AUSSIES GOT 'TUDE

Australian news reporter gets attacked by aggressive magpie before going live on-air

The black and white Australian magpies have been known to attack people who come close to their nesting grounds around the suburban areas

Channel Nine news reporter Brett McLeod was attacked by a magpie on Monday just as he was about to deliver his live bulletin. The Nine Network reporter was preparing to go on air outside Victoria's Parliament House when an aggressive magpie swooped at his face.

Despite the tussle with the much-despised Australian bird, McLeod quickly regained his composure and delivered his piece.

This is not the first time new reporters from the same channel have been attacked by a magpie. In 2018, reporter Mark Santomartino was attacked in Melbourne park and was left with blood dripping down his face. Another reporter, Josh Bristow, had to run away after a bird aimed at his ear.

The black and white Australian magpies have been known to attack people who come close to their nesting grounds around the suburban areas. Some even say they like to steal glittery treasures. However, they are not related and are different from magpies found in Europe.

This is what Australians call the "swooping season" which is usually around springtime when magpie fledglings hatch. Australians are given warnings every year as soon as magpie swooping season has arrived. They have a dedicated website that features tracking locations and incidents of swooping attacks.

To avoid such attacks, locals are urged to wear sunglasses when stepping out. People have learned to adapt to the swooping season by wearing protective headgear or having an umbrella at hand while hanging around parks and other open spaces to protect themselves from unprovoked attacks.

US elections: Thousands of Americans hold rally in support of Donald Trump in Washington

By evening, the march turned violent as skirmishes broke out between Trump supporters and counter-protesters critical of the administration.

Supporters of US President Donald Trump rally at the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on November 14, 2020. | ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

Tens of thousands of supporters of United States President Donald Trump on Saturday marched through Washington DC, echoing his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud as he pushes ahead with a flurry of legal moves to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Reuters reported.

A week after his Democratic rival clinched the election, Trump has refused to concede to Biden and his administration has rejected any appearance of assisting with the transfer of power. Instead, he continues to claim, without evidence, that there has been a multi-state conspiracy by Democrats to rig the vote tally. Although counting of votes in the United States is still underway, Biden holds a sizeable lead and there has been no indication of improperly counted votes so far that would shift the outcome.

Flag-carrying Trump supporters, however, were out in force on Saturday to complain of alleged electoral fraud.

“Stop the steal!” and “We are the champions!”, they shouted as they marched from Freedom Plaza near the White House to the US Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill. At one point, supporters swarmed Trump’s motorcade as he drove past on his way to his golf course.

The demonstrations were organised under different names, including Million MAGA March – using the acronym for Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan – as well as the March for Trump, and Stop the Steal DC, according to BBC.

Supporters of Trump march in Washington on Saturday. (Credit: Reuters)

Members of the far-right Proud Boys clad in black with some wearing helmets and ballistic vests, were among the marchers, while conspiracy theorist Alex Jones addressed the crowd.

The crowd sang the national anthem, sporadically erupting in cheers for the president. A large number of protesters had travelled across the country – from Los Angeles and Seattle – to show their support for Trump. One group, with the banner “Korean Americans Support 2020 President Trump”, told The Guardian they came in from South Korea for the election and had showed up to support Trump again on Saturday.

By evening, the protest turned violent as skirmishes broke out among Trump supporters and counter-protesters critical of the administration, including members of the loose movement known as antifa.

Near the Supreme Court, some counter-protesters carried black umbrellas and makeshift shields, while others formed a line of bicycles to prevent pro-Trump protesters from approaching their group. They called Trump supporters “Nazis”.

DC police bicycle officers stood in between the the opposing groups as the Marchers walked past restaurant patios with Trump supporters eating pic.twitter.com/DGB7J6moIG

— Clarence Williams (@nu1wcf) November 15, 2020

In one instance, several counter-protesters near Union Station attacked a Trump supporter, who fell to the ground and received medical care after suffering a cut to the head. The city’s police department had made 10 arrests by mid-afternoon, a Washington police spokesperson told Reuters, including four for firearms violations, two for assault and one for assaulting an officer.

Supporters of Donald Trump clash with counter-protesters in Washington on November 14. (Credit: Jim Urquhart/ Reuters)

Videos on social media showed fistfights breaking out, the police trying to keep the groups apart by forming barricades with their bikes, and protesters near Freedom Plaza, where people lit small fires.

