HELENA, Montana — 

The reported birth of a rare white buffalo in Yellowstone National Park fulfills a Lakota prophecy that portends better times, according to members of the American Indian tribe who cautioned that it's also a signal that more must be done to protect the earth and its animals.

"The birth of this calf is both a blessing and warning. We must do more," said Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the spiritual leader of the Lakota, Dakota and the Nakota Oyate in South Dakota, and the 19th keeper of the sacred White Buffalo Calf Woman Pipe and Bundle.

The birth of the sacred calf comes as after a severe winter in 2023 drove thousands of Yellowstone buffalo, also known as bison, to lower elevations. More than 1,500 were killed, sent to slaughter or transferred to tribes seeking to reclaim stewardship over an animal their ancestors lived alongside for millennia.

Erin Braaten of Kalispell took several photos of the calf shortly after it was born on June 4 in the Lamar Valley in the northeastern corner of the park.

Her family was visiting the park when she spotted "something really white" among a herd of bison across the Lamar River.

Traffic ended up stopping while bison crossed the road, so Braaten stuck her camera out the window to take a closer look with her telephoto lens.

"I look and it's this white bison calf. And I was just totally, totally floored," she said.

After the bison cleared the roadway, the Braatens turned their vehicle around and found a spot to park. They watched the calf and its mother for 30-45 minutes.

"And then she kind of led it through the willows there," Braaten said. Although Braaten came back each of the next two days, she didn't see the white calf again.

For the Lakota, the birth of a white buffalo calf with a black nose, eyes and hooves is akin to the second coming of Jesus Christ, Looking Horse said.

Lakota legend says about 2,000 years ago — when nothing was good, food was running out and bison were disappearing — White Buffalo Calf Woman appeared, presented a bowl pipe and a bundle to a tribal member, taught them how to pray and said that the pipe could be used to bring buffalo to the area for food. As she left, she turned into a white buffalo calf.

"And some day when the times are hard again," Looking Horse said in relating the legend, "I shall return and stand upon the earth as a white buffalo calf, black nose, black eyes, black hooves."

A similar white buffalo calf was born in Wisconsin in 1994 and was named Miracle, he said.

Troy Heinert, the executive director of the South Dakota-based InterTribal Buffalo Council, said the calf in Braaten's photos looks like a true white buffalo because it has a black nose, black hooves and dark eyes.

"From the pictures I've seen, that calf seems to have those traits," said Heinert, who is Lakota. An albino buffalo would have pink eyes.

A naming ceremony has been held for the Yellowstone calf, Looking Horse said, though he declined to reveal the name. A ceremony celebrating the calf's birth is set for June 26 at the Buffalo Field Campaign headquarters in West Yellowstone.

Other tribes also revere white buffalo.

"Many tribes have their own story of why the white buffalo is so important," Heinert said. "All stories go back to them being very sacred."

Heinert and several members of the Buffalo Field Campaign say they've never heard of a white buffalo being born in Yellowstone, which has wild herds. Park officials had not seen the buffalo yet and could not confirm its birth in the park, and they have no record of a white buffalo being born in the park previously.

Jim Matheson, executive director of the National Bison Association, could not quantify how rare the calf is.

"To my knowledge, no one's ever tracked the occurrence of white buffalo being born throughout history. So I'm not sure how we can make a determination how often it occurs."

Besides herds of the animals on public lands or overseen by conservation groups, about 80 tribes across the U.S. have more than 20,000 bison, a figure that's been growing in recent years.

In Yellowstone and the surrounding area, the killing or removal of large numbers of bison happens almost every winter, under an agreement between federal and Montana agencies that has limited the size of the park's herds to about 5,000 animals. Yellowstone officials last week proposed a slightly larger population of up to 6,000 bison, with a final decision expected next month.

But ranchers in Montana have long opposed increasing the Yellowstone herds or transferring the animals to tribes. Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte has said he would not support any management plan with a population target greater than 3,000 Yellowstone bison.

Heinert sees the calf's birth as a reminder "that we need to live in a good way and treat others with respect."

"I hope that calf is safe and going to live its best life in Yellowstone National Park, exactly where it was designed to be," Heinert said.

Seattle, Washington — 

The United States granted the Makah Indian Tribe in Washington state a long-sought waiver Thursday that helps clear the way for its first sanctioned whale hunts since 1999.

The Makah, a tribe of 1,500 people on the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, is the only Native American tribe with a treaty that specifically mentions a right to hunt whales. But it has faced more than two decades of court challenges, bureaucratic hearings and scientific review as it seeks to resume hunting gray whales.

