Eclipsing the Moon and an Indian Boarding School Memorial

This week’s CAIRNS Etanhan Wotanin column discusses last week’s total lunar ecliplse and asks if students at the Rapid City Indian School had seen the December 27, 1897, lunar eclipse. All of the students over the 33 years that school was operating are being memorialized by a major sculpture that was covertly commissioned by an unnamed donor who selected—without anyone else being considered or even given an opportunity to apply—a nonNative sculptor to do the work. Instead of a focal point of community education and nationwide attention, the project is a secretive enterprise operating in the shadow of an eclipse. The column, “Eclipsing the Moon and an Indian Boarding School Memorial,” can be read now by clicking here, or later this week in the Lakota Times newspaper. The image above is of last week’s eclipse as seen from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Floriday. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky).

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