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It was far more than Charlie Hill’s ability to get an entire room laughing that made the stand-up comedian so influential, says longtime friend Jennifer Kreisberg.

“Nobody was doing what he did,” Kreisberg said from her home in Connecticut. “He took it way past fry bread and ‘booze’ jokes. He was so cutting-edge and always had a message in his humor.”

Those messages, along with his legacy, will be remembered and honored, say family and friends. Charlie Hill passed away December 30, 2013, at the age of 62 after a courageous battle with cancer.

“The Creator called Charlie back to the spirit world early this morning,” his family wrote on Facebook. “This is a sad and hard time for all of us.”

Hill, a member of the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin, was a stand-up comedian, writer and actor who found success in mainstream media through shows including “Roseanne” and “The Jay Leno Show.” He made his national television debut on the “Richard Pryor Show” in 1977, and was the first Native American on the “Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.”

Two weeks before his death, Leno and Roseanne Barr helped host a fundraiser for Hill and his family to help cover medical expenses.

In 2012, First Peoples Fund honored Hill with a Community Spirit Award.

“Charlie’s story is one of hard work, persistence and following your passion in life, he was truly a pioneer for Native artists and his legacy will not be forgotten. It was an honor for me to have known him.”

- First Peoples Fund President Lori Pourier.

Hill raised four kids with his wife Leonora. It was through his family life, as much as his work, that Hill demonstrated integrity and commitment, said Kreisberg, a singer who met Hill while performing more than 15 years ago.

“He was really, really smart, very supportive and always respectful,” she said. “He was always respectful of women, really professional… and really ‘rez’ at the same time.”

Hill traveled from his home in Wisconsin to Los Angeles to work. Kreisberg said she has applied much of what he taught her, particularly his lessons about putting family first.

“He was good about mentoring,” she said. “When I was younger, he gave me advice on being a good parent.”

Though he was able to cross over into mainstream media, Hill was careful not to “sell out,” Kreisberg added.

“He had a really high bar that he set for himself,” she said. “He would not compromise his art for a buck. He opened doors for all of us.”

Mostly, Kreisberg added, she will miss him for the man he was.

“He was funny and kind,” she said. “Because of him, I will continue to carry myself in a certain way. I will put family first. And I will continue to remind people about him—especially all the smiles and laughs he gave.”

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It was a dream that first settled into Juliana Clifford's mind that led to the vivid and poignant scene in Scatter Their Own's newest music video.

Juliana, a lyricist, bass and acoustic guitar player for the band, makes up half of the South Dakota duo Scatter Their Own. Her husband, Scotti Clifford, is a singer/songwriter and guitar player in the band, which hails from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The band has just come off a six-concert promotional tour in California, and recently released a music video for their "Taste the Time" song.

Scotti said he wrote the song to remind people to be aware of their environment.

"We can't drink from the streams, rivers or lakes anymore," he said. "It's been that way for 60 or 70 years. Those are the times we live in. We live in an unhealthy world."

The band was formed almost three years ago and, through a First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership Fellowship, was able to purchase instruments and work on an album.

After Scotti wrote "Taste the Time," Juliana had a dream. In it, she was very thirsty and approached a table of people who offered her cups of water. When she drank, the liquid turned into oil and she had to spit it out.

"We were able to bring that dream to life with the music video," Scotti said.

The video was shot in August and was directed by Juliana and William White II.

"We shot it in three days," Scotti said, who also said it went smoothly because of the generous support of friends and family who came out to offer food and serve as extras in the video.

They are not the only ones feeling grateful for the local support—and the partnership with First Peoples Fund. Native hip hop artist Frank Waln recently released a music video for his song "AbOriginal." Waln, a 2012 Artist in Business Leadership Fellow, lives in Chicago where he attends Columbia College and writes and performs Lakota hip hop music.

Waln received a technical assistance grant through First Peoples Fund and hired director Eli Vasquez to work with him.

