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american arts daily news, presented by
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St.
William School students travel back in time
Northeast Philadelphia News Gleaner - Philadelphia,PA,USA
...
dedicated to introducing Catholic school children to the fine arts
and culture ... former home of Bartram was filled with colonial
and Native American artifacts and ...
FYI:
For Your Information
Glenwood
Springs Post Independent - Glenwood Springs,CO,USA
...
22, in a traditional Native American kiva, near the Crystal
... pm every Wednesday at a traditional American kiva in
... 15 pm Wednesdays at Kahhak Fine Arts & School ...
Indigenous
Radio Hopes Capital Exposure Will Expand Audience
Kansas City infoZine - Kansas City,MO,USA
...
with the National Museum of the American Indian, it ...
with the National Endowment for the Arts, Morales said. ...
news covering issues of importance to native peoples ...
SAN
FRANCISCO A magical city
Manila
Bulletin - Manila,Philippines
... the island was occupied
by the Native Americans ... June 11, 1971, a group of American
Indians seized ... Corinthian colonnades, Palace of Fine Arts
rises majestically ...
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day Google Alert is brought to you by Google.
Returning to a Home on the Range
Buffalo Being Moved from Calif. Island to S.D. Land of Ancestors
By Amy Argetsinger
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 16, 2004; Page A01
Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand
Early tribal artifacts put in spotlight
Little-known items focus of exhibit in Chicago
CHICAGO - A translucent, larger-than-life hand with long, tapering
fingers lends an air of mystery to a new exhibit of ancient and
little-known tribal art at the Art Institute of Chicago.
"Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand" opened Nov. 20 and runs through Jan. 30,
2005. It is scheduled to be shown at The St. Louis Art Museum from
March 4 to May 30, 2005, and at the Smithsonian National Museum of
Natural History from early July to late September.
Indigenous Peoples Literature: Book of the Month
Anti-Indianism in Modern America: A Voice from Tatekeya's Earth
by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
Editorial Reviews
In this powerful and essential work, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn confronts the politics and policies of genocide that continue to destroy the land, livelihood, and culture of Native Americans. Anti-Indianism in Modern America tells the other side of stories of historical massacres and modern-day hate crimes, events that are dismissed or glossed over by historians, journalists, and courts alike. Cook-Lynn exposes the colonialism that works both overtly and covertly to silence and diminish Native Americans, supported by a rhetoric of reconciliation, assimilation, and multiculturalism. Comparing anti-Indianism to anti-Semitism, she sets the American history of broken treaties, stolen lands, mass murder, cultural dispossession, and Indian hating in an international context of ethnic cleansing, "ecocide" (environmental destruction), and colonial oppression.
Cook-Lynn also discusses the role Native American studies should take in reasserting tribal literatures, traditions, and politics and shows how the discipline has been sidelined by anthropology, sociology, postcolonial studies, and ethnic studies. Asserting the importance of a "native conscience"--a knowledge of the mythologies, mores, and experiences of tribal society--among American Indian writers, she calls for the __expression in American Indian art and literature of a tribal consciousness that acts to assure a tribal-nation people of its future.
Passionate, eloquent, and uncompromising, Anti-Indianism in Modern America concludes that there are no real solutions for Indians as long as they remain colonized peoples. Native Americans must be able to tell their own stories and, most important, regain their land, the source of religion, morality, rights, and nationhood. As long as public silence accompanies the outlaw maneuvers that undermine tribal autonomy, the racist strategies that affect all Americans will continue.
It is difficult, Cook-Lynn concedes, to work toward the development of legal mechanisms against hate crimes, in Indian Country and elsewhere in the world. But it is not too late.
Blessings
Brenda
Navajo artist Teddy Draper Workshops
Chinle, Arizona (Canyon DeChelly)-
Seminars and workshops have limited capacity and usually require enrollment months in advance.
Workshop information for 2005
March 15-19, instructor Elmer Yazzie, "cut yucca brush" watercolor technique.
May 16-20, instructor Teddy Draper, Jr., pastel techniques, insights into art, culture, and connecting to nature.
June 7-11, Indian Jewelry Basics (class limited to 4 students).
June 7-11, instructor Teddy Draper, Jr., pastel techniques, insights into art, culture, and connecting to nature.
