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RAPID CITY, S.D. – Janice Dillon, Sicangu Lakota, watched as her seven-year-old grandson Haydn Quick Bear spoke in Lakota. By this time next year, Quick Bear will be the first fluent speaker in his family since his great-grandmother.
Quick Bear has been competing in the Lakota Nation Invitational Language Bowl competition since last year. This year, his grandmother is his coach. The second-grader has placed in the competition both years alongside two other teams from his school, Wakanyeja Ki Tokeyachi in Mission, S.D.
“With my children, we didn’t place that emphasis on language, it wasn’t that important to us. Now we’ve realized how important the language is. We don’t have any fluent speakers left in my family,” Dillon said. “He’s (Haydn) learning so fast, we’re so proud of him.”
Last year, the Wakanyeja Ki Tokeyachi teams took the top three spots at the kindergarten through second-grade competition. This year, they successfully defended their title, winning first, second and third place. Quick Bear’s team, Tasiyagnunpa Tatanka, took second place. READ MORE— Amelia Schafer, ICT + Rapid City Journal
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A federal judge on Wednesday declined to approve a settlement of a voting rights lawsuit involving the Omaha and Winnebago tribes, saying a recent appeals court ruling has potentially “thrown a wrench into the works.”
The two tribes, located in northeast Nebraska’s Thurston County, had recently reached a tentative settlement with the Thurston County Board to redraw the voting districts for the seven-member governing board.
The tribe sued the county this year, alleging that the seven county supervisor districts drawn up by the county violated the federal Voting Rights Act by effectively denying Native Americans, who make up a majority of the voting-age population in Thurston County, a majority of the seats on the board. READ MORE. — Nebraska Examiner
Language revitalization is not an easy task. In many Indigenous communities, there may be only a handful of fluent speakers left.
In South America, some tribal members are forced to find spouses outside their communities, often amongst unrelated tribes. In these cases, one or both spouses must adopt the language of their partner. Usually, this leads to new languages or dialects.
It’s no wonder there are thousands of Native languages across the Western Hemisphere. Sadly, many communities no longer have Native speakers.
Such was the case with the Taino people of the Caribbean. For nearly four decades, the descendants of the people who discovered Columbus fought academia to prove that our people and culture, although heavily fragmented, were still here. But our language, for the most part, had indeed disappeared. READ MORE — Jorge Baracutay Estevez, Special to ICT
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — So far this year 49 homeless people have died on city streets, more than twice as many as all of 2022. That’s according to the Anchorage Daily News, which is tracking outdoor deaths of individuals with no fixed address.
The 49 included two people who used wheelchairs who died after heavy snowstorms hit the area in what is already expected to be a tough cold season.
The federal count of homeless people reached 580,000 last year, according to the Associated Press. In the Lower 48, cities are cracking down on homeless encampments. At the same time, some homeless Native people in the West have been targets of widespread Medicaid scams. At least two tribes have declared public health emergencies, the Blackfeet Nation of Montana and Navajo Nation in the Southwest.
In Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, about 43 percent of its homeless people are Alaska Native, despite them being only 12 percent of the population. READ MORE — Joaqlin Estus, ICT
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The sun is shining on two tribal colleges with an investment in solar. The U.S. Department of Energy announced that $3 million will go to the Blackfeet Community College in Montana and Turtle Mountain Community College in North Dakota. Over the last 12 years, the DOE Office of Indian Energy has supported 210 tribal projects in 49 states. The $215 million dollar investment is leveraged with over $93 million dollars through cost share.
From the city to the rez, a coming of age dramedy is making waves.
“Frybread Face and Me” follows two adolescent Navajo cousins from different worlds as they bond during a summer on their grandmother’s ranch. Billy Luther, who is Navajo, Hopi, and Laguna Pueblo, wrote and directed the film as it drew from his experiences growing up.
Through the work of organizations like the National Native American
Boarding School Healing Coalition, the stories of boarding schools, trauma and reconciliation have been featured many times here on the ICT Newscast. ICT’s Shirley Sneve brings us a new perspective–from her mother. She spoke with Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, who is a long-time author, about her own boarding school experience.
A 50-year-old mystery converges with a present-day struggle over family, land, and history – is the plot of a new novel from an Ojibwe author. “A Song over Miskwaa Rapids” is from Bois Forte citizen Linda LeGarde Grover. ICT’s Shirley Sneve has this interview.
“Sins of the Shovel: Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology” is a new book written by archaeologist Rachel Morgan. From reckless looting to professional science, the book explores the history of early American archaeology. ICT’s Paris Wise has this interview.
Health care professionals are warning of a triple threat facing Indian Country. Cases of three respiratory illnesses are on the rise among Indigenous people. Epidemiologist Dean Seneca told ICT that RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), the flu and COVID-19 threaten to overwhelm hospital emergency departments.
Heading into the holiday season, during which families are traveling and celebrating together, he warns that many tribal communities are especially vulnerable.
“The dynamics of our communities is almost a risk factor for COVID 19 infection. Limited land base, high unemployment, overcrowded homes, not a lot of piping of water and access to water. These are just a lot of those conditions and that environment actually is conducive to COVID-19 transmission,” Seneca said.
The Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention reported increases in all three respiratory illnesses in its weekly bulletin. READ MORE— Shirley Sneve, ICT
- Pilots flying tourists over national parks face new rules: None are stricter than at Mount Rushmore
- Lower Sioux in Minnesota building hemp homes: The Indigenous nation will soon have the only facility to create hempcrete in the country
- Protests at UN climate talks see ‘shocking level of censorship’: Demonstrators at the COP28 summit were restricted in everything from the signs they could hold to mentioning the names of detainees they want to see released
- 2 men are charged with illegally killing 3,600 birds, including bald and golden eagles to sell
- Pope Francis was a victim of a deepfake photo of him in a puffer jacket. Now he wants a treaty regulating AI
- A Biden-Trump rematch is the election few Americans want, an AP-NORC poll shows
We want your tips, but we also want your feedback. What should we be covering that we’re not? What are we getting wrong? Please let us know. dalton@ictnews.org.
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