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The
Wikoska and Wiciyenna singers from Dakota Wicohan's girls
leadership program performed traditional songs for Prairie
Festival visitors at Gibbs Farm. The singers will return for
more performances Sept. 15. (Photo by Lee Egerstrom.)
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With a dwindling number
of fluent Dakota language speakers throughout Minnesota, the Lower
Sioux Indian Community (LSIC) has started a unique Dakota language
Head Start school and Early Head Start program at its Minnesota
River Valley community. The programs Cansayapi Wakanyeza
Owayawa Oti (Lower Sioux Children are Sacred)
began functioning on Aug. 1. Now, a month later, it has children
in 49 of the 52 available pupil positions.
We expect to have
the final three (positions) enrolled by the end of September,
said the programs Mariah Wabasha.
This comes amid a flurry
of activity to preserve Dakota language and culture in Minnesota.
The Lower Sioux community is a key center in the effort.
Independent of the LSIC,
Dakota Wicohan is a nonprofit organization incorporated at nearby
Morton that operates language and culture programs for children
and young adults.
While based within the
LSIC area, the young people in the programs occasionally participate
with other programs with Minnesotas three other Dakota communities
and with groups such as the Ramsey County Historical Society and
its Gibbs Farm at St. Paul.
Eileen OKeefe,
Dakota Wicohan program director, said all these efforts come with
a strong sense of urgency. There are more in South Dakota,
but there are only four Dakota as a first language speakers left
in Minnesota, she said.
Two reside at Prairie
Island Indian Community and two are known at Upper Sioux Community
near Granite Falls. We lost one at Lower Sioux this past year,
she said. There is an urgency to rejuvenate our language and
culture. Its now or never, she said.
The Lower Sioux Head
Start programs is especially foundational for the rejuvenation process.
Early Head Start is for
newborns up to three-year-old children, said Lower Siouxs
Wabasha. The regular Head Start is for three to five-year olds before
they start kindergarten.
Wabasha has one of the
longest job titles, in any language. She is the Eligibility, Recruitment,
Selection, Enrollment attendant /Parent, Family, Community Engagement
coordinator for the Lower Sioux Head Start school.
The school uses remodeled
facilities that were a day care center adjacent to Lower Siouxs
Jackpot Junction casino and hotel complex. Vanessa Goodthunder is
director of the education progam and studied Dakota language at
the University of Minnesota, Wabasha said. Ryan Dixon and Joe Circle
Bear, Dakota and Lakota language speakers, are language faculty.
Dixon and Goodthunder
have translated language and curriculum materials used in the immersion
language effort. Some of the materials were obtained from the Bdote
Learning Center, the K-7 Dakota and Ojibwe language public charter
school in Minneapolis.
Lower Sioux Head Start
is a federally supported educational effort. It received a $1.9
million federal grant and $90,000 from the Minnesota Department
of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) to get started.
As a result of its public
support, the programs are open to all people although most starting
participants are from the Lower Sioux and Upper Sioux communities.
But not all Head Start children are Native Americans, Wabasha said.
It was heartwarming
to see other nearby families interested in Dakota language and culture
so they enrolled their children, she said.
Tied in with the Head
Start school, the Lower Sioux Education Department also uses its
faculty in a Home Base program in which they take language
and curriculum to weekly sessions with 10 area families. That, too,
is spreading language and culture within the Lower Sioux area.
Dakota Wicohan
(Dakota way of life)
For older children and students, the Dakota Wicohan programs are
keeping the language and culture vibrant for participants and for
others who interact with them, said program director OKeefe.
It usually has about
30 students, mostly from the Lower and Upper Sioux communities,
of whom 10 are young boys, she said.
The largest groupings
are the Wikoska and Wiciyenna programs, said program assistant Dylan
Jubera. He accompanied that group to Gibbs Farm on July 28 where
they sang and explained their programs to the historical farms
visitors.
Wikoska translates to
young women, Jubera said. Wiciyenna translates to younger
girl. The latter is for girls age five to eight.
Girls that participate
in our program start as Wiciyenna. They grow and become wiser and
become Wikoska. The Wikoska mentor the new Wiciyenna and the circle
is complete, he said.
The choir of girls that
performed at Gibbs Farm all live and go to school in the Redwood
Falls and Lower Sioux Community area.
Dakota Wicohan also has
a program called Koska (young man) for boys ages five through 12.
While it is a diverse cultural and language education program, it,
too stresses learning Dakota language and words through singing.
A fourth program clearly
stresses historical and cultural experience for Dakota people.
Sunktanka Wicayuhapi (We Care for the Horses) is a horse
care and riding program for Wicohans students. The programs
states that it emphasizes learning life skills such as patience,
discipline and dedication.
These students also are
members of a 4H Club. They learn about caring for horses before
starting riding lessons at the Strong Ranch outside of Morton.
Dakota Wacohan student,
horses and Lakota artist James Star Comes Out (Pine Ridge) will
be back at Gibbs Farm on Saturday, Sept. 15, at 2097 W. Larpenteur
Ave., St. Paul. That Saturday is dedicated to Dakota Traditional
Horse Regalia and its art form that Star Comes Out has demonstrated
and exhibited throughout a multistate region.
Gibbs Farm is a preserved
pioneer farm adjacent to the University of Minnesotas St.
Paul campus that honors a family that had close ties to Dakota people
living in what is now the south side of Minneapolis. These old friends
would cross the Gibbs Farm traveling to wild rice lakes and streams.
That prompted Ramsey County to promote the historical farm location
as Pathways to Dakota and Pioneer Life.
For information about
the Lower Sioux Head Start programs, see links at http://lowersioux.com
education and www.redwoodfallsgazette.com/news/20180803/lower-sioux-officially-opens-new-dakota-language-immersion-head-start-school.
For information about
Dakota Wicohan, see https://dakotawicohan.org;
and for Gibbs Farm and the Traditional Horse Regalia program, see
www.rchs.com/event/family-friendly-saturday-program-dakota-traditional-horse-regalia.
Lower
Sioux Indian Community
The Vision of the Lower Sioux Indian Community is a healthy, safe,
and happy community grounded and guided by Dakota culture,
traditions, and language where every person contributes to
a diversified social and economic life. The people grow, adapt,
and innovate together, through opportunities that span the generations
and seek continuous success.
http://lowersioux.com
Dakota
Wicohan
Dakota Wicohan works to revitalize the Minnesota Dakota language,
known as the eastern or D-dialect. This is one of three dialects
which use the D, L, and N interchangeably. The D dialect is spoken
by the Dakota bands indigenous to the Minnesota regionthe
Mdewakantaon, Sisitonwan, Wahpetonwan, and Wahpekute. Our mission
is to revitalize Dakota as a living language, and through
it, transmit Dakota lifeways to future generations. Our long-term
vision is to build Minnesotas first Dakota learning institute
that will prepare and empower increasing numbers of people, generation
by generation, to lead our communities with woDakota.
https://dakotawicohan.org
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