WASHINGTON — 

Harris win, US could see its first female Native American governor

Kamala Harris’ candidacy for president, alongside Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, brings the potential for another historic milestone: If the Harris-Walz ticket succeeds, Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, would become the first Native American woman to serve as a state governor.

Flanagan's career in public service spans decades. She served on the Minneapolis Board of Education from 2005 to 2009. She was also the executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund Minnesota before running unopposed for a seat on the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2015.

She was elected lieutenant governor in 2018 and reelected in 2022. She has been a prominent advocate for Indigenous and abortion rights and helped oversee the creation of the state’s first Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office.

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Tribes outraged over uranium ore hauls

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has temporarily stopped the transport of uranium ore across the Navajo Nation, saying tribes were not notified as required.

Energy Fuels had earlier agreed to notify tribal governments two weeks in advance before transporting trucks carrying uranium ore from the Pinyon Plain Mine, near the Grand Canyon, to a uranium mill in Utah.

The Navajo Nation, however, says it never received notice and didn’t find out about the convoy until it had already passed through Navajo lands.

Navajo President Buu Nygren directed his police to stop the transport vehicles on the return trip and escort them off the reservation.

A spokesperson for Energy Fuels said the company had complied with notice requirements, and the company's president said the risks of transporting the unprocessed ore were minimal.

The plan was for an estimated six trucks per day to carry over 22,000 kilograms of ore over three to five years until the mine is exhausted.

The Havasupai Tribe has fears that mining in the area could contaminate the deep groundwater aquifer that supplies its drinking water and is calling on the government to stand by tribes.

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Colville tribes back out of wolf repatriation deal with Colorado

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation have backed out of an agreement to provide 15 gray wolves for Colorado’s reintroduction efforts. They say Colorado’s Parks and Wildlife agency failed to conduct “necessary and meaningful consultation with potentially impacted tribes,” in particular, the Southern Ute Tribe.

In January, the Colville tribes agreed to capture and send up to 15 wolves to Colorado.
But the Southern Ute Tribe has long opposed wolf reintroduction due to potential negative impacts on tribal livelihoods, livestock and wildlife, including elk and moose.

The Southern Ute Tribal Council passed a resolution in 2020 stressing the significance of the Brunot Agreement Area, more than 14 million hectares (3.5 million acres) of reservation they ceded to the government in 1873, while retaining hunting rights. That resolution also noted that gray wolves carry hydatid disease, a parasite that could infect domestic animals and humans.

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California tribe rides to Washington, DC, to seek congressional recognition

Members of a tribe calling itself the Muwekma Ohlone set out Sunday from San Francisco, California, on a three-month cross-country horseback ride to Washington, D.C. There, they hope to persuade lawmakers to grant them federal recognition long denied by the Interior Department.

They say they are descendants of the Verona Band of Alameda County, who have been present in the Bay Area for more than 10,000 years. Chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh says “special interests, money and corrupted politics” have stopped them from being recognized.

The group, then calling itself the “Ohlone/Costanoan Muwekma Tribe,” first petitioned for federal recognition in 1989, claiming direct lineal descendency from the historical Verona Band. This tribe was last acknowledged by the government in 1927.

Bureau of Indian Affairs records show that the agency rejected their petition, saying the tribe had failed to provide evidence that it had operated as a cohesive political group on a "substantially continuous basis" as the Verona Band or as a tribe that evolved from that band.

Federally recognized tribes are acknowledged as sovereign entities and are entitled to receive some federal benefits, services and protections because of their special relationships with the U.S. government.

Tribes may bypass BIA and directly petition Congress for recognition. Between 1975 and 2013, members of Congress introduced 178 bills seeking to extend recognition to 72 Indian nations and recognized 32.

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NEW YORK — 

Tucked within the expansive Native American halls of the American Museum of Natural History is a diminutive wooden doll that holds a sacred place among the tribes whose territories once included Manhattan.

For more than six months now, the ceremonial Ohtas, or Doll Being, has been hidden from view after the museum and others nationally took dramatic steps to board up or paper over exhibits in response to new federal rules requiring institutions to return sacred or culturally significant items to tribes — or at least to obtain consent to display or study them.

Museum officials are reviewing more than 1,800 items as they work to comply with the requirements while also eyeing a broader overhaul of the more than half-century-old exhibits.

But some tribal leaders remain skeptical, saying museums have not acted swiftly enough. The new rules, after all, were prompted by years of complaints from tribes that hundreds of thousands of items that should have been returned under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 still remain in museum custody.

