The Menominee Clan Story Came Home to CMN. Which Resources Are Next?

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The original name for Wisconsin is Wēkōhsek. The Menominee word translates as “a good place to live.” Wēskohsek is also one of more than 100 place names listed, translated, and spoken aloud through audio files on the Menominee Clans Story website. The research shared by the site was produced by Mike Hoffman, and it complements the digital images of the wood carvings completed by James Frechette Jr. Although the two Menominee culture keepers have gone to the spirit world, their teachings were kept alive through digital files on the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UW-SP) servers. In the spring of 2024, the site came “home” when it was transferred, refreshed, and expanded upon by the College of Menominee Nation (CMN). The site’s reception at CMN emphasized the importance of the return of those tribal teachings. Tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) are hubs for academic knowledge in their respective communities, making them ideal places to accept the repatriation of ancestorial files and care for them for generations to come.

The Menominee Clan Story site contains a wealth of knowledge about Menominee cultural teachings. In addition to the place name’s map sharing the original names of the nation’s ancestorial land holdings, it shares the Menominee creation story in both English and the Menominee language. The site also hosts audio files of Menominee flute music, as well as stories that share ancestorial roles and enduring values. Most stunning are the images of the Mamāceqtāhsak figures carved by Frechette. Translating to English as “the little Menominee,” they depict the clan responsibilities that are both integral to tribal culture and inherited by each generation of Menominee people. Yet, perhaps the site’s greatest value is that it is free and accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

CMN not only enhanced the resolution of the images and delivery of the audio files, but the school’s new site caretakers also created a complementary website designed to help educators utilize it in their classroom. Titled “Teaching the Clans Story,” the additional site has K-12 lesson plans on both the clans and maps that are designed to utilize the teachings of the Menominee Clan Story. The lessons aspire to bring unchanging Menominee values into modern classrooms, beginning with the use of definitions such as a clan being a “family group with social responsibilities” and a family being a “community that is bound together by responsibilities.” The upshot is that the terms that will be used in schools reflect a mindset intended to immerse students in tribal values while teaching them about eternal Menominee values. Further, a short documentary on Frechette is now available for screening, allowing students to learn from the revered artist himself.

At a March ceremony, CMN’s president Christopher Caldwell officially accepted the repatriated site and oversaw the launch of its modern iteration. Calling the choice over whether or not to accept Frechette and Hoffman’s work “one of the easiest decisions” of his tenure at CMN, Caldwell assured those present that the college would oversee the site on behalf of all Menominee people. The homecoming event included speeches by current site caretakers; Frechette’s son, Richard Frechette; his niece, Dawn Wilber; and Hoffman’s widow, Karen Ann Hoffman, as well as CMN’s appointed staff collaborators Melinda Cook, Dylan Sabin, and me. Emeritus faculty member Dr. Ray Reser spoke about the history of the site at UW-SP and how that school had come to neglect its maintenance, necessitating the site’s move to CMN.  The festivities concluded with a homecoming song by the Wolf River Singers and a community meal.

The Menominee Clan Story website’s return to the Menominee homeland spawned much gratitude and a few conversations about what other archival materials could find a better home at a TCU. One cannot help but wonder what other Indigenous knowledge is housed by non-tribal universities, how the teachings are being cared for, and if they should be returned to the nations who created them. CMN is also home to the S. Verna Fowler Academic and Community Library, which houses original files from Menominee restoration; Menominee Pageant theater productions; and numerous collections of documents community members asked to be preserved for future researchers. Yet, like the archives of every Native nation, the repository could be enriched by the repatriation of files from public and private universities.

TCUs are the logical place to receive and care for these files, offering the opportunity for current tribal members to examine the work of their ancestors on the campuses chartered by their people. If the Menominee Clans Story website’s return to Menominee land in Wēkōhsek is any indication, the repatriated items will find their new homes a good place to be.

Ryan Winn teaches in the Liberal Studies Department at College of Menominee Nation.  

Visit the Menominee Clans Story: https://www.menominee.edu/tmcs

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in the Inquisitive Academic or any other opinion columns published by the Tribal College Journal (TCJ) do not necessarily reflect the opinions of TCJ or the American Indian Higher Education Consortium.