This grant has meant a great deal to our Tribe. It has allowed us to reassert tribal sovereignty over important Paleolithic sites that may have been haphazardly destroyed if it weren’t for this work. The protection of these resources is of paramount importance to our Tribe. Furthermore, it is a huge step in an even larger movement of sovereignty– the establishment of a Tribal Historic Preservation Office, which will take over control of archaeological sites on the reservation from the state. This grant was a big step in taking ownership of archaeological resources on our reservation.

On August 30, 2017, our Tribe received notice that we were awarded an Administration for Native Americans (ANA) grant. The ANA grant allows Tribes to bridge the gap between community language projects and create a seamless path for language acquisition. One objective of the grant focuses on outreach projects. Our Language Fair was one outreach project that was mentioned in the grant. The idea for the Fair began with, and was funded by, our Phase 1 proposal.

Our Phase 1 grant really kick-started great partnerships! Our grants team is thrilled to have attracted so much additional support, using the Phase 1 award as the catalyst.

We successfully interviewed 18 elders with the assistance of the Phase 1 grant. By conducting these interviews, we were able to document sacred, as well as traditional use sites. The project was a great success and so well received that we are applying for additional funding through the state’s preservation program to conduct more interviews and further preserve our sacred sites, stories, culture, and identity.

Our Nation’s THPO began work at an archeological site two years ago to help resurrect the history of an influential Tribal leader who is virtually unknown outside our community.  As the homestead is located in present-day Pennsylvania, the Nation has limited power to protect the site. With our Phase 1 archaeological survey, we can make known the wealth of knowledge and interpretive history regarding our leader and his role in the Revolutionary War.

The grant has been of tremendous value to the tribe as it has helped us preserve our history and culture. The council house that is being renovated was in complete disarray. It had been turned into a church and used as a place of worship for many years, then abandoned. CRF funding ensured the building’s preservation and its addition to the National Register of Historic Places. It will stand to remind the Nation and the wider community of the Tribe’s humble beginnings.

Based on the accomplishments achieved under our Phase 1 grant, we applied for and received a National Park Service Heritage Grant. The NPS grant supports the continued development of a centralized GIS database to effectively manage previously recorded archaeological sites and historic properties identified on our Reservation. The next step is to maintain the database and to work with medicine societies, kiva groups and other religious fraternities to document places of traditional importance and religious significance on the reservation and incorporate this information into the GIS database without compromising the sensitive nature of this information. This will be an on-going effort for our Tribe.

Our Phase 1 grant enabled us to lay the groundwork for a partnership with The Nature Conservancy.

The grant made it possible to plan a much-needed digitization project for our state archeological site files. When completed, the project will reduce costs and save time for federal agencies and others requiring information about our archeological resources as they plan construction projects. It will also provide convenient access to the state’s archeological data for professionals working for federal agencies and others, as well as for SHPO staff. Our CRF-funded plan enabled us to submit a successful proposal to the State Department of Transportation to complete the digitization effort. We received $777,520 from DOT for a three-year initiative that will benefit federal, tribal, state, and local government agencies as well as preservation professionals statewide through a password-protected website.

The results of our Phase 1 project were better than we could have hoped for. We found 24 previously unknown Paleolithic sites, some of which are very large and archaeologically significant, yet were unknown to the Tribe. In creating a GIS map of all the sites on the reservation, we have given the Tribe the opportunity to protect those sites in perpetuity from development, looters, and natural processes, while reclaiming tribal heritage. The cultural map we created is now the basis for the Cultural Register that will be part of the Tribe’s THPO application later this year.

As a direct result of the work conducted with Phase 1 funding, staff responsible for geocoding the standing structures on our reservation received a National Trust for Historic Preservation scholarship to attend their training in Chicago. She learned a number of skills and valuable tools at the training that have been beneficial to the project. The Phase 1 funding allowed us to accomplish important goals that will have a direct positive impact on the services we offer.

Our Culture Department would like to say Hyshqe (thank you) for the CRF Phase 1 grant. These funds allowed us to complete important repatriation work as well as planning and research for our future museum. Both of these projects hold great significance to our tribal community.  

Our Phase 1 project jump-started a large data development effort that will provide much more efficient customer service for our clients—planners, developers, cultural resource consultants, and others—who use the state’s database to minimize potential adverse effects on historic resources.  The work helped pave the way for a very large two-year grant from the State Highway Administration to continue the data development work. Our online map-based application launched in May 2017 will be improved and enhanced with much more robust data as the result of this project.

