Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9510020009
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV20 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Long
For the dancers and drummers dressed in the feathers and bells of their tribal tradition, last weekend's Native American Pow Wow rekindled old bonds and formed new ones. As dancers moved in time or sang high and strong, they revisited a culture and a spiritual knowledge lost to many over the years.
"People are waking up, taking pride in their culture," said Lowery Begay, a Navajo dancer, originally from a reservation in New Mexico.
But the three days in the chilly, often drenched New River Valley Fairgrounds, where American Indians gathered from as far away as Canada and Florida, couldn't have been more intense or emotional for powwow coordinator Art Hoover.
After 27 years of living in the United States, of feeling embarrassed by his race, Hoover experienced the rebirth of a more personal nation: his biological family, all the way from the plains of Canada.
"It's been, what, two days since they came down, and I still can't find the words to express how I feel," Hoover said as he stared at his older, mustachioed likeness. His biological father, Art McKay, whom Hoover had met for the first time, is a bit shorter than Hoover. But, they share the same strong build, the dark eyes and the broad, if infrequent, smile.
After running from here to there all day, walkie-talkie glued to his mouth as he organized dancers and drummers, vendors and visitors, Hoover was able to enjoy some time with his new family during dinner. They sat under the drummers' stage, eating mounds of steaming spaghetti cooked for all the powwow participants.
Even with the rainy weather, the powwow had come together beautifully, said Hoover, who lives in Christiansburg. What had begun as an idea in his head had developed by Sunday afternoon into two dozen vendors, 75 dancers and about 2,500 visitors.
For Hoover, the saga started 32 years ago, when he was born into the Rolling River tribe on a reservation in Manitoba, Canada.
His mother died when he was 5. Art McKay said he felt he had no other choice but to give Hoover and two other children to the Canadian government. Hoover was adopted by a white American family and he lived much of his life outside Staunton.
He was a minority of one in his high school, he said, and he didn't want to be Native American.
After being discharged from the Marine Corps, Hoover ended up back in Southwest Virginia and met other Native Americans who steered him back to his birthplace.
Two years ago, he sent a letter to the Rolling River Reservation to find out about his family and heritage.
As soon as he heard of the letter, McKay phoned his son. They made plans for McKay to come to Virginia. Their chief found enough money to send McKay, his brother-in-law, Ralph Huntinghawk, and his granddaughter, Priscilla Shannacappo.
"I didn't even feel like eating" on the anxious, three-day trip to the powwow, McKay said. "As soon as we drove into the parking lot, I recognized him."
Huntinghawk said parents are still angry that their families were split apart in such distant directions. One of his daughters lives in Chicago, but he still hasn't met her. As late as 1975, two of his grandsons were taken from the reservation for adoption. Now, children taken out of a home are brought to nearby reservations, not taken across Canada's border.
Native American children who were put up for adoption, like Hoover, are slowly finding their way back to Rolling River, Shannacappo said.
"We always welcome them," she said.
Hoover heads Rebirth of a Nation, an organization that raises money and collects donations for children who live on reservations. He said he isn't bitter about being taken from his home, just relieved that a void he'd felt all his life has finally been filled.
"I had to go through all that to get me here - back home. I'm not looking for answers anymore."
That sense of peace and hope goes beyond his new family, though. He cites signs - the crash of the Berlin Wall and the birth of a white buffalo in Wisconsin, for example.
"The ancestors are letting us know it's time for a change: Time to honor the earth and each other," he said.
He's not the only one who thinks so. More and more people are searching for and finding their Native American ancestry, said Jeff Kemp, a dancer and drummer from Tennessee.
Kemp plays with Hawk Talon, one of the three drum groups that performed the ancient rhythms during the three-day festival. Kemp has Cherokee ancestors from Oklahoma; his wife is part Crow.
Their children dance, too. Six-year-old Logan wore the colorful regalia of a "fancy" dancer, with feathers that bounced, ribbons that wiggled and mirrors that flashed as he danced to the drum beat.
Kemp said he tells Josh, his 9-year-old son, not to watch how others are dancing and simply concentrate on the music.
"When you dance to the beat of the drum," Kemp said, "you hear the beat of the earth."
Those three danced several times each day, along with many others clad in tribal regalia in the diverse crowd.
Stepping slowly in rhythm with the drum, ninth-grader Sarah Lovingood moved around the powwow circle. She wore the traditional buckskin dress, fringed with sea shells. She held her chin high, with just a hint of a smile.
Her mother, Carol Lovingood, recently discovered Blackfoot and Cherokee ancestry. Since then, the two Austinville residents have been traveling to any area powwow they could find.
Ahead of Sarah danced the lead dancer, Phillip Sturgill of Piney Flats, Tenn. Long eagle feathers jutted from his forehead, shoulders and back. He danced low, with the jerk of a bucking horse and eyes that stared past the watching crowd.
Sturgill is not an American Indian, but learned to dance as a Boy Scout when he was 13. For him, powwows are a way of life. It's difficult to explain the power of it all, he said, to someone who's never danced in the circle.
And so they moved, placidly or powerfully, around and around.
That, said Hoover, pointing to the mass of dancers, is the birth of a nation.
by CNB