The sounds of the drum circle resonated as people young and old gathered Thursday at Uŋčí Makhá Park in celebration of a brand new 150-foot-long mural, an ode to the Dakota community in Minnesota.
“Today’s celebration is only a culminating recognition of the completion of this project and a chance for us to acknowledge the artists and the individuals who made the mural occur and our Dakota relatives who live to tell the tale this land,” artist Elissa Cedarleaf Dahl said.
St. Paul Parks and Recreation connected Minnesotan artists Missy Whiteman and Cedarleaf Dahl with six highschool interns from the town’s Right Track youth employment program to create the mural, “As Above, So Below; Seeing Ourselves within the Creation Story,” at Uŋčí Makhá Park in the brand new Highland Bridge neighborhood on the location of the previous Ford manufacturing plant.
“It is a likelihood to attach our past with our present with our future and it’s a specific gift that it’s young individuals who gave it to us,” St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said during his ribbon-cutting ceremony speech.
The mural is a representation of the Dakota creation story. Its images contain multiple scenes and starts with the péta wakaŋ (sacred fire) and white buffalo calf. The white buffalo calf represents one born this summer in Yellowstone National Park and marks a necessity for people to come back together and take care of the earth.
“This creation story is our people and there’s no improper or right solution to tell the story,” Dakota Elder Pamela Halverson said.
Small turtles along the painting of the Bdote then lead to 1 large snapping turtle that has trees sprouting from its shell, rivers running across it and the sun behind it. The turtle represents Turtle Island, what many Indigenous communities call the North American continent.
“This mural is full of symbolism,” Cederleaf Dahl said.
Halverson said she shared stories learned from Dakota Elders with the artists as they created the painting. She was considered the cultural and artistic consultant, guiding the artists as they got here up with concepts for the piece. Halverson said the name “As above so below,” is representative of the Dakota belief that on earth there are stars and what’s on earth also lives within the cosmos.
“I’d need to say my favorite part is the connection between the start and the top,” Whiteman said.
Because the mural starts with the creation story, different physical elements and lastly the cosmos, the tail end of the mural has portraits of every intern, which they designed and painted themselves. Whiteman, who’s of the Northern Arapaho, Kickapoo nations, said their portraits represent how the youth are future leaders and older generations must step aside to allow them to lead.
“It’s invaluable because if we’re talking concerning the history of first nations people, we have now to acknowledge what got here first before any of us,” Whiteman said.
Youth interns that worked on the mural include teenagers from across the town: Jayvion “Jay” Bivens, Camille Clyde, Anjila “Sahar” Noori, Kendrick Escobar Santos, Theodore “Theo” Ausland and Sincere Ross McConnell. Together the artists, interns and other community members worked on the mural from June through early October.
“It was really, really fun, a very good community and I made friends with all of the people here,” Clyde, 16, said.
Whiteman said that because the mural honors the Dakota people, it is usually a unification of all people. “It’s invaluable because if we’re talking concerning the history of First Nations people, we have now to acknowledge what got here first before any of us.”