adailyriot:

I’ve been to pow wows before, but this one was different. The entrance read, “Gathering for our Children and Returning Adoptees.” The annual powwow is in its ninth year at the Minneapolis American Indian Center, and is a collaboration between the Department of Human Services, Hennepin County ICWA Unit’s Tina Knafala and Jacque Wilson as well as my Aunt Sandy White Hawk, Director of the First Nations Repatriation Institute. The goal is to reconnect adoptees with their families and culture as well as raise awareness of the need for Native foster/adoptive homes. My heart smiled seeing my Auntie and cousins. For the last several years I’d been on a quest to find the rest of my Lakota family. My mom had largely given up; then again you could say she never really tried.

“They’re like strangers to me. They’re not family. My adoptive family is my real family.”

“Why can’t we have both?” I countered.

“I don’t know! Quit asking!” The unknown is scary for my mom.

My family history follows a common theme in Indian country: assimilation. My mom was one of 9 children born to my Sicangu Lakota grandmother, Nina Lulu White Hawk on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. Before the protections of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), social workers broke into my grandmother’s house when she wasn’t home, stole her children and flung them to the winds. Grandma Nina’s only crime was lack of an indoor toilet.

My mom and three of her siblings were placed in an orphanage in Nebraska. Mom recalls being locked in the closet at the orphanage without food or water. When she was sleeping, a social worker stole her stuffed kitten and chucked it into the dumpster because it was a reminder of her previous life. A white family finally adopted my mom and three of her siblings with the command, “Forget your mother. We are your only family now.” They were raised in Custer County, Nebraska, where they were the only Indians except for the school mascot.

None of us were allowed to be Native growing up. My adoptive grandparents painstakingly attempted to hide our biological family from us, but over the years we were able to connect with many of our relatives thanks to Aunt Deb. This year at the annual Rosebud wacipi, I was finally able to meet my mom’s biological sister, Aunt Sandy. And despite my adoptive grandparents’ misguided beliefs that all Native Americans are alcoholic, suicidal, drug abusers, I am immensely proud to be Lakota.

At the Pow Wow I hopped down the bleachers filled with a couple hundred onlookers to join the circle of returning adoptees preparing for the healing ceremony. Suddenly I felt a knot in my throat growing. “Crap,” I thought. “I’m going to cry before the ceremony even starts.” I was there representing my 52-year-old mom, who had refused to come despite my every attempt.

Sage smoke filled the air. I stood with the other adoptees in a circle, surrounded by a ring of jingle dress dancers followed by a ring of veterans. I gazed across the group to see a visibly distraught woman tightly clutching her shawl and choking back sobs. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying.

The drum group started to sing a healing song. The jingle dress dancers began their sacred footwork, waving their eagle feather fans over us. They swayed and dipped. Tingles shot down my spine with every fan that touched my shoulders. Then I lost it. Tears flowed uncontrollably. Every tear represented a moment I felt lost, afraid, angry, frustrated, empty, and confused. Every tear burning down my cheek screamed at those who thought taking us from our family was in our “best interest.” I felt the anger boil up from all the hurtful comments about Natives my adoptive family has said over the years, laughing at me for making regalia. The rage spilled out as I recalled my adoptive Aunt Lila’s comments last month that the “poor, pitiful Indians” still needed saving. But I was comforted by the swish of the jingles mimicking the sound of water, the sound of healing. And slowly my emotional burden started to fade. As the tears fell to the ground, I felt lighter. When the singing stopped, I felt a sense of renewal. Crying is medicine.

After the ceremony, we gathered upstairs for an adoptee talking circle. We each reflected on our experience. Several adoptees commented the powwow was unlike any other they’d been to. Even though so many of our Native children were lost through adoption, many tribes don’t yet have a powwow or ceremony to acknowledge their return. But the adoptees felt welcome at Aunt Sandy’s powwow; they felt like they were finally coming home to a community. One older man commented he felt the gaping, empty hole inside him start to fill up to form a complete person.

Throughout the powwow, I filmed my Aunt Sandy and cousins Dyani, John, and Alicia to familiarize my mom with our biological family and ease her fears. Next year I hope she’ll join us at the powwow, especially for the end of the ceremony when community members streamed down to shake our hands and said with a warm embrace, “Welcome home.”

