Tag: indian

Wild Rice Harvest Restores a Native Tradition

  • Chloe Aldred is one of many kids learning the tradition of harvesting wild rice. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

For thousands of years, Native American tribes in the Great Lakes region have been harvesting wild rice. They call it manoomin.

But over the past few centuries, this tradition has been dying out. The rice beds have been shrinking, and the cultural knowledge has been disappearing. Many tribes were forced to relocate away from the wild rice beds. Starting in the 1870s, some children were taken from their families, into boarding schools. They were given English names and cut off from their culture and from the knowledge of how to harvest rice.

In Michigan, some people are trying to bring the tradition back.

Native Wild Rice Coalition

More about “The Good Berry”

The Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa

Video of the Manoomin Project for at risk teens

Transcript

Roger LaBine is a member of the Lac Vieux Desert band of Lake Superior Chippewa. He says manoomin is central to his ancestors’ migration story.

“And they were presented in visions with seven prophecies and we would know where our homeland would be when we found this food that grows on the water, which is the manoomin.”

(paddling sound)

Here, on Tubbs Lake near Mecosta, you can still find wild rice. The rice beds look like a bright green meadow growing on the water. It’s the perfect spot for Wild Rice Camp. About 50 people are here, young and old, tribal and non-tribal. They’re here to learn how to harvest and process the rice.

Barb Barton is one of the camp’s instructors.

“So to harvest rice you use cedar ricing sticks, they look like shortened pool cues. You pull rice over the boat and knock the rice into the boat.”

(snd of knocking rice)

After a couple hours on the lake, everyone heads back to camp to process the rice.

Charley Fox has been ricing since he was nine years old. He’s showing us how to soften the rice in a copper kettle.

(snd under)

“It takes the moisture out of the rice kernel, gets the outer shaft brittle to where you can roll it in your fingers. it’s a golden color, it’s ready to go, ready for the next stage where they dance on it!”

Saige Mackay is 11 years old. She’s in a little pit, wearing moccasins.

“I’m dancing on the rice. It shells the rice so you don’t have the husks on it, like husking corn.”

(dancing sound under)

Then it’s on to the winnowing stage. That’s where they use birch baskets to separate the husks from the rice. Then they clean the rice, and it’s finally ready to eat.

Zhawan Sprague is the daughter of a tribal chairman.

“My dad really wanted me to learn more about how to like, harvest rice, so I’m really excited how it’s going to end out.”

A lot of people here are first timers.

Roger LaBine says he loves having all the kids around.

He says to the Anishinaabe people, everything has a spirit. He says the spirit of the manoomin is glad to have them back.

“It’s been waiting for us. By us coming out here and harvesting this rice, it’s helping us to enhance it. Not only the rice bed but it’s a healing process for us, it gives us that incentive to carry it on. We need that. It’s our identity. It’s almost like a language, we lose our identity if we lose our language, if we lose our dance, if we lose our drum.”

LaBine says on the last day of camp, they’ll return one day’s harvest back to the water, to re-seed the rice beds for next year.

“And say thank you, Miigwetch, give us all that we need and no more than we need so that we can carry this on.”

Rebecca Williams, The Environment Report

Tribes Talk Climate Change

Many Native American tribes say
they want to be part of the national debate
over climate change legislation. The
tribes at least have the attention of the
US EPA. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Many Native American tribes say
they want to be part of the national debate
over climate change legislation. The
tribes at least have the attention of the
US EPA. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

The tribes are worried about climate change. They think it might be affecting natural resources
like wild rice beds, fish habitat and animals they hunt to feed their people.


The tribes got some provisions into a major climate change bill that recently failed in Congress.
They’re now preparing their arguments for the next go-round on Capitol Hill.

Stephen Hartsfield is with the National Tribal Air Association. He says one thing the Native
communities want is more incentives to produce cleaner energy – such as solar power in the
Southwest US.

“ We have 300 days of sunshine a year – so it just makes logical sense for tribes and states and
communities in the Southwest to look at those opportunities.”

At a meeting with Great Lakes area tribes in Milwaukee, an EPA official said it’ll be up to
Congress and the Obama Administration to determine how much clout the tribes will have in the
debate.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Artist Carries Tribe’s Traditions Forward


Every artist depicts nature in a different way. In one artist’s world, nature is a place where people, animals and plant life are intertwined in vibrant color. Karen Kelly visited this new exhibit:

Transcript

Every artist depicts nature in a different way. In one artist’s world, nature is a place where people, animals and plant life are intertwined in vibrant color. Reporter Karen Kelly visited this new exhibit.


Six and seven year olds are pointing and chattering in front of a mural bursting with plant and animal life. One of them, Pierre Rousseau, describes his favorite parts of the painting.


“People, strawberries, some leaves, and fish, and kind of mister who has a bird on his head.”


The kids are at an exhibit of Norval Morrisseau’s work at the National Gallery of Art in Ottawa, Canada. Usually, you hear a lot of shushing when kids are in an art gallery.
Here, you can almost feel the energy between the kids and the paintings.


In one corner, Sadok Benmoussa and Amir Shallal are trying to figure out a mural that tells the story of creation.


