For some, Columbus Day doesn't cut it anymore.
After enjoying 500-plus years of heroic status — today is the traditional date to remember Christopher Columbus; Monday is the federal holiday named in his honor — the explorer could stand to share the limelight, say a pair of Salt Lake Community College advisers.
So the college is expanding its observance this year of Indigenous Peoples Day — a celebration of the people who showed Columbus around. "My grandmother used to say, 'When you go to school, you're going to be celebrating that somebody 'discovered' us,' " recalls Evelynn O'Dell, an academic adviser at the college. "It was us 'Indians' who discovered him, because he was lost," was more like it, she said. Heading for India from Spain, Columbus "was trying to find another group of people," she said. Even after it became clear he was nowhere near that land, he and his successors insisted on calling the native people "Indians."
So, O'Dell said, "he's still lost."
Her tone was free of the slightest trace of bitterness. And when O'Dell pointed out that the name of her tribe, the Navajo, was imposed on it by the Spanish, she still didn't sound irked. Navajo means "horse thieves" in Spanish, so she does prefer her people's original name, Dineh. But "Navajo" doesn't offend her.
"I know who I am," she said. Not a horse thief, but a woman who hopes others will learn the truth about Utah's first nations. "We're very rich in terms of finding harmony in our lives. We really believe in being well-balanced."
A concert by Native American musician Bill Miller; a discussion titled "Hear Our Voices," on how Miller, a Mohican, has used music to bridge cultural divides; and a crafts market will converge this Tuesday and Wednesday on the South City SLCC campus, 1575 S. State St. Miller, who has traveled the world with his mix of rock, blues, folk and tribal songs, said music has helped heal the divisions between cultures.
"My songs point to hope," he said. "I want to bring the hope of reconciliation. It's not about who's wrong or right. The races have to reconcile."
Miller's tribe, the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican nation, was pushed out of its native lands in what became New York State, and forced to stay in northern Wisconsin. But when he gives a concert or a lecture, "it's not to grandstand and say, 'You white people should pay the price for what you did to us.' "
Rather, he wants to emphasize his people's cultural contributions.
"I hardly ever see anything about Native Americans on TV," he said. "I want to see the people who've made it as great teachers, doctors, lawyers, or as great fathers."
In his 27 years on the road, Miller has found he can make his points more easily with music than with political diatribe.
"I want to enlighten people and make them laugh," he said.
So which term does Miller prefer, Native American or American Indian?
"To me, Native American is all of us. We should try to share our cultures and regenerate something new," he replied.
Miller's Indigenous Peoples Day events at SLCC are open to all, said Nancy Fillat, director of International Student Administration at the college. The celebration honors people who were "here first," but who have been largely overshadowed by European culture. "In Colombia alone" — the South American country named after Columbus— "there are 85 indigenous groups," Fillat said. And on her campus, she met a Hawaiian student who realized that she, like all Pacific Islanders, belongs to an indigenous community.
In Canada, indigenous tribes are known as First Nations, but obviously that term hasn't caught on in the lower 48. But Indigenous Peoples Day observances are gathering momentum in U.S. cities, from California to Colorado to South Dakota.
Still, O'Dell and Fillat said Utah has a distance to travel when it comes to understanding its native people. O'Dell grew up in New Mexico, where people of color were in the majority in her high school. When she came to work at Salt Lake Community College three years ago, she was taken aback by some of the questions white Utahns asked.
"People would say, 'Oh, you're Indian. Do you live in a tepee?' " O'Dell said.
Utah has five major American Indian tribes: The Navajo, the Utes, the Paiutes, the Shoshones and the Goshutes.
"But we don't try to learn about one another," O'Dell said. "We're like the vanishing people."
Like Miller, she was quick to add that Native Americans aren't a bunch of resentful grumps.
"Everybody should come out and really enjoy" Indigenous Peoples Day. "Get to know us as a people, she said. "We're very loving, and we're very humorous. We like to have a lot of fun."
Indigenous Peoples Day events at SLCC
Where — Salt Lake Community College South City campus, 1575 S. State
When — Craft market and displays, 6 p.m. Tuesday; concert by Bill Miller, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Grand Theatre on South City campus; "Hear Our Voices," lecture by Bill Miller on how music bridges cultural divides, noon Wednesday
Cost: Free except for Tuesday's concert, which is $10 for the public, $5 for SLCC faculty and staff and free for SLCC students with ID.
E-mail: durbani@desnews.com