tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/native-americans-7853/articlesNative Americans – The Conversation2024-03-27T20:52:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236172024-03-27T20:52:22Z2024-03-27T20:52:22ZUpdated U.S. law still leaves Indigenous communities in Canada out of repatriations from museums<p>A new amendment to the United States’ <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/12/13/2023-27040/native-american-graves-protection-and-repatriation-act-systematic-processes-for-disposition-or">Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)</a> came into effect in January 2024. The amended law now has some teeth to penalize museums who have thus far been <a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378">very slow to engage</a> with Indigenous communities. It puts pressure on them to create and share inventories of the remains and artifacts they hold.</p>
<p>NAGPRA regulates the repatriation of Native American human remains, funerary and sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony from federally funded agencies to lineal descendants, Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian Organizations. </p>
<p>Museums must now get prior and informed consent from Indigenous communities before displaying and studying cultural objects. They must also <a href="https://theconversation.com/kennewick-man-will-be-reburied-but-quandaries-around-human-remains-wont-59219">incorporate Native American traditional knowledge</a> in the storage, treatment and handling of remains and cultural items. The act now gives museums and other federal agencies five years to “<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/12/13/2023-27040/native-american-graves-protection-and-repatriation-act-systematic-processes-for-disposition-or">consult and update inventories of human remains and associated funerary objects</a>.”</p>
<p>NAGPRA is an important step in a long history of Indigenous Peoples’ struggle to govern their heritage. However, its authority stops at the U.S. border.</p>
<p>We are First Nations historians and professors working in Canada. Our communities are also impacted by the loss of cultural patrimony to museums in the U.S. and the laws covering repatriation. Mary Jane Logan McCallum is a member of the Munsee Delaware Nation and Susan M. Hill is a Haudenosaunee citizen and resident of the Grand River Territory.</p>
<p>The U.S. law provides Indigenous communities in lands claimed by Canada no legal or financial support to repatriate human remains, funerary and sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony held in U.S museums. These institutions <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/object-lives-and-global-histories-in-northern-north-america-products-9780228003984.php">hold many items</a> purchased or obtained by anthropologists and others from communities north of the border.</p>
<h2>NAGPRA</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.doi.gov/ocl/nagpra">NAGPRA became law in 1990</a>, after decades of lobbying from hundreds of Indigenous communities. The law states that museums and institutions receiving federal funding must produce detailed inventories of their collections and notify Native American tribes regarding items connected to their communities.</p>
<p>While those who called for the legislation were undoubtedly aware of the daunting task it would mandate, it is unlikely any would have predicted the extremely slow pace at which it has progressed in the three decades since.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, some museums have unilaterally decided to <a href="https://www.amnh.org/about/statement-new-nagpra-regulations">cover or close displays</a>. This is intended as a first step towards repatriation, however with ongoing limited resources, it is also a tactic to remain compliant with the law and avoid having funding cut.</p>
<p>The newly revised law still upholds inherent inequities in the relationships between Indigenous people and the agencies holding our materials. There is a lack of consistent and adequate funding for Indigenous communities wishing to repatriate items. There is also a lack of expert knowledge of the holdings of museums across the U.S. and human resources and infrastructure for long-term handling of repatriated objects. </p>
<p>In this context of ongoing inequity, museums can continue to hold Indigenous objects, but away from public view, and inadvertently create a narrative of history centred on white stories and white voices with little or no Indigenous content.</p>
<h2>Indigenous communities outside the U.S.</h2>
<p>For Indigenous communities outside of the U.S., the act does not compel museums and institutions to work in good faith to facilitate repatriations, regardless of how much evidence Indigenous communities are able to provide supporting the origins and sacredness of those items. </p>
<p>Indigenous communities in Canada are impacted by the law because these items are important to community-based research of material culture and its connection to intellectual, social and political histories of our nations.</p>
<p>Museums make platitudes about strong commitments to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-as-museums-grapple-with-repatriation-a-cultural-historian-warns-of/">working with and educating about Indigenous Peoples and cultures</a>. However, they are still the ones choosing what gets displayed without consultation with Indigenous communities. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/repatriation-native-american-remains_n_64b97d77e4b0ad7b75f7dd15/amp">the burden is placed on tribes to make requests and pay for repatriation</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, the public loses important opportunities to learn about Indigenous Peoples and the colonial legacies that dispossessed them of the land upon which museums are built and the artifacts they house.</p>
<h2>Indigenous labour</h2>
<p>A further issue with NAGPRA is that it perpetuates an assumption that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7109072">Indigenous labour should be discounted or free</a> and reasserts the inequity faced by Indigenous people when dealing with government.</p>
<p>Small, piecemeal grants covering costs like transportation are available through NAGPRA, but are restricted to federally recognized tribes in the U.S. and Indigenous people are responsible for finding and applying for them.</p>
<p>In Canada, community-based Indigenous scholars can apply for federal funding from the <a href="https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/index-eng.aspx">Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada</a>, however grant applications can be long and difficult, funds received are administered by universities and the grants often do not provide enough money.</p>
<p>Museums have full-time paid staff to make inventories and seek descendant individuals and communities. On the other hand, the Indigenous labour, knowledge and skill that goes into identifying and making meaning of lost cultural patrimony, often goes unpaid and unappreciated. </p>
<p>In addition, those doing this hard work <a href="https://histanthro.org/notes/decolonizing-or-recolonizing/">contend with the anti-Indigenous racism and white supremacy that dominate museums and other cultural institutions</a>. Some museums have prioritized hiring Indigenous staff, but they have not made structural changes that address ongoing systemic racism and colonialism nor made space for Indigenous people. As a result, several have left or <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/investigates/decolonizing-museums-museum-decolonization-part-2-investigations/">resigned in protest</a>. </p>
<p>In 2022, the <a href="https://museums.ca/uploaded/web/TRC_2022/Report-CMA-MovedToAction.pdf">Canadian Museums Association delivered a report</a> that acknowledged Indigenous cultural heritage professionals are often required to work for free or at a very low cost through one-off honorariums. It recommended that museums take on the legal and financial responsibility of new positions for those undertaking this work. We have yet to see this in practice. </p>
<p>The new U.S. regulations still do not address another form of theft from Indigenous people — this time not of Indigenous cultural patrimony, but of Indigenous labour. This should be considered by the <a href="https://osi-bis.ca/">Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools</a> as it considers a new federal legal framework that will govern the treatment of graves and burial sites.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>U.S. laws on the repatriation of Indigenous artifacts and remains still uphold inequities in the relationships between Indigenous people and the agencies holding their materials.Mary Jane Logan McCallum, Professor of History, University of WinnipegSusan M. Hill, Director of the Centre for Indigenous Studies; Associate Professor, Indigenous Studies and History, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2247242024-03-07T13:03:57Z2024-03-07T13:03:57ZAn Oscar win for Lily Gladstone would be a huge step for Native Americans in an industry that has reduced them to stereotypes<p>Killers of the Flower Moon is an unsettling and powerful historical epic. For her quiet but captivating performance as Mollie Burkhart, Lily Gladstone has rightly been nominated for best actress at the Academy Awards – making her the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/lily-gladstone-oscars-history-1st-native-american-nominated-best-actress/story?id=106596566#:%7E:text=Gladstone%20is%20up%20for%20her,Killers%20of%20the%20Flower%20Moon.%22&text=Lily%20Gladstone%20has%20made%20history,be%20nominated%20for%20best%20actress.">first Native American woman</a> to compete in this category. </p>
<p>Gladstone has already won both the Golden Globe and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYSIysa2FTc&ab_channel=Netflix">Screen Actors Guild award</a> for best female actor. In her <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvdCkh1SDfQ&ab_channel=GoldenGlobes">acceptance speech</a> at the Golden Globes, Gladstone made it very clear that her success is to be shared with all Native Americans. She opened by introducing herself in her Blackfeet language, before declaring:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is an historic win. This is for every little rez [reservation] kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid out there who has a dream, who is seeing themselves represented and our stories told — by ourselves, in our own words.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Killers of the Flower Moon, which is nominated for ten Oscars, is not an easy watch. The film, based on David Grann’s scrupulously researched <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Killers-of-the-Flower-Moon/David-Grann/9781398513341">non-fiction book</a> of the same name, recounts a bloody episode (one of many) in America’s history involving the brutal killing of Native Americans. </p>
<p>Focusing on the romance and marriage between Mollie Kyle and Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), the film tells the story of how more than 60 Osages, from a tribe of Native Americans in Oklahoma, were brutally murdered for their land and oil wealth by white interlopers. Lasting from the 1910s to the 1930s, this period was known as the Osage Reign of Terror. It is a violent tale of betrayal and greed that sees the now-married Mollie Burkhart fighting to save her people and get justice for their killings. </p>
<p>Throughout the film, Gladstone portrays her as quietly dignified – communicating as much with her expressive eyes and slight movements of her mouth as with her words.</p>
<p>Off stage, in the run-up to the Academy Awards, Gladstone’s powerful advocacy for all Native Americans has demonstrated that “Indians” are not just a homogeneous historical group in period films. Winning the Oscar would be a huge moment not only for Native Americans but for the film industry too. </p>
<h2>Native histories past and present</h2>
<p>Gladstone grew up on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana. The land had been assigned to this once-powerful Plains warrior tribe by a <a href="https://www.umt.edu/this-is-montana/columns/stories/blackfeet.php#:%7E:text=In%201888%2C%20left%20with%20no,present%2Dday%20Glacier%20National%20Park.">US treaty</a> in 1888. Much smaller than the Blackfeet’s traditional homelands, the reservation signaled the tribe’s diminished economic and political power. By then, the buffalo that had been the economic and cultural foundation of Blackfeet society had been almost totally exterminated. </p>
<p>Like the Blackfeet, the Osage are also a Plains tribe. In 1872, white encroachments on their lands forced them to move from Kansas to a reservation in Indian Territory (which became part of the new Oklahoma state in 1907). But unusually, the Osage tribe bought their reservation – so when oil was discovered, tribal members owned the rights and the riches. </p>
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<p>More historical context in the film would have helped place this tragic story in its broader frame – in particular, the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/04/06/600136534/largely-forgotten-osage-murders-reveal-a-conspiracy-against-wealthy-native-ameri">complicity of the US government in the Osage murders</a>. By designating them individually as legally incompetent and in need of white guardians to control their financial affairs, they were made vulnerable to robbery and murder.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/lily-gladstone-native-audience-killers-of-the-flower-moon-1235643824/">Gladstone says</a> she had heard about the Osage’s extraordinary oil wealth from her father. In the 1920s, they were the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1921/06/25/archives/osage-are-richest-people-greatest-per-capita-wealth-in-world.html">richest people per capita in the world</a>. But she was only hazily aware of the killings. </p>
<p>Now, both well-informed and mindful of these crimes and their legacies, Gladstone insists that her audiences must “never forget this story is recent history with a lasting impact on breathing, feeling people today. It belongs to them, and we all have so much to learn from it.” </p>
<h2>The Osage people at the heart of the film</h2>
<p>Two white men, Ernest Burkhart and his uncle, Bill Hale (Robert De Niro), dominate the action, and we are left in no doubt about their escalating crimes. But it is the power of Gladstone’s acting that constantly pulls the focus towards Mollie and her family, and so places the Osage people at the heart of the film. </p>
<p>Cinema has often depicted mythical Native Americans as spirit guides, aggressive savages or, tragically, on their way to extinction to make way for “civilisation”. But this film tells a true historical story. </p>
<p>Osage people not only acted many of the parts, they also played a vital role in how the <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/martin-scorsese-lily-gladstone-making-killers-of-the-flower-moon-1235715287/">film developed</a>. The contribution of living Osages changed the story told in Grann’s book; the central role he had given the FBI became minor as their stories were incorporated into the narrative, and then the film script.</p>
<p>The audience gets to hear the Osage language and see Osage hairstyles, food, cultural traditions and clothes. For example, Mollie’s wedding coat and feathered hat is from the Smithsonian’s holdings and was worn by an <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a45511003/killers-of-the-flower-moon-costume-designer-interview/">Osage bride in the 1920s</a>.</p>
<p>“I mean, the film is so remarkable because of how remarkable Osage people are,” <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/lily-gladstone-references-super-bowl-220040520.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANWb52uUzILGhp9Gr6_Q4Ps3uAQEJtTmaSa1RnCewf4H66XofJq9ehTgfmYl2Le8Z9YbbMw4-BoWTTCdhVhiPKwaF2_A2vloTN8Ny4g_lCclnPAnfjqc_I4QpbGCuUkTZxXVoxF_2R_AtuXGJYCVYyxycmYUyxjQFOUuCFnSMBrd">Gladstone observed</a>, “and how much they had to say about the making of it.”</p>
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<p>Gladstone’s recent successes in her role as Mollie Burkhart has enabled her to use the podium to advocate for Native representation. This includes publicly addressing culturally sensitive issues, including the name of Super Bowl winners <a href="https://variety.com/2024/film/awards/lily-gladstone-chiefs-tomahawk-chop-native-americans-1235909668/">the Kansas City Chiefs</a>, which add to the misrepresentation of Native Americans. She has done so while also showing off stunning Native-created fashion and jewellery, highlighting their living and beautiful cultures.</p>
<p>If Gladstone is awarded the Oscar for best actress on March 10, it will not only be very well-deserved but a highly symbolic moment. And a massive shout of joy and exuberance will echo across the whole of Indian Country.</p>
<hr>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacqueline Fear-Segal receives funding from the AHRC for Research Project Beyond The Spectacle: Native North American Presence in Britain. </span></em></p>Gladstone has used her platform in the run-up to this year’s awards season to highlight issues affecting Native American communities in America today.Jacqueline Fear-Segal, Emeritus Professor in the School of Art, Media and American Studies, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2178682023-12-14T19:00:58Z2023-12-14T19:00:58ZMutton, an Indigenous woolly dog, died in 1859 − new analysis confirms precolonial lineage of this extinct breed, once kept for their wool<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562497/original/file-20231129-22-cxtdyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C444%2C2995%2C2883&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indigenous Coast Salish women wove woolly dogs' fur into blankets.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Artist's reconstruction by Karen Carr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dogs have been in the Americas for more than 10,000 years. They were already domesticated when they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao4776">came from Eurasia with the first people</a> to reach North America. In the coastal parts of present-day Washington state and southwestern British Columbia, archaeologists have found dog remains dating back as far as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101209">about 5,000 years ago</a>.</p>
<p>Dogs performed many different roles in North American Indigenous communities, including transportation, that in other parts of the world were done by multiple other domestic animals. </p>
<p>Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the <a href="https://www.burkemuseum.org/collections-and-research/culture/contemporary-culture/coast-salish-art/coast-salish-people">Indigenous Coast Salish peoples</a> of the Pacific Northwest had traditionally maintained a breed of long-haired dog for the purpose of harvesting their hair, or wool, for textile fibers. Along with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-4403(95)90012-8">alpacas and llamas</a>, these woolly dogs are one of only a few known animals intentionally bred for their fleece in all of the Americas.</p>
<p>But the practice of keeping woolly dogs and weaving textiles made from woolly dog yarn declined throughout the 19th century, and the dogs were considered extinct by the beginning of the 20th century. What had happened to them? </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562505/original/file-20231129-19-wyniuw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="dog paw on furry pelt with handwritten tag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562505/original/file-20231129-19-wyniuw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562505/original/file-20231129-19-wyniuw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562505/original/file-20231129-19-wyniuw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562505/original/file-20231129-19-wyniuw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562505/original/file-20231129-19-wyniuw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562505/original/file-20231129-19-wyniuw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562505/original/file-20231129-19-wyniuw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mutton’s pelt has been preserved at the Smithsonian Institution for more than 160 years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Audrey Lin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, the only confirmed woolly dog specimen is “Mutton,” whose pelt has been housed <a href="http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/3299968b9-99b2-4db0-9aee-b8ee388fcb57">in the Smithsonian’s collection</a> since his death in 1859. In life, this “Indian dog” was the companion of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gibbs_(ethnologist)">George Gibbs</a>, a naturalist working on the Northwest Boundary Survey expedition to map out British Columbia and the American Pacific Northwest. In death, Mutton offered the opportunity to learn more about woolly dog ancestry, selection and management.</p>
<p>We are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=th7mXK0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">an archaeologist</a>, an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5sYVrEsAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">evolutionary molecular biologist</a> and a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=G5OGkjUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">molecular anthropologist</a> who are part of a large research team. It’s important to note that although we collaborated with a number of Indigenous people on our study, the scientists, including the three of us, are not Indigenous. Alongside historical documents and interviews of Coast Salish elders, knowledge keepers, weavers and artists, our team utilized “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12516">Two-Eyed Seeing</a>” – viewing the world through the combined strengths of Indigenous knowledge and western science – to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adi6549">bring Mutton’s story and legacy back to life</a>.</p>
<h2>A prestigious part of Indigenous culture</h2>
<p>Prior to the arrival of Europeans, there were <a href="https://archpress.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/archpress/catalog/download/52/23/1900?inline=1">several types of dogs</a> in the Pacific Northwest: larger “village” dogs and hunting dogs and smaller <a href="https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-dogs-that-grew-wool-and-the-people-who-love-them/">woolly dogs</a>, kept separately to prevent interbreeding. Woolly dogs were a little larger than the modern <a href="https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/american-eskimo-dog/">American Eskimo dog breed</a> and had curled tails, pricked ears and a pointed foxlike face. Instead of barking, they howled. </p>
<p>Traditionally, only high-status Coast Salish women were allowed to keep woolly dogs, and a woman’s individual wealth could be measured by how many she had. Blankets woven of dog hair, often mixed with hair from mountain goats and waterfowl or plant fibers, were important trade and gift items.</p>
<p>Historians and economists, looking back, first claimed the disappearance of the woolly dog breed was the result of simple capitalist forces: The availability of cheap manufactured blankets offered by businesses like the <a href="https://www.hbcheritage.ca/things/fashion-pop/hbc-point-blanket">Hudson’s Bay Company</a> meant the Coast Salish didn’t need to make their own blankets. Why go through the immense time and labor in keeping wool dogs and crafting blankets in the traditional way when you could just buy a machine-woven blanket? </p>
<p>But the Coast Salish don’t agree. <a href="https://vanmuralfest.ca/blog/debra-sparrow">Debra qwasen Sparrow</a>, a master weaver of the <a href="https://www.musqueam.bc.ca/">Musqueam Nation</a>, explained to us, “The blankets really tell a story of our history, our families, the way in which they identified in the communities, (they’re) all reflected in the blankets.”</p>
<p>And Coast Salish people say they would never have willingly parted with their beloved canine friends. The simple economic explanation ignores the massive role colonialism played in the demise of the woolly dogs. Repressive government policies <a href="https://www.washington.edu/uwired/outreach/cspn/Website/Classroom%20Materials/Pacific%20Northwest%20History/Lessons/Lesson%2012/12.html">tried to control and subdue</a> <a href="https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/2022/05/12/indian-boarding-schools-operated-washington-state-interior-department-deb-haaland/9749676002/">Indigenous cultural practices</a>.</p>
<p>“They were told they couldn’t do their cultural things. There was the police, the Indian agent and the priests,” <a href="https://www.stolonation.bc.ca">Stó:lō Nation</a> elder Xweliqwiya Rena Point Bolton told our research team. “The dogs were not allowed. (My grandmother) had to get rid of the dogs. And so the family never ever saw them.”</p>
<p>Eventually, there were no more Coast Salish woolly dogs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565318/original/file-20231212-23-cut1vu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="pelt fur-side down on a paper-covered table" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565318/original/file-20231212-23-cut1vu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565318/original/file-20231212-23-cut1vu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565318/original/file-20231212-23-cut1vu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565318/original/file-20231212-23-cut1vu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565318/original/file-20231212-23-cut1vu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565318/original/file-20231212-23-cut1vu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565318/original/file-20231212-23-cut1vu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers used a portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer as part of their investigation of Mutton’s remains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Audrey Lin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Piecing together a picture of Mutton’s life</h2>
<p>We did have access to Mutton’s pelt, though, which had been archived for more than 160 years. No one knows exactly how Gibbs initially acquired Mutton, but it’s likely he got the dog while working with local communities in <a href="https://www.stolonation.bc.ca/">Stó:lō territory</a> in present-day British Columbia. Using modern techniques, we set out to answer questions about Mutton’s breed and ancestry.</p>
<p>First we used <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-use-of-stable-isotopes-in-the-96648168/">stable isotope analysis</a>, a chemical analysis of once-living tissues, to understand more about Mutton’s environment when he was alive: what kinds of foods he ate and the state of his health.</p>
<p>Interviews of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adi6549">elders and knowledge keepers confirmed</a> that the woolly dog diet was very different from village dogs, including special foods that kept the dogs healthy and their coats shiny. For example, salmon, elk or certain local plants would be set aside for the woolly dogs. </p>
<p>The stable isotope values of Mutton’s fur suggested he’d been eating maize for some time, but less and less up to the point when he died. The <a href="https://www.trafford.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/407988-Joseph-S-Harris-and-the-U-S-Northwest-Boundary-Survey-1857-1861">letters of one expedition member</a> imply they were running low on cornmeal and supplementing their imported supplies by trading with locals. Although <a href="https://siarchives.si.edu/sites/all/modules/sia/sia_mirador/mirador/mirador_player3?manifest=https://iiif.si.edu/manifests/siarchives/SIA-007209_B01_F02_MODSI1328.json">Gibbs noted in his journal</a> that Mutton was ill before he died, there was no isotopic evidence to support chronic illness; Mutton may have become sick quickly.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565265/original/file-20231212-23-zikxpo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Scientist with blue gloves uses a tool to lift a bit of hair from the pelt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565265/original/file-20231212-23-zikxpo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565265/original/file-20231212-23-zikxpo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565265/original/file-20231212-23-zikxpo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565265/original/file-20231212-23-zikxpo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565265/original/file-20231212-23-zikxpo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565265/original/file-20231212-23-zikxpo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565265/original/file-20231212-23-zikxpo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chris Stantis carefully removes a minimal sample from Mutton’s pelt for further analyses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hsiao-Lei Liu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Next, we turned to genetic analysis for insight into the dog’s ancestry to understand long-term management of this breed. We sequenced Mutton’s DNA and compared it with a contemporaneous village dog that was killed by the explorers in an unknown village in the Pacific Northwest. We also compared Mutton’s DNA with a genetic panel of many other modern and ancient dogs.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adi6549">We found that Mutton</a> is a rare example of an Indigenous North American dog with precolonial ancestry who lived well after the arrival of white settlers. Using a dataset of mitochondrial genomes from Mutton and more than 200 ancient and modern dogs, we made an elaborate family tree. Called a <a href="http://dunnlab.org/phylogenetic_biology/phylogenies-and-time.html">time-calibrated phylogenetic tree</a>, it creates a diagram of the evolution of Mutton’s maternal lineage.</p>
<p>Based on the tree, we estimate that Mutton’s most recent common ancestor diverged from one other ancient dog from British Columbia between 1,800 and 4,800 years ago, corresponding with the known archaeological record. In other words, Mutton’s woolly dog lineage has been isolated from other dogs for millennia.</p>
<p>We see evidence of inbreeding in Mutton’s genome that can result only from careful long-term selective breed management. We identified variants of genes associated with hair and skin, including KRT77 and KANK2, which are linked to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/jmedgenet-2014-102346">woolly hair in humans</a>. </p>
<p>However, Mutton lived during a very volatile <a href="https://www.nps.gov/places/the-fraser-river-gold-rush.htm">time period</a>. For example, in 1858 more than 33,000 miners flooded into present-day British Columbia in <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/fraser-river-gold-rush">search of gold</a>. This influx left its mark in Mutton’s DNA, and we found that about one eighth of his genome – representating about one great-grandparent’s worth of DNA – came from settler-introduced European dogs. </p>
<p>Finally, we worked closely with a <a href="https://www.karencarr.com/">scientific artist</a>, using archaeological dog bones and Mutton’s pelt, to reconstruct what these dogs looked like in life with scientific accuracy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562506/original/file-20231129-21-3c76dg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="zig-zag patterened blanket with fringe on three sides" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562506/original/file-20231129-21-3c76dg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562506/original/file-20231129-21-3c76dg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562506/original/file-20231129-21-3c76dg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562506/original/file-20231129-21-3c76dg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562506/original/file-20231129-21-3c76dg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562506/original/file-20231129-21-3c76dg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562506/original/file-20231129-21-3c76dg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Coast Salish classic-style blanket, which has woolly dog hair in the warp fibers that were stretched across the loom. Accessioned 1838-1842.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">USNM E2124, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What this woolly dog confirms about the past</h2>
<p>With Mutton’s pelt, our team wove together these different ways of exploring the many lives of Mutton – his ancestry as an Indigenous dog, his life traveling with white settlers, and finally his time in the Smithsonian Institution.</p>
<p>Mutton is the latest dog we’re aware of with that much precolonial dog ancestry. European colonization was devastating to Indigenous people in North America. The fact that Mutton carries as much Indigenous dog DNA as he does is a testament to the care that Coast Salish people took to keep the woolly dog tradition alive.</p>
<p>Our Coast Salish weaving collaborators are very keen to learn more about how traditional blankets housed in museum collections are made – to inform efforts to revive complex techniques and better understand the unique materials used. With Mutton’s genetic sequencing, future researchers may be able to identify dog hair in heritage woven materials. Some Coast Salish would like to see the woolly dogs return to their families once again. There’s currently no way to bring back the original woolly dogs, such as by cloning Mutton, because his DNA is far too degraded after more than 160 years. But a new kind of woolly dog could be created in the future through <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/selective-breeding">selective breeding</a> and care.</p>
<p>“But the thing that’s most important (is) that (the) wool dog created a gift to produce and to make something, to create something, to bring something alive,” Michael Pavel, elder of the <a href="https://skokomish.org/culture-and-history/">Twana/Skokomish Tribe</a>, told us. “Let’s do that. Let’s bring that back to life. … The wool dog is still very much a part of our life.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dogs have lived with Indigenous Americans since before they came to the continent together 10,000 years ago. A new analysis reveals the lineage of one 1800s ‘woolly dog’ from the Pacific Northwest.Audrey T. Lin, Research Associate in Anthropology, Smithsonian InstitutionChris Stantis, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Geology and Geophysics, University of UtahLogan Kistler, Curator of Archaeobotany and Archaeogenomics, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian InstitutionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173562023-12-01T13:41:13Z2023-12-01T13:41:13ZNative American mothers whose children have been separated from them experience a raw and ongoing grief that has no end<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561972/original/file-20231127-29-vqtw0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2120%2C1409&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Native American children are still disproportionately represented in the U.S. child welfare system. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/sweet-interaction-between-a-grandmother-and-her-royalty-free-image/1401422729?phrase=native+american+birth+mothers&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">grandriver/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Native American mothers whose children were separated from them – either through child removal for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/30/us/native-american-boarding-schools.html">assimilation into residential boarding schools</a> or through <a href="https://doi.org/10.1300/J285v05n03_04">coerced adoption</a> – experience the kind of grief no parent should ever feel. Yet theirs is a loss that is ongoing, with no sense of meaning or closure. </p>
<p>While some families have eventually been reunited, far too many languish in the child welfare system, where <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/issue-briefs/racial-disproportionality/">Native American children are overrepresented</a> as a result of discrimination and racial bias, structural racism and <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/issue-briefs/racial-disproportionality/">increased exposure to poverty</a>.</p>
