Aliet Paul learns traditional sacred birthing practices of her Mi’kmaq through her grandmother. But the outside world is changing and drives a wedge between her and her community. “The Birthing Tree” is the second novel from Amanda Peters (Mi’kmaq). It is a story of identity, overcoming tragedy, and redemption through one’s connections to family and culture.

“How Settlers Get Away with Murder” by Liza Black (Cherokee) focuses on the real-life death and disappearance of five Indigenous people to exemplify the larger culpability of Western systems in ongoing violence against Indigenous people that fuels today’s MMIP crisis.

Break 1 Music: Stranger (song) Ken Pomeroy (artist) Cruel Joke (album)

Break 2 Music: Four Corners (song) Little Axe Singers (artist) Traditional Voices: Historic Recordings of Traditional Native American Music (album)

After centuries of having their stories told by outsiders, Indigenous people made considerable progress in having their voices represented in the media in recent decades. The 2012 book, “American Indians and the Mass Media,” co-edited by Meta Carstarphen, documented that growth in authentic Native voices. Now, a new book edited by Carstarphen and Cristina L. Azocar picks up where the original book left off. “Storytelling Sovereignty: Indigenous Peoples and the Media,” combines scholarly research and interviews with notable Native journalists and storytellers. It reviews the history of Native radio, television, news, and the arts and provides a first draft of the dramatic shifts in media just in the past ten years. We’ll hear from some of those featured in the book about how Native perspectives are making a difference.

GUESTS

Dr. Cristina Azocar (Upper Mattaponi), professor and chair of journalism at San Francisco State University

Mark Trahant (Shoshone Bannock), writer and former editor at ICT

Joseph Orozco (Hoopa Valley Tribe), part-time employed at KIDE, vice chairman of the Association of Affiliates for the Pacifica Radio Network, and member of Hoopa Tribal Educational Association

Break 1 Music: Water by Jim Pepper [Arranged by Jhoely Garay] (song) Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band (artist) Live at Joe’s Pub, NYC on January 13th, 2024 (performance)

Break 2 Music: Four Corners (song) Little Axe Singers (artist) Traditional Voices: Historic Recordings of Traditional Native American Music (album)

Eliza “Lyda” Conley was a strong, independent Wyandot woman who is credited with preserving the cemetery where her family and other tribal members were buried in the face of mounting commercial development pressure. Conley defended the Huron Indian Cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas in the courts as well as from a makeshift shack where she and her sister took up residence with their father’s Civil War shotgun around the turn of the last century. In the process, she became the first Native woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Her story, and that of Wyandot removal, is told in the book, “Lyda Conley and the Fight to Preserve Huron Indian Cemetery”, and in a new art installation at the Wyandotte County Historical Museum.

Also in Kansas, a 10-foot tall, 28-ton sacred boulder is now on Kaw Nation land after a multi-year struggle. Kaw citizens revered the rock for centuries. Then Lawrence officials commandeered it 1929 for a monument to the non-Native city founders. That started the fight by the Kaw Nation — the state’s namesake tribe — to repatriate it to tribal control. The history of Iⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe is documented in a book, “Shokhí: A Kanza Relative, a Monument, and Rematriation”, and gives readers a glimpse into the politics and human influences along the way.

GUESTS

c. huffman (Kaw), dis/abled poet and theologian

Dr. Tai Edwards, director of the Kansas Studies Institute and professor of history at Johnson County Community College

Justine Smith (Wyandotte), film and multimedia instillation artist and part of the Omakyehstih Collective

Madeline Easley (Wyandotte), writer, artist, and cultural organizer

Break 1 Music: Totah (song) The Delbert Anderson Trio (artist) MANITOU (album)

Break 2 Music: Mountain by the Sea (song) Various Artists (artist) Traditional Voices: Historic Recordings of Traditional Native American Music (album)

Set against the backdrop of a historic time in Métis history, a young boy’s disappearance begins a tense story of justice and defiance in Métis author Blair Palmer Yoxall’s debut novel, “Treat Them as Buffalo“. It all takes place during the 1885 Northwest Resistance — a conflict between Métis and the Canadian federal government. When those entrusted to enforce the law turn a blind eye to a disturbing trend of disappearing Indigenous boys, the community members must take things in their own hands. The account is told from the perspective of young Niko, who comes to realize the difficult world of injustice his people are forced to endure. Dubbed an “anti-Western” by the author, it is both triumphant and tragic in its depiction of a time when the conquest of Indigenous peoples were celebrated as progress. Blair Palmer Yoxall joins us for our next Native Bookshelf discussion.

