BROOKINGS – Efforts to obtain tribal artifacts from The Field Museum in Chicago have been captured in a 79-minute documentary that will be shown Friday evening at the conclusion of the 29th annual Consider the Century Conference on the South Dakota State University campus.
“What Was Ours” tells the story of an Eastern Shoshone tribal elder and two young Northern Arapaho students from the Wind River Indian Reservation in west central Wyoming as they journeyed to the noted Chicago museum with hopes of bringing home artifacts. One student was a teenage powwow princess. The other was Jordan Dresser, who co-produced the film in 2016.
He is a 2008 graduate of the University of Wyoming with a degree in journalism. Dresser has worked as a reporter for the Lincoln Journal Star, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Fargo Forum and the Denver Post.
In 2009, he became the public relations officer for the Wind River Hotel and Casino in Riverton, Wyoming, playing a key role in developing a cultural room that would serve as a teaching and learning tool for tribal members, local residents and tourists. Questions of who owns tribal artifacts and the role tribal members play in these decisions prompted Dresser to leave Wind River and enroll in a museum studies graduate program at the University of San Francisco.
It was after this that Dresser took on the documentary, which was produced by Alpheus Media with major funding by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The film will be shown at 5 p.m. Friday in the South Dakota Art Museum auditorium. The museum is located at the intersection of Medary Avenue and Harvey Dunn Street. After the screening, Dresser will discuss his participation in the film, ongoing efforts to establish a tribal museum at Wind River, and the overarching concept of native people and cultural materials.
Like the entire conference, the public is welcome and there is no admission charge. Other parts of the conference are in the Volstorff Ballroom in the University Student Union.
Keynote address by Dunn
The keynote address will be delivered by SDSU President Barry Dunn on “The Wokini Initiative: A New Beginning,” which was announced Oct. 5.
At the announcement, Dunn, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, said an anonymous donor had committed $4.1 million to advance the school’s initiative for South Dakota tribal members. The commitment provides $4 million toward a 15,000-square-foot American Indian Student Center on the south end of campus and $100,000 for scholarships.
Wokini, a Lakota word for “new beginning,” was cited early by Dunn as one of his priorities as president, a position he gained in May 2016.
The conference begins at 8:30 a.m. with welcomes and a welcoming song by Mark Freeland, a lecturer in the religion program at SDSU. Dunn’s 50-minute address begins at 9 a.m.
Conference lineup
Other speakers and their times are:
• 10 a.m., Elsie Boxer, an assistant professor in the department of history and native studies program at the University of South Dakota, on “Revitalizing and Rebuilding USD’s Native American Studies Program and the State of South Dakota.” The enrolled Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota member of the Fort Peck Sioux and Assiniboine Tribe grew up in Poplar, Montana.
• 1 p.m., Jessie (Taken Alive) Recountre, the 2017 Emerging Tribal Writer Award winner on “Pte’a Shows Misun Light.” She is the specialist in the Rapid City high schools for the Jobs for America’s Graduates program. The Hunkpapa Lakota tribal member lives in Rapid City with her husband, Whitney.
• 2 p.m., Gene Thin Elk, the director of Native American Student Services at the University of South Dakota, on “An Experiential Reflective Perspective of Student Services Retention Programing, Thirty-One Years.” Under leadership of Thin Elk, a Lakota from the Rosebud Sioux tribe, retention among native students jumped from 28 to 60 percent during the 2005-2006 school year and has continued climbing, reaching 98 percent in 2012-2013.
Consider the Century was established in 1989 to provide a forum for discussion and reflection on relationships between American Indians and the mainstream culture.
Sponsors are the American Indian Studies Program, the American Indian Student Center and the English and the journalism and mass communication departments, all at SDSU. Sarah Hernandez, coordinator for the American Indian Studies Program and an assistant professor of English, is the conference coordinator.
For more information, contact Hernandez at sarah.hernandez@sdstate.edu.
