2007 March/April On the Wind (News)
http://www.nativepeoples.com/article/articles/246/1/2007-MarchApril-On-the-Wind-News/Page1.html
By Daniel Gibson
Published on 03/1/2007
The Native Star Dance Team entertains the troops in the Middle East,
writer Drew Hayden Taylor marches on, and the Native American Bank
steps up. Also, other important news in the arts, education, the
environment, business, politics, sports, health and other realms of
life in Indian Country.
Daniel Gibson
The Native Star Dance Team entertains the troops in the Middle East,
writer Drew Hayden Taylor marches on, and the Native American Bank
steps up. Also, other important news in the arts, education, the
environment, business, politics, sports, health and other realms of
life in Indian Country. 2007 March/April On the Wind (News)
Laying it on the Line in the Sands of Iraq
Nick Brokeshoulder (Hopi/Shawnee) and his dance group, the Native Star Dance Team of New Mexico, put their lives on the line in November when they undertook a weeklong tour of military bases in Iraq and Kuwait to perform for troops stationed in those distant lands.
Brokeshoulder, a retired Army Sergeant First Class with more than 20 years of service as a field artilleryman, led five dancers—his son Brent Brokeshoulder and wife Sharon Brokeshoulder (Diné), Summer Dawn Fuson (Kiowa/ Comanche/Diné), Sky Medicine Bear (Lakota/Diné) and Keely Etsitty (Diné)—on stops at Camp Virginia and Victory in Kuwait; and in Iraq at Camp Adder, Liberty, Kalsu, Summerall, Anaconda and Speicher. Twice a day, they performed a collection of Plains-style powwow dances and met with Native and non-Native (in fact, multinational) soldiers and officers. At the time, some 620 American Indians were serving in Iraq.
The shows elicited quite an emotional response, especially from many Native personnel. “It reminds me of home and the ceremonies we do there,” noted Spc. Cassandra Morris, a signal operator maintainer from the Muskogee Creek Reservation, Florida, following the Camp Liberty show. Added fellow signalman Sgt. Frankie Albert, from Gallup, New Mexico, “I love it. It’s great that they’re doing this for us.” Explained Brokeshoulder as he began the performance, “These songs and dances are a prayer for you and all you do.”
The group volunteered their time, with travel costs covered by the U.S. Army/Europe. The Armed Forces Network broadcast the eight performances as part of their observances of American Indian Heritage Month. As the group flew home on a C-5 transport, also on board were the caskets of four fallen soldiers. “All in all, it was quite stressful, but really rewarding,” concludes Brokeshoulder. Details: e-mail bearstrap1us@yahoo.com
All Her Eggs in Baskets
Possibly the most moving story to emerge from the 11th annual
Celebration of Basketry & Native Foods Festival, held at Phoenix’s
Heard Museum in December, was that of one Maine basketmaker who wields
her talent to give her grandkids an education.
Molly Parker (Passamaquoddy), president of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, has been weaving nearly all of her 68 years. A grandmother of 33 who just adopted her four-year-old great-grandson, Parker rarely uses for herself the extra money that she acquires from creating masterpieces in brown ash splints and sweetgrass. Instead, she’s using the cash to help her 18-year-old grandson George Neptune realize his dream of a college education.
“I helped put George through a private high school,” says Parker, who works as a child welfare coordinator for her tribe when she’s not weaving. Neptune, who himself began weaving at age four by picking up discarded brown ash splints from grandma Molly’s kitchen floor, is a freshman at Dartmouth College, where he’s planning on majoring in theater. Parker’s baskets help finance Neptune’s books and living expenses. He also continues making baskets, often using his great-grandmother’s forms. “I’m making money so I can eat,” adds Neptune, who attends college on a scholarship. He sold several baskets at the gathering, as well as exquisite heron pins crafted from leftover brown ash splints.
At one time, Parker’s basketry talents provided for her whole family. “I bought myself a house with baskets!” she exclaims. “It’s just something I’ve always done.”
—Debra Utacia Krol (Salinan/Esselen)
Writing Up a Storm
When the curtain goes up in Los Angeles’ Wells Fargo Theater at the
Autry National Center (see “Happening”) on March 1 for The Berlin
Blues, it will mark another notch in the stick of literary
accomplishments of Drew Hayden Taylor (Ojibwe). Taylor, a Canadian
resident, has 17 published books to his credit—such as the insightful
and often hilarious nonfiction title he edited called Me Funny; Funny,
You Don’t Look Like One: Observations of a Blue-Eyed Ojibway; and In a
World Created by a Drunken God. The latter was nominated in 2006 for
the Governor General’s Award for drama, Canada’s highest literary honor.
Currently a writer-in-residence at the University of Michigan, where he’s teaching a course in Canadian Native theater, Taylor expects two more new titles to be released this year: a novel titled A Contemporary Gothic Indian Vampire Story, and a nonfiction book about Native erotica he’s editing called Me Sexy. Recently, a Canadian film company shot a pilot for a possible comedy series based on his work, “a sort of Cree/Ukrainian Brady Bunch,” he explains.
