#turtle mountain band of chippewa

[sideblog-side-b]

Im a native. My mom is registered with a tribe in the USA (turtle mountain band of chippewa). I will not be sharing her name as she travels across the country for native advocacy within her union and I don't want her getting the same harassment I have. That said, I do not have enough blood to be registered with the same tribe cuz she had me with a native man outside of her tribe.

I've been harassed relentlessly by user @crazyintheeast because they didn't like my opinions. They got their followers and others to mass report me in order to get my blog deleted under the assumption that I, literal native american, was a Russian psyop/spy trying to rig the election.

Why? Cuz i didn't like kamala OR Trump cuz they both sought to aid israel in its genocide.

My people know how much the USA loves genocide. We know sweet words mean nothing in the face of actions that cause harm. We know betrayal of the government.

And like the men who forced us to sign unfair treaties under threat, crazyintheeast encouraged their followers to attack me for not doing what they thought I should. They attacked me for speaking up for indigenous people and saying genocide is never an acceptable term to accept.

Im disabled so I relied heavily on Tumblr to help me pay bills since I can't work and don't qualify for SSI/SSDI due to neglect for my parents neglecting my health as a kid (so I have no medical history proving i was always sick) and for not working enough and having enough work credits to have earned SSI/SSDI as an adult (cuz i was too disabled)

Losing my blog and my followers has threatened my livelihood and ability to take care of my kid.

Speaking up for myself and for whats right in a climate of paranoia, conspiracies, and unsubstantiated rumors has threatened my real, offline life as a native american and parent.

Im sick to my stomach over this. Im stressed. I'm desperate.

And what's worse is i can't do anything except report them to @staff, who so far has done nothing since their blog and their posts about mass reporting me are STILL up despite being CLEAR cases of harassment and make this post hoping people care and will help me either get my blog back or help me raise awareness about the clear manipulations that happened this election that caused BIPOC to once again be targeted and harmed more than any other group on this site.

Please help me get the attention of staff at the very least and demand that at the very least, they be held responsible for harassment

Do Russians spies use US EBT and get ads for walmart?? Update to ways their Medicare will change?

Please reblog

[entheognosis]

Corey Lee Davis, Jr.,

Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa

[mariacallous]

LAVEEN VILLAGE, Ariz. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday formally apologized to Native Americans for the “sin” of a government-run boarding school system that for decades forcibly separated children from their parents, calling it a “blot on American history” in his first presidential visit to Indian Country.

“It’s a sin on our soul,” said Biden, his voice full of anger and emotion. “Quite frankly, there’s no excuse that this apology took 50 years to make.”

It was a moment of both contrition and frustration as the president sought to recognize one of the “most horrific chapters” in the national story. Biden spoke of the abuses and deaths of Native children that resulted from the federal government’s policies, noting that “while darkness can hide much, it erases nothing” and that great nations “must know the good, the bad, the truth of who we are.”

“I formally apologize as president of United States of America for what we did,” Biden said. “The Federal Indian boarding school policy — the pain is has caused will only be a significant mark of shame, a blot on our record history. For too long, this all happened with virtually no public attention, not written about in our history books, not taught in our schools.”

Democrats hope Biden’s visit to the Gila River Indian Community’s land on the outskirts of Phoenix’s metro area will also provide a boost to Vice President Kamala Harris’ turnout effort in a key battleground state. The moment gave Biden a fuller chance to spotlight his and Harris’ support for tribal nations, a group that historically has favored Democrats, in a state he won just by 10,000 votes in 2020.

The race between Harris and former President Donald Trump is expected to be similarly close, and both campaigns are doing whatever they can to improve turnout among bedrock supporters.

“The race is now a turnout grab,” said Mike O’Neil, a non-partisan pollster based in Arizona. “The trendlines throughout have been remarkably steady. The question is which candidate is going to be able to turn out their voters in a race that seems to be destined to be decided by narrow margins.”

Biden has been used sparingly on the campaign trail by Harris and other Democrats since he ended his reelection campaign in July.

But analysts say Biden could help Harris in her appeal with Native American voters — a group that has trailed others in turnout rates.

In 2020, there was a surge in voter turnout on some tribal land in Arizona as Biden beat Trump and became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1996.

Biden, whose presidency is winding down, had promised tribal leaders nearly two years ago that he would visit Indian Country.

For decades, federal boarding schools were used to assimilate children into white society, according to the White House. Not everyone saw the apology as sufficient.

“An apology is a nice start, but it is not a true reckoning, nor is it a sufficient remedy for the long history of colonial violence,” said Chase Iron Eyes, director of the Lakota People’s Law Project and Sacred Defense Fund.

At least 973 Native American children died in the U.S. government’s abusive boarding school system over a 150-year period that ended in 1969, according to an Interior Department investigation that called for a U.S. government apology.

