Photo by Orion Thomas Lisa Cheryl Thomas stands with her paint stallion, Cherokee Diamond Dash. Thomas is concert pianist, who is of Cherokee descent and lives near Dallas, Texas. This photograph was taken by her 18 year old son.

Thomas, Cherokee descent, who lives near Dallas, considers the melodies and rhythms of Native American music to be among the most important in the American tradition of classical music. She performs a program of work by the Indianists of the early 20^th century and by contemporary Native American composers of today.

“Antonin Dvořák composed music with Czechoslovakian melodies, and he said America needs to have its own music based on Native American music,” said Thomas, who recently completed a doctorate focusing on the topic at the University of North Texas College of Music. “The Indianists composed music with Native American motifs, and even though they weren’t Native American themselves, their compositions were based upon documentation of Native music by ethnomusicologists, and they carried forth fascinating rhythms, scales and pitch systems.”

The Indianist movement, represented in the work of a dozen or so composers, began around 1890 and is considered to have died out by 1930. Even though a contemporary listener might find some of the names and themes to be stereotypical by today’s standards, Thomas contends that within the movement there remain pieces that are relevant to American classical music. Seth Montfort, director of the San Francisco Concerto Orchestra, agrees, comparing the Indianists to George Gershwin. The iconic American composer based many of his compositions on African-American music, and is himself sometimes accused of stereotyping by today’s standards.

“Even though it has Western harmony, when Lisa Cheryl Thomas plays it, she interprets it to be more Native American,” Montfort said. “You can bring out the intent of the music, which is ethereal and hard to capture. I think it is really good music.”

Thomas finds the best Indianist compositions to be intelligent, reflecting the complicated rhythms of the original music. Her opening piece is “The Thunder God and the Rainbow” by Harvey Worthington Loomis (1865-1930), a student of Dvořák. To her it is one of the better Indianist pieces because Loomis keeps the theme of the indigenous music through sounds mimicking the thunder and the flash of lightning.

“Some composers didn’t care what it was they called the piece,” she said. “They just used the melodies because they liked them and didn’t worry about the original concept of the music.”

That’s why she takes time to teach her audiences about the music she is performing. She concludes her program with music by Native composers, including the late Louis Ballard (1931-2007), who was Quapaw and Cherokee. She admires the work of Brent Michael Davids and Jerod Impichchaachaha’ Tate, and hopes to commission a work for piano one day. But she acknowledges that the piano isn’t always the best instrument for ethnographic works.

“There are notes that fall between the cracks of what you can play on the piano,” she said. “If you try to copy the original melody, you can’t do it. It would be easier with a stringed instrument or a Native American flute.”

Today there are a growing number of Native composers working, and in some cases notating Native music for European instruments, said Jewell Arcoren, acting director of the First Nations Composers Initiative.

“I see a lot of proposals for traditional American Indian music being fused with classical notation,” Arcoren said. “It’s like when our oral language was codified. It’s interesting; even if something is lost, something is also gained.”

—–

By Kara Briggs, American Indian News Service

Download this article as a Word Document

Photo by Glenna Augborne, Diné, of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian - Ladybugs are released into the hand of child who will place them in the croplands at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. The ladybugs, as many as 10,000 a year, are released to naturally control aphids and other plant pests in the museum’s indigenous American landscape.

The ladybug releases are made joyous by local children who join museum staff in releasing the bugs on the sunny southern side of the Washington museum, where corn, beans and squash are just some of the indigenous American crops grown and enjoyed by thousands of visitors each year.

The bugs arrive in little burlap sacks in which they are refrigerated and kept dormant until release. The ladybugs emerge onto the arms and legs of the children, then fly or crawl off into the museum’s popular public garden. The mostly preschoolers at the recent event said the ladybugs tickled their skin.

A 4-year-old said she liked the ladybug’s red color. A 5-year-old liked their spots. Another said, “I like that they eat other bugs.”

