Bearing Witness, Native American Voices in Hollywood (2025) Movie Script
1
[wind rustling]
[solemn music]
For us, there's no happy ending.
They're not gonna wake
up one morning and say,
"Okay, we're gonna give
you back the land."
We got our suitcases.
We're gonna go back to
England or Spain or whatever,
and then somehow
we're gonna bring back
all the people we murdered.
It's not gonna happen.
[solemn music]
[solemn music continues]
[solemn music continues]
[solemn music continues]
[solemn music continues]
[solemn music continues]
[solemn music continues]
My name is Frank Garcia Berumen.
My mother belongs to Huichol
people from Northern Mexico.
And I still have my mom.
My dad passed away,
but he was a mestizo from
the center of Mexico as well.
[gentle music]
You know, I taught
history, I taught English.
And what was missing
was Native history,
basically here in this country,
it's black and
white perspective,
politics, you name it, so forth.
[gentle music]
When I was growing up, I
remember the stereotypes.
And then, of course, Indians
always going hoo hoo like this,
and then the Native women
walking with tight pants,
you know, that sort of thing.
It was kind of just insulting.
[Natives whooping]
[dramatic music]
[passenger screaming]
[gunshot blasting]
My name is Hanay Geiogomah.
I'm a member of the
Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma,
and I am a emeritus
professor of theater
in the UCLA School of
Theater Film and Television.
I'm a writer,
director, and producer,
and all-around
champion of the cause.
[upbeat music]
[coyote howls]
I grew up in Oklahoma,
in southwestern Oklahoma.
And there were a number
of tribes in that area
who were on the
different tribes,
we were like, there,
we were like here,
and then all around
here was white people.
[thoughtful music]
It was like being in a
kind of an open space
where you're just
con constricted and,
but you knew that the white
people controlled everything.
They controlled the
rents and the houses.
They owned the houses,
they ran the schools,
they ran the businesses.
Everything was theirs.
It was all, and they controlled
the land base, everything.
[thoughtful music]
And we were there as the
Indians. We were the Indians.
We weren't part of them.
We were there and among
them, but we were not them.
And they, the only thing that
they've been good for so far
for us is to be characters in
the cowboy and Indian movies.
And the cowboy and Indian
movies was woo, woo, woo
and all of that.
And that's how we were seen.
We were seen as those
kinds of Indians
when we were growing up.
[Natives whooping]
[dramatic music]
Behind the barricade!
Get ammunition and plenty of it!
My name is Irene Bedard.
Irene is the goddess of peace,
the Greek goddess of peace.
And then I am also
on my father's side French
Canadian, Bedard, and Cree.
He had a, his mother was Cree.
So my Cree name means iron
woman, to the core of the earth.
[serene music]
I even had a birthday
cake one year,
I don't remember, maybe
I was six or seven
where it was
cowboys and Indians.
And we all wanted
to be the cowboys
because the Indians were
the bad guys, you know?
I remember being
chased down the street
by kids with baseball bats,
and I'd have to, you know,
run home with my little
brothers and sisters
and the other kids on the block.
And it was part of being
a part of a culture
that was so marginalized.
[serene music]
But, of course, what
if we've been shown
over and over again,
this violence,
this idea of this
savage, this, you know,
not even so many after
that, so many decades
of not even Native people
portraying Native people,
so there's no cultural perspective
that's being shown there.
[dramatic music]
My name is Darrell
Redleaf Fielder.
I am Hidatsa and Lakota.
I was born on the Fort
Berthold Indian Reservation
in North Dakota, on my
mother's reservation.
I have to say,
I am the first Native American
hairstylist and makeup artist
in the entertainment business
that has kind of
risen to the heights
that I have risen to.
I think when I look
back, when I was a kid
and watching movies
and westerns and stuff,
and I would see Native
American people,
they were always portrayed
as, you know, what's the word?
The bad guy.
They were always
portrayed as the bad guy.
I mean, that was always
disconcerting to me,
you know, even as a child.
Tie her up.
Savages! Animal!
-Apaches!
-[dramatic music]
I'm Tantoo Cardinal
and I was born in Fort
McMurray, Alberta, Canada.
Well, at the time
that I was born,
my mother was
called a half breed,
but that's since been changed
and cleaned up a little bit.
So now we're referred
to as Metis people,
and now we are included
in the Constitution.
[gentle music]
[gentle music continues]
I was born in 1950, and at that
time, we were still illegal.
Our language was subverted.
Our religious practices,
for lack of a better term,
our communication with
the greater force,
creative force was unlawful.
I grew up in a time when
languages were disappearing.
People were ashamed
to speak the language.
They were, my grandmother
spoke to me in Cree,
and she spoke to
relatives in Dene,
but I was not allowed to
respond in the language.
And that was her way
of protecting me from
what would happen to you if
you were a language speaker.
[gentle music]
[gentle music continues]
I think from the very beginning
when Europeans came, obviously
they had a different culture.
We had a different
culture, you know,
different language,
different religion.
[gentle music]
And so the the fact that for
them we wouldn't be subdued
by them, and we resisted,
then they immediately said,
"Well, these people
aren't civilized.
"They're primitive and so
forth," compared to them.
[gentle music]
Especially the church.
They wanted to, like I said,
kill the savage
and save the man.
[gentle music]
And so the image has always
been that we're savages,
that we're primitive,
we're violent, you know,
we cannot control our violence.
We cannot control our sexuality.
And of course, throughout
the 1800's, the press,
the media here focused on
the violent character of it.
There was never any
discussion about
what we're doing is wrong.
These people are, are human
beings. We need to respect them.
[gentle music]
At the end of the
Indian wars, at the end
of the 1800's, they develop
a nostalgia for the Old West,
after it ended.
There was Buffalo
Bill's Wild West Show
and other shows that
travel around the world,
basically romanticizing
the Old West.
[crowd cheering]
You know, typically you
had the, the Indian trying
to stop the hero
and, you know, rape the
white woman and so forth.
[patriotic music]
Near the end of the 1800's,
you had the motion
picture evolution.
And one of the first
images was Native people.
There was a short
called "Ghost Dance".
[Native flute music]
The Ghost Dance and the
Lakota people were dances
that they did within
the reservation.
It was part of a
movement of a nostalgia
because people were
depressed, sad,
hungry and so forth.
And it reawakened their
sense of identity.
And so this short film
of "The Ghost Dance",
was the first image that
I'm aware of Native people.
[Native music]
And some companies, like
Path actually, had Native
performers and
writers and so forth.
And so they were pretty popular.
They focused mostly on
the, on mixed marriages,
about the defects of people
that were somewhat tainted
because they had Indian blood,
that we couldn't
control our sexuality
and violence, that
kind of scenario.
[upbeat music]
Even popular stars, like
Douglas Fairbanks Senior
made some of these films
to tell the stories.
And, you know, so he
was like a mixed blood.
They lived in the forest,
his tribe was gone,
everybody was dead.
He had no friends.
But it was interesting
because Fairbanks had a lot of
Native American performers.
People like Charles Stevens,
who for a long time people
thought he was the grandson
of Geronimo was one of them.
And he went on,
Charles Steven went on
to a long, long career.
[upbeat music]
So yeah, I mean, even
big stars were fascinated
by that genre for a while.
[upbeat music]
One of my favorite
American Indian theme movies
from the silent era
was "The Squaw Man".
I think a lot of people
respond to "The Squaw Man"
because it actually has
a real human story in it.
And the interesting thing
that the difference was that,
that there was no dialogue,
of course, it's silent.
So you were, you were
watching the faces,
you were watching the emotions,
you were watching the
physical expressions.
This is what a real Indian
looks like without any special
effects or sound or corny
dialogue that somebody wrote
that they would never
say in the first place.
[uplifting music]
For a period about 15 years.
It was, that type of
movies were very popular.
It reminded people of what
they had lived through,
at least the older people
and what young people were
learning now in school.
And that was basically gone.
[solemn music]
Main part of
America at that time,
this was in the early 1800's,
was on the eastern side
of the United States.
And they sent Louis and Clark
out to explore the rest of it.
And saw all, came all the
way to the Pacific coast
and saw that America was
a huge, huge, huge country
with all kinds of
resources and everything.
And they went back and told,
told the people in the east,
this is a country, we don't
have to stay just right here.
We should be moving this way.
[thoughtful music]
The Indians were there,
and they knew that the
Indians were there,
and that they'd have
to deal with them.
So the, arrogantly,
the American government
took it upon itself to
say, this is our destiny.
Our destiny is to take
our country all the way
to the Pacific Ocean, and
that's what we're gonna do.
And nobody's gonna
stop us. Nobody.
The Indians aren't
gonna stop us.
Mexico's not gonna stop us.
France is not gonna stop us.
England's not gonna stop us.
We're going, this is, we're
gonna take this whole continent
and make it America.
[thoughtful music]
And whoever gets in
the way, too bad.
And the Indians were in the way.
[thoughtful music]
A Manifest Destiny was a belief.
It was like, I call it the tumor
of the Doctrine of Discovery.
The Doctrine of
Discovery, believe it
or not, even today
is a legal term.
It's a legal doctrine.
There's been many tribes that
tried to get back their land.
But because they were
discovered by Europeans,
and when they discovered, as
in the land belonged to them.
They've lost many in
the Supreme Court.
They've lost Supreme Court cases
because the Doctrine of
Discovery still exists
in the courts in this country.
And so then Manifest Destiny
simply meant that the belief
that they were destined by God
to expand from sea
to shining sea.
And so then anything you did
on the way of doing that was,
you know, God was happy with it.
And so then by any
means necessary,
and that essentially
was Manifest Destiny.
[gentle music]
You can see this from the
very beginning in the speeches
and writings of George
Washington, you know,
Thomas Jefferson,
Andrew Jackson,
even Lincoln believed in it.
So, and of course, today we
still have the image somehow
that of American exceptionalism,
like we're unique in the world
because of all the wonderful,
good things that we did.
But the reality is,
it's totally different.
[gentle music]
In the United States,
the first Indian
war was in 1789.
Every single tribe in the
United States was attacked
by this country in the
so-called Indian Wars.
And so the policy
of the United States
was essentially
extinction or reservation.
Several thousand people.
And they were forced
to, to like go on wagons
and walk this whole distance
through the wilderness
and across rivers
and everything.
And many people died.
Illnesses, just
accidents, was a very,
very terrible experience
for the tribe.
They called it the
Trail of Tears.
It's still very graphically
present in the memories
of the Cherokee
people, also the Creeks
and some other tribes as well.
But primarily for the
Cherokees, the Trail of Tears.
[gentle music]
Most people think we're in
the past, that we don't exist,
because most reservations
were initially
established in far away places,
so that settlers could
not bump into 'em
as something bad could happen.
[gentle music]
They stopped recognizing
more than a hundred tribes
and so as federal reservations.
So it meant that the land
then was they could take it,
which they did, which they did.
[gentle music]
Now sometimes people
think that it was kind of
a wonderful place
to be and so forth,
but there was diseases,
brutality, starvation
or near starvation and so forth,
and people couldn't leave.
If you left, they would track
you down and either kill you
or bring you back
into the reservation.
[gentle music]
So essentially that history
was romanticized in US history.
It was justified.
Genocide was
justified in the fact
that they wanted the land.
And more than 600
treaties were signed
with the United States
government, but all were violated.
[thoughtful music]
What happens in the 1930's
with the Great Depression,
some people look for
scapegoats, you know,
they want a catharsis of
some sort, their anger,
to raise their anger.
Some people, I think resented
Native people becoming
citizens, you know,
making them equal
to white people.
[thoughtful music]
1925, Native people were
finally given citizenship.
And so then it was a little
incentive for Native people then
to be able to participate
in voting and so forth.
[thoughtful music]
And so then in the 1920's, you
have a series of some films
"The Vanishing Americans",
you know, among others
that were positive in nature.
But all these films were
box office failures.
So it wasn't wise to
invest in stories about us.
We became minor characters,
incidental characters.
[dramatic music]
[gunshots blasting]
And then essentially,
whenever the story
or the screenplay
kind of got boring,
they had Indians screaming
and attacking people, right?
Basically faceless
people with no life,
no culture, nothing else.
