Loading ...
`Circle Legacy, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting ethnic cultures, the environment and youth, presented “Natives of the Americas Appreciation Celebration” on Saturday.
The event, lasting from 12 to 7 in the MPR and lobby in the Student Memorial Center, was host to a number of speakers, vendors, entertainment, foods, cultural education, displays, kid’s games and crafts.
Ron Buckwater, of Ephrata, had a table of different traditional items including bones, skulls, hides, and drums.
His wife, Lanie, of the Oneida heritage, demonstrated the Native American diet of corn, squash, and beans, telling the story of the corn husk doll.
Lanie said, “I’ve been interested in Native American culture ever since I was a small child, and in ’97 we started going to powwows. We started going to learn, and I am still learning.”
“We enjoy meeting new people and learning about their philosophy,” said Ron.
The Buckwalters also do local demonstrations for churches and Boy Scout troops.
“The main teaching we like to share is that Native Americans worked for the people; the wealthiest man or woman shared the most,” said Lanie. “We share our heritage and as we grow older hopefully younger people will get interested and come up doing this.”
Jolene Patterson and her older sister, Clairese Patterson, took four pieces of corn husk out of a cooler of water and laid them in front of three girls hoping to make corn husk dolls, and Jolene told the traditional story of why a corn husk doll has no face.
“My favorite part is seeing my sister when she is teaching kids. She is a normal teenager, but when she is teaching kids it is cool to see her,” Jolene said. “When we were younger our mother took us to events like this and when we were older we began to offer our help.”
Jolene, who is in eighth-grade, and Claire, who is in tenth-grade, later shared a song and native dance with their mother Danielle Schenandoah, of the Oneida Iroquois Wolf Clan.
Schenandoah sold her native beadwork, along with Bettina Castanago, one of the vendors of Native American jewelry from Bethlehem, PA. Castanago, who mostly makes jewelry of bone and turquoise, but represented artists from many Native American nations, said, “I am preserving Native American arts and culture by sharing my culture and art with people who may not be exposed to it.”
Schenandoah specialized in indigenous law and policy, spoke to several social work classes Friday on “Haudenosaunee Native Americans,” showing the short documentary of her family’s oppression, Fourteenth Family, available at www.tribalcorruption.com.
“A lot of people see the Native Americans as part of the past and don’t realize about the issues today,” said Dr. Kathy Gregoire, graduate program coordinator in Social Work. “These forums provide a nice balance of celebrating culture and bringing awareness of the people still facing issues.”
Representatives of Return to the Earth, promoted an ecumenical project to develop burial sites throughout Native American country governed by Native American communities.
The organization displayed the “legacy of pain,” when in 1860 U.S. government ordered military troops to collect the remains of massacred Native Americans and ship them to Washington D.C. for scientific study, versus the “act of hope,” when in 1990 Congress passed the Native Americans Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requiring the return of human remains and sacred objects to the tribes and nations from which they came. Today over 110,000 remains still have not been returned and buried.
Matt Matteson, shoemaker in Akron Pa., who came out to support Return to the Earth, recommended the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown to anyone interested in learning more about Native American history.
Monday Tlakaelel, who held a prayer and lecture on Saturday, also spoke to students in the freshmen seminar, Cultural Understandings, Cultural Misunderstandings, sociology North American Indians class and social work classes on Toltec wisdom.
Undergraduate and graduate students in the social work department volunteered at the event, and funding for the event was provided by Circle Legacy, Millersville University Commission on Cultural Diversity, Humanities and Social Sciences Academic Climate and Cultural Enrichment Committee, Social Work Department & Student Organizations, Turkey Hill and community patrons, according to Gregiore.