Insights

Aerial Lifelines

ColavecchioS — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:00:30 +0000

Insights

Aerial Lifelines

From Issue: Winter 2025/Spring 2026 / Vol. 26 No. 4

by Shelby Lisk

Although Native peoples represent only 5 percent of Canada’s population, the majority of the residents in the country’s remote communities are Indigenous. Often the only way for them to get vital supplies or reach critical care facilities is by plane or helicopter.

Jo-Anne Tabobandung touches a Cessna 172 on the grounds of the First Nations Technical Institute in Ontario, Canada. Now dean of its aviation school, she was among its first students, graduating in 1990.

Photo by Shelby Lisk

“For the smallest demographic of people, we rely the most heavily on air transportation,” said Jo-Anne Tabobandung, a Mohawk pilot who is now dean of aviation at the First Nations Technical Institute (FNTI), the only post-secondary Indigenous aviation program in the country. “A lot of our graduates are back in their communities doing medevac flights, transporting seasonal workers and cargo—all of the essential services that the communities need.”

FNTI was founded to offer technology programs that support First Nations. Earl Hill, the former chief of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, started the FNTI aviation program in 1989 at the Belleville airport in southeast Ontario. In 1990, it relocated 22 miles northeast to the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Tabobandung’s home community. Since then, more than 200 First Nations, Métis and Inuit students from communities across Canada have graduated from the program, including Tanisha Natomagan.

From the Métis and Cree community of Pinehouse, Saskatchewan, Natomagan started as a medevac pilot for Missinippi Airways in 2024, flying a small utility plane to take passengers from the Cree community of Pukatawagan in northern Manitoba to urban areas. Pukatawagan is accessible by plane, a train from the town of The Pas or an ice road that forms only during winter. As she also came from a community with limited resources, she said “being able to be that person to help them, especially when a lot of it is critical,” is meaningful to her.

Starting this fall, the institute will offer helicopter pilot training. Such aircraft can land in compact areas and challenging landscapes. They can also carry high-strength rope systems able to lift heavy objects such as construction materials, fire-fighting equipment and people during emergency rescue missions.

The aviation program is just one of the educational opportunities at FNTI. The institute also offers degrees or certification programs in Indigenous justice, social work, early childhood education, journalism and other disciplines. The school’s students are “role models,” said Tabobandung. “When one of our students graduates, it affects them, their family, their extended family, their community and their nation.”

Authors

Shelby Lisk

Shelby Lisk is a Kanyen’kehá:ka photographer, filmmaker and journalist from Kenhtè:ke (Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory) in Ontario, Canada.

On Target

ArtmanM — Thu, 22 May 2025 16:00:00 +0000

Insights

On Target

From Issue: Spring 2025 / Vol. 26 No. 1

by Anne Bolen

In the Great Lakes region, lakes can appear to be on fire at night. During spearfishing season starting in the spring, these large bodies of water such as Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota are peppered with small boats that are alight with lamps and carrying Indigenous fishers waiting for that perfect moment to spear their catch for the season.

An Ojibwe spearfisher thrusts her spear into the shallow waters of Mille Lacs Lake in central Minnesota.

Photo by Paul Middlestaedt

Many of the bands of Ojibwe peoples (who the French called the Chippewa) negotiated independent treaties with the federal government that state in exchange for these peoples giving up a portion of their lands, they retain the right to fish the upper Great Lakes and surrounding waters, including Mille Lacs Lake. In Wisconsin, these bands include the Lac Du Flambeau (Lake of Torches), a name that was inspired by the Indigenous method of spearfishing. This would involve dipping a piece of wood in pine pitch, attaching it to a canoe and lighting it so that the fire would illuminate the water. During spring, the reflective eyes of walleye swimming nearshore to spawn would help fishers identify them.

