Non-Natives Making a Difference: Artist Russ Docken
By NAT Staff
Artist Russ Docken: “The Native American is compelling both visually and historically. I focus on the idealistic, spiritual interpretation rather than the historical interpretation.”
Painting professionally for over thirty years, Russ Docken has been featured on news programs and in magazines in the likes of Southwest Art, Art of the West, and Wildlife Art. You can find his original oil paintings in private collections and his artwork is reproduced in limited-edition prints, plates and collectibles and sold throughout the world.
Docken grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, a state that hails five federally recognized tribes, and the setting where he attended Pow Wows and familiarized himself in Native American culture. He studied liberal arts at North Dakota State University under a full athletic scholarship. Russ became a nationally ranked athlete and a three-time NCAA champion in track and field while pursuing visual arts as a career. Through his experience in athletics and achieving the fame of an NCAA champion, Russ carried the valuable lesson of discipline to his commitment to art, as well everyday life.
Docken’s artworks are sensitive interpretations of people showcased in idealistic settings. Each figure and face are unique in their shadows, highlights and colors revealing an endless variety of features. As he relays it, “People have always been my inspiration. Whether painting a beautiful woman or a rugged mountain man, capturing the spirit of the subject is my ultimate goal.”
Now with Docken’s career well-established, he lives and creates his artwork in Owatonna, Minnesota, where his wife, three daughters and five grandchildren have always supported making his dream of professional artistry a reality. "It is important to find something in life you are passionate about and then find a way to make a living at it," Russ has always told his kids. “I feel fortunate to have a career I truly love and hope my work may inspire or invoke a favorable response to those who see it.”
Samples of Native-themed Works, With Artist Comments:
Sacred Storm. "My vision for this painting was to express the bond of body and spirit with the forces of nature and the most sacred element of the Native American culture: the buffalo skull…In the distance, powerful bolts of lightning called Thunder Beings crackle in the darkening sky, signifying the imminent arrival of forces from the spirit world.”
True American
The Burden Basket. "The beauty and grace of the model Veronica Phillips inspired me to paint this work of art. With Apache and Navaho ancestry, she proudly adorns her Apache dress, furs and handmade Burden Basket.”
Native American Dreams
A New Beginning. “Though we have struggled with the clash of cultures, friendships have also developed. In this painting, the chief is the center of interest and bids farewell to an old friend.”
Through My Eyes
Sioux Boy
Loyal Companions
Eagle Vision
Spirit Seekers. “This painting was created to symbolize the spiritual union between the Native American and the wolf, as if they were joined in a Sacred Council.”
Look of War. “In preparation for battle, the decorative headdress and powerful pose of this American Indian is an inspirational, striking image.”
They Call Me Wolf. “The mystical portrayal of this warrior emphasizes his close union with the wolf. The name 'wolf' may have been given to him as his supernatural protector from a dream or vision, as wolves are highly respected by Native Americans.”
Untitled
Editor’s Note: Russ’s originals, prints and licensing opportunities are available through Wild Wings, a leading publisher, distributor and retailer of wildlife, sporting, and nostalgic Americana art.
25 Rare Photographs from 100 Years Ago
By Kinga Walicka
Curtis’ self-portrait.
In 1906, Edward Sheriff Curtis, a well-known photographer from Seattle was contracted by the famous banker J.P. Morgan to create a photo series of Native Americans. Curtis was paid an astonishing $75,000, a small fortune at the time. The project took 20 years to fully complete, where Curtis traveled across North America, taking photographs and transcribing songs and stories of over 80 tribes.
