Transcripts

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[BEATING DRUMS] SPEAKER 1: And this is called the Four Seasons room. This is a historical look at our community, a traditional look at early Ojibwe lifestyle. We focus on each of the Four Seasons and we talk about one of the most important activity in each of those different seasons. Like, say, the spring season right here, we talk about maple sapping, from tapping the tree, which you see down here. You'll see the people that are gathering maple sap out on the mural back here, gathering wood. So these background scenes are actually different places on our reservation.

We've had help from a lot of the elders. This original Four Seasons room was put together in 1960. We were fortunate enough to have elders at that time in the 1960s who actually remember living this lifestyle. And so we recreated this whole room exactly as they remember it.

These people here that are modeling for the faces here were actually people that were molded of people on the reservation here. But my favorite is the winter scene, only because my grandmother is one of the models. She passed on probably about 10 years ago, but she was a real inspiration for me and kind of made me who I am today and stuff, so.

SPEAKER 2: That's remarkable. These models are models of actual people, some living, some no longer living.

SPEAKER 1: Right. You can see grandmothers, mothers and fathers all throughout here for different people on the reservation. I know one person, Debbie Mitchell, will come in, this is her here, she'll come in and look at herself, and her children will come in and look at her, and, you know, that's my mom when she was real young.

SPEAKER 2: Who is the museum for mostly? Do you see it as being mostly for the people who come and use this area as tourists, or is it mostly for band members?

SPEAKER 1: It's actually for both. It's people coming in to learn about American Indian history, Indian history, and look at Indian communities. We want them to see an Indian community that's alive, that's vibrant, that's still strong in their traditions and their culture and their language.

SPEAKER 2: Why is it important for someone who might come up to Mille Lacs two or three times a summer and go fishing on the lake, why is it important for those people to understand Mille Lacs culture?

SPEAKER 1: When I first started working for the museum, I started off as a guide, and I worked here for, I think, two summers as a guide, and I guided into Four Seasons room. One of the questions that always came up was that where are your buckskin clothes at. Where's your horse at. Or what kind of house do you live in. Do you still live in wigwams. And that's the general perception that a lot of people had when they come in.

And just the other day, again, somebody came in here, a group came in from I think it was from Russia and not really interested in what was going on out in the exhibit area, but once they got to the Four Seasons and they got all excited because that's how they think that we still live. And so it was kind of interesting to see that.

[OJIBWE MUSIC]

This exhibit area is called Our Living Culture. The powwow is kind of the central social celebration, the most important celebration. Different dances and different outfits that people wear, there's actually a song that goes with them and there's a different way of dancing, there's a whole different beat to the drum. This outfit right here is more dignified. It represents warriors coming back maybe from a successful war.

[OJIBWE MUSIC]

We use a lot of both the English and the Ojibwe words throughout because we want people to know that the language is real important to us here at our reservation.

SPEAKER 2: What we're looking at is a computer screen set into the wall on which we see the Ojibwe English dictionary. And you press the screen for definitions.

SPEAKER 1: Right. So you hear it set in the Ojibwe language and then you hear the English part of it.

SPEAKER 2: Let's go through a few.

SPEAKER 3 (RECORDED): [OJIBWE SPEECH], raccoon, [OJIBWE SPEECH], eagle.

SPEAKER 1: We've had a lot of kids just come in from the Res and come in and sit here and just play this. I'll come out here sometime, you know, we're not even open yet, but they'll make their way in here. A couple of them make their way in here and they'll be sitting right here. [LAUGHS] [OJIBWE SPEECH], owl.

SPEAKER 2: You have a whole room here devoted to tribal sovereignty.

SPEAKER 1: This is the exhibit that we had the most trouble putting together, only because sovereignty is so hard to define and it's so hard to show it. A lot of questions that you see on this table here, like what is a treaty, what is dual citizenship. It's a lot of questions that are asked by people who come to visit us. We also have a slot machine in here. [CHUCKLES] But what'll come up in a few seconds is information on how some of the money was spent from the Casino. profits. Like, to build a water tower was $970,000, Niacin Clinic, you know, $2 million. And-- [LAUGHS]

SPEAKER 2: What sort of reaction are you expecting from people who maybe have been reading the papers the last couple of years, are aware of some of the tensions that have been raised with the treaty rights issues.

SPEAKER 1: Well, I can't predict what their reactions are going to be, but I'm hoping when they leave here, they'll leave with a better understanding of who the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwe are, and where they're at, and why it's important for us to regain control over our hunting, fishing, and gathering. We want them to see it in a contemporary sense and in a historical sense. That's why we develop the exhibits as we did in the exhibit area here, is to show people where we are today.

[OJIBWE MUSIC]