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Taking a Chance on Anthropology with Chance Ward - Ep 125
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In this episode, Carlton is joined by Chance Ward, an M.A. student in Museum and Field Studies at CU Boulder and a Tribal Citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. The two start the episode with a discussion on how Chance got into Anthropology at Fort Lewis College. We then delve into his post-undergrad career in CRM and working for the Southern Ute Tribe. Carlton investigates why Chance chose CU Boulder and they get into a dialogue about how Chance's grad school experiences have shaped the direction of his career. In the final segment, Carlton and Chance talk about their recent media experiences together such as being interviewed for a PBS documentary on horses and a conversation they had with Mel B's (Yes, the one from the Spice Girls) agent.
Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to httpswww.archpodnet.com/ruins/125
Guest Contact
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chance-ward-a27b52235/
- CU Museum of Natural History Archaeozoology Lab Page
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to Episode 125 of Life Ruins Podcast, where you investigate the careers of those living in life ruins. I am your host, Carlton Shill, Chief Gover. And today I am joined by Mr. Chance Ward. Chance is a master's student at the University of Colorado Boulder and tribal citizen of Cheyenne River, Lakota Nation, Lakota Yate, descendants of, what is it? Dinosaur Yate, that res dogs joke. Did you see that episode, Chance?
00:00:40
Speaker
Yeah. Give thanks to the dinosaur nation for us. And the Neanderthals. You can't, you can't forget about the Neanderthals that were before us. Dude, that episode was crazy. So thank you so much for coming on the show. How are you doing, man?
Meeting and Academic Pathway
00:00:55
Speaker
I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Getting my semester started. I think we're three weeks in now about to start the fourth and it's a nice day in Denver, Colorado.
00:01:07
Speaker
This, I just realized this is the first episode that I'm recording from Bloomington, Indiana. So this is the first time I'm out, out here in, in Indiana, in Indianian country. So what is the weather like in Colorado? I kind of, I kind of, it's been humid here, man. Like I'm just sweaty all the time. Oh, it's been a roller coaster here. Friday. It was
00:01:30
Speaker
No, Thursday. Thursday was like 100 degrees. No clouds in the sky. And then Friday and Saturday, it was a cloudy, gloomy, like 50 degrees. And true is only rain. So it was a complete difference in one day. Man, as it goes in Colorado. So Chance, we first met, I think, online when you were looking at master's programs. So I think we had a Zoom call. And then we met in person.
00:01:59
Speaker
in Durango when I was working for Fort Lewis for that summer, and we hit it off. We ended up able to get you for the master's program in museum and field studies at CU Boulder and the Museum of Natural History. You're one of the anthropology students, and your track is in collections management.
00:02:20
Speaker
That's right. When I was a prospective student, I wanted to get a few different perspectives on CU Boulder in general. So reaching out to you was advised to me by a few people that have already known you and worked with you. So I reached out to you and we met on Zoom.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think he came to the Fort Lewis field school, right? To be the assistant, the TA, the teaching assistant? No, the co-PI. So Kagan was the field director, teaching assistant or something like that. Yeah, we met up to have
00:02:59
Speaker
pizza over lunch or something. That was a cool pizza joint. It was home-sliced, home-sliced pizza. Home-sliced pizza, man, on the deck. Yeah, that was fun. It was like the right, it was the same day the bass quarter got lifted too.
00:03:12
Speaker
Oh, that's right. That's right. I forgot about that. That was weird. Everyone was running around maskless. And yeah, it's just a different time. Different time, summer 2021. What I've really enjoyed getting to know you and your research is me and you share a lot of the same interests. And we have the same very similar drives in what we want to do in the field. And it's been cool to work with another Plains Indian in this field in Boulder. And of course, right after I left, now all the museum students in Anthro are all
00:03:42
Speaker
all indigenous. It's you, Katie, and I forget the new student's name, who's also Lakota. Yeah, Elena. So we have all indigenous cohort this year in the anthropology section of the museum.
00:03:54
Speaker
man, just, I was replaced so quickly.
Fort Lewis Experience and Anthropology
00:03:58
Speaker
But I do want to talk about before I get more into your master's is you, you got your bachelor's of arts in anthropology from Fort Lewis college down in, down in Durango and Fort Lewis is special for a number of reasons. And could you please, you know, kind of talk about why Fort Lewis is special and also, you know, why'd you end up choosing Fort Lewis? Cause you weren't in Colorado at the time, right?
