Being invited to go to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for the UNESCO World Heritage vote was incredible.

There's literally people all around the world that have nominations.

We have compiled the most wonderful writers and researchers.

They've just done a wonderful job.

But how's the rest of the world going to view us?

We sat there for three days before our nomination came up for review.

Wondering, is this going to happen?

Not every property was moving through smoothly.

Questions were being asked and experts were being challenged.

We wondered if that was going to happen to us.

You know that there are only a couple of outcomes here.

It's going to be added today.

Rejected or it's going to be deferred for the future.

You sit through that and you get a little bit nervous.

Like, I hope we crossed all the T■s and dotted all the I■s because there's no more read throughs.

With each passing second or minute, I was getting a little bit more anxious being on a world scale.

The world is here.

The world is here.

And they're going to judge whether our site should be a World Heritage Site.

World heritage?

Yeah.

Before we get into the story, what is World Heritage and why is it significant?

World heritage is the world's highest designation for cultural and natural sites.

Before World Heritage existed, there was nothing that told people around the globe what sites were most important to humanity.

So in 1972, when World Heritage Convention was passed, there's now a way to tell people these sites should matter to everybody in the world.

And it's amazing to see all those countries come together and decide collectively what we should all care about.

What are the criteria for being on the World Heritage List?

And why do you think that the Hopewell Earthworks met those criteria?

Yeah, so there's a list of criteria and it■s very technical.

So I won't go into all those.

But the the big phrase to remember is outstanding universal value.

By meeting one or more of those criteria, a site can show that they have outstanding universal value.

And in the case of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, they met two criteria, which was that they are masterpieces of human creative genius, which is awesome, and that they bear exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition, the culture that created them.

And I always say that kind of means that by understanding something about the sites, you can understand something about what is important to the people.

If this is not a good example of something important to the culture, I don't know what possibly could be.

Right.

Specifically within the masterpieces of human creative genius, we made the case that the astronomical alignments and the incredible geometry built into these sites is what qualified them for that.

It's even more amazing to think about that they didn't see them from the sky, from the sky.

So they are viewing these things exactly how we are now.

They didn't have Google like I do to try and find those celestial alignments.

Nope.

So it's just traditional knowledge that they're passing down and that they're able to build these massive things.

Yeah.

It's just traditional knowledge.

But as you well know, like the just part of that is that the traditional knowledge is incredible.

Yes.

And it's rich and it's something people learn their whole lives through stories and songs and in all different kinds of ways.

And you just see how that gets written on the land.

Right?

So how did the World Heritage journey even start?

So it started with several people who knew about World Heritage and strongly believed that these places belonged on the World Heritage List, but they had to get other people to understand what World Heritage was.

Right.

So it's a very long process.

And the first official step is actually to get the sites listed on the United States tentative list for World Heritage.

They got them on the tentative list in 2008.

And then worked for years on understanding what it would mean to put together a nomination for World Heritage.

Then in 2016, I was brought onto the project to coordinate all the pieces and be the person who thinks about it every day.

And so then we worked really hard to put together the nomination dossier.

It's a very technical book.

It talks about what the site's history is, why they're important.

We made the case that these meet the criteria for outstanding universal value.

And then you have to talk about how the site■s managed and who manages it.

And are you working with tribal partners and just explain all of that.

And I think it's 332 pages long.

-That is a book.

-And a big team put it together and John Hancock, a retired professor from the University of Cincinnati, was really a great partner in kind of corralling all of our writing.

-Yes.

And so we finished the nomination dossier in 2021.

And we sent it off to Washington, D.C., and then they sent it off to Paris, to the World Heritage Center.

And the World Heritage Center, then sends it out to scholars all over the world who know about these kinds of sites and who understand World Heritage, and they review it.

After the desk review comes back, we actually hosted an International World Heritage Scholar here for a week.

And we took him to every one of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks.

He asked us lots and lots of questions.

And then he took everything he learned and compiled it into a report.

So you can imagine after he visited us, we're waiting for months to find out what his recommendation was.

And in the end, he recommended that they should be on the World Heritage List.

So the next step then, was actually to go to the World Heritage Committee meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in September of 2023.

And that was an adventure all on its own.

Yes it was.

Logan, welcome to the Eastern Shawnee Tribe.

It is so nice to have a place where we could all gather.

So I'm anxious for you to go inside and see it.

Yeah, it's a beautiful building.

Can you tell me how you guys got this place?

This is our old original place where we were.

As you know, we've moved up to highway 10 to our new location.