“And what’s that big stuff? A flower? That big stuff… Oh, the big stuff, bears? A bear? A bear.”


Norval Morrisseau grew up on an Ojibway reservation on the north shore of Lake Superior, and that environment fills his paintings; the water, the animals, trees, berries.
But most important are the people, his own people interacting with that nature.


Gabe Vadas lived with Morrisseau for many years, and now that the artist has Parkinson’s disease, Vadas is his spokesman and guardian. He says when Morrisseau was growing up in the 50’s, his tribe began rejecting many of its traditions, and it’s connection to the natural world, so Morrisseau used his paintings to tell the stories he learned from his grandfather who was a shaman.


“And I think Norval just felt desperation as a young person to regain the identity that had been passed down to him. And of course Grandpa is only telling him, so there’s a desperation that ‘wait a minute, I’m the only one who’s learning these things and learning these legends.'”


One of these legends shows a man who changes into a thunderbird. It’s one of Morrisseau’s most famous works and it shows this transformation over six canvases. It begins with a man who has a bird perched on his head, as well as one in each arm. Slowly, his eyes get larger, his mouth forms a beak and his arms become wings. This is Morrisseau’s later style, and it resembles stained glass. He uses thick black lines to create an intricate design of colors and shapes.


Greg Hill curated the Morrisseau show for Canada’s national gallery. It’s now on display at the McMichael Gallery north of Toronto and it will be in New York City in January. Hill says the artist’s later works contain a message for everyone, not just members of his own community.


“He’s saying that we all exist here on mother earth and we need to respect that, those interrelationships.”


That message is something that visitor Yvette Debain says she could see in Morrisseau’s work.


“Very spiritual. That’s why it touches me because I believe also that we’re all part of a creation, and the spirit, you can say God, is in all the creation. It’s not separate.”


Morrisseau’s guardian, Gabe Vadas, says that when the artist returned to his hometown many years later, he was surprised to find many people who had gone back to the native traditions, and many told him that his paintings had inspired them to do so. Now, he hopes that with this major exhibit, more folks will be touched by his message.


For the Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

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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

No New Federal Dollars for Restoration

For the past year, the federal government, states, and
Indian tribes have been devising a unified restoration plan to
clean up and protect the Great Lakes. They released a first draft
this summer. But as negotiations continue, state governments and
environmentalists say the effort is being undercut by a major player.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has
more:

Transcript

For the past year, the federal government, states, and Indian tribes have been devising a
unified restoration plan to clean up and protect the Great Lakes. They released a first
draft this summer. But as negotiations continue, state governments and environmentalists
say the effort is being undercut by a major player. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Shawn Allee has more:


The first draft of the restoration plan called for dozens of ambitious measures. They
included cleaning up toxic waste and keeping invasive species out of the Great Lakes.
But more than anything, the first draft raised expectations.


“The public response to the draft report that was released this July was very
encouraging.”


David Naftzger is with the Council of Great Lakes Governors.


“Public meetings were held throughout the region and there is broad-based support for
restoring and protecting the Great Lakes.”


State governments generally praised the draft, but questioned the federal government’s
commitment to the effort. Now, they and environmental groups worry their fears were
justified.


Last month, administration advisors issued an internal report that called the first draft of
the plan too ambitious and too costly.


One major sticking point is how to prevent sewage from getting into the lakes. Sewer
upgrades could cost tens of billions of dollars. States want more money, but the
president’s advisors are balking.


Benjamin Grumbles is with the Environmental Protection Agency’s water division.


“We all agree that more work needs to be done on sewer overflows and that the federal
government will continue to provide money, but it’s not realistic to expect an infusion of
that level in the near term.”


Grumbles says federal help’s required to improve sewers everywhere, not just in the
Great Lakes. Grumbles says the administration’s committed to identifying long-term
restoration goals. Administration advisors say continuing negotiations should focus on
short-term measures that require no additional spending.


But David Naftzger says federal leadership should mean more federal dollars.


“This is deeply disappointing, while more can be done with existing resources and there
can be improvements to existing programs, quite simply many of our region’s challenges
require additional funding.”


The plan’s final draft is due next month.


Until then, state governments and environmentalists hope to prod what they see as an
increasingly reluctant partner.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Biologists Find Deer Devouring Rare Flowers

  • Largeflower bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora) is one of the wildflowers declining at many of the sites studied by University of Wisconsin researchers. (Photo courtesy of Dave Rogers, UW Herbarium)

Most of us think of the white-tailed deer as a graceful and cherished part of the natural scene. But it turns out when there are too many deer, it’s bad for some of the plants in the forest. New research suggests deer may be a prime culprit in a worrisome loss of rare plants in the woods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Most of us think of the white-tailed deer as a graceful and cherished
part of the natural scene. But it turns out when there are too many
deer, it’s bad for some of the plants in the forest. New research
suggests deer may be a prime culprit in a worrisome loss of rare
plants in the woods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie
Hemphill reports:


Gardeners in many suburbs and rural areas know deer are good at
mowing down hosta, tulips and other favorite plants. In the woods,
deer munch on the small plants that live on the forest floor… plants
such as orchids, lilies, and other wildflowers.