Although today torches have been replaced with lamps and wood spears with metal ones, spearfishing is still essential for many tribal members’ annual food supply. Chato Gonzalez of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band said he can spear what his family needs in just a couple of trips, yet he will also fish for other tribal members who don’t have the ability to be out on the water. However, said Gonzalez, this is not just about the haul. “A lot of it is about the process, thinking about being out there in the same place where your ancestors were,” he said. He learned how to spearfish from a Lac Courte Oreilles man he calls his “owiiyawen’enyan” (his namesake). Now Gonzalez is teaching family members and others how to spearfish on Mille Lacs Lake, just an hour away from their home on Ojibwe land. He said, “It is a spiritual connection, being out on the lake and with the fish.”

Authors

Anne Bolen

Anne Bolen is executive editor of American Indian magazine.

Walking in Their Footsteps

ThorneLE — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 20:46:38 +0000

Insights

Walking in Their Footsteps

From Issue: Fall 2024 / Vol. 25 No. 3

by William C. Meadows

Code talkers—those who used their Indigenous languages to create an unbreakable code during World War II—were among the U.S. Army’s troops that stormed and retook beaches along France’s coast on June 6, 1944, during one of the bloodiest battles of the war. In recognition of the 80th anniversary of this D-Day, members of the Comanche Indian Veterans Association (CIVA) returned to Utah Beach this past June to honor their relatives who fought—and the many who died—in the assault.

This past June, descendants of the Comanche code talkers honored their relatives who fought on D-Day during World War II at one of the battle’s sites, Utah Beach in France.

Photo: William Meadows

This was the third time descendants of the Comanche code talkers had made the journey to the beaches during the past 10 years. After moving to Tilly-sur-Seulles and becoming curator of the local museum, Stéphan Jacquet founded Tilly 1944, a local history association dedicated to honoring those who fought in this battle. Jacquet first invited the descendants of the Comanche code talkers to participate in the commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of D-Day in 2014. During each of their visits, Jacquet, Tilly 1944 members and local families hosted members of CIVA in their homes.

The CIVA members prayed together and sang a Memorial Song and the Comanche Code Talker Song. They then walked to the shoreline to offer prayers and place tobacco into the waves as they hit the shore. Many of the Comanche relatives spoke of feeling the presence of troops who landed there, particularly the code talkers. Nona Gail Mihecoby said she sensed her father, code talker Wellington Mihecoby, was with her, commenting, “It is so elating when you can feel that presence and you turn around and look out there … in the water, where they were trying to get to the beach.”

CIVA officer Kevin Pohawpatchoko said, “We’re doing our best to make sure that the history of our code talkers and their contributions are never forgotten.”

Authors

William C. Meadows

William C. Meadows is an author of several books about Native veterans and a professor of Anthropology and Native American Studies at Missouri State University.

Pining for a Good Harvest

ColavecchioS — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000

Insights

Pining for a Good Harvest

From Issue: Fall 2025 / Vol. 26 No. 3

by Tony Tekaroniake Evans

Melanie Smokey (Western Shoshone/Washoe) and her family know it is time to prepare for picking pine cones when the bright yellow rabbit brush blooms in late summer. They will have about a month to get ready to gather the cones’ piñon nuts near her Yomba Reservation, the home of the Western Shoshone people in central Nevada.

Melanie Smokey tosses piñon nuts removed from their pine cones with hot coals in a willow basket to toast them. She then teaches her niece how to crack open the nuts’ shells with a stone.

Courtesy of the Native Memory Project

Melanie Smokey tosses piñon nuts removed from their pine cones with hot coals in a willow basket to toast them. She then teaches her niece how to crack open the nuts’ shells with a stone.

Courtesy of the Native Memory Project

Piñon nuts (also known as pinyon nuts and called “duvuh” in the Shoshoni language) that are large enough to harvest are found in five of the 20 species of pine trees that grow in Mexico and across the Rocky Mountain West region. They long have been a dietary staple of western tribes.

Smokey’s harvest begins with a blessing song accompanied by drumming and dancing. “There are more than 20 different songs for our pine nuts,” she said. “We show gratitude through our songs. We are told if we don’t harvest plants such as these nuts, they will go away.”