00:04:20
Speaker
That's right. I wasn't in Colorado. So the way I ended up, you know, growing up on the reservation when college opportunities aren't really the major emphasis people push on you. So you kind of got to do your own research, your own, you kind of do your own recruiting. So I've always heard about Fort Lewis, but I never knew anybody that went there. So when I completed my associate degree,
00:04:50
Speaker
Albuquerque you know I was looking for a place that would be affordable you know I never really knew anything about it so I kind of looked it up on their website of course the landscape with the you know La Plata Mountains and the National Forest and all the mountain lakes and fishing and you know that's kind of what they put in your face on the website and that's of course what attracted me to it but I
00:05:16
Speaker
You know, my father and stepmother and family also reside in Arizona. So Fort Lewis is about two or three hours from them too. And that's kind of what helped me choose to go to Fort Lewis. And Fort Lewis itself is a indigenous native student serving institution. So when I got there, they had like a 30% native student enrollment. And by the time I left, it was closing in on 50% students.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, it's an absolutely gorgeous campus. I enjoyed my limited time being there for the summer and it's also like in Durango and one of the coolest places in Colorado. Also one of the most expensive, but like it is this really fantastic facility because like a lot of the buildings I went into that were associated with anthropology or American Indian or indigenous studies, you know, those were like,
00:06:09
Speaker
modernized. Those were pretty recently renovated and up to date. And so it was really not only a gorgeous campus and a gorgeous place, but also, yeah, it offers in-state tuition to federally recognized tribes. So it doesn't matter where you live. So I know there was a couple of Alaskan natives there, people from all over. You could go around the dorms and look at the license plates, and you'd see Oklahoma on a bunch of them, and basically start guessing who belongs to which nation. So that was really interesting.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's surrounded by a couple of reservations, too. So Navajo Nation is just across the border in Arizona, New Mexico. You got the Southern Ute tribe, which is like 20 miles away. You have Ute Mountain Ute to the west, Apache to the east. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of native students there. I think they're mostly southwest.
00:07:02
Speaker
this is probably the higher percentage, but yeah, you got your Alaska natives, your plane and some planes. So what ended up like driving you to go to anthropology to begin with? Cause it's like, we're both away at this point. Anthropology is not one of those degrees that most indigenous folks think of getting into. In fact, they like kind of actively avoid it. So like, what, what was that first, what drew you into that degree program down there at Fort Lewis?
00:07:29
Speaker
I actually had no idea what I was going to major in. When I did my associate's degree in Albuquerque at Sippy, shout out Sippy, I got to Fort Lewis and my advisor, who was also from South Dakota, he said, what do you want to major in? I said, you know, I have no idea. We had a conversation about what I wanted to eventually end up doing. And he suggested
00:07:59
Speaker
Native American Indigenous Studies, but I didn't want to go that route. I think that felt a little more, it felt a little cliche and stereotypical to me. So I didn't want to do that. I said, well, I would prefer maybe something I could work outside a little bit. Work outside all summer, inside all winter would be pretty great. So he recommended, well, why don't you look at anthropology?
Career Beginnings and CRM Work
00:08:25
Speaker
So I looked up anthropology and what they had to offer there on campus and and I actually went into cultural anthropology first. So I started taking classes on ethnography and research methods on how to do interviews with current contemporary communities and then I ended up taking a museum studies class with Dr. Kathy Feindaer. You know we did a
00:08:54
Speaker
topic on NAGPRA. And we got to tour the museum that was on campus. We kind of got to hear the problems that come with NAGPRA and museum studies in general done mostly by non-native people. So I ended up switching my concentration to archaeology. Right. Was Jesse Tune, Dr. Jesse Tune, teaching at the time that you started in Anthro there? Yeah. Yeah. He just got, I think he just got there right before I did. And
00:09:22
Speaker
I ended up taking intro to archaeology with him and I took a few more southwest concentrated archaeology classes with Dr. Charles Riddick and he was kind of the main archaeology professor.
00:09:41
Speaker
And for the audience, yeah. And for the audience, like we've heard of Dr. Jesse, Jesse Toon has been on this podcast a couple of times. So like Chance got his degree from the same institution that Dr. Toon teaches at. So that's pretty cool. And I also like, I always forget, like you met my nephew when you were at the Sippy powwow, right? Will Gover? Yeah, that's right. So when I was going to school at Sippy, I, you know, I didn't know him very well, but I knew Will Gover. I knew he was there. I knew he was,
00:10:10
Speaker
I knew he was a singer for that.
