombs fell on a nearby motor pool and attacks killed 21 soldiers and one civilian. She said she could feel the concussions as she worked in a Liege, Belgium, hospital.

“They took a chance putting us in Liege,” she said. “We were a few miles from the battlefield.” LeBeau returned to the region to receive the Knight of the Legion of Honors medal, awarded for outstanding service to France. Napoleon Bonaparte founded the Legion in 1802. She attended the embassy reception in Washington on June 3 before flying to Paris with her oldest daughter, Diane Booth. They attended ceremonies honoring the veterans in Paris and Normandy.

LeBeau said military service runs in her family, as her father served in the Spanish-American War. When LeBeau retired, she had been a nurse 31 years. “I think it’s one of the most rewarding careers,” she said. “It’s gratifying to be able to help other people.”

Glynn Crooks, a Native American from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux tribe in Prior Lakes, Minn., salutes the casket of former President Ronald Reagan at the Capitol Rotunda Thursday, June 10, 2004 in Washington. Thousands of mourners are paying their last respects to the former President before tomorrow's funeral service at the National Cathedral.

American Indian Museum Prepares for Opening Facility
Houses Largest Collection of Native American Artifacts

10th Circuit Court of Appeals Denies Leonard Peltier's Appeal for Parole

Buffalo hide shield was probably made between 1420 and 1640.
It was found in shelter in 1926. (photo by Gary Mckellar, Deseret Morning News)

Navajos Regain Possession of Ceremonial Buffalo Shields
Three ancient buffalo hide shields used by Navajo medicine men in traditional religious ceremonies are back in the tribe's possession. The National Park Service turned over the artifacts — the oldest leather shields known from North America — to Navajo officials last Thursday, ending a four-year long ownership dispute. The tribe's headquarters are in Window Rock, Arizona. "Indeed, a number of claims were made and the Navajo Nation claim prevailed," said Al Hendricks, Capitol Reef National Park superintendent. The shields were on display there for 46 years.

Artifacts hunter Ephraim P. Pectol discovered the decorated shields in a shallow rock shelter below Boulder Mountain in south-central Utah in 1926. The three large buffalo hides were carefully padded with shredded juniper bark and covered with a layer of dirt. Carbon dating placed their construction between 1420 and 1640, likely toward the end of that range. Because the shields were found on federal land, they were placed at nearby Capitol Reef in 1953. They remained on display at the visitors center there until 1999 when the Navajo tribe claimed them, citing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Six tribes, including Utes from Uintah County and Colorado and Kaibab Paiutes from Fredonia, Ariz., filed requests for the shields. Also, some descendants of the man who found them contested the valuable antiquities leaving Utah. The artifacts were stored in a government repository in Tucson, Ariz., until the ownership question was resolved. After consultation with anthropologists and archaeologists over two years, the Park Service determined the shields belonged to the Navajos. "The strongest claim was made by the Navajo Nation," Hendricks said.

The decision was based largely on oral tradition, specifically the recollection of an elderly Navajo medicine man thought to be the last of those trained in ancient rituals using the shields. The healer told officials his grandfather was the last man to have the shields before they were hidden. The three shields were created centuries ago for an ancient protection ceremony that included songs and prayers. They were handed down from generation to generation. During a U.S. Army roundup of the Navajo for interment in a New Mexico prison camp in the 1860s, the two medicine men responsible for the shields fled to Utah from Arizona. One of them stashed them in the mountains of what is now Wayne County. He died before he could retrieve them or tell anyone how to find them.

Artists give Native American perspectives on Lewis and Clark
In Miles Miller's work "Peace, Peese, Sinew," doll-size human figures dangle, mobile-style, from the ceiling at the Maryhill Museum of Art. Their hands are bound. In the artist's note next to the piece, he explains: " 'Peace, Peese, Sinew' is not a representation of hanging white people, as someone asked me ... "

Peace, Peese, Sinew Artwork by Miles Miller

The figures depict departing spirits — the Earth, the free-flowing Columbia River, salmon, deer, roots, berries and the Indian people themselves — and an exodus of the life-guiding soul. Miller, who is Yakama and Nez Perce, is one of 13 Columbia River tribal artists whose works are being shown in "Reflecting on Lewis and Clark — Contemporary American Indian Viewpoints" through November 15, 2003. The 1805 passage of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark with the Corps of Discovery through the Columbia River Gorge en route to the Pacific Ocean brought with it the beginning of a series of dramatic and devastating changes for the people who had lived here relatively undisturbed by outsiders for centuries.

