Read the entire article from Cultural Survival

This installment of video-photo essays by Syracuse Post-Standard photographer John Barry explores the winter traditions of the Onondaga nation.

Iroquois people are no strangers to winter weather – their upstate New York homeland gets more than its share of frigid temperatures and snowfall.

Below: Throwing snow snakes and mud cats is a favorite traditional winter sport for Iroquois guys.

Togetherness and thankfulness are the cornerstones of traditional Iroquois culture. The coldest part of the year marks the time of the Iroquois midwinter ceremonies, held in the community longhouse.

Schoolkids make visits to senior citizens to help with chores and errands and share stories, bonding the two pillars of Iroquois society: the children and the elders.

A symbolic circle of pine trees at a counseling center. Members of the community struggling with substance abuse gather for support and healing.

Syracuse Post-Standard: People of the Hills – Winter

Watch Reel Injun – Trailer on PBS. See more from INDEPENDENT LENS.

A film about the modern-day Wampanoag people and the resurrection of the Wampanoag language. Members talk about living with their nation’s past and dealing with their popular image as “the Thanksgiving Indians” or “the Pilgrim’s Indians.”

You can watch the complete episode online through Thanksgiving (Thursday the 24th) at PBS Video.

(See also: We Shall Remain: After the Mayflower)

From the same author that brought us 1491: New Revelations About the Americas Before Columbus and numerous excellent essays and articles comes this very interesting piece on one of Native America’s most important staple crops.

This time of year, with Thanksgiving just around the corner, foodstuffs with deep connections to Native culture come to the forefront of popular culture: turkey, pumpkin, cranberry, just to name a few. There’s an aura of bounty and nostalgia around the foods that hallmark the holiday, as if the lingering memory of the land’s plenty as first experienced by early colonists has been passed down along with its ever-evolving traditions and legends.

Most people aren’t aware that their Thanksgiving turkey was first savored by the Aztecs, or their steaming bowl of mashed potatoes is an Andean specialty – or for that matter, that their European, African, or Asian ancestors would have been completely unaware of these dishes. Likewise, few know about the underlying circumstances that made the introduction of these foods possible for the rest of the world. But there’s a subconscious cultural connection that still links them – however vaguely – with their Native source.

Maybe it’s the grade school story of Squanto befriending the Pilgrims, teaching them how to plant maize – recounted again and again, and plastered all around us in countless cartoons and caricature – that gives the modern Thanksgiving its ostensible “Indian” savor, and makes it a uniquely American holiday. But maybe there is more to be gleaned from today’s Thanksgiving rituals about the intertwining of cultures that forms the roots of both the holiday and the country.

Food for Thought: Little-Known Facts About American Indian Innovations

National Geographic News – 16 Indian Innovations: From Popcorn to Parkas

“Celebrating an Indian Summer” by Richard B Williams The importance of the material contributions from Native cultures

Countdown: 10 Things About Thanksgiving A series about the foods, traditions, and legends of this distinctly “Native” holiday

Charles C Mann, “Native Intelligence” from the Smithsonian Magazine – a background study of the events and people of the mythical Thanksgiving

Above: “Father Prays”

Terpning is one of the outstanding and preeminent artists of Western and Native American culture. His style is recognizably masterful and effortless – a true gift to art, accounting for the almost endless list of awards and recognitions he has received over the years.

Terpning was born and raised in the Midwest. He pursued art early on but did not study professionally until returning from military service. He worked as an apprentice illustrator and eventually became a freelance artist, illustrating for major publications like Time Magazine & Reader’s Digest, and producing iconic movie posters.

Left: One of my favorites – “Three Generations”

In the 70′s he decided to pursue a passion for Western history & culture that was sparked during his early travels in the West. The depiction of Plains Indian life, and the culture of the West, has become the real signature of his work, making him one of today’s most collected Western artists. It is remarkable to have such a legend still among us. Happy birthday Howard!

Wikipedia: Howard Terpning

Howard Terpning Western Art at the Greenwich Workshop

Portfolio Slideshow – Nearly a hundred of Terpning’s best-known pieces

According to the National Weather Service,

“…The most popular belief of Indian Summer is as follows…It is an abnormally warm and dry weather period, varying in length, that comes in the autumn time of the year, usually in October or November, and only after the first killing frost/freeze. There may be several occurrences of Indian Summer in a fall season or none at all…”

The article goes on to describe many popular and scientific theories about the origin of the expression:

“One explanation of the term “Indian Summer” might be that the early native Indians chose that time of year as their hunting season. This seems reasonable seeing the fall months are still considered the main hunting season for several animals. Also, the mild and hazy weather encourages the animals out, and the haziness of the air gives the hunter the advantage to sneak up on its prey without being detected. Taking this idea one step further, Indians at that time were known to have set fires to prairie grass, underbrush and woods to accentuate the hazy, smokey conditions. But Albert Matthews pointed out that the Indians also did this at other times of the year.

Other possibilities include; the Indians made use of the dry, hazy weather to attack the whites before the hard winter set in; that this was the season of the Indian harvest; or, that the predominant southwest winds that accompanied the Indian Summer period were regarded by the Indians as a favor or “blessing” from a “god” in the desert Southwest. Another idea, of a more prejudicial origin, was that possibly the earliest English immigrants equated Indian Summer to “fools” Summer, given the reliability of the resulting weather. Finally, another hypothesis, not at all in the American Indian “camp” of theories, was put forward by an author by the name of H. E. Ware, who noted that ships at that time traversing the Indian Ocean loaded up their cargo the most during the “Indian Summer”, or fair weather season. Several ships actually had an “I.S.” on their hull at the load level thought safe during the Indian Summer.”

(From JUST WHAT IS INDIAN SUMMER AND DID INDIANS REALLY HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT? by William R. Deedler)

But there’s another side to this coin: if there was such a thing as an “Indian summer” among Indians, that begs the question – what do they have to say about its origins?

The following article was first published in the Denver Post, 2001 (thanks to NativeVillage.com for the text.)

Celebrating an Indian Summer
(Richard B Williams, President, American Indian College Fund)

“Lately we have heard the phrase “Indian summer” used frequently to describe our stretch of good weather. Most of us are taking advantage of the warm weather rather than contemplating the etymology of the term “Indian summer.” However, a study of the phrase is an eye-opening look into our nation’s history. After years of asking elders and prominent Indian historians, I stumbled across an article written by a leading American Indian author from an Eastern tribe who explained the origins of “Indian summer.”

Early settlers who coined the term would see Indian farmers celebrating the blessing of being able to add a second and sometimes third harvest to their winter store following the first frost. The author described how the Indian farmers would give thanks to the creator for the warm days. As we celebrate our own recent warm weather, we must also recognize the contributions that these Indian farmers made to our overall well-being. American Indians were not only the first landowners in North America – they were also accomplished farmers whose agricultural aptitude would eventually transform the world.

Most Americans today do not know that American Indians owned the land upon which they farmed largely because the land-tenure system to the American Indian was vastly different than what the European colonists knew and would later institute in North America. The Indian farmer owned the land as long as it was occupied. When land was abandoned, anyone could claim the land as long as the new owner farmed it.

Because the farmed land did not look like the parceled-out sections of Europe when settlers arrived, they mistook the symbiotic, ecologically friendly farming style used by Indians as meaning the land was not owned.

According to Jack Weatherford’s book titled “Indian Givers; How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World,” American Indians cultivated more than 300 food crops with dozens of variations that improved the world’s diet both in quantity and quality of foods.

As testimony to the skill and knowledge of Native farmers, three-fifths of the world’s crops in cultivation today originated from the ingenious farmers who were successfully growing crops in varied soils and climates throughout the Americas.

The Native farmers’ agricultural proficiency and understanding of the need to farm in harmony with the land is reflected in “Three Sisters,” a traditional horticultural technique of planting corn, squash and beans together.

The Three Sisters are inseparable because each crop benefits the growth of the other two crops in a limited space. The growing corn provides a pole for the bean plant to climb and needed shade for the squash that covers the ground to provide even moisture and reduce weed growth.

Through agricultural experimentation, Native farmers employed highly developed agricultural methods and introduced nutritious crops to the world that included corn, new grains, wild rice, tomatoes, chilies, sunflowers, numerous bean and pepper varieties and potatoes.