Over 450 different lady beetles, ladybugs and ladybird beetles live in North America. Some are native and others were imported from Europe or Asia for use by farmers. While the most familiar are red, the beetles can also be white, yellow, pink or orange.

Hayes Lavis, a cultural arts program specialist, said the museum typically releases 10,000 ladybugs at a time, knowing that 90 percent of them will migrate to the nearby U.S. Botanical Garden. Lavis’ main hope is that the ladybugs will reproduce because these insects will eat 10 times their body weight in aphids, thrips, scale insects and mites daily.

The museum will release ladybugs later this summer at 10 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 6 and Friday, Aug. 20.

—

American Indian News Service

National Museum of the American Indian public affairs intern Ellen Dobrowolski, Métis, contributed to this report.

a href=”http://www.americanindiannews.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/v3i4-ladybugrelease.doc”>Download this article as a Word document.

Photo by Percy Abrams of the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse - Team The Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse team assembled by New York Harbor with Oren Lyons, 80, Faith Keeper, Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation. Lyons was also an All-American goalkeeper who played on the 1957 national championship Syracuse University lacrosse team with NFL legend Jim Brown.

The Iroquois Nationals, a lacrosse team made up of 23 players representing each member nation of the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois confederacy, were barred from traveling to the world championships in Great Britain on their Haudenosaunee passports, despite an offer of a one-time travel waiver from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After British officials refused to issue visas to the Nationals, ranked fourth in the world, more than 2,000 news reports told the story of the team that resolutely refused to travel on U.S. or Canadian passports.

The Haudenosaunee passports, some partially handwritten, do not include new security features, including computer chips, which are expected in the post-9/11 era. But the team had traveled internationally without incident until now, which made the British and Canadian refusal so close to the tournament surprising.

For the Iroquois national team, traveling on a competing nation’s passport is unthinkable. “You are asking us to denounce our citizenship for a game,” said Percy Abrams, the Nationals’ executive director. “When you come back from the game, guess what? We have denounced our citizenship. Is that what they would do?”

Passports, flags and identity cards are historically important symbols of the functioning governments of Indian nations, said Tim Johnson, associate director for museum programs at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Since last year the museum has collected more than 200 flags from Indian nations across the United States and Canada, which are hung in the Potomac Atrium during the month of November.

“What’s difficult for the average American to understand, and what kids don’t get in their education,” Johnson said, “is that these documents are each a symbol of functioning American Indian governments that meet regularly and govern all the time.”

The museum had planned to show the Iroquois Nationals’ televised games from the 2010 World Lacrosse Championships in Manchester, England, on screens in its Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe. But on July 15 when they were scheduled to face off with England, the Nationals were in New York City, still awaiting permission to enter Great Britain. On National Public Radio, S.L. Price of Sports Illustrated said, “To not have the Iroquois at the world championship is something that I feel would delegitimize the world championships.”

Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian - A Haudenosaunee delegation crosses the U.S.-Canada border at Niagara Falls on July 14, 1928. It is the “Return of Border Crossing Privileges to all Indians First Annual Celebration,” according to information on the photo.

The history of the Haudenosaunee traveling on their passports—and facing opposition from Great Britain, and Canada as a member of the British Commonwealth—is a long one, explained Johnson.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, spanning land in both present-day New York and Ontario, is a formal government established a thousand years ago. As such, it is the oldest continually operating democracy in North America, states Oren Lyons, Faith Keeper, Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, on the team’s website. (Lyons, 80, was himself an All-American goalkeeper who played on the 1957 national championship Syracuse University lacrosse team with Jim Brown.)

The Haudenosaunee hold some of the earliest treaties with the U.S. and earlier colonial powers. A 1613 agreement of peace was entered into by the Haudenosaunee with the Dutch, and a wampum belt was woven with two parallel lines to document this agreement of non-interference. It’s a policy document founded on principles of sovereignty, Johnson said, that children among the Haudenosaunee are taught to this day.