Demonstrators lit multiple small fires on Freedom Plaza which DC police cleared so firefighters could extinguish the blazes. pic.twitter.com/2klLYdnkKv

— Clarence Williams (@nu1wcf) November 15,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 

Spurred on by false claims of fraud, Trump supporters rally in Washington

By Jonathan Landay

PHOTOS VIDEO https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election/trump-supporters-march-in-washington-to-support-his-false-election-claims-idUSKBN27U08C?rpc=401&

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of President Donald Trump’s supporters marched through downtown Washington on Saturday, echoing his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and cheering as his motorcade drove past.

A week after Democrat Joe Biden clinched the election, Trump, a Republican, has refused to accept the outcome and has launched a flurry of dubious legal challenges to overturn the results. Election officials around the country have said they saw no evidence of serious irregularities.

Carrying flags and chanting “stop the steal,” the protesters walked from Freedom Plaza near the White House to the U.S. Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill as part of the “Million MAGA March,” referring to Trump’s campaign mantra of “Make American Great Again.”

Trump’s motorcade briefly drove through the crowds on the way to his golf course in Sterling, Virginia. Demonstrators cheered as the president, wearing a red baseball cap emblazoned with the slogan, waved from inside the presidential limousine.

“They will not stand for a Rigged and Corrupt Election!” Trump wrote on Twitter, saying hundreds of thousands had taken to the streets. Police gave no official crowd size, but witnesses said it was far smaller than Trump’s estimate.

Donald Tarca Jr., who traveled to Washington from West Palm Beach, Florida, held a massive U.S. flag sporting a giant portrait of Trump.

“I think it was rigged on multiple fronts,” he said of the election. “Also, the media was so biased that they convinced millions of Americans to vote for Biden. They hate Trump.”

Scores of members of the far-right Proud Boys group, mostly clad in black with some wearing helmets and ballistic vests, were among the marchers. Some left-wing groups staged small counter-demonstrations, including members of the loose movement known as antifa.

Near the Supreme Court, some counter-protesters carried black umbrellas and makeshift shields, while others formed a line of bicycles to prevent pro-Trump protesters from approaching their group from the rear. They called Trump supporters “Nazis;” the protesters shouted back a profanity about antifa.

Reuters witnessed at least half a dozen scuffles and several tense standoffs, but the violence appeared isolated.

One person was stabbed and rushed to a trauma center, a spokeswoman for the city fire and emergency medical services department said. The Washington Post reported that the stabbing occurred amid a melee between Trump supporters, some carrying batons, and counter-protesters that broke out around 8 p.m.

The city’s police department had made 10 arrests by mid-afternoon, a spokeswoman told Reuters, including four for firearms violations, two for assault and one for assaulting an officer.

 

Judge rules Daca suspension invalid, Homeland Security head in office illegally


Chad Wolf took office unlawfully, says federal court judge, therefore could not suspend program that shields young people from deportation


Associated Press

Sun 15 Nov 2020 
 

Acting Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf during a Senate confirmation hearing in September. Photograph: Greg Nash/AFP/Getty Images


A federal judge in New York has ruled that the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, assumed his position unlawfully and has invalidated Wolf’s suspension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which shields young people from deportation.

“DHS failed to follow the order of succession as it was lawfully designated,” the US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote.

Chad Wolf: who is the Trump official leading the crackdown in Portland?


“Therefore the actions taken by purported acting secretaries, who were not properly in their roles according to the lawful order of succession, were taken without legal authority.”

About 650,000 people are part of Daca, which allows young immigrants who were brought to the country as children to legally work and shields them from deportation.

Karen Tumlin, an attorney who represented a plaintiff in one of two lawsuits that challenged Wolf’s authority, called the ruling “another win for Daca recipients and those who have been waiting years to apply for the program for the first time”.

Wolf issued a memorandum in July effectively suspending Daca pending review by DHS. A month earlier the US supreme court had ruled that Donald Trump failed to follow rule-making procedures when he tried to end the program, but the justices kept a window open for him to try again.

Daca has changed lives – and the country – for the better. It must be preserved

Roberto G Gonzales and Kristina Brant

In August the Government Accountability Office, a bipartisan congressional watchdog, said Wolf and his acting deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, were improperly serving and ineligible to run the agency under the Vacancies Reform Act. The two have been at the forefront of administration initiatives on immigration and law enforcement.

Wolf is the fifth person to serve as homeland security secretary under Trump in an acting or confirmed capacity, while George W Bush and Barack Obama each had three people in the job over the course of their two presidential terms. Wolf was named to the post only after two of the president’s preferred candidates were ruled ineligible to take up the job.

Since being appointed to the role, Wolf has overseen the controversial deployment of federal agents to quell Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, as well as denying that there was a problem with systemic racism in US law enforcement. He has also downplayed the threat of Covid-19, while overseeing the implementation of extreme immigration restrictions the White House claimed would stem the spread of coronavirus.