The decision by NOAA Fisheries grants a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which otherwise forbids harming marine mammals. It allows the tribe to hunt up to 25 Eastern North Pacific gray whales over 10 years, with a limit of two to three per year. There are roughly 20,000 whales in that population, and the hunts will be timed to avoid harming endangered Western North Pacific gray whales that sometimes visit the area.

Nevertheless, hurdles remain. The tribe must enter into a cooperative agreement with the agency under the Whaling Convention Act, and it must obtain a permit to hunt, a process that involves a monthlong public comment period.

Animal rights advocates, who have long opposed whaling, could also challenge NOAA's decision in court.

Archeological evidence shows that Makah hunters in cedar canoes killed whales for sustenance from time immemorial, a practice that ceased only in the early 20th century after commercial whaling vessels depleted the population.

By 1994, the Eastern Pacific gray whale population had rebounded, and they were removed from the endangered species list. Seeing an opportunity to reclaim its heritage, the tribe announced plans to hunt again.

The Makah trained for months in the ancient ways of whaling and received the blessing of federal officials and the International Whaling Commission. They took to the water in 1998 but didn't succeed until the next year, when they harpooned a gray whale from a hand-carved cedar canoe. A tribal member in a motorized support boat killed it with a high-powered rifle to minimize its suffering.

It was the tribe's first successful hunt in 70 years.

The hunts drew protests from animal rights activists, who sometimes threw smoke bombs at the whalers and sprayed fire extinguishers into their faces. Others veered motorboats between the whales and the tribal canoes to interfere with the hunt. Authorities seized several vessels and made arrests.

After animal rights groups sued, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned federal approval of the tribe's whaling plans. The court found that the tribe needed to obtain a waiver under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Eleven Alaska Native communities in the Arctic have such a waiver for subsistence hunts, allowing them to kill bowhead whales — even though bowheads are listed as endangered.

The Makah tribe applied for a waiver in 2005. The process repeatedly stalled as new scientific information about the whales and the health of their population was uncovered.

Some of the Makah whalers became so frustrated with the delays that they went on a rogue hunt in 2007, killing a gray whale that got away from them and sank. They were convicted in federal court.

WASHINGTON — 

Native American veterans honored at D-Day commemorations in Normandy

World leaders and veterans, including service members from several Native American tribes, gathered in France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the allied landing on the beaches of Normandy that changed the course of World War II.

Charles Norman Shay, a citizen of the federally recognized Penobscot Nation in Maine, was in the first wave that landed on Omaha Beach. A combat medic assigned to the First Infantry Division, Shay was awarded the Silver Star and the French Legion of Honor for his efforts to save wounded soldiers from the rising waters of the English Channel.

Delegations from several Native American tribes were also in Normandy to pay tribute to Shay and to the tens of thousands of Native Americans who served in World War II, including an unknown number of Native Americans who landed at Normandy in 1944.

Shay, who turns 100 later this week, is the last surviving Native American soldier to have fought on D-Day.

Read more:

Ho-Chunk congresswoman: States ‘deprive’ Native Americans of right to vote

June 2 marked 100 years since President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, also known as the Snyder Act, granting full U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States.

Native American lawmakers marked the occasion with a series of editorials.

In a guest essay for Native News Online, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, argues that Native Americans have always been citizens.

“My people were here long before the Mayflower and the Pilgrims, and before the cow was introduced to North America. We have always been citizens of this continent. Our citizenship runs deep, and in spite of every Indian war, assimilation policy, and outright assault on our land, animals, and ways of life by newcomers, we have persevered,” she wrote.

Representative Sharice Davids, a citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin, reminded readers of Indian Country Today that while the 1924 law may have given Native Americans official citizenship, some states still “deprive” them of rights guaranteed to citizens.

“Before this, my ancestors were treated as foreigners in their own land without a voice in the country's most important systems,” Davids wrote. “While the act was a monumental leap in tribal sovereignty, it didn't prevent states from enacting laws that deprived Native communities of their right to vote.”

Davids, Senator Ben Ray Lujan and Representative Tom Cole (Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma) introduced the Native American Voting Rights Act of 2021 (NAVRA), to improve Native Americans’ access to voter registration, polling places and drop boxes.

Leonard Peltier to appeal again for his release

American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier and his supporters will plead his case next week before a parole board for what may be the last time.

Peltier, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, was convicted in 1977 of killing two FBI agents during a 1975 standoff on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.

As VOA reported in 2016, the FBI Agents Association insists Peltier is an “unremorseful, cold-blooded killer” who deserves to remain in prison. His defenders say he was framed for a crime he did not commit.

