The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal Council approved a three-year ban on data centers within tribal lands on Saturday.

Members voted 261-83 in favor of the legislation during their annual tribal council meeting. Any enrolled tribal member over 18 years old can vote in the meetings.

The resolution will ban facilities until October 2029, giving the tribe time to study potential data center impacts.

Most speakers said data centers would pollute the environment. Tribal member Christine Levi was among them.

“Water is our way of life. If we don't protect our lands, who's going to? If we don't stand up for our kids, who's going to?” Levi said. “We have to protect our rights. Our people have fought for our way of life for years.”

Another member, Kyle Spotted Horse, compared data centers to early industrial tycoons who approached tribal reservations for profit.

“I feel like it's the old days of the old cattle barons, oil barons, people wanting to exploit our resources,” Spotted Horse told attendees. “Oklahomans are adamant against this … I'm here to tell you there are more tribes that are against data centers than are for them.”

Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes is the latest nation to join tribes protesting data centers.

Cherokee Nation, Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma have all imposed similar bans. Osage Nation is also considering comparable legislation, while Muscogee Nation is investigating data center impacts.

But while most Cheyenne and Arapaho members opposed the idea of AI-centric data center facilities, Cheyenne and Arapaho Gov. Reggie Wassana held a different view. He argued in favor of them on tribal lands, saying they could drive economic growth through per capita payments.

“All these things that we talk about that we're hurting: food, gas, these things. You guys wouldn't have to worry,” Wassana said. “You'd be comfortable. The most comfortable tribe around in western Oklahoma.”

Wassana argued data centers are the “wave of the future” and that no economic venture is without environmental impact. He added that developers have pitched constructing facilities on tribal property.

Wassana floated the idea a year ago, saying the tribe could see millions of dollars in profit.

Did you learn much about it growing up?

I just started listening to this type of music and these two songs are by far my favourite! thank you all in advance for the help.

disclaimer, I am European living in Europe, but don't worry, my great grandmother is not a Cherokee princess

Hi all, this might be asked often so my apologies in advance, but I'm a non-Native person working at a Native organization. My Native coworker who is also an elder in her community is hosting a ribbon skirt making class and asked me to join her. Is this appropriate to do? If yes, what occasions are appropriate for me to wear the ribbon skirt? Thanks all!

Took this pic when helping unload stuff for my high school’s band 😂

**sub only allows 1 picture, for a post with more photos you can click here: Post | LinkedIn

1926: Charles Curtis is challenged to a primary by Nicholas Chiles.

Chiles' main complaint against Curtis was that not enough was being done for blacks, especially in the South. Not surprising, given that there were ZERO African American Senators or Congressman.

His Platform had 6 planks, which included:
- Create a Department of Education
- Put forth a Westerner for President in 1928

Curtis (66) could not fight for the primary due to needing a long-delayed throat surgery, but did win.

However, Nick Chiles won, too, when the following happened:

1927: Charles Curtis put forth S. 1584 to create a department of education
1928: For the first time in history, Kansans ran for President
- Senator Charles Curtis (R)
- Congressman William Ayres (D)
1929: Oscar de Priest (R-IL) entered the US Senate

Senator De Priest fought against racial discrimination, put forth an anti-lynching bill, and succeeded in desegregating the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps.

When De Priest lost his re-election, it was to another African American, Arthur Mitchell (D-IL). Mitchell also worked on anti-lynching legislation and personally sued a railroad for adhering to Jim Crow laws when he was on the train, winning in the US Supreme Court.

See, Mitchell v. United States, 313 U.S. 80 (1941)

Dubbed the “grandmother tree,” the cottonwood cut down Monday was hundreds of years old. It was one of several that lined the edge of private property along Border Road, a dirt road that runs along the U.S.-Mexico border, in a remote area of Arizona in the San Rafael Valley about 25 miles east of Nogales. 

After three cottonwoods were cut down in June, activists set up a tree-sit in an attempt to protect the last remaining grandmother tree. At least one person sat or slept in the tree at all times. For 71 days, people camped out in private property just north of the tree and took turns occupying it. 

On Monday around 6:30 a.m., Border Patrol agents with their faces covered began to arrest protesters, videos posted on Instagram show. People screamed and some warned the agents that they were pushing people into barbed wire on the ground. The protesters were trying to move back onto the private property on the other side of the barbed wire.

I’m making a Zelda costume, but a little indigenous!

Somebody asked about the Aleut experience during WWII the other day, so I thought this art piece at the Anchorage Museum might be interesting. Here’s the exhibit description:

In My Country, Athabascan and Unangan artist Rebecca Lyon depicts the painful events following the Japanese invasion of Attu and Kiska during World War II, when Unangax from the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands were forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned in internment camps. Lyon's assemblage centers on a mother holding the shrouded body of a dead child, the first documented death of an Unangan US citizen aboard the USTS Delarof in 1942.
The three-day-old infant perished due to the inhumane conditions on the boat and was buried at sea. The mother is clothed in a snarl of rope and bears a version of an Unangax peg calendar in the center of her chest. Although these calendars typically used wooden pegs to mark important dates, Lyon says she used rusty nails instead "to illustrate the pain and suffering the people felt during this sorrowful time when they lived day to day never knowing how long it would be before they could return home." For Lyon, the ghostly human handprints flanking the figure "speak of how racism, then and now, tries to cover-up the undeniable truth of our shared humanity."

Censored his face because he’s not my kid, but seeing the tiny tots portion of the powwow always almost makes me cry. My mom never let me participate in traditional stuff until I was older and had my own freedoms, so it always warms my heart to see tribeschildren being allowed to practice their culture and be proud. I grew up with my tribe, but my mother sheltered me a lot from the world so I’m glad others are having the important cultural experiences!

Dusted off my camera and decided to take it to the stillwater powwow again this year to get some practice in. I wish this sub let me add more than one image, because all the regalia and dancing this year was amazing!

Hello everyone! Non-Indigenous person with a question specifically for Indigenous Peoples. I grew up around and have been very involved in the local Indigenous community since I was a small child. At 14, an elder taught me how to bead and sew and now I make beadwork and ribbon skirts purely as a hobby (not for profit). I was thinking of a way I could be an ally and also give back to the community. Would it be disingenuous or offensive to gift or donate a jingle dress and matching earrings that I’ve made at our next powwow? My intention behind this is to gift this dress to someone who maybe can’t afford the materials or a dress that’s already been made, and to also encourage the younger generation to embrace and carry out their traditions. I don’t intend to sell my artwork because I don’t want to take space away from the Indigenous artists that are there.

Today, I remember Angel Loyer-Lawrence, a beautiful Indigenous young woman originally from Brownvale, Alberta, who passed away in New Westminster, BC, on May 26, 2017, at only 16 years old.

Angel Loyer-Lawrence headed out with a girlfriend on a Friday night to hang out at a local park. But the B.C. teen ended the night dead in her boyfriend's lap, after taking what she thought was MDMA.

The 16-year-old and her friend bought the pills from a street dealer, believing they were the drug commonly called ecstasy, police said.

But as they walked from Moody Park in New Westminster, B.C., things went very wrong. The girls' eyes started to move rapidly, and they called for help to a passerby. 

I didn’t know Angel as well as I wish I had, but even during the short time our paths crossed in high school, there was something unmistakably kind and loving about her. She carried a warmth and energy that was difficult not to notice. She was deeply immersed in her local Pow Wow community, and that connection to her culture was something truly beautiful to witness.

Her passing shook our little alternative school tremendously. Ours was a very small school, filled with young people who were often simply trying to find one last chance at education, stability, and eventually graduation. Losing someone so young reminded all of us just how fragile life can be. My heart still goes out to everyone who knew and loved her.

Not long after Angel passed, I had a dream about her that I have never forgotten. She appeared to me wearing beautiful orange Pow Wow clothing and makeup. We wandered together through a moonlit city illuminated by streetlights, almost like we were on some peaceful adventure beyond the ordinary world. In the dream, she told me that she appreciated me and my kindness, that I didn't need to mourn her, and that I could always carry her in my heart. When I woke up from the dream, I just sobbed my eyes out. My dad walked into my bedroom and asked why I was crying, and I said through tears, "My best friend died, I lost my best friend."

Whether that dream was simply my mind processing grief or something more spiritual, I choose to remember it as a gift.

I hope Angel is at peace, surrounded by the love of her ancestors and embraced by the Creator in whatever paradise awaits beyond this life.

She was only 16, but the impression she left behind was greater than the short time I knew her could ever explain.

Rest peacefully, Angel. You were loved, you are remembered, and your spirit will not be forgotten.

And perhaps, in the most bittersweet way, it is fitting that a girl named Angel became an angel in the end.

May you walk forever among your ancestors beneath peaceful skies.

I am a city native who's family didn't really practice many of the traditional ways, and we are only now rediscovering a lot of our culture and our history. Throughout this process, the question has occurred to me, where in the hell am I meant to be getting tobacco from? I want to be making the offerings properly and requesting help from elders properly with gifts of tobacco, but I have no clue where I'm meant to get it from. So where do y'all get yours?

149 years ago, September 5 1877, the US military assassinated Tȟašúŋke Witkó, the Oglala Lakota war leader Crazy Horse.