The crisp fall air and changing landscape was the perfect backdrop this weekend for the two-day Harvest Pow Wow event held at the Naper Settlement. The 17th annual event was presented by the Midwest SOARRING Foundation, a not-for-profit group based out of Lyon, Illinois, that supports environmental issues and sacred site protection, as well as working to reintroduce the bison here in our state.
President Joseph Schranz said the two-day event averages about 5,000 guests each year who again would be treated to a wide range of activities and demonstrations. The Pow Wow continues from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today.
“We actually started holding this event in Mokena years ago and then moved it to the Naper Settlement seven years ago,” Schranz said. “People enjoy the Native American dancing, the cultural demonstrations, and the crafts, and we also have food vendors, a birds of prey exhibit, and some special demonstrations. We do a lot of storytelling, and hopefully we teach people who we really are.”
Schranz said the Foundation has also been particularly active in land preservation here in Illinois and that it already saved nearly 2,000 acres.
An opening ceremony which included prayers and a welcome by Naperville Mayor A. George Pradel officially began the event at 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon. Scores of tents featuring Indian crafts, art, jewelry and music lined the grounds of the Settlement while other stations prepared various Native American foods. Many who came Saturday spoke about their love of Native American culture and its rich history.
“I bring a group of students here every year from Northeastern University,” said Joseph Zefran of Chicago, who works as a professor at the college. “I’ve been a friend, volunteer and benefactor of the Foundation now for 15 years. My feeling is that the destruction of the Native American culture in this country was one of the greatest holocausts and that my being here in a way to honor them and their way of life any way I can.”
Zefran said the modern generation can learn a great deal from our native ancestors “given that they lived here 10,000 years before settlers came and did so without ever destroying the environment. “Their concept was that everything in life is sacred and we need to take that attitude seriously and realize, as they did, that everything is connected,” he said.
Lisa Johnston and her husband Bob of Naperville said they had visited the Pow Wow event before and that for them, there is a historical connection between their own ancestors and the Native Americans.
“I have a great grandfather who bought land from the Indians, and people in my family have researched our history and found there were relatives that actually sailed on the Mayflower and interacted with Indians when they got here,” Lisa Johnston said. “I collect artifacts and I am very interested in their way of life. I regret there was so much done to harm their culture and so I try to support them now any way I can.”
Volunteer Natalia Nicholson of Lombard said she has worked for the Foundation for five years and has embraced Native American culture through her performance art of storytelling. “When I act out a story in performance and you talk about a coyote and then you see one right here in Naperville, it gives you a feeling that is more authentic and real than talking about something that happened in Europe and has no connection here,” she said.
Naperville Central sophomore Meggie Underwood, 14, said she was putting in volunteer hours for her Rotary Club, which included cutting hundreds of pieces of yarn for crafts. She said she was surprised to learn so many tribes were represented right here in the Naperville area.
“It’s incredible that so many of these people have come here together and that so many remain tied to their heritage,” Underwood said. “It makes me kind of want to learn more about the history of our area.”
Many visitors took the opportunity to dress in native garb, but Uyetsiga Udodi of Schaumburg said her native costume was her everyday wear. Udodi, who said the English translation of her name means “laugh a lot” believes that Americans are slowly realizing how right her ancestors were about how to live in the world.
“I’m about 85 percent Cherokee Indian and people are discovering that the bison that we’ve eaten for years is actually the way we were supposed to eat instead of killing animals we feed with corn which could be used for something else,” she said. “I think the efforts the Foundation has made to reclaim the land are wonderful. There was a time when people could go from the East coast all the way to the Mississippi — the Big Muddy — without even stopping. Everything is our culture is about community. We feed everyone. And people are learning we have to work with one another because we’re going to swim or sink together.”