At least 18,000 children, some as young as 4, were taken from their parents and forced to attend schools that sought to assimilate them.

“President Biden deserves credit for finally putting attention on the issue and other issues impacting the community,” said Ramona Charette Klein, 77, a boarding school survivor and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. “I do think that will reflect well on Vice President Harris, and I hope this momentum will continue.”

Democrats have stepped up outreach to Native American communities.

Both Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, met with tribal leaders in Arizona and Nevada this month. And Clinton, who has been serving as a surrogate for Harris, last week met in North Carolina with the chairman of the Lumbee Tribe.

The Democratic National Committee recently launched a six-figure ad campaign targeting Native American voters in Arizona, North Carolina, Montana and Alaska through digital, print and radio ads.

Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is locked in a competitive race with Republican Kari Lake for Arizona’s open Senate seat, has visited all 22 of Arizona’s federally recognized tribes.

Harris started a recent campaign rally in Chandler, near where the Gila River reservation is located, with a shoutout to the tribe’s leader. Walz is scheduled to go to the Navajo Nation in Arizona tomorrow on Saturday.

The White House says Biden and Harris have built a substantial track record with Native Americans over the last four years.

The president designated the sacred Avi Kwa Ame, a desert mountain in Nevada and Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon in Arizona as national monuments and restored the boundaries for Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.

In addition, the administration has directed nearly $46 billion in federal spending to tribal nations. The money has helped bring electricity to a reservation that never had electricity, expand access to high-speed internet, improve water sanitation, build roadways and more.

Biden picked former New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland to serve as his Interior secretary, the first Native American to be appointed to a Cabinet position. Haaland is a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico.

She, in turn, ordered the comprehensive review in June 2021 of the troubled legacy of the federal government’s boarding school policies that led Biden to deliver the formal apology.

Thom Reilly, co-director of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University, said both Harris’ and Trump’s campaigns — and their allies — have put a remarkable amount of effort into micro-targeting in Arizona.

“They are pulling out every stop just to see if they could wrangle a few more votes here and there,” Reilly said. “The Indian community is one of those groups that Harris is hoping will overperform and help make the difference.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

“The Mighty Red,” the title of Louise Erdrich’s rambunctious new novel, definitely refers to North Dakota’s Red River, around which much of it is set, and probably refers to a large, red-headed character named Hugo.

A central event in “Mighty Red” is the marriage of a young woman named Kismet, but will she end up with brash Gary or gentle Hugo? Most of the characters have something to say about that, including Kismet’s mom Crystal, a truck driver who hauls sugar beets and whom Erdrich— a Pulitzer Prize winner for “The Night Watchman,” National Book Award winner for “The Round House” and owner of Birchbark Books in Minneapolis — says is something of a stand-in for her.

Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa who lives in Minneapolis, has written 20 books.

Q: What came first when you were dreaming up “The Mighty Red”?

A: The first character I really thought about was Hugo. He goes back about 10 years and just kept plodding back into my notebooks with his obsessions about geology and energy and with his hapless ardor. I guess a lot of this book is about hapless ardor. Here we are, wired to mate, yet relationships are so ridiculous and awkward and, if you are lucky, magical.

The goal in my books is never to get two people together and leave them marooned, but to explore the tension and idiocy in a relationship. I mean, love. When love gets to a critical madness, people get married to reduce the madness to manageable increments of madness — like who keeps track of the vacuum cleaner attachments? Who deals with the mice? Who mislabeled the electrical box? Forget nosegays and frothed milk. Dawn dish soap becomes the thing you can’t live without. Like Kismet, you may end up making three-egg breakfasts for your husband’s family and eating your own breakfast out in the garage.

Q: Like “ The Sentence,” “The Mighty Red” is set in the recent past. Lots of “Sentence” readers were struck by your ability to evoke pandemic-era behaviors (like sanitizing the mail) that we engaged in, quit and then promptly forgot. Is it tricky to capture a past that most readers lived through?

A: You’re right. We forget the details of what we live through. This book is set in 2008-2009. The first hint I had of the mortgage crisis was running into someone I knew who was shaking and distraught over losing the house into which she’d sunk all she owned. It was devastating and it was happening everywhere.

Something like this happens to my somewhat alter-ego Crystal. There are other books about why and how this huge con game exploded, but I wanted to write about the way 2008-09 affected a few families. I thought about this a lot, how close we came to a serious economic depression, and how bad it was anyway. Part of my research was listening to the archived late night call-in shows with Art Bell, “Coast to Coast.”

Q: Which Crystal listens to, as well. Any more research?

A: Then I really lost my mind diving into how Roundup Ready seeds were developed, also at that time. I couldn’t think about anything but herbicides and pesticides. I became a known conversation killer. A lot of farming is degenerative as opposed to regenerative, and obviously that’s got to stop. Most of the farmers I know are doing their best to use few chemicals and do right by their land. They are some of the smartest people I know.

