Mendota needs donation for the raffle, we could use pop and water too. If you can make a donation to the raffle please call the office for more information. We need lots of volunteers to help with the Pow Wow. We need someone to call people to help with the Pow Wow. Sharon
The Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community would like to invite you to become a member.
Whether or not you are Dakota, you can be a vital part of our community. Individual, educational, and corporate memberships are available.
Urgent open letter to all peoples of good heart about the current situation of the MMDC.
An open letter to all peoples of good heart about our current situation
from the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community.
We are the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, and we are here today fulfilling that prophesy as best we can in the place where our direct ancestors lived.
Many generations ago, our elders prophesized that a time would come when their descendants would return to the birthplace of the Dakota Nation to protect its sacred sites and bring Dakota culture back to its place of origin. This place is the b’dota (mistranslated by the French as Mendota), the joining together place, of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.
For the past 15 years we have been doing this by:
Successfully fighting for the preservation of the sacred spring (Mnihdoka Wakan) known as Coldwater Springs (Go here, COLD WATER SPRINGS to learn more)
We have done all this with a good heart and unwavering commitment for the past 15 years and we have plans to do much more.
But now our sources of funding have dried up and we have come upon a hard time.
WE HAVE THREE MONTHS BEFORE we RUN OUT OF FUNDS AND LOOSE OUR COMMUNITY CENTER in Mendota, the home of our ancestors.
We plan to be here for more than seven times seven generations, but right now we need your help!
Losing the community center we are currently renting would seriously jeopardize our ability to continue our work and fulfill our mission. (See MISSION STATEMENT)
WE HAVE SPENT YEARS CONTESTING AGAINST POWERFUL, WELL FINANCED FORCES THAT WANTED TO DEMOLISH SACRED Sites IN THE TWIN CITIES METROPOLITAN AREA for ECONOMIC GAIN. WE HAVE BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF THESE FIGHTS AND WANT TO CONTINUE AS EFFECTIVE, VIGILANT DEFENDERS OF THE SACRED LANDS OF OUR ANCESTORS.
We have nourished a renaissance of Dakota culture in this area, freely made available to peoples of all races and colors.
We are in the process of applying for grants and developing the long-term financial stability that will allow us to purchase our community center in Mendota. But first we must first look to our immediate need of keeping a roof over our heads.
We need your FINANCIAL support right now TO KEEP GOING!
HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP:
Use this link: DONATIONS to go to the page on our website from which you can choose the amount and type of donation you wish to make. Whatever level you can afford to help us at will be greatly appreciated! We are a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization, so your donations are 100% tax deductable. In supporting us financially you will be helping our efforts to fulfill the prophesies of our elders which motivate us to keep on going no matter what the obstacles!
If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us via phone at (651) 452-4141, or send an email to info@mendotadakota.com
There is one more thing we need to ask of you. Whether or not you are able to contribute anything right now, PLEASE take two or three minutes and send the link to this page, http://mendotadakota.com to all your friends and ask them to please send it to their friends as well. If you are on facebook or any other social networking sites, please send our homepage link to your friends there as well. In this way our message will spread out, and through the power of the many we will meet our immediate critical need.
PIDAMAYA,
THANK YOU! THE MENDOTA TRIBAL COUNCIL.
DOWNLOAD this letter as a PDF file HERE
DOWNLOAD this letter as a DOC file HERE
* We will be posting some great informative videos featuring Jim Anderson. They will be available on Youtube and our website, please check back in a few days. Also you can login or register to join our e-mailing list. (newsletters and mailing list can be controlled from your profile once you have registered.)
On Sunday Sept 12, there will be an honorary for Marie Nordin, and Clarice Gombond. Their family will be having a small giveaway.
If interested please call the Mendota office ASAP, 651-452-4141 Scotty Browns Eyes had to cancel.
Sharon
Jeff made our last 3 slide shows of the Wacipi (Pow Wows)
When Jeff sends me the 9th slide show, I will add it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJisW7muG90
Wicoie Nandagikendan Early Childhood Language Immersion Program(2)
http://www.chaskaherald.com/news/activities/wacipi-fills-chaska-park-traditional-song-and-dance-108
Help with Pow Wow
Donations and volunteers are needed for Mendota’s 11th annual Welcome Home Traditional Wacipi.
