美国国家公共电台 NPR 'The Force Is With Our People' Connects Indigenous Culture To A Galaxy Far Away

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The new "Star Wars" film, "The Rise Of Skywalker," continues that epic¹ storyline of endurance and rebellion. Those themes have long resonated with Native American fans in the Southwest, who say the story speaks to their own historical experiences. An exhibit by Native artists called "The Force Is With Our People" is attempting to illustrate² those connections. From member station KNAU in Flagstaff, Ariz., Ryan Heinsius reports.

RYAN HEINSIUS, BYLINE³: Duane Koyawena is piloting a custom R2D2 unit in front of the Museum of Northern Arizona. It's life-size and sounds just like the original.

DUANE KOYAWENA: When I was thinking about it, I was like, wouldn't it be cool to see an R2 that's decked out and looks like actually, like, a pottery⁴. So along with that comes the designs - and so the tans and the reddish burn marks from when they fire the pottery.

HEINSIUS: At first glance, the traditional Hopi maroon⁵ and tan patterns are a surprising look for the famous droid, but Koyawena says it makes total sense for R2.

KOYAWENA: A lot of elders, you know, our uncles or our friends always tell us in ceremony, nahongvitah, which means to give it your all or just to be strong and to persevere⁶. I feel like the "Hopi R2" kind of fits in that same line.

HEINSIUS: Koyawena is one of 25 artists from more than a dozen Southwestern tribes taking part in "The Force Is With Our People." Curator and ethnographer Tony Thibodeau got the idea for the exhibit during a trip to Indigipop X, the indigenous⁷ Comic-Con in Albuquerque, N.M.

TONY THIBODEAU: I think there's clearly some parallels between Native stories, things like the Hero Twins, a very prominent story in Navajo culture - parallels between that and "Star Wars," of course, Luke and Leia being basically Hero Twins in that story.

HEINSIUS: A glass case in the middle of the exhibit holds tiny wooden Chewbaccas carved and painted in a sparse⁸ Navajo style. Nearby stands a Storm Trooper, adorned⁹ with patterns by an Apache artist, and a comic book illustration represents R2D2 and C-3PO as Navajo Code Talkers.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Oh, cool. Oh, wow.

(LAUGHTER)

HEINSIUS: On opening night, the visitors are enchanted¹⁰ with the work, especially "Hopi R2," who's the star of the show and works the room. Both kids and adults interact with and even talk to the droid as if it's an old friend. The exhibit also bridges generations, drawing families made up of wide age ranges.

RYAN SINGER: I've been drawing "Star Wars" in my artwork for - probably since I was a little kid, probaly since the late '70s, early '80s.

HEINSIUS: That's Ryan Singer, a New Mexico-based Navajo artist prominently featured in the exhibit. He paints vivid depictions of reservation life that overlap¹¹ with the "Star Wars" universe. For him, the connections run deep.

SINGER: There's always that rebellion kind of attitude or spirit, like the little guy - people that don't have all the power, and they're getting trampled¹² over. Indigenous people can kind of feel like the - maybe the rebels fighting the Empire.

HEINSIUS: Cultural assimilation and the lasting¹³ effects of colonialism are strong in Singer's work. His painting "(De)Colonized Ewok" was inspired by the trauma¹⁴ of the forced boarding school experiences of thousands of Native Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries.

SINGER: You can use "Star Wars" metaphors¹⁵ or motifs¹⁶ to kind of reel people in to let them see what's happening or see what happened before, say, in history.

HEINSIUS: For a moment, the parallel universes are one, bringing that galaxy¹⁷ far, far away a little closer to home.

For NPR News, I'm Ryan Heinsius in Flagstaff, Ariz.