How Native American Youth Are Reviving Tribal Bonds
Young Crow Indians team up with Nat Geo photographers to explore the roots of their community.
What is your clan? What is your Indian name? Who named you?
When anthropologist Aaron Brien puts these questions to a group of Crow Indian students gathered in the community of Crow Agency, Montana, most of the hands tentatively go up.
“My name is Emily Not Afraid. I am a Whistling Water and a child of the Newly Made Lodge. My Crow name is Baasshuushe isitccheesh, which means 'Likes to tobacco dance.' I was named as a baby by one of my clan mothers, Clara Big Lake.”
This, says Brien, is what makes the Crow—or Apsáalooke in their native Siouan language—different from any other tribe on the planet: their clan system.
But it's one that's in danger of disappearing.
That's why National Geographic Photo Camp
