One gallery in the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington, is dedicated to The Secret Life of an Artifact. This display provides a behind-the-scenes look at the museum collection and the science and creativity that goes in to preserving and interpreting artifacts. One of the displays in this gallery looked at American … Continued
Sen. Jon Tester (D. MT) Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D. MT): When it comes to how we handle health care in this country, I’m not concerned about politics. I’m concerned about people. Washington politicians just introduced a plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a new … Continued
Jason Pero Nine days ago a deputy of the Ashland County Sheriff’s office put two bullets into the heart and shoulder of eighth-grader Jason Ike Pero. Attempts to revive him failed and he died at the scene. The 14-year-old was a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewas, a tribe of some … Continued
The Rocky Mountains stand out from the Northern Plains of Montana and Alberta. For the aboriginal people of the Northern Plains—the Southern Piegan (Pikuni), the Northern Peigan, the Kainai (Blood), and Siksika—these snowcapped mountains were known as the Backbone of the World. According to an information sign on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana: “The modern … Continued
The Athabaskan (also spelled Athapaskan and Athabascan) language family is found in the western American Indian culture areas. Linguists feel that the Athabaskan language family is one branch of a larger genetic grouping called Athabaskan-Eyak. Eyak is a single language which was spoken on the south coast of Alaska and which is nearly extinct. Proto-Athabaskan … Continued
Between a $50M Google lawsuit and this handsome ride to the best party around Tulsi had a fun week! The Standing Rock Sioux tribe of Native Americans are still leading the way against the cancerous fossil fuel industry. It was announced yesterday that they will be building the largest solar farm in North Dakota a … Continued
Lakota leaders including (clockwise from top left) Standing Rock’s Phyllis Young, Oglala Sioux Tribe President Julian Bear Runner, Cheyenne River Chairman Harold Frazier, and Rosebud President Rodney Bordeaux have come together to call for a public hearing on a proposal which would nearly double the oil running through the Dakota Access pipeline. The following is … Continued
Both spoken language and sign language are capable of communicating a great deal of information, but they have a limited physical range. American Indian hunting parties, for example, often needed to communicate across long distances to coordinate their hunts, and this communication needed to be quiet so as not to alert the game to the … Continued
Bands or tribes known collectively as the Apache ranged widely throughout the (American) Southwest at the time of the first Spanish exploration and invasion. The Apache are Athabascan-speaking and migrated into the Southwest from Canada perhaps as early as 850 CE, but most likely between the late 1200s and early 1400s. In her entry on … Continued
Indians, according to the non-Indian social philosophers, bureaucrats, and politicians of the nineteenth century, were going to simply disappear by the end of the century or in the early twentieth century. Many history books about Indians stop their stories at the end of the nineteenth century, adding to the illusion that Indians somewhat stopped being … Continued