Native American communities

Mellon grant boosts digital stewardship of indigenous cultural materials

Washington State University researchers working to enable digital repatriation of Native American cultural heritage materials received a $700,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the next phase of an innovative, community-driven curation program. The award supports implementation of the Mukurtu Shared platform and the collaborative curation method developed at WSU for digitally sharing […]

Hearing the whispers

The Indian name of Annita Lucchesi (’16 MA Amer. Studies), who is a Southern Cheyenne descendant, is Hetoevėhotohke’e—which translates to the peaceful sounding Evening Star Woman. But Lucchesi calls herself mé’êśko’áe—a hellraiser girl, one who is always stirring things up. In November 2018, Lucchesi produced a groundbreaking report on missing women that was published by […]

Archeology: days of future past

Rapid global cooling 13,000 years ago challenged early occupants of Alaska to adapt. People used to hunting mammoths and other megafauna with big stone tools suddenly found their weapons shattering in the cold. Access to the stone they used to make them got buried under snow. As with any climactic change, the cold resulted in […]

Holy smokes

For thousands of years, coyote and other types of wild tobacco have provided what many consider a versatile healing remedy and meditative, spiritual channel to the Creator. Much of the botanical lore was muddled, however, with the arrival of Europeans and subsequent cultural upheaval. WSU researchers Shannon Tushingham and David Gang ’99 PhD are using […]