Non-Native vendors protested at powwows

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The appearance of non-Native traders at the Odawa Powwow has sparked a petition to make sure they don't return next year.

The Odawa Native Friendship Centre in Ottawa puts on the annual powwow. At this year's powwow, held May 28-30, 68 stands showcases aboriginal arts and crafts. But not everyone selling aboriginal crafts was Native.

Timothy and Diane Nanticoke have been on the "powwow circuit" for about four years, travelling to powwows in the United States and Ontario and Quebec. They started the petition when they noticed about eight non-Native selling Native crafts at the Odawa Powwow.

The Nanticokes asked the suspected non-Natives for their status card or some proof that they were Aboriginal but they couldn't produce it. Over sixty traders supported the petition to make sure the alleged non-Native traders don't come back. The petition was passed on to the powwow committee for consideration next year.

"For non-Natives to be sitting behind the stand and making non-Native crafts, non-Natives (visiting the powwow) don't know the different," says Timothy Nanticoke. He says some non-Natives at the powwow had Aboriginal people "fronting" for them, to make it seem Native people are selling the crafts. Others no longer have ties (marriage for example) with Natives yet showed up at the powwow anyway to sell crafts.

If some non-Natives are allowed to set up, this sends the message that others can come, says Nanticoke. Ontario is generally strict but soon it will be like the United States, where 25 per cent of booths at powwows are run by non-Aboriginals, he warns. Some-

times non-Natives buy up Aboriginal crafts then resell them at lower prices than the Native traders. Some crafts are "fakes", actually made by non-Natives but passed off as Aboriginal crafts.

This not only hurts Native people financially but defeats the purpose of the powwow as being like a "big family gathering" says Diane Nanticoke. "A lot of Native people depend on this. A lot of non-Natives have jobs. Natives don't," she said.

Irwin Hill, who is in charge of traders at the Odawa Powwow agrees. "What a powwow is a Native people getting together drumming, dancing, trading with each other. If we have non-Natives coming in, the only thing they're there for is to cash in on Natives."

Currently traders register the powwow by sending the powwow committee a registration form and fee. Timothy Nanticoke thinks traders should be screened on site. Before they set up, they should prove they are Native by showing a status card or affiliation with an Aboriginal co-op.

Hill dismisses the idea of asking for status cards since he contacts the traders before they come and reject status cards as the only proof traders are Native. "I talk to people. I expect to them to talk to me the say way. I ask them if they're Native. In most cases they're honest."

He said he will screen out non-Native traders by phoning them, then talking to other traders. Each case will be looked at individually. "I know almost every trader personally. I don't want to come down like the government of people. I want to be as fair with people as I can."

"It's never been problem, not for us. With Native people there are people doing underhanded things too. We want good people there," says Hill.