March 2010 Newsletter - Guest Article
Native American Research and Preservation, Inc
Our organization is a 501c3 Colorado based non-profit corporation. Our mission is to locate, document, interpret and preserve Native American prehistoric and historic sites.
We work with Tribal Elders, Historic Preservation offices, State Archaeology offices and chapters, State Land Board, USDA Forest Service, State Forest Service, archaeoastronomers, Smithsonian Institution archaeologists and other non-profit organizations from across country.
Our Board of Directors includes archaeologists, a geologist, and other archaeologists and tribal elders from Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Wyoming and Rhode Island serve in an advisory capacity.
These prehistoric and historic sites are an important part of this country’s history and they are being destroyed daily by looting, ignorance and carelessness. These places are not being made anymore, and once they are destroyed, they are gone forever. The Native Americans had their land, their very way of life taken from them. They were forced to live in unspeakable conditions on reservations – thousands starved or died of white man’s diseases. All that is left now of that history are these places we are striving to save and learn from. It’s a race against time. Many of the elders who do still remember the ‘why’ of these sites are getting older and won’t be around to share their memories. Many tribes had no written words, theirs was an oral history, passed down through the generations. Much of the past is being lost, forgotten.
We do public education seminars with powerpoint presentations focusing on what these sites meant and still mean to Native Americans. Many sites are sacred, spiritual places still used today for special ceremonies. In Arizona, the Hopi and Zuni still do ceremony on the equinoxes and solstices at their ‘Sun Watcher’ cairns. We deal with specific types of stone and other structures that were built, but also with whole sacred landscapes – certain mountains, bodies of water, for example, that are considered sacred and are endangered.
We take posters and other educational materials to schools, forts, rendezvous to help children understand and thereby respect these cultures. During our presentations, we stress the words ‘Mitakuye Oyasin’ meaning we are all related. But not just related to each other – we are related to the animals, plants – everything on Mother Earth. The Native Americans looked forward to the next seven generations, they knew everything they did or didn’t do would have an effect on the Earth.
We are working to establish a site stewardship training program for our area. This country’s public lands are underprotected, underfunded, and increasingly vulnerable. Training people as site stewards and education of the public of the importance of these areas is critical to protecting them. We want to convince people that digging on a Native American burial site is no different from digging up a modern graveyard. It is morally wrong. We have worked with the Forest Service and State Land Board to close roads and fence off areas when necessary to cut down on site damages.
We want to educate people about the Resource Protection Laws – it is illegal to take artifacts from public lands. And when artifacts are taken, the story of what happened there, what people were there, is destroyed. We find a disturbingly amount of rock art panels destroyed by people carving their names over priceless petroglyphs, and rock art panels being used for target practice. We hope education will help people understand these places – their importance, and respect them. We encourage people to take photographs or draw sketches of artifacts they find, leave them in place, and if it is felt to be significant to call the local forest service or BLM archaeologists or our organization’s archaeologists. A year ago a rancher found what he thought was a wickiup (a sort of tipi like structure) and contacted us. After we photographed it, we sent the information to the Colorado Wickiup Project. This past fall we were part of the team to get this significant site recorded. This man is commended on his actions – he did the right thing and the wickiup/lodge was named after him.
In order to help funding so we may continue our work, we have designed yearly calendars with photos of sites and descriptions, t-shirts, note cards, magnets/pins, bumper stickers, etc. for sale. We give away as educational materials brochures and bookmarks. We spend thousands of dollars a year traveling the mountains and hills doing monitoring of sites already documented, locating and documenting new sites and traveling across the country to give presentations and doing research with other organizations and talking with tribal elders.
Kevin Black, Colorado Assistant State Archaeologist, has designed a poster on Avocational Contributions to Colorado Archaeology he is submitting at the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) conference in St. Louis in April. He has honored us and our organization by including our work. This is a national organization well known all across the United States. Photographs are included of the work done by members Becky Donlan and Nick Standing Bear with the State Land Board to preserve a vandalized tipi ring site in South Park. Of 13 original tipi rings, only two are left. This is an excellent example of why we are doing this work.
We are honored to be supported by The Drum People, Keith Little Badger and Cheryl Talking Bird who wholesale us handmade drums. They are enrolled members of the Metis tribe. Tribal members on the Pine Ridge Reservation wholesale us pins and magnets. Ron White, www.derivedfromnature.com, a renowned artist in Colorado and his wife Cathy, designs and carves beautiful and unique rock art images on stone necklaces, magnets, and wall hangings. They also are wholesaling to our organization. Ron has a new design created especially for the 2010 Crane Festival in Monte Vista in March. It is of the ‘Big Bird’ petroglyph, the highest known rock art in Colorado at 9,000’ and he is dedicating it to the Crane Festival and our organization. These pieces are dated and signed and are collectables. We are deeply gratified by this support.
For more information email us at sacredstones@q.com, or visit our website (in conjunction with the San Luis Valley ArchaeoNetwork) www.slvarchaeo.net.
Ken Frye, vice-president of N.A.R.P. and archaeologist with the Forest Service in Monte Vista, and I will be giving a powerpoint presentation on Ceremonial Areas of South Park and the San Luis Valley at the Crane Fest on Sat. March 13 and we will have a booth set up with posters of sites we are researching and items for sale, including Ron White’s necklaces, magnets and wall hangings. Be sure and come visit us!
Becky Donlan, President
Ken Frye, Vice President
Mitakuye Oyasin (we are all related)
719-539-2913
Native American Research and Preservation, Inc.
8445 County Road 144 Salida, CO 81201
719-539-2913
sacredstones@q.com
www.slvarchaeo.net