1 I first met Isabel Juarez Espinoza, one of the two founders of FOMMA, in 1997, in Mexico City, at a gathering to develop the guidelines for the first Premio Canto de América de Literatura en Lenguas Indígenas (Song of America Prize for Literature in Indigenous Languages). Since 1997 I have had both a professional and a personal (as in friendship) relationship with Isabel. At the professional level, I am presently finishing a documentary on FOMMA. At the personal level, we have visited each other, and we have several friends in Mexico in common, so there is a trust between us. She knows that I practise Native spirituality, so as soon as the inauguration date of the new space was chosen, she contacted me to do the blessing.

2 The term ‘Native American’ refers to indigenous peoples in the United States. ‘Indigenous’ refers to indigenous peoples from Mexico and Central and South America. I myself am Nimipu (Nez Percé) on my mother's side, and Tejana/Mexican indigenous on my father's side. I am comfortable using the terms interchangeably, as I do in this essay, although often when I employ ‘Native’ I do not add ‘American’.

3 Osage scholar Robert Warrior first used the term ‘indigenous intellectual sovereignty’ in his study Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), p. 122.

4 Armstrong, Ann Elizabeth, Johnson, Kelli Lyon and Wortman, William A., Performing Worlds into Being: Native American Women's Theater (Oxford, OH: Miami University Press, 2009)Google Scholar. Performing Worlds into Being brings forth the work that was presented at the third NAWPA (Native American Women Playwrights Archive) conference held in February 2007 at Miami University, in Oxford, OH. As the editors themselves say, NAWPA is a ‘living archive’ (p. iii); this collection includes critical work on Native American women's plays, a section honouring the work of Spiderwomen's Theater, transcriptions of actual plays, interviews with some of the major playwrights and a section on the impact of these plays on Native and mainstream communities. Hanay Geiogamah and Jaye Darby, eds., American Indian Performing Arts: Critical Directions (UCLA American Indian Studies Center, forthcoming early 2010). American Indian Performing Arts is an impressive collection of critical essays on contemporary performance and historical stagings; performance includes plays, dance and music (one article is on Nez Percé jazz). In this, and the Performing Worlds into Being collection, the spiritual dimension, cotidian and ceremonial, is apparent.

5 Josephy, Alvin Jr, The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971), p. 615Google Scholar. The notorious General Sherman, the one credited with the phrase ‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian’, who ordered the ruthless and merciless treatment of Indians in war and afterwards, wrote in his report of Joseph and the Nez Percé that the campaign ‘was one of the most extraordinary Indian wars of which there is any record. The Indians throughout displayed a courage and skill that elicited universal praise.’ Josephy writes that Sherman's assessment ‘confirm[ed] the public's feeling that Joseph and the Nez Perce had indeed contributed an epic to the history of American Indians’.

6 Ibid., p. 609.

7 Ibid., p. 622.

8 Gross, Lawrence W., ‘Cultural Sovereignty and Native American Hermeneutics in the Interpretation of the Sacred Stories of the Anishinaabe’, Wicazo Sa Review, 18, 2 (Fall 2003), pp. 127–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 I have taken the liberty of coining the term ‘cotidian’ in English, from the Spanish word cotidiano, which means ‘daily’, but for me seems to suggest more than simply daily routines. When I use the Anglicized word, I am suggesting more of the dynamic possibilities, the unpredictabilities and possible miracles of daily life.

10 Victor Montejo, ‘Interrogatorio de los Ancestros’, in idem, Sculpted Stones, trans. Victor Perera (Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 1995), pp. 18–19. English translation by Victor Perera: ‘Once again / you'll be our subjects, / our visionary children / who in future katunes / will no longer be humiliated. / But you still have / the dark night to conquer. / Light, then, your torches, / all together, the people, / so that your steps in unison / break today / the seal to the future.’

11 Brant, Beth, Writing as Witness: Essays and Talk (Ontario: Women's Press, 1994), p. 74Google Scholar.

12 ‘First Nations’ is a term that had its beginnings among Native peoples in Canada, and it has come into use throughout the Americas.

