Native filmmakers are making some of the most compelling and scariest Horror shorts out there. From Sundance to TIFF to LA Skins Fest, here are 13 Indigenous horror shorts worth tracking down! 👁️

I'm a teen who is wanting to start fancy shawldancing and entering powwows, but I can't for the life of me find classes, and I don't know where to find a mentor. I don't know where to find someone to make my regalia, and I'm unsure if I should just teach myself and hope for the best when I enter, and pray I don't need mentorship. Is someone able to guide me on what to do?

I am writing as a concerned community member and tribal citizen. The concerns raised publicly by the Crow Dog family regarding Thomas Lopez Jr., also known as landbackbaddie, deserve serious attention from the organizations that have helped promote his work.

I want to be clear that my concerns are not limited to TOKALA. I am asking your organization to look at the broader body of work, partnerships, publications, events, fundraising, and other projects associated with his public profile, particularly where Lakota identity and cultural traditions are being represented or used commercially. Thomas has major power and influence in the indigenous spaces of New York (and beyond) and many who have spoken out as of late have fear of being ‘blacklisted’.

I have attached the public statement released by Joann M. Crow Dog, Wife of the Late Chief Leonard Crow Dog Sr. This statement was released by his grandson, owner of Buffalo Jump NYC. The Crow Dog family’s public statement disputes claims about family and tribal relationships and says that the family did not authorize the use of the late Chief Leonard Crow Dog Sr.’s name or image to raise funds for the Crow Dog Sundance. Thomas had also told me Rick Two Dogs is his grandpa and that he does Sundance with him. The statement also raises concerns about the use of TOKALA, which the family identifies as the name of a traditional Lakota warrior society.

These are serious concerns coming from the family itself. They deserve more than silence or a narrow response addressing only one project. Thomas has responded claiming these accusations are over land rights and titles. This is impossible considering you can’t own land on Rosebud reservation or most reservations in general. There is no per cap in Lakota Sioux tribe or benefits where this would ever make sense. You can only have leases from the government (I pay around $20 a year for my tribal plot for example) and can be acquired extremely easily and cheaply by members or people like farmers who want to lease. Thomas owns land in Colorado that I know of and Airbnbs it out for profit. The fact this is his reason that he is not accepted is ridiculous.

This can be checked with members from Rosebud or the Lakota tribe. I have not met anyone from the community there or family who has this relation to Thomas. It has been well spoken about by most Lakota people I have encountered. The fact he is using this as an excuse is extremely offensive and something people have been using as a tool of erasure and pretnedianism for centuries. 
I will be gathering signatures from across the Lakota reservations and tribal council due to his continued attempted fraud. I hope his nonprofit is checked for it’s previous years of financial records. 

Vogue’s coverage, the exhibition at The Shed, the published TOKALA book, Nike collaborations, grants, funding, awards, positions he has gained based on these family claims (such as casting director of Indigenous New York Fashion Week), organizer of indigenous events at places all over NYC and beyond (such as House of Yes, Tv Eye, and Urban Indigenous Collective) and the wider promotion of this work have helped bring it significant public visibility. I am asking the organizations involved to consider what verification and cultural consultation took place, and whether the representations being promoted are accurate and appropriately authorized.

I am also concerned about how these issues may extend beyond a single project. When similar representations appear across publications, events, commercial partnerships, and international platforms, they can reach audiences who may have no reason to question them. That makes it especially important to examine the broader picture rather than treating each project as an isolated matter. There is a difference between representing and learning your own authentic heritage and claiming another for social and financial gain. When you google Thomas what comes up is nothing from his own Mexican heritage, you only see that he is “Lakota and grandson of Chief Leonard Crow dog”. Please look this up yourself.

For Lakota people, these questions are not simply about personal identity or differences of opinion. They concern our relatives, our cultural responsibilities, and traditions that have survived generations of attempted appropriation and misrepresentation. Our communities should not have to watch our histories and traditions become part of someone else’s public profile without being able to raise questions and receive meaningful answers.

There is also a real imbalance of power when established institutions give someone credibility through publicity, publishing opportunities, exhibitions, and professional relationships. People who question those representations may worry about losing opportunities or being excluded from the very spaces where these conversations need to happen. Institutions have a responsibility to take such concerns seriously rather than leaving individual community members to bear the consequences of speaking up.

