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(wind howls)

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(Native American chanting)

(rhythmic drumming)

(speaking foreign language)

- A lot of things are lost.

Most kids don't know about how

we used to be in the old days.

That knowledge is fading away.

We're not gonna really know everything now.

- Arapaho and Shoshone people have

always wanted a museum on the reservation.

- Asking to borrow our artifacts, when people

hear that they're like why do you guys have to ask?

They're ours.

- A lot of the stuff that was gone

from this reservation is stolen.

We have lost it.

We have to bring those artifacts back.

(dramatic orchestral music)

I've seen the tail end of those things.

When I was growing up, my grandpas and

grandmas, they used some of those things.

(car revs)

There were some Shoshone up in the mountains.

The calvary couldn't get them down

because it was too rough on them.

So they just left them alone.

I would say that's one part of the

Shoshone that never was conquered.

I'm part of that clan.

I am a mountain Shoshone.

(wind howls)

(dramatic orchestral music)

In Vietnam, I carried a good luck charm.

I wore that thing every day.

I was assigned to a helicopter.

I was drafted, so they can put me anywhere they want.

I heard gossip from the people around me that

the life expectancy of a gunner is 12 hours.

(helicopter whirring)

I named my chopper Sacagawea.

Bird woman, you know?

Leader of the Western Oregon Expedition.

We were escorting some ground troops.

Sniper put a bullet right through

our (mumbles), we were coming down.

We crash landed.

It was all jungle, thick jungle.

Me and a gunner, our duty was to

head up a perimeter for the chopper.

To protect it.

About five minutes after we landed, I could hear voices.

They were talking Vietnamese, they were

soldiers trying to get to us.

I just made up my mind.

I (mumbles) my machine gun.

I'm not gonna go to no prison camp.

Die fighting.

And I tied my good luck charm,

along with my dog tags, on my neck.

My great great grandmother taught me

of warriors a long time ago.

Pray for your enemy.

Right then I start praying.

Help me survive and pray for my

enemy that we won't see each other

and we won't hurt each other, pray that way.

I prayed to the Creator.

I want to live, I told Him.

(laughs) That's what I told the Creator.

And choppers come by, they were

near us, and we jumped on it, got out.

The items have power as long as Creator's involved with it.

I've come through some dangerous

situations and this has kept me safe.

(car revs)

- Very sacred objects are what carried us through.

And helped us survive.

(rhythmic drumming) (ethereal music)

Growing up on the Wind River Reservation, I learned

that storytelling was important to our tribe.

It's important to our survival of our culture.

Objects are a big part of how we tell our story.

They're living parts of our culture.

They carry on the memories of the makers.

As a kid, I always heard (mumbles).

I always heard a drum.

It's humbling to hear that because you

know that you're part of a bigger picture.

You're part of this long, rich history.

You always had that respect for these items.

You treat them like you would treat another human being.

I decided to go to school, to go

to college and study journalism.

I had been gone from the reservation for four years.

I was really glad when I moved home.

Wind River is like a magnet that draws you back.

* Happy birthday dear Penelope

- You get to see each other, you get

to be around each other, and you get

to feel that love with one another.

You look forward to it because

it helps you, it makes you feel good.

Living on the reservation, there's a

certain routine that you develop.

You don't rush things.

- It's really hard for an Indian boy.

We're a close knit family.

Watching them grow up and everything.

They don't have the opportunity to go outside,

and when they do go outside, they're so used

to home, being close, so they come back.

- When I graduated, I didn't know what to do.

I just decided to come home.

I moved home out of a conflict within myself.

You had this outside influence telling

you to chase the American dream.

But also we have another side of us,

our native side, that's telling

us to think about your people.

Growing up on the reservation, you hear

elders tell you you're gonna be the future,

you're important for your tribe's survival.

That's a heavy thing.

It's up to us to make everything

survive and the culture thrive again.

It's objects, songs, it's dances, it's the language.

Just trying to find your way.

That's all on us.

It's difficult.

(children giggling)

Do you go and chase this ambition?

Or do you stay here and see what you can create?

Maybe everybody does eventually find their way.

- I'm 17 years old.

