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Featured Presentations
Areas of Research Presentations
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David Wilkins A Constitutional Actuality: The Durable though Manipulable Status of Indigenous Nations Professor Wilkins is a Lumbee Indian and Associate Professor of American Indian Studies, Political Science and Law at the University of Minnesota. He has authored many books including co-authoring, Tribes, Treaties and Tribulations with Vine Deloria, Jr.. Professor Wilkins' keynote address examines the political and legal status of aboriginal peoples during the Lewis and Clark expedition and how indigenous status has or has not evolved to the present day. |
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Fred Hoxie Lewis and Clark in Indian Country: Opportunities Found and Lost Professor Hoxie is the Swanlund Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He was formerly Director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian, The Newberry Library. In 1804 the Lewis and Clark Expedition entered a foreign country, Mr. Hoxie says. While it had no ambassadors in European courts or mapmakers to define its borders, it was well-known to travelers and diplomats. It was The Indian Country. The bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition takes place as the American democracy struggles to understand both its own history and its relationship to other peoples and cultures in the world. There are many "countries" in the world that may not coincide with political entities or lines on a map. How might Americans respond to the opportunity of discovering this fact? |
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Joseph F. McDonald [Opening Ceremony Address] 200 Years Later: Which Direction Does the Compass Point? Joseph McDonald is the founder and President of Salish Kootenai College located in Pablo, Montana. President McDonald serves on the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges’ Commission on Colleges and is a member of the President’s Board of Advisors on Tribal Colleges and Universities. He is the Board Trustee Chair of the American Indian College Fund and is a member of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium Board of Directors where he is past President. President McDonald delivers the Opening Ceremony address helping to set the tone for the conference. |
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James Holmberg Big Medison: York's Life During and After the Lewis and Clark Expedition Mr. Holmberg is the Curator of Special Collections at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky and a expert on York, William Clark's slave who was a member of the expedition. Mr. Holmberg talks about York's expedition experience and the Native People's perception of him. He also discusses the mystery of what ultimately happened to York after the expedition. |
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Johnny Arlee A Teaching Tool Through Pageants or Plays Mr. Arlee is a Spiritual and Cultural Advisor for the Salish/Pend d'Oreille People. In 1975 he became the first Director of the Flathead Culture Committee. In September 2002 Mr. Arlee and a cast of dozens performed a pageant called "The Salish/Pend d'Orielle Meet Lewis and Clark." Thousands of people, including students from all the reservation schools attended the pageant and learned about cultural traditions dating back thousands of years as well as the tribe's encounter with Lewis and Clark as handed down by oral histories. Mr. Arlee discusses how other tribes might consider using this method of teaching their culture and history |
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Barbara Belyea The Silent Past is Made to Speak Ms. Belyea serves as Professor of English at the University of Calgary. In her talk she examines the work of several historians who have studied Hudson's Bay Company records of fur trade expansion along the Saskatchewan watershed. These historians have traced the activities of three groups: Native traders, Native wives and the common men of the posts. Ms. Belyea discusses these three groups which are largely overlooked in contemporary accounts. |
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Darrell Kipp New Words - New Images from an Indian Reservation Native Son Mr. Kipp is a member of the Blackfeet Nation and founded the Piegan Institute and the Nizipuhwahsin language school in Browning, Montana. In his talk Mr. Kipp suggests it is time to discard many of the archaic, clichéd and dangerous words of limitation often used to speak of Native America. We must replace these words with an entirely new way of speaking and presenting Native Americans. |
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Harry Fritz Native Voices: The New Lewis and Clark Expedition Mr. Fritz is a Professor of History and Chairman of the Department of History at The University of Montana in Missoula. He has written several articles and lectured widely on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In his talk he suggests the torch has been passed. White Americans have told us all they can about the expedition. All that is new and exciting will come from Native voices, Professor Fritz says. |
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Louie Adams Place Names Mr. Adams is a Salish Indian, born in 1933 in Sam (Resurrection) Kaltomee's home in Schley, Montana. He talks about the meeting between Lewis and Clark and the Salish people and discusses place names in and around Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley, the ancestral homelands of his Salish people. |
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Amy Mossett Sacagawea: A Hidatsa Perspective Ms. Mossett is the Missouri River co-chair of the National Bicentennial Council's Circle of Tribal Advisors. She is a Mandan/Hidatsa and a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota. Ms. Mossett is a nationally recognized consultant, spokesperson, scholar and interpreter on the life of Sacagawea. She has spent over 15 years researching the oral and written histories of Sacagawea. She has been invited to the White House on three occasions to celebrate and honor Sacagawea. Time magazine (July 8, 2002) described Ms. Mossett as "the country's foremost Sacagawea impressionist." The title of her talk is "Sacagawea: A Hidatsa Perspective." Her presentation is a historical perspective that describes the life of the young Shoshone-speaking woman who lived among the Hidatsa in present day North Dakota. Her interpretation focuses on how life among the Hidatsa influenced Sacagawea. |
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Hal Stearns Special Encounters: The Education Journey of Lewis and Clark and the Indians Mr.Stearns is a member of the Montana Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission Board and Chair of its Education Committee. A retired history teacher, Mr. Stearns has served as a Lewis and Clark interpreter for many tour groups as well as speaking at various Bicentennial functions through the country. In his presentation he is dressed as, and plays the role of William Clark as an older man looking back at the expedition. In that role he reflects on such things as how he perceived Indian life and culture, the importance of Sacagawea to the expedition, and how both Indian and white learned from each other in the encounters they had. |
