CALLING BACK THE SPIRITS: A HEALING JOURNEY, a deeply meaningful project that honors the descendants of those who endured the injustices at Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida. This project has been in the works for many years, rooted in the sacred histories shared by descendants during the 1990 Fort Marion POW Descendants Gathering. At this gathering, the descendants spoke of their ancestors who, after being imprisoned at Fort Marion, had their spirits captured in plaster life masks—artifacts that, for over a century, have remained disconnected from their cultural and spiritual significance. The trauma of these incarceration experiences, compounded by the lack of opportunity for formal ceremony or healing, calls for the urgent reclamation of their voices and stories. Despite extensive academic work on Fort Marion, the personal histories and cultural impacts faced by these families have been largely overlooked. Through the vision of Dr. Dolores Subia BigFoot and Mr. C. Ah-in-nist Sipes, this project seeks to give a platform to these critical oral histories and provide a means for descendants to reconnect with their ancestors' spirits. Your donation will help bridge the gap in resources that has historically kept these important stories from being told, offering descendants the opportunity to reclaim their heritage, share their truths, and ensure that their ancestors are properly honored and remembered.
LEARN MORE
A Healing Journey has been in pre-proposal planning stage for many years. After the Fort Marion Masks had been in storage for over 100 years, POW descendants gathered for the 1990 Fort Marion POW Descendants Gathering on the historical grounds of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Concho Pow Wow arena and this project was envisioned. As descendants spoke of their sacred ancestors who were incarcerated at Fort Marion (St. Augustine, Florida) at that Gathering, they understood that their ancestors endured grave injuries and injustices including the creation of anthropologically informed “life masks” made from plaster of Paris. (Isaac and Colebank 2022). Being coerced into sitting for the life masks was one part of oral stories shared from one generation to the next. The descendants spoke of their Ancestors’ Spirits being captured in those Masks and of never having had the opportunity to call their Spirits home in ceremony or in actual practice. When Cheyenne Chief and Tribal Historian, John L. Sipes, Jr., conducted ceremony in 2007, starting from when he traveled from Oklahoma to the campus of Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, he placed offerings for the Masks all along his trip . Sipes was instrumental in the placement of the Masks for the first time according to relationships (married couples together) and tribal affiliation together. As the ceremony of mourning was being offered, a Peabody curator was heard to say, “I never thought of them as human, but as specimens.”
Scholars have written extensively about Fort Marion; however, these writings do not include the oral histories of the POW passed down from generations to generations. These essential accounts of POW experiences have not been solicited or shared in the scholarship. Similarly, the way the resulting federal policies impacted generations of American Indian families from the time of the POW incarceration to present have not been carefully identified or shared. Importantly, there are collections of artifacts made sensitive due to the incarceration about which there has been limited study or dialogue. As a result, very limited knowledge and understanding has emerged because descendants of the POW do not have resources to travel or interact with museums or institutions located far from descendants’ homelands. As descendants of Fort Marion POW, Dr. Dolores Subia BigFoot and Mr. C. Ah-in-nist Sipes (a mother and son pair) recognized and are motivated by the fact, that their family stories and the stories of other descendants’ families would not be told unless there was a larger platform on which to share and remember the stories.
Established as Calling Back the Spirits: A Healing Journey in July 2022, this has included almost weekly meetings, identifying and inviting collaborators, a visit to the Smithsonian Institution Archives, and creating subcommittees as the project expanded. Further funding will be sought to offer the outcome of the Convening publicly through various channels, including a website, documentary, and other publications, including a possible children’s book. The broader aim of the Calling Back the Spirits: A Healing Journey, beyond the Convening which is the initial start, seeks to address the social and cultural significance of the Fort Marion POW and the Masks and their connection to the emerged federal policies through the following components:
1. Sculpture Exhibition: Upon consent and approval from POW descendant families of each of the five Tribal nations, renowned sculptor Lew Aytes will create fifteen life-sized busts representing POW. These sculptures will be crafted from the Fort Marion life-mask collection, with enhanced facial characteristics and open eyes, and clothed in traditional attire. Additionally, five busts of living descendants of POWs will be created, ensuring a connection between the past and the present. All sculptures will be cast in bronze.
