Teaching tradition: People's Center introduces students to time-honored ways during Native American Awareness Week
<p>Sean Calahan and Gage Fryberger, Polson third graders, admire the intricate bead work on display during a field trip to the People's Center Thursday during Native American Awareness Week.</p>
<p>Cathy Hamel</p>
<p>Connor Burke and Uriah Christiensen, St. Ignatius third graders, share strategy during an intense stick game at the People's Center Thursday during Native American Awareness Week festivities.</p>
PABLO — A visit to the People’s Center last week may have been a little overwhelming if you were not first given the proper introduction.
In one corner of the lawn, there were boys and girls lined up 50 yards apart. The right side howled like wolves as the left yipped like coyotes. Across the grounds, you could hear children screaming as they waved their arms in the air and ran — but don’t worry, that was the idea.
Both groups were playing Native American games, organized by Tribal fitness, as a part of a week-long cultural awareness event for area schoolchildren, grades 3 through 5.
There was a subtle white smoke rising from another far corner of the property where dry meat and fry bread were being prepared. Closer to the building, a group of students sat in the grass mesmerized by their soft-spoken story teller as he quizzed them on their Kootenai and shared ancient tales supported by the occasional strike of his hand drum. Around the corner, an intense round of stick game elicited cheers.
Tables lined the pavilion to the right of the People’s Center door. There, expert craftsmen and women shared their passion for intricate bead work with students. Further around the circular yard, students had the chance to make their own beaded masterpiece.
Inside, elders Francais Stanger and Cathy Hamel spoke to the classes about traditional elements in the Salish and Kootenai history. They showed artifacts and natural materials and gave the children instruction about their uses.
“They never had pots or pans until the trading posts came in,” Stanger said to the class. “Bear grease or deer grease was used for their long hair.”
Hamel passed around a cloth baby boot for the students to hold as she explained how the Kootenai people cared for their young children.
“They lined the cradle board with moss,” she said as she held up a birch bark cradle board from the 15-1600s. “They tied it with strings of sinew or buckskin.”
Next, Hamel shared a photograph of her father being carried in a buckskin cradle board as a child in Elmo.
“We want to help educate all of our kids on the culture, allow them to take something home with them, and just have a little fun,” People’s Center Education Director Marie Torosian said. “We have just had a great group of kids here all week long.”