Women's History Month

1. Women's History Month Native American Women: Religious & Reproductive Freedom

2. Presentation dedicated in memory ofPfc. Lori Piestewa , 23 years old and a single mother of two children, a Hopi Indian from Moenkopi, Ariz . Killed in action after her convoy was ambushed in Iraq on March 23, 2003. She was assigned to the 507th Maintenance Company, Fort Bliss, Texas.

3. Native American’s are members of diverse communities. • Historically they are; • Matrilineal: Children belong to mothers clan. Illegitimacy does not exist • Polytheistic; White Buffalo Woman, Changing Woman, White Painted Woman • Religion is a part of daily life and significant. Relationships built on extensive and complex clan relationships

4. Language • The word “I” and “me” does not exists in most languages • The words Thank You and Please does not exist in most languages • Why? Though and action is directed at the clan and community level. Individual rights do not exist • Responsibility to your clan and community is primary factor

5. Puberty Ceremony • Celebrates menstruation • 12 days long • Elders, Men, Women and Children all participate and have specialized roles in celebration to perpetuate the future of the entire community. • Ritual can not begin without the assistance of clan/community. • The clan community rely on the young woman

6. Western Contact and Assimilation • Capitalism/Private Property • Democracy • Christianity • Patriarchy “predatory individualism theory” Haunani Kay Trask

7. Women’s Movement • Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Key Issues • NOW's Top Priority Issues: • Abortion Rights / Reproductive Issues • Violence Against Women • Constitutional Equality • Promoting Diversity / Ending Racism • Lesbian Rights • Economic Justice

8. Religious Freedom

9. 1883 Code of Indian Religious Offenses • 1883 by Secretary of the Interior Henry Teller as a means to prohibit Native American ceremonial activity under pain of imprisonment, reduced rations on reservation, removal of children or other family members.

10. Medicine men and women were arrested, imprisoned and died as a result. • Indian religious traditions are considered illegal

11. Gertrude Bonin (Zitkala-Sa) (1876-1938) Yankton Nakota • writer, cultural preserver, orator, editor, musician and composer, political activist • In 1916 Zitkala was elected secretary-treasurer of the Society of American Indian, also editing their journal, American Indian Magazine. In 1921 she founded her own political organization, the National Council of American Indians.

12. She attacked the BIA, and called for its abolition, because of its corruption and paternalistic treatment of Indians as incompetent wards

13. Of her literary works, "Why I Am a Pagan" perhaps best explains her religious beliefs. • It was first published 1902 • Coupled with a chapter - "The Big Red Apples" - from Impressions of an Indian Childhood, the essay makes a case against traditional and religious Christianity. • The two works express the indignations suffered by the Native Americans at the hands of Christians. • #1

14. Suzan Shown Harjo • (Cheyenne & Hodulgee Muscogee) • Executive Director, Morningstar Institute • helped Native Peoples recover more than one million acres of land and numerous sacred places. • developed key federal Indian law since 1975, • 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act • the 1989 National Museum of the American Indian Act • 1996 Executive Order on Indian Sacred Sites, • the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and the.

15. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act • 1978 United States federal law and a joint resolution of Congress which pledged to protect and preserve the traditional religious rights of American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians. • The Act led to a number of changes in government policies, the Act is not enforced and that additional reforms are still needed.

16. However, the legislation has not guaranteed the access to or protection of sacred sites. • There continues to be a lack of religious freedom today. • #2 • #3 • #4

17. Rebecca RoblesNative American Sacred Sites Task ForceSierra Sage/South Orange Co. Sierra Club13 sites designated in Orange County

18. Laura Miranda, Pechanga • The California Native American Heritage Commission maintains an official list of about 1,500 Indian cultural and religious sites. Only about 300 of them are religious sites, with an average size of one-fourth of an acre, reports Laura Miranda, a Pechanga Indian and senior staff attorney for the California Indian Legal Services. The Burton bill (2005), however, would allow Indians to add more sites to the list by presenting oral histories or other evidence to support their claims.

19. Reproductive Freedom

20. Boarding Schools

21. November 1, 1878 Captain Richard H. Pratt opened the Carlisle Indian School at an abandoned military post in Pennsylvania • Pratt’s goal was to "kill the Indian, not the man."

22. Children removed as young as age five and “acculturated” through age 18. • “Marginal Theory” • “Lateral Violence Theory” Western Indian

23. In 1977, roughly a third of reservation children were still attending the same system of boarding schools. • In 1973, 33,672 Native American children lived in federal boarding schools rather than at home • Last Boarding school closed in 1989

24. Adoption • Child Welfare League of America funded by a federal contract from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Children’s Bureau, the Indian Adoption Project lasted from 1958 through 1967.

25. nationwide studies conducted between 1969 and 1974 showed that 25-35% of Indian children who were removed from their homes were placed in non-Indian foster or adoptive homes. • State courts and welfare agencies continued to act in these cases with no consideration for cultural connection. • Native Americans viewed it as a form of cultural genocide.

26. 1960s and early 1970s, Native American activists challenged Indian Adoption Project • They denounced the project as the most recent in a long line of genocidal policies toward native communities and cultures. • Tribal advocates worked hard for the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act • Many communities are engaged in long legal battles to have the ICWA enforced.

27. Sterilization • Indian Health Service sterilized between 25 – 50% percent of Native American women who were between the ages of fifteen and forty-four during the 1970s.

28. Native American doctors and hospital personnel from Oklahoma and New Mexico sent letters to Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota, chairman of the Senate Interior Subcommittee on Indian Affairs about sterilization abuses. • Government Accounting Office (GAO) conducted an investigation on both Indian sterilization and the experimental use of drugs on reservations on 30 April 1975.

29. Dr. Connie Pinkerton-Uri, Choctaw/Cherokee Physician study #5 & #6 • Bertha Medicine Bull, Northern Cheyenne #7 • Mary Ann Bear Comes Out, Northern Cheyenne #8 • Marie Sanchez, Cheyenne Tribal Judge & Mary Crow Dog, Lakota activist #9 • “Debra” #10

30. The Women of All Red Nations state that "the real issue behind sterilization is how we are losing our personal sovereignty" as Native Americans. • Members of the organization assert that communities having large numbers of sterilizations lost the respect of other tribal communities because of their inability to protect Native American women.

31. Loss of Reproductive Freedom • Devastating loss in terms of clan, community and culture • More important than any issue raised by mainstream Women's movement to Native American community. • Tribal communities lost much of their ability to reproduce, the respect of other tribal entities, and political power in the tribal councils. • The population of a community reflects the number of representatives it can elect to the tribal council and to national pan-Indian organizations. • Finally, a tribal community that suffers a great number of sterilizations can lose the respect of other tribal communities because of its inability to protect its women.

32. Historically, Native American Women have not been given basic human rights and as a result have not gravitated in large numbers towards the mainstream Women's Rights Movement • In many cases they have developed a cultural nationalist perspective seeking a long list of basic human rights including Religious & Reproductive freedom