Indigenous school to open

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An international school which will provide a place for Natives to exchange education, trade, and cultural information with other aboriginal peoples of the world is to be development near Edmonton.

The cultural centre and school, to be call MISPA (Multi-Indigenous Studies Program of the Americas) will give Natives a chance to establish important links with the rest of the world. The school is to be situated in the old residential building beside Poundmaker's Lodge, located in St. Albert.

Buff Parry, administrative director of the Dr. Anne Anderson Native Heritage and Culture Centre, and MISPAS founder-director, believes North America's Indians have much to gain by identifying and trading information with other aboriginals who come from ancient civilizations. In many cases, these other nations have also experienced oppression by a dominant society.

To date, "Natives have lived in a kind of vacuum ? having only Europeans to identify with ? their culture and traditions are stifled because the majority of North Americans just aren't interested in it," explains Parry.

"But, the rest of the world is very interested in Indians and their culture and this opens up a whole new area for expression of what being Native is."

Parry also believes there are many deceptions in history books written by Europeans and subsequently Indians have no sense of pride in the fact they come from a great civilization. All the books indicate that before Columbus landed, Indians were simple nomadic tribes that had development no written language or sophisticated culture.

Parry indicates that similarities between Cree syllabics and Middle Eastern scripts are no coincidence. He suggests there are definite links between Natives and other ancient civilization to indicate much has been left out of history books.

He believes a school like MISPA will provide a forum for Natives and other aboriginal people to discover ways in which they are related and discover other "anomalies that either enhance or contradict the history being taught in schools today.

"The world is so old ? they've just found bones in Brazil that are nearly 300,000 years old," Parry says, offering an example of research which disproves theories that the earliest humans lived in China and Africa.

"There was a lot more going on here (in North and South America) than the history books give credit. We have to study the parallels which connect ancient peoples. There is a lot we don't know."

The MISPA school and cultural centre will accommodate up to 300 students ? 200 native Americans and 100 foreign exchange students. Regular high school courses will be taught along with aboriginal history and cultural studies.

Visiting teachers will also be accommodated. India has already expressed interest in having 20 to 30 students and teachers study at MISPA. "We also plan to tour education and cultural centres in America to arrange exchange programs with them," Parry explains.

The provincial government has given Parry permission to use the historical residence at Poundmaker's Lodge for the school Renovations will begin this winter and Parry is looking to a fall '88 start-up for the school.

Dr. Anne Anderson will join Parry as a founding member and director of the school. Grace Buffalo, principal of the Hobbema grammer school, has expressed interest in acting as principal of MISPA and Dr. Sam Windyboy of the United States has been approached to be a staff member.

Funding sources for MISPA have been identified in both public and private sectors.