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by Deborah Ellis 253 pages, Hardcover $15.95 Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Looks Like Daylight is a very interesting book because it gives readers a glimpse into the world of First Nations young people. The author interviewed youth in Canada and the United States between the ages of 11 and 18 and asked for their perspective and thoughts regarding how they see the world. The stories range from heartbreak to hope for the future. Here's an excerpt: "My mother says there is...
A team of Indian boys from Mexico swept the International Festival of Mini-Basketball, all while playing without shoes. The team from the Academy of Indigenous Basketball consists of boys of Trique heritage. Most are accustomed to going without shoes because their families can't afford them. "For them it's normal to not have shoes, to walk barefoot," Ernesto Merino, one of the coaches who is also Trique, told the Associated Press. Despite the lack of shoes, the team won the...
Jacoby Ellsbury is a champion. As key player for the 2013 World Champion Boston Red Sox, he played an important role in this series, especially in Game 6. Jacoby McCabe Ellsbury, a member of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, is the first Native American of Navajo descent to reach the Major Leagues. As of 2008, he was one of only three active non-Hispanic Native American players in Major League Baseball, along with Kyle Lohse of the Milwaukee Brewers and Joba Chamberlain of...
Dream Guidance Bitter Tears had returned home to be with her family and to He Gives Sons, the man she was promised to in marriage. Before they came together he discovered that she was with child. Because he was a man of honor and did not want to disgrace her, he thought about secretly releasing her from the marriage promise. As he wondered about these things, a messenger from the Great Spirit appeared to him in a dream, and said, "He Gives Sons, son of Much Loved One, do not...
Country singer Toby Keith's song "God Love Her" and the video should be required material for all followers of Jesus. The video portrays a romance between a preacher's daughter and a motorcycle-riding "bad boy" universally feared by all good "fundamentalist" Christian parents. After receiving heated disapproval from her father, the girl decides to run away with the boy. The video starts with a white cross, and then moves to a wooden church in a country setting. Organ music...
SOLITARY I am writing you to ask if I might please start receiving your Indian Life newspaper. I know you charge for your wonderful newspaper but I am indigent and have no funds to give you. I do write poetry and also articles from time to time. I live in “Solitary Confinement” prison…I’ve been locked up “almost” 19 flat years and hope and pray to be home in about a year or so from now. I was wondering if I could be put on your mailing list for Indian Life and would be very happy to be receiving it and even share it with oth...
Each year at this time, we hear messages about hope, love, and peace. Between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, there are faint signs of brotherhood and “peace on earth.” This year, if there’s anything that’s pretty obvious, it’s the fact that love, peace, and hope, are in very short supply. Just take a look at the world around us. In the U.S., there has been so much bickering and discord that the federal government was forced to shut down because Congress and the White House could not come to a resolution on the budg...
As an artist, color is everything. Whenever autumn is here, I find it brings me renewed awareness of our Creator all over again. I am in awe at the bounty of colors, from warm earth tones to neon yellows and orange. Creator is the Master artist and I take every opportunity to absorb as much as I can. Every tree lined country road or golden field is a work of His hand. Last year, on a perfect Indian summer day, I was inspired to write this poem as I watched my son and...
I was barely a teenager when I began smoking pot and dabbling with Ouija boards. In less than three years, I was running cocaine for a big dealer and sold my soul to the devil. Moving into an apartment with like-minded drug addicts and criminals, we spent our time snorting coke, smoking crack, dealing drugs, vandalizing churches while on LSD, and committing petty theft. I read the satanic bible on a nightly basis, as if I would gain brownie points from the devil. Landing in...
As I walked in, I saw my mother laying on the couch, bloody from my dad beating her, shaking in fear, unsure of what to do. Fear shot down my spine and I knew once again I was going to be hit with the realities of life. Ya'a'teeh, my name is JR Lilly and I am a citizen of the Navajo Nation. I belong to the Red Running into Water Clan and I am born for the Cliff Dwelling People Clan. I was born and raised on the reservation as the second oldest of six children (four brothers...
VANCOUVER, BC—Rising Above recently held their 20th Annual Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia and it was a great success. Reports of God’s healing power evident in many lives, “setting them free from deep wounds and bondages of the past.” According to a letter from Terry Martin, Director of Operations and Event Manager for Rising Above, “the team of Rising Above speakers, most of them First Nations, addressed the issues of sexual abuse and residential school experience head on, acknowledging the reality of the pain...
ELSIPOGTOG, NB-Since June, First Nations people have held protests at a potential shale gas site in New Brunswick. However, recent protests by Elsipogtog First Nations and their supporters resulted in a violent clash when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) moved in to enforce a court ruling against the protesters' blockade. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), First Nations leaders had raised concerns about the failure of the government and the oil...
