Dakota Wicohan created the first half of a leadership and civics curriculum for Dakota youth—Dakota Itancan Kagapi, or, the making of Dakota leaders. The program will be used to train Dakota youth through the inter-related strategies of remembering, reclaiming, and reconnecting with our Dakota language and lifeways to enhance the region’s civic foundation.
In 2012, the Minnesota Historical Society will commemorate theU.S.-Dakota War of 1862 through a variety of programs and methods, including online presentations, educational tools, published works, artwork, events and community outreach. Visit usdakotawar.org for a list of all initiatives.
The Minnesota Historical Society will raise awareness of the significance of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 by communicating the experiences of people before, during and after the war.
Programs and resources related to the commemoration of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 include:
The Minnesota Historical Society Press (MHS Press) will continue to publish new books and also articles in Minnesota History magazine to help people further understand the complex history of the Dakota in Minnesota. Projects include:
The Minnesota History Center will invite the public to participate in programs that explore Dakota language and culture and also the history of the U.S.--Dakota War of 1862. Public programs will provide multiple perspectives on the war and give voice to Dakota history and identity through a variety of formats including lectures, films, tours and workshops.
Visit usdakotawar.org/events for a list of commemorative programs and events sponsored by the Minnesota Historical Society and other organizations.
This exhibit, on view at the Minnesota History Center through Sept. 8, 2013, recounts the Minnesota war that tore apart lives, families and the Dakota nation. Visitors can view documents, images and artifacts related to the war, as well as hear heart-wrenching stories and learn about the broken treaties and promises that led to this disastrous chapter in Minnesota history. There are many, often conflicting, interpretations of events related to the war. The exhibit includes multiple viewpoints, as well as historical and contemporary voices.
Minnesota Historical Society staff will work to increase public awareness about the tragic events surrounding the war which had a profound impact on shaping our state. Staff will also increase public awareness of new Society inititatives and programs related to the war to ensure that students, teachers and the general public use and benefit from them.
To provide programming that tells the story of Dakota County's 160 years of settlement, Minnesota history and cultural traditions, through an entertaining tent show that combines story telling and original music. The show will be reminiscent of the 1900s era Chautauqua programs. It will be performed daily in the tent at Dakota City Heritage Village.
Throughout FY12 and FY13, Minnesota Historical Society staff members have reached out to and met with many groups and individuals to gather their opinions and recommendations regarding an exhibit on and the commemoration of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. Staff met with tribal councils in Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota, individuals from tribes in Minnesota and throughout the Midwest and residents of Brown and Nicollet Counties. In addition, the Society sponsored the "We Gather Together As One" Dakota nationwide conference in Minneapolis and St.
The Dakota immersion camp will last for nine weeks, beginning June 7, 2010 and ending on August 6th, 2010. It is expected that there will be 25 participants at the camp. Specific camp activities include: speaking, listening, and interacting in Dakota. Going on field trips; nature, culture, others. Preparing and eating meals. Participating in community services. Attending Dakota culture presentations. Mentoring children with Dakota play. Nurturing community garden. Playing games; moccasin, lacrosse, other. Learning and participating in Dakota singing and dancing, as appropriate.
1. Engage young people in learning Dakhota and inspire them to parent and teach Dakhota to their future generations 2. Increase teacher access to engaging Dakhota language materials for classroom use and beyond 3. Engage elders and cultural experts in the co-creation of Dakhota-medium curriculum and materials that transmits traditional knowledge 4. Expand Dakhota learning communities through the production and dissemination of the textbook and accompanying materials.
Dakhota Online Learning Platform is a continued language revitalization initiative that takes a novel approach to language revitalization combining several transmission-boosting practices that have been previously successful, with the ultimate aim of spreading the Dakhota language beyond classroom walls, making it meaningful, useful, and accessible to Dakhota people in their daily lives at home.
By creating an active and joyful Dakota-speaking community learning environment, we anticipate that the proposed Dakota Iapi Teunhindapi project will result in: A unique language learning model for Dakota youth in rural southwestern Minnesota, Increased trust, confidence, and ability to speak the Dakota language with adults, elders and other youth in our rural region, Sustainable community expectations and skills to continue speaking together into the future, and Language lessons in the form of flash cards the students can work with at home, exposing others in their families to the vocabula
Provide a fun, supportive and engaging opportunity for Dakota youth to learn the Dakota language and culture through weekly activity nights, which includes assisting with the planning and production of a monthly fun cultural lesson video for distribution on YouTube and social media.
To conduct oral history interviews with the few remaining Dakota-as-a-first language speakers. In July 2011, KARE-TV featured the project as part of its "Land of 10,000 Stories" series.
An interactive planetarium program was developed to create a culturally relevant tour of the cosmos from the local/regional perspective of the Dakota/Lakota communities of Minnesota and South Dakota. The program blends Dakota/Lakota star knowledge with Earth and Space Science data. It is delivered live, using real-time imagery projected on the Minnesota Planetarium Society's ExploraDome. The program can be simultaneously "dome-casted" to other participating locations through the Internet using the planetarium navigator.