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Mary Clearman Blew Rivers of Stories, Stories of Place Ms. Blew is a Professor of English at the University of Idaho in Moscow. She was born and raised on a small Montana cattle ranch that was her great-grandfather's original homestead. She elaborates on her belief that in story lies possibility. Soon enough we may all erase our individual selves as we are hooked into the great circuits of cyberspace. We may lose the last remnants of what Wallace Stegner called "the geography of hope." But stories need not be romantic, or despairing, or simplistic, or single-voiced. Stories need not even reflect landscape. Stories in their search for common ground, can be collective. |
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Roberta "Bobbie" Conner Emanating from the Earth: Belonging to a Place Ms. Conner has been the Director of the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation since 1998. She is Cayuse, Umatilla and Nez Perce and a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla. She is co-chair of the Circle of Tribal Advisors. In her presentation Ms. Conner explores how language, diet, architecture, artistic expression and laws directly relate to the ecosystems in which tribes emanate. Interdependence between a people and their aboriginal environment is reflected in philosophy, lifestyles and technology. When a people belong to a place, how is life different? |
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| Denise L. Low Landscape in a Cheyenne Ledger Book This presentation centers on a set of pictographic drawings from a Cheyenne plains ledger book, possibly made in 1879-1880 and currently in the Newberry Library. Overlooked as "primitive" two-dimensional artworks, the ledger book pictographic drawing-texts signify narratives of sacred action. They fit no Western European category of artwork, but rather a hybrid narrative genre that energizes inner vision. Ms. Low chooses to use the term "vision" because of its implications of truth rather than fancy. The English language association of vision with holy men and saints is appropriate here. Several men created the Newberry ledger drawings, as indicated by the differing styles and by documentation of Cheyenne men. |
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| Victoria V. Weaver Interpreting Seth Eastman's Female Mode of Sitting: How & What Do 19th Century Artwork Communicate Ideas of Native American Identity. |
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| Randall R. Skelton Finding a Perfect Body for Sacagawea Between 1997 and 2000 Mr. Skelton consulted on a project to create a commemoration statue of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. His task was to assess and verify the historical and scientific accuracy of the representations of York and Sacagawea. Mr. Skelton immediately encountered problems with the artist’s conception of Sacagawea, which seemed derived from Disney’s Pocahontas rather than authentic Native American conceptions of what she may have looked like. He was able to successfully lobby for some changes, such as widening her face, but his attempts to have her body type changed from that of a modern era fashion model to one more consistent with her people’s view of themselves were unsuccessful. He concludes that the artist and project leader considered it disrespectful to portray her as anything other than as a prime example of the Anglo-American concept of feminine beauty. The portrayal of Sacagawea in this statue tells us much about modern conceptions of historic Native American women, but little about her value to history. |
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| Janis A. Johnson Resisting Recolonization: The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial and the Nez Perce Tribe With patriotic zeal building as the bicentennial approaches, Indians along the explorers' route are actively resisting being rhetorically "recolonized" by the dominant culture's focus on discovery and expansion. Actions of the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho illustrate that resistance. This presentation focuses on the potential for historical reenactments to rhetorically recolonize Indians through displays of imperialist nostalgia, which reinforce ideologies of manifest destiny and white superiority. In regard to the Nez Perce, Ms. Johnson argues that the Lewis and Clark bicentennial should be placed within the context of the Tribe's ongoing struggle for sovereignty and survival. For the bicentennial to be meaningful and non-neo-colonialist, non-Indians must learn history from the Nez Perce's perspective. |
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| Jeanine Downwind (Ojibwe - Red Lake) Colette Lawrence (Ojibwe - Leech Lake) and Joan Vanhala [Panel Presentation] Colonial Impacts on Urban Indians: Renewing Communities through Leadership and Policy Through presentation, visual display and discussion, students from NAES take a walk through time. As the impacts of colonialism can only be understood in historical context, the journey of Native People, and the independence of over 400 nations, will be tracked from the pre-Columbian period through the evolution of federal/Indian policy and the period of self-determination. |
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| Lynn Paxson Commodification of Culture: Tourism Destinations, Sacred Sites The bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and its celebration raise the question of what it is like for many Indigenous populations to be (re)discovered. Contestation about use of public lands is prevalent today. Consider the contestation over ownership and use of sites centering around issues of their definition as tourist or sacred sites, such as the Black Hills, the Badlands, the Little Bighorn Battlefield site, Bear Butte, Devils Tower, Rainbow Bridge and Sand Creek. Can there be cultural integrity in tourism? Is it possible to tell a story that challenges the established mythology, provoking discomfort, dis-ease, or guilt in visitors, while still operating to provide economic development? Critical visions of these peoples and histories that require a re-evaluation of values on the part of the visitor are assumed to be not economically or appropriately commodifiable. Can tourism be a source of economic resources without inappropriately “selling one's culture”? Who will control the stories that are told? This presentation examines these issues, drawing on a range of contemporary scholars from a variety of disciplines as well as traditional knowledge and scholarship of selected Native American groups. |
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| Jill M. Wagner Marketing the Myth: Selling the Lewis-Clark Expedition Ms. Wagner discusses her assertion that the Lewis and Clark Expedition is one element of the holy trinity of U.S.-Indian history that includes Columbus, Custer, and Lewis-Clark. These events/persons are sold to the non-Indigenous population of the U.S and others through the mainstream media, academe, tourist sites and centennial celebrations. This is done as part of the systematic construction of a common history in the formation of mainstream U.S. ethnicity/identity. One effect of this is that American Indian histories and lives are presented to the non-Indigenous populations as frozen in time, encapsulated in these defining moments and persons. |
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| Johnny Arlee (Featured Presenter) A Teaching Tool Through Pageants or Plays |
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| Darrell Kipp (Featured Presenter) New Words - New Images from an Indian Reservation Native Son |
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| Pauline Matt Hidden Journals from the Heart & Soul A fictional essay based on how the values of Lewis & Clark compared with the values of the Native American Indian. This essay takes a spin from the true journals of Lewis and Clark, which is steeped in tragic consequences for the Native American Indian and transcribes them into journals with an in-depth insight to the true lifestyle of the Indian. A lifestyle thqt shows the beauty of a rich heritage and how the gifts of nature are woven into the fabric of their daily lives. |
