LaDonna Brown spoke passionately Wednesday about the culture and tradition of the Chickasaw Nation. Her presentation to an audience of nearly 100 people in Peck Hall on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is part of the University’s celebration of Native American Heritage Month.
She discussed her vocation. Brown is a historic preservation officer for the Chickasaw Nation. She is enrolled in the Chickasaw nation and works at the Chickasaw Nation’s Department of Homeland Affairs in Ada, Okla.
“On the one hand, I deal with cultural information and traditional knowledge, and how that helps me work with federal agencies in dealing with projects that they propose to us that might be taking place on their lands or within their boundaries,” she said. “It helps bring both perspectives together and bring about a better understanding on the tribal side and the governmental side.
“From my perspective, it causes me to walk in two worlds – where I have one foot in the cultural world and the other foot in the U.S. federal governmental perspective.”
“We are a sovereign nation,” she said about the Chickasaw nation. “So, we have a government-to-government relationship with the United States.”
“I would like people to understand that for me, speaking from the Chickasaw perspective, the Chickasaw people are still here. We are still alive. We still have a culture, and we are able to discuss that culture.
“It’s still alive, and it’s definitely something that has to be shared from Chickasaw people.
“People have tried to write about our culture. You read about historical accounts, and they are usually from an outside perspective. Those people might not understand what they’re writing about, or they might skew whatever they are viewing.”
Brown noted that sometimes the Chickasaw culture is misrepresented. “Sometimes you might see things from videos, films or TV, and there is sort of a generic view of Native American culture. It’s not the true perspective that we, as the Chickasaw people, would like for a general audience to understand.
“What I would like people to understand is that there is a true perspective. I would like to try to get that general information out and get people to maybe do a little bit of research of their own, so they can have a better understanding of Chickasaw culture.”
Brown spoke to faculty, staff and students about the cultural resource work taking place in the Chickasaw homeland, which includes Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. The Chickasaw, along with the Cherokee, were forced to leave their homeland in the southeast and move to Oklahoma after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. They joined the Cherokee people on the Trail of Tears.
She also discussed historic preservation, archaeology and the Chickasaw Nation with a class on campus. Brown visited the SIUE archeological site, which is a campus dig site where faculty, staff and students currently uncover Native American artifacts. She visited the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, located in Collinsville. Cahokia Mounds is an active excavation site where archeologists and students take part in uncovering artifacts from the past to explain the history of the Cahokians, a Native American people.
Earlier in November, SIUE’s Native American Studies program brought another professional to campus to talk about Native American Heritage. Brad Koldehoff, chief archaeologist for the Illinois Department of Transportation, visited to discuss tribal consultation and archaeology of the new Mississippi River Bridge project in East St. Louis.
Brown’s trip was funded by Native American Studies program departments of Anthropology, Historical Studies, Philosophy and Political Science, as well as the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Administration.