Ironically, the introduction of high-yield crops such as the potato and a more nutritious diet helped spawn a population explosion in Europe that heralded the colonization of the Americas. The eventual displacement of Indian people from their traditional farming lands would encourage the eradication of Indian civilizations.

Some 7,000 years before the first Thanksgiving, farming was an integral part of the culture and economy of indigenous people in the Americas. By introducing new agricultural principles, foods and improved cultivation techniques, the American Indian farmer made an immeasurable contribution to the world. This is indeed a blessing we should all celebrate during this Indian summer.”

See also: Food for Thought: Little-Known Facts About American Indian Innovations

Ski resorts using recycled sewage to produce artificial snow is not new – especially in water-poor regions. But in the San Francisco peaks outside Flagstaff, Arizona, the prospect of introducing this alternative has spawned a legal battle with the Hopi who are taking the issue to court.

To the owners of the Snowbowl resort, and the surrounding communities, the lack of water to produce artificial snow has a direct impact on the bottom line. To the Hopi Indians who have tended the land for millennia, the sacred mountains are a bulwark of refuge and purity – and blanketing them with recycled refuse for a purely commercial enterprise is not an option.

So far, the Forest Service has already approved the expansion of the resort into the surrounding wilderness reserve, and it remains to be seen if the Hopi can appeal the water issue on the grounds of environmental violations, since processed waste water contains trace pharmaceuticals and other chemical substances that would be introduced into the local environment.

The variance between indigenous and modern Western viewpoints about land runs deep, and battles like this are just a small manifestation of the chasm that has always divided them. Because the indigenous approach to decision-making in issues that affect their people is so fundamentally different, it’s hard for those living in the mainstream outside tribal society to understand why the Hopi can fight this kind of issue with the same rigor that they would oppose, for instance, the dumping of nuclear waste. What many may see as a backward, stubborn adherence to tradition is a demonstration of an ancient way of thinking that is driven by profound respect for land and resources and a careful consideration of both the principles of the past and the rights of future generations.

The resort argues that the use of non-potable water for their purposes is in the end more efficient and environmentally friendly, since they would not be diverting valuable fresh water from elsewhere. But without taking sides in the argument, it’s hard not to observe the irony of the situation:

1. that an argument over water for a resort exists at all, when every day so many people around the world die of thirst;
2. that the very fact that it has come down to using recycled sewage suggests that a polar playground in the middle of a desert is perhaps a ridiculously extravagant luxury.

Maybe, in our scientific day and age, truly nothing is sacred anymore. Maybe if the leisure industry did not have such a powerful pull in our over-indulged society, the scruples of the Hopi and others would have more meaning for the rest of us. And maybe the time will come when we are forced into having the same kind of respect for our resources that the ages have taught the Hopi.

The San Francisco Peaks (Hopi “Nuvatukya’ovi,” Navajo “Dookʼoʼoosłííd“)
Image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Mills (born 1938) was raised on the Pine Ridge reservation. He trained as an athlete from an early age, later garnering many awards and earning sports scholarships that put him through college. He became a cross-country track star before graduating and joining the US Marines.

His record and training qualified him to compete for both the 10,000 meter and marathon events in the ’64 Tokyo Olympics, where his 24:4:4 win in the 10k was one of the great upsets in the history of the games. He was inducted into the US Olympic Hall of Fame in 1984.

Today, Mills is the spokesperson for Running Strong, an outreach organization for Native youth.

Wikipedia: Billy Mills

Running Strong for American Indian Youth – Official Website

Image: “Catching up with Billy Mills,” Sports Illustrated

Recently I posted about research positing a link between peoples of the Na-Dene/Athabaskan family (e.g. Navajo, Apache, Tlingit) and Central Asian refugees of Genghis Khan’s conquests. The connection, based on physical, cultural & religious similarities and linguistic and genetic evidence, has been proposed for decades but is only now being verified by concrete evidence.

The implications of such a realization are staggering – but no more than those of other recent discoveries challenging our conceptions of the early Americas.