But they are running businesses. Sugar is a dirty business. However, sugar is delicious. At the end result of all those herbicides and petrochemicals and semi trucks and processing is pure, white, sparkly, granulated sugar. It is integral to our food chain now, it hits the pleasure centers in your brain like rocket fuel, and even having written this book I still love cake and ice cream.

Q: Many novels address climate crisis but I can’t recall one that makes it as easy to relate to as, for instance, the passage about the effort that goes into re-establishing prairie. Is it important to you to personalize for readers what we’ve done to our planet?

A: I wanted people to read this book, so to keep things cheerful I only sprinkled the dire stuff into the trauma of a wedding. You know — Absurd Proposal, Strange Vows, Violent Wedding Dinner, Questionable Marriage, Aftermarriage. Maybe the real bond is with the land and sky. The book is also a love letter to the Red River Valley, where I grew up. The valley along the river has changed drastically during my life and I wanted to know why. I wasn’t looking for simple answers or heroes and villains (except Hugo, hero). Nothing lines up that way.

Q: The title character of the book, or at least one of them, is a river, which you describe as “everything.” Can you talk about how living in a river valley shapes these people?

A: Are you asking whether there is a character trait that people who live along and depend on a river share? Or a lake? I don’t know — maybe love of walleye? Certain members of my family and I have been conducting a longitudinal study of who — aside from my brother Ralph — makes the best fried walleye in the Upper Midwest. We have a long way to go, but so far the Creekside Supper Club (Red Lake walleye) comes closest to the sine qua non of walleye (without which life is meaningless) on a good night at the Sky Dancer Casino (Lake Winnipeg walleye) in the Turtle Mountains. If people want to write to the Minnesota Star [Tribune] with the results of their own studies, that would be great. Just don’t contact me about this. I can’t let any extraneous information spoil the parameters of my own investigation.

Q: I can’t wait to see that striking cover in stores. I know it’s designed by your daughter, Aza Abe, who has done many of your covers. How important are covers to you, as both a writer and bookseller?

A: Covers tell the bookseller and the reader how much a publisher cares about the book. (An author usually doesn’t get much say.) I love how covers can be art that wasn’t created for the book and yet be all about the book. When I am bowled over by a new novel in manuscript, and then the final cover isn’t good enough for the book, I’m so upset.

I’m beyond lucky to have my daughter Aza Abe, a remarkable woman and tremendous artist, as the cover artist. I’m so grateful that she and I were able to start working together. Every one of her covers is stellar and says something about the book that can only be said visually. A reader should turn back and forth from the text to the cover and always find something to think about. That always happens with her images.

Take this particular cover. Aza’s image is about the origin of the Red River, where three rivers come together and flow north. The river is white because it’s sugar. The earth is deep black with gold flecks because good soil is the earth’s wealth. The letters are strong and bold because that’s the river, too.

Q: You never seem to judge your characters. Has that always been crucial to your work? Do you have other “rules” for writing?

A: A lot of being a writer is getting out of your own way. I try to simply report on what the characters are doing and thinking. If I make a judgment, it is in the voice of a character reflecting on what they’ve done. It’s not that I’m so high-minded, it’s more that it’s intrusive for a writer to make a judgment. And the reader is bound to wonder why, if you, the writer, have such a poor opinion about your character, why not just redeem them? I am opposed to redemption in a book. Maybe that’s a rule, but I break that rule if it needs breaking.

Q: What surprised you most in writing this novel?

A: The arrogant wealthy jock, Gary, surprised me. What a jackass. But then as I wrote him, I began to discover how vulnerable he was, how ridiculous, how haunted. He became my favorite character to write.

Q: Gary — and much of “The Mighty Red” itself — is really funny. Readers are going to get a bang out of these people (one line I’m thinking of is, “She loved Hugo with that superb kind of love a mother has for a male child, a love that is deeper and more pure for knowing that he’ll more than likely turn out a fool.”). Obviously, writing a novel is hard work, but was it fun to hang with these characters?

A: Yes, most days I’m lying on the floor, just wiped out, but it’s worth it on the days I’m laughing my head off.

Q:“The Mighty Red” is tough but hopeful. Do you find your way toward hope in the act of storytelling or is it in you already and that’s what pulls the story toward hope?

A: I don’t see the point of writing a book that doesn’t hold out hope. Things are getting so dire that, no matter how annoying and crazy-making we all are, we have to pull together. We need to work on a livable world. Nihilism just strikes me as lazy, and pretentious. Anyway, it’s the serious people who are leading with hope in these times.

Q: I don’t want to spoil it for readers but that last paragraph is such a knockout. What was the hardest part of “The Mighty Red” to get right? Or the easiest?

