PRAIRIE ISLAND INDIAN COMMUNITY, Minn. (AP) 鈥 Some Native Americans traditionally bestow bald eagle feathers at ceremonies to mark achievements, such as graduations, and as a form of reverence for the bird they hold sacred as a messenger to the Creator.
This year, many are doing so with elevated pride and hope. is now the official bird of the United States, nearly 250 years after it was first used as a symbol of the newly founded nation that's deeply polarized politically today.
鈥淭he eagle is finally getting the respect it deserves. Maybe when the nation looks at the eagle that way, maybe there will be less division,鈥 said Jim Thunder Hawk. He鈥檚 the Dakota culture and language manager for the Prairie Island Indian Community, a small band on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.
This wide, unruffled stretch of water framed by wooded bluffs is prime bald eagle territory. The size of Minnesota鈥檚 population of the majestic, white-head-and-tail birds that are exclusive to North America is second only to that of Alaska.
The legislation that came from members of Minnesota鈥檚 Congressional delegation. The federal act recognizes the eagles鈥 centrality in most Indigenous peoples鈥 鈥渟piritual lives and sacred belief systems,鈥 and a replica of it is on display at the 春色直播 Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota, 40 miles (65 kilometers) downriver from the Prairie Island community, which partners with the center in eagle care.
鈥淚f you grew up in the United States, eagles were a part of your everyday life,鈥 said Tiffany Ploehn, who as the center鈥檚 avian care director supervises its four resident bald eagles. 鈥淓veryone has some sort of connection.鈥
Fierce symbols of strength and spiritual uplift
A bald eagle, its wings and talons spread wide, has graced the Great Seal of the United States since 1782, and appears on passport covers, the $1 bill, military insignia, and myriad different images in pop culture.
But a prolific collector of eagle memorabilia based in Wabasha realized recently that, while the United States had an official animal (the bison) and flower (the rose), the eagle was getting no formal credit. Several Minnesota legislators sponsored to remedy that and then-President Joe Biden鈥檚 signature made it official in December.
With their massive wingspan and stern curved beak, bald eagles are widely used as symbols of strength and power. In reality, they spend 95% of their day perched high in trees, though when they hunt they can spot a rabbit 3 miles (5 kilometers) away, Ploehn said.
For many Native Americans, the soaring eagle represents far more; it delivers their prayers to the Creator and even intercedes on their behalf.
鈥淢y grandma told me that we honor eagles because they saved the Ojibwe people when the Creator wanted to turn on them. The eagle, he can fly high, so he went to speak with the Creator to make things right,鈥 said Sadie Erickson, who is Ojibwe and Mdewakanton Sioux.
Marking life milestones with eagle feathers
Erickson and a dozen other high school graduates received a bald eagle feather at an early July celebration by the riverbank at Prairie Island.
Thunder Hawk said a prayer in the Dakota language urging the high school graduates and graduates receiving higher education degrees to 鈥渁lways remember who you are and where you come from.鈥
Then they lined up and a relative tied a feather 鈥 traditionally on the left side, the heart鈥檚 side 鈥 as tribal members sang and to celebrate them.
鈥淚t just feels like I went through a new step of life,鈥 said Jayvionna Buck.
Growing up on Prairie Island, she recalled her mother excitedly pointing out every eagle.
鈥淪he would genuinely just yell at me, 鈥楨agle!鈥 But it鈥檚 just a special occurrence for us to see,鈥 Buck said. 鈥淲e love seeing it, and normally when we do, we just offer tobacco to show our respects.鈥
Some Native Americans honor the eagle by taking it as their ceremonial name. Derek Walking Eagle, whose Lakota name is 鈥淓agle Thunder,鈥 celebrated the graduates wearing a woven medallion representing the bird.
To him, eagles are like relatives that connect him to his future and afterlife.
鈥淏eing able to carry on to the spirit world 鈥 that鈥檚 who guides you. It鈥檚 the eagle,鈥 Walking Eagle said.
That deep respect attaches to the feathers, too.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the highest respect you can bestow on a person, from your family and from your people, from your tribe,鈥 Thunder Hawk said. 鈥淲e teach the person receiving the feather that they have to honor and respect the eagle. And we tell them why.鈥
Persistent troubles, but new hope
In many Native cultures, killing an eagle is 鈥渂lasphemous,鈥 he said. It is also a
Historically, Sioux warriors would lure an eagle with rabbit or other food, pluck a few feathers and release it, said Thunder Hawk, who grew up in South Dakota.
Today, there鈥檚 a nationwide program that legally distributes eagle feathers and parts exclusively to tribal members, though it鈥檚 very backlogged. U.S. wildlife and tribal officials worry that of eagles for their feathers is on the rise, especially in the West.
In Minnesota, eagles are most often harmed by road accidents and eating poison 鈥 results of shrinking wildlife habitat that brings them in closer contact with humans, said Lori Arent, interim director of the University of Minnesota鈥檚 Raptor Center.
The center treats about 200 injured bald eagles each year. Of those they can save, most are eventually released back into the wild. Permanently disabled birds that lose an eye or whose wings are too badly fractured to fly are cared for there or at other educational institutions like the Wabasha eagle center.
The official designation could help more Americans understand how their behaviors inadvertently harm eagles, Arent said. Littering by a highway, for instance, attracts rodents that lure eagles, which then can be struck by vehicles. Fishing or hunting with tackles and ammunition containing lead exposes the eagles eating those fish or deer remains to fatal metal poisoning.
Humans have lost the ability to coexist in harmony with the natural world, Thunder Hawk said, voicing a concern shared by Indigenous people from the to the .
He hopes more people might now approach the eagle with the same reverence he was taught. It鈥檚 what leads him to offer sage or dried red willow bark every time he spots one as a 鈥渢hank you for allowing me to see you and for you to hear my prayers and my thoughts.鈥
Erickson, the new graduate, shares that optimism.
鈥淚 feel like that kind of shows that we鈥檙e strong and united as a country,鈥 she said by the Mississippi, her new feather nestled in her hair.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP鈥檚 with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
