2011: Tom Louie reflects on earning his right to powwow

From a 2011 story at AA camp.

The late Tom Louie, Colville tribal elder:

The dancing is what we’re brought up with as a Native person. As years go by, I’m going to share a little story about myself.

When I was really young, right up the river there’s Barnaby Creek. Just beyond Barnaby Creek there’s a campground to the right. Above that campground’s where my grandma and grandpa lived.

The first time I went down to look at the powwow with my grandfather, we went on horseback. And I seen the dancers out there with their feathers on and all their pretty regalia and everything.  On the way home, I told my grandfather, “That’s what I want to do. I want to be a dancer, I want to be a part of that.

My grandpa said, “Alright, I’ll help you make your regalia.”

The summer come and the summer was going, but my grandfather never showed me anything. Until the snow come, and when the snow come and then I seen a set of sticks that he made. That he put down behind the stove.

For some reason, I knew that them sticks were mine. What I was supposed to do, I don’t know, but I knew that they were mine.

Then as time goes on, there was a bow put behind there, and then some arrows, and what not. The snow started going away, and the springtime come. Then my grandfather come to me and said, “You watch the land. And when the buttercups come and when the buttercups go; when the buttercups are all gone, then we’re start the training of how to become a wardancer. That was the longest spring of my life, because the buttercups never went away.

When I come back one day, he told me they were all gone.  And he said, you go on the north side of them hills, down in the little valleys, and then you look, and sure enough that that’s the last place the sun shines. And of course, there’s still these stupid buttercups.

Finally I come back and told my grandfather they were all gone. So my grandfather says, “Well, tomorrow let’s start the training.”

So the next morning, by that time I used to have to go to the creek every morning at 4 o’clock and go to the creek every night, and this was 365 days out of the year I had to go there to take a bath, clean myself.

As soon as you come back, you will start. Well, when I come back from the spring, I told my grandfather already. So take one of them sticks and you hand it to me. There’s a trail out there going up that hill. I want you to take this stick and go as far as you can go, and you put that stick in the ground and you holler, and you run around it, and come back.

For four days, I run around that stick every morning and every night. The fifth day, I told him I was all done with the four days. And then he grabbed another stick and handed it to me, and said now you get that you’ve run past that first stick as far as you can go, you go past that stick and on the way back you pick up that first stick and bring it back. Well that was my whole summer: relaying and picking up those sticks up that mountain. Run all summer, and I got to the top. And it was late fall when I got up there. And I told my parents that I made it; I made it to the top. And my grandfather says tonight when you get up there, you bring that last stick, and I’ll be up there waiting for you.

Well that night I run, I even forgot about dancing by that time, because my challenge was to get to the top of that hill; the top of that mountain. And if you ever go up that way, that’s not just a hill, that’s a mountain.

And that night when I got up there was the night that I seen my regalia laying there. So my grandfather helped me dress, get all dressed up and everything. And he had his hand drum. And that was my first time that I got to smoke a pipe; I got to smoke a pipe with my grandfather. And I thought that was a full-grown man.

And he picked up his drum and he said, when I start drumming, you start dancing on the top of that rock. He said you dance, until I quit drumming. So I started dancing. I had all this time to practice on my footwork, now it’s time to dance.

So when he started drumming, I started dancing. And when I started dancing, the sun was just going down. And when he quit drumming, the sun was just coming up on the other side. And when I got all done, we ran all out. But he said I earned the right to dance on any arbor, any floor. And today with this powwow and stuff. Kids don’t have to go through this anymore. They can go some place and they can buy a bustle, they can buy whatever they need. All of my stuff I have, my regalia, I didn’t bring it down, but all of my stuff was made, hand-made. Even my roach that I got. And that’s how I earned the right to powwow.