To some, Mark Awakuni-Swetland is a culture thief, a non-Native who has built a career and benefited financially from fictitious affiliations with the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska.

To others, he is a humble servant of the Omaha people, a man who has worked tirelessly to preserve their language and who truly cares about the Omaha Tribe.

Those who oppose his efforts to preserve the Omaha language say he has falsely claimed to be an Omaha tribal member to win lucrative federal grants and gain tenure as a University of Nebraska-Lincoln assistant professor of anthropology and ethnic studies.

“He's not an Omaha,” said Jeff Gilpin, an Omaha tribal council member. “We proved that. He doesn't belong to any clans of the Omaha people there.”

But those who know Awakuni-Swetland say he has never claimed to be anything more than who he is – a non-Native teacher trying to help the Omaha people.

“He's never said that he was a member of the Omaha Tribe,” said Emmaline Walker Sanchez, an Omaha tribal member who has worked with Awakuni-Swetland to preserve the Omaha language for 10 years. “But he was adopted by some enrolled tribal members.”

Omaha tribal member Barb Stabler-Smith said her now deceased parents, Charles and Elizabeth Stabler, adopted Awakuni-Swetland years ago. She said her parents' adoption of Awakuni-Swetland also involved his induction into the Black Shoulder Buffalo Clan of the Omaha.

Some Omaha tribal members have pushed University of Nebraska leaders to remove Awakuni-Swetland as a professor. On June 11, two of those tribal members, including Gilpin, spoke before the NU Board of Regents, calling for his removal.

The effort has brought up questions relevant to other tribes, such as: Who has the right to preserve and protect Native languages and cultures? Should academic institutions have the right to study and publish academic material related to tribes – against those tribes' will?

Both sides – those opposed to Awakuni-Swetland and those who support him, as well as the professor himself – claim to have the tribe's support.

On April 16, the Omaha tribal council passed a resolution creating a committee to investigate claims of impropriety by Awakuni-Swetland and named Gilpin to lead the committee.

“What we're finding is that he really doesn't have the authority do this — the permission,” Gilpin said.

However, the council has not acted on Gilpin's findings. Gilpin has suggested the council host a general assembly of all tribal members in July to discuss his findings, but no date has been set for the meeting.

Awakuni-Swetland said when he was given the professorship at UNL to teach the Omaha language in 1999, he immediately worked to gain tribal approval to teach the class, speaking to Omaha tribal members in Lincoln, Omaha and Macy, where the tribe has its headquarters. He said no one opposed his request to teach the language.

via UNL Omaha language professor facing pressure from some tribe members.

It has taken them 148 years to return home.

But Monday morning – just as dawn breaks over a field near the rocks overlooking Fairy Lake – they were to gather in a special ceremony to honour their ancestors and welcome the world to Muskoka.

The Wasauksing First Nation from Parry Island are coming, as are the Chippewa from Rama First Nation near Orillia, gathering in a unity powwow that they hope may bring some attention, perhaps even international attention from this week’s G8 summit, to their remarkable and largely forgotten story.

Wasauksing Chief Shane Tabobondung wonders what world leaders such as U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy would think if they knew that the magnificent lakes and forests of this tourist playground were once the traditional grounds of one of the tribes that got shunted off to Parry Island in the years before Confederation.

It was 1850. The famous explorer, David Thompson, half-blind and impoverished, had a generation earlier taken on the final assignment of his life – another story little told – in which he paddled through this rugged countryside and reported back that it would make fine farming country once the pines were felled. The governments of the day, still reeling from rebellion, needed good land to offer settlers, and so sent William Robinson off to negotiate with the natives who had lived here long before the Europeans arrived.

Robinson struck a deal for roughly 30,000 square miles, for $8,000 and an annual payment of $240 – roughly the nightly cost of the cheapest room available at the Deerhurst Resort where the world leaders will meet.

Twelve years after they signed this treaty they could not read, the “Muskoka” natives who had been sent to a reserve on Parry Island travelled back to Obajewanung – now Port Carling – and asked surveyor John Stoughton Dennis if he would draft a petition for them that would go to Lord Monk.

They called the then governor-general “Father.” They called themselves “your Red Children” and they begged for the right to return to where they had been happiest.

“We are in trouble,” they had Dennis write for them. They said their “feelings have changed” about the move to this faraway island with other tribes they did not know. “This place,” they said of their Muskoka, “is beautiful in our eyes, and we found we could not leave it.”

They never got an answer back.

Last fall, Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty got in touch with the two nearest first nation communities and asked if they would like to do something as part of the town’s G8 celebrations.

via A return to native roots – The Globe and Mail.

FARMINGTON — As a child, Deion Nez learned the process of weaving a Navajo rug from his grandmother.

Nez, who grew up in Phoenix, spent summers on the Navajo Nation, where he learned about weaving and discovered his culture through his clans. He also learned to speak Navajo.

These are skills this 17-year-old graduate of Kayenta High School will bring with him as he enrolls at San Juan College.

Nez is participating this summer in a grant-funded program that introduces students to careers in health care while allowing them to retain and develop their American Indian culture. The Summer Bridge Program began June 6 and runs every day through Friday. It brought together 39 students interested in pursuing medical careers. The students came from all over the Navajo reservation and were housed at Navajo Preparatory School.

