'Cultural Conversation' Tells Tales Of Native Ancestors

Aaron Jones will modestly tell you he's just the host when the Museum of Native American History presents "A Rare Cultural Conversation: Honoring Ancestors: Red Cloud to Red Otter" at 2 p.m. Saturday.

His guest will be Jay Benham, an artist, a museum educator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and a member of the Kiowa Tribe. His Kiowa name, Ay-Oia Goddle, translates to Red Otter, Jones says, but it was during quiet conversations when he too worked at Crystal Bridges that he discovered something other things about Benham. He is a direct descendant of Red Cloud, a legendary chief of the Oglala Lakota tribe during the 19th century; his great-grandfather, Ahepeahtone (Wooden Lance), was the last recognized chieftain of the Kiowa; and his grandfather guarded Geronimo at Fort Sill.

"I told him, 'You can't just tell me these stories! You've got to tell other people,'" Jones remembers.

Of course, Benham is newsworthy in his own right. He has showcased his art in Arizona, Oklahoma and New Mexico and has permanent collections at the University of Oklahoma at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Modern Art and at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock at the Sequoyah National Research Center.

But Jones has some stories of his own to tell, too. Now an administrator at the Arkansas Arts Academy in Rogers, he was raised in Oklahoma, is an artist himself and can trace his own ancestry back to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

"My dad was raised in Henryetta, Okla., at a time when it wasn't 'popular' to be Indian or German, and he was both," Jones says. "He knew Creek and he knew German -- his mother came from Germany -- but he didn't really promote that at all.

"My grandfather, though, was very proud of his Creek heritage," Jones continues. "He and his brothers were spread out across all different branches of the service in World War II because they spoke Creek, so they were Creek [code] talkers. That heritage always instilled a lot of pride in me. And I have always worked with the tribes."

So when Charlotte Buchanan-Yale, director of MONAH, calls on Jones, he says he's quick to answer.

"She doesn't just think outside the box," he says, chuckling. "With her, there is no box. She doesn't know what a box is! And we're so fortunate to have her thinking up all these things in Northwest Arkansas."

-- Becca Martin-Brown

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