Native America Calling

A major housing and retail development proposal in Virginia threatens to pave over the birthplace of one of America’s most influential historical leader. Paramount Chief Powhatan is the notable late-1500s leader who united local tribes into what became known as the Powhatan Confederacy to face the first waves of English settlers. He was the being father of Matoaka, also known as Pocahontas. The no...

As the nation commemorates the 100th anniversary of historic Route 66, some historians, scholars, and curators are offering a different perspective of the famed Mother Road. An exhibition just opened at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City, Okla. that gives the public a view of the people, culture, and influence arising from the tribal land the road cuts through. A Diné culture educator is...

A rule change in South Dakota opened a door that allowed a sizable increase in the number of eligible foster parents. It is a boon for places like the Oglala Sioux Reservation that declared an emergency in foster child placement as recently as three years ago. The Minnesota Supreme Court turned back another challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) as the legal justifications for such claim...

Before a joint legal project between the Native American Rights Fund and the National Congress of American Indians started 25 years ago, tribes were losing 80% of their cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, they are winning 70% of those cases. That’s from an analysis just put out by the Tribal Supreme Court Project in conjunction with its 25th anniversary. We’ll look at some of those wins and loss...

The State of Alaska is moving forward with a program to kill brown bears across a 40,000-square-mile swath of land in southwest Alaska. The plan to shoot bears from helicopters aims to improve declining numbers of the Mulchatna Caribou Herd . Several local tribes and the Alaska Federation of Natives support the plan. Caribou are a subsistence food source. The herd peaked at over 200,000 in the 199...

Taos and Skwah First Nation chef and entrepreneur Caprio “CJ” Bernal opened an expansion of their original coffee bar on Taos Pueblo. Dawn Butterfly Café is the new full-service cafe that grew from their starting concept in 2022. The name and energy that drives the project honors Bernal’s late sister. Camas, a wild purple flower with an onion-like bulb, has been an important plant for...

Iñupiaq poet Joan Kane explores themes of home and colonial dispossession in her new poetry collection, “ with snow pouring southward past the window “. Kane’s poems center on Iñupiaq worldviews and language, featuring masterful experimentation with form and imagery. Her critically acclaimed work has led to faculty appointments at Harvard University, Tufts University, and Reed College....

The Trump administration is moving to undo a 20-year ban on oil and gas drilling near Chaco Canyon, a place of major cultural significance to pueblos in the Southwest. The threat of new oil leases on nearly 340,000 acres of public land surrounding Chaco Canyon has put the site on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of America’s Most Endangered Spaces . It is the second time on the...

Construction crews working on the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona significantly damaged a 1,000-year-old geoglyph located in Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. It’s one of a number of places tribes on both sides of the border say are damaged or are threatened by the fast-tracked construction process. Tribal leaders say such desecration is happening at a record pace after the T...

Chelsey Luger (Anishinaabe/Lakota) and Thosh Collins (Onk Akimel O’Odham/Osage/Seneca) believe the best approaches to wellness are rooted in Indigenous knowledge. They draw from traditional teachings to find the most effective ways to improve one’s spiritual, physical, and emotional wellbeing. With their large social media presence, they educate others about healthy, traditional approa...

The U.S. government and private mining corporations are ignoring the rights of tribes to free, prior, and informed consent when it comes to lithium mining in Nevada, according to a new report by Amnesty International. The report comes amid the Trump administration’s fast tracking of metals and minerals extraction. With more than 20,000 active mining claims across the state, tribes are having...

Former U.S. Poet Laureate and musician Joy Harjo (Mvskoke) immerses listeners in a diverse array of jazz styles and deeply emotional poetry on her new album, “ Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace ”. Co-produced by Grammy-winning artist Esperanza Spalding, the album features originals and covers, including a re-interpretation of Charles Mingus’s “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”. Harjo also tr...

Diné author Brian Lee Young puts much of his own experience in his first young adult novel, “ Shards of Silence ”. Protagonist Derrick Hoskie struggles with a grueling class schedule, homesickness, and the frustration over his classmates’ ignorance at a prestigious prep school. At the same time, he is researching the life of his ailing great-grandmother. It’s a story about coming of age, identity,...