A: Chris, I’m so glad you liked the end! It was the one and only page in this whole book that was easy to write. I just wrote it down and didn’t change a word. And then I cried.

©2024 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

[yetisidelblog]

Leonard Peltier is almost 80 years old. He’s a Native activist in the American Indian Movement (AIM), a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, and is now serving his 49th year of incarceration, making him the longest-serving political prisoner in U.S. history.

Leonard, now elderly and battling chronic health conditions that were made even worse after he contracted COVID while in prison, is serving two life sentences for his alleged role in the deaths of two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Principally charged with the murders, Peltier’s co-defendants were found not guilty on grounds of self-defense. In Leonard’s case, exculpatory ballistics evidence was withheld, testimony coerced by the FBI was recanted, and a recognition of the violation of his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury has fueled the global support for his release.

Over the years, the level of clear misconduct has prompted the very officials who put him behind bars to step forward and join the cry for justice for Leonard Peltier. Former FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Counsel Coleen Rowley wrote to President Biden asking to release Leonard Peltier and James Reynolds, the former federal prosecutor who oversaw Leonard Peltier’s post-trial sentencing and appeals, also wrote to Biden asking for clemency, saying:

“I have realized that the prosecution and continued incarceration of Mr. Peltier was and is unjust. We were not able to prove that Mr. Peltier personally committed any offense on the Pine Ridge Reservation.”

We have a lot of support in this urgent fight for justice. UN experts, U.S. Congressmembers, Amnesty International, the Democratic National Committee's Native American Caucus, the National Caucus of Native American State Legislators, the National Congress of American Indians, human rights leaders (such as Nelson Mandela, Coretta Scott King, and the Dalai Lama), and many others have called for Peltier to be released.

In addition to celebrities, human rights leaders, and United Nations legal experts calling on President Biden to grant Leonard Pelter his freedom, hundreds of Indigenous artists wrote in a letter to President Biden: “Nothing is more emblematic of the mistreatment of American Indians and the uneven hand of the criminal justice system than the handling of his case by the federal government.”

The time has long past for Leonard to be freed. Compassionate release was denied. We petitioned the Parole Commission to finally grant Leonard his freedom, and it was denied.

Now, President Joe Biden may be Leonard Peltier’s last and best hope for freedom. But let’s be clear, the only way Leonard Peltier can get his freedom restored is through public pressure on President Biden.

Peltier should be able to live out the rest of his life in dignity, with his family on his ancestral homelands.

Now, together with a broad coalition of organizations representing millions of people across the country, we’re asking you to join the fight.

Click ‘START WRITING’ to sign and send your message urging President Biden to grant executive clemency and free Native activist Leonard Peltier from federal prison now.

Time Sensitive! Please send your message now!

@upontheshelfreviews

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@akron-squirrel

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Adria R. Walker at The Guardian:

On Friday, Joe Biden formally apologized for the United States government’s role in running at least 523 Indian boarding schools. His remarks were given at the Gila Crossing community school outside of Phoenix, Arizona, and marked his first visit to Indian country as president.

“After 150 years, the United States government eventually stopped the program,” Biden said. “But the federal government has never, never formally apologized for what happened – until today. I formally apologize, as president of the United States of America, for what we did. I formally apologize. That’s long overdue.” “Federal Indian boarding school policy, the pain it has caused, will always be a significant mark of shame, a blot on American history,” he said. “For too long, this all happened with virtually no public attention.” Indian boarding schools were run with the express goal to “kill the Indian in him, and save the man”, a phrase coined by the army officer Richard Henry Pratt, who founded Carlisle Indian boarding school, the first federally run Indian boarding school. From 1819 to 1969, in what Biden called “one of the most horrific chapters in American history”, the US government directly managed or funded Indian boarding schools in nearly 40 states. The schools, at which formal education was limited, forcibly and systematically stripped Indigenous children of their culture by removing them from their families and communities, forbidding them from speaking their languages and, typically violently, punishing them if they resisted.

A US Department of the Interior report released earlier this year found that at least nearly 1,000 Indigenous children died in the schools. Sexual violence was commonplace. Dr Denise K Lajimodiere, an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and one of the founders of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, wrote that the “boarding school era represented a deliberate policy of ethnocide and cultural genocide and human rights abuses”. “Some of our elders who are boarding school survivors have been waiting all of their lives for this moment,” said Stephen Roe Lewis, the Gila River Indian community governor. “If only for a moment on Friday, this will rise to the top, and the most powerful person in the world, our president, is shining a light on this dark history that’s been hidden.” No president has ever apologized for the abuses that tens of thousands of Indigenous children faced in the schools.

On Friday, President Joe Biden gave a formal apology for the US Government’s role in creating boarding schools for Native Americans by calling it “a blot on American history.” The boarding schools served to forcibly assimilate Native Americans and abuse if they resisted assimilation.