In time for Columbus Day this year I thought it would be appropriate to note a few of the major convulsions in the established historical record that highlight the fact that the “era of Columbus” is now over. It’s already firmly established that Columbus didn’t discover America; and the illusion that the Americas existed in a bubble of cultural isolation is being shattered with every new finding of global interchange. But beyond that, it’s time to observe this ideological regime change by questioning whether Columbus is really so important after all – and what that means in the context of America’s colonial and imperialist legacy.

1: Norse Colonies & the First Native American in Europe

The presence of Scandinavians in North America before Columbus is well-established. At present they lay title to being the first Europeans to set foot on American soil. But one of the major revelations of the past year was the evidence of the earliest Native Americans in a European country – not as chattel transported via the English and Spanish slave trades, or even as diplomatic attaches to European monarchs – but as part of the saga of Norse exploration along the Atlantic seaboard.

The ill-fated Norse colony of L’anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, dating to the 11th century, may have shared less than ideal relations with their Beothuk neighbors, according to extant records; but their association may have been closer than those records indicate. It remained for DNA science to reveal that many present-day Icelanders carry the genes of Newfoundland’s extinct indigenous populations, indicating that this Norse emigration was, at least on one occasion, a two-way street. This discovery marks a milestone in our understanding of early European involvement in North America and raises numerous questions about the nature and extent of the interaction between these groups.

2: Polynesian Trade with the Pacific Coast

There is a growing body of evidence that Polynesian sailors reached the Americas long before the 15th century, setting up an exchange that left clues on both sides of the Pacific. The Polynesians are an optimal candidate in the search for pre-Columbian contact, because they had both the technology and the motive to reach the Americas.

The prime evidence:

• Chickens – Ancient remains of chickens found on the coast of Chile predate the arrival of domesticated breeds introduced by European colonists. There were no chickens indigenous to the Americas; they are native to southeast Asia where they were first domesticated and later brought as far east as the Pacific islands. Obviously their presence in Chile could not be explained as a simple case of migratory spread. The carbon dating of the chicken bones gave them a tentative age of 600 years, right around the peak of the Polynesian’s Pacific expansion.

(National Geographic: Polynesians – And Their Chickens – Arrived in Americas Before Columbus)

• Sweet potatoes – As part of the Columbian Exchange, many of the New World’s important native foodcrops – including maize, potatoes, and cacao – were transported to Europe, Asia, and Africa where they became fundamental commodities. One of these crops, the sweet potato, has been cultivated for more than 5,000 years by peoples in Central and South America, where it first originated. Apart from direct human introduction, it is difficult to account for sweet potato cultivation by the Polynesians dating back more than a millennia. (Sweet potatoes propagate through tubers or plant cuttings, not by seeds that can be windblown or spread by birds.) It is even more difficult to explain how they came to be called by almost identical names in both regions.

There are even deeper connections on the horizon. Many researchers point to linguistic similarities and parallels in artifacts found in the Polynesia Pacific (including Easter Island) and in America’s Pacific coast cultures. Such suggestions of an information and technology exchange may be circumstantial at best. But there is considerable support rising from other fronts, not the least of which is recent DNA research confirming the exchange of much more than just trade goods.

3: Tibetan origins of Athabaskans

Historians and scientists have long understood that the genetic origins of most Native Americans lie in Central Asia, where they lived before crossing into the Americas sometime during the last Ice Age, and where their nearest living relatives can be found today. There are already observable parallels in language and culture that demonstrate this link. But in the case of the Athabaskan peoples (a linguistic group encompassing an extended range from Alaska to the Southwest) a much later entrance onto the historical stage supports a more recent connection.

The spread of Athabaskans – in particular the Navajo and Apache – is documented by archaeology and by the ancient records of Pueblo peoples who witnessed their arrival to the region around 1400. They were originally warlike migratory peoples seen by others as outsiders – and while this alone does not prove a recent origin beyond the Americas, the striking congruities between Athabaskan and Yeniseian languages pose important questions first asked by scholars as early as the 1800s. Why would one ethnic branch of Native Americans have such a well-preserved connection to an ancestral Asian tongue?

