In September I participated in the hugely popular Scandinavian cultural festival, the Norsk Hostfest, held every year in Minot, North Dakota. Being a vendor at the Norsk Hostfest was a unique experience for a few reasons:
~my first-ever 4-day show
~first show importing my goods to the USA
~ many shoppers also owned looms so we “talked shop” quite a bit
~Scandinavian culture offers SO MUCH fun stuff!
My Scandinavian roots are from my paternal Great-Grandparents who immigrated from Sweden to Wisconsin in 1903. I am named after Great-Grandma Ida Johnson (my middle name is Ida), a remarkable woman in many ways. As she lived to be 105 years old, I have cherished memories of being at her home as a child. She added distinct Swedish flavours to her cooking, like cardamom in the buns. Eating Swedish stew at Hostfest took me right back to her big dining table, a taste-infused memory that carried a surprising emotional impact. I can recall a special spiritual quality to her yard, and where there was an old wooden swing tied to a tree branch near a quiet little pond you’d think that God her/himself was swinging beside you.
Not so far away from Sweden, my maternal Gramma’s ancestors lived in Glarus, Switzerland. Some of those adventuresome folks also immigrated across the Atlantic and helped to settle the small town of New Glarus, Wisconsin. From this family branch I have a love of Swiss cheese, and my Gramma’s creative talents of quilting and weaving. It was from this Swiss grandmother that I learned to weave and later inherited the double-harness floor looms she and Grandpa had purchased in the 1970’s, upon which many of my weavings are made today.
This family reminiscence brings to mind the conversations we have around Thanksgiving in relation to the First Peoples on the land that we now call North America. The way I understand it is that prior to first contact by Europeans, this bounteous landmass was called Turtle Island, and the people who lived (t)here enjoyed great spiritual practices, strong family bonds, and an honourable way of life that was sustainable for them and the earth. These Indigenous people welcomed the settlers, then suffered for generations by the spreading of infectious disease, brutal wars, loss of hunting and living territory to tiny reservations, abduction of their children to harmful residential schools, and other atrociously unfair treatment.
For centuries we white people didn’t acknowledge these harms. Thanksgiving in the USA, where I grew up, portrayed a sanitized version of “Pilgrims and Indians” – beneficent newcomers cooperatively feasting with the savage locals. As we now know, so much of history does not tell the truth.
Back to the Norsk Hostfest Scandinavian Culture Festival in Minot a couple weeks ago. Imagine my surprise when I hear “war-whooping” music blasting from a corner where previously it had been fiddles and accordions. What is this demonstration?
I had this mixed reaction of two parts. One was, “Oh good, we’re not only showcasing European history. I am SO glad some culturally sensitive people on the planning committee invited the local bands of the Native Americans to be involved,” because during set-up the thought had occurred to me that we should be acknowledging the colonial background of this European-based heritage celebration, and I didn’t know if attempts in that direction had been made.
The second thought was, “That sound is certainly distinctive, raw and wild. If I heard it over the broad prairie plains centuries ago, it would definitely instill fear. To my non-Native ears, it is eerie and foreboding.” The lady at the adjoining vendor booth beside me, named Grace, agreed, and we watched the dance closely: a man wearing a full-body costume including a feathered headdress was doing rapid stomping/turning/jumping movements in time with loud, primal cries from voices on a recording. He held decorated sticks and a mirror in his hand, and moved them in time to the rhythms.
Then, as we watched, a new song began, and a younger dancer took his place in the centre of the circle. This was a young boy who appeared to be 10 years old. He was dressed in equally fancy regalia and performed the same intricate and vigorous motions the previous dancer had done.
A large crowd had gathered to watch. Between songs, another Indigenous man spoke into a microphone, offering explanations of the meanings of each dance. He said that every dance was a prayer; a prayer for the land and for the people. Grace and I talked about how beautiful it was to know the reasons for the songs, and we noted that in learning these meanings, the scary-ness and threat we’d previously felt had diminished.
The majority of people watching were white-skinned. They watched attentively and applauded loudly at each dance’s conclusion. While most everyone at this event had come to pay homage to their European ancestors, this demonstration of Native American culture was warmly – almost reverently – received. The dancers gave multiple performances every day, each time to loud applause and rapt attention. Grace and I mused about the important and hopeful changes going on in the USA towards equality and right relationship, and I told her about similar experiences in Canada.
My reflections didn’t end there. The man with the microphone had his own vendor booth, so I went to tell him how much I appreciated that he could share his time and wisdom with all the European descendants at this event. The man’s name was Les Thomas, of the Turtle Mountain Band of the Chippewa Indians. I learned about his exciting work with Native Tourism, which is currently focused on creating a Peace Teepee and related installations at the International Peace Gardens. They intend to have “Peace Powwows” and to further bridge the culture gap, on both sides of the US-Canada border, in regards to reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.
And the photo at the top of this post? Pictured there is Sage, also a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of the Chippewa Indians. I regret that I did not for his last name. His son, Killian, was the younger dancer that Grace and I had watched earlier. Sage came over to my booth one afternoon looking for a safety pin; his arm bands were coming loose from all the shaking and moving! I was honoured and happy to help with clothing repairs, and we had a great chat about how nice it is to blend our family heritages in one event. Sage and Killian spend their entire summers competing in powwows across the country, and they are glad to engage settlers in conversation and cross-cultural enjoyment. He said he understood how, because of my enculturation, I initially had had a fear-based reaction to the songs, and we talked about how natural and pleasant it was for me to change that attitude once I understood more.
Photo taken and shared with permission.
There is a new holiday printed on my calendar for this Monday. Alongside “Thanksgiving Day” (Canada)
“Columbus Day” (USA)
a new entry appears:
“Indigenous Peoples’ Day” (USA)
which I learned has unofficially been observed in some states in the USA since 1992, the year that marked 500 years of harmful colonization practices that began with Columbus. Rather than continual celebration of the conquerors of this nation, it was time to focus on the conquered.
Similarly, in Canada, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has been working since 2008 to address the cultural genocide against Canada’s Indigenous peoples, and their meaningful work has created a list of 94 “Calls to Action” and the observance of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation every September 30th.
May this work of justice, compassion, and understanding ever grow.
~Emily