In Garaufis’s ruling on Saturday, the judge wrote that DHS did not follow an order of succession established when then-secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned in April 2019.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the

Repatriating Human Rights


Ledger art by George Curtis Levi, who is a member of the Southern Cheyenne Tribe of Oklahoma and is also Southern Arapaho. This ledger art painting depicts how repatriation builds community and strengthens culture. It was painted on an antique mining document from Montana that dates from the 1890s. India ink and liquid acrylic paints were used.

BY SHANNON O’LOUGHLIN 


There are 122,000 known Ancestors waiting in boxes in American museums, universities and government agencies. Imagine 122,000 people – that’s the entire population of Berkeley, California, or Hartford, Connecticut. That is today’s total number of all the Apache and all Tohono O’odham peoples combined.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was created as human rights legislation to repatriate our Ancestors’ remains, their burial belongings, sacred objects and cultural patrimony, and to protect our burial sites. This year marks the 30th anniversary of NAGPRA. But after 30 years, only 20% of museums have returned all reported Ancestors in their collections.

We know that the growth of the United States has been built upon the destruction of our sacred places and grave sites, and laws were passed that made our religions, languages and ceremonies illegal in order to assimilate us out of existence. Wave after wave of federal law codified Tribal dispossession and cleared a literal path for settlement and ownership by others.

NAGPRA was meant to repair some of this destruction. It has allowed us to rebury our relatives and return our sacred items so that we may heal from this trauma.

There have been many institutions that have followed NAGPRA’s process to repatriate. Through consultation with Tribal Nations, those institutions have discovered that Tribes are the experts of their own cultures; and often, the information that had been collected by archaeologists and anthropologists was lacking important facts – or was just plain wrong. These relationships between Tribal Nations and museums have often created opportunities to better educate the public about Tribal Nations and their histories in an appropriate and truthful way.

But there have been other institutions and federal agencies that refuse or delay Tribal Nations’ efforts to consult and repatriate Ancestors and sensitive cultural items. The National NAGPRA Program in the U.S. Department of Interior reports that there are 13 institutions that hold 56% of the total number of reported Ancestors. These are the institutions that have been slow and difficult to work with. They have also declared that the majority of Ancestors in their collections are not affiliated with any Tribe – even though those collections have geographical or other information that would connect the Ancestors to present day Tribal Nations.

Federal agencies are worse. Many museums and Tribes report that academic institutions hold collections from government agencies that refuse to consult with Tribes and inventory their collections. Can you imagine any other federal law being neglected at that level for this long?

As the United States grapples with its legacy of racial oppression and human rights abuses, the Association on American Indian Affairs is partnering with the University of Denver Museum of Anthropology for the 6th Annual Repatriation Conference to take a critical look at the implementation of NAGPRA after 30 years, and to build better relationships to carry out this necessary human rights work. Some of the leading repatriation practitioners from Indian Country and institutions will gather virtually October 26-28 to develop strategies and build alliances to enact an ever-more robust approach to this important human rights work. All are welcome to attend and the sessions will be recorded to access after the Conference.

The Association on American Indian Affairs has made repatriation one of its cornerstone issues, so that we may heal from these historic wrongs that continue to affect us today. Repatriation is a human rights endeavor for all involved in the process. And, it’s one significant way to honor and recognize the First Peoples whose losses instigated the growth of wealth for our American society. Please consider joining our efforts to repatriate our human rights! More info at indian-affairs.org.

 

From Other to Something Else

Native Americans across the nation got a kick out of being lumped into the "Something Else" category on election night.

BY NATIVE NEWS ONLINE STAFF 

 

NOVEMBER 04, 2020

ATLANTA — Through the years, getting thrown into the “other” box when being identified by demographers has caused angst among American Indians and Alaska Natives. Some tribal leaders have given getting past “other” speeches to get more respect for the labels put on Native people.

During CNN’s coverage of the 2020 election Tuesday night, producers unveiled a new term: “Something Else.”

The slide used to breakdown voting percentages of racial/ethic groups read like this:

• White
• Latino
• Black
• Something Else
• Asian

“All I can say is, unbelievable,” reacted Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Ogema Larry Romanelli in an email on Wednesday to the “something else” label.

Native Americans began posting memes and “something else” comments on social media.

“Something else? That’s horrible. And yes, Native Americans exist and have a voice. Keep speaking up,” one Facebook post read.

In Chicago, Native artist Santiago X came up with a t-shirt using the novel idea of calling Native people something else.

Native American cartoonist Ricardo Caté found the humor in the new label. 

