Nearly 22,000 meals have been distributed on the Navajo and Hopi Nations, and the air drops will continue at least through Monday, according to Eric Neitzel, spokesman for the Arizona emergency management department.

About 22,000 gallons of drinking water has been distributed, and rescue workers are trying to get to families who are signaling pilots from the ground, writes Cyndy Cole of the Flagstaff (Ariz.) Sun.

Those people “are using blankets, waving them in the air, or using mirrors,” and pilots are still finding snowbound communities they didn’t know about, Neitzel tells Cole. adding that pilots were still finding communities they had not known about.

As the snow melts, mud has become nearly as problematic.

Maxine Wadsworth says that five road-clearing vehicles on the Hopi Nation now need repairs, and some roads are nearly impassable, hindering efforts to get wood or coal to as many as 600 people.

“The requests for assistance are overwhelming,” says Wadsworth, spokeswoman for the tribe’s response team.

She has had several reports of families with roofs caved in or walls falling off mud-and-stone homes, and one case of livestock freezing in place.

Although Wadsworth feels sad about the dead livestock, the priority this week is on helping people who need food or medicine.

Some in the community have ridden horseback to reach faraway families, and food is being dropped by air.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Arizona Emergency Management Department, Hopi Nation, Navajo Nation

The repeated snowstorms that buried the Navajo and Hopi Nations this week are beginning to taper off today, allowing rescue and relief workers to help more victims.

“People are starting to be noticed missing” by neighbors and relatives, Eric Neitzel with the Arizona Division of Emergency Management tells CNN.

Much of northern Arizona received more than two feet of snow; Flagstaff got more than 50 inches.

Authorities tell of a bulldozer operator who called for help after seeing a mother and two children struggling through the snow on the Navajo Nation after being trapped in their home for two days. Emergency workers are dropping Red Cross blankets and food from National Guard helicopters.

People on the reservations have been using mirrors and other reflective items to signal the helicopters that they need help, authorities say. Some roofs have collapsed and many people are stranded in their remote homes, they say.

People aren’t the only hungry ones: Neitzel told CNN that a Tuba City rancher was having a hard time feeding his sheep, and that the snow is making it difficult for the sheep and his horse to move, leaving them vulnerable to mountain lion attacks.

In fact, the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff reports here that as many as three mountain lions have killed three sheep and three cows from two Navajo families.

Neitzel tells CNN he’s never seen a rescue effort this big. The video above is from three days ago, and there’s been more snow since.

As usual, we’ll keep updating.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Arizona snowstorms, buffalo post, Hopi Nation, Native American news, Navajo Nation, Red Cross

Wait – don’t click on past this, thinking you’ve read it before. Well, you have, in a sense – but it applied to the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota.

Blizzards and ice storms in that state nearly shut down Cheyenne River, cutting electrical and water supplies, and forcing the evacuation of dialysis patients. (See previous posts here and here.)

The Southwest likewise has been socked by bad weather, with the Navajo Nation receiving nearly two feet of snow in several areas. Conditions remained so bad that helicopters delivering emergency supplies were ground today, the Arizona Daily Star reports here.

A main emergency center in Window Rock is keeping track of command posts established at chapter houses around the reservation, the Navajo Times reports here:

Selena Manychildren, public information officer for the center, said the priority is assisting people who are snowed in, along with the elderly, children and those with medical needs.

Throughout the week, relief personnel have been assessing remote locations to identify individuals and families who may still be trapped. Assessments are relayed back to the chapters and the chapter officials identify and prioritize the needs for their areas.

People should try to contact their chapter houses if they need assistance, Manychildren said.

Earlier this week, the Navajo Nation Council appropriated $1 million in emergency relief funds to help with those efforts.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Cheyenne River Reservation, Native American news, Navajo Nation, Winter weather

Well, if you’re the U.S. Census, nobody. Until now, that’s been a problem. The Census – forms should be arriving in the mail soon – has these neat little boxes: White. Black. American Indian.

But as this story by Juliana Barbassa and Manuel Valdes of the Associated Press reports it’s not that simple.

