Remembering Indigenous Rights Advocate James Abourezk

A few days ago, we lost a tireless champion of the rights of the Indigenous Peoples of North America. Retired South Dakota United States Senator James Abourezk, the architect of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), passed away at his home in Sioux Falls on Friday, Feb. 24 on his 92nd birthday. James George Abourezk was born in 1931 in Wood, South Dakota, the son of Lebanese immigrants. Growing up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, he spoke only Arabic at home and did not learn English until he went to elementary school.
 

After high school graduation in 1948, Abourezk served in the US Navy during the Korean War. Following military service, he earned a degree in civil engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City in 1961, and worked as a civil engineer in California, before returning to South Dakota to work on the Minutemen missile silos. At the age of 32, he decided to pursue law, and earned a J.D. degree from University of South Dakota School of Law in Vermillion in 1966.
 

Abourezk began a legal practice in Rapid City, South Dakota, and joined the Democratic Party. He ran in 1968 for Attorney General of South Dakota but was defeated by Gordon Mydland. In 1972, Abourezk was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served from 1973 to 1979, after which he chose not to seek a second term. He was the first chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. His legislative successes in the Senate included the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, as well as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act gives federal protection to the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians.
 

Abourezk's signature legislation was the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA, 1978), designed to protect Native American children and families from being torn apart. Native American children have been removed by state social agencies from their families and placed in foster care or adoption at a disproportionately high rate, and usually placed with non Native American families. This both deprived the children of their culture and threatened the very survival of the tribes. This legislation was intended to provide a federal standard that emphasized the needs of Native American children to be raised in their own cultures, and gave precedence to tribal courts for decisions about children domiciled on the reservation, as well as concurrent but presumptive jurisdiction with state courts for Native American children off the reservation.
 

In 1973, Senators Abourezk and George McGovern attempted to end the occupation of Wounded Knee by negotiating with American Indian Movement (AIM) leaders, who were in a standoff with federal law enforcement after demanding that the federal government honor its historical treaties with the Oglala Sioux nation. The Wounded Knee Occupation began on February 27, 1973 when about 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of AIM seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The occupation lasted for a total of 71 days, during which time two Lakota men were shot to death by federal agents and several more were wounded. It was a key moment in the struggle for Native American rights.
 

The summer after the occupation of Wounded Knee, Abourezk introduced the American Indian Policy Review Commission Act, which created the eleven-member commission to study legislation with the goal of addressing key issues in Indian Country. He served as its chairman until its landmark report was published in 1977. He took the gavel as chairman of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs from its creation in 1977 to 1979, when he left the Senate.
 

In 1980, Abourezk founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a grassroots civil rights organization. In 1989, he published his Advise and Dissent: Memoirs of South Dakota and the U.S. Senate. He was the co-author, along with Hyman Bookbinder, of Through Different Eyes: Two Leading Americans -- a Jew and an Arab -- Debate U. S. Policy in the Middle East (1987).
 

After his retirement from the Senate, Abourezk worked as a lawyer and writer in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He continued to be active in supporting tribal sovereignty and culture. Since 2005, he chaired the Lakota People's Law Project Advisory Committee. The Lakota People's Law Project is committed to defending the rights of South Dakota's Native American families, exposing the epidemic of illegal seizures of Lakota children by the state of South Dakota, working towards the structural solution to end this injustice. Just last year, Sen. Abourezk assisted their legal team in filing an amicus brief supporting ICWA with the United States Supreme Court. Later this year, the High Court could overturn the senator's landmark piece of federal legislation -- and that poses an imminent threat to Native families and sovereignty.

Imaginary Shamans

The shaman in the accompanying image does not exist in real life. He was brought to life by architect and travel photographer Dimitar Karanikolov using artificial intelligence (AI) and Midjourney, a chat-powered text-to-image generator for his portrait series "Imaginary Shamans." All the portraits he created are generated based only on descriptions and words.
 

In a recent interview for Designbloom, a digital magazine for architecture and design, Karanikolov says, "In order to have a more controlled result, I was very specific and described a lot of the details I wished to see in the final image -- the age, the clothes, the ethnicity, to name a few. I have also specified the camera settings -- or the virtual lens I wish to use -- the light scenario, and the framing. The more words I put in, the better."
 

