Back in the early l970s, I attended an agricultural fair in a rural part of my state. American Indian anything was hard to find outside of museums and dusty incorrect textbooks then. There was a Native vendor at this fair and I thought how exciting it would be to finally find some great stuff to buy. No, totally disappointing. This vendor had a large selection of car stickers, cheap trinkets, placards with rude sayings, but, worst of all, dyed red feathers clumsily glued to tacky white painted tomahawks. It really appalled me, so much so that I set about trying to turn that image around wherever and whenever I could.
Long story short, I began to make natural crafts and sell them at pow wows and in local shops. This led to invitations to speak to kids in schools, scouts, libraries and other venues. It was amazing how little the adults knew about Native lifeways, let alone the kids. They were surprised to learn that chocolate, vanilla, popcorn, cranberries and a long list of foods they eat every day had their origins in Native America. One teacher even told me at that time “there are no Indians left in New England” (I damned near choked). This was a time when there were virtually no college-level courses in Native American Studies. The only time kids were exposed to anything remotely “Indian” was around Thanksgiving when they made those ugly little paper headbands with cutout paper feathers stapled to them.
Times, they were, indeed, a-changin’. I think a lot of people like me, who were told not to talk about their ethnic background, set out to do just that and set the record straight. Later, I realized that my parents didn’t want me to suffer the discrimination and indignities they had experienced. The kids were great though, they were anxious to learn about Native Americans, they had a genuine interest in the food, crafts and general lifeways. I did demonstrations, classes, workshops, festivals, any opportunity that came along, I took it. I found it to be a customized vocation. Sometimes a presentation required full regalia, sometimes not. I had a traveling kitchen and general artifact display, both easy enough to fatten up or slim down depending on the audience.
In the early l980s, I wrote a book called “Native New England Cooking.” It led to more school programs. Because I had small children at home, traveling about the state took me away from them more than I liked so I figured out a way to do both, stay at home and still teach children. We have a house with a bit of land and not too far from town. We had a tipi in the field that we used to take to pow wows. A wigwam was more appropriate for this area, the northeast, but that was one of those facts that could be told as part of the program. Not only did we have the tipi, but I was given a large collection of artifacts by the widow of a man who collected all his life. We fixed up a large shed on our property and made a small museum with these artifacts. The shed, the tipi and the protected town land adjacent to our place was perfect for tipi field trips with a nature walk and snacks provided. Soon busloads of children from kindergarten to third or fourth grade arrived frequently. We would go into the large tipi which was furnished with furs, blankets, appropriate artifacts and even a fireplace in the center. Each time kids came I made pumpkin bread and had cranberry juice. The Algonquin word for cranberry is ‘sassamanesh’, so I would always ask the children if they would like some ‘sassamanesh’ and they would politely decline. Then, I’d say, “how about some cranberry juice?” and, of course, they wanted that.
One thing I always wanted was the gift of storytelling. I tried and tried, but the stories always came out missing something. Half the time I was the only one who knew this, but kids sometimes knew I forgot a part and they pretended not to notice. Native lifeways will go on forever. Today, perhaps more than any other time in history, it is important to listen to the old one’s predictions and forewarnings about the abuse of our Mother, the earth. Kids today realize there is more to life than sports and video games. Many are inspired by Habitat for Humanity, Greenpeace and other service organizations. On reservations, kids do what they can to help elders and others because they want to, and because it is right. After so many years of tipi field trips, grown kids come back to tell me how much it meant to them to be urged to study Native ways. Budget cuts have eliminated a lot of cultural programs like mine which is a shame. Kids come up to me from time to time to say how much they enjoyed the field trips to my house, how much they were inspired to do things in a “Native American” way. Sometimes they write and include pictures they have drawn from their visit here. Children are more important than anything. They are fun too. I feel lucky that I was able to capture the imaginations of some of them.
Read more stories about education in Indian country in our special education section. Native Cooking will return next week.