Contact Teddy Draper at dechelly2000@yahoo.com
Web Sites:
Indigenous Peoples Literature
Wisdom of the Old People
Literacy in Indigenous Communities by L. David van Broekhuizen, Ph.D. (2000)
HTML Format (70K)
PDF Format(117K)
Literacy in first languages in indigenous communities is a complex
topic that generates lively discussion. This research synthesis
explores the notions of national, mother-tongue, multiple, and
biliteracies. It presents important information pertaining to
threatened languages, language shift, and language loss. Examples of
culturally relevant uses of literacy in indigenous communities and
issues related to first-language literacy instruction are also
provided.
Essay on the Zuni World View
Excerpt (Complete article is available in PDF)
Cushing also cited an
incidence where he showed a pole that accompanies a theodolite to an old Zuni
man and asked him what he thought the name of it was. In response the old man inquired as to the
use
of the
item. After briefly describing the
implementation of the device the old man provided a rather lengthy
sentence-word that Cushing translated as "heights of the world progressively
measuring stick". The next day Cushing
took the pole to the extreme corner of the pueblo and began "to flourish it
around" until a middle-aged man relented to curiosity and asked what it
was. Cushing then provided the Zuni
name he had learned the day before and the man promptly requested, "Can they
actually tell how far up and down journeying the world is?"
[105].
Notices:
Indian band seeks to regain its birthright
By David Whitney
Members of the Winnemem band of Wintu Indians are downcast after discovering
that a memorial plaque for a local angler had been placed at the foot
of Children's Rock, one of their sacred sites.
Photo
Wintu Indians
At War Against Dam, Tribe Turns to Old Ways
Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Warriors of the Winnemem Wintu Indians performing a ceremonial dance
in which the tribe had not engaged for more than a century.
Petition in Support of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe
Registration for the 31st Annual 2005 Bilingual Multicultural Education
and Equity Conference is now
available online
Teaching and Learning
Through a Cultural Eye
February 9-11, 2005
Sheraton Anchorage Hotel, Anchorage, Alaska
Sponsored by
Alaska Association for Bilingual Education
Native Educators' Association
Alaska State Department of Education and Early Development
For more information contact:
The Coordinators, Inc.
329 F Street, Suite 208, Anchorage, AK 99501
Phone: 907/646-9000 * Fax: 907/646-9001
Haidu Language Project
Currently, only seven Kasaan Haidas speak the Kasaan Haida dialect with
varying degrees of fluency--all elders over the age of 75. This summer, I urged the Kasaan Haida
Heritage Foundation (KHHF) to allow me to utilize the foundation's nonprofit
status to seek funding and conduct projects that preserve our elders'
knowledge.
In September, we created the position of Media Specialist in which I intend
to raise money and interview our elders, especially in regards to the Haida
language. I will produce, direct, and coordinate a video documentary to raise
awareness and archive the language. I plan to make the results available in
digital formats on the KHHF website.
Donations received from now until December 31, 2004 will earn the donor
a Grassroots Founder designation. I ask for a relatively small gift of 25 to 100
dollars. Donor's names will appear in the KHHF newsletter and donations
will be eligible for a tax deduction for this year. Grassroots Founders get
special on-screen mention in the documentary.
Please send checks (payable to "KHHF") to:
Kasaan Haida Heritage Foundation
600 University Street, Suite 3010
Seattle, WA 98101-1129
Write in the memo area on your check or include a note designating funds for
"Media Specialist/Projects".
Sincerely,
Frederick Olsen, Jr.
For more information, email me or go to
http://kavilco.com/pages/
aboutkhhf.html
KHHF is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 92-0169568).
Who Should Tell History: The Tribes or the Museums?
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
Published: December 21, 2004
CHICAGO - Museums always make use of the past for the sake of the
present. They collect it, shape it, insist on its significance. When
that past is also prehistoric, when its objects come to the present
without written history and with jumbled oral traditions, a museum can
even become the past's primary voice.
But what if that prehistoric past is also claimed by some as a living
heritage? Then disagreements about interpretation develop into battles
over the museum's very function.
That was the result, for example, at the Smithsonian Institution's
$219 million National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in
September in Washington and calls itself a "museum different." George
Gustav Heye's extraordinary collection of 800,000 tribal American
objects is put in service of contemporary Indian cultures with tribal
guest curators determining how their heritage is to be presented. The
result is homogenized pap in which the collection is used not to
reveal the past's complexities, but to serve the present's simplicities.
There are, however, other ways in which the prehistoric past can be
revealed, as two exhibitions in Chicago suggest. At the Field Museum,
"Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas," is remarkable not
just for its careful exploration of the famed archeological site high
in the Peruvian Andes, but also for demonstrating an almost devotional
care to exhuming a lost past. At the Art Institute of Chicago, "Hero,
Hawk and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and
South" is no less remarkable in its display of objects created by
ancient American cultures, but it is subject to many of the same
forces that molded the National Museum of the American Indian. Here
though, rather than overturning the museum's enterprise, they merely
distract from it.
