Tag Archives: menominee

Digital Collections – TLAM Week 12

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This week’s readings were particularly poignant for me, since they involved the ethical dilemmas of photographing Native American people. During the late 19th and early 20th century heyday of such photography, the pictures were often staged somewhat offensively by non-Native photographers or were pictures of sacred ceremonies that, according to the rules of Native culture, ought never to have been taken. For our class project, we are dealing with a collection of photographs of Native Americans and these similar issues come into play. Our task will be a formidable one; not only to create more useful tags and metadata on the pictures in order to make them easier to search, but a richer, perhaps more ethnographically informed metadata which makes these pictures more relevant and sensitive to Native communities. This will hopefully reduce the photographer’s original nd will help to restore and recognize some of the humanity of the person behind the picture, so that captions don’t just describe someone as a “Menominee Woman” but give that woman’s real name or clan.

I became interested in native Americans very early because I have always identified myself very strongly with this state: my sister said to me recently that I am “100 percent Wisconsin”, which I take as a compliment. I chose the project of doing these pictures because the pictures come from Langlade County, my ancestral soil

Native peoples originally had these touristic photographs taken of them for an economic purpose, but by their participation in such an economy they subverted the photographic intent to depict them as “primitives” Nancy Mithlow, a professor of Apache descent from Oklahoma, described how the capacity of images allowed Native people to subversively claim power, despite dire circumstance. I was also fascinated to learn about the history of tourism in the Wisconsin Dells and how closely this was correlated with the closing of the frontier and a changing way of life for native communities.. As always, images and narratives convey and confer power. It is the task of Native people, and hopefully yours truly, as an ally in sympathy, to repossess these narratives for their own use.

I saw the Stockbridge-Munsee reservation and museum as an attempt by the Stockbridge Mohicans to do just that; reclaim their own history for their own purposes. Sn exhibit described Mohican traditional ways and boldly, bluntly declared that the “spiritual journey of the Mohican people” was “interrupted” by the arrival of missionaries. I was also mindful of the bi-linguality of the museum’s signs, and its attempt to preserve the Stockbridge and Munsee languages The director of the museum showed us basketry, beadwork and other historical artifacts in the archives downstairs, including medals given by the President to one of their notable chiefs, John Quinney, and a copy of his heartrending speech, given upon the occasion of the tribe’s removal from New York to Wisconsin.

It is a good place, although it could use more funding and space, as all such institutions could.. All library school students must do an unpaid practicum in a library prior to graduation. Why not enroll them as a practicum site, especially if we have distance students who may already be local to the area?

At the Menominee Reservation, we were shown around the library there by Monique Tyndall. Their collections were unique and extensive. This library was geothermal and ecologically sound, and it too was doing its part for language preservation, with English and Menominee words for everything being listed up front. This gave me a great insight into the Menominee world-view, which seems descriptive of totally different things and has a totally different emphasis.

The Menominee cultural museum talked about the sturgeon and showed artifacts related to that. It also was designed in a round shape, like a medicine lodge, for people to hold ceremonies. Chief Oshkosh’s portrait was there, in his colorful top hat.  My group and I were pulled into a back room and got the rare, amazing opportunity to talk to the current Menominee Elders, including a man named John G. John G. showed us how various Menominee clothes were made, and showed us the eagle-feather belt, otter-fur staff and tobacco pouches that represent the life and health of the whole Menominee Nation and its four clans. We were also invited to a Sturgeon Feast. We saw the Wolf River, which was lovely, I want to say that I am grateful for the opportunities this class has thrown my way. I’m really happy to be participating in Native communities and I hope that one day I can be doing the kind of work that makes a difference, both to them and to me. With that objective, sorting the Langlade County photo collection and my work there will enable family members to identify ancestors and kin, and reclaim them from the colonizer’s gaze, as simply people allowed to be people.

-Mark Langenfeld

TLAM 2011 Trip to Stockbridge-Munsee/Menominee Nation

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TLAM 2011 at the Arvid E. Miller Library/Museum with Betty and Nathalee

“To be an Indian is having non-Indians control the documents from which other non-Indians write their version of your history.” --William T. Hagan, “Archival Captive—The American Indian.”

Although the sheer volume of American Indian archival materials in non-native collections is overwhelming, and Indians will necessarily continue to be dependent “upon the collections over which non-Indians preside,” there is, according to William Hagan, a growing movement among tribes to take an active interest in their own histories, and in the development of their own tribal archives. This movement became palpable to the nine TLAM students who traveled to northern Wisconsin for a visit to two tribal libraries/archives earlier this Spring. Below is an account of their trip.

