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
The roads taken by the family in The Removed, Brandon Hobson's new novel, are essential ones in this moment of national reclaiming. The story in this book is deeply resonant and profound, and not only because of its exquisite lyricism. It's also a hard and visceral entrance into our own reckoning as a society and civic culture with losses we created, injustices we allowed, 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. Continue Reading Sifting Through ‘Unsettled Ground’ Of The Whitman 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
Bringing salmon back to the Upper Columbia has been a goal since the habitat was blocked by the Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams more than eight decades ago. Tribal members held a Ceremony of Tears 80 years ago when the final run of salmon returned. Read More
The Pulitzer winner has released his first memoir, "Silences So Deep: Music, Solitude, Alaska." It's a personal account of Adams' formative decades making art in the Artic. Continue Reading Composer John Luther Adams On The Arctic Sounds 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. Continue Reading 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
One of the first artists to introduce North American audiences to her style of Latin American music, the folk singer was named a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellow. Continue Reading NEA Heritage Fellow Suni Paz Sings For 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
Dozens of House Democrats have called on President-elect Joe Biden to make the New Mexico congresswoman the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history. Continue Reading Possible Native American 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. Continue Reading ‘Oak Flat’ Tells The Read More
Washington Supreme Court Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis didn't meet a lawyer until law school. Now she wants others from underrepresented communities to picture themselves in the legal system. Continue Reading Read More
The two Puget Sound-region Democrats running to be Washington’s next lieutenant governor had the chance to distinguish themselves in a statewide debate Thursday night. Washington’s election system advances the top-two vote getters from the primary to the general election. Read More
The book is called “Journey of the Freckled Indian.” It tells the story of a young girl called Freckles who gets bullied by her classmates after sharing that she’s Native American. Author Alyssa London says it’s loosely based on her experience growing up in Bothell and sharing her Tlingit heritage in a show and tell. Read More
Sarah Deer, citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and University of Kansas professor, discusses the measures to strengthen investigation procedures and why it's taken so long to address the issue. Continue Reading Read More
The Yakama Nation seeks to stop gravel mining near a historic village and burial ground near Selah, Washington. The litigation could change the way tribal sites can be developed. Continue Reading Yakama Nation Case Could Read More
Faced with the threat of forced removal or worse, in 1855 leaders of the Warm Springs and Wasco Tribes forfeited their claim to roughly ten million acres, and moved to a reservation. In exchange for land to offer white settlers, brokers for the United States government made promises. Among those: Tribal members would not be stopped from traveling off the reservation to Read More
In the wake of George Floyd's killing, Confederate monuments have fallen, food companies have scrubbed racist imagery from labels, and now, pro sports teams names are under fresh review. Continue Reading The Racial Justice Reckoning Over Sports Read More
The Washington State Supreme Court reversed a century-old ruling Friday against a Yakama Nation tribal member for fishing outside the reservation. The 1916 ruling mandated criminal charges against Alec Towessnute for fishing outside the Yakama reservation on traditional fishing grounds – a right assured by the Yakama’s Treaty of 1855 with the federal government. Read More
"Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation. ... Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word," wrote Justice Gorsuch. Continue Reading Supreme Court Rules Read More
The coronavirus pandemic is also crushing to many traditions and religions trying to mourn their dead — no matter the cause of death. But for Native Americans in the Northwest, normal funerals can last two to three days and involve physical contact among tribal members. Read More
Across the country, public health workers on Native reservations are scrambling to prepare for COVID-19. In Washington, one of those who died at the hard-struck nursing home in Kirkland was a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe. But tribes are expecting much worse to come, and they're trying to get ready. Read More
Poet Natalie Diaz returns, interrogating the lasting effects of colonization asking: If a colonizer's influence can't be eradicated from a culture, how can you push back against violence and erasure? Continue Reading BOOK Read More
In Ghost River: The Fall and Rise of the Conestoga, Native artists retell the events of a brutal massacre in pre-Revolutionary Pennsylvania and bring a painful history to life on the page. Continue Reading Read More
Tribes had sued because the law required voters to present identification with their home's street address — which often doesn't exist on reservations. Emergency rules will broaden the ID allowed. Continue Reading North Dakota And Native Read More
An indigenous-led anti-pipeline protest has shut down a vital cross-continent rail line in Canada, disrupting freight and passenger service and costing millions of dollars in lost revenue, officials say. Continue Reading Read More
The Treaty of 1855 created the Yakama Nation reservation as we know it today. In the decades after, the Yakama, Washington state, and the United States were trying to figure out their new relationship. At the turn of the century, Louis Mann was in the middle of it all, working as an interpreter for the tribe. Now, audio recordings of Mann’s strong voice have resurfaced. Read More
The decades-long quest of Chinook tribal members to regain federal recognition gets another airing in court on Monday. A U.S. District Court judge is scheduled to hear oral arguments on cross-claims for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by the tribe against the Department of the Interior. Read More
Our kids' books columnist, Juanita Giles, gave her daughter Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story for Christmas; she says the book's depiction of food and history mirrors her family's experiences. Continue Reading Books Read More
A new homeless shelter in Seattle is exclusively serving Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Pacific Islanders. It's one of the first facilities of its kind in the country helping to house the more than 1,000 Native people in the city experiencing homelessness. Read More
The Rise of Skywalker speaks to the historical experiences of many in the Indigenous community. An exhibit by Native artists attempts to shed light on those connections. Continue Reading ‘The Force Is With Our Read More
Peter Marbach says he wanted to use his photography to tell the story of the Columbia River, to move from purely landscape images to a more social justice-driven book. To do that, he needed help -- from the First Nations communities most affected by the development of dams along the river. Read More
Journalist Michael Powell's book is about basketball the same way that Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights is about football — sports are the ostensible focus, but the real interest is the community. Continue Read More
Studies find that Native Americans, especially women, are victims of disproportionate levels of violence, and state and federal databases inadequately track the crisis. Continue Reading Attorney General Announces Read More
A new report from DigDeep and the U.S. Water Alliance found race is the strongest predictor of water and sanitation access. This has implications for public health. Continue Reading Report Finds Native Americans More At Risk Of Read More
The tribe’s plans have been tied up in legal fights and layers of scientific review. The next step is a week-long administrative hearing that began Thursday in Seattle. Whatever the result, it’s likely to be stuck in further court challenges, as animal rights activists have vowed to block the practice they call unnecessary and barbaric. Read More
The tribe made the purchase — which includes the surrounding land and nearby hotel —from the Muckleshoot Tribe for $125 million. The falls are sacred to the Snoqualmie people, and their traditional burial site is right above the falls. Continue Read More
"It goes deeper than what you're dressed like," she said. "When you really look at it and you really study these tropes and stereotypes and what they mean and how they affect us as Native people, you know they're all rooted in a historically violent past." Read More
Standing on the banks of the Columbia River, near the remnants of Celilo Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, Yakama Nation Chairman JoDe Goudy traced the history of decrees, congressional acts and court cases that led to the damming of the river. Read More
"Growing up I would hear about our peoples being 'discovered' ... " says author Brittany Luby. "I would go home and my parents would tell me: That's not actually how things happened." Continue Reading ‘Encounter’ Re-frames The Read More
Lee Francis IV, who owns his own comic book shop Red Planet Books & Comics in Albuquerque, said his comic work acts as a “counterpoint” to the way Native people have been portrayed in popular media over the last 400 years. Continue Reading How Read More
An archaeological dig along the Salmon River in western Idaho has yielded evidence of one of the oldest human settlements in the Americas yet found. Newly published findings from the excavation give impetus to a scientific rethinking of when and how the first people arrived in North America. Read More