How Native American Drums Play A Spiritual Role In Indigenous Culture

Read original article by clicking link below How Native American Drums Play A Spiritual Role In Indigenous Culture Native American drums are undeniably the most loved Native American instruments among Native and non Indian people alike. Drums for hundreds of years have always been at the center of Indian lifestyle, forming what is the channel [...]

Timbisha Shoshone to Obama: Adopt UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Greetings. Upon this historical event, we wish to thank you for your commitment and dedication to bring forth meaningful change for our Peoples. On behalf of the Timbisha Shoshone of the Western Shoshone Nation and the many other Nations and Pueblos of Indigenous Peoples of North America, we call upon the government of the United States of America (USA) to act in due haste to adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which was adopted by the UN General Assembly Resolution #61/295 at its 107th plenary on September 13, 2007.
We are confident that through your leadership and peacemaking goals as exemplified in your membership on the UN Human Rights Council, you will adopt this historic human rights instrument. We ask for this action immediately.

Sioux leaders work on Black Hills Land proposal for Omama

Sympathetic signs from President Barack Obama have inspired hope among Sioux spiritual and government leaders that some federal land in the Black Hills might one day be returned to Native American control.

Leaders for Sioux tribes in the Dakotas, Montana and Nebraska are holding meetings to shape a proposal on Black Hills land for the Obama administration, one they hope will be better than the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1980. That forced settlement was about millions of dollars, not acres of land, and it has consistently been rejected by tribes of the Great Sioux Nation.

Cause Announcement from Dooda (No) Desert Rock

Cause Announcement from Dooda (No) Desert Rock GREAT NEWS folks: US EPA Environmental Appeals Board Remands PSD Permit for the desert rock energy project! Celebration information coming forth! Here’s another opportunity for you to contribute to DDR, we need your help! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 25, 2009 Contact: Elouise Brown, Dooda (NO) Desert Rock Committee [...]

Navajos Observe 30th Anniversary of Uranium Spill

CHURCH ROCK, N.M.—Community members and environmental activists commemorated July 16 as the 30th anniversary of a massive uranium tailings spill that Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. called “the largest peacetime accidental release of radioactive contaminated materials in the history of the United States.”

The accident occurred when an earthen dam, operated by the United Nuclear Corp., failed and let loose 94 million gallons of toxic wastewater into the north fork of the Rio Puerco on Navajo Nation lands. Within days, contaminated tailings liquid was found 50 miles downstream in Arizona.

About 100 Navajos and non-Navajos, including members of the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE) and other environmental groups, walked a five-mile stretch through the remote mesa lands of Church Rock to the site of the July 16, 1979 spill. They stopped at Larry King’s ranch along New Mexico Highway 566 for a speech by the Navajo president.

Tribes: Turbine site is sacred

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Officials from two federally recognized Indian tribes say they are frustrated in their attempts to protect what they consider a sacred site from becoming part of an offshore wind farm.

The two tribes want federal officials to deny a permit to Cape Wind for Horseshoe Shoal and move the proposed 130 wind turbines to another site.
Objections

Both the Mashpee Wampanoag and the Wampanoag of Gay Head (Aquinnah) have two main objections to the Cape Wind project:

* It would destroy a sacred site where ancestors fished, hunted and possibly were buried.
* It would obstruct their view of the horizon, thus interfering with their spiritual well-being.

Atomic veterans gather to remember their shared past as ‘guinea pigs’

LEBANON — Fifty years after watching dozens of atom bombs explode as a young Navy engine man, Larry Wickizer uses a two-word phrase to describe himself and the others who share his past.

“Guinea pigs,” he says, looking out over a room of veterans gathered Thursday at American Legion Post No. 51 to observe the National Day of Atomic Remembrance.

Gray heads nod in agreement. Virtually all of them bore witness to the weapons tests conducted by the U.S. government in the North Pacific during the 1950s and 1960s

Land purchased for area’s Shoshone tribe

An international gold mining company has purchased more than 3,600 acres in Northern Nevada to be set aside for the Western Shoshone, who consider the land historic and sacred, the company said.
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Great Basin Gold Ltd. said it purchased the Rock Creek Canyon property in Lander County for $825,000 late last week from Colorado-based RLF Nevada Properties.

The company said it also is providing seed money for a planned conservancy fund and has retired the mineral rights.

Senate approves Wiggins’ salmon bill

The state Senate voted 23-10 Monday to approve legislation by North Coast Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Eureka, that aims to enhance efforts to save the state’s imperiled salmon and steelhead populations.

Currently, the state Ocean Protection Council (OPC) is authorized to make grants and loans for a variety of projects to improve coastal water quality, improve fisheries, protect ocean ecosystems and similar purposes. These projects are funded through the Ocean Protection Trust Fund, which is largely supported by Proposition 84, and has about $45 million in unallocated funds.

Wiggins’ bill, Senate Bill 539, would add projects to restore native salmon and steelhead trout populations to the list of eligible uses of the Ocean Protection Trust Fund.

Protest turns friendly after regulations clarified

Once there, however, the nearly 500 in attendance were pleased to learn their movements weren’t as restricted as previously believed.

“In the 11th hour we have been made aware of statements made by Homeland Security, as well as the Government of Canada, through Indian and Northern Affairs, that the restrictions will not be imposed,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip. “First Nations will not be required to have a passport and the Status Cards we carry give us ample access to both countries.”

On the US side of the border, Native Americans can also traverse the border-straddling region they refer to as the Syilx Nation with their Tribal Identification Cards, he added.