I'm definitely ready to be done with high school.

I plan to travel.

There is a bigger world out there.

I am ready to close this chapter in my life

and start a new one and go off into the world.

My family lives very close together on the same land.

I have a bunch of nieces and nephews.

It's easy for us to get together and see each other.

- Hi, baby!

Hi!

- Haley, do you need a spoon?

- We were determined we were gonna give

our children the ultimate Indian childhood.

It'll be up to our kids and their kids and their

kids to keep that connection to that world alive.

It'll come in its own time, however you wanna do it.

Macayla is clinging onto whatever

she can of her Arapaho ways.

(Native American singing) (rhythmic drumming)

- Ladies and gentlemen, our Denver March

Powwow Princess, Miss Macayla Summer Sunroads.

(applause)

- I'm from Ethete, Wyoming, I'm northern

Arapaho and (mumbles) pueblo, I would

just really really like to thank all of you

for coming, singers, dancers, spectators.

(cheers and applause)

My title is Miss Denver March Powwow 2012.

(Native American singing)

As I grew up I noticed the detail and what

went into all of the regalia and the bead work.

(rhythmic drumming)

Every item does have a story to the

designs, everything that went into it.

I think time is running out for us

to learn about these items and

there are more elders passing away.

They have a lot of knowledge and

that knowledge is fading away.

Our languages, our ceremonies, and dancing was outlawed.

Our ancestors went through a lot.

Dancing was a resistance against

things that were going on in the world.

(ethereal music)

The non-native and the native world are two separate worlds.

I'm dancing in both worlds.

(rhythmic drumming)

- You wanna take a little trip back in time?

You're in the right place.

We celebrate the wild west because it

symbolizes the way things were and how hard

it was to conquer a land that built a nation.

(marching band music)

- When I think of the Wind River Indian

Reservation I think of home, my family.

To be honest, I think that people think it's scary.

People hear about the crime, the alcohol,

drugs because of the news.

(police siren wailing)

Sometimes you just get overwhelmed.

There are many different young people that

wanna see a bright future for our reservation.

- There is ignorance in Wyoming about the reservation.

I went to school at Lander, which was off the

reservation, and we never talked about the tribes at all.

The Wind River Casino has given the

Northern Arapaho tribe leverage it's

never had before, especially in Wyoming.

- That casino, we fought for it.

Don't have alcoholic drinks in there.

The main purpose of that casino is to benefit our people.

- You can't deny that it's become an economic

force to start creating other opportunities.

They asked me to work on a small museum

located in that hotel lobby to be able to share

our story with people who don't know us.

I started looking around at different museums.

I was like okay, well then we gotta ask questions.

It was a little baffling to me that there

wasn't a lot of artifacts on the reservation.

I remember there being a museum

here on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Elders in the community would go to

the museum and watch over the artifacts.

One of them was Macayla Sunroads's grandfather.

When they passed on, there was nobody left to keep it going.

And so it closed down.

To bring those objects back, it'd be

a wonderful thing to have them all here,

but the artifacts are now being

stored a few hundred miles away.

And they're owned by the episcopal church.

- The diocese was approached by a young man,

Jordan Dresser, who told us of a museum that

they were going to be creating at the casino.

My immediate response was not hugely positive

because of what I felt were the moral

and ethical issues of displaying items

at a casino where I know people from

around the state might have problems

of addiction, of gambling addiction.

I wanted to be sure that we were doing the right thing.

What I did was I set up a conversation with

the leaders at our Arapaho mission and

asked them, I said I'm not going to

let the casino borrow these items

unless you give me your blessing.

There are about 200 pieces in the collection.

- And to God, who we (mumbles).

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

- The first reaction on the artifacts

going to the casino was no.

The older ones told us no, we don't

want them there, they don't belong there.

People thought that was no place to store the artifacts.

- I felt like we were ready.

The room was ready, the cases, the temperature.

I viewed it as this is a good spot.

It's frustrating for me because it's

the idea that as native people,

we always have to negotiate, we always have

to compromise, and we have to ask permission.

A lot of individuals within Wyoming have the idea

that native people can't do things on their own.

