Indigenous Governance Database
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What Is Indigenous Self-Determination and When Does it Apply?
Self-determination is an expression often used in discussion of indigenous goals. However, the meaning of self-determination varies among Indigenous Peoples, scholars, international documents, and nation states. The most common meaning of self-determination suggests that peoples with common…
Muscogee (Creek) Nation Launches App to Help Preserve Language
In an effort to preserve the Muscogee (Creek) Nation language, the nation has developed a mobile app as a way for citizens to learn the language more easily. The Mvskoke (the traditional spelling of Muscogee) Language App is available free in the Apple store for iPhones and iPads, as well the…
Meeting Economic Development Challenge in Indian Country
Native American communities have taken great strides in developing their economies and raising the quality of life on tribal lands. However, as President Obama noted during his historic visit to Indian country in June, there are still wide disparities between Native Americans and the overall U.S.…
BIA Head Kevin Washburn Speaks to ICTMN About Bay Mills and the Need to Resolve Water Rights
Interior Secretary — Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn was in New York City in September as the historic Peoples’ Climate March and the United Nations General Assembly opened its 69th regular session with the first World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, where he added to our excitement here at…
BIA Head Kevin Washburn Speaks to ICTMN About NCAI, Federal Recognition and More
ICTMN's panel consisted of Ray Halbritter, Publisher; Gale Courey Toensing, staff reporter as moderator; Ray Cook, Opinions Editor; Valerie Taliman, West Coast Editor; and Simon Moya-Smith, Correspondent. All participants asked questions at various points in the conversation (photographer Cliff…
Muscogee (Creek) Nation Creates Conservation District With USDA
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation, working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), has established a conservation district, the two entities announced on November 19...
Oglala Sioux Tribe to issue IDs at tournament
For the first time in its history the Oglala Sioux Tribe will bring its enrollment office to the public. During this year’s Lakota Nation Invitational in Rapid City the tribe will have a booth set up to issue tribal IDs to enrolled members who may not have the opportunity to travel to Pine Ridge…
The Complex Relationships Between Nations States and Indigenous Nations
Contemporary indigenous nations are captured by a host nation state. The way in which the nation state legally, politically, and culturally defines and acts toward indigenous nations greatly affects the opportunities indigenous nations have for securing political autonomy, territory, and cultural…
Indigenous Youth Help USFWS Restore Fish Passage on Cochiti Pueblo
Ask a group of teenagers their idea of fun and you might get answers like hanging out with friends, dodging opponents during a game of laser tag or playing their favorite video games. But for a group of Native American youth from several of New Mexico’s pueblos, fun meant working outside on a warm…
Island First Nation grasps potential of alternative power
While oil pipeline debates, anti-fracking protests and increasing fossil fuel demands embroil the country from coast to coast, a small Vancouver Island First Nation is leading the way on a different path. In the past five years, the seaside T’Sou-ke nation has become a world-renowned leader in…
Ralph Lauren's Racist Ads
So Ralph Lauren, the serial cultural appropriator of all things Native American, is in trouble once again. Lauren has given offense to Native Americans before with his inappropriate uses of war bonnets and eagle feathers. There was also that time he appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show, showing off…
Navajo Hotel Owners Open a Retreat in Monument Valley
It’s all about the mystical view. That is, the view of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, on the northern outskirts of the Navajo Nation. For the past several years, visitors have had an opportunity to wake up to the soothing rays of the sun overlooking towering chestnut-colored rock formations at…
Disenrollment Is a Tool of the Colonizers
Our elders and spiritual leaders do not teach the practice of disenrollment. In fact, disenrollment is a wholly non-Indian construct. Indeed, when I recently asked Eric Bernando, a Grand Ronde descendant of his tribe’s Treaty Chief and fluent Chinook Wawa speaker, if there was a Chinook Wawa word…
People Belong to the Land; Land Doesn't Belong to the People
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) does not recognize the right of indigenous nations to own land outside the laws and rules of national governments. According to international historical doctrines of discovery, Indigenous Peoples, non-Christian nations,…
Osage Nation to receive $7.4 million in Cobell Land Buy-Back program
The Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations has come to the Osage and the federal government is proposing $7.4 million to buy back fractionated land interest from individual tribal members. According to tribal development and land acquisition director Bruce Cass, who is working with Osage attorney…
Tribal General Welfare Exclusion Act Signed into Law by Obama
On Friday, September 26, 2014, President Barack Obama signed H.R.3043, the "Tribal General Welfare Exclusion Act of 2014," into law. The law puts tribes on the same level as states and the federal government when it comes to taxation of general welfare programs. Specifically, H.R. 3043 excludes…
The Unintended Consequences of Disenrollment
For most of the modern tribal self-determination era, American Indian nations have emphasized inclusion. Starting in the early 1970s, higher tribal membership numbers equated to higher federal self-determination dollars. As tribes otherwise redoubled their efforts to reverse the destruction caused…
Idle No More: Decolonizing Water, Food and Natural Resources With TEK
Watersheds and Indigenous Peoples know no borders. Canada’s watershed management affects America’s watersheds, and vice versa. As Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper launches significant First Nations termination contrivance he negotiates legitimizing Canada’s settler colonialism under the guise…
Revitalizing a Traditional Seed to Revitalize Osage Culture
Vann Bighorse, director of the Wah-Zha-Zhi Cultural Center in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, is keenly aware that Osage traditions are getting closer to slipping away–permanently. A current project to preserve Osage culture and revive a millennia old tradition is now three years in the making. The Cultural…
Food Sovereignty: How Osage People Will Grow Fresh Foods Locally
Growing fresh and local foods for Osage people is now a revived approach to food sovereignty for the Osage Nation so efforts to find the most successful methods are being looked into by leadership and community members. On Feb. 7, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture along with the Oklahoma State…