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10 Things You Need to Know About Native American Women:

10 Things You Need to Know About Native American Women:

1. “A lot of people think that us women are not leaders, but we are the heart of the nation, we are the center of our home, and it is us who decide how it will be.”–Philomine Lakota, Lakota language teacher, Red Cloud High School, Pine Ridge, S.D.

2. The art forms Native women practice stand as reminders of cultural endurance. “Their crafts survived the Greasy Grass (Battle of Little Big Horn), Wounded Knee One (1890) and Two (1973),” writes Christina DeVries in Native Daughters. “Their spirits survived the Trail of Tears, the Relocation, and Termination program and continued struggles against cultural annihilation.”

3. In 1997, Ms. magazine named Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe) Woman of the Year. That same year, the activist also debuted her first novel, Last Standing Woman.

4. Of nearly 2 million women enlisted in the U.S. armed forces, 18,000 are American Indian women. Their representation in the military is disproportionately high—and Native women are more likely to be sexually harassed, which increases their chances of developing post-traumatic stress disorder.

5. The number of Native women applying to medical school has increased since 2003, peaking in 2007 when 77 Native women applied nationwide.

6. In 2007, when Cassandra Manuelito-Kerkvliet (Diné) was named the president of Antioch University, she became the first American Indian woman president of a mainstream university. Not only that, but about half of the nation’s tribal colleges are led by Native women presidents.

7. Cecelia Fire Thunder (Lakota) became the Oglala Lakota Tribe’s first woman president. She has fought against domestic abuse, saying it’s not a part of traditional culture, and been a leader for women’s reproductive rights. In 2006, when the South Dakota state legislature prohibited abortion, Fire Thunder announced plans to build a women’s clinic on the reservation, and therefore beyond state jurisdiction. She was impeached by the tribal council, who said she was acting outside her duties as president.

8. Women lead nearly one-quarter of the nation’s 562 federally recognized tribes.

9. “Through the late 1700s, Cherokee women were civically engaged. They owned land and had a say during wartime,” writes Astrid Munn in Native Daughters. “But this changed after the tribe ceded large tracts of land to the U.S. government in 1795.” Since the mid-1980s, though, a generation of Native women activists, lawmakers and attorneys have been changing that history and working to empower women again.

10. Indian Country could never survive without Native women.


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Artist: Norval Morrisseau

"The Great Flood"

When this world was almost lost in the waters a frog predicted it. One man seized the frog and threw it into the fire, but another said, "Don't do that." He took it, cared for it and healed it, and it said to him, "The land will almost disappear in the waters. Make a raft and put a thick layer of grass underneath so that the beavers can not cut holes through the wood." So he cut long dry sticks of wood and tied them together and put a quantity of grass underneath.

When other people saw this they said, "Why did you make it?" He answered, "A flood is going to cover the whole country." "Nothing like that can happen," they said. Some persons stayed about laughing at him. After some time, he finished his raft and the flood came. When it arrived fish came with it and some of the people killed them and said, "We are having a good time." The man and his family got upon the raft along with the frog.

When the water rose the raft went up also, and some of the people said, "We want to get on," but no one got on. When it rose higher all of the other people were drowned. Then those on the raft floated up with it. The flying things flew up to the sky and took hold of it, with their tails half in the water. The ends of their tails got wet. The red-headed woodpecker was flat against the sky and said, "My tail is half in the water."

(According to the Koasati version a lizard fell into the fire. One man took pity on it and pulled it out. Then the lizard said, "I am not going to die before the flood comes." The man cared for it until it got well. The rest of the story is much the same.)


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Adventures of Bull turns Round

Artist: Mystery of the Underwater People by Howard Terpning. Thomas Moran Award winning work of art at the Autry's Masters of the American West Exhibition and Sale, sold for over $1,200,000

Blackfoot

Once the camp moved, but one lodge stayed. It belonged to Wolf
Tail; and Wolf Tail's younger brother, Bull Turns Round, lived with
him. Now their father loved both his sons, but he loved the younger
one most, and when he went away with the big camp, he said to Wolf
Tail: "Take care of your young brother; he is not yet a strong
person. Watch him that nothing befalls him."

One day Wolf Tail was out hunting, while Bull Turns Round sat in
front of the lodge making arrows, and a beautiful strange bird lit
on the ground before him. Then cried one of Wolf Tail's wives, "Oh,
brother, shoot that little bird." "Don't bother me, sister,"
he replied, "I am making arrows." Again the woman said,
"Oh, brother, shoot that bird for me." Then Bull Turns
Round fitted an arrow to his bow and shot the bird, and the woman
went and picked it up and stroked her face with it, and her face
swelled up so big that her eyes and nose could not be seen. But
when Bull Turns Round had shot the bird, he went off hunting and
did not know what had happened to the woman's face.
Now when Wolf Tail came home and saw his wife's face, he said,
"What is the matter?" and his wife replied: "Your
brother has pounded me so that I cannot see. Go now and kill him."
But Wolf Tail said, "No, I love my brother; I cannot kill him."
Then his wife cried and said: "I know you do not love me; you
are glad your brother has beaten me. If you loved me, you would
go and kill him."

