Cooperating with the Native American Law Student Association and the Native American Student Association, Native American Studies launched an active speaker series this past year.    We brought out seven speakers.  The first two were doctoral candidates at other institutions.  They spoke on the occasion of Native American Heritage month.  Audra Simpson (Kahnawake) delivered her talk on November 11^th:   “‘The White Man Put That There, Not Us’: Mohawk Border Crossing, Nationhood, and the Gender of Colonialism.” Audra Simpson is the 2002-03 Charles Eastman Fellow in Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, and is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University.  Michael Witgen (Ojibwa) followed on November 18.  His talk was titled “An Infinity of Nations: Indians, Empires, and the Myth of European Discovery and Possession in the Heartland of North America."  Michael Witgen is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Washington. 

In the winter term five speakers followed.    David Wilkins (Lumbee) an Associate Professor of American Indian Studies, Political Science and Law at University of Minnesota, spoke on February 10.  Wilkins is an authority on Indian sovereignty and the U.S. Supreme Court, and he has authored or coauthored several works on Indian government and federal Indian law, including American Indian Sovereignty and the U. S. Supreme Court: The Masking of Justice.  His lecture topic was "A Judicial Tsunami: The Rehnquist Court's Interpretation of Absolute Power over Aboriginal Peoples," and it was a devastating critique. 

On March 7, Helen Tanner delivered an evocative and thought provoking talk titled, "Implications of 'Iceberg Facts' for American Indian History," in which she explored the value of attending closely to seemingly anomalous facts–they may hang together in ways that disrupt our current understandings; there may be far more beneath the surface.   Tanner, a Senior Research Fellow at the Newberry Library, Chicago, has a long relationship with the University of Michigan, having received her Ph.D. in history here and having worked and taught here in the ‘sixties and ‘seventies.   She was also an expert witness and historical consultant for several tribes in some 20 state and federal legal cases. Her books, particularly her Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, are well-known.

On Thursday, March 13^th, the Hawaiian scholar, attorney, and activist Mililani Trask, delivered an inspiring and emotive paper titled, "Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights and Global Issues."    In addition to delivering her paper, Trask graciously led two student seminars, moderated by Professor Andrea Smith.   Honoring Trask at the opening of her talk was our own Professor Amy Stillman, Hawaiian and ethnomusicologist, who pleasantly surprised Trask with a beautifully sung chant in Hawaiian.  Trask has served as Kia'aina (Governor/Prime Minister) of Ka Lahui Hawaii, the Native Hawaiian Nation (1987-1998).  She is also the Pacific Basin representative on the 16-member U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 

The next Monday, Chief Arvol Looking Horse (Cheyenne River Sioux), visited the university, addressed a large undergraduate history class, and spoke to the public on the "Teachings of the White Buffalo Calf."  Arvol Looking Horse is the19th generation keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle and holds the responsibility of spiritual leader among the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota People. He travels and speaks extensively on peace, environmental and native rights issues.  He serves as a board member for the Wolakota Foundation, and he is the author of White Buffalo Teachings (2001).  Ann Arbor’s own drum, the Tree Town Singers (many of them university people), honored the spiritual leader at the event.

On Monday, April 7th, Jeffrey D. Anderson, gave us a lively, careful, thoughtful, and experienced presentation on “Making a Reservation at Wind River: Spatial and Temporal Dimensions of Euro-American Dominance and Northern Arapaho Survival.”  Anderson serves as Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Colby College in Maine. University of Chicago, Ph.D.. Professor Anderson is the author of One Hundred Years of Old Man Sage: An Arapaho Life Story (2003) and The Four Hills of Life: Northern Arapaho Life, Knowledge, and Personhood (2001). Anderson’s visit coincided with the Dance for Mother Earth Pow Wow, which he was able to attend.