Here’s a good column from Jim Kent of the Rapid City, S.D., Journal about how summer is fraught with historic meaning in the West, especially for Native Americans. The National Days of Prayer to Protect Native American Sacred Places brings this to mind:

The first week of summer has different significance for different people. Among Native Americans, it’s a time of balance.

On the one hand, there’s the anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It was the greatest victory by this country’s indigenous people over forces of the invading armies – and invading is precisely what they were.

I’ve always had sympathy for those European immigrants who, in search of any job they could get, found themselves wearing a U.S. Army uniform staring down hundreds of Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho. Bad move.

But the reality is that these warriors were merely fighting to protect their homelands, their women, children and way of life. And wouldn’t you if any of those anticipated invading armies we’ve been sending troops to keep in their foreign lands since 1946 ever made it to our shores?

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 7th Cavalry, 9/11, Arapaho Tribe, Battle of the Little Bighorn, Bear Butte, buffalo post, Cheyenne Tribe, Devil's Tower, First Amendment, First Peoples, Gwen Florio, Harney Peak, Lakota, Mount Rushmore, National Days of Prayer to Protect Native American Sacred Places, Native American news, U.S. Army

Russell Means has forged dual identities as an actor and an activist. Both will be celebrated this weekend at the sixth American Indian Stories N’ Motion Film Festival held at Haskell Indian Nations University.

As the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal World reports here (click on the link for a Q&A with Means):

The 70-year-old first came to the public’s attention in the 1970s as a leader of the American Indian Movement, taking part in many of the decade’s most prominent national protests: at Alacatraz, Mount Rushmore, the Mayflower and the 71-day armed occupation at Wounded Knee.

To modern audiences he’s more familiar for his acting career. Roles include playing Chief Chingachgook in “The Last of the Mohicans,” the Medicine Man in “Natural Born Killers” and the voice of Chief Powhatan in Disney’s “Pocahontas.” Most recently, he appeared in the adventure “Pathfinder” and as Wandering Bear in an acclaimed episode of TV’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

“I’ve made a difference in everything I’ve participated in,” Means says.

Means will present and discuss his indie movie, “Rez Bomb,” which is set on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Gwen Florio

Tags: "Pocahontas", Alcatraz, American Indian Movement, American Indian Stories N' Motion, buffalo post, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Gwen Florio, Haskell Indian Nations University, Mount Rushmore, Native American film, Native American news, Natural Born Killers, Pathfiner, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Rez Bomb, Russell Means, The Last of the Mohicans, the Mayflower, Wounded Knee

Gerard Baker, who has been on leave from his job as superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial since a stroke last year, is returning to his job.

Mount Rushmore spokesman Navnit Singh tells the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal’s Kevin Woster, here, that Baker has been working part-time since Dec. 31, and will return full time on Tuesday.

John Scott, who has been acting superintendent at the memorial, will stay on temporarily to work on special projects before returning to Pea Ridge Ridge National Military Park in Arkansas.

Baker spoke Tuesday evening in Belle Fourche to participants in the Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run, on the topic of facing challenge and adversity, Woster reports.

Baker, who is Mandan and Hidatsa and whose past Park Service experience includes tenure at the Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana and the Knife River Indian Villages in North Dakota, is well-known – and sometimes controversial – for his insistence upon including presentations of Native history and culture at his various postings.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Fort Robinson O, Gerard Baker, Hidatsa, Knife River Indian VIllages, Little Bighorn Battlefield, Mandan, Mount Rushmore, National Park Service, Native American news, Pea Ridge National Military Park

OK, his head won’t be carved into the mountain, but it’s still a good move. Here’s the entire text of the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal story about today’s event commemorating the Lakota holy man. If there’s a follow-up story about the event itself, we’ll post it here.

Rapid City Journal
A special cultural program will celebrate the life of Benjamin Black Elk and his last living daughter, Esther Black Elk DeSersa, on Sunday, Oct. 11.

The event begins at 10 a.m. with the screening of a recently uncovered film, “Legends of the Sioux,” created by the South Dakota Department of Transportation in the mid-1960s, which highlights Native American history in the Black Hills and includes Ben Black Elk as one of the film’s participants.
The film will be shown in Theater B of the Lincoln Borglum Visitor Center; a lunch will follow at Carvers Cafe.

Black Elk’s legacy and the cultural history reflected in the film are important aspects to the history and story of Mount Rushmore, according to a news release from the National Park Service announcing the event.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Black Elk, buffalo post, Mount Rushmore, Native American news, Oglala Lakota

Tim Giago, editor of Native Sun News, today posts a spirited, knowledgeable and affectionate defense of Gerard Baker, a longtime National Park Service supervisor who now is Superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Monument.

Baker, who is Mandan and Hidatsa and whose past Park Service experience includes tenure at the Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana and the Knife River Indian Villages in North Dakota, is well-known – if not always appreciated – for his insistence upon including presentations of Native history and culture at his various postings. Now he finds himself in the midst of a very different type of controversy, over the fact that a month ago, Greenpeace activists clambered onto Mount Rushmore’s famous faces and fastened an Obama banner there.

As Giago writes here, “When Greenpeace did its deed the locals came out of the woodwork looking for a scalp to hang on the wall. Baker’s scalp looked pretty inviting to those wanting to see blood.”

Baker was criticized for initially saying that all park security systems worked as they should that day. As Giago points out (for more details, see an earlier Rapid City Journal story, here) Baker has made plenty of enemies along the way, some of whom seem to be seizing upon this opportunity to suggest it’s time for him to go.

Giago isn’t the only one backing Baker, though. The column quotes both U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson and Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in praise of Baker’s professionalism, a viewpoint echoed by prominent people in Rapid City, S.D.

We’ll keep an eye on the rumblings over Baker and will post updates here.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Gerard Baker, Greenpeace, Mandan-Hidatsa, Mount Rushmore, National Park Service, Native American news