My Oneida Heart
by
Terri DelCampo
As a very young girl I was
fascinated by a little waterfall in the Brandywine River. I can remember watching, listening and
smelling it, mesmerized.
I was also fascinated by
rocks. River rocks, rocks in the street,
gemstones, geodes, I would have a pocketful by the time I finished any
walk. I especially loved quartz.
When I was five we went to Frontier Town in Ocean City Maryland. It was terrific. I thought the can-can dancers in the saloon
were pretty, the stagecoach robbery was exciting, and panning for gold was
neat. But my parents couldn’t drag me
away from the Indian
Village.
There was a little Indian boy
who was about my age. He was in full
dance regalia, buckskin breechcloth, fuzzy shin coverings, dance bells, pipe
bead breastplate, and face paint. He had
danced his little heart out in the ring and I was enthralled that he was so
little like me, yet so accomplished.
I was given a little drum/rattle
that day. I have kept it all these
years. The paint is long since peeled
and faded but it sits on my shelf near my medicine bag and sacred items, ready
to sing out with my memories.
In my teens I became immersed in
Native American studies and even won a Social Studies award for papers I
wrote.
It was during this time I found
out that I was part Haudenosaunee - specifically Oneida.
As I researched I found that Oneida means People of
the Standing Stone and that one of their most sacred places is a beautiful
waterfall near Onondaga
Lake.
The Oneida heritage called to me from the
waterfall and the stones I loved before I was old enough to know about my
heritage or who the Oneidas
even were.
I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee as a teen.
The white part of me cringed in embarrassment with a thousand apologies
for my white ancestors’ behavior while my Oneida
heart beat proud, yet trembled with furious indignation.
By age 18 I longed to pack off
to a Native American college and study about my heritage, perhaps learn the
Haudenosaunee language and write.
But I met a boy who I fell in
love with and we got married. I
continued to study about my Haudenosaunee ancestors, while bringing my children
into the world, but it wasn’t until my mid twenties that I finally went to a
powwow. The Nanticoke Powwow in Millsboro, Delaware.
I showed up long before schedule
and wandered around as Indians set up their stands.
I was completely enthralled as
the dance ring was smudged, the opening ceremony took place and the dancing
began. An Indian told a story about
gathering porcupine quills for his grandmother by luring the porcupine into an
open space with food, tossing a blanket over him and rolling him around it in,
then letting him get away. He would
gather the quills from the inside of the blanket. His grandmother got the quills, the porcupine
got a snack and went away unharmed.
Everyone was happy.
I wanted to live among these
people who loved animals and respected life.
I found a book called Dancing
With the Wheel by Sun Bear, Wabun Wind and Crysalis Mulligan and learned a
great deal about centering and smudging.
I also found out that my mineral totem is white quartz, my childhood
favorite. I gathered stones and put together
a medicine wheel. I began wearing a
medicine bundle, that felt more right than any other religious symbol I’d ever
worn.
Through my marriage and divorce,
through all the twists and turns of my life I have felt guided and protected by
the Creator and my spirit guides.
Since my divorce I’ve finished
raising my kids while working full time in an office building, written novels
in the evenings and on week-ends, and am now living on my own in a quiet
apartment where birds next on my balcony.
My spirituality and writing has
brought me through everything intact.
Since my younger son moved out a
few months ago, I’ve been feeling restless, bored with struggling to afford an
apartment I don’t fully use, wanting to travel the United States and connect
with Native Americans.
It was announced recently at
work that the department I work in is moving out of state. At first I was panicked. No job - now what?
Then the Creator calmed my heart
with an epiphany: “You are free,” the
Creator echoed in my Oneida
heartbeat.
I am dancing back to the
beginning of my life’s wheel, to my girlhood when I dreamed of a quest for a
simple, spiritual life. I have realized
it’s not too late to travel to Indian reservations, powwows and make the social
and spiritual connection I have longed for since I was a tiny little girl.
So I will dance around the wheel
again, this time to the beat of my Oneida
heart.
9-15-02