And yet little of the exhibition's art is overtly angry. The messages are more subtle, like Pat Courtney Gold's woven storage baskets that tell stories of life on the river. They are decorated with small images such as sturgeon, including one with a deformed fin she calls a Hanford nuclear reservation sturgeon. "I believe each one of us, inside, there is some anger that each one of us holds on to," said Miller, of Wapato. "That's not the message we wanted to bring across. Certainly there are other American Indian people who are angry about Lewis and Clark coming across America. I think rather than be angry, we need to talk about this history so we can be at peace and everybody else can learn something." The works are new, but many of the influences are traditional, and some show the integration of modern life with the old ways. Chuck Williams of Mosier, a Cascade-Grand Ronde, offered a 1995 color photograph called "Mickey goes to the Rez," of a young Indian boy, decked out for a powwow, wwaring a beaded chest piece of Mickey Mouse.

A delicate piece in wood, foil and ceramic by Portland, Ore., artist Lillian Pitt, a Wasco-Wishxam, shows tiny salmon drying on a wood rack. "For over 10,000 years, native people lived in the N'Chewana area in harmony with the natural world," Pitt wrote about the piece "When There Were Many Salmon." "To this day, the sacredness of all things, animate and inanimate, continues to keep us going."

The exhibition, which opened July 13 to a packed house, was three years in the making. With most public art, particularly paintings, along the Lewis and Clark trail focusing on the European or white perspective, the museum's Lee Musgrave suggested offering a different view point. "To my knowledge, we're the only institution to do that," he said. The museum sits on a bluff in the Gorge, just upriver from what was long ago a huge trading center that drew tribes from across the Northwest. The expedition passed through the area in October 1805 and again in April 1806. Some of the artists had to research the subject before contributing something for the exhibition. "A lot of Indian people in general are not that interested in Lewis and Clark," said Gold, a Wasco-Tlingit, who lives in Scappoose, Ore., and is the exhibition curator.

OGLALA RIDERS RETRACE HISTORY

The descendants of Crazy Horse trotted across 360 miles of prairie for a chance to charge up Last Stand Hill early this morning. The 20 riders of the Great Sioux Nation Victory Ride set out June 9 from the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. They wanted to take a slow, contemplative path to the battlefield where their ancestors found victory 127 years ago. It was a chance to remind the tribe's young people of the one unmistakable outcome of the battle, rider Doug War Eagle said. "We're still here," he said.

Tuesday night the riders pitched tents in a cottonwood grove along the Little Bighorn River, about 400 yards from where Crazy Horse and his family camped. Not far away camps were filled with horsemen and women from other tribes. They will all be galloping across the battlefield today to mark the Indian Memorial dedication. Horses were vital in Plains Indian culture, and it's only fitting they play a starring role in the dedication, said Kitty Belle Deernose, curator of the battlefield museum. "Indian people are still very much a horse culture," she said.

The Crow are sending 200 riders, including one riderless horse to honor Pfc. Lori Piestewa, a Hopi soldier who was mortally wounded in a March 23 ambush in Iraq. She was the first American Indian servicewoman killed in action. The Oglala Sioux have sent 39 riders. The Northern Cheyenne will decorate 20 horses before riding up to the monument to honor their fallen warriors. The Cheyenne-Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma have also sent a horse, Deernose said. Mel Lonehill, of Batesland, S.D., is part of the Oglala delegation, "Lokal Oyate Kawilau," which translates to "Gathering of the Traditional People." The group began riding on battle anniversaries 10 years ago. "We honor our ancestors by riding," Lonehill said.