HAVRE, MT—Members of nearly every Montana tribe met on October 2, 2013, to form a group aimed at battling corruption on their reservations. Ken Blatt St. Marks, the chairman of the Chippewa Cree Tribe hosted the meeting. He was targeted for removal because he helped federal authorities with investigations that have resulted in multiple indictments. “When I was elected, I knew there was a little corruption that needs to be cleaned up,” St. Marks at the meeting, The Havre Daily News reported. “I had no idea how much....
SEMINOLE, OK-The idea was simple. Brent Sykes wanted to give his daughter a tangible way to remember her mother, Traci, who died in a 2007 car crash. Mr. Sykes, a Chickasaw citizen, decided to establish the Traci R. Sykes Foundation. Today, his daughter Paige, an energetic eight-year-old, is bringing joy, peace, happiness and educational opportunities to others through foundation gifts in her mother's name. "When she was about five, she began talking about the meaning of the...
ALBUQUERQUE, NM-Youth involved in the University of New Mexico's Honoring Native Life initiative want to be heard. The Native American Suicide Prevention Clearinghouse, a resource to tribes in New Mexico for suicide prevention and suicide response, today helped their voices reach far and wide with the release of a video directed toward tribal leaders and policy makers. "What we need from our tribal leaders and policy makers is more sympathy towards the different generations...
OTTAWA, ON-Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo commented on the federal government's Speech from the Throne officially opening the 41st session of Parliament on October 16, 2013. "Seizing Canada's moment must mean action for First Nations," said National Chief Atleo. "It must include working with First Nations people and governments to realize the potential of our citizens, our governments and our nations. This is how we will ensure security...
Bud Adams, a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and owner of the Tennessee Titans, died on Monday. He was 90. Adams, whose uncle, W.W. Keeler, served as chief for two decades, was born on tribal territory in Oklahoma. He was a successful businessman who founded the American Football League, which later merged with the National Football League. "In 2000 he received the highest honor awarded by the Cherokee National Historical Society for his support and dedication to...
VANCOUVER, BC—Enrollment doubled going into the second year of the Vancouver School Board’s Aboriginal Choice school on East Hastings, “The plan was to start small and grow slowly,” says Vonnie Hutchingson, principal, “although we’ve doubled our enrolment.” The majority of the new enrollment is in kindergarten. The VSB called the school-within-a-school an ‘Aboriginal Focus School’ and established it in 2012 as the school year began at Macdonald School, 1950 E Hastings Street. “It’s a great location, big classrooms and studen...
MISSOULA, MT- The University of Montana began construction on a new facility that's dedicated to the legacy of Elouise Cobell, who was the lead plaintiff in the Indian trust fund lawsuit. The Elouise Cobell Land and Culture Institute will be located on the lower level of the Payne Family Native American Center. It will help students research land and cultural issues. Construction will be complete in spring 2014....
WASHINGTON, DC-The shutdown of the U.S. government, coming on top of the sequestration of the budget, hit Indian Country particularly hard. Programs at the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service were already underfunded. Sequestration, in the form of across the board cuts, took its toll earlier this year and the shutdown has led to a second round of pain. "You're already looking at a good number of tribes who are considered the poorest of our nation's people,"...
RICHMOND, VA-A newspaper in the city where the Washington National Football League team holds its training camp has stopped using the team's "racist" name. The Richmond Free Press said the name was offensive to Native Americans. The paper will stop using the R-word and will remove it from its news and editorial pages. Richmond, Virginia, is about 110 miles south of Washington, D.C....
GABORONE, BOTSWANA-Two travel companies have suspended their tours to the country and several others have expressed concern about the Botswana government's continued persecution of the Bushmen. The government is stopping the Bushmen from hunting and forces them to apply for permits to access their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). International tour operator Travelpickr joined Survival's boycott and said, "We have canceled our pending [tour] requests...
TULSA, OK-The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) elected Brian Cladoosby as their new president. Two-term President Jefferson Keel stepped down October 18. In his first statement after being sworn in as the 21st president of the NCAI, Brian Cladoosby, Chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, called for reduced thresholds for federal tribal disaster assistance and challenged Congress to prioritize Native peoples in the post-shutdown legislative calendar,...
RAPID CITY, SD-Heavy rains, winds, lightning, and eventually snow were the gifts that winter storm Atlas, brought to residents of Wyoming and South Dakota. The storm that has been labeled as a 100 year storm brought just over two feet of snow to the majority of areas in its path and up to forty in others. The storm would leave tens of thousands without power and even more stranded in their homes and the most unfortunate in stranded cars alongside highways across the state....
OTTAWA, ON-The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Mr. James Anaya, made a recent trip to Canada, visiting Indigenous territories in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Québec. The report states: "Over the last nine days I have met with federal and provincial government authorities, and with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis leaders, organizations and individuals in several parts of the country...I am grateful to t...
