Interview wJoe Saenz and Delia DeVer of the Chiricahua Apache Nation

The transcription is about a radio program called The Equity Hour featuring guests Joe Fines and Delia DeVert from the Chiricahua Apache Nation. They discuss their history, land, and the impact of forced removal and relocation on their people. The Chiricahua Apache aim to educate and reconnect their scattered community to their traditional territory. Despite past hardships, they embrace the undeveloped wilderness around them and strive to collaborate with others to care for the land. The following program is pre-recorded. The views expressed on this program do not reflect the views of Hilo Mimbris Community Radio and belong solely to the program hosts and guests. You are listening to Hilo Mimbris Community Radio, KURU 89.1 FM, in Silver City, New Mexico, and online at KURU89.1.org. You are listening to The Equity Hour, where the political is personal, a monthly show. The Equity Hour is part of the Kindred Continuum series and airs on the first Monday of the month at 10 a.m. and is replayed the following Sunday at 4 p.m. I am your co-host, Cindy Renee Provencio. And I'm your co-host, Kit West. Today we have with us Joe Fines and Delia DeVert of the Chiricahua Apache Nation. Welcome. Hello. To begin, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and then some background about the history of the Chiricahua Apaches? My name is Joe Fines. I'm part of the Chiricahua Apache Nation Council, and I am owner-operator of Old Forest Outfitters, here locally in Outfitting Service. And I'm Delia, and I've been working with Joe in an administrative and secretarial position with both the Chiricahua Apache National Foundation and the Chiricahua Apache Nation. And then I also work as an artist doing creative work with themes around the Chiricahua Apache Nation. Well, thank you for coming on the Equity Hour. We're happy to have you. We could kind of segue into the history of the Chiricahua Apaches, if you want to explore that. I'm sure our listeners would be interested. Well, just to share regarding our history, we consider ourselves Nde, and the land that we live on, we refer to it as Ndebena. What we believe through our creation stories is that it was a land and a place that was gifted to us by the Creator. And it's our responsibility and our covenant through that agreement that we protect it, that we steward it, and that we consider it a sacred area. Our traditional homeland, our traditional territory, as I said, we consider it Ndebena. It's a huge country. It extends from what now is contemporarily recognized as the I-40 Corridor all the way down into the Sierra Madre, from eastern New Mexico, central eastern New Mexico, all the way down into Arizona. And so that's the land that we have always held. That's the land that we have always considered ourselves to be in. That is what we recognize as the land that was given to us. And from my understanding and historically, we are one of the tribes that has never gone out to conquer other territory, other land. The land that we were given is the land that we've protected and the land that we've stayed on. Yes, and maybe some of you have seen the traditional territory, the map that Joe and one of our local graphic artists designed. It will be included in the mural that's going to be installed in the spring. There's one in the Light Arts basement. Yes, and Karen's sells from there too. They're quite incredible. What is the size of those? 24 inches by 36, I believe. Yes, it's a regular poster size, two feet by three feet. It's museum quality, and we're very proud of it. It was something that we believed that we had to express as a people and a people with land. It was not something that originally was just kind of come upon because it's land that we understood that we had. It wasn't necessarily like we had to prove it to anybody. What we realized a couple of years ago was that in our relationship with our tribes around us, we had seen some of the territories that were claimed by some of these tribes around us. I guess it could be just because we have been gone from here for so long that people just started claiming what they believed was areas that they may have ranged. But we felt compelled to make sure that our complete territory was identified and expressed. So we have done that now for this past year, and it's been received very well. The interesting part for me is that once you see this map, it kind of explains a lot of stuff around the area, where the cities are, where the highways are. So it's not just about history, but it's also kind of delved into explaining and sharing about how our impact developed here in this area. It stands out. This is Julia. Joe, when you said because we've been gone, maybe you could speak to that a little bit because a lot of people might not understand why the Chiricahua are gone, many of them. Well, we find ourselves a lot of times having to reconsider how we say things and how we talk because historically, Chiricahuas, we were rather quiet. We did not share a lot. Even the sign in the country regarding any markings, any information that was put out for just general knowledge, we didn't do that. We were very secretive. We kept to ourselves. We kept our culture to ourselves. But about 20, 25 years ago, some of the elders started asking us to talk more