00:10:13
Speaker
the student-driven kind of drunk group that was there. They would practice in the gym foyer and get the real good acoustics in there. Always. And SIPI stands for Southwest Indian Polytechnical Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So shout out SIPI and how small Indian country is. Yeah. Small, small place, man. So awesome. So how long did it end up taking to get your degree from Fort Lewis College?
00:10:41
Speaker
It took me exactly two years. I went full time the whole time while I was doing, while I was employed full time at Elm Depot, which kind of amazes me still to this day. But also took a field school over the summer and a summer class to kind of stay on track. And I ended up graduating early. Sweet. That's awesome, man. And what was your favorite course, do you think, that you took in undergrad? There was a few that I
00:11:11
Speaker
really enjoyed. Of course, contemporary issues in Native Nations was helpful. Federal Indian policy kind of gave me the background overview of things like NAGPRA and American Indian Religious Freedoms Act and National Historic Preservation Act, all these background laws that would kind of come into play in my
00:11:34
Speaker
employment post-graduation. Solid. And then after you finished your degree, you started working for Woods Canyon, right? Yeah. So funny story is I was working at Home Depot beginning of spring and summer, and I had a classmate and friend that worked for
00:11:56
Speaker
another CRM company in the state and he suggested to apply so I could work with them on an excavation. So I applied with them and I thought I'm going to apply to this little company called Woods Canyon that I keep hearing about. So I applied to them too and Woods Canyon actually called me the very next day.
00:12:20
Speaker
So they were jumping right on top of my application and they pretty much said, hey, can you come in tomorrow for an interview? And I said, yeah. And they hired me and I ended up working for them for the next few years.
00:12:34
Speaker
All right. And then also during your time, but you're also doing NAGPRA consultation work. So you're really busy in general. Everything I know about you is that you are not only usually a full-time student, you're working on top of that, and then you're also involved in a bunch of service work. So could you not only just expand
00:12:56
Speaker
the academic side during this time, but also how you were working with tribes down in the Southwest on some pretty serious capacities.
00:13:07
Speaker
I'm trying to remain modest and humble, but I also worked with Southern Ute Tribe at the same time I'm doing Home Depot and the CRM company. So for Southern Ute, they hired me to be a NAGPRA assistant to kind of help their NAGPRA coordinators who often just get dumped on with mail and email and
00:13:31
Speaker
you know, consultation work and their department is in the same building with their tribal museum, which was pretty cool. I got to see a lot of their collections and archives and things while I was there. But as the NAGPRA assistant, I went through a lot of mail and I kind of got to learn the whole notification process and read some of the federal registry.
00:13:56
Speaker
notifications that were there and a lot of section 106 came up a lot of which is part of the National Historic Preservation Act. So the tribe got to got 30 days to submit a comment if they had any type of questions on any land development or FCC construction that was going to go on which was usually through like cell phone towers and things like that.
00:14:25
Speaker
I got to be in a repatriation with the tribe. That was through some local institutions. Rebarial, I got to be in a rebarial. That was my first experience with the rebarials through the tribe in Fort Lewis. All right, man, that's pretty like, how was that experience? Like, I mean,
00:14:48
Speaker
What I mean by that is, did that experience affect how you saw anthropology or changed the way that you thought about your education, what you want to do? Yeah, it gave me the, you know, I feel like I got a lot of experience from representing the tribal side of repatriation and that, and it's difficult. So coming to CU Boulder,
00:15:14
Speaker
I kind of want to emphasize getting more experience from the non-native side, from the museum, from the bigger institution side of it and see what they do or don't do to kind of, or what they should do in terms of meeting tribes in the middle rather than putting all the work on the tribes to do it.
00:15:36
Speaker
All right. And with that, we're going to go ahead and take our first
Graduate School Decisions
00:15:40
Speaker
break. We'll be right back here on a Life Rents podcast, episode 125 with Chance Ward. Stay tuned. And we're back with Chance. So we just finished up the last segment, kind of talking about Chance at Fort Lewis College, working with Southern U, Woods Canyon. Is Woods Canyon out of Durango or is it out of? They're out of Cortez, Colorado. Yeah. So just a little bit west.
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah, a little past Mesa Verde. Mm hmm. A little old Cortez. So you got your degree in 2018 and then you started at Boulder in 2021. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So and then in that time you were consulting and working for Southern Ute in the NAGPRA office as well as working
00:16:28
Speaker
both for Woods Canyon as a CRM tech, but then also when you didn't have field work, you were also full timing at Home Depot. So what busy, busy guy, man, what drove you to look at master's degrees? So, I mean, like what, you know, what was that realization? They wanted to go to grad school, you know, and then on top of that, what institutions were you looking at and how come you ended up on Boulder?