“From a historic standpoint the Haudenosaunee have never relinquished their sovereignty,” said Johnson, who is Mohawk. “They have never stated they are anything other than themselves. There exists a consistent chronology of Iroquois leadership making repeated assertions of sovereignty.”

In 1921, Cayuga Chief Deskaheh presented a Haudenosaunee passport to travel to Great Britain to seek aid against Canadian aggressions. He sought to speak to King George V because the treaty by which his people had their rights guaranteed was signed by George III. He was refused a meeting, and returned home, according to the 1978 book, “A Basic Call to Consciousness,” edited by the newspaper Akwesasne Notes.

In 1923, Deskaheh traveled to Geneva on his Haudenosaunee passport in the hope of speaking to the League of Nations about the violation of rights of Indian nations. But while the city of Geneva accepted him, the League of Nations refused to hear him.

In 1924, the U.S. passed a law making all American Indians citizens of the U.S., and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police invaded the Six Nations to overthrow its traditional government.  The Haudenosaunee notified both the U.S. and Canada that they would not accept citizenship in any other nation besides the Haudenosaunee.

In 1977, Oren Lyons traveled on a Haudenosaunee passport to Geneva, this time to address the non-governmental organizations at the United Nations. And Haudenosaunee leaders have traveled on these passports for the 30 years since, Johnson said.

The Iroquois Nationals program was founded in 1983 as a league that would organize and support the playing of lacrosse among Six Nations youth. Lacrosse, considered by the Haudenosaunee to be given to them by the Creator, is estimated to be at least 900 years old, one of the oldest games to originate in North America. The Iroquois Nationals were admitted to the International Lacrosse Federation, the governing body of international lacrosse, in 1990. The Nationals placed fourth in the 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Lacrosse Championships, traveling internationally on Haudenosaunee passports even after the 9/11 terrorist attacks made passports and identity cards more highly scrutinized.

But why would Great Britain, which gave the world “Chariots of Fire,” an Academy-Award-winning movie based on the life stories of 1924 Olympians Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams—one of whom competed for his Christian faith and the other to fight anti-Semitism—fail to grasp the Iroquois Nationals’ quest to compete?

Like these athletes of old, the Iroquois team stands for more than just sport, Abrams said.

“The Iroquois Nationals serve as a declaration of our status as a sovereign nation that exists on the North American continent, which we call the Great Turtle Island,” Abrams said. “We compete nation against nations.”

—-

By Kara Briggs, American Indian News Service

Download this article as a Word document.

Serves 4

Photo by Ellen Dobrowolski, Métis, and Glenna Augborne, Diné, of the National Museum of the American Indian - The buffalo and duck burger by Executive Chef Richard Hetzler is one of the most popular menu items this summer at the Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe in the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

Duck confit is the secret ingredient in this buffalo burger from Chef Richard Hetzler’s summer menu at the popular Mitsitam Cafe in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

Hetzler combines a homemade confit to moisten and add richness to flavorful ground buffalo. Fresh herbs, roasted tomatoes and Dijonaise sauce complement and amplify the taste of a unique burger that draws on two different indigenous American meats.

—Kara Briggs

INGREDIENTS

For burger

1 3/4 lbs. ground buffalo meat

8 oz. duck confit (see recipe below)

2 cloves garlic finely chopped

1 medium shallot finely chopped

¼ tsp. fresh thyme finely chopped

½ tsp. fresh rosemary, chopped

2 oz. ground duck fat, if available

3 oz. baby lettuce

4 slices aged cheddar cheese

4 brioche rolls (or roll of your choice)

1 small onion sliced thin and caramelized

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

2 Roma or other plum tomatoes cut into halves and roasted (can substitute sundried tomatoes packed in oil)

For homemade confit

4 duck legs

1 clove garlic

1 clove shallot

2 sprigs of thyme

2 sprigs rosemary

8 oz. olive oil or vegetable oil

For Dijonaise sauce

1 poblano pepper, roasted and peeled

1 chipotle pepper, diced

2 tsp. red wine vinegar

1 tbsp. Dijon mustard

4 tbsp. mayonnaise

1 tsp. Creole or whole grain mustard

1 oz. roasted garlic

To make confit

1. Place duck legs in roasting pan with all confit ingredients and cover.
2. Place in a 325-degree oven for three hours. Remove duck legs from oven, being careful not to burn yourself with the hot oil. Place on a baking sheet to cool.
3. When meat is cool, pull off bone and shred meat with your fingers, then season with salt and pepper.
4. Cool duck meat in refrigerator until use.

