Alison Reber has sent you an Article from the Indian Country Today website.
Kansas: Lawrence – Wakarusa Wetlands Save the Wakarusa Wetlands Inc. – an association of Lawrence, Kan.,-based Haskell Indian Nations University alumni, students and community supporters – will observe National Prayer Day at sunrise June 21 in the wetlands south of Lawrence. The ceremony will be led by Jimm Goodtracks, Otoe-Missouria, assisted by Mike Smith, Dene, and is open to all who wish to add their prayers to save this sacred place from the highway builders. Jeremy Shield, Crow, will again sing a song to greet the sun. Participants will ask for the protection of the Wakarusa Wetlands (aka Haskell-Baker Wetlands), threatened by an eight-lane highway project approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but delayed by state budget constraints. After years of claiming the trafficway had been ”de-federalized,” in an attempt to render federal laws protecting Native sites inapplicable, the Federal Highway Administration is back in the game. It recently announced its intent to adopt an outdated and severely flawed Corps of Engineers environmental impact statement in order to expedite federal funds for the beleaguered project. As has happened so often in this long struggle, the announcement of a decision, promised by March, had been postponed until after Haskell students left for summer vacation. A lawsuit is pending if KDOT proceeds with construction. This sacred place is the last significant trace of the original Wakarusa Bottoms, an 18,000-acre prairie wetland environment that existed for thousands of years before the draining and damming of the wetlands, which supplied Native peoples of the region with valuable medicines and important ceremonial items.
Elders have said the Creator caused the course of the Wakarusa River to go directly east toward the rising sun, in sharp contrast to the other rivers in the region, as a sign of sacred healing plants and herbs to be gathered there. About 600 acres of the Wakarusa Wetlands was located directly south of the dorms at Haskell Institute. The last major remnant of this wetland became a refuge where young Indian people from all across the country survived government efforts to exterminate their cultures during the off-reservation boarding school years. There, in the wetland refuge, young Indian people from Maine to California sang forbidden songs, performed dances that were federally punishable with jail time and refused to let the authorities ”kill the Indian” in them. Parents and other tribal leaders camped, often for weeks, beside these wetlands on the bank of the Wakarusa awaiting permission from school officials to retrieve or at least visit their children. Despite efforts to drain the wetland in the early 20th century, and Haskell’s loss of this property during the termination era, the Wakarusa Wetland, like Haskell Indian Nations University itself, has survived and flourished. The entire historic Haskell campus, including the wetlands, is reportedly being considered for designation as a National Historic Heritage area. Contact Michael Caron at (785) 842-6293 or mcaron@sunflower.com with Save the Wakarusa Wetlands in the subject line, or visit www.savethewetlands.org; Lori Tapahonso, executive assistant/public information officer, Haskell Indian Nations University, at (785) 830-2715 or LTapahonso@HASKELL.edu; or RaeLynn Butler, president, Haskell Wetland Preservation Organization, Haskell Indian Nations University, at Rbutler@HASKELL.edu.
