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Isabel Chen, a medical student at UBC, is part of a team that has invented a mobile panic button for street-based sex trade workers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
A voice or text message is first recorded onto a SIM card, which is inserted into a GPS-enabled device such as a pager that would only need to be charged once a week. Pressing a button on the pager activates the GPS and sends an emergency message and GPS location to a contact who can get help. Because the GPS is not activated until the device is activated, the anonymity of the user is preserved.
This is such a great idea I’m surprised it wasn’t already invented years ago!
Technology for safety and good!
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» Testimony of intoxicated First Nations girl not credible: Judge | APTN National News
Video report.
TRIGGER WARNING: Graphic pictures of violence sustained from police brutality.
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» The Tricky Business of Contesting the Sale of Sacred 'Objects' - By Miranda Belarde-Lewis
Last Friday started like any other busy day. Get the kid to school, gear up for the commute, read the news. By news I mean read the Facebook status updates.
I’d been following one news story in particular lately. It involved the upcoming auction of Hopi, Zuni and Jemez katsinam (in Zuni we say kokko) or kachina friends in Paris, France. The story had the attention of many Pueblo, museum and art people. We all wondered if a French judge would halt or delay the auction of 70 ‘objects’ on the grounds that the katsinam friends are still considered sacred cultural patrimony to the Hopi people.
The auction house, Néret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou, claimed in their catalog that the collector selling their collection (who is not required to make himself publicly known), was “fascinated” by the time and energy a group of people would spend making masks that represented “among the most important Katsinam spirits of the Hopi pantheon.”
There is no shortage of questionable claims made by the auction catalog, but it did get something right. “The Hopi Indians still practice ritual ceremonies to mark the seasons.” About the collector, the catalog stated “by his own admission, you have to see the masks in dances to fully appreciate them.”
Earlier in the month I shared the ICTMN story about the katsinam friends up for auction as a concerned Zuni Pueblo member. As a museum nerd and NAGPRA enthusiast I pondered the use of national laws on the international level to bring our sacred beings home. Immediately after sharing the link, like-minded friends, Native and non, echoed my concerns.
One of the concerns came from Curtis, a high school mate and fellow museum nerd/professional. He reminded me that while my questions were valid, he asked if ICTMN could blur the image of the kokko friends associated with the article. In my haste to share my outrage at the upcoming auction and to help spread the disturbing news with my corner of the Facebook-o-sphere I forgot some basic rules about the kokkos in the pictures.
The first rule of the katsinam or kokko friends: they are not for sale.
Second first rule: don’t take pictures of them. Ever.
Third first rule: they belong in their homes within the Pueblos, with the people and groups responsible for their care. Always.
The story I shared featured an image of two kokko friends that were up for auction. They were propped up on metal stands with the standard museum-photograph gray background. They were presented as art.
There was no fine grit of desert dirt that floated through the air when the kokkos entered the village. There were no wisps of burning cedar carrying food to our ancient ones or newly passed relatives. There was no telltale trail of cornmeal sprinkled in welcome and blessings drawn into lungs. All context was missing. They were presented as art instead of the sacred, living beings that they are and all that they represent to us.
The next day several Pueblo people sent emails and voiced concern over the images and out of respect, ICTMN immediately pulled the images. The media coverage continued and grew. The photos remained in other online spaces, including the auction house’s catalog.
Pueblo leaders, lawyers, citizens and concerned supporters of the kokko friends flooded the auctioneer’s email inboxes. The US Embassy in France contacted the auction house requesting a delay of the auction in order to completely review the situation. A petition was started on Change.org calling for the halt of the auction and the immediate repatriation of the kokko friends.
The New York Times arts blog began running updates. The Associate Press reported on the calls of support and on a petition filed in a French court on behalf of the Hopi by their pro-bono attorneys requesting the auction be delayed while the case was reviewed. Robert Redford of the Hollywood Clan called the proposed auction in his opinion “a sacrilege — a criminal gesture that contains grave moral repercussions.”
The authorities at Interpol were contacted and strongly encouraged to use the US mandate of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, French laws and international conventions and documents that are supposed to protect against the theft, removal and subsequent sale of sacred objects of cultural and national patrimony.
Pueblo people have no doubt the kokko friends are 1. sacred and 2. cultural patrimony, meaning the kokko friends belong with the group and are not ‘owned’ by any individual, no matter their place in the world.
The kokko friends do not recognize international borders. If they have been stolen or removed from their home communities they are not ‘walking in two worlds.’ They remain sacred beings wherever they are and as sacred beings require the utmost care by those knowledgeable and responsible for their care.
