The Saratoga Native American Festival – Friendly Nations Convene at Spa – September 16
SARATOGA SPRINGS – We’re all tourists today.
Blessed tourists, I might add. Honored guests as well.
Guests that, several centuries later, felt the rush of gratitude for those people who kept their traditions alive – under, as we know, the extremest of extreme duress. Who remained willing to share. To invite all in.
They could have closed their society to outsiders long ago, and no one would have blamed them in the least.
Our society is stronger today because they did not.
This event was a bucket list item for me. Every year, something would come up: vacations, logistics, or something that prevented me from attending. From now on – nothing will. Enjoy the Gallery. -AG
GALLERY: SARATOGA’S NATIVE SONS + DAUGHTERS
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The Ndakinna Education Center and the National Museum of Dance hosted the Saratoga Native American Festival on Sunday, September 16. The festival began with a traditional Opening Address delivered in Mohawk and English by Tom Sakokwenionkwas Porter, a member of the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs and the spokesman and spiritual leader of the Mohawk community of Kanatsiohareke near Fonda, NY. Porter also gave a Closing Address at the end of the day.
Featured storytellers and musicians, including the Bruchac family, Kay Olan, Perry Ground, the Akwesasne Women singers, and others performed throughout the day between dance programs.
Numerous Native American artists and craftspeople (carefully selected by Jeanne Brink (Abenaki), the coordinator of our arts and crafts area), nearly all from the Native American nations of the northeast, will displayed and sold their own work at the festival.
The Ndakinna Education Center, an affiliate of the Greenfield Review Literary Center, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and charitable organization, based at the Marion F. Bowman Bruchac Memorial Nature Preserve in Greenfield Center, New York. The Center offers programs, performances, camps, field trips, and special events focusing on regional Native American understandings, Adirondack culture, martial arts, wilderness skills and awareness of the natural world. For more information: www.saratoganativefestival.com
Photos: Cathy Duffy
Arthur Gonick
September 19, 2018