Project Lead: Prof. Albert Lacson
Vivero Fellow (2022-2023): Sarah Oide
The Omaha digital project addresses two legacies of centuries-long efforts to erase the culture and history of the Omaha nation: histories told from the perspectives of non-Omaha people; and, a weakening connection between young people and their cultural identity. The Omaha digital project seeks to address both challenges simultaneously through oral histories conducted by K-12 students of their Omaha elders. It is a collaborative project that includes teachers from the Omaha Nation Public School, Omaha youth, elders, and Grinnell College faculty members and students. Using Mukurtu, the Vivero Fellow will create a website to house an archive of digital interviews of members of the Omaha Nation.
The digital archive represents an opportunity for the Omaha Nation to represent their culture and history from their perspective as a sovereign people. From first contact in the colonial era to the present, non-Omahas, like missionaries, explorers, writers, US military officials, white federal Indian agents, journalists, and academic researchers have told stories about the Omahas. These stories have taken the form of official government reports, newspaper and magazine articles, nonfiction books, fictional accounts, scholarly pieces, and promotional literature for the state of Nebraska. Some of them have earnestly tried to recognize the voices of the Omahas themselves. Many, however, have perpetuated harmful lies about the Omaha people. The most detrimental narratives erase the history of Omahas. During the period of European colonization in North America, French and British colonists de-emphasized the history of Omaha people prior to their arrival giving the impression that Omaha history only began with the arrival of Europeans. Later, Americans built on this erasure by explicitly trying to destroy Omaha connections to their past through a forced assimilation that included the denial of distinctly Omaha religious practices, the replacement of the language with English, family separation, and even Omaha notions of what constituted a family. Despite these attempts to erase Omaha culture and history, the Omaha people have vigorously fought to maintain Omaha ways of being. In addition to nourishing their spirits through Omaha religious practices throughout the entire history of the tribe, most recently, the Omaha Nation has focused on food sovereignty and language revitalization. The digital archive builds on these efforts.
Omaha high school students will interview elders in an effort to create a digital archive of Omaha voices. The benefit derived from their collaboration in creating the interviews is hard to quantify. This project aspires to strengthen the connections between Omaha youth and elders. The making of this digital archive will fortify community bonds based on Omaha culture. While there will certainly be a final product in the form of the digital archive, a less visible but no less significant product will be human connection between curious young Omahas and older knowledge keepers.
