Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On March 1, 2001, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on the Indian Summer Festival's Winter Pow Wow at Wisconsin State Fair Park, which will try to banish winter "by song, dance and some serious drumming." The article listed several websites that provide information about the meaning of powwows: "Native American Home Pages", Powwows.com, the Web lodge of the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin at...

Source: The Baltimore Sun

On March 1, 2001, The Baltimore Sun reported on Richard Regan, a member of the Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs, is "calling for the Washington Redskins to change the team's name and logo. 'To American Indians, it is almost what the 'n-word' is to African-Americans,' Regan said." Many, including Native Americans, disagree that the name is offensive. Redskins executives do not seem inclined to change the name.

Source: The Washington Post

On February 25, 2001, The Washington Post published an article that compared the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore with its ruling in the case of Employment Division, Oregon Department of Human Services v. Smith: both were unexpected. The latter case "reversed nearly 50 years of judicial decisions and slapped tough new limits on the exercise of religious freedom." After the drug rehabilitation center where they worked fired them for consuming peyote, Al Smith and Galen Black sued the center for denying them unemployment...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On February 24, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Navy's plan "to paint a 500-foot, red-and-white bull's-eye on Army property in Upper Stony Valley and use it to teach jet fighter pilots how to drop bombs" is causing many to protest. Among the protesters are "members of the Salinan Nation, landless Native Americans patching together their past, who believe that the world began here."

Source: The Arizona Republic

On February 23, 2001, The Arizona Republic reported that the Arizona American Indian Tourism Association plans to convert the old dining hall of the Phoenix Indian Boarding School into the state's first Native American Cultural Center. The school closed in 1990. "The center's primary purpose will be to help Native American communities in Arizona promote tourism and assist tourists interested in visiting tribal lands." It will expose tourists to the Native American experience and show them that Native Americans are "...

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On February 11, 2001, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that founder Bill Rutherford of Wildlife Prairie Park in Peoria, Illinois, wants to add an American Indian spiritual center to the park. The center "is expected to draw tribes from outside Illinois for private religious ceremonies and serve as a cultural education center for the public." One American Indian Methodist minister calls it "a huge step for Indian people."

Source: The Washington Post

On February 9, 2001, The Washington Post reported that "on Wednesday, a federal appeals court struck down" a policy at the Greensville Correctional Center that prevented Virginia prisoner Gary David Morrison Jr. from practicing his religion. Morrison, a convicted murderer, "asked his jailers for access to sacred herbs, medicine bags and feathers -- items used in Native American religious ceremonies." Prison officials refused "because the items are normally banned as personal property...Morrison, 31, didn't qualify for a Native...

Source: The New York Times

On February 4, 2001, The New York Times published an article on Indian radio stations. Indian country just celebrated its first radio station, KUYI-FM, in First Mesa, Ariz. The new station is significant in part because it "can give news to elderly Hopi that can't speak English." In addition, the birth of the station represents "another triumph over difficult conditions in an industry that ignores Indian broadcasting. KUYI (88.1 FM) is just the 30th American Indian radio station in the United States." KUYI serves a remote...

Source: Star Tribune

On January 30, 2001, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on a new development in the 30-year-old controversy over the University of North Dakota's Indian head logo and "Fighting Sioux" nickname. A few weeks ago "wealthy alumnus Ralph Engelstad threatened to walk away from a $100 million pledge...if the logo and nickname are dropped. The 70-year-old nickname has the backing of an overwhelming number of fans and alumni...Yet to many of the school's 350 American Indian students and those who support them in their fight to dump the...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On January 28, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported a controversy over the birthplace of a god, "known as Wuyoot in older versions of Southern California Indian lore, [who] was the great captain of the Tongva (Gabrielino) Indians." The birthplace is located just to the west of the 405 freeway on Long Beach. The controversy concerns the exact location of "Puvungna, the Tongva Indian village where not just Wuyoot but Chinigchinich (Wuyoot's successor, who supplants him as chief lawgiver/god/cult-hero in later anthropological annals)...

Source: Omaha World-Herald

On January 28, 2001, the Omaha World-Herald reported that in September Gov. Mike Johanns of Nebraska wrote letters "to the 11 counties that have Nebraska's 14 physical features with 'squaw' in their names. The letters noted that the word is considered offensive and asked County Boards to voluntarily recommend new names by Feb. 1." So far "only Gage County has recommended a new name for adoption by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names...Gage County's Squaw Creek ...will be renamed Otoe Creek, in honor of the former Nebraska tribe...

Source: The New York Times

On January 26, 2001, The New York Times reported that Buffalo, West Virginia, is trying to "reclaim and rebury the bodies" of 600 American Indians who were removed from their graves 35 years ago "in the name of science...Under a repatriation proposal, the bodies, which are now stored in plastic bags at Ohio State University, would be reinterred here in dedicated tribal ground where they were first put to earth across centuries...The plan has been endorsed by town fathers and descendants of various Indian communities." The...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On December 4, 2000, the Los Angeles Times reported that "with its Moorish domes and bell towers, the splendid Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel is the jewel of the California mission system. The small cell where Father Junipero Serra lived and worked has been meticulously preserved. When he died on Aug. 28, 1784, the remains of California's apostle were buried at the foot of the main altar. Now, however, a displaced tribe of Indians is trying to stake a claim in what Serra called the 'Garden of God,' south of San Francisco....

Source: The Washington Post

On November 21, 2000, The Washington Post wrote: "Uh-oh. Indians on the Mall for Thanksgiving. Yep: the other guys from that 1621 banquet, front and center in the nation's capital, and all the inconvenient truths they represent. There they are, in three tepees by the Washington Monument. A family. Just a single Omaha family and some friends. You just know they're not commemorating that nice first Thanksgiving meal, when the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians of Patuxet sat down together. No, they'll be commemorating that pesky...

Source: The New York Times

On November 19, 2000, The New York Times reported that "LONG after their military defeat in the 19th century, American Indian tribes remain a world apart. Considered separate governments, Indian reservations are exempt from most state laws, like taxes on cigarettes, and can allow gambling, even if the surrounding state bans it. Practitioners of one Indian religion can legally use peyote, a cactus containing an illegal hallucinogen. Indian burial sites are protected by a 1990 special act of Congress. Devils Tower National Monument...