Inside Iowa State: Iowa State University

April 2, 2004

Symposium events wrap up this weekend

by Anne Krapfl
Clyde Bellecourt, an advocate for American Indian civil and spiritual rights and co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1968, will give the keynote lecture during the 33rd annual Symposium on the American Indian. His talk, "Sacred Spaces and Places," begins at 8 p.m. Friday, April 2, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. A reception will follow.

Bellecourt serves as director of the Peacemaker Center, Minneapolis, which he helped found in 1989. He is founder and current board chairman at American Indian OIC, a Minneapolis jobs program that has moved more than 14,000 people from welfare to full-time employment.

Bellecourt was a major figure in the occupation of Wounded Knee, S. D., on the Pine Ridge Reservation, during the winter of 1973, when American Indians took control of the community to protest the federal government's policies and treatment of the local people.

He was born on the White Earth Reservation in northwestern Minnesota and has firsthand experience with Native American sacred land concerns.

The theme of the symposium is "Turtle Island: Sacred Island." Turtle Island is the name some American Indian tribes use for North America; the symposium will look at understanding and honoring the land, both in an environmental sense and as a sacred place.

Another guest lecture will look at the role of technology in preserving culture and environment. Daniel Wildcat, who runs the environmental research studies center at Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence, Kan., was part of a group that successfully pursued state legislation in Kansas to protect Native American remains, two years before similar federal legislation. Wildcat will speak at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 1, in the Memorial Union Gallery.

Wildcat also will help lead a discussion following a showing of Who Owns the Past, a PBS documentary (2001) about American Indians' struggle for control of ancestral remains. Wildcat is in the documentary. The event will be from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, April 3, also in the Gallery.

The Gallery is the location for a month-long exhibit, "They Call Me Turtle Woman," by St. Paul artist Carly Bordeau. Bordeau will give a presentation related to her work at 3 p.m. Friday in the Gallery.

The symposium concludes with an exhibition powwow from 1 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday in 175 Forker. Dancers will perform grand entries at 1 and 7 p.m.

There is no charge for any of the symposium events.

33rd annual Symposium on the American Indian
"Turtle Island: Sacred Island"
4-6338

Friday, April 2

3-5 p.m., Presentation, "Reflections on: They Call Me Turtle Woman" (art exhibit of this name), Carly Bordeau, White Earth Ojibwe Nation, St. Paul, Minn. Gallery, MU.
8 p.m., Lecture, Richard Thompson Memorial Lecture, "Sacred Spaces and Places: A Native American Perspective," Clyde Bellecourt, Mississippi Band of the Anishinabe Nations/Ojibwe, Great Hall, MU.

Saturday, April 3

9-11 a.m., Film, Who Owns the Past, with commentary by Daniel Wildcat (Euchee) and Smokey McKinney (Prairie Band Potowatami) Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence, Kan. Gallery, MU.
9-11 a.m., Family program, arts, crafts, storytelling, flute playing and activities for people of all ages, 244 and 246, MU.
1-5 and 7-10 p.m., Powwow, Native American dancers and drum groups, grand entries at 1 and 7 p.m., 175 Forker.