They can't take care of whatever it may be,

whether it be artifacts, whether it be

their own money, whether it be their own

language, whatever it is, their own education,

that they can't do it on their own.

It gets old.

The Northern Arapaho Experience opened.

And the cases were empty.

They were just glass cases that had a lot of light,

a lot of wood, and a lot of nothing in there.

(chuckles)

(somber acoustic guitar music)

- Nobody on this reservation has done that before.

There's no Native American curators here.

- Church owns them.

I'm sure they took good care of them.

It was a good idea to keep them for the future.

- We'd just like them back, you know?

- It's like walking into a fog.

How do you even start it, how do

you even begin this journey?

Most old style items that belong to

the people of Wind River are stored

in sites away from the reservation.

You look at museums, websites,

and you see these great collections.

Well how did they get them?

How did they get them?

These museums are keepers now of items

that belong to tribal people that's

gotta be in the tens and tens of thousands.

I felt disillusioned.

But then I learned that a large

collection of artifacts that belong to the

people of Wind River were stored in Chicago.

- The Field Museum, in the late

1800s, early 1900s, sent anthropologists

to reservations and build these collections

and their reasoning at the time was that

they thought that this was the end of

Indian culture, that they would no longer exist.

- I think this idea that Native Americans were a

dying grace really speaks of the place and time.

They just didn't view Indians as people.

Indians were viewed as, almost in a sense, like objects.

- There was a belief that traditional

cultures were going to disappear.

They were going in to save the

material culture that was going to be lost.

Museums played a role in conserving that material culture.

At the same time, I think museums played

a role in the disappearance of that

material culture as they went in and

they gathered literally everything

they could get their hands on.

- Let's take these items, I don't think these

people are smart enough to take care of them.

It was this idea that they belonged to the world.

So therefore you remove them and

you place them in these museums.

But these objects are away from the

people who can interpret them best.

I started working on a project that

would take digital photos of the

artifacts and put them on a website.

I saw that as a good first step.

The Chicago Field Museum agreed

to a visit from members of both tribes.

But we weren't gonna return home with artifacts.

It's a system we have to go through.

Right away, some of the elders stepped up and wanted to go.

But they wanted to bring younger people along too.

These artifacts can be tools that can

help transfer that knowledge on

and make them wanna learn more.

Learn more about their own selves in a sense.

- There is definitely some kind of spiritual

connection still tied to those items.

I'm not too sure, but I wanna go

see the artifacts in the museum.

- The elders, they might feel like

they're touching things that are sacred.

We don't just go in and start digging around.

- I would rather stay away.

- I'd be concerned about if we're

allowed to touch them, if we're

even supposed to be around them.

- For Macayla to learn where we came

from, it would make her stronger.

Our whole family...

What was once ours was taken from us.

It can return to us in a good way.

- In my opinion, our good artifacts have been stolen, sold.

This stuff should be returned to the Shoshone tribe.

- Right now we don't have anyplace to house it.

There's no museum or anything like that that we have.

- Some of them may have come from

burial grounds, we don't know.

Taken illegally.

- You have to go through all kinds of rituals

for them things before you even touch them.

Otherwise the tribe could be hurt.

- Those were sacred items that we're talking about.

Bad things can happen to you.

I was asked if I would like to go to Chicago.

I said no.

- It's been really something to try and get

Filbert to commit to doing the trip to Chicago.

- The thought of getting up in the air, the memories

of Vietnam kept running through my head.

When I got home, when I come back

from the war, my mind was messed up.

The war messed me up.

I lived with death every day.

That's what caused my divorce.

She was right.

I wasn't the same man that come home.

I still feel that way, you know.

I was prepared to die any day.

I never left the reservation because of that reason.

That fear.

- There's a lot of trauma that returns

with them that sometimes never leaves.

Being from an Indian community there's

a lot of historical trauma that's occurred.

Things that we need to be able to

come to terms with in order to heal.

(somber acoustic guitar music)

- There's younger people, younger generations,

look at those artifacts and see what they're used for.

They might somehow work that into their own lives.

If there's someway or somehow that I can help them.

To help the tribe.

I thought more and more about it.

I decided to go.

