Native News Briefs | We-Ko-Pa Casino opens sports betting

FORT McDOWELL, Ariz.

The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation and Betfred Sports opened sports betting at the We-Ko-Pa Casino Resort, the tribe reported in a Nov. 23 news release.

Eight new user-friendly kiosks allow players to wager on select sports on pre-match, in-play or futures from straight bets, parlay cards, teasers and more.

They can then insert their winning tickets into the kiosks and use their profits to place additional bets.

Four of the eight kiosks are located on the casino floor. The remaining four are in the WKP Sports & Entertainment, the casino’s sports-themed casual dining outlet.

The casino’s design aims to be the place to be for local residents and visitors interested in the latest gaming options, said Mary Ketterling, general manager.

Betfred Sports will open the complete Betfred Sportsbook early next year.

Ski mountain will no longer have derogatory name

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) –A ski mountain is set to remove a derogatory term for Native American women from its name — two decades after state law eliminated the slur from names of communities and public landmarks.

The leader of a group of investors that’s buying Big Squaw Mountain Resort in Greenville vowed to retire the name upon completion of the purchase, the Portland Press Herald reported.

“It’s going to change. There is no doubt about that,” said Perry Williams, managing partner at Big Lake Development Co.

“It’s about time,” Penobscot National Tribe Ambassador Maulian Dana said of the prospective owners’ plans.

The mountain’s name was changed from Big Squaw Mountain to Big Moose Mountain after the state banned the word from public place names like towns, mountains and lakes in 2000. But the offensive word had carried on at the ski resort because it’s a privately owned business.

Tribes buy back parcels of ancestral homeland

DOVER, Del. (AP) –Two Native American tribes in Delaware are buying back land that had been part of their ancestral homelands.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the Nanticoke Indian tribe acquired 30 acres in Millsboro this fall. The Lenape Indian tribe is expected to close a deal in early 2022 for 11 acres near Fork Branch Nature Preserve in Dover.

Behind the land deals are partnerships between the individual tribes and several other entities. They include the environmental nonprofit Conservation Fund, the state of Delaware and a private conservation group located near Wilmington that is called Mt. Cuba Center.

Leaders of both tribes said they tried for years to buy the parcels of the land. But they said that they either couldn’t make the deal come together or lacked the money.

“We, the Indians, had free run of the state of Delaware before contact with Europeans,” said Dennis “White Otter” Coker, the principal chief of the Lenape Indian tribe of Delaware. “All of this land was ours.”

Link to tribes seeking return of remains found

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Native American tribes fighting for the return of human remains and funerary artifacts excavated from an ancient settlement in present-day Alabama got help for their argument Nov. 23 when a federal advisory committee found the site to be culturally linked to their tribes.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Review Committee found a “preponderance of the evidence for cultural affiliation” between the remains and artifacts taken from the settlement founded 1,000 years ago and the Muskogean-speaking tribes known to live near there when European settlers arrived.

Tribal officials said afterward that the finding means the University of Alabama will be in violation of federal law if it does not return the funerary objects and sacred items to the tribes.

David Hill, Principal Chief of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, said in a statement, “We have requested the return of our ancestors for years, and the excuses for delay are over. With the finding that the remains and funerary objects discovered in Moundville are culturally affiliated with the seven tribes that have petitioned for their return, there is no reason to wait any longer. The time has come for our ancestors to rest in peace.”

Shenandoah, celebrated Native singer, passes on

NEW YORK (AP) – Joanne Shenandoah, the celebrated Native American singer-songwriter who performed before world leaders and on high-profile stages, died on Nov. 22. She was 63.

The Native American Music Awards & Association posted on its website that Shenandoah, described as “Native America’s musical matriarch,” died Monday night in Scottsdale, Arizona, after complications of abdominal bleeding.

The organization said, “Joanne’s beautiful embellishing voice, strong Iroquois traditions, unequivocal elegance and courteous grace made her a prominent role model and highly respected musical matriarch among Native American communities as well as the mainstream music community at large.”

Shenandoah was a member of the Wolf Clan of the Oneida Nation, and grew up in central New York state.

WWII nurse, tribal leader passes at 102

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Marcella Rose LeBeau, an Army nurse who was honored for her service during World War II and leadership in the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, has died. She was 102.

Family members said she “passed on to journey to the next world” late Sunday, Nov. 21, in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, after experiencing problems with her digestive system and losing her appetite.

LeBeau had remained active all of her life and earlier this month traveled to Oklahoma for a ceremony honoring her induction into the National Native American Hall of Fame.

Her daughter, Gerri Lebeau, said the matriarch of her family demonstrated fortitude, as well as an ability to seek healing, as she overcame the abuses she faced at an Indian boarding school during her youth.

She went on to treat frontline soldiers as an Army nurse in Europe during the Allied invasion of Normandy. After returning home, she became an outspoken advocate for health in the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

“She was the foundation of our family,” said her grandson Ryman LeBeau. “She had a lifetime of good things that she had accomplished.”

Lebeau was born in 1919 and grew up in Promise, South Dakota, as a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Her mother died when she was 10 years old, and her grandmother gave her the name Wigmunke’ Waste Win’, or Pretty Rainbow Woman.

At 24 years old, LeBeau served with the Army Nurse Corps’ 76th General Hospital based in Minster, England. As Allied forces retook France and Belgium, she treated injured soldiers from medical tents, sometimes with bombs buzzing overhead.

“It was one of my greatest privileges and honor to have cared for those soldiers,” LeBeau told the Rapid City Journal in 2004 when she was honored with the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest civilian honor.

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