
Botany of Nations Opens in Philadelphia
Saturday, March 28, 2026
Botany of Nations: Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discover, is a new exhibition that opened today at The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The CAIRNS director is a member of the exhibition's Steering Committee and was filmed retelling the Tapun Shawin narrative that James LaPointe published in Legends of the Lakota. The narratives suggests that a plant like tinpsila was what Tapun Shawin dug up in the sky world when she was pregnant, leaving a hole through which she could see her relatives on earth. Seeming them made her so lonely that she braided together everything she could find into a long rope which she shimmed down. Unfortunately, the rope was too short, and she ended up falling to her death. Miraculously, her unborn son survived and was raised by Lakotans who named him Wichaghpi Hinghpaya, Fallen Star. His father is Wichaghpi Owanjila, the North Star. The video is accessible in the exhibit which runs through February 14, 2027.
