Native Village
Youth and Education News
July 1, 2006 Issue 169 Volume 2
"The Canada-U.S. border is not the creation of the First Peoples of this land. Historically, our people moved freely throughout our territory and across what is now the border. We recognize that border security is a key concern for all North Americans, and [we must] address those concerns while ensuring that the rights of First Nations on both sides of the border are respected and protected." Phil Fontaine, Assembly of First Nations National Chief
Twisting Yarn tells Native American heart-warming tale
England: Children at Bramhope Primary School recently watched the Twisting Yarn
Theatre Company give a performance entitled "The Trail of Tears." The new play
looks at the heart-warming and unusual relationship between the Irish and the
Choctaw Indians during the time of the Irish Potato Famine. The true story of
unselfish generosity explores how the Choctaw Indians were forcibly removed from
their Mississippi homelands to Oklahoma where they lived in poverty. In 1847,
during the Irish potato famine, the Choctaws collected what little they had
($710, the equivalent of $100,000 today) and sent it to the Irish, a people who
they would normally consider their oppressors. In recent years, Mary Robinson,
the Irish president, visited the Choctaws to say thank you.
Photo: Famine Memorial, Dublin
http://www.thisisbradford.co.uk/news/tibnews/display.var.779593.0.twisting_yarn_tells_native_american_heartwarming_tale.php
New canoe brings community together for
sacred ceremony
Washington: Students from Wa He Lut Indian School recently joined community
members to bless a new canoe. "Every time a new canoe is built, the canoe is
blessed in a ceremony," said language teacher Misty Kalamad. "We taught them
the canoe blessing and the teachings of the cedar tree." Wa He Lut serves about
100 Kindergarten-8th grade American Indian students. The school focuses on
teaching American Indian culture, and the curriculum includes customs and
languages. "If the students get a sense of who they are, they can mix in the
world," said assistant principal Brenda Lovin. "Students who live in the urban
areas, away from reservations, don't always get that sense of who they are." The
canoe will be used as part of Tribal Journeys, an intertribal tour of the
Pacific coast and Puget Sound waters scheduled for July.
http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060601/NEWS01/606010318
Oglala youth's science project takes top
honors in New Mexico
Montana: Kyla Two Bulls is an 8th grader at St. Labre Indian School on the
Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Recently, Kyla won national recognition with her
first place award in the 2006 National American Indian Science and Engineering
Fair. Her project was titled "Blood Sugar Chemistry: Determining the enzyme
conversion rate of complex carbohydrates into blood sugar for a comprehensive
understanding of the effect of food and exercise on the blood sugar levels of
horses.'' Horses, like humans, acquire type 2 diabetes from lack of exercise
and improper diet, she wrote. She posed the question of what factors affected
starch digestion, then set down the hypothesis and laid out in detail the
procedure for determining her theories. Kyla learned about horses from her
stepfather, Philip Whiteman Jr., who is a horse trainer. Kyla has ridden a lot
and uses Whiteman's ''Medicine Wheel Theory" as a method of training her
horses every day. ' ''Cheyenne believe that horses are a mirror of their
owner..." Kyla said. "The horses show me how to deal with myself. It's like
having a mirror. If you are calm or mad the horse will react the same way you
do. That taught me to check my emotions. It taught me responsibility.''
american_indians_news_source_tulanappes_list
Looking Forward, Looking Back
Arizona: Tohono O'odham high school students on the San Xavier Indian
Reservation recently created stories through the "Looking Forward, Looking Back"
project. The idea was for students to look at their community and their
connection to their heritage. "They showed a lot of commitment to the program,"
said Ronald Felix from the San Xavier Education Department. Students told short
stories about their families and culture, both on and off the reservation.
Through writing and illustrating a script, youth found ways to describe how they
maintain ties to centuries-old cultural traditions in modern times. Some
examples:
David Johnson, 15,
focused on traditional foods. When he was younger, his grandmother's cooking
sparked his interest in such foods as tepary beans and cactus fruits. Now Davied
wants to be a chef.
"Someday I'm going to make these foods for my restaurant so everybody can taste
the glories of O'odham food,"
he narrates.
Ashley Escalante,
14, probed the O'odham language and discovered that many youths do not speak
it.
