HOUSTON, TX – January 28, 2025 – The Heritage Society is featuring a series of speakers complementing their exhibit “Karankawa: An Enduring Culture of Texas,” that explores the Karankawa people, their history, and culture. On Friday, February 7, at 6:00 p.m., join Language Keeper Do’wal Sehi (Sunshine in English) as she shares a humble retelling of the journey of revitalizing the Karankawa Language.
“Our speakers will reflect on the historical injustices faced by Indigenous communities and promote efforts towards reconciliation and healing,” says Executive Director Alison Bell. “Our first speaker, Sunshine, will begin with a contemporary history of the Karankawa People, the discovery and cumulation of Karankawa Vocabulary, the hardships along the way, new discoveries, and where the path of larger cultural revitalization is heading.”
The Karankawa, an Indigenous people composed of five distinct tribes, have a rich history and culture that has long been overlooked. Their ancestral lands spanned the central Texas Gulf Coast, from Galveston Bay to Corpus Christi, with one group residing in or near modern-day Houston. This exhibit at The Heritage Society is a groundbreaking collaboration with the Karankawa tribe, who have had full authority over its content. By empowering the tribe to narrate their own history, the exhibit seeks to rectify the historical injustice of having their narrative dictated by outsiders.
Do’wal Sehi, “Sunshine” is an indigenous educator, resistance artist, and language keeper from the Karankawa Hawk Clan. She currently works as an Indigenous Educator for a Health and Wellness Resort where she is inspired by Karankawa spirituality and ideology to hold space for and educate others to reconnect to the natural world, undo harmful colonial rhetoric, and find peace within themselves and the Mother Earth.
“It’s crucial for Houstonians to acknowledge the land we inhabit,” says exhibit curator Cian Hardin. “This land wasn’t simply unoccupied; it was taken from living people whose descendants continue to reside here today and preserve their history through traditions, language, and storytelling.”
Sunshine’s goal is to protect and serve her people, the original land stewards, and to educate those who are seeking it. On this journey, she has organized protests for her people, spoken at call to actions advocating for repatriation, reparations, and basic human rights, designed and offered classes and lectures, as well as shown in gallery spaces across Austin, TX. Her most recent goal is to inspire resistance, decolonization, and education through her art and lectures.
The exhibit is at The Heritage Society at 1100 Bagby Street in the Herzstein Museum Gallery. Tickets are $5 and gain you access to three additional exhibits and a wine and cheese reception. Parking is free at 212 Dallas Street. For more information, visit https://www.heritagesociety.org/karankawa-exhibit.
