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Invitation to a Ghost Dance: Native Americans at JazzFest 1997 |
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Thursday, 02 February 2006 00:11 |
Invitation to a Ghost Dance
Native Americans at JazzFest 1997
By John Sinclair
The Native American legacy and its crucial role in shaping our cultural heritage will at last be spotlighted at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival when the Coushatta Dancers, Six Nations Women Singers, SaskNorthern Drummers, and Dr. Arvol Looking Horse, 19th generation Keeper of the sacred White Buffalo pipe of the Lakota, take the stage to add their music, prayers, rhythms and wisdom to the riotous mixture of sound and colors swirling about them at the Fairgrounds.
Louisiana's Coushatta Dancers performed on the Fais-Do-Do Stage and the Six Nations Women Singers from the Iroquois Confederacy appeared on the Lagniappe stage the first weekend of JazzFest, singing traditional social songs from the Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga Nations.
This Saturday Native Nations, a multi-tribal group representing all the First Nations of Louisiana, will present its Native American Dance Theatre at the International Heritage stage.
On Sunday, Lakota spiritual leader Dr. Arvol Looking Horse will appear at the Lagniappe stage and at the International Heritage stage (3:45-4:30).
His talk will be preceded by the SaskNorthern Drummers led by Chief Ernest Sundown, who will sing the White Buffalo Calf Woman song he learned (at the request of Dr. Looking Horse) from the Pipestone Singers, who have kept the song since it was given to the Lakotas nineteen generations ago by White Buffalo Calf Woman herself.
* * * * *
For many First Nations people, the birth of a white buffalo calf named Miracle on a farm in Janesville, Wisconsin in August 1994 fulfilled a Lakota prophecy and signaled the beginning of a new era in human relations.
According to this prophecy, long ago White Buffalo Calf Woman materialized in a Lakota village in the guise of a beautiful maiden who gave the people the gift of the sacred pipe of peace and taught them how to live respectfully and harmoniously with everyone on earth. She must leave them now to learn these lessons for themselves, she explained, but upon her return she would lead them into a new social order based on her teachings.
As the woman left the village the pe ople saw her change into a black buffalo calf. The calf rolled on the ground and came up red; rolled again and turned yellow; rolled once more and changed to white, signifying that people of all colors are one. Then the calf disappeared, and it was prophesied that the woman would return in the form of a white buffalo calf when the people were ready to receive her wisdom.
As keeper of the sacred White Buffalo pipe and interpreter of the Lakota prophecy, Dr. Looking Horse has traveled far from his home on the Green Grass reservation in South Dakota to spread the word of universal peace to world leaders and people from all walks of life. In January Looking Horse was invited by President Clinton to pray at the Inaugural festivities in Washington DC, where he spoke of the drum as the heart of Mother Earth and of the need for global healing through the power of the drum and the music it brings us.
At JazzFest Dr. Looking Horse is also likely to speak of his special relationship with the city of New Orleans and its Rannual White Buffalo Day celebration, a ceremony now formally recognized by the City Council and the State of Louisiana.
Looking Horse made his first visit to New Orleans last August to conduct a spiritual service in Congo Square at the culmination of the White Buffalo Day festivities, kicked off two days previously with a colorful procession from the foot of Canal Street down North Rampart to Armstrong Park led by Grand Marshal Coco Robicheaux and Big Chief Smiley Ricks.
Here the Lakota holy man blessed Congo Square as sacred ground and sanctified the remarkable treaty made between Lakota and Choctaw Ghost Dancers and the Mardi Gras Indians at their long-awaited first meeting on August 27, 1994. That day a Sacred Circle had been formed in Congo Square by Kam Night Chase (Lakota) and David Carson (Choctaw) to greet and honor Big Chiefs T Gootie Montana, Donald Harrison Sr. (Guardians of the Flame), Larry Bannock (Golden Star Hunters), Spy Boy Nat (White Eagles), other Big Chiefs and representatives of the Mardi Gras Indian Council.
