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Indigenous Peoples’ Day event on Oct. 12 honors elders and celebrates community coming together
The Spokane Native community will host an Indigenous gathering Oct. 12 at Riverfront Park honoring elders and veterans, with art and games celebrating culture and resilience.
By Matthew Kincanon | FāVS News Reporter
The Spokane Native community will host an Indigenous Peoples’ Day event Monday, Oct. 12, at Riverfront Park to celebrate Indigenous culture, community and resilience. The Salish School of Spokane will open the event at 10 a.m. with a march to honor elders and veterans.
The day’s theme is “Following the Elders.” Everyone is welcome.
What ‘Following the Elders’ means
“‘Following the Elders’ comes from something our people have always known: We rely on our elders and our ancestral teachings to know how to move forward,” said coordinator Angelique “Angel” Tomeo (Colville Confederated Tribe and descendant of the Quinault Nation and Fort Peck Tribes, Nakota).
Lacey Abrahamson (Shoshone-Bannock), another coordinator, said elders carry the stories and the wisdom that keep culture alive and are key to passing traditions to the next generation.
Tomeo said the theme is not about nostalgia but about active remembrance that helps people flourish. She added that colonization tried in many ways to separate Indigenous people from their lands, languages, cultures and families.
“There were deliberate attempts to erase and exterminate Indigenous people,” Tomeo said. “Yet, we are still here.”
“Our precious elders are living connections to the people who came before us,” she said. “Our children and babies are our connection to what comes next. And those of us in between have a responsibility to carry those teachings forward.”
Activities at the event
The event will go through 6:30 p.m. and will include Indigenous crafting with Spokane IndigiQ, Tulee mat making, youth and “adult Indian games,” a fashion show and an Indigenous art market.
Conrad Durglo (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes), coordinator of the IndigiQ programming, said he was “incredibly proud” of the partnership between the event’s planners and Spokane Pride. “I am in awe,” he said.
Tomeo said the gathering gives people a reason to come together other than hardship: to celebrate, feed one another, make art and music and “let our babies and young people experience all of that alongside our elders.”
Creating an event together
Abrahamson said she was excited by how quickly the community came together on short notice and how the Indigenous community will come together on their traditional gathering grounds.
“I am excited for that piece of land to feel our feet again and for us to be in a space that represents life,” Abrahamson said.
Tomeo said the community is creating the event together rather than one organization creating it for them.
“Everybody has something to contribute,” Tomeo said, mentioning elders, youth, veterans, Two-Spirit relatives, people in recovery and justice-impacted relatives.
“I’m excited to stand there, look around, and see our people being our people. I’m looking forward to being fully immersed in my community. That’s really what this event is about for me,” Tomeo said.
Honoring Two-Spirit individuals and veterans
Tomeo said veterans and Two-Spirit people belong within the larger story of Indigenous community, service and responsibility.
“Many of our veterans come from people with warrior societies and traditions where protecting and serving your community carries tremendous responsibility,” she said. “Honoring them is part of honoring that continuance.”
Durglo, who comes from a military family, said veterans’ sacrifice “includes what some of those men and women carry with them in their hearts.”
Tomeo, who considers herself Two-Spirit, said the identity goes beyond sexuality. While teachings differ among nations, many of her people traditionally recognized and valued relatives who existed beyond Western ideas about gender.
Colonization disrupted those understandings, she said.
“We are relatives, and this gathering is about making sure the whole circle is represented,” she said.
Connection and well-being
Durglo said the gathering will take place on land that has brought people together “since time immemorial,” including for fishing.
Without connection to their community and land, Durglo said it is easy to get lost “in the noise of the world,” as he did for a while.
“That connection is what was missing,” he said. “When it’s not there we tend to look for it in other places. A lot of the time we find that connection in darker places.”
Tomeo said communities are navigating the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and people, the fentanyl crisis and health inequities. “We absolutely need modern resources and interventions, but we can integrate those into something Indigenous people have always known how to do: take care of one another,” she said.
“We aren’t only celebrating — we’re practicing our values. We’re strengthening the mycelium of who we are: those connections between elders, families, young people, cultures and communities that nourish and hold us together.”
Durglo said he is glad to help start a new tradition.
Abrahamson hopes the gathering becomes annual.
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