Day 157

Native American couple at PowWow

Under a lowering sky, then hot sun, then darkening from the west, then blowing over, a typical New England crazy-weather day, we attended a PowWow of many nations in Ipswich.  We met Cherokee, Nipmuc, Wampanoag and Penobscot.  There was a group of young drummers who were wonderful.  They used flat round drums which they left near the sacred fire to firm up before they played. 

Gender plays an important role in Native American music.  In the Northeast women play less of a role, but in the south and the west women's music is very important. Most Native American tribes were matriarchal and matrilineal until the Europeans arrived.

Only men play the drums here, the women stand behind and guard the sacred circle.  The woman who explained all this to me said that it wasn't discriminatory, just the way it has always worked, that being a guardian was as important  as a drummer, but that is like saying that the supporting cast is as important as the main actor, and of course they are, but the main actor is the one everyone watches, isn't he?  And if the drummers are standing and they are men, the women behind them will almost always be shorter and so will not even be seen by any spectators.

But what I love is the way in which every dance, every interaction, mentions Mother Earth, stresses how we are all inter-connected.  I know it is wrong to generalise, but the people we met all seemed very patient and good-natured, laughing and joking with one another, friendly, warm. 

Tim and I stumbled upon Masconomet's grave a few years ago, which is just a few miles from our house.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/bowtoo/2238316354/

Colonialism has a lot to answer for, all around the world.  It always amazes me how one group of people could believe themselves so superior to another group of people that they could treat them as animals or worse.  Or cheat them of their land, or try to exterminate them.  And it seems that so many of the native peoples were entwined with the earth, even worshipped it in different ways, like the Aborigines of Australia, the San of South Africa, the Native Americans of North America.  And that progress always involved raping the earth in some way, and damning the easygoing people who stood in the way, alien to the colonists, 'savages', 'barbarians'.

I remember being gobsmacked by a paragraph in Helen Gardiner's Art Through the Ages, talking about the defeat of the Minoans, a superior civilization in almost every way, one which had a sophisticated sewage system, beautiful art on an unprecedented scale, with a portrayal of joyfulness not seen before.  But they had almost no defense system, so that they were easily overrun by a people with superior weaponry, which fact has, of course, allowed armies to defeat people over and over throughout history.

I ran 2.08 miles (3.4km) this morning, through drenched grasses, muddy ploughed land, found three bumblebees waiting to die near their buried nest.  I tried to dig it up but couldn't find it, so moved their cinder-block (with them clinging to it) to a safe haven, though it will not help them in any way.  At least it is not a housing development going up there, or something worse.  I should be happy that things are going to grow there, and of course today I do feel better about it, but still, so sad to see all the pushed-over grass and some flowers striving to stand up straight for the sun.

I have so many report cards to do still that for my portrait tonight I am using a photograph Tim took of me dancing in the sacred circle today.  We were all encouraged to dance, but Tim thought that everyone there would just take me for a Native American anyway (probably because of my big nose!).