Mike Gates, a member of the Seneca Nation and former Big Island resident, returns to Hawaii in the role of Head Dancer for this year's Hilo Inter-Tribal PowWow on Memorial Day weekend. (Courtesy photo to Big Island Weekly)
People on Hawaii’s big island can mark Memorial Day weekend by going to the Hilo Inter-Tribal PowWow, now in its fifth year.
Terrie Henderson of the Big Island Weekly writes here that the event is organized by Liz and Troy De Roche, and emphasizes connections between Native American and Hawaiian peoples and cultures.
Troy De Roche will be cooking up the wildly popular fry bread and pleasing the crowd with his traditional flute playing. Troy, whose been known to play the flute with flour on his shirt from baking the bread, told Big Island Weekly last year that the recipe he uses for the fry bread is handed down from his grandmother. The Indian tacos are also always a big hit, according to the De Roche family.
This year’s event also will feature the return of Seneca Nation member and former Big Island resident Mike Gates. Gates will be the head dance and Fredricka “Freddie” Hunter, who is Blackfeet from Montana, is head woman dancer.
The host drum for the powwow will be The Wildhorse Singers from Torrance, Calif., cormprising drummers and singers from the Navajo, Apache, Tohono O’Odham and Cherokee nations.
We’ll ignore the reference in this piece to the Custer Battlefield in pursuit of the greater good.
And there’s no greater good than fry bread, right?
Savannah Tranchell of Rapid City, S.D., is looking for recipes. Help her out. We think she deserves help because of her humble plea:
I found a recipe on Food Network, but somehow I feel like a cheater making this Native American food based on a recipe I found online, so I’m not going to post it. I also don’t want to try to make it from one of those instant-kits. This is one of those foods I believe must be made from scratch, at least the first time.
And yes, this plea involves massive amounts of self interest. We have every intention of copping the recipes for our own use.
Gwen Florio
