1 00:00:01,835 --> 00:00:05,305 Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and 2 00:00:05,305 --> 00:00:09,376 Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota. 3 00:00:09,376 --> 00:00:13,747 Production funding of Common Ground is made possible in part by First National 4 00:00:13,747 --> 00:00:16,149 Bank Bemidji continuing their second century of service to the community, 5 00:00:16,149 --> 00:00:19,386 Member FDIC. 6 00:00:49,449 --> 00:00:53,520 Welcome to Common Ground. I'm Producer/Director Scott Knudson. 7 00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:58,191 In this episode native artist Duane Goodwin creates a sculpture for the 8 00:00:58,191 --> 00:01:01,995 University of Minnesota Morris that examines some of the injustices of the 9 00:01:01,995 --> 00:01:07,500 boarding school era. 10 00:01:34,094 --> 00:01:38,565 Duane: My Indian name is Niibogabo. I'm a White Earth enrollee. My English name is 11 00:01:38,565 --> 00:01:46,806 Duane Goodwin. Summer of 2018 I sculpted a monumental scale three figure 12 00:01:46,806 --> 00:01:51,244 sculpture representing the boarding school era. Speaker: It's been an amazing project 13 00:01:51,244 --> 00:01:55,048 for me personally to work on. And I'm thankful to everyone involved and I see 14 00:01:55,048 --> 00:01:58,251 some of the faces of people who've been involved in this project from the 15 00:01:58,251 --> 00:02:01,488 beginning. And I thank you very much for being here today and for all the work that you've done. Duane: I guess 16 00:02:01,488 --> 00:02:06,092 you know this sculpture was kind of like a really lifetime achievement. It's 17 00:02:06,092 --> 00:02:10,196 something that I've been working for all my life to do another piece of work and 18 00:02:10,196 --> 00:02:13,933 that connection to the boarding school is something I'm very familiar with. My 19 00:02:13,933 --> 00:02:20,039 grandmother went to school there so I was very connected to the theme of the 20 00:02:20,039 --> 00:02:24,878 boarding school. Speaker: Before the University of Minnesota Morris was 21 00:02:24,878 --> 00:02:30,517 established here the campus housed an American Indian boarding school. Duane: Wards 22 00:02:30,517 --> 00:02:35,488 For Wolves was a boarding school when it started out. It was started out in the 23 00:02:35,488 --> 00:02:41,528 latter 1800s and ended in the early 1900s. A fairly short-lived boarding school but 24 00:02:41,528 --> 00:02:47,200 their concentration was on agriculture growing their own food which they did. 25 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:52,305 Speaker: The sculpture is a visible reminder of the role that Native peoples have 26 00:02:52,305 --> 00:02:58,545 played in this place. Their histories have not always been happy ones. But 27 00:02:58,545 --> 00:03:03,249 those histories are inextricably linked to that of our campus. Duane: So I was gone you 28 00:03:03,249 --> 00:03:06,653 know almost the course of three months last summer. 29 00:03:06,653 --> 00:03:10,657 Bambi supported me from the start you know with supporting the home. Because 30 00:03:10,657 --> 00:03:14,994 we have a lot of responsibility at the home front here especially you know we 31 00:03:14,994 --> 00:03:20,333 have animals and so forth. Bambi: My name is Bambi Goodwin and I'm married 32 00:03:20,333 --> 00:03:27,407 to Duane Goodwin. It will be 48 years next month. [laughing] That's a long time. 33 00:03:27,407 --> 00:03:34,080 Duane had a deadline and it was a lot of work. He didn't come home I don't 34 00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:43,089 think maybe once during that period. Duane: Well time to get geared up because by 3 35 00:03:43,089 --> 00:03:47,560 o'clock we may be done if it gets too hot. 36 00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:52,398 Bambi: He had two helpers and they were young men that you know could lift those heavy 37 00:03:52,398 --> 00:03:58,671 saws and he still did a lot of lifting and cutting. Duane: Oh you wanna grab that 38 00:03:58,671 --> 00:04:05,945 step stool there? Bambi: But I was so glad he had help because this rock carving is tough 39 00:04:05,945 --> 00:04:12,252 on him. Duane: Joe is from Red Lake and he was an intern that the tribal college paid for 40 00:04:12,252 --> 00:04:17,457 and then Inkpa