But this was the first building that we ever built down here.

And that happened back in 1978.

It's been through six renovations.

So we■ve remodeled this old building, and I'm anxious to see your reaction.

Wow.

It's a forest.

How did you guys decide on this layout?

Well, this is the way it started.

And as you know, we are Woodland Indians, and we came from the Ohio River Valley.

Ohio is our homeland.

So we wanted to make this into the 1700 forest.

Well, I can certainly feel that this is an Ohio forest.

Why is that important?

Well, that's our history.

We didn't know much about our history.

And this is the way to make us connect with Ohio.

It's a way to teach our history.

We were primarily along the Scioto River and Scioto means in many native languages, deer.

So this is why we have this exhibit here.

We lived in Ohio.

We were the first ones to be removed from Ohio.

We're in Oklahoma now, but that's not our original home.

So our memories are connected with homelands, and this is the way to immediately get our people to think about this is where we came from.

Through your reconnection to Ohio, you've actually been able to reconnect with the earthworks that are there in Ohio, and actually help get them onto the World Heritage List.

Well, that's because we've had at least 4 to 5 major bus trips back to Ohio, and we have visited those places.

And that was from 2009 until 2023, when, yes, we were there in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but you were there as well.

I sure was.

There were several of us that had the opportunity to go to Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in September 2023, to attend the National Convention where this site was going to be considered for inscription on the World Heritage List.

We took with us representatives of the federally recognized tribes that had written letters of support for us.

And so when the invitation came, I asked the tribal president if he would like to go or send someone, and he asked if I would like to go.

And I said, yes.

I really wanted to go.

In my mind, it's like I wasn't going to have the opportunity to go.

I thought myself that our Chief would go.

He's a great figurehead for our community.

But I remember, like, we were at a table at our annual gathering and he asked me if I wanted to go.

I don't think I could say yes fast enough.

I was just jumping up and down and I was like, heck yeah.

And so I think it was maybe just about 6 to 8 weeks before we were supposed to be in Riyadh, that we learned we were actually going to go.

It's a huge effort to get five tribal representatives and some of us from Ohio History Connection and the National Park Service.

You have to get visas.

I remember I had to drive to Buffalo, New York and get a same day passport, and you have to show all this documentation that you've got a plane ticket in there.

Luckily, they came through.

I got my passport in the same day, but some of my colleagues that went on the trip had to mail their existing passports to a special agency to get the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C., to grant permission to go.

And luckily they were able to get that pretty expeditiously.

But it was a lot.

Finally, all of that comes together and we are off for Saudi Arabia.

The experience in Riyadh was really unique and a marvelous experience for me.

I'd never been in a setting like that.

You're in this huge room with representatives of 192 nations.

You know, it's like a little United Nations gathering there.

I remember the first day we got there we went to the venue and walking into this huge room with names of the countries of the world on these tables, brought to my mind, more than ever that the world is here.

We spent several days sitting in the convention hall with representatives from different countries.

We saw sites that went through the process that had many questions asked.

There were sites that were conditionally approved, and there were sites that were sort of tabled for future meeting.

It's just, it was chaotic and there was a lot of uncertainty about our own.

They do the nominations alphabetically in English.

So United States is kind of late in the order.

And so we got to watch and kind of see how it went.

You don't even know for sure which day you'll be up.

Some of them take a long time, and some of them they move through pretty quickly.

And then it was our day.

And it happened right after lunch.

I can still remember it.

And I had the opportunity to be sitting right next to Chief Wallace.

The day that our nomination is to be heard we arrive early.

And the tension is building, and you're wondering, how's the rest of the world going to view us?

Some nominations are very brief, right?

There's a video.

There aren't a lot of questions.

And so we saw some that were very quick.

But a couple before us, lots of conversation in the committee about does it really merit the outstanding universal value?

Is that really truly there, or how a site■s being managed.

And will it really be protected?

That one went on for a long time.

It lasted two and one half hours of grilling those people.

And I sat there watching that, thinking, oh, what kind of questions are they going to ask?

And are they going to ask them on me?

And can I answer those questions?

And ultimately it was deferred, meaning it might come back in the future, but it was not being approved at that moment.

With each passing second or minute, I was getting a little bit more anxious and nervous.

I'm sure like if I was nervous, I can't imagine how the people who truly did work on this, how nervous they were to be, being on a world scale.

Our turn comes up.

We all had to maneuver across the room into place, so we were all close together.

They introduce it.

Play the video.

The video is a couple of minutes long.

The chair then asks if there are any amendments.