The auction house remained firm that they believed the collector did not steal the katsinam and reminded the world that one country’s laws have no jurisdiction over individuals and companies in another country. The auctioneers went even further to say that they believed the Hopi should consider the interest in the collection an ”homage to the Hopi” and that the Hopi should be “happy that so many people want to understand and analyze their civilization.” (Note to self: learn how to say WTF and WTF-ever in French.)
Last Friday the judge agreed with the auction house: NAGPRA does not apply in France. The UNDRIP is an aspirational document, meaning it contains rights for Indigenous peoples that France agrees with in theory, but has not put into legal motion within its borders or laws. The auction went ahead as planned.
Describing the “chaos” in the auction roomthe Associated Press reportedon the reactions from the crowd. Some shouted out in protest and were escorted out of the room. Others ooh’d and aah’d over the kokko friends “of most interest” — these friends ultimately sold for three times the auctioneer’s estimated value.
Last Friday was a cold, rainy day in Seattle. Indeed it was a sad, dark day for Pueblo peoples everywhere. All Indigenous groups shared the pain of knowing the kokko friends were sold to the highest bidder and scattered around the globe - we have seen our sacred beings, relatives and embodiments of spirits sold in this manner for decades.
I used to work in a Native arts gallery in Tucson. I quickly learned potential buyers of Native art want a story to go with their purchase. The better the story, the quicker the sale. The articulate pleas to stop the auction and return the kokko friends created a dramatic stage for the auction. The kokko friends sold in the auction have tribal, museum professional and legal protests, Hollywood big-wigs, and the international press telling a passionate story.
It’s a disgusting and disturbing realization that our collective efforts to stop the auction increased the visibility of the kokko friends and most likely contributed to their swift sale at higher-than-expected prices.
Hopi tribal member Sam Tenakhongva reflected on the sadness of the situation and shared his thoughts withKUYI Hopi Radio. He reminded himself that they “stood for and fought for something that only we can understand, cherish and give respect to.” That they brought “to light an issue no one wants to discuss nor face.” He reminded himself that the Hopi “must move forward in a positive manner, to love and cherish one another and hopefully the struggle and fight we put up is not one that is taken in vain.”
Mr Tenakhongva also reflected that the it is up to us as Pueblo people to teach our children about the sacredness of the kokko friends, what they represent to us and what knowledge we share with the world. We are collectively responsible for passing on “principles such as respect, discipline, value, sacredness, patience and understanding and how we as Hopi treat our own knowledge and religion.”
I agree with him. We are collectively responsible for teaching our children what it is to be Pueblo. If we claim in international courts that cultural patrimony cannot be bought or sold by any one individual then we can’t expect any one individual to be responsible for the protection of our ways of life, being and knowing. It is a responsibility that begins at home and belongs to us all.
Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni, Tlingit) belongs to the Takdeintáan of the Tlingit Nation, is born for the Corn Clan in Zuni Pueblo, and is a PhD Candidate at the University of Washington.
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» B.C. Mountie Cleared Of Assault Of First Nations Teen
TRIGGER WARNING: If you click the link there is a photo of the teens injuries.
A Williams Lake RCMP officer who punched a First Nations teen in the face has been acquitted of an assault charge.
On Monday, the judge ruled Const. Andy Yung acted reasonably during the arrest of 18-year-old Jamie Haller in 2011.
Haller’s mother, Martina Jeff, was expecting a different result.
“It’s been a hard, long, year and a half. We thought we were going to get justice. And everything just didn’t go the way we thought it was going to go. It affected Jamie, it took a lot out of her,” Jeff said.
During the trial, Yung admitted that he punched Haller in the face while she was handcuffed in the back seat of his police cruiser, but said he did so because she was drunk and agitated and had wrapped her legs around his head.
Haller testified that the officer punched her more than six times, but the judge found her testimony to be inconsistent and evasive.
“What means most to me at the end of the day here is that the judge, in his careful deliberation, chose to accept the evidence of constable Yung,” said Insp. Warren Brown, head of the Williams Lake RCMP detachment.
“And that tells me that the evidence provided by Const. Yung was truthful, and regardless of the decision, that would be my biggest concern.”
Yung has been on desk-duty since the charges were laid.
Brown says it is too soon to say whether or not the RCMP will conduct an internal review, or if Yung will return to active duty in Williams Lake.
Const. Yung has been in trouble before.