because we were starting to realize that the lies were hurting us. And so with the elders' permission, we decided to go ahead and start sharing more. So now at this time, you do see more Apache sharing things. Even the reservations, Apache reservations around the area, they are doing more to include the general public. But we still have to be really careful about keeping our culture to ourselves. But in order for people to understand and at least have an idea of why we do things and how we do them and the reasons for it, sometimes it's a lot easier for people to understand that. Yeah, and I think in terms of where many of the Cherokee Apache are, and I think that has to do historically with the removal, forced removal, or many Cherokee Apache leaving to different regions because of the history of the 1800s. And the fact that the Cherokee Apache did not move with the reservation model and resisted that for a long time. And anyway, I'm sure Jill will speak more to that too. But there's a reason why there aren't a lot of the Inuit Cherokee Apache present. And it's a very tragic part of our history, but one that we're trying to educate, especially our community here, so that we can work towards something new that's beneficial for everybody. This is just such a great opportunity to do that now. And I think there's a lot of ignorance around these things because I think if you don't know anything, you just think everybody had a reservation, right? That's just the way it was. So education could be helpful. Even some of the most educated people sometimes don't have a full knowledge of what our history is. There was just so many factors that went into our removal, everything from fear, intimidation, murder, slavery. And then later on, even with the governmental interference where certain acts were put in that sort of made it possible to remove Indians, whether it was the boarding schools and more contemporarily the Relocation Act that basically allowed the government to just wholesale, remove people from areas and drop them off in cities. And so this whole idea that people were getting very upset that they were taking immigrants and busloads and just taking them to cities and dropping them off, we sometimes have to understand that the reason why they do some of these things so efficiently is because they practiced on us, whether it was slavery, whether it was removal, whether it was wholesale, transportation to get us out of certain areas and just drop us off in cities and then leave us to the mercy of that capitalistic world that some of us were able to adapt to and some weren't. But through that time and through all those processes, the majority of our people were removed from this area. A lot of people were managed to stay somehow, whether they blended into communities or just outright denied who they were. There were many people that had to adapt and had to find their own way of how to stay in the area. My family had to do the same thing. But as we start to hear more, it gives us a very unique situation in our history in that we're one of the few tribes in the region that does not have a reservation because we were so scattered out. And so in reality, what we have to say sometimes is that in reality, in their attempt to decimate us through either genocide or just slavery or imprisonment, by scattering us, there's actually more of us now. And so that's one of the advantages as a people that we have to use for our own benefit. How do we bring our people back? How do we ensure that our people understand who they are and where they are and that they have, as we've been calling it, a collective consciousness of all these people starting to realize their history and where they were, where their families were, and are reaching out to us? Through our tribal nation, we do have a lot of contact with our members, our citizens that are at large, whether they're back east, whether they're in California or Oregon, throughout this whole state also. And so our efforts are to create this area again as a traditional territory of our people. So all of us have a place that we can consider home and look toward. I was visiting with one of our Cherokee Apache citizens. She was here in town for a project we did at Light Arts Space, Christy Moya. And that's how she shared with me recently that how special it is to, despite the tragedy, but that we live in a region that is still quite undeveloped compared to other parts of the continent. Now, you know, we still get disgusted with construction and things like that, that's for sure. But her kind of point with that was that if you embrace such a thing about the land carrying, I don't know what we just said, Joe. It's the life ways. It's the life ways. And so we are also fortunate that that's still fairly wild. It's not perfect, but it's very special. So if we can keep, you know, working together to care for this beautiful wilderness region and hopefully make some improvements with collaborating with the original peoples, that would be really incredible. It's a good time to do that. Yeah, and I think probably a little bit more clear explanation is that in this land there is still situations, conditions that we can look at that we know our ancestors looked at. Same thing. For example? I think the mountains, the land itself, as Delia mentioned, it's not very developed. And so there