Added on August 16, 2021 Sara Swanson

Passport event brings indigenous food, music, and knowledge to Manchester

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All Nations Dancers danced among the audience.

Saturday Manchester welcomed indigenous singers, musicians, dancers and a presenter to Wurster Park for the “Native American Settlements in Manchester,” fifth of the eight Passport to Manchester Events organized and hosted by Riverfolk Music and the Arts and the Manchester Area Historical Society.

While it was a sunny and cool day and the park made a pleasant space for the event, the location was a last-minute change. Originally the event had been scheduled to be held in River Bend Gardens, a private botanical garden in the Village of Manchester. Unfortunately, the severe storms that swept through the area Wednesday night and Thursday morning downing trees, blocking roads and knocking out power for many residents, damaged the gardens. Wayne Oliver, owner of the Gardens, explained that the storm knocked twenty trees down with 7 or 8 across the trail and that it would probably be late fall before they are cleaned up.

The mission of the Gardens is to restore Manchester's oak opening and preserve native species in their natural communities. When white settlers arrived in the early 1800s, much of our area was covered in oak openings, a park-like setting of grasses, wildflowers, and a few large task trees, maintained by annual fires. Almost all of the oak openings in Michigan were converted to Agriculture and lost. Unfortunately, during this most recent storm, the gardens lost one of their 200-year old oaks, in addition to one lost during a storm in June. Those two, plus a third they lost earlier, made up 25% of the oak opening they are working to restore.

Silas Bialecki, a member of the Manchester Area Historical Society, gave a presentation on the remnants of pre-white Native American life in the Manchester Area. After a lifetime of interest, he has spent the last five years researching and assembling this information. He gave the disclaimer that everything he’s found so far has come from white sources and accounts.

After giving an historical overview of what we know about the earliest residents, including the one-time existence of a mound in Manchester Township, he talked about the tribes living here during first contact, the Beaver Wars of the 1600s and the Great Peace of Montreal, and then the treaties, breaking of treaties, and forced removal. He then talked about what physical remains today in trails, a trail tree, possibly two flint-napping hills, and names.

After Bialecki’s presentation, Shiloh Kiona Maples, an Anishinaabe community organizer and food justice advocate, talked about revitalizing Indigenous food systems. Maples, who holds a Masters of Social Work at U of M and has worked teaching native footways in Detroit for 10 years, is the first generation in her family to be raised by her parents in 100 years. She talked about the horror of residential schools and how her work is deep spiritual healing work for both her and her community.

In addition to talking about specific foods like Manoomin or wild rice, Maples talked about the connection between food, lunar phases and local environments and how the traditional Anishinaabe calendar reflects what needs to be done at that particular time. She asked attendees what climate change will mean to mean for this hyper-local geographic relationship to time.

Lastly, she talked about how indigenous knowledge can help everyone learn to live sustainably in this region, how ingenious people were the first practitioners of permaculture. When white settlers wrote about about “wilderness,” what they were seeing was lovingly protect and cultivated “food forests.” She talked about seed saving and the role saving seeds plays in cultural memory. She encouraged everyone who purchases seeds to buy them through Seed Savers, who go out of their way to keep the cultural information associated with the seeds the sell.

Lunch was prepared by Fresh Forage in conjunction with Maples and included native caught smoked trout from northern Michigan, wild rice, squash, green beans and corn with sumac-maple lemonade to drink.

After lunch, Spirits Rising a Detroit-based musical duo of singers and songwriters Alice Sun and Joe Reilly, who drawing on their Native American heritage (Powhatan and Cherokee respectively), include traditional indigenous musical elements as well as notes of jazz, folk, blues, hip-hop, and rock into their music. They were joined by musicians Gayelynn McKinney, Marion Hayden, Mark and Lesley-Anne Stone for a breathtaking performance.

Joining Spirits Rising were four members of the All Nations Dancers, a group of Anishinaabe dancers lead by award-winning professional and Pow Wow dancer Ray Cadotte. They danced Men’s Traditional, Women’s Traditional, Fancy Shawl, and Jingle styles.

If you missed this incredible experience, there is still time to purchase tickets to one or more of the three upcoming Passport to Manchester events on August 25th, September 11th, and September 25th. Visit riverfolkmusicandarts.org for more information.