Personal History
Mitakuyapi, Cante waste napeciyuzapi.
“Take only what you need and use everything you take,” my dad would say as we hunted game in the woods or walked the riverbank casting a line. He explained that our way has always been to be careful custodians of the gifts bestowed by the Creator.
Editor’s Note:
We publish opinions to help people think about things and to help them understand issues that pop up in our lives.
A Métis friend of mine has recently been seen on the Game Show Network as part of the cast of the reality show, Family Trade. He is not the star, but his media appearances contrast with the humble beginnings of his own family, who until relatively recently, lived off the land itself.
Early in my marriage, my husband was a vegetarian who didn’t eat eggs. It’s not that he had any moral quandaries against them, he just didn’t like them.
I never planned to be a failed journalist or a hack writer. Seriously, in my youth, I had big plans that included wealth, women and worldwide fame.
Now I’d settle for a Twinkie and a Diet Coke.
The other day I had lunch with an acquaintance of mine, Cecelia Cuch, a Northern Ute, and a friend of hers. He was an elderly Tewa gentleman from Hopiland. We were at a meeting of tribal people in Las Vegas and had taken some time for lunch and found a place to eat.
I have worked with over a thousand foster youth in the past 20 years. Thanks to Facebook and other social media sites I am able to stay in contact with them after they have left foster care and moved onto other settings. I recently connected with the first child that I placed in foster care.
Tomorrow is Saturday. She will rise early to go high in the mountains, a place called Lake Canyon way up in the Uintah’s South of the Duchesne River. The summer comes slow here, the snow stays long, and about this time of the year it is time for cattle to graze.
Once upon a time, Natives gathered around a campfire to share stories. While these tales were used to educate, instill values, and preserve culture and history, they also provided us with a means of creative expression and intellectual dialogue, and they were entertaining too.
Editor’s Note:
We publish opinions to help people think about things and to help them understand issues that pop up in our lives.
The intersection of my identity as a gay man and a Chippewa Cree tribal member begins at the intersection of Route 87 and Highway 448.
It was an old building; the buildings there were all old. Built in the early 1900s, they were red brick. Some would say they were Victorian. This was a three-story building, big and square with peaked roofs from those early days.
There was a small white envelope waiting for me when I got home. It was a subpoena, and it said be at the Federal Court Building at 8 a.m. and don't be late or else bad things will happen. So, I went.