Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples Project
Report to Mountain Forum for Peace
From: Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples Project
Boulder Friends Meeting
December 12, 2017
Ava Hamilton (Arapaho), Jerilyn DeCoteau (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) and Paula Palmer traveled to Concho OK and met with members of the Southern Arapaho tribe (Nov. 11-15), and to Wind River reservation WY and met with members of the Northern Arapaho tribe (Dec. 1-3). This report summarizes the questions we asked and the responses that we heard from the tribes.
We are grateful to MFP for your grant of $500 which helped us complete the first phase of this project. Early in the new year we will be planning Phase II, which will involve bringing Northern and Southern Arapaho people to Boulder for further consultations and public events. We’ll be in touch with MFP again as these plans take shape.
SOUTHERN ARAPAHO, November 13, 2017
Tribal Office, Concho OK
Southern Arapaho present:
Chief Allen Sutton
Chief Elvin Kenrick
Chief Roderick Sweezy
Billie Sutton
Angela Sweezy
Paula White Buffalo
Dwight White Buffalo
Pamela Sutton
Regina Youngbear
Shaynna Walker
Question: How would the Southern Arapaho people like to relate to the people and the land of the Boulder Valley?
Responses:
I would like to have communications with the Indian people of Boulder.
It would be good to have exchanges of people from both communities: By traveling back and forth, Boulder people can learn how we live and we can learn how they live.
I like the idea of traveling to Boulder and educating people there about Arapaho people, culture, language, etc.
I appreciate your visit here. It has been a long time coming.
Boulder feels like home to us. It draws us back.
We need to have a place to come back to in Boulder. A place that honors our history and our connection to the land there.
The American Indian Dance Theater presented dances in Boulder back in the early 1990s. We should dance there again and teach the people of Boulder the meaning of our dances. By sharing and teaching our dances, our culture can become more powerful again.
Dialogue between Indians and non-Indians is valuable and important.
It is good to know that some people in Boulder are thinking about us now in a friendly way because Boulder treated our ancestors very badly.
A lot of Arapaho people go to Boulder or through Boulder on our way to visit our families on the Wind River reservation in Wyoming, and to take part in traditional ceremonies there. We also come to Colorado every year for the Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run. Since Boulder was a place where our ancestors camped, it would be good to be able to camp there now when we are traveling or visiting.
We are praying people. We need to pray before we start doing things.
Question: If you are able to come to Boulder next year to teach us about the Arapaho people, what would you like to share with the people of Boulder?
Responses:
Our dances and the meaning behind them.
Our hand games. We could teach people to play them. You can learn them easily, and it would be fun for everyone.
How we socialize. Our powwows.
Our language. We could teach both adults and children in Boulder, Indians and non-Indians. I think it would be great for Boulder school children to learn to speak some Arapaho or sing Arapaho songs. This would be a way they could understand that we are not just in history; we are real people today too.
We are teaching and learning our language here now, although it is difficult because we don’t have any fluent speakers left. The older generations went to boarding schools and they were punished for speaking Arapaho, so they didn’t teach it to their children. They thought we needed to learn English to live in the white man’s world. There are fluent Arapaho speakers in Wyoming, and they are helping us learn it here now.
Our songs are our way of communicating with the Great Spirit. We use songs for all aspects of life. We need to be careful about sharing our songs because there is a danger of exploitation or commercialization by white people.
Our history, right up till today. Include our modern history, not just the “old days.”
We do not share our ceremonies. There are sacred things that we do not share. We need to be careful to avoid and prevent cultural appropriation and exploitation by non-Indians.
Question: If Boulder would designate land for the Arapaho people, how would you want to use it?
Responses:
It would be good for the land to be away from the center of town, away from all the noise.
We need a place where we can camp when we travel through. Now we stay at a campground in Ft. Collins or we have to pay for hotels.
We don’t have funds to maintain a campground, so Boulder would have to be responsible for that.
It should be a circle, a place where we can pray and rest. Within the circle, we could have a sweat lodge and a teepee. It would be good to have showers and drinking water.
Everyone would need to show reverence for this place.
It should be a place of rest and reflection.
Other tribes passed through and camped in the Boulder Valley too. The land should be open for all the tribes to use.
Our traditional medicines are there and we need to have access to them.
Signs in Boulder should include our name for ourselves: Hinónoʼeino’ (Arapahos).
Hinónoʼeitíít (Arapaho language) should be used in all Boulder documents related to our people.
We could record explanations in both Arapaho and in English that people could listen to at historic sites and on trails in the Boulder area.
We have ceremonies, protocols, to use our language and our names.
It would be good to have a Visitors Center or Indigenous Culture Center where we can share our Indigenous knowledge and educate people about our history and our lives today.
We could make a presentation to Boulder City Council about these needs and ideas.
Question: Do you have suggestions for names to replace the name “Settlers Park”?
Arapaho Park
Man on the Mountain
Winter Camp
Hinónoʼeino’ (Arapaho)
Question: Would you like Arapaho language, culture, and history to be taught in Boulder Valley schools?
Responses:
· Yes, and all the children should learn these things, not just the Indian children.
· Andrew Cowell at the University has been very helpful to us. We have learned a lot of Arapaho language from him, and he has good teaching materials for Arapaho language.
· We created two children’s books in Arapaho language with myON books. These are digital read-along books.
· There are a lot of Youtube videos in Arapaho language, for example, “The Ant and the Grasshopper.”