[dramatic music]
[men yelling]
"The Stage Coach"
is a very important
western for a lot of reasons.
Unfortunately, the stereotypes
were more the same.
You saw this, hundreds
of Apache attacking
a stage coach,
screaming and so forth.
[gunfire blasting]
[dramatic music]
You know, the film made
Ford an important director,
and of course, was
very well directed.
The characters, the script,
but the Native images
just are terrible.
Totally, completely terrible.
[men yelling]
[dramatic music]
There was another movie
called "Geronimo" in 1939.
It's kind of bloodthirsty
image of Geronimo.
[dramatic music]
[Geronimo yelling]
Geronimo has always been
the most hated Indian
in the United States
then, yesterday and today.
And so then it was, you
know, a sensationalist,
violent prone film.
It had, it didn't
have much of a plot
other than these blood thirsty
savages attacking stage coaches,
burning buildings,
that sort of thing.
[Native speaking
Native language]
[Geronimo speaking
Native language]
Geronimo's the most
hated Indian ever,
because he was a leader
of the last tribe
that resisted Manifest Destiny.
[solemn music]
And not only that,
there's a period also
where the last six months
of the war against
the United States,
where the United States had
5,000 troops on the border,
and they didn't catch
a single Apache,
didn't kill a single Apache.
So it was the fact
that this Indian,
this savage could outwit West
Point graduates, you know,
Civil War generals,
which is incredible.
So it humiliated them in
front of their own people.
And I think they never
forgave 'em for that.
I think that part of the
reason that the Apache,
not only Geronimo and the
warriors, but the women
and the children were given
27 years in prison, you know,
is unprecedented, even
for Native people, is part
of the reason they wanted
to completely wipe 'em out
and move 'em away from any
media or anything else.
[solemn music]
And so I think essentially
that's the reason,
and that's never
gonna change I think.
That group of films,
you know, are very important.
But it also perpetuated basically
some of the worst images
of indigenous people.
Presents for my brothers,
the Cheyenne, the red hyenas.
"The Plainsman" was 1936.
There's a scene where they
put on the women's clothing
and this, the brassieres
and whatnot, it is kind
of comical, tragic comic.
[Lady] Oh.
[Native speaking
Native language]
It was an attempt to
undermine a community
that clearly was
here before them.
And so the idea was
to denigrate him,
and he did that by making
him look foolish, childlike.
And stupid as well.
And bumbling,
unable to understand
what the world was
like at that time.
[group yelling]
[objects clattering]
And of course, I mean the
permanent stereotype of
that Indian males
lusted after white women
and wanted to seduce them and
rape him and the whole thing.
And so then that scene is
troubling and shocking.
And, you know, and it's what
makes it even worse is that
you start by ridiculing them
and then they commit this
horrible, you know, crime.
[objects clattering]
[Native speaking
Native language]
All the policy
kind of perpetuated
that attitude that, you know,
Native people were primitive.
They weren't civilized,
even the institution
that you think would be
supportive, the churches,
they wanted to civilize you.
The boarding schools
developed in the early 1800's
precisely to, you
know, what they called
to kill the savage,
but save the man.
And so then kids in
reservations were taken
by force from the parents,
sent to boarding schools
where many of them died
of diseases and so forth.
And this went on into
the early 1900's.
[solemn music]
On the one hand,
we have a Navajo
as we find him in the desert.
Few of these boys
and girls have ever
seen a white man.
Yet, through the agencies
of the government,
they are being rapidly
brought from their state
of comparative savagery
and barbarism to
one of civilization.
My mom went to
the boarding school
and it really harmed
her in so many ways.
And also, you know, in
that way harmed all of us.
Its intent was to
rip families apart.
And it worked, you know,
and it, we, even though we
stayed together as a family,
there was a lot of
harm that came out of
that multi-generational trauma.
[solemn music]
I have a picture of her
and her twin sister, Ruth,
my Auntie Ruth, you know,
and they're in their parkas
and they look like they,
how they looked, you know
how we all probably
looked for tens
of thousands of years.
And they're so cute.
You know, they're,
they were little.
And they were plucked, taken
away, far away to a village
and separately because they
didn't want them to be together.
That was part of it,
is separating families
and abuse, all, physical,
mental, emotional,
spiritual, sexual abuse.
[solemn music]
My mother went
to boarding school
and my aunts went
to boarding school.
I didn't, luckily.
[thoughtful music]
You were humiliated.
And in the boarding
schools, severely punished.
I spoke with an old woman
who told me that she was
caught speaking her language.
So the nun made her kneel
in front of the class
and put a brand new
clothes pin on her tongue,
so that the students
would see what happens
to you when you speak
that devil language.
[thoughtful music]
My father was, went
to boarding schools in,
when he grew up in
the '20's and '30's,
they were all sent
to boarding schools.
So he was traumatized in his
life by that, where he had
to cut his hair, he
couldn't speak his language,
and the nuns would beat them
if they spoke their language.
[thoughtful music]
[thoughtful music continues]
And now it's coming to
light in the stories
that we're seeing exactly what
was happening and the trauma
and the abuse and the murder
and everything that has gone on.
But this has been
going on for 500 years.
[thoughtful music]
It's kind of ironic
that people came here
for religious freedom
being one of them,
and the first thing they do
is get rid of our systems
and outlaw our
relationship with Creator.
We had to be Christians,
and that was the intent of
the residential schools.
Get rid of the red
and leave the man.
Didn't even mention
women, you know.
[thoughtful music]
[thoughtful music continues]
I think that World War II
was, more than World War I
an opportunity for the US
armed forces, essentially to,
to recruit high numbers
of Native people,
emphasizing that
they were warriors.
And so that was a
huge attraction.
It was also a way to get out
of the reservation, you know,
with poverty and
alcoholism and whatnot.
And so then many of them did,
and many of them became
highly decorated soldiers.
That experience
definitely changed
them at the Native community.
They saw the world,
they saw, you know, good
and bad white people.
They saw the Nazis,
they saw people that
were not like them.
They saw good people,
bad people, you know,
different geographies,
different countries, languages.
And so then that made a huge,
huge difference, you know,
and when they went back home,
you know, they were honored
by their tribes for fighting
for the medals and so forth.
And also I think that
it, very instrumental
in developing a
Native identity within
the United States of America.
Because before it was,
you belong to your tribe
in the reservation,
but most of them had never left.
[thoughtful music]
So you had huge numbers
of Native males join
the armed forces
in all theaters of war.
[thoughtful music]
Ira Hayes was a Pima, a
small tribe in Arizona.
And he is famous, of course,
for being one of the Marines
that raised the
flag in Iwo Jima,
who were battle in the
Pacific in World War II.
During his service,
he suffered a lot
of discrimination and racism.
He was often called chief, you
know, they did the tomahawk,
you know, kind of shined.
When he came back, basically
he started drinking.
He had trauma and also,
you know, survival guilt.
So he drank himself to death.
And also the fact that of course
many were traumatized like
Ira Hayes, you know, that
never got the proper attention
or the proper opportunities
because of racism and so forth.
It made us stronger.
And it made 'em, you know,
give 'em a real sense that
they were part of this country.
And now that they were citizens
and veterans, they had
the right to demand things
and they had representatives
and that they had to
hold 'em accountable.
[thoughtful music]
That also did a lot in the sense
of public relations
in the media.
They began to cover us more
and see us as human beings
rather than the screaming guy on
the horse kidnapping women
and children and so forth.
So sociological factors were
instrumental in Hollywood
also becoming more
conscientious about
how they portrayed us as well.
And so then what
happened with, I think
how Ford changed his
attitude about Native people
was the fact he
served in the Pacific
with a camera unit, and
he saw himself the heroism
and contributions
of Native soldiers,
especially the Navajo.
And so I think that
really softened
and informed him to have
a different attitude
about Native people.
And there's numerous
stories about when he went
to Monument Valley
to film, he would use
as many Navajo for the film.
And often times he would
also was very generous,
you know, would contribute
to charitable organizations,
to housing, to
clothing and so forth.
So it really changed
him, I think,
profoundly the World War II.
[solemn harmonica music]
And I think from
that point onward,
he looked for a script that
would make, be an apology.
It wasn't until "Cheyenne
Autumn", he was able to do that.
You made one of the most
heroic marches in history.
You deserve to go back
to your own homeland
and stay there in peace.
I'm sure that the people of
this country will understand
and will agree when
they hear the facts.
Now, will you take the gamble?
The people, who will tell them?
Who will tell the people
about Fort Robinson?
I will.
I promise you.
That Ford was
romanticizing the soldiers.
I'm not saying that all
of 'em were a 100% evil,
but I mean, they
did what they did.
And so then, but the reality
is it's much worse than that.
There was just so many
massacres that everything from,
you know, opening the
stomachs and scalping
and so forth.
For each son, I take many.
Scalps.
[Native speaking
in Native language]
And that's the
other misconception
that Native people did not
scalp until the English came,
because the English used
that against the Irish first.
And then when they came
here, they perpetuated.
There's documents or
speeches about the fact that
they have scalping of
Indians in their policy
because they refused
to obey the king.
I mean, who, you know, they
had no idea who that guy was.
So anyway, but, but yeah, no,
the difference between history
and reality is totally
different, totally different.
And of course,
Hollywood perpetuated
the romanticized
perspective of this.
Of course.
[Narrator] So here they are,
the dog faced
soldiers, the regulars,
the 50 cents a day professionals
riding the outposts
of a nation.
From Fort Reno to Fort Apache,
from Sheridan to Stark,
they were all the same.
Men in dirty shirt blue
and only a cold
page in the history
books to mark their passing.
But wherever they rode and
whatever they fought for,
that place became
the United States.
[patriotic music]
Basically, you know,
perpetuating the same thing.
So it isn't until like the
late '40's after the war,
and some of the, you know,
people realizing inhumanity
of man to each other
and some of the newer
directors and Anthony Mann,
Donald Davis, people like that,
you know, who are younger,
a little bit more to the left
and radical, who then begin
to, you know, create this body
of film, beginning with "The
Devil's Doorway", Anthony Mann.
The boys outnumber us, Father.
The war's over, all
the wars, even yours.
The country's growing up.
They gave me these stripes
without testing my blood.
I led a squad of white men,
slept in the same blankets
with 'em, ate
outta the same pan,
held their heads when they died.
Why should it be
any different now?
You are home, you
are again an Indian.
But it's a film without hope.
You know, I think it's a, in
a lot of ways a truer film
because it is, it was
hopeless, you know, by the end
of the 1800's, you know,
Native people were broken,
they're totally broken.
You know, alcoholism
taking its toll, suicide.
We didn't know what to do.
And so then it's a film
that is, it's hard to watch,
at least for me,
it's heartbreaking.
[patriotic music]
[Soldier] Where are the others?
We're all gone.
[dramatic music]
The major challenge
in Native American
made films are several.
One of them is the money.
Where's the money coming from?
If you're making a film
that's gonna be critiquing,
you know, the US government
or the armed forces, you know,
some studios will
not fund that at all.
Another thing is that if
you don't have a big star,
you can't green light it.
And so that at that point,
is white actors took over,
and so then they had
to have the red face
to make them some
somewhat believable.
[curious music]
Obviously the racism against
Native people working in film.
It was the fact that the
always, the excuse was
that these people
can sell tickets.
These people are stars.
So we get some
unknown Native actor,
it's not gonna be a success.
And so that was
part another logic
of the Hollywood
studios at that time.
Well, I think that
Hollywood, in the beginning,
in the '30's, '40's and
'50's, they were just doing
what they thought they
needed to do in order
to depict the indigenous people.
I mean, they didn't
hire indigenous actors,
so they would use
Caucasian actors
and paint them, their faces red
and put bad wigs
on them and stuff.
[dramatic music]
A lot of times Hollywood
romanticizes Native Americans,
because there's
something noble about us.
So maybe there's
a little bit of,
kind of white guilt
in there a little bit.
There's some anecdote that
some actors had told me.
I mean, older actors that,
you know, live way back,
that a lot of this
dialogue that they said
was in a sense, like
a catharsis for them,
they were cussing out
white people, right?
Or threatening them.
And for them, after all
they had lived through,
was something that they
initially didn't want to do,
but for a moment, they
had some sense of power.
