by Judson L Moore

Native folklore interpretation of the raven. (Photo Credit: Old World Gods)

Native American culture is embedded with extensive tales and legends.  Every aspect of life, death, and existence has its own story to explain why things are the way they are.  Often, different Native American tribes had very similar beliefs, but most tribes have their own unique variations in the details of these legends. The raven is a significant figure in most Native American cultures.  It is seen as the creator of light and as a trickster figure.  As the maker of light, the raven symbolizes the ultimate creator of all things that existed before the beginning.  As a trickster figure, the raven is seen as a catalyst of mischief and mayhem.

Although credited as the “creator” of life, one story of Raven depicts a greedy and mischievous figure who mostly works for selfish reasons while at the same time teaching lessons about life.  The Native American tribes recognized that Raven was the key, which opened many of life’s treasures to them, and for this, they were grateful. They also realized that Raven did not do this for the good of man or anything else but only for himself.  So although Native Americans are thankful for what Raven has given to them, they realize that Raven is not to be trusted and is more selfish than generous (Burke).

Common Ravens in the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona.
(Photo Credit: Wikipedia Public Domain)

Because of the numerous tribes that believed in the raven, there were multiple variations of beliefs surrounding the story of the raven.  The following is a summary of the creation myth of the Tlingit tribe from the North Pacific coast region:

The name of Raven is Kit-ka’ositiyi-qa-yit (“Son of Kit-ka’ositiyiqa).  Raven was instructed from birth by his father in every subject so that the raven could make a world; after trying many different ways, the raven was finally successful.  The raven started by creating light.  Raven had heard that a wealthy man was living atop a hill who had a light but did not let it out for the world to see.  Raven tried many ways to get into the house to obtain the light and finally devised a plan that would work.  Raven transformed himself into a speck of dirt and placed himself in a glass of water from which the man’s daughter was drinking.  The girl drank the speck of dirt and, in this way, became pregnant.

Sometime later, a child was born, and Raven possessed this child.  When Raven had the strength to crawl around the house, he found the shelf where the man had his treasures on display.  Raven cried intensely for the objects on the shelf, and eventually, the man pulled down his bag of stars and allowed the child to play with it.  Raven rolled the stars around on the ground for a while, and then when he saw an opportunity, let them go up the smoke hole where they scattered into the sky in the arrangement which you now see them in today.

The next day the boy cried for more of the things on the shelf and was given a bag that contained the moon.  Raven played with the moon, and in the same fashion as the stars, he let the moon up the smoke hole, and it went into the sky for all to see.  On the third day, the boy cried very intensely for the final object on the shelf, and the man, knowing what would happen but unable to refuse his grandson, gave him the box that contained the sun.  As soon as Raven had this, he flew up the smoke hole with the box, having stolen all the man’s valuables.  Raven did not yet release the sun.

Alaskan Totem Pole featuring the Raven
(Photo Credit: Pixabay)

 Raven shortly thereafter was told of a well with a never-ending supply of water.  Raven went to the place where the well was and learned that the man who owned the well kept it covered and never left its side. He even built his house around the well and slept by it so that no one else could drink from it.  Once again, Raven began to scheme a plan to get this water.

Raven disguised himself as the man’s brother-in-law and went to the man, telling him he would stay the night with him.  Both went to sleep, and in the early morning, Raven woke up and went away from the well.  When Raven returned, he brought with him dog dung and put it on the sleeping man’s buttocks.  Raven awoke the man and showed the man the accident he had had in the night.  The man, embarrassed and in need of cleaning up, ran out of the house to clean up.

By the time the man came back, Raven had drunk up nearly all the water.  Raven flew out the smoke hole away from the man but got stuck.  The man commenced with making a fire under Raven to make smoke, and this smoke turned the raven the color we are accustomed to seeing it today (before that, Raven was pure white).  Raven finally escaped and flew out over the land, spitting water here and there, creating the great rivers of the world.  Whenever small drops of water leaked from his beak, they formed the small creeks.

When Raven happened upon a village where any beings lived, he was asked if he came from the house where the sun was kept.  Raven pulled out the box and opened it just enough to let a bit of light out as he was proud of his accomplishment.  The people were thrown back by this bright light and then began to fight with Raven to get the box. Raven was unnerved by this, so he opened the box all the way, and the sun shot up into the sky.  This village’s beings were then transformed into the animals whose skin they were wearing and ran off into the forest and the oceans.  In this manner, the sun was brought into the world, and the forests and oceans were populated with game.

Raven is credited for many other gifts and curses to man, but the “creation” of the stars, moon, rivers, and sun are the most essential and universally believed myths amongst North American Indians (Hooker).

Raven Mask by Kwakwaka'wakw artist Talon George
(Photo Credit: Talon George)

This version of the creation myth is one of many ways that the story has been told.  All Native American tales have been passed down for generations orally; none of the stories have been written until the last 100 years (or so).  Because of this, there are many similar versions of the story.  For example, one other popular version told in the Northwest Coast region states that the daughter of the keeper of the sun and moon was impregnated by Raven, not because he turned himself into a speck of dust and fell in her water, but because he turned himself into, “…a spruce needle and floated into her basket of water.  When she drank from it, he impregnated her with himself” (McNeil).  Here the same basic concept and the overall effect is the same, but the meaning is slightly different.

There are also discrepancies about the physical appearance of the raven baby between tribes of the same Northwest region: one indicates the baby to be “immaculate in every way” (McNeil), whereas another refers to the child as “oddly shaped in every way with deformities such that make it hard to believe that this child was of human birth.”

One example given by the Tsimshian tribe of British Columbia shows Raven as a pure savior of man, providing light to the human world.  According to their belief, Raven was sorry for the humans who were forced to stumble around in the dark, and knowing that there was light in heaven, Raven, out of the goodness of his heart, stole the light from the heavens and brought it to earth so that it could be enjoyed by everyone (The Spirit World 26).

Tlingit art depicting Raven stealing the sun. (Photo Credit: Israel Shotridge)

The Tlingit legend has its roots in that Raven stole the sun and stars from a rich man.  Many other Native American cultures have very similar variations, notably different only in the character who performed the act, sometimes the Rabbit.  But in the Slavery Tribe legend, the stories do not compare at all.  In this legend, Coyote and Eagle merely steal the boxes of moon and sun from human hunters who dwell in the woods (Erdoes 140-142).

According to Cherokee legend, the raven was also not in the least bit associated with the sun.  In the Cherokee tale, the sun is Rabbit with his tail on fire, and he is running around and around the world trying to put the fire out, thus creating the sunrise and sunset (Hannah).

The belief in the raven as the creator of light and as a trickster figure can be found throughout many Indian civilizations but is most prominent in Northwest America among tribes classified as the Northwest Coast Indians (Keepers of the Totem 21).

The raven is significant, especially in North America.  In Northeast America, Raven is an important figure as the creator of light, but not so much as a trickster figure; the Coyote fulfills that distinguished position in many tribes east of the Great Plains.

As the creator of light, the raven is given credit for the gifts of the sky (and its contents), water, and many animal populations to humankind.  According to Native American legend, the raven is how the stars, moon, sky, and rivers were exposed.  Raven’s dual role in folklore seems to be creation and mischief.

Although mischievous by nature, humans don’t take a sinister view from Raven’s actions but find more positive ways to learn about life from Raven.  For instance, one account of the creation myth indicates that “Raven was white before he stole the sun…. His trip through the smoke hole transformed him into the black creature, as he is today.  He paid the price for his audacity” (McNeil).  This passage goes on to say that the moral of this story is that “the price we pay has more to do with how we respond to a situation in life than the price itself” (McNeil).

