By Christina Rohn News-Review Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 9:32 AM EST
A groundbreaking new course is being offered at Harbor Springs High School — Anishinaabemowin, the native language of Odawa Indians. The class, which is a collaboration between the Little Traverse Bay Bands (LTBB) of Odawa Indians and Harbor Springs Public Schools, began in September 2007 — the beginning of the current school year.
The Uniform Law Commission has a special committee that drafts model codes for tribal enactment. Most recently, they’ve drafted a model tribal secured transactions act that is largely based on the UCC’s Article 9 with key changes intended to address unique tribal concerns. The committee is in the process of selecting another model code drafting project, and it’s soliciting input on which codes might be tackled next. If you’d like to suggest a model code drafting project for the committee, contact Tim Berg, the Committee’s chair.
Drafting proposals must be submitted by February 28, 2008, and can be sent to Tim Berg at TBerg@FCLAW.com.
From the Phildadelphia Inquirer this week:
Protection money
KWAMALASAMUTU, Suriname – The rain forest here is so dense and this village so isolated that when Russell Mittermeier arrived by bush plane, it seemed for a moment like a step back into an era before worries about global warming.
From Indian Country Today:Manoomin Project teaches at-risk youth respect, culture Posted: November 21, 2007 by: Greg Peterson
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| Photo courtesy Greg Peterson/second photo courtesy Steve Durocher — The Manoomin Project teaches at-risk teens – sentenced in juvenile court for minor crimes – respect for themselves, Native heritage and nature. The teens study and plant wild rice, and learn how the grain is used in ceremonies. Don Chosa, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, guides the students on the outings. Teens and volunteers, who later planted wild rice, were shown young plants prior to the July 2006 survey. The teens were then asked to identify the wild rice – mixed with other plants – at the seven remote planting sites. |
MARQUETTE, Mich. – American Indians have long known the medicinal and spiritual benefits of manoomin; but along the shores of Lake Superior in northern Michigan, a wild rice restoration project is teaching non-Native teenagers respect for American Indian culture and the environment.”This is about respect for nature,” the Rev. Jon Magnuson said to a rambunctious group of teenagers.
On the first of a three-day outing in July 2006, the teens were embarking on a several-mile hike into the remote Northwoods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to study the previous year’s wild rice crop.
It wasn’t long before those teens topped a hill and surprised two bear cubs that scrambled up a tree about 50 yards away.
”Look – there are two bears,” said a teenage boy motioning to others to run toward the cubs.
Their guide, Don Chosa, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, knew that meant a protective mother wasn’t far away.
”Remember what I said about respect,” Chosa said – and the curious teens stopped in their tracks.
Chosa instructed the youth to give the cubs a wide berth.
The Manoomin Project teaches at-risk teens – sentenced in juvenile court for minor crimes – respect for themselves, Native heritage and nature. The teens study and plant wild rice, and learn how the grain is used in ceremonies.
Since 2004, about 130 teens and dozens of adult volunteers have planted more than a ton of wild rice seed in U.P. waters, where it once thrived but disappeared a century ago due to logging and other human activities.
The project is sponsored by the Cedar Tree Institute, the Superior Watershed Partnership and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.
5th Annual MSU Indigenous Law Conference
October 10-11, 2008 @ MSU Law College
Forty Years of the Indian Civil Rights Act – History, Tribal Law, and Modern Challenges
The Indian Civil Rights Act will be 40 years old in 2008 – and Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez will be 30. We have decided to dedicate our 5th annual conference to the Act and to Martinez. Confirmed speakers already include Catharine MacKinnon, Gloria Valencia-Weber, Carole Goldberg, Duane Champagne, Stacy Leeds, Kristen Carpenter, Angela Riley, and others.
Our vision for this year’s conference is to solicit papers that cover a specific provision in the Indian Civil Rights Act, e.g., free speech, freedom of religion, due process, equal protection, and so on. We want academics, practitioners, tribal judges, tribal leaders – anyone that has something important to say about this very important statute. We will collect the best of these papers into an edited collection for publication with a major university press, co-edited by Kristen A. Carpenter, Matthew L.M. Fletcher, and Angela R. Riley.
The authors of the paper abstracts selected will present their papers at the conference at MSU law college. We anticipate that there will be commentators for each paper.
Please send a title and a short abstract, with contact information, to matthew.fletcher@law.msu.edu by the deadline or call (517) 432-6909 with questions.
Deadline for Proposals – February 1, 2008
From NPR:
Listen Now [4 min 30 sec]
Day to Day, November 27, 2007 · An underwater archaeologist has found what may be an etching of a mastodon at the bottom of Grand Traverse Bay in Lake Michigan. Members of a local tribe believe that there is a spear in the mastodon, which would be hard evidence that humans hunted the prehistoric elephant-like animals. Tom Kramer of Interlochen Public Radio reports.
The full text of the interview is here:
Dear Colleagues,
The editors of the Michigan State Law Review have asked that I forward to you the following call for papers:
The Michigan State Law Review is requesting submissions for its spring symposium issue on the topic of Labor and Employment Laws in Indian Country, in conjunction with the Section on Indian Nations and Indigenous Peoples program during the American Association of Law Schools’ Annual Meeting in New York City on January 5, 2008. The Law Review is requesting submissions from both the Indian Nations/tribal law perspective, and from employers’ perspectives. We welcome papers on the effects of state and federal labor regulations on tribal employers and employees, as well as papers on other topics relating to the interplay of labor and employment law and Indian Nations. The issue is scheduled to be published in May 2008. We ask that you submit your papers by February 15, 2008. We invite any conference participants or invitees to submit papers, but we welcome papers from those unable to attend the conference as well. Please email your manuscripts or any questions to Emma Haas, Michigan State Law Review Senior Articles Editor, at haasemma@msu.edu. Thank you for your interest.
Miigwetch,
Wenona Singel
Ken Roosa, an Anchorage lawyer representing 110 Alaska Natives reporting sexual abuse at the hands of Jesuit priests, has reported a tentative settlement of $50 million with an Oregon-based Jesuit province.
The LA Times coverage of the lawsuit also noted the following:
“A dozen priests and three missionaries were accused of sexually abusing Eskimo children in 15 villages and Nome from 1961 to 1987. The flood of allegations led to accusations that the Eskimo communities were a dumping ground for abusive priests and lay workers affiliated with the Jesuit order, which supplied bishops, priests and lay missionaries to the Fairbanks diocese.
Jesuit officials have denied transferring molesting priests to Alaska, saying that it was a prestigious assignment for the most courageous and faithful. In Jesuit fundraising literature, Eskimo villages were called “the world’s most difficult mission field.”
Many plaintiffs said their once devoutly Catholic villages — cut off from the world and without law enforcement — offered a perfect setting for a molesting priest. In 2005, The Times published a story about Joseph Lundowski, a Jesuit deacon who allegedly sexually abused nearly every boy in two small villages on St. Michael Island between 1968 and 1975.
Lundowski’s accusers — now in their 40s and 50s — said the abuse led to alcoholism, violence, emotional problems and suicide attempts. They kept their secret — not even talking about it among themselves — until the Catholic Church sex scandal erupted in 2002.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/us/19priest.html?ref=us
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004022435_jesuit19m.html
Turtle Talk 