First, the Machu Picchu exhibition. Created by the Peabody Museum at
Yale, it offers the largest collection of Incan artifacts ever shown
in the United States, including robust three-foot-high jugs for corn
beer (which was fermented by the saliva of women who chewed the maize
before brewing it); samples of bright, geometrically ornamented
500-year-old fabrics; and a corded "quipu," a linked collection of
knotted strings used to record events and numerical accounts. The
curators are Richard L. Burger, a Yale anthropologist, and Lucy C.
Salazar, a Peruvian archaeologist.
The major question about Machu Picchu has not been who speaks for its
past, but what that past actually was. The site, with its terraced,
mountainous landscape and stone structures, was known to only a few
local inhabitants when it was discovered by Hiram Bingham III, who led
Yale's Peruvian Expedition in 1911. As Mr. Berger and Ms. Salazar
explain various hypotheses by Bingham, including one that the site was
a sacred nunnery for Incan "Virgins of the Sun," have been
conclusively disproved. The curators established, instead, that it was
a summer retreat for a ruling Incan family, built between 1450 and
1470 and used only for about 80 years before being abandoned in the
face of the Incas' defeat by Pizarro's Spanish armies.
The exhibition also makes it clear what an extraordinary site Machu
Picchu is. Nestled in the cloud-decked mountains of the Andes, its
architecture serves as a kind of cosmic clock, the sun and
constellations appearing in certain stone windows at specific times of
the year. The exhibition shows how scientists have used bone fragments
to analyze the Incan diet (60 percent maize), and demonstrates how
Incan skulls were deliberately elongated by molds placed on infants'
heads, presumably for aesthetic effect. One emerges astonished by this
lost world.
Still, there are subtle traces of contemporary claims evident in the
portrayal of this prehistoric culture. After all, Machu Picchu is now
a national symbol in Peru; in 2001, it was used for the inauguration
of the president, Alejandro Toledo. It is also the object of almost
mystical devotion. Hundreds of thousands of tourists climb its ruins
every year.
In response, perhaps, there are hints of overly tactful delicacy in
the exhibition's descriptions of Incan society. Incan aesthetic and
cosmological preoccupations become clear, but other aspects do not,
including a rigid social structure that involved forms of slavery, a
religious culture that incorporated human sacrifice, and a military
organization powerful enough to conquer 2,500 miles of the South
American coastline and build 25,000 miles of roads. Mr. Berger, in an
e-mail message, said that for the Peruvians, the Incans looked good
compared to the Spaniards. The exhibition wants us to admire, and we
do. But we know less about what we might admire less.
At the Art Institute of Chicago more explicit pressures are at work,
and they nearly derail the considerable achievements of "Hero, Hawk
and Open Hand." The exhibition is devoted to products of societies
that thrived along the Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers as early
as 5,000 B.C. Their remnants can still be seen in landscapes near
Newark, Ohio, or St. Clair County, Ill., in enormous earthen mounds
and geometric shapes outlined by raised ground.
These structures testify to a highly organized society barely glimpsed
by European settlers. Some sites had already been abandoned by the
time the Europeans arrived. Others were devastated by diseases brought
by the settlers, which wiped out as much as 90 percent of their Indian
populations.
But as Richard F. Townsend, the curator of the department of African
and Amerindian art at the Art Institute, shows, these cultures'
mastery can be sensed in the objects produced: a haunting
2,000-year-old elongated face smoothed out of stone found in Kentucky;
a graceful, elegant hand cut out of mica from about the same era in
Ohio; a 500-year-old wooden figure - half human, half feline - found
in Florida.
Such a display, along with historical commentary, would once have been
sufficient. But contemporary Indian tribes, supported by some
scholars, have argued that they have an ancestral connection to these
cultures. And since museums have not traditionally displayed much
sensitivity toward living cultures, the Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act now obliges them to consult with
tribes about their holdings. In preparation for the exhibition, four
years were spent consulting with tribal leaders. But to what end?
Joyce Bear, the cultural preservation officer of the Muscogee Nation,
has the exhibition's first word, declaring on the wall leading to the
galleries, that it will "make our tribal people realize that we are
descendants of a wonderful and great culture." In the catalog, she
proudly announces that the exhibition proves that "I come from kings
and queens." The exhibition ends with a statement about a "new,
sweeping movement of cultural preservation" among Indians, including a
film showing their renewal of traditions.