As time has taken its toll on the Native American mythology, a new perspective is being derived about the raven.  Traditionally, Raven legends have only been told by elite tribesmen because only they had the time to learn the stories. Thus the stories have tended to be oriented more around the elite.  However, a more modern view shows that the Tlingit Tribe believes that Raven thought of the poor in the same manner which Jesus did, regarding them sympathetically (Bierhorst 25).

Tribal dancer dressed as the raven. (Photo Credit: White Wolf Pack)

“Raven is not only a powerful supernatural character but also a trickster” (Erdoes 344).  Although the raven is credited for giving such gifts to humankind, it is still said that his heart may not have been in precisely the right place in those acts.  Raven, by nature, is very greedy and continually seeking food (Burke).  As one reads through Raven’s myths, it becomes apparent that Raven is performing all these acts not out of generosity but out of vanity.  He delivered the stars, sun, moon, and rivers to man, but his motivations were selfish, and his means are never pure.  Raven simply contrives ways to steal others’ treasures and create a better world for himself; the fact that all of the world and humankind benefit from this is simply a by-product of Raven’s selfish desires.

How Raven goes about obtaining these ‘gifts’ is always mischievous and always causes harm or loss to others.  Yet despite this, man is still thankful for the result of Raven’s actions so long as Raven does not directly come into contact with man, for it is when Raven and man meet that man quickly changes his mind about his thankfulness to Raven.  Regardless of what symbol is used, the trickster figure reflects the values of the given tribe and explains their understanding of human nature (Leeming 48).  Whatever the circumstances surrounding Raven led events may be, the “trickster figure is always a character of change” (Hannah).

Some say that people project their characteristics onto their deities.  If that is so, the Native Americans were self-aware regarding creativity, generosity, cleverness, theft, and mischief.  With these qualities that they recognized among themselves, they endowed the raven.

As with many deities, the raven is regarded with respect and wariness.  Being in close intercourse with the raven would be like having “too much religion.”  Appreciating the raven from afar through storytelling was safer and more functional than being in close contact with such an unpredictable character.

Homepage Image Credit: https://mythologyinquirer.com/

About the Author

Judson L Moore is the author of Exponential Happiness and a product management professional with more than 20-years of work experience. His career has taken him across the globe to fill various roles in a breadth of industries. Judson's passions include applying technology and innovation to solving traditional problems, sharing his experiences through writing and interviews, and committing to making his community a better place for all who live in it. Learn more about Judson at judsonlmoore.com

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Vision Maker Media Announces Public Media Funding Awards

Still photo from Buffalo Spirit by Ivy MacDonald (Blackfeet)

Vision Maker Media (VMM) announces that it has granted public media funding to 22 Native American film productions that focus on Indigenous cultures and history.

Each awardee received up to $205,000 in public media funding toward the completion of their film or for licensing of a completed film by VMM – all for broadcasting on public television. (In some cases, filmmakers have previously received a portion of this funding.) In funding its 2025 awardees, Vision Maker Media has now released all of the cash in its Public Media Fund, which has been supported by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) since 1976.

VMM’s awards announcement follows the Congressional vote to rescind all appropriated funding for the CPB for future fiscal years FY 2026 and FY 2027, leading to the closure of CPB’s long-running organization. VMM has received $1.8 million annually from CPB to support documentary films made for PBS stations nationwide but Vision Maker Media plans to persevere in new ways.

“Since our founding in 1976, Vision Maker Media (www.visionmakermedia.org) has been the nation’s leading developer and provider of Native American programming airing on public radio and television stations,” says Francene Blythe-Lewis, Vision Maker Media president and CEO. “While we are committed to continuing our important work, the decision to rescind funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has created big challenges for Vision Maker Media, and for the many Native American filmmakers and storytellers who rely on VMM’s funding to support productions like the ones that we are announcing today. We are reassessing how we can continue to serve Native country.”

Still photo from Story Pole by Darrell Hillaire (Lummi Nation), Jordan Riber, Noelani
Auguston (Nooksak and Kanaka Maoli)

The Awardees Are:

• Buffalo Spirit, Ivy MacDonald (Blackfeet)
• Coming Round, Daniel Golding (Quechan Indian Nation), J. Mitchell Johnson
• Crossing the Line, Ramona Emerson (Diné), Kelly Byars (Choctaw/Chickasaw)
• Four Nights and a Fire, Alex Nystrom (Ojibwe)
• Glen Riege 20 WP, Tanis Parenteau (Métis Nation of Alberta Cree)
• Iiná, Lonnie Begaye (Diné)
• Indigenous Genders-The Raven and the Bull, Raven Two Feathers (Cherokee, Seneca, Cayuga, Comanche), Nils Cowan
• Indigenous Science Project, PBS NOVA
• Medicine Ball, Leya Hale (Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and Diné), Twin Cities Public Television
• More than Water, Cindi Finneran, Leslie Halfmoon (Caddo/Delaware/Choctaw)
• Nampeyo American Modernist, Steve LaRance (Hopi-Assiniboine)
• Nihunavea: My Heart, My Center, Colin Rosemont, Sandra Hernandez (Tejon Indian Tribe)
• Reservation Redemption, Brenda Fisher (Yakama), Blake Pickens (Chickasaw)
• Respected by Her People, Sonya Oberly (Nez Perce)
• Spirit Plate with Pyet DeSpain, Charles Perry (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation), Steven Hoggard, Pyet DeSpain (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation)
• Story Pole, Darrell Hillaire (Lummi Nation), Jordan Riber, Noelani Auguston (Nooksak and Kanaka Maoli)
• Stroke: The Circle of Healing, Jaime Tafoya (Arapaho, Mexican, European), Jack Kohler (Hoopa Valley Tribe)
• The Love for the Game, Josiah W. Jones (Chickasaw and Choctaw)
• The Revolution of Virgil Ortiz, Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo), New Mexico PBS
• Uncovering Boarding Schools, Arya Surowidjojo, Kami Horton, Oregon Public Broadcasting
• Under the Battle Tipi, Charles "Boots" Kennedye (Kiowa)
• Whose Land? O'odham Land, Victoria Westover, Mike Wilson (Tohono O’odham)

About Vision Maker Media

Vision Maker Media (VMM) is the premier source of media by and about Native Americans since 1976. Their mission is empowering and engaging Native people to share stories. VMM envisions a world changed and healed by understanding Native stories and the public conversations they generate. The organization works with its funded producers to develop, produce and distribute programs for all media, and supports training to increase the number of Native Americans and Alaska Natives producing programs across a variety of platforms.

To contact Francene Blythe-Lewis or any of the awarded filmmakers, please contact Chris Kelly, Fifth House PR, at ckelly@fifthhousepr.com or 617/510-2333.

Returning the ‘Three Sisters’ – Corn, Beans and Squash – to Native American Farms Nourishes People, Land and Cultures

By Christina Gish Hill / Iowa State University

An ear of corn. (Photo by Christophe Maertens / Unsplash)

Historians know that turkey and corn were part of the first Thanksgiving, when Wampanoag peoples shared a harvest meal with the pilgrims of Plymouth plantation in Massachusetts. And traditional Native American farming practices tell us that squash and beans likely were part of that 1621 dinner too.

For centuries before Europeans reached North America, many Native Americans grew these foods together in one plot, along with the less familiar sunflower. They called the plants sisters to reflect how they thrived when they were cultivated together.

