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TADOULE LAKE, MB-The Canadian government formally apologized to the Sayisi Dene on Tuesday, August 16, when Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett issued an apology to the survivors of this northern Manitoba community. "It is unbearable to consider what you lost in those years in Churchill," Bennett stated. "All we can do now is offer our apologies." Along with the apology, Canada offered a $33.6-million compensation fund that will be invested as a trust,...
By James R. Coggins Moody Publishers Paperback If you like mysteries and suspense thrillers, you'll love Who's Grace? by James G. Coggins. It's a fast paced murder mystery with a twist. John Smyth, a magazine editor witnesses a murder through the window of his jet as it descends for a landing in Winnipeg, Canada. Neither the city police nor the RCMP (Mounties) believe him until a woman's unidentified body is found in nearby woods two weeks later. The only clue to who she is...
In the Cherokee society of her day, Nanyehi (One who goes about) was known in the English language as Nancy Ward. There are seven clans of the Cherokee: Wolf, Bird, Deer, Long Hair, Blue, Wild Potato, and Red Paint. Members are considered as brothers and sisters and may not marry within their clans. Because the society is matrilineal, clan membership is attained through the mother, and women are the traditional heads of households. According to the SmithDRays Nancy Ward page,...
These two individuals point out that loneliness is a painful issue and one faced by many people today. Loneliness strikes the young and the old; males and females; the employed and unemployed; the married and the single. Loneliness is no respecter of person, gender, age, or position in life. In fact, there has been a sharp increase in loneliness over the last decades according to John Cacioppo, the director of the University of Chicago's Center for Cognitive and Social...
Did you ever feel like someone stomped on your chest, trampling on your heart? Ever feel all alone and no one really cares? As a single mom with young children and pre-teens, Ruth Kathleen Smith (Laughing Water) felt that way. One night she couldn’t sleep. Turning on the TV, she heard a man talking about someone who loved her and could help her. She felt as if the TV host was speaking directly to her. That night she met that someone. He is Jesus, Creator, Savior, and the Great Chief. He changed her life and gave her far m...
Small beginnings Born on the Onondaga Reservation near Syracuse, New York, my Native name is Laughing Water. We lived on the reservation until I was four. My parents were both Syracuse University graduates. After a powwow that ended unhappily for my father, he joined the U.S. Army. We were from the Turtle Clan and he wanted to be from the Bear or Wolf. In the Army we seemed to move every five years, living in Army base housing. We returned to the Onondaga Reservation to see...
Chippewa-Cree/Dakota Sioux performer Jermaine White Elk recently sat down for a visit to discuss his music and art. A NAMMY-nominated traditional flutist, White Elk is also noted for his artistic endeavors and graphic designs. This devoted recording artist continues to be a leader and mentor throughout Native America. DK: Your music is stirring! It has such strength and energy. How did you begin your musical career? JWE: Thank you very much! I began my flute playing when my...
On a hot desert day in rural Nevada, there is excitement in the air. It's May 26, 2016 which can only mean one thing in these parts. Graduation Day! This is the last graduating class of the eighth grade at the Walker River Paiute Reservation School called Schurz Elementary. The reservation is small so the school is home to elementary students up to eighth grade. Small numbers create tight kinship. I am a strong advocate for education and proponent for high achieving students....
I just blinked for a second and summer disappeared! Now, we have to think about school lunches, hay harvesting, all things ‘fall-ish’. That’s all right, every season has its own positive notes. There is a big ol’ movement that has been going on for about 40 years to bring Indigenous food to contemporary kitchens. This is fine but as North America’s Indigenous Peoples, we are just happy to have food to cook and we are, of course, naturally good cooks. Or, we can get fancy or down and dirty, thinking root crops and foraging. It...
Kubo and the Two Strings "If you must blink,..." "If you must blink, do it now." That's the first line of "Kubo and the Two Strings, spoken over a dark screen, and it's good advice, because what follows is a visual feast that you won't want to take your eyes off for even a second. Director Travis Knight and the LAIKA animation team have seamlessly blended stop motion and digital animation to create a movie that doesn't look like any other. Young Kubo is a storyteller with the...
I love to hear from children. Not all the time. Not while we are shopping and our two-year-old yells, "Look, that man is gonna have a baby!" But children sure write interesting notes to pastors. Here are a few that are just too good not to share. • "Dear Pastor: Please say in your sermon that Peter Peterson has been a good boy all week. Sincerely, Peter Peterson" • From Arnold: "I know God loves everybody, but He never met my sister." • "I'm sorry I can't leave more money...
