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Shoshone-Bannock Glad to Be Back—‘It’s Been a Long Time Coming’
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Thursday, September 6, 2018
 

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

A loud wail resounded over the pounding of drums.

Young men wearing feather bustles and brightly beaded dress with colored fringe rocked back and forth as they danced across the ground in time to the drum beats.

Occasionally, they stooped low to the grass, the bells wrapped around their legs shaking as they made their move. Then they’d twirl around, the fringe on their buckskin leggings waving like grass in the wind.

The young men were among 15 members of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes that had come to Ketchum to take part in this past week’s Wagon Days.

 It was the first time tribal members have participated in the celebration of Ketchum’s heritage since the event was first organized in 1958. And their hour-long exhibition drew a few hundred people to Festival Meadow along Sun Valley Road on Saturday morning.

“And we’re delighted to have them,” said Ketchum Mayor Neil Bradshaw.

“It’s been a long time coming,” added Derrick Shay, a former tribal council member and director of cultural preservation for the tribe. “We have always been here, but we’ve been invisible. We thought that maybe it’s time to introduce ourselves publicly. So we’re here. And maybe next year we’ll have an even bigger representation.”

All those who took part, Shay said, were descendents of Shoshoni and Bannock tribes who came through the Wood River Valley in summer. The Lemhi-Shoshone trailed down an Indian path that is now Trail Creek Road enroute from the Salmon area. Others came up from what currently constitutes Fort Hall Reservation near Pocatello to harvest camas and medicinal plants on their way to fishing grounds along the Salmon River.

“Some of the beaded items we wear today were handed down from our ancestors,” Shay said.

The dancers opened with a grand entry, which serves as a warm-up and an opportunity for audiences to see who is dancing.

It was followed by a prayer said in Shoshoni.

“We use smoke with our prayer as we’re addressing the Creator and an unseen world and an unseen world,” Shay said. “We can, for instance, look at a tree, but its roots are in the unseen world.”

Women—considered the backbone of the tribe since they teach the rules—followed the men, wearing dresses made of tanned buckskin and different colored cloths. A couple carried beaded purses, and one carried an eagle feather, as did one of the men.

By law only Native Americans are allowed to possess eagle feathers, which are very important to their traditional spiritual and cultural practices.

The eagle is the most revered bird in the Shoshone-Bannock culture.

“The eagle can fly the highest of all any bird,” said Shay. “The eagle travels to places no one else has access. So, when we say our prayers, he carries them up to the Creator. He can reach the Creator.”

A white buffalo, also special to the Native American culture, grazed in the grass nearby as the dancers danced.

“The white buffalo is a special animal in our culture,” said Shay. “Every once in awhile, one comes along…it comes out of brown buffalo.”

The five-member Ghost Canyon drum group from Fort Hall that accompanied the dancers featured an award-winning Native American singer who had won top honors in Native American equivalent of the Grammys.

Their songs included an honor song giving honor to all things.

“These songs weren’t made up yesterday. They have been suing for centuries. They may have been sung  in this valley before,” Shay told the crowd.

In the same vein, the Shoshone-Bannock visitors expressed their reverence for Mother Earth.

“Our people come from the earth and they get buried in the earth. That’s why it’s important for us to take care of the land—because we’re walking on our people,” Shay said.

“A lot of you live here because of the beauty of the land,” he added. “But the land means more to us than its beauty. We didn’t come through here because we had a vacation. We came out of necessity—to harvest camas bulbs, to fish salmon runs.”

The Shoshone-Bannock tribes have 5,681 enrolled tribal members, the majority of whom live on or near the reservation established near Fort Hall, a trading post near Pocatello that was established for wagons trains head west. Others live in Oklahoma, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Montana.

Many in the crowd accepted an invitation to dance with the visitors as the exhibition neared its end. When it was over, little children rushed to trade high fives with the Indians while adults contorted themselves trying to get the perfect pictures with their iPhones.

While the dance gave the Native Americans a chance to educate non-Indians about their culture, it also gave them the chance to make a statement.

Some of the tribes’ claims to their ancestral lands have been called into question since the treaties were established in the mid-1800s, Shay said.

“We’re trying to get back to all the areas our ancestors inhabited--to say, ‘We were here,’ ” he said. “By taking part in this event we’re telling others, ‘We were here.’ ”

WANT TO SEE MORE?

  • The Shoshone-Bannock participate every year in Fairfield’s Camas Lily Day, which is usually held the first weekend in June. While there, many of the Native Americans harvest camas bulbs on the nearby Camas Prairie, as their ancestors did in years past. The 2019 Camas Lily Day will be held in early June
  • The Shoshone-Bannock tribes also hold a Festival and Powwow the second weekend of August at the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Fort Hall near Pocatello. Considered one of the top powwows in the nation, it features Native American dancing, singing, arts and crafts, a parade and an exciting Indian bareback relay, during which riders must dismount without losing control of their horses.

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