Washington, D.C. --The National Endowment for the Humanities announces 14 grant awards for Native American projects in 11 states. These awards will provide for developing exhibitions, planning radio and television programs, establishing course curriculum, preparing oral histories, and presenting scholarly works.
Dr. Ronald S. Berman, Chairman of the Humanities Endowment, in making the announcement said, "These awards are representative of the support the Humanities Endowment continues to give in the field of Native American studies. Grants such as these foster an understanding of the Humanities among the American public, and at the same time, preserve increasingly perishable information through scholarly research."
Of particular interest is an award to prepare an exhibition which will show the relationship between the trade bead and the Native American culture from 1615 to the present time grant of up to $29,983 will be used to demonstrate the role of trade beads in the early contact between European and native cultures and show ways in which trade beads are reflective of adaptations and changes which resulted from the sudden contact of such dissimilar cultures.
Two Michigan museums will initiate the exhibition during 1977 (the Grand Rapids Public Museum and the Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum). The choice of Michigan seems particularly appropriate, since Bruce Catton, in his Humanities Endowment's sponsored book, "Michigan: A Bicentennial History", has already piqued our curiosity. In his book, Mr. Catton vividly describes the early French "coureurs de bois" luring the shy Indian from shadowy, Great Lakes forest with brightly-colored trade beads.
A Humanities Endowment museum grant will go to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin to install an exhibit which will depict the fur trade in the Astor Fur Warehouse. This will be accomplished with an award of up to $26,096 and should be ready for viewing by June, 1977. The American Indian will figure prominently in this exhibit since its purpose is to teach the history of fur trade from the early 1600's to 1848 when the last of the Indians' lands were ceded to the Americans.
The culture of the Western American Indian will be shown in the Cultural-Heritage Center of the Yakima Indian Nation through an exhibition of original and imaginative designs.
This will be supported by a Humanities Endowment grant of up to $18,250 which will go to the Kamiakin Research Institute in Toppenish, Washington. The Yakima Indian Nation Center is the focal point of a far-reaching and ambitious program which will, bring the 10,000 Yakimas and other Indians who live on or near the reservation in close contact with the surrounding non-Indian population (estimated at 260,000 in the trading area)and with visiting tourists (estimated at about 238,710 persons per year). Thus, the Center will be used both as an exhibit hall and as a place where Yakimas may absorb and understand their own heritage, study and develop skills, and gather together for social activities.
It is projected that this center will be a way for the Yakima Indian Nation to express its hopes for the future and find inspiration for the tribal members.
The National Endowment for the Humanities has also awarded television and radio planning grant for programs concerning the Native American.
A Humanities Endowment's television planning grant of up to $14,679 will go to the University of Nebraska. This will be used by Native American Studies scholars and tribal representatives to develop a television series about the Northern Great Plains Indians of the 19th Century. During the planning stage of the grant, both Indian and non-Indian perceptions of historical events will be studied.
Television planning is also featured in a National Endowment for the Humanities grant used to produce a series of programs called "The Cave, the Bridge, and the Basin." grant award of up to $20,000 will go to the Oregon Education and Public Broadcasting Service. An impressive group of archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, tribal representatives, geologists, folklorists, and station staff has been assembled to collaborate in the production of the series. Programs will follow the prehistoric in-migrations of Indians from the dim past who used the northern land bridge to migrate and disperse across the Northern Great Basin.
Now in the planning stage is a series of radio programs which will examine the cultural dimensions of the preservation of tribal customs of the Native Americans of the Northern Great This will be done through a Humanities Endowment grant Plains of up to $10,000 which will go to KUFM-Radio at the University of Montana in Missoula. In addition to the incorporation of Indian literature, religion, education, law and tribal jurisdiction, planning will also consider the possibility of bilingual production. The whole series will be directed toward stimulating interest among the various tribes in the area as well as among non-Indian listeners.
The University of Alaska's radio station, KUAC-FM has also received a planning grant in support of a series of programs which will examine the effects of urbanization, economic development, and modernization on Alaskan natives. This media planning grant of up to $10,000 will be used to identify the resources necessary for the development of specific progress; and to determine the most effective format for the series.
The National Endowment for the Humanities also provides grants which make use of taped interviews for the compiling of oral histories.
