Episode 154: Comanche Nation Chairman Forrest Tahdooahnippah

Comanche Chairman Forrest Tahdooahnippah joins in to talk about Comanche history, culture, and so much more. We had a chance to talk about the legal relationships between Tribal nations and the United States, the importance of language preservation, what it’s like to lead a Tribe, thoughts on how Comanche people have been portrayed on film, and how historians and others can conduct ethical scholarship in Indian Country. This was a really wonderful conversation and I’m so thankful to the Chairman for the time to talk with us.

About our guest:

Forrest Tahdooahnippah is Chairman of the Comanche Nation. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Policy from Stanford University and his Juris Doctorate from the University of Minnesota Law School. Prior to his service as Chairman, he was legal counsel at Dorsey & Whitney, LLP and was an assistant professor of law at Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

Transcript

Jason Herbert (00:00.798)
All right, 30 minutes in, we're back at it. was just attempt three, I think, right now. Good morning from Comanche country, Chairman. So welcome to Colorado.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (00:13.624)
Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

Jason Herbert (00:15.449)
Uh, yeah, man, I am, uh, I've been looking forward to doing this for a little bit forever to actually ask you to come on the pod. I was thinking this morning, you know, I've had. Actors and directors and all these people. And I was like, I was so sheepish. I was like, was talking to Martina, uh, Minthorn and it's like, do you think chairman might want to come on? She's like, you could just ask him, Jason. I was like, okay, I guess I'll do that. So, um, I really appreciate you making the time. This is a conversation I was kind of hoping to have. Um,

and so forth. I guess before we jump in, you want to introduce yourself and tell us who you are for our listeners in?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (00:51.64)
Sure. Yeah. My name is Forrest Tahdooahnippah and I am the chairman of the Comanche Nation. you know, think doing podcasts is a lot of fun. So it's my pleasure to be here.

Jason Herbert (01:03.624)
Well, awesome. I'm glad you're here. think you and I have been crossing paths, it looks like, for a few years now, actually, and so forth. So we'll get into that a little bit later. But I wanted to maybe ask you a very simple question to start, which is, who are the Comanche people?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (01:22.734)
Yeah, well, the Comanche are, you know, it's an American Indian tribe and we're one of the 500 plus federally recognized tribes in the United States. So that has legal significance as far as the United States relationship with us as a tribe. But

You know, we have a history, you know, as a people that is a thread that binds us as far as having a historic culture and common language. And then, you know, we have our contemporary culture that binds us, you know, and familial relationships that all bind us together as the tribe, as a people. So it can get complicated when you feel, I think, different layers as far as

what it means to be a federally recognized tribe is a legal thing and then what it means to be Comanche as kind of more an identifier because we have like official enrollment and membership but then there's you people that have Comanche descendancy that goes beyond our official enrollment.

Jason Herbert (02:30.588)
Yeah. It's when I talk to people and so forth and, Evelyn comes up, Hey, you know, I do native history and so forth. And these kinds of questions pop up, you know, just all the time. And I'm hoping we can kind of unpack that a little bit as we go on. But I think one of the things when I talk to folks about say, you know, and they ask, know, Hey, you know, who do you work with? And things like that. And I talk about some of the nations that I get to chance to work with. I think people are always surprised that Camacharia is way bigger.

then maybe, you know, think maybe there's sometimes a perception on the outside chairman that Comanches are a Plains tribe or something like that. And certainly that's part of the story. I mean, Comanche country is a lot bigger than say Oklahoma or even Texas, correct?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (03:15.446)
Yeah, I mean, depending on how you look at it, it can be extremely vast because like you mentioned Martina Minthorn earlier, and she's the director of our Tribal Historic Preservation Office. And so when you talk about the history of all the different places that the Comanches ever were, I mean, it becomes extremely vast because we have a migration from the north to the south. so, you know, we started out in like the Idaho, Wyoming area.

and then migrated to the Southern Plains. So then when you talk about everywhere we ever were, I mean, it's huge. And we even have oral history that talks about our ancestors exploring and going all the way down to South America. We have stories about people encountering monkeys. And so that must have been extremely far down into South America.

and going from coast to coast. So if you talk about every place we ever were, it is extremely vast. When you talk about the area that they call Comancheria, that is a little bit smaller, but it's still extremely vast, going from the Rio Grande up to the Arkansas River, from the Rocky Mountains all the way over towards the middle of Texas.

So yeah, I mean, even that is extremely vast. And I think at our peak, Comanches were pretty numerous too. I mean, I've heard estimates of there being 40,000, 50,000 Comanches at one time. Today, our official enrollment is 18,000 about. think we take it like a census every June and it was 18,008 in June, but we add people to the roll every month.

Jason Herbert (05:10.728)
That's great. yeah, it's, I find myself, you know, here living in Pueblo, Colorado is I, is I kind of drive around and, just maybe as a nature of kind of the things that I do, certainly with the forest service. I should probably go ahead and say none of our conversation is, is, the opinion of the forest service, just so I keep myself out of hot water. like, you know,

What I'm driving around chairman, I'm often thinking about, Hey, you know, if I'm out in, say La Junta, Colorado, or out on the plains in Kansas or say on the Comanche national grasslands. like, I'm constantly thinking it's like, this is Comanche country, or this is Cheyenne country, or this is whom ever country. And it is, I think a helpful reminder to me about the importance of the things that I do in my own profession, not just with the forest service, but just the ways in which I engage, you know, as a historian to think about, the places I'm at.

You know, the people I kind of serve. And when I talk about who I serve, I'm really trying to write, you know, native histories about people who continue to be here. Um, and I think it was to get, that's really interesting to, to, look at these maps of just how big. And people are always surprised by that. We go up in the mountains here in Colorado. think, you know, we, we had all these amazing young folk come up over the summer. Uh, and we took it with the mountains and the kids are seeing it and, know, we're talking to guests and like, why are Comanche tribe here? like, well.

Congratulations. now, you you, Mr. Mr. Visitor are on Comanche homelands. You know, I think that was, it's, it's a cool thing. Um, are there misconceptions, chairman, that you often hear about, like say Indian country or Comanche people or things like that. When you talk about the nation or just Indian country, I mean, you've been an attorney working in Indian, you know, Indian law for awhile, as well as I understand, like when you talk to say maybe non-tribal members or maybe even people outside the nation, you know,

What do often hear that you're like, well, kinda sorta or whatever.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (07:04.846)
Yeah, I mean, think there's so many misconceptions. You know, it's hard to know where to even begin. I you know, one misconception from some people, and this is one I think that's more prevalent among people, you know, that aren't from the United States or maybe, and sometimes people from kind of like the Eastern part of the United States, like the East coast. And then they think that just, that there aren't Native Americans anymore at all. And so, you know, they're sometimes surprised.