But all this has little to do with the objects on display and makes it
seem as if the exhibition's purpose were to boost tribal pride. Also,
while there may indeed be ancient traditions that have found their way
into contemporary practices, the nature of these connections, at the
very least, demands closer scrutiny.
One anthropologist's assertion that contemporary Indian beliefs are
"analogous" to those of these ancient cultures is challenged by others
in the catalog. Mr. Townsend writes that these earthworks were "built
by peoples whose achievements and ancestral connections to present day
tribes are at best only vaguely surmised." Robert L. Hall, an
anthropologist, points out that Cahokia, an imposing culture on the
Mississippi that was already in decline in the 14th century, "left no
written records and no native peoples possess oral traditions that
specifically identify Cahokia or even recognize its existence." In the
18th century, another writer says, Indians encountered by settlers
"did not construct mounds, nor did any of them have oral traditions
relating to these earthworks."
Even the exhibition's explanations of these societies' workings seem
idealized, skewed by contemporary sensitivities. In the catalog, for
example, an anthropologist, David H. Dye, explores warfare among the
Mississippi Indians, but it is barely alluded to in the exhibition,
despite the presence of objects like a pipe (1200-1500 A.D.) sculpted
as a bound captive and a vase whose decorations are "trophy scalps
stretched in a starlike pattern." The exhibition gives so refined a
picture of these societies that there is no way of knowing how
important such images were, or where historical evidence of slavery
and human sacrifice fits in.
This is also, of course, what happened in the Smithsonian's Indian
museum. Since almost no tribes had a written culture and oral
traditions were disrupted by disease, massacre, government policy and
assimilation, the tribal curators often seem to know less about their
history than do scholars. Yet scholars' assessments are ignored in
favor of self-promotional platitudes.
All this is a form of guilty overcompensation for past museum sins
that themselves need re-examination and assessment. In the meantime,
exhibitions like the one on Machu Picchu serve as reminders of what is
possible. And the objects at the Art Institute can still be heard
straining to speak for themselves, despite the layers of promotional
and political gauze in which they are wrapped.
Glenn Welker
Editor, List Manager, and Web Master
for
Indigenous Peoples Literature
16.12.04 1.00pm
by Rupert Cornwell
"http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=9003525"
Their ancient way of life is in unprecedented peril. Their very land
is melting beneath their feet.
Even the endless night of the Arctic winter, which should be one of
nature's most immutable constants, may be changing.
It too appears to have fallen victim of the abrupt warming of the
global climate which almost every one on earth - apart from the
government of the United States - believes is exacerbated by the
polluting industries of the modern world.
But now the 155,000 Inuit, also known as Eskimos, scattered along the
northern rim of Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Siberia, say the climate
change that threatens their existence is also a violation of their
human rights, and that the US, responsible for 25 per cent of the
planet's greenhouse gases, is largely responsible.
The human rights, say the Inuit are the most basic ones, the rights to
life, health and property.
"We're an adaptable people, but adaptability has its limits," says
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the head of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference,
the group recognised by the United Nations as representing the Inuit
people.
"Something is bound to give, and it's starting to give in the Arctic,
and we're sending that early warning signal to the rest of the world."
Yesterday, at the international climate change conference in Buenos
Aires, the Inuit were to make their move by announcing they would
demand a ruling from the the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
that as the prime source of greenhouse gas pollution, is in violation
of the commission's own norms.
The prospects for success are unclear.
A Washington environmental lawyer here close to the case, says: "The
question is, does what the US government is doing, or rather what it
is not doing, constitutes a deprivation of human rights for the Inuit.
"You can argue that these deprivations are already occurring because
of global warming, the loss of sea ice, the erosion of coastlines, and
the loss of hunting grounds.
"That raises the issue of whether there is a causal link with the
activities of the US, responsible for 25 per cent of the emissions
held to blame for climate change."
The feasibility of anyone suing over global warming was raised this
month by scientists who made a fresh analysis of the summer heatwave
of 2003, when there was 20,000 extra deaths across Europe, many from
heat-stroke and heart attacks.
In a study in the journal Nature, scientists from Oxford University
and the Met Office's Hadley Centre estimated that such a heatwave is
now four times more likely as a result of man-made influences on the
climate.
They also calculated that these human influences - carbon dioxide
emissions from the burning of fossil fuels - were to blame for 75 per
cent of the increased risk of a repeat of such a heatwave.