Anyone wants to add anything or questions.

And there was nothing.

Nobody said anything.

And then the gavel hits and it's we're inscribed.

-Congratulations.

Do you recall how long it took for our nomination to be approved?

Less than five minutes.

Three minutes.

Three minutes.

There was not a single question.

Not a single comment.

Except we approve.

Bang!

It was that fast.

And then suddenly we're a World Heritage site, and we're like, wait, don't we?

Don't we get to, like, testify?

Don't we get to argue with people and tell them why our sites are so important?

Nope.

We're a World Heritage site.

At that point, I was disappointed.

I did want to say something about how excellent our ancestors were.

But it was approved and then everybody clapped and applauded and everybody came by and congratulated us and said it was the best nomination that they had received in years and years and years.

But you gave the acceptance speech to the inscription of the World Heritage List.

You make that sound exciting, but actually I was petrified because I'd never been to a World Heritage hearing.

There's 21 countries examining everything you've written, everything you have submitted.

I remember before our nomination was heard, I was sitting next to her.

We■re sitting in the back of the room listening to other nominations.

She pulls out her paper that has her her speech on it, and I just glanced over and she put like a little carrot.

And in front of the word genius, she wrote uncommon.

And I was like, oh, you know, that was really important to her, right?

That she wanted to make sure that she didn't forget to say that when she had the world's attention for three minutes.

My exhilaration is coupled with reflection as I am so humbled, so honored, and so thankful that the world at long last recognizes the commitment, the spirituality, the knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, art, geology and aesthetic vision, resulting in the imaginative thinking used by our ancestors to create these magnificent earthworks.

They were not just geniuses, they were uncommon geniuses.

Thank you very much.

It was a lot more emotional than I thought it would be.

I think all of us who were representatives of tribal nations were a little more teary eyed than I think any of us expected about it.

I still get that way today.

Yes.

When I think about it, yes.

You can really feel the emotion within the delegation being able to hear Chief Wallace give the acceptance and then seeing everyone, like, walk down the line and shake hands with all the U.S.

delegation.

It was an amazing moment.

It feels like an out-of-body experience, honestly, because for seven years almost, every day, there were things that popped up unexpectedly and we just kept taking care of them.

So to be here and have it done is really, truly unbelievable.

Seeing these ancient Indigenous American Indian sites lifted up to the scale of all these other World Heritage sites is it's an honor to have played a small part in this.

There's very few words that I can put together to describe the excitement, the exhilaration, the energy that was around this nomination.

And today is a great day for American Indian culture all over the world.

I don't want to ever forget that date.

It was such like a happy moment in time in my life and all Native communities.

Present day.

I was watching it live on YouTube, and I'm like trying to screenshot every little thing.

And I was taking so many pictures and, there's Josh!

There■s Josh!

He's, he's there!

And I was very excited as a mom, but very proud as a Wyandotte, that Josh was able to represent us.

And that recognition is absolutely very important to us, that we know that the site will be protected.

It will be respected and honored.

I do love to be able to come out here in the fall and see all the beautiful trees.

So our tribe, like we have an internship program and one of the first years that they were having it, they brought interns up here.

So I had the opportunity with my mom being a chaperone to tag along.

And I was between the ages of 10 and 12 years old.

One of the first times we visited was The Great Circle, and that was my first memory, visiting one of the earthworks within Hopewell.

The work that I do is very important for my people, the Wyandotte people.

But whenever I am able to share experiences with my family, it's just that much more important.

As an adult, once I came on board as a representative from the Wyandotte Nation for these World Heritage sites, is when I finally realized how magnificent these were.

It's very heartwarming to me to know that future generations are going to carry forward the respect and the honor giving to these sites.

That is needed.

And Joshua has done an amazing job of taking up that baton.

I'm really proud of the work that you're doing.

You■re going to make me cry, aren■t you?

No.

(laughing) I was the lead author of the nomination book.

Practically, from the moment of taking those nomination books out of the box, when it came from the printer, I and I think a lot of people said, this is going to be something that people will want.

And we should start getting to work on translating it into a coffee table book.

The book project with the Smithsonian was kind of born out of the dossier that was submitted for the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

And so taking all of the information, all of the interpretation about Hopewell and these eight sites and turning it into something that was accessible for the public.

And then we come up against the question of showing images of the sacred artistry from the earthwork builders.

And these are all photographs that belong to the Ohio History Connection.

So working with Jen Aultman, we initiate a consultation.

So in January of 2024, there was a meeting with OHC with tribal nations.