00:16:54
Speaker
I think after my, you know, starting the first year at CRM, it kind of seems like the dream job of Colorado, you know, you get paid to hike and camp and the kind of romances there were like, wow, I get to walk out in the forest and walk through the trees and through the mountains and areas that most people probably won't walk through because it's 100% off trail. I get to set up a camp and cook outside and
00:17:22
Speaker
hear the coyotes howling at bedtime and all that fantasy type stuff. And it was great. But I think after the second year, I started feeling pretty plateaued about it. Like this is just the way it's going to be forever.
00:17:46
Speaker
And I started thinking, you know, I want to do something that has a little bit more meaning to me. And as fun as it was to be out hiking and looking for artifacts and features on the ground.
00:18:00
Speaker
I wanted it to be more meaningful. And if that was to become, you know, the crew chief of doing this, doing what I was doing, survey work, if I could write the reports. At that point, I thought that would be even a step up for what I wanted to do. It's like, I want to be the crew chief. I want to write the reports.
00:18:22
Speaker
And I kind of looked for advice from a few other native people that were in CRM that already had master's degrees. And I told them that I was looking for something more meaningful and
00:18:37
Speaker
All of them kind of gave me the same advice. You should go to grad school and get a master's degree. And that'll open up a few more areas that you want to get in for what you're looking for. So I ended up inviting myself to this discussion in Durango. It was between CU Boulder and Mesa Verde. But the meeting was held in Durango on Fort Lewis campus. And
00:19:06
Speaker
Another indigenous archeologist from Crow Canyon told me about it, that he was invited. Tim Wilcox. He's like, you should go to this. I said, I don't know if I can. I wasn't invited. He's like, you should email the person in charge and invite yourself. So I did. I sent the email. I said, this is who I am, what I do, what I want to do, and I would like to be involved.
00:19:31
Speaker
So they added me to the email roster and said, just show up tomorrow and your name will be on the list. So I did. So I showed up and.
00:19:40
Speaker
I think there was only four other indigenous people there. Everybody else was was non-native and they were from National Park Service. They were from Colorado Parks and Wildlife. There were local archaeology people, local museum people. And of course, CU Boulder seemed to be kind of the facilitator of this. And these discussions, they're asking
00:20:08
Speaker
for views and perspectives on the landscape of the area because they were essentially trying to redo their Chapin Mesa Museum because it was pretty old and outdated. So I ended up partnering up with Dr. Woody Aguilar and he kind of stayed with me and me and him went to these different discussion rooms and
00:20:31
Speaker
We were kind of giving the indigenous perspective on these questions. Landscape, sacred spaces, sacred objects, displaying items, all these different things. And in one of these rooms, the facilitator was a guy named Dr. Will Taylor. And he was asking the questions to the group and he was asking questions and we're answering them.
00:21:00
Speaker
You know, we did this throughout the whole day. And when it was done and over, you know, he kind of caught me before I left. And he was asking me about what we were talking about. You know, it had to do with archaeology. And, you know, I kind of gave some native perspectives on horses and animals being considered sacred in the group discussion.
00:21:25
Speaker
he asked me if I was interested in like working together or doing something together and I said yeah that'd be that'd be pretty great so he gave me his contact information and we kind of parted ways there and then that's right when and a few days a few weeks later I think all the COVID shutdown started happening so we never really got to
00:21:47
Speaker
do anything over the summer, but in the fall, you know, he was asking me if I ever thought of applying to grad school. And they said, yeah, I would, I do plan to. So I actually applied to CU Boulder because of our interaction with
CU Boulder Experience
00:22:04
Speaker
him. And then I applied to Northern Arizona University at the same time.
00:22:09
Speaker
And so what program did you apply for at NAU? And then on the flip side, how come you chose the museum and field cities program at CU Boulder and not like anthropology? When I applied to NAU, it was for their archeology program. I had some discussions with some of the people that were there and they pretty much told me that I
00:22:34
Speaker
would be accepted, but they were lacking the funding to provide like grad student funding for me in the fall. And they essentially asked me if I would wait a year and a half before I would go.