The new label inspired Rainy Dawn Ortiz to pen “More than something else.” The daughter of Joy Harjo, the United States Poet Laureate, and Simon Oritiz, Rainy Dawn’s talent shines throughout the poetry.

More Than Something Else

Something Else.

Some one else

Some where else

That place is here,

In my home,

We are here.

I am brown,

Brown hair,

Brown eyes,

Like cookies Feather tells me, and I like to think it’s perfectly cooked Pueblo cookies.

My kids are something else,

9 different shades of brown,

All beautiful.

My grandkids are something else,

4 brown eyes, 2 blue eyes,

All Native,

Definitely something else, as I watch them be rowdy, be loving, be here in this world.

We are here

On this earth

In this time and place

In our homes,

On our lands,

In the cities,

With our families, laughing loudly, cooking together, protecting each other.

We are something else

With our songs

Our dances.

We pray with corn meal,

Eagle feathers,

Medicine bundles,

Burn some sage, make sure to acknowledge the four directions, as the sun comes up.

We are the something else,

Who were here,

To greet Christopher Columbus

We were born from

This earth,

Crawled out of the center,

Of our mothers womb, we are important, we are strong.

We are something else,

We are Pueblo people, Plains people, Forest People, Desert people, Nomadic people, Cliff dwellers, Ocean fishers, Lake and river fishers, hunters,, medicine collectors, horse riders, artists, speakers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, we are human beings.

We are something else,

We are Native People,

Indigenous to this land.

We are a proud,

Something else.

Rainy Dawn Ortiz, November 4th, 2020

https://nativenewsonline.net/

The Navajo Vote Helped Win Arizona for Biden

Ride to the Polls on the Navajo Nation.

BY LEVI RICKERT 

 

NOVEMBER 08, 2020 

https://nativenewsonline.net/

Opinion. Back in May, I talked to a Navajo woman, who gave her time as a volunteer to elderly Navajo citizens who were impacted by Covid-19. In addition to her full-time job with the federal government she volunteered her time to help get much needed supplies, such as water and other basic needs, to the Navajo elderly.

She relayed a story to me about an elderly Navajo grandmother who followed all of the lockdown guidelines. She told me the grandmother washed her hands and had stayed home for over a month. However, her children and grandchildren came to visit her and sadly the Navajo grandmother contracted Covid-19 and had died the night prior.

Overcome with sadness and grief, the volunteer said she had to cut the call short.

Back in May, it was already becoming clear that the Navajo Nation was being ravaged by the coronavirus. At one point, it had one of the highest per capita outbreaks of Covid-19 in the world. It became and remains the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic across Indian Country. As of Saturday night, there have been 12,447 positive cases and the death rate approaches 600 with 591.

Last week, as I worked on an article about Navajo voters riding horseback to vote on the Navajo Nation, I interviewed Allie Young, a young enterprising 30-year-old Navajo woman who organized the Ride to the Polls. Separate from the Ride to the Polls initiative, Young co-founded Protect the Sacred, a grassroots initiative created in response to Covid-19 to educate and empower Navajo youth and Native youth throughout Indian Country to rise up as the next generation of leaders by protecting their elders, their languages and their cultures.

Speaking about Ride to the Polls initiative, Young told me, “We rode to the polls to honor our ancestors who fought for the right to vote. We also rode to honor those who died from Covid-19, who are not here to vote in this election.”

At the end of my conversation with Young, I asked her about the Navajos for Trump movement. She said she didn’t think there were really all that many. She said in the age of social media, attention goes to those who make the most noise there—even if there aren’t that many.

Young’s comments proved true.

The election results showed in the three counties in northeast Arizona that overlap with the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe, tribal citizens in precincts voted for Joe Biden with 73,954 votes to only 2,010 for Donald Trump. The Native votes translated to a rate of 97 percent for Biden as opposed to 51 percent throughout the entire state.

As of Saturday night, Biden led over Trump by 18,610 votes. Given the lopsided vote, it can be suggested the Navajo played a significant role in helping turn Arizona blue.

In spite of the pandemic that is literally killing its tribal citizens, it makes sense that the Navajo people would vote for Biden over Trump. The Trump administration has done a horrible job nationwide in handling the Covid-19 pandemic and the ineptness extended to the Navajo Nation. Response from the federal government to assist the Navajo Nation was very slow. Federal funds earmarked by Congress to provide Covid-19 relief were slow getting there.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez has been extremely critical of the Trump administration’s mishandling of the pandemic and its slow response time to provide the tribal nation with assistance.

The Navajo Nation joined a lawsuit in federal court to receive funds allocated for Indian Country outlined in the CARES Act.

