Indian Country Today National Southeast

RALEIGH, N.C. – Appeals court judges hearing arguments Oct. 14 on the legality of North Carolina’s video poker ban sounded wary of negating the will of the General Assembly when it granted an exception to machines on the Cherokee Indian reservation.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – North Carolina’s senators have introduced a bill to provide federal recognition to the state’s Lumbee Indian tribe.

A private, nonprofit Florida organization has received a grant to provide training nationwide to American Indian parents whose children have disabilities.

BETHESDA, Md. – In a move to cut the high costs of health insurance, Native-owned and operated Master Key Consulting launched the Master Key for Life wellness program for employees wanting to lose weight and better their health.

NEW ORLEANS – After 170 years fishing and crabbing in southern Louisiana’s swamps and marshes, a group of American Indians repeatedly flooded by hurricanes says it is intent on moving from its ancestral island home.

KINDER, La. – Hundreds of Native American dancers and singers are expected to gather at the 15th Annual Coushatta Powwow Celebration Oct. 2 – 4 in Kinder. One of the largest gatherings in the south, the powwow will feature competition dancing and Native American arts and crafts exhibits. Traditionally, the term “powwow” is defined as “a gathering of nations.” Coushatta’s powwow brings together representatives of tribes across the United States and Canada.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) – Documents describing tribal life among the Cherokee in their original homeland are being translated from an archaic German script thanks to funding from the tribe.

MONTVILLE, Conn. (MCT) – For years, Mark Harding and Paula Peters, both Mashpee Wampanoags, have made the trip from Cape Cod to Uncasville for the Mohegans’ annual Wigwam Festival.

CHEROKEE, N.C. – The Indian Removal Act of 1830 required that all American Indian tribes be removed from the southeast. Now they’re back for a two-day event that celebrates the revitalization of their ancient traditions.

Everybody has ancestors. We don’t pick them, but they in some sense made us who we are. It is good to honor our ancestors when they have been honorable even as we live down their faults. We don’t get the choice of basking in their reflected glory while ignoring that which is inglorious or even ugly.

CHEROKEE, N.C. (MCT) – Over the last decade, this sovereign nation on the southern end of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been undergoing an economic transformation.

MOULTRIE, Ga. (AP) – It’s not hard to get Leon Cooper talking about history – or maybe it’s just the locale. Cooper spoke in a small museum he began, surrounded by American Indian artifacts, some of which were estimated at 12,000 years old.

EDGEWATER, Fla. (AP) – Follow the Trail of the Whispering Giants in all 50 states to discover Peter Wolf Toth’s life story.

(MCT) – The terms used to describe a family pet that snatched a newborn infant from his crib are generating some discussion among Native Americans.

ATLANTA, Ga. – “This project is a perfect coming together of traditional and Western science,” said U.S. Public Health Service official Lemyra DeBruyn, about a new Centers for Disease Control effort to help tribes produce traditional foods as a shield against diabetes.

MAYETTA, Kan. – Four-time PGA Tour winner Notah Begay III was guest of honor June 15 at Prairie Band Casino & Resort as he and the Potawatomi Nation of Kansas unveiled their vision for a premier $8.5 million 240-acre destination golf course.

OXFORD, Ala. – A growing number of Native American Internet users are turning to the popular social media Web site, Twitter, to get the word out on issues of traditional and cultural importance.

ARLINGTON, Va. – “I can introduce you to Larry EchoHawk or Hilary Tompkins,” a liaison said to a tribal leader at a BIA consultation meeting July 8.

NEW ORLEANS – In June 2008, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma re-interred a Seminole woman who had died while a prisoner of war at Jackson Barracks, in New Orleans.

MARKSVILLE, La. – In celebration of its 15th anniversary, Paragon Casino Resort has commissioned a review of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana and Paragon Casino Resort’s economic impact to Avoyelles Parish and the State of Louisiana.