A new documentary, “Drowned Land,” explores the Choctaw-led effort to put tribal heritage above profit. Women Are Leading the Effort to Protect Sacred Water:
The kwek, the women of my tribe, speak for the Water. The Creator entrusted us with this sacred duty, a task we take so seriously that not only do we Potawatomi have multiple songs about Water, but we also closely guard some, not writing them down or recording them. In the 21st century, eight generations after my people were forced on the Trail of Death from Indiana, scattering us through removal, this can mean we sometimes only learn these songs by having elders repeat them for us again and again on the phone. A modernized solution for a colonized problem.
