This blog post is cross-posted from Dr. Challu’s blog, which you can find at blogs.bgsu.edu/achallu
Last week Heidi Nees, jenn stucker and I hosted Ciara Cotter and Chris Houk of the Wyandotte Nation Cultural Division. They came from Oklahoma to lead a program on Wyandotte storytelling, an event of the In The Round series.
On Friday we had a packed agenda that included conversations with Megan Rancier (Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology), Michelle Stokely (Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies), Michelle Sweetser (Associate Professor in the library), and the staff of the Center for Archival Collections. We also met with BGSU alums Jessie Walton (Wood County Parks), Remington Schneider (Tribal Alliance for Clean Energy), and Ashley Phlipot (Ft Meigs). We talked about music, challenges in tracking documentary sources about Wyandotte history, and the representation of Native American history, among many other topics. A highlight of the meeting was finding the Wyandotte name of Ciara’s ancestor in Upper Sandusky, in documents attesting to their use of the land before their forced removal in 1842. Later in the day, as they visited the Wyandotte cemetery in the Mission Church, Ciara was able to locate her ancestor’s grave and headstone.
The main event took place at 2pm in the Nature Center of the St John’s/Wintergarden Woods Nature Preserve. As we arrived we noticed a line of cars reaching Wintergarden. There were more than seventy people in the audience of all ages and corners of the community. Chris started out with one of the Wyandotte versions of the Skywoman Falling story of creation, which is the opening story in Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and the subject of our first community reading. Ciara captivated the audience with the stories of witches, tricksters, turtles and other animals. These stories can only be told in the winter months, after the first frost and before the snakes wake up from hibernation. In addition to the storytelling, they told us about the efforts to recover the stories and the role of early twenty-century ethnographers in this pursuit. They ended them with the Wyandotte saying “it is as it should be” or “it is what it is”. It’s not the storyteller’s role to explain what the story means. A conversation followed and members of the audience stayed longer to talk about what they just experienced. Friends from Ball State State and the Mission Church in Upper Sandusky also came and stayed to talk with Chris and Ciara.
On behalf of my colleagues in BGSU and my neighbors in Bowling Green, I wanted to thank Chris, Ciara and the Wyandotte Nation Cultural Division for the gift of their testimony and storytelling. Although it was the first time we met, there was a deep connection rooted in our shared love for this land. The history of exclusion and genocide lives with us. But there is also a history of fortitude and endurance. We learned that the branches in the Wyandotte Nation’s logo are willow branches, which grow roots when they are planted in new ground. In the effort and love for their culture of Chris and Ciara, the willow twigs carried by generations of Wyandotte are taking root again in Ohio.
If you are interested in learning more about indigenous peoples, consider attending one of the guest lectures with renowned author and scientists Robin Wall Kimmerer. You can find more information about the programming at bgsu.edu/in-the-round.