Two American Indians share stories, dances and costumes with students at the Circle C Ranch Academy.
By ELISABETH DYER
Published June 13, 2003
BALLAST POINT - A few children kept their distance, in arm's reach of mom. Others timidly stroked the fringes of the ceremonial costumes.
Most had never seen American Indians.
Douglas Raging Buffalo and Anthony Feather Dancer visited Circle C Ranch Academy's summer camp on June 4 for cowboy and Indian week. They built a tepee, gave tours and answered questions.
Feather Dancer danced with a stick, while Raging Buffalo sang and beat a drum the size of a tambourine.
"Is that a real eagle claw on the end of your stick?" asked 11-year-old Aubrie Hane.
It wasn't, but the turtle shell medallion around Feather Dancer's neck and the white bones threaded together across his chest were.
Raging Buffalo is half Lakota Indian. Feather Dancer is half Cherokee. They visit schools and churches around the state to share their culture and teach others about their respect for the earth and its people.
Feather Dancer wore a northern plain dance costume with a beaded medicine wheel of four colors, which represent people of different races living together.
"It took many hours and many prayers to make," said Raging Buffalo, who wore a deer skin outfit accented with beads and feathers.
As part of cowboy and Indian week, the children created their own American Indian villages with items scavenged from around the sprawling academy on Interbay Boulevard, which serves 250 children ages 1 to 15.
Grouped by age, the students built tepees from old sheets. Two-year-olds filled a basket with pussy willow branches made from cotton and twigs. Another group turned a burlap feed sack into a shirt and hung it from a branch clothesline outside their tepee.
They painted their faces and chose Indian names for themselves, such as Crouching Tiger, Running Buffalo and Funky Chicken.
Raging Buffalo and Feather Dancer finished their visit by judging the children's villages. They gave first place to the village by the 6- and 7-year-olds, who won an ice cream party. Their village featured a long path of mulch and stones leading to their tepee.
"(Raging Buffalo and Feather Dancer) were very impressed by the trail," said Jaritsa Ruiz, a group leader for the academy. "They even walked on it."
Many of the students wanted to know if the Indians had ever lived in tepees. They said no, although Raging Buffalo goes on an annual trip to a reservation in South Dakota where he sleeps in a genuine tepee.
Living like his ancestors did helps him preserve his heritage and pass it along to others, including students at the academy.
"If I can touch one or two, then it's worth it," Raging Buffalo said.