Jason Herbert (07:13.192)
Sure.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (07:34.114)
to learn that we aren't extinct, that we're still here. And a lot of tribes have a lot of people. So that is one that we grapple with. And then I think once people's knowledge maybe gets above that little bit, then sometimes people are aware that they're still Native Americans. But then they think that they...

still live in teepees or kind of live in kind of an ancient way. And so kind of getting them up to speed that, you know, there's been a hundred years of history and that we've seen, have a contemporary culture and, you know, live contemporary lives, but still, you know, like our contemporary culture is influenced by our traditional culture, obviously, but that it's, know, we're living, breathing, evolving people with an evolving cultures too. I think that's a surprise to a lot of people. And then I think you get people,

Jason Herbert (08:05.892)
Hahaha.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (08:28.694)
that are kind of more educated on Native Americans. And so maybe they've read more, so they're familiar that they're still around. They're familiar that there's, you know, these differences between tribes, which is another thing that people don't always appreciate is how diverse tribes can be. And so sometimes people are educated in all of that and they've even read a lot about Comanches. But then I think there's a lot of, I don't know, a lot of...

kind of exaggeration in some of the historical documents about Comanches or a lot of bias in kind of the historical reports about Comanches. And so they think they have a misconception of Comanches as being kind of like real.

rootish kind of, you know, very warlike. And certainly we had a military power in our area, but a lot of that history is, I think, a lot more complicated than people appreciate, which I'm happy to delve into too, but I don't want to just kind of go on.

Jason Herbert (09:34.046)
No, can't people don't want to listen to me talk on this thing. so, so that's some delve on and on. Um, yeah, you know, I found, you know, in my own line of work and certainly as a historian, I always find myself chairman shying away from like, people always ask like, what's the native way of doing things? was it like 574 recognized tribes and all these different cultures, like the ways in which Comanche do things are completely different than the way say Haudenosaunee or like these are different countries and peoples with different, uh,

relationships to land resources, spirits, you know, you know, and so forth. Right. It's a thing that I shy away from. And I think even for me, and maybe you could weigh in on this, it took me a long time before I got as a non-native guy got comfortable saying native or indigenous or Indian. I think maybe for people listening in who don't know or who haven't had a chance to say work with tribes or do read or

so forth. Like, can we talk a little bit about maybe some terminology? It's like, what's appropriate when we talk about, you know, Indigenous cultures and so forth? Like, what feels right to you?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (10:44.49)
Yeah, man, that's kind of like the million dollar question. Yeah, that's what it's so hard to answer because I feel like there's so many people that have different ideas and they have different, you know, they have very principled and passionate reasons for their beliefs, but they have different beliefs, you know, like I've talked to some people, they say,

Jason Herbert (10:46.235)
it speak for all Indians, please.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (11:12.886)
Native American and they like that. And then they're really against saying Indian because they're like, that's racist and that's all because of a misconception and that goes back to Columbus and he was lost and nowhere he was doing. And so I totally reject that. And I don't believe in that at all. And I just want to be called native. And then I talked to other people and they're kind of like, you have to say Indian, don't never say Native American because you know, on the...

technical definitional level, know, Native American refers to anyone that was born in America and Indian is what was used in all the treaties. And so you have to say Indian because if you don't say Indian, then you're going to lose like the treaty rights because that was a historic term. or wrong, that's what the history is. And so we want to be true to the history. So you only say Indian and never say Native American. know, those are people that are, you know, I guess indigenous is maybe the safest way to say it. So they're, you know, those are indigenous people saying that either way. So

I guess indigenous, like I said, is kind of the safest one to use. know, with Comanches, you know, and another thing to say that safe is obviously just go, you know, with the tribe's own word for themselves. And so one thing that I think is interesting about Comanches is that, you know, that's not the word that we have for ourselves. You know, like to say Comanche people in the Comanche language, you say, Nama-na, and to say kind of like refer to Comanche as like an adjective, you would say like Nama or Num.

Jason Herbert (12:28.849)
Mm-mm. Right.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (12:41.454)
And so we still though, you know, like a lot of that's the case for a lot of tribes, know, like Comanche was a word that was given to us by the Ute. And that's, you know, the so many tribes, you you look at the word in English comes from a neighboring tribe. Like I think Sioux comes from, you know, an enemy of the Lakota Dakota people.

Jason Herbert (12:50.326)
Yeah.

Jason Herbert (13:06.663)
Mm-hmm.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (13:08.63)
Winnebago, I know, is a word for the Ho-Chun people that came from a neighboring tribe. Chippewa, I believe, is the same thing. So like, so many of tribes, know, the word in English comes from a neighboring tribe, and a lot of those tribes have kind of tried to reclaim and change it to say, don't use that other word. But Comanches aren't one of them. Comanches were like, you know, that word was something that the Spanish got from the Utes, but we kind of embraced it. We're we're proud of kind of what that has...

come to mean in the history and in the mind of people that it's kind of come to mean this formidable power on the plains. And so even though it's not the word that we have for ourselves, we don't really shy away from it either. So to call a Comanche person Comanche isn't an insult, even if it was a word that came from Ute and then from Spanish, I guess a way that they kind of.

adopted into Spanish, a youth word, but you we don't care that it was the Spanish people that gave us that name. It's kind of like, I think most people still wear it with pride. But at the same time, you know, when we talk about ourselves in Comanche, it's always nomina, you know, and we're proud of that too, you know, we're proud of our language as well.

Jason Herbert (14:20.743)
Totally. actually, you know, I want to talk a little bit about language itself. I think, you know, I, I work pretty extensively, in addition to with the travel historic preservation office, I get a chance to know some of the folks over the language department who I adore if they're listening in. I love you guys so very much. Pianop, it says, Hey, so, I don't know if you know about the, about that, that, that aspect, but, can we talk a little bit chairman about language and the importance of like,

traditional language of say Comanche language to Comanche people. like, you know, when I talk about other tribes, there are varying ways in which, you know, some tribes are really struggling to maintain their language. Some have very, very well-developed language programs and stuff like that. Can you talk about like maybe what language means to say Comanche nation?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (15:14.334)
It's such an important part of identity. I think nothing is as fundamental to human identity as the language that you speak, right? that you see that in a lot of ways. know, I think, for example, this is maybe a random example, but like the Amish people, you know, like what do they call people that are not Amish? They call them the English because they speak English, whereas the Amish speak Pennsylvania Dutch.

