Native Village 

Youth and Education News

June 23, 2004,  Issue 136 Volume 3

"Don't ever make fun of each other. Don't ever put down another Indian person. In this world, we have enough people outside to put us down. We can change that, and the change will come with you young people that are here today." Dave Anderson, Ojibwa

Sheriff says uniform curfew to take effect on Flathead Reservation
The new curfew for people 17 and younger on the Flathead Reservation will be from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, and midnight to 6 a.m. Friday and Saturday. The strict curfew is a response to increased alcohol and drug activity, crime and other problems affecting local youths, said Fred Matt, chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. "The tribes support an earlier curfew as a preventive step. We want to reduce the potential for problems, and above all, we want to help our parents be accountable for their children and their safety," Matt said.  In some communities, the curfew will be announced by the sounding of a fire siren.
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2004/06/12/news/local/news02.txt  

Profiles of American-Indian and Alaska-Native Children from the 2000 Census
Profiles of American-Indian and Alaska-Native Children from the 2000 Census is a series of one-page profiles about children's well-being in the 23 largest tribes and groups of tribes in the country. The report profiles similarities and differences among children that include demographics, housing, economics, geographic information, and social characteristics. There were 840,000 children identified as American Indian or Alaska Native. The tribal groups include:

Read the report:  Tribal Groupings document.: http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/american_indian.htm

Inuit women want to bring birth closer to home
Inuit women say they want to give birth in their communities with the help of Inuit midwives.  Many Arctic mothers are forced to leave their communities to give birth in larger centres. They say that's difficult for them and their spouses. Twenthy-three-year-old Mathilda Dicker gave birth to her first baby far away from home.  She was alone--her partner couldn't afford a plane ticket to be with her. "When I was in labor he was on the phone so that helped me out a little bit. But, that wasn't enough," says Dicker. Until recently, women didn't leave home to have child. Babies were delivered by traditional Inuit midwives. Women here would like to return to that practice.
http://north.cbc.ca/

Our Daily Frybread
The Yakama Tribal WIC Program has published a Native American Food Guide based on the U.S. Food Guide Pyramid.  The pyramid ranks five major food categories. The following outlines traditional Northwest Indian foods.

BREAD GROUP - choose 6 - 11 servings per day
These foods provide carbohydrate for energy, fiber for healthy digestion, plus iron and B vitamins.
Traditional Grains:
Indian biscuits (Bannock bread)
Dried corn
Lukameen
Mush
Wild oats
Wild rice
Popcorn

VEGETABLE GROUP - choose 3 - 5 servings per day
These food provide vitamins A an C, plus fiber for healthy digestion.
Traditional Vegetables:
Sprouts or new shoots
Peeled stems
Spring Greens
Wild Rhubarb
Indian Celery
Wild Mushrooms
Wild roots such as bitter root, camas, and cattail
Seaweed
Black tree moss
MEAT GROUP - choose 2 - 3 servings per day
These food provide protein for developing and maintaining strong bodies, plus iron for healthy blood.
Traditional Meats, Fish, Birds, Eggs, and Nuts:
Deer, elk, mountain goat, rabbit, squirrel, or beaver
Seal or Whale
Salmon or other Fish
Oysters, clams, sea urchin, mussels, crab squid, or octopus
Ducks, geese, pheasant, grouse, quail, or chuckers
Eggs of salmon or birds
Acorns, hazelnuts, or pinenuts

DAIRY GROUP - choose 2 - 3 servings per day
These foods provide calcium for strong bones and teeth, plus protein.
Traditional Calcium Sources:
Breast milk for babies
Bone soup or broth
Fish head soup
Canned salmon with the bones
Coush, camas or wild carrots (in large amounts)
Oyster or clams

FRUIT GROUP - Choose 2 - 3 servings per day
These foods provide protein for developing and maintaining strong bodies, plus iron for healthy blood.
Traditional Fruits and Berries:
Wild berries such as huckleberries
Choke cherries
Wild crab apples
Wild black cherries

EXTRAS: FATS & SWEETS - use only very small amounts!
These foods provide lots of extra calories, but few of the vitamins and minerals that our bodies need to function well.
Traditional Fats and Sweets
Animal fat
Fish Oil
Honey
http://www.aaip.com/tradmed/tradmedfoodguide.html

Santa Ana Pueblo's Cooking Post
SANTA ANA PUEBLO, N.M. - Santa Ana Pueblo's Cooking Post is providing a rare service: bringing Native harvests to kitchens, pow wows and restaurants across America. The Internet has transformed their mail order business into an industry.  "We get the very large and the very small businesses," said Jerry Kinsman.  When asked about Cooking Post profits for Santa Ana Pueblo, Kinsman said, "It's a steady business. It is still self-supporting, along with the tribal farm and wholesale nursery."  The Cooking Post carries items from tribes across the nation including:
* The Santa Ana Pueblo provide Blue Corn products;
* The Thunder Bird Trading Post of Long Island, N.Y., opened by Chief Thunder Bird and Shinnecock, in 1946 sells coffee;
* Native Harvest, Anishinaabe, produces Grade-A maple syrup harvested in the spring and hauled by horse-drawn wagon to the sugar house for cooking in a wood-fired evaporator;
* Bedre Chocolates, owned by the Chickasaw Nation in Ada, Okla;
* Woodenknife Fry Bread mix from Lakota in South Dakota;
* Jerky from the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe in Oregon;
* Forest County Potawatomi's venison sausage.
Indian Country Today

