Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 19, 1994 TAG: 9407190035
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For the Monacan Indian tribe, it means being able to face the world's problems.
And it means being able to call yourself an Indian without fear.
Last weekend, the tribe held its second annual powwow at the Sedalia Center in Big Island in Bedford County. A celebration of American Indian culture and heritage, the powwow was also held to raise money to buy Bear Mountain, an Amherst County mountain that the Monacans hold sacred.
In the sweltering heat, hundreds of people thronged to watch demonstrations of war dances and to shop for beaded jewelry and porcelain statues.
Some paused to examine an exhibit of live eagles, owls and hawks. Others looked closely at bear and wolf furs draped over a rack.
Still others stopped to sign a petition asking for a presidential pardon for Leonard Peltier, an American Indian who some believe was falsely convicted for the 1975 murders of two FBI agents on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota.
The constant rhythm of drums pounded under rain-laden skies at the powwow. Men in brightly colored regalia with feather and fur headdresses sat in a circle of white plastic chairs, beating a large deerskin drum in unison as they chanted and sang.
In a dirt arena littered with straw, Indians competed for prizes in various tribal dances. Some did hunting dances, and others did slow story-telling dances, stirring up clouds in the red dust.
During one of the most moving events of the weekend, the tribe held a sobriety dance, honoring those who had fought alcohol addiction, a problem suffered by many American Indians.
Buddy Gwin, the emcee, praised each of eight Monacans who had fought alcoholism, telling how many years each had been sober.
"There's a new warrior in a new war, and he's riding dry," Gwin said to the crowd. "You don't have to be an Indian to fight this war.
"We're calling on you, Bedford County. Send your warriors in. Those of you who have been fighting alcohol and drug abuse, join in, warriors, join in."
Slowly, the eight men promenading around the arena were accompanied by more than 50 black, white and red men and women, dancing in celebration of their sobriety.
Nearby, at a mock historical Indian village, a member of the Powhatan Indian Tribe from the Mattaponi reservation near Jamestown shared methods of cooking bear meat and venison.
Almost all the people who demonstrated Indian crafts and skills at the powwow were not Monacans. Instead, most of the dancers and jewelry-makers and storytellers were members of other tribes from across the United States.
Monacan Tribe members worked concession stands and crowd control at their powwow. They poured lemonade, took tickets and hauled garbage.
For more than 100 years, the Monacans lived as second-class citizens. Most of them grew up in Amherst County, where, until the 1960s, they were categorized as "Negroes" by the county government and were denied the right to attend public schools, black or white.
Because of prejudice and the scarcity of jobs for Monacans in Amherst, the Indians either moved away, "turned white" through marriage, or simply worked hard and tried to keep quiet about being Indian.
As a result, most of the tribe's adult members have forgotten the ways of their people. But now they are eager to learn and one day they hope to dance their own dances and tell their own stories at their powwows.
"What was done to these people was an atrocity," said Alta Dillard, a Bedford County resident and member of the Arizona-based Nez Perce tribe. "When I first came here, I found out about the Monacans, and I felt a real empathy for these people, wanting them to grow ... [Indian culture and heritage] is all new to them."
The Monacans received official recognition from the state government in 1989 as the eighth Virginia Indian tribe. Now they're trying to be a tribe in more than name.
One step is reattaining Bear Mountain, or Matohi (pronounced Ma Tay), as the Sioux-descended Monacans have called it.
Many Monacans lived at the foot of this heavily wooded mountain in Amherst County and ascended it yearly for prayer ceremonies until developers sold it off and farms were built around it in the 1800s.
With the proceeds from last year's powwow, the tribe purchased 110 acres of the 2,500-acre mountain. By the year 2000, they hope to buy enough land with powwow proceeds to start a state reservation for Monacans.
Another way the Monacans are preserving - and re-creating - their heritage is through education.
The powwows have allowed them to learn Indian customs from the other tribes and have given the Monacans insight into the historical significance of their people.
Birdie Branham, a Monacan, grew up in Amherst County and remembers the sting of racial prejudice.
Now, with the help of tribal members who learned Indian customs on faraway reservations, her young son, Will, is learning the Monacans' languages and dances. He hopes one day to be a tribal elder and tell Indian stories.
Once, his mother said, this would have been unthinkable. Now, with the tribe's state recognition, she said she is amazed that Amherst County whites come to the powwows and "spend five dollars [admission] to see me."
And the tribe is hoping they'll keep on spending.
With grants from the Charlottesville-based Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and private contributions, the Monacans hope to create a Monacan Ancestral Museum in the Episcopal Church building that was once the only school for Monacans in Amherst County.
by CNB