Thanksgiving celebration highlights Aboriginal culture

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Aboriginal culture took centre stage in Toronto over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Wataybugaw: An Aboriginal Thanksgiving was a two-day outdoor festival featuring drummers, powwow dancers, musicians, Aboriginal foods, cooking demonstrations, and a marketplace. It was a family-friendly celebration that included make-and-take crafts and storytelling sessions for children.

Sponsored by Harbourfront Centre in partnership with the Toronto-based Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts (ANDPVA), Wataybugaw - which means "changing colors" in Ojibway - was intended to "bring back an Aboriginal presence to the waterfront," according to festival master of ceremonies Dennis Stark, an Ojibway/Potawatomi who has lived in Toronto for 18 years.

The Toronto waterfront was home to the Huron, the Iroquois, and the Mississaugas, who held the territory when Europeans first settled the city that was then called York. Although the Crown says it purchased land from the Mississaugas in 1787 and 1805, the boundary map and other specifics of the alleged purchase are under dispute. The Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation is currently pursuing a specific land claim to settle the matter.

"Harbourfront has been producing a Thanksgiving festival event for families for many years," said Marilyn Brewer, the former manager of community and educational programs at Harbourfront Centre (Brewer retired just prior to the festival). This year, "we felt a program that involved a focus on Native arts and traditions would be an interesting and educational project to present to a wide and divergent family audience." ANDPVA and Harbourfront split the programming budget down the middle, with Harbourfront picking up 100 per cent of staffing costs.

Wataybugaw was envisioned as a community celebration but also as a form of cultural immersion, so festival attendees were both Native and non-Native. Although originally from the United States, the Mayfield family has lived in Canada for many years, and is familiar with Native culture.

"We're Harbourfront regulars," said father Nash Mayfield as his daughters Marika, 10, Linnea, 8, and Alden, 4, inspected the tipi constructed by C & J George Tent Rentals of the Oneida Settlement near Southwold.

Festival visitor Heather Sinnett of Mississauga has attended the Six Nations powwow, but was thrilled with Wataybugaw.

"The crafts aren't just for kids," she said with a laugh. "I made myself a dreamcatcher!"

Visitors who lacked artistic skill could still take home some beautiful things. Art, crafts, and clothing were available from several vendors in the Harbourfront marketplace. According to Cree artist Joseph Sagaj, an Ontario College of Art graduate who designed the logo for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and was commissioned by Indian Affairs in Edmonton to create and paint a mural in Canada Place, business was "really good."

Although attendance was low on Sunday - the day most people celebrate their Thanksgiving meal - it picked up on Monday. Festival organizers estimated attendance for both days was between 1,500 and 2,000.

Large Thanksgiving meals didn't deter people from sampling Aboriginal foods at Wataybugaw.

Festival-goers enjoyed venison sausage, buffalo sausage, frybread, corn soup, and other delicacies in the food tent, prepared by vendors such as Joanie Antone from the Oneidas of the Thames First Nation - known to those on the powwow circuit as one-half of Rick & Joanie's food wagon.

The smell of Antone's famous frybread seemed to draw people from far and wide. Wallace Black Elk, the author of the 1990 book Black Elk: The Sacred Ways of a Lakota, was in Toronto to deliver a lecture and decided to drop by the festival. People were jostling for photos with the esteemed Elder and shaman, who hails from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.

The powwow drummers and dancers were also popular with attendees. When a large crowd gathered to take photos, smeone made a joke about each shot costing "five bucks." But the price proved much more affordable. "Hey, I'd do it for a bottle of water," said tired dancer Randy Smoke, from Alderville First Nation, who still had a smile for the crowd of festival visitors curious about his dance outfit, which featured a deer cape complete with head and antlers.

The Red Spirit Singers and Dancers, who opened and closed the festival on Monday, are used to all the attention. Not only did Red Spirit perform during the Catholic World Youth Day celebrations this summer, but they just returned from 10 days in South Korea, where they attended a song and dance festival. Red Spirit was joined by the Iroquois troupe Wahahi:io, and by the Eagleheart Singers, who did the closing ceremony on Sunday.

Innu singer Katia Rock and Ojibway singer Pam Schreiber also performed at Wataybugaw. The Quebec-based Rock's Sunday set was difficult to fully appreciate because the singer speaks only Innu and French, but translation was finally provided on Monday. The Sudbury-born Schreiber's rich alto voice, meanwhile, was well-matched to her melodic, folk-inspired tunes.

Schreiber, who was nominated for a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award in 2000 for her debut CD Language of the Heart, said she "appreciated the opportunity to share. That's what this festival is all about."