Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
This place was usually green when I was younger.
But look at it now.
Okay, come on.
Okay. Bring the bowl with you and we'll go that way, okay?
- Okay. - Yeah.
- Cactus. - Okay. Just watch out for the thorn.
Just stay on this side.
My mother's family is from this area.
Her grandparents are from this area.
Let's start with these red ones right here, Mae.
We'll collect some of these ones.
And there're so many different stories,
but they're all associated with this place.
Before genocide, Apaches had a whole different way of life.
And a lot of today's generation don't have that knowledge.
But it's not their fault that they don't know their culture.
It's not their fault they don't know their language.
What we're doing is reintroducing our young people to the land,
the food and our traditional ways of healing.
Jump.
Can you jump this way?
And we're going to leave these here so that whatever seed's in here
is going to grow back. So throw it out that way and say,
"Thank you for giving to us."
For me, it's just about reconnecting people
to who they are, and it starts off small.
It's like planting that little seed.
Then from there, it's just gonna grow.
Just before there was corn,
we used to get these.
Good morning, everybody.
Good morning.
The three of us are very privileged to be here from where we come from.
For us, being on the White Mountain Apache Tribe,
that's one of the many places that's actually ground zero
for American colonialism,
and our landscape, which we'll talk about, is very calorie-rich,
but for a number of reasons, it's considered a food desert.
And as you'll see, we'll talk about how tripped out it is.
Because 70% of all foods consumed around the world today
originated by indigenous peoples of the Americas.
So, the mother sauces that come from the tomato,
all the spicy foods of Asia, zucchini, Swiss chocolate, Irish potatoes,
it's all BS, man. It's all native foods. For real.
And that's some of the information
that we want to instill in our own people.
So I'm going to run you through this presentation,
and then we'll go over there,
and we'll shut up and cook.
You want to attack a people and wipe them out?
Attack their food.
Millions of people all across the Americas
with complex civilizations, complex trade routes, complex societies,
systematically wiped out by some of the first forms
of biological warfare and terrorism, right?
That happened from starting here on the East Coast.
Our food system has been colonized.
That's the reason that we don't have that relationship
with some of those traditional foods anymore.
And colonial violence has never gone away.
So, when you see statistics like alcoholism,
diabetes, and homicide, suicide rates on reservations,
those are the physical manifestations of colonialism
today in real life.
And it's through foodways that we engage in a recovery from historical trauma,
and promote indigenous healing and self-determination.
And when we talk about these things,
if some feeling of uncomfort arises in you,
don't shut off, but ask yourself why.
The first step in this is understanding violence in all its forms.
In my experience in trying to bring buffalo back to the land,
a lot of non-Indian people can understand the need to do that,
and the good it can do for the land.
Whereas they can't really understand the need
to bring the culture back.
We had a self-sufficient economy,
and it was all centered around the buffalo herd,
and our teepees were made from buffalo hides.
We ate them. That was our food source.
We dried the meat to carry it through the winter.
The buffalo were everything.
And of course, the government recognized that.
So, that's why they decided, if we destroy the buffalo,
we can bring these people to their knees.
And so that's what they set out to do.
It was complete devastation without buffalo.
The kind of food that the government gives out,
the commodity food supply... I mean, just terrible.
But people have no choice. I mean, if they want to eat, that's what they get.
So the physical realities are hard,
but the mental and the spiritual part is even worse.
And the buffalo are basically in the same spot as we are.
We were almost wiped out, too.
And so we need to kind of go back together.
And we can help each other.
I mean, that's just the way it's been ever since time immemorial.
About 2000 years ago, maybe, there was a giant earthquake,
and the earthquake shifted the river and put it where it is today.
And since that day, we've been fishermen.
All right, you ready?
We're salmon people.
And our whole life revolves around
the relationship that we have with these salmon,
because we believe that once these salmon disappear,
our people follow.
Our people, we were one of the last people to be contacted.
The government said that there was gold out here,
and so people came out in the 1840s and they were done doing treaties,
because they were done with all that when they got to California.
If you could clear the land of Indians,
you could have that chunk of land.
So, literally, if you were seen, you were shot on sight.
10% of our population survived the genocide,
and out of that 10%, we are direct descendants.
So, you are born with a burden of being indigenous.
You have to learn how to pass down these traditions
and these things that we do to the next generation.
And if you don't do this, your culture will be gone.
See, my background is classical French.
But all that journey was shadowed by chemical dependency.
And everything in my life fell apart because of addiction and drinking,
and all that really dysfunctional mentality that's around kitchens.
It wasn't till I crash-landed back on the res
that I began to explore the universe of native foods,
and that was one of the things that helped me to get clean.
What's popping? I see onions.
Yeah. We have red onions, yellow onions.
You're looking at pounds and pounds of beans. Yeah.
As a kid, we grew a lot of beans.
But we never... We always picked them like this.
We never let them seed out.
Really?
And that's... You know, and then coming to work here,
and like, saving seeds from beans,
you know, it was kind of like...
I had never done that before, you know.
Yeah. It was pretty cool.
This, to me, is what I've seen as haricots verts, the small green beans.
No, no. These are Anasazi beans.
Yeah. Oh, okay. Cool, dude. Yeah.
Dude, this is cool, man. Anasazi bean flowers, you know.
Anasazi bean blossoms.
You know, watching the farm grow... Mmm-hmm.