Today three-quarters of Native Americans live off of reservations, mainly in urban areas. And nationwide, many Native American communities lack access to healthy food. As a scholar of Indigenous studies focusing on Native relationships with the land, I began to wonder why Native farming practices had declined and what benefits could emerge from bringing them back.

To answer these questions, I am working with agronomist Marshall McDaniel, horticulturalist Ajay Nair, nutritionist Donna Winham and Native gardening projects in Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Our research project, “Reuniting the Three Sisters,” explores what it means to be a responsible caretaker of the land from the perspective of peoples who have been balancing agricultural production with sustainability for hundreds of years.

Abundant Harvests

Historically, Native people throughout the Americas bred indigenous plant varieties specific to the growing conditions of their homelands. They selected seeds for many different traits, such as flavor, texture and color.

Native growers knew that planting corn, beans, squash and sunflowers together produced mutual benefits. Corn stalks created a trellis for beans to climb, and beans’ twining vines secured the corn in high winds. They also certainly observed that corn and bean plants growing together tended to be healthier than when raised separately. Today we know the reason: Bacteria living on bean plant roots pull nitrogen – an essential plant nutrient – from the air and convert it to a form that both beans and corn can use.

Squash plants contributed by shading the ground with their broad leaves, preventing weeds from growing and retaining water in the soil. Heritage squash varieties also had spines that discouraged deer and raccoons from visiting the garden for a snack. And sunflowers planted around the edges of the garden created a natural fence, protecting other plants from wind and animals and attracting pollinators.

Interplanting these agricultural sisters produced bountiful harvests that sustained large Native communities and spurred fruitful trade economies. The first Europeans who reached the Americas were shocked at the abundant food crops they found. My research is exploring how, 200 years ago, Native American agriculturalists around the Great Lakes and along the Missouri and Red rivers fed fur traders with their diverse vegetable products.

Displaced from the Land

As Euro-Americans settled permanently on the most fertile North American lands and acquired seeds that Native growers had carefully bred, they imposed policies that made Native farming practices impossible. In 1830 President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which made it official U.S. policy to force Native peoples from their home locations, pushing them onto subpar lands.

On reservations, U.S. government officials discouraged Native women from cultivating anything larger than small garden plots and pressured Native men to practice Euro-American style monoculture. Allotment policies assigned small plots to nuclear families, further limiting Native Americans’ access to land and preventing them from using communal farming practices.

Native children were forced to attend boarding schools, where they had no opportunity to learn Native agriculture techniques or preservation and preparation of Indigenous foods. Instead they were forced to eat Western foods, turning their palates away from their traditional preferences. Taken together, these policies almost entirely eradicated three sisters agriculture from Native communities in the Midwest by the 1930s.

Native American tribes in the Great Lakes region pre-European settlement.
(Map from Milwaukee Public Museum)

Reviving Native Agriculture

Today Native people all over the U.S. are working diligently to reclaim Indigenous varieties of corn, beans, squash, sunflowers and other crops. This effort is important for many reasons.

Improving Native people’s access to healthy, culturally appropriate foods will help lower rates of diabetes and obesity, which affect Native Americans at disproportionately high rates. Sharing traditional knowledge about agriculture is a way for elders to pass cultural information along to younger generations. Indigenous growing techniques also protect the lands that Native nations now inhabit, and can potentially benefit the wider ecosystems around them.

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/lSwGxJe4bVs

But Native communities often lack access to resources such as farming equipment, soil testing, fertilizer and pest prevention techniques. This is what inspired Iowa State University’s Three Sisters Gardening Project. We work collaboratively with Native farmers at Tsyunhehkw, a community agriculture program, and the Ohelaku Corn Growers Co-Op on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin; the Nebraska Indian College, which serves the Omaha and Santee Sioux in Nebraska; and Dream of Wild Health, a nonprofit organization that works to reconnect the Native American community in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, with traditional Native plants and their culinary, medicinal and spiritual uses.

We are growing three sisters research plots at ISU’s Horticulture Farm and in each of these communities. Our project also runs workshops on topics of interests to Native gardeners, encourages local soil health testing and grows rare seeds to rematriate them, or return them to their home communities.

The monocropping industrial agricultural systems that produce much of the U.S. food supply harms the environment, rural communities and human health and safety in many ways. By growing corn, beans and squash in research plots, we are helping to quantify how intercropping benefits both plants and soil.

By documenting limited nutritional offerings at reservation grocery stores, we are demonstrating the need for Indigenous gardens in Native communities. By interviewing Native growers and elders knowledgeable about foodways, we are illuminating how healing Indigenous gardening practices can be for Native communities and people – their bodies, minds and spirits.

Our Native collaborators are benefiting from the project through rematriation of rare seeds grown in ISU plots, workshops on topics they select and the new relationships they are building with Native gardeners across the Midwest. As researchers, we are learning about what it means to work collaboratively and to conduct research that respects protocols our Native collaborators value, such as treating seeds, plants and soil in a culturally appropriate manner. By listening with humility, we are working to build a network where we can all learn from one another.

Homepage Photo Credit: Chef’s Mandela

About the Author

Christina Gish Hill focuses her research on American Indian/Native cultures of the Northern Plains and Midwest. Her current research explores how social relations impact cultural expressions of Native relationships with their landscapes in the face of colonial forces working to disrupt these relationships. In ethnography conducted throughout these regions, Native people have reminded her that these landscapes are their home. Gish Hill explores the mechanisms Native people use to continue to assert their relationship with this landscape despite the ruptures created by removal, reservations, assimilation, and development.

About The Conversation

The Conversation is a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good. Their articles share researchers’ expertise in policy, science, health, economics, education, history, ethics and most every subject studied in colleges and universities. Some articles offer practical advice grounded in research, while others simply provide authoritative answers to questions that sparked our curiosity.

Five Indigenous Poets Explore Loss and Love of Their Native Lands

By Courtney Lindwall

Districts, 2021 by Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota). Micron ink, prismacolor, graphite on an original
ledger page from 1898. “The dragonflies not only represent the nine districts in Oglala Lakota
County of South Dakota, but represent happiness and purity in my heritage,” says Patton.
(Photo Credit: Wade Patton)                                                                                                                                                                        

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, we asked five Indigenous writers to share original works of environmental poetry that speak directly to future generations. Their poems grapple with grief and loss—from the construction of unnatural borders to the destruction caused by a warming world—while honoring their relationships to the plants, animals, and topography of their ancestral land.

Importantly, many of their pieces also imagine what a world returned to Indigenous leadership could look like. “A call to protect the land is a call to protect our languages, our families, our communities, and our ways of life,” says poet Jake Skeets. “This poem is a letter to myself and the world reminding us of that fact.”

Video Link: https://youtu.be/yufiYo-CD7w

Tanaya Winder

Winder is an author, singer-songwriter, and motivational speaker, whose written works include the poetry collections Words Like Love and Why Storms are Named After People and Bullets Remain Nameless. She comes from an intertribal lineage of Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, and Duckwater Shoshone Tribe, where she is an enrolled citizen. She currently lives on Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho lands in Colorado.

Stone Mother

I.
I was born in the desert
learned to cherish water
like it was created from tears.

I grew up hearing the legend, the lesson
of the Stone Mother who cried
enough cries to make an entire lake
from sadness. From her, we learned
what must be done and that the sacrifices
you make for your people are sacred.
We are all related
and sometimes it takes
a revolution to be awakened.

You see, the power of a single tear lies in the story.
It’s birthed from feeling and following
the pain as it echoes into the canyon of grieving.
It’s the path you stumble and walk
until you push and claw your way through to acceptance.
For us, stories have always been for lessons.

