A State of Emergency has been declared on the Pine Ridge Lakota “Sioux”
Indian Reservation. People have died. Many more people are at risk of
freezing to death. Another cold front is coming in, yet where is the
national media coverage?

Does the ‘Lacreek Electric Company’ – a non-Indian utility often thought
to be prejudice, care that people are suffering, since they are pulling
meters every day? (which is illegal throughout the rest of the u.s.
during the winter months).

What will Obama and the federal government do about this? While they dig
out Haitians, indigenous people right here may freeze to death. What are we going to do about it?

Help put this message out for help. The children and families of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation need our help now. It is urgent that all 40,000 residents of the Oglala Nation have electricity and propane.

Call LaCreek toll free at 800-655-9324 or (605)685-6581 to see how you can
help pay into a customer’s account, example $5 into ten customers would
require a $50 donation by you. Tell LaCreek to make sure tanks are full
for ALL area residents between the months of November to March – and to
collect any delinquent payments between April and October.

Also, check out this non-profit to see if it is appropriate for you:
Arlene Catches The Enemy 605-867-5771 Ext 13.
Tax Deductable, Non-Profit (501-c-3). She can take credit cards over the
phone: Pine Ridge Emergency Fund, C/O Economic Development Administration
PO Box 669, Pine Ridge, SD 57770-0669

And call Lakota Plains Propane at 605-867-5199 and find out what homes have elderly or children and if they need money put down on their account to be
able to have a warm home tonight.

************ ******

List to assist Elders at Pine RidgeShare

Below are several Elders in the Kyle Community of Pine Ridge that are in immediate need of assistance. The contact information has been confirmed and permission has been granted to share their information with you.

There are several ways I will mention where assistance is needed and I’ll share here before I begin the information for where you can assist in paying for Propane for those who need it or to contact a local grocery store to pay for food for families who need this. Other ways of assisting the individual families will be listed with their contact information below.

To pay for propane for any individuals listed below use the information here and be sure to make your payment to the account of the individual(s) you choose to help. The propane company requires a minimum order of $120 of fuel before they will make a delivery to the individual. You can also pay for a persons propane and they will credit the individuals account so that when they do run out of any fuel they may have at the moment they can simply call and the company will deliver more.

Lakota Plains Propane (will take credit card)
Highway 407
Pine Ridge, SD 57770
605-867-5199
Be sure to request a receipt and use the contact for the person you are helping to call and followup to be certain they received the help you paid for.

Kyle Grocery (will take credit card)
Owner: Liz May
605-455-2824
Again be sure to follow up with the person you make a donation for to be sure they received the appropriate credit for purchasing food.

Elders in need are as follows:

Adolph Bull Bear
605-454-2190
He remains in need of continued assistance for propane, his son who is disabled lives with him and he is in need of food assistance which you can contact Kyle grocery (above) to make a donation for food. He will also need help with his electric bill.

Arlene Talks (age 72)
605-407-8243
She has a daughter and a granddaughter (age 7) who lives with her and is in need of propane and food assistance and you can contact the propane and grocery above to assist. You could also contact her for mailing address to send items for her granddaughter such as clothes, etc.

Janice One Feather (age 61)
605-455-2889
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 44, Kyle SD 57752
For Propane Delivery give House # 307
She has two grandsons living with her. Asa Steele age 7 and Dillon Westover age 9. You can mail donations for the two boys to the mailing address above for her and if you mail by fedex, UPS, etc use the house #307 Kyle SD 57752. She is in desperate need of food assistance and propane and you can use the info for propane and grocery companies above to pay for those items.

Donna Garnette
605-455-2527
605-441-7541
She has two grandchildren (Boy and girl), you can contact her for an address to offer assistance in clothes, etc for the children. She is in need of Propane and food assistance and you can use the info above for both companies to assist them with that.

Lilly Mae Red Eagle (age 88)
605-455-2612
Mailing address: P.O. Box 2, Kyle SD 57752
For propane delivery give House #HC2
She is in need of Propane and food assistance. You can use the info above for both companies to assist them with that. For deliveries by fedex, ups, etc use the house #HC2 Kyle SD 57752

Perlene Yellow Wolf (age 65 approx)
605-455-1458
She is in need of propane and food assistance. She lives with her daughter Crystal and three children. You can use the info above for both companies to assist them with that. They have a lot of problems with pipes freezing so if anyone in the immediate area could help with this that would be greatly appreciated.

May you be richly blessed for sharing your blessings with these elders and ensuring some relief to their suffering. Please help now as the need is immediate but please remember to help again in the future if you are able to as their needs are continual. Thank you in advance for sharing your love and helping these elders.

Raven Skye WinterHawk

A woman is like a tea bag: you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.
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The Mendota community need bottled water. If you can bring some water to the community please call first. 651-452-4141 Office or 651-307-7190 Sharon’s cell. Pidamaya ye

Yes Cops were just here, electricity will be out for possibly more then 2 more weeks. Water is getting scarce. Pathwaystospirit.org is doing the best they can, they are in contact with Vice Chairman. Sad that news does not pick up on this serious matter as much as other news. I am sure there are other organizations that are trying to assist, don’t know their information. But people can go to the website and see how they can assist, they have a good track record., they assisted in tornado victims in Pine Ridge before.

On 26/1/10 6:04 PM, “kelly morgan” wrote:

Just spoke to my sister down in Eagle Butte. She said they have no water again. That the pump house flooded after the pipes froze and broke. She said that she saw the Red Cross there and that she heard that Walmart delivered a truckload of supplies. She also said that there is very little communication to the community as to what is going on. That there are members of the National Guard there and that they are doing some things. Yet there is not much communication of what is happening getting out to them in the community. They do have power right now in Eagle Butte but that REC will have to shut it off again as they continue to repair poles.

I am certain, as with my brother West of McLaughlin, that there are many without power and heat in the outer districts on Standing Rock, Cheyenne River and everywhere else in South and North Dakota where this dangerous situation is occurring. I graduated from high school in McLaughlin and have relatives on both Standing Rock and Cheyenne River. I hope that they and your brother are all safe as we enter into a very cold below zero night in this part of the country.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton considers starting a state run casino in the Twin Cities to raise money

Dayton says he would consider supporting a Twin Cities casino to raise money for Minnesota’s ailing budget, but not for a new Vikings stadium.

The former senator says a metro-area casino would raise about $200 million a year, and would bring “much needed competition” to Mystic Lake Casino, the only tribally run casino in the Twin Cities area.

The Prior Lake casino is owned by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux community.

Dayton says he wants to raise taxes on the wealthy, including tribal members who have received million-dollar casino pay-outs.

He says the money would pay for services such as public schools.

Dayton talked about the idea at a wide-ranging Capitol news conference Monday.

The former U.S. senator says a metro-area casino would raise about $200 million a year.

He says such a facility would bring “much needed competition” to Mystic Lake Casino, the only tribally run casino in the Twin Cities. The Prior Lake establishment is owned by the Shakopee Mdewakanton  Sioux Community.

Dayton says he wants to raise taxes on the wealthy, including tribal members who have received million-dollar casino pay-outs. He says the money would pay for services such as public schools.

Dayton says he is not only considering a state-run casino but also tax increases on couples who make more than $150k.

After a news conference last week in which he ducked most reporters’ questions, DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton reappeared at the Capitol on Monday with more details about his campaign.

READ THE REST OF THIS STORY AND VIEW READER COMMENTS HERE:

Brad is a amazing man, without him we would have no website. I can call him and he’s there to help. He never hears thank you, because he does everything behind the scenes. So I want to say a BIG Thank You to Brad from the Mendota members, and from all of the people who have come to our site. Sharon

Respected elder and teacher Ona Kingbird passed away on January 19th, 2010. She was surrounded with family and friends at the time of her passing.

Ona was a respected teacher of Ojibwe language & culture for many years in various Minnesota schools, primarily working with Native youth through her many years at Heart of the Earth Survival School. She always loved working with young people and referred to all of her students as “my kids”.

Visitation will be held at the Mpls. American Indian Center located on 1530 E. Franklin Ave. The wake will begin on Thursday, January 21st at 3pm and will continue until Friday, January 22nd at 8am. She will then be transported back to the Red Lake Reservation village of Ponemah. Wake and burial services will continue at the Ponemah Community Center with funeral services being held on Sunday, January 24th, 2010.

From the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community.
Please come and join us again this year to honor our ancestors.
Saturday January 30, 2010.
(Fort Snelling, below the Mendota Bridge).
11:00 AM Jim Anderson, Mendota Cultural Chairman, will light the sacred fire.
12:00 PM Ceremony.
Potluck at the Mendota Center following the ceremony.
Pidamaya from the Mendota Community.
If you need more information, please call the Mendota Center 651-452-4141. Ask for one of the tribal members.

The park entrance is off State
Highway 5 at Post Road near the Minneapolis/
St. Paul International Airport. Highway
map index: J-17.

Wakiya Waste Win, Good Thunder Woman. Sharon

We need lots bottled water.

Hello everyone,
If you are looking to buy something native please look at our store.There are beautiful native gifts at very reasonable prices. Sharon

The Mdewakanton are no longer a single unified Tribe but all their successors inherent ensure their Mdewakanton components survive within their respective communities. In the United States, the Mdewakanton survive in part on the Santee, Flandreau, Sisseton-Wahpehton, and Upper Sioux reservations as Dakota, and on the Mille Lacs Reservation as Ojibwe; in Canada, the Mdewakanton survives as part of the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation. Mdewakanton-only communities are Lower Sioux, Shakopee-Mdewakanton and the Prairie Island Indian Community in the United States. The Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community is a non-federally recognized Tribe who are currently petitioning the US Department of the Interior for recognition.