In 2008, while providing security at an international summit in Banff, he was involved in a drunken telephone conversation with his ex-girlfriend when he fired his service gun into the ceiling of his hotel room.
Yung was later cited for disgraceful conduct and docked five days pay.
This should have more notes :(
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» B.C. Mountie Cleared Of Assault Of First Nations Teen
TRIGGER WARNING: If you click the link there is a photo of the teens injuries.
A Williams Lake RCMP officer who punched a First Nations teen in the face has been acquitted of an assault charge.
On Monday, the judge ruled Const. Andy Yung acted reasonably during the arrest of 18-year-old Jamie Haller in 2011.
Haller’s mother, Martina Jeff, was expecting a different result.
“It’s been a hard, long, year and a half. We thought we were going to get justice. And everything just didn’t go the way we thought it was going to go. It affected Jamie, it took a lot out of her,” Jeff said.
During the trial, Yung admitted that he punched Haller in the face while she was handcuffed in the back seat of his police cruiser, but said he did so because she was drunk and agitated and had wrapped her legs around his head.
Haller testified that the officer punched her more than six times, but the judge found her testimony to be inconsistent and evasive.
“What means most to me at the end of the day here is that the judge, in his careful deliberation, chose to accept the evidence of constable Yung,” said Insp. Warren Brown, head of the Williams Lake RCMP detachment.
“And that tells me that the evidence provided by Const. Yung was truthful, and regardless of the decision, that would be my biggest concern.”
Yung has been on desk-duty since the charges were laid.
Brown says it is too soon to say whether or not the RCMP will conduct an internal review, or if Yung will return to active duty in Williams Lake.
Const. Yung has been in trouble before.
In 2008, while providing security at an international summit in Banff, he was involved in a drunken telephone conversation with his ex-girlfriend when he fired his service gun into the ceiling of his hotel room.
Yung was later cited for disgraceful conduct and docked five days pay.
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» Suicide crisis prompts remote First Nation to declare state of emergency
OTTAWA — Two recent deaths among the members of the Neskantaga First Nation have prompted the remote northern Ontario community to declare a state of emergency in the hope of getting help to prevent the spread of suicide.
The First Nation northeast of Thunder Bay has seen two of its members die over the last two weeks, throwing the fragile community of 300 into grief and fear for the stability of other families.
Chief Peter Moonias said that just as the community was burying the first victim — a man in his 30s — they learned of the death of a 19-year-old from Neskantaga living in Thunder Bay.
Moonias said police have yet to declare the second death a suicide, but he suspects they soon will.
The problems come just a few months after another young man took his life there in December, a tragedy that prompted the community to close ranks and put its youth on suicide watch to prevent additional deaths.
“One suicide, we could have handled. … Not easily, but we could have come back,” said Moonias.
But the suicides are coming so close together that almost no one in the community of about 300 has been left untouched, he said. And now, they can’t cope.
“Now we have nothing left. We have hardly anybody who is not affected in the community. The community situation right now is in a state of shock. A lot of them are wondering what will happen next. They live in fear that something else will happen.”
Community and regional leaders decided to declare the state of emergency Wednesday to get help from the Red Cross and the Ontario government’s emergency management office.
Moonias said he was also hoping for help from any level of government in putting together a long-term plan that will confront Neskantaga’s serious problems with addiction to prescription drugs.
He’s also hoping that other First Nations will heed Neskantaga’s cry for help.
“It will be a devastating thing for my people if nobody listens. Like we don’t exist, you know?”
The Ojibway chief estimates that more than half the community’s adults are addicted to OxyContin or other painkillers.
The limited health care resources made available to Neskantaga to deal with addictions have been insufficient and have not worked well, Moonias added.
“Let’s help these young people,” he said. “I don’t want this to continue another day, another month.”
Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq promised the community the help they need.
“Our hearts go out to those who have lost friends and loved ones to suicide,” she said in a statement Wednesday.
“Health Canada will work closely with the community and send both additional nursing and counselling staff to assist during this difficult time.”
The suicide rate in Neskantaga and surrounding First Nations is far higher than the national average, as communities struggle to deal with isolation, drug and alcohol addictions, poverty, poor housing and a loss of cultural identity.
Now, natural resource companies and the federal and provincial governments have taken a new interest in the community’s health as they seek to develop the region for mining. The massive and pristine Ring of Fire is rich with base metals, but First Nations need to be supportive of mining development in order for it to go ahead. They also need to be healthy in order to form a work force.
Last year, Health Canada added some extra funding to deal with addictions in the Ring of Fire region.