00:22:47
Speaker
and CU Boulder offered immediately and said, we could take you right now, but it's the museum program. And I said, I will go with the museum program. And at the time I, I thought I wanted to be, you know, a PI or a crew chief or a CRM group, which is why I went with the archeology program at NAU. And I didn't know much about the,
00:23:15
Speaker
museum side yet at the time, but I'm 100% happy that I went with the museum program at CU Boulder. Yeah, man. I know they were really, really excited to, uh, to get you. I know that, that for sure. So NAU lost out because they didn't want to offer me right away. Yeah, they missed out. Yeah, man. I agree with that 100%. Sweet. And then so.
00:23:44
Speaker
That's CU Boulder in that MFS program. We've also started to get involved with
00:23:52
Speaker
You're Dr. Will Taylor's research assistant, so you've been working in his zoarcheology lab and 3D scanning and a bunch of other projects that Dr. Taylor has you on. But then you've also become involved in the Plains Anthropological Society with the Student Affairs Committee and then working also at History Colorado.
00:24:16
Speaker
You know, we've already touched on this, right? Like you wanted to go to any because there was this crew chief aspect that you were looking for. And then you go to this museum program. How has being in the museum program at CU Boulder like changed your trajectory in this career? I think being in the museum program, it kind of gave me a little more insight into what can actually be done from within the museum. I had no knowledge or experience before I came here pretty much in museum work other than the NAGPRA part.
00:24:47
Speaker
which I had very little to do with leading up to the NAGPRA consultations. But, you know, being a grad assistant, I get to work on a grant in the museum. I get to work with faunal bones, faunal remains from archaeological context.
00:25:08
Speaker
And Dr. Taylor focuses on horses. So I get to help him analyze some horses, horse bones from North Dakota, South Dakota. And we also got some from a Pueblo group in New Mexico. And, you know, in one of his classes was on 3D printing and augmented reality, virtual reality. And I got to 3D print a
00:25:36
Speaker
horse mandible, a horse jaw. And, you know, we had it prepared by somebody in the fossil prep lab to kind of give it a realistic color and look and texture. And, you know, they're side by side. You can obviously tell the real one from the 3D print, but from a distance, you know, from with the untrained eye, they look pretty identical.
00:26:01
Speaker
And, you know, at some point I want to use those to take to tribal communities and talk to them about horses within the culture. And if 3d printing is even ethical, you know, those are kind of discussions that I would like to hear learn about, talk about. Yeah. How was your, how's your trajectory changed after being in the museum?
Aspirations and Professional Growth
00:26:28
Speaker
So being in the museum program, you know, I kind of got a better,
00:26:31
Speaker
understanding of what can go on.
00:26:34
Speaker
in museums. I've completely gave up on the archaeology fieldwork part right now. You know, I'm focused on on the museum research. I want to expand more on the involving the indigenous voices in museums, in collections, in NAGPRA, that type of thing. So right now, my academic and career trajectory is to be a museum professional.
00:27:02
Speaker
And I don't know what that looks like yet, but I spent the summer interning at History Colorado in downtown Denver. They're formerly the Colorado Historical Society, but they changed their name to History Colorado. It's a four story building downtown Denver. They have a big museum. They have big collections. I got to tour one of nine warehouses that
00:27:32
Speaker
house their entire historical artifact collection in the state. And, you know, it's just full of chairs and tables and sofas and bed frames and mirrors. And there's even, you know, toilet bowls from 1800s.
00:27:49
Speaker
all this stuff you wouldn't think about collecting, but you know, a lot of taxidermy and they even had a, they told me a story. They even had missiles from like desert storm in there and they weren't even sure if they were live or
00:28:08
Speaker
But it turns out they had the Denver bomb squad come and look into them and like four of six were still alive. So they took the four out and detonated them over on Colorado Springs Air Force Base. Good night. Okay. But my internship there was, you know,
00:28:33
Speaker
I don't want to say it was what I wanted it to be because we just ran out of time, but I was the NAGPRA coordinator assistant and tribal consultant liaison, assisted to that person. She was my supervisor.
00:28:50
Speaker
And, you know, I got to go through unmarked burial cases from the state. Got to see a lot of documents and photos of NAGPRA cases, a lot of archaeological human remained photos and police reports. A lot of these were somebody found it in the garage or their grandpa has been hanging onto it for the last 60, 70, 80 years.
00:29:19
Speaker
they inherited it and they didn't really know what to do with it. So they're finally calling law enforcement or the coroner's office to try and figure out what to do with it.
00:29:30
Speaker
And that's where History Colorado comes in, is once the law enforcement and coroner's office determines it's not somebody recent, that it is archaeological, History Colorado then takes over, we can go pick it up and then start tribal consultation on repatriation and eventual reburial. And being exposed to that, you know, it kind of let me know what I could be involved in in the museum world.
