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He paused and graciously opened his hands to accept the ceremonial tobacco. He began to talk in his people’s language but quickly shifted to English so the children could understand.
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Leonard Wabasha answers questions from Madison Elementary fourth graders at Whitewater State Park near Altura, Minn. Wabasha gave a presentation on what life was like for early Dakota people. (Photo by Paul Solberg/Winona Daily News) |
“Hello, my relatives,” he said. “I am a Dakota.”
Wabasha, the seventh-generation Dakota chieftain, spoke of what life was like near the park for his ancestors. Students from Madison Elementary and the Minnesota City charter school Riverway Learning Community listened to his words and drew with crayons what inspired them.
They learned of “winter counts” — pictorial depictions of life that Dakota and other American Indian tribes who lived on the Great Plains used to record important events.
What the children drew became their own winter counts.
Students learned how the Dakota used the land and lived in harmony with it.
They learned how the Dakota used every part of an animal and didn’t waste food they couldn’t eat right away.
They saw examples of winter counts depicting vision quests and great battles.
Wabasha said he wanted to show children the correlation between their lives now and those of the area’s former inhabitants. Mary Ellinghuysen and Kathleen Palmquist, fourth-grade teachers at Madison, said meeting a man like Wabasha when the children are young would help them avoid learning the misconceptions about American Indians some in their parents’ generation hold.
“They don’t watch the Westerns like we did,” Ellinghuysen said.
“And maybe it’s a better thing,” Palmquist said.
Wabasha said younger generations have lost some of the stereotypes and misconceptions about American Indians, but the views still remain. At the core of the presentation — based on of one he developed years ago to teach his daughter’s classmates her heritage — is the hope students learn in a small way how others told of their lives.
“So they can tell a story the way the American Indian people did,” he said.
It’s important for students to get out of the classroom and see things up-close and personal, Palmquist and Ellinghuysen said. When students learn by experience, it’s easier to connect. The students were eager to talk about what they saw. Madison’s Liam Moynagh and Gabe Tullis said their favorite part of the presentation was seeing a bow and an arrowhead lodged in a buffalo’s vertebrae.
“It’s cool to learn about history,” Moynagh said.
Nolan Rosenkrans may be reached at (507) 453-3519 or at nolan.rosenkrans@lee.net.