This means the dice has been loaded in favour of more extreme events
of this kind, opening up the possibility of litigation against those
who have loaded the dice, say Myles Allen of Oxford and Richard Lord, QC.
"If a dice is loaded to come up six, and it comes up six, there is a
clear sense in which the loading 'helped cause' the result," they
wrote in Nature.
"If the loading doubles the chances of a six, it follows that half the
sixes you get are caused by the loading.
If emissions of greenhouses gases have been found to increase the risk
of a particular climate disaster by loading the dice, these might be
grounds to claim compensation in a court against those deemed
responsible for the emissions, they say.
The Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC) is an agency of the
Organisation for American States, of which the US is a member.
The headquarters are in Washington, a couple of blocks from the White
House.
The Inuit have a voice in the OAS - and thus the commission - through
Canada, where they have their own immense and partly autonomous
territory of Nunavut, covering 1.9 million square kilometres, a fifth
of Canada.
But although the IAHRC can issue findings, recommendations, and
rulings, it is not a court, and the US has predictably indicated it
will not consider itself bound by anything that emerges.
But a ruling could be the basis for lawsuits.
Already, a dozen US states, the city of New York and several NGOs have
a tort case pending from 2002 against the federal government, charging
that the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to discharge its
duty to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
If the Inuit gain a ruling that their human rights have been violated,
it could form the basis of a case against the US government in an
international court, or class-action suits here against the government
or US energy companies, akin to the suits which have led to
multibillion-dollar judgments against the tobacco companies.
Until the Iraq war, no deed of the Bush administration has caused
greater international anger than the refusal of the US, the world's
largest economy and its largest polluter, to acknowledge that global
warming is a problem, still less that it might be caused by human
industrial activities.
But though Mr Bush quickly rejected the Kyoto treaty, his country did
sign it, in the closing days of the Clinton administration.
What is more, Washington also subscribed to the original 1992
framework convention on climate change.
Though this latter requires no cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the
very act of signing it constitutes a recognition of climate change as
a problem, legal experts contend.
And, at last month's meeting in Reykjavik of the Arctic Council,
grouping the eight countries with Arctic territory, the US agreed to a
final document that called for "effective measures" to tackle a crisis
which scientists, including US ones, said was predominantly caused by
"human influences".
No sudden change of heart by the US is expected.
Tony Blair wants the G8 summit hosted by Britain to focus on the
environment in general as well as climate change, and is already
trying to cajole the US into some commitment to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.
But he is unlikely to elicit anything much more than words.
The State Department has said it will not react until the Inuits
formally set out their case.
"When they do, we will look at what they have to say," was the cool
reaction of a US spokesman in Buenos Aires, "We will consider it and
respond."
But in human rights, the Inuit may have hit upon a particularly
sensitive spot, where the US considers itself the global champion,
bent on delivering democracy and freedom to the Islamic world and beyond.
The Arctic peoples hope to make common cause with low-lying island
countries in the Pacific and Indian oceans at risk from rising sea
levels, caused by the melting of the polar icecaps.
Nowhere on earth is feeling the impact of global warming more directly
than the Arctic.
One study found that the Arctic is warming at a rate eight times
faster than at any time in the past century.
In Alaska, western Canada and eastern Russia, average winter
temperatures have risen by 3C or 4C in the past 50 years, and they are
projected to increase to between 7C and 13C over the next 100 years.
The area of the Arctic Sea covered by ice naturally expands and
retreats with the seasons but all the evidence indicates this floating
cap of ice has gone into permanent retreat.
A warmer climate has extended the period of summer melting by an extra
five days every decade.
Average temperatures in the Arctic are rising at 1.2C each decade.
On present trends, the Arctic will have ice-free summers by the end of
the century.
Measurements of the sea ice taken by sonar instruments on British and
American submarines between the 1950s and 1990s have shown it has
thinned by more than 40 per cent in that period.
The latest estimates suggest the Arctic sea-ice has reduced from an
average thickness of four metres to about 2.7 metres in just 30 years.
Satellite pictures show the surface area covered by Arctic sea ice has
reduced by 4 per cent per decade.
Much of the ice that remains is far thinner than it was and is liable
to disappear more rapidly as temperatures rise.
Five years ago, at a conference on the Arctic organised by Greenpeace,
Inuit elders told of problems caused by retreating ice and the
difficulty of finding seals to hunt for food and clothing.
Benjamin Neakok, who lives in the northern Alaskan outpost of Point
Lay, said the end of summer was a difficult time.
"It makes it hard to hunt in fall time when the ice starts forming,"
he says.
