Graywolf, a curator for the Chumash Museum and a technical director for television shows and movies, led a discussion in HSS-140 to address the inaccurate and insufficient representation of Native Americans in American Culture.

He said “manufactured history” supersedes “real history” in order to “excuse all that has been done to the indigenous.” He believes history books never include accurate narratives of Native Americans for two reasons. The first is because Texas, being the largest buyer of textbooks, gets to dictate what gets included and decides to feature a history based on creationism over evolution. The second reason is that any given textbook, on average, only devotes three pages to the Native American story.

On a national level, Graywolf said “we honor the man who started slavery” by celebrating Columbus Day. He explained how Hitler actually modeled his Nazi camps on the treatment Native Americans received from early U.S. immigrants and their descendants.

Graywolf has gained fame in the entertainment industry by advising directors on how to accurately portray Native Americans. Currently, there are 566 federally-recognized tribes is the U.S. that have their own social rules, rituals and beliefs.