The students had their first major cultural experience of the week as they toured the capital and looked up at the murals depicting Native people.
“There was Native representation, but it was in the context of Columbus and the baptism of Pocahontas,” RunningCrane said. “They were naked in all of the depictions except Pocahontas.”
RunningCrane said she wished the murals showed a more accurate version of Native history and told the stories of Indians wanting to help the new settlers before they were met with aggression.
“The way it went from friendly to oppression so quickly — that’s what’s accurate,” RunningCrane said. “It’s painful, but it’s true.”
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“My host family asked about Indian names,” RunningCrane said. “My name is Dylan on my birth certificate. My Indian name was given to me by my grandpa and it’s only used for prayer. I don’t personally take it as offensive, but it got annoying because they started using my Indian name flippantly. They come from a progressive school, so they’re pretty open-minded, but they misunderstood a few things.”
The students found some of the misconceptions funny. For whatever reason, it was circulating among the Sidwell students that there are only six escalators in the whole state of Montana.
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