Association on American Indian Affairs

Chi’chil Biłdagoteel

1/14/2025

Why Protecting Native Peoples Religious Freedom Matters

This article was published in Indian Affairs, Volume 194, Spring/Summer 2024 Journal. By: Sky Ravenscroft

U.S. citizens enjoy a high degree of religious freedom protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. This protected right to religious freedom has given room for a wealth of beliefs that have added to the diversity defining our country - or at least that is how it theoretically works. In practice, however, persistent racism and prejudice have created a hierarchy of what constitutes a "valid" religion or religious practice under the First Amendment. Native Peoples' diverse beliefs, lifeways, and cultural practices have remained outside what Americans consider to be valid religious practices. In fact, U.S. policies of genocide and assimilation were developed to eliminate Native Peoples' beliefs and practices - especially those that are tied to the land.

Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, Oak Flat

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The Association is a Defender of Native Lands, 1922 to the Present

1/10/2024

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This article was published in Indian Affairs, Volume 183, Fall/Winter 2018 Journal. Minor edits have been made to correct certain terms. We have further updated the article to include additional stories of sacred site protection after 2018!

Established in 1922, the Association on American Indian Affairs has a long history defending Native land rights and sacred sites of Native Peoples; in fact, that is how the Association on American Indian Affairs came into being.

In the summer of 1922, after Senator Holm O. Bursum of New Mexico introduced a bill that threatened an estimated 60,000 acres of Pueblo lands and water rights, the founders of the Association began the first successful Native rights campaign of the twentieth century: the battle to stop the Bursum Bill.

John Collier and All Pueblo Council (Photo by Cathy Porter-Maynard)

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No Peace for Indigenous Burial Grounds

12/18/2023

This article was published by the Association on American Indian Affairs in Volume 116 of the Association’s Indian Affairs Journal, in the Summer of 1988. We have adjusted some terminology to align with current language. Though this article was written 35 years ago, these issues continue because of the checker-boarded laws that only protect federal or Native Nation lands; state and private lands are often completely unregulated – even when Native bodies are discovered.

Thousands of years ago, Native Peoples laid their dead to rest in above- ground ossuaries or in graves, often surrounding them with pottery vessels, necklaces, baskets or other sacred goods. The mourners never worried that the graves would be deliberately disturbed.

Indian Self-Government

11/14/2023

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Author: Felix S. Cohen
The Association on American Indian Affairs, The American Indian: Volume 2, Number 2, 1949

Not all who speak of self-government mean the same thing by the term. Therefore let me say at the outset that by self-government I mean that form of government in which decisions are made not by the people who are wisest, or ablest, or closest to some throne in Washington or in Heaven, but, rather by the people who are most directly affected by the decisions. I think that if we conceive of self-government in these matter-of-fact terms, we may avoid some confusion.

Let us admit that self-government includes graft, corruption, and the making of decisions by inexpert minds. Certainly these are features of self-government in white cities and counties, and so we ought not to be scared out of our wits if somebody jumps up in the middle of a discussion of Indian self-government and shouts “graft” or “corruption.”

Self-government is not a new or radical idea. Rather, it is one of the oldest staple ingredients of the American way of life. Many Indians in this country enjoyed self-government long before European immigrants who came to these shores did. It took the white colonists north of the Rio Grande about 170 years to rid themselves of the traditional European pattern of the divine right of kings or what we call today, the long arm of bureaucracy, and to substitute the less efficient but more satisfying Indian pattern of self-government. South of the Rio Grande the process took more than three centuries, and there are some who are still skeptical as to the completeness of the shift.

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Sacred Lands and Religious Freedom

10/13/2023

Vine Deloria, Jr.

Author: Vine Deloria, Jr.
Originally published by the Association on American Indian Affairs, New York, New York, May 1991

Since time immemorial, Indian tribal Holy Men have gone into the high places, lakes, and isolated sanctuaries to pray, receive guidance from the Spirits, and train younger people in the ceremonies that constitute the spiritual life of the tribal community. In these ceremonies, medicine men represented the whole web of cosmic life in the continuing search for balance and harmony, and through various rituals in which birds, animals, and plants were participants, harmony of life was achieved and maintained.

When the tribes were forcibly removed from their aboriginal homelands and forced to live on restricted smaller reservations, many of the ceremonies were prohibited by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the people were forced to adopt various subterfuges so that ceremonial life could continue. Some tribes conducted their most important ceremonies on national holidays and Christian feast days, explaining to curious whites that they were simply honoring George Washington and celebrating Christmas and Easter. Since many shrines and Holy Places were isolated and rural parts of the continent were not being exploited or settled, it was not difficult for small parties of people to go into the mountains or to remote lakes and buttes and conduct ceremonies without interference from non-Indians. Most Indians did not see any conflict between their old beliefs and the new religions of the white man and consequently a surprising number of people participated in these ancient rituals while maintaining membership in a Christian denomination.

In Memoriam: Alfred, Alaska, and the Association on American Indian Affairs

9/8/2023

Author: Jessica Lee, Cultural Sovereignty Fellow
First published in the Association on American Indian Affairs News on Indian Affairs Spring/Summer 2019 edition.

For over sixty years, Alfred Ketzler, Sr., a former Board Member of the Association on American Indian Affairs, has served Native Country and the rights of Alaska Natives. In 2019, we honored Alfred by acknowledging the many extraordinary contributions he has made throughout his more than one-half-century-long tenure with the Association on American Indian Affairs.

Alfred was born and raised in the Athabascan village of Nenana. Alfred’s uncle was the famous Chief Thomas,(1) who was among the head Council of Chiefs that organized in 1915 to protect Alaska Native land rights. That same year the Chiefs held a meeting with government officials to protest the construction of the Alaska railroad through a burial ground in Nenana and to voice their concerns on other issues affecting Alaska Natives. The strength of their alliance and advocacy resulted in the railroad line avoiding the burial site in Nenana.(2)