Native America Calling

The Navajo Nation deployed its police department to hold back trucks hauling uranium ore across tribal land. The action comes after the recent resumption of uranium mining at the Pinyon Plain (formerly Canyon) Mine in northwest Arizona. It is one of 600 uranium mines considered dormant because they aren’t financially viable. They are tied to numerous health conditions by citizens of Navajo and other nearby tribes. But new interest in nuclear energy is improving prices for raw ore. We’ll hear about tribes leveraging sovereignty to halt the mining and transport of uranium.

The Land of 10,000 Lakes, Paul Bunyan, and Tater Tot hotdish is also home to 11 federally recognized tribes. A citizen of one of those tribes, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (White Earth Ojibwe/D-MN) is already the highest ranking female Native elected executive in the country. Now that Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate, Lt. Gov. Flanagan is one presidential election victory away from becoming the first Native female governor. We’ll hear from current and former political leaders from Minnesota and the Upper Midwest about any contributions or detriments the state's Native elected leaders bring to the national stage.

The Lord of the Rings film trilogy won 17 Academy Awards and its legacy endures nearly 25 years after the first film’s release. The trilogy’s success has put its filming location, New Zealand, on the industry map. The motion picture business contributes at least $2.12 billion a year to New Zealand’s economy. That’s also been a boon for Indigenous cinema. Māori film critic and programmer Leo Koziol calls it a “renaissance". The recent Māori-led film The Convert, directed by Lee Tamahori, is garnering critical acclaim. We’ll talk with Koziol and hear from Māori creatives who worked on Lord of the Rings about progress on Māori representation in film since then.

Losing a loved one is a traumatic experience. The burden of paying funeral costs for a befitting honor for that person’s life can add to the stress. There are a number of alternatives in either direction, but the National Funeral Director’s Association reports the median cost of a funeral in 2024 is $7,848. More families are turning to crowd funding sites like GoFundMe to cover expenses, especially for the sudden deaths of loved ones. The website says it raised some $330 million for funerals last year. We’ll talk about ways to anticipate inevitable end-of-life costs in a culturally and financially feasible way.

Wildfires on tribal lands have already claimed at least two lives and destroyed dozens of homes in New Mexico and Arizona. Multiple fires just forced the evacuation of hundreds of people on the Nez Perce reservation in northern Idaho. Tribal wildfire response and emergency management operations are kicking into high gear as wildfires threaten lives and property, especially in the parched West. We’ll talk with tribal officials and emergency management experts about the new and increasing threats in more than a dozen states.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York just announced it’s repatriating remains of 124 relatives and almost 100 Native cultural items from its collection. The museum continues to hold onto remains of some 12,000 other individuals from North America and beyond. It’s among institutions re-examining practices after new rules enacted this year forces museums to consider tribal views more seriously when it comes to remains and public displays. While some tribes are seeing progress, others are expressing frustration over institutions’ lack of compliance with federal law.

The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Muscogee, Choctaw, and Seminole Nations of Oklahoma have agreed to recognize each other’s licenses for hunting and fishing on their respective reservation lands. Tribal leaders say the agreement both strengthens their sovereignty and creates a more sustainable fish and wildlife management system. If you know where to look, there is an abundance of edible fungi available on trees and the forest floor. It’s mushroom season in the Southwest and Native foragers are collecting beefsteaks, lobsters, and chicken of the woods. And Columbia River tribes celebrate what is among their oldest food sources: lamprey. These are the topics in the latest helping of The Menu, our regular Indigenous food show hosted by Andi Murphy.

For the first time, the United States is owning up to its role in the deplorable treatment of Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children at Indian Boarding Schools over more than a century. The report from the U.S. Department of Interior documents the deaths of nearly 1,000 children at boarding schools—many in collaboration with Catholic and other Christian institutions. The report includes distressing testimony collected at public meetings around the country from boarding school survivors and their relatives, detailing the personal costs of the government’s attempts to eradicate Native cultures and languages. It recommends the federal government not only formally apologize, but also establish a path and funding to account for the wrongs and the continuing harm resulting from it.

We’ll catch up on some important news including members of a U.S. House of Representatives committee grilled officials from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) over missed complaints of sexual abuse, a toxic work environment, and mismanagement at Haskell Indian Nations University - and faulted BIA for failing to release public records about the complaints in a timely way; a summer COVID surge is underway; and the residents of Lahaina assess their future a year after a deadly and devastating fire.

The 2024 Paris Olympics are under way with more than 50 Indigenous athletes. That number includes the national team with the highest number of Indigenous athletes in the history of the Games: New Zealand, with 37 competitors of Māori descent. The United States has three Native Hawaiian athletes and Canada has at least 5 representing various Indigenous nations. We'll talk with expert Olympic watchers about where to find Indigenous athletic talent in Paris and Tahiti and what to keep an eye out for during the competition.