When Cherokee Nation member Brit Hensel got hired for the camera department of FX’s Reservation Dogs, her resume was short and her list of film industry connections even shorter. She’d never worked on a show of that caliber before, but its creator Sterlin Harjo took a chance on her.

As voting hours ended on Election Day 2020, talking heads waiting for results to roll in filled the TV airwaves with speculation based on the exit polling data before them. What might it mean for the final results, and for the future of the American presidency?

Mary Smith Sneed was just four or five years old the day a wagon rolled up as she played outside near the family home at Mingo Falls. The wagon stopped, and a Cherokee man named John Crowe greeted her. Crowe, who also happened to be a truant officer employed by the Cherokee Boarding School, invited her to get in the wagon.

Having grown up in these Cherokee hills, I became interested in things native from an early age. This interest, spawned by my boyhood friends over on the Snowbird Reservation, has continued throughout my life and until today. 

Maggie Calhoun Bowman’s family has spent the last 17 years making peace with the fact that they will never know how she ended up dead in a rain gully, covered over with leaves and a pink coat.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is the only federally recognized Native American tribe in North Carolina, but that could change if a bill currently making its way through Congress meets success. The Lumbee Recognition Act, also known as H.R. 1964, would extend federal recognition to the 55,000-member Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, ending a 131-year effort to obtain it. 

A recent court ruling in Texas has Native American tribes across the country — including the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians — concerned about threats to their status as sovereign nations. 

In a prologue that will make you cry — bringing hackles of guilt to your eyes — Tommy Orange has brought past Native American history front and center and welded it to a story set in present day Oakland, California. “Urban Indians” he refers to his characters and their kin. This is not the Res or  tales told by celebrated Native American authors such as Sherman Alexie and Scott Momaday, but one of urban angst complete with all the modern technology and vibe to which cities are prone. 

After 51 years standing high on a hill along Patton Avenue in Asheville, a 23-foot-tall statue of Chief Pontiac is coming down. 

(Editor’s Note: Readers should be cautioned that several of the descriptions of scalping and related practices presented in this column are graphic.)     

When I was a boy, incidents of scalping by Native Americans were a staple in the old-time movies about the “Wild West.” And there is no doubt whatsoever that the western tribes utilized that practice. But what about the Cherokee, Creek, Catawba and other southeastern tribes — to what extent was scalping a part of their warfare and ritual?