- [Ernie] On this "Native Report," we introduce you to an Ojibwe language teacher receiving recognition, for the good work she's doing in her community.

- [Rita] And what would life have been like if colonization never happened in the Americas?

A native made fantasy role playing book game explores just that.

- [Ernie] Plus we meet the creator of "The New Adventures of Super Indian" comic series which is all about a native superhero.

- We need to be telling our stories and I think that's really the most important, aspect of doing comics is being able to tell your own story.

- We also learn what we can do to lead healthier lives and hear from our elders.

- [Narrator] Production for "Native Report" is made possible by grants from the Blandin Foundation, Anishinabe Fund, and Alexandra Smith Fund, "In support of Native American Treaty Rights," administered through the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation.

And the generous support from viewers like Jack and Sharon Kemp.

(soft piano music) - Welcome to "Native Report" and thanks for tuning in.

I'm Ernie Stevens.

- Thanks Ernie.

I'm Rita Karppinen.

In this episode we're hearing from several curators of cultural tradition.

These modern keepers of knowledge are using education, technology, and trends to carry on traditions.

- We'll start with our visit with an Ojibwe language teacher at a Duluth School.

The Bad River tribal member has a passion for language preservation and science.

We sat in as she taught Ojibwe language based science lesson.

(soft piano music) - My mom personally exposed me to a lot of cultural activities, and my dad brought me to a lot of cultural activities and language events.

So I did grow up, experiencing lots of legends and storytelling and ceremonies where I heard a lot of language.

And I think that in part is what helped me, learn it easier as I got older.

(Aanakwadikwe speaking Ojibwe) My name is Winonah Aanakwadikwe but my students call me Aanakwadikwe, and we are here in my second and third grade Ojibwe immersion classroom.

We have a full day of Ojibwe immersion here so we don't use any English at all.

And everything that they are learning about in the school and state standards is in Ojibwe through our cultural curriculum.

(Aanakwadikwe speaking Ojibwe) We are not the first Ojibwe immersion program, but we are the first one working with Duluth public school specific curriculum.

We follow the 13 Moon Ojibwe calendar, and we teach all of the standards through cultural activities of what Anishinabe people are learning about or our cultural teachings at that time of year.

So right away when the students start in August and September we're learning about ricing.

In the wintertime, we do (speaks Ojibwe) or legends and we are also studying things like snowshoeing and animal tracks.

And in the springtime we study (speaks Ojibwe).

I don't necessarily think that they would be exposed to all of that, if they were following the public school curriculum.

(Aanakwadikwe speaking Ojibwe) Maybe some people think Anishinabe weren't scientists, but we were.

Science is essentially understanding and discovering patterns, not just what's happening in the stars, but how does light work?

What is going on at different parts of the year with patterns with the seasons, that is deeply engraved in our culture.

So I really like thinking about concepts of how do we talk about those things in the Ojibwe language.

And I work with certain elders, that are first language speakers.

So they have a deep understanding of the language.

And I also work with other second language speakers that are teachers, instead of translating directly from English, what we do is we look at the deeper word root, or what the word is trying to describe behind the scientific process.

For instance, our word for gas, when we're learning about solids, liquids and gases is (speaks Ojibwe) And the root meaning of (speaks Ojibwe) is, that of the intrinsic property of something to spread out into the container that it's filling which is essentially what a gas means.

(Aanakwadikwe speaks Ojibwe) So today we are learning about the water cycle.

We call it (speaks Ojibwe) (Aanakwadikwe speaks Ojibwe) (speaks Ojibwe) is condensation, (speaks Ojibwe) is precipitation, (speaks Ojibwe) is collection.

And some other really awesome lessons that we do, we learn about animal life cycles in Ojibwe.

The solar system is one of my personal favorites to teach because we are integrating words in Ojibwe about how to talk about gravity, planets, atmospheres, stars, star lifetimes, all those things.

Another great lesson that we're learning about is properties of light.

We have a great lesson that we've designed where students use many lasers with either wooden blocks, or mirrors, or different shapes of glass, and they draw how the light rays travel.

And we learn how to talk about it on the language, and we relate it to cultural teachings actually about how Anishinabe would use those teachings to spear fish long ago.