II.
I remember my grandmother was well versed in dirt,
the way the earth clung to her hands as if it were a part of her.
We come from the earth. So she tended the seeds
as living beings, planted her garden full of foods
traditional to the land and handled them with care.
Every tree, plant, or rock has a spirit, she said “hear it.”

III.
I listen.

When my mother says words are seeds and to be careful
of the words you say, I pray. For I know each seed
carries a story.

My mother taught me that water is the source
of all living things and to honor life like the circle
we sit in for ceremony. From the doorway in
to the doorway out, life is about all our relations.

IV.
Before I was born, they tried to silence us,
pierced our tongues with needles then taught
our then-girl-grandmothers how to sew like machines.
You see, colonialism has always been
about them not seeing us as human but as object,
a thing. Conquest meant they saw our bodies as land,
full of resources waiting to be extracted and exploited.

Our land was stolen.

Our language. Our grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers, sisters, mothers, brothers, daughters, sons, children, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and ancestors.

Our Mother Earth holds our histories in her dirt.
But today, she burns not in the traditional ways once taught,
controlled and deliberate. Today she burns desperate,
for all to resist fossil fuels, the drilling, and the black snake named
greed that swallows everything.

V.
When you lose something, you hope it will be found.
When something is stolen, you want it returned.
We’ve had our land stolen and we’re losing it again
unless we all take action for the climate to change.

VI.
Land back is a demand, a stand
against the Age of Exploration and Extraction,
a call for the Time of Reconciliation, the Now of Restoration

Land back is an understanding
that tomorrow isn’t promised, but today we can return
the power to the earth and her stewards.

And those who wish to stand with us
must take action beyond the performative
where Indigenous consulting isn’t just a costume of free
and informed consent, where consulting with tribal nations
isn’t just a box one checks without due diligence, where co-management isn’t co-opted
just for the optics of equity, diversity, and justice.

Stand with us as accomplices.
Follow our lead for we have always been well versed in survival.

We were shaped by fire, made from lightning and
dirt-covered hands that know when to ignite healing.
Now is the time. Let us not drown in Mother Earth’s tears.
Mother Earth has a spirit and she’s asking us to listen.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/6JOZC18BZ3c?si=EZpqf16f2X00ePkA

Jake Skeets

Skeets is a poet and teaches at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona, located within the Navajo Nation. His first book is Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, a winner of the 2018 National Poetry Series.

K.yah | Saad: Toward an Open Poetics

In this essay, I will

— locate the land’s locution
— shimmer inside a word’s mineral
— make my home sentence twine
— turn possessives into antiquated vocabulary

In this essay, I will

leave this place —

the desert is no sea its glimmer only black rock
knelt at the skycase
a chimney of sun tar and asphalt
beneath the rake and roll of cactus and canyon seed
spring dew taunts tarantula and scorpion
parched in a midday temperature high
for springtime or late fall

In this essay,
the desert is a love letter

there is no sea
a desert undertow is thirst
its riptide a dust devil
fairy wind on the San Juan basin
the light casts its name in tarmac
swarm and memory

In this something other than essay
somewhere there is a fire
about to happen or is happening or has happened

In this I will
this is the high desert, i.e., a place with light
so much of it we forgot how to look

In this desert, I will

light the hardened meadow with a technology so ancient we call it language.

This is what I mean:

the field steps pink onto a hairline road
the sun washed on morning needle and wrestled sap
it was an early frost followed by late heat
there are no rules or boundaries out here

the trees at the tree line are only a border
if we say it is—the same goes for river or alcove

If the lights go off any one moment, would we fear
the darkness? In it, we can’t see the cornfields
empty of corn or weeds growing in the abandoned mine.

In this darkness, I will
write another love letter to winter and call it by its real name
language, after all, is the only sound it can hear

I will say I am from here, this desert, a home
I refuse to let a border town be my name

Where are you from, they’ll ask
Háadę́ę́’shą’ naniná?

Here, I’ll say. Everywhere.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/1bGx8llS0pQ?si=4b0-Dm5AnxdDwxKk

Amber McCrary

McCrary is a Diné poet, zinester, and feminist. She is Red House clan born for Mexican people clan. Originally from Shonto, Arizona, and raised in Flagstaff, McCrary received her MFA in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry from Mills College and is now the owner and founder of Abalone Mountain Press, which is dedicated to publishing Indigenous voices. She currently resides on Akimel O'odham land.

Self-Portrait as a Saguaro

Sometimes I feel like you

a flowering hosh, has:an, saguaro

breathing in the rocky sand

A bright, boiling star, eyes, my waxy, sprinkled skin

I look at you and I can feel the prickled

toothpicks stand on my skin

just like when I see the hosh of my eye

I feel like you before the monsoons

my ribs dry from the heat

ready for the rain

& the new year

However, this year is particularly funny

but what does this tall saguaro know?

the rain is solemn
the rain does not repeat
like it used to

I see relatives pick off

my bearable fruit

for years longer than something called a nation state

whatever that is

Sometimes I see you leading

me to other hosh older

than the state of Arizona

standing taller than the

politicians looking like overwatered prickly pear

with pricks spilling out of their mouths

poking and bleeding out

letters with no song

Sometimes I feel like you

seeing freeways being built

over my relatives and friends

feeling the rivers dry in my spine

My belly unfull

In the heat

The magnificent heat

under my weight

I am protected beyond the laws

by something stronger

something laws cannot govern

When I see you

my belly is full

& the rain clouds appear

bustling, dripping, rested

Please let it keep raining

My spine crackles in between love and loss
of language and land
the cars spit grief in the name of sublime song

A terror to us, a barrier between my skin and song
We can't hear it anymore
only the sound of wheels whizzing and whirring
all in the name of a construct of the mind
the loveless of the sands

it is raw in your belly
it is raw in their language
it is raw in a bleeding mind

Please do not let my belly disappear

Video Link: https://youtu.be/cH4T3rx-LYM?si=sL3xKrSuUk7_HVx8

Kinsale Hueston

Hueston is a Diné poet, performer, and junior at Yale University studying the intersections of cultural (re)vitalization movements, Indigenous poetry, and Indigenous feminism. Usually based on occupied Tongva Lands (Los Angeles), she works with Native youth in storytelling and mental health programming, edits Changing Wxman Collective, and can often be found penning love poems to the high desert. She currently lives on occupied Quinnipiac Land in New Haven, Connecticut.

​​after Sacred Water

I.

we inherit:

every gathering pool a blessing
formed by careful hands each monsoon
a heartbeat turquoise vein

the sound of underwater
brimmed with mosses
here laps the quiet tide of love

II.

in the summers we would flock to my great-aunt’s
swimming hole down the canyon
dizzy from the jumbled journey in a truck bed
poke at the tadpoles squirming in the red clay
my mother watched from orchard shade
she had been down here many years before
with her sisters her brothers
picking apples, following the bend
of the river leading the goats to the wayside to drink
now the water is too polluted
with cow manure uranium
we trace the mud with our eyes
watch the petroglyphs stretch in the shadows
miss the feeling of the sun wicking river from our skin

III.