[boricuacherry-blog]

Russell Turcotte: Unsolved Murder

Russell Douglas Turcotte was a 19-year-old indigenous Native American from Wolf Lake, Montana. He was a musician described as a free spirit belonging to the Turtle Mountain tribe. His father was a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe [of Chippewas] based in Belcourt, N.D., while his mother is a member of the Fort Peck (Mont.) Tribe of Assiniboine Sioux.

Described as a hippie at heart, he loved the outdoors, music, skateboarding and had recently completed training to become a firefighter. Because of his passion for the outdoors, he found his calling fighting wildfires. Unfortunately, his life would be stolen. An article noted:

Russell loved music. He loved dancing around the house with his mother, Linda Hansen. He'd listen to old rock and roll or the Grateful Dead, maybe even some Bonnie Raitt.

That's how Hanson likes to remember him, with a smile on his face and giving her a kiss on the cheek before his second day - not his first day - of junior high school.

He had declined to kiss her goodbye on his first day, but on the second day, he leaned across the seat and kissed her cheek.

"Russell was a very kind soul," Hansen said. "He believed in kindness and he believed in people. He was a very trusting person who was sometimes shocked when he found out people there were people with ill-intentions in the world."

He wanted to go out into the world and meet new people. He looked to make new friends, Hansen said.

That's what she prefers to remember - that and his love for music, including the time he spent learning about being a DJ at the college radio station in Havre, Montana.

On July 12, 2002, Russell called his mother from Grand Forks, North Dakota to ask her to wire him some money for a bus ride home.

She agreed, however, after hanging up, she never heard from him again.

He was last seen at the Simonson gas station waiting for the $100 money order. The gas station was in the vicinity of the 4300 block of Gateway Drive near Highway 2 in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

His mother wanted him home quickly so he could attend a wedding, where he would be a best man to his best friend - something he never would have willingly missed. However he never arrived and never picked up the money at Western Union that they left for him at Grand Forks.

According to the investigative timeline, Russell stopped at a convenience store just off of Highway 2 on Interstate 29 just after 10:30 that night. He went in and bought a bottle of water. Around 11 he called his mom Linda and that's when she agreed to send the money. The money wouldn't be available for pickup until the next morning, so Russell walked to the nearby Simonson truck stop. He sat down in the attached diner and asked the waitress for a cup of coffee. The waitress later told authorities it appeared he was there just to pass the time, and she was the last person to see Russell Turcotte alive.

When he hadn't picked up the money the next morning, Russell's older brother Jacob, who everyone called Buck, went looking for him. He began asking around to see who last saw him. His other brother Michael also began looking. "He was happy-go-lucky, someone who loved everyone," said Michael. Jacob added, "He just loved being a hippie."

According to his parents, when they went to report him missing in Grand Forks, authorities weren't helpful, telling them to report him missing in Montana.

Before asking his mother for money, he had been in the Ottawa National Forest in Brainerd, Michigan at a rainbow gathering designed to promote an idealistic vision of harmony and world peace while he was hitchhiking back to North Dakota:

It's unclear if that had anything to do with his disappearance. He had been there for a week and had been ready to come back home.

Four months later, on November 4, 2002, his remains were discovered in a linear row of trees called a 'shelter belt,' which is typically found next to a field.

This location was along U.S. Highway 2 and 12 miles northwest of Devil's Lake, North Dakota, and about 90 miles west of Grand Forks:

The search for Russell took 3 months to get off the ground. Bill Turcotte, who lives in Chinook, Mont., has several times wondered publicly if Russell being indigenous was a reason for the lack of interest in the investigation. Before Gabby Petito, there was another blue-eyed blonde-haired girl who had gone missing and was getting far more media attention than Russell. Dru Sjodin had been abducted from a mall in Grand Forks only a year after Russell's murder and her disappearance and murder had garnered great media coverage throughout the United States, even prompting the creation of the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry. While Bill is quick to acknowledge that both Sjodin and his son's murder were equally tragic, he couldn't help but notice the difference in how the cases were treated. It is true that missing and murdered indigenous people do not, in general, get the same attention as other victims of crime. His son had no governors speaking out on his behalf, Bill said. However, North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty both have spoken much about the tragedy of the Sjodin case.

Two recent murders in the state had been determined as murder-suicides. Angela Hansey, 28, of Dickinson, was shot to death by her ex-husband, Tracy Hansey, in January. Allura Rainbow, 36, was shot and killed by her nephew, Vincent Shaw, 20, on the Spirit Lake Reservation in August before then killing himself.