Our Tribe was able to compile, catalog, and store on our database the original hard copies of the teachings and lesson plans of one of the last fluent speakers of our dialect, who recently passed away. The final products included flash cards and a coloring book. As our last fluent speaker’s passing marked the loss of knowledge about our language that can never be replaced, it meant a great deal to preserve her work for the tribe and community. The Phase 1 grant helped assure that her life’s work will be available for future generations. 

Our Phase 1 grant [for a series of traditional quilting classes] served as a vehicle to bring together a group of individuals who are advocating for Tribal cultural arts to be valued again and deliberately nurtured. These efforts served as a foundation for our Healing through [Cultural] Arts project recently funded by the First Nations Development Institute. As a result, we now have a part-time arts coordinator (one of the young mothers who participated in the Phase 1 quilting classes) who is currently establishing a permanent arts collective for our community.

The trip to our ancestral homelands was very uplifting for our Tribal members. The elders experienced a cultural connection and sense of comfort there. It was an amazing experience that will never be forgotten. [It] has meant a great deal to our Tribal community, as well as our Cultural Preservation department. This trip would not have been possible without the funds from this grant.

The Phase 1 grant allowed us to build capacity in digital geospatial inventory and analysis.  As the smallest tribe in [our state] with no current economic development, our department primarily subsists on grants, and the contract work we engage in during the consultation process of federal and state undertakings. The geospatial database is integral to cultural resource protection in the 21st century. We simply would not have had the resources to build this incredible database without the Phase 1 grant. Thank you!

This funding opportunity has meant a great deal to our Nation. Instilling a sense of pride and belonging to people who once were losing their identities is so important to the work we do. With the help from CRF, we were able to actually make our museum better than ever before. At our annual nationwide Tribal festival, we obtained positive feedback on the museum exhibit improvements and even changed attitudes as to what it means to be a member of our Tribe. One person surveyed stated that after viewing the exhibits, he finally “felt complete.”

The [Phase 1] mapping project is continuing to prove an invaluable resource and asset to the division of historic preservation by adding permanent, readily available GIS data that is used frequently to aid in Section 106 reviews, for mapping historic family cemeteries and for mapping repatriation activities under NAGPRA.

Because our tribe is small, with no economic revenues other than their BIA 638 grant, we are not able to fund critically important traditional cultural classes. The Phase 1 grant allowed this to happen and allowed us to start with the youth, who are the hope of our future! Without the assistance of this grant, we would not have had the funds to accomplish what we did.

The dataset acquired with the Phase 1 grant permitted the THPO to better address and map our resources. An expedient and responsive approach to Section 106 reviews benefits our Nation by allowing us to be an active participant in activities that may affect our cultural resources. The THPO’s increased presence through the Section 106 process signifies and contributes to tribal sovereignty, cultural awareness and responsibility in government-to-government consultation. Additionally, more accurate mapping provides a pathway for qualitative research to incorporate cultural knowledge and lifeways. Improving these existing databases substantially affects our ability to connect culture to place.

The Traditional Knowledge passed down through the generations is very important to our community. This grant allowed us the chance to have elders and youth spend quality time together in the mountains gathering medicinal plants and then using those plants and rocks in a traditional ceremony.

The Phase I grant has allowed our Cultural Resource Program to modernize the way it collects and manages cultural resource information. The GPS units we purchased have been used on approximately 41 projects relating to cultural resource identification efforts. It has also allowed us to better communicate with tribal leadership and other interested parties through accurate mapping. The purchase of GPS units will serve the Cultural Resource Program for years to come. Even after the units themselves become obsolete, the data generated by these units will continue to aid the Tribe in the management of its significant cultural resources in perpetuity.

The actual result of our Phase 1 [summer youth camp] project exceeded our goal. The connection that was felt, not only by the youth, but by our tribal chaperones as well, was incredible. To be there with our brothers and sisters and to see how much of our traditions, language and culture we have truly lost by being removed so far from our homelands and people really resonated and instilled a sense of urgency. Since our return, we have looked at having visitations with our sister bands in hopes of trying to renew our traditional songs and dances. We have begun looking for a new language instructor, and are also considering bringing back our fall and spring festivals, something that has not been done in many years. The summer youth camp opened our eyes and put a desire in people’s hearts to want to learn our native tongue and keep our traditions alive.

The grant allowed the THPO to contribute to the protection of religion, culture, and language. It means a great deal to the Community to protect our ancient, cultural places in any manner we can. When those places are damaged or destroyed, it cuts the links to our ancestors and adversely affects our people. We do our best to protect these places because it enhances our lives and culture. The grant provided us the opportunity to continue a meaningful, enhanced existence.

Trails and roads are more than just a navigational structure; they are the means of connecting Pueblo villages with the landscape itself. This connection of the pueblo to the landscape along trails and the opening of a channel between the pueblo and important traditional sites is very important. Thus, the Phase 1 grant to study our ancestral and historic trails is more than an exercise in secular geography. The assistance of the Cultural Resource Fund in this matter of cultural preservation is much appreciated.

Our Phase 1 project was a success, and the results were appreciated and useful. The grant provided Tribal members with the tools and equipment needed in the gathering of resources and building of traditional homes. All Tribal religious services and ceremonies are performed and conducted only at the traditional homes.

The renovation of our old school building and the acquisition of culturally relevant items have restored a sense of pride within our community.  As the coordinator for this project, I would like to extend my gratitude for the funding. This was a positive experience and great opportunity! Chi-Miigwech! (Big Thanks).

Our Phase 1 grant funded training that has had a huge impact upon our program, the community and the Tribe. The training created a domino effect that continues to benefit the program, and the Tribe. The program was able to hire 11 cultural resource interns. Drawing from the Section 106 and TCP trainings, our staff created an introductory booklet to help explain the Section 106 process and TCPs. The staff can now better educate the interns and through this process, better prepare and inform the next generation. This will prove invaluable when these high school interns begin seeking jobs within the community and Tribe.

The Phase 1 grant assisted our Nation in increasing its understanding of the types and locations of historic properties within its ancestral lands. While we have a solid understanding of the locations of ancestral villages and larger sites, the knowledge of many of the smaller historic properties and traditional resources has been lost or diminished over time.  This project allowed more of that information to be captured. The sources for this information came from both the research of past historic records and through outreach to other conservation partners including local historical societies, historians, avocational archaeologists, professional archaeologist and academia. The information derived through the Phase 1 project has increased the Nation’s understanding of ancestral land use in areas of modern significance. 

The Phase 1 funding gave our Elders a means to express themselves to the younger generation. Traditionally, Elders orally communicated with young tribal members about language, lifeways, and cultural arts. However, there has been a decline of intergenerational communication that has created a language and cultural gap due to modernization. With the CRF’s help, the Office of Historic Preservation has been empowered to design a plan utilizing technology to help inspire and nurture intergenerational oral traditions by modern means.

The Phase 1 funding over the past two years has been a wonderful catalyst for our families and children to recover traditions and cultural activities. The catalyst has been substantial, because without Phase 1 funding, we would not have had the funds to provide cultural enrichments. The Tribe has no casino or economic revenues and the entitlement programs are barely enough for our members to survive. With a reservation with 50% poverty and a high unemployment rate, and considering long distances to access traditional ceremonial sites, the grant made a big difference in having access to cultural arts and traditions.

As the Tribal Chairman, with sincere gratitude I am thankful the Cultural Resource Fund has made a way for our Tribe to enrich our culture and reap the benefits that are now helping our Tribe recover our heritage and cultural wellness.

I want to take this time to thank you. This grant not only made many things possible for my cultural department, it will give back to all members of my Tribe.

Phase 1 funding enabled us to jumpstart our [Ceremonial House renovation] projec. The community was eager to see the progress as the project moved forward. The community and elders have begun to use the Ceremonial House for services and memorials. This has led to an increase in cultural activity and exposure to ceremonies for the youth of the community. The grant also provided an opportunity to utilize the tribal workforce–many of whom are reservation residents, who were proud to do the work on the project themselves.

This [language revitalization] grant has opened many doors for our Tribe. We have achieved many of our goals and the project has inspired a new sense of hope within our community that our language can be revived. In doing so, we have also been given hope that our younger generations will be able to grow up surrounded by their language, producing children who will be able to one day proudly say that the first language they learned was their own. The grant also positively affected Tribal members from neighboring reservations who have a strong desire to revitalize and maintain the integrity of our common language. We have been surprised us by the number of people who would like to be involved. We are continuously receiving new language learners, and many have thanked our Tribe for allowing members from different reservations to participate.

This grant really helped us in training tribal members not only to be cultural site monitors, but also in teaching participants the importance of protecting our history. This grant allowed us to put on the class at no expense to participants and created a tribal resource of monitors to place on projects when needed.

The project staff and I want to express our appreciation for Cultural Resource Fund’s gracious support and assistance in helping us maintain the culture and language of our people.

While working in [our Phase 1-funded demonstration] garden and on the lodge, we realized that our temporary exhibit became analogous to “Tom Sawyer’s fence painting.” People who visited wanted to become involved, to participate—all the while sharing information—about cultivating, weeding, and simply socializing. One wonders about the role of these cooperative tasks in late prehistoric times and how the gardens may have functioned to embrace community solidarity and socialization.