Racheal White Hawk Strong,e nrolled Rosebud Sioux Tribal Member, is the administrative secretary at Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs, a Native Daughters graduate student and a former Fulbright Scholar to China.

dominicker71:

Behind the Buckskin Curtain: Realities of Life in Modern Native America

Christopher Scott Sewell

 

A recent article in National Geographic spoke of the “Rebirth of a Sioux Nation”, and highlighted the emergence of a growing nationalism and sense of peoplehood among the Oglala Lakota, a perspective that views the outside world of modern America and its people as “other”, and Lakota tradition and language as truly important to their survival as a people.

On the vast Pine Ridge reservation, a people who a century ago were predicted to be “gone”, “assimilated”, and “Americanized”  by the 21^st Century are in their own view as Lakota as ever, and many of the younger generation are questioning the legitimacy of the social order that has reigned on the reservation for generations, just as their parents and grandparents have.

This sense is not new among the Oglala Lakota for those who were there or remember the struggles of the 1960’s and 70’s and of the seismic effects of these times on the minds of many Indian people across America, as a sense of the potential for rebirth and renewal of Indian identity emerged from the heart of the urban Indian ghettos and windswept reservations.

In a sense the Lakota have never loss their grip on their identity as a people who have been corralled but not broken, challenged but not defeated, and who walk in peace and holiness even as the rates of murder, suicide, neglect, and poverty on the reservation far exceeds those any other communities, and for some families conditions are at times worse than those for many third world countries, smack in the heart of the American Midwest.

When I saw the cover of the National Geographic showing a young Lakota charging across the plains on horseback in silhouette on a crest of a hill, I thought of people who I hadn’t seen and years, some of whom I had found out during the last decade through the Indian grapevine had left this world, usually in a violent way.

As I perused the pages, I saw many faces and names of old friends and people who I knew well then, and had ran with twenty years ago when I was a young man brimming with energy and  active in sobriety workshops, cultural renewal, and language preservation, in the cities and the reservations of the west.

The article made me think about how much change even a young man of 40 years like me has seen, and how sometimes when one is ‘steadily’ watching something, one may not see the slower changing developments happening for just this reason.

Sometimes a snapshot, such as this article in National Geographic, contrasted with the Pine Ridge I remember from decades ago, or the half century ago of some of my teachers and elders, shows how fast some things change.

As I think of the Indian Country of a century ago described by the oldest elders to me over the years in Indian church camp houses, sweat lodges, and Corn Dance arbors, compared to what I see daily in my life here in Cherokee Nation and Oklahoma this past decade, I see things unfolding that few have reason to speak of, and fewer even see.

A sense of Indianess certainly continues to grow among people choosing to identify as Native American and affiliate with the cultural traditions of various tribes, whether or not they have actually lived in those tribal communities, strongholds where ancient communal rhythms and  traditions are facts of daily life, where people go to sweat lodge with the new moon and life is not a Norman Rockwell painting, places where commodities are food, checks from relatives in faraway cities are gas money, and tribal gatherings and connections the most important activity on the social calendar .

The mainstream of the American society really knows little more about what is happening behind the “Buckskin Curtin”, the invisible line that separates the people of ‘Indian Country’ from other Americans, than do many of the politicians who influence the creation of the state and federal Indian policies and procedures that partially determine the present and coming generations of Indian peoples quality and way of life.

Under the current conditions of governmental policies and practices, the social lives of many of the persons who are enrolled in federally recognized tribes, especially here in Oklahoma, is one that is not actively resisting the forces of assimilative social and economic inclusion, always touted as “beneficial” to Indian people and communities.

Economic development and other such endeavors have become the forefront of tribal goal setting and endeavors, even as small percentages of budgets are earmarked for the (in most cases) social institutions based on the ‘differences” in the Indian cultural heritage from Euro-American majority that surround the small and often rural communities where truly traditional Indian life survives in the Sooner state

American governmental policies promise success to young Indians, even as it takes youths away from building social institutions that have been historically important  for tribal survival, to serve in the military far from the Oklahoma tribal or reservation communities where their presence (and the crucial generational reinvestment that they and their children represent) is lost to the larger Indian community.

Often with little commentary, the ‘patchwork’ of sovereign trust lands that are the reality for all but the largest reservations allows for a steadily increasing non-Indian population “on the rez”.

As anyone who attends powwows and community events in Oklahoma or the eastern U.S. can tell you, there is no shortage of powwows and the like today anywhere in the country, but fewer and fewer people will be seen there who can be differentiated from the general population.

