Blackbear

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FROM: THE ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE NEWSPAPER

_http://www.rochesterdandc.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051028/NEWS01/5102
80415/1002/NEWS_
(http://www.rochesterdandc.com/apps/p...0415/1002/NEWS)

Group Opens Arms To All Indigenous People

Potluck harvest dinner on Saturday designed to offer sense of community


_Diana Louise Carter_ (mailto:dcarter@democratandchronicle.com)
Staff Writer

(October 28, 2005) — At many gatherings in the local Native American
community, it's common to hear a lengthy prayer in Seneca or one of the other
Iroquois languages.

This Thanksgiving Address is the way the Senecas and other Haudenosaunee
people thank the creator for the many gifts of life and turn their minds toward
the matter at hand — whether it is business or celebration.
Often, though, the people who wonder what the words mean include Native
Americans who come from native nations in other parts of the country.

That feeling of being left out even among those with similar heritage led a
handful of local Cherokees to form an organization that caters to fellow
Native Americans of non-Haudenosaunee heritage.
"We want all indigenous people to feel welcome," said Kae Wilbert of Albion,
Orleans County, who helped form the Cherokee Indigenous Peoples Alliance.
"We live in Haudenosaunee territory," he said, so the group not only welcomes
Haudenosaunee members, but schools itself in Haudenosaunee protocol so there
aren't any cultural conflicts.
The group is inviting the public to a potluck dinner Saturday in an effort to
broadcast its existence to other indigenous people who might be looking for
a sense of community.
"I feel welcomed here," says Jackie Stormm of Rochester, another founder of
the group, "but the emphasis is Haudenosaunee."

When her children attended Rochester City Schools, they went to the
after-school cultural program for Native American students, where they learned about
Haudenosaunee customs but not their own Cherokee and southern Algonquin
customs.
The alliance members say they don't mean to criticize the local Native
American organizations for naturally leaning toward Iroquois customs.

"If you were in Zuni territory, you'd be leaning Zuni ways," says Virginia
Fifield of Rochester, a Mohawk and Abenaki member of the Cherokee alliance.
But it's just as natural for non-Iroquois people to want to celebrate their
own heritage.

"I had a real hunger to know more about the (Cherokee) culture," Wilbert
said.
So for the last four years, the members of the group have helped each other
learn about spiritual and cultural ways of the Cherokee.

They hold a weekly talking circle, a sort of group therapy session with a
spiritual theme, and monthly potluck dinners.
About 30 families, including Lakotas, Blackfeet and Chickasaws, participate.

Several members of the group, including Stormm, Fifield and Wilbert, have
undergone "fire starter" training at the State University of New York at
Buffalo to be able to lead traditional healing practices in the talking circles.
"It's not a hobbyist group. It's not New Agers," Stormm said, referring to
two groups who often take on the trappings of Native American ways.

"We are a support group. We are individuals in this community walking the
'red' road amidst mainstream life."
No statistics exist indicating the nation origin of the 2,400 people in
Monroe County who told the U.S. Census they're Native American.

The majority are assumed to be Haudenosaunee as this was originally
Haudenosaunee territory.
Jeanette Miller, executive director of the Friends of Ganondagan, the program
support organization for Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor, Ontario
County, said Cherokees must be the next most populous group after
Haudenosaunees.
The Cherokee group has worked hand-in-hand with other local native
organizations, and marched in this year's Victor parade along with the Ganondagan
group.
When busloads of native people went to see the opening of the National Museum
of the American Indian in Washington last fall, the Cherokee group helped
chaperone the youngsters from the city schools' Native American Resource
Center, Fifield said.
"You could see they were a dedicated group of people that really wanted to
learn and extend their hand in friendship and participate in the community,"
Miller said.
Part of that extension is this week's dinner, where the group will feature a
women's choir singing Cherokee songs, games of bingo in both Cherokee and
Mohawk, and traditional native foods such as corn soup, fry bread and corn
bread.
"We hope people will come eat, enjoy themselves and learn about themselves,"
Fifield said.

"And feel like they've had community," added Stormm.

_DCARTER@DemocratandChronicle.com_ (mailto:DCARTER@DemocratandChronicle.com)

If you go

What: The Cherokee Indigenous Peoples Alliance's potluck harvest dinner,
open to the public. Participants are asked to bring a dish to pass.

When: 6 p.m. Saturday.

Where: St. Mary's Church, 15 St. Mary's Place in downtown Rochester.

Information: Kae Wilbert (585) 589-4256; Virginia Fifield (585) 527-9452;
Jackie Stormm (585) 544-0134.

__________________
Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear... just sing, sing a song.

OneidaDreamer

Hmmmm?

__________________

Blackbear

my thoughts exactly...

__________________
Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear... just sing, sing a song.