The date marks the slaughter of hundreds of Lakota, including women and children, in the snow at Wounded Knee Creek by the 7th Cavalry on Dec. 29, 1890.

“I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee,” Maj. Gen. Nelson Miles, who took over the 7th Cavalry after the noncombatant deaths came to light, wrote in a private letter.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon announced it would review 20 Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers who took part in the massacre as the military continues efforts to acknowledge the role that racism may have played in its past and that not all of its awardees meet modern standards of heroism.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed a five-member panel to present recommendations by Oct. 15, but those recommendations have yet to be announced.

As the last decade of the 19th century began, the Indigenous Lakota Sioux people of the Great Plains had been put in government reservations, according to History.com. Their culture and hunting livelihoods were destroyed as white settlers seized their lands and pursued fortunes of gold in the Black Hills of what had become South Dakota.

As noted by History.com, the year 1890 would only compound their despair, bringing prolonged drought and outbreaks of measles, influenza and whooping cough. As their world crumbled around them, many found hope in a dance ritual that adherents believed would ultimately spark an upheaval in which their enemies would be ousted and their once-free existence restored.

White settlers, however, viewed the growing Ghost Dance practice as a harbinger of insurrection. President Benjamin Harrison dispatched the 7th Cavalry to the area, where growing tensions would culminate in the slaughter of hundreds of Lakota at Wounded Knee Creek on Dec. 29, 1890.

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Osceola was named Billy Powell at his birth in 1804 in the Upper Creek village of Talisi, which means "Old Town". The village site, now the city of Tallassee, Alabama, was located on the banks of the Tallapoosa River about 20 miles (32 km) upstream from Fort Toulouse where the Tallapoosa and the Coosa rivers meet to form the Alabama River. His mother was Polly Coppinger, a mixed-race Creek woman, and his father was most likely William Powell, a Scottish trader.

In 1814, after the Red Stick Muscogee Creeks were defeated by United States forces, Polly took Osceola and moved with other Muscogee refugees from Alabama to Florida, where they joined the Seminole. In adulthood, as part of the Seminole, Powell was given his name Osceola (/ˌɒsiːˈoʊlə/ or /ˌoʊseɪˈoʊlə/). This is an anglicized form of the Creek Vsse Yvholv (pronounced [asːi jahoːla]), a combination of vsse, the ceremonial black drink made from the yaupon holly, and yvholv, often translated "shouter" but referring specifically to the one who performs a special whoop at the Green Corn Ceremony or archaically to a tribal town officer responsible for offering the black drink.

In April 1818 during the First Seminole War, Osceola and his mother where living in Peter McQueen's village near the Econfina River, when it was attacked and destroyed by the Lower Creek allies of U.S. General Andrew Jackson that were led by William McIntosh. Many surviving Red Stick warriors and their families, including McQueen, retreated south into the Florida peninsula.

In 1821, the United States acquired Florida from Spain (see the Adams-Onis Treaty), and more European-American settlers started moving in, encroaching on the Seminoles' territory. After early military skirmishes and the signing of the 1823 Treaty of Moultrie Creek, by which the U.S. seized the northern Seminole lands, Osceola and his family moved with the Seminole deeper into the unpopulated wilds of central and southern Florida.

Through the 1820s and the turn of the decade, American settlers continued pressuring the US government to remove the Seminole from Florida to make way for their desired agricultural development. In 1832, a few Seminole chiefs signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing, by which they agreed to give up their Florida lands in exchange for lands west of the Mississippi River in Indian Territory. According to legend, Osceola stabbed the treaty with his knife.

Five of the most important Seminole chiefs, including Micanopy of the Alachua Seminole, did not agree to removal. In retaliation, the US Indian agent, Wiley Thompson, declared that those chiefs were deposed from their positions. As US relations with the Seminole deteriorated, Thompson forbade the sale of guns and ammunition to them. Osceola, a young warrior rising to prominence, resented this ban. He felt it equated the Seminole with slaves, who were forbidden by law to carry arms.

Thompson considered Osceola to be a friend and gave him a rifle. Osceola had a habit of barging into Thompson's office and shouting complaints at him. On one occasion Osceola quarreled with Thompson, who had the warrior locked up at Fort King for two nights until he agreed to be more respectful. In order to secure his release, Osceola agreed to sign the Treaty of Payne's Landing and to bring his followers into the fort. After his humiliating imprisonment, Osceola secretly prepared vengeance against Thompson.