00:30:00
Speaker
I want to be a consultant on archaeology and museum items for my own tribe someday. But until then, I can stay local here.
00:30:11
Speaker
All right, man, that sounds great. Yeah, that was really, it's been really cool to see how connected you've become with a greater like indigenous, like, like front range indigenous community in the Colorado archeological professions. Like you've been, it's been really awesome to see how desired you are by like CCPA, the Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists, Colorado Archeological Society, and all these other professional groups that recognize what, you know, your contributions to the field.
00:30:38
Speaker
So that's been like really cool to see. And on that note, we're going to go ahead and take our next break. We'll be right back with Chance Ward here on Life Room's podcast.
Collaborative Projects and Media
00:30:45
Speaker
And we're back with episode 125 of Life Room's podcast. We're here with Chance Ward, master's student in the museum and field studies at CU Boulder. So we've really just gone in this past episode just kind of talking about Chance's undergraduate, graduate career, the things he's been involved in. But since the year of overlap that we had,
00:31:03
Speaker
at CU Boulder, me and you got into, shenanigans is not the right term, but based on our backgrounds, me and you have both been invited to do joint media projects through Will Taylor, who's your direct advisor. He's on my PhD committee. And I think there's two stories I definitely want to touch on, but the first one is we were invited to be interviewed for this PBS documentary on
00:31:33
Speaker
on Dr. Taylor's horse research. And they really wanted me in chances and perspectives as indigenous people on horses. I mean, what was your, what was running through your head when you first got asked to be interviewed for this show Chance? My reaction was I am totally unprepared because it was my first semester and I was only maybe a month or two into the program.
00:32:01
Speaker
all of a sudden Rocky Mountain PBS wants to interview us for some indigenous knowledge on cultural knowledge on horses. And, you know, they had their whole lighting set up and all these big professional video cameras in our face. And
00:32:19
Speaker
All I could think about was I'm not a horse expert at all. But here I am sitting in front of the camera about ready to tell my stories and knowledge best that I can. But it was fun. It ended up being fun. And I wish we could redo it because I was very nervous and had a hard time speaking on camera.
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah, that was, that was a weird experience because I kept, I was more worried about saying something wrong and getting roasted by the tribe for it than anything else. Cause they like throw you up. Like, so tell us, tell us Pawnee beliefs on horses. I'm like, I know I don't know everything and I will answer to the best of my abilities and tell you, you should probably verify everything that comes out of my mouth with my tipo and ag for officer because I don't
00:33:06
Speaker
I'm super nervous right now. But yeah, that was that really surreal experience with the makeup and the lighting and all that. And then me and you, because your recording was at the museum, mine was at the studio in Denver. And I went to go give you support. And then me and you just ended up in the middle of the interview, just shooting the shit with each other and just teasing each other. And we had to explain to the production staff,
00:33:31
Speaker
Oh, historically me and Chance's tribes didn't get along. So that's where like this, this joking animosity is coming from and then the back and forth. And then I think that made them feel better because I remember one of the guys laughing about it, but I think they were like kind of anxious about how you're talking about it for a moment. Yeah. Yeah. It's always fun to do the, you know, the traditional friendly tribal rivalry joking with each other. And that's why I still continue to send you the memes.
00:34:00
Speaker
The memes. Yes. Yeah, man. That was, that was a fun time. I don't, whatever happened with it. Like, did it ever get published? If I remember, they said the episode would come out. I think we did the interview in October or November. Yeah, something like that. And I was told the interview would come out in like April or May, but I haven't, I haven't heard a thing since then. I never searched for it either. So maybe it's on the website and we don't know about it.
00:34:29
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to look for it. I don't know what no one's emailed me asking me why I said these things yet. So no one's question what I said. So
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't seen anything about it. I think I asked like, Will, like whatever happened to the, to the episode, man. And he just, uh, he never got, never got back. I don't even know what it's under. Is it under native lens? No, probably not. I don't know. I know it was Rocky Mountain PBS, but I haven't looked into it or searched for anything. So.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe they fact checked us and figured out we were all wrong and scrapped the whole thing. Got rid of it. Yeah. That would be a bummer. I can't, yeah, I can't find it. I'll have to hit up, have to hit up Will and see, see whatever happened with that thing.