<p>A panel I attended years ago in California was composed of three birth mothers representing three generations of Native American women who had lost a child to foster care or adoption. While each story was unique, they had one thing in common: a never-ending grief that had stayed with them long after they were separated from their children.</p>
<p>I still vividly recall that, with a lump in her throat, one of these mothers said, “I can still hear my baby crying.” Those mothers and their stories left a lasting impression on me and my colleagues, which was the catalyst for a new line of research for us. After listening to the panel, my collaborator Sandy White Hawk, a Sicangu Lakota elder of the <a href="https://www.rosebudsiouxtribe-nsn.gov">Rosebud Tribe in South Dakota</a>, responded, “We have to do something for our birth mothers. We cannot let them pass to the other side carrying this grief.” </p>
<p>I am an assistant professor of human sciences and I <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tmVn93oAAAAJ&hl=en">conduct research</a> in partnership with the <a href="https://www.wearecominghome.org">First Nations Repatriation Institute</a>. This work focuses on the health and well-being of Native American families that have experienced family separation by way of the foster care system and adoption. </p>
<p>For the past 10 years, we have <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5820/aian.2402.2017.54">explored the outcomes</a> of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104805">fostered and adopted children</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106062">and what happens</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.09.002">when families are reunified</a>.</p>
<h2>Foster care and adoption</h2>
<p>The adoption era refers to a period of time beginning in the 1950s with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/706771">Indian Adoption Project</a>, a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45391688">collaborative effort</a> between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Child Welfare League of America. It aimed to <a href="https://doi.org/10.5250/amerindiquar.37.1-2.0136">promote the adoption of Native American children into non-Native homes</a> and has been criticized as another attempt at forced assimilation into non-Native American culture and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/706771">destruction of Native American families</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bia.gov/as-ia/opa/online-press-release/adoptions-indian-children-increase">adoption era</a> continued until the enactment of the <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/diverse-populations/americanindian/icwa/">Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978</a>, which aimed to protect the best interests of Native American children by <a href="https://www.bia.gov/bia/ois/dhs/icwa">establishing federal standards for their removal and placement</a>. An estimated 25% to 35% of Native American children were removed from their families prior to the <a href="http://www.narf.org/nill/documents/icwa/federal/lh.html">Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-affirms-congresss-power-over-indian-affairs-upholds-law-protecting-native-american-children-207888">The Indian Child Welfare Act</a> protects Indian children by <a href="https://narf.org/nill/documents/icwa/faq/placement.html#">prioritizing placement</a> with extended families, within the tribe or with an Indian family.</p>
<p>The child welfare system tracks when children leave the system <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.09.002">through reunification</a> with family of origin. Reunification can occur after aging out of foster care at age 18 or <a href="https://doi.org/10.7202/1077259ar">being adopted</a>.</p>
<p>To date, there is no way to consistently track how many fostered and adopted Native American children have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.09.019">reunited with their family of origin</a>. However, our team’s studies suggest that more than 80% of Native American people who were fostered or adopted <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.09.002">eventually reunify</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tYMG13pKq4Y?wmode=transparent&start=125" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Indian Child Welfare Act, passed in 1978, was intended to combat the forced, unwarranted removal of Native American children from their families. Prior to the law, more than three-quarters of Indian families living on reservations lost a child to the foster care system.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Separated families</h2>
<p>The loss of a child to foster care, adoption or both is not uncommon in the United States. In 2021, approximately 606,031 children were involved in the foster care system. According to the latest data provided by the <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/report/afcars-report-29">Children’s Bureau</a>, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in September 2021 more than 391,000 children were residing in foster care and over 113,000 were waiting to be adopted. In addition, <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/report/afcars-report-29">more than 54,240 children</a> were adopted through public child welfare agencies in 2021.</p>
<p>Legislation known as the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/105/plaws/publ89/PLAW-105publ89.pdf">Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997</a> requires only that states report adoptions that occur in public child welfare agencies. Therefore, the statistics above do not account for the thousands of children who are adopted, often as infants, through private agencies outside of the child welfare system. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/adopted2010-19/">the total number of children adopted</a> each year in the U.S.</p>
<p>This is especially true for Native American children. <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/issue-briefs/racial-disproportionality/">Alarming numbers of Native American children</a> remain <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305554">involved in the child welfare system</a>. Allegations of abuse and neglect of Native children at the hands of their parents and other caregivers are twice as likely to be investigated, and Native American children are four times <a href="https://www.nicwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/NICWA_11_2021-Disproportionality-Fact-Sheet.pdf">more likely to be placed out of the home</a> than white children.</p>
<p>In my view, the rights of Native American caregivers to raise their children have been violated by systematic practices of child removal that <a href="https://doi.org/10.7916/zjh1-g053">targeted Native American families</a>. Until recently, Native American mothers have been omitted from research on the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12815">grief and loss of birth parents</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562540/original/file-20231129-19-vfw7v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Native American grandfather sitting close to granddaughter in a bedroom, with a middle-aged woman and a child embracing in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562540/original/file-20231129-19-vfw7v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562540/original/file-20231129-19-vfw7v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562540/original/file-20231129-19-vfw7v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562540/original/file-20231129-19-vfw7v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562540/original/file-20231129-19-vfw7v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562540/original/file-20231129-19-vfw7v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562540/original/file-20231129-19-vfw7v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Systematic child removal and adoption has left generations of Native American families with unreconciled grief and loss.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://narf.org/nill/documents/icwa/faq/placement.html#">Alison Wright/Corbis Documentary via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ambiguous loss</h2>
<p>As a family therapist, I have sat with hundreds of families that were grieving the loss of a loved one, particularly a child lost to miscarriage, stillbirth and even death. Still, I was struck by the grief of Native American birth mothers. This grief was different. While it sounded like the grief that follows the death of a child, these children had not died. They were taken. They were alive but still lost.</p>
<p>While my colleagues and I have spoken with dozens of Native American birth mothers over the years, we interviewed eight of them who lost a child to adoption for what is called a phenomenological study. Phenomenology is used to explore the lived experiences of a group of people who experienced a similar event or phenomenon.</p>
<p>We wanted to understand the lived experiences of these mothers. We asked them how they became a birth mother, how their child came to be adopted and how this experience affected their health and well-being.</p>
<p>Our study found that these Native American birth mothers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12815">experienced ambiguous loss</a>, which is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2007.00444.x">loss that remains unverified</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12152">without resolution</a>. </p>
<p>In Native American culture, mothers are revered as “life givers.” The loss of a child to adoption stripped Native American birth mothers of this respected role and of their dignity.</p>
<p>Loss is often linked to death, but there are other types of losses. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/processing-and-grieving-an-ongoing-loss-such-as-a-child-with-a-devastating-injury-or-disability-does-not-fit-neatly-into-traditional-models-of-grief-205459">ambiguous loss</a>, there is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-009-0264-0">no closure or resolution</a>. Ambiguous loss is different from other kinds of loss. It is unfathomable, confusing and immobilizing.</p>
<p>There are two primary types of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12152">ambiguous loss</a>. One is a psychological absence with physical presence, such as when a loved one has dementia. Another is physical absence with psychological presence, such as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0308575915611516">loss of a child to the foster care or adoption system</a>. </p>
<h2>The downstream effects</h2>
<p>Our research suggests that many Native American birth mothers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12815">felt forced to surrender their children</a> to adoption because they were young and lacked resources. In many cases, they were unable to say goodbye or hold the baby. They felt ashamed and unworthy.</p>
<p>In addition to the unresolved grief, these mothers became <a href="https://theconversation.com/american-indians-forced-to-attend-boarding-schools-as-children-are-more-likely-to-be-in-poor-health-as-adults-194691">vulnerable to mental health</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12815">substance abuse problems</a>. </p>
<p>From my perspective, there are glaring and unanswered questions on the ethics and well-being of foster and adoption practices for children separated from Native American families. Native American adults who were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106441">fostered, adopted or both</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801231188167">have also reported experiencing profound grief</a> that parallels the ambiguous loss felt by Native American birth mothers.</p>
<p>The healing of Native American birth mothers will be an ongoing and collective effort. One by one, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12815">Native American birth mothers are telling their stories</a>. These stories are gaining momentum. What happened to one woman happened to many others.</p>
<p><em>Credit to Sicangu Lakota elder Sandy White Hawk, founder and director of First Nations Repatriation Institute, whose vision guides this work. White Hawk is a senior author on studies that emerge from this work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217356/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashley L. Landers collaborates with First Nations Repatriation Institute on research. The study referenced in this article received
receives funding from a Niles Research Grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. Ashley is a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and the National Council on Family Relations. </span></em></p>Native American families have endured generations of systematic child removal, but the grief, loss and trauma that birth mothers still experience have been largely overlooked.Ashley L. Landers, Assistant Professor of Human Sciences, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2154182023-11-21T13:22:20Z2023-11-21T13:22:20Z‘Time warp’ takes students to Native American past to search for solutions for the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560486/original/file-20231120-22-litds7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C8%2C5699%2C3819&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students become more emotionally engaged with history when it's presented in an interactive way, research shows.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/hispanic-elementary-students-using-computer-in-royalty-free-image/503690720?phrase=classroom+students+slides&adppopup=true">SDI Productions via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The eyes of the fifth graders in Ms. Evans’ class widened as they saw a dazzling light on the classroom smartboard and the phrase, “Let’s do the Time Warp!”</p>
<p>Ms. Evans, who teaches at a large suburban school in central Ohio, told her students that they were about to take a trip to a Native American community as it existed in the 19th century.</p>
<p>“We are now traveling back in time to Florida in the 1800s to visit a village of the Seminole,” Ms. Evans told her class excitedly as she began to read aloud the story of Seminole leader <a href="https://www.tribalnationsmaps.com/store/p1512/Native_American_Heroes%3A_Osceola%2C_Tecumseh_%26_Cochise_-_-_Grades_%3A_3_-7_-_GIFT_SHOPS_ONLY_%285_books%29.html">Osceola</a>. </p>
<p>In the story, Osceola says, “The white man wants our groves of orange trees, our fine harbors, our full forests, and warm fertile lands. But they are ours. Here are our fish and birds and animals, the graves of our fathers, the grounds of our children.”</p>
<p>Immediately, a beautiful village appears on their Chromebooks. The students are welcomed by the Seminole before they engage with a series of interactive slides. They are introduced to the foods the Seminole eat, the clothes they wear and their daily experiences. They are invited to stay and live with the Seminole while they visit. However, on this first day of the history unit, students do not yet know that soon Osceola will face captivity by U.S. troops, who trick him into meeting for a truce. </p>
<p>The experience exemplifies the kinds of social studies lessons that our research group – <a href="http://digitalciviclearning.com/">Digital Civic Learning</a> – has been developing since 2020 to enable students to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231199967">use immersive storytelling</a> to better understand different perspectives on complex historical issues, as well as current social ones. We’ve been working with elementary school teachers from several school districts in Ohio.</p>
<h2>Overcoming a narrow view of history</h2>
<p>Whereas other curricula may emphasize <a href="https://woodrow.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WW-American-History-Report.pdf">memorization of facts and dates</a>, our approach emphasizes dialogue among students to make learning history more exciting. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Awl0ddQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">our view</a> as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ON0HRQoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">educational psychologists</a>, the need for such an approach is made clear by national data, which shows that American teenagers’ <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/">knowledge of U.S. history</a> has been <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ushistory/2022/">declining for the past decade</a>. </p>
<p>Some of the history curricula currently used in schools are rooted in <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?redir=http%3a%2f%2fwww.societyforhistoryeducation.org%2fpdfs%2fF19_Krueger.pdf">settler colonialism</a>, which focuses on the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/settler_colonialism#:%7E:text=Settler%20colonialism%20can%20be%20defined,with%20a%20new%20settler%20population.">displacement of Indigenous populations</a> with new settlers, and often minimizes the perspectives of underrepresented populations. </p>
<p>Our approach integrates technology, immersive learning – such as an up-close look at the daily lives of the Seminole – and collaborative small-group discussions into daily social studies instruction.</p>
<p>The interactive experiences that students have with the Seminole were created using <a href="https://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Presentation-Using-Google-Slides">Google Slides</a>. The slides consist of illustrations, story narrations, easy-to-read texts and interactive activities developed by our team. Beyond history, we also created units in geography, government and economics. Each unit was designed for upper elementary school students and delivered to students over two weeks. </p>
<h2>Discussing dilemmas</h2>
<p>Students actively participate in <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjep.12442">small-group discussions</a> on the third and ninth day of each unit.</p>
<p>In our Seminole example, students are asked to reflect on the <a href="https://dos.fl.gov/florida-facts/florida-history/seminole-history/the-seminole-wars/">Treaty of Payne’s Landing</a>, signed in 1832. The treaty required the Seminole to give up their land in Florida in exchange for new land in the West.</p>
<p>They discuss the dilemma that Osceola faced when deciding whether to accept the treaty in order to maintain peace, or to refuse to agree to the new treaty so that the Seminole could stay on their land.</p>
<p>Our approach to teaching history also emphasizes connections with current events, such as the <a href="https://daplpipelinefacts.com/">Dakota Access Pipeline</a>. The construction of the pipeline will help the economy by creating jobs and making the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. However, the pipeline will be built on land owned by Native Americans who are deeply concerned that the pipeline will lead to contamination of <a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/plains-treaties/dapl">groundwater and soil</a>.</p>
<p>Students learn about a related situation in which the federal government has been debating whether to approve the construction of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/pipeline-battle-brews-in-minnesota-between-indigenous-tribes-and-a-major-oil-company">another pipeline in Minnesota</a> that would go directly through Native American land. Working in groups, students come up with reasons for being either for or against the construction of the pipeline.</p>
<p>Based on our <a href="http://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/enriching-civic-learning-experiences-elementary/docview/2864853496/se-2?accountid=9783">analysis of student discussions and essays over the course of this unit</a>, we’ve found that through these immersive learning and interactive practices, students work more collaboratively and are more likely to consider multiple perspectives in civic debates.</p>
<p>Surveys also found that students who participated in the curriculum became <a href="https://aera22-aera.ipostersessions.com/Default.aspx?s=9E-F9-32-3D-E1-BC-2B-6B-84-59-77-28-08-61-DA-5D">more emotionally engaged with learning history</a> – in part by making emotional connections with story characters – as they developed a deeper understanding of how historical events affect people’s lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric M. Anderman receives funding from The Institute of Education Sciences.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tzu-Jung Lin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rather than have students memorize names and dates, this history curriculum invites students to grapple with real-life issues faced by people from the past.Eric M. Anderman, Professor of Educational Psychology and Quantitative Research, Evaluation, and Measurement, The Ohio State UniversityTzu-Jung Lin, Professor of Educational Psychology, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135172023-11-20T13:18:15Z2023-11-20T13:18:15ZThanksgiving stories gloss over the history of US settlement on Native lands<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560223/original/file-20231118-17-87anep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C361%2C2389%2C2070&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Native Americans depicted at the first Thanksgiving feast, in a 1960 film about the Pilgrims’ first year in America.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MoviesEducationalFilms/6e19fb0444d146fdb6f09520e734f7a7/photo?Query=thanksgiving%20dinner%20native%20americans&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=546&currentItemNo=9&vs=true&vs=true">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Too often, K-12 social studies classes in the U.S. <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-are-the-voices-of-indigenous-peoples-in-the-thanksgiving-story-51089">teach a mostly glossed-over story of U.S. settlement</a>. Textbooks tell the stories of adventurous European explorers founding colonies in the “New World,” and stories of the “first Thanksgiving” frequently portray happy colonists and Native Americans feasting together. Accounts of the colonies’ battle for independence frame it as a righteous victory. Native American removal might be mentioned as a sad footnote, but the triumph of the pioneer spirit takes center stage. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://english.utk.edu/people/lisa-king/">scholar of Native American and Indigenous rhetorics</a>, I argue that this superficial story hides the realities of what many historians and activists call “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/2201473X.2011.10648799?needAccess=true">settler colonialism</a>.” Historian <a href="https://www.swinburne.edu.au/research/our-research/access-our-research/find-a-researcher-or-supervisor/researcher-profile/?id=lveracini">Lorenzo Veracini</a> asserts that colonial activity isn’t just about a nation sending out explorers and bringing back resources, or what scholars refer to as “classical colonialism.” It’s also about what happens when a new people moves in and attempts to establish itself as the “superior” community whose culture, language and rights to resources and land supersede those of the Indigenous people who already live there. </p>
<p>When U.S. history, culture and politics are understood through the lens of settler colonialism, it’s easier to understand how, as <a href="https://www.vu.edu.au/library/about-the-library/special-collections-archives/patrick-wolfe-collection">historian Patrick Wolfe</a> wrote, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240">settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure, not an event</a>.” </p>
<h2>US policies and why they matter</h2>
<p>While settler colonial policies can include genocide, they take many forms. </p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/if-BOZgWZPE?si=Hp8OH6fRYz85pVqG">Deceptive and broken treaties</a> forced Native American nations to give up vast portions of their homelands. For example, in eastern Tennessee, the Treaty of Holston, signed in 1791, was made in theory to help establish clear boundaries between Cherokee and settler communities. </p>
<p>The U.S. government would receive land, and the Cherokee would receive annual payments, goods and the promise of the government’s protection in return. Instead, settlers moved onto Cherokee land and the U.S. government did not intervene. By 1798, the First Treaty of Tellico forced the Cherokee to give up the land the settlers had illegally taken, plus some. Year by year, the Cherokee and other tribes were pushed out.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/if-BOZgWZPE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">How the U.S. acquired Native land.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/indian.html#:%7E:text=The%20Indian%20Removal%20Act%20was,many%20resisted%20the%20relocation%20policy.">Forced outright removal</a> beyond treaties further deprived Native American nations of their land and attempted to erase them. Instead of supporting any kind of coexistence, legislation such as the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/indian-treaties">1830 Indian Removal Act</a> called for the complete removal of all tribes east of the Mississippi River. </p>
<p>Though the Cherokee and others fought such legislation in the courtroom, the result was the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/trte/learn/historyculture/what-happened-on-the-trail-of-tears.htm#:%7E:text=Between%201830%20and%201850%2C%20about,Many%20were%20treated%20brutally.">displacement of 100,000 Native people</a> from the eastern U.S. between 1830-1850 and the deaths of thousands of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee and Seminole people on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-long-history-of-separating-families-in-the-us-and-how-the-trauma-lingers-98616">Trail of Tears</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/02/09/583987261/so-what-exactly-is-blood-quantum">Blood quantum systems of identification</a> attempted to make Native American people “disappear” by assigning Native American identity through counting the fractional amount of “Indian blood” and encouraging intermarriage with non-Native people. Once a certain degree of intermarriage was reached, a person was no longer considered Native and was not eligible for tribal enrollment.</p>
<p>As scholar and citizen of the Chickasaw Nation <a href="http://www.elizabethrule.com">Elizabeth Rule</a> notes, many Native nations today have adopted the use of blood quantum as a form of identification, which remains a controversial issue inside and outside Native communities. At the same time, she observes, it is the sovereign right of those nations to make these choices. However, the problem of erasure through this system remains, as blood quantum requirements can deny citizenship to clear lineal descendants and complicate discussions about <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/indigenous-affairs-communities-7-questions-about-freedmen-answered">Freedmen</a>.</p>
<p>Alongside these policies, <a href="https://www.bia.gov/service/federal-indian-boarding-school-initiative">education was used as a tool</a> to eradicate Native American languages and cultures by removing Native children from their families and forbidding them to speak their languages or practice their cultures. As the founder of the first boarding school, <a href="https://carlisleindianschoolproject.com/">Carlisle Indian Industrial School</a>, Richard Henry Pratt is well known for arguing to “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” Abuse of students was not uncommon. Many boarding school survivors experienced the trauma of losing connections to their families and cultures, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/native-american-boarding-schools-victims-3f927e5054b6790cef1c6012d8616ad6">a pain that is still felt today</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560224/original/file-20231118-31-6mz01y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman protestor, standing with others, holding a sign that says 'This is Native America.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560224/original/file-20231118-31-6mz01y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560224/original/file-20231118-31-6mz01y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560224/original/file-20231118-31-6mz01y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560224/original/file-20231118-31-6mz01y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560224/original/file-20231118-31-6mz01y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560224/original/file-20231118-31-6mz01y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560224/original/file-20231118-31-6mz01y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Native Americans and their allies hold a demonstration for Indigenous Peoples Day in 2015, in Seattle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-BOZgWZPE">AP Photo/Elaine Thompson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Twentieth-century U.S. policies of <a href="https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/11/01/uprooted-the-1950s-plan-to-erase-indian-country">relocation and political termination</a> further attempted to absolve the federal government of its treaty responsibilities to Native nations. If the U.S. government could “terminate” tribal nations by disbanding them as nations, then all obligations to tribes would legally disappear and all remaining tribal land would revert to government ownership. </p>
<p>After the passing of House Concurrent Resolution 108 in 1953, more than 100 tribes and 13,000 Native people <a href="https://americanarchive.org/exhibits/native-narratives/termination-relocation-restoration">experienced termination</a>, and more than 1 million acres of land were lost. Further federal policies such as the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 encouraged tribal members to permanently leave reservations and relocate to cities to find work and thus assimilate into U.S. society. </p>
<p>Overall, these policies were not fully carried out, and many tribal nations advocated for their status to be restored. Yet real damage was done to the tribal nations that endured termination, and relocated tribal members faced discrimination and disconnection. </p>
<h2>Reducing harm</h2>
<p>It isn’t possible to simply undo all of these policies and their impact. Yet scholars <a href="https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630">Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang</a> acknowledge that challenging those policies and reducing their influence, known as settler harm reduction, is a first step toward change. But for change to happen, those who benefit from the settler colonial system – whether original settlers or anyone today who gains advantage from these policies – need to work with Native American nations and communities toward finding active ways to do better. </p>
<p>The starting point is identifying the stories that still circulate in the U.S. about Native Americans and finding ways to <a href="https://rnt.firstnations.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/MessageGuide-Allies-screen.pdf">change settler colonial assumptions</a> that still reinforce Native American erasure. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I believe teaching the <a href="https://www.mayflower400uk.org/education/who-were-the-pilgrims/2019/july/the-story-of-thanksgiving-and-the-national-day-of-mourning/">Thanksgiving story</a> alongside the Wampanoag peoples of today is an easy place to start. The past cannot be undone, but it doesn’t have to dictate the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213517/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Michelle King does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of Native American and Indigenous rhetorics writes about the harm done to Native American nations through colonization and what can be done to reduce it.Lisa Michelle King, Associate Professor of English, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2169562023-11-17T13:28:07Z2023-11-17T13:28:07ZUnthanksgiving Day: A celebration of Indigenous resistance to colonialism, held yearly at Alcatraz<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559724/original/file-20231115-23-6hallp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C8%2C2951%2C1902&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Teo Kali, an Aztec cultural group, participates in a sunrise "Unthanksgiving Day" ceremony with Native Americans on Nov. 24, 2005, on Alcatraz Island.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/san-francisco-united-states-the-teo-kali-aztec-cultural-news-photo/56269934"> Kara Andrade/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Each year on the fourth Thursday of November, when many people start to take stock of the marathon day of cooking ahead, Indigenous people from diverse tribes and nations gather at sunrise in <a href="https://www.iitc.org/event/indigenous-peoples-thanksgiving-sunrise-gathering-on-alcatraz-island-2023/">San Francisco Bay</a>. </p>
<p>Their gathering is meant to mark a different occasion – the Indigenous People’s Thanksgiving Sunrise Ceremony, an annual celebration that spotlights 500 years of Native resistance to colonialism in what was dubbed the “New World.” Held on the traditional lands of the <a href="https://pehc.colostate.edu/plhc-blog/indigenizing-alcatraz/">Ohlone people</a>, the gathering is a call for remembrance and for future action for Indigenous people and their allies. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://udayton.edu/directory/artssciences/english/toll-shannon.php">scholar of Indigenous literary and cultural studies</a>, I introduce my students to the long and enduring history of Indigenous peoples’ pushback against settler violence. The origins of this sunrise event are a particularly compelling example that stem from a pivotal moment of Indigenous activism: the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/exploring-hate/2021/11/16/today-in-history-occupation-of-alcatraz/">Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island</a>, a 19-month-long takeover that began in 1969. </p>
<h2>Reclaiming of Alcatraz Island</h2>
<p>On Nov. 20, 1969, led by Indigenous organizers Richard Oakes (Mohawk) and LaNada War Jack (Shoshone Bannock), roughly 100 activists who called themselves “<a href="https://www.nps.gov/alca/learn/historyculture/we-hold-the-rock.htm">Indians of All Tribes,” or IAT</a>, traveled by charter boat across San Francisco Bay to reclaim the island for Native peoples. Multiple groups had done smaller demonstrations on Alcatraz in previous years, but this group planned to stay, and it maintained its presence there until June 1971. </p>
<p>Before this occupation, Alcatraz Island had served as a military prison and then a federal penitentiary. <a href="https://www.bop.gov/about/history/alcatraz.jsp">U.S. Prison Alcatraz was decommissioned in 1963</a> because of the high cost of its upkeep, and it was essentially left abandoned. In November 1969, after a fire destroyed the American Indian Center in San Francisco, local Indigenous activists were looking for a new place where urban Natives could <a href="https://muscarelle.wm.edu/rising/alcatraz/">gather and access resources, such as legal assistance and educational opportunities</a>, and Alcatraz Island fit the bill.</p>
<p>Citing a federal law that stated that “<a href="https://lakotalaw.org/news/2019-11-19/alcatraz">unused or retired federal lands will be returned to Native American tribes</a>,” Oakes’ group settled in to live on “The Rock.” They elected a council and established a school, a medical center and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/alca/learn/historyculture/we-hold-the-rock.htm">other necessary infrastructure</a>. They even had a pirate radio show called “<a href="https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_28-5717m0482m">Radio Free Alcatraz</a>,” hosted by Santee Dakota poet John Trudell. </p>
<p>The IAT did offer – albeit satirically – to purchase the island back, proposing in the 1969 proclamation “<a href="https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/photos-from-alcatraz-island-indigenous-peoples-thanksgiving-sunrise-gathering">twenty-four dollars (US$24) in glass beads</a> and red cloth, a precedent set by the white man’s purchase of a similar island about 300 years ago,” referring to the purchase of Manhattan Island by the Dutch in 1626. </p>
