The readings this week touch on the uneasy tension between the passage of time, the changing of traditions, and the troubling nature of folk festivals -- with their compartmentalization and commodification of things folk. Cultures change, and the manners in which traditions are practiced and passed on also change. One example of this can be seen in the Native American Pow-Wows of Washington State. Among the Yakama nation in central Washington (itself a conglomerate of previously autonomous tribes), as populations of indigenous folk move and dwindle, non-tribal members and younger children take up roles in song and dance ceremonies they would not have previously occupied. Cotton T-shirts and headbands pad the skin under leather breastplates and heavy headdresses in Pow Wow dances, and Elk soup is transported to the event in large, orange plastic Gatorade containers, to be heated on site. These conveniences of modernity are recent, but they find an echo in other traditions on display at the Pow-Wow: the proud tradition of Nez Perce horses and the brilliant beadwork on the moccasins and dolls of Pacific Northwest tribes --cultural elements that, centuries ago, were newly incorporated into indigenous culture. These emblematic artifacts now find their place in Northwestern Pow-Wows, as both a celebration of folk today and a reminder of how folk change.
As traditions change, some elements stay the same. These elements become the thread of community continuity and memory acted out in private homes and in folk events, the factor that keeps the reconstruction identifiable as "Yakama" or other. By re-enacting folk customs, the tradition and the community continues, unbroken, even as horses, beads, Gatorade containers and cotton T-shirts creep in. Through this reenactment of continuity in the face of change, folk traditions become an essential act of cultural survival.
In the late 1990s, I volunteered for a Native American Pow-Wow in Eastern Washington State, and had a hand in carting the large plastic Gatorade jugs from trucks to covered stalls where large stainless steel pots and gas stoves awaited to heat the frozen gruel. As a white woman, "Pushtan Aiyat" they called me, I remained behind the scenes or wandered the rest of the Festival as darker skinned ladies heated the savory meat broth and served it into the night air. At some time during the evening, I overheard a remark by an apparently non-native Pow Wow attendee, critical of the modern clothing that jutted out beneath the leather layers of the dancers, the Gatorade containers, and the stainless steel vessels that had been used to heat the broth he was now consuming in a styrofoam bowl with a plastic spork. Never mind that the T-shirts protected the dresses from the dancer's skin and sweat so future generations could continue enjoy them, that the Gatorade bins allowed the frozen soup to traverse 150 miles from the kitchen where it had been made to the Pow -Wow site in a safe and healthful manner, nor that the stainless steel vessels and servingware were inexpensive, lightweight and easily available for the purpose of the festival. Never mind the unique combination of flavors in the Elk soup, which had been made in a community kitchen miles away on the Yakama reservation, with generations of women chatting, laughing, and culling their shared knowledge into the proper combination of locally hunted wild meat, herbs, fruits and vegetables.
The critical young man whose cynical comments jarred the festivity missed the point entirely. The tradition being reenacted by the Yakama women was not in the pot, the T-shirts, or the Gatorade container, and it certainly wasn’t in the folk fair that led to commodification of the dish he had purchased and apparently could not taste. The tradition lay in the community that brought the meal together: the men who hunted the Elk and whose feet now pounded the pavement while others ate, the women who collected the local vegetables and spices and who now spoke in their throaty Yakama tongue as their laughter rose through the air. Their children imitated them and the dancers, or they ran through the fair together and begged for money to purchase food at other stalls. The women cooked and served their traditional meal to insiders and outsiders alike, some sympathetic and some critical, in spite of, and in some ways because of, the enormity of the social and cultural disruptions that have occurred over the centuries.
Kelley Merriam Castro
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