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 claims dwindle. And we’ll learn about a Pascua Yaqui tribal secretary who has opened her home to more than two dozen foster children over the years.

GUESTS

Nancy Marie Spears (Cherokee), Indigenous Children and Families reporter for The Imprint

Susan Schrader (Oglala Lakota), director of the Child Protection Services and ICWA program for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, kinship caregiver, and an elder

Toni Giago (Oglala Lakota), family developer for Oglala Sioux Tribe Child Protection Services

Anna Evans (Chickasaw and Cherokee), mother

Break 1 Music: Children’s Honoring Song (song) Red Hawk Medicine Drum (artist) New Beginnings (album)

Break 2 Music: Trick Song (song) Battle River (artist) Hard Times (album)

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 losses and what they add up to a quarter century later.

We’ll also get updates on two important lawsuits in Oklahoma: a class action lawsuit claims the federal government owes as many as 10,000 Native land owners compensation for oil and gas development — and the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against a novel jurisdiction agreement between the Muscogee Nation and the city of Tulsa, Okla.

GUESTS

Hazel James (Chickasaw), plaintiff in Tyson v. United States

Peggy Immohotichey (Chickasaw), plaintiff in Tyson v. United States

Melody McCoy (Cherokee), senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund

Jason Salsman (Muscogee), press secretary for the Muscogee Nation

Jeffrey Nelson, partner of mctlaw, manager of the Indian Law Practice Group

Break 1 Music: Hatchet (song) Blaine Bailey (artist) Indian Country (album)

Break 2 Music: Trick Song (song) Battle River (artist) Hard Times (album)

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 1990s, but plummeted to 12,000 by 2022. Conservationists oppose the bear control measures, arguing it lacks scientific evidence that it achieves what officials say it goes. We’ll explore the complexities of predator management in Alaska.

GUESTS

Janet Bavilla (Yup’ik), subsistence hunter and Platinum Traditional Village council member

Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Break 1 Music: Bear Beats (song) Cheevers Toppah (artist) True Melodies (album)

Break 2 Music: Trick Song (song) Battle River (artist) Hard Times (album)

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 Native people, mainly in the northwest. This is the time of year for harvesting and cooking them. Some culture keepers are reconnecting with traditional teachings and recipes handed down across generations, but environmental and land use changes are setting up more access barriers. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde is one tribe working to protect this significant plant through a series of projects.

The Cultivating Culture reporting team created imagined an Indigenous version of the USDA’s food pyramid with plants and subsistence animals important to Native diets. It serves as a hub for an Indigenous food reporting project on how food and language fuels tribal sovereignty.

The Menu is a regular feature on Indigenous food news and stories hosted by producer Andi Murphy.

GUESTS

Carpio “CJ” Bernal (Taos Pueblo and Skwah First Nation), owner and chef of Dawn Butterfly Café

Jordan Mercier (Grand Ronde), cultural education coordinator at the Chachalu Museum and Cultural Center

Shaun Griswold (Laguna, Jemez, and Zuni Pueblo), correspondent at High Country News and Native News Online

Break 1 Music: Horseback Riding Song (song) The Tewa Indian Women’s Choir (artist) The Tewa Indian Women’s Social Choir: Fun and Social Songs From San Juan Pueblo (album)

Break 2 Music: Cauyaqa Nauwa [Where’s My Drum] (song) Pamyua (artist) Drums Of The North: Traditional Yup’ik Songs (album)

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. She also recently edited “Circumpolar Connections: Creative Indigenous Geographies of the Arctic”, an anthology of Indigenous writings about the region.

Ho-Chunk elder Sherman Funmaker just released his debut collection of poems and essays in “Bear Tracks“. He navigates the culture, family, loss, and racism he experienced growing up in Wisconsin. He writes with both emotional depth and humor about such life-changing decisions as dropping out of high school to be a rock-and-roll drummer and finding success as a writer later in life.