Horses came to the Plains Indians with the Spanish conquistadors. The Sioux called them the "holy dog," Lonehill said. "The horse came to our people and said he would travel with us if we would respect him." Re-enacting a horse charge up Last Stand Hill is an amazing feeling, Lonehill said. If the rider is focused and spiritually prepared, he can visualize oncoming enemy warriors, even with tourists as spectators. The Cheyenne River Sioux riders used their horseback journey to the battlefield as a chance to educate young people on traditional values. During the two weeks of the Great Sioux Nation Victory Ride, the descendants of Crazy Horse camped in sites once covered by their ancestors' teepees. They told stories each night and paid respects to their traditional allies, the Northern Cheyenne.

A support crew drove ahead each day to set up camps. The riders raised their own money but received food and places to stay along the way. The horses spent every third day at rest in a trailer, said rider Scott Dupree. The riders weren't always so lucky. "I was sore by the time we got here," he said.

The days were long and hard, but spirits surged at the sight of the Deer Medicine Rocks outside of Lame Deer, said rider Floyd Clown. The group was given permission to camp next to the sacred rock formations, which bear prophetic drawings of the battle and the eventual murder of Sitting Bull. The ride was mostly to infuse traditional values in the young people, Clown said. Marking the Indian memorial dedication is just a side event. "Our monument is already there," Clown said. "That big, white monument up on Last Stand Hill shows our victory. It shows that our grandfathers were already here."

Chief Cypress

Seminole Tribe Inaugurates New Leader - The Associated Press
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) - The Seminole Tribe of Florida has its new leader in place. Mitchell Cypress, the tribe's former vice chairman, was inaugurated Monday as the tribe's new chairman. He was elected to the post last month, becoming the first new chairman since James E. Billie was elected in 1979. Cypress will lead the tribe and its $300 million gambling empire. He also controls an annual allotment of $15 million. Cypress took an oath of office Monday to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the Seminole one. The new Tribal Council and board of directors also were inaugurated. They vowed to protect the best interests of the 2,800-member tribe. Cypress said he plans to focus on issues such as education, housing and preserving the tribal languages.

"I think the new elected officials are going to be working together - the board and the council," he said after a 90-minute ceremony that about 500 people attended. "Whatever we accomplish, it is going to benefit the tribal members." Billie, 59, was ousted by the Tribal Council in March for alleged shady financial practices. After he was unsuccessful in seeking to be reinstated, he insisted that he should be able to run in the election. But the tribe said no.

Healing at Ground Zero - By Richard Simonelli
The healing gifts of the 100 Eagle Feather Hoop were brought to Ground Zero on a cloudy, blustery day in April of 2003. By a miracle, or a great stroke of luck, the White Bison Hoop Journey IV group was granted access to the visitor's platform inside the 9/11 site on April 17 in order to perform a special Healing ceremony with the Hoop. Some twenty-five participants, a few who came from a great distance, took part in the healing event carried out by Don Coyhis, White Bison President and inspiration for the yearly Hoop Journeys.

"I think it was a miracle that we got into Ground Zero," Coyhis said. "We couldn't have asked for anything more, I don't think." The American Indian Community House in New York City tried through official channels to get a permit for the Indian ceremony for a number of months, but to no avail. It took an on-the-spot sympathetic Port Authority police lieutenant and some help from Creator to let the Native ceremony take place inside Ground Zero that morning.

With the Hoop at the center of a circle, a special Wiping of the Tears ceremony took place with the purpose of freeing spirits still clinging to the site, so they might complete their Journey to the Spirit world. Another purpose of the ceremony was to heal wounds for everyone connected to what took place at the World Trade Center location on September 11, 2001. To support this, the Hoop's power of forgiveness was called upon, as it has been since the first formal cross country Hoop Journey in 1999.

The 100 Eagle feather Hoop is said to carry of the four Gifts of Healing, Hope, Unity, and the Power to Forgive the Unforgivable, which it has held since its spiritual empowerment by a group of multicultural Elders in Janesville, Wisconsin in June of 1995. Since then, tens of thousands of people have come to pray at the Hoop in communities all across America as part of the Wellbriety Movement for sobriety, addictions recovery, and wellness.

"The ceremony was really very emotional," Coyhis said. "It's hard to explain it. We all felt we were on the verge of tears. We really don't know what went on there. We only know is was very spiritual, very powerful, and very lasting."

