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Hunting Bald Eagles

The Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming has won the right to hunt two bald eagles for religious purposes. Before the permits were issued, which is a first for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (though permits have been given in the past for other types of eagles), Native Americans received their eagle parts from the National Eagle Repository in Denver. The repository chopped up and defeathered dead eagles for those tribes who wrote in and requested them. Not surprisingly, the folks in Denver couldn’t keep up with demand.

It’s an interesting story, so go hear and read more at NPR.

March 20, 2012 | Native American | Continue Reading | Comments { 2 }

Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier is an activist and member of AIM, who, in 1977, was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the shooting of two FBI agents during Pine Ridge. Peltier’s supporters (who include Willie, Joni and Kristofferson) present him as a political prisoner due to concern over the fairness of his proceedings. His conviction is the subject of the 1992 documentary directed by Michael Apted and narrated by Robert Redford, Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story, which you can watch in full right here. If you find yourself with 90 minutes to spare, watch it. It’s a humdinger.

(There’s also They Buried The Heart of Leonard Peltier, which, oh lord, you should watch too. Redford’s narration is substituted for the whitest sing-song narration you ever heard…)

January 24, 2012 | Native American | Continue Reading | Comments { 0 }

The Fate of Heaven

“Yosemite: The Fate Of Heaven”:

“Yosemite–The Fate Of Heaven” is a stunning film portrait of Yosemite National Park. Breathtaking cinematography graphically depicts the fragile wonder of the place naturalist John Muir once called “a great temple lighted from above.” The film illustrates how our passion for Yosemite’s beauty jeopardizes the very wilderness we love so much.

Read by Robert Redford, the film’s narration is taken from the diaries of Lafayette Bunnell, a doctor who accompanied the Mariposa Battalion in 1851 on a mission to “hunt down Indians.” The campaign brought soldiers for the first time into the sacred valley home of the Ahwahnechee tribe in the Sierra Nevada. “My astonishment was overwhelming,” wrote Bunnell of the valley’s grandeur. “Here before me was the power and glory of the Supreme Being.” Bunnell understood immediately that his small band would be the first and last white men to see the natural wonder of the valley unspoiled.

More than 130 years later, tens of thousands trek to the park from all over the world to enjoy the valley’s magnificent landscapes and wildlife. The film introduces us to hikers and campers for whom Yosemite is a true shrine, including a free-hand rock climber who “dances” up walls of sheer granite and a woman whose family survived the depression by camping at the park and fishing its rivers. Vintage photographs and observations from Bunnell’s eloquent diary remind us that America’s love affair with Yosemite is well over a century old.

Wrote Bunnell on leaving Yosemite. “Those scenes of beauteous enchantment I leave to those who remain to enjoy them.” Today Yosemite is a protected national park, but that may not be enough to guarantee its future. The continual onslaught of nature lovers–over 1,000 cars a day–only intensifies the conflict between preservation and public enjoyment. Sanitation workers remove 25,000 pounds of trash a day. Work crews toil to repair natural trails damaged by wear. Park rangers protect tourists from roaming bears, and curious deer from potato chip hand-outs. Nature rules here, but human beings, we learn, are both the biggest threat to the park’s future and its best hope.

Watch the entire thing, just like I’m doing now, over at The Creak of Boots.

September 7, 2011 | Music/Movies/Books, Native American, The World Is On Fire! | Continue Reading | Comments { 1 }

Bandelier National Monument

Located in New Mexico an hour from Santa Fe, the 33,677 acres Bandelier National Monument preserves the homes of Ancestral Pueblo People. The park is named after Swiss anthropologist Adolph Bandelier, who researched the cultures of the area in the late 19th century. Bandelier was designated a National Monument on February 11, 1916, while most of its backcountry became a “designated wilderness” in October 1976. .

Above are paintings by Pablita Velarde, which were comissioned by Bandelier under the Works Progression Administration in the early 40s. See many more here.