are still areas that are wild. Not completely wild, but there are still areas that have managed to stay rather in its original state. You are listening to Gila Munga's Community Radio, KURU 89.1 FM, in Silver City, New Mexico, and online at KURU891.org. You are listening to the Equity Hour. We are here with Joe Sines and Delia Bevere of the Chiricahua Apache Nation. So we were talking about the land and how it's still wild. Yeah. And how that's unusual. And, you know, so one example, again, is that, you know, with my work as an outfitter that gives me that opportunity to be outside and go into the wilderness and some of these areas back here, we can still talk about some of the stories of those ancestors and passing through some of those mountains, passing through some of those valleys, going over certain passes, using certain routes that are still there. And so that gives us almost an insight into what they dealt with. And it gives us a little bit more compassion, a little bit more understanding of possibly what our ancestors went through, which should be lessons that temper us, lessons that show us how we need to move forward, how we need to behave, and what perceptions are important. All right. While we're still kind of on this first topic, I think it's important also, in terms, I'm kind of losing my train of thought on that. Sorry. That's okay. Come back to it. Before we leave this topic, when you said that, you know, many Chidikawa Apache peoples stayed behind in this area and blended in, you know, I am a descendant of myself. My family has Apache ancestry, and so I believe that is what happened in our family. My Apache ancestors assimilated into Mexican culture, but my family, I don't know if they've always been proud to have Apache ancestry, but definitely when I was growing up, my grandpa always made sure to tell us that, you know, we have that ancestry. And I definitely feel a connection to the land here. I always say that I'm spiritually tethered to this place. And I believe that comes from my Apache ancestry. And so thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I appreciate that you shared that. And I think in our local region here, there are a good number of people with strong Chidikawa ancestry. And, you know, we invite everyone to connect with us. There's certainly some intergenerational trauma there. And, you know, horribly, there was a period in time, I don't know, around the turn of the century or later, where there were actually bounties on Cherokee Apache. So, you know, our great grandparents, even grandparents would have known that. And so, of course, they're going to pass that on to their families. You know, even in my family, it was carried through, do not tell anybody that you have Cherokee Apache ancestry. And so that's really horrible. But I think it's okay now for people to come and connect and to help us build this. It would be really wonderful to get more people from the community with ancestry. But, of course, we also have a really wonderful growing number of people in the community that don't necessarily have that ancestry. Some have other tribal and some have other, you know, European ancestry. But they get it and they're joining us to help enrich our community and be part of the return and social justice, if you will. Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. That's very generous. And, again, we keep saying that's that collective consciousness. It hasn't happened over a long period of time. I mean, we're talking, what, 15, 20 years where we now have four major Apache organizations, tribal units in the area that are working to reestablish themselves. So it's amazing to see that it has not gotten more attention, these efforts. I mean, in some cases it's seen as a negative thing. But we, as Chiricahua, we feel that this is the only place we belong. There are beautiful places all around the world, but there's no place like this place. And so, you know, we try to encourage people to come back here if they have that ancestry. As part of the council, one of my duties is, as much as I try to keep up with it, it's the fielding phone calls from citizens, fielding phone calls from interested people. And so we get a lot of phone calls of people that call and start telling us their story because they're interested to find out. And so with this time that we have 23andMe, we have DNA, we have all these services that explain ancestry to people, we're doing the same. And so it's something unique to us because we weren't able to stay here. A lot of the tribes that were able to stay in their own traditional country, for whatever reasons they negotiated, they stayed there. And if people left and they came back, that's how they were recognized. But for us, for the Chiricahua and how we were scattered out completely from this area, in the returning and the reestablishment of it, it's something that I think shouldn't be ignored. I think it's really important for all of us to know who we are, where we come from, and that's what drove me to come back home. Yeah, I think it's convenient for different folks or companies that are interested in different things that they can benefit from in our region. So having a strong tribal presence can create obstacles. We're definitely at a point where we want to work that out with all the different involved parties. But I