Originally from the Curve Lake First Nation in central Ontario, he has traveled the world giving lectures and workshops. He also has written or directed more than a dozen film and video documentaries; has written for several television shows, including the great North of 60; spent a year and a half working as a journalist for Canadian Broadcast Company’s radio division; has written for Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, Now Magazine and various other periodicals (including this magazine; see July./Aug. 2003 issue); and contributes a column to a few newspapers today. Details: drewhaydentaylor.com
Opening Eyes & Hearts in South Carolina
For nine years, Dr. Will Goins has been the driving force behind the Southeast’s longest-running Native film event, the Native American Film & Video Festival, held annually in November in Columbia, South Carolina.
The 2006 event was the most successful to date, relates Goins. “It’s
become a regional sensation. Through the presentation of authentic
Native stories by Native storytellers, it has informed the imagination
of filmmakers, regional Native Americans, anthropology and
communications students at the University of South Carolina, and the
general public. It entertains, opens the eyes, moves the heart; and, on
occasion, certain films help change public opinion and so affect policy
and politics.”
The latest festival, presented by the Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois and United Tribes of South Carolina, in collaboration with the Columbia Film Society and Columbia’s Nickelodeon Theatre, included free programs at the Columbia Museum of Art, three panel discussions, a reception and lots of informal networking at the local pub, the Hunter-Gatherer Brewery.
Taking home awards this round were the following films and individuals: Teaching of the Tree People, best of festival, directed by Katie Jennings; Morning Song Way, best dramatic feature, directed by Charles Howard Thomas; Jeff Anderson, best actor (Morning Song Way); Glenda Bean, audience favorite in dramatic feature (Morning Song Way); American Red and Black: Stories of Afro-Native Identity, best student work, directed by Alicia Wood; Indian Country Diaries: Spiral of Fire, best documentary; Teaching of the Tree People, best short documentary. Details: cherokeesofsouthcarolina.com/filmfestival9.html
Show Me the Money
The grandest dreams, even when coupled with determination and skill, often remain just that—dreams—unless matched with appropriate resources. For American Indian businesses and tribal leaders, the historic lack of access to financial resources has time and time again scattered dreams of launching or expanding a for-profit endeavor or community development project. This is where the promise of the Native American Bank shines so brightly.
Opened in October 2001 with assets of $15 million, the federally chartered NAB has focused on providing loans to Native-owned businesses, agricultural operations and tribal projects, as well as serving a limited—but growing—number of small depositors.
On December 14, the company announced it was acquiring the First National Bank of Lake City and Creede in Colorado. The move will enable it to add branch banks and ATMs in Colorado cities and Indian reservations, signifying a major step in its long-range plans to offer similar services throughout the western United States. The expansion proves that the company can do well while doing good, says president and CEO J.D. Colbert (Chickasaw/Creek).
NAB is owned by the Native American Bancorporation, a holding company composed of 26 tribes, tribal corporations and Alaskan Native corporations, and is overseen by a board of directors currently chaired by Lewis Anderson, president of Woodlands National Bank of Minnesota. In 2006, NAB had a phenomenal growth rate of almost 40 percent, and its current assets total more than $85 million.
The bank’s corporate headquarters are in Denver. It also operates a retail bank in Browning, Montana, as well as three ATMs in that city, two ATMs in East Glacier, Montana, another in Box Elder, Montana, and a loan office in Anchorage, Alaska. Details: nabna.com.
lines
Native musicians and composers are invited to submit their biographies, photos, music samples, Web site addresses and contact information to the First Nations Composer Initiative Web site (fnci.org), which will serve as a type of job forum for anyone seeking qualified Native artists for music projects… The Bishop Museum of Honolulu, with its incomparable Native Hawaiian and Polynesian collections, has undertaken a $20 million renovation of its main galleries and infrastructure; it is expected to reopen in spring 2008… Professor Ron Eglash, at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, has developed a Web site (rpi.edu/~eglash/csdt.html) that reveals and explains advanced mathematic concepts found in Navajo textile weaving (Cartesian coordinates), Yup’ik parka designs (transformational geometry) and other Native arts and skills (such as Arctic navigation) for students, teachers and the general public… Maya Lin, creator of the powerful Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., is busy working on a $22 million series of monuments called The Confluence Project in the Pacific Northwest marking the trail of Lewis and Clark and paying tribute to local Indian cultures… Red Nation Media, directed by Joanelle Romero (Apache/Cheyenne), is now presenting an extensive slate of American Indian streaming video programming—news, films, music videos, documentaries, drama series and music specials—on its parent Web site, rednation.com… Harvey Pratt (Cheyenne/Arapaho) may be the only Native American forensic artist in the United States, with more than 30 years’ experience with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (see harveypratt.com for details)…
Sharpening Your Marketing Skills
While American Indian artists are among the finest in the world, when it comes to marketing and promoting their work, they often fall way short. On March 29, the Indian Arts Education Association, an arm of the Indian Arts & Crafts Association, will present a free daylong workshop in New Mexico addressing this gap.
“We will present a wide range of experts who will help participants learn the basics of wholesale marketing, how to build contacts and get your name out there,” notes IACA board president Michael “Nana Ping” Garcia (Pascua Yaqui). A speaker from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will talk about protecting one’s artistic designs, and others will discuss negotiating wholesale contracting, working with local and national media to promote one’s work, and other topics.
Advance attendance notification is strongly urged; participation will be limited to 200 Native-only artists. Details: 505/265-9149
HONORING
The captivating Martha Redbone (Shawnee/ Choctaw/Blackfeet) has been presented a prestigious Independent Music Award in the R&B category for her funky album Skintalk. Details: martharedbone.com
In October, at the first-ever awards ceremony to honor Native-community economic development financial institutions, the Citizen Potawatomi Community Development Corporation of Shawnee, Oklahoma (led by Kristi Coker) and the Four Directions Development Corporation of Orono, Maine (led by Susan Hammond) were recognized for their outstanding work in promoting Native-community economic development by the event hosts, the Opportunity Finance Network and the Oweesta Corporation.
The outstanding nonprofit group the First Peoples Fund recently handed out its 2007 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Awards in Rapid City, South Dakota. Receiving awards were singer and composer Sadie Buck (Seneca) of Ohsweken, Ontario; basket artist Susan “Tweet” Burdick (Yurok) of Salyer, California; traditional clothing artisan, basketmaker and teacher Delia Cook (Mohawk) of Akwesasne, New York; and birchbark canoe maker Ronald J. Paquin (Chippewa) of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
The nonprofit group Women In Film and General Motors recently included one Native artist, Shelly Niro (Mohawk), among seven artists selected in its grant program for notable female filmmakers across the U.S. and Canada. Her film, The Shirt, was screened at the Venice Biennale in 2003, and it, along with It Starts With a Whisper, were screened at the Sundance Film Festival. She is now working on a feature film, Kissed by Lightning.
The University of Colorado at Boulder’s Center of the American West presented its highest honor, the Wallace Stegner Award, to John Echohawk (Pawnee) and Billy Frank, Jr. (Nisqually). Echohawk is the executive director of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and one of the nation’s most distinguished lawyers. Frank led many battles in the 1960s and ’70s to secure Native fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest and is chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
Among the featured artists at the recent Pueblo Grande Indian Market in Phoenix was the jeweler Sonwai (Hopi), Verma Nequatewa. Nequatewa is the niece of famed artist Charles Loloma, and has obviously absorbed much of his talent.
A big winner at the 8th annual Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards was the Northern Cree Singers, who took prizes for the best hand drum album (Slide & Sway) and the best contemporary powwow album (Nikamo-Sing!), both on Canyon Records.
Acoma Pueblo’s historic village Sky City atop a 370-foot sandstone mesa in western New Mexico has been designated the country’s 28th National Trust Historic Site. It will allow the pueblo to access funds for technical preservation services and marketing.
Among the many Native-made films selected for screening at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival in January were the following: Four Sheets to the Wind, directed and written by Sterling Harjo (Creek/Seminole); Miss Navajo, directed by Billy Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo); Conversion, directed by Nanobah Becker (Diné); and Move Me, directed by Jonathan Pulley (Laguna Pueblo). Also attending the festival were the four newest Sundance/ Ford Foundation fellows, who screened works in progress: Ginew Benton (Ojibwe/Cree), Julianna Brannum (Comanche), Melissa Henry (Diné) and Nathan Young (Pawnee/ Kiowa/Delaware).
Southern California Indian Center’s InterTribal Entertainment has picked two winners in its first annual “Creative Spirit” Script-to-Screen competition. Chosen were He Can’t Be Taught by Clementine Bordeaux (Sioux) from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and Pow Wow Dreams by Princess Lucaj (Gwich’in) from Hermosa Beach, California. Both writers were paired with a professional mentor, cast and crew, and the films were shot, edited and screened in a crash one-week program. Details: e-mail jameslujan@nativefilm.com
Classification winners at the first annual Cherokee Art Market in Tulsa included the following: Daniel HorseChief in oil/encaustic painting, Gwen Coleman Lester in water-based painting, Charles Pratt in sculpture, Dorothy Brave Eagle in bead and quillwork (Jackie Larsen Bread took second and third in this class), Ben Harjo in drawings/graphics/prints, Ramona Lossie in traditional baskets, Kelly Church in contemporary baskets, Ron Tanyan in traditional pottery, Jane Osti in contemporary pottery, Cathy Moomaw in textiles, Dennis Esquivel in diverse art forms (for an end table) and Clarence Lee in jewelry.
SHARDS
Artist Monte Yellow Bird, Sr. (Arikara/ Hidatsa), better known as Black Pinto Horse, is one busy man! Just recently, the artist was a featured speaker at a special event honoring Native American Month in Fargo, North Dakota; he saw his donated life-size painted buffalo replica sold to raise funds for a nonprofit organization; he participated in several major art exhibitions in the upper Plains and in Scottsdale, Arizona; he worked with teachers at a Fargo elementary school in their continuing education program; and he conducted an interview on Prairie Public Radio—while continuing his oil and mixed-media painting career. Details: blackpintohorsefinearts.com
The book The Wind Is My Mother by Marcellus “Bear Heart” Williams (Muskogee Creek) was recently published in Hebrew by an Israeli publishing firm. It is the fourteenth foreign language into which the book has been translated—a remarkable achievement for the 88-year-old author. His second book, The Bear Is My Father, was recently completed. It too is expected to be released in a Hebrew version.
The Seminole Tribe of Florida has purchased the Hard Rock business family, which includes 124 Hard Rock Cafés, five hotels and several Hard Rock Live concert venues, as well as the world’s largest collection of rock ’n’ roll memorabilia. The collection features some 70,000 pieces, including guitars once played by Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, a pair of Elton John high heels and a Madonna bustier. The $965 million deal was concluded on Jan. 8. “It is an opportunity for the Seminole Tribe to diversify its business operations and help a very successful company achieve even greater growth,” said Mitchell Cypress, tribal council chairman. Details: seminolerocks.com
Laguna Pueblo/Metis author Paula Gunn Allen (see Nov./Dec. 2005 issue) is facing hard times. In October, her home and car burned in an accidental fire and she was hospitalized for two weeks for smoke inhalation, which triggered a coma for six days. This was preceded by apparently successful radiation treatment for lung cancer. Donations are being sent to The Paula Gunn Allen Fund, Account #0129540739, Bank of America, 228 North Main St., Fort Bragg, CA 95437. Be sure to include “The” in any checks sent.
The inaugural New Mexico Bowl football game, played in Albuquerque in December, featured undoubtedly the most unusual trophy ever presented in a college game: a handmade clay pot created by Zia Pueblo artists Marcellus and Elizabeth Medina. The pot—featuring the iconic Zia sun symbol and images of football players, a deer, mountain lion, buffalo and eagle—was presented to the San Jose State team, which defeated the University of New Mexico 20-12.
PASSAGES
Journalist Pat Calliotte, 64, of Hayward, Wisconsin, who served for many years as the associate editor of the newspapers News From Indian Country and Akiing, passed away on Nov. 17 from complications related to emphysema. She began her career editing the Lac Courte Oreilles Journal.
onghi (Aleut/Inuit), 59, died of cancer at his home in Sausalito, California on Dec. 11. In 1991, he joined the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian as director of external affairs and development, and oversaw the successful campaign to raise the first $35 million to $40 million to build and open the new museum in Washington, D.C. Notes Rick West, the museum’s founding director, “He was a remarkable man, with a personality that was gracious and drew people in. He was raising money for a building we didn’t even have designs for!”
Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu/Hawaiian/Portuguese—see May/June/July 1998 issue cover), the much-loved and talented painter, passed away on Dec. 28 at the VA Hospital in Albuquerque. Born in 1946, he first made a splash with his series of witty works in the early 1980s using a comical Coyote (Trickster) character as his foil, but he also explored Maidu legends, California’s bloody history of gold mining, and abstract aesthetics in his work. Among many honors, in 2005 he was awarded a fellowship by the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis. His work was widely collected and exhibited.
Renowned Tlingit bead artist Emma Frances Marks, 93, passed away on Sept. 18 at her family home on Douglas Island, Alaska. Her stunning traditional clothing was collected by many leading institutions and worn by the likes of Desmond Tutu. Mother of 16 children, she was presented the Alaska Governor’s Award in 1989.
John Sotsisowah Mohawk (Seneca), 61, the highly respected scholar, author, editor, speaker, educator and role model, passed away on Dec. 10 at his home in Buffalo, New York. The associate professor of American studies at the University of Buffalo was also an ardent defender of the natural world and loved to garden. Among his more than 20 books is the recent title Utopian Legends: A History of Conquest and Oppression in the Western World. He was a founding member of the Seventh Generation Fund and the Indian Law Resource Center, and sat on many other boards as well.
Sculptor Elizabeth Nah-Glee-Eh-Bah Abeyta Rohrscheib, 51, passed away on Dec. 17 after a prolonged illness. Daughter
of Navajo artist Narciso Abeyta, who studied under Dorothy Dunn at the Santa Fe Indian School, and Sylvia Ann Shipley Abeyta, Elizabeth was a prize-winning sculptor who attended the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work is in many leading private and public collections. She was best known for her contemporary clay sculpture, her graceful Navajo women and her “naughty” koshares. Among her surviving relatives is her brother, artist Tony Abeyta.
Arthur Welmas (Cabazon Band of Mission Indians), 77, passed away from complications of diabetes on Dec. 17 in California. As tribal chairman, Welmas oversaw the legal case before the U.S. Supreme Court that opened the door in 1987 for high-stakes gambling on Indian reservations, a move that transformed life for members of his and many other tribes. Prior to that, as he once said, “We didn’t have spit.” He spent four years in the Marines and four in the Air Force, including service in the Korean War.
Nick Brokeshoulder (Hopi/Shawnee) and his dance group, the Native Star Dance Team of New Mexico, put their lives on the line in November when they undertook a weeklong tour of military bases in Iraq and Kuwait to perform for troops stationed in those distant lands.
Brokeshoulder, a retired Army Sergeant First Class with more than 20 years of service as a field artilleryman, led five dancers—his son Brent Brokeshoulder and wife Sharon Brokeshoulder (Diné), Summer Dawn Fuson (Kiowa/ Comanche/Diné), Sky Medicine Bear (Lakota/Diné) and Keely Etsitty (Diné)—on stops at Camp Virginia and Victory in Kuwait; and in Iraq at Camp Adder, Liberty, Kalsu, Summerall, Anaconda and Speicher. Twice a day, they performed a collection of Plains-style powwow dances and met with Native and non-Native (in fact, multinational) soldiers and officers. At the time, some 620 American Indians were serving in Iraq.
The shows elicited quite an emotional response, especially from many Native personnel. “It reminds me of home and the ceremonies we do there,” noted Spc. Cassandra Morris, a signal operator maintainer from the Muskogee Creek Reservation, Florida, following the Camp Liberty show. Added fellow signalman Sgt. Frankie Albert, from Gallup, New Mexico, “I love it. It’s great that they’re doing this for us.” Explained Brokeshoulder as he began the performance, “These songs and dances are a prayer for you and all you do.”
The group volunteered their time, with travel costs covered by the U.S. Army/Europe. The Armed Forces Network broadcast the eight performances as part of their observances of American Indian Heritage Month. As the group flew home on a C-5 transport, also on board were the caskets of four fallen soldiers. “All in all, it was quite stressful, but really rewarding,” concludes Brokeshoulder. Details: e-mail bearstrap1us@yahoo.com
All Her Eggs in Baskets
Possibly the most moving story to emerge from the 11th annual
Celebration of Basketry & Native Foods Festival, held at Phoenix’s
Heard Museum in December, was that of one Maine basketmaker who wields
her talent to give her grandkids an education. Molly Parker (Passamaquoddy), president of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, has been weaving nearly all of her 68 years. A grandmother of 33 who just adopted her four-year-old great-grandson, Parker rarely uses for herself the extra money that she acquires from creating masterpieces in brown ash splints and sweetgrass. Instead, she’s using the cash to help her 18-year-old grandson George Neptune realize his dream of a college education.
“I helped put George through a private high school,” says Parker, who works as a child welfare coordinator for her tribe when she’s not weaving. Neptune, who himself began weaving at age four by picking up discarded brown ash splints from grandma Molly’s kitchen floor, is a freshman at Dartmouth College, where he’s planning on majoring in theater. Parker’s baskets help finance Neptune’s books and living expenses. He also continues making baskets, often using his great-grandmother’s forms. “I’m making money so I can eat,” adds Neptune, who attends college on a scholarship. He sold several baskets at the gathering, as well as exquisite heron pins crafted from leftover brown ash splints.
At one time, Parker’s basketry talents provided for her whole family. “I bought myself a house with baskets!” she exclaims. “It’s just something I’ve always done.”
—Debra Utacia Krol (Salinan/Esselen)
Writing Up a Storm
When the curtain goes up in Los Angeles’ Wells Fargo Theater at the
Autry National Center (see “Happening”) on March 1 for The Berlin
Blues, it will mark another notch in the stick of literary
accomplishments of Drew Hayden Taylor (Ojibwe). Taylor, a Canadian
resident, has 17 published books to his credit—such as the insightful
and often hilarious nonfiction title he edited called Me Funny; Funny,
You Don’t Look Like One: Observations of a Blue-Eyed Ojibway; and In a
World Created by a Drunken God. The latter was nominated in 2006 for
the Governor General’s Award for drama, Canada’s highest literary honor.Currently a writer-in-residence at the University of Michigan, where he’s teaching a course in Canadian Native theater, Taylor expects two more new titles to be released this year: a novel titled A Contemporary Gothic Indian Vampire Story, and a nonfiction book about Native erotica he’s editing called Me Sexy. Recently, a Canadian film company shot a pilot for a possible comedy series based on his work, “a sort of Cree/Ukrainian Brady Bunch,” he explains.
Originally from the Curve Lake First Nation in central Ontario, he has traveled the world giving lectures and workshops. He also has written or directed more than a dozen film and video documentaries; has written for several television shows, including the great North of 60; spent a year and a half working as a journalist for Canadian Broadcast Company’s radio division; has written for Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, Now Magazine and various other periodicals (including this magazine; see July./Aug. 2003 issue); and contributes a column to a few newspapers today. Details: drewhaydentaylor.com
Opening Eyes & Hearts in South Carolina
For nine years, Dr. Will Goins has been the driving force behind the Southeast’s longest-running Native film event, the Native American Film & Video Festival, held annually in November in Columbia, South Carolina.
The 2006 event was the most successful to date, relates Goins. “It’s
become a regional sensation. Through the presentation of authentic
Native stories by Native storytellers, it has informed the imagination
of filmmakers, regional Native Americans, anthropology and
communications students at the University of South Carolina, and the
general public. It entertains, opens the eyes, moves the heart; and, on
occasion, certain films help change public opinion and so affect policy
and politics.”The latest festival, presented by the Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois and United Tribes of South Carolina, in collaboration with the Columbia Film Society and Columbia’s Nickelodeon Theatre, included free programs at the Columbia Museum of Art, three panel discussions, a reception and lots of informal networking at the local pub, the Hunter-Gatherer Brewery.
Taking home awards this round were the following films and individuals: Teaching of the Tree People, best of festival, directed by Katie Jennings; Morning Song Way, best dramatic feature, directed by Charles Howard Thomas; Jeff Anderson, best actor (Morning Song Way); Glenda Bean, audience favorite in dramatic feature (Morning Song Way); American Red and Black: Stories of Afro-Native Identity, best student work, directed by Alicia Wood; Indian Country Diaries: Spiral of Fire, best documentary; Teaching of the Tree People, best short documentary. Details: cherokeesofsouthcarolina.com/filmfestival9.html
Show Me the Money
The grandest dreams, even when coupled with determination and skill, often remain just that—dreams—unless matched with appropriate resources. For American Indian businesses and tribal leaders, the historic lack of access to financial resources has time and time again scattered dreams of launching or expanding a for-profit endeavor or community development project. This is where the promise of the Native American Bank shines so brightly.
Opened in October 2001 with assets of $15 million, the federally chartered NAB has focused on providing loans to Native-owned businesses, agricultural operations and tribal projects, as well as serving a limited—but growing—number of small depositors.
On December 14, the company announced it was acquiring the First National Bank of Lake City and Creede in Colorado. The move will enable it to add branch banks and ATMs in Colorado cities and Indian reservations, signifying a major step in its long-range plans to offer similar services throughout the western United States. The expansion proves that the company can do well while doing good, says president and CEO J.D. Colbert (Chickasaw/Creek).
NAB is owned by the Native American Bancorporation, a holding company composed of 26 tribes, tribal corporations and Alaskan Native corporations, and is overseen by a board of directors currently chaired by Lewis Anderson, president of Woodlands National Bank of Minnesota. In 2006, NAB had a phenomenal growth rate of almost 40 percent, and its current assets total more than $85 million.
The bank’s corporate headquarters are in Denver. It also operates a retail bank in Browning, Montana, as well as three ATMs in that city, two ATMs in East Glacier, Montana, another in Box Elder, Montana, and a loan office in Anchorage, Alaska. Details: nabna.com.
lines
Native musicians and composers are invited to submit their biographies, photos, music samples, Web site addresses and contact information to the First Nations Composer Initiative Web site (fnci.org), which will serve as a type of job forum for anyone seeking qualified Native artists for music projects… The Bishop Museum of Honolulu, with its incomparable Native Hawaiian and Polynesian collections, has undertaken a $20 million renovation of its main galleries and infrastructure; it is expected to reopen in spring 2008… Professor Ron Eglash, at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, has developed a Web site (rpi.edu/~eglash/csdt.html) that reveals and explains advanced mathematic concepts found in Navajo textile weaving (Cartesian coordinates), Yup’ik parka designs (transformational geometry) and other Native arts and skills (such as Arctic navigation) for students, teachers and the general public… Maya Lin, creator of the powerful Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., is busy working on a $22 million series of monuments called The Confluence Project in the Pacific Northwest marking the trail of Lewis and Clark and paying tribute to local Indian cultures… Red Nation Media, directed by Joanelle Romero (Apache/Cheyenne), is now presenting an extensive slate of American Indian streaming video programming—news, films, music videos, documentaries, drama series and music specials—on its parent Web site, rednation.com… Harvey Pratt (Cheyenne/Arapaho) may be the only Native American forensic artist in the United States, with more than 30 years’ experience with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (see harveypratt.com for details)…
Sharpening Your Marketing Skills
While American Indian artists are among the finest in the world, when it comes to marketing and promoting their work, they often fall way short. On March 29, the Indian Arts Education Association, an arm of the Indian Arts & Crafts Association, will present a free daylong workshop in New Mexico addressing this gap.