May 5, 2011 | Art/Photography, Native American, Public Lands | Continue Reading | Comments { 1 }

Blackfeet Indians Of Glacier National Park

Blackfeet Indians Of Glacier National Park is comprised of 24 images by artist Winold Reiss and was published by the Great Northern Railway in 1940. See more photos and buy it on Ebay here.

January 10, 2011 | Native American | Continue Reading | Comments { 1 }

OUR LIVES IN OUR HANDS

From Folkstreams.net …

This 1986 film examines the traditional Native American craft of split ash basketmaking as a means of economic and cultural survival for Aroostook Micmac Indians of northern Maine. This documentary of rural off-reservation Indian artisans aims to break down stereotypical images. Basketmakers are filmed at their craft in their homes, at work on local potato farms and at business meetings of the Basket Bank, a cooperative formed by the Aroostook Micmac Council. First person commentaries are augmented by authentic 17th century Micmac music.

Watch it at Folkstreams!

November 30, 2010 | Music/Movies/Books, Native American | Continue Reading | Comments { 0 }

Painted Buffalo Hides

From Prairie Edge Trading Company and Gallery:

It was traditional in some ancient Plains Indian cultures for women to render geometric patterns and men, pictographic design. Historically, a robe was worn with the head to the left when it was wrapped around the body, and the painting would be displayed on the outside with the fur next to the body for warmth.

September 13, 2010 | Native American | Continue Reading | Comments { 2 }

Chief Dan George

Chief Dan George, as Old Lodge Skins in Little Big Man, goes up to the mountain to die:

“Come out and fight
It is a good day to die
Thank you for making me a human being
Thank you for helping me to become a warrior
Thank you for my victories
And for my defeats
Thank you for my vision
And the blindness in which I saw further
You make all things and direct them in their ways, oh Grandfather
And now, you have decided that human beings will soon walk a road that leads nowhere
I am going to die now, unless death wants to fight
And I ask you for the last time to grant me my old power
To make things happen.”

Watch it here.

August 12, 2010 | Music/Movies/Books, Native American | Continue Reading | Comments { 1 }

Kiowa Five


The Smithsonian has an AMAZING collection of Kiowa Drawings, including the above paintings from the Kiowa Five — Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Monroe Tsatoke and, briefly, Lois Smokey, available to look at through their online gallery. The Kiowa Five studied at the University of Oklahoma in the late 1920s and were prominent in the development of contemporary Indian painting. Their paintings were effectively promoted by their professor, Oscar B. Jacobson, through international exhibition and a limited-edition portfolio, plates of which are included in the collection.

Also included in the collection is the Silverhorn Target Record Book, a series of drawings that appear in a book used for recording Army target practice sessions. Most of the drawings are by Silver Horn (Haungooah), but some drawings are by other, unknown artists. The drawings were made in the 1890s while Silver Horn was enlisted in Troop L of the 7th Cavalry, based at Fort Sill, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).

****The National Anthropological Archives offers digital images of every photograph and work of art in its collection for $50. Order here.

July 7, 2010 | Art/Photography, Native American | Continue Reading | Comments { 2 }

Newspaper Rock

Newspaper Rock State Historical Monument is situated along the access road into the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park. The 200 square foot rock is a part of the vertical Wingate sandstone cliffs that enclose the upper end of Indian Creek Canyon, and is covered by hundreds of ancient Indian petroglyphs —one of the largest, best preserved and easily accessed groups in the Southwest. The petroglyphs have a mixture of human, animal, material and abstract forms, and to date no-one has been able to fully interpret their meaning.

The first carvings were made around 2,000 years ago, and although a few are as recent as the early 20th century, left by the first modern day explorers of this region, the main groups have been assigned to the Anasazi (AD 1 to 1300), Fremont (AD 700 to 1300) and Navajo (AD 1500 onwards).

More photos from PiedmontFossil’s 1981 Western Tour can be found here

June 23, 2010 | Native American | Continue Reading | Comments { 9 }