LEAH NELSON BRINGS HER DAUGHTER INTO THE WOODS FOR THE FIRST TIME


As a young descendant of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Nizhóní Irvine is allowed in the tribes’ woods without a permit. However, as she is not enrolled in the tribe, after she turns 18 years old Nizhóní will need a permit each time she wishes to access the same outdoor recreational spaces without her father. Her mother, Leah Nelson, describes the relationship between Native culture and access to tribal land: “I didn’t get to experience my culture


because I did not live on my Navajo reservation. There are ceremonies I can’t learn because I wasn’t raised there.” She says she wants her daughter to have that connection. “We live here, and it’s important to me that she participates in the culture here so she knows where she comes from and who she is. Everything we do is outside because I want to show her our home.”


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 27


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