2024 Saulteaux Powwow on Sept. 21 (Kenneth Cheung)

By Kenneth Cheung

Powwow

Saulteaux Powwow celebrates heritage and healing through dance

Sep 24, 2024 | 12:52 PM

Generations of Indigenous community members gathered at the 2024 Saulteaux Powwow on Saturday to celebrate their heritage and to find healing through dancing to the beat of the traditional Thunder Drums.

When 36-year-old Kenneth Joseph-Cantre dances he said it’s not just for his own spirit; he prays for all his loved ones with every move he makes.

“You know, when you hear the drum pounding, it heals you,” he said.

He said spiritual dancing is a deep commitment to living life in the best way possible and it helps him stay on the path of the ‘Red Road’ – which means he is determined to live within the Creator’s instructions through a life of truth, humbleness, respect, friendship, and spiritually.

Kenneth Joseph-Cantre, 36, says powwow helps him stay on the Creator’s Red Road. (Kenneth Cheung)

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About 310 dancers attended the powwow located 43 kilometres north of North Battleford near Cochin. Joseph-Cantre said seeing the young generation embrace their culture and find solace in the dancing, instead of using substances to escape, brings him joy.

“That means everything to me; I feel very proud to see that other people are getting back into their culture rather than having to go to alcohol and drugs,” he said.

Asanih Wapass, a teenage powwow dancer, said, “It helps distract me from family problems and everything.”

He described dancing as a coping mechanism since it allows him to engage in something positive with friends. He especially enjoys performing the Fancy Dance where he envisions the powwow grounds as a battlefield.

“We (dancers) are telling a story on the field. We are warriors, and our dances represent fighting in a war, so we need to imagine ourselves holding spears and arrows,” Wapass explained.

310 powwow dancers in vibrant regalia bounced to the rhythm of the drums. (Kenneth Cheung)

While participants traced their heritage with every step, Emery Assiniboine, a powwow dancer and prevention service worker said it’s a way for the new generations to reclaim their identity. However, she also believes that people need to understand being part of the Indigenous circle is a lifetime devotion.

“We started to enter the space of ‘it is cool to be Indigenous’ and we have many people claiming they have the ancestry, but I feel like it should be a way of life and not just something that we are checking a box off when we are applying for a job,” Assiniboine said.

For true reconciliation to occur, Assiniboine said society must understand that First Nations’ trauma spans generations, making the pain difficult to erase.

“We are just starting to enter the area of addressing mental health, and what has been done to our people over the past 150 years is not going to be done in one generation. When you see Indigenous people struggle with addiction, it goes beyond that person, and it goes to hundreds of ancestors coming behind them that have endured what Canada had imposed on them,” she explained.

The 2024 Saulteaux Powwow ran from Sept. 20 to Sept. 22. The three-day event also included an educational residential school talk in addition to drum performances and prizes.

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Kenneth.Cheung@pattisonmedia.com