Here are some of the Native American-related news stories that made headlines this week:
Veterans Affairs to drop health care copayments for Native American vets
Native Americans and Alaska Natives who have served in the armed forces will no longer have to make copayments for health care and emergency care received through Veterans Affairs.
“American Indian and Alaska Native Veterans deserve access to world-class health care for their courageous service to our nation,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a press release Monday. “By eliminating copays, we are making VA health care more affordable and accessible — which will lead to better health outcomes for these heroes.”
The new rule is estimated to affect about 25,000 American Indian and Alaska Native veterans.
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Administration takes new steps to help tribe conserve water
The Biden/Harris administration has announced up to $233 million in funding and conservation agreements to help the Gila River Indian Community and water users across the Colorado River Basin protect the stability and sustainability of the Colorado River System during a period of persistent drought.
“Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, we have historic, once-in-a-generation investments to expand access to clean drinking water for families, farmers and Tribes,” Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said in a press release Thursday. “In the wake of record drought throughout the West, safeguarding Tribal access to water resources could not be more critical.”
The Gila River Indian Community in Arizona will receive $50 million to help fund a system conservation agreement to protect Colorado River reservoir storage amid climate change-driven drought conditions. It will also receive $83 million for the community’s Reclaimed Water Pipeline Project.
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Think tank: feds need to change how they collect data on Native Americans
The Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, says government methods of collecting and publishing data on race and ethnicity is skewing research, affecting policy and furthering old misunderstandings about Indigenous Americans.
Today, federal race data is usually divided into five categories: white, Black, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. An added category, Hispanic or Latino, is problematic because these are ethnicities, not races. Confusing matters more, Native American is a political and legal classification, not a racial one.
U.S. Census data show that Native Americans identify as two or more races at significantly higher rates than these larger groups. Agencies and institutions often lump multiracial individuals into a single, catch-all category.
This can lead to the exclusion of more than three-quarters of Native Americans from some official data sets, the study says.
The authors do not, however, address the added problem of non-Natives claiming Native American ancestry based on family folklore or so-called “race shifters.”
As the federal government looks toward the 2030 federal Census, Brookings recommends creating a separate set of questions on Native American identity, allowing individuals to specify tribal affiliation.
The Brookings team also suggests that the government should empower tribes to collect and manage data about their own populations and territories.
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TVA ready to repatriate thousands of Native ancestral remains
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) — the largest federally owned utility company in the U.S. — says it has finished inventorying its collection of Native American human remains and funerary objects and is ready to repatriate them to tribes.
In a Wednesday notice in the Federal Register, the company said it holds the remains of more than 4,800 Native ancestors and 1,400 associated funerary objects collected during dam construction projects in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee during the 1930s.
1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) requires all federally funded institutions to consult with tribes to identify and return Native American human remains, funerary objects and objects of cultural or spiritual significance.
The collection is associated with several tribes that once made their home in the region, including the Cherokee, Shawnee, Choctaw and Muscogee. Tribes seeking their repatriation may submit requests after April 28.
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Study: Indigenous traders, not the Spanish, brought horses to Plains
A study published in the journal Science concludes something Native Americans say they have known all along: Indigenous societies were working with and caring for horses in the Rockies and central Plains before any European set foot in the region.
Horses first evolved in North America 4 million years ago and, according to scientists, became extinct during the Ice Age 10,000 years ago.
The common scientific narrative is that Spanish conquistadors reintroduced horses to North America.
Archaeologists from the Universities of Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma worked with Lakota, Comanche, Pawnee and Pueblo collaborators and analyzed and dated the remains of more than two dozen horses across Western states. Their conclusion: Indigenous peoples working through established trade networks brought Spanish horses west.
Many Native Americans, among them Lakota/Cheyenne scholar Yvette Running Horse Collin, maintain that prehistoric horses never went extinct and were here all along.
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