But relapses are frequent, and the pace of suicide and attempted suicide has been on the increase, Moonias said.
Normally, a declaration of emergency by a First Nation triggers action by Emergency Management Ontario, which is in turn reimbursed and supported by Aboriginal Affairs in Ottawa.
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» Osage Ballerina Maria Tallchief Walks On at 88
Osage ballerina Maria Tallchief broke ground for Native American ballet dancers and was not only one of George Balanchine’s wives, but an inspiration to him. She walked on Thursday, April 11 at a hospital in Chicago. She was 88.
TallChief was one of five Native ballerinas from Oklahoma to make a name for themselves in the ballet world from the 1940s to 1960s. Another of those was her sister, Marjorie Tallchief, who was just 21 months younger than Maria.
Maria was born Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief on January 24, 1925 in Fairfax, Oklahoma and grew up on the Osage reservation. She was known as Betty Marie and was the daughter of Alexander Joseph Tall Chief, an Osage, and Ruth Porter, an Irish/Scottish woman from Kansas.
“My father, Alexander Joseph Tall Chief, was a full-blooded Osage Indian. Six foot two, he walked with a sturdy gait and loved to hunt. The story goes that he could stroll through the woods, rifle in hand, spot a quail or pheasant out of the corner of his eye, point the gun, and shoot the bird without breaking his stride. With his strong aquiline profile, Daddy resembled the Indian on the buffalo-head nickel. Women found him handsome, and when I was young I idolized him,” Maria says in her 1997 memoirMaria Tallchief: America’s Prima Ballerina, which she wrote with Larry Kaplan.
Oil was discovered on Osage land when her father was a boy so he received headright payments from that. He owned the local movie theater and pool hall. Their 10-room home “stood high on a hill overlooking the reservation,” she says in the book.
Ruth had Maria in piano and dance lessons at 3 and Marjorie began lessons soon after. The two would perform together locally.
“Whenever a rodeo was held in Fairfax or Ponca City or Grey Horse or Pawhuska, the Tall Chief girls were always asked to dance,” Maria says in her memoir.
When Maria was 12 she became a student at Bronislava Nijinska’s school in Beverly Hills. Nijinska was a graduate of the Imperial Theatre School in St. Petersburg, Russia, she danced at the Maryinsky Theatre and with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Europe and was also a choreographer.
“Because her English was practically nonexistent Madame Nijinska rarely spoke. She didn’t have to. She had incredible personal magnetism and she radiated authority. Most of the time she demonstrated. It was hard to imagine her as a ballerina, but how she moved! Her footwork was phenomenal. She jumped and flashed around the studio,” Maria says in her memoir. “I was under her spell. The likes of Madame Nijinska were something I had never seen before.”
It was Nijinska who made Tallchief realize she wanted to be a dancer.
“The force of Madame Nijinska’s personality, and her unwavering devotion to her art, helped me to understand that ballet was what I wanted to do with my life. In her studio I became committed to becoming a ballerina, and Madame understood I was serious,” Maria says in her memoir. “She saw that I was very musical and had good proportions, and she paid a great deal of attention to me. She was always giving me corrections, a sign of her interest, and little by little she began treating me like her protégée.”
When she was 15, Maria earned a lead role in one of Nijinska’s ballets being performed at the Hollywood Bowl. She slipped, but Nijinska didn’t seem terribly concerned. After graduating high school she traveled to New York City with Tanya Riabouchinska, another of Nijinska’s students, and joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1942.
She married famed choreographer George Balanchine in 1946 and joined the New York City Ballet in 1948, dancing to her husband’s choreography.
She originated roles as lead dancer in Balanchine’s ballet “The Firebird” in 1949 and “Swan Lake” in 1951.
“A ballerina takes steps given to her and makes them her own. Each individual brings something different to the same role,” Tallchief once said. “As an American, I believe in great individualism. That’s the way I was brought up.”
Her marriage to Balanchine was short-lived —they divorced in 1951 but continued working together. One of her most famous roles was of the Sugar Plum Fairy in his 1954 production of “The Nutcracker.”
From 1952 to 1954 she was briefly married to charter airline pilot Elmourza Natirboff. Then in 1955 she met Henry D. “Buzz” Paschen, Jr., who would be the father of her daughter, Elise.
“My mother was a ballet legend, who was proud of her Osage heritage,” Elise Paschen, now a poet, said in a statement. “Her dynamic presence lit up the room. I will miss her passion, commitment to her art and devotion to her family. She raised the bar high and strove for excellence in everything she did.”
