Tag: native americans

Indian Tribe Within North Carolina Votes To Legalize Marijuana, Snubbing Anti-Cannabis GOP Congressman

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) passed a referendum Thursday in favor of legalizing marijuana, becoming the first jurisdiction within the borders of North Carolina—or any of its surrounding states—to commit to the policy change. But it will be a while before would-be customers can make a purchase.

According to unofficial results posted by the EBCI’s Board of Elections, members approved the measure by a margin of 70 percent to 30 percent. Although the referendum does not legalize cannabis automatically, tribal leaders have said they’ll follow voters’ lead when they ultimately take up the issue.

The referendum asked the tribe’s enrolled members, “Do you support legalizing the possession and use of cannabis for persons who are at least twenty-one (21) years old, and require the EBCI Tribal Council to develop legislation to regulate the market?”

Sales would be open to all adults over 21, regardless of tribal membership.

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No human remains found 2 years after claims of ‘mass graves’ in Canada

After two years of horror stories about the alleged mass graves of Indigenous children at residential schools across Canada, a series of recent excavations at suspected sites has turned up no human remains.

Some academics and politicians say it’s further evidence that the stories are unproven.

Minegoziibe Anishinabe, a group of indigenous people also known as Pine Creek First Nation, excavated 14 sites in the basement of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church near the Pine Creek Residential School in Manitoba during four weeks this summer.

The so-called “anomalies” were first detected using ground-penetrating radar, but on Aug. 18, Chief Derek Nepinak of remote Pine Creek Indian Reserve said no remains were found.

He also referred to the effort as the “initial excavation,” leading some who were skeptical of the original claims to think even more are planned.

“I don’t like to use the word hoax because it’s too strong but there are also too many falsehoods circulating about this issue with no evidence,” Jacques Rouillard, a professor emeritus in the Department of History at the Université de Montréal, told The Post Wednesday.

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GOP Congressman Threatens Indian Tribe With Loss Of Federal Funding Over Marijuana Legalization

A Republican congressman from North Carolina is urging members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) to reject a referendum next month that would legalize marijuana on tribal land, warning that the move would mean a loss of federal funding under a bill he plans to introduce.

In an op-ed published last week in The Cherokee One Feather, Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) acknowledged that Congress cannot stop the EBCI referendum, set for September 7, from going forward. But he appealed to the tribe’s members to vote against it.

“I proudly consider the tribe my friends, and I respect their tribal sovereignty,” the freshman House member wrote. “But there are times when friends disagree, and I must do so regarding this question of legalizing recreational marijuana. The tribe’s rights should not infringe on the overall laws of our nation.”

Passage of the legalization referendum would bring legal cannabis sales within a short drive of many people in North Carolina, where both medical and adult-use marijuana remain illegal under state law. Sales on EBCI land under the proposal would be open to all adults 21 and older, regardless of tribal membership. And as Edwards noted, the tribe has land holdings “all over western North Carolina.”

“To allow our citizens to travel only a few miles to buy and use this common gateway drug,” wrote Edwards, who opposed cannabis reform in North Carolina during his time as a state senator, “would be irresponsible, and I intend to stop it.”

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Minnesota Indian Tribe Plans To Launch Marijuana ‘Food Truck’ To Expand Business Across The State

A tribe in Minnesota that’s currently operating one the state’s only adult-use marijuana shops says it’s planning to open a mobile dispensary—effectively a cannabis “food truck” that can travel and do business on tribal land throughout the state.

The Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, which opened its doors to adult consumers on the day that a legalization law took effect this month, said it’s currently serving about 300 customers per day at its flagship location in Red Lake, with some people driving hours to visit the northern Minnesota town.

Now the Red Lake Nation’s NativeCare retailer wants to expand its operation and bring cannabis to more markets by moving around with the ability to set up shop anywhere on tribal territory.

Tribal Secretary Samuel Strong told Minnesota Public Radio that he’s “very excited to see how the community will respond.”

“Obviously, there’s some more security concerns that would be involved with a food truck, but very similar to that concept,” he said. “You know, setting up shop and being able to serve customers and have the same level of customer service while being mobile and being more available to our consumers.”

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‘Native American Guardians Association’ Petition To Restore Washington Redskins Name Goes Viral

A Change.org petition in support of changing the Washington football team’s name BACK to the Redskins has gone viral and is racking up tens of thousands of signatures in real time.