was an apprentice that I trained in a number of years ago. So he 41 00:04:17,457 --> 00:04:22,595 was a big help he could dig right into it he could see what I seen. We had a 42 00:04:22,595 --> 00:04:27,600 great model to follow that was three dimensional scale and we had a great 43 00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:38,144 sight to do the work on. [hammer drill]. The rock started out at nine tons, eight feet by five and 44 00:04:38,144 --> 00:04:45,285 a half feet by 30 inches. It was installed June 29 of 2018. We had a 45 00:04:45,285 --> 00:04:50,223 hundred thousand pound crane lifting the rock off the flatbed over the trees and 46 00:04:50,223 --> 00:04:57,130 placed it on the foundation. And the rock came from Winona, Minnesota. That's 47 00:04:57,130 --> 00:05:02,502 another great aspect about the project the rock is from Minnesota. Well this 48 00:05:02,502 --> 00:05:07,640 specific type of rock has a lot of geological history to it. First of all I 49 00:05:07,640 --> 00:05:13,780 found out from a geologist that studied this rock that this rock originally part 50 00:05:13,780 --> 00:05:20,119 of aquifer. Because of that I titled this sculpture, Nokoomis Nibii which means 51 00:05:20,119 --> 00:05:23,523 'grandmother water'. 52 00:05:27,627 --> 00:05:34,734 It's very brittle it is very hard. So much of the rock was sawed and then broke 53 00:05:34,734 --> 00:05:40,073 away with a hammer drill and chisels. You score the rock and then you take the 54 00:05:40,073 --> 00:05:44,277 hammer drill and you break it at the base of the score till all the rough 55 00:05:44,277 --> 00:05:49,782 rock is removed. Then from there you reduce your tools to a smaller cutters. [hammer drill] 56 00:05:53,986 --> 00:05:59,359 Inkpa: Let's take a... I sawed this down at the base so it's even. [inaudible] 57 00:05:59,359 --> 00:06:03,763 Yeah it usually helps out quite a bit. Duane: Inkpa he was the apprentice and 58 00:06:03,763 --> 00:06:10,737 then he had Joe Strong who was an intern from Red Lake. And both these young guys 59 00:06:10,737 --> 00:06:17,577 were young and strong and they both had an influential part of the process. You 60 00:06:17,577 --> 00:06:22,382 know the experience was working creatively, being on task, taught them to 61 00:06:22,382 --> 00:06:25,885 be responsible because both of them were responsible throughout the course of 62 00:06:25,885 --> 00:06:27,620 this project. [hammer drill] [inaudible] 63 00:06:34,894 --> 00:06:40,800 I think we all had a vision you know we all seen the vision. And we all worked 64 00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:46,272 cohesively together to make it happen. I didn't have to instruct them exactly 65 00:06:46,272 --> 00:06:50,777 what to do anymore. They just knew exactly what to do. This 66 00:06:50,777 --> 00:06:55,348 is how much rock you got take off today. The only thing I had to watch because we had 67 00:06:55,348 --> 00:06:59,419 some big tools we were working with and you couldn't go beyond some of the depth 68 00:06:59,419 --> 00:07:04,190 we had to cut into that rock so you had to really watch yourself. They had a good 69 00:07:04,190 --> 00:07:08,961 sense of what we're doing. Duane: [inaudible] ..have another lunch break? [laughing] Should we have an early lunch? 70 00:07:08,961 --> 00:07:16,769 Cause they could feel the significance of the project and they could see the model 71 00:07:16,769 --> 00:07:22,275 and they could see how that was being transformed into this big big piece. This 72 00:07:22,275 --> 00:07:27,447 little bitty scale model we were following very closely. So you know every 73 00:07:27,447 --> 00:07:32,285 time you were working on a general area you had to follow that area because it 74 00:07:32,285 --> 00:07:36,789 was certainly a lot to do removing that negative rock without making too many 75 00:07:36,789 --> 00:07:44,664 critical mistakes. How deep on that one, a plunge? Inkpa: This is the deepest and this 76 00:07:44,664 --> 00:07:50,703 one will be the shallowest. Duane: So we were fairly successful in removing that rock 77 00:07:50,703 --> 00:07:55,241 and getting it to look as much as possible like the model. Inkpa: And this may be 78 00:07:55,241 --> 00:07:59,979 only about [inch and a half?] 1/2 inch. Duane: Okay, I can do it. 79 