Encampment stresses understanding culture
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The cows were ousted from the Agnes Vanderburg camp on Valley Creek for a week-long encampment for teachers from the Flathead area, Missoula and the Flathead Reservation Head Start teachers.
Sponsored by the Big Sky Science Partnership and funded by the National Science Foundation, one of the camp’s main goals was to help teachers understand Native American culture and integrate it into their classrooms.
Experts in many areas of Native American culture were on hand to teach the teachers arts and skills such as hide tanning, sally bag weaving, beading, warbonnets from safety pins, fish traps, cedar bark baskets, and putting up a child’s tepee.
“I’ve been wanting to learn to bead,” Angela Nicholas, Pablo Early Head Start, admitted.
The camp was the place for Nicholas to learn peyote stitch from Corinna Littlewolf.
Large tepees were erected at the camp for the educators although some brought tents or campers. Communal meals were served in the main tent with many Native foods such as berry soup, a camas bake and frybread.
Hunters, who shot a couple of deer on Tuesday, demonstrated how to skin a deer, then the meat was dried and the brains used to tan the hides. Oskie Lefthand even made a needle from a deer leg bone as folks did in the old days.
Hide tanner Peggy Sue Antoine had willing students like Christy Rhine who teaches at Pablo Head Start. Rhine said the brains smelled like scrambled eggs when they were heated, but they softened the deer hide as well as her hands. Soaking the hide, twisting water out of the hide, scraping the hair off, scraping the under layer, stitching up the bullet holes and stretching the hide gave Rhine a workout, too.
While quillwork isn’t so physical, it’s an exercise in patience. The perfect one to teach quillwork, Kamiah Dumontier, quietly and competently led adults and kids from threading needles to selecting the perfect porcupine quill to stitching quills in place.
This is the fifth year BSSP has held a culture camp, and this year they collaborated with Head Start. Myrna Dumontier organized the camp with help from Mary Jane Charlo.
Most of all, the fun and interesting activities have a science basis.
“Our objective is to improve teachers’ cultural competency so it translates into the classroom and improves student achievement in science,” explained Regina Sievert, BSSP Director.
The camp participants gained deep knowledge of the culture by building relationships with tribal members and gaining greater understanding of cultural mores.