For Dijonaise mustard sauce

1. Place all Dijonaise sauce ingredients in a blender. Blend well.
2. Season with salt and pepper.

To make burger

1. Place cut tomatoes in 300-degree oven for 1½ to 2 hours until semi-dry. Remove and cool.
2. Caramelize onions in saute pan with a little oil and set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, mix ground buffalo with confit and if available duck fat, saving lettuce, tomatoes, and caramelized onions for later. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Form into four patties and refrigerate for at least half an hour before grilling.
5. Cook on grill to desired doneness, and top with aged cheddar cheese.

To build burger

1. Lightly toast both sides of bun and spread with about 1 oz. of Dijonaise sauce.
2. Place baby greens, then tomato, on the bottom of the bun and place meat on top.
3. Heap caramelized onions on the meat, put top of the roll in place; serve and enjoy.

—-

By Richard Hetzler, executive chef of the Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe

Download this article as a Word document.

Photo by Freddy Lane of the Lummi - Tribe A woman stands on the beach at Neah Bay, Wash., home of the Makah Nation, as her canoe family recites its protocol, asking permission of the host nation to come ashore from the 19th annual Canoe Journey of the Coast Salish Nations and their relatives on the Pacific Coast.

The annual Canoe Journey began in 1989 and has occurred every year since 1993. Each year a different Indian nation among the Coast Salish has hosted, with canoes from all nations crossing internal and territorial borders to join together on the water highways of their ancestors. Landing at Neah Bay, the point of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, where the Pacific Ocean meets the recently named Salish Sea, canoe families waited their turn to declare their intentions in coming ashore, a protocol as old as the practice of paddling carved cedar canoes on these waters.

Many of the pullers in the canoes are young people from the nations, who train with their elders year-round, forming what’s called a canoe family, and learning songs while building their physical endurance.

Oren Lyons, Faith Keeper, Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, upon witnessing these proceedings three years ago, declared them a display of sovereignty and vibrancy among the Indian nations of the Northwest Coast that all of Indian Country needed to hear about.

At Neah Bay this July 22, Makah language teachers welcomed the canoe families from many nations. Among others on hand were staff members from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, sent to Neah Bay as part of the museum’s Renewing Connections outreach program to Indian Country.

Then Makah Chairman Michael Lawrence translated, “On behalf of the people of the cape, I am honored for your presence….The Makah tribe has long been rich in its culture and has carried on our rich songs and dances, even when the (U.S.) government attempted to tell us to no longer practice our cultural ways.”

The Makah have persisted in participating in the Ozette archaeological site, the remains of a historic village that is considered one of the most important finds in the continental United States; have fished per their treaty and tradition for salmon and halibut among other species of the sustaining sea life of their culture; and mounted a successful whale hunt in 1999, ending a pause of more than 70 years.

—

American Indian News Service

Download this article as a Word Document

Photo by Katherine Fogden, Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian Leila Butts, as August Jackson, hands a bundle of sage to David H. Sawyer, who plays her uncle Craig Robe in the production “Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

Playwright William S. Yellow Robe Jr. draws a story of adult siblings, descendants of an African-American Civil War cavalryman and a Native woman, who find themselves driven apart by their mixed feelings about their blended heritage.

At its core, “Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers” is a love story. It begins with the grandparents, who find love and leave their respective peoples to start a family together, and continues with their modern descendents, who renew their love for each other and themselves.