After Biden was declared president-elect on Saturday morning, Nez released a statement on the Biden-Harris victory. He said a large majority of Navajo voters had a major impact on the outcome of the presidential election.

“In October, I had the opportunity to meet face-to-face with Biden and Harris to talk about the ‘Biden-Harris Plan for Tribal Nations’ and we were assured that tribal nations would always have a seat at the table. The Navajo Nation now looks forward to working together with the Biden-Harris Administration to put that plan into action,” Nez said.

The Navajo Nation and other tribal nations in Indian Country look forward to working with an administration that has an understanding of the needs unique to tribal nations.

At various times on Saturday as celebrations broke out in major cities across the United States, I kept going back to the story about the Navajo grandmother who died in May and what Young told me about how the Navajo rode on horseback to honor those who died of Covid-19 and could not vote in this election.

In this historic new era, we must all work to ensure the votes cast were not in vain.

SEE Arizona and Wisconsin: How Indigenous Voters Helpe...

Minn. State Authorities Approve Enbridge Line 3 Permits, Protesters Met with Counter Trump Protesters Front of Governor’s Mansion


Trump supporters showed up as Enbridge Line 3 protesters assembled outside the Govenor's Mansion in St. Paul, Minn. - Photographs by Darren Thompson

BY DARREN THOMPSON NOVEMBER 14, 2020
https://nativenewsonline.net/

SAINT PAUL, Minn. — Today, protesters against Line 3 clashed with pro-Trump counter-protestors in front of the Governor’s Mansion in Saint Paul, Minn.

On Thursday, November 12, 2020, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) approved various permits for Enbridge’s Line 3, moving the Calgary-based pipeline replacement project closer to completion.

Enbridge’s Line 3 is the largest project in the company’s history, and would be one of the largest crude oil pipelines in the continent, according to a statement on the company’s website.

https://www.enbridge.com/Line3ReplacementProgram.aspx&source=gmail&ust=1605492830789000&usg=AOvVaw3Uqlod5fzylNiyFkcmnH9O

 Line 3 is expected to transport up to 760,000 barrels a day through Northern Minnesota, passing through treaty lands of several Ojibwe bands. 

Canada, North Dakota, and Wisconsin have all approved their segments of the pipeline.

Line 3 has been a hotly debated topic for several years, having both vocal proponents and opponents, citing climate change, job creation, safer transportation of crude oil, and tribal sovereignty.

Current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has previously made comments on social media against pipelines, specifically because they pass through tribal lands, but at the time he made them, he was a state representative. He hasn’t since made public comments either supporting or opposing the project.

Community organizations, leaders, and tribes have all spoken against the pipeline.

“As many people know, I have long expressed opposition to the Line 3 project and my position has not changed,” said Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan in an email to Native News Online.

Flanagan is an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and is considered by many to be one of Line 3’s biggest opponents.

The Star Tribune reported that White Earth Band of Ojibwe Tribal Chairman Michael Fairbanks wrote a letter to MPCA Commissioner Laura Bishop and asked the agency to deny permission of Line 3 citing that the activity will be a super-spreader for COVID-19.

“The Governor and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Commissioner Laura Bishop decided that this [decisionhttps://www.foxnews.com/us/michigan-governor-seeks-shutdown-of-great-lakes-oil-pipeline">statement, “They [Enbridgehttps://mn350.org/campaigns/stop-line-3/stop-line-3-what-are-the-risks/">website, oil transported through Line 3 is the equivalent of the total CO2 daily emissions of 16-18 million cars, every year the pipeline operates.


As Line 3 protesters stand outside the Governor's Mansion, Trump supporters show up to erroneously claim the election was stolen.

Towards the end of the two-hour event, the crowd of nearly 400 protestors against the permission of Line 3, were met with pro-Trump supporters voicing their support for pipelines. They cited a fraudulent election, a claim that is being widely denied in courts and in media throughout the country.

Pro-Trump supporters eventually swelled to a crowd of nearly 300 people in front of the Governor’s Mansion, wearing Proud Boys memorabilia, waving Trump | Pence flags, and carrying assault-like rifles with alcohol in their hands chanting, “Four more years!”

THIRD WORLD USA

The Deadly Loss of Navajo Women


Eugenia Charles-Newton, a Navajo Nation Council delegate, at home in Shiprock with her donkey, Brandy.

BY SUNNIE R. CLAHCHISCHILIGI NOVEMBER 14, 2020

https://nativenewsonline.net/

This article was orginally published by Spotlight New Mexico. 

 All rights reserved.

On the Navajo Nation, the coronavirus is leaving children motherless, families lost and traditions in peril. But Diné women fight on.

