Imagine walking through a museum in Japan and seeing a glass case containing a bronze plaque with the words inscribed on the surface, “George Washington slept here in 1776,” with the explanation that this bronze plaque was an important part of American history. As an American, you would assume that something had been lost in translation.

In Gordon, Nebraska, a small border town on the grassy expanse of the northern Great Plains, there is a gravestone in the town’s cemetery etched with one word: “Unknown.” It rests on the grave of an Indigenous woman whose body was found underneath a stone bridge in 1970 and, like many Native women before and after her, was never identified. 

This is a reflection on the shared history between Na Ñuu Savi (Peoples of the Region of the Rain) and Chumash since the origin of their respective homelands in what are now Mexico and the United States. Santa Maria is an agricultural city located in northern Santa Barbara County on the Central Coast of California. It is the second home of Na Ñuu Savi migrants from Yucha Nchaa (Santa Cruz Mixtepec) in the municipality of Ñuu Xnuviko (San Juan Mixtepec), Oaxaca.

People of Red Mountain (PRM), is an Indigenous grassroots organization that was formed to protect the sacred site, Peehee Mu’huh – Thacker Pass. People of Red Mountain has raised significant and urgent concerns regarding human, religious, and Indigenous Peoples' rights violations by the proposed mine.

Standing in the hills overlooking the coast of England’s Plymouth Harbor, in the distance, a group of Wampanoag has gathered in a Bronze Age stone circle. It is small and humble compared to its cousin to the east, the famous Stonehenge, but it is intimate and well suited for our needs. About 10 meters in diameter, the stones stand only 3 or 4 feet in height, but unlike its famous cousin, this circle is nearly forgotten. When we arrived, we see the only visitor is a grazing cow.

Between the Santa Marian earth and sky is a backstrap loom on which the history of people in this space is woven. The first shapes formed on this loom are Chumash, people who came from islands and established varying groups on the now Californian coast.

I write as a Mashpee Wampanoag. It is who I am and inevitably shapes my views. The Wampanoag have the distinction of being among the “first contact” Tribes in the Americas, and as such we have a four-centuries-old tradition of interacting with the forces of colonization. This means we have four centuries of grievances, but also four centuries of solutions based on experience. We have seen time and again that the promises of “forever” rarely last more than 30 years.

For 51 years, Cultural Survival has partnered with Indigenous communities to advance Indigenous Peoples' rights and cultures worldwide. We envision a future that respects and honors Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights and dynamic cultures, deeply and richly interwoven in lands, languages, spiritual traditions, and artistic expression and rooted in self-determination and self-governance.

Black History Month begins in the United States. Like Native American Heritage Month (November), Oaxacan Heritage Month (July/August), and Indigenous Peoples’ Day (October), I celebrate the awareness those months and that day bring about Black and Indigenous Peoples and histories, the steps it has taken for our respective and intersecting histories to be recognized by the same nation that inflicts its violence on us. 

“Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field,” featuring essays and images of Native American photographers, is on exhibit at the New York City branch of the National Museum of the American Indian until March 12, 2023 and features the work of photojournalists Donovan Quintero (Navajo), Tailyr Irvine (Salish and Kootenai), and Russel Albert Daniels (Dine’ descent and Ho-Chunk descent).