Published: July 09, 2009 10:59 pm      

TUSCARORAS: Annual picnic and field days starts tonight

The annual Tuscarora Picnic and Field Days is simply about getting together and having a good time, according to organizer Neil Patterson, Sr.

If you want to learn something about the Tuscarora Nation’s heritage, you’re going to have to ask.

Take the smoke dance competition, for example. It’s a favorite among the many activities at the 164-year-old festival. Patterson said he can’t really explain the dance, you just have to see it. And even then you might not get it.

“Once you understand about dancing what you’re listening to, and you hear the beat of the drum, that’s what makes their dancing and their movements,” he said. “But otherwise it just looks like people dancing around up there.”

The event begins today at 5 p.m. with opening ceremonies, a gospel choir and the princess contest. Tomorrow it starts at 7:30 a.m. with a donation breakfast—anything you can donate for eggs, toast and other morning eats—and doesn’t slow down until well into the evening.

At 9 a.m. there’s the 10k run, and for the less athletically-inclined there is a two and a half mile fun run.

“How you get fun and run in the same sentence I don’t know but I guess it is,” Patterson remarked.

The musical acts are plenty—some reflect the Native American heritage, but others are just to get feet out on the dance floor. The Tuscarora mission singers, a local Iroquois band, country Western tunes and a rock-and-roll group will all take the stage.

Reminders that the field days are sponsored by the local Indian nation will be scattered throughout the grounds — beadwork artists will be selling their traditional brightly colored pieces, real Buffalo burgers will be smoking on the grill, and the smoke dances will draw a crowd as contestants work their way to the finals.

The Tuscarora’s homemade corn soup will also be for sale, but Patterson issued a caution to field day first-timers.

“If you’ve never had corn soup before we don’t use the corn that you think of. We have our own corn,” he said. “We call it Tuscarora corn.”

Mixed in with the hodgepodge of events are some outdoor leisure activities, like horseshoe matches and volleyball game, that have no real connection to the Native American tribe, Patterson said they’re just fun to do.

And if you really want to get your heart pumping, wait around and see if a game of fireball picks up. According to Patterson the sport — which involves dousing a ball with gasoline, setting it on fire and kicking it around — was banned from the festival a few years back.

“It was getting crazier and crazier,” he said. “It got out of hand. But people just start doing it anyway.”

Naturally the Tuscarora nation wanted to avoid injuries when they banned the high-risk game, but they were also probably trying to keep free from lawsuits. The field days were the reservation’s main source of funds up until a few years ago.

“The festival used to be our economic engine for the reservation. That’s what we did for 164 years,” Patterson said. “It set the tone for what we could do and what we couldn’t do.”

More recently, however, the relicensing agreement with the New York State Power Authority has provided money to the tribe. They have an old gym that needs maintenance, and plan to build a nation house that holds community health workers and a dentist’s office.

Money from the festival to support these initiatives comes mainly from the food purchases, though, because admission and parking are free. Money most likely won’t be on Patterson’s mind tomorrow, however. He’ll be busy emceeing the event and answering questions about the Tuscarora nation that he hopes curious minds will ask.

“If you see somebody going to and fro and doing all sorts of stuff, that’s the person you gotta ask,” he said.