STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
The Native American culture is known for its rich oral tradition.
Tribal elders passed on customs, history and wisdom through tales about coyote and creation.
“But, historically, the Native American voice has been absent from textbooks and other trappings of 19th and 20th century America,” says Dr. La Nada War Jack, an educator and member of the Fort Hall reservation near Pocatello.
“Stories give us a sense of personal awareness, they give us such power,” added Sarah Sunshine Manning, who grew up on the Duck Valley reservation south of Mountain Home.
War Jack and Manning spoke this past week at the Sun Valley Film Festival, describing efforts to raise Native American voices through Native American cinema. The panel was moderated by Boise filmmaker Heather Rae, a Native American whose film “Trudell” told the story of American Indian activist John Trudell.
There have been plenty of movies and TV shows that have depicted Native Americans as merciless savages scalping settlers during the 1800s. But Native Americans have had to live vicariously through the stories of other cultures in TV and films when it comes to more contemporary times. There were no stories about a cute Native American falling in love with the boy at the neighborhood dime store.
Idaho’s tribes are uniting to tell their creation stories and about their war heroes through written word.
They want to show how sophisticated their culture was in the days before Columbus paved the way for white man to invade their land.
And they’re beginning to make films giving voice to their modern-day concerns.
Cody Lucich, a member of the Maidu nation, showed clips that he filmed at Standing Rock where thousands of people representing more than 300 indigenous nations came together to protest the construction of a pipeline through South Dakota that they say threatens their drinking water, sacred tribal sites and way of life.
“It was in support of water. Water is life,” said War Jack.
“When you brush yourself with water, you’re acknowledging the sacredness of water,” added Manning.
How people view what has happened at Standing Rock is a matter of perspective, said Manning: “Are you a protestor or a protector, protecting our way of life?”
Manning said she took part in her first protest at 7 when fighter jets from Mountain Home Air Force Base began practice bombing the Owyhee. The bombs threatened sacred spaces and places where Manning’s ancestors had hid during the Bannock War.
“We want to live as ourselves without being told we’re less than,” she said.
Lucich described how the crowd formed a wall around him, allowing him to escape when authorities took offense to his filming at Standing Rock.
“We’re all American citizens. We’re not separate here. What happened at Standing Rock was American citizens getting together saying we need to protect our water. The first medicine in our body is water.”
The Native Americans gathered celebrated the fact that Native Americans came together, finding their voice, much as Native Americans came together at Alcatraz Island in 1969, spurring then-President Richard Nixon to quash an effort to terminate tribal lands and native sovereignty.
“While camp has disbanded people are not giving up,” said Manning. “They’re telling their stories in spaces like this.”