“Whenever you hear a story about the Buffalo Soldier, it becomes that the Indian woman was raped,” said Yellow Robe, 50.  “There is no conception that these people might have been in love and that they were leaping into new relationships.”

Indian tribes in the West have a complex history with Buffalo Soldiers, who were all-African-American units in the U.S. Army. Tribes gave them the name “buffalo.” But the soldiers were assigned by the U.S. government to subjugate tribes, making them enemies to many. Still, in some instances, Indian women and African-American soldiers married.

For their descendants, prejudice isn’t only historic, as eldest brother Craig Robe explains in the play: “I saw myself through eyes that weren’t mine, then I got on my own and saw myself different.”

Yellow Robe, like his characters, is Assiniboine and also descended from these African-American cavalrymen.

The production is presented by the museum in conjunction with its exhibition, “IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas.”

“This is an opportunity to provide our audiences with greater insight into the IndiVisible exhibition, and to allow the local African-Native American community to share their story on stage through Bill’s words in the play,” said the museum’s Vincent Scott, who is directing the play.

Scott began reading Yellow Robe’s plays in the early 1990s when Scott was teaching at Fort Peck Community College on the reservation in Northeastern Montana, where the playwright is from. Since then, Scott has wanted to direct Yellow Robe’s work because of its themes of heartache and hope. Now Scott said the museum can bring these stories to the public.

“For myself it is an ongoing process of acceptance; there are moments of good and bad,” said Yellow Robe, who divides his time between writing and teaching literature at University of Maine.

Yellow Robe finds forgiving a necessary part of dealing with history, without forgetting the unique ways his family blended traditional Assiniboine and African-American culture. That synergy gives texture to his life and work like bannock and pork-neck bone, or corn soup and spare ribs, or R. Carlos Nakai and Duke Ellington.

At the museum, the play has inspired sharing among the cast and crew about the universality of knowing and respecting one’s family ancestry, said Scott. He hopes that will resonate with audience members, too.

“Discussions during break times often occur among cast and crew that allow opportunities for company members to share their own experiences of living with mixed heritages or being tribal members,” Scott said.

While the characters in the play confront the different ways in which they have dealt with their mixed-race heritage, there is one character, a young niece, who embraces her whole identity, proudly dancing in regalia, and giving her family hope.

“There are a lot of Native families in Montana who have come up to me and said, ‘That’s our story,’” Yellow Robe said. “The play itself is now reaching communities where people are now facing this reality, because to live in denial is the worst.”

Yellow Robe, who hopes someday to move home again to the Fort Peck Reservation, reflected, “It’s like the old people used to say: We are related to the world.”

View the “IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas” exhibition online at www.americanindian.si.edu/exhibitions/indivisible

—

By Kara Briggs
American Indian News Service

Download this article as a Word document.v3i2-theater-play

Courtesy of the National Museum of the American Indian “Meet Christopher”—the fourth title in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’s illustrated series for 9- to 12-year-olds—introduces a young Osage boy from northeast Oklahoma.

Author Genevieve Simermeyer selected her cousin as the focus of the book, the fourth in the My World series published by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Christopher Cote lives in Skiatook, Okla., a town on the border of the Osage reservation. Simermeyer, who is the museum’s school programs manager, and Katherine Fogden, who is a museum photographer and Mohawk, traveled to Oklahoma to document Christopher’s life.

“I think what makes him interesting is that he is a lot like every other kid in his school,” Simermeyer said. “He’s in the band, he likes to play the trombone. He very much has a sense of not having to be only one thing or another. Participating in all the extracurricular activities doesn’t impinge on being an Osage person. They are all a part of who he is; he doesn’t feel like one thing is more important than the other.”

Christopher was 11 when the author began her research by chatting with him on the phone. Producing the book took over two years, and now Christopher is a freshman in high school. Simermeyer said he is proud to be the protagonist, and his family is proud of his willingness to share his life story.

But the book isn’t only about a boy, it’s also about his multigenerational Osage family. One scene describes Christopher going with his parents and older brother to Osage language class at the library. His family stopped routinely speaking Osage when his great-grandmother was a young girl.

