Honoring the Dakota

The Honoring Dakota Project is a collaborative project of Prairie Island Indian Community (PIIC), Goodhue County Health and Human Services (GCHS), the City of Red Wing, Red Wing Arts, Goodhue County Child & Family Collaborative, Prairie Island Family Services and Thrive Unltd. It is a process of community conversations and events that provide education to discover our shared stories, bridge our communities, and create a space for healing. The project theme is Mitakuye Owasin Dakota interpretation meaning our shared home holds our shared stories. We are all related. And even if we don't always know what it means to be related, we know deep down we want to be in harmony with each other by being good relatives. Red Wing Arts (RWA) engaged Nicky Buck, PIIC member, as our engagement specialists. The program has been guided by her insight and connections. Nicky has mitigated Tribal Council for support at each step of the way. Through her love of her Dakota ways, this project is embracing the historical trauma and the connection to Dakota beliefs.
The first engagement occurred at the Red Wing Arts Fall Festival where we hosted a tent with an 8' canvas asking the community to draw what it means to be a good neighbor in the context of the Honoring Dakota. Over 100 people, young and old participated and learned of the project.
Numerous presentations to City Council, Tribal Council, Civic Groups and community groups have educated on this ground breaking initiative. A website and social media presence has been created to educate and inform of this projects work. Photographers have been engaged to document the programs and surveys and community collection of responses gathered.
In January we hosted the first Community Engagement Session. This week grew from a vision of working with distinct populations around the concept of historical trauma to a week long of engagements. We hosted morning sessions of dialogue about what is the indigenous historical trauma. Sessions were with our PIIC Elders, the Red Wing Community and our High School Students. Within the High School we secured champions of this project from the RWPS Director of Teaching and Learning, the NASA and BSU advisors Prairie Island Liaison and the Dakota language teacher. The program in the school reached all Language Arts classes with the focus of the poem Give Away Songby Gwen Westerman, a Dakota woman and an MN Poet Laureate.
Community Conversations was a key for this week's engagement. A community meal hosted on Prairie Island (at Treasure Island Casino) was attended by what most of us would have said was the most diverse audience experienced in Red Wing. City, County, School and Tribal Council officials were in attendance along with members of both the Red Wing and Prairie Island Communities. It was an opportunity to all sit in a space, hear the experiences, feel the trauma, and honor our Dakota relative's story.
In the planning of our first engagement week, we realized that we needed an experiential and positive program. A Winter Carnival presented community members an opportunity to learn Dakota ways. Over 500 people attended the teachings of food sovereignty and ice fishing, experienced a traditional bark lodge (the first on Dakota lands in over 150 years) and story time around the fire in the tipis. Throughout the week-long session, our Indigenous Culture Bearers and Knowledge keepers were engaged to teach and share.
Although visual representation of the Dakota people in downtown Red Wing was initially what was identified as the problem to solve, the project continues to expand to truly leverage the desire of both communities to heal. We have planned 3 additional engagement projects around the harvests (Spring, Summer & Fall). As more champions engage with us, the programming outcomes expand. Currently we have plans to host monthly Zoom sessions, a craft club and a book club. We remain flexible as the organization who holds the project and are willing to allow it to grow and grow. The project outcomes remain the same. Progress is being made towards all of them. This is a long road. The Honoring Dakota project is groundbreaking and leading the country in efforts to truly heal as a community with such a shared history.; 4:55
PM

The Honoring Dakota
Project -Mitakuye Owasin (meaning our
shared home holds our shared stories. We are all related. And even if we don't
always know what it means to be related, we know deep down we want to be in harmony
with each other by being good relative) has truly been Dakota led. We as wasicu
(white) people and organizations have stewarded and supported the direction of
PIIC throughout this project.

Quarterly
Engagements scheduled around the seasons were programmed. Facilitated conversations were key. They
provided an opportunity to all sit in a space, hear the experiences, feel the
trauma, and honor our Dakota relative's story. Throughout the engagement
sessions, our Indigenous Culture Bearers and Knowledge keepers were engaged and
compensated to teach and share.

Although visual
representation of the Dakota people in downtown Red Wing was initially what was
identified as the problem to solve, the project expanded to truly leverage the
desire of both communities to heal. The vision and project grew. Involvement of
the community grew - our schools, our Indigenous youth, other partners, funders
and businesses.

The April quarterly
engagement centered around our Buffalo relative. It launched with a broad community education
session which had an attendance of 300+, The Prairie Island Indian Community
held a traditional Buffalo Ceremony and Harvest. The emphasis was to introduce the culture and
traditions back to their community. Many
youth learned for the first time of these traditions and skills. This was supported by Prairie Island
Community members and other indigenous culture bearers. This series of engagements ended with the
first ever publicly offered tours of the Buffalo farm. The experience allowed
Red Wing community members to gain a new historic perspective before European
settlement, where buffalo roamed and provided for their two legged relative.

To continue with
providing a new historic perspective, in May Prairie Island Land and
Environment department presented Before the Europeans: Dakota Lands of Present
Red WingThis presentation was also
conducted in downtown Red Wing and hosted by Downtown Main Street Red Wing.
This presentation provided the audience with a vision of the nature-related
aspects of the Red Wing area; what it was like for those that came before the
wave of European settlement. It explored these questions. What natural forces
shaped this land? What did the landscape look like? What did it support, and
what were the resources that made this land so valuable for the Dakota people
that lived here for generations?

Goodhue County
Health and Human Services hosted a viewing of Dodging Bullets at the Sheldon
Theater. This collection of remarkable stories, names Historical Trauma as the
unique and insidious part of the genetic code that resilient Native American
populations are still finding ways to dodge. Survey results indicated an
increase in community members awareness of historic trauma of indigenous
community members. Shortly after the
viewing the community engaged in an online community conversation about what
was presented in the documentary.

The Buffalo centric
quarterly engagement inspired the next engagement which was traditional brain
tanning. Red Wing Shoe Company and SB
Foot Tanning, prominent, long standing businesses in Red Wing were brought into the dialogue with the
common thread being leather tanning.
They provided financial support to bring this learning back to Praire
Island. They also engage a number of
their employees to learn alongside community members. This exchange has forged a new
supportive relationship between Prairie Island and Red Wing Shoe Company who
has since used their resources to commercially tan 7 buffalo hides which will
be used for the teaching and creation of Pow Wow regalia We expect this relationship will continue and
more projects will be supported.

The July quarterly
engagement centered around Tipi Teachings - This is Home.An indigenous art market was held in
Central Park which included a performance from Thomas X, an indigenous HIp
Hop artist and Austin Owen, a Prairie Island community member. Community members
were led on an art walk viewing elementary students' art installation of over
800 mini canvas created as part of teaching about Mitakuye Owasin - We are all
related during their art class period by project facilitators. The community participated in an art project,
which involved painting a tipi in Bay Point Park, a place of great significance
to our Dakota relatives. This tipi is
now cared for and stored by the City of Red Wing and will be used in various
community events. Once the tipi was painted the community was invited to Tipi
Teachingsin Bay Point Park. Culture
bearers shared about Dakota history and other culturally significant topics.

All of the
engagements formed the content and sentiment of the mural, which was painted on
a City owned building in downtown Red Wing. The mural is a wopida to PIIC . A
wopida is a sacred sharing of gratitude, a connecting with all beings,
including the Great Spirit, through giving thanks. In this sharing our hearts naturally become
filled with compassion, love, understanding, forgiveness, joy, happiness and
oneness. There has been progress made to acknowledge, heal and provide the
Dakota peoples rightful belonging in their homeland.

We remain flexible
as the organization who holds the project and are willing to allow it to grow
and grow. This has been a beautiful project that has met the goals set forth.
With a lot of relationship building and many community involvement sessions, our
Indigenous relatives are beginning to feel welcome in their homelands. The
project outcomes remain the same. Progress is being made towards all of them.
This is a long road. The Honoring Dakota project is groundbreaking and leading
the country in efforts to truly heal as a community with such a shared history.