Native American Heritage Month

In this program with Bill Moyers, authors Louise Erdrich and the late Michael Dorris explain how traditions of spirit and memory weave through the lives of many Native Americans and how alcoholism and despair have shattered so many other lives. The devastating effect of fetal alcohol syndrome on their adopted son and on the Native American community as a whole is also discussed. The issues discussed in the program are underscored by the tragedy of Dorris’s untimely death. (30 minutes)

In this program, Dennis Wholey has a conversation about Native American religions with Suzan Shown Harjo, executive director of The Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C. Topics of discussion include the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978; some common aspects of the approximately 300 remaining Native American religions being practiced in the U.S. today; the concepts of a supreme being and associated sacred beings as they exist in Native American culture; the prophecies of the Cheyenne prophet Sweet Medicine and the historical impact of North America’s settlers on the land’s indigenous peoples; and the pressing need for all Americans, non-native and native alike, to create a better future together. (27 minutes)

The works of Leslie Marmon Silko are strongly rooted in her own matrilineal tribal background. Like all writing of lasting value, they use particular experiences and places to reveal universal truths. Here, Silko discusses her own background and the interrelationship between her smaller, immediate Native American world and the larger, brutal surrounding world. (45 minutes)

N. Scott Momaday is the most widely published and read of the Native American writers, and the recipient of the most valued awards and prizes for both his poetry and his prose. A Ph.D. in English literature, he has combined his study of Western literature with the themes as well as the structures of his Kiowa Indian heritage. Here, Momaday discusses what it means to a Native American to be an American citizen and reveals the artist, thinker, and imaginative creator behind (or perhaps at the core of) his impressive and important body of work. (45 minutes)

For the nearly two million Native Americans, representing 500 Indian nations, life in the U.S. today is a frustrating struggle to retain their ancient ways while functioning in the modern world, to carve out an identity in an overwhelmingly non-Indian culture. This program examines the needs and problems of today’s Native Americans, both those who live on the reservation and those who have chosen the mainstream. The conclusion focuses on celebration and survival as reflected in the continuing tradition of the Powwow. (49 minutes)

This program features the late Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich, a husband-and-wife team who collaborated as writers before his untimely death. They attribute their beliefs in family, community, and place to their Native American heritage: she is half Chippewa, he is half Modoc. As Native Americans, their writing reflects the difficulties of American Indians today. In this program with Bill Moyers, Erdrich and Dorris discuss faith and the search for a Native American identity in a pluralistic society. (30 minutes)