November 2 - Native American Heritage Month
November 2, 2024
“The Great Spirit is in all things. He is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us…That which we put into the ground she returns to us.” — Big Thunder (Bedagi) Wabanaki (Algonquin).
“If you talk to the animals, they will talk with you, and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them, you will not know them, and what you do not know, you will fear. What one fears, one destroys.” — Chief Dan George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, BC, Canada.
This month is Native American Heritage Month!!!
Dr. Arthur C. Parker (Seneca tribe), the director of the Museum of Arts and Science in Rochester, NY, was among the first to push for a Native American Day. He first persuaded the Boy Scouts of America to make a day for the “First Americans” - and they did for three years.
Then, on September 28, 1915, Rev. Sherman Coolidge (an Arapaho who was the President of the American Indian Association) - declared the second Saturday of May would be American Indian Day.
On December 14, 1915, Red Fox James (Blackfoot) presented 24 state government endorsements to the White House (he got the endorsements by riding state to state by horseback). Unfortunately, no national day was proclaimed yet.
So, the first American Indian Day was the second Saturday in May 1916 in NY. Several other states made it the fourth Friday in September. Others made it on Columbus Day. Eventually Pres. George H.W. Bush in 1990 appointed November 1990 “National American Indian Heritage Month.”
Click here to see the exhibit video: “The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans:”
Click here to see the events happening this month.
Source: https://www.nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/about.html
Photo: “Shadow Bear” - Do you see the cloud shadow of a “bear” on the mountains? It was cool to watch it so, of course, I had to take photos! Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness, Montana. Apsáalooke, Nank’haanseine’nan, Eastern Shoshone, Shoshone-Bannock, and Tsis tsis’tas Ancestral Homeland. September 2021. Taken with my Nikon D850 and my Nikon 24-70 lens. Panorama made with Lightroom.