Keepers of the Information

“In state government, because we fund a program, people might think that we have all the answers, but we’re really trying to flip that; so we in government can ask the right questions and let those experts who are doing the work answer these questions… but that’s going to take us a little while because it’s a big shift,” said Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel to NHBP leaders and DHHS staff during a half-day tour of the Pine Creek Indian Reservation on Aug. 11.

The Native American Heritage Fund awarded $478,700 to the 2022 grant recipients at FireKeepers Casino Hotel today, bringing their total contribution to $2,390,400 to 37 of Michigan’s K-12 schools, colleges, universities and local units of government.

A self-taught artist and teacher of traditional ways, NHBP Tribal Member AnungoKwé Alexandria Sulainis, 32, of Lac de Flambeau, Wisconsin, always knew she wanted to do something artistic. Sulainis trained as a licensed cosmetologist, but she felt compelled to do something that more directly tied her to her Culture and heritage as Neshnabé.

When Penobscot Elder and Army Veteran Charles Shay was drafted into the Armed Services in 1943 as a combat medic, he was doing his duty to his country – despite being denied fundamental rights. At just 19, Shay, like many other Native Americans at the time, did not have the right to vote in his family’s home state of Maine.

“To be active in harvesting Rice, it takes the community, it takes a Tribe to do this. That is what food sovereignty is – to sovereign for yourself and for the Tribe.”

“My coping mechanisms no longer served a purpose,” said NHBP Tribal Member Thomas Foerster, 55. “Growing up in foster homes, there were so many things I never learned as a kid. The stuff I did learn, like hypervigilance, caused me to start using alcohol and drugs as a way to deal.”

More than a century after its first use, the traditional Regalia worn by one of NHBP’s Tribal Members, Joe Pamptopee-bën, has been fully refurbished and restored to its original beauty and given a special place within the archives of NHBP history. A grandnephew of...

To gather is “to bring together and take in from scattered places or sources.” This year, Potawatomi Nations gathered for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hosted by the Hannahville Indian Community at their Reservation and the Island Casino Hotel and Resort in the Upper Peninsula.