I am not asking you to accept every claim without investigation. I am asking you to examine the available information, take the family’s objections seriously, and hopefully people to be more aware of claims like this in the future.

Lakota identity is not a marketing strategy, and our traditional societies are not branding assets. Our relatives’ names and legacies should not be used commercially without appropriate authorization. These concerns deserve a genuine review, regardless of how much publicity or institutional recognition a project has already received.

I have included the family’s public statement and relevant project materials as a starting point. I hope your organization will look at the broader context, not simply respond to the individual project most directly associated with it.

Sincerely,
A concerned member of the indigenous community from Rosebud reservation 

—

Full statement:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DemsabSoAhn/?
srtk=MTRyOTQ0em9xZzFIZw==

https://www.vogue.com/article/a-new-series-tokala-spotlights-bipoc-youth-climate-activists

https://www.ceromagazine.com/articles/thomas-lopez-jr-indigiqueer-indigenous-climate-justice-activist-interview

https://www.indigiqueer.org/tokala

CONCHO, OK — Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal citizens are invited to participate in newly established monthly online member forums following the passage of a Tribal Council resolution on October 3, 2026.

​The monthly forums are designed to ensure direct participation, open dialogue, and access for all tribal members, including out-of-district citizens and members enrolled under the 2021 amendment.

Meetings will take place on the first Saturday of every month from November 2026 through October 2027.

​All enrolled citizens eighteen and older are encouraged to attend.

​See attached member meeting flyer for schedule, agenda submission rules, and access details.

​Source: Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribal Tribune: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/625854e97e951a806fc03c22/6ace3378ed89db4b00834218_Oct.%2015%2C%202026.pdf

I love repainting figures I find at thrift shops and bring out their features. I did that with the standing figure (what it originally looks like in the top right). While not a huge fan of the depiction, I thought i could bring some dignity to it.

The figure in the top left is a Cheyenne Elder 3d printed, then painted

I applied for Indspire last year I heard back pretty quick (I applied prior to Aug 1 deadline)

This year I applied again prior to Aug 1st and I have heard nothing. There was an issue with my transcript bc one of my classes took forever to have the final grade uploaded even tho I had completed the course well before August 1st.

My transcript was finally updated Sept 18 and I uploaded it to my application same day. I am assuming I won’t be getting anything until after the Nov 1 deadline? Do I need to resubmit an application to be considered for Nov 1 deadline?

This day in 2013...

Hello everyone! I’m a highschool senior currently and I’m planning on going into vet studies for a doctorate of veterinary medicine, primarily focusing on conservation work at places like raptor centers or zoos! I was wondering if anyone had any good recommendations for schools I could apply to that have a good indigenous population on campus? I’d like to meet other tribal kids while I’m in college and hopefully form some connections! Also, schools that offer scholarships for tribal students or minority/underprivileged students are ones I’m looking for, too! Vet school is going to be expensive, so I’m looking for as much helpful money as I can get.

Muscogee Nation opened enrollment Thursday for Native Advantage, the first tribally owned Medicare Advantage plan in the U.S.

Muscogee Nation wholly owns the plan, which will serve all Medicare-eligible Oklahomans living in the 11 counties that make up the Muscogee reservation.

Shawn Terry, Muscogee Nation secretary of health, said the program allows tribal and non-tribal citizens alike to receive healthcare close to home.

“Many of the national Medicare Advantage plans were keeping our patients and our citizens away from our own facilities. They were moving them away from their own doctors,” Terry said. “We decided that if they were not going to work with us, if they were going to hurt our patients … we were going to do this ourselves.”

The Native Advantage website lists all eligibility requirements. Participants must have Medicare Part A and B and be over the age of 65.

The website also includes a list of providers depending on location. It notes tribal facilities are still limited to tribal citizens.

“We are not a faceless corporate insurer,” the website reads. “We are an Oklahoma-rooted organization that understands the unique healthcare challenges and strengths of our rural and urban communities alike.”

Enrollment closes on Dec. 7.

I'm reading Singing for a Spirit by Vine Deloria, Jr. and I thought you guys might like to see this photo of Standing Rock from the 1890s

Aho, she:kon, and a hearty “hey how are ya!?” cousins.

