Culture

Surviving Language Loss and Native Cultures

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The Wild Hunt . In early October 2018, Alaskan Governor Bill Walker declared a linguistic emergency. Alaska has 20 indigenous Native American languages that may all become extinct within a hundred years, unless people do something to preserve them. Linguists define a language as extinct when no living person can speak that language. The National Indian Educational Association reports that only 20 Native languages are expected to survive to 2050.

Culture

Unleash The Hounds (link roundup)

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There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans and Heathens out there, more than our team can write about in depth in any given week. Therefore, The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up. Religious Freedom and Diversity News
How people around the world define religious freedom can seemingly be at odds. Here are just a few stories from around the web that illustrate just how different those interpretations can be. The Basilica of the National Shrine of Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC joined churches across the globe to bring awareness to the religious persecution of Christians by participating in the “Courage in Red – Stand Up for Faith and Religious Freedom” by bathing parts of the basilica in red light.

News

Reclaiming members urge Neopagans to defend the Berkeley Shellmound

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BERKELEY, Calif. — On June 4, members of Bay Area Reclaiming issued a statement opposing the development on the site of the Ohlone Shellmound in West Berkeley. For the native peoples of the Bay Area, shell mounds functioned like temples and burial complexes. Developers are poised to build apartments, restaurants, and a parking garage on the site of the shell mound. That threat elicited the statement from Reclaiming members.

Paganism

Column: What Lies Beneath

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“My world, my Earth is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and fought and gobbled until there was nothing left, and then we died. We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves.

Paganism

Culture and Community: Appropriation, Exchange and Modern Paganism

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Cultural appropriation is not a new issue and definitely not new within Paganism. The story of American capitalism has created a strong foundation for what has continued to be one of the most important, and yet challenging, discussions underlying the modern Pagan experience. Conversations of cultural appropriation reach outside of the boundaries of this spiritual world and intersect with various other aspects of our everyday society, leaving a complex web to untangle. For example, the New Age sector’s use of various aspects of Native American* cultures, as well as the selling or misappropriating of that culture, has continued to drum up controversy. Indian Country Today Media Network recently published an article called Selling the Sacred, exploring the objectifying of Native religious and cultural “secrets” in New Age arenas.