The Pow Wow

The sun beat down like the tum-tum of the nearby drum, and as incessant, earnest and ancient.  “It’s amazing how something millions of miles away can do something like this,” Marc later said of Kim’s resultant sunburn. 

It’s amazing to me how an indigenous people can, for thousands of years, hold on to the traditions, culture and values of their ancient civilization, despite the blistering trials, changing landscape and brutal exploitation that threatened to rip it from their grasp.

The singers and drummers

I am referring to the more than forty Native American tribes who gathered this past weekend for the 33^rd Annual Thunderbird American Indian Mid-Summer Pow Wow to celebrate and share what they have preserved for generations. 

It was Sunday, the culmination of a three day intertribal festival, which included both traditional and modern food, vendor booths filled with artifacts, crafts and traditional garb, and dance competitions.  Marc, Kim and I took a scenic bus ride that led us away from the urban maze of Manhattan to the lush green of the Queens County Farm Museum in Floral Park where, in a clearing, we watched as representatives from the different tribes dance the traditional powwow dances of their people.

For the past three decades, the Thunderbird Native American Dancers has hosted the event which boasts representation from such tribes as the Cherokee, Aztec, Hopi, Navajo, and many more, arriving from all over the nation and as far away as the Caribbean. It has become New York’s largest, and longest running. The organization is well known in the New York area for offering ongoing services, such as monthly pow wows, craft and language workshops, and the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers Scholarship, to which proceeds from this event are contributed. 

Like the sun, these are a resilient and steadfast people. Their beauty and majesty brought to mind the vague memories of my great-grandmother, who was Cherokee. It made me wonder of my own heritage, as our time together had been brief.  This festival made me wish I’d had a stronger connection.  I admired the joy and enthusiasm of the young people who paraded and danced before me.  I was humbled by the pride and the determination of their guardians who teach generation after generation what had been taught to them by their guardians, and their guardians before, thus making it possible for us to share in these traditions today.

While the festivities had begun with the raising of the American flag, and a song honoring our veterans and soldiers, we were left with the profound words of the Director of the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers and the MC, Louis Mofsie (aka Green Rainbow of Hope Tribe of Arizona, and the Winnebago Tribe of Wisconsin):

“We’ve had the chance to go down to Chinatown and to see the parade and all the Chinese people in their traditional dress and the dragons and the lines … we got to go to the German festival and see them in their traditional German dress…Well, this is our festival.  This is where we get together to sing our traditional songs and to wear our traditional garb.  The only difference is we didn’t come here from another country.  This is our country, and we’ve been here for thousands of year.”

As far as I can tell, we’ll be here thousands more.

Cheers,

-Ceddy

This is how to keep a heritage alive!