"It's kind of dangerous to be out. It's not really sturdy. And after
it freezes there's always some open spots. Sometimes it doesn't freeze
up until January."
Chief Gary Harrison of the Arctic Athabaskan Council, said: "Our homes
are threatened by storms and melting permafrost, our livelihoods are
threatened by changes to the plants and animals we harvest. Even our
lives are threatened, as traditional travel routes become more dangerous."
One Inuit community of nearly 600 people in the Alaskan barrier island
of Shishmaref is faces becoming the world's first "global warming
refugees".
The permafrost on which their homes were built has melted and the ice
that used to stop waves reaching the shore has nearly disappeared.
Joe Braach, the headteacher of Shishmaref school, says: "When I moved
here, the sea was 40ft (12m) from the house. Now it's about 10ft (3m)."
Storms have destroyed some of the homes and the community now has
little option but to move to the mainland, at a cost of US$400m.
And global warming has raised the prospect of developing the Arctic's
vast resources of oil and natural gas.
It threatens to make a reality of the ancient dream of a north-west
passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
By 2100, scientists have warned, species including the polar bear
could be extinct.
=======
The Eskimos, or Inuit, about 155,000 seal-hunting peoples scattered
around the Arctic, plan to seek a ruling from the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights that the United States, by contributing
substantially to global warming, is threatening their existence.
The Inuit plan is part of a broader shift in the debate over
human-caused climate change evident among participants in the 10th
round of international talks taking place in Buenos Aires aimed at
averting dangerous human interference with the climate system.
Inuit leaders said they planned to announce the effort at the climate
meeting today.
Representatives of poor countries and communities - from the Arctic
fringes to the atolls of the tropics to the flanks of the Himalayas -
say they are imperiled by rising temperatures and seas through no
fault of their own. They are casting the issue as no longer simply an
environmental problem but as an assault on their basic human rights.
The commission, an investigative arm of the Organization of American
States, has no enforcement powers. But a declaration that the United
States has violated the Inuit's rights could create the foundation for
an eventual lawsuit, either against the United States in an
international court or against American companies in federal court,
said a number of legal experts, including some aligned with industry.
Such a petition could have decent prospects now that industrial
countries, including the United States, have concluded in recent
reports and studies that warming linked to heat-trapping smokestack
and tailpipe emissions is contributing to big environmental changes in
the Arctic, a number of experts said.
Last month, an assessment of Arctic climate change by 300 scientists
for the eight countries with Arctic territory, including the United
States, concluded that "human influences" are now the dominant factor.
Inuit representatives attending the conference said in telephone
interviews that after studying the matter for several years with the
help of environmental lawyers they would this spring begin the lengthy
process of filing a petition by collecting videotaped statements from
elders and hunters about the effects they were experiencing from the
shrinking northern icescape.
The lawyers, at EarthJustice, a nonprofit San Francisco law firm, and
the Center for International Environmental Law, in Washington, said
the Inter-American Commission, which has a record of treating
environmental degradation as a human rights matter, provides the best
chance of success. The Inuit have standing in the Organization of
American States through Canada.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the elected chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar
Conference, the quasi-governmental group recognized by the United
Nations as representing the Inuit, said the biggest fear was not that
warming would kill individuals but that it would be the final blow to
a sturdy but suffering culture.
"We've had to struggle as a people to keep afloat, to keep our
indigenous wisdom and traditions," she said. "We're an adaptable
people, but adaptability has its limits.
"Something is bound to give, and it's starting to give in the Arctic,
and we're giving that early warning signal to the rest of the world."
If the Inuit effort succeeds, it could lead to an eventual stream of
litigation, somewhat akin to lawsuits against tobacco companies, legal
experts said.
The two-week convention, which ends Friday, is the latest session on
two climate treaties: the 1992 framework convention on climate change
and the Kyoto Protocol, an addendum that takes effect in February and
for the first time requires most industrialized countries to curb such
emissions.
The United States has signed both pacts and is bound by the 1992
treaty, which requires no emissions cuts. But the Bush administration
opposes the mandatory Kyoto treaty, saying it could harm the economy
and unfairly excuses big developing countries from obligations.
That situation makes the United States particularly vulnerable to such
suits, environmental lawyers said.
By embracing the first treaty and signing the second, it has
acknowledged that climate change is a problem to be avoided; but by
subsequently rejecting the Kyoto pact, the lawyers said, it has not
shown a commitment to stemming its emissions, which constitute a
fourth of the global total.
