Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America

by Matika Wilbur

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes.

“This book is too important to miss. It is a vast, sprawling look at who we are as Indigenous people in these United States.”—Tommy Orange (Cheyenne and Arapaho), author of There There

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal

In 2012, Matika Wilbur sold everything in her Seattle apartment and set out on a Kickstarter-funded pursuit to visit, engage, and photograph people from what were then the 562 federally recognized Native American Tribal Nations. Over the next decade, she traveled six hundred thousand miles across fifty states—from Seminole country (now known as the Everglades) to Inuit territory (now known as the Bering Sea)—to meet, interview, and photograph hundreds of Indigenous people. The body of work Wilbur created serves to counteract the one-dimensional and archaic stereotypes of Native people in mainstream media and offers justice to the richness, diversity, and lived experiences of Indian Country.

The culmination of this decade-long art and storytelling endeavor, Project 562 is a peerless, sweeping, and moving love letter to Indigenous Americans, containing hundreds of stunning portraits and compelling personal narratives of contemporary Native people—all photographed in clothing, poses, and locations of their choosing. Their narratives touch on personal and cultural identity as well as issues of media representation, sovereignty, faith, family, the protection of sacred sites, subsistence living, traditional knowledge-keeping, land stewardship, language preservation, advocacy, education, the arts, and more.

A vital contribution from an incomparable artist, Project 562 inspires, educates, and truly changes the way we see Native America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781984859525
Publisher:	Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
Publication date:	04/25/2023
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	85,472
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Matika Wilbur is a critically acclaimed social documentarian and photographer from the Swinomish and Tulalip peoples of coastal Washington. Project 562, a crowd-funded initiative to visit, engage, and photograph people from over 562 sovereign Tribal Nations in North America, is her fourth major creative venture elevating Native American identity and culture. She co-hosts the All My Relations podcast with Dr. Adrienne Keene as a platform that invites guests to delve into subjects facing Native peoples today and explore the connections between land, non-human relatives, and one another. She has offered over 300 keynotes at such places as Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Google, TED Talks, the National Education Association, and National Geographic Explorer, and is a regular contributor to the New York Times.

Read an Excerpt

Project Mauna A Wākea

This is a story about land, culture, and connection to place—this is the story to protect Mauna a Wākea on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian people) have been fighting to stop the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) since 2009, and in the summer of 2019, a resistance camp was established at Pu‘u Huluhulu. Kia‘i (protectors) slept in a parking lot over a lava field at the bottom of the access road to the summit of Mauna Kea for nearly a year to stop construction of what would be the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere.

Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano and is the tallest mountain on Earth from the seafloor to its summit. Its abbreviated name (which means “white mountain”) is short for Mauna a Wākea, the mountain of the Hawaiian deity Wākea. For Kānaka Maoli, it is considered the most sacred place, fundamental in their creation story and time-honored in their traditions. The destruction and ongoing desecration from tourism and the existing thirteen telescopes on Mauna Kea have been devastating to the mountain’s fragile and unique ecosystem and are blatantly disrespectful to Kānaka cultural beliefs.

Our All My Relations podcast team flew to Hawai‘i in January of 2020 to meet with the kūpuna (elders), activists, and scholars behind the movement. When we arrived, it was sunny and warm; the air smelledgood and it quenched our sun-thirsty, Pacific Northwest souls. But when we ascended the Mauna the weather changed. It was cold. The mist was thick. We arrived to Pu‘u Huluhulu to see kia‘i doing evening protocol in jackets and bare feet. I got this sudden, familiar feeling that I was in a sacred place, and that I needed to respectfully follow the protocol as a guest in this country (which is how we should all act when visiting Hawai‘i, since all non-Kānaka are guests there). While at Pu‘u Huluhulu, we were able to visit the kūpuna tent and talk story. There we met Dr. Noe Noe Wong-Wilson, a professor, educator, cultural practitioner and Native rights activist. We sat with Auntie Noe Noe in a minivan on the Mauna, as the rain poured down on us. She introduced us to the fundamental and powerful reason for the movement. “ ‘Āina, land, is an inseparable part of our identity as Hawaiians,” Auntie Noe Noe said. “And along with the land comes spirituality because these things, these inanimate things that cannot be produced by a human, are what we call the Gods. So, we revere the very rocks we walk on, the very rocks that you’re standing on. To see it abused in this way is painful to the soul. It’s painful to our Native soul. That’s why we stand.”

In our first moments on the Mauna, we were invited to participate in the evening protocol led by Lanakila Mangauil, a fierce Hawaiian cultural practitioner, hula teacher, and activist. “I am a strong advocate for the protection and cultivation of Hawaiian culture and the rights of Indigenous peoples as directly connected to the rights, protection, and restoration of the environment,” Lanakila told us. His passion fueled the movement to protect Mauna Kea—he led protests, engaged the public via social media, taught cultural classes, and even put his body on the frontline to stop construction. Because of his cultural knowledge and his loquacious nature, Lanakila elaborated on the significance of the Mauna.

“It was the first child born of Papahānaumoku and Wākea, which is the Earth Mother and the Sky Father. Then the siblings, the younger siblings of the islands themselves, continued to emerge forth. And eventually also the sibling who is HoʻohŌkūkalani the Star Mother, she is the next, who then birthed the Kanaka, the human, and was brought here to the Earth. And so, we see the mountain as the eldest of all of our siblings. As the hiapo, or the eldest child, it does all this work to gather the nutrients and to feed them to all of us younger siblings. And we maintain that relationship.

