One of my cousins made this, for the Mashpee Wampanoags. I am going to get all of the names of the tribal members in the pics, but the first pic (the W) is my grandmother Pearl Hammond Tobey, and the O is Blind Joe Amos, Pearl’s great-grandfather on her dad Lorenzo’s side. Pretty sure the N is the always-hot Annawon Weedon.
Concilio Taíno Guatu-Ma-cu A Borikén
“We are a Taino pueblo, blood descendants of the native people that Christopher Columbus encountered on his first voyage to the Americas. Our Yukayeke (Taino village) is led by Cacike Caciba Opil (Chief Sacred Rock of the Spirit). He was elected by the women of our Yukayeke in Taino tradition. We are a Taino people under restoration. Our pueblo was founded in 1992 as a registered nonprofit corporation in the Department of State of Puerto Rico, and incorporated as The Concilio Guatu-ma-cu A Boriken, Inc. in 2000. We received Federal nonprofit recognition (501C3) in 2007. We integrate Taino descendants into our yukayeke everyday, and for that reason our pueblo is growing. We include people from across the island of Boriken (Puerto Rico), the United States (including New York and Texas), Dominican Republic, and Europe. Taino traditions, spirituality and ancestral ceremonies based in the Taino religion are alive in our pueblo.”
SC Supreme Court won’t rehear adoption case
The South Carolina Supreme Court will not reconsider its decision sending a Native American girl back to Oklahoma. The child’s adoptive parents who live in Charleston asked the court earlier this month to rehear the case. Court officials said the request was denied on Aug. 22.
“A massacre of up to 80 Yanomami Indians has taken place in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas, according to claims emerging from the region, prompting the government to send in investigators.
Blame is being placed on illegal garimpeiro miners who cross the border from Brazil to prospect for gold and have clashed violently with Amazon tribes before. According to local testimonies an armed group flew over in a helicopter, opening fire with guns and launching explosives into Irotatheri settlement in the High Ocamo area. The village was home to about 80 people and only three had been accounted for as survivors, according to people from a neighbouring village and indigenous rights activists.”
Insular, 2008 by Kate MccGwire
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inspired by a fire in her studio in 2007
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Up Heartbreak Hill
Thomas and Tamara are track stars at their rural New Mexico high school. Like many teenagers, they are torn between the lure of brighter futures elsewhere and the ties that bind them to home. For these teens, however, home is an impoverished town on the Navajo reservation, and leaving means separating from family, tradition and the land that has been theirs for generations. Erica Scharf’s Up Heartbreak Hill is a moving look at a new generation of Americans struggling to be both Native and modern.
A co-production of Long Distance Films, Native American Public Telecommunications, ITVS, POV’s Diverse Voices Project and New Mexico PBS, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. A co-presentation with Native American Public Telecommunications.
Native American women in the London 2012 Olympics! from top to bottom, right to left:
Mary Killman, US synchronized swimming (Potawatomi)
Mary Killman (right), born in Ada, Oklahoma, 21, was a member of the USA Synchro Junior Nationals Team in 2008 and was named the USA Synchro Athlete of the Year in 2010 and 2011. “Representing the United States is an amazing honor,” she said. “To be able to not only represent my country, but also my sport, and have a bit of Native American pride as well just makes it all better!”
All the hard work and training she has put into making it to where she’s at today has been lined with confidence, something she feels is crucial to success. “The most powerful thing you can have is confidence in yourself,” says Killman. “There are always going to be rough times but if you keep pushing and just believe you can, you can achieve things you’ve only dreamed about. This works in not only athletics but in life in general. I’ve worked years trying to make my dream a reality and it’s finally coming true.”
One of Killman’s heroes is the above-mentioned Thorpe. “He’s definitely someone who had to work insanely hard to get every bit of recognition he got. He’s proof that you can do anything if you set your mind to it…I’ve always been brought up with something my dad always said, ‘rather you can see yourself doing or not, you’re right.”
Mary Spencer, Canada boxing (Ojibway)
The 2012 London games marks the debut of women’s boxing and First Nation Ojibway Mary Spencer set off as one of Canada’s best bets; a sure contender for gold. Spencer nearly lost her chance of competing in this year’s game after a surprising and disappointing first round loss at the women’s world championships in China that served as the qualifier for the 2012 Olympics. A few agonizing weeks later, she learned she had been awarded the wild card and became the lone Americas Continental group selection by the Tripartite Commission in the middleweight (75kg) class.
Spencer began boxing in 2002 at the age of 17. In an interview with the International Amateur Boxing Association she said, “I was always a sports fanatic and I took up boxing after my basketball season ended and I wanted to keep in shape. Since then I have not looked back, the energy in boxing is unrivalled in sports.”
