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• Pilgrimage Edicts - Getting Started and Assistance Along the Way

• Schedule of Topics, Assignments and Session Dates -  A Map of Our Journey

• Leaning Outcomes - Upon Reaching the Summit of Your Pilgrimage

• Learning Activities - Skills and Competencies Needed to Reach the Summit

• Grading Rubrics - Assessing How Well We're Doing - Grading criteria for Learning Activities

• Family Groups and Memberships - A Collaborative Effort

• Seminar Resources - More Assistance Along the Way, includes a Bibliography for the Projects

• Study Guide - For Exams (Learning Activity A)

Seminar Description:   In this seminar we will explore the meaning and significance of the oral traditions and stories, and of rites of passage and world renewal ceremonies, that help create and sustain Indigenous communities throughout the world today, with special attention to the Schitsu-umsh and Apsáalooke (Coeur d'Alene and Crow American Indian). Among the sacred story texts we will engage are such accounts as Burnt Face, Salmon Goes Up River, Coyote and the Swallowing Monster, Sedna, and Changing Woman and her Twin Sons.  As we engage these story texts, we will explore the great teachings in Indigenous communities.

As the seminar methodology is self-reflexive, students will “travel” (through the learning activities) into these Indigenous communities, while at the same time explore and perhaps unveil special and revered territories within him or herself, and his or her own community.  

Certain essential questions will be explored:  What distinguishes the Indigenous from you and what do we all share in common?   How have we defined the ultimate nature of reality?  What are our quintessential goals in life? What is a "healthy person"?   How do rites of passage influence our lives?  Are we a part of nature or so we live apart from nature? What influences our capacities to love someone, and to hate another?   How are we to engage the many strangers amongst us?    We will explore how Indigenous communities have responded and how you will respond to these questions.  And as a result of this seminar, we will ask and begin to answer, what attributes and competencies define an educated person?

Before we begin our journey and to better equip you for it, we will develop your learning skills in "Huckleberrying" and "Eye Juggling."   The seminar will provide an academic research and learning technique (as distinguished from a theological approach) involving an integrated humanities and social sciences methodology known as Eye Juggling, that allows you to interpret religious/cultural symbols, values and stories from not only Indigenous but from all human communities.  As you consider various sacred story texts throughout this seminar, such as an oral narrative or a ritual dance, interpreting these texts will allow you to better understand the meaning embedded within them.  It is a methodology that allows you to get a little closer to seeing the world's communities from the perspectives of the community's members themselves.  

As the seminar's methodology is self-reflexive, as you will “travel” (through the learning activities) into these Indigenous communities, you will at the same time explore and perhaps unveil special and revered territories within yourself, and your own community.  And as a consequence, by juxtaposing what can be unique and distinct alongside what is often veiled and taken for granted, one also can more clearly reveal and appreciate your own essential and cherished values and teachings.  In the juxtapose we also come to know and experience what we share in common, the Indigenous in us all.