<p>On behalf of IAT, Oakes sent the <a href="https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/alcatrazproclamationandletter.html">following message</a> to the regional office San Francisco office of the Department of the Interior shortly after they arrived:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The choice now lies with the leaders of the American government – to use violence upon us as before to remove us from our Great Spirit’s land, or to institute a real change in its dealing with the American Indian … We and all other oppressed peoples would welcome spectacle of proof before the world of your title by genocide. Nevertheless, we seek peace.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>After 19 months, the occupation ultimately succumbed to internal and external pressures. Oakes left the island after a family tragedy, and many members of the original group returned to school, leaving a gap in leadership. Moreover, the government cut off water and electricity to the island, and a mysterious fire destroyed several buildings, with the Indigenous occupiers and government officials <a href="https://www.nps.gov/alca/learn/historyculture/we-hold-the-rock.htm">pointing the blame at one another</a>. </p>
<p>By June 1971, President Richard Nixon was ready to intervene and ordered federal agents to <a href="https://www.nps.gov/alca/learn/historyculture/we-hold-the-rock.htm">remove the few remaining occupiers</a>. The occupation was over, but it helped spark an Indigenous political revitalization that continues today. It also pushed Nixon to put an official end to the “<a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2013-08/documents/president-nixon70.pdf">termination era</a>,” a legislative effort geared toward ending the federal government’s responsibility to Native nations, as articulated in treaties and formal agreements.</p>
<h2>Solidarity at sunrise</h2>
<p>In 1975, “Unthanksgiving Day” was established to both mark the occupation and advocate for Indigenous self-determination. For many participants, Unthanksgiving Day was also a reiteration of the original declaration released by IAT, which called on the U.S. to <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/c.php?g=945022&p=6942272">acknowledge the impacts of 500 years</a> of genocide against Indigenous people. </p>
<p>These days, the event is conducted by the International Indian Treaty Council and is largely referred to as the Indigenous Peoples Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5JYZu9oCVjw?wmode=transparent&start=4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Participants meet on Pier 33 in San Francisco before dawn and board boats to Alcatraz Island, bringing Native peoples and allies together in the place that symbolizes a key moment in the <a href="https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/photos-from-alcatraz-island-indigenous-peoples-thanksgiving-sunrise-gathering">long history of Indigenous resistance</a>. </p>
<p>At dawn, in the courtyard of what was once a federal penitentiary, sunrise ceremonies are conducted to “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/22/thanksgiving-native-american-sunrise-ceremony-alcatraz-occupation-protest">give thanks for our lives, for the beatings of our heart</a>,” said Andrea Carmen, a member of Yaqui Nation and executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council, at the 2018 gathering. </p>
<p>Songs and dances from various tribal nations are performed in prayer and as acts of collective solidarity. At the same gathering, Lakota Harden, who is a Minnecoujou/ Yankton Lakota and HoChunk community leader and organizer, <a href="https://www.peoplepowermedia.org/social-justice/unthanksgiving-ceremony-alcatraz">emphasized that</a> “those voices and the medicine in those songs are centuries old and our ancestors come and they appreciate being acknowledged when the sun comes up.” Through the sharing of song and dance, they enact culturally resonant resistance against the erasure of Native peoples from these lands.</p>
<p>The Indigenous Peoples Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering also gives people the chance to bring greater community awareness to current struggles facing Indigenous people across the globe. These include the intensifying impacts of climate change, the widespread violence against Native women, children and <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-anti-transgender-laws-will-hurt-indigenous-peoples-rights-and-religious-expression-205742">two-spirit</a> individuals, and ongoing threats to the integrity of their <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/unthanksgiving-day-50-anniversary-native-occupation-alcatraz-island-scene/">ancestral homelands</a>. </p>
<h2>Resistance beyond The Rock</h2>
<p>Indigenous Peoples Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering lands near the end of Native American Heritage Month, which is dedicated to celebrating the vast and diverse Indigenous nations and tribes that exist in the United States. Professor Jamie Folsom, who is Choctaw, <a href="https://www.keloland.com/keloland-com-original/sdsu-professor-explains-native-american-heritage-month/">describes this month</a> as a chance to “present who we are today … (and) to present our issues in our own voices and to tell our own stories.” </p>
<p>The people who will meet on Pier 33 on the fourth Thursday of November continue this story of Indigenous political action on the Rock and, by extension, in North America. The more than 50-year history of this gathering is a testament to the endurance of the original message from Oakes and Indians of All Tribes. It is also part of a larger network of resistance movements being led by Native peoples, particularly young people. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.peoplepowermedia.org/social-justice/unthanksgiving-ceremony-alcatraz">As Harden says</a>, the next generation is asking for change. “They’re standing up and saying we’ve had enough. And our future generations will make sure that things change.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon Toll does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The origins of the Indigenous People’s Thanksgiving Sunrise Ceremony, held on the traditional lands of the Ohlone people, go back to 1969, a pivotal moment of Indigenous activism.Shannon Toll, Associate Professor of Indigenous Literatures, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2163262023-11-09T13:32:30Z2023-11-09T13:32:30ZCranberries can bounce, float and pollinate themselves: The saucy science of a Thanksgiving classic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558166/original/file-20231107-21-cmo43c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C9%2C2029%2C1140&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cranberries grow on vines in sandy bogs and marshes.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/Mm6QhN">Lance Cheung, USDA/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cranberries are a staple in U.S. households at Thanksgiving – but how did this bog dweller end up on holiday tables? </p>
<p>Compared to many valuable plant species that were domesticated over thousands of years, cultivated cranberry (<em>Vaccinium macrocarpon</em>) is a young agricultural crop, just as the U.S. is a young country and Thanksgiving is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-advertising-shaped-thanksgiving-as-we-know-it-86819">a relatively new holiday</a>. But <a href="https://soilcrop.tamu.edu/people/desalvio-serina/">as a plant scientist</a>, I’ve learned much about cranberries’ ancestry from their botany and genomics.</p>
<h2>New on the plant breeding scene</h2>
<p>Humans have cultivated <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-018-9314-2">sorghum for some 5,500 years</a>, <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=114445">corn for around 8,700 years</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.120.401362">cotton for about 5,000 years</a>. In contrast, cranberries were domesticated around 200 years ago – but people were eating the berries before that.</p>
<p>Wild cranberries are native to North America. They were an important food source for Native Americans, who used them in puddings, sauces, breads and a <a href="https://www.cranberries.org/exploringcranberries/into/maki_back.html">high-protein portable food called pemmican</a> – a carnivore’s version of an energy bar, made from a mixture of dried meat and rendered animal fat and sometimes studded with dried fruits. Some tribes <a href="https://lakotarednations.com/2017/11/wo-lakota-making-wasna/">still make pemmican today</a>, and even <a href="https://tankabar.com/">market a commercial version</a>. </p>
<p>Cranberry cultivation began in 1816 in Massachusetts, where Revolutionary War veteran Henry Hall found that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt7NA7G808Y&t=5s">covering cranberry bogs with sand</a> fertilized the vines and retained water around their roots. From there, the fruit spread throughout the U.S. Northeast and Upper Midwest. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=102649">Wisconsin produces roughly 60%</a> of the U.S. cranberry harvest, followed by Massachusetts, Oregon and New Jersey. Cranberries also are grown in Canada, where they are <a href="https://canadianfoodfocus.org/in-season/whats-in-season-cranberries/">a major fruit crop</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558168/original/file-20231107-29-f3xdq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four men in waders, holding long rakes, thigh-deep in a flooded bog, its surface covered with floating cranberries." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558168/original/file-20231107-29-f3xdq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558168/original/file-20231107-29-f3xdq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558168/original/file-20231107-29-f3xdq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558168/original/file-20231107-29-f3xdq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558168/original/file-20231107-29-f3xdq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558168/original/file-20231107-29-f3xdq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558168/original/file-20231107-29-f3xdq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Farmers often flood cranberry bogs to harvest the fruit, which they rake loose from the vines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/bBmqts">Michael Galvin, Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A flexible and adaptable plant</h2>
<p>Cranberries have many interesting botanical features. Like roses, lilies and daffodils, cranberry flowers are hermaphroditic, which means they <a href="https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/info/hermaphroditic-plant-information.htm">contain both male and female parts</a>. This allows them to self-pollinate instead of relying on birds, insects or other pollinators. </p>
<p>A cranberry blossom has four petals that peel back when the flower blooms. This exposes the anthers, which contain the plant’s pollen. The flower’s resemblance to the beak of a bird earned the cranberry its original name, <a href="https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/vaccinium/macrocarpon/">the “craneberry</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558169/original/file-20231107-23-zvban6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A flower with four curved white petals tinged with pink." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558169/original/file-20231107-23-zvban6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558169/original/file-20231107-23-zvban6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558169/original/file-20231107-23-zvban6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558169/original/file-20231107-23-zvban6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558169/original/file-20231107-23-zvban6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558169/original/file-20231107-23-zvban6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558169/original/file-20231107-23-zvban6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A blossom on a cranberry bush in Wisconsin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cranberry_Blossom_%289180939392%29.jpg">Aaron Carlson/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When cranberries don’t self-pollinate, they rely on bumblebees and honeybees to transport their pollen from flower to flower. They can also be propagated sexually, by planting seeds, or asexually, through rooting vine cuttings. This is important for growers because seed-based propagation allows for higher genetic diversity, which can translate to things like increased disease resistance or more pest tolerance. </p>
<p>Asexual reproduction is equally important, however. This method allows growers to create clones of varieties that perform very well in their bogs and grow even more of those high-performing types.</p>
<p>Every cranberry <a href="https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2018/07/13/farm-technology-days-five-fun-cranberry-facts/784392002/">contains four air pockets</a>, which is why they float when farmers flood bogs to harvest them. The air pockets also make raw cranberries bounce when they are dropped on a hard surface – a good indicator of whether they are fresh.</p>
<p>These pockets serve a biological role: They enable the berries to float down rivers and streams to disperse their seeds. Many other plants disperse their seeds via animals and birds that eat their fruits and excrete the seeds as they move around. But as anyone who has tasted them raw knows, cranberries are ultra-tart, so they have <a href="https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_viopa2.pdf">limited appeal for wildlife</a>. </p>
<h2>Reading cranberry DNA</h2>
<p>For cranberries being such a young crop, scientists already know <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119616801.ch8">a lot about their genetics</a>. The cranberry <a href="https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Diploid">is a diploid</a>, which means that each cell contains one set of chromosomes from the maternal parent and one set from the paternal parent. It has 24 chromosomes, and its genome size is less than one-tenth that of the human genome. </p>
<p>Insights like these help scientists better understand where potentially valuable genes might be located in the cranberry genome. And diploid crops tend to have fewer genes associated with a single trait, which makes breeding them to emphasize that trait much simpler. </p>
<p>Researchers have also described the genetics of the cultivated cranberry’s wild relative, which is known as the “<a href="https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/cs_vaox.pdf">small cranberry” (<em>Vaccinium oxycoccos</em>)</a>. Comparing the two can help scientists determine where the cultivated cranberry’s agronomically valuable traits reside in its genome, and where some of the small cranberry’s cold hardiness might come from. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CxGCZq0xv16/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Researchers are <a href="https://www.vacciniumcap.org/">developing molecular markers</a> – tools to determine where certain genes or sequences of interest reside within a genome – to help determine the best combinations of genes from different varieties of cranberry that can enhance desired traits. For example, a breeder might want to make the fruits larger, more firm or redder in color.</p>
<p>While cranberries have only been grown by humans for a short period of time, they have been evolving for much longer. They entered agriculture with a long genetic history, including things like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264966">whole genome duplication events and genetic bottlenecks</a>, which collectively change which genes are gained or lost over time in a population. </p>
<p>Whole genome duplication events occur when two species’ genomes collide to form a new, larger genome, encompassing all the traits of the two parental species. Genetic bottlenecks occur when a population is greatly reduced in size, which limits the amount of genetic diversity in that species. These events are extremely common in the plant world and can lead to both gains and losses of different genes. </p>
<p>Analyzing the cranberry’s genome can indicate when it diverged evolutionarily from some of its relatives, such as the blueberry, lingonberry and huckleberry. Understanding <a href="https://theconversation.com/modern-tomatoes-are-very-different-from-their-wild-ancestors-and-we-found-missing-links-in-their-evolution-130041">how modern species evolved</a> can teach plant scientists about how different traits are inherited, and how to effectively breed for them in the future.</p>
<h2>Ripe at the right time</h2>
<p>Cranberries’ close association with Thanksgiving was simply a practical matter at first. Fresh cranberries are ready to harvest from mid-September through mid-November, so Thanksgiving falls within that perfect window for eating them. </p>
<p>Cranberry sauce was first loosely described in accounts from the American colonies in the 1600s, and appeared in a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-americas-first-cookbook-says-about-our-country-its-cuisine-180967809/">cookbook for the first time in 1796</a>. The berries’ tart flavor, which comes from <a href="https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/60677/">high levels of several types of acids</a>, makes them more than twice as acidic as most other edible fruits, so they add a welcome zing to a meal full of blander foods like turkey and potatoes.</p>
<p>In recent decades, the cranberry industry has branched out into <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-cranberries-conquer-the-world-a-us-industry-depends-on-it-87912">juices, snacks and other products</a> in pursuit of year-round markets. But for many people, Thanksgiving is still the time when they’re most likely to see cranberries in some form on the menu.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Serina DeSalvio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cranberries add color and acidity to Thanksgiving menus, but they also have many interesting botanical and genetic features.Serina DeSalvio, Ph.D. Candidate in Genetics and Genomics, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149292023-10-23T12:24:40Z2023-10-23T12:24:40ZFor the Osage Nation, the betrayal of the murders depicted in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ still lingers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555069/original/file-20231020-17-onzwxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C76%2C5520%2C3623&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Osage man on the Arkansas River sometime between 1910 and 1918 – about a decade before the Osage Reign of Terror.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photograph-of-an-osage-man-on-the-arkansas-river-between-news-photo/956086514?adppopup=true">Vince Dillion/Oklahoma Historical Society via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article contains plot spoilers of “Killers of the Flower Moon.”</em></p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>The sheriff disguised her death as whiskey poisoning.
Because, when he carved her body up,
he saw the bullet hole in her skull.
Because, when she was murdered,
the leg clutchers bloomed.
But then froze under the weight of frost.
During Xtha-cka Zhi-ga Tze-the,
the Killer of the Flowers Moon.
</code></pre>
<p>The excerpt is from the poem “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/this-osage-writer-remembers-one-of-the-first-victims-of-infamous-reign-of-terror">Wi’-gi-e</a>,” or “Prayer,” which Osage author Elise Paschen wrote in 2009 to honor Anna Kyle Brown, who was thought to be the first victim of the Osage Reign of Terror.</p>
<p>Brown’s body was found at the bottom of a ravine near Fairfax, Oklahoma, in 1921, with the cause of death ruled as “whiskey poisoning.” In truth she’d been murdered for her share of the hereditary mineral rights that had made her wealthy. Years later, a widespread investigation would reveal that Brown clearly died by gun violence and her cause of death was a cover-up.</p>
<p>“Killers of the Flower Moon” refers to the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/this-osage-writer-remembers-one-of-the-first-victims-of-infamous-reign-of-terror">Osage lunar cycle during which late frosts will often kill young flowers</a>. It’s also the title of Martin Scorsese’s new film, which was adapted from <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/208562/killers-of-the-flower-moon-movie-tie-in-edition-by-david-grann/">the bestselling book</a> written by David Grann. </p>
<p>The film and book trace the true story of greed, brutality and government complicity in the assassination of wealthy Osage citizens.</p>
<p>Brown was one of many Osage people murdered for their money in 1920s Oklahoma. Accurate numbers of the victims are hard to come by, but Geoffrey Standing Bear, the Osage Nation’s current principal chief, estimates that at least <a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/chief-geoffrey-standing-bear/">5% of the tribe were murdered</a>, or roughly 150 people.</p>
<p>In 1923, the Osage Nation asked the Bureau of Investigation – the predecessor to the FBI – to look into a string of mysterious deaths. After a long investigation, the bureau uncovered a massive conspiracy masterminded by white men like <a href="https://ualr.edu/sequoyah/thisday/hale-given-life-sentence-february-1-1929/">William King Hale</a>, <a href="https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=OS005">Ernest Burkhart</a> and other non-Osage members in the community of Fairfax, Oklahoma, particularly those in positions of authority. By 1929, Hale, Burkhart and some of their co-conspirators had been tried and <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/osage-murders-case">sentenced to prison</a>. </p>
<p>But for the Osage, the story didn’t end there. Existing federal policies and persistent anti-Indigenous sentiment still left Osage people vulnerable to further violence and exploitation. </p>
<h2>Guardians in name only</h2>
<p><a href="https://udayton.edu/directory/artssciences/english/toll-shannon.php">As a scholar of Indigenous literary and cultural studies</a>, I’ll often teach the political and social landscape of early Oklahoma.</p>
<p>When I tell my students at the University of Dayton about this spate of unchecked violence, someone inevitably asks how this was allowed to happen. </p>
<p>There is no one answer. But there is a central cause: laws that enabled settlers’ access to – and control over – Osage capital and, by extension, Osage lives.</p>
<p>In 1872, the Osage were forced from their homelands <a href="https://www.nps.gov/fosc/learn/historyculture/osage.htm">in Kansas and sent to Indian Territory</a>, a region that became the state of Oklahoma. Once resettled, the Osage Nation was compelled to negotiate with the federal government. Through the resulting <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807872901/colonial-entanglement/">Osage Allotment Act of 1906</a>, the Osage retained all rights to minerals found on the land, or subsurface rights.</p>
<p>There was also a legal policy known as “guardianship” that purported to protect Native American lands and investments. But it actually functioned as a way to give local courts in Oklahoma <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-disturbing-history-of-how-conservatorships-were-used-to-exploit-swindle-native-americans-165140">jurisdiction over land, persons and property of Indian minors and incompetents</a>.</p>
<p>When oil drilling <a href="https://www.osagenation-nsn.gov/news-events/news/did-you-know">began in earnest in 1896</a> on Osage lands, the Osage became one of the richest communities on the planet, with many citizens receiving substantial annual payments. This money fueled resentment among the non-Indigenous public, and guardianship became a means for them to get their hands on it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Eight women and girls, young and old, pose for a group photograph." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555068/original/file-20231020-21-fl0ylh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555068/original/file-20231020-21-fl0ylh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555068/original/file-20231020-21-fl0ylh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555068/original/file-20231020-21-fl0ylh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555068/original/file-20231020-21-fl0ylh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555068/original/file-20231020-21-fl0ylh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555068/original/file-20231020-21-fl0ylh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of Osage Nation pictured in Oklahoma in the early 20th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/postcard-features-a-photograph-of-a-group-of-unidentified-news-photo/1311286595?adppopup=true">William J Boag/Oklahoma Historical Society via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Affluent Osage citizens – who no longer fit <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807872901/colonial-entanglement/">the stereotype of the impoverished Indian</a> – were criticized for their spending habits. So <a href="https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2021/11/24/terror-on-the-osage-reservation/">in 1921, Congress passed a law</a> that required Osage people to prove themselves competent enough to manage their vast wealth, with competence often based on their percentage of Osage blood: The more one had, the more likely one would be declared incompetent. </p>
<p>Enter guardianship. Once deemed “incompetent,” an Osage citizen would have a guardian appointed to help manage their assets. It was also common for young Osage people to have a guardian appointed to them until they turned 21. Ultimately this law, as Grann explained in a 2023 interview with the Oklahoma Historical Society, “<a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/grann-david/">ushered in one of the largest state-and-federally-sanctioned criminal enterprises</a>.” Many guardians recklessly spent or embezzled their ward’s assets, while facing little or no consequences. </p>
<p>Increasingly, Osage people under guardianship began to die under mysterious circumstances, with their guardian set to inherit their share of oil royalties. Tax documents from that era reveal a number of white guardians with multiple Osage wards, <a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/conner-joe-carol/">the majority of whom were dead within a few years</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of oil derricks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554845/original/file-20231019-27-7dgj12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554845/original/file-20231019-27-7dgj12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554845/original/file-20231019-27-7dgj12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554845/original/file-20231019-27-7dgj12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554845/original/file-20231019-27-7dgj12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554845/original/file-20231019-27-7dgj12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554845/original/file-20231019-27-7dgj12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Once oil was discovered on Osage land, the tribe became wealthy overnight.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/osage-hominy-ca-1918-1919-news-photo/1371405766?adppopup=true">HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Osage actor Yancy Red Corn pointed out, once the Bureau of Investigation closed the case, “<a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/red-corn-yancey/">the killings just kept going on</a>.” While the bureau’s focus was on the murders that took place in the Gray Horse community, many more cases went unsolved in <a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/chief-geoffrey-standing-bear/">other Osage communities, including Pawhuska and Hominy</a>. Standing Bear describes walking through those local cemeteries <a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/chief-geoffrey-standing-bear/">and noting how</a> many “young people whose grave markers show ‘deceased: 1920 … 1921 … 1919 … 1923 … 1925.‘”</p>
<p>Red Corn notes that his grandparents kept a close eye on their children, never knowing who they could trust, even after the murders had been exposed and prosecuted; many Osage left Oklahoma altogether, moving to states like <a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/chief-geoffrey-standing-bear/">California and Texas to escape the violence</a>. </p>
<h2>Denial and disrespect</h2>
<p>Despite the truth of these murders being brought to light, anti-Indigenous sentiment still roiled in the area. The families of conspirators, survivors and those who continued to exploit guardianship laws had to coexist, at times with great tension. While Hale and Burkhart were both convicted and spent time in prison, they were eventually freed.</p>
<p>After Hale was paroled in 1947, some Fairfax inhabitants even welcomed him with open arms.</p>
<p>“The word went around town, 'Bill Hale is here,’” <a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/conner-joe-carol/">recalled Dr. Joe Conner</a>, an Osage citizen who had lost relatives during the Reign of Terror. “And people gathered as if there was a parade.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=OS005">Burkhart received a pardon</a> from Oklahoma Gov. Henry Bellmon in 1965, despite protests from the Osage. </p>
<p>To the Osage still living in the area, many of whom had endured the Reign of Terror, excusing the actions of men who masterminded so many deaths spoke volumes.</p>
<p>Years later, in the 1970s, an Osage teacher named Mary Jo Webb conducted her own painstaking research into the murders and created a small booklet detailing her findings. She donated the book to the Fairfax Library. <a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/conner-joe-carol/">Within a week, it vanished</a>.</p>
<p>Most recently, <a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/grann-david/">Grann mentioned</a> that while he was conducting research for his book, some of the descendants of guardians resisted being interviewed and attempted to dodge him. Dr. Carole Conner explains that it seems as though white community members would “<a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/conner-joe-carol/">rather just ignore the whole topic than have the feeling that they might be blamed</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wearing a jean jacket and sunglasses gazes at gravestones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555066/original/file-20231020-23-cmjk8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555066/original/file-20231020-23-cmjk8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555066/original/file-20231020-23-cmjk8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555066/original/file-20231020-23-cmjk8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555066/original/file-20231020-23-cmjk8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555066/original/file-20231020-23-cmjk8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555066/original/file-20231020-23-cmjk8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Margie Burkhart visits the cemetery where some of her murdered Osage ancestors are buried.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-granddaughter-of-mollie-burkhart-margie-burkhart-visits-news-photo/1721271931?adppopup=true">Chandan Khana/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whether the film might create openings for new conversations, or new opportunities for reckoning in these communities, remains to be seen. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/this-osage-writer-remembers-one-of-the-first-victims-of-infamous-reign-of-terror">Paschen’s poem</a> concludes with the lines, “I will wade across the river of the blackfish, the otter, the beaver. / I will climb the bank where the willow never dies.” </p>
<p>I see this poem as both an act of remembrance and a call to action: It is up to the speaker – and perhaps the reader – to explore, rather than ignore, spaces of loss and injustice. </p>
<p>It is also a testament to the fact that the stories of the Osage people neither begin nor end with the events that will be portrayed in Scorsese’s film; <a href="https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/grann-david/">as one Osage citizen declared</a>, “We were victims of these crimes. We don’t live as victims.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214929/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon Toll does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the perpetrators being tried and convicted, anti-Indigenous sentiment roiled the area for decades.Shannon Toll, Associate Professor of Indigenous Literatures, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2077002023-10-16T12:32:54Z2023-10-16T12:32:54ZGangsters are the villains in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ but the biggest thief of Native American wealth was the US government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552605/original/file-20231006-21-4xdn37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3639%2C2842&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Osage delegation with President Calvin Coolidge at the White House on Jan. 20, 1924. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/washington-dc-osage-indians-in-washington-regarding-their-news-photo/514689540">Bettman via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Director Martin Scorsese’s new movie, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG0si5bSd6I">Killers of the Flower Moon</a>,” tells the true story of a string of murders on the <a href="https://www.osagenation-nsn.gov/">Osage Nation</a>’s land in Oklahoma in the 1920s. Based on David Grann’s <a href="https://www.davidgrann.com/book/killers-of-the-flower-moon/">meticulously researched 2017 book</a>, the movie delves into racial and family dynamics that rocked Oklahoma to the core when oil was discovered on Osage lands.</p>
<p>White settlers targeted members of the Osage Nation to steal their land and the riches beneath it. But from a historical perspective, this crime is just the tip of the iceberg. </p>
<p>From the early 1800s through the 1930s, official U.S. policy displaced thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homes through the policy known as <a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/removal/pdf/related-facts.pdf">Indian removal</a>. And throughout the 20th century, the federal government collected billions of dollars from sales or leases of natural resources like timber, oil and gas on Indian lands, which it was supposed to disburse to the land’s owners. But it <a href="https://narf.org/cases/cobell/">failed to account for these trust funds</a> for decades, let alone pay Indians what they were due.</p>
<p>I am the manager of the University of Arizona’s <a href="https://law.arizona.edu/academics/programs/indigenous-governance-program">Indigenous Governance Program</a> and a <a href="https://naair.arizona.edu/person/torivio-fodder">law professor</a>. My ancestry is Comanche, Kiowa and Cherokee on my father’s side and Taos Pueblo on my mother’s side. From my perspective, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is just one chapter in a much larger story: The U.S. was built on stolen lands and wealth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553328/original/file-20231011-15-91wp92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Tribal members, some in traditional garb, on a stage" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553328/original/file-20231011-15-91wp92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553328/original/file-20231011-15-91wp92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553328/original/file-20231011-15-91wp92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553328/original/file-20231011-15-91wp92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553328/original/file-20231011-15-91wp92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553328/original/file-20231011-15-91wp92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553328/original/file-20231011-15-91wp92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Osage Nation attend the premiere of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ on Sept. 27, 2023, in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/julie-okeefe-addie-roanhorse-osage-nation-princess-lawren-news-photo/1705095795">Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Westward expansion and land theft</h2>