The American delegation at the Buenos Aires conference declined to
comment on Tuesday on the petition or the arguments behind it. "Until
the Inuit have presented a complaint, we are not responding to that
issue," a State Department official said. "When they do, we will look
at what they have to say, consider it and then respond."
Christopher C. Horner, a lawyer for the Cooler Heads Coalition, an
industry-financed group opposed to cutting the emissions, said the
chances of success of such lawsuits had risen lately.
From his standpoint, he said, "The planets are aligned very poorly."
Delegates who flew to the conference from the Arctic's far-flung
communities, where retreating sea ice imperils traditional seal hunts,
said they planned to meet in Buenos Aires with representatives from
small-island nations that could eventually be swamped by rising seas,
swelled by meltwater from shrinking glaciers and Arctic ice sheets.
Enele S. Sopoaga, the ambassador to the United Nations from Tuvalu, a
15-foot-high nation of wave-pounded atolls halfway between Australia
and Hawaii, said he still saw legal efforts as a last resort.
Tuvalu had threatened to sue the United States two years ago in the
International Court of Justice, but held off for a variety of reasons.
Larry Rohter contributed reporting from Buenos Aires for this article
Glenn Welker
Editor, List Manager, and Web Master
for
Indigenous Peoples Literature
Choctaw - Chiefs and Leaders
Pushmataha
Wright, Allen. A Choctaw preacher, born in Mississippi about 1825; he
emigrated with most of the tribe to Indian Territory in 1832, his parents
dying soon afterward, leaving him and a sister. He had a strain of white
blood, probably one-eighth or one-sixteenth. In his youth he lived some time
in the family of the Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, a Presbyterian missionary, and
began his education in a missionary day-school near Doaksville. While here
he was converted to the Christian faith, and soon after entered Spencer
Academy in the Choctaw Nation. By reason of his studious habits he was sent
by the Choctaw authorities to a school in Delaware, but afterward went to
Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., where he was graduated in 1852. He then
took a full course in Union Theological Seminary, New York City, being
graduated in 1855, and in the following year was ordained by the Indian
Presbytery. Returning to his people in Indian Territory, he preached to them
until his death in 1885. His people appreciating his ability and
uprightness, Mr. Wright was called to affairs of state, being elected
successively a member of the Choctaw House of Representatives and the
Senate, and afterward Treasurer. In 1866, after the Civil War, he was sent
to Washington as a delegate to negotiate a new treaty with the United
States, and during his absence was elected principal chief of the Choctaw
Nation, an office which he held until 1870. The Rev. John Edwards
characterized Wright as "a man of large intelligence, good mind, an
excellent preacher, and a very faithful laborer for the good of his people.
No other Choctaw that I ever met could give such a clear explanation of
difficult points in the grammar of the Choctaw." About 1873 he translated
the Chickasaw constitution, which was published by the Chickasaw Nation, and
in 1880 he published a "Chahta Leksikon." Just before his death he completed
the translation of the Psalms from Hebrew into Choctaw. Soon after his
graduation Mr. Wright married Miss Harriet Newell Mitchell, of Dayton, Ohio,
to whom were born several children, including Eliphalet Mott Wright, M. D.,
of Olney, Okla.; Rev. Frank Hall Wright, of Dallas, Texas; Mrs Mary Wallace
and Mrs Anna W. Ludlow, of Wapanucka, Okla.; Allen Wright, jr., a lawyer of
South McAlester, Okla.; Mrs Clara E. Richards, Miss Kathrine Wright, and
James B. Wright, C. E., all of Wapanucka, Okla.
Mushalatubee.
A Choctaw chief, born in the last half of the 18th century. He was present
at Washington D.C. in Dec. 1824, as one of the Choctaw delegation, where he
met and became accuainted with Lafayette on his last visit to the United
States. He led his warriors against the Creeks in connection with Jackson
in 1812. He signed as leading chief the treaty of Choctaw Trading House,
Miss., Oct 24, 1816; of Treaty Ground, Miss., Oct. 18, 1820; and the Dancing
Rabbit Creek, Miss., Sept. 27, 1830. He died of smallpox at the agency in
Arkansas, Sept 30, 1838. His name was later applied to a district in Indian
Territory.
Pitchlynn, Peter Perkins.