Many of the feathered and enthusiastic participants at these events attest to an adherence to traditional values, customs, and a sense of self –identified ‘Indianess’, even as the intermarriage rate to persons of a ‘different’ race is highest among today’s Native American population according to the U.S. Census.

(See http://www.npr.org/2011/03/31/134421470/native-american-intermarriage-puts-benefits-at-risk for more information on how these increasing situations impact on the tribes of the northern plains and other areas).

The Office of Management and Budget defines the concept of race as outlined for the United States Census as not “scientific or anthropological”. It takes into account “social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry”, using “appropriate scientific methodologies” that are not “primarily biological or genetic in reference.

Another words, the idea of who is, and is not an “Indian” is more hotly debated as ever, even in the face of declining blood quantum degrees and increasingly self-identified “Indians” who are not connected with tribal communities or Indian population centers.

Not known by most people, if not for the geographical and social isolation of many of the dozen or so large reservations, especially in the northern plains, intermountain west, and south western region, most tribes would be like the vast majority of the Oklahoma and eastern U.S. tribes enrolled members; indistinguishable physically from the general population (regarding phenotypical appearance) and in many cases knowing and practicing little if any of the ‘traditional’ culture of the tribe, with blood quantum degrees in increasingly small fractions.

A tribal community identity, language and cultural preservation, and other aspects of tribal life are independent of concepts of race as understand to westerners, but with a swelling mainstream (and in many cases now not white necessarily) pressing in on geographic isolation of many tribal populations, ancestral genetic diversity (and in most cases non-Native American) increases.

As a case in point, in her life time my (late) ‘Auntie’ Mary Frances Johns, a Miccosukee born in the everglades in the early 1900’s, saw many families of Seminole and Miccosukee transition from “Full-blood” traditional, primarily native language speaking persons living in all Indian settlements, to the situation faced by her grandchildren, much like the children of Miccosukee Tribal Chairman Buffalo Tiger; persons of several racial/ethnic ancestries and unable to attend traditional religious green corn ceremonies due to this.

Unfortunately from my observations of many ‘federally recognized’ Indians that I share my daily life with, few want to see what is happening around them, the continuing erosion of “Indian blood” as defined through the lens of blood quantum, the loss of the few remaining identity markers that make them in anyway different from the surrounding mainstream population.

Tribal governments continually changing political/economic strategies emerge to deal with hard-to-accept social change (unfortunately for politicians and social conservatives of any ‘race’ an unending ever-changing reality), and political infighting increases as blood quantum amounts on tribal members CDIB cards continue to plunge, even as various multi-‘tribal’ ancestries increase in an individual or family, and every year more tribes switch from a ‘blood-quantum’ roll, to a descent roll.

‘Descent roll’ enrollment is a situation in which descent from an ancestor on a past roll is the requirement for current enrollment, no matter how small the blood quantum for example, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma citizens of 1/2000 blood quantum…I’m not kidding.

Currently the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has 300,000 enrolled members, 9 out of ten of which have blood quantum amounts in the 1/100’s or less, and who in most cases know little or nothing of the language, culture, etc. of the Cherokee…i don’t say this as a criticism, only reporting the realities i see among friends and family here in Cherokee Nation.

If I have seen anything that could put what is happening into a brief statement it is that “ISOLATION=Indian Identity (genetics, language, culture)” and that when social isolation is lost, so is most of the wide spread native traits you find in large tribal populations.

The history of Europe over the last few millennia reflects this same process of how with the end of social isolation, massive change ensues, often with the loss of previous identity markers, as any genetic and linguistic map of Europe shows, only in regions with geographical features like mountains, swamps, and islands are the remnants of the earliest Europeans found .

Social identity does not equal genetic identity though, for the process of synthesis that destroys also creates and social hybridity often chooses aspects of past identities to enshrine as “defining” features, as groups like the Lumbee, Melungeons, and other hybrid peoples show.

Though genetic research of the past decade has shown that many modern non-federally groups who identify as Indian socially have little Native American genetic ancestry, it has not slowed the struggles by many to secure federal acknowledgement by the BIA and Congressional legislation.

On the other hand, millions of Americans have a significant amount of American Indian ancestry, even as they keep this aspect of their ‘racial’ and cultural identity at arm’s length for the most part.