On December 28, 1835, Osceola, with the same rifle Thompson gave him, killed the Indian agent. Osceola and his followers shot six others outside Fort King, while another group of Seminole ambushed and killed a column of US Army, more than 100 troops, who were marching from Fort Brooke to Fort King. Americans called this event the Dade Massacre. These nearly simultaneous attacks catalyzed the Second Seminole War with the United States.

In April 1836, Osceola led a band of warriors in an attempt to expel U.S. forces from Fort Cooper. The fortification was built on the west bank of Lake Holathikaha as an outpost for actions against the local Seminole population. Despite running low on food, the U.S. garrison had enough gunpowder and ammunition to keep the Seminoles from taking the fort before reinforcements arrived.

On October 21st, 1837, in what historian Thom Hatch called "one of the most disgraceful acts in U.S. military history", Osceola was captured after U.S. forces disingenuously agreed to meet under a white flag of truce. Osceola was arrested along with 81 of his followers. He died in prison a few months later, on January 30th, 1838.

• A Seminole Warrior Cloaked in Defiance

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Jim Hallum grew up on the Santee Sioux Reservation in Nebraska not knowing anything about the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

Now, 162 years later, he and 30 others are on a nearly 300-mile ride from the reservation to southern Minnesota to mark one of the most tragic periods in Minnesota history — the hangings in Mankato of 38 Dakota warriors and two other men at the war’s end, the largest mass execution in American history.

Hallum is one of the organizers of the Dakota Exiles ride, a journey through frozen fields and open country covered in snow on horseback. They rode once before in 2020. They’ll meet up with another group of riders to commemorate the Dec. 26, 1862 hangings ordered by President Abraham Lincoln that led to a mass exile of Native people from Minnesota.

The ride is meant to honor those hanged in Mankato but also the thousands of people later forced from their homelands, Hallum said. Riders also want to preserve this painful history of the Dakota in the hope of helping heal the intergenerational trauma it created, he added.

Full article

by Taylar Dawn Stagner

The ongoing brutality committed against Indigenous peoples — land grabs, genocide, continuing disregard for self-determination and sovereignty — bolster a culture of over-consumption and play an undeniable role in the climate crisis. Given that anger is a hallmark of heavy metal, it isn’t surprising that an Indigenous audience would find it appealing.

Although often associated with Satan, swords, and sorcery (and illegible logos), metal has always reflected on the environment and the state of the world. Indigenous bands have been part of the scene almost from its start more than five decades ago, but the past few years have seen a growing number of Native musicians writing about a wide range of subjects, from rurality to discrimination to the universal experience of having a good time despite all of that.

Metal is famously opaque, with around 70 subgenres, but it is almost universally accepted that everything started with Black Sabbath in 1968. Even as that British quartet was laying the foundation, XIT, pronounced “exit,” was singing about the Indigenous experience on its 1972 album Plight of the Redman.

XIT, once deemed the “first commercially successful all-Indian rock band,” sang frankly and expressively about colonization, poverty, and the loss of Indigenous traditions. Its politics and performances at American Indian Movement rallies prompted FBI attempts to suppress its music, but that didn’t keep XIT from touring Europe three times and appearing with bands like ZZ Top. Although their best music is delightfully of the ‘70s, it remains radical stuff.

Winterhawk, led by Cree vocalist and guitarist Nik Alexander, explored similar themes in 1979 on Electric Warriors, an anti-colonial, pro-environmental message that could have been written today. “Man has his machines in mother earth, murdering the balance weaved destruction in our doom,” Alexander sang on “Selfish Man.” The song interrogates whether nuclear energy is worth destroying the land: “They say nuclear power is alright, like light to make the night bright. But it doesn’t mean you can have my birthright, does it, selfish man?” (Then, as now, Indigenous peoples were at the forefront of opposition to nuclear power.) The band was popular enough to perform with the likes of Van Halen and Motley Crue and earned a slot at the US Festival in 1983, but broke up a year later.

Full article___

It was barely a choice. In 1855, a time when the ink of border lines on United States maps had scarcely dried, Yakama Chief Kamiakin was told to sign over the land of 14 tribal nations and bands in the Pacific Northwest — or face the prospect of walking “knee deep” in the blood of his people.

Legend has it that, when he put pen to paper, he was so furious he bit through his lip.

