Culture and history of American Indians were shared with UTM students Tues. afternoon when a Lakota American Indian recording artist spoke during the Civil Rights Conference.

J. J. Kent, a nominee for the Native American Music Awards, began his presentation with the tale of the fat chief and the skinny chief. With this story, he demonstrated the impact of choices on a person’s life.

“Stories are a large part of culture because they can explain who the people are,” Kent said.

Following his story, Kent amazed the audience with his flute playing.

Asking the audience to close their eyes, he played a song to a hushed and tranquil audience.

“J. J. Kent enlightened the audience at the Civil Rights Conference with traditional Indian stories and soothing flute playing,” said Jody Stokes, a Fine Arts major from Humboldt.

He then explained the significance of the colors decorating his flute: black, white, red and yellow, relating them to equality of all people, as each was of equal length on the instrument. He explained that when combined in equal amounts, they produce the color of the sacred pipe.

Kent then imparted to the audience the seven laws of the Lakota. He stressed the importance of living a good life. “Our lives are a child’s text book,” Kent said.

Of the many lessons Kent taught the audience, perhaps the most important was that music transcends language barriers.

To conclude the presentation, he played the drum while he sang a song in the Lakota language.

“It was beautiful when he was singing in the Indian language,” said Hiromi Sugihara, a freshman Communications major from Kyoto, Japan.