The Indians Are Coming To Saint Louis For Lewis & Clark: Currents of Change

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:
Stefani Schuette Lewis & Clark: Currents of Change 314.454.5753 sschuette@mohistory.org		Sammye Meadows Circle of Tribal Advisors 970.641.1355 or 970.596.6672 (cell) jermond@pcrs.net

The Indians Are Coming
To Saint Louis
For Lewis & Clark: Currents of Change

(ST. LOUIS, MO, 9/12/2006):  The Circle of Tribal Advisors (COTA) of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial invites you to head to St. Louis September 20-24 for Lewis & Clark: Currents of Change, the final national signature event of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Commemoration, hosted by the National Council of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial and the Osage Nation.  Hundreds of American Indian scholars and leaders will participate in the event from the opening symposium - The Stories We Tell - to the closing ceremony for Corps of Discovery II, Two Hundred Years to the Future.

Like Jefferson’s West, the inaugural national signature event held at Charlottesville, Virginia, in January 2003, Currents of Change will host a large and diverse contingent of representatives from tribal nations along the Lewis & Clark Trail.  Many of them also participated in Jefferson’s West.  Participants from the following tribes will be in St. Louis next week:  Absentee Shawnee, Blackfeet, Cheyenne River Sioux, Chinook, Clatsop-Nehalem, Confederated Salish-Kootenai, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Cowlitz, Crow, Eastern Shawnee, Fort Peck Assiniboine-Sioux, Grand Ronde, Kaw, Kickapoo, Kiowa, Little Shell Chippewa-Cree, Lower Brule Sioux, Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara, Monacan, Nez Perce, Oglala Lakota, Omaha, Osage, Oto-Missouria, Pawnee, Ponca, Prairie Band Potawatomi, Rosebud Sioux, Sac & Fox, Shawnee, Shoshone-Bannock, Standing Rock Sioux, Wanapum, Yakama, Yankton Sioux, and more.

As COTA Chairman, Allen Pinkham, Sr. describes it, “Lewis & Clark brought good and bad things to us.  Most were tragic.  Yet today we are still here, making the best of the situation.  And we’ll be at Currents of Change, telling our stories.”

Lectures, performances and presentations by American Indians will include: 

• Numerous presentations at The Stories We Tell Symposium, including keynote speaker, Pulitzer Prize winning author N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa); Superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Gerard Baker (Hidatsa); poets Carter Revard (Osage) and Debra Magpie Earling (Salish); law professor, Robert Miller (Shawnee); COTA leaders Allen Pinkham, Sr. (Nez Perce) and Roberta Conner (Umatilla-Cayuse-Nez Perce); and others.  The Stories We Tell will be held at the Millennium Hotel September 20 & 21.

• Drum groups from the Osage Nation and Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara Nation

• Flagbearers from more than thirty tribal nations carrying their tribal flags in formal procession

• Hundreds of tribal presentations in the National Park Service’s Tent of Many Voices and several performance tents along the Riverfront, September 22-24.

• Construction on the Riverfront of a thirty-five-foot tule mat long house and tipi by members of the Wanapum Tribe of Washington State’s Columbia River Plateau.  The long house takes several days to put up, and the public is invited to watch its progress.

• Arrival of a Chinook ocean-going canoe from the Pacific Northwest, greeted by Currents of Change host Osage Nation

• September 20 panel discussion and book signing by contributing authors of Lewis & Clark Through Indian Eyes, at the Millennium Hotel Ballroom 

• Return to Healthy Rivers panel discussion by tribal leaders and staff, examining environmental and cultural resource issues of the Missouri and Columbia River systems, at the main performance tent on the Riverfront, September 24

• Not to be missed performances by African American/American Indian soul singer Martha Redbone and the hot blues-rock band, Indigenous – whose members are Yankton Sioux siblings – on Saturday evening, September 23

For more information about Lewis & Clark: Currents of Change, please go to www.currentsofchange.org.  Most activities, except for The Stories We Tell Symposium, Martha Redbone and Indigenous performances, and selected area tours, are free to the public. 

For more information about the National Council of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial, the Circle of Tribal Advisors and 2003-2006 bicentennial activities, please visit www.lewisandclark200.org.

For more information about the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, please visit www.osagetribe.com.

For more information about the National Park Service and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, please visit www.nps/jeff.