Feathers from the House of Flickers
by Paul DeMain  (Skabewis - The Messenger)

As Fall closes in on the island local Indigenous populations look forward to celebrations commemorating the signing of the Treaty of 1854 and the stories that surround Chief Buffalo's delegation to Washington D.C. That trek led to one of Wisconsin's most historic events in the ceded territory and opening the northern half of Wisconsin to real estate speculation. For the Ojibwe, it set-apart reserved areas for permanent Ojibwe communities, reserved rights to hunt, fish and gather in their former territories and established an administrative trust relationship with the United States.

Native American Educational Technologies, Inc, or NAET as many call us, is a 501c3 non-profit organization based in Wisconsin for over 30 years. The NAET Board of Directors are Paul DeMain, Marty Curry and PennElys Droz who administer the Flicker House, a non-profit share house and Manitou Makoons Gitigan (Little Spirit Bear Gardens) that host Indigenous and non-Indigenous guests with a landing spot for internships, speakers and volunteers. NAET also oversees the Mooningwanakaaning Land Trust.

Our projects bring artists, musicians and talented Native people involved in educational cultural events, food systems works, historical research, preservation and reintroduction of Indigenous sporting games to the island. The Flicker House is currently providing office and housing for Great Lakes Lifeways Institute (GLLI) while organizing the Giweki (coming home) white flint corn growing project and working on summer watercraft projects at the museum.

NAET is involved in historical archaeological assisted research and examination of the 9,200 years of human inhabitance of the island including both ancient and recent cultural migrations of Indigenous and European voyagers, reviving historic agricultural products and supporting modern-day food sovereignty through gardening and responsible harvesting of treaty protected resources.

Manitou Makoons Gitigan (Little Spirit Bear Gardens) is one of our initiatives and a site of a current educational Tiny House building project. Our board is in the process of registering as a land trust, capable of protecting and maintaining cultural or other historically significant land sites, as well as holding land in trust for traditional harvest activities and relational land use agreements.

Today, as we enter Dagwaagin (Fall - when the leaves fall) NAET is involved in activities celebrating Treaties with the Ojibwe that help keep our resources clean. We are celebrating projects that have brought community together, including  over 200 hands who worked on the first dug-out canoe (now on display at the Madeline Museum) of its kind to be engineered on the island in 150 years, in 2023.

Hundreds  have admired the Waaginogaan (Domed Wigwam), built at the Flicker House in 2024 as a Community Lodge by GILI and where musicians and speakers have presented to the community.  

Visitors to the museum this summer witnessed repairs to a 120-year-old birch bark canoe while another was being constructed from scratch alongside. According to social media data, the number of online viewers may be historic for any museum project.

 As Treaty Days arrive, NAET is proud of our assistance in returning five historic acres of land on the Northwest end of the island - previously known as the Devil's Cauldron and the former site of the Steamboat Rock Formation. The site has been returned to the Bad River Band of Ojibwe for both general and ceremonial use by Indigenous peoples. With help from the Nature Conservancy, generous donors and the Sheppard family, the title to the Cauldron, known by local Natives as MedweweKamig (Where the Earth is Heard Sounding Out) was transferred to the Band this summer. This is a culturally significant site for Indigenous populations -- the non-Indigenous name, the "Devils Cauldron" perhaps indicating the former ceremonial use that arriving Jesuits observed, or someone's fear of the ancient (MizhiBizeau) Underwater Beings that ancient Indigenous stories tell us about the guardians of the water.

Further research found oral histories about the north end "Fishing Camp" designation questioned by some Ojibwe elders, who said use of the 200-acre set-aside La Pointe Band Lands were supposed to be for ceremonial purposes. Mapping from the National Archives show the original 200-acre "Treaty" site as located on the Northwest end of Madeline Island facing Hermit's Island, and directly over MedweweKamig from 1854 to 1861 rather than the Northeast side where the treaty acreage is currently located on a sandy beach -- all adding to the mystery of why the location of the treaty acreage was changed.

NAET is composed of island residents, frequent ferry passengers and volunteers from several non-profits and affiliated island organizations. We are visible and active in the community at many events; however, we do not speak for the Bad River, Red Cliff or Chippewa Federation, but seek to join in partnership with their efforts.

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