othrphistory

The Omaha Tribal Historical Research Project (OTHRP), begun informally “from the grassroots” in 1974, has over the last quarter century become one of the more successful and influential groups of its type in the United States.

Incorporated in 1991 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, charitable organization, OTHRP has been at the forefront of cross-cultural “coalition building, public education and advocacy to effect positive social change” between the Native and non-Native communities of Nebraska, and elsewhere. The group has facilitated important original research in a wide range of related fields, including the recording of archival photographs and other documents, and production of major exhibits held at such institutions as Harvard University and the University of Nebraska/Lincoln (UNL), among others.

One of OTHRP’s first projects occurred in the early 1980’s, in collaboration with the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress. The group provided authentication for restoring early wax cylinder recordings of traditional Umoⁿhoⁿ(Omaha) music, and reintroduced these songs to the local community and to the world. Today this project is documented at the Library of Congress website: http://memory.loc.gov/ ammem/omhhtml/omhhome.html

OTHRP worked with both the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature and the United States Congress to successfully pass landmark legislation regarding repatriation issues, including (with the former) both LB 612 (Omaha), which was first defeated but later passed as LB 340 (Pawnee) adopted in 1989, and the Federal Native Graves and Repatriation Act of 1990. Beginning in the late 1970’s, OTHRP successfully negotiated a return of sacred objects, including the Sacred Pole and White Buffalo Hide and other cultural materials from such institutions as Harvard University, the George Heye Collection of the Museum of the American Indian, and the Nebraska State Historical Society, among others.

OTHRP initiated collaboration as an original facilitator for, and helped achieve designation of the Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Center in Walthill, Nebraska as both a state landmark, later listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1889, Picotte (Umoⁿhoⁿ) was the first female Native American awarded a medical degree.

OTHRP has designed both print and broadcast educational programs for individual projects with both the Nebraska Humanities and Arts Councils and the University of Nebraska, among many others. Over the years, OTHRP has been responsible or provided significant material for the publication of at least ten books, the production of four film and television documentaries, and contributing to three websites.

The organization has received numerous awards, including:

Honorable Mention of the 1998 Victor Turner Prize for Blessing For a Long Time: The Story of the Omaha Sacred Pole by Robin Ridington and Dennis Hastings;

Several awards each for Dancing to Give Thanks and The Return of the Sacred Pole (1991), both shown at the Sundance Film Festival;

and a 1993 Governor’s Art Awards from the Nebraska Arts Council for West Meets West, a collaborative performance with t

he Omaha Symphony Orchestra of contemporary Umoⁿhoⁿ and symphonic music, among many others.

OTHRP has been prominently noted in several books, collaborated with or contributed to dozens of scholarly articles, and featured among scores of print and broadcast news reports circulated throughout the U.S., and internationally.

OTHRP’s most ambitious project is construction and operation of New Moon Moving, a world-class exhibition, archival and educational facility situated among ancestral Reservation lands of the Omaha, reflecting a proactive, ecological approach that tells the Umoⁿhoⁿ story in terms of cultural survival and realities. The design, by architect Vincent Snyder, for this project has already won three top awards:

Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
Faculty Design Award 2002

Boston Society of Architects' Unbuilt Architecture
Design Award 2002

50th Annual Progressive Architecture Award
Architecture Magazine 2003

The organization has existed primarily on the dedication and commitment of its Founder/Director Dennis Hastings, a Ph.D. candidate. OTHRP’s Board of Directors presently includes several distinguished Umoⁿhoⁿ tribal elders and non-Natives, including the current and a former Tribal Council Chairman, a former head of a national archival organization, a retired senior Library of Congress folklorist, a current museum director, a UNL professor and Fulbright Fellow, and a professor emeritus of anthropology from a Canadian University.