#1
Sioux Chiefs, 1905
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#2
Okuwa-Tsire, also known as "Cloud Bird," of the San Ildefonso Pueblo, 1905
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#3
A Hupa Fisherman with a spear, standing on a rock in midstream,
1923
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#4
A group of Navajo in the Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, 1904
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#5
An Apache man, circa 1910
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#6
A Kwakiutl wedding party arrives in canoes, 1914
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#7
A Klamath chief stands on a hill above Crater Lake, Oregon, 1923
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#8
An Apache woman reaps grain, circa 1910
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#9
A Qagyuhl woman wears a fringed Chilkat blanket and a mask representing a deceased relative who had been a shaman, 1914
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#10
A Jicarilla girl, circa 1910
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#11
An Apsaroke man on horseback, 1908
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#12
Members of the Qagyuhl tribe dance to restore an eclipsed moon, circa 1910
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#13
A Hupa spear fisherman watches for salmon, 1923
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#14
A Hupa woman, 1923
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#15
Qagyuhl dancers, 1914
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#16
An Apsaroke mother and child, 1908
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#17
Piegan tepees, 1910
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#18
Nakoaktok dancers wear Hamatsa masks in a
ritual, 1914
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#19
Hollow Horn Bear, a Brulé man, 1907
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#20
A Kwakiutl shaman performs a religious ritual, 1914
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#21
A Tewa girl, 1906
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#22
Kwakiutl people in canoes in British Columbia, 1914
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#23
Black Eagle, an Assiniboin man, 1908
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#24
A Qahatika girl, 1907
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
#25
An Apache woman with a baby, 1903
© Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
About this Collection
The Edward S. Curtis Collection offers a unique glimpse into
Curtis's work with indigenous cultures. The more than 2,400 silver-gelatin photographic prints were acquired by the Library of Congress through copyright deposit from about 1900 through 1930. About two-thirds (1,608) of these images were not published in Curtis's multi-volume work, The North American Indian. The collection includes a large number of individual or group portraits, as well as traditional and ceremonial dress, dwellings and other structures, agriculture, arts and crafts, rites and ceremonies, dances, games, food preparation, transportation, and scenery. More than 1,000 of the photographs have been digitized and individually described.
Hopis Have Made Their Mark In The World Of Running
by Craig Chamberlain
Over the past 28 years, the Hopi High School Boys Cross Country Team have won the Arizona state championship 27 times. (Photo Credit: Hopi High School)
To be Hopi is to run. “That’s who we are and that’s what we do,” says Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert.
So it’s no surprise that Gilbert, a professor and the director of the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Illinois, was drawn to the story of runners from his tribal community in northern Arizona, in the early 1900s, often running with and beating the world’s best.
It’s the story he tells in “Hopi Runners: Crossing the Terrain Between Indian and American”.
Gilbert, also a professor of history, became interested in the topic while working on an earlier book about Hopis at Sherman Institute in Southern California. Sherman was one of 25 federal off-reservation boarding schools that Native American students were compelled to attend between the late 1800s and early 1900s. Gilbert researched numerous newspaper clippings and other references to students’ athletic exploits.
“I was fascinated by just how well these Hopi runners did at the school, but also in regional and international competitions,” he said.
Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert is a professor and Director of the American Indian Studies Program at University of Illinois. (Photo Credit: L. Brian Stauffer)
Running runs deep in Hopi culture for a variety of reasons, Gilbert said. It was a means for messaging between villages and for travel between homes and fields, especially since the rocky and steep terrain of the Hopi mesas never favored the horse. “Running was always considered to be a trustworthy mode of transportation for the Hopi, and they became very, very good at it,” he said.
It shows even today in that the single Hopi high school has won the state title in its division in both boys and girls cross country in Arizona for most of the past 30 years, with the boys team completing a streak of 27 in a row.
Running, for the Hopis, was also ceremonial and sacred. Tribal oral histories tell of runs hundreds of miles to the Pacific Ocean to offer prayers. Hopis also ran far beyond their ancestral lands to shrines and sacred places “with the sole purpose that they would entice the rain clouds to follow them back to the mesas to water their fields,” Gilbert said.
The world first became aware of the Hopis’ running talents in the 1880s, when the railroad brought tourists and reporters to the Hopi mesas. Ethnographers noticed, too, when they arrived to record aspects of the tribe at a time when many feared Native Americans were a “vanishing race.”
Hopi runners line up to race in scorching hot Arizona back in 1902.
“At the turn of the century, there was an American fascination with Native people and Native culture, for sure,” Gilbert said. “These accounts of Hopi running on the reservation also corresponded with an American fascination with sport and distance running.”
The Hopi students arrived at Sherman and other boarding schools already as runners, Gilbert said, but they faced significant challenges. They had to learn to run in new conditions and in new ways – in city streets rather than on wide-open mesas; in athletic shoes rather than in thin moccasins or barefoot; for school, team or country rather than their people or clan.
They also had to negotiate the cultural divide and to challenge white preconceptions. Many Americans at the time thought Hopis and other Indians were dirty, lazy and had the mental capacity of children, Gilbert said.