[dramatic music]
If I do not return,
general Quake will find you
and you will be dead
and all your people.
[Native speaking
Native language]
No, he is not a fool. You are.
[Native speaking
Native language]
And I think that what also
is important along the way when
it comes to looking at Hollywood
and indigenous
people in Hollywood,
there was an actor in the '60's,
his name was Eddie Little Sky.
He was Oglala Lakota from
Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
And he was in every
sitcom, in every,
he was on "Gilligan's
Island", on "F Troop".
He was, anytime there
was a Native person
or Polynesian person,
they called him.
And he never gets a lot of talk
because he was, he was
from, he was Lakota,
he's from my people, but
he was very prominent
in the '60's and '70's.
He was in "Soldier
Blue", he was in
"A Man Called Horse"
with Richard Harris.
[water splashing]
[people speaking indistinctly]
And so there's a
lot of, few people
that were prominent back then
that have not been really
given their due, I feel.
[rhythmic drumbeats]
Also one movie that
really impacted me
as a child was "Billy Jack".
That movie showed the
protagonist, which was Billy Jack,
as this ass-kicking,
like martial artist
that was gonna kick your
ass if you messed with him.
Morning, Billy.
You're illegally on Indian land.
And when that movie came
out, it, for Native people,
it was the first time that we
saw ourselves as being a hero.
[rifle blasting]
[Billy] Drop it or die.
And during that time, in
1971, when that movie came out,
that was when the American
Indian movement was happening
and Alcatraz was being
taken over by AIM and stuff.
So there was a lot of
social change happening
for indigenous people then.
And there was a lot
of unrest in America,
especially with the
government and Native people.
It would be fitting and symbolic
that ships from all over the
world entering Golden Gates
would first see Indian land
and thus be reminded the
true history of this nation.
Alcatraz in San Francisco
Bay was a major media event
because it was Alcatraz,
known all over the world,
a prison island and the
Indians occupied it.
There were, the Indian community
in, the activist Indian
community in the Bay
Area got together, said,
"Let's do something that
will get people's attention"
and that, they got
out in the boats
and went out and
occupied Alcatraz
and the World Media came there
and filmed it and
told the story.
And people all over
the world became aware
that there were Indians that
had issues, that had concerns,
that had protest
reality happening.
[thoughtful music]
[thoughtful music continues]
Hollywood's impervious to
whatever it doesn't want
to get in its way, and it
can just ignore something.
And something as enormous
as the Black Civil
Rights Movement can,
Hollywood can just
keep going forward
and not let it affect them,
but what it did for
the American Indian,
is that it galvanized
the attitudes
of like my generation saying,
"No, I am not as dumb
as you think I am."
No, I've become educated
and I know how to write
and I know how to think
and I know what's right
and I know what I see
and I know what's wrong
and I can, I'm
starting to understand
"how y'all are doing this and
the way you're doing it."
[crowd chattering]
My first place that I lived
in the States was
Atlanta, Georgia.
And because my
husband at the time
was a, was an
organizer in the Selma
and the Montgomery March.
So that was my first
inspiration about fighting
for our humanity.
That was my first influence
being in the States
and hearing about the people.
And there certainly
was a need for us.
And it seemed like
it was an energy
on the planet at the time.
It was everywhere
that, it was the,
the planet was just scrambling
and moving for change.
And so were my people.
But my first foray in
into the world of justice
and change was with the
Black Civil Rights Movement.
A lot of had been done
to American Indian
people in this country
and also to African
Americans as well.
[solemn music]
The Vietnam conflict
started happening
and civil rights
started happening.
And so some sense of, we've
gotten some of this wrong,
we're gonna have to make
some adjustments here
to this reality, not because
we have to, because we should.
[solemn music]
There was a sense that
that came into some
of the storytellers,
awarenesses that the Indians had
had a very bad deal, that they
had been wrongly portrayed.
For me, the movie that I
think did the most for me
to really open up a vision of
what Indian reality
could be in a movie
was "Little Big Man".
I don't understand
it, Grandfather,
why would they kill
women and children?
Because they are strange.
They do not seem to
know where the center
of the earth, these.
In "Little Big Man", there was
a character named Little Horse
and Little Horse
wore woman's dress
and did woman's things.
And that is considered
two-spirit, you know, the balance
between men and
woman in one person.
Don't you remember me?
This hurts me in my heart.
I'm two-spirit.
People don't understand
what that is,
that what a
two-spirit person is,
is it's, you're called gay.
And traditionally
two-spirit people
before colonization,
before the Spanish came
and everything, two
spirit people were very,
very important in the tribe.
They held a high place in
the society and in the clans
and in the rituals
and in the ceremonies,
because they were, we
were thought of a person
that was a spirit in transition,
going from masculine to feminine
or feminine to masculine.
[Native chanting]
And the idea at that
time, you know, in,
when "Little Big Man" came out,
that was a really big deal.
I think that that "Little
Big Man" was a good,
good reflection at that
time, 1971 of that,
because Vietnam had
happened and all of this.
And it was starting to see.
[patriotic music]
It wasn't because there was a
sudden awareness in Hollywood
that, oh, we've really been,
done a bad job to the Indians.
We must do whatever
we can to correct that
and make it better.
[patriotic music]
The interesting
thing about the movie,
it was the Wounded Knee
Massacre, essentially.
[gunshot blasting]
[horse neighing]
The Wounded Knee Massacre
took place in 1890 in
South Dakota in a place
called Pine Ridge,
which now is part of the Pine
Ridge Oglala Reservation.
And what happened there,
there was a group of Oglala
or Lakota who went to
where the Seventh
Calvary was stationed.
They were going to surrender.
There's even photos
of some of the Oglala
with the white flag,
dead in the ice.
[solemn music]
And so what happened,
the Seventh Calvary,
that's Custer's old outfit,
massacred them, more than
250 men, women and children.
And 19 soldiers were given the
Congressional Medal of Honor,
which is the highest medal
of valor you can get
in the United States.
And so today, Wounded
Knee, the site is,
in the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota.
And it's a place of,
you know, a sacred place
of mourning and
commemoration as well.
[solemn music]
I think most people
didn't quite remember that
because it's not
taught in school.
I taught for many
years in high school
before I taught in college
and in the history books,
at least in California,
they call it a battle.
[solemn music]
I think most of my people,
especially at that point,
late '60's, '70's,
were probably been
completely ignorant.
They might have thought
simply it was just
a massacre that was
created for the film.
So I think that if
people had known better
or more about Native history,
they would've been able
to connect both events.
[solemn music]
The Indian, as a
subject matter, the Indian
as a human being, was considered
to be like, just available.
We could do what we want to
with this storyline, this image.
[people yelling]
"Soldier Blue" was,
that was around the time
of the My Lai Massacres
in Vietnam, you know,
when the army was just going in
and killing innocent
people in villages.
That was the metaphor, I think,
that the same thing had
been done to Indians,
the same atrocities
and tragedies.
And it was a way to
actually show that.
They couldn't show
footage of My Lai
and make that into a movie.
But they could do
it with the Indians
because they'd always
done with Indians
what they wanted
to do with Indians.
[sorrowful music]
[Darrell] And that was a battle,
and people became aware of it,
you know, and there was a
court martial and, you know,
and the media, you know,
all over the place.
Big, big scandal.
And of course, you
know, raping, killing,
desecration of bodies,
all that stuff.
Of course, the top
brass was never touched.
The real blame was
the people on the top.
They had done this for many
years in Vietnam and elsewhere.
And this country had done that
for the last century and a half.
[wind whistling]
During the '70's, there
was kind of an awakening.
A lot of civil liberties
were being questioned by a gen,
a whole entire generation coming
out of Martin Luther King,
seeing that there was this
generation that could understand
that equality was not
what was truly happening.
And that had to do with
women, it had to do
with people of color.
You know, there was also
the two-spirited movement.
There was a lot going on
in terms of social justice,
economic justice,
environmental justice.
One of the experiences
of that was Wounded Knee.
In 1973, there were hundreds
of people that went there
to make a stand, you know, about
what was happening
on the reservations.
The American Indian Movement
came up with Russell Means,
who was the leader of the
American Indian Movement,
Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt,
and many others who went to
Wounded Knee and made a stand
and the FBI and then
the military moved in.
The leadership of the Oglala
Sioux here present in
Wounded Knee, have declared
Wounded Knee an
independent country.
[crowd cheering]
From here further, if any spy
from the United States of
America is found within our
borders, they will be dealt
with as any spy in a time of war
to be shot before
a firing squad.
[crowd applauding]
[Hanay] It called attention
to that, to land issues,
to cultural issues,
to spiritual issues.
That too became a
worldwide media event.
And it brought enormous
attention to the cause. Enormous.
But it also at the same time,
generated in my generation
energy and positivity.
And we can do it. And we're,
we don't have to be afraid.
We don't have to hold back.
We don't have to give in all
the time, we can be heard.
We have to be intelligent
and smart to do it in a
way that they will listen,
but they can, we could
get through to them,
and that they can't
just ignore us.
[solemn music]
The Wounded Knee incident,
which was a shootout,
and then subsequently,
subsequently, there was
of course the trials
of all these activists.
And then Marlon Brando had
been nominated for an Oscar.
So he asked a friend of his
Sacheen Little feather to come up
and refuse the Oscar
and make a speech about
the racist treatment
of Hollywood towards
Native people.
And of course she was booed.
[dramatic music]
[audience applauding]
Hello, my name is
Sacheen Little feather.
I'm Apache and I'm president
of the National Native American
Affirmative Image Committee.
I'm representing Marlon
Brando this evening.
And he has asked me to tell
you in a very long speech,
which I cannot share with you
presently because of time,
but I will be glad to share
with the press afterwards
that he very regretfully
cannot accept
this very generous award.
And the reasons for this
being are the treatment
of American Indians today
by the film industry.
Excuse me.
[audience booing]
[audience applauding]
She shined a light, an
international light on
what was happening out there.
And I think she saved
people's lives. I really do.
She was also black balled from
Hollywood for the
rest of her life.
She had a very difficult
time after that.
No one wanted to work with her.
And then basically the
media kind of lost interest.
It just kinda went on.
And so I think part
of the problem is
that we, you know,
our story doesn't
have a happy ending
and the land will never
be back, given back.
And like I mentioned,
even reservation line
is under trust ship of
the federal government.
So that's part of the
issue. It's a sad story.
And not too many people want
to read, hear about sad story.
They wanna read about
success stories.
So that's part of
the problem I think.
[solemn music]
I think it scared the heck outta
Hollywood for a while at least.
And I think that they
felt compelled somehow
to do something, otherwise
they're going to be, you know,
besieged by protestors
or whatever it may be.
And so I think that the,
some doors began to open.
The 1970's when things like,
like "Cuckoo's Nest" came
along, '75 I think it was.
Will Samson had been,
was out here already.
And he had done
some small parts.
-Get the guy.
-Get around chief.
The Hollywood community,
they said, oh, that big
Indian, that big Indian,
we need a big strong
Indian, get Will.
It was Will Sampson
himself that made
that moment important
because he was who
he said he was.
And he was from the people.
The language was all through
his body and culture.
And that's who he was.
That's who he came from.
Somebody else stepping
into that role,
same script, everything.
It wouldn't have had the impact.
It was his integrity
that made the impact.
Son of a bitch, Chief.
Can you hear me too?
I hear you good.
Well, I'll be god damned, Chief.
They all, they all think
you're deaf and dumb.
So right there, we had
a role model right there,
somebody to look up to.
And the the other
guys that wanted
to be actors had Will
Sampson as the role model.
There he was. Will can
do it, I can do it.
And so slowly, slowly
the, the process
of Indians themselves learning
how to better, better do it
to get cast besides
just being cast,
because you could ride a horse
nicely and you got long hair.
But to act, to actually
have a role, to play a part.
[thoughtful music]
It all begins with
the stories, right?
Who writes the stories?
You know, who's gonna
direct the movie?
You know, are they gonna
finance a film about us
when there's no big star?
You know?
And so those are kind of the,
some of the challenges
that we face.
[hoofbeats thudding]
[Natives whooping]
"Dances" was, people
liked that movie
because it had a
real Indian cast.
