Cherry Valley students explore Blackfeet culture
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
First-graders at Cherry Valley School were detectives as they looked at the sculpture held by Kathy Martin, Director of Education at the Hockaday Museum of Art. Their task: to guess the gender of the statue. After deciding it was a Native American in a dance outfit, the children pointed out the barrette in the statue’s hair and the huge flower on the brightly colored shawl. They decided it was a girl. The piece was titled "Princess John Deere Green," and the artist was Dwight Billedeaux.
Martin brought the Traveling Medicine Show, including Billedeaux’s piece, featuring the art and culture of the Blackfeet, to the school on Nov. 3. The museum’s mission is sharing the art and culture of Montana and the artists of Glacier National Park. The Blackfeet tribe has strong ties to Glacier, Martin said.
“She set up a museum in my room,” teacher Joyce Crosby said.
Included in the “museum” were Blackfeet dolls, examples of beadwork, quill work, moccasins, traditional dress, prints, pictures — contemporary, traditional and ancient.
Kids identified the decorations on a traditional Blackfeet dress made from red trade cloth: brass bells, ribbon stripes and seashells.
“They look kind of like noodles,” one child commented about the seashells.
“Do tepees have closets?” Martin asked.
“No,” the kids answered, so Martin questioned them about where the Blackfeet would put their extra clothes. Martin pulled samples of Blackfeet parfleches, hide bags made for carrying clothing and other items, from her museum and compared them to Northern Cheyenne parfleches, pointing out the geometric designs of the Blackfeet. The children also looked at quillwork and beading on moccasins and even the construction of moccasins. A Salish design was made all of one piece of hide while a Blackfeet model was two pieces.
Then they adjourned to the Art House to make some rice bead moccasins. Martin explained there was not enough time to bead hide moccasins so instead the students would glue brightly colored rice grains onto authentic Blackfeet patterns drawn on paper. Their only tool would be a pushing stick. Darnell Rides at the Door, who also shared the project with Martin, drew the moccasin patterns.
Outreach at schools goes from kindergarten to high school kids, but Martin said all the activities she shared with kids, painting hide, making miniature tepees, etc., were sanctioned by a tribal member.
Crosby went to a presentation by Martin at the tribal PIR day and was instrumental in bringing Martin to Cherry Valley. The outreach was paid for by Indian Education for All money, Crosby added.
Stressing cooperation and sharing the glue and rice, Martin turned the budding artists loose at their tables. There wasn’t much talking as students used their pushing sticks to guide the rice grains into place.
“It’s pretty easy,” student Clara Todd said, “as long as you are slow and careful.”
Martin said she always learns things from the kids. At Cherry Valley she learned to put a tiny bit of glue on the pushing stick and pick up a rice grain to move it into place.
At the end of the day, the first graders knew a lot more about Blackfeet culture and had produced some colorful moccasin designs.