Peltier is nearly 80 and has spent more than half his life in prison. He has always proclaimed his innocence and has twice been denied parole.

Amnesty International USA followed the case for years and recently wrote the U.S. Parole Commission to plead for Peltier’s release on humanitarian grounds.

Parole was abolished for federal convicts in 1987, but Peltier remains eligible because he was convicted before that time.

Read more:

Tribes distinguish between co-managing and co-stewarding federal land

As part of his commitment to allow Native American tribes a say in the use of federal lands and waters, President Joe Biden expanded the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Northern California to include a 17.7-kilometer-long (11-mile-long) north-south ridgeline that is sacred to the Patwin people in the region.

Biden’s May 2 proclamation renamed the ridgeline, previously known as Walker Ridge, to Molok Luyuk, or Condor Ridge, in the language of the three federally recognized Patwin tribes: the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, the Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians of the Colusa Indian Community and the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation.

The proclamation also called on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to explore “co-stewardship” with those tribes. But co-stewardship doesn’t mean co-management. Those are powers only Congress can grant.

“Co-management means decision-making authority,” monument manager Melissa Hovey recently told Grist online magazine. “Co-stewardship means one entity still has the decision-making authority.”

Read more:

WASHINGTON — 

Senator blocks confirmation of first Native American federal judge

U.S. Senator Steve Daines, a Republican from Montana and member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, has blocked President Joe Biden’s pick, a Native American woman, to serve as a federal judge in Montana.

Biden in late April tapped Danna Jackson, a tribal attorney for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana, as his choice to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana.

U.S. Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana, lauded her nomination.

“Danna Jackson has a proven track record of applying the law with fairness and integrity throughout her legal career, and I have no doubt that she’ll bring these high standards to the federal judiciary and District of Montana,” he said in an April 24 statement.

But Daines complained that Biden had not consulted with him before naming her.

“Federal judges in Montana are crushing our way of life because they legislate from the bench. Montanans want judges who will bring balance to our courts and uphold the Constitution,” he said in a statement.

If confirmed, Danna Jackson would be the first Native American to serve as a federal judge in that state, a lifetime position.

Read more:

Feds to work with South Dakota school district to ensure rights of Native students

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, says that the Rapid City Area Schools district in South Dakota has resolved to take action to ensure compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in how it teaches and disciplines students.

In December 2010, the OCR launched several investigations into whether schools in the Rapid City area treated Native American and white students differently in matters of discipline and access to special and advanced learning programs.

The investigation found evidence that Native American students were being disciplined more frequently and more harshly than white students and were discriminated against when it came to accessing advanced learning courses.

The school district has resolved to produce corrective plans, including hiring a “discipline equity supervisor” and advanced learning coordinator and allowing Native American community members a role in revising policies.

Read more:

New report details sexual abuse of Indigenous students in Catholic boarding schools

The Washington Post this week published the results of an investigation into the sexual abuse of Native American children in Catholic-run boarding schools in the Midwest, Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

The investigation revealed that at least 122 priests, nuns and brothers assigned to 22 boarding schools were later accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children in their care; most of these cases occurred in the 1950s and 1960s.

In May 2022, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland released the first volume of an investigation into the federal Indian boarding school system designed to assimilate Native children and ultimately take their land.

The initial report found that between 1819 and 1969, the federal Indian boarding school operated 408 federal schools across 37 states and territories.

A highly anticipated second volume was expected to be published in January but has not yet been released. Heidi Todacheene, a senior adviser to Haaland, told New Mexico lawmakers in December that the upcoming report would update the first volume to include names and tribal affiliations of individual students.

In July 2022, Pope Francis traveled to Alberta, Canada, where he apologized for the Catholic Church's role in Canada’s Indigenous residential schools and acknowledged the damaging impact on First Nations’ families and communities.

In a statement following that visit, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition suggested he turn his attention next to the church’s role in the U.S. Indian boarding school system.

‘Mankato hanging hope’ to be repatriated to Minnesota tribe

The Minnesota Historical Society has agreed to repatriate the "Mankato Hanging Rope" to the Prairie Island Indian Community, who filed a claim under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

A Minnesota infantry soldier donated the rope to the society in 1869, saying that it had been used to execute Dakota ancestor Wicanhpi Wastedanpi (also known as Chaska).

He was one of 303 Dakota men convicted and sentenced to death by a military commission for their roles in the 1862 Dakota War. By law, President Abraham Lincoln was required to review the convictions, and he commuted the sentences of all but 39 men.

