Four members of the Piscataway Indian Nation will showcase their history and culture through song and dance at Ohio University for Native American Heritage Month on Wednesday night.
The Piscataway Nation has been based in “Tayac Territory” near Port Tobacco, MD, for years, where Captain John Smith first encountered them while sailing up the Potomac River 405 years ago, said Bob Klages, the business representative for the Piscataway Indian Nation Singers and Dancers.
Mark Tayac, the group leader, and his dancers will perform a powwow-style campus event with American Indian dance, drum and song. The group has been traveling and performing for more than 20 years with multiple generations performing, Klages added.
“The program is educational, entertaining, colorful and interactive,” Klages said. “Their hope is to raise awareness of Native American issues, culture, history, traditions and customs.”
The group performed at OU about five years ago for Native American Heritage Month which occurs in November, said Winsome Chunnu-Brayda, associate director of the Multicultural Center.
“The last few years we’ve had an author and a poet, so we decided that we wanted to go back to a cultural display,” Chunnu-Brayda said. “We like to do a heritage month where we are showcasing as well as highlighting a culture.”
It costs $2,500 to bring the group in, and the event is sponsored by the Multicultural Center, Black Students Cultural Programming Board and Senate Appropriations Committee.
There will also be a drum and dream catcher making workshop at noon in Baker University Center’s third floor atrium on the same day, Chunnu-Brayda said.
The workshop will be conducted by Wendell Humphrey, Perry County resident and a full-blood native Shoshone-Bannock, with the help of his son Tom and wife Cathy.
“I learned how to make the drums around 20 years (ago) and have been conducting workshops at OU for about 10 to 15 years now,” Humphrey said. “I was taught by an elder back on the reservation (in Fort Hall, ID) and in turn, I have taught my family.”
The event runs from noon until five. Humphrey will supply all of the materials on a first-come-first-serve basis.
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