The Wrap: Festivities during Indigenous Peoples’ Day

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Indigenous Peoples' Day celebrations unite generations

RAPID CITY, S.D. – Main Street Square in Rapid City was alive Monday afternoon with Indigenous culture. Flags from various Indigenous nations flew downtown as music, food and fun marked the NDN Collective's second annual Indigenous Peoples' Day Celebration.

Decades ago a celebration like this wouldn't have been possible. It wasn't until 1978 that the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed, allowing Native people to freely celebrate their religious and cultural practices.

Betty Handley, a Hunkpapa Lakota elder descended from Sitting Bull's camp, sat alongside her grandson Christopher Piña watching the festivities downtown. For Handley, the celebration was groundbreaking.

"I've lived here since 1945 and we never saw anything like this," said Betty Handley. "We never had powwows, dancing or anything."

Born in 1940, Handley moved to Rapid City at five years old, leaving her home in Little Eagle, S.D., on the Standing Rock Reservation. In Rapid City, Handley spent 10 years living along Rapid Creek in a small clapboard housing village called Camp Oshkosh. READ MORE — Amelia Schafer, ICT and Rapid City Journal

After 2022, tribal involvement in the Arizona's State Fair's Native American Rodeo waned

PHOENIX – The Arizona State Fair is one of Arizona's longest-standing traditions, dating back almost 30 years before statehood. Starting all the way back in 1884, it's one of the largest fairs in the United States, bringing in over 1.4 million visitors in 2023.

The Native American Rodeo is part of the rich tradition of the fair, with spectators and competitors from tribal nations across the country. It celebrates the Indigenous peoples who heavily influenced the history of Arizona. It is one of the most popular events among Indigenous communities at the fair, but there are questions surrounding their involvement with all aspects of the rodeo.

"I think to bring back some of the Native culture that we don't have like we used to, I think that would be good," said Jerry Honeycutt of Honeycutt Rodeo Company. He is a third-generation stock contractor, and his family has been working with the State Fair as long as he can remember. "My grandpa, Walt Alsbaugh, was at this rodeo many, many years ago. He started in the '40s, and I think his first Arizona State Fair was in the late '50s. And our family has been here this long, providing the livestock for the rodeo." READ MORE — Cronkite News

'A resilient plant'

Three tribes in northern Minnesota report a late start in this year's wild rice harvest with varying results. For Bois Forte Band of Chippewa and Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa heavy rainfall and precipitation in the spring and summer proved to make growth difficult for wild rice, negatively impacting the amount of wild rice that could be harvested.

Bois Forte Band's natural resources program manager Chris Holm says Nett Lake, where band members typically rice, had around 5,000 acres worth of beds to harvest in 2023. However, this year there were only an estimated 800 acres available.

"It seems like we're getting more instances of more extreme weather and water level fluctuations," Holm said. Nett Lake's average depth of water where beds are located is three feet.

This was not the first time in recent years that Nett Lake has experienced flooding in wild rice beds. Holm says 2022 also proved to be a difficult season with flooding.

Thomas Howes is the natural resources program manager at Fond du Lac Band. He says wild rice begins its growth cycle around spring each year beginning with the seeds that fell into the waters from the previous fall's harvest. Under the right circumstances, it can take anywhere from weeks to months for those seeds to germinate and grow. READ MORE — MPR News

Corrections pledges to rebuild sweat lodges dismantled during prison lockdown

The South Dakota Department of Corrections says it will rebuild three sweat lodges dismantled during a weekslong lockdown at the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

The DOC started what it described as a "proactive" lockdown to perform a facility-wide search for contraband on Sept. 15. Last week, the agency sent a press release saying it was transitioning out of lockdown status .

Between announcing the lockdown's beginning and its end, the DOC sent a news release with photos of alleged contraband , including sharp objects and a mobile wi-fi hotspot. The DOC sent a news release with more photos of alleged contraband Monday evening, in a release calling the lockdown a success.

The agency did not mention the sweat lodges in any of the the releases.

Late last week, an inmate named Gerald Thin Elk told South Dakota Searchlight that inmates went five days without showers at the start of the lockdown, that most of his unit remained on lockdown after its end was announced, and that the lodges had been dismantled as inmates sat in their cells. READ MORE — South Dakota Searchlight

New rule adds Alaska tribal representatives to federal board managing subsistence

The federal government board that manages subsistence will be expanded with three representatives of Alaska Native tribes, under a new rule the Biden administration made final on Wednesday.

The new Federal Subsistence Board members are to be nominated by federally recognized tribes. They need not be tribal citizens or Native themselves, but they must have "personal knowledge of and direct experience with subsistence uses in rural Alaska, including Alaska Native subsistence uses," according to the rule.

The term " subsistence " refers to harvests of fish, game and plants for personal or family consumption or material to be used in artwork, clothing or toolmaking. For Alaska Natives, subsistence is connected to cultural traditions.

The board manages those harvests that are conducted on federal lands within Alaska.

It currently has eight members. Five are the Alaska directors of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land Management. There are three public representatives on the board, including its chairman. READ MORE — Alaska Beacon

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