00:08:01,948 --> 00:08:06,419 People didn't have no idea what the boarding school was. A lot of people have 80 00:08:06,419 --> 00:08:12,692 no idea that this ever took place and what effects they had on the Native 81 00:08:12,692 --> 00:08:19,465 American people. Elaine Fleming is the former mayor of Cass Lake and a Leech Lake 82 00:08:19,465 --> 00:08:23,870 Tribal College teacher. Elaine is a very knowledgeable historian on the Leech 83 00:08:23,870 --> 00:08:29,642 Lake Band of Ojibwe and the Native American Boarding School. Elaine: Bezhigo 84 00:08:29,642 --> 00:08:35,314 bineshii'ikwe indigomaang indoodam Gaa- o'ziskwaajimekaagan idoonjibaa 85 00:08:35,314 --> 00:08:42,788 Gaa'miskwaawaakokaagninda, Elaine Fleming indizhinikaaz. So the name that the 86 00:08:42,788 --> 00:08:48,394 universe knows me by is One Thunderbird Woman. I'm with the Loon clan. I'm a 87 00:08:48,394 --> 00:08:54,300 member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe of the Minnesota Chippewa tribe. And I 88 00:08:54,300 --> 00:08:57,236 live in Gaa-miskwaawaakokaag, the place 89 00:08:57,236 --> 00:08:59,705 where there used to be red cedar trees. 90 00:08:59,705 --> 00:09:05,444 It's called Cass Lake. I work for Leech Lake Tribal College and I've been 91 00:09:05,444 --> 00:09:12,385 working here for a quarter of a century. Yeah the boarding school era, that 92 00:09:12,385 --> 00:09:21,294 occurred during the assimilation era. And that was about 1870 to 1934 the 93 00:09:21,294 --> 00:09:27,366 assimilation era and that's when they were trying to take away our tribal 94 00:09:27,366 --> 00:09:34,040 identities they were trying to assimilate us into being U.S. citizens. 95 00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:39,645 And they were also trying to take our land away from us and so there were 96 00:09:39,645 --> 00:09:45,384 crazy things that happened during the assimilation era. And one of them was the 97 00:09:45,384 --> 00:09:50,590 1887 allotment act and that was one of the ways that they took the remaining 98 00:09:50,590 --> 00:09:56,729 land that we had during that era in order to turn us into citizens, U.S. 99 00:09:56,729 --> 00:10:00,800 citizens they developed the boarding schools. 100 00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:06,772 And it became mandatory to send our children to the boarding schools. And so 101 00:10:06,772 --> 00:10:13,879 it was just a horrific time for us because we loved our children that's the 102 00:10:13,879 --> 00:10:18,884 way things are we love our children. And some of those children were as young as 103 00:10:18,884 --> 00:10:24,156 four years old when they would be taken away into the boarding schools and they 104 00:10:24,156 --> 00:10:31,030 would be separated. Carl Gawbay is a former instructor from 105 00:10:31,030 --> 00:10:37,269 the University of St. Scholastica. And he's a historian on the boarding school 106 00:10:37,269 --> 00:10:43,943 era. Carl: My name is Carl Gawbay, I'm a Boise Forte enrollee. My father and his family were 107 00:10:43,943 --> 00:10:47,546 originally from Rainy Lake we are one of the people that immigrated to the 108 00:10:47,546 --> 00:10:56,055 reservation in about 1918 or so. I went to public school I was an artist and an 109 00:10:56,055 --> 00:11:01,861 art major and I began to get interested in boarding schools. And I did research at 110 00:11:01,861 --> 00:11:07,500 the Walker Art Center when I was a museum intern there. And Duane when he 111 00:11:07,500 --> 00:11:11,003 was a teenager attended the Institute of Indian arts in 112 00:11:11,003 --> 00:11:19,178 Santa Fe. One of his teachers was Allan Houser the great Apache sculptor that 113 00:11:19,178 --> 00:11:24,650 has a gallery dedicated to him at the Smithsonian today. At that time he was 114 00:11:24,650 --> 00:11:28,788 teaching at the Institute and was so impressed with Duane, asked him to be 115 00:11:28,788 --> 00:11:35,561 his assistant and Duane said no I'm gonna go back to Minnesota. I could have 116 00:11:35,561 --> 00:11:41,467 kicked him at that moment but he's a good artist primarily self-taught. Allan 117 00:11:41,467 --> 00:11:47,573 Houser was a great influence on him but he has a great loyalty to northern 118 00:11:47,573 --> 00:11:52,344 Minnesota too. And I guess if I could say probably the most