Meet Our Speakers: Antonia Torres

The Cucapa people have lived in the Colorado Delta and along the Sierra Cucapa mountains of Mexico for 3000 years teaches Antonia Torres, cultural educator at Don Juan Garcia Community Museum. Of her Cucapa people she says, “We are called the people from the river, we were born and we came out of the Colorado River.” The Colorado River that once flowed through their valley at the base of the Sierra Cucapa in the Colorado Delta is now dry, putting their livelihoods and culture at stake. Don Juan Garcia community center is the first community museum in the whole state with the goal to educate visitors on the tribe and their history, culture, and language. Antonia hopes to attract individuals who are motivated to become involved in their culture and promote economic growth. Antonia is actively working to preserve her culture through informative, beautiful exhibits at the Don Juan Garcia Community Museum while also teaching children in her community. As the cultural educator of the Cucapa, Antonia teaches Cucapa youth to be proud of who they are, what they have, and to spread the knowledge they have of their own culture. 

By Sophie Poukish

Meet Our Speakers: Robert Templeton

Robert Templeton is an ornithologist and a passionate student of archeology and steward of its artifacts. A longtime resident of Dixon, New Mexico and neighbor to author Stanley Crawford, Robert is Stanley’s point-person for local lore about the area surrounding the Acequia del Bosque. Robert toured the Westies around a pueblo archeological site a few minutes away from his home. Not much is known about this site beyond a survey of the thousands of artifacts visible on the surface, Robert explained, because no graduate student has taken it on for a research project. The style of painted and textured pottery shards suggests the pueblo may have been inhabited for 30-40 years within 1250-1325, the time of the Pueblo 3 people. The site may have been spiritually significant because the culture’s sacred mountains are in its viewshed, one in each cardinal directions. To preserve the site for future research, the Westies took care to leave no trace and keep the clues intact as they explored the many pottery sherds, petroglyphs, and other artifacts found at the site. Robert continues to explore and learn more about this site and its significance in the bigger story of southwest pueblo peoples.

By: Elizabeth Greenfield

Meet Our Speakers: Joe Pachak

Ever since he looked at arrowheads with his father as a small child Joe Pachak has been interested in rock art. Now Joe confidently strides over sandstone and offers detailed descriptions of complex panels. Differentiated primarily by the pottery shards and petroglyphs associated with the site there are four different historic groups of people that inhabited the area around Bluff, UT: Basketmakers and Pueblo 1, 2, and 3. The sites display different styles but with reoccurring motifs of concentric circles, spirals, serpentine lines and anthropomorphs. Each symbol has an important meaning that can help modern viewers learn about these ancient cultures.  As an artist, Joe helps document rock art sites around the Southwest by making precise illustrations of the panels and artifacts. While visitors often feel like they are in the middle of nowhere, Joe is adamant that “the prehistoric people lived there and that was their home and it was not in the middle of nowhere.”

Joe is also involved in the Bluff Arts Festival, organizing events and telling stories. Each year he makes a large sculpture to burn on winter solstice and this year he is in the process of constructing two immense great blue herons.

By Willa Johnson

Meet Our Speakers: Marshall Johnson

“The number one thing that matters is water” Marshall Johnson says as he picks up a large piece of cardboard and sketches on it the Navajo Sandstone Aquifer that lies deep below Black Mesa, a sacred piece of land on the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Aquifer (or “N-Aquifer”), sits 2,500 feet below ground level and holds extremely pure water due to sandstone filtration. It is the only potable water on the reservation but has a fraught history of water transfers to large-scale farmers and coal fired power plants. Marshall Johnson speaks of how difficult it is to see the water beneath your feet exported to large farming corporations in the southern part of the state and subsidized at a price much cheaper than the water on reservation.

            Marshall Johnson and his wife Nicole Horseherder started a grassroots organization named To Nizhoni Ani (Sacred Water Speaks) as a way for Navajo people to have their voices heard. To Nizhoni Ani, the first environmental group based in the region of Black Mesa, emphasizes water sustainability and education in the local community. They are preserving the water beneath Black Mesa by ending coal slurrying and installing water conservation equipment inside reservation schools, houses, and community buildings. Marshall Johnson and his family are working to instill in others a deeper respect of water, a value that could be treasured everywhere, but most especially in the heart of the arid West.