Maria attributed her success to her mother.
“Her fortitude and strength of mind, values she instilled in my sister and me, helped us achieve what we accomplished in life,” she says in her memoir. Marjorie achieved fame as a dancer in Europe.
She didn’t achieve all her success without struggles growing up though. She speaks of dealing with stereotypes and being made fun of in thefirst chapter of her book. It started when she was 8 and the family had moved to California. She was placed in a public school in Beverly Hills.
“Some of the students made fun of my last name, pretending they didn’t understand if it was Tall or Chief. A few made war whoops whenever they saw me, and asked why I didn’t wear feathers or if my father took scalps. After a while, they became accustomed to me, but the experience was painful. Eventually, I turned the spelling of my last name into one word. Everything in school was in strict alphabetical order and I wanted to avoid confusion.”
Nobody is confused as to who Maria Tallchief was now. She made a permanent mark on the world of dance.
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» Aboriginal Language Gets Official Status in Nunavut, Canada
As of April 1, Inuktitut became an official language of Nunavut, putting it on par with English and French in the territory.
“This level of statutory protection for an aboriginal language is unprecedented in Canada,” said the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Culture and Heritage in an April 2 news release.
The passage of the Official Languages Act has been five years in the making. This act takes the place of the Northwest Territories Official Languages Act, which recognized only English and French as official languages. The older act did give “a lesser set of rights to seven aboriginal languages, including Inuktitut,” according to Uqausivut, a comprehensive language plan. But, as the plan points out, “This does not reflect the realities of Nunavut, where a majority of people speak neither English nor French as their first language, but a single Aboriginal language.”
To help support public agencies in becoming compliant with the new act, the Department of Culture and Heritage will provide $5 million for Inuit language initiatives.
“I am proud that Inuit in Nunavut now have a clear statement of their inherent right to the use of the Inuit language in full equality with English and French,” said James Arreak, Minister of Languages, in the press release.
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» Another long journey for justice: Indigenous youth begin walk from Winnipeg to Ottawa
Twenty Indigenous youth from Manitoba have set out from the steps of the Legislative building in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
For the group, Youth for Lakes, this was the beginning of a 2000 kilometre trek to Parliament Hill in Ottawa that will take them an estimated 45 days.
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» http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/03/28/metis-and-reserve-aboriginals-await-outcome-harper-appeal-court-status-ruling-148406
The Canadian government is appealing a court ruling that gives Métis and off-reserve aboriginals the same constitutional status as those who live on reserves.
The ruling, which came down on January 8, found in favor of the 1999 lawsuit Daniels v. the Queen, which was brought against Canada’s government by the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, nonstatus Indians and Métis. The plaintiffs alleged they were victims of discrimination because they were not legally considered to be “Indians” under a section of the 1867 Constitution Act.
On-reserve First Nations members receive various benefits for health, education and other line items from Ottawa. The ruling did not stipulate that the federal government should assume those fiscal responsibilities. But it left open the possibility that the government would at some point have to negotiate with those groups, the Globe and Mail reported.
With more than 600,000 aboriginals living off-reserve, the financial implications could be major.
About a month after the ruling, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced it would appeal the case to the Supreme Court of Canada.
“Given that the federal court decision in the…Daniels case raises complex legal issues, it is prudent for Canada to obtain a decision from a higher court,” said then–Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development John Duncan in a statement at the time. “After careful consideration of the decision, Canada has filed an appeal, and it would be inappropriate to comment further as the case is before the courts.”
Not surprisingly, aboriginal groups were not happy with the decision to appeal.
“I am really disappointed because we’re back to square one,” said Métis Nation of Saskatchewan president Robert Doucette to the Canadian radio station NewsTalk650. “I think the federal government really missed a historic opportunity in the history of this country to fix the wrong that happened over a couple hundred years ago and to really sit down and talk with Métis people.”
“This decision comes at the expense of Métis and nonstatus Indians, who for far too long have been the ‘forgotten peoples’ of Canada struggling for recognition of their constitutional rights, equality, dignity, self-worth and fairness,” said Betty Ann Lavallée, national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, in a statement. “With the recent federal court ruling in favor of Métis and nonstatus Indians, Congress officials had been looking forward to working with the federal government on practical solutions to improve off-reserve aboriginal peoples’ lives.”
About me
I exist. You'll find out more about me by reading my blog. Or not, I don't care.
Likes
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Snobby coffee bear. (watercolor, ballpoint pen)
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Posing with toilet
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Liquid Space Series - Jellyfish (by KimodusPhoto)
