Noshing wild rice soup, corn soup and fry bread, attendees at this year's first Cultural Supper Series sampled typical Native American fare.
After their gustatory adventures, they listened to a lecture by a Grand Traverse Band elder describing the history and lifestyle of Native Americans in the region and country. Next, the Medicine Lodge Singers drummed and sang while two young dancers demonstrated the intricate steps and regalia of traditional dances. Before the evening was over, many attendees were up dancing themselves to the drumbeats.
Held at Traverse Heights Elementary School at Sabin, the event drew approximately 60 attendees to the school for an evening of food, fun and learning. The school holds the Cultural Supper Series annually for the school community, although the public is welcome to stop in. The school sponsors the event to help promote parent involvement and build
community spirit.
Families with children of all ages came to broaden their horizons during this kick off of the third annual series, which will include three more programs in 2007: African Americans in February, Asians in March and a culture to be determined for the final gathering in April.
"It's really good because what they're teaching at this school is cultural diversity," said John Bailey of Honor, a Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians elder. "Kids need to learn this at an early age."
Bailey spoke to the group after the supper, outlining the basic tenets of Native American outlooks and beliefs, the history of his people in the Grand Traverse Region before and after white settlement. Relating to the children, he described the life of a Native American child.
"In all the villages, the kids had jobs: cook, gather small sticks of wood and grass to start the cooking fires, gather eggs," he said, noting that one of his additional tasks as a small child was to pick the wild strawberries. "As you got older, you had more responsibilities, more jobs you had to do."
Song, dance and prayer helped teach children their daily as well as periodic tasks.
"That's how we learned, there was the Rabbit Dance, the Deer Dance, the Huckleberry Dance," Bailey added. "In the Partridge Dance, we would imitate the courting dance of the partridge."
The Cultural Supper Series has explored a number of cultures over the past two years. The evening events always include some food, a speaker and representative cultural activities of objects to illustrate a culture's values and beliefs.
"It can be music or dance or something different, cultural presenters can bring beadwork or different symbolic artifacts, such as clothing, artwork, pictures, vessels to serve food in," said Kim Forsyth, the family partnership team coordinator for Traverse Heights and Blair Elementary schools. "The students love learning about one another and the different backgrounds of each family, I think that they really do — they seem to get into it."
Speakers also include information about both their traditional culture as well as how modern lifestyles and events have impacted the community. Thursday evening, Bailey described how the earliest visitors to Michigan, the French, interacted with the natives in Michigan and also how the later arrivals from Finland, Scotland and Wales also impacted the community.
Until the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, the Native American culture had been dying as children were taken from their homes, not allowed to learn their native language or practice their religion. Now the Grand Traverse Band actively promotes education in language and culture to new generations.
"A lot of our teaching was actually lost," noted Bailey.