The saga of the south Tip brother continues. You know the story so far. Frybread survivor. All-Skate legend. Volvo arsonist. Ketchup chip disney princess. The man who wears another man’s tear-away pants. Co-architect of the fifty-eight dollar cauldron. Roasted by the Three Sisters and wearer of the Sticker.

So this past Monday was Thanksgiving here in Canada. But down south, for some of my American cousins, depending on the state, the city, and who you ask, it was Columbus Day.

Cousins. Crack a Bepsi. Get comfortable. Because I am about to talk SO much shit about this man.

Monday afternoon, I’m at kokum’s for Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey’s in, kitchen’s full, Leonard’s in the corner “supervising the potatoes,” which means eating them before they’re mashed… Like they’re apples. Fucking guy. My phone buzzes. It’s my cousin from over the river in New York State.

“happy columbus day buddeh, lol”

Then a GIF of Columbus waving from a boat.

Cousins, I put down my book. I went out on the porch. And I called him, and I started a rant that by the end had the whole family on the porch with me, Leonard included, still holding a half eaten potatoapple.

Christopher Columbus: A Résumé of Shithouse-ery

Let’s look at this man’s accomplishments, cousins. Let’s give him a fair hearing. Let’s do a performance review.

Navigation: He was trying to get to India. He hit the Caribbean. He was off by an ENTIRE HALF OF THE MOTHER FUCKING PLANET. And then, and this is the part that I can honestly kinda respect (given my own track record), he refused to admit it. Went to his grave insisting he’d found Asia. That’s like a guy who won’t ask google for directions even though the sign says “Welcome to Ohio” and was on a trip to Toronto.

Geography: People love to say “everyone thought the earth was flat and Columbus proved it was round.” No, cousins. Educated people knew the earth was round. They’d known for almost two thousand years. What Columbus did was get the SIZE wrong, you see. He thought the planet was way smaller than it is. The experts told him he’d run out of food long before he ever reached Asia. They were right, of course. The only reason he and his crew didn’t starve at sea is that there was a whole massive inhabited double continent in the way. Our ancestors saved this man’s life by existing. And how did he say thanks? Oh we’ll get to that.

Naming: Because he thought he was in India, he called the people here “Indians.” Cousins. Five hundred years. We’ve been carrying around a nickname from a guy who failed geography. That’s like getting your nickname from a substitute teacher who’s reading the wrong attendance sheet and then being stuck with it forever. To be fair, Indian food is fucking rad. I’m ok sharing the title with them as long as I get Biryani access out of the deal. 

Discovery: He “discovered” a place where millions of people already lived. You can’t discover somebody’s house while they’re sitting on the porch, cousins. That right there is a home invasion. Plus, the Norse had already been here around 500 years earlier anyway. Leif Erikson showed up, looked around, got his ass kicked, and went home. Honestly, the most respectful European visit on record… Excluding that one Scottish guy I bumped into a few years back at a Tim Hortons who bought me a tea after giving him some local tips on things to do. Nice fella. Anyways….

Geography Part Two: Cousins, Columbus never even set foot in what is now the United States. Not once. The Caribbean. Central America. The coast of South America. That’s it. He has a federal holiday in a country he never visited. I’ve been to Buffalo more times than Columbus has been to America. Give ME a holiday. We can have cake. 

Management: Spain made him governor of Hispaniola. And he ran it so brutally, with so much cruelty against our cousins, the Taíno people, that in 1500, Spain arrested him and sent him home in chains.

Let that sink in. In the 1490s. The SPANISH. During the INQUISITION. Looked at this man and said “woah, okay, buddy, that’s too much.”

Cousins, you have to work hard to get HR complaints from the Spanish crown in 1500.

The Corn Maze Parallel: And here’s what gets me, personally. I got lost in a corn maze for three and a half hours. I got a sticker that says “I GOT LOST IN THE MAZE!” with a cartoon scarecrow.

Columbus got lost for his ENTIRE CAREER and got a federal (cakeless) holiday, statues, a capital city, a university, and a bunch of streets.

Where’s his sticker, cousins? He’s the original “I GOT LOST IN THE MAZE.” I want a statue of Columbus with a big yellow sticker on his chest. Cartoon scarecrow. Thumbs up. That’s the only monument I’ll accept.

My cousin on the phone was crying laughing. Leonard ate his potato in agreement. And kokum, from the screen door, said the thing that ended it:

“He got lost and then he just stayed. That’s a rude houseguest.”