And within that meeting, John Hancock asked the group if he could have use of images for this upcoming book.

Because of current changes of NAGPRA going into effect.

Ohio History Connection wanted to consult with nations before any decisions were made about the use of images in the book.

And so in that meeting, I asked if there could be space for Indigenous representation within that book, and John said, of course.

I was on some initial meetings just on content review and edit, and they were thinking about how to solve this issue of NAGPRA compliance for representing these ancestral objects, a lot of which are burial objects.

People want to see these gorgeous artifacts.

Even some of the Native consultants who say, well, they need to be put away because they were buried.

But I want my kids to see them, right?

So it's a serious dilemma, but we came to an understanding that the real reason these have to be put away is not simply because they were put there by the ancestors.

It's because they have power.

The object has power, and that we don't fully understand that power, but it has power which needs to be concealed.

And if you show a photograph of the object, that projects the power.

But if you show a line drawing, the power has been filtered out.

And if you show a new work of art that has been created by an Indigenous artist, that does not have the power of the original.

So I was approached to help with the illustrations and the artistic representations.

This is something that I had been thinking about already for the last couple of years.

I'd been working on different artistic representations of Hopewell culture.

I thought I might be able to use some of the artwork that I've already been working on, and representing these ancestral objects and people in a way that is both new and fresh, but also NAGPRA sensitive.

Primarily, I've been doing that in 3D modeling, so I've been using software to create portraits of people and then sort of styling Hopewell artwork and artistic objects on these models to sort of give life and personality to archaeological data.

Everything is a 3D rendering.

These are all 3D models built and photographed in computer.

If I want to make a portrait of an Elder Hopewell woman, I'm going to look for references in our tribal communities.

I'm going to gather as many parts and pieces.

Things like skin tone, skin texture, eye shape.

For example, on this Hopewell woman here, this comes from one of the figurines.

Like here, for example, you can see this side of the head is plucked and you know, that comes directly from the figurine, the Hopewell figurine itself.

And there was a bun kind of over here on, on the rear of the head.

And then this side of the hair was kept longer, seemed to be a bit more free flowing.

So these are the kind of details that I spend way, way too much time on.

I can recreate the digital camera in blender.

I can add things like skin texture and the oils on the skin or acne scars.

There are no perfect surfaces.

There are no sharp edges.

There are no clear pictures in our world.

So I have to think about the imperfections.

Those are the little details that add up to make something look realistic.

This is the Hopewell claw or talon.

I wanted to show this as a new object, you know.

I didn't want it to look like a photograph of the 2000 year old thing.

I wanted to look as if this was the day that it was made.

The mica hand is another very famous Hopewell object.

This was a tiny little three inch tall copper mascot that's in the History Connection■s displays.

This is the mushroom wand.

The early archaeological notes depicted it as being on top of a small mound, and the mound itself was surrounded by offerings and such.

And so I tried to imagine what that might look like.

I think it's important to visualize these things because it humanizes this story.

Right?

We are so often caught up in the earthworks themselves or like treasures of Hopewell.

This is something that can add to that and give context.

That's my goal for this, and that's what I'm hoping can be represented in in the book.

So, not only do we have a way to show what those images look like, we have a way to show how beautiful these objects were, how highly skilled the craftspeople were, without showing the actual piece.

We said, wow, this works beautifully.

Now that it's on the World Heritage List, how has that propelled things forward here on the site?

Yeah, it's really interesting in so many different ways.

So obviously a lot more people know about the sites and come to visit.

And then people in Ohio are just so excited to have World Heritage sites here.

These places have been so familiar, in a way, to Ohioans and yet so unfamiliar.

When you grow up next door to something, you kind of think everybody has something like that next door.

And it's not true.

So now people here understand this is like growing up next door to the Pyramids or next door to the Great Wall of China.

So it's really helped folks understand the importance.

And so they're really interested in helping to take care of them, volunteering, just walking through the sites and experiencing them in a new way.

And you'll notice here where we are today at the Octagon, Ohio History Connection has changed how the sites are mowed, because of course, this was a golf course previously and it was cared for like a golf course.

And now, as an Indigenous World Heritage Site, you want it to reflect that authentically.

So as the care of the sites changes, working with tribes and people like you in your role, will see that they take on a completely different character than they did before.

You actually recently moved to Ohio.

Was it to be closer to the earthworks?

Uh, yes.

You know, you can't really learn about or experience them from a website.

No.

Or from afar.

Videos are great.

Documentaries are great, but I think you have to be around them.