...it's like really cool 'cause I can remember back in the day
when it was just you and a couple volunteers,
and the seeds grow and grow and grow,
and seeing more community members appreciate it
in the way that, like, six, seven years ago, we were only talking about.
Yep. Yeah.
And we're here now, you know.
And there's still a shitload more to do, man.
A lot more to do. It's cool, you know?
When you have food sovereignty, you're free to be self-reliant,
to grow your own food, to choose the foods you want to eat,
choose the foods you want to put in school systems,
and really be self-sustaining or sustainable.
And our reservations across the United States
are far away from being actually food-sovereign.
Kabocha, Hubbard squash. - Yeah.
So we're going to assemble something really simple for you to taste.
We brought with us some tastes of the landscape.
And we're going to mix a little bit of Apache land with Stone Barns,
'cause we've got some cool stuff.
Like this Anasazi bean.
Anyone familiar with Anasazi beans?
Well, these were found in an archeological dig,
and planted, and they grew, right.
Thousands of years passed.
These little guys, they grew again.
So now they're readily available and able to use.
And for us, in Western Apacheria,
there's all these root vegetables that we eat.
There's wild carrots, wild potatoes, wild onions.
So we're making, like, a root vegetable salad,
and Chef will give you some tea there.
How are you doing over there, Chef? I'm almost done, Chef.
When I got into culinary school,
it was like we were left out of world cuisine.
But when I started cooking at one of the only five-star,
five-diamond places on the West Coast,
on the menu at the time, there was a Cheyenne River Sioux buffalo tenderloin.
And then right on the station over,
they were doing a classic salmon roulade
with salmon from this tribe up in the Northwest.
So, right out the gate,
I would see that native foods were being used
at all different levels of the food industry.
It was like the foods were saying, "Go for it, man. Do it."
Like, "Go for it," you know. "Use us."
So now, we're building the cafe that will use ingredients
that we grew at the farm by Apache farmers,
that are passed on to Apache chefs or cooks
to be used therapeutically for healing.
This was formerly a gas station,
but we're gonna take it over,
and this is the future site of Cafe Gozhoo.
We chose the word Gozhoo because that's an Apache word
that means beauty, harmony, love, happiness.
So a lot of cool things of what Cafe Gozhoo represents.
This whole area, we're going to build the kitchen in like an L shape.
Produce from the people's farm,
fire burning, and someone, uh, cooking.
We're going to build a wall right here,
about four feet high so little grandma can see over it.
You know what I mean?
The way you consume native foods that we'll prepare today,
it will be, yeah, good, nutritious and all that.
But for a group of Apache people,
it would be completely different.
We would reconnect with those themes of ancestral knowledge,
and spirituality, prayer, time and place in a healing way.
The White Mountain Apache Tribe is considered a food desert.
So, all the foods that were in here previously as a convenience store,
a lot of candies, sugars, chips,
those were promoting, you know, bad health.
Now, we'll be able to order foods
that were grown at the farm or that were brought in
and purchased from local growers or harvesters, or foragers.
And you can see people in the process of changing their lives.
So we're excited, man. It's pretty cool.
Sword ferns. We need some of those.
If there's none close to the beach,
then we'll send our fastest runner to get a good stack.
- That's you, Zac. - That'll be you, Zac.
Well, I'll use that.
Oh, yeah.
- Oh, yeah. - That's you, Peter.
That's right.
Yeah, I'll put out with the motor. You guys just jump right in.
We're fishermen, and once the salmon are gone,
it's the end of the world for us, and there's no going back.
Burn down the Klamath! Bring the salmon home!
Burn down the Klamath!
- What do we need to get rid of? - Dam!
Northern California tribes are protesting
for the removal of the Lower Klamath River dams
in a desperate push to save the critically-endangered salmon.
But for native youth on the Klamath,
such as Sammy Gensaw of the Yurok Tribe,
nothing less than their future is at stake.
You got to think about us indigenous people,
we're part of this here environment,
and salmon are a huge part of our life.
We know that the salmon run is directly connected
to the health of our community.
If you have a bad fishing season,
then there's a rise in drug abuse,
and there's a rise in suicides.
Because when you come home empty-handed,
there's a sadness that starts to set in, and that's depression.
I think we should do about two more drifts,
and then if we don't get anything,
try our luck farther up the river. Yeah.
- All right, drag it in. - Whoa!
Fast. Back up, back up.
Just drag it. Drag it.
We're definitely on the wrong side of the river today.
I want some fresh salmon.
- I know. - At least one.
So the people on the other side of the river,
they caught some good fish in the morning.
So they say that they're going to give us one.
So we'll eat that tonight at the camp.
We'll give it a sec.
How's it going, man?
This is our family friend, and he's going to help us out.
He's helping us out because it's important.
There you go.
You got it? Yeah.
We gold now? Yeah.
Yup. Good, man. All right, brother.
Appreciate it.
And that's how we do it.
You know, it got killed earlier today,
so it could have some blood loss,
but red gills mean healthy fish.
If it's not red, then it means that the fish was sick.
See these eggs?
You can eat them.
You can cure them.
There's a lot of stuff you can do with the eggs.
See?
That will be enough for us to eat tonight, right here.
You put your meat.
You put skin side first like that, into the sand.
Our grandparents weren't allowed to do this.
When you fished, you had to do it secretly.
You had to cover your tracks.
