THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 21, 1995 TAG: 9508210024
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
In buckskins and beads, feathers and face paint, dancing and chanting Native Americans gathered on the banks of the Nansemond River this weekend to recapture some of their rich heritage at the annual Nansemond Indian Tribal Association powwow.
``This land is our ancestral ground,'' said tribal council member Earl L. Bass II, gesturing toward the bluffs along the river and a large island in the distance. ``Over there is Dumpling Island, where the Nansemond had vast stores of grains during the time of the Jamestown settlement.''
Bass, who had two hawk feathers woven into his curly hair, said his family began to intermarry with English people in the 17th century. Consequently, he and his children appear to be of European ancestry.
The Nansemond tribe today numbers about 300 members, but there is no such thing as a full-blooded Nansemond in the tribe. Each of the Nansemonds is descended from the 1638 marriage of an Englishman, John Bass, to a Christian Nansemond woman named Elizabeth, daughter of the Nansemond chief.
Those diluted bloodlines were at the heart of the powwow.
``Most people don't know I'm a native,'' said Bass, a nuclear welder at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. ``But my grandfather was chief and my uncle has been chief since 1960.
``In my family, we always knew who we were.''
Knowing who they were and where they came from seemed a common desire of more than 1,000 people who came to the Indian celebration Sunday.
``I grew up on a reservation in North Carolina,'' said Charlie Brighteyes of Virginia Beach, who works as a printer. ``I'm bringing my three sons up the way I was raised - with the Indian traditions.''
Brighteyes is a Cherokee whose grandmother was part of the Trail of Tears, the moving of Cherokee and Choctaw tribes from the Southeast to the Oklahoma area. He made his own colorful and delicately beaded costume in which he performed the Grass Dance that opened the powwow.
That dance is part of an ancient ritual in which the dancers trample the prairie grasses into a circle which is blessed for the other sacred dances.
After his dance, Brighteyes gulped water and caught his breath.
``I dance nearly every weekend somewhere,'' he said, sweat trickling down his cheeks. ``It was much hotter last weekend when I danced in almost 100 degrees.''
Powwow organizers focused on the weather this week. Not the heat, but Hurricane Felix.
``I saw Pat Robertson trying to take credit for praying away the hurricane,'' laughed Bass. ``But Indians send up smoke when we pray and I assure you smoke has been rising up and down the East Coast all week as natives prayed to keep the hurricane away.''
This year's powwow was free and open to the public, so many non-Indians joined Native Americans in the sea of lawn chairs that surrounded the dancer's circle.
ODU anthropologist and author Helen C. Rountree was there. Although she's spent her life's work on the history and culture of Native Americans, she says she's not one.
Rountree rolled her eyes when she was asked whether the Disney film ``Pocahontas'' might have contributed to renewed interest in the American Indian culture.
``As history, it's tripe,'' she said. ``Although I suppose it made a lot of people curious.''
Nearby, and heading toward the circle were a Cherokee mother and daughter, dressed in long buckskin dresses with feathers in their hair.
``It's hard to explain what being a native means to non-natives,'' said 15-year-old Jessi Krenson of Clover Hill, Va.
Her mother said she was proud that her red-haired, freckle-faced daughter was curious about her heritage - and learning the Indian dances.
``Dancing is very important to us,'' Iris Krenson said, as Jessi nodded in agreement. ``You hear the drumbeat, your feet touch the earth and you dance.
``We dance for our ancestors. They're not here anymore to dance, so we dance for them.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Paul Aiken
Keith ``Two Rivers Running'' Smith of Richmond dances at the
Nansemond Indian Tribal Association powwow Sunday in Suffolk.
Photo
Larry White Eagle holds the eagle staff at the start of dance
ceremonies at the Nansemond Indian Tribal Association powwow. White
Eagle is an Apache Indian from Arizona now living in Dinwiddie
County. The powwow was held Saturday and Sunday at Lone Star Lodge
in Suffolk.
by CNB