The research into this area has since evolved far beyond linguistic analysis to include technologies such as modern genetics and physical anthropology which further corroborate the recent timeline, and have helped to hone in on a more exact point of origin. The evidence points towards a conglomerate of Central Asian peoples in what is today Tibet who absconded from the region under the scourge of Genghis Khan’s Mongol invasions in the 13th century. The examination of Native oral accounts describing an exodus from a dangerous world, and an exhaustive comparison of ceremonial/ritual practices all bear this out in astonishing clarity. It’s pointless for me to describe the issue in further detail when it has been so deftly laid out in this well-annotated academic paper:

Relatives Halfway Round the World: Southern Athabaskans and Southern Tarim Fugitives

While controversial, these are three examples of scenarios that are rapidly gaining credence within the academic community and among Native leaders and scholars eager to re-examine their respective cultures’ roles on the broader stage of global history. It is interesting that these studies are so unfamiliar to the general public, and are rarely or never mentioned among the ranks of “fringe theories” about seafaring Egyptians, wandering Celts, marauding Templars or even Atlanteans. And it is also hard to believe that old misconceptions about the exploration of the Americas should die so hard in the face of so much information, when the reality is potentially much more incredible than we could have imagined.

These theories raise provocative questions about both Native and non-Native perceptions of Indian identity, and about of the role of colonialism in shaping the history of the Americas. If they were not always isolated, as previously thought, and carried on as lively and extensive an interchange with other cultures as new evidence leads us to believe, then was the high cost of European settlement – and the subsequent cultural dominance it has always taken for granted – really so inevitable? What transpired in these other contacts that set them so much apart – or in what ways were they more similar than we suppose? As time is quick to remind us, history is not always clearly in black and white.

What an irony that in the wake of a massive cultural genocide, where lost lifeways and endangered languages define much of the discussion of America’s indigenous peoples, we are on the threshold of such breakthroughs unveiling the staggering complexity of America’s culturally dynamic past. Of course it is hardly necessary to add to the topic by mentioning the continuous stream of new discoveries steadily demolishing the old view of pre-Columbian America at every turn. These paint a new landscape of astonishingly complex and advanced infrastructures, economies, and methods of land management: the point being that today’s Native Americans don’t need the establishment of these discoveries as a device to reinvent their modern identity or to legitimize their past. At present, the prospect of a profound interchange of shared knowledge and experience with other cultures – beyond the confines of colonial exploitation – does more than enrich our understanding of history and challenge prevailing concepts of pre-colonial America. It offers the vision of a new gateway of communication between modern Native Americans and cultures beyond the borders of the Americas, many of whom have far more in common than the shared experience of a colonial past.

Bottom line: the native peoples of the New World are not a subcategory of American or Western culture – a relic, frozen in time, leftover from the story of European colonialism. They are, as they have always been, a living part of the spectrum of the human family. It could never be said that it was Columbus who played the role of introducing the Americas to the world. If we can take away anything new from this Columbus Day, perhaps it should be that there’s no longer any reason to continue seeing America from the point of view of Columbus. It’s about time we can all start looking at our world from a wider, more complete perspective.

References:

• Weatherford, Jack: “Reexamining the Reputation of Columbus” (Baltimore Evening Sun, Oct. 1989)

• Wilson, Joseph: “Relatives Halfway Round the World: Southern Athabaskans and Southern Tarim Fugitives” LIMINA University of Western Australia (PDF)

• National Geographic: “Native Americans Sailed to Europe With Vikings?” (Nov 23, 2010)

• Ebenesersdottir, et al: “A new subclade of mtDNA haplogroup C1 found in icelanders: Evidence of pre-columbian contact?” American Journal of Physical Anthropology (November 10, 2010)

• Inman, Mason: “Polynesians — And Their Chickens — Arrived in Americas Before Columbus” (June 4, 2007) National Geographic News

• Montenegro, Alvaro, et al: “Modeling the Prehistoric Arrival of the Sweet Potato in Polynesia” (April 2, 2007) – Journal of Archaeological Science (PDF)

• Lebot, Vincent: Tropical root and tuber crops: cassava, sweet potato, yams and aroids (CABI, 2008) p. 94

• Thorsby, et al: “Further evidence of an Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool on Easter Island” Tissue Antigens, Immune Response Genetics (March 16, 2009)

She was born in 1871 and grew up during a time of great turmoil and upheaval for Native people. She attended the Hampton Institute, one of the era’s famous Indian boarding schools, where like many other Indian children she faced the twin hardships of separation from family and the systematic indoctrination of a deeply racist policy.