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| Antoine Incashola and Thompson Smith The Selish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition The Salish-Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee will soon publish a book The Selish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Mr. Smith and Mr. Incashola discuss the book's content and its production, delving more deeply into tribal perspectives on the expedition and into the challenges and importance of gathering these perspectives and giving them serious historical consideration. The book was produced through painstaking collaboration with tribal elders, and is built upon a broad foundation of work in gathering and organizing oral histories. This book reveals in startling clarity the way that this kind of tribal effort can yield a dramatically different framing of the expedition's meaning. |
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| Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs A Lewis and Clark Companion; An Encyclopedic Guide to the Voyage of Discovery Ms. Tubbs is the daughter of noted author and historian Stephen Ambrose. Following in her late father's footsteps she has written a new book (the title is the same as her presentation) and she reads and discusses several Native American entries from the book that she feels are relevant to the theme of this conference. |
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| Mary C. Wright American Persuasions: The Nez Perce, Jefferson, and Lewis and Clark in the Oregon Country Professor Wright explores the relationship bettween Lewis and Clark and the Nez Perce who became crucial allies to American inerests. The Nez Perce-American alliance, built on the foundation of intermarriage, can be seen in missionary interaction, peace councils, and involvement with the American military, all of which helped in the nation-building process of the United States in the Pacific Northwest. |
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| Tierney Berger Bison as Seed Dispersal Agents Prior to Euro-American Settlement The American bison (Bison bison L.) was a keystone species in the prairie ecosystems of the Great Plains prior to Euro-American settlement. Native prairie plants have adapted to coexist along side these roaming herds. Removal of bison from the majority of the Great Plains after the time of Lewis and Clark certainly affected the human populations inhabiting the plains. Plant communities may have also been affected due to the removal of bison. Bison at the Nature Conservancy's Niobrara Valley Preserve near Valentine, Nebraska were studied as to their potential role as seed dispersal agents. |
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| Florence M. Gardipee The Yellowstone Bison: Preserving Part of the Past for the Future Prior to the western migration of Euro-Americans, bison freely roamed the North American continent. Historical population estimates based on both anecdotal accounts and the potential carrying capacity of the early plains range from 30 to 80 million. Through massive slaughter, hunting, and displacement pressure from expanding agricultural communities their numbers were reduced to less than 100 in the U.S. and less than 600 in Canada. These remnant populations became the founders for our present day herds. Over 200,000 bison exist on private ranches where they are domesticated and bred for specific characteristics to meet market demand. Some ranchers have attempted to "breed out the hump and breed in the rump," to produce bison who are more like cattle. The Yellowstone bison are the desecendants of the last and only free ranging, wild bison herd to remain within its historical and ecological range. The Yellowstone bison herd could be the genetic wellspring for future genetically intact bison populations. |
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| Mark F. Hammer and James Knotwell Potential Changes in landscape Heterogeneity of the Nebraska Sandhills Following Fire Suppression and Cattle Grazing The Nebraska Sandhills are the largest sand dune complex in the Western Hemisphere. Although they are largely vegetated, localized areas lacking significant amounts of vegetation occur on some sand dunes. These areas of localized disturbance are called blowouts. This reduction may be due to current land management practices. Land that has been actively grazed by bison will be compared to land that has been grazed by cattle. Patterns of blowout occurrence will also be compared in relation to the frequency of fires. Current land-use practices will be compared with land-use practices found at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. |
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| Richard Wojtowicz and Brad Coon Coyote, Grizzlies and Native Americans: Then and Now In their joint presentation Mr. Wojtowicz and Mr. Coon discuss views held by Native Americans along Lewis & Clark's route concerning two predator species, coyote and grizzly bears. We will examine how their views and attitudes towards these animals have changed or remained similar over the intervening years, drawing information from both historical and contemporary sources, including oral testimony from contemporary Native Americans. |
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| Charles E. Kay Lewis and Clark: Aboriginal Overkill, and the Myth of Once Abundant Wildlife It has long been claimed that Native Americans were conservationists who had little or no impact on wildlife populations. More recently, though, it has been suggested that Native people lacked any effective conservation strategies and instead, routinely overexploited large mammal populations. To these hypotheses Mr. Kay quantified all the wildlife observations made by Lewis and Clark as well as their encounters with Native people — a total of more than 40,000 data entries. With this information he was able to plot what Lewis and Clark reported seeing on each and every day of their journey. The only places Lewis and Clark reported an abundance of game were in aboriginal buffer zones between tribes at war, but even there, wildlife populations were predator, not food-limited. Bison, grizzlies, bighorn sheep, mule deer and wolves were seldom seen except in aboriginal buffer zones. If it had not been for these buffer zones, Lewis and Clark would have found little wildlife anywhere in the West. |
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| David Oshkosh Forestry - Its Role in Menominee History: A Historical Perspective Forestry and timber management have been and will continue to be synonymous with the Menominee Tribe. The reputation of the Menominee tribe's silvicultural practices are world renowned. But behind this success story lies a history of struggle, impoverishment. political strife, social unrest and cultural integrity. Mr. Oshkosh presents a historical time table that identifies the forest management decisions and issues that have been instrumental in forging the past, present and future of the Menominee Tribe. |