(music swells)

The Arapahos are gonna go along

with the Shoshone to the museum.

(mumbles) one of them.

I've known Ross Wheeler for most of my life.

And Bobby Joe Goggles.

Also a young girl, Macayla.

- I am definitely interested in learning

more about the old ways and to keep

it going because it is who you are.

No matter what, that's where you came from.

- Traditionally, the Arapahos

and the Shoshones were enemies.

When I was a kid growing up,

we'd fistfight with them all the time.

Still there's a little animosity.

I'm still a bit nervous.

(chuckles)

After getting shot down three times

I told myself I'm never gonna fly again.

Three crash landings is enough for me.

(rhythmic drumming) (ethereal music)

I have never been to Chicago.

I took one look at the city and said man...

Who'd wanna live here?

I just felt uncomfortable downtown.

(chuckles)

There weren't too many senior citizens around.

You notice that?

There was a few, but not very many.

Mostly all young people.

They weren't doing very much, but they looked busy.

(traffic sounds)

My great grandmother told me whatever

you do, you ask the Creator.

So I prayed before we went in there

that nothing bad will come to us

from what we see or what we touch.

- Welcome.

- Hi, nice to meet you, Jamie.

- Phil McCloud.

- Phil McCloud, pleasure to meet

you, welcome to The Field Museum.

- Hello, Alla Kawali, I'm a curator here in anthropology.

We are so honored to have the opportunity

to learn from you about our collections.

Jamie is gonna take you through the collections.

You're in good hands with Jamie.

- Okay.

- Pleasure meeting you.

- Okay.

- As soon as you enter you can see some dinosaurs in there

and what are museums supposed to represent, you know?

- Museums across the world, you go in,

natives are a relic of the past.

The idea of them being here today in

today's word, it's a concept they don't understand.

- The positive side is that non-Indians get to

learn about how we used to be in the old days.

But they don't really know us now.

(machine beeps)

(ethereal music)

- Shoshones are very scared.

Scared of artifacts that's been dug up,

that belong to somebody that's already dead.

We were told don't bother things like that.

- So just beyond here is the storeroom where

we'll be looking at some of the artifacts.

(machine beeps)

(ethereal music)

Soon after these objects were collected,

it was a common practice in museums that

they would treat these artifacts with pesticides,

like for instance arsonic, to keep the bugs

from literally eating the artifacts.

Unfortunately at that time they didn't

take into consideration the fact that

these poisons that kept the bugs

away were harmful to people that

might wanna touch the artifacts.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- When I think about objects that

belong to tribal members that are

just sitting there in the dark...

I felt angry and I felt sad.

You just walk in and there's rows and

rows and rows of all these objects.

They've been boxed away since they were collected.

Nobody can see them, touch them, be around them.

- You can just visualize how we used

all the stuff that was in the museum.

You'll never see them again.

Being used.

- Back in the early 20th century, there was

a curator here at the museum, a curator

of anthropology, his name was George Dorsey.

- The Field Museum had a curator,

George Dorsey, who purchased a lot of the

items in their collection from Wind River.

- These were people who needed those cash funds.

Their traditional culture had been removed from them.

They were forced to participate in

an economy that wasn't theirs.

- Just take all these here and send them back home to us.

(mumbles).

This pipe is sacred to us, they go yeah,

that one will soon be on display.

Where it belongs.

- If you wanna figure out how to ask for things

then we'll just have to talk about it

and figure out the right way to do it.

- Yeah, we can have some artifacts

on loan if we have a facility where we

can have them for a certain period of time.

- Yeah, we can talk about that.

It's all about time and money.

- I knew that during the trip we

weren't gonna return home with artifacts.

It wasn't gonna happen.

They wanted us to see them.

To provide a certain context for them,

but they're still owned by them.

They still have them.

It was a sad thought.

We went there, took a few pieces

of ourselves, but we had to leave them there.

- We also have pictures in here further on

of scenes that were taken in the field

by probably some of the anthropologists

who were out there at the time.

- Seeing them in those photographs modeling

our dresses, our regalia, they went through a lot.

They were such strong people.

To see that in those photographs

and the expressions on their face.

It was sad, but yet...

You were still proud to see it.

- This is falling over.

There's a stick in there.

- Yeah.

- In the rebel's claws.

- Oh I see.

That would keep it safe.

- Yeah.

(speaking foreign language)

(laughter)

Anthropologist asked me and we had to tell them

a little bit about what it's for, you know?

Leave it alone.

(chuckles)

'Cause if I tell him anymore, he'll try

to (mumbles) and make money on it.

(gentle acoustic guitar music)

I'm just glad to have seen it, you know.

That part of my life.

I grew up around beaders

my grandma, aunties, all sewed beads.

My parents raised me until I was about

six or seven years old, and then

they left me with my grandparents.

Because my parents, they drank a lot.

I was living with my great grandmother.

She was blind.

Being a boy, I had to walk fast to

keep up with her, she walked with a cane.

She could move.

She carried a little bag on her belt.

She always had food in there.

Somehow she knew the time, around close

to 12 she would call me and I'd come over.

She got her bag and we'd eat some bread.

(gentle acoustic guitar music)

- When I was a little girl, there was an

old man that lived across the road from us.

He would get his drum out early in

the morning and you'd hear him singing.

I used to like to go over there

because he'd sing all the old songs.

He had (mumbles) bags.

That was where he kept the stuff

that he used for his sacraments.

He was telling me that those items were

sacred to him, and why they were sacred

to him, so I just sat and listened to him.

- I feel very happy and comfortable to have made this trip.

It was a lot different, what I expected.

- I saw a change come over Filbert.

He came alive, he came alive around the objects.

At its core, that's what museums are all about.

That's the power of (mumbles).

They can transform a person's life.

I started feeling like I was a part of this.

There's moments where I'd get chills.

The Creator gives us different paths

at different times for a certain reason,

so I was there on that trip for a certain reason.

I couldn't see it fully, but it was the start.

- Them artifacts, they belong to my ancestors.

They should be taken back and put

somewhere to someone who can make

use of them, and some of them, we can't

use them, we take them out and bury them because

somebody in my tribe could probably make use of them.

There's something there.

Mixed emotions, you might say.

'Cause with me, it's not all right with me.

(speaking foreign language)

- He believes that some of the artifacts that

we use in ceremony don't really belong there.

Whoever can utilize them among this group

should take them and put them back to use.

There's medicine bundles that are

there that don't really belong there.

Them bundles should be returned here,

they should be examined carefully

by the people that know and are

able to utilize these bundles.

Those other items that are unidentified, forgotten,

or are lost, considered to be sacred,

should be returned to Earth, they should

be taken out in the hills and buried.

(ethereal music)

- We come home and...

Bobby Joe Goggles, he lost his life, he died, passed away.

I hope it wasn't something that

happened over there in Chicago.

I hope it's nothing like that, you know?

- When an elder passes on, a light goes out.

A light that is gonna lead the

younger generation to learn about

who we are as Arapaho and Shoshone people.

It gets harder for us to find our way.

- I was drafted in the army.

I didn't know where Vietnam was, I just heard on the radio.

I heard that there was Communists moving

in there to take over that place.

So we were there to stop that

Communism from coming into Vietnam.

I was there in Vietnam for 11 months.

One more month I could've come home.

I didn't make it.

There was a big operation.

I forgot my dog tags in my locker.

I lost one of those up in the air.

I thought my good luck charm had gone.

Left the thing in my locker.

Those artifacts were used to help me survive.

For protection.

(mumbles) picking up some automatic fire.

I look back on it, my right gunner,

he was already on the floor.

He was shot.

Most of them (mumbles) I got shot.

To me it felt like a pitchfork stuck into straw real strong.

It scared me real bad.

I was scared.

Going into war, you don't know

whether you're gonna die or live.

You don't know who are gonna die.

Right there I prayed to God.

I prayed that if it's Thy will, let it be so.

But I wanna live.

That's the way I prayed.

But I was glad He let me live.

(ethereal music)

Think about better things, you know.

Think what bad things I saw over there and

I turned it into something better, here, today.

Talking about history, I don't try

to break history down, I try to make it

better for all of us, for the rest of us.