After the event inside Ground Zero the Hoop was carried in ceremony through the busy sidewalks of lower Manhattan and up to the American Indian Community House at 708 Broadway. There, a Wellbriety Day presentation was given by the White Bison group. The learning experience in New York consisted of a slide presentation, the viewing of a documentary of the Hoop Journey which took place in 2002, and a talking circle on Indian sobriety and wellness at which twenty-five participants shared their words and hearts with one another.

Honored participants at both the Ground Zero ceremony and the Wellbriety activities at the Indian Center were Ali El Issa and Maeh-Ki El Issa, husband and son, respectively, of Ingrid Washinawatok El Issa, who was killed in Colombia in a tragic event in 1999. The Flying Eagle Woman Fund, started by Ingrid Washinawatok El Issa and now led by Husband Ali is located in the same building as the American Indian Community House. The Indian Center and its Executive Director Rosemary Richmond provided a warm reception and a great feast for all those connected with the Journey of the Sacred Hoop visit in New York.

The Ceremony at Ground Zero focused on the Hoop's fourth gift: Healing through forgiveness. As a result of the Native American Hoop Ceremony at the 9/11 site on April 17, White Bison plans to dedicate each succeeding April 17 as a Native American Forgiveness day. "We are going to declare April 17 to be a national forgiveness day," Coyhis said. "Every April 17 we will be encouraging circles of different communities to get together and come together to forgive. We would like to encourage churches and groups of all colors to start to use that forgiveness for personal, family, community and nation-wide healing."

Hoop Journey IV continues its 6000 mile pilgrimage East of the Mississippi River with a focus on Healing Native men and children. Day-long visits are planned to continue until concluding on May 23, in Oneida, Wisconsin. Visit the White Bison website at www.whitebison.org or call toll free 1-877-871-1495 for more information.

NASA Calls on Cherokee Nation To Locate Space Shuttle Debris
TAHLEQUAH - The Cherokee Nation recently answered a call to help NASA locate debris from the space shuttle Columbia with their Geographic Positioning System (GPS) equipment. The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere Saturday, February 1. “It (the GPS equipment) tells them where all the pieces of the shuttle landed and that information can help them determine when it broke up,” said John Freise, environmental specialist with the Cherokee Nation. A mass e-mail was sent out on Tuesday, February 4, to organizations that owned this type of equipment asking for their assistance. Around thirty people with the equipment responded according to Freise.

“People were really happy to be able to help,” Freise said. “Especially all of the civilians. There were people there who were radio operators, people with horses and ATV’s, and the Red Cross was set up with food for everyone who volunteered.” Freise and the other volunteers worked fourteen hours, in the rain, locating debris from the space shuttle. During his shift, Freise located 42 pieces of debris. “We went out with a State Trooper,” Friese said. “First, we mapped out the location and then the trooper gathered the debris.”

The Cherokee Nation Firedancers were sent out earlier last week to begin the process of locating the debris before the GPS equipment operators arrived.

From left to right: Sweetgrass Road Drum Group members Linell Maytwayashing, Raven Hart-Bellecourt,Tara Campeau, (little girl unidentified), and Shanolyn Maytwayashing

Women at Host Drums!
Bring up women and singing at the drum in the Native American community and the reactions are strong. So strong, no one wished to be quoted or identified. "It's tradition" and "It's just not done that way" were the many strong sentiments voiced by both men and women of varying ages. While there are tribes which allow women to sing at the drum, there is also the wide belief that women are too powerful to be at the drum or touch the drumsticks, especially during their moon (menstruation). It is, however, acceptable for women to sing, standing behind the male singers or while using hand drums. One elder remarked that there are even songs that aren't to be sung by women and that that is being abused today. Hart-Bellecourt believes the time has come for tradition to no longer remain static.

"I think a lot of people are ignorant. What we need today is not what was needed then. I think this is a clear case of discrimination because if it was tradition, what is a non-aboriginal doing running the powwow and non-aboriginal dancers wearing eagle feathers. It's okay to dance for money, but it's not okay for you to sing because you're a women? I don't see it having anything to do with tradition. It's ignorance," she said. Vernon Bellecourt (White Earth Anishinabe/Ojibway), a Native American activist, said he raised his daughter "to fight back if she feels it's wrong."