in 1956/ the glen canyon dam began construction/ with an explosion/
was hit with a demolition blast keyed/ by the push of a button/
in the oval office/ the bottom of the canyon/ dotted by navajo/
ute/ paiute footprints/
still cooling/ the explosion/ a scar in the earth still aching
with uranium mines/ yellowcake/ yellow corn/ tumbled
in the runoff/ what do you call ancestral homestead/
stopped like a kitchen sink/ the water/ of your people
redirected to ranches/ fatten cattle that render the san juan undrinkable/
quench the white men in bars that don’t admit ndns/ water
and mineral/ packed into bombshells/ how do you drown
by your own artery/ today
the lake has never been shallower/ a drought
of its own becoming/ not even time to weep/ before the crossing/
before the fleeing/ marina of familiar fossils/ zebra mussels
scour the bones of old adobe/ stilled
beneath the surface/ the ancient sun rendered closer/
every day/ as the ranchers lament the withering/ the tourists
sticky with sun/ dock their houseboats/ the people who have known
this land/ see the slickrock
still emerging

IV.

in the third world, coyote took the water monster’s baby
so the water monster decided to make it rain endlessly
the water rose and flooded and choked the peaks
of sacred mountains
and the beings that lived there
did not know where to escape the flood
what saved the world was a reed curling
into the sky a way to climb out into the fourth world
an offering by First Man beloved by the gods
the one from which we all were formed

there are things that remain stolen that holy people
weep for and others look to us with upturned hands
ask where the reeds come from flee to the highest peaks
dream of another world they can scurry into
through a wound in the sky
we have no answer for them we have known this the entire time
tell our stories go to the water
tend this land
and remember

Video Link: https://youtu.be/zg74WxaY1QM?si=20fRxP98b9SwpITC

Edyka Chilomé

Chilomé is a queer, Indigenous, mestiza cultural worker, writer, poet, and child of migrant activists from the occupied lands of the Zacateco (Mexico) as well as Lenca (El Salvador) people. She was raised in migrant justice movements grounded in the tradition of spiritual activism and was deeply formed by the works of Black feminist writers as a reindigenizing woman in diaspora. Chilomé is the author of two collections of poetry: She Speaks Poetry and El Poemario del Colibrí: The Humming-bird Poems. She currently lives east of the Arkikosa River (North Texas) in a 200-square-foot tiny house with her animal companion

The Archive of Our Relation

I admit, the mourning is constant
the names, the words, the whispers
colors and textures that were lost,
persecuted, poisoned, disinherited,
extracted, cut down, shaved, kidnapped,
unclaimed, and forgotten. An endless war

I too report, my silence has not saved me
yet running water calls spirits
hidden in me carefully
waiting for me to quiet the mind
so they may wake me right on time
to witness the great expanse
a dance so tender
it gently wakes the sun

In gratitude the sun rises
offers its power
so that we may see
all that has been done
all that is yet to come

In humility and courage
I rise, offer my power
so that I may see
all that has been done
and you who has yet to become

Tumal sinú
may the sun always shine on you
a prayer weaved by
the most precious parts of me
a breath
the most potent offering
to our becoming

I report, the water, the earth, the seeds
and the grace of a dancing sky
remain a pure reflection
the wealth of our inheritance
the heart of our connection
the archive of our relation
if we so choose to co-conspire
to re-member

Agua es vida, Water is life
we are the water and
remembering has offered us
our lives, love letters bloomed beautiful
in anticipation of you
travel guides to the
ancient futures that are due
living memory of
gestation and labor
humble testimonies
conspired in your favor

You see, more than hope
we hold a deep knowing
all creation moves in circle
all that was once dead is reborn
the breaking of the seed
a necessary violence
forgiveness a necessary blooming
resistance a necessary rooting
rebuilding a defining act of courage
letting go a radical act of love

I too agree with trees
I do not shy away from the darkness
Nor do I fear the wind
I remember the water
and take root in the memory of you
the living archive of relation
a sweet and sacred confirmation
that we are still alive.

***

About the Author

Courtney Lindwall is a writer at Consumer Reports. She has worked in publishing and taught writing to New York City public school students. Lindwall has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Florida.

***

Republished with permission from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). To see the original story, click here.

Joint Research Study Found Native American Teens Underrepresented in CDC Database

By Sara Plummer

Jason Eyachabbe (foreground) from the Chickasaw Nation Dance Troupe takes part in the American
Indian Honoring Ceremony at the OSU Center for Health Sciences. (Photo Credit: Cherokee Phoenix)

A team from Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation and the University of Oklahoma-University of Tulsa School of Community Medicine studied how teens who self-reported as American Indian/Alaska Natives were reclassified using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ashton Glover Gatewood, a fourth-year medical student from OSU-COM at the Cherokee Nation, and Micah Hartwell, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, worked with Amy Hendrix-Dicken, research assistant supervisor at the OU-TU School of Community Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics, on the study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

The team analyzed the CDC’s 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) data, which collects behaviors and demographics of high school students including self-reported race and ethnicity. The self-reported race data is then used to create a single variable called imputed race variable — which can limit the representation of Native Americans, the study found.

When self-reporting, the teens can classify themselves as one or more races. Of the 816 teens who self-reported as American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) in the YRBSS, 145, or 17.7%, reported as AI/AN alone; 246, or 30.2%, reported as AI/AN alone with Hispanic or Latino background; and 425, or 52%, reported AI/AN in combination with one or more races.

But, the study found only 145 teens were computed as being AI/AN, representing only 13.4% of AI/AN teens in the YRBSS.

“There’s a huge issue with Native American populations being underrepresented in a lot of data — nationally representative data,” said Hartwell, who also works with the Office of Medical Student Research at OSU-COM at the Cherokee Nation campus in Tahlequah.

Ashton Glover Gatewood, center, with family medicine physicians at the Benteh
Nuutah Valley Native Primary Care Center in Wasilla, Alaska. (Photo Credit: OSU)

For Gatewood, who is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and has Chickasaw Nation ancestry, the subject of the study is personal. Her daughter came home from preschool one day and told her they learned that Native Americans were people who lived a long time ago, wore funny clothes and aren’t around anymore.

“I told her no, you’re Native American, you’re Choctaw and Chickasaw. We had this long conversation about it,” she said. “I think in Oklahoma we’re probably a little bit ahead of the curve, but I know a lot of the country and the world thinks that Indigenous people are this extinct or mythical thing that lived a long time ago or we hear about in stories. They forget that we’re alive and are people that live next door to them.”

Hendrix-Dicken, who is also a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and Ph.D. candidate in OU-Tulsa’s Organizational and Community Leadership program, said racial misclassification can have real consequences because national data, like the YRBSS, compiled and published by the CDC is used by a lot of researchers across the U.S.

“These numbers can tie back to questions like what are the unique strengths and experiences  of this racial group? In relation to funding, where does the funding need to go? When we’re not thinking about identity in this complex way, we’re missing a huge piece of the puzzle which can lead to ineffective programs and interventions,” she said.

She added that when someone self-reports as American Indian/Alaska Native and White, and someone else self-reports as Black and Hispanic/Latino, they are both put into a multiracial category.

“Is a singular multiracial group the correct way to do it? The most recent census showed that AI/AN have the highest percentage of multiracial individuals,” Hendrix-Dicken said. “America overall is becoming more multiracial, it’s not just Indigenous people. So, we’re throwing more and more people into a catch-all category.”

All three researchers said they weren’t surprised by their findings, but it didn’t make it easier to digest the information.

“I think we’re seeing a lot of this socially and anecdotally, but to see the numbers makes it more tangible and more real. So, I wasn’t surprised, but I was disappointed,” Gatewood said, adding that misclassification of AI/AN individuals can mean less allocation of resources from the federal government that have treaties with sovereign nations.

Hendrix-Dixon was interviewed by Dave Davis on KOTV about childhood discrimination
trends in the US and highlight the important work being led by Micah Hartwell  at OSU-COM.
(Photo Credit: Amy Hendrix-Dixon via LinkedIn)

The team analyzed the YRBSS because it was one of the few datasets that included the imputed race variable numbers and self-reported race numbers, meaning the team could more easily compare the two.

