Native America Calling

A dangerous secret lurks just under the surface in the play, “Bad Medicine,” making its debut at the Santa Fe Playhouse. Written by P.C. Verrone (Osage and Kiowa) and produced with a largely Native cast, it is a live production that claims elements of both horror and comedy. It comes with a warning that it “sheds light on how settler colonialism dehumanizes and exploits Indigenous peoples.”

Brooklyn, N.Y.’s renowned Spiderwoman Theater is marking 50 years of Indigenous plays, outreach, and education. Rising from the feminist movement of the 1970s, its core leadership under Lisa Mayo, Gloria Miguel, and Muriel Miguel have built the space into a destination for urban Native storytelling. We’ll talk with the organizers about the the mission and legacy of this groundbreaking theater.

Two separate instances are putting Native authority related to religious freedom to the test.

The Northern Arapaho Tribe demands the Christian ministry, Foundations Nations Church, leave the Wyoming reservation. The demand comes after video circulated on social media showed one of the church’s pastors characterizing Native sacred practices — including the Sun Dance — as “idol worship” and “demonic.” Top tribal leadership calls the comments “despicable” and link them to past abuses of Native Americans at the hands of Christian church officials. The Foundations Church leaders say they’ll fight the tribe’s efforts to remove them. We’ll hear about what’s next in the dispute.

At the same time, Native American inmates in a Nebraska state prison scored a victory in securing access to religious ceremonies. In a settlement of a federal civil rights lawsuit, corrections officials lifted a temporary ban on accessing a place where Native men conducted ceremonies like sweats and smudges. They instituted the ban after finding contraband at the site. We’ll hear about the legal principles behind the outcome.

Tribes that collectively make up the largest water rights holders along the Colorado River say the Trump Administration’s newest plan to deal with diminishing water levels is inadequate. Tribal leaders say they were left out of the decision making process and are now in store for serious water use cuts that violate existing water rights agreements as well as the federal government’s trust responsibility. We’ll hear from some of those tribal leaders.

We’ll also find out what’s next following the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling to deny a permit to the company aiming to construct a new underwater oil pipeline to replace the aging existing structure.

The Osage language was declared dead in 2005 after its last fluent speaker died, but revitalization efforts since then have built the number of proficient speakers to about 40. The Caddo Nation continues its extensive language revitalization efforts more than a year after its last fluent speaker walked on. It’s an uphill battle for most tribes in the U.S. to retain their language. The new book, “How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words”, examines the global crisis of cultures losing their languages. In a New Yorker review of the book, philosophy instructor Nikhil Krishnan uses the book’s premise to argue that the death of a language is sometimes “just how things go.” That touched off strong opposition from the language advocacy organization, The Endangered Languages Project. They and other organizations say such fatalistic thinking promotes misleading and harmful narratives and undermines efforts to preserve languages globally. We’ll hear from Indigenous language advocates who argue no expense should be spared to revive languages before we lose them.

Tribal public health officials are among those reassuring citizens about the safety of their food as reports of new cases of cyclospora infections continue to rise. Michigan continues to be a hotspot with state officials reporting more than 11,000 cases. The actual number is likely much higher than that. One hurdle in tracking the cyclosporiasis outbreak is it has a long incubation period and it can’t be traced through the genetic markers that some other food-borne illnesses have. The infections are traced mainly to tainted lettuce from Mexico. Nearly all other states are also reporting cyclospora cases, many of them from a variety of sources.