Native American Heritage Month teepees
November 11, 2021
For the entirety of November, the Great Falls Public Schools District Office Building is proudly displaying a collection of 12 teepees in representation of the 12 government-recognized Native American Tribes in Montana.
The month of November is Native American Heritage Month.
The Indian Education Department collected all teepees placed at elementary schools around the city and assembled them in the span of three days.
The week of Nov. 1-7, the teepees featured multicolored lights to represent the various tribes. Currently, the teepees are displayed with red bulbs, symbolizing the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women.
By the beginning of the following week, they will feature orange bulbs representing the 300,000 children from both the United States and Canada who experienced fatalities due to boarding schools.
The Indian Education Department representative at Charles M. Russell High School, Kylan Hallett, makes sure to reinforce teepee etiquette and the various housing styles that have existed within Indigenous communities.
Hallett said he wishes to help all CMR students understand that teepees should not be reserved as a form of prejudice against Indigenous people, but that they are a part of history that should be recognized.