The researchers’ recommendations are that the CDC include self-reporting data in all their large national datasets and that other researchers who are utilizing YRBSS data should consider whether they are looking at those aggregated numbers that can misclassify race or the self-reporting numbers.

“People who use this data really need to conceptualize how they’re intending to use race and ethnicity within their studies,” Hartwell said. “Using the self-reported identity may be vastly more important to the social, behavioral and health outcomes that they’re investigating than the imputed race variable.”

For Hendrix-Dicken, there’s the macro and micro of what comes next now that their research is published.

“The macro is we need to start moving all of these bigger datasets to where we can look at self-identification because it is important. We need better representation of Indigenous voices in universities where they’re doing the research and places like the CDC,” she said. “On the micro level, I’ve been taking this and really starting to have conversations with people who are not Indigenous about how complex Indigenous identity is.”

Gatewood said it was significant that she and Hendrix-Dicken are both citizens of tribal nations and that their tribal identities were acknowledged in the publication of their study in the American Journal of Public Health.

“I think it makes it more powerful saying we are from this group, and this is how we would like to be identified and this is important to us,” she said. “I think Amy and I are really fortunate that we were able to participate in research studies like this and able to use our education and training to provide a voice to some of these issues. I think it’s really the first time in history that we’ve had people from our tribes that have been in a position to do that.”

About the Author

Sara Plummer is a born storyteller who loves to learn about people, places and things and then tell others about it, usually through writing, social media, even advertising. She started in the newspaper world before transitioning to working in a marketing office at Oklahoma State University where Sara had the opportunity to continue writing, but also expanding her communications network to include social media, advertising, events, digital newsletters and magazines.

Special appreciation to Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences

Preserving and Honoring Heritage: Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian

By NAT Staff

The museum's architect and project designer were Canadian Douglas Cardinal (Blackfoot). Its design architects were GBQC Architects of Philadelphia and architect Johnpaul Jones (Cherokee/Choctaw). (Photo Credit: Indianz.com)

The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)  is a diverse and multifaceted cultural and educational enterprise and a visible component of the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum complex. The NMAI represents the world's most expansive collections, 825,000 in all, including Native artifacts, objects, photographs, archives, and media covering the entire Western Hemisphere, from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego.

The museum operates three facilities -- the National Mall location offers exhibition galleries and spaces for performances, lectures and symposia, research, and education. The George Gustav Heye Center in New York City houses exhibitions, research, educational activities, and performing arts programs. The Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland, houses various collections and administers the conservation, repatriation, and digital imaging programs. The NMAI's off-site outreach efforts, often referred to as the "fourth museum," include websites, traveling exhibitions, and community programs.

Origins and Background

George Gustav Heye (1874-1957) Photo Credit: Photographer Unknown

The NMAI’s holdings have their foundation in the collections of the former Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation of New York City, assembled largely by George Gustav Heye. From his first acquisition, the 1897 purchase of a Navajo hide shirt in Arizona, Heye’s collecting quickly expanded into archaeological material. By 1903, he was buying large archaeological pieces from around the hemisphere, and by 1906, he had accumulated more than 10,000 objects. Based in New York, Heye bought collections and documentary photographs, sponsored exhibitions, and journeyed on expeditions collecting items himself. In 1904, he initiated a collections catalog on 3- by 5-inch cards, marking the beginnings of his dream to create his museum.

With his mother’s support, Heye funded excavations and by 1908, his New York apartment and a nearby warehouse were filled to the brim.

In 1916, with the collection totaling 58,000 objects, Heye was offered a building site at 155th and Broadway in a new complex of cultural organizations. Sponsored by affluent friends, the first, private Museum of the American Indian was built. Heye deeded his entire collection to it, endowed the museum, and was named Director for Life. The museum’s opening—delayed by WWI—occurred in 1922 and was described by Heye as, “a museum for the collection, preservation, study, and exhibition of all things connected with the anthropology of the aboriginal people of the North, Central, and South Americas, and containing objects of artistic, historic, literary, and scientific interest.”

Heye on expedition, circa 1905 (Photo Credit: Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian)

After the museum’s opening, Heye built a professional staff and continued collecting aggressively, and by 1929, he had accumulated over 163,000 objects. Heye continued to build the collections, albeit more slowly, until his death in 1957, at which point they numbered over 225,000 catalog numbers representing 700,000 individual items. These represent approximately 85 percent of the NMAI’s current object holdings.

Beyond the importance of any single part of the collection, the NMAI collections as a whole have their own significance and relevance to diverse constituencies. George Heye’s original collection, created between 1897 and 1957, still stands as a remarkable testament: his collecting proclivities and attitudes toward Native peoples, represented by one of the largest personal collections ever amassed.

Samples of George Heye Collections

Buffalo Dance, Circa. 1930

Sacred Arrow for Offerings, Circa. 1935

Boy holding a very large Kwakiutl mask, Museum of the American Indian, circa 1920

Shaman’s Drum, Circa. 1930

Man’s Moccasins, Circa: 1880

Heye collected extensively from 1910 to 1930, after most museums’ collecting from American Indians had slowed. He was not a trained anthropologist, art historian, or academician of any type and, beyond his interest in anthropology, had few disciplinary inclinations. However, one of his primary motives was to amass the most complete and encompassing collection possible, including what has been described as both “the mundane and the supreme.” The hemispheric depth and diversity of the collections, and their lack of any strong disciplinary focus, make them—perhaps ironically—a notable resource for the study of Native life and material culture for scholars in anthropology, archaeology, history, and art history.

Three years after Heye’s death, in 1960, Fredrick J. Dockstader, who had joined the staff in 1955, became the Museum of the American Indian’s Executive Director. Following trends begun during Heye’s lifetime, Dockstader acquired significant materials that represented the blending of Native and non-Native worlds, including works made for sale but still representing traditional cultural values. Through purchases and exchanges, Dockstader also acquired important ethnographic and archaeological pieces, reorganized the exhibits, and published a series of books on the collections.

The Transition

When Heyes’ Museum of the American Indian, in 1989, was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution and the newly-created National Museum of the American Indian, it was met with criticism. Following a Cheyenne Chief’s tour of the exhibits, there were letters of complaint about the amount of human remains (totaling 35,000 persons) and sacred burial artifacts being held for public display. The Native American community argued that the bones were taken by grave robbers as prizes and showpieces for private collectors, and should be returned to tribes for reburial on sacred lands or reservations. In late 1989, the Smithsonian signed an agreement with tribes to return the skeletal remains to the home tribe’s elders to be resettled in new burials. Following that spirit, Congress passed the legendary Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990.

Late Senator Daniel Inouye, who helped sponsor NAGPRA, saw the Repatriation Act as a win for many. In turn, he lobbied Congress to create a “monument to Native peoples” and expressed, “…it was sad reality that in a Washington, D.C., there was never established a monument to Native peoples.”

Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) was credited in rallying legislators to establish the museum.

Inouye sought to change this by introducing a bill in September of 1988 that allowed the Smithsonian to share the resources of New York's Museum of the American Indian, as well as make space for a “National Museum of the American Indian”. Patricia Zell, Senator Inouye’s staff director and chief counsel, remembered: “When it came time…to really focus on a ‘place’ for the museum [Inouye] literally looked down from his hideaway office balcony in the U.S. Capitol, saying, ‘What’s that blank spot down there?’ And we said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He said, ‘The one between the U.S. Botanical Garden and the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.’

