Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 64
• Lead character in TV sitcom, Rutherford Falls • Host for Women of Size Miniconjou and Sicangu Lakota actor, writer and comedian Jana Schmieding is known primarily for her work in the Rutherford Falls sitcom where she plays Reagan, the lead character. She shares little about her family or early life, but states that she was born and grew up in a small Oregon town with her older sister, Kristen, and was raised "fairly traditionally in the Lakota ways". Jana studied the...
When you stand to pray, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him. Then your Father in heaven will forgive your sins also. If you do not forgive them their sins, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins. Mark 11:25 NLV The telephone rang. It was four in the morning. The voice at the other end said that my father had been lost in the mine. They were checking the hospital to see if he might have gotten sick and been taken there. At six, the phone rang again with...
Shortly after Abigail Echo-Hawk, M.A., began her job as director of Urban Indian Health in 2016, she was astonished at what she discovered when she opened a file drawer. Inside the drawer was a 2010 comprehensive survey that asked Native-American women residing in the city if they had ever experienced sexual violence. The survey of the148 women participants revealed that 94 percent had either been coerced into sex or had been raped at least once. But what astounded Echo-Hawk...
In her Olympic debut at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Jocelyne Larocque, playing with national Team Canada, won Gold. In the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, however, Larocque and Team Canada were awarded the Silver Medal. Second place. And the 3-2 loss to the USA was, momentarily, too much of a disappointment for Jocelyne to take. Born in Ste. Anne, Manitoba, Canada, Jocelyne Larocque (Metis heritage), is so competitive, she removed her Silver Medal from around...
Hailing from New Mexico, Jourdan Bennett-Begaye is a Diné (Navajo) citizen who identifies as the Towering House Clan, The Coyote Pass Clan of Jemez, The Mexican Clan and also The Hopi with Red Running Into the Water clan. Currently stationed in Nenahnezad of the Diné Nation, Jourdan Bennett-Begaye holds a master's degree in newspaper, magazine and online journalism. She is also a Newhouse Minorities fellow. She received her degree from The S.I. Newhouse School of Public C...
We all have hopes and dreams for our families and a vision for what we want our families to be like. We want our homes to be a place where everyone feels safe, loved and respected. We also want our homes to be a place where every family member can discover his or her purpose, gifts and abilities. It's not easy to accomplish these goals though, is it? We face all kinds of challenges that can keep our families from being all that they can be. Some challenges we face are...
Everyone makes decisions that they wish they could change. There are things that you've done in the past that make you mad that you ever did them. Yet there's freedom from the hate that you have for yourself, there's freedom from the hate you have for that other person and it's a peace that would surprise you. The freedom that I found began the night that my Mom and I prayed for the Creator to come into my life. I was only six years old and I know that I didn't understand...
Although born in Ada, Oklahoma and reared in Texas, swimming champion Mary Killman is also a citizen of the Oklahoma Citizen Potawatomi Nation. At age 11, as a member of the Santa Clara Aquamaids, Killman competed as a race swimmer in youth competitions. "I took to the water like a fish," she would later state in an interview for Indian Country Today. At age 15, however, Mary decided to switch from race swimming to synchronized swimming. A member of a close-knit family, Mary...
While others trusted her as a confidant, innovator, mentor, and friend, to her family, Laura Waterman-married to Lloyd Wittstock for a time-was called "a great mother" by her five children (from a second marriage to Florencio Olivera Simas, deceased). Her four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren remember her as "the world's greatest." But as for tributes, there are many more than shared here. Born to Isaac "Jack" Waterman and Clarinda (Cleo Jackson) Waterman on the...
Miniconjou and Sicangu Lakota actor, writer and comedian Jana Schmieding is known primarily for her work in the Rutherford Falls sitcom where she plays Reagan, the lead character. She shares little about her family or early life, but states that she was born and grew up in a small Oregon town with her older sister, Kristen, and raised "fairly traditionally in the Lakota ways." Jana studied theater arts at the University of Oregon and earned her master's degree from Mercy...
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics--celebrated in 2021 because of concerns for further spread of the COVID-19 Virus and Delta variant-can boast of the highest number of Indigenous participants than in any other Olympiad. From only three Indigenous athletes in the 2016 Rio Olympics, fifty such athletes headed to Japan to compete in the Tokyo 2020 games-the most ever selected in Olympic history. Sixteen participants hail from Australia alone, thirty-three from New Zealand, several are...
• Seminole Palmetto Doll Artist • Folk Historian Judy Baker learned the craft of Seminole palmetto doll-making from her grandmother and mother, and began crafting the dolls herself when she was around ten years of age. "Palmetto dolls are made from fiber found in the middle of palmetto bark," she explains. "It's brown in color, stretches after being cut, and after it is dried, it can be fashioned into dolls. Palmetto grows in thickets, and is harvested with tools inc...
Praise the Lord, 0 my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name. (Psalm 103:1, NIV) I was about five years old when I got sent on a bus to residential school. I don't remember much before that, and I don't remember much about the school either. I stayed at the residential school until it burned down when I was 13 or 14. That was the year I started drinking. When I got home from residential school, I was sent to a training school because I was a minor with a drinking...