"If things move slowly, then address that," said Joe Baker, a Manhattan resident and member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, descendants of the Lenape peoples European traders encountered more than 400 years ago. "The collections, they're part of our story, part of our family. We need them home. We need them close."

Sean Decatur, the New York museum's president, promised tribes will hear from officials soon. He said staff these past few months have been reexamining the displayed objects in order to begin contacting tribal communities.

Museum officials envision a total overhaul of the closed Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains halls — akin to the five-year, $19 million renovation of its Northwest Coast Hall, completed in 2022 in close collaboration with tribes, Decatur added.

"The ultimate aim is to make sure we're getting the stories right," he said.

Discussions with tribal representatives over the Ohtas began in 2021 and will continue, museum officials said, even though the doll does actually not fall under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act because it is associated with a tribe outside the U.S., the Munsee-Delaware Nation in Ontario, Canada.

The museum also plans to open a small exhibit in the fall incorporating Native American voices and explaining the history of the closed halls, why changes are being made and what the future holds, he said.

Lance Gumbs, vice chairman of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, a federally recognized tribe in New York's Hamptons, said he worries about the loss of representation of local tribes in public institutions, with exhibit closures likely stretching into years.

The American Museum of Natural History, he noted, is one of New York's major tourism draws and also a mainstay for generations of area students learning about the region's tribes.

He suggests museums use replicas made by Native peoples so that sensitive cultural items aren't physically on display.

"I don't think tribes want to have our history written out of museums," Gumbs said. "There's got to be a better way than using artifacts that literally were stolen out of gravesites."

Gordon Yellowman, who heads the department of language and culture for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, said museums should look to create more digital and virtual exhibits.

He said the tribes, in Oklahoma, will be seeking from the New York museum a sketchbook by the Cheyenne warrior Little Finger Nail that contains his drawings and illustrations from battle.

The book, which is in storage and not on display, was plucked from his body after he and other tribe members were killed by U.S. soldiers in Nebraska in 1879.

"These drawings weren't just made because they were beautiful," Yellowman said. "They were made to show the actual history of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people."

Institutions elsewhere are taking other approaches.

In Chicago, the Field Museum has established a Center for Repatriation after covering up several cases in its halls dedicated to ancient America and the peoples of the coastal Northwest and Arctic.

The museum has completed four repatriations to tribes involving around 40 items over the past six months, with at least three more repatriations pending involving additional items. Those repatriations were through efforts that were underway before the new regulations, according to Field Museum spokesperson Bridgette Russell.

At the Cleveland Museum in Ohio, a case displaying artifacts from the Tlingit people in Alaska has been reopened after their leadership gave consent, according to Todd Mesek, the museum's spokesperson. But two other displays remain covered up, with one containing funerary objects from the ancient Southwest to be redone with a different topic and materials.

And at Harvard, the Peabody Museum's North American Indian hall reopened in February after about 15% of its roughly 350 items were removed from displays, university spokesperson Nicole Rura said.

Chuck Hoskin, chief of the Cherokee Nation, said he believes many institutions now understand they can no longer treat Indigenous items as "museum curiosities" from "peoples that no longer exist."

The leader of the tribe in Oklahoma said he visited the Peabody this year after the university reached out about returning hair clippings collected in the early 1930s from hundreds of Indigenous children, including Cherokees, forced to assimilate in the notorious Indian boarding schools.

"The fact that we're in a position to sit down with Harvard and have a really meaningful conversation, that's progress for the country," he said.

As for Baker, he wants the Ohtas returned to its tribe. He said the ceremonial doll should never have been on display, especially arranged as it was among wooden bowls, spoons and other everyday items.

"It has a spirit. It's a living being," Baker said. "So if you think about it being hung on a wall all these years in a static case, suffocating for lack of air, it's just horrific, really."

BILLINGS, Montana — 

At least 973 Native American children died in the U.S. government's abusive boarding school system, according to the results of an investigation released Tuesday by officials who called on the government to apologize for the schools.

The investigation commissioned by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland found marked and unmarked graves at 65 of the more than 400 U.S. boarding schools that were established to forcibly assimilate Native American children into white society. The findings don't specify how each child died, but the causes of death included sickness, accidents and abuse during a 150-year period that ended in 1969, officials said.

The findings follow a series of listening sessions across the United States over the past two years in which dozens of former students recounted the harsh and often degrading treatment they endured while separated from their families.

"The federal government — facilitated by the Department I lead — took deliberate and strategic actions through federal Indian boarding school policies to isolate children from their families, deny them their identities, and steal from them the languages, cultures and connections that are foundational to Native people," Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe in New Mexico and the country's first Native American Cabinet secretary, said in a news release Tuesday.