From the creases that line the shamans' faces to the traditional tattoos that ink their skin, the details in every image appear crystal clear, making viewers question whether they were generated by artificial intelligence or snapped by a professional photographer. Karanikolov thinks that artificial intelligence in photography is both fascinating and scary at the same time.
 

"I understand why a lot of people feared this technology," he says. "Still, I think it is an amazing tool that gives lots of people the opportunity to express themselves and visualize their ideas. Surely, it will have a major impact on the photographic industry in the future, and we'll soon have to specify when we post a photo whether it's real or AI, as there will be no difference in the quality."
 

Karanikolov might be an architect, but travel photography has been a passion of his for the last eight years. "I did numerous trips in order to explore and photograph authentic communities around the world such as Mongolia, Ethiopia, Bolivia, and Indonesia. I have always been fascinated by indigenous people and their culture, their rituals and aesthetics. These are our ancestors, our roots," he says.
 

"When AI softwares became wildly popular and open to access several months ago, I naturally tried generating spaces and architectural details, but creating human faces and characters brings much more emotion and connection, along with much more powerful visions. So, I have decided to do some AI travel photography," he tells Designbloom. Bringing his photographic zest with him on every trip has culminated in the creation of "Imaginary Shamans," underlining both the beauty artificial intelligence can generate and the underlying concern it might bring.

The Shaman's Rattle Beater

Drums are an essential part of shamanic work; we use them for journeying, healing and celebration, both for ourselves and for the community. The drumstick or beater is also a significant shamanic tool and has a powerful spirit and sound of its own. The best drumsticks are made of strong hardwood with a padded, leather covered head. They are usually decorated with fur, feathers, bead work or engraved with sacred symbols. 

 

Different beaters work better with different drums to bring out the tone qualities. By using different parts of the drumstick to play on different parts of the drum, different timbres can be produced for transmitting different meanings. There are hard beaters, semi-hard beaters, soft beaters, and rattle beaters, which are simply beaters with a rawhide or gourd rattle attached to the base of the handle opposite the head. The clicking of the rattle adds not only an interesting sound effect, but also produces an offbeat, which adds a new dimension to the sonic experience.
 

The repetitive sound of the rattle, like that of the drum, helps induce trance states. The shaking of rattles creates high-pitched frequencies that complement the low frequencies of drumbeats. The high tones of rattles resonate in the upper parts of the body and head. The low tones of drums act primarily on the abdomen, chest, and organs of balance, while stimulating an impulse toward movement. Rattles stimulate higher frequency nerve pathways in the cerebral cortex than do drums. This higher frequency input supplements the low frequency drumbeats, thereby boosting the total sonic effect.
 

Furthermore, the beater has certain uses independent of the drum. In Tuva (southern Siberia), the rattle beater or orba, with its spoon-shaped head covered with animal fur and metal rings attached for rattling, is in part for practicing divination, purifying sacred space for ritual, and drawing the attention of the spirits. The rattling draws the spirit world and its inhabitants into the material world, whereas the drum carries the shaman into the spirit world. The snare sounds associated with metal, stone and bone rattlers attached to beaters and drum frames are described as "spirit voices."
 

When Tuvan drums were being confiscated and destroyed during the times of Soviet repression, some shamans used only their orba for rituals. Throughout history in different cultures around the world the traditional practice of shamanism has often been outlawed and driven underground. The shamanic worldview is an integral part of the shared history of all humanity, but that worldview has been deliberately stolen and suppressed. The shamanic worldview was perceived as an extremely potent threat -- to the point that possession of a shamanic drum has in almost every case been outlawed, and a policy of confiscation and destruction of drums implemented. Hence, the percussive use of the drum became impracticable in populated areas due to its distinctive sound. By using only their rattle beater in rituals, Siberian shamans found a covert way to continue their practice of the shamanic arts.
 

In the shaman's world, all things have spirit and everything is alive. Like the shaman's drum, the beater is imbued with spiritual purpose and becomes a living presence. Since the objects are then considered to be alive, they function as spirit helpers and guides to the shaman in their work. The first step in learning how to work with these shamanic tools is to connect with the spirits of the instruments. By journeying to connect with the spirits, each shamanic practitioner can find out what a particular drum or beater is best suited for, such as divination, journeying, extracting, etc. When you meet the spirit of the instrument, it may teach you some special ways you can use it for your shamanic work that you did not know before. It may have a specific name, purpose or type of energy. Be open to the possibilities.