For three days the practice football field at Moorpark College will undergo a radical transformation when the Children of Many Colors Native American Powwow returns, July 18 through the 20th. It will become a place of song, dance, ceremony, of laughter and the making of memories. Special events will happen in the lives of participants and visitors alike. The drums will resonate in the chest cavities of people who have never heard the sound before. Relationships will be born. Jewelry, pottery, craftwork, beads and supplies will change hands, and an intricate mingling of protocol and unscripted cultural celebration will take place in the dance arena, its finer nuances known only to the initiated. Its sheer and powerful beauty will be shared with everyone…first time visitor and seasoned powwow trail roadie alike.
An open flute circle on Friday evening will begin the weekend in a tranquil way. Everyone is welcome to attend and everyone who plays a wind instrument is welcome to bring theirs and share the microphone. The circle welcomes all, native and non native, young and young at heart, veteran musician and fresh beginner. This friendly atmosphere is a hallmark of Redbird’s Children of Many Colors Powwow. There will be numerous occasions throughout the weekend when spectators will be able to experience the dance arena first-hand. There will be flute players present, such as Mac Lopez and Nash Tevara, with hand-crafted Native American flutes for sale; flutes they make themselves using time-honored techniques, the finest materials, and a love for the instrument and the music it produces that you can hear and feel.
The following morning, Arena Director Victor Chavez will choose a Native American elder to walk with him around the central circle, now covered on all sides by the family canopies of dancers and drums, and the dance arena will be blessed before the day’s activities begin. From this point forward, the circle is sacred, treated with respect, and not crossed from side to side except by a select hand full of people such as Victor, whose duty for the weekend will be, among other things, to maintain the integrity of that circular space.
Find out what's happening in Moorparkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
On Saturday and Sunday the mellow lull of flute music will give way to the sound of drums, first to the Gourd Dance Ceremony, and then to the powwow itself. Master of Ceremonies Michael Reifel of the San Carlos Apache Nation will narrate the experience for visitors and participants alike, explaining the origins of dances, instructing visitors when they can enter the arena, when pictures are or are not taken, and calling out the dancers who will fill the arena throughout the weekend not because they are paid to do so…they are not…but because this is their way of life, their heritage, their culture, it is who they are. They are the indigenous people of the western hemisphere. They are your neighbors, co-workers, classmates…and they are the living embodiment of survival, perseverance and self-determination. They are the first inhabitants of this land, and they are dancing because they can…and because in their dance they reach across the generations, those past, those with us now, and those yet unborn…in a way that can only be known by the experience. Countless attempts have been made to narrate what takes place in the arena, in the souls of the dancers, but words and images fail. It is something you can only know because you dance.
The powwow is a true community event. The Barbara Barnard Smith Fund for World Musics, a fund managed by the Ventura County Community Foundation, is one of the event’s primary supporters. The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians is another. The event costs about $10,000.00 to produce, roughly half of which is earned through vendor fees, parking donations and gifts from individual donors. For the rest of the funding, Redbird depends entirely on the generosity and support of both the native and non native community.
Find out what's happening in Moorparkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Contrary to many popular misconceptions, being Indian does not automatically entitle you to government benefits, or not paying taxes, or getting things for free. It is not a guaranteed ride funded by casinos. Tragically, many reservations have poverty rates and living conditions of third world countries, and are continually plagued by the interests of mining companies, commercial ranchers and other non-native for-profit interests who seek to take from the land whatever they can cheaply extract from it, giving nothing back.
A non profit Native American and environmental organization, Redbird has hosted the Children of Many Colors Powwow for 14 years of its 20 year history. It has always been a gathering focused on people rather than profit. The powwow is about cultural celebration and continuation, and about bridging cultural barriers by providing visitors with a positive experience and a better understanding of Native Americans.
The people who will share the weekend in celebration will come from a multitude of different tribal backgrounds and as many different locations. Some of them will know their ancestral language, their tribal and familial history and the place from which they came; others will know far less.
Hundreds of songs will be sung in unison throughout the weekend. Not a single one of them will be written down, ever. Songs are living culture. They are learned by the singing of them, they are learned by practice, by being taught, one on one, how to drum them. Some songs will be in native languages, some in vocables…”49” songs, sung with hand drums, will often combine a mixture of english and vocables.
A new Powwow Princess will be crowned over the weekend. There will be intertribal songs that everyone can experience. There will be social dances, and fun dances, like the lemon dance, and if enough baked goods are donated for the cause, there will be a “cake walk” dance to help raise money for the powwow.
On Sunday morning there will be a Veteran’s Honoring, open to all Veterans, during the Gourd Dance Ceremony, which begins at 11 AM. Whether or not one believes in war, our Veterans, regardless of their ancestry, deserve respect, acknowledgment, and the healing that comes from the drum and from the songs themselves. History is not always beautiful, but we honor those who, by choice or by circumstance, played a role in its making. We honor our warriors, men and women.
Children will dance alongside elders. Actor and activist Saginaw Grant will celebrate his birthday on Sunday, and if he is with us we’ll be singing him a birthday song and having a dance that everyone can join in on. Dee Torrez will bring two grand children into the arena on Saturday in the traditional way called a “Coming Out Ceremony”. On Saturday evening, there will be an Iron Man and Iron Woman dance contest, where powwow dancers will compete more for the joy of doing so than the small monetary prize the winners will receive. Michael Spirit Bear Toro will have an opportunity to co-MC his first powwow under the tutelage of the senior Michael.
There is no entry fee to the powwow, a family style event that welcomes visitors. Redbird seeks a $2.00 per vehicle donation, with no passenger limit, to help pay for the gathering, collected by volunteers at the entrance of the parking lot. Spectators are welcome to bring their own chairs and shade canopies. The arena is wheelchair and walker accessible and there is a covered area on the dance arena with chairs for spectators. The weekend temperatures are predicted to be in the mid eighties. The flute circle will begin somewhere around 6 PM. A umber of arts and crafts vendors will be open and ready for business. The powwow will take place from 11 AM to 10 PM on Saturday and 11 AM to 6 PM on Sunday, with Grand Entry on both days near noon.
For more information visit www.RedbirdsVision.org or the Facebook event page: