Tag: american indian

White Buffalo Brings Legend to Life

  • A statue depicting White Buffalo Calf Woman, holding a sacred pipe atop a white buffalo. (Photo courtesy of Brian Bull)

Small crowds are gathering at a buffalo ranch in Wisconsin. They’re hoping to catch a glimpse of a rare white buffalo. This is the second white buffalo to draw crowds from around the world to the ranch, and as Brian Bull reports, the white buffalo holds special significance to some Native Americans:

Transcript

Small crowds are gathering at a buffalo ranch in Wisconsin. They’re hoping to catch a glimpse of a rare white buffalo. This is the second white buffalo to draw crowds from around the world to the ranch, and as Brian Bull reports, the white buffalo holds special significance to some Native Americans:


Nearly twenty people huddle behind a metal fence, standing tip-toed and pointing cameras towards a hilltop. Rancher Dave Heider drives his Bobcat tractor nearby, dumping hay into pens, as his buffalo herd comes down to eat. Among the lumbering shaggy brown bodies, is a speck of white that excites the crowd.


“There he is, here he is, he’s coming.”


The petite, snow-white calf stays close to his mother. Heider shuts the pen, fielding questions from onlookers, some of them remembering the first white buffalo known as Miracle.


“Is this the same family as Miracle? ‘No Relation.’ What’s the new one’s name? ‘Miracle’s Second Chance.'”


“Miracle’s Second Chance” is luring visitors from as far away as Mexico, Canada, and South America, as well as the immediate region. A biker even sports a white buffalo tattoo on his enormous bicep.


Carrie Singer is an Ojibwe Indian living in Milwaukee. Like others, she’s waited several hours in the rainy weather to glimpse the white buffalo calf.


“I believe it signifies peace and renewal, new beginnings for all our people. These are hard times, times of war, and this is something to have people gravitate towards, that new life, that new beginning.”


Buffalo are traditionally important animals to the Plains and upper Midwestern tribes. They were a vital source for food, tools, and clothing. And Lakota legend speaks of White Buffalo Calf Woman. They say she appeared with the first sacred pipe, to bring spirituality and prosperity to Indian nations.


That spiritual association is what drew Jimmy Kewakundo of Ontario, Canada, to the Heider’s ranch. Kewakundo is of Ojibwe, Potawotami, and Odawa descent. He and several other native people came to sing and honor the calf.


“I’ve brought my bundle and sacred pipe to do a ceremony with my brothers here. It teaches us how to live and to remember the old ways, and the importance of white buffalo calf woman.”


That Miracle’s Second Chance is a different gender than that of the legendary Lakota icon doesn’t phase Kewakundo and friends. And the Heiders say crowds and publicity are good, but nowhere near the levels seen for Miracle when she was born in 1994. Inside their bison-meat gift-shop, Valerie Heider stands near Miracle, who is now stuffed and on display. Heider says she has no guesses yet as to what it means to have several white buffalos born on their ranch.


“The Natives are telling us how blessed we are, and they’re also telling us we are in balance now because we have a male and a female.”


For many, the sheer novelty of a white buffalo is enough to stir people’s interest.


Dave Carter is executive director of the National Bison Association. He says the odds of a white buffalo being born are at least one in two-hundred thousand, though some estimates are as high as one in six-billion. Either way, Carter says it’s an incredible event.


“Particularly with a ranch where it had a fairly closed herd and these are non-related animals. Of course for the Native American folks, this is something that gets into a spiritual level, and so it has some additional significance when it gets to the Native American community.”


Back at the ranch, Indian spiritual leader Jimmy Kewakundo greets Dave Heider and shakes his hand.


“My name’s Jimmy, I come from Ontario, Canada. I want to say thank you for what you’ve done so far, working with Miracle, on behalf of the Ojibwe nation I want to say thank you for everything that you’ve done.”


Heider says more than 500,000 people came by back when Miracle was alive. He adds at times, it’s hard putting up with all the crowds and traffic, but moments like this put it all in perspective.


“It makes you feel good that you’re making some people happy. Valerie and I looked at it when Miracle was born, everybody said ‘why don’t you sell her?’ The money was there, we had many offers. We both felt as though we were giving something back that was given to us. By law and ownership Miracle belonged to us, but she belonged to everybody.”


