This paper discusses ways Dine peoples can use cultural knowledge to rebuild and decolonize the Navajo Nation. In the past, leaders, warriors, and all peoples worked together to sustain their community's way of life. These stories and strategies can be helpful in rectifying and resolving many challenges and problems Dine peoples face in the…

In this testimony, Dr. Willard Sakiestewa Gilbert talks on behalf of the National Indian Education Association with regard to the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) and challenges facing BIE schools in improving student achievement. Founded in 1969, the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) is the largest organization in the nation dedicated…

Inconsistent government policies towards American Indian landholdings have created jurisdictional chaos on South Dakota's Sioux reservations. Although the Sioux had occupied the area of South Dakota since the seventeenth century, white settlers began to move into the territory in the 1840's. Despite treaties, the federal government began…

Primarily historical, the study examines the case of one absentee Native American band struggling to establish its identity and directions for a more prosperous future, and projects the implications of their situation for their intercultural relations. The central research question asks what are the intercultural communication problems which…

This article asserts if Americans continue to pump, mine and extract natural resources they will inevitably confront the harsh but intractable facts of nature, and that a salvageable future must be one of limits, of new social controls and of recovering an old ethic which honors foresight, forebearance and sharing. (Author/RTS)

This paper discusses policy trends in American Indian higher education. Until the latter half of this century, teaching and learning diversity for American Indian students had meant assimilation into the white culture. It did not include retaining Indian value systems or beliefs, and against this background federal educational policies on Indian…

This paper discusses American Indian educational policies and implications for educational leadership by Indian women. The paper begins with an overview of federal Indian educational policies from 1802 to the 1970s. As the tribes have moved toward self-determination in recent years, a growing number of American Indian women have assumed leadership…

This paper summarizes the history of Oklahoma Indians, highlights the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and relates the story of the family of one Oklahoma Cherokee woman, Lou Jane Morgan Jernigan. Oklahoma is the state with the largest population of Indians, largely due to federal policy in the 19th century, which forced Indians into Oklahoma (or…

Although altered by government and religious sanctions since the establishment of reservations in 1878, the Omaha dance still serves as an obtrusive demonstration of tribal identity and cohesion for the Oglala and Sicangu Sioux. The dance achieved a high level of prominence as a successful celebration for petitioning supernatural protection in…

Assistant Secretary Gover apologizes for the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) actions in the ethnic cleansing of American Indian tribes and the destruction of Indian cultures. He asserts the agency's moral responsibility of putting things right and proposes that a healing process begin and that the BIA work to reinvent itself as an instrument of…

Asserting that non-Indians, by and large, have inevitably viewed Indians and interpreted their words, deeds, lifeways and values from their own Euro-American perspectives, this article suggests this has led to misunderstanding, frictions and conflicts which plague the relationships between Indians and non-Indians today. (Author/RTS)

This report summarizes an open discussion between members of the Indian Nations At Risk Task Force and the National Advisory Council on Indian Education (NACIE) and conference attenders following 2 days of testimony about issues in Native American education. An administrator outlined the loss of educational opportunity for Native Americans during…

Indian control of Indian education, whether defined as control by the individual parent, parental school board or committee, or tribal council, has had legislative support since the passage of the Indian Self-Determination Act in 1978. While the authority for overseeing the federal trust responsibility for Indian people remains with the Bureau of…

In traditional North American Indian societies, decisions are made by consensus rather than by authorities. Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO), an organization concerned with the issue of tribal governance, considers poor communication and disagreements about issues of power, resources, and recognition to be among the causes for conflict…

Viewing indigenous peoples of the United States as ethnic/racial minorities is a misconception because there is no given ethnicity which might be correctly said to encompass the more than 400 distinctly identifiable ethnicities comprising what is lumped in the catchall category of "Native Americans" and because notions of ethnic/racial minority…