2. Convening: By means of a Convening of descendant families with curators, scholars, educators, artists, historians and independent researchers, participants will hear the POW stories passed from generation to generation. In this context and by means of the Convening, participants will create opportunities for intercultural dialogue and understanding. Participants will explore the meanings of these histories and of the sensitive collections of the life masks and other associated artifacts. The Convening thus has the potential to begin to foster intergenerational healing without re-traumatizing the descendants given the sociocultural effects of federal policy on American Indian peoples over these past seven generations.
3. Manuscript: The project will produce a manuscript that chronicles the capture of the POWs and their journey from Indian Territory to Fort Marion, Florida. The manuscript will highlight the creation of life masks and the associated ledger art. Dr. Dolores Subia BigFoot, project lead and a prominent figure from the Caddo Tribe, will contribute written accounts and utilize her late husband's archival collection, Cheyenne Chief and Tribal Historian, John L. Sipe, Jr.. This publication will provide an invaluable resource for understanding the historical context and cultural significance of the Fort Marion Masks.
4. Art Exhibition and Museum Housing: The sculpted busts, replica masks, ledger art, and relevant imagery will be exhibited in each of the five Tribal nation’s museums, providing an opportunity for Tribal and public viewing. Ultimately, the art exhibition will find a permanent home in a national museum, where it can be accessed and appreciated by a wider audience.
5. Development of Return Protocols: A team consisting of representatives from the five nations will collaborate with the Smithsonian Institute and the Peabody Museum to create a protocol for returning the masks to their respective tribes. This protocol will adhere to the "Ethical Returns" guidelines established by the Smithsonian Institute, ensuring the proper repatriation of these cultural items.
This project, "Calling Back the Spirits: A Healing Journey" will serve as a platform to acknowledge and comprehend the dark chapter in American history which still has reverberating harsh consequences for American Indian and Alaska Native populations.
A descendant of Fort Marion POW, Sipes, Jr., began a manuscript recounting the oral stories of the five generations between Medicine Water and himself. Sipes grew up listening to family stories of the captivity of Fort Marion Prisoners of War (POW) Medicine Water and Mochi (husband and wife) (Sipes, 2007). He collected many stories of pre-incarceration at Fort Marion, the Plains Indian Wars, the incarceration, and the return to Oklahoma reservation life, now without the buffalo and without the migrating routes that were legendary. Sipes died in 2007 without completing the manuscript. As his wife and a Fort Marion descendant also, Dr. BigFoot undertook efforts to research and expand the history of Fort Marion since 1875. As a result of the incarceration of the POW) at Fort Marion, the United States policies toward Indian became standardized across administrations resulting in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. These standards, often cavalierly conceived and recklessly implemented, initiated the beginning of the tragically harmful and traumatic practices of assimilation and exploitation of American Indians/Native Alaska people and their families with boarding schools, allotment, removal, and confinement.
Within a service-learning collaborative, research (Keppel, BigFoot, Burke, Mackey, & Minnis, 2022) was completed by undergraduate student interns from the University Oklahoma Native American Studies Program, and the History and Library Sciences departments. This research created a search tool for Chief Sipe’s archival collection. This research led Dr. BigFoot to consider Sipe’s original manuscript and eventually to conceptualize the Convening for the Calling Back the Spirits: A Healing Journey.
To be comprehensive, there is a need for a wide range of collaborators with a depth of expertise across many disciplines to accomplish the goal of convening. This project’s Convening was motivated by the necessity to record and document family stories chronicling events that significantly impacted the lives and experiences of American Indians and Native Alaskans for the last one hundred and fifty years.