Our ancestors went to war with the government,
right here on these same grounds to protect our fishing rights,
and to protect this river.
Come help us, man.
We got the feds in here, knocking our heads,
pulling our nets, saying that we can't fish.
This latest clash between northern California Indians and the government
is the result of a declared moratorium on fishing in the Klamath River.
It was a no-win situation down there.
I mean, you couldn't stop this big inboard coming in and ramming your boat.
You know, taking you and pulling you in their boat
and sapping your head with a big old night stick.
To these native fishermen,
the memory of California's historic mistreatment of American Indians
is still very much alive.
Beginning with the first official session
of the California legislature in 1850,
which created a legal loophole,
permitting the enslavement of California Indians,
to the nullification of hunting and fishing rights in the 20th century.
To these Indians, this latest battle is as much about civil rights
as it is about fishing.
By the time it got here, it wasn't just fishing rights.
They were taking our hunting rights.
They were taking our whole way of life.
So we pulled our armed camps here.
We brought medicine men throughout all nations.
There was hundreds of people here.
They wanted us to stop fishing,
and we said, "We're never going to stop fishing. Fish on."
Secretary of the Interior, Cecil Andrus,
went to Klamath to mediate the dispute,
which has escalated into an armed standoff.
Finally, they heard our demands.
Indian health. Indian education.
Sovereignty.
You know, I say, hopefully putting our lives on the line here
has helped us in our fight to keep our water,
to keep our salmon, to keep our way of life.
We fight for the freedom of all natives to have our native food.
My grandparents lived down on the river right here,
on the Moreau River, where it runs into the Missouri.
When my parents died, they were going to send us to an orphanage,
but my grandparents took us all in.
They had cattle, and they had a ranching operation at one time,
but they were too old to keep that up,
so then us boys would have to do my grandpa's work.
But still, they gave us a place to grow up, anyway.
So that was very fortunate.
But my grandparents sent us to the Indian boarding school
because there was no other feasible way for us to go to school.
The government schools are constantly being built,
and through the agencies of the government,
they are being rapidly brought
from their state of comparative savagery and barbarism
to one of civilization.
three little Indians
six little Indians
nine little Indians
Basically, forced acculturation,
forced assimilation into this dominant society.
I mean, they even had slogans like,
"Kill the Indian. Save the man."
That's genocide.
Me and friends of mine, we used to talk about
how we wished it could be, and once when there was big buffalo herds,
and when everything was back the way it was.
But just thinking that it's probably never going to be.
And then when I went to college and got to thinking about it,
I thought that I'm going to start a revolution.
Go back, restore buffalo to Cheyenne River.
The Great Plains are a hard, dry land.
Once, up to 63 million American buffalo dominated this landscape.
But once settlers arrived, who tamed the plains country,
they discovered the vast potential for crops,
such as wheat and alfalfa.
But the plains are best suited for the grazing of cattle.
All the cattle operators,
they want to run their cows on that land.
They don't want buffalo running on that land,
because they're afraid if the buffalo herd gets too big,
then we're going to have all buffalo,
and then they're not going to be able to run their cows.
Really, what it boils down to is money.
But as a student of my culture all my life,
what I've come to understand is if we want to maintain our culture,
then we have to have buffalo as a vital part of our communities.
And we have to restore that.
Standing in unity against powerful agricultural and cattle interests,
27 tribes met in an Albuquerque hotel
to form the InterTribal Bison Coop.
Fred DuBray from Cheyenne River was elected chairman.
Buffalo are a symbol of our strength and unity.
As we bring our buffalo herd back to health,
we also bring our own people back to health,
and that's what it's all about.
C.A.It's a matter of moving together as a united group
and trying to take something back that was stolen from us.
So, I consider this basically an Indian war party.
What really was powerful to me was
I knew that it's not just me that feels this.
People's eyes just light up, and you can just see the spark.
I wanted to see millions of buffalo running around here by now,
not just the 400 head I have,
with 800 head the tribe has.
It's hard to not be able to achieve that.
And that's why I'm so glad to see my kids involved,
because I can see that they're going to be in it
for the long haul, too.
When you talk about growth, it's not just about
a herd of buffalo growing.
It's about all these things growing in different ways,
and every different aspect.
I love the noises they make.
I mean, when you're surrounded by them,
they just sound and feel so powerful.
When you're in their presence, like,
it makes you kind of...
take a step back and realize
that you're really not all that big of a deal.
Keep you humble. Yeah. In the grand scheme of things.
Just think if there was a million of them, how that would sound.
I don't know how but we've got to get back to that.
It was funny because I didn't know what food sovereignty was,
because you don't hear about those things here.
And then, this kid,
he was going to Brown University,
and he wanted to do his thesis on the farm,
so he came down and hung out with us all summer,
and then he asked me about food sovereignty, what I think about it.
And I was like,
I don't think anything about it because I don't know.
And then, he was like, "Come on. You're doing it.
"You're feeding your people. It's all about feeding your people."
And now I live and breathe food sovereignty.
When we first started this project,
we talked about Capitalism.
We talked about how today's society
is based upon how much money you make.
And our people never
measured our standards that way.
And now, we're in this whole different stage,
where we have to increase our production,
and have to make money in order to sustain this farm.
And so we'll not only be marketing at the farm,
but also working with Cafe Gozhoo,
selling a lot of our products in that store.
I grew up farming and like every res kid's dream,
I was thinking, once I turn 18, I'm going to leave this place,
and I'm never going to look back.
