Sat Feb 11 2012
The kids balled up their fists and beat invisible drums as Ed “Buffalohawk” Garner played Native American music on a CD player.
Garner, vice president of the Red Crow Indian Council in Shepherdsville, Ky., visited Capital Day School Wednesday in celebration of Native American Heritage Month.
He appeared in traditional dress he’d crafted, with pieces of elk hide stitched into a pair of moccasins, a buckskin shirt and leggings.
Standing in front of a table covered with animal skins and skulls, he talked about traditional hunting techniques, raising children and religion. He refuted Native American stereotypes like feather headdresses and teepees.
“I first researched my heritage 15 to 20 years ago and discovered I had Cherokee blood not only on my mother’s side, but on my father’s side too,” he said.
Garner, who has Cherokee and German ancestry, visits schools, churches and businesses to teach about Native American culture.
“I’m always here for the kids,” he said.
He has appeared at the Veteran’s Affairs hospital and the Louisville Census Bureau celebration of Native American Heritage Month.
Fourth-grade teacher Ellee Harp and her class began studying Native American history in September.
The students read two books about Native Americans last month, “The Birchbark House” and “The Sign of the Beaver,” and a short story.
They made Native Americans and their homes out of construction paper, taping them to the wall outside their classroom.
Harp grew up in Montana, a state with Indian reservations.
“It’s kind of a passion for me, and it’s important that we study this,” she said.
The class also took a field trip to Leeland Valley, cooked food over an open fire and learned about edible herbs and plants.
“It kind of puts it in perspective for them,” she said of the field trip and Garner’s presentation Wednesday.
“When they see it, the lesson comes to life.”
Garner wears a buffalo tooth necklace and a feather on his head to represent the spiritual guides of his Native American name. He descends from the Bird Clan, one of seven in the Cherokee tribe.
The Cherokee lived in a matrilineal society, Garner told the children. When they married, men left their clans – that would be like a man taking his wife’s last name now, he said.
Women owned property, elected chiefs and declared war, and some even fought in wars.
“We did revere our women,” he said. “We actually had women warriors.”
They fought with jawbones from buffalo and cows, sharpened stones tied to sticks, and later steel tomahawks.
Men hunted game to make sure there was meat on the table, praying before and after the kill, and women farmed crops.
“If you like corn, thank an Indian,” he told the kids, as dozens of hands shot up to show their love of the vegetable.
Native Americans planted their three primary crops – corn, squash and beans – in a single spot. The corn stalks provided a stake for the beans to climb, and the squash leaves warded off weeds.
Garner told the kids they could plant catnip in their backyards to repel mosquitoes.
“That’s a little Cherokee secret,” he said. “You can go out in your backyard, lay in the sun and not get bit by mosquitoes.”
George H.W. Bush as president designated November as Native American Indian Heritage Month in 1990. Similar proclamations have been issued each year since 1994, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.
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