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By Susan Williams
While Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg presided at the mock court martial of George Custer at the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington (see story, this issue), IU's Raymond DeMallie was approaching 19th-century native American and United States government affairs in absolute reality.
DeMallie, professor of anthropology and director for the American Indian Studies Research Institute at IUB, recently received a grant from the Tides Foundation in San Francisco to fund the Sioux Documentary Archives Project. This project, which is co-directed with Vine Deloria Jr., professor of history at the University of Colorado (UC), will procure copies of major unpublished documents concerning relations between the U.S. government and the Sioux Nation of Indians, 1805-1932.
The records contain materials on various Sioux claims, and the cultural and religious beliefs of the Sioux people as they relate to or are revealed by the political events of that time.
"Our interest is primarily in documents that reproduce testimony by elders," DeMallie explained. "Although they are stenographic recordings of translator's English interpretations of what was said, these are the most primary documents we have representing native perspectives on treaties."
The project includes locating and microfilming three distinct sets of records currently housed in the National Archives. Copies of the materials, which include exhibits in important legal cases, investigations and specialized 19th-century reservation censuses, will be kept at IU, UC and with the Sioux reservation colleges. The most valuable documents will be available on CD in a format that will allow computer search functions.
"The intention," said DeMallie, "is to make these materials available to the tribal colleges to give students and faculty access to primary information essential for understanding the history of legal relations between the Sioux and the United States."
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