When Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden wanted to write a land acknowledgement they reached out to Brad Brown, a citizen of the Pamunkey Indian Tribe. Brown, who directs the Indigenous film festival each November in Richmond, gave them a candid answer.
"We really don’t care about land acknowledgement," Brown said bluntly. "We know this land used to be Indian land and it was stolen from us. So, we don’t need a piece of paper that tells us that. There’s things you can do that would really help the Indian Tribes and Indian people here in Virginia."
So, the Kennanee Native Arts Festival was created with the Garden and the Native Arts Alliance. Kennanee is the Algonquin word for friendship.
Tribes spent the day occupying the gardens and introducing non-Natives to modern Indigenous people. There were new twists on Native art, hip hop and blues and an exhibition game of the ancient sport called shinny.
"Stickball games among Native people started up around the Great Lakes, upstate New York and Canada. They play a lot of lacrosse up there," T.J. Tupponce with the Upper Mattaponi Tribe explained. "As you move away from there, the game changes just as the people change culturally and their languages change. So, shinny, which is what we play here in Virginia, it’s more like field hockey with all the physicality put back in the game."
Pamunkey citizen and artist Erick Krigsvold helped kids silk screen, on a souvenir canvas bag, a festival design he created.
"Our generation is living out loud because other generations couldn’t because of things like the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. They weren’t allowed to express their Native identity. And that’s what we’re doing here," Krigsvold said.
Before the day was done, participants were already talking about next year.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.