The United Indian Students in Higher Education hosted the Naimuma Traditional Powwow on Saturday, May 3 and Sunday, May 4. The powwow was held at the Peter Stott Center on the Portland State campus and paid tribute to the customs and traditions of Native Americans through food, dance and more.
Jordan Molnar, coordinator of UISHE, said powwows are gatherings that brings many people together, sometimes within a particular area or tribe, but often from all over. She said powwows serve as an opportunity for Indigenous peoples to celebrate community and ceremony.
“Generally it involves a lot of dancing, drumming and singing, but there is also always food,” Molnar said. “Indigenous people have to have food when we get together; it’s a cultural must.”
Molnar said people who are not of Indigenous heritage are welcome at powwows as well. She said attending powwows can be an educational opportunity for those who are unfamiliar with Indigenous American culture and history.
Held on behalf of UISHE, the powwow was freely available to the public, but largely catered to the oft-overlooked Native students of Portland State. Layla Woelfle, co-coordinator of UISHE, said the group is the largest Native student group on campus and that it represents many tribes.
“Our mission is to make sure that Native students on campus have a community to support them,” Woelfle said. “One of the biggest reasons for Natives dropping out of college is their feeling alone in their academic journey. We are here to give them the community they may be missing back home.”
The focus on providing a communal sense of belonging and honoring the legacy of Native culture was at the forefront of the event. Performances came to life with bristling passion for age-old traditions and an unbridled appreciation for the past. The atmosphere was lively, friendly and open in a way that evoked a sense of unity amongst those present for the event.
“Naimuma means family. However, it covers the term in a way that is more than a Western idea of family,” said Molnar. “For Indigenous people the idea of family is expansive.
“It includes just about all of the people in our lives, one way or another, or at least the ones that we let become permanent fixtures in our lives. The idea is a lot like the idea of community, but it carries a bit more weight.”
Perhaps a testament to this expansive notion of family, this year’s powwow drew an impressively large and varied crowd, a feat that was made possible largely through volunteer work contributed by the PSU community.
“We had a large turnout, and lots of volunteers showed up to help us run the event,” Molnar said. “The powwow is entirely student run, so it was important that people from the PSU community were able to offer their time to make sure this event could happen at all.”
Though the powwow was planned from the beginning with PSU’s Native American student body in mind, UISHE placed a great deal of emphasis on the inherent educational value of the powwow. Woelfle said the powwow’s emcee, Thomas Morning Owl, Umatilla, works in language revitalization education.
As evident by the crowd’s participation in events like the Native American Circle Dance and the enthusiastic applause that rounded off each and every performance throughout the day, it was obvious that the event had struck a chord with Native and non-Native attendees alike.
“It was a great success and a good time!” Woelfle said.