One of these is a Native American oral history grant of up to $20,000 which the Humanities Endowment has awarded to the St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, Missouri. The grant will be used to disseminate, in written form, the 166 taped interviews with American Indian people. This is an effort to correlate existing materials concerned with the
historical past, present, and future of the American Indian. These first-person accounts graphically describe what it means to be an American Indian in the contemporary United States.
There are also 6 grants announced by the National Endowment for the Humanities which are awarded for the purpose of supporting Native American studies and scholarly pursuits. El Paso Community College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, will receive a Humanities Endowment grant of $49,728 to develop three interdisciplinary courses. This curriculum will examine three minority groups in America, among them, the American Indian. The new curriculum is expected to affect the departments of language, social sciences and history: and will specifically cover: "The Art History of the North American Indian, 1500 to the Present" and "The Arts of the Pre-Columbian Cultures of the Americas.
The Atlanta Historical Society in Georgia has been awarded a Humanities Endowment grant in Native American .studies. This award of $21,105 will be used to research the culture of the Native American who inhabited the vicinity of Standing Peachtree, Georgia from 1760 to 1830.
The Haskell Indian Junior College, in Lawrence, Kansas been awarded a grant of up to $6,000 from the Humanities This will be used to support the development of an Endowment exhibit on "Cultural Diversity of the American Indian." A grant of $20,373 has been awarded in American Indian Studies to the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. This is of the National Endowment for the Humanities Centers of Research program. The grant will be used to prepare a catalog of the reference library collection of the American Native Language Center.
A Humanities Endowment Education Pilot grant for $25,754 has been awarded to Emporia Kansas State College. American Indian studies figure prominently in a multi-disciplinary program centered on the theme of "People, Land, and Spirit: A Bridge to the Great Plains." Specific courses include: North American Indians; History of Great Plains Art; the Indian in
Western Literature: Race and Ethnic Relations: The Indian in American History: and The Indian in Western American Literature.
Directly related to American Indian Studies is an award, of up to $5,000 which the National Endowment for the Humanities has made to the National Indian Education Association of Minneapolis, Minnesota. This award will be used to bring to its eighth annual conference selected project directors who have been involved in American Indian studies through prior
Humanities Endowment grants.
These 14 recently announced grants bring the total number of Native American Studies grants awarded in 1976 to 43 Native American projects receiving endowment for the Humanities grant, Fall 1976.
ALASKA
The University of Alaska, KUAC-FM Radio: a planning grant of up to $10,000 will support a series of programs which will examine the effects of urbanization, economic development, and modernization on Alaskan natives.
University of Alaska, Fairbanks: a grant of $20,373 will support the preparation of a catalog of the reference library collection of the American Native Language Center.
COLORADO
El Paso Community College, Colorado Springs, Colorado: a grant of $49,728 will support the development of courses in arts and cultures of the American Indian and the Spanish American.
GEORGIA
The Atlanta Historical Society: a grant of $21,105 to research the culture of the Native American who inhabited the vicinity of Standing Peachtree, Georgia.
KANSAS
Emporia Kansas State College: a grant of up to $25,754 will support the development of an undergraduate curriculum in Great Plains Studies.
The Haskell Indian Junior College, Lawrence: a grant of up to $6,000 will be used to support the development of an exhibit on "Cultural Diversity of the American Indian."
MICHIGAN
The Grand Rapids Museum Association: a grant of up to $29,983 will support an exhibit demonstrating the role of trade beads in the early contact between European and native cultures.
MISSOURI
St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley: a grant of up to $20,000 will support the processing of taped interviews with American Indians.
MONTANA
University of Montana, Missoula: a grant of up to $10,000 will support the development of programs examining the cultural dimensions of the preservation of tribal customs of the Native Americans of the Northern Great Plains.
NEBRASKA
KUON-TV, Lincoln: a grant of $14,679 will support a series presenting the history of the Northern Great Plains Indians of the 19th Century.
OREGON
KOAP-TV, Portland: a grant of $20,000 will support the development of a series on prehistoric in migration over the northern land bridge and the dispersion of migrants over the Northern Great Basin.
WASHINGTON
Kamiakin Research Institute, Toppenish: a grant of up to $18,250 will support an exhibition depicting the culture of the Western American Indian.
WISCONSIN
The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison: a grant of up to $26,096 will support an exhibition entitled "Fur Trade in the Upper Mississippi River Valley."
