By Rori Bennett – Junior Reporter
The 25th annual Walpole Island Spring Powwow was held this past weekend on the First Nation reserve.
Adrian Harjo served as the Master of Ceremonies for the annual weekend festivities.
“In the old days, you would start off with dancing, then singing,” Harjo told the Sydenham Current.
“After that, you would make your way to being the arena director. Eventually you would become a speaker of the nation. Now, in modern days, that speaker of the nation has become known as the master of ceremonies, which is my role. Even though I am not from this community, I am the master of ceremonies for many different events all over Turtle Island.”
Harjo said powwows are happening all year long, throughout many of the First Nations communities.
“Every community though, has it’s very specific weekend of when their ceremonies and cultural events allow them to have their powwows,” Harjo said.
“Usually powwows kick off right around spring time, and they happen every single weekend, through summer, even up until October.”
Harjo said powwows represent communities gathering together.
“When you go back generations ago, the word ‘powwow’ comes from a nation on the east coast, where it was pronounced ‘powa’,” Harjo said.
“It simply referred to their ‘medicine man.’ When the non-native men and women noticed all of the people gathering, they would always gather around the ‘powa.’ Eventually, our non-native brothers and sisters turned that into ‘powwow’, and always referred to a gathering as that. That’s why you will still hear it referred to, even in this day, and in television shows and modern pop culture.”
Grand entries were held on Saturday at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., as well as on Sunday at 1 p.m.
The powwow was opened by honoring Indigenous Veterans.
The Head Veteran for this weekend’s powwow, was Albert Whiteye.
Events featured a variety of dances in many categories, including: Men’s traditional dancing, men’s grass dance, men’s fancy dance, women’s traditional shawl dancing, and women’s jingle dance.
Also featured during the powwow, was owl dancing, hoop dancing, and team dancing.
In addition to the traditional dancing, there was a variety of authentic crafts and food vendors, as well as cultural drumming and singers.
The host drums for the weekend were the Crazy Spirits.
Here are some photos from this Weekend’s Powwow