And I think you see that too with like people from other countries. Like I know some people from Latin America and they would always kind of, that would be the thing. The thread that would bind them is like, you know, we speak Spanish and then the thing about Americans, doesn't matter if they're white, black or any other, you know, race is that they speak English. And so it's such on a human level, you know, the language that we speak is really fundamental to our identity. And that was the thread that really would bind

Comanches a long time ago because we did have different bands that had different areas. know, like in the northern part, they had a band called the Yaparuka and then in the southern part, they had a band called the Penetuka and they had in the west was a band called the Quahada. And so there was different bands.

And they didn't fight amongst each other, but they also had their own kind of political dynamics. they didn't, you one band didn't speak for another. They each had their own chiefs and they had kind of separate spheres as far as the politics goes. And so the one thing, and the reason that they didn't fight was that they had a thread that bound them together. And that thread was the common Comanche language. And they had different dialects, but they could all understand each other and they could all communicate with each other. So really.

Historically, we're not really one tribe, but we're a collection of different groups called bands. And those bands were really just bound together by only one thing. And that was really the language itself. And so you think historically it's really what gives us our identity. And so I think going into the future, for a lot of reasons, it's important to have a common identity that continues to bind us together. so language is kind of the natural one. So I personally put a ton of importance into it.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (17:34.294)
I try to emphasize it. It's unfortunately something that is in need of purposeful and intentional investment of both money and time and other resources because we live in a time period where everyone that's kind of born today, their first language is English, you know, and that's different from, you know, like when I think about like my grandma, you know, my grandma was born in the 1920s. So she was born

and she's no longer with us. She passed away not that long ago, but you know, it was like five, six, seven years ago. Maybe even longer now, but seven or eight years ago. But she was born in the 1920s and her first language was Comanche. You know, it was that's the language that she grew up talking and she never even heard English. She never even saw a white person until she went to the first grade.

And then that was kind of part of going to school is like, now you're going to learn English and there's going to be, you know, people that are not Comanche that you're going to come to see and interact with. And so it's obviously a lot different nowadays where I think most people, or I know that most people, every person that's Comanche, their first language is now English. And so, you know, we have to work at it now, you know, whereas she didn't have to work at learning Comanche. That was just how she was raised. She had to work at learning English. Now it's the opposite where we're all raised speaking English.

Jason Herbert (18:35.601)
Mm-hmm.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (19:02.462)
But we have to work at Learning Comanche. And so it can be hard. We have to make efforts, know, purposeful efforts. We have to put money into a language department. And we have to, you know, go out there and invest resources to teach classes, create online, you know, dictionaries, online recordings, online classes, language apps, those sorts of things. But I think it's all well worth it. And I try my best, you know, as the chairman to kind of lead by example too.

you know, try to use Comanche whenever I have the opportunity. I try to kind of put my free time towards language. I take classes on a weekly basis from the language department. I've tried to kind of reintroduce things into the meetings. So I'm doing my best to kind of lead by example to say, you know, we can always learn more no matter who we are. We can always invest our time and our effort into it because that's what it really at the end of the day.

you know, it's never gonna be like you can just learn by osmosis. You everyone's gonna have to make an effort. And so I really try to encourage people to make a good effort to learn as much as they can because we really only have, you know, 10 to 20 fluent speakers right now. And so I would love to have, you know, a hundred fluent speakers and, you know, future generations, I'd love to have a thousand fluent speakers someday.

Jason Herbert (20:21.279)
chairman, you know, I know, you know, this, know, there are multimedia stuff. know, I think on maybe the, the Facebook page, the language department is a Facebook page and they've got like the Comanche or the day I know this, cause I get my updates. I, Kathy Cardona is, is very much on me about making sure that she gave me a deck of Sama. last time she was up here, she was like, she's like, work, work on your letters and your numbers. And I'm like, Kathy, I barely speak English. she's like, well, you're to learn Comanche now.

But I'm wondering, is it OK for non-tribal members to want to learn the language as well?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (20:58.646)
Yeah, I mean, think anyone that can contribute to preserving it, know, no matter who they are, I think that's a beneficial thing. There were non-Kamanshis that spoke Comanche way back there too. I mean, I remember my grandma would always tell us about the local butcher and Comanches love to eat meat. And so they would go to this white man that was a butcher and they would...

Jason Herbert (21:20.541)
I've seen.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (21:24.194)
buy meat from women. he learned how to speak Comanche because he had so many Comanche clients and customers. The one thing that I will say, the one little asterisk I guess I'll put on that though, is I know that some of our people get very frustrated and offended and then there's people that, you know, are able to make a profit from the language that if they come in and learn it and then they try to somehow gain financial from it, you know, that is something that we consider offensive. So don't do that.

Jason Herbert (21:47.453)
Mmm.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (21:53.454)
But as far as just learning it and subscribing to the word of the day or coming over here and trying to have a little conversation with our people, I think they really enjoy seeing that and seeing people that are interested no matter what color they are or where they come from.

Jason Herbert (22:10.941)
Um, you mentioned a little bit earlier, we're talking about, know, the broad history of, uh, of community nation and like maybe perceptions of the nation and maybe of Indian country writ large. Uh, this podcast initially chairman started off as a hit as a movie podcast. It's kind of where I kind of got famous on social media is like the movie guy. So can see from all the star wars stuff behind me here. Uh, warning, I'm a big nerd, uh, but.

I wonder if we can kind of speak to like the ways in which Comanche people have been portrayed on film. Do you have thoughts on this as far as growing up and seeing like Comanche history, like on the big screen and maybe how that's changed and so forth? Like, what are your thoughts about the ways in which we're seeing Indian country on screen?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (22:57.74)
Yeah, I mean, on this one, guess I'll have to give the disclaimer, you know, that you gave at the beginning where this is like my own personal opinion and this doesn't represent the opinion of anyone else. But because what I'm about to say may be controversial or a lot of people may disagree with. But one, you know, when I was growing up, I think I'm 40 years old. And I think in some ways, when I was a child, that was kind of like the law.

Jason Herbert (23:08.486)
Yes, sir.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (23:27.2)
in the Western genre. think that was at a time period when there was like a kind of, think, you know, Dances with Wolves was the big movie when I was a kid. And I think that was a great movie and it was kind of groundbreaking in how it portrayed Native Americans. And it got a lot of praise for that. And I think rightfully so. The book, the novel that as I understand the history of that movie, Kevin Costner pitched it as a movie that didn't work out. So then

He had the screenwriter, what is it, Michael Blake, is that his name? But then he had the screenwriter write a novel so that then, know, if the novel kind of got some traction, then they could pitch the movie again. And so that's what ended up happening. They wrote a novel and that got some traction. So then they pitched the movie again. But anyways, that's just a long way to explain that the novel was about Comanches and I've read the novel.