By signing, he ceded over 10 million acres across what is now known as Washington state. In return, the Yakama Nation was allowed to live on a reservation one-tenth the size of their ancestral lands, about 100 miles southeast of Seattle.

But the story doesn’t end there. The treaty map was lost for close to 75 years, misfiled by a federal clerk who put it under “M” for Montana.

With no visual record to contradict them, federal agents extracted even more Yakama land for the nascent state, drawing new boundaries on new maps. One removed an additional 140,000 acres from the reservation, another about half a million, and still other versions exist.

By the time the original map was discovered in the 1930s, it was too late. Settlers had already made claims well within reservation boundaries, carving the consequences of this mistake into the contours of the land. Non-Native landowners remain to this day.

The Yakama want that land back. Most tribal members know the story of Kamiakin and his bloodied lip when he signed the treaty. Ask Phil Rigdon, a Yakama citizen and nationally recognized forester. As the superintendent of the Yakama Nation Department of Natural Resources, he deals with a medley of issues, but his most important work is getting the reservation land back. After working on this for nearly 20 years, he knows that it takes time and an entire community to make the progress they want.

“It’s a family thing for us, as we do this business,” he said.

Full article

Rosie Clayburn is a descendant of the Yurok Tribe, which had its territory — called 'O Rew in the Yurok language — ripped from them nearly two centuries ago.

"As the natural world became completely decimated, so did the Yurok people," she said.

That decimation started when miners rushed in for gold, killing and displacing tens of thousands of Native Americans in California and ravaging the redwood trees for lumber.

"Everything was extracted that was marketable," Clayburn said. "We've always had this really intricate relationship with the landscape. We've hunted, we've fished, we've gathered. And those are all management tools. Everything that we do has been in balance with the natural world."

Now, generations later, 125 acres bordering Redwood National and State Parks will be handed back to the Yuroks.

The nonprofit Save the Redwoods League purchased the land in 2013 from an old timber mill, with the original goal of giving it to the National Park Service.

"As we continued conversations about the transfer of this land to the National Park Service, we began to realize that perhaps a better alternative would be to transfer the land back to the Yurok Tribe," said Save the Redwoods League's Paul Ringgold. "No one knows this land better. They've been stewarding this land since time and memorial"

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At night, deep in the woods of northern Alberta, white images move across the dark screen, the ghostly figures fitting for a buffalo herd that is facing extirpation and now faces the prospect of oil and gas exploration in its range for the first time.

The Wabasca Herd, nestled in an area southwest of Wood Buffalo National Park, is down to six or seven animals, according to area trappers and advocates. That’s down from an estimate of nine animals just under two years ago.

“There’s only one bull left, and what we counted was six cows, one calf, on these wildlife cameras last winter,” Lorne Tallcree, a trapper, said in an interview. “We don’t know what’s left this winter.”

Tallcree is part of a group called ShagowAskee — a group of trappers, Elders and knowledge keepers — which has been advocating to protect the herd, putting pressure on industry, government and their own nations.

Logging in the herd’s range took place last winter, with more expected this year, and now the Little Red River Cree Nation is hosting meetings with Calgary-based Spur Petroleum about its planned exploratory drilling in the area, which is rich with oil deposits.

Tallcree, a member of the nation, says some in the community want to see the jobs that could come with oil and gas, but many are concerned.

He says 26 Elders are opposed to the development.

“They’re scared of what’s coming out, it’s gonna impact the environment, destroy the water, destroy all the medicinal plants they gather,” he said.

Full article

Tribal leaders, health officials, and a new federal report say patients are routinely billed anyway as a result of backlogs or mistakes from the Indian Health Service, financial middlemen, hospitals, and clinics.

Tescha Hawley learned that hospital bills from her son’s birth had been sent to debt collectors only when she checked her credit score while attending a home-buying class. The new mom’s plans to buy a house stalled.

Hawley’s local Indian Health Service hospital wasn’t equipped to deliver babies. But she said staff there agreed that the agency would pay for her care at a privately owned hospital more than an hour away.

That arrangement came through the Purchased/Referred Care program, which pays for services Native Americans can’t get through an agency-funded clinic or hospital. Federal law stresses that patients approved for the program aren’t responsible for any of the costs.

But tribal leaders, health officials, and a new federal report say patients are routinely billed anyway as a result of backlogs or mistakes from the Indian Health Service, financial middlemen, hospitals, and clinics.