"I'm going against the current by trying to make our language stronger,"
she narrates.
"If we lose our language, we stop being who we are."
Stephanie
Danforth's story tells of her early childhood on the Tohono O'odham
reservation.
"There are no lights to mess up the sky's beauty,"
Danforth, 15, recalls.
"I could hear the swaying of the trees in the night, but during the day I
could smell the food cooking, like chili, beans and Indian tacos."
The students' work is now showcased on the Bridges to Understanding Web site,
which connects the world's indigenous youth through digital storytelling.
To read to these and other stories by indigenous youth:
http://www.bridgesweb.org/NewFiles/commSX.html
nativeshare@yahoo.com
Choctaw teen pens "one of the craziest
books of all time"
Oklahoma: High school student Stephen Moffitt wrote a collection of stories
called "Uncle Steve's Redneck Anthology Volume 1." But the Choctaw high school
student never expected his book to be published. Touted by advertising blurbs as
"possibly one of the craziest books of all time," his book examines rural folk
living in small town America. "I've been featured on CBS 12 news in Sherman,
Texas, two front page news articles for different papers, a radio interview and
another coming up," Stephen said. "A great honor I have is that the Oklahoma
State Department of Education has expressed interest in having me at
a conference later this year to possibly speak and also a book club choosing my
book as their February read." Moffitt credits his high school English teacher
for inspiring him to write his masterpiece. A follow-up book is now in the
works.
http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?ction=displayarticle&article_id=7935
From Rain City to rainforest
Washington: After graduating from Bishop Blanchet High School in Seattle, Hugo
Lucitante, 19, will return to his village in the Ecuadorian rainforest. It's a
village so isolated that even with a motorized canoe, it's still an eight-hour
river trip from the nearest town. Only 1,000 members of the his Cofan tribe have
survived European invasion. Lucitante's parents and other remaining members
hope Hugo will become a tribal leader. "People back home want me to do the
best," Hugo said. "They need someone who can lead them." Hugo has been in the
United States since 4th grade and is acclimated to the Western lifestyle. But
he has no problems about returning home. "Life [in the U.S.] is way too fast,"
he said. "Everybody seems to be frustrated. Back home, everybody knows each
other, it's more relaxing. People enjoy life." At his Ecuadorian home:
The family home is
built on stilts because of river flooding;
His bedroom is simple
-- some shelving, a bed, a mosquito net;
At village gatherings,
Lucitante wears a traditional midthigh-length robe, a bandana and a necklace
made of wild boar or jaguar teeth, and he paints his face red with the seed of a
native plant;
He walks barefoot, but
wear rubber boots to protect his feet from snakes when hunting;
The family dinner
might be a wild pig shot in the jungle; breakfast might be boiled bananas mashed
into juice.
Lucitante is taking home a laptop computer which he can power up with a
diesel generator. He wants to use the laptop to write down the stories of the
tribe's remaining elders. He will also use it for research to help his tribe,
which is battling Chevron for environmental damage. Lucitante also hopes to go
to college in Ecuador or perhaps the United States. He knows that knowledge is
power. "Now I have experienced the Western culture and the culture back home.
I don't think I'll be intimidated," he said.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003034294_ecuador02m.html
Program Offers Construction Industry
Training
Alaska: At the Alaska Works Partnership construction academy, 19- 23-year-old
Alaska Natives are learning a trade. The Kenai Peninsula academy teaches
carpentry skills, using hand and power tools, safety issues, and how to read
building plans. "Before this, I couldn't do fractions, I couldn't read a tape
measure," said William Davis III, 21, who helped build a log cabin at the
Ninilchik Tribal Council youth camp. Randy Alvarez, a journeyman carpenter,
said that contractors "would love to hire local kids, but they don't have the
training. This program put some of their own people to work in the villages,"
he said.
H-Amindian Listserve
Tribal colleges filling growing need
Oklahoma: Tribal colleges -- schools owned and run by Indian tribes -- are
growing. Usually located on reservations, more tribal colleges are being created
as more American Indians seek higher education. There were no tribal colleges in
the U.S. before 1968; today there are more than three dozen and one in Canada.