"It was a perfect fit," Waln said, as Vasquez is also an activist and interested in working on projects with a message. Vasquez was also onboard with the idea that the video, a five-minute "theatrical short story," should focus on the positive aspects of the reservation.

"I wanted to show the beauty of home—the side I see... the side we see," he said. "It's the side you don't see in mainstream media today."

The song is focused on Waln's experience moving from the reservation to the big city, a place where he felt isolated as he met so many people with incorrect stereotypes of Native Americans.

"It made me angry," he said.

But it didn't take long for him to realize that anger wasn't healthy.

"Love. Love for my music, love for people, love for family, love for my culture," he said, was the way to move on. "Being fueled by foolish things like anger can be very poisonous."

Waln's music video can be seen on YouTube here. It was also recently featured on "mtvU," a show Waln said he used to sit and watch.

"It's surreal," he said.

Scatter Their Own's new music video can also be found on YouTube here and their music is available on iTunes.

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Last month, First Peoples Fund learned about the passing of 2008 Community Spirit Award recipient Margaret Hill. This month, e-Spirit spoke with artists impacted by Hill to talk about how her legacy still lives on today.

There are moments—like when she is working late at night beading a dress or altering a pattern—that the voice of mentor Margaret Hill echoes in Sandra Blake's head.

"I keep hearing her say, 'Rip it... do it again,'" Blake said, laughing. "If something wasn't perfect, she would have made me take the seams out and do it again. I think about that quite often."

Hill's persistence, quality work and deep commitment to her tribe and culture have not been forgotten with her passing. Hill passed away May 27, 2009, at the age of 80.

She was a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, and was a First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Award honoree in 2008.

"She touched many people in the community and larger statewide area with her artwork and knowledge," Blake said. "It was a great loss for the community when she passed."

Her traditional artwork included birchbark/sweetgrass, beading and leather, but Blake said she was skilled at so many things, including sewing and tanning. Storytelling was also a skill she had honed over the years through her work with children in tribal schools. Hill also taught traditional crafts for the Minnesota Historical Society's Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post.

A year before her passing, Hill said she was humbled and honored to continue the traditions of her ancestors:

"Creating quality art reflects directly back onto my people and community as well as myself," she wrote in her application for the Community Spirit Award. "I am happy that my work helps to represent my people in a quality way."

Blake said spending time with Hill always meant gaining a deeper understanding of tradition.

"She was my mother's cousin and we both learned a lot from her," she said.

Hill had a way of weaving history and traditional lessons into her work with the community, Blake said.

"Very casually and unexpectedly, her teachings of sacredness and value would come out in her words and actions while making different pieces," Blake added. "She may be tracing out a pattern on birchbark and talking about keeping the edges off of the knots in the bark and she will go into a story about the Old People. You knew you were always going to come away with more than just the knowledge of how to make an item."

Blake said she hopes to honor Hill by continuing to learn from other elders in the community, and by practicing the traditions passed on by Hill, which was one of the lessons she always embodied.

"I learned a lot of stuff, but when you don't practice it, you forget it," she said.

Jodell Meyer, who also nominated Hill for the Community Spirit Award, said she was a teacher, mentor, best friend and co-worker.

"She was open and honest," Meyer said. "She filled me with knowledge and never gave up on me."

Meyer said she too is determined to continue the traditions and skills Hill taught her. Her warmth and generosity is missed, she added.

"She was a self reliant person who understood the values of being strong and independent. She never asked for anything and was always extremely generous with what she had."

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If there was a message Phillip Whiteman Jr. and Lynette Two Bulls could impart to fellow Native Americans, it would be to remind them of their worth.

"We are teaching them that they're sacred and valuable," Whiteman said recently, following a Rapid City workshop the couple hosted to train leaders for their Medicine Wheel Model. They reside in Lame Deer, Montana.

The model, Whiteman said, is the original guide for life according to Native people.

"We believe in the circle of life and the seasons of life and that there is a reason and a season and a purpose for everything," he said.