<p>In the standard telling, the American West was populated by industrious settlers who eked out livings from the ground, formed cities and, in time, created states. In fact, hundreds of Native nations already lived on those lands, each with their own unique forms of government, culture and language.</p>
<p>In the early 1800s, eastern cities were growing and dense urban centers were becoming unwieldy. Indian lands in the west were an alluring target – but westward expansion ran up against what would become known was “the Indian problem.” This <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears">widely used phrase</a> reflected a belief that the U.S. had a God-given mandate to settle North America, and Indians stood in the way.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/if-BOZgWZPE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In the early 1800s, treaty-making between the U.S. and Indian nations shifted from a cooperative process into a tool for forcibly removing tribes from their lands.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Starting in the 1830s, Congress pressured Indian tribes in the east to sign treaties that required the tribes to <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/indian-removal-act/">move to reservations in the west</a>. This took place over the objections of public figures such as <a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/removal/pdf/related-facts.pdf">Tennessee frontiersman and congressman Davy Crockett</a>, humanitarian organizations and, of course, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/fosm/learn/historyculture/storiestrailoftears.htm">the tribes themselves</a>. </p>
<p>Forced removal touched every tribe east of the Mississippi River and several tribes to the west of it. In total, <a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/removal/pdf/lesson-0-full.pdf">about 100,000 American Indians were removed</a> from their eastern homelands to western reservations. </p>
<p>But the most pernicious land grab was yet to come.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552609/original/file-20231006-29-gfecbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map showing tribes displaced from the eastern U.S." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552609/original/file-20231006-29-gfecbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552609/original/file-20231006-29-gfecbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552609/original/file-20231006-29-gfecbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552609/original/file-20231006-29-gfecbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552609/original/file-20231006-29-gfecbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552609/original/file-20231006-29-gfecbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552609/original/file-20231006-29-gfecbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eastern Native American tribes that were forced to move west starting in the 1830s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/removal/img/Removal-MAP-20170124.jpg">Smithsonian</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The General Allotment Act</h2>
<p>Even after Indians were corralled on reservations, settlers pushed for more access to western lands. In 1871, Congress formally ended the policy of treaty-making with Indians. Then, in 1887, it passed the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/dawes-act">General Allotment Act</a>, also known as the Dawes Act. With this law, U.S. policy toward Indians shifted from separation to assimilation – forcibly integrating Indians into the national population.</p>
<p>This required transitioning tribal structures of communal land ownership under a reservation system to a private property model that broke up reservations altogether. The General Allotment Act was designed to divvy up reservation lands into allotments for individual Indians and open any unallotted lands, which were deemed surplus, <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/dawes-act#">to non-Indian settlement</a>. Lands could be allotted only to male heads of households. </p>
<p>Under the original statute, the U.S. government held Indian allotments, which measured roughly 160 acres per person, in trust for 25 years before each Indian allottee could receive clear title. During this period, Indian allottees were expected to <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.utulsa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=fac_pub">embrace agriculture, convert to Christianity and assume U.S. citizenship</a>. </p>
<p>In 1906, Congress amended the law to allow the secretary of the interior to issue land titles whenever an Indian allottee was deemed capable of managing his affairs. Once this happened, the allotment was subject to taxation and could immediately be sold.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tHdSZnoDREE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A 2021 study estimated that Native people in the U.S. have lost almost 99% of the lands they occupied before 1800.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Legal cultural genocide</h2>
<p>Indian allottees often had little concept of farming and even less ability to manage their newly acquired lands.</p>
<p>Even after being confined to western reservations, many tribes had maintained their traditional governance structures and tried to preserve their cultural and religious practices, including communal ownership of property. When the U.S. government imposed a foreign system of ownership and management on them, many Indian landowners simply sold their lands to non-Indian buyers, or found themselves subject to taxes that they were unable to pay.</p>
<p>In total, allotment <a href="https://iltf.org/land-issues/history/">removed 90 million acres of land</a> from Indian control before the policy ended in the mid-1930s. This led to the destruction of Indian culture; loss of language as the federal government <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.21-22/indigenous-affairs-the-u-s-has-spent-more-money-erasing-native-languages-than-saving-them">implemented its boarding school policy</a>; and imposition of a myriad of regulations, as shown in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” that affected inheritance, ownership and title disputes when an allottee passed away. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552606/original/file-20231006-22-gax5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Antique map with oil production tracts marked" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552606/original/file-20231006-22-gax5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552606/original/file-20231006-22-gax5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552606/original/file-20231006-22-gax5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552606/original/file-20231006-22-gax5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552606/original/file-20231006-22-gax5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552606/original/file-20231006-22-gax5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552606/original/file-20231006-22-gax5ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1917 map of oil leases on the Osage Reservation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/map-of-osage-indian-reservation-gas-and-oil-leases-1917-news-photo/1371414745">HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>A measure of justice</h2>
<p>Today, <a href="https://revenuedata.doi.gov/how-revenue-works/native-american-ownership-governance/">about 56 million acres</a> remain under Indian control. The federal government owns title to the lands, but holds them in trust for Indian tribes and individuals.</p>
<p>These lands contain many valuable resources, including oil, gas, timber and minerals. But rather than acting as a steward of Indian interests in these resources, the U.S. government has repeatedly failed in its trust obligations.</p>
<p>As required under the General Allotment Act, money earned from oil and gas exploration, mining and other activities on allotted Indian lands was placed in individual accounts for the benefit of Indian allottees. But for over a century, rather than making payments to Indian landowners, the government routinely mismanaged those funds, failed to provide a court-ordered accounting of them and <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2318591">systematically destroyed disbursement records</a>. </p>
<p>In 1996, Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana, filed a class action lawsuit seeking to force the government to provide a historic accounting of these funds and fix its failed system for managing them. After 16 years of litigation, the suit was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/us/elouise-cobell-65-dies-sued-us-over-indian-trust-funds.html">settled in 2009 for roughly US$3.4 billion</a>. </p>
<p>The settlement provided $1.4 billion for direct payments of $1,000 to each member of the class, and $1.9 billion to consolidate complex ownership interests that had accrued as land was handed down through multiple generations, making it <a href="https://www.doi.gov/ocl/hearings/111/CobellvsSalazar_121709">hard to track allottees and develop the land</a>. </p>
<p>“We all know that the settlement is inadequate, but we must also find a way to heal the wounds and bring some measure of restitution,” said Jefferson Keel, president of the National Congress of American Indians, as the organization <a href="https://www.ncai.org/news/articles/2010/06/23/ncai-passes-resolution-to-support-immediate-passage-of-the-cobell-settlement-legislation">passed a resolution in 2010</a> endorsing the settlement.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553330/original/file-20231011-15-h5ezb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman and man shake hands in a crowded hearing room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553330/original/file-20231011-15-h5ezb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553330/original/file-20231011-15-h5ezb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553330/original/file-20231011-15-h5ezb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553330/original/file-20231011-15-h5ezb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553330/original/file-20231011-15-h5ezb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553330/original/file-20231011-15-h5ezb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553330/original/file-20231011-15-h5ezb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elouise Cobell shakes hands with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at a Senate hearing on the $3.4 billion Cobell v. Salazar settlement. Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation, led the suit against the federal government for mismanaging revenues derived from land held in trust for Indian tribes and individuals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/elouise-cobell-shakes-hands-with-interior-secretary-ken-news-photo/94711236">Mark Wilson/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who are the wolves?</h2>
<p>“Killers of the Flower Moon” offers a snapshot of American Indian land theft, but the full history is much broader. In one scene from the movie, Ernest Burkhart – an uneducated white man, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who married an Osage woman and <a href="https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=OS005">participated in the Osage murders</a> – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG0si5bSd6I&t=4s">reads haltingly from a child’s picture book</a>.</p>
<p>“There are many, so many, hungry wolves,” he reads. “Can you find the wolves in this picture?” It’s clear from the movie that the town’s citizens are the wolves. But the biggest wolf of all is the federal government itself – and Uncle Sam is nowhere to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207700/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Torivio Fodder is an enrolled member of the Taos Pueblo, and of Comanche, Kiowa and Cherokee descent.</span></em></p>The Osage murders of the 1920s are just one episode in nearly two centuries of stealing land and resources from Native Americans. Much of this theft was guided and sanctioned by federal law.Torivio Fodder, Indigenous Governance Program Manager and Professor of Practice, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2112522023-10-06T13:06:23Z2023-10-06T13:06:23ZBison are sacred to Native Americans − but each tribe has its own special relationship to them<p>The American bison, or American buffalo as they are commonly called, were once close to extinction. Their numbers dropped from <a href="https://www.nps.gov/gosp/learn/nature/where-the-buffalo-roamed.htm">30-60 million</a> to around 500 because of overhunting in the 19th century.</p>
<p>But they made an unlikely comeback and continue to captivate people. At Yellowstone National Park – home to the largest bison herd in the U.S., with almost 6,000 head of wild bison – they are a major attraction for visitors. In 2023 the park attracted <a href="https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/management/delivering-a-world-class-visitor-experience.htm">more than 3 million people</a>.</p>
<p>Conservationists and Indigenous people successfully saved the American bison from complete annihilation in the 20th century, increasing their numbers from less than 500 to <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/president-bidens-investing-america-agenda-help-restore-bison-populations-and-grassland">more than 15,000 wild bison</a>, which does not include the thousands of bison living on ranches. The U.S. even designated it as the “<a href="https://www.doi.gov/blog/15-facts-about-our-national-mammal-american-bison">national mammal</a>” in 2016. </p>
<p>Over thousands of years and across diverse landscapes, Indigenous peoples developed traditional ecological knowledge about the bison and their ecosystems. Meanwhile, they also developed religious customs and sacred places important to their relationship with bison. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.rosalynlapier.com/">Indigenous scholar</a> and an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe and Métis, I am interested in how Native Americans understand the natural world. <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496201508/">I learned from my Blackfeet grandparents</a> that bison emerged from the supernatural underwater realm and were given to humans by the Divine to use as food and as material. In return, humans are to respect and revere the bison.</p>
<h2>Thousands of years of history</h2>
<p>The modern-day American bison evolved around 10,000 years ago during the end of the Pleistocene Epoch from an ancient bison species. Over these several thousand years, according to environmental historian <a href="https://www.umt.edu/history/people/emeriti-faculty.php?ID=628">Dan Flores</a>, <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324006169">Indigenous peoples and bison “co-evolved”</a> – meaning they influenced the others’ actions and behaviors. </p>
<p>Indigenous peoples used bison meat and fat for food; hides for clothing, footwear and covering for their lodges; bones for tools; and other parts of the bison for rope, thread, glue or dyes. Along with the longtime use of bison for practical purposes, religious rituals and ceremonies also emerged. </p>
<p>Environmental historian <a href="https://history.illinois.edu/directory/profile/rmorriss">Robert Morrissey</a> writes in “<a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295750880/people-of-the-ecotone/">People of the Ecotone</a>” that Indigenous peoples in what is now Illinois ritualized running, a skill necessary for hunting bison. They developed coming-of-age ceremonies that tested the ability of young people to run long distances, as well as fast, to prepare for bison hunting. </p>
<p>Indigenous peoples in what is now Alberta, Canada, constructed shrines out of rocks to offer prayers to divine entities <a href="https://www.aupress.ca/books/120137-imagining-head-smashed-in/">connected to bison hunting</a>. They left offerings of tobacco or other items at these shrines during their seasonal hunts. Some of these rock shrines still exist and are viewed as sacred places.</p>
<h2>Bison origins and sacred places</h2>
<p>Indigenous people continued to remember and revere bison in rituals and ceremonies. Every tribe on the Great Plains has its own “deep individual <a href="https://www.charkoosta.com/news/the-american-buffalo-reviews-history-renews-hope/article_0cdf03c8-0b9d-11ee-9fe1-3b4276296e25.html">connection to bison</a>,” says Whisper Camel-Means, a Salish-Kootenai tribal member and wildlife biologist working at the <a href="https://bisonrange.org/">tribe’s bison range</a>. “We are all connected, but we all have a different relationship. Native people are not all the same.”</p>
<p>The Blackfeet believe that certain <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-native-americans-a-river-is-more-than-a-person-it-is-also-a-sacred-place-85302">lakes and rivers are sacred areas</a> because they are the home of the Suyiitapi, the supernatural underwater persons, and the place where bison emerged from underneath the water. </p>
<p>The Lakota, similar to the Blackfeet, consider bison sacred and a gift from the Divine. For the Lakota, however, bison did not come out of water, they came from inside the earth.</p>
<p>According to anthropologist <a href="https://cla.umn.edu/about/directory/profile/alber033">Patricia Albers</a>, the Lakota believe that both bison and humans emerged <a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/natlpark/158/">onto the Great Plains</a> from what is now <a href="https://www.nps.gov/wica/index.htm">Wind Cave National Park</a> in the Black Hills in South Dakota.</p>
<p>The Lakota believe this landscape to be their “most sacred and culturally significant” area because it is a place of genesis for humans and bison. </p>
<p>Gerard Baker, an elder from the Mandan-Hidatsa tribes, shared in a <a href="https://kenburns.com/films/the-american-buffalo/">new PBS documentary film</a> on the American bison, “When you look at a buffalo you just don’t see a big shaggy beast. You see life, you see existence, you see hope. Those are our relatives. They are a part of us.” </p>
<h2>New efforts to revive the bison</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A few bison Bison graze near a stream." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bison are a major attraction for visitors at Yellowstone National Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/YellowstoneBisonEncounters/ab14e1b88dc140ce94e260a6f2f1f5af/photo?Query=bison%20yellowstone%20park&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=448&currentItemNo=16&vs=true">AP Photo/Robert Graves, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>This year, the U.S. federal government <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-announces-significant-action-restore-bison-populations-part-new">added US$25 million</a> to “restore wild and healthy populations” of American bison on federal lands and $5 million toward accomplishing the same goal on <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/president-bidens-investing-america-agenda-help-restore-bison-populations-and-grassland">tribal lands</a>. And new legislation this fall seeks to further “<a href="https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/indian_buffalo_management_act_bill_text.pdf">develop the capacity of tribes</a>” to manage bison and bison habitat.</p>
<p>“The restoration of buffalo back to our tribes and communities and reservations is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/04/us/native-american-tribes-bison.html">part of our healing</a>,” Jason Baldes, a member of the Eastern Shoshone from Wyoming, and the tribal buffalo coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation, told The New York Times, emphasizing why this kind of funding is necessary. </p>
<p>As more bison are returned to tribal communities, I believe, as my grandparents did, that bison are a gift from the Divine. It is a reminder also of how Native peoples relate to and understand the natural world and its deep religious meaning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalyn R. LaPier served as an advisor and was interviewed for the PBS documentary film "The American Buffalo". </span></em></p>Efforts are being made to develop the capacity of Native tribes to manage bison and bison habitats. An Indigenous scholar explains their sacred significance.Rosalyn R. LaPier, Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2144332023-10-03T12:33:07Z2023-10-03T12:33:07ZIndigenous Peoples Day offers a reminder of Native American history − including the scalping they endured at the hands of Colonists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551087/original/file-20230929-27-skb8wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The first encounters between European settlers and Native Americans are captured on a wood engraving in this 1888 image.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/europeans-arrive-on-the-american-coast-wood-royalty-free-illustration/1211820679?phrase=native+americans+columbus&adppopup=true">DigitalVision Vectors</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the third year, the United States will officially observe Columbus Day alongside Indigenous Peoples Day on Oct. 9, 2023. </p>
<p>In 2021, the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/10/08/a-proclamation-indigenous-peoples-day-2021/">Biden administration declared</a> the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.uml.edu/fahss/history/faculty/strobel-christoph.aspx">I am a scholar of</a> Colonial-Indigenous relations and think that officially recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day – and, more broadly, Native Americans’ history and survival – is important.</p>
<p>Yet, Indigenous Peoples Day and Columbus Day should also serve as a reminder of the violent past endured by Indigenous communities in North America. </p>
<p>This past – complete with settlers’ brutal tactics of violence – is often ignored in the U.S. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/War-and-Colonization-in-the-Early-American-Northeast/Strobel/p/book/9781032223285">My research on New England examines</a> the important role that settlers’ wars against Native Americans played in their colonization of the region.</p>
<p>This warfare often targeted Native American women and children and was often encouraged through scalp bounties – meaning people or local governments offering money in exchange for a Native American’s scalp. </p>
<h2>Understanding scalping</h2>
<p>Scalping describes the forceful removal of the human scalp with hair attached. The violent act is usually performed with a knife, but it can also be done by other means. Someone can scalp victims who are already dead, but there are also examples of people being scalped while they are still alive.</p>
<p>Different groups have historically <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/scalping">used scalping to terrorize people</a>. </p>
<p>Native Americans certainly scalped white settlers dating back to the 1600s. Popular culture is <a href="https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/native/homepage.htm">full of examples</a> of <a href="https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=native+american+scalping+in+popular+american+culture&qpvt=Native+American+scalping+in+popular+american+culture&form=IGRE&first=1">Native Americans scalping white settlers</a>. </p>
<p>In several Indigenous cultures in North America, scalping was part of human trophy taking, which involves claiming human body parts as a war trophy. Scalps were taken during warfare as displays of military prowess or for ceremonial purposes. But just because scalping was practiced by some Native American societies, it does not mean that it was practiced by all.</p>
<p>Eyewitness accounts, histories and even art and popular films about the American West have perpetuated the false idea that scalping is a uniquely indigenous practice.</p>
<p>White settlers’ wide use of scalping against Indigenous peoples is far less acknowledged and understood. In fact, Colonists’ use of scalping against <a href="https://apnews.com/article/penobscots-indigenous-history-scalping-colonial-america-adf590d261599302207b8c377b711169">Native American people likely accelerated</a> this practice. </p>
<p>Various European American colonizers also scalped Native American people from at least the 17th through the 19th centuries. It was a way to provide proof that someone killed a Native American person. Several North American colonial powers, from the British to the Spanish empires, paid bounties to people who turned in scalps of killed Native Americans.</p>
<h2>Scalp bounties in New England and California</h2>
<p>Colonies, territories and states in what is now the U.S. used scalp bounties widely from the 17th through the 19th centuries. </p>
<p>Colonial governments in New England issued over 60 scalp bounties from the 1680s through the 1750s, typically during various conflicts between Colonists and Native Americans. </p>
<p>Massachusetts made the widest use of scalp bounties among the New England Colonies in the 1700s. </p>
<p>Massachusetts’ lieutenant governor issued one of the most notorious scalp bounty declarations in 1775. This declaration, called the <a href="https://upstanderproject.org/learn/guides-and-resources/first-light/phips-bounty-proclamation#:%7E:text=In%201755%2C%20Spencer%20Phips%2C%20lieutenant,pursuing%2C%20captivating%2C%20killing%2C%20and">Spencer Phips Proclamation of 1755</a>, provides a glimpse into how this brutal system worked. </p>
<p>“For every scalp of such Female Indian or male Indian under the Age of Twelve Years, that shall be killed and brought in as Evidence of their being killed …, Twenty Pounds,” the declaration reads. </p>
<p>This reward was a large amount of money for Colonists, equivalent to more than <a href="https://www.officialdata.org/uk/inflation/1755?amount=20">5,000 pounds</a>, or US$12,000 in today’s currency. The scalp of a male Native American could fetch two and a half times this amount. </p>
<p>In the Colonial era, such violence was normalized by anti-Native American sentiment and a sense of racial superiority among Colonists. </p>
<p>And the violent trend was long-standing. <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300230697/an-american-genocide/">As several historians point out</a>, violence against and scalping of Native Americans also played a significant role in the conquest of California in 1846. </p>
<p>One historian has called California <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803224803/">“the murder state”</a> in the 1800s, as the scalping and massacres of Native Americans accompanied white settlers’ taking Native American land. State and federal officials, as well as several businesses, supported this genocide by paying bounties to scalp hunters.</p>
<p>From a contemporary perspective, the United Nations would consider the targeted killing of Indigenous <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf">women and children to be genocide</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551178/original/file-20230929-15-zadmu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A yellow, faded paper has text that spells out a bounty for a Native American's scalp" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551178/original/file-20230929-15-zadmu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551178/original/file-20230929-15-zadmu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551178/original/file-20230929-15-zadmu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551178/original/file-20230929-15-zadmu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551178/original/file-20230929-15-zadmu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551178/original/file-20230929-15-zadmu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551178/original/file-20230929-15-zadmu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Spencer Phips Proclamation offered a bounty for Native Americans’ scalps in 1755. The town of Spencer, Mass., is named after this Spencer Phips, the former lieutenant governor of the colony.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://allthingsliberty.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Phipps_Proclamation_BEST.jpg">Journal of the American Revolution</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Memory and violence</h2>
<p>Centuries later, California and Massachusetts have had different responses to their role in these sordid histories. </p>
<p>California has acknowledged “historic wrongdoings” and the violence committed against the Indigenous people who live in the state. In 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom set up a a <a href="https://tribalaffairs.ca.gov/cthc/">Truth and Healing Council</a> <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/6.18.19-Executive-Order.pdf">to discuss and examine the state’s historical</a> relationship with Native Americans. </p>
<p>In Massachusetts, state officials have largely been silent on this issue. This places Massachusetts more in line with much of the United States. </p>
<p>This is true even as Massachusetts, under the leadership of then-Gov. Charlie Baker, put a special emphasis on genocide education in the <a href="https://www.masslive.com/politics/2021/12/a-commonwealth-free-of-pain-and-bigotry-genocide-education-will-now-be-required-in-massachusetts-schools-as-gov-charlie-baker-signs-bill-into-law.html">school curriculum</a>. </p>
<h2>Legacies of scalping</h2>
<p>The legacies of violence and scalping are deeply rooted and can be observed in numerous parts of U.S. society today. </p>
<p>For instance, various communities, including <a href="https://ictnews.org/archive/native-history-scalping-of-10-abenaki-celebrated-where-did-it-begin">Lovewell, Maine</a>, and Spencer, Massachusetts, are named after scalp bounty hunters. Locals are often not aware of the history behind these names. Such town names, and the history of violence connected to them, often hide in plain sight.</p>
<p>But if you look closely, from the writings of early Euro-American colonizers and American literature to <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-2128-native-american-mascots-people-arent-talking-about/">popular sport mascots</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-massachusetts-flag-glorifies-the-violence-committed-by-colonizers-native-americans-want-it-changed-173626">state and town seals</a>, the brutality wrought upon Indigenous people remains at the forefront of U.S. culture more than five centuries after it began.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214433/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christoph Strobel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Popular culture often describes scalping − the forceful removing of a person’s scalp − as an indigenous practice. But white settlers accelerated this form of violence against Native Americans.Christoph Strobel, Professor and Chair of History, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138382023-09-25T12:19:49Z2023-09-25T12:19:49ZThe story of Ohio’s ancient Native complex and its long journey for recognition as a World Heritage site<p>Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Ohio was <a href="https://apnews.com/article/unesco-heritage-site-ohio-hopewell-61213918814b987d809f0aa631bab86d">added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites</a> on Sept. 19, 2023. The eight mound complexes that received this designation are spread across central and southern Ohio and were built between the beginning of the common era and the 12th century.</p>
<p>The mounds are marvels of Indigenous science and astronomy, which helped Native Americans organize everything from cycles of planting and hunting to their ritual calendar. </p>
<p>Two mound complexes – Newark, which is part of the network that was designated a heritage site, and Serpent, located in the same area but isn’t technically part of Hopewell and so wasn’t granted heritage status – have been especially poorly treated. </p>
<p>Newark has an approximately 2,000-year-old series of geometric enclosures, the largest series in the world. These enclosures include a circular mound connected by a walled road that leads to an octagon-shaped mound at the site. Physicist and astronomer <a href="https://earlham.edu/faculty-staff/ray-hively/">Ray Hively</a> and philosopher <a href="https://philpeople.org/profiles/robert-horn-1">Robert Horn</a> have <a href="https://ohioarchaeology.org/file_download/inline/acc83ae4-818b-4d3e-8fca-0088b9a7df3c">demonstrated that</a> “the four vertices of the octagon form a square whose sides matches the diameter of the circle.” The symmetry of the circle and octagon <a href="https://www.orangefrazer.com/store/ohio-archaeology-an-illustrated-chronicle-of-ohios-ancient-american-indian-culture">charts nearly perfectly the</a> lunar nodal cycle, which takes 18.6 years to complete.</p>
<p>Serpent Mound lies 125 miles to the south of Newark. It is a nearly 1,400-foot-long effigy of a coiled serpent that also tracks the summer and winter solstice. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GH3l6RpAfFE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Serpent Mound.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a <a href="https://clas.uiowa.edu/history/people/stephen-warren">historian and ethnographer of the Native American Midwest</a>, I have documented Native peoples’ commitment to their original homelands. The long journey toward this recognition tells a larger story about imperiled Native American sacred sites in the eastern half of the United States and the challenges faced by those who wish to protect them. </p>
<h2>American settlers and Native peoples</h2>
<p>Native nations originally from east of the Mississippi River <a href="https://www.oupress.com/9780806152127/land-too-good-for-indians/#:%7E:text=In%20Land%20Too%20Good%20for,removal%20in%20the%20Old%20Northwest.">largely lost control of their sacred sites</a> as a result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830.</p>
<p>The policy resulted in the wholesale replacement of Native Americans with <a href="https://www.potawatomiheritage.com/encyclopedia/trail-of-death/">settlers in nearly every corner</a> of the eastern half of the United States. Three of the Native nations that have helped win the World Heritage designation for the mounds – the Shawnee, Potawatomi and Miami Nation – were subject to removal.</p>
<p>In 1831, soldiers forced Shawnee villagers in northeastern Ohio to move from their land. Seven years later, the U.S. Army compelled 859 Potawatomis from northern Indiana to leave – an event, known as the “Trail of Death,” that resulted in the deaths of more than 40 of their people. And in 1846, American settlers forced the Miami Nation out of their homes along the Wabash River, in Indiana. They ultimately accepted a reservation in Oklahoma. </p>
<p>This policy was widespread: Only one nation, the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, <a href="https://www.meskwaki.org/history/">or Meskwaki</a>, remains headquartered in the lower Midwest. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549653/original/file-20230921-15-g5cxu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white sketch showing people approaching, some riding horses, holding either flags or guns in their hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549653/original/file-20230921-15-g5cxu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549653/original/file-20230921-15-g5cxu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549653/original/file-20230921-15-g5cxu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549653/original/file-20230921-15-g5cxu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549653/original/file-20230921-15-g5cxu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549653/original/file-20230921-15-g5cxu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549653/original/file-20230921-15-g5cxu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early Europeans forced Native people to leave their lands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14753280965">Image from Page 72 of 'Indian history for young folks' (1919) / Internet Archive Book Images via Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The forced expulsion of Native nations from their homelands made it difficult for them to protect their sacred heritage. For example, the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma is headquartered roughly 750 miles from the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, which many <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469627274/the-worlds-the-shawnees-made/">Shawnees and scholars believe</a> was built by the tribe’s ancestors. </p>