00:35:26
Speaker
I still have the email from the original, the guy that interviewed us. So, or at least the guy that interviewed me. So maybe I'll send an email and say, Hey, what happened to the episode? I haven't heard anything since then. Fair. They do have like a whole thing on humans and horses, but I don't think that's us. That's from 2019. Well, before we even got involved in it. So whatever that was, that was still, it was still a cool experience to, to go through all of, uh,
00:35:55
Speaker
to go through that rigmarole and try to, cause they were really interested on like, you know, how, on Will's research and upending the traditional narrative as to when horses spread and like everything that we were talking about and the research that we're all doing together shows horses got up to native to indigenous communities like much earlier than.
00:36:14
Speaker
Pueblo Revolts, that's the big narrative. Once the Pueblos released all the horses, that's when everyone else got them. And like everything that we're showing, both with the science and then more importantly, all of our old traditions, which is why we were brought in, don't mention the revolts or like we talked about how we got horses in very different ways that, you know, which is supported by
00:36:35
Speaker
you know, the archeology that we're that we are seeing. So yeah, most of my interview, they're asking me about the way I grew up with horses on my reservation. And, you know, I talked about growing up riding horses and, you know, my family, my father's side of the family, they're cattle ranchers and my dad and his cousins and brothers are real big into rodeo.
00:37:02
Speaker
champions. So they were asking me, you know, what's it like growing up in the rodeo family and, and things like that. So, so it was interesting that they didn't really ask. They almost didn't ask me anything about the work that I was doing or that we were doing. Oh yeah. They asked me like Pawnee traditions on, I had to talk about like mud pony and stuff like that. The mud pony. Yeah. Yeah. Most of it was about rodeo and
00:37:32
Speaker
riding horses. I miss rodeo culture, man. Yeah. They asked me if, um, how I learned to ride horses. If I knew how, how, how well I could ride. And I was like, well, it's kind of subjective. I think I'm good, but I'm, I'm probably not good at all in comparison to professional rodeo guys, you know,
00:38:02
Speaker
fair enough. No. Yeah. Like I'm, I'm, I'm horrible compared to that. Cause I came from the same, that same kind of family. Right. Hold on. I'm going to text well right now. What happens? I can ride good enough to not fall off. How's that? Yeah.
00:38:17
Speaker
Exactly. Or just fall off and not get hurt. But then the second thing we got involved in, which was, which was, I don't know how they came across us or me. I don't remember this. I think they came across you because you, you pulled me into it too.
00:38:35
Speaker
Oh, you know what? They emailed the, I'm looking at it now. I think they, they emailed the PBS people and they, they sent them to us, sent them to me and I wrote you into it. So we got me a chance, got interviewed or we didn't have an interview, but we,
00:38:52
Speaker
had to speak to Mel B's agent from Mel B, like the Mel B from the Spice Girls. From the Spice Girls. From the Spice Girls. Because they're doing this, it's by the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, this Trailblazers documentary, which is about
00:39:07
Speaker
this British woman back in the 1800s that went out West and wrote a book about it became famous, and then the Spice Girls, their plan is to follow in her footsteps and learn about the American West. They wanted to talk to be a chance about
00:39:28
Speaker
how they could go about having the Spice Girls participate and film a Lakota sweat lodge ceremony. And that's why I roped in chance. I was like, I don't think this is a great idea, but let me bring my Lakota friend in so we can both tell you why this isn't a great idea. Yeah, I thought that was pretty hilarious. I thought it was a joke at first when he said it's Mel B and the Spice Girls.
00:39:56
Speaker
do a Lakota sweat lodge and want to know why or why not why they shouldn't do it. And that was pretty funny that we actually got to do a zoom meeting with the agent with Mel B's agent. And I remember them telling us, well, they're going to start on the East coast and they're going to start heading West.
00:40:17
Speaker
across the open frontier. And when they get to Colorado, they want to do a real Lakota sweat lodge on camera and record everything. Is that okay to do? And in that, it was like a 45 minute call and we were on there for a while and she was like, her agent was super nice. And like just was genuinely curious. She was like, well, Mel B had done one in like Kentucky or something. And we were like, what do you mean? She's done an authentic sweat lodge in Kentucky. And we were like trying to explain to the agent,
00:40:46
Speaker
like the cultural values of it and like how you find like fraudsters and like authentic versus non-authentic. Like the chance of finding a Lakota medicine man in Colorado that was going like to actually perform like as an authentic sweat lodge, you're not going to be able to film it or really talk about it. So I thought it was a really productive conversation because I think at the end of it, like the agent just seemed like, oh my God, thank God, we don't have to do this. Like she seemed relieved that we were like, don't do this.
