(birds twittering distantly) (water trickling distantly) (object creaking distantly) - [Narrator] Grandfather.

We thank you for this beautiful land that's given us life.

All our brothers and all our sisters.

(wind instrument blowing gently) (birds twittering distantly) We thank all of those who come to listen.

May we walk away with a good feeling of this land and a new understanding of our story.

(gentle tribal music) - If you think about who you are, you are your mother, you are your father.

We are the land.

Our ancestors, all the way back to creator, they're here.

(wind instrument blowing gently) - This exhibit began (insects fluttering distantly) probably about 11 years ago.

(soft dreamy music) What we really wanted to show in the exhibit is, you can look at a tree, or you could look at a rock or a butte, and it might be beautiful, but we don't really know what we're looking at, and the storytellers really revealed to me what was there.

It's more than a butte or a lake to many of the Native Americans.

It's a spirituality, it's a place where they get power, it's a place where they heal.

It's a place that they receive messages and interact with the supernatural.

- I think that what I would like the people to remember about this exhibit is that we live on this earth, and this earth is a wondrous, powerful, and sometimes very supernatural place (water trickling) where there are unusual things.

- It's really encouraging to hear the response to the non-native people.

I stopped by the museum desk here a couple times, and they said, "It's really powerful to a lot of people."

Then, I hear folks back home, they say, "I knew you did this, but I didn't know that you did that."

(chuckling) So, we get them to realize that we're carrying on these traditions.

Our school children have come down by the buses, and they're just really happy, "That's my grandpa!"

(chuckling) So, it's humbling.

I'm really glad that we had the opportunity to do this because it's not just about native people, it's about North Dakota.

- I started working with Troy about three years ago, putting this exhibit together.

I have been thrilled by the numbers going through this gallery.

The very first day it was open, we had more than 250 just school kids.

(wind instrument blowing gently) We tried to give people options to delve into the stories because they're so important to the overall experience.

You have access in the gallery space.

We also have a small theater space here in the building where you can also sit and listen to the stories in your own time, and then they're also available online.

The takeaway I would like to see, really is that there is a parallel way of looking at the environment and the land.

We're just scratching the surface with this exhibition.

- Storytelling has always been a part of our family.

My grandfathers, my uncles, well, there was this boy.

But there was this eagle, and there was this buffalo, and they would tell stories about how the strength of those animals gave those human strength.

Sometimes, stars (birds twittering distantly) would help the people, and the plants that gave us the strength and the vision to do these things, so those were very important to me.

Having that connection to the world around us, these stories gave me strength.

(birds twittering distantly) These stories empowered me.

(birds twittering distantly) - It gives us hope.

It gives us hope because so many years, we had to be silent, and it gives us hope that our future will be filled with that, (speaking in foreign language) the good life.

Because within our stories, they tell us how to live in a good way.

(wind instrument blowing gently) (birds twittering distantly) - The buffalo went through the very same thing that you did as a people.

They tried to exterminate you by putting you on a reservation where life was very hard, and you didn't have food.

(birds twittering distantly) And the same thing happened to the buffalo.

They were shot en masse (atmosphere swishing) from trains and so forth, and left to rot (birds twittering distantly) and die on the prairie.

And those that remained, they said they put them in a park like Yellowstone.

Yet they survived and your people survived.

There are lessons like that that we learned from people, from the environment and the animals, and other living things around us.

- My favorite story?

It's "The Star in the Cottonwood Tree."

It's just such a sweet, charming story.

- That one is a wonderful story, how the little star came and heard all these wonderful sounds, and wanted to stay, but the other stars scolded him and told him "You belong up here."

But he was persistent, and he finally came down, and they told him he could come down and stay if he could find a place where he would not distract the people 'cause the people had to work.

So then he looked, and there was this cottonwood tree.

(dreamy exotic music) - These storytellers, they've given their lives to these stories.

To preserving these stories, to continuing these stories.

Not for themselves, but for their children and their grandchildren, (atmosphere swishing) and their grandchildren, and their grandchildren.

(dreamy exotic music intensifies) - That's what that circle of life is, we're all connected.

And that's what these stories are telling us.

(insects chirping distantly) Live a good life together.

(water trickling) Take care of each other.

Not just people.

Trees, the wind, the rain, take care of the water, the birds.

(graphics tinkling) (wind instrument blowing gently) - We always give thanks (birds twittering distantly) to the earth itself, and always try to walk with respect.

Because if we don't realize that all of the earth has power and energy, then we might not be able to receive whatever that particular place has for us.

- We're an oral people.

We always pass things on.

And so if my witness is not there to witness and verify my story over time, now this is gonna be there forever.

Anybody can see it.

So, we have to tell the truth, we have to tell it right.

So, to bring all of these storytellers from around North Dakota, from the many different tribes, it's all about the earth.

It's all about the people.

(airy exotic music) (tinkling music) (wind whooshing) - [Narrator] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts and by the members of Prairie Public.