Simone Senogles, Indigenous feminist and environmental advocate, dies at 54

RED LAKE, MINN. – Simone Senogles, an Anishinaabe woman whose legacy of feminism and environmentalism spanned decades in northern Minnesota, died Sept. 20 at her home in Bemidji. She was 54.

A wake that began Thursday evening for Senogles carried into a five-hour traditional Ojibwe service Friday filled with songs, drums, tobacco and prayers.

Senogles, described by loved ones as a gentle force and fierce advocate for her people and Mother Earth, was mourned by hundreds of relatives, friends, educators, local leaders, activists and artists — a cross section of Natives and non-Natives, elders and babies.

“Look around you,” said Naabek Liberty, an Ojibwe spiritual leader who led the service. “It’s amazing to see ... A beautiful group of people. We’re here to celebrate this stunningly beautiful person.”

Liberty told the standing room-only crowd that each of them carried a piece of Senogles with them, and that each made her who she was: a beloved wife, daughter, sister, mother, aunt and friend.

Senogles worked 25 years for the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), a national nonprofit headquartered in Bemidji, and co-founded MMIW 218, a grassroots group in Bemidji focused on missing and murdered Indigenous women. MMIW 218 leaders and mothers who are still searching for their missing children, such as Teddi Wind and Theresa Jourdain, paid their respects Friday.

“She fought for our people, for our land, for justice, and for every relative who could no longer speak for themselves,” according to a tribute released by MMIW 218. “She was our anchor, our teacher, our protector and she believed in each of us.”

Senogles was born into the Eagle (Migizi) clan, the daughter of Native American activists Tom BK Goldtooth, of Navajo Nation, and Renee Gurneau, of Red Lake Nation. Her brother, Dallas Goldtooth, is an internationally known activist and artist who starred in the hit TV series “Reservation Dogs,” which was produced by her brother Migizi Pensoneau, of Los Angeles.

On Friday, the brothers sat with fellow pallbearers in the flatbed of a truck with their sister’s cedar casket. As cars and school buses pulled over to pay their respects, they traveled in procession to St. Mary’s Cemetery in Red Lake. One young girl leaned out a bus window and waved.

Outside the Red Lake Community Center, mourners lined up to place a pinch of tobacco into a fire. They received another pinch of tobacco in their left palm to again place in the fire after sharing a potluck meal of wild rice, venison, stew and fry bread.

Picture boards displayed her work and talents, ranging from protesting pipelines to harvesting wild rice. Senogles was a passionate beekeeper, and people left jars of honey next to bouquets at the service.

Teyana Viscarra, a Californian who worked with Senogles on MMIW advocacy, admired a bee landing on her hand while holding tobacco. “That’s Simone,“ she said of the bee.

Her advocacy rippled beyond Minnesota. She served on the governing board of Grassroots Global Justice, based in Washington, D.C., and helped create the first Indigenous Feminist Organizing school in the United States, as well as its international counterpart.

As a teenager growing up in Minneapolis, Senogles worked for the Northland Poster Collective, a political artist collective that printed and distributed movement posters for 30 years.

She mastered many crafts and beaded the moccasins that Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement activist, wore upon his release earlier this year from nearly 50 years of incarceration.

Nate Johnson, a traditional craftsman, said Senogles was “an incredible supporter of arts and culture in our community.”

“Together we wove baskets and cedar mats, built birch bark canoes, made maple syrup harvesting items,” Johnson said. “I think she found a lot of inner peace working with her hands.”

“We just aligned with our work and we uplifted each other,” Goodwin said. “She’s always been a part of my work, so I’ll continue to carry her with me.”

Goodwin said a friend told her they had recently asked Senogles what she would carry with her to the apocalypse.

“Simone said she would bring a bridge,” Goodwin said. “She was a connector.”