<p>Native nations now headquartered in Oklahoma cannot provide the kind of daily protection of their sacred sites that they once did. Instead, they must rely on non-Native allies who now live on their ancestral lands.</p>
<h2>Post-removal abuse and neglect</h2>
<p>The Newark Earthworks and Serpent Mound illustrate the difficulty of protecting and reclaiming sacred sites for Native nations subjected to removal. </p>
<p>Over the years, Newark became a military barracks, a fairground, and for the past century it has been leased to the Moundbuilders Country Club. Since 1910, <a href="https://culturalpropertynews.org/golf-vs-ancient-earthworks-moundbuilders-country-club-case-comes-to-the-fore/">an 18-hole golf course has made use of</a> the mound complex. </p>
<p>Ephraim Squier was the first archaeologist to study Newark, in the 1840s. At the time, most Americans believed that the Bible was the literal word of God and that white Americans were a superior race. Both beliefs shaped archaeological theory. Squier argued that the Toltecs <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska-paperback/9780803227842/">built the mounds</a> and then migrated to Mesoamerica, where they built the great monuments of Mexico and Guatemala. He did not believe that the Indigenous people of the United States were capable of building the mounds.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, some Americans <a href="https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/opinion/2021/10/10/lepper-ohio-serpent-mound-american-indian-monument/6003693001/">continue to promote false theories</a> about the mounds, casting doubt on the genius of Indigenous science. </p>
<p>Despite his misgivings, Squier nonetheless <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_04301/?sp=61&r=-1.296,-0.037,3.592,1.617,0">acknowledged their beauty and accuracy</a>, writing that “the most skillful engineer of the day” would not be able to replicate the accurate dimensions of these mounds.</p>
<p>In the 19th century, <a href="https://www.serpentmound.org/">Serpent Mound was partially destroyed</a> by farmers. Then, in the the 20th century, two private, nonprofit corporations, Friends of Serpent Mound and Arc of Appalachia, <a href="https://www.ohiohistory.org/serpent-mound-management-update/">started to manage the site</a>. </p>
<p>These organizations sponsored events in which New Age groups buried crystals in Serpent Mound, lit luminaria around the base of the serpent and conducted summer and winter solstice celebrations they called Star Knowledge Peace Summits. “The crystal people and the New-Agers had taken over the place,” said one park ranger I interviewed in 2022. </p>
<p>Chief Glenna Wallace of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma has described these practices as <a href="https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/news/local/2019/07/20/wallace-shawnee-perspective-newark-earthworks/1759093001/">desecrations that were conducted</a> without their consent. “My ancestors treasured these mounds. They were sacred. No, they did not build them but they loved them, protected them, revered them,” she wrote. </p>
<p>When she first visited Newark in June 2007, there was a golf tournament underway. Instead of welcoming her, <a href="https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/news/local/2019/07/20/wallace-shawnee-perspective-newark-earthworks/1759093001/">she recalls golfers shouting</a>, “Get back! You’re in the way!” as she attempted to admire her ancestors’ creation.</p>
<h2>Collaboration and hope for the future</h2>
<p>The fight to protect the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks represents more than 25 years of hard work. Citizens of Native nations who were forcibly removed to Oklahoma collaborated with Native and non-Native allies affiliated with the Newark Earthworks Center – an academic center at Ohio State University, Newark campus – and the Ohio History Connection to protect and research the mounds.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549657/original/file-20230921-29-ekmgaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An aerial view of a mound shaped like a long snake holding an egg in its jaws." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549657/original/file-20230921-29-ekmgaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549657/original/file-20230921-29-ekmgaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549657/original/file-20230921-29-ekmgaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549657/original/file-20230921-29-ekmgaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549657/original/file-20230921-29-ekmgaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549657/original/file-20230921-29-ekmgaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549657/original/file-20230921-29-ekmgaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-great-serpent-mound-in-adams-county-ohio-built-by-the-news-photo/2672863?adppopup=true">MPI/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since 2020, the Ohio History Connection, which took over management of Serpent Mound, has been doing community-engaged archaeology. As part of this engagement, staff archaeologists work with the cultural preservation officers of affiliated Native nations to interpret the site. </p>
<p>Similarly, the staff of the Ohio History Connection and the Newark Earthworks Center regularly consult with tribal leaders regarding the Newark Earthworks. These diverse stakeholders <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1689/documents/">worked together</a> for the World Heritage designation. </p>
<p>The fight over the Newark Earthworks has proved far more difficult. The golf club has a century-long lease with the state of Ohio, which the state attempted to terminate through eminent domain. In response, Moundbuilders Country Club sued the Ohio History Connection, arguing that the state of Ohio did not have the right to take private property and convert it to public use.</p>
<p>In May 2019, Licking County Common Pleas Court <a href="https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/news/2019/05/10/judge-rules-ohc-can-reclaim-octagon-mounds-country-cub/1170949001/">Judge David Branstool concluded</a> that “100 years of manicured lawns does not immunize the Country Club from eminent domain.” In short, the public’s right to access and appreciate the site is more important than the right of country club members to play golf on the mounds. </p>
<p>In December 2022, the Moundbuilders Country Club <a href="https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2022/2022-Ohio-4345.pdf">appealed the decision to the Ohio Supreme Court and lost</a>. Now both sides await a trial to determine how much money the Ohio History Connection must pay to the club to finally control the mound complex.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, there is much to celebrate now that the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks has been named the 25th World Heritage site in the United States. The collaborative partnership between Native nations removed from Ohio, the Ohio History Connection, the National Park Service and dedicated archaeologists in the state serves as a hopeful example of how sacred sites in the eastern half of the United States might be better protected, and interpreted, in the future. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s Note: Serpent Mound isn’t technically part of Hopewell, so it wasn’t granted heritage status, as erroneously stated earlier.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213838/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Warren does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An Indigenous sacred site, Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks has served as a military barracks, a fairground and, more recently, a golf course.Stephen Warren, Professor of History and Program Coordinator, Native American and Indigenous Studies, University of IowaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2089232023-08-16T12:26:33Z2023-08-16T12:26:33ZMichigan pipeline standoff could affect water protection and Indigenous rights across the US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542481/original/file-20230813-175390-x00yus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C4446%2C2884&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A ferry arrives at Mackinac Island in the Straits of Mackinac, Michigan's largest tourist draw.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Travel-Trip-MackinacIsland/9896e61c897e4175ba9ce529bd127562/photo">AP Photo/Anick Jesdanun</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Should states and Indigenous nations be able to influence energy projects they view as harmful or contrary to their laws and values? This question lies at the center of a heated debate over <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/egle/about/featured/line5/overview">Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline</a>, which carries oil and natural gas across Wisconsin and Michigan. </p>
<p>Courts, regulatory agencies and political leaders are deciding whether Enbridge should be allowed to keep its pipeline in place for another 99 years, with upgrades. The state of Michigan and the <a href="http://www.badriver-nsn.gov/">Bad River Tribe</a> in Wisconsin want to <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MIEOG/2020/11/13/file_attachments/1600920/Notice%20of%20%20Revocation%20and%20Termination%20of%20%20Easement%20%2811.13.20%29.pdf">close the pipeline down immediately</a>.</p>
<p>My expertise is in Great Lakes water and energy policy, environmental protection and sustainability leadership. I have analyzed and taught these issues as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YKC4V5gAAAAJ&hl=en">sustainability scholar</a>, and I have worked on them as the National Wildlife Federation’s <a href="https://nwf.org/greatlakes">Great Lakes regional executive director</a> from 2015 until early 2023. </p>
<p>In my view, the future of Line 5 has become a defining issue for the future of the Great Lakes region. It also could set an important precedent for reconciling energy choices with state regulatory authority and Native American rights.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OCW6fiNSXjs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tribal leaders and Native community members explain what the Straits of Mackinac mean to their cultures.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A Canadian pipeline through the US Midwest</h2>
<p>Line 5, built in 1953, runs 643 miles from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario. It carries up to 23 million gallons of oil and natural gas liquids daily, produced mainly from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/tar-sand">Canadian tar sands in Alberta</a>. </p>
<p>Most of this oil and gas goes to refineries in Ontario and Quebec. Some remains in the U.S. for propane production or processing at refineries in Michigan and Ohio.</p>
<p>Controversy over Line 5 centers mainly on two locations: the Bad River Band Reservation in Wisconsin, where the pipeline crosses tribal land, and the Straits of Mackinac (pronounced “Mackinaw”) in Michigan. This channel between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541274/original/file-20230804-17305-8y9tf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map showing the Line 5 route across Wisconsin and Michigan and through the Straits of Mackinac." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541274/original/file-20230804-17305-8y9tf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541274/original/file-20230804-17305-8y9tf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541274/original/file-20230804-17305-8y9tf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541274/original/file-20230804-17305-8y9tf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541274/original/file-20230804-17305-8y9tf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541274/original/file-20230804-17305-8y9tf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541274/original/file-20230804-17305-8y9tf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario, is part of a larger regional pipeline network.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.enbridge.com/projects-and-infrastructure/public-awareness/line-5-michigan/about-line-5">Enbridge</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Line 5 crosses through the open water of the straits in twin pipelines that rest on the lake bottom in some stretches and are suspended above it in others. The route lies within an easement <a href="http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/michigan/files/201409/1953-04-23_Lakehead_Pipe_Line_Company_Easement_through_the_Straits_of_Mackinac.pdf">granted by the state of Michigan in 1953</a>. </p>
<p>The Straits of Mackinac are one of the most iconic settings in the Great Lakes. They include <a href="https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/the-straits-of-mackinac-connecting-people-places-and-so-much-more-msg20-nelson20">hundreds of islands and miles of shorelines</a> rimmed with forests and wetlands. Scenic Mackinac Island in Lake Huron, a <a href="https://www.michigan.org/city/mackinac-island">popular resort area</a> since the mid-1800s, is Michigan’s top tourist destination. </p>
<p>The straits also have long been <a href="https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/travel/michigan/2017/03/07/restoring-mackinac-islands-native-american-history/98809484/">spiritually important for Great Lakes tribes</a>. Michigan acknowledges that the Chippewa and Ottawa peoples <a href="https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2021/03/treaty-rights-line-5-oil-pipelines-controversial-history/">hold treaty-protected fishing rights</a> that center on the Mackinac region.</p>
<h2>The Line 6b spill</h2>
<p>In 2010, another Enbridge pipeline, Line 6b, <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2020/07/10-years-ago-kalamazoo-river-oil-spill-was-an-awakening-in-pipeline-debate.html">ruptured near the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan</a>, spilling over 1 million gallons of heavy crude. Line 6b is part of a parallel route to Line 5, and the cleanup continues <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-watch/10-years-later-kalamazoo-river-spill-still-colors-enbridge-pipeline">more than a decade later</a>. </p>
<p>The spill, and Enbridge’s <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26062012/dilbit-diluted-bitumen-enbridge-kalamazoo-river-marshall-michigan-oil-spill-6b-pipeline-epa/">slow, bungled response and lack of transparency</a>, led to scrutiny of other Enbridge pipelines, <a href="https://www.nwf.org/%7E/media/pdfs/regional/great-lakes/nwf_sunkenhazard.ashx">including Line 5</a>.</p>
<p>In a 2014 analysis, University of Michigan oceanographer <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wWTpqmEAAAAJ&hl=en">David J. Schwab</a> concluded that the Straits of Mackinac were the <a href="https://news.umich.edu/straits-of-mackinac-worst-possible-place-for-a-great-lakes-oil-spill-u-m-researcher-concludes/">“worst possible place</a>” for a Great Lakes oil spill because of high-speed currents that were unpredictable and reversed frequently. Within 20 days of a spill, Schwab estimated, oil could be carried up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the site into Lakes Michigan and Huron, fouling drinking water intakes, beaches and other critical areas.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ELlWwTF9PDs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">This animated video created by David J. Schwab of the University of Michigan Water Center shows how an oil spill beneath the Straits of Mackinac could spread within the first 20 days.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This and other research intensified a burgeoning advocacy campaign by pipeline opponents, including <a href="https://www.oilandwaterdontmix.org/">regional and national environmental organizations</a>, <a href="https://earthjustice.org/feature/bay-mills-fighting-the-good-fight-to-protect-the-great-lakes-line-5-enbridge">Indigenous leaders and advocates</a>, and a newly formed network of <a href="https://glbusinessnetwork.com/">local and regional businesses</a>. </p>
<p>Pipeline supporters include the <a href="https://www.api.org/">American Petroleum Institute</a> and others in the fossil fuel industry, many <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/11/15/enbridge-line-5-shutdown-not-soon/6369707001/">conservative lawmakers</a>, several key <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-canada-pipelines-activists-idUSKBN2A11ED">labor unions</a> and the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-wisconsin-line-5-pipeline-1.6565809">government of Canada</a>. They argue that the current pipeline is safe, violates no federal laws and is a key piece of infrastructure that helps keep <a href="https://www.enbridge.com/projects-and-infrastructure/public-awareness/line-5-michigan/about-line-5">energy costs low</a>.</p>
<h2>Michigan revokes its easement</h2>
<p>After years of scrutiny, including the formation of the <a href="https://mipetroleumpipelines.org/">Michigan Pipeline Safety Advisory Board</a> and two <a href="https://mipetroleumpipelines.org/document/independent-risk-analysis-straits-pipelines-final-report">expert reports</a> commissioned by the state, analyses showed that Enbridge was <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/2017/06/line_5_unsupported_spans.html">violating provisions of its easement</a>. Most notably, the section of Line 5 that ran under the straits lacked proper anchors and coating, <a href="https://michiganlcv.org/line5/">increasing the threat of a rupture</a>. The state concluded that the easement <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/public_trust_doctrine#:%7E:text=Public%20trust%20doctrine%20is%20a,waters%2C%20wildlife%2C%20or%20land.">violated the public trust doctrine</a> – the idea that government should protect certain natural resources, including waterways, for public use.</p>
<p>State reports concluded that the highest risk for rupture was from <a href="https://mipetroleumpipelines.org/document/independent-risk-analysis-straits-pipelines-final-report">anchor strikes</a>. Environmental nongovernment organizations found that Line 5 had already leaked <a href="https://www.nwf.org/-/media/Documents/PDFs/Press-Releases/2020/11-20-20-Line-5-Report">more than 1 million gallons</a> of oil and natural gas liquids. On April 1, 2018, a boat anchor struck the pipeline and <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/05/15/mackinac-enbridge-oil-pipeline-anchor-damage/3679013002/">nearly ruptured it</a>, temporarily shutting it down. </p>
<p>In 2019, Gov. Rick Snyder was succeeded by Gretchen Whitmer, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/14/gretchen-whitmer-enbridge-line-5-pipeline-mackinac-time-bomb/">who pledged in her campaign to close Line 5</a>. Seeking to avert a shutdown, Enbridge proposed building a tunnel beneath the lake bed to <a href="https://www.michiganradio.org/environment-science/2018-12-19/mackinac-straits-corridor-authority-approves-enbridge-tunnel-agreements">protect the pipeline</a>.</p>
<p>But after more analysis and <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/06/19/whitmer-line-5-shut-down-after-significant-damage-anchor-support/3225987001/">another anchor strike</a> that temporarily shut down the pipeline again, Whitmer issued an order in November 2020 <a href="https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/11/enbridge-line-5-ordered-shut-down-by-michigan-gov-whitmer.html">revoking Enbridge’s easement</a> and giving the company six months to close Line 5. The state <a href="https://casetext.com/case/michigan-v-enbridge-energy-ltd-pship">sought a court order</a> to support its decision.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1393293141256642562"}"></div></p>
<h2>Challenging state and tribal authority</h2>
<p>Instead of accepting state orders, <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-watch/enbridge-michigan-we-wont-shut-down-line-5">Enbridge resisted</a>. The company argued that Michigan lacked authority to tell it how to manage the pipeline; that the project had not required an easement in 1953; and that building the tunnel would mitigate any risks. </p>
<p>Enbridge <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DJAw1cNSvCRGxOwJlFl5-U95VVr1jbSV/view">sued Michigan in federal court</a>, arguing that pipeline safety regulation was a federal issue and that the state had no authority to intervene in what was essentially <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMuK5LDlsF4">international commerce</a>.</p>
<p>Enbridge also faced pressure from the <a href="http://www.badriver-nsn.gov/">Bad River Tribe</a> in Wisconsin, where some 12 miles of the pipeline runs through the Bad River Band reservation and across the Bad River. Enbridge’s easement on parts of the reservation expired in 2013, and in 2017 the tribal council <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012017/dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock-enbridge-line-5-native-american-protest/">voted to evict Enbridge from their land</a>, calling the pipeline a threat to the river and their culture. </p>
<p>When Enbridge continued operating Line 5, the tribe <a href="https://www.wpr.org/sites/default/files/7-23-19_lawsuit.pdf">sued the company in federal court</a> in 2019, charging it with trespass, unjust enrichment and other offenses, and sought to get the pipeline closed. </p>
<p>Today, Michigan’s case against Enbridge is <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/ag/news/press-releases/2023/03/03/attorney-general-nessel-asks-court-of-appeals-to-move-enbridge-case-back-to-michigan">bogged down in jurisdictional battles</a>. But on June 16, 2023, the federal judge overseeing the Bad River case <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/bad-river-vs-enbridge-pipeline-lawsuit-decision.pdf">ruled largely in favor of the tribe</a> and ordered Enbridge to stop operating the pipeline on tribal land within three years. Enbridge vowed to appeal the ruling, but is also seeking permits for a <a href="https://www.wpr.org/judge-orders-enbridge-shut-down-part-wisconsin-oil-pipeline-3-years">41-mile reroute</a> of Line 5 around the reservation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542373/original/file-20230811-15-nv1ukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Trudeau and Biden shake hands at the entrance to a stone building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542373/original/file-20230811-15-nv1ukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542373/original/file-20230811-15-nv1ukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542373/original/file-20230811-15-nv1ukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542373/original/file-20230811-15-nv1ukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542373/original/file-20230811-15-nv1ukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542373/original/file-20230811-15-nv1ukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542373/original/file-20230811-15-nv1ukl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, shown welcoming U.S. President Joe Biden to Ottawa on March 24, 2023, strongly supports Line 5, which carries Canadian oil and gas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenCanada/9c3b7f736a704947b4fc2b08c25532f6/photo">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A national precedent</h2>
<p>Line 5 is more than a Midwest issue. It has become a focus for <a href="https://narf.org/bay-mills-line5-pipeline/">national activism</a> and is a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-10/why-a-flowing-pipeline-has-canada-michigan-at-odds-quicktake?sref=Hjm5biAW">major diplomatic issue</a> between Canada and the U.S.
President Joe Biden, who has <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/08/974365298/biden-faces-balancing-act-advancing-clean-energy-alongside-labor-allies">worked to balance</a> his ties with organized labor and his support for a clean energy transition, has avoided taking a side to date. </p>
<p>To continue operating Line 5, Enbridge will have to convince the courts that its interests and legal arguments outweigh those of an Indigenous nation and the state of Michigan. Never before has an active fossil fuel pipeline been closed due to potential environmental and cultural damage. </p>
<p>The outcome could set a precedent for other pipeline and fossil fuel infrastructure battles, from the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/27/supreme-court-mountain-valley-pipeline/">mid-Atlantic</a> to the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2023/07/20/tcenergy-gtn-pipeline-expansion-northwest-climate-change/">Pacific Coast</a>. Ultimately, in my view, Line 5 is an under-the-radar but critical proxy battle for how, when and under what authority the phasing out of fossil fuels will proceed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Shriberg previously served from 2015-2022 as the Great Lakes Regional Executive Director for the National Wildlife Federation, where his position included grant and donor funding to work on issues related to the Line 5 pipeline. He also served as a gubernatorial appointee under former Gov. Rick Snyder to the Michigan Pipeline Safety Advisory Board.</span></em></p>A pipeline that has carried Canadian oil and gas across Wisconsin and Michigan for 70 years has become a symbol of fossil fuel politics and a test of local regulatory power.Mike Shriberg, Professor of Practice & Engagement, School for Environment & Sustainability, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1964722023-07-12T12:40:09Z2023-07-12T12:40:09ZRemoving dams from the Klamath River is a step toward justice for Native Americans in Northern California<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535134/original/file-20230701-19-wvds62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C3000%2C1989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Water spills over the Copco 1 Dam on the Klamath River near Hornbrook, Calif.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DemolishingtheDams/2bf34b6d43764403a7f7dff2d117b3bd/photo">AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Klamath River runs over 250 miles (400 kilometers) from southern Oregon to the Pacific Ocean in Northern California. It flows through the steep, rugged Klamath Mountains, past slopes of redwood, fir, tanoak and madrone, and along pebbled beaches where willows shade the river’s edge. Closer to its mouth at Requa, the trees rising above the river are often blanketed in fog. </p>
<p>The Klamath is central to the worldviews, history and identity of several Native nations. From headwaters in <a href="https://klamathtribes.org/history/">Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin-Paiute lands</a>, it flows through <a href="https://www.shastaindiannation.org/">Shasta</a>, <a href="https://www.karuk.us/index.php/departments/land-management">Karuk</a>, <a href="http://www.hoopatepa.org/">Hupa</a> and <a href="https://www.yuroktribe.org/our-history">Yurok</a> homelands. The Yurok Tribe has <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/29/765480451/tribe-gives-personhood-to-klamath-river">legally recognized the personhood of the river</a>. </p>
<p>Historically, the Klamath was the third-largest Pacific salmon-producing river on the West Coast. The river supported <a href="https://doi.org/10.1577/1548-8446(2005)30%5B10:DOAFIT%5D2.0.CO;2">abundant and diverse runs of native fish</a>, including Chinook and coho salmon, steelhead trout, Pacific lamprey, green sturgeon, eulachon smelt and coastal cutthroat trout. Most of the Klamath in California has been designated since 1981 as “<a href="https://www.rivers.gov/rivers/klamath-ca.php">wild and scenic</a>” – the strongest level of protection for free-flowing rivers.</p>
<p>People and fish of the Klamath River have been interconnected for millennia. But dams and irrigation systems built before the 1960s – along with other pressures, such as logging, mining and overharvesting – have separated fish from their spawning habitats and Indigenous cultures from sacred fish. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535132/original/file-20230701-43706-zd4b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map shows locations of the four dams on the Klamath." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535132/original/file-20230701-43706-zd4b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535132/original/file-20230701-43706-zd4b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535132/original/file-20230701-43706-zd4b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535132/original/file-20230701-43706-zd4b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535132/original/file-20230701-43706-zd4b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535132/original/file-20230701-43706-zd4b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535132/original/file-20230701-43706-zd4b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Four hydropower dams on the Klamath River are being removed to restore habitat for endangered salmon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/study-reach-klamath-river-dam-removal-sediment-study">USGS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recognizing this harm, state, federal and tribal agencies now are <a href="https://wildrivers.lostcoastoutpost.com/2023/jun/23/klamath-river-dam-removal-project-commences-krrc-s/">removing four of the Klamath’s six dams</a> to let fish migrate farther upstream to historical habitats. The target completion date is 2024. This <a href="https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/civil-engineering-magazine/article/2023/05/construction-begins-on-removal-of-4-klamath-river-dams#:%7E:text=Involving%20the%20simultaneous%20removal%20of,in%202016%20to%20oversee%20the">US$450 million project</a> is the <a href="https://www.americanrivers.org/2022/11/five-key-lessons-as-worlds-biggest-dam-removal-project-will-soon-begin-on-the-klamath-river/">largest dam removal in the world</a>. </p>
<p>Dam removals have catalyzed ecological rebound in other rivers, including the <a href="https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/dam-removals-elwha-river">Elwha in Washington state</a> and the <a href="https://www.mainepublic.org/environment-and-outdoors/2019-07-02/20-years-later-conservationists-celebrate-edwards-dam-removal">Kennebec and Penobscot in Maine</a>. As scholars working in <a href="https://nas.ucdavis.edu/people/beth-middleton">Native American studies</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ulp58GcAAAAJ&hl=en">freshwater ecology</a>, we see the Klamath dam removal as an opportunity to right historical wrongs, improve depleted native fish populations and strengthen an understanding of the relationships between fish and Indigenous peoples.</p>
<h2>People, fish and infrastructure</h2>
<p>Resident fishes of the upper Klamath are <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/endemic-species">highly endemic</a>, meaning that they do not occur anywhere else in the world. They represent a unique collection of species from an ancient river that historically flowed into the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Great-Basin">Great Basin</a> – a swath of arid lands across present-day Nevada and western Utah – before connecting to the lower Klamath River <a href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/10838/chapter/1">about 1.8 million years ago</a>. Many fishes, particularly Chinook salmon, steelhead and coho salmon, annually migrated to or near the headwaters of the Klamath River to spawn. </p>
<p>As early as 1895, hydroelectric operations began to change the Klamath’s hydrology. In the early 1900s, multiple small regional hydroelectric companies consolidated to form California Oregon Power Co., or Copco, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began developing <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/history/">water storage and diversion projects</a>. </p>
<p>White settlers in California had already been <a href="https://www.history.com/news/californias-little-known-genocide">violently attempting to eradicate Native Americans</a> since the mid-1800s. Dam building ushered in a <a href="https://books.google.com.et/books?id=kdHmDShCUZgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">new phase of attempted removal</a> for tribes whose lives and cultures were centered along the rivers. Farming communities and lumber companies invaded the ancestral homelands of the Yurok and Karuk peoples. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535140/original/file-20230701-93898-1gg2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A river flows past evergreen trees with mountains in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535140/original/file-20230701-93898-1gg2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535140/original/file-20230701-93898-1gg2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535140/original/file-20230701-93898-1gg2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535140/original/file-20230701-93898-1gg2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535140/original/file-20230701-93898-1gg2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535140/original/file-20230701-93898-1gg2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535140/original/file-20230701-93898-1gg2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Klamath River runs from Oregon’s high desert interior through the Cascades and the Klamath Mountains, entering the Pacific Ocean in Northern California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/WBCmEX">Bob Wick, BLM/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Declining fisheries</h2>
<p>Permitting processes in the heyday of Western dam construction did not consider impacts on Indigenous nations or fisheries. Construction of Copco 1 blocked all fish migration to the Klamath’s upper reaches starting in 1912. Subsequently, Copco 2, J.C. Boyle and Iron Gate dams further shortened fish migrations, cutting off access to approximately 400 miles (650 kilometers) of productive spawning and rearing habitat. None of these dams included <a href="https://www.pnnl.gov/explainer-articles/fish-passage">passage systems</a> to help fish access upstream habitats.</p>
<p>Today, wild spring-run Chinook are largely absent from the basin, except for a small population associated with the Salmon River and another population released from a hatchery on the Trinity River. Wild spring-run Chinook have <a href="https://www.dfw.state.or.us/fish/CRP/docs/klamath_reintroduction_plan/ODFW%20and%20The%20Klamath%20Tribes_Upper%20Klamath%20Basin%20anadromous%20reintroduction%20implementation%20plan_Final%202021.pdf">declined by 98% from historical baselines</a>. </p>
<p>Fall-run Chinook still return to the basin in moderate to small numbers, partly because two hatcheries on the Klamath produce and release <a href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/10838/chapter/1">up to 12 million juveniles annually</a>. According to a <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520227545/inland-fishes-of-california">2002 estimate</a>, between 20,000 and 40,000 wild fall-run Chinook salmon now return from the ocean annually, down from approximately 500,000 historically.</p>
<p>Other native fishes in the Klamath Basin are also in severe decline. The Coho salmon, shortnose sucker, Lost River sucker, bull trout and euchalon all are <a href="https://www.fws.gov/program/endangered-species">federally listed</a> as threatened or endangered. Conservationists have petitioned regulators to list other species, including spring-run Chinook, steelhead and lamprey. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535141/original/file-20230701-38139-emghe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man examines a felled redwood roughly seven feet in diameter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535141/original/file-20230701-38139-emghe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535141/original/file-20230701-38139-emghe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535141/original/file-20230701-38139-emghe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535141/original/file-20230701-38139-emghe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535141/original/file-20230701-38139-emghe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535141/original/file-20230701-38139-emghe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535141/original/file-20230701-38139-emghe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dave Severns, a member of the Yurok Tribe, uses traditional methods to craft canoes from hollowed redwood trunks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/klamath-ca-thursday-june-10-2021-the-yurok-tribe-offers-news-photo/1233879225">Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Impacts on tribal nations</h2>
