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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (April 1, 2016)
10 APRIL 1, 2016 S moke S ignals 14th annual Round Dance held By Brent Merrill Smoke Signals staff writer They served lunch at midnight. Up until midnight, they danced with their ancestors. Members of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde gathered with Native people from all over Indian Country on Friday, March 18, and Saturday, March 19, at the Tribal gymnasium in Grand Ronde for the Tribe’s traditional 14th an- nual Agency Creek Round Dance. A dozen tables were pushed to- gether in the middle of the floor surrounded by chairs. Maybe 40 to 50 various hand drums of all colors and sizes sat on the table. As many as two dozen drummers stood together playing their hand drums while dancers joined hands and circled around the drummers throughout the evening and early into the next morning. Young families, mothers with their daughters, sisters, aunties and nieces, cousins and uncles, even grandmothers danced the cir- cle. Groups of young girls, toddlers barely walking their first steps and visiting Elders joined them in the dance. Drummers, who ranged in age from 8 to maybe 80, rotated throughout the night, each taking turns leading the songs. Tribal Council Chairman Reyn Leno was in attendance as was fel- low Tribal Council member Denise Harvey. Tribal Elders and former Tribal Council members Kathryn Harrison, Wink Soderberg, Ed Larsen and Henry Petite were there as was visiting Tribal Council member Lillie Butler of Siletz. Tribal member Cristina Lara pushed her grandmother Beryle Contreras around the circle in her wheelchair. Edmund Bull (from Little Pine First Nation in Saskatchewan), John Scabbyrobe (from White Swan, Wash.) and Freddy Ike (Wasco/Yakama) were tapped as the Head Men for this year’s event. On Saturday night, there were as many as 400 people in the gym and as many as 100 dancers for one song. The event is a celebration of so- briety and community health and wellness, and is hosted each year by the Tribe’s Youth Prevention Program. More importantly, the Round Dance organizers want people to know the Round Dance is a ceremony first and foremost. “We are reminded to al- ways remember the intent of these ceremonies such as this Round Dance,” said Cree Nation member Rocky Morin of Alberta, Canada, while addressing the audience on Friday. “The past, present and future come together in some of these ceremonies that we do.” The event begins each year with a pipe ceremony and a sweat lodge ceremony on Friday and another sweat on Saturday before the dancing and singing in the evening. “It’s a whole cer- emony in itself, it’s not just a bunch of people coming together and sing- ing,” said Tribal member and Cul- tural Outreach Co- ordinator Bobby Mercier. “For us here, we want to do it right. It also ties back to oth- er ceremonies like the Ghost Dance; that’s how pow- erful that Round Dance is.” Mercier said he has been going to Round Danc- es for almost 20 years and that he brought the Round Dance to Grand Ronde because of Photos by Michelle Alaimo the healing nature of the ceremony Ila Mercier dances with the Hailey Lewis-Little, left, and Cheyenne Gilbert, right, during the and what it can do 14th annual Agency Creek Round Dance held in the Tribal gym on Friday, March 18. The dance for a Tribal com- also took place Saturday, March 19. munity. always come out. We are always “There is the singing part and treated really good by the Tribe. The then there is the ceremony part – organizers of the Round Dance, they which is the stuff they (the invited always go out of their way to take singers) are doing actually for the care of us and that really means a lot people, the prayers, the bringing to us. It makes us want to come back of the pipe and the words of the each time because there is a really people,” said Mercier. “I saw that it is the young who will carry this good reciprocal relationship – they’re part and I thought ‘We should have ceremony into the future. taking good care of us as singers a Round Dance here’.” “The Elders remind us to be who have traveled from far and in Mercier said he knew Grand mindful when we’re at a ceremo- return we’re bringing good energy. Ronde people could benefit from ny such as this to be respectful to We’re trying to bring that positive the collective wisdom of the singers ourselves and to each other so that healing, that life force to this com- who are invited each year. we can show our young people a munity through the drums, through “We could bring people from all better way,” said Morin. “It’s very the songs and through the traditional across the country and Canada to important that we do our best to teachings of this ceremony.” come sing for us and help us with guide them in a good way so that Mercier said the Round Dance prayers because there are teach- when they do come up they’ll under- allows Tribal people to dance with ings that there is only so much stand the intent of this ceremony, the people who came before them. you can do in your own community the meaning of these drums, these “All of Friday until midnight and because you have direct ties, direct songs and how it is important to all of Saturday night until midnight feelings about the people in your follow that so that these drums is the time that we are dancing with community,” said Mercier. will work for us, these songs will our ancestors, we’re dancing with The lack of direct ties to the com- work for us.” those spirits and it is to bring that munity allows visiting singers to Morin said he is always welcomed healing and teaching back. That’s take those feelings away, he said. when he accepts the invitation to why people get up and dance – it’s Morin said the Round Dance make the annual journey to Grand a healing dance,” said Mercier. helps Indian people set an example Ronde. “After midnight on Saturday night for their young people. Morin said “It’s an honor,” said Morin. “We it’s our time. Then it’s just us. We put away the colors; we pull all the fabric prints down that represent those different directions of the prayers that we asked for. The rest of the night is ours to enjoy, to cel- ebrate the life that we live today.” Morin said the origins of the Round Dance ceremony go deep into the Cree culture and that bringing the healing to other Tribal communities is vital to keep the traditional teachings of the cere- mony alive. “It is a way to honor the ancestors of everyone. The ancestors of this community and ours that travel with us,” said Morin. From left, Madison Ross, her mother Sarah Ross and JC Rogers dance during the 14th annual Agency Creek Round Dance held in the Tribal gym on Friday, March 18.