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| John Jackson Viewing Lewis and Clark from the North: British and Tribal Reaction as recorded in the Records of the Hudson Bay Company The traders of the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company were sensitive to a potential threat to their business by the American expedition. In house journals and letters those observers recorded glimpses of the presence and passage of the Lewis and Clark party. Posts stretching from the Assiniboine to the Upper Saskatchewan carefully tracked their progress. One North West Company trader on the old Yellowstone trade route even shadowed the westward passage. The brief Piikani encounter with Meriwether Lewis was reported when beaver hunters brought their peltry to Edmonton House. Their story differs from the version recorded by Lewis.The statement of the Piikani and their later activities suggest that the killing of one deflected horse capturer was not resented. A peripheral documentary trail begins to unravel the complexities of the vital and harshly interactive political situation on the northern plains. |
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| Blair G. First Rider Kainai Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Land Use Study Traditional knowledge is inseparable from the people who hold it, the land they live on, and the relationships they have developed with the land and waters. Where people learn and practice their traditional knowledge are areas or sites of tradtional land use and occupancy. These sites may include graves, trails, plant gathering areas, ceremonial sites, fishing, hunting and trapping areas. Throughout North America, First Nations and other aboriginal communities are initiating or have completed traditional knowledge and land use studies to address many issues. With traditional land use information, communities, governments, educational institutes and industry can identify potential conflicting land uses, conflicting interests and work towards co-operative, co-mangaement and integrated resource managemen. |
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| Christina T. Kracher Water Resources and Community Change of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Nation The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation of Oregon have experienced massive changes in their traditional natural resources, including much of their aquatic resources, since the western expansion of European settlement. Recently the tribe has developed their own plans and has begun projects to restore their resources, especially Chinook salmon, and ease the conflicts created by differing natural resources from surrounding communities. Ms. Kracher discusses both the historical use of natural resources by the tribe and the recent restoration projects undertaken by the tribe. |
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| Richard S. Wacha [Poster Display] Scientific Observations of the Lewis and Clark Expedition along the Iowa-Nebraska Border: A Review |
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| Rosemary F. Gibbons [video presentation] A Century of Genocide in the Americas: A Residential School Experience Ms. Gibbons presents a short but powerful documentary about how Indian Residential Schools became a haven for institutionalized sexual abuse. The video takes a historical look at how the systematic removal of First Nations children from their families and community not only made the them easy targets for pedophiles but also how these vile acts turned many of the victims into predators. The second half shows First Nations peoples taking legal action against not only the pedophiles, but also against the Canadian government and churches while at the same time using their traditional ways of healing in order to bring joy and balance back within their own lives and also within their communities. |
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| Sally N. Thompson Contemporary Voices Along the L&C Trail Ms. Thompson presents a video and commentary about life since the time of Lewis and Clark by people whose ancestors lived along the explorers' route. The Lifelong Learning Project has interviewed dozens of tribal representatives. This video provides an overview of the varied experiences of different tribes since the time of contact. |
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| Leandra Holland Food and Native Diplomacy 1804-1806 The Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed a land which supported a whole new universe of peoples and their foods. From their earliest encounters with Indians as they rowed up the Mississippi to Camp DuBois, to their final arrival at the "Great Stinking Lake," the commanders and men found themselves exploring the New American Pantry. The Journals are our earliest ethnographic observations recording native foodways, and document a changing diet determined by a. nature of the tribe, b. environmental factors and c. exposure to western cultures. We also learn about tribal generosity and values as well. All of this made for a volatile pot of ingredients, one which is still heady and enticing to us today. |
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| Gwendolyn M. Buck Nature is the Best Diet In her presentation, Ms. Buck attempts to reacquaint the audience with the Native American "old-fashioned" cookbook. With our fast-paced way of life today, there is a crying need to reexamine our eating habits and our preventive health methods. For the survival of all humankind, it is expedient to change our sustenance methods, live well in harmony with Mother Nature exercising influence over one's environment. For those who have an interest in natural eating and healing, they need only look into the Native American organic process and formulate their own feeling and ideas for a personal ecology. |
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| Bea Medicine and Roslyn LaPier Dietary Change in Transition A changing diet results from contact between people whose lifestyles were dependent upon the efficient use of the environment. How did the intruders adapt to a strange flora and fauna? By examining the Lewis and Clark journals the presentation appraises this adaptation. |
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| Barbara Belyea (Featured Presenter) The Silent Past is Made to Speak |
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| Harry Fritz (Featured Presenter) Native Voices: The New Lewis and Clark Expedition |
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| Leslie A. Shope To Live for Mankind: The Lewis and Clark Expedition and the American Enlightenment The American Enlightenment movement and its relevance to Lewis and Clark can be understood through the movement's focus on a trust in science and logic, a desire to spread information and the belief that enlightened men are a "higher" form of being. This presentation discusses how Lewis and Clark's perspective of the world (via the Enlightenment) altered the way they perceived Native Americans. Lewis and Clark's worldview forced them to look at the world in a way that was quite different from the Native Americans. As a result, the message that was being sent from the Corps of Discovery to the Native Americans was filled with enlightened ideals that meant absolutely nothing to a people with a very different worldview. It was this clash of ideals that helped create larger problems between Western "white" America and the Native Americans. |
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| Verne Huser Cultural Confluences: The Key to Lewis and Clark's Success The success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, primarily a river trip, depended on confluence of cultures, both internal and external to the Corps of Discovery. French Canadian rivermen and half-breeds powered the expedition boats and taught the permanent party member how to manage the various crafts. Native people served as interpreters and guides and taught expedition members vital skills. A slave helped entertain the men and Native people. American backwoodsmen — hunters, fishermen, gunsmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, hide-tanners, tailors and soldiers — provided manpower and frontier knowledge. |