Break 1 Music: The Wild One (song) Link Wray (artist)

Break 2 Music: Cauyaqa Nauwa [Where’s My Drum] (song) Pamyua (artist) Drums Of The North: Traditional Yup’ik Songs (album)

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 same list for the land that is already a protected National Historic Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The moratorium was instituted in 2023 by then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who is a Laguna Pueblo citizen. We’ll hear about the options ahead for the land and the cultural significance it holds.

GUESTS

Charles Riley, governor of Acoma Pueblo

Brian Vallo (Acoma Pueblo), chairman of the Chaco Heritage Tribal Association and former governor of Acoma Pueblo

Mario Atencio (Diné), Navajo allotment stakeholder

Break 1 Music: Anasazi Sun (song) Injunuity (artist) Fight For Survival (album)

Break 2 Music: Cauyaqa Nauwa [Where’s My Drum] (song) Pamyua (artist) Drums Of The North: Traditional Yup’ik Songs (album)

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 Trump administration sidelined cultural and environmental barriers to construction. We’ll hear from cultural historians and policy experts about that is being lost and what can be done about it.

GUESTS

Emily Burgueno (Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel), chairwoman of the Kumeyaay Diegueño Land Conservancy

David Martinez (Akimel O’odham, Hia-Ced O’odham and Mexican), professor of American Indian Studies and Transborder Studies and director and founder of the Institute for Transborder Indigenous Nations at Arizona State University

Christina Leza (Yoeme and Chicana), professor of anthropology at Colorado College

Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, professor of feminist studies, critical race and ethnic Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz

Break 1 Music: Connections (song) R. Carlos Nakai (artist) Reconnections (album)

Break 2 Music: Cauyaqa Nauwa [Where’s My Drum] (song) Pamyua (artist) Drums Of The North: Traditional Yup’ik Songs (album)

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 approaches to physical movement, sleep, masculinity, and parenthood. They are the authors of “The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well” and are slated to publish a few more books on wellness. The married couple join us for a discussion about living a full and grounded life.

Break 1 Music: This Love (song) Edzi’u (artist) Tunnel Vision (album)

Break 2 Music: Traditional Side Step Song (song) Little Otter (artist) Side Step Songs (album)

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 to weigh how every new proposal would impact their communities.

The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska that the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) applies to remains buried at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army. The decision gets the tribe one step closer to repatriating two children from the oldest Indian boarding school, and could establish legal precedent for federal agencies to comply with NAGPRA in the future.

GUESTS

Chairman Coly Brown (Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska)

Beth Margaret Wright (Laguna Pueblo), senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund

Fermina Stevens (Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone), executive director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project

Clifford Banuelos (Te-Moak Tribe of the Western Shoshone), tribal-state environmental liaison for the Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada

Break 1 Music: Chant Ancestral (song) Geneviève Gros-Louis (artist)

Break 2 Music: Traditional Side Step Song (song) Little Otter (artist) Side Step Songs (album)

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 transforms her 2015 poem, “I Pray for My Enemies”, into a feverish, free-form composition, while “Rabbit Is Up to Tricks” draws on the power of traditional oral storytelling and “Stomp All Night” delivers a fun, funk-filled jam.

Acclaimed jazz vocalist Julia Keefe (Nez Perce) and the 16-piece ensemble of talented Native musicians known as the Indigenous Big Band make their album debut with “Incarnadine”. The album honors Native jazz pioneers like Mildred Bailey (Coeur d’Alene) and Jim Pepper (Kaw/Muscogee), as well as featuring innovative originals like “Wawasint8Da” and “Ddat Suite, MVT. 3 Iron Horse Gallup”. The ensemble continues to earn critical praise especially for their live performances, highlighted by their 2024 spring residency at the Kennedy Center.

We’ll speak with both Joy Harjo and Julia Keefe about their new albums in this episode of Native Playlist, our regular feature on Indigenous music.