Native People

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Happy 73rd birthday to Graham Greene🎉🎈
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Graham Greene – Canadian First Nations actor acclaimed for roles in Dances with Wolves and The Green Mile.
GRAHAM GREENE - FIRST NATIONS Canadian actor who belongs to the ONEIDA tribe. He has worked on stage, in film, and in TV productions in Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his 1990 performance in ""Dances with Wolves"". Other films you may have seen him in include Thunderheart, Maverick, Die Hard with a Vengeance, the Green Mile, and Wind River. Graham Greene graduated from the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in 1974 & immediately began performing in professional theatre in Toronto and England, while also working as an audio technician for area rock bands. His TV debut was in 1979 and his screen debut in 1983. His acting career has now spanned over 4 decades & he remains as busy as ever. In addition to the Academy Award nomination for Dance with Wolves, he has been consistently recognized for his work, and also received nominations in 1994, 2000, 2004, 2006, and 2016.

Janee' Kassanavoid, born January 19, 1995, is a Native American track and field athlete renowned for her achievements in the hammer throw. A proud member of the Comanche Nation, Kassanavoid has become a trailblazer in the world of athletics, setting records and breaking barriers.Professional Career Highlights:
Personal Best: Kassanavoid achieved her personal best throw of 78.00 meters (255 feet, 10 inches) on April 30, 2022, in Tucson, Arizona. This remarkable feat solidified her as one of the top hammer throwers globally.
World Athletics Championships 2022: On July 17, 2022, at the prestigious World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, Kassanavoid made history by winning the bronze medal with a throw of 74.86 meters. This accomplishment marked her as the first Native American woman to win a medal at the World Athletics Championships.

The Apache.
The "Apachue" (enemies) were called so by the zuni of the peoples of adobe, the Apache recognize themselves as "Diné", "The people". They are divided into seven tribes: Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Kiowa, Lipan, Mescalero, Coyotero and Navajo.
They all speak dialects of a common language, of Atapascan roots that confirm their origin in the north of the continent, and their way of life was based on gathering, hunting and pillage. They worship as sacred animals the cougar and the coyote, the eagle and the falcon, the bison and the bear. The Apache were able to survive in the scarcity of the desert, crossing it at full speed and stealth.
They stood out in the art of war for their ambushes, with their bows and arrows, which sometimes filled with ponzona of insects and reptiles, and they were not afraid to go into the fight hand to hand armed with spears and even knives. Their ferocity that sometimes scratched in brutality not only won them the respect and fear of their neighbors, men as warped as the Lakota and the Mohavians, would also make them one of the greatest threats of the desert border to the Spanish, and afterwards to Mexicans and Americans.

Her name was Emma Ngahiraka Waitangi Wood, but to many, she was simply Ngahiraka Kennedy—a woman whose life rippled through the tides of two worlds. Born in 1842 in the coastal settlement of Ōpōtiki, New Zealand, she was the daughter of James Wood and Materena Rangiwhiuwhiu Waitangi, a lineage that carried both colonial and Māori heritage. With blue eyes and fair skin, Ngahiraka bore the sacred *moko kauae*—a traditional Māori chin tattoo—etched with pride, a permanent mark of identity and honor passed through generations of Māori women.

In 1873, in Auckland, she married Joseph Bond Kennedy, weaving her story into the broader narrative of a changing New Zealand. But Ngahiraka was never one to fade into the background. Her moko wasn’t just a cultural symbol—it was a declaration of strength, mana, and resilience. In every line was the legacy of her ancestors and the echo of the great migration from Hawaiki. She stood as a bridge between eras, fiercely graceful in both the Māori world she honored and the colonial world she navigated.

Ngahiraka Kennedy’s life was brief but indelible. She passed away in Gisborne in 1890, only 48 years old, but her image—marked by that unmistakable moko and her quiet strength—still speaks across time. Who was she really? A daughter of chiefs, a wife, a bearer of ancient knowledge? Her gaze invites more questions than answers, leaving behind a mystery stitched into the land she loved.

Mourning Dove was the pen name of Christine Quintasket, an Interior Salish woman who collected tribal stories among Northern Plateau peoples in the early twentieth century. She described centuries-old traditions with the authority of first-hand knowledge, and also wrote a novel based on her experiences. Like her African-American contemporary Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), Mourning Dove’s reputation as a female ethnographer and writer has grown steadily over the past few decades. Her novel, Cogewea, is the first known published novel by a Native American woman.

Growing up at Kettle Falls

One day between 1884 and 1888, according to family lore, a woman of Lakes and Colville ancestry named Lucy Stukin (d. 1902) was canoeing across the Kootenai River in north Idaho when she went into labor. She gave birth while the boat was partway across the river, and wrapped the newborn girl, whom she named Christine, in the steersman's shirt. Although other sources give her birthplace as Boyds, Washington (above Kettle Falls), a canoe birth would have been an appropriate beginning for a woman who would travel restlessly through the Intermountain West and battle against prevailing social, cultural, artistic, and political currents for the rest of her life.

Christine's father, Joseph Quintasket, belonged to the Nicola band of the Okanagan tribe of British Columbia, but the family lived in Lucy Stukin's homeland on the upper Columbia. Christine spent her formative years with several brothers and sisters near Kettle Falls, where her maternal grandmother taught her traditional Plateau lifeways. She spoke Salish as her first language, and during her childhood joined in the great salmon fishery at Kettle Falls each summer. An older woman named Teequalt, who lived with the family, contributed to her spiritual teachings. An adopted white orphan named Jimmy Ryan taught Christine to read, using dime novels as primers.