Started hanging out with the wrong people,
doing drugs, and in and out of jail,
and contemplating suicide, and it really affected me.
But that's behind me. You know, this is my home.
Good morning, Delta. How is everybody doing today?
Good.
So, we're just gonna jump into our presentation for the farm.
Food has always been the center of Apache life.
Whether it will be ceremonies, wakes, there's always food there,
and that's what brings people together.
But we've kind of shifted away from this.
When you go to dances, what do we see there now?
Soda pop, you know, candy,
probably a huge majority of these kids have diabetes.
It's like putting diabetes on... on... on a girl's life,
when we're supposed to be encouraging her and building her a bright future,
yet we have all these sugary and, and processed foods there.
And so that's why this farm is here.
We believe that through farming,
and through reintroducing what's been lost,
it will help our overwhelming rates of health disparities
that our people are facing.
And working at the farm
has brought a lot of healing to my life.
A lot of understanding, a lot of meaning to my life,
and today I'm now prouder than any time in my life
to say that I'm White Mountain Apache,
and seeing you guys hearing this presentation,
it brings encouragement to my heart,
and makes me want to do more farming.
Thank you. Hey, that's good!
You know, before this whole trend of eating organic came along,
our ancestors built this complex food system
of wild food that the western Apache people ate.
We didn't call it organic. It was just food.
You'll like these.
Get the redder one.
Here's a real dark one.
That one had a thorn.
Yeah. That one's shorter. That's a short one.
That's the one you, you, um, butcher the deer on.
So like, if you were to kill a deer... Yeah.
...then you'll butcher it on, on that bush,
and use it like a table.
For myself, I'm a traditional harvester.
I like to forage food.
When you're out there walking, you get to hear the birds.
Sometimes, you get to know the stories about the place,
where these plants grew or how they were used.
But when you're out there, actually looking for something,
you open a whole part of your mind to something else.
You're open to the air, the sun, the weather, the rain.
And it's just beautiful.
Our elders have introduced me to so many plants
from the first season, spring, all the way to winter.
It's never taco Tuesday.
You can taste it now.
Whoa.
Harvesting. It takes energy, time, and work. It's not easy.
It's not going to the grocery store and grabbing off the shelf.
You actually have to put some work into it.
So when they're talking about overall health,
holistic health, that's one of the ways
to really regain a lot of health into our community.
Here you go.
I'm going to share a little bit about myself,
and explain why this is so a part of me.
I've been clean 16 years June now.
Before I even went to school,
the man said...
My babysitter's boyfriend.
We lived not far from the river.
This man did bad things to me at the river.
No one ever asks us,
"Are you okay? Did something happen to you?"
We're always taught, "Shh."
I stayed quiet 45 years.
I lived with that 45 years,
before I finally could speak about it.
I'm not ashamed of it no more,
because I'm here. I survived.
I found a passion. I found something, a part of me.
I learned to cope,
and heal through harvesting our traditional food,
and learning the value
of what it means to us as Apache people.
It's an unconscious connection when we as Apaches were free.
Thank you.
I say what we do
is kind of like an apprenticeship to truth and recovery.
We're not transforming food so much. The food is transforming us.
My son, Ari,
he used to hide from me under the bed
any time he could smell alcohol on me.
Any time he would, if I was just smoking cigarettes,
he would walk up to me and go like this.
Is that weed or is it tobacco? You know?
So, for me and my son, Ari, it was tough
for a long time to regain his trust,
because this is what it's all about.
Recovery is changing behaviors,
and part of that is through cooking, through food,
through, um, growing food, and all those things.
All that stuff in my younger life,
the selfishness, the violence that come from the colonial mindset,
all that, man, ended my first marriage.
And for a long time, I didn't believe I could be happy again,
and I didn't think I had a right to be happy.
I was judging myself too bad.
But down here's where I got remarried.
That's cute, Kaia. Yes.
She remembers being here.
Your sister.
The mountains are changing.
This is Mother Earth in change right now, you know?
My wife Jandi, my daughter, Kaia, my son, Ari,
my little baby daughter, Tawny, we're a family in transformation constantly.
I remember being a kid,
and hauling wood and getting food and hanging out with my dad,
and my brothers,
and my family and doing sunrise dances when I was really small.
And then now we're back here with our daughters.
This little one here,
she's gonna make that journey someday, you know?
She's gonna reincarnate changing woman,
and she's gonna carry on those thousands of years of tradition.
And I think
this place,
and the other ceremony camps
really help me to see that I'm... I'm a dad,
and a husband and a father first,
before a chef.
That all my preconceived notions about
professional cooking or fine cooking are meaningless
when it comes down to the survival,
and the nurturing of our families,
and people that come to help us.
I mean, it's powerful.
The different wrongs that have been done
to native peoples are just so sickening,
and that hasn't gone away.
I don't know what I can do about it,
but I'm gonna try to do something.
We noticed Elsie was pretty special
ever since she was a little girl.
She just decided that she wants to be a scientist, you know,
and just start making that her goal.
The first science fair she went to, she was like,
"The first time in my life I was around my kind of people.
"To tell you the truth, I felt like the stupidest person in the room.
"But you know what? It felt really good."
"Those are the kind of people I want to be around."
And she said, "So, now I've got to get back there.
"I've got to find a project that gets me there next year."
I've always looked at myself
as someone who wasn't very traditional.