The book explains, “One of our teachers, Mr. Lookout, told us that we are pioneers in re-learning Osage. Our class has people of all ages in it—kids, teenagers, adults and elders—and all of us are excited to be hearing and speaking our original language.”

Two other books received awards from the American Indian Library Association. Lurline Wailana McGregor’s “Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me: A Novel” (Kamehameha Publishing) was named Best Young Adult Book; and Thomas King’s “A Coyote Solstice Tale” (Groundwood Books), illustrated by Gary Clement, was named Best Picture Book.

“Meet Christopher: An Osage Indian Boy from Oklahoma” can be purchased by going to the museum’s website, at http://AmericanIndian.si.edu/MeetChristopher, or from Council Oak Books at www.counciloakbooks.com.

—-

By Kara Briggs
American Indian News Service

Download this article as a Word document.

Illustration by Joe Poccia

Howard-Yana Shapiro, the global director of plant science and external research at Mars Incorporated, will give a talk about the mythology of chocolate and its relationship with indigenous peoples at 2 p.m. on both days.

Over his long career Shapiro has taught sustainable agriculture in universities, junior colleges and high schools throughout the United States. In documenting the oral history of seeds, he turned to the cacao bean—the basis of chocolate—and traced it through agricultural practices and archives to its roots in the cultures of the Mayans and their ancestors.

Shapiro is the co-author with Louis E. Grivetti of “Chocolate: History, Culture and Heritage” (Wiley, 2009), a book that takes a long look at the fascinating history of chocolate. Shapiro recently joined American Indian News Service editor Kara Briggs for a conversation about the Native American roots of chocolate.

Shapiro: From a domestic standpoint, chocolate really goes back only 1,500 years from the Mayans. The Olmecs, or however you refer to the people before the Mayans, are the ones who domesticated it. From a simple perspective, it’s a fairly recent crop, but because there has been so much complicated history about how it fits into mythology and the world story, it has really taken on this amazing role in culture.

Briggs: In your research you found stories about how cacao came to be sacred.

Shapiro: In the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico—where I was doing research on the Zapotecs and their use of cacao—it was so integrated into their lives, its preparation and its ceremonial use. There were myths about how the chocolate came into being. There is a Mayan myth about how it was like any other tree in the forest, then Christ appeared and he was persecuted by his enemies and he ran into the forest and took refuge under the cacao tree. When he touched it, the tree blossomed with white flowers, and the flowers covered him. He gave the tree to the people; they called it a tree of knowledge. Later when they used the cacao beans for money, it lost its power. There is another story that while the emperor was away, his enemies came and assaulted his wife. Still she wouldn’t tell them where the treasure was hidden. They killed her, so the cacao beans are bitter like suffering, and they are strong seeds like virtue.

Briggs: Is the history of the cacao bean tied to indigenous people both in its origins and in its ongoing cultivation, by indigenous peoples who live near the equator around the world?

Courtesy of Mars, Incorporated Howard-Yana Shapiro

Shapiro: When we consider chocolate was domesticated by the Olmecs, used by the Mayans, spread around the world by the Spanish, cultivated by the Ivoirians of West Africa and the Indonesians, it’s been inextricably linked to indigenous people for 1,500 years. The cacao tree is very susceptible to diseases. In history we find references shortly after the conquest of Mexico that the tree already showed signs of suffering from diseases, suffering because it didn’t have enough shade. In the 1,500 years when it was domesticated, it has suffered from disease.

Briggs: Is chocolate still a significant crop in the Americas? Is it still farmed? Is it still used culturally by Native peoples?