At the time of publication, the petition was nearing its goal of 75,000 people.

The petition was launched by an organization called the Native American Guardians Association whose stated goal is to end the “cancel culture” of Native Americans. 

NAGA spox Healy Baumgardner joined Newsmax’s Carl Higbie to discuss the groups efforts, quipping that the Washington Commanders must be getting advised by Megan Rapinoe.

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NEW DOCS LINK CIA TO MEDICAL TORTURE OF INDIGENOUS CHILDREN AND BLACK PRISONERS

The documentary record of “mind control” experiments conducted by the United States and other governments during the Cold War is just the tip of the iceberg, and our collective ignorance is by design. In early 1973, as the fallout from the Watergate scandal exposed the need for greater congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ordered the destruction of all documents related to MK Ultra.

Launched in the wake of the Nuremberg Trials, which exposed the extent of Nazi atrocities carried out in the name of science, MK Ultra involved a range of grotesque experiments on unwitting test subjects within and beyond U.S. borders. Newly revealed evidence exposes previously hidden links between MK Ultra experiments on Indigenous children in Canada and imprisoned Black people in the U.S.

On April 20, 2023, a group of Indigenous women known as the Kanien’kehà:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) achieved a milestone in their ongoing lawsuit against several entities, including McGill University, the Canadian government and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Quebec. The parties reached an agreement whereby archeologists and cultural monitors would begin the process of searching for unmarked graves, which the Mohawk Mothers believe are buried on the grounds of the hospital.

Over the preceding two years, approximately 1,300 unmarked graves, most of them containing the remains of Indigenous children, have been discovered on the grounds of five of Canada’s former residential schools. Throughout the 20th century, the residential school system — like the Indian Boarding School system, its U.S. counterpart — separated thousands of Indigenous children from their families, stripped them of their language and subjected them to various forms of abuse amounting to what a truth and reconciliation commission called “cultural genocide.” But as these horrific revelations demonstrate, the harm wasn’t only cultural — a 1907 investigation found that nearly one-fourth of school attendees did not survive graduation.

In October of 2021, new evidence surfaced linking disappeared Indigenous children to MK Ultra experiments conducted by CIA-sponsored researchers. A white Winnipeg resident named Lana Ponting testified in Quebec’s Superior Court that in 1958, when she was 16 years old, doctors from the Allan Memorial Institute, a former psychiatric hospital affiliated with McGill and the Royal Victoria Hospital, held her against her will, drugged her with LSD and other substances, subjected her to electroshock treatments, and exposed her to auditory indoctrination: playing a recording telling Ponting over and over again, that she was either “a bad girl” or “a good girl.”

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DNA Analysis Reveals Interesting Information About the Origins of Native Americans

Using DNA analysis, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have made some surprising discoveries about the ancestry of Native Americans. They looked at mitochondrial DNA passed down in females to follow the trail of an ancestral lineage that might link East Asian Paleolithic-age populations to founding populations in Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, and California. What they ended up discovering is that during the Ice Age, humans migrated from northern China to Japan and the Americas.

“The Asian ancestry of Native Americans is more complicated than previously indicated,” explains lead author Yu-Chun Li, a molecular anthropologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “In addition to previously described ancestral sources in Siberia, Australo-Melanesia, and Southeast Asia, we show that northern coastal China also contributed to the gene pool of Native Americans.”

It’s commonly accepted that Native Americans are descendants of Siberians who crossed the temporary Bering Strait land bridge. However, new findings published in Cell, show that these ancestors most likely landed on the Pacific coast. The researchers determined this by analyzing over 100,000 contemporary and 15,000 ancient DNA samples from across Eurasia to eventually identify 216 contemporary and 39 ancient individuals belonging to this rare lineage.

Through genetic mutations, geographic locations, and carbon dating, it appears that these travelers would have landed in America prior to the land bridge being open. In fact, they believe that these intrepid individuals came over in two different waves. The first migration—or radiation—would have occurred between 19,500 and 26,000 years ago. At this time, the ice sheets in northern China would have made conditions inhospitable and forced people to seek out a better climate.

The second radiation would have happened between 11,500 and 19,000 years ago, when the melting of these ice sheets led to a population boom. This fact, coupled with the better climate, may have pushed people to explore new locations.

