Native American culture – including a special dress – was celebrated and on display at a recent event that also marked the debut of a special exhibit at the Trickster Cultural Center that touts legislation the governor has signed into law.
The Native American drum group Iron Bear performed the “jingle dress” dance and more during the Nov. 18 celebration of Native American Heritage Month at the center located in Schaumburg.
“We’re here to celebrate Native American Heritage Month, but Native American heritage is every day for us,” Trickster Executive Director Gina Roxas told the group of about 50 in attendance at the Saturday event.
State Rep. Mark Walker, D-Arlington Heights, also took part in the celebration.
The century-old story of the jingle dress started around the time of the 1918 influenza epidemic known as Spanish Flu, according to information provided at the event.
As the story goes, a man had a dream where four women wearing colorful dresses – red, blue, green and yellow – with shiny metal cones sewn on were dancing in a specific way. His wife and other women made the dresses and performed what is now known as the jingle dress dance during a drum ceremony. The man’s daughter, who had been ill, started dancing by the end of the ceremony, according to the Ziibaaska’iganagooday (Ojibwe for “jingle dress”) poster at the Trickster Cultural Center.
And so the jingle dress – named possibly because of the jingling sound the silver cones make – became known as the healing dress.
Roxas said the jingle dress dance is “only” 100 years old.
“Some songs are so old they don’t even have words,” she said.
The event also debuted the new exhibit “Illinois’ Native American Legislation of 2023? which commemorates three state bills, including Senate Bill 1446 and House Bill 1633, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law this summer. The legislation helps ensure various protections for Native American and Indigenous people in Illinois.
According to information on the state’s website about the legislation, House Bill 3413, titled the Human Remains Protection Act, “establishes procedures for encountering human remains or gravesites and returning remains to Native American Nations.”
Walker had sponsored this bill.
Additionally, SB1446 outlaws banning students from wearing cultural regalia as graduation attire. HB1633 mandates that Native American history be taught in the state’s public schools.
Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago Commissioner Marcelino Garcia also presented a special resolution on the behalf of the MWRD board of commissioners that recognizes the three bills.
In his remarks at the event, Garcia spoke of the need for more diversity, pointing out that only six of the approximately 1,800 MWRD employees are Native American, and the value in celebrating cultural differences.
“Illinois has a very rich history of Native American heritage and many times people forget about that,” he said, explaining that even the word “Chicago” comes from the root Native American word “shikaakwa” for smelly onion or striped skunk.
That’s what heritage month is about, Roxas said, “a bridge to learn about each other.”
Iron Bear performed several songs during the three-hour celebration. The event ended without a goodbye – because most Native American languages don’t have a word for it, Roxas said. The closest is “bama pi” from the Potawatomi tribe, meaning until next time.
Christine Won is a freelancer.
