A Peek into Daily life at Liberty Part 1

As I said earlier, I have been volunteering at Liberty Wildlife for several years now, first in the orphan care department (only open during baby season April to September) and then in Medical Services. In Medical Services, we receive the new patients and write an assessment of their condition and what medications they will need to be on and how long. Treatments can be as simple as WDQ, a warm dark quiet area to recuperate, and as difficult as removing fishing hooks or recommending surgery and/or x-rays.

This week, we have plenty of cottontails that simply need to grow up! This little guy had to be fed bunny formula three times a day supplemented with lettuce, hay and pellets.

Also located in the ICU are old friends and some new ones. Frodo, the burrowing owl on the left, was at one point an education animal. Education animals are trained to sit on the gloves of educators and attend programs to teach the public about Liberty and Arizona wildlife in general. Frodo, however, is retired. She has lost her eyesight and is at the end of her long life, but you will always hear her chirping happily away, safe inside her hut. She is hand fed as much as she will take throughout the day. Other birds are in the ICU because they must grow more accustom to people as they will in future become education animals. They are taken out every day by handlers to eat on a glove, in order to associate being on the glove as a good thing. 

To Be Continued…

CG

Nations, Reservations, and Tribes, Oh My!

A Native American tribe is any existing or historical community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Under United States law, the term is only given to tribes federally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and does not include tribes only recognized at the state level. The benefit of being federally recognized includes eligibility for programs and services by the United States. In order to become a federally recognized tribe, a certification process must be completed. Tribes possess something called tribal sovereignty, allowing tribes to make laws different from surrounding areas. However, these laws are limited because the tribe must answer to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

A reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Over a quarter of the area of Arizona is reservation land. There are three hundred ten reservations in the United States. This means that some reservations are shared by multiple tribes and some tribes do not have reservations at all. Some parts of reservations were sold to non-American Indians and as a result many reservations are seriously fragmented.

A Nation is a larger group of people such as several tribes who are organized formally under one leader. For example, the Navajo nation is located in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It contains 300,048 members who all have Navajo bloodline, but are from many tribes. The Navajo Nation manages the Navajo Indian reservation as an independent governmental body. 

CG  

Sunrise Dance and Crown Dance

As I continue to learn more about different Native American ceremonies and traditions, I have decided this week to share some widely practiced Apache ceremonies, the Sunrise ceremony and the Crown ceremony.

The Apache are located in the southwest of North America and many Apache groups live on reservations in Arizona and New Mexico. Many Native Americans are considered Apachean, but groups break down further (having little political unity) to include the Navajo, the Chiricahua, the Lipan, the Plains Apache, the White Mountain Apache and more.

Native American Dance Ceremonies and Social Traditions by Charlotte Heth describes the dance from the White Mountain Apache of Pinetop, Arizona. The Sunrise dance is performed over four days centered on a girl becoming a woman. Much like a Bat Mitzvah or a Quinceanera, young girls look forward to this cultural tradition and prepare physically and mentally for the responsibilities of womanhood.

The Crown dance is often performed within the Sunrise Ceremony. It attempts to awaken the mountain spirit, Gaan, to help with the transition.

The AZ Central website provides an article that describes a personal account of a young girl, Alexis, going through the Sunrise Dance as her mother once did. Melissa, Alexis’ mother, believes that the Sunrise Dance gives such strength, to those select women who choose to continue the tradition, that she was healed from two accidental injuries she suffered as a result of the Dance.

The Apache believe that this ceremony shows the value and strength in women and with the help of the Gaan spirits, will prepare them for their future lives. In order to perform this tradition, a girl like Alexis needs an abalone shell, scratching stick, drinking reed, cane and eagle feathers.   

AZ Central Link: http://www.azcentral.com/news/native-americans/?content=sunrise-dance

CG

Varying Symbolism

There are 566 federally recognized tribes in the United States. Each tribe has unique ceremonies and varying meanings of each type of feather. They represent power, wisdom, freedom, and honor. Having many feathers meant you were entitled to respect. They signal accomplishments and great deeds.

To some red-tailed hawks are used only in religious ceremonies and rituals. Blue jays and cardinals were used in medicinal ceremonies. Owls feathers often symbolize death and a future prophesy.

Many stories explain the colors and behaviors of birds. Bald eagle feathers are the most prized because the birds fly so high in the sky close to gods. According to the Navajo, all living things climbed up the stalks of bamboo to escapes foods and the wild turkey was the lowest bird and thus the flood washed the color out of its feathers.