Russell was determined to have been beaten. Investigators believe Russell was abducted, abused in a remote location and then bludgeoned to death. It was a rancher, Trent Haberstroh of Hansboro N.D., who found his nearly nude body lying among the trees, covered with brush, at about 10 a.m. Haberstroh said he was transporting cattle to Devil's Lake when the tailgate opened and two of his cows fell out of the trailer at 60 mph on Highway 2 the day before. They had somehow survived and wandered off. He was searching for the runaway fugitive cows when he stepped on something he thought was a fallen branch, only to see the long, thin, bare legs of Russell's face-down body. "It was so covered with grass, it had been there for a long time. The grass was wilting and the leaves were off all the trees and had fallen on his body," Haberstroh recalled.

Bill Turcotte asked to meet with Haberstroh and his wife in Devil's Lake in 2003. He bought them dinner and they talked. "We gave him a blanket, which is our way," Russell's mother said. "Because we felt he was sent there for a reason, to find him and help us bring him home."

Haberstroh said he knows a little of what the Turcotte family is going through. "We lost a daughter, Gretchen, in a car accident in 1995 when she was 15," he said. "I feel good that I was there and could help the family."

Russell was found dead only 12 days after what would have been his 20th birthday.

Darby Parsons, a young woman who met Russell at the Michigan gathering and who had stayed with him and other friends in Fargo the night before he hitched a ride to Grand Forks, stopped in Wolf Point to visit Russell's mother and give her support. Darby grew up in Larimore, N.D., and still attends rainbow gatherings. "She is a very nice young lady who has a big heart," Linda said. "As far as we know, she was the last person who was ultimately very kind to him. And with the violent way in which he died, you have to hold onto things like that."

His body was partially decomposed and the Ramsey County coroner stated his body may have been lying in that spot since late July or early August. Russell's father Bill had quit his carpentry job to search for him.

Early on, the family pressed authorities about the case, while organizing searches themselves. In 2005, his mom Linda testified before a legislative committee in Bismarck on a bill to improve cooperation between local, state and federal agencies in solving crimes. Not so much anymore. Now Linda is banking on God leading someone to come forward with answers, not on law enforcement to crack the case. "I went through a period of being angry at God the Creator for not watching out for him more," she said. "But I guess it just brought it full circle to me - that in a sense, He was there in another way. Yes, he wasn't there to save him from death, but maybe He saved him by being there with him at the time of his death and taking him over, so he wouldn't be alone. I choose now to put this in God's hands."

"They told me they found his body," Russell's father Bill said. "When they found his body, I attributed it to a spiritual leader of ours from Canada who is a shapeshifter. I believe he sent his spirit out to find my son, and he told me he would. I've always believed in our traditional ways. I'm a Native man, I always have been, and I embrace these ways. I really believe that's what saved me." But for Bill, it will never remove the pain of knowing his son is dead. "It still hurts," he added, in tears. "I'm even emotional now. But that's where we're at."

As of 2024, this case remains unsolved. There is a money reward if any information is disclosed that could leader to his killer.

[alohapromisesforever]

Thought For the Day: Things Which Do Not Grow and Change Are Dead Things

“Things which do not grow and change are dead things.” –  Louise Erdrich, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota

[scvpubliclib]

New story on NPR: Denise Lajimodiere is named North Dakota's first Native American poet laureate https://ift.tt/HVl1P3L

[alexiilev02]

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[profeminist]

“my tribe just became the first tribe in ND to legalize same sex marriage and i’m -”   

- jaycee jo

Turtle Mountain tribe passes marriage equality vote

“BELCOURT, N.D. – The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa tribal council voted Thursday to amend the tribe’s code to effectively broaden the definition of marriage.

The vote changes the tribe’s definition of marriage from husband and wife to spouse.

Thursday morning, LGBTQ2+ advocacy groups marched in Belcourt ahead of the vote, in support of expanding the language to be inclusive of same-sex couples.

The vote will also allow unmarried tribal members to adopt”.

[tlbodine]

Native American Authors of Dark Fiction

Since my Black Horror Writers post was so well-received, I thought it would be a good idea to make a similar list for Native American authors. No Sherman Alexie or N. Scott Momaday here (although they’re good too) -- here are some contemporary authors you probably haven’t heard of but who you should totally be supporting. The list is a bit of a mix of horror, sci-fi, fantasy and contemporary fiction, but I’ve focused as usual on darkly imaginative stories. Enjoy! 

Stephen Graham Jones A Blackfeet author of horror and crime fiction, SGJ is both prolific -- with more than 20 books to his name -- and magnificently talented. You might want to start with Mongrels, which gives a fresh spin on the werewolf genre, or you can skip ahead to this year's release The Only Good Indians -- a heart-pounding supernatural thriller with a classic slasher pace.

Owl Goingback An author of horror and crime fiction for adults and children, Goingback specializes in stories that are high-horror, low-gore. Start at the beginning with Crota, which won a Stoker for "Best First Novel," or jump to the present with the Stoker-award-winning "Coyote Rage."