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| Marco M. Sioli Indians as Pirates: Concepts of Barbarity during the Lewis and Clark Expedition William Clark, writing from Fort Mandan during the winter of 1804-1805, described the Sioux Tetons as "the vilest miscreants of the savage race, and must ever remain the pirates of the Missouri." The complex system of cooperation, exchange and intimidation among the Indian tribes of the Missouri were simply understood by the explorers as acts of piracy. Especially Sioux hostility toward the Corp of Discovery was compared to the activities of the pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. The idea of free trade was an essential character of the young republic in the West, toward the Pacific Ocean and against the Native Americans, as well as in the East, toward the Mediterranean Sea and against the Barbary powers. But at the same time the business enterprises were linked to national expansion: if in the West the American army searched places to erect forts, in the East they searched ports for the American ships. The opposition and hostility toward this project of expansion were simply defined as act of "savagery" or "piracy." |
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| Curly Bear Wagner First Nations Discover Lewis & Clark Mr. Wagner has gathered perspectives of various Indigenous people of the West on the cultural encounter during and following the Lewis and Clark Expedition. His research involves collecting oral traditions from First Nations elders and leaders, recording and preserving those traditions, and making the information available and accessible to the public. Mr. Wagner and Going to the Sun Institute volunteers conducted several recording trips covering at least 12 tribes. He shares this information in his presentation. |
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| Sally N. Thompson Non-verbal Communication and Miscommunication The Lewis and Clark story is replete with examples of non-verbal communication in the form of sign language and maps. Later travelers in the region used these same forms of communication and added observations of iconographic communication to the repertoire. In her presentation, Ms. Thompson explores various forms of non-verbal communication used by Native Americans and considers the degree of understanding achieved by Euro-American travelers in the early 19th century. |
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| Rodney Frey Voicing An Indian Perspective: On Conducting a Collaborative Internet Project with the Nez Perce, Coeur d' Alene and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs This presentation considers some of the research and ethical considerations in developing an Internet project that seeks to present an Indian perspective on the Lewis and Clark encounter. Among the considerations are developing and conducting collaborative research, assuring cultural and intellectual property rights, developing a thorough review process by the Indian community, and taking full advantages of the Internet media to convey the Indian voice. These are considerations that attempt to acknowledge and strengthen the sovereignty of those whose stories of the Lewis and Clark encounter have in the past gone misrepresented or unheard. |
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| Bruce Van Haveren and Jim Garrett Looking Back at Great Plains Landscapes: If We Knew Then What We Know Now Assuming we were to combine Indigenous traditional knowledge of Northern Great Plains landscapes with current scientific knowledge of the ecology of the region, and then throw in the benefits of 200 years of hindsight, what could we have done differently in the Northern Great Plains region 200 years ago? What alternative policies for "developing" the Northern Great Plains would we recommend to the U.S. government? How could we have protected the homelands of the Indigenous people, preserved the ecological richness, and at the same time allowed for limited Euro-American settlement? Mr.Van Haveren and Mr. Garrett present some alternative scenarios for the Northern Great Plains ecosystem. |
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| Bob Clark Protecting the Lands of Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark's mission was to explore the lands of the Louisiana Purchase and beyond to the Pacific. The Sierra Club's mission is to protect their legacy — the wildlands and wildlife we have left. Towards this effort the Sierra Club has embarked on a five-year campaign coinciding with the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial to protect wildlands and, including 33 specific sites along the explorer's route and 122 animal species. |
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| Catherine Feher-Elston Redefining America Ms. Feher-Elston examines American and European attitudes towards Nature before and after the Lewis and Clark Expedition. She discusses present Indian attitudes towards the Corps and the United States, the rise of a new American pride and nationalism revolving around Nature and the land, and buckskin diplomacy and it consequences for the new United States and the western tribes. In her presentation Ms. Feher-Elston examines the American attitudes towards tribes as "Children of Nature." Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana lands, his establishment of the Corp of Discovery and his determination to make Indian allies clearly demonstrated that was a first step in a greater American plan — a plan which would culminate in Manifest Destiny. |
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| Phil Konstantin Variations in Tribal Names Mr. Konstantin discusses the various names used to describe tribal groups who lived in the area of the Lewis and Clark Expedition's route. This tribal group may have been known by different names: Blackfoot, Blackfeet, Piegan, Siksika. |
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| George P. Horse Capture The Communicating Tradition When Lewis and Clark introduced the white man's world on the Upper Missouri River 1803, the world changed for the tribes as they were forced to adapt to the new world order. Soon they were no longer free to speak their native languages, even sign talking couldn't convey the messages, it had to be filtered through the foreign language. Once disarmed by the language restriction, the gulf between the Indian people and the newcomers escalated, until they became strangers in their own land. They had no voice, and have suffered from this isolation since then. In 1989, Indians entered a new phase of communicating and telling the world about themselves when the U.S. Congress passed the National Museum of the American Indian Act that authorized the building of the National Museum of the American Indian. In his presentation Mr. Horse Capture, who is on the museum staff, discusses the hopes, goals, structure and the Indian voice in the new museum and its quest to help right ancient wrongs. |
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| Sara D'Angelo Native Theater Programs for Yourth Ms. D'Angelo's Only the Brave Productions goes to reservations to engage youth in a four-week intensive Native Theatre Program for Yourth. They focus on activities such as creative group exercises and improvisations that build relationship, create a cohesive ensemble and prepare the youth for commitment of performance open to the community. Traditionally, the use of story has been the basis of forming and defining who we are as American Indians. The expressive nature of theatre, a European/American performance style, builds self-assurance, honest communication and fuels personal achievement. Ms. D'Angelo believes in the use of theatre, infusing traditional storytelling elements as a method of cultural affirmation, education, positive expression, building community and developing viable job skills. |