(applause)

There's nothing wrong with having a museum.

Have a museum together.

I hope that the people would

get together and get that going.

(applause)

- I think that we should focus on the

bishop's collection and bringing them here 'cause

it's just in Casper which isn't too far away.

- We're ready to build a museum.

We're ready.

- And we can show The Field Museum,

show The Smithsonian, show wherever else

that hey, we can take care of them.

- (mumbles) came and took back the artifacts.

A lot of elders will say that's ours, that's our

stuff, why do we have to ask to borrow it?

(gentle acoustic guitar music)

What do I wanna do?

I knew things weren't gonna be easy.

I just kept thinking about Edith Adam's

collection which was with the episcopal church.

How did the church get those artifacts?

Edith Adams was a white woman who lived on the reservation.

She built up a big collection of artifacts.

- Edith May Adams was was a deacon

in the episcopal church, she lived on

the Wind River Reservation and developed

really a close and personal relationship

with the peoples of the Wind River.

When folks would come to her, they would barter some

so that food or other necessities could be bought.

- Late 1800s, early 1900s on was hard for natives.

Selling objects was a way for them

to eat, a way for them to live.

- As that collection grew, I would

imagine she began to recognize its value.

My hunch is that when she realized that she

had gathered these great treasures, she wanted

to find a way to be able to preserve them.

So she came to her bishop at that time

and created a will that would allow

this collection to belong to the diocese.

- She probably didn't know where to go,

she probably didn't know who to ask,

so she went with the organization she trusted.

That was her episcopal faith.

In a way of grateful for her to do that

because who knows where they could've ended up.

She could've sold them to a museum, she could've

done whatever she wanted with them.

But she wrote in her will that

she wanted them for the tribes.

That's a very simple thing, but it's a

very strong thing accessible to the tribe.

- On the reservation we have a church, St. Michael's.

It's part of a circle.

There is Parish Hall, there's the church, there's a

post office, and there is a museum as well.

- Growing up, I've heard a lot about my grandpa Robert.

He was very knowledgeable of the ways and our ceremonies.

When my grandpa Robert passed away, nobody wanted

to keep the museum going, so it just closed.

(somber acoustic guitar music)

- It's the bishop's responsibility to

care for the collection, to preserve them.

Deterioration happens if they're not in

the right temperature, if they're

not in the right moisture environment.

We had to pull them back and put them in storage.

- When I took the artifact from the museum,

it tend to, made a lot of people mad.

A lot of the people that came to the church

were asking why'd they do that.

People in different families,

artifacts, that's where they begin.

A lot of the families would come back

and say long time ago my dad had

made this, do we still have it?

And I'd say I hope we do, I don't know.

- This is an article about my grandpa Robert.

"During this time, elders and other

"members of the community worked with

"me to restore the museum as a public venue.

"One was Robert Sunroads.

"Robert had lived just out Ethete his entire life.

"Might he had been one of the keepers

"of Sister Adam's collections in Ethete?

"We never discussed it.

"I spent hours with my quiet,

"kind, and gentle friend Robert.

"We shared biscuits, gravy and

"coffee as I listened to his stories.

"Robert loved to just sit in the museum when I worked there.

"During these times, the men and the

"objects kept easy company with each other."

(wind howls)

(ethereal music)

- When we were first approached by

Jordan Dresser, my first thoughts to

that were I'm not really all that

comfortable supporting a casino.

At the same time my intention, and the diocese's

intention, is not to lock these items away.

Where they're just simply being preserved.

- After some time after not hearing anything,

boom, out of the blue I was asked to attend a meeting.

The Arapaho members of the episcopal church

set a date and they said okay, you can

come and talk about what you wanna do.

I didn't know what they were gonna say.

- It would be our decision, it would be a

mutual decision between their vestry and me.

- Even though I knew the majority of them,

still though it was nerve-wracking, and they

just said we turn the floor over to you guys.

- Jordan Dresser explained to the people

what was going on, it took some time.

- People can feed off each other,

can feed off the energy that you give.

We gave them all the reasons for them to say

yes in a sense because we had a place for them.

- Even if they decide yes, we're gonna

give them all back, and they just don't

let us display them, that's fine, that's fine.