Dakota Wicohan is engaged in a multi-phased oral history project on the Minnesota Dakota language, the state's first language. For this phase of the project, Dakota Wicohan catalogued twenty-three (23) interviews and recordings of elders, elder speakers, language programs and activists. Identified themes included military service, Dakota values, advice for language learners and reasons for language loss.
(Amount adjusted to eliminate ineligible overhead expenses.)
The grant was to research content, write, design and fabricate 10 interpretive panels at six sites along the MN River Valley to better tell the stories of the MN River Valley, specifically of the U.S. - Dakota War of 1862. This is Part 1 of an overall interpretation of sites related to the U.S. - Dakota War of 1862.
Dakota Wicohan is a regional non-profit language support organization that seeks to revitalize the Dakota language in Minnesota to a living language. Dakota Wicohan’s long range strategic plan includes building a strong teacher base, recording speakers, developing teaching tools from filming fluent speakers, developing additional learning opportunities, as well as, long term educational plans. Their grant requested money to provide an interactive Dakota language learning camp for a minimum of 40 Dakota youth.
2010 Grant Activities Plan and implement a five-day immersion methodology training session for 20 Dakota participants, with a follow up weekend workshop. Create a thematic based immersion curriculum, along with assessment tools, for Dakota learners that will be available in print and via an interactive web page. Implement two successful intergenerational immersion sessions for a total of 80 participants, by hiring/training leaders and staff. Grant Amount $100,000
This mobile tour offers intriguing stories and reflections about historic sites along the Minnesota River Valley, the people who lived there and the lasting impact of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. The tour can be accessed by calling 888-601-3010 from any location. A travel guide that includes a map of the mobile tour can be downloaded at www.usdakotawar.org/mobiletour. In FYs14 and 15, improvements were made to the media-rich smartphone version, tour wayfinding was enhanced and additional promotion occurred..
Partner: Dakota Eastman Productions.
"Ohiyesa: The Soul of an Indian" is a documentary that follows Kate Beane, a young Dakota woman, as she walks in the footsteps of her celebrated relative Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) to examine his extraordinary life. Biography and journey come together as Kate uncovers the remarkable life of Ohiyesa/Charles Eastman from traditional Dakota boyhood, through education at Dartmouth College, and in later roles as physician, author, lecturer, and Native American advocate.
Dakota Wicohan is excited that many are speaking the Dakota language on in the Upper and Lower Sioux Communities. Because of this, Dakota Wicohan has the opportunity to focus on a small, but significant, group of language learners-15 Dakota language speakers. The project goal is to strengthen the community's capacity to reclaim and revitalize their language by nurturing the language skills of 15 Dakota language leaders.
This mobile tour offers intriguing stories and reflections about historic sites along the Minnesota River Valley, the people who lived there and the lasting impact of the U.S. Dakota War of 1862.
This project includes expansion of the Dakota dictionary database to include previously undocumented words and example sentences. The goal is to create a total of 5,000 expansion sentences. This project also includes new audio recordings of fluent speakers pronouncing words and reading example sentences. The project integrates a learning platform into the existing dictionary app, which will allow users to study example sentences developed as part of objective one, as well as vocabulary available in the dictionary.
Dakota Wicohan will hire a consultant to 1) sustain success and growth; 2) train and empower staff; 3) foster leadership from within the community; 4) prepare for future challenges and opportunities.
Dakota Wicohan will provide a transformative 16-week program aimed at empowering local Dakota youth by guiding them through the intricate process of crafting their own dance regalia outfits and provide dance lessons, tailored for 10-13 students (boys and girls), from the Lower Sioux Community. Upon completion of their regalia, the participants will be empowered to share their newfound knowledge and skills with the broader community. This sharing will be prominently featured at two local events - the Lower Sioux Powwow and the Redwood County Fair.
The outcome for the preservation and analysis of "Iapi Oaye" focuses on the publications of the Dakota Language newspaper between 1871-1939. Dakota Language Specialist will continue his work going through each publication, documenting the words used and analyzing how the language was used and changed over the decades of publication. As well as making a glossary of words, some of which have not been documented in other language dictionaries. The goal of the project will be to use texts as a learning tool.
The Dakota Lemmatizer & Dictionary Expansion Project will begin with Objective 1: Digitize a corpus od approximately 3000 scanned pages of newspapers written in Dakota and Lakota. Complete digitization of these documents will convert each newspaper article from a scanned image of a physical paper to a full text, searchable document.
The Danebod Lutheran Church and Folk School commissioned the repair and restoration of a drawing by Jes Smidt. The 1918 drawing is a copy of a much earlier work by Lorens Frolich (840-935AD). The subject of the work is Queen Thyra Danebod, an important figure in Danish culture, for which the church and school are named.
The early nineteen hundred drawing by Jes Smidt exhibited in a lecture hall at the Danebod Folk School complex was safely removed and transported to the Midwest Art Conservation Center laboratories where condition reports and treatment proposals for conservation of the drawing were determined.
