“Spring semester courses in Lakota, Ojibwe, History, Genealogy. Philosophy–and World View,” proclaimed the classified ad, urging those who were interested to “call Dave.”
That would be David Beck. Is he a busy man these days getting ready for the spring semester at the Native American Educational Services College, 2838 W. Peterson Ave.?
“Yes,” said Beck happily, settling back in a book-lined office in a tree-lined, two-story building, where he is dean of the Chicago campus. Across the street is Mather Park, where dancers from the Oneida, Menominee, Ojibwe and Lakota Sioux tribes gathered last June to display ancient skills, competing for $23,000 in prizes. There was also much drumming.
In other ways as well these are boom times for native Indian cultures, which, after centuries of neglect, have seen a major upsurge in interest in their history, arts, legends, prayers, healings and what many see as a more harmonious approach to nature and environment.
For many of American Indian descent, it involves digging into matters long buried under an avalanche of foreign cultures. For them, the NAES system, offering a bachelor’s degree in “liberal arts tribally defined,” now runs campuses in Chicago, Minneapolis, on a reservation in Montana and another in northern Wisconsin where Menominees have lived for 5,000 years.
But Dave’s ad was directed to a different audience. Call them “the outsiders,” people looking to learn more about the land on which they live, from people who were here first.
“Interest is tremendous in American Indian courses these days,” noted Craig Howe, director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History at the Newberry Library, who will be teaching “Dynamics of Philosophy and World View” at the NAES college this semester and, as he put it, “looking at some of the fundamental aspects of the culture.”
So what, asked a recent Chicago campus visitor, can a modern-day outsider learn from attending lectures on ancient American Indian ways? In a word, said Beck, plenty.
“Our history courses would be of interest. Our tribal languages as well,” he began, flipping through a 65-page catalog, as other staffers bustled around getting classrooms and the library ready for term. “More and more people recognize that what they learned growing up simply left out Native American history. Now they want to include that.
“We try to focus on tribal customary law,” he went on. “On how Native Americans understood lands and resources. How they made treaties with other tribes. What they thought they were doing with the Europeans.”
Not a little of the work has to do with giving the American Indian side of what, for them, were some rather bad real estate deals. Often, lands were ceded under the misunderstanding that they were sharing fishing and hunting rights, not selling off the land forever.
Other areas of interest, to outsiders searching for a more meaningful way of life, deal with the core values that spread across many of the nation’s 550 American Indian tribes, among them an emphasis on extended family, Beck said.
Everyone pitches in, sharing chores, helping make decisions, raising children, caring for elders. Left to work properly, it can be a strong support system.
“Spirituality gives people a centeredness. It also helps in decision making,” he explained, though he noted quickly that “we don’t teach how to find spirituality. These are not self-help courses. But we do study the role it plays in everyday life for native peoples.”
For outsiders, a study of American Indian cultures might also lead to a stronger sense of place, especially in Chicago. These days, a majority of Chicago’s 8,000 to 11,000 American Indians live on the North Side, in Lakeview, Edgewater, Albany Park and Uptown.
Legacies of the city’s Native American past are everywhere, from an old trail now turned into busy Ridge Avenue to a plethora of American Indian names on streets and public areas.
“I’ve studied a lot of (American Indian) history,” noted Beck, turning to one stereotype he would like to retire, the Hollywood depiction of the blood-thirsty warrior.
In most native languages, Beck said, “the word `warrior’ included an idea of doing whatever they had to do to make sure their people were safe and secure.” Far from always whooping into battle, warriors often opted for peace, he noted. They only went to war, “when that was the last thing they could do to protect their people.”
