THE MORNING STAR INSTITUTE
611 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
 Washington, DC 20003
  (202) 547-5531
 

News Statement                                                                                             For Immediate Release

Washington, DC (6/17/05)—Observances and ceremonies will be held across the country on June 21 to mark the 2005 National Day of Prayer to Protect Native American Sacred Places. The exact times and days for the commemorations in this release are listed below.

Some of the gatherings highlighted here are educational forums, not religious ceremonies, and are open to the general public. Others are ceremonial and may be conducted in private. In addition to those listed below, there will be commemorations and prayers offered at sacred places that are under threat at this time.

“Native and non-Native people nationwide will honor sacred places, with a special emphasis on those that are endangered by actions that can be avoided,” said Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne & Hodulgee Muscogee), President, The Morning Star Institute, which organizes the National Prayer Days.

This will be the third National Day of Prayer to Protect Native American Sacred Places. The first National Prayer Day was conducted on June 20, 2003, on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol and nationwide to emphasize the need for Congress to enact a cause of action to protect Native sacred places. That need still exists.

“Many Native American sacred places are being damaged because Native nations do not have equal access under the law to defend them,” said Ms. Harjo.

“All other people in the United States have the First Amendment to protect their churches. Only traditional Native Americans cannot get into the courthouse through the Freedom of Religion Clauses. That simply must change as a matter of fairness and equity.”

In New York City, the American Indian Community House is sponsoring an observance at the Noon hour in the Circle for the health and well-being of all sacred places. The American Indian Community House is located at 708 Broadway. For more information, contact Rosemary Richmond (Mohawk), AICH Executive Director, at (212) 598-0100 or by e-mail (rrichmond@aich.org).

California: Needles, Morongo and San Diego – June 21, All Day

The 5 Tribe Coalition, consisting of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, the Cocopah Indian Tribe, the Colorado River Indian Tribes and the Quechan Indian Nation are in emergency need of support to protect the Maze sacred area along the Lower Colorado River. The Maze is both a physical manifestation and a spiritual pathway for the afterlife. It has always been, and will always be, an integral and significant part of the Mojave way of life, beliefs, traditions, culture and religion. The Mojave will observe the Prayer Day throughout Southern California on June 21, and pray for guidance, preservation and national support to defend this sacred area.

Pacific Gas & Electric, by its ownership and operation of the Topock Natural Gas Compressor Station near Needles, California over the last 50 years, has polluted the groundwater under and around the Maze with hexavalent chromium, a toxic chemical that can cause numerous human and environmental health problems. PG&E, BLM and California Department of Toxic Substances Control have proceeded with Interim Measures to remediate the contamination, which recent measures include the construction of a new Treatment Plant within the Maze area.

PG&E recently acquired land from Metropolitan Water District containing portions of the Maze, as well as over 100 recorded pre-contact sites, for the sole purpose of building the Plant. This construction has resulted in desecration of and damage to the sacred Maze area. Moreover, construction occurred without engaging in public environmental review by waiving state and federal environmental laws, meaningful government-to-government consultation with the tribes and timely National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 review, and without adequate consideration of other effective alternatives to safeguard the health of the Colorado River.

Because the Maze continues to be destroyed and desecrated today during the final construction of the Plant and will endure further destruction and desecration if the Plant becomes operational as planned, the Mojave have filed a lawsuit seeking the removal of the plant, total restoration of the sacred area, an environmental baseline for the Final Remedy of prior to the Facility's construction, repatriation of the sacred area to tribal ownership and any other actions that could serve to remedy the desecration.

This issue is national in scope: the Maze has been officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978 and is formally recognized as nationally significant. Moreover, the failure of state and federal agencies to consider direct and indirect impacts to Native sacred places during pollution remediation activities is a national problem requiring congressional oversight.

An emergency requiring deep collective prayer exists in that PG&E, DTSC and BLM will not agree to halt either the expedited construction or the imminent start-up of the Treatment Plant, which could begin as soon as July 2005.