The Heiders say they’ll eventually put the new white bison with some of Miracle’s daughters and granddaughters, to form a new herd. For now, they’ll weather the crowds with the same reverence, patience, and wit as they have before.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brian Bull.

Related Links

Ash Borer Threatens Native American Traditions

  • The emerald ash borer is rapidly destroying ash trees around the Midwest, impacting not only forests but humans as well. (Photo courtesy of invasivespecies.gov)

The emerald ash borer is an invasive beetle that has killed millions of trees in the Great Lakes region. As if that weren’t bad enough, the borer is now starting to threaten Native American customs. For them, the ash trees are more than just landscaping. They’re also used for making traditional ash baskets, canoe paddles, and medicine. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells has the story:

Transcript

The emerald ash borer is an invasive beetle that’s killed millions of trees in the Great Lakes region. As if that weren’t bad enough, the borer is now starting to threaten Native American customs. For them, the ash trees are more than just landscaping. They’re also used for making traditional ash baskets, canoe paddles, and medicine. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells has the story:


When I first saw Walpole Island, it was green and misty, out in the middle of the St. Clair River.


I had to take a ferry to get there. Walpole Island sits between the U.S. and Canada, but it doesn’t really belong to either one. It’s owned by the tribes. And they’ve lived there for close to six-thousand years. The island’s full of beautiful old trees, and has a lot of native plants and animals. Quite a few of which are rare.


After the ferry ride, it’s not too far to the Walpole Island Heritage Center. Inside, Kennon Johnson shows off the collection of baskets at the center. He’s the supervisor of the island’s Resource Protection Program.


“These would’ve been working baskets, this would’ve been used for collecting berries, mushrooms, all sort of things, and then some would’ve been for storage, and that’s typically your smaller ones.”


These baskets aren’t just museum pieces. People still make them and sell them. The stronger ones carry food and laundry, and the brightly colored ones are for gifts.


Reta Sands still makes the baskets. She’s a tribal elder. She learned basket making from her grandmother. The wood to make the baskets came from ash trees.


“My grandmother, when she needed money, that’s the time she decided she would go into the bush and chip, the ash trees that were there. She took a chunk out of the tree and looked at it and some way, somehow, she figured out which ones were good, which ones were the best ones to make whatever kind of baskets she was going to make.”


But now the basket-making tradition might be in trouble. The black ash trees in the Great Lakes region are being attacked by the emerald ash borer. The ash borer is an invasive pest that has shown up within the past decade. And it’s spreading like wildfire.


The insect hasn’t invaded Walpole Island yet, but the island is near some infested spots in Michigan and Canada. Kennon Johnson is already thinking about the possible effects of the bugs, when they arrive on the island.


“So we’re talking about some pretty scary issues here if we do get emerald ash borer, if it does what they say it does, if it’s going to wipe out all the ash trees five, ten years down the road, we’re looking at some more scary issues in that we’re going to be culturally impacted.”


Kennon says the tribes don’t know if they’ll have to end their tradition of making the baskets, or if they’ll be able to find a way to fight off the pest. Controlling the ash borer is a work in progress. There hasn’t been enough research on the pest and no one really knows how to get rid of it.


The native people want the freedom to try some of their own solutions on their land—not just at Walpole Island, but other places the tribes manage the forest. Nick Reo is trying to help the tribes be part of the decision making. He’s the American Indian Liason for Michigan State University’s Extension program.


“Basically tribes have been left out of the process, and we’re used to that, I mean that’s the way things happen. People tend to work around us not with us, and I don’t think I’m overstating that. So, I’m trying to get us to the table. Somebody has to push the issue. That’s not just me, but I could be one of the people that’s pushing the issue.
Where the progress is really happening is within the tribal communities. Those are the people who are really going to make a difference.”


Reo says the native communities have centuries of experience with the trees. He says they know the ashes better than anyone else, and he feels someone ought to take advantage of that expertise.


“We have sophisticated natural resource and environmental departments in our tribal communities, we have cultural departments and historic preservation departments, we have basket makers and traditional folks who are going to be the champions, hopefully, in helping to factor in to figuring out solutions for this problem.”


For now, the tribes are waiting, and watching to see the extent of the damage as the emerald ash borer moves through the region. They’re brainstorming some of the ways they might fight the pest as the invasion gets worse.


For the GLRC, I’m Melissa Ingells.

Related Links