Ten minutes from where we live, there is an annual powwow in September. In Mashpee, not twenty minutes from where we spend time in the summer, the 88th annual Wampanoag powwow was held l as usual over July 4th. We’ve been four or five times to this powwow, and may I just say, hot, hot, hot,under the July sun. 

 This year, Mashpee has a “theme” of medicine/healing, whichintrigues me. After a cool bright afternoon of fishing , I convince my husbandand son to take the twenty minute drive to see what we might find at the powwow:a good parking spot, $8 to enter. The printed program shows that the medicinepresentation was earlier in the day, and now we’re in the midst of dancecompetitions: fancy, jingle, traditional for considerable prize money. A fireis kept smoking in the middle of the dance circle, which is surrounded by thevendors, surrounded by campers and cars. The drums and drum circles, six I think, are under awnings, and I lookbut do not see any women at drum.  Notall the Indians at powwow are from the area; that’s one of the features of thecontemporary powwow – they’re considered “Pan-Indian” with drummer, singers,dancers and vendors from all over.  ButMashpee powwow has a decidedly local feel, in particular the food offerings;quahogs, chowder, the annual clambake. Wampum beads are for sale, and jewelrymade from the cream and purple interior of the quahog clam shell, beautiful andexpensive.

 Things have changed, I think, from the first powwow weattended, years ago. There a lot of people, and many of them are young, many inNative regalia, hordes of children. There is, we notice, a lot of smoking. We are among few white people ina great majority of colored people. My son asks, “Am I the only white kidhere?” This year, we also notice many of the participants are at least partblack – African American, and wonder why this may be so? That they havediscovered Native American ancestry, or that they appreciate the culture andcustoms, and identify with the shared experiences of historical uprooting andtrauma?  My husband says to me, “Do youthink they feel we are here to gawk? Maybe they only really want us to come if we’re going to buysomething.”  I say I don’t think so, itis meant to be a kind of sharing, and that they don’t think one thing oranother about us particularly

 Growing up in small town Connecticut,I was under the impression the Native Americans were no longer present in New England, they had “died out”.  Turns out, not only are they here, but ourlives are intertwined in ways I never could have imagined. For a few years now,I have participated in a drum circle hosted by Claudia Foxtree, a friend andNative American educator. We met through our children’s pre-school, but I wasdrawn to the drum from the first time I heard Claudia sing. When my boys werein elementary school, a Wampanoag educator as well as Pilgrim reenactorsvisited the school to give their perspectives on early colonial history.Thirty-five years ago, my husband bought a plot of land in New Seabury,Mashpee, with money from an insurance settlement from a bike accident (blog-worthyitself) This land became the object of a lawsuit brought by the WampanoagIndians.  The land could not be bought,sold or developed. The money my husband might have withdrawn for education wasnot available, but continued to grow until the day we were able to sell for adecent profit and buy our present Cape house.The Wampanoags, not federally recognized as a tribe at the time, lost the suit.Today, they have the land down the street, the site of the powwow.

 I’ll never forget the opening prayer at the first Mashpeepowwow we attended. A Wampanoag elder, Slow Turtle I think it was, expressedappreciation for all creatures: two legged, four legged, those that swam in thewater and those who flew in the air. I liked seeing myself as part of thatgreat, extended family, all of us bumping elbows in this place. It’s a beautifulplace – to visit and relax, or to call a homeland.