Indian people from Mexico and Central America aren’t quite sure what box to check. But the 2010 Census wants to count them, anyway:

The bureau will tabulate handwritten entries specifying that the respondent belongs to a Central American indigenous group such Maya, Nahua, Mixtec or Purepecha. The list of populations that will be counted will be made public when results are released in 2011, said Census Bureau spokeswoman Michele Lowe.

“We’re always striving to present an accurate portrait of the American people, and this is part of that effort,” she said.

A significant part – some 17 percent of migrant farmworkers – in California, as many as 30 percent – are indigenous immigrants, according to the U.S. Labor Department

“We want to be counted as we are — as Mixtecos, Zapotecos, Triques,” said Rufino Dominguez, executive director of the Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities in Fresno, Calif.

“It’s important so everyone knows we are here, and that there are many of us.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: American Indian, Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities, buffalo post, indigenous, Maya, Mixtec, Nahua, Native American news, Navajo Nation, Purepecha, U.S. Census

World champion Salish boxer brings event home to Flathead Indian Reservation
Former world champion boxer Marvin Camel comes home to the Flathead Indian Reservation Tuesday to talk about how boxing opened doors to him. He was a two-time world champion boxer who won the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation Cruiserweight Championships, the Char-Koosta News reports here. The newspaper writes that Camel is Montana’s only world championship boxer, and was named by Sports Illustrated as one of Montana’s top 50 athletes of the 20th century. Videos of his championship matches will be shown on the Flathead Reservation this week.

Report alleges mismanagement of tribal welfare funds
A investigative report by the Palm Springs (Calif.) Desert Sun alleges the 200 members of the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians have seen millions of dollars disappear from a tribal welfare program meant to help them. More than $6 million disappeared in just two years, it says. Read it here.

Seneca Nation billboard calls for defeat of PACT act
The Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act would prohibit the U.S. Postal Service from delivering cigarettes and certain other tobacco products, effectively putting Indian-owned mail order tobacco businesses – an industry developed by the Seneca Nation over the past two decades – out of operation, writes Indian Country Today’s Gale Courey Toensing here. A Seneca Nation billboard on Interstate 190 urges people to vote against it.

Reinstated Navajo President Joe Shirley offers options for smaller council
Members of the Navajo Nation voted last month to decrease the size of their tribal council from 88 to 24. Now President Joe Shirley Jr., who recently returned after being placed on leave during a probe into the tribe’s business dealings, has offered 10 reapportionment plans for consideration. The Navajo Times has the story here.

First Nations eager to use new cross-border status cards
Some First Nations in the Yukon are ready to try secure new Indian status cards, but federal officials have chiefs to list concern before before a pilot program begins, the CBC reports here. The idea is that the card will make it easier for First Nations members to cross the Canada-U.S. border. The cards are to be tested in Yukon communities near Alaska.

Little Shell opposition plans election to replace tribal council
Leaders of an opposition faction within Montana’s Little Tribe of Chippewa Indians are planning an election to replace the existing Tribal Council, the Associated Press reports here. The tribe recently was denied federal recognition, but has long been recognized by the state of Montana.

Gwen Florio

Tags: First Nations, Flathead Indian Reservation, International Boxing Federation Cruiserweight Championship, Joe Shirley Jr., Little Shell Band of Chippewa, Marvin Camel, Navajo Nation, PACT Act, Seneca Nation, Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, U.S. Postal Service, World Boxing Council, Yukon

After years of criticisms involving allegations of favoritism, inefficiency and secrecy, the Navajo Nation is switching to competitive bids for its ranch-leasing program.

“We want to practice fairness and all ranchers to bid,” Fritz Roanhorse, manager of the ranch program, tells the Navajo Times, here.

Bidding for 23 ranch leases began Dec. 13 and ends Wednesday, and works much like federal agricultural leasing programs.

Béégashii is the Dine word for cattle. Ranchers looking to raise them on the leased land must submit management plans.

“Historically, members of the Navajo Nation have raised livestock as a way of life with agriculture being a foundation of Navajo culture,” says Agricultural Department Director Leo Watchman. “However, traditional cultural aspects of indigenous people’s lives have changed, especially with respect to agriculture.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Dine, Native American news, Navajo Nation, ranch leases

Ernie Manuelito passed too soon. He was only 57 when he died in April, but in his short time, he left an outsize legacy.

