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May 20, 2008 - 10:04AM Democrat Barack Obama has become an honorary member of an American Indian tribe and promised a proactive policy to help tribal people if he wins the White House in November. The Illinois senator who is leading rival Hillary Clinton in their race for the party's presidential nomination, joined the Crow Nation, a tribe of some 12,100 members in Montana, taking on a native name and honorary parents in a traditional ceremony. Senator Obama, who would be the first black US president, was "adopted" by Hartford and Mary Black Eagle and given a name which means...

Abstract: This is a work in progress that I am making available due to the current interest in Ward Churchill’s writings. I show that Churchill has committed research fraud, and very possibly committed perjury as well. This article analyzes Churchill’s fabrication of a genocide. Churchill invented a story about the US Army deliberately creating a smallpox epidemic among the Mandan people in 1837 by distributing infected blankets. While there was a smallpox epidemic on the Plains in 1837, it was entirely accidental, the Army wasn’t involved, and nearly every element of Churchill’s story is a total invention. My goal here...

RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas (Reuters) - Mauro Morales has chickens in his yard, deer antlers hanging from the fence and a shed full of peyote behind his house. A slight, balding man in his 60s, Morales is one of just three "peyoteros" in the country licensed by the government to sell the small green cactus that contains the hallucinogen mescaline. His profession is an old one that used to be more common along the Rio Grande, the only place where peyote grows in the United States. Now it is threatened by the forces of modernity. His customers are the 250,000...

WASHINGTON - American Indian tribes throughout the country will receive 2,000 unused trailers that were intended for but never given to Hurricane Katrina victims. Thousands of trailers have been idling in Arkansas and Texas, prompting criticism about government waste. They originally were purchased to house people displaced by the hurricane, but FEMA officials said regulations against placing the homes in flood plains prevented their use on the Gulf Coast. Last year, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., urged the agency to donate the trailers to American Indian country, but the agency said federal law dictated the trailers must be used for disaster...

SELLS — Shadow Wolves officer Sloan Satepauhoodle's patience is wearing thin. She's been following tracks of four suspected drug runners for nearly two hours beneath a blazing sun and battling a hot, brisk wind that is sweeping dust over footprints, and blowing away broken twigs or burlap fibers that would provide signs. The latest tracks look too dry. They've probably already made it into the nearby village of Topawa, she says. The lessons her training officers taught her when she began six years ago remain ingrained in her psyche: "Be patient, Sloan, be patient." But, she really wants to make...

PORCUPINE, S.D. - The first woman elected to lead the Oglala Sioux tribe was removed from office with five months remaining in her first term. Cecelia Fire Thunder, former president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, met the anti-abortion movement and lost. At a hearing on June 29, Tribal Councilman Will Peters, architect of the complaints against her, said at the outset that abortion was the issue. ''We are here today because of the abortion. We will plan for and fight for all Lakota, including the unborn,'' Peters said. Fire Thunder opened the floodgates of criticism when she suggested opening a...

DURANT, OKLA. - Alan Reese took about an hour to drive from his home in Dallas' northern suburbs to the blackjack tables of the new Choctaw Casino and Resort here, 10 miles north of the Red River. "It's not even two counties away, straight up (U.S.) Highway 75," said Reese, 58, who also has visited the nearby Winstar Casino, run by the Chickasaw Nation, just past the state line on Interstate 35. "Makes you wonder how long Texas will take to see what's going on up here." ADVERTISEMENT North Texans such as Reese are fueling a gambling boom in southern...

Good liberal that I am, I have always tried to be on the side of the aboriginal inhabitants of North America. Lately, though, I've been hit with a bout of cognitive dissonance over the standoff in Caledonia. News reports about members of the Six Nations taking over part of the town, destroying property and making life miserable for the citizenry challenged my impression of the Iroquois as a group of underappreciated victims of the perfidy of the white man. Last weekend, I decided to check out the situation in Caledonia for myself. Initially, I saw little sign of conflict. The...

Pierre, SD (LifeNews.com) -- A South Dakota Indian tribe is throwing a monkey wrench into the state's plans to ban virtually all abortions in the state. Should the ban become law, one tribe says it will open up an abortion business on their tribal lands, which wouldn't be subjected to the abortion ban. Cecilia Fire Thunder, president of the Oglala Sioux tribe of South Dakota, says Sioux nation sovereignty means the new ban doesn't apply. As a result, she said she will lead an effort to build a Planned Parenthood abortion center at the Pine Ridge Reservation. “To me, it...

PINE RIDGE, South Dakota -- The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council voted yesterday to outlaw abortion on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and suspend tribal president Cecelia Fire Thunder until impeachment proceedings could be brought against her. Fire Thunder made headlines when she vowed to open an abortion mill at Pine Ridge in defiance of the new state law passed earlier this year banning abortion. However, the tribal council decided otherwise and took action to bring tribal law into agreement with South Dakota state law. “This is a loud and clear message to the abortion crowd that the people of South...

An American Indian Speaks Out Against Illegal AliensDr. David A. Yeagley, an American Indian and direct descendant of the Comanche warrior Bad Eagle says it best: America today is making the same mistake we Indians made nearly four centuries ago. America is letting in too many foreigners. And we Indians could end up losing this country all over again. It may come as surprise to many white people who have been brainwashed by the media to see Indians as the ultimate liberals, but there are few groups in America today who take a dimmer view of mass immigration than the...

