Creative Work

Greg Sarris has been involved in a number of creative projects from many different disciplines. Use the links below to navigate to the section you wish to view.

Articles



What’s Missing in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated film, begins with Osage men somberly performing a traditional pipe ceremony. It cuts to a slow-motion scene of tribal members exuberantly dancing in a field, crude oil gushing around them. Get it? Indians are sacred, ancient in their care and devotion to the natural world. Suddenly, though, they will be challenged by settler wealth and greed.

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The Last Woman from Petaluma

Petaluma, a thriving community of at least 500 individuals, was a major village of the Lekatuit Nation, whose territory included Petaluma Valley and extended north and west to Potaawa · yowa, or Chalk Ground, another large Lekatuit village, once located near the present town of Freestone.

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Maria Evangeliste

Her name was Maria, which was what the priest at St. Rose Church called all of the Indian girls, even this girl Maria Evangeliste, who ironed his vestments and each Sunday played the violin so beautifully as the communicants marched to the altar to receive the sacraments that Jesus was said to smile down from the rafters at the dispensation of his body and blood.

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To Protect a Recreated Native Village, California Firefighters Fought Fire With Fire

A slow, careful burn insulated Kule Loklo against a fearsome wildfire.

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The Charmstones of Tolay Lake

A relative told me that when she saw Tom’s Smith’s charmstone, she was temporarily blinded and felt instantly faint-its power was that overwhelming. The charmstone, an oblong, smoothly carved rock figure, about an inch and a half in length, was loosed from Tom Smith’s “doctoring kit,” which had been stored in a drawer at UC Berkeley’s Lowie Museum for decades following his death in 1934.

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Against the Odds, Stanford Magazine 2013

In discovering his own identity, Greg Sarris helped a scattered Indian tribe reassert theirs.

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