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By
Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Staff
Writer
Saturday, August 11,
2007
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Cesar Villalobos, director of the music and
dance group Inca Son, which performs music
of Peru's Andes Mountains, drums for his
dancers.
A group of Native American
soldiers and
Marines
stationed at an air base near
Fallujah
in western
Iraq
in 2004 fashioned the drum, stretching the
tarp from a cot across the top of a
55-gallon barrel. They wanted to hold a
powwow in the middle of the war zone, and a
drum is an intrinsic part of the ceremony.
"We were missing our powwow,"
said Staff Sgt. Debra Mooney of the
Oklahoma-based
120th Engineer Battalion of the
Army National Guard,
recalling the ceremony outside Fallujah. "In
our hearts and minds, we were right at
home."
It was an unforgettable
night: "Usually, the faces of the soldiers
are serious, focused and look older than
they are," Mooney said. But that night,
"they looked like young men and women
again."
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The makeshift drum was at center stage at
Verizon Center
yesterday, where the third National Powwow is continuing
this weekend. On opening day, veterans of the Iraq and
Vietnam
wars, some in military uniform, marched to the beat of drums
as part of a tribute to the "fallen warriors" and to the
troops serving in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
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The National Powwow, which continues through Sunday,
is sponsored by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American
Indian. It is held every two years and is one of dozens held
throughout the country from spring to fall. The powwow season starts
in March and extends through next month in cities across the
country.
The National Powwow is the largest Native American
event in the region, organizers said. The goals are cultural and
educational, said Leonda Levchuk, a museum spokeswoman.
For the powwow, the Verizon Center convention floor was transformed
by the presence of Native Americans from about 250 tribes. One
thousand dancers, many dressed in fringed deerskin dresses and
feather hats, performed a variety of dances throughout the day.
(More).
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