“They're overfeeding me,” Nez said. “It's really fun. I like it.”

Nez was weaving a 16-strand, cardboard-loomed rug Friday when he took time to reflect on the program.

“There's a lot of team building exercises. We've done a lot of things in the labs, the chemistry labs. We tested specimens and mixed chemicals together to see how they react,” he said.

Friday's program was a journey into the American Indian culture with the rug weaving demonstration and class taught by Grace Blackwater. The weaving process must be planned in advance with patterns developed through critical thinking.

“I teach weaving to students to maintain their

focus and use thinking strategies,” Blackwater said. “When you use thinking strategies, it's going to help in your weaving and in school and in other areas of your life.”

Blackwater also learned to weave as a child. It was a skill that she did not use professionally, yet it is one she shared with her daughters and with students of all ages.

Blackwater spoke to the students in both English and Navajo as she explained the process that traditionally was a gift to the Diné from Spider Woman.

Nez said he enjoyed listening to the Navajo but also was surprised at the many students who did not understand their native language. The students received training in Navajo while on campus.

via Students learn tradition in health education program – Farmington Daily Times.

KINGSTON, Kitsap County — Randi Purser stands before a group of middle-school students, a dozen woodcarving tools spread before her. As she explains why she started carving a few years ago, she interweaves the history and culture of her tribe, whose reservation is just down the road from Kingston Middle School.

She tells the students how Suquamish tribal members once carved everything from totem poles to boxes and tools. How she dives for geoducks to make a living, under her tribe's treaty rights.

Purser's visit isn't just a one-shot glimpse into the world of a nearby tribe.

Throughout the semester, a few teachers here have infused lessons about Washington tribal history and culture into state history classes, part of an effort to encourage all schools to do the same.

The goal is to increase understanding about tribes across the state — their histories, their cultures and especially their existence as sovereign nations.

“We really want to break down a lot of the stereotypes and misconceptions that people have about the tribes and tribal people,” said Denny Hurtado, state director of Indian education, and one of the project's leaders.

With the 1974 Boldt decision, which reaffirmed tribal fishing rights in Washington, “people were saying things like, 'Why do these Indians have special rights?' ” Hurtado said. “If they really understood the history and the truth, they would understand that we've always had these rights.”

Right now, most Washington students learn little about Native Americans, and even less about tribes in Washington state, where there are 29 federally recognized tribes — more than all but a handful of other states.

Textbooks don't help much — the one Kingston Middle School uses for state history ends its discussion of Native Americans around 1877.

Even in Kingston, where students live within minutes of reservations belonging to the Suquamish and Port Gamble S'Klallam tribes, many know little more than their names.

Many teachers shy away from teaching more because good materials have been hard to find, and they fear getting it wrong.

“It's truly just out of not knowing,” said Gayle Pauley, of the state education department. “I used to teach third grade … and there were so few authentic resources, it always bothered me.”

Seven years ago, tribal leaders from across the state set out to change that.

They told then-Gov. Gary Locke they wanted to require school districts to teach tribal history and culture. In 2004, state Rep. John McCoy, a member of the Tulalip Tribes, introduced a bill that would have done that. It failed that year, but a year later legislators approved a bill that encouraged districts to do so.

via Education | Washington educators, leaders aim for progress with new tribal curriculum | Seattle Times Newspaper.

Children at San Pasqual Elementary School in Winterhaven ran more than 9,000 miles this past school year as part of a program to battle diabetes.

Dresana Palone, 10, ran 130 miles. Palone said she runs, “because I like to. I was bored of playing so I decided to run.”

The program is the brain child of Tom Vosberg, aka Dr. Lubb Dubb, who works for the Quechan Indian Tribe Special Diabetes Project.

Vosberg is a tall man who dons a giant red heart on his head and a white doctor's jacket to encourage the students to run during their recess at the school.

Kieran Palone, 8, said Dr. Lubb Dubb inspires him to run.

“If Dr. Lubb Dubb wasn't there, I would be just walking. But if he is there I'll be running. Running helps my heart!”

San Pasqual students attend physical education classes twice a week. Since October, Vosberg has used his program to get the kids active every day by running around a 110-yard track.

“It is actually a supplemental education program because the kids I was teaching were getting less and less time to be physically active and I thought, in addition to the two times a week they have P.E. Why not have a daily supplemental program where they can be active for 10 minutes to just improve the amount of time they have to exercise?” he said.

According to Vosberg, the kids get a stick for completing each lap. The sticks are later counted to find out how far each kid ran.

“Sixteen laps is one mile, and lots of these kids can actually get 16 laps within a 10-minute period,” he said.

“In fact some of them run twice and they want to do it. We'll run them back to back and give them a five minute break in between. Nobody has to do it, but a lot of them opt to run for a second time.”

The kids enjoy the exercise, Vosberg said.

“It gets a little competitive, but we try not to stress that aspect of it. We have kids who ran 155 miles, and the kid next to him had 152. This is something that is very personal (for the kids) in that all they have to do is put one foot in front of the other.”