The financial consequences for patients can last years. Those sent to collections can face damaged credit scores, which can prevent them from securing loans or require them to pay higher interest rates.

Full article

Mélanie O’Bomsawin didn’t grow up speaking Abenaki, her great-grandfather’s mother tongue. But in the past few years she’s been learning the language, and a year ago she started teaching it to others, including online courses from her home in Montreal. So when she saw a post online warning about Indigenous language books on Amazon that seemed to be generated by artificial intelligence, O’Bomsawin was on high alert. Sure enough, a quick search revealed a three-volume series of Abenaki learning books she had never seen before.

The books were titled The Most Frequently Used Abenaki Nouns, The Most Frequently Used Abenaki Verbs and The Most Frequently Used Abenaki Adjectives. They were part of a collection of language books on Amazon called Save Time by Learning the Most Frequently Used Words First.

O’Bomsawin immediately knew something was wrong about these books: unlike in English or French, there are no standalone adjectives in Abenaki. Her suspicions were confirmed when she opened up a sample of the text. She said the translations were incorrect, and some words were not even Abenaki.

Full article

The Battle of Noryang, the last major battle of the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), was fought between the Japanese navy and the combined fleets of the Joseon Kingdom and the Ming dynasty. It took place in the early morning of 16 December (19 November in the Lunar calendar) 1598 and ended past dawn.

The allied force of about 150 Joseon and Ming Chinese ships, led by admirals Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin, attacked and either destroyed or captured more than half of the 500 Japanese ships commanded by Shimazu Yoshihiro, who was attempting to link-up with Konishi Yukinaga. The battered survivors of Shimazu's fleet limped back to Busan and a few days later left for Japan. At the height of the battle, Yi was hit by a bullet from an arquebus and died shortly thereafter. Chen Lin reported the news back to the Wanli Emperor, and Chen and Yi were celebrated as national heroes thereafter.

Background

Due to setbacks in land and sea battles, the Japanese armies had been driven back to their network of fortresses, or wajō (和城), on the southeastern Korean coast. However, the wajō could not hold the entire Japanese army, so, in June 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Taikō who instigated the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), and also the acting Japanese Lord of War, ordered 70,000 troops mostly from the Japanese Army of the Right to withdraw to the archipelago.

The Sunch'on wajō was the westernmost Japanese fortress and contained 14,000 troops commanded by Konishi Yukinaga, who was the leader of Japan's vanguard contingent during the first invasion, in 1592. Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin blocked Konishi from retreat.

On 15 December, about 20,000 Japanese troops from the wajō of Sach'on, Goseong, and Namhae boarded 500 ships and began to mass east of the Noryang Strait in an attempt to break the allied blockade of Sunch'on. The overall commander of this relief force was Shimazu Yoshihiro, the leader of the Sach'on wajō.

The objective of the allied fleet was to prevent the link-up of Shimazu's fleet with the fleet of Konishi, then attack and defeat Shimazu's fleet. The objective of Shimazu's fleet was to cross Noryang Strait, link up with Konishi and retreat to Busan. Shimazu knew that Konishi was trying to cause disunity within the Joseon-Ming alliance and hoped that they would be busy elsewhere or still blockading the Sunch'on wajō and thus vulnerable to an attack from their rear.

Battle

On 15 December, a huge Japanese fleet was amassed in Sach'on Bay, on the east end of the Noryang Strait. Shimazu was not sure whether the allied fleet was continuing the blockade of Konishi's wajō, on its way to attack an abandoned wajō further east, or blocking their way on the western end of Noryang Strait.

The Joseon fleet consisted of 82 panokseon multi-decked oared ships. The Ming fleet consisted of six large war junks (true battle vessels most likely used as flagships) that were driven by both oars and sails, 57 lighter war ships driven by oars alone (most likely transports converted for battle use), and two panokseon provided by Yi. In terms of manpower, the allied fleet had 8,000 sailors and marines under Yi, 5,000 Ming men of the Guangdong Squadron, and 2,600 Ming marines who fought aboard Korean ships, a total of almost 16,000 sailors and fighting men.

The Japanese had 500 ships, but a significant part of their fleet consisted of light transports. The Japanese ships were well-armed with arquebuses and also had some captured Joseon cannon. The allied fleet was outnumbered, but made up for it with ships which, on average, had superior firepower and heavier, more sturdy construction.

The allied fleet waited for Shimazu on the west end of Noryang Strait. The battle began around 2:00 am on 16 December.

