This is the seventh article in my series about our changing Earth from interviews with Native Americans shared in We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth, edited by Dahr Jamail and Stan Rushworth (USA 2022). My presentation does not follow the order of the interviews.

#7: Marita Hacker (Hunkpapa, Norwegian)
      (Chapter 9, pp. 124-139)

Marita Hacker is an elder of Dakota Hunkpapa and Norwegian descent, with a wealth of knowledge from her own lineage, and an ardent scholar of other world traditions. She’s a healer, spiritual advisor, former foster parent, and retired high school teacher and counselor. One of just a few female Apostolic bishops in the United States, she has also been involved with hospice care for almost thirty years.

As a member of the US military, Marita’s Native American father met her Norwegian mother when he was transferred to West Germany, where she was forced to relocate, thanks to Hitler. Before Marita’s birth, her father died in an accident. Following his wishes, Marita was raised in Germany and not the United States. After moving to California when she turned 21 years old, she left for Oregon where she lived off-grid for seven years, spending time on a Hopi reservation and in the homes of different Native folks as she “let them foster what I had within me.”

Today, Marita lives with her husband in his homeland of Apacheria in southern New Mexico, serving her community as well as others who travel to see them for ceremony and other spiritual work. She spoke with Dahr and Stan from the front porch of their humble adobe home, surrounded by the rolling hills and mountains of Apacheria.

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