It had, those were real Indians.
So it was a whole,
almost a sensual difference
in seeing these real Indians
talking and doing things
and interacting with a white man
who was intelligently clever
enough to be simpatico
with the Indians and
to get along with them.
And they weren't his
enemy, per se so there was
a feel good experience.
And that was one of the
first major Hollywood movies
that portrayed us
as human beings.
It had huge impact.
Lot of people watched that movie
and they watch it
over and over again.
We come far, you and me.
I will not forget you.
[uplifting music]
Native people are storytellers.
That's how we pass
down all of our history
and all of our knowledge
is through storytelling.
It's only natural that Native
people tell our own stories.
It's time for us to
tell our own stories.
And I'm happy to see it
happening in Hollywood
and to be a part of it.
When I think about
a Native film,
I think the first Native film
that came out that was really
a seminal piece was
"Smoke Signals".
It was from our perspective
and it was a really
touching, beautiful story.
[phone ringing]
-Hello?
-Hello?
My name is Susie Song.
I've got bad news.
Arnold Joseph passed away.
-Oh.
-I'm his neighbor
here in Phoenix.
His stuff is still in his
trailer and his pickup's here.
I think somebody
should come get it.
I'm making arrangements
for him. I'll call again.
Thank you for phoning.
In "Smoke Signals",
it was so beautiful
to be able to go
and do this with a
Native American director
and, you know, produced
and directed and written
and a full Native cast
who were the protagonists.
And this was a first
and it was wonderful
to be a part of it.
And it was wonderful to portray
this different kind
of woman, you know,
she was strong and powerful.
Hey Victor, you ever
hear the Gathering
of Nations powwow in New Mexico?
No? Well, your dad and I, we
went to check it out last year.
All sorts of Indians
there, thousands of them,
more Indians than I've
ever seen in one place.
I kept thinking, I wish
we'd been this organized
when Columbus landed.
"Smoke Signals" is
kind of a cult movie
and it, people have
their own copies
and you know, people are
stealing their copies.
And it is, it's a
very much loved movie
and it was kind of essential
to come along at the
time that it did.
You gotta look mean or
people won't respect you.
White people will run all over
you if you don't look mean.
You gotta look like a warrior.
You gotta look like
you just came back
from killing a buffalo.
But our tribe never hunted
buffalo. We were a fisherman.
What?
You wanna look like you just
came back from catching a fish?
This ain't dances
with salmon, you know.
Thomas, you gotta
look like a warrior.
There.
That's better.
And so during that
time, there was a,
again, another rising
expectation that, you know,
wonderful things were
down the road for us.
But, and they had some talent.
We had talented actors,
actresses, you know, directors,
Chris Eyre and so forth.
[upbeat music]
I believe that
America is big enough.
It's powerful enough, it's
rich enough, you know,
to really deal with the American
Indian in a way
it should be done.
A movie like
"Skins" was initiated
by Chris Eyre
director, producer.
So he had the funding,
personal and otherwise
to make the movie.
And I think it had been
a movie that had been
long in the waiting to be made.
I think that there's
a general consistence
among Native actors all over
of what needs to take place.
You know, the, for a real film
about us, by us and so forth.
And that was a one.
At that time, all Indian
religious ceremonies were banned
by white men because
they were afraid of them.
Now up on the western end
of the Cheyenne River,
Sitting Bull resisted.
So they shot him.
And Bigfoot knew that he
and his people had to
flee the area immediately.
So they came to Pine Ridge
and when they camped out,
the Wounded Knee troopers
of the Seventh Calvary-
That's Custer's old command.
Seventh Cavalry was called in
to escort into the reservation.
There the soldiers disarmed 'em.
The Knee was nothing but a damn
massacre of women and children.
And of course you had that
Graham Greene character,
a Vietnam vet
who suffers trauma and
also survival guilt.
Well, maybe there is one
thing you could do for me.
What?
Help me blow the nose
off George Washington at
Rushmore, you know, for people.
Just give 'em a good laugh.
Maybe that's all we need.
Where do you get these ideas?
[Mogie chuckling]
Why he wants to
smear George Washington
and Mount Rushmore is
because the Mount Rushmore
is in the Black Hills,
which according to the
treaty of Fort Laramie,
was going to be belonging
to the Lakota forever
and ever in perpetuity.
But of course they took it.
And of course, you know,
they built the monument
and I think that ever
go to Pine Ridge,
you could see the
monument from there.
And so it's like you have
this four presidents watch,
and Jefferson, who were
the, the planners, you know,
who sit there, the policies
of genocide for Native people.
They had Lincoln who was
considered the greatest president,
you know, and did great things
for African Americans
and commendable.
But for Native people it
was just the opposite.
You would've thought
that he would help people
who need the most help.
But he didn't, you know,
during his presidency
there was continuous wars.
You know, we had the largest
mass hanging, you know,
in history of, of Native people.
And of course, you know, Teddy
Roosevelt, who again is kind
of bigger than life,
but if you look at the
national parks he set aside,
he kicked out the Native
people from there first.
And so then, and he used
to brag that, you know,
the only good Indian
is a dead Indian.
But of course this is part
of it of the male education
that we get in this country.
And public education at
least, that we're not taught
or people are not taught
about us, the true history.
And so the, the obsession of
the Graham Greene character is
that he need, he wants to do
something to those people,
especially the founder.
And that's part of obsession.
[Narrator] All our
ancestors are waiting
for you up there, Chia.
[Native vocalizing]
[Frank] It's a
heartbreaking film.
When I went to see
it, I went to see it
with mostly Native people
and most of us were crying
'cause it was just
so vivid, so real.
[Native vocalizing]
We come from a very
resilient culture.
We're still here and we
are making our mark now,
and we're doing it clear
minded and clear spirited.
It was predestined
many, many years,
many, many, hundreds
of years ago
that the seventh generation,
which is they're born now,
are the ones that are going
to lead the way for us
with a clear mind, a clear
heart, and a clear spirit.
So it's important for us,
and I'm an elder
now, to help them
and uplift them in order
for them to lead the way.
We all came from drums
and songs and stories
and relationships to the earth.
And we used to all
sit around fires
and tell stories
to our children.
It's just now that I do
it on film and television.
[dramatic music]
And that I even gave
Pocahontas 13-year-old voice?
Because she was only 13
when she threw herself upon
John Smith and stopped
the war from happening.
Is the death of all I love
Carried in the drumming of
War
No.
If you kill him, you'll
have to kill me too.
The Disney people
said from the beginning
that they were going
with the popular,
romantic version of it.
Not they, they knew what
the actual story was
and they knew that
there was no love story.
That there was no
real love story
with John Smith and Pocahontas.
They knew that,
but they said that,
that's not the movie that
we are going to make.
We're going make this
movie from this version
of the Pocahontas story.
Listen with your heart
You will understand
In so many ways she was also
a pawn that was sexualized
and raped from the
very beginning.
But what was important
about this project
for me, was it was a
moment in time when
kids around the world
could see a positive,
strong, young woman who
stopped a war from happening.
And we are all
connected to each other
In a circle
In a hoop that never ends
Part of our, how
would you say, character
as Native people is that,
you know, I don't mean to,
and this is not a vain
statement, we're very humble.
We're not into like,
making a lot of noise.
And I think that, not that
it's not that we're passive,
it's just that we're beaten
down so often, so much,
for so long that,
and as much as we try to
get beyond a certain point,
we just are prevented
from doing that.
That's why I got into
it in the first place,
because I didn't appreciate
how we're being presented
to the world.
And I wanted to tell the truth
and I wanted to change the
stories that were being told.
Abandoned 102 years ago.
It's all dead.
For 102 years.
-Private property.
-That's our people's land.
It's not theirs
to claim, never was,
but the mess is theirs.
When they abandoned the mine,
they didn't clean
it up properly.
The tailings are old and the
creek runs into the river
and the arsenic
levels are rising.
And then Darlene
came up with a script
and to shoot in her own
community with her cousins
and her family
and people in the community
that are involved.
It's time to warrior up.
This is our land,
this is our home,
This is our land.
And the character
herself was so much of
my world, so much of
what was going on in
my world at the time.
I would've loved to have been
able to have a place to go.
[crowd whooping]
We need our home to be
good for our children.
[Crowd] Yeah.
That's what it felt like.
Finishing that movie and
having the opportunity to
have played in a
movie, a whole movie
where I didn't have
to watch my back.
I didn't have to
worry about wardrobe.
We had an indigenous
woman doing wardrobe,
we, and hair
and makeup with these twin girls
who are indigenous and
everywhere I looked, there we were,
and there we are.
You think you
can get everything?
[engine humming]
[chains creaking]
This is our property.
And I liked the direction
that she was going
and she caught me right at
a time when I was so tired
of everything, I was
tired of the roles
that were coming my way.
I was tired of people and the
way that they were behaving.
I was tired of my life in
so many different ways.
And so I appreciated
what Darlene
was talking about
and wanting to do.
And we shared ideas.
And then it took so long
to get the movie going,
because money doesn't
fall towards us.
[critters chittering]
Now we've progressed,
now with these new,
it's like the new cinema,
which is all the indigenous
projects that are coming.
And during that time
in, right, in 2018,
there was a lot of, you know,
talk of like an
indigenous series.
And that's when, when
"Rutherford Falls" began
and then "Reservation Dogs".
So I could tell and
I could see that
something was coming
and I could feel it.
It's hard to be a
warrior with dignity.
Remember that.
In my time we gave everything.
We died for our people.
We died for our land.
What are you gonna do? What
are you gonna fight for?
[screeching] Ah, I'm
just fucking with you.
But for real though,
listen to what I said.
Marinate on that. Aho.
Let's go, yah.
[horse neighing]
Wasn't until Martin Scorsese
did "Killers of the Flower Moon"
that it brought it
to a global audience.
You know, I mean that,
that really did put
indigenous people on the map.
And even with Lily
Gladstone getting nominated
for best actress,
that was a pretty
important moment for
indigenous people.
You want dinner?
Yeah.
[ominous music]
[Mollie speaking
in Native tongue]
[ominous music]
"Killers" tell us a
very important story
in what was done to them.
Once it was realized
that they were the richest
people in the world,
white people couldn't stand it.
The mother, Lizzie.
She's not in good shape.
She won't last.
Most those says
don't let past 50.
Well, these women die with
hollow seek suffer from illness,
you have to make it the head
rats come to you, you see?
Yeah.
Minnie's gone now and
after her, that leaves Rita.
-Mm.
-Hannah.
And then of course
there's Mollie.
- But-
- Yeah.
It has a weakness
in that the importance
of those pipes being buried
is that the church rises
and how this, this, I don't
even know what to call it.
This world, this
society, this government
were effective with genocide.
And their colonialism is that
it was business and politics
and church that all
ganged up together
and worked together
to suppress the people
and do the, the killer
buzz on everyone.
And so that's what I felt
was a weakness in this movie,
in that it didn't
tell the truth about
who those men were.
They were like,
Ernest's character.
He was a philander,
he was a woman beater.
He was a carouser,
he was a murderer.
He did two times in
jail over his behaviors.
And where was that?
It was wasted. It was
wasted space in that movie.
[Women speaking in
Native language]
I am glad that at the same
time all over the world,
people were impacted.
Like, oh my God,
all those women,
those people were being killed.
But there's so much
more to the story.
I, and I also want us to
move on from our trauma.
I think it's important
to get the healing.
I am, I'm tired of
holding this baggage
of anger over my shoulder
because of what happened.
It's not, I'm not trying
to discount what happened,
but I think it's really
time for all of us
to be responsible and the
government to be responsible
and at least acknowledge
what happened.
[gentle music]
Now they talk about the
fact, well you're only 2%,
you know, so why should
you be, you know,
covered and so forth?
Native people have been
reduced to anonymity.
And I think that's why
people like Geronimo
and Sitting Bull, they continue
to inspire us, you know?
When the worst of
times, we survived.
And if those are
the worst of times,
we have it a lot easier
now because of them.
We're here.
And that's crucial.
That's crucial.
So we'll be here, you
know, we'll be here.
We're not gonna disappear. We're
not the vanishing American.
