Mr. Larry Echo Hawk is the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs (formerly BIA)
Nawa. My name is Julia Good Fox (Pawnee). I am from the Kitkehahki band and am a direct descendant of Curly Chief and Buffalo Chief (William Mathews). This site’s name, Last Woman, is in reference to my being the youngest of Gertie’s eight grandchildren and the youngest of Theda’s five children.
In Palestine: Fact-finding, observing, and sharing about the Pani Nation and international self-determination movements. (Photo taken June 2008, near Haifa, Israel.)
I was born and raised in Oklahoma, and now reside in Lawrence, Kansas. I am a faculty member in the Indigenous Nations and American Indian Studies department at Haskell Indian Nations University.
Last Woman allows me to post mostly my thoughts in-progress on a few writing projects. I welcome your thoughtful commentary, your criticisms, and your experiences; these sharpen my thinking on politics, culture and society, resistance and struggle, and other subjects that I tend to write about. I think public writing is a wonderful way to craft ideas. Maintaining a blog is extra work, but I believe it makes my writing so much better and relevant. And when we do not agree on a topic, it is my hope that we still learn from each other.
So Last Woman is a collection of my draft writings and other posts of interests (i.e., Pawnee Nation). I need to say here that these writings are not affiliated with my tribe or with any university, organization, institution, or my employer.
I also need to confess here that I have an agenda. There is not anything inherently wrong or immoral with having an agenda. My agenda is a strong commitment to Tribal self-determination. As such, I cast my lot with the community-based Tribal College Movement and the Indigenous and American Indian Studies academic discipline in moving us closer to realizing the realities of nation (re)building. (I also understand that this movement requires an intelligent and well-coordinated effort from across Indian Country, and cannot be left to just one sector.)
Our tribal stories can tell us many things. For example, my tribe has a story—historical narrative—about a time when our people were suffering due to the lack of buffalo and all that they provided us. A young man was then given a vision on how to bring the buffalo back to The People. The People listened, acted accordingly, and the buffalo returned and our tribe again thrived.
This narrative continues to be relevant today. We are living in a time, now, when Tribal Nations are suffering from a famine of our respective, Indigenous-based philosophies, practices, and cultures as a result of colonization and the legacies of genocide. However, we also are witnessing Young People who are sharing with our tribes their visions of how to end this famine. Tribal colleges and universities are playing a role in these visions.
(Willow Jack, a tribal college student (Haskell) at the time the photo was taken, now in graduate school. Yea Willow! Photo taken by R. Gwen/LJW/Oct. 2006)
To learn more about the power and potential of tribal colleges, visit the Pawnee Nation College website. You also can read about tribal colleges at the American Indian College Fund and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium webpages.
Support our Self-Determination: Support the Tribal College Movement.
(Theories of Decolonization class meets at Eastside People's Market, Fall 2008 semester. On this evening, we are discussing F. Fanon. Haskell U, Lawrence, KS. Photo taken by S. Baker)
enjoying a relaxing evening (photo taken by Natasha, July 2009)
Although Last Woman is mainly a place for me to test out ideas, please feel free to use these entries in your work. Except where otherwise noted, Last Woman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Please do not repost writings, articles, and images that are neither written nor taken by J. Good Fox.
Lastly: solidarity, mutual assistance, and base-building are important processes for our communities. This photo was taken at a checkpoint in Ramallah, Occupied West Bank, Palestine. I tagged the apartheid wall with “Pani Nation Solidarity.” June 2008.
