This Week in Native American News (2/7/2020): The Afro-Indigenous, the Importance of Powwows, and the Mayors of Shiprock
February 7, 2020 - Happy Black History Month!
Black History Month: The Afro-Indigenous—Native Americans with African ancestry
Radmilla Cody, a Diné and African American Grammy-nominated, Nammy-winning singer from the Navajo Nation.
It is fitting to open Black History Month by exploring the long history of relationships between and among the indigenous people of this land with African Americans. Many tribal nations, especially on the East Coast, have members of African ancestry. This should come as no surprise. From the time the first British colonists and settlers arrived and instituted African enslavement, there was contact and intermarriage between slaves, free men, and free women with the original owners of this land—who were themselves under attack and threatened with genocide.
Crispus Attucks is a name most people learned in American History class. Attucks was killed during the Boston Massacre and is believed to be the first casualty of the American Revolution. Attucks is most often identified as black in American history textbooks, which obscures his native heritage.
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WHY POWWOWS ARE A MUST FOR AMERICANS
United Tribes Technical College International Powwow. Bismarck, North Dakota. SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES
It’s a sultry summer evening when Darla Black steps out in front of hundreds of onlookers at the Oglala Lakota Nation Wacipi Rodeo Fair, the annual powwow on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. A survivor of domestic abuse and former tribal leader, Black talks passionately about what can be done to reduce violence against Native women and girls on and off reservations across North America.
Powwows are important events for meaningful discussion on issues facing America’s aboriginal communities. But they’re also a celebration — one that can be experienced by Native Americans and nonnatives alike.
A cultural rather than a ceremonial gathering, powwows are held all over North America, often off-reservation — in cities and stadiums — and at various times of the year. The largest in North America is the Gathering of Nations Powwow held every April in New Mexico, which attracts as many as 100,000 people. They’re a compendium of pre-Colombian life in its various forms: war dancers, remembrances for the dead, drum music and much more. For non-aboriginals, powwows offer a window into the often underrepresented worlds of artistry, dance, and culture of Native Americans.
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A Childhood Chemistry Set Helped Make Tara Gomez a Winemaker
Tara Gomez of Kitá Vineyards/Photo by Benny Haddad
A member of the Chumash indigenous community from the California coast, Gomez is the continent’s first recognized Native American to make wine for her tribe from a vineyard it owns.
She followed a conventional path to the cellar, studying at Fresno State, interning at Fess Parker Winery and working for J. Lohr in Paso Robles for nine years before coming home to the Santa Ynez Valley to launch Kitá Wines.
“In a sense, it’s like paying it forward,” says Gomez. “They sent me off to college, and now I am back and sharing what I’ve learned.”
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You might also be interested in: Behind the Rise of Native American Wines
WATCH THIS: The Mayors of Shiprock
It’s hard to fit all the news in a little space.
To read all of this week's news, visit the LIM Magazine.
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