TOMORROW👇 Wear Orange, too.
READ MORE:
https://nativenewsonline.net/sovereignty/orange-shirt-day-2026-events-and-gatherings
My sibling Ronnie Chappelle
By Trace L Hentz, Blog Editor
I just had a birthday. I wasn't expecting a call from Alabama where my brother Ronnie lives. On my 9-9 birthday, his wife told me that Ronnie had died in his sleep on Sept. 6, how he'd been real sick. His funeral was happening the next day (Sept. 10, 2026.)
I was not going to make it all the way down to Alabama to be there, obviously.
Ronnie and I have the same dad, Earl Bland. Earl was 18 when Ronnie was born and his new baby boy was adopted by a maternal aunt. Growing up, Ronnie was miserable, his daughter told me. Even raised in your own family, being adopted by a relative can have its own drawbacks, as many of you have told me.
Ten years later, Earl was 28 when I was born. Earl knew I existed, too, and I explained in my memoir what he told me, how he would have raised me.
The sad truth is my brother Ronnie and I never met. We talked on the phone. His daughter found me after my memoir ONE SMALL SACRIFICE was published. When I met Earl when I was 38, he told me I had a brother, but little else. Ronnie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Earl didn't tell me his name or didn't know. Earl thought he was a lawyer in New Orleans but wasn't sure. He was wrong. A Navy man, Ronnie had a long military career.
I didn't think I'd ever find him. He found me.
Now he's gone.
Here's the kicker: Ronnie is the second brother I have lost (in the past few years), and I am not mentioned in their obits. Ronnie's OBIT: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/ronnie-chappelle-obituary?id=62373423
Who ever does genealogy needs to be aware that this happens to adoptees. In my case, TWICE!
I need to take a break from blogging here. I may have to tear apart my kitchen again or do some mosaic tiling and hard labor to process this. I know how to grieve, yes, cry, yes, but this pain is more anger.
Check your local listings in the US for NOVA- airs WEDNESDAY, Sept, 23, 2026
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Nova: Knowledge Keepers |
If you’re looking for something to watch or cook this weekend, there are two good Indigenous food options.
Vision Maker Media is streaming Spirit Plate free throughout September. The series follows award-winning chef Pyet DeSpain (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) as she visits Indigenous communities to gather, fish, hunt, and cook with local foods. The 15-minute episodes include spearing Pacific lamprey with the Yurok Tribe, a bison stew for the Potawatomi Gathering, a feast with Onondaga seed keepers and matriarchs, halibut cooked for Haida elders in a longhouse, a Hawaiian underground-oven pig roast, and Tlingit beach asparagus and salmon.
And if you’re ready to cook, Crystal Wahpepah (Kickapoo Nation) published A Feather and a Fork this year, with 125 intertribal recipes including sweet blue cornbread, strawberry-sumac salad, bison roast with chokeberry rub, and acorn muffins. Tommy Orange wrote the foreword.
Vision Maker Media, Spirit Plate link
A Feather and a Fork: 125 Intertribal Dishes from an Indigenous Food Warrior, Crystal Wahpepah
Frances Bones and Fannie Gibson are among a dozen Indigenous children expected to return to their communities after passing away at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The school led the way for others in the country, striving to assimilate nearly 7,800 children by isolating them from their communities and cultures.
Bones was 14 years old when she left her mom and dad in the winter of 1894 to attend Carlisle. Comanche Nation Chairman Forrest Tahdooahnippah said she was the daughter of one of the tribe's chiefs, "Cho-nip (Tsunipu), which means 'bones,' and his wife Cha-yah."
"At that time, in the early days of Carlisle, the children of tribal leaders were the focus of the conscription efforts for boarding schools," Tahdooahnippah said in an emailed statement.
A physician in her area called the young Comanche member healthy a couple of days before she arrived in Pennsylvania to start school. Six months later, she passed away. Her cause of death is not listed in the Carlisle Digital Archive.
"Our community still struggles with the legacy of boarding schools, and I hope that her return home provides healing and closure for her family and for our entire community," Tahdooahnippah said.
Gibson will be returning home to the Absentee Shawnee Tribe.
She arrived at Carlisle on Christmas Eve in 1899 at the age of 17. She studied there for about one year before passing. ICT reports that Gibson died from tuberculosis, the most common cause of death for the students currently being repatriated.
The Chief Executive Officer at the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, Nikki Santos (Cour D'Alene Tribe), said the grief that comes with losing children who were taken from their homes and never came home has rippled across generations.
"We call on institutions entrusted with the care of Native children's remains and cultural belongings to carry out this work with transparency, respect, consultation and accountability," Santos said in a statement. "These children were loved, they mattered, and their lives and stories must never be forgotten."
This is the ninth year the U.S. Army has worked to reunite Indigenous families with their loved ones who passed away at Carlisle. Throughout their years doing this work, there have been disinterment issues due to past operational mistakes — notably, a Wichita boy named Alfred Charko, whose remains couldn't be reinterred because they weren't where the plot maps indicated.
"Navigating the disinterment and return process requires the highest level of professional care and compassion and we are committed to providing the expert assistance needed to return their loved ones to their families and communities," said Director of the Office of Army Cemeteries Renea Yates.
All boarding school students will be honored on Sept. 30 during Orange Shirt Day, an annual day of truth and reconciliation aimed at raising awareness about the Indian boarding school system that impacted Indigenous people across the U.S. and Canada.
The Absentee Shawnee Tribe declined to comment.
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
Link to video is here.
From NCAI’s YouTube channel:
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve, Tribal Nations face critical decisions about how to protect their natural resources, safeguard Tribal data sovereignty, and ensure emerging technologies align with Tribal values. By exercising governance over AI, Tribal Nations can also harness these tools to preserve and revitalize Indigenous languages, strengthen self-determination, and create high-quality economic and workforce opportunities for Native people.
Whether your Tribal Nation chooses to regulate, leverage, or reject AI, this session provides the clear-eyed roadmap you need to make informed decisions. Hear directly from the foremost Indigenous tech experts on protecting our resources and governing AI on our own terms.
Featured Speakers:
The Risks: Land & Water — Cora Tso, Arizona State University
The Risks: Data & DNA — Dr. Krystal Tsosie & Joe Yracheta, Native BioData Consortium
The Opportunity: Workforce — Danielle Forward, Natives Rising
Innovation: Language — Michael Running Wolf, FLAIR
The webinar was recorded live on July 22, 2026.
Written and directed by Joey Clift (Cowlitz Indian Tribe) and created by a largely Indigenous team of Native animation professionals and allies, POW! is an 8 minute animated short about a Native kid scrambling to charge his video game console at a powwow.
The film screened at close to 100 festivals and won top animation honors at almost two dozen, including Best Native American Film at the 2026 Tonkawa Film Festival.
A 28 minute podcast interview with Joey Clift is available here, where he talks about the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, storytelling and animation, and Native comedians.
By Trace Hentz, Blog Editor
My birthday is on 9-9. So 25 years ago we went to New York City to celebrate! I wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building. (Remember my husband is from Harlem and hates doing tourist stuff.) But we went up and I shot photos of the World Trade Center, of course. (I have so many really special photos in boxes...)
So I went home to Connecticut and was in an editorial meeting for the Pequot Times and we all ran to the television to watch what happened today, on 9-11 in New York, 25 years ago.
As a journalist I had to go back, so 12 days later I took this photo.
I am 70 now.
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Your History Class Was a F*cking Lie by Sean Sherman (Or: How the American Educational System Has Always Been a Racist Propaganda Program...
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