Photo courtesy of Indian Summer Festival
Indian Summer Festival - Henry Maier Festival Park
Indian Summer Festival at Henry Maier Festival Park.
The swirl and flash of dancers’ eagle feathers, beaded regalia and moccasined feet interwoven with the pulsing sounds of singers and drummers. Tantalizing smells of fry bread, bison burgers and corn soup. Education Day, traditional Indian villages and powwow, dance competitions, lacrosse games, three music stages featuring local and national Native acts, vendors of Native wares. Welcome to Indian Summer.
But after 32 years, the beloved Indian Summer Festival (ISF) at Milwaukee’s Henry Maier Festival Pard came to an end in 2018, mostly due to rising costs.
The popular annual festival came into being thanks to Lawrence “Butch” Roberts, an Oneida Nation tribal member. Roberts was a counselor for Native American students at MATC before he was recruited by Milwaukee Police Detective Russell DeNomie (Oneida/Ojibwe) to help bring more Natives into the department. So Roberts became a police officer. He always looked to make best use of his cultural activism.
He says, “My goal, and that of many Native Americans I knew, was to eliminate stereotypes and to be treated as basic Americans that have a unique cultural background.”
In 1985, one of his assigned beats was at the Summerfest grounds during summer festivals. It was inspiring seeing groups presenting themselves and their cultures in a positive way through entertainment, food and cultural activities. Roberts knew the Indian community needed representation there, too.
He reached out to Bo Black, Summerfest director at the time, about starting a Native American festival. To learn the ropes, Black put him in touch with United Festivals, the umbrella group for all the ethnic fests. Black was very supportive and also donated money to initial fundraising.
So Roberts and a few others recruited family and friends and got to work. Ideas and help came in from all around. Roberts laughingly recalls, “Something that size takes a long time to organize when you have no money and you don’t know what you’re doing.” But he adds, “It’s almost like some other force was pushing. And the community itself was pushing to see this happen.”
In initial talks about how to present themselves, environmental and cultural education were important focuses. Indian Summer Festival debuted in 1986. Mayor Henry Maier himself welcomed ISF to the festival lineup, predicting it would become “one of the most vibrant of all our festivals”.
Native History
Photo courtesy of Indian Summer Festival
Canoeing - Indian Summer Festival
Canoeing in the Lakeshore State Park Inlet beside Henry Maier Festival Park during the Indian Summer Festival.
In 1989, Wisconsin passed Act 31, requiring all public school districts to provide instruction on the history, culture and tribal sovereignty of Wisconsin’s 11 federally recognized Native nations. Education Day was an important aspect of the fest, occurring on Thursday leading into the festival weekend. So classes of students from all over the metro area came every year and learned accurate and authentic Native history and ways. Roberts says he still has Indians and non-Indians alike say they attended as kids, sharing what a difference it’s made in their lives.
|
|
“Indian Summer is where I and my family learned about the true significance of the powwow. We learned about the different rhythms of the drum beats, that if an eagle feather falls from tribal regalia, everything stops and there’s a ceremony in its honor”, recalls Kat Siudzinski, now a deaf sign language interpreter. “But besides the fun,
our parents always made us go through the environmental tent to learn more about our environmental issues.”
Every year, local and national entertainers performed on the Miller, Harley, and Potawatomi stages. Then in 2004 the fest debuted the Indian Summer Music Awards (ISMA), modeled on New York’s Native American Music Awards (NAMA) and the Grammy’s. Over the years ISMA attracted submissions of Indian musicians from Wisconsin and across the country, as well as major names like R. Carlos Nakai and Joanne Shenandoah.
Bringing Back the Festival
It had been seven years since the culture and sounds of the original Indian Summer Festival died out. Then a year ago, a new group began organizing to bring the beloved festival back into being.
The new ISF’s leadership are about the age that Butch Roberts was when the fest started 40 years ago. “It’s inspiring to see these young people want this so badly. The staff now are all very talented and hard-working, but they haven’t done this before”, he says. He’d had no intention to take a leadership role, but the festival director position wasn’t filled yet.
So Roberts will once again be festival director of the newly conceived Indian Summer, working to produce a full festival in 2027, bringing him and the fest’s history full circle. Numerous people from the original ISF are still here, whether helping or giving advice.
To test the waters, the new ISF started with a two-day Spring Powwow and Native Art Market in March at the Waukesha Expo Center. They hit capacity in the first few hours, verifying how much the community wanted the festival to return.
So a Fall Fundraiser to help finance a full festival return takes place Sept. 26 - 27, again at the Waukesha Expo Center. It will feature a Native Art Market (all Artisans are vetted Natives), dance exhibitions, cultural demonstrations, lacrosse games, the inaugural Miss Indigenous Wisconsin Pageant, and Indigenous food vendors. It will be alcohol and smoke-free, though there will be designated smoking areas.
By attending, you can help bring Indian Summer Festival back. Can't attend? Please donate and help fund the return of Indian Summer for our Milwaukee community. Every dollar matters!
More details are available at indiansummerfestivalinc.org or the ISF Facebook & Instagram pages: @indiansummerfestivalinc.