Ironically, the Hopi runner who would become the most famous, Louis Tewanima, arrived at the Indian boarding school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1907 as a “prisoner of war,” part of a group that had resisted federal attempts to force Hopi children to attend such schools. He was in his mid 30s.
“A year later, on a world stage, he’s representing the very nation that had arrested him and forcefully removed him from his family,” Gilbert said. Tewanima placed ninth in the marathon at the 1908 Olympics, running for the U.S.
He would compete again in the 1912 Olympics, this time winning the silver medal in the 10,000-meter event and setting an American record that would stand for more than 50 years, when it was broken by another Native American, Billy Mills. One of Tewanima’s Olympic teammates, as well as a Carlisle classmate, was the legendary Native American athlete Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox Tribe), a gold medalist in both the pentathlon and decathlon.
In the summer of 1912, Louis Tewanima won silver in the 10,000-meter race at the Stockholm Olympics.
Tewanima is celebrated today on the Hopi Reservation with an annual footrace, but that wasn’t the case on his return home after the Olympics, Gilbert said. “When he returned to his village, the community was unimpressed with him.” In a community of runners, “they knew that there were runners who were much better.”
In fact, when Tewanima was challenged to a race by another celebrated boarding school Hopi runner, Philip Zeyouma, from Sherman Institute – who had won the 1912 Los Angeles Times Modified Marathon and also qualified for the Olympics – it prompted what Gilbert refers to as the “Hopi Showdown on Second Mesa.”
The actual showdown, however, would be between the two younger runners and two Hopi men in their 50s who taunted them and then took up the challenge, on the spot, to join them in the race, Gilbert said.
At six miles into the 12-mile race, the two older men, who didn’t even look especially healthy, were so far ahead that Tewanima and Zeyouma quit and walked back to where they had started.
“What that story demonstrates is that for Hopi people the essence of running did not begin in a boarding school, nor did it begin in the streets of Los Angeles or on a track in New York City, but that it originated from the people,” Gilbert said.
It also demonstrates that in Hopi culture it was the older men who taught the younger men to run “according to the Hopi way” and that some of the best distance runners in America at that time were unknown to the public, he said.
Gilbert has family on the Hopi Reservation and knows the mesas well, even though he grew up in the nearby mountain community of Flagstaff. He is also a runner. Though he now runs on the flatlands of central Illinois, he said the act of running always ties him back to the mesas and home.
“I can always look to my Hopi past and say that I come from a people of great runners. This is who I am as a Hopi person. We Hopis, we run.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig Chamberlain is a writer and editor for the News Bureau at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he covers social sciences, international studies, cultural/ethnic studies and the College of Media. He focuses on research studies and Q&As with faculty experts.
Deb Haaland’s Historic Rise to Secretary of Interior
by NAT Staff
“It’s profound to think about the history of this country’s policies to exterminate Native Americans and the resilience of our ancestors that gave me a place here today. This historic movement will not go by without the acknowledgement of the many people who have believed in me over the years and have had the confidence in me for this position.”
President Biden’s choice of Congresswoman Deb Haaland (D-NM), a member of the Pueblo Laguna Tribe with Jemez Pueblo heritage, as our nation’s new Secretary of the Interior is the latest chapter in a life devoted to service and speaking on behalf of Native peoples.
Born in Winslow, Arizona, Haaland grew up in a military family with a father, Major J.D. “Dutch” Haaland, who served 30 years as a Marine and was awarded the Silver Star Medal for saving six lives during the Vietnam War. Her mother, Mary Troya, is a Navy veteran who worked 25 years in Indian education.
The family moved constantly and Haaland, an “army brat,” attended 13 public schools before settling in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was no stranger to poverty and sacrifice and after graduating from high school, she worked at a bakery and sometimes had to rely on people for shelter as she could not afford to pay rent. But she persevered and continued on to earn an English undergraduate degree at the University of New Mexico, where she graduated law school.
Haaland (in white dress) with her family in early years.
As a single mom, Haaland raised her daughter, Somáh, who is a poet, performer and activist.
The Secretary of the Interior is a marathon runner and known to be an avid reader of non-fiction.
