Native Americans

Celebrated by Italian immigrants in the United States since 1792, Columbus Day became a federal holiday in 1937 to commemorate the "arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas." The explorer’s reputation has darkened in recent years as scholars have...

Harvard Divinity School joins the rest of the religious studies community in honoring the life of Inés M. Talamantez, Professor of Native American Religious Traditions at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Talamantez, once a visiting...

Digging into Tozzer Library's trove of indigenous-language texts, Nipmuc tribe member Sadada Jackson, MTS '19, curated an exhibit that is in many ways a love letter to her grandmother.

The United Nations declared 2019 the “Year of Indigenous Languages.” Inspired by this mandate and her indigenous heritage, Harvard Divinity School student Sadada Jackson embarked on a project to better capture Tozzer Library’s Indigenous North American...

This monthly public series, convened by Dean David N. Hempton of HDS, brings together a cross-disciplinary RPP Working Group of faculty, experts, students, and alumni from across Harvard University and the local area to explore topics and cases in...

In Navajo worldview, thought creates the world, which is then spoken into being. This process places sacred value on the power of language. Sherwin Bitsui’s poetry attempts to connect Diné thought to a changed world by translating the present through an...

The ongoing destruction of Earth’s natural systems is the result of decisions, made daily, by billions of people. These decisions are voluntary and involuntary at once, collective and personal. Two indigenous leaders—Nainoa Thompson and Angaangaq...

Climate change may finally be making headlines, but it is far from news. Addressing an overflow crowd at “The Land and the Waters Are Speaking: Indigenous Views on Climate Change” at Andover Hall on April 4, Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq, an Eskimo Kalaallit...

PBS’s latest series, Native America, explores the world created by America’s first peoples. The four-part series, which premieres October 23, reaches back 15,000 years to reveal massive cities aligned to the stars, unique systems of science and...

Writer and environmentalist Terry Tempest Williams talks about her activism, her craft, and the lessons recently learned as she begins her second year as writer in residence at Harvard Divinity School.