The public can learn more about the Front Range's indigenous American Indian tribe, the Arapaho, thanks to a new Web site produced by students at the University of Colorado at Boulder that will be formally unveiled March 17.
A presentation of "The Arapaho Project" and a panel discussion will begin at 7 p.m. in room 270 of the Hale Science Building. The event is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the CU-Boulder Center of the American West and the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities.
The new Web site includes interviews, video, audio and photographs and is the result of a growing commitment by the Arapaho tribe to educate the public about its place in Colorado's history and future.
The site's design and production was supervised by Associate Professor Andrew Cowell of the CU-Boulder linguistics department. Cowell's expertise and research interests include Arapaho verbal narrative and American Indian languages and literatures.
The site was originally produced by students in Cowell's fall 2001 course on "Arapaho: A Native American Language in its Cultural Context." Â鶹ÒùÔº in the class engaged in original research with members of the Northern Arapaho tribe, both on the CU-Boulder campus and on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. A complete revision was done in fall 2004 by students in the Technology, Arts and Media certificate program of CU-Boulder's ATLAS institute.
At the unveiling, Cowell will talk about the creation of the site, how stereotypes were avoided, and his experience collaborating with the Arapaho. The Arapaho were indigenous to the Front Range area during most of the 19th century.
A panel discussion will include a representative of the Northern Arapaho tribe from the Wind River reservation, a Rocky Mountain National Park archaeologist and university and local community members with knowledge of American Indian and educational issues. Comments and questions will be taken from the public.
The Web site was significantly funded by the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities and extensive collaboration on the project was provided by the Northern Arapaho tribe. The site is hosted by CU-Boulder's Center for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the West.
Parts of the old Arapaho Project site are online at . The new site will be available March 17 at the same address.