FORT WASHAKIE—Bells tinkled, drums echoed and the sun tapered behind the mountains on Sunday as people gathered for one of the last Eastern Shoshone Indian Days events: MMIR 307’s Red Dress & Red Shirt Special.
People lined up around MMIR 307’s booth for T-shirts as dancers donned red regalia and lined up to enter the circle on the Wind River Reservation, home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes. Attendees etched names of loved ones and strung them up on a cloth backlit by the sun — all part of a solemn act of remembrance and healing.
This was the second year MMIR 307 has organized the special event — part of a movement gaining momentum in recognizing and combatting the epidemic of violence against Native people (MMIR stands for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives). Started by Nicole Wagon and based in Fremont County, MMIR 307 is a group that formed to support families and advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous people. The group has hosted the Red Shirt & Red Dress Special at other powwows, but Wagon said bringing it to Indian Days has been an incredible step.
“MMIR 307 embraces both tribes in Wind River, so it just made sense,” she explained.
In Native communities, people often hit the road to attend powwows during the summer, and this year’s Indian Days included attendees from across the country and into Canada. Some traveled hundreds or thousands of miles with a photo of a loved one in tow to join in the MMIR Special.
“It’s a movement, and it’s affected every Indigenous community in Indian Country,” Wagon said. “So to see everybody travel far and wide, and all their regalia and their dances, it was overwhelming. To know how many people traveled so far just for this special, that was very honoring.”
Wagon’s MMIR advocacy work began after she lost two daughters in 2019 and 2020 — Jocelyn Watts and her partner Rudy Perez were murdered in Riverton in 2019, while Jade Wagon was found dead under suspicious circumstances in January 2020 after being reported missing. And each day, each month, each year, there are more stories: More Native families missing loved ones, more people joining the circle and adding their voices to a call to action that’s grown louder and louder with each passing day.
What is MMIR?
MMIR stands for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives, a movement dedicated to raising awareness about the alarming and disproportionate rates at which Indigenous people — especially women, girls, and Two-Spirit individuals — go missing or are murdered throughout the United States and Canada.
The MMIR movement shines a light on generations of systemic injustice, violence, jurisdictional barriers and lack of accountability that have impacted Indigenous communities. It serves as a call for justice, healing, action and continued efforts to bring our loved ones home.
SOURCE: MMIR 307
In Wyoming, fewer than 3% of residents are Native American. Yet, about 12% of homicides here were perpetrated against Native people in 2022, according to a 2023 Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center report. In 2019, Gov. Mark Gordon created a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Task Force, which has collected and analyzed data annually since and spurred several initiatives, including a statewide missing persons database.
On Sunday, the call echoed around the powwow arbor in the form of a song: Master of Ceremonies Alexander Santos and Southern Host Ottertrail shared “MMIW Honor Song,” which Santos wrote and is featured in the film “Fancy Dance.”
Honor Song
In her 2023 feature directorial debut “Fancy Dance,” Native American filmmaker Erica Tremblay closes the story with a luminous Oklahoma City powwow scene. Amidst dancers decked in multi-hued regalia, Academy Award-nominated actress Lily Gladstone’s character Jax’s eyes search for her young niece Roki — hours after receiving the news of the death of her missing sister, Roki’s mother.
As the powwow drum group Ottertrail’s original “MMIW Honor Song” rises in the background, Jax joins her niece in an impromptu dance after they share a knowing smile. For that brief moment, the grief, loss and fears of the Seneca-Cayuga family coalesce into a beacon of hope, remembrance and resilience.
On Sunday, Ottertrail delivered a live performance of the song that moved beyond the screen. Santos personally granted Wagon and MMIR 307 permission to use the song, a gift compounded by their adoption of each other as brother and sister, forged through shared experiences of losing loved ones to the MMIR crisis.
“My sister was one year younger than me and she was murdered — she came up missing and was murdered,” Santos explained. “So I have a dog in this fight.”
Santos shared the story of losing his sister, then being invited to craft the special song for the film, which today stands as something of an MMIR national anthem.
“I want you to understand the importance of this song and what’s going on, because I know there’s a lot of relatives here that have relatives that are missing or murdered or both,” Santos said. “It’s something that we struggle with from Alaska all the way down to our Indigenous people in Argentina, South America, Central America.”
At moments in “MMIW Honor Song,” the voices and drums fade and eclipse one another. That was intentional, representing the way loved ones are taken, Santos said. “That’s the relative that disappeared and went to heaven,” he said. “That’s what that song represents to me.”
For Wagon, the moment resonated in her soul. “That he [Santos] gave me permission to use that song — that was a very high honor,” she said. “With his own experience of losing his sister, it’s very powerful, healing, impactful. As Native people, we know the sound of the drum – the heartbeat of the drum — what we’re taught, and within our hearts. That’s a lot of healing. I just don’t know how to explain it.”
Ottertrail formed the drum group in 1992 in the northeastern United States, and it’s led by Santos alongside original members including Will Mosley, Matt Harmon, Urie Ridgeway, Benjamin Roldan, Mark Hicks and Harry J. Gould. Over three decades, the group has earned a Native American Music Awards nomination, contributed to Grammy-recognized projects, and had their music featured in productions like the 2024 Disney+ and Marvel series “Echo.”
Families come together
For Tuesday and Wednesday, Gov. Mark Gordon ordered Wyoming flags to fly at half staff to honor the loss of Taylee Dresser and Gregory Trosper Jr., who were both killed after an alleged drunk driver crashed into their vehicle in Riverton on June 17.
On Sunday at Indian Days, a Blanket Dance was held to support their families; it was another moment during the powwow when families came together to lean on one another to offer hope and healing.
“She honored our people this way as she carried herself with respect, dignity, kindness, compassion and humility,” George Abeyta said of Dresser. “She, one of our standout scholars, going through the school system here at Fort Washakie. She will always, forever remain in our hearts and our minds … So if you are out there, family members, we are with you in prayers. We offer condolences, and it is our hope and prayer and our wish, praying in this difficult time, for blessings of strength, healing and comfort.”
From across the powwow grounds on Sunday, children clutched donations and walked to the center of the arbor, gently placing them on the donation blanket. Many still donned their red regalia, awaiting the later MMIR Special that evening.
Watching children — from the tiniest toddlers to teens perfecting their dancing skills — be part of these special moments at Indian Days struck Wagon.
“This is why we do it. It is so impactful with the youth to be involved,” she said. “To see the red handprints with the banners — they know what this is about, and why we wear red … It’s making one drop — doing something — it has huge significance and a ripple effect.”
This story is part of a WyoFile and WyoToday Media collaboration focused on criminal justice reform on and around the Wind River Indian Reservation, with support from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures. If you have a story to share, please email sarah@wyotoday.com and rebecca@wyofile.com. WyoToday Media is a multimedia news outlet serving Riverton, Lander and the Wind River Indian Reservation. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