think Bill Bradford was kind of coming into my mind a bit to make sure that I mention the Treaty of 1852, which was the treaty that was signed between the Chiricahua. Apache, was it Victorio that signed it? Mangus, Colorado. Yeah, excuse me. And that was a peace treaty. It was not a treaty where we gave the United States government our land in Dubonnet. It was a peace treaty. So that still exists, that treaty. There's other interesting things that happened there with the Chiricahua that were imprisoned and some deals made to sell this region, which to me personally is a little bizarre that your captors kind of work with the folks that are imprisoned to make deals. But the absolute fact, from my understanding of the fact, is that this, and Dubonnet is not for sale, but the Chiricahua Apache would not, it's just not feasible. Because the land is molded. No, and it's not something they could sell. There was a transaction with the Fort Sill folks in Oklahoma. So that's another part of our complex history there. But we're still working to kind of find a new way forward, especially joining forces wherever possible. It might be one of the only ways these days, right, is together. Do you want to keep going in this vein, or do you want to talk a little bit about what you're doing now? Joe's already touched on that. He mans the phones, things like that, talking to people who tell their story and want to come back perhaps. What else can we explore in that area, Joe? I think it's a continual work when you're dealing with people that are looking to find out who they are. A lot of them tell me that, just as most of us, our grandparents, great-grandparents, family, shared some of the stories that drew something out of us. Sometimes my grandmother would say things like a goat to the mountains when they would see things in us that reminded them of those histories because some of us were able to express them. Specifically for me, my family was very, very strong in sharing our history, sharing our life ways, and so that gave me a responsibility of making sure that I didn't forget those kind of things, those kind of practices, those perceptions of land. Listening to my grandfather talk about trees like they were people, listening to my parents talk about water, talk about air like they were spirits, all those kind of things made me understand that there were things that were bigger than us, that as humans we did have a challenge to be good, to be prosperous, to be successful, but that we weren't supposed to forget those things around us, which again, as I mentioned, air, water. I attended a ceremony one time that a holy person actually told me sort of in an instruction way without me being able to even have a say, and I accepted it, but he mentioned to me that one of my responsibilities was to be a voice for the small animals, raccoons, skunks, things like that. It gets me in trouble because I'm rather vocal with the local authorities about speeding in this area, and so the amount of animals that are killed on our roads, I've just never quite understood why there is no effort by the local authorities, the local agencies to consider those kind of things. I recently was talking to somebody that were mentioning about these new lights going on in Arenas Valley along 180, and somebody made the comment that, oh, it's so that people can see the animals at night, and it's like, well, that's not, I don't know how much difference that's going to make because basically by lighting up the roads, people are just going to go faster, and I think that there's going to be a lot more damage alongside the roads with these animals, and why this is not considered a problem here when we have a national forest that borders basically a road that's a three-way, I don't understand why people can't see that that's what's going to happen. We're going to have a lot of accidents, a lot of animals are going to get killed, but I think this is where we constantly are saying that some of these perceptions need to be included in the dialogue, need to be included in the topics, because we do have things to say. As a people, we have been here forever, ever since life began for our people here, we have been here. We did not come from anywhere else. We are not part of the land bridge theory concept. We have our own story of creation, our own story of why we are here, and so our historical, empirical, background knowledge regarding the environment here is important, and we've been kind of sidelined, that, hey, you guys are just a bunch of ignorant Indians, and you don't have the knowledge or information or education to talk about this, but we do. And so that's our effort and why we get involved in a lot of stuff, is to make sure that that story is put out there. It's not for me to go in here and say, hey, I'm Joe Saenz, I've got this to say. It's like, no, we have a history, we have a knowledge, we have a perception that we think it's important to share and that it's taken into account. You are listening to HILA Members Community Radio, KURU 89.1 FM in Silver City, New Mexico, and online at KURU891.org. You are listening to The Equity Hour, and we are here today with Joe Saenz and Delia Dever of the Chiricahua Apache Nation. Joe, speaking of your call to protect the little animals, I've heard you talking about why we should leave the shedded antlers in