One man received a last-minute reprieve, and on December 26, 1862, the remaining 38 men were led to a scaffold in the town of Mankato and hanged in what was the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

It was later learned Wicanhpi Wastedanpi was one of two men hanged by mistake.

Read more:

WASHINGTON — 

Navajo president to council: Hurry and approve water rights settlements

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren has urged the tribal council to quickly approve a pair of proposed water rights settlements.

“The current round of negotiations to settle our claims to the Colorado River in Arizona began in the early 1990s but reach back to the 1960s,” Nygren said in a statement Tuesday. “This is a long time coming, so I look for a unanimous vote from council.”

Navajo Nation council speaker Crystalyne Curley introduced legislation May 11 to address water rights claims in the Rio San Jose Stream System and the Rio Puerco Basin in New Mexico, calling it a “monumental step forward in securing water sovereignty” for Navajo communities and sustaining water resources for “generations to come.”

Under the larger Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement, which Curley introduced May 12, the Navajo Nation would receive a significant amount of Arizona’s allocation of Colorado River Upper Basin water, a portion of Lower Basin water, all groundwater underneath the Navajo Nation and all surface water reaching the Navajo Nation from the Little Colorado River.

The Navajo Nation covers 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles). About 30% of Navajo families live without running water and must haul it from remote wells in order meet their basic household and livestock needs.

If Congress authorizes the agreement, it will provide up to $5 billion worth of water infrastructure and development for Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute tribes in Arizona.

Read more:

Eight out of nine tribes banish South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem

Two more tribes in South Dakota this week banished Republican Governor Kristi Noem from their reservations over her suggestions that tribal leaders benefit from drug cartel activity.

The Lower Brule Sioux Tribe endorsed a ban on Wednesday, a day after the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe passed a similar resolution. Now, the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe is the only one of nine tribes in South Dakota that has not followed suit.

“We want our children and fellow tribal members & tribal relatives across the State to be seen as equals and treated with respect and dignity like any other ethnicity in our State,” Lower Brule tribal chairman Clyde J. R. Estes posted on Facebook.

The bans follow remarks Noem made during separate town hall meetings in March.

“Their [tribes’] kids don’t have any hope. They don’t have parents who show up and help them,” Noem said, and she suggested that Mexican drug cartels operate on reservations to the benefit of some tribal leaders.

Crow Creek chairman Peter Lengkeek told South Dakota Public Broadcasting Wednesday that no Mexican drug cartels operate on his reservation.

“We have cartel products, like guns and drugs, but they pass over state highways getting to the reservation,” he said.

Tuesday, Noem appointed a former Oglala Sioux Tribe Department of Public Safety chief to serve on the state’s Department of Tribal Relations, alleging he “found himself without a job” after he told the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs about the cartel presence on tribal lands.

Noem’s office did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

Read more:

Graduating student forced to remove beaded cap, feather

Native Americans protested on social media after officials at a New Mexico high school graduation ceremony confiscated a Lakota student’s beaded cap and feather.

In a video widely shared on social media, two Farmington High School officials are seen taking a cap and feather from Genesis White Bull and replacing it with one that was unadorned.

Navajo Nation first lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren expressed support for White Bull and for all students wishing to wear items of cultural significance on graduation day.

“For some graduates, this is the last graduation ceremony they will ever have,” she posted. “Deciding what to wear goes far beyond a simple decision of what color dress or shoes to wear. For Native students, this is a day to proudly wear our traditional regalia [that] reminds us of how far we’ve come as a people.”

Read more:

Colorado town cancels artist’s residency over controversial painting

Hunkpapa Lakota artist Danielle SeeWalker was slated to become the first Native American to serve as Vail, Colorado’s, summer 2024 artist-in-residence.

But that was before SeeWalker posted a painting titled “G is for Genocide” on social media. It shows a near-faceless woman wearing a feather and a keffiyeh, the traditional Bedouin headscarf that has become the symbol for solidarity with Palestinians.

“It is about me expressing the parallels between what is happening to the innocent people in Gaza ... to that of the genocide of Native American populations here in our lands,” SeeWalker wrote in an Instagram post.

A community member saw the post and complained to the city, which abruptly canceled this year’s residency program just weeks before it was slated to begin.

“They called me last week, and the phone call lasted about a minute and a half,” SeeWalker told VOA. “I didn’t get a word in edgewise. If I could have had the opportunity to have a fruitful, engaging conversation about what I stand for as an artist, as an Indigenous woman, I would have appreciated that.”

In a statement on its website, the town of Vail said that while it “embraces her messaging and artwork surrounding Native Americans,” the town does not want to use public funds to support “any position on a polarizing geopolitical issue.”

Read more: