To Be a Water Protector: The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers

The Month You Remember Me
is this magical made-up time in the United States between so-called
ere
Day (or Indigenous Peoples’ Day for the enlightened) and
Columbus
anksgiving, where white Americans think about Native People.
at’s sort
our window. Honestly. Now, let me tell you the truth; I think about white
of
every day … every day. How o en do white Americans think of
people
people? Rarely.
Native
2019, November was known as Native American Heritage Month,
Until
in the middle is that Halloween thing, and until about three years ago,
plus
of the most popular Halloween costumes was Pocahontas. So, people
one
nothing about us, but like to dress up like us, or have us as a mascot.
know
President Trump renamed Native American Heritage Month as
Sadly,
Founding Fathers Month, so we might have lost out on a few
National
of collective acknowledgement. In other words, will you still think
seconds
Native People if we don’t have a month?
about
are invisible. Take it from me, I travel a lot, and o en ask this question:
We
you name 10 Indigenous Nations? Sometimes I ask for 25. You can ask
Can
in a room full of PhDs, or a lecture hall full of college students, and
this
en no one can name us. If we are to be named, it is Lakota, Cherokee,
o
Cheyenne, Blackfeet, mostly Native People from westerns, or maybe
Navajo,
that Cherokee great-grandmother someone believes they have.
is is the
of history: writing out the victim, making the victim disappear;
problem
is no victim so there was no crime. We just disappeared.
there
always, when I am traveling, there will be this feeling that someone
And
seen a unicorn in the airport. at would be me, in my Pendleton jacket
has
an apparition from times long ago. ere will be that awkward question
—
whether I am Navajo or Cherokee, and then we will sort it out …
about
on how much patience I have. Most people are very well
depending
intentioned.
do I want to tell you while you are thinking of me? Let me squeeze
What
in: ere are over 700 Indigenous Nations in North America, and, in
this