"The powwows are new, about 50 years old, not the way you know them today. Their purpose was to honor soldiers returning from war. The general consensus now is, make it up as you go along... They'll be hard pressed to prove it in the court system that it's their religious conviction to not allow women to sing at the drum. Women are allowed to sing at the drum," said Bellecourt. Wallace Coffey, former chairman of Comanche Tribe of Oklahoma, speaker and well-known powwow MC, is cultural resource specialist at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. "There has always been a history of women singers. I was the MC at Hinckley (Minnesota powwow) when (Sweetgrass) sang there. We've made major changes in Indian Country. There are female MCs and arena directors, which are normally male duties. Maybe those times have changed," he said. "I'm not opposed or against. I've seen many, many changes. In Southern Buckskin (dancing), the women used to have a single center feather, now they wear plumes. Traditions are falling to the side. I'm one of those guys who believes we need to take care to keep our traditions," said Coffey.

Hart-Bellecourt sees her singing as a way to involve and teach the youth. "We come from a generation of abuse. We're trying to hold on to the little bit we have left. A lot of the girls cried they were so hurt. There used to not be women fancy shawl dancers, now there are many. Now we're lawyers, doctors, performers. We have to welcome change, especially if it's positive. They were judgmental, they say 'that's not the Indian way,' but that's not the Indian way!" she said. "If the men are so against us singing, maybe they should take more of a responsibility and teach our children - don't criticize. This is for our children and we're not going to let anybody stop us."

Dee Brown, whose novel Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee helped bring attention to atrocities against Indians, died Thursday. He was 94. His works - he wrote 29 books - examined the history of the American West and drew attention to the decline of American Indian culture. In Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, Brown used witness accounts and quotes from Indians to construct a history of the government's mistreatment of the continent's indigenous people. The book sold more than 5 million copies.

American Indians Honor Astronaut in Prelaunch Ceremony
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Tribal members beat drums, performed ancient dances and recited traditional chants in a garden of old rockets to honor NASA's first American Indian astronaut. John Herrington, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, had not yet boarded space shuttle Endeavour on Sunday night when the launch was delayed, right around the time the ceremony in his honor was ending. A young woman sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Navajo, and a Chickasaw dance troupe encircled Herrington's parents in the hourlong ceremony. About 1,000 people watched the ceremony featuring Chickasaw, Navajo and Seminole tribal members in the rocket garden at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

"Heavenly Father, we thank you for the night you have given us. I want you to guide him on his journey," said Lee Frazier, a Chickasaw tribal elder from Ada, Okla. "Heavenly father, we want to tell you that we're proud and ask for Your blessing." Frazier was one of about 200 Chickasaw members who traveled from Oklahoma to Cape Canaveral to watch Herrington's launch aboard Endeavour, which had been scheduled for early Monday morning. They missed out on that opportunity when NASA delayed the launch at least one week because of a shuttle oxygen leak.

Many of the tribe members had to head back home to Oklahoma because of work and school obligations. Bill Anoatubby, governor of the Chickasaw Nation, said Indians all over the country are excited about Herrington's launch - whenever it occurs. "He's a hero for everyone," Anoatubby said. "Besides, he's a pretty nice guy." The 10 members of the Chickasaw Dance Troupe performed a traditional "honor" dance around the astronaut's parents, James and Joyce Herrington of Spicewood, Texas, and presented them with a flute and other gifts. Male dancers wore black fedoras with feathers, and female dancers wore ruffled dresses with turtle-shell rattles tied to their legs.

Jerry Elliott, an aerospace technologist at Houston's Johnson Space Center who is of Osage-Cherokee descent, played a mournful melody on his flute. He recounted how Herrington had wanted to visit a sacred site in South Dakota's Black Hills, Bear Butte, but was too busy at work. The 44-year-old Herrington, though, plans to carry into space a small rock from the sacred site. "John, I want you to look down when you go over the Black Hills and there might be an eagle flying there," Elliott said.