For more information, contact: Hon. Nora McDowell, Chairperson, Ft, Mojave Indian Tribe, at (760) 629-4591. Linda Otero, Director, AhaMakav Cultural Society, at (928) 768-4475. Courtney Ann Coyle, Tribal Attorney, at (858) 454-8687.

Ganondagan State Historic Site, New York – June 21 at Noon

At Ganondagan State Historic Site in New York, there will be a Gahnonyoh (Thanksgiving) at noon under the Tree of Peace on Boughton Hill to protect sacred places and to promote world are peace. “We inviting spiritual leaders to join us on that day as we offer words of Thanksgiving or Gahnonyoh in Seneca,” says G. Peter Jemison.

Ganondagan is the site of the seventeenth century town, once the capitol of the Seneca Nation, which was destroyed by the French in 1687. Today, it is the only historic site in New York dedicated to a Native American theme. Ganondagan is sacred to the Seneca People because nearby are the remains of Jikonhsaseh the Mother of Nations, who was the first person to accept the message of Peace brought by the Peacemaker, who united the Haudenosaunee or Five Nations: Seneca Nation, Cayuga Nation, Onondaga Nation, Oneida Nation and Mohawk Nation.

Contact: G. Peter Jemison (Seneca) by e-mail (pjemison@frontiernet.net).

Save the Wetlands -- an association of Lawrence, Kansas based Haskell Indian Nations University alumni, students and community supporters – will observe National Prayer Day at Sunrise on Sunday, June 19. Save the Wetlands will call attention to the status of sacred places on June 17 through 19 from a prominent booth in the midst of the Wakarusa Music Festival. There they will encourage thousands of attendees from over 40 states and several Canadian provinces to help protect threatened sacred places back in their home areas across North America. The event, featuring more than 50 bands, will be held at Clinton Lake. Three days of public awareness activities and distribution of free educational materials will culminate with a prayer service for the protection of sacred places at Sunrise on Sunday.

Participants will ask for the protection of the Haskell-Baker Wetlands, threatened by an eight-lane highway project approved by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2004, but delayed by Kansas Department of Transportation budget constraints. A lawsuit is pending if KDOT proceeds with construction. This sacred place is the last significant trace of the original Wakarusa Bottoms, an 18,000-acre prairie wetland environment, much of which was flooded by Clinton Dam. The Wakarusa wetlands once supplied Native Peoples of the region with powerful medicines like the once abundant swamp milkweed, and important ceremonial items like milky white feathers of egrets, which once flocked there by the thousands during migrations. Elders have said the Creator caused the course of the Wakarusa River to go directly east toward the rising sun, in contrast to all other rivers in the region, as a sign of its sacred healing gifts.

In more recent history, the last remnant of this wetland - about 600 acres located directly south of the old dorms at the infamous Haskell Institute - became a refuge where young Indians from all across the country survived government efforts to exterminate their cultures during the off-reservation boarding school years. There, in the wetland refuge, Indian people from Maine to California sang forbidden songs, performed dances that were federally punishable with jail time and starvation, and refused to let the authorities "kill the Indian" in them. Their spirit lives on in the Wakarusa Music Festival.

For additional information, contact:
Michael Caron (785-842-6293) with Save the Wetlands, and Lori Tapahonso, Assistant to the President of Haskell Indian Nations University (LTapahonso@HASKELL.edu).

Missouri River – June 21

Home to many tribal Nations for thousands of years, the Missouri River Corridor is one of the largest threatened territories in the struggle for the preservation and protection of ancestral burials and sacred and cultural places.

Irreplaceable cultural and sacred areas are impacted every day by erosion from the six mainstem dams built on the upper River as a result of the Pick-Sloan Act of 1946.  Shoreline development, recreational use of the reservoirs and agricultural impacts also add to the vulnerability of sacred places that are intrinsic to the Missouri River Tribes' spiritual and cultural practices.  And though Missouri River Tribes have forged a new management agreement with the US Army Corps of Engineers regarding the preservation of sacred and cultural resources on the River, these holy and irreplaceable places remain vulnerable to looting and vandalism as millions of Americans come to the reservoirs for recreation and fishing.
 