The colors of the wheel—red, white, yellow and black—represent Mother Earth, he added, and everything is connected. The philosophy teaches that the energy people put out to the universe is reflected back to them.

The couple, who have received several First Peoples Fund grants, including a 2005 Cultural Capital Grant and a 2007 Artist in Business Leadership Fellowship, travel the country and world presenting the philosophy of the medicine wheel and how it can be used in organizations and in everyday life.

Their most recent work has included the training in Rapid City, one in Las Vegas and work on a new storytelling CD.

"People come together to learn how we're connected to everything—how we use our Indigenous life in ways to help others in the area of wellness," Two Bulls said.

Whiteman said the Rapid City workshop was a "huge success," and drew people from around the country as well as Canada. The workshop is attractive, he said, because it offers people a holistic approach to being.

"This work is a life model, not just a wellness model," he said. "We focus on the spirit—reconnecting and reclaiming it."

Lori Pourier, president of First Peoples Fund, said that Whiteman and Two Bulls are incredible examples of artists who are fulfilling the mission and vision of First Peoples Fund today.

"We feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to partner with them through our grant and fellowship programs so many years ago, and it has been wonderful to watch them develop their business and serve artists all across the country," she said.

The couple said First Peoples Fund has been a great supporter of their goals.

"They have helped us to protect our work, and to make sure that it is shared with others," Two Bulls said. She said First Peoples Fund guided them as they released their first CD. Today, the couple is starting their own certification program to help others teach the medicine wheel philosophy they teach.

"We both teach a holistic way of life," she said. "First Peoples Fund sees the value of family and working together. So do we."

Whiteman said that through the Medicine Wheel Model, they are passing on an important message for others.

"There are seeds being planted," he said. "We're not teachers, but we're a vessel to carry the message. Native Americans can't afford to think within a box—in lines and corners. That would be devastating to our culture, to our people."

To learn more, visit http://www.medicinewheelmodel.com/.

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David Boxley is giving his students the one thing he never had—a devoted teacher.

Boxley, a First Peoples Fund 2013 Cultural Capital grantee, 2012 Community Spirit Award recipient and Tsimshian carver from Metlakatla, Alaska, spent two months this summer guiding students through a hands-on workshop to learn the Native Northwest Coast design techniques.

The workshop, which ran six hours a day once a week for eight weeks, was held in Washington, where Boxley resides and creates art, including boxes, rattles, masks and prints bearing the traditional Northwest Coast design.

It’s an opportunity he never had growing up.

“I’m basically self-taught,” he said.

Boxley was raised by his grandparents, who passed along the culture and language of the tribe. After graduating from college, Boxley became a teacher and spent lots of time researching the traditional carving methods of his ancestors through museum collections.

In 1986, Boxley decided to work on the art form full time, and left his teaching job. He has since become an established, nationally recognized Native artist, as well as a voice in his community for the resurgence of the Sm'algyax language and the Tsimshian culture.

“There’s a lot of awareness now about the art, culture and language. It’s really important to me. I would very much like to be remembered as a culture bearer, not just an artist.”

He also hopes to teach more—and learn more.

“I’m always excited to look at museums and collections,” he said. “I’ve never lost my enthusiasm for creating art in our tribe. I’m still young enough to learn.”

One of the dangers for artists is ceasing the desire to be challenged, he said. “The problem is once people start selling, they don’t try to improve,” he said.

The Northwest Coast design, in particular, is complicated and takes years to learn, he added. “The rules we follow are pretty specific,” he said. “You have to learn the style so that knowledge of the art is perpetuated.”

Boxley, who said it does get lonely sometimes as a working artist, has been encouraged by the First Peoples Fund.

“It is good to know there is a Native-based organization wanting to further strengthen the aspirations of guys like me,” he said.

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It wasn’t only technical skills that Wade Fernandez gained during his time at a recent master recording workshop.

“It gave me permission to be me,” he said, an epiphany he experienced when one of the professors complimented his work.