By Public Law 101-185 established on November 28, 1989 by the 101^st Congress, Inouye’s bill was passed to establish the National Museum of the American Indian within the Smithsonian. Total funding was $199 million, with an additional $20 million reserved for special exhibits, public programs, and opening events.

On September 21, 2004, twenty-five thousand Native Americans representing over five hundred Indigenous nations gathered in Washington D.C. for the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian. It was celebrated with a six-day festival of music, dance, and storytelling.

Andrew Old Elk, Crow, passes in front of the museum at the grand opening. The building was constructed of golden-colored Kasota limestone in a curvilinear shape designed to evoke natural rock formations shaped by wind and water over thousands of years. (Photo Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed)

Cheyenne chiefs gather with thousands on the National Mall. (Photo Credit: National Museum of the American Indian)

Members from the White Mountain Apache Tribe dance in celebration. (Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant Brian Boisvert, U.S. Public Domain Archives.)

NMAI’s achievements include the opening of the George Gustav Heye Center in New York in 1994 and the NMAI building on the National Mall in 2004; construction of the NMAI’s Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland, in 1999; and the subsequent move of the collections from the “Research Branch” in the Bronx, which gave them the home they deserved.

George Gustav Heye Center, New York City

The Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland. The CRC serves as a hub for the museum's technology, information resources, and Web development.

The national museum was designed with Native input and cultural considerations. As a public institution that holds part of the Smithsonian’s National Collections, the NMAI takes its role seriously, especially in terms of providing stewardship—dutiful care of what essentially belongs to others—for objects that represent collective Native heritage. In preparation for the collections’ move from New York, tribal representatives reviewed regional collections to provide guidance on appropriate preparation of the collections, their transport, and segregation of sensitive materials and special handling.

Ten Pieces Showcased at the National Mall Location


Photo Courtesy of the Conciliotto Family

The enhanced exhibit features a video surround, immersing visitors in the history of the Oneida Indian Nation. Photo Credit: National Museum of the American Indian

Exhibit from northwest Coast of North America (Photo Credit: USA Today)

Teepees at the National Museum of the American Indian, SW, Washington, D.C. (Photo Credit: Unknown)

Photo Courtesy of the Conciliotto Family

A canoe on display

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Photo Credit: Flickr

Artist: Preston Singletary, Tlingit (Photo Credit: Mr. Singletary)

NMAI is deeply committed to Native American research as new discoveries can happen any time. To achieve this end, the museum’s curators, researchers, and scholars engage in dialogues with and solicit the expertise of cultural authorities and academic specialists. Focal points for the museum’s research and scholarship program include: giving greater breadth and perspective to themes that guide the museum’s exhibitions, publications, and public programs; increasing and making widely available knowledge about the museum’s collections; providing electronic access for researchers, teachers, and the public via networked technologies and other online tools; and addressing important historical and contemporary issues affecting Native Americans.

The NMAI publishes a quarterly full-color publication, American Indian, to members. Educators and students also have access to an online portal of information and lessons through the Native Knowledge 360° website.

NMAI is also involved in repatriation, where human remains and cultural items are returned to lineal descendants, Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations. Law requires the Smithsonian to return, upon request, Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony to culturally affiliated federally recognized Indian tribes.

By sharing the wealth of Native American history and heritage, the work of the National Museum of the American Indian will continue. And, the cultural contributions and impassioned commitment of George Gustav Heye will positively impact millions for generations to come.

Homepage Photo Credit: Andrew Weiss

(Editor’s Note)

To continue the mission and growth of NMAI, funding is necessary. Sales of memberships for persons/groups and scheduled monthly donations can be donated through the Wellspring Society, or directly through the museum.

OP-ED: Reject Stigma to Improve Mental Health

By Dr. Julio Rojas

Photo Credit: Citizen Potawatomi Nation Behavioral Health Services

People who suffer from addiction or mental illness often hear statements fueled by stigma. They commonly hear messages from friends and family such as “Why don’t you just stop using drugs?” “You were raised better than this!” and “Why don’t you just snap out of your depression?”

Stigma is a toxic force that causes harm at a physical, psychological and spiritual level. It results in an individual feeling shamed or disgraced because of society’s messages about what is normal, acceptable and appropriate.

Some examples of stigma are the belief that individuals who struggle with addiction are weak, and those who suffer from depression are simply too lazy to change.

These messages are rooted in society’s belief system about the need for personal control and will-power to overcome things. The messages are also rooted in a lack of information about brain disorders – which is what addiction and mental illness are -- and how these conditions affect one’s thinking, emotions, behaviors and relationships. To combat such a powerful and destructive force, we must ask ourselves questions such as:

• What beliefs or attitudes do I hold toward individuals with mental illness or substance abuse, and why? Would I be willing to learn more about a particular disorder that my friend or family member has?

• Are people in recovery taking the opportunity to eliminate stigma among friends and family? Do we attempt to normalize that it is healthy and wise to seek help?

• If someone you love is struggling with addiction and/or mental illness, consider asking your loved one about something they are interested in or excited about, or a goal they have. Many parents who have lost their children to addiction regret spending so much time worrying, harping on, and focused on the illness, at the expense of knowing their child more deeply.

If you feel stigma is preventing you from seeking help, consider that you have internalized and believe what the dominant culture says about your worth and value as a human being.

You are unwell; you are not bad. You deserve treatment to live your best possible life.

The good news is that treatment works, there are many paths to wellness, and your health and well-being is the most important thing you have.

About the Author

Dr. Julio Rojas is a licensed health service psychologist and drug and alcohol counselor, who works at the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Behavioral Health Services.

About Citizen Potawatomi Nation Behavioral Health Services

The Behavior Health Services Team of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation hopes to of service by providing quality care for the emotional and mental well-being of their patients. Enrolled tribal members who can provide proof of residency are eligible to receive professional services.

How to See Auras: A Step-By-Step Guide

By Scarlet Grace

Today I’m going to write about one of the most useful and coveted skills: how to see auras. This is the first thing I usually teach people who are curious about magic and anything metaphysical but want to experience something first-hand that will truly impress them.

There are many reasons why seeing auras is at the top of my list. First of all, learning how to see auras is something that most (if not all) people can do with minimum training and effort. Second, it isn’t a skill you need anyone else’s help to develop. You can easily practice how to see auras by practicing seeing your own aura around your hand first, before moving on to your pets or other people.

I personally believe that we probably all see auras all the time, we are just used to tuning the information out, the way a big part of stimuli from our environment is tuned out by our brain because it’s deemed non-important.

In addition to that, while seeing auras isn’t exactly a vital skill for magic –in fact I know many really successful magicians who have never seen an aura in their life- the way you need to focus (or more accurately, un-focus) your eyes to see an aura is the same type of gaze you need to scry successfully, as well as see spirits with your physical eyes. Not only that, but I have noticed that the more someone trains in seeing auras, the easiest it is for them to see spirits in their environment when they aren’t even trying.

Last but not least, it isn’t very difficult to accomplish. You can learn how to see auras pretty fast! So, as you can see, there are way too many benefits one gets from something that doesn’t take longer than a few minutes of daily practice.

The following exercise is an easy way to see auras for beginners and more advanced practitioners alike.

