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Landmark Sites

The following Landmark Sites will be visited during the workshops:

Pawnee Indian Village, Republic County, Kansas

Richard Gould, caretaker of the Pawnee Indian Museum, will be our host as we see the excavated floor of a large Pawnee earth lodge, a Pawnee sacred bundle, and other Pawnee artifacts. Copies of several George Catlin paintings are on display, and we will see a movie about Catlin's Native American art. We will hear the voice of a Pawnee elder as she describes the Pawnee culture. Outside the museum we will view many more earth lodge archaeological sites and see first hand the size of this large village. Our guide will be archaeologist Dr. Donna Roper from Kansas State University.

Nance County, Nebraska

U.S. Indian School, Genoa

We will visit our next landmarks as we travel to Nance County, Nebraska. The Genoa U.S. Indian School was established by the U.S. government in 1884. This Indian School, the fourth established in the U.S., was one of the largest, and was in operation until 1934. Following a tour of the school, Ponca tribe of Nebraska member Judi gaiashekibos, Executive Director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs, will be our speaker. Her mother, a member of the Ponca tribe, was a student at the school. She will cite detailed accounts of her mother's experience of being separated from family and placed in the U.S. Indian School in Genoa, followed by a question and answer session.

Valley View Cemetery, Genoa

As a result of the repatriation act, over 400 Pawnee were reburied at Valley View Cemetery, near Genoa. Included were the 6 Pawnee scouts killed by U.S. Army soldiers.

Nance County Archaeological Sites

Archaeologist Nancy Carlson will take us to several Pawnee sites in Nance County and explain their significance.

Omaha Reservation

Macy

On Thursday we will travel to the Omaha Indian reservation. Our guide Wynema Morris will first take the group to the tribal office in Macy where we will hear from a tribal leader. We will travel to the Nebraska Indian Community College where President Dr. Michael Oltrogge, will present information about tribal colleges.

Walthill

We will also stop in Walthill and visit the Picotte Center, site of the hospital established by Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte, and learn of the work being done today at the Center.

Neihardt Prayer Garden

On the way back from Macy, we will visit the Sacred Hoop Prayer Garden at the John G. Neihardt Center in Bancroft, NE. The Center is a Nebraska State Historic Site. The famous poet called Bancroft home from 1900 to 1920 and authored 25 volumes of poetry, fiction, and philosophy. Bancroft's close proximity to the Omaha reservation provided opportunity for him to know many of the old "long hairs" on the reservation. Deeply impressed, he wrote widely successful short stories based on these talks. Neihardt, Nebraska's Poet Laureate and author of Black Elk Speaks, based the garden's design on an object, "The Sacred Hoop of the World," given to him by Black Elk, an Ogala Sioux holy man. It symbolizes Neihardt's interest in American Indian customs and traditions.