Consider making a donation to NARF this holiday season and support our work to protect sacred places and Native American peoples.
Traditional knowledge, culture, health, and spirituality are so interconnected with Native American sacred places. NARF has a long history protecting sacred places and supporting solutions grounded in Indigenous thinking. This Native American Heritage month and through the end of the year, we will highlight the ongoing work to protect sacred places.
How can access to sacred places relieve the intense loss and grieving Indigenous communities continue to face today?
Myra Parker (Mandan/Hidatsa) delineates the complex causes of why Indigenous communities need to heal and discusses how accessing sacred places can help Tribal Nations attain better public health. Cultural identity loss after land dispossession, genocide, and ongoing ecological harm create intergenerational and personal trauma that each person in a Native community needs to heal, healing that requires access to sacred places.
Myra shares an example case study of the Mandan and Hidatsa peoples, who must rebuild their societies after losing both the buffalo and their agricultural land base, two critical organizers of their civilizations. So much healing needs to happen in communities across Native America! Myra shared her ideas at the Sacred Places and Public Health think tank convened by NARF and the John Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health.
