Plains Indian Museum Seminar

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SEMINAR 2007 Overview

October 11-14, 2007

I stand upon the sacred peak of my Mountain, Te Ahu a Turanga
I gaze down to the place from where my river flows Te Apiti, Manawatu my sacred river
I return to my place of birth that lays beneath my feet, Papai-o-ea.

But I have heard the voice that has come
from the great Turtle, the sacred Turtle
My heart skips a beat as I cross the great ocean of Kiwa
The home from where my Ancestors left from
In my hand I have the feather of the Huia bird
Chiefly feather, feather of peace.

Again my heart skips for you Sky Father
My tears flow for you Earth Mother.

- Potaka Taite, traditional Maori musician

For the first time in the Plains Indian Museum Seminar’s history, the 2007 program addressed indigenous cultures and peoples outside of the North American Great Plains with the objectives of comparison, exchanging information, and providing understanding of the significance and processes of cultural preservation for Native communities.

The Maori and Native people of the Plains represent diverse cultures, traditions, and histories which developed within their own traditional ecologies. For such indigenous peoples, the struggle for physical and cultural survival has been a continuing theme in light of European colonization and the influences of government officials and missionaries. At the beginning of the twentieth century, few would have suggested that Native American peoples would continue to exist as sovereign Indian nations more than a hundred years later. Indeed, few would have predicted that Indian people would continue to exist at all with distinctive cultures and patterns of life expressed through tribal languages, oral traditions, ceremonies, songs, and the arts. These elements of cultural life – the continuous threads that have been passed down through generations – have provided tribal identities and a sense of cohesion that have supported Plains Indian people through difficult times. For many communities, however, the languages have almost been lost along with important cultural traditions. In order to prevent such cultural losses, contemporary tribal members are actively researching and attempting to renew and revive such elements for the education, cultural, and spiritual grounding and welfare of their own children and grandchildren.

Once Plains Native people regained control of their lands, governing structures, religious rights, and education, they turned to restoring significant cultural elements that had been lost or nearly lost. Tribal language programs for pre-school through college have proliferated in recent years to preserve those languages still in common use among tribal peoples and to reintroduce others which are threatened with extinction. On the Wind River Indian Reservation of Wyoming, for example, both the Arapaho and Shoshone languages are taught at the Wyoming Indian School—itself established by elders who had experienced the cultural deprivations of the boarding school system—and the newly established Wind River Tribal College. For several years both the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes also have sponsored language and culture classes through which young people learn and practice their languages, arts, songs, histories, and oral traditions under the instruction of elders and others with cultural knowledge.

Plains Indian scholars, writers, and museum professionals have also taken more active roles in the public interpretations of their own histories, cultures, and arts, once the domain of Euro-American “experts,” and have introduced new insights based upon their knowledge and experiences as Native people. Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, Plains Indian communities have reclaimed for reburial the physical remains of ancestors long in storage in museum collections, as well as sacred bundles and ritual objects central to traditional spiritual beliefs and practices. They also continue to seek the protection of their sacred sites and landscapes so future generations can experience the powerful spiritual connections to the lands that created and nurtured their beliefs and cultural traditions.

The Maori are also deeply involved in similar cultural activities as well as the protection of their lands and natural resources and development of tribal economies. Maori language immersion programs at universities and in communities are considered to be models which Native American people are consulting for guidance on developing their own programs. The Maori, who speak the same language with regional differences, have brought visibility to their language through radio and television programs as well as its use in many public occasions. Native American people, with diverse languages spoken by small populations, are exploring some of the precepts of Maori language immersion programs for adaptation to their own situations. As in the United States, repatriation of human remains and sacred materials is an ongoing effort of the Maori with Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand, serving as an intermediary with international museums. For both Plains Indian and Maori people, the concept of sovereignty has been reinforced through a series of individual tribal treaties in the United States and the Treaty of Waitangi of 1840 and later national acts in New Zealand.

The 2007 seminar addressed the following themes:

The annual field trip took the group to the Big Horn Medicine Wheel - east of Cody in the Big Horn Mountains. As seen in the images to the right.