But then I realized that virtue, of Lakota culture,
is that it's about a lifestyle and a belief system,
things like truth and wisdom,
and just things that my dad has taught me my entire life.
She spent all summer talking to you about different things here
because she was smart enough to know that her science fair project
needed to apply to her life for her to be, you know, passionate.
You know, there's a lot of traditional knowledge that people overlook
because it hasn't been substantiated by science,
and we talk about that kind of stuff all the time.
And that's, I think, what generated her interest
in some of this science stuff.
You know, when she learned about
how prevalent diabetes was in native youth,
and she said, "I'm a native youth,
"but I've been eating buffalo meat,
"and I wonder if that makes me protected
"from this high, high rate of diabetes."
So we'll have buffalo beef.
She's just always kind of had that
desire to do good in the world.
She wants to educate the scientific community with traditional knowledge.
Right.
Because of the westernization of our diets,
native people are often suffering the most
from a lot of different diseases
here on my reservation, reservations elsewhere,
And so, if my research can do anything,
I don't want it to prove what's already known.
I just want it to help people get back
to the way that it's meant to be.
You're living your culture all the time.
When you get out of bed, nothing going on.
You make something go on.
Go fishing. Or, you know, or, start singing.
Improve yourself.
Yeah, work on your eel hook.
Anything.
Just start doing something. That's part of your culture.
So, somebody can say, "Well, gee,
"those guys used to work on eel hooks all the time.
"How come they don't do it no more, you know?
"What happened to the youth?" Then you're losing your culture,
because all it is is what you live.
The kids I grew up with, we're adults now.
Some are dead. Some are locked up.
My best friend is in prison. I don't see any of them.
But thank you again. Okay.
And we'll be at that next... I love you, boys. You guys be good.
Yeah. I love you, too, man.
All right. Take care. Be good.
I know that I'll probably die from health related issues.
due to the fact that I was raised in a generation where there was no food.
We had to live out of the gas station.
It's a reality. We live in a food desert.
There's no grocery store here.
If you're youth, you have a better shot
of buying drugs in your local community
than you have of buying healthy, affordable food.
In Northern California, we have the highest suicide rates.
We have the highest cancer rates.
We're living out long-term genocide.
So, we started the ancestral garden, a nonprofit youth group.
And our goal is just to bring balance back to relationships
between our people and our river.
All right. Uriah,
where's your life jacket?
There. Go grab it.
Rule number one.
Rule number two is, you always have
to listen and be aware of your surroundings.
You don't have to listen to us,
but you have to listen to what's in here.
If you don't feel like you're in a safe position,
then you should not be there. Okay?
Before we even touch the water, we're going to go down, we're going to look at it.
And I'm going to go over a little bit of what we're kind of looking for.
So, should we go check it out?
All right. Let's grab our hooks. Let's go.
Can you see all these seals right here?
These are all kind of our people too.
So, you gotta respect these guys.
A lot of people will be shooting around for no reason.
But you don't wanna do that.
So, if you ever see your friends when you're older
and they're shooting seals for no reason
or anything like that, just tell them, "Hey, don't do that."
Because they're here too
and they're trying to live and trying to eat.
So, when you come down here, you say hello. You acknowledge.
See how it's flat? And you see that curl right there.
You look in that curl right there as it comes along.
You see how it's coming along like that?
You look in there for an eel. What?
Can I see? Can I hook one?
Yeah, well, if you see, see, come here.
When we get kids who are depressed
or you get people who don't quite know
where they're going in life and you get them on the river,
that gives me hope.
Like, what happens if we restore this whole river,
but climate change and everything, it starts to affect us,
what do we do if our salmon don't come back?
Hello, good morning. Welcome everybody
to the 6th Annual Apache Heart festival,
Today, we're celebrating who we are
and celebrating our Apache foods.
It's a great turnout and it's always great to be amongst
our Apache people, all indigenous people.
And so, thank you guys, and we'll be starting right over
here on your right with Cafe Gozhoo,
who will be doing a demonstration.
So, thank you and enjoy yourselves.
All right. So, I'll start off. My name is Nephi Craig.
I've been cooking professionally about 20 years now.
and it's been this amazing journey.
That's been able to help change my life
and also, now, I'm hoping that it can help change the lives of others.
And a big part of Cafe Gozhoo
is the idea of healing our Apache people
and healing our community with foods.
So, stuff that we're gonna do here in the demo,
we'll do that stuff on a regular basis up at the cafe.
Okay, so, please share with someone, okay? So, come on up.
It's a beautiful morning.
Would you guys all agree?
Yes. Let's hear, it's a beautiful morning.
Here we go. Okay.
We're gonna start this morning on our walk
through some of the stuff that you can harvest out here
in White Mountain.
That's what we call it, the wild sunflower.
You guys usually see them all over on the roadside.
And again, you go back to what Chef Nephi was cooking
and they were the petals off of these.
So, did you guys get to try the food that he was making there?
So, this is what it is.
Oh. I see it. Yeah. Seriously.
I love what I do.
I love helping the people in the community.
I love seeing that excitement,
especially in the young people's faces
when their first time they're doing this,
you know, this is an experience for them.
But it's gonna stay with them.
Mae came from a shattered home. She really did.
And we're thankful she's where she's at now
because she's learning how to reconnect.
Rat hunting.
Yeah. Packrat hunting. It's called...