    

I guess the important thing to note about this post is that no two tribe has the same meaning for each feather and each ceremony is unique.

picture courtesy lavera-photo-stories.com

Hoop Dancing: Storytelling and Healing

Today was the final day of the annual World Hoop Dance Championship at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Performers from all over America came to Arizona to compete. I thought I would take the chance to describe the history of this story telling dance and show you some photos I took at the event. The video footage I took should prove useful in my short video presentation of my research in May. As I attempt to master editing skills, I will show you clips!

A performer creating an animal with hoops

A rare window into the ceremonies and traditions of Native Americans, the origins of hoop dancing is unknown, but thought to have been created by the Taos Pueblo people of northern New Mexico by scholars.

One story (according to Basil H. Johnston) says that Pukawiss of the Manitou created the hoop dance. Unlike other boys who enjoyed hunting, Pukawiss preferred to watch the movements of animals, believing that animals could teach humans many lessons about life. Using the dance, he taught his village the ways and values of animals like loyalty and kindness.

A performer's head dress made of deer hairs, porcupines spines, and  three eagle  feathers

Regardless who the true inventor was, for all Native Americans, the hoop represents the circle of life, day and night, winter and summer, male and female. There are two types of dancing, the intertribal competitive dances and the private healing dances to return balance and harmony in the world.

Performers dance to the beat of chanting and drums while manipulating from four to up to fifty hoops around their bodies to tell a story and create images of eagles, butterflies, coyotes and other animals in 

the process.

A performer juggling an impressive number of hoops

I have to say it is incredibly beautiful to watch and clearly takes true dexterity and strength. The dancers in the World Championship had four minutes to perform their unique interpretation and were judged on precision, rhythm, showmanship, creativeness and speed.

Me trying to capture the moment
    

CG

It all began in 1918...

I left my previous post describing the penalties and prison time for something as simple as possessing an eagle feather. I even mentioned that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was one of the first environmental laws in the U.S. But, why is this?

 It all began in 1918.Migratory birds species became threatened due to a blossoming commercial trading industry of birds and bird feathers. After conventions with Great Britain and on behalf of Canada, the Migratory Act passed. Later Mexico (1936), Japan (1972), and Russia (1976) followed suit with similar laws with the United States. The Act was considered constitutional because as lawyer Louis Marshall put it, “If Congress possessed plenary powers to legislate for the protection of the public domain, then it had to take into account all possibility for such protection.” Migratory birds are pivotal keystone species in keeping ecosystems stable. Marshall called migratory birds “natural guardians” against “hostile insects” which would “result in the inevitable destruction" of “both prairie and forest lands.” Thus, the Supreme Court solidified the federal government’s environmental responsibilities.

As native birds were finally receiving recognition for their contributions to society, Native Americans were not so lucky in the legislature. The early twentieth century saw the rise in Native American boarding schools run primarily by Christian missionaries. Native American children were forbidden to speak their own languages and learn about their own cultural and religious history. The children were taught Christianity and experienced sexual, physical and mental abuse (documented trauma cases from 1920 up until 1960 prove this). Because of these institutions, there was a remarkable loss of culture in Native American communities.

Today, the right to revive Native American languages, ceremonies and traditions is so fiercely protected because of the great loss many experienced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States.   

CG  

Protection Acts

I thought I would start this blog off by better defining the laws pertinent to feather repositories: the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.

First off, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act was originally designed to provide legal protection for the national bird of the United States, the Bald eagle. Twenty two years after the Eagle Act passed, the Golden Eagle was added to the act’s protection. While the law has been amended numerous times, the Eagle Act currently prohibits anyone from taking, possessing, purchasing, selling, and transporting any bald or golden eagle dead or alive as well as their eggs, nests, feathers, and talons. It also makes disturbing the birds a federal offence.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act has a similar structure. It was enacted in 1918 as one of the United States’ first environmental laws in order to protect the migratory birds that were becoming threatened. It makes the hunt, capture, kill or sell of birds classified as migratory illegal. Like the Eagle Act, it includes dead and alive birds, feathers, eggs, talons, and nests. There are over 800 birds on the Migratory Act list.

Both acts have one exception: acquire a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. If caught breaking the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, prepare to face a maximum fine of $5,000 and one year’s imprisonment. Second Offence? Prepare for a $10,000 fine and two years in prison.

CG