Here’s the full story from the Associated Press:

DEADWOOD, S.D. (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest, a Taoist master and a Lakota holy man joined forces to help rebury 130-year-old remains uncovered in the western South Dakota town of Deadwood.

The remains were discovered in 2006 by workers dismantling a retaining wall in a Deadwood neighborhood. They were identified as being either an American Indian or Chinese man. The Chinese worked in Deadwood’s gold-mining industry years ago.

The remains were reburied Wednesday in Mount Moriah Cemetery. The ceremony began with a traditional Catholic prayer and scripture reading, followed by Chinese and Native American burial rituals.

“No matter what religious belief you are, whether you’re … Lakota, Chinese, or even what your faith is, you have entitled burial rights as a human being,” said Terry Gray with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.

Gilbert Hom with the Chinese Historical Society said officials never considered fighting over the heritage of the remains. Taoist minister Master E-man of Los Angeles added that “No matter who it is, it’s our ancestor.”

“We pray simply with that faith that each one of us has,” said the Rev. Kerry Prendiville of St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Deadwood.

Deadwood Historic Preservation Officer Kevin Kuchenbecker said he was not aware of such a ceremony ever happening before.

“Not only are we protecting our history, but we’re making history as well,” he said.

Tags: Chinese, Chinese Historical Society, Deadwood, Deadwood Historic Preservation, Lakota, Mount Moriah Cemetery, Roman Catholic, Tao

Here’s the full story from the Associated Press:

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — President Barack Obama has signed a bill he says will address the unique public safety challenges facing American Indian tribes.

Obama signed the Tribal Law and Order Act on Thursday.

The measure provides for the appointment of special U.S. attorneys to ensure violent crimes in tribal communities are prosecuted. It also revamps training for reservation police, expands the sentencing authority of tribal courts from one to three years, addresses jurisdictional issues and improves the collection and reporting of Indian crime data.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who authored the bill, says millions of American Indians have lived far too long with unacceptable levels of violent crime.

Tribes hailed the signing as a reaffirmation of the federal government’s trust responsibility to ensure their communities are safe.

Tags: buffalo post, Byron Dorgan, President Barack Obama, Sen. Byron Dorgan, Tribal Law and Order Act

A debate over a longstanding parade tradition in Needham, Mass., has flared anew.

Each Fourth of July, the town’s parade features Fred Muzi, retired owner of Muzi Ford, dressed in a feather headdress with his skin painted red, riding bareback on a horse, according to Katrina Ballard in a Boston Globe story. (The Needham Times takes a look at the issue, too.)

“We do know this is a tradition many people in Needham enjoy and find harmless, and it does seem like Mr. Muzi has the best intention,” said Emily Rothman, who with her husband, Greg Banks, spoke to Ballard for the story. “However, when people paint their skin to look like individuals of another race for entertainment purposes, it’s off base.”

The two wrote letters to the local paper and called Linda Morceau, chief of the Chappiquiddic tribe based in Cape Cod.

As Ballard reports:

Muzi, 79, said he has been dressing up to ride in the parade every year since 1957. He said he admires Native American culture, and he bought his Indian-made costume at Garden of the Gods National Park in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“I try to be authentic as possible,” Muzi said in an interview. “If the crowd didn’t like me, I certainly wouldn’t be there.”

Muzi said he has heard complaints from townspeople in the form of letters to the local paper three times before, but he said each letter was followed by dozens defending him. The Needham Exchange Club asks him back to the parade every year, he added.

“There are no good reasons for someone that is not Native American to dress up as though they are Native American,” said Morceau, a substance abuse and family councilor at Peaceful Gathering Place in Wareham. “The only group of people that are still open season for being made fun of that way are Native Americans. We need to step up and say this is offensive.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Chappiquiddic Tribe, Cultural insensitivity, Fourth of July, Gwen Florio, Native American identity, Native American news, Needham, Needham Exchange Club

In his new blog, A View From a Washichu, author Stew Magnuson (”The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska Pine-Ridge Border Towns”) takes a look at a recent story about the town of Whiteclay, Neb., infamous for existing mostly to sell beer, and mostly to residents of the nearby dry Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. (His column appears every other week in Native Sun News.)

But as Magnuson notes, the story in the Rapid City Journal by Mary Garrigan wrote about folks from Pine Ridge who also shop in Whiteclay to buy groceries. What Garrigan didn’t cover, and Magnuson does, is the stores’ practice of extending credit to people:

One reason consumers go to Whiteclay, and that the article missed is the Whiteclay grocers’ policy of extending credit.
Some of the comments posted after the online article described all the merchants there as “greedy and selfish.”

One retired grocer told me that when the family retired and sold their store after nearly 40 years in business, they had some $25,000 of credit on the books. They could have gone after some of this money, but they let it go.

I have on file a Letter to the Editor written to the Sheridan County Star by Clem Crazy Thunder in 1999 after VJ’s grocery store was lit on fire during the Hard Hart/Black Elk murder protests. “Without VJ’s Market my family would not have even been able to survive,” he wrote. “VJ’s provided food for my family on credit … Without the trust we had built with the former owner (The late Randall Thies) we would have never been able to put food on the table.”

So all business owners are automatically “greedy and selfish?” I don’t think so.

Magnuson also takes an opportunity in the piece to riff on the online comments section provided by many news organizations, including the Missoulian, which hosts Buffalo Post, and of course on Buffalo Post itself. He joins a long, long line of people lamenting the tone and often thinly veiled (or just plain open) racism of those almost-always-anonymous comments. Fortunately, most of the comments on this blog have stayed clear of the muck and in fact often are very informative.

