What winter solstice rituals tell us about indigenous people

  On the day of the winter solstice, many Native American communities hold religious ceremonies or community events.

  The winter solstice is the day of the year when the Northern Hemisphere has the fewest hours of sunlight and the Southern Hemisphere has the most. For indigenous peoples, it has been a time to honor their ancient sun deity. They passed their knowledge down to successive generations through complex stories and ritual practices.

Thanksgiving stories gloss over the history of US settlement on Native lands

  Too often, K-12 social studies classes in the U.S. teach a mostly glossed-over story of U.S. settlement. Textbooks tell the stories of adventurous European explorers founding colonies in the “New World,” and stories of the “first Thanksgiving” frequently portray happy colonists and Native Americans feasting together. Accounts of the colonies’ battle for independence frame it as a righteous victory. Native American removal might be mentioned as a sad footnote, but the triumph of the pioneer spirit takes center stage.

US citizenship was forced on Native Americans 100 years ago − its promise remains elusive

  The 100th anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act has garnered little fanfare. Only a handful of news articles and events have commemorated the centennial of the law giving U.S. citizenship to Native Americans.

  Perhaps that’s unsurprising. The legislation has little relevance to most American citizens, and many Native Americans were dismayed when President Calvin Coolidge signed it into law in June 1924.

Native Americans’ decadeslong struggle for control over sacred lands is making progress

  Who should manage public land that is sacred to Native Americans?

  That is the question that the United States government and some states hope recent policy changes will address by giving Indigenous people greater input into managing such land. Co-management, as the policy is called, might alleviate the friction that emerges when sacred landscapes are managed without Native American input.

What winter solstice rituals tell us about indigenous people

  On the day of the winter solstice, many Native American communities hold religious ceremonies or community events.

  The winter solstice is the day of the year when the Northern Hemisphere has the fewest hours of sunlight and the Southern Hemisphere has the most. For indigenous peoples, it has been a time to honor their ancient sun deity. They passed their knowledge down to successive generations through complex stories and ritual practices.

Why more places are abandoning Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day

  Increasingly, Columbus Day is giving people pause.

  More and more towns and cities across the country are electing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day as an alternative to – or in addition to – the day intended to honor Columbus’ voyages.

  Critics of the change see it as just another example of political correctness run amok – another flashpoint of the culture wars.

The struggle for Native American voting rights

  November is Native American Heritage Month – a fitting time to honor the resistance and resilience of Native peoples, including their fight to be heard by and represented in the government that dispossessed them for centuries.

  The first inhabitants of this land have been expressly disenfranchised for most of U.S. history.

  Excluded from birthright citizenship, American Indians found that, unlike immigrants, there wasn’t a naturalization process for them because they were not considered “foreigners.” During Reconstruction, they were excluded from rights acknowledged by the 14th Amendment, which bolstered civil rights for formerly enslaved people.

A city in California gave land back to indigenous people. It’s a start.

  On Oct. 21, the northern California city of Eureka returned more than 200 acres of land on Duluwat Island to the Wiyot Tribe, the indigenous inhabitants of the area. The land — which represents the physical and cultural center of the universe for Wiyot peoples — was taken during a massacre of the tribe’s women, children, and elders in 1860.

  This massacre, followed by subsequent relocation to Fort Humboldt, resulted in the death of nearly one half of the pre-contact Wiyot population — estimated at close to 2,000 people. Today, the tribe has returned to near its ancestral territory after long legal fights to gain federal recognition, with close to 600 Wiyot people living locally.

How one tribe is fighting for their food culture in the face of climate change

  As in many tribal communities, the Swinomish relationship with the environment is complex. The Northwest coastal tribe not only uses the land for food, medicine, and material goods, but many cultural traditions like ceremonies are land-based.

  The federal government has long attempted to sever tribes from the land — their source of knowledge, culture, and health. Through war and forced relocation, tribes were physically removed. Policies such as the 1887 General Allotment Act forced many to adopt sedentary lifestyles and use Western agricultural techniques. And contemporary legal restrictions on centuries-old fishing, hunting, and gathering techniques mean that tribes are still limited in how they can gather foods and medicines.

Sam Fulwood III: Broadening our policy awareness to include urban Native Americans

  Every now and then I discover something that restructures what I previously thought I knew. Like the first time I heard that the overwhelming majority of the nation’s 5.4 million Native Americans live in urban areas—not on struggling, hard-scrabble reservations.

  Who knew? Not me. In all honesty, I rarely have thought much about where or how Native Americans live in the United States, and—I dare say it—I doubt most Americans have either.

Missing the point: The real impact of native mascots and team names

  The debate over the racist name and mascot of the professional football team based in the nation’s capital, the “Redskins,” has reached a fever pitch in recent months. Fifty U.S. senators signed a letter urging the National Football League, or NFL, to take action and change the name. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently canceled several of the team’s trademarks because they were disparaging to American Indian and Alaska Native, or AI/AN, people and communities. And several media outlets across the country have stopped printing and using the name, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Slate, and The Seattle Times.