Weaving Our History: Voices of Wisdom and Memory
FAIN: AD-50029-11
Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College (Baraga, MI 49908-9678)
Lynn E. F. Aho (Project Director: June 2010 to May 2016)
A three-year project to collect and preserve oral history narratives from elders of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and to develop curricular resources from this material.
Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College (KBOCC) proposes a January 2011 – December 2013 Humanities Initiative designed to enhance and develop areas of basic need in core humanities programs by gathering oral history narratives by community elders on the modern history of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. The narratives will be collected by KBOCC faculty who have participated in professional development on oral history. Information from the narratives will be used to develop resources for Native studies courses and to support the College’s mandate for Native American content across the curriculum. The narratives will be archived at the college as a resource for on-going scholarship. The proposal is motivated by lack of tribal historical materials and by the value placed on the wisdom and memory of elders. Many events of significance to the tribe since its constitution was adopted in 1936 are within living memory. The initiative will preserve and teach those memories.