The gathering, processing and cooking of pine nuts is labor-intensive. It first requires removing underbrush and dead tree limbs. This reduces the spread of wildfires and provides tribal members with firewood while they camp during harvest. “We are never doing just one thing,” Smokey said.

They use long birch poles to hit the branches and cause the sticky closed pinecones to fall. These are then steamed underground to remove the pitch and free the tender nuts inside. Open cones are cracked with sticks to release their nuts, which are then cooked by tossing in an open-weave basket with hot coals. “You have to move in a circular motion to keep the coals on top so you don’t burn your basket,” explained Smokey. While doing so, Smokey said, “we call the wind to help with the winnowing process.”

Smokey has used her mother’s cooking basket often during the past 20 years. Baskets and hats are woven from willow and the red bud plant, with cordage handles made from milkweed. Woven “work hats” protect heads from branches and also serve as baskets for gathering berries and other plants.

Known as “winter fat nuts,” pine nuts are full of protein and carbohydrates that can help sustain tribal members through lean, cold times. But gathering them serves another purpose, Smokey said: “This is also how we stay connected to the land that feeds us. The land knows we are still here and that we value the land.”

Authors

Tony Tekaroniake Evans

Tony Tekaroniake Evans (Mohawk) is an author and award-winning journalist.

A Cliff-Hanger

ArtmanM — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 16:00:00 +0000

Insights

A Cliff-Hanger

From Issue: Summer 2025 / Vol. 26 No. 2

by Anne Bolen

Several Indigenous peoples see running long distances as an indication of strength, and incorporate such endurance tests into rites of passage or other ceremonies. The Rarámuri of the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, run not only as a form of prayer but also as part of their everyday lives. Chihuahua’s rocky, mountainous terrain is filled with steep canyons with wide rivers, and the Rarámuri live far from roads and each other. From the time they are young children, they must cover great distances by foot.

Rarámuri athlete Arnulfo Quimare running prior to a 50-mile race in the Copper Canyon in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Photo by Mauricio Ramos

This makes them ideal athletes for endurance races such as the one known as the Ultramaratón de las Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon Ultramarathon), an international competition that draws the Rarámuri and those who want to run with them in Chihuahua’s Copper Canyon. Fueled by “pinole”—a traditional energy drink of ground corn mixed with water—they can cover more than 60 miles in a day. During such races, men and women might run in the same competition, and many Rarámuri still wear their traditional clothing. The women are dressed in cotton skirts and blouses, while the men have bellowing shirts paired with a type of loincloth called a “taparrabos.” Both men and women run in their “huaraches,” leather sandals with rubber soles.

Photographer Mauricio Ramos accompanied legendary Rarámuri athlete Arnulfo Quimare for three days before he competed in a 50-mile race in the Ultramaratón in 2014. Ramos said Quimare “looked like a graceful deer” when he ran, and yet he also noted that all the Rarámuri runners are “so strong.”

On the morning that Ramos shot this image, Quimare appeared to be running right off the cliff. But then he stopped abruptly at the edge and spent some time looking out over the canyon. The next day, Ramos would only be able to keep up with Quimare about a hundred yards and was kept in suspense the rest of the day, wondering if he would win. In 2006, Quimare took first place in this race, and in 2014, he still placed high—21st overall.

Authors

Anne Bolen

Anne Bolen is executive editor of American Indian magazine.

Vital Lessons

ArtmanM — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 19:30:00 +0000

Insights

Vital Lessons

From Issue: Winter 2024 / Vol. 25 No. 4

by Anne Bolen

Tim Eashappie’s classes are never boring. He is a Nakota teacher from the Carry the Kettle First Nation Reserve in Canada’s Saskatchewan Province who now hosts overnight camps at the Brightwater EcoScience and Indigenous Learning Center in Saskatoon about 200 miles away. There, young campers learn subjects such as math and science but also how to survive in the wilderness—even in snowy landscapes that can reach 30 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

Building shelters such as tipis is just one of the many skills youth learn attending the Indigenous survival skill camps held at the Brightwater EcoScience and Indigenous Learning Center in Saskatoon in south-central Canada.

