r/IndianCountry

Took this pic when helping unload stuff for my high school’s band 😂

Censored his face because he’s not my kid, but seeing the tiny tots portion of the powwow always almost makes me cry. My mom never let me participate in traditional stuff until I was older and had my own freedoms, so it always warms my heart to see tribeschildren being allowed to practice their culture and be proud. I grew up with my tribe, but my mother sheltered me a lot from the world so I’m glad others are having the important cultural experiences!

Dusted off my camera and decided to take it to the stillwater powwow again this year to get some practice in. I wish this sub let me add more than one image, because all the regalia and dancing this year was amazing!

I’m making a Zelda costume, but a little indigenous!

Somebody asked about the Aleut experience during WWII the other day, so I thought this art piece at the Anchorage Museum might be interesting. Here’s the exhibit description:

In My Country, Athabascan and Unangan artist Rebecca Lyon depicts the painful events following the Japanese invasion of Attu and Kiska during World War II, when Unangax from the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands were forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned in internment camps. Lyon's assemblage centers on a mother holding the shrouded body of a dead child, the first documented death of an Unangan US citizen aboard the USTS Delarof in 1942.
The three-day-old infant perished due to the inhumane conditions on the boat and was buried at sea. The mother is clothed in a snarl of rope and bears a version of an Unangax peg calendar in the center of her chest. Although these calendars typically used wooden pegs to mark important dates, Lyon says she used rusty nails instead "to illustrate the pain and suffering the people felt during this sorrowful time when they lived day to day never knowing how long it would be before they could return home." For Lyon, the ghostly human handprints flanking the figure "speak of how racism, then and now, tries to cover-up the undeniable truth of our shared humanity."