Manuelito was known as “the voice of the Navajo Nation” – and more familiarly as Early Bird Ernie on KTNN-AM, the nation’s radio station.

This tribute from NPR is a wonderful, long piece whose highlights include Ernie calling Super Bowl XXX in the Dine language.

Kick back, click, and listen.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Dine, Early Bird Ernie, Ernie Manuelito, KTNN-AM, Native American news, Navajo Nation, Super Bowl XXX, Voice of the Navajo Nation

Ruth Thompson Wilson, the last surviving daughter of one of the founding families of the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians’ rancheria in California has died, the Union Democrat of Sonora, Calif., reports here.

Wilson, who died Saturday, was the youngest of nine daughters of Alec Thompson, who helped form the rancheria in 1910.

Wilson was the oldest of the tribe’s elders, and “remembers the old ones who lived on the rancheria making acorn (meal) in large baskets,” her family wrote in a statement.

“She comes from a long line of shamans and medicine people and has instilled the love of her family and culture in her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and the tribal community,” her family wrote in a statement.
Her son, Lawrence Wilson, who died in October 2008, was a “carrier of the medicine,” or spiritual adviser, her family said. …
Wilson enjoyed traditional Me-Wuk dance and danced at many “Big Times” (pow-wows) over the years. She also was involved in Native American cultural gatherings such as the annual Tuolumne Acorn Festival and the Bear Dance at Yosemite.

Her niece, Rhonda Standage, says Wilson directed all of her efforts toward the betterment of the Me-Wuk.

“She was always concerned about what would happen to the children,” says Standage. “She always wanted it to be better for the kids.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Navajo Nation, Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk

Mashantucket Pequot exhibit highlights contemporary Native art
“Migrations: New Directions in Native American Art,” a show at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, focuses on a half-dozen artists, most of them from the West, who work in contemporary themes,according to the Hartford Courant. It features Marie Watt, Steven Deo, Star Wallowing Bull, Larry McNeil, Tom Jones and Ryan Lee Smith, and continues through Jan. 9. Above, Larry McNeil’s “Y’eil.”

Crime up in villages after Alaska town allows alcohol
Back in October, the town of Bethel, a community of about 5,600 people and a hub for surrounding villages, decided to go from “damp” – alchol sales and limited imports – to wet. Now tribal police in the villages are complaining about a steep increase in crime, especially assaults, drunken driving and public drunkenness, according to the Anchorage Daily News, here.

Venezuela’s Angel Falls renamed to reflect indigenous heritage
It’s the world’s tallest waterfall, cascading 3,212 feet in the midst of the Venezuelan jungle. It was named for Jimmy Angel, the pilot who “discovered” it in 1933. But now Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez says it will be known as Kerepakupai-Merú, which means “waterfall of the deepest place” in the indigenous Pemon language, according to this story by the Guardian of England.

Navajo Nation to open behavioral treatment center
The new $16 million, 72-bed facility will be the Navajo Nation’s first for people with behavioral issues. Alvin Warren, cabinet secretary of the state Department of Indian Affairs, estimates that 25 percent of Navajo residents, or about 52,000 people, battle alcoholism and do not receive treatment because of cost or distance to treatment centers off the reservation, according to this AP Health News report.

Census making effort to count off-reservation Native Americans
The U.S. Census has already announced efforts to accurately count Indian people in the 2010 census. As part of that move, it will pay particular attention to people who live off reservations. New American Media reports here that in California, for instance, it’s estimated that more than 90 percent of the Native people within the state don’t live on reservations.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Alaska, Alaska Natives, Angel Falls, Arizona Department of Indian Affairs, Bethel, Contemporary Native art, Hugo Chavez, Kerepakupai-Merú, Larry McNeil, Marie Watt, Mashantucket Peqot Museum & Research Center, Navajo Nation, Ryan Lee Smith, Star Wallowing Bull, Steven Deo, Tom Jones, U.S. Census