Beginning her professional career as a businesswoman, Haaland ran a small enterprise producing and canning Pueblo Salsa before becoming the first Chairwoman elected to the Laguna Development Corporation Board of Directors, overseeing business operations of the second largest tribal gaming enterprise in New Mexico. She also served as Tribal Administrator for the San Felipe Pueblo and worked as a service provider for adults with developmental disabilities.
After attending a unique educational program created by Emerge New Mexico which helps train Democratic women to run for political office, Haaland became the Native American Caucus Chair for the Democratic Party of New Mexico and the Native American vote director for Organizing for America NM. After an unsuccessful run for New Mexico Lieutenant Governor in 2014, the 35th generation New Mexican became the first Native American woman elected to lead a State Party.
In 2016, Haaland traveled to Standing Rock to take part in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests that sought to protect tribal sovereignty and vital natural resources. She launched that advocacy to new heights in 2018 when she was elected to Congress, where she won reelection last year.
In the House of Representatives, Haaland has advanced a number of issues, including tribal water infrastructure, climate resiliency, job growth and broadband deployment. She is known to have been extraordinarily active, serving on a multitude of committees, including Chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands and Vice Chair of Families and Children Living in Poverty, and Natural Resources. Other subcommittee assignments were Armed Services, Military Personnel, and Indigenous Peoples of the United States.
Her caucus participation included: Air Force, Peace Corps, Equality, Bipartisan Task Force to End Sexual Violence, Women’s Issues, Cannabis, Congressional Human Trafficking, Hunger, Labor and Working Families, Maternity, Multicultural Media, Safe Climate, TB Elimination, and Women's Working Group on Immigration Reform and the Native American Caucus (Co-Chair).
When first elected to Congress, Rep. Haaland was selected as the Freshman Class Representative to the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. In leadership, she served as the Region VI Whip (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona).
“A voice like mine has never been a Cabinet Secretary or at the head of the Department of the Interior. As our country faces the impacts of climate change and environmental injustice, the Interior has a role and I will be a partner in addressing these challenges by protecting our public lands and moving our country towards a clean energy future.”
Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) were the sole Republicans on the Senate Energy Committee who voted to advance her nomination to full Senate vote. Murkowski was under pressure to approve the congresswoman’s nomination from Alaska’s Native communities, who comprise nearly 20% of the state’s population. During her two days of hearings, Republicans on the committee pressed Haaland on her statements that were critical of fossil fuels and on the Administration’s Executive Orders pausing new federal drilling leases and cancelling a key permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
As Secretary of the Interior, Haaland will help reverse many of the former Administration’s environmental practices which negatively affected tribal communities and public lands. Those practices resulted in the destruction of sacred sites during border wall construction and opening federally protected lands to drilling and mining, examples being the Dakota Access Pipeline and Bears Mountain National Monument.
She will also play a pivotal role in advancing Biden’s climate agenda. The Administration plans to end carbon emissions from power plants by 2035 and proposes public investment in green infrastructure, including $2 trillion for clean energy projects. As the Vice Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Haaland is well familiarized with these technologies and sciences and ready to make positive change on a national level.
There are currently four Native American tribal members in Congress. They are: Tom Cole (Chickasaw), Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk), MarkWayne Mullin (Cherokee) and Yvette Herrell (Cherokee).
Identified by Time Magazine as “one of the sharpest minds in the House,” Tom Cole is serving his tenth term. Rep. Cole was appointed to the Rules Committee in 2013 and has remained on the distinguished panel since then. He has presided on the powerful House Appropriations Committee since 2009 as Vice Ranking Member and is Ranking Member and former Chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies. Among his leadership positions, Rep. Cole is Co-Chair of the Native American Caucus and Deputy Whip for the Republic Conference. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2017.
Rep. Davids is a member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and Vice Chair of its Subcommittee on Aviation. Other subcommittee assignments include Highways and Transit, Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access, and Innovation and Workforce Development. She is part of the Congressional Native American Caucus and, in leadership, a Democratic Regional Whip for Region 4 (Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas).
Rep. Mullin sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and three Subcommittees -- Oversight and Investigations, Environment and Climate Change, and Health. He holds the distinction of being Co-Chair of five caucuses -- Native American, Indian Health Service Task Force, Innovation, Men’s Health, and Regulatory Review. He additionally serves on the House Energy Action Team and the non-partisan House Democracy Partnership, which creates alliances with nations across the globe to promote democracy.
