Suzan Shown Harjo has helped shape current ideas about cultural representation and respect.

An NMAI fellow uses the senses to show how dolls can make and preserve memories.

Historians honor Osage sisters who leaped into ballet history.

This exhibition celebrates more than a half century of Shelley Niro’s paintings, photographs, mixed-media works, and films.

The Kiowa Women Warriors are the first all-women Kiowa color guard-and the first to wear feathered war bonnets, a tradition long reserved for men.

Oneida siblings are taking the professional cycling world by storm.

An NMAI exhibition features the candid art of Six Nations Kanyen’kehá:ka (Mohawk) artist, photographer and filmmaker Shelley Niro—works that shine a harsh spotlight on society yet provide a healing outlet for her people.

A Hopi pottery maker discovers her grandmother’s pot and inspiration in the NMAI’s Cultural Resources Center.

Celebrate the talented Indigenous women from FX's hit television series Reservation Dogs, in a conversation with one of the female writers/directors and the actresses who play the comedic and sassy aunties.

Learn how young Indigenous women are forging their own paths in the tech world and creating a more inclusive environment. Program in English with English and Spanish captions. | Programa en inglés con subtítulos en inglés y español.

Shinnecock farmers are reviving kelp-growing traditions to restore a Long Island bay.

The artists featured in the museum’s online exhibition Ancestors Know Who We Are gathered for a discussion about Black-Native identity and its expression through art.

Donna Beaver’s Tlingit and Tsimshian cultures have inspired her powerful poems and imagery.

Jennie Ross Cobb, the first known Native American female photographer, captured some of the earliest images of life in a Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory.

Sičáŋǧu Lakota artist Dyani White Hawk’s screen prints honor the strength, leadership and care-taking roles of Native women and veterans.

Heidi McKinnon set up shop to support and share the beautiful, handmade works of Indigenous artisans.

Aymara photographer Sara Aliaga Ticona captures the essence of Bolivian women in her stunning images.

Images in the Smithsonian archives of Zitkala-Ša show how this accomplished Yankton Sioux writer, violinist, composer and advocate for Indigenous rights and women’s suffrage lived in two very different cultures.

Chavez maintains her cultural and communal ties while working in Washington DC.

This award-winning Yup’ik meta choreographer doesn’t simply break the conventions of contemporary dance; she ignores them.

Mitchelene BigMan founded Native American Women Warriors (NAWW), recognized as the United States' first organized all-female Native color guard.

Acclaimed artists Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish/Cree/Shoshone) and Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee) discuss their work, their distinguished careers, and their thoughts on the current state of Native American contemporary art.

A conversation with two young Native women who are currently working at local and state levels to make change.

In 2021, Deb Haaland (Laguna and Jemez Pueblos) was confirmed as the first Native American Secretary of the Interior.

Learn how tribal members are fighting obesity in Indian Country.

Native friends from across the United States and Canada share their thoughts on Mother’s Day.

Chief Lakota talks about the women in her family who have inspired her and the people for whom she serves.

From a Dance Performance on the Residential School Experience to a Symposium Celebrating Native Women's Art, Women's History Month Matters at the National Museum of the American Indian.

Women have created the majority of Native art, but their individual creativity and influence has often been ignored by the art world. The exhibition Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists could help change that.

Influential policy advocate, writer, curator, and 2014 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee) is recognized for a lifetime of achievement.

Suzan Shown Harjo helped achieve the passage of the federal acts that affirmed American Indians' religious freedom, established the National Museum of the American Indian, and required federally funded institutions to repatriate cultural items and human remains.

Oglala Lakota jewelry artists Kevin and Valerie Pourier create a belt that honors the resurgence of women power.

A buffalo horn belt created by Lakota artists Kevin and Valerie Pourier honors the strength and perseverance of women activists.

Designer Norma Baker–Flying Horse (enrolled citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation) grew up loving toy high heels and secondhand accessories. This year, Paris Fashion Week featured her work.

This symposium draws attention to the pervasive issue of violence against Native women, who suffer disproportionately high levels of rape, domestic violence, and attacks.

The music and poetry of Queen Liliʻuokalani are honored as part of Women’s History Month and the Smithsonian’s Year of Music.

Artist Jaime Black (Métis) calls attention to the crisis of violence affecting Native American women through her installation “The REDress Project.”

The REDress installations have provided families of the missing and murdered as well as survivors of violence a place to grieve and heal together.

Trajectory of the remarkable and still partly secret career of Mary Golda Ross (Cherokee), the first Native aerospace engineer and member of the top-secret team planning the early years of space exploration.

Suzan Shown Harjo has helped shape current ideas about cultural representation and respect.

The story of Cora Elm (Wisconsin Oneida) and Edith Anderson (Grand River Mohawk), veterans of the Nurse Corps of the Army Medical Department in France during 1918.

Designer, artist, activist, and organizer Jordan Cocker discusses her culture.

Four Intuit women work to help museums conserve Inuit collections and to help Inuit women heal from the deep-rooted scars left from attending Indian Residential Schools.

A multidisciplinary artist with roots in Algonquin, Quebecois, and French culture discusses her background, artists she admires, the challenges contemporary Native artists face, and the hopes she and her colleagues have for their art.

Five remarkable filmmakers discuss their work, motivations, and future plans.

A Native American activist, social worker, and community developer, Wilma Pearl Mankiller was the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Autumn White Eyes (enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, Turtle Mountain Anishinaabe, Northern Cheyenne, and Pawnee descent) sees poetry and spoken word as forms of oral tradition and storytelling.

The broad strokes of Pocahontas’s biography are well known—unusually so for a 17th-century Indigenous woman—yet her life has long been shrouded by misunderstandings and misinformation. The conference “Pocahontas and After,” organized by the University of London and the British Library, sought a deeper understanding of Pocahontas’s life and the lasting impact of the clash of empires that took place in the heart of the Powhatan Confederacy during the 17th-century.

The career and inspirations of award-winning writer Louise Erdrich, from the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Band of Indians

The crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, and the Sisters in Spirit campaign

An overwhelming percentage of the ancient and historic American Indian art in museums, both across the United States and abroad, was produced by women.

Seminole/Apache artist Pena Bonita's art attracts fans across the generations.

The Zuni Olla Maidens are known for the Pottery Dance, in which they move in carefully choreographed steps with delicate painted pottery jars balanced on their heads.

In celebrating the work of Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee), the symposium and exhibition offer a fresh perspective on American art.

The role of Six Nations women in the War of 1812

The Role of Women in the Preservation of Indigenous Culture and Language

In 1614, Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indians, married planter John Rolfe; but tribal oral tradition speaks of Pocahontas's first marriage to an Indian warrior named Kocoum.

Elouise Cobell holds the federal government accountable for mismanagement of billions in Indian Trust Funds.

Buffy Sainte-Marie reflects on the history and power of protest songs.

Kateri Tekakwitha, "Lily of the Mohawks," had a profound impact on the People of the Flint.