I am speaking about the Native American genetic heritage of the millions in America of Hispanic descent, primarily Mexican and other Latin American extraction.

Though few Academicians and NO tribal leaders want to admit it, there is more “American Indian” DNA in an east L.A. neighborhood than there is in the entirety of many of eastern Oklahoma tribes, though political realities (“Indian Sovereignty”) says that treaty obligations to tribes means that the ‘unique’ government to government relationship between tribes and the United States government means that they will still be “Indian Tribes” even when the ‘highest’ blood quantum degree in the tribe are in the 1/100’s. ( A situation faced by several tribes in Oklahoma and the Northeastern United States)

Anecdotally speaking,  if you go to the ‘Indian hospital’ here in our little rural Northeast Oklahoma town, you see 95% of the people there are clearly phenotypically Caucasian in appearance ( many being enrolled members of tribes from the area like Cherokee, Delaware, Shawnee, Modoc, Peoria, Wyandotte), and are receiving free medical care, even while hundreds of thousands of southwestern United States American citizens of ‘Chicano’ ancestry are dying of diseases and health issues DIRECTLY tied to their American Indian ancestry.

For many people in Indian Country, the American Indian Movement and other organizations and personalities statements about colonialism and the like are just posturing and political hyperbole, but in many cases they are pointing our situations that haven’t yet come to the awareness of the greater Indian community.

Over the last few years ‘Direct To Consumer’ genetic ancestry testing has led to many revelations about aspects of identity that would have otherwise been unknown.

Modern genetics is another world from the rooms full of dusty records used to track the blood quantum degrees of modern Indian America, and its reality is not tied to 200 years or more of US government and Bureau of Indian Affairs ‘paper-pushing’ and supposed benevolent social control of “its tribes”, often practiced social policies bent on suppression/isolation/annihilation of Indian identity (people), and exploitation of this continents wealth to make contemporary America a world leader.

 Despite Americas place as a superpower and arbitrator of affairs of nations world-wide, America’s prominence and financial success which its American Indian communities for the most part do not share in (or in many cases, like the Hopi, Mohawk, Miccosukee, and others even want to share in if it means a loss of the communal identity and life ways held preeminent by these communities.)

Even as our often neglected cousin to the south continues to be awash in blood and dysfunctional and crippling corruption directly traceable to the American hunger for drugs, Billions of dollars flow to the Middle East while the cancer of the drug trade spreads steadily.

Almost without comment the Latin American genetic heritage of the great new world civilization cradle continue to spread across the North American social landscape, a new reckoning of ‘Indian’ will emerge during this century, as most Americans ancestral heritages continue to mingle to a degree never known before.

From what I can see, a time will come in 50 years when the membership of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma will be over a million people most of whom will be of truly miniscule fractions of Cherokee or even Indian ancestry, and the general  population will be of American Indian ancestry as much through ‘Latino’ ancestry as through any ‘native’ to the continental United States.

The families of many of my relatives can attest to the current realities of the impact of Latinos on the average American experience; my own, my brother, several cousins, my ex-wife, and countless friends marriages to persons of Hispanic/ Mexican ancestry right now attests to the unfolding nature of identity today.

as one of my heroes, the Cherokee Nation’s favorite son and sage Will Rogers said a century ago, “i don’t know but what I read in the papers”, and as I try to ‘read between the lines’, and this is something that is not too often reported on unless there is some money in it for somebody; Change isn’t ‘coming’ to Indian Country and America for that matter, it is here, now, and with bells on as the saying goes.

The question is who is benefitting from the changes occurring?

the new found monies flowing into tribal communities is affecting them surely, but for example, is money from the new,  huge (Hard Rock) Cherokee Casino in Catoosa going to help the struggling traditionalist and stomp dancers of the nearby Kenwood and other “Cherokee full-blood” areas to preserve the social institutions (and yes, I will say it, necessary self-imposed isolation) to STAY Cherokee deep into this next century?

I am not wanting to sound judgmental of the tribal, state, or federal government, none of these governments, peoples or communities are “to blame” for the ever present and unchanging reality of social change, but as someone of Creek and Cherokee Native ancestry (among my many ancestries, like most people), i think that if the Basque, Jews, Roma, and other “old world” populations can develop cultures and identities that can ‘adapt and survive’.

