End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock. Directed by Shannon Kring. Red Queen Media, 2021. 87 minutes.

Mankiller. Directed by Valerie Red-Horse Mohl. Vision Maker Media, 2017. 74 minutes.

Native American women have played significant roles in Indigenous peoples’ activist movements in recent years, from political leadership, as in the case of Wilma Mankiller (1945-2010), who was the former Chief of the Cherokee nation from 1985 to 1995, to environmental stewardship as Water Protectors at the DAPL (Dakota Pipeline) protest on the Pine Ridge Standing Rock Reservation in 2016.1 Documentary films Mankiller and End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock highlight Indigenous women’s distinct approaches to resistance work. These films explore various forms of activism, including Native American political advocacy, social justice policy work, community development, protection of Indigenous culture, and natural resource management. This activism is shaped by both collective and individual perspectives.

The two films are deeply grounded in Native American collective values, traditions, and identity in relation to designing models of governing and sustainable growth. Mankiller follows the personal life story, political awakening, and rise to power of Wilma Mankiller. She sets an inspirational example as the first woman Chief of the Cherokee Nation and implements scalable, realistic solutions for economic and social development. Her approach is rooted in consultation and self-determination, addressing the challenges of institutionalized poverty and the limited resources available in Cherokee Nation territory. Meanwhile, End of the Line spotlights collective commitment and grassroots resistance work by Native American women. The latter film is primarily focused on Native opposition to the oil pipeline that was rerouted, without consultation, by government and corporate interests onto Pine Ridge Reservation lands, and which threatened to pollute the Missouri River near the Lakota community as well as further south beyond the reservation lands.

As an educational toolkit, both films expose the key economic, environmental, political, legal, personal, and spiritual challenges facing Native Americans since colonization, often referred to as the Indian Problem. We witness and learn about the historical malfeasance of the US government in violating Native rights and sovereignty. This includes desecrating sacred burial grounds, perpetuating environmental, health, and security threats on the reservation, and egregious breaches of treaty agreements originally made between Native Americans and the US government. Such violations are especially clear in End of the Line as it traces the Lakota protest of the DAPL pipeline, which runs through South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation territory. Mankiller highlights the impact of these larger systemic forces in the life of its namesake Wilma Mankiller (who jokingly comments on the power carried in her last name) and on her Native community. Experiences, unique to her though common for many Indigenous people, such as overcoming the adverse repercussions of a misleading government relocation program to California from Oklahoma in her youth and later participating in the Alcatraz occupation movement, eventually motivated her to resettle in her birth home of Tahlequah. Reestablishing connections to the land and reservation, she was elected to positions of power with mentors and defenders guiding her path.

Throughout, Mankiller notes the influence of her Native community values and centuries of Indigenous people’s resilience as fundamental in shaping her own story and identity. Dealing with and overcoming the traumatic policies (such as forced relocation, boarding school abuse, and internment), which were implemented to force integration into settler society and erase Native identity and community, are prominent as well. The generational trauma generated by these myriad government policies designed to eviscerate or assimilate the Native Americans is reflected in the personal life stories of Mankiller and the women featured in End of the Line. Women are the axis of preservation and protection of their Native ways and lands. Given their central roles, the films unmask the issues faced by Native women change agents who focus on macro and micro sociopolitical and economic solutions. Simultaneously, we see the ramifications of such resistance leadership on their personal lives.

Beyond the activism depicted, the ineluctable grounding in Native tradition and spiritual practice is a common thread tying the activists to their cultural history, identity, community, and land. Therefore, these films paint portraits of the role of contemporary Native women leaders, helping students comprehend the complex web of issues confronting Indigenous Nations and how these agents of change act. The films offer reflection on difficult issues such as surpassing structural barriers, traversing political, economic, and physical discrimination, and addressing sexism. They emphasize the importance of social responsibility in protecting tribal concerns regarding identity, family, health, and nature. Additionally, these films raise awareness of the deleterious effects of environmental megaprojects. Finally, and most notably in a patriarchal world, the power of matrilineal agency is invoked.

1 Liza Piper reviews two films about protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in this special feature: Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock and We Are Unarmed, and Laura M. DeVos reviews Without a Whisper and Warrior Women, two films about Indigenous women’s leadership, in issue 13.1.

Isabel Dulfano is a professor of Latin American/Peninsular literature, gender, and cultural studies in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Utah. Her books include: Woman as Witness: Essays on Testimonial Literature by Latin American Women (coedited with Linda S. Maier, 2004); Walking on Our Sacred Path: Indigenous American Women Affirming Identity and Activism (2022); Indigenous Feminist Narratives I/We: Wo(man) of an(Other) Way (2015). She has published interviews with contemporary Indigenous women in Cultural Survival and other journals and related articles on autoethnography by Indigenous women, intersectionality of race, ethnicity, activism, and gender studies. Her diverse publications touch on pedagogical resources for the Latin American Studies classroom on Indigeneity, specifically Teaching El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (MLA 2022); translation of theorist Silvia Rivera Cuscicanqui; “Anzaldúa: Authentic Leadership and Indigenous Feminism in XXIst Century”; “Knowing the Other/Other Ways of Knowing: Indigenous Feminism, Testimonial, and Anti-globalization Street Discourse”; “Heteroglossia and Indigenous Feminist Writing and Theory.” She encourages her students to research library archival holdings by Native Americans, such as those she examined by Winona La Duke (U of Oregon Eugene), Honorable Donna Loring (University of New England), and Rebecca Adamson (Smith College).