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For decades, Leo “Bushido” Bercier (Ojibwe) balanced a full-time job and a family as he worked to make a name for himself as a professional fighter. Now, he’s hoping the controversial sport of bare-knuckle boxing will afford new opportunities. Along the way, he’s helping other amateur fighters in Great Falls, Mont. Similarly, across the country, Joshua Oxendine (Lumbee) is lining up bouts while also teaching traditional boxing at a gym he owns with his wife outside Charlotte, N.C. We’ll speak with both fighters about their passion for the sport that was banned for more than a century.

We’ll also get perspectives on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Rosebud. Chief Crazy Horse and Lakota and Cheyenne warriors successfully turned back the U.S. Army column led by Gen. George Crook, cutting off the re-enforcements heading to the fateful Battle of Greasy Grass eight days later.

GUESTS

Leo Bercier (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians), boxer and owner of Bushido Fight Series

Josh Oxendine (Lumbee), boxer, MMA fighter, and owner of Oxfitness

Wilma Bearshield-Robertson (Sicangu Lakota), historian and artisan

Leo Killsback (Northern Cheyenne), professor at the University of Arizona and author

Here’s an extended version of an interview with historian Dr. Leo Killsback (Northern Cheyenne). Killsback discussing the events leading up to the Battle of Rosebud:

 

Break 1 Music: Sacrifice (song) Bloodline (artist)

Break 2 Music: Round Dance (song) Black Lodge (artist) Enter the Circle – Pow-Wow Songs (album)

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Oregon’s only contribution to a time capsule organized for the America250 commemoration is a pin by Lillian Pitt, an artist from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs known for her focus on Native Americans’ 12,000 years of history. In a statement, Pitt says she’s gratified that the work will remind the people who open the capsule 250 years from now “of those who have made this land their home since time immemorial.” The National Museum of the American Indian is compiling a quilt with panels created in a series by different artists offering interpretations of the country’s history through a Native lens. They are among the many contributions by Native individuals and organizations during the nation’s semiquincentennial.

GUESTS

Elizabeth Woody (Warm Springs, Navajo, and Yakama), executive director of The Museum at Warm Springs

Lillian Pitt (Warm Springs, Wasco, and Yakama), artist

Gabriel Fray (Passamaquoddy), artist

Tracy Goodluck (Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and Muscogee), executive director of the Center for Native American Youth

Emma Alcazar (Chickasaw), a designer for the Quilt Along

 

Break 1 Music: This Land (song) Keith Secola (artist) Native Americana – A Coup Stick (album)

Break 2 Music: Round Dance (song) Black Lodge (artist) Enter the Circle – Pow-Wow Songs (album)

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Once overshadowed by the myth of “Custer’s Last Stand”, Native Americans have successfully reclaimed the narrative of the Battle of Greasy Grass. 150 years after the defeat of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s 7th U.S. Cavalry, northern Plains tribes plan numerous events over multiple days to commemorate the historical milestone and to explore the ways the unexpected victory by a coalition of tribes continues to reverberate today. The sesquicentennial is less about celebrating past military dominance and more about a unified, multi-tribal declaration that, despite a century and a half of forced displacement, Indigenous cultures and identities remain vibrantly alive.

GUESTS

Tom Eagle Staff (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe), Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe planning coordinator for the 150th Anniversary of Battle of Little Bighorn

Dave West (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe), director of the Cheyenne River Lakota Cultural Center

Dion Killsback (Northern Cheyenne), Northern Cheyenne Tribe’s camp coordinator for the 150th Anniversary of Little Bighorn and an attorney

 

Break 1 Music: A War Chief I Have Been (song) Courtney Yellow Fat (artist) The Lost Songs of Sitting Bull (album)

Break 2 Music: Round Dance (song) Black Lodge (artist) Enter the Circle – Pow-Wow Songs (album)

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Tribes in Washington State and Vancouver, British Columbia are presenting their culture and history to soccer fans all over the world. The Puyallup Tribe’s partnership with FIFA is the first time an Indigenous nation is formally represented at the World Cup for the games in host city, Seattle. The Musqueam Indian Band and Squamish Nation also have hosting and planning agreements in Canada. They are all contributing cultural events, visual arts, and music during the matches that are attracting fans from all over the world.

