ISD 196 American Indian Education

-Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotanka),

Chief and Holy Man of the Hunkpapa Dakota-

Each November, the 196 American Indian Education students and community create a poster to acknowledge Native American month. This year's poster acknowledges the Tribal Sovereign nations and features the 11 flags of the Tribal Nations located in Minnesota.

The month of November was first designated as National American Indian Heritage Month in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush. Since then, the president has issued a proclamation each year to recognize the heritage and culture of Native Americans.

National Native American Heritage Month is celebrated each year in November to celebrate the traditions, languages and stories of Native American and Alaska Native communities.

The Dakota Tribal language word "akicita" translates to warriors on duty for tribal services. Today, the word akicita is used when they talk about Native American veterans. Native Americans have had the role of warriors in their communities to protect their family and community. Many Native American veterans share that they believe the role of warriors is continued by serving in the United States Armed Forces.

Native American veterans played an important role as code talkers. The US Army was the first branch of the military that began recruiting code talkers from places like Oklahoma in 1940. Apart from basic training, these Native American men had to develop and memorize a unique military code using their Tribal languages. There was a total of 14 Tribal Nation code talkers that used their tribal languages for developing code.

The first type of code they created was completed in 1942 by Navajo Code Talkers. The Type 1 code, consisted of 26 Navajo terms that stood for individual English letters that could be used to spell out a word. For instance, the Navajo word for “ant,” wo-la-chee, was used to represent the letter “a” in English.

Type 2 code developed a dictionary of 211 terms (later expanded to 411) for military words and names that didn’t originally exist in the Navajo language. For example, since there was no existing Navajo word for “submarine,” the code talkers agreed to use the term besh-lo, which translates to “iron fish.”

Native American scientists throughout history have made an impact in the fields of physics, anthropology, medicine, and more. In honor of Native American Heritage Month, we highlight Native American scientists and engineers who made and are still making important contributions to science, technology, engineering, and math.

Susan La Flesche Picotte, Physician (1865–1915)

Susan La Flesche Picotte, of the Omaha Nation, was the first Native American to earn a medical degree. She advocated for public health and political rights of the Omaha people. In one of her public health campaigns, she pushed to prevent and treat tuberculosis, which had no cure at the time. Picotte is also credited with building the first private hospital on a Native American reservation.

Mary Golda Ross, Aerospace Engineer (1908-2008)

Mary Golda Ross (Cherokee Nation) was an engineer who worked at Lockheed Martin on the design of planes and spacecraft, including the P-38 Lightning fighter plane and the Agena rocket, which helped pave the way for NASA's Apollo mission. Ross was an original member of Lockheed's top-secret Skunk Works team.

Ella Cara Deloria (Aŋpétu Wašté Wiŋ, Beautiful Day Woman), Anthropologist (1889-1971)

Ella Cara Deloria (Yankton Dakota) was an anthropologist, ethnographer, linguist, and writer. Deloria worked to preserve Native American history by recording oral history. Working with anthropologists like Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, Deloria helped with Sioux linguistics and the translation of Native American languages and materials.

John Herrington, Aeronautical Engineer and Astronaut (present)

John Herrington (Chickasaw Nation) served in the U.S. Navy before joining NASA as a mission specialist on STS-113, the 16th Endeavour space shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Herrington was later Commander of NEEMO 6 (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) and spent time in the Aquarius underwater laboratory as part of a mission to simulate survival in extreme conditions

Jerry C. Elliott (High Eagle), Physicist (present)

Jerry C. Elliott (High Eagle) (Osage-Cherokee) is a physicist who started at NASA as a Flight Mission Operations Engineer. His work as Mission Control Center lead retrofire officer for Apollo 13 helped return the crew home safely after an oxygen tank explosion aborted the mission. Jerry was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Watch videos or listen about Native American history and Culture.