The Mardi Gras Indians were formally accepted as brothers by the Native Americans, gifted with medicine bundles, and invited to share the sacred 1500-year-old Choctaw clan pipe of Mayan origin with the face of an African warrior on the bowl. The treaty was solemnified by drumming and sacred songs of both peoples, including a Lakota Ghost Dance song and a jubilant "Indian Red" led by Tootie Montana.
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Kam Night Chase, a Lakota Pipe Carrier active in the Ghost Dance movement, had learned of the Black Indians of New Orleans from his friend Goat Carson, a half-breed harmonica preacher and barbeque specialist, and his wife ≈ Sharon Marie Asch, new residents of the Crescent City. Goat and Sharon had met members of the Carrollton Hunters at Carson's weekly Sunday afternoon cookouts at Snake & Jake's Christmas Club Lounge uptown. When they spied the Wild Indians in the streets at their first Mardi Gras, Goat and Sharon's minds were blown by the many forms of homage paid to Native American culture by these inner-city Americans of African descent.
Carson could hear the echoes of Cherokee and Choctaw ceremonial music in the songs and chants of the Mardi Gras Indians; he wasn't surprised to learn that these distinctive forms had been arranged for the original Creole Wild West tribe more than a hundred years before by a full-blooded 7'2" Choctaw named Eugene Honore. But the Mardi Gras Indians had developed through successive generations without the benefit of actual contact with First Nations peoples, and Goat and Sharon resolved to try to bring the two together.
Night Chase was shown tapes and photos of the Mardi Gras Indians â•ž and heard a recording of the Black Indian prayer, "Indian Red," which struck a deep, responsive chord. Soon Night Chase would receive a vision revealing the Mardi Gras Indians as fellow Ghost Dancers, honoring and keeping the spirits of the ancestors alive with song, dance, and elaborate ritual costumery. In keeping with the teachings of White Buffalo Calf Woman, their prayer for recognition as brothers should be answered.
Night Chase extended an "Invitation to a Ghost Dance and Sacred Treaty" to Big Chief Alison "Tootie" Montana of the Yellow Pocahontas on behalf of the Mardi Gras Indian Nation. Montana asked that a public ceremony be held in Congo Square to celebrate the realization of this deeply cherished "hundred-year dream." The historic meeting was capped by the participation of City Councilman Troy Carter, who smoked the peace pipe and joined the City of New Orleans to the treaty.
Following the Sacred Circle ceremony Kam Night Chase continued to pray for a sign that he had done the right thing by accepting the Black Indians as brothers of the Sioux. That night the birth of the white buffalo calf in Wisconsin was announced by Dr. Looking Horse as a harbinger of the return of White Buffalo Calf Woman. Night Chase now felt certain the Sacred Circle had fulfilled the Lakota prophecy that red, yellow, black and whi â•žte would all come together and pray, each in their own way, for unity, peace and healing. The Sacred Circle should be joined to the birth of the white buffalo calf as a day of celebration in New Orleans each year.
Goat Carson, equally inspired by this amazing turn of events, began to pursue the White Buffalo vision with messianic zeal. His series of White Buffalo Day reports on WWOZ radio reached the ears of in-coming Jazz & Heritage Foundation President Roxy Wright, who invited Goat to sit on the Foundation's Advisory Board. There, as a member of the Program Committee, Carson worked with Don "Moose" Jamison to secure the inclusion of Native American performers at JazzFest and arrange the appearances of the Six Nations Women Singers, SaskNorthern Drummers, and Dr. Looking Horse at this year's Festival.
For the future, JazzFest will establish Native American music as a regular feature at the zFairgrounds each year, and the Festival's International Music committee plans to meet with Dr. Looking Horse to explore First Nations participation in the International Pavilion and on the international music stage.
Featuring First Nations performers at the Jazz & Heritage Festival represents an important first step toward mending the long-broken circle of friendship, amity, and cultural exchange with our Native American forebears. In the spirit of White Buffalo Calf Woman, may it help lead us to the ultimate goal of unity for the family, peace for the tribes, and healing for the wounds of all nations.
--New Orleans
April 15, 1997
(c) 1997, 2006 John Sinclair. Al Rights Reserved.
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