(woman) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by-- the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4th, 2008; the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.

Welcome to "Prairie Mosaic," a patchwork of stories about the art, culture, and history in our region.

Hi, I'm Matt Olien And I'm Barb Gravel.

On this edition of "Prairie Mosaic," we'll learn about ancient Spanish coins, hear some traditional Nepali music, and meet a student who sees his future in the bright lights of Nashville.

♪ ♪ Pat Kruse is a birchbark and quill artist from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Reservation.

Working with birchbark for over 30 years he creates beautiful pieces of art including baskets, birchbark paintings, and even cradles.

[acoustic guitar softly finger-picking] ♪ ♪ My name is Pat Kruse, and I'm a birchbarker, we're in Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe land.

I make baskets and all kinds of different styles of birchbark stuff, I've got it cut out, I've got to shape it.

I wanted to do something different, and birchbark was a route for me to do that.

I wanted to make canoes, I wanted to make baskets, I just like that stuff.

And it stuck with me since I was little, so I've been doing birchbark off and on for like 30 years.

♪ ♪ Practically most of my life I've been doing cultural things because birchbark and the culture go hand in hand.

So without birchbark, we would never have had wigwams to live in and survive a sustainable winter.

Like its 30 below zero out.

Right?

If you've seen a real Ojibwe wigwam, you would understand, aha!

This is how they did it, this is culture, this is the way it is.

Then what about the birchbark canoe?

We were able to travel from East Coast to West Coast all away to Montana through all the rivers and portage.

What about bowls and cups, medicine?

All come from the birch tree So birchbark goes hand-in-hand with culture.

♪ ♪ There's no perfection, there's no ever trying to be perfect with birchbark, as you see things crack, things break, things happen.

Every piece of art I made whether large or small is stressful.

And it's like you're trying to perfect something that's an imperfect thing.

You can tell that, see it wants to go one way or another.

See how it did that?

If it won't work one way, you can work another.

And it's important to make sure that you be mindful of any art, anything that you're trying to do Native American, there's never perfection.

And you are just the same as any art or any tree or anything-- we're imperfect.

So we try to mimic a good thing, but at the same time not trying to be perfect.

♪ ♪ I have a style from the old school to new school.

So my inspirations are the original people like old school Ojibwe baskets, and their baskets are phenomenal.

If you've seen them you would understand.

♪ ♪ So what we're doing is trying to tell a story with it through the art.

So that's what a birchbark painting is.

It's like I take a flat piece of birch, put it on wood, then I put a design on there whether it's floral or a turtle, or a tree to giant picturescapes of a whole forest with animals in it, but it's all different colors of birchbark.

Some of my ideas for the birchbark paintings, there used to be scrolls, and they would tell the history of us.

So they would use these things to teach you how to hunt, how to survive, and that's what the storytelling bark is about, the paintings.

It's to teach you how to understand that nature is as important as each of our family members-- the water, the air, everything we live on-- no littering, all that, it's important, and we teach that through the paintings.

Me and my apprentice, Terri Hom, found this cradle up at Libertyville, Illinois, Dunn Museum, and she got ahold of them, arranged for us to go meet the people.

We went and looked at it, took pictures, took little measurements, then we came home, and I spent 3 months trying to design it and make the same, similar thing.

But the cradle is so important because they were making these things in the 1800s.

And that's the last time anybody made one.

We were lucky to be the two people to actually remake something so special as this cradle, because now we make the same thing in this generation instead of being lost 200, 190 years ago.

It would take a novel of words to make people who are not native American understand how important that is culturally to us, to remake such a thing and to have someone alive on the planet doing these things or to teach it.

It's hard to teach, it takes months, years.

It's not something you learn overnight.

[acoustic guitar softly finger-picking] What I would like people to take away from my art is the planting of more birchbark trees, to recognize the value of this tree, to recognize the medicinal value, the baskets, the canoes, the finer art.

We are actually trying to create something that lasts for generations and generations, because our lives don't last that long.

It's just trying to leave a history for your family, that this is what I did while I was here.

These are the nice things I tried to make to explain what I was doing while I was here.

[acoustic guitar softly finger-picking] Damber Subba and Punya Ghimirey are remarkable musicians who play and perform traditional Nepali music.

Both are originally from Bhutan, and as refugees eventually found their way to Fargo.

As part of the North Dakota Council on the Arts Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, Damber and Punya are preserving Nepali music.