In an initial report released in 2022, officials estimated that more than 500 children died at the schools. The federal government passed laws and policies in 1819 to support the schools, the last of which were still operating in the 1960s.

The schools gave Native American children English names, put them through military drills and forced them to perform manual labor, such as farming, brickmaking and working on the railroad, officials said.

Former students shared tearful recollections of their experience during listening sessions in Oklahoma, South Dakota, Michigan, Arizona, Alaska and other states. They talked about being punished for speaking their native language, being locked in basements and having their hair cut to stamp out their identities. They were sometimes subjected to solitary confinement, beatings and the withholding of food. Many left the schools with only basic vocational skills that gave them few job prospects.

Donovan Archambault, 85, of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana, said he was sent away to boarding schools beginning at age 11 and was mistreated, forced to cut his hair and prevented from speaking his native language. He said he drank heavily before turning his life around more than two decades later, and never discussed his school days with his children until he wrote a book about the experience several years ago.

"An apology is needed. They should apologize," Archambault told The Associated Press by phone Tuesday. "But there also needs to be a broader education about what happened to us. To me, it's part of a forgotten history."

The new report doesn't specify who should issue the apology on behalf of the federal government, saying only that it should be issued through "appropriate means and officials to demonstrate that it is made on behalf of the people of the United States and be accompanied by bold and actionable policies."

Interior Department officials also recommended that the government invest in programs that could help Native American communities heal from the traumas caused by boarding schools. That includes money for education, violence prevention and the revitalization of indigenous languages. Spending on those efforts should be on a scale proportional to the money spent on the schools, agency officials said.

The schools, similar institutions and related assimilation programs were funded by more than $23 billion in inflation-adjusted federal spending, officials determined. Religious and private institutions that ran many of the institutions received federal money as partners in the campaign to "civilize" Indigenous students, according to the new report.

By 1926, more than 80% of Indigenous school-age children — some 60,000 children — were attending boarding schools that were run either by the federal government or religious organizations, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

Legislation pending before Congress would establish a Truth and Healing Commission to document and acknowledge past injustices related to boarding schools. The measure is sponsored in the Senate by Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and backed by Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

MESCALERO, New Mexico — 

Anne Marie Brillante never imagined she would have to choose between being Apache and being Catholic.

To her, and many others in the Mescalero Apache tribe in New Mexico who are members of St. Joseph Apache Mission, their Indigenous culture had always been intertwined with faith. Both are sacred.

"Hearing we had to choose, that was a shock," said a tearful Brillante, a member of the mission's parish council.

The focus of this tense, unresolved episode is the 8-foot Apache Christ painting. For this close-knit community, it is a revered icon created by Franciscan friar Robert Lentz in 1989. It depicts Christ as a Mescalero medicine man and has hung behind the church's altar for 35 years under a crucifix as a reminder of the holy union of their culture and faith.

On June 26, the church's then-priest, Peter Chudy Sixtus Simeon-Aguinam, removed the icon and a smaller painting depicting a sacred Indigenous dancer. Also taken were ceramic chalices and baskets given by the Pueblo community for use during the Eucharist.

Brillante said the priest took them away while the region was reeling from wildfires that claimed two lives and burned more than 1,000 homes.

The Diocese of Las Cruces, which oversees the mission, did not respond to several emails, phone calls and an in-person visit by The Associated Press.

Parishioners, shocked to see the blank wall behind the altar when they arrived for Catechism class, initially believed the art objects had been stolen. But Brillante was informed by a diocesan official that the icon's removal occurred under the authority of Bishop Peter Baldacchino and in the presence of a diocesan risk manager.

The diocese has returned the icons and other objects after the community's outrage was covered by various media outlets, and the bishop replaced Simeon-Aguinam with another priest. But Brillante and others say it's insufficient to heal the spiritual abuse they have endured.

Brillante said their former priest opened old wounds with his recent actions, suggesting he sought to cleanse them of their "pagan" ways, and it has derailed the reconciliation process initiated by Pope Francis in 2022. That year, Francis gave a historic apology for the Catholic Church's role in Indigenous residential schools, forcing Native people to assimilate into Christian society, destroying their cultures and separating families.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declined comment on the Mescalero case. But last month, the conference overwhelmingly approved a pastoral framework for Indigenous ministry, which pointed to a "false choice" many Indigenous Catholics are faced with — to be Indigenous or Catholic:

"We assure you, as the Catholic bishops of the United States, that you do not have to be one or the other. You are both."

Several of the mission's former priests understood this, but Brillante believes Simeon-Aguinam's recent demand to make that "false choice" violated the bishops' new guidelines.

