Events
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Native cultures have always been vibrant, tough-minded, and wedded to the land or ocean, to their total environment. The colonial culture has consistently ignored, distorted, and tried to erase this Native perspective. We want non-Natives to hear the truth about Native ways directly from the best Native ambassadors: the Elders. The relaxed weekend setting on prairie that was once Kanza treaty land gives Elders a forum where they can express what they feel non-Natives need to know. These are contemporary people — botanists, teachers, nurses, artists, iron workers, lawyers, therapists, etc. — who have also grown up with tribal traditional practices, stories, wicked senses of humor, and elaborate ceremonies. Whether they tell a story of a trickster coyote, raven, or spider, each elder is gifting us with an oral history that has survived hundreds and up to nine thousand years or more. Those trickster stories are relevant today.
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