Fernandez, an enrolled member of the Menominee Tribe in Wisconsin and an accomplished musician, music and video producer, completed several music classes as a fellow of the First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership program and a recipient of the Rural Business Enterprise grant.

Fernandez, who was a 2010 Community Spirit Award recipient and 2011 Cultural Capital grantee, has spent several years working to preserve the Menominee language by incorporating it in his music. The classes he took—lyric writing, master recording and music marketing—were insightful and exciting, Fernandez said, and especially helpful for a boost of confidence.

The recording class gave him an opportunity to work directly with producers who have worked alongside musicians including Sting, Steely Dan, and Vince Gill. He was familiar with several of the skills the producers taught.

“It’s helped me to not be so critical of myself. Perfectionism has slowed me down. You get more critical as your ear becomes better and the vision of what you want becomes clearer.”

During the lyric writing class, Fernandez worked on strengthening his skills in the side of music production that challenges him.

“My strength has always been the melodies,” he said. “Marrying that with writing has always been a mystery. It was nice to focus on the lyrics.”

Fernandez draws inspiration not only from his culture, but also from his family. Raising five children between the ages of six and 13 keeps him busy—and focused.

“Kids have given me inspiration and made me more grounded,” he said. One of his most recent music videos includes his son. The production was completed as a result of the classes he took.

“First Peoples Fund has helped support my music and my art and helps me support my community,” he said.

In addition to the classes supported by First Peoples Fund, Fernandez has been able to purchase equipment that he has used to create documentaries for his community about health, nutrition, pollution and diabetes.

“It’s been a great, and important, part of my work,” he said.    

Visit www.wadefernandez.com to learn more about Fernandez or hear his music.

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There was no better way for First Peoples Fund to honor Susan Malutin than to take the time to travel to the very place where she is having such an impact.

Malutin was honored recently in a Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award ceremony at the Native Village of Afognak's Dig Afognak Camp Site in Alaska.

"They had to fly to Kodiak Island and then take a skiff across the bay into the Afognak camp," said Malutin. "It made me feel so good that they would put that effort in to come all that way."

Malutin was not the only award recipient to experience an honoring ceremony close to home.

Community Spirit Award ceremonies were also held in North Dakota, in honor of Georgianna Houle, and in Maine, in honor of Watie Akins, over the past two months. They joined fellow honorees Denise Lajimodiere, Cyril Lani Pahinui, Vicky Takamine, who were honored in Hawaii this summer.

The awards are given to recognize the exceptional passion, wisdom and purpose the recipients bring to their art and the communities they serve.

"The resolve and determination shown by each of the individuals to pass down Native traditions touches us in ways that are often difficult to express," said Lori Pourier, president. "It was a joy to meet each of these recipients personally and to be among them in their communities."

Akins, a member of the Abenaki in the Northeast, has focused much of his life's recent work on restoring and passing along the Penobscot Nation's traditional songs through research, recordings, apprenticeship programs and work with local school students. Some of his family was able to attend the ceremony, which at times brought tears to his eyes.

"I thought the whole ceremony was good, every part was a touching experience."

The star quilt blanket, which is given to each CSA honoree, was a special gift, Akins said. He hopes that the attendees of the ceremony—particularly young people in his community—were inspired by the energy and resources available to them to move forward with cultural revitalization.

"I hope they get into it," he said.

The ceremony to honor Georgianna Houle was held in her hometown of Belcourt, North Dakota. Houle, who is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, first learned to weave red willow baskets at the age of nine while watching her mother and grandmother. She has spent several years visiting local schools and community colleges, teaching children and adults how to weave the baskets.

She hopes to continue teaching and selling the baskets and is one of several artists who will teach at the Turtle Mountain Tribal Arts Association's new location in Belcourt.

Malutin, who has spent the last 30 years mastering the lost art of traditional skin sewing, has been credited with helping revitalize the Native culture and art of the Alutiiq people—a movement that that has rejuvenated elders and prompted the building of a Native museum.