SHIPROCK, N.M. — Sitting in the passenger seat of her husband’s pickup truck just before dusk, Eugenia Charles-Newton watched a young Navajo girl, her niece, during a traditional kinaaldá ceremony in Shiprock.

The coming-of-age ceremony was unlike any other kinaaldá she’d ever seen. Scores of family members were missing and there was only a small cake, just enough to feed the immediate family. That morning, the girl’s female relatives hadn’t gathered to sing and tell stories as they mixed the cake batter. When the girl ran toward the east before the sun rose, she didn’t have throngs of relatives running behind her to fill the dawn air with happy screams and shouts, celebrating her transition into womanhood. Only the young woman’s brothers ran after her.


It’s hard “for a girl to have a ceremony like that and not have all the family there,” Charles-Newton said. She tried to comfort her niece, a relation by clan. “Your mom could have just said, ‘No, we’re not going to have it,’” she pointed out. “But instead, she made it happen.”

Women have long been front and center when it comes to making things happen on the Navajo Nation. But never has that role been so apparent — or so perilous — as during the pandemic. Ever since the coronavirus arrived on the 27,000-square-mile reservation, women in this matriarchal society have been putting themselves at risk, taking on ever more responsibilities, culturally and in everyday life.

“The sacred side of women has changed with COVID,” said Charles-Newton, 43, one of three female delegates on the Navajo Nation Council. Girls used to learn traditions through celebrations, face-to-face talks with elders and communal gatherings. But the pandemic has squelched those opportunities. “It’s taking away a part of the culture.”


By every measure — from economics and education to health — COVID-19 disproportionately harms women and girls “simply by virtue of their sex,” the United Nations has concluded. Women are more exposed to the virus because they’re more likely to be frontline workers, such as nurses and health care staff. They hold more than 77 percent of jobs in U.S. hospitals, health care facilities and nursing homes, U.S. labor statistics show. They hold essential jobs, albeit low-paying ones, in groceries and retail stores.

On the Navajo Nation, women are even more vulnerable to the virus, as a result of poor health care, poverty, trauma and high rates of illnesses like diabetes.

Navajo women not only hold high-exposure jobs but also are keepers of the cultural flame — and caretakers of the many people around them who’ve tested positive for the virus. When they become sick or die, the whole culture suffers.



Rena Martin, a Navajo archaeologist and ethnographer, at the office of Dinétahdóó Cultural Resources Management. She founded the consulting firm to preserve tribal history, culture and the environment.

“Women are the home — they’re matriarchs, they’re mothers,” said Navajo archaeologist Rena Martin, 67. “When people say, ‘I’m going home,’ it’s to where Mom is. If you lose a matriarch, you have no home to go to.”

The founder of Dinétahdóó Cultural Resources Management, a Navajo company dedicated to preserving tribal history, culture and lands, Martin has seen families living in some of the most remote landscapes in the Southwest. She particularly worries about the women elders — crucial to the culture — who are highly vulnerable to COVID-19.

The virus is typically more lethal for Navajo men — but that changes in the golden years, statistics show. After 70, the coronavirus death rate for Navajo women begins to accelerate. By age 80, Diné women suffer a substantially higher death rate than men.

Martin knows firsthand what the loss of an elder can do. Her maternal grandmother, matriarch to the core, boiled herbs, made medicinal drinks and carried them to families stricken with whooping cough, delivering them near and far on horseback. She succumbed to the disease when Martin’s mother was 4.

The loss left the next two generations without knowledge of their family history and teachings, Martin said. It was the need to reclaim those losses that prompted her to become an archaeologist.

“There was a loss of centeredness in the family. There was a loss of oral history.” The pandemic, she said, could leave generations of women feeling similarly at sea.

Some might feel like they’re drowning. Diné women today are juggling employment while also cooking, cleaning, babysitting, shopping, parenting, teaching, caring for relatives and tending to the elderly.

Since March, when the reservation became one of the country’s worst hot spots, women have commonly been seen making supply runs at local stores, buying not just for the immediate family but for extended family members, to meet kinship obligations.

They are carrying caskets at burial sites, typically a man’s job. They are revising the “baby’s first laugh” celebrations, dropping off salt and goodies to family and friends instead of hosting a gathering at home.

Grandmothers are helping children attend virtual classes, though most have no experience with computers. Some have set up makeshift desks in crowded houses without electricity, running water or indoor plumbing — a problem for roughly a third of households. Others sit with their grandchildren outside of schools and chapter houses so the kids will have internet access and can complete their homework.

