Under the baobab: Remembering Native advocate and teacher Richie Plass

Powakoney joined the ancestors last week. His name means, “one who changes his feathers.” He was Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee and grew up on the Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. Those who have attended our local pow-wow, The New Faces of an Ancient People, at any time in the last two decades knew him as Richie Plass. Along with John and Victoria Sanchez, Richie helped facilitate those celebrations.

It is appropriate that Richie should join the ancestors during Native American Heritage Month. He was responsible for raising the consciousness of thousands of people about the important role that Native people have played in the history of this land.

Most of us think of November as the season of Thanksgiving. We are inundated with folkloric fables about the great feast that the Wampanoag people shared with the starving Pilgrims. We are not taught that the settlers robbed Wampanoag graves and stole food from them in order to survive during their first years in this strange land. We do not learn about the massacres of Native people that took place in subsequent years. Richie taught me that many Native peoples consider the third Thursday in November a day of mourning not celebration.

Richie was a drummer at the pow-wow and in a rock ’n’ roll group called the Flying Feathers Band. Primarily he was a teacher. He crisscrossed the country as the curator and organizer of “Bittersweet Winds,” a collection of Native symbolism, caricatures, and stereotypical representations of Native people in modern culture. He was a leader in the movement to eliminate the names of sports teams and other entities that were offensive to Native people.

Jo and I became very close with Richie, his wife Lily and Mama Nel. When they visited State College for the pow-wow they often stayed at our house. Victoria taught Jo to make pretty good fry bread. Lily gifted me with a magnificent ribbon shirt that celebrated my Choctaw ancestors. I wore it when, as a vet, I was honored to be part of the color guard.

In June 2010 Richie invited us to join him and others on the “Ateqnohkew Pemohneaw,” which translates to “a walk that tells a sacred story.” It was a six-day, 75-mile pilgrimage that re-traced the route the Menominee were forced to march in 1854. They went from their original homeland to a 432 square mile reservation along the Wolf River. They were “driven” during the winter, much like the Cherokee, on their own Trail of Tears. And like the Cherokee, over a third died on the winter trek. Richie wanted us to video witness the journey. Several hundred people made the sacred walk. Our lives were changed by many spiritual and profound experiences.

I told Richie it occurred to me that one of the proud heritages of my African American people had another side. My ancestors had not come voluntarily like the Pilgrims. They came chained in the putrid hulls of slave ships. Over the years, they fought for freedom and struggled for the rights of full citizenship. Along the way many joined with the native residents but many more threw in with the European imperialists. The Buffalo Soldiers were a legendary group of warriors in the US Army. They were part of the charge up San Juan Hill with Theodore Roosevelt during the Spanish American War. However, during the 19th century they were used to subjugate and annihilate Native peoples, particularly in the South West. Our freedom, our citizenship came in part through our cooperation in the subjugation of another people.

Richie, my brother, gave me a big hug.

It didn’t mean I was forgiven.

It did mean I was welcome to our home, brother.