By Leslie Golden | lgolden@alextimes.com
Local non-profit Running Strong for American Indian Youth hosted its second Powwow in Old Town’s Waterfront Park on Sunday. Open and free to all, the event aimed to provide Alexandria’s Native residents with a space to celebrate and educate.
According to Running Strong’s invitation, the goal of the Powwow was to “celebrate culture within the D.C-Metropolitan area [which is] important and symbolic in many ways. Ancestrally, the land and river systems that make up and surround the U.S Capital belongs to the Piscataway, Pamunkey, Nentego, Mattaponi, Chickahominy, Monacan and Powhatan Tribes. The vast waterways and highly diverse migratory wildlife in the area’s environment has allowed local tribes to thrive here for thousands of years.”
During the six-hour festival, attendees and guests were treated to competitions between drum groups and intertribal dances.