Even though we didn't have the equation necessarily written down, we had that understanding about the physics of light because we would use it when we spearfished, we knew that the light rays were bent when they were traveling through ice and water.

So we knew that we had to aim the spear at a different angle.

What I have been studying partly in college and I hope to do for later in my career is studying astrophysics and physics.

The field of astronomy is actually the least diverse of all the sciences, and it is very underrepresented especially in the native American population.

I think about worldwide there's only about 7,000 official astronomers total, and only a very small percentage of that is native American.

They think that by introducing and helping minorities and native Americans be represented more in astronomy, in the other scientific fields, that our perspectives and our unique ways of looking at things which does come from our languages and our cultures will help us solve problems that they a previously could not solve.

(soft piano music) - Here's a fun fact, when Winonah recently was acknowledged in the Duluth News Tribunes List of 20 under 40, which recognizes younger movers and shakers who make a positive change in their community.

(soft piano music) - We used to always share all our chores, and one morning I was still sleeping and my dad used to always go away to work.

He was never hardly home.

So it was my turn to go outside and get wood, for my mom so she could build fire and cook breakfast, and I was crying 'cause I didn't want to go outside, I went out without shoes, and I started chopping up the wood just to make a little tiny sticks.

Then I hit my a toe, and split it, about that much, and she wrapped it up by coming in because I was bleeding, and she looked at it and she got mad because I was careless.

So she got pull up a sheet, and she chewed some snuff, then she put it on my wound, and she wrapped it, and it healed.

(laughs) I didn't have to cut wood after that.

(laughs) I was relieved at a duty because of what happened.

(woman laughing) (soft piano music) - Life is stressful, and that contributes the high blood pressure, and increased mortality.

Stress causes the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands.

Cortisol increases blood sugar, and is the primary stress hormone.

Your adrenal glands also release adrenaline or epinephrine, this raises your blood pressure, increases your heart rate, and gets you ready to respond if you need fight or flight.

Your body is wired to protect you against threats such as predators and physical assault.

These types of threats are rare nowadays, but stresses from work, money, social media and politic strife trigger this system many times a day.

It's easy to feel as if we're constantly under attack.

One of the best medicines to reduce stress, is a simple hug.

Your grandmother knew this, and science is catching up with her.

Oxytocin is a chemical in our bodies that can reduce blood pressure and heart rate, oxytocin levels rise when we hug or sit close to someone else.

Oxytocin is associated with happiness and decreased stress.

Hugs benefit the giver and the recipient, and according to hugging experts, the ideal hug is 20 seconds long.

You need to respect others' personal space, and need to practice social distancing with the pandemic.

But for those who are close to, and those you live with, hugging is medicine.

Your grandmother and mother knew this, as always, remember to call an elder.

They've been waiting for your call.

I'm Dr. Arne Vainio, and this is Health Matters.

(soft piano music) - A 2021 role playing book game explores what life would've been like if colonization never happened in the Americas.

We talk with a member of the Cherokee nation of Oklahoma, who is the Coyote and Crow CEO, to learn what the sci-fi fantasy world is all about.

(soft piano music) - Hi, my name's Connor Alexander.

I'm a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and I have developed a tabletop role playing game, called "Coyote and Crow."

It is set in an alternate future, where colonization never happened.

And indigenous cultures throughout North and South America were allowed to flourish and thrive, and the game gives access to both native players and non-native players.

Having worked in the game industry for quite a while, I saw a lot of native representation, in games that was less than stellar, a lot of times we're painted as either opponents for colonial forces, we're painted as side characters or even villains in Western settings, within the game design community I think what was really frustrating was that a lot of times you had non-indigenous publishers, who were creating these games and these systems, and attaching indigenous themes to them, and maybe if we were lucky, we got some sort of consultation before it went to print.

And it was a case of, "Yeah, this isn't offensive."

And I feel like that's the lowest bar you can set, like that is the absolute lowest bar.

This isn't offensive.

So, having worked in the industry and on the backside of it for quite a while, and having been a game player my whole life, I started thinking about what I would wanna see in game representation, in a game that was not just the minimum, but actually had some real representation built into it.

I didn't wanna create just another game that was set in revolutionary war, I didn't wanna create a game that was set, during the old West.

Just nothing in the past.

I thought, "Let's give native folks a game that sets something in a future."