<p>Development in the Klamath Basin has pitted agricultural interests against tribal nations and fish, particularly during dry years. Lack of fish passage systems and lower river flow have contributed to fish declines and disease. </p>
<p>Losing salmon along the Klamath is traumatic for Native nations, which see the fish as <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.9/indigenous-affairs-klamath-basin-the-familial-bond-between-the-klamath-river-and-the-yurok-people">a cultural and spiritual keystone</a>. For them, working to remove the dams and protect the salmon is a commitment and a responsibility. </p>
<p>As Yurok tribal member Brook Thompson, a restoration engineer, stated in a recent article:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“My people have lived on the Klamath for thousands of years, and I know that the salmon today are the descendants of those my ancestors managed. These salmon are a direct tie to my ancestors – the physical representation of their love for me. <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.9/indigenous-affairs-klamath-basin-the-familial-bond-between-the-klamath-river-and-the-yurok-people">The salmon are my relatives</a>.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Tribes have legal rights to protect their fisheries and, ultimately, their cultural survival. In Western water law, rights often follow a first-in-time logic, meaning that the first party to claim or appropriate water <a href="https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/water-rights-california">holds the right to it</a>. According to the Winters doctrine, established in a <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/207/564/">1908 Supreme Court ruling</a>, tribal water rights extend back to the dates when reservations were created. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/skokfZFMwI0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Native American communities in the Pacific Northwest have fought for decades to remove hydroelectric dams that harm salmon migration.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Klamath River Reservation was established primarily for Yurok <a href="https://media.fisheries.noaa.gov/dam-migration/yurok_klamath_doi_2011.pdf">on the lower Klamath in 1855</a>, long before water development upstream. Upriver, lands were <a href="https://treaties.okstate.edu/treaties/treaty-with-the-klamath-etc-1864-0865">recognized for the Klamath tribes in 1864</a>. </p>
<p>In 1954 Congress <a href="https://klamathtribes.org/history/">terminated federal recognition</a> for the Klamath Tribe. Three decades later, however, in the 1983 case <a href="https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-adair-3">U.S. v. Adair</a>, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit recognized that the tribe retained enough water rights to protect its treaty-guaranteed hunting and fishing rights on former reservation land. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.oregon.gov/owrd/programs/waterrights/adjudications/klamathriverbasinadj/pages/default.aspx">state quantification process</a> affirmed in 2012 and reaffirmed in 2021 that tribes had the <a href="https://narf.org/cases/klamath-tribes-water-rights/">most senior water rights in the upper Klamath Basin</a>. The federal government is responsible for ensuring in-stream flows that will sustain the Klamath tribes’ fishing rights, as well as agricultural deliveries to upstream farmers – whose rights generally date to the establishment of the <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/projects/index.php?id=470">federal Klamath Project in 1906</a>. </p>
<p>Downstream, a series of court cases and a 1993 legal opinion from the Department of the Interior <a href="https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.opengov.ibmcloud.com/files/uploads/M-36979.compressed.pdf">affirmed Yurok and Hoopa fishing rights</a>. Tribes have legal priority, both upriver and downriver. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CsZn-cSOjOQ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link\u0026igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Welcoming salmon home</h2>
<p>Removing the dams will begin to address the terms of the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110110/witnesses/HMTG-116-CN00-Wstate-MyersF-20191022.pdf">Yurok Tribe’s 2019 Resolution 19-40</a>, which recognizes the rights of the Klamath River itself “to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve; to have a clean and healthy environment free from pollutants; to have a stable climate free from human-caused climate change impacts …” and the tribe’s right to “protect the Klamath River, its ecosystem, and species for the continuation of the Yurok people and the Tribe for future generations.”</p>
<p>Dam removal will encourage native and endemic fishes to return to the upper basin and access important spawning and rearing habitats. Fish population responses will probably vary, particularly during the first several years after removal. </p>
<p>However, salmon and trout have evolved to migrate upstream and access important headwater spawning and rearing habitats. Making this possible will support long-term recovery of these ecologically and culturally important species. </p>
<p>It also will promote the recovery of Indigenous peoples’ homelands and lifeways. In Yurok restoration engineer Brook Thompson’s words, “We’re all focused on finding solutions to bringing our salmon back home and creating a healthy life for them. Creating a healthy life for salmon means creating <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skokfZFMwI0">a healthy life for us as people</a>.”</p>
<p><em>The authors thank Barry McCovey Jr., Director of the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department, for reviewing this article and providing comments.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196472/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Rose Middleton Manning receives funding from the Resources Legacy Fund (Open Rivers Fund) to study tribal participation in and leadership in dam removal projects.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Lusardi receives funding from Resource Legacy Fund (Open Rivers Fund) to study the effects of dam removal on river ecology. </span></em></p>The largest dam removal project is moving forward on the Klamath River in California and Oregon. Tribal nations there have fought for decades to protect native fish runs and the ecology of the river.Beth Rose Middleton Manning, Professor of Native American Studies, University of California, DavisRobert Lusardi, Assistant Professor of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and California Trout-UC Davis Coldwater Fish Scientist, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2025882023-06-23T12:29:31Z2023-06-23T12:29:31ZSupreme Court rules the US is not required to ensure access to water for the Navajo Nation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533585/original/file-20230622-21-a0x8w4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C14%2C4866%2C3239&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A water pump outside a home on the Navajo Nation in Thoreau, N.M.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/water-pump-sits-outside-of-the-home-of-janlee-hudson-who-news-photo/1359453184">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation in the U.S., covers <a href="https://www.navajo-nsn.gov/History">27,000 square miles</a> (70,000 square kilometers) in the Southwest – an area larger than 10 states. Today it is home to more than 250,000 people – roughly comparable to the population of St. Petersburg, Florida, or Winston-Salem, North Carolina.</p>
<p>Unlike those cities, however, 30% of households on the Navajo Reservation <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/599/21-1484/">lack running water</a>. Hauling water can cost 20 times what it does in neighboring off-reservation communities. While the average American uses between 80 and 100 gallons (300-375 liters) of water per day, Navajo Nation members use approximately seven. </p>
<p>Since the 1950s, the Navajo Nation has pressed the U.S. government to define the water rights reserved for them under the <a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/navajo/treaty/treaty.cshtml">1868 treaty</a> that created their reservation. </p>
<p>These efforts culminated in a U.S. Supreme Court case, <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/599/21-1484/">Arizona v. Navajo Nation</a>, which posed this question: Does the treaty between the Navajo Nation and the United States obligate the federal government to “assess” the water needs of the Navajo and “make a plan” for securing water to meet those needs? On June 22, 2023, the Supreme Court <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/599/21-1484/">ruled 5-4</a> that the answer was no. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/InxHnLrDOKI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Daily life on Navajo land can involve long daily drives to haul water home.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The centrality of water rights</h2>
<p>Water rights – the ability of individuals to use public water supplies – have always been a central issue in the U.S. West. They are only becoming more so as drought and climate change <a href="https://theconversation.com/colorado-river-states-bought-time-with-a-3-year-water-conservation-deal-now-they-need-to-think-bigger-206386">shrink the existing supply</a>. </p>
<p>Federal reserved rights have special importance with respect to American Indian reservations for several reasons. </p>
<p>First, the priority date when the rights begin is the date when the reservation was created. In most cases, this creates a very senior right – one that supersedes those of people who arrive in the area later. </p>
<p>Second, these rights exist regardless of whether the tribe has begun to use the water. Because all of the water in many western rivers has been fully allocated, these rights have a significant potential to displace existing juniors, or people who came later and have rights under state water law. </p>
<p>Third, among the 30 federally recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin, approximately a dozen – including the Navajo Nation – are still in the process of getting a court to <a href="https://grist.org/indigenous/colorado-river-tribal-water-rights-navajo-nation-arizona-nevada-drought-data/">adjudicate the scope of their federal water rights</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, tribes or nations usually need a lot of water to irrigate reservation lands or establish a viable permanent homeland in the dry Southwest. In this context, it’s clear why the Navajo have called on the federal government for decades to specify their federally reserved water rights. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533587/original/file-20230622-29-mseats.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing regional drought levels from 2001-2023." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533587/original/file-20230622-29-mseats.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533587/original/file-20230622-29-mseats.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533587/original/file-20230622-29-mseats.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533587/original/file-20230622-29-mseats.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533587/original/file-20230622-29-mseats.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533587/original/file-20230622-29-mseats.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533587/original/file-20230622-29-mseats.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Colorado River Basin, which includes parts of seven states, has been in severe drought for more than 20 years, intensifying competition over water rights. Drought levels range from D0 (Abnormally Dry) to D4 (Exceptional Drought)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.drought.gov/watersheds/colorado">U.S. Drought Monitor</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Does a ‘permanent home’ imply access to water?</h2>
<p>The Navajo quest for a clear determination of their water rights is rooted in America’s history of removing Native Americans from their lands and moving them to areas with fewer resources.</p>
<p>As Justice Neil Gorsuch recounted in a detailed dissent in this case, the U.S. government embarked in the 1860s on a program of “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1484_aplc.pdf">removal, isolation, and incarceration</a>” to force the Navajo to vacate lands so they could be settled by whites. Thousands of U.S. troops roamed Navajo lands, destroying everything they could. </p>
<p>After the Navajo surrendered in 1864, they were forcibly relocated 300 miles to Bosque Redondo, a barren area of eastern New Mexico. Many Navajo died on the “Long Walk,” and more perished over the next four years. </p>
<p>In 1868, the Navajo agreed to a treaty that created a reservation on a portion of their original lands as a “permanent homeland.” The U.S. government promised to provide seeds, agricultural implements, sheep and goats, but the treaty made no explicit reference to water.</p>
<p>Forty years later, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/207/564/">Winters v. United States</a> that became a guidepost for understanding tribes’ and nations’ federal reserved water rights. The U.S. had established the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana for the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine tribes, and subsequently sued irrigators in Wyoming who built canals and reservoirs on the Milk River upstream from the reservation.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court recognized that the 1888 agreement that had created the Fort Belknap reservation did not mention water, but observed that “[t]he lands were arid, and without irrigation, were practically valueless.” The justices concluded that the implication or inference was that Congress intended to reserve enough water for the tribes to have a “permanent home.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1671938040196141057"}"></div></p>
<h2>What does the 1868 treaty require?</h2>
<p>Beginning in 1956, the Navajo Nation filed a series of motions to participate in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/373/546/">Arizona v. California</a>, the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on Colorado River water rights for California, Arizona and Nevada and five Indian tribes – not including the Navajo. </p>
<p>Over the next several decades, the Navajo repeatedly attempted to get the federal government to assess their water rights to the main stream of the Colorado River. Finally, in 2003, the Navajo Nation filed the current suit.</p>
<p>In the ruling, Justice Brett Kavanaugh refused to find that the 1868 treaty satisfied the Winters framework. The 1868 treaty “reserved necessary water to accomplish the purpose of the Navajo Reservation. But it did not require the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe,” Kavanaugh wrote for the majority. “Nor is it the role of the Judiciary to rewrite a 155-year-old treaty.” That job, Kavanaugh asserted, fell to Congress.</p>
<p>Gorsuch – joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – dissented. Gorsuch is widely recognized as an <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/vol--43/vol--43--no--1/justice-gorsuch-and-federal-indian-law/">expert on Indian law</a>, including water rights, and is the only member of the Court who grew up west of the Mississippi River. </p>
<p>In Gorsuch’s view, the promise of a permanent homeland, together with the history surrounding the treaty and background principles of Indian law, was enough to conclude that the 1868 treaty – following the principle set out in Winters v. United States – secured some water rights for the Navajo.</p>
<p>The Navajo “have written federal officials. They have moved this Court to clarify the United States’ responsibilities when representing them. They have sought to intervene directly in water-related litigation,” Gorsuch wrote. “And when all of those efforts were rebuffed, they brought a claim seeking to compel the United States to make good on its treaty obligations by providing an accounting of what water rights it holds on their behalf.” </p>
<p>“At each turn, they have received the same answer: ‘Try again.’ When this routine first began in earnest, Elvis was still making his rounds on The Ed Sullivan Show,” Gorsuch observed.</p>
<h2>What’s next for the Navajo?</h2>
<p>Arizona, California and Nevada all intervened in this case to protect their interests in the Colorado River. Because the American West is so arid, water rights often are a zero-sum game. Any judicially recognized rights for the Navajo from the Colorado River would reduce water available to the states.</p>
<p>This ruling solidifies the states’ Colorado River water rights and indefinitely postpones resolution of the Navajo Nation’s claims. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Navajo suffer. Lack of access to clean water contributed to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/navajo-nation-hit-hard-by-covid-19-comes-together-to-protect-its-most-vulnerable">high death rates on the reservation</a> during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 150 years after their reservation was created, the Navajo quest for water rights continues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Glennon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>By a narrow margin, the Supreme Court has ruled against the Navajo Nation in a case over water rights in the drought-stricken US Southwest.Robert Glennon, Regents Professor Emeritus and Morris K. Udall Professor of Law & Public Policy Emeritus, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2078882023-06-15T23:44:31Z2023-06-15T23:44:31ZSupreme Court affirms Congress’s power over Indian affairs, upholds law protecting Native American children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532285/original/file-20230615-29-56m1hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C8256%2C5487&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wiping away tears, Nita Battise, vice chairperson of the tribal council of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, reacts to the Supreme Court ruling upholding a law that gives Native American families priority in adoptions and foster care placements of tribal children.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/alabama-coushatta-tribe-of-texas-tribal-council-vice-news-photo/1258712949">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act, a 1978 law enacted to <a href="https://icwa.narf.org/about-icwa">protect Native American children</a> in the U.S. and strengthen their families, in a <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/21-376">June 15, 2023, ruling</a>. <a href="https://ictnews.org/news/supreme-court-affirms-icwa">Tribal leaders</a> praised the decision as upholding the basic constitutional principles governing the relationships among Native nations and the federal government.</p>
<p>Congress originally passed the <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/diverse-populations/americanindian/icwa/">Indian Child Welfare Act</a> in response to requests from tribal leaders, and other advocates for Native Americans, to stop state governments from removing an alarming number of Native children from their families. Before the law took effect, state social welfare agencies were removing <a href="https://www.narf.org/nill/documents/icwa/federal/lh/hr1386.pdf">between 25% and 35%</a> of all Native American children, and <a href="https://www.icwlc.org/wpsite/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/6a.-Supreme-Court-Mississippi-Band-of-Choctaw-Indians-v-Holyfield-1989.pdf">90% of those removed</a> were sent to be raised by non-Native families.</p>
<p>The Indian Child Welfare Act recognizes the government-to-government relationship Native American nations have with the United States. It covers certain child placements and sets uniform standards for state and tribal courts to follow when they decide American Indian child welfare cases. These standards include provisions that ensure that tribal governments are aware of and can have a say in the placement of Native American children. They aim to reduce the trauma of family and tribal separation by instructing courts to make active efforts to keep families together. </p>
<p>In 2017, the state of Texas and non-Natives seeking to adopt or foster Native American children challenged provisions of the law. They argued that the law exceeds Congress’ constitutional powers, impermissibly tells state officials what to do, and illegally discriminates against non-American Indians. </p>
<p>Writing for a 7-2 majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote, “<a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/599/21-376/#tab-opinion-4753196">the bottom line</a> is that we reject all of the petitioners’ challenges to the statute.”</p>
<p>As a result of the ruling, <a href="https://theconversation.com/native-american-childrens-protection-against-adoption-by-non-indian-families-is-before-the-supreme-court-190598">Native nations’ most valuable resource</a> – their children – will continue to gain the benefits of growing up knowing their own Indigenous cultures and communities.</p>
<h2>Court and Congress diverge</h2>
<p>As my <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-reversed-almost-200-years-of-us-law-and-tradition-upholding-tribal-sovereignty-in-its-latest-term-186264">research</a> has shown, Congress and the Supreme Court have increasingly diverged in how they view the laws that relate to Native American tribes. </p>
<p>The court has not consistently deferred to Congress but rather has increasingly claimed the power to be the final arbitrator of American Indian policy. In doing so, it has undermined congressional policies meant to foster tribal governance and protect tribal lands and bodies.</p>
<p>The petitioners in the current case, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/21-376">Haaland v. Brackeen</a>, seized on this trend. They questioned Congress’ ability to enact laws affecting tribal governments and their citizens. They argued that Congress lacked the constitutional authority to enact the Indian Child Welfare Act.</p>
<p>From my perspective as an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ASBSmrkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">expert in federal Native American law</a>, the court’s decision is significant because the court affirmed Congress’ constitutional power over American Indian affairs. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man wearing a loincloth and glasses places a necklace over a child's head." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493888/original/file-20221107-17-2w41de.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493888/original/file-20221107-17-2w41de.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493888/original/file-20221107-17-2w41de.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493888/original/file-20221107-17-2w41de.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493888/original/file-20221107-17-2w41de.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493888/original/file-20221107-17-2w41de.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493888/original/file-20221107-17-2w41de.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe places regalia onto his son before a powwow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tribal-member-places-regalia-onto-his-son-before-the-start-news-photo/1241675829">Joseph Prezioso/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Congress’ role in Native American affairs</h2>
<p>The majority of the justices responded to the petitioners’ arguments by reiterating the court’s longstanding characterization of Congress’ power over American Indian affairs as “plenary and exclusive.” </p>
<p>Writing for the majority, Barrett stated, “Congress’s power to legislate with respect to Indians is well-established and broad. Consistent with that breadth, we have not doubted Congress’s ability to legislate across a wide range of areas, including criminal law, domestic violence, employment, property, tax, and trade.”</p>
<p>Barrett relied on earlier cases to find that Congress’ power over American Indian affairs comes from and remains limited by the U.S. Constitution. “We reiterate that Congress’s authority to legislate with respect to Indians is not unbounded,” she wrote.</p>
<p>The majority concluded, “If there are arguments that [the act] exceeds Congress’s authority as our precedent stands today, petitioners do not make them.”</p>
<h2>Open questions remain</h2>
<p>The majority reaffirmed Congress’ broad authority over Native American affairs but left other questions unresolved.</p>
<p>The Texas attorney general and the other litigants claimed that the Indian Child Welfare Act discriminates against non-Native Americans by making it harder for them to adopt Native children. The law instructs courts to place children with their relatives – either Native or non-Native, someone in their tribe, or an American Indian family if possible. </p>
<p>The litigants said this preference for placement with an Native family is racial and violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution, which requires government policies to be racially neutral. Tribal nations counter that federal laws and previous court decisions have defined Native status as <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/417/535/">a political, not racial, designation</a>. The Court did not deal with this claim.</p>
<p>Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately to emphasize the seriousness of these claims. He stated, “[t]he equal protection issue remains undecided.”</p>
<p>Kavanaugh’s words may invite future challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act and to the political status of American Indians as citizens of tribal governments.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the court’s decision ensures that Native children will continue to experience the social and health benefits of being raised in their tribal cultures. </p>
<p>More importantly, the court’s decision acknowledges the vital, constitutional role that Congress plays in Native American affairs and defers to a congressional policy protective of Native nations and their people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207888/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirsten Matoy Carlson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Supreme Court ruling has upheld the right of Congress to pass laws about Native American tribes’ rights to self-government.Kirsten Matoy Carlson, Professor of Law and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1946912023-06-15T12:37:48Z2023-06-15T12:37:48ZAmerican Indians forced to attend boarding schools as children are more likely to be in poor health as adults<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503911/original/file-20230110-24-749og5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C19%2C4341%2C2883&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research reveals what generations of tribes know firsthand: that forced assimilation and unhealthy conditions at compulsory boarding schools takes a permanent toll.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/senior-healthcare-assistance-in-a-home-royalty-free-image/1397246903?adppopup=true">RichLegg/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many American Indians attended compulsory boarding schools in the 1900s or have relatives who did. My family is no different. Three generations of Running Bears – my grandparents, parents and those from my own generation – attended these residential schools over a period stretching from approximately 1907 to the mid-1970s. </p>
<p>American Indians are very resilient, given the harsh history we have endured. Drawing upon the strengths of our spirituality, cultural practices and family and community interconnections, we continue to persevere. </p>
<p>Even so, as a young adult I recognized that – compared with the broader society – my community experienced <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-018-1494-1">higher rates of mental</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242934">physical health problems</a>: depression, anxiety, suicide, diabetes and cancer, to name just a few. I wondered whether attending compulsory boarding school – an experience that sets American Indians apart from other minority groups – contributed to these health disparities. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://und.edu/directory/ursula.runningbear">scholar who studies public health</a>, so this question – and the fact that little quantitative scientific inquiry into it had been undertaken – was at the forefront of my thoughts when I had the opportunity to investigate the health effects of boarding schools on American Indians. </p>
<h2>Truth in the data</h2>
<p>When I embarked on this research in 2014, I began by analyzing a portion of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.9.1723">data collected from</a> the American Indian Service Utilization, Psychiatric Epidemiology, Risk and Protective Factors Project. That project focused on the prevalence of mental health disorders and service utilization among Northern Plains and Southwest tribes and collected some data on boarding school attendance and experiences. </p>
<p>For my study, I used the Northern Plains sample that included more than 1,600 randomly selected tribal-enrolled members from the Northern Plains and assessed quality of life – specifically overall physical functioning and well-being. I found that those who attended boarding school had on average <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-017-9549-0">statistically significantly lower scores</a> than those who did not attend. </p>
<p>As a researcher, I felt vindicated to find a statistically significant relationship between boarding school attendance and poor physical health – quantitative evidence of what I and many other American Indians already knew instinctively. Yet this finding was also deeply painful. Throughout my life I have sensed the unspoken pain and emotion of my family’s boarding school experiences. </p>
<p>These results made their devastation undeniable and much more tangible. </p>
<h2>Forced assimilation takes a physical toll</h2>
<p>American Indian boarding schools used brutal methods to assimilate their students into the dominant culture and inculcate Christian beliefs and practices. Although <a href="https://theconversation.com/truth-and-healing-commission-could-help-native-american-communities-traumatized-by-government-run-boarding-schools-that-tried-to-destroy-indian-culture-169240">those practices are well documented</a>, quantitative research into whether they had an effect on the long-term physical health of American Indian people who were subjected to them was hard to come by. </p>
<p>Using a subset of the Northern Plains sample, which included more than 700 American Indians who had attended boarding school, I examined the effects of five well-established aspects of boarding school experience. They included an age of first attendance of 7 or younger, rare or nonexistent visits with family, forced church attendance, punishment for use of their native language and a prohibition on the practice of American Indian cultural traditions.</p>
<p>I found that those who endured these experiences during boarding school had worse physical health status than those who did not. </p>
<p>However, the poorest physical health status occurred <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-017-1742-y">among people who had been older than 7</a> when they entered boarding school and had also experienced punishment for speaking their tribal language. I am not sure why this is the case, but one possibility is that older children were more proficient in their first, tribal, language, making it more difficult to transition to English, which led, in turn, to more punishment for failure to speak the colonizing language.</p>
<p>Again, although the findings hit me deeply, I was not surprised. Fortunately, today there are efforts to revitalize and restore American Indian languages and culture, such as the <a href="https://sicangucdc.org/wakanyeja-tokeyahci">Wakanyeja Tokeyahci Lakota Immersion School</a>.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">In this 2021 MSNBC report, former attendees of American Indian boarding schools recount experiences of emotional, physical and sexual abuse.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Chronic health issues</h2>
<p>Recognizing the seriousness of all of this, and its potential effect on my immediate family, I examined whether <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097%2FFCH.0000000000000205">15 chronic health conditions</a> were statistically associated with having attended boarding school. These conditions include diabetes, hypertension, arthritis and kidney disease, among others. I found that former boarding school attendees were 44% more likely to have chronic physical health conditions, with seven out of the 15 chronic conditions statistically related to boarding school attendance. </p>
<p>For example, those who had attended boarding schools were more than twice as likely to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/napa.12092">report tuberculosis</a>. This, too, was not surprising, since historical accounts and health reports have <a href="https://narf.org/nill/resources/meriam.html">documented the overcrowded conditions</a>. In addition, windows were often boarded to prevent students from running away, which led to inadequate ventilation. </p>
<p>Boarding school attendees likewise had nearly four times the risk of any type of cancer as those who were not subjected to boarding school. One reason for this could be <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/DDT_FactSheet.html#">exposure to the pesticide DDT</a>, which was banned in the U.S. in 1972. Upon arriving for the school year, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/17/1129402172/interior-secretary-haaland-is-documenting-abuse-in-federal-indian-boarding-schoo">students were often coated in DDT powder</a> to target disease-bearing insects like mosquitoes. </p>
<p>I also found higher rates of diabetes, high cholesterol, anemia and gallbladder issues – diseases that can be associated with changing from a whole food diet to one higher in sugars, starches and fats. Given that this shift has been widely reported throughout the American Indian population in recent decades, it is worth noting that these effects appear to be even more pronounced in former boarding school students than in their peers who did not attend.</p>
<h2>Generational effects</h2>
<p>Finally, I examined whether a participant’s mother’s and father’s attendance was related to the number of chronic physical health conditions the person experienced. </p>
<p>I found that someone whose father attended boarding school had, on average, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/fch.0000000000000205">36% more chronic physical health conditions</a> than someone whose father did not attend. Notably, I did not find this effect from a mother’s boarding school attendance, although the reasons for that aren’t yet clear.</p>
<p>Although this study did not specifically look at epigenetics – shifts in gene expression that are heritable – <a href="https://doi.org/10.4161/epi.6.7.16222">it points to the possibility of epigenetic effects</a> that can produce biological changes that span generations.</p>
<p>All of this is to say that compulsory residential boarding school education has had profound consequences for several generations of American Indians. As troubling as that is, I have faith that, as evidence mounts on the impacts of boarding school attendance on American Indians, our communities and their allies will develop solutions that improve health and healing for all of our people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194691/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ursula Running Bear receives funding from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health.
