U & D

One of the media resources identified for middle and high school Native studies in Maine’s Wabanaki Studies – Suggested Curriculum Integration is a DVD (or video) called Homeland – Four Portraits of Native Action.  It was a new resource to me (how I did I miss it?), so I have checked it out – and [...]

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If you are like me, your knowledge of Henry VII and John Cabot’s charter to explore and claim New World lands is a little fuzzy. Thanks to John Dieffenbacher-Krall (Executive Director of MITSC) for sharing this history we all should know. Quotes are from John’s email to me of 7-30-2009 and a sermon he [...]

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Think for a moment about governments in distress, globally. There are contested elections, civil wars, usurpations of power, repressed and unrepresented populations, revolutions, invasions, rampant fraud, tyrannical leaders, cartels and pirates.  Within Maine itself, tribal-state relations have, over the last year, come unraveled, a situation  documented in MITSC’s archive of News.
The turmoil of nationhood [...]

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I like the phrase “original free and independent existence.” It comes from a lucid essay by Steven Newcomb, appearing in the May 1, 2009, Indian Country Today (On Non-Indian, Anti-Indian Law).
Newcomb does not discuss specific laws, such as the one I looked at in my last post. He does not propose new laws or suggest [...]

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I read, and filed away somewhere, a recent Maine ruling (by whom?) that would make it possible for the Maliseet band to have their own court. At the time, my students were reading The Heart of a Chief, in which the tribal police are minor characters. How does law enforcement work on the reservations? they [...]

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“My students most want to know why you are not angrier,” I asked at the April LD291 Best Practices – Native Studies conference. Not a very PC question. But I got an answer. [paraphrased] “For us, land is power. And we have always been here. So why should we be angry?”
This is THE key [...]

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Just found this unpublished post – the news is old, but still important.
Some of you teachers probably have heard this on MPBN or read it in a newspaper. For the rest of you, THIS IS LD 291 NEWS. It might seem like a very small step, but it is not.
Headline: Maine House approves [...]

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Last week’s meeting of the Department of Education’ Committee for the Development of a Recommended Wabanaki Studies Curriculum Profile (I am calling this CDRWSCP), which will support the implementation of LS 291 while at the same time support the 2007 Social Studies learning results, started with the Big One – Worldview. When that and Culture [...]

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There appears to be a somewhat warm and fuzzy understanding of what drives environmental sovereignty among the Wabanaki and other Nations and tribes. I understand that this vision goes back to the essential balance between the traditional Native community and the environment, a balance necessary for subsistence. However, it pains me that some teachers would [...]

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News:
“Carcieri v. Kempthorne (Salazar) : which involved the Narragansett Indian Tribe’s petition to have land placed into trust by the Secretary of Interior.” (Turtle Talk, Feb. 24)
“The U.S. Supreme Court has limited the authority of the federal government to transfer land in trust for the benefit of Indian tribes.
The decision is a victory for states [...]

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