TECUMSEH, Mich. - When a young girl asked him about the feathers displayed in his home, Abel Cool Wind Bear Cooper was confronted with the innocent show of ignorance that finally convinced him to educate his neighbors about Native American culture.
"A little girl asked, 'Do you still believe in Indians?' " he recalled.
Mr. Cooper, chairman of the Leh-Naw-Weh Native American Organization, is affiliated with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He helped coordinate the sixth Annual "Mending the Sacred Hoop" Pow Wow in Tecumseh this past weekend.
With arts and crafts, vendors hawking beads and bags, a storyteller, and dancers from across the country, the pow wow offered a colorful cross-section of Native American tradition.
Shoshana Phillips was selling beaded earrings and necklaces and handing out pamphlets from the Native Youth Alliance with her daughters, Zakiah, 10, and Alethea Mae, 7, as her husband, Nathan Phillips, danced in the center of the pow wow.
While competition pow wows often offer cash prizes, she feels this more educational pow wow offers purer motives.
"We like these traditional pow wows," she said. "Here, people just come to dance and follow the traditional way."
The Phillipses are affiliated with the Omaha Nation in Nebraska, but Ms. Phillips is being treated for bone marrow cancer at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her family often hears about pow wows by word of mouth, or finds them on the Internet at www.PowWows.com.
Because many believe pow wows originated to honor warriors, veterans are always honored.
Mr. Phillips served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam from 1972-76. While he waited to participate in the grass dance, he explained that many nations believe it to be the oldest form of dance in this hemisphere, used to prepare a piece of ground for other activities many years ago.
"You have to be of sober mind and sober body because you have such a responsibility," he stressed.
Mr. Phillips now is of sober mind and body. He used to drink a lot, he said, but he's been sober for 22 years.
More light-footed than most, his red, orange, yellow, and blue fringe jumped and swung around him as he danced through the ring surrounding the sonorous drums and the master of ceremonies.
Mark and Sheila West admired the dance from the sidelines. Mr. West was thrilled to learn about the pow wow when he received a flyer about it while buying a carpet in Monroe.
Both he and Mrs. West have some Native American ancestry.
Mrs. West grew up hearing stories of the traditional dances from her mother, but this pow wow has given her the opportunity to actually experience them. "I've heard about it over the years, but it's neat to see it firsthand," she said.
Mr. Cooper remembers a time when Native American traditions could not be shown publicly.
Before Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978 and President Jimmy Carter signed it into law, government agencies and departments often interfered with the practice of Native American religious customs, he said.
In addition to educating the public, Mr. Cooper also feels a responsibility toward the previous generations that were forced to flee their homes and move to unfamiliar terrain.
"Our people's biggest fear was that they would never return home," Mr. Cooper said. "We dance to let our ancestors know that we're here - we're home."
Contact Ali Seitz at: aseitz@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.
First Published July 2, 2007, 9:51 a.m.
