Nanabush and the World

This is the Creation Story found in Native cultures and this is where the name Turtle Island comes from.

Now in the old world, which existed long before our world, Nanabush and his young brother lived together by the shore of a lake. For company, the two men talked and played with the birds and animals. They were friendly with them all - all, that is, except the treacherous Serpent people, the evil, giant snakes who lived beneath the water and who tried to... read more

The Woodlands Culture 

Many people don't differentiate between different native cultures. The east cost of this continent has 3 cultures.

In the very north it's the Arctic culture which two types of Inuit, The far north Inuit who live of seal hunting and have igloos and the Inuit below them who are not used to that kind of life and fish and collect clams and hunt caribou. When these Inuit would be relocated further North by the government they had to learn how to adapt to the far North. The Europeans were ignorant of the two cultures and many Inuit would die and many lives were ruined in that process.    read more

Native Knowledge Defended 

There were young people who started to die from respiratory failure and doctors didn’t know why. They went to the closest reserve to those hospitals. It was a Navajo, Dine reserve and the Medicine man said that when there’s lots of rain and then drought and a certain flower shows up earlier on trees, then young people have to move up to the plains or they will die.

Researchers then found out that... read more

Burying 'Digging for the Red Roots' 

"O mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honorable of you with Allaah is that (believer) who has At-Taqwa [i.e. one of the Muttaqun (pious - see V.2:2). Verily, Allaah is All-Knowing, All-Aware." (Al-Qur'an, Surah Al-Hujurat 49:13)

This is an American Indian Muslim's response to a tale that has been spread in the name of Islam and Native Americans since 1996. My name is Hasan Grooms. I am a PeeDee Indian. I have ancestry from other American Indian Nations as well, and I have been Muslim since 1990 CE.  read more

Was The Cherokee Syllabary Influenced By Arabic?

Was the "Cherokee Syllabary" influenced by Arabic letters due to an early Islamic influence upon the Cherokee people? Let's see, inshaa Allaah.

Below is the Cherokee Syllabary. It shows the letter followed by it's corresponding sound. How many Arabic letters can you find? Now, how many Arabic letters can you find that also has the correct corresponding sound for the Arabic letter?

So why wasn't the original used instead of what is known today as the Cherokee Syllabary? It was for the purpose of typesetting. There would be much difficulty in using the...  read more

The Real Thanksgiving 

Quoted from: The Hidden History of Massachusetts

Much of America's understanding of the early relationship between the Indian and the European is conveyed through the story of Thanksgiving. Proclaimed a holiday in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln, this fairy tale of a feast was allowed to exist in the American imagination pretty much untouched until 1970, the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. That is when Frank B. James... read more

An Indigenous Assessment 

by Katheleen Kern for Mennonite Weekly Review dated August 3, 2005

Kathleen Kern, of Webster, N.Y., serves with Christian Peacemaker Teams.

The July 7 bombings of the London subways and bus coincided with my having recently listened to several audiobooks on the history of indigenous peoples in North America, or “Turtle Island” as some indigenous communities refer to it.
 

As I listened to people make generalizations about Islam — based on the violence of Muslims claiming to be Al Qaeda operatives — I found myself thinking about what generalizations a 19th-century indigenous historian or political analyst might have made about Christianity. read more

The Basic Indian Stereotypes 

Joseph Riverwind wrote the following for the site www.bluecorncomics.com

It is the goal of this page to dispel the common myths which surround the Native people of this continent. Stereotypes abound thanks to the lack of education and the media's shortsightedness. The following is a compilation of the most prevalent stereotypes of our people... read more

An Approach to Traditional Stories

Often the Medicine man is a person who heals people with medicinal herbs or gives advice and heals by teaching based on the traditional stories and traditional knowledge. Turkic people call the Medicine man Kam and in some places Sham. The origin of the name Shaman is related to the word Sham. There is many misuses of the word Shaman. Shaman should ...read more

OPINION

Using the Name Niiji   

Turtle Island Flag The Anishinaabek are one of the most widespread nations of the Aboriginal People of Turtle Island. There is Anishinaabek people living from The Canadian Sub-arctic across Turtle Island into Mexico. Many  Native  nations say that they are Anishinabek such as the Ojibway also called Chippewa, the Odawa, the Potawatomie, The Algonquins in Ontario's North-East and others. There is many nations similar to the Anishinaabek such as the Algonquin related people in the East Coast, the Arapaho nation and the Tsitsistas nation, also known as Cheyenne in the Prairies, and the Yurok nation on the West Coast. The Anishinaabek language is a widely accepted aboriginal language in Turtle Island. The word Niiji is an Anishinaabek word originally used by the Ojibway and Cree to mean friend. read more

Dawah and Assimilation   by Muhammed S Mercan dated April 23, 2009 Indigenous people may hear newly of Prophet Muhammad Salallahu Aleyhi wa Sallam and accept newly the call to say La illaha iIla_Allah - there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah; MuhammadurRasulullah - Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah and can adapt without being assimilated. They can not only preserve their identity as Muslims, but they can even change others people's culture to a culture closer to the indigenous one thus changing millions of people's lifestyle back to living without devastating the environment. read more

Goodness Outside of Muslim Cultures? by Saraji Umm Zaid   Why do some Muslims have to concoct these elaborate theories that everything “good” or “positive” about indigenous American cultures (Indian or Hawa’iian) came from some supposed pre-Colombian contact w/ the Arabs? Isn’t it enough that Native people have had to take the same racist, condescending nonsense from the Europeans for 500 years (on top of the genocidal violence), now you have to hear it from the Muslims too? Shouldn’t Muslims, under assault from the likes of Friedman, Faux News, two centuries of Orientalism, and so forth, know better? It reminds me of... read more

 

  FEATURE ARTICLES

• Nanabush and the World
• The Woodlands Culture
• Native Knowledge Defended
• Burying 'Digging for the Red Roots'
• Was The Cherokee Syllabary Influenced By Arabic?
• The Real Thanksgiving
• An Indigenous Assessment
• The Basic Indian Stereotypes 
• An Approach to Traditional Stories

  OPINION & EDITORIALS

• Using the Name Niiji
• Dawah and Assimilation
• Goodness Outside of Muslim Cultures?

  FEATURE ARTICLES

• The Real Number of Native Folks in Turtle Island 

• Message from Chief Arvol Looking Horse
• Forgotten Elders

• Inuit File Human Rights Violation Charge Against US

• Oldest Map of Turtle Island in European Records
• Native Activists Labeled 
• Orang Asli Being Indigenous and Muslim
• Warriors Against Transgression

  OPINION & EDITORIALS

• So That We Know Each Other 
• Racism Passed on to New Generations
• Colonization Can't Be Justified  With Native Migration
• Who is a Niiji
• Warriors Needed
• Converts and Reverts
• Abuse Influenced Persons Judging Muslims
• People Saying No Way to Being Native and Muslim

  FEATURE ARTICLES

• Sweat Lodge
• Pow-wow Entertainment
• Jingle Dress Origin
• Paints
• Smudging
• Baking Fry Bread

  OPINION & EDITORIALS

• Sinew and Imitation Sinew
• Representational and Non Representational Art