A Note From Us
Jeff and Benairen are enrolled members of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold which is comprise of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikira— tribes that banned together for economic, political, and social survival after the devastation of the small pox epidemics of 1792, 1836, and 1837.
Jeff and Benairen are descendants of Hidatsa, a tribe best known in the history books for sheltering Lewis and Clark during the winter of 1804-1805. It was in their ancestors’ village that Lewis and Clark met Sacagawea, the 13 year old bride of a Quebecois trapper.
In the Spring, Sacagawea and her “husband” left with Lewis and Clark. Sacagawea is credited with enabling Lewis and Clark to complete their Corps of Discovery, leading them through mountain passes across the plains to what is now the Oregon coast of the Pacific Ocean. And she did it with her baby on her back!
The image of Sacagawea with which we are all familiar today is actually Jeff’s great-grandmother, Mink Woman (Hannah Levings), who was the model for the Sacagawea statue in front of the North Dakota state Capitol. A replica of the same statue is in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.
The U.S. Mint used pictures of Hannah Levings with her child as the basis for the Sacagawea golden dollar coin. If you have ever had one then you have held Benairen’s great-great-grandmother in your hand!
Brandy’s Native family history is less known and likely less exciting.
She is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, a tribe that was originally the largest farming tribe in the Southeast, residing in what is now Mississippi, Kentucky and Louisiana. President Andrew Jackson forced the Choctaw from their homelands in three forced death marches from their Southeast homeland to Oklahoma beginning in 1831. The Choctaw called this the Trail of Tears and Death but newspaper accounts at the time shortened that description to the Trail of Tears.
Generations later Brandy was born and raised thousands of miles away from Oklahoma.
Brandy presents as White and is typical of what the end of the Trail of Tears looks like for many Choctaw families who survived the Trail of Tears by marrying outside of their tribe and their race and doing whatever they could to survive. Brandy’s own Choctaw great grandmother, Nancy Velma Nichols, was raised in Southeastern Oklahoma with her pet bear but ultimately raised her own children as the wife of the Treasurer of Fresno, California.
Brandy is just one example of what resiliency of the Choctaw people looks like.
Benairen is a graduate of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, a Certified Actor Combatant from the Society of American Fight Directors, and completed the United Stuntmen’s Association’s Stunt Performer Course.
Don’t Let It In, a supernatural thriller set on the Seminole reservation (still in post production), is his first indie feature. When he’s not acting he works in his local community garden using Hidatsa farming techniques.