Photo courtesy of Saskatoon Public Schools

Students also learn how to build fires.

Photo courtesy of Saskatoon Public Schools

Tim Eashappie and his wife, Kathy, both teach survival skills at the camps, including how to prepare and cook fish over a fire.

Photo courtesy of Tim Eashappie and Saskatoon Public Schools

He used to teach in classrooms, but since 2021, he and his wife, Kathy, have held camps throughout the year that teach Indigenous survival skills to any student in Saskatchewan who wants to learn. The youth learn the basics, such as how to make a fire and determine directions without a compass. But they also learn to live off the land, from finding edible plants to snaring a rabbit and preparing a fish for eating. They even build their own shelters, either by putting up a tipi or constructing a cave out of snow.

Eashappie said, “Learning to survive in extreme environments can teach participants how to handle other stressful situations. “You’ve got to be cool, calm and collected,” he said, “Think, ‘What do I need to do next?’”

Samantha Gunn, who coordinates camp enrollments for schools in Saskatoon, agreed that “Cold is a good teacher.” Yet, she added, although Eashappie has high expectations for his students, “his generosity is enormous.”

Hundreds of youth have participated in these camps. Through such experiences, Eashappie said he hopes they gain a deeper understanding of Indigenous cultures. “We are the original inhabitants of this land,” he said. “If we don’t teach them, they won’t respect us.” And ultimately, he hopes, they will also learn to coexist with nature. “It is so important to teach them to love Mother Earth.”

Authors

Anne Bolen

Anne Bolen is executive editor of American Indian magazine.

Moving Beyond the Shadows

ThorneLE — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 21:27:47 +0000

Insights

Moving Beyond the Shadows

From Issue: Summer 2024 / Vol. 25 No. 2

by Anne Bolen

Zapotec visual artist Citlali Fabián grew up in an apartment above her father’s photo printing shop in the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca. He taught her how to handle a camera as a child, and she would go on to complete a photography degree from the Universidad Veracruzana in 2011 and an internship in museum collections management in 2016, which inspired her to pursue documentary photography.

The project dearest to her heart began in 2018 when she photographed a family member for her grandmother. Her warm response sparked Fabián’s interest in photographing her large extended family and others from the village of Yalálag, many of whom were among the Indigenous Zapotec people who migrated from the Mexican state of Oaxaca across Mexico and to Los Angeles since the 1980s. Fabián said she is not only documenting her family but also creating a record for “future generations to look at us and our approach to this life in this particular time and space.”

Roma Alberto wears her mother’s traditional Yalálag blouse and skirt in Vista Hermosa Natural Park with the Los Angeles cityscape sprawling behind her.

Photo by Citlali Fabián

Many Oaxacan people traveled to California to work in agricultural fields or for other opportunities for a time and then returned to Mexico. But border policies became stricter and some of these workers were forced or decided to stay in California. This state’s estimated population of former Oaxacan residents has grown to more than 150,000, the largest outside of Mexico. The actual number is unknown because some are undocumented residents, including “dreamers,” so-called after the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. The act was first introduced in 2001 to help undocumented migrants who came to the United States as children become U.S. citizens, and although the bill has been revised, it has yet to pass into law.

When Fabián received a National Geographic grant to document the lives of Yalálag residents in Mexico and Los Angeles in 2019, she captured dozens of scenes of people who had rebuilt their Yalálag culture in the busy U.S. city. She found that they had replicated their former community’s social networks and counsel structures and were teaching their Indigenous culture and language to their children. For example, in her portrait, Fabián’s niece and U.S. citizen Roma Alberto wears her mother’s Yalálag “huipil” (blouse) hand-embroidered with flowers and a “refajo” (skirt) while sitting in front of Los Angeles’s vast cityscape. Yet sometimes celebrations that would have spilled into the village’s streets in Yalálag were held indoors in Los Angeles. Fabián said she could feel the migrants’ caution, that they were “moving between the shadows.”

