Youth group’s dance troupe preserves Nanticoke traditions
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A UMNS photo by James Melchiorre The Stix Chix dance troupe performs at the Nanticoke Indian Center, Harbeson, Del.
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The
Stix Chix dance troupe performs at the Nanticoke Indian Center near
Harbeson, Del. The idea for the troupe grew out of a youth group
activity at nearby Indian Mission United Methodist Church. Through the
performances, the dancers share the history and culture of the
Nanticoke, their Native American tribe whose history in what is now
Delaware dates back thousands of years. A UMNS photo by James
Melchiorre. Photo #06788. Accompanies UMNS story #431. 7/19/06 |
July 19, 2006
A UMNS Feature
By James Melchiorre*
On a sunny, breezy Sunday, Cory Jackson is dressed head to toe in black and white,
preparing to dance for an audience of 30 people at southern Delaware’s
Nanticoke Indian Center.
During the week, Jackson is a college student at the University of Delaware
in Newark.
On this, and many other weekends throughout the
year, she travels 90 miles south to her home community of Oak Orchard, to
perform with
a dance troupe
called “NDN Stix Chix.” The idea for the troupe grew out of a youth
group activity at Indian Mission United Methodist Church in nearby Harbeson,
Del.
“I like it because it’s Christian, which is a big part of me;
it’s Native American, which is the other huge part of me,” Jackson
says.
Jackson, whose tribal name is Nightingale, is Nanticoke, a member of a Native
American tribe whose history in what is now Delaware dates back thousands of
years.
The other members of NDN Stix Chix (NDN is slang for Indian) are also Nanticoke.
They are Kayleigh Vickers (Running Brook), 15; Carissa Miller (Little White
Dove), 16; Kryssy Johnson (Little Fawn), 15; and Brittany Carney (Dancing Fawn),
13. All of them look up to their college-age friend.
“Cory is like the brains of the bunch,” Carney says. “She’s
like our mom. She tells us what to do.”
Raggatha Calentine, an Indian Mission member who is Cherokee, proposed the
idea of forming the troupe, which celebrates Nanticoke cultural tradition.
“We thought it might be a good idea to start performing,” Vickers
recalls.
“In the last three years, we’ve gotten really close,” she
adds.
Jean “Princess Laughing Water” Norwood
has watched the evolution of Stix Chix with approval.
“These girls have become our leaders,” Norwood says. “They
have, in a few short years, really been able to go out and express themselves
in ways that 10, 20 years ago, our young people would have felt uncomfortable
doing.”
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A UMNS photo by James Melchiorre Kayleigh
Vickers (from left), Brittany Carney, Carissa Miller, Kryssy Johnson
and Cory Jackson are members of the Stix Chix dance troupe.
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Kayleigh
Vickers (from left), Brittany Carney, Carissa Miller, Kryssy Johnson
and Cory Jackson are members of the Stix Chix dance troupe. The idea for
the troupe grew out of a youth group activity at Indian Mission United
Methodist Church in Harbeson, Del. Through the performances, the dancers
share the history and culture of the Nanticoke, their Native American
tribe whose history in what is now Delaware dates back thousands of
years. A UMNS photo by James Melchiorre. Photo #067889. Accompanies UMNS
story #431. 7/19/06
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Norwood has a historical perspective that none
of the five young dancers could possibly share. She grew up in Oak Orchard
in the late
1940s, an era of racial
segregation laws in Delaware. Just as African Americans attended public schools
only with other black students, the Nanticoke went to what were called “Indian” schools.
“We were isolated from little children up,” Norwood remembers. “We
were trained to stay among our own people.”
Her childhood memories include going to a dime
store with her grandfather and having the freedom to walk about, to look
at merchandise,
without interference
from the clerk. “But if I went in there the next day with one of my friends,
she would follow us around because she thought we might steal something.”
