On today’s podcast we have Aaron Brien (Apsáalooke), a member of the Night Hawk Dance Society and faculty in Salish Kootenai College’s Tribal Historic Preservation and Native American Studies programs. We talk about the blending of ethnography and archaeology within indigenous archaeology, as well as the identity challenges that many young Native Americans face and how indigenous archaeology can be one part of a holistic picture that can give young people a sense of who they are and hope for the future. He shares his experience working with National Geographic as one example of how photography and archaeology can reinstill that sense of identity.
“The application of oral histories to archaeology is at the forefront of the research, at no point is the narrative of tribal people secondary. This methodology is the foundation of our work. No longer should Indian people be delegated to the appendices. No longer are we ‘supplemental’ humans”.
Links
Aaron: