Native Americans Spotlighted at Pow Wow

Chris Meehan, UGC News Editor

Early on, it seemed that the Native American presence at the Uniting General Council would be minimal, perhaps limited to having Native Americans make statements and offer gifts of welcome to delegates who have come from all over the world to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the upper Midwest of the United States, to form the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC).

But on Tuesday, June 22, a range of events will occur that will reflect a different story.

Levi Rickert, one of the organizers of events focusing on Native Americans and issues related to Indigenous Peoples, says he is very grateful for the change in emphasis. Initially, he thought that the committee he was helping to serve would play a minimal part of the gathering that brought together the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council to create the WCRC.

But as it has turned out, a bright spotlight has been placed on Aboriginal Peoples from all countries, with an emphasis on those groups that are from the United States and Canada. Native Americans are, in fact, taking "front stage at the global gathering of churches," whose theme relates to joining all people under God in the, as the theme states: "Unity of Spirit in the Bond of Peace."

"The overture to place emphasis on Indigenous Peoples has been surprising, but it is very grand," said Rickert, a member of the Potawatomi tribe and former director of a Native American center in Grand Rapids. "I find this focus enriching personally. It gives Native Americans in the United States a chance to showcase for the world who we are."

A major public showcase takes place on Tuesday with a keynote address to delegates in the Van Noord Arena on the campus of Calvin College by Richard Twist, a member of the Rosebud Lakota Sioux tribe and an educator on Native American issues. His speech will be followed by a pow wow and other events reflecting unity in a park along the Grand River in downtown Grand Rapids.

"There are a lot of important aspects to the pow wow. We will be having a welcome ceremony in the same place that we welcomed one another in the past," said Mike Peters, a pastor, member of the Ottawa tribe in Michigan and one of the coordinators of the event. Ah-Nab-Awen Park, the site of the pow wow, is where many tribes used to meet and trade items with one another every year during the warm months, said Peters.

"We will have an exchange of drums and a Reformed worship service," said Peters, who is holding talking circles every night outside the Van Noord Arena at which people can sit in a circle and talk about spiritual matters. He also is blessing spaces used for meetings with smoke from sweet grass.

As for the event on Tuesday, Peters said, "We will be gathering in peace and unity and celebrate this new organization, which we hope will help to affect true healing for the Native Americans of this nation."

Workshops are also addressing issues related to issues facing Indigenous Peoples. First, there is one that discusses how the WCRC can work with Aboriginal People as well as ones that address the topic of how native culture was almost destroyed in the United States and Canada by Indian boarding schools. Young people from many tribes were sent to these schools in order to wipe out their language and culture so that they could more adapt smoothly into the United States and Canadian societies.

At one such workshop on Tuesday, James Scott, a pastor in the United Church of Canada, said that Canada has worked hard to bring healing and reconciliation between Aboriginal Peoples and others in Canada. But there is still much work to do.

The journey began in the mid 1990s when Aboriginal Peoples began to bring lawsuits against Indian boarding schools. Some suits involved the issue of forcing children away from their families and removing native culture from them, but others dealt with sexual and physical abuse that occurred at these schools.

Initially, the churches, who ran the schools, and the government, that set policy for the schools, pointed at one another, blaming each other for the problems. Eventually, Canadian courts determined that financial reparation s were in order, with the government paying 75 percent of the cost and the churches 25 percent.

After that, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established, at which Aboriginal Peoples can testify about their experiences in the schools, said Scott.

The United States is several years behind in the process of making amends and reparations with Native Americans, whose land was taken by immigrants, mostly from northern Europe, who came to the United States with "a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other," said Rickert.