Dr. Jacqueline Wilson of Yakama Can an instrument suit your personality? Dr. Jacqueline Wilson of Yakama would say so. She believes her personality fits best with a large, low sounding, […]Read More
Gary James, left, and Don Sampson, the two original employees of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s Fisheries Program, at the tribe’s Department of Natural Resources 40-year anniversary […]Read More
Yakima women of color received 19 scholarships to support them in continuing their legal education. Photo: Pataathla Sutterlict Listen (Runtime 1:39) Read More women of color want to become lawyers […]Read More
Building a canoe is about learning and community-building for everyone involved. That’s what one Nez Perce man said before launching a canoe that was handmade with the help of fourth graders into the water on Tuesday.Read More
A scheme to entertain a 4-year-old youngster in Spokane by playing a jazz album nearly three decades ago produced a cascade of aftereffects that culminated on stage in Olympia, Washington, this month with crescendos of horns and multiple standing ovations. During the debut of a 16-piece, all-Indigenous big band, the performers on stage hearkened even further back in Read More
La ley "Tráelos a casa" ("Bring them home" en inglés) de Washington entra en vigor en junio. Permite a los miembros de las tribus realizar sus prácticas espitiruales y ceremonias sobre un indígena fallecido sin comprometer la escena antes de que se realice la autopsia, y apoya a los supervivientes del tráfico de personas.Read More
Washington’s “Bring them home” law takes effect in June. It allows tribal members to pray over a deceased indigenous person without compromising the scene before an autopsy is conducted, and supports survivors of trafficking.Read More
Brandi Morin, of the Cree Nation, says she is wearing a scarf in support of Ukraine / Photo Courtesy of Brandi Morin Read Listen: Anna King reports on Native Americans […]Read More
Aaron Quaempts wears a knotted white scarf with colorful flowers draped around his neck. Listen Read Across Indian country people are wearing brightly colored scarves and taking selfies for social […]Read More
Social support for middle-aged Native Americans goes a long way in mitigating the physical effects of mental health problems.Read More
Students and staff at Washington State University are celebrating Native Heritage Month with events honoring Native heritage. Read More
The Washington State Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIW/P) Task Force will have its first meetings on December 2nd and 3rd. Read More
Early Saturday morning, the city took down statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Then, during an emergency midday meeting of the city council, officials unanimously voted to remove another statue featuring Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and Shoshone interpreter Sacagawea, which was taken down Saturday afternoon.Read More
The story of some Native American Scouts and their complicated reasons for working with the United States government. Read More
Tribes across the Northwest called for immediate action to remove the four Lower Snake River dams during a two-day Salmon and Orca summit in western Washington. The group called on President Biden and congressional members to “take bold action, now.”Read More
When Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced a sweeping investigation into burial sites on current and former school sites that have historically served Native Americans, it was met with amazement, even among people who’ve been searching out Indigenous remains for years.Read More
Many levels of government, private foundations and charities are handing out economic recovery grants these days. A Native-led nonprofit serving the Pacific Northwest is carving out a niche by offering grants specifically to help Indigenous communities and artists rebound from the uneven effects of the pandemic.Read More
Pope Francis expressed sorrow Sunday for the gruesome discovery of a mass grave in Canada containing the remains of hundreds of Indigenous children. The remains were found at a boarding school for Indigenous Canadians, operated by Catholic clergy.Read More
For generations Marcus Whitman has been widely viewed as an iconic figure from early Pacific Northwest history, a venerated Protestant missionary who was among 13 people killed by the Cayuse tribe near modern-day Walla Walla, Washington, in 1847.Read More
Gov. Jay Inslee signed the Climate Commitment Act, environmental justice legislation, a clean fuels standard and bills related to reducing Washington’s single-use plastic waste and hydrofluorocarbon pollution.Read More
The company Gameloft tackled the redesign of Oregon Trail for Apple Arcade just in time for the increase in worldwide play because of the pandemic. Its target audience: the now-40-year-olds and their kids. And more Native American players. Read More
Fifty years ago this week the federal government’s experiment with termination was crushed at the ballot box on the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington. Termination was a policy that was designed to end the United State government’s role in Indian affairs. It would have abrogated treaties, eliminated federal funding, and “freed the Indians” from Read More
Washington has a new law that bans schools from using Native American imagery without a tribe’s consent. The Spokane Tribe says it won’t be endorsing any such proposals.Read More
The Upper Columbia United Tribes are working together to prove salmon can be reintroduced – and can survive – in the waters above Grand Coulee. Read More
Mary Big Bull-Lewis sees the way forward for Native people in Washington: ownership of the land and the stories attached to it.Read More
Washington public schools with Native American-themed team names or mascots have a decision to make now that Gov. Jay Inslee has signed into law a ban on such symbols. The schools have until year's end to find a new mascot or try to win the blessing of a nearby tribe for continued use under an exception.Read More
The 500-student Lapwai School District takes an all-bases-covered approach to student well-being, including leveraging partnerships with the Nez Perce tribe and local community to address youth mental health. The small North Idaho district is among only nine rural districts in the state to provide four key behavioral health supports for all of its students, according to an Read More