important thing about 119 00:11:52,344 --> 00:11:58,551 him was his loyalty to home. There are many Indian artists that moved to Santa 120 00:11:58,551 --> 00:12:04,223 Fe took one look around and said I am never going back home again because in 121 00:12:04,223 --> 00:12:09,161 Santa Fe there's a lot of institutional support there's a lot of Indian artists 122 00:12:09,161 --> 00:12:13,866 there's a big community full of Indian artists there and so why should they 123 00:12:13,866 --> 00:12:19,238 come back to White Earth when there was not a single artist working in that area 124 00:12:19,238 --> 00:12:24,276 at that time when Duane came back. Duane virtually created the arts community 125 00:12:24,276 --> 00:12:28,380 himself. Elaine: I really admire Duane. We've been here at 126 00:12:28,380 --> 00:12:35,387 the college a long time he's always has had so much energy and 127 00:12:35,387 --> 00:12:41,093 even with his physical impairment he just does miraculous things. [He's a dynamo!] 128 00:12:41,093 --> 00:12:47,299 Oh my gosh! I just yeah, I admire him I mean you know he's just always always on 129 00:12:47,299 --> 00:12:53,706 the ball. Always creating. Duane: I've overcome some severe setbacks like losing my eye 130 00:12:53,706 --> 00:13:00,646 to a carpentry accident. Busted up my right arm you know wild-rice finishing 131 00:13:00,646 --> 00:13:08,220 process but I managed to prevail and achieve what I have achieved. Carl: Like I said 132 00:13:08,220 --> 00:13:12,324 I never thought of my father going to boarding school but then looking back on 133 00:13:12,324 --> 00:13:17,863 it on his behavior how we were raised there's boarding school written all over 134 00:13:17,863 --> 00:13:24,804 it. For one thing he refused to teach us the Ojibwe language because he was 135 00:13:24,804 --> 00:13:29,975 taught that he shouldn't do that he remained fluent all of his life and it 136 00:13:29,975 --> 00:13:35,314 was a thrill to me to listen to him speaking Ojibwe to other old older 137 00:13:35,314 --> 00:13:42,555 Indians. But he never taught us he insisted that we only speak English even 138 00:13:42,555 --> 00:13:48,227 though in our house we heard the Ojibwe language spoken. We heard the Finnish 139 00:13:48,227 --> 00:13:52,832 language spoken in the town that I grew up in I could hear Slovenian and 140 00:13:52,832 --> 00:13:58,871 Swedish and Italian on the street. It would have been a perfect place for me to be 141 00:13:58,871 --> 00:14:04,243 multilingual thinking back on it now I would've loved that. It's hard to look back 142 00:14:04,243 --> 00:14:12,451 on it look at those decisions that were made in the 1920s and try to gainsay 143 00:14:12,451 --> 00:14:18,057 them I mean you can't. Elaine: The government had a trust responsibility to take care of 144 00:14:18,057 --> 00:14:23,495 us because they thought we were not quite human so we had gone into a period 145 00:14:23,495 --> 00:14:29,201 of deeper and deeper poverty. And so they were always trying to think of ways how 146 00:14:29,201 --> 00:14:34,273 can they take care of the American Indian? And so when they went into the 147 00:14:34,273 --> 00:14:39,211 assimilation era it was that idea well we'll make them into US citizens and 148 00:14:39,211 --> 00:14:42,314 we'll do that through the boarding schools and then we'll also teach them 149 00:14:42,314 --> 00:14:47,653 how to be farmers and we'll give them their own land so that 150 00:14:47,653 --> 00:14:53,692 they can learn to farm it and they'll feed themselves. So the thing about the 151 00:14:53,692 --> 00:14:56,829 children is that when they went to the boarding schools they were modeled after 152 00:14:56,829 --> 00:15:02,434 the US schools. They start in kindergarten and they go up through 12th 153 00:15:02,434 --> 00:15:07,339 grade and so the different boarding schools they serve different ages. And 154 00:15:07,339 --> 00:15:13,178 the boarding school at Morris it served kindergarten through eighth grade. And 155 00:15:13,178 --> 00:15:19,084 then other schools like Flandreau or Haskell they would serve other ages and 156 00:15:19,084 --> 00:15:23,389 so those children they would go to one boarding school and then once they would 157 00:15:23,389 --> 00:15:27,459 graduate from like Morris and they would go on to another school