Then Wolf Tail went out and looked for his brother, and when he
had found him, he said: "Come, let us get some feathers. I
know where there is an eagle's nest;" and he took him to a
high cliff, which overhung the river, and on the edge of this cliff
was a dead tree, in the top of which the eagles had built their
nest. Then said Wolf Tail, "Climb up, brother, and kill the
eagles;" and when Bull Turns Round had climbed nearly to the
top, Wolf Tail called out, "I am going to push the tree over
the cliff, and you will be killed."
"Oh, brother, oh, brother, pity me; do not kill me,"
said Bull Turns Round.

"Oh, brother, oh, brother, pity me; do not kill me,"
said Bull Turns Round.
"Why did you beat my wife's face so?" said Wolf Tail.
"I didn't," cried the boy; "I don't know what you
are talking about."

"You lie," said Wolf Tail, and he pushed the tree over
the cliff. He looked over and saw his brother fall into the water,
and he did not come up again. Then Wolf Tail went home and took
down his lodge, and went to the main camp. When his father saw him
coming with only his wives, he said to him, "Where is your
younger brother?" And Wolf Tail replied: "He went hunting
and did not come back. We waited four days for him. I think the
bears must have killed him."

Now when Bull Turns Round fell into the river, he was stunned,
and the water carried him a long way down the stream and finally
lodged him on a sand shoal. Near this shoal was a lodge of Under
Water People, an old man, his wife, and two daughters. This old
man was very rich: he had great flocks of geese, swans, ducks, and
other water-fowl, and a big herd of buffalo which were tame. These
buffalo always fed nearby, and the old man called them every evening
to come and drink. But he and his family ate none of these. Their
only food was the bloodsucker. Now the old man's daughters were
swimming about in the evening, and they found Bull Turns Round lying
on the shoal, dead, and they went home and told their father, and
begged him to bring the person to life, and give him to them for
a husband. "Go, my daughters," he said, "and make
four sweat lodges, and I will bring the person." He went and
got Bull Turns Round, and when the sweat lodges were finished, the
old man took him into one of them, and when he had sprinkled water
on the hot rocks, he scraped a great quantity of sand off Bull Turns
Round. Then he took him into another lodge and did the same thing,
and when he had taken him into the fourth sweat lodge and scraped
all the sand off him, Bull Turns Round came to life and the old
man led him out and gave him to his daughters. And the old man gave
his son-in-law a new lodge and bows and arrows, and many good presents.
Then the women cooked some bloodsuckers and gave them to their
husband, but when he smelled of them he could not eat, and he threw
them in the fire. Then his wives asked him what he would eat. "Buffalo,"
he replied, "is the only meat for men."

"Oh, father!" cried the girls, running to the old man's
lodge, "our husband will not eat our food. He says buffalo
is the only meat for men."

"Go then, my daughters," said the old man, "and
tell your husband to kill a buffalo, but do not take nor break any
bones, for I will make it alive again." Then the old man called
the buffalo to come and drink and Bull Turns Round shot a fat cow
and took all the meat. And when he had roasted the tongue, he gave
each of his wives a small piece of it and they liked it, and they
roasted and ate plenty of the meat.

One day Bull Turns Round went to the old man and said, "I
mourn for my father."
"How did you come to be dead on the sand shoal?" asked
the old man. Then Bull Turns Round told what his brother had done
to him.

"Take this piece of sinew," said the old man. "Go
and see your father. When you throw this sinew on the fire, your
brother and his wife will roll, and twist up and die." Then
the old man gave him a herd of buffalo, and many dogs to pack the
lodge and other things; and Bull Turns Round took his wives, and
went to find his father.

One day, just after sunset, they came in sight of the big camp,
and they went and pitched the lodge on the top of a very high butte;
and the buffalo fed close by, and there were so many of them that
they covered the whole hill.

Now the people were starving, and some had died, for they had no
buffalo. In the morning, early, a man arose whose son had starved
to death, and when he went out and saw this lodge on the top of
the hill, and all the buffalo feeding by it, he cried out in a loud
voice and the people all came out and looked at it, and they were
afraid, for they thought it was Under Water People. Then said the
man whose son had died: "I am no longer glad to live. I will
go up to this lodge, and find out what this is." Now when he
said this, all the men grasped their bows and arrows and followed
him, and when they went up the hill, the buffalo just moved out
of their path and kept on feeding; and just as they came to the
lodge, Bull Turns Round came out, and all the people said, "Here
is the one whom we thought the bears had killed." Wolf Tail
ran up, and said, "Oh, brother, you are not dead. You went
to get feathers, but we thought you had been killed." Then
Bull Turns Round called his brother into the lodge, and he threw
the sinew on the fire; and Wolf Tail, and his wife, who was standing
outside, twisted up and died.

Then Bull Turns Round told his father all that had happened to
him; and when he learned that the people were starving, he filled
his mouth with feathers and blew them out, and the buffalo ran off
in every direction, and he said to the people, "There is food,
go chase it." Then the people were very glad, and they came
each one and gave him a present. They gave him war shirts, bows
and arrows, shields, spears, white robes, and many curious things.