Interestingly, the genetic research also showed a link between the Native Americans and the Japanese. The researchers hypothesize that during the deicing period, part of the population from northern China migrated to Japan, while others set off for the Americas. This theory is backed up by archeology, as these regions of China, Japan, and the Americas show similarities in how arrowheads and spears were crafted.

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Tohono O’odham man shot and killed by border patrol

A well respected member of the Tohono O’odham community has been gunned down by Border Patrol agents.

The man’s family is outraged and wants answers.

According to Customs and Border Protection U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Ajo Station were involved in a shooting that resulted in the death of a man.

A family member says the man was respected and loved.

One family who asked not to be identified, fought back tears as she told News 4 Tucson,

“I keep hearing the gunshots and I can’t get over it…Its very sad just to know who they were shooting at you know.”

She told News 4 Tucson she wanted people to know what happened to their loved one, Raymond Mattia.

According to another family member who also asked not to be identified, Mattia was shot and killed by Border patrol agents Thursday night. She said Mattia had called Border Patrol.

“He called to request for assistance because there were multiple illegal immigrants who had trespassed into his yard and he wanted assistance getting them out of his property.”

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Why so many Canadians pretend to be indigenous

‘Pretendians’ must be among the fastest growing cultural groups in Canada. A Pretendian is someone with little or no indigenous background who pretends to be indigenous. The latest to be uncovered is Vianne Timmons, president of Memorial University of Newfoundland. Last week, Timmons was forced to apologise for misrepresenting her background and is now taking a leave of absence.

Timmons claimed in CVs and elsewhere that she was descended from Mi’kmaq First Nations peoples. A recent CBC News report questioned whether or not Timmons actually had any First Nations ancestry at all. Looking at her family tree, the report found that she is probably only one-1024th to one-2048th indigenous.

Timmons’ story is noteworthy because she is a high-profile academic. She is director on the board of Universities Canada. She was named as one of Canada’s Top 100 most-powerful women in 2008 and was the 2013 winner of the Saskatchewan Humanitarian Award from the Red Cross. In 2017, she was even named an Officer of the Order of Canada for her lifetime contributions to inclusive education, family literacy, indigenous post-secondary education and women’s leadership.

Timmons even accepted an Indspire trophy – ‘the highest honour the indigenous community bestows upon its own people’ – while holding an eagle feather. At that ceremony, she claimed that her father once told her: ‘We’re Mi’kmaq, but I was raised to be ashamed of it so I hid it, all my life.’ In 2021, Timmons spoke about ‘discovering’ her indigenous roots: ‘It’s like trying to find your story that somebody hid from you, not just hid from you, but changed for you.’

Timmons is far from the only high-profile academic to have claimed minority status on dubious grounds. In 2016, author Joseph Boyden, an award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction about First Nations Canadians, faced doubts about his claims to indigenous ancestry. A 2020 CBC investigation raised similar concerns about filmmaker Michelle Latimer, whose film, Inconvenient Indian, won the People’s Choice Award for Documentaries and the award for Best Canadian Film at the Toronto International Film Festival. In 2021, the CBC revealed that Carrie Bourassa, Canada’s leading indigenous health scientist, appeared to be of entirely European ancestry. She had to resign her position at the University of Saskatchewan. Last year, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond – a former judge, scholar and another recipient of the Order of Canada – was also found to have made inconsistent claims about her heritage.

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Secret COINTELPRO Plot to Infiltrate and Destroy the American Indian Movement: “We Wanted Them to Kill Each Other”—FBI Agent Admits After Five Decades of Silence

February 27 through May 8 marks the 50th anniversary of the occupation by the American Indian Movement (AIM) of Wounded Knee on the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, the site of the last great massacre of the Indian Wars in December 1890.

In a 2019 documentary that aired on PBS, From Wounded Knee to Standing Rock: A Reporter’s Journey, filmmaker Kevin McKiernan interviewed Tom Parker, an FBI agent working for the FBI’s counter-intelligence operation (COINTELPRO), who admitted that the FBI had helped to fracture and disrupt AIM during its 1973 Wounded Knee occupation.

“[W]e wanted them to kill each other, as we were in a war against AIM,” Parker said.

According to Parker, a main goal of COINTELPRO was to infiltrate informers into AIM and to publicly identify AIM activists with the FBI so that others in AIM would turn against them.

In this way, Parker said, dissension would grow among AIM, and AIM members would become paranoid about FBI infiltration and turn against one another, and there would be violence.

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