"It's been a slow process, but we are happy to be where we are," said Gerald
Gipp of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. "We're going through a
real learning process of operating our schools and reversing decades of
neglect." American Indian enrollment in universities has more than doubled in
the past 25 years. This includes a 62% increase in enrollment at tribal colleges
where course offerings reflect tribal goals, including reviving tribal
languages. Tribal colleges may be the last chance to save some native languages,
said Quinton Roman Nose. "This is a really complicated area to try and preserve
and teach a language," Roman Nose said. "There's a great need."
American Indian Higher Education Consortium:
http://www.aihec.org
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/14859087.htm
Cheyenne-Arapaho Latest to Open Tribal
College
Oklahoma: The Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes hopes to operate a tribal college on the
campus of Southwestern Oklahoma State University. "This will be a service to the
Cheyenne-Arapaho and American Indian community cultures in general," said Radwan
Al-Jarrah, a dean at SOSU. "It will help revive culture, language and
history." Tribal Colleges educate people about tribal history, heritage,
language, accomplishments, and other topics. If approved, this will be the
fourth tribal college in the state.
The Associated Press
New Agreement Brings Nursing Studies to
Reserve
Saskatchewan: This fall, 18 students on the Kawacatoose First Nation will begin
a practical nursing training program on the reserve. The reserve has a nursing
shortage, and tribal members wanted a nursing program close to home. They
approached SIAST to form a partnership of traveling professors and participating
hospitals for training. Previously, the band offered an on-reserve four-year
education program with the University of Regina. Nineteen students graduated.
Kawacatoose First Nation:
http://cap.ic.gc.ca/sk/kawacatoose/
H-Amindian Listserve
She and Her Graduation Robe Had to
Come a Long Way
New
York: Sarah L. Smith, 32, recently graduated from Hunter College. When the
Maori student from New Zealand attended graduation ceremonies, it was her cloak
which meant the most to her. "You have to show you are a worthy recipient," she
said. The handmade cloak of feathers and shells, made by more than 50 member of
her Ngati Kuri tribe, had been carried 8,000 miles by her parents in time for
graduation. The tribe first had to receive permission to use the feathers from
three species to tell the cloak's story:
Feathers from the kiwi symbolize stability
-- their feet are planted firmly on the ground because they do not fly;
Feathers came from the kuaka. a migratory bird that goes from the Southern
Hemisphere to the Northern, as Sarah has already done;
Feathers came from the native New Zealand pigeon, indigenous to her homelands,
as she is.
The cloak was then blessed before it left New Zealand, but that did not ward off
what Ms. Smith called "the complication with customs." Ms. Smith had
contacted the Fish and Wildlife Service who assured her that the cloak could be
brought into the country. However, when her parents arrived at Kennedy airport,
the inspectors refused to release it. (The kiwi is an endangered species and the
kuaka is covered by an international treaty) Finally, Senator Charles E.
Schumer called the airport and the cloak was released. When Sarah finally
donned the cloak for graduation ceremonies, her assigned seat was on the main
stage. The president of Hunter College, Jennifer J. Raab, asked Sarah to stand
up, turn around, and let the crowd see it.
Sarah's photo copyright New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com
NASA woos young American Indians
NASA and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium offer a new program for
American Indian students. Named "Vision for Space Exploration" the program is
for college students seeking careers in science and engineering. "We welcome
tribal college and university student and faculty teams to join NASA scientists
and engineers in conducting hands on research at our centers as we implement the
Vision for Space Exploration," said Angela Phillips Diaz from NASA. "We look
upon this summer as the beginning of a long-standing partnership with the tribal
colleges to inspire the next generation of innovators and explorers in science
and engineering career fields."
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060607-044505-7333r
New Course Will Help Teachers Relate to
American Indian Students
Nebraska: A new course at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will help teachers
better understand their American Indian students and cultures. Led by Professor
Al Arth, the four week summer course will feature tribal elders, religious
leaders and speakers from the Omaha Nation reservation in Macy. "In some ways,
the Native American student is simply different," Arth said. "When we fail with
a student, we have to ask ourselves, 'How did the school and the community miss
talking to each other?'" The university also plans to adapt the curriculum for
students from the Santee Sioux and Winnebago tribes.
H-Amindian Listserve
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