Zoom won’t suffice

The Navajo are a matrilineal society: When they introduce themselves, they do so by clan, leading with their mother’s clan, which children take as their own. Naabeehó sáanii (Navajo women) are the center of the family, the keepers of wisdom and conservators of ancestral teachings. Navajo emergence stories tell of how women learned to be matriarchs from Changing Woman, a single mother of twin sons who became Diné heroes.

By tradition, the teachings are passed down in person, in the Navajo language. Zoom meetings are hardly a suitable replacement.

In the four-day kinaaldá, for example, the mother, grandmother and other female relatives have hands-on roles in the ceremony, held when a girl reaches puberty. The women help the girl wash and they tie and wrap her hair. They knead her limbs to symbolically “mold” her into a strong woman. They make the alkaan (Navajo cake) and bury it in the ground to cook.

It is a level of communion that’s nearly impossible during recurring waves of contagion and the accompanying public health restrictions. The Navajo Nation, a vast landscape (pop. 172,875) that spans New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, has one of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in America. As of Nov. 10, at least 12,641 cases have been confirmed there; 594 people have died.

The tribal government has tried to curb transmission by issuing strict curfews, stay-at-home orders, business and travel restrictions, and limits on gatherings. Officials have also canceled events like the Miss Navajo Nation pageant, in which contestants must butcher a sheep and cook over an open fire.

Shaandiin Parrish, the current Miss Navajo Nation, is one of the scores of women who’ve seen their roles morph in ways they never imagined. Parrish, 26, was living alone in Window Rock, Arizona, the Navajo Nation’s capital, when the virus struck. She wanted to rush home to the Kayenta area to be with her family, but the reservation was on lockdown.

So she used her time to spread health safety messages on her social media platform. When travel was allowed, she drove hundreds of miles to dispense food, water and supplies to families, along with Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez. Dressed in full traditional attire — velvet shirt and skirt, moccasins, jewelry, a sash, crown, plus a mask and gloves — she continues to give out care packages in remote Navajo communities, from Oljato


From left: Eric Trevizo, a team leader for the Northern Diné COVID-19 Relief Effort, delivers necessities to people like Emily John and daughter April, both diabetic, whose home had no electricity or running water. Eugenia Charles-Newton (far right), a Navajo Nation Council delegate and a volunteer with the relief group, also helps deliver supplies.

Acts of love

Charles-Newton, the council delegate, is among the countless other women engaged in relief work. In addition to her elected duties, she volunteers with the Northern Diné COVID-19 Relief Effort, a grassroots organization that distributes essentials to local families.

The work can get intense. In late July, before driving two hours to an emergency council meeting in Window Rock, Charles-Newton threw on her safety-approved clothing (long-sleeved T-shirt, baseball cap, pants), put on her mask, jumped in her truck and picked up cases of water to deliver to a mother and daughter in Shiprock who had no running water or electricity.

Both women are diabetic and — with no refrigerator — had to buy bags of ice every day to keep their insulin cold in plastic coolers.

On other days, Charles-Newton dispenses advice. One man contacted her because he feared he’d broken tradition: His mother and sisters had tested positive and were too sick to enter the sweat lodge alone. In violation of protocols that require women and men to sweat separately, he entered the women’s sweat to look after them.

“He was very emotional,” Charles-Newton recalled. “He said, ‘This is my mother; these are my sisters. These are the matriarchs, the strong ones in my family.’” Was it wrong to help them?

“I told him, ‘Shiyáázh [my son], what you did for your mom and your sisters is not wrong — it’s an act of love.’

Caring at a cost

Acts of love, of course, can be dangerous. In late April, the Navajo Nation mourned the loss of young mother Valentina Blackhorse, 28, a former Miss Western Navajo. Her boyfriend had contracted the virus, and she’d insisted on taking care of him, the Navajo Times reported. The death of someone so young became national news. Blackhorse was described as selfless, someone who risked her life to help another.

She would not be the last. Social media and headlines announced a growing list of health care workers who’d lost their lives to COVID-19. Other women who passed away were unsung heroes — caretakers on a land of vast needs.

They’d raised sheep and goats, weaved wool, grown food and survived on lands passed down for generations, by matriarchs who came before.

Natalie Tome-Beyale tends to the corn on her Shiprock farmland.

On a recent evening, just as the sun eased to meet the horizon, Natalie Tome-Beyale tended to the crops on Farm Road in Shiprock. With her cell phone in a back pocket and a water bottle nearby, she plucked weeds growing around her family farm. She placed the water bottle five plants ahead of her to make sure she stayed hydrated; every time she reached the bottle, she took a sip.

In previous years, Tome-Beyale and her husband planted the farmland together, but this year she had to do the work alone. About six months ago, she nearly lost her husband, Herbert Beyale Jr., to the virus.