The U.S. Department of Interior just canceled grazing leases for hundreds of bison on federal land in Montana. The action halts the progress of a well-funded private group, American Prairie , that has been buying up land and acquiring leases in an ambitious conservation plan. The group often provides bison to tribes that work to revive bison herds. The canceled leases also indicate a change in fed...

Raquel Montoya-Lewis (Isleta and Laguna Pueblos) built an impressive legal career that includes a foundation at tribal court systems in the Pacific Northwest. That career led her to become the first Native American to serve on the Washington State Supreme Court. She is only the second Native jurist in the country to hold a supreme court seat. That position is also a platform to educate others abou...

The U.S. Supreme Court has, in the words of the Native American Rights Fund , diluted Native Americans’ “ability to secure good schools, adequate infrastructure, health care access, environmental protections, and economic opportunity.” Louisiana is moving fast to redraw voting districts to further minimize the political power of Native Americans and other minorities. Other states are preparing sim...

New infections aboard a cruise ship have thrust the hantavirus into the global spotlight. Hantavirus infections remain rare, with only about 1,000 cases reported in the U.S. in more than 30 years. What the world knows about the illness started in 1993 on the Navajo Nation. After struggling to identify the dangerous respiratory illness, medical researchers gained crucial insights from Navajo elders...

The cost of fuel is a major expenditure for farmers, commercial fishermen, long-haul truckers, and dozens of other businesses. The persistently high cost of gas since February’s start of the Iran War is eroding the profit margin for those businesses. They ultimately either absorb those costs, pass them on to customers, or shut down. For individuals, the price of oil is showing up in everything fro...

A dedicated effort to learn more about Native elders living in urban areas reveals they suffer a high rate of chronic illnesses and have limited social interactions. Those conclusions come from the most recent Native Urban Elder Needs Assessment Survey that aims to fill a void of information about the needs of Native American elders — the vast majority of whom live in cities. The survey is among t...

A former DJ who once struggled as a student, Cailean Dakota MacColl built her way to medical school from the ground up. She’s now graduating from the University of Minnesota Medical School. Jerrick Hope-Lang took on preserving a Tlingit clan house in Sitka, Alaska that was named on the America’s most endangered historic places. Now he’s a Henry Luce Foundation Indigenous knowledge fellow and a gra...

The Native fashion show was always among the most popular offerings at the annual Santa Fe Indian Market put on by the Southwest Association for Indian Arts. Now SWAIA’s Native Fashion Week returns for the third year as a standalone celebration of wearable Native creativity. Designers include Jamie Okuma and Lauren Good Day, who are making strides in the mainstream fashion arenas. This year, organ...

Tribes in Wisconsin are celebrating that state’s new law that gives them exclusive control over sports betting in the state, but a similar attempt to secure tribal control of sports betting fell flat in Oklahoma. Both actions come as prediction market companies like Kalshi and Polymarket are raking in hundreds of millions of dollars offering wagers on nearly everything including sports. One...

MMIP advocates fault police in Anchorage for not acting fast enough when young Alaska Native woman went missing in January. Kelly Hunt’s body was discovered in April. Her death is now under investigation. It’s the latest case revealing the persistent lack of trust Native communities have when it comes to MMIP cases. Hunt’s case comes as the Trump administration is touting a surge in federal agents...

First Nations, Inuit, and Métis leaders across Canada are calling for an investigation into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). That’s following a report by CBC Indigenous that uncovered evidence of a secret surveillance program targeting Indigenous organizations and individuals using wiretaps, informants, and counter subversion tactics from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. The report conf...

Following the Trump administration’s lead, state elected leaders and private advocacy groups are taking on programs, scholarships, and admissions practices aimed at improving Native student achievement. An advocacy organization filed a lawsuit challenging a scholarship program that has helped support hundreds of Native Hawaiian medical students for more than three decades. The suit claims the prog...