“We will present a wide range of experts who will help participants learn the basics of wholesale marketing, how to build contacts and get your name out there,” notes IACA board president Michael “Nana Ping” Garcia (Pascua Yaqui). A speaker from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will talk about protecting one’s artistic designs, and others will discuss negotiating wholesale contracting, working with local and national media to promote one’s work, and other topics.
Advance attendance notification is strongly urged; participation will be limited to 200 Native-only artists. Details: 505/265-9149
HONORING
The captivating Martha Redbone (Shawnee/ Choctaw/Blackfeet) has been presented a prestigious Independent Music Award in the R&B category for her funky album Skintalk. Details: martharedbone.com
In October, at the first-ever awards ceremony to honor Native-community economic development financial institutions, the Citizen Potawatomi Community Development Corporation of Shawnee, Oklahoma (led by Kristi Coker) and the Four Directions Development Corporation of Orono, Maine (led by Susan Hammond) were recognized for their outstanding work in promoting Native-community economic development by the event hosts, the Opportunity Finance Network and the Oweesta Corporation.
The outstanding nonprofit group the First Peoples Fund recently handed out its 2007 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Awards in Rapid City, South Dakota. Receiving awards were singer and composer Sadie Buck (Seneca) of Ohsweken, Ontario; basket artist Susan “Tweet” Burdick (Yurok) of Salyer, California; traditional clothing artisan, basketmaker and teacher Delia Cook (Mohawk) of Akwesasne, New York; and birchbark canoe maker Ronald J. Paquin (Chippewa) of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
The nonprofit group Women In Film and General Motors recently included one Native artist, Shelly Niro (Mohawk), among seven artists selected in its grant program for notable female filmmakers across the U.S. and Canada. Her film, The Shirt, was screened at the Venice Biennale in 2003, and it, along with It Starts With a Whisper, were screened at the Sundance Film Festival. She is now working on a feature film, Kissed by Lightning.
The University of Colorado at Boulder’s Center of the American West presented its highest honor, the Wallace Stegner Award, to John Echohawk (Pawnee) and Billy Frank, Jr. (Nisqually). Echohawk is the executive director of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and one of the nation’s most distinguished lawyers. Frank led many battles in the 1960s and ’70s to secure Native fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest and is chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
Among the featured artists at the recent Pueblo Grande Indian Market in Phoenix was the jeweler Sonwai (Hopi), Verma Nequatewa. Nequatewa is the niece of famed artist Charles Loloma, and has obviously absorbed much of his talent.
A big winner at the 8th annual Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards was the Northern Cree Singers, who took prizes for the best hand drum album (Slide & Sway) and the best contemporary powwow album (Nikamo-Sing!), both on Canyon Records.
Acoma Pueblo’s historic village Sky City atop a 370-foot sandstone mesa in western New Mexico has been designated the country’s 28th National Trust Historic Site. It will allow the pueblo to access funds for technical preservation services and marketing.
Among the many Native-made films selected for screening at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival in January were the following: Four Sheets to the Wind, directed and written by Sterling Harjo (Creek/Seminole); Miss Navajo, directed by Billy Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo); Conversion, directed by Nanobah Becker (Diné); and Move Me, directed by Jonathan Pulley (Laguna Pueblo). Also attending the festival were the four newest Sundance/ Ford Foundation fellows, who screened works in progress: Ginew Benton (Ojibwe/Cree), Julianna Brannum (Comanche), Melissa Henry (Diné) and Nathan Young (Pawnee/ Kiowa/Delaware).
Southern California Indian Center’s InterTribal Entertainment has picked two winners in its first annual “Creative Spirit” Script-to-Screen competition. Chosen were He Can’t Be Taught by Clementine Bordeaux (Sioux) from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and Pow Wow Dreams by Princess Lucaj (Gwich’in) from Hermosa Beach, California. Both writers were paired with a professional mentor, cast and crew, and the films were shot, edited and screened in a crash one-week program. Details: e-mail jameslujan@nativefilm.com
Classification winners at the first annual Cherokee Art Market in Tulsa included the following: Daniel HorseChief in oil/encaustic painting, Gwen Coleman Lester in water-based painting, Charles Pratt in sculpture, Dorothy Brave Eagle in bead and quillwork (Jackie Larsen Bread took second and third in this class), Ben Harjo in drawings/graphics/prints, Ramona Lossie in traditional baskets, Kelly Church in contemporary baskets, Ron Tanyan in traditional pottery, Jane Osti in contemporary pottery, Cathy Moomaw in textiles, Dennis Esquivel in diverse art forms (for an end table) and Clarence Lee in jewelry.
SHARDS
Artist Monte Yellow Bird, Sr. (Arikara/ Hidatsa), better known as Black Pinto Horse, is one busy man! Just recently, the artist was a featured speaker at a special event honoring Native American Month in Fargo, North Dakota; he saw his donated life-size painted buffalo replica sold to raise funds for a nonprofit organization; he participated in several major art exhibitions in the upper Plains and in Scottsdale, Arizona; he worked with teachers at a Fargo elementary school in their continuing education program; and he conducted an interview on Prairie Public Radio—while continuing his oil and mixed-media painting career. Details: blackpintohorsefinearts.com
The book The Wind Is My Mother by Marcellus “Bear Heart” Williams (Muskogee Creek) was recently published in Hebrew by an Israeli publishing firm. It is the fourteenth foreign language into which the book has been translated—a remarkable achievement for the 88-year-old author. His second book, The Bear Is My Father, was recently completed. It too is expected to be released in a Hebrew version.
