At summertime social powwows and spiritual ceremonies throughout the Upper Midwest, Native Americans are gathering around singers seated at big, resonant drums to dance, celebrate and connect with their ancestral culture.
“I grew up singing my entire life, and I was always taught that dewe’igan is the heartbeat of our people,” said Jakob Wilson, 19, using the Ojibwe term for drum that’s rooted in the words for heart and sound. “The absolute power and feeling that comes off of the drum and the singers around it is incredible.”
Wilson has led the drum group at Hinckley-Finlayson High School. In 2023, Wilson’s senior year, they were invited to drum and sing at graduation. But this year, when his younger sister Kaiya graduated, the school board barred them from performing at the ceremony, creating dismay across Native communities far beyond this tiny town where cornfields give way to northern Minnesota’s birch and fir forests.
“It kind of shuts us down, makes us step back instead of going forward. It was hurtful,” said Lesley Shabaiash. She was participating in the weekly drum and dance session at the Minneapolis American Indian Center a few weeks after attending protests in Hinckley.
If there was a Christian performance at the ceremony, but a Satanic performance was not allowed, I would be upset. But, there are no performances related to religion or culture and this is not about Native American discrimination.
This isn’t strictly about religion. It has deeper cultural meaning that whites demanding attention from their sky daddy. This is closer to disallowing a turban over a “no head covering” policy. Similar to another case where a Maori kid wasn’t allowed a Haka at their graduation. I think that one happened in LA and it’s still at the complaints-before-the-lawsuit stage.
I’d like to see zero culture and religion in schools. No crosses, no head scarves. It’s done if you want to do it off school grounds.
But what if cloud daddy gets mad because your kid showed their hair to the sky?? Or what if someone finds out you didn’t ritually mutilate the genitals of your male children??? It could be embarrassing.
On the flip side, culture is something children are specifically in school to learn. I remember one year of high school we had a month where absolutely no bread was allowed on campus because someone bullied a Jewish kid, so we ALL had to be punished. Yknow. Like the nazis punished the jews. We kinda made laws about that, but since kids don’t have rights at school, fuck the rest of us I guess.
I don’t get to bring a severed goat head to school so no one gets anything. Period. Hail Satan.
