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About the Buffalo’s Fire blog name

Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation Chair Mark Fox speaks during an event at the Capitol on March 22, 2024. On Tuesday, Fox said he's "extremely disappointed" with a change of position North Dakota is taking in a court case involving Fort Berthold. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)

tiger-lily-image

Dear Reader:

I’m glad you are here to join me at Buffalo’s Fire, my new blog site named in memory of my mother, G. Janet Gunderson, who liked wild tiger lilies on the North Dakota prairie. She is the daughter of Larry Spotted Bear and Ollie Benson of Twin Buttes, N.D.  I am a Mandan and Hidatsa from the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. The Mandan word for tiger lilies is pti ta waraari, or “the buffalo’s fire.” I can imagine buffalo on the prairie on a cool spring evening, standing above blossoming tiger lilies.

Welcome to the buffalo’s fire.

Jodi Rave

Note:  I am no longer writing for the Buffalo Post, a blog I created at the Missoulian.

You can see one of my archived posts here. http://buffalopost.net/?tag=inauguration-day

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

1 Comment

  • Kathryn Nonet New Gallo

    Hi Jodi Rave, Buffalo Fire, I am happy to fine your blog site…through Sandy Spang….I was a student with her son Bently Spang of Northern Cheyenne in Montanna….. I live in Rockport MA… run 7cotgas Workshop Studio. I am also am native Cherokee … I do fine art and films… etc. I’d love to keep in touch and see what you are working on in the Dakotas… take care , Kathryn

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