Here are some Native American-related news stories that made headlines this week:
Deb Haaland hears from Northern Arizona tribes
Deb Haaland on Monday became the first U.S. Secretary of the Interior to visit Supai, a remote Havasupai village at the bottom of the Grand Canyon that can only be reached on foot, by horseback or by helicopter.
She was there to discuss plans to connect more than 100 homes and other Havasupai institutions to broadband internet, a project made possible by more than $7 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Act funding.
It was part of a three-day visit to Arizona that included meeting with tribal leaders and environmental groups hoping the Biden administration will designate more than 400,000 hectares of land surrounding the Grand Canyon as a national monument.
Haaland also met with Hopi tribal leaders, announcing $6.6 million in federal infrastructure funding to replace an arsenic-contaminated water system in Keams Canyon, Arizona.
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A mother-of-pearl and bone mask pendant by Seattle artist Jerry Chris Van Dyke (aka Jerry Witten) who falsely claimed to be Native American.
‘Pretendian’ Seattle artist sentenced for violating Indian Arts and Crafts Act
A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a Seattle artist to 18 months’ probation for violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, a law designed to stop the counterfeiting of Native American art.
Prosecutors say 67-year-old Jerry Chris Van Dyke falsely claimed to be a member of the Nez Perce Tribe in Idaho for 10 years, carving and selling more than $1,000 worth of Aleut-style pendants.
“Prosecuting cases of fraud in the art world is a unique responsibility and part of our work to support Tribal Nations,” said U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. “I hope this case will make artists and gallery owners think twice about the consequences of falsely calling an artist Native and work Native-produced.”
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US Border Patrol shoots, kills, Tohono O’odham Tribe member
Family, friends and investigators are demanding answers after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents shot dead a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation outside of his home in the Menagers Dam community near the U.S.-Mexico border.
An unnamed family member told Tucson’s KVOA TV that ceremony leader Raymond Mattia had called CBP for help, complaining that illegal immigrants had trespassed onto his property.
What happened next is unclear: Family members told the television station that CBP agents opened fire on Mattia as he stood outside his front door.
“Raymond lay in front of his home for seven hours before a coroner arrived from Tucson,” his family said in a statement posted online early Thursday morning.
Official Family Statement on the killing of Raymond Mattia by USBP pic.twitter.com/wKVhztit73
— O’odham News Network (@oodhamnews) May 25, 2023
A CBP statement says agents from the Ajo Border Patrol Station responded to a Tohono O’odham Nation Police Department request for assistance in responding to a call of shots fired west of the Menagers Dam Village. There, the statement says, an individual “threw an object toward the officer as they approached the structure which landed a few feet from the officer’s feet. Shortly after the individual threw the object, he abruptly extended his right arm away from his body and three agents fired their service weapons striking the individual several times.”
The CBP statement says officers requested emergency medical services and that the man was pronounced dead by a physician at St. Mary’s Hospital at 10:06 pm.
The Tohono O’odham Nation, the second-largest reservation in the U.S., straddles the border with Mexico. Tribe members have long complained of aggression and other abuses committed by agents operating in the area. Tribal police and the FBI are looking into the matter.
Marker at West Point, Va., showing where English soldiers served poisoned sack wine to 200 Pamonkey Indians, May 23, 1623.
Historian: Was poisoning of Pamunkey Indians North America’s first war crime?
Smithsonian magazine this week recalls a grim chapter in U.S. colonial history. University of Southern California historian Peter C. Mancall writes about the Second Anglo-European War in which Powhatan Confederacy leader Opechancanough launched a set of surprise attacks on more than 30 English settlements in March 1622, killing nearly 350 settlers.
During the following months, English settlers repeatedly attacked tribal villages, burning crops and stealing food.
In May 1623, British soldiers met with Opechancanough in West Point, Virginia, supposedly to negotiate the release of war prisoners. Instead, they served poisoned wine to about 200 Indians. It is not known how many died; Opechancanough escaped the scene but was later captured and killed.
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Photographer, poet, writer, and human rights advocate — Barbara May Cameron did it all.Today%27s #GoogleDoodle honors the Native American activist, who dedicated her life to combating racism, sexism, and homophobia —> https://t.co/37VDVPVQ7A🎨: Sienna Gonzales pic.twitter.com/3WWmRhRTON
— Google Doodles (@GoogleDoodles) May 22, 2023
Google Doodle celebrates photographer, writer and Native activist Barbara May Cameron
Google Doodle this week honored Hunkpapa Lakota photographer, poet, writer and human rights activist Barbara May Cameron, who would have turned 69 on Monday.
Raised on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, Cameron studied photography and film at the American Indian Art Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1973, she moved to San Francisco, where she co-founded Gay American Indians, the first group ever dedicated to the rights of LGBTQIA+ Native Americans.
Cameron was also active with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the American Indian AIDS Institute, and she served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, helping with AIDS and childhood immunization programs.
Cameron died in 2002 at age 47.
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