Jamie K Oxendine

Our Last Stand: To Fight Gangs and Their Grip On Our Children  By Ray Martin, Gang Prevention Specialist Today on our reservations and in our communities our people live in fear of the youth.  Gangs and gang life have given us violent crime, drug dealing, and even the prostitution of….

Native Americans from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the Arctic to the Tropics were quite cordial and rather kind to guests in the home. Europeans and later Americans noticed certain mannerisms concerning a guest at home that was far beyond their own concept of providing hospitality. Even after the….

Note: this article is about the Native American Medicine Wheel symbol, color and design as opposed to the physical structure known as the Medicine Wheel that is visible as architecture across North America. Universal truths can be found in this paper of information that is shared and accepted in not….

Why Research Your Native American Heritage Regardless of whether you are already a Native American enrolled with either a Federal or State Recognized Tribe, this is a wonderful assignment.  There is always new history and information to find out about your Family, Band, Clan, Tribe, and Nation.  Also, never rely….

Facing Diabetes in a Native American World  by Judy Anderson “Facing Diabetes in a Native American World” is the result of an experience of a Native American man with Diabetes and his struggles physically, financially, emotionally and socially. Out of his fight to take back his life, was born a….

IF THEY HAVE HAD IT THEY WOULD HAVE USED IT – MAYBE? Native American Use of Trade Materials By Jamie K. Oxendine, Lumbee/Creek Editor, PowWows.com Director, Black Swamp InterTribal Foundation PRELUDE How often has one gotten this question:  “They had that back then?”  Or how about this question: “This material….

What is Native American?  What an encumbered question.  One might as well ask “Why is the sky blue?” Obviously, a rhetorical question to be profound as one does not need the technical scientific answer to “Why the sky is blue?” The author has been asked the above question concerning Native….

DO YOU LIVE IN A NATIVE AMERICAN STATE? State Name Origins By Jamie K. Oxendine, Lumbee/Creek Editor, PowWows.com Director, Black Swamp InterTribal Foundation  PRELUDE Most Americans have no concept of the origin history of their state or the state they live in and this includes the knowledge of the origins….

What do you think when you hear “traditional Thanksgiving foods?” You might be thinking of turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, three-bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie… and, in a sense, those are traditional Thanksgiving foods because Americans have been eating them every fall for….

To any Native American who travels a great deal and attends and participates in a large number of cultural events, it would appear that everybody has an “Indian Princess” in the family. Usually, this person is a “Cherokee Indian Princess” … or at least it would seem so with the….

Long before White Contact to the “New World” the Native Americans had many kinds of celebrations for the four seasons.  One of the most celebrated for the Eastern Woodland Culture was that of Harvest Time.  This festival was mainly indigenous to the Eastern Woodlands because of their strong agricultural base…..

Before the term “powwow” became popular, various words were used to describe this cultural phenomenon.  Some of these included: Celebration, Doing, Fair, Feast, Festival Gathering, Happening, Indian Dance, Rodeo, Show and Union.  The term “powwow” is actually a North Eastern Woodland word belonging to the Narragansett Language and the closest….