By Sophie Poukish

Meet Our Speakers: Jason Nez

As the evening light fades into the Milky Way at Kane Ranch Arizona, archeologist Jason Nez pulls into our camp for dinner.  His clothes and face are spotted with black soot—evidence of a long day in the field.  Jason and his colleague Toby have been surveying nearby archeological sites that were recently revealed after the area burned.  Once dinner plates are cleared away, we gather to hear Jason’s stories. He speaks in measured rhythm, spinning words both animate and raw.  One of his stories recounts the night he encountered a skinwalker on an empty forest service road.  Another is about Coyote, the Navajo trickster who feeds on chaos and leads people astray.  Jason explains that in order to combat Coyote, we must collectively “develop the understanding and knowledge to see though the blame he’s (coyote) casting and all of the fear he instigates…we get past it through science, we get past it through study, we get past it through communication.”

Jason first joined the Park Service in 2001 as a ranger at Navajo National Monument.  Since this time, he has become a vocal presence within the field of Native American archeology, giving presentations and promoting cultural outreach throughout the Southwest.  For Jason, the work is of particular significance.  He has spent most of his life on the Navajo Nation, but his genetic lineage is more in line with ancient civilizations he studies.  In his words: “I am Zuni Edgewater, I am born for the Orabi Salt Clan, my mother’s father was tangle people and my father’s father was Mexican people… I’m Navajo culturally, I speak Navajo, I look Navajo, I live Navajo, but genetically, I’m not Navajo.  I can walk in these ruins and know that these used to be my ancestors.” 

By: Maya Aurichio

Better Know an Educator: Todd Wilkinson

“If your mother says she loves you, you had better check it out.” This is author and journalist Todd Wilkinson’s mindset when he reports on stories across the American West. From the history of Lewis and Clark on the Missouri River to the politics of life on the Pine Ridge reservation, and the “New West” paradise that is becoming Jackson Hole, WY, Todd is well-versed in the environmental and social issues of the West. He has been published in Christian Science Monitor and National Geographic, and he previously wrote a column called “The New West” for the Jackson Hole News & Guide. After nearly twenty years in Jackson, he has moved on to other journalistic endeavors in Bozeman, MT. Todd began his career as a violent crime reporter in Chicago and has developed an impressive resume since, writing “Last Stand,” a critically-acclaimed biography of Ted Turner and authoring a collaborative work with photographer Thomas Mangelson called “Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek.” His work is so diverse in fact, that some have mistaken him for two different people sharing the same alias. In his writing, Todd seeks out the complexity inherent in western environmentalism, showing that there are usually more than two clearly-defined sides to any issue. It is clear however, from reading and talking with Todd that he cares deeply for the lands of our Western United States, and seeks to share the full story of them with his readers and those lucky enough to get to listen.

By: Maggie Baker

Meet Our Speakers: Gus Yellowhair

Gus Yellowhair walks to the front of the room on soft, moscasinned feet. Dressed in a buffalo bonnet with a colorful headband, hide shirt and khaki pants, Gus begins a telling of the creation story of the Oglala Lakota people for the gathered crowd inside. He opens with a prayer song from the Native American Church, accompanied by the beat of a handheld drum, his voice deep and resonant. Interspersed throughout his telling are jokes referencing Kung Fu Panda and flairs of showmanship. Gus and his daughter Tiana work at the Chamber of Commerce on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southern South Dakota and are practiced storytellers, taking time out of their days to share this piece of their culture and history with visitors. At the end of the story, Gus and his daughter traveled around the room, passed a braided portion of sacred Sweetgrass to smell, and shook every visitor’s hand. 

By: Amanda Champion

Meet Our Speakers: Richard Sherman

“The greatest tradition of the Lakota is giving,” says ethnobotanist Richard Sherman, an Oglala Lakota born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Sherman, like his seven siblings, has spent his life giving to his many communities. He funded and operated a wildlife biology program on the reservation for ten years. Now he works with the National Park Service and the World Indigenous Tourism Alliance (WINTA), chaired by his brother Ben, to teach visitors from all over the world about the region’s plants and their traditional Lakota uses.

Sherman’s worldview is wider than most. Driving by cathedral-like formations of red and white clay in Badlands National Park, he mixes the Latin names of passing wildflowers with a story of running away from reservation boarding school to join the Navy at age 18. Since then, Sherman has attended college in Utah and Massachusetts, worked in Washington, California, Colorado, and DC, and even spent a stint aboard a ship in the Bering Sea, working with native peoples of the Aleutian Islands.

For all the experience his varied past brings him, Sherman is soft-spoken and humble, maintaining that “you never become an expert, you keep being a student your whole life.” As he explains how the Lakota use yucca root to make soap and curlycup gumweed to treat poison ivy rash, he spreads this spirit of lifelong learning to others. His love of the land shines through as he smiles and asserts that “any day spent outside is fun.”

By: Thomas Meinzen

Meet Our Speakers: Marilyn Pourier

“I feel so honored to be a small part of this,” says Marilyn Pourier, the Institutional Development Director for Oglala Lakota College. Based in Kyle, South Dakota, the college currently has around 1400 students and is one of only a few dozen tribally run colleges in the United States. Pourier’s passion about the college shows as she explains that the school is about 97% tribal members and their average student is a mother in her early twenties. Oglala Lakota College has nine centers around the Pine Ridge reservation as well as an extension in Rapid City. This decentralized arrangement helps connect the college to communities and encourages the teachers and administrators at each center to really know their students. The college also runs a K-6 Lakota language immersion school and head start programs for early childhood education.

            Pourier was born and raised on the reservation with seven other siblings. She attributes her dedication to education to her mother, one of the only Lakota schoolteachers at the time. Pourier previously worked in Colorado bringing school boards under tribal control but was drawn back to Kyle because, in her words, “this is my home.” When discussing the history of the oppression and mistreatment of Native Americans, Pourier proudly states, “You can do what you want to me, I am still a wild Lakota woman.”

By: Willa Johnson

Meet Our Speakers: Betty O'Rourke

At Bette’s Kitchen on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Betty O’Rourke serves up fry bread and wisdom with equal vitality. Betty has run the Wounded Knee, South Dakota restaurant out of her home for the last 17 years to provide nourishment and a meeting place for reservation residents and visitors. Betty is an Oglala Lakota Indian and the great granddaughter of well-known tribal spiritual leader, Nicholas Black Elk. Her experiences on and off the Pine Ridge Reservation have led Betty to believe that little is more important than education. After a meal of fry bread, soup, and Indian tacos, Betty instilled in us the critical role education plays on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and in all communities, and urged us to never cease in our pursuit of learning. For multiple generations the Black Elks have acted as liaisons for the Oglala Lakota culture, sharing their history and beliefs, and Betty continues this legacy through the food, hospitality, and stories she offers to tribal members and visitors alike. “I love what I do,” Betty says, “its not a job.”

To learn more about Bette’s Kitchen, visit: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bettes-Kitchen/461508730576706 

By: Abby Popenoe

Meet Our Speakers: Allen Pinkham

“Son, do something for your people.” These were the words of advice left to Allen Pinkham, or Paaxat Higatin in the Nez Perce language, by his father. Pinkham is a Nimiipuu elder who has accomplished a great deal for his people, a vast family that includes salmon, deer, eagles, grizzly bears, wolves and insects. “Everything you see on this earth is your people,” Pinkham told us. “We have red blood just like them.” This concept, one of Pinkham’s “mythological truths,” was the basis for his 1999 book on Nez Perce fishing culture, Salmon and His People. Last year, Pinkham published a second book, Lewis and Clark Among the Nez Perce: Strangers in the land of Nimiipuu, to recount the famed explorers’ journey from his people’s perspective. As former Chairman of his tribal council, Pinkham fought to enact treaty rights, bring fish ladders to local hydroelectric dams, and reintroduce coho and fall chinook salmon to the Clearwater River. While he has won many battles as leader and activist, Pinkham’s greatest gift is his ability to weave together history and future through story-telling. He invited us to visualize our bodies as part of the earth, each finger representing a species. “When you lose the passenger pigeon, you lose your little finger,” he explained. Because we abuse ecosystems, we’re at risk of losing bison, salmon, and thousands of others. Wounded, fingerless hands seared across our imaginations. “The earth is squirming,” Pinkham concluded. “How much longer until we say, no more body parts lost?”

By: Nina Finley