Post by Okwes on Feb 9, 2007 11:32:41 GMT -5
Powwow teaches 'true history'
Grand entry. Head Man Dancer Will Davis of Titusville dances after the grand entry on the first day of the Melbourne Pow Wow at Wickham Park in Melbourne. The annual powwow is organized by Native Heritage Gathering Inc., a Melbourne nonprofit group. Craig Bailey, FLORIDA TODAY
Wickham Park powwow
Melbourne Powwow
Native Heritage Gathering Inc. meets from 2 to 4 p.m. the fourth Sunday of every month at the Melbourne Public Library, 540 E. Fee Ave. The group's Web site is www.nativeheritage gathering.org.
MELBOURNE - Daniel White Wolf Rivers, dressed in brown buckskin leggings and boots, stooped as he entered his airy crimson-and-yellow tepee.
"This is my own personal lodge," the Malabar resident explained, looking up at the ring of cypress poles encircling him. "When I don't have to do politics, this is where I come to get my medicine and think about what I have to do."
White Wolf, who shuns television and computers, serves as Florida chief of a 238-member Metis tribe. He also is living in his lodge this weekend in Melbourne, sleeping on a hand-plucked feather bed beneath a furry elk hide just a stone's throw from a Brevard Community College asphalt parking lot.
The fifth annual Melbourne powwow kicked off Friday, and with it an encampment of canopies, tents and tepees across the Wickham Park Pavilion grounds. The traditional gathering celebrates American Indian culture through dancing, music, food, exhibits and demonstrations.
Friday morning, 413 Brevard County elementary children toured the powwow. The kids toured White Wolf's lodge; watched Thunder the bald eagle, who lives in a Sebring wildlife sanctuary; and tried their hands at lighting campfires and shooting arrows.
"Down here in Florida, they see Seminole and Cree," White Wolf said of the students. "But there are a lot of us -- Cherokee, Apache, Sioux, Cheyenne, Navajo. There's so many young children who are not being taught the true history of the American Indian."
The annual powwow is organized by Native Heritage Gathering Inc., a Melbourne non-profit group. Treasurer Martha Pessaro, a Mi'kmaq Indian who lives in Merritt Island, said this year's version features 30 vendors and more than 150 dancers.
Cuisine includes buffalo, elk and venison burgers, fry bread and bison Philly cheese steak.
Near the outdoor dance arena, vendors are selling an array of frontier-era commodities: deer antlers, beaded jewelry, rabbit pelts, fox tails, hand-painted feathers, Indian war shirts, leather arrow quivers, drums, flutes.
"Watch the dances," said Viera author Jake George, a member of the Turtle clan of the Lenni Lenape. "When we dance, we don't dance alone. We dance with our relatives.
"My father crossed over seven years ago. When I dance, if I look over my shoulder, I see my father, and his father."
Contact Neale at 242-3638 or
rneale@flatoday.net.
Grand entry. Head Man Dancer Will Davis of Titusville dances after the grand entry on the first day of the Melbourne Pow Wow at Wickham Park in Melbourne. The annual powwow is organized by Native Heritage Gathering Inc., a Melbourne nonprofit group. Craig Bailey, FLORIDA TODAY
Wickham Park powwow
Melbourne Powwow
Native Heritage Gathering Inc. meets from 2 to 4 p.m. the fourth Sunday of every month at the Melbourne Public Library, 540 E. Fee Ave. The group's Web site is www.nativeheritage gathering.org.
MELBOURNE - Daniel White Wolf Rivers, dressed in brown buckskin leggings and boots, stooped as he entered his airy crimson-and-yellow tepee.
"This is my own personal lodge," the Malabar resident explained, looking up at the ring of cypress poles encircling him. "When I don't have to do politics, this is where I come to get my medicine and think about what I have to do."
White Wolf, who shuns television and computers, serves as Florida chief of a 238-member Metis tribe. He also is living in his lodge this weekend in Melbourne, sleeping on a hand-plucked feather bed beneath a furry elk hide just a stone's throw from a Brevard Community College asphalt parking lot.
The fifth annual Melbourne powwow kicked off Friday, and with it an encampment of canopies, tents and tepees across the Wickham Park Pavilion grounds. The traditional gathering celebrates American Indian culture through dancing, music, food, exhibits and demonstrations.
Friday morning, 413 Brevard County elementary children toured the powwow. The kids toured White Wolf's lodge; watched Thunder the bald eagle, who lives in a Sebring wildlife sanctuary; and tried their hands at lighting campfires and shooting arrows.
"Down here in Florida, they see Seminole and Cree," White Wolf said of the students. "But there are a lot of us -- Cherokee, Apache, Sioux, Cheyenne, Navajo. There's so many young children who are not being taught the true history of the American Indian."
The annual powwow is organized by Native Heritage Gathering Inc., a Melbourne non-profit group. Treasurer Martha Pessaro, a Mi'kmaq Indian who lives in Merritt Island, said this year's version features 30 vendors and more than 150 dancers.
Cuisine includes buffalo, elk and venison burgers, fry bread and bison Philly cheese steak.
Near the outdoor dance arena, vendors are selling an array of frontier-era commodities: deer antlers, beaded jewelry, rabbit pelts, fox tails, hand-painted feathers, Indian war shirts, leather arrow quivers, drums, flutes.
"Watch the dances," said Viera author Jake George, a member of the Turtle clan of the Lenni Lenape. "When we dance, we don't dance alone. We dance with our relatives.
"My father crossed over seven years ago. When I dance, if I look over my shoulder, I see my father, and his father."
Contact Neale at 242-3638 or
rneale@flatoday.net.