Karen Louise Erdrich is an American author of novels,poetry,and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians,a federally recognized tribe of Ojibwe people.
Winona LaDuke is an American economist,environmentalist,writer and industrial hemp grower,known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation,as well as sustainable development.
The Ojibwe,Ojibwa,Chippewa,or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada,the northern Midwestern United States,and Northern Plains. They are Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic and Northeastern Woodlands.
Ojibwe,also known as Ojibwa,Ojibway,Otchipwe,Ojibwemowin,or Anishinaabemowin,is an indigenous language of North America of the Algonquian language family. The language is characterized by a series of dialects that have local names and frequently local writing systems. There is no single dialect that is considered the most prestigious or most prominent,and no standard writing system that covers all dialects.
The Red Lake Indian Reservation covers 1,260.3 sq mi in parts of nine counties in Minnesota,United States. It is made up of numerous holdings but the largest section is an area about Red Lake,in north-central Minnesota,the largest lake in the state. This section lies primarily in the counties of Beltrami and Clearwater. Land in seven other counties is also part of the reservation. The reservation population was 5,506 in the 2020 census.
Clyde Howard Bellecourt was a Native American civil rights organizer. His Ojibwe name is Nee-gon-we-way-we-dun,which means "Thunder Before the Storm". He founded the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis,Minnesota,in 1968 with Dennis Banks,Eddie Benton-Banai,and George Mitchell. His elder brother,Vernon Bellecourt,was also active in the movement.
The White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe,also called the White Earth Nation,is a federally recognized Native American band located in northwestern Minnesota. The band's land base is the White Earth Indian Reservation.
Jingle dress is a First Nations and Native American women's pow wow regalia and dance. North Central College associate professor Matthew Krystal notes,in his book,Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian:Contested Representation in the Global Era,that "Whereas men's styles offer Grass Dance as a healing themed dance,women may select Jingle Dress Dance." The regalia worn for the dance is a jingle dress,which includes ornamentation with multiple rows of metal,such as cones,that create a jingling sound as the dancer moves.
Traditional gender roles among Native American and First Nations peoples tend to vary greatly by region and community. As with all Pre-Columbian era societies,historical traditions may or may not reflect contemporary attitudes. Gender roles exhibited by Indigenous communities have been transformed in some aspect by Eurocentric,patriarchal norms and the perpetration of systematic oppression. In many communities,these things are not discussed with outsiders.
American Indian boarding schools,also known more recently as American Indian residential schools,were established in the United States from the mid-17th to the early 20th centuries with a primary objective of "civilizing" or assimilating Native American children and youth into Anglo-American culture. In the process,these schools denigrated Native American culture and made children give up their languages and religion. At the same time the schools provided a basic Western education. These boarding schools were first established by Christian missionaries of various denominations. The missionaries were often approved by the federal government to start both missions and schools on reservations,especially in the lightly populated areas of the West. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries especially,the government paid religious orders to provide basic education to Native American children on reservations,and later established its own schools on reservations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) also founded additional off-reservation boarding schools based on the assimilation model. These sometimes drew children from a variety of tribes. In addition,religious orders established off-reservation schools.
Two-spirit is a modern,pan-Indian umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender ceremonial and social role in their cultures.
Heid E. Erdrich is a poet,editor,and writer. Erdrich is Ojibwe enrolled at Turtle Mountain.
Peggy Flanagan is an American politician,community organizer,and Native American activist serving as the 50th lieutenant governor of Minnesota since 2019. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL),Flanagan served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019.
Acosia Red Elk is a jingle dress dancer from the Umatilla people of Oregon. A descendant of Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt,she did not become interested in dancing until she was 16,when she taught herself to dance from videos of other jingle dancers. Red Elk began dancing professionally in 1998 with her then-husband,Paris Leighton,visiting up to 50 pow wows a year for ten years.
Debra Anne Haaland is an American politician serving as the 54th United States Secretary of the Interior. A member of the Democratic Party,she previously served as the U.S. representative for New Mexico's 1st congressional district from 2019 to 2021 and as chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party from 2015 to 2017. Haaland is a Native American and is an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe.
Gina Adams is an American interdisciplinary artist and activist.
The REDress Project by Jaime Black is a public art installation that was created in response to the missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) epidemic in Canada and the United States. The on-going project began in 2010 and commemorates missing and murdered indigenous women from the First Nations,Inuit,Métis (FNIM),and Native American communities by hanging empty red dresses in a range of environments. The project has also inspired other artists to use red to draw attention to the issue of MMIW,and prompted the creation of Red Dress Day.
Marcie Rendon is a Native American playwright,poet,author,and community arts activist based in Minneapolis. She is an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.
Delina White is a contemporary Native American artist specializing in indigenous,gender-fluid clothing for the LGBTQ and Two-Spirit Native communities. She is also an activist for issues such as environmental crisis,violence against women,and sex trafficking.
Mitchelene BigMan is an Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke) / Minitari (Hidatsa) U.S. Army veteran and advocate,best known for establishing the Native American Women Warriors (NAWW),the first all-female native Color Guard.
