Tobacco leaves on a black background

The Ever-Lengthening History of Tobacco

People have been smoking in the Pacific Northwest for more than 4,500 years.
Ethnographic map of the Missouri Valley made by Inquidanecharo, great leader of the Ricara nation

Mapping “Indian Country”

In the early 1800s, the Native people of the Plains region didn’t generally think about their land in terms of tribes, territories, or racial difference.

Trees With a Secret Message

The culturally modified trees of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska bring essential stories of the past into the present.
View in the Susquehanna Valley by Charles Wilson Knapp

The Mysterious Madame Montour

Montour presented herself as a cultural intermediary between Native Americans and whites in colonial America. But who was she?
Cahokia

How Native Americans Guarded Their Societies Against Tyranny

Many Native American communities were consensus democracies that survived for generations because of careful attention to checking and balancing power.
People work to clear the rubble near the village of Nuan Seetaga following the 8.3 magnitude strong earthquake which struck on Tuesday, on October 3, 2009 in Pago Pago, American Samoa

A Village Responds to Disaster

When a tsunami struck American Samoa in 2009, the key to a swift response was Indigenous institutions that drew on local knowledge and community training.
Dakota pipeline protestors

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

More and more states are choosing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day.
The interior of a Nootka house

Seeing Cannibals in the Enlightenment

The responses British and Spanish explorers had to the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) people and their alleged cannibalism came down to imperialist goals.
Colombian taitas, 2001

The Diverse Shamanisms of South America

In Brazil, Indigenous people and city-dwellers of all backgrounds mix various shamanic practices, including rituals imported from North America and elsewhere.
A Navajo Nation volunteer collects coal to distribute to Native Americans in need at a free wood collection site on December 17, 2021 in Tuba City, Arizona.

Renewable Energy and Settler Colonialism

What can we learn from colonial legacies in pursuit of sustainable futures?