As the title says. For context, I am basically entirely white. My family says that we have ""indian heritage,"" but there's basically no evidence for this. Regardless, I live in East Tennessee on ancestral Cherokee territory, and would like to learn the Cherokee language, but I'm wondering whether or not it's generally accepted for a non-native person to learn a native language - though I'm willing to assume that there are probably some cases that differ from the consensus, whatever that may be. Thanks!

Yesterday I saw my first Washington tribal license plate. It was for the Muckleshoot Tribe, and I thought it looked really nice.

Here in Oklahoma, several tribes have their own license plates. The Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee Nations all have them, and some even offer veteran versions.

After seeing the Muckleshoot plate, I looked at Washington’s website and found out that several tribes there have their own plates too. They all look really good.

A caravan of 52 citizens of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma arrived in Ohio earlier this month, traveling by bus and car nearly 700 miles from their tribal headquarters.

For nearly 20 years, members of the tribe have been making occasional trips to Ohio and other states, to reconnect with where their ancestors lived before their forced removal. Last week was one of those trips.

Shawnee people are some of the likely descendants of the builders of the earthen mounds, which were used as ceremonial centers.

One of those sites called the Octagon Earthworks had been leased to a country club, and until last year was a golf course.

“It's the first time that they haven't been playing golf out here while I was here,” Clint Kissee said.

Kissee said it was discouraging to see the land used that way.

But this day, he felt differently.

“Excited today, I went and left a little tobacco and said a prayer, and it's a beautiful place. Starting to see some native plants come back, medicinal plants and forage plants. So it's been a good day,” Kissee said.

What are some good Native owned activewear companies? I'm looking for something to rep the culture and wear on my hikes (:

I’m just wondering because I’m a city native and i am just getting tired of being the only native in school, work, etc.

Does anybody have any good (preferably free) online resources they use to strengthen their niish?? Im always looking for ways to improve!

Thought maybe I could find some like minded neeches to appreciate a new song/video.

The theme is surrounding breaking intergenerational truama, hope y'all can dig it.

Peace.

The Cherokee Nation estimates thousands of records related to its principal chiefs are scattered across the country. Now, the tribe plans on recovering as many as it can.

The Cherokee Principal Chief’s Records Task Force released a report last week listing the locations of thousands of documents related to the Office of Principal Chief dating back to 1827, when the department was founded. The committee was created through an executive order signed by Cherokee Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. in April.

Hoskin said those records should be declared property of Cherokee Nation.

“We should seek maximum repatriation,” Hoskin said. “That should be our goal.”

Some records, like 2,000 documents from the John Ross administration, who served as the first Cherokee principal chief elected under the 1827 Cherokee Constitution, are located near the reservation at Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum.

But the results are not conclusive.

Many of the locations listed by the task force are listed as “low confidence,” such as engravings and paintings of Ross and former Principal Chief Lewis Downing that could be located at Yale University in Connecticut. Only five – all in Oklahoma – are listed as certain.

According to the report, this could be due to the lack of an executive records policy for the tribe that led to descendants keeping items or selling them to private parties. Some of the Ross papers, for example, were sold by descendants to Thomas Gilcrease, the founder and namesake of the Tulsa-based museum.

Hoskin said the tribe could develop a policy similar to the federal Presidential Records Act of 1978, in which records related to each U.S. president are preserved and considered public property.

“Our expertise is in a position now where we really are not just the appropriate holders of our own records, that's always been true, but we in many cases, are probably the superior party to be caring for them from a capacity standpoint,” Hoskin said.

The task force also consulted five living former chiefs. Hoskin said that’s because historical preservation extends beyond political strife.

Hoskin said he hopes the report will begin conversations with institutions nationwide, but added the work will extend beyond his tenure and across generations.

“Honestly, (institutions) should be on notice that we have this interest and this capacity in making really the rest of the century, the century of Cherokee repatriation. That's what the century needs to be,” Hoskin said. “And that's not a statement born of any sort of hostility towards institutions. It's to say we want to open a dialogue, but it needs to be a real dialogue, and it needs to produce real results.”