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.. </span></em></p>Native Americans sent to government-funded schools now experience significantly higher rates of mental and physical health problems than those who did not.Ursula Running Bear, Assistant Professor of Population Health, University of North DakotaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2057422023-06-01T19:15:40Z2023-06-01T19:15:40ZNew anti-transgender laws will hurt Indigenous peoples’ rights and religious expression<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529452/original/file-20230531-21801-nw1b5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C26%2C5901%2C3898&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Travis Goldtooth, a member of the Navajo Nation, was the reigning Miss Montana Two-Spirit in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/travis-goldtooth-who-goes-by-the-moniker-buffalo-barbie-news-photo/1133686390?adppopup=true">Katherine Davis-Young for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Montana’s Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte <a href="https://theconversation.com/indiana-iowa-and-texas-advance-anti-transgender-agendas-part-of-a-longtime-strategy-by-conservatives-to-rally-their-base-178377">became the latest to sign</a> several new anti-transgender laws, including one that will <a href="https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2023/billpdf/SB0099.pdf">prevent gender-affirming medical care</a> for minors.</p>
<p>One thing these new laws do not take into account is that the 12 federally recognized tribes in Montana have historically recognized multiple gender identities, including transgender identities. Most Indigenous peoples recognize multiple gender identities that are believed to be <a href="https://www.ihs.gov/lgbt/health/twospirit/">the result of supernatural intervention</a>. </p>
<p>In this regard, Montana state Rep. Donavon Hawk, a Democrat from Butte who is Crow and Lakota, said, “It surprises me that this country is only a couple hundred years old, and <a href="https://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/racism-discrimination-partisan-native-lawmakers-reflect-on-session/article_568a1daa-1bc2-5454-a277-a87359171798.html">we are not able to function with LGBTQ people in our communities</a>.” Indigenous communities have incorporated LGBTQ+ peoples within their societies for centuries. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.rosalynlapier.com/">Indigenous scholar</a> who studies the <a href="https://history.illinois.edu/directory/profile/rrlapier">history</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rosalyn-r-lapier-313342/articles">religion</a> of Indigenous peoples, I am troubled by how these new anti-transgender laws might affect religious expression and the rights of Indigenous communities, not just in Montana but across the nation.</p>
<h2>Indigenous ideas about gender</h2>
<p>Indigenous peoples have been in North America for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2509-0">at least 30,000 years</a>. As their societies developed over time, hundreds of different ethnicities, languages, religious practices, gender expressions and identities emerged. </p>
<p>Transgender individuals, an <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/transgender-people-gender-identity-gender-expression">umbrella term</a> for individuals whose gender identity is not linked to the sex they were assigned at birth, have <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/how-historians-are-documenting-lives-of-transgender-people">existed throughout history</a>, including within <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Reclaiming-Two-Spirits-P1784.aspx">Indigenous communities</a>.</p>
<p>I learned from my maternal grandparents <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496201508/">about Blackfeet religion and history</a>. The Blackfeet acknowledged and accepted individual gender expression and identity because it was granted by the divine. Personal gender identity was rarely questioned, because it was tantamount to questioning the divine.</p>
<p>I first learned about Blackfeet ideas about transgender individuals as a young person from hearing <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496201508/">oral history stories</a> about famous Blackfeet religious leaders, warriors and adventurers who were transgender. They were viewed as having a direct connection to the divine. People often sought out these individuals for blessings, prayer or spiritual guidance.</p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Hidden_Half.html?id=5MwHcZPCYjEC">anthropologists</a> and <a href="https://www.oupress.com/9780806137711/the-vengeful-wife-and-other-blackfoot-stories/">historians</a> have studied Blackfeet gender expression and learned that the Blackfeet recognized multiple gender identities, including what is defined today in Western societies as <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-in-a-word-the-challenges-of-transgender-38633">transgender</a>.</p>
<h2>Two-Spirit and the divine</h2>
<p>The modern-day term that many Indigenous peoples in North America have begun to use as an umbrella term to describe the multiple gender identities within Indigenous communities is <a href="https://www.ihs.gov/lgbt/health/twospirit/">Two-Spirit</a>. That includes transgender people. </p>
<p>In many Indigenous communities, as the <a href="https://www.ihs.gov/">Indian Health Service</a> notes, <a href="https://www.ihs.gov/lgbt/health/twospirit/">Two-Spirit identity</a> is believed to come from the divine in visions or dreams and Two-Spirit people often “filled special religious roles as healers, shamans and ceremonial leaders.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UO29QQm1-zM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A film on Kapaemahu, dual male and female spirit.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even though the term Two-Spirit does not encompass the wide variety of gender identities across Indigenous communities, many people <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlopez-carmen/2023/04/27/a-nehiy-two-spirit-physicians-reflections-on-providing-indigenous-interventions-in-modern-medicine/">embrace its use</a> as a way to revitalize Indigenous traditions. </p>
<p>Sadly, transphobia does exist within contemporary Native American communities. And <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/17/native-americans-lgbtq-violence-survey-california">anti-transgender violence</a> is part of the life experience of Two-Spirit people. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/for-many-native-americans-embracing-lgbt-members-is-a-return-to-the-past/2019/03/29/24d1e6c6-4f2c-11e9-88a1-ed346f0ec94f_story.html">Some scholars argue</a> this is because of the long history of colonialism and cultural genocide that forced the Western-defined gender binary and patriarchy on Indigenous communities. </p>
<h2>The laws might hurt Indigenous rights</h2>
<p>Montana’s recent legislative session <a href="https://www.advocate.com/law/montana-anti-lgbt-bills">passed several</a> anti-transgender laws, including one that allows health care providers to <a href="https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2023/billpdf/HB0303.pdf">refuse patients</a> based on conscience, <a href="https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2023/billpdf/HB0359.pdf">prohibits drag story hours</a> and <a href="https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2023/billpdf/SB0458.pdf">defines biological sex</a> as only male or female, in addition to <a href="https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2023/billpdf/SB0099.pdf">preventing gender-affirming medical care</a> for minors. </p>
<p>Worried about how this last law will affect Montana’s children, the <a href="https://dailymontanan.com/2023/05/03/gianforte-wrong-about-science-and-medical-care-of-transgender-youth/">Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics</a> stated that “taking away this care will, without a doubt, harm kids.”</p>
<p>Montana is <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/laws-on-trans-nonbinary-student-pronouns-put-teachers-in-a-bind/2023/05">not alone</a> in its efforts to introduce and pass anti-transgender legislation. The nationwide civil rights group <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/montana-house-passes-anti-transgender-legislation">Human Rights Campaign</a> states that in 2023 alone, more than 450 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529489/original/file-20230601-22285-s72led.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young activists marching with a woman ahead holding a sign that says 'trans people belong in Montana.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529489/original/file-20230601-22285-s72led.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529489/original/file-20230601-22285-s72led.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529489/original/file-20230601-22285-s72led.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529489/original/file-20230601-22285-s72led.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529489/original/file-20230601-22285-s72led.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529489/original/file-20230601-22285-s72led.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529489/original/file-20230601-22285-s72led.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students and transgender rights activists staging a demonstration for trans rights on the University of Montana campus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/transgender-rights-activists-hold-signs-as-they-march-news-photo/1487362772?adppopup=true">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Investigative journalist <a href="https://twitter.com/NoraMabie">Nora Mabie</a> wrote in an article in May 2023 that Indigenous peoples and Native American tribes were <a href="https://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/racism-discrimination-partisan-native-lawmakers-reflect-on-session/article_568a1daa-1bc2-5454-a277-a87359171798.html">being left out</a> of this decision-making process as a result of racism, discrimination and partisanship in the Montana Legislature. </p>
<p>By ignoring the long Indigenous histories of integrating multiple gender identities consecrated by the divine, legislatures are bound to cause both individual suffering and the diminishing of <a href="https://www.congress.gov/103/bills/hr4230/BILLS-103hr4230enr.pdf">Indigenous peoples’ rights</a> to practice their own religions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalyn R. LaPier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An Indigenous scholar writes that Indigenous peoples have historically recognized multiple gender identities, which they believe are a result of divine intervention.Rosalyn R. LaPier, Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984702023-02-23T13:15:46Z2023-02-23T13:15:46ZSage, sacred to Native Americans, is being used in purification rituals, raising issues of cultural appropriation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511784/original/file-20230222-22-nhg75m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5630%2C3728&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">White sage is being commonly used for purification rituals.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/midsection-of-sage-holding-feather-with-smudge-royalty-free-image/1207222673?phrase=sage%20smudging&adppopup=true">Stevica Mrdja / EyeEm via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>White sage, which is sacred to a number of Native American tribes in the southwest United States, has been adopted by both some contemporary Pagans and New Age practitioners <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/01/12/witches-urge-alternatives-to-sage-amid-concern-about-appropriation-overharvesting/">for purification rites</a>. As Emily McFarlan Miller reported in a recent Religion News Service article, this is resulting in overharvesting and shortages of the plant, making it harder for Native Americans to find enough for their sacred ceremonies. </p>
<p>In her groundbreaking book “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Purity-and-Danger-An-Analysis-of-Concepts-of-Pollution-and-Taboo/Douglas/p/book/9780415289955">Purity and Danger</a>,” anthropologist <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0075.xml">Mary Douglas</a> illustrates how purity and its maintenance are central to religion. It is a way to keep danger at bay as well as provide a way to separate the sacred from the mundane.</p>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.helenaliceberger.com/">sociologist of religion</a> who has studied contemporary Paganism for more than 30 years, I am aware of how important both contact with the spirit world and purification are in this religion. Contemporary Paganism is a set of religions that base their practice on what is known about pre-Christian religions in Europe, mixed with literature, science fiction and personal inspiration.</p>
<p>Within these religions <a href="https://uscpress.com/A-Community-of-Witches">nature is viewed as sacred</a>, to be celebrated and protected. The celebration of nature takes several forms, the most common being a series of rituals that commemorate the changing seasons. Cleansing is a way to provide a safe place to interact with the spirit world, which is always part of Pagan rituals. </p>
<p>Purification can be done using a number of substances, including salt, rosemary and sometimes white sage. When purification includes the use of sage, it raises the issue of appropriation, as it has traditionally been used by Native Americans in their rituals. </p>
<h2>Protection and cleansing</h2>
<p>Pagan rituals take place outdoors, when possible, or sometimes in people’s homes or in occult bookstores. There is no set liturgy that everyone follows, and it is possible for people to create their own rituals. </p>
<p>Because there is no dedicated sanctified place, cleansing and protection become <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Community_of_Witches.html?id=H7p1mwEACAAJ">particularly important within Paganism</a>. More mainstream religions have buildings, such as churches or synagogues, where they maintain sanctuaries for religious purposes only. </p>
<p>Pagans, to the contrary, have ritual areas that must be transformed from mundane to sacred use. Possibly more importantly, rituals are meant to open up the individual to the spiritual or other world. Magic, the process of changing reality to your will through incantations, is done in this realm. </p>
<p>As I learned <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Community_of_Witches.html?id=H7p1mwEACAAJ">when I was doing my research</a>, most Pagans believe entering this realm holds both great possibilities and dangers. The cleansing and purification of the place and the participants are meant to protect them by keeping out unsavory spirits. </p>
<p>Purification can be done in several ways. When I began my research in 1986, it was most commonly done using salt and water. At Pagan ceremonies that I attended as a researcher, those leading the ritual would “cut” a sacred circle. This entailed walking around the circle carrying a ritual knife known as an athame while chanting an incantation that marked the area as a safe place that only the spirits called would enter. They then used salt and water to purify the circle.</p>
<p>In some of the rituals participants were already standing in the circle when this part of the ritual was done; in others they entered afterward. The participants were also purified, with salt, water, smoke from a candle, incense or rosemary and a crystal or rock, symbolizing Mother Earth. </p>
<h2>White sage and cultural appropriation</h2>
<p>Sometimes white sage was used for purification in a ritual. It was used because it was associated with Native American practice. As religious studies scholar <a href="https://www.csuchico.edu/corh/people/faculty/sarah-pike.shtml">Sarah Pike</a> found among contemporary Pagans, cultural borrowing from Native Americans was seen as <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520220867/earthly-bodies-magical-selves">connecting the participants to the spirits</a> that lived in the land around them. </p>
<p>Participants believed they were honoring the first people on the continent by incorporating elements of their spiritual practice. Some of the Pagan practitioners had received training from a Native American teacher. For many contemporary Pagans, Native American spirituality was a practice they wanted to emulate because of its connection to the land, to a spirit world, and because it predates Christianity and is native to the region. As contemporary Pagans often piece together different elements to create their spirituality, for many it seemed natural to include Native American practices. </p>
<p>As Pike notes, in the early 1990s Native Americans from several tribes began to express their rage at what they saw as “cultural strip mining,” the stealing and watering down of their culture and their spirituality, which they described as an extension of colonization that had stripped them of their original lands. The use of sage was not the only cultural artifact that these Native American spokespeople objected to being used by nonnatives. Traditional dress and eagles’ feathers were two other examples of <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520220867/earthly-bodies-magical-selves">commonly appropriated items</a>. </p>
<p>As Pagans pride themselves on being sensitive to practices of diverse cultures, most quickly gave up the use of sage; the use of other Native American artifacts in Pagan practices became less common as well. Those who had been using sage returned to using either salt and water or rosemary for purification. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C8%2C5542%2C3692&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a sun hat and white t-shirt sitting in a field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C8%2C5542%2C3692&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman harvesting sage in a field.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/june-2020-saxony-freital-cindy-richter-field-worker-news-photo/1216875633?phrase=sage%20&adppopup=true">Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The use of sage by non-Native Americans is again becoming more prevalent. I noticed while doing my research in 1986 that white sage was sold at stores catering to the occult. It is now being more widely marketed by stores such as Walmart and Anthropologie. </p>
<p>The market has become larger as aspects of Pagan or New Age practices have seeped into more general practice and the <a href="https://bigthink.com/the-present/modern-paganism/?fbclid=IwAR220aeQVXJjYP3r8eP0xfYsvbWERyb-ZkWt5ZxyIa17co4y9guUdPYuEKg">number of Pagans has increased</a>. It has become common, for example, for younger Americans to <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/01/12/witches-urge-alternatives-to-sage-amid-concern-about-appropriation-overharvesting/">cleanse their homes of bad spirits</a> with white sage even if they do not identify as Pagans. Added to this, those who are new to Paganism are often unaware of the history of appropriation and are repeating the errors of an earlier generation of Pagans and <a href="https://bigthink.com/the-present/modern-paganism/?fbclid=IwAR220aeQVXJjYP3r8eP0xfYsvbWERyb-ZkWt5ZxyIa17co4y9guUdPYuEKg**">using sage in their rituals</a></p>
<p>Native Americans who normally pick the herb as they need it are complaining that they are unable to find enough for their spiritual needs. Fears have also been raised that overharvesting could result in the plant’s becoming extinct, <a href="https://medium.com/the-reynolds-media-lab/the-current-popularity-of-white-sage-is-causing-its-extinction-on-the-border-of-mexico-and-the-63f9527a8d3a">resulting in the extinction of the animals</a> that are dependent on it as well. </p>
<p>It would be both ironic and sad if in celebrating Mother Earth, Pagans helped to make a sacred herb extinct.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198470/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen A. Berger receives funding from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Association for the Sociology of Religion, and West Chester University.</span></em></p>Native Americans are struggling to find sage for their spiritual practices as the plant is being overharvested for sale to the wider public.Helen A. Berger, Affliated Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1983862023-02-14T13:25:39Z2023-02-14T13:25:39ZTribes in Maine left out of Native American resurgence by 40-year-old federal law denying their self-determination<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508686/original/file-20230207-32-9ckb4k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C23%2C5248%2C3469&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of one of several tribal sovereignty bills march in front of the governor's mansion on April 11, 2022, in Augusta, Maine. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PenobscotTribeRiver/f6704ad198c74890a14b54e96f5b78e6/photo?Query=Maine%20Indian%20tribe&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=36&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/David Sharp</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hundreds of the <a href="https://www.usa.gov/tribes">574 federally recognized Indian nations in the U.S.</a> now routinely provide their citizens with the full array of services customarily expected from state and local governments, from tax collection to environmental protection regulations. At the same time, many tribes are becoming the economic engines of their regions. </p>
<p>All this has happened over the past several decades under federal policies that, unlike previous policies, <a href="https://ash.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/native_children_commission_hearing_12-15-22_kalt_statement_vfin2.pdf?m=1671056068">support tribal self-determination</a> through self-government.</p>
<p>The progress has not been uniformly outstanding, nor is it close to complete. Tribes have long histories of disempowerment and consequent deprivation to overcome. <a href="https://ash.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/wabanaki_report_vfin_for_dist_2022-12-09.pdf?m=1670635016">Nonetheless, per capita incomes in Indian Country have grown</a> more than 60% since the start of genuine tribal self-government in the late 1980s. This growth far outstrips the 17% growth in personal income experienced by the average U.S. citizen over the same period. </p>
<p>The self-determination era has finally, after centuries, brought sustained economic growth to <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-applicator-certification-indian-country/definition-indian-country">Indian Country</a>. The tribal economic boom is <a href="https://ash.harvard.edu/publications/economic-and-social-impacts-restrictions-applicability-federal-indian-policies">not all about casinos</a>. Certainly, the forays into gaming by many tribal governments – in competition with state government lotteries and state-authorized casinos – have been a boon for tribes located near major population centers. </p>
<p>But the spread of economic development across both urban and rural tribes is now coming from a diverse mix of municipal service provision, natural resource companies, manufacturers, health clinics, retail stores, financial services firms, restaurants, hotels, construction companies and enterprises in many other sectors.</p>
<p><a href="https://ash.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/wabanaki_report_vfin_for_dist_2022-12-09.pdf?m=1670635016">Yet in our recent study</a>, we found the Wabanaki Nations in Maine – Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot – and their 9,546 citizens have been left out of this progress. </p>
<p>The average Wabanaki income per person has grown only 9% since the late 1980s. This is dramatically less than the 61% growth experienced by tribes in the other Lower 48 states. Moreover, employment in all four Wabanaki Nations is only one-quarter to one-third as large as that of similarly sized tribes in similarly populous regions.</p>
<p>What explains Wabanaki underdevelopment? </p>
<p><iframe id="DQOPG" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/DQOPG/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Indian self-determination policy</h2>
<p>Past policy experiments, including federal administration of reservation affairs, privatizing reservation land and disbanding tribal governments altogether, did not produce Indian prosperity. </p>
<p>The research of the <a href="https://hpaied.org">Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development</a> repeatedly finds that enabling tribes to govern themselves is the key to improving tribal economies.</p>
<p>Local self-rule over the past several decades has meant that tribes have the power to make their own choices. This shifts accountability from Washington, D.C., to the individual tribal governments and puts the risk and reward on local decision-makers, who are best positioned to understand tribal needs, values and opportunities.</p>
<p>Like other nations in the world, Native nations can falter while trying to exercise powers of self-government. But the ones that develop robust governing systems of their own design are leading the Native renaissance. In the process, tribes are showing the world that building vibrant societies does not require Western-looking institutions. </p>
<p>Governing bodies such as the Haudenosaunee Clan Mothers and the Council of Principales at Cochiti Pueblo, located in what is now New York and New Mexico, respectively, support the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326066084_Rebuilding_Native_Nations_Strategies_for_Governance_and_Development">rule of Indigenous law</a> in their nations. In the process, they make clear that, where culturally resonant and stable governments are built, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326066084_Rebuilding_Native_Nations_Strategies_for_Governance_and_Development">tribes take off</a>.</p>
<p>Yet the federal <a href="https://www.congress.gov/96/statute/STATUTE-94/STATUTE-94-Pg1785.pdf">Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980</a>, known as MICSA, distinguishes the Wabanaki Nations from other tribes in the U.S. It resolved a contentious ownership battle between the Wabanaki Nations, the state and private landowners. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508682/original/file-20230207-27-ht6i8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot of a Facebook post from Dec. 5, 2022, by Maine tribal rights advocate The Wabanaki Alliance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508682/original/file-20230207-27-ht6i8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508682/original/file-20230207-27-ht6i8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508682/original/file-20230207-27-ht6i8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508682/original/file-20230207-27-ht6i8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508682/original/file-20230207-27-ht6i8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508682/original/file-20230207-27-ht6i8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508682/original/file-20230207-27-ht6i8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Facebook post from Dec. 5, 2022, by Maine tribal rights advocate The Wabanaki Alliance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=474491291454570&set=a.202610228642679">Facebook The Wabanaki Alliance</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>MICSA empowers the state of Maine to <a href="https://legislature.maine.gov/maine-indian-claims-tf">block the applicability of virtually all federal Indian self-determination policy</a> unless Congress explicitly says otherwise and overrides the federal law.</p>
<p>Passage of MICSA meant Maine can block or threaten to block the tribes any time the state feels the laws of Maine would be “affected or preempted” by Wabanaki exercise of federally provided powers. Maine’s power to do this hangs over – and stifles – tribal investment in potentially controversial actions.</p>
<h2>Roadblocks and lawsuits</h2>
<p>In more than 40 years, a federal override has occurred only once: in the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/tribal/2013-and-2022-reauthorizations-violence-against-women-act-vawa">2022 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act</a>. </p>
<p>During those four decades, whenever Maine felt its sovereignty was threatened by Wabanaki action, the Wabanaki encountered administrative roadblocks or litigation. The mere construction of a water well on Passamaquoddy land with federal money <a href="https://apnews.com/article/environment-maine-native-americans-water-quality-us-environmental-protection-agency-fc46394516336e3ab473d678467ac257">required hammering out a memorandum of understanding with Maine</a> – a step not necessary in other states. </p>
<p>The Penobscot Tribe had advocated for passage of Title IX, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/tribal/2013-and-2022-reauthorizations-violence-against-women-act-vawa#:%7E:text=The%20Violence%20Against%20Women%20Reauthorization,non%2DIndian%20status%2C%20who%20commit">Safety for Indian Women provision, of the 2013 amendments to the Violence Against Women Act</a>. But <a href="https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1750&context=mlr">Maine killed the tribe’s effort</a> to become a pilot tribe in this program, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114558/witnesses/HHRG-117-II24-Wstate-FrancisK-20220331.pdf">cutting off millions in federal funds</a> the program would have provided to the tribe. </p>
<p>Only after nine years of Penobscot advocacy and expense did the 2022 Violence Against Women Act reauthorization <a href="https://nativenewsonline.net/sovereignty/wabanaki-celebrate-sovereignty-in-violence-against-women-act-look-to-future-reforms-in-maine-s-state-government">make Wabanaki authority</a> in this arena clear. Over and over, Maine’s powers under MICSA generate costs and uncertainty that effectively stunt the development of the Wabanaki Nations. </p>
<p>For tribal citizens in Maine, removing MICSA restrictions would offer few risks and much in the way of payoffs. This applies not just to the Wabanaki but to the Maine state government, Maine’s nontribal citizens and Maine’s economy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508674/original/file-20230207-31-hhkh1a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a jacket smiling broadly." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508674/original/file-20230207-31-hhkh1a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508674/original/file-20230207-31-hhkh1a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508674/original/file-20230207-31-hhkh1a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508674/original/file-20230207-31-hhkh1a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508674/original/file-20230207-31-hhkh1a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508674/original/file-20230207-31-hhkh1a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508674/original/file-20230207-31-hhkh1a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vice Chief Ernie Neptune of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point, pleased by the House passage of a bill at the State House in Augusta, Maine, that allows the tribes to regulate their own drinking water on April 12, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TribalSovereigntyMaine/e5b0b3f868ec4265b44f077e74203739/photo?Query=Neptune%20Bukaty&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=9&currentItemNo=8">AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Money and jobs left on the table</h2>
<p>Across the other Lower 48 states, tribal economic development demonstrably <a href="https://ash.harvard.edu/news/harvard-project-american-indian-economic-development-releases-research-and-recommendations">spills over</a> into neighboring nontribal communities, improving the abilities of tribes and state and local governments to serve their citizens. </p>
<p>For example, the Hualapai, Winnebago and Fort Belknap tribes – located in Arizona, Nebraska and Montana, respectively – rank among the top employers of their counties and regions. Tribal economic growth routinely supports intergovernmental investments in highway off-ramps, water-treatment systems and cross-deputization of police.</p>
<p>But because of MICSA, Maine is leaving thousands of jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars of gross state product and tens of millions of dollars of state and local government revenue on the table. </p>
<p>It is reasonable to ask whether freeing the Wabanaki from MICSA’s restrictions would result in increased conflict between the tribes and Maine’s state and local governments. The overall experience outside of Maine has been that increasingly capable tribal governments improve state-tribal relations by enabling both parties to come to the table with mature capacities to cooperate, government to government. Against these potential benefits for Maine is a status quo that already produces <a href="https://legislature.maine.gov/maine-indian-claims-tf">conflicts, litigation, recrimination and mistrust</a>.</p>
<p>The last Congress considered, but ultimately rejected, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/maine-angus-king-1e1b6ffec9277ba8493e119f42c0d5fc">amending MICSA to relieve the burden it imposes on the Wabanaki Nations</a>. We believe it is legislation worth reconsidering.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As is routine for university research, government funding was provided in support of the research paper underlying this article for The Conversation. In this case, funding was provided by the governments of the federally recognized Wabanaki Nations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>As is routine for university research, government funding was provided in support of the research paper underlying this article for The Conversation. In this case, funding was provided by the governments of the federally recognized Wabanaki Nations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>As is routine for university research, government funding was provided in support of the research paper underlying this article for The Conversation. In this case, funding was provided by the governments of the federally recognized Wabanaki Nations. At various times from 2004 to 2011, I consulted to the Penobscot Indian Nation in matters related to corporate governance and administrative effectiveness.</span></em></p>After 40 years living under a federal law that denied Maine’s Wabanaki Nations the ability to govern themselves, the tribes have been left out of the prosperity other tribes have attained.Joseph Kalt, Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy, Emeritus, Harvard Kennedy SchoolAmy Besaw Medford, Research Affiliate with the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Harvard Kennedy SchoolJonathan B. Taylor, Research fellow at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1992432023-02-10T22:12:35Z2023-02-10T22:12:35ZWhat to watch for when you are watching the Super Bowl: 5 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509546/original/file-20230210-14-t9c1mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C5380%2C3616&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clash of the tight ends?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kansas-city-chiefs-linebacker-ben-niemann-tackles-news-photo/1235721523?phrase=kansas%20chiefs%20Philadelphia&adppopup=true">Kyle Ross/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Super Bowl – an annual celebration of advertising, calorific bar food, Roman numerals and occasional on-field action – is upon us, again.</p>
<p>At 6:30 EST on Feb. 12, 2023, the <a href="https://www.nfl.com/news/super-bowl-lvii-picks-will-kansas-city-chiefs-or-philadelphia-eagles-win-lombard">Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles will take the field</a> in Arizona before moments later trundling off for one of the many breaks that are a feature of football. </p>
<p>But there is an upside to all those breaks. It means you can read an article or two from The Conversation’s archive. To that end, below is a selection of stories tackling what is happening in the world of football, but not necessarily on the field.</p>
<h2>A game of wounded warriors</h2>
<p>A specific part of the anatomy of Kansas City star quarterback Patrick Mahomes has been scrutinized in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl: his right ankle.</p>
<p>You see, despite Mahomes’ being more handy with his hands than with his feet, he still needs to be able to move around with some dexterity to be effective – and Mahomes’ mobility is a key aspect of his game. And on Jan. 21, 2023, the 27-year-old athlete awkwardly fell after a tackle and sprained his ankle.</p>
<p>But what exactly in an ankle sprain? The University of Pittsburgh’s <a href="https://mirm-pitt.net/staff/macalus-v-hogan-md-mba/">MaCalus V. Hogan</a>, a surgeon who specializes in sports-related ankle injuries, <a href="https://theconversation.com/patrick-mahomes-injury-an-ankle-surgeon-explains-what-a-high-ankle-sprain-is-and-how-it-might-affect-mahomes-in-the-super-bowl-199248">explained that they occur</a> when someone rolls an ankle joint, resulting in the stretching or tearing of ligaments that hold the ankle together.</p>
<p>The good news for Chiefs’ fans? Hogan reckons their quarterback will be OK come gametime: “While Mahomes may not be at 100%, given the moderate severity of the injury, his fitness and the high quality of care he is receiving, I expect that he will be ready to play an exciting game come kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday.”</p>
<p>Of much more concern are the life-threatening injuries of the sort that afflicted Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin and Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa earlier in the season. </p>
<p>Both collapsed to the turf after jarring tackles, Hamlin from heart problems, Tagovailoa from a concussion. As paramedics administered treatment on the field, <a href="https://theconversation.com/sports-broadcasters-have-a-duty-to-report-injuries-responsibly-in-the-case-of-nfls-damar-hamlin-they-passed-the-test-197192">broadcasters faced a dilemma</a>, as <a href="https://comm.osu.edu/people/kraft.42">Nicole Kraft of The Ohio State University</a> explained.</p>
<p>“When disaster strikes on a live sports broadcast, it’s easy to say something wrong, especially in an age where words can be distributed widely, dissected and criticized on social media,” wrote Kraft, noting that broadcasters also have a decision to make over whether or not to show replays of the injury.</p>
<p>In the case of Hamlin, ESPN and others behaved responsibly, Kraft concluded. Instead of filling the air with speculation, broadcasters instead appealed to the NFL to suspend the game.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/patrick-mahomes-injury-an-ankle-surgeon-explains-what-a-high-ankle-sprain-is-and-how-it-might-affect-mahomes-in-the-super-bowl-199248">Patrick Mahomes injury: An ankle surgeon explains what a high ankle sprain is and how it might affect Mahomes in the Super Bowl</a>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/sports-broadcasters-have-a-duty-to-report-injuries-responsibly-in-the-case-of-nfls-damar-hamlin-they-passed-the-test-197192">Sports broadcasters have a duty to report injuries responsibly – in the case of NFL's Damar Hamlin, they passed the test</a>
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<h2>The rise and pitfalls of sports gambling</h2>
<p>A subplot of this year’s Super Bowl advertising rush is the growing presence of betting companies like DraftKings and FanDuel.</p>