She has traveled to countries all over the world to research Native pieces of clothing and artifacts from the island and spends time working with village schools to teach skin sewing and other Native traditions. She also spends time at the Afognak site several times a year to help teach at Native educational camps.

The honoring ceremony for her was intimate and beautiful, Malutin said.

"The whole camp was there and it was an amazing experience," she said.

Because the ceremony was at the camp, and not in town, the students were able to attend and felt comfortable to speak.

"These are normally shy kids," Malutin said. "But you become like a family here, and they were brave enough to talk about how I interacted in their lives. That was the greatest reward for me."

Malutin also felt a validation for her work, and a resurgence of energy to continue.

"I felt that yes, I am leaving my footprint in the culture," she said.

Uncertainty and self-doubt about whether she was teaching the traditions correctly, or instructing the students in a way that would encourage and challenge them, have always been in the back of her mind, she said.

"We have so few elders who remember how to do the parkas or how to sew skins," she said, and it was always her fear that she wasn't demonstrating it correctly, or making a difference in the lives of the people in her community.

The ceremony changed that, she said, especially after hearing from the students.

"It was such a family-oriented ceremony and I could see that we do have a really vibrant Native community here, and we are passing it down to the next generations."

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For Duane Goodwin, there is no better way to start a day of rock sculpting than very early in the morning—in the cool of the shade.

"It is messy and it is hard work," said Goodwin, who is a renowned Native artist and one of this year's First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital grantees. "But it is wonderful work—a wonderful challenge to see something in the rock, and bring the spirit out of the rock."

Goodwin shared his passion and expertise with community members this summer as part of the Cultural Capital program, first conducting a birch bark basketmaking workshop in June and then a stone carving workshop in July.

Goodwin, who is a full-time professor at Leech Lake Tribal College in Minnesota and also received a Community Spirit Award from First Peoples Fund last year, said the grant program has encouraged him to continue with his art.

"I've been teaching since 1973," he said, and it is a challenge to find the time and energy to do his sculpting on the side. After more than 40 years of sculpting rock, he said, the workshops reminded him of his passion for the art form.

"It's given me more inspiration to do it fulltime," he said, which is a possibility with retirement in the future.

The birch bark workshop taught students the traditional strategy of gathering materials from the woods.

"Today they are using more synthetic fibers to sew baskets," he said. "My objective was to get them to use all natural materials again."

Students were also taught about one of the best ways to make a sturdy, attractive basket, which involves stripping and steaming ash bark to form hoops for the basket frame.

"There's a lot of preparation, but the end result is a very sturdy basket. The old style is more authentic, stronger and has more aesthetic value."

During the stone carving workshop, Goodwin elected to only work with four students, who he described as "motivated and interested."

"They were easy to connect with, they listened and they were familiar with the tools," he said, which made it easy for him to share his private collection of resources and tools with them. The students learned about the geology of rocks, selected a rock from Goodwin's collection and spent three hours a day for two weeks carving.

Working hand-in-hand with students who have a desire to learn is inspirational, he said.

"I couldn't have done it without the grant," he said. "It was a good experience to share what I know and it is an opportunity to build an appreciation for the arts."

He carried that new energy with him recently as he worked on a new sculpture carved out of a rare piece of rock.

"The source of the rock is exhausted and I got one last piece," he said. "It is a beautiful, yellow golden color."

After studying it for several days, his idea emerged. He is carving two eagles, a crow, and a crane out of the 80-pound rock. And when he is done, he will turn to another project.

"I don't take breaks," he said. "I just want to keep producing sculpture after sculpture after sculpture."

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This is the final profile in a series focused on the 2013 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award recipients. In the past five issues of e-Spirit, you have met the six men and women who are being honored in communities across the country this year.

Roadblocks.

Challenges to overcome.

Mountains to climb.

Whatever you want to call them, Watie Akins has found the strength to face a number of obstacles in his quest to restore his Tribe’s Native traditions and song.