 

Our first TLAM class field trip began at the College Library cul-de-sac on Thursday afternoon, March 24, where our two-vehicle caravan set off for Bowler, Wisconsin, home of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. Three hours later, we arrived at Konkapot Lodge, a tribal business located on the 22,139-acre reservation. After settling into our rooms and admiring the hand-hewn log construction of the great room, we eleven intrepid travelers piled back into our vehicles and headed for the North Star Mohican Casino Resort, a mile up the road. After a dinner of Indian Tacos and other quasi-native fare at the Longhouse restaurant, we took our chances on the casino floor, using the $15 gift cards provided by the lodge and the casino itself. The big winner of the night was Troy, who dominated the Blackjack table for the short amount of time allotted to us for gambling. Hopefully, his windfall provided adequate compensation for his having to shoe-horn himself into the rear seat of the van with Hannah and Kaitlin for the duration of the trip!

After a quick breakfast at the lodge on Friday morning, we made our way to the Arvid E. Miller Library and Museum, the official depository for the public records of the Mohican Nation, Stockbridge-Munsee Band. Nathalee Kristiansen, manager of the library and museum, greeted us with a warmth and good humor that would characterize many of our interactions with the various tribal members we would encounter on our trip. Seated at a round conference table surrounded by photographs of tribal elders on the walls, we first watched a short film on the history of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe, “We Are Still Here,” as told by a handful of the tribal Elders. As the film concluded, a tall, gregarious man named Joe Miller, a Tribal Council member, entered the building and proceeded to tell us all how very much he appreciated our visit to the museum, and to offer whatever help he could to make our brief stay more enjoyable and meaningful. Mr. Miller’s courtesy, graciousness, and sense of humor typified our group’s experience as a whole during our all-too-brief sojourn in northern Wisconsin.

The displays of artifacts at the Arvid A. Miller Library and Museum were the focus of our attention after the film, and included a wigwam; stone and wood tools and weapons; ceremonial objects; lacrosse sticks; a map showing the Stockbridge-Munsee’s migrations over the last three centuries; photographs from the mission school period; a model of a former logging community; and a collection of tribal bibles, including the very famous Vinegar Bible, originally a gift to the New York Mohicans from the Prince of Wales’ prelate in the 18th century, that became lost for a time and was eventually repatriated to its present tribal home in the 1990s. Betty Groh, the museum tour guide and Elder, kindly answered our questions, and humorously volunteered that she didn’t look much like an Indian because, “My grandfather made the mistake of marrying a Swede.”

The library/museum’s collection has outgrown its home, but our group was privileged to visit its archives in the basement, where new storage units were opened for us and revealed a variety of baskets, tools, textiles, etc. Larger items, including several drums, sat atop shelves and file cabinets holding maps and written materials. There was so much to take in, in that cramped space, and we felt some disappointment that we didn’t have more time to explore the archive’s treasures.

Leaving Bowler, we headed northeast to the reservation of the Menominee Nation, 235,523 wooded acres straddling the Wolf River, 45 miles northwest of Green Bay. With 8,551 tribal members, the Menominee are, unlike the Stockbridge-Munsee, native to Wisconsin. After lunch at the Forest Island restaurant (featuring a corn-less Indian corn stew) in the Menominee Casino Resort Complex, our TLAM tribe visited the stunning new library building on the campus of the College of Menominee Nation, next door to the resort. A “green” building with geothermal heating and cooling system and electric power, the library felt warm and inviting, with honey-colored woodwork, a stone fireplace, large plate-glass windows on every floor looking out on the surrounding forest, and that inimitable fresh, clean smell of a barely-used-because-it’s-so-new edifice. Continuing our VIP treatment, the director of the library archives, Maria Escalante, wel-comed us on the main floor and led us to the library’s lower level, where her staff waited to greet us. After a brief talk about the library and the archival collection, we were free to examine a table of stunning black-and-white photographs taken by National Geographic magazine, for a 1974 story on the Menominee of Wisconsin. Hoping to add the photographs to its collection and display them, Monique Tyndall expressed frustration that she could not get a response from NG. Eventually, we were led to the archive itself; on the way, several of us noticed a whiteboard in a small office, with an outline of the plan for our visit written on it: Yet another example of the respect, courtesy, and focused attention we received throughout the day. In contrast to the Stockbridge-Munsee archives, the Menominee’s were housed in the state-of-the-art library building, with much more generous space for its automated track shelving, conservation area, storage, etc.