I truly do hope for Americas sake that for the beautiful and culturally-vulnerable peoples and communities I have come to know and love in my life, the Euchee, Cheyenne-Arapaho, Natchez, Pottawatomi, Kickapoo, Kialegee, and, though few realize it, the Maya (yes there are many Maya in Tulsa and OKC), that the modern notions of diversity, inclusion, multiculturalism, and ‘ economic development’ are not necessarily new to Indian communities, and are not necessarily  the answer to “the Indian problem” as it was once known, and that new strategies should and must be considered for the preservation of what remains of distinct native American communities.

 

adailyriot:

General George Armstrong Custer died in 1876, but that doesn’t mean we should forget his legacy of slaughtering indigenous peoples.

That’s why Republican National Committee leader and GOP lobbyist Pat Rogers has condemned New Mexico governor Susana Martinez for meeting with American Indians.

In an email sent to Martinez’ staff, Rogers wrote—

The state is going to hell. Col. [Allen] Weh would not have dishonored Col. Custer in this manner.

Allen Weh was a Republican candidate who ran against Martinez.

Rogers is the RNC National Committeeman for New Mexico and a recent member of the RNC Executive Committee. ProgressNow New Mexico is calling for his dismissal.

Such a blatantly racist statement against our Native people is offensive from anyone, but to come from a national GOP leader and lobbyist for some of our country’s largest corporations is indefensible. These e-mails show the contempt and disrespect New Mexico’s Republican leadership has for our Native people. Unless they drop Pat Rogers immediately, we can rightly assume that those organizations he speaks for, including the RNC, Modrall Sperling and his lobbying clients, feel the same way.

On the other hand, maybe Rogers was just using “redist” ironically?

adailyriot:

The end of the Pe’ Sla auction is not the end of the struggle. The land is STILL publicly listed for sale and so could still be bought by developers unless the Lakota can get the money together quickly.

Rumors/Misinformation going round serve to muddy the issue:

1.) ‘The Natives’ land was stolen long ago, so who cares?’

The fact is that the Supreme Court admitted in “United States vs. Sioux Nation of Indians” court case (1980) that the land was ‘illegally seized territory’. According to our own RECENT laws, the land is considered stolen. That cannot be said for a lot of places in the US.

In referring to the 1980 case, some believe that the Lakota ought to

2.) ‘Just accept the $106 million awarded in that court proceeding and use it to buy Black Hills/Pe’ Sla’

That is not possible. If the Lakota accept that money, which is explicitly marked as ‘compensation’, then the Lakota would have to give up all claims to Pe’ Sla/Black Hills.

The same goes for the ‘1 billion dollars’ that people may tell you that the Lakota have on hand. What they are referring to is a court case in which one ‘Mario Gonzalez’ filed a lawsuit asking for the land of Black Hills and $11 billion in damages. Mr. Gonzalez said that he would give $1 billion dollars to the Lakota in order to alleviate their poverty and use $10 billion dollars to remove nonrenewable resources from Black Hills.

It’s the same thing. If the Lakota took the billion, then they would have to give up the land which they see as Sacred and watch it be carved up and developed to feed various industrial interests.

3.) ‘If the Lakota are so poverty-stricken, then why don’t they take the money and give up Pe’ Sla?’

I understand how easy it is to think this way, but you must look at if from the other side. Buddists, would you abandon your path for piles of fine clothes and jewelry? Christians: if someone told you that you could move out of your shack and into a mansion where you would be fed a seven-course meal every day, would you give up Jesus in exchange and never say another prayer? Humans are not just calculators, they have a heart. There are things more important to many humans around the world than simple financial security.

4.) ‘So why don’t they just get the money from the casinos they have?’

The Lakota in question do not have casinos — as was mentioned, they are poverty stricken. There are more than 500 Native tribes in the US, as well as at least seven different tribes of Sioux to begin with. To just assume that the Pe’ Sla Lakota have such resources available to them is incorrect.

5.) ‘Development is nothing new, it goes on all the time. Why is it such a big deal?’

