El Paso elementary-school Nahuatl language program ends
Read about the end of this Aztec-language program, begun in 1995 in Canutillo Elementary School in El Paso, TX.
Northeast Historic Film Preserves Penobscot Home Movies
Congratulations to our friends at Northeast Historic Film for their NFPF grant to preserve the Charles Norman Shay Collection (1955–62), home movies by a Penobscot tribal elder.
Northern Arizona University and NFPF to Preserve Three Films on Native Life in Arizona
Congratulations to Janna Jones and Karen Underhill of Northern Arizona University for winning a National Film Preservation Foundation Grant to preserve three films by noted Arizona filmmaker Tad Nichols:
Apache Indian Camp Life Among the White Mountain Apaches in Arizona (1940), educational film by Southwest photographer Tad Nichols.
Navajo Indian Life (1939–40), educational film by Tad Nichols.
Yaqui Easter Celebration (1941–42), documentation by Tad Nichols of a seven-week tribal ceremony and fiesta.
Native American Film Festival, Sept 28-29, Verde Valley Archaeological Center--Camp Verde, AZ
A wonderful lineup of Native films this coming weekend, including the celebrated Reel Injun!
The Native American Film Festival provides a venue for feature films, shorts, videos and documentaries of USA American Indian and Canada First Nation communities. We often include feature films by indigenous people of other countries. Public screenings and events will be held for two days on September 28 and 29, 2012, in Camp Verde, Arizona. The film selections are now available on the Film Page.
Congratulations to Verde Valley Archaeological Center for winning a National Film Preservation Foundation Grant to preserve the film Lost Ceremonies of the Hopi Cliff Dwellers (1958), an introduction to Hopi history and culture created by Milo Billingsley with footage of his Hopi Dance Troupe.
Only All-Native American Silent Film Rediscovered
From Moving Image Archive News:
The Daughter of Dawn, perhaps the only all-Native American cast silent film ever made, has been rediscovered in “shambles” a century after it was made, restored, and now re-presented.
The restoration had its world premiere in June at the deadCENTER Film Festival in Oklahoma City, as Indian Country News reports.
One of the earliest silent movies filmed in Oklahoma, the 80-minute film was filmed near Lawton in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge among the Comanche and Kiowa nations. The Oklahoma Historical Society acquired and restored the film, virtually unseen for decades, with funds from the National Film Preservation Foundation. The Oklahoma Historical Society commissioned a new musical score from Comanche composer David A. Yeagley and recorded by the Oklahoma City University Philharmonic.
The Atlas of Extinct Nations
This website posts maps of conquered or lost cultures, many of them in the Americas. See the wonderful link to the "Exploring Early Americas" at the Library of Congress.