Fabián hopes to return to Los Angeles to continue the photo series in the near future. She said the project “is so embedded in my soul, it is entangled with me.”

Authors

Anne Bolen

Anne Bolen is executive editor of American Indian magazine.

Tourist Tinderbox

ThorneLE — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 17:35:41 +0000

Insights

Tourist Tinderbox

From Issue: Spring 2024 / Vol. 25 No. 1

by Anne Bolen

August 8, 2023, is a day that Native Hawaiian Courtney Lazo will never forget. A real estate agent, she was working at her home in Lahaina, Maui’s top tourist town, where she, her husband, Jeff, and their two sons lived with her sister’s family and her 81-year-old grandmother. High winds had blown down utility poles and the family had lost power and cell phone service. About 3:30 p.m., shingles flew off their roof and hit her sister’s car. Only when she went outside to investigate did she see the wall of fire coming toward her. A fire had begun near Kula in the middle of the drought-strucken island about midnight, another later in nearby Kīhei and then early that morning, a brushfire erupted near Lahaina in West Maui. “By the time we knew there was a fire, it had already burned Front Street,” she recalled.

On Maui, a pregnant Courtney Lazo holds a photo of her as a child with her grandfather, standing in front of the fire-ravaged remains of their family home that he had built in Lahaina.

Zoë Urness

Her uncle evacuated her grandmother and the one son who was at home to the other side of the island while she and Jeff rounded up their five dogs. They escaped just as the flames reached their home. However, more than 100 others on the island did not survive, and some 2,200 structures, including significant cultural sites, became toxic wastelands. Lazo said, “Many homes had been in those families for 100 years.”

The fires burned until August 13, displacing nearly 10,000 of Maui’s 160,00 residents. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, state, county and other partners have provided almost 8,000 people temporary housing, of which 5,000 are still there. Many are being moved from hotel room to hotel room as Maui’s 3 million annual tourists have begun flooding the island again. Lazo joined Lahaina Strong, a group dedicated to securing housing for the fire’s survivors. Many took turns camping on the island’s Kā‘anapali Beach to bring attention to the need. More than 70 percent of housing in West Maui is owned by nonresidents. So if another disaster hits, she said, “There is nowhere to go.” In addition, the group is supporting bills to protect Hawai‘i homeowners and renters from foreclosure or price gauging following a disaster and to enable Hawai‘i counties to phase out short-term vacation rentals through zoning.

Tlingit photographer Zoë Urness visited Lazo’s family members in December 2023, when they were finally able to comb through their house’s rubble. Urness watched as Lazo’s sons shoveled in vain to locate the sidewalk that they had pressed their handprints into as children. Fortunately, just months earlier, Lazo had snapped some pictures of her grandmother’s photos, including one of Lazo and her grandfather standing outside their home that he had built. Today, a fence, some walls and those photos are all that remain of their multigenerational home.

Although Lazo’s family has temporary housing, she continues to fight for Maui residents who do not. She and Jeff, whose construction business was consumed in the fire, plan to rebuild their family’s lives in Lahaina—all while waiting for the birth of their third child. Urness said of Lazo, “She’s a remarkable woman.” Lazo said, “We are very determined we all get to go home one day, and that it is safer when we do.”

Authors

Anne Bolen

Anne Bolen is executive editor of American Indian magazine.

Rolling With It

ThorneLE — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 01:00:00 +0000

Insights

Rolling With It

From Issue: Winter 2023 / Vol. 24 No. 4

by Anne Bolen

Kiliii Yüyan, who is of Nanai/Hezhe (Indigenous Siberian) and Chinese descent, had been a traditional kayak builder in the Pacific Northwest for 20 years before he decided to capture images for a profession. While in Alaska learning how to sew seal-skin boats, he started photographing the Indigenous people he encountered. A fellow photographer encouraged Yüyan to show his Alaska images to National Geographic, which published them in 2015. Yüyan is now documenting Indigenous cultures all over the world. Home in Seattle only a few days a year, he said, “I’ve been a nomad most of my life.” Photographing scenes in remote locations is “magical,” he said. “You can’t predict it. It is untamed. You just have to be there.”

