Ongoing Projects
Culture Camp
Culture Camp 2027: Ho Minti Society is hosting its Fifth Annual Culture Camp at the beautiful North Toledo Bend State Park from June 28th to July 2nd.
Each June, we gather tribal children aged 7–17 from across Louisiana and beyond to learn traditional practices, build community, and have fun! Children are introduced to community languages, regalia, and dances, in addition to native plant identification, archery, fishing, Indigenous crafts such as beadwork and leatherwork, and much more.
Volunteers and donations are deeply appreciated!
Language Revival
Ho Minti Society has launched a language revival project for the Indigenous pidgin language of Yamá, also known as Mobilian Trade Language (MTL). It operated for centuries as a lingua franca among the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, including Choctaw, Chickasaw, Tunica, and Biloxi communities, among many others. The language is thought to have gone extinct by the 1950s, though elders could recall fragments of it into the 1980s.
With help from language scholars, language revival practitioners, and members of our community and others, we have begun the challenging and exciting work of rebuilding the Yamá lexicon from sources scattered across the archives. It is our goal to return Yamá to the vibrant place of intertribal communication it once held.
Traditional Indigenous Arts
We pride ourselves on keeping the practices of our ancestors alive, and we host regular meetings at which experts and novices alike come together to practice beading, stitchwork, moccasin sewing, pine needle basketry, and other crafts.
Previous events have included Rhonda Gauthier teaching how to make traditional hominy from scratch and applique beadwork, Dr. Rebecca Riall teaching brick stitch earrings, and Steve Jones leading hide tanning workshops, plus many others on making dance regalia, flat turkey fans, shawls, and lots else.
Self-Defense
Indigenous women and girls face a staggering onslaught of personal violence. The murder rate of Indigenous women is three times higher than non-Native women — it is the third leading cause of death for Indigenous women, and over 85 percent have experienced violence and historical trauma.
Our ancestors lived in matrilineal and matrilocal societies where women were respected as sacred life-givers. We must work diligently to end cultures of toxic misogyny and lateral violence.
We support the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement and promote women's self-defense training.