TAHLEQUAH -- Cherokee Nation officials will be giving away T-shirts with the University of Oklahoma logo and quarterback Sam Bradford's name and jersey number written in Cherokee at the BCS National Championship game in Miami.

The Tahlequah-based Indian tribe says it wants to acknowledge the accomplishments of OU's Heisman Trophy winner, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation.

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith will wear the T-shirt while attending Thursday night's game between OU and Florida at Dolphin Stadium.

http://www.newsok.com/cherokee-nation-honoring-sam-bradford-with-t-shirts/article/3335724?custom_click=pod_headline_ou-sports

(Flagstaff, Ariz. Jan. 6, 2009) - The San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians has announced a contribution of $2 million to Northern Arizona University for designing and building a Native American cultural center on its Flagstaff campus.

NAU aspires to be the nation's leading university serving Native Americans and has launched a $5 million "Native Roots, Native Futures" fundraising campaign to build a central facility, strengthen programs, and expand scholarships to recruit, retain and graduate Native American students.

"We are encouraged by NAU's outreach to the Native community and are confident the center will be a source of pride for students and lead to further increases in Native enrollment and graduates," said San Manuel Chairman James Ramos. "We are especially impressed by the commitment of NAU's Native students to see the Native American cultural center become a part of the campus." 

The cost for strengthening NAU's Native American programs and building the center is $8 million. The university will match tribal and private funds of up to $3 million and commit resources to the center's planning and design, allocate land for the facility, and assume full annual operation, staffing and maintenance costs. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring 2010.

by David Swallow, Lakota Spiritual Leader and a Headman of the Lakota Nation

Young American Indians today suffer from many problems of the modern world.  Alcohol and drug abuse, early pregnancies, gangs, and psychological disorders are everywhere on the Reservations.  However, a lot of the development of these issues can be historically traced back to World War II or shortly before.

The 1924 Indian Citizenship Act created a special kind of dual citizenship which made American Indians into citizens of the United States (for the first time) as well as citizens of their own sovereign nations.  Finally, Indians could vote.  But also, for the first time, they could be drafted into the military.

The young Lakota Warriors looked at the military as a way to prove themselves as warriors.  They believed it was an honorable extension of the traditional warrior ways.

So, young American Indians went off to World War II.  After 100 years of forced boarding schools which resulted in generations of young Indians losing their sense of identity, family and traditions, the military became like the family they had never been allowed to have.  They were grouped into companies which lived together and fought together and bonded with each other as a unit, as a family.

When the young warriors came home, they often became lost.  With their military family no longer existing, gangs began to form to take their place.  An example is the Hell’s Angels, the famous motorcycle gang, which was started in the late 1940’s.  It is commonly believed to have been founded by ex-members of famous military fighting units of the same name.

The federal indictments of three men accused of trafficking in Native American artifacts reveal a lucrative trade centered on the illegal harvesting of a culture's buried history.

U.S. Attorney Marty Jackley said the indictments - the first of their kind in his two and a half years on the job - are partly a response to his conversations with tribal members.

"When I travel to Cheyenne River and Standing Rock ... this is very important to their culture and their tradition," he said.

Jackley said the investigation continues with the possibility of more indictments, and those already filed involve a "significant number of artifacts."

Brian Ekrem, 28, of Selby and Richard Geffre, 49, of Pierre allegedly sold three copper arm bands in violation of the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act and were involved in the collection of many other artifacts, including beads, arrowheads and bone tools.

Scott Matteson, 60, of Fort Pierre is accused of buying red stone discs, arrowheads and a sandstone scraping tool, all of which had been removed from public and Indian lands.

Each man pleaded not guilty earlier this month in Pierre and was released without bond until his next court appearance. In each case, court records do not specify how the items were obtained or to which tribe they probably belonged.

It's a long road from Browning's Last Star Housing Project to the office of the superintendent of Montana's public schools in Helena.

Along that road, Denise Juneau carried many titles: daughter, student, teacher, lawyer and basketball player.

On Jan. 5 she also will be sworn in as the first Native American woman elected to a statewide executive office — a title she's not yet comfortable with.

"I think you're always an American Indian first," she said. "It's a very unique relationship and very unique perspective to have. It will help in all kinds of ways."

The November election was historic on the national level, with Barack Obama being the elected as the first African American President in U.S. history. Juneau, the Democratic superintendent candidate, jokes that she garnered more votes in Montana than Obama — she had 234,000 votes to his 231,000 votes.

Juneau first battled through a four-way Democratic primary in June and, as the general election approached, she began to realize the distinction she would hold if she defeated Republican candidate Elaine Sollie Herman.

However, she didn't want to be pigeon-holed as a single-issue candidate just because of her ethnicity.