After a relatively brief tour of the library’s upper floors, including a chat with the children’s librarian, we drove a short distance to the Menominee Cultural Museum, another brand-new building whose main exhibition area was unfinished and largely empty (save for an enormous model of a sturgeon, a primordial fish held sacred by both the Stockbridge-Munsee and the Menominee; a birchbark canoe; and a motley assortment of other artifacts.) Again, we were warmly greeted (even though we weren’t expected) and allowed to poke around. While a tribal Elder lured a few of our group into a back room for a private viewing of more historical objects and personal stories, the rest of us walked across the road to the logging camp museum. There we watched a tall, muscular gentleman work on a deer hide that was stretched across a vertical pole frame, close to the wood stove that kept the 100’ long log structure, a replica of the camp’s bunkhouse, relatively warm. With its walls, rafters, and just about every other surface covered with antique tools—mostly axes—I think most of us were anxious to move on to the cookhouse next door, with its less menacing artifacts (super-sized pots, pans, utensils, etc., cast-iron stove, and inconceivably long plank dining tables.)

As Shawano County had been blessed with 18” of new snow a few days before our visit, most of the authentic buildings at the camp were inaccessible, we ended up taking a short car trip to scenic Keshena Falls on the Wolf River, itself the heart of the Menominee reservation.

Although we only got to scratch the surface of the tribal libraries and archives we visited, the visit left an indelible impression on all of us, one that I believe will lead many in our group to make the trip to Shawano County again in the future.

-Becky Brumder

Students Spending Their Spring Break in Louisiana Helping the Houma Nation

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Students at UW-Oshkosh from the Menominee, Stockbridge-Munsee, and Oneida spent their spring break helping the Houma Nation recover from the lingering damage from Gulf Coast hurricanes in recent years, including bringing donated children’s books.  They went to Louisiana as representatives of the Inter-Tribal Student Organization (ITSO) with donations from the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, the North Star Casino, and Oneida Bingo and Casino.

Read more about it in News From Indian Country or UW Oshkosh Today.

Spring Break in Menominee!

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Gabe’s account of our trip to the Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee libraries, archives, museums.

Chatting before our three and half hour drive to Menominee.

Chatting before our three and half hour drive to Menominee.

Most students tend to spend their spring breaks in warm locals like Puerto Rico, but not us dedicated TLAMers. Instead, many of us opted to head north and visit the libraries, archives, and museums on the Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee Reservations. We saw a lot, learned a lot, met a lot of dedicated people, and even had a good time on our spring break excursion.

Menominee Tribal/County Library

Our first stop was at the Menominee Tribal/County Library where we met with Mike Wilber, the Library Director. Over coffee he told us how the library got started and keeps running. His library is part of the Nicolet Federated Library System and gets a significant amount of use from the community. One of the things that surprised me was that the Menominee Library is actually a net lender to other libraries in the system. Mike told us that one of the challenges is getting the word out to people about free services, such as inter-library loan. Often times people are unclear on how their service works and avoid using it because they do not want to bother anyone. Mike also shared with us his dream of getting a new library closer to main road one day. As it stands now, users need to find their way through a few back streets without sidewalks to get to the library. We ended our visit with him asking him to consider us for help with any future development projects, and offering our time with grant writing projects in particular.

College of the Menominee Nation Library

After a hasty lunch of sugar products we made our way to the College of the Menominee Nation to visit their new library. The library building is an impressive wood and stone structure, and one of the largest on the campus. Here we met with Maria Escalante, the Library Director, who gave us a tour showing us the collections and describing improvements that are still underway. This is certainly no musty old library. The building layout is open, spacious, and full of windows. In fact, there were so many windows in the original plan that Maria complained to the architect that she needed at least a little wall space for serials shelving.

After the tour we talked in the atrium under a large logo for the college.

College of the Menominee Nation Logo at the Library

College of the Menominee Nation Logo at the Library

One of the main things we discussed was the process that led to the impressive building that they have now. Her short answer: the college president is dedicated to the library and early on committed to making it a priority. She also receives support from having a proactive grant writer at the college that finds the funding she needs for projects.

The library space is not the only thing growing at the college. Staffing is also increasing. Maria has even tapped her mother to do part-time cataloging. Her mother briefly discussed issues relating to cataloging materials at the college in an appropriate manner. The library recently hired an archivist to sort out their existing collection in preparation for more materials and will be looking for more help as their services and hours expand. Eventually the second level and basement for the library will be finished, which will allow for more bookshelves, a library instruction and meeting area, and an archives (possibly) in the basement.

