When former University of Wisconsin-Madison director of tribal relations Aaron Bird Bear was hired in 2003, he was shocked at the lack of representation and resources for Native American students. He saw Native American students’ need for support.
During his time at Madison, Bird Bear created the First Nations Cultural Landscape Tour, increased recruitment and graduation rates for Native American students and helped initiate the Indigenous Student Center.
Prior to Bird Bear’s arrival to UW-Madison, Native presence on campus was limited. Despite being built on ancestral Ho-Chunk land, there were few opportunities to acknowledge and honor their history. Today, Bird Bear’s tour lives on and hopes to move one group at a time from ignorance to awareness.
For over two decades the UW-Madison campus has hosted the First Nations Cultural Landscape Tour. In that time, over 25,000 people have attended the award-winning tour.
The tour starts in Memorial Union with an introduction to the Ho-Chunk and their 12 animal inspired clans. On Bascom Hill, tour guide Kane Funmaker recounts the rich ecosystem that used to exist there. The tour then passes the few remaining effigy mounds on campus.
The walking tour takes visitors through the Ho-Chunk Native Americans’ 14,000 year history in Madison. While the university was established in 1848, “175 years is less than a fraction of [Madison’s] history,” Funmaker said. From Memorial Union to Observatory Drive, the First Nations Cultural Landscape Tour highlights the rich cultural history of the Ho-Chunk Nation and “punctures the cultural veneer,” he said.
The tour features archaeological sites, historical markers and ancestral stories that challenge traditional narratives of the land the university occupies: Teejop. Teejop translates to “Four Lakes,” named for the four lakes that surround the land that sustained the Ho-Chunk for thousands of years.
The tour also takes participants to effigy, conical and linear mounds. Madison is home to the largest concentration of effigy mounds in the country, and is estimated to be the home of 1,300 existing mounds.
Funmaker said these mounds are an important part of Ho-Chunk history.
“They represent history and the erasure of Native American culture,” Funmaker said, explaining Mound preservation is crucial for keeping Ho-Chunk history alive.
“Simply telling people that there’s effigy mounds on campus and [about their] cultural and significance is mound preservation,” he said.
These mounds, and much of the landscape on campus, display Ho-Chunk peoples’ spirit of resistance, having returned to Madison after 11 documented forced removals. Effigy mounds shaped like birds, water spirits and bears commemorate Ho-Chunk stories and mark sacred ground.
“You can take a shovel to any [ground] on campus and potentially be disturbing an archaeological site,” Funmaker said.
Confronting past wrongs
Dating back to the 1850s, cultural erasure of the Ho-Chunk Nation began when Bascom and Agriculture Hall were built atop mounds. Observatory Hill used to boast five mounds. Today, only two are visible.
In the 1930s, at the same time Native Americans were prohibited from practicing cultural traditions, UW-Madison students dressed as Native American caricatures as the senior class passed the torch to the freshmen.
Funmaker explained Indigenous assimilation efforts were in “full swing” during this period, making it illegal for Native Americans to practice their traditions on campus.
It wasn’t until the 1950s that the university sponsored its first Native American graduate, and it wasn’t until the 1970s that the first Native American student organization was born: The Coalition of Native Tribes for Red Power.
In Memorial Union, inaccurate portraits of Native Americans still cover the ceilings. In recent years, the university has opted not to repaint the pictures.
“The pictures make room for conversations about how to better honor Native Americans,” Funmaker said.
Inscribed on the first official seal of the territory of Wisconsin are the words “civilization succeeded barbarism,” another misleading depiction of Native American culture.
But the tour helps spark these delicate conversations and tell a holistic history of the city and its campus.
As a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation who grew up with few opportunities to learn about his culture, Funmaker said leading those conversations is a source of pride.
“Being able to learn and share the history with friends and family is the part I take the most pride in,” he said.
In addition, he said learning about Native American history shouldn’t stop when the tour ends.
“‘Our Shared Future’ is about moving from ignorance to awareness,” Funmaker said.