A prominent Choctaw chief of mixed blood, born at the Indian town of
Hushookwa, Noxubee County, Mississippi, Jan. 30, 1806; died in Washington,
D. C., Jan. 17, 1881. His father, John Pitchlynn, was a white man and an
interpreter commissioned by Gen. Washington; his mother, Sophia Folsom, a
Choctaw woman. While still a boy, seeing a partially educated member of his
tribe write a letter, he resolved that he too would become educated, and
although the nearest school was in Tennessee, 200 m. from his father's
cabin, he managed to attend it for a season. Returning home at the close of
the first quarter, he found his people negotiating a treaty with the general
Government. As he considered the terms of this treaty a fraud upon his
tribe, he refused to shake hands with Gen. Jackson, who had the matter in
charge in behalf of the Washington authorities. Subsequently he entered an
academy at Columbia, Tenn., and finally was graduated at the University of
Nashville. Although he never changed his opinion regarding the treaty, he
became a strong friend of Jackson, who was a trustee of the latter
institution. On returning to his home in Mississippi, Pitchlynn became a
farmer, built a cabin, and married Miss Rhoda Folsom, a Choctaw, the
ceremony being performed by a Christian minister. By his example and
influence polygamy was abandoned by his people. He was selected by the
Choctaw council in 1824 to enforce the restriction of the sale of spirituous
liquors according to the treaty of Doaks Stand, Miss., Oct. 18, 1820, and in
one year the traffic had ceased. As a reward for his services he was made a
captain and elected a member of the National Council, when the United States
Government determined to remove the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creeks w.. of
the Mississippi. His first proposition in that body was to establish a
school, and, that the students might become familiar with the manners and
customs of white people, it was located near Georgetown, Ky., rather than
within the limits of the Choctaw country. Here it flourished for many years,
supported by the funds of the nation. Pitchlynn was appointed one of the
delegation sent to Indian Territory in 1828 to select the lands for their
future homes and to make peace with the Osage, his tact and courage making
his mission entirely successful. He later emigrated to the new reservation
with his people and built a cabin on Arkansas river Pitchlynn was an admirer
of Henry Clay, whom he met for the first time in 1840. He was ascending the
Ohio in a steamboat when Mr. Clay came on board at Maysville. The Indian
went into the cabin and found two farmers earnestly engaged in talking about
their crops. After listening to them with great delight for more than an
hour, he turned to his traveling companion, to whom he said: "If that old
farmer with an ugly face had only been educated for the law, he would have
made one of the greatest men in this country." He soon learned that the "old
farmer" was Henry Clay. Charles Dickens, who met Pitchlynn on a steamboat on
the Ohio river in 1842, gives an account of the interview in his American
Notes, and calls him a chief; but he was not elected principal chief until
1860. In this capacity he went to Washington to protect the interests of his
tribesmen, especially to prosecute their claims against the Government. At
the breaking out of the Civil War Pitchlynn returned to Indian Territory,
and although anxious that his people should remain neutral, found it
impossible to induce them to maintain this position; indeed three of his
sons espoused the Confederate cause. He himself remained a Union man to the
end of the war, notwithstanding the fact that the Confederates raided his
plantation of 600 acres and captured all his cattle, while the emancipation
proclamation freed his 100 slaves. He was a natural orator, as his address
to the President at the White House in 1855, his speeches before the
congressional committees in 1868, and one delivered before a delegation of
Quakers at Washington in 1869, abundantly prove. In 1865 he returned to
Washington, where he remained as the agent of his people until his death,
devoting attention chiefly to pressing the Choctaw claim for lands sold to
the United States in 1830. In addition to the treaty of 1820, above referred
to, he signed the treaty of Dancing Rabbit, Miss., Sept. 27, 1830, and the
treaty of Washington, June 20, 1855, he also witnessed, as principal chief,
that of Washington, Apr. 28, 1866. Pitchlynn's first wife having died, he
married, at Washington, Mrs. Caroline Lombardy, a daughter of Godfrey
Eckloff, who with two sons and one daughter survive him, the children by the
first marriage having died during their father's lifetime. Pitchlynn became
a member of the Lutheran Memorial Church at Washington, and was a regular
attendant until his last illness. He was a prominent member of the Masonic
order, and on his death the funeral services were conducted in its behalf by
Gen. Albert Pike. A monument was erected over his grave in Congressional
Cemetery by the Choctaw Nation. In 1842 Pitchlynn was described by Dickens
as a handsome man, with black hair, aquiline nose, broad cheek-bones,
sunburnt complexion, and bright, keen, dark, and piercing eyes. He was
fairly well read, and in both speaking and writing used good English. He was
held in high esteem both by the members of his tribe and by all his
Washington acquaintances. See also Lanman, Recollections of Curious
Characters, 1881.
From Blue Panther Keeper of Stories.
