INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

In this month’s Canyon Commentary, author Scott Thybony takes us into the remote Lukachukai Mountains on the Navajo Nation to explore a 1,500-year-old ruin with rock art that features hundreds of mysterious painted handprints.

For decades, Joy Harjo has challenged what it means to be a poet. The multifaceted author, musician and playwright was the first Indigenous person to serve as U.S. poet laureate.

The Navajo Nation Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on the federal government to formally recognize tribal identification and the political status of its members.

Many Navajo Nation citizens are anxious following the recent detainment of a tribal member near Peoria by ICE agents. KNAU spoke to Navajo Speaker Crystalyne Curley about how the escalation of federal immigration enforcement is impacting tribal members.

Mammoth bones found on the Colorado Plateau may shift the timeline of when humans first reached the Americas. Archaeologists are debating what the discovery means.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety, which reviews and distributes all statewide alerts for missing people, says the new Turquoise Alert system is working as intended.

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Apache Stronghold to halt a massive copper mining project at Oak Flat in central Arizona.

Five decades ago, a young Hopi underwent a grueling journey as part of a traditional initiation ceremony near the winter solstice. He recently recalled the experience to author Scott Thybony, and talked about how the test of his endurance and commitment to the Hopi way taught him humility.

President Joe Biden declared the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument in Pennsylvania on Monday. It acknowledges the decades of trauma inflicted on tribal communities throughout the U.S. and in Arizona, which had the second-highest number of the schools in the nation.

In this month's Canyon Commentary, author Scott Thybony sets out to find a spring, which is also the location of Arizona's oldest known Spanish inscription along an ancient trail from Hopi to Zuni.