By: Cheryl Reitan
In May, 1973, David “Niib” Aubid (AA ‘92, BA ‘12) arrived at the Kirby Ballroom for the Anishinabe Days Pow Wow. That night he was bringing the Pow Wow drum and a van full of drummers for the ceremony. He was with John Martin, an Ojibwe singer who taught traditional songs.
Niib, who was a UMD student at the time, is from a community of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe where Ojibwe was spoken and cultural ways were practiced. When Niib walked in, Paul Buffalo, an American Indian elder and spiritual leader from Leech Lake was performing a ceremony, sanctifying the area. Niib said, “Paul had on a headdress, and was shaking a rattle near the floor, blessing the space for the dancers.”
Many were in native dress, a few in full regalia. There were Shawl Dancers and one of the male dancers was wearing a bustle, a large shield of eagle and hawk feathers, worn at the back.
That Pow Wow was one of the first annual Anishinabe Days Pow Wows. Vern Zacher (AA ‘67 BA ‘72) explained, “One week every spring we held Anishinabe Days.” There were films and speakers each day. “It was a strong time for American Indian students at UMD,” Vern said. “It became a focus for students in Minnesota and North Dakota.”
A lot of credit for the AIS program goes to George Himango. He returned from a tour in Vietnam in 1970 and with the encouragement of Ruth Myers, a woman known as the “grandmother of American Indian Education in Minnesota,” enrolled at UMD.
The year George arrived, only two American Indians had graduated from UMD. George recruited twelve friends to come to UMD, and they put together a student organization, the Anishinabe Club.
In April 1972, American Indian Studies (AIS) formed, and by October 1972 it became a program within the Division of Social Sciences. Its first director was Robert Powless, a full-blooded Oneida Indian.
Niib gave high marks to one class, American Indians in the 20th Century. “It was taught by Dr. Powless,” he said. “We learned a lot ... about Hiawatha, the peace chief of the Iroquois tribes, and the Great Law of Peace, the oral constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy.”
Another class, History and Culture of the Ojibwe, brought in the community. Visitors included Paul Buffalo, Roger Fairbanks, Tim Roufs, Don Murdock, Ruth Myers, Billy Blackwell, and Betty Gurno. In addition, students were visited by a dance group with Mary Howes, Roger Shaibaish, and John Martin.
The AIS students were extremely active. George, Vern, Clyde Atwood, and Ray Murdock met with the medical school and social work staff to provide them with greater understanding of cultural differences. George and other students in the program, Ed Howes, Nora Gallaher, and Roberta DuFault, tutored American Indian inmates in Sandstone Prison. After earning his BA in 2012, Niib taught the Ojibwe language at UMD for many years.
The 48-year old AIS program is still strong. The program joins over a dozen American Indian programs on the UMD campus, and hundreds of alumni from those programs remember the classes and American Indian traditions at UMD.