Public and private ceremonies, press conferences and educational events will be held on Tribal lands and at sacred places along the River, hosted by Missouri River Tribes.

Events at the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation will coincide with the International Day of Peace and Prayer, held also on June 21, and individuals participating in a Run to honor Prayer Day will reach Lower Brule, South Dakota on June 19.

A sunrise prayer ceremony, press conference and a Sacred Places Preservation Workshop, accompanied by a traditional meal, are among some of the events planned at the Ft. Berthold Reservation, home of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation in North Dakota.

For more information, contact:
 Scott Jones (Lower Brule Sioux Tribe) at sung@wcenet.com.
 Tim Mentz, Sr., (Standing Rock Sioux Tribe) at tmentz@standingrock.org.
 Faith Spotted Eagle (Yankton Sioux Tribe) at eagletrax@hotmail.com.
 Albert LeBeau (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe) at albeau@lakotanetwork.com.
 Pemina Yellow Bird (Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation) at pemina@hotmail.com.
 

An observance for the protection of all sacred places and sacred beings will take place at Sunrise on June 21, at the Morning Star House, 6001 Marble Avenue, NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Contact Gwendolyn Dale Packard (Yankton Sioux), Director of the Morning Star House, at 505-232-8299 or morningstarwomen@qwest.net.

Morning Star Institute at the NMAI Museum on the Mall, Washington, D.C. – June 21 at 7:00 a.m.

The observance in Washington, D.C., will take place at the National Museum of the American Indian’s Museum on the Mall, in the circle between the east entrance and the wetlands pond, at 7:00 a.m., June 21.

The NMAI Museum is located at 3rd Street, SW., between Independence Avenue and Jefferson Street, SW. , between the Botanical Gardens and the Air and Space Museum.

The public is invited to attend and should note that this gathering is not a religious ceremony. It is a respectful observance to honor sacred places and sacred beings and all those who care for them and protect them from harm.

This observance is organized by The Morning Star Institute, a national Native rights organization founded in 1984 and dedicated to Native Peoples’ cultural and traditional rights, including religious freedom and sacred places protection.
 
Songs honoring and celebrating sacred places will be offered by the White Oak Singers, a Northern Plains Style family drum, which is currently comprised of Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Crow members. A fixture of the Metropolitan Washington Native community, the group was formed in 1989 by the late Colin Bears Tail (Arikara/Hidatsa) and was the drum selected for the Opening of the NMAI Museum on the Mall in September 2004.
 
A co-sponsor of the commemoration in Washington is the Commission on Religion and Race of The United Methodist Church, which issued the following statement: “As stated in The 2004 United Methodist Book of Resolutions, the Church supports ‘the God-given and constitutional rights of religious freedom for American Indians, including the preserving of traditional Native American sacred sites of worship’ (148, page 382). National Day of Prayer to Protect Sacred Places is a day for the Church to stand in solidarity with Natives to strengthen this protection. The Commission on Religion and Race encourages United Methodists, Christians and all people to join in this observance and ask Congress to protect Native sacred places.”

Contact: The Morning Star Institute at (202) 547-5531 or Suzan Shown Harjo at sharjo@cris.com.

Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, Olympia, Washington – June 21 at Noon

Commissioners of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission will mark the occasion as they meet to address the critical state of the salmon and waterways. Seven salmon stocks in western Washington are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and ceremonial fisheries throughout the region are in need of protection.

The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission is devoted to protection of the salmon and other sacred beings, along with ceremonial rights and sacred places of the Native Peoples of the Pacific Northwest. The Commission was established in the mid-1970s and is headquartered in Olympia, Washington.

Members of the Commission are the Hoh Indian Tribe, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Lummi Nation, Makah Indian Tribe, Muckleshoot Tribe, Nisqually Indian Tribe, Nooksack Indian Tribe, Port Gamble S’Klallam, Puyallup Tribe, Quileute Indian Tribe, Quinault Nation, Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, Skokomish Tribe, Squaxin Island Tribe, Stillaguamish Tribe, Suquamish Tribe, Swinomish Tribe, Tulalip Tribe and Upper Skagit Tribe.