Fifty years ago, researchers at the University of Wisconsin surveyed
hundreds of acres in the state, and made careful records of the plants
on those sites. In those days, the deer population was a lot lower
than it is now. In the last couple of years, two biologists went back to
many of those same sites and counted the plants living there now.


Tom Rooney says at most sites they found fewer different kinds of
plants.


“It tends to be the same species occurring over and again on the site.
You’re losing the rare species and picking up more and more
common species.”


He says they tried to link the decline in rare species to the fact that
the forest is getting older. But they found no evidence for that.
Instead, lead researcher Don Waller says the evidence points to
deer, which have increased dramatically over the last fifty years.


“The worst changes we’ve seen, ironically were in a couple of state
parks and a protected natural area, that showed losses of half or
more of species in 50 years. However, in these sites there was no
deer hunting, implying high densities of deer may be causing a lot of
the effects we see in the woods.”


Plants that rely on insects for pollination declined more than other
types of plants. Waller thinks it might be because the insect-
pollinated plants have showy flowers, which could catch the eye of a
wandering deer. As the flowering plants decline, the insects and
birds that rely on them for food could decline as well – bees, moths,
butterflies, and hummingbirds.


Waller says it’s worrisome because scientists don’t know how
particular insects and plants work together to support each other.


“As we’re losing parts of the ecosystem, we’re really not sure what
their full function is, they might play some crucial role we’re not aware
of and only too late might we become aware of the fact that this loss
led to an unraveling or threats to other species.”


Waller says the only places they studied that still have a healthy
diversity of plants are on Indian reservations. The Menominee Tribal
Forest in northeastern Wisconsin is pretty much like it used to be fifty
years ago.


(forest sounds under)


In this forest, there are only about ten deer per square mile. That’s
about as low as the deer population gets in Wisconsin. It’s not that
the tribe is hunting more deer; it’s the way the forest is grown.


Deer find lots to eat in young aspen woods; there’s less for them to
eat where pines and oaks and maples grow. Don Reiter is the wildlife
manager here. He says in the 360 square miles of the Menominee
forest, there’s really four different types of woods.


“We have pulpwood, we have northern hardwoods, white pine, red
pine, and again, the forest ecosystem as a whole, there’s plenty of
food out there for the deer.”


And because there aren’t too many deer, young pines and hemlocks
– and orchids and lilies – have a chance to grow.


In the upper Great Lakes states, wildlife officials have been trying to
thin the deer herd for several years. That’s because state officials
have been aware deer were causing problems by eating too many
plants. The recent study provides dramatic evidence.


In Minnesota, for instance, hunters are shooting four times the
number of deer they shot fifty years ago.


Steve Merchant is forest wildlife program consultant for the
Minnesota DNR. Merchant says the agency has liberalized its rules,
to encourage hunters to kill even more deer. But the number of
hunters hasn’t gone up in recent years. And lots of private
landowners post no-hunting signs.


“We need to have some help from people, people still need to get out
and hunt deer, and landowners need to provide that access for
people to harvest deer.”


Merchant says Minnesota is gradually trying to restore pine forests,
which were cut down for lumber and replaced with fast-growing
aspen. More pine forests could cut down on the deer population…


“But as long as we still have the strong demand for the aspen
markets that we do, and we manage those aspen forests in a
productive manner for wood fiber, we’re going to create a lot of good
white-tailed deer habitat.”


Merchant says it would take decades to change the woods enough to
reduce the deer population. And in the meantime, we’re losing more
and more of the rare flowers.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Tribes Re-Negotiate Fishing Rights

In the mid 1800’s the federal government established several treaties
with Native American tribes. Those treaties gave them broad rights to
fish the Great Lakes and they must be
re-negotiated every few years. These treaties have become a major point
of contention as fish resources become more strained. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports that Michigan is in middle of
working out a new settlement with the tribes in their state:

Highway Threatens Sacred Tribal Lands

A Minnesota highway relocation project is getting national attention as
Native American tribes are attempting to stop state and federal projects
from destroying tribal lands. The Highway 55 re-route would cost an
estimated 100 million dollars and would provide a faster route from
downtown Minneapolis to the local airport and Mall of America. A
Minnesota tribal group says that if construction for the highway takes
place, they will lose sacred land. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Jesse Hardman reports:

Great Lakes Fishing Industry Remembered

Like many Great Lakes harbor towns, the days of busy fishing villages
on the waters of Lake Superior are gone. Now these towns are mere
shadows of their heyday, and only a handful of commercial fishing boats
still cast their nets. Pressures from sport anglers and exotic species
have dramatically changed the industry over the past four decades. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson examines how these towns
are trying to rediscover that history:

Native Americans Run for Treaty Rights

A group of ten Indian tribal members are running from northern Wisconsin to Washington D-C to show their support for Chippewa hunting and fishing rights. On December 2nd, the U-S Supreme Court will hear a case between the State of Minnesota and the Millelacs Band of Chippewa. A favorable ruling for the state may jeopardize hunting and fishing rights for Native Americans nationwide. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nick Van Der Puy reports: