If you’ve ever been to a powwow, you know one thing: there will be dancing. And lots of it.
“What is it about dancing? That's a big question," said Kaakska’kweenow. "What is it about dancing? It's like asking me why the Indian children were smiling when the government was rounding them up and placing them in the dirt, and they laughed and played in the dirt. It's a part of who we are, and that Mother Earth. We're dancing to show who we are, that we are still here. That's why we dance.”
Kaakska’kweenow will serve as a master of ceremonies for The Second Homelands PowWow: Tending the Fire on the campus of Shakespeare & Company on Saturday and Sunday. His sons and grandsons will serve as the host drum for the celebration, the rhythmic pulse that drives dance, song, and revelry.
“There is a heartbeat," Kaakska’kweenow explained. "The heartbeat is the heartbeat of the Mother Earth, and that's what the men sing on. When the men sing around that that grandfather, that drum, that is the heartbeat of the Mother Earth that the men can control, because men cannot give life like a woman can give life, so a woman feels that heartbeat like the mother of earth that grows things.”
Last year in New Lebanon, the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans – who have called Wisconsin home since the 19th century – held their first powwow in hundreds of years on their long-lost ancestral lands centered around the Hudson and Housatonic River Valleys. For community members like Kathryn Footit, who made the long trek east, the experience was unforgettable.
“This year, I've had a year of just thinking about all the things and all the history that's gone on in that area," she told WAMC. "We're very lucky to be here, us Mohicans. You think about all the wars and the struggles and the moving when you didn't want to move and take everything with you that you want, which is pretty much just a pot and some flint- It's really an honor to be able to go out there and represent and talk to everybody. I love that part.”
Footit said it was an emotional experience to finally drink in the land that shaped the world of her ancestors for thousands of years.
“The beauty of just looking around, and the rolling hills and the heights - and it was right before fall color really breaks out - and the morning fog. It seems like the trees go right up to the edges of the road. It's like I'm always waiting for Ichabod Crane to come out around the corner,” she laughed.
Community member Mysti Hammer is also coming back for the second powwow. She said the significance of the return sends ripples through the tight-knit world of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans that transcend time and space.
“My mom is one of the originals that started this board and the nonprofit to really start this movement," she said. "And then just coming out last year, seeing the youth, seeing my kids dance with my mom at that powwow - it's pretty moving. I know it would make my grandparents proud that we're doing such a thing out there.”
Hammer said the first powwow was such a success that the number of Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans coming out for the second has quadrupled to around 200.
“This year we're bringing a bunch of our Mohican veterans out there," she said. "We have more youth, we have some of our tribal royalty coming out to dance as well. So, I think just lighting that fire in our next generation and showing our elders that we're keeping it going.”
For Kaakska’kweenow, the opportunity to show that the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans aren’t relegated to the pages of history is the most resonant of all.
“This powwow and the dancing that's going to go on, it's waking up our ancestors and let them know we are still here," he told WAMC. "When we do that, the trees - If you show up, watch the trees when the drums are singing. The trees will move with the beat of the drum, and the reason they do that is native people have the same DNA as Turtle Island.”
