5/9/2023 0 Comments We are still here traci sorellThe rows of shiny cones on the dresses make music as the jingle dancers move: “clink, clink, clink.” The girls “dance for the Creator, the ancestors, their families, and everyone’s health.” Watching her sister, cousins, and friend dance, River’s heart begins to open and conviction enters her soul. Thankfully, River’s friend says she will dance for her. Although River needs the ceremonial healing dance, she can’t do it. The fancy dancers “twirl and ribbons whirl,” while the “grass dancers sway and weave themselves around the circle,” but River can’t “feel the drum’s heartbeat,” and her “feet stay still.” The emcee calls for the jingle dress dancers to enter the arena. BAM”-and watches the elders enter the circle with flags and feathers. Dressed in her jingle dress and matching moccasins, she longs to join her family and friends in the Grand Entry procession. Powwow Day, a Native American social gathering, arrives, but River is still recovering from an unnamed illness and feels too weak to dance. In this contemporary story, an Indigenous tradition inspires hope in a young girl.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |