This week on Minnesota Native News we get a round up of tribal election news, we hear about the latest Nibi walk along the Wisconsin River and learn about the Native artists receiving statewide honors.
Transcript
HEADLINES: This week on Minnesota Native News we hear about the latest Nibiwalk [nih-bee walk] along the Wisconsin River and Native artists receive statewide honors.
STORY #1 - Ojibwe Tribes Install Newly elected tribal officials
The Red Lake Tribal Government Inauguration earlier this month marks the end of this year’s tribal election season for Minnesota’s Ojibwe tribes.
The other six Ojibwe Bands are part of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and their swearing in ceremonies took place in July.
There is one more special election that’s just been announced.
Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa will hold a primary election for the District 1 Committee Person.
That election is scheduled for October 2nd.
STORY #2 - SHARON DAY COMPLETES THIS YEAR’S WATER WALK
Bois Forte Ojibwe Grandmother Sharon Day has just finished this year’s Nibiwalk.
It was an 11 day journey — 387 miles along the Wisconsin River.
On the first day of the walk, Day collected water from the river’s headwaters in Michigan.
The group of walkers carried it each day as they offered prayers of gratitude for the water —
and prayers for its health and healing.
Their final stop in Wisconsin was where the Wisconsin River meets the Mississippi.
Sharon Day explained.
DAY: We end at a park that’s at a high bluff in Wisconsin overlooking the Mississippi - about 1100 feet elevation. And then they have a pathway that gets down to boat landing and that’s where we’ll pour the water into the river.
On the last day, Sharon Day posted a facebook update describing that final ceremony ending the walk:
She says when they did the final ceremony at the river’s edge, - “it rained on everything gently.“
You can learn more about Nibiwalks online at nibiwalks.org.
STORY #3 - 4 Native Artists Receive Artist in Residence Honor from MN Historical Society
Fond du Lac Moccasin artist Sarah Agaton [ag-uh-tun] Howes [hows] has just received statewide recognition.
Here’s Reporter Melissa Townsend with the story.
Sarah Agaton Howes is one of two moccasin artists who have been named 2018 Native American Artists in Residence at the Minnesota Historical Society.
But she says she wasn’t always interested in making traditional art
HOWES: My mom’s an artist and had tried to teach me to bead when I was a teenager and I just threw it across the room. I was like this takes forever, this is so stupid. You know [laughs].
In her twenties Sarah wanted to dance in pow wows, so she had to learn how to bead to make her own regalia.
Later she started selling her beaded earrings and moccasins.
She realized she was getting at lot of requests for moccasins.
According to some Anishinaabe tradition, children receive their first pair of moccasins when they are 4 days old. New pairs are made for special occasions and ceremonies and then in the end, a final pair is made for loved ones being buried.
It’s a practice that was disrupted when ancestors were taken to boarding schools and punished for practicing their culture.
HOWES: I realized that what my community needed was not for me to be making things - but for me to be helping people become makers. We need a moccasin maker in every family. (:12)
So when people asked her to make a pair of beaded moccasins, she’d say …
HOWES: Well, I’ll show you how to do it. (:02)
Since then Sarah says she’s taught hundreds of people in her Fond du Lac community how to sew their own moccasins.
She says at first a lot of people are discouraged.
HOWES: You’re learning how to thread a needle and your poking yourself and your bleeding and your frustrated and all those feelings that are coming through that…
And then there’s this part where - people sew the moccasin inside out — and they are just sure that there is no way that this is going to be an actual shoe. So they’re working and struggling and I’m just kind of smiling because I know where this is going. And they flip it right side out and there is this look on their face that is so amazing because it’s like this moment when you become this competent Anishinaabe person. Like this is one part of us building back into ourselves, if that makes sense.
As the Minnesota Historical Society’s Artist in Residence, Sarah Agaton Howes plans to produce a book of patterns for moccasin making.
HOWES: This set of patterns that I’ve developed will end up being there for everybody else because what these things are all for is for everybody. None of them are just mine. (:10)
The Minnesota Historical Society is also naming Dakota artist Cole Jacobson as Artist in Residence.
Jacobson is focused on Dakota moccasin making and material culture.
For Minnesota Native News, I’m Melissa Townsend.