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Vernelda Grant recalls weeping while reading historic journals kept by White settlers and U.S. soldiers describing how they obtained sacred Indigenous items from the Apache people.

The settlers preyed on her peoples’ starvation or dug through graves for items they considered as collectible trinkets.

“Our people were starving and forced to trade their precious objects for the sake of having something to eat,” said Grant, director of the San Carlos Apache’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office.

“I cried when I read those writings in anthropological archives. Our people didn’t have a choice.” READ MORE — Mary Annette Pember, ICT

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Dead Pioneers is not a parody of punk rock or parody packaged in punk. They’re not about filling some quota of minority representation, and they don’t care to be. Dead Pioneers is about being themselves and telling it how it is, a true honest representation of the Native American experience. It just happens to feature some humor.

Vocalist Gregg Deal, a Pyramid Lake Paiute tribal citizen, is a Colorado-based multimedia artist with exhibits featured in several of Colorado’s most respected galleries. He’s a performance artist, painter, printer, sculptor and now a musician.

Much like Jello Biafra’s lyrics in early Dead Kennedys, the words in Dead Pioneers’ 12-track, first full release are both thought provoking and, at times, uproariously hilarious.

The self-titled album was preceded by a single titled “Bad Indian,” which graced the Spotify playlists over a year ago and feels like a musical underscore to a Native American standup comic’s five-minute set, but Deal says he’s never fancied himself a comedian. READ MORE— Asa Thomas Metcalfe, Special to ICT

NEW YORK — An exploration of racism on social media and a history of Native Americans are among the winners of J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards, which celebrate literary excellence, social relevance and original reporting.

Ned Blackhawk’s “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History,” which won a National Book Award last fall, received the $10,000 Mark Lynton History Prize. Dashka Slater’s “Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed” won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, also a $10,000 honor. “Accountable” is the first book for young audiences to receive the Lukas book prize.

Two books received Lukas Work-in-Progress awards, each worth $25,000: Lorraine Boissoneault’s “Body Weather: Notes on Illness in the Anthropocene” and Alice Driver’s “The Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company.”

The awards, established in 1998 and named for the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author and investigative journalist, are presented by the Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Previous winners include Robert Caro, Jill Lepore and Isabel Wilkerson. — Associated Press

Syphilis has been on the rise for the past 10 years across the country, and Native American people have the highest rates at 67 cases per 100,000. The states most affected include South Dakota, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

One reason for the increase is that syphilis initially has symptoms that are easily overlooked but then it progresses with no symptoms for months or years. Also syphilis can be spread not just by vaginal sex, but oral and anal sex as well. And depending on the location of sores caused by syphilis, a condom may not offer full protection.

The disease in its early stages is easily treated with antibiotics but many people don’t know they have been infected. The first symptom is a painless lesion or sore on the genitals or in the mouth. Then weeks later, the infected person may get a rash on their hands or feet. Symptoms then disappear while the disease remains in the bloodstream.

Adults can develop severe symptoms even after months or years of having none. “If syphilis is left untreated it can result in serious health problems affecting the brain, nerves, eyes, heart, blood vessels, liver, bones and joints,” according to health professionals. READ MORE — Joaqlin Estus, ICT

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Tobacco is a sacred medicine for many Native Americans. However, commercial tobacco in smoking cigarettes, is not. The American Indian Cancer Foundation says that American Indian and Alaska Natives have the highest rate of smoking in the country. Wyatt Pickner, a research manager at the foundation, talks with ICT producer Shirley Sneve about the issues.

“We Ride for Her” is a documentary short about a group of women motorcyclists who ride across the us to raise awareness for the MMIR crisis. The journey for the women is very personal. ICT producer Daniel Herrera spoke with the film’s protagonists about their experience.

To celebrate the women who have made a difference in our lives and the lives of their Native nations, here’s an encore presentation of an interview from our archives. A multi-media artist works in the Hawaiian art of kapa making. She does it from the ground up. Shirley Sneve interviews Maile Andrade.

WATCH

BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Sunday suspended a ceasefire with one of a handful of armed groups with which he hoped to negotiate peace accords, saying its fighters violated the truce by attacking an Indigenous community.

The government said that starting Wednesday it would resume military operations against Estado Mayor Central, a group of fighters who broke away from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia when it signed a peace pact in 2016.

Indigenous leaders in the war-torn western region of Cauca said an attack by the dissident group Saturday wounded at least three people and a young student was taken away by force.

In a post on the X platform, Petro said group was “violating the ceasefire agreement,” adding that he believed it used peace negotiations as a cover to “strengthen itself militarily.” READ MORE — Associated Press

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