At age four, I was taken from my home by the Children's Aid Society. They placed me in about seven different foster homes in the space of two years because I kept running away, trying to make my way back home. All the places were very abusive. They used to beat me for speaking my language. I was just a little kid, but full-grown men would punch and kick me. That's when I would cry out for my mom. I was sexually abused by the older boys and men in the foster homes. I was forced... Full story
• Olympian, Synchronized Swimmer • Silver Medalist, Pan American Games • 2001 Synchro Athlete of the Year* Although born in Ada, Oklahoma and reared in Texas, swimming champion Mary Killman is also a citizen of the Oklahoma Citizen Potawatomi Nation. At age 11 as a member of the Santa Clara Aquamaids, Killman competed as a race swimmer in youth competitions. "I took to the water like a fish," she would later state in an interview for Indian Country Today. At age 15, howev...
• First Indigenous Canadian Woman to own and operate an airline • Included in DC Comics graphic novel Wonder Women of History "Dream it, design it, do it," Teara Fraser, who is Cree and Metis, says. And she has done exactly that. Fraser was born in Hay River, Northwest Territory (NWT), but has lived across British Columbia for much of her life. She was 30 years old when, after a second ride in a small plane, she decided to buy her own airplane and become a pilot. A year lat...
Deb Haaland, an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna People, was born in Winslow, Arizona into a military family. Her father, J.D. "Dutch" Haaland, a Norwegian-American, was a decorated 30-year career Marine. He was awarded the Silver Star Medal for saving the lives of Marines in Vietnam in 1967. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Mary Toya, Deb's mother, served in the U.S. Navy. According to a New York Times article, Haaland connected with her New Mexico voters...
Perhaps like DeBora Gurno, you feel you’ve reached the bottom of your life. But you are not alone. Your Father in heaven is waiting for you to turn to Him through Jesus Christ. He is longing for you to enter a relationship with Him. We all need to have a relationship with God. And that is not a thing we can achieve on our own. Jesus Christ said in John 14:6 in God’s book, the Bible, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the father but through me.” Jesus is the Son of God and only by giving our life to Him,...
• First woman in her tribe to earn a Medical Doctor degree • Honored with the name of Medicine Victory Woman by her Blackfeet Tribe Mary DesRosier states that she sees the face of God in her family, friends and neighbors she chooses to serve through Indian Health Services (IHS) on the Blackfeet Reservation, in Browning, Montana-in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains where she grew up. Interested in medicine since her youth, Mary joined the University of North Dakota's Ind...
It is always refreshing to see or hear of a husband and wife team, especially Native American, in faith-based, Christian ministry. Such is the case of Josh (full blood Creek) and Ramona Harjo (full blood Choctaw). Because the non-Indian majority in the United States tend to regard all Native Americans as Reservation-based, they also regard them as practicing their own spirituality and traditions that are contrary to Christianity. Native Americans, however, are everywhere,...
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. -Romans 15:13 NIV Each of us is on a journey. It starts with the birth of a newborn baby and ends when that life is finished according to the will of God who gives us life. Along this journey, we all face different situations and yet we all face many of the same things. For instance, almost all of us have families, though our families...
• Activist • Author • Musician • Educator • Reformer *Co-composed the first Native American Opera* "For untold ages the Indian race had not used family names. A new-born child was given a brand-new name...for which she would not be required to substitute another's upon her marriage, as is the custom of civilized peoples." - Zitkala-Sa, from American Indian Stories Her Dakota/Sioux name (Zitkala-Sa, also spelled Zitkala-Sha) means "red bird," but she was renamed Gertrude...
• Ordained Deacon • Conference Speaker • Head Pastor When the average person thinks of a deacon or head pastor, the image of a kindly white male generally comes to mind. Although it is true that more women are accepted in ministry today than in the past, a Native American woman in such roles defies the odds, which is exactly what Evelene "Tweedy" Sombrero Navarrete-a full-blooded Dine' (Navajo) woman from Inscription House, Arizona-does. She describes her ordination exper...
As you have put your trust in Christ Jesus the Lord to Save you from the punishment of sin, now let Him lead you in every step. -Colossians 2:6 NLV In the fall of 1986, my cousin Peter, my brother, Johnny, and I decided to go caribou hunting by canoe and motor. The caribou had come close to the coast and we only needed a couple hours to go and come back before dark. The weather was calm and clear. It took us no more than an hour to get to a good hunting location. We each shot...
"So many of our people were told they couldn't be Christian and Indian; they had to choose," Fern Cloud discloses. Similar beliefs by Euro-Americans in the past have prohibited women and Native Americans as a whole from preaching the gospel. Only recently did Native women such as Reverend Fern Cloud dare to dream of pastoring a church-especially a mainline Christian church. Cloud, the great-great-granddaughter of Thaoyate Duta, "Little Crow," Chief of the Dakota...