Recognizing the limited opportunity for dialogue the next step is to connect the descendants with museums and institutions that house these sensitive collections related to Fort Marion POW. This need led to a collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, Peabody Museum of Harvard University, Milwaukee Museum of Art, University of Central Florida, University of California at San Diego, Utah Valley University, University of New Mexico, University of California at Monterey, National Museums of World Cultures (Sweden), National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, and the Indian Country Child Trauma Center at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. In addition, independent researchers and historians are involved by providing community connections and engagement with tribal leadership and descendants. The Calling Back the Spirits Project is a community-based collaborative, very much driven by community partnerships and tribal involvement. It is the first formal effort with all the collaborators to convene to bring tribal descendants and governments into the conversation.
The P.I., Dr. BigFoot, and Co-Collaborator, Mr. Sipes, have hosted gatherings with tribal community members, tribal governments and community members (https://bit.ly/47kvOWV). Since there are five Tribes that had members incarcerated as POW at Fort Marion, all five tribes have participated in community events to share information and discuss the collections housed at the Smithsonian and the Peabody. The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma have hosted three community events in support of the project, including staff from the cultural and language departments and elected officials. Elected officials and members from the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma have attended Calling Back the Spirit Project events and have committed to on-going involvement including creating genealogy and lineage documentation to support the Project. The Comanche Nation members, including the cultural and language department staff, have attended one project gathering to express support and the desire for on-going involvement as the Project hosts other events. The legislators of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma have for many years expressed interest in support of gathering more information about the Fort Marion POW from their tribe. In addition, other tribal representatives from the Cherokee Nation, Osage Nation, and Pawnee Tribe are in support of the Project’s efforts. It should be noted that the Calling Back the Spirits Project is led by two descendants of three of the Fort Marion POWs: Dr. BigFoot is a Caddo member with the Caddo POW being her ancestor and her son, Ah-in-nist Sipes (son of John L Sipes, Jr.) is a descendant from the Cheyenne POWs Medicine Water and Mochi. Invitations have been extended to two community colleges that have significant American Indian student populations to participate in a community service-learning collaborative as part of the Convening.
Several institutions and individuals play pivotal roles in preserving and studying the cultural heritage associated with Fort Marion and related art projects: --Dr. Ross Frank and Dr. Aaron Atencio focus on ledger art, particularly the Fort Marion ledger art. Both engage in art history projects connected with museum collections. Dr. Frank has a university course on curating an exhibit, select content of which will become part of this public exhibit about the meaningfulness and interpretation of Fort Marion ledger art. --Dr. Joyce Szabo, an expert on Fort Marion art, has made notable contributions through her writings on the subject, enhancing the understanding and appreciation of this significant cultural heritage. --Mr. Martin Schultz and Mr. Daniel Englisberg (Guggisberg) have a history of collaboration with museums overseas, particularly in Europe, where they work with sensitive collections. --Dr. Eric Singleton and Mr. Lew Aytes have a history with museums dealing with American Indian collections. --Dr. Amy Giroux specializes in Fort Marion, concentrating on the location of burials, gravesites, and mass graves, employing a multidisciplinary approach encompassing digital methods, genealogy, and anthropology. --Dr. Gwyneira Isaac, curator for North American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution, and her team, Madison King and Laura Sharp, are working in conjunction with the curator for North America, Stephanie Mach, from Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Each museum houses a collection of the Fort Marion Masks. --Dr. Dolores Subia BigFoot, Dr. Kathryn England-Aytes, and Dr. Melanie Collins, each American Indian professionals, are psychologists who specialize in research in historical trauma and post-traumatic growth. --Dr. Reuben Mendoza and Mr. Avi Steinberg are noted scholars in social justice issues in underserved populations. --Dr. Karen Mizell is a scholar in applied ethics, philosophy of children, social justice issues, and in memory, grief and loss. --Ms. Lisa Lambert is a scholar in trauma-informed pedagogy related to student academic success, memory, grief and loss, and social justice issues.
Mr. C. Ah-in-nist Sipes, Dr. BigFoot, and other POW descendant families are essential participants to the Convening because they hold the stories that have been passed from generation to generation. Critical to this effort, is the designation of Mr. Sipes and Dr. BigFoot as helpers and healers within the tribal communities they serve including their individual work to improve mental wellbeing with the use of ceremony and spiritual ways (BigFoot & Sipes, 2022).