[gentle music]
[gentle music continues]
[gentle music continues]
[gentle music continues]
[gentle music continues]
[gentle music continues]
[wind rustling]
[solemn music]
For us, there's no happy ending.
They're not gonna wake
up one morning and say,
"Okay, we're gonna give
you back the land."
We got our suitcases.
We're gonna go back to
England or Spain or whatever,
and then somehow
we're gonna bring back
all the people we murdered.
It's not gonna happen.
[solemn music]
[solemn music continues]
[solemn music continues]
[solemn music continues]
[solemn music continues]
[solemn music continues]
[solemn music continues]
My name is Frank Garcia Berumen.
My mother belongs to Huichol
people from Northern Mexico.
And I still have my mom.
My dad passed away,
but he was a mestizo from
the center of Mexico as well.
[gentle music]
You know, I taught
history, I taught English.
And what was missing
was Native history,
basically here in this country,
it's black and
white perspective,
politics, you name it, so forth.
[gentle music]
When I was growing up, I
remember the stereotypes.
And then, of course, Indians
always going hoo hoo like this,
and then the Native women
walking with tight pants,
you know, that sort of thing.
It was kind of just insulting.
[Natives whooping]
[dramatic music]
[passenger screaming]
[gunshot blasting]
My name is Hanay Geiogomah.
I'm a member of the
Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma,
and I am a emeritus
professor of theater
in the UCLA School of
Theater Film and Television.
I'm a writer,
director, and producer,
and all-around
champion of the cause.
[upbeat music]
[coyote howls]
I grew up in Oklahoma,
in southwestern Oklahoma.
And there were a number
of tribes in that area
who were on the
different tribes,
we were like, there,
we were like here,
and then all around
here was white people.
[thoughtful music]
It was like being in a
kind of an open space
where you're just
con constricted and,
but you knew that the white
people controlled everything.
They controlled the
rents and the houses.
They owned the houses,
they ran the schools,
they ran the businesses.
Everything was theirs.
It was all, and they controlled
the land base, everything.
[thoughtful music]
And we were there as the
Indians. We were the Indians.
We weren't part of them.
We were there and among
them, but we were not them.
And they, the only thing that
they've been good for so far
for us is to be characters in
the cowboy and Indian movies.
And the cowboy and Indian
movies was woo, woo, woo
and all of that.
And that's how we were seen.
We were seen as those
kinds of Indians
when we were growing up.
[Natives whooping]
[dramatic music]
Behind the barricade!
Get ammunition and plenty of it!
My name is Irene Bedard.
Irene is the goddess of peace,
the Greek goddess of peace.
And then I am also
on my father's side French
Canadian, Bedard, and Cree.
He had a, his mother was Cree.
So my Cree name means iron
woman, to the core of the earth.
[serene music]
I even had a birthday
cake one year,
I don't remember, maybe
I was six or seven
where it was
cowboys and Indians.
And we all wanted
to be the cowboys
because the Indians were
the bad guys, you know?
I remember being
chased down the street
by kids with baseball bats,
and I'd have to, you know,
run home with my little
brothers and sisters
and the other kids on the block.
And it was part of being
a part of a culture
that was so marginalized.
[serene music]
But, of course, what
if we've been shown
over and over again,
this violence,
this idea of this
savage, this, you know,
not even so many after
that, so many decades
of not even Native people
portraying Native people,
so there's no cultural perspective
that's being shown there.
[dramatic music]
My name is Darrell
Redleaf Fielder.
I am Hidatsa and Lakota.
I was born on the Fort
Berthold Indian Reservation
in North Dakota, on my
mother's reservation.
I have to say,
I am the first Native American
hairstylist and makeup artist
in the entertainment business
that has kind of
risen to the heights
that I have risen to.
I think when I look
back, when I was a kid
and watching movies
and westerns and stuff,
and I would see Native
American people,
they were always portrayed
as, you know, what's the word?
The bad guy.
They were always
portrayed as the bad guy.
I mean, that was always
disconcerting to me,
you know, even as a child.
Tie her up.
Savages! Animal!
-Apaches!
-[dramatic music]
I'm Tantoo Cardinal
and I was born in Fort
McMurray, Alberta, Canada.
Well, at the time
that I was born,
my mother was
called a half breed,
but that's since been changed
and cleaned up a little bit.
So now we're referred
to as Metis people,
and now we are included
in the Constitution.
[gentle music]
[gentle music continues]
I was born in 1950, and at that
time, we were still illegal.
Our language was subverted.
Our religious practices,
for lack of a better term,
our communication with
the greater force,
creative force was unlawful.
I grew up in a time when
languages were disappearing.
People were ashamed
to speak the language.
They were, my grandmother
spoke to me in Cree,
and she spoke to
relatives in Dene,
but I was not allowed to
respond in the language.
And that was her way
of protecting me from
what would happen to you if
you were a language speaker.
[gentle music]
[gentle music continues]
I think from the very beginning
when Europeans came, obviously
they had a different culture.
We had a different
culture, you know,
different language,
different religion.
[gentle music]
And so the the fact that for
them we wouldn't be subdued
by them, and we resisted,
then they immediately said,
"Well, these people
aren't civilized.
"They're primitive and so
forth," compared to them.
[gentle music]
Especially the church.
They wanted to, like I said,
kill the savage
and save the man.
[gentle music]
And so the image has always
been that we're savages,
that we're primitive,
we're violent, you know,
we cannot control our violence.
We cannot control our sexuality.
And of course, throughout
the 1800's, the press,
the media here focused on
the violent character of it.
There was never any
discussion about
what we're doing is wrong.
These people are, are human
beings. We need to respect them.
[gentle music]
At the end of the
Indian wars, at the end
of the 1800's, they develop
a nostalgia for the Old West,
after it ended.
There was Buffalo
Bill's Wild West Show
and other shows that
travel around the world,
basically romanticizing
the Old West.
[crowd cheering]
You know, typically you
had the, the Indian trying
to stop the hero
and, you know, rape the
white woman and so forth.
[patriotic music]
Near the end of the 1800's,
you had the motion
picture evolution.
And one of the first
images was Native people.
There was a short
called "Ghost Dance".
[Native flute music]
The Ghost Dance and the
Lakota people were dances
that they did within
the reservation.
It was part of a
movement of a nostalgia
because people were
depressed, sad,
hungry and so forth.
And it reawakened their
sense of identity.
And so this short film
of "The Ghost Dance",
was the first image that
I'm aware of Native people.
[Native music]
And some companies, like
Path actually, had Native
performers and
writers and so forth.
And so they were pretty popular.
They focused mostly on
the, on mixed marriages,
about the defects of people
that were somewhat tainted
because they had Indian blood,
that we couldn't
control our sexuality
and violence, that
kind of scenario.
[upbeat music]
Even popular stars, like
Douglas Fairbanks Senior
made some of these films
to tell the stories.
And, you know, so he
was like a mixed blood.
They lived in the forest,
his tribe was gone,
everybody was dead.
He had no friends.
But it was interesting
because Fairbanks had a lot of
Native American performers.
People like Charles Stevens,
who for a long time people
thought he was the grandson
of Geronimo was one of them.
And he went on,
Charles Steven went on
to a long, long career.
[upbeat music]
So yeah, I mean, even
big stars were fascinated
by that genre for a while.
[upbeat music]
One of my favorite
American Indian theme movies
from the silent era
was "The Squaw Man".
I think a lot of people
respond to "The Squaw Man"
because it actually has
a real human story in it.
And the interesting thing
that the difference was that,
that there was no dialogue,
of course, it's silent.
So you were, you were
watching the faces,
you were watching the emotions,
you were watching the
physical expressions.
This is what a real Indian
looks like without any special
effects or sound or corny
dialogue that somebody wrote
that they would never
say in the first place.
[uplifting music]
For a period about 15 years.
It was, that type of
movies were very popular.
It reminded people of what
they had lived through,
at least the older people
and what young people were
learning now in school.
And that was basically gone.
[solemn music]
Main part of
America at that time,
this was in the early 1800's,
was on the eastern side
of the United States.
And they sent Louis and Clark
out to explore the rest of it.
And saw all, came all the
way to the Pacific coast
and saw that America was
a huge, huge, huge country
with all kinds of
resources and everything.
And they went back and told,
told the people in the east,
this is a country, we don't
have to stay just right here.
We should be moving this way.
[thoughtful music]
The Indians were there,
and they knew that the
Indians were there,
and that they'd have
to deal with them.
So the, arrogantly,
the American government
took it upon itself to
say, this is our destiny.
Our destiny is to take
our country all the way
to the Pacific Ocean, and
that's what we're gonna do.
And nobody's gonna
stop us. Nobody.
The Indians aren't
gonna stop us.
Mexico's not gonna stop us.
France is not gonna stop us.
England's not gonna stop us.
We're going, this is, we're
gonna take this whole continent
and make it America.
[thoughtful music]
And whoever gets in
the way, too bad.
And the Indians were in the way.
[thoughtful music]
A Manifest Destiny was a belief.
It was like, I call it the tumor
of the Doctrine of Discovery.
The Doctrine of
Discovery, believe it
or not, even today
is a legal term.
It's a legal doctrine.
There's been many tribes that
tried to get back their land.
But because they were
discovered by Europeans,
and when they discovered, as
in the land belonged to them.
They've lost many in
the Supreme Court.
They've lost Supreme Court cases
because the Doctrine of
Discovery still exists
in the courts in this country.
And so then Manifest Destiny
simply meant that the belief
that they were destined by God
to expand from sea
to shining sea.
And so then anything you did
on the way of doing that was,
you know, God was happy with it.
And so then by any
means necessary,
and that essentially
was Manifest Destiny.
[gentle music]
You can see this from the
very beginning in the speeches
and writings of George
Washington, you know,
Thomas Jefferson,
Andrew Jackson,
even Lincoln believed in it.
So, and of course, today we
still have the image somehow
that of American exceptionalism,
like we're unique in the world
because of all the wonderful,
good things that we did.
But the reality is,
it's totally different.
[gentle music]
In the United States,
the first Indian
war was in 1789.
Every single tribe in the
United States was attacked
by this country in the
so-called Indian Wars.
And so the policy
of the United States
was essentially
extinction or reservation.
Several thousand people.
And they were forced
to, to like go on wagons
and walk this whole distance
through the wilderness
and across rivers
and everything.
And many people died.
Illnesses, just
accidents, was a very,
very terrible experience
for the tribe.
They called it the
Trail of Tears.
It's still very graphically
present in the memories
of the Cherokee
people, also the Creeks
and some other tribes as well.
But primarily for the
Cherokees, the Trail of Tears.
[gentle music]
Most people think we're in
the past, that we don't exist,
because most reservations
were initially
established in far away places,
so that settlers could
not bump into 'em
as something bad could happen.
[gentle music]
They stopped recognizing
more than a hundred tribes
and so as federal reservations.
So it meant that the land
then was they could take it,
which they did, which they did.
[gentle music]
Now sometimes people
think that it was kind of
a wonderful place
to be and so forth,
but there was diseases,
brutality, starvation
or near starvation and so forth,
and people couldn't leave.
If you left, they would track
you down and either kill you
or bring you back
into the reservation.
[gentle music]
So essentially that history
was romanticized in US history.
It was justified.
Genocide was
justified in the fact
that they wanted the land.
And more than 600
treaties were signed
with the United States
government, but all were violated.
[thoughtful music]
What happens in the 1930's
with the Great Depression,
some people look for
scapegoats, you know,
they want a catharsis of
some sort, their anger,
to raise their anger.
Some people, I think resented
Native people becoming
citizens, you know,
making them equal
to white people.
[thoughtful music]
1925, Native people were
finally given citizenship.
And so then it was a little
incentive for Native people then
to be able to participate
in voting and so forth.
[thoughtful music]
And so then in the 1920's, you
have a series of some films
"The Vanishing Americans",
you know, among others
that were positive in nature.
But all these films were
box office failures.
So it wasn't wise to
invest in stories about us.
We became minor characters,
incidental characters.
[dramatic music]
[gunshots blasting]
And then essentially,
whenever the story
or the screenplay
kind of got boring,
they had Indians screaming
and attacking people, right?
Basically faceless
people with no life,
no culture, nothing else.
[dramatic music]
[men yelling]
"The Stage Coach"
is a very important
western for a lot of reasons.
