A Red Owl family member asks if a relative can be there when the scholarship is awarded, to give the winner a little history of Cut Nose. That’s a fantastic idea, the Mayo vice president says.

There is drumming and chanting and singing. Tribal elders stand and tell the younger people about the darkest chapters of Santee history. But they, one after another, also tell the crowd that this day — this experience — is historic.

LeAnn Red Owl gets up then, and the important visitor hands her the microphone. She stands before her mom and her 13-year-old daughter and her relatives and her tribe and the vice president of the Mayo Clinic. She stands just in front of a framed photo of Cut Nose she has placed on a chair behind her. The Important Woman looks around nervously, and begins.

“This is a huge part of who we are,” she tells the crowd. “I am really happy about the way things went today. And I want to thank you for coming. It feels really good.”

The scholarship announcement is important, as are the traditional blankets that Mayo gives to the elders, as are the ideas hatched and promises made to continue to mend the broken relationship between the Minnesota hospital and the northeast Nebraska reservation.

But the most crucial moment is none of these things.