Larry Gosselin, a Franciscan who served St. Joseph from 1984 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2003, said he sought the approval of 15 Mescalero leaders before Lentz began the painting that took three months to complete.

"He poured all of himself into that painting," said Gosselin, explaining that Lentz sprinkled gold dust on himself and skipped showering, using his body oils to adhere the gold to the canvas. Then he gave the painting to the humble church.

Albert Braun, the priest who helped construct the church building in the 1920s, respected Mescalero Apache traditions in his ministry and was so beloved that he is buried inside the church, near the altar.

Church elders Glenda and Larry Brusuelas said to right this wrong and to repair this damage, the bishop must issue a public apology.

"You don't call or send a letter," Larry Brusuelas said. "You face the people you have offended and offer some guarantee that this is not going to happen again. That's the Apache way."

While Bishop Baldacchino held a two-hour meeting with the parish council in Mescalero after the items were returned, Brillante said he seemed more concerned about the icon being "hastily" reinstalled rather than acknowledging the harm or offering an apology.

Still, some are hopeful. Parish council member Pamela Cordova said she views the bishop appointing a new priest who was more familiar with the Apache community as a positive step.

"We need to give the bishop a chance to prove himself and let us know he is sincere and wants to make things right," she said.

The concept of "inculturation," the notion of people expressing their faith through their culture, has been encouraged by the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s, said Chris Vecsey, professor of religion and Native American studies at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.

"It's rather shocking to see a priest who has been assigned a parish with Native people acting in such a disrespectful way in 2024," he said. "But it does reflect a long history of concern that blending these symbols might weaken, threaten or pollute the purity of the faith."

Deacon Steven Morello, the Archdiocese of Detroit's missionary to the American Indians, said the goal of the U.S. bishops' new framework is to correct the ills of the past. He said Indigenous spirituality and Catholic faith have much in common, such as the burning of sage in Native American ceremonies and incense in a Catholic church.

"Both are meant to cleanse the heart and mind of all distractions," he said. "The smoke goes up to God."

Morello said Pope Francis' encyclical on caring for the Earth and the environment titled "Laudato Si" addresses the sacredness of all creation — a core principle Indigenous people have lived by for millennia.

"There is no conflict, only commonality, between Indigenous and Catholic spirituality," he said.

There are over 340 Native American parishes in the United States and many use Indigenous symbols and sacred objects in church. In every corner of the Mescalero church, Apache motifs seamlessly blend in with Catholic imagery.

The Apache Christ painting hangs as the focal point of the century-old Romanesque church whose rock walls soar as high as 90 feet. Artwork of teepees adorns the lectern. A mural at the altar shows the Last Supper with Christ and his apostles depicted as Apache men. Tall crowns worn by mountain dancers known as "gahe" in Apache, hang over small paintings showing Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.

For parishioner Sarah Kazhe, the Apache Christ painting conveys how Jesus appears to the people of Mescalero.

"Jesus meets you where you are and he appears to us in a way we understand," she said. "Living my Apache way of life is no different than attending church. ... The mindless, thoughtless act of removing a sacred icon sent a message that we didn't matter."

Parishioners believe the Creator in Apache lore is the same as their Christian God. On a recent Saturday night, community members gathered to bless two girls who had come of age. Kazhe and Donalyn Torres, one of the church elders who authorized Lentz to paint the Apache Christ, sat in lawn chairs with more than 100 others, watching crown dancers bring blessings on them.

Under a half-moon, the men wore body paint and tall crowns, dancing to drumbeats and song around a large fire. The women, including the two girls donning buckskin and jewelry, formed the outer circle, moving their feet in a quick, shuffling motion.

In the morning, many from the group attended Mass at their church, the Apache Christ restored to its place of honor.

The painting shows Christ as a Mescalero holy man, standing on the sacred Sierra Blanca, greeting the sun. A sun symbol is painted on his left palm; he holds a deer hoof rattle in his right hand. The inscription at the bottom is Apache for "giver of life," one of their names for the Creator. Greek letters in the upper corners are abbreviations for "Jesus Christ."

Gosselin, the mission's former priest, said he was struck by the level of detail Lentz captured in that painting, particularly the eyes — which focus on a distance just as Apache people would when talking about spirituality. He believes the painting was "divinely inspired" because the people who received it feel a holy connection.

"This has resonated in the spirit and their hearts," he said. "Now, 35 years later, the Apache people are fighting for it."

WASHINGTON — 

Pentagon to review whether soldiers deserved honors for actions in Wounded Knee Massacre

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered a panel to review Medals of Honor (MOH) awarded to 20 soldiers for the actions during what the directive calls the “engagement at Wounded Knee Creek” in December 1890 in which U.S. soldiers killed approximately 350 to 375 Lakota men, women, and children.

