Julie Buffalohead

Resurrection

Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma artist Julie Buffalohead uses animals to explore Native identity and narratives. In Resurrection, she separates these characters by using different Ponca patterns, placing them into two worlds: the underground, an allusion to Mississippian serpent effigy mounds, and the overarching tree, a representation of the present. The snakes illustrate the buried and forcibly erased memories of Native life, while trickster coyotes attempt to weave them back into the branches above. A raccoon stands in between, holding a red, white, and blue popsicle as a pointed symbol of the United States.

Resurrection specifically examines the systemic eradication and burial of Native cultural and linguistic practices in boarding schools, but despite the presence of the raccoon, the snakes continue to be resurrected, symbolizing the resilience of Native futurity.