Her remarkable academic and artistic achievements earned her a ticket to advanced art training in Philadelphia and Boston under some of the country’s most renowned instructors. She absorbed multiple styles and incorporated them into a unique illustrating signature.

Right: Illustration from the book “The Middle Five” (Image: AngelDeCora.com)

Angel was reluctant to part with her heritage and stood out by making her skills a catalyst for expressing her people’s culture and experience in a modern context. By being such a “media maverick” she defied common stereotypes about Indians (and about women) and became a trend-setter in the field of Native American art. She was a conundrum to a public eager to categorize Indians into two classes: the backward, recalcitrant outsiders who needed to be assimilated into white society, or the romanticized “children of nature,” the noble savages of a lost age.

She illustrated her own stories as well as books by Zitkala Sa and Elaine Goodale Eastman. Her husband William ‘Lone Star’ Dietz, a Hampton alumnus, was also an artist and together they collaborated on many projects.

Some of her most important contributions were made during her appointment as an art teacher at the Carlisle Indian School, where she often pushed the boundaries of traditional teaching methods, using art to help her students rediscover rather than suppress their roots.

Left: DeCora and her husband William Dietz (Image: AngelDeCora.com)

She acted as a kind of cultural liaison with several government agencies and was constantly bombarded by the prejudice and incompetence of the cumbersome bureaucracy. She often traveled to Indian communities throughout the Midwest gathering ethnographic information, not only to reinforce her teaching skills but to contribute to a permanent artistic record of Indian cultures. In this role she was a major force in bringing Native arts and crafts into the public spotlight.

She died in 1919 at the age of 47. Few of her original works survive, but reproductions in books and magazines such as the popular Harper’s offer a rich glimpse of her versatile techniques, from the intricate realist detail of her early pieces, to the strong tonal style of her late works.

Left: Illustration from the novel “Yellow Star” (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Angel DeCora: American Artist and Educator – Sarah McAnulty (a very good biography of DeCora)

Wikipedia: Angel de Cora

See the whole feature on the Indian Country Today site:

The Indomitable Language: How the Cherokee Language Went from Parchment to iPad

The Walking Purchase Treaty – part of what may well be the most bizarre land-grab scheme in history – was based on a deed dating to the 1680′s. Supposedly signed by the Lenape Indians and Pennsylvania’s Quaker founders, it granted the colonists a parcel of land ambiguously measured from the Delaware-Lehigh river junction as far west as a man could travel on foot in a day and a half.

It is not clear whether this deed even existed, and Pennsylvania’s colonial government suddenly decided to collect – or whether it was just another fraudulent pretext for a land grab. Anyway it is a twisted irony of history that the very sons of William Penn, who was such a conscientious ally of the Lenape, should use their standing to such rapacious advantage.

Fully intending to honor their ancestors’ agreement, several Lenape chiefs met in Philadelphia in September to sign a treaty confirming the cession, including Lapowinsa (also Lappawinsoe) and Tishcohan. But the true face of the deal became apparent when the governor of Pennsylvania authorized settlers to clear a road for three hired runners to perform the role of the proverbial “man on foot” for the official survey.

The 36-hour dash undertaken by the runners was so intense that only one finished the course; but the 70 miles he covered created boundaries that amassed over a million acres for the colony.

For the next two decades, Lenape representatives appealed the so-called “Walking Purchase Treaty,” but eventually were forced westward alongside an influx of other displaced peoples. In the 1830s, most Lenape were relocated to Oklahoma as part of the mass removals collectively known as the “Trail of Tears.”

