Welcome to the Red Earth Descendants Website

January 6, 2010

Greetings R.E.D. Community,

We are writing this upon our return from a road trip up to the Colville Reservation in northeastern Washington. Red Earth Descendants and Natives of One Wind Indigenous Alliance (NOWIA) agreed to help sponsor Whistling Elk Drum group to travel and represent our community December 31 through January 3 at a New Years Pow Wow on the Colville Reservation.

Whistling Elk was invited to attend this Gathering some months ago as we have made relations with some of the Colville people through their visits down in our region, and they wanted to share their hospitality, inviting our Drum to attend their family New Year's Pow Wow. Seeing this as an honor and a wonderful opportunity for our intertribal Drum, we started looking for a way to make this trip a possibility. Thanks to the sponsorship of R.E.D., Natives of One Wind Indigenous Alliance, the Native American Student Union (NASU) of SOU and private donations, we were able to rent a van and send twelve people to the northeastern corner of Washington state this past week, many of them young people who had the rare and poignant experience of being guests on this reservation.

The experience was a cultural exchange that has had a significant impact on our Drum members. Our group was able to see, firsthand, the truly traditional way Native people extend their hospitality to guests. Whistling Elk was the honored guest group, and we were treated with such respect and open arms that it made the 30 hour van ride worth every second! Whistling Elk Drum also honored the Colville People by singing from their hearts for two days. Several of our members brought their dance regalia and participated in the Pow Wow as dancers as well as singers. One of our young ladies "came out" jingle dancing up there (meaning, she danced in her jingle dance regalia for the first time), which is a special Ceremony that honors the people witnessing it, as well as the young lady who has the prayer and commitment to dance for her People. She and her family sponsored a Giveaway as part of her coming out, and we shared that experience at this Pow Wow. The Colville People at this Gathering were the recipients of our Giveaway to honor this ceremonial coming out as a dancer.

The cultural experience this trip allowed the people of Whistling Elk Drum was incredibly special and rich. These young people will remember their trip to Washington all their lives, along with the things learned and shared. The members of Whistling Elk Drum were able to practice the old, traditional way of traveling to a new place with their hearts and prayers, bringing their gift of song and dance to offer other indigenous people. They were received in that old, traditional way of Native hospitality and respect. The core values this experience gives our group is immeasurable and precious.

As we celebrated the New Year at this Pow Wow in Washington, we also celebrated our core commitments to health, sobriety, generosity and always giving to the People.

As always, we thank our R.E.D. community for supporting this journey. Whistling Elk Drum spent many seasons supporting R.E.D.--financially and spiritually--in the beginning years, and it was an honor to allow this beautiful reciprocity of "giving back" to the Drum to make this trip possible.

Migwech,

Whistling Elk Drum

P.S. We took lots of video on this trip and hope to have some of it up on this site soon!

R.E.D. collaborates on an ongoing basis with the Native American Student Union (NASU) at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon. NASU hosts a "Welcome Back" Tribal Gathering and Pow Wow the week before Thanksgiving each year, in which R.E.D. has participated the last few years. This year R.E.D. hosted a Giveaway to local Tribes, Elders and Community leaders who reach out in the community to share traditions, teachings, stories and skills. We gifted members of the Klamath, Karuk, Hupa, Yurok, Warm Springs, Siletz and Takelma Peoples. We also gifted members of the SOU Native community, honoring Professors David West and Brent Florendo, along with Brent's student Drum. Our Giveaway theme included preserved food from our R.E.D. Community Garden Harvest.

R.E.D. collaborates also with Unete, who hosted the second annual "Corn Festival" at this year's NASU Tribal Gathering, honoring South American corn traditions and the importance of corn as a sacred food. R.E.D. and Unete form a non-profit entity, "Natives of One Wind Indigenous Alliance."

Other joint activities with NASU include the Stickball Games (Shinny) hosted most Sundays at 1 p.m. in Lithia Park, as well as helping to support the Annual Spring Pow Wow in April of each year.