Tribes share the gifts of the yucca
SAN MANUEL RESERVATION photo  The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians recently gathered to celebrate the yucca harvest and to reconnect to the plant their ancestors used for food, clothing, soap and medicine. "It really gives you a sense of who you are and your identity," said James Ramos.  Pauline Murillo, 70, remembered eating yucca wrapped in canvas and cooked in dirt warmed by fire." They would suck the sweetness out of the fibers and spit out the remnants."  Murillo said she encourages her grandchildren to learn about the traditions she grew up with. "You have to learn all you can now because one day we'll be gone,' she tells them.  Cindy Ramos, 15, wants to preserve her ancestors' culture and traditions, and she hopes the younger children take notice. "If the bigger kids show them that we are interested, then they will be interested too," she said.
http://www.sbsun.com/Stories/0,1413,208%7E12588%7E2166332,00.html

Blackout Provided Silver lining for some
Last summer's blackout had a silver lining--cleaner skies downwind from the Midwestern power plants that were idled.  The blackout found a 90% drop in sulfur dioxide, a 50% drop in ozone levels, and visibility that increased by more than 25 miles. "This was the first opportunity to directly measure a large scale-back like this. And the results were far greater than we ever imagined," said Brett E. Taubman, a graduate student in chemistry.  While pollutants linked to power plants were lower, soot and carbon monoxide associated with automobile pollution remained steady.
Associated Press

B.C. smelter dumped tons of mercury
British Columbia--The Teck Cominco Ltd. smelter near the Washington State border has a record of dumping millions of tons of contaminated slag into the Columbia River. But until now, little has been known about the extent of the smelter's mercury pollution.  "Large amounts of mercury" (approximately 20 pounds a day) "have been deposited in the Columbia over many years by Cominco," a 1981 Canadian memo says. Calculations based on two Canadian estimates shows that between 1.6 tons and 3.6 tons of mercury were discharged to the river each year since the 1940s. The Colville Confederated Tribes has also produced a report saying the Cominco smelter out-polluted all U.S. companies reporting discharges to American rivers and streams in the mid-1990s.  "The Canadian government knew the Trail smelter was causing problems in the United States – and they did nothing. At the smelter, you have very lax standards, very frequent violations and no enforcement. In the United States, if we'd seen a pattern and practice like this, it would have been a criminal case," said Valerie Lee, a consultant to the Colville Tribe.  Mercury isn't the only contaminant Cominco has spilled into the Columbia. The plant has also spilled tons of ammonia, sulfuric acid, phosphate and zinc into the river. Documents show that from 1980 to 1996, average discharges for dissolved metals were as high as 40 pounds per day of arsenic, 136 pounds of cadmium, 440 pounds of lead, 16,280 pounds a day of zinc and 9 pounds of mercury.
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=11649

BFC Volunteer Sentenced in Federal Court for Action that Shut Down Buffalo Trap
Montana: Akiva Silver has been sentenced to two years of probation after his actions closed the Horse Butte trap for a week in April. Silver occupied a platform perched in the center of the main pen which holds Yellowstone buffalo captured by Park officials.  Without the pen, the buffalo remained free. After his sentencing, Silver gave an impassioned speech before the judge, in which he defended his action as a moral necessity.  Besides probation, Silver is banned from being within ten miles of the Horse Butte Trap. He was also fined more than $1700.00.  Akiva works as a volunteer and receives no pay. He also lives within ten miles of the Horse Butte Trap and will be forced to leave his home when the trap is erected again next winter. Currently, 482 Yellowstone buffalo have been captured by Montana Department of Livestock officials, 278 have been slaughtered, and 198 are in confinement.
http://www.wildrockies.org/Buffalo/

Time to say farewell at caribou maternity ward
WHITEHORSE, Yukon: Wildlife biologists plan to release almost 60 Chisana caribou and their newborn calves from a man-made maternity ward near the Yukon-Alaska border.  They expect the 29 mothers and each of their radio-collared newborns will slowly leave the shelter and head west to rejoin the rest of the Chisana herd. Wildlife managers expect that giving them this kind of head start will ensure their survival, and possibly the survival of the entire herd. The Chisana herd numbers had fallen so dramatically over the past 10 years that biologists feared they would be wiped out. This is the second consecutive year for the internationally funded project.
http://north.cbc.ca/

Lonely Luna's move postponed
In 2001, Luna the killer whale arrived in Nootka Sound off British Columbia at about the same time the chief of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht tribe died. Now federal efforts to move Luna back to the ocean and her Puget Sound pod have been postponed to allow the tribe more time with the orca they believe embodies the spirit of their late chief.  "What our operational team would like to do today is respect that the First  Nations are practicing their cultural traditions on the water and give them  some space to do that," said Marilyn Joyce, from Canada's Department of Fisheries.  Scientists are afraid the friendly whale will either be injured or injure someone if allowed to stay in Nootka Sound.  People often came down to the dock to see the lonely whale who snoops around boat propellers and docks. One person even tried to brush the whale's teeth.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/178629_tl119.html

Study finds dogs understand language
Research finds that border collie named Rico understands more than 200 words and learns new ones as quickly as many children. Rico knows the names of dozens of play toys and can find the one called for by his owner. This vocabulary size is about the same as apes, dolphins and parrots trained to understand words.  But Rico can even take the next step: figuring out what a new word means.  Researchers put several familiar toys in a room along with one Rico had not seen. From a different room, Rico's owner asked him to fetch a toy, using a name for the toy the dog had never heard. The border collie would go to the room and-- 70% of the time -- return with the one he had not seen before. The dog seemingly understood that because he knew the names of all the other toys, the new one must be the one with the unfamiliar name.  "Apparently he was able to link the novel word to the novel item based on exclusion learning, either because he knew that the familiar items already had names or because they were not novel," said researcher Julia Fischer. A month later, Rico still remembered the name of that new toy 50% of the time, even though he had never seen the toy again. This rate of learning is equivalent to that of a 3-year-old.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/06/10/dog.language.ap/index.html

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