Shapiro: It’s significantly farmed in Brazil, which was the second-largest producer in the world until the late 1980s, when this disease called witches’ broom wiped out the production. West Africa produces 70 percent of the cacao crop. Indonesia and Brazil are coming back under different production models. It is grown a little in Mexico, Belize, Honduras and Panama. Farther south, there is a substantial production in Ecuador and Venezuela. Mexico absolutely is where its hold went beyond mythology to a central part of culture. In Oaxaca, and in Mexico City and Monterrey, on the Day of the Dead it is completely integrated in the culture. Even around Veracruz, the indigenous peoples are still very involved with cacao. I’ve seen necklaces strung of cacao beans and corn hung around the necks of church statues of the Virgin Mary and Christ. I’ve seen processions of people carrying strings of cacao beans on bamboo poles to be blessed by priests. In the Oaxacan lowlands, the Sierra highlands and the Sierra mountains, it is expected that you will be served hot chocolate made with water and sometimes chile in the mornings. There are ceremonies where they will add a froth on top, and that is an extreme honor.

Briggs: Is the chocolate bar the most common use of chocolate in the world?

Shapiro: The ubiquitous chocolate bars made by companies like Mars Incorporated, include its brands M&M’S®, SNICKERS® and others. Mars is the largest user of cacao beans. We source from all over the world. It’s hard to go somewhere where there hasn’t been a traditional use of chocolate, or else they are evolving it, like in China. China is developing a taste for chocolate.

Briggs: Eleven years ago, Mars Incorporated convened a meeting with the Smithsonian Institution and non-governmental organizations from around the world to talk about the role of the cacao tree in sustaining the tropics, and maybe sustaining the peoples of the tropics.

Shapiro: Out of that meeting, Mars developed a program to encourage best practices in farming the cacao tree. In West Africa, we do it through the sustainable tree program. Since June 6, 2006, we have been sequencing the cacao genome. The findings are being put in the public domain and they won’t be able to be patented. That is unique in the world of agricultural research.

Briggs: What does this mean for cacao farmers, who as we’ve said are indigenous from many regions of the world, and who are small farmers, who eke out a living from this globally-traded, fragile crop.

Shapiro: In modern times we assumed there were only three genetic structures of the cacao tree. Over the centuries people bred these and didn’t make other selections. Over the last 15 months, we discovered that there are 10 genetic structures of the cacao, and there is a potential to add to the gene pool. All those things point to the potential to strengthen this fragile tree that is cultivated by indigenous people around the world, but is linked to the GNPs (gross national product) of countries. It is 30 percent of the GNP of the Ivory Coast and 20 percent of the GNP of Ghana. It is more valuable in modern times than gold, and it is dependant on 6.5 million small farmers around the world, working an average of 2.5 hectares (about 6 acres) of land each.

Briggs: Mars Incorporated is the largest buyer of cacao beans in the world, and since 2002 it has set a goal of buying cacao beans which have been certified to have been grown using best practices.

Shapiro: When we started, there were probably only 20,000 metric tons of sustainably-grown cacao beans available globally. Now there are probably over one million metric tons that you would call certifiable. Mars is forming a coalition of the largest chocolate companies, and with these partnerships, it is likely that the idea of sustainability will soon sweep the chocolate world. The result—that farmers will have better yield and better productivity, matched with the social issues—is amazing to consider. A farmer should be able to triple his yield with good agronomy, and to get out of the kind of marginal life we imagine in North Africa. With a triple yield, the farmer should be able to get out of the poverty cycle

Briggs: Does chocolate, which began in its earliest-known use as a sacred plant, still carry some of that importance even in other cultures? I ask considering the deep feelings that people express through the giving of chocolate?

Shapiro: In Central Sulawesi, a state in Indonesia, in a town that has been built largely on the success of cacao farming, there is a statue, a set of hands 18 to 20 feet high which hold a giant cacao pod. I’ve seen metaphors like that on different scales everywhere. Chocolate is one of the great stories of the world. Unlike corn or wheat that can be grown on a large scale, cacao will always be a crop for small, indigenous farmers. Even if we can make the crop more robust, it will still be a tropical plant, grown in forests as an understory plant. You can’t get to it by tractors, you can only harvest it with the human hand.

—-

Download this article as a Word document.