like Flandreau or 158 00:15:27,459 --> 00:15:33,098 Pipestone. And so they would get moved around like that. What they wanted to do 159 00:15:33,098 --> 00:15:38,470 is because we were were not ethnic minorities we're peoples of nations and 160 00:15:38,470 --> 00:15:45,311 so a nation has its own language and culture. So it's very important for them 161 00:15:45,311 --> 00:15:49,348 to take away our language and our culture and the way they'll do that is 162 00:15:49,348 --> 00:15:53,786 through the boarding schools. Captain Pratt he said the way to change 163 00:15:53,786 --> 00:15:59,024 a nation is through the children so that's why they would have young 164 00:15:59,024 --> 00:16:04,430 children. And you know during those times too like on Leech Lake people were hungry 165 00:16:04,430 --> 00:16:10,869 and we had been concentrated on these real small reservations and so we 166 00:16:10,869 --> 00:16:16,375 weren't able to feed our children the way we had. Sometimes during these years 167 00:16:16,375 --> 00:16:21,847 the rice crops would be bad and that was a food we could depend on and we weren't 168 00:16:21,847 --> 00:16:26,919 able to feed our children so sometimes we would send the kids to the schools 169 00:16:26,919 --> 00:16:34,059 just so they could eat. Carl: What I found is that they were especially set up for 170 00:16:34,059 --> 00:16:38,163 cultural genocide I mean that was their whole design. You know there are still 171 00:16:38,163 --> 00:16:43,068 people who defend boarding schools. Some of them are Indians. Elaine: Some of the 172 00:16:43,068 --> 00:16:51,410 horrors of the boarding school era one is just you come you come from a 173 00:16:51,410 --> 00:16:56,949 place we come from the land we come from this earth and we're people of the water 174 00:16:56,949 --> 00:17:04,156 and our families love this. And so then they take you away from your 175 00:17:04,156 --> 00:17:11,263 family and they tell you that you can't speak your language and so how can you 176 00:17:11,263 --> 00:17:16,635 ask for information how can you ask for food how can you defend yourself when 177 00:17:16,635 --> 00:17:21,440 you can't speak your language? And so the horrors being that they took your voice 178 00:17:21,440 --> 00:17:27,046 away your ability to speak was taken away and then you had to learn this 179 00:17:27,046 --> 00:17:31,216 other language and sometimes they would the horror stories are where they would 180 00:17:31,216 --> 00:17:36,455 punish you and they would do many different things like make you kneel on 181 00:17:36,455 --> 00:17:43,228 rice for hours. They would hit them they would put them in the cold rooms where 182 00:17:43,228 --> 00:17:48,367 they would put the food in to keep it frozen and keep it from decaying or 183 00:17:48,367 --> 00:17:52,704 thawing and they would put the children in rooms like that and keep them in there. 184 00:17:52,704 --> 00:17:58,243 They would take their clothes away from them and they would delouse them they 185 00:17:58,243 --> 00:18:03,082 would cut their hair and the hair was so important to them. And the children 186 00:18:03,082 --> 00:18:06,652 aren't understanding any of this that's going on because they're speaking to 187 00:18:06,652 --> 00:18:11,990 them in English. They would use turpentine on their hair to kill what 188 00:18:11,990 --> 00:18:16,361 bugs they thought might be there and then they would have them dress in 189 00:18:16,361 --> 00:18:19,965 clothes that were not of their culture. Carl: And boarding schools were like a big 190 00:18:19,965 --> 00:18:24,536 prison so you look at the way the social life in prisons operate. You have 191 00:18:24,536 --> 00:18:30,576 gangs and you have bullies and you have victims and you have people who just go 192 00:18:30,576 --> 00:18:37,649 along to get along in a prison situation. And the boarding schools were the same. 193 00:18:37,649 --> 00:18:44,756 Dressing in uniforms living in great big dormitories marching in the afternoon 194 00:18:47,059 --> 00:18:51,930 horrific discipline. Elaine: They were very regimental in the way that they would 195 00:18:51,930 --> 00:18:55,534 treat them, they would get them up early in the morning and they would march to 196 00:18:55,534 --> 00:19:01,106 their school rooms they were not hugged and when they