For my people, the Salish, when the Mission Valley on the Flathead Reservation is first blanketed with snow, a new cultural season is underway.
Since its debut in 1971, an anti-pollution ad showing a man in Native American attire shed a single tear at the sight of smokestacks and litter taking over a once unblemished landscape has become an indelible piece of TV pop culture.
. Since January, I’ve spent Tuesdays and Thursdays teaching in Berkey Hall, one of the buildings on Michigan State University’s campus where a gunman last Monday evening entered the university and killed three students and critically injured five others.
We all depend on farmers, ranchers and those who support them to bring food and other essential agricultural products to our tables and homes.
For many Native communities throughout the High Desert, works of art are imbued with spirit, tied to purpose and intrinsic to thriving communities. Art is at once utilitarian and ceremonial, as well as part of the continuation of Native traditions.