The Hungry Cyclist: Pedalling The Americas In Search Of The Perfect Meal. Tom Davies Kevill
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metal pots which hung above small fires filling the warm evening air with tidy plumes of smoke. I had to try and ignore the shiny chrome bumpers on the pick-up trucks, the unnatural forms of garish nylon tents, the baseball caps and the jeans, but looking out it was a scene from a childhood dream. I was looking at a real Indian camp and I was relieved that the fires being carefully tended and loaded with chopped wood were not puckering up captives. Instead they were heating cauldrons of bubbling chillied beef and wild rice.
Wild rice, also known as manoomin, which translates as the ‘good berry’ in Ojibwa, has played a major role in the lives of Ojibwa people for thousands of years. According to Ojibwa oral tradition, they were instructed to find the place where ‘the food grows on the water’ during their long migration from the east coast. This led them to the shores of the Great Lakes, where flowing fields of manoomin were found in abundance. Seen as a gift from the Creator, manoomin became a healthy staple in the Ojibwa diet. When harvested correctly, wild rice could be stored for long periods of time to be available when other foods were not. Besides being basic to the traditional diet, manoomin also developed cultural and spiritual resonance and remains an important element in many feasts and ceremonies today.
‘The Sagamok Ojibwa tribal council welcomes all nations to the annual traditional pow-wow. Please join us for the opening feast. The grand entry will begin at seven,’ screeched an announcement through the unsophisticated tannoy system. This triggered a scramble as people poured out of tents and rushed towards the small fires of the makeshift kitchen. Trestle tables laden with food were attacked by a growing swarm of women and children helping themselves to the food on offer. Paper plates were piled high with wild rice and deep ladles of steaming chilli on top of a golden hunk of Indian taco, a skillet-fried flat bread which was a staple among many of the Great Lakes tribes and given the name bannock bread by Scottish fur traders. It wasn’t the feast of plump beaver’s tail and boiling moose nose I had been hoping for, but I was hungry, I was happy and I was excited to be here at my first Native American pow-wow.
In the jargon-filled world of my previous existence in advertising, a pow-wow was an informal term for another dreary meeting, but its origins are deeply rooted in the Native American culture. Deriving from the Algonquin term ‘pau-wau’, which referred to a gathering of medicine men and spiritual leaders, it was anglicised to ‘pow-wow’ by the first European settlers. However, for the numerous plains tribes of North America and Canada, the Blackfoot, the Sioux, the Cheyenne and the Ojibwa, pow-wows were an important opportunity to gather together, trade, dance, celebrate and continue their culture, and eat.
Today the pow-wow circuit is in good shape and throughout the summer months traditional and competition pow-wows are held all over the continent. Competition pow-wows provide an opportunity for dancers, drummers and singers to perform for prestigious awards and big prize money. But the pow-wow circuit has not always been so healthy. Unsatisfied that starvation, land clearance and the introduction of western epidemics such as smallpox had done enough to decimate the indigenous tribes of the Americas, the invading white man, in all his wisdom, decided to prohibit the gathering of more than five native men in any one place at any one time. Afraid that any such meeting would lead to some kind of uprising, the American and Canadian governments imposed the Potlatch Laws of 1851 and 1857, which all but ended the traditional ceremonies that were vital to the survival of Native American culture, and saw the beginning of a generation of cultural prohibition. Clandestine pow-wows still took place but it wasn’t until 1934 in the USA and 1951 in Canada that the respective governments were satisfied that Native American culture had been sufficiently weakened to no longer be a threat, and the Potlatch Laws were repealed.
I perched on a comfortable log on the edge of the arena, happily digesting my wild rice, chilli and Indian taco, as the dull thud of a large drum resonated in the air. The master of ceremonies announced the opening of the pow-wow across the tannoy system that crackled and squeaked from huge conical speakers hung in the trees. It was time for the ‘grand entry’, and the group of men seated around the large circular drum in the centre of the arena began to accompany the melodic beat with ululating tribal wailing.
The eerie noise grew in intensity, filling the sacred ground, and the crowd of about a hundred men, women and children seated around the makeshift arena took to their feet. In the falling dusk an opening prayer of single syllables was offered in Ojibwa, and those not wearing eagle feathers were asked to remove their head gear. My malodorous Boston Red Sox baseball cap had to come off. A line of dancers entered the sacred circle, led by elders and veterans proudly bearing flags and staffs: the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack, the Canadian flag, signs of respect for Ojibwa braves who served their countries in Vietnam and the two world wars (where Canadian soldiers fought under the British flag). They were followed by the black, yellow, white and red inter-tribal Native flag, and then the mystical-looking eagle staffs adorned with feathers, eagle skulls and animal pelts, which represented a deeper allegiance, unknown to me.
Behind the elders came an energetic line of younger men dressed from head to toe in beads, pelts, buckskin and ornate displays of turkey fans and eagle feathers. They shook gourds and banged small drums. They shuffled forward, adding sporadic high kicks that threw dust into the air, while spinning deliriously in what looked like a pagan drug-induced haze. Dancers decorated in long grass dresses and fringes, which shook as if the wind was blowing through them, flowed behind, and every shell and every feather of the men’s traditional dress seemed to follow the leading beat of the drum that kept this mass of colour and energy moving.
Native women and children now entered the arena. Their turquoise tunics hung with leather thongs, shells and tin cones that rattled and jingled sweetly in time with their slow and graceful movements. They carried delicate fans of goose feathers that twisted and turned in their fingers as they moved around the arena, skipping lightly in their Ojibwa moccasins. The drum beat changed and new drum groups were introduced and new dances announced: the corn dance, the trot, the crow hop, the horse-stealing song and the round dance.
More and more people took to their feet, and the arena became a confusion of black turkey feathers, bear claws, eagle masks, black-and-white skunk pelts, beaver skins, immaculate woven headdresses and the natural earth colours painted on the faces. As darkness fell the moon rose out of the water of the great lake and the tribal drum was still being hit. My initial anxiety and my English inhibitions slowly evaporated with every beat. I took to my feet and I began to shuffle gently in a small circle, and as my confidence grew I began to spin. I turned faster and faster, the drum controlling my every move, and I swayed forwards and backwards, catching glimpses of other dancers and costumes that flashed out of the shadows and spurts of firelight. The primitive beat resonated and invaded my system and I spontaneously began to wail like a brave.
The singing, dancing and drumming continued. In the moonlight I walked back to my tent and, untroubled by the usual frenzy of mosquitoes, put my head back on my sleeping bag and enjoyed the cool breeze that washed through this sacred and ancient place. The distant melodic pounding of the central drum continued to swell into the night, but far from being a disturbance, it was as if I was listening to a deep and distant heartbeat, while the haunting wailing of the singers carried into the star-filled sky. No words, no apparent plan, just the natural calling of grown men transfixed, concentrated, and singing as one. Their feelings translated into one true sound that needed no words to describe the sentiments and insights being expressed. Beauty, pride, honour, bravery, respect and the tragedy of the mighty Ojibwa people. This strange, abstract, wordless noise that had so much more meaning, more depth than words could ever convey, lulled me and I slept.
In the morning the pow-wow would pack up. The magnificent wigwams would come down. The traditional costumes would be packed away and the arena dismantled. One hundred and fifty years ago the Ojibwa would have finished their harvest of wild rice and maple syrup and moved west towards the buffalo-filled plains of the Dakotas. In the morning I too would roll up my shiny wigwam, pack a bag of wild rice and begin my journey west towards the Dakotas, the Midwest and cowboy country.
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
Black Crow