There are 574 federally recognized indigenous tribes in the United States, and they all have their different traditions.
On January 7, Big Sky honored some of these traditions by hanging up the Montana tribal flags in the main gym and invited Native singers to sing an honor song and a flag song during halftime of the crosstown basketball game against Sentinel.
An indigenous student from the University of Montana named Brandon Omeasoo even designed shirts for both Big Sky and Sentinel Native students to sell at this game to raise money for RISE (Resilience In Something Else), which is a group that meets once every other week and works to help indigenous high school students gain a sense of culture and connection.
But before RISE was a clearly established group, a few indigenous Big Sky students, who have since graduated, went to the administration to try and make Big Sky a safer place for the school’s Native community. Principal Jennifer Courtney said the first student to do this in the time she has been working here was a student named Vegas Longtree Bearcub, who graduated from Big Sky in 2021.
“I have been at Big Sky for 12 years and it didn’t really start until a student named Vagas Bearcub was here,” Courtney said. “He was a very strong student, both academically and socially, and very active in his Native community. He was very confident in coming to us and pushing us to do better and instill a sense of safety in our BIPOC students.”
Other students who went to the administration to make Big Sky a safer place for Indigenous students were Snpaqsin Morigeau and Animikiins Stark, who both graduated in 2023.
Molly Wilson, the Class of 2027 guidance counselor, stated that if Snpaqsin and Animikiins never went to the administration, then we wouldn’t have indigenous artwork and the Salish language all over the school. These visuals were mostly the students’ doing and a result of coming to the principals for that help and want of promoting the tribes.
“If he (Stark) never created that and if it wasn’t his vision or his interpretation, then there would be different art there,” said Molly Wilson.“It’s cool that we get to support and show how we embrace our Native students in the building through those visual things.”
Paq is promoting the Salish community with the language painted in the halls and Animikiins is promoting the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) culture with his paintings in the lobby of the school.
“We have this assumption that if there’s a Native student in the building here that they’re Salish, Blackfoot, Crow, or a local Montana tribal affiliation,” Wilson said. “I’ve seen and experienced some students who have tribal affiliations outside of Montana that kinda feel like this in-between of, ‘well, I’m Native, but not the right kind of Native to be involved here.’ I think that’s why it’s so cool that we have other tribes being represented here at Big Sky.”
Even with all this representation built up at Big Sky over the years, there is still work to do to make Native students feel seen. Kianna Gibson, a senior at Big Sky, says she still struggles.
“My experiences as a Native in public school are different. A lot of people see me as white when I am Native,” Gibson said. “It sucks and it hurts, but at the end of the day I know I’m Native and of course I’m gonna support my culture, and if anyone talks bad about it, they have no right to.”
She continued.
“But I deal with it pretty well and I ignore the comments and the looks.”
Courtney said that she recognizes the need to be more inclusive at Big Sky, and said that she still aspires to be more accepting of Native culture. She says she is willing to learn more to better support students.
“We don’t do a good enough job promoting tribal students. I think that some of that is rooted in a lack of understanding of the value of the recognition of it, and that this is the tradition of what we have been teaching and this is how school has been run so we continue along these ways,” Courtney said. “But I hope to become better at promoting the culture.”
Editor’s Note: Kiizh Stark is the younger sister of Animikiins Stark, who is mentioned in this story.
