More than 200 people found out when they gathered at the St. Paul Student Center on Friday night to celebrate the Annual Winter Festival of American Indian Storytelling. University language students studying Anishaabe, more commonly know as Ojibwe, and Dakota opened the evening with a skit and two stories.
Students read scripts in their tribal language followed by an English translation.
February, they said, provided Anishaabe people with the northern return of eagles, the birth of bear cubs and ample suckerfish feasting. The woman in the story did not gather enough food when the corn crop was healthy and later had the task of searching for food. She only found one small ear of corn in the corner of the field. After the students concluded their performances, Johnny Moses, a nationally known storyteller, took stage as the festival's guest speaker. Moses, a Seattle native and member of the Swinomish Reservation on the San Juan Islands, praised the language students and told stories using the eight languages in which he is fluent.