As in Yi's previous battles, the Japanese were unable to respond effectively as the Korean and Chinese cannon fire prevented them from moving. When the Japanese fleet was significantly damaged, Chen ordered his fleet to engage in melee combat. This allowed the Japanese to use their arquebuses and fight using their traditional fighting style of boarding enemy ships. When Chen's flagship was attacked, Yi had to order his fleet to engage in hand-to-hand combat as well.

By the middle of the battle, as dawn was about to break, the allied fleet had the upper hand and half of Shimazu's fleet was either sunk or captured. It was said that Yoshihiro's flagship was sunk and that he was clinging to a piece of wood in the icy water. Japanese ships came to his rescue, pulling him to safety. During the course of the battle, the ships fought from the west end of the strait all the way across to the east end, almost to the open water. The Japanese sustained heavy damage and began to retreat along the south coast of Namhae Island, towards Pusan

Yi's death

As the Japanese retreated, Yi ordered a vigorous pursuit. During this time a stray arquebus bullet from an enemy ship struck him near the armpit, on his left side. Sensing that the wound was fatal, the admiral uttered, "We are about to win the war – keep beating the war drums. Do not announce my death."

Only three people witnessed Yi Sun-sin's death including Yi Hoe (his eldest son), his adjutant Song Hui-rip, and Yi Wan, his nephew. They struggled to regain their composure and carried Sun-sin's body into his cabin before others could notice. For the remainder of the battle, Wan wore his uncle's armor and continued to beat the war drum to let the rest of the fleet know that the Admiral's flagship was still in the fight.

Chen's ship was again in trouble, and Yi's flagship rowed to his rescue. Yi's flagship fought off and sank several Japanese ships, and Chen called for Yi to thank him for coming to his aid. However, Chen was met by Wan who announced that his uncle was dead. It is said that Chen himself was so shocked that he fell to the ground three times, beating his chest and crying.

Aftermath

Out of 500 Japanese ships under Shimazu's command, an estimated 200 were able to make it back to Busan Harbor (other Joseon archives record that Shimazu's remnants were fiercely pursued by Yi Sun-sin's fleet: only 50 ships of Shimazu's armada ever managed to escape). Konishi Yukinaga left his fortress on 16 December and his men were able to retreat by sailing through the southern end of Namhae Island, bypassing both the Noryang Strait and the battle. Although he knew the battle was raging, he made no effort to help Shimazu. This led to the loss of crucial supply lines that caused the inevitable loss of all Japanese strongholds in Korea. Konishi Yukinaga, Shimazu Yoshihiro, Katō Kiyomasa, and other Japanese generals of the Left Army congregated in Busan and withdrew to Japan on 21 December. The last ships sailed to Japan on 24 December.

Yi Sun-sin's body was brought back to his home town in Asan to be buried next to his father, Yi Chong (in accordance with Korean tradition). The court gave him the posthumous rank of Minister of the Right. Shrines, both official and unofficial, were constructed in his honor. In 1643, Yi was given the title of chungmugong, "duke/lord of loyal valor".

Chen gave a eulogy while attending Yi's funeral. He then withdrew his forces to Ming China and received high military honors. Joseon officials feared another Japanese invasion and requested the Ming army to remain. The Ming agreed and left behind a force of 3–4,000, which aided Joseon efforts in rebuilding and training forces until 1601.

• Noryang Straits 1598 - End of the Imjin War

• First part of naval battle scene from the Korean movie Noryang: Deadly Sea, 2023

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Amid wetlands and stunning mountains, at the crossroads of caribou and bird migration routes, is the point where the Pelly and Ross rivers meet. Its name is Tū Łī́dlini, which means “where the rivers meet” in the Kaska language.

“Across from the mouth is where our people used to gather for thousands of years,” Roberta Dick, councillor for the Ross River Dena Council, explained. “People from the Northwest Territories and all over central Yukon would come there and gather and meet and have hand games and dances.”

Today, Ross River is still home to Kaska people, but the landscape has been disturbed in recent decades by mining. The presence of Kaska people has also been disturbed, as they were displaced from Tū Łī́dlini during colonization. Still, the region remains important to the community and the Ross River Dena Council has been working to keep it safe for future generations.

On Dec. 6, Tū Łī́dlini came one step closer to being formally protected and co-managed by the Ross River Dena Council, the Yukon government and federal government. The council, territorial government and Parks Canada signed a memorandum of understanding to work together and assess the feasibility of establishing an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area which would span 40,902 square kilometres — bigger than Vancouver Island, Belgium or Lake Erie.

