American Indian culture honored at Busse Woods powwow

Busse Woods resounded with the beat of drums Sunday, as the Forest Preserve of Cook County and the American Indian Center of Chicago held their first Traditional Pow-Wow at the Busse Boating Center Grove #24.

Visitors — many bedecked in American Indian regalia — picked up the beat and danced in a circle formed by bales of hay that served as seats for the spectators.

The festival included not just singing and dancing, but archery, arts and crafts, and a display of American Indian architecture, including wigwams and longhouses.

Representatives from the forest preserve district were on hand to display animals in existence before European settlement.

Itasca resident Joe Podlasek, the executive director of the American Indian Center, said the forest preserve is a natural choice for this event.

“This is a very natural setting for us to do a powwow. It is a beautiful place. We’re woodlands people, so it fits. It works,” he said.

Podlasek, who comes from both an American Indian and a Polish background, said the event involved some “community learning” imparted from one generation to another, such as how build the longhouses, which are made of interwoven strips of wood. The forest preserve district staff helped gather the wood.

Traditionally, American Indians would dance to celebrate when warriors returned from hunting or from battle.

“Here, we’re dancing to be thankful for what we have,” Podlasek said.

Dances included the “fancy dance,” a fast dance of constant movement which Podlasek said “is really an aerobic dance. We call it the first aerobics.”

Linda Prucher of Chicago was among the spectators watching the dance.

“I was really excited to come to an Indian powwow. I tried to follow their footsteps, and it’s really amazing how it looks so easy when they do it and totally impossible when you try it,” she said.

Many of the participants were wearing regalia — a term preferable to “costume,” Podlasek said — such as the a jingle dress with rows of metal cones.

Others wore emblems of their culture on more traditional American garb.

Michael Mitsch of Elk Grove Village, former arts coordinator of the Trickster Gallery of American Indian Art in Schaumburg, wore a Hopi Kachina on his lapel.

Mitsch is enrolled in a Canadian tribe called the Metis, who were the first people to populate Quebec.

“This is where you see your friends. They call Indians the invisible people, but here we are,” Mitsch said.