Everyone is invited to visit The Gathering 2016 Indian Village honoring a rich legacy of ancient culture still much alive today at the 47th Annual Bluemont Fair in Loudoun County Virginia on Sept. 17-18, 2016. Experience an action-packed weekend including colorful regalia, jaw-dropping events, inspiring arts and music to move everyone.
     The Bluemont Citizens Association invited The Gathering volunteer committee to host an Indian Village in order to share this rich cultural event with neighbors and visitors in the Blue Ridge Mountain Valley. This beautiful partnership promises many more educational, cultural exchanges in the future.
     Close to 5,000 people attended The Gathering 2015 held in Clarke County Virginia. This year, The Gathering 2016 Indian Village at the Bluemont Fair gives thousands of people the opportunity to experience authentic Indian dancing & singing and to browse traditional Indian crafts. This fundraising event helps prepare for The Gathering 2017 celebration which includes competitive Native American dancing, singing and thousands of dollars in prize money.

On Sept. 17-18, 2016 the whole town of Bluemont opens to old fashioned family fun with traditional crafts (juried), local art & authors, craft & farming demonstrations, Indian Village, music, 10k race, free Children's Fair, farm animals, Llamas & Alpacas, quilt display, colonial blacksmith, hay rides, homemade food, fresh & dried flowers, pie-baking/pickle-making contest, antiques & collectables, wine and beer garden & gourmet treats, historic slide show, bee-keepers & hives, railroad display, pre-Civil War country store, farmer's market, and more all set in a historic village in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Bluemont is located at the Intersection of Routes 7 & 760 between Leesburg and Winchester Virginia. The fair takes place throughout the village of Bluemont Virginia outdoors, indoors, in the streets, fields and backyards along Rt 734, starting at the intersection of Rt 760 and Rt 734 (Snickersville Pike).

The Gathering 2015 volunteers made 1,000 prayer ties for our military veterans serving in the four directions.
     Close to 200 veterans of all ages, who attended the grand entry on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1, received prayer ties made the traditional way using Native American locally grown tobacco.
     Rather than burn these remaining prayers, which is a tradition (as the prayer ties go up in smoke towards the heavens/Father Sky, so do the prayers) these prayers are on their way to the Rotary Peace Conference being held in Californian next week. 
     Veterans and those who know a veteran attending the peace conference will physically receive prayers made here in Virginia. Supplies are provided for people in California to also make prayers for vets.
     "This Turtle Box will carry our east coast prayers to the west coast as we remember our veterans into this new year," said Rene' White retired Air Force Lt. Col and executive director for The Gathering 2015. "May all our veterans receive peace as they work to protect our freedoms around the globe,"
     The theme for the Calif. peace conference is, "Connecting Leaders and Conflict Resolution Experts with Solutions to Create a Culture of Peace."

     For schedules for upcoming gatherings check out www.HarvestGathering.org or The Gathering on facebook.

"For my family, the Gathering was a celebration of both the uniqueness and the commonality of Native heritage.

For children, especially when they are far from their culture, it can be very difficult to accept, much less embrace, that culture. Events like the Gathering, with hundreds of people of all colors, neighbors, new and old friends, people who have never experienced Native culture, to all come together and hold hands and dance to the heartbeat of the drum...for me, at that moment, the Spirit of the Gathering was manifest.

Watching my children play and dance with friends they have made at pow wows, as well as getting to share their culture with classmates, is something they will always remember, and something to which I will always be grateful. Hoho'u'

– Joseph Clay Morris – Volunteer for The Gathering

PowWows.com is an online resource for Native Americans to stay in touch with each other and their roots, and for anyone to learn about Native American culture. Pow Wows are gatherings that bring together descendants of Native American Indians who have scattered all over North America, with extant Native American tribes, in celebrations that feature Native American music, dancing, and ancient, meaningful rituals. Those who are not descended from Native Americans are more than welcome to attend and watch, and even participate, given that they respect and follow the established rules and traditions of the Pow Wow. Visit PowWows.com to explore the many aspects of Native American culture, from Native American history to Native American art and music. Young Native American descendants, whether tribe members or not, can access information about available educational opportunities, including Native American scholarships to colleges and universities. 