· CATV47 is our Cheyenne-Arapaho TV station. They have created animated stories about an Arapaho child, Raven, who teaches children Arapaho language and culture. These could be used in Boulder schools too. Our broadcast antenna only reaches to a 35-50 mile range.
NORTHERN ARAPAHO, December 1 and 2, 2017
Northern Arapaho:
Interviewed separately on Dec 1:
Jordan Dresser, Curator, Northern Arapaho Experience (Museum)
Devin Oldman, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer
Irene Lawson
Arapaho Elders Community Association, Dec. 2, Arapahoe School
John Goggles, Chairman
Wayne C'Hair, Co-Chairman
Marian Scott, Secretary
Eugene Ridgely
Alberta Goggles
Rupert Goggles
Owen Goggles
Mary Ann Duran
Raymond Underwood
Royce LoneBear
Teresa HisChase (consultant)
Anthony Addison, Northern Arapaho Business Council
Question: How would the Northern Arapaho people like to relate to the people and the land of the Boulder Valley?
The Northern Arapaho lived more in the Ft Collins and Estes Park areas, but of course we moved around all along the Front Range of Colorado.
In Ft. Collins, they have created a memorial at the site of the Council Tree, honoring the Arapaho Chief Friday. We have worked with the Ft. Collins City Historian and they are making a documentary film which should be completed soon.
Our elders know the Arapaho names of the mountains and rivers in Colorado, and the names of the plants we always collected there. In the 1990s, our elders worked with CU linguistics professor Andy Cowell who did ethnographic studies. He should have files with all this information.
It would be good to change the names of these places back to their Arapaho names.
Our young people don’t know our people’s history in the Boulder area. It would be good for them to visit Boulder, see our homeland, and learn our history.
I went to Estes Park this year for the first time. In one of the stores there I saw a poster that said, ”My Indian name is Drinks Like a Fish.” These things shouldn’t be happening.
Our elders have worked with people in Boulder to protect our sacred sites like Valmont Butte and the NIST site. The City and the University and the Museum invited us for a Welcoming Home ceremony, I think it was 2002. The Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run ended in Boulder that year. Indian artists set up exhibits on the Pearl Street mall. Some of us went into the schools and talked about our culture. Tom Myers and Ben Sherman are knowledgeable about this.
The Arapaho name for Boulder means “Place of Many Berries.”
Above the medicine wheel on the NIST property in Boulder, there is a site designated for American Indians to have sweats, etc. I don’t know how many people know about this or go there.
What are the people of Boulder like? Are they kind? Or are they like the people here in Riverton? Would they mistreat us? Would they mistreat our young people? Would they put us in jail? Many of us are veterans, and still they treat us badly. We have PTSD that goes back to the boarding school days. We live with this every day. But here in Riverton, when we did our sweats, just looking for a little healing, they stopped us, saying it was a violation of the fire code.
White people need to listen to us.
I would like to go down there and see Boulder. I’m an old man, but I’ve only seen photos of Boulder.
Question: If you are able to come to Boulder next year to teach us about the Arapaho people, what would you like to share with the people of Boulder?
Our elders already gave a lot of information to Andy Cowell and Tom Myers.
The Museum wants us to work with them to analyze and identify something like 800 artifacts that they have.
We can share our stories, but we have to be careful. Some stories aren’t for sharing. For myself, I earned the knowledge of these stories.
If white people want to learn about us, they must also respect us.
We respect our elders. We ask them first.
We know the uses of lots of plants that grow there, especially for medicine. We can teach this.
We could have a powwow. Our people would go there for a powwow.
Question: If Boulder would designate land for the Arapaho people, how would you want to use it?
Some years ago the BLM offered us some land just north of Boulder, just a few miles out of town. Our Business Council had meetings with the BLM, some farmers, and the City Council. I don’t know what happened, but you could talk to them and find out. The first thing the BLM said was: “No casino!”
Arapaho place names and our historic sites in Boulder need to be recognized.
Our medicine plants should be protected so we can collect them and use them.
It would be good for our young people to be able to go there and learn about our history in Colorado.
When you make signs about our history, write it like this: We call this place ____.” Not “We called this place ____” Keep it in the present tense so people know we have a living culture, a living history.
Question: Would you like Arapaho language, culture, and history to be taught in Boulder Valley schools?
We created an app for the Arapaho language so anyone can access it and learn to speak Arapaho. You can get it on your phones. This was our first cultural revitalization project. Now we are working on Part 2.
We only have about 100 Native speakers left, and we’re in our 70’s now. We lost a lot of our history in the last generation as our elders passed on. It’s scary to think we could lose our language and our traditional ways, like asking an elder before you do something. I teach my grandchildren our language, how to pray at meals and things like that. Even my 2-year old grandson is learning. He can count to 5 in Arapaho, and he knows how to say, “I’m hungry!”
We have a good relationship with Arapahoe High School in Littleton, something like 20 years. We go there and talk to the students. We’re starting a relationship with Strasburg High School out in Limon. They passed a resolution for an exchange with the Northern Arapahoe.
Years ago the Colorado Department of Education invited some Northern Arapaho to be cultural consultants for them. They were creating K-12 curricula and standards for teaching Indian history and culture. Gail Ridgely and other Northern Arapaho worked with them on this.
We can work with the schools by webinar. We don’t have money to travel, and it’s dangerous to travel in the winter anyway. That’s why we use webinar technology.
White people mostly want to know about our history, but they need to know that we are alive today. They need to learn how we live now. We’re still here!