Yeah...
And this one, watch out for these stickers, okay?
Okay.
See. This is what we're looking for.
See this stuff? That means he lives here. Yeah.
See, Twila, I can.
Mae, come here. Help me.
Stab him in the head. Ooh. You let him go.
Oh, sad.
No, you don't wanna run in there.
Hey, Mae. Take a look at this.
This is a rattlesnake. It is a huge rattlesnake. See this?
- Yeah. - So, he's living in there, so...
we can't dig in there.
Yeah.
So, we'll go find another one.
- I already see one. - If it comes out this way
you hit it, okay?
Okay.
You'll find out if I chase it out.
Okay. I see him. Don't move.
I'm scared.
Got him. In front of him. Hit him. Got him.
I work with a lot of people that are living in shattered environments.
But actually coming out here and reconnecting and healing,
this is a different way of coping.
It's a form of healing our ancestors have always known
and it still works.
Hey, what's up? How was school?
It was good.
All right. A little more. Just a little bit more.
It just takes time and a little bit of patience.
Oh.
I thought you were gonna strip naked.
I think it's cool to learn things from animals.
You look out here and you see the buffalo walking by
or when it's snowing or whenever, how they just look
like they're just meant to be here.
I started thinking about
all of the reasons why I do the research that I do
and it's just a really cool feeling, I guess.
It is. That's the way I feel, when I, everyday when I go out and...
work with them. But your whole...
approach into the science part of it is just taking
it to a way higher level,
so, it's pretty cool for me to see that, too.
I don't know. It's the same passion.
So today, we are having the 63rd annual
High Plains Regional Science and Engineering Fair.
We have such a wide range of projects here today, um...
We have some engineering projects involving hover boards.
We have biological sciences projects that are involving grass-fed buffalo
and just a wide variety of projects that we see every year.
Very stressed. That's what I'm feeling like.
I'm still trying to figure out
my elevator speech, but that didn't really come together
last year either until the first judge came around.
Your passion comes out when you get to talk about these things.
Start with your passion, you know?
That's where all of this came from is your heart.
Tell me about your research.
My family raises buffalo. We raise grass-fed buffalo
um, because we believe in the cultural significance and the health benefits.
But I want to use science to prove that to the rest of the world.
And so, to do that, I've started analyzing the lipid content in buffalo meat.
I took these four meat samples, grain-fed, and grass-fed, buffalo, and beef.
And I extracted the lipids from the meat
and I performed thin-layer chromatography
on them to actually separate out the different lipid components.
So, as you can see, grain-fed beef exhibited
the greatest amount of bad fats and the least amount of good fats and vice versa
for the buffalo meat. So, all this research ends up
proving that grass-fed buffalo meat is really healthy
and high in omega-3s and omega-6
and low in these saturated fats
and you should totally be eating this,
which makes sense as I'm trying to talk about the Native American diabetes
epidemic and a traditional diet.
My dad always talks about how buffalo, they don't get sick.
And it's because they know how to find those medicinal plants
that are native to the area
and I want to do research that proves traditional knowledge
that we have with modern science.
The possibilities are endless.
You guys have any questions for her?
What did you guys think of her project?
I've got one question. Yeah.
How do you say, um, buffalo in Lakota?
Not bad. She knows her stuff. It's all right.
Did you know that she was native?
No. No. It's okay.
That's what I wrote my whole college essay about.
I saw Grayson's here. Is he?
Yeah. I saw him here
and it's like, "I did not prepare for you this year."
I'm working on a project with superconductors and it won't
levitate unless it's below that temperature.
Were you able to go that long?
We used liquid nitrogen, which is about 77 Kelvin.
I really wanted to find a project that I could
try to tie in my passion
for buffalo and my family's belief in the cultural significance
and the health benefits.
Don't put those lines. Just keep it a clear graph.
Less numbers. Less numbers.
Keep that the same, as well. Right.
Nice talking to you. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.
He really shredded apart my graph,
my elementary school bar graph.
Good morning, everybody. Did you guys have fun today?
Yeah!
I know when I saw you here earlier, I was like, "Oh, no! Why?"
The judges are reviewing your projects.
All right. It was good talking to you. Yeah. Good luck.
Thank you. Good luck to you, as well. I'm going to go sit.
Yeah, so am I.
They're just ripping out everything here
because this is where the firewall's
got to go in and they're going to cut the cement
for water and electric.
So, this is our future Cafe Gozhoo kitchen.
What I'm excited about is to see
what this kitchen and what this dining room create,
because it's...
It's going to become its own living organism, you know?
You know, I had to survive addiction and incarceration and death
and all that stuff to get to this point. Had to survive,
literally had to live it to be able to do this small project, you know.
And it's a big project, but it's a small project.
You know, this kitchen will be real tiny
and outlandish to our own community,
but our people need to see
what's possible with Apache foodways.
Oh, jeez. Where did you get your rat?
This one, I got from near Takali Lake in the mountains.
So then, we just put it in here.
I'm very selective of where I get these, because you look
at the surrounding area,
they live within a 25-foot radius. So, in that radius,
if there's a medicine plant, medicine berries,
I know they're eating it.
So, a lot of the medicine, we can't eat if we grab and eat it,
we'll get sick or either something. These guys eat it.
But it filters through their body and so, it has a healing component in it.
- That's what I was saying. - Yeah.
And when you go after these, you only want to hit on the head,
so, you won't ruin the body.
