As the Kansas City Chiefs prepare to take on the Philadelphia Eagles, The Conversation takes a critical look at some of the biggest news stories from the past NFL season.
James Gensaw, a Yurok language high school teacher in far northern California, goes over some words with a student.
Mneesha Gellman
A new report disputes the heritage claims of Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather. A scholar explains why scrutiny over alleged ethnic fraud is essential.
Myaamia Heritage Program students get a lesson from Daryl Baldwin, executive director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Scott Kissell, Miami University
Indigenous people’s languages were largely lost as a result of forced assimilation efforts in the U.S. Here’s why one tribal leader says the languages should be brought back.
Handouts from food banks are no substitute for self-sufficiency.
Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
Indigenous people in the US have high rates of food insecurity and dietary-related health problems. Any attempts to address the problem must start with land justice, argues a scholar of Native health and food.
Native American protesters at the Black Hills, now the site of Mount Rushmore.
Micah Garen/Getty Images
Renaming a national holiday to celebrate Native culture is one thing, but many Indigenous peoples are looking for greater recognition of the land grab that deprived them of ancestral homes.
Delegates from 34 Native tribes at the Creek Council House in Indian Territory, now called Oklahoma, 1880.
National Archives
The Supreme Court’s July 9 ruling that half of Oklahoma belongs to the Muscogee Nation confirms what Indigenous people already knew: North America is ‘Indian Country.’
Surface detail of the Tomanowos meteorite, showing cavities produced by dissolution of iron.
Eden, Janine and Jim/Wikipedia
Tomanowos, aka the Willamette Meteorite, may be the world’s most interesting rock. Its story includes catastrophic ice age floods, theft of Native American cultural heritage and plenty of human folly.
Johnny Depp in a still from Dior’s Sauvage advertisement (2019).
Johnny-Depp.org
An anthropologist who’s researched the dispossession of Native Americans and their enduring connections to ancestral places sees the value in asking ‘whose land are you on?’
Dance is a unique way of passing on cultural stories to a younger generation.
Aaron Hawkins/Flickr.com
American Gods imagines a US where ancient gods exist at “right angles to reality”, asking why we have mythologies and why we need them.
After the Army Corps of Engineers approved an easement for the North Dakota Pipeline, two tribes requested – unsuccessfully – to halt construction while their lawsuit over the project is resolved.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
A scholar of American Indian studies shares the lesser-known, true story of two men who stood up and spoke out against the murder of American Indians, and how they are celebrated as heroes today.
A better review of the cultural heritage might have prevented the face-off over the Dakota Access Pipeline.
AP Photo/James MacPherson