The Seminole Tribe of Florida has purchased the Hard Rock business family, which includes 124 Hard Rock Cafés, five hotels and several Hard Rock Live concert venues, as well as the world’s largest collection of rock ’n’ roll memorabilia. The collection features some 70,000 pieces, including guitars once played by Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, a pair of Elton John high heels and a Madonna bustier. The $965 million deal was concluded on Jan. 8. “It is an opportunity for the Seminole Tribe to diversify its business operations and help a very successful company achieve even greater growth,” said Mitchell Cypress, tribal council chairman. Details: seminolerocks.com
Laguna Pueblo/Metis author Paula Gunn Allen (see Nov./Dec. 2005 issue) is facing hard times. In October, her home and car burned in an accidental fire and she was hospitalized for two weeks for smoke inhalation, which triggered a coma for six days. This was preceded by apparently successful radiation treatment for lung cancer. Donations are being sent to The Paula Gunn Allen Fund, Account #0129540739, Bank of America, 228 North Main St., Fort Bragg, CA 95437. Be sure to include “The” in any checks sent.
The inaugural New Mexico Bowl football game, played in Albuquerque in December, featured undoubtedly the most unusual trophy ever presented in a college game: a handmade clay pot created by Zia Pueblo artists Marcellus and Elizabeth Medina. The pot—featuring the iconic Zia sun symbol and images of football players, a deer, mountain lion, buffalo and eagle—was presented to the San Jose State team, which defeated the University of New Mexico 20-12.
PASSAGES
Journalist Pat Calliotte, 64, of Hayward, Wisconsin, who served for many years as the associate editor of the newspapers News From Indian Country and Akiing, passed away on Nov. 17 from complications related to emphysema. She began her career editing the Lac Courte Oreilles Journal.
onghi (Aleut/Inuit), 59, died of cancer at his home in Sausalito, California on Dec. 11. In 1991, he joined the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian as director of external affairs and development, and oversaw the successful campaign to raise the first $35 million to $40 million to build and open the new museum in Washington, D.C. Notes Rick West, the museum’s founding director, “He was a remarkable man, with a personality that was gracious and drew people in. He was raising money for a building we didn’t even have designs for!”
Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu/Hawaiian/Portuguese—see May/June/July 1998 issue cover), the much-loved and talented painter, passed away on Dec. 28 at the VA Hospital in Albuquerque. Born in 1946, he first made a splash with his series of witty works in the early 1980s using a comical Coyote (Trickster) character as his foil, but he also explored Maidu legends, California’s bloody history of gold mining, and abstract aesthetics in his work. Among many honors, in 2005 he was awarded a fellowship by the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis. His work was widely collected and exhibited.
Renowned Tlingit bead artist Emma Frances Marks, 93, passed away on Sept. 18 at her family home on Douglas Island, Alaska. Her stunning traditional clothing was collected by many leading institutions and worn by the likes of Desmond Tutu. Mother of 16 children, she was presented the Alaska Governor’s Award in 1989.
John Sotsisowah Mohawk (Seneca), 61, the highly respected scholar, author, editor, speaker, educator and role model, passed away on Dec. 10 at his home in Buffalo, New York. The associate professor of American studies at the University of Buffalo was also an ardent defender of the natural world and loved to garden. Among his more than 20 books is the recent title Utopian Legends: A History of Conquest and Oppression in the Western World. He was a founding member of the Seventh Generation Fund and the Indian Law Resource Center, and sat on many other boards as well.
Sculptor Elizabeth Nah-Glee-Eh-Bah Abeyta Rohrscheib, 51, passed away on Dec. 17 after a prolonged illness. Daughter
of Navajo artist Narciso Abeyta, who studied under Dorothy Dunn at the Santa Fe Indian School, and Sylvia Ann Shipley Abeyta, Elizabeth was a prize-winning sculptor who attended the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work is in many leading private and public collections. She was best known for her contemporary clay sculpture, her graceful Navajo women and her “naughty” koshares. Among her surviving relatives is her brother, artist Tony Abeyta.
Arthur Welmas (Cabazon Band of Mission Indians), 77, passed away from complications of diabetes on Dec. 17 in California. As tribal chairman, Welmas oversaw the legal case before the U.S. Supreme Court that opened the door in 1987 for high-stakes gambling on Indian reservations, a move that transformed life for members of his and many other tribes. Prior to that, as he once said, “We didn’t have spit.” He spent four years in the Marines and four in the Air Force, including service in the Korean War.