Coyote Breath, I understand, but in general society, I don't think The People would be understood, unfortunately. Outside of tribal society, most would mistake it for the more common usage, as in "We, the People" in the Constitution, which, I know borrowed heavily from the Five Nations.

My daughter is part Cherokee, in fact we just found her genealogy going back before the Trail of Tears. When she speaks to someone of her heritage, she says "Cherokee" but takes no offense at the term Native American. We also have Mohawk in our ancestry.

Jodydarlin', I remember seeing those signs on my few trips over from Mystic!**BG** One of my favourite tshirts we bought at a powwow in Rhode Island shows a beautiful portrait of a First Nation person with a shield design and it says "The First Americans." We also bought another one which had a funny caption about the Pilgrims, but I'll have to wait for Rog to get home; I can't remember the caption.

Coyote Breath, do you use Paltalk, the program we use for virtual song circles? If so and you go into the music forums, there is quite often a really great Native American Music forum open. It's moderated, usually, by a woman in Nebraska. A lot of it is cd's and tapes of traditional and contemporary NDN music, but people are free to sing and or play an instrument, or tell a story or read a poem, as long as it is First Nations related. I've always felt very welcome and comfortable in there.

That "NDN" is from Keith Secola's song "NDN Cars" one of my favourite songs. Also, on AIROS, which I linked above, they have a program called AlterNATIVE Voices, which is a fantastic program and I like the title!

Mitakuye Oyasin,

kat