The Board anxiously awaits the opportunity to apply for Phase 3 funding. Our Tribal cemeteries are proof of our history. Revitalizing our Dakota language strengthens our Tribal identity. These two factors will help sustain our Nation into the future. The Phase 1 grant award has aided our Nation in these accomplishments. We thank you! Wopidaiciciye!

The Phase 1 grant jumped started the language, cultural and historic preservation programs of the Tribe. The grant leveraged the support of the Tribal Council to appropriate the Tribe’s own funds to support the activities of these programs in conjunction with other private and public funds for our Tribe.

The grant was instrumental in helping our state to provide important training for local community preservationists.

[Our Phase 1 grant for a feasibility study] has significantly changed our preservation of cultural sites, artifacts, and culturally specific items. It has filled in a missing piece of the puzzle for our preservation practices, and allowed us to compile a database that can be used in numerous other ways. The grant helped us evaluate current facility resources and obtain formal designation of land to use for construction of a new cultural center facility. We also determined the best partnerships to enhance and support a new cultural center. 

The grant has enabled us to create a beautiful cultural resource film for our people. It brought back many good memories for our Elders, in particular. After the filming of the project, we lost the Elder/Advisor of our language program. We are so fortunate to have been able to showcase him in the film. We treasure it even more because of this. As a community, the film is being utilized in many capacities. It will be shown in the waiting room of our IHS Clinic on a continuous loop. It has been shown at TANF events, and is used by other tribal programs, such as Future Generations, in their own curriculum. This is a film which will be used for years to come, and we are very proud of that.

The newly found skills and certifications we acquired, along with the wonderful technology that the CRF made it possible for to us to obtain, allowed us to incorporate a more diverse and dynamic workflow into the Tribe’s departments and programs. Several departments have benefited from this project, and will continue to, now, and into the future. We are constantly finding new ways to use the drones, and have several projects in mind, which we are currently looking for funding for. We would like to graciously thank the CRF for funding this project, and look forward to hopefully working with you guys again =) Miigwitch! (Thank you)

The grant made it possible for the committee to create and distribute a language survey and to ascertain, with some degree of certainty, the status of our language throughout our communities. We discovered that the status of our language is fragile and demands urgent intervention. The survey verified that the language, which is spoken by older members of the Tribe, is not being passed on to the younger generation; therefore, the language will die within an estimated twenty years without a concerted, persistent, determined effort to revitalize it. The grant provided the impetus for our certified language instructors to embark upon a time of reflection, consideration, and interaction regarding the state of the language—to bring it back into the homes of our people and to make it relevant to the lives of the people. Because we conducted this valid survey of the status of our language and identified the critical state of endangerment, we now have substantial leveraging information for securing other grant funding to continue with our intergenerational teaching model and bring our language alive once again.

The training and equipment [made possible by the Phase 1 grant] furthered our Tribe’s historic and cultural preservation goals for generations to come. The grant allowed us to be able to train tribal members on the importance of preservation of tribal history and tribal culture and traditions. The grant also allowed the Tribe to purchase the equipment necessary to further our ability to conduct accurate and efficient site surveys.

This grant allowed Tribal Members to begin to understand who they are and where they came from through the building of community with language. There is a sense of pride that had been lost due to colonization, etc. that is beginning to be restored. The young people and even elders have become more comfortable with using language on a more regular basis. There is also a deeper understanding of how language is tied to culture and sovereignty. This grant is the only way, at this time, which we can provide most of our cultural and language activities. We now have a small but thriving language community within the Tribe and more people in the office have been using our language when they speak, email, or leave voice messages/greetings.

Thanks to this grant, our Pueblo’s museum looks much cleaner with a new paint job. We installed an archive room with temperature control and security access. The archive room will be used to store priceless items and/or items not on display. We updated the museum and cultural center’s inventory. The inventory includes pictures and is stored in the Past Perfect database. We are now able to catalog any item as soon as we acquire it.

The CRF Phase 1 project has resulted in a significant improvement in our Nation’s ability to carry out key activities in its traditional and ceremonial life and to preserve those traditions for future generations.

The [Phase 1] grant has given a sense of urgency for preservation and teaching our language and culture to our youth.  With this understanding, we will move forward seeking and finding additional means for the preservation and teaching of our language and culture.

Our Tribe’s most important confidential cultural records are [now] preserved and protected for generations to come.  [The Phase 1] grant allowed us to put in place a much-needed records system which ensures there will be no loss.  Because of that, our tribal members feel at ease knowing the records of the Most Sacred are properly secured and protected.