The Indian Health Service has been lauded for the success of its vaccination campaign. But not every Native American got to be part of that. Tribes that aren't recognized by the U.S. government have received none of the resources directed to Indian Country to help them survive the pandemic.Read More
The Billy Frank Jr. statue would replace one of Oregon Trail pioneer Marcus Whitman. The larger-than-life bronze of Whitman has stood in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall for nearly 70 years.Read More
The Washington Legislature has approved a measure to ban the use of Native American names, symbols and images as school mascots, logos and team names at most public schools in Washington.Read More
A measure to honor the late Billy Frank Jr. with a statue at the U.S. Capitol cleared the Legislature Monday. On a 44-5 bipartisan vote, the Democratic-led Senate approved the bill that seeks to replace Washington’s Marcus Whitman statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection with a statue of Frank, a Nisqually tribal member who championed treaty rights.Read More
The author of two poetry books and a member of the Lhaq'temish (Lummi) Nation, Priest is the sixth poet and first Native person to be selected for the two-year term, a program of the Washington State Arts Commission and Humanities Washington.Read More
The Goldendale Energy Storage Project would be a solution to generate energy when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. But, to the Yakama Nation, the destruction of those sites would add another heartbreak to an ever-expanding list. Countless important cultural areas have faced destruction across the Northwest, largely because they’re not understood by Read More
Women have shaped so much of how we live in Washington. As Women’s History Month comes to an end, meet prominent figures in the state’s history who have worked in community activism, environmental preservation and more.Read More
Deb Haaland, the former Democratic congresswoman, made history Monday by becoming the first indigenous interior secretary. She's promising to begin repairing a legacy of broken treaties and abuses committed by the federal government toward tribes. It's one pillar of a long and ambitious to-do list of reforms the administration is planning at the sprawling agency that is Read More
The Senate voted 51-40 Monday to confirm the Democratic Congresswoman to lead the Interior Department, an agency that will play a crucial role in the Biden administration's ambitious efforts to combat climate change and conserve nature.Read More
The Cherokee Nation's Supreme Court ruled this week to remove the words "by blood" from its constitution and other legal doctrines. The words, added to the constitution in 2007, have been used to exclude Black people whose ancestors were enslaved by the tribe from obtaining full Cherokee Nation citizenship rights.Read More
So far the vaccine supply pipeline is expected to remain relatively steady, unlike in many other jurisdictions in the country. Tribal leaders say they plan to keep holding the Biden administration accountable to the U.S. government's treaty obligations to deliver health care. There's an obvious legacy of mistrust toward the federal government throughout Indian Country. Read More
Public schools with Native American-themed mascots and logos would need to find new team names under a proposal that drew supportive testimony to the Washington Legislature on Friday. The pending phase-out bill hews closely to an earlier, hard-fought policy in Oregon to change names and mascots. Read More
Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" has long been offered as an "alternative national anthem," performed by musicians from Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger to Chicano Batman and Sharon Jones. Its message seems fairly simple — we are all equally entitled to the rights of this country, including the land we stand on. But Native Americans will just as soon point out Read More
Leaders of seven Northwest tribes testified this week in favor of replacing a statue of Oregon Trail pioneer and missionary Marcus Whitman in the U.S. Capitol. A proposal pending in the Washington Legislature would install a statue of the late Native rights activist Billy Frank, Jr. in Whitman's place of honor.Read More
Cassandra Tate’s recent book on the storied white missionaries sheds light on a poorly understood chapter of our state’s settler past.Read More
COVID-19 cases are hitting record highs throughout the state. And the reservation's borders are fluid, so even the tribe's extensive precautions haven't been enough to fully protect Colville members. About 300 people on the Colville Reservation have tested positive for the coronavirus.Read More
The Nez Perce Tribe is reclaiming an ancestral village site in the Eastern Oregon town of Joseph more than a century after being pushed out the area. This month, the tribe purchased 148 acres of an area known as “the place of boulders,” or Am’sáaxpa.Read More
Native American civil rights advocate Hank Adams died at the age of 77 this week. Once referred to as the "most important Indian" by Native American rights advocate and author Vine Deloria Jr., Adams was central to the fight to uphold tribal treaty rights during the 1960s and 1970s.Read More
If confirmed by the Senate, Rep. Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, would be the country's first Native American Cabinet secretary. Fittingly, she'd do so as head of the agency responsible for not only managing the nation's public lands but also honoring its treaties with the Indigenous people from whom those lands were taken.Read More
A portion of the first coronavirus vaccines have been designated to go to Indian Country, but some tribes are skeptical about the federal government's ability to deliver and distribute the vaccines.Read More
"Despite 'Leave No Trace' ethics, there are so many white fingerprints on public lands that it’s like a setting for a CSI episode. Ebey’s Landing, a national historic reserve, is no exception," Claudia Lawrence writes in this opinion piece first published by Crosscut.Read More
This year Thanksgiving comes as chronically under-resourced Native populations are contracting COVID-19 at record rates. In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that Native Americans are 3.5 times more likely to get COVID-19 than white people.Read More
Artist and writer Lauren Redniss mixes art, design, and rigorous research with a prose style that is at once assertive, journalistic and poetic to create a book like no other.Read More
