melindajanemyersphotography:

Sneak Peak from my shoot with sam and frank today 

Hoop dancer Samsoche Sampson, Seneca.

Photographed by Melinda Jane Myers 

Little Victory

by Francesca Thompson

The commodity cheese was gone. Everything else in the fridge was untouched. Even the beer was where it had been the day before, not a can missing from the case. But gone was the cheese, and there were no tacos without commodity cheese. Brave Horse inspected the linoleum floor around the fridge for orange cheese smudges, pretending to hold a magnifying glass like Sherlock Holmes. He found nothing. Brave Horse stroked his bare chin in thought. His mother, Falling Woman, started the deep fryer anyway and made the dough for her frybread, confident that the cheese would turn up. If you personify commodity cheese enough, it gets up and walks off, she said, but it always returns. His father, Eagle Runner, was already turning relatives and townies away, telling them there would be no taco sale today. No cheeseless tacos. Too nontraditional. Falling Woman did not hear this. Brave Horse slid his hand over the kitchen counter, feeling for clues. He lifted up a rusty can opener. The commodity cheese was not there. He peered into the coffee urn. Nor was it there.

Brave Horse heard sniffling noises coming from his uncle’s room down the hall. He sidestepped the piles of dirty laundry, a purple Vikings jersey, and an empty two-liter of Diet Pepsi, then entered the room at the end of the hall. Brave Horse’s uncle, Little Victory, sat on the edge of his bed, staring down at the block of commodity cheese in his brown hands. His eyes were thick with cataracts, and looking into them always made Brave Horse feel as though he was falling into a white abyss. Whenever he looked into his uncle’s eyes he saw corn pollen and enriched bleached flour.

Uncle, said Brave Horse. Uncle, we need the cheese.

Custer died so you could have this commodity cheese, said Little Victory.

Wopila tanka, said Brave Horse, and took the cheese from his uncle’s hands.

Falling Woman smiled when she saw Brave Horse with the cheese. I knew it, she said. Eagle Runner called back all the people he had turned away. Selling tacos that day they earned $119, or €90, or three basket’s worth of porcupine quills.

So you found Sweetgrass Magazine. Alright. Awesome. Great. So what is Sweetgrass Magazine?

SGM (I can use acronyms, right? Is that a cool thing to do?) is a zine project that supports Native American art, writing, media – Native everything, really. It’s run by a few cool artists from Chicago who have connections to the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota. We have backgrounds in photography, graphic design and creative writing. We love and support everything Native, because, gosh darnit, there simply aren’t enough people who do. And by Native everything we mean art and media that really gets to the heart of Native issues (contemporary and historical). What we won’t be doing is posting photos of “Navajo print” cardigans from Urban Outfitters, or hipsters wearing fringe and war bonnets. That’s just not our thing.

So how can you get involved with SGM? It’s simple, really—just send us your Native-related art. And we’re pretty flexible with the term “art”. As long as it’s creative and can get onto the internet in some way, shape or form, it counts (though we are looking into creating a print version, but apparently printing costs money and in case you didn’t know, we artists aren’t exactly rolling in cash). Graphic art, fine art, body art, photography, poetry, fiction, essays, music, video: all of this is fair game. We want Native art that is meaningful to culture or tradition or to you as a Native (or informed non-Native) person. We have a special connection with the Lakota Sioux from Cheyenne River, but we are an intertribal initiative, so Apache, Spokane, Seminole, Ute, Lummi, Lakota—we want it all. And bonus points if it makes us laugh, cry, punch the air, or shout in awe.

So send it in, sweetgrassmagazine@gmail.com. Our first issue will be published January 2012. Add us to your radar. And tell your friends.

From your friends at Sweetgrass Magazine, Mitakuye Oyas’in.

Francesca Thompson (writer)

Melinda Jane Myers (photographer)

Margo Yoon (graphic designer)

Lakota Medicine Wheel ~ Melanie Myhre