And for me, working on visitor experience and having other endeavors like John's book, it, it's really important to be on site when you can.

But I just don't go to these sites, I go all over Ohio.

And so in a given month, you know, I'll pick some places out and we'll go see them.

Okay.

So you're actually visiting the different earthwork sites around Ohio?

Yeah.

The idea of the earthworks, they're kind of isolated in their World Heritage designation.

But we have to think about a very large society of people living in Ohio.

If they are really these genius, then what else is there?

There's still a lot to learn about these sites, isn't there?

You know, each of us will have our own sets of questions as we become more acquainted with the things that we're interested in.

That's why I like how things are really changing and opening up, because it is really becoming a space where we can all kind of engage it and ask our own questions.

Hello.

I'm Shelly Corbin.

My Indigenous name is Takoni Kokipesni.

I'm a member of the Cheyenne River Reservation, the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe.

Sacred sites all across North America are essentially sites that have been utilized time and time again.

And specifically where I grew up in north central South Dakota on the Cheyenne River Reservation.

The majority of our sacred sites reside in the Black Hills.

Those are the sites where we will come together and pray to come together in different ceremonies.

And it's a place that captures the memory, the vibration, the energy, the land tells a story.

When I first came to Ohio, I met one of our elders in our community, Guy Jones, and I would hear him talk about sacred sites all throughout Ohio.

Serpent Mound, Fort Ancient, the Octagon, all of them.

My first experience at a Hopewell Earthworks sacred site was actually just across the river here at Mound City.

You can see from the parking lot the mounds themselves.

And so we walk in, we say our prayers.

And in that moment, we were acknowledged by the space, by the wind, by the trees.

It was really moving for me.

My family, my children, our relatives that came.

And since then, I have intentionally went into sites, connected with sites.

I'm there during these alignments.

Hopeton holds a very special place in my heart.

On December 21st, 2020, me and a couple of community members came here and we came with the intention to be at this specific sacred site that's in alignment with Winter solstice.

On that day for three days was going to be this grand junction that only happens every 400 plus years.

A celestial alignment between Jupiter and Saturn.

And some people back in stories that were documented in the past.

It's called the Christmas Star.

We brought our medicine.

We brought our community with us by extension of prayers.

We brought our memory.

We brought our songs.

And the hike for us was grueling.

It was wet, 47 degrees, rain flying sideways.

We hiked this mile hike up to this overlook, and here we spent, you know, the better part of 30 minutes trying to light a fire in rain.

We had no expectations.

But what happened when that fire was lit was something I'll just, I'll never forget.

The rain went away completely.

The clouds split in the sky.

The sun came out and it came out with the brightest flash you could ever see and imagine.

And in that moment when the sun appeared at this time where it aligns with this site, down this corridor.

And it goes down over this hill to the right of me, it was the most, in terms of emotion, peaceful, calm.

I felt like I was one with the universe.

It was so moving.

It felt like time and space didn't exist.

As the sun set in the west, we were able to see the Christmas star, Saturn and Jupiter.

The junction up here in the sky.

So bright.

Brighter than any star alignment I have ever seen.

Everything before that date was a question.

A question of who am I?

Question of why am I here?

What's my purpose in life?

But to me, after December 21st, 2020, I understood.

I got to see what it felt like to be one, what it felt like to be connected.

And to me, that's what Hopeton did.

Grew up right here.

In fact, what's really neat about where the gallery sits, My great great grandfather homesteaded this piece of ground.

-Yeah?

And my grandfather was born next door, and my mom was born next door.

And then I bought the last six acres from my grandmother and then built this cabin.

Yeah.

So this is home.

So how did you, as somebody growing up in Oklahoma, start getting into painting Eastern Woodland people?

Yeah.

If my mom was here when people would ask me if I'm a Native and she would say, no, he's not, but he thinks he are one.

So all my life, you know, I painted literally since I was about ten.

I painted lots of ducks and geese, commercial artwork.

But then when I decided to paint what I wanted to paint where my heart was, the Eastern Woodland Indians.

How do you choose each painting?

Because each one is very unique.

It's not like you have a relatively standard template.

They all seem to have their own story.

Yeah, well thank you.

Yeah.

I do.

I read a lot, so I read I'll read a story and then do some, some version of it, like the guy walking on the log, literally I thought there's a painting right there, walking on the log.

That's life.

Just one step at a time.

The balance of life.

We've all done that as a kid, walking on a curb or a log.

It's just where you're going to go in life is literally one step at a time.

Can you tell me about this painting?

Yeah.

What inspired it?

Yeah.

Who was that in it?

Yeah.

The Governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, commissioned me to do this painting, a historical painting of Daniel Boone when he was adopted by the Eastern Shawnee tribe in 1778.

So we talked about what he wanted in the scene, and he said he wanted he wanted to show that connection with the whites and the Indians at one moment in time, getting along.

And this is my version of that.

So you use models for all of your paintings.

You're not just painting from scratch.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

They're all real people and real models.

I photograph them and change them around and finally get the composition I'm looking for.

On the right is Shawnee Chief Blackfish and Talon Silverhorn is the model for Blackfish, and he is an Eastern Shawnee tribal member.

And the lady of the middle is Shelly Rogers, portraying Blackfish■s wife.

She's an Eastern Shawnee tribal member, and these are her two granddaughters that are posing as the daughter of them two.

And then a friend of mine is posing as Daniel Boone, Abram.

He is related to Daniel Boone's brother, Squire Boone.

So everybody in the painting has a connection back to old Chillicothe that February of 1778.

So you said that this is depicting the adoption of Daniel Boone, but what exactly is happening?

Okay.

They seem to be doing something.

Yeah, right.

Well, the best I can tell and information we've read and people we've talked to that when he was adopted, they took him to the river and scrubbed him down to make the white men go away.

And then brought him back, dressed him as a Shawnee.

In that time period when the Shawnee adopted you, you were Shawnee once you went through the ceremony.

And he did.

And that was common whenever there were battles and so forth.

If a child was killed or something, they oftentimes adopted another in their place.

And they did.

They became just exactly like family members.

So this isn't an unusual situation.

Something that's interesting, though, about Doug's paintings is beyond the artistic merit, there is historical accuracy because so many people say all Indians lived in teepees.

-Yeah.

-We never lived in teepees.

So if you look at this painting, you see the inside and it is not a teepee.

What's your word for wiikiaami, this kind of house?

Wiikiwa.

Wiikiwa?

I do think it's very cool seeing all of your different paintings and how it depicts us so accurately, because we don't see that a whole lot in native art.

It's almost always Western tribes, right?

Whether the plains are even further west.

So very rarely do we actually have artists depicting us and depicting us accurately.

Yeah, well, to be historically accurate, it takes a lot of reading and a lot of research, talk to a lot of people and make some mistakes along the way.

I've learned early on, you make a mistake, you do better next time, you correct it and go on.

Otherwise you never move forward.

So I finally realized I had to take some of the pressure off my I only know what I know.

I can meet only who I can meet and paint as accurate I can at that moment in time, but always learning along the way.

Not only are you portraying accurate history, but I think you do a really good job of making them appear human.

Makes it easier for people to actually connect with them as an educational tool and just as people.

Most of the time, it's all warfare.

You'll see us in the middle of a battle scene.

Right.

But you don't see us adopting somebody.

Right.

-Or hanging out with our dogs.

-Right.

So that is really fun and refreshing to see that.

Right now, I'm beading The Incredible Hulk.

It is for a dear friend of our family, and he is a great friend of many Native communities.

His name is Michael Galban.

He has been instrumental in reviving Quill work within our people, and that was the art that we did prior to beadwork, and it is one of the most historic crafts for us.

And so in appreciation of that, I'm beading him a Hulk medallion that he wanted to match his dance outfit.

I started beading about 14 years ago.

I helped with the new princess's buckskin dress, so they gave me one and they kind of showed me how to do it.

And I beaded one, and I hated every single minute of it.

Whenever I was done, I said, absolutely never again.

I'm glad I have a new respect for beaders, but this isn't for me.

Well, then there was a pair of earrings that I purchased and I was looking, I don't know, like, you know what?

I could probably make these.

So I went home and I asked if anybody knew how to make these in the tribe.

And the people I asked, they didn't know how.

And so I went to the new teacher, called YouTube, and I started learning new stitches, new things, because I didn't want the new generation coming up to struggle like I did.

So I did that for several years.

And my middle son, Caleb, he wanted to dance, Powwow dance.

He wanted to become a fancy dancer.

And so I started beading his set.

It really forced me to learn even more how to do everything more traditionally.

Then the next year, Joshua, my oldest son, wanted to dance, so I beaded his grass dance outfit, took me over 200 hours to bead.

My official title is a Cultural Preservation Officer.

So anything that comes out of the cultural division I'm in charge of.

And I absolutely did not want to lose my passion for beading.

And I wanted to create avenues for other Wyandottes to learn how to bead.

So I started doing a beading class.

It's once a month, and we do it virtually through Zoom as well as in person.

Back whenever I started beading, there was only 2 or 3 people in the tribe that really would be considered beaders.

Now, it's exciting to see that we have probably at least 50 beaders within the tribe that are learning how to do traditional beadwork and contemporary beadwork, and using that as their art form.

Forced all three of my boys to learn how to bead, because within my family line, it's not going to be forgotten again.

But I do wholeheartedly believe that Natives, it's in our DNA and I don't want this art form to die out.

It is one of the things that's very important to me.

What I would love to see within Ohio and all of the communities where we used to live, is that they recognize who we are today, and I want them to celebrate us as the people we are.

Not everybody are history buffs, and not everybody digs reading and seeing old rocks and different things.

They want to see a vibrant community.

They want to see a vibrant art form that is still thriving today.

And that's what I want to see in these museums.

That's what I want to see in these exhibits, that we are a people that aren't from thousands of years ago.

We are a people that continue to live today.

What is your end goal for visitor experience here?

Not what is going to happen or what's official at the moment.

What are you hoping comes out of this from a Native perspective?

I think it's all of those things that we already know.

Chief Wallace talks about them, you talk about them.

It's all of these things that we know, but we want to make sure that the world kind of knows these things, too, because we keep talking about a genius.

But what does that genius look like?

In our more private conversations, We know these things, and we have to find ways that we can share with the world that's appropriate for everyone.

So we're not just getting out all of the information that we possibly can.

But what we're doing is coming at it from a place of slow and steady, because oftentimes what you see at sites when you do it really fast is you do it really fast and wrong.

If you take your time, talk to different people and do it right, you don't have to do it again.

You can just interpret the site, make sure visitors are getting the experience that is both educational for them, entertaining for them, but also appropriate from a tribal perspective.

Exactly.

And it should also be a body of knowledge that we have to be willing to let grow and even, well, kind of ebb and flow through its own life.

Right?

And we have to be open to that, because I feel like over the course of the last hundred years, we have made so many strides forward.

But there's always like a step back throughout.

Yes.

And are there ways that we can continue to find ways that are more appropriate, that allow us to keep kind of growing?

This journey to World Heritage has had an impact on a lot of people, both Native and non-native people.

Yeah.

Certainly for myself, traveling back and forth between Oklahoma and Ohio, where I work, it certainly has impacted all the things I'm doing with the earthworks themselves, but also other organizations.

How is it impacted you and your work since you first came onto this project specifically to get these on the World Heritage List?

I did.

Yeah.

So actually I have a new role, and I am working directly for the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma here in Ohio as their Executive Director of Strategic Homeland Partnerships.

So just here building relationships for the tribe here in Ohio.

And that's something that I hadn't imagined be my next job.

Right?

But it's really wonderful to help move the tribal reconnection forward here in the homelands.

One of the really great things that's happened since World Heritage.

Was happening before, but it's just intensified, is the reconnection with tribes, tribal citizens coming here to visit, members of the public who are Indigenous people coming to visit.

We have a bus of Eastern Shawnee citizens coming next week to visit sites in Ohio.

I think these places were pilgrimage centers with Indigenous people coming from literally the ends of their world.

My name is Iris.

My name is Cooper,.

-And we're siblings.

-2 years apart.

And we're part of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.

We're here on a history tour with the rest of my tribe.

It's my brother's first time being in Ohio ever.

Yep.

And last October was my first time also being in Ohio.

And it's really special that we get to do this because it gives us the opportunity to visit places that we've heard about and we've heard stories about, and that our culture originated in and around.

This trip has been really important to give me a bit of perspective on how much my ancestors actually knew and were able to achieve in North America.

And I just think it's really significant how intelligent of a civilization they were.

One of the most conflicting things about being here is knowing that for a very long time, these places were disrespected, and there's burial mounds where school children would go in the winter to sled down.

I'm sure none of them ever knew that it was a burial mound.

So it's really important, I think, to be able to bring people back to Ohio, to see the importance of being connected to the land that your ancestors have lived on.

For me, I wouldn't say we want to discover what we want to do is kind of reactivate a little bit, get in touch with it again.

If a community is reclaiming a pottery tradition that's been asleep for a little while, they usually get people to go and see the sherds or the pods and get in touch with that.

And so we have to do the same thing with the earthworks here, so we can begin having those conversations and kind of reactivating that knowledge.

It's not just about the past, it's about these places having meaning and being alive and vibrant in the present.

So it's kind of a renewal almost of what they used to be, because they were gathering spaces for people from near and far, and they're becoming that again in a new way because of World Heritage.

Yeah.

I think we're very, very lucky to be a part of that story.

You know, if we were a generation behind or a generation ahead, we wouldn't have been able to witness that happening in real time.

And that connection of back and forth between Ohio and and Oklahoma is just intensified.

I know you make that trip a lot.

I sure do.

Stomp dancing is a dance that the Shawnee people have gotten from our neighboring tribes like Yuchis, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and others.

And we do it as a social dance, which means that we do it for the spirit of it, for fun, for socializing and bringing people together, and also to show support for one another.

When we put out a call for stomp dance, lots of people will come and show support.

You'll see groups of people from different tribes coming and dancing.

They bring their groups of people that they sing with.

They bring their friends and family.

Everybody brings chairs, good food, good music.

Usually these stomp dances go pretty long into the night and and everybody's tired.

But it makes for a very enjoyable time and shows and highlights these long standing connections that we have with other nations.

On the stomp dance, there's a leader, and then he has at least three helpers behind him, and they're answering his songs.

It's a call and response style of singing.

And the songs he sings, those answers have to know those songs, so they answer his songs and they try to make him sound good.

And of course, there's a woman behind each one of them shaking shells.

In the old days it was turtle shells, but nowadays it's mainly evaporated milk cans filled with river gravel.

And that's what keeps the beat.

And that's those women are shaking that to that beat, and they're supposed to lock on to that speed that he starts out singing.

Then all the other shell shakers jump in and keep that timing.

And then if it works well and if everybody is in step, and it sounds really good, and then sometimes if there's 1 or 2 out of step, it kind of makes it start sounding, you know, kind of messed up.

So that's what I preach at them young ones.

I said, now those cans on your legs, those are musical instruments.

Those are not noisemakers.

So let's get in rhythm, you all, and practice at it.

So we try to encourage them, but we do not want to discourage them, you know, because we need more of them.

And that's what I've been working on for the last 40 years, is to teach them young folks how to carry this on so that when my time comes, I can look back and know that I left the place just as good as it was when I found it.

All these tribes are, you know, trying to keep alive what their ancestors lived and died to pass on to us today.

And so if we don't strive to keep these things going, then we're not honoring those ancestors, and we're supposed to do it the way it was taught to us in the best way we know how.

Without knowingly or willfully corrupting it or deviating from it.

Because they've always told us, don't take it away from it and you don't add to it.

Do it the way it was passed down to you.

I'm sure that people in the past, like Hopewell and Fort Ancient had occasions like this that brought people together and, you know, gathered, dance, ate, enjoyed each other's company.

I visualized that, and I've thought about that a few times.

I thought about how neat that would be for all of our people to go back there and have some of these dances and sing these songs in that area.

And on those mounds.

I think that would be a really cool feeling.

And I'd like to experience, you know, what kind of what kind of encounters we might have while we're there, because I believe some of those folks are still hanging around there occasionally.

I think they have the ability to come back and visit, and I'd like to hear them singing with us, and I'd sure like for them to hear us singing the songs that they passed down to us.

Always knew that I came from this area, but I really didn't have any kind of connection here.

And then when World Heritage came about, I told my sister, I said, we got to go.

So we came.

I was just in awe.

What I hope for is that I can find a way to bring more Shawnee citizens to these places, so that they can have these places impressed upon them like they have upon me.

Reconnect and activate ourselves so that we understand that these places were important to our ancestors.

Our Indigenous children today have to fight through so many things to keep their identity.

They see that the whole continent was Indigenous and now just tiny parts of it are theirs.

These places provide places that they can learn about their ancestors who accomplished so much, and to be able to have faith that their works also can be realized and persist into the future.

Cultural sites in Ohio can be this point of connection for tribal citizens to learn about their history, and also for people living here in Ohio to gain access to that knowledge and understanding, so we can learn from each other and learn how to live together again.

There's that bucket list for many people around the world where they check off, you know, as they go through, you know, the inscribed World Heritage sites.

Now we're on that list.

So I think it's extremely cool.

The world feels today like a pretty fragmented place, but this has been here 2000 years.

And if it can be a conduit to more people getting to know each other.

How wonderful.

Heading in.

Hopewell Earthworks, Stories Written on the Land is funded in part by the America 250 Ohio Commission.

Production support for Hopewell Earthworks, Stories Written on the Land is powered by the Storytellers Trust.