the forest. Can you share a little bit about that? It's always been this process of understanding with the Forest Service of how they try to impress upon you that, in reality, the law in the wilderness is that you're not supposed to take anything from the wilderness. But from what I see, from what my experience is, why are they hunting in the wilderness? Why are they allowing hunters to go into the wilderness if the law is you're not supposed to take anything out? Second of all, what I have seen in the last few years is a very active shed antler gathering where we have people coming in and gathering antlers to sell. Apparently, the collection of antlers is very popular. We know that it happens around the nation. Companies work with organizations to collect them. I knew of what the contemporary situation is. I'm not sure, but there was a time up here in Wyoming in the big areas around Jackson Hole, and those areas were all the elk are, that some of those Boy Scout groups have contracts where they can go out and pick up these shed antlers and sell them. My understanding is that they're sold to Asian buyers that take it back to Asia, China, wherever they end up. For medicine? For medicine. For medicine. Right, right. That's what they do, and that's understandable. You hear the Boy Scouts having those contracts, and then here in the Gila Wilderness we see these people coming in with pack horses and just loaded up with antlers. Talking about understanding your environment and understanding where you stand and how you affect what's around you, we were taught that everything in this world has a reason, even the reason why antlered animals, whether they're deer, elk, as they wander around and the biology of their antlers, why they have the velvet on them and what that does for them, for their bodies. But there is a reason why these animals shed antlers at random and one at a time. They don't just drop them all together and all in the same place. These antlers are shed at random, and our understanding to this is that because at random that allows all these smaller animals, whether they're raccoons, skunks, any of those squirrels, where they come in and they gnaw on the antlers for the minerals. That's where they get those kind of minerals. If you look at really old antlers in the wilderness, you can see the chew marks on them, and they're at random because all these animals move around, and so that allows them that source of minerals and vitamins to be able to utilize them from these shed antlers. I've always advocated and thought that this wilderness, this Gila Wilderness and the Gila National Forest, being the first and the largest, should have been treated as a standard for all other wildernesses. The practices that happen here should have been practices set for other areas because of our conditions, our situation. We have to consider the fact that there's a reason why things happen, and my advocation has been to see what I can do about pressuring the Forest Service to stop the antler gathering in the wilderness itself. The wilderness is only 800,000 acres. The Gila National Forest is 3.something, 3.3 million acres. That's only a small area regarding the wilderness itself, and so there's still a whole large area that, if you must, there's other areas that will pick antlers, but not in the wilderness. The wilderness should be left alone. It should be dealt with in a whole different way and managed in a different way. There are other regions on the continent where the lands that were acquired by the U.S. government, forest service lands and national parks, that there are partnerships with the tribes so that they can have a fuller spectrum of ways to care for the forest. We would like to see that collaboration happening here more fully. Where is that happening in other places? Do you recall? Not specifically, but I know that there's other tribes that I've come across that have a voice in planning, that have a voice when they're considering management for certain areas, that they do allow these tribes that are local to come in and be a part of that dialogue. Yeah, I think it's a growing trend, and I might have to do a quick search to tell you specifically what tribes, whether Washington and California and Idaho, and they're finding some really great successes, too, with bringing balance back. And not necessarily excluding all of the different interests that people have. So, yeah, we're just maybe a little bit behind on that here, so it's a really good opportunity. And maybe the state government will kind of rise to the occasion more fully, you know, with, I guess, a lot of the concerns people have now with what's going on in the federal government and public land. So that's one of your goals is to have a voice, a stronger voice. Quite simply. Yeah, we are partners with the National Park Service, you know, where the Chiripow Petch Nation is in partnership with them. What's happened, I guess, is because there's so many interim superintendents that come and go. There was a lot of superintendents that were just acting. And I guess through that shuffle, we were kind of left behind regarding calling us in to talk. But we do have allies in the Park Service that keep us updated, keep us informed. Because of my work, I'm in that area quite a bit, and so I try to engage Forest Service, Park Service as much as