The removal of Tribes from cultural preservation AND bypassing protection of our cultural heritage.. as an archaeologist and an indigenous Mvskoke, I am VERY CONCERNED. I have read the ACHP non-public draft and it's clear that if it passes, we will lose control of our cultural heritage and protection thereof. Contact your tribal representatives immediately and voice your concerns. MVTO

Original post content copied below:

"Section 106 Revisions

( opening blurb taken from the SAA website)

On Friday, July 17, members of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation were asked to vote on new Section 106 regulations by Friday, July 24. This new draft rule was not the product of deliberation among ACHP members or staff but was delivered to the ACHP by outside counsel.

From the info I was able to find online, it looks like the updates are:

\-SHPO/THPO no longer required for consultation.

\- No avoidance or alternatives required for adverse effects

\-Public participation becomes optional

\-SHPO/THPO would no longer be able to require information from agencies (e.g state site forms)

\- Agencies could exempt an entire class of undertakings

\- Agencies will decide whether to do field investigations

\- Community knowledge will not need to be considered

\- Removes consideration of indirect effects and cumulative effects on historic properties, including

“introduction of visual, atmospheric, or audible elements that diminish the integrity” of a property.

I haven’t been working as a professional archaeologist for very long, so would love to hear from the people that have been in the field for a while. Has 106 constantly been under threat with active revisions like this before? How worried should I/we be about this? "

"The analysis, which looked at 39 peer-reviewed studies from around the world, found that while Indigenous and traditional food knowledge is increasingly recognized as a solution to these interconnected crises, health and nutrition education and practice continue to be dominated by top-down, medicalized approaches."

Kúhaʔahat! I’m going to my first powwow since my disability truly started to affect my mobility. I can only operate with either a cane or wheelchair now. Will people be upset with me for using my cane during the inter-tribal dance? This feels like a stupid question, in all honesty. But I don’t want to make others uncomfortable with it, and would be willing (albeit sad) to only sit and observe.

A $1.5 million federal grant is helping the Kiowa Tribe widen its capability to prosecute non-Indians for certain crimes within the tribe’s jurisdiction.

The Kiowa Tribe’s judicial system has handled more than 475 cases since it began hearings in 2023.

The tribe ratified its constitution to allow for a court system in 2017, but it took several years to set that up. Now, tribal leaders are taking another step to strengthen sovereignty, said Heather Mitchell, the chief judge of the Kiowa Trial Court.

The tribe is using a $1.5 million federal grant to implement special tribal criminal jurisdiction, or the ability to hold non-Indians accountable for crimes committed against Natives within their jurisdiction. Mitchell said it gives the court more teeth.

“What happens if one of our law enforcement officers gets assaulted by a non-Indian?” Mitchell said. “How are we going to handle that situation? Are we going to have to rely on the state, rely on the federal government?”

Exercising special tribal criminal jurisdiction or STCJ, Mitchell said, is an answer to those questions. But it only applies to certain crimes, including assault of tribal justice personnel, domestic violence, sexual assault and obstruction of justice.

“I just think it will enhance safety for the entire community,” Mitchell said. “I do think also that it will give our court orders the respect that they're due. The reality is that, you know, we are sovereign nations; we should be able to prosecute people who commit wrongs against our members.”

Dawn Stover is a Cherokee Nation citizen and the executive director at the Alliance of Tribal Coalitions to End Violence. She also sits on the Special Tribal Criminal Jurisdiction Technical Assistance Team. Stover said exercising STCJ — permitted under the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Acts of 2013 and 2022 — is also crucial to combating the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Crisis, or MMIP.

“Many of the MMIP cases likely have a domestic or sexual violence component,” Stover said. “And so if we continue to work hard to address and end domestic and sexual violence, we will inevitably work to also solve these cases and end the crisis of so many of our relatives being murdered or missing.”

About 6 percent of tribal nations in the U.S. implement criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians, according to TribalVAWA.org.

Mitchell said much of the federal grant will go toward strengthening law enforcement.

I'm a citizen of the Cherokee nation, my parents are unable to help with financial college assistance at all unfortunately. fortunately, I get tuition and fees paid by various scholarships and grants, but my rent is nearly 1k a month and I am running out of savings. are there any American Indian assistance programs, or does someone know anyone I can reach out to about this? I know about the Cherokee nation housing program, which I am definitely going to apply for once applications open up, but I'm still trying my best to seek funding as it is 1k/semester and im just trying to get my rent covered as much as possible. Thank you in advance !