this morning i finally managed to successfully put a hyperlink in a journal entry. don't i feel like hot stuff. managed to get the assateague island site linked to my entry about it. so, now, all my readers (you know who you are) can virtually visit the loveliness of this fragile place. i should go back and try to redo the other two links that didn't work, but i just can't bear to mess with them any more.
on this gorgeous afternoon we went to the nanticoke pow-wow, getting there in time to see the entry procession and a couple of hours of dancing. we wandered the booths as well, ate an "indian taco" and some frybread. but, all in all, i have to say my feelings were very complicated about the whole thing. i've been to other pow-wows, in the southwest, in massachusetts, and this same one five years ago. i don't remember getting as depressed previously. today i was just sad. suddenly it seemed so wrong that a people who once roamed this coast, considered it their home, fished and hunted and lived wherever they wanted should be reduced to this little group of people coming together on this little bit of land that is now nanticoke tribal ground. coming together once a year to feel solidarity and community and celebrate what was once their life, and is now a token heritage. i'm glad they have the pow-wows (and there are several more coming up in the mid atlantic area over the next couple of months) to give them the chance to get together (and indians come from all over the country to attend each other's pow-wows......the master of ceremonies today was a cherokee), to dance and sing and eat and play together. i'm sad that that's all they have of what was once large nations of peoples living on this continent, their home.
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