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.”

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By Kara Briggs, American Indian News Service

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.”

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By Kara Briggs
American Indian News Service

Download this article as a Word document.

The All Nations Skate Jam, held every year at the same time as the Gathering of Nations Powwow in Albuquerque, N.M., attracts hundreds of American Indian kids who glide and fly on their skateboards while their friends and families watch.

By Walt Pourier, Nakota Designs, Inc. Images from the All Nations Skate Jam in 2008 and 2009, held in the Los Altos Skate Park in Albuquerque, N.M., on the same weekend as the Gathering of Nations Powwow.

“Ramp It Up!”, an exhibition this summer at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., focuses on skateboarding, which has become one of the most popular sports in Native communities—in addition to better-known Indian Country sports like basketball, lacrosse and rodeo.

“A lot of Native kids are athletic,” said Todd Harding, who is Creek and the co-founder of the All Nations Skate Jam. “They’re fearless, they still have that warrior mentality in their blood memory. This is a way they can test those skills.”

Skateboarding isn’t new to Native America. As soon as the first skateboards, called sidewalk surfboards, were introduced in California half a century ago, Native teens throughout the Southwest were skating.

Skateboarding is an indigenous American sport, said exhibition curator Betsy Gordon. Using historic photographs and contemporary ones, the museum’s exhibition explores the Native skateboard movement. Skateboards were born from 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 young skaters in Santa Monica, Calif., in the 1970s who evolved modern skateboarding by copying 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 the skateboards. At that moment skateboarding developed its own set of moves, separate from sidewalk surfing.”

By Walt Pourier Nakota Designs, Inc.

By Walt Pourier Nakota Designs, Inc.

American Indians followed the trends. Native kids skated 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 Harding’s Native Skates in Adrian, Mich., and 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.”

The skateboards, whether Harding’s or Murphy’s, feature Native graphics like big eagle feathers and medicine wheels. When Harding sets up his booth at powwows, the designs stop kids in their tracks. He uses the moment to quiz them about their cultures.

Referring to the American Indian Movement’s 1971 occupation of the notorious island prison in San Francisco Bay, he’ll say, “Do you know what Alcatraz is?”

At the Pala Skate Park on the Pala Band of Mission Indians Reservation in Southern California, Harding asked kids, “How do you say, ‘Hi, my name is…’ in your language?”

Native skateboarders at the museum A demonstration of skills by Native skateboarders will be held in the museum’s Potomac Atrium. It will be at 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Friday, July 3; Saturday, July 4; and Sunday, July 5.

Gordon recalls, “No one knew, so he was like, ‘Call up your mom and ask her. If she doesn’t know, call your grandma.’ Soon we had the grandma on speaker phone.”

Native skateboarders have been putting culturally significant designs on skateboard decks almost from the beginning. The expression is unique, Harding said, and something he doesn’t see among other cultural groups.

Maybe what has attracted Native youth to skateboarding all along has been some of the linkages between the sport and their culture. Skaters have been outsiders because of the way they dress or the music they listen to, Harding said, not unlike Native Americans.

“Even though it’s a true-born Native sport to America,” Harding said, “it’s been hated since it’s been around. They don’t want the kids skating here or riding there. A lot of the ways skaters are treated parallels the way we as Native peoples have been treated here. They may not want us to ride in the best areas, but we are still going to exist.”

Skateboarders find their own community, often forming ad-hoc groups who share a skate park or skate in similar styles. “Once they start skateboarding,” Murphy said, “they are part of a global community.”

One place the Native skate community gathers is at the All Nations Skate Jam, which has doubled the number of skateboarders registered in each of the three years it’s been held. The jam, with pro skaters offering demonstrations in a festival atmosphere over two days, drew nearly 1,000 registrants in April. Parents in bleachers watched between sessions of the Gathering of Nations powwow.

Fred Mullins, who works as an addiction prevention counselor at the Seminole Tribe of Florida, came to the All Nations Skate Jam before starting a program for Seminole youth.

Mullins, who made his own board in the 1950s by tying roller-skate wheels to a 2-by-4, is using skateboarding to promote healthy lifestyles among youth at Seminole. In communities where more than half of the families deal with addiction or domestic violence, Mullins has formed a club, Skaters’ Nation, where youth who pledge to remain drug- and alcohol-free learn “101 ways to fly without drugs.”

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.

The All Nations Skate Jam was a moving experience for Mullins.

“Every morning, sessions opened with a gentleman who came burning sage, and we had prayers together,” he said. “To bring that many kids, and to see them in their own world, where it was like they were family meeting for the first time—we didn’t have to tell them how to behave.”

Watch a video from the 2008 All Nations Skate Jam.

Watch a video by skateboarder Dustinn Craig, a White Mountain Apache/Navajo multimedia producer and director. View Dustinn Craig video.

Watch video from the 1970s of Native Hawaiian surfer Larry Bertlemann, whose style inspired generations of skateboarders.

View an interview with Larry Bertlemann on Grind TV from 2006.