00:41:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I was pretty happy with the responsiveness that the agent showed us. She seemed pretty like, okay, good. I don't have to figure this all out for Mel B. Yes. Yeah. I thought that was, that was pretty.
00:41:31
Speaker
I thought that was pretty fun that like, I went into there, like, are we going to have to like tell this British woman, like have to do this whole colonial story? And it mostly just boiled down to like, could we just tell her no. So she had less work to do. And that's what a, you know, basically boiled down to like, this is not a good idea for this, for these, for these reasons. Like this is bad and this is going to be bad press. And she's like, okay, perfect. We don't have to do this. I expected somebody that didn't want to take no for an answer. Yeah. And
00:41:58
Speaker
was going to find a way to do it, whether we approved or not. And it doesn't look like, uh, it happened. I mean, we'll see. I don't think it's come out yet, but I know there's some things on it, but it'd been cool to like actually talk to Mel B that'd been fun. But now we talked to her agent. I mean, so we, we got that close to, to celebrity. Yeah. To, to British Liberty. Yeah. And then, yeah, that's been, that's been, we should have brought that up in the interview. We should have said FaceTime now being right now.
00:42:28
Speaker
Let us bring all the spice girls in and we'll tell them in person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We need all the spice girls on the zoom call immediately so we can talk to them. That would have been, that would have been a trip.
00:42:45
Speaker
But I mean, that's just kind of like, you know, there's that as an indigenous archeologist in the field, indigenous museum professional, like that onus of having to do all that extra labor, you know, does boil down on, on you.
00:43:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It seems to fall on the indigenous person themselves or on to the tribe and the, the other end seems to not want to do the education themselves unless they're told to. So no, but it's been
Cultural Responsibilities and Community Support
00:43:21
Speaker
cool. Like I, I consider you a close friend. Like it's been really fun to like see.
00:43:27
Speaker
Because I mean, you have lived in the same places too. We have a really weird mirrored life course. We were around DC at the same time. We had folks working for the BIA at the same time in Southwest, Colorado. There's really interesting connections. It's been really cool to see how successful and motivated you are.
00:43:47
Speaker
in this field. I'm really looking forward to what happens next, whether you land at DM&S or Colorado, if you want to pursue a PhD down the line. It's been really, really fun to see. It's been really cool to be a part of your rise in this field as someone that's taken not only as a ... As in my experience within Plains or Colorado that you've been tokenized, but that you're really looked upon as an authority within
00:44:12
Speaker
archaeology and museum studies within Colorado. So that's been just really cool to see that happen. And the opportunities you've gotten are just absolutely fantastic and you've really taken advantage of it. So I wanted to say that. I am excited to see you at Plains in Oklahoma City next month.
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's been great getting to know you and it's a bit funny to see how our careers kind of mirrored each other a little bit and how we kind of ended up meeting each other at the same place at the right time. And yeah, for tokenizing, you know, I do my best to kind of be aware of everything and keep my eye out for not becoming that tokenized person, no matter what I'm doing.
00:44:58
Speaker
And I have a good support group that kind of looks out for those things for me as well. Yeah, absolutely.
00:45:08
Speaker
place is really special when it comes to protecting indigenous students and making sure they're not overextending themselves. And Will is just absolutely fantastic. I think Will is absolutely a rising star within that, both those departments, like he's going to be. I'm excited to see what he does. Yeah. Yeah. So well, where can our listeners find you on social media? Social media. I have a LinkedIn page.
00:45:37
Speaker
that I try to keep as business and professional as I can. I don't use it very often, but that's usually what I refer to. Perfect. And then you have a student profile on the museum, right? Yeah. Yeah. I got a student profile on the museum page.
00:45:58
Speaker
Well, dude, I highly appreciate you coming on the show today and having this interview and, uh, you know, chance, if you were given the chance again, would you still to choose to live a life in ruins? I would completely about it.
00:46:12
Speaker
Thanks, man. Well, everyone, we just interviewed Chance Ward. You can find Chance on LinkedIn and his contact information on the Museum Studies student profile page at CU Boulder. All those links will be in the show description down below. Please be sure to rate and review the podcast and leave us with feedback on whichever podcast and platform you're listening to the show.
00:46:30
Speaker
And as always, if you're listening to us on the All Shows feed, please, please, please subscribe to a Life in Ruins individual show. Having those numbers helps us grow our show and provide stuff to potential advertisers and sponsors. And by stuff, I mean statistics. That's what I mean by stuff. So with that, we are out.
00:46:57
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archeologists in from the cold and feed them beer.
00:47:25
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.