Siletz news /, August 01, 2011, Page 14, Image 14

Courtesy photo by John Harrington Photography
Charles Wilkinson (above left) leads a discussion
on the Siletz Tribal history book, The People Are
Dancing Again, published in November 2010.
Courtesy photos by Tina Retasket
Siletz dancers Bud Lane, Halli Skauge, Clarinda
Black, Tim Stuart, Tiffany Stuart and Kathy
Robinson (above) gather with a group of visitors
from the Amazonian region of eastern Colombia
at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
A group of dancers from Colombia demonstrate
a welcome dance for visitors to the Smithsonian
Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C.
North-South Dialogue at Colombia Program
by Emilienne Ireland, Research Col­
laborator, NMNH (the Smithsonian's
National Museum of Natural History);
originally posted July 11, 2011, on the
Smithsonian Folklife Festival website -
festival, si.edu/2011 /north-south-
dialogue-at-colombia-program/
Participants in the Colombia program
include ritual leaders, musicians, weavers,
potters, carvers and other skilled tradition
bearers from the Amazonian region on the
eastern side of Colombia. While visitors
during the first eight days of the Festival
conversed with the diverse participants
and admired the many traditions being
shared, visitors on July 10 were privileged
to witness an unplanned and extraordinary
event that, for many, will not be forgotten.
Just before 2 p.m., 10 dancers from
the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians
of Oregon entered the festival grounds,
where 10 dancers from indigenous
Amazonian communities in Colombia,
including the Yucuna, Matapi, Uitoto,
Andoque and Nonuya, awaited them. The
two groups lined up facing one another
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and took turns formally dancing their
welcome and their joy at the encounter.
The Amazonian dancers joined together
in close formation and moved as a group
while dancing. Then the men played a flute
song. At last, Uldarico Matapi Yucuna, a
Matapi elder and shaman who hails from a
long line of shamans, took the microphone
and gave a formal welcome on behalf of the
Colombians, speaking in Spanish: “From
this day forward, let our peoples be together
and let us never be separated again.” To
this, Siletz Elder and ritual leader Bud
Lane responded with deep appreciation for
both the dance and the words, concluding,
“Welcome to my country.”
The Siletz dancers performed both
men’s and women’s dances, with the bells
and hollow beads of their regalia creating
music as they moved. At the conclusion
of the dance, the Siletz Elder wordlessly
offered his own dance drum to the Ama­
zonian Elder, who a few moments later,
returned the gesture, giving Bud Lane
a fine shaman’s stool. The Colombian
Elder said the drum would be kept in the
August 2011
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National Museum of Colombia and dis­
played as a gift to all the people of that
nation. Bud Lane said that the stool would
likewise be kept in the Siletz museum,
along with other sacred objects.
Silvia Salgado, who had been facili­
tating throughout this encounter, con­
veyed the message that the indigenous
people from the other side of the moun­
tains (the Pacific Coast of Colombia), also
wished to greet their relatives from the
United States, which they then did.
As it happened, the indigenous
people who so movingly expressed this
bond between north and south had met
only a few hours before. Earlier in the
day, Smithsonian Research Collaborator
Emi Ireland and former Folklife Festival
Curator Phil Tajitsu Nash had arranged
with Festival staff and José Montano
of the Smithsonian’s National Museum
of the American Indian (NMAI) to give
the indigenous Amazonian people from
Colombia a brief tour of NMAI.
As the Colombian visitors entered
NMAI’s Great Hall, they encountered rep­
resentatives of the Confederated Tribes of
Siletz Indians from the Pacific Coast side
of Oregon, who were hosting a display of
their dance regalia. They met Bud Lane,
Tribal Vice-Chairman of the Siletz, who
is also a celebrated basket weaver and
tradition bearer of Siletz culture. In 2006,
he had worked with the Folklife Festival’s
“Carriers of Culture” program to celebrate
Native basketry traditions.
The Colombian visitors expressed
their admiration at the beautiful work­
manship and materials of the dance rega­
lia and asked Mr. Lane how the regalia
was used. Immediately overcoming the
language barrier, Mr. Lane held a dance
quiver and began to intone a song by way
of explanation. The Colombian visitors
responded by carefully holding the same
object and softly singing a short segment
of one of their songs.
In a spontaneous gesture, Mr. Lane
gave each of the 10 Colombian visitors a
beautiful hand-made Siletz bag. One of the
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