PRAIRIE ISLAND INDIAN COMMUNITY, Minn. (AP) \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
This year, many are doing so with elevated pride and hope. The bald eagle<\/a> 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\u2019s deeply polarized politically today.<\/p>\n \u201cThe eagle is finally getting the respect it deserves. Maybe when the nation looks at the eagle that way, maybe there will be less division,\u201d said Jim Thunder Hawk. He\u2019s the Dakota culture and language manager for the Prairie Island Indian Community, a small Mdewakanton Sioux<\/a> band on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.<\/p>\n This wide, unruffled stretch of water framed by wooded bluffs is prime bald eagle territory. The size of Minnesota\u2019s population of the majestic, white-head-and-tail birds that are exclusive to North America is second only to that of Alaska.<\/p>\n The legislation that made the eagle official<\/a> came from members of Minnesota\u2019s Congressional delegation. The federal act recognizes the eagles\u2019 centrality in most Indigenous peoples\u2019 \u201cspiritual lives and sacred belief systems,\u201d and a replica of it is on display at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota, 40 miles (65 kilometers) downriver from the Prairie Island community, which partners with the center in eagle care.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you grew up in the United States, eagles were a part of your everyday life,\u201d said Tiffany Ploehn, who as the center\u2019s avian care director supervises its four resident bald eagles. \u201cEveryone has some sort of connection.\u201d <\/p>\n Fierce symbols of strength and spiritual uplift<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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 a bill<\/a> to remedy that and then-President Joe Biden\u2019s signature made it official in December.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n For many Native Americans, the soaring eagle represents far more; it delivers their prayers to the Creator and even intercedes on their behalf.<\/p>\n \u201cMy 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,\u201d said Sadie Erickson, who is Ojibwe and Mdewakanton Sioux.<\/p>\n Marking life milestones with eagle feathers<\/p>\n Erickson and a dozen other high school graduates received a bald eagle feather at an early July celebration by the riverbank at Prairie Island. <\/p>\n Thunder Hawk said a prayer in the Dakota language urging the high school graduates and graduates receiving higher education degrees to \u201calways remember who you are and where you come from.\u201d<\/p>\n Then they lined up and a relative tied a feather \u2014 traditionally on the left side, the heart\u2019s side \u2014 as tribal members sang and drummed<\/a> to celebrate them.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just feels like I went through a new step of life,\u201d said Jayvionna Buck.<\/p>\n Growing up on Prairie Island, she recalled her mother excitedly pointing out every eagle.<\/p>\n \u201cShe would genuinely just yell at me, \u2018Eagle!\u2019 But it\u2019s just a special occurrence for us to see,\u201d Buck said. \u201cWe love seeing it, and normally when we do, we just offer tobacco to show our respects.\u201d<\/p>\n Some Native Americans honor the eagle by taking it as their ceremonial name. Derek Walking Eagle, whose Lakota name is \u201cEagle Thunder,\u201d celebrated the graduates wearing a woven medallion representing the bird.<\/p>\n To him, eagles are like relatives that connect him to his future and afterlife.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing able to carry on to the spirit world \u2026 that\u2019s who guides you. It\u2019s the eagle,\u201d Walking Eagle said.<\/p>\n That deep respect attaches to the feathers, too.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the highest respect you can bestow on a person, from your family and from your people, from your tribe,\u201d Thunder Hawk said. \u201cWe teach the person receiving the feather that they have to honor and respect the eagle. And we tell them why.\u201d<\/p>\n Persistent troubles, but new hope<\/p>\n In many Native cultures, killing an eagle is \u201cblasphemous,\u201d he said. It is also a federal offense.<\/a><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Today, there\u2019s a nationwide program that legally distributes eagle feathers and parts exclusively to tribal members, though it\u2019s very backlogged. U.S. wildlife and tribal officials worry that killings and illegal trafficking<\/a> of eagles for their feathers is on the rise, especially in the West.<\/p>\n In Minnesota, eagles are most often harmed by road accidents and eating poison \u2013 results of shrinking wildlife habitat that brings them in closer contact with humans, said Lori Arent, interim director of the University of Minnesota\u2019s Raptor Center.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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 Chilean Andes<\/a> to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands<\/a>.<\/p>\n He hopes more people might now approach the eagle with the same reverence he was taught. It\u2019s what leads him to offer sage or dried red willow bark every time he spots one as a \u201cthank you for allowing me to see you and for you to hear my prayers and my thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n Erickson, the new graduate, shares that optimism.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like that kind of shows that we\u2019re strong and united as a country,\u201d she said by the Mississippi, her new feather nestled in her hair.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n