First steps towards a colourful culture

I took my son out to his first ever powwow the other weekend. He was a little nervous at the start, as he always is in situations that are new to him. His curiosity eventually overpowered his nerves, and he sat still on a rock to watch the dancers on Mount McKay where the powwow was being held.
Sitting still at his age is hard to do since he wants to be everywhere, so I was impressed that the dancing and drums fascinated him enough to keep him from running off. I was there to take photos for the paper, so I was worried about not being able to keep an eye on both him and the scenes of the powwow at the same time.
Suffice it to say, he was well behaved and I managed to get a lot of great photos.
I have only been working with a camera for the last few months and have taken pictures at many different events and photographed a lot of different situations – but never before have I photographed a powwow.
When I uploaded the photos later to my computer at home, I was surprised at how beautiful they all turned out. The colours and designs of the various regalia on display and the movement in the photos was unlike anything else I have ever photographed.
I could see why my son was so taken by the dancers because it really was a sight to be seen.
I haven’t been to many powwows myself, mainly due to the exclusion of culture in my upbringing. It’s really nobody’s fault in my family what happened in the past regarding assimilation. Those in power may have taken a very important piece of our identity away from my ancestors, but I am realizing now that that piece can be reclaimed.
It is not a process that has to be rushed. I can learn a little every day and begin to introduce our culture to my son so he won’t have to grow up without an identity the way I did.
You know, maybe it would have made a difference had I known more about myself, had my family taken part a little more in celebrating who we are as Anishinaabe people. Maybe I would have been a happier child and teenager, not that I was completely miserable but there was always that seemingly never-ending desire to fit in – to be a part of something and to have distinctiveness. It was like I could never be comfortable with myself because I was clueless about my culture and myself.
There is this photo I saw online of Chief Sitting Bull – and someone put a caption across it that read ‘I want you to relearn your culture!’
I thought to myself when I read it, how can I relearn something I never knew to begin with?
You can reclaim a culture that was stolen from your grandparents or parents, but you can’t relearn a culture you never had yourself. The caption is almost shaming those who had no control over how they were raised, and really just leaves them feeling bad about their situation.
I am sure the person who wrote the caption had good intentions, but perhaps they need to rethink the message they are sending. Maybe some people need to rethink the words they call others of their own race, as well.
At times growing up, there was a term I heard now and then – ‘apple.’
Red on the outside, white on the inside.
‘Apple.’ What a horrible thing to call someone.
What is red all the way through then? A beet? Should I have called those people who taunted me ‘beets’ then? It is all starting to sound pretty ridiculous, right? – the name-calling, the fixation on your colour. We all bleed red in the end no matter the colour of our skin.
Maybe it is good to have many different colours. It makes the world look all the more interesting – like all the colours my son saw at the powwow, all the movement, all the life, all the colourful Indian Tacos.
I feel this experience I shared with my son will be the first steps towards reclaiming our culture. It may take some time but all good things are worth the time and effort.
So far in my journey towards reclamation, I am thankful for those who haven’t rolled their eyes at me or looked at me with disbelief when I asked certain questions about Anishinaabe culture.
If you never ask, or are afraid to ask, you will never know, right?