From her beginning days in the sport, she has been described as a natural and very quickly started training under three-time Olympic coach Charlie Stewart at the Windsor Amateur Boxing Club in Ontario, Canada. Under his guidance and her hardwork, she’s become an 8-time nation champion, 3-time world champion and 5-time Pan-American champion.
Not only is she a fierce fighter in the ring, she’s proof positive there’s true splendor in being a strong woman as she was named as an ambassador for Cover Girl. Of the endorsement Cover Girls says they are, “proud to support Mary Spencer to help celebrate the power and strength in beauty.” She is also a member of the Motivate Canada’s GEN7 Aboriginal role model initiative. Her participation in the program includes developing sport, physical activity and empowerment programming with Aboriginal youth in First Nation communities in Ontario.
Tumua Anae, US water polo (Hawaiian)
Tumua Anae heads into the 2012 games as the goalie for the US National Water Polo team. Anae, full name Tumuaialli Anea, is a Native Hawaiian whose grandfather emigrated there from Samoa in the 1920’s.
Tumua attended the University of Southern California where she majored in broadcast journalism. While at USC, she played goalie for their water polo team all four years of her college career and then began training with the National team the summer after her senior year. One the road to becoming an Olympic athlete, Tumua racked in honors with her incredible talent in the pool. Among other things, she was part of the 2005 and 2006 CIF Water Polo Champions Division II, a finalist for the 2010 Peter J. Cutino Award and 2010 NCAA champion. More recently, she had 8 saves as backup goalie at the 2011 FINA World Championships as well as the 2011 FINA World League Super Final, in which she won gold, 7 saves in Team USA’s gold medal win at the 2011 Pan American Games, and a whopping 16 saves at the 2012 FINA World League Super Final. Finally, in May of this year, she was selected to the Olympic team as backup to Betsey Armstrong, whom many consider the best women’s water polo player in the world.
Adrienne Lyle, US dressage (Cherokee)
Adrienne Lyle, a Cherokee Nation citizen, comes to her first Olympic games as one of America’s youngest dressage riders at the age of 27 in a sport that commonly has Olympians double her age. She earned her spot by placing fourth-place at the U.S. Equestrian Federation Dressage Festival of Champions and USEF Dressage Olympic Selection Trials while riding Wizard, a 13-year-old Oldenburg gelding by Weltmeyer.
Lyle, coming from humble beginnings being raised on a small cattle ranch in Whidbey Island, Wash., shot to stardom in the dressage world after working some with Debbie McDonald (an extremely successful dressage rider in her own right) as a working student at Peggy and Parry Thomas’s River Grove Farm in Idaho in 2005, in 2006 as a fulltime assistant trainer and then competing with Wizard in their first Grand Prix in 2009.
These young women exemplify where hard work, discipline and the courage to put your dreams in motion can lead to. Many throughout Indian Country will be keeping an eye on these ladies as they strive for gold in these coming weeks.
Hoop Dancer Nakotah Larance Jazzes Up “Geronimo” by The Knocks and Fred Falke.
First Nation’s band Digging Roots video for Spring to Come
In love.
I got this in an email, pass it along.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is seeking persons
with fluency in Lakota or Yup’ik to serve on an as-needed (intermittent)
basis as Federal Voting Rights Observers. Lakota speakers are especially
needed for the upcoming South Dakota Primary in June.
Duties: Observers monitor voting procedures at polling sites, and write
reports of what they see and hear.
Qualifications:
. U.S. citizenship
. 18 years of age or older
. Skill in the Lakota or the Yup’ik language
. Solid writing skills in English
. For Lakota speakers: At this time, we can only deploy observers who (1) do
not live in Shannon County, SD, (2) do not have immediate family living in
Shannon County, or (3) are not members of the Oglala-Sioux tribe.
. For Yup’ik speakers: We are only able to deploy observers who live outside
the Bethel Census Area.
Current Federal Employees:
Federal employees may serve as observers (being paid by OPM), provided that
they take annual leave or leave without pay from their home agencies while
on Voting Rights coverage. Normally, coverage lasts from Sunday to
Wednesday.
Pay:
. $20.22/hr (plus overtime) for all time working, in training, and in
transit
. Reimbursement for local travel, meals, and incidental expenses at
Government per diem rates
. Hotel and airfare costs are borne in advance by OPM
To Apply Online:
. Go to https://ApplicationManager.gov.
. Click “Create an Account” at the bottom of the screen, and enter all
requested information.
. After you have created your account, enter 584940 under “Start a New
Application” and click “Go.”
. Then answer all questions completely and to the best of your ability.
For more information about OPM’s Voting Rights Program, call toll-free at
1-866-885-4122.
Being Indian vs. Possessing proof of Indianness