Contact: The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission at (360) 753-8659 or Steve Robinson at robinson@nwifc.org

The National Day of Prayer to Protect Native American Sacred Places is being observed at the Native American Rights Fund on June 21, 2005. The public is welcome to a sunrise ceremony that will be held on NARF’s front lawn beginning at 6:00 a.m.  The program is expected to last for one hour with a prayer ceremony, speakers, singers and a moment of silence to show concern for the sacred places that are being damaged and destroyed today. NARF is headquartered at 1506 Broadway in Boulder, Colorado.

As part of its mission, the Native American Rights Fund advocates for sacred site protection, religious freedom efforts and cultural rights.  NARF attorneys and staff participate in local and national gatherings and discussions about how to protect lands that are sacred and precious to Native Americans.

NARF utilizes its resources to protect First Amendment rights of Native American religious leaders, prisoners and members of the Native American Church, and to assert tribal rights to cultural property and human remains, in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Why should holy places be protected?  How well do existing laws and federal agency regulations protect Native American places of worship?  These and other questions will be addressed by NARF attorneys, Steve Moore and Walter Echo-Hawk, who are active in the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark, The Devil’s Tower, the Kennewick Man case and the work of the Sacred Lands Protection Coalition, of which NARF is a member.

Bring a chair or a blanket to listen to the speakers and hear songs performed by The Good Feather singers.  Please bring food and/or beverages to share at the completion of the program.
  The Native American Rights Fund is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to assist American Indians, individuals and organizations in the legal representation and interpretation of federal Indian law. NARF is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in Washington, D.C., and Anchorage, Alaska.

Contact: Rose Brave Cuny at (303) 447-8760 or rbrave@narf.org.

The SAGE Council will gather at the Rinconada Canyon at the Petroglyph National Monument at 7:30 a.m. to call attention to the continuing struggle to save the Petroglyphs. The Petroglyphs is a holy place to many Pueblos, Tribes and Nations of the Southwest, whose ancestors began praying there because of the areas relationship to the volcanoes and the four sacred mountains that surround it.

The Petroglyph National Monument, established in 1990, is a 17-mile long escarpment, which holds over 17,000 Petroglyphs, many of which are over 2,000 years old. This area has the largest collection of Petroglyphs on this continent.

The Petroglyphs are being threatened by the construction of two major freeways. These freeways would fast-track an enormous amount of development on the far Westside of Albuquerque.

The SAGE Council is a people of color-led community organization, building self-determination and relationships through organizing, public education and leadership development. The Council is committed to impacting the social, economic and political decisions affecting communities of color, and using the teachings of the ancestors to prepare for the future generations. The Council maintains spiritual and political values that respect Mother Earth, the Petroglyphs and all People.

Contact: SAGE Council at (505) 260-4696 or Sonny Weahkee at sonny@sagecouncil.org.

National and International Prayer Days will be observed by the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe at Snoqualmie Falls for three days, June 19-21. The Tribe is inviting the ecumenical community in Seattle and the general public to gather at the Falls on June 21 at 11:00 a.m. for a prayer circle to help delay two projects that threaten further irreparable damage to the sacred Snoqualmie Falls. These projects are scheduled to take place in July of 2004 and include rock removal of Snoqualmie Falls.

Traditional spiritual leaders from the Snoqualmie Tribe are asking prayer warriors from around the region to join them at Snoqualmie Falls to offer prayers that these damaging projects not be allowed to go forward until other options have been fully considered.

Snoqualmie Falls figures in the Creation history of many Northwest Native nations. “This is a Sacred Place, there is a Sacred Spirit that dwells here,” says Lois Sweet Dorman, Acting Chair, Snoqualmie Falls Preservation Project. “The planned blasting is an act of violence against that Spirit and the people who are connected to and honor this unique place.”

Ms. Dorman is optimistic that Snoqualmie Falls can be protected and restored: “There is going to be a natural flow of water over the Falls. The natural setting will be renewed. Cedars will be replanted. We will let the land heal. The Sacred Cycle of water and renewal will be restored. I don’t know when it will happen, but I know it will happen. It is by the Spirit. Join us in prayer for our Sacred Place of Snoqualmie Falls and all sacred places around the world. The need for prayer is urgent.”