<p>It’s only been five years since the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-legalized-sports-betting-has-transformed-the-fan-experience-194994">Supreme Court opened up legalized sports betting</a> across the states. Since then, “a whole industry has sprouted up that, for tens of millions of fans around the country, is now just part of the show,” wrote <a href="https://www.bellisario.psu.edu/people/individual/john-affleck">Penn State’s John Affleck</a>. He added: “Betting’s seamless integration into American sports – impossible to ignore even among fans who aren’t wagering – represents a remarkable shift for an activity that was banned in much of the country only a few years ago.”</p>
<p>The damage being done by the explosion of easy-to-bet apps and websites is only just being understood. <a href="https://socialwork.rutgers.edu/node/677">Lia Nower</a>, director of The Center for Gambling Studies at Rutgers University, has been tasked by New Jersey to <a href="https://theconversation.com/data-from-new-jersey-is-a-warning-sign-for-young-sports-bettors-197865">evaluate the impact of sports gambling</a> by interviewing gamblers and analyzing every bet placed online in the state since 2018.</p>
<p>She reported that “those wagering on sports in New Jersey were more likely than others who gamble to have high rates of problem gambling and problems with drugs or alcohol, and to experience mental health problems like anxiety and depression. Most alarming, findings suggest that about 14% of sports bettors reported thoughts of suicide, and 10% said they had made a suicide attempt.”</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-legalized-sports-betting-has-transformed-the-fan-experience-194994">How legalized sports betting has transformed the fan experience</a>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/data-from-new-jersey-is-a-warning-sign-for-young-sports-bettors-197865">Data from New Jersey is a warning sign for young sports bettors</a>
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<h2>It really is time to drop the ‘chop’</h2>
<p>Kansas City fans inside the State Farm Stadium in Glendale during the Super Bowl might at various points during the game engage in what is known as the “tomahawk chop.” Outside the stadium, Native Americans intend to protest. What they want – along with an end to that offensive gesture – is a new name for the franchise.</p>
<p>Such re-branding is not, of course, unheard of. Washington’s NFL team dropped its racist moniker in 2020. And last year, the Cleveland Indians changed its name to the Guardians.</p>
<p>But as <a href="https://www.oxy.edu/academics/faculty/peter-dreier">Peter Dreier of Occidental College</a> noted, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cleveland-indians-changed-their-team-name-whats-holding-back-the-atlanta-braves-181662">not all teams are on board</a> with jettisoning their problematic names. The Atlanta Braves are one team that refuses to move on, sticking with its name, along with its “tomahawk song” and accompanying crowd gesture.</p>
<p>“Today, many fans – not to mention many Native Americans – cringe at the music and the chop. To them, it reflects a stereotypical image of Native Americans as violent and uncivilized, similar to those that appeared on TV and in movies for many years,” wrotes Dreier.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cleveland-indians-changed-their-team-name-whats-holding-back-the-atlanta-braves-181662">The Cleveland Indians changed their team name – what's holding back the Atlanta Braves?</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199243/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
As the Kansas City Chiefs prepare to take on the Philadelphia Eagles, The Conversation takes a critical look at some of the biggest news stories from the past NFL season.Matt Williams, Senior International EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1978612023-02-08T13:41:04Z2023-02-08T13:41:04ZMillions of Americans are problem gamblers – so why do so few people ever seek treatment?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508445/original/file-20230206-29-977c0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C5%2C1781%2C1258&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Only about 10% of people with a gambling problem ever seek treatment.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/silhouette-of-man-facing-the-light-royalty-free-image/1190407585">Sean Gladwell/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The opportunity to gamble has moved from a trip to Vegas, to a drive to a local casino, to the phone in your pocket. And if you’re a sports fan, nudges to place bets <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-legalized-sports-betting-has-transformed-the-fan-experience-194994">have become nearly impossible to ignore</a>, with sports gambling ads and promos routinely appearing on TV, social media, sports radio and in arenas.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.americangaming.org/research/state-gaming-map/">The stunning expansion of sports wagering</a> following <a href="https://doi.org/10.2308/apin-52199">decades of casino expansion</a> certainly gives any rational person reason to pause. </p>
<p>For most bettors, gambling is an occasional form of entertainment – Powerball tickets <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-winning-record-2-billion-powerball-jackpot-could-still-lead-to-bankruptcy-193921">when the jackpot swells to $1 billion</a>, <a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/super-bowl-squares-grid-2023-best-numbers/ltur0ayv6wvsdkyjjk2cnmdo">Super Bowl squares</a> with co-workers, a birthday trip to the casino.</p>
<p>But for other people, the possibility of developing a gambling disorder looms.</p>
<p>To what extent should Americans be worried? </p>
<h2>To gamble is to be human</h2>
<p>A nuanced answer begins with the fact that gambling has been popular for a long, long time. </p>
<p>Evidence of gambling has been found <a href="https://dgschwartz.com/books/roll-the-bones/">in ancient cultures around the world</a>. Archaeologists have unearthed dice marked with pips, or dots, in Mesopotamia that date back to 1300 B.C. Historians have located records of dice games in Greek and Indian cities before 400 B.C. </p>
<p>In North America, one Navajo myth tells <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/nav/gambler.htm">the story of Noqoìlpi</a>, or “the gambler.” Informal gambling games and lotteries were common in the American Colonies, including <a href="https://www.ephemerasociety.org/colonial-america-lotteries/">lotteries to fund the Continental Army</a>. </p>
<p>In the U.S., sports and gambling have long been intertwined. In the decades after the Civil War, pool halls were set up near Western Union stations so gamblers <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3673&context=jclc">could easily place bets on horses</a>. And sports like baseball and boxing became hugely popular in the 19th century, in part <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-gambling-built-baseball-and-then-almost-destroyed-it-123254">because they attracted action from bettors</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Magazine cover featuring baseball coach in red uniform looking dejected." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508457/original/file-20230206-19-j5nxa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508457/original/file-20230206-19-j5nxa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508457/original/file-20230206-19-j5nxa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508457/original/file-20230206-19-j5nxa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508457/original/file-20230206-19-j5nxa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508457/original/file-20230206-19-j5nxa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508457/original/file-20230206-19-j5nxa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Baseball great Pete Rose was punished with a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball for betting on games while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.si.com/.image/t_share/MTY4MTkwMDczNzQxMjU2NjA1/1989-0403-pete-rose-si-cover-001291038jpg.jpg">Sports Illustrated</a></span>
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<p>For as long as there’s been gambling, there has also been problem gambling.</p>
<p>Several writers in ancient India <a href="https://doi.org/10.4103%2F0019-5545.37674">highlighted the consequences of habitual gambling</a>. Over 150 years ago, Dostoyevsky famously wrote “Crime and Punishment” <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/dostoyevsky-crime-punishment-birmingham-sinner-saint/620175/">to pay off gambling debts</a>. And in the 20th century, sports betting imploded the careers of baseball legends <a href="https://www.silive.com/news/2021/06/si-field-of-dreams-black-sox-outfielder-shoeless-joe-jackson-played-here-after-baseball-ban.html">“Shoeless” Joe Jackson</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/24/sports/rose-in-deal-is-said-to-accept-lifetime-ban-for-betting-on-reds.html">Pete Rose</a>.</p>
<h2>When problems arise</h2>
<p>I describe this history because it shows that humans have always seemed to find a way to gamble, whether it’s legal or not. And, inevitably, some bettors will experience harm or a gambling disorder.</p>
<p>I direct <a href="https://www.memphis.edu/gamblingclinic">the Institute for Gambling Education and Research</a>, where we focus on the treatment of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t39/">gambling disorder</a> and <a href="https://thegamblingclinic.com/">gambling problems</a>.</p>
<p>Psychologists have only recently begun to view problem gamblers as a form of addictive behavior, in which gambling urges, tolerance and withdrawal are akin to how substance use disorders unfold. Researchers have found that brain imaging data and symptom patterns of problem gamblers are similar to those of people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Gamblers can build a tolerance, meaning that they need to gamble more and bet in higher amounts in order to maintain the same levels of excitement. And attempts to cut back or stop can lead to emotional struggles. </p>
<p>There are also financial and social ramifications to gambling disorder.</p>
<p><a href="http://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-018-0251-9">Distress about money</a> is the most frequently cited reason people start questioning whether they have a problem. <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Problem_and_Pathological_Gambling/TqSbEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Problem+and+Pathological+Gambling+Whelan,+Andrew+W.+Meyers,+Timothy+A.+Steenbergh&pg=PR2&printsec=frontcover">But other symptoms include</a> damage done to relationships, deterioration in mood and the physical costs of this distress. Problem gamblers often lie about or hide their gambling, which can make it difficult for loved ones to recognize.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-014-9471-4">best prevalence research</a> shows that somewhere between 1% and 2% of the U.S. adult population, or 2 to 4 million adults, will experience a gambling disorder in their lifetime. Another 3% to 5%, or 5 to 9 million people, will, at some point in their lives, report a subclinical problem, which means that some gambling disorder symptoms are present but the psychiatric diagnosis is not warranted.</p>
<p>Despite some hand-wringing over the expansion of sports betting, I believe any increase in the rate of problems is likely to be temporary. <a href="https://opus.uleth.ca/bitstream/handle/10133/3068/2012-PREVALENCE-OPGRC%20(2).pdf">A review of 30 years of research</a> on the prevalence of problem gambling and gambling disorder reveals a pattern. More gambling availability tends to lead to a spike in the number of people reporting gambling issues in the short term. However, populations tend to adapt over time; the rate of gambling problems decreases accordingly. </p>
<p>It will be interesting to see whether the same pattern plays out for sports betting. </p>
<p><iframe id="RwMBy" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/RwMBy/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Barriers to treatment</h2>
<p>My team also operates an outpatient clinic where we treat people with gambling disorder. Our research and therapy sessions have pointed to some encouraging news, along with a few barriers. </p>
<p>The good news is that treatment, particularly when it includes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2009.04.002">cognitive behavioral techniques</a>, significantly reduces gambling disorder symptoms and psychological distress. While long-term treatment is recommended, an effective <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/adb0000710">course of treatment</a> is about eight to 10 sessions. </p>
<p>Yet there are still roadblocks. People are often hesitant to try treatment; those who do frequently drop out. </p>
<p>People are often unaware they have gambling problems, even when they report having symptoms of problem gambling. We don’t exactly know why. The impact, though, is substantial. Only about 10% of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1556/jba.3.2014.3.7">individuals with a gambling problem ever seek treatment</a>. As a comparison, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.201200454">rate of seeking help</a> among those with substance use disorders runs somewhere between 10% and 50%. It’s considerably lower than those experiencing depression and anxiety, 70% to 90% of whom will seek treatment. </p>
<p>We also know that gambling disorder is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-018-9775-x">one of the most stigmatized mental health concerns</a>. We find that people tend to blame someone who has developed gambling problems, and view them as dangerous or untrustworthy. By contrast, someone experiencing depression and anxiety is less likely to be blamed for their problems.</p>
<p>The other challenge is the rate at which people discontinue treatment before completing the standard course of therapy. For most mental health concerns, 20% who start a psychological treatment <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028226">fail to continue in that treatment</a>. By comparison, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/adb0000710">dropout rate for gambling harms</a> is nearly double: 39%. </p>
<p>We believe that dropout rate is not explained by people not wanting to put in the work to change. Instead, the relationship with the therapist and ambivalence about the progress being made tend to derail the course of treatment. Finances are also a real problem. Patients might not be able to afford their appointments, or <a href="https://www.ncpgambling.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ACA-brief-web-layout-publication.pdf">their insurance doesn’t cover</a> a diagnosis of a gambling disorder.</p>
<h2>Gaps in knowledge and funding</h2>
<p>About a decade ago, a friend who is an alcohol researcher observed that the thinking and research about gambling was about four decades behind where it is for alcohol. The gaps in knowledge were evident. We still don’t have good models for how a gambling problem develops, or how to conceptualize an addiction without a substance. We don’t know the long-term effects of experiencing gambling problems and gambling disorder. And we don’t fully understand the extent to which improvements from treatment are maintained.</p>
<p>While researchers around the world are chipping away at these knowledge gaps, there continue to be huge challenges – not the least of which is that gambling regulations keep changing and new forms of gambling are always emerging. </p>
<p>More importantly, there is little funding available to learn more about gambling disorder – and almost no funding from the U.S. government. In 2022, the National Institutes of Health <a href="https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/management-reporting/fy-2022-financial-management-plan">invested over $570 million</a> to study alcohol use problems. </p>
<p>The amount the NIH budgeted to study gambling? </p>
<p>Zero.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James P. Whelan receives funding from Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services </span></em></p>Treatment has a high success rate. Getting problem gamblers in the door – and getting them to complete a full course of therapy – is another matter.James P. Whelan, Research Professor of Clinical Health, University of MemphisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973402023-02-06T13:27:56Z2023-02-06T13:27:56ZAs climate change and overuse shrink Lake Powell, the emergent landscape is coming back to life – and posing new challenges<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507729/original/file-20230201-11157-wkkhhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5939%2C3341&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The white 'bathtub ring' around Lake Powell, which is roughly 110 feet high, shows the former high water mark.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DroughtLakePowell/5288ffa6ba2c44f38526491d1fde4b77/photo">AP Photo/Rick Bowmer</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Western states haggle over <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/31/california-colorado-river-water-use-proposal">reducing water use</a> because of declining flows in the Colorado River Basin, a more hopeful drama is playing out in Glen Canyon. </p>
<p>Lake Powell, the second-largest U.S. reservoir, extends from northern Arizona into southern Utah. A critical water source for seven Colorado River Basin states, it has shrunk dramatically over the past 40 years. </p>
<p>An ongoing <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/14/1080302434/study-finds-western-megadrought-is-the-worst-in-1-200-years">22-year megadrought</a> has lowered the water level to just <a href="https://lakepowell.water-data.com/index2.php">22.6% of “full pool</a>,” and that trend is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01290-z">expected to continue</a>. Federal officials assert that there are <a href="https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/8/1/23186668/lake-powell-debate-drain-western-drought-hydropower-utah-arizona-colorado-river-lake-mead">no plans to drain Lake Powell</a>, but overuse and climate change are draining it anyway. </p>
<p>As the water drops, Glen Canyon – one of the most scenic areas in the U.S. West – is reappearing. </p>
<p>This landscape, which includes the Colorado River’s main channel and about 100 side canyons, was flooded starting in the mid-1960s with the completion of <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/uc/rm/crsp/gc/">Glen Canyon Dam</a> in northern Arizona. The area’s stunning beauty and unique features have led observers to call it “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/07/1067716380/western-megadrought-climate-lake-powell-glen-canyon-reservoir">America’s lost national park</a>.” </p>
<p>Lake Powell’s decline offers an unprecedented opportunity to recover the unique landscape at Glen Canyon. But managing this emergent landscape also presents serious political and environmental challenges. In my view, government agencies should start planning for them now. </p>
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<h2>A tarnished jewel</h2>
<p>Glen Canyon Dam, which towers 710 feet high, was designed to create a water “bank account” for the Colorado River Basin. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation touted Lake Powell as the “<a href="https://energyhistory.yale.edu/library-item/bureau-reclamation-lake-powell-jewel-colorado-1965">Jewel of the Colorado</a>” and promised that it would be a motorboater’s paradise and an endless source of water and hydropower. </p>
<p>Lake Powell was so big that it took 17 years to fill to capacity. At full pool, it contained <a href="https://www.arizona-leisure.com/lake-powell-facts.html">27 million acre-feet of water</a> – enough to cover 27 million acres of land to a depth of one foot – and Glen Canyon Dam’s turbines could generate 1,300 megawatts of power when the reservoir was high. </p>
<p>Soon the reservoir was drawing <a href="https://irma.nps.gov/STATS/SSRSReports/Park%20Specific%20Reports/Recreation%20Visitors%20By%20Month%20(1979%20-%20Last%20Calendar%20Year)?Park=GLCA">millions of boaters and water skiers</a> every year. But starting in the late 1980s, its volume declined sharply as states drew more water from the Colorado River while climate change-induced drought reduced the river’s flow. Today the reservoir’s average volume is <a href="https://lakepowell.water-data.com/index2.php">less than 6 million acre-feet</a>.</p>
<p>Nearly every boat ramp is closed, and many of them sit far from the retreating reservoir. Hydropower production may cease as early as 2024 if the lake falls to “<a href="https://new.azwater.gov/news/articles/2022-03-11">minimum power pool</a>,” the lowest point at which the turbines can draw water. And water supplies to 40 million people are gravely endangered under current management scenarios. </p>
<p>These water supply issues have created a serious crisis in the basin, but there is also an opportunity to recover an amazing landscape. Over 100,000 acres of formerly flooded land have emerged, including world-class scenery that rivals some of the crown jewels of the U.S. national park system. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">As Lake Powell recedes, it is uncovering formerly flooded land and things that past visitors left behind.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bargained away</h2>
<p>Glen Canyon made a deep impression on explorer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Wesley-Powell">John Wesley Powell</a> when he surveyed the Colorado River starting in 1867. When Powell’s expedition <a href="https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/powell-1869-river-journey/">floated through Glen Canyon in 1869</a>, he wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“On the walls, and back many miles into the country, numbers of monument-shaped buttes are observed. So we have a curious ensemble of wonderful features – carved walls, royal arches, glens, alcove gulches, mounds, and monuments … past these towering monuments, past these oak-set glens, past these fern-decked alcoves, past these mural curves, we glide hour after hour.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507725/original/file-20230201-17231-cillry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A red rock cliff towers above trees and a small pool of water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507725/original/file-20230201-17231-cillry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507725/original/file-20230201-17231-cillry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507725/original/file-20230201-17231-cillry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507725/original/file-20230201-17231-cillry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507725/original/file-20230201-17231-cillry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507725/original/file-20230201-17231-cillry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507725/original/file-20230201-17231-cillry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This side canyon emerged in recent years as Lake Powell shrank. The white ‘bathtub ring’ on the rock wall shows past water levels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Craig McCool</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Glen Canyon remained relatively unknown until the late 1940s, when the Bureau of Reclamation <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/echo-park-dam-controversy">proposed several large dams</a> on the upper Colorado River for irrigation and hydropower. Environmentalists fiercely objected to one at Echo Park in <a href="https://www.nps.gov/dino/index.htm">Dinosaur National Monument</a> on the Colorado-Utah border, alarmed by the prospect of building a dam in a national monument. Their <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/echo-park-dam-controversy">campaign to block it</a> succeeded – but in return they accepted a dam in Glen Canyon, a decision that former Sierra Club President David Brower later called <a href="https://www.deseret.com/2000/3/15/19496225/glen-canyon-outrage-br-2-sides-air-views-on-2-sides-of-the-still-controversial-dam">his greatest regret</a>.</p>
<h2>New challenges</h2>
<p>The first goal of managing the emergent landscape in Glen Canyon should be the inclusion of tribes in a co-management role. The Colorado River and its tributaries are managed through a complex maze of laws, court cases and regulations known as the “<a href="https://www.crwua.org/law-of-the-river.html">Law of the River</a>.” In an act of stupendous injustice, the Law of the River ignored the water rights of Native Americans until <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-climate-change-parches-the-southwest-heres-a-better-way-to-share-water-from-the-shrinking-colorado-river-168723">courts stepped in</a> and required western water users to consider their rights. </p>
<p>Tribes received no water allocation in the 1922 <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/pao/pdfiles/crcompct.pdf">Colorado River Compact</a> and were ignored or trivialized in subsequent legislation. Even though modern concepts of water management emphasize including all major stakeholders, tribes were excluded from the policymaking process. </p>
<p>There are 30 tribes in the Colorado River Basin, at least 19 of which have an association with Glen Canyon. They have rights to a substantial portion of the river’s flow, and there are thousands of <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/2022/10/24/cultural-sites-are-being/">Indigenous cultural sites in the canyon</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CdBMZPjrEhq/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Another management challenge is the massive amounts of sediment that have accumulated in the canyon. “Colorado” means “colored red” in Spanish, a recognition of the silt-laden water. This silt used to build beaches in the Grand Canyon, just downstream, and created the Colorado River delta in Mexico. </p>
<p>But for the past 63 years, it has been accumulating in Lake Powell, where it now clogs some sections of the main channel and will eventually accumulate below the dam. Some of it is <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/pollution-a-26-000-ton-pile-of-radioactive-waste-lies-under-the-waters-and-silt-of-lake-powell">laced with toxic materials</a> from mining decades ago. As more of the canyon is exposed, it may become necessary to create an active sediment management plan, including possible mechanical removal of some materials to protect public health. </p>
<p>The creation of Lake Powell also resulted in biological invasives, including <a href="https://www.ksl.com/article/50477865/feds-fighting-back-against-invasive-fish-species-near-lake-powell">nonnative fish and quagga mussels</a>. Some of these problems will abate as the reservoir declines and a free-flowing river replaces stagnant still water. </p>
<p>On a more positive note, native plants are <a href="https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/water-wars/lake-powell-water-dry-up-causing-glen-canyon-ecosystems-wildlife-flourish/75-06cac37f-d109-4188-a6b8-d1594d205a60">recolonizing side canyons</a> as they become exposed, creating verdant canyon bottoms. Restoring natural ecosystems in the canyon will require innovative biological management strategies as the habitat changes back to a more natural landscape. </p>
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<p>Finally, as the emergent landscape expands and side canyons recover their natural scenery, Glen Canyon will become a unique tourist magnet. As the main channel reverts to a flowing river, users will no longer need an expensive boat; anyone with a kayak, canoe or raft will be able to enjoy the beauty of the canyons.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nps.gov/glca/index.htm">Glen Canyon National Recreation Area</a>, which includes over 1.25 million acres around Lake Powell, was created to cater to people in motorized boats on a flat-water surface. Its staff will need to develop new capabilities and an active visitor management plan to protect the canyon and prevent the kind of crowding that is <a href="https://theconversation.com/overcrowded-us-national-parks-need-a-reservation-system-158864">overrunning other popular national parks</a>.</p>
<p>Other landscapes are likely to emerge across the West as climate change reshapes the region and numerous reservoirs decline. With proper planning, Glen Canyon can provide a lesson in how to manage them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197340/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I know many of the people involved in the controversy regarding the future of Lake Powell and Glen Canyon.</span></em></p>Lake Powell’s existential crisis is a unique opportunity to save a treasured landscape.Daniel Craig McCool, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of UtahLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1867292023-02-03T13:46:44Z2023-02-03T13:46:44ZNative Americans have experienced a dramatic decline in life expectancy during the COVID-19 pandemic – but the drop has been in the making for generations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498814/original/file-20221204-56201-iupj03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5292%2C2981&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indigenous patients who live in rural areas often have limited access to medical care. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/intense-navajo-man-portrait-in-monument-valley-utah-royalty-free-image/1434301879">THE PALMER/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Six and one-half years.</p>
<p>That’s the decline in life expectancy that the COVID-19 pandemic wrought upon American Indians and Alaska Natives, based on an August 2022 <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr023.pdf">report from the National Center for Health Statistics</a>. </p>
<p>This astounding figure translates to an overall drop in average living years from 71.8 years in 2019 to 65.2 by the end of 2021.</p>
<p>Although the pandemic is a major reason for this decline, it’s not the whole story. Even before COVID-19 emerged, life expectancy for Indigenous men <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256307">was already five years lower</a> than for non-Hispanic white men in the United States.</p>
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<h2>The grim reality</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://und.edu/directory/allison.kelliher">Native American physician and board-certified M.D.</a>, I am all too familiar with the health challenges that Indigenous Americans face. </p>
<p>Growing up in remote rural Alaska as a member of the <a href="https://www.alaskan-natives.com/637/koyukuk-native-village/">Koyukon Athabascan tribe</a>, I heard stories of how infectious diseases like flu, smallpox and tuberculosis threatened our survival. My cultural group descends from three families that survived the <a href="https://theconversation.com/1918-flu-pandemic-upended-long-standing-social-inequalities-at-least-for-a-time-new-study-finds-195718">1918 flu pandemic</a>. </p>
<p>This history inspired me to become a traditional healer. Along with my training in Western medicine, I have also studied <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2010.03.016">plant-based medicine and earth-based science</a>, which was taught to me by my elders – practitioners who passed down thousands of years of accumulated knowledge to me. </p>
<p>Through both my medical and traditional practices, I have learned there are many reasons for the decline in life expectancy and the divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health outcomes. But this gap – if the government and the medical system will act – can be narrowed. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">“Young and Native American,” a short documentary produced by BBC News.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Poverty, unemployment and lack of health care</h2>
<p>American Indians and Alaska Natives die from diabetes at <a href="https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlid=33">more than twice the rate of non-Indigenous populations</a>. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Native Americans have <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6747a4.htm#">significantly higher rates of obesity</a>, high blood pressure, cancers and general poor health status than other Americans. The suicide rate in Indigenous communities is <a href="https://www.nicoa.org/national-american-indian-and-alaska-native-hope-for-life-day/">about 43% higher</a> than that of non-Indigenous communities. And Native American women <a href="https://vawnet.org/sc/gender-based-violence-and-intersecting-challenges-impacting-native-american-alaskan-village-1">experience sexual violence far more often</a> than non-Hispanic white women.</p>
<p>There are many reasons for these disparities. For starters: Native Americans have the highest poverty rate among all minority groups, <a href="https://ncrc.org/racial-wealth-snapshot-native-americans/">perhaps as high as 25%</a>. </p>
<p>Unemployment among American Indians and Alaska Natives in <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/11/01/native-american-unemployment-rate-near-record-low/10652104002/">November 2022 was 6.2%</a>, compared to <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/unemployment-rate-3-7-percent-in-november-2022.htm">3.7% in the general population</a>. Many Indigenous people, working only seasonally, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/race-and-ethnicity/2020/">are also woefully underemployed</a>. </p>
<p>American Indians and Alaska Natives are also <a href="https://med.und.edu/publications/biennial-report/_files/docs/sixth-biennial-report.pdf">underserved in the U.S. health care system</a>. The <a href="https://www.ihs.gov/">Indian Health Service</a> – the federal agency that provides medical care to Indigenous Americans – is funded at about US$6 billion per year. That translated to only <a href="https://www.nihb.org/docs/09072022/FY%202024%20Tribal%20Budget%20Formulation%20Workgroup%20Recommendations.pdf">$4,078 per person in 2021</a>. </p>
<p>The result is that there are fewer physicians, nurses and therapists seeing Indigenous patients, particularly those who live in rural areas. Those providing care have fewer technologies available to them, such as MRI and ultrasound machines, to help diagnose and treat disease earlier. Such shortages mean <a href="https://med.und.edu/publications/biennial-report/_files/docs/sixth-biennial-report.pdf">less access to either primary or emergency care</a>, which contributes to lower life expectancy.</p>
<h2>Historical trauma</h2>
<p>A shaky health care system is only part of the problem. <a href="https://theconversation.com/effects-of-childhood-adversity-linger-during-college-years-163157">Adverse childhood experiences</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/brain-scans-of-black-women-who-experience-racism-show-trauma-like-effects-putting-them-at-higher-risk-for-future-health-problems-165511">social marginalization </a> and toxic, relentless stress also contribute to shorter lives.</p>
<p>Then there are the effects of <a href="https://tpcjournal.nbcc.org/examining-the-theory-of-historical-trauma-among-native-americans/#:%7E">unresolved historical trauma</a> – the cumulative <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110263">emotional and psychological trauma within a specific group</a> that spans generations. </p>
<p>This kind of collective trauma cannot be overstated. A growing body of evidence <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2011.628913?">is documenting its effects on Indigenous people</a>. Historical trauma <a href="https://ssw.smith.edu/about/news-events/dr-maria-yellow-horse-brave-heart-returns-smith-give-rapoport-lecture">can produce physiological stress</a>, striking not just individual people, but entire families. There is recent evidence to suggest that <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14091074">the body’s stress response</a> has caused epigenetic changes – meaning <a href="https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01419">changes in gene expression caused by the environment</a> – in Native Americans that can affect one’s health even before birth. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Historical trauma and racism continue to contribute to the health disparities experienced by Native Americans.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To this day, the U.S. government has consistently created policies that sanctioned inequality – actions that have likely contributed <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr023.pdf">to the historical trauma and health disparities</a> present today. American Indian and Alaska Native communities have suffered from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01466">disease, war, internment and starvation</a> for centuries.</p>
<p>Not only were Indigenous people displaced <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/indian-removal-act#:">from the lands that were once our home</a>, the U.S. government even made it <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1053/american-indian-religious-freedom-act-of-1978-as-amended-in-1994">illegal for us to practice their traditions</a>. Throughout most of the 20th century, the U.S. government placed Indigenous children into <a href="https://theconversation.com/christianity-was-a-major-part-of-indigenous-boarding-schools-a-historian-whose-family-survived-them-explains-187339">boarding schools that separated them from their families</a>.</p>
<h2>Breaking the cycle</h2>
<p>It’s clear that Indigenous communities need new or upgraded hospitals and clinics, more and better diagnostic technology, more specialty services in dental care, obstetrics, pediatrics and oncology, and more alcohol and substance abuse treatment programs. </p>
<p>There is some good news: The Biden administration’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/11/15/fact-sheet-one-year-into-implementation-of-bipartisan-infrastructure-law-biden-%E2%81%A0harris-administration-celebrates-major-progress-in-building-a-better-america/">2022 infrastructure bill</a> makes $13 billion available <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Bipartisan-Infrastructure-Law-Tribal-Playbook-053122-.pdf">to address some of these needs</a> for Native American tribes. And an additional <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-11/how-native-tribes-are-using-20-billion-in-pandemic-aid">$20 billion appropriation for COVID-19 relief</a> will also provide help for some of the most immediate challenges.</p>
<p>But even with this aid, there is still a funding gap. The <a href="https://www.nihb.org/">National Indian Health Board</a>, a nonprofit advocacy group representing federally recognized tribes, recommends a commitment of $48 billion for the 2024 fiscal year <a href="https://www.nihb.org/docs/09072022/FY%202024%20Tribal%20Budget%20Formulation%20Workgroup%20Recommendations.pdf">to fully fund the health needs of Indigenous people</a>. The current budget, $9.3 billion, <a href="https://www.ihs.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/2022-press-releases/statement-from-ihs-acting-director-elizabeth-fowler-on-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2023-budget/#:">is less than one-fifth of that</a>. </p>
<p>The recent increases in funding are certainly a step in the right direction. But the factors contributing to the shorter lives of Native Americans started generations ago, and they are still reverberating among the youngest of us today. </p>
<p>Both from a professional standpoint – as well as one that is very personal to me and my ancestors – more work in this area cannot come soon enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186729/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allison Kelliher receives funding from NSF EPSCoR and NIDA. </span></em></p>Unrelenting poverty, underemployment and historical trauma all contribute to the health challenges faced by Indigenous Americans.Allison Kelliher, Assistant Professor, Department of Family & Community Medicine, University of North DakotaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.