As the country's highest military honor, the MOH is awarded for gallantry beyond the call of duty.

Experts will assess each awardee's actions to determine whether their actions violated MOH standards, such as “intentionally directing an attack against a non-combatant or an individual who has surrendered in good faith, murder or rape of a prisoner, or engaging in any other act demonstrating immorality.”

The review's findings and recommendations are expected by mid-October.

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Native Americans speak out against Trump pick for VP

Some Native Americans are voicing concerns about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s pick for a running mate, J.D. Vance, believing him to be anti-Indigenous.

When President Joe Biden designated October 11, 2021, as Indigenous People’s Day, Vance took to the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to denounce it as a "fake holiday created to sow division.”

Vance also spoke out against the U.S. Forest Service’s plan to rename Ohio’s Wayne National Forest, which was named after 18th Century general Anthony Wayne, who spent much of his military career fighting and divesting Native Americans of their lands.

“He fought wars and won peace for our government, the government you now serve, and hewed Ohio out of rugged wilderness and occupied enemy territory,” Vance wrote in an August 23 letter to the National Forest Service. [[ https://www.vance.senate.gov/press-releases/senator-vance-opposes-plan-to-rename-wayne-national-forest/ ]]

Native Americans also cite pieces of legislation Vance has introduced that they say would undermine tribal sovereignty.

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Native Americans: Deb Haaland would be a good pick for Harris running mate

As for the Democratic Party vice presidential nomination, now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the likely presidential candidate, some Native Americans think she should choose Interior Secretary Deb Haaland as her running mate.

They point to her achievements running the Department of the Interior (DOI), which manages public lands and minerals, national parks and wildlife refuges and works to uphold Federal trust obligations to Native Americans.

She set up a Missing and Murdered Unit inside DOI’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, which collaborates with law enforcement agencies to help solve missing or unsolved homicide cases.

She launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to investigate Indian boarding schools and account for students who died in the system.

She has also negotiated scores of public land co-stewardship agreements with tribes across the United States.

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Southwestern tribal leaders to Congress: Act now on water rights bills

Leaders and representatives from Colorado Plateau tribes were in Washington this week, urging Congress to act quickly on water rights settlement acts.

Lawmakers from both parties have introduced legislation in Congress after the Navajo, Hopi Tribe and Southern San Juan Paiute tribes signed off on a historic water rights settlement for waters in the upper and lower basins of the Colorado River, the Little Colorado River basin, the Gila River Basin and claims to groundwater in several aquifers.

Testifying before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries, they highlighted the need for access to water and better water infrastructure.

“Roughly a third of all Navajo households lack running water, including the home I grew up in,” Navajo Nation president Buu Nygren told lawmakers. “Thousands of our people continue to haul water, thirty miles round trip to meet their daily water demands.”

The bill would fund essential water development and delivery projects' acquisition, construction, and maintenance. One of the key components of this initiative is a distribution pipeline projected to cost approximately $1.75 billion. That project would improve water delivery and ensure that tribes gain reliable access to this vital resource, which has long been a concern in areas dependent on the Colorado River.

Specifically, the bill would allow the three tribes to secure over 56,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water each year. To put this into perspective, an acre-foot of water can sustain an average American household for an entire year.

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Oklahoma tribes outraged by Atlanta Braves ‘tribe night’ celebrations

A group of prominent Oklahoma-based tribal officials is demanding an apology from the Atlanta Braves baseball team for celebrating "Georgia Tribe Night" at its stadium.

During that June 29 event, the Braves hosted representatives from three state- but not federally recognized tribes and members of a state council on American Indian concerns.

Attending a quarterly meeting in Tulsa earlier this month, leaders of the Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Tribes passed a resolution calling for the Braves to apologize and engage in meaningful consultations with federally recognized tribes.

The Inter-Tribal Council comprises leaders from the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole nations, who were driven out of Georgia in the 19th Century and marched along the so-called “Trail of Tears” to what is today Oklahoma.

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., called event organizers offensive and tone-deaf, noting the Braves’ history of problematic depictions of Native American culture, including the controversial "tomahawk chop" gesture, in which spectators hack at the air and sing a “war chant” rooted in a 1950s children’s cartoon show that stereotyped Indians.

“The Atlanta Braves corporation may consider meaningful consultations with actual Indian tribes instead of trotting representatives of fraudulent organizations posting as tribes as a PR stunt, Hoskin said in a June 30 statement. “This piles insult on top of insult.”

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