13 Monique Mojica and Rick Knowles, ‘The Creation Story Begins Again: Performing Transformations, Bridging Cosmologies’, in Armstrong, Johnson and Wortman, Performing Worlds into Being, pp. 2–6.

14 An actual historical figure, La Malinche is the Native woman who served as the interpreter for Hernán Cortés, the infamous ‘Conquistador’. Because she was so central to the success of the invasion, by popular accounts she is often considered by many to be the arch-villainess, the one who sold out Mexico to foreign control. Another popular interpretation of her role, in the Conchero dance tradition of Mexico, is that she was the path-opener, the one who prepared the way for the times to come. Contemporary Chicanas have risen to her defence, rendering many sympathetic representations of her, acknowledging her facility with languages, her intellectual brilliance and her utterly significant intervention in the story of the ‘Conquest’.

15 Mojica and Knowles, ‘The Creation Story Begins Again’, p. 6.

16 The sweat lodge ceremony is a purification ritual, and the way it is conducted varies according to particular Native American, or indigenous, traditions. In the United States, the lodge itself is shaped often somewhat like an igloo, covered with tarps. During the ceremony, participants sit in a circle within the lodge, while water is poured on the heated rocks that are placed in the centre of the lodge. The purification is physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

17 See note 2 above.

18 ELIAC (Writers in Indigenous Languages) is a national association of indigenous writers in Mexico.

19 From the CD Lluvia de sueños: poetas y cantantes indígenas (Mexico: Conaculta, Culturas Populares e Indígenas, 2005).

20 At the Actions of Transfer conference I was struck in a similar way by the voice of Mapuche artist Luisa Calcumil (see the performance dossier in this issue) when she sang during her performance of ‘Fei C’ Mei Aihuiñ Tuhun’ (It's Good to Look at One's Own Shadow) – what seemed to be an ancient song with all the power of the ancestors.

21 The Hemispheric Institute has a weblink, ‘About Us’, where there is an acknowledgement of support for the Centro Hemisférico/FOMMA by NYU and the Ford Foundation (http://hemi.nyu.edu/eng/about/index.shtml).

22 Mojica and Knowles, ‘The Creation Story Begins Again’, p. 6, italics in original.

23 Rose, Wendy, The Halfbreed Chronicles and Other Poems (Los Angeles: West End Press, 1985), p. 37Google Scholar.

24 I use both terms, ‘sovereignty’ and ‘autonomy’, because in the United States the discourse is about sovereignty due to the particular historical relationship(s) Native peoples have had with the US government, whereas in Mexico the term ‘autonomy’ is the one regularly used for discourses of liberation.

25 The other programme (with a focus entirely on the United States) is at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

26 See Warrior's, Robert ‘Organizing Native American and Indigenous Studies’, PMLA, 123, 5 (October 2008), pp. 1683–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 I generate the funds to pay for the theatre rental and the sound and light technicians. The students have usually performed at the Wyatt Pavilion, which is a Shakespearean-style theatre (seating 200) on the Davis campus. In winter 2008, I used the Main Theater for the first time. We have done a combination of full stage adaptations along with reader's theatre, dance, song, improvisational music and multimedia performances. Our costuming and staging are minimalist; the students wear black, with some identifying addition that represents the character they are playing. We sometimes borrow props from the Theater Department, and often our set design is accomplished with the help of wonderful graduate student artists who have donated their time, two of them being Dina Fachin (now a Ph.D.) and Alicia Siu. The performances are free and open to the public, and last for almost two hours with an intermission.

28 We do not attempt to perform full-length plays because of the brevity of the quarter system. My pedagogical approach is to allow the students a certain amount of choice and space for their own creativity as well.

29 Beth Brant, ‘This Place’, in idem, Food & Spirits (Ithaca: Firebrand Books, 1991), p. 65.

30 Brant, p. 65.

31 Translation: ‘Rebellious Dignity’. The Zapatistas say, somos la dignidad rebelde (we are the rebellious dignity).