Thank you for taking time to discuss the Bureau of Mines project in Hennepin County. Minnesota. The property covers 27 acres along a bluff above the Mississippi River and includes 11 buildings and the Coldwater Spring and Reservoir. . . . Although well-known as a site associated with Fort Selling’s history, the spring had not been recognized for any separate American Indian historic significance or associations until the late 1990s, when protests began over a nearby highway project. . . . The question I called you about concerned the difference between the evidence needed to determine a site eligible for the National Register as a TCP or as a site of “religious and cultural significance” to an American Indian tribe.–letter of a MNRRA official to an official of the National Register of Historic Places, Feb. 27, 2009, discussing the possible status of Coldwater Spring as a Traditional Cultural Property or TCP.

For several years now the National Park Service has expressed its categorical rejection of the finding of its own expert that Coldwater Spring, which flows out of the ground on the Bureau of Mines Twin Cities Campus property in Hennepin County, Minnesota, is a place of traditional cultural importance for the Dakota and other Native people. The Park Service in the 2006 draft EIS relating to the disposition of the property rejected TCP status for the property and the final EIS released in December 2009 does not change that. In the interim the Park Service had received a great deal of comment and new information which could have led to a change in the determination. But as stated in the final EIS involume 1, on page 23, there was little change (annotations added for greater clarity). . . .

Having categorically rejected the analysis that Coldwater Spring was a TCP, and asking the Dakota to provide documentary proof that it is, a Park Service official twists himself in knots over the idea that the site could be accepted as a “historic property of religious and cultural significance to an Indian tribe,” or, one might say a HPRCSIT, simply based on the assertion of that fact by an Indian tribe. But in the course of the analysis the author manages to convince himself out of that idea, springing back to the Park Service’s original position, that every claim of the importance of a place to Native people requires verification.

The letter is a sad demonstration of bureaucratic hair-splitting and untenable requests that Indian people prove the veracity of their cultural heritage.

More at www.MinnesotaHistory.net

The Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community would like to invite you to become a member.
Whether or not you are Dakota, you can be a vital part of our community. Individual, educational, and corporate memberships are available.

Read the rest of this entry »

What is in the final environmental impact statement for the Coldwater / Bureau of Mines property near Fort Snelling in Hennepin County, Minnesota? How does it provide a basis for the Department of Interior to select Preferred Alternative D [3], including the cleanup the property by the federal government and its retention in federal hands? And how does it deal with the issues about Coldwater Spring as a place of traditional cultural importance for Dakota people?

To know the answers to those questions—and the meaning of those answers—requires context and information. One of the problems of dealing with any bureaucracy which operates in an environment of controversy has to do with the flow of information. To understand how such agencies make their decisions requires access to hidden information, buried reports, and phantom memos. Every decision has a hidden history that has to be understood before you can begin to figure out the decision. Should you choose to try to learn this context, may the force be with you.

More at www.MinnesotaHistory.net

Marie Winona Nordin

Member of the Santee Sioux Nation of Nebraska Age 97 Passed away peacefully on December 31, 2009 with family around her. Preceded in death by her husband, Theodore Nordin; daughter, Clarice Gombold (Jerry); son, Theodore Nordin Jr. (Kathy); and grand-children, Jerry Brunkhorst & Jerry Stanley. Survived by 5 children, Donna Schweitzberger Freeman (Del), Yvonne Taylor (Duane), Roxanne Hop (Bob), Connie Blaisdell (Alvin), & Wayne Nordin (Mary); numerous grandchildren; great-grandchildren; and great-great grandchildren. Marie was a proud and wonderful woman. She was very much loved and respected by friends and family and will be greatly missed. MEMORIAL MASS 11 AM., Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at THE CHURCH OF ST. PETER, 1405 Sibley Mem’l Hwy.; Mendota. GATHERING OF FAMILY & FRIENDS one-hour prior to the Mass at church. Inurnment Resurrection Cemetery. Memorials preferred to the Wilder Foundation. 651-457-6200

By John D. McKinnon

Buried in the billions of dollars of spending on new weapons and other items in the 2010 defense appropriations bill is a little-noticed expression of regret over how the U.S. had in the past used its power.

The bill contains an “apology to Native Peoples of the United States.”

The multi-year effort to pass the language was bipartisan: Sens. Sam Brownback (R., Kan.) and Byron Dorgan (D., N.D.) led the campaign, which began in 2004. President Barack Obama signed the language, apparently the first official apology to Native Americans, into law on Monday.

Congress has previously approved apologies to Japanese-Americans interned during World War II, and to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The House and Senate recently have passed different resolutions apologizing for slavery in the U.S.

The just-approved language says, in part, that “the United States, acting through Congress…recognizes that there have been years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes.”

The U.S. “apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States,” the statement says, adding that it is committed “to move toward a brighter future where all the people of this land live reconciled as brothers and sisters, and harmoniously steward and protect this land together.”

The statement adds, however, that it isn’t intended to support any lawsuit claims against the government (and there are still plenty).

“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option”