At the same time, Native victims advocates like the Seattle Indian Health Board are preparing resources to combat the expected increases in Indigenous human trafficking that inevitably accompanies such large, high-profile events.

GUESTS

Jamin Zuroski (ʼNa̱mǥis First Nation, Polish, Ukrainian), artist

Tamia Overes (səlilwətaɬ [Tsleil-Waututh Nation]), artist

Chelsea Hendrickson (citizen of the Northern Arapaho Nation, and Cup’iq), survivor leader

Hope Sandstrom (Puyallup), digital media manager for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians

Abigail Echo-Hawk (Pawnee), executive vice president of Seattle Indian Health Board and director of Urban Indian Health Institute

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A site of tragedy for the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation has become a place of renewal and promise. The tribe has worked for the past seven years to revitalize the land of the 1863 Bear River Massacre. By eradicating invasive species, reviving native plants, and returning water canals to their natural paths, the tribe is significantly boosting both water quality and flow of the river. It is one of the biggest sources of water for the Great Salt Lake, and officials say the tribe’s efforts could be part of a solution to preventing the iconic body of water from disappearing amid an increasingly dry climate. And in Montana, The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes continue work as part of a historic compact to revitalize the Jocko River. We’ll discuss how Indigenous knowledge is providing promise against a troubling trend.

GUESTS

Brad Parry (Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation), vice chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation

Seth Makepeace, hydrologist for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes

Donella Miller (Yakama), fish science manager for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

Hannah Freeze, Great Salt Lake deputy commissioner

 

Break 1 Music: Prayer Song (song) Salish Spirit Canoe Family (artist) Keep Singing, Keep Dancing (album)

Break 2 Music: Beauty Way (song) Summit Dub Squad (artist) The Beauty Way (album)

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As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers releases its 20-year dredging plan for the Columbia River, tribes say they want more of a say in how the operation affects their fishing and cultural priorities. The Corps acknowledges that its ongoing work to maintain the 43-foot deep channel is detrimental to salmon and other species. The Trump administration, which cancelled a historic river co-management agreement with tribes, now wants to facilitate larger, more powerful shipping barges on the river that already transports more than 26 million tons of grain a year. But the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, the Cowlitz Tribe, and others say the waterway is more than just a highway for agricultural exports. They want their voices reflected in future river dredging decisions.

GUESTS

Roger Amerman (Choctaw), geologist and ethnogeologist

Virgil Lewis (Yakama), fish commissioner for Yakama Nation with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

Erik Holt (Nez Perce), chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe Fish and Wildlife Commission

 

Break 1 Music: To Keep the World We Know (song) Bruce Cockburn (artist) O Sun O Moon (album)

Break 2 Music: Beauty Way (song) Summit Dub Squad (artist) The Beauty Way (album)

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A racial discrimination lawsuit by a non-Native resident of Hawaii threatens to dismantle a Native Hawaiian land benefit established by Congress more than a century ago. The suit challenges the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921, a federal law reserving more than 200,000 acres of land in a public trust for Hawaii’s Native population. Residents need to prove they have a 50% blood quantum to qualify for 99-year lease. The plaintiff argues he was denied a lease based on an unconstitutional racial preference. It is one in a series of challenges for similar benefits including school admissions and a health studies scholarship, all giving preference for Native Hawaiians, who do not share the same political protections as Native Americans. We’ll discuss how the lawsuits brings issues of equity, blood quantum, and historic land dispossession to the forefront.

GUESTS

Robin Danner (Native Hawaiian), senior advisor to the Sovereign Council of Hawaiian Homestead Association

Elizabeth Ho’oipo Pa Nakea (Native Hawaiian), attorney, founding president of Hui Na’auao, and executive director of the Native Hawaiian Advisory Council

Patrick Kahawaiolaa (Native Hawaiian), homesteader and elder

Derek Kauanoe (Native Hawaiian), assistant professor of law at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

 

Break 1 Music: Ke Aloha I Ka Pu’uwai / He ‘Ili ‘Ula Au a He Hawai’I (song) Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu (artist) Call It What You Like (album)

Break 2 Music: Beauty Way (song) Summit Dub Squad (artist) The Beauty Way (album)