HOW TO SEE AURAS

1. Pick a room with dim, soft lighting. Not totally dark because you’ll probably have a difficult time seeing aura in total darkness at first, but not very bright either because, again, it will probably be more difficult for you. Later, when you are able to easily see your own aura easily, you can start practicing in different conditions, but for now a room with soft light would be best.
2. Pick a plain background (a white wall is a good choice).
3. Hold your hand out (about arm’s length) against the background, with your fingers spread out.
4. Now look at your hand, but don’t focus on any spot on the hand. Instead, focus on the area between two fingers. After a minute or two, you’ll start seeing a kind of wispy mist surrounding your fingers. At this point, you’ll be tempted to focus on it to get a better look at it. Don’t. If you focus on it, it will disappear and you’ll have to start all over again. Continue focusing on the area between the two fingers. You will probably blink at some point and what you were seeing will disappear. Don’t worry; this is normal and you will gradually stop having this problem as you practice because you’ll get used to this type of gaze and the whole process will go faster.
5. Depending on your natural ability, you may see this turn into a mist that surrounds your whole hand, you may see it turn into a color, or you may not get much more at all. If you don’t see much more than what originally appeared that’s ok; with a few days of practice, you’ll get better at it and colors will start appearing. If you keep practicing, eventually you will be able to see different layers of colors extending quite a distance from your hand.

When you get the hang of it and you have also practiced the above exercise in different conditions, try seeing the aura around someone’s body.

Have them stand against a plain background and focus on a spot above their shoulder. If you don’t have someone to help you practice then you can use your image in the mirror for practice, again focusing on a spot above your shoulder. If you have pets then you can try to see their aura too. It is generally easier to see an aura at first around someone who isn’t moving (because the movement will probably make you lose your focus or look at them directly instead) but if you keep practicing for an extended period of time (maybe a few months) you’ll be able to easily see any person’s aura within a few seconds.

When you feel ready, try using the same type of gaze to look not at a person or animal, but at an open space in nature. This can be at a park, the woods or even your garden if you have one. You may be surprised to see some of the spirits you share your garden with for the first time! If this surprises you or frightens you, remember: they were there all along; you were the one who couldn’t see them all this time!

About the Author

 

Scarlet Grace is a manifestation coach with over two decades of experience in conscious, deliberate manifestation and twelve years of studying magic, sorcery and working with spirits. Currently, her focus is on helping people use manifesting tools and the teachings of Neville Goddard to manifest a life beyond one’s wildest dreams.

Vancouver-Area Church Uses Christian, Indigenous Traditions

By PATTY HASTINGS
The Columbian

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) _ The Rev. Joe Scheeler thinks Christian and Native American spiritual journeys aren't so different from one another, nor are they incompatible.

``The closer you look, the more alike we are,'' he said.

God. The creator.

Hymnals. Native songs with drums and flutes.

Holy communion. Sacred pipe ceremonies.

Confession. Sweat lodges.

Scheeler, 67, is the vicar at All Saints Episcopal Church, a west Hazel Dell church that blends Christian and Native American traditions in its services. Scheeler belongs to the Lenape tribe. His family's ``ancestral stew'' also inlucdes Ojibwe, Cree, Northern Cheyenne and Assiniboine tribes, in addition to being Irish, French and German. All Saints has families that are Mohawk, Yakama and Nez Pearce.

Every Sunday Scheeler plays his flute and there are some Native American prayers, including an Onondaga gathering prayer:

Today we have gathered, and when we look upon the faces around us, we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people. Now our minds are one.

On Good Friday, a holiday commemorating Jesus' crucifixion that's typically marked by penance, the church held a ceremony involving smudging and burning bundles of sage alongside traditional drum songs to ``release burdens.'' It's analogous to asking for forgiveness from sin.

``Much like in the Christian or the Buddhist or the Hindu traditions, those ceremonies are meant to be shared and meant to be used _ because at the end of the day, they're simply tools,'' Scheeler said. ``They're simply tools to connect: to connect us, to connect us to the creator as we have an understanding of the creator. So, whatever tool works for someone to do that, by all means that's the one we should do.''

 

Reverend Scheeler playing flute at the World Labyrinth Walk Celebration

Scheeler was ordained in 2002 in the Diocese of Montana specifically to launch a First Nations ministry at St. Peters Cathedral in Helena, Montana. People were skeptical at first. The ministry met at a community center rather than the cathedral, and it was identified as a society rather than a church.

``The concept of church never really existed in native culture,'' Scheeler said.

Tribes rarely use the word God either. There's typically a term in their native tongue that translates to creator. However, the First Nations spiritual journey relies heavily on ceremonies and traditions to recharge that spiritual connection, much like Christianity.

``The true compatibility between Christianity and the First Nation spiritual walk is both look at the imminence of God or the sacred spirit. God is here. God is now. God is around us. God wraps us,'' Scheeler said. ``The elders say that we walk through a sacred mist of the creator all the time. . The spirit world is intimately close and associated to us. As we get better and better at recognizing that, we're able to connect more and more with God, with the spirit world _ however you choose to call it.''

The Episcopal diocese is interested in reaching out and finding the similarities among the two traditions. It's a kinder and more correct approach, Scheeler said, than the church's history of boarding schools and wiping culture and language. Missionaries didn't recognize Native American traditions as legitimately spiritual or religious.

``All the pieces of society that the First Nations people relied on, the church took those away,'' Scheeler said.

LIVING IN TWO WORLDS

Sheryl Haase, 66, is part Tsimshian, a Pacific Northwest Coastal tribe primarily in British Columbia and Alaska. As she learns more about her Native American roots, she's also on the path to becoming a deacon at All Saints. Her late father was half Native American and half Greek and didn't feel he belonged in either culture.

``I'm having to learn about it now that he's gone,'' Haase said.

Helping her on her journey is the Talking Day Society, a ministry of All Saints that focuses on the healing powers of native music.

 

Members of the Traveling Day Society 

``What we've found is that urban native populations that have been removed from their ancestral lands for generations have sometimes been distanced from their own cultures, as well. And so, they are hungry to reconnect with some of their own cultural traditions,'' Scheeler said.

Some Talking Day Society members belong to the church; others do not. Some are Native American, like Haase, but most are not. Lots of non-native people are drawn to these spiritual traditions, which can be viewed as hijacking Native American culture.

So long as they're done with respect and honor, Scheeler said, ``the spirit elders who are renowned say no one owns sacred ceremonies'' and that they're meant to be shared.

Suzanne Philbrook has been a member of All Saints since 1986 and is part of the Traveling Day Society. Although she's not Native American, the 72-year-old, whose father was an Episcopal priest, grew up going to an Episcopal church on the Windy River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. The experience, she said, ``lived with me'' and now she enjoys playing her buffalo skin drum for the Traveling Day Society.

They've gone to community events and Episcopal conventions, but the small group primarily plays at funerals, hospices and Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center, where Scheeler is an associate chaplain.

 

Clare Imel playing her Twin Grandmother Flute

Music is shown to decrease pain and heart rate, said Heather Keller, music-thanatologist at Legacy, and it supports relief and decreases fear of dying. It helps people let go.

``The idea is to accompany people and their families as far as we can,'' said Keller, who plays the harp during her palliative rounds at the hospital.

The Traveling Day Society performs in the hospital's healing garden on the first Monday of every month. It's supposed to recognize the births and deaths that happen every month, the circle of life. A lot of the songs are contemplative songs about healing or traveling, and the big, energetic native drums are absent.

``This place is sort of like a spiritual airport'' in that people are coming and going, Scheeler said.

 

In a world that's hungry for spiritual connectedness, there's a lot of joy and richness in the First Nations traditions, he said. The Traveling Day Society doesn't evangelize when it is out in public, and it's not meant to be a device to hook people into coming into church. It's about spiritual care.

For its audience, Scheeler said, it's simple: ``The flutes are amazing. They just unwind your spring.''

___

Information from: The Columbian, http://www.columbian.com

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