In 2015 Pow Wows.com published over 725 stories, from Gathering of Nations, mascots, issues, protests, celebrations, sports and more!  Below are the 15 most popular stories published on PowWows.com in 2015!

Story by Amy Mathews Amos
Photographs by Jennifer Lee

In the weeks leading up to The Gathering, organizer René Locklear White called it “an experiment in humanity” and a “multi-cultural thanksgiving.” Her experiment included a gourd craft festival sponsored by the Virginia Lovers Gourd Society, a military color guard headed by the Native American Women Warriors, and a Harvest Dance with native dancers in regalia.  But at its core, The Gathering was about bringing people together – native and non-native – to celebrate “humanhood” as Locklear White’s co-organizer and husband Chris (Comeswithclouds) White put it.  “This is a little off the rails,” said Chris before the event.  “We don’t know what will come out of it.  It’s like planting a seed.”

On October 30 through November 1, that seed blossomed at the Clarke County, Va. fairgrounds.

Locklear White grew up in a Lumbee tribal community in North Carolina and recently retired as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force.  Now, as a member of her regional Council of Elders, she and her fellow leaders felt a calling to hold a traditional Harvest Dance (a Pow Wow-like event) in her current community of Clarke County as a way to bring people together. “There is a saying in the Indian community that we are all related,” she said. “Not just related through genes as humans, but through the elements of the earth.”

Judging by the diverse, multi-cultural crowd in the grandstand on The Gathering’s second day, many non-Indians agree.  Master of Ceremony Dennis Zotigh, a native storyteller and cultural advisor to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, took the opportunity to educate that crowd about Native American culture.  He answered questions from the audience — such as how many Americans self-identify as Indians (about 5.2 million in the 2010 census, or 1.7 percent of the U.S. population); and how Native Americans traditionally used gourds (as utensils, decorations, toys, water containers and more).  But he also asked the sea of white, brown and black faces around him a few questions of his own:  namely, where had they come from?  Not surprisingly, most visitors hailed from Virginia. Some had traveled from out of state.  Yet a handful came from overseas – including some from England, Brazil, Germany and Lithuania — drawn to The Gathering as part of their American travels to experience a real Native American Pow Wow.

And experience it they did.  Zotigh and his co-host, American Indian civil rights leader Dennis Banks, engaged the crowd throughout the day.  They encouraged everyone to participate, particularly in the “intertribal” dances, when the grandstand cleared as people streamed onto the field to join hands and dance together. When the military color guard led by the Native American Women Warriors organization paid special tribute to military veterans, Zotigh called for “all warriors – native or not” to enter the arena and be honored as defenders of freedom.  Although American Indians fought the U.S. military repeatedly over the centuries to defend their land from European settlers, Indians are very patriotic today according to Zotigh.  He called Indian veterans “defenders of our lands, our life, and our families.”

Throughout the day, four different drum circles took turns accompanying the dancers:  the Yellow Child Singers; Storm Boyz of Virginia; Thunderbird Métis Nation Drum, Singers and Dancers; and the Zotigh Singers of Albuquerque, N.M.  Native dancers in regalia from New York, North Carolina, Minnesota and elsewhere danced to the drum beats in multiple dance categories, including grass dance, men’s traditional, women’s traditional, jingle dress, and fancy shawl.  Zotigh emphasized how different tribes have different traditions, but come together to dance to the beat of the same drum at Pow Wows.

One of those dancers was Clifford Dumarce, a grass dancer in magnificent white regalia decorated with blue and orange beading and topped with a crown of red and brown feathers.  Dumarce grew up in the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota, but now lives in North Carolina after 13 years in the Marine Corps.  His Indian name is Walks into Battle (translated as zuya wicasta in his native language) and he was at The Gathering with his wife and two young daughters.  “We’ve been at a Pow Wow somewhere in the country every weekend since April,” said Dumarce.  One of his daughters was participating in the jingle dress dance and the other in the fancy shawl dance.  He came to The Gathering to “see a new place, see new people.”

