Bill Olson News Stories |
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Published in The Spectator, the student newspaper of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire;
Monday, April 30, 2001 Native American Awareness Week includes pow wow in festivities
Vendors sold native-style clothes and jewelry in addition to cassettes of native music and dictionaries of native languages. People of all ages ate Indian tacos, fried bread and hot dogs. People came from as far as Iowa City, said junior Amy Williams, treasurer of the Native American Student Association. “The purpose of the pow wow is more or less a social gathering for Native Americans and community members,” Williams said. “It’s a gathering for us to have fun and help the community to be exposed to something they wouldn’t normally see.” According to the University of Michigan Web site, pow wows began about 200 years ago in the central plains region as a way for native people to hold onto their traditions in the face of oppression by the United States government. Pow wows have evolved throughout the years, bringing together a mixture of tradition and modern innovations and styles, according to the Web site. Freshman Courtney O’Kimosh was one of the dancers at the pow wow. Her grandmother started her dancing when she was 3 years old, she said. “It’s really a great experience to be at a pow wow. Everybody accepts you for who you are no matter what you look like,” O’Kimosh said. “Everybody can come out and dance, whoever wants to give it a try,” she said. O’Kimosh is from the Menominee Indian Reservation, northwest of Green Bay. “It’s nice growing up on an Indian reservation, because it’s like a small community where you know most of the people,” she said. Many people think Native Americans live in wigwams or teepees and ride horses, she said. “But we drive cars and live in modern houses.” O’Kimosh said there used to be poverty on her reservation. “Then we got our casino, and they’ve built up really nice houses for tribal members at lower rates so people can afford them.” Even though the Menominee Indian Reservation is a modern community, it’s rural, said O’Kimosh, and she had to adjust to living in Eau Claire. “My first night in the dorms, I wanted to go home because there were so many noises — sirens, airplanes,” she said. “But I’m used to it now.” As she raised her voice to talk over the singing and drumbeats of the pow wow, O’Kimosh said, “The drum represents the heartbeat. Drums will be used to put native kids to sleep at night, even today.” But don’t look for a drummer outside children’s windows. O’Kimosh said, “Now we have audio tapes of the drumbeat.”
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