Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Celebrating 50 Years of Tiospaye

 

Installation view in the John A. Day Gallery, Warren M. Lee Center for the Fine Arts
Photograph courtesy Amy Fill, University Art Galleries


The John A. Day Gallery at the University of South Dakota is exhibiting historical images from the USD Photograph Collection and recordings from the South Dakota Oral History Center through March 28, in celebration of the long history of the student led wacipi (often referred to as powwow) at USD.

Celebrating 50 Years of Tiospaye is a pop up installation which grew out of several initiatives.

USD Native Services (NSS), USD Archives and Special Collections (A&SC), and Digital Imaging Lab, Digital Library and Photographs (DIL/DL/P) partnered together to locate, identify, and digitize images related to the Annual Wacipi held in the A&SC. The wacipi was and continues to be hosted by the Tiospaye Student Council, the Native American student group on campus, founded in 1957. The photographs range in date from 1966 to 1999 and also feature members of the Tiospaye Student Council, USD Native alumni, and various events held in collaboration with the Annual Wacipi. 

Over the past year, this unique partnership included the identification of more than 700 negatives by Dr. John Little, Director of Native Recruitment & Alumni Engagement. Sarah Hanson-Pareek, head of the DIL/DL/P, and Library Technology Librarian Anne Hinseth imaged the negatives and efforts are now underway to have them entered in the Digital Library of South Dakota for the 50th Anniversary Wacipi on April 6 and April 7 at the Sanford Coyote Sports Center. Amy Fill, director of the University Art Galleries, selected four images from the collection to place on view in the Day Gallery.

The wacipi project is part of a larger project by NSS focused on finding all photographs featuring Native content throughout USD’s history held in the A&SC. Research includes other formats and materials held both in the A&SC and the South Dakota Oral History Center. Of particular importance is an early wacipi recording at USD from 1971, AIRP 625, in which “participants describe costumes, music, and giveaways.” The recording is included in this exhibition.

More information about the 50th Annual Wacipi.

Images on view from left to right:

Tiospaye Student Council Drum at the 20th Annual USD Wacipi, Hosted and Organized by the Tiospaye Student Council, DakotaDome, 1992

Negative number: 13681.1.2, Series 10, Box 122

Drum Group at the 21st Annual USD Wacipi, Hosted and Organized by the Tiospaye Student Council, DakotaDome, 1993

Negative number: 6370.31, Series 11

19th Annual USD Wacipi, Hosted and Organized by the Tiospaye Student Council, DakotaDome, 1991

Negative number: 6034.19, Series 11

Institute of Indian Studies Monthly Wacipi, Hosted by Germaine and Adam Sitting Crow, Armory, March 1971

Starting in the 1970-1971 academic year, the Institute of Indian Studies in collaboration with the W. H. Over Museum started hosting monthly wacipis.

Negative number: 10624.9.2, Series 10, Box 89

Photographs from the USD Photograph Collection, USD Archives and Special Collections, University Libraries, University of South Dakota


AIRP 625 (recorded in 1970): Sound recording of a pow wow at the University of South Dakota. Participants describe costumes, the music, giveaways, and the reasons for holding pow wows.

Sound recording from the American Indian Research Project (AIRP), South Dakota Oral History Center, University Libraries, University of South Dakota

Originally posted at https://archivesandspecialcollections.wordpress.com/2024/03/20/celebrating-50-years-of-tiospaye/