As some of you know from visiting museums, not everything that is displayed on exhibit is owned by that particular museum. It is common practice for museums to loan items out to other institutions. For example, I recently visited the new Southern Ute Cultural Center...
From this discussion, I was given a video to watch. The Anasazi Heritage Center and the Crow Canyon Archeological Center, which are located not far from Mesa Verde, had produced a video on respecting these sites that was highly regarded by critics and won some awards. My mentor was interested to see what I thought of the video. My opinion of the short was rather judgmental, but first I need to explain.
On Monday of my second week at the park I began the longest project of my internship. Every year for over the past 20 years, Mesa Verde has held consultation meetings with the 24 affiliated tribes. My mentor, who has been in her position as a curator for a little more than a year, noticed that the notebooks containing the records of these consultation meetings with the tribes were becoming very fragile.
I am in Tsaile, Arizona, where I am living on the Diné College campus. Living on the reservation is drastically different from living in a city like Los Angeles. Normally there are animals wandering around and roaming where they please. This is what I wake up to, and I enjoy it because I definitely don’t get to see a horse cross my path in LA.
Wynette interning at the Diné Policy Institute at Diné College, a tribal institute located in Tsaile, Arizona on the Navajo Nation. Ya’a’teeh! My name is Wynette. I am a psychology and sociology major at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. I am interning at the Diné Policy Institute at Diné College, a tribal institute located in Tsaile, Arizona on the Navajo Nation.
This is the fourth part in a series of blog entries by our scholar Deanna, who is writing about her internship experience at Mesa Verde National Park. Next week will will meet Wynette from Occidental College in L.A., who is working at the Diné Policy Institute this summer at Diné College.
This is the third entry in a series of blog entries by our scholar Deanna, who is writing about her internship experience at Mesa Verde National Park. On Day 2 I began the work that I came to accomplish. Our very first task was a simple one. My mentor, Tara, decided that the unprocessed archives associated with the park’s 2006 NAGPRA reburial found in the repository needed to be protected from researchers that come to do work.
Prior to my internship, I had never been to Mesa Verde National Park. To make it worse, the two guys I brought to help me set up my camp were as unfamiliar with the area as I was. Some people at a gas station gave us directions that sent us in the complete opposite direction of the park, and we spent a good three hours in the wrong forest. To add to all of that, we were in a Dodge Caliber, which isn’t equipped for back-country driving.
Graduation ceremonies were held all over Indian country the last several weeks. So many of our scholarship recipients have worked countless hours to receive that elusive document among Native people, the one that testifies to the completion of their course of study. In addition to the stress brought on by their rigorous curriculum, many have endured natural disasters in their communities and family tragedies. Yet, they found a way to emerge from it and stay their academic course.
Skano, everyone, and greetings from Mesa Verde National Park of Colorado. My name is Deanna and I believe some introductions and background information are in order. I was born and raised all over Southern California on various reservations but I am enrolled in the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians of New York.
