Indigenous Culture

Reprinted from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. DENVER, CO—Southern Ute Indian Reservation - A historic partnership is forging between the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the United States Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Through the USDA or NRCS Agency's Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the entities have jointly entered an alternative funding arrangement (AFA) to improve rangeland resiliency and health on Tribal lands. This project is funded through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). "This is an exciting partnership", said Clint Evans, NRCS State Conservationist in Colorado. "The Southern Ute Indian Tribe is the first Tribe in the...

An interview with Move Mountains Project Executive Director, Shirley Romero Otero By Anna Lee Vargas. Since its official inception in 2014, Move Mountains Project (Move Mountains) has served as an art and entrepreneurship community education program that builds sustainable platforms for the youth leaders of San Luis, Colorado. Move Mountains’ mission is to encourage youth, as heirs to the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant, to develop deeper understandings of art, resource preservation and entrepreneurship in order to empower active community citizens through a focus on local and global social justice issues.  Since lack of employment is a major obstacle for youth of...

A history of colcha in Saguache County By HEART of Saguache Colcha embroidery became an important cultural tradition in Saguache County when a revival took place in the 1970s to develop a cottage industry for low-income, rural women. Through a serpentine path of joy and disillusionment, participating artists and families came to treasure these artworks as heirlooms and expressions of community identity. Local landscapes are a common motif in SLV colcha embroidery as artists used their daily lives as inspiration. The programs didn’t result in economic prosperity and they became a touchstone in the complex history of the interplay between intentions and impacts...

Protecting Indigenous foodways, feeding community, and empowering youth By Anya Kaats The Acequia Institute, located in San Luis, CO, has emerged as a beacon of community empowerment in the realm of agriculture and environmental justice. Among the Institute’s many endeavors is a 35-year-old seed sanctuary. The Acequia Institute’s founder, Devon Peña, has collected seeds over the years for the sanctuary — mainly corn, beans, and squash. These three foods are main agricultural crops for various Indigenous peoples in Central and North America and are often referred to by the Haudenosaunee (The Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy) as “The Three Sisters”.  The three crops...

Using fire as a tool in land stewardship By Hillary Renick. Fire as a tool Fire, powerful and often feared, has been a fundamental part of the life of healthy forests throughout history.  Fire helps seeds germinate, aids in keeping meadows and grasslands balanced, and attracts healthy habitat for animals, insects and pollinators. Utilizing skills acquired by living in place for millennia and learning the rhythm of the seasons through observation, experimentation, and practice, Indigenous cultures use fire as a land management tool. By developing low-risk land management practices, Indigenous communities achieve the same effect as wildfire, but minimize the length of disruption...

This year The Crestone Eagle will be taking notes from the all-Indigenous-led newsroom, IndigiNews. The Crestone Eagle is grateful to be mentoring under IndigiNews Publisher, Eden Fineday, who will offer DEI council to staff, provide cultural sensitivity readings of published content and deepen our capacity for meaningful, sensitive, and accurate coverage of Indigenous topics.  By Eden Fineday IndigiNews Publisher My name is Eden Fineday. I am a Cree woman (nehiyaw iskwew). I live above the imaginary line that was drawn across the continent back in 1846. I come from Treaty 6 Territory, which is an agreement made by my people and the...

By Anna Lee Vargas. Nestled between expansive mountain ranges and the Río Grande, the fertile lands of the San Luis Valley (SLV) have always been a point of contact between cultures and races.  The SLV represents a multicultural tapestry, including Native Americans, Hispanic, Mormon, Asian, and other rancher-settlers, while also encompassing the most extensive wetlands system in the Southern Rocky Mountains. This long and rich history dates back to the Paleo-Indians who lived here 13,000 years ago. Our people’s Indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican roots have played a major role in influencing our food, farming practices, religion, art, culture, and language.  For example,...

By Anna Lee Vargas. The Soul Players of the Valley (SPV) is a coalition of local Latino community leaders from four towns: Antonito, Capulin, San Luis, and South Alamosa. The Soul Players of the Valley came into existence because our communities made the choice to unite as one force for change. Having witnessed revitalization efforts fail in the past, we were determined to take a different approach.  Grounded in our traditional communal ways of life inherited from our Hispano ancestors, we lead our communities in identifying ways to address our needs and building on our strengths to ensure a vibrant and...