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4 GROUNDCOVER NEWS NATIVE Powwow origins Many of us in Michigan as well as nationally know about the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow at Skyline High School in Ann Arbor. It’s an annual event in March that brings many people together to celebrate our Mother and the indigenous caretakers who are still here. “Standing Rock” is a December 2021 article I wrote about the Thanksgiving 2016 convergence which was a tipping point for thousands who answered the call to protect the water of the Missouri River from the Keystone Pipeline that was designed to carry tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast refineries. The Native American Student Association (NASA) at the University of Michigan, in partnership with the U-M Office of Academic and Multicultural Initiatives, is diligently working to make the 2026 powwow a success in the tradition of some 52 years of Dance KEN PARKS Groundcover vendor No. 490 occupation of Alcatraz. AIM began in Minneapolis to counter the police violence and tragedy of forced assimilation. The largest mass execution in the United States took place in 1862 in Mankato, Minn., where a special scaffolding was built to hang 38 Dakota people, part of the punishment for the rebellion against starvation and broken treaties. It was after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. There is a regular memorial in Mankato to remember this tragic execution. AIM is well known for the occupafor Mother Earth. The drumming circles are a miracle to behold and remind us that we are surrounded by the love of community that runs deeper than all the violence that distracts us. NASA was founded in 1972 in the context of the American Indian Movement (AIM), which is famous for the tion of Pine Ridge Reservation and the armed conflict at Wounded Knee. There are still unresolved issues around murders and disappeared people and the actions of Cointelpro, which was a U.S. government operation targeting AIM and the Black Panther Party in particular. Books still need to be written on this. AIM quickly gained national and international recognition, which led to the United MARCH 20, 2026 Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights. Language, stories and visual arts promote the culture which gives life to us all with a felt body sense of the earth under our feet. The last NASA event I attended was an excellent presentation by James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw, who carries Turtle Mountain nation heritage. The Seventh Generation and the Seven Grandfathers was an unsurpassable video art collage based on his book. It brought indigenous and world culture together in a good way and pointed out this precious treasury of humankind. NPR’s "The World" recently focused on the art of indigenous people, especially from Brazil. Now is the time to learn and share in the prophecies of the Seventh Generation. Mother Earth is smiling at the thought. I am looking forward to seeing you on March 28-29 at the powwow. Keep an eye on the Groundcover community calendar for details about it and similar events. 25 years of fancy shawl dancing – what the powwow means to me talking about at the time. My tribe is from the far north of CINDY GERE Groundcover vendor No. 279 Canada deep in the woods of Whitehorse, British Columbia, in a very small village called Good Hope Lake. The nation is called Kaska Dena. We are of the Athabaskan speaking tribes and I am of the Wolf Clan from the far north end of the Rocky Mountains. My tribe enjoys a game known as I was 19 when I first entered the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow held on the University of Michigan campus, that year at the sports coliseum. It is also known as the University of Michigan Powwow, hosted by the Native American Student Association. This was my very first powwow. I was in total shock. I never experienced anything like it in my whole life. My friends took me to the powwow and it was there that I fell in love with the whirling and twirling ladies’ fancy shawls. I was taken hook, line and sinker. This was what I wanted to do, and do it I did — for 25 years. My adopted mom told me we had attended a powwow when I was around four or five. My mom recalled we (a mixed race family) were not received well; she told me that AIM (American Indian Movement) was big then. I had no idea what she was stick gambling which involves hiding items in hands, drumming, singing and guessing. Line dancing and traditional dancing for the seasons and life cycles of the subarctic are also popular pastimes. I was told I was adopted with fetal alcohol syndrome spectrum disorder. All my life people had told me, “No you can’t do …” I saw the dancing at my Dance for Mother Earth Powwow and I felt like I was finally home for the first time in my life. This was where I saw people just like me and I could finally now be just native for the first time. I could dance with freedom to express myself for the first time — without judgment or prejudice. And being surrounded by other Native Americans — to me this was truly home. I created my very first outfit we call 'regalia.' A new dancer can start from scratch. Many of the first pieces were from other dancers — the dance feather, leggings and the fan all came from others. My shawl was pointed in the back (most shawls were square). For me it was not about what I was wearing but the dance itself. Mike Dashner, the NASA director, became a good friend. He personally knew a top dancer and she showed me the ropes of fancy shawl. It was so much fun and I fell in love with fancy dance. In 1993 I came out with a red, white and blue outfit with an eagle on the back of the shawl. I got comments and I got nasty looks. But as an adopted Native American who has had multiple disabilities, challenges and losses, I chose to take the high ground and dance to my own beat, to live life on the edge, and to reject the rejectors in my life. Just as I started to dance my set, back came the memory of when I was attending the Institute for American Indian Arts. I made the horrible mistake of running over some rubble. This tore my right foot up and I pulled the ligaments in my foot, costing me two years of no dancing at all. The Indian doctor at the Indian hospital told me in a negative tone, “You will be lucky if you walk, let alone run.” For me this was a challenge: I was set to dance no matter what was in my way … No one was going to tell me no, not now or ever, and with that I moved up north to Alaska, to the University at Fairbanks in central Alaska where I continued my education. It was at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Powwow where I perfected my fancy dance in relative peace and harmony, without the harshness of competition looming over my head. For me powwow was always for fun, excitement and the love of the dance. My outfits got fancier and focused. I got selective with the competitions and I won at smaller powwows. I won second place five times and took third place eight times. As I got older, my dance changed, and so did my outfits. I loved my black, white and red outfit with a wolf theme, with wolf paws and my tribal patch and identity on it, being from the wolf clan. My clan means so much to me. When I visited my great aunt she told me the clan system is what makes you Native — you’re Kaska Dena Wolf Clan. She told me you can not be Native without a clan. It's what makes us belong to that nation. I asked her why. She said it's a blood line thing that keeps you of that tribe and that when clans mix it up, we lose who we are. So to her, without the clan you could not be native. Clan defined your permanent position as a tribal member and Native American. Sad but true, many tribes have lost their clan positions as a way to destroy identity in a colonial-dominated erasure of tribal identity and land control. The blood line or breed card is the same way — I have this blood and you don’t, or better yet, then we can take your land because you have too little clan blood and with that the rub-out continues. Land-taking destroys tribal identity and sovereignty. We are the only people who must have blood quantum cards. Also known as a tribal identification card, this reminds me of the Jews being identified by a number. Now what we’ve got is a number on our cards, the same kind of thing just in a different way. Just another way to erase us as see POWWOW page 7 

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