This question fails to acknowledge four things that are unique and that serve to raise the non-monetary value of this land in particular:

a.) The Lakota consider it a part of their creation story. A significant part of Traditional Lakota culture depends on the prayers and rituals made at Pe’ Sla on a regular basis. It would be like paving over the ‘Wailing Wall’ in Israel, parceling out pieces of ‘Sagrada Familia’ or turning ‘Uluru (Ayers Rock)’ into an amusement park. If you respect the beliefs of another, then you do not do these things. To sell the land to developers would be infringing on the Lakota’s religious freedoms, especially when one considers the State of South Dakota’s intent to put a roadway right through Pe’ Sla.

b.) The land is pristine. Few places on this planet are left that are still pristine, which is why some would prefer to make Pe’ Sla a natural preserve (something which the Lakota would be thrilled to hear).

c.) Black Hills contains ranches that belong to the homestead era of US history. It is ripe to become a living history museum. Turning Black Hills into a historic site would also be agreeable to the Lakota and wouldn’t interfere in their worshiping there.

d.) Any attempts to open a gold mine in the area or put a Keystone XL pipeline in the area (which could endanger sources of local fresh water) are likely to cause more problems for all the communities in the area than they would solve. Yet these are amongst the main interests that would be sure to buy the land.

TL;DR:

• The Supreme Court already admitted that the land was seized illegally.
• Environmental concerns surround those that would develop the Black Hills
• Pe’ Sla/Black Hills has a kind of ‘non-monetary’ value that cannot be replaced

adailyriot:

This February 5 entry from the Ms. Magazine blog enlightens readers to the contributions of Native American women.

It’s no exaggeration to say that American Indian women are missing from most media coverage, history books and classroom discussions. But at least journalism students, instructors and state educators in Nebraska are doing something to help end America’s ignorance of Native women and the contributions they make to their communities, their tribes and to the nation as a whole.

Last year, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications published the magazine, Native Daughters. With a grant from the Carnegie Foundation and under the guidance of five university professors, students spent 18 months reporting and writing about American Indian women who are artists, activists, lawyers, cops, warriors, healers, storytellers and leaders.

Now the Nebraska Department of Education has also released a companion curriculum for the magazine. You can download it for free here.

Can’t wait even one minute more to learn about Native women? Here’s a teaser of what you can learn more about in Native Daughters—and what you can share with your students via the new curriculum.

1. “A lot of people think that us women are not leaders, but we are the heart of the nation, we are the center of our home, and it is us who decide how it will be.”–Philomine Lakota, Lakota language teacher, Red Cloud High School, Pine Ridge, S.D.

2. The art forms Native women practice stand as reminders of cultural endurance. “Their crafts survived the Greasy Grass (Battle of Little Big Horn), Wounded Knee One (1890) and Two (1973),” writes Christina DeVries in Native Daughters. “Their spirits survived the Trail of Tears, the Relocation and Termination program and continued struggles against cultural annihilation.”

3. In 1997, Ms. magazine named Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabeg) Woman of the Year. That same year, the activist also debuted her first novel, Last Standing Woman.

4. Of nearly 2 million women enlisted in the U.S. armed forces, 18,000 are American Indian women.  Their representation in the military is disproportionately high—and Native women are more likely to be sexually harassed, which increases their chances of developing post-traumatic stress disorder.

5. The number of Native women applying to medical school has increased since 2003, peaking in 2007 when 77 Native women applied nationwide.

6. In 2007, when Cassandra Manuelito-Kerkvliet (Diné) was named president of Antioch University, she became the first American Indian woman president of a mainstream university. Not only that, but about half of the nation’s tribal colleges are led by Native women presidents.

7. Cecelia Fire Thunder (Lakota) became the Oglala Lakota Tribe’s first woman president. She has fought against domestic abuse, saying it’s not a part of traditional culture, and been a leader for women’s reproductive rights. In 2006, when the South Dakota state legislature prohibited abortion, Fire Thunder announced plans to build a women’s clinic on the reservation, and therefore beyond state jurisdiction. She was impeached by the tribal council, who said she was acting outside her duties as president.

8. Women lead nearly one-quarter of the nation’s 562 federally recognized tribes.

9. “Through the late 1700s, Cherokee women were civically engaged. They owned land and had a say during wartime,” writes Astrid Munn in Native Daughters. “But this changed after the tribe ceded large tracts of land to the U.S. government in 1795.”  Since the mid-1980s, though, a generation of Native women activists, lawmakers and attorneys have been changing that history and working to empower women again.

10. Indian Country could never survive without Native women.

To order copies of the magazine, contact Joe Starita. You can also visit Nativedaughters.org to watch video clips and extended raw footage of the interviews.

Reprinted with permission from Ms. Magazine.