Native American historian Ned Blackhawk joins WIRED to answer the internet's burning questions about the cultures and histories of the indigenous peoples of North America. Why were reservations established and who lives on them? Do reservations have their own laws and police? How did What was the infamous "Trail of Tears?" What were conflicts between tribes like prior to the arrival of Europeans? Did the United States ever lose a war with a Native American tribe? What was agriculture and raising children like in native cultures? Answers to these questions and many more await on WIRED's Native American Support.

0:00 Native American Support with Ned Blackhawk

0:12 Reservations

1:19 Casinos

2:53 Map of tribal boundaries in the US

4:01 Navajo Code Talkers

4:40 The Trail of Tears

5:32 Andrew Jackson and forced native nation migration

6:48 Origins of the stereotypical native aesthetic

8:16 Powwows

10:00 The 1960s Red Power movement

11:46 Indian, Native American, or Indigenous?

12:17 Native agriculture

13:34 Native conflicts before European contact

14:12 Raising children in Native American cultures

15:26 Sacagawea’s journey

17:16 Did the Iroquois really use the "Seventh Generation Principle"

18:32 Boarding schools

19:47 Remembering Red Cloud

20:57 The trappings of sovereignty

21:53 Did the United States ever lose a war with a Native American tribe?

22:28 The (controversial) Native American Church

23:48 Population growth

Posting this on Tumblr to make it have more attention! Between June 5 and 6 the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas will be hosting their annual powwow!

Alongside this, Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana will be hosting their annual powwow between June 12 to 13!

Photographer Attends Powwows To Take Evocative Portraits of Native Americans in Full Regalia

Over the last year, Montana-based photographer Clark Dunbar has been shooting portraits of Native Americans in traditional dress while attending powwows. The evocative portraits give a wonderful glimpse into the pride the participants have for their traditions while also highlighting their unique personalities.

Jingles are small metal cones shaped like bells. Sewn onto dresses, they make a unique sound when dancers wear them at Powwows and celebrations. Jingle dresses can be traced to the Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwe beginning in the early 20th century, and their origin may be connected to the 1918 flu pandemic, which profoundly impacted Great Lakes Natives. Hear the artist Jeffrey Gibson, who often incorporates jingles in his work, discuss the story of the first jingle dance and its connection to healing and resilience.

In observance of Native American Heritage Month, this November we’ll be exploring the themes of the exhibition When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks, with commentary from both Jeffrey Gibson and historian Dr. Christian Ayne Crouch.

𝙉𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝘼𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙁𝙧𝙮 𝘽𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙏𝙖𝙘𝙤𝙨

The coronavirus has now arrived in many Native American communities. In an online strategy, Native women are working to heal their communities through virtual jingle dress dances. Umpaowastowin -- or Pat Northrup, as she's known in English, arranged an event and someone posted it on Facebook with the hashtag #jinglehealing. "Wear your jingle dress at home and be connected," the posting said. "Remember the reason we were given this dance."

According to Dan Kraker's coverage on Minnesota Public Radio, Native American women from Pennsylvania to Nebraska to Ontario to Northrup's apartment in northern Minnesota joined in. "This isn't just an Anishinaabe prayer. This is an "all-people-prayer," said Northrup, 70, who is Dakota, widow of the late Ojibwe author Jim Northrup. "The virus isn't going to have prejudice," she said. "It will affect all people. So that's what the prayers are for."

Michele Hakala-Beeksma also danced, but in Duluth. "We literally say that dancing is prayer. That every step you take is prayer," she said. Hakala-Beeksma, a member of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, started dancing about 15 years ago. She sewed about 150 copper cones on to her purple dress herself. "That tinkling sound, that kind of sounds like water, like rain -- that's the healing part that comes in. When you become a jingle dress dancer, there's a responsibility that comes with it. You're dancing for the healing of your people," she said.

The jingle dress dance originated with the Ojibwe people, or Anishinaabe, during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. There are different versions of the story about how the dance began. But they all include a little girl who was very sick. Her father had a dream about a dance that would make her better. She wore a dress lined with rows of silver cones. The sound of the jingles healed her. The sacred dance has since been taken up by women throughout Indian County, after it spread through the pow wow circuit in the 1980s.

Ojibwe women were defying the U.S. government when they developed the dance. At the time, the government forbade ritualistic dancing on reservations. So a century after that first pandemic when they danced as a prayer for healing, women from Minnesota and Wisconsin, Utah and Colorado, Kentucky and all around Canada -- danced again, praying for healing.

Buffy Sainte Marie - Darling Don’t Cry

Performed like in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. November 15th 2017

This is the song that really drew me in. The first time I went to a Powwow I was told, “the music will draw you in like a trance...” it didn’t quite, while a magnificent experience, it wasn’t quite trance-like.

This beautiful, touching song drew me in like a trance. I didn’t know Buffy well going in, but her vocals, her sincerity, her humour, charm, passion and caring drew me in. Her music was like reading Siddhartha for the first time...you simply do not forget.

A true treasure, after this song there was no doubt in my mind I would see her again....that happened two days later, and the experience was even more overpowering.