Hosts of a Native American Cultural Encampment set up tipis and held a weekend of events at Waterloo County Park from July 18 to 22, with the final two days being open to the public.
Deitrich “Deitz” Peters, cultural director of NACE, holds presentations and discussions along with leading encampments across Linn County in places like Sunnyside Park at Foster Lake. NACE members also took part in the Strawberry Festival parade and Flutestock, Eugene’s Native American style flute festival.
According to Peters, the group has wanted to host an encampment in Waterloo for a while now and, though it was only after his wife had passed away, they were finally able to make it happen with the help of Linn County Parks and Recreation.
The first encampment, five-odd years ago now, only had two tipis and a small group of participants. They made sure to get to know the park rangers and communicate with them in order to help get the word out to interested members of the public.
“We started from there and just kept going, you know, and here we are today,” Peters said, “a little bit bigger, (and) we have a good, collective group of people. We’re not all the same Nation; that’s why we call it the Native American Culture, and we always invite other Natives to come join us, be a part of it.”
There are a lot of powwows throughout the summer, which Peters said creates a bit of competition, but they keep “pushing” to continue the encampments and share their culture and history with people interested in sitting down and talking about them.
“We always try to tell (people) to remember to ask questions, because it’s important for them to ask,” Peters explained. “(Otherwise) they’re gonna go away from here not knowing about that one thing that’s gonna be bugging them until next time.”
According to Peters, this year’s encampment had a decent turnout, though the scorching hot weather drove back some who may have otherwise attended. Sometimes encampments draw larger crowds, which they anticipate for their upcoming encampment at Cascadia from Aug. 22-26.
Peters hopes to have Aztec dancers participate in the Cascadia encampment, expanding the number of Native Nations taking part.
The events also offer a look at other aspects of Native culture like their intricate beadwork, the significance of feathers, tipi logistics and more.
“We’re just very grateful and thankful to Linn County for giving us a place to do this,” Peters said. “And they’re very excited for us to offer to come up and do it.”
Peters’ other work has him collaborating with Lebanon Chamber of Commerce and Singing Creek Educational Center, among other organizations, and he offers various presentations throughout summer.
According to Peters, the Lebanon Chamber hopes to incorporate Native culture in the new visitor’s center, partly due to the building being on Kalapuya land.
“I’ve been working with them, giving them lots of information about things to do,” Peters said.
Peters said he always takes his flute and often plays a song for the office when he goes in to talk. He’s recorded the different songs of his dozen flutes, which the visitor’s center will let visitors listen to via QR codes under photos of the flutes.
This year Peters and his people held a booth at the Strawberry Festival too, though they did end up being in an out-of-the-way area so not a ton of people stumbled across them despite their tipis being 18 feet tall.
Peters, whose tribal history lies with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and Kalapuya River, has been dancing for some 45 years and always made an effort to keep his kids involved in everything from the encampments to talking to people at presentations. With the free time he does have, Peters makes regalia on commission.
Peters recently received a letter from Western University in Monmouth, asking him to come speak about what the encampment and its members do, as well as expanding their educational programs. Monmouth used to hold a two day powwow, but now it has shrunk to only one day, and they want to work on building it back up. An equestrian center hopes to bring Peters in to do cultural presentations, and there are other connections in Lebanon seeking to expand cultural offerings.
“I invite the public to come out to these,” Peters said. “You know, this is not just for Native people; this is for everybody to learn about Native culture. We’re friendly people, we like to involve people to come out, see us and talk with us. We try to (get) involved as much as we can with the public, and it’s actually working.”
Peters will be hosting Music from the Land with the Lebanon Museum Foundation at Academy Square on Aug. 5, 6:30pm. More about Native American Cultural Encampments, upcoming events and contact info can be found at naculturalencampment.org.