Dancer A’lise Myers-Hall, a retired Air Force veteran and Shawnee and Lenape woman, viewed The Gathering as an opportunity to educate others about American Indian culture.  “We need to disavow what people see on television. We’re not John Wayne Indians,” she said.  She stressed the diversity among Native Americans and noted that “Pow Wows are one thing that brings us together.”  Myers-Hall epitomized that diversity herself, growing up in an immigrant community of Germans, Dutch, French, and Italians in eastern Pennsylvania.  Her grandfather was Jewish and to many, Myers-Hall would appear African American.  Her Indian name is Two Leaves Dancing, because she was born in November and as a tiny baby was mesmerized by the falling leaves.

Meanwhile, at the Gourd Festival in a nearby pavilion, Peruvian carver Percy Medina joined other artists to display his intricate designs of birds, fish and village life on elaborately decorated gourds.  Medina’s gourd art is on permanent display at the Infinity of Nations exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian.

And out at the food court, Lithuanian travelers Jurgita and Mende Timinskas waited in line for Three Sisters Stew, made with corn, beans and squash.  The Timinskas are spending several weeks traveling around the U.S. but were drawn to The Gathering because they enjoy Native American Pow Wows – they’ve been to several already in Germany and the Czech Republic.

Everyone at The Gathering  – Peruvian or Lithuanian, native or non-native, veteran or not — could come together in the “round dance.”  Zotigh and Banks encouraged the crowd to form a large circle in the arena and hold hands.  Then, led by head male dancer Tatanka Gibson  the circle collectively stepped to its left, moving continuously clockwise until it circled within itself like a spiral, forming new coils as Gibson kept the line flowing, allowing participants to view the smiling faces winding past them as they moved towards the center.  When it could close upon itself no further, Gibson masterfully turned the twisting spiral of humanity in the opposite direction, leading his inner layer outward and bringing the 125 person-long chain behind him, everyone swirling in a new direction, connected to one another physically and visually.

Banks – known for his iconic quote “it’s a good day to die,” during the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee, S.D. as he fought for Native American rights  — pronounced the sunny autumn celebration at The Gathering “a good day to live.”

On this day, at least, the experiment we call humanity was a success.

By René White (Feather)
Lumbee Indian and Virginia Resident

On January 6, 1959, only 57 years ago, the Lovings pleaded guilty and were sentenced to one year in prison, for their interracial marriage. Until this time, is was against the law and a felony (punishable by prison) for a White person to marry a Black or Indian person.

Actually, Indians were not called "Indians" then in Virginia. We were called Black as part of a scheme that began in 1912 to purify the white race in Virginia. This government led genocide forced Indians and other nonwhites to classify themselves as blacks or colored; and forced surgeries to remove wombs preventing the creation of Indian children for more than 34 years in Virginia. (see the Black and White World of Plecker) 

The plaintiffs in the illegal marriage case were Mildred Delores Loving, a woman of African-American and Rappahannock Native American descent and Richard Perry Loving a White man both born in Caroline County, Virginia. (see photo right)

The trail judge in the case wrote:

Frustrated by their inability to travel to visit their families in Virginia, the couple set out to protest the ruling because it ran counter to the Fourteenth Amendment.

With help from many, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Lovings' convictions in a unanimous decision on June 12, 1967. The court ruled that Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Chief Justice Earl Warren's opinion for the unanimous court held that:

The court concluded that anti-miscegenation laws were racist and had been enacted to perpetuate white supremacy.

Alabama became the last state to try to enforce the state's anti-miscegenation statute until 2000, when 60% of voters endorsed a ballot initiative that removed anti-miscegenation language from the state constitution.

In 2014, Mildred Loving was honored as one of the Library of Virginia's "Virginia Women in History."