Honoring sacred ground: Intertribal powwow celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day on Santa Fe Plaza

Oct. 9—SANTA FE — Patricia Anne Davis, who is of Choctaw and Diné (Navajo) lineage, was at the Santa Fe Plaza to perform traditional dances and "to heal my heart, clear my mind and restore my spiritual identity."

Davis, 76, who lives in Belen, said she was a student at Santa Fe's St. Catherine Indian School, a boarding school, when she was 12- to 14-years-old.

"A nun had me in a corner, shaking her finger at me and saying 'Your language and culture and ceremonies are witchcraft. Don't be Indian. Don't dress Indian. Don't go to ceremonies.' Those nuns gave me a life-long resolve to live my spirituality. That's why I wanted to dance on this ground."

Davis was among scores of native peoples from throughout New Mexico, the country and even South America who took part Monday in the first-ever intertribal powwow on the Santa Fe Plaza.

Presented by the Santa Fe Indigenous Center, the powwow was performed in recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day.

An Indigenous Peoples Day program also took place at Tiguex Park in Albuquerque.

Caren Gala, director of the Santa Fe Indigenous Center, said the Santa Fe powwow was organized in 2 1/2 months after learning the plaza would be available for an Indigenous Peoples Day celebration.

"We thought 'Let's have a powwow,'" said Gala, Laguna/Taos/Nambé pueblos. "We wanted to bring culture back to the plaza, the culture of Indigenous people who live here, are from here and have moved here."

Deer hooves, bear ribs

Hundreds of people packed the Santa Fe Plaza on Monday. Vendors offered jewelry, pottery, Native drums, fashion inspired by Indigenous culture, burritos and tamales.

Most people were concentrated around the portion of the plaza where American Indian performers chanted songs, drummed and performed gourd and other powwow dances.

"These are beautiful, old songs," master of ceremonies James Edwards, Pawnee, announced to the crowd. "These are dances 800, 900 years old."

Off to the side of the action, Myron Burger, 57, an alcohol and drug counselor at Santa Fe Indian School, was putting on his full-bear regalia in preparation for the grand entry and parade of nations.

On his mother's side, Burger is descended from the Shuswap Nation, Williams Lake Indian Band in British Columbia, Canada.

Burger's mother married an American, and Burger was born in Fort Madison, Iowa, and moved around this country as a Navy brat. His father was a Vietnam veteran of the submarine service and Burger, also a Navy veteran, served on subs during the Gulf War.

But he is very much in touch with his Shuswap culture, visits his First Nations relatives in Canada and performs traditional dances.

"It is good to be able to dance here," he said of the Santa Fe Plaza. "This is sacred land, the Pueblo people's land. It's beautiful. I want to honor this land."

He is putting on beautifully beaded deerskin gloves made by his Shuswap grandmother more than 60 years ago. Wrapped around both ankles are bands of deer-hoof rattles. He's wearing moose hide and bear ribs.

He said his mother and her siblings were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. In 2021, the suspected graves of about 200 Indigenous children were found near the school.

Burger said he is from the first generation that did not attend residential schools, Canada's version of American Indian boarding schools.

"I'm going to dance today for the kids who went to (Kamloops), especially those who died there and were not able to leave a legacy," Burger said.

Still dancing

Davis refused to allow her Indigenous spirituality to be robbed from her. After two years at St. Catherine Indian School, she asked her mother to take her out. She graduated from Albuquerque's Highland High School and earned a bachelor's in developmental psychology from the University of Arizona.

She said her father was a "well-known and respected" Diné healer, and she herself worked for 20 years in health and human services at the Pueblo of Zuni Recovery Center and for the Navajo Nation in the health, education and natural resources divisions. She has been dancing the traditional dances for nearly 60 years.

And on Monday, resplendent in a red dress adorned with shells, she danced just miles from a school where she was told not to "dress Indian" or go to ceremonies.