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| Ben W. Sherman The Legacy of William Clark In less than eight decades after Lewis and Clark passed through Indian lands, the U.S. government would take most of the lands from the Indians through a combination of deception, force and starvation. Alcohol and disease would contribute. William Clark played a singular key role for the first thirty of those years in launching the takeover of lands, subjugation of Indians and expansion of America into the Missouri region. Clark would pull this off as a powerful political appointee under six presidents. Clark, his nephew Benjamin O'Fallon and his friend Auguste Chouteau executed a combined total of 47 treaties with Indian tribes during the period 1815-1830. Clark ultimately had 65 Indian treaties executed under his watch. The U.S. would eventually violate every single Indian treaty. |
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| Gina R. Wernimont American Indian Law & Identity Since the time of Lewis and Clark it has become increasingly clear that racial, ethnic, and political identities are critical issues for many peoples. This appears to be especially true for indigenous populations within the United States and throughout the world. Due to their unique political relationship with federal law and policy-making bodies, American Indian groups are constantly being defined by such institutions while concurrently defining themselves. In her presentation Ms. Wernimont analyzes such communication through an examination of certain laws and policies with regard to historical and current federal definitions of who is legally considered Indian. |
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| J. Frederick Fausz Sovereigns of the Country:The Indian Policies of Jefferson, Lewis & Clark as a Legacy of Virginia's Two Centuries of Territorial Conquests "Being now sovereigns of the country," Thomas Jefferson declared after the Louisiana Purchase, Americans would be the " fathers and friends" of the trans-Mississippi Indians. In reality, true friendship, toleration for different lifeways, and intercultural harmony based on trade partnerships were largely precluded, because Jefferson, Lewis and Clark so identified with Virginia's 200-year-old culture of conquest, "savage wars," and aggressive expansion across earlier eastern frontiers. As Virginia gentlemen, Jeffersonian disciples, and veteran U.S. Army officers, Lewis and Clark traveled to the Pacific with this baggage of racial, cultural, class, and national superiority, fully expecting "savage, primitive" Indians "in the hunter state" to be displaced, rapidly and inevitably, by land-hungry masses of American citizen-farmers. |
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| Kent McNeil Indian and American Sovereignty over the Missouri Watershed at the Time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition It has generally been taken for granted that, in ascending the Missouri River, Lewis and Clark traveled territory that had already been incorporated into the United States by the Louisiana Purchase. Underlying this view is the assumption that France actually had title up to the sources of the Missouri when it sold Louisiana in 1803. The territory west of the Mississippi, was occupied by Indian tribes when LaSalle followed the river to its mouth in 1682 and claimed the region for France. France then proceeded to establish a number of posts and settlements along the Mississippi. To the west of these establishments, however, France's title was based on mere assertion, and did not take account of the territorial rights of the Indian tribes. |
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| Donald Pepion The Myth of the Chief: Examining Concepts of Leadership When Lewis purportedly met the Blackfeet on Two Medicine River located on the current Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, he encountered some difficulties in communication with the Indians. Lewis, apparently using sign language, inquired from this group of young men as to who was the chief. Three of the young men indicated that they were the chiefs. Lewis questions the veracity of these young men who appeared to be returning from capturing horses since they were herding a number of them. The literature tells us that the Europeans had difficulty discerning who were the leaders of the tribes they encountered. The Pilgrims were exasperated by the appearance of different leaders. Did the government of the United States create the idea of "chief"? Is the idea of a supreme leader a foreign concept to most tribes? Have tribes adopted the European "king" model of governmen? |
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| Frederick Left Hand Expeditions and Bands: A Discussion of Leadership Styles Mr. Left Hand compares and contrasts the Crow system of government with the U.S. government at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. His presentation discusses the origin of the Crow system of leadership and advancement to chieftainship including acknowledgments of past chiefs and women chiefs. The audience gains a greater understanding of the similarities and difference in leadership between the Crow and the Lewis and Clark Expedition |
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| Susan Buchel Clark's Indian Sketch Maps: Indicators of Cross-Cultural Communication During both the out-bound and return journey, Captain William Clark interviewed dozens of Indians about the geographical features of the West. From these informants' responses, Clark compiled a series of sketch maps, showing not only main river routes, but complex drainage systems, major land routes, Indian place names and locations of distant tribal groups. Historians often relate the importance of these Indian informants to the success of the Expedition's journey, but the story goes much deeper. The maps' relative accuracy speaks to the skills of both the givers and receiver of this geographical information, and helps us conclude that, in this aspect of communication at least, they managed to overcome obstacles of language, measurements of time and distance, and cultural perspectives. |
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| Monica Mayer Medicinal Aspects of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Dr. Mayer is a medical doctor and a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes. She has researched the history of medicine as it relates to Indian people and the Corps of Discovery. In her presentation she discusses the use of echinacea and other native plants as remedies for a variety of illnesses. She describes the medicines packed for the journey and how these medicines were used at Fort Mandan while the Expedition was among the Mandan and Hidatsa people. The ravages of smallpox and its impact on Native peoples is also covered. Participants come away from this presentation with a better understanding of the relationship between the Expedition members and the Mandan and Hidatsa people during the winter of 1804-1805. |
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| Gregory R. Campbell We Believed the Good Spirit had Foresaken Us It has been well established that epidemic disease as a result of European contact has had a noticeable and measurable impact on the demographic structures of northwestern Plains Indian societies. Despite our recognition of the quantitative consequences of epidemics, there exists a research void on the qualitative consequences of epidemics. Cultural institutions such as clans and band size, residence size and patterns, form of kinship system, and European-borne diseases altered all ideological beliefs. Mr. Campbell's presentation explores those cultural changes, especially in the aftermath of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, among selected northwestern Plains societies. |