Farming has become an act of healing, she said. With every weed she pulled, the memories sprouted.

Natalie Tome-Beyale works on her farmland.

Tome-Beyale, 63, lost her father when she was a teenager. The eldest of her siblings, she looked after her three younger brothers and at 19 became their legal guardian. She married Herb at a young age, had five children and worked as an educational assistant. “Being a Navajo woman, the big thing was that you need to care for the people around you — they come first.”

Today, she said, this presents women with an entirely new quandary: Children are defying public health orders.

“It’s really sad, because the mom — the women — will not close the door on them. And because of that, it [the virus] comes into the home,” she said. “The love that women have for their children is sometimes their downfall.”

In May, the coronavirus found Tome-Beyale’s family. She had recently become a grandmother and was staying with her daughter in Rio Rancho to help with the baby. Just as she was preparing to return home to Shiprock, Herb tested positive for the virus. He’d been exposed at work.

Tome-Beyale immediately switched gears from looking after her daughter and granddaughter to caring for her husband from a distance.

When Herb developed trouble breathing, he was admitted to a local ICU and then flown to a hospital in Santa Fe. She raced there to see him, but all she could do was watch him get wheeled in from afar.

For three tormented weeks, Herb remained hospitalized and she wasn’t allowed to visit. She rented a hotel room nearby just to be close to him.

Navajo archaeologist Rena Martin at the sheep pens by a home where she’s doing surveying work.

The weave of history

History has often changed the role of Navajo women, who’ve had a role in shaping history, as well. After the Long Walk began in 1864 — and the U.S. Army brutally removed the Diné from their homelands — women were instrumental in pushing for a return home, which was secured under an 1868 treaty.

After the return, women’s roles shifted, this time because of an influx of Christian missionaries who stressed that men — not women — needed to run the home, rule the people and control the government.

It wasn’t until 1951, when legendary public health crusader Annie Dodge Wauneka was elected to the Navajo Tribal Council, that a woman became a prominent government leader, a position Wauneka used to battle tuberculosis and other scourges. To this day, women seldom win elected office.

And while Navajo women are considered sacred, they are disproportionately victimized by violence. More than four in five Native women in the United States have experienced violence in their lifetime, studies show. On some tribal lands, women are murdered at a rate up to 10 times the national average. Navajo Nation Council delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty has spent years calling attention to the problem of missing and murdered women, pressing for solutions at home and before the U.S. Senate. Fellow Council delegate Charlaine Tso summed up the tragedy in a report to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“The Navajo Nation views women as sacred. Yet Navajo women cannot safely go for a short jog in their own communities,” she said.

From left: Gloria Hosteen gets some exercise with grandson Logan and granddaughter Destenie, at the track of the former Shiprock High School.

Answers found

The sun had just set behind the famed Shiprock pinnacle when Gloria Hosteen, 63, took a minute for herself, sitting alone on the front porch of her double-wide trailer, facing ha’a’aah, the east — the direction that signifies birth and strength. She looked to the sky, where the Holy People are said to live, and turned to prayer.

A memory suddenly came to her. She recalled sitting next to her paternal great-grandmother in her hogan years ago. Her great-grandmother and mother had taught her all she knew about ceremonies, herding sheep, weaving, preparing traditional foods and picking herbs.

“These things will come in handy someday,” her great-grandmother told her.

That day had come, Hosteen realized. Her elder had been teaching her survival tools — tools to preserve the culture and protect her family.

For nearly 15 years, Hosteen had been the full-time caretaker for her four grandchildren, ages 10 to 15. She’d felt unsure of herself, uncertain about the future of her children, her grandchildren and the Diné. Now she knew what to do.

She began teaching her granddaughters the old ways. She taught them how to tie their moccasins, tie their sash belts and wrap their traditional hair buns. She taught them about sweat lodges and ceremonies. She also began preparing for the kinaaldá for a young granddaughter, who she expects will have her coming-of-age ceremony before a COVID-19 vaccine arrives.

She felt as if she’d become a matriarch in the truest sense, tested by the pandemic the way matriarchs in the past were tested by ravages and despair. “I have to be strong to challenge these barriers, so I take it one day at a time,” she said. “I’m sure a lot of Navajo women are saying the same thing.”

And on that day on the porch, she offered a prayer to the sky. “I looked up and said, ‘Thank you, Nalí. Thank you, Mom: I will do what you advised me to do.’ All these memories came back,"


Sunnie R. Clahchischiligi is a contributing writer at Searchlight and a member of the Navajo Nation. Her work appears in the Navajo Times, The New York Times and many other publications. She is also a doctoral student and writing instructor at the University of New Mexico.