Unfortunately, the stereotypes
were more the same.
You saw this, hundreds
of Apache attacking
a stage coach,
screaming and so forth.
[gunfire blasting]
[dramatic music]
You know, the film made
Ford an important director,
and of course, was
very well directed.
The characters, the script,
but the Native images
just are terrible.
Totally, completely terrible.
[men yelling]
[dramatic music]
There was another movie
called "Geronimo" in 1939.
It's kind of bloodthirsty
image of Geronimo.
[dramatic music]
[Geronimo yelling]
Geronimo has always been
the most hated Indian
in the United States
then, yesterday and today.
And so then it was, you
know, a sensationalist,
violent prone film.
It had, it didn't
have much of a plot
other than these blood thirsty
savages attacking stage coaches,
burning buildings,
that sort of thing.
[Native speaking
Native language]
[Geronimo speaking
Native language]
Geronimo's the most
hated Indian ever,
because he was a leader
of the last tribe
that resisted Manifest Destiny.
[solemn music]
And not only that,
there's a period also
where the last six months
of the war against
the United States,
where the United States had
5,000 troops on the border,
and they didn't catch
a single Apache,
didn't kill a single Apache.
So it was the fact
that this Indian,
this savage could outwit West
Point graduates, you know,
Civil War generals,
which is incredible.
So it humiliated them in
front of their own people.
And I think they never
forgave 'em for that.
I think that part of the
reason that the Apache,
not only Geronimo and the
warriors, but the women
and the children were given
27 years in prison, you know,
is unprecedented, even
for Native people, is part
of the reason they wanted
to completely wipe 'em out
and move 'em away from any
media or anything else.
[solemn music]
And so I think essentially
that's the reason,
and that's never
gonna change I think.
That group of films,
you know, are very important.
But it also perpetuated basically
some of the worst images
of indigenous people.
Presents for my brothers,
the Cheyenne, the red hyenas.
"The Plainsman" was 1936.
There's a scene where they
put on the women's clothing
and this, the brassieres
and whatnot, it is kind
of comical, tragic comic.
[Lady] Oh.
[Native speaking
Native language]
It was an attempt to
undermine a community
that clearly was
here before them.
And so the idea was
to denigrate him,
and he did that by making
him look foolish, childlike.
And stupid as well.
And bumbling,
unable to understand
what the world was
like at that time.
[group yelling]
[objects clattering]
And of course, I mean the
permanent stereotype of
that Indian males
lusted after white women
and wanted to seduce them and
rape him and the whole thing.
And so then that scene is
troubling and shocking.
And, you know, and it's what
makes it even worse is that
you start by ridiculing them
and then they commit this
horrible, you know, crime.
[objects clattering]
[Native speaking
Native language]
All the policy
kind of perpetuated
that attitude that, you know,
Native people were primitive.
They weren't civilized,
even the institution
that you think would be
supportive, the churches,
they wanted to civilize you.
The boarding schools
developed in the early 1800's
precisely to, you
know, what they called
to kill the savage,
but save the man.
And so then kids in
reservations were taken
by force from the parents,
sent to boarding schools
where many of them died
of diseases and so forth.
And this went on into
the early 1900's.
[solemn music]
On the one hand,
we have a Navajo
as we find him in the desert.
Few of these boys
and girls have ever
seen a white man.
Yet, through the agencies
of the government,
they are being rapidly
brought from their state
of comparative savagery
and barbarism to
one of civilization.
My mom went to
the boarding school
and it really harmed
her in so many ways.
And also, you know, in
that way harmed all of us.
Its intent was to
rip families apart.
And it worked, you know,
and it, we, even though we
stayed together as a family,
there was a lot of
harm that came out of
that multi-generational trauma.
[solemn music]
I have a picture of her
and her twin sister, Ruth,
my Auntie Ruth, you know,
and they're in their parkas
and they look like they,
how they looked, you know
how we all probably
looked for tens
of thousands of years.
And they're so cute.
You know, they're,
they were little.
And they were plucked, taken
away, far away to a village
and separately because they
didn't want them to be together.
That was part of it,
is separating families
and abuse, all, physical,
mental, emotional,
spiritual, sexual abuse.
[solemn music]
My mother went
to boarding school
and my aunts went
to boarding school.
I didn't, luckily.
[thoughtful music]
You were humiliated.
And in the boarding
schools, severely punished.
I spoke with an old woman
who told me that she was
caught speaking her language.
So the nun made her kneel
in front of the class
and put a brand new
clothes pin on her tongue,
so that the students
would see what happens
to you when you speak
that devil language.
[thoughtful music]
My father was, went
to boarding schools in,
when he grew up in
the '20's and '30's,
they were all sent
to boarding schools.
So he was traumatized in his
life by that, where he had
to cut his hair, he
couldn't speak his language,
and the nuns would beat them
if they spoke their language.
[thoughtful music]
[thoughtful music continues]
And now it's coming to
light in the stories
that we're seeing exactly what
was happening and the trauma
and the abuse and the murder
and everything that has gone on.
But this has been
going on for 500 years.
[thoughtful music]
It's kind of ironic
that people came here
for religious freedom
being one of them,
and the first thing they do
is get rid of our systems
and outlaw our
relationship with Creator.
We had to be Christians,
and that was the intent of
the residential schools.
Get rid of the red
and leave the man.
Didn't even mention
women, you know.
[thoughtful music]
[thoughtful music continues]
I think that World War II
was, more than World War I
an opportunity for the US
armed forces, essentially to,
to recruit high numbers
of Native people,
emphasizing that
they were warriors.
And so that was a
huge attraction.
It was also a way to get out
of the reservation, you know,
with poverty and
alcoholism and whatnot.
And so then many of them did,
and many of them became
highly decorated soldiers.
That experience
definitely changed
them at the Native community.
They saw the world,
they saw, you know, good
and bad white people.
They saw the Nazis,
they saw people that
were not like them.
They saw good people,
bad people, you know,
different geographies,
different countries, languages.
And so then that made a huge,
huge difference, you know,
and when they went back home,
you know, they were honored
by their tribes for fighting
for the medals and so forth.
And also I think that
it, very instrumental
in developing a
Native identity within
the United States of America.
Because before it was,
you belong to your tribe
in the reservation,
but most of them had never left.
[thoughtful music]
So you had huge numbers
of Native males join
the armed forces
in all theaters of war.
[thoughtful music]
Ira Hayes was a Pima, a
small tribe in Arizona.
And he is famous, of course,
for being one of the Marines
that raised the
flag in Iwo Jima,
who were battle in the
Pacific in World War II.
During his service,
he suffered a lot
of discrimination and racism.
He was often called chief, you
know, they did the tomahawk,
you know, kind of shined.
When he came back, basically
he started drinking.
He had trauma and also,
you know, survival guilt.
So he drank himself to death.
And also the fact that of course
many were traumatized like
Ira Hayes, you know, that
never got the proper attention
or the proper opportunities
because of racism and so forth.
It made us stronger.
And it made 'em, you know,
give 'em a real sense that
they were part of this country.
And now that they were citizens
and veterans, they had
the right to demand things
and they had representatives
and that they had to
hold 'em accountable.
[thoughtful music]
That also did a lot in the sense
of public relations
in the media.
They began to cover us more
and see us as human beings
rather than the screaming guy on
the horse kidnapping women
and children and so forth.
So sociological factors were
instrumental in Hollywood
also becoming more
conscientious about
how they portrayed us as well.
And so then what
happened with, I think
how Ford changed his
attitude about Native people
was the fact he
served in the Pacific
with a camera unit, and
he saw himself the heroism
and contributions
of Native soldiers,
especially the Navajo.
And so I think that
really softened
and informed him to have
a different attitude
about Native people.
And there's numerous
stories about when he went
to Monument Valley
to film, he would use
as many Navajo for the film.
And often times he would
also was very generous,
you know, would contribute
to charitable organizations,
to housing, to
clothing and so forth.
So it really changed
him, I think,
profoundly the World War II.
[solemn harmonica music]
And I think from
that point onward,
he looked for a script that
would make, be an apology.
It wasn't until "Cheyenne
Autumn", he was able to do that.
You made one of the most
heroic marches in history.
You deserve to go back
to your own homeland
and stay there in peace.
I'm sure that the people of
this country will understand
and will agree when
they hear the facts.
Now, will you take the gamble?
The people, who will tell them?
Who will tell the people
about Fort Robinson?
I will.
I promise you.
That Ford was
romanticizing the soldiers.
I'm not saying that all
of 'em were a 100% evil,
but I mean, they
did what they did.
And so then, but the reality
is it's much worse than that.
There was just so many
massacres that everything from,
you know, opening the
stomachs and scalping
and so forth.
For each son, I take many.
Scalps.
[Native speaking
in Native language]
And that's the
other misconception
that Native people did not
scalp until the English came,
because the English used
that against the Irish first.
And then when they came
here, they perpetuated.
There's documents or
speeches about the fact that
they have scalping of
Indians in their policy
because they refused
to obey the king.
I mean, who, you know, they
had no idea who that guy was.
So anyway, but, but yeah, no,
the difference between history
and reality is totally
different, totally different.
And of course,
Hollywood perpetuated
the romanticized
perspective of this.
Of course.
[Narrator] So here they are,
the dog faced
soldiers, the regulars,
the 50 cents a day professionals
riding the outposts
of a nation.
From Fort Reno to Fort Apache,
from Sheridan to Stark,
they were all the same.
Men in dirty shirt blue
and only a cold
page in the history
books to mark their passing.
But wherever they rode and
whatever they fought for,
that place became
the United States.
[patriotic music]
Basically, you know,
perpetuating the same thing.
So it isn't until like the
late '40's after the war,
and some of the, you know,
people realizing inhumanity
of man to each other
and some of the newer
directors and Anthony Mann,
Donald Davis, people like that,
you know, who are younger,
a little bit more to the left
and radical, who then begin
to, you know, create this body
of film, beginning with "The
Devil's Doorway", Anthony Mann.
The boys outnumber us, Father.
The war's over, all
the wars, even yours.
The country's growing up.
They gave me these stripes
without testing my blood.
I led a squad of white men,
slept in the same blankets
with 'em, ate
outta the same pan,
held their heads when they died.
Why should it be
any different now?
You are home, you
are again an Indian.
But it's a film without hope.
You know, I think it's a, in
a lot of ways a truer film
because it is, it was
hopeless, you know, by the end
of the 1800's, you know,
Native people were broken,
they're totally broken.
You know, alcoholism
taking its toll, suicide.
We didn't know what to do.
And so then it's a film
that is, it's hard to watch,
at least for me,
it's heartbreaking.
[patriotic music]
[Soldier] Where are the others?
We're all gone.
[dramatic music]
The major challenge
in Native American
made films are several.
One of them is the money.
Where's the money coming from?
If you're making a film
that's gonna be critiquing,
you know, the US government
or the armed forces, you know,
some studios will
not fund that at all.
Another thing is that if
you don't have a big star,
you can't green light it.
And so that at that point,
is white actors took over,
and so then they had
to have the red face
to make them some
somewhat believable.
[curious music]
Obviously the racism against
Native people working in film.
It was the fact that the
always, the excuse was
that these people
can sell tickets.
These people are stars.
So we get some
unknown Native actor,
it's not gonna be a success.
And so that was
part another logic
of the Hollywood
studios at that time.
Well, I think that
Hollywood, in the beginning,
in the '30's, '40's and
'50's, they were just doing
what they thought they
needed to do in order
to depict the indigenous people.
I mean, they didn't
hire indigenous actors,
so they would use
Caucasian actors
and paint them, their faces red
and put bad wigs
on them and stuff.
[dramatic music]
A lot of times Hollywood
romanticizes Native Americans,
because there's
something noble about us.
So maybe there's
a little bit of,
kind of white guilt
in there a little bit.
There's some anecdote that
some actors had told me.
I mean, older actors that,
you know, live way back,
that a lot of this
dialogue that they said
was in a sense, like
a catharsis for them,
they were cussing out
white people, right?
Or threatening them.
And for them, after all
they had lived through,
was something that they
initially didn't want to do,
but for a moment, they
had some sense of power.
