Navajo Code Talker, Chester Nez, to Get College Degree After 60 Years
In the spring of 1952, Chester Nez had to abandon his studies at the University of Kansas because his GI Bill funding ran out. Now, at 91, Nez—the last surviving original World War II Navajo Code Talker—will be honored with a diploma as part of the university’s Veterans Day activities.
In the sci-fi film Avatar, the sacred Home Tree of the indigenous Na’vi sits atop a mass energy source called unobtanium before it’s violently destroyed by humans in their quest for more resources. In a case of life imitating art, the 2,000-year-old Sarpy Creek Bison Kill site, located some 50 miles from Crow Agency, Montana on the Crow Indian Reservation, was desecrated by a backhoe. The site was potentially one of the most important archaeological finds in the last 50 years that could have told us how North America’s original inhabitants lived and worshipped.
Archaeologists and Crow officials said prehistoric Natives performed rituals at this site honoring bison, but it was destroyed so the prime coal it sat upon could be strip-mined. Westmoreland Resources Inc. harvests some 5.5 million tons annually out of the local Absaloka Coal Mine on the reservation. The site was first discovered in 2005 by archaeologists contracted by Westmoreland, and its apparent significance grew the more it was excavated. Instead of devoting more time to the site, pressure to hasten the tedious archaeological process manifested into a backhoe digging up chunks of land two meters at a time then dumping it through large screens in late 2011.
Tim McCleary, a Crow tribal historian and archaeologist, explained that what distinguished it from other bison kill and processing sites in the region was Natives purposely smashed bison bones into piles of rubble before boiling them and laying them out meticulously. Before covering the bones with soil, they ritually placed unused arrow and atlatl spear tips across them. “You could see the arrow points carefully in a row,” McCleary notes. “Obviously something very unique was going on.”
There was evidence of a few layers of this particular bone crushing ritual over time, and much could’ve been professed about the spiritual beliefs of indigenous North Americans during the time of Christ.
“It’s kind of like a shrine or altar for us,” says Burton Pretty On Top, director of the Crow Cultural Committee (CCC). “Those of us that follow our traditional beliefs—Native spirituality—know these bone beds are sacred in the same way the St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is sacred to the Catholics. This was our temple and holy place that our ancestors prayed at and honored with ceremonies and song.”
Indeed, after it was revealed to current Crow tribal officials this year that a sacred site was dug up with a backhoe, Richard White Clay, an officer with the Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) said “anger and disappointment” was the general sentiment.
One of those who witnessed the devastation in July was Utah State anthropologist Judson Finley. “I was not prepared for what I saw,” he said. “There was almost a lot of disbelief that it actually happened, but it did.”
When the Bureau of Indian Affairs was contacted in regard to their consent on the matter, a statement from Department of the Interior spokesman Blake Androff said, “Archaeologists carried out the excavation of the site in 2009 and 2010 in accordance with the approved Data Recovery Plan…. Crow Cultural Committee monitors were present at all excavations.”
Pretty On Top said there was obviously no consensus from tribal officials, elders, or the community to do what they did, save for permission granted by former head of the THPO Dale Old Horn—who was fired earlier this year and is under federal investigation for allegedly mismanaging $500,000 in THPO-related expenses.
Current CCC members say they were kept in the dark about the uniqueness and even existence of the site, as Old Horn and former CCC director Darren Old Coyote were discrete on the matter. They’re also perturbed at the BIA because they not only signed paperwork giving permission to dig with the backhoe, but were present when the desecration happened. THPO officer Burdick Two Leggins said even if all sides claim they had correct documentation, common sense dictates a sacred site should continue to be excavated with tools like brushes and trowels, not a backhoe.
While Old Horn hasn’t responded to repeated media inquiries, Westmoreland Resources Inc. stood their ground as the vice president of planning and engineering Thomas Dunham told the Great Falls Tribune they’ve followed all correct protocol for the last 7 years, and the tribe was “changing the rules in the middle of the game.”
Pretty On Top said Dunham’s defense of saying they took seven years before resorting to using a backhoe hardly compares to 2,000 years of history. “So, am I supposed to be impressed that it took him seven years for the decision they took to desecrate that site? It doesn’t make sense for that individual to defend himself or the company that he’s working for.”
In the meantime, the site’s been shut down and Finley says an “Olympic-sized swimming pool hole” is what remains of the former bison bed. He recommended foremost that the tribe contact Martin McAllister of the Archaeological Damage Investigation & Assessment firm.
Finley and his archeological colleagues, who are not employed by mining companies, conclude that before the desecration, the site would’ve at the very least been a congressionally designated National Heritage Area of archeological significance. The National Park Service states “NHA’s tell nationally important stories that celebrate our nation’s diverse heritage.” Finley also said it possibly could have been designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site similar to the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump on the Alberta, Canada side of the Blackfeet Reservation. According to their website, UNESCO “seeks to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity.”