As Magnuson says, “Writers should say what they mean, mean what they say, and have the courage and conviction to stand behind their comments.”

To which I can only add, “Amen.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Stew Magnuson, The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder - And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, Whiteclay

Wisconsin Public Radio is reporting that the Osseo-Fairchild has been ordered to stop using its race-based mascot “The Chieftains.” It’s the first time a new state law banning such nicknames has been used.

The state Department of Public Instruction finds that the name is discriminatory and promotes stereotypes of Native Americans, Brian Bull reports. (Fox 21 picked up that report.)

If the district doesn’t drop the mascot within a year, it could be fined.

Harvey Gunderson, who along with his wife, Carol, is among those who complained, says he hopes the action will inspire similar moves at other schools.

“In fact several people have called to thank us and to say this was a victory for American Indians across the state of Wisconsin, and in fact a victory for American Indians across the entire nation,” says Gunderson, who adds he and his wife have been threatened for their stance.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Chieftains, Native American mascots, Osseo-Fairchid High School, Team logos, Team nicknames, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

At the National National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha in Fonda, N.Y., a powwow was held recently – a sign of the heritage of the shrine’s namesake, who needs only a certified miracle before she can be canonized as a Roman catholic saint.

If that happens, Kateri Tekakwitha, who was Mohawk-Algonquin and lived in the 1600s, would become the first Native American saint.

To some, it’s only a matter of semantics.

“I grew up thinking of her as a saint, because that’s how my people revered her,” Theresa Steele, a Canadian-born member of the Algonquin nation and member of the shrine’s board of directors, tells Nancy Wiechec of Catholic San Francisco, here. “We’ve always seen her that way.”

As Wiechec writes:

Orphaned at age 4 during a smallpox epidemic, Kateri was left pockmarked and nearly blind by the disease. Later, when she embraced Christianity and prayer and refused to marry, she was scorned by other Mohawks. She was taken from her village to a Mohawk Catholic mission in Canada for her own safety. There she taught prayers to children and tended to the sick and elderly.

Blessed Kateri is patron of American Indians, ecology and the environment and is held up as a model for Catholic youth. The U.S. church marks her feast on July 14.

Msgr. Paul A. Lenz, vice postulator for Blessed Kateri’s cause, told CNS that documentation supporting a healing through her intercession was sent to the Vatican last year.

Kateri Tekakwitha died – her skin reportedly clearing at the moment of her death – April 17, 1680, at a mission near Montreal, in her early 20s. She was declared venerable in 1942 and beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Algonquin, canonization, Gwen Florio, Kateri Tekakwitha, Mohawk, National National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, Native American news, Pope John Paul II, Roman Catholic, sainthood

An oil spill in Michigan that’s sending oil into the Kalamazoo River has raised alarm among aboriginal leaders in Canada.

Those leaders say the 840,000-galllon spill is further evidence that British Columbia should nix a proposed pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to British Columbia, according this Canadian Press report.

Enbridge, based in Calgary, wants to build the pipeline that would end in the coastal community of Kitimat. But as Canadian Press reports:

But Enbridge’s affiliate, Enbridge Energy Partners LP of Houston, is responsible for the Michigan spill and a B.C. First Nations coalition says it’s further proof why the proposed Northern Gateway project should be scrapped.

Coastal First Nations executive director Art Sterritt says despite Enbridge’s claim that the Northern Gateway project will be a model of safety, such a spill could happen in B.C.

Sterritt is recently returned from visiting scene of the disastrous British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

And Coastal First Nations president Gerald Amos tells Canadian Press that such a spill in British Columbia would be devastating to First Nations peoples heavily dependent upon marine resources.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Alberta tar sands, Art Sterritt, BP, British Columbia, British Petroleum, buffalo post, Coatal First Nations, Enbridge, Enbridge Energy Partners LP, First Nations, Gerald Amox, Gulf oil spill, Gwen Florio, Kalamazoo oil spill, Kalamazoo River, Native American news, Northern Gateway

Here’s the story from the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal:

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., will visit Pine Ridge on Aug. 7 at the invitation of Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., to attend a powwow and discuss housing issues with Oglala Sioux Tribe officials.

Franken is a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and also sits on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which has authority over tribal housing programs. Herseth Sandlin issued the invitation to Franken for the Pine Ridge visit after the two discussed Native American housing issues.

Herseth Sandlin also will host a field hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee on Aug. 6 in Eagle Butte. Tribal leaders will testify at the hearing, which will focus on education, school facilities, Native languages and other issues.

Franken will not be able to attend that meeting, Herseth Sandlin’s staffers said.

Tags: Banking Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, buffalo post, Gwen Florio, House Natural Resources Committee, Native American news, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Sen. Al Franken, U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs

A judge has thrown out the confession of a man accused of a fatal shooting during the opening day of the Lakota Nation Invitational last year.

The incident that cast a pall over the famed basketball tournament (see previous post, here).

The ruling by Seventh Circuit Judge Thomas Trimble came in the case of Simon Torres, 20, who was scheduled to go on trial next week for first-degree murder, according to this story by Andrea J. Cook of the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal.

The Dec. 16 shooting outside the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center took the life of Shane Bordeaux, 20.

Cook reports that Torres’ confession came after being interviewed for about an hour and 40 minutes. Although he was given a Miranda warning and did not request a lawyer, he repeatedly said he wanted to stop the interview. The judge found that indicated he wished to uphold his right to remain silent

Attorneys say they may now need to locate additional witnesses, which could delay the trial.

Gwen Florio

Tags: basketball, buffalo post, Gwen Florio, Lakota Nation Invitational, Native American news, Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, Seventh Circuit Judge Thomas Trimble