Michelle Newhouse, left, "smudges" Pat Selinger, director of the Native American Cultural Center, for a sacred ceremony near the Conemaugh Dam in Indiana County. "Smudging" is done by using a feather and smoke to purify a person entering the area where a ceremony is held. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)
Hundreds of American Indians and kindred spirits are gathering for a weekend powwow at what might seem an unlikely place: the Conemaugh Dam in Indiana County.
The pretty park there, an hour’s drive from downtown Pittsburgh, is the even more unlikely site of a Native American Cultural Center.
Sharing a brick 1950s duplex with the Army Corps of Engineers’ fish and wildlife offices, you’ll find this quirky center, which has been open to the public for two years now, though not many people know about it.
Not many people know there are American Indians in Western Pennsylvania, either, but the center and its powwow are aiming to change that, said Director Pat Selinger.
“The point of this room is to let you know we’re still here. We’re still alive. We have a future as well as a past,” Selinger said, as she led a tour into what once was a bedroom in the former park managers’ quarters. Now, it’s a gallery of paintings, drawings and other American Indian artwork. Across the hall is the Woodlands Room, which is filled with pelts, shells, skulls and other items that young visitors are encouraged to touch and which is slated to be decorated with a mural of the woodlands that area natives historically called home. The back room holds a library, with a modest but growing collection of books.
As Selinger put it: “This is a project in the works.”
She’s not only the center’s director but also “clan mother” of turtle clan of the Thunder Mountain Lenape Nation. That’s a group of seven families who trace themselves back to the Lenni Lenape, one of the tribes of this region that may be better known by the name white settlers gave them: the Delawares.
Speaking of unlikely: The 49-year-old Selinger is not what one might expect for a tribal matriarch, since she has no Indian blood. She’s actually a white native Pittsburgher, of Irish and German roots, who, because of her interest and involvement with American Indians, was “adopted” by a Lenape family in Ohio while still in her 20s.
Her continued involvement with the Thunder Mountain group, in particular, is what made her want to give the Lenape a more public face by opening a center of some kind.
The Saltsburg, Indiana County, resident found this space through a chance meeting with Corps of Engineers park Manager Dave Bishop, who agreed to rent it to the nonprofit group.
“The idea behind it was to provide information to the public on the cultural resources that were once there at the [dam] project,” said Bishop, who has been happy with the arrangement so far. He’d like the center to do even more interpretation of the area’s history, perhaps re-creating the Indian village whose remains were found nearby years ago.
“We have big dreams,” said Selinger. She has adorned the front of the center with not only U.S. and prisoner-of-war flags but also with the Thunder Mountain flag and its traditional staff, which incorporates turkey feathers, rabbit fur and a woven dream catcher. A much larger dream catcher stands by the entrance, which leads into the center’s gift shop.
Besides playing host to school and Scout groups, she and other center staff members — all volunteers for now — travel to schools and other places throughout the region to present programs about American Indians.
“Our mission is education,” said Selinger, a blonde who on this day was wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt, but also purple moccasins, a beaded necklace and a medicine bag around her neck. She makes a living by making wooden crafts and toys with her husband. Her Lenape name isAlankentkataxkwe, or Star Dancer.
Others in the Thunder Mountain group go by their native names, such as Hawk of Thunder, though their percentage of native ancestry varies.
“We’re Heinz 57,” said Selinger, referring to all the varieties of people who consider themselves to be native. “It’s your heart lines, not just your bloodlines.”
Even she will look more Indian during this weekend’s second annual powwow, because she’ll be dressed in her colorful “regalia.” Just don’t expect only the stereotypical fringed buckskin. Natives will be wearing more modern garb as well.
“We’re not re-enactors,” she said. “There’s a difference.”
She’s expecting as many as 300 participants of various native backgrounds from Pennsylvania and neighboring states. The main events will be drumming and dancing, but there will be plenty of other activities including a children’s theater and an auction. There also will be 30 vendors of handicrafts and foods; one New York Seneca has gotten special permission to sell venison and bear sausage.
In addition to the fun and fellowship, there will be serious elements to this ceremony, which is what powwow means. Participants will purify themselves by “smudging” in smoke from a mix of sage, sweet grass, cedar and tobacco. Festival-goers are asked to stand and not take photographs during the “grand entry” each day at noon, when elders and veterans bring their colors into the sacred circle.
“This traditionally is our green corn feast,” Selinger said, explaining how the gathering will be like those natives held hundreds of years ago. In fact, yesterday she and some other Lenape and friends held private spiritual ceremonies at her home.
“The basis for doing all this is to keep the culture alive,” she said.
Of the festival, she said, “It’s a chance for us to kind of showcase the culture, dispel some of the stereotypes and let people know we’re still alive.”
By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer
