A long, proud history is brought to life

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS, Times Staff Writer
Published November 19, 2007

Darryl Bolton, of the Blood Nation from Alberta Canada, carries his 19-month-old son Xavier as they make their way to the Grand March during the Discover Native America Powwow and Music Festival at the Florida State Fairgrounds on Sunday.
	[Ken Helle | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT Photo gallery Discover Native American Powwow [Ken Helle | Times] Sonny Usquetsiwo of the Birdtown Community on the Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina, dances a war dance during a demonstration at the Discover Native America Powwow and Music Festival on Sunday.

TAMPA - As people trickled into the Florida State Fairgrounds in the sleepy first hour of the Discover Native America Powwow, the air was still cool from the night. Merchants were just starting to open their tents. The stage was empty.

But Gena Harjo was wrist-deep into her sixth bowl of dough.

This was the 34-year-old half-Choctaw woman's first powwow cooking Indian fry bread, "the equivalent to a white man's biscuit," she said, "patted out and deep fried with Indian love."

Saturday, she served up 300 pounds of Indian love, mixed with flour and water. Harjo has been frying bread for 20 years, but never for so many people. Daily festival attendance averaged 5,000 this weekend.

"The first day, it was shocking," she said Sunday. "Yesterday, I learned to get the rhythm."

But every morning started out the same, with a blessing over the bowls, she said. "We pray, like, to regular God."

A plume of smoke rose from the grill. It smelled like Spam. "Indian steak," Choctaw Jerry Noah calls it - a modern invention that has permeated American Indian cuisine.

Old and new, it's all part of the rich heritage shared by tribes who traveled across North America for the three-day festival.

"We've got about three minutes, guys," Oskwanontona Big Mountain called to his group of dancers and drummers.

As the youngest of six siblings, Big Mountain has spent his life traveling to theme parks, fairs and powwows to educate people about his Comanche and Mohawk heritage.

Big Mountain makes fun of the old Hollywood Westerns in which Indians greet each other with "how" and "ugg" and recalls American Indian roles played by Ricardo Montalban and Leonard Nimoy.

"Just because Spock wore a war bonnet, didn't make him a chief," he tells people.

And on the origin of the word "cowabunga," he says, "We're not sure if it's the Ninja Turtle tribe or the Bart Simpson tribe."

He finishes his long right braid as he stands over family heirlooms and primitive tools he has made, representing a time before metal and glass and European invaders.

"We relied upon what the earth provided for us," he says. "This is a knife made from a buffalo's rib. This one is a deer's leg bone. The Achilles tendon from a deer's foot - you can get thread out of that."

Big Mountain, 42, wears shoes he made himself, the top half elk, and the bottom, buffalo. "Nice thick hide," he says. "Put it on the bottom of your moccasins."

Showtime. Big Mountain walks away from his tools into the air conditioning, where men in feather headdresses and traditional garb form a circle, center stage.

A couple-dozen early birds sit in the stands, waiting to be educated. Big Mountain reaches for an appropriate tool, the microphone.

"Check, one two," he begins. "How you doing out there?"

[Last modified November 18, 2007, 22:44:43]