Sunday at Nespelem

When we arrived at the Head Start building that is now used by the walwa ma Nez Perce for Longhouse services, an elder I have known for over thirty years came to say hello and remind me again that the distance from Joseph to Nespelem is the same as that from Nespelem...

Native Bulwark

I thought about this as the president rampaged against the “garbage” people and country of Somalia. When he asked why we couldn’t get more people from Norway, Sweden, or Denmark. And a year ago, when he and the Veep went on about Haitian immigrants eating pets in...

An American Indian solution in Palestine?

When I am talking with non-Native audiences, and even when talking with Tribal friends, I sometimes say that I feel like I am body-surfing on a wave of pro-Indian sentiment in the country. I say that a big part of this is based on recognition of non-Native—read...

“Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World”

“Rumble” is a 2017 Canadian documentary film that I’d missed until it hit public television. I watched it twice, taking notes the second time, wanting to get in my mind the names of Rock n’ Roll, jazz, and blues musicians I’d listened to—and many I had not heard or...

Built on Broken Families

One of the earliest stories of white-Indian interaction in North America is that of Squanto, a Patuxet Indian taken captive by English explorer Thomas Hunt in 1614 and sold as a slave in Spain. Tisquantum—his real name—escaped and made his way back to Cape Cod through...