A cultural experience

This week in Hyrum's Head Start class has been full of fun activities and will continue for the rest of the week. They have had many visitors come to teach them certain things and when I found out that today an Indian woman was coming to talk to the classes, I made sure I was there! Though I grew up around a part of the American Indian culture, it still fascinates me.

This is Foxy. I wish I would have written down her Indian name but it means "fox" thus her American nick name of Foxy. She is from the Seneca-Cayuga tribe and is not wearing the typical dress of her tribe but decided to wear for us what she would wear when she dances at Pow-Wows. She told the children about the legend of the skunk. That before skunks were black with a white stripe that they once were all white. One day a skunk was walking around all high and mighty while showing off his beautiful white fur. He came across some baby owls. If you have ever seen a baby owl, they are not very cute. Well, this skunk told them just how ugly they were and then spoke of his beauty. When the mother owl came along and the baby owls told their mother what the skunk had said to them, she swooped up the skunk in all his beautiful white fur and dropped him in the middle of a forest fire. The skunk screamed as his beautiful white fur was turning black as it burned. The mother owl thought that the skunk had learned his lesson so she pick him up and took him out of the forest fire just in time before his white fur was singed on his back. Now when we see a skunk and see that white line down his back we know how it got there and just why the skunk smells so bad....like of melting fur.

Here are some of the items that Foxy brought. I was just fascinated with all of this. The feathers in the back are Eagle feathers. Having Eagle feathers is illegal in the United States unless you are an American Indian. The jewelry on the bottom left was unique to me because they both had squash blossoms on them. I asked her later why the squash blossom was significant and she said that on her tribal flag it has what they call the "3 sisters." It is their staple: squash, corn, and beans.

Right next to those 2 necklaces is a very small object that is used to keep the belly button cord that falls off of a baby. They say that if you don't keep it, you will be searching for it for the rest of your life.

I took a close up picture of the papoose board because it taught me the most. The papoose board was designed for safety and entertainment....and I though that the car seat was invented by white men! In this picture you see a hoop like circle going around the front of it. This was for protective reasons, which I'll share later, but also to entertain the baby. Just like you would see dangling down from the car seat carrier, these little Indian babies would be entertained by objects that they would try to grab.

On the back of the papoose board was another strong piece of wood coming up from the back. This was used in conjunction with the hoop for safety. If the papoose board was put next to the sattle on the horse and was somehow knocked off, the baby's head would be safe from hitting the ground.

All I have to say, is who ever decided that American Indians were "heathens" or unlearned, never really studied their culture!