Leah Thompson – Staff Writer
Indigenous Peoples Day is a national holiday celebrated on the second Monday of October in the US. This holiday aims to honor Indigenous communities, contributions, culture, and histories.
This year’s Indigenous Peoples Day landed on Monday, Oct. 10, and was commemorated on the Gustavus campus through two main events sponsored by the President’s Council on Indigenous Relations (PCIR).
The first event hosted two main speakers, Senior Maddy Rice and Professor Katie Boone. Professor Boone started the event with a land acknowledgement statement, explaining that the land the college sits on was originally inhabited by the Dakota people.
The two speakers gave testimonies about their experiences surrounding Indigenous people. Rice explained her background as an Indigenous person from Bad River, Wisconsin, and gave a testimony on how Indigenous people are suffering loss of land, culture, and language.
Boone, a direct descendent of the Lake Shetek captives, shared her background as a non-Indigenous person who has spent the past 20 years of her life promoting the preservation of Indigenous culture and way of life.
“The call to action for this campus is: deep listening, curiosity, care, and compassion. You’re never done learning,” Boone said.
The Lake Shetek captives were a group of settlers who were held captive by the Dakota in 1862. They were rescued by a group of young Lakota men, some as young as 13 years old, who negotiated the safety of the settlers over a span of three days.
Professor Boone joined the PCIR shortly after starting at Gustavus this fall and immediately began to help with the coordination and transportation to the Mahkato Wacipi in September. She also helped organize the events for this year’s Indigenous Peoples Day events on campus.
“[Gustavus] is starting to acknowledge the roots of being a settler college. But in order for us to move forward, we have to have an understanding of how all of our roots are intertwined,” Professor Boone said.
Besides her help with organizing events sponsored by the PCIR, Boone has helped write grants to help keep an Indigenous center open and prepare meals for the Dakota riders who take part in the Dakota 38+2 Memorial Ride in December.
If students or faculty are interested in helping or becoming involved with welcoming the memorial riders in December, they can contact Professor Katie Boone (kboone@gustavus.edu).
“If you’re unfamiliar with [the Dakota 38+2 Massacre], there’s a free full length documentary online called Dakota 38 from the perspective of the Dakota,” Professor Boone said.
She also recommended students to read What Does Justice Look Like? The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland by Dakota professor, author, and activist Waziyatawin.
The second event was a discussion in the Center for Inclusive Excellence. Dakota Elder Joe Whitehawk led the discussion, sharing stories, the seven core Dakota values, and many jokes.
“[My favorite thing about being a teacher is] sharing stories and passing on knowledge that can be used in the future,” Dakota Elder Whitehawk said.
The Dakota Elder shared stories about his early life, which included his traumatic experience being forced to attend a boarding school, where he was stripped of his culture, language, and forced to cut his hair. Elder Whitehawk also shared that he served in the United States military and developed war-related PTSD from his time spent there.
Despite all the adversity Whitehawk faced in the first 35 years of his life, he has devoted the past few decades as a teacher and mentor to many.
For a decade starting in the 80s, Whitehawk led week-long retreats to the forest with groups of 20 kids to teach them about nature and to give them an early start on learning about responsibility. The kids were tasked with making breakfast, cleaning up after themselves, and other essential life skills, like learning to work in a team and collaborate with each other.
“Don’t look at the bad points of other people, look at the good ones. Look for their positives and the good things they do; try to bring the best out in them,” Whitehawk said.
At 1:00 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 14, in the Library Archives Room on the third floor of the library, Brenda Child will be giving a free public talk entitled “The Ojibwe Jingle Dress Dance Tradition: Exhibits and Public Engagement.” Child is a Northrop Professor of American Studies from the University of Minnesota and will be discussing her research on “the history of a healing tradition created by Ojibwe women in the aftermath of a global pandemic of influenza of 1918-1920,” according to the poster.
Aside from these events in, Gustavus now has Indigenous artist Marlena Myles in residence for the remainder of the fall semester. She will be available to visit classes and student organizations when she’s on campus. Anyone who’d like to engage with Myles during her time on campus this fall should contact Art and Art History Professor Colleen Stockmann.
“During the last couple of weeks of her residency, she’ll be working intensely on a public art installation that will bring together Dakota and settler narratives. The public art piece will remain at Gustavus,” Chair of the PCIR Professor Ursula Lindqvist said.