Jason Herbert (24:01.693)
think so.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (24:23.84)
And so there's that tie in with Comanches and a lot of the screenplay you can tell like when they have the Spanish helmet and everything like that would be more appropriately related to Comanches than it would to the Lakota further south. But I think there was kind of a lull in the Western genre when I was a kid. And that was because there was a lot of critique of the genre for its inaccurate portrayals of Native Americans. And the critique was so strong. I remember at one point in my life, I would kind of

Jason Herbert (24:34.513)
Mm.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (24:53.642)
had heard so much negativity about John Wayne and about the movie The Searchers, which is about Comanche's too, that I got so curious that I was like, I'm just gonna watch this movie and see what it's all about. And I was actually surprised on some level that it wasn't as bad as maybe I had been led to believe or the critiques. I mean, I think I was watching it at a time period where it wasn't over-saturated with all these negative portrayals. So like,

you know, in the time period that it came out when there's like, you know, so many stereotypes, so much negativity, like I can definitely see why there was blowback. like, when I watched that movie, I was actually kind of surprised. It was like, oh, it looks like, you know, there was an attempt made to learn about an actual story, you know, the Quana Parker, Cynthia Ann Parker story, and to kind of portray this in film. And it wasn't 100 % negative stereotypes.

although they were certainly there. So I was actually surprised that it wasn't as bad, not to say it was positive portrayal, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and that there was some attempt to kind of make things historically accurate to some degree. Now having said that, obviously there was a ton of stereotypes in there and there continue to be, I think, you know, the pendulum swings and like, I think there continue to be a ton of stereotypes out there, especially about Comanches. you know, I think in the kind of media beyond

movies, there's like a lot of books and I read all of them or I start to read all of them and I always get very frustrated because I think they always rely on kind of these tropes, I guess is what they're called, know, about how brutal and savage these Comanches were and I think there's kind of two camps and I get frustrated with them both because I just, as the type of person I am, I just want to

Jason Herbert (26:37.052)
Mm-hmm.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (26:47.416)
there to be the truth. don't think that you can ever get anywhere until the truth comes out. But I think there's this one camp where it's just like there were these brutal savages. And I think if you read the book Empire of the Summer Moon, you see a lot of this where it's like they just tortured people for fun. They would capture people. And these are just sadistic people that would just torture people for fun. And that was just the culture of the Plains. People go around taking captives and torturing them. And then on the other hand, I think you have to like

the people that have tried to swing the other way that's like, they would never do that. These were like the noble savages or whatever. And so I get frustrated with both of them. And I don't really know what the truth was because I wasn't around, but I've done my best to kind of try to learn from people through the oral stories. And the one thing I'll say about that, like with the Empire of the Summer Moon, the author went out of his way to not consult with.

Comanches and I know that was frustrating for a lot of people and to not pay any attention to oral history by, you know, the grounds that oral history is not reliable. And, you know, I can understand that critique. I don't think written history is necessarily that reliable either, because I think you have to understand that the people that were writing the history down obviously had a bias. And if you go on news reports and that sort of thing, you know, like these are people that were writing

news stories from the point of view of trying to kind of create hysteria in order to get military intervention from the United States, like they were after something, you know, so they were trying to create hysteria, so they're trying to exaggerate what's going on and they're being biased in their reporting, so I think it is a huge mistake to just rely on written recordings. And I also think the reliability of the oral history is really downplayed by some people, because this is how I think about it sometimes, is like, my

Grandmother, I mentioned her, she was born in the 1920s and her grandfather was born in the 1860s. And so as a child, he had direct interaction with all of these people that had lived through all of this stuff. He was getting the oral history directly from people that lived through all of these events.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (29:14.826)
And then, you know, he lived on until like the 1960s. And so by the time, you know, the 1930s, 40s, 50s came around, you know, he could tell people that could write down those stories. And so there's really only one link in the chain, which I don't think makes it like that unreliable. But a lot of that is just a big wind up to say, you know, the oral stories that I've heard about things like torture, it's always, it happened is one thing I'll say.

But the stories that I've heard is always kind of retaliatory and trying to be a deterrent to some other bad acts that were happening. So the one story that I did hear was that there was some white men and they had raped a Comanche girl. And so when the Comanches found those men, they tortured them to death, which is, you know, obviously kind of, it's a brutal story, but it's not like the type of story where

they're just torturing someone for a sadistic reason, you know, or like these savage people, you know, I think anyone that, you know, that their niece or their daughter was raped, you know, they probably at some level felt like they could go and torture the person that did it. And so these are people that just went and did that because there wasn't, you know, a legal system that they could rely on to have them go to prison or get on some sort of sex offender registry or something, you know, if it was the 19th century, so.

their justice at that time was to go and torture these people. But again, it wasn't like we're just torturing them because we're sadists. And I think that's the way that it comes across in some things like the Empire of the Summer Moon or some, you know, those older Westerns or that sort of thing where it's like, this is just something they do for fun. And it wasn't like that at all.

Jason Herbert (30:58.641)
Yeah, there seems to be chairman a risk of like a caricature almost of like Comanche stundering over the horizon to come raid the town and steal the white woman, of course, right. And so forth. And you you get back to this idea of like what happened to that poor young woman, right. And the, the justice that ends up getting served upon those men, right. That's not, that's, that doesn't sound to me chairman, like a Comanche story so much as a human story.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (31:24.3)
Absolutely, yeah. And that's the one thing I think that, yeah, you we have to always keep in mind is that, you know, we are, there kind of is however you romanticize it, once it gets on to be the level of like a movie or a story, there's always that, I think, thing we forget that everyone is human. And so we're all responding in human ways to human conditions. And sometimes we all had different conditions, but at the end of the day, we are all just human. And so all those stories are just human stories.

Jason Herbert (31:53.949)
want to come back to the history thing in a second because that's a large part of our audience, as you know. But I actually want to bring this down to human terms, actually for you, Chairman, because you, as I understand it, you grew up in Minnesota. Is that correct? Can we talk a little bit then? as I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, Minnesota is not traditionally Comanche country. It's a long way away from Lawton.

