"My sister called me a few days ago. “There’s a lecture coming on campus up that claims some group is ‘The Only ‘Real’ Indians,’” she said. She was jumping up and down for me to attend.

Then she went out of town for UND business on Thursday, leaving me to go to this strange-sounding event alone.

I went. I had to find out about these “real Indians.”

Birgit Hans, professor and chair of Indian studies at UND, had started her lecture already.

On the screen were photos of what looked like Indian people. The people were wearing beaded handiwork; behind them, articles of beadwork hung from the walls.

But they weren’t Indian people at all. They weren’t even in the U.S. They were German hobbyists, Hans explained — German citizens, in Germany, who are so drawn to Indian culture that they’ve adopted parts of it as their own."

Get the Story:
COLUMNIST DORREEN YELLOW BIRD: The ‘only’ real Indians? Not quite (The Grand Forks Herald 2/14)

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