They were here once before.

It would be nice if they could all be here again.

They had questions, they were nervous

that somebody who was gonna view

the artifacts was gonna go gamble.

- A lot of the older folks said no no, we don't

need them there, we don't need them there.

They're just borrowing them, they're not

gonna keep them there forever.

- They started talking amongst themselves

in Arapaho, which I don't understand.

I just felt helpless.

- In our tribe, they used to always

tell us we don't go backwards.

We go forward.

- When one considers what the people

of the Wind River Reservation have

had to go through throughout history,

some people might use the word trauma.

I would be comfortable with the word abuse.

When you have a people who have been so

wounded, it takes a long time and a lot of work.

I believe that the tribes have come

and the peoples have come a long way.

From my perspective, the way to move towards

health is to build relationships with one another.

After a good deal of thought, we made

the decision to allow a portion of the

Edith May Adam's collection to go

over to the Wind River Reservation

where we can open up the collection more than

we were ever able to over the last 50 years.

- It was just such a great moment.

I had to see the artifacts being put in the

cases in order for me to really comprehend it all.

(dramatic acoustic guitar music)

(Native American singing)

- I wanted people to feel a sense

of pride when they walked in, this was

a place for us to tell our story

the way we want to tell it.

- Some people might find it interesting

that a church and a casino or a diocese

and a casino could work together.

This was a test.

I mean it really was a test, it was

a test for them, it was a test for

us, it was a test for the tribe.

(ethereal music)

- When I got back from Chicago, I put

most of my energy into my family.

Just put everything separately

and then you can mix it the way you want.

Teaching my nieces and nephews.

Such (mumbles).

Watching them grow and powwows and dancing.

Sewing and beading.

- These ways were taught to our

grandparents by their grandparents by

their grandparents by their grandparents.

This right here is a design that

I made more recently for Macayla.

This is her cape that she wears when she dances.

The whole design right here is the sun.

This is the road.

Macayla Sunroads.

This whole design right here is a butterfly.

There's four of them.

This is her and her friends when they meet and they compete.

On this side, these arrowheads are

representing the achievements that

you've made and you've done and

the achievements that are to come yet.

That girl's full of achievements and I

hope that my designs bring those achievements.

(crowd cheering)

- This time, ladies and gentlemen,

Macayla Summer Sunroads will make her

last duty as the Denver March Princess.

- I will be giving the crown to the next princess.

I know that I've had a great year.

But then again there's the part of me

that's kinda sad that it's over.

- And now ladies and gentlemen,

Macayla will give her farewell speech.

As anything, as we move on, it is very difficult

sometimes knowing that it's coming to an end.

- I didn't think I was gonna get emotional, but I did.

It's been such an honor.

And my family for all the support.

And I'm gonna take this with me all throughout my life.

(cheers and applause)

You get so much out of that circle

and powwows and dancing and singing.

I'm very thankful that I did get that experience.

- After we got those artifacts back,

there's moments where I think wow, we made it.

We made it happen.

In seeing people walk through the room,

and the connections they make.

All this is really beautiful.

Why is that on loan to us?

I thought okay, this is something

that can empower the community.

Dear Jordan, congratulations, I am

pleased to inform you that you have

been accepted for Fall 2014 admission

to the Museum Studies Master's Program

at the University of San Francisco.

- Give me a hug, give me a hug.

(laughter)

(ethereal music)

(children laughing)

- Say a prayer for me, son.

God bless all the sacred things we have, Heavenly Father.

Mr. Rapose and the old people.

God bless Mother Earth and the

four winds and the four seasons.

Watch over my son.

Protect him.

(mumbles).

Amen.

- Thank you.

- I think when I was leaving I was

like I don't know if I can do this.

I just kept telling myself okay, well just go.

Right before I left to go to school, my friend

Randy gave me something to remind me of home.

I was really surprised, I was really,

like I didn't even know at all.

It's a nice gift.

- We'll always be with each other.

- Yeah, yeah, thank you.

All right, see you guys.

They all remind me that people pray

for me, miss me, and they think about me.

All this is is really overwhelming.

It reminds me of being, I take it

back to when I was 19, how excited

you are, and you get to leave here.

Back then I was so naive and optimistic.

I think when you're 19, I think

I was doing things for myself a lot of times.

Now I see where everything's connected.

It's just not about me, it's not

about me, it's something bigger and it's

for both tribes, and I guess in the end,

I don't know, all my emotions all

bottled up and everything and how

I feel, I guess I just feel Arapaho.

I guess that's just the best way to describe it.

- So where are you from originally?

- I'm from the Wind River Indian Reservation.

It's the only reservation in Wyoming.

- Oh really?

- Yeah.

- And so why the Museum Studies program?

- Well I work for my tribe at our casino

and we built a cultural room in there

that we call the Northern Arapaho Experience.

There's a large collection of artifacts that's

owned by the episcopal church out of Wyoming.

They basically agreed to loan us them for some time.

- Loan you the artifacts that belong to the Arapaho tribe.

- Yes, yes.

- Got it.

(laughter)

(gentle acoustic guitar music)

- I feel like now I have a tribal identity.

I feel more in touch with my Arapaho,

and even my Shoshone side than ever before.

Maybe part of the Indian experience

is that you have to look at every

decisions you made in your life and

think how does it relate to the past.

How can you use the skills you've been given

to carry on that for future generations?

When I get homesick I can close my eyes.

I can think about Wind River.

Visualize the mountains.

The rivers.

It can get me whole again.

- Those artifacts that we saw.

They're still with me.

A drum sound will change over time

if it's not taken care of well, you know?

There's something good about a drum, seeing,

watch the people that played it, you know?

The people who made it, what song they were singing.

Those things are, they're made for something.

The reason behind it is happiness.

Sure made me feel more safe.

For some reason that's the way I felt.

Whoever made it, he had a vow for people to be happy.

To feel good.

(rhythmic drumming)

The sound was still there, you know?

(mumbles).

Somebody might've been sick, you know.

It's something to bring him back.

Bring him back home.

I was troubled, I...

Couldn't get along very well, you know.

Playing the drum, it sure helped me out.

(drumming and acoustic guitar music)

- I can push up real high.

- My niece Macalee is my goddaughter.

I decided to bead Macalee an outfit

for her coming into the powwow circle.

I realized that I wanna give back

to our tribe and back to the reservation.

- What Macayla is making is more

a cotemporary version of what is

Arapaho and keeping that tradition alive.

And that's what makes the dynamics

of a culture too, it's not going to be the

same as those artifacts that we saw in Chicago.

- Everything has its purpose in the circle.

It keeps going and going and going.

Without those things, there's something missing.

People say we're losing it, we're losing it.

It's fading, but it's not lost.

We haven't lost it all.

This place here is just like a shadow.

The other side is like a song.

- Bringing in a young one to the

circle is like initiating them.

It's a very big moment because that's

you starting your life into the powwow arena.

That's when everybody knows that you're coming in.

- The way I've taught her, the second you hear that

drumming, you start putting your feet to the ground.

As soon as you start dancing, love it.

Love every minute of it, love everything.

(dramatic acoustic guitar music)

(Native American chanting)

They give us, for starts, the song.

That first start of the song,

you dance for our young people.

That second start you dance for our adolescent years.

That third start of that song you

dance for adulthood, dance for strength,

encouragement to keep our ways going.

That last start, the fourth start, think of

your old people and the ones that have gone on.

(rhythmic drumming)

- Thank you very much from the (mumbles)!

- You get so much out of that circle and

dancing and that's the beginning of all of that.

- My grandpa Robert Sunroads wanted us

as a family to carry on what he's taught us.

Now when I think about it, I can really

understand that that's what he

wanted, that's what grandpa wanted.

- Our ancestors have fought for us

as Indian people who live this way.

We're strong people because we

have gone through so much, and I'm

proud of where I live and where I come from.

I have to keep fighting for what I've been given.

- The artifacts that I used a long time ago,

back in the old days, they're still alive.

They're still alive.

(rhythmic drumming) (dramatic orchestral music)

(wind howls)

(gentle acoustic guitar music)

(rhythmic drumming accompaniment)