[playing in bright rhythm; harmonium plays the melody] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [singing in Nepali] [singing in Nepali] [singing in Nepali] [harmonium plays the melody] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [singing in Nepali] [singing in Nepali] [singing in Nepali] [harmonium plays the melody] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [singing in Nepali] [singing in Nepali] [singing in Nepali] In this Artifact Spotlight, treasure hunter Terry Shannon informs us about the Spanish coins he's found on the Treasure Coast of Florida.

Hi, I'm Terry Shannon, I'm a treasure hunter, and this is my Artifact Spotlight.

These are Spanish coins.

This is an 8 reale.

These are what they call cob coins.

In 1715, down at the Treasure Coast, there was a fleet of 11 Spanish treasure ships.

They came up along the coast, and a hurricane caught them, and all 11 of them sank.

Out of the 11 that sank, they only found 6, and the average salvage has been 41 million per ship.

These are the coins that they were carrying to take back to Spain.

When they went back to Spain, these would be melted down and turned into regular coins.

They were shipping so much silver over, they did it the easiest and fastest way.

So they'd have a bar of silver or they'd pour out a strip of silver, then they'd whack off about 1 ounce, then the slaves would stamp them.

They had the cross on the one side and the shield on the other side.

Every coin is different, but they are all the correct weight.

So an 8 reale is 1 ounce of silver.

This would be a 4 reale, which would be 1/2 ounce of silver.

This is a 2 reale, that would be 1/4 ounce.

A 1 reale is 1/8 of an ounce of silver, and a half reale is a very small coin, and that would be 1/16 of an ounce.

They had an assayer that would check every coin, and they would weigh it, so the weight is spot on.

If you look at these coins, you see where they shaved off the excess.

In other words, when this was cut off and it was stamped, it was too heavy, so they shaved it off to get it down to the proper weight.

That's why very seldom you would find a cob coin with the date on it.

They used to cut these coins to make change.

You've heard the expression "pieces of eight."

That's where that came from.

It's the same thing for the gold coins, they are called escudos.

An 8 escudo is 1 ounce of gold, a 4 escudo is 1/2 ounce, a 2 escudo, right on down.

They went down to a 1 escudo, they didn't have a 1/2 escudo.

They did later on when they started making the round coins.

These other coins here are called maravedis, they're called pirate's coins, everybody calls them a pirate's coin.

They're made out of copper, they don't have a lot of value, they are all different, they're very rough and crudely stamped.

This is, I believe it's called a Carlos and Juana, a Spanish coin, and it's a 2 reale.

If you look on the front here, it'll have an M, meaning it was minted in Mexico, G, that's for the assayer.

We were able to date this coin by the assayer.

In the records he only worked from 1544 to 1548.

They believe this is probably the oldest coin ever found on the Treasure Coast, if not the oldest, it's one of the oldest.

When I got this one, I got two of them, the other one doesn't have much detail.

When a ship sank with a lot of silver, the salt water causes an electrolysis effect, and they'll get a coating over them they call coin silver.

If you get that off oftentimes you can get the pattern back, and that's what they are trying to do with that other coin.

It's quite a treasure.

There's a lot of people that have detected the Treasure Coast for many, many years that have yet to find one.

So I've been real lucky; I've done really well.

Andrew McFarlane composes, arranges, and performs all styles of music, but his studies at Minnesota State University Moorhead have him looking forward to a life of success in the musical city of Nashville.

[playing in bright rhythm] ♪ ♪ [guitar only; no vocal] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [guitar only; no vocal] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [guitar only; no vocal] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [guitar only; no vocal] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [playing a funky, rhythmic beat] ♪ ♪ [guitar only; no vocal] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [guitar only; no vocal] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [guitar only; no vocal] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [playing melodically in slow tempo] ♪ ♪ [guitar only; no vocal, tempo increases] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [guitar only; no vocal] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [guitar only; no vocal] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ If you know of an artist, a topic or an organization in our region that you think would make for an interesting segment, please contact us at... (Matt) You can watch this and other episodes of "Prairie Mosaic" on Prairie Public's YouTube channel, and follow Prairie Public on social media as well.

I'm Matt Olien.

And I'm Barb Gravel.

Thank you for joining us for another edition of "Prairie Mosaic."

[guitar, bass, & drums play in bright country rhythm] (woman) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by-- the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4th, 2008; the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.