BE WILD, NOT EVIL: THE LINK WRAY STORY A tribute by Jimmy McDonough © 2006 Link Wray seemed so strong, so invincible, like he'd be lurking around forever, just wailing away in some East Jesus s**thole, terrorizing another doomed amp while he stuck the neck of Screamin' Red in the dazed faces of a new batch of converts. I guess I took him for granted. The music business sure did. Link is the music for the midnight ride. No question about it, he sounds best when you have somewhere to go. Tearing down the highway in some s**tbox of a...

For Immediate Release Thursday, July 13, 2005 CONTACT: Jim Manley or Fabiola Rodríguez-Ciampoli, 202-224-2939 DEMOCRATS, TRIBAL LEADERS UNVEIL NATIVE AMERICAN POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS The Document Will Guide Democrats’ Work on Behalf of Indian Country WASHINGTON, DC- Today tribal leaders from across the nation joined Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, Senator Byron Dorgan, Ranking Member of the Indian Affairs Committee, Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee Chair Hillary Clinton, and Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) to unveil the 2005 Indian Country Policy Recommendations for the 109th Congress. The policy recommendations focus on five major priorities: 1) Trust Reform, Land and Natural Resources, 2)Health Care,...

WASHINGTON – The Interior Department was ordered Tuesday – by a judge who called it a "pathetic outpost" – to admit it can't provide accurate information about lost royalties owed to American Indians. In a scathing condemnation of the government's treatment of American Indians, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth directed the department to enclose notices in its correspondence saying information provided on trust assets may not be credible. The notices also are meant to alert people that they may be members of the class-action lawsuit brought by lead plaintiff Eloise Cobell in 1996 on behalf of more than 300,000 American...

NMAI NATIONAL POWWOW August 12–14, 2005 Hours Friday, Aug. 12: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 13: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m Sunday, Aug. 14: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Location MCI Center 601 F Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20024 Admission Adult: $12 Senior (65 years and older): $10 Child (4 to 11 years): $10 NMAI Members: $10 Groups (25 or more): $10/person Three-day pass: $30 During this special three-day event, spectators will experience Native cultures firsthand and have the opportunity to visit nearly 100 Native artisans and exhibitors showcasing fine art, jewelry, sculpture, and pottery. A true highlight...

DENVER - A 12-year-old audio tape of an angry answering machine message left by Ward Churchill has surfaced. Much of the audio is unintelligible, but a person identifies himself as Ward Churchill on the tape. The message was left on Vernon Bellecourt's answering machine in 1993. Bellecourt is a leader of the American Indian Movement. Churchill severed ties with the organization. Bellecourt said he felt threatened by the message, but he never filed a police report. You can listen to a portion of it by clicking at right. The transcript is as follows: "You siphoned a half million ripped off...

National Myth of the American Indian By Diana Muir The National Museum of the American Indian is an architectural triumph. Walking close to the walls conveys the vertiginous sense of hiking the rock canyons of the American West. The galleries inside are punctuated by windowed spaces offering spectacular views of the National Gallery and the United States Capitol, and prism windows near the top of the dome paint rainbows on the walls of the atrium. Step a hundred yards away from NMAI, however, and the building turns into a yellow sandstone affront to the white granite unity of the...

WASHINGTON - A federal judge has given Interior Secretary Gale Norton an ultimatum: Either appear in his court or face the prospect that he'll rule against her on an accusation that she retaliated against American Indians suing her agency for lost royalties. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth gave Norton the choice in an order he issued late Monday. The judge has frequently battled with the Interior Department since a class-action suit was filed in 1996 on behalf of more than 300,000 Indians seeking an accounting of trust funds set up in their behalf more than a century ago. The government...

Comanche blogger David Yeagley is going on the warpath. His quarry: Robert Redford. His goal: To punish what he calls leftwing hypocrisy. High schools, colleges and professional sports teams face harassment and lawsuits every day for using Indian names and images. Yet no one objects to Hollywood leftist Robert Redford naming his Sundance Institute after a Lakota Sioux ritual. Why the "free pass," asks Yeagley? "I protest... the outlandish hypocrisy of the Leftist Indians, who would crush some innocent school for using `Warrior' on its school jersey, yet not breathe a word of protest against Robert Redford's use of `Sundance'...

MEDIA ADVISORY For Immediate Release Contact: Jonodev Chaudhuri 480-2169483 jchaudhuri@swlaw.com http://www.native-poll-ooza.com/ Historic Gathering of Native Americans to Take Place on Election Day in Phoenix Native-POLL-ooza! Showcases Urban Indian and Tribal Unity PHOENIX – Amidst Arizona’s reemergence as a toss-up swing state as featured in Time magazine, the State’s grassroots Native American community has organized a historic first-of-a-kind gathering on election day to showcase their unity and the strength of their voice. At least 10,000 Native Americans and supporters will attend Native-POLL-ooza! at the Phoenix Indian School Park (Central Avenue and Indian School Road) from noon to 9 PM on November...