The Pow Wow is scheduled for Sept. 10-12 at St. Peter’s Church grounds in Mendota. Donations are needed for the raffle. Water and soft drinks are needed, as well as volunteers.
The traditional Pow Wow is open to the public. It will include dancing ceremonies as well as a unity feast. The event organizers recommend bringing lawn chairs. If you are able to help, call 651-452-4141.
Just a simple typographic update.
The pow wow flyer, and vendors appl, and many other documents, forms and files can be downloaded from our DOWNLOADS section.
We have two drums Little Thunder Birds and Many Nations. Mike Scott, and Mary So Happy are the lead dancers. Grand entry will be at 1:00 and we will go till 7:00 or so with a feast to follow. We needed to move to McKnight Park in Chaska. To get to the park, take 212 west to 41/Chestnut Street north, go to the 2nd stop light, that will be Pioneer Trail. Turn left, go up a little hill Jonathan Elementary School on your right, guests may park in the school parking lot. Dancers and Vendors go to the next street to the right, then take next right to parking lot that is reserved for you.
Please tell as many people as you can, there is no charge for vendors to set up, all dancers are welcome. Please come and enjoy the day.
Thank you all for your support, If you have any Questions please email stoneripp@yahoo.com
Wally
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The two-story house in dot-on-the-map Mendota (population: 197) is more ragged than rustic.
White paint is peeling off doors. A side porch has collapsed. On the front lawn, weeds have won the turf war against grass.
But on Wednesday nights, supporters of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community try to forget they have trouble making rent on their ramshackle community center. There is important work to do here along Hwy. 13: There’s a language and culture to preserve.
The band of 200 to 300 people is working locally to increase the dwindling number of people who know the Dakota language and nationally to gain federal recognition as an independent tribe, a designation that would bring much-needed financial help.
Fewer than 10 Minnesotans speak fluent Dakota, tribal leaders and academics estimate. In a state with more than 5 million residents, that means one in every 500,000 people, at best, have command of the indigenous language whose roots date back centuries.
The weekly Dakota language classes are attended by five to 30 people, and the Mendota Dakota are trying to increase that number. Dakota speakers also teach weekly courses at Little Earth Neighborhood Education Center in Minneapolis on Mondays and American Indian Family Center, in St. Paul, on Fridays during the school year.
“It’s a very hard language,” said tribal council member Sharon Lennartson. “My brain just does not comprehend.”
The Mendota Dakota trace their plight back to the Dakota Conflict of 1862, when the Dakota waged war to protest unfair treatment. Afterward, the United States exiled most of them, removing their reservations in the process.
Tribal leaders estimate that fewer than 100 Dakotans remained. A people and their language suffered here as a result.
“Language is what holds and communicates a culture,” said Beth Brown, program associate for Dakota language at the University of Minnesota.
“The stakes are high now; people aren’t going to let it die.”
‘We’ve lost a lot of things’
At the Mendota community center, students and their instructor, who is more learner than learned, pore over their notebooks and crack open Dakota-English dictionaries.
Substitute teacher Brian Nackerud has studied Dakota for a couple of years; by his estimate, he has the language skills of a 4- or 5-year-old.
When spoken properly, Brown said, the language is nasal and guttural, with many sounds articulated in the nose and throat.
“It’s a real cool language,” Nackerud said. “There’s no swear words. The concept just isn’t there.”
Although thousands of people across North America speak Dakota, a member of Siouan language family, University of Minnesota staff peg the number of fluent Minnesotans at between five and eight. But even that is tenuous.
One of those people, Faith Bad Moccasin — the former instructor at the Mendota class — suffered a stroke this year that left her right arm paralyzed. She now uses a wheelchair and has daily therapy to fully restore her speech.
“It’s dying out,” said Bad Moccasin, 64. “We’ve lost a lot of things. Not only the language but our values and traditions.”
Tribal council member Lennartson, like many of her peers, wasn’t raised Dakota. When her grandmother was forced to leave Minnesota for boarding school in Carlisle, Pa., staff there tried to beat the Dakota language and culture out of her.
When she returned, she refused to speak the language or even talk about that period of her life. She chose not to teach her children or grandchildren out of love.
Now, Lennartson clings to whatever is left of her culture. For years, she’s volunteered at the community center.
As other tribe members have lost interest or hope, the 63-year-old has taken on bookkeeping, maintenance, receptionist and webmaster duties while battling chronic pain from fibromyalgia.
A recent renegotiation of the tribe’s lease allowed the council to afford a $25 weekly salary for Lennartson. By her calculations, that’s just enough for gas money.
“This might be our critical stage,” she said. “I just keep going. I’m here until the doors are shut and locked.”
Recognition and survival
The Mendota Dakota petitioned for federal recognition of tribal status in 1996; the designation would bring federal dollars, support and opportunities for expansion.
The funds could allow them to buy land, build their own cultural center and more aggressively pursue language education, among other things.
The effort appears to have fallen flat. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs issued a letter requesting more information in 1997. “We haven’t heard from them since,” said Nedra Darling, bureau spokeswoman.
In the past 30 years, close to 300 groups have petitioned for federal recognition. Few have met the demanding criteria.
“If you don’t have many people working on it, it’s going to be difficult,” Darling said.
There are more than 500 federally recognized tribes in the United States, including 11 in Minnesota.
Mendota Dakota council members plan to renew their campaign this fall, cultural chairman Jim Anderson said.
But with their lack of resources and manpower, “I don’t think it’s going to happen in my lifetime,” Lennartson said.
For now, rent for the community center is paid for this month and next. And like their language, the Mendota Dakota are hanging on in Minnesota.
“Our culture will not be lost on the generations to come,” said Martha Fast Horse, a language student and community activist.
“It will not.”
Corey Mitchell • 612-673-4491
Designs can be taken from your own photos or even your own art work. All engravings are one-of-a-kind, created for unique one-of-a-kind people! Your imagination is the limit!
Styles of engraving are done free hand with miniature grind stones and is very similar to scratch board art or an ink sketch only it is created on glass or mirror like the Blue Ridge Lodge or the Family Time Wolves engravings on 24 X 36″ bronze mirrors found at the website.
There is an other option that is of Sand Carving, to get a better idea of what can be created for any special occasion.
She may be making mugs for the Pow Wow. She does beautiful work.
Tags: Margaret Stewart / Engravings
Posted in NATIVE ART | Edit
We need generators badly. If you have one we can borrow for the Wacipi or Pow Wow, please call or email us. If you want to donate one to the community, we can give you a tax deduction donation form. Pidamaya, The Mendota Tribal Council.
Sept 11,12,13, 2010.
Phone: 651-452-4141
Email: mmdc01@comcast.net
Web Site: www.mendotadakota.com
Hello to all our members and friends. We are looking for volunteers at the Pow Wow. If you are interested please call or email the office. We are looking for a Pow Wow coordinator to get people to help with the Pow Wow, also another person to help the coordinator in making calls, and help put people in time slots. We always need more people for the evening time slots. For every 4 hours you volunteer, you will get a voucher worth $10.00 in food.
Remember for every 4 hours you volunteer you will get one of Connie’s delicious indian tacos for FREE, or what ever you want. Don’t forget Sharon’s fry bread and maple butter. Yum Yum!
Sharon and the Pow Wow committee.
mmdc01@comcast.net
mendotadakota.com
Here they are, the new MMDC postage stamps. They are available in a sheet of twenty, self stick stamps with our logo on them.
The tribe earns 10% of every item sold so you can show your support by sticking these stamps on your mail.
Yes, they are 100% legal, post office approved stamps. (more items in our STORE page)
This beautiful mug is available right now. You can pick the color combinations, handle color, mug size, even change to a different type of container altogether!
It has the MMDC logo on one side and the following statement wrapped around: “Preserving, Protecting and Promoting the Dakota Culture for Future Generations”
Available as stein, stainless travel mug, frosted glass mug, etc! CLICK HERE to customize and order this great item!
CONTROL CLICK
FOR NEW WINDOW
Just think, if YOUR add had been here, thousands of people from all over would have seen it.