I grew up gaming, I played tabletop games my whole life whether it was board games or role playing games.

So tabletop role playing games are a little different than board games in that they are not based on winners or losers, they're based on co cooperative storytelling, and so you have one player who plays the story guide role.

Think of it as the narrator in a book, that person sets up the story, they set up the environment, they set up the antagonists and all the side characters.

Okay, we're gonna start.

We're just gonna go in the order of the book.

You have any motivation?

- My motivation is an artist.

- So you have a strict code of honor and strive to live up to it.

What code do you follow?

The players each take on the role of one of the protagonists in the story, and the thing I love about tabletop role playing games since I was a kid, playing "Dungeons and Dragons" as a kid, is that get tapped into the same thing that so many indigenous cultures are wonderful at, we're just storytelling, crafting really great stories.

And so I wanted to marry these two in a way that allowed story guides in our game, to craft new stories, and then pull these players in, in a way that let them have agency within that story.

And they can bring their own tribal or national traditions into the game if they want.

Or, if you're a non-native player, you can just go with what's in the book, we have sort of a generic setting for the book that allows non-native players to play within the game, where they're not being appropriated.

- Yeah, I know, I wanna honor my community and make sure, where's from.

- And you have an architect?

- Yes.

Of the seeker.

- And so a seeker, blah, blah, blah, seekers range from detectives to philosophers, to sociologists to bounty hunters relying on attention to details and the end covering of hidden things.

It'd be really well suited for this whole mission.

The PDF we just launched, the PDF is available for download.

Now backers have already received that, and you can get it through our website or through the Kickstarter page, has a link to where you can order it.

The physical book we're still working on we're hoping for March or April of 2022, for a physical release.

And while "Coyote and Crow" could have just been a book, I'm proud to say that we're now turning into a publishing company.

And my hope is that along the way, I can help uplift other native creators and see some more great native games published.

I have not yet been asked, if there's going to be a "Coyote and Crow" board game, just a regular family style board game.

And there is, I'm working on it right now with two other developers.

Non-natives were very respectfully saying, "Hey, how do we approach this game in a way where we can tell stories, where we're not stepping on anyone's toes here?"

And so one of the first things I thought was, "Well, we need to start getting native writers in here to start telling native stories, that can be used in this game."

They're common.

In other games they call 'em adventures or modules, but they're sort of stepping off stones, for telling stories.

Right now we've got 10 different writers, working with 10 different artists, telling stories from all over the continent.

Yeah, so the sea hunter are feared by some, respected by many operating with impunity and above the laws that they enforce.

At the same time they are held to a very high standard and go through rigorous physical moral and spiritual training.

I have both Cherokee roots and Chicano roots, and my father was deeply ashamed of both.

And I spent a lot of time fighting that, and going against that grain.

And now as an older person looking down, one of the things that was really important for me in this game, was trying to create something, create a message, that was a positive statement for younger kids.

'Cause I know younger kids, when they get into role playing games, I know how it was for me.

You really sort of idealize those characters on the page.

And I wanted to create a positive representation.

(soft piano music) I put my heart into it, so for me, this game was a little bit cathartic and it was a personal statement.

I kind of wanna refill what my father stood for there.

- You just heard about a book game based on an alternate future earth where colonization never happened, after a climate disaster changed history.

The game is in a world of science and spirituality, where the future of technology and legends of the past will collide.

It was created and led by a team of natives representing more than a dozen tribes.

- There's no lack of superheroes in our times but there is a lack of native superheroes, created by natives themselves.

Here to change that, is "The New Adventures of Super Indian" comic series, all about out a native superhero.

- The superhero was created by a member of the Kickapoo tribe of Oklahoma.

How did Super Indian gain his powers and what does he hope to accomplish with them?

(soft piano music) - I'm Arigon Starr.

(soft piano music) I am an enrolled member of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, my mom is enrolled in the Muskogee Nation here and she's also Cherokee and Seneca.

(soft piano music) And I am many things but a lot people know me as a comic book author, and writer, and artist.

(bright upbeat music) So Super Indian in the smallest nutshell that I can break it down to is, he ate tainted commodity cheese and gave him superpowers.

And he is part of a fictional tribe called the Leaning Oak, which really is the tribe of the mind.

