Drums, fry bread punctuate Yaqui celebration on Mall

Adam F. Jarrold Arizona Daily Wildcat Angelo Bule, a Yaqui Deer Dancer, performs on the stage in front of the Memorial Student Union, yesterday. The dance recognizes the interrelationship between the dear and the Yaqui people. As part of Native American Cultural Week, the there will be activities all week long.

"It's a celebration commemorating 500 years of white oppression," said Travis Lane, president of AMERIND, an American Indian student club.

On the stage in front of Old Main, members of the Yaqui Nation performed a "Deer Dance" for an audience of about 60 students.

The dance tells a story crucial to long standing Yaqui tradition, said Gracie Ramon of the Tucson Unified School District Native American Studies Program.

She added the dancer symbolizes the hunter, who has taken on characteristics of his prey and its environment. He prays and asks permission to take the deer's life so that he may sustain the life of his people.

"(Yaqui people) did not hunt for fun," she said. "We didn't do it as a hobby. Nothing was wasted."

Political science junior Denise Maldonado said the dance was significant as it allowed many students to see an aspect of the Southwest to which they might not have been exposed to before.

"They have a lot of history to share with them," she said.

The week-long celebration of American Indian history and culture ends Friday with a Powwow on the Mall from 6:30 p.m. to midnight.

Rolene McMillan, elementary education junior and AMERIND member, sold fry bread on the Mall yesterday under a blue tarpaulin.

She said it is no coincidence that Native American Cultural Week started on the Columbus Day holiday.

"Columbus Day is really American Indian Day for us," she said. "We discovered him, he didn't discover us."

Lane, a freshman studying political science, explained that Friday's powwow is a prayer and dance session that allows participants to "meet new people, and reacquaint with the old."