Menominee Indian High School Library

Our next stop was at the Menominee Indian High School Library, where we met with the ultra-hip librarian, Ben Grignon. Ben is a graduate of the Knowledge River program at the University of Arizona, a program focusing on Hispanic and American Indian library and information issues.

The high school library is at the very heart of the building. Most of the school looks like what you might expect from most high schools, but as soon as you walk into the library the first thing that you have to do is look up at the wooden dome that encompasses the large room you enter. The dome is in a circular lodge-pole design and books line the walls underneath it. Interspersed throughout the open space are short shelves, display cases of artifacts, and work tables . One of the most noticeable features in the library is the collections of pictures from each of the graduating classes hanging above the books. According to Ben people from the tribe often come to the library just to see the pictures. With everything that there was to take in Ben decided to let us browse first and ask questions later. Among the things to see: a large tupperware bin where worms were composting old office paper.

When we regrouped again to speak with Ben we went to a small side room with ambient light coming from a ceiling covered in miniature lights. Here was a multimedia room were Ben proudly showed us things like a student hip hop project using lyrics from the Odyssey. Perhaps most significant, however, are the Ben and his students’ efforts to digitize numerous tapes on the Menominee language and make them available for learning (I’m guessing their efforts are paying off since I overheard some young students working on computers at the college talking to each other in a language that sounded entirely unfamiliar to me).

In another room off the main library Ben showed us the collection he maintains of books, tapes, and videos specifically on the history and culture of the Menominee and other tribes.

I think Christina J spoke for all of us when she exclaimed to Ben “Wow, Ben I wish you were my high school librarian! You are so cool!” He was definitely doing some very cool things with the library there.

Menominee Logging Museum

After meeting Ben we couldn’t help ourselves, we just had to meet his uncle Dave Grignon who heads up the Menominee Logging Camp Museum, which houses the largest collection of logging tools in one place in the world. We also met with Rebecca Alegria, a researcher/planner there, and the museum tour guide, Jean M. Cox. Now, this is no run of the mill logging museum (sorry, I couldn’t help using the pun). The museum also serves as the Menominee cultural preservation office and highlights the innovative sustainable forestry practices that make the Menominee known worldwide. To get an idea of how well-run the forest is look at the image from Googlemaps here.

Menominee Reservation Satellite View

Menominee Reservation Satellite View

You can see the boundaries of the reservation because everything outside of the reservation is a distinctly less-vibrant shade of green. At this point I couldn’t help but be very impressed with the outright efforts by the Menominee at sustainable practices.

The Menominee Logging Museum set in the woods

The Menominee Logging Museum set in the woods

The most noticeable thing to me after arriving at the museum was the sound when I stepped out of the car: the wind in the trees. The logging museum is surrounded by forest. There were some open grassy areas, but there was not a single ugly clear-cut in sight here, nor would we see one on our trip.

Dave and Rebecca discussed with us how their museum works and the preservation efforts they undertake. Unlike some other tribes we have visited, the Menominee have been very proactive in using the NAGPRA to repatriate remains and artifacts. Since there is no other Menominee reservation there are no difficulties from negotiating with other bands about how the artifacts and remains will be returned. Dave himself has participated in reburying numerous remains and cooperated with institutions in Wisconsin to return items that belong to the tribe.

Axeheads: Just a portion of the largest collection of logging artifacts in the world at the Menominee Logging Museum.

Axeheads: Just a portion of the largest collection of logging artifacts in the world at the Menominee Logging Museum.

Unfortunately, most of the museum was closed during our visit for the winter. They have to close for the winter because the museum is a reproduction of a base logging camp; meaning it is mostly outside. The part that we were able to see was the long bunk house, where Jean showed us around. I don;t think I will ever see as many axe heads, picks, and chains in one place ever again.

Dinner with Lynn

At this point you may be thinking could there really be more to our day? After all, we drove some three and half hours to get to Menominee from Madison. But we had the opportunity to meet with Lynn Skenandore who helped establish a school library at Menominee. The talked with us about the challenges of getting kids to read and the ways in which she has been successful. She also talked about the larger issues for students growing up on the reservation going on to school elsewhere.

The End of the Day . . .

Or is it? We checked into the Konkapot Lodge on the Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation, which I highly recommend. It is constructed from the giant timbers of trees that fell during a strong storm and is an easy place to feel at home. Some of us turned in and some of us headed for the casino, but if you want to hear about that you’ll have to ask me in person ;)

More about our visit the next day at Stockbridge-Munsee soon!