By Walt Pourier, Nakota Designs, Inc. The All Nations Skate Jam is held in the Los Altos Skate Park in Albuquerque, N.M., on the same weekend as the Gathering of Nations Powwow.

Skateboarding is an indigenous American sport, said curator Betsy Gordon. Using historic and contemporary photos, the exhibition explores the Native skateboard movement.

Skateboards were born of Hawaiian surf culture, rooted in ancient traditions of the Polynesian islands. Surfers figure in the Hawaiian Islands’ ancient petroglyphs. The 2001 documentary “Dogtown and Z-Boys,” narrated by Sean Penn, tells the story of the young skaters in Santa Monica, Calif., in the 1970s who evolved modern skateboarding by borrowing the styles of renowned Native Hawaiian surfer Larry Bertlemann.

“Larry Bertlemann started surfing in a remarkable way,” Gordon said. “He had a low-slung way, aggressively darting in and out of the waves. There were a group of surfers who wanted to emulate what Larry was doing on his surfboard, and they did it on skateboards.”

American Indian kids followed the trends, skating on homemade ramps and paved parking lots. As the Native skaters of the 1970s and 1980s matured, they looked to skateboarding as a way to promote a healthy lifestyle and culture among Native young people.

In the past decade, several small Native-owned skateboard companies have emerged, such as Jim Murphy’s Wounded Knee Skateboards in the New York City borough of Queens.

“The reason I am doing this company is not to make money, except to keep it going so when I go to Wounded Knee, I can take boards,” said Murphy, who was a pro skateboarder in the 1980s and is of Lenni Lenape descent. “I know what it is to grow up poor, and what a difference it makes when I can give a board away to a kid who I know can’t afford it.”

Native skateboarders have been putting culturally significant designs on skateboard decks almost from the beginning. Many of the skateboards feature Native graphics like big eagle feathers and medicine wheels.

In recent years, new skate parks are being built at reservations across the country, including Cheyenne River Sioux in Eagle Butte, S.D.; Osage Nation in Pawhuska, Okla.; and Gila River Indian Community in Sacaton, Ariz. Some communities report a decline in crime after establishing the parks, which offer tribal youth something fun to do, Murphy said.

One central place the Native skate community gathers is the All Nations Skate Jam, held every year at the same time as the Gathering of Nations Powwow in Albuquerque, N.M. It attracts hundreds of American Indian kids who glide and fly on their skateboards while friends and families watch. With pro skaters offering demonstrations in a festival atmosphere over two days, the jam drew nearly 1,000 registrants last April.

“Once they start skateboarding,” said Murphy, of Wounded Knee Skateboards, “they are part of a global community.”

—–

By Kara Briggs
American Indian News Service

Download this article as a Word document.

Credit Rochester Institute of Technology Big Shot. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian lit on the exterior by more than 800 people holding flashlights and other light sources. Click photo for full resolution version.

The husband and wife team of Bill DuBois and Dawn Tower DuBois,  the photographers from the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology, perched atop 15 feet of scaffolding to take aim at the five-year-old museum building. Interior lights burned and rain glistened on the plaza. The Washington Monument loomed in the distance.

Every year, the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Big Shot project photographs a landmark building or location using hundreds of carefully aimed flashlights and camera flash units to create a magical image. The resulting photo is often called a “painting with light” because the institute’s photographers shoot a single extended exposure of 20-30 seconds.

Since 1987, photographs have included the U.S.S. Intrepid, the Royal Palace in Stockholm and the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, N.Y. View past Big Shot photographs at www.rit.edu/bigshot

Bill Destler, Rochester Institute of Technology’s president, declared the museum’s flagship building on the National Mall to be a “national landmark.”

Jason Younker, who is Coquille and assistant to the institute’s provost for Native American relations, stood with museum Director Kevin Gover in front of the building to provide perspective.

“We’re two shadows standing up front,” Younker said. “When I returned home, I showed my daughters the photo. I think it turned out fantastic.”

– American Indian News Service

Download this article as a Word document