by Cynthya Porter
The time is near when Winona will again welcome home the Dakota Indians who lived in the shade of Wapasha’s Cap long before white settlers set foot on American soil. June 2 and 3, 2007 will be the Fourth Annual Great Dakota Gathering and Homecoming, a time when Winonans and Dakotas alike reflect on the pain, the healing and the understanding that shapes the relationship we have with each other today. For the Dakota Indians who travel from as far away as Canada, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota, it is a bittersweet homecoming, marred by the ancestral memory of the days when this land was taken from their people and they were shuttled off to remote reservations in desolate places. But each year since the Dakota Homecoming’s inception, these Native Americans have returned to Winona with their hands extended in a gesture of peace. With them they bring a culture steeped in tradition and deeply spiritual beliefs, and they invite Winona’s non-Indian inhabitants to know them better, to understand who they are, to join them in a celebration of forgiveness and solidarity. The Dakota Homecoming Originated as the brainchild of the Diversity Foundation and Winona city officials, groups that later gave rise to the Winona Dakota Unity Alliance. Led by the efforts of the Diversity Foundation’s Lyle
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Rustad, this alliance has forged a bond between Winona and the Dakota Nation that used to call this place home.
Each year for the homecoming, native American games, storytelling and dancing have graced the fields of East Lake Park. The event will move to Unity Park in 2008 when the landscaping is completed. This year the homecoming will specially recognize all of the veterans who attend the festivities, Indian and non-Indian veterans who fought side by side for this country over past decades. A learning encampment will feature speakers and exhibits about the Dakota language, food, toys, beadwork and carvings. Saturday night Jackie Bird, an effervescent Dakota singer and hoop dancer will return for a performance. Saturday night’s free show will also feature music and poetry readings by John Trudell and Quiltman, and a children’s musical band called the Little Birds. For the price of one $5.00 button, visitors to the celebration can share unity feasts all weekend, including two breakfasts, a lunch and a dinner. At those feasts, in the grandstands around the dance arena and clustered around the Moccasin Tournament players, Indians and non-Indians will sit shoulder to shoulder next weekend, something perhaps no one envisioned even as recently as a decade ago.
Perhaps one of the most powerful
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meetings is around the truth-telling circle, a feature of the Homecoming each year that weaves a powerful bandage of healing for all who attend it. At the Truth-Telling and Reconciliation, Dakota speakers share their grim view of the realities of their people, from poverty and displacement to discrimination and disrespect.They talk of how they were angry at white people. They talk of how they hurt. They tell the truth about how bad it has been for the Dakota Nation. At that circle, Winona leaders and other non-Indians join the Dakota. Mostly they listen, but sometimes they talk too, talk of their regret over the legacy Winona’s white settlers left behind, of their shame that people with the same color blood could treat each other in such a way, of their hope to mend those wrongs for future generations. To raise money for the statutes that will grace Unity Park, statuette replicas are available for purchase this year and will be on display at the celebration. One statute by Leo and Lyon Smith is called “Unity Rider.” The other statute is called :The Spirit of Winona,” created by Joanne Bird.
For more information on the Great Dakota Gathering and Homecoming, contact the Winona Visitor Center at 452-2278 or visit the event website at www.dakotahomecoming.org.
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