It’s also very sacred to us as being one of the highest points in all of Oceania. It is a burial ground, especially for our high chiefs, high priests, and particular families that are related to the deities of this mountain. For generations upon generations, the bones of ancestors are laid to rest on this mountain. It is a tradition of our people too that we don’t mark graves. They are hidden away. The fact that you look and you don’t see stone heads or markers doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. It is a tradition to hide the bones. So there is a burial ground to elevate our ancestors into the heavens.

It is also very symbolic for us because we see the mountain also as a piko, which is an umbilical. The mountain is the umbilical of this honua [planet] that stretches into oli ka lani, the black of space is the placenta. And the imagery of that is the mountain channels all this mana [spiritual life force] of the universe to come down through it and it shares it for the growing embryo which is this Earth.

”Lanakila paints a strong picture—the Mauna is the piko and the telescopes are cancers. In fact, Kānaka Maoli seldom summit the Mauna since it is a realm reserved for the Gods. The sacrality of the mountain is equally tied to its cultural, religious, and scientific environmental value, as Lanakila explained: “Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa are both registered ice mountains. Within the core of the mountains is permafrost and that’s what helps hold the lake up there and what also has been, from the Ice Age, what gives us these artesian wells that permeate down.” It’s well known that the fresh water supply on the Big Island is dependent on the Mauna’s naturally occurring water cycle, in which the atmosphere, ocean, land, and sun are all working together to replenish the island’s fresh water.

The construction and presence of the telescopes have desecrated the mountain and blatantly disrespected what Kānaka Maoli hold dear. Environmental Impact Statements determined that prior construction sites were destructive to its ecosystem, and although Mauna Kea is legally classified as conservation land, it continues to be denied protection. Hawaiian development and the construction of the roads to access the existing telescopes has led to upward of a thousand tourists visiting Mauna Kea every day. Intrinsically tied to the movement to protect Mauna Kea is Kānaka Maoli sovereignty, nationhood, and identity—undermining and disrespecting the Mauna is equivalent to undermining and disrespecting the Kānaka Maoli. The movement to protect the sacred is just as Lanakila said: “Without the land, we have no culture. Our culture cannot exist without these places.”

Editorial Reviews

This book is too important to miss. It is a vast, sprawling look at who we are as Indigenous people in these United States. Here is how we talk, what we talk about, and what stories people need to hear from us. It spans a land and its people unfathomably older than the country it finds itself a part of. This book is straight from the mouths of this land’s original people, through the lens and artistry of a vital photographer and storyteller. Open this book to any page and you will find life, a story, and the brilliance and beauty of our people alongside our pain and humor. Our diversity is on full display in these pages. Matika Wilbur has gifted us this vision, this project, this jewel of a book.”—Tommy Orange, author of There There

From the Publisher

★ 06/09/2023

In 2012, social documentarian and photographer Wilbur initiated this project to photograph people from all 562 federally recognized Tribal Nations in North America. (Since then, the number of federally recognized Tribes has grown to 574. Wilbur also went beyond the original 562 by visiting state-recognized Tribes, urban Indians, international Tribes, and Tribes who have not been recognized by Congress.) The results of Wilbur's travels across Turtle Island (an Indigenous name for North America) are beautifully presented here as portraits of Indigenous people, alongside interviews. There are also spotlight essays on topics such as Standing Rock and the annual Canoe Journey in the Coast Salish Sea. In Wilbur's interviews, focusing on Indigenous identity, interview subjects address being able to more fully and accurately express themselves in the language of their Tribe and language-learning as a key aspect of understanding their Tribe. Returning to the lands of one's Tribe (even if only for a visit) is also described as essential; notably, many of the photographs depict the subjects outside, often in their ancestral lands. The result is a unique portrait of Indigeneity in North America. VERDICT An essential purchase for all libraries; as the people and places pictured here span Turtle Island, the book will be relevant to patrons everywhere.—Sarah Wolberg

Library Journal

★ 2023-05-23
Superb collection of images of Indigenous peoples throughout the U.S.

Wilbur, a Swinomish and Tulalip photographer, set out with the aim of developing “a documentary project dedicated to changing the way people see Native America.” She doesn’t present images of all of the 562 federally recognized tribes that give her collection its name, but it’s not for want of trying. Featuring hundreds of portraits, this book represents years of travel, conversations, and quiet negotiations, as when Wilbur ventured into the depths of the Grand Canyon to speak with the Havasupai people who live there and was put off for three days until she presented a gift of fry bread to a previously reluctant interlocutor. “We just remain within our people, hidden inside the Earth, inside the canyon,” said her interviewee. “Maybe we can find peace and quiet where we live.” Whether old or young, the people the author portrays speak to the difficult realities of Native life. Many have experienced the devastating effects of deracination imposed from the outside, with the suppression of Indigenous languages and cultural norms. “I’m the only one here that can speak the language…I talk to myself,” notes one Ojibwe elder. Sometimes it’s kind of funny—I don’t want them Crees to hear me talk to myself. They may send me out to the nut house!” Apart from portraying a vast array of individual people, Wilbur punctuates her portfolio with studies of events and themes; especially moving and memorable is her inside view of the water protectors of the Standing Rock Sioux. Some of the author’s subjects are well known, including the famed poet/musician Joy Harjo and the late John Trudell, and some are unknown but making their marks on the world nonetheless. All, Wilbur amply shows, take great pride in being Native even as they battle prejudice, sometimes on many fronts.

Essential for readers interested in modern Native American lives and traditions.

Kirkus Reviews