Buffy Sainte-Marie, a songwriter of Cree Indian descent, sang "Up Where We Belong," an anthem she wrote that was used in the 1982 film, "An Officer and a Gentleman." "We've been waiting so long for John to go up," Sainte-Marie said. "It means so much to us, for our self-esteem."

CRAZY HORSE MEMORIAL!
The Crazy Horse mountain carving now in progress will be the world’s largest sculpture (563' high, 641' long, carved in the round). It is the focal point of an educational and cultural memorial to and for the North American Indian. The memorial is not a federal or state project. It is a non-profit (501-c-3) project begun in 1947, when sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski (1908-1982) arrived in the Black Hills to accept the invitation of Lakota chiefs to carve Crazy Horse. The nine-story-high face of Crazy Horse was completed and unveiled June3, 1998. Work is now underway on the 22-story-high horse's head. The project is being continued by Korczak’s wife, Ruth, and their large family. The huge visitor complex includes the beautiful Indian Museum, Educational and Cultural Center, the sculptor’s studio-home and workshop, and much more. Financed primarily from an admission charge, the memorial is open year-round. The Laughing Water Restaurant overlooking the mountain is open in season.

“The goal of this legislation is to provide the remaining restricted Indian allotments in eastern Oklahoma with the same level of protection that is afforded trust allotments in western Oklahoma and elsewhere in the United States,” Watkins said. “The bill puts the Five Nations on fair and equal footing with other federally-recognized tribes.”

“I am pleased to have been able to work so closely with Congressman Watkins on this issue, which brings equity to citizens of the Five Civilized Tribes and is important to many people in Oklahoma,” Carson said. Leaders of the Five Tribes support the bill unanimously. “Indian people in eastern Oklahoma now hold just one-third of one percent of the land they held 100 years ago,” said Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. “This bill will help keep that land base from eroding any further.”

The Five Nations Indian Land Reform Act now moves to the Senate for approval. The tribal leaders are now asking Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Senator Don Nickles (R-Okla.) to pass the bill immediately. “When this bill is signed into law, it will mark the end of 100 years of federal policy that operated to separate members of the Five Tribes from their land,” Smith said. “Congressmen Watkins and Carson must be commended for their efforts to finally bring some equity to Indian landowners in eastern Oklahoma. Restricted Indian land will continue to be lost until this bill becomes law.

The United States Congress bestowed one of its highest honors, the Congressional Gold Medal, on the 29 Navajo code talkers who developed the unbreakable military code that helped the United States to victory. President George W. Bush attended and presented the medals to 4 of the 5 living Navajo code-creators and the families of the others (2001). MGM hosted the reception to follow the medal ceremony in celebration of the honorees and to herald its epic motion picture Windtalkers, the first film to tell the story of the Navajo Marine code talkers' secret program of WWII.

Examples of the Navajo code: - submarines were called BESH-LO (iron fish); dive bombers were called GINI(chicken hawks); Japan was called BEH-NA-ALI-TSOSIE (slant eye). Most words were just pronounced in Navajo... for instance: encircle is YE-NAS-TEH and intercept is YEL-NA-ME-JAH. Sometimes words were translated this way: Bull dozer was DOLA-ALTH-WHOSH (bull sleep!) and belong was TSES-NAH-SNEZ (long bee!).

Miracle

Sent to me by Yona
ELDER'S MEDITATION

In the center of the circle is where the powers reside.
These powers are called love, principle, justice,
spiritual knowledge, life, forgiveness and truth.
All these powers reside in the very center of the human being.
We access these powers by being still, quieting the mind.
If we get confused, emotionally upset, feel resentment,
anger, or fear, the best thing we can do
is pray to the Great Spirit and ask Him to remove the anger
and resentment.
By asking Him to remove these obstacles,
we are automatically positioned in the sacred center.
Only in this way do we know right from wrong.

Great Spirit, allow me this day to live in the sacred center.

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Call to Action: Protect Yellowstone Buffalo

The Montana Department of Livestock and federal officials have brutally slaughtered more than 1,200 buffalo outside of Yellowstone National Park over the past four winters. The killings continue to this day. The decimation America's last wild buffalo herd represents a national tragedy for all peoples. Native peoples, who have a deep spiritual and cultural relationship with the great buffalo, are outraged and grief stricken by the murders.