In a statement, Chief Dylan Loblaw said, “Ross River Dena Council is pleased to be advancing efforts to finalize our IPCA Declaration within our Ross River Area. This Declaration is issued pursuant to our Indigenous laws, and will help ensure our rights, interests and values are properly respected in this important area.”

The proposed protected area is home to the at-risk Finlayson caribou herd, which are part of the northern mountain woodland caribou listed as a species of special concern under the federal Species At Risk Act. The area also encompasses ancient village sites and a group trapline built in the 1800s, and many sites that are sacred to the nation.

Full article

This is how Israel uses food to colonize Palestine and erase Palestinian culture and identity.

This is about the fact that indigenous people make up a disproportionate amount of the military population

But when talking to people in general, how do you open dialogue with not just indigenous, but also black and Latino/Chicano veterans and younger people trying to join? A lot of people are lured in by poverty, others are looking for discipline or they have strict families who try to force/impose it.

Is there any advice on having these conversations? I believe it's important to be respectful and mature about it, to not go on lecturing and complaining.

The Naabik’íyáti’ Committee has formally reaffirmed the Navajo Nation’s strong opposition to any monument commemorating Christopher “Kit” Carson being installed in New Mexico.

The resolution, sponsored by Council Delegate Brenda Jesus, comes in response to ongoing discussions regarding possible placements at notable sites such as Bosque Redondo, the Santa Fe Cemetery, and the Carson House and Museum in Taos.

The resolution highlights the historical context of Kit Carson’s actions during the 1863 campaign against the Navajo people.

Carson was a colonel of the First New Mexico Volunteers who led a destructive campaign that included the burning of crops, the destruction of homes, and the slaughter of livestock, according to a 2021 Navajo Times article. This military operation stemmed from Brigadier General James H. Carlton’s order for a “scorched earth” campaign aimed at forcing the Navajos into submission and relocating them to Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

“Carson and his troops terrorized the Navajo people,” states the legislation, which details the tragic consequences of Caron’s campaign. From 1864 to 1868, approximately 8,500 Navajo individuals suffered through what the bill describes as brutal conditions at Fort Sumner, where many experienced slavery, starvation, and disease. It is estimated that over 2,000 Navajos died there, with their remains often placed in unmarked graves, preventing traditional burial practices.

Full article

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6459527

A year after taking office, the Government of President Javier Milei alleged that the prolongation of this emergency for the last 18 years prevented “the free exercise of productive and recreational activities on the lands involved”, besides limiting “the right to dispose of such property”.

The Executive pointed out that the Law of Indigenous Territorial Emergency, which suspended the execution of sentences ordering the eviction of their lands, generated “legal insecurity” and a “serious affectation to the right of property” of their owners, as well as to the provincial dominion over the natural resources.

The current administration emphasized that one of its main pillars is “unrestricted respect for private property”, understanding this right “not only as a principle of justice, but also as a key factor to attract the investments necessary for the true welfare of the country”.

In this change of state policy, the Government requested the Permanent Bicameral Commission of the Congress of the Nation to evaluate the corresponding opinion in order to “guarantee the full exercise of the constitutional right” and put an end to a situation “that endangers national sovereignty”.

“Given the unreasonable extension of the emergency measure and the different affectations that it produces, both to the right of property and to the dominion of the natural resources of the provinces and to the certainty of the right, it is deemed necessary to provide for its immediate termination”, the decree adds.

HOMUN, Mexico (AP) — A huge poplar tree stands proud in Maribel Ek’s courtyard, adorned with a sign that reads: “Florece desde adentro” (“It blooms from within”).

Deep underground, the tree’s long roots search for the water that makes this land special: a sinkhole lake, known as a cenote.

Cenotes provide an important water source to Ek’s community of Homun, in the Mexican state of Yucatan, and a livelihood for locals who lead tourists from around the world into the caverns to bathe in their crystalline waters.

But more than that, cenotes are sacred to Indigenous Mayans like her.

As she descends into the cavern, Ek shines a light on a stone covered in flowers, pots, and candles —the remains of an offering she made to thank the cenote for everything it has given her. She refers to the sacred space as her “neighbor,” one that needs protection.

That belief is the basis of a lawsuit that seeks personhood status for the Ring of Cenotes, made up of hundreds of subterranean lakes that surround the northwest of the Yucatan peninsula in a semicircle, and provide the main source of freshwater in the region.