How long was it cooking?
It cooked until you can pull the tail and the fur falls off.
Is that half an hour? Hour?
Say, about 15 minutes. Thirty.
That one was more, I think. Yeah. Probably 30.
Now see, this is how it's supposed to be. See how soft? Yeah.
You can now try that.
I'm trying to think of what it's like...
without saying chicken. But it's like chicken.
Oh, yeah. Quail?
Yeah. Soft, man. This is really nice. Yeah.
Now, this is what you want.
It's good stuff. Chicken.
- It does. Okay. - Tastes like chicken, man.
How's most of the community members down in Saint Charles,
how do they respond to some of this stuff?
Well, I took a group of women out last Thursday.
They really enjoyed it.
These are women, they're so stressed from work.
They went out there and they had a ball.
It's like watching a soccer game.
I mean, they were running and screaming
and throwing rocks and sticks.
You introduce it to any white dude chefs?
No? No.
Cool. You should.
I was teasing. I don't know.
I think some things just stay in its own region...
Yeah. ...because this food source
will not be accepted out there...
Mmm-hmm.
...but it's accepted in our community.
Mmm-hmm.
When you see something like this, it wakes you up.
Yeah. So...
It wakes you up.
You know, as you think about it, it's even emotional,
because you think of all these Apache
relatives throughout history hunting and cooking these, you know?
It's making me question how humble I really am, you know?
Am I really humble when it comes down to eating
and cooking and appreciating?
It's making me think, I really don't know anything still.
You know, it's nothing until you get your first taste of
This is the best part. Okay.
You're going to like this. Here you go, Nephi.
Yay! She gives it to me
Our car,
it blew up this morning when we were all getting ready.
We think we blew a head gasket. That's probably what happened.
So, when we usually go to events,
we're always like maybe 10, 15 minutes late.
But it is kind of hard getting a bigger group of young men together.
Some would say it's like herding wild cats.
Uh-oh. These guys.
- Hey. - How's it going?
We showed up crewed up, Natty.
Good job. You guys bring those receipts?
Yes. Yes, I did.
Good. Got some new faces. I like that.
- Yep. - What's going on, you guys?
Finally, the receipts. Oh, my gosh.
You guys, make yourselves at home.
Oh, our accountant's gonna kill you.
- I know. - Might have... That's most of...
The hardest thing about these guys do amazing work
but it's hard to get them to bring their receipts back.
Need a little bit of organization.
If Sammy and I write a grant for 5,000, I know that Sammy's going to do $15,000
worth of grant work. I just hope that I can get at least
$5,000 of receipts to show.
Yeah, yeah.
So, while we've got that grant that we got just recently,
I talked to the bookkeeper, we can get you the check right now
and keep trucking, keep doing good work, man.
These new guys, they, uh...
They're learning a little bit about Ancestral Guard today and...
Yes. Today, the kids...
We went to a little bit of the climb through to clean up.
Excellent. You guys, we should look at some pictures
of the trip real quick.
Oh, yeah.
So, this is about how we went over to the Amazon to fight
against the Belo Monte dam with the indigenous people there
that kinda knew that the dam was gonna destroy the river.
These people thought they were the only indigenous people left on Earth.
And it's easy to feel like that sometimes.
So, we have to find other people like us,
to find other people who can benefit from the work that we're doing.
Because when we come together, it's acknowledging that there's people out there
all over the world that are fighting for their resources
and their rights to live healthy lifestyles.
We have this machete right here that we got back from our trip from Malaysia.
We went over there because they were trying to build a dam
over there that would flood out 20,000,
I think, indigenous people over there.
And they brought in activists from all around the world
and we got the opportunity to be a part of that.
Here's one of the things that we brought back, and that's a machete.
And that's made from their indigenous people over there. So, that's pretty amazing.
And again, when you look at this stuff, just remember that.
Like, these are really awesome things, but what they represent
and the story that they tell is even more amazing.
One thing that kinda struck my mind in Malaysia,
they had these dugout boats and the whole bottom of the boat was dug out,
just like our traditional Yurok boats.
But they said back in the day
when they had bigger logs, their whole boat was one piece, just like ours,
but now they have nothing but small trees, so, they make planks on the sides
and slap them on the bottom dugout,
so that it kind of made me think of,
if they keep chopping our redwood trees, that could be in our future.
So, that's why it's important. That's why I like these things and it kind of reminds me
every time I come here to look at these
and think, this is only the beginning.
Because you guys are all just young men.
And just wait till you're like Frank Lara one day,
telling another group of boys about it.
What are you going to tell them?
You know what I mean?
What are you going to say?
How did you fight for what you have?
I always stress out a little bit, because I'm like, I don't want to spend
my entire interview talking about different solvents that I used.
But I think the whole purpose of doing the research is what you saw
and what that could mean, more importantly.
You're right on.
Good morning, everybody.
How are you guys doing today?
Good.
Big round of applause for your teachers and your parents.
The decision between our runner up and our first place qualifier
for the international fair was very, very tough.
So, congratulations to both of you.
Our runner up qualifier is Grayson Nelson,
Sturgess Brown High School.
And the first place qualifier is...
Elsie DuBray, Timberlake High School.
Congratulations to all of our award winners.
Thanks again for joining us and we look forward to next year.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Good job, girl. Thank you.
- Good job, my girl. Welcome. - Thank you.