When asked why anyone would have consented to dig up the site, Finley says, “It’s pretty simple, unfortunately: it would’ve taken a lot of time and money to excavate that site properly. The reality is that it should’ve been avoided. That’s always an option in the review process, and it’s usually the best and first option. But of course we’re talking about coal, and the whole area has coal underneath it. You make the connection.”
omfg I wish I could do that
I hate my boobs AUGH
This is why I love tumblr
Did you know that Native American’s considered homosexuals to be sacred? It was not only accepted in their society, but they were worshipped and were given high social standing.
I’ll have to do some research
ooh yeah my mom wrote a paper on this(which I had to re-type for her since she lost the file, so I read all 15 pages.) I think they were called twin spirits? something along those lines. c:
FUCKING CHRIST TUMBLR
Now I ship it.
Two-spirit. It was the name for anyone of LGBTQ status among aboriginals. If you were not cis or het, you were considered sacred as you were thought to be more in tuned with the spirits. Women among the tribes were sacred as well as spirit healers.
hi i’m two-spirit can we please stop using the past-tense to refer to natives we are still here ok.
and also, they did not “worship” us. We are not deities. Where are you getting your information from?
they don’t understand how you can respect differences, so they rationalize it as ~worship~, shh coyote the settlers cant help it they just aren’t ~wise~ like us
- There were Native Americans who killed each other.
- Native Americans fought back and killed some white people.
- “Native Americans died from accidental spread of small pox”
- “We (White People) tried to be friends first remember Thanksgiving!”
- “We had better technology; its simple Darwinism.”
- “All humans fight; it’s not about race!”
- “We made their lives much better”
Like I said, they should be studied psychologically.
For thousands of years before Western settlers arrived, the Yurok thrived in dozens of villages along the Klamath River. By the 1990s, however, academics had predicted their language soon would be extinct. As elders passed away, the number of native speakers dropped to six.
But tribal leaders would not let the language die.
Last fall, Eureka High became the fifth and largest school in Northern California to launch a Yurok-language program, marking the latest victory in a Native American language revitalization program widely lauded as the most successful in the state.
At last count, there were more than 300 basic Yurok speakers, 60 with intermediate skills, 37 who are advanced and 17 who are considered conversationally fluent.
If all goes as planned, Lewis’ 20 students will move on to a second year of study, satisfying the world language requirement for admission to University of California and Cal State schools.
But the teacher and tribe have some longer-term goals: boosting Native American high school graduation rates and college admissions numbers; deepening the Yurok youths’ bonds to their culture; and ensuring that their language will regain prominence after half a century of virtual silence.
The decimation of the language dates to the first half of the 20th century, when tens of thousands of Native American youngsters across the country, Lewis’ mom among them, were sent to government-run boarding schools. The effort to assimilate the youth into Euro-American culture pressed them to abandon their own. Often they were beaten for speaking in their native tongues.
“The schools had a big negative impact on us. It’s how we lost our language,” said James Gensaw, 31, among the small staff of the tribal language program led by Lewis, 62. “Now the schools are helping us to keep it alive.”
California is home to more than 80 Native American languages, making it the most diverse linguistic region in the Western hemisphere. And among revitalization efforts, Garrett said, the Yurok program has been “astonishingly successful.”
Key to that was the push into the public schools. But making it happen wasn’t easy: Yurok-language instructors in most instances lacked California teaching credentials.
The elders who first offered high school instruction — one as far back as the 1970s — were granted eminence credentials, or special waivers.
When McKinleyville High School relaunched its program in 2005 after a long lull, there were four students. There are now 23, said instructor Kathleen Vigil, who co-taught with her mother until the elder woman died four years ago at 95. To accommodate Vigil, the school has assigned a credentialed teacher to sit in class with her.
But it became clear a few years ago that such arrangements would not fly in larger districts. Lewis and the director of Indian education at Hoopa Valley High raised the issue at a statewide conference — and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, a tribe with gaming resources, stepped up to press for legislation.
The Assembly bill signed into law in late 2009 requires the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to issue an “American Indian languages credential” to teachers recommended by federally recognized tribes that are authorized to establish their own fluency tests.
By 2010, Barbara McQuillen was teaching Yurok at Crescent City’s Del Norte High School. Mike Carlson, 19, who graduated last year, is now an apprentice instructor.
On a recent day, he reviewed the words for birds with a squirming class of Klamath preschoolers.
“Terkerkue,” they squealed when shown an image of a quail.
The tribe has pushed for high school classes to be scheduled in the early morning — to get students there and keep them there. It seems to be working.
Alex Gensaw lives next door to tribal elder Archie Thompson and craved a deeper connection to his culture. He came into McQuillen’s class three years ago knowing only 10 words of Yurok: It wasn’t spoken in his home. But the 16-year-old (a second cousin to Yurok teacher James Gensaw) now is teaching his mom. And his feelings about the high school have shifted. “It’s like they care more,” he said.
A number of non-native students have enrolled in Lewis’ Eureka High class, approved by the school board last summer as a pilot program. Principal Rick Jordan said he hopes the program will become permanent.
“Ideally we’ll be able to look back and say, ‘Hey, we helped save a language,’” Jordan said. “How great is that?”