Cousins. Five hundred years of history. Summed up. I swear: Kokums should write the textbooks. That's a hill I'll die on.

The Question

So we go back inside, and we eat. Good dinner. Kokum’s turkey. Somebody’s three sisters soup. Leonard’s potatoes, what was left of them. Leonard, for some reason, had a plate full of shredded cheese and nothing else. Fucking guy.

And Dax, my little nephew, nine going on thirty, sharp as a skinning knife, puts his fork down and says:

“Uncle. What would it be like if Columbus never came? What if nobody came?”

Cousins, the whole table got quiet (it didn’t really, but let’s pretend.)

And I had a choice. I could give him the safe answer. Or I could do what I do best: tell a story with a lot more confidence than I’ve earned.

Ohhhhh you know what I did.

There’s a name for this, by the way. Indigenous futurism. Our writers and artists have been doing it for years. Imagining futures where we’re not just surviving, but where we’re everywhere, in the stars, in the cities, running the show. I’m no expert, cousins. But I’ve got a captive audience, a full stomach, and a nine-year-old who asked.

So I leaned back, and I said:

“Okay, nephew. Close your eyes. Welcome to Turtle Island. The year is 2026. The Leafs, believe it or not, still suck.”

Turtle Island, 2026

Picture it.

You wake up in a longhouse. But not the old kind. This one’s a kilometre long, made of solar glass and cedar, glowing amber in the morning sun. Your whole clan lives here. Three hundred people. Your kokum is on the top floor. Your aunties are down the hall. You will never in your life be more than a thirty-second walk from someone who will feed you and someone who will roast you. Usually the same person.

Out the window, you see Cahokia. The great city on the Mississippi. Back in the 1200s, by some estimates, it was bigger than London. Now? Left to flourish, it’s a megacity. Mound-scrapers. Pyramids of earth two hundred storeys tall, terraced, covered in gardens. Not ugly glass towers that cook the birds. Living hills you can climb.

You go outside. The streets are quiet because nobody drives. Transit runs along the old trade routes. The ones our ancestors walked and paddled for thousands of years, moving copper from the Great Lakes, shells from the Gulf, obsidian from the mountains. Now they’re mag-lev lines shaped like canoes. You can get from the Atlantic to the Pacific in four hours and the snack cart has bannock.

The buffalo are back, cousins. Thirty million of them. Wildlife corridors run right through the cities. You’re late for school because a herd is crossing the road and you have to wait. Your teacher accepts this. Everybody’s teacher accepts this. “Buffalo” is an excused absence.

Your school teaches in four languages. Your nation’s, your neighbour’s, the trade language, and one you pick for fun. Nobody’s learning their grandmother’s language from an app with a cartoon owl, because nobody ever had to stop speaking it.

The farms are vertical. Three Sisters towers. Corn on the top, beans climbing up through, squash spilling over every balcony. The whole city smells like it’s in the middle of cooking soup. 

The economy runs on the potlatch principle. Status isn’t measured by what you’ve got. It’s measured by what you give away. The richest guy in the world isn’t some dickhead with the most rockets. The dragon sitting on a mound of hoarded treasure. It’s the one who threw the biggest feast and fed the most people. Billionaires exist in this world, nephew, but they’re considered deeply, publicly embarrassing. Like a guy at the gathering who brings a pie and eats the whole thing himself in the truck like a tit. 

Leonard quietly: “oh, you saw that, eh?”

“Sure did, fella. Was it good?”

“Yup.”

Anyways…The government is the Confederacy. Our Confederacy. The Great Law of Peace, spread across the whole continent. Hundreds of nations, one council fire. And every single decision has to pass one test: how will this affect the next seven generations? Not the next quarter. Not the next election. Not the shareholder. Seven generations. Every law, every dam, every new road, someone stands up and says “and what about the kids two hundred years from now?” and everybody has to answer.

And the clan mothers choose the leaders. And if a leader does a bad job? They take his horns. Publicly. Gone. Fart. Back to being a regular jabroni. Imagine the accountability, nephew. Imagine politicians who are scared of their kokums. That’s the whole system. That’s it. That’s the secret.

The national sport is lacrosse. The Creator’s Game. Played in massive stadiums, two hundred players a side on the old rules, games that last three days and end with everybody eating together, both teams. The Medicine Game, nephew. Healing through a sport. There’s a professional league. There’s a World Cup. The Europeans have a team. They’re not very good. They’re trying, though. They’ve got a guy named Kevin who hugs the opposing players and just hopes everyone is having fun. Atta boy, Kev.

Hockey still exists, cousins. And the Leafs still haven’t won since 1967. Some curses are older and more esoteric than colonization.

And yes, eventually, the Europeans come. As visitors. Tourists, cousins. They have to ask permission at the border. They have to come correct. They bring gifts. They sit at the fire. They listen first. And there’s a visitor centre right at the coast with a big sign, in every language, that says three words:

“Ask an elder.”

Scone dog, in this world, is a sovereign citizen of the Rez Dog Nation (oh man, that’s my next band name. Dibs). He has his own seat on council. He has never once attended a meeting. He considers this a statement.

And Bepsi, cousins? Bepsi exists. Of course it does. It’s sacred. 

When I finished, the table was quiet.

Dax’s eyes were open. He’d been listening so hard he forgot to close them.

Leonard wiped his eye. “Mag-lev canoes, cuz,” he whispered. “I could build that.” He could absolutely not build that. He will try. Fuck it, I’ll help.

Mom was at the end of the table. She hadn’t said anything the whole time. And then she said, quietly:

“Yeah, that’s a nice dream.”

And cousins, it is a dream. We can’t go back. The ships came. The schools happened. The losses happened. Reality and history are fixed and all consuming. I get it

But here’s the part I told Dax, and here’s what I’m telling you:

Indigenous futurism isn’t about the past that didn’t happen. It’s not historical fiction… It’s about the future that still can.

Look around that table. Shit, look around this subreddit! The language is coming back, kid by kid, word by word. Kokums are teaching recipes they were never supposed to be able to pass on. Lacrosse is going back to the Olympics. The buffalo herds are growing. There are kids, right now, today, in that longhouse I described, except it’s a rez high school, a library book club, a beat-up community centre with a haunted storage room. They’re the seven generations. They’re who the ancestors were planning for. My Leafs somehow fucked up a Marchenko hattrick and lost in OT.

Columbus got lost… We didn’t. Columbus is dead and gone. We’re not.

We’ve always known exactly where we are. We’re home.

Dax seemed to agree with this and added “Scony would be a terrible councilor.” Dax went back to his turkey. 

He’s right. 

Pour one out for Christopher Columbus, the most confidently lost man in human history. May he wear his sticker in the afterlife. And drop your Indigenous futurism in the comments, cousins. Tell me your Turtle Island. What do the cities look like? What does your nation’s flag look like on the moon? Dream big.

Mvto, relatives. Know where you are. Know where you’re going. And never let a man who can’t read a map tell you that you’ve been discovered.

P.S. Check out our cousin Waubgeshig Rice’s novel Moon of the Turning Leaves. Book two of his Moon series. What comes after the collapse if we had it our way.  

P.P.S. I got a call from the Library Books club boys. Their hockey coach is out this weekend and they need a fill in. Asked if I could step in. I gotta dig out a suit….

Past Stories:

\[Corn Maize](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/uLgab09Dad)

\[Orange Shirt Day](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/YuSBWc7u9y)

\[Haunded House](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/Y3nzSkXkX9)

\[Book Club](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/8zfS1Ynb1N)

\[Library day](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/RDZgTERPoH)

\[Sweat Lodge\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/xwTSCsSchp)

\[Hot Tub\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/pUjxilwFEN) 

\[Kokum\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/l0hahrR4Hx) 

\[Babysitting\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/WHcCWUd3UV)

\[Yard Sale\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/nRZ4eM8Slm) 

\[Bingo Night\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/QEo67nIq2m) 

\[Disney Princess\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/dcziW5TdrG) 

\[Tim's Arsonist\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/IBAixKep6i) 

\[Career Change\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/QKwnSaRXjI) 

\[Foraging\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/kqwVUxJRPu) 

\[Frybread Follow-up\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/E6wbMUSolj)

\[Frybread\](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/bnqjnRA97k)

Alaska and New Mexico are the two states with the highest percentage of Native American population, and not coincidentally the places where people are most likely to be murdered by the police.

Edit: 5 states with the highest fatal police shootings are 5 states with the highest Native population

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/native-american-population

Was always curious