We both know this because we both spent time up there. can you talk a little bit about maybe like what that's like for you as a Comanche man, growing up, maybe away from, from where you're at now in Lawton, Oklahoma and like what that was like for you a little bit, as far as like, how do you, guess the question I'm trying to ask here is like for my own kids, right? Who live in Florida. I'm constantly trying to say, Hey, look, Kentucky is your home. Cause I'm from Kentucky. Right. And there's, there's a, there's a Florida is your home too. Cause your mom's from Florida, but like,

For my kids, I'm like, don't forget that this is home too, right? And I want them to always have that pull back home. Did you have that pull to Oklahoma? Like, how does that grow for you? Like what happened there for you?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (33:01.294)
Yeah, definitely. So yeah, I grew up in Minnesota, which is where my mom is from and my mom is not Comanche. So it was definitely always kind of impressed upon me that Southwest Oklahoma was sort of my home away from home because I am an enrolled tribal member. And so, and that's where, you know, like my extended family all was from. And that's where my dad grew up.

So it was that was kind of always it was always impressed upon me that it's kind of like your second home. And at the same time, my mom would always, you know, do her best to try to and not only she not Comanche, but she's not Native American at all. So, you know, she would try to encourage me to go to Powwows and kind of be part of the like local Native American community, which was a huge community. mean, the Twin Cities is

you know, probably one of the top urban Indian populations in the United States. And it has, you know, pretty diverse population there from different tribes because there's, I think, 11 federally recognized tribes in Minnesota. So, you know, there's a lot of, and all those times either Ojibwe or Dakota. So there's a ton of Ojibwe people, a lot of Dakota people, and then a lot of Lakota people from South Dakota.

have moved there. A lot of Ho-Chunk people from Wisconsin have moved there. And so there's like a diverse, very diverse and very large urban Indian population. And so definitely my mom always encouraged me to kind of try to go to the local powwows and kind of be involved in the local culture. But definitely, to be honest, I always felt like a little bit of an outsider, just because it wasn't my tribe. And so when I would come to Oklahoma and then especially as I got older,

and I could kind of do things on my own a little bit more. It was, and you know, then since moving here, it's always, it's been such an awesome experience for me, you know, to kind of finally see people that look more like me, you know, participate in culture that feels more natural, it feels more like my own. And so like, as I was able to kind of get more and more immersed in

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (35:24.418)
Manchi culture itself, I just kind of felt better and better like that kind of sense of like identity of like, you know, I found my relatives, I found my people, I found my tribe and you got to feel like I said, like you feel at home and it feels good, you know, and I really enjoy participating and you know, like when I lived in Minnesota, I go to the Pow Wows, I kind of just watch, I wouldn't really feel like I'm going to go out there and do that. Whereas in Oklahoma, I go to the Pow Wows, like I want to be out there.

and go out there and do it and participate in it. So I'm still learning, you know, because I didn't grow up here. So I have a lot to learn, but it's an enjoyable process. you know, people are always very encouraging and welcoming. And so it's not an uncommon story for someone to, you know, I guess they call it reconnect. So people are very accommodating and I really appreciate all the different people I've had that have kind of

served as mentors, whether that's with powwow arena and etiquette or at the Native American church or with other sort of things, language, all the different things that we have here. So I feel very grateful to all of them.

Jason Herbert (36:38.705)
Was there a sense chairman was like, this is our he's coming home now. Like, you know, come on in. Did you get pushed back at all? Like, wait a second. You know, you come home and now you're running for chairman. Like who does this guy think he is? Was there any of that as well? Do you think like, how did that feel for you?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (36:55.106)
I never really felt much pushback as far as like the political ear goes for a couple of reasons. think, I mean, I was the tribal attorney for three terms before I ran for chairman. So I was definitely like a political known, you know, like I had a political reputation before I ever ran for chairman. And then I had always, and I'd been coming around to different things for a little while too, before I ran for chairman. So I never really got a ton of

Jason Herbert (37:00.295)
Mm-hmm.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (37:24.974)
pushed back there. as far as going into different cultural things, like trying to talk to people about the language or talk to people about Native American church or powwow, I mean, think at first people, they're not unwelcoming, but sometimes they can be just a little bit guarded because I think every day there's a lot of people that say they want to learn.

and then what level of dedication do they have? You can't roll out the red carpet for every single person that says they wanna learn, right? Because there's so many of them and then so many of them end up not being very dedicated or falling off. So you kinda have to prove that you are dedicated. And I think once you kind of show up a few times, then people start seeing that, okay, this person really is...

not just talk, but they're willing to actually put in the work. And then once you show that you're willing to put in the work, then I think the floodgates kind of open and then you're hearing all kinds of stories and lessons and learning all kinds of things. like I said, it's a really amazing, wonderful thing. think we have a real beautiful culture. I'm biased obviously, and I'm sure everyone thinks that about their own, but we have beautiful songs and beautiful traditions and it's just awesome to always to learn about them.

Jason Herbert (38:46.94)
I have to confess, there are times, I just got back obviously from visiting the nation. I came back and I was like, my gosh, I have to tell everybody how amazing this is out here and stuff like that. And I got so worried, I have to tell you, because I work with a lot, I've been cheating on Comanche Nation, Chairman. I work with you as well. And I was like, am I talking too much? I came back and I was like, am I talking too much about Comanche Nation? And stuff.

Can I ask you, what, you you're chairman now, what was that decision process like for you where you're like, hey, I think this is a thing that I want to do and I think that I can do well. Was this the, was it a calling? it like, like how do you arrive at the decision of like, I can do this.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (39:35.598)
You know, sometimes there's still days where I feel very humbled and I'm just like, I'm still learning how to do this. It doesn't come with an instruction book or anything. But, you know, for me, the decision making process to put myself out there was kind of a few years in the making. You know, like I mentioned that I was a travel attorney for three terms. And so I saw some of the inner workings of what was going on and I felt like, you know, I've

Jason Herbert (39:43.385)
You

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (40:06.178)
can give people advice on different things, but the role of the lawyer is not to really kind of like make policy. The role of the lawyer isn't to kind of make the actual decisions, it's just to say like, well, you could do A and you could do B and you could do C and the legal ramifications of A would be this and the legal ramifications of B would be that. But, you know, that's how I would treat any client. But when it's your own tribe, you know, you kind of want to say like, you should do B or like,

do be, you like you want to be kind of more forceful about it, but that's not your role as the attorney. So I found myself just being like, you know, I want to do, I want to see X, Y, and Z things happen for the tribe. And I really, you know, it's not a matter of like legal advice, but just as a matter of policy, like this is what I want. And so I think the best way to do that is to, you know, actually be on the business committee and to be, actually be the chairman.

thought that I had the skills that, you you could, I could do that job. And especially, you know, one of the fundamental things about being the chairman is this year, the presiding officer over the meetings. And so I had a lot of experience, just being on different boards of, you know, running meetings and things like that. So I thought, okay, I can do that. And so I've gotten a lot of compliments too, as far as, you know, just being able to, to, to run meetings efficiently and effectively. So that's one thing I'm really proud about, but

There's a lot more obviously that goes into being the chairman than just presiding over the meeting. So I feel like I've learned a ton over the last year of everything that goes into it. It's really opened my eyes. And like I said, some days, you you run into different things and it's like, how am I going to deal with this? And you always have to learn and always stay humble to kind of keep yourself willing to learn open-minded and always trying to kind of move things forward. So I...