Christine entered the Goodwin Catholic Mission near Kettle Falls for formal schooling in 1894, where she later recalled being punished for speaking Salish. Before the school year finished, she dropped out due to illness, then returned to the mission between 1897-1899. When the Goodwin Mission closed in 1900, she attended school at the Fort Spokane agency.

After her mother passed away in 1902, Christine stayed home to manage the household. When her father remarried in 1904, she enrolled in the Fort Shaw School near the home of her grandparents in Great Falls, Montana. There the teenager spent time with her grandmother Maria and witnessed the 1908 roundup of the last free-ranging bison herd, an event which had a profound effect on her. "One magnificent fellow," she recalled in a 1916 interview, "fought like a lion as they tried to crowd his wonderful shaggy head into a box car. In some way he broke through the barriers on the opposite door of the car, fell down between the trains, and broke his neck" (Spokesman).

Did Chief Dan George break barriers for Indigenous actors in Hollywood?
Yes — Chief Dan George became one of the first Native actors to gain widespread recognition in Hollywood, earning an Oscar nomination for his role in Little Big Man (1970). His performances brought dignity, humor, and authenticity to Indigenous characters often misrepresented on screen.
Born in British Columbia, he was a member of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. Before acting, George worked as a longshoreman, musician, and chief of his community. He began acting in his 60s, initially in Canadian television, but soon caught Hollywood’s attention with his naturalistic style and quiet charisma.
His breakout came with Little Big Man, where he played Old Lodge Skins, a wise and weary tribal elder. The performance was both humorous and deeply moving, earning him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination — a rare honor for an Indigenous performer at the time.
George went on to appear in films like The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), where he again brought gravity and humanity to a supporting role. He was also a poet and activist, using his platform to speak on Indigenous rights and culture. His 1967 speech, “Lament for Confederation,” became a foundational moment in Canadian Indigenous activism.

The Last Winter of Freedom – A Kiowa Family’s Story, 1902In the bitter winter of 1902, deep in the sacred Wichita Mountains of southwest Oklahoma, a small Kiowa family made camp — holding onto their way of life as the world around them changed forever.
Tsonetah, an aging warrior and elder, refused to abandon the old ways. With him were his daughter Nali, her husband Red Elk, and their young son. Their canvas-and-hide tipi stood by a stream flowing from Mount Scott, where deer still roamed and wild turkey could still be hunted. The buffalo were gone, but tradition remained.
Snow came early that year. Government agents came too, pressing them to relocate. But at night, under the flicker of firelight, Tsonetah told his grandson stories — of sky people, medicine men, and the buffalo spirits that once thundered across the plains.
Nali stitched warm clothing from worn army blankets. Red Elk traded pelts for cornmeal with a Choctaw man who still understood.
When spring returned, they agreed to move to the reservation. But in the boy’s memory, that final winter stayed alive — the smell of wood smoke, the rhythm of the drums, the frost on the tipi walls.
It was the last season his family lived free on their own land, guided only by tradition, spirit, and sky.

GRAHAM GREENE - Born June 22, 1952, on the Six Nations Reserve in Ohsweken, Ontario, Mr. Greene is a 70 year old FIRST NATIONS Canadian actor who belongs to the ONEIDA tribe. He has worked on stage, in film, and in TV productions in Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his 1990 performance in "Dances with Wolves". Other films you may have seen him in include Thunderheart, Maverick, Die Hard with a Vengeance, the Green Mile, and Wind River. Graham Greene graduated from the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in 1974 & immediately began performing in professional theatre in Toronto and England, while also working as an audio technician for area rock bands. His TV debut was in 1979 and his screen debut in 1983. His acting career has now spanned over 4 decades & he remains as busy as ever. In addition to the Academy Award nomination for Dance with Wolves, he has been consistently recognized for his work, and also received nominations in 1994, 2000, 2004, 2006, and 2016. Graham Greene lives in Toronto, Canada, married since 1994, and has 1 adult daughter.

🎉 Happy 86th Birthday, Jon Voight! 🎉
Oscar Winner. Versatile Actor. Hollywood Mainstay.

“As many as 4,000 innocent Native Americans died on the evil Trail of Tears. Don’t you think the truth about the Trail of Tears should be taught in America’s schools?”
The Trail of Tears is one of the darkest chapters in American history. In the 1830s, under the Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson, thousands of Native people—including the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole nations—were forced from their ancestral homelands in the southeastern United States.
Families were rounded up, homes were destroyed, and people were marched hundreds of miles to so-called “Indian Territory” west of the Mississippi River, in what is now Oklahoma. The journey was brutal—marked by hunger, disease, exhaustion, and exposure to the elements. Historical records estimate that as many as 4,000 Cherokee men, women, and children died during the forced relocation.
For Native communities, the Trail of Tears was not just a moment of suffering, but a devastating assault on their culture, identity, and way of life. Yet even in the face of tragedy, they endured. The descendants of those who walked the trail continue to carry forward their language, traditions, and resilience today.
The message in the image is powerful: the truth of the Trail of Tears must be remembered and taught in schools. Understanding this history is not about guilt—it is about honesty. It is about ensuring that future generations know the full story of America, including the voices of those who were silenced and the struggles of those who survived.