were hugged or when they 197 00:19:01,106 --> 00:19:07,346 were touched then many times it was in a horrible way in a sexual way so the 198 00:19:07,346 --> 00:19:14,253 children have no one to turn to you know no one to go to for help. 199 00:19:14,253 --> 00:19:22,261 The way they might get touched is like the being hit being punished like that. Carl: I 200 00:19:22,261 --> 00:19:28,100 was reading Jim Northrup's commentary on Pipestone and he said that the very 201 00:19:28,100 --> 00:19:34,373 first day that he sat down to eat with 75 other boys in this big hallway the 202 00:19:34,373 --> 00:19:40,078 very first meal that they had the big boys came and took all his food and he 203 00:19:40,078 --> 00:19:47,286 said that he learned to have to protect his food when he was six. Now the guy who 204 00:19:47,286 --> 00:19:54,026 took his food was the bully that thought the boarding school was a real great 205 00:19:54,026 --> 00:19:57,329 place because he got to eat all he wanted he took it away from the little 206 00:19:57,329 --> 00:20:03,435 kids. So these were the people who thought boarding schools were a real 207 00:20:03,435 --> 00:20:11,376 great thing. Elaine: When people are disrespected they will start turning in on themselves 208 00:20:11,376 --> 00:20:17,249 and so those children would start to hurt themselves or each other and so 209 00:20:17,249 --> 00:20:23,655 bullying would happen in the schools. And the school that my father went to the 210 00:20:23,655 --> 00:20:28,560 older boys would take all the food from the little boys and the little boys were 211 00:20:28,560 --> 00:20:34,666 literally starving and so what they did was they had the little boys sit with 212 00:20:34,666 --> 00:20:40,272 the older female students so that they would get to eat so there was that 213 00:20:40,272 --> 00:20:44,209 bullying that was happening in the schools too. Carl: So as I started researching 214 00:20:44,209 --> 00:20:49,381 about boarding schools I realized that there was actually very little material 215 00:20:49,381 --> 00:20:55,254 out there and most of it was very pro- boarding schools. A lot of the material 216 00:20:55,254 --> 00:21:01,126 thought boarding schools were a real good idea. And as I started researching 217 00:21:01,126 --> 00:21:10,369 it now I have to tell you this was 1972 and this was before generational trauma 218 00:21:10,369 --> 00:21:16,341 theory was out there and that wasn't until I believe it was Marilyn 219 00:21:16,341 --> 00:21:21,747 Braveheart that first introduced it to us based on research from Holocaust 220 00:21:21,747 --> 00:21:26,418 victims and the survivors of Japanese-American 221 00:21:26,418 --> 00:21:33,091 internment camps and that trauma is passed on through the generations. If it 222 00:21:33,091 --> 00:21:37,763 stops in one generation that doesn't mean that the trauma ends that it's 223 00:21:37,763 --> 00:21:44,369 passed on and it's passed on through behavior through subtle cues through 224 00:21:44,369 --> 00:21:52,544 values and no one actually realized that Indian kids traumatized in boarding 225 00:21:52,544 --> 00:21:58,550 school would pass on that trauma to their own children even if they didn't 226 00:21:58,550 --> 00:22:00,952 send their children to boarding school. 227 00:22:03,889 --> 00:22:10,362 Elaine: So then when the artist Dewey, makes that sculpture and that woman see she's 228 00:22:10,362 --> 00:22:18,203 made of stone and it doesn't wear away. Her love is like that for all her 229 00:22:18,203 --> 00:22:26,144 children and just like stone she'll always be there for her children. So 230 00:22:26,144 --> 00:22:32,617 that's just really powerful that 'Mindamooya' down at U of M Morris is made 231 00:22:32,617 --> 00:22:36,922 out of that stone and then that whole image of those two children holding on 232 00:22:36,922 --> 00:22:41,593 to her like that and her holding on to them is just 233 00:22:41,593 --> 00:22:45,831 awesome. Duane: Well I envisioned first and foremost the 234 00:22:45,831 --> 00:22:50,469 strength of a lot of native families which is the grandmother the mother the 235 00:22:50,469 --> 00:22:54,873 great-grandmother they've always stood strong when the men 236 00:22:54,873 --> 00:23:00,912 were at a low of time the women still stood strong and kept a family unit 237 00:23:00,912 --> 00:23:06,284 together. So I chose the grandmother because my mother was there for a lot of 238 00:23:06,284 --> 00:23:13,358 grandkids and other children taking them in feeding them. So I chose the grandmother. 