I'm still learning definitely, but I am really proud of the work that we've done over the last year and a half since I have been the chairman.

Jason Herbert (42:10.62)
You know, when I think about what I perceive to be your position, chairman, I think it's such a heady thing to like take on the responsibility of, you know, kind of leading tribe, kind of being an advocate for the, uh, for the tribe and kind of, you know, being there, you know, and I got to watch you a little bit when I was, uh, when I saw you at community fair, we said, Hey, for a few minutes, but you were all over. Every time I turn, turn around, like I would see you like, Oh, you know, you were on horseback during, uh, at one point in time you were visiting with folks. get to see.

I got to see you with Mr. Himanochi a little bit and so forth. What, I guess, you take it, what are the joys of this position for you when you look back and you're like come home and you've had a great day? Like, when you think about this, like, what's the cool part about being chairman of the Comanche Nation?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (42:59.278)
You know, it's definitely helping people. know, that's, want good things for the Comanche tribe. I want good things for our people. you know, that takes, when I say good things, it's kind of intentionally vague, right? Because it can be the form, it can be in many forms, you know, like whether it's on a cultural level, know, like seeing our language thrive or seeing our culture thrive, you know, like that's something you want to see. It could be on an economic level, you know, like

Jason Herbert (43:12.134)
Sure.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (43:28.662)
seeing someone get a new job or get a promotion or advance economically, that's something that's really great too. It can be on so many different levels, but to just see people doing well, having good things for themselves, seeing them thrive in some way or another, like I said, whatever that is, seeing people get a promotion, it feels awesome. I got you, speaking of the language department, like we had a...

I get to sign the language certificates of people that get new certifications. like seeing them advance in that way, you know, it feels great. So often, you know, when you work at the tribe, because of the nature of the services that we provide, you know, you might meet someone like when it's on their, they're at their worst day of their life. You know, like we give out services, like we give rental assistance, sometimes, you know, where we can give $600 for people's rent. We give burial assistance for people that have passed away.

gives those sorts of services. so sometimes you meet people where it's like, I just lost my job. I don't know how I'm going to pay my rent. You know, I just had a family member pass away. We don't know how we're going to afford a meal for the funeral. so when you're just able to help those people get through that hard part of their lives, that's really rewarding too. I, you know, I enjoy all those aspects of it. And it's, it's definitely a ton of responsibility, you know, like I said, to meet people on their worst day.

that itself can be very humbling too.

Jason Herbert (44:58.396)
Can I ask you to put your lawyer hat on for a second? When I come back, I have my friends who ask me, like, so how does the law work? And this is a question I kind of want to ask on the part of maybe our listeners here who don't know about the sovereignty of Comanche Nation and things like that. Can you speak a little bit about how the nation works on like a nation to nation relationship with say the United States? But also like, how does like law work?

in community nation as far as like whose laws are supreme or things like that. Like, I know this gets super complicated. We're seeing this all over the place right now. but could you give us like a, a one a one one version of that.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (45:42.808)
Sure, it does get complicated, but the kind of two things that are very important when you talk about the law and you talk about, and by that I really mean jurisdiction, I guess. But when you talk about jurisdiction, the two things that are very important are the enrollment status of the person. And so by that, mean, are they an official Comanche tribal member or not?

and is the land what we call Indian land. And I think when we were talking about terminology, one of the things we mentioned was that, or that I mentioned was that historically, if you look at treaties and things like that, also if you look at statutes and agency regulations and that sort of thing, they're all go back to 1776. And so they always use that term Indian. So I'm not trying to, so I'm just.

kind of getting that disclaimer that when we say Indian land, you that is a term of art in the legal field. And you things like the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And so that's a critique of them sometimes is that their terminology doesn't keep up, but there is legal significance to it. So Indian land, you know, for the most part, it means it's a special type of land and it can be land that's owned either by the tribe itself.

or owned by tribal members, but owned in a unique way. It's owned in what they call trust. so trust lands is kind of what we're talking about when we talk about Indian lands. And it can get more complicated than that. But just for simplicity sake, know, what we mean trust lands is lands that were held in trust for Comanche tribal members. Originally, they're called, there's something called allotment. So there were allotted to Comanche tribal members or

that are lands owned by the tribe itself. And so those things, if you have one or the other, you usually have jurisdiction. So the Comanche Nation as a sovereign will have jurisdiction over its members and will have some jurisdiction over its lands. And then if you have both, like if you have a tribal member on tribal land, then you really have a lot of jurisdiction for the Comanche Nation. The state still has some level of jurisdiction because

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (48:03.384)
you if there's a non-member that lives off of tribal lands, then the state could have jurisdiction over them. Or if there's a non-member on tribal lands, then the state can have jurisdiction. And it gets very complicated, you know, if you talk about is it concurrent jurisdiction or exclusive jurisdiction. But it can be concurrent. And I guess that's something that people don't always appreciate is that it can be the case that two governments both have jurisdiction also.

When I talked about the tribe having really powerful jurisdiction, if it's a tribal member on tribal land, it's so powerful, then it becomes exclusive of state jurisdiction. so that's how you get things like gaming, for instance, like you can open a casino because if a tribal, if a tribe itself is operating on its own tribal land, then its jurisdiction is so powerful that it becomes exclusive of the state's jurisdiction. And so it doesn't matter what the state's gambling laws are, tribes can still have casinos. And so that's...

you know, an example where exclusive jurisdiction kicks in. And then the federal government has jurisdiction kind of everywhere, right? And that's something we deal with, you no matter who we are or where we are, that there's always this overlay of federal law. That really just depends, the federal government can kind of, it just depends on it's saying we want jurisdiction. And so sometimes they've said, we want jurisdiction in this area. And sometimes they've said that they don't want jurisdiction in a particular area. And so you kind of just case by case basis of what will apply.