A freshman in Congress, Herrell won the November election and took office on January 3, 2021. She campaigned on a stronger U.S. border, supporting small businesses, fighting government regulations, and opposing legislation that impedes Second Amendment rights. While a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives for eight years, Herrell sponsored a bill that banned late-term abortion with exceptions for sexual abuse, rape or incest and opposed the Affordable Care Act in favor of free market solutions. She is an advocate for improving water rights, private property rights, and the management of public lands.
__________
It’s no surprise that Biden’s selection of Haaland was praised by Native American groups and community leaders across the nation. From Fawn Sharp, President of the National Congress of American Indians, “The centuries of invisibility of American Indian and Alaska Native people are fading as our best and brightest emerge into prominent positions of leadership.” Those sentiments were echoed by Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez who cheered, “Truly a historic and unprecedented day for all Indigenous people.” Ashley Nicole McCray, an environmentalist and member of the Absentee Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, foresees an optimistic future shared by many, “There’s a feeling something is changing. Finally, we’ve come to this point where Indigenous sentiment is no longer being silenced.”
About the U.S. Department of the Interior
The Interior Department upholds the federal government's responsibilities to the country's 574 federally recognized Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages. Its roughly 70,000-person staff manages one-fifth of all land in the United States including national parks, wildlife refuges, 1.7 billion acres of coastlines and other public lands.
For a historical listing of Native Americans who have served in Congress, click here.
Cigna Grant Combines Prenatal Care, Drug Education with Traditions
Kassie Runsabove, a community health worker at St. Vincent’s Hospital, reviews Native-themed books for the unique program.
The Cigna Foundation announced it will provide a $100,000 grant to the St. Vincent Healthcare Foundation in Billings, Montana to help improve the health outcomes of Native American women and babies through increased access to early prenatal care, drug education and intervention when needed.
“Addiction is a national crisis, and tribes are experiencing its impact along with the rest of the country. St. Vincent’s is a mission-driven health care facility dedicated to serving the Native American community, and Cigna Foundation is helping us develop a sustainable maternity care delivery model,” said Vicki Birkeland, St. Vincent Healthcare Director of Women’s Services. “This is important work and we look forward to seeing improved health outcomes for the moms and babies we serve.”
Baby moccasins made in classes at the hospital for families with babies. Other traditional activities have included prayer, smudging, signage and building a teepee during Native American Heritage Month.
Previously, the Cigna Foundation provided grant funding to St. Vincent Healthcare Foundation to support an American Indian Health Disparities Coordinator who serves as a community health worker. St. Vincent’s chose Kassie Runsabove for this role to work as an advocate and cultural liaison, and to be responsible for implementing projects to identify and reduce health disparities.
Runsabove (center) with two hospital staffers at a healthcare event.
Chantielle (center), a midwife from St. Vincent's attending a baby fair at the Northern Cheyenne Lame Deer Reservation.
The new Cigna Foundation grant provides an additional year of funding to help St. Vincent’s further its mission to improve the cultural competency skills of maternal health care providers, and to work with tribal community partners to provide prenatal education on healthy nutrition, stress management, and other healthy lifestyle topics. The program is expected to result in measurable outcomes, including:
- Earlier access to prenatal care with the goal of improving birth weights
- Increased participation at designated prenatal clinics, including St. Vincent's Midwifery & Women’s Health Center, the midwifery clinic on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, and at the health care facilities of community partners including Indian Health Services (IHS)
- Decreased numbers of NICU admissions
- Decreased numbers of babies born prematurely
- Increased participation in substance abuse recovery programs
Cigna Foundation's Executive Director, Mary Engvall.
“We are focused on improving health equity and are working with organizations such as St. Vincent’s to eliminate disparities that create barriers to health care,” said Mary Engvall, executive director of the Cigna Foundation. “St. Vincent’s community health worker is integral to effectively coordinating care between the rural reservations and an urban hospital setting in a culturally sensitive manner, while building a safe environment of trust for patients.”
The Cigna Foundation, founded in 1962, is a private foundation funded by contributions from Cigna Corporation and its subsidiaries. It supports organizations sharing its commitment to enhancing the health of individuals and families, and the well-being of their communities, with a special focus on those communities where Cigna employees live and work.
For more information on the Foundation’s partnership with St. Vincent’s, see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-RT9qlLQCA&feature=youtu.be
Lead and article photos courtesy of Cigna Foundation.
