Aug. 24, 1998
By JODY KLEINBERG
Press Democrat Staff Writer
If centuries could be reversed with thought, Peter Brokenleg would have stood face to face with his ancestors Sunday.
As it was, he stood at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, his long black hair braided and decorated with red feathers, his body covered with deer skin and wool, his feet in soft beaded moccasins and his mind on the dilemma of American Indians today.
As much as he looked his part -- one of many traditional dancers and chanters gathered to perform at the county's sixth annual Intertribal Powwow -- Brokenleg is decidedly modern.
Underneath the bone bracelets on his right arm, he wears a watch. The porcupine-quills that cover his left arm are permanently stained with Starbuck's coffee. By day, he works at San Francisco's Friendship House, a residential alcohol and drug abuse program for American Indians.
"We're held as a native people, a part of history that is over,'' he said. "But that is not true. We use our traditions to express ourselves and to remember our ancestors, but our traditional ways are not about the past. They are about being present in the moment.''
As much as the two-day powwow was about honoring the past, it was also about teaching children to live and prosper in modern society, he said. That means letting them witness the power, wisdom and beauty of their heritage first-hand. In time, he said, at least some, will quietly become proud of their roots and anxious to learn and maintain the old ways.
Five-year-old Tre Gabaldon of Santa Rosa, who is half Pomo, half Navajo, is one of the children Brokenleg is anxious to reach. Although in past years, Tre participated in Crow dances, this year, "he suddenly became shy and embarrassed,'' said his mother Rochelle Gabaldon.
Instead of dancing, Tre spent Sunday playing with his cousins, eating fry bread and Indian tacos and looking at the dozens of craft booths and displays set up by American Indian artisans. Meanwhile, his mother socialized. "I see my whole family once a year here,'' she said. "It's the chance to talk to them and say hi to the elders.''
Representatives from more than a dozen tribes from across the West Coast participated in the powwow, said Edna Seidner, the traditional adviser for the Powwow Committee. The event was both free of charge and of alcoholic beverages. She estimated more than 3,000 people participated by the end of the weekend.
Crafts booths circled the grassy field, with vendors selling everything from dream catchers, to beaded jewelry and hand-carved flutes and drums. Musicians, dancers, singers and speakers filled the center with color and activity.
A few participants complained the powwow was too commercial, that the sound of cash registers rivaled that of the drums and bells and that everything seemed to be for sale.
"I expected it to be more ethnic and more educational,'' said Rita Kelly, a native of Scotland who lives in San Rafael. Kelly brought her three children to the powwow in hopes they would "see something they can't see at home.''
She left somewhat disappointed. Brokenleg had the opposite opinion. He considered the event a tremendous success.
"Indians are so often objectified in this society,'' he said. "Sports teams use our names, so do cars and cigarette ads. We need to teach people that this is not appropriate -- that it sends the wrong message to our children. The Powwow is one way to show them who we are and that we are not part of the past.''