Human Rights Law

The Games begin in two hours.

By melvin

No, not those games.

The 2008 North American Indigenous Games officialy begin this afternoon with an opening ceremony at 5 Pacific time.

The opening, and 20-some hours of athletic competition throughout the Games, will be covered and streamed live on the web by Aboriginal Peoples Television Newtwork.

Participants from the Tribal Journey canoe voyage to Cowichan will accompany athletes and tribal elders and cultural leaders onto Si'em Le'lum ifeld.

The ceremony will end with the raising of the Spirit Pole which has travelled all over BC and been symbolically and literally carved by hundreds of people before being rowed to Cowichan. (rough design sketch at right)

Poles are stories, old or new. Carey Newman, who designed this pole, explains it here. A great pole can be read in multiple ways. In a move that will honor and entertain locals for generations (the pole will remain in place) Newman has also folded the foundation myth of Cowichan into his pole:

Also told by the figures on the pole is the story of Quw'utsun. When the People first saw the place that would become their home, the mountains appeared to be "frogs warming their backs in the sun." The hul'q'uminum word for this is Scowutsun. Known today as "Cowichan," Quw'utsun is "a place to warm your back in the sun." The pole itself is meant to represent the mountains. The river flows down the mountain and wraps around the Frog near the base. Unseen from the front, the Sun is opposite the Moon, warming the Eagle's back. The wings of the Eagle are designed to be his feathers and wings, but also a Cowichan blanket.

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The USGS has been updating its 2008 Coast Salish Water Quality Project pages.  Note in particular the Trip Details page, with links to every data point collected on the trip linked to its google maps location. It seems remarkable that in these days when suppression of scientific information is the norm, USGS chose to directly release information to the web before any possible analysis of what it might mean, but on the other hand the Corps of Engineers has done the same for many years with salmon migration numbers posted in real time.  

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on August 03, 2008 (boomark / email).