Transcript:
VO: Haskell senior Debbie Griffin is curating a project, titled “Whispering Leaves of Spirit”. A book that will highlight the rich history of Indigenous cultures and provide historical documentation for future Haskell students.
Debbie: “My project is to document stories or culture of the tribes of the students or the staff. I am beginning to look more for elders or grandparents of their own that have revealed or told them stories when they were young. Many of them as possible should be documented for our culture. What better place to house it than at Tommaney Library here on the Haskell campus.”
VO: Library director, Carrie Cornelius, has been a tremendous help in getting the project off the ground.
Carrie: “Debbie came to me last year, in the fall, with an idea from Dr. Wildcat — who always has great ideas — and Dr. Wildcat said ‘Make a book; collect stories from students, staff, and faculty; of Haskell; and make a book’
VO: Cornelius goes on to explain the importance of Indigenous culture and ideas coming from Indigenous voices.
Carrie: “When I sorted these books, I was looking at the authors to find out if the authors are Indigenous or not because some of these are really beautiful looking books — y’know, all of “Indian Country”, of “Native Sovereignty” — and at the same time, if you look at the content of above and below, these are all books made by Native people [above] and these are all books made by non-Native people [below] and all of them are Native content. The point with that is the importance of our own perspective. Our identities and our voices — Indigenous people; if we’re not making our books, other people will.”
Carrie: “The most beautiful thing is Haskell has it’s own press. This is 1925. I don’t know if this one was printed here but down in Navarre — the back of Navarre — we had a press… there’s been more than one book that was you know that has been gathered and published of student stories at Haskell. Our voices are so important, our perspectives are so important and the sooner that we have them out you know i think all of us as native people know which content is shareable and those like ceremonial knowledge or traditional knowledge what we should share and what we shouldn’t share.”
VO: Griffin implores any Haskell student or staff to submit to this unique opportunity
Debbie: “Do submit something if you want to. I’m still taking submissions. There are boxes in the dorms at O.K. Hall, at Winona and Roe Cloud and if they want them contact me. It’ll be a unique book. I think the excitement comes from revealing to the future generations that these stories were documented at this time under difficult circumstances… here in Tommaney for them to read if they’re very interested in stories from maybe a century past or maybe a century and a half past; unique ones, original ones, cultural, maybe historical; very exciting.”
VO: This is Xakai Arquette with Haskell News.
