Native Nations





Official and Unofficial Tribal Sites

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Reality of Native Nations and Tribal Websites

Native Nations in the U.S. and Canada are recognized (often only after considerable struggles and litigation) as indigenous nations with a measure of sovereignty. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between national websites prepared by or with acknowledgement of and responsibility to, these nations, and unofficial sites about history, culture or current events for a particular tribe. That distinction seems especially important on an educational "metasite" such as this one, whose users range from people totally naive about all of Native history to people deeply involved in actually making that history now.

Unofficial, or volunteer, sites are often prepared by tribal people with access to a server through being college students, or through city jobs. They are also prepared by non-natives, professors, commercial enterprises (tourist agncies, art galleries) government agencies, Nuagers. These sites are often highly informative, beautiful, interesting. But they are about Native Nations, not by them.

A FAQ attempts to explain -- mostly to educate non-tribal people -- what the legal situation is with regard to "status of tribal peoples and nations" in both the U.S. and Canada today. Sites do change status; I will appreciate being informed of any unofficials that become official, or of new tribal sites of either type. NOTE: Town listings are for a tribe's official postal address, not always physically on the reservation/reserve, but if so, its largest town and center of government.

Native Sites Linkpage accesses a variety of index-catalogs and subject-topic catalog linklist sites, and several powerful web searchengines which are likely to be more up to date -- though none distinguish official Nation sites from those ranging from governmental to Nuage. The listings also include multi-cultural, multi-tribal, graphics, and similar listings not focussed (as here) on a single tribe or reservation/reserve.


Because this page had not been updated since 1996, a great many sites either moved, no longer existed, changed from unofficial to offical, or made other major changes. The links to individual tribal sites have been removed from the listing below. Instead, we offer links to 2 other sites that are actively maintained:

We hope this is useful to you. Google will also be useful.

Google

SEE NEW Native MAPS section
for a different approach to organizing tribal info and links, using state maps of reservations, and generally linking-to more docs about each.

OFFICIAL--U.S. NATIVE NATIONS SITES

Bureau of Indian Affairs Not much content (compare with Canadian INAC), but here it is. To locate contact info (minimally just the tribal office general phone) you must go to the Area Offices page, and pick the Area Office which overviews the tribe you're seeking.

CODETALK is another U.S. agency website that is developing significant content for tribal department, project, an d educational use.


OFFICIAL--CANADIAN FIRST NATIONS/INUIT

INAC -- federal Indian and Northern Affairs, Canada. No longer provides database info on 600+ Canadian bands, but does list an 800 phone number.

Nunavut Planning Commission -- While this is still a Canadian agency preparing for the transition of Nunavut to Province status in 1999, it now has a number of Inuit staffers, including a trainee-Executive Director. Most Inuit Board members are also on-line (with email) and can presumably overview the site. Also available are press releases, a map, newsletters.

Canadian and English Native treaties Map windowed fulltexts, historical contexts.



Anishinaabemowin Songs:

By Gagandac, White Earth Reservation, around 1908


Naningodinunk
Nibabacawendam
Niyau
Babamaciyan
Gitchigoon


Sometimes
I go around feeling sorry for
Myself
While I'm being carried by the wind
All around the sky.


Misiwe
Akin
Nindebwewidum


All over
The world
My voice resounds


. . . But nobody ever sends me any money. Why is that, I wonder?



Nodin
Etaa
Ningotan


The wind
Is the only thing
That I'm afraid of











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CREDITS: The warrior image, in black and white, was used on many AIM and Wounded Knee Legal Defense flyers in 1973-75, by pasteup. It first appeared in a 1973 issue of Akwesasne Notes and was probably drawn by Rokwaho, Wolf Clan Mohawk, artist and poetry editor for Notes back then. California AIM uses it as a logo. I traced it in FreeHand several years ago, and colored and adapted it for this page. The Colibri (hummingbird) was a much large photo (or painting?) on the Taino InterTribal Council web gallery. I reduced and animated it. The poems are songs, recorded at White Earth in 1908 by Frances Densmore and published in Chippewa Songs Ross and Haines Old Books, 1972. Various song-poems will appear from time to time at the bottoms of the sites columns to even them up.

Last updated: 3/21/02 KMS