With the long awaited fall weather, the Quad became a stage for indigenous dancing and drumming, accompanied by demonstrations of traditional weaving. Tribes from across the Southeast were represented in a cultural exhibition that celebrated indigenous culture.
The Bama Indigenous Student Organization Network hosted its fourth annual cultural exhibition to encourage Native American cultural education and to showcase Native dancing, drumming and crafts.
“I’m a hoop dancer. I started when I was three years old. My grandfather and my dad taught me … I was like, ‘Hey, I want to hoop dance,’” said Zen Alec, a freshman studying biology and chemistry. “So I got some regalia made for me, and then I got hoops made … then within a month or two, I was performing at different schools and everywhere.”
Amber Cypress, a sophomore studying sports management, comes from the Seminole Tribe of Florida. While the dances of her tribe are steeped in private tradition, she was excited to share the significance and beliefs around indigenous dancing.
“We just hope to get involved and honestly show the indigenous culture to everyone on campus,” Cypress said.
In preparation for the exhibition, BISON invited dancers of different indigenous groups to display various types of dancing. There were two grass dancers, displaying the traditional men’s dance representing the swaying of prairie grass. The dance has historical roots in the preparations for new villages or hunting grounds and signifies new beginnings. Additionally, BISON invited a fancy dancer to the event.
“Fancy dancing is a mating dance. They dance around and kind of show off their colors and their bustles and show the women who they are. People have two bustles. They can be made out of feathers, out of ribbons,” Alec said. “A lot of them have eagle feathers and then they hang strings down from them. And they’re just dressed out in all sorts of colors,”
In addition to dancing and drumming, the exhibition highlighted primitive textile and river cane weaving. The textile demonstration included both hand weaving and a spinning machine, depicting the artistic creations that adorn traditional indigenous clothing.
Will Holley, a University alumnus and citizen of the Cherokee Tribe of Northeast Alabama, is a river cane basket weaver. He collects his own cane, strips and prepares the materials, colors it and weaves the patterns of his native tradition.
“The river cane used to cover millions of acres across the Southeast. The Early European settlers figured out that the land with the river cane was for the farmland, so almost all of it got plowed up,” Holley said. “And what did get plowed up was rooted up by pigs, so they’re just little pockets of it. Now we have to go out into the swamps and take kayaks out.”
After finding the plant, weavers break the pieces and cross section it by peeling the outer, shiny skin off the plant to reveal the inner wood. After which, they strip it down and prepare the materials for coloring.
“From my tradition, we don’t have very many colors, and we can only really find one of our colors down here now. So we’ll take some of our pieces of cane and we’ll put it in a big boiler with various parts of the black walnut tree,” Holley said. “The actual weaving does not take very long … it’s just a little reward for the end of all of that effort to prepare the material.”
Holley is one of many community members, including dancers from the Alabama-Coushatta in Livingston, Texas, drummers from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and members of the Cherokee Tribe of Northeast Alabama.
“We would honestly love to bring more attention. You don’t have to be indigenous to be involved in the club,” Cypress said. “Obviously, we just want to help and support indigenous people on campus and even in the state of Alabama, and we would love for people to come out and support.”
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