[dramatic music]
If I do not return,
general Quake will find you
and you will be dead
and all your people.
[Native speaking
Native language]
No, he is not a fool. You are.
[Native speaking
Native language]
And I think that what also
is important along the way when
it comes to looking at Hollywood
and indigenous
people in Hollywood,
there was an actor in the '60's,
his name was Eddie Little Sky.
He was Oglala Lakota from
Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
And he was in every
sitcom, in every,
he was on "Gilligan's
Island", on "F Troop".
He was, anytime there
was a Native person
or Polynesian person,
they called him.
And he never gets a lot of talk
because he was, he was
from, he was Lakota,
he's from my people, but
he was very prominent
in the '60's and '70's.
He was in "Soldier
Blue", he was in
"A Man Called Horse"
with Richard Harris.
[water splashing]
[people speaking indistinctly]
And so there's a
lot of, few people
that were prominent back then
that have not been really
given their due, I feel.
[rhythmic drumbeats]
Also one movie that
really impacted me
as a child was "Billy Jack".
That movie showed the
protagonist, which was Billy Jack,
as this ass-kicking,
like martial artist
that was gonna kick your
ass if you messed with him.
Morning, Billy.
You're illegally on Indian land.
And when that movie came
out, it, for Native people,
it was the first time that we
saw ourselves as being a hero.
[rifle blasting]
[Billy] Drop it or die.
And during that time, in
1971, when that movie came out,
that was when the American
Indian movement was happening
and Alcatraz was being
taken over by AIM and stuff.
So there was a lot of
social change happening
for indigenous people then.
And there was a lot
of unrest in America,
especially with the
government and Native people.
It would be fitting and symbolic
that ships from all over the
world entering Golden Gates
would first see Indian land
and thus be reminded the
true history of this nation.
Alcatraz in San Francisco
Bay was a major media event
because it was Alcatraz,
known all over the world,
a prison island and the
Indians occupied it.
There were, the Indian community
in, the activist Indian
community in the Bay
Area got together, said,
"Let's do something that
will get people's attention"
and that, they got
out in the boats
and went out and
occupied Alcatraz
and the World Media came there
and filmed it and
told the story.
And people all over
the world became aware
that there were Indians that
had issues, that had concerns,
that had protest
reality happening.
[thoughtful music]
[thoughtful music continues]
Hollywood's impervious to
whatever it doesn't want
to get in its way, and it
can just ignore something.
And something as enormous
as the Black Civil
Rights Movement can,
Hollywood can just
keep going forward
and not let it affect them,
but what it did for
the American Indian,
is that it galvanized
the attitudes
of like my generation saying,
"No, I am not as dumb
as you think I am."
No, I've become educated
and I know how to write
and I know how to think
and I know what's right
and I know what I see
and I know what's wrong
and I can, I'm
starting to understand
"how y'all are doing this and
the way you're doing it."
[crowd chattering]
My first place that I lived
in the States was
Atlanta, Georgia.
And because my
husband at the time
was a, was an
organizer in the Selma
and the Montgomery March.
So that was my first
inspiration about fighting
for our humanity.
That was my first influence
being in the States
and hearing about the people.
And there certainly
was a need for us.
And it seemed like
it was an energy
on the planet at the time.
It was everywhere
that, it was the,
the planet was just scrambling
and moving for change.
And so were my people.
But my first foray in
into the world of justice
and change was with the
Black Civil Rights Movement.
A lot of had been done
to American Indian
people in this country
and also to African
Americans as well.
[solemn music]
The Vietnam conflict
started happening
and civil rights
started happening.
And so some sense of, we've
gotten some of this wrong,
we're gonna have to make
some adjustments here
to this reality, not because
we have to, because we should.
[solemn music]
There was a sense that
that came into some
of the storytellers,
awarenesses that the Indians had
had a very bad deal, that they
had been wrongly portrayed.
For me, the movie that I
think did the most for me
to really open up a vision of
what Indian reality
could be in a movie
was "Little Big Man".
I don't understand
it, Grandfather,
why would they kill
women and children?
Because they are strange.
They do not seem to
know where the center
of the earth, these.
In "Little Big Man", there was
a character named Little Horse
and Little Horse
wore woman's dress
and did woman's things.
And that is considered
two-spirit, you know, the balance
between men and
woman in one person.
Don't you remember me?
This hurts me in my heart.
I'm two-spirit.
People don't understand
what that is,
that what a
two-spirit person is,
is it's, you're called gay.
And traditionally
two-spirit people
before colonization,
before the Spanish came
and everything, two
spirit people were very,
very important in the tribe.
They held a high place in
the society and in the clans
and in the rituals
and in the ceremonies,
because they were, we
were thought of a person
that was a spirit in transition,
going from masculine to feminine
or feminine to masculine.
[Native chanting]
And the idea at that
time, you know, in,
when "Little Big Man" came out,
that was a really big deal.
I think that that "Little
Big Man" was a good,
good reflection at that
time, 1971 of that,
because Vietnam had
happened and all of this.
And it was starting to see.
[patriotic music]
It wasn't because there was a
sudden awareness in Hollywood
that, oh, we've really been,
done a bad job to the Indians.
We must do whatever
we can to correct that
and make it better.
[patriotic music]
The interesting
thing about the movie,
it was the Wounded Knee
Massacre, essentially.
[gunshot blasting]
[horse neighing]
The Wounded Knee Massacre
took place in 1890 in
South Dakota in a place
called Pine Ridge,
which now is part of the Pine
Ridge Oglala Reservation.
And what happened there,
there was a group of Oglala
or Lakota who went to
where the Seventh
Calvary was stationed.
They were going to surrender.
There's even photos
of some of the Oglala
with the white flag,
dead in the ice.
[solemn music]
And so what happened,
the Seventh Calvary,
that's Custer's old outfit,
massacred them, more than
250 men, women and children.
And 19 soldiers were given the
Congressional Medal of Honor,
which is the highest medal
of valor you can get
in the United States.
And so today, Wounded
Knee, the site is,
in the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota.
And it's a place of,
you know, a sacred place
of mourning and
commemoration as well.
[solemn music]
I think most people
didn't quite remember that
because it's not
taught in school.
I taught for many
years in high school
before I taught in college
and in the history books,
at least in California,
they call it a battle.
[solemn music]
I think most of my people,
especially at that point,
late '60's, '70's,
were probably been
completely ignorant.
They might have thought
simply it was just
a massacre that was
created for the film.
So I think that if
people had known better
or more about Native history,
they would've been able
to connect both events.
[solemn music]
The Indian, as a
subject matter, the Indian
as a human being, was considered
to be like, just available.
We could do what we want to
with this storyline, this image.
[people yelling]
"Soldier Blue" was,
that was around the time
of the My Lai Massacres
in Vietnam, you know,
when the army was just going in
and killing innocent
people in villages.
That was the metaphor, I think,
that the same thing had
been done to Indians,
the same atrocities
and tragedies.
And it was a way to
actually show that.
They couldn't show
footage of My Lai
and make that into a movie.
But they could do
it with the Indians
because they'd always
done with Indians
what they wanted
to do with Indians.
[sorrowful music]
[Darrell] And that was a battle,
and people became aware of it,
you know, and there was a
court martial and, you know,
and the media, you know,
all over the place.
Big, big scandal.
And of course, you
know, raping, killing,
desecration of bodies,
all that stuff.
Of course, the top
brass was never touched.
The real blame was
the people on the top.
They had done this for many
years in Vietnam and elsewhere.
And this country had done that
for the last century and a half.
[wind whistling]
During the '70's, there
was kind of an awakening.
A lot of civil liberties
were being questioned by a gen,
a whole entire generation coming
out of Martin Luther King,
seeing that there was this
generation that could understand
that equality was not
what was truly happening.
And that had to do with
women, it had to do
with people of color.
You know, there was also
the two-spirited movement.
There was a lot going on
in terms of social justice,
economic justice,
environmental justice.
One of the experiences
of that was Wounded Knee.
In 1973, there were hundreds
of people that went there
to make a stand, you know, about
what was happening
on the reservations.
The American Indian Movement
came up with Russell Means,
who was the leader of the
American Indian Movement,
Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt,
and many others who went to
Wounded Knee and made a stand
and the FBI and then
the military moved in.
The leadership of the Oglala
Sioux here present in
Wounded Knee, have declared
Wounded Knee an
independent country.
[crowd cheering]
From here further, if any spy
from the United States of
America is found within our
borders, they will be dealt
with as any spy in a time of war
to be shot before
a firing squad.
[crowd applauding]
[Hanay] It called attention
to that, to land issues,
to cultural issues,
to spiritual issues.
That too became a
worldwide media event.
And it brought enormous
attention to the cause. Enormous.
But it also at the same time,
generated in my generation
energy and positivity.
And we can do it. And we're,
we don't have to be afraid.
We don't have to hold back.
We don't have to give in all
the time, we can be heard.
We have to be intelligent
and smart to do it in a
way that they will listen,
but they can, we could
get through to them,
and that they can't
just ignore us.
[solemn music]
The Wounded Knee incident,
which was a shootout,
and then subsequently,
subsequently, there was
of course the trials
of all these activists.
And then Marlon Brando had
been nominated for an Oscar.
So he asked a friend of his
Sacheen Little feather to come up
and refuse the Oscar
and make a speech about
the racist treatment
of Hollywood towards
Native people.
And of course she was booed.
[dramatic music]
[audience applauding]
Hello, my name is
Sacheen Little feather.
I'm Apache and I'm president
of the National Native American
Affirmative Image Committee.
I'm representing Marlon
Brando this evening.
And he has asked me to tell
you in a very long speech,
which I cannot share with you
presently because of time,
but I will be glad to share
with the press afterwards
that he very regretfully
cannot accept
this very generous award.
And the reasons for this
being are the treatment
of American Indians today
by the film industry.
Excuse me.
[audience booing]
[audience applauding]
She shined a light, an
international light on
what was happening out there.
And I think she saved
people's lives. I really do.
She was also black balled from
Hollywood for the
rest of her life.
She had a very difficult
time after that.
No one wanted to work with her.
And then basically the
media kind of lost interest.
It just kinda went on.
And so I think part
of the problem is
that we, you know,
our story doesn't
have a happy ending
and the land will never
be back, given back.
And like I mentioned,
even reservation line
is under trust ship of
the federal government.
So that's part of the
issue. It's a sad story.
And not too many people want
to read, hear about sad story.
They wanna read about
success stories.
So that's part of
the problem I think.
[solemn music]
I think it scared the heck outta
Hollywood for a while at least.
And I think that they
felt compelled somehow
to do something, otherwise
they're going to be, you know,
besieged by protestors
or whatever it may be.
And so I think that the,
some doors began to open.
The 1970's when things like,
like "Cuckoo's Nest" came
along, '75 I think it was.
Will Samson had been,
was out here already.
And he had done
some small parts.
-Get the guy.
-Get around chief.
The Hollywood community,
they said, oh, that big
Indian, that big Indian,
we need a big strong
Indian, get Will.
It was Will Sampson
himself that made
that moment important
because he was who
he said he was.
And he was from the people.
The language was all through
his body and culture.
And that's who he was.
That's who he came from.
Somebody else stepping
into that role,
same script, everything.
It wouldn't have had the impact.
It was his integrity
that made the impact.
Son of a bitch, Chief.
Can you hear me too?
I hear you good.
Well, I'll be god damned, Chief.
They all, they all think
you're deaf and dumb.
So right there, we had
a role model right there,
somebody to look up to.
And the the other
guys that wanted
to be actors had Will
Sampson as the role model.
There he was. Will can
do it, I can do it.
And so slowly, slowly
the, the process
of Indians themselves learning
how to better, better do it
to get cast besides
just being cast,
because you could ride a horse
nicely and you got long hair.
But to act, to actually
have a role, to play a part.
[thoughtful music]
It all begins with
the stories, right?
Who writes the stories?
You know, who's gonna
direct the movie?
You know, are they gonna
finance a film about us
when there's no big star?
You know?
And so those are kind of the,
some of the challenges
that we face.
[hoofbeats thudding]
[Natives whooping]
"Dances" was, people
liked that movie
because it had a
real Indian cast.
It had, those were real Indians.