The tribal government itself needs to pass laws to regulate conduct on its lands and over its members. so that's one of the things that the business committee of which, again, I'm the presiding officer of the business committee, but that's one of the things the business committee does is it passes ordinances and codes. like we have a criminal code, so you can't steal stuff.

or just kind of all the regular crimes, disorderly conduct, theft, assault, we wanna make sure that doesn't happen on our land. And so we have to pass that and then we have to have a police department that goes out and enforces those laws. And then we have to have a tribal court and a tribal prosecutor so that someone breaks into a home, burglarizes a home on tribal land that we can arrest that person, bring them to justice. And so we do all of those sorts of things. Another kind of separate thing,

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (50:30.104)
that the business committee does is oversee what they call all of the tribal programs. And a lot of these are the services that I was talking about before. And a lot of those have sort of a federal relationship. And I'll kind of try to explain that a little bit, but we've entered into these treaties with the United States. And in these treaties with the United States, we gave up millions and millions of acres of land.

And in those treaties, the United States said, if you give up these millions of acres of land, you know, we'll give you a reservation. But it didn't stop there. It didn't just say, we'll give you a reservation. said, in addition to this reservation, on this reservation, you know, we'll have a physician to give you medical care and we'll have a carpenter and we'll have a mill and we'll have a blacksmith and we'll assist you learn how to learn about agriculture and learn how to plant crops. And we'll assist you by having

you know, this mill where you can take your crops and we'll assist you by having this blacksmith so you can get implements to be a farmer and we'll have a school and we'll, you know, provide an education for your children. And so those are how these treaties read where they were promising things like physicians and carpenters and mills and millers and blacksmiths. And so from those treaties over time, it's evolved where instead of just having a single physician,

Now they have something called the Indian Health Service, where they have an entire health service organization that goes, that's for all tribes across the United States. And they have these hospitals. And then for a while, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, instead of, you know, having like a school that it operated itself, would just give money out, like education assistance. Like here's money that you can take to go to college. And it's not like a full scholarship. It's just, you know, a couple thousand dollars, but it was assistance to go to college.

or they'd give assistance with children, you know, going back to school, financial assistance. Again, with like the tools, instead of having a blacksmith, the Bureau of Indian Affairs just started giving money for job training and that sort of thing. And so that was kind of from like the 1930s to the 1970s. Starting in the 1970s, the federal government kind of had a new approach where they said instead of having the Bureau of Indian Affairs give out money for this job training.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (52:53.538)
why don't we give the money to the tribes? Because they were kind of in a better position to know what kind of job training people need. They were in a better position to deliver it, to monitor, to make sure that it's all happening, that they're getting adequate training, that it's up to standard and that sort of thing. And so that was called what they call self-determination and the Indian Self-Determination Act. And so another thing that we do as a tribe is we enter into contracts with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to...

take over those programs. And so then they put out stipulations about, you know, what kind of deliverables you have to meet, how much money you're supposed to get, and we negotiate that. But then we give those services on behalf of the federal government to tribal members. So that's another big part about is running these programs for the federal government. But they're programs that go for tribal members. So that's another big thing that we do. And so as a business committee, we oversee the implementation of that. We have a tribal administrator that manages

kind of the day to day of those programs, but the business committee is supposed to oversee the overall implementation and administration of all those programs.

Jason Herbert (53:58.384)
That sounds like so much to have to try to remember a codify, administer, I mean, you're running your government is what you're doing.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (54:08.398)
It's a huge undertaking too. And then, know, all of those programs, you know, I'm probably not as surprised to say to anyone that, you know, the federal government doesn't necessarily give adequate funding to the things that it does. And so a lot of those programs, you know, they need supplemental funding. And so that's, then we have to go out and raise money, raise revenue. And for most tribes, you can raise some tax revenue.

but you can't really raise taxes the way that like a local government would with property taxes. We don't assess property taxes. So we have some marginal sales tax revenue. We get some tax revenue for like oil and gas severance too. But really if we want to raise significant money to supplement the funding that we're able to get for these sorts of programs, we just have to go out and earn the money through some sort of business endeavor. so casinos have been the most successful, but we're always looking at...

economic diversification and trying to do other business ventures. But like we have to go out and actually compete in the business sphere. And so not only do you have to kind of be a government and do all this sort of government stuff, but you also kind of have to be a business and operate these sorts of businesses to raise revenue to then bring in for your government arms to function.

Jason Herbert (55:25.596)
I was at the reservation, rest 2022 conference in Las Vegas when I was working for Seminole tribe of Florida and got a crash course in seeing, you know, sitting in on all of these different things about what tribes can do and this, that, and the other. it was just my, so far over my head to see not only what was available, but also the challenges confronting tribes, know, and

I think you kind of hinted at this a little bit earlier about, know, there are some malicious factors out there when it comes to like, and I will go back in the history thing, second, about people who want to like extract. From tribes, whether it's whether it's knowledge or this, that, or the other, can you speak a little bit to maybe some of the challenges facing, you know, uh, either Comanche nation or maybe Indian country, uh, as, you know it, like, like when you get up in the morning, like I have to assume sometimes you're playing defense. I don't know, but you know,

When you look out for the future of the nation, what are you worried about or what do have to think about?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (56:26.614)
Yeah, you know, definitely it's hard to be in a government that has to compete in the private sector for money, right? Like most governments, just, you know, you can pass some sort of, know, like local governments, you know, they have some sort of bond and they raise property taxes and they pay the bond and then they build the new school. So it's really very difficult to not have that ability, but instead to have to go out and compete. One of the reasons for is because you have like

a business cycle, right? Like there's booms and there's busts. And so some years the casinos make a ton of money and then we have extra money and then that's great. And it's fun to be the chairman because you're like, how would I put all this extra money? And then other years there's, you know, this, economic downturns, you know, there's recessions and that sort of thing. And then the casinos don't make as much money. And then it's like a huge thing. Like, well, last year we had this much money and people kind of got used to it. And now we have to take austerity measures and people are mad and there's cutbacks and layoffs.

Jason Herbert (57:05.852)
You

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (57:25.134)
it can be very, very difficult to confront those types of situations. And so, yeah, it's really hard. then you do have all the time, like every day, people that are pitching all kinds of business ideas. And definitely 80 % of the time it's because they're just trying to free ride on the sovereign status of a tribe for their own benefits. And there'd be very little, anything, that came back to the tribe. And then sometimes, you you have...

legitimate businessmen that are well-intentioned and you maybe could work with them, but tribal members are kind of hesitant because there are these other people that are kind of trying to take advantage. And so it makes it a microscope on every sort of business deal we do. So it's like, maybe we're splitting it 50-50 and then tribal members take off their microscope and like, is 50-50 really a good deal? Should it be 45-55? Should it be 30-70? And so kind of negotiating.

with a business partner, when you kind of have that microscope is just another added layer of difficulty. So you really have to make sure that you're getting a good deal and you have to make sure that you're really transparent from the very beginning of, know, this is, which is hard, right? Cause most business deals you don't broadcast from the beginning, all of the nitty gritty. And so you have to get someone that's comfortable with that. And then you have to, as you go along with the tribal members, say,

you know, this is where we hope to get, this is where we are now, this is all the costs that they're going to incur, this is all the costs that we're going to incur, this is why they're offering this 50-50 split and this is why it's justified and, you know, like really just work it through by the time it really happens. And you have to really try to anticipate things ahead of time so that you kind of have a very solid deal hammered out so that in the future, if anything kind of comes up that you already have an agreement that's going to address it. So.

It takes a lot and so nothing happens overnight. And it just, so it's a very long process and I know people sometimes lose patience with it. But that's one of the economic development challenges in Indian country is just kind of finding business partners that can go the distance and go through all of that and address all of that with you.

Jason Herbert (59:37.469)
Chairman, I want to kind of come back to maybe our last section here. We've kind of been getting at this throughout our conversation today. As you know, I'm a historian. So many of our listeners come to us through history and so forth. We've been talking a lot about Empire of the Summer Moon. The Nation came out fairly recently with a pretty strong statement towards that book in particular. I'm wondering, here's my question for you, sir, which is what does ethical scholarship about tribes look like?

to you, to our graduate students who are thinking, hey, I want to write about Native North America, but I'm not a tribal member. How do I do this? so forth. For people who want to get into this and want to say, it the quote unquote right way, who have the best of intentions, what does ethical scholarship look like? How should people reach out to the nation? What does that look like for

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (01:00:28.472)
Yeah, there's kind of a concept, I guess, that's emerged on the federal government side that I think is kind of filtered down to a lot of other areas and spheres in which tribes operate, and that's consultation, right? So on the federal government side, there's obligations of federal agencies, and I'm sure you're very familiar with it. With tribes, which doesn't mean that tribes get to necessarily override or make decisions for federal agencies, but it just means that, you know,

Jason Herbert (01:00:47.982)
You

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (01:00:57.826)
there's an obligation to at least ask. And even the simple process of asking, I'm sure you could probably talk about better than me, it can lead to so much good. can lead to the dialogue that it creates can spot issues that people maybe never even thought about. And so that sort of concept I have seen because it exists in federal law.

I've seen it kind of trickle down and influence a lot of other areas for tribes where tribes want consultation with state governments or they want consultation with local governments or they want consultation with scholars and universities. And so I think it's a really beneficial thing to just reach out and say, I want to consult and here's my draft, at least make the offer. Tribes are still kind of, I think, working out.

what types of review boards they're gonna have. And I don't know what other tribes are doing, but even with us, mean, we just only recently, think within the last month or so, formally implemented like a cultural review board, but I'm glad we have one now. So that's, you know, a group of elders that are all very knowledgeable on tradition and culture that we can take things to. So we could even take, someone wanted to consult with us, we'd probably now, we'd just send them over to our cultural.

Cultural Review Board, which I think is a huge step forward for us because before, when people would ask to consult, you know, I might look at things or I might take it back to the business committee, but we didn't really have a formalized process of how to handle it. So I'm glad we got this cultural committee now so that they can review those sorts of things and talk to people. So I think consultation is a big part of it. And as I alluded to before, think honesty and scholarship is obviously always paramount. And I think

some of that gets lost when you talk about the types of sources you use. And I think it's, again, a mistake to assume that just because something is a written source, that written is equivalent to an unbiased source. And so I think acknowledging the bias in sources is hugely important. And then looking for sources, even if they are oral history, or even if they're written, I mean, most of them now would be written down oral history, written down oral history, and I think,

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (01:03:18.976)
acknowledging the validity of that and consulting those sources so you get a balanced perspective from both the native side and the non-native side is super important as well.

Jason Herbert (01:03:30.01)
Awesome. Chairman, I know that you've got just a billion different things today to do today, including our first half hour of trying to figure out how the internet works today. I can't thank you enough for being here. I guess my last question is this, is there anything else that our listeners, you want our listeners to know about Comanche Nation, Oklahoma, you know, like what else do want to sell? We're going to post this probably on Indigenous People's Day on Monday. So as people are listening and finishing up our conversation, what do want people thinking about?

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (01:03:38.99)
I'm

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (01:03:59.426)
You know, I just always encourage people to kind of come and see it and experience it. And I know you got to be there and see it and experience it. And it's the kind of thing where the culture, you know, you couldn't.

Jason Herbert (01:04:06.118)
Yes,

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (01:04:14.86)
Describe it in words really I don't think and I don't think you could even describe it in pictures or I don't think you could even watch a video and I don't think that would really help you understand it. So I always encourage people to try to come and visit us and you know, we have like a powwow going on in our gym pretty much every single weekend and if there's not a powwow going on in the gym, then there's a hand game. So, you know, we always have some events that are happening but we do have

Some bigger events, Comanche Nation Fair is one of them, and that's usually either the last weekend of September or the first weekend of October. We have our second biggest powwow is the homecoming, the Walters homecoming powwow in Walters, Oklahoma, and that is in July every year. Our third biggest one is probably the Little Ponies annual powwow, which is usually Mother's Day weekend. And so any of those are great events to go to, but if, you know, just a random time of year,

Like I said, you come to the tribal complex in the gym, called Washoe Taker Hall. There's usually something going on. We have a Comanche Nation Museum in the lot in Oklahoma, and that can be a great experience to see it. But there's just a lot to experience, and you can only experience it again firsthand. So I always tell people to come, encourage them to just come and visit us in person and just kind of see what's going on. We have two hotels.

that we have that you can stay at. One is the SureState in Lawton, Oklahoma. One is at our Red River Casino outside of Burke Burnett, Texas, just right on the Oklahoma-Texas border too. So come visit us, come stay with us, and just come see it with your own two eyes.

Jason Herbert (01:05:57.062)
Perfect. chairman, I want to thank you for being here today, but also think, the entire nation, you know, I've been working with the nation now for like two years and the ways in which people have just thrown their arms around me when I come out to visit, or they come out over here in Colorado. I think you're absolutely right. Like you can't quantify it. You can't write about it. You can't take pictures of it. And God knows I've tried, but that feeling of just belonging and like, like welcome when I get to come out and spend time out there is just like.

I was saying recently, I just got over-cleaned when I was in Oklahoma. So I really want to thank you for everything that you guys have done for me, just making me feel welcome out here in Colorado. But thank you as well for being out here. This was just amazing. Thank you so much.

Forrest Tahdooahnippah (01:06:43.49)
Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.