Lumberton, North Carolina The Lumbee Powwow: UNC Pembroke & Education

[Laughter] I'm a dancer and I'm a traveler and wherever I go I experience the world one dance at a time I'm mikela milassas and this is their feet after seeing the importance of cultural education in the community for the kids I head to our country's first American Indian school for higher education the University of North Carolina at Pembroke the school started in 1887 a guy by the name of Hamilton McMillan fell in love with the people here and their struggle to be educated and he helped write a bill to get a school established and it started out as a teacher training school to train our people to become teachers to teach the youth and eventually luckily our people have always seen that education was very important our people are becoming educated and that's a great thing but because of time and because of our history a lot of our culture was lost not spoken about and as indigenous people if you lose your oral history you lose so much this is Michelle Fazio she is the assistant professor of English here at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke we are going to talk about a film that you worked on called the voices of the Lumbee voices of the Lumbee is about an hour-long documentary that looks at the regional history of the Lumbee tribe and the economic history of the region in Robeson County it's the largest county in North Carolina but also the poorest and we really wanted to look at the negative media representations of the county to understand why so much job loss occurred here and it's in hacked on the community so the film really explores a very long history the last 25 years really of economic growth and decline and how its shaped you know generations so it really tried to gather the work histories of Lumbee elders and just make it part of a longer narrative of American labor history so going back to the students that were impacted by creating this film we know of a particular case her name is Alexis Locklear and it sounds like she was very moved by this whole process she was moved it was really tremendous to watch her grow over the past year and a half that she was involved I mean she's from the community she's been active she's now currently Miss Lumbee and she used part of the film her experience working on film with her platform to talk about the education that she's received about her culture I didn't know all the youth in our community how economically we were challenged and and what our elders been through it actually changed my whole outlook on my tribe I very very proud in general but even increased my pride because I know what it came from mother to child the elder women tribes together in my mother's health the quilting and I call under the building materials prepended of The Tempest how about four or five years old we have no one of us learning the years layering it all started coming back and was a reason for that there's regionally the elder lady taught the children so it wouldn't be lost so much of our culture lost over the years our people sacrifice their culture in order to survive there was laws passed that will let us speak our own language would let us worship seven days a week so we started adapting the settlers way we started farming like them one school like them and pretty soon nobody knew anything about it anymore I guess law have power so we just learned tall each other my goal was to meet some of these women who have worked so hard to keep the native traditions alive I was lucky enough to meet up with the members of the woman of the sacred River drum Society we wanted something to bring all the women together so we could unite and share our culture together and sing and you know do things and so it was the next step in bringing everyone together and what we found but then what the food I think two months where 800 members okay yeah we want to unify everyone and really bring the songs and the ceremonies and the way it was back we actually had a sister that's going through a real very visa time I'll call Patricia and he I said go over to her house Daisy just go there and she went over there she don't have to say anything she just went there and just said you know just be just be you know because sometimes that support is worth its weight in gold you know when you're going through hard times and you're you feel so heavy and so alone all of our sisters raise us up it tells you the story of a creation story this is what they call the tree tree life kind of light these are the orbit of light to the sky tree and here's the SkyDome these are the thunders that the columns and here's this more Turtle Island is which is Pangea and and one of the things the gifts that were given was the corn beans and squash the three sisters these are the things that sustain us to me two lines here show the separation of that world and the world below a lot of people may wear things that were passed down from generation to generation or something was made especially for them so it's just all part of who they are yeah we met some kids yesterday to adjust in their Galia they had specific colors and symbols that represented maybe people that have died one watch a dryer that's right and it represented in their honor an engine an uncle that passed so it was interesting to see that yeah that's also why do you see it's going to be so different age we go you represent something about that person you're never going to see - they're exactly the same this is really a representation of our grandmothers and everything that we do and you mentioned that you in the society you are now dying making the fabrics and dyeing them in the old style yeah so this dress is literally a product of the society coming together and really yeah doing that recently I started in seeing and very important part of it is understanding and teaching our young girls that you can do anything but also helping the young men understand that women do have a voice and should use it it reinforced us so much and that's across all cultures absolutely a native that not across the board you know women in general so well it's up to what yeah it's up to us to teach and to share and pass it on there's a whole lot more that happens at powwows and just singing and dancing I mean we network and there's so many businesspeople you there's doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs you know their clubs involves the elders were saying that the younger kids don't know a lot of their history so goddess powers are learning that's right as they're hearing the music they're hearing the different northern and southern right styles and and the different dance with me explain everything for me it's perfect I don't know what's going on look that's beautiful to me but to know the history of it I have two children 25 and 15 I don't want to leave this trip without them knowing everything I can teach them you know it's my job to do that that's first and the same thing with all the other children I've started teaching people more now than ever before which is the me the Bliss is because of the people that told me said pass it on don't take it weakly yeah so I consider in the honor when people say I want you to teach me to do what you're doing it's with great pleasure and excitement that I say I'm so thankful we're still here you know because I know without a shadow of a doubt that our seventh generation will know who we are [Music] [Music] [Applause] watch this entire episode and other barefeet dance adventures on your local PBS station on the PBS app or on pbs.org or just click right here to watch more and be sure to find us online and travel barefeet calm happy travels [Music]

Channel: Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi

Views: 40,282

Rating: 4.7966104 out of 5

Keywords: North Carolina, Lumbee, Native American, American Indian, Lumberton, UNC Pembroke

Id: ocnAuLuLrMQ

Length: 8min 48sec (528 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2017