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The Mandan people of North Dakota long have had a prophecy: If they were to move south away from their homelands, their tongues would fall out and they would cease to exist.
Gerard Baker sees that prophecy coming true today as the tribe loses its Native language and its people intermix with non-tribal members.
He blames the forced removal of his people from their homelands and the division of his tribe's lands through federal legislation such as the Dawes Act of 1887.
"The prophecy of losing our land has also come true as a result of these acts," he said.
Baker, National Park Service superintendent at Mount Rushmore National Monument, spoke Friday about the Dawes Act during the "Homesteading Reconsidered" symposium.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Center for Great Plains Studies sponsored the symposium, which began Thursday and continues today.
The symposium's focus is the Homestead Act of 1862 in the U.S. and the Dominion Lands Act of 1872 in Canada, which together fundamentally shaped the pattern of non-Native settlement...