Moment of truth, man. First fire in this place.
Leeks. Flowers.
Hey. How's it going? Good to see you.
Oh. This is beautiful.
Yeah. Isn't it amazing?
Beautiful. I'm so emotional.
Yeah, well... This is so cool. Hey. How are you doing?
It's so beautiful.
Yeah.
Get two more. Get two more of these.
They're really busy. We'll stand right here, but look at them.
Let's go say hi.
Hello, everybody. Why don't everybody come on over?
This is a very special time for all of us.
So, we want to welcome you all to coming out to the first run
of our kitchen and our equipment here in Cafe Gozhoo.
We just want to offer simple,
from-scratch cooking and expand food vocabulary.
So, we people can begin to make new choices.
And you'll see. Let us know how it goes.
But what we're going to do is start putting out a bunch of dishes, okay?
We've got some acorn stew. We got some da gigi.
It's really good. This is good. You've got the flavor.
We're gonna do one of the thing that we call our Apache dip.
It'll be a steak sandwich with green chilly on a bun
and then with a cup of acorn stew,
so, you can dip it, you know what I mean?
But you guys can share that, please.
And then, we'll do some quinoa salad, supporting community agriculture
is an extremely huge part of our community's vitality and recovery process.
These are nice and hot.
Think what our ancestors are thinking, like,
we've got this amazing little cafe in this old, beat-up gas station, right?
And we're celebrating Apache foodways in a kitchen that was built
by Apaches for Apaches.
So, the cafe is a living example of food sovereignty in action.
You know, put a little on the top of the fritter.
Somewhere where they'll pop.
Agave, flakes and frozen berries. Go, go, go.
Yeah.
Make some for the whole party, how about that?
Chef, you want to go grab a little bit of snow, okay?
So, I'm running out the for the chef's table.
So, we got some slushies here.
So, we packed it in snow,
a little bit of river stone, some juniper, and then we strained it.
And then, we poured it over ice and then, blended it.
So, go ahead and dig in, taste it. Pretty good stuff.
Ooh.
I love it. That's my favorite.
This tastes pretty good.
Again?
Hardcore.
We were a little bit worried when we found out we were going to have this little boy
and it was scheduled to be around the same time as the opening of the cafe
and it was like, how are we gonna handle both babies at the same time?
You know, somehow, it worked out that Rowley came first
and now the cafe is on its way
and it's been a long process. But we know that it takes time
for really beautiful things to be made.
...in there. Bizarre.
I feel like I've been guided by the mountains
and learned a lot along the way.
And it's really cool because I'll be 39 this year
and it's just beginning.
Like, it's really neat.
So, from a personal standpoint, I don't think
I could have arrived at this without
going through everything that has happened.
Oh, geez. Look at that.
Well... Oh, God.
You guys were the last people to be contacted and we're the first to be contacted.
And we were hit first, almost 400 years first, you know.
And then, they started to move.
Meanwhile, they're desecrating communities
and ruining the lands. And so, this idea of
Thanksgiving, if you will, that came from
here around Cape Cod.
And now, we all are deciding collectively
that we don't want that story to continue.
And we're tired of pretending that that was the truth.
Yeah. It doesn't serve anyone anymore
and it's nice that non-natives
are also accepting the fact that this is false, too.
The story of colonization seems to be the same.
They take what they like and they put their own spin on it.
And that's what we see happen with the turkey on the table
and the Thanksgiving and inviting the indigenous people over,
because that's what's been taught in schools.
And even over in California. But now, like you said,
we start to see people are acknowledging that yes, it is the indigenous values
of your people that even allowed America to thrive.
And we feel like we're alone because we're so secluded
up there in Northern California, but look, all the way across the United States,
we come here and I find these values that make me feel right at home.
We have a fire right here, makes us feel right at home.
We're literally on two different coasts, so, I appreciate the journey
that you guys took to come and share your story.
Our ancestors fought through genocide.
They fought through that trauma.
And not only did they survive that trauma,
they passed down knowledge that built
the societies that were built on today.
So, this knowledge that has been passed down
for thousands of years can be accessed and it can be
applied to your daily life, no matter where you are,
no matter where you're from.
Because industrial revolution is over.
Now, if we want to survive, if we want to carry on life on Earth,
we need to be a part of the restorative revolution.
And whatever that looks like to you, just make sure you get your hours in.
Our ancestors saw the world end once.
That whole life way is gone.
Now, we're on the other side of the apocalypse, but we still
are very much in resistance today and we see it with political movements
like Standing Rock and Bears Ears, fighting for water rights
and they're fighting for hunting rights and maintaining
our foodways is our own battle to fight for our human rights.
We still hold dear these traditions of farming and agriculture
and generosity that are attached to these practices.
And so, I feel like we're experiencing a profound and wonderful
and amazing return to those concepts and ideals.
It's this movement among all indigenous people that they're finally...
They're listening. They're feeling this. They hear it and it's like music
when you hear the drums calling you.
And I feel that from all different cultures,
they hear the same drum.
And it's Mother Earth and Mother Earth
heart's beating and she's talking to all of us that we need to do something.
What I believe to be my life's purpose
and the goals I have for myself
and for my career and the things I want to pursue, it all comes
from right here and that's not gonna change.
I think the connection's pretty deep.
Well, they say you can take the girl out of the country,
but you can't take the country out of the girl.
Yeah. Country is not the right word, I don't think.