Akins, a member of the Abenaki Tribe, has focused much of his life’s work on restoring and passing along the Penobscot Nation’s traditional songs through research, recordings, apprenticeship programs and work with local school students. The music, he said, is in danger of disappearing completely.

It is for his passionate pursuit to rediscover that music that he has been named a recipient of the 2013 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award from First Peoples Fund. His work hasn’t been without heartache, he said.

“It is hard,” he said, particularly because the younger generations don’t have a collective memory of the beauty or the depth of the Native culture or traditions, particularly the music.

Akins said he didn’t either—until he took the time and energy to research his ancestors. In 2003, he was awarded a one-month Rockefeller Fellowship Grant at the Newberry Library in Chicago to further research Abenaki-Penobscot archived language and music materials.

When his fellowship was finished, he continued his research—at the Canadian Museum, the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, the Maine Historical Society, and with old cassette tapes recorded by his parents and other tribal members from the 1930s to the mid-1970s.

His determination will benefit generations to come, said Gretchen Faulkner, director of the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine.

“Watie’s dedication to documenting the material is vital to maintaining the traditions and passing it on to future generations,” she said.

Maine Folklife Center Director Pauleena MacDougall agreed.

“He has shown an unflagging interest in accurately preserving Penobscot traditions not only for his own people but as a way of educating others as well,” she added.

The remedy to keeping the traditions alive now, Akins says, is to go right to the people who will make that happen in the future—the kids. In 2007, Akins began compiling more than 120 traditional songs to be learned and recorded by others and then taught in schools. The mission was urgent, he said, because the Maine legislature had passed a law requiring the teaching of the Native culture in public schools. Before that, Akins said, Native people were described in history books as extinct, and Maine maps lacked recognition of the four Abenaki reservations.

“I felt compelled to present to the people of Maine as well as our own people a musical history of our culture,” Akins said.

Time in the classroom is the perfect opportunity to light a fire under the younger generation, he said.

“I hope the students get the idea that they want to learn and participate in this type of music, rather than what is on the TV or radio,” he said. “I am hoping it will rub off on at least a few minds.”

Akins has continued his work despite several life-threatening medical issues. In 2006, at the age of 72, he suffered a stroke. After physical therapy, he was able to resume his music, using the hand drum and shaker. In 2011, he suffered another stroke, this time severe and requiring him to use a walker to move around. The music project has been a strong motivator to recover. He hopes to eventually write his own songs, using the traditional elements used by his ancestors.

“Knowing the rudiments of what our ancestors did for our music, I will use those to create songs,” he said.

He is not entirely alone in his work. Akins is mentoring a young man who loves the history of the music and can speak the Native language.

“He is absolutely the right person to help me pass it along,” Akins said.

The award from First Peoples Fund is also encouraging, he added.

“This is a good thing, to have this recognition. It means a lot to me.” he said. “It has energized me. It has refreshed me.”

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To honor a woman who has demonstrated a steadfast patience and passion to maintain her tribe’s traditional art forms, First Peoples Fund will host the Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Awards—the North Dakota edition, in Georgianna Houle’s hometown of Belcourt, North Dakota, on Thursday, July 18, 2013.

The event, which will take place from 1-4 p.m. at the Knights of Columbus on Highway 5, will honor Houle, who is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

“Georgianna has set a wonderful example for the people in her community through her willingness and effort to pass along the traditions and culture of her tribe,” said First Peoples Fund President Lori Pourier. “We are excited to join her community in honoring her work, her legacy and her future as a culture bearer.”

Houle first learned to weave red willow baskets at the age of nine while watching her mother and grandmother. Her grandmother learned the art by studying a migratory worker who weaved baskets as they rode a freight train to work and passed the skill on to her family members.

Houle has since focused on doing the same—passing the art form from her generation to the next—in the hope that it provides them with a solid cultural foundation and a sustainable way to make a living.

