cultural identity

Chemşhúun Pe'ícháachuqeli (When our Hearts are Happy): A Tribal Psychosocial Climate Resilience Framework

Year

Tribes are keenly aware of the interconnection between health, nature, and personal wellbeing. Leading experts in climate change and wellbeing are increasingly encouraging communities to be proactive about protecting and building psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual wellbeing. Often overlooked in adaptation planning, wellbeing interventions can be critical to adapting to the growing stressors and trauma associated with climate change.

Climate changes are expected to present unpredictable, severe, long-term, and recurring adversities for communities across the U.S. They can induce biological stress responses, especially in the absence of personal coping skills and trusted social relationships. New climate stressors compound historical traumas that tribes encountered over generations of ecological and political change, such as the eviction of the Cupeño people from their ancestral homeland in 1903. The need for trauma-and culture-informed interventions is greater and more urgent than ever.

Chemşhúun Pe'ícháachuqeli, Pala’s Tribal Psychosocial Climate Resilience Framework, is designed to help Pala and other communities consider how to safeguard mental and emotional wellbeing when preparing for the impacts of climate change. This report is part of Pala’s National Indian Health Board (NIHB) funded Climate Change Adaptation Plan, which incorporates health and wellbeing strategies.

Resource Type
Citation

Gaughen, Shasta and Angie Hacker. Chemşhúun Pe'ícháachuqeli (When our Hearts are Happy): A Tribal Psychosocial Climate Resilience Framework. (June 2019). Pala Band of Mission Indians: Pala, CA. Accessed March 22, 2023: http://tribalclimatehealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Psychosocial-…

Determi-Nation podcast with Darrah Blackwater

Year

Determi-Nation is a series of conversations with Indigenous people doing incredible things to strengthen sovereignty and self-determination in their communities.

Resource Type
Citation

Blackwater, Darrah. Determi-Nation. Podcast series. Spotify. 2021. https://open.spotify.com/show/4u4xUXS3JLuhWroYoDd7xx

Transcript available on request. Please email us: nni@arizona.edu

Return of the Red Lake Walleye (Ogaag bii azhe giiwewag)

Author
Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

The Native Nations Institute's film "Return of the Red Lake Walleye" is a 30-minute documentary that tells a compelling story of tribal sovereignty in practice. It chronicles the extraordinary effort of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians -- working together with the State of Minnesota and the federal government -- to bring back the culturally vital walleye from the brink of extinction and restore it to health in Red Lake. It examines how the Band and State overcame decades of bad blood to forge an innovative public policy solution that puts cooperation before conflict and science before politics, fueling an amazing recovery that has defied the odds.

Resource Type
Citation

Record, Ian (Director). (2010). Return of the Red Lake Walleye [film]. Native Nations Institute. Tucson, AZ.

Water is Life video series Part 3 Mni Wiconi

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

The Native Nations Institute produced a three-part educational video series called, “Water is Life." The video series brings a Native nation building perspective to the conflict over the Dakota Access Pipeline and features interviews with LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, former tribal historic preservation officer for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; Eileen Briggs, a community leader from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe; and Dave Archambault II, former chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Produced in 2016 when the Dakota Access Pipeline was under construction, the underground oil pipeline extending from North Dakota to Illinois was being built to transport millions of gallons of crude oil. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe had acted to prevent pipeline construction within their treaty lands, on their reservation, through sacred sites, and under the rivers that are their sole source of drinking water.

Part 3: Mni Wiconi. Native nations are taking an active part in key public policy debates, their voices and vision provide new options for addressing the challenges we all face.

Transcript available upon request. Please email: nni@email.arizona.edu

Water is Life video series Part 2 Oceti Sakowin

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

The Native Nations Institute produced a three-part educational video series called, “Water is Life." The video series brings a Native nation building perspective to the conflict over the Dakota Access Pipeline and features interviews with LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, former tribal historic preservation officer for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; Eileen Briggs, a community leader from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe; and Dave Archambault II, former chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Produced in 2016 when the Dakota Access Pipeline was under construction, the underground oil pipeline extending from North Dakota to Illinois was being built to transport millions of gallons of crude oil. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe had acted to prevent pipeline construction within their treaty lands, on their reservation, through sacred sites, and under the rivers that are their sole source of drinking water.

