Tribal Heritage Project

Grant Brittan
Production Manager
gbrittan@potawatomi.org

The Tribal Heritage Project (THP) is a concentrated effort to research and to reveal individual family histories to the tribe’s members and to capture tribal history as it happens. Utilizing digital video, still photography, audio recordings, and archival documentation, the stories of the original Citizen Potawatomi families are being explored and explained to those who are alive today and archived for the reference of the generations to follow. Building on the oral tradition that is central to American Indian culture, state-of-the-art technology is brought to bear on the ancient strategy of learning from those who came before.

The project generates DVD/video episodes centered on each of the original Citizen Potawatomi families who immigrated to Indian Territory now known as Oklahoma. Individual copies of these episodes are available. The episodes are also added to the global database, creating audio-visual “folders” into which additional interviews, documents, and images can be added as they are recorded.

Areas of the Cultural Heritage Center (CHC) are reserved for these activities. The Family Heritage Room is located adjacent to the library, where family members are able to sit together and view their family’s heritage boxes and Family History DVD.  A nearby recording studio is lighted for video recording, and cameras and microphones record the family histories as they are discussed by elders and other members of their families.

During the Family Reunion Festivals, the studio is booked for the families who are being honored that particular year. It is hoped that individuals who have been intending to come home to Festival will do so the year their family is being honored. In this way, each family member can make a contribution to their own family's legacy.

Realistically, however, not all family members will be able to travel to Oklahoma, particularly our most revered elders for whom travel is difficult. The CPN is committed to getting the history of all the families in as complete a form as possible, so in addition to recording on-site at the CHC, members of the Tribal Heritage Project staff will use the regularly scheduled Regional Council Meetings as opportunities for recording family histories and stories. In certain individual cases,  elders may be interviewed in their homes.

The CPN administration has given the Tribal Heritage Project the highest priority and is asking all tribal members to collect and share photos, documents, and other relevant information with the Family Heritage Project.  Most family collections contain invaluable documents, films, still photographs, and books (such as family Bibles). The Tribal Heritage Project is actively seeking these items so the information contained in them can be recorded. Handling of these materials will be done in a careful and respectful manner, using state-of-the-art methods and equipment, and the originals will be returned as soon as possible along with a digital copy of the information.  If you or members of your family have such documents, films, etc. to share, please contact Mr. Blake Norton, the Nation’s Archivist/Librarian at 800-880-9880 or 405-878-5830.