Come engage in a conversation between Garrie KillsAHundred, Ziic’iya (Paints Himself Yellow) or Dennis Gill and host Kevin Mason in a Riverside Chat.

Garrie KillsAHundred is a Historic Tribal Preservation Officer for the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribes Historic Preservation Office. His primary research interests involve using different kinds of drones and ground-penetrating radar to look at the landscape from a different point of view. Through this work he has assisted in archaeological digs and discovered unmarked graves for the local church cemetery, while also bringing this technology into tribal schools to inspire young indigenous students to pursue careers in STEM.

Ziic’iya (Paints Himself Yellow) or Dennis Gill, is a Wahpekute Dakota from the Enemy Swim district of the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota. He has dedicated his life to the revitalization of Dakota culture and ways of life, teaching language, spirituality, the practices of traditional societies, and other aspects of culture. A spiritual helper to Dakota people, he is a bundle carrier and practitioner of the seven sacred rites of the pipe. Ziic'iya is also a singer, traditional dancer, and grass-dancer. His other skills include crafting traditional Dakota implements of war, including bows, arrows, clubs, and spears; harvesting, preserving, and utilizing traditional foods, medicines, and materials; and, nurturing plant life. Professionally, Ziic’iya has spent more than twenty years identifying and helping to protect ancestral burials and sites of cultural significance to Dakota people. 

Kevin Mason is a rural and environmental historian of the American Midwest. After earning his PhD at Iowa State University, he served as an Associate Professor of History at Waldorf University. Mason will join the University of Northern Iowa in fall 2025 as an Assistant Professor of History. Mason also runs the digital humanities project Notes on Iowa, serves on the Board of Directors for Humanities Iowa, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the State Historical Society of Iowa. An award-winning author, Mason's forthcoming book Fields of Change: The 1st United States Dragoons and Iowa's Environmental Transformation is due out on Michigan State University Press in 2026.

Garrie KillsAHundred

Ziic’iya (Paints Himself Yellow) or Dennis Gill

Dr. Mason