Part 2: Oceti Sakowin. This video emphasizes that Native nations governed themselves before European settlement in North America. These governing systems—rooted in the people and in their lands—remain as tools for making difficult collective decisions today.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Water is Life video series Part 2 Oceti Sakowin." NNI Studio production, University of Arizona. Tucson, AZ. Nov 16, 2016

Water is Life video series Part 1 The Lakota and Dakota People

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

The Native Nations Institute produced a three-part educational video series called, “Water is Life." The video series brings a Native nation building perspective to the conflict over the Dakota Access Pipeline and features interviews with LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, former tribal historic preservation officer for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; Eileen Briggs, a community leader from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe; and Dave Archambault II, former chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Produced in 2016 when the Dakota Access Pipeline was under construction, the underground oil pipeline extending from North Dakota to Illinois was being built to transport millions of gallons of crude oil. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe had acted to prevent pipeline construction within their treaty lands, on their reservation, through sacred sites, and under the rivers that are their sole source of drinking water.

Part 1: The Lakota and Dakota People. A core message of this video is that the U.S. government drew reservation boundaries, but Native nations have never ceased to fulfill their responsibility to care for ancestral lands and waters. 

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Water is Life video series Part 1 The Lakota and Dakota People." NNI Studio production, University of Arizona. Tucson, AZ. Nov 16, 2016

Avery Denny: Origins of Navajo Leadership

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Avery Denny is a member of Diné Medicine Man’s Association and is faculty at the Center for Diné Studies at Diné college Diné hatáli. As an instructor for over 29 years, he has taught courses on herbology, holistic healing, and Diné culture, oral history and philosophy.  Avery is a Diné hatáli, singer of the blessing way, beauty way, night way and enemy way, and has dedicated his life to retaining and teaching Diné Bizaad.  He offers stories about the origins of leadership for Diné and the power of learning language.

People
Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Avery Denny: Origins of Navajo Leadership."  Leading Native Nations, Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, September 15, 2015

For a complete transcript, please email us: nni@email.arizona.edu

Sovereignty and Peoplehood

Author
Producer
University of Arizona, American Indian Studies
Year

The term "sovereignty" perplexes students of the American Indian policy perhaps more than any other concept. The word comes from the Old French soverain or souverein and was usually used in reference to a king or lord who had the undisputed right to make decisions and act accordingly with or without the benefit of counsel, religious sanction or consent of the governed. The word is also very likely linked to the Old French rene from which, in turn, the English derived the word "rein." Reins, of course, are used to control horses and the terminology aptly applies to those who maintained absolute control over particular populaces and territories under the European feudal system, mounted, arms-bearing, property-owning "thugs in armor" known as knights. Sovereyneté, which was imposed on the English by the Norman conquest of 1066 and hence became an Anglo-French word, has come to mean the acknowledged legal authority of a ruler or a state. Sovereignty, then, is a Western European concept that is often associated with taking and holding ground in a military sense. The authority to wield power, simple coercion, underpinned the concept of sovereignty...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Holm, Tom. "Sovereignty and Peoplehood." Red Ink: A Native American Student Publication. Vol. 8, No. 2. American Indian Studies Program, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2000: 41-44. Article.

Zuni Eagle Sanctuary

Year

Responding to ceremonial needs for eagle feathers, in 1999, the Pueblo opened the first-ever Native American owned and operated eagle sanctuary. The award-winning facility provides a source of molted eagle feathers for Zuni while at the same time reviving the ancient practice of eagle husbandry. Today, the Sanctuary is home to 16 eagles — all of which are non-releasable, typically because of a permanent debilitating injury — which enables the Pueblo to distribute tens of thousands of feathers using tribal protocol. The Sanctuary also administers a community education program, a raptor care training program, and has strengthened Zuni’s ties with dozens of outside agencies.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

"Zuni Eagle Sanctuary." Honoring Nations: 2002 Honoree. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2003. Report.

Permissions

This Honoring Nations report is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

Navajo Nation Corrections Project

Year

Established in 1983, the Corrections Project facilitates, coordinates, and advocates for the use of spiritual ceremonies, cultural activities, and counseling for Navajo and other Indians in correctional facilities. As the liaison between inmates, their families, and Indian and non-Indian government agencies, the project researches and implements unmet spiritual, cultural, and legal needs. In 2002 alone, the 30 correctional facilities were visited and more than 2,000 clients were served.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

"Navajo Nation Corrections Project". Honoring Nations: 2003 Honoree. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2004. Report. 

Permissions

This Honoring Nations report is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.