Tommy Rooney Jr., 48, displays the regalia beadwork he's been preparing for Celebration in Juneau, planned for June 8-11. Rooney Jr. said he learned to bead from his mom, Virginia Oliver, when he was in his 30s. "She got me to start making a pillow I made for my dad. It came natural to me," he said.
For the first time in four years, Celebration, one of the largest gatherings of Southeast Alaska Native peoples to celebrate their culture, will be held in person in Juneau from June 8-11.
The gathering, sponsored by Sealaska Heritage, drew about 5,000 people pre-COVID, including more than 2,000 dancers. The Wrangell tribe will lead the way next week.
Every Celebration features a lead dance group and this year it will be Shx'at Kwáan (People Near the Mainland) of Wrangell, Sealaska Heritage spokesperson Kathy Dye said Friday.
"They were chosen in 2018 for Celebration 2020. But COVID curtailed that, so they are the lead dance group for Celebration 2022. They will be featured onstage during Grand Entrance and Grand Exit while all of the other dancers enter and exit," she said.
Tlingit Storyteller Virginia Oliver last Wednesday said about 60 people from Wrangell and Ketchikan, members of Naanyaa.aayí clan, are going to Juneau.
Sealaska Heritage posted a YouTube link https://bit.ly/3GEhz2z to the songs on its website. The theme this year is "Celebrating 10,000 Years of Cultural Survival."
Celebration was first held in 1982.
Oliver and Luella Knapp, speaker of the Naanyaa.aayí clan house, were elbows-deep last Wednesday in logistics at four tables pushed into a rectangle in the carving shed on Front Street. They were working on ferry bookings, headcounts, who was flying in and ferrying back, who was or wasn't going, and whose regalia among the children still needed finishing touches. Buttons, thread, felt and jars of beads covered the tables.
Oliver's son, 48-year-old Tommy Rooney Jr., showed the progress he had made on a headband he plans to wear.
Rooney Jr. last Thursday said he's looking forward to the in-person gathering. Celebration happens every other June, but the 2020 event was relegated to a virtual, streamed event.
Rooney Jr. said he learned to bead from his mom about 10 or 15 years ago, when he was in his 30s and started to have a renewed interest in his cultural heritage.
"She got me to start making a pillow I made for my dad. It came natural to me, it seems like," he said. Rooney Jr. said he begins with a blank piece of felt, envisions the design in his head and then beads from the center of his design, out - just like his mom taught him.
By Friday, he had added a stiff backing to the headband so the pattern stayed up, like a crown, and didn't fall back. All that remained was an elastic piece at the back to hold his regalia in place.
Prior to European contact, the peoples of the Northwest Coast held many traditional ceremonies with singing, dancing, formal oratory and feasting, according to Sealaska Heritage. As the economy of the region changed to one based on cash rather than trade and sharing, some Native traditions floundered.
"Dance, song, traditional oratory, and knowledge of clan protocol were in danger of being lost to history. Realizing this, Native elders created Celebration as a way to bring Native people together to showcase and preserve their traditions and customs," according to the Sealaska website.
Reader Comments(0)