Contact: Lois Sweet Dorman at nightfishes@qwest.net.

San Francisco Peaks – June 21

The San Francisco Peaks are sacred to Apache, Hopi, Hualapai, Navajo, Yavapai and other Native nations.  The San Francisco Peaks are home to many sacred beings, medicine places and origin sites. Myriad ceremonies are conducted there for healing, well-being, balance, commemoration, passages and the world’s water and life cycles.

There are plans underway to expand the Snowbowl ski resort that could have a disastrous impact on the Native religions and people and on the water and health of the entire region. The creeping recreational development has concerned Native spiritual leaders and tribal officials for decades, but current plans far exceed the past activity at the resort.

Numerous ceremonies and gatherings will be taking place on June 21 at the San Francisco Peaks.

Contact Klee Benally of Indigenous Action Media and Save the Peaks Coalition for his documentary, “The Snowbowl Effect,” and for updated information: klee@blackfire.net.

National Prayer Day will be observed in private ceremonies in the Sweetgrass Hills in Montana on June 21.

Curly Bear Wagner of the Blackfeet Nation, Browning, Montana, asks for prayers for the protection of the sacred Sweetgrass Hills. He offers the following:
 
 “Look up, you see the Sun (THE GIVER OF LIFE), the Sky, the Stars, the Clouds and all the winged ones. Look around you; you see the Mountains, the Hills, the Trees, the Four-legged ones. Look at where you are walking; you see the Mother Earth and all the things she gives us, all the Plants, the Rocks, the Sand and all that creep and crawl and the Water (LIFE GIVER) and all the ones that live under the water. They are all related and we are part of that relationship. Without those things, we cannot survive. Mother Earth is a Sacred Place. She has been generous and kind to us. Let's all pray to the four directions and lift our eyes toward the sky and look around us at these sacred places that no more harm will come to our Mother, and the Creator will hear are prayers on the 21st of June. Our Mother is a Sacred Place.”
 
Contact Curly Bear Wagner (Blackfeet) at cbear@3rivers.net.

Tennessee Sacred Places Prayer Day – June 19

Tennessee is losing its Native Sacred Places to grave-robbers, pot-hunters, agriculture, rural development and urban sprawl. In the ongoing tradition to keep sacred places alive in cultural memory, the Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs will commemorate the third National Prayer Day to Protect Native American Sacred Places on Sunday, June 19, at seven sites across the state:

   Chucalissa, Memphis
   Pinson Mounds, Pinson
   Mound Bottom, Harpeth River
   Old Stone Fort, Manchester
   Chickamauga Mound, Chattanooga
   Little Cedar Mountain, Nickajack Dam
   Tanasi-Two Rivers, Sevierville

Two interfaith gatherings will be held at each location at Sunrise, 6:27 a.m., and High South, 1:42 p.m. Prayers will be offered at the Chickamauga and the Moccasin Mounds. The Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs encourages all Native Americans and supporters of preserving sacred places to gather at these seven places to pray, meditate and work for the preservation and protection of Native American Sacred Places in Tennessee and all around the continent.

Contact:
http://ww.tnind.net/prayerday/ (with links to information about each site) and http://www.tncia.org/sacred-places-prayer-day.html (TNCIA resolution).
Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs: http://www.state.tn.us/environment/boards/tcia.php
Advisory Council on Tennessee Indian Affairs: http://www.actia.org/

Cheyenne River Sioux Chief Arvol Looking Horse will conduct the main ceremony for the 10th World Peace & Prayer Day for the protection of Indigenous Peoples’ sacred places worldwide at the Paha Sapa, Black Hills, South Dakota, on June 21 at Sunrise. He also is conducting ceremonies on June 18, 19 and 20. The gathering features a Peace Run.

The theme of this year’s World Peace & Prayer Day is “Wopila Mitakuye. Honoring the Ancestors.”

World Peace & Prayer Day is seeking international protections for sacred places through the United Nations.

For more information, contact paula@wolakota.org.