After visiting the Ark Encounter in Kentucky with some youth from Sandy Bay First Nation, I was mesmerized with thoughts concerning Noah and his family. What must it have been like to listen to the rain come down upon them for forty days and forty nights? They were safe in the Ark, but friends and distant relatives all would have perished as the raging waters covered everything on Planet Earth as they knew it. The Bible, God’s Word, says that every living creature died. E...
There are many things that happen to us in life that weigh us down and sometimes make us go down the wrong pathway that leads to sadness and sorrow. Residential school experiences, boarding school experiences, adoptions, child welfare involvement, addictions, divorce, death, disease, and betrayal. When I read Psalm 1 in verses one and two it says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the sco...
At what cost O God has this country been born? That of a fifteen-year-old Cherokee boy, Bird Clan-His Father's only son protecting his country from tyranny At what cost O God has this country been born? The blood of a young lad-MacNaughton, killed by the colony's freedom fighters, a world away from the heather At what cost O God has this country been born? A mother's son of ten drumming for the Corp., cannons do not discriminate, by age or jacket color At what cost O God has...
Sometimes there is a fine line between being honest and being mean. I’ve known people who brag about always being honest but their remarks are often critical and cruel. When people ask us for our opinion they usually don’t really want our opinion, they want our approval, they want encouragement, a compliment and to be honest would hurt them. This morning when I walked to the mailbox my ninety-three-year-old neighbor was getting her mail. Sue uses a walker to make her way to...
For many centuries the world has been trying to answer questions like “if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around, does it make any sound?”or “Does the light in the refrigerator ever go off when the door is closed?” or What is the meaning of life?” or “Why doesn’t a man ever stop and ask for directions when he knows he’s lost?”… Well, the question that I’m starting to ask is, ” Has anyone ever seen a rough, tough—scars-to-prove-it —career criminal, grown man cry?” Thr...
It was so hot and humid as we drove through the fields that the corn smelled like it was cooking on my stove. We had passed hundreds of miles of corn and soybeans that day, and I just wanted to get to my brother’s house and find a bed and some air conditioning. Then I noticed them. The dark fields glittered with millions of fireflies flashing their messages off and on like tiny signal lamps. I had never seen such a sight! The sparkling scene relieved my weariness and caused me to remember our awesome Lord and His d...
Ya'at'eeh. My name is Mark Charles and I am the son of an American woman of Dutch heritage and a Navajo man. After living on the Navajo reservation for more than a decade, last summer my wife and I packed up our belongings and moved with our three children to Washington DC. Living in our nation's capital has been quite an adjustment from our quiet, simple life on the Rez. But one of the best parts of living in such an urban center is the numerous opportunities we have had to...
I love your publication and what I like is that it gives me ideas on how to help my son who has an addiction he is trying so hard to battle with. As a Mom, I will never give up on him, so I try to help in showing him the stories your newspaper has to share and I find very uplifting…keep up the great work…. It was so nice hearing from you. I’m blessed by your card and letter. My mom’s surgery went well and she can see real well but now she has had a massive stroke and is in a nursing home to be rehab. So please pray for div...
Evangelicals or those we like to refer to as “followers of Jesus” are sensitive to what we call “God moments”—when circumstances fall together in a way that suggests God is at work in our lives in a fresh way. These believers who are part of North America’s dominant society have experienced collective “God moments.” In the 1970s, few churches concerned themselves with the relief of world hunger. Then Ron Sider wrote Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, and before long, we just assumed that Jesus followers should be conce...
When I was growing up in Pine Ridge we were shown only a few pathways to success. We were told to go out and get an education and then return home to help our people. For those of us who were lucky enough to be able to go out and earn degrees, we returned home to a place where jobs were limited and the top employers on the reservation were the tribe, BIA, IHS and the casino. The notion of taking on entrepreneurial ventures was somewhat foreign as we only had a few successful...
WILLIAMSTOWN, KY-On August 6, 2016, a team of eight people from Sandy Bay First Nation in Manitoba, set out very early in the morning to travel 2000 kilometers (almost 1243 miles) to Kentucky to visit the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum. They were absolutely amazed with the friendly staff at both tourist attractions and the extreme detail given to the creation exhibits and the Ark itself. The Ark is tagged as costing 100 million to build and as one walks through the...
BISMARCK, ND-In mid-August, the U.S. government gave final approval for the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which when completed will run for 1,172 miles to transport crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken oilfields to Patoka, Illinois. When it was learned that the pipeline was approved, hundreds of protesters, primarily Lakota and Dakota from surrounding reservations gathered at the edge of the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota to voice their anger and...
