Shedding a tear as Indians dance to a different drum

By: Dorreen Yellow Bird
Published Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - Grand Forks Herald

As an elder, I often turn around to look at the past. The path I've traveled is not always as I expected it would be when I was 16 years old. I say this because it couldn't have been more evident then at the Mother's Day powwow and celebration at White Shield, N.D., last weekend. I felt both sadness and pride at the changes in this cultural event.

I know life rarely stays the same, I told my sister. I know, I said again, looking at her. Everything is evolving, but the evolution of American Indian culture doesn't feel good. She laughed and said, “You're just getting old.” And perhaps that's true.

A good change, I explained to her, can be found in the evolution of the refrigerator or that big hulking Suburban van that our brother, Don, used to be so proud of. The refrigerator went from the ice box - and on the reservation 66 years ago, it was an ice box - to one of those really fancy, right-from-Modern-Homes-magazine models. As for cars, I love their changes; they went from cranking the starter to antilock brakes, stability control and so on.

In contrast, changes in Native culture are more subtle, yet they can hit me hard. When I heard the songs and drumming last weekend, memories of past drum songs echoed in my ears, and I knew the sounds that I now was hearing were different.

The young singers probably don't realize it, because we are now mostly English speakers and listen like English speakers, too. So, I think the words and sounds of the Native singers 60 years ago would sound foreign to the new “Ree Boys” group at the powwow, and they are good drum group . . . for youngsters.

Yet it is the drum songs of the old singers that went right into my soul and wrenched my spirit. My ears missed the old sounds.

When I was young, the powwow celebrations went on for three days and nights. I sometimes would stop visiting and carrying on with teen friends and just listen to the drumming. There was something about the sounds that made chills run up my spine. It was as if the ancestors were reaching out from the past and touching my heart.

It's at those moments I realize that my grandmother was right when she told me we are vessels of our ancestors - we carry them in our spirit. They always are a part of us. I was listening to those songs with their ears.

As I sat there over the weekend watching the dancers and singers, memories of being a a child and attending gatherings like this one came to me. I remember lying on the floor on a blanket while my grandmother and family took part in a cultural events in a building that took the place of the years-ago medicine lodge. I would doze in spite of the loud drum music and singing.

Late at night, the kerosene lamps would be lit. I could feel the rhythm of the dancers as the wooden floor moved with their moccasin steps. There was my grandmother - simple cotton dance dress, hands on her hips, head held high, waving a white handkerchief as she made sounds of praise and rounded the small dance circle. It's an image that will stay with me forever.
Funny, I can even remember the little round balls of mud that must have come in the doors on the feet of the dancers. I'd watched from my floor view as the little balls jumped and danced with the movement of the people.

My sister's voice brought me back to the White Shield powwow and the Ralph Wells complex. Just think, she said, the complex will soon be replaced by a new culture center - replaced like many of our ways, I thought.

My granddaughter, Eliza, who is a beautiful 19-year-old and my equally beautiful 5-year-old granddaughter, Allaya, are fancy shawl dancers. When Eliza dances, she is so light on her feet, it's as if she's dancing on air and the brightly colored shawl with the long, long fringe looks like butterfly wings as she gently dips and moves. Granddaughter Allaya is learning and has great potential.

Today's dancers have taken the culture into new territory. I know because the fancy shawl dance wasn't part of women's dancing 60 years ago. It is part of the cultural evolution.
My grandmother would say young women shouldn't kick their legs or step that high. That is too much like men's dancing. Women's dancing is of pride and praise for our tribe and the Creator, she'd say.

As I sat watching the powwow celebration, I felt sad for ways that were disappearing. We're losing more and more of who we were. How much of ourselves can we give away to the white ways and still maintain who we are? I wondered.