In Greenland’s Nuuk Harbour, Inuit kayaker Kunuunnguaq Davidsen uses a “Greenland roll” to right himself by sweeping the paddle at a particular angle to the water, like “spreading peanut butter on bread,” explained photographer Kiliii Yüyan.

Photo by Kiliii Yüyan

In 2018, Yüyan witnessed the annual kayaking championships hosted by Qaannat Kattuffiat, the Greenland Kayaking Association. As they are quiet, kayaks have been the traditional watercraft for seal hunting in Greenland inlets, where the water is often calmer than on the open ocean and harpooned seals can be more easily towed to shore. Unlike modern kayaks, traditional Inuit kayaks of Greenland (called “qajat”) are exceptionally thin and difficult to maneuver. Once tipped, a paddler’s arms or even entire body can be trapped beneath it in the icy water. Young kayakers are taught how to upright themselves within minutes according to the upended kayaker’s position in the water. More than 30 different types of rolls are judged in Qaannat Kattuffiat’s competition, which is open to any kayaker willing to try to master this life-saving skill.

In this image, Inuit competitor Kunuunnguaq Davidsen is about to right himself with a “Greenland roll. ”Yüyan said he enjoys documenting such scenes in Indigenous communities because “there are times you can open your eyes and look and it could be any point in history. ...It is timeless.”

Authors

Anne Bolen

Anne Bolen is executive editor of American Indian magazine.

A Big Step for Kiowa Women Veterans

ThorneLE — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 20:00:00 +0000

Insights

A Big Step for Kiowa Women Veterans

From Issue: Fall 2023 / Vol. 24 No. 3

by William C. Meadows

In Kiowa society, men traditionally were the leaders and warriors. Feathered war bonnets were owned by men but were also worn by female relatives during “scalp and victory dances” held to honor returning male warriors. Later, Kiowa men veterans placed bonnets on women who had served in the military or on delegations. Yet only male veterans tended to serve as color guards—those who open or close ceremonies and powwows by carrying the flags of their tribe, the United States and branches of the U.S. armed forces.

The Kiowa Women Warriors served as a color guard at the 2018 Native American Day Celebration in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Courtesy of the Kiowa Women Warriors

So when Kiowa veterans Marine Lance Corporal Kimberly Toyekoyah and U.S. Army Sergeants LaRue Gouladdle and Darlene Faye Sankadota-Sanders were asked to do so at the Kiowa Black Leggings Warrior Society event in 2011, they were surprised. Although more than 80 Kiowa women have served in U.S. armed forces since World War II and some were sometimes included in Kiowa color guards, this was the first time a group of all Kiowa women did so. Afterwards, a woman invited them to serve as a color guard at a powwow. Toyekoyah said the group first consulted elders and male veterans, who told them as they were veterans and Kiowa women have been warriors, they had the right to wear feather war bonnets. The Kiowa Women Warriors color guard was born.

Kiowa veterans Sergeant Randi L. Waters Sunray, Master Sergeant Loy K. Anquoe Apriesnig and Sergeant First Class Audrey Svitak have since joined the group, which has served as a color guard at many powwows and other events across the country. The Kiowa Women Warriors are one of a growing number of Native women veteran color guards in the Canada and the United States.

One of the Kiowa Women Warriors’ goals has been to promote equal treatment of women as veterans, as many of its members say they experienced discrimination while serving in the military and have received little recognition as veterans. They also try to be positive role models for younger women and educate those considering military service about potential benefits and risks. “Just give me that respect, that I’m a veteran,” Guoladdle said. “It has nothing to do with being male or female.”

Authors

William C. Meadows

William C. Meadows is an author of several books about Native veterans and a professor of Anthropology and Native American Studies at Missouri State University.