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| Nicholas Vrooman The Metis Red River Cart As the fur trade trapped its way out of the woodlands in the late 18th century, it reached a stall as it stepped out onto the vast grasslands of the Northern Plains. The ecological circumstances were highly different than the previous 200 years of furbearing species exploitation. What had been the mode of transportation delivering hides from source to market, the canoe, was essentially obsolete on the prairies. The continuing success of Fur Trade economics depended on solving the problem of how to feed the wintering forts, and how to transport hides across the open expanse of the Great Plains. The solution would come from the Metis, the aboriginal mixed blood children of the fur trade. By 1803, before Lewis and Clark even left St. Louis, they made the first use of the wheel in the Great Northwest with the Red River Cart. |
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| Eli S. Suzukovich III Trade and Identity: A Survey of the Metis in the Great Lakes Mr. Suzukovich discusses the rise of Metis and mixed blood traders in the Great Lakes region, focusing on Illinois and the St. Louis areas. He looks at the origins of Metis culture/identity, and their contributions and influence to the fur trade and Western explorations. His presentation examines how Metis and mixed blood peoples were viewed by contemporary Native and Non-Native peoples. |
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| Poplar Schools Spirit of the Dance This presentation involves students from the Poplar, Montana schools who have created an after-school group called the Red Buffalo Society. The group's main objective is developing youth leadership qualities such as: public speaking, research, cultural and social skills, and respect of self and others. In their presentation, students tell a brief history of five styles of Native American dance and then exhibit their styles. Also included are two sign language routine . |
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| Great Falls Schools / Longfellow Elementary A Native American Youth Perspective: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow The Great Falls Indian Education Resource Library and the High School Native American Club students present comparisons of Native youth culture of the years before the meeting of the cultures, the transitions to present, and their vision of American Indian youth of the future. In the first part of the presentation, a male and female speaker represent gender roles of late 16th century in telling a story about the restrictions, responsibilities and freedoms for Native youth of the past. Then two urban Indian youth replace the "youth speakers of the past" and speak about youth's culture in order to provide a vision of the future. They address two questions. What cultural trends may affect the American Indian youth in the future? What hopes and dreams of youth will influence the shaping of North American Indian governance, leadership, business, health, environment and cultural practices? |
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| Allen Y. Pinkham and Steven R. Evans Lecture on Ordway Allen Pinkham, the former chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe, and Steven Evans, a Professor Emeritus at Lewis-Clark College, present a slide show and lecture covering the short trading expedition of Sgt. John Ordway and privates Frazer and Wiser to the Salmon River, Snake River and return to the so-called Long Camp in Kamiah Valley on the Clearwater River. The two presenters challenge a few assumptions made by others who have studied the Ordway expedition. Mr. Pinkham and Mr. Evens have walked the runs and ridges to rediscover the Ordway experience, both in literal covering of the landscape with motorized vehicles and walking and horseback, but also in the ethnographic sense of re-examining the trip in light of Nez Perce tribal culture. In retracing the Ordway trip they have developed a slide show which reveals some of the most stunning scenery of the entire Lewis and Clark Expedition. |
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| Louie Adams (Featured Presenter) Place Names |
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| Roberta "Bobbie" Conner (Featured Presenters) Emanating from the Earth: Belonging to a Place |
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| Mary Clearman Blew (Featured Presenters) Rivers of Stories, Stories of Place |
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| Thomas F. Weso Powwow Origins and Federal Policy Mr. Weso examines the cultural diffusion of a Native American ritual, the powwow, and its structural relationship with the federal government's policies for Indian removal and relocation. Created from the ritual practices of Great Plains population groups, the current ceremonial powwow is a synthesis of intertribal traditions, the fantastic, and the social realities of capitalism. Anthropologists have identified four periods since the late nineteenth century for which federal policies have resulted in the urbanization of Natives. The powwow ceremony also undergoes four corresponding structural changes through time. |
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Carolyn Thompson Native American Women's Progress Since the Lewis and Clark Expedition The presentation focuses primarily on the changes in the roles of Indian and white women over the last 200 years. She covers general societal effects wrought by the Russians, missionaries and trappers and fur traders (who married Indian women) which preceded Lewis and Clark in the area. Then the Lewis and Clark era and also the current statuses of white, Indian, and women of mixed lineage are proffered. Comparisons with the progress and changing roles of white women, which is similar, is drawn. |
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| Jody L. Pepion Lewis and Clark: America's First Dead Beat Dads Ms. Pepion's area of interest is Native American women — past, present and future. She has recently researched Indigenous women's roles before the Europeon invasion and contrasted that with the ideal American view, or social location. Lewis and Clark were among the first to exert influence, and even enforce many of the European values upon the Indigenous people. She discusses how Lewis and Clark's own "social location" has influenced Indigenous people and the damage these influences still inflict today. |
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| Amy Mossett (Featured Speaker) Sacagawea: A Hidatsa Perspective |
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| Joe McGeshick Sacagawea: American Western Mythology Presentation Professor McGeshick's presentation centers on Sacagawea's life and legacy as contemporary mainstream history takes on mythic proportions as the oversimplified goddess of the American west. |
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| Evelyn Widhalm Sacajawea: My Friend Ms. Widhalm tells the story of Sacagawea as a first person life history told from the standpoint of a trapper's wife who met Sacagawea at Fort Manuel, where she lived her last few years. Using the research she has done, Ms. widham describes Sacagawea in a personal way that reflects Sacagawea's cultural history, life experience and personality |
