Warning: Spoilers ahead for Little House on the Prairie on Netflix.
“We need more Native actors, not people acting Native,” Wren Zhawenim Gotts tells me matter-of-factly. It’s the kind of wise-beyond-her-years musing I’m expecting from the 12-year-old Anishinaabe actress after watching her scene-stealing performance in Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie reboot. She represents a new wave of Indigenous talents bringing authentic representation to screens big and small, following in the footsteps of greats like Graham Greene, Tantoo Cardinal, Zahn McClarnon, and Lily Gladstone.
I’ll admit that as a child of the ’90s who grew up watching reruns of the original series—with its infrequent, often stereotypical Native American depictions in episodes with titles like “Injun Kid”—I had a healthy dose of skepticism about the streamer’s retelling of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s semi-autobiographical books. My biggest question: How would this modern-day adaptation portray the Native side of a story romanticizing American pioneerism? After all, our collective view of U.S. settler colonialism has certainly evolved since those books were published in the 1930s—including understanding that the Ingalls family was squatting illegally on Osage land in Kansas.
My worry turned to relief around the 23-minute mark of episode one, when Gotts’ character, Good Eagle, speaks Osage. She’s one of a few new characters—including her parents (played by Meegwun Fairbrother and Alyssa Wapanatâhk)—created by reboot showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine to avoid the typical “outside looking in” perspective on the Native plotline. Although Good Eagle is cautious of the white settlers at first, she eventually becomes main character Laura’s best friend as the season plays out.
It’s fitting that Gotts’ first line in Little House on the Prairie is in a Native language. She landed her breakout role on Marvel’s superhero miniseries Echo after her mom posted a viral video in 2020 of the then 6-year-old speaking Anishinaabemowin while playing with Legos. A member of the Sokaogon Chippewa tribe, Gotts grew up in Michigan and learned this traditional Ojibwe language by taking classes with scholars like Isadore Toulouse as a way to stay connected to her culture.
“Our language is very important, and it’s so beautiful,” she says. “We have such descriptive words that provide a deeper understanding of things than in English. For example, in my language, coffee is makade-mashkikiwaaboo, which means ‘black medicine water.’ When I was learning the Osage language, I realized there are a lot of similarities in that way.”
To ensure they depicted the Osage accurately, Sonnenshine and team tapped cultural consultants like Julie O’Keefe, who served in the same capacity on Killers of the Flower Moon. Throughout shooting, which took place mainly in Winnipeg, Canada, Gotts and O’Keefe became close, and the budding actress now affectionately refers to the Osage elder as her auntie. Gotts even assisted with on-set beading of props and wardrobe pieces like Christmas ornaments and a chief’s turban.
“When you hire a Native actor, you’re getting the full package,” says Gotts, who likes to surf, skate, and hoop dance in her free time. “We bring all the knowledge that has been passed down to us from our tribe. We show up on set with all these skills, like beading, hunting, fishing, and speaking our language.”
Gotts’ Indigenous costars brought their cultures and lived experiences to set, too. Ojibwe/Scottish actor Fairbrother (Avatar: The Last Airbender) plays mixed-race father figure Mitchell, who embraces progress and befriends the Ingalls. Opposite him, Cree actress Wapanatâhk (Peter Pan & Wendy) plays White Sun, who remains cynical of all the changes taking place. Together, they represent the Osage community’s conflicted feelings, reminding the audience that Indigenous perspectives aren’t monolithic.
Upon meeting, the three of them instantly clicked. “I’ve had set parents before, but Meegwun, Alyssa, and I automatically felt like we were family,” Gotts says. “They taught me so much. We were a family outside of work, too, and went to powwows together. Meegwun and I speak the same language, so on set we could talk to each other and nobody knew what we were saying (except my mom).”
With each episode, my initial cautiousness about the show shifted to curiosity, and I binged the entire season in a single weekend. I was relieved to see that rather than eschewing the uncomfortable truths of the Ingalls’ pioneer tale, this iteration faces them head on. Throughout the season, the tension between the white settlers and the area’s original Indigenous inhabitants builds. So too does the Ingalls’ ambivalence as they realize the promise they were told—that this was free, desolate land—was a lie. Even Pa, the long-adored hero of this series, becomes a more complicated figure, as his ambitions are tempered with a reality he is reluctant to face.
An evident dedication to layered authenticity helps the Little House on the Prairie reboot avoid the problematic pitfalls of its predecessor (and its source material). In addition to Osage cultural consultants, Sonnenshine brought on rising Native American directors Sydney Freeland (Reservation Dogs, Rez Ball) and Erica Tremblay (Dark Winds, Fancy Dance) to shepherd the story for select episodes.
Freeland directs the season’s final two episodes, including what I can confidently say is the most powerful scene of the entire series. In episode seven, the Osage tribal council gathers to determine if their community will leave their ancestral homeland and sign it over to the U.S. government, which would in turn allow white settlers to lay claim to it. The palpable emotions running through this stirring scene brought me to tears.
But amid impending war, a love story unfolds: a beautifully improbable friendship between Laura and Good Eagle. They’re not oblivious to what’s happening around them—quite the contrary, they’re both quite precocious—and yet they find simple moments of joy and connection. For me, this emphasis on our shared humanity is the show’s most poignant lesson, and one that certainly resonates today.
“They see the good in each other,” Gotts says. “They’re in this small town, where everybody needs to rely on each other. Because even if we don’t look or act the same, we all have a sense of community with each other.”