So it was a whole,
almost a sensual difference
in seeing these real Indians
talking and doing things
and interacting with a white man
who was intelligently clever
enough to be simpatico
with the Indians and
to get along with them.
And they weren't his
enemy, per se so there was
a feel good experience.
And that was one of the
first major Hollywood movies
that portrayed us
as human beings.
It had huge impact.
Lot of people watched that movie
and they watch it
over and over again.
We come far, you and me.
I will not forget you.
[uplifting music]
Native people are storytellers.
That's how we pass
down all of our history
and all of our knowledge
is through storytelling.
It's only natural that Native
people tell our own stories.
It's time for us to
tell our own stories.
And I'm happy to see it
happening in Hollywood
and to be a part of it.
When I think about
a Native film,
I think the first Native film
that came out that was really
a seminal piece was
"Smoke Signals".
It was from our perspective
and it was a really
touching, beautiful story.
[phone ringing]
-Hello?
-Hello?
My name is Susie Song.
I've got bad news.
Arnold Joseph passed away.
-Oh.
-I'm his neighbor
here in Phoenix.
His stuff is still in his
trailer and his pickup's here.
I think somebody
should come get it.
I'm making arrangements
for him. I'll call again.
Thank you for phoning.
In "Smoke Signals",
it was so beautiful
to be able to go
and do this with a
Native American director
and, you know, produced
and directed and written
and a full Native cast
who were the protagonists.
And this was a first
and it was wonderful
to be a part of it.
And it was wonderful to portray
this different kind
of woman, you know,
she was strong and powerful.
Hey Victor, you ever
hear the Gathering
of Nations powwow in New Mexico?
No? Well, your dad and I, we
went to check it out last year.
All sorts of Indians
there, thousands of them,
more Indians than I've
ever seen in one place.
I kept thinking, I wish
we'd been this organized
when Columbus landed.
"Smoke Signals" is
kind of a cult movie
and it, people have
their own copies
and you know, people are
stealing their copies.
And it is, it's a
very much loved movie
and it was kind of essential
to come along at the
time that it did.
You gotta look mean or
people won't respect you.
White people will run all over
you if you don't look mean.
You gotta look like a warrior.
You gotta look like
you just came back
from killing a buffalo.
But our tribe never hunted
buffalo. We were a fisherman.
What?
You wanna look like you just
came back from catching a fish?
This ain't dances
with salmon, you know.
Thomas, you gotta
look like a warrior.
There.
That's better.
And so during that
time, there was a,
again, another rising
expectation that, you know,
wonderful things were
down the road for us.
But, and they had some talent.
We had talented actors,
actresses, you know, directors,
Chris Eyre and so forth.
[upbeat music]
I believe that
America is big enough.
It's powerful enough, it's
rich enough, you know,
to really deal with the American
Indian in a way
it should be done.
A movie like
"Skins" was initiated
by Chris Eyre
director, producer.
So he had the funding,
personal and otherwise
to make the movie.
And I think it had been
a movie that had been
long in the waiting to be made.
I think that there's
a general consistence
among Native actors all over
of what needs to take place.
You know, the, for a real film
about us, by us and so forth.
And that was a one.
At that time, all Indian
religious ceremonies were banned
by white men because
they were afraid of them.
Now up on the western end
of the Cheyenne River,
Sitting Bull resisted.
So they shot him.
And Bigfoot knew that he
and his people had to
flee the area immediately.
So they came to Pine Ridge
and when they camped out,
the Wounded Knee troopers
of the Seventh Calvary-
That's Custer's old command.
Seventh Cavalry was called in
to escort into the reservation.
There the soldiers disarmed 'em.
The Knee was nothing but a damn
massacre of women and children.
And of course you had that
Graham Greene character,
a Vietnam vet
who suffers trauma and
also survival guilt.
Well, maybe there is one
thing you could do for me.
What?
Help me blow the nose
off George Washington at
Rushmore, you know, for people.
Just give 'em a good laugh.
Maybe that's all we need.
Where do you get these ideas?
[Mogie chuckling]
Why he wants to
smear George Washington
and Mount Rushmore is
because the Mount Rushmore
is in the Black Hills,
which according to the
treaty of Fort Laramie,
was going to be belonging
to the Lakota forever
and ever in perpetuity.
But of course they took it.
And of course, you know,
they built the monument
and I think that ever
go to Pine Ridge,
you could see the
monument from there.
And so it's like you have
this four presidents watch,
and Jefferson, who were
the, the planners, you know,
who sit there, the policies
of genocide for Native people.
They had Lincoln who was
considered the greatest president,
you know, and did great things
for African Americans
and commendable.
But for Native people it
was just the opposite.
You would've thought
that he would help people
who need the most help.
But he didn't, you know,
during his presidency
there was continuous wars.
You know, we had the largest
mass hanging, you know,
in history of, of Native people.
And of course, you know, Teddy
Roosevelt, who again is kind
of bigger than life,
but if you look at the
national parks he set aside,
he kicked out the Native
people from there first.
And so then, and he used
to brag that, you know,
the only good Indian
is a dead Indian.
But of course this is part
of it of the male education
that we get in this country.
And public education at
least, that we're not taught
or people are not taught
about us, the true history.
And so the, the obsession of
the Graham Greene character is
that he need, he wants to do
something to those people,
especially the founder.
And that's part of obsession.
[Narrator] All our
ancestors are waiting
for you up there, Chia.
[Native vocalizing]
[Frank] It's a
heartbreaking film.
When I went to see
it, I went to see it
with mostly Native people
and most of us were crying
'cause it was just
so vivid, so real.
[Native vocalizing]
We come from a very
resilient culture.
We're still here and we
are making our mark now,
and we're doing it clear
minded and clear spirited.
It was predestined
many, many years,
many, many, hundreds
of years ago
that the seventh generation,
which is they're born now,
are the ones that are going
to lead the way for us
with a clear mind, a clear
heart, and a clear spirit.
So it's important for us,
and I'm an elder
now, to help them
and uplift them in order
for them to lead the way.
We all came from drums
and songs and stories
and relationships to the earth.
And we used to all
sit around fires
and tell stories
to our children.
It's just now that I do
it on film and television.
[dramatic music]
And that I even gave
Pocahontas 13-year-old voice?
Because she was only 13
when she threw herself upon
John Smith and stopped
the war from happening.
Is the death of all I love
Carried in the drumming of
War
No.
If you kill him, you'll
have to kill me too.
The Disney people
said from the beginning
that they were going
with the popular,
romantic version of it.
Not they, they knew what
the actual story was
and they knew that
there was no love story.
That there was no
real love story
with John Smith and Pocahontas.
They knew that,
but they said that,
that's not the movie that
we are going to make.
We're going make this
movie from this version
of the Pocahontas story.
Listen with your heart
You will understand
In so many ways she was also
a pawn that was sexualized
and raped from the
very beginning.
But what was important
about this project
for me, was it was a
moment in time when
kids around the world
could see a positive,
strong, young woman who
stopped a war from happening.
And we are all
connected to each other
In a circle
In a hoop that never ends
Part of our, how
would you say, character
as Native people is that,
you know, I don't mean to,
and this is not a vain
statement, we're very humble.
We're not into like,
making a lot of noise.
And I think that, not that
it's not that we're passive,
it's just that we're beaten
down so often, so much,
for so long that,
and as much as we try to
get beyond a certain point,
we just are prevented
from doing that.
That's why I got into
it in the first place,
because I didn't appreciate
how we're being presented
to the world.
And I wanted to tell the truth
and I wanted to change the
stories that were being told.
Abandoned 102 years ago.
It's all dead.
For 102 years.
-Private property.
-That's our people's land.
It's not theirs
to claim, never was,
but the mess is theirs.
When they abandoned the mine,
they didn't clean
it up properly.
The tailings are old and the
creek runs into the river
and the arsenic
levels are rising.
And then Darlene
came up with a script
and to shoot in her own
community with her cousins
and her family
and people in the community
that are involved.
It's time to warrior up.
This is our land,
this is our home,
This is our land.
And the character
herself was so much of
my world, so much of
what was going on in
my world at the time.
I would've loved to have been
able to have a place to go.
[crowd whooping]
We need our home to be
good for our children.
[Crowd] Yeah.
That's what it felt like.
Finishing that movie and
having the opportunity to
have played in a
movie, a whole movie
where I didn't have
to watch my back.
I didn't have to
worry about wardrobe.
We had an indigenous
woman doing wardrobe,
we, and hair
and makeup with these twin girls
who are indigenous and
everywhere I looked, there we were,
and there we are.
You think you
can get everything?
[engine humming]
[chains creaking]
This is our property.
And I liked the direction
that she was going
and she caught me right at
a time when I was so tired
of everything, I was
tired of the roles
that were coming my way.
I was tired of people and the
way that they were behaving.
I was tired of my life in
so many different ways.
And so I appreciated
what Darlene
was talking about
and wanting to do.
And we shared ideas.
And then it took so long
to get the movie going,
because money doesn't
fall towards us.
[critters chittering]
Now we've progressed,
now with these new,
it's like the new cinema,
which is all the indigenous
projects that are coming.
And during that time
in, right, in 2018,
there was a lot of, you know,
talk of like an
indigenous series.
And that's when, when
"Rutherford Falls" began
and then "Reservation Dogs".
So I could tell and
I could see that
something was coming
and I could feel it.
It's hard to be a
warrior with dignity.
Remember that.
In my time we gave everything.
We died for our people.
We died for our land.
What are you gonna do? What
are you gonna fight for?
[screeching] Ah, I'm
just fucking with you.
But for real though,
listen to what I said.
Marinate on that. Aho.
Let's go, yah.
[horse neighing]
Wasn't until Martin Scorsese
did "Killers of the Flower Moon"
that it brought it
to a global audience.
You know, I mean that,
that really did put
indigenous people on the map.
And even with Lily
Gladstone getting nominated
for best actress,
that was a pretty
important moment for
indigenous people.
You want dinner?
Yeah.
[ominous music]
[Mollie speaking
in Native tongue]
[ominous music]
"Killers" tell us a
very important story
in what was done to them.
Once it was realized
that they were the richest
people in the world,
white people couldn't stand it.
The mother, Lizzie.
She's not in good shape.
She won't last.
Most those says
don't let past 50.
Well, these women die with
hollow seek suffer from illness,
you have to make it the head
rats come to you, you see?
Yeah.
Minnie's gone now and
after her, that leaves Rita.
-Mm.
-Hannah.
And then of course
there's Mollie.
- But-
- Yeah.
It has a weakness
in that the importance
of those pipes being buried
is that the church rises
and how this, this, I don't
even know what to call it.
This world, this
society, this government
were effective with genocide.
And their colonialism is that
it was business and politics
and church that all
ganged up together
and worked together
to suppress the people
and do the, the killer
buzz on everyone.
And so that's what I felt
was a weakness in this movie,
in that it didn't
tell the truth about
who those men were.
They were like,
Ernest's character.
He was a philander,
he was a woman beater.
He was a carouser,
he was a murderer.
He did two times in
jail over his behaviors.
And where was that?
It was wasted. It was
wasted space in that movie.
[Women speaking in
Native language]
I am glad that at the same
time all over the world,
people were impacted.
Like, oh my God,
all those women,
those people were being killed.
But there's so much
more to the story.
I, and I also want us to
move on from our trauma.
I think it's important
to get the healing.
I am, I'm tired of
holding this baggage
of anger over my shoulder
because of what happened.
It's not, I'm not trying
to discount what happened,
but I think it's really
time for all of us
to be responsible and the
government to be responsible
and at least acknowledge
what happened.
[gentle music]
Now they talk about the
fact, well you're only 2%,
you know, so why should
you be, you know,
covered and so forth?
Native people have been
reduced to anonymity.
And I think that's why
people like Geronimo
and Sitting Bull, they continue
to inspire us, you know?
When the worst of
times, we survived.
And if those are
the worst of times,
we have it a lot easier
now because of them.
We're here.
And that's crucial.
That's crucial.
So we'll be here, you
know, we'll be here.
We're not gonna disappear. We're
not the vanishing American.
[gentle music]
[gentle music continues]
[gentle music continues]
[gentle music continues]
[gentle music continues]
[gentle music continues]