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| Rose Ann Abrahamson Sacajawea Ms. Abrahamson is a Lemhi Shoshone who is the great-great-great grandniece of Sacajawea and is also a descendent of Chief Cameahwait (Sacajawea's brother) and Chief Tendoy, the last recognized chief of the Lemhi Shoshone tribe. While historians and scholar's debate about the cultural context of Sacajawea's name and the perspectives of her captivity, Ms. Abrahamson presents an interactive and historical insight into cultural lifeways and history of Sacajawea and her people and their contact with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. |
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| Tara Dowd and Rosalyn LaPier Traditional Uses of Tobacco This presentation is based on research regarding the traditional uses of tobacco by the Blackfeet and more generally on the northern plains. |
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| Thomas A. Foor In Search of Sacajawea's Homeland: Ethnohistory, Archaeology and the Lemhi Shoshone To what extent can we establish past use of an area by an extant society? This question has numerous social, political, economic, and religious implications for disenfranchised North American tribal nations looking for formal recognition by the United States Government. Mr. Foor uses the Lemhi Shoshoni as a case study in establishing traditions of land use in southwestern Montana and eastern Idaho. The United States Department of the Interior dissolved the Lemhi reservation in 1907 and they were placed in an administrative relationship with the Bannock. However, the ethnohistoric record of ideology, social interaction, and economy suggest that the Lemhi and their neighbors clearly identified themselves as a distinct peoples. Mr. Foor's archaeological and ethnohistoric data also suggest that the Lemhi and their ancestors occupied this area as a separate and distinct society. |
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| Loren Yellow Bird Now I Will Speak (nawah ti waako'): An Arikara Perspective on What the Lewis and Clark Expedition Missed Mr. Yellow Bird discusses a general pre-history, life at the time of the expedition, and what has become of the Arikara today. His presentation includes tribal origins, social organization, attitude toward others, leadership, and spiritual beliefs. These origins are very important in understanding the Arikara lifestyle and help explain many of the social organizations, leaders and their role, medicine men, and prominent families who lead. Finally, all this is tied in with religious aspects of the tribe and how important decisions were made through these spiritual beliefs. |
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| Richard A. Sattler Lewis & Clark on The Columbian Plateau: The Ethno History of a Critical Non-Event For Euro-Americans, both now and at the time, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was a profoundly significant event. For the Native people of the Columbia Plateau, in contrast, the expedition was largely insignificant and warranted little attention. The encounter largely went unrecorded in tribal traditions as it was a non- event. Despite its insignificance for Native people at the time, the expedition set in motion events which would profoundly affect these people. Mr. Sattler's presentation examines the factors which contributed to the expedition's lack of significance for Native peoples in the region (in contrast to others on the Plains or Pacific Coast), as well as the ways in which it set in motion events that did affect tribes that loom large in tribal traditions. |
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| Pat Courtney Gold The Indigenous Columbia River People "Discover" Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark's journals include labeling Indigenous people as "savages," a total lack of respect for Indigenous women, and the biased Euro-American Christian view of Indigenous cultures. As a result, Lewis and Clark had a difficult time in understanding the people they met and their cultural traditions. As an example, Lewis complained about the "pilfering" of the Columbia River people. Because of their many mishaps in navigating the Columbia, the expedition had to lay out their supplies to dry. What Lewis did not understand was the "give-away" concept of the river people. When Native people pass through another nation's territory, they exchange gifts as peace offerings. This is done by laying out gifts in a public place for the host nation. |
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| Calvin Grinnell I Remember Red Hair and Long Knife: Oral Tradition of the Mandan and Hidatsa on Lewis and Clark The Lewis and Clark Expedition spent nearly five months interacting with Grinnell's people, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara. On the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in west-central North Dakota oral traditions still preserve the impressions of our people about the expedition. These impressions do not paint the same picture recorded in the much-lauded journals of Lewis and Clark. These tribes also have their own story about the tribal affiliation of Sakakawea, which means Bird Woman in the Hidatsa language. Mr. Grinnell has spent a decade researching on this viewpoint which he first heard from his grandmother when he was young. In his presentation he reveals that the reception the expedition received by the Mandan was not the diplomatic coup portrayed by Lewis. Mr. Grinnell also presents oral testimony, recorded by a trader in the village, of a Hidatsa chief which exhibits some telling observations on the visitors in their midst. |
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| David Nicandri Twisted Hair, Tetoharsky, and the Sacagawea Myth Other than the captains, the most famed member of the Corps of Discovery was Sacagawea. Indeed, her legend in the public mind may well exceed that of the commanders of the enterprise. In truth, she played many roles with the expedition. However, her generalized role is that she was an explicit or implied peacemaker, in effect a diplomat. Mr. Nicandri discloses how this generalized role, which is at the heart of the myth surrounding her persona, was, in fact, a site specific phenomena exclusive to the expedition's last few days travel on the Snake River and the second day out on the Columbia. Her presence, rather than being implicit token of peace, was one first explicated to the captains and expanded upon by the two Nez Perce chiefs accompanying Lewis and Clark, Twisted Hair and Tetoharsky. Their true and proper role as diplomats has been eclipsed by the Sacagawea myth. |
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Blackfeet Community College [Panel Presentation] Impact of the Lewis and Clark Expedition on the Blackfeet Nation The Blackfeet Community College's Blackfeet and Lewis and Clark Scholars Program provides a researched historical and contemporary analysis and interpretation of the impact of the Lewis and Clark Expedition on the Blackfeet Nation and the region. The oral presentation reflects a year of study and research done by the BCC scholars. They have interviewed elders of the Blackfeet Tribe, conducted literature research and added their own insights. |
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| James Holmberg (Featured Presenter) Big Medison: York's Life During and After the Lewis and Clark Expedition |
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| Tonia Wisecarver Bison Culture |
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| Richard Wacha Scientific Observations of the Lewis and Clark Expedition along the Iowa-Nebraska Border: A Review |
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| Michaela R. Saunders The Formation and Purpose of Indigenous Media: A Comparison between Australia and North America |
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