Dinner, film screening planned for Native American Heritage Month

The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford will hold a free dinner, screening and discussion of the film “Sky Woman Women” in observance of Native American Heritage Month.

The event is open to the public and will take place from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Nov. 20 in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons. Reservations are required and may be made by visiting https://www.bradford.pitt.edu/calendar/campus-wide/sky-woman-women-film-screening-office-inclusion-belonging or calling Jenelle Johnson, liaison librarian for equity, diversity and inclusion, at 814-362-7618.

Participants will begin the evening with a traditional Ganö:nyök or thanksgiving address. Seneca Chef Lorinda John will introduce the dinner she curated and discuss the importance of sharing meals in Seneca culture. Diners will then watch “Sky Woman Women,” a 49-minute film directed by German born artist and filmmaker Dara Friedman. Friedman and other film participants will be present to answer questions during a post-film discussion.

The film shares the Haudenosaunee creation story of Sky Woman. In this retelling, 18 women from Mohawk, Seneca, and Tuscarora tribal backgrounds share the tale of a pregnant woman who, after falling through a hole in the sky, creates a new world from a handful of dirt. The story offers a perspective on gratitude, kinship, and interdependence with the natural world.

The event is sponsored by Pitt-Bradford’s Office of Inclusion and Belonging, Hanley Library and the Braiding Sweetgrass Committee, which has created events around Indigenous knowledge and wisdom building up to a visit by Indigenous writer Robin Wall Kimmerer on March 18, 2025.

Other related events include Season’s Readings Program sponsored by the Friends of Hanley Library at 11 a.m. Dec. 12 in the Harriett B. Wick Chapel.

Dr. Don Ulin, professor of English, will read from Kimmerer’s book “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants.” The chapter from which he will read is “Witch Hazel” and is about a Christmas season during which Kimmerer and her family helped an elderly neighbor fulfill her long-held dream of returning once more to her family home.

In February, weaver and artisan Penelope Minner will show intricate black ash baskets and cornhusk dolls that blend traditional craftsmanship with modern styles in her show, “Weaving the Past Together for the Future” from Feb. 6 through March 20, 2025. Join Minner, an enrolled member of the Seneca Nation of Indians, Turtle Clan, to learn more about these ancient arts at the opening reception at noon, Feb. 6, 2025.

Kimmerer’s talk will take place at 7:30 p.m. March 18, 2025, in the Bromeley Family Theater. In addition to her talk, members of the Pitt-Bradford community are reading her New York Times best-selling book “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants,” which this summer was named by Times readers as one of their 100 best books of the 21st century. Kimmerer lives in Syracuse, N.Y., where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

She tours widely and has addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.”

“Braiding Sweetgrass” is the latest Book in Common event organized by Dr. Nancy McCabe, director of the writing program. 

Kimmerer’s visit is sponsored by University of Pittsburgh Library System and Hanley Library, Pitt-Bradford Spectrum Series, Division of Communication and the Arts and Pitt-Bradford Arts.

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