Cynthia Leitich Smith Writing for children and young adults, Smith is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. If you like urban fantasy, you'll probably enjoy her Tantalize and Feral series, which give you all the shapeshifter/vampire/angel goodness you could ask for. If you'd rather go for something more classically Native, try Rain Is Not My Indian Name, a contemporary coming-of-age type novel.

Cherie Dimaline A Métis writer and activist hailing from Canada, Dimaline considers herself first and foremost a writer of Indigenous stories. Her books aren't shy about exploring themes of colonialism and genocide -- consider The Marrow Thieves, a dark dystopia about Indigenous people who are hunted and harvested for the properties of their bones. Or you might enjoy Empire of Wild, which draws on the Métis story of the Rogarou - a werewolf-like creature with a rich folklore history tracing through the mixed heritage of the Métis people.

Waubgeshig Rice An Anishinaabe writer from the Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario, Rice is a journalist and author of dark fiction. Start with Moon of the Crusted Snow, which is a brooding post-apocalyptic thriller set in Canada.

Rebecca Roanhorse OK, Roanhorse is kind of a controversial listing here. Some critics take issue with the way she portrays fictionalized, fantastical reimaginings of traditional mythology from a culture she is not intimately part of (she married a Navajo man and claims some Ohkay Owingeh ancestry but there's some dispute about that). But a lot of people (especially young readers) think her books are badass and really give a face to their experiences. I'll leave it up to you to decide. You'll probably want to start with Race to the Sun, which is this year's novel, but Trail of Lightning and Black Sun are much-loved fan favorites, too. If you'd rather just enjoy her writing without venturing into the argument about her use of cultural elements, she also writes Star Wars books.

Darcie Little Badger A scientist and author from the Lipan Apache tribe, Little Badger is a member of the Indigenous Futurism movement, imagining Native characters in sci-fi settings that honor historical and cultural perpsectives. She's also noteworthy for her LGBT+ inclusion. She's mostly known for short fiction and comic books, but she does have a novel this year -- Elatsoe, set in an alternate version of America filled with ghosts and magic.

Tommy Orange A member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Nations of Oklahoma, Orange is a pretty new name on the scene. His book There There is more literary, having been a Pulitzer finalist in 2019, so you might not be as into it if you're primarily a genre reader. But it's a hard-hitting contemporary narrative twisting together multiple stories, and a downright ambitious debut. Keep an eye on this one.

Daniel Wilson A robotics engineer and New York Times best-selling author, Wilson is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. He writes Asimov-style hard sci-fi about robots, which he's more than a little qualified to do! Start with Robopocalypse, which is an action-packed horror-scifi romp.

Drew Hayden Taylor A Canadian playright and author with Ojibwe heritage, Taylor likes to joke about his mixed-race background. His writing covers a whole spectrum from plays, short stories and even graphic novels. If you're looking for a book, The Night Wanderer is a good choice -- a vampire Gothic set on a reservation.

Louise Erdrich A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Erdrich is widely acclaimed as an author in the Native American Renaissance. Like Tommy Orange, her books are more on the literary side of things, but there's plenty to enjoy for genre fans as well. For my money, I say start with Future Home of the Living God, which is a dark dystopian apocalypse about evolution running backwards and a woman struggling to keep her baby safe.

As always, reblog with your recommendations and suggestions for any names I left off the list! 

[dovebuffy92]

Reservation Dogs Season 1 Episode 5 ” Come and Get Your Love” Review

Cheese (Lane Factor) goes on a ride-along with Officer Big (Zahn McClarnon).

Spoilers Below

In Reservation Dogs Season One Episode Five,” Come and Get Your Love,” directed by Blackhorse Lowe, Officer Big and Cheese spend the day chasing a thief scaring people by placing copper “little men” sculptures on their porches. Episode five is named after the funk-rock band Redbone’s hit song “Come and Get Your Love.” Big only listens to Redbone in his patrol car because all band members are part Native American. The stars of the band Pat and Polly Vegas are of Yaqui, Shoshone, and Mexican heritage. The other two members are Yaqui, Cheyenne, Turtle Mountain Chippewa, or Siletz. ” Come and Get Your Love” epitomizes how Officer Big sees the world through Native American folklore, which allows him to discern the good guys from the bad ones.

