Ho-Chunk Nation turns to high-tech innovation
BLACK RIVER FALLS - With fewer than 50 Native speakers of the HoChunk language remaining and after a fire threatened to destroy thousands of the tribe’s original artifacts, officials with the Indigenous nation are turning to a computer platform to help preserve and revitalize their heritage.
“For me, the language is at the heart of our culture and our people,” said Henning Garvin, language program manager for the Ho-Chunk Nation. “The very name of our people refers to our language, People of the Sacred Voice, and stems from our creation story when Hoocak was first given to us.”
Written, audio and visual materials detailing the Hoocak language are being made accessible this year in an interactive content management system called Mukurtu.
The program was developed in 2007 at Washington State University and is designed for digitally preserving the history, language and culture of Indigenous nations.
Its first project was archiving the records of the Warumungu community in Australia. The name Mukurtu is a Warumungu word meaning “dilly bag,” or a safe keeping place for sacred materials.
Erin Hughes who works for the Wisconsin Library System and is the Midwest Mukurtu hub manager is partnering with the Ho-Chunk Nation and had secured a $342,000 grant to fund the project from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
After the yearlong work with the Ho-Chunk Nation is complete, Hughes said Mukurtu will then work with the Menominee Nation for a year followed by another still-to-be-determined Indigenous nation in Wisconsin for the project’s third year.
And Garvin said Mukurtu will do more than just preserve the Ho-Chunk language. It will help revitalize it.
While there are only a few dozen Native Ho-Chunk speakers who naturally acquired the language as children and who are all in their 60s and older, Henning said the tribe has had success with getting people to high levels of proficiency as second-language learners.
And Mukurtu’s interactivity can help expand that process for tribal members wanting to learn more about their language and culture.
“One of the things that can be done within the program is to create specific collections where a curator can pick amongst all of the digital material that is available to create a smaller subset relevant to whatever they wish to convey to an audience,” Garvin said.
For example, the Ho-Chunk word for basket, Naapa, may be linked to pictures of black ash baskets from the museum collections, videos or stories about basketry and a datasheet about
the emerald ash borer infestation, which threatens the art form.
The platform can also include an online dictionary that can be added to while being sensitive to tribal needs. Some knowledge and wisdom can be shared with everyone while other information is meant only for certain clans.
“It also gives us control as to how we share the information … where we have complete control over the how and the who, decisions we make with the guidance of our elders,” Garvin said.
Archivists also will be working to digitally preserve thousands of documents and photos pertaining to the history of the Ho-Chunk Nation.
Those records were nearly destroyed late last fall when a fire destroyed a building adjacent to the HoChunk Museum in Tomah and water used to combat the blaze had flooded the basement of the museum where the artifacts were stored.
Volunteers and preservationists from around the region worked to meticulously dry out the original records.
“One of the things that happens to paper when it becomes watered down is that it becomes brittle,” said Josephine Lee, director of the museum and cultural center. “Once they’re digitally preserved, our hope is that they won’t be handled as frequently anymore.”
She said elders also won’t have to risk exposure to coronavirus to physically view the records when they can research from their own computers.
Hughes said the Mukurtu project helps Indigenous nations preserve and share their story in their own way.
“We want the Native nations to be empowered to share their stories, histories and current culture to correct the historical narrative,” she said.
Frank Vaisvilas is a reporter for America corps member based at the Green Bay Press-Gazette covering Native American issues in Wisconsin. He can be reached at 920-228-0437 or fvaisvilas@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to this reporting effort at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA.