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ASU Indian Studies Host ConsortiumThe American Indian Studies Program, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University, hosted the 6th Annual American Indian Consortium on February 10th and 11th, 2005 at the University. The program, “Envisioning the Future of American Indian Studies: Creating Standards for the Development of Curriculum, Research & Practice,” featured two keynote speakers.
Day two featured Professor Devon A. Mihesuah, Editor of the American Indian Quarterly, Northern Arizona University, and member of the Choctaw Nation, Oklahoma. She is professor of Indigenous Studies at Northern Arizona University. The topic of her talk was “Indigenizing the Academy.” On Friday, February 10, attendees gathered in the Labriola National American Indian Data Center for a reception and poetry readings by ASU professors, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn and Laura Tohe, who were joined by graduate student Kyle Wilson. The audience was literally mesmerized by the three outstanding presentations. Tohe is author of No Parole Today; Cook-Lynn is past editor of Wicazo Sa Review. Donations Come in all Shapes and SizesThe Labriola Center always welcomes donations of the collected papers of individuals. For example, in 2004, we were honored to receive ASU Law Professor, Kevin Gover’s working calendars and 11 albums of photographs, which he collected during his tenure as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs during the Clinton administration. The Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, surprised us with a facsimile copy of a handmade scrapbook that George Catlin created in 1849, and which contained fifty original watercolors: George Catlin’s Souvenir of the North American Indians: A Facsimile of the Original Album With an Introductory Essay and Chronology by William H. Tuettner. No less important, was the gift of Michael Redhouse, ASU student, who had founded the organization, American Indian Medical Society (AIM), which unfortunately dissolved. Michael came in to the Center with an envelope filled with $283.47, half of the proceeds. An equal amount was given to the Multi-Cultural Student Services. The generous donation was added to the Labriola Endowment in the ASU Foundation. Michael has requested that we use the money for books, and we are happy to do so. Jeanne Muñoz, PhD, of San Francisco, also a friend of the Center, donated a Plains Horse Dance Stick, which was created by Toby Christopher (Choctaw), proprietor of the Warrior’s Legacy in Ruidoso, New Mexico. The artist noted that the item was a museum replica, “ which was used during a horse honoring ceremony, a social affair. He went on to say that “the warriors may have had 2 or 3 of these each painted & decorated as to represent a special horse. They would dance and sing songs honoring a horse, then bring the horse in and ride him around to show the people what a great horse he was. Now, imagine 50 to 100 warriors singing, the drums beating, then riding all those horses around the dance area, you can feel that moment when you have your horse stick in your hand. This is the warrior’s legacy.” Young Kelsie Axelrod and her friend Pollet from Redmond, Washington, came to the Labriola Center last year to use our research Navajo Code Talkers. Together, they created the documentary, “Navajo Code Talkers During World War II,” for entry to the National History Day Contest. We gratefully accepted the resulting CD-ROM and learned that the girls made the regional finals with their entry. Historic Photographs Deeded to ASUFranciscan brother, Simeon Schwemberger, was 34 when he arrived at St. Michaels Mission on Arizona’s Navajo reservation in 1901. He soon learned to speak the language, and in addition to his routine mission duties, he discovered a passion for photography. With the mission’s oversize camera in tow, Schwemberger began a 7-year odyssey photographing life on the Navajo reservation, the Hopi mesas, and New Mexican pueblos. During this time, he produced some 1,750 images from 4 x 7 glass plates. Though an amateur with no formal training, nevertheless, the photographs he took are outstanding portraits of individuals and families. Of real interest, however, is his 1905 photographic record of the Navajo Nightway Ceremony, a ritual intended to heal and restore harmony. This activity ended when Schwemberger quit the order taking his photographs with him (it is said that falling in love with the niece of one of priests led to his departure; they never married). In 1911, he and his brother began farming in Florida, and somewhere along the way, he married twice. However, the southwest was in Schwemberger’s blood and he ultimately returned to Gallup, where he opened a studio and sold postcards. This later expanded to Sims Indian Trading Store, which he ran with his second wife. At one point, he returned the photographs to the mission. Sadly, he never received recognition for his photography over his lifetime. He died on January 17, 1931, and is buried in Hillcrest Cemetery, Gallup. In the meantime, the plates rested at St. Michaels, and during the 1970s and 1980s, Paul Long, University of Arizona anthropologist, worked with the negatives and published some 100 of them in his 1992 book, Big Eyes. As time went on, the Franciscans began to recognize the need for a more permanent form of preservation and began discussion with ASU West’s new College of Interdisclipinary Arts and Sciences to find a home for the glass negatives. Ultimately, the glass plates will be sent to the ASUs storage facility with its sophisticated temperature and humidity controls, considered one of the best storage environments in the southwest. In the meantime, the Department of Archives & Manuscripts on the Tempe Campus, will digitally scan the plates and have new acrylic negatives made for research purposes. The collection of glass plates was deeded to ASU during a reception on February 17, 2005. Dean Sherrie Schmidt of the University Libraries signed the agreement for ASU, while The Rev. Meldon Hickey, President of St. Michaels Mission and the very Reverend Larry Dunham, provincial of Curia Juan Diego, the Franciscan administrative district for St. Michaels, signed for the mission.
 San Carlos Tribal Council and Education Staff at ASUA delegation from the San Carlos Tribe spent a day at ASU, touring sites and learning about programs available to American Indian students. They ended their day with a reception in the Labriola Center. The Center mounted a small exhibit in their honor, which included a facsimile copy of Volume I of the handwritten Apache dictionary which Francis J. Uplegger compiled in the early 1900s . Uplegger, a Lutheran minister, emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1887. He came to San Carlos, Arizona ,in 1919 to establish a mission to the San Carlos Apache. It wasn’t long before he learned the Apache language, and compiled a four-volume Apache-English dictionary. He also assisted the San Carlos Apache in writing their constitution, which was used as a model by many other tribes. Uplegger was officially adopted into the San Carlos Tribe in 1961. He also took thousands of photographs, which are in the Arizona Collection, University Libraries at ASU. Microfilm copies of the dictionary are in the Bancroft Library and the Labriola Center. New Subject Guides Available on Labriola Web Site Emilia Morgan, ASU student and Library Aide in the Labriola Center, has compiled two subject guides, American Indian Sovereignty and American Indian Economic Development, which can be printed from the Labriola Web Site at: Each contains a list of reference books, general monographs, theses and dissertations, ephemera, Video recordings, along with instructions on how to find newspaper and journal articles. These are also available in hard copy from the Center. Some other subject guides are:
The Labriola Bookshelf
Don’t Let the Sun Step Over You: A White Mountain Apache Family Life, 1860-1975 by Eva Tulene Watt with Keith Basso, University of Arizona Press, 2004. Eva Tulene Watt, a White Mountain Apache, is an Arizona Living Treasure. Now 91, she lives near Hon-Dah on the Fort Apache Reservation. Keith Basso, University of New Mexico, recorded this remarkable woman’s biography, which tracks her family’s history from the 1860s to the present time. Her interpretation of her people’s past includes events, biographical sketches, and cultural insights into Western Apache family life. “Western Apache men and women have found the will to carry on by ridding their minds of unpleasant thoughts,” she said. “Even in desperate times, Apache families refuse to let the sun step over them. On the Bloody Road to Jesus: Christianity and the Chiricahua Apaches by H. Henrietta Stockel, University of New Mexico Press, 2004. Beginning with the Spanish frontier, Stockel discusses the history and conditions of the Chiricahua Apache and the efforts of various Christian religions to proselytize. As with other tribes, the Apache outwardly accepted many of these beliefs, while at the same time, keeping their own traditions alive, sometimes incorporating the two. An interesting example is a magnificent oil painting of Christ as an Apache, which hangs behind the altar at St. Joseph’s Mission Church in Mescalero, New Mexico. Into the Canyon: Seven Years in Navajo Country by Lucy Moore, University of New Mexico Press, 2004. Newly married, with degrees from Radcliff and Harvard Law School, Lucy Moorre and her husband, Bob Hilgendorf, set out for Chinle, Arizona in the summer of 1968, where Bob would hone his law skills as attorney for DNA, the Navajo Legal Services Program (Diné Bee’iiná Náhiilnah Bee Agha’diit’aahe, Inc.). What follows is a delightful story of six years residence, where both eagerly learned to live and work within the constraints of a new culture. Some notable Navajos make an appearance, including Peterson Zah, a Director of DNA, and later, first President of the Navajo Nation. Biography
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