The lawsuit, from the Indigenous Mayan organization Kana’an Ts’onot, or Guardians of the Cenotes, seeks to protect the area from further contamination by industries that have moved there to take advantage of the plentiful water. The group, as designated guardians, would be able to fight on behalf of the Ring of Cenotes in court.

If they win, this would become the first ecosystem in Mexico to have its own rights, following in the wake of other cases worldwide, such as the Whanganui River in New Zealand or the Komi Memem River in the Brazilian Amazon.

Ek, a member of the Guardians group, speaks of the cenote and its waters as a person, as she explains the reasons behind their fight.

“Because you have to be the voice, that she doesn’t have,” she said. “Because you have to be the hands, that she doesn’t have.”

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As one of the most iconic creatures in their ecosystems, moose have lumbered their way into the fabric of Canadian culture in Ontario. Recreational hunting, Indigenous well-being and the region’s ecosystem health all depend on these antlered giants. But in the last two decades, their population has declined by 20 percent.

Now, a new collaboration between researchers from the University of Guelph, Ontario, and three Anishinabek First Nation communities has revealed numerous reasons why the numbers of moose (Alces alces) are dropping. The impact of climate change on their environment appears to be the main factor, but several other potential causes emerged from the Indigenous perspectives provided to researchers in interviews. The team described work recently in the journal People and Nature.

“It’s being seen by both knowledge systems,” said study coauthor Steven Kell, head biologist for Shawanaga First Nation in Nobel, Ontario. “[Moose decline] is going to have a negative effect not only ecologically, but also culturally and on the health and well-being of First Nation people.”

To draw from both schools of thought, the research team applied a “two-eyed seeing” approach. They interviewed 66 members of the Biigtigong Nishnaabeg, Magnetawan, and Shawanaga First Nations in Ontario, and they reviewed 52 Western scientific papers about moose ecology in the region. Then, they wove together the differences and similarities.

Both traditional ecological knowledge and Western scientific studies agree that climate change, diseases and parasites are the key drivers of the dwindling moose populations. But interviews with Indigenous hunters and elders also revealed hunting pressures, barriers and risks posed by highways, and a new green warty skin disease as potential issues.

The Indigenous observations often emphasized smaller-scale changes, the team noted: displacement of moose by encroaching local populations of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus); declining use of the area’s wetlands; and shorter mating seasons as temperatures warm.

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A new report by TIME magazine discussed a trend in civic liberties throughout the world: crackdowns on Palestinian solidarity marches in every kind of society, from the most open to the most closed.

Tara Petrović, author of a study by CIVICUS Monitor, a worldwide coalition of civil society groups headquartered in Johannesburg, highlights the war on Gaza's effect on civic space as a key lesson for the year. "We've seen expressions of solidarity and we've seen repression of these expressions of solidarity at pretty much every corner of the globe."

“Our spinach is really big spinach, sometimes the leaves are bigger than my head,” Makenzie Jones said of the greenhouse he manages in Nipissing First Nation. “The arugula as well, sometimes they’re as big as my forearm. It’s really not typical stuff you can get in a grocery store.”

Jones works at Mnogin Greenhouse, which supplies his northeastern Ontario community with reasonably priced local greens year-round. Like other northern, rural and remote communities in Canada, his nation experiences high rates of diet-related diseases like type 2 diabetes, largely because of the limited access to nutritious, fresh food. To help reduce those ailments, and provide better food security in a changing climate, the nation opened the greenhouse in 2023.

The name Mnogin means “grow well” in Anishinaabemowin, and was chosen from community members’ suggestions.

“It was the perfect name because it meant not only growing food, but growing the nation, growing the economy in a healthy way,” Nipissing First Nation Chief Cathy Bellefeuille said.

Bellefeuille was sworn into office in August, but also sat on the nation’s council back in 2016, when the idea of a greenhouse first arose. The inspiration was the success of similar projects in places with “really dry climates or very cold climates where they had very little sunshine and you could do growing around the clock, around the calendar year,” Bellefeuille said. “So we said, ‘We have to get in on this. Let’s give it a try.’ ”

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Herbie Waters reads a message from political prisoner and elder Leonard Peltier marking 2024 National Day of Mourning

This is a clip from the latest episode of The Red Nation Podcast. Watch the full episode here.

https://www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org/