Yellowfish Descendants Powwow Highlights History
On Saturday, May 24, Yellowfish Descendants held their powwow at Watchetaker Hall with Comanche Little Ponies Society co-hosting the event.
The powwow began with a brush dance, which is traditional for the event. According to Michael Burgess, a descendant and the MC at the powwow, the Little Ponies also picked up the dance. He said the Little Ponies play a big part in the family.
“We take the descendancy from this elder, Pa-Que-O-Haw-Pith, it means a yellow fish, and he was the last traditional leader of what's called the Little Ponies today,” he said. “But he was the last traditional leader, and then, because of him, this whole thing, experience, the knowledge was revived by our uncles, whom he told stories to.”
Burgess said the dance was revived after consultations with elders.
“And the first dance I remember was, I think it was 1971 and ‘72 in Apache Grounds at the fairgrounds down in the bottom of Apache on the west side, where old man Yellowfish, Pa-Que-O-Haw-Pith, he gave his land to the city and said set it up,” he said. “He wanted this land to be utilized by our Indian people because we had no place to go. No dances could be held here and there. There wasn't any facilities, so the city of Apache put things up, and then the ball field, the radio grounds, all of that was put up because old man Yellowfish put that land there for them to be used for these cultural purposes, sports, and all that. Because our Indian people were being pushed out. So, we had a place to go for a long time until they built this system over here.”
Burgess said the powwow honors Yellowfish and their families.
“And so, because of our love for not just our parents, but what our parents taught us culturally, what our parents wanted us to continue in remembrance of their grandpa, they wanted to do something,” he said. “The original story is our grandkids got together, and Uncle Ed was one of the ones to lead it. He had two other brothers, and then my grandmother, Ida Ada Kate Yellowfish Burgess, they had six children, six girls. So, all of these six girls and their cousin brothers, and one of them was also Joe Attocknie, Paula Attocknie, and they come out of Ten Bears, and Ten Bears' daughter or somebody married one of Ten Bears' children. That's how the Attocknies came. So that's how we're all related under the great-grandchildren of Pa-Que-O-Haw-Pith. Now we've got great, great grandchildren coming along. And so, it's important for us to imbue this knowledge and awareness of culture and family and the history of not just the Little Ponies, but why the Yellowfish descendancy kept going.”
At the powwow, stories of the family were told.
“Edmond mentioned a story about a lot of our cultural retention, things we knew as a tribal people,” Burgess said. “A lot of that came from the Apache area, where all my folks were. See, so out of all of that, Old Man Yellowfish told a lot of stories and kept stories alive, stories that were brought down by Ten Bears and his family. So, there's a lot of relatives interrelated that all of these family stories and histories came about.”
He said the songs and prayers are sacred to the Comanche family.
“So, all of these ceremonial activities that we have, there's rhyme and reason for it, why we have it,” Burgess said. “…Just recently, we lost a brother-in-law two days ago, and we have this memorial song that covers all of those who are mourning at this time. And then, as you saw, one young man brought gift over to the drum. It's not that he's out of mourning, but he's being respectful to say, ‘I want to say thank you. Y'all let me take pictures. I do this, and I should say thank you,’ and that's what he's doing.”
Comanche Nation Princess Isabela Rameriez and Jr. Princess Tatum Burgess were in attendance, as well as Little Ponies Princess Arlene Schonchin.
