Public radio from Western Michigan University 102.1 NPR News | 89.9 Classical WMUK
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
0000017c-60f7-de77-ad7e-f3f739cf0000Arts & More airs Fridays at 7:50 a.m. and 4:20 p.m.Theme music: "Like A Beginner Again" by Dan Barry of Seas of Jupiter

Pow Wow Celebrates Gun Lake Tribe's Long Road To Sovereignty

Jingle dress dancers at the 1st Annual Sweet Grass Moon Pow Wow
Jesse Pigeon

A few weeks ago, kids at the Gun Lake Tribe’s summer camp in Hopkins gathered around to learn a traditional round dance before the tribe’s Sweet Grass Moon Pow Wow this weekend. The pow wow means a lot to the tribe. After all, the Gun Lake Tribe wasn’t federally recognized until the late 1990s - the last of the three Potawatomi bands in this area to achieve that status.

Kevin Finney is the executive director of the Jijak Foundation, which helps organize cultural activities for the tribe. He says it’s taken the Gun Lake band a long time to get where it is today.

Finney says it all goes back to 1830, when President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. That allowed the country to relocate Native Americans to unsettled territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for current Native American lands. Some tribes agreed to move, but not the Gun Lake band.

“Gun Lake band refused to sign the removal agreements and remained on traditional homeland here in West Michigan moving up towards Gun Lake and Bradley where the community is located now. And for many years, the tribal leaders in this community for a lot of generations sought sovereignty and held on to Anishinaabe and Potawatomi identity and culture. So sovereignty has been a long long long battle to be able to achieve what has taken place today,” says Finney.

It would be almost 150 years until the Gun Lake Tribe and other Native Americans could openly celebrate their religion. David Shananaquet is Odawa, but married into the Gun Lake Band of Potawatomi:

“Jimmy Carter signed the bill where they called the Freedom of Religion Act. Up until then it was illegal for us to have any gatherings like this. So we’ve come a long way in a short period of time. There were the people who kept these traditions and did them back in the bush we say and kept them alive for us to be able to revive them today.”

Last year was the first time the Gun Lake Tribe was able to host a public pow wow. David Shananaquet says the Gun Lake band is a small tribe. Until now they didn’t have the money to put on their own event. Though Kevin Finney says the tribe has helped with other local Potawatomi pow wows in the past.

Ojibwe member George Martin also married into the Gun Lake Band. He’s a center fire chief in the Three-Fires Lodge of the Midiwiwin Society - a religious healing group.

“We teach while we’re out here. We teach our culture, our music, our dance. And we teach them that and let them know that we’re still here. We’ve been here for thousands of years and we’re here and we’re still doing what we did thousands of years ago,” says Martin.

If you’re planning on going to the pow wow. David Shananaquet has a few etiquette tips: Be respectful. Ask before taking a photo with someone. Don’t drink or do drugs before coming to the arena.

“Don’t bring ill feelings down into our arena. We want everything to be good positive energy down here. I would say the best tip I can give anybody is: if you don’t know ask somebody and we’re glad to help,” says Shananaquet.

The 2nd Annual Sweet Grass Moon Pow Wow takes place Saturday from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the JijakCamp in Hopkins.

Related Content