The Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribal Community is holding its 20th annual Wacipi, or traditional Pow Wow, from Friday Sept. 13 to Sunday, Sept. 15 at the grounds of St. Peter’s Catholic Church, 1405 Sibley Memorial Highway, Mendota. Here is a flyer with the details.
You are invited to come and learn about Dakota culture. Organizers also are looking for volunteer help.
The 19th Annual Mendota Mdewakanton Wacipi (Pow Wow) runs Friday, Sept. 7 to Sunday, September 9 and organizers are looking for 30 more volunteers as well as donations. (The Pow Wow is held on the grounds of St. Peter’s Church, 1405 Sibley Memorial Highway, Mendota.)
The three main volunteer needs are help with set up, kitchen help, and tear down/clean up. More details are available here, and below. For more information on volunteering and the Pow Wow, you also can call 651-452-4141.
Come for the volunteering and stay for the Pow Wow!
Joy Sorensen Navarre, long-time volunteer for the Mendota Mdewakaton Dakota Tribal Community Wacipi (Pow Wow), writes about her experience there and invites you to join and help.
Wacipi Means ‘We Dance’. It also means we work in the kitchen!
Every year I close my consulting business for three days to run the outdoor kitchen at the Mendota Mdewakaton Dakota Tribal Community traditional Wacipi or Pow Wow. My family laughs when they hear I’m running a kitchen, because at our house my husband cooks. I do it because the kitchen supports the Wacipi. The Wacipi is healing, resistance and love.
HMS blog readers know that state and federal law prohibited the Dakota from practicing religious ceremonies and cultural traditions for one hundred years, until 1978. Many Mendota Dakota grew up without the Wacipi—without dancing.
Eighteen years ago Bob Brown and other Mendota Dakota leaders re-started the Mendota Wacipi. For the first time in their life, Mendota Dakota elders danced. They danced with tears running down their faces. Tears of sorrow, of joy, of hope for their children. The Wacipi heals. If you come with an open heart, you will feel it, too. Continue reading
healingmnstories.wordpress.com 