I can. The state is a whole different thing. I can't seem to have access to them very easily. I don't know of a central office here locally other than outside of Las Cruces. If you need to talk to them, you'd have to go over there. But around here, they're rather difficult to get a hold of. It's interesting how these large systems can be kind of overwhelming, but also that connecting with one individual within there can really make a big difference. For example, I connected with the lead park ranger at the Chiricahua National Monument, and she was new there, but she had a lot of experience at the last park working with the tribe, and she saw there was a clear void at that monument with not having representation of the Nde Chiricahua Apache, and so she, as the lead ranger, wants to start working with us. Now, this happened during the time when a lot of the positions with the national parks were being axed, and so things went a little silent there, and I was a little worried because I was like, ah, we have such a great connection, and I did connect with her again a few months ago, so I'm hoping she's still there. So there's good relationships and opportunities, but just also to emphasize that whoever's out there who wants to be a part of it, you know, one person can make a difference. And then as we gather more and more and just all the different talents or just simply the passion and the awareness that people have who want to be part of this, it does make a difference. Yeah, it sounds like you're trying to build coalitions in an informal, personal way. We have the group here called the Friends of the Chiricahua Apache, and we've been meeting once a month, and this group has been significant with doing a lot of the groundwork for the red paint powwow, and now we're moving into some other projects, I can speak more about that. We have projects in the local community, and then, of course, with the nation and citizens, there's other, you know, big projects and work to be done there. Maybe we should start with the local stuff since we're a local radio station. Yeah, yeah. We have a lot of local radio stations, Yeah, yeah. We would like to inspire people to come join us, and like I said, it's been a really strong group with helping with the red paint powwow. We're so grateful for all the work that people have done, and people are returning the second year in terms of this one particular group. But we have some small tasks that make a big difference, like trying to work with some of the appropriation here and there around town. That is kind of something that one person can help with. We have a three-to-four-person group, We have, even though the red paint powwow isn't going to be helping us here, I'm sure Joe will want to speak to that a bit, but we are moving ahead. We've got some great support. The Visitor Center here is supporting us and having an exhibit in their little exhibit space for the month of January and February, so we invite everyone to come and check that out. And then we had scheduled to have the banners on Bullard Street for the powwow, and we're going to go ahead, and we've got a group from the Friends of the Chiricahua helping with that. Just things that we're really trying to raise the awareness of the community. And then... Can I interrupt for a second, please? Yes. What's the exhibit going to be like? Can you tell our listeners so that they know if they're interested in going, what they're going to see? Which exhibit? So the smaller one at the Silver City. We have a large exhibit at the Brannigan in Las Cruces. Do you want to kind of speak to what we would do at the, you know, the space that we live in there? Yeah. Well, one example, I think I'm talking about the light art space, the first rather major display that we worked with, the light art space, Karenheimer. We had a variety of art and materials and weapons and, you know, dress and baskets and tools and things like that that we're still able to gather. You know, as Apaches, we were very simple people. We didn't have a lot. We didn't carry a lot. You know, our dress was rather simple. It was ornate in some cases, but it was simple. And so, you know, to think that we could fill up a museum is not a reality for us, and a lot of the stuff that we have is not necessarily old either. The one thing that we did have that we have our tribal citizen, Kirstie Moya, has been working with Sofia Peso, and Sofia had collected an amazing collection of baskets. Some were 300 years old and, you know, for different purposes and different uses. And she was very good in allowing us to use them, but it's such a delicate, such a prize-worthy collection that we have to be very careful with it. And even for ourselves, we wanted to make sure that if Sofia did pass those baskets on or sell them to a museum or a tribe, we understand that possibly the Mescaleros may be buying that collection, and hopefully it will be cared for because some of those baskets were Chiricahua. A mixture of Chiricahua and Mescalero that Sofia had been collecting over the years. And so there are, you know, cradle boards. We have, you know, all these items that were useful, lightweight items that is the display. And more contemporarily, then we have art that takes the place of some of those items. We now have bronze artists. We have painters. We have sculptors. We have, you know, people that do that type of art. And so we can get modern art to be brought in. You are listening to Gila Mimbrez Community Radio, KURU 89.1 FM in Silver City, New Mexico, and online at KURU89.1.org. You are listening to the Equity Hour, and we are interviewing Joe Saenz and Dahlia DeVere of the Chiricahua Apache Nation. We were talking about the exhibit that is going to be happening at the Visitor Center. And I also wanted to offer you, since I do run a library, we often do exhibits in our conference room. And I would love to host—it has to be wall-mounted art, but that space is definitely available. Great, thank you. Yeah, thank you. That would be really neat. And the Visitor Center, well, you know, wouldn't be able to host all those incredible things that Joe mentioned, but we'll, you know, I guess whatever will work that we're comfortable in the space to do. But there'll be, you know, a lot of information, even for the exhibit at Light Art last fall. Chris DeMoya and Karen did a lot of large, like, poster-like printouts with beautiful imagery and writing on all the different kind of core topics. So those will be really great to put in there. And then we have a really neat poster of the Brannigan Cultural Center in Los Cruces. They are currently exhibiting a major exhibit that we're a big part of. The exhibit is focused on five of the tribes in the southern region of New Mexico. And that is—we worked all year with their curators, incredible staff, and they were really progressive in having the tribes take the lead rather than telling us what we needed to provide. So it's quite remarkable in that way. And then that'll be up into 2027. And then every two months, each tribe takes a rotation of their own solo exhibit in a little bit separate of an exhibit space. So the group exhibit includes all the tribes. And then each one will take a rotation. So I encourage everyone, you know, as we often do up here, we head out to Los Cruces for different errands to stop by there. It's free. And when does it begin? It's going now. Oh, it's going now. Going now. And like I said, it'll be up into 2027. And then our rotation won't be until the end of 2026. So I think it's December 2026 and January 2027. But it's happening now. And that will have artifacts as well as art. Yes, yes. Each tribe will have the opportunity to display what they consider important for their culture. So, yeah, we're looking forward to that. We're looking forward to that. We have citizens and individuals that are artists that are hopefully working on items that we have collected. We have quite a bit ourselves. But we encourage the artists in our tribe to practice that, to consider it as tribal art and to be proud of it as a group rather than just an individual art representing a people. And another thing, kind of going back to the Chiricahua, friends of the Chiricahua and our nation and Joe and I that are here locally, we also have a dream to have a cultural center here in our community and a place that will serve as a headquarters because we do have a need for that kind of office and meeting space in Silver City. So we're just kind of gathering a bit of ideas around it. It's not new. So it's been something. We wanted to consider Silver City as our headquarters, this region, mostly because we recognize this northern region as our northern stronghold. And Silver City being one of the larger areas with services and history, and simply just because we consider this a very important area next to these mountains, we decided that we were going to work on making this the headquarters. And with the cultural center aspect, too, that would really be beneficial to the community and, of course, all the Chiricahua Apache and the diaspora that would come to visit. But it's something that would bring one more thing to the community for our visitors and could have a good economic benefit and, of course, support the efforts of the Chiricahua Apache and our national foundation. Depending on how that gets started and where it might go, there is the DAGPRA Act that, depending on what we were able to do eventually, and I'd start out that way in terms of a cultural center, in the ability to properly house and exhibit these historic pieces because there still are, especially baskets. That's one of my passions. And they're held in different museums or personal collections. And there is an avenue for those to be returned to the tribe. I think that would be really exciting, but it's just that we need to make sure that we have a place to really care for them because these things need a lot of care. So that's the priority. We're aware of some of the different museums that are taking very good care of them for now, and maybe someday they can get returned. And that could be an incredible feature for a cultural center. For Silver City. Very enriching for everybody. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, there's a void here, and I think many people are aware of it and many people might feel it but don't quite understand it, and some people resist it. But there's no harm in going through this healing process. It's not an exclusive thing. It's enriching for everybody. And so I'm hopeful that, as a community, we can soon more fully embrace this part of the history and heritage and living culture that's still here. And Joe, I'll just speak personally, but I'm so grateful for all that Joe holds. It's not a minor thing. I mean, he's holding these life ways and the wisdom directly from his family, whereas so many others, it's been broken, completely broken. But I just don't think we should take that for granted in these times, because, you know, the threads get thin, you know, and we have an opportunity right now to not lose something so, so important and precious. That's one of the reasons that keeps me pulled to the center of all this, you know. I get it. I get that it's kind of fragile. You know, there's so much that we can share regarding, you know, even here recently, we did a collaboration with Native Plant Society. They had an annual conference in Las Cruces. Next year, the Native Plant Society will have their annual meeting here in Silver City. So it's these kind of events that I think we fit very well in, that we can share, that we can add to, that we can collaborate, because, you know, some of these activities, whether even the activities that they're doing here in town, you know, it's something that we can participate in. You know, even the burrow race, you know, we could have been a part of that. You know, our understanding of animals and understanding of, you know, biology for running and stuff like that. We had athletes, you know. We had experts. We had doctors. We had all of that. But that's not what they were called. You know, they were medicine men. They were war leaders. They were different names. It's just a different title for some of the same stuff that's going on today with some of these experts. You know, we've always held it that even just through the knowledge of these plants and animals, you know, because we believe that at one time we could communicate with them, and that's why historically we are in touch with them, that we're in tune with them, and we have that connection with them. And so that kind of knowledge, I think, is very important, because it's not a broken thing. Let's see. Even in English language, there's two words. It's called space out here. We only have three minutes left. No pressure, Joe. It's, you know, the description of when you're talking about science and you're talking about things that's either you're talking about numbers or you're talking about qualitative or quantitative. And you're describing the same thing, but you're just describing it in a different way. Conceptual or experiential. Empirical or intellectual. And along those lines, another project we're working on with another nation citizen is in education. I was just going to ask. Yeah, because, you know, all the events we do around town is educational, but we're putting together a program that, you know, would be for the citizens but also available to people anywhere, certainly in our community. It's on Avenue, right? Yeah. Yeah, and something kind of friendly, you know. We have had a university course that I took on a graduate level. It was mostly undergraduate that, you know, there's a vision to have that return to the university level. And Bill likes the idea of hitting up the Ivy Leagues. So, you know, big plan there. But definitely an educational program that's good for just very user friendly. And we always embrace when the schools want to connect with us. And that's the public school system. We've done things with Aldo Leopold, the Montessori. So any educators out there, you know, don't be shy about reaching out to us. And our website is CherokawaApacheNation.org. And then you can email us at info at CherokawaApacheNation.org or just direct contact information is online too. But, you know, we encourage people to reach out on any of these things. If you want to join our Friends of the Cherokawa or, you know, you want to land back, you know, 800 acres or something, you know, whatever inspires you, please get in touch with us. What do you say, Kay? I think we need to do a part two. Absolutely. Great. Absolutely. Yep. I already have it in my mind. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting us. Thank you for coming. And I think this is probably, you know, there are many pillars of a community. Yes. And I think this is one that, you know, it's a hole and it's not a hole. It's there. Thank you. But we need to. Well said. Well said. But we feel it as a hole because there's something, you know, for me, like I reach out like it's a ghost and it's not a ghost. It's real people with all sorts of things to offer. Well, hopefully this is just an introduction and we'll have more of a chance to talk more detail. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you both of you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it for sharing your knowledge and speaking from the heart, you know, and wanting to do that education. I feel like I learned so much from this is my first time hearing you speak, but I've heard Joe speak so many times and I always learn something new and I'm so grateful to have him in my life. We know you're a busy woman, but we invite you to join us, especially with your ancestry. Yes. I want to. Yes. I know you should write a book. Yes. I'll help you. Okay. Or record your own history. Yeah. That would be great. Or both. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So we're just going to run your life for you, Joe. Yay. There's somebody else in need. Gang up on. Thanks for tuning in.