Phillip Cash Cash is a niimíipuu (Nez Perce)/weyíiletpuu (Cayuse) human, an award winning Indigenous scholar, artist, writer, and traditional healer. He is a younger speaker of nimiipuutímt, the Nez Perce language, a severely endangered language. Cash Cash holds doctoral degrees in linguistics and anthropology. His creativity and inquiry are life-centered endeavors committed to cultural revitalization and community-based language advocacy. He sees our Native languages as vital elements of epistemology, consciousness, and spirit that connects us to Indigenous lives, lands, ancestors, and futurity. Philosophy: “the earth and myself of one mind,” Young Chief Joseph, Nez Perce (1840-1904). Dr. Cash Cash is also a co-founder of Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts (a nationally recognized Indigenous arts press and institute) and luk’upsíimey, The North Star Collective (an Indigenous Plateau literary advocacy group).
Phillip was an ARC Fellow in Spring 2023 with the Poetry & the Senses initiative, in collaboration with luk’upsíimey – he was chosen in the Community Fellow category.