Houle said she was honored to receive a CSA and to join a group of artists who have demonstrated a deep sense of purpose and consistency in sharing their art with their communities.

The awards are given each year to recognize the exceptional passion, wisdom and purpose the recipients bring to their art and the communities they serve. This year’s CSA honoring ceremonies are taking place right in the communities where the artists live and work, giving the people who are most impacted by the work of the recipient the chance to encourage and celebrate alongside the artist.

Houle has spent several years visiting local schools and community colleges, teaching children and adults how to weave the baskets, which can be challenging and tedious to make. Her baskets have been sold regionally and some of her grandmother’s baskets have been displayed in the Smithsonian Institute.

“She continues to be committed to holding onto the traditions that are so important to our tribe,” said Leah McCloud, tourism director for the Tribal Mountain Band of Chippewa Tourism. “Each art piece is authentic in design and creation.”

Houle said she hopes to continue teaching and selling the baskets and is one of several artists who will teach at the Turtle Mountain Tribal Arts Association’s new location in Belcourt.

“Georgianna’s willingness to mentor and teach others, so they too can benefit from their tribe’s traditional art forms, is a testament to her work ethic and spirit,” Pourier said. “We look forward to recognizing her for her hard work.”

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This is the fifth in a series of profiles on the 2013 Community Spirit Awards recipients. In upcoming issues of e-Spirit, First Peoples Fund will continue to introduce to you the remarkable artists and culture bearers who are receiving the honor this year.

Susan Malutin was determined to learn how to sew traditional Native Alaskan clothing and beading—so much so that she traveled, tracked down and convinced elders in multiple Alaskan communities to teach it to her.

Malutin, who is one of this year’s Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award recipients, lives on Kodiak Island in Alaska and has spent the last 30 years mastering the lost art of traditional skin sewing and helping pass it on to younger generations.

She is at the center of a revitalization of the Native culture and art of the Alutiiq people that has rejuvenated elders, prompted the building of a Native museum and helped facilitate programs to bring back the Native language.

“It is a culture that was dormant for such a long time,” she said, adding that oppression and an influx of Russian culture helped bury much of their traditional language and culture.

While Malutin worked for the state of Alaska, she traveled to other communities and always carried sinew and a piece of fur with her. When she met someone who knew how to do traditional skin sewing, she asked to be taught.

“I would corner them,” she said, laughing.

Eventually, she began to travel all over the world—to places like Russia, Finland and Denmark—to research and spend time at museums that have pieces of clothing and artifacts from the island.

Even though artifacts from their region have been located in other museums, it would take great time, money and effort to borrow or acquire them for Alaskan museums, she said. While it’s fortunate that someone has the pieces of history, many of the artifacts are not even displayed at some of the museums around the world. In Finland, Malutin viewed artifacts from her homeland that had been in storage for 140 years.

“We were some of the first Natives to get to see them,” she said.

It has still been an honor to view the work, she said. With the help of others, she has been able to recreate pieces for display in the island’s first Native museum. It opened 14 years ago and was a major step in renewing the community’s interest and support of the old traditions.

Community member Linda Ross said Malutin is inspirational and has dedicated great time and effort in sharing the heritage of the Alutiiq people.

“She is in many ways, bringing a transformation to the community of Kodiak Island. The adults and children of Alutiiq heritage have been encouraged and have grown in their knowledge of their heritage by all of Susan's efforts.”

April G.L. Counceller, of the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository, said Malutin is a brilliant artist.

“But her overall passion is to support the Alutiiq community,” she said.

There is still so much work to be done, Malutin believes.

“I wish our people could see what fine work was made,” she said, including fur hats, slippers, infant boots, mittens and dance boots. “It’s just incredible… the intricacy and time it took to make these beautiful items they wore every day.”

Malutin continues to teach and travel. She participates in “Culture Week,” a time devoted by each village school to cultural activities, and she helps lead cultural activities and skin sewing at women’s retreats, the museum and multi-cultural programs on the island. The cultural renewal has united generations and their communities, she said.

