Children learn to drum at the Thunder in the Valley Pow-wow in Big Indian Park. Photo by Rusty Mae Moore.
On Saturday, Native American vendors, dancers, and drummers from across the region and as far away as Mexico gathered in Big Indian for the Thunder in the Valley Pow-Wow.
Twenty vendors and a crowd of children and adults gathered to listen to folk tales, try a hand at drumming, and swap stories about being Cree, Lakota, Micmac, Delaware, Seneca, and Aztec.
The pow-wow was organized by the Big Indian Native American Cultural Center. Mary Lou Stapleton, known as Spirit Dance, founded the center with her husband Frank 11 years ago. Stapleton said that anybody is welcome to join.
“You don't have to be Native American,” she said. “We are a friendly place where all nations are welcome."
Red Wing, a woman from Langhorne, Pennsylvania, was one of the non-Indians at Saturday's pow-wow. She said that her family joined the Native American Cultural Center years ago when they attended a car show at Big Indian and were invited to join a native "talking circle" taking place nearby.
"[It was] the most spiritual event we had ever encountered,” Red Wing said. “More spiritual than all the years of going to church.”
At the gathering in Big Indian park, writer Evan Pritchard, the founder of The Center for Algonquin Culture in Woodstock, kept the crowd spellbound with folk stories. Bill Dibenedeto and George Michaud of the Sint Sink Singers manned the pow-wow's enormous “host drum” and taught kids how to coax a rhythm from it.
Gina Sommers of Pine Hill, known also as Dancing Rabbit, sold bracelets and handmade Indian flutes while her mother, Barbara Little Fox Eyes, peddled jewelry. Both women are Cree, and are determined to pass along their heritage to Sommers' son Evan.
Frank Stapleton, Mary Lou's husband and the co-founder of the Big Indian Native American Cultural Center, ran the food stand with the help of his sons and grandsons. Known as Iron Tail, he is also nicknamed “Fry Bread” Frank in homage to his tasty fried specialty, which he offered on Saturday along with buffalo burgers.
Frank Stapleton is unsure about his native lineage, but suspects that his grandfather and other people in the family suppressed knowledge of native ancestry.
"You are Irish and that's it,” is how he described his family's attitude.
But Frank Stapleton feels that he does have an Indian background in one of his bloodlines. Several Native American names appear multiple times in his family tree, he said.
Members of the Big Indian Native American Cultural Center will gather at Big Indian Park for the next two months, Mary Lou Stapleton said. In the fall, they return to meeting at the Pine Hill Community Center on Main Street Pine Hill.
