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Tribes Call on NASA to Halt the Moon’s Desecration

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I n an article published in Barn Raiser on February 29, the Coalition of Large Tribes, or  COLT , and the Navajo Nation , a member of the organization, ask if NASA is using a public-private lunar-development partnership to avoid consultation with Native nations. Of particular concern to the tribes were the human and animal remains NASA and its partners tried to send to the moon on January 8 .  To see the full article and learn more about the tribal nations’ views and the fate of the mission, go  here .  Those explaining the tribes’ objections to the benighted lunar mission include  President Buu Nygren of the Navajo Nation, seen at right with U.S.  President Joe Biden, and OJ Semans, executive director of COLT and a citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Nation.  In the photo below, Semans is at far right; from right to left are his wife, Barb Semans, a leading voting-rights advocate who is also from Rosebud and a co-director of Four Directions Native Vote, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris,

Native Sites in Ohio Named to World Heritage List

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 This article was published by Yes! magazine in November 2023. Chief Glenna Wallace of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe gives the keynote speech at UNESCO’s celebration of the naming of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, in Ohio, to the prestigious World Heritage List. She is seen here at the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, in Chillicothe, Ohio. Photo courtesy Ohio History Connection. “My  im med iate reaction is to shout, and shout with joy,” Chief Glenna Wallace of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma told attendees at a September UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The United Nations agency had just named the ancient Indigenous-made Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks to its prestigious World Heritage list. At the same time, Wallace said, she was humbled and honored that the world had finally acknowledged her ancestors’ achievements. The eight earthworks complexes in central and southern Ohio join nearly 1,2

Shaky Ground: How the U.S. Uses the Law to Steal Indigenous Land

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This article was published in  In These Times  magazine in April 2023. Natives protest showy state and federal July 4 plans for the Black Hills. Photo Micah Garen/Getty Images. In  Federal Anti-Indian Law: The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous Peoples , Peter d’Errico exposes the capriciousness and hostility with which the U.S. uses the law to apply—or deny—justice to the original peoples of this land. “ When we enter a realm called  ​ ‘ federal Indian law’ … we are entering a semantic world created by the United States to control Native peoples and claim their lands,” writes d’Errico, an attorney and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Despite its confusion and contradictions, federal Indian law — in d’Errico’s terms,  ​ “ anti-Indian law” — has long had an unchanging purpose. By destroying Native individuals and communities, it has helped the rich and powerful scoop up vast lands and resources. This landgrab is accomplished in part because what’s typically cal

The Indigenous Winter Pantry: Recipes for Today’s Kitchen

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This article first appeared in  Yes! magazine in  February 2022. For more on topics like this, please see my book, American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle...  Photos courtesy Zuni Youth Enrichment Project, Joseph Zummo, and Cheyenne River Youth Project.     “The goal is to fill our bellies and our souls. The Zuni word for this is  yu’yashkwi,  to sustain life and be nourished as a people.”  T he main ingredients in the foods Indigenous people put up for winter are caring, sharing, and a big dollop of joy. Communities that work together to preserve the bounty of prairie, desert, forest, and garden thrive during challenging times. Sharing recipes with us here (see below) are the Pueblo of Zuni and the Ramah Chapter of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico; the Puyallup Tribe in Washington State; and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.  “Food is at the center of our culture, of our gatherings,” says Kenzi Bowekaty, food sovereignty leader of the Zuni Youth Enrichment Projec