(laughs) Well, Super Indian by day, is a janitor at the Leaning Oak Bingo Hall.

He's just your ordinary reservation boy, doing ordinary things.

He lives with mother and father, and part of this whole transformation with the commodity cheese, he's gained the power of flight, he's super strong, sometimes he has ice breath, Sometimes he's got fire breath, because his powers are in development there's really no telling what he can do.

The first edition of Super Indian has a glossary, because a lot of people were going, "What is a 49?"

(laughs) And I thought, well, we'll give a kind of explanation about what that is.

Oddly enough this whole comic did not start as a comic per se, it started as a radio series, and that was produced back in 2007, and distributed nationwide.

- Hey, I'm Hubert Logan.

I was born and raised here on the Leaning Oak Reservation.

Our reservation is a beautiful place, but right now, I'm doing my job as a janitor at the Leaning Oak Bingo Hall.

There's my grandma, Logan, on another hot streak.

Get it, grandma.

See, I'm more than just a bingo hall maintenance engineer, I am more than the son of Nick and Carrie Logan.

Now on, play the stereotypical native music.

(dramatic music) Native Americans have always had heroes, Chief Joseph, to Kamsa, Geronimo, Jim Thorpe, once in a generation, a hero comes to the aid of a nation in need.

(laughs) Pretty good huh?

My cousin, Anthony thought that up.

What I'm trying to tell you is, let me put this trash can between you and me and the security camera.

I'm Super Indian!

Is this thing on?

- There's a lot of villains on the reservation, as there are everywhere as you might know, facing Super Indian is a villain named Blud Kwan'tum.

And again that's a play on the old trope of a vampire, but this vampire wants to become a full-blood Indian, by biting other four chomps.

(soft piano music) With the whole issue of Blud Kwan'tum it's like, "I am more Indian than you are."

(laughs) And it's like, "What, what!"

Or it's that urban versus reservation.

"I grew up on a reservation, so I'm more Indian than you."

Just these weird little things that we have in our community they're like, "Okay."

(laughs) And I'm trying to draw them into the absurd and hopefully people can maybe see themselves in that and maybe change course a little bit, I hope.

(laughs) I really wanted people to see a native female superhero as well, but these two are gonna work together in the future and then there will be others.

(bright upbeat music) We still have to deal with a lot of these stereotypes of the silent stoic and the mystical Shaman, and that kind of stuff it's like, "Oh please."

(bright upbeat music) There are tropes, there's the super trouper, and then often they've had characters that are white, and decide that they learn all the Indian things and become more Indian and more amazing than the Indian people themselves, which is like, "What?"

There's some real strange stuff out there.

(bright upbeat music) He kind of fights the things that we're all fighting as native people, cultural appropriation and wannabes and new ages, and sometimes our own people, who, I'm more Indian than you are, and I have more superpowers than you will ever have.

And things like that where you just go, "Okay, I thought we were supposed to be helping each other but, okay let's roll with it."

(laughs) There's more of us doing this work now, when I first started this back in 2007, good gosh!

There was like maybe one other person, (laughs) that was native that was doing this.

And all of the other native superheroes were created by non-Indians, drawn by non-Indians, they were on the pages of Marvel and DC, and I thought, "None of those folks resonate with me.

I don't the humor in these characters."

I wanted something that was fun, that showed our humor, but also our strengths in our community 'cause I think that again is all native American.

That's one of our big superpowers, is our community.

(bright upbeat music) I've always, always, always loved comics and I think that, there are other native people like me that long to see themselves in the pages of a funny book, where we are in control of the story and in control of the art and how we're portrayed.

- The comic series creator says her Super Indian work has even been incorporated into some college curriculum.

And here's a fun fact about her.

She was raised in various cities across the country along with her Navy family.

She also has been drawing since she could hold a pencil and does all the Super Indian artwork herself.

If you missed a show or wanna catch up online, find us @nativereport.org and follow us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram for behind the scene updates.

And drop a comment on social media if you enjoyed the show.

- Thanks for spending time with your friends and neighbors from across Indian country.

I'm Ernie Stevens - And I'm Rita Karppinen, we'll see you next time on "Native Report."

(soft piano music) (soft piano music continues) - [Narrator] Partial funding of this episode of "Native Report," is provided by the citizens of Minnesota, through the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.