WAYNE TOWNSHIP – The United Eastern Lenape Nation has plenty of reasons to gather.
The UELN Honoring Our Ancestors Powwow at The Ashtabula County Antique Engine Club during the weekend of June 19-21 was the venue where prayers were offered, family was celebrated, old friends reunited and members of the community were educated.
“It’s a yearly thing,” UELN Honoring Our Ancestors Powwow Coordinator Cheryl Wolf Healing Mother said. “It’s very important for us because our powwow is a spiritual powwow. It’s not a competition. It is important for us to be able to share our culture with the general public.”
The 22nd annual powwow opened with the lighting of the sacred fire.
“It’s sacred,” Cheryl Wolf Healing Mother said. “It makes our fire sacred. Fire is part of Mother Earth and it’s the start of our powwow. We keep it going for three days. If that goes out, then powwow is over. We keep it going day and night. We have warriors that stay up all night and keep our fire going.”
Dancers offered prayers while making their way around the sacred circle.
“We consider dancing as a prayer,” Cheryl Wolf Healing Mother said. “This is a sacred circle, so every time we’re going around, we’re doing a prayer as we’re dancing. That prayer is to Creator, God, whatever you want to call him.”
“We are one with Mother Nature, with Creator,” Cheryl Wolf Healing Mother continued. “Creator created this earth. We have to give him thanks and our way of thanking him is giving him prayers. We send our prayers up with the smoke to him.”
Members of the United Eastern Lenape Nation offered information about the tribe and were available to answer questions.
“We get to show our ways to other people and show that we’re not we’re not bad people,” Cheryl Wolf Healing Mother said. “This is something that’s been done for many centuries.”
“That’s how we share,” Cheryl Wolf Healing Mother continued. “Come and ask us and we can give you our history.”
Passing on information about the tribe and its history is important to the UELN.
“We’re a teaching nation,” UELN Chief Quiet Wolf said. “We’re out here to teach. Especially, in Ohio, it’s bad because people in Ohio said there are no natives in Ohio. We’re here to say, ‘Yes, we’re here. We’ve been here, we’re going to stay here,’ especially the Lenape and the Delaware people.”
“People are very curious and that’s why we’re here,” Quiet Wolf continued. “The stuff they’ve taught them in school, that’s a fallacy.”
The UELN also takes strides to pass its knowledge to the children of the tribe.
The powwow also featured food and craft vendors.
“A powwow is a gathering of our people so that we can share time together and we can share our crafts with each other,” Cheryl Wolf Healing Mother said.
“It’s important enough we’re teaching our youth everything,” Quiet Wolf said. “Next week, we have a weeklong kids’ camp to learn our culture, our drumming, our songs, right down to tracking. They’ll be tanning deerhides. We don’t want to take away from today, but you’ve got to remember the ones that have went before us and the knowledge they had.”
Cheryl Wolf Healing Mother was grateful for the people who helped plan the event as well as the community members who attended.
“I want to thank all of my crew that have helped me put this on because if it wasn’t for our nation and all of our people in our nation, we couldn’t do this,” Cheryl Wolf Healing Mother said. “We have to work together to get it done. I want to thank everybody that helped us and everybody that donated to us, everybody that has come out here.”
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