University of Montana press release
Feb. 23, 2011
MISSOULA –
The “Lessons of our Land” speaker series will hold events on Wednesdays, March 2 and 9, featuring Narcisse Blood of Red Crow Community College in Stand Off, Alberta, and Cris Stainbrook, president of the Indian Land Tenure Foundation in Little Canada, Minn. Both events are free and open to the public.
Blood will share traditional knowledge about the connection between land, language and people from 4 to 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 2, in Payne Family Native American Center Room 105. He will explain how tribal identity is intricately connected to the power of place and how the language of tribal ancestors explains the community relationships to the Earth.
Blood is a current researcher and former director of Kainai studies at Red Crow Community College. He also teaches for the Kainai Studies program in the Department of Education at Lethbridge University and in the International Indigenous Studies Department at the University of Calgary. In 2003 he served as chair of the Mookaakin Cultural and Heritage Foundation of the Blood Tribe.
Stainbrook, an Oglala Lakota, will address Indian land consolidation issues and the American Indian Probate Act concerns for landowners across Indian Country from 4 to 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 9, in Payne Family Native American Center Room 105.
The U.S. Department of the Interior manages 56 million acres of trust land for American Indians, including tribes and land allotted to individuals. The Secretary of the Interior must approve nearly all land use decisions, such as selling, leasing or business development. That process often hinders land use and management, Stainbrook said. He said many Indian landowners cannot even locate their lands, and land management decisions are commonly made without their consent.
He will address how Indian trust lands are passed from one generation to the next and speak about national policy issues related to trust lands. He also will address the issue of putting private, or fee lands, into federal trust status.
The speaker series also will hold events March 23 and March 30, featuring Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff in the Cobell v. Salazar lawsuit, and Julie Cajune, executive director of the Center for American Indian Policy and Applied Research at Salish Kootenai College.
The series is sponsored by the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, a community-based, nonprofit organization focused on the recovery, management and control of American Indian lands by Indian people. For more information, visit http://iltf.org , call Jodi Rave at 406-396-8537 or e-mail jodi.rave@umontana.edu .
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