In 2018,WSBE Rhode Island PBS premiered the four-part documentary series NATIVE AMERICA. Produced by Rhode Island-based filmmaker Gary Glassman and Providence Pictures, the series explores the world created by America’s First Peoples.
Challenging everything we thought we knew about the Americas before and since contact with Europe, the series reveals a bold perspective informed by Native-American oral histories – that ancient people across North and South America may have been part of a single interconnected world.
Made with the active participation of Native-American communities and filmed in some of the most breathtaking locations in the hemisphere, NATIVE AMERICA explores Great Nations and reveals cities, sacred stories, and history long hidden in plain sight. Producers go behind the scenes at special events, including a pilgrimage to ancestral ruins at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, a trek across lost territories in the American West, and an investiture ceremony for a chief in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by cedar totem poles and centuries of tradition.
Weaving history and science with living indigenous traditions, each hour of NATIVE AMERICA tells the untold stories of the most advanced cultures in human history, the Native-American peoples who created it, and whose legacy continues, unbroken, to this day.
In honor of Native American Heritage Month, NATIVE AMERICA returns to WSBE Rhode Island PBS beginning Monday, November 1.
When tuning in for NATIVE AMERICA, keep an eye out for the station’s Native Voices short films including two conversations with NATIVE AMERICA executive producer Gary Glassman. Watch the short films on-demand, or explore NATIVE AMERICA and Native Voices resources on Rhode Island PBS LearningMedia.
Produced by Rhode Island PBS, Native Voices features a frank discussion of social issues faced by the Narragansetts, a visit to the Tomaquaq Museum marking its 60th anniversary in 2018, and an interview with Wampum jewelry sculptor and artist Allen Hazard in his studio.
For more of our Native American Heritage Month programming, click here.
NATIVE AMERICA: From Caves to Cosmos- November 1 at 9 p.m.
Who are America’s First Peoples, and how did they create their unique world? From Caves to Cosmos discovers the answers from Hopi Elders on pilgrimage at sacred Chaco Canyon in the New Mexico desert, scientists examining ancient cave paintings in the Amazon jungle, Chumash boat builders exploring their tribe’s ancient migration legacy off California’s coast, and an archaeologist digging deep below a towering pyramid near Mexico City.
NATIVE AMERICA: Nature to Nations - November 8 at 9 p.m.
From dynastic monarchies to participatory democracies, what lay behind the rise of diverse American nations and their sophisticated governments? Answers emerge from an archaeologist excavating America’s oldest temple in the Peruvian Andes, a tribe initiating a new chief at a ceremony surrounded by cedar totem poles in the Pacific Northwest, an expert reading ancient hieroglyphs from a sarcophagus to tell a forgotten history of Maya kings, and the return of an ancient shell wampum belt to the birthplace of democracy near Syracuse, New York.
NATIVE AMERICA: Cities of the Sky - November 15 at 9 p.m.
Did celestial phenomenon inspire people across Native America to build their communities? Cities of the Sky explores some of the ancient world’s largest cities and finds the answers in American urban centers that bloomed from the Mexican jungle, a massive multi-cultural city in Central Mexico, and the capital of South America's greatest empire.
NATIVE AMERICA: New Worlds Rising - November 22 at 10 p.m.
In its final episode, NATIVE AMERICA reveals Native American continuity in the face of genocidal warfare and history’s worst demographic devastation through stories about an empire of horse-mounted Comanche warriors, secret messages encoded in an Aztec manuscript known as the Florentine Codex, and a Natchez chief passing on traditional medicine-making to a new generation in Oklahoma.
[Photo credit: Providence Pictures]
WSBE Rhode Island PBS transmits high-definition (HD) programming over the air on digital 36.1; Cox 08 / 1008HD, Verizon FiOS 08 / 508HD, and Full Channel 08; Comcast 819HD and Verizon FiOS 18 / 518HD; DirecTV 36, Dish Network 36. Live stream the full schedule within the broadcast viewing area at watch.ripbs.org/livestream.