Buffalo are a keystone species essential to the ecological health of the Great Plains, and central to the cultural health of plains tribes. The murder of 60 million buffalo a century ago was a deliberate military assault on Native peoples and made room for a cattle dominated economy on the prairie. Today, buffalo are again being killed to accommodate cows and faulty agricultural policy. The state of Montana and federal agencies claim the killings are necessary because buffalo may allegedly spread a disease called brucellosis to cattle. There has never been one case of a buffalo transmitting this disease to a cow in the wild.

Restore the Buffalo Nation

The birth of the White Buffalo Calf symbolizes hope for the re-birth of the Buffalo Nation. While the state of Montana and federal agencies kill Yellowstone buffalo, Native peoples are bringing back our elder brother–and in doing so, restoring the health of the people and the land. More than 47 tribes are members of the InterTribal Bison Cooperative and have established their own buffalo herds, and numerous grassroots projects are being developed to restore buffalo to Native lands and communities. It would make sense to relocate Yellowstone buffalo who wander outside the Park to tribal herds and federal grasslands, rather than slaughtering them. And there are other viable options, such as vaccinating cows and re-acquiring lands the federal government has designated for wildlife but leases to cattlemen for grazing. Your support is needed to pressure the Park Service and state of Montana to cease killing buffalo and implement a plan that provides for the sustainability of the herd and the ecosystem.

What you can do

The National Park Service and other federal and state agencies have proposed several plans for managing the Yellowstone buffalo herd over the next 15 years. All of the plans have one thing in common: lethal control of buffalo. More than 65,000 people have already voiced their opposition to these plans. Help create a stronger voice and actualize change! Please express your opposition to the Yellowstone buffalo slaughter!

Write to: Bruce Babbit, US Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240 or Call him at 202/208-3100; or e-mail to bruce_babbit@los.doi.gov

Wado!

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Part 2 of “Dances With Wolves” A book review of Michael Blake’s “The Holy Road” by Leta Rector

For anyone who shed tears (and didn’t we all) as Wind In His Hair perched atop that precarious ledge and proclaimed, “Can you see that I am your friend?” author Michael Blake is back with the rest of the story. Unlike Paul Harvey’s rest of the story, this next period of time the book addresses has no mirth or triumph or exhilaration. There is, however, great value in this book for anyone who doesn’t know what really happened in the history of this country.

The book opens with the “Dances With Wolves” character (the “lieutentant” formerly known as Dunbear) and wife Christine Gunther (that would be Stands With a Fist) back with the tribe. But the book is really not about the “Dances” character this time.

This book might be called “The Next Generation.” Blake dedicates ‘The Holy Road,’ “to all the warriors who died. And to those who live on . . . Marianne, Quanah, Monahsetah, Lozen.” Nice that he acknowledged that there were women warriors also. “The Holy road” starts out ominously and gets worse from there. About the only pleasure in the book is the description of Smiles A Lot as he becomes smitten.

“With a single look that lasted no more than a second or two, (she) turned Smiles A Lot’s world upside down... it was directed squarely at Smiles A Lot and carried the power of a mortal blow.” Ahh, young love!

“The first person to see them was a twelve-year-old girl named Red Dress. She was sitting outside her parents’ dwelling, playing house with a miniature lodge and dolls. As she stood up Red Dress realized that the rolling cloud was being made by a band of riders hurtling toward her. Frozen with fear, Red Dress sank to the ground, drove her face into the earth, and covered both ears.

“Moments later . . . a bullet slammed into the back of her head, ending the girl’s life.”

I’ve played a massacred dead body more times than I care to remember as an actress, a testament to being Indian. I always thought the visual of film would be the most compelling record of that part of our history. But this written description riveted me and affected me as powerfully as any movie. This book reminds me of a horror movie about a serial killer. When will he strike next? The book is one long nauseating downhill slide. It’s kind of like reading delicious descriptions of every sensation one would experience in a trip that culminates in a train wreck. The book is now in pre-production, being turned into a movie even as we read. There is a reason that books go, “And they all lived happily ever after.” If you feel like immersing yourself in sadness and grief, you will get plenty of that.