Credit: Playwright Dillon Chitto of Chicago has been named one of 10 recipients of the 2022 Sundance Institute Uprise Grant, which recognizes emerging artists of color. He will use the grant to develop a new play, "Pigeon." Chitto, Mississippi Choctaw and Isleta and Laguna Pueblo, has drawn accollades since his first play, "Bingo Hall," was produced through the Native Voices program at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles in 2017. (Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute)

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Playwright Dillon Chitto knows from personal experience that Indigenous people can be funny.

He gets most of his inspiration for the plays he writes from his family, friends and the people he met growing up as Mississippi Choctaw and Isleta and Laguna Pueblo in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“Some of the funniest people I know are Native,” he told ICT recently, “so I like to share that world with audiences, especially those who may not have been to an Indigenous play before, or even know that Indigenous theater exists.”

Chitto is drawing accolades in the theater world and beyond after a string of plays that draw rave reviews, starting with his first, “Bingo Hall,” in 2017, to “Pueblo Revolt,” which won the Rella Lossy Award for best script by an emerging playwright for a work that premieres in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A member of the nonprofit BoHo Theatre Company in Chicago, he’s been named one of 10 recipients of the 2022 Sundance Institute Uprise Grant, which recognizes emerging artists of color, and he recently was named one of four writers to a season-long residency for the Playwrights Unit at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. READ MORE— Dan Ninham, Special to ICT

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Everett Osceola mixes ’gators and Hollywood glam in what may be one of the most unusual — and dangerous — careers in Indian Country.

As cultural ambassador of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Osceola is founder of the Native Reel Cinema Festival, and has added actor and executive producer to his resume.

When you’re in the swamp, though, you use what you’ve got, and the Seminoles have alligators. So Osceola also wrestles alligators – a popular event among the Seminole.

“The reason the Seminole are called the unconquered is because we never signed a treaty,” Osceola told ICT recently. “We retreated into the swamps and had to fight the alligators as a source for food. That wrestling became a tradition and then a tourist attraction.”

Gator-wrestling villages were a forerunner to attractions like bingo and Indian gaming and entertainment on Seminole lands, and gator-wrestling is still a regular feature at pow wows and fairs. They are performed at villages in the swamps and in the billion-dollar Hard Rock Guitar Hotel, to packed crowds. READ MORE — Sandra Hale Schulman, Special to ICT

On the shoulder of a busy mountain highway an hour west of Portland, tribal elders Carol Logan and Wilbur Slockish gazed across four lanes of traffic at the sacred site they have fought for decades to protect: Ana Kwna Nchi Nchi Patat, or Place of Big Big Trees, where for centuries Indigenous people camped and rested while traveling an ancient road over Mt. Hood.

Logan, a Clackamas descendant and citizen of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and Slockish, hereditary chief of the Klickitat/Cascade Tribe and citizen of the Yakama Nation, keep the old ways. At burial places like Ana Kwna Nchi Nchi Patat, they sing specific songs, pray and leave offerings, so those buried there are remembered and will be able to rise up one day when the Creator calls to them.

But the government cut down the big, big trees and removed (then subsequently lost) the stones that made two ancient altars in the center of the grove. It dumped fill dirt in huge mounds over the burial site and installed a guardrail that blocked the spot where Slockish used to park his truck to access that side of the highway. It was all part of a project to widen Highway 26, in order to add a center turn lane.

“Should we make a dash for it?” Logan shouted over the soft roar of Sunday afternoon traffic, the sound of people rushing back to the city, their weekend adventures at an end. Slockish just shook his head. No.

“We shouldn’t go there anyway,” Logan yelled. “A ceremony needs to be done before people can return. It needs to be taken care of because they disturbed our old ones.” READ MORE– Underscore News 

Navajo Nation officials have issued an executive order to investigate and locate missing tribal members in a manner that is empathetic to victims and their families.

Tribal President Jonathan Nez met Monday with Navajo Nation police, the FBI and prosecutors in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah for the plan’s signing ceremony.

The crisis of missing and slain Native Americans has been getting more attention from elected officials and policymakers across the U.S.

In July, the FBI in Albuquerque released a list of more than 170 Native Americans it had verified as missing throughout New Mexico and the Navajo Nation that stretches into Arizona and Utah and covers nearly 27,500 square miles.

FBI officials said many records of missing Indigenous persons were incomplete or outdated because the record was not updated once additional details were made available or when the person was located.

“Multiple jurisdiction systems have historically failed the victims and their families,” Nez said in a statement. “Reporting, collecting and sharing missing persons data among various jurisdictions characterizes this problem’s true scope. The executive order will set a new tone of hope on this issue that impacts our nation.” — Associated Press

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Entering the final stretch before Election Day, candidates are giving their final pitches to potential voters, looking to secure votes to help get them into office.

Tuesday night at the University of Montana, Western Native Voice hosted a debate for candidates in Montana’s 1st Congressional District focused on issues facing Native communities in the state.

After the latest census, Montana gained a congressional seat and the 1st Congressional District has also been called the “western congressional district.” There are two tribes within the boundaries, the Blackfeet Nation and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes;

Only two of the three candidates — Democrat Monica Tranel and Libertarian John Lamb — showed up for the debate. Republican Ryan Zinke did not respond to the participation invitation by the date of the debate, according to Western Native Voice. READ MORE — Kolby Kickingwoman, ICT

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