joe randel's art dump

This past weekend I kept up with my cultural roots (being 1/2 Mohawk) and attended the local Pow Wow.  If you don’t know what a Pow Wow is, it’s a celebratory gathering of all Native Peoples in the area.  There is native singing and dancing, plus food stuffs to eat and Native arts to buy.  It’s lots of fun and a great way for us to remember our the culture and ancestors.  Follow the link and I’ll show you some of the pictures I took and explain about things along the way.

This here is a Long House.  It’s what my people and those from the Six Nations lived in.  It’s made of branches and birch bark.  This is a small sample house, the proper ones could fit around 20 families.  There where fire pits along the middle of the house and bunk beds ran along the sides for sleeping.  Oh, there where also holes in the roof to let the smoke out.  You know… so people didn’t die from smoke inhalation.  In this one they where making banic which is a simple form of bread and super tasty. ^_^

This is sweet grass.  It’s burned and used in several smudging ceremonies as a way to purify ones self or to help with protection of evils.  Many Native cultures consider sweet grass to be a sacred plant to the earth.

This is some of the bead work you can buy at the Pow Wow.

It wouldn’t be a Pow Wow without dream catchers.  These come from the Ojibway Nation (the area where I live now) but has been adopted in to the cultures of many other Nations too.  They’re supposed to catch the bad dreams and spirits as you sleep, allowing the good dreams to pass through.  Sort of like a filter.  Although other nations see this in reverse and say that bad dreams fly through and good ones get caught for the dreamer to dream.

I don’t believe these are real, antique arrow heads.  They look too clean and new.  These are from one of the local artisans, but they would be made from real flint.  Which, by the way is what the Mohawk people are known for.  Our name means “People of the flint”.  By that, it means we come from the place where flint rocks can be found.

This woman here, along with the male dancer up at the top, are what’s called a fancy dancer.  They have brightly coloured outfits, lots of feathers and bells to make their dances extra spectacular.  It’s something to see when they get out there in the circle and do their dancing.  Simply fantastic!

Here is the back of some of the outfit the dancers wear.

Here is another dancer in the circle.

This is the drum circle where the men pound out the rhythm and sing for the dancers.  There is something very spiritual about the circle.  Everyone stays in beat with each other and some play special roles in the songs but it’s all done on one drum.  Very awesome.

Well that’s pretty much it.  I honestly don’t go to many Pow Wows, but when I do, I always enjoy myself and have fun.  I also have to have my corn soup.  I seriously can’t get enough of it at these things.  Some get the Three Sisters soup (corn, beans and squash) but man, I gotta have my corn soup.  It takes me back to my childhood when my grandma would make it.  I really need to learn how to make it myself so I don’t have to wait a year to get it again. ^_^

Do you take part in any cultural things from your heritage?