Keetoowah Museum launches YouTube channel

The John Hair Cultural Center and Keetoowah Museum launched their brand-new YouTube Channel on August 1. The channel features Keetoowah culture, language and stories from Keetoowah elders. Five video interviews have been posted, with more scheduled to be added in the coming months.

There is also a segment on animal names, featuring Keetoowah speakers. Elders Oleta Pritchett and Clara Proctor are joined by Keetoowah youth, Lyric Muskrat, eight years old, who speaks the language fluently.

The content was filmed and produced by the museum in collaboration with Red Pony Film Productions. Red Pony is a company that UKB Tribal member, Dr. Eddie Webb Ed.D. MFA, founded and operates, in addition to his job in Arizona at Mesa Community College, where he is the founding director of the New Media Lab.

Much of the footage was shot during the UKB Red Pony Film Academies I and II. The first one was held Sept. 29, 30 and Oct. 1, 2022. The second class was held in March 2023.

One of the videos features first Keetoowah Language Speaker and Keetoowah cowboy and farrier, John Chewey. In the video, Chewey speaks first in the Keetoowah language and then repeats parts of the story in English.

A second video highlights the Keetoowah Celebration and interviews attending tribal members, along with some of the UKB Tradition Keepers and tribal leaders.

There is a third video featuring JHCC &Keetoowah Museum Director and Tradition Keeper, Ernestine Berry. Berry was honored as a Tradition Keeper in 2016 for her knowledge of UKB history. Berry is interviewed inside the museum history gallery.

The fourth video features 2016 Keetoowah Tradition Keeper and Stone carver, Matt Girty. Matt is interviewed in his “outdoor studio” located out near Lake Tenkiller, where he creates life-sized stone sculptures and etchings.

A fifth video features UKB Ethnobiologist, Roger Cain talking about Historic Preservation and river cane.

“The initial YouTube content is an introduction to our Keetoowah People through the John Hair Cultural Center and Keetoowah Museum,” said Ernestine Berry. There are other stories to tell and more elders and youth to film. There are Keetoowah leaders and other Keetoowah people who hold a wealth of tribal, cultural, and traditional knowledge that we can share with our Keetoowah youth and with the world. Our people have traditionally used storytelling to pass our history and culture on to the next generation. YouTube is just a current way to pass these stories along and to share them with more people,” Berry concluded.