As a Nanticoke elder, as well as director of historical
and cultural affairs for her tribe, Norwood says she’s encouraged by the Stix Chix, and she
wants Nanticoke youth to feel comfortable and to succeed in the larger society,
provided they don’t lose their cultural identity as Native people.
“You can never know where you’re going if you don’t know
where you came from,” Norwood says.
?We are still here’
Sunday morning services are ending at Indian Mission United Methodist, a congregation
established in 1881.
Surrounding the church on three sides are graves of generations of Nanticoke
Methodists, their tombstones just as likely to exhibit Native American symbols,
such as the feather, as they are to display the Christian cross.
A few miles down the road, at the Nanticoke Indian Center, the Stix Chix are
rehearsing for a noon program to observe Native American Ministries Sunday,
marked each year by United Methodist congregations.
The rehearsal seems a little desultory, the dancers still in street clothes
and moving through their parts half-heartedly.
Not to worry, according to Vickers. “When
we practice, we goof up, and act up, and mess up. But when we get out there
and perform,
we do our best.”
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A UMNS photo by James Melchiorre Through dance, the Stix Chix dancers tell the story of their Nanticoke Tribe.
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Through
the performances, the Stix Chix dancers share the history and culture
of the Nanticoke, their Native American tribe whose history in what is
now Delaware dates back thousands of years. The dance troupe grew out of
a youth group activity at Indian Mission United Methodist Church in
Haberson, Del. A UMNS photo by James Melchiorre. Photo #06790.
Accompanies UMNS story #431. 7/19/06
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Thirty minutes later, her prediction proves accurate.
The audience assembles, a single drum reverberates,
and the Stix Chix appear, dressed in a variety of Native clothing, from jingle
dresses to traditional
robes, and performing a variety of dance styles, including what’s known
as “fancy” dancing.
The girls perform three pieces, including one
they choreographed themselves that ends with the staccato sound of their “sticks” and the simple
declaration of Nanticoke determination to survive: “We are still here.
We will continue to be here.”
This Sunday afternoon program includes original
storytelling by Raggatha Calentine, a solo singing performance by Chief James “Tee” Norwood (Tidewater
Laughing Wolf), and music by Bo Harris, a Lakota. Harris first plays the woodwind
instrument called the “courting” flute, then begins a dance for
peace and healing, wearing a dress given to her by Michalene Bigman, a Native
American soldier serving her second tour of duty in Iraq.
In the final performance of the afternoon, Harris leads a circle dance which
is joined by almost every member of the audience, as well as the Stix Chix.
Saving history
Stix Chix emerged because of an effort by Nanticoke elders to reverse what
they believed was the steady disappearance of their tribal traditions. Perhaps
the most important single step they took was resuming annual gatherings, called
powwows, in the late 1970s.
“
For too many years, our people were told they’re not Indian,” Norwood
says.
The Nanticoke is not one of the 561 tribes recognized by the federal Bureau
of Indian Affairs, but its long history in southern Delaware is unquestioned.
“There is no doubt that there is a cultural tradition associated with
the Nanticoke going back thousands of years,” says Jay Custer, a professor
at the University of Delaware.
Or, as Norwood puts it: “We were here when
Captain John Smith came up the Nanticoke River.
“We’re very proud of our ancestors,” she says. “All
of our history so far has been written by someone else. I just think it’s
great that we’re doing it ourselves.”
A responsibility
Cory Jackson will soon begin her sophomore year at college. She loves all
kinds of dance and often visits friends near New York so she can see Broadway
plays.
She admits the dancer’s life appeals to
her. But for now, she expects to keep making the pilgrimage to Oak Orchard
to perform
with her lifelong friends
as a member of Stix Chix.
“It’s amazing to think that my great-great-great-great-grandfather
was on the same land, that they were actually here and they were living their
lives in the old traditional ways and yet we’re still here trying to
keep the ways,” Jackson says.
“It’s an amazing responsibility.”
*Melchiorre is a freelance producer based in New York City.
News media contact: Fran Coode Walsh, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5458 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.
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