The following is from Beyond and Before: The Land’s Original Storytellers, a series of works and excerpts by Native theatremakers that originally appeared in our Summer 2026 issue. To open the original print version in a new full-screen tab, click here.
After her sister Ellie disappears while helping a woman escape her abuser, Myra Henhawk’s search takes her through a nightmarish dream of police stations, hospitals, and the endless bureaucratic hoops that arise when Native women go missing. Guiding the journey is Bad Mind, the Creator’s brother, the other brother from the Haudenosaunee creation stories.
ACT ONE
BAD MIND (Tawiskaron) takes centerstage. He is in the magical realm, the reality in between worlds, a place where he and his brother create the rules.
He rules the night and is supposed to stay out of daytime. That was the agreement. Or so they say…
BAD MIND
(To the audience.)
Chwe’n! Sagö! Sgë:nö! And Hello! to the rest of you.
You look surprised to see me. I get it, it’s daytime. And my realm is the night.
THE GREAT CONTEST. Good Mind versus Bad Mind.
And it’s true, my brother did win. Daytime belongs to him and his creations.
They all shine in the light of day.
You.
The Three Sisters.
The deer, the salmon, medicines growing wild, if you know where to look.
Rivers full of fish, forests full of game, and soil rich enough to support everything that any being will ever need to survive.
All my brother’s realm. But I’m still everywhere. I helped create you all.
Did you forget my gifts?
I’m there when the tornados devastate your homes. When the river swells over its banks and sweeps away your family, that’s just me, swimming.
I enjoy snow.
That pristine clean that wipes away everything. Including your cars.
I put the thorn on the rose.
The snake in grass.
The broken subway seat that catches your brand-new designer outfit and tears it. Me.
See, my brother, Good Mind, he gave you abundance. But he also gave you work. He made you earn it.
You had to hunt. You had to plant. You had to harvest. You had to maintain relationships with the land, with the animals, with each other.
So exhausting, really. When you think of it. And I know you get tired.
And that’s where I come in.
I am here to make your life easier. Simple answers to complex questions.
If your favorite shirt goes missing, well, clearly the laundry attendant stole it.
Not that it fell out or got mixed up in somebody else’s laundry, no.
I gave you supermarkets. Drive-throughs, corporate food. Food that’s already clean and packaged, no blood on your hands, no dirt under your nails. Everything within reach. And the only cost you know is money.
A little knowledge and power too, but so what? Autonomy, community, connections…small price.
I’m convenience. I’m comfort. I’m the path of least resistance.
In my brother’s world, every being, every element blends to hold things together, like a basket. In my world, you’re more like pebbles in the river. Some of you will get stepped on, and others, swept away. Especially if you’re Indigenous.
Hey you, in the back, is that a scawn you’re snacking on? Frybread? You’re welcome. That’s one of my best tricks.
My brother gave you venison jerky and salmon belly—so MUCH work! Hunting, drying, foraging! What if you run into a bear who has the same idea?
Corn, Beans, and Squash…all foods you had to work for.
I gave you starch and bacon fat. Delicious, deep-fried dough that clogs your arteries like a pipeline.
So good, you call it traditional. As if your ancestors were frying flour in Crisco.
Convenience. Comfort. And the slow, sweet poison that comes with giving up your power.
And diabetes is just part of being Native, isn’t it?
Come on, don’t make that face. It’s hilarious!
I can be less funny if you prefer. I can make whole Nations disappear.
I can make sure that when Indigenous people go missing,
the assumption is that they probably just ran away or got into drugs or made bad choices.
Because in my world, the world of corporations and systems and convenience, Indigenous people need to disappear. Blend in or be erased, because you’re all reminders of duties. Responsibilities. Of what is owed to the world.
Fit in, assimilate, become convenient.
Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t force you. I just…offered alternatives. Easy answers. Convenient targets. And you take it.
Every time.
Even when you know better.
Bad things happen when you forget about me.
(Bad Mind claps his hands.)
Vickie Ramirez (Tuscarora) is a playwright, director, and filmmaker who splits her time between Six Nations of the Grand River and New York City. Her work centers Indigenous sovereignty, identity, and survival in contemporary North America. She co-founded Chukalokoi Native Theater Ensemble with Cochise Anderson, Irene Bedard, and Steve Elm. In 2009, she became the first Indigenous playwright to join the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group; in 2018, resident at New Dramatists. Her plays have been produced at the Public Theater, Geva Theatre, Native Voices at the Autry, and Pershing Square Signature Center. She received the NNPN Smith Prize for Political Theater in 2020 for Yuchewahkénh (Bitter), which Ramirez co-produced this past spring with Pia Wilson and Mona Mansour as part of Pool Plays 4.0. Her writing appears in Monologues for Actors of Color, Contemporary Plays by Women of Color (Routledge), Short Plays (TRW), and Smoke (Broadway Publishing.) She is adapting Standoff at Hwy #37 as a feature film and Pure Native as a television series and consulted on Amazon’s Outer Range. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Playwrights Guild of Canada, and PEN USA.