Vosberg said since it is fun, kids want to get involved in the running program.

“Some of these kids are very athletic, but some are very non-athletic and the beauty of the club is that if you apply yourself and make an effort you can be successful. If you run with the Doc, you win. That's pretty much the sole criteria.”

To keep the kids interested throughout the year, students received rewards for completing certain milestones. After 10 miles, students got a canvas coloring chart with the Dr. Lubb Dubb logo to mark their miles. After 20 miles, students got a gold star medal, at 30 miles a ribbon, at 40 miles a gold heart and at 50 miles a T-shirt.

via , kids, miles, vosberg – Life – YumaSun.

The National Congress of American Indians mid-year conference began Sunday in Rapid City. It gives Native Americans in KOTA Territory an opportunity to voice their concerns.

Between 800 and 900 people will attend the 3-day conference.  This year's topics include: land sale issues and increasing economic development opportunities on Indian reservations.  A hot topic especially since unemployment rates on the reservations in South Dakota are high, reaching 80-percent in some areas.

“There is probably not a more economically suppressed set of communities than the tribes in South and North Dakota,” NCAI Treasurer Ron¬†Allen said.

After the conference, the National Congress of American Indians can then advocate in Washington D.C. on their behalf.

via National Congress of American Indians mid-year conference begins I – KOTA Territory News.

School team nicknames like the Chieftains and Braves may soon be a thing of the past in Wisconsin, where a new law allows the state to ban race-based mascots and logos. If a complaint is upheld, school districts face fines of up to $1,000 a day.

The day Wisconsin's new sports-mascot law took effect, Oneida tribal member Carol Gunderson and her husband, Harvey, drove three hours to the state capital, Madison, to file their complaint in person.

The reason, Carol Gunderson says, is “because it's the first law in the whole United States that addresses this issue. We didn't want it to get lost in the mail.”

The Gundersons are targeting the Osseo-Fairchild School District's team name, the Chieftains. When they got to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Harvey Gunderson handed Patrick Gasper, the agency's communications director, an enormous blue binder of documents to back up their claim.

The evidence, Harvey Gunderson says, “not only shows that what Osseo-Fairchild has done, but what the other districts have done in the state also, that they really are promoting discrimination, pupil harassment and stereotyping.”

via Race-Based School Team Names Face Ban In Wisconsin : NPR.

After 14 years of discussion, the $3.4 billion Cobell settlement may be derailed by a series of congressional amendments according to Jefferson Keel, president of the National Congress of American Indians, which is meeting in Rapid City this week.

Amendments made by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., to the Cobell v. Salazar case could be a deal breaker for Native Americans, according to Keel. Keel and NCAI members have been addressing the topic at the mid-year conference.

The Cobell case is a long-standing lawsuit that addresses alleged mishandling of Native American trust land accounts by the federal government. It alleges the U.S Department of the Interior has bungled the accounting on thousands of individual Native trust accounts for more than 100 years. It covers more than 60 million acres that have been entrusted to survivors of the original landowners.

Barrasso said he thinks attorney fees and costs should be capped at $50 million — up to $50 million less than proposed. He also suggested setting aside $50 million of the settlement money for certain lawsuit participants who receive ‚Äúinsufficient or unfair‚Äù amounts under the settlement's payment formula. The money would be distributed by a ‚Äúspecial master‚Äù appointed by the court.

“The settlement would provide an immediate benefit to the approximately 350,000 individual Indians who are members of the class action,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. “This is compensation that could go a long way for those that need it most.”

The proposed agreement calls for the U.S. Department of the Interior to distribute $1.4 billion to more than 300,000 Native Americans nationwide. Most participants in the class-action lawsuit, filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell of Browning, Mont., would receive at least $1,500.

The settlement also requires the government to spend $2 billion to buy back and consolidate tribal land broken up in previous generations, and create a $60 million Indian Education Scholarship fund.

“The federal government’s mismanagement, fraud and theft is unthinkable,” Dorgan said. “For any individual to try and bring a mismanagement case against the federal government would be near impossible.”

Sen. Barrasso proposed four amendments to the settlement. However, any change could cancel all of the previous agreements.

“That sounds like a lot of money, but we have had 14 years of litigation and sometimes dozens of attorneys working on it at one time,” said Jon Dossett, general counsel attorney for the NCAI. “That is the first amendment among some other smaller ones.”

The NCAI is spending this week’s conference deciding whether it should approve the amendments or kill them. The final decision will be made Wednesday afternoon, the final day of the NCAI’s mid-year conference.

“In any settlement agreement, no one gets everything they want,” said Kim TeeHee, White House senior policy advisor on Native American affairs. “Any change to the agreement will nullify and void everything.”

TeeHee said that after the settlement is made “…the courts would listen to any concerns that the individuals involved with the case would have.”

“In some cases, there are 10, 50, 100 or 1,000 owners of a single parcel of land,” said Dorgan. “It is difficult for a person, or an Indian tribe, to use land productively with so many owners. The settlement would pay individual Indians for their ownership interest and support consolidation of Indian lands and improve everyone’s ability to use those lands.

via Native group weighs support for Cobell settlement.