In recognition of this year’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the MPR Archive Portal presents a curated selection of varied stories, documentaries, arts, interviews, and reports on Native American people, culture, and history.
April 17, 1979 - Vine Deloria Jr., a political science professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Native American activist, attorney, and author, speaking at the eighth annual Putnam Lectureship in Social Ethics at Hamline University. Deloria Jr’s address was titled "The Natural Philosophical Tradition." Following his speech, Deloria took questions from the audience.
July 30, 1979 - MPR reporter John Ydstie presents sound portrait of a powwow celebration. Ydstie went to the White Earth Indian Reservation in Northern Minnesota and recorded various interviews and performances from the Ojibwe cultural event.
October 9, 1979 - Documentary that explores the attempts by South Dakota Native Americans to win more complete sovereignty from state and federal governments. A collection of various interviews. Topics include Sun Dance ritual, treaties, and courts.
August 25, 1983 - MPR’s John Ragsdale reports on Heart of the Earth Survival School for Native American Indians in Minneapolis. Laura Wittstock, Heart of the Earth administrator; and Hilda Erickson, curriculum director, speak about the school’s pupose.
October 28, 1987 - Mainstreet Radio-Brainerd’s Rachel Reabe profiles Four Winds Lodge Treatment Center, a culturally based Native American chemical dependency treat program. Reabe highlights the annual sobriety powwow through various sounds and interviews.
July 28, 1988 - MPR’s Tom Meersman looks at the 20th anniversary of American Indian Movement (AIM). Report looks at the history, actions, and controversies of organization.
September 8, 1989 - Mainstreet Radio’s John Biewen presents the documentary “Dancing on Beat: Portrait of a Reservation Family,” which follows the daily life of an Ojibwe family on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota.
September 8, 1989 - MPR’s Leif Enger Interviews students about their experiences at the Leech Lake's Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School, and educators on the need for the school.
March 7, 1990 - MPR’s Euan Kerr profiles exhibit “Building Minnesota” at Walker Art Museum. The work was created by Native American sculptor Edgar Heap of Birds. Heap of Birds created 40 metal signs, which imitate the look and lettering of public street signs. On a white background, red letters bore “the names (in English and Dakota) of the 40 Dakota men, prisoners of war, who were hung by executive order for the role they played in the Dakota-U.S. conflicts of 1862 and 1865.”
September 14, 1990 - MPR’s Chris Tetlin profiles Maude Kegg, an Ojibwa storyteller, folk artist, and cultural interpreter. Kegg shares life memories and her concerns over Ojibwa language being lost in the coming generations.