The Southern Ute Cultural Center Director, Edward Box III recently gave updates on what tribal members can anticipate from the department for the coming year, with the primary focus being on the Ute language.
“We currently have a language class being taught by Mary Inez Cloud every Monday night,” commented Box. “We will have our methods in trying to reach to the younger membership in learning the language. We’re working with tribal elders to see how they can work with the Culture Department in passing it down. It’s important for us to focus on our language before it dies out.”
The Southern Ute Cultural Center will additionally be archiving their hosted events by recording and taking photos with the help of their media tech Kree Lopez, Box added.
“One thing we already started doing is recording the language and saving those digital bits for future use. We want to let the membership know that we’re here to accommodate what we can in preserving our language and our culture.”
Box recently came on board as the Director toward the end of November, where he also joins Darlene Frost (Culture Administrative Assistant), Hanley Frost Sr. (Culture Education Coordinator), Tara Vigil (Special Events Coordinator), Alden Naranjo (NAGPRA Coordinator), and Cassandra Naranjo (NAGPRA Assistant).
Box stated that he looks forward to providing tribal members with a variety of cultural events, and encourages the membership to contact the department for ideas.
“We have upcoming classes that our Education Coordinator is doing, which include beaded gloves, mittens, ribbon shirts and dresses,” he said. “I’d also like to mention that the membership should be aware that we will be sending out surveys on how we can improve events, as well as hear their input on how they’d like to assist the Culture Department. They’re more than welcome to show up and talk with us since we’re just located on the second floor of the museum. If the membership has any suggestions on classes, they can contact Hanley Frost.”
Box additionally provided that tribal members can now claim bison parts for spiritual purposes or regalia as part of their distribution program. These parts include robe, skull, femur bones, dewclaws, hooves, horn caps, buffalo hide, etc. Tribal members can get the procedures of obtaining these buffalo parts from department’s administration if interested.