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It’s the time of year when Native nerds, cosplayers, comic geeks, and gamers assemble for the first and biggest convention devoted to them. IndigiPopX is back at the First Americans Museum (FAM) in Oklahoma City for the second year, featuring panel discussions, vendors, musicians, a glowstick ball match, and a whole day devoted to the TV series Reservation Dogs. Amid the festival fun is the message that Native Americans enjoy Mandalorians just like everybody else. We’ll hear what’s new from the IPX organizers.

GUESTS

Dr. Lee Francis IV aka Dr. Indiginerd (Laguna Pueblo), CEO and founder of Native Realities

Tom Farris (Otoe-Missouria and Cherokee), director of retail operations for FAM

Kristin Gentry (Choctaw), director of community engagement and outreach for Native Realities, artist, photographer, writer, and curator

Connor Alexander (Cherokee Nation), owner of Coyote & Crow Games

Sarah Wilkinson (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians), oil painter and illustrator

Break 1 Music: Big Crow (feat. Black Lodge Singers) (song) DJ Shub (artist) PowWowStep – EP (album)

Break 2 Music: 500 Years O’ Blues (song) Digging Roots (artist) Seeds (album)

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Numerous studies over the years point out the overrepresentation of Native American women in U.S. prisons. The Sentencing Project found a 525% increase over more than 20 years in the incarceration of women and girls. Juvenile Native American girls had the highest rate, at more than four times that of their white counterparts. We’ll talk about the factors driving a growing trend and what advocates are doing to turn the numbers around.

GUESTS

Dr. Carma Corcoran (Cree), director of the Indian Law Program at the Lewis and Clark Law School and adjunct professor in the Indigenous Nations Studies program at Portland State University

Dr. Laurie Walker, assistant teaching professor at the Department of Native American Studies at Montana State University  

Dean Williams, independent consultant

Break 1 Music: Plains Cree Prisoner’s Song (song) William Burn Stick (artist) Indian Music of the Canadian Plains (Album)

Break 2 Music: 500 Years O’ Blues (song) Digging Roots (artist) Seeds (album)

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The Lummi Nation is among the tribes that continue to face serious threats from the ongoing opioid epidemic, despite their best efforts. Lawmakers in Washington State are poised to allocate millions of dollars in opioid litigation settlement money to Lummi and other tribes in an effort to stem troubling statistics that show Native Americans are overwhelmingly affected by opioid abuse. All across the country, tribes are working to find the most promising opioid treatments funded by dozens of settlements with pharmaceutical giants. We’ll check in with the ongoing problem of Native opioid addiction and the best prospects for the $1.5 billion earmarked to help solve it.

GUESTS

Chairman Anthony Hillaire (Lummi)

Andrea Medley (Haida), research associate with Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health 

Tim Purdon, partner at Robins Kaplan LLP

Break 1 Music: Intertribal (song) Sweetgrass (artist) Follow the Trail (album)

Break 2 Music: 500 Years O’ Blues (song) Digging Roots (artist) Seeds (album)

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Most tribes have important traditional connections to the stars and other celestial bodies in the night sky. But increasing encroachment from artificial lights is diminishing those connections. A handful of tribes are supporting a dark skies initiative to preserve what night sky visibility is left and promoting methods to limit light pollution. In the process, they’re raising awareness of their own night sky traditions.

GUESTS

S.D. Nelson (Standing Rock Sioux Tribe), author and illustrator of children’s books

Travis Novitsky (Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa), nature photographer

Daniel Bulletts, cultural resource director for the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians and director of the Southern Paiute Consortium

Break 1 Music: Standing Rock (feat. Nick Ørbæk Jacobsen) (song) Uyarakq (artist) Miseraq (album)

Break 2 Music: Sweet Salvation (song) Wayne Garner (artist) School for Savages (album)

Paper illustration by S.D. Nelson for the book, Grandma’s Tipi: A Present-Day Lakota Story. (Courtesy S.D. Nelson)

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A crime spree by two Ute youths in 1923 escalated into a mob of settlers bent on suppressing the nearby Ute and Paiute populations in what is now Utah. The conflict led to the deaths of two Paiute men, including William Posey, a leader who was vilified in the press for his resistance to oppressive settler tactics. The “posse” formed to retaliate against the tribes imprisoned dozens of Ute citizens in a makeshift stockade. The action, sometimes called the “Posey War” or the “Last Indian Uprising,” forever changed the tribes’ access to their land and ushered in a time of forced attendance in boarding schools for Ute children. The 100 Years of Silence project by the Ute Mountain Ute recounts the truths of the Posey War from their perspective. An art exhibit featuring pieces by Ute artists’ interpretations is currently at The Leonardo in Salt Lake City.

GUESTS

Shaun Ketchum Jr. (Navajo, Ute Mountain Ute), project director for the 100 Years of Silence Project  

Angelo Baca (Navajo and Hopi), communications lead for the 100 Years of Silence Project

Break 1 Music: Biioo pahna [Healing Song] (song) Judy Trejo (artist) Circle Dance Songs of the Paiute and Shoshone (album)

Break 2 Music: Sweet Salvation (song) Wayne Garner (artist) School for Savages (album)

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Roberto Múkaro Borrero spent two decades surveying historical documents and piecing together fragments of written texts to create a new, comprehensive Taino language dictionary. And Alaina Tahlate is using what she learned from hours of recordings and hundreds of documents as she races to preserve the language of Oklahoma’s Caddo Nation that has only two fluent speakers remaining. We’ll speak with these two passionate language scholars about the dedication it takes to make a difference.

GUESTS

Roberto Múkaro Borrero (Taíno), kasike of the Guainía Taíno Tribe and president of United Confederation of Taíno People 

Alaina Tahlate (Caddo), language preservationist for the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma

Break 1 Music: Taino-Arawak Welcome Song (song) Joan Henry (artist) Kanogisgi – Song-Carrier (album)

Break 2 Music: Sweet Salvation (song) Wayne Garner (artist) School for Savages (album)

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The most powerful earthquake ever recorded in North America struck 75 miles south of Anchorage in March 1964. More than 130 people lost their lives in the temblor and the subsequent tsunamis. The state’s largest city endured major damage to buildings, property, and infrastructure. Kodiak, Seward, Valdez, and the village of Chenega were among the places severely damaged by rising waters. The event forever changed how Alaska monitors and prepares for dangerous seismic threats.

GUESTS

Gary Watson (member of the Sun’aq Tribe of Kodiak), board member of the Kodiak Area Native Association

Fred Christoffersen (member of the Valdez Native Tribe), elder

Christina “Tina” Hoen (member of Lesnoi Village), Kodiak resident

Mike West, state seismologist for Alaska 

Break 1 Music: Tundra Chant (Original) (song) Pamyua (artist) Flying Wild Alaska: The Soundtrack (Original) (album)

Break 2 Music: Sweet Salvation (song) Wayne Garner (artist) School for Savages (album)