Ed Aguilar (Santo Domingo Pueblo), renowned for his handmade silver chains in his distinctive linked-squares style, succumbed in July after a long illness.

Jack V. Anquoe (Kiowa), an accomplished powwow dancer and composer who created more than 100 ceremonial and powwow songs and recorded more than 20 albums, left this mortal plane on June 12. He was 73.

Joel Harnett, well-known philanthropist, board member of the Heard Museum and Native Peoples, one-time New York City mayoral candidate, and magazine executive (Look) and publisher (Phoenix Home & Garden), passed away in Phoenix on Aug. 11. He was 80 years old.

Grace Henderson Nez (Navajo), master weaver and teacher of Ganado, Arizona, passed on July 14, at age 93. She was proficient in styles including Klagetoh, Storm Pattern, Teec Nos Pos, Moki and especially Chief blanket patterns. Among her many honors, in 2005 she received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work is found in many major museums and collections nationwide.

Lifelong Alaskan and longtime Gwich’in Native leader Jonathon Solomon, 74, of Fort Yukon, passed on July 13 of natural causes in Anchorage. He was among he first to work on the Alaskan Native Land Claims Settlement and was a strong advocate for the protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Dame Te Ata, queen of New Zealand’s Native people, the Maori, passed away Aug. 15 at age 75. She was the seventh Maori sovereign, a descendant of the royal line dating to 1858, when, as a response to Britain’s colonization, the Maori designated a monarch of their own. A resident of North Island, she was crowned queen in 1966, and as an articulate, personable representative of her people, she raised the profile and opinion of Maoris worldwide.