The University of Minnesota’s Council of American Indian Elders held a sunrise ceremony yesterday morning to begin American Indian Month in Minnesota. See the U of M press release.
The MN150 website recently launched a new page titled, May is American Indian Month in Minnesota. (I’ve used some of the text from that page to create the new About page here on our site.)
Joey McLeister, Star Tribune photographer, has a photo of yesterday’s sunrise ceremony in today’s paper and on the web, with this caption:
A continental breakfast followed a sunrise ceremony Thursday at Minneapolis’ East River Flats park area to open Minnesota’s American Indian Month. The ceremony included traditional Indian prayers and a tobacco-burning ceremony.
Jim Clairmont, chair of the Council of American Indian Elders, prayed (in his native language — he is Lakota from the Sicangu Nation) for students, professors, leaders, soldiers, children, elders and the sick. Clairmont first held a sunrise ceremony at the University of Minnesota in 1973 and has since provided language, cultural and spiritual counsel to university students.