The Indigenous Peoples Day NYC 2022 PowWow is a two-day traditional celebration with drumming, singing, dancing, an overnight and a sunrise ceremony on Indigenous Peoples Day.
Indigenous Peoples Day NYC 2022 PowWow
The Indigenous Peoples Day NYC 2022 PowWow with drumming, singing, dancing, an overnight, and a sunrise ceremony is in Randall’s Island Park, Sunday-Monday, October 9-10, 2022, from 11am Sunday to 6pm Monday. It’s free, but you can help by donating at ipdnyc.squarespace.com
The culture is mostly Native American, but all peoples are welcome. The organizers asked us to invite Caribbeans, Latin Americans, and Pacific Islanders because we are Indigenous too. In the beginning, we are all Indigenous somewhere.
#IPDNYC
A Taíno Areíto or a Yoruba Rumba are Latin PowWows
In Taíno Puerto Rico, a PowWow is called an “areíto.” An areíto is a communal festival that lasts several days. The community gathers, tells epic stories of the ancestors, shares food and drink, drums, sings and dances together. It’s how the community organizes itself. We call the sacred circle a “batey.” Even though the Taíno tribe has been assimilated, our Indigenous roots live on in our Puerto Rican way of life. Now we call it weekends.
The Jatibonicu Taino Tribal Nation of Boriken is reclaiming Taíno traditions at taino-tribe.org
African Diaspora communal traditions are also very similar. Cuban Yoruba, Rumba, and Changüi; Haitian Yanvalou; Puerto Rican Bomba; Colombian Cumbia & Vallenato; Venezuelan Tambor; Peruvian Festejo; Argentine Milonga, Brazilian Samba and other traditions are Latin versions of a Native American PowWow. We are so alike.
Pacific Islander traditions are similar too. Humans do similar things around the world and across time.
The event is produced by Brooklyn’s Redhawk Native American Arts Council, an excellent organization of teaching artists. This year, the event seems to have grown a lot.
Part of this is the movement to rename “Columbus Day” as “Indigenous Peoples Day.” It’s time to celebrate ourselves instead of the criminal colonizers.
We are still here. We have always been here. We will be here when the people are gone because the Great Spirit of our ancestors is universal and timeless.
