GREAT FALLS — In the video above, Tommy Lynch reports on the Indigenous People’s Day celebration that took place in Great Falls on Monday, October 14, 2024, and talks with Alisa Herodes.
- Colored stripe on ballot envelopes?
- Comet in the Montana sky!
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- Montana Election Guide
“Right now we don’t even have a website or anything,” said Alisa Herodes, the Great Falls coordinator for the Indigenous Peoples Day Coalition. “We literally started a month ago. I got invited to a meeting and then was asked to head it for Great Falls.”
The time constraint did not stop Herodes from making sure the celebration was ready for October 14th: “It took a group of women, and I knew which go-getters to call, and they really hit the ground running.”
The celebration at Great Falls College highlighted Montana Senate Bill 141, which would make Indigenous Peoples Day an official holiday in Montana.
The main focus of Indigenous Peoples Day is celebration, celebrating the people and the culture that are native to American lands.
The coalition is urging people to contact their state senators regarding Senate Bill 141 before it is voted on in January.
In Montana, there are eight federally recognized tribes and seven tribal reservations.
From the VisitMT website:
- NIITSITAPI - BLACKFEET: The reservation is home to the Blackfeet tribe. Of the approximately 15,560 enrolled tribal members, there are about 7,000 living on or near the reservation.
- ANNISHINABE NE-I-YAH-WAHK - ROCKY BOY'S: Rocky Boy's provides a home for about 2,500 members of the Chippewa-Cree tribe. The name "Rocky Boy" was derived from the name of a leader of a band of Chippewa Indians.
- TSETSEHESESTEHASE SOTAAHE - NORTHERN CHEYENNE: Approximately 5,000 Northern Cheyenne, along with members of other tribes and non-Native Americans, live on the reservation. Lame Deer is the tribal and government agency headquarters.
- LITTLE SHELL: This band of the Chippewa Tribe is without a designated reservation in Montana. There are over 4,000 enrolled members within the state, many of which live in the Great Falls and surrounding area.
- NAKODA DAKOTA - FORT PECK: About 6,800 Assiniboine and Sioux live on the Fort Peck Reservation, with another approximately 3,900 tribal members living off the reservation.
- A'ANININ NAKODA - FORT BELKNAP: The Fort Belknap Reservation is home to two tribes, the Assiniboine, or Nakoda, and the Gros Ventre, who refer to themselves as A'aninin or "People of the White Clay." Combined enrollment is approximately 4,000.
- Salish, Pend d'Orielle, and Kootenai: The Flathead Indian Reservation is home to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes. The tribes are a combination of the Salish, the Pend d'Oreille and the Kootenai.
- APSAALOOKE - CROW: About 75 percent of the Crow tribe's approximately 10,000 or more enrolled members live on or near the reservation. Eighty-five percent speak Crow as their first language.
From the State of Montana website:
