Reuniting With Native Heritage - The Pow wow

Join Paul LaRoche in this profound personal story of discovery and cultural reconnection. In November 1993, a life-altering event occurred that led to a heartwarming reunion with his native Lakota family and created an irresistible pull towards Native America. The story recounts how, after growing up in mainstream America, being reunited with one's native roots manifests as an extraordinary journey, with rich culture, spiritual connections, and the vibrancy of the Native American way of life.

The episode narrates the compelling experience of attending Paul's first powwow in the summer of 1994, held in the mesmerizing powwow grounds of the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation. A cultural event unique in its spirit and design, the powwow presents a combination of community festival, family reunion, county fair, and church social. The powwow offers an extraordinary lens into Native American traditions, values, and the legacy of valor and service to the nation.

Despite being centuries old, the powwow finds a resonance with today's world, symbolizing a circle of celebration and reflection; a time to honor and welcome; a vessel carrying narratives of warriors, dances, earth, and buffalo. The episode reveals the transformative impact of this experience, leading to a dramatic shift in perception and understanding of Native America. Secretly harboring a wish to share this cultural wealth with the world, Paul's story continues.

This powerful narrative interlaced with the rhythm of Native American music provides a deeply moving account of an individual’s return to his native roots, his subsequent immersion in his people's culture, and his newly found perspective about the world.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Occasionally an event occurs of such significance that it forever changes the.
Way you perceive life itself, as though a veil has been lifted and the clarity
and purpose of your life become obvious.
In November of 1993, such an event occurred for my family and I.
I was one of the Native American children adopted at birth and removed from

(00:23):
the reservation system.
As fate would have it, I was raised by a wonderful family and grew up in southwest Minnesota.
I lost both adoptive parents in 1987.
It was then that my wife, Kathy, discovered my adoption papers that had been hidden for years.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1993, I was reunited with my biological Lakota family.

(00:49):
Neither of us had known the other had existed all those years.
So began our incredible journey back into Native America.
This is our story.
We're standing atop the powwow grounds in Lower Brule, South Dakota.
When we first returned home in 1993, we were brought and invited to the first

(01:13):
annual powwow, our first powwow, in the summer of 1994.
It was a day much like this when we had our first lesson and first began to
learn about the social event, the gathering that's known as the powwow.
I attended my first powwow the summer of 1994.
The setting was beautiful, the powwow grounds of the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation, our new home.

(01:36):
For someone who had grown up in mainstream America, this event was full of beauty and culture.
Yet at the heart of the gathering, there was something deeper,
something just out of reach of my limited vocabulary.
In trying to describe the powwow to friends and family, I found myself coming
up short in describing what I was feeling inside.

(01:59):
As the years would go by, I would find that it was music itself,
without lyrics, that would best communicate the powerful spiritual feelings
that overwhelmed us that summer.
To this day, I can find no equal to the powwow in mainstream America.
It was part community festival, family reunion, county fair,
and church social, all rolled up into one event.

(02:23):
It brought out the entire community, including children, parents,
grandparents, and elders.
Children and elders danced freely and proud for the better share of three days and three nights.
The event was open to the public, but yet there was only a handful of spectators from the outside world.
It soon became a goal of mine to bring the powwow off the reservation in an

(02:46):
effort to share this beautiful cultural event with the world.
The flag song is paying respects to the flag itself.
Every powwow begins with a grand entry, when all dancers are seen for the first time.
The thing that really struck me that afternoon was the roll of the flags.

(03:07):
Still early in my assimilation process, I was curious about the order in which
the flags entered the powwow arbor. The American flag stood tall in the center
of the arbor even before the procession started.
The eagle feather staff carried in by the veterans was first,
then followed by the state flag and finally the tribal flag.

(03:29):
I asked one of the elders about this and his response caught me off guard.
He said, even though we, meaning Native America, are now the smallest minority
in this great country, we still have per capita the highest number of men and
women that enter the armed services every year.

(03:50):
His words hit me hard. That afternoon, I began to reevaluate all that I had
been taught as a young boy in learning about the American Indian.
Before the year was done, I had gone through a total paradigm shift.
My perception of Native America had now shifted 180 degrees from what I was
taught as a young boy in the mainstream.

(04:10):
I'm Sergeant Joseph Ducheneau.
I'm a veteran, a Memphis veteran here.
We do the grand entries for the powwow every year, and I still serve with the
South Dakota National Guard.
So I kind of represent Native American veterans. I also represent the state
of South Dakota when I'm doing this.

(04:32):
Music.
There is a feeling one gets when dancing. When your heart and the drumbeat are
the same, you are connected to the earth.

(04:55):
You are connected to all things.
The powwow is a circle of celebration, a way to welcome and honor others,
a time to reflect and bond.
Music.

(05:26):
They say in the long ago time that the stories were told through our dances.
When the warriors came back from battle, they would tell the story through their dances.
They say when a dancer would look to the ground, they say maybe he's looking
for the tracks of the enemy or for the tracks of the buffalo.
Or they say he looked to the sky for the eagle.
And then powwow changed. It became intertribal. Dancers from all nations started

(05:50):
dancing all these different styles of dances that are done in the modern day.
How I was done in celebration of life celebration of this mother earth that we walk upon,
Native Americans and there are
different feelings for you different for me from Europe when I was a girl I

(06:13):
had to all their brother and parents bought him books about Indians too.
Romantism, spirituality, rave of,
Native Americans was for me very interesting and for me it was feeling about

(06:37):
something great, something unknown for me.
Music.
Hi, my name is Miles Luck. I'm Canadian from Toronto, Ontario.
Coming over this ridge here, I realized this beautiful view here. I can't believe it.

(07:02):
But then I also noticed some festival going on down there, some Indian tents and that stuff.
And I thought, and I just checked to some of the locals here and they told me
it's an Indian powwow going on.
I've seen I've seen them on TV, but I've never been to one myself personally,
so with the advice of some of the people here, I'm going to go down and check it out myself.

(07:25):
Music.

(09:00):
When your heart and the drumbeat are the same, you are connected to the earth.
You are connected to all things.
The powwow is a circle of celebration, a way to welcome and honor others,
a time to reflect and bond as a family, community and tribe.

(09:23):
Music.