Buffalo and her Calf near St. Ignatius, Montana - 1991

Rodney Frey

Director of General Education
Professor of Ethnography

Welcome to my home page. I have provided some information helpful for my students and anyone who may share in common interests. Feel free to contact me. As I am periodically updating information and adding new links to this page, please re-visit at any time.

To access General Education:

To access my course syllabi: 

Other courses taught:

 

First DeSmet Graduates - Bachelor's Degree in Business Management - 1997 - Vicki Abraham, Megan Harding, Brenda Abraham, John Abraham, and myself

Let me offer a little about who I am and my professional interests. I came to the University of Idaho in the Fall of 1998, having received a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Colorado in 1979. I taught at Carroll College in Helena, Montana from 1980 to 1986, and Lewis-Clark State College in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho from 1987 to 1998, where I also served as Director for the college's north Idaho programs.  While with LCSC and working closely with the Coeur d'Alene Tribe that I was involved in helping establish and coordinate the DeSmet Higher Education Program, a successful college outreach center on the reservation.

While there are many who have contributed to my education and whom I am so indebted, I offer sincere appreciation to my primary teachers --  Tom Yellowtail, Crow elder, who infused spirit into humanity and the world;  Joseph Epes Brown , Scholar of American Indian Religions, who infused humanity and spirit into scholarship;  Deward Walker, Scholar of American Indian Peoples, who brought scholarship into the service of others; Lawrence Aripa, Coeur'Alene elder, who brought Coyote's spirit and laughter into it all; and my "elder brothers and sisters," Alvin Howe, Cliff SiJohn, Rob and Rose Moran, and Rayburn and Janet Beck who have been my indispensable guides throughout the entire journey.   I also wish to thank several of my Coeur d'Alene teachers, Felix Aripa, Mariane Hurley, and Alfred Nomee, as well as my Nez Perce teachers, Josiah and D'Lisa Pinkham, Vera Sonneck, Ann McCormack, and Nakia Williamson.  Aho!

For a little relaxation and rejuvenation, there is nothing like hiking with Kris, my wife, a morning run (I guess I can still call it that, thought Kris calls it a "shuffle" ), fly fishing the St. Joe, or building a HOn3 box car.

I have been conducting various collaborative and applied projects with the Crow (Montana), the Coeur d'Alene (Idaho),  the Nez Perce (Idaho), and the Warm Springs  and Wasco Tribes (Oregon).   Among our concerns has been the role and the significance of the oral traditions, particularly as those traditions influence a people's relationships with  their "landscape" and mediate the impact of Euro-American changes.  As collaborative projects, I am also concerned about such ethical issues as developing cultural property rights and appropriate tribal review processes as part of the research.  For discussion on some of these issues and examples of my research and activities, see:

• The World of the Crow Indians: As Driftwood Lodges.  (University of Oklahoma Press 1987 and paper 1993).

• Eye Juggling: Seeing the World Through a Looking Glass and a Glass Pane (A workbook for clarifying and interpreting values).  (University Press of America 1994).  1997 2nd Edition e-version

• Stories That Make the World: Oral Literature of the Indian Peoples of the Inland Northwest as Told by Lawrence Aripa, Tom Yellowtail and other Elders.  (University of Oklahoma Press 1995 and paper 1999).

• Landscape Traveled by Coyote and Crane: The World of the Schitsu'umsh - Coeur d'Alene Indians, in collaboration with the Schitsu'umsh (University of Washington Press 2001; 2005).

• Nez Perce Tribe Lifelong Learning Online Module (Nez Perce Tribe 2001- trailtribes.org or uidaho server)

• Coeur d'Alene Tribe Lifelong Learning Online Module (Coeur d'Alene Tribe 2002 - trailtribes.org or uidaho server)

• Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Lifelong Learning Online Module (Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs 2003 - trailtribes.org or uidaho server) 

• "Oral Traditions,” in Companion Guide to the Anthropology of American Indians, Editor, Thomas Biolsi, (Blackwell Publishers 2004).

•  "If all these great stories were told, great stories will come!," co-authored with Tom Yellowtail (Crow) and Cliff SiJohn (Coeur d’Alene), as presented at the Indigenous Ways of Knowing International Conference, Lewis and Clark College (2007).  This paper chronicles my recent journey with cancer, and the healing that came from my family and friends in the Indian community.  It also appears in Religion and Healing in Native America, edited by Suzanne Crawford (Praeger Press 2008).

• “Confluence of Rivers: Idaho Indians,” co-authored with Robert McCall, in Idaho's Place: Rethinking the Gem State's Past, edited by Adam Sowards, University of Washington Press.  Forthcoming  

• My current writing endeavor is tentatively entitled, "Huckleberries - Stories from the American Indian Experience for research, writing, pedagogy and our humanity."  It is an attempt to bring together key lessons I've learned from working with Tribal elders and their communities over the last 38 years.  It offers an ethnographic methodology and pedagogical approach to researching, understanding, presenting, evaluating and teaching the American Indian experience, along with some lessons for us all.

• Examples of a couple of my recent guest lectures: Salmon Always Goes Up River (which includes one of my all-time favorite stories) and Indigenous Art.

Awards and Honors:

• Humanities Fellow, College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, University of Idaho 2002-03 - "Sense of Place"

• Dr. Martin Luther King Distinguished Service Award, University of Idaho 2003

• Research Excellence Award, University of Idaho 2005

• UNITY Service Medallion, UNITY Student Organization and Office of Multicultural Affairs,  University of Idaho 2006

• Distinguished Humanities Professorship Award, College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, University of Idaho 2011-12 - resulting in Turning of the Wheel: the Interplay between the Unique and Universal - a Humanities Exploration," a series of year-long events, talks, performances and exhibits, thirty-two in total, by University of Idaho faculty and graduate students.

• Teaching Excellence Award, University of Idaho 2012

Upon re-telling the last of a series of his most cherished stories from the Buffalo Days (which appear in Stories That Make the World), Tom Yellowtail turned to me and shared the following words that have resonated with me ever since.

"If all these great stories were told, great stories will come!" 

[Return to top]

To return to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology
To return to the University of Idaho Home Page