239 00:23:13,358 --> 00:23:18,864 Elaine: The grandparents they were always there and they were the ones who were still 240 00:23:18,864 --> 00:23:24,736 fluent in the language and they were still practicing cultural ways so there 241 00:23:24,736 --> 00:23:31,410 were a lot of deaths of our people during the assimilation era. It was like 242 00:23:31,410 --> 00:23:40,318 something like 60% of our Ojibwe people died during that particular era and it 243 00:23:40,318 --> 00:23:46,391 had to do with disease mainly. And so a lot of times the children wouldn't have 244 00:23:46,391 --> 00:23:51,496 a parent and so the grandparents would take care of them and a lot of times it would 245 00:23:51,496 --> 00:23:58,470 be the grandmother. And so that just reminds me of Dewey Goodwin's statue how 246 00:23:58,470 --> 00:24:03,308 it's the grandmother who was taking care of the two children and in the statue 247 00:24:03,308 --> 00:24:09,581 how it has that little boy he's got the uniform on. They would send leftover 248 00:24:09,581 --> 00:24:15,020 military uniforms for the children to wear and so the little boy's got on his 249 00:24:15,020 --> 00:24:18,423 uniform holding on to the grandmother and the other little girl 250 00:24:18,423 --> 00:24:22,594 she's got on her traditional dress holding on to her grandmother. But 251 00:24:22,594 --> 00:24:28,099 they're holding on to the old ways in that way they're holding on to those 252 00:24:28,099 --> 00:24:34,439 ones who gave us life and held us together during all those hard times. Duane: The 253 00:24:34,439 --> 00:24:39,444 dedication was going to be to them something very important. Man: You'll be 254 00:24:39,444 --> 00:24:44,683 seated in the front row and I asked Bambi to sit there and so can any 255 00:24:44,683 --> 00:24:49,588 family that can. [okay] We need two chairs for the Hefner's a chair for the 256 00:24:49,588 --> 00:24:54,926 Chancellor. Duane: He wanted to show people how proud they were of this project. They 257 00:24:54,926 --> 00:24:59,831 came to me earlier to ask how it should be done what kind of food we should 258 00:24:59,831 --> 00:25:06,238 serve to a large audience. So they asked me to give him some ideas on what to make 259 00:25:06,238 --> 00:25:11,009 for this menu for this dedication. I thought that was important to ask 260 00:25:11,009 --> 00:25:14,613 what kind of food you'd like to see at your dedication I said yeah I'd like to 261 00:25:14,613 --> 00:25:20,619 see buffalo you know. Oh yeah they can get that I said they might be a little 262 00:25:20,619 --> 00:25:26,424 expensive but they'll get it. And sure enough they got it they had a nice meal 263 00:25:26,424 --> 00:25:32,697 of Indian food and they have a very large audience of the community of 264 00:25:32,697 --> 00:25:40,705 alumni. This project at the University of Morris Minnesota was made possible by 265 00:25:40,705 --> 00:25:48,580 Mary and Punky Hapner, alumnis and felt they needed to address the original 266 00:25:48,580 --> 00:25:53,952 history of where University of Morris came from. I believe it's a respect for our 267 00:25:53,952 --> 00:25:59,090 history you know they want to have something representational that's a good 268 00:25:59,090 --> 00:26:05,530 strong example that this is still a strong memory and part of the university 269 00:26:05,530 --> 00:26:08,633 the Native American aspect of the land and the people that once lived there 270 00:26:08,633 --> 00:26:11,069 before they were there. 271 00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:20,845 Scott: Thanks for watching. Join us again on Common Ground. If you have an idea for 272 00:26:20,845 --> 00:26:24,583 Common Ground in north central Minnesota email us at legacy@lptv.org. 273 00:27:12,831 --> 00:27:16,267 Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage 274 00:27:16,267 --> 00:27:21,272 Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th 2008. 275 00:27:24,776 --> 00:27:28,046 If you watch common ground online consider becoming a member or making a 276 00:27:28,046 --> 00:27:30,949 donation at lptv.org.