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Justine Archuleta
English 113: Enhanced Composition
Mr. Basso
Spring 2017
May 5, 2017
Feast Day
As a tribal member of Ohkay Owingeh, every June 24 th is our Feast Day. The day is about

dedicating towards St. John the Baptist. The Feast Day was started by the Spanish and they

converted the Native Americans into Catholics, but the Native Americans would still believe in

their culture beliefs. Feast Day is filled with native dances, native jewel, food, art, and a carnival.

In the pueblo, there is a little stable that has an alter for St. John the Baptist and people could

come in to pray and leave money for the saint. The Feast Day is open for tourist to come, but

they cannot take pictures of the dances. They can donate to the pueblo. The dance is called the

Comanche. Native men, women, and children dance this tribal event. The children can drop out

anytime they want because it is too hot for them to keep dancing, but the older children, women,

and men cannot drop out because they are old enough to dance for the full day. The tribal dancers

dance all day from 10am to 6:30pm, but have an hour lunch break between 12pm to 2pm. During

that lunch break, the buffalos (not real buffalos) come out and dance the summer and winter side.

The buffalos are two men and one girl in the middle. Each dance is different foot work, but the

Comanche is the same foot work. The dancers dance to one drum and a group of Native men sing

in Tewa. The men are singing about the Feast Day and Ohkay Owingeh. All the tribal members

open their household to invite friends and family to come and eat feast food (Pesola, red chili,

beef corn soup, and Indian bread). Feast Day is an interesting Native culture day and will be

good to visit once in a lifetime. I remember my first time going to the Ohkay Owingeh Feast Day

and it marked the day that I want to learn more about my Native culture.
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It was a June 24th morning in the year of 2016, I got woken up from my mother saying

Wake up Justine! We must finish making the chili, the potato salad, and you need to frost your

cake! Hurry up!. I picked up my phone and the time was 7am in the morning! Why did I need

to get up so early? I did not understand why we needed to have all the food ready by a certain

time. Me and my mother were staying with my grandmother who lives on the reservation, but

down a hill. The pueblo is up the hill from my grandmothers house. At my grandmothers, the

morning sun was already peeking through the house and started to turn the house into a hot oven.

It was a perfect day for the Feast to arrive. After I got ready, I went into the kitchen and saw

three pots on the stove that had three different types of food. One pot was filled with red chili,

the second pot was filled with corn soup with beef, and the last pot was filled Pesola. My

grandmother was all ready and cooking with my mother. When I looked at the time again, it was

only 8:30am.

My grandmothers house is on dirt land. There is no grass or flowers, but weeds and

some trees. There are two entrances to my grandmothers house, the front and back door. Mostly

everyone enters through the back door because the front door is never open. The front door is

always closed because bugs and spiders come through that door, so its good idea to keep it

closed. When entering the house, the inside is decorated with Native culture. In the kitchen, there

was Native artwork on the walls and my grandmother has all the saints hanging up from the

walls (mostly the Virgin Mary). The living room walls has pictures of her children and

grandchildren that danced their tribal dances. There were three big couches and the covers are

native pattern. In the middle of the living room, there is a coffee table and the tablecloth is native

pattern as well. My grandmother has a lot of paintings of God because she was a devoted

Catholic, but still believes in her cultural beliefs.

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It was 10am when my mother asked me, Justine, check outside and see if you can hear

the drum going because people will be coming soon!. I went outside and I heard the drum

playing and men singing. I did not know that one drum could make that loud of a sound and

those men had powerful voices. The signal of the drum and men singing means that they have

started the Comanche and the Feast has begun. All tribal members have opened their household

for family and friends to come and eat. After I heard the drum, I went back inside and told my

mother. She was shocked that they were already dancing because she said they would always

start dancing at 10:30am or 11am. The Feast food was almost ready, we needed to set up the

table with bowls and utensils. The smell of the food made us hungry, but my grandmother told us

to wait until the family members come. The only thing we had for breakfast was our coffee and

tea and my grandmother made us wait until noon to eat.

A few minutes before noon, the first family member to show up was my great-aunt Ana

and one-minute after, my aunt Karen showed up too. Finally, my grandmother said, Lets eat!,

and we set out all the food on the table. As we were eating, more family members like my aunt

Joyce, Uncle Larry, Aunt Anna, Uncle Harry, cousin Lewis, and Uncle Chopper started to show

up and ate with us. After all the family members finished eating, they left to go up and see the

Comanche and were going to wait for the Buffalos to come out. Then my great- aunt Ana said

she wanted to go up and the buffalo dance, but we could not leave the house with dirty dishes.

My aunt Joyce volunteered to stay and wash up and served whoever came down to eat. Once my

aunt Joyce said that, we were already to go up to see the buffalos come. We had to drive up to the

pueblo because my grandmother could not walk up that hill and it was really hot outside to walk.

The Comanche dancers began their lunch break at 1pm and would be back at 2pm.

During their lunch break, when the buffalos came out, we were not allowed to take pictures
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because their costume are very sacred. The only thing I could say about their costumes was that

it looked very hot for them. The dancers were wearing layers of clothes. The woman dressed

different from the men. I could not really describe it because I did not know what she was

representing. When the buffalos come out, there are six dancers that split into two groups

(summer and winter). Each group has a different color pattern and the dancers are two men and

one woman. The men dance on the outside while the woman dances in the middle and they dance

around in a circle. The summer and winter dance different footwork. Personally, I like the winter

buffalo dance better than the summer dance. They dance for a full hour in three different places

of the pueblo. I cannot say what my pueblo looks like because it is sacred and the tourist must

see it for themselves. As we were watching the Buffalo dance, some relatives came up to us and

hugged my aunts, mom, grandmother, and me. I did not know any of the people who came up to

us and I asked my mother who were those people. She told me that they were relating to us and I

knew I had to get to know in the future. The relatives were insisting that we could come over and

eat with them, but we were too full of the food we had eaten earlier. It is a tradition for the tribal

members to invite people they see in the pueblo to come to their house and eat feast food. Now, I

knew that I had to understand my culture and get to know that relatives of the pueblo.

After seeing the Buffalo dance and meeting new relatives, I had a life changing moment

because this was the culture I was never raised into because I moved away when I was very

young. I wanted to learn more about my culture. I want to participate in tribal dances and

become involve with my tribe. When I was away, my Native culture stayed alive by my mother

because she would tell me about all Ohkay Owingeh. She decorated our home with Native

culture and told me about each tribal dance each month. This was the reason I wanted to move

back to New Mexico because I wanted to find out more about my Native culture and understand
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why we have Feast Days and the other tribal dances. I want to keep my Native tradition going for

generation and generation.