UW-Madison American Indian students sponsor spring pow wow

“Pow-Wows are about celebrating culture and about having fun,” says David O’Connor, one of the organizers of the annual Spring Pow-Wow.

The event, held for around 30 years on the Madison campus, is organized by Wunk Sheek, a student organization of Native peoples. This year it will take place on Saturday, April 2, at the Kohl Center’s Nicholas Johnson Pavilion.

Performers at the 2005 Pow-Wow will include an Oneida color guard, six drumming groups and dancers from various Native tribes in Wisconsin. Grand entries will take place at 1 and 7 p.m. A free public feast, with buffalo stew, baked walleye, wild rice and fry bread, will begin at 5 p.m.

According to O’Connor, a member of Wisconsin’s Bad River Anishinabe (Ojibwe) nation and a senior majoring in history and American Indian studies at UW–Madison, the Pow Wow also is about respecting elders and ancestors as well as about culture and tradition. Indeed, his father, Thomas O’Connor, a United States Army veteran, will be the emcee of the Pow-Wow.

“That makes this Pow-Wow especially meaningful for me – it’s very important to ay respect to our veterans and elders and to learn about our culture from them,” David O’Connor says. “Elders teach us about our past and about who we are.”

For more information about this year’s Wunk Sheek (Ho-Chunk for “the people”) Pow Wow, contact O’Connor at djoconnor@wisc.edu.