For 30 years, the Lenape Native American tribe lived and thrived in East Central Indiana. Originally from the East Coast, throughout the years, they were pushed farther and farther west.
With every move, pieces of their history were left behind.
Presently, the Lenape reside in Oklahoma, but their impact on the area can be seen in the names of the areas they once inhabited.
Twelve students involved in an immersive learning project, guided by telecommunications instructor Christopher Flook, will present their documentary, “The Lenape on the Wapahani River” today at 1:00 p.m. at Minnetrista.
Flook contacted Kayla Eiler, a telecommunications graduate student and the student director of the documentary, in April 2013.
She said Flook gave her an overflowing binder filled with documents, sketches and marked up maps.
“The initial goal of the project was just to shed some light on some of the myths that exist about Native Americans in this area and their importance in the name of our towns and stuff like that,” she said. “It really became a lot more over this experience.”
Aline Beteringhe, an anthropology graduate student, also participated in the project by researching and producing the documentary.
She said the word Muncie doesn’t belong to a Native American chieft, but refers a dialect of the Lenape.
Anderson, Ind.,’s name however, actually does stem from the name of a Lenape chief, Eiler said.
Eiler estimated her and seven other students filmed in at least 20 different locations, most of them along the White River.
One difficulty she said she encountered while filming was finding sources knowledgeable enough about the Lenape.
Eiler said Michael Pace, an employee of the Conner Prairie history park in Fishers, Ind., and a Lenape tribe member, told her about his mother and her experiences with American boarding school in the 1920s.
He said his mother’s culture was forcefully taken from her.
“That’s a huge struggle right now that a lot of tribes are facing,” Eiler said. “They lost all the stories of their people because they were denied that for years.”
In September, the film took Eiler and her fellow documentarians to the plains of Oklahoma to meet with the surviving members of the Lenape.
Despite her research, Eiler did not know what to expect on her 12-hour journey to the reservation.
“Once we met the tribe, it wasn’t a school project anymore,” she said.
Eiler found a mixture of people on the reservation. Some she saw as “bubbly” and “American,” but others greeted her with wary attitudes stemming from previous experiences with the media.
“It was an understandable struggle to be able to gain their trust in that way,” she said.
Eiler told them, “We are just passionate about telling your story. Not for class credit, not for money, not for fame. We believe that this story needs to be told for the sake of Muncie and the sake of this tribe.”
The uncertainties both Eiler and the tribe members harbored disappeared when the students were invited to a meal and tribal dance.
“That was an incredible experience to just let ourselves be immersed in that,” she said.
Three members of the tribe from Oklahoma — the chief, tribal manager and archivist — will be at the premiere in Muncie to see the area and answer questions at the event.
Eiler hopes their presence provokes a greater understanding of the Lenape.
“I can answer [questions] to some extent, but it’s so much more complicated than I can even articulate,” she said. “I want to people to understand that it’s not easy to be a sovereign nation or to be an Indian tribe.”