“It’s given elders encouragement and renewal of spirit,” she said. “It reconnects them with their history and their childhood.”

Malutin said she was honored to receive the award and that her greatest hope is to pass on the attributes of her ancestors, as much as their traditions.

“I want to show the young people they can carry on those characteristics that made our culture strong,” she said. “They can use it in all aspects of their lives by their attitudes and actions and how they role model.”

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Vicky Takamine recalled how humbling the Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Awards ceremony in Hawaii was for her--and how special it was to be surrounded by artists she has worked with for so many years. Cyril Lani Pahinui called it "incredibly moving." And Denise Lajimodiere, who traveled to the ceremony from her home in Fargo, North Dakota, called it a "life changing experience" full of memories to "last me a lifetime."

In fact, Lajimodiere said that she couldn’t help but weep as First Peoples Fund President Lori Pourier described the work she has done to revitalize her tribe’s Native traditions.

“I have never heard my own words read to an audience with such passion,” she said. “It was one of the most extraordinary experiences. I have never seen my life through the perspective of someone else.”

The three artists celebrated with family, friends and First Peoples staff at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus Theater in Honolulu, Hawaii, earlier this month. The ceremony honored Takamine, of Honolulu, Hawaii; Pahinui, of Waipahu, Hawaii; and Lajimodiere, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, for the exceptional passion, wisdom and purpose the recipients bring to their art and the communities they serve.

“I was very moved,” said Pahinui, who performed during the ceremony on a slack-key guitar, a Native Hawaiian instrument he has spent most of his life playing, mastering and sharing with others in an effort to preserve Native Hawaiian music.

Takamine, who owns and directs the Pua Ali'i 'Ilima dance studio in Hawaii to celebrate and pass on the traditional hula dance, was honored that her students helped organize the event. Takamine, who performed a dance solo at the event, said it was a humbling experience to be in the spotlight for the evening.

“We don’t like to take the limelight,” she said.

Her work, which includes advocating for the continuation of hula and the perpetuation of language, history, culture and values of the Hawaiian people, was celebrated with the gift of a star quilt.

“When they unfolded the star quilts, it was so unexpected,” Takamine said. “We understand the time it takes to make a quilt.”

Pahinui and Lajimodiere were also draped in star quilts and said it was one of the most memorable highlights of the evening.

“I thought it was just for them,” Lajimodiere said, of her fellow honorees. “When I got one too, I was just weeping. To receive an award for something I love and have dedicated my life to is extremely meaningful.”

Takamine said the gathering of like-minded women from other cultures and tribes from around the world was unifying and refreshing.

“There were these very powerful, strong, culturally-grounded women in the audience,” she said. “And to be part of that was very moving.”

Pahinui agreed. “All of these cultures coming together in one evening… it was beautiful,” he said.

Lajimodiere was happy to share her life’s work and Native culture with the staff and Native Hawaiians who gathered for the event, and spent several days during the week of the ceremony soaking in Hawaiian culture.

“It was well organized and I felt very taken care of,” she said.

Guests were invited to a Native Hawaiian luau, and Lajimodiere enjoyed seeing Takamine and her dancers perform.

“It was fun to see her in her element, in her culture and Native song and dance,” Lajimodiere said. “I reveled in it.”

She also fell in love with an early morning, traditional Native Hawaiian ceremony that involves chanting and clapping as the sun rises for the day.

“We got up at 3 a.m.,” she said. “It was an emotional, beautiful ceremony. I never wanted to leave.”

It ended with a dip in the ocean, which Native Hawaiian people believe will bring blessings.

Lajimodiere, who has since returned to her work in Minnesota, said she made some new friends in Hawaii and hopes to return for a visit. One of the best aspects of the ceremony, she added, was the effort made by First Peoples Fund to bring together people who have made it their life’s work to save and rejuvenate different cultures around the world.

“They did an incredibly beautiful job,” she said. “There were a lot of tears at the honoring.”