Big’s childhood memories reveal a feminist Deer Lady who brings rotten men to justice. In the pilot ” F*ckin’ Rez Dogs,” Big mentions how Fixico saw the Deer Lady wandering around the village. The writers finally reveal how Big knows so much about the Deer Lady. The Deer Lady legend is a childhood story in the Cherokee, Seminole, Muscogee, and the Pawnee tribes. She can be benign but also lures promiscuous men to their deaths. The Deer Lady usually takes the form of a beautiful woman or deer. In Reservation Dogs, the Deer Lady (Kaniehtioo Horn) is a beautiful woman wearing an aviator jacket, beaded earrings, and bell-bottom jeans that hide her deer legs. She grew up with Big’s grandmother. The Deer Lady acts as a vigilante, taking out bad guys and protecting little children like young Big. The Deer Lady violently kills two White robbers who knock out a cashier and threatens young Big’s life.  The camera never captures any of the killings, so don’t worry if you actively avoid violence on television.

At the beginning of the episode, the Deer Lady hitchhiking at the side of the road flips expectations rather than the rowdy man picking her up is the danger; instead, it’s the Native American woman who should be feared. The first scene opens with a car speeding down the highway. An intertitle declares, ” Okern, Oklahoma 1984.” A young cowboy named Bunnie Tiger sings along with Allman Brother’s song “Midnight Rider,” blaring from the radio. Bunnie almost flies past a young woman hitchhiking but, taken by her beauty, quickly turns the car around. The two young people flirt. Hitchhiker persuades Bunnie to drive her all the way to Carnegie. She grips a deer antler weapon behind her purse. There is a  close-up of the young woman’s hoofs as she climbs into the car, revealing that she is the Deer Lad.  When Bunnie drives off, young Big watches in shock. Later in the episode, young Big walks over to the convenience store. He passes a missing person poster featuring Bunnie Tiger in front of his car. We deduce the Deer Lady killed him. I found it shocking because while Bunnie is somewhat of an asshole, he doesn’t deserve to die.

In the first few episodes, Big appears to be a goofy superstitious police officer who doesn’t take his job seriously. Now it’s clear that He is a compassionate public servant. He takes Cheese under his wing. The officer even takes Cheese’s advice to speak with Kenny Boy, the owner of a salvage yard, about the weird copper sculptures. Even though it’s questionable that Officer Big spends time tracking the Big Foot spirit, he still earns the respect of the village residents.

Big “chases” a stolen blue truck at a snail’s pace. The driver is his cousin Bucky who’s wearing a copper crown.  Bucky has been placing the sculptures all over town in a truck he “borrowed.” Copper protects people from diseases like cholera. Native Americans used to wear copper jewelry to ward off evil spirits and sickness. The little people sculptures are a marketing scheme for Bucky’s new copper bracelet business. He hopes the others in the community will pay twelve dollars for the bracelets. Bucky stole the copper from meth heads, but Big lets him go, warning him to stop freaking people out with the sculptures. Big only punishes the drug dealers who hurt the community, not decent people like Bucky, who cares about indigenous youths like Cheese. The Deer Lady taught Big about what it means to be one of the good ones. The indigenous women are the positive influencers in the community.

During a flashback, the Deer Lady speaks to young Big about living a good life. Their conversation inspired him to become a Lighthorseman, a.k.a. police officer. Young Big thinks that the Deer Lady kills all boys, but she corrects him. She only kills evil men like the robbers at the convenience store. The Deer Lady instructs young Big remain a decent person. She warns the boy not to fall into the trap of alcoholism or become a deadbeat father. The Deer Lady wants Young Big to imagine his grandmother is always with him to inspire him to fight evil. As long as he remains a good person, he won’t see the avenging spirit again. We are left the impression that Big has always been a decent man and will continue to be so.

Check out FX’s Reservation Dogs Season One on Hulu!

[uwmspeccoll]

SUNDAY FUNDAY: NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH

November is Native American Heritage Month, so for this Sunday Funday we are sharing the Minnesota Best Read of the Year Book for 2010, an Ojibwe-language (Anishinaabemowen) children’s book called Awesiinyensag: Dibaajimowinan Ji-Gikinoo’amaageng. It contains eight stories by twelve different authors working together or separately on each tale. It is illustrated throughout by artist and language specialist for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission Wesley Ballinger (Mille Lacs Band, Ojibwe). 

The book was published by Wiigwaas Press, an Ojibwe-language press started by literary sisters Heid and Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band, Chippewa), as part of the Birchbark House nonprofit started by the Erdrich’s in 2008. The stories were compiled by Anton Treuer (Leech Lake Band, Ojibwe), who is a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, and in 2010 it became the first book published by Wiigwaas Press. The several authors in this collection are elders and storytellers who Treuer consulted to create stories with familiar characters, ones kids would recognize from stories in their homes. Treuer states that he first got the idea for the stories from a discussion with elder Nancy Jones (Nigigoonsiminikaaning First Nation, Ojibwe), who is top-listed among the participating authors.

The book production was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities We the People Grant. It is part of our Native American Literature Collection.

See other Native American Heritage Month Posts

See other Sunday Funday posts

  -Claire, Special Collections Graduate Student Intern