Native American artists across the Twin Cities celebrate and honor Indigenous cultures through their art during Native American Heritage Month. 

Native American Heritage Month, observed each November, honors the histories, cultures and enduring contributions of Indigenous peoples. There are 11 federally recognized Indigenous tribes in Minnesota, and the Twin Cities has a vibrant Native community where hundreds of tribal nations are represented, said Rita Walaszek Arndt, curator of Native American Collections at the Minnesota Historical Society. 

Minnesota derives its name from the Dakota word, Mni Sota Makoce,  meaning land where the waters reflect the clouds. The Dakota and Anishinaabe people have called the land home for thousands of years. 

Arndt helped open the “Our Home: Native Minnesota” exhibit, which explores Dakota, Ojibwe and other Indigenous histories in Minnesota. The exhibit is approaching its sixth year, making it the longest-running Native exhibit at MNHS, Arndt said. New items from Indigenous artists and communities are continuously added, blending historic and contemporary works.

One case in the exhibit centers on the importance of wild rice to Ojibwe and Dakota people. Arndt intentionally placed an old artifact, a mid-20th-century artifact and a modern one next to each other.

“There are similarities, there’s differences, and there’s adaptations,” Arndt said. “But the core of that tradition has remained over all this time. It is vital to tell these stories — that even though there was outside disruption to our communities, there was still a continuation of these traditions.”

The exhibit is meant to be accessible through collaboration with educators and free admission Thursday nights, Arndt said. 

Minneapolis artist Marlena Myles’ art is created with the same accessible intention. She works across a variety of mediums and brings modernity and Indigenous history together.

Myles said she and her friend Dawí Westerman created free Codoland maps, which picture both historic Dakota places and contemporary places like schools and businesses to help people connect the locations.

“We can express everything in Dakota, not just what’s in the past,” Myles said. “It helps begin to help people see this knowledge that’s layered in the land.” 

She often integrates Dakota language into her artwork and created the six window murals in the Minneapolis skyway in 2021 called “Protecting The Generations,” reflecting the importance of passing down stories, memories and the language. 

The windows are based on six Dakota words and the meanings they represent, Myles said. 

“If you want to decolonize your mind, if you want to re-indigenize yourself, a lot of that knowledge is within the language itself,” Myles said.

Myles said the Dakota language is descriptive, serving as a guide for how to live and connect to the world. One of the window murals integrates the word Wóinina, meaning awareness through silence. She said she uses Wóinina’s meaning in her art by visiting sites to create art with no pre-chosen concepts in mind.

“We say all knowledge starts with silence and observing your surroundings,” Myles said. “When I’m there, I feel like these stories just kind of pop up at me when I start to quiet my mind and observe.”

When people interact with her artwork and Dakota history, Myles said she hopes people see the power in it.

“They teach a lot about the Dakota War and the conflict with the Europeans. But that is just a tiny dot of our history that goes back thousands and thousands of years,” Myles said.

Myles said she wants young Native people to feel empowered in their culture and to embrace it in their daily lives. Her website includes an educational section for anyone who wants to begin their own research, she said.

Lakota artist Dyani White Hawk’s art is featured in the Minneapolis Walker Art Center in an exhibit called “Love Language” that opened in October. White Hawk said she feels her art, which spans many practices and mediums, both honors Lakota histories and explores new innovations, according to a Walker news release.

“The exhibition is an embodied love letter to our ancestors, our communities, family, and the people–all of humanity,” White Hawk said in the news release. “It is also a calling, emphasizing the need for museums, institutions, governments, communities, and individuals to actively work to see, honor, nurture, and celebrate Indigenous people.”

Siri Engberg, exhibit curator, said in an emailed statement the exhibit is part of an ongoing effort both inside the museum walls and in the community to honor Indigenous perspectives. 

“[White Hawk] has been very involved with Walker’s department of Public Engagement, Learning, and Impact to design a series of programs that foreground Indigenous voices,” Engberg said. 

Arndt said in her time at MNHS, she has appreciated people’s interest in learning Indigenous histories. Arndt’s own family and tribal nation, White Earth, is represented in MNHS records and collections.

Her favorite part of the exhibit is a 20-foot picture right near the entrance showing a celebration in 1912 at the White Earth Reservation. The picture shows a celebration that began in 1867 and highlights the relationship between tribal nations. 

When White Earth did not have enough male dancers for the first celebration, they called down to the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, a tribe in South Dakota, and the two came together to celebrate, Engberg said.

Every year since the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe rides horses to White Earth, Arndt said.

“These relationships and kinships, even after removal, assimilation, the intertribal relationships are still key to our survival as Native people,” she said. 

This shared history contradicts the belief some hold that Native tribes were constantly at war, a justification used for Native peoples’ genocide, Arndt said. Though many weren’t taught about Indigenous cultures, now is the time to learn, she added.

“Our society is built on the alleged winners and the history they shared,” Arndt said. “But now is the time to take advantage of these resources, these exhibits and other things that expand your knowledge to understand this a lot more.”