Break 1 Music: Blueberry Hill (song) Métis Fiddler Quartet (artist) Northwest Voyage Nord Ouest (album)

Break 2 Music: Indian Rock N Roll (song) Marc Brown & the Blues Crew (artist) The Blues Crew Compilation (album)

Sweden’s surging demand for electricity to power its mid 20th Century modernization had life-changing consequences for the country’s Indigenous Sámi people. In her new novel, “The Home of the Drowned”, Elin Anna Labba tells the fictional account of a family forced out of their village by the construction of a series of hydroelectric dams that flood their village. It’s based on the real account of the creation of Lake Akkajaure that displaced hundreds of Sami people. Through the eyes of 13-year-old Iŋgá, readers live through the Sami struggle to adapt to a way of life that is removed from their traditional herding culture. “The Home of the Drowned” is a heartbreaking account of Indigenous resilience in Sweden. Elin Anna Labba joins us for our Native Bookshelf feature.

Break 1 Music: Ancient Forces (song) Berit Margrethe Oskal (artist) Fargga (album)

Break 2 Music: Round Dance (song) Black Lodge (artist) Enter the Circle – Pow-Wow 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)

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, and healing.

Native Hawaiian writer Keala Kendall offers a different view of what many vacationing outsiders consider paradise in the supernatural thriller, “That Which Feeds Us”. Lehua follows the trail of her missing twin sister to the secluded Kōpa’a Island Resort in Hawaii. She recalls the stories her grandparents told of their homeland, which is now a commodity to wealthy resort patrons. A series of terrifying visions teach Lehua an all-too-real lesson about the land’s brutal past.

We add both books to our Native Bookshelf.

Break 1 Music: Wahine U`i [Beautiful One] (song) Linda Dela Cruz (artist) Linda Dela Cruz Hawaii’s Canary (album)

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

Through interviews with relatives, community knowledge keepers, and her work as a climate activist and lawyer, Katłı̨̀ą Catherine Lafferty (Yellowknives Dene) shares Dene wisdom and perspectives about the land that provide possible solutions for the climate crisis in her new book, “Mother Earth is Our Elder: A Northern Indigenous Path Toward Sustainable Living”. Her primary sources for the book include Yellowknives Dene chief Fred Sangris, former chief of the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation Steven Nitah, and elder Randy Baillargeon. We’ll hear from Lafferty about her book and how it informs the day set aside to acknowledge the Earth.

We’ll also talk with Innu cultural guardian Jodie Ashini (Innu) about how the tribe’s flag ended up on the Artemis II mission through space around the Moon.

Break 1 Music: Our Mother the Earth [Feat. Dr. Duke Redbird] (song) Sultans of String (artist)

Break 2 Music: Feels Like [feat. Sheena Shandea] (song) Nataanii Means (artist)

The Oneida Nation went from having nearly all of their land stripped from them to being one of the most powerful political and economic entities in Wisconsin. In “Unsettling Territory: The Resurgence of the Oneida Nation in the Face of Settler Backlash“, Oneida author and historian Douglas Metoxen Kiel reveals how the tribe turned displacement into opportunity and managed to strengthen and grow their presence in the face of organized opposition that many Native Americans are familiar with.

Diné writer Dorothy Denetclaw and journalist Matt Fitzsimons uncover the events leading up to the murder trial involving two sons of the Navajo spiritual leader, Ahdilthdoney, also known as Gunshooter. The book, “The Sons of Gunshooter: A Navajo Resistance Story“, tells the story of the 1919 shooting death of Charles Hubbell, a member of a prominent trading family. The authors access archival research and oral storytelling to arrive at a different conclusion than what the courts and news media landed on at the time. It goes on to also tell a larger story of resistance against outside colonial oppression.

Break 1 Music: Tha Mash Up (song) Wayne Silas, Jr. (artist) Infinite Passion (album)

Break 2 Music: Hard Times Will Be Coming (song) Courtney Yellow Fat (artist) The Lost Songs of Sitting Bull (album)

Choctaw homicide detective Perry Antelope works on a missing persons case alongside the Choctaw Lighthorsemen tribal police in Devon Mihesuah’s (Choctaw) new mystery novel, “Blood Relay“. The story of the disappearance of a young athlete is set against the backdrop of the competitive bareback horse relay racing. The fictional fast-paced thriller also takes on the real-life issue of missing and murdered Indigenous relatives and the evolving jurisdictional complexities between federal, state, and tribal law enforcement in Oklahoma. Mihesuah, a historian and the Cora Lee Beers Price Teaching Professor at the University of Kansas, continues her tradition of creating strong leading women. She’s the author of the detective Monique Blue Hawk series (“Document of Expectations”, “Dance of the Returned“ and “The Hatak Witches“) and the 2024 collection of horror stories, “The Bone Picker“. She authored several non-fiction titles including “Recovering Our Ancestors’ Gardens: Indigenous Recipes and Guide to Diet and Fitness”. We add Mihesuah’s Blood Relay to our Native Bookshelf.