Both Lapowinsa and Tishcohan were depicted by the Swedish painter Gustavus Hesselius around the time of the Walking Purchase Treaty. These early portraits are distinctive for their attentive detail, and almost personal manner. They are rare glimpses of the Native people of this period. (Click for larger view)

Image: ExplorePAHistory.com (Credit: Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia)

Read more:

The Walking Purchase – A really good blog post on the background of the Walking Treaty, the Lenape nation, and several significant figures of the period

The Delaware Walking Treaty – Philadelphia History

Wikipedia: Walking Purchase

Lenape archives at ExplorePAHistory.com

Delaware Nation Website

The striking similarities of appearance, language, culture & customs between the two peoples were just a backdrop for a rekindling of a very deep and very ancient connection.

On the other hand, it’s possible that their bond may be not quite so ancient: the topic is controversial, but linguistic and genetic evidence strongly suggests that the origins of the Athabaskan peoples (including the Navajo and Apache) may have more recent links with Central Asia.

Renowned Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. once said in an article entitled Indians, Archaeologists, and the Future,

“I personally feel that unless and until we are in some way connected with world history as early peoples, perhaps even as refugees from Old World turmoils and persecutions, we will never be accorded full humanity. We cannot be primitive peoples who were suddenly discovered half a millennium ago.”

Here is a scholarly publication from the University of Western Australia’s Anthropology department that gives a pretty detailed overview of the subject:

Relatives Halfway Round the World by Joseph Wilson

Can you tell which of the women below are Navajo and which are Tibetan?

According to her 1890 birth certificate, she is in line to become the longest-lived person in recorded history, passing up the current record holder Jeanne Calment (who died in 1997 at the age of 122). Cultural rights organization Survival International says that authorities have been able to vouch for the authenticity of her documents.

She is reportedly healthy and active, for a 121 year old – or for any age, by most standards – and credits her longevity to the traditional Amazonian diet of fresh produce, meat, and manioc.

SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL: Living the longest – indigenous Brazilian celebrates 121st birthday

Eddie Little Sky was born Edsel Wallace Little on the Pine Ridge Reservation (Oglala) in South Dakota. After serving in the Navy in the Pacific theater of World War II, he returned to civilian life as a rodeo and stunt rider, hoping a performance career would make him a living off the rez. When the impressed Audie Murphy watched one of his shows, he encouraged Little to audition for the screen.

Little Sky (as he later adopted for his screen name) became one of the first Indian actors to play Native roles on tv. Up until then Indians – even in leading roles – were played almost exclusively by white actors and very few Indians ever appeared on screen. His prolific filmography eventually included dozens of movies and almost every popular western series of the 50′s and 60′s – making him, if not a household name, at least a familiar face in homes across the country.

Today he is best remembered for his role as a Sioux chief in the major 1970 film “A Man Called Horse.”

His career was a significant milestone in the public portrayal of Native Americans. The presence of an Indian actor representing Indians on screen gave some authenticity to their overwhelmingly stereotyped persona. Along with other pioneers in the field, such as Jay Silverheels, he helped opened the door for other aspiring Native actors and actresses.

His wife Dawn, also Lakota, was an actress who occasionally appeared alongside him in films.

Eddie retired in the 1970′s and worked as a tribal parks & recreation administrator back at his home in South Dakota. He died in 1997.

Wikipedia: Eddie Little Sky

From the “People of the Hills” video essays by John Berry of the Syracuse Post-Standard

Summertime is the spotlight in this seasonal journal from the Onondaga Nation in New York state. This time of year is full of the celebration of life: school graduations combine the traditional with the modern; the first harvests from the community gardens begin; and music and dance are everywhere.

The milder summers of upstate New York have everyone outdoors enjoying the sunny weather, making it an ideal time for public events. Late June sees the main summer holiday – the Strawberry Festival – held, as in ancient times, in the community longhouse for all to participate.

Because of water pollution issues encroaching from neighboring areas, scenes like this are becoming increasingly less common. Lake Syracuse itself is a superfund site and is considered one of the most polluted lakes in the country, a condition affecting the water supply of the entire region. The Onondaga Nation is embroiled in major legal battles to reclaim water rights and establish more responsible methods of resource management.

WATCH: Post-Standard Video Essay – People of the Hills (Summer)

With